Retail therapy for the forces

While much of the present allocation will go towards making scheduled payments for contracts signed by the NDA government, and the UPA government will have to seek supplementary grants if it wants to sign a few more deals 8212; and there are quite a few in the pipeline 8212; it is in a position to do quite a bit.

For starters it could ensure some fiscal discipline by simply ensuring that the Tenth Plan, stuck in turf battles fought by each service headquarters in a mood for expansion, is quickly sorted out and pushed through. Without the Plan, which should have been in place before 2002, any budgeting is ad hoc, without a strategic vision imperative for any professional military looking to allocate limited resources.

And, with the proverbial devil lurking in the detail, here is where the defence ministry could actually step in and make a few changes. All three services have enjoyed a degree of turf protection by setting their own agendas when they plan acquisitions. But it becomes an expensive exercise in absurdity when each service seeking similar equipment ends up approaching different vendors individually.

Take the military8217;s need for medium lift helicopters. The navy needs it, the army needs it and the air force certainly needs it. In other words, a perfect case for joint exploration of the market. Instead, all three services are looking at different vendors for the same equipment! If the three services were to instead shop together, not only would it ensure commonality of equipment, an essential ingredient for any successful joint operation, but the greater numbers would also give the Indian military leverage in price negotiation.

Or look at the way all three services are blundering into getting special operations capability. While the world over professional militaries are looking for seamless joint capabilities in special operations 8212; considered the future of warfare in an era dominated by asymmetric warfare and threats from non-state actors 8212; in India all three services headquarters have indulged in the gaggle of Babel.

While the army is actually expanding, seeking quantity over quality by expanding its special forces, what is lost in the rhetoric is the enormous fiscal burden that this will impose without adding any capability. The Americans have a few lessons to offer. When they expanded their special forces with scant regard to quality in the late 1960s they paid for it by blundering into Vietnam and came down crashing in a desperate bid to rescue hostages from Iran in 1980.

While the army, already burdened with five battalions, is now seeking to expand to seven battalions, little does it realise that special forces are 8216;8216;special8217;8217; because of skills and equipment imparted to them. And both, skills and equipment, come at enormous cost. What is worrying is that while it expands, the army has ensured that its capability to conduct airborne warfare is steadily whittled down. Special operations and airborne operations are fundamentally different concepts and the sooner the Indian army realises that, the better it will marshal its limited resources. Ditto for the IAF which now has its own special forces, called the Garuda, and the navy which is on a different track altogether with the Marine Commando Force.

With a government loaded with luminaries who understand their economics and a national security advisor, J.N. Dixit, who has accumulated considerable experience through his years in South Block, this is an opportunity too precious to lose.