Deepening U.S.-India defense partnership is essential to bolster India’s military modernization

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The modernization initiatives of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government did not have the desired impact on the effectiveness of India’s military prowess. Dr. Ladhu R. Choudhary, former South Asia Program Visiting Fellow at the Stimson Center has said that inadequate allocation of resources, poor handling of various stakeholders, and lack of effective laws to govern the initiated reforms are proving to be hurdles that have prevented the Indian military from upgrading and achieving its goals.

In a policy memo, published on Stimson, titled ‘India’s Military Modernization Efforts Under Prime Minister Modi’, Choudhary has stressed that India’s Atamnirbhar Bharat aspiration in the defense sector can only be fulfilled by deepening the U.S.-India defense partnership. The transfer of critical technologies from the U.S. can bring real transformation in ongoing modernization in the niche areas of cyber, space, and hybrid warfare. The U.S. has provided new designs, investments, and best practices to flourish the indigenous defense industries. The U.S. support through the US-India Defense Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI) and India-U.S. Defense Acceleration Ecosystem (INDUS-X) has strengthened India’s position in the Indo-Pacific to counter China and boost defense manufacturing.

Choudhary, a former South Asia Program Visiting Fellow at the Stimson Center which promotes international security and shared prosperity through applied research and independent analysis, global engagement, and policy innovation, is a Jaipur-based academic and strategic analyst. He is an Assistant Professor (Senior Scale) of Political Science at the Department of Political Science, University of Rajasthan. Before that he held a teaching position at the University of Delhi’s Aurobindo College; and a teaching assistant for national security and international relations at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. He is also a member and thought-leader of the Indo-Pacific Circle (IPC), co-hosted by the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and the Council for Strategic and Defence Research (CSDR), New Delhi. His research areas include International Relations Theory, Geopolitics, Contemporary Diplomacy, Nuclear Politics, Indian Foreign and Security Policy, and Military Strategy. In Washington DC, Choudhary will research the implications of India’s military organization and modernization on regional security dynamics and defense cooperation.

“The Indian political class should enact amendments to the existing service-specific laws to build inter-service synergy and trust. A critical evaluation of initiated reforms by an expert committee should guide the reorientation of military missions, modernization strategy, and dedicated resource flows. Bolstering U.S.-India defense cooperation is necessary to stimulate India’s modernization drive. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Indian government has launched ambitious and far-reaching proposals for military modernization. Yet, a close examination reveals several limitations and challenges,” Ladhu has said in his memo.

The memo traces Modi’s initiatives and inherent structural debilities within the higher defense management. It examines the reforms’ nature, impact, and scope, highlighting how Modi’s military modernization programs complicate the Indian military’s integration. The memo also traces the financial support, pace of implementation, and legislative changes to expose the organizational fault lines within the system, arguing that until the Indian political class takes its military governing roles seriously, organizational reforms will fail to achieve intended goals. It concludes with alternative ways to improve the Indian military’s effectiveness.

India initiated military modernization in 2014 to sharpen synergy within the Higher Defense Organization (HDO), India’s apex defense management system comprised of political executives, civilian bureaucrats, and military organizations. Modernization programs have three main goals: the first is to improve defense preparedness in the face of complex national security challenges, enabling India’s military to support its foreign policy; the second goal is to revitalize defense acquisition policy and procurement procedures, to streamline and rationalize the acquisition and allocation of scarce resources; and the third is to develop a defense industrial ecosystem, which is necessary to meet any exigencies and sustain India’s global rise.

“Before the Modi regime, India’s military modernization evolved in four major phases (see Table 1).4 However, due to wars with Pakistan and China, strategic complexities, and other domestic factors, each phase remained incomplete and had suboptimal trade-offs for the modernization motives. Modi’s initiatives represent these reforms’ fifth phase (2014-present) and aspire to complete previously unfinished tasks. Some analysts argue that these are the most comprehensive defense reforms in the history of independent India,” Choudhary says in the memo.

“Modi came to power with a promise to reform India’s defense organizations and ecosystem. In 2015, Modi made reforming higher defense management, promoting jointness, transforming defense manufacturing, and overhauling defense procurement policies as part of his government’s vision and priorities. In 2018, the government established three tri-service agencies that three-star officers would lead to institutionalize jointness and handle critical modern warfare challenges in cyber, space, and special operations. However, the expenditure incurred by the Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff (HQ IDS) for the “capability building” of more than 120 joint organizations has been minuscule.”

The Department of Military Affairs is also boosting the “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” (self-reliant India) drive. “So far, they have listed over 500 highly complex weapon systems, sensors, ammunition, and other items that will be procured only from indigenous sources.15 The Department of Military Affairs also took substantial measures to meet the cost-cutting and combat capability enhancement goals. They have closed a range of unproductive and obsolete outlets, reviewed training methodology, and opted for new schemes for recruitment (e.g., Agnipath Scheme, which is a tour of duty type scheme designed to reduce expenditure) to optimize the use of limited resources.”

Choudhary feels that the transformations lack the firm financial commitments needed to execute the proposed reforms. “The budgetary allocation and utilization have been a continuation of the erratic trends of the defense plans since independence, which include uneven flows, lingering political approvals, higher rates of underutilization, and lack of rigorous analysis of the objectives of the allocated defense budget. India’s defense budget allocation remains far below the demand of 2.5 to 3 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Contrary to the needs, the defense share of India’s GDP has declined and remains the lowest in the current financial year (2024-25) at 1.90 percent of the GDP in the last ten years. Due to poor political oversight, the defense budget has been highly inconsistent, “in the range of as high as 43 percent to as low as zero percent” annual growth rate. Defense spending patterns reveal that a significant portion of the defense budget has been allocated for revenue expenditure rather than modernization (capital expenditure) of the armed forces. Most of the modernization moves are either underfunded or experience mismanaged allocations.”

Choudhary feels that the trust deficit within the HDO is a major hindrance to the initiated reforms. “The problems persisted because “reforms are announced, credit taken, and victory claimed without sufficient attention to the institutional challenges” to implementing initiated reforms. Due to these systemic debilities, defense reforms remained ad-hoc, incremental, and disoriented. The root cause of these problems is the flawed design of the HDO. By design, the HDO hardly cultivates cordial relationships between the military and the civilian bureaucracy, specifically the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Defense Accounts Service officers, who are the civilians serving under the MoD. The civilian bureaucracy often lacks defense expertise.”

The Modi administration has made unconventional decisions to reform these structural shackles. “The appointment of the CDS has reconfigured relationships between the three services, civilian defense bureaucracy, and political leadership. The reforms have helped to integrate the armed forces as an effective instrument of statecraft. It facilitates a shift from a reactive, continental, and fragmented national security strategy to a proactive, joint, and deterrence, and network-centric warfighting approach. However, despite their unconventional nature, Modi’s modernization moves have had no tangible impact on transforming the Indian armed forces.”

Taking a critical look at legislations introduced for reforms, Choudhary highlights limited financial support, glacial pace of implementation against parochial organizational politics, insufficient civilian supervision, and weak legislative backing as some of the reasons. He has also blamed the political leadership for this. “The political leadership’s failure to provide a detailed process or timeline for executing reforms and their inadequate supervision of the implementation of initiated reforms has significantly hindered their successful execution. Additionally, the proclamation of a long-term strategic defense review and strategy has been pending with the government since 2018. Further delay in the articulation of these documents makes it challenging to accurately determine the size, capabilities, and requirements of the Indian military.”

Weak legislative support is a key reason for the nominal integration, he added. “The MoD had no law for the last 22 years to govern the resources and personnel in joint institutions created back in 2001, namely the ANC, SFC, and HQ IDS, and recently institutionalized Defense Cyber, Defense Space, and Special Operations Agencies. Leading analysts assert that “rules and procedures, it appears, are being made up as the situation evolves.” Therefore, Modi’s reforms would not bring significant transformations toward jointness without a strong legislative Act for joint staff, similar to the U.S. Goldwater-Nichols Act. Without such a law, the pooled resources and personnel from the three services will not shed their loyalty to the parent organizations, which will be a major setback to India’s strategic needs.”

The growing Chinese threat has made India’s military modernization both inevitable and more challenging. “India needs strategic reorientation and state-of-the-art military technologies to counter China’s threat, along with other threats. However, parochial politics and weak indigenous defense production hinder India’s military prowess. The poor designs of critical technologies, insufficient investment in defense research and development, and a feeble manufacturing sector have cumulatively impeded the development of the indigenous defense industries. Instead of bridging the gap between defense science enterprises and production units, the HDO has compartmentalized the three services and nurtured their siloes. As a result, India has continued to be a top arms importer for the last three decades,” Choudhary has said in the memo.

“If the Modi administration wants its modernization moves to be effective, it needs to focus on four variables: 1) the Indian political class, 2) building trust, 3) reorienting to focus on China, and 4) bolstering defense ties with the United States.

“The U.S.-India defense partnership, seen through bilateral agreements such as the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA), Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), and Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA), are yielding positive results. The legislation introduced in the 118th Congress would enhance India’s eligibility for arms sale and advance military-technological cooperation.58 It is intended to provide relaxations under the Arms Export Control Act for India. Recently, the Biden administration’s announcement to sell the MQ-9B reaper drones and other supporting systems is a path-breaking decision to bolster India’s military capabilities. Now, it is India’s turn to reform old bureaucratic hurdles and chart out new horizons of defense cooperation. Modernization, therefore, is essential, and it is in India’s long-term interests to prioritize and act on the recommended issues to achieve the intended goals of the military reforms,” he said.

 

[Photo courtesy: https://www.stimson.org/2024/indias-military-modernization-efforts-under-prime-minister-modi/]

 

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