Asia Defense | Security | South Asia

Configuring India’s Security for a Multi-front War

India’s defense budget has fallen steadily from 4 percent of its GDP in the late 1980s to under 2 percent today.

While India’s military leadership claims it is poised to defend itself against likely threats, a close look at its battle-readiness reveals multiple capability gaps that need to be filled. This four-part series starts with an analysis of the contemporary battlefield and the advent of autonomous weaponry. This has its effects on higher defense management – a series of organizational changes that has revolutionized the relationship between leadership and the field force. At the cutting edge, this is spurring groupthink about changes in the number of integrated combat commands and the effect this is likely to have on combat.

This first article, on leadership and combat restructuring, will be followed by three sections – one each on the army, navy, and air force. Each service-focused article will deal with a specific item: the army with its artillery and rocket systems; the navy with mine detection, minesweeping and capability; and the air force with its local manufacture of aero engines and integration. In each case, the need for quick restructuring will be highlighted, but then the never-ending acquisition process will go on, as the individual services fail to push through the acquisition, despite its critical nature.

Addressing the media in New Delhi on January 13, the Indian Army chief, General Upendra Dwivedi, declared that India’s military would win its future wars by prosecuting them as a “national level enterprise.”

That was a qualified endorsement of the Indian military from the chief of India’s most respected institution. But alongside the respect, there have been growing questions over the military’s readiness, its equipment and training, and whether it would be able to repel aggression by one or more adversaries, especially when those hostile militaries act in concert.

Given the burgeoning of autonomous weapons systems in the contemporary battlefield, will India’s conventional arsenal suffice to meet its security needs?

The world’s three most recent shooting wars – Azerbaijan’s rout of Armenia in 2020, Russia’s inability to subdue Ukraine even after two years of fighting, and the Israeli-U.S. bombing of Iran – heralded a major change in battlefield tactics. This came as a surprise, given that basic infantry combat tactics had remained largely unchanged since the American Civil War (1861-65) and World War I (1914-18). During those conflicts, the lethality of automatic weapons and the ubiquitous presence of long-range field artillery created the so-called “empty battlefield,” in which soldiers reduced casualties by sheltering behind cover or in underground pillboxes.

The contemporary battlefield presents different challenges, most notably from autonomous, or unmanned, weaponry. This includes systems like the Switchblade – a miniature, loitering, Kamikaze drone, designed by U.S. firm AeroVironment. It was first used across the U.S. military and now by the Ukrainians against the Russians. Carried in a soldier’s backpack, the Switchblade flies to its target and crashes into it, detonating itself suicidally. By leapfrogging the adversaries’ front lines and targeting commanders through their movement patterns, autonomous systems are forcing Russian commanders to change their patterns of operations, reducing the effectiveness of the field force.

As recently as 2019, after the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had governed India for five years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the creation of a Chief of Defense Staff (CDS), a four-star general, equal in rank, salary and perquisites to the three service chiefs. The CDS was to head a new Department of Military Affairs (DMA), which would function within the Ministry of Defense (MoD) and deal with significant matters relating to the three services: the army, navy and air force.

The creation of these posts has formalized the military’s status within the government. So far, the civilian MoD had dealt with all issues relating to the military. Now the DMA, headed by the secretary-ranked CDS, provided a voice to the services. In one stroke, the military obtained formal authority as part of the government.

The DMA’s second major responsibility is to oversee the replacement of the present 17 single-service field commands with a smaller number of integrated/joint/theatre commands. Operationalizing integrated, tri-service commands requires getting the reporting chain right: the crucial question of who will report to whom. Will the theater commanders report to the service chiefs, or to the CDS, or to the defense minister? Will the CDS have operational control of the theaters or not? If yes, will a separate secretary DMA be appointed? These questions must be addressed on priority.

While the key decisions have been taken and implemented, several proposals are being considered. A “northern theater command,” headed by a four-star army general, is proposed for handling the China threat in Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh. A “western theater command” headed by a four-star air marshal would be charged with defending the Pakistan frontier. A “maritime theater command” headed by a four-star navy admiral would be responsible for the defense of peninsular India, and a “strategic forces command” would handle India’s nuclear deterrent.

These structures would assuage most of the services’ insecurities. The army’s gargantuan size would be significantly reduced by giving the navy control of the peninsula. Although significantly downsized, the army will remain the biggest force with the most vital role: continuing to oversee the Sino-Indian border. The air force, which fears being divided into small, incoherent “penny packets,” would remain a coherent whole.

Neither the BJP (2014 to the present), nor the Congress before it (2004-2014), has ever promised or committed a specific amount for defense expenditure. The measure of a country’s allocation to defense is often judged as a percentage of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). By this token, India’s defense budget has fallen steadily from 4 percent of its GDP in the late 1980s to under 2 percent today.

India spends less on defense than many of the 31 member-countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).  Chapter 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty requires allies to spend at least 2 percent of their GDPs on defense, even though the Treaty assures their collective defense. An attack on one NATO member country is automatically regarded as an attack against all members.

The BJP’s defense manifesto for the 2014 general elections pledged to enroll more officers to fill in a 25 percent shortfall. It pledged to build a national war memorial; to appoint a veterans’ commission for addressing retired servicemen’s issues; to implement the policy of “one rank, one pension”; and to boost indigenous defense production by “encouraging private sector participation and investment” in selected defense industries.

The MoD’s growth targets for the aerospace and defense industry have been promulgated in a roadmap titled the Defense Production Policy of 2018, or DPrP 2018. This stipulates an annual target of 1.7 trillion rupees (then $26 billion) in aerospace and defense services and production turnover by 2025. This was to create an additional investment of nearly $10 billion, creating employment for nearly 2 to 3 million people. The 2018 policy also targeted exports of defense goods and services, then worth around $5 billion by 2025.

The BJP’s 2024 manifesto does little to explain how it intends to fight “a two-front war,” a contingency that involves militarily defeating Pakistan, holding off China, dealing with insurgents in Jammu & Kashmir, while ensuring that India remains the master of the Indian Ocean. It would be apparent that getting embroiled in a two-front war would represent the simultaneous and comprehensive failure of Indian strategy, diplomacy, border and military management and internal security.

In the final analysis, configuring India’s security for a worst-case, multi-front scenario would warp India’s defense planning, financial allocations, and troop deployments. Strategic prudence calls for the country’s top security planners to collectively ensure that India is never reduced to a position where it faces full-scale war on multiple fronts.

The next article in this series, Part 2, will look at the Indian Army and its artillery and rocket systems.

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While India’s military leadership claims it is poised to defend itself against likely threats, a close look at its battle-readiness reveals multiple capability gaps that need to be filled. This four-part series starts with an analysis of the contemporary battlefield and the advent of autonomous weaponry. This has its effects on higher defense management – a series of organizational changes that has revolutionized the relationship between leadership and the field force. At the cutting edge, this is spurring groupthink about changes in the number of integrated combat commands and the effect this is likely to have on combat.

This first article, on leadership and combat restructuring, will be followed by three sections – one each on the army, navy, and air force. Each service-focused article will deal with a specific item: the army with its artillery and rocket systems; the navy with mine detection, minesweeping and capability; and the air force with its local manufacture of aero engines and integration. In each case, the need for quick restructuring will be highlighted, but then the never-ending acquisition process will go on, as the individual services fail to push through the acquisition, despite its critical nature.

Addressing the media in New Delhi on January 13, the Indian Army chief, General Upendra Dwivedi, declared that India’s military would win its future wars by prosecuting them as a “national level enterprise.”

That was a qualified endorsement of the Indian military from the chief of India’s most respected institution. But alongside the respect, there have been growing questions over the military’s readiness, its equipment and training, and whether it would be able to repel aggression by one or more adversaries, especially when those hostile militaries act in concert.

Given the burgeoning of autonomous weapons systems in the contemporary battlefield, will India’s conventional arsenal suffice to meet its security needs?

The world’s three most recent shooting wars – Azerbaijan’s rout of Armenia in 2020, Russia’s inability to subdue Ukraine even after two years of fighting, and the Israeli-U.S. bombing of Iran – heralded a major change in battlefield tactics. This came as a surprise, given that basic infantry combat tactics had remained largely unchanged since the American Civil War (1861-65) and World War I (1914-18). During those conflicts, the lethality of automatic weapons and the ubiquitous presence of long-range field artillery created the so-called “empty battlefield,” in which soldiers reduced casualties by sheltering behind cover or in underground pillboxes.

The contemporary battlefield presents different challenges, most notably from autonomous, or unmanned, weaponry. This includes systems like the Switchblade – a miniature, loitering, Kamikaze drone, designed by U.S. firm AeroVironment. It was first used across the U.S. military and now by the Ukrainians against the Russians. Carried in a soldier’s backpack, the Switchblade flies to its target and crashes into it, detonating itself suicidally. By leapfrogging the adversaries’ front lines and targeting commanders through their movement patterns, autonomous systems are forcing Russian commanders to change their patterns of operations, reducing the effectiveness of the field force.

As recently as 2019, after the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had governed India for five years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the creation of a Chief of Defense Staff (CDS), a four-star general, equal in rank, salary and perquisites to the three service chiefs. The CDS was to head a new Department of Military Affairs (DMA), which would function within the Ministry of Defense (MoD) and deal with significant matters relating to the three services: the army, navy and air force.

The creation of these posts has formalized the military’s status within the government. So far, the civilian MoD had dealt with all issues relating to the military. Now the DMA, headed by the secretary-ranked CDS, provided a voice to the services. In one stroke, the military obtained formal authority as part of the government.

The DMA’s second major responsibility is to oversee the replacement of the present 17 single-service field commands with a smaller number of integrated/joint/theatre commands. Operationalizing integrated, tri-service commands requires getting the reporting chain right: the crucial question of who will report to whom. Will the theater commanders report to the service chiefs, or to the CDS, or to the defense minister? Will the CDS have operational control of the theaters or not? If yes, will a separate secretary DMA be appointed? These questions must be addressed on priority.

While the key decisions have been taken and implemented, several proposals are being considered. A “northern theater command,” headed by a four-star army general, is proposed for handling the China threat in Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh. A “western theater command” headed by a four-star air marshal would be charged with defending the Pakistan frontier. A “maritime theater command” headed by a four-star navy admiral would be responsible for the defense of peninsular India, and a “strategic forces command” would handle India’s nuclear deterrent.

These structures would assuage most of the services’ insecurities. The army’s gargantuan size would be significantly reduced by giving the navy control of the peninsula. Although significantly downsized, the army will remain the biggest force with the most vital role: continuing to oversee the Sino-Indian border. The air force, which fears being divided into small, incoherent “penny packets,” would remain a coherent whole.

Neither the BJP (2014 to the present), nor the Congress before it (2004-2014), has ever promised or committed a specific amount for defense expenditure. The measure of a country’s allocation to defense is often judged as a percentage of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). By this token, India’s defense budget has fallen steadily from 4 percent of its GDP in the late 1980s to under 2 percent today.

India spends less on defense than many of the 31 member-countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).  Chapter 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty requires allies to spend at least 2 percent of their GDPs on defense, even though the Treaty assures their collective defense. An attack on one NATO member country is automatically regarded as an attack against all members.

The BJP’s defense manifesto for the 2014 general elections pledged to enroll more officers to fill in a 25 percent shortfall. It pledged to build a national war memorial; to appoint a veterans’ commission for addressing retired servicemen’s issues; to implement the policy of “one rank, one pension”; and to boost indigenous defense production by “encouraging private sector participation and investment” in selected defense industries.

The MoD’s growth targets for the aerospace and defense industry have been promulgated in a roadmap titled the Defense Production Policy of 2018, or DPrP 2018. This stipulates an annual target of 1.7 trillion rupees (then $26 billion) in aerospace and defense services and production turnover by 2025. This was to create an additional investment of nearly $10 billion, creating employment for nearly 2 to 3 million people. The 2018 policy also targeted exports of defense goods and services, then worth around $5 billion by 2025.

The BJP’s 2024 manifesto does little to explain how it intends to fight “a two-front war,” a contingency that involves militarily defeating Pakistan, holding off China, dealing with insurgents in Jammu & Kashmir, while ensuring that India remains the master of the Indian Ocean. It would be apparent that getting embroiled in a two-front war would represent the simultaneous and comprehensive failure of Indian strategy, diplomacy, border and military management and internal security.

In the final analysis, configuring India’s security for a worst-case, multi-front scenario would warp India’s defense planning, financial allocations, and troop deployments. Strategic prudence calls for the country’s top security planners to collectively ensure that India is never reduced to a position where it faces full-scale war on multiple fronts.

The next article in this series, Part 2, will look at the Indian Army and its artillery and rocket systems.

Ajai Shukla is a a commentator on defense and strategic affairs, who served in the Indian Army from 1976 to 2001.

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