Gradual or surge? One way or another, India needs greater military might.

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,/The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere/The ceremony of innocence is drowned;/The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.” He could well have been describing the world in 2024.

The niceties of international relations, the guard-rails of international norms and restraints placed by the United Nations system, have dissolved into a reality where might is right. This will not change for the better anytime soon. 

The kind of leadership required to steer the world away from brutality is nowhere on the horizon. Nuclear weapons have deterred major powers from fighting big direct wars, but there are numerous ongoing proxy wars and confrontations that are causing a shocking amount of destruction. 

Nuclear threats have been issued. There is dangerous talk of calling nuclear bluffs. The guns will continue to do the talking over the next decade.

India’s current military preparedness was for a different world, a pre-Gaza, pre-Ukraine, pre-Xi Jinping world, with different fundamental assumptions about the types of conflict and the international context in which they might take place. 

While our armed forces have acquired new capabilities and moved forward in the modernization process, we have yet to implement some of the most significant recommendations made in the Kargil Committee Report nearly a quarter-century ago. Both the integration of the three services and the formation of theatre commands remain works-in-progress.

Circumstances have changed rapidly. India’s military capability must keep pace with that of the People’s Republic of China, which, for its part, seeks to keep pace with that of the United States. As the fights in Ukraine and West Asia have shown, generational superiority matters. 

Those who carry a knife to a gunfight find that they are defeated even before entering the battlefield. Of course, a combination of asymmetric strategies, ingenuity and alliances can foil more advanced military adversaries. But if one has a choice, it is prudent to invest in hard military superiority.

There are two broad ways India can build the military power it needs to secure itself: gradual and surge.

The gradual way would be to steadily increase defence expenditure—from the current sub-2% of gross domestic product (GDP) to around 4% of GDP—over a 10-year period. This allows the government enough room to negotiate budget constraints and shift fiscal resources towards defence. 

It also gives India’s defence leadership more time to implement structural changes like theatre commands and integrated planning. Service chiefs and theatre commanders will be able to define, induct and absorb new technologies, platforms and systems across 1.4 million active military personnel and related logistical and industrial eco-systems. 

India’s budding domestic private defence industry will enjoy a longer developmental runway, and a decade from now, indigenization levels, even in critical combat platforms, could be significant.

The downside of the gradual approach is that it might be too late in bearing fruit. Can we be really confident that India will not be subject to major military coercion before 2034? Does our political system have the resolve to deliver on a 10-year commitment? Will the international environment remain favourable to India over this period?

That is why I think we should also consider a second approach—a surge in defence expenditure, starting with an immediate doubling of the defence budget and holding it at the 4%-of-GDP level for five years, before dialling it back down. 

Such front-loading would take maximum advantage of India’s partnership with the United States and its allies, while creating additional resources for the domestic industry. If buy-versus-build decisions are made thoughtfully, India’s indigenization outcomes over a 10-year period might be comparable to that of a gradual approach. 

Meanwhile, a massive increase in the availability of new equipment could galvanize absorption processes across the three services. More importantly, India will have the military strength at a time when it is necessary.

The problem with the surge approach is that the fiscal adjustments required will be abrupt and painful. The defence leadership will be required to accelerate its integrated planning. 

Transforming the three services in a short period will not be easy. There is also a risk that indigenous defence startups will get left out as purchase orders go to foreign vendors for ready-made products.

Gradual or surge, which way should we go? I cannot say at this point, except that the government and Parliament must review whether India’s military strength is sufficient to tide through the dramatically different world that we are in. What is clear is that it is safer to be stronger.

Yeats ends his poem with the following lines. “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,/Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”