MILITARY MODERNISATION
I LOOK BACK with pride on the day in 1962 when I joined my first squadron at Ambala. It was a welcoming sight to see half a dozen shining Hunters neatly parked on the tarmac. Will I get a chance to fly those was the first question that came up on my mind. The Hunter-56 was one of the fastest fighter planes of that time in the IAF. My training to get operational on the aircraft went on at a slow pace and often we faced spare parts crunch. (No such difficulties exist in the IAF these days).
Post the 1962 war with China, there was a sense of fatigue all around. Yet, the attitude was positive―wondering about the next round. From then on, our military changed course steadily in the ways that they were organised, equipped, trained and fought. The 1965 war came a bit too soon―we were woefully short on military hardware and munitions. Our tactics were ancient, our aircraft lacked sensors and we had never even heard of Electronic Warfare Suit. My first air-combat was totally visual and our basic communication system gave me trouble.
In the 1970s, the government struggled to get the economy in order. The Pakistanis had the US supplied F-104 fully operational, whereas the MIG-21s of the IAF were newly inducted and their numbers were small. Our military fought gallantly in the 1971 war, defeated the Pakistanis and liberated Bangladesh.
In the mid 1990s, India changed gears on all fronts. Science and technology were given due space and importance. Yet, India remained a major importer of weapons. In the 2000s, the nation was yet to absorb the importance of self-reliance. Lack of skill combined with the urge to get government jobs made our work-force ineffective. Manufacturing sector was not given due importance. Probably it was the right time for the government to spell out its strategy of atmanirbhartha (self-reliance).
In a couple of decades, the Indian manufacturing machinery will be well established to cover the military segment as well. A positive connect has been established between the PSUs and the private sector to work on defence projects. This may encourage foreign designs and their production facilities making a back-door entry into the private sector. But we expect atmanirbhartha to stabilise gradually. It is necessary to ensure seamless integration of work between PSUs, the Defence Research and Development Organisation, military engineering facilities like Air Force BRDs (base repair depots), naval dockyards, EME (electronics and mechanical engineers) workshops and the like.
The military taking on repair and production was initiated in the 1960s to cope with the lack of suitable facilities or capacity in the private sectors or PSUs. These decisions were taken during the early days of industrialisation. A large number of civilian employees work in the repair/refurbish and production facilities headed by the military. To improve the overall output and quality, we could consider ‘civilianising’ some of these military engineering establishments. That could help in reducing the number of men in uniform.
The Indian military is man-power intensive. Their teeth-to-tail ratio is poor compared with western countries. The western military calls themselves as ‘expeditionary force’―the US alone has about 1.33 million men and women in uniform with a global commitment. India, on the other hand, has 1.4 million uniformed personnel, with the single objective to defend our country. There is scope to keep Indian military lean and mean. A target to keep manpower under a million would be worth exploring.
By 2047, India’s GDP is expected to reach $30 trillion. Besides weapon systems, there would be a compelling need to induct modern material handling equipment and advanced integrated logistics management. The military should avoid using the term ‘technology’ in a loose sense. They need to specify technology in detail for application in a specified area, the purpose and functional objective.
Tri-service integration would call for wider usage of weapon systems by the three services. A soldier in the field should be able to directly talk to fighter jets in the sky and guide them to the target. It should be feasible to take control of a missile launched from air by a ship or a tank in the battlefield. This calls for integration at all levels and groups of the military. Command, control, communication, computers and intelligence would commonly be shared by all the combat forces on a specific mission. We expect sensor-to-shooter time to compress to seconds from the current standard of minutes or even hours. If this can be done, there is a possibility that we can pull out troops from a few inhospitable areas. We need to find technology solutions to monitor in all-weather conditions and avoid placing troops 24x7. We expect global peace-keeping will take greater importance than defending one’s own territory. Over the next two decades, we expect multiple countries to get involved in joint planning and execution to prevent local wars. This would call for aero-space effort for movement and towards launching operations that would impose considerable stress on command, control and communication among nations.
India also wants to enhance its interest and capabilities in space which is most exciting. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Japanese Space Exploration Agency have joined hands on the Chandrayaan-4 mission. The Indian lander design will be able to deliver 350kg payload on the moon’s south pole. The SPADEX docking experiment by ISRO will have three crew on board to work out modalities for future experiments. Besides, ISRO will collaborate with NASA in developing and operating space stations for commercial purposes.
Other than space, the altitude band of 20km to 100km termed near-space holds extraordinary interest. This band will have the effect of gravity and the air will be too thin for jet engines to function. Most of the communication satellites operate in the near-space zone and such networks are essential to support space programmes. NASA has already established near-space network that is essential for communication between earth and space. India would need to create a suitable network for this. It is also feasible that a manned or unmanned combat aircraft to be placed in near-earth orbit to be called up to perform missions on earth at very short notice.
Many uncertainties prevail when we explore programmes that should be in place 20 years from now. India could not predict disasters like Covid-19 or the twists and turns in international relations, like the Ukraine and Gaza wars. And there have been surprises like the evolution of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), which India missed. The changes in our defence acquisition process were essentially a blow to the existing procurement chain. But it will take a long time for atmanirbhartha to bring the benefit to India, which badly lacks the knowledge of the art of design, know-hows and know-whys. These can accumulate only with experience that can take years.
To overcome current deficiencies in indigenous capabilities, many defence manufacturers, in the private and public sector, collaborate with design and production facilities abroad. In effect, critical work packages are being outsourced, but the cost risks are taken by Indian establishments. But it is not unusual. The US defence department has funded development programmes with the UK, France, Sweden and Israel and their defence industries. Of course, those partnerships are between institutions with near-equal capabilities. We sincerely hope that our own capabilities improve substantially. We have not been able to overcome the problems in developing an indigenous jet engine or operationalise UAVs that have been under design and development at the DRDO for the last 25 years.
Relatively, India’s space programmes have done better. ISRO and NASA are cooperating on developing a synthetic aperture radar. India runs space collaborative agreements with 61 countries and five multilateral organisations, which are moving smoothly.
Air Chief Marshal S.Krishnaswamy (retd), former chief of air staff