[Stryker ICV]
Like the one-time ruling Bourbons in France, the Indian government and military remember nothing, learn nothing!
Another India-US summit/2×2 or whatever meeting, yet another multi-billion dollar arms deal benefiting, this time General Dynamics Ltd and the US defence industry generally. This is in line with the Indian government’s consistent policy in the Narendra Modi era of buying American military hardware everytime US notables pass through Delhi, or come a-calling, of signing some large arms deal or the other, supposedly to ensure India is in good nick with the Administration of the day in Washington, DC.
The recent visit by US Secretaries of State and Defence, Anthony Blinken and Lloyd Austin, respectively, fetched for America a deal for the General Dynamics product — the Stryker infantry combat vehicle (ICV) ostensibly to replace the roughly 2,000 Russian lightly armoured and armed BMP-2 personnel carriers in service with the Indian army. A more ridiculous and redundant arms buy is hard to imagine if the ‘atmanirbhar Bharat’ principle is kept in mind. Of course, by now atmnirbharta or the arms self-sufficiency notion is so attenuated, it means whatever anybody wants it to mean!
The operating principle seems to be — and this has been so articlulated, if in not so many words, by defence minister Rajnath Singh, which is that because the strategic concerns of India and the US converge re: China, anything the US offers by way of a weapon/weapon system/weapon platform is ipso facto good for the Indian military. So, the Stryker deal may be the precursor for more such transactions to keep the US government happy with Indian monies upkeeping the US defence industry in return for all kinds of rubbishy hardware whose need is not immediately evident.
The US army has the Bradley fighting vehicle and the Stryker infantry carrier in its inventory — two different platforms for differently nuanced battlefield roles. The Bradley is supposed to carry some 6-odd fully outfitted troops right into the battle area, for them to dismount and fight. The Stryker with lighter armour and a weapon — a machinegun, is also meant to carry troops but to an area proximal to the main battlefield — but not the site of actual battle, to allow troops to get out and to manoeuvre in larger space.
In fact, it is precisely the similarity in missions/roles that has led to the questioning of the Stryker in US army circles. And to the move not so much to discard it — because no armed service will ever admit it made a mistake in conceiving of the platform in the first place and expended a lot of funds in securing it, as to upgun it (to 30mm) and fit a mutipurpose turret able to take different weapons ranging from 30mm to 100mm guns, which actually compounds the confusion about its operational utility.
In this context, how does the Stryker fit into the Indian army’s plans? What is absolutely unclear is the rationale for the Stryker in Indian conditions, considering it is turning out to be something of a lemon with the US army. If the Stryker is thought of only as an interim solution to when a genuine light tank can be fielded by XIV Corps formations in Ladakh and in the upland plains of Depsang or in northern Sikkim, then it is an awfully expensive one. The all-up unit cost with full ordnance load of a Stryker could be anything between US$ 15-30 million depending on what version/variant the Pentagon is willing to part with.
Procuring it makes no sense when Tata has a tracked Futuristic ICV in the works. Were Tata to be assured that their product would be inducted (after prototype testing) if it were fast-tracked — this FICV would be available in about the same time frame the Stryker joint production program would get underway here. Then again, if the Stryker is for the Indian army’s consumption alone, why the qualifier ‘joint’ for its production? That’s a mystery as there’s no other potential buyer for it anywhere on the horizon. Indeed, were an assurance on an FICV to be offered all comers in the local defence industry, Bharat Forge and Mahindra too would enter the competition. These companies have already sold lightly armed & armoured wheeled vehicles (light special purpose anti-mine vehicles) to the security forces involved in counterinsurgency antiterrorism operations, as Tata has done with its Kestrel. They would all up their game and develop tracked/wheeled ICVs from new designs in next to no time. Each of these special vehicles has been produced with European help and tech transfer — important for the GOI-MOD-armed services brass who go into brain freeze contemplating wholly indigenous military hardware.
With oodles of prospective profit as effective motivator and driver of defence industries everywhere, why persist in a regressive policy of outsourcing a weapons platform based on automotive/vehicular technologies in a realm in which India has attained the necessary takeoff threshold? The reasonable premise here is that to assign such a high value, high priority, project to the public sector DRDO-Avadi tank factory combine, would be to court the usual disaster.
Why not instead challenge Indian private sector firms to produce in record time something better than Stryker, a challenge they would happily take up, even as other or the same Indian companies are incentivised to design, develop and manufacture, in parallel, on an accelerated schedule a 30-35 tonne genuine light tank to counter the Chinese ‘Black Panther’ ZTQ-15 light tank (with 105mm gun with auto-loader) equipping the PLA? Such an Indian light tank would also be a definite bestseller in the Third World arms bazaar and progressively reduce the unit cost to the Indian army.
The Indian army needs to bear in mind, however, that to field the Stryker or a Tata/Mahindra/Bharat Forge variant against the ZTQ 15 at the Himalayan heights would be to take a knife to a gunfight. The army, like its sister armed services, has over the years made no end of mistakes when it comes to arming itself, usually wastefully at the Indian taxpayer’s expense while reinforcing the country’s dubious status as a prime arms dependency. Unless the contract for it is stalled or sidetracked, which can easily be done, the Stryker in Indian army’s employ will only continue with this Service’s dismal capital acquisitions record.
Security Wise 
Professor,
Looks like the U.S. is turning the screws on India. By delaying GE jet engine supplies to get something else in return. But from what I hear the Indian army’s requirement is for amphibious capabilities, which the Stryker does not have. So this may be a case of adding Stryker to the mix, but in the end going for indigenous options. However, one thing is clear – the U.S. is playing games. India needs some more leverage to play the games back. Who knows what it will do, but it is likely something like this will happen. US political power has eroded since the Ukraine war – India should make the U.S. pay for such political games.
The reliance on imported arms is a major hurdle for India’s ambition to become a significant global force. It’s a well-known issue, yet it remains unresolved. Reporters often mention that even with funding and research time, we struggle to produce our own aircraft engines, a crucial technology. The question is, why? If European, American, Russian, and Chinese manufacturers have succeeded, what stops us from doing the same? We’re not attempting to conjure up new inventions, but to master what’s already been achieved with the resources available. Other countries experts are not supernatural if they’ve managed it, WHY CAN’T WE??
Why not hire experts from international private companies? Offer them incentives to share their knowledge if not then turn, bribe, threaten them. Surely, out of all the nations, there would be some willing to share. If pakistan has managed to acquire sensitive technologies such as with nuclear weapons, surely we can acquire the know-how for tanks and related technology atleast.
Email from Vice Admiral KN Sushil (Retd), former FOCINC, Southern Naval Command
Tue, 14 Nov at 3:34 am
Every time we procure low tech items we are reminded how limited our manufacturing capability really is.
Americans always want to sell their hand-me-downs and lesser-quality rejects to India. And Indians are always willing to buy them.
This 2+2 dialogue has become profit making meeting for US
All of this confusion stems from the inability of people-in-charge to understand and leverage economic, technological, cultural and military means to acquire and sustain power. Two centuries of brains marinating in English/western/Island culture are conceptually incapable of generating a framework that benefits the nation besieged by desert and cold. RM’s remarks about ‘convergance’ couldn’t be any more wrong. Americans and chinese – G2, Uncle-Dragon – both wants us to be unbalanced and down. Both had a role in giving Pakistan N-weapons. American penetration and manipulation is only possible because of the cultural-linguistic denuding inflicted upon us by ourselves. Every discussion takes place in a space allocated by the outsiders whose conceptual boundaries are designed to benefit them. Nothing is derived from the first principles that benefits us. This is only going to get worse as the proportion of culturally and linguistically colonised increases.
Upon encountering the English Shivaji reported to have said that these people will sell the oil taken out of our hair to us on a profit. We’ve been in that phase for a long time.
The problem is not DRDO or the local industry but the fat boomers who sit inside army HQrs in Delhi. They care nothing about so called “national security”. They want the commissions, US visas, and nice villas in California. Nothing but generals courts martial followed by punishment of a decent number of general-rank officers and their PSO’s will change the way things are run there.
hello sir, a big fan of yours.
sir i was hearing a podcast of former advisor to mr boris johnson, former PM of UK, and he was saying America is just postuing towards china vis a vis taiwan but in reality the US wont help taiwan because taiwanese and chinese are related and that taiwanese and chinese military dont want to fight, and USA shouldnt do anything either if china invades tawian. what do you think of this?
hero@ — the adviser may be right on two counts — that the Chinese and Taiwanese are ethnically the same, Han. But his reported advice to the US to refrain from helping Taiwan in case of Chinese invasion will severely hurt America’s credibility which is already eroding in Asia. This fact will prevent Washington from doing nothing.
thanks, sir, for clarifying.
that could be the case i guess
the way they are arming SK and then Vietnam means they are serious about it
they are doing what India should have done way way before but alas
Chinese establishment will never attack Taiwan. Their talk of taking Taiwan is akin to “Akhand Bharat” claims of hardcore RSS chaps. All talk and no action.
Professor,
Social media has revolutionised news making – in the past couple of years, I have seen some YouTube channels on military and security matters which give such deep and relevant insights, that most news media are unable to match. The quality of these channels is quite good. So things like the Stryker deal, GE engines for LCA etc. are quite well analysed by these independent media channels, and many times the insights they provide are not covered at all in mainstream media.
The recent analysis of Myanmar militia in north Myanmar and its impact on Chinese trouble making in the Northeast of India is another case in point. In fact, some of these channels, it is clear the Indian military and defence establishments are involved to disseminate their own analyses, thereby countering information warfare from China and other foreign nations. I can see how Indian information warfare has improved in the last two years, right in front of my own eyes! The value of this change is tremendous as it directly counters China’s three warfare strategy. On this front India is ahead of even the U.S., which seems to be reeling under China’s insidious info warfare attacks.