What aircraft is this RFI for?

Posted on April 6, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

Image result for pics of IAF chief and staff

(ACM BS Dhanoa before a Rafale sortie)

An RFI for 110 combat aircraft was today issued by IAF without clarifying whether these are to be single engine or two-engine fighter planes. There re some technical criteria — altitude ceiling, etc. that mean nothing because most modern aircraft will meet them.  It goes on to say  that of these 82-83 aircraft would be single seat and the rest 2-seat trainer aircraft, and that the deal would  be on the basis of a strategic partnership model — with the foreign aircraft supplier collaborating with a capable Indian industry major to set up a manufacturing facility to produce 93-94 of the 110 aircraft in India, including supply chains in-country, and the remaining 16 aircraft bought off the shelf. This will mean that any aircraft producer in the world that has a single engine or 2-engine fighter plane to sell will now hightail it to Delhi.

So, what are the aircraft that will be on offer? To list the aircraft that fits this general bill the list will have F-16 (Lockheed), F-18 (Boeing) from the US, Gripen E (Saab) from Sweden, Typhoon Eurofighter (EADS) from Germany, Rafale (Dassault) from France, and Su-35, MiG-35 and the Su-57 FGFA from Russia. And had China been in the mix, it could have brought in its J-20!

There is method in the way the RFI is crafted. It (1) alienates no country or potential aircraft supplier  — the rescinding of the plan to buy 114 single engine warplanes  for Rs 1.15 lakh crores upended the schemes for the production in India of the F-16 that IAF doesn’t want, Lockheed was flogging, and which upset the Trump Administration; this RFI is a sort of corrective, (2) compensates for Modi’s buy of 36 Rafales from France for the same amount of money as was set aside for 126 of the MMRCA with transfer of technology, which justly drew flack and plunged the Modi government in hot water,  (3) reassures the IAF which has been squawking nonstop about depleting fighter squadrons in its fleet, & (4) kicks the decision to buy a combat aircraft way down the road and well after the 2019 general elections.

It is obvious the option IAF would prefer is to add 110 more Rafales. Dassault having pocketed $12 billion for 36 of these would be happy to sell the rest for another $20-$30 billion with TOT. And well connected Reliance Defence is already chosen as its strategic partner.

F-16, Eurofighter, and MiG-35 didn’t cut it in the MMRCA sweepstakes, their chances are unlikely to be revived this time around. That reduces the competition to the Russian Su-57 and Rafale. (Su-35 doesn’t count  because it is about on par with the Su-30MKI upgraded to the “super Sukhoi” configuration, inclusive of 3-D thrust vectoring nozzle, AESA radar, etc.).

But India has already invested some $300 million in the FGFA and as part of the collaboration deal can place its  aircraft designers at the Sukhoi design Bureau to pick design trends and new technologies. This will be useful in terms of the trained Indian designers being tasked to the AMCA programme.

As with TOT provisions in past contracts, Rafale TOT will come with the advanced technologies as “black boxes” — which is not helpful, and force structuring-wise will not fit in with a future coherent air orbat — of the Tejas Mk-2, AMCA, super Su-30 and FGFA.

 

 

Posted in arms exports, asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, China, China military, Culture, Decision-making, Defence Industry, domestic politics, DRDO, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian ecobomic situation, MEA/foreign policy, Military Acquisitions, Military/military advice, Russia, russian assistance, russian military, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Technology transfer, United States, US., Weapons | 11 Comments

Advantage India

Posted on April 3, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

Image result for pics of Hanoi east asia summit

(12th East Asia Summit in Hanoi)

Why India needs to constitute and lead BRIS (Brazil-Russia-India-South Africa) — BRICS without China and the Mod Quad (India, Japan, Australia, Southeast Asian nations) — the Quadrilateral minus the United States

———-

THE UNITED STATES is a ‘fading power’, China is racing to replace it at the top, and Russia has the military wherewithal to stop either of them cold, but lacks the economic heft to make it on its own. Great power politics are thus in a state of flux more than at any time in the recent past. The goal for India, in this context, should be to cobble together coalitions to deny China the upper hand on its periphery, in the Indian Ocean region, and in Asia at large while rendering the role of the US less central to the security of Asian states.

The natural tendency of the US and China as proto-hegemons is to dominate whatever groups they are part of, with lesser powers having to sacrifice their own interests and concerns. Hence, it is imperative that ‘middle powers’ cobble together strong economic-cum-security arrangements organic to their regions, relying principally on their own individual and joint capabilities and prowess.

 

New security-related arrangements can be based on two existing economic groupings. There is BRIS—Brazil-Russia-India- South Africa, that is, the BRICS states minus China—and then there is the Quadrilateral minus the United States, or modified Quadrilateral or mod-Quad, consisting of India, Japan, Australia and a group of Southeast Asian states, which can collaborate with the US to ring fence and hamstring China without making the American contribution central to the group’s collective security aims and activity.

Greater intra-BRIS and intra mod-Quad parity will mean a higher level of trust, a more equitable style of functioning, and greater policy latitude and freedom of action or strategic autonomy for member states. It will result in better coordinated BRIS and mod-Quad actions with their formidable collective economic, trade and military capabilities restraining China, while making the US redundant. As the country common to both BRIS and mod-Quad, India will be pivotal to the success of both. Indian governments in the 21st century have, however, been timid, eager to reinforce the country’s status as ‘responsible state’ that is rising without disturbing the international order.

For BRIS and mod-Quad, China is a useful adversary, considering that most countries fear it, and almost any move directed at chipping away at Chinese power and advantage, strategically discomfiting it, will bolster their own security. It will require the ‘weaponising’ of these coalitions by making cooperative security as much a shared objective as free trade and economic cooperation. The combined GDP of BRIS in 2017 was $6.6 trillion, about half that of China and a third that of the US. By 2022, the BRIS figure is expected to grow to $8.8 trillion. What BRIS lacks in economic heft relative to China, it can make up by controlling the Asian behemoth’s economic fate. BRIS states control immense resource-rich frontages on three oceans—Atlantic, Arctic and Indian—and on the Eurasian landmass, including Central Asia.

This is no mean leverage for BRIS states individually and jointly to wield against China. With only limited openings—and that too contested— on the East Sea and South China Sea, China finds itself in an unhappy position for an exports-dependent nation: its trade traffic has to negotiate adversary-controlled seas. Moreover, US President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on steel imports will victimise India as also Brazil. It has already led Latin American countries to look to Asia for trade partners— an opportunity the Narendra Modi Government cannot afford to pass up to stiffen a trade front to counter Washington’s moves. For this purpose too, the BRIS configuration can come in handy. With BRIS opposed to hegemonism everywhere, it can balance China and the US and become a force for peace and order in the world and a military and economic counterweight to either of them. It will boost the international standing of Brazil, India and South Africa in case of the UN Security Council expansion and/or restructuring.

The mod-Quad of India, Japan, Australia and the Southeast Asian nations, on the other hand, is an obvious geopolitical construct, interweaving the economic and security interests of the littoral and offshore states on the Asian ‘rimland’ first envisaged by the American geostrategist of the mid-20th century Nicholas Spykman as sufficient to contain any heartland power. The mod-Quad is a trillion dollar club with Japan, India, ASEAN and Australia boasting of collective 2017 GDP of $10.8 trillion, each of whom fears China. So what will elicit a positive response to the mod-Quad concept are two things: The ‘over-stretched and under- resourced’ American armed forces, according to US Defense Secretary James Mattis, and evidence of Washington’s reluctance to militarily tangle with China in disputes involving maritime borders in the South China Sea and the Senkaku Islands claimed by Japan.

The US withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership has only confirmed the worst Asian fears about an unreliable America. Geographically more distanced from China, Australia senses greater foreign policy space and latitude for itself, but in its 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, the country has voiced concern about an ambitious China and the gradual military pullback of the US from the Indo-Pacific region.

China’s military pressure on India, Southeast Asia and Japan is felt on a daily basis and security cooperation is a matter of self-protection. Except, each country has a different payoff matrix with China to contend with. Even so, the shared concern for national security and sovereignty means that the nested military capabilities of the mod-Quad are easier to mesh into an informal collective effort. India, for instance, has ongoing naval cooperation with most of these states and Japan, and can sign agreements on naval and air force basing arrangements with other Southeast Asian states— especially Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia— of the kind signed with Singapore to assert the freedom of navigation rights in waters through which pass 80 per cent of China’s oil and 11 per cent of its gas imports from the Gulf. Moreover, the Indian Navy- initiated Indian Ocean Naval Symposium and the annual Milan Exercise for the Bay of Bengal nations are embryonic security cooperation platforms.

In the Sino-Indian context, were it not for the doubts and scepticism about India’s resources and capabilities entertained by those within the Indian Government, India would have long ago embarked on ventures to strategically discomfit China. A mere listing of some options that Delhi has so far foresworn will hint at their potency and potential for bridling China: Transferring Brahmos supersonic cruise missiles and medium (700 km) range Agni-1 ballistic missiles on a priority basis and in bulk to Vietnam, the Philippines and other Southeast nations to neutralise the artificial island bases China has conjured out of coral and cement in the South China Sea, formalising relations with Taiwan, equating Kashmir with Taiwan/Tibet, activating the Tibet and Uyghur-East Turkestan freedom ‘cards’, and cultivating Mongolia as an Indian military outpost. China cannot up the ante as it has already shot its bolt, done its worst, and because there are more states on its periphery fearful of China than there are neighbouring countries that want to stick it to India. Moreover, a poorer India with less to lose can be more risk-acceptant and prosecute more disruptive policies confident that Beijing, with lots more at stake, will not chance escalation.

The fact is China cannot command the sea lines of communications in the East Sea, the Indian Ocean, or the confluence of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. It cannot control the extended littoral, and cannot risk the situation getting out of hand in the South China Sea. And the wealth-producing Chinese sea-borne trade is at the mercy of potentially adversarial states, which serves as a guarantee of China’s good behaviour.

With BRIS shoring up the land and Indian Ocean fronts, China will be rendered manageable for the mod-Quad, making any US role as security provider unnecessary. This will be organic security at its best, with regional states as the main stakeholders.

——————–

Published in the Open Magazine, March 30, 2018, http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/comment/advantage-india

 

Posted in Africa, asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, Australia, China, China military, Culture, Geopolitics, guerilla warfare, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Navy, Japan, Latin America, MEA/foreign policy, Military/military advice, Northeast Asia, Relations with Russia, Russia, society, South East Asia, Strategic Relations with South East Asia & Far East, Strategic Relations with the US & West, United States, US., Vietnam, Weapons | 8 Comments

FGFA back in the reckoning?

Posted on March 31, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

Image result for pics of Su-57

(Su-57s in flight)

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be visiting Russia for 5-6 days starting April 3.  Talk is swirling about the minister reviving the now up-now down FGFA (fifth generation fighter aircraft) programme with a formal contract to proceed with essentially buying the Sukhoi-57 with some small modifications. This in any case is what Moscow hopes will happen. It is also a means of mending relations with Putin’s Russia because, let’s be clear and realistic, without Russian assistance and continued friendship India’s strategic prospects are bleak.

This comes after the fiasco of the Rafale deal where the CCS approval happened in early 2018, a good three years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi stunned everyone including the French by acting as Santa Claus bearing gifts for the struggling Dassault company and the French combat aviation sector with his announcement for the buy of 36 Rafales off the shelf. This was a god-sent deal because Paris had until then failed to rack up any sales for this aircraft. After the recent state visit by Emannuell Macron Dassault is more confident than ever that the contract for 36 planes will be stretched to an eventual offtake of three times as many Rafales but at a unit price higher than Rs 670 crore!! This is a bonanza France will treasure. What the Modi regime has got in return is airy-fairy stuff — promises of high-technology, solar alliance, etc. the sort of thing Delhi has always been a sucker for. Bu the high cost factor means India cannot fool around with the kind of idiotic deal for the museum piece — F-16, let alone as warm up, as some screwy commentators have been suggesting, for the still bigger lemon in the US fleet, the F-35, that other than its information fusion-situational awareness technology is an absolute disaster because all it relies on is BVR, which is small consolation indeed.

IAF brass has mightily resisted the Russian FGFA for reasons that are jejune at best — with complaints they invariably manufacture any time a Russian aircraft hoves into sight — insufficient stealth, under-powered, and the perennial — spares and servicing problems, complaints that are based on flying a prototype. But faced for reasons of economics with buying a Russian aircraft to get the numbers up, they have thrown a curve ball, and asked for the Su-35 as interim solution to the indigenous Indian FGFA project. And to further mess up things and, perhaps, also to perhaps try and collaterally kill off the Tejas LCA. This didn’t happen because, mercifully, this wonderful Indian designed fighting machine has finally gained traction both within the air force — with Mirage 2000 sqdn pilots who flew it reporting that it handles better than the French item and predecessor to the Rafale that they fly — and with the “nationalist” BJP government, which would have had egg on its face and lots worse had they followed the Vayu Bhavan advice and restricted its production. If there’s Tejas, where’s the need for any foreign single-engine aircraft? The Sukhoi stable has no such plane to sell.

But why the Su-35 when the far more advanced Su-57 is available at around the same price of $100 million per aircraft? And compare this cost with that of each Rafale of Rs 670 crores that India is forking out.

Sitharaman will sign for the S-400 anti-aircraft system — which is NOT for ballistic missile defence, but nevertheless affords comfort to some in the govt as part of the tiered missile defence complex around the Delhi National Capital Region, along with the homegrown Prithvi BMD. But it is FGFA that, one hopes, she’ll finally and irrevocably plonk for and end for once and for all this open-ended saga of a future structure of IAF. Of course, for the money, Sitharaman should make sure of two things: that (1) Indian aircraft designers along with Russian-speaking IAF fliers are from the word go seconded to the Sukhoi design bureau to absorb the latest design techniques and technologies for inputting into the AMCA (advanced medium combat aircraft) project , and (2) that a full-scale spares production is set up in the Indian private sector so the usual snafus regarding nonavailability of spares, which has poisoned the attitude of many IAF pilots to Russian hardware, is obviated.

With FGFA in the IAF stable, the future Indian air orbat firms up as follows: Tejas Mk1A-Mk-2, AMCA, FGFA, with the Su-30MKI upgraded to “super Sukhoi” configuration acting as the bridge between the present and future force.  The pivot for the success of such a force depends centrally on the Tejas produced in large numbers, something HAL can manifestly not manage. Whence the need that I have long urged for the transfer of Tejas technology in toto by DRDO/ADA to Indian private sector companies — Tata, Mahindra and Reliance to also wean these firms away from the imported aircraft syndrome, with the incentive provided them to export a part of their production from get-go.

Posted in arms exports, asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, civil-military relations, Decision-making, Defence Industry, domestic politics, DRDO, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian ecobomic situation, MEA/foreign policy, Military Acquisitions, Military/military advice, Relations with Russia, Russia, russian assistance, russian military, society, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Technology transfer, United States, Weapons | 12 Comments

Another MOD document that means little?

Posted on March 24, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

Image result for pics of defenceminister nirmala sitharaman at defence production facilities

(Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presenting an indigenously designed and produced carbine to Home Minister Rajnath Singh)

MOD released for public scrutiny and for potential stakeholder comments from industry a draft Defence Production Policy (DProdP) 2018 on Thursday, March 24. It was met with less enthusiasm than weariness by private sector firms who have gone through such rigmarole previously to be excited. After all, the Defence Procurement Procedure 2016 remains unimplemented. So what chance that the DProdP will meet its deadline of 2025 for realization of its amply ambitious aims of making India one of the “top five countries in Aeropace and defence industries”, self-reliant in development and manufacturing” of  17 leading conventional weapons systems, including fighter aircraft, medium lift and utility helicopters, warships, land combat vehicles, autonomous weapons systems, missile systems,  gun systems, small arms, ammunition and explosives, surveillance systems, electronic warfare systems, communications systems, night fighting enablers, reaching an annual turnover level of Rs 1,70,000 crores or $26 billion in “defence goods and services” including, presumably, Rs 35,000 crores in arms exports and also, as the document says, “making India a global leader in cyberspace and AI systems”?

The document seems like the Five Year Plans that the erstwhile Planning Commission  churned out, which had only passing relevance to reality. Will the DProdP 2018 be another MOD document that means little and achieves even less?

Not mind you, that these aims cannot be achieved. They can, but not if the Government of India does not (1) first announce a termination of the arms imports option for the armed Services, and (2) stop favouring Defence Public Sector Units (DPSUs) and Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) units with “ïnfusion of new technologies/machineries in OFB/DPSUs to enable them to take up advanced manufacturing/development of futuristic weapons and equipment” except as capital-intensive, high-value, cutting edge technology centres that private sector companies, big and small, can access without much ado to sharpen their own patented technologies and design, development and production  competencies.

The suspicion that little will change on the ground and there will be only niggardly execution of the grand plan envisaged by this document is heightened by the importance that continues to be accorded OFB/DPSUs. This is most evident in the thing the document is mum about and which will entirely change the defence production dynamic — ways to bring in the economies of scale which alone will enthuse the private sector and prompt huge Foreign Direct Investment. There’s no mention anywhere in the 15-page DProdP 2018 document (accessible at makeinindiadefence.gov.in/Defence%20Production%202018.pdf ) that the insidious practice of orders in small tranches will be ended. Central to make private sector companies compete for defence contracts is the necessity that they be guaranteed a large production run so as to make their investment in manufacturing infrastructure financially viable. This is not possible if orders are given for 20-30 of the item at any given time with no guarantee that the same company will win the production contract for the next tranche of the same item on the lowest tender (L1) basis.   L1 is at the heart of why no private sector company is interested in setting up  an entire assembly line, and why the public sector HAL or Mazgaon Dockyard Ltd invariably end up bagging production contracts. Working on the basis of cost+profit, they don’t care if they are tasked to produce 20  aircraft or 200. For them it is the same thing. This is why the DProdP 2018 will make no damned difference to the essential defence procurement system in place, and why there will be no great change in the way things are done.

The drafters of the DProdP 2018 still haven’t learned the reason why India is self-sufficient in strategic armaments technology areas of atomic energy, missiles and space, but is an abject dependency in basic conventional weaponry — it is because the former programmes are run in technology mission mode, are outcome/result-oriented and not hung up on the correct process and procedures. It does away with idiotic requirements related to L1 procedures that end up oxygenating the economically unviable DPSUs/OFB units. There’s desperate need for all defence manufacture to be conducted in technology mission mode basis as I have been arguing. Nothing else will work.

What this document should have done was propose that for all major weapons and weapons platform contracts (aircraft, warships, missiles, tanks) the competition will be for, say, 300 Tejas LCA, or 20 warships of a class (rather than an order for 4 warships of this or that class), produced in blocks of 50 aircraft, with each block technologically upgraded, so the weapons systems inducted into service will always have a large and fresh tech-wise in-date fighting component. Then you will find genuine competition with, say, L&T going up against Mazgaon to produce conventional Project 75i submarines, etc. Short of this reform of large contracts, nothing will change. Only the HALs, MDLs on the Indian scene will end up monopolizing the large contracts, with the private sector relegated to picking up such job-work as the DPSUs/OFB deign to pass onto them.

The biggest joke is the reference in the document to global leadership in artificial intelligence and autonomous (or robotic) weapons systems. There are already small companies doing stellar work producing ingenious technology in the Cyberabad-Bangalore belt that could become leaders in the AI and robot regimes, but they will not be given the chance to succeed by the DRDO labs and DPSU/OFB-inclined MOD whose commitment to MSMEs — the references to MSMEs in the document notwithstanding, as full-grown Indian version of the German mittelstand — as the seedbed of advanced tech in the country, is thin to nonexistent.  Much of such plans are ridiculously paper-bound, especially because three decades into the IT age, India still does not have a “fab”– a fabrication plant to produce high-end semi-conductor/Integrated Circuit chips, and the country is hostage to, and its entire communications network compromised by, reliance on Chinese and US SCs/ICs. And, we are talking about becoming global leaders in these and other high-tech fields!!

And minus a formal end by the government/MOD of arms imports, foreign arms suppliers will continue using India as the tail-end of the commercial life and production runs to squeeze out the last bit of profit from manufacturing  dated and obsolete armaments that their own militaries have phased out or are phasing out (to wit, French Scorpene subs, American F-16/F-18 aircraft).

So, no, the DProdP 2018 means nothing, only a lot of hoo-ha masking the retention of the same old system of defence procurement. And what of all the 2025 dreams? Will anyone presently in the government at the political and bureaucratic levels still be around then and be held accountable for non-implementation of the policy, and non-realization of its stated aims?

Posted in arms exports, asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, civil-military relations, corruption, Culture, Decision-making, Defence Industry, DRDO, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Navy, MEA/foreign policy, Military Acquisitions, Military/military advice, Missiles, Nuclear Weapons, satellites, society, South Asia, Technology transfer, United States, US., Weapons | 8 Comments

Emperor Xi And The Kowtow Imperative

Posted on March 9, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

Imperial China had no Foreign Ministry; there was only the Ministry of Rituals. Its job was to judge the importance of the country seeking consideration and decide the level of kowtow – the elaborate show of obsequiousness, the series of bows, kneels, and touching the forehead to the floor, that would be required of its emissary seeking an audience with the Emperor.

At the 19th Party Congress the 5th General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and the country’s President – Xi Jinping, instead of identifying his successor for a smooth transfer of power five years hence, decided he liked life in the Zhongnanhai too much to leave, and removed the rule limiting the tenure of general secretary-cum-President to two terms or 10 years. It is an internal coup staged by Xi to all but anoint himself Emperor supported by the People’s Liberation Army – the power behind the throne – and controlled by the Central Military Commission that he continues to head.

Xi has thus upended the leadership succession system put in place by the ‘great helmsman’ – Deng Xiaoping, who had suffered at the hands of Chairman Mao Zedong, his ‘Gang of Four’, and the Cultural Revolution they let loose in the 1960s when he was humiliated, forced to ride a donkey with a dunce cap on his head.

Deng had reformed the system so China would not have a dictator again. A rich and powerful China has a dictator again in Xi.

Complete with a compilation of his ideas and quotations to guide party cadres in the manner Mao’s ‘little red book’ did in a poor, backward China.

What Does Emperor/Dictator Xi Portend For India And Its Environs?

Nothing very good, alas, considering how cravenly the Modi government is giving in to Beijing with officials and ruling party members being instructed to not participate in events marking the Dalai Lama’s 60th year of exile. The lack of resolve to stand up to China is reflected in the events in the neighbourhood that Delhi has done nothing to obviate. China’s India policy is anchored in developing Pakistan as the counter. This has limitations primarily because Pakistan is too small, too economically insignificant, and too fractured to be a stable partner. But with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor $46 billion (CPEC), China is afforded a presence in the Indian Ocean with the warm water port of Gwadar which, besides giving its restive Western provinces, especially Xinjiang and Tibet (Xizang), an opening for direct sea trade, establishes China’s role in the Indian Ocean, what with the seaward base in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa, and control of the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka.

Signage for the China Overseas Ports Holding Co. is displayed on a building wall at Gwadar Port in Gwadar, Balochistan, Pakistan. (Photographer: Asim Hafeez/Bloomberg)

China’s strategy on the CPEC or Sri Lanka – or the other countries in South Asia and its littoral which are under contestation – is less about trade, more about geo-strategically crowding India out of the Indian Ocean region per “wei qi” principles.

Wei qui is the traditional Chinese board game where the object is to occupy as many squares on the board as possible to leave the opponent no space to move, and thus eliminate his policy options.

Consider how methodically Xi has gone about capitalising on the alienation of states adjoining India.

 

Landward, Nepal is the big prize where under the Unified Marxist-Leninist Party (UNMP) Prime Minister KP Oli has made clear his intention to play India off against China to get the best deal for his country. There’s recent history of Delhi invariably overplaying its hand, trying to coerce Kathmandu into drafting a Constitution for the country giving a significant political role for the Terai-region habitants of Nepal, called Madhesis, who are of eastern Uttar Pradesh-Bihar ethnic stock, by arranging a ham-handed Madhesi blockade that prevented essential supplies of foodstuff and petroleum reaching the interiors of the land-locked country. It turned the Nepali people against the Nepali Congress Party (NCP) government of Sher Bahadur Deuba, and the Oli regime taking over. The mercurial Prachanda, who led the Maoist rebellion against the state for many years and is now mainstream, decides who rules.

Prachanda has thrown his support to Oli, and between them, China has locked Kathmandu down on its side.

In Sri Lanka, the China-friendly Mahinda Rajapaksa and his Sri Lanka People’s Front party (SLPFP) having swept the local election, are calling for new elections, something Prime Minister Ranil Wikremesinghe’s government has pre-empted by ramming through a law that disallows the Sri Lanka President from calling elections on his own. This law may have had President Mangala Sirisena’s covert support considering he won the presidential poll against Rajapaksa, among other issues, because of the latter’s policy that put the country in hock to China.

Ironically, it is the Wikremesinghe regime which ended up leasing the Humbantota port to a Chinese company for 99 years because of Colombo’s inability to service the debt incurred on its modernisation.

If SLPFP is voted to power then Sri Lanka, as Rajapaksa’s son Namal told the Nikkei Asian Review, will revert to relying on Beijing.

Shift focus to the Bay of Bengal, and one finds India losing ground there as well.

  • The recent contest to wrest control of the Dhaka Stock Exchange went China’s way because, well, it offered more money for its shares.
  • India hasn’t helped its cause eastward in Myanmar where the Indian project to develop the Kalidan port complex has not taken off because of the usual inter-ministerial turf war and bureaucratic bungle in Delhi, even as China has raced to build the north-south infrastructure for the oil pipeline and Kyauk Pyu port, and bought 70 percent control of it.
  • And, most disturbingly, the Modi regime has failed to prevent the China-leaning Abdulla Yameen Gayoom from unlawfully extending his rule in the Maldives even as the leading opposition leader Mohammad Nasheed begged for Indian intervention to head off Yameen and Delhi did nothing. The payoff to China will be an atoll where it will erect in no time at all where construction is concerned, as is its wont, a warship berthing complex, and even a submarine pen.

Xi’s ‘belt and road initiative’ is cover for setting up a string of regimes on states surrounding India and headed by strongmen financially beholden to China. For instance, the Sri Lanka Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera has charged Rajapaksa of siphoning off $18 billion, presumably, of Chinese credit to offshore accounts in Dubai and Seychelles and, perforce, will do his bidding.

So, owing to Delhi’s strategic myopia, political inattention, and just plain ineptness China is strategically ensconced to India’s immediate north in Nepal, immediate west in Pakistan, immediate east in Bangladesh, and to the immediate extended east in Myanmar, and on its oceanic doorstep in the Maldives, Hambantota, and Kyauk Pyu.

The next time Prime Minister Modi seeks a meeting with Xi, who knows, he may be required to kowtow.

[Published in BloomberQuint March 9, 2018, at https://www.bloombergquint.com/opinion/2018/03/09/emperor-xi-and-the-kowtow-imperative]

Posted in arms exports, asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, China military, civil-military relations, Culture, Decision-making, Defence Industry, domestic politics, Geopolitics, India's China Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Army, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Ocean, Maldives, MEA/foreign policy, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Pakistan military, SAARC, society, South Asia, South East Asia, Sri Lanka, Tibet | 14 Comments

The Arms Procurement Syndrome

Posted on February 24, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

Image result for pics of rafale in india

(Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha with the Rafale)

———-

Is the Rafale aircraft worth the financial and political cost?

There is no end to the lessons the Government can learn from the Rafale decision. The short-circuiting of the procurement process of the medium multi-role combat aircraft by peremptorily announcing the buy of 36 Rafale combat aircraft in Paris in April 2015 means it has to carry the can for all aspects of the deal. Whatever the motivation—to cut through the underway negotiations between the Dassault Avions company and the Defence Ministry’s Price Negotiation Committee, placate the Indian Air Force (IAF), which was getting antsy about the falling fighter squadron strength, or to squeeze some sensitive technology out of France—it has landed the Government in a political mess. Hereafter, for every charge of ‘Bofors’ that is hurled at the Congress Party, there will be ‘Rafale’ thrown back. And, the BJP Government still has to come up with an explanation for the contract, all tied up in a confidentiality straitjacket, that makes sense.

There was much controversy attending the shortlisting of the Rafale aircraft before this Government stepped into the picture. It should have alerted them to trouble round the corner. Rafale is a 4.5 generation fighter plane, same as the indigenous Tejas Light Combat Aircraft, of medium range, and the price bracket was generally known. In any case, at a final negotiated unit price of Rs 670 crore with a spares support package to ensure 70 per cent serviceability of this aircraft for 10 years, India will pay Rs 1,640 crore per plane, or a whopping Rs 59,040 crore for 36 Rafales. What no one has paid attention to are the follow-up costs of the Rafale over its lifetime of, say, 35 years. While the costs for the first 10 years has already created a buzz of incredulity, the sums for the subsequent 25 years of the aircraft’s tenure will blow the top of the treasury. Consider the figures: Because prices of spares, like those of whole weapons systems, increase exponentially, based on the sums agreed by this Government for the first 10 years, a single Rafale will cost Rs 8,212 crore to upkeep for the subsequent 25 years, or Rs 295,632 crore for a fleet of 36 aircraft. If this figure is combined with the agreed price tag, the total cost at Rs 354,672 crore (at today’s rupee value) becomes stratospheric. The Government has obviously decided that this grand expenditure on 36 Rafales over 35 years is worth the nation’s while. Is it?

One could get into speculative quibbles over the provisions in the ‘confidentiality agreement’. For instance, this deal is rumoured to allow India access to the French inertial confinement fusion (ICF) facility to refine its thermonuclear weapon designs. But why was this necessary when the use by Indian nuclear weaponeers of the Russian ICF unit in Troitsk could have continued? And, what’s the point of changing the ‘plumbing’ in this aircraft to make it nuclear weapons capable, when there are other warplanes (Su-30MKIs, upgraded Mirage 200s, and upgraded Jaguars) in the IAF inventory for this purpose? The larger question is: Was Rafale the best way to spend this scale of monies? Or, to put it another way, will India get Rs 354,672 crore worth of security from just 36 Rafale aircraft, considering this is too small a fleet to operationally count for much?

But just to give perspective on what money can buy and how this enormous amount that will go into sustaining Dassault and helping the French combat aircraft industry survive, could have been more productively deployed, consider this: The lease from Russia for 10 years for the second nuclear-powered hunter-killer (SSN) Akula-class submarine, under negotiation, may end up with an all-up price tag of Rs 14,000 crore. Is the Rafale over 10 years worth more for national security than an SSN? The lifetime Rafale costs would, moreover, have permitted the Indian Army to raise two additional offensive mountain corps to take the fight to the PLA on the Tibetan Plateau, and left enough money to cover the costs of getting the Mk-2 variant of the Tejas airborne and the home grown Advanced Medium Combat aircraft programme into production, of modernising nuclear warheads and of accelerated production of intermediate range and intercontinental range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.

Between a military enamoured of foreign armaments and habituated to spendthrift ways and an Indian Government minus the will to push indigenous and seemingly clueless about the methods of prioritisation of military procurement demands, public monies will continue to be wasted in a scattershot approach to funding defence programmes. Consequently India will remain a conventionally feeble and strategically vulnerable Power Lite, offering minuscule competition to China.

———-

(Published in Open magazine, Feb 22, 2018, http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/defence/the-arms-procurement-syndrome

 

 

Posted in arms exports, asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, China, China military, civil-military relations, corruption, Decision-making, Defence Industry, domestic politics, DRDO, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Politics, MEA/foreign policy, Military Acquisitions, Military/military advice, society, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Technology transfer, Weapons | 38 Comments

Getting something ‘strategic’ out of Trudeau

Posted on February 21, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

Image result for pics of justin trudeau in india

(Justin & Modi)

Alright, so the arrival at Palam of the photogenic couple — Prime Minister of Canada and Mrs. Justin Trudeau with three young kids in tow, was  all but ignored by the BJP government. And, perhaps, his meeting and talks with the Indian PM, Modi, deserved to be pushed back to virtually the last day of his 6-day trip to India to show just how disillusioned Delhi is with Ottawa’s mollycoddling of sections of the half-million strong Sikh immigrant community that, while enjoying the salubrious climes of Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto, dream of a Punjab separated from India and emerging as they hope as the Republic of Khalistan. They’d have to be daft and have a lot of “khali sthan” between their ears to believe that will come to pass. So, that’s not the point.

What is, is whether having rightly shown displeasure, Modi will continue rubbing Trudeau’s nose in the Delhi dust to when the Canadian media travelling with their PM declares the visit  a complete washout, and Canadian press commentators begin seeding a new grievance, this time on the Canadian side, about Trudeau being egregiously insulted by the Indian government, which is bound to escalate to a full souring of bilateral relations.

Or, will Modi be the statesman and, after mentioning the obligatory issue of the Canadian leader needing strongly to discourage his small Khalistani support base, get down to brasstacks in their official talks on Friday Feb 23, and get something meaningfully strategic out of Trudeau.

There’s one thing highly strategic that Modi might care to put on top of his list of ask from his Canadian counterpart. There are not many computer hardware firms in the world  who have mastered quantum computers. There’s a Canadian company, D-Wave, that makes Q-computers.  Modi should ask that D-Wave be permitted by Ottawa to set up three or four Q-computer complexes in India and have the Q-computer architecture uploaded to the Cloud, as IBM has done with its Q-computer design, so that young Indians and specialized Indian agencies who cannot now access these very advanced computers of tomorrow and find themselves handicapped in their work, begin to gain competence in this new technology. It will be very good business for D-Wave, earn a pretty export dollar for Canada, and Modi can make clear that Delhi will treat this gesture as the Canadian government making amends.

For Justin Trudeau this’d make ample sense as well. After all, the strained Indo-Canadian cannot be sustained for long, and is bad international politics from Ottawa’s point of view. India is a huge big market and to alienate Delhi would be to lose for the Canadian companies access to a rich market, and even imperil such custom as firms like Bombardier generate in India sales (of their metro coaches, for instance).

The problem is how many people in the Indian govt and, specifically, in the PMO and in the NSA’s office, filled to the gills with old style policemen from Doval’s IPS cadre, even know what Q-computers are or, for that matter, quantum communications, or quantum satellites, or anything quantum? If all these worthies are innocent of even passing  knowledge of this technology, who is going to suggest to Modi that he ask for it?

Incidentally, just how strategic and still pretty rare is specialist knowledge on Q-computers, etc. may be gauged from the fact that there only three persons in all of India able to write algorithms for them, one of them working — and I mentioned this in a past blog — in China, helping that country gain algorithm-writing competence and otherwise assisting it to become a Quantum computing power based on his pioneering research in the field.

Posted in asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, Decision-making, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian ecobomic situation, MEA/foreign policy, society, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Technology transfer, United States, US. | 15 Comments

Insulating Indo-Iranian ties

Posted on February 17, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

Image result for pics of Rouhani in hyderabad

(Rouhani at a Hyderabad mosque)

As I write this, Iran President Hassan Rouhani is sitting down to talk with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The latter can firm up bilateral relations in a way that hasn’t been done before in that the stake is now immeasurably strategic. Having shown tremendous strategic nous in getting Oman and Muscat on India’s side, something the Sultan Qaboos regime has been sending out feelers for, for more than a decade, and getting Duqm as a prized Indian military base in the Gulf, Modi now has the opportunity for sealing the country’s presence in that region — and maritime-wise outflanking China out of Gwadar at one end and Djibouti at the other end. Duqm, built up by the US military, is an alternative (to Bahrain)  forward headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet.

Rouhani has made clear what Tehran is putting on the table — permission for Indian investment in the rich Farzad-B gas field in southern Iran, Chahbahar as the Indian entrepot to the hinterland of Central Asia bypassing Pakistan, and a regime that will allow Indian investment in that country in rupees — in a sense monetarily extending India’s reach to the Gulf. With respect to Chahbahar, Modi needs to formalize — even if in a secret provision — not so far there — in the draft agreement on the table, the Indian military’s use of this port as an Indian naval base to preposition its stores. This is an imperative because in the regional chessboard a worried Pakistan military has revived its old association with Saudi Arabia by posting  a Pakistan Army contingent in Riyadh.

What does Rouhani expect in return? Tehran will very much appreciate a two-way economic-trade-investment milieu entirely insulated from the arbitrariness of the US policy towards Iran. Washington has tried to corral the lot of proximal Asian states to fall in line with the US policy of pressuring the shia clerics-run Iran. Most Gulf states being sunni, their religio-ideological interests adhere to American posture. But not so India, with the second largest shia population in the world (and nearly 20% of the almost 200 milllion strong Indian Muslim community) and in the thick of the sunni-shia contestation in the extended region. Indeed, one of the largest en bloc supporters of the ruling BJP are the Indian shia voters. Delhi can no more afford to alienate Tehran and the theocrats of Qom than it can upset the sunni world. So while Modi’s “balancing” act between Israel and Iran is a matter of traipsing along the sidelines because India’s policies to these two countries are on different tracks, avoiding the US call to Delhi to bandwagon with it against Iran is centrally injurious of the Indian national interest, and cannot be tolerated.

It is here that Modi will have to show strong conviction and communicate to Trump and Washington that it will be no part of any concerted Western-Arab sunni moves to inconvenience Iran, because it cannot afford to, that too much rests  on good relations with Tehran for any Indian government to risk losing a friendly country historically close to India. And that if, in extremis, India is asked which side it is on — the US should be told in no uncertain terms that the Indian government is on the side of India. For too long — almost 30 years now — Delhi has prosecuted relations with Tehran with an eye cocked to Washington. This is not necessary any more.

India has humungous leverage where the US is concerned — economic in terms of access to the largest free market in the world, and strategic in terms of size and location and formidable, if largely unimaginative, military forces, and the clear message that the US cannot do without a friendly India if it means to counter China. It is leverage that mousy Indian governments to-date haven’t used. Time Modi did.

India is pivotal, in a curious way, for both Iran and the US. Rouhani’s Iran recognizes this; Trump’s America doesn’t.

Posted in Afghanistan, arms exports, asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, Central Asia, China, China military, Culture, Decision-making, Defence Industry, domestic politics, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Navy, Indian Ocean, indian policy -- Israel, Iran and West Asia, Indian Politics, Iran and West Asia, MEA/foreign policy, Military/military advice, Pakistan, Pakistan military, SAARC, society, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, United States, US., West Asia, Western militaries | 9 Comments

Why is Modi seeking US permission to remove Yameen in Maldives?

Posted on February 7, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

Image result for pics of Yameen in Male

(Yameen among friends)

As was intimated in previous post,  and something newspaper reports today confirm, the Modi government is seeking Washington’s permission to act on Maldives to restore the sanctity of the Courts in that country that ruled against President Abdulla Yameen’s staying in office. Yameen is described by his political rival and India friend Mohammad Nasheed as the “villain in paradise”, whose ouster from power is sought by Nasheed and the entire political opposition. Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot have a clearer picture of the emerging China threat in the Maldives than the one Nasheed has painted for Delhi. If despite this, he persists with the “frightened rabbit” policy natural to MEA that abhors coercion and “military diplomacy”, then the Indian PM will deserve every brickbat that is coming his way. Maldives, Nasheed wrote in an op/ed, is being “sold off” “piece by piece, island by island” to China. ( http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/a-villain-in-paradise-maldives-president-abdulla-yameen-5053962/  ).

And the Indian government will not find a cleaner cause for armed intervention. Armed for many reasons. Yameen, no babe in the political woods, is the wolf masquerading as a lamb, his bidding done not only by the Maldivan military but, more directly, by his police and his own (late Haitian dictator) Papa Duvalier-style “tonton macoute” — a sort of praetorian guard made up of young, Islamic zealots, some of them veterans of the Maldivan armed forces, who are well armed, and can and will put up a fight, seeing their future in the survival of the Yameen presidency.

These roughnecks, in the pay of the Yameen crony class-Chinese nexus, are not going to be subdued by genteel Indian diplomats in Male arguing reasonably for respecting the supreme court verdict, restoration of democratic order, rule of law, and supremacy of the Maldivan Constitution. What will persuade them and Yameen are an Indian frigate and missile destroyer (incidentally, already in the waters not too far from Male) with embarked Marcos to knock a few Maldivan heads, take Yameen into custody along with some of his personal “tonton macoute” guard, fly in Nasheed and get Maldives back on the rails.

It is a very good sign of the Indian armed services’ alertness that it is readying the necessary military wherewithal for intervention should Modi display strategic sensibility for a change and order them into Male to write finis to the Yameen episode in Maldivan history. While a joint Marcos-army paracommando operation is fine, there will be nothing more effective than a big warship or two offshore of Male to speed up Yameen’s decision to depart for exile (lest he, oops! be shot up in his presidential residence).

But Modi is sitting on his hands, awaiting an OK from the US –when this is basically India’s problem to solve with rough and ready methods. Those in MEA telling friendly press reporters that Nasheed is no angel and that he once flirted with China is to discount the prime opportunity for installing him in power, winning his gratitude, keeping the Maldives on India’s side, and for the expeditious rescinding of all contracts signed with Chinese companies for the “dual use” infrastructure they are stealthily building so that the China threat is zeroed out for the nonce.

To the other line put out in the press through friendly beat reporters by MEA that using strongarm methods will create a blowback, as Rajiv Gandhi’s blockading decision did in Nepal, besides mis-analogizing, is to not even comprehend what is at stake in the Maldives — which is not surprising considering just how habitually unstrategic MEA’s and the Indian government’s collective mind (assuming there is such a thing) is.

The larger issue that Modi’s wanting Trump’s approval for action that is centrally in Indian national interest shows up the far more worrisome trend apparent from Vajpayee’s days of surrendering the country’s sovereignty and Delhi’s capacity for sovereign decisionmaking, making it hostage to American concerns.  Does Delhi expect  the US to consult with it about how it treats Cuba? Or, Mexico? If not why should Modi be concerned about what Washington thinks about the hard option India may exercise in the Maldives to protect and safeguard India’s security stake in the non-China influenced Maldives? Or, have things gone so far that Modi/Doval/MEA/GOI cannot separate India’s interests from the US’?

Modi is seriously compounding his political problems that got a jolt with the Congress raking up the Rafale controversy on the cost angle — which this analyst has been stressing over the years in my books and writings (including in this blog). If Modi ends up losing the Maldives, he will find it impossible to recover his standing or “nationalist” image and reputation. What the country won’t be able militarily to recover from is the geostrategic loss of Maldives to China.

Posted in asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, China, China military, Decision-making, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian Navy, Indian Ocean, Maldives, MEA/foreign policy, Military/military advice, society, South Asia, Special Forces, United States, US. | 17 Comments

Modi should not miss the opportunity to rid Maldives of Yameen NOW

Posted on February 4, 2018 by Bharat Karnad

Image result for pics of Maldives police

(The arrest and bloodying of Maldives opposition leaders)

 

The BJP government of Narendra Modi will rue not ousting Abdullah Yameen in Male now when it has the opportunity, the Maldivan opposition and people, and just cause on its side for doing so. That country’s supreme court has ruled Yameen’s imprisonment of the opposition party — Malidives Democratic Party (MDP) leaders illegal, a judgement that ipso facto voids the trumped up charges against Yameen’s political adversary and India’s friend — Mohammad Nasheed. It shows that between the political opposition and the Maldivan people, they have had enough of the idiosyncratic and authoritarian Yameen, who seems intent in depositing Maldives into China’s lap.

Nasheed has been vocal in propagating from his exile in Sri Lanka India’s right to replace Yameen, if necessary by forceful means.  In fact Nasheed has gone so far as to say that Maldives is in “Ïndia’s ocean” and that China has no role in it, and definitely not in his country. This reference to Ïndia’s ocean is a response to a Chinese admiral who some years back warned that “The Indian Ocean is not India’s ocean”.

Yameen  has been a thorn in India’s side and has for the last few years played Modi for the idiot he thinks the Indian Prime Minister is. Every time the situation reaches a crisis point — the last time recently when he ordered the police physically to bar the opposition members of Parliament from voting against his proposal to lease some atolls in his country to China, which would have ended that particular political pro-China initiative, he gauges Delhi’s reaction and just when he thinks the Indian govt may act, moseys over to Delhi. He did this and made peace with Modi. It is not certain what assurances the Indian PM was given by Yameen, but Delhi ended up doing nothing. Naturally Yameen has grown bolder, and has indicated he would disregard the court’s ruling and, Trump-like, change the political complexion of the supreme court by appointing his friends to the Court to ensure there are no legal challenges to his reign of terror hereafter. He is thus setting himself up as President for life of Maldives and China’s pet poodle in the region. If this isn’t provocation enough for Delhi, it is hard to know what is.

It is time for India to sort things out and for Modi to reassert India’s prime interest in having a friendly Maldivan regime at any cost — meaning without Yameen and his PPM anywhere in the picture. Yameen ought to be removed permanently from the scene. But Modi seems to be falling into the familiar do-nothing mode — the calling card of MEA and Indian diplomacy; perhaps concerting with the US to see what can be done. This is the WRONG THING for him to DO. He should without further ado immediately order a brace of frigates with a MARCOS contingent embarked on them to move post-haste to the Maldivan waters, disembark the MARCOS with full authority to disarm the Maldives police and what forces that country has and, along with a unit of army’s paracommando if needed, arrest Yameen and family and leadership elements of the corrupt ruling Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), fly in Nasheed on special aircraft from  Colombo into Male, and hand over power to him. The Indian forces can remain to assist the new Nasheed dispensation purge the local administration, police, and forces of Yameen  and PPM sympathisers. And as a first order of his business ensure that all agreements with China are summarily scrapped.

There’s no time to lose. MEA’s habit of slow and ponderous  pondering can be left to after this commando action to forever remove the Yameen threat from Male. Modi is increasingly being seen especially in the external realm as clinging to the US apronstrings, fulminating against Pakistan, but talking and amity and peace with China, when the priority should be to consider China the main threat and take it head on. Xi, like his predecessors in office, is good  at pursuing Sun Tzu’s favourite tactic of playing up strengths and hiding weaknesses. West of Malacca, China should be made to actually feel the heat of its being on India’s turf. This India has never done.

This is how the international power game is played, not liaising with some big power or the other to see what’s the best way out of an increasingly difficult situation for India. Should Modi fail to act for any reason at all and permit Yameen to stay on, India may as well kiss Maldives good-bye and prepare to see a full-fledged Chinese naval base a stone’s throw away from the Indian mainland. It will be an ironic denouement considering all the brouhaha over Gwadar and the fact of a self-confessed “nationalist” BJP government being in power and Modi in command.

The question is: Is Modi alpha-male only for show, and at the hustings, or will he also act to protect India’s security and strategic interests?

 

 

Posted in asia-Pacific/Indo-Pacific, Asian geopolitics, China, China military, civil-military relations, Culture, Decision-making, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian Navy, Indian Ocean, Maldives, MEA/foreign policy, Military/military advice, Pakistan, Pakistan military, society, South Asia, Special Forces, Sri Lanka, Terrorism | 8 Comments