Paki DARHT up

Posted on July 27, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

What’s a country to do if the international milieu, or one’s own self-constrained nature, prevents physical explosive tests. You do the next best thing to actual testing. Like, get yourself a Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test (DARHT) facility. Such a unit uses X-ray cameras to see just how a hydrodynamic shock to simulate implosion works — the process in effect of a fission bomb blowing, and study the integrity of this process in a fission bomb, or in the fission trigger of a fusion weapon. Technically this takes some doing. But, not if an all weather friend is supplying designs, expertise, and materials. As is the case with the DARHT unit the Pakistanis have succeeded in engineering and installing with, of course, China’s help and assistance, at Chaklala — headquarters, Strategic Plans Division — the Pakistani counterpart of the Indian Strategic Forces Command, the weapons directorate at BARC, and the nuclear cell in PMO rolled into one. It is expected to become operational by September-October this year. Boy, does that advantage Pakistan! And it shows just how serious the Pak Army is about that country’s nuclear security. Now turn your gaze homewards and what do we find? India has no DARHT, no inertial confinement fusion chamber, no nothing — not even computing speeds, but GOI still finds the situation hunky-dory! That same old — no need to test — canary continues to hold fort as S&T adviser to the PM — R Chidambaram, erstwhile chmn, AEC, the man singularly responsible for keeping the Indian boosted-fission and thermonuclear weapons sub-par, when he should have been the first person Modi ought to have unceremoniously dumped! This state of affairs about sums up the situation India is in today. India is forced to rely over much on Agni-5 (and technologies), a damned accurate missile at extreme range. The case made in govt circles no doubt prompted by this same Chidambaram is that, high accuracy means India can field just this one low yield but only proven warhead/weapon in our arsenal — the 20KT fission, and that this is more than adequate for the country’s strategic deterrence purposes! And to think the incoming Chinese DF-21mod2s will have a one megaton warhead, and nothing less than a fully performing 500 KT warhead. One is compelled to bury one’s head in a pillow, and moan. In the past, I called India’s approach “nuclear amateurism”. It is actually much worse, it is “nuclear fatalism”.

Posted in Asian geopolitics, China, China military, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Missiles, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons, Pakistan, Pakistan military, Pakistan nuclear forces, South Asia, Strategic Forces Command, Technology transfer, Weapons | 4 Comments

India-US N-Deal: Was a Deep N-Game at Play in India’s Containment?

Posted on July 21, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

At the controversial core of the India-US nuclear deal is the intent. The context was the emerging geopolitics of China’s “peaceful rise” and the need to stop it from dominating Asia.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s BJP government sought technology and American capital.
There was no need for India to negotiate in the nuclear realm at all.
The US counter-bait was to supposedly build India as a balancer to China.
The secret aim was to divert India from the plutonium path and into energy dependency.

The Atal Bihari Vajpayee BJP government wanted to seek technology and American capital. The bait was the “voluntary (testing) moratorium”, announced after the May 1998 Shakti tests, notwithstanding a fizzled thermonuclear device that cried out for more testing.

The US government rose to it in the belief that more could be extracted from New Delhi in furtherance of Washington’s long-held non-proliferation objective – the great constant of American foreign policy since the 1974 test – of “capping, freezing, and rolling back” the Indian nuclear weapons capability.

So with the rapprochement rooted in geopolitics and realpolitik, and not in any sentimental nonsense about shared democratic values, there was no need for India to negotiate in the nuclear realm at all, leave alone make concessions and compromises.

But the Jaswant Singh-Strobe Talbott “strategic dialogue” set the ball rolling. However, it took the agency of the “Accidental Prime Minister” – Manmohan Singh, to put wheels under Washington’s multi-pronged policy to contain India’s nuclear weapons programme but also – and this was the counter-bait New Delhi jumped at – to supposedly build India as a balancer to China.

The sale of reactors – run on imported highly-enriched uranium – to India to revive a comatose US nuclear industry was a bonus, but its secret aim was to divert India from the plutonium path and into energy dependency. This was a deep game that entirely escaped the strategically challenged Manmohan Singh regime, uplifted by the prospects of US’s help to make India a “major power” and by “20,000 MW by 2020” to spur economic growth.

But back up a bit.

Why was diverting India from the plutonium route critical? Based on India’s easily accessible reserves of thorium – the world’s largest – the nuclear visionary Homi J Bhabha articulated a three-stage interlocking plan in 1955 for energy self-sufficiency. The first stage had natural uranium fuelled reactors to provide the feedstock for the second-stage breeder reactors to, in turn, have its output fire up thorium reactors in the final stage.

The beauty of the Bhabha Plan is that the first and second stages yield weapons-grade plutonium (WgPu). It was an unnerving prospect for the US to imagine an India with limitless energy and weapons material! Bhabha acquired the NRX (so-called CANDU) reactor from Canada. New Delhi thereafter only needed to have its eye on the ball, keep investing in the development of the breeder and thorium reactors, in order to now have neared the desired end-state.

Alas, no Indian PM had the requisite vision and the will, and the nuclear energy programme floundered. The momentum from Bhabha’s time carried the country to where the 500 MW breeder reactor is ready for commissioning in Kalpakkam.

But New Delhi has not found the money to upscale the 40MW experimental thorium reactor “Kamini” or to otherwise implement the Bhabha-Plan on a war-footing, but has tens of billions of dollars to spare for wasteful spends, such as on a 4-plus generation Rafale combat aircraft.

And no Indian PM has had the “long view” and guts to try and bring down the oppressive non-proliferation treaty system targeting India by selling the 220 MW CANDU-derivative, the INDU workhorse reactor, to any country with the cash, and to secure the necessary natural uranium from strip-mining reserves in Manipur mountains (and arresting foreign-funded eco-NGO protestors) and from Niger and Gabon.

Besides, creating its own nuclear market in the Third World – India didn’t have to be a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to sell indigenously produced nuclear goods – New Delhi would have had the West, espying a non-proliferation system breakdown, pleading for mercy. That’s how a country gains respect and leverage. Ask China!

Except in Manmohan Singh, India found a sap and Washington a sucker. For a pat on the back for leading a “responsible” state – whatever that is – he shifted most of the CANDU reactors into the international safeguards net, thereby stuffing the country’s capacity for surge WgPu production, and decommissioned the 40 MW Cirus reactor before the second military-dedicated 100MW plutonium producer came on stream.

All those who were excited about the nuclear deal — the government, the Indian policy establishment and the media — never wondered why, despite having met all conditions, India has not been conferred “the rights and privileges” of a nuclear weapons state and membership of the NSG as was promised in the July 2005 joint statement between Manmohan Singh and George W Bush.

Would an India armed with proven thermonuclear weapons be more credibly balanced than China?
———–
Published in ‘The Quint’, July 20, 2015; at http://www.thequint.com/india/2015/07/20/india-us-n-deal-was-a-deep-n-game-at-play-in-indias-containment

Posted in Asian geopolitics, China, China military, Culture, domestic politics, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, nuclear power, Nuclear Weapons, society, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, United States, US., Weapons | 4 Comments

Hypersonic on hold?

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

DRDO has been working on a hypersonic missile for some years now. It has reached testing stage. But a test of the Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle — HSTDV-2, scheduled at TsAGI (Central Thermal Hydrodynamics Institute) in the Moscow metropolitan region in December 2014 was abruptly cancelled. The rumour is Finance Ministry did not sanction the few crore rupees worth of funds required for trans-shipping the item, testing it in Moscow, etc. This happened, it is said by those in the know, because of pressure from certain Western quarters rattled by the prospect of India’s acquiring such a potent weapon. A supersonic missile is bad enough. But a hypersonic missile with a scramjet engine (where the through passing air is combusted at supersonic speeds unlike in ramjet engines where the air is slowed down to subsonic speeds before combustion) at Mach 20 plus is so indefensible you might as well give up the ghost. And its has tremendous range extension utility. For instance an Agni-5 with a hypersonic last stage will extend its range well beyond intercontinental distances. The Indian HSTDV-2 with a platypus nose, a titanium underside and an aluminum-niodium topside, could be a strategic killer. Instead of the technology being prioritised for accelerated development the government seems to be holding back. We may be repeating the mistake of not moving quickly and naturally with indigenously developed technology, tarrying, until the big powers wanting to limit the number of those with this lethal technology, slam shut the gates. This happened with nuclear weapons. Nehru and Indira Gandhi tarried, did not quickly weaponise once the threshold was reached in March 1964 and the country paid the price with the 1968 nonproliferation treaty shutting India out. Meanwhile China first tested a fission device in 1964 and by 1969 had gone thermonuclear and weaponised, and look where that got the Chinese! The gates will be shut on this lethal technology to limit the numbers securing it. Delhi better remove the brakes lest India again suffer grievously. Get the HSTDV out to TsAGI Arun Jaitley. The govt is wasting enough time and resources on nearly worthless military acquisitions. It better invest in a technology genuinely of the future. By the way only Russia, US, China and India are working on hypersonics. Russia is the most advanced in the scramjet technology. The US’ Waverider is having problems. The Chinese item — it is difficult to say.

Posted in Asian geopolitics, China military, DRDO, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, Military Acquisitions, Missiles, Russia, russian assistance, South Asia, Weapons | 9 Comments

N-Iran only postponed

Posted on July 16, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

The deal with Iran announced with great fanfare by Obama hides something critical and obvious under a heap of hope. Iran’s nuclear weapons capability has merely been put on hold, not done away with. All the mechanisms described at length in the bulky annexures — the technical fixes to ensure Iran does not cheat — the basis for the US claim that it is verification not trust that’s the foundation of this deal, seems no more than a political device for the Obama Adminstration not to have nuclear weaponized Iran emerge in its time in office — the classic political instinct to put off facing, what the West considers, a bad situation! This was pretty much confirmed in Secretary of State John Kerry’s CNN interview where he stated baldly that not having a NW-armed Iran if for another 10 years was better than having one now!

Some years back a few Indian visitors were taken around an Iranian n-facility. Talking to those in-charge convinced me that Tehran is on the brink having all but achieved weapons status. So, why did Rouhani not go ahead, cross the threshold? Undoubtedly, then the sanctions which are already fairly oppressive would have been ratcheted up a notch or two, making the lives of the people that much more difficult. But, why do the masses matter to the Ayatollahs? For one thing, the central pillar of the theocratic order in Iran are the well-networked baazaris of Tehran and other cities and towns, who are socially conservative but have the fingers on the pulse of the people. The popular sentiment they would have tapped into is that the people are fed up with being cut away from the world, and that this popular resentment would come to a boil sooner rather than later and hurt the foundations of the Islamic Republic. And, in this context it is better to ease up a bit by concerting with the US — villified as the “great satan”. Give the US a bit, but take a mile (the good old baazari tactic but give the impression of making big concessions). In the next 10 years Iran will stock up every which way and especially in the conventional military realm and with freer commerce and trade, permit the pressure cooker situation at home to vent steam. Not bad thinking from the point of view conserving the present mullah-order. But give up on NWS? Nah — these people are the legatees of Persepolis and the empires of Darius and Xerxes, and a civilizational power in its own right, not one to be denied.

From India’s perspective, we had a winning hand all these years but lost an opportunity to forge a strong relationship. Had India been there to give a helping hand — rather than joining the Western bandwagon — this country would have earned enormous political capital with mounting interest with Tehran. We’d have had a mountain of IOUs. Tehran would have remembered that India was with it when it was down, and we’d have benefited from it all along, and especially now. Iranians are good at paying off their debts. In the past decade and more Delhi sought US approval when what India should have done was invest in Chahbahar and get going on the connectivity rail-road grid radiating outwards from that Gulf base northwards and via the Zaranj-Delaram highway connect to Afghanistan and Central Asia to the East and to Russia;s northern transportation network. Instead, Delhi twiddled its thumbs and did Tehran no favours, worrying only of how to pay for imported Iranian oil with the banking channels closed. We are no mean baazaris ourselves, and we could have settled on a barter system or some other means of putting our trade and commercial relations on a firm footing. Iran is central to India’s strategic outreach and consolidation in the Gulf-Caspian region — helping us bypass the Pakistan transit option. GOI acted as if entirely innocent of the geostrategic imperatives, perhaps, because it indeed knows little and cares even less about missed geopolitical opportunities.

Posted in Afghanistan, Asian geopolitics, Central Asia, Culture, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian ecobomic situation, indian policy -- Israel, Iran and West Asia, Iran and West Asia, Nuclear Weapons, Pakistan, Russia, society, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, United States, US., Weapons, West Asia | 2 Comments

Meeting IAF’s demand for French combat aircraft cheaply

Posted on July 12, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

It is clear that behind IAF’s concerted and sustained moves over the years to delay the Tejas LCA induction, is an institutional aversion to indigenously designed and developed combat aircraft. This has a long history starting with the cold-blooded killing in the early 1970s of the Marut Mk-II, and the loss of a generation of gifted aircraft designers led by Dr Raj Mahindra who cut their teeth under the great Fockewulf design bureau chief, Dr. Kurt Tank. It is reflected in the pitch that gets shriller every time some service brass opens his mouth, demanding foreign warplanes, in the present context, the Rafale. Considering the quite exorbitant payout involved in obtaining this aircraft — which is plainly giving the Defmin Parrikar the conniptions, because he is saddled with the unenviable task of reconciling PM Modi’s manifestly spur-of-the-moment statement in Paris of offtaking 36 Rafales with the paucity of resources confronting his ministry.

An easy way out for Parriker to escape the tight corner he is in and junk the Rafale but also meet IAF’s craving for foreign combat aircraft, especially French, fighter planes, is to acquire from a financially beleagured Greece its nearly three squadrons of Mirage 2000 aircraft IAF so dearly loves. The Hellenic AF operates 45 Mirage 2000s — 20 EGM/BGM variant and 25 “5 Mk-II” version.The difference between the Greek EGM/BGM and the 5-Mk II Mirage 2000 is only an external IFR. Greece is unlikely to be disarmed — it also has some 150-odd F-16 C/Ds. So Athens would happily part with its Mirages, what with the Greek govt of Tsipras being hounded by German creditors to repay the outstanding national debt totaling nearly 200% of its GDP! The Indian fleet of Mirage 2000, it may be recalled, is being upgraded @ $52 million/plane to the Mirage 2000-5 standard.

Further, Qatar is in the market to dispose of its 9 Mirage 2000s which too India can buy.

Together that’s 45 Mirage 2000s from Greece and 9 of the same from Qatar for a complement of 54 planes, doubling IAF’s Mirage 2000 fleet. India, moreover, will not have to invest in the servicing infrastructure which already exists, nor will monies have to be splurged either on training pilots or servicing technicians. It only needs an imaginative gambit by the Modi govt to approach Athens with a deal it cannot refuse, say, $100 million per Mirage 2000 in the Hellenic AF with all the stores, spares, and weapons holdings for this aircraft. That will cost the Indian exchequer $4.5 billion for the Greek Mirages and another billion $ for the Qatari aircraft, the deal totaling less than $6 billion for 54 Mirage 2000-5s versus $8-$9 billion for only 36 Rafales, which last monies do not factor the downstream costs of sustaining the Rafale in IAF, which will be many multiples of this price tag. Besides, what’s the performance falloff between the Mirage 2000-5 and the Rafale? Minimal. So, OK, the latter has AESA. But, it is not beyond Indian ingenuity to outfit the Mirages so acquired along with the IAF’s Mirage fleet, with the DRDO-built AESA that’s going to be tested later this year — a product developed jointly with Israel based on the Elta 2032 computer. The sensible economics involved should persuade Modi to backtrack on his Paris statement which, if deconstructed, was not a commitment to buy at all.

How’s this a bad deal??? Get going Mr Parrikar.

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Defence Industry, DRDO, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian ecobomic situation, indian policy -- Israel, Iran and West Asia, Military Acquisitions, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Weapons, West Asia | 22 Comments

‘Uf yoo ma’ at Ufa

Posted on July 10, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

Remember that song with the nonsensical lyrics — “Uf yoo ma” in that Dev Anand-Asha Parekh starrer of yore, Jab Pyar Kisise Hota Hai? These words meant nothing but denoted joyous and uplifted spirits! In the Russian town of Ufa, the site of the SCO summit, where Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif met this morning at the former’s express invitation, there may be reason to break out into song after all. It is a bit of a dam burst of relief after a year of frustrations building-up on both sides. The optimism is not so much because of the practical “steps” sketched in the joint statement, namely, talks in Delhi between the two NSAs on terrorism, “early meetings” of the paramiliary chiefs followed by that of their respective DGMOs (Directors-General, Mil Ops), release of fisherfolk, facilitation of religious tourism, and expediting of the Mumbai blast case and conveying of (Lakhvi’s) voice samples. Rather, it is the last line in the statement — Modi’s ready acceptance of the Pak PM’s invitation to attend the SAARC summit in Islamabad next year. This is a big thing because Modi has not only agreed to resume a dialogue but agreed to visit Pakistan — a totally unexpected decision considering how vehemently he campaigned in the 2014 general elections about the futility of talks with Pakistan when Pak-branded terrorists are creating mayhem in Kashmir. The most important aspect of this is that it will elevate Mian Sharif politically and strengthen his hold on government. Because such an invitation couldn’t have been a spur-of-the moment thing but a calculated move that had the Pak Army’s blessings to see how Modi would react, the onus is on Islamabad to ensure Modi’s visit goes off spectacularly well because that will decide how quickly the normalization of relations will happen. GHQ Rawalpindi’s assent means the Pakistan Army will not want to spoil the situation leading up to that Islamabad meeting at a time when its own fighting resources are stretched between the FATA/Afghan border, the Iranian Front with Jundullah stirring up a heap of trouble, and the live border in the east on the LOC, and is seeking some lessening of military pressure from the Indian side. Gen Ruheel Sharif, moreover, like his predecessor Gen Aftab Kayani, has repeatedly said the principal threat to Pakistan is Islamic extremism, not India. A longish spell without deliberately-planned hostile actions on the border will both be a respite from the usual carryings-on and could lead to more months, then years, then decades (??!!) w/o incidents of stray violence with the potential for conflagration, and peace will become the order of the day. And that is when the resolution by negotiation of all outstanding disputes that have vexed bilateral relations will at once become easier and be conducted w/o rancor. This is precisely the sort of denouement Modi would wish for in order to implement his grand vision of the subcontinental states in warm but loose embrace, orientating outwards — rather than as in the past, inwards and being at each other’s throats. Should things work out, what’s being talked about in the SCO — of a free trade area and economic union, could be emulated here in South Asia with India at the centre, its economy driving prosperity in the adjoining countries, especially Pakistan. That Modi also met with the Afghan President Abdul Ghani is also significant, notwithstanding New Delhi’s being frozen out of the various fora for consolidating peace and order in Afghanistan. His previous visits to the Central Asian Republics — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan on this extended trip could naturally lead to connecting SAARC more intimately with Central Asia and with SCO as another order of business starting with in the realms of economic activity. All this augurs well. Keep your fingers crossed!

Posted in Afghanistan, Asian geopolitics, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Central Asia, China, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Army, Indian Politics, Internal Security, Maldives, Pakistan, Pakistan military, Russia, society, South Asia, Sri Lanka | 5 Comments

Yasen-class SSNs offered to India?

Posted on July 9, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

President Putin’s regime is obviously unwilling to cede first place as armaments supplier to India and is ready to trump any Western country with deals that can’t be beat. In the news is the story about the proposal to set up India as the major hub for upgrade, refit, and repairs of Kilo-class submarines in the inventories of states in the extended Indian Ocean region, from Iran to Vietnam. This is fine. But a still more impressive offer apparently made to India is the transfer of the improved Yasen-M class SSN — the most advanced in the Russian naval list. Russian submersibles may be beaten by their US counterparts in terms of acoustic silencing features but, in turn, cannot match, as the reputed naval analyst Norman Palomar has observed, the far smaller turbulence signature (from less cavitation noises, placement of the forward-tilting conning tower, etc) of Russian boats. Indeed, despite the vaunted ASW capabilities of the USN, a Victor-III class Russian SSN around 2000 tailed an Ohio-class SSBN almost to its pen in Guam w/o anybody getting wind of it — that’s how loud the US boomer is in turbulence terms and how little turbulence is generated by the Russian boat. Russian subs have since the Sixties carried electro-optical devices in the sail and the hull to detect turbulence and identify enemy subs by their turbulence signatures. The Yasen can be in the SSGN cruise missile-carrying configuration, or, if India so wishes, it can be modified to carry a mixed ordnance load of conventional cruise missiles and nuclear ballistic missiles. That would be a devastating dual-purpose land attack-cum-strategic targeting weapons platform non pareil to have in IN service. There’s nothing like the Yasen-class with the Chinese Navy.

Posted in arms exports, Asian geopolitics, China, China military, Defence Industry, DRDO, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Navy, Indian Ocean, indian policy -- Israel, Iran and West Asia, Military Acquisitions, Missiles, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons, Russia, russian assistance, russian military, South Asia, Strategic Forces Command, Technology transfer, United States, US., Vietnam, Weapons, Western militaries | 13 Comments

“We don’t need an enemy……”

Posted on July 9, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

Devesh Kapur of the University of Pennsylvania yesterday spoke at the Nehru Memorial Library on “India; The Suffocating State”. He retailed information that is familiar to most of us but with a twist in the tale. His most telling line was “The challenge India faces is the Indian state” which does difficult things well — Mars mission, etc — but cannot manage simpler more basic things, like providing public health, sanitation, law and public order, water, etc.As a state promising to undertaking to deliver “maximally” in all areas, it cannot deliver even “minimally”. This because the state and its social goods state delivery agencies are under-staffed but over-bureaucratised!

And then a devastating sidebar on IAF — On average it loses one fighting squadron every three years owing to accidents sourced 50:50 to pilot error and technical malfunction. Said Prof Kapur “Ïndia does not need an enemy! It does a good job of disarming itself!”

And finally the state does nothing about public sector enterprises that haemorrhage huge resources w/o anybody in govt batting an eyelid. Thus Rs 58,000 crores have been recently invested in Air India not only with no prospect of the airline recovering but with no end in sight of end to public monies being frittered this way. The irony is this airline is used mostly by the relatively welloff and in the context of pvt airlines running cost-efficiently w/o any public subvention! Most remarkably CAG which picks up on lesser scams has not once investigated Air India and its finances!!

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Culture, domestic politics, Great Power imperatives, Indian Air Force, Indian democracy, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Politics, society, South Asia, Weapons | Leave a comment

Great developments on the Tejas front; duplicate them for FMBT

Posted on July 5, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

Leadership has often been the difference between a successful and failed indigenous armament or weapons development project to which national prestige is committed. After the departure of Dr Kurt Tank from the HF-24 supersonic fighter project and the sidelining of Dr Raj Mahindra when the Mk-II of this aircraft was killed by IAF in order to procure the Anglo-French Jaguar low level strike aircraft, which mission the Marut Mk-II would have done far better. It initiated the process of IAF going over lock and stock and barrel to importing combat aircraft to the detriment of the security of the country and the national interest, a direction a seemingly unconcerned Indian govt actively encouraged — with defence minister Jagjivan Ram in the post-Emergency Janata govt allegedly pocketing rich commissions as the Maneka Gandhi edited magazine’Surya’ then claimed.

For the first time now Tejas will have two tested and proven persons at the wheel, with the Indian govt finally doing the right thing for a change with respect to the LCA. It has appointed Commodore CD Balaji, fresh from his success spearheading the development of the naval variant of Tejas as chief of the Aeronautical Development Agency, Bangalore. It was Balaji who ensured, for instance, that the navalised Tejas is a far more advanced aircraft than its air force sibling. Levcons (leading edge vortex controllers) have been configured into its airframe, making it a far more maneuverable warplane able, for instance, to pull high angles of attack at low speeds. Balaji’s hands-on control, commitment, and ability to eliminate/remove systemic and procedural obstacles are by now the stuff of legend. Senior US Navy officers whom I met in Washington some years back, who were part of the consultancy team Pentagon approved to liaise with the Balaji project, were full of praise for the streamlined manner in which everything worked, something they confessed they did did not expect. The USN consultants were hired to advice on such things as the strengthening of the aircraft’s fuselage, the exact placement of the arrester hook, the choice of an appropriate jet engine with the needed power-rating, etc.

In parallel with Balaji taking over ADA, Commodore Jaydeep Maolankar has assumed command of the National Flight Test Centre, also in Bangalore, replacing Air Commodore Muthanna, who was in place since 2011. NFTC with its team of test pilots is tasked with testing aircraft for their air worthiness and ability to do combat maneuvers they are designed for. Mavlankar, an MS in aerospace engineering from IISc, like Balaji at ADA, is the right fit — the proverbial round peg in a round hole (unlike the history of GOI usually appointing the wrong persons to lead critically significant high-technology projects and then wondering why they veer off into failure) So, the designer agency and testing unit will be in sync and Tejas can now expect to begin rolling fast to cross certification hurdles.

The important thing to note is that both Balaji and Maolankar are senior naval officers, and typify the navy’s quite commendable levels of commitment and eagerness to validate and operate indigenous military hardware, in this case, combat aircraft. It indicates defmin Manohar Parrikar’s recognition about the importance of getting the Tejas inducted into operational squadrons in the navy and air force fast. It is perhaps the first tremendously right and potent set of appointments he has made. It is now for him to ensure Messrs Balaji and Maolankar are not tripped up by the usual villains lurking in the corners — mostly in IAF and not least in his own ministry of defence and its department of defence production. He needs in particular roughly to drag IAF by the ear, if necessary, so to say, to appreciating and prioritising the Tejas in their scheme of things — rather than have this service clamour ceaselessly for Rafale and similar foreign aircraft.

This should also signal to the army that it is wrong to so casually torpedo the Future Main Battle Tank design, as follow-on, to the Arjuna MBT that beat the Russian T-90 hollow in field trials in all respects. And Parrikar should squelch at the earliest any move by army to tilt towards the Russian Armata tank displayed at the recent Red Square parade in Moscow to mark the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. He should rescind army’s RFPs, and tell the COAS and his cohort that the army will have the DRDO-designed FMBT perhaps with its production shared half-and-half between DPSUs and a private sector combine in a competitive set up, both to judge the effectiveness/efficiency of public and private sector manufacturing skills and processes, and to get the best product out to the army, because it definitely will not have an imported tank. If Parrikar can summon that kind of conviction, MOD/DDP will fall in line, pronto.

Posted in arms exports, Asian geopolitics, civil-military relations, Defence Industry, domestic politics, DRDO, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian Navy, Indian Ocean, Military Acquisitions, Russia, russian military, society, South Asia, Technology transfer, United States, US., Weapons | 27 Comments

Sour Grapes and Screw-ups

Posted on July 4, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

The long rumoured book by AS Dulat, head of RAW during the previous BJP government, has finally hit the bookshops. Haven’t bought the book yet, but from the available news reports on it, the author has avoided genuinely deconstructing many controversial events during his tenure and supposedly retailed in this book, in that blame has not been assigned to any particular person or agency for many of the fiascos. Certainly, there was no greater fiasco than the Indian Airlines hijacking to Kandahar which could have been preempted at the start when the plane, running low on fuel, landed in Amritsar. And this is where everything that could go wrong did. Because in any crisis the first thing that happens is that the Indian government loses its head — even as loss of nerve is the other predetermined response — the normal in such situations, everybody seemed engaged but no one person in authority seemed ready to take charge, impose order and discipline up and down the line, cut out all sorts of agencies who butt in to further foul up matters. Dulat fails to ascribe the blame to the one person who should have been held responsible — the late Brajesh Mishra who, as NSA and PPS to the PM, actually could have brought rapid closure to this sordid drama being played out on the Amritsar airport tarmac, but did not. To blame cabsec Prabhat Kumar for vacillating as the estimable KPS Gill does — his Punjab Police commando unit was immediately deployed by him around the airport and could at any time have been ordered to shoot their way in or, at a minimum, to disable the aircraft — is to assume any bureaucrat placed in a similar situation would anything differently. Dulat mentions the then director, IB, for instance, fuming at orders from Delhi to puncture the aircraft tyres, wondering if he and his agency were some kind of cycle repair facility(!), thereby indicating the brahminical attitude to not getting one’s hands dirty, as if such a job was some menial task meant for lowlier persons or agencies. Was he punished for this attitude, cashiered on the spot? Of course not. This when the IB’s correct response should have been not to tarry, waste time questioning these orders, but for one of its personnel to run to the aircraft and shoot the damn tyres to smithereens with a service revolver or to call in the paramilitary to take potshots at the tyres if this was beyond the ken of IB officers (!) and thus terminate the hijack episode right there. Does this require great confabulation at the Delhi-end or even at the Amritsar-end or merely the exercise of some common sense at the level of a constable for God’s sake! That no one in Delhi, or in any of the numerous police and intelligence agencies on the scene in Amritsar, thought of pushing this option — asking the IB director to shut up and get on with the business of taking out the tyres, rather than waiting for the vaunted NSG to be airlifted from their Haryana base which seemed atrocious then and immeasurably silly some two decades later. What great skill is required to aim and fire a machine gun or even a 5.56mm INSAS rifle at the tyres of a stationary passenger plane in the interim period before the NSG got there? If the profoundly idiotic agencies of govt did not want to get that violent, they could have just parked fire-brigade trucks stationed at the airport in front of and in the rear of the aircraft, thus making it impossible for it to move. Worse, as was revealed in my previous writings — some of them on this blog — precisely these and other means for disabling hijacked aircraft, were practiced by an extended inter-agency and paramilitary exercise only the year before, codenamed, ironically, ‘SOUR GRAPES’!!! So, what happened? If even tested and practiced actions are NOT implemented when the foreseen crisis or emergency actually occurs, then what’s the point of preparing for any such contingency in the first place??? This quite extraordinary failure points up the basic flaw in the Indian govt’s working — when it comes to the crunch nobody from the lowest to the highest — wants to approve decisive action. The ex-post facto justification offered at the time, and revived now, that the likelihood of on-board passengers being hurt or killed is what deterred the govt is to continue to make excuses for a govt system that, plainly speaking, is institutionally not geared to handle any such crisis or emergency very well. This bodes ill for the future because all any terrorist group has to do to make its political mark, wrench concessions out of New Delhi, is to hold any vehicle or platform with civilians hostage for the govt to buckle under “public pressure” and accept terms detrimental to national interests. The Indian government has still not come out with a clear policy statement to the effect that any hijacking or hostage-taking by any means will not involve any negotiations of any kind with the terrorists, and that such episodes will end in only way — the death or capture of the terrorists involved, even if this means absorbing collateral civilian deaths and casualties. The print and television media that unctuously report on Dulat’s conclusions, should also be mindful of their role and complicity in pressuring the Vajpayee govt at the time when TV cameras multiplied the public effect of affected families asking for the govt to give into the terrorists of the Kandahar-bound plane. Even so, there’s no excuse for the GOI to have done what it did — ease off and let the fueled-up aircraft leave.

It is time Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a standing order to all police and intelligence agencies at the centre and in the states that there will be no negotiating with terrorists in such situations for any reason at any time, and that they are instructed to at the first instance and opportunity disable the vehicle/platform by any and all means, thus preventing the escape of the outlaws. He should use his “man ki baat” radio programme and also propagate on TV that his govt will not allow people to protest or put pressure on the govt in such emergencies, and if such pressure is nevertheless somehow imposed he was free to ignore it in the larger national interest of dealing with terrorists and eradicating terrorism. There’s no other way to signal GOI’s resolve to terrorists everywhere to finish them.

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