Pakistan soon to commission a DARHT facility

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

A disturbing but not surprising piece of news was conveyed by a reliable non-Western, non-Indian government source. The Strategic Plans Division, Chaklala, Pakistan Army — that country’s nuclear secretariat responsible for strategic planning, and operational readiness of that country’s nuclear forces, has been preoccupied with building with China’s expert and material help and technical assistance a Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Testing facility. This DARHT installed in the underground nuclear complex at Golra, will soon be commissioned. In the absence of physical testing, the DARHT facility will help the Pakistani nuclear weaponeers improve their weapons designs and refine their yields. DARHT only provides more evidence for what I have always maintained that, unlike India, Pakistan is very serious about nuclear security, takes nothing for granted, and will not risk weapons that may work well on paper but not as well in reality. The DARHT will propel Pakistan past India in the quality of its nuclear arsenal. What to talk of China, Indian nuclear weaponry may not even stand up to Pakistan’s inventory. The fabled China-Pakistan nuclear nexus, in the event, would become well nigh insurmountable.

Meanwhile, the weapons directorate at BARC, Trombay — severely neglected by New Delhi, languishes — unable anymore to attract the best and the brightest from among the talent pool recruited by DAE because there are no technical challenges to overcome, no forward-looking agenda to realize. India, thus keeps sliding strategically on the nuclear military front and, with the Modi-Obama nuclear compromise, in the civilian nuclear energy sphere, as well. And, the most disastrous thing to happen to the country’s nuclear programme — Dr R Chidambaram continues as Science and technology adviser to PM Modi and, like Nero, fiddles as the Indian nuclear energy programme burns.

Posted in Asian geopolitics, China, China military, disarmament, Geopolitics, India's strategic thinking and policy, nonproliferation, nuclear industry, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, nuclear power, Nuclear Weapons, Pakistan, Pakistan military, Pakistan nuclear forces, society, South Asia, Strategic Forces Command, United States, US., Weapons | 7 Comments

Modi’s Action Deficits

Posted on February 20, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

The Delhi poll-quake produced an outcome almost everybody in the political firmament, including many within the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, it seems, craved for—the crashing of the Narendra Modi juggernaut. It has highlighted the shortfalls in Modi’s nine-month rule encapsulated in the opposition’s jibe that he is “All talk, no action”. Paperless cabinet meetings, ministers staying late in office, civil servants turning up in time for work do not, apparently, constitute the social and economic revolution the people expected. Arvind Kejriwal, in the event, has emerged, remarkably, as the rival the prime minister will be judged against.

Modi’s achievements to date amount, in substance, to an easy camaraderie with world leaders and exhortations to the people. In contrast, the 49 days of Kejriwal’s first tenure as chief minister had such impact it carried his Aam Aadmi Party to an overwhelming victory in the capital and, the day after the declaration of the poll results, for instant changes—government tankers appeared in water-starved parts of the capital, touts disappeared from the regional transport offices, and bribe-demanding police turned into paragons of propriety. While Modi’s “corruption-free India” remained a slogan, Kejriwal’s campaign motivated the citizens to use mobile telephony to trap wrongdoers, and become the agent of change they desired.

The irony is that as a former chaiwallah who made it to the top on his own, Modi has a better story to tell, but has failed so far to parlay it into policies that encourage and reward personal initiative and individual effort, reduce the profile of the government as employer of the first and last resort, and to embark schemes to grow jobs by growing the economy. Over the months the people found that Modi did not trim government waste, or reconfigure the system, or rectify its ways of doing business with the people, or ramp up the abysmal-quality services it delivered, or devise policies to encourage and incentivise private enterprise, or initiate training schemes to upskill the potential industrial workforce needed for the country’s industry to be at the cutting edge, or facilitate a take-off by the manufacturing sector by putting teeth into his “Make in India” policy, or attract the fabled foreign investment to get trillion dollars worth of infrastructure and connectivity projects going. More disheartening still, pronouncements aside, labour and judicial reforms, like their economic counterpart, have stayed stuck in the political and administrative quagmire.

By way of relief, Modi sought visibility on the international stage where “success” can be gleaned by managing the pomp and attendant pageantry and playing to the delirious non-resident Indian crowds from New York to Sydney. The trouble is the law of diminishing returns kicks in fast. While the occasional international summit and Madison Garden-do is fine, too many foreign jaunts and diplomatic jamborees quickly pall, giving the impression of a democratic leader seeking escape or diversion from his failures on the domestic front.

Problematically, Kejriwal has scored in the areas Modi appears deficient. The AAP supremo did what he promised—improve, even if slightly, the everyday life of the majority—the underclass surviving in miserable slums and shanty towns by ordering cut-rate electricity and water for it. Populist programmes cannot be long sustained because the policy of “robbing Peter to pay Paul” is guaranteed ultimately to alienate both but, in the interim, he can coast. Relying on his “brains trust”, Kejriwal has been inventive—like asking the Centre to allot Delhi a coal block as a captive source of energy for thermal power plants in the capital region. He has less in common with the lowliest in the land than does Modi but compensates with the kind of empathy, humility, and ability to connect with the common folk the PM seems unable to match. And, bad optics—the supposedly expensive suit he donned in his session with Barack Obama—hasn’t helped.

The Left liberals comprising the bulk of the country’s media, intelligentsia, and political parties, who have benefited from the quasi-socialist nanny state, see Modi’s failure as rooted in a faulty ideology symbolised by the carryings-on of the Hindu fringe. The miniscule minority forming the more responsible liberal Right in the country, among whom this analyst counts himself, on the other hand, is a frustrated lot. With the government identified by Modi as the mother of most ills afflicting the state and society, he was expected to slash government, rid the system of the careerist civil servant-dominated decision making, redefine the national interest along hard nationalist lines, and shape policies accordingly. Instead, Modi empowered the bureaucrats.

Meanwhile in the policy-making field, too, Kejriwal has taken the lead, appointing domain experts to advise him on innovative solutions and policy options. Other than in the economic field where outside experts have been installed in the NITI Aayog and as advisers, they are conspicuously absent in most of the rest of the Modi government. Thus, the technical ministries at the Centre continue to be run by generalist civil servants, foreign policy by the prime minister’s instincts (which has resulted in inadequate attention paid to neighbours—Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, compounded by ill-thought out actions, such as the nuclear compromise with Obama, in violation of an Act of Parliament, that could make the indigenous nuclear energy programme extinct), and defence is constrained by the limited imagination of external affairs. Judged broadly, the current policies generally seem unchanged from Manmohan Singh’s days which, perhaps, explains the popular disillusionment with Modi.

For Modi to pull things back, which he can do in the remaining four odd years in office, it will require him to return to Deen Dayal Upadhyaya’s nationalist ideology and the BJP’s root social self-help principles. He will also have to bank on conservative strategists from outside, who helped Atal Bihari Vajpayee chart an expansive national security policy and set India on the great power course, to fill his strategic policies with meaningful content. Without the right intellectual heft and expertise in the Prime Minister’s Office and in government, Modi may end up winging it on his own without taking the country or even himself very far.

[Published in the New Indian Express, February 20, 2015, at http://www.newindianexpress.com/columns/Modis-Action-Deficits/2015/02/20/article2676686.ece

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Defence Industry, domestic politics, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, Indian democracy, Indian ecobomic situation, indian policy -- Israel, Iran and West Asia, Indian Politics, Internal Security, Iran and West Asia, nuclear industry, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, nuclear power, society, South Asia, South East Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, United States, US. | 6 Comments

N-compromise a liability, will kill local reactor programme

Posted on February 10, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

The nuclear compromise approved by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama is as much a financial liability for the Indian people as the 2008 civilian nuclear cooperation deal with the United States is a strategic millstone round the country’s neck, and contravenes the Civilian Nuclear Damage Liability Act 2010. First the Congress Party-led coalition regime and now the Bharatiya Janata Party dispensation at the centre, busily explored every possible avenue to circumvent the 2010 Act. The proposed solution, however, seems only to be a means to get a troublesome issue gumming up the bilateral ties off the table, and induce wary American companies, uncertain about their financial obligations but drawn, like moths to a flame, by the prospects of lucrative sales to risk supplying nuclear reactor technology to India.

The compromise was reached by forcing the Indian liability law into the straitjacket of the Convention on Supplementary Compensation, which channels all liability to the operator. Also, an “insurance pool” has been contrived with contributions totaling Rs 1,500 crores from the public sector General Insurance Corporation and other insurance companies and the Indian Exchequer to cover liability obligations. In short, the Modi-Obama solution ensures miniscule compensation in case of nuclear disasters potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of people in densely populated areas and billions of dollars in property damage by dumping all liability into the laps of the Indian taxpayer while zeroing out the financial responsibility of supplier companies selling untested, unproven, and unsafe nuclear reactors. Because no nuclear reactor has been installed in the US since the 1979 Three Mile Island mishap, India will become the testing ground for new American reactor technology and leverage to revive the US nuclear industry.

The 2010 Act, voted with the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy in mind, was meant to prevent precisely such outcomes. But it has been undermined by creatively interpreting some of its provisions. Thus, Section 17(b) which talks of the operator’s “right of recourse” in case of “supply of equipment or material with patent or latent defects or sub-standard services”, which comprehensively shuts down all escape routes to technology suppliers, is viewed by MEA, as only another “normal element of a contract”. It further clarified that Section 17 renders the right of recourse a function of the operator’s whim in writing contracts with supplier firms and, if by some oversight it is included in the contract, leaves it to the operator to “exercise” it or not! Meaning, the sole Indian operator the public sector Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited can, on its own, decide to absolve foreign companies of any responsibility for supplying flawed reactor designs and technology that could lead to accidents while transferring all liability to the Indian state and taxpayer. Likewise, compensation claims on supplier companies by individuals dissatisfied with the pittance given by the government, are disallowed. Next MEA torpedoed Section 46 of the 2010 Act by impugning India’s sovereign right to legislate measures, including in the future to retroactively affect contracts NPCIL signs with supplier firms voiding the latters’ immunity from liability. This is particularly galling considering India was targeted by US Congress’ retroactive legislation post-1974 nuclear test that stopped fuel supply to Tarapur reactors.

Imported enriched uranium nuclear reactors are the worst possible option from every angle. It will create a nuclear spares and fuel dependency, starve the indigenous natural uranium reactor program and the development of the follow-on breeder and thorium reactors per Bhabha’s three-stage 1955 plan to achieve energy self-sufficiency of funds because the exorbitantly-priced foreign reactors (at $6-$9 billion per 1,000MW plant) will corner all the monies, negate the possibility of exporting Indian-designed reactors to developing countries and earning revenue and, with the promised entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, tighten the nonproliferation noose. Meanwhile, the impossible target of 63,000 MW of nuclear energy by 2032 will, like Manmohan Singh’s “20,000 MW by 2020”, remain a mere slogan.

[Published in the Economic Times, February 10, 2015, at http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/et-commentary/n-compromise-a-liability-will-kill-local-reactor-programme/

Posted in Asian geopolitics, disarmament, domestic politics, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Politics, nonproliferation, nuclear industry, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, nuclear power, society, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Technology transfer | 3 Comments

The best result in Delhi elections?

Posted on February 7, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

The best outcome — from the national interest perspective — of the Delhi elections being held today would be for the BJP to squeak in with a bare (one or two seat) majority and have Arvind Kejriwal for the next five years hound the ruling party at every turn, holding the feet of the Kiran Bedi dispensation directed by the Narendra Modi- Amit Shah duo to the fire. It will prevent the BJP govt in Delhi, and also at the centre, from going off the deep end because the rulers will be fearful that any false steps will fuel the Kejriwal-AAM Party engine, win it credibility on the national stage. Indeed, it may be ideal for AAM party to prepare itself for power by apprenticing itself as a dogged opposition. It will also spare Delhi the spectacle and the frustrating experience of Kejriwal & Co — highly motivated amateurs, unprepared and untutored in running the administrative apparatus of state, stumbling around trying to get things right. Better they learn from BJP’s mistakes than make these themselves if let loose prematurely on the Delhi scene (as happened the first time around).

Posted in domestic politics, Indian Politics, society, South Asia | Tagged | 3 Comments

Nuclear compromise or sellout?

Posted on February 6, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

It may be interesting to view TV panel discussions on the way out of the nuclear impasse with the mooting of an “insurance pool” just before and just after the Obama Visit carried by the Rajya Sabha TV and the Lok Sabha TV respectively. Except, while the Rajya Sabha TV has uploaded the program and it can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgReTFffIck, the Lok Sabha TV has not so far thought it fit to so upload it for a wider audience.

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Politics, nonproliferation, nuclear industry, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, nuclear power, Nuclear Weapons, society, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, United States, US., Weapons | Leave a comment

The Correct Geostrategics

Posted on February 6, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

Now that the media hoopla and hyperbole attending on US president Barack Obama’s visit is mercifully over, we can exhale, begin dispassionately to evaluate it. One was bemused and appalled by what was projected in the media as the things America will supposedly to do for India, ranging from coaxing the Indian economy on to a higher and faster growth trajectory, facilitating bigger investment inflows, livening up the manufacturing sector, triggering a surge in the indigenous defence industry, to improving our educational system and enabling our cities become smarter. It is as if Delhi had outsourced India’s problems to Washington.

On the “centerpiece” and politically combustible nuclear issue, prime minister Narendra Modi shoved it onto the plate of American companies, Westinghouse and General Electric, and the Indian companies seeking to manufacture components, but also made the Indian taxpayer stand guarantee, as indicated in my last column, for the quality of imported nuclear reactor technology. The US and Indian companies will have to assess the risk of nuclear mishaps and weigh the costs of inevitably being dragged to the court. Modi’s is a problematic solution considering that capping of liability payouts and making the Indian people responsible for them, prima facie, violate the spirit and letter of the 2010 Indian nuclear liability law legislated with the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy in mind when the culprit US firm, Union Carbide, got away with mass murder.

A more satisfactory result of the Obama trip was China’s being lined up as India’s natural adversary. The “US-India Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia Pacific and Indian Ocean” by flagging maritime security, and freedom of navigation and of overflight in the South China Sea area as international rights in the global commons, emphasised the strategic stakes of the two countries in preventing China from obtaining a “closed sea” off Southeast Asia. And by hinting at a “road map leveraging” the effort of all states in the extended region to beef up collective security arrangements, indicated the means of holding Chinese ambition and aggression in check.

As follow-up to Modi’s reference when in Japan about an “expansionist” power, it showed clear-headed threat perception that no amount of diplomatic niceties by visits such as by foreign minister Sushma Swaraj to Beijing can mask. The nature of inter-state affairs has evolved such that drawing clear red lines by removing uncertainty may actually facilitate a more stable and equitable economic and trade relationship. For this newfound common sense-driven attitude to have meaning will necessitate a series of logical actions. Such as amending the Operational Directive from the defence minister to the armed services requiring the military to orient itself north and northeast-wards and, maritime-wise, towards the Indian Ocean. In its wake should be schemes to restructure the Indian combat forces optimised for limited war with Pakistan to take on the greater challenge posed by China. Further, the “Joint Vision” by stating that “Regional prosperity depends on security”, finally settled the longstanding argument about national priorities by implying that without the latter the former is impossible.

The only thing wrong with the otherwise correct geostrategics undergirding the Modi-Obama talks is the impression of India seeking to ride America’s coattails. Delhi did not sufficiently stress India’s commitment principally to a security architecture organic to Asia involving Asian states that relies only minimally on the US. As analysed in my previous writings, the United States is an unreliable strategic partner. Determined to avoid military confrontation or conflict with China at all cost, Washington is exploring a modus vivendi with Beijing to protect American interests in Asia, and will prefer in most situations to concert with China. Many Asian states, including the nationalist regime of Shinzo Abe in Japan, perceive America as too thin a reed to lean on. India and like-minded countries in Southeast Asia and East Asia directly confronting China will, in the event, have to handle the security dilemmas facing them by themselves.

In this context, the politico-military value of Russia to India grows. This was squarely acknowledged in the far more comprehensive “Druzhba-Dosti Vision” statement issued at the end of president Vladimir Putin’s December 2014 visit, which garnered little media attention. It referred to India “deeply (valuing) the monumental contributions made by Russia to (its) developmental and defence needs” and elaborated on the “economic engagement” and collaborative activity in the energy, technology and innovation sectors, including space, “futuristic technologies” and “joint design and development of defence systems”. But unlike the generalised view in the ‘Joint Vision’ of “closer partnership …promoting peace, prosperity and security” animating ties with the US, the “Druzhba-Dosti” document refers specifically to “a strong…strategic partnership” advancing “the national interests” of both India and Russia.

It is obvious that Delhi’s wanting closeness with America is aspirational; Indo-Russian relations, however, reflect hard reality. This is because, while the two Visions apprehend China as the destabilising factor, Russia fronts on China even as the US is separated from it by a vast ocean and has more intimate economic and trade interlinks with it. Hence, India’s fears cannot but resonate more with Moscow’s than with Washington’s.

Economic and military heft is not available by association. Rather, India will have to get serious about a geostrategic edifice primarily serving its core interests. As articulated repeatedly in my writings and in this column, an Indian Monroe Doctrine system is what needs to be put in place as does a tiered defence with Japan and Taiwan constituting the outer defensive perimeter, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Singapore the middle tier, and the Integrated Andaman Command connected to the mainland, anchoring this system and India’s policy of “acting East”, the innermost tier. With its episodic presence, the US Navy can play the part in the Indian Ocean the Royal Navy did in enforcing the original Monroe Doctrine strictures in the southern Atlantic in the mid-19th century.

Countries do not put out for other countries unless they have lots more to gain than lose from doing so. The US has calculated what serves its purposes. Delhi, as in the past, seems swept away by American promises.

[Published in the New Indian Exp-ress, February 6, 2015, at http://www.newindianexpress.com/columns/The-Correct-Geostrategics/2015/02/06/article2654073.ece

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Central Asia, China, China military, Defence Industry, DRDO, 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, Japan, Northeast Asia, nuclear industry, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, nuclear power, Pakistan, Pakistan military, Relations with Russia, Russia, russian assistance, russian military, society, South Asia, South East Asia, Strategic Relations with South East Asia & Far East, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Technology transfer, United States, US., Weapons | 3 Comments

Interpreting risk

Posted on January 25, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

Have barely survived hours of being before Times Now television cameras (at home) and for an hour at their studio where the relentless drive to be upbeat about PM Modi’s supposed success in persuading Obama to accept an ambiguous interpretation of the full liability provisions — sections 17(b) and 46 — in the 2010 Civilian Nuclear Damage Liability Act with promise of the GIC insurance pool, succeeded in pushing credible doubts about this solution into the background. Among the main points made in my last blog and NIE op/ed “Bending over backwards” published Jan 23 of the Indian taxpayer thereby bearing the full risk was repeated by Chellaney, a co-panelist, in the channel’s 7PM show. Hopefully, more analysts will pick up on this aspect subversive of the 2010 Act, and it will gain political traction, enough to convince the US companies who are suspicious of this as Delhi’s way out of a dilemma, to keep out. Besides, won’t this issue become justiciable? And can US companies risk Indian courts ruling against them and derailing bilateral relations in the process?

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian democracy, nuclear industry, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, nuclear power, society, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Technology transfer, United States, US. | 2 Comments

Bending over Backwards

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

In his pronouncements, US president Barack Obama has indicated that American companies will be actively discouraged from investing in production plants abroad, offshoring operations, and exporting jobs; Indian pharmaceutical industries would come under the intellectual property rights hammer, and the H1B visa regime will not be loosened. Taken cumulatively, they pretty much muck up prime minister Narendra Modi’s plans for productively courting America.

The serious clash of economic interests only highlights the even more severe collision of strategic interests which, despite the good intentions of both sides, will ensure that, as in the past, only a limited India-US partnership will accrue. This reality, not fully grasped by Delhi, is compounded by the fact that the Indian government operates without any definite ideas about what the national interest is or where it lies on particular issues, whence a lot is negotiated away in return for nothing.

One expected Modi to not turn national interest into a fungible commodity as his predecessor, Manmohan Singh, had done and, as a canny insider in the evolving global politics in which India’s centrality in an Asian security scheme to contain China is readily conceded, that he would extract maximum concessions from the US while surrendering little. This hope is belied by the list of giveaways in the offing.

On climate, Modi has apparently agreed to 20% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, bringing India in line with the Western consensus at the upcoming Paris summit. This presumes India can skip the smokestack industrial stage and absorb the inordinately high cost of going in massively for clean energy. It begs the question: Where are the resources for such rapid switching to come from?

Modi’s eagerness to buy enriched uranium-fuelled American reactors of untested design that the US is unwilling to risk installing on its own territory is equally puzzling. Especially because the contemplated executive action to get around provisions in the Civilian Nuclear Damage Liability Act 2010 imposing “unlimited” liability on nuclear technology suppliers is subversive of this Act, which the BJP voted for in Parliament and, which in fact represented a congealing of the opposition to the 2008 civilian nuclear cooperation deal with the US. But consider the proposed solution: An insurance pool is to be created by the public sector General Insurance Corporation (GIC), meaning that the Indian people will be the guarantors of untested foreign nuclear technology and in case it proves faulty and leads to an accident, will have to pay up for the thermal and radiation deaths in the hundreds of thousands and for damage to public and private property running into billions of rupees in case of a nuclear accident traced to faulty foreign nuclear technology beyond the measly $300 million the supplier company coughs up per the Convention on Supplemental Compensation Manmohan Singh hurriedly signed. With the perpetrators thus going scot-free, it could be the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy plus all over again.

For surrendering so much India gets the promise of entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). Though why Modi is keen on joining these groups, considering they are means to drag India into the 1968 non-proliferation treaty net, is a mystery. Indeed, by not buying foreign reactors or joining NSG India can at any time resume testing to obtain a credible thermonuclear deterrent, export without any restraint its highly evolved natural uranium reactors and technology under the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, and the billions of dollars saved from not buying the inordinately expensive foreign reactors, could be invested in realising the three-stage 1955 Homi Bhabha plan for energy self-sufficiency, by developing on a war-footing the indigenous advanced pressurised heavy water, breeder, and thorium reactors. Indeed, the GIC “insurance pool” could be more imaginatively deployed to insure Indian companies producing indigenous nuclear reactors and ancillary hardware and erect any number of power stations in the country and to export to friendly states in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This will spur Indian industry, generate more industrial employment, increase the value of India’s share of global trade, and more vigorously push the “Make in India” policy than putting Indian money in American pockets.

Modi buying into the MTCR is still more troubling. It will mean abandoning the option of paying back China for nuclear missile arming Pakistan by transferring nuclear missile and related technologies to countries on its periphery and compelling Beijing to share in our “nuclear nightmare”. But if pleasing Washington is priority then the rumour doing the rounds gains substance that Avinash Chander was kicked out of DRDO because he was pushing for the 12,000km intercontinental ballistic missile frowned upon by Washington to complement its disapproval of India’s acquiring high-yield thermonuclear warheads/weapons.

The one bright spot is the military-to-military links the 2005 defence cooperation framework has delivered with joint exercises. Its extension to 2025 will mean more of the same laced with billion-dollar buys of US hardware (such as C-17 and C-130J airlifters), a transactional slant Washington is satisfied with. As regards, military technology transfer, Delhi seems reconciled to the US policy of starting low, going slow—hand-launched drones and surveillance modules—as the way to go!

Acknowledging the global power shift, America has been inclined to pass the baton of the predominant power to China in the manner the “weary Titan” Great Britain did to the US during the turn of the previous century. Such a policy was proposed by Obama’s deputy secretary of state James Steinberg and enunciated in 2008-2009 as the doctrine of “strategic reassurance”. It led to the “G-2” concept and president Xi Jinping’s conceiving of “core relations” to, in effect, run the international system. This is the strategic disjunction keeping India-US ties from becoming intimate. Because to brighten the prospects of a possible US-China condominium, Washington since the 1990s has been systematically hindering India strategically, hugely complicating the Indian national security calculus. In the circumstances, bending over backwards to please the US will only invite derision, not win India respect, even less international standing. It is a lesson that remains unlearned.

[Published in the New Indian Express January 23, 2015, at http://www.newindianexpress.com/columns/Bending-over-Backwards/2015/01/23/article2631850.ece

Posted in arms exports, Asian geopolitics, China, China military, civil-military relations, Defence Industry, disarmament, DRDO, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian democracy, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Navy, Military Acquisitions, Missiles, nonproliferation, nuclear industry, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, nuclear power, Nuclear Weapons, society, South Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West, United States, US., Weapons, Western militaries | 16 Comments

Ousting Chander

Posted on January 15, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

The termination of Avinash Chander’s tenure as Science Adviser to the Defence Minister and head of DRDO was too sudden and created shock waves. The sotto voce explanation that Dr. Chander was a little tardy in following up on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s advice to speed up ongoing projects, streamline the internal processes, and reward younger scientists with bigger responsibilities, and Mr. Parrikar’s statement that DRDO needed a younger helmsman, is all very well. But, it is also a misplaced punitive initiative because it presumes that radical changes can be readily and speedily affected, and that the working ethos transformation can happen overnight by diktat from DRDO HQ. And, ironically, it involves a man who unlike most of his predecessors in the post, was elevated to the position on the basis of a stellar record of success. Chander was previously Director-General of the Advanced Systems Laboratory (ASL), Hyderabad, the one stop design and development bureau for the Agni family of missiles — perhaps the most outstanding success story, other than the ATV programme to produce the Arihant-class SSBN, that DRDO can boast of.

ASL and ATV projects are fairly unique in their dogged pursuit of obtaining for the country deterrent reach and punch, ASL’s advanced Agni-5 IRBM/ICBM being among the most sophisticated delivery systems available anywhere with any country. ASL is also an organization fortunate enough to have enjoyed fine leadership starting with RN Agarwal, Chander, and the current DG, VG Sekharan.

DRDO is by and large a useless organization, like all the defence public sector units, it is true, and I have so slammed them all in my writings (see my blogs in the defence industry category) for being involved in jobbery. Many DRDO heads need to roll, and the bulk of DRDO programmes can be safely shut down to save the tax payer’s money and the rest handed over to private sector companies to prosecute more effectively and efficiently. But to tar a proven performer, such as Chander, as a laggard is to dump on an individual the ills of a system, and to do him grave injustice.

In the event, the Chander case should be the metric to judge all leadership in the government sector, by which standard the horde of senior IAS, IPS and other civil services officers as well as much of the armed forces brass — all of them perpetually gumming up the works — should likewise be summarily ejected, replaced by younger. more energetic, officers. In that event, the Chander dismissal, even if unfair, will be seen to have some merit. But because this last won’t happen, kicking out Chander will be seen especially by many in the defence science and technology sphere as a one-off whimsical move of the scapegoating kind. It will grow puzzlement and discontent in DRDO and destroy what go-go spirit prevails there, and thus do more harm than good.

Posted in civil-military relations, Defence Industry, DRDO, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Navy, Indian Politics, Missiles, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons, society, South Asia, Weapons | 7 Comments

Ditching Rafale

Posted on January 9, 2015 by Bharat Karnad

Like an able pilot with his wits about him in an out-of-control warplane, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar may be preparing to ditch Rafale touted as the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) answer, which the Indian Air Force has set its heart on procuring at any cost, and going for the more economical and sensible Su-30 option instead.

It has been repeatedly emphasised by this analyst that the IAF misconceived the MMRCA requirement, disregarded the uncommonly high costs involved in procuring the chosen Rafale and France’s past record of unmet transfer of technology promises, and the Su-30s/MiG-29M2s as sustainable alternative. I also warned that the massive expenditure on the Rafale would starve the indigenous programmes (Tejas and the advanced medium combat aircraft — AMCA) of funds, and stifle the Indian aviation industry trying to get back on its feet.

The reasons for the nose-diving deal are many, and they are serious. The unwillingness of Dassault Avions, the Rafale manufacturer, to guarantee the performance of this aircraft produced under licence at Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd despite the original RFP (Request for Proposal) requiring bidders to transfer technology, including production wherewithal, procedures and protocols, to this public sector unit for the aircraft’s local assembly, has been reported. There’s, however, an untold back-story revealing France’s intended duplicity.

Perceiving India as the perennial sucker, Dassault chose Reliance Aerospace Technologies Pvt Ltd (RATPL) as partner in the hope that the fabled Ambani reach and influence in Delhi would help it get around the HAL production obligation. Problems were not anticipated as evidenced by RATPL approaching the Andhra Pradesh government in 2013 for land around Hyderabad to set up a factory. But because RATPL has zero experience in producing anything remotely related to aviation, Dassault saw it as an opportunity to “double dip”, meaning arrange it so India would pay it twice for the same aircraft! This was to be managed thus: Dassault would set up a production line under RATPL aegis importing every last screw and production jig and collect the money for the 108 Rafales it puts together here at the cost-plus-profit price HAL would charge IAF. In other words, Dassault would export the Rafale assembly kits and wherewithal virtually to itself and pocket the proceeds while paying a premium to RATPL.

But this double dipping ruse in the works merely whetted France’s appetite for more. Capitalising on the IAF brass’ penchant for newer French aircraft and the Indian government’s tendency eventually to cave into the military’s demands, Dassault proposed an enlarged Rafale deal with the cost revised upwards from the $30 billion level to a $45-$50 billion contract. For such enhanced sums, Dassault sought to replace the Rafale originally offered with the slightly better “F-3R” version, promised a mid-life upgrade involving retrofitment of the Thales RBE2 AESA (active electronically scanned array) radar, and suggested India’s future fifth and sixth generation combat aircraft needs be met by the “F-4R” and “F-5R” configurations (or whatever designations they are given) now on the drawing board featuring crystal blade for jet turbines, “fly-by-light” technology, etc. Such contract extension suits the IAF fine because it plays on Vayu Bhavan’s antipathy for Russian hardware (expressed in terms of “diversity of suppliers”) as well as indigenous aircraft, and undermines both the multi-billion dollar project jointly to develop the fifth generation fighter aircraft, Su-50 PAK/FA with Russia and the Indian AMCA with its design finalised.

But for Parrikar’s welcome show of common sense this French plan would have rolled out nicely. Inconveniently for Dassault, he publicly disclosed that the far deadlier and more versatile Su-30 MKI costs Rs 358 crores (roughly $60 million) each compared to the Rs 700 crore price tag for the Rafale, meaning two Su-30s could be secured for the price of a single Rafale. Implicit is the reasonable conclusion that it made more sense to buy a much larger fleet of 4.5-plus generation Su-30s than to get stuck with a 4.5-minus generation Rafale sporting 5.5 generation aircraft prices. The cost comparison remains skewed even when the “super Sukhoi-30”, costing Rs 70 crores, is considered, when the added advantage of the plunging Russian ruble kicks in, allowing India to extract far more bang for the buck from Moscow.

Looked at another way, the original allocation of $12 billion for the MMRCA could fetch IAF at current prices a whole new, augmented, and more capable fighter/bomber armada and raise the force strength to 50 frontline combat squadrons. This because the $12 billion can buy 20 Tejas Mk-Is (in addition to the 40 already ordered), 150 Tejas Mk-IIs, some 35 super Sukhoi-30s, and around 50 MiG-29Ks/M2s (with the M-2s nearly equal of the MiG-35 the Strategic Forces Command wanted for delivering nuclear bombs, but were denied). In short, a composite additional fleet of 255 aircraft can be acquired for the initial price of 126 Rafales, with “incalculable” savings in streamlined logistics, training, and maintenance but absent the cost-hikes, delays, and aggravation of setting up a new production line (as HAL already produces Su-30 MKIs).

Besides, France’s extortionist attitude is offputting. In response to the IAF’s request not too long ago for an immediate transfer of two Rafale squadrons from the French Air Force as a quick-fix, Paris agreed but demanded these would have to be paid for at the same rate as new aircraft and that these planes could carry only French sourced weapons. Worse still, France’s reputation for fulfilling technology transfer provisions too is suspect as past experience reveals.

The IAF trusts Paris not to cutoff the supply of spares if India follows a foreign policy not to France’s or even America’s liking. Except, heeding Washington’s directive, France recently stopped the delivery of two Mistral-class amphibious assault ships Russia has paid for. What’s the guarantee Paris won’t sever supply links and leave HAL stranded mid-production and IAF frontline squadrons grounded in case India resumes nuclear testing, say?

The larger question is: How come France’s record of defaulting on technology-related parts of contracts combined with the unaffordability of French aircraft generally using any metric, were not factored by IAF and Ministry of Defence when shortlisting Rafale?

[Published in New Indian Express January 8, 2015 http://www.newindianexpress.com/columns/Ditching-Rafale/2015/01/09/article2609959.ece

Posted in arms exports, Asian geopolitics, civil-military relations, Defence Industry, DRDO, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian ecobomic situation, Military Acquisitions, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons, Relations with Russia, Russia, russian assistance, russian military, South Asia, Strategic Forces Command, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Technology transfer, United States, US., Weapons, Western militaries | 14 Comments