By Lt Gen (R) Raj Shukla
a 6 mins read.
Cold Military Steel
India, currently in a state of relative peace, must not be complacent. The peace dividend should be utilised to build robust military capabilities, for it is ‘cold military steel’ that triumphs in wars, not mere #hashtags or online aggression. What should really worry us is the fact that in an era of war, the Mighty USA and the West are unable to create capacities on a war footing. The cumulative effect of a corroding MIC is that the Arsenal of the Global West seems to be losing to the Arsenal of the Global East (China, Russia, Iran and North Korea). It is not that the West is not doing enough; it is, in fact, doing a great deal, but that which it is doing is just not enough to win; that is how complex and sophisticated the MIC challenge is. In a predominantly Artillery War, North Korea has transferred more artillery ammunition to Russia than the West has been able to supply to Ukraine.
Two days before the final defeat in Advika, an operational audit of two Ukrainian brigades was carried out: one had a bare 15 artillery rounds to fight, and the other had only 42 mortar rounds left. Even as the 61 BD aid package for Ukraine gets converted into military deliverables, the frontlines are shifting rapidly Westwards, and territories are continuing to crumble – in the last week alone, six Ukrainian villages have been lost. If the Russians are winning, it is on account of the superior quality and delivery of the Russian MIC. That is how salient the capacity and quality of a Nation’s MIC is to its National Security Prowess. Reports reveal that for a possible Taiwan contingency, the Americans (yes, the Mighty Americans) don’t have seven days of missiles and precision munitions to sustain a fight.
So, what must we do in the Indian context? The many splendored initiatives under Aatmanirbharta in Defence (AID) have given us a wonderful, transformational start, a very strong edifice. Given the lessons of the global conflicts of the recent past, however, we may like to re-invigorate the Indian Defence Framework in terms of ten pathways.
Speed and Scale
First and foremost, we need to smell the new brew in geopolitics, namely, the decisive tilt towards hard power, the fact that wars are unfortunately back in business, the steady gravitation of the arc of conflict from Europe to West Asia to the Indo-Pacific and the significant prospect of a Sino-Indian conflagration. We need to upgrade our capacities on a war footing. Come 2026/2027, if India is faced with a perilous situation with China, we must not regret that we did not do enough through almost a decade of warning. We will do well to remember that while Deterrence is costly, wars are costlier.
Two, one of the biggest strategic follies of recent times has been the myth of ‘short, swift, wars. ‘It does seem that for the foreseeable future, conflicts will be long in the time frame (or at least unpredictable in length), industrial in nature, with an ever-enlarging digital component. To sustain such conflicts, a vibrant, technologically enabled, innovation-driven, indigenous, industrial base is a necessary pre-requisite.
Three, carry out a comprehensive status audit of our defence ecosystem in terms of readiness, stockpiles, inventory variety and depth, precision and digital capacities, supply chain autonomy, and critical technological chokeholds. The consequences of such an audit may be revealing.
Fourth, initiate responses on a war footing. American studies/ estimates suggest that the Chinese production & procurement enterprise (MIC) is five to six times more efficient and faster than that of the Americans. If we are to deal with the abject reality successfully, the Indian ecosystem will have to obviously pick up speed and scale – our stockpile levels and surge capacities will need comprehensive upgradation. American studies estimate that in a possible conflict with China over Taiwan, the US Military will expend more than 5000 long-range missiles in the first three weeks itself. How many will we need? How many do we have?
In the initial stages of the conflict, the Chinese air defences will be pretty formidable, precluding most IAF aircraft from penetrating them sufficiently to be able to drop short-range munitions effectively. What is the status of our bombers and cruise missile stockpiles that can degrade Chinese AD from standoff distances? Do we need to build an A2AD system of our own in the IOR to deter/degrade Chinese naval ingress in the future? Given the great success of Ukrainian missile-drone combos against the Russian Black Sea Fleet, do we need to hybridise our air and naval fleets in far greater numbers? Our Ordnance Factories Network is a dumb munitions behemoth – it needs a comprehensive transformation towards precision capacities – a precision overdrive perhaps – all these domains need our focused attention.
Five, the one lesson coming out of the recent conflicts is a fundamental transformation in the nature of space, airpower and the emergence of the drone-missile complex. Look at the underwhelming performance of Russian airpower in Ukraine, both in terms of air supremacy and interdiction, for the better part of two years. That is the time it took for the Russian Air Force to convert dumb munitions to very precise & effective, lethal glide bombs. Drones and Storm Shadows missiles on the other hand, have combined to degrade the Russian Black Sea Fleet significantly. Iran has made intelligent use of the Ukraine Theatre as a laboratory to upgrade their dronery for useful effect during the attack on Israel on 14 April 2024.
Another significant development in recent times is that firepower is no longer siloed in terms of ISR (combat and open-sourced intelligence), artillery, air, armed drones, air defence, etc., but has been aggregated through networks, algorithms, and coding into Integrated Kill Chains. It is, therefore, imperative to set up an Integrated Drone-Missile Force as also a Space Force without any further delay. As India steps into the big league, we will need to pay far greater attention to numerous facets of strategic deterrence and power projection than we currently do. The nuclear domain, missilery, space, cyber, long-range precision, stealth capacities like bombers and hypersonics are arenas that need far greater resourcing with a dedicated industrial base.
Six, a valuable lesson to be learnt from Ukraine is the manner in which the relationship between Airpower, Manoeuvre and Firepower has evolved. The proliferation of Air Defences therein stymied the attainment of Air Superiority; in the absence of Air Superiority, Manoeuvre was severely eclipsed, leading to the phenomenal domination of Lethal Firepower. A comprehensive review and upgradation of our air defence network, from space-enabled early warning to multiple layers of interception, is urgently called for.
Seven, a transition to digital combat is critical because, in the data domain, the margin for error is shrinking, the decision cycles are shortening, and the attack surfaces are growing. We need to treat data as a weapons system and align the orientation of AID to digitise our combat philosophy and systems: we need to manage, secure and use data for superior operational effect. AI and Deep Tech (the onset of a wave of game-changing technologies) are transforming Deterrence and Warfighting in hitherto unprecedented ways and maybe the secret sauce for the Asymmetric address of China.
Eight, we need to appreciate that the capital and personnel investments that are required in Defence are so long-term and huge that without a clear and consistent demand signal and a firm financial commitment from the government, business propositions are unlikely to flourish. Private companies will not invest in plants, machinery and production lines unless there is a reasonable guarantee of orders. We need to set aside the tyranny of L-1, overcome the ring-fencing of mediocrity and embrace a culture of talent identification /enablement/maximisation: create National Champions in Defence.
We need to identify talented MSMEs, Start-Ups and Private Companies and help them grow, not only to meet domestic defence needs but also in order that such entities can survive and even thrive in international competition. Defence Majors all over the world (from China’s NORINCO to South Korea’s Korean Aerospace Industries Limited) have received active handholding/propping up from their respective governments. So have billion-dollar Defence Start-Ups like USA-based Anduril (advanced military autonomous systems) & Europe-based Helsing (Defence AI). We need to create our own Defence Majors that are globally competitive.
Nine, the proposed restructuring of our Defence Enterprise will be an expensive proposition. It must, therefore, be premised on the metrics of an affordable Risk Equation: a smart trade-off between what we must spend to deter, the monies we would need to fund sustained, high-intensity combat, how we could offset combat differentials through innovation and international technological collaboration and what we could hold off by way of acceptable risk.
Ten, in the long term, India must grow into this responsible Defence Powerhouse, not only to secure our territorial sovereignty and expanding interests but also as an instrument of business, revenue generation and geo-strategic heft. 
If as many as seven Chinese Defence Majors rank in the top twenty Defence Entities in the world, India needs to be similarly competitive. We must do all that we can to create a vibrant and as indigenous as possible Indian MIC – an essential prerequisite for India to attain its place and promise in the world.
(Lt Gen (R) Raj Shukla, former Army Commander and currently a Member of UPSC. The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The News Analytics Journal)
