This week’s unveiling of the budget finds India hiking its defense budget by 19 per cent, with 40 per cent as capital outlay. The rationale is defense modernization, since India, with sufficient money in the coffers, is replacing equipment bought in the last bout of defense profligacy back in the eighties.
However, behind the spending is also the contest between the two perspectives on strategic culture. One has it that India is not comfortable with power. The second is that this is an unfair criticism. The former, more popular position, keeps the government on the defensive. Unwilling to be distracted by criticism that it is ‘soft’ on the ‘holy cow’, defense, it prefers to play safe. Fear of criticism makes the government overcompensate. Under present conditions of political uncertainty, triggered recent election results unfavorable to the ruling Congress party, this tendency can be expected to be more in evidence.
Revealing the critique of India’s strategic behavior as unfounded would help prevent the government go down the ‘armament culture’ route, avoid creating a military-industrial complex Frankenstein and triggering the security dilemma in neighbors. READ MORE
