Modi's India: A Paper Elephant?

[Riaz Haq]

"Desh ka bahut nuksaan hua hai", acknowledged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi after his military's recent failures against Pakistan in Balakot and Kashmir. This marked a major shift in Modi's belligerent tone that has been characterized by his boasts of "chhappan inch ki chhati" (56 inch chest) and  talk of  "munh tor jawab" (jaw-breaking response) and "boli nahin goli" (bullets, not talks) to intimidate Pakistan in the last few years.  The recent events are forcing India's western backers to reassess their strategy of boosting India as a counterweight to China.

Balakot and Kashmir:

Indian government and media have made a series of false claims about Balakot "militant casualties" and "shooting down Pakistani F16".  These claims have been scrutinized and debunked by independent journalists, experts and fact checkers. There is no dispute about the fact that Squadron Leader Hasan Siddiqui of Pakistan Air Force (PAF), flying a Pakistan-made JF-17 fighter, shot down Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman of Indian Air Force (IAF) flying a Russia made MiG 21. Abhinandan was captured by Pakistan and then released to India.

Beautiful Balakot, Kaghan Valley, Pakistan

Western Narrative:

The widely accepted western narrative about India and Pakistan goes like this: "India is rapidly rising while Pakistan is collapsing". In a 2015 report from South Asia, Roger Cohen of New York Times summed it up as follows: "India is a democracy and a great power rising. Pakistan is a Muslim homeland that lost half its territory in 1971, bounced back and forth between military and nominally democratic rule, never quite clear of annihilation angst despite its nuclear weapons".

India-Pakistan Military Spending: Infographic Courtesy The Economist

India: A Paper Elephant?

In an article titled "Paper Elephant", the Economist magazine talked about how India has ramped up its military spending and emerged as the world's largest arms importer. "Its military doctrine envisages fighting simultaneous land wars against Pakistan and China while retaining dominance in the Indian Ocean", the article said. It summed up the situation as follows: "India spends a fortune on defense and gets poor value for money".

Pakistan Defense Spending. Source: Jane's Defense

After the India-Pakistan aerial combat over Kashmir, New York Times published a story from its South Asia correspondent headlined: "After India Loses Dogfight to Pakistan, Questions Arise About Its Military".  Here are some excerpts of the report:

"Its (India's) loss of a plane last week to a country (Pakistan) whose military is about half the size and receives a quarter (a sixth according to SIPRI) of the funding is telling. ...India’s armed forces are in alarming shape....It was an inauspicious moment for a military the United States is banking on to help keep an expanding China in check".

India-Pakistan Ratios of Tanks and Soldiers

Ineffective Indian Military:

Academics who have studied Indian military have found that it is ineffective by design. In "Army and Nation: The Military and Indian Democracy Since Independence",  the author Steven I. Wilkinson, Nilekani Professor of India and South Asian Studies and Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at Yale, has argued that the civil-military constraints that have helped prevent a coup have hurt Indian military effectiveness and preparedness in at least three important ways:

(1) the weakening of the army before the 1962 China war;

(2) the problems caused for defense coordination and preparation by unwieldy defense bureaucracy, duplication of functions among different branches and lack of sharing of information across branches and

(3) the general downgrading of pay and perks since independence which has left the army with huge shortage of officers that affected the force's discipline capabilities.

Summary:

India's international perception as a "great power rising" has suffered a serious setback as a result of its recent military failures against Pakistan which spends only a sixth of India's military budget and ranks 17th in the world, far below India ranking 4th by globalfirepower.com.  "Desh ka bahut nuksaan hua hai", acknowledged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi after his military's recent failures in Balakot and Kashmir. This marked a major shift in Modi's belligerent tone that has been characterized by his boasts of "chhappan inch ki chhati" (56 inch chest) and  talk of  "munh tor jawab" (jaw-breaking response) and "boli nahin goli" (bullets, not talks) to intimidate Pakistan in the last few years.  The recent events are forcing India's western backers to reassess their strategy of boosting India as a counterweight to China.

Here's a discussion on the subject:

https://youtu.be/tEWf-6cT0PM


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Here's Indian Prime Minister Modi making excuses for his military's failures:

https://youtu.be/QIt0EAAr3PU

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Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

China-Pakistan Defense Production Collaboration Irks West

Balakot and Kashmir: Fact Checkers Expose Indian Lies

Is Pakistan Ready for War with India?

Pakistan-Made Airplanes Lead Nation's Defense Exports

Modi's Blunders and Delusions 

India's Israel Envy: What If Modi Attacks Pakistan?

Project Azm: Pakistan to Develop 5th Generation Fighter Jet

Pakistan Navy Modernization

Pakistan's Sea-Based Second Strike Capability

Who Won the 1965 War? India or Pakistan?

Pakistani Military's Performance in 1971 War

[Riaz Haq]

India’s Great-Power Delusions
How New Delhi’s Grand Strategy Thwarts Its Grand Ambitions
Ashley J. Tellis

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/india/indias-great-power-delusions

Since the turn of the century, the United States has sought to help India rise as a great power.

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In military terms, it is the most significant conventional power in South Asia, but here, too, its advantages over its local rival are not enormous: in fighting in May, Pakistan used Chinese-supplied defense systems to shoot down Indian aircraft. With China on one side and an adversarial Pakistan on the other, India must always fear the prospect of an unpalatable two-front war. Meanwhile, at home, the country is shedding one of its main sources of strength—its liberal democracy—by embracing Hindu nationalism. This evolution could undermine India’s rise by intensifying communal tensions and exacerbating problems with its neighbors, forcing it to redirect security resources inward to the detriment of outward power projection. The country’s illiberal pivot further undermines the rules-based international order that has served it so well.

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An illiberal India is also likely to be less powerful. The BJP’s policies have polarized India along ideological and religious lines, and the unresolved issues about how India’s changing demography is to be represented in parliament threaten to exacerbate regional and linguistic divisions. This makes India look increasingly like the highly divided United States. Polarization has been bad enough for Americans, hobbling their institutions and fueling democratic decay. But it will be even worse for India, where the state and society are much weaker. Polarization, for example, could intensify the armed rebellions against New Delhi that have long been underway, creating opportunities for outside powers to sow chaos within India’s borders. Those conflicts could also spill over into India’s neighborhood, as the ideological animus against Muslims exacerbates tensions with both Bangladesh and Pakistan. Polarization would also increase India’s internal security burdens, consuming resources that New Delhi needs to project influence abroad. And even if polarization does not create more internal troubles, it will undermine New Delhi’s efforts to mobilize its population in accumulating national power.

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The United States has tolerated these Indian behaviors in the past in part because both countries were largely liberal democracies. As both proceed down the path of illiberalism, however, they will no longer be tied by shared values. Transactional habits may come to dominate the relationship, and Washington could demand more of New Delhi as the price of partnership. Trump’s approach to India in his second term has already signaled such an evolution. Indeed, India’s inability to match China in the future, as well as its commitment to multipolarity, which is fundamentally at odds with American interests, will be deeply inconvenient for the United States. India, it seems, will partner with the United States on some things involving China, but it is unlikely to partner with Washington in every significant arena—even when it comes to Beijing.

If New Delhi cannot effectively balance Beijing in Asia, Washington will invariably wonder how many resources and how much faith it should invest in India. A liberal United States might continue to support a liberal India because helping it would be inherently worthwhile (provided that the costs were not prohibitive and New Delhi’s success still served some American interests). But if either India or the United States remains illiberal, there will be no ideological reason for the latter to help the former.