Premvir Das: In need of disproportionately more attention

The total fund allocation for the defence sector in annual Budgets is unlikely to change much in the future. But modernisation of hardware deserves a much bigger share of this fund than manpower, keeping in mind the emerging security situation

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Many people believe that annual Budgets signify the direction in which the defence sector - that essential element of our nation's security - is set to move. This assumption is somewhat simplistic. What the annual allocation does is it only identifies the funds that are earmarked for revenue and capital expenditures in the coming year; in a broad sense this gives some idea of how much would be spent on maintenance and modernisation. How this would lead to enhanced or diminished military preparedness is left unsaid. Defence analysts play around with the allocation, converting it into percentages of gross domestic product or that of the central government's expenditure during the year. But these are only statistics. Looked at in another way, it is just a routine increase over the previous year's allocation. It is, therefore, not surprising that the word "defence" did not find even a mention in the nearly two-hour-long Budget speech of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday. Nor did it merit attention in any of the several debates on TV channels throughout that day.

In the year gone by, Rs 2.47 lakh crore was allocated for defence expenditure, including Rs 1.52 lakh crore for revenue (maintenance) and Rs 95,000 crore for capital (modernisation). As has happened almost every year, the former was spent in full or even more (unavoidable) while the latter (far more important) was left underutilised by around Rs 13,000 crore. For 2016-17, the total amount provided is Rs 2.58 lakh crore, which includes Rs 82,000 crore under the capital head. The total amount allocated is just about five per cent more than what was set aside for the year coming to a close; the outlay assigned to modernisation is Rs 13,000 crore less than what was budgeted last year. As 80 to 85 per cent of the capital outlay goes into schemes already sanctioned and contracted in earlier years, there is little left with which to fund new requirements. That just about tells the story.

It is not that this government is any less concerned about national security than others before it; it certainly claims to be more proactive on the issue. The reality, however, is that in absolute terms it is simply not possible for the military to be allocated more resources, given the competing and compelling needs of other claimants such as education, health care, agriculture and rural sector elevation, infrastructure and job creation. Political realities also cannot be ignored in this holistic maths and no government will come up with a Budget that may serve to throw it out of office in the next three years. This is the context in which the allocations made for military modernisation should be seen.

As the first prerequisite, military planners must understand that unless serious efforts are made to curtail the maintenance element in the allocation, that available for modernisation will inevitably take a hit, as the overall fund allocation cannot be escalated by much. Unless manpower is reduced or, to use a more sophisticated term, "right-sized", nothing can be done. Here, the Indian Army is the major actor. From a sanctioned strength of 825,000 men in 1964 post the conflict with China - this strength to fight a two-front war - it has now grown to nearly 1.2 million. This has been justified on various grounds - counter-insurgency and terrorism being two such - but without taking into account the counter-productive impact this has had and is still having on its effectiveness: it dilutes the attention that can and must be paid to modernising hardware. This manpower-intensive policy is also to the detriment of creating capabilities, which the present and future security scenarios and strategies will need. It has led to a situation in which essential items needed by our soldiers remain in short supply, apart from the failure to replace 30-year-old guns. More examples can be cited but these should be enough to highlight the fact that unless the Army's manpower is reduced, its war-fighting capabilities will continue to diminish. No calls for increasing defence allocations beyond those being made will yield a useful result, given the compulsions that are faced by those responsible for making them.

The other downside of this huge manpower segment is that resources needed to enhance strategic capabilities at sea and in the air are continuously constrained. These two arms are not as maintenance-oriented as the land forces, but must still operate within the limitations of the overall budget. In recent years, efforts have been made to give more teeth to capabilities that strengthen reach and staying power quite far away from home - essential in the emerging security scenario - but these are, by no means, enough and much more remains to be done. The entire approach must now shift from threat perception-based planning that caters to conflict on land borders to an interests-and-threats-based thought process. In the first, we have been constantly looking at a two-front war in which "boots on the ground" will hold prominence. Shifting to the other, we must develop capabilities that will deter potential adversaries from exploiting our strengths in areas - not necessarily on the land borders - where possibly more unacceptable punishment could be inflicted. There is a need to comprehensively review the entire focus of our national strategy and defence planning. To continue following a process that has seen almost no change in the last five decades is short-sighted; it gives fewer "bangs for the buck" while providing a sense of security that may well be quite optimistic and, indeed, unreal.

Two high-powered groups have looked into issues relevant to the defence structure in the last 15 years -the first one in 2000 following the Kargil War during the tenure of the then National Democratic Alliance government and the second, a decade later during the United Progressive Alliance regime. Sadly, neither has resulted in a wide-ranging and holistic reappraisal and reframing of our national security strategies. As a result, we continue to swim along with the practice of incremental annual changes in our defence budgets, which neither determine what we must have nor provide the means required to achieve the desired capabilities. These allocations, unlike those made for other sectors, fail to specify the enhanced prowess that the resources allocated can be expected to deliver in tune with the current security environment. Maintaining a 1.2-million land force is unlikely to figure on top of that list.

The writer was a member of the Task Force set up in 2000 to review higher defence management. He has also served on the National Security Advisory Board