Preparing the economy for war: India must adapt to a conflict-driven world

One of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statements that didn’t age well is the one he made in Samarkand on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in September 2022. “I know that today’s era is not of war…” he said in his meeting with Vladimir Putin. This was seven months after the Ukraine war had begun, and the world was criticising India for not taking a stand against Russian aggression. Today, not only has that war still not ended, but another major conflagration has reignited in West Asia, this time with America partnering Israel. Iran is retaliating not only against them but against neighbouring Islamic states as well. Last year, we too had a near war for four days with Pakistan after the Pahalgam terrorist attacks, and Pakistan, meanwhile, has launched its own war against Afghanistan. And we have not even listed the wars going on in Africa.

 

Ideally, this should not be an era of war, given the common challenges humanity faces from multiple threats — from climate change to technological disruption — but this is clearly not an era for peace. For India, the current lull should be used to prepare ourselves for war so that we can prevent it from happening. The world over, rearmament is the name of the game. Europe is rearming, so is Japan. China and the United States never stopped their military arms race, and the Pakistan-China-Turkiye-Azerbaijan collaboration during Operation Sindoor tells us that our neighbourhood is just one miscalculation away from a wider sub-continental war where India may be fighting multiple forces, some seen, some unseen. Our eastern borders with Bangladesh, too, may not be as safe as they were under Sheikh Hasina, especially now that Jamaat-e-Islami is the main opposition party and has won most of its parliamentary seats in areas bordering India.

 

Wars are prevented only when potential adversaries know that they cannot win or achieve their objectives either by conflict or through the use of non-state operators and terrorism. In our neighbourhood, we have Pakistan, and Israel has Iran, which also sponsors terrorism against the Jewish state from multiple directions. The basis for the Israel-India friendship comes from a shared threat perception, of two countries living in the two most dangerous neighbourhoods in the world. But both have to fight their wars separately.

 

India has for too long been lackadaisical about defence and security spending. While this has changed under the Modi government, it is simply not happening fast enough in proportion to the threats emanating from global and neighbourhood forces. It took the Modi government several years to start ramping up domestic defence purchases and building indigenous capacities. Even while importing equipment, it was too hesitant. While ordering fighters from France in 2016-17, we did not consider whether the two squadrons ordered would be enough for our defence needs, when many more squadrons — from the MiGs to the Jaguars and Mirages — were past their sell-by date. We are now far below our sanctioned strength of 42 squadrons (at 30 or below), and rushing to buy 114 Rafales, which too won’t come for several years. Our indigenous Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (stealth fighter) programme is at least a decade away from production and deployment.

 

What is required is a change in our mindset from being a benign republic that chooses to roll with the punches rather than being prepared to fight. We need to accept the reality of a more conflict-oriented world. We do not need to become a war economy, but a war-adjacent one, one that can quickly turn its industrial and technological capability to produce war material, so that we can fight any war, deter any enemy. More so when modern wars may not be fought on the borders, but in the air, at sea, and in cyberspace, often using drones and missiles where no direct contact with the enemy is required.

 

The additional lesson to learn from the Ukraine and Iran wars is that being strong alone is not good enough if the other side is able to extend the war to domains like civilian and industrial infrastructure. Russia has been systematically demolishing Ukraine’s power and other infrastructure, while Israel (unconscionably) did that in Gaza. Iran is now trying to do the same by attacking not just US and Israeli military targets, but also civilian targets in multiple countries, from Qatar to the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, and even Saudi Arabia and Cyprus. This is the typical loser’s gambit, where the weaker side tries to scorch the earth so badly that even its stronger enemies start wondering whether the fight is worth it. This is what we could expect from Pakistan, in case our conflicts go beyond days. They will target our civilian, industrial and services base. And, surely, they will try to generate communal tensions here so that our resolve is weakened as we fight as much on the internal front as the external one. Iran is trying to turn the Islamic street against its adversaries.

 

The following should be our priorities:

 

One, aggressively indigenise most of our fighting equipment, whether it is tanks, fighters, submarines, warships, or rocket and drone force. If needed, we should create some private monopolies with state support to enable the private sector to become defence champions by building production scale.

 

Two, rapidly scale up our cyber and information warfare capabilities.

 

Three, integrate civilian and defence industry partnerships so that civilian production capabilities can quickly be turned to war machinery when needed.

 

Four, integrate academia with the public and private sector defence units for a more aggressive technological upgrade.

 

Five, invest heavily in intelligence gathering, both through the use of technology and plain old human intelligence. The Ayatollah and the top leadership in Iran could not have been taken out only with eyes in the sky or tech eavesdropping.

 

Six, create protocols for state governments and the police to effectively coordinate civilian defence if industrial and civilian infrastructure is targeted. When power grids are down, refineries are hit, and water supplies are impacted due to missile strikes, we need to have effective leadership in civilian areas to keep the public calm while supplies are restored.

 

Seven, we must maintain sufficient stockpiles of not only war material, but also energy and other critical supplies, both for war and household use. The blocking of the Straits of Hormuz by the Iranians shows why reserves of oil will be vital to maintain our war capabilities and also serve our civilian needs.

 

Eight, we must have media and social media protocols in place for war-time so that our enemies do not use fake and misleading information to demoralise the population.

 

The world is not a safe place anymore, and we must be ready for anything our enemies throw at us.

 

The author is a senior journalist