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| Dassault Rafale |
By Trefor Moss
Indian officials are preoccupied by China’s growing military power. They would do better to fix their own incoherent defense establishment.
Modern India is economically and strategically buoyant, and has every reason to feel confident as the 21st century progresses. So it’s strange to think that this same confident place is developing an inferiority complex over China’s military power.
Never mind that New Delhi just announced a hefty 13 percent defense budget increase for 2012-13, or that the country is now the world’s biggest importer of military systems. Most Indian commentators seem to have digested these two pieces of news by focusing on the downside: that the country’s $39 billion defense budget remains quite modest compared with the $106 billion military budget at China’s disposal.
The critics should bear two things in mind before giving into defense budget envy. First, a 13 percent increase is actually very generous in the context of an Indian economy that’s only expected to grow by 7.6 percent in the coming year. Larger increases aren’t only unaffordable but also strategically untenable, as they would alarm neighboring countries.
Second, the Indian military has long since accepted two facts of strategic life: that the Chinese military will always be bigger; and that it will always be richer.
Read the full story at The Diplomat