Alarming Arms Purchasing Quest in South Asia

by Zaheerul Hassan

17^TH SAARC Summit was held from 10-11^th November 2001 in Addu City of Maldives. During this time  a major participant (India) was concluding her final deal with USA and France  for purchasing of F-35 aircrafts and Submarines, whereas  rest of the members including the  Indians  were negotiating for peace, trade, transport, economic integration, security issues, such as piracy, climate change, and good governance etc. Indian quest for ‘Arms purchasing’ is directly threatening regional peace and security of the countries like China, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal. This race of increasing artillery between Indio-China and Indo-Pakistan has been sped up when India had daydream of replacing China as regional power after the disintegration of Great Soviet Union. In this regard US is fully supporting Indian desire of expansion because both have common objective of repressing China.

 In the last 10 years China has quietly built the world's largest fleet of diesel-powered, ultra-quiet submarines, recently put its first aircraft carrier into operation, is building an amphibious fleet patterned after the Marine-Navy amphibious force, and is building its own stealth jet fighter. Pakistan and China has also developed JF-17 Thunder aircraft which has been placed in Dubai Air Show November 2011. The air craft gave tremendous performance on November 13, 2011 in the live show.   Anyhow, Pakistan has also earlier bought the Agosta 90B subs (also French).  The first of the Agostas was built in France, but the other two were built in Pakistan.  India purchased Scorpene. The Scorpene are a more recent design, the result of cooperation between French and Spanish sub builders. The Agosta is a 1,500 ton (surface displacement) diesel-electric sub with a 36 man crew and four 533mm (21 inch) torpedo tubes (with 20 torpedoes and/or anti-ship missiles carried). The Scorpene is a little heavier (1,700 tons), has a smaller crew (32) and is a little faster. It has six 533mm torpedo tubes, and carries 18 torpedoes and/or missiles. Both models can be equipped with an AIP (air independent propulsion) system. This enables the sub to stay under longer, thus making the sub harder to find. AIP allows the sub to travel under water for more than a week, at low speed (5-10 kilometers an hour). The Pakistanis have an option to retrofit AIP in their current two Agostas.

According to media reports and reliable sources, over the next 12 years, India is going to spend US $200 billion on defence acquisitions to replace its outdated inventory. In this respect, on February 15, 2010, a report of the Indian strategic defense magazine (India Strategic’s Def Expo) had pointed out that 70 per cent of the inventory of the Indian armed forces is more than 20 years old, and need to be replaced with modern technology. It explained that nearly half of this funding ($100b) will go to the Indian Air Force (IAF), which would need to replace more than half of its combat jet fleet as well as the entire transport aircraft and helicopter fleet. The army needs new guns, tanks, rocket launchers, multi-terrain vehicles, while the navy needs ships, aircraft carriers and new range of nuclear submarines. India is the world's largest importer of defence equipment with purchase of $ 6 billion worth of military hardware every year. Notably, in three years from 1994 to 1997 India’s defence budget was increased from 20 percent to 24.4 percent. For the financial year 2001-2002 defence had been allocated Rs 620,000.00 million. This amount shows an increase of Rs 75,000 million as compared to previous year’s revised estimates of Rs 544,610 million. In 2009, India increased its defense budget by a whopping 28.2 percent or Rs 130,000.00 million. Some experts estimate that military spending will increase further, totaling as much as 200 billion dollars over the period to 2022.

Indian-US nexus is against China and Pakistan taking these countries as joint threat. Indian cold war doctrine has been failed since Pakistan has made a dent in it by carrying out the successful experiment of nuclear tactical weapon.   Indian Navel Headquarters is located at New Delhi having three naval commands; Eastern at Vishakhapatnam, Western at Mumbai and Southern at Kochi (Cochin). It has a joint command (Andaman and Nicobar). By 2012, India is planning to establish a new naval command with the name of, “The Far Eastern Naval command.” With the concept of creating the “Blue Water Navy,” this command would secure the Indian strategic interests in the Southeast Asian region. Indeed, the decision to establish this command was taken in 1995, in a covert meeting between the defence officials of India and United States, who had the nodes of respective heads of the states. Considering China a joint threat, United States has persuaded India to patrol the Malacca Strait under Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). Upon its completion, the command will have “a chain of small anchor stations and three main bases.” Since the US would be a major direct and indirect beneficiary of this new naval command, therefore, it has sufficiently funded the India for its development. Apart from the US, Russia is also assisting India in the establishment of the new naval command. 

According to an article “Strategic and Regional Implication of Indian Naval Expansion” written by Col Dr. Raja Muhammad Khan published in NDU Journal  in 2010, the active strength of the Indian Navy is over 58,350 persons. Besides, it has 55,000 reservists. The naval vessels include; sixteen SSK series submarines, eight DDG Destroyers. Indian Navy has twelve Frigates which mainly includes eleven FFG and one FF1- Krishna (UK Leander), used as the training frigate. Besides, Indian Navy has twenty-four Corvettes; twenty-eight ‘Patrol and Coastal Combatants’. It has forty-seven vessels to provide logistic support. Indian Navy has ten Mine countermeasures (MSO 10 Pondicherry-(FSU Natya) and seventeen amphibious flotillas. With over 7,000 Naval Aviation personnel, it has adequate combat naval aviation power to support its marine operations. The Russian origin ten Kilo-class Type 877EM or the Sindhugosh-class- units are the backbone of the Indian naval fleet. In order to enhance its capability, Klub/3M-54E Alfa Cruise Missile system is being retrofitted in this system. Besides, Indian Navy also operates with six Shishumar-class Type 209/1500 vessels, which were designed by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) in Germany. HDW Germany built two of these, whereas other two were assembled in Mumbai at the Mazagon Dock. After their trial, these are forming part of the 10th Submarine Squadron, based at Mumbai. Two Foxtrot-class boats, currently being used for the training are also part of this fleet. Besides, the 16 active submarines, Indian Navy is in the process of building six Scorpene-class boats at the indigenous level at Mazagon Dock in Mumbai, under the supervision of French technicians.

Moreover, India has also carrying out restructuring of IAF (Indian Air Force). According to TNN July 2010 New Delhi has also decided to take on the programme worth costing for Rs 42,000 crore projects to procure 126 multi-role fighters for the IAF was the "Mother of all defence deals", think again. But later on, a stage has been set to spend over Rs 50,000 crore for six new-generation submarines for the Indian Navy. In this connection, the Defence Acquisitions Council (DAC), chaired by defence minister A.K Antony, has finally decided that three of the six submarines will be constructed at Mazagon Docks (MDL) in Mumbai and one at Hindustan Shipyard Ltd (HSL) in Visakhapatnam, with the help of a foreign collaborator. In this context after years of development, U.S. government and defense industry representatives have actively started the process of selling the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) overseas. The clear cut shift in US role in Asian region has been noticed. Recent focus has fallen on India and Japan, two Asian powers that Washington sees as important to its future involvement in regional affairs. In fact US is pitching India and Japan against China and Pakistan. She has also offered 4th generation (F/A-18 and F-16) which was rejected by India, with European manufacturers Dassault and Eurofighter the only finalists for a whopping $10 billion contract. Still, the Pentagon recently invited India to consider information on the Joint Strike Fighter for future purchases, labeling the craft the world’s premier fifth-generation platform and highly suited to the requirements of the original competition.

It is also a  well know and established fact that India with its abundant economic resources is spending billions on military purchases with a view to fulfilling its hegemonic designs in the region. US is interested that India wants to project it’s militarily prowess in the region to inspire owe for its neighbours. She wants to put India as her watchdog and playing leading role in the regional and global politics projecting itself a great military power. Actually it appears that India suffers from inferiority complex from China. 

World community should know that any incident would be converted into flash point of nuclear war because of the presence of three nuclear powers (China, Pakistan and India). Indian building up of arms in collaboration with Americans and other European countries is part of the grand American’s potential objectives. Similarly China and Pakistan have also prepared the plan to deal with any foreign aggression or misadventure. The danger of nuclear conflict multiplied more when both traditional rivals Pakistan and India have nuclear arsenals. Currently Pakistan has almost 100 arsenals and India is having 30-45 Nuclear weapons. Thus there is a need to ask India for stop pilling up the arms. I would like to suggest to South Asian countries to get rid of US interference. Moreover the leadership of South Asian countries should work for welfare of mankind instead of piling the weaponry.