Missile magnet, INS Viraat burning carbon and cash -Bharat Military Review
Postscript to Pandemic Wars:
COVID-CHALLENGED INDIA SLASHES ARMS SPENDING
by William Thomas
Imagine the U.S. Ministry of Defence announcing a 40% cut in its military budget.
In the midst of an escalating economic crisis, with eye-watering budget cuts pending, that’s what India’s first Chief of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat, announced on May 20, 2020. “We are not expeditionary forces that have to deploy around the globe,” General Rawat remarked, emphasising that Indian armed forces only need to “guard and fight” along the country’s borders.
Gen. Rawat now laments how India's military convinced that country's civilian politicians to buy unnecessary weaponry from “abroad” – primarily, the USA. Egged on over the past 15 years by a superpower born and wedded to violence and now driven into precipitous decline by its own military-corporate-congressional-entertainment complex, India has become the third biggest arms-buyer on Earth.
As a result, India boasts a hair-trigger “nuclear arsenal capable of taking on all major powers,” reporter Shishir Upadhyaya proudly writes – without explaining how India expects to “take on” nuclear-armed Pakistan without suffering mutual annihilation within hours.
Today, India’s defence establishment is asking: is a $71.1 billion annual arms expenditure sustainable in a post-Covid-19 economy? In a country where 360 million people are “surviving on a razor’s edge,” one-in-five children are malnourished, and 3,000 infants are dying every day – does India really need a third sitting-duck aircraft carrier, more nuclear bombs, or all those officers consuming half the defence budget in salaries and pensions while they look for trouble with Pakistan?
The world’s soon-to-be most populous country is not about to disarm. But Covid’s wake-up has pushed Delhi into looking at Russia’s cost-efficient model of updating older weapons to ensure a maximum defense against NATO encroachment, without destroying its economy. And cutting 40% of India’s war budget is a good start.
“Now seems a good time to pause and take stock,” reporter Shishir Upadhyaya. suggests. “In a post-Covid-19 world, where global military spending will be in decline, reviewing and restructuring the nation’s military requirements in a cost-effective manner would seem to be a wholly sensible approach.”
Especially as Super-Cyclone Amphan and Typhoon Vongfong remind everyone of real climate threats that military priorities and pollution are only making worse.
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