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INDIA’S LOOK-EAST PHILOSOPHY

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VOL I, ISSUE IX, JANUARY 2011  ` 100

D E F E N C E  D I P L O M A C Y  S E C U R I T Y

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THE NEW WARRIOR The cyber warfare poses a big challenge to India
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COVER
STORY
P38

Cyber warfare
After being at the receiving end of cyber attacks
from across the border for many years, India is
waking up to devise counter-measures for what is
going to be the new frontiers of modern warfare.

FOCUS (P32) FOREIGN MILITARY SALES (P24)

MILES TO GO AHEAD… MURKY SITUATION

India’s civil and military leaderships are under substantial stress. Buying foreign armaments may help India, but if
Will India learn from the best practices of other nations and this practice goes on carelessly, the country’s
incorporate them in higher defence organisation? indigenisation programme will go for a six.

ASSESSMENT (P65) DEF BIZ (P18) SPECIAL REPORT (P14)

THE IMPASSE IN
NEPAL
Nepal’s instable political scenario looks
like a dark tunnel with no hope of light.
OPERATIONAL
REQUIREMENT
The Indian Army has issued a request for
information for light bullet-proof vehicles
for counter-insurgency operations.
SEARCH IS ON
The Indian Army has been looking
for an anti-tank missile that is
man-portable and easy-to-fire.

(4)
www.geopolitics.in January 2011
Contents JAN.qxd 1/3/2011 4:56 PM Page 3

CHINA’S INFOWAR TUG OF WAR GROWING STRONG THE BEST FIGHTER

STRATEGY (P45)
China is trying to resolve its
emerging territorial and boundary
disputes by raw show of strength
rather than through negotiations.
(P56)
The Sixth Pay Commission has
made the paramilitary officers a
dissatisfied lot. Their salaries and
promotions are unfavourable
compared to Indian Police
Officers.
(P60) (P27)
Over the years, interactions Rick McCrary, Director, F/A-18
between India and Brazil — Super Hornet programme in
have brought them closer. The India, speaks to GEOPOLITICS
two countries are now working about the evolution of the
hard to take their relationship programme and the technical
to the next level. specialities.

PERSPECTIVE (P68)

LOOKING
EAST
India’s ‘Look East’ policy has entered its
third phase of evolution with a thrust on
achieving strategic balance in the Asia-
Pacific region.

INTERNAL SECURITY (52)

NAXAL-PAK

g CONNECTION
Editor-in-Chief
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All information in GEOPOLITICS is derived from sources we consider reliable. It is passed on to our
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VOL I, ISSUE IX, JANUARY 2011  ` 100

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www.geopolitics.in January 2011

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Onlooker jan.qxd 1/3/2011 5:23 PM Page 4
gONLOOKER
PROTON-CRASH SETBACK FOR
RUSSIAN GLONASS PROGRAMME
THE RUSSIAN government has formed
an investigative committee to review the
December 5, 2010 launch failure of a
Proton rocket that ultimately destroyed
three navigational satellites.
The board, made up of representa-
tives from the Ministry of Defence; the
Russian federal space agency, Roscos-
mos; and the Russian space industry,
will attempt to determine the cause of
the rocket failure that will ultimately
cost billions of roubles and set the
GLONASS programme — or Global Nav-
igation System, Moscow’s answer to the
US-built Global Positioning System
(GPS) — back by at least six months.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has
also ordered an audit of the entire $2 bil-
lion programme.
A programming error reportedly
caused the Russian Proton-M booster
rocket carrying the three Glonass-M units
to veer off course following liftoff from
Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan.
“As a result of the failure, Glonass-M
cluster was injected into non-targeted
orbit,” says Roscosmos, the Russian
space agency. The move sent the rocket
www.geopolitics.in
into the Pacific Ocean about 1,609km
Photo courtesy: dailymail.co.uk
(1,000mi) northwest of Hawaii.
Begun during the Soviet era,
GLONASS-M has 21 satellites on orbit; a
successful launch would have complet-
ed the 24-satellite constellation. The
2008 war with Georgia renewed the
Russian government’s interest in
updating the M-class constellation and
pushing forward with the reduced-
weight, next-generation GLONASS-K.
WOMEN IN ‘BRITISH’
SUBMARINES
BRITISH AUTHORITIES are considering
changing the rules that date back more
than 100 years to allow women to join the
crews of the Navy’s “silent service”.
Women have been barred from subs
until now partly because of concerns that
mixed crews could cause tension on vessels
that spends months underwater.
More recently, there have been greater
concerns that a woman’s reproductive
organs and pregnant women could be
affected by the reactors on board modern
nuclear-powered submarines.
A study by the Institute of Naval
Medicine concluded there is no risk to
female or fetal health from submarine radi-
ation under normal operating conditions.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is now
reviewing its policy of excluding women as
submariners with a Navy source suggesting
the ban could be lifted as early as next year.
The Royal Navy’s use of submarines first
began in 1901 and a change in the rules
would mean the MoD having to provide
separate sleeping and showering quarters
within the vessels.
According to media reports, the Naval
Families Federation, said, “There was a
50/50 split about whether females should
serve in submarines. Some family members
did express concerns about where the
females were going to sleep, and a number
of these physical aspects were raised. We
were reassured by the Navy that all this is
being taken into account, but we are still
keen to hear from anyone who has a view.”
A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman
told the media, “The Royal Navy is conduct-
ing a review of its policy of excluding
females from serving in submarines and is
considering the operational, health, legal,
social, technical and financial implica-
tions. No decisions have been taken but
all options will be considered.”
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January 2011
Onlooker jan.qxd 1/3/2011 5:23 PM Page 5
THE FRENCH CONNECTION
A JOINT WORKING group in-
volving members of the French
and UK parliamentary defence
committees has agreed to
discuss increased co-operation
in the unmanned air vehicle
sector as one of its first two
bilateral projects.
Senior officials from the
French National Assembly and
Senate and the UK House of
Commons and House of Lords
met for the first time in Paris on
December 8, 2010. They agreed
that the planned transition of
responsibility to local forces in
Afghanistan and UAV matters will be their two
working themes for 2011.
To meet twice a year, the group will study
the planned implementation of increased col-
laboration between the French and UK armed
forces, as outlined in a defence treaty signed by
President Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime
Minister David Cameron on November 2.
Winning battles
THE EUROPEAN Aeronautic Defence and
Space (EADS) will win the US Air Force
tanker contract over rival Boeing, accord-
ing to the most impartial observer.
One amongst said, “EADS has emerged
as the clear favourite for the coveted deal,
based on the Air Force’s internal analysis
of the two competing bids. Boeing has lost
this competition. The only question now is
whether they choose to protest the award,
and I’m not sure they will.”
The US Air Force said it expects to
announce a winner for the potential $40
www.geopolitics.in
O N L O O K E R
This included proposals to establish a com-
bined joint expeditionary force, share use of
their aircraft carriers, integrate logistics sup-
port for the Airbus Military A400M transport
and pursue possible collaboration on un-
manned combat air vehicles.
The next meeting will take place in London
by mid-2011.
billion contract as early as
next month. Chicago-based
Boeing and EADS, the par-
ent company of Airbus, are
vying for the lucrative work
to build 179 jet tankers for
the Air Force.
It’s the second round of
competition between the
American and European
defence giants in a contest
marked by fierce political
fighting and prodigious
marketing campaigns.
EADS has said that, if suc-
cessful, it plans to assemble
its KC-30 tankers at a $600
million, 1,500-worker facto-
ry to be constructed at
Brookley Field.
Boeing has proposed to
assemble its KC-767 tankers on its existing
commercial assembly lines in Everett,
Washington, and modify them for the mil-
itary in Wichita, Kansas.
EADS, then part of a team led by
Northrop Grumman, won the tanker con-
tract in 2008. But the deal unraveled after
federal auditors, acting on a protest filed
by Boeing, found problems with the way
the Air Force conducted its review.
That led to a new competition
beginning in July, when Boeing and EADS
submitted new bids on the contract.
(7)
g
INDIA HOLDS THE
KEY IN MEETING
CHINA’S RISE
LEE KUAN Yew, Minister Mentor of Singa-
pore, commented in Forbes that during the
last three decades China’s economy has
grown at the phenomenal rate of 10 per
cent per year, sometimes even exceeding
12 per cent. Can China maintain such high
rates for at least another decade, he asked.
He went on to mention that it could.
“China is starting from a lower base, and its
1.3 billion domestic consumers will keep
rates up because
their disposable
incomes are
growing.”
“As its GDP
has increased,
China has be-
come more assertive regarding interna-
tional issues. Those countries on its
periphery — Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the
ten Asean countries (Brunei Darussalam,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore,
Thailand and Vietnam) — have felt China’s
growing influence,” Yew wrote.
He went on to mention that none of
the countries on China’s periphery have
been able to resist the attraction of its mar-
ket. “Slowly, but inexorably, we are being
drawn into China’s economic orbit. If you
look at China’s policies over the last three
decades there is little doubt that it has every
intention of bringing its three northern
neighbours — Korea, Japan and Taiwan —
as well as the Asean countries into its eco-
nomic fold. Of course, at the same time we
do enjoy benefits in trade and investment.”
China, the senior politician and
thinker, emphasized, is a political and eco-
nomic power the region cannot ignore.
“But neither, indeed, can China ignore the
US. Although it has a smaller population —
310 million versus China’s 1.3 billion — the
purchasing power of Americans is many
times that of the Chinese.”
“Without an FTA Korea, Japan, Taiwan
and the Asean countries will be integrated
into China’s economy”, writes Yew, it is an
outcome to be avoided from the American
point of view. “A considerable counterbal-
ancing force would be to add India to the
mix. Whether India would be willing to
enter into an FTA with the US, Korea,
Japan, Taiwan and the Asean nations is the
question. If India joined such an agreement
the combined markets would be more than
equal to the pull from China.”
January 2011
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g
GEOPOLITICS
GLOBALEYE

NATO AND
MISSILE DEFENCE:
OPPORTUNITIES AND
OPEN QUESTIONS
In its strategic concept adopted at the recent Lisbon
summit, NATO defines the establishment of a missile
defence system to defend populations and territories
against a ballistic missile attack as a core element of its
collective defence. However, important questions remain
to be resolved, writes OLIVER THRÄNERT

F
OR THE first time in the alliance’s
history, NATO is pushing for a mis-
sile defence capability to cover the
entire alliance. Building on the
Active Layered Theatre Ballistic
Missile Defence (ALTBMD) system launched
by NATO in March 2005 to protect deployed
troops against short-and medium-range
ballistic missiles, the new system is intended
to offer protection for the entire territory of
the alliance. Its capabilities are to be built up
incrementally beginning in 2011, with the
primary focus on protecting European NATO
members. The entire system is expected to be
established by approximately 2018. In order
to prevent this project from jeopardising
relations with Russia, Moscow, was invited at
the NATO summit in Lisbon in November
2010 to participate in an action plan for the
OPPORTUNITIES concrete design of the intended missile
GALORE: An defence architecture is to be presented
Iranian Shahab-3 at the NATO defence ministers’ meeting in
missile test June 2011.
Of course, the US missile defence plans,
which are to be combined with the
capabilities of European allies, play a key role
Photo courtesy: globalnational.com

www.geopolitics.in January 2011

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Global Eye.qxd 1/3/2011 5:08 PM Page 61
in the build-up of the planned system. Under
former US president George W. Bush, the US
had still emphasised national missile defence
plans. Elements of the defence architecture,
which was mainly intended to protect the US
itself, were to be installed in Poland and the
Czech Republic on the basis of bilateral
treaties. Russia severely criticised these plans
with reference to its own security interests.
When the new US President Barack Obama
cancelled Bush’s plans, many believed the
end of missile defence had come. This assess-
ment proved to be wrong, however. The US
remains interested in building a missile
defence system, but has reassessed its priori-
ties. First of all, Washington is now basing its
plans on the more likely threat: Europe will
be within reach of medium-range ballistic
missiles from the Middle East before the US
comes within range of intercontinental mis-
siles. Secondly, since the entire territory of
NATO is to come under the aegis of the new
program, the alliance as such will according-
ly be included in planning. It is hoped that
this will strengthen coherence within the
alliance. Third, the Obama administration is
striving to build systems that offer greater
flexibility as well as reliability. Therefore, the
initial focus will be on sea-based defence
missiles, which have already been partially
introduced in the US armed forces. Land-
based interceptor missiles would only be
added at a later date. Fourth, attempts will be
made from the start to involve Russia in
building a missile defence architecture for
the alliance.
No decision has been made yet on the
concrete design of the NATO missile defence
architecture. It is already clear, however, that
the US will carry the main burden. Washing-
ton is contributing the largest share of
military hardware such as radar arrays and
interceptors. In this respect, it is using the
missile defence project to assert its leader-
ship claim within the alliance. Elements
contributed by the US must be integrated
with the capabilities currently being devel-
oped by NATO to protect deployed troops,
such as Patriot missile defence systems.
NATO itself would only have to supply
limited financing, currently estimated at
around 200 million over a ten-year period.
But this would only cover the cost of linking
individual defence modules. In addition, the
alliance members are invited to contribute
national investment. In view of shrinking
defence budgets, a number of states are
reluctant to make such commitments.
Another issue that remains to be resolved
is the question of command-and-control
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GLOBALEYE
authority. In case of a missile attack,
the interceptor system would have to be
activated within minutes. There would be no
time for consultations. NATO commanders
would have to be authorised in advance to
launch the missiles. Due to the possibility of
false alarms, some allies are unhappy with
this solution.
THE MAIN THREAT: IRAN’S MISSILE
PROGRAMME
The necessity of the missile defence system is
often justified with the increasing prolifera-
tion of offensive missiles and the technology
associated with them. NATO Secretary
General Anders Fogh Rasmussen points out
that more than 30 countries have the techni-
cal capabilities to produce ballistic missiles.
Therefore, NATO troops on deployment
require protection against missile attacks in
order to ensure their operability. For civilian
populations, ballistic missiles mainly
constitute a comprehensive threat if they are
able to carry nuclear or chemical warheads.
An opponent equipped with missiles and
nuclear weapons is capable of causing a very
great deal of damage within a very short time,
even if the weapons used in an attack are not
particularly accurate.
Even if, due to Turkish concerns, NATO’s
Strategic Concept does not name any names,
Iran is currently the only country that could
acquire the potential to threaten central
Europe with nuclear-tipped missiles in the
coming years. Already today, large parts of
NATO’s southern flank and of NATO partner
states are within reach of the missiles devel-
oped by Tehran.
Currently, however, this does not imply
any nuclear threat.
The Shahab-3 missile, variants of which
have been put into service with the Iranian
armed forces, is believed to have a maximum
range of about 2,000 km. It is still unclear
whether this maximum range can also be
achieved with a payload of about 1,000 kg,
i.e., the estimated minimum weight of a
nuclear warhead. The Shahab-3 is a single-
stage liquid-propellant rocket based on the
design of the North Korean Nodong, which is
ultimately derived from Soviet Scud missile
technology of the 1950s and 1960s. In
November 2008, Iran conducted the first test
of its new Sajil missile. Unlike the Shahab,
this is a two-stage missile using a solid
propellant. For a country like Iran, this
constitutes a technological quantum leap,
though the reliability of the system is ques-
tionable and its accuracy remains low. This
has given Iran at least an entry to multi-stage
(9)
technology, which is necessary for increasing
operational range significantly beyond that
of the Shahab programme. The most impor-
tant advantage of the solid propellant is that
the rocket boosters do not require time-
consuming fuelling before launch, but are
available virtually whenever needed. Howev-
er, Iran still lacks the industrial capacity for
mass production of such missiles.
Whether Iran will be able in the coming
years to successfully continue its missile pro-
gramme depends on factors that are difficult
to assess, such as the effects of sanctions, the
country’s general economic development,
and the scope and quality of the assistance
from abroad that Iran apparently continues
to receive. It also remains unclear whether
Tehran will complete the entire path towards
the production of a nuclear capability. If a
verifiable and sustainable diplomatic solu-
tion were found in the crisis over the Iranian
nuclear programme, NATO would probably
not terminate its missile defence programme
entirely, but continue developing it at a
diminished intensity and pace.
DEFICITS IN NUCLEAR
DETERRENCE
Considering its nuclear deterrence, why is
NATO even planning to build a missile
defence system? On the one hand, an acci-
dental launch by Iran or another country
cannot be excluded. This alone would not,
however, justify building a missile defence
system for the protection of the civilian pop-
ulation. On the other hand, the NATO missile
defence system is intended to provide a
damage-limitation option and to protect the
civilian population in the coming years
against the only state threat for which there
are no efficient military provisions yet. Such a
damage-limitation option could have a de-
escalating effect in case of a crisis. Hostile
offensive capabilities would not necessarily
have to be taken out through own offensive
operations at an early stage. Also, retaliatory
strikes could be conducted at a far lower lev-
el than if an attacker were to cause maximum
harm against a completely unprotected civil-
ian population. Finally, a missile defence sys-
tem increases the attacker’s uncertainty
regarding the potential success of his actions.
Should Iran — or, subsequently, further
states in the near and Middle East — acquire
the ability to reach Central Europe with
nuclear missiles, the nuclear capabilities of
NATO or the US would certainly suffice to
deter Tehran from any attack. However, in the
future, the point may be not whether the
alliance can deter Iran, but whether Iran is
January 2011
Global Eye.qxd 1/3/2011 5:08 PM Page 62
capable of deterring NATO or the West in
general. This question may arise if a military
intervention in the Middle East is considered
in order to counter undesirable Iranian influ-
ence or aggression that is incompatible with
international law. In such a crisis, a nuclear
escalation could not be excluded altogether,
considering possible time pressure and lack
of information on all sides involved. NATO
would be well advised to acquire a damage-
limitation option for such a contingency.
MISSILE DEFENCE: A SUBSTITUTE
FOR NUCLEAR SHARING IN NATO?
In the run-up to the NATO summit, there
was much speculation over a possible link-
age between the build-up of a missile
defence system and nuclear disarmament.
However, France successfully resisted
deliberations that were gaining traction
especially in Germany to reconsider the
alliance defence programme as a long-term
replacement for nuclear deterrence. In its
strategic concept, NATO does profess the
vision of a world free of nuclear weapons.
The alliance would contemplate the use of
nuclear forces only under extremely remote
circumstances. However, as in earlier NATO
concepts, deterrence resting on an appro-
priate mix of conventional and nuclear
capabilities remains the core of the alliance
strategy. As long as nuclear weapons exist,
NATO will remain a nuclear alliance — this
is the quintessence of the Lisbon docu-
ment. At the same time, however, the inten-
tion is to create the necessary conditions
for further reduction of the remaining US
nuclear weapons in Europe. The precondi-
tion for this is Russia’s willingness to
increase transparency regarding its non-
strategic nuclear weapons stationed in
Europe and to redeploy them away from
NATO’s borders.
Against this background, the debate
over the future of nuclear sharing within
NATO can be expected to continue (cf. CSS
Analysis no. 74). Germany, the Netherlands,
Belgium, and Italy maintain air forces that
are designated for delivery of US nuclear
weapons stationed in these countries. Fur-
thermore, the US maintains aircraft of its
own in Italy and Turkey — where US
nuclear weapons are also stored — that can
be used to deliver nuclear weapons. Ger-
many, the Netherlands, and Belgium as
well as some non-host nations such as Nor-
way are advocating a rapid withdrawal of
these armaments.
Italy and Turkey are more reserved in
this matter. While Rome fears a loss of
influence, Ankara does not wish to remain
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GLOBALEYE
the sole host nation in case of a withdrawal
of US weapons from other NATO states. The
question also remains whether, in a sce-
nario where Iran acquires nuclear arms, a
withdrawal of US nuclear capabilities
would not induce Turkey to develop atomic
weapons of its own. Many new NATO
partners are also opposed to a complete
withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from
Europe. They fear that this might herald the
end of the US military presence in Europe
altogether — a development that they aim
to prevent with a view to Russia, which they
still perceive as problematic.
Bearing in mind the deterioration of
aging nuclear-capable European delivery
systems, NATO is under pressure to decide.
In view of continuously shrinking defence
budgets, it is questionable whether both
nuclear sharing and a NATO missile
defence system will be affordable in the
future. There are many indicators suggest-
ing that the scales might tip in favour of a
NATO missile defence system in the
coming years. This would mean that Wash-
ington would still be bound to Europe by a
major military project. Such an outcome
would accord with the interests of many
new NATO countries that wish to prevent a
weakening of the alliance. Construction of
a NATO missile defence system would lib-
erate nuclear sharing from the burden of its
role as the most important military anchor
of the transatlantic relationship. Since it
would be an alliance project, the partners
of the US would also have a say in it. Fur-
thermore, effective protection against a
possible Iranian nuclear threat could pre-
vent Turkey from developing nuclear
weapons of its own.
COOPERATION WITH RUSSIA
The main political challenge in the context
of the planned missile defence shield con-
sists in convincing Russia that the system is
not directed against its interests. This is why
NATO has invited Russia to participate.
Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev gave a
fundamentally positive reply on this matter
at the Lisbon summit. This creates great
opportunities for both sides. Successful
cooperation on missile defence would be an
important element of comprehensive rap-
prochement between NATO and Russia,
which has been explicitly mentioned as a
goal by the alliance in Lisbon.
In its Nuclear Posture Review, the
Obama administration had already offered
Russia a dialog on far-reaching cooperation
in missile defence. The offer included
integrating US and Russian sensors and
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conducting joint tests, manoeuvres,
exercises, and simulations. This would make
it possible to develop shared threat and situ-
ation analyses, possibly involving Russian
radar installations. The US does not appear,
however, to envisage joint command and
control of the defence system. Rather, Wash-
ington wants the commander to be a NATO
general — presumably, an American — as is
already the case with the alliance’s integrated
air defence system.
The Russian position is an inconsistent
one. On the one hand, Moscow wishes to go
beyond the ideas proposed by the US and
build a single integrated system rather than
two conjoined defence arrays. On the other
hand, there are fundamental reservations
against cooperation. In particular, the
Russian military still harbours suspicions
that the US and NATO are still ultimately
aiming to deprive Russia of its second-
strike capability. President Medvedev
expressed this concern at a press confer-
ence in Lisbon. He made clear that Russia
demands full equality when it comes to
missile defence. Moscow is aware that its
own capabilities are lagging far behind
those of the US. This runs contrary to its
claim to be treated as an equal in coopera-
tion with the US. The question of command
and control could grow into a stumbling
block in this connection. Moscow’s vision of
a joint command is still far removed from
the alliance’s plans, which rather envisage
separate operational commands.
OUTLOOK
The project of a missile defence system for
the entire alliance provides a great opportu-
nity for NATO to demonstrate renewed unity.
Nevertheless, controversial internal debates
within the alliance on this issue may be
expected in the future as well. Concerns over
both the cost and the efficiency of the missile
shield will be raised. The problem of the
future command structure for the defence
system will also continue to preoccupy the
alliance. Mainly, however, the future of the
project will depend on whether Russia can
be convinced to cooperate. If that succeeds,
missile defence will also have made a signifi-
cant contribution to rapprochement
between the former opponents. Otherwise,
those NATO members for whom good rela-
tions with Russia are extremely important
will view the NATO missile defence project
with scepticism.
(The article has been excerpted from
International Relations and Security
Network, ETH Zurich)
January 2011
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Number Game January.qxd 1/3/2011
171
IAF OFFICERS
RECEIVE BREVETS
THE INDIAN Air Force recently
got a new batch of officers with
171 newly-commissioned Flying
Officers graduating from the Air
Force Academy (AFA), at Dundi-
gal near Hyderabad. Air Chief
Marshal P V Naik reviewed the
combined graduation parade
and awarded the President’s
Commission to graduating
Flight Cadets that included 39
THE CENTRAL plan to pump in
Rs 3,300 crore over the next 16
months in micro projects in
1,000+
MORE THAN 1,000 people have
been killed in the last decade in
firing by the Border Security
Force (BSF) along the India-
Bangladesh border, according to
a report by Human Rights Watch
released recently.
The report, “Trigger Happy
— Excessive Use of Force by
Indian Troops at the Bangladesh
Border”, documents the experi-
ences of families whose
members were killed in these fir-
ings as well as instances of tor-
ture, arbitrary detention and
www.geopolitics.in
5:19 PM Page 4
women. Four Indian Navy
officers and one Indian Coast
Guard officer also received their
flying brevets (Wings) at
the graduation parade from the
Air Chief.
Addressing the newly-
commissioned IAF officers, the
Air Chief impressed upon the
technological transformation of
the Air Force and exhorted the
`3,300-CR TO CHECK
MAOISTS
Naxal-hit districts has been
aimed at addressing the devel-
opmental deficit and controlling
the expansion and consolidation
of Naxal influence. Home Minis-
ter P Chidambaram unveiled the
ambitious integrated action plan
recently that will give 60 districts
a free hand to spend `25 crore
over the next four months. The
districts would similarly get `30
crore each next year.
However, similar develop-
KILLED
ALONG
BANGLADESH
BORDER
indiscriminate use of force on
people living in areas along the
border. The research was con-
ducted by two NGOs: MASUM in
(12)
g 160
GEOPOLITICS
NUMBERS
GAME
young officers to acquire full
understanding and knowledge
of application of new technol-
ogy to exploit the true potential
of aerospace power. Flying Offi-
cer Nandeep CS, who
commanded the parade, was
awarded the President’s Plaque
and the Chief of the Air Staff
‘Sword of Honour’ for standing
first in the Pilot Course.
ment schemes have not suc-
ceeded in the past since a major
chunk of the funds remained un-
used. Also, questions have been
raised about the efficacy of the
funds that were shown to have
been spent.
A study earlier this year indi-
cated that expenditure on
health, education, childcare,
electricity, roads, water, was
significantly lower in most of the
33 districts hit by Naxalism.
Kolkata and ODHIKAR in Dhaka.
The report has recommended
that the government ensure that
security forces do not use indis-
criminate force when checking
cross-border crimes.
Said Meenakshi
Ganguly, the South Asia
Director of Human
Rights Watch, “It is true
that a lot of illegal
activities, including
smuggling and traffick-
ing, occur on the
India-Bangladesh bor-
der, but smuggling is
not a crime that war-
rants the death
penalty.” On its part, the BSF has
justified the killings citing
self-defence reasons or that the
suspects were evading arrest.
JAWANS
HAVE
KSHAMTA
THE FIRST batch of 160
jawans of the Indian Army
under the project Ksham-
ta, a unique skill-building
initiative undertaken in
association with Microsoft
India, has shown how
public and private part-
nerships (PPP) can work.
Project Kshmata aims at
training another 1,000
jawans in Phase II.
Kshamta, meaning
capability, is a 110-hour
training programme con-
sisting of 30 hours of the
Microsoft Digital Literacy
Skills Programme and 80
hours of spoken English
training. The Indian Army
is over 1.1 million in
strength, third largest in
the world, of which over
50,000 soldiers retire every
year. Microsoft and the
Indian Army signed an
MoU on December 8, 2009
for Project Kshamta.
The model proposed
and approved by the Indi-
an Army is designed to
train more than 1,000
master trainers in India,
across 48 Army training
units, who will in turn
train and certify fellow
jawans in their units.
January 2011
Number Game January.qxd 1/3/2011 5:21 PM Page 5

g
NUMBERSGAME

15,000
THE THREE wings of the armed
forces are facing a shortage
of over 15,000 officers, Lok
Sabha was informed during the
recent session.
“In Army, there is a shortage
of 12,510 officers. The Navy is
short of 1,747 officers and the IAF
OFFICERS
SHORT IN
ARMED FORCES
is short of 1,016 officers of its
sanctioned strength,” Defence
Minister A K Antony said in a
written reply to a Lok Sabha
query. He said the authorised
strength of officers in the Army
was 47,864 officers, in the Navy
9,719 while the IAF had a sanc-
tioned strength of 12,211 officers.
Antony said the shortage of
officers was attributable to a
number of factors including
tough selection procedures,
difficult service conditions cou-
pled with perceived high degree
of risk involved in service career.
6,749
WOMEN
OFFICERS IN
ARMED FORCES
THERE ARE 6,749 women
officers working in the armed
forces, with over one-third of
them inducted during the last
three years, Lok Sabha was
informed recently.
“2,591 women officers
have been inducted into the
armed forces in the last three
years and a total of 6,749 of
them are working in the Ser-
vices,” Defence Minister A K
Antony said in a written
reply to a Lok Sabha query.
He said the highest numbers
of officers were with the

11,000+ 961 Army followed by the Army

acres Medical Corps and the
 Indian Air Force.
jammu & kashmir 107
acres 2,949
722 456 617
ACRES OF acres acres acres acres
Punjab Assam
DEFENCE LAND
494 418
Haryana
ENCROACHED acres acres Delhi Uttar Pradesh
Bihar
Rajasthan
IN THE backdrop of scams like West Bengal
Adarsh dogging defence lands
Madhya
across the country, the Defence 448 Pradesh
406
Ministry has now admitted that Gujrat acres acres
around 11,052 acres of its 17.30
lakh acres of land across the
country has been encroached or 304 acres Maharashtra
occupied illegally.
Leading the list of states, Some others in the 2,285
where the maximum number of list include Haryana acres
encroachments has taken place, (961 acres), J&K (722
is Uttar Pradesh (2,949 acres), acres), Assam (617 acres), Pun-
followed closely by Maharashtra jab (494 acres), Bihar (456 acres),
(2,285 acres), as per information Madhya Pradesh (448 acres), Gr
provided by Defence Minister A Rajasthan (418 acres), West Ben- ap
hic
:R
K Antony in a written reply to gal (406 acres), Gujarat (304 uch
iS
inh
Rajya Sabha recently. acres) and Delhi (107 acres). a

www.geopolitics.in January 2011

(13)
Spotlight.qxd 1/3/2011 5:31 PM
HUNT FOR ANTI-TANK
MISSILE IS ON
The Indian Army has been
looking for an anti-tank missile
that is man-portable and
easy-to-fire. While the US-
made Javelin was test-fired by
the Army successfully, ROHIT
SRIVASTAVA found out that
the DRDO-developed Nag was
the most-advanced currently
available. The Nag, however, is
a vehicle-based missile and,
therefore, not on the
Army’s top list
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Page 60
g
GEOPOLITICS
SPECIALREPORT
T
ANKS IN modern land warfare are
the most lethal offensive asset in
any army. They have the capabili-
ty to break through the enemy
defences and penetrate deep
within enemy territory in a very short time
with inbuilt heavy firepower. The psycholog-
ical impact of marching tanks on the enemy
is enormous. The visuals of American M1A1
Abraham cruising across the Iraq-Saudi
desert made the Iraqi forces abandon their
(14)
posts hastening their defeat. To check the
onslaught of tank columns during the Sec-
ond World War, anti-tank weapons started to
be developed. These measures, which began
with the anti-tank grenade, now comprise of
anti-tank mines, rocket-propelled grenade,
mortar shells, artilleries and ammunition of
different kinds and anti-tank missiles.
TANK WARFARE
During the First World War, the British came
SEARCH IS ON: Indian Army is on the
look out to order anti-tank missiles with
unique characteristics
January 2011
Spotlight.qxd 1/3/2011 5:32 PM Page 61
up with an innovative idea to develop an
armoured vehicle, which could break the
deadlock of trench warfare. They came up
with the tank, which could manoeuvre easily
on the plains and was capable of crossing
trenches and also had firepower of the artillery
for attack and self-defence. This changed the
course of warfare forever. The static warfare of
trenches was changed into the maneuver
warfare of today. Third generation warfare is
characterised by Blitzkrieg — bypassing ene-
my lines with speed and accuracy and
destroying them from the rear. The tanks plays
an important role in this. The whole concept
of Blitzkrieg was woven around the tanks in an
infantry support role where their speed was
increased. Along with that there was the
support of indirect fire of long-range artillery
guns pounding enemy lines.
To check the onslaught from tanks which
were immune to the guns available with
infantry special weapons began to emerge,
like anti-tank grenades, armour-piercing rifles
and mines. All of these are still relevant in
warfare in anti-tank roles.
FIRST-GENERATION MISSILES
During the 50s, the armies across the
Western world began developing wire-guided
missile against tanks. These where manually-
guided missiles, where an operator would
guide the missile to its target through a
joystick. These were called Manual
Command to Line of Sight or MCLOS-guided
missiles. The operator had the dual task of
optically observing the target and simultane-
ously guiding the missile through a joystick.
The accuracy of these missiles was less than
25 per cent and required enormous training.
It also required the operator to be static and
within the line of sight of a tank, which made
them vulnerable to counter-attack.
SECOND-GENERATION MISSILES
To overcome the shortcomings of MCLOS,
the second-generation Semi Automatic
Command to Automatic Line of Sight or
SACLOS was developed. These required the
operator to just keep tracking the missile
through a sighting device and the device
would then guide the missile to its target
through radio or electronic signals. This kind
of missile still needed active guidance from
operators like continuous tracking of the
target; thus the operator could not leave the
spot and yet was vulnerable. This generation
has semi-active guidance system. Here the
missile had a homing device which seeks
signal in form of radio waves or electronic
signal through wire and later versions had
www.geopolitics.in
g
SPECIALREPORT
INDIA IS
CURRENTLY
OPERATING
FRENCH-MADE
MILAN AND
RUSSIAN
KONKURS
seeker devices, which would follow the laser
beam designating the target. Called semi-
active as the operator and missile both were
involved in homing. The accuracy of the
Anti-Tank Guided Missiles (ATGMs) jumped
to 50 per cent with the semi-active guidance
system. To top it all, there was a quantum
jump in the efficiency and lethality of
anti-tank missiles from the last generation.
The radio-guided missile was suscepti-
ble to jamming and the wire-guided could
hit targets as far as the wire could go. The
wire-guided had serious limitations in
vegetation as the wire would get entangled
and break. But the wire-guided missiles
could avoid counter-measures like chaff and
flares. These also required the operator to be
well skilled and trained. The typical range of
the ATGM varied from two to seven km
depending upon the guidance system.
THIRD-GENERATION MISSILES
This generation missiles are also called the
fire-and-forget missiles. The missile is
required to be locked on to the target before
launching it towards the target and
thereafter the missile-active
THE LATEST ORDER: 4,100
Milan-2T missiles
(15)
guidance system does the rest. The accuracy
of these is almost 100 per cent if the system
doesn’t fail. The survivability of the tank
depends upon its armour protection.
The guidance system of this generation is
based on infrared imager, laser and W-band
radars. This generation is more susceptible to
electronic counter-measures. These measures
are the electro-optical jammer that disrupts
the laser beams, which designates the target
and also an active protection system, which
uses the Doppler radar system where an
incoming missile is located and protective
rocket is fired, which detonates near the
missile and destroys it.
The third-generation missiles come with
different types of warheads designed to pene-
trate armour. The advancement in the armour
of tanks has impacted upon the development
of the warhead to penetrate them. Most of
these are portable devices, like the Javeline.
These systems are very easy to operate and
don’t require very long training like first and
second generation missiles. The operator
needs to fire and then move to a safe point.
RANGE
For any ATGM to engage tanks effectively, its
operator must be beyond the range of the
tanks that are generally three km away. Every
ATGM should have a range above three km.
with the capability to increase range. However,
there are two important issues. The first is
accuracy. The battlefield being dynamic and
uneven, the long range creates problem in
targeting. Secondly, there is the portability
problem. A short-range missile could be
man-portable as in case of most of the
second-generation with wire guidance
but generally longer-range ones like
Hellfire are vehicle or heliborne.
WARHEAD
There has been an explosion in the
warhead design in the last couple of
decades to keep up with the simulta-
neous development in armour. To
effectively protect the tank and its
crew, tank armour must counter a
wide variety of anti-tank threats.
These include composite armour,
which is a mix of ceramic, plastic and
metal and steel armour, a strong plate
of steel and reactive armour that
reacts with the weapon to reduce the
impact of the projectile.
To counter these threats, the High
Explosive Anti Tank (HEAT) warheads
are employed. HEAT warheads began
to emerge post-WWII to penetrate
January 2011
Spotlight.qxd 1/3/2011 5:32 PM Page 62
READY-TO-USE: After completing its final validation trials, Nag is expected to join
Indian Army in 2011
steel armours. To counter these HEAT
warheads, composite armour was developed,
which is lighter in weight but very thick while
it reduces the speed of the HEAT warhead. To
defeat these, the tandem charge warheads are
employed, which has two or more charges, the
first charge penetrates the soft part of the
armour and subsequent charges penetrate the
hard part of the armour.
INDIAN PERSPECTIVE
Media reports suggest there is a shortfall of
around 44000 ATGM in the Indian inventory.
The sanctioned strength of ATGM is around
81000. India is currently operating French-
made Milan and Russian Konkurs. Both are
second generation laser-based wire-guided
missiles. Milan has a range of around two km
and Konkurs longer with a four km range.
Being second-generation ATGMs they
are susceptible to jamming. When such
cases arise, the operator has to take control
of the missile and guide it to the target. This
decreases the accuracy of missile to the
first-generation level.
Bharat Dynamics Limited is license pro-
ducing these missiles systems. Both of these
missiles are surface-to-surface version and
cannot be operated from helicopters. India
needs an indigenous missile system that can
have both air-launched and surface-
launched versions. Towards this end, the
DRDO has been developing Nag ATGM since
1983, which has undergone the last phase of
test recently by user. The Nag is part of the
Integrated Guided Missile Development
Programme by Defence Research and Devel-
opment Organisation at the cost of `300
crore. The first test flight of the missile
was done around 1990. The missile is third
generation fire-and-forget with imaging
www.geopolitics.in
g
SPECIALREPORT
infra-red (IIR) sensor-based seeker and top —
attack mode — the missile hits tanks most
vulnerable turret portion by flying up
and falling vertically down at 90 degrees over
the tank.
The range of Nag is around four-six km
and operational from helicopter and NAMI-
CA - Nag missile carrier, a converted BMP-2
Sarath, which can carry 12 missiles in
ready-to-launch mode and also has IIR seek-
ers installed over them. The heli-borne
version of Nag with a range of seven kilome-
tres to be operated from advanced light
helicopters and Light Combat Helicopter is
being developed, called HELINA.
The Indian Army has ordered for 443
Nag for `335 crore even before the test
results are out. The requirement of Indian
Army for ATGM is very high as Army has
already ordered for 4100 Milan and 15000
Konkurs M, both are second-generation
ATGMs, and have been ordered in last two
years to bolsters Indian infantry anti-tank
capability against Pakistan which has been
improving its mechanised forces with T- 85,
T-80 and Al Khalids. The shortfall in Indian
JAVELIN
HAS A
MAINTENANCE-
FREE SHELF
LIFE OF
TEN YEARS
(16)
mechanised and armour forces is also needed
to be seen in this context. India is still awaiting
the Arjun MBT and T-72 modernisation. The
latest procurement order of Milan is for 2T
version, which has extended range and with
tandem charge, to successfully engage the
tanks with composite armours. India has been
forced to buy these missiles at higher cost
even when the latest third-generation missiles
are available to continue with commonality in
training and launch systems. These systems
were to be replaced by Nag but delays in
its development derailed the planning of
Indian Army.
To fill the gap between requirement and
capability, India is buying the third-genera-
tion ‘fire-and-forget’ shoulder-fired Javelin
ATGM, developed and produced by Raytheon
and Lockheed Martin. The first batch of these
would be off-the-shelf procurement and
thereafter will be license-produced after due
technology transfer. India is procuring Javelin
through foreign military sales.
John Patterson, Raytheon spokesman,
said, "The Javelin Joint Venture is fully sup-
porting the USG in its efforts to quickly
field the Javelin Close Combat Weapon sys-
tem to the Indian Army. The Javelin system
is currently deployed in Afghanistan with
both the US and UK forces, making the
Javelin introduction to the Indian Army a
natural fit for operational interoperability
and employment. The Javelin Joint Venture
has a history of working with trusted part-
ners around the world, and would welcome
the opportunity to work with India. This is
a government-to-government sale, and
therefore any specific inquires need to be
addressed to the respective governments."
Javelin has a maintenance-free shelf
life of ten years. It’s a man-portable 22 kg
system operated by single individual. It can
be reloaded in 15 seconds after firing of
missiles, which takes 30 seconds to locate,
lock and launch the missile to any target
within the range of 2.5 km through its tan-
dem charged warhead. So, within a minute,
two targets can be engaged. The missile is
lock-on-before-launch version and is
based on passive IR seeker, meaning it
follows the heat emission from the target
for guidance.
During Yudh Abhyas 2010 in Alaska, the
Indian Army test-fired Javelin ATGM suc-
cessfully. The deal is expected to be signed in
coming months between India and the US.
Sources in DRDO consider Nag to be
the most advanced ATGM currently available
and is almost unjammable. The Army
requires system that is man-portable for
its infantry units, whereas Nag is vehicle-
based missile.
January 2011
DefBIZ cover jan.qxd 1/3/2011 5:02 PM Page 1

geopolitics
DEF BIZ
Photo courtesy: chamorrobible.org

THE FMS ROUTE

Exporting military products through ‘foreign military sales’ scheme benefits the
United States immensely. But does it really help importers like India?
Acquisition jan.qxd 1/3/2011 4:44 PM Page 60
LOOKING FOR LIGHT
BULLET PROOF VEHICLES
T
HE INDIAN Army has recently
issued request for information
(RFI) for Light Bullet Proof Vehicles
(LBPV) for counter-insurgency
(CI) operations. The vehicles will
be employed in movement of sections or
units. The large number of casualties in any
CI operations is during movement of troops
or while getting down from vehicles. That is
the time when the forces are most vulnerable.
To minimise the number of casualties, forces
across the globe are using armoured vehicles.
The requirement sent out by Indian Army
states that the vehicle should be capable of
www.geopolitics.in
g
GEOPOLITICS
DEFBIZ
moving five fully-loaded soldiers. The vehicle
is also expected to allow the “effective use of
weapons while on the move”. The vehicle
must also be able to “operate on unmetalled
roads”. These are some of the most basic
requirements of any armoured CI vehicle.
Generally, the armed forces from the West
employ heavy armoured personnel carriers
(APC) or infantry combat vehicles. These are
basically meant for infantry movement dur-
ing wars operated by mechanised force
brigades. The US and its allies use the ‘Striker’
APC in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Indian
Army doesn’t deploy its BMP II (Boyevaya
(18)
Mashina Pekhoty II, Indian APC) in any of its
CI operation, as these heavy vehicles look
intimidating and doesn’t cut a good image of
the armed forces among the local population.
Keeping in line with the narrow alleys
and congested towns and cities of both the
Northeast and Kashmir, India has been
operating light armoured motor vehicles.
These are basically commercial (Light Multi-
role Vehicles) LMVs with four wheel drives,
generally used in passenger transport. These
vehicles are customised to suit the opera-
tional requirements of the Army. Keeping this
in mind, the RFI clearly states the operational
Continued on page 20
OPERATIONAL
REQUIREMENT:
A vehicle for
military use
January 2011
Acquisition jan.qxd 1/3/2011 4:44 PM Page 61

g
DEFBIZ

INDIA PLANS TO BUY MINE SCATTERING SYSTEM

THE INDIAN Army has shown interest in
acquiring 120 Vehicle Based Minelet Scatter-
ing System (VBMSS). The Request for
Information (RFI) was recently released in
this regard. The Army wants VBMSS to come
with the High Mobility Vehicle (HMV) 6×6,
to provide the system with the desired
mobility on the plains, deserts, semi-deserts,
etc. The system is required to disperse 400
mines at varying densities. The scattering is
done at different density depending upon
the requirement. The factors like size of area
being mined, topography, vegetation and the
size of enemy column are taken into consid-
eration before deciding the density of min-
ing in any given area.
The RFI clearly asks for the control sys-
tem where single and multiple tubes can be
used to deploy mines. It also requires the
system to deploy mines on both sides of the
vehicle and also at the rear end at a distance
of a minimum of 50 metres and must also
scatter mines at a range of 25-75 metres.
This will help in rapid deployment in the
DE-MINING TACTICS: Mine detection is done at different densities depending upon the
range of 150 metres at one time. In the requirement, and (below) a mine
desert and plains of north India, the VBMSS
will provide the capability to mine a large landing (mines become activated immedi- It may be noted that landmines play a
area that in turn will halt larger columns ately after deployment), long shelf life of very crucial role in the land warfare. They
of enemy. the mines and able to survive under 100mm are defensive and harassing in nature.
The VBMSS will be reloadable in 40 of water. Anti-tank mines should be capable Minefields can halt or slow down enemy
minutes by its crew of two. The control unit of penetrating armour plating of 50mm of troop movements to a great extent and
of the launcher would “display” the status Rolled Hardened Armour (RHA). inflict heavy damage on the enemy with-
of each launcher, the record number of The scattering system is meant to out risking men and material. India, a
mines dispensed, mention the co-ordinates improve the defensive capability of Indian non-signatory to the Ottawa treaty that
of the area in which the mines are being Army. The fast rate of scattering will pro- bans use of landmines in warfare and
dispensed, store and process data for mine- vide any retreating column and defence of insurgency, considers landmines a tool in
field recording. strategic assets in a very short duration very its military operations.
It has been seen that keeping manual accurately with minimum manpower The Indian Army deployed around
record of mines accurately is very difficult deployment. These systems can be deployed 1,000 per sq km around the Pakistan border
and a slow process. The demining process at the corps/division level and will save cru- after Operation Parakram. Later, the Indian
becomes very difficult due to these inaccura- cial time during wars. Army had to do the de-mining at immense
cies. This system could solve these issues in costs. Reports suggest that more than 1,000
many ways but the accuracy could remain an died due to these landmines (2001-09).
issue. Yet, an electronically recorded and Laying mines in defensive formation is a
stored data will always be handier for slow process and took weeks during
the forces. Parakaram. During a war, retreating
The VBMSS system is required to have a columns would require quick deployment of
field-settable Self-Destruction (SD) peri- landmines across a large surface area. To
ods/back up Self-Deactivation (SDA) periods achieve this objective, vehicle and aircraft-
of the anti tank mines and indicator incorpo- based automatic mines dispersal systems
rated in the mine to indicate that it is fully are employed. In addition, armies also
deactivated and safe after expiry of SDA employ artillery shells to disperse land
period. The mines should be equipped with mines. The rate of dispersal through rockets
anti-lift (a device arranged to detonate the and artillery shells is not as fast as the
mine), immediate arming of mines after vehicle/aircraft-based systems.

www.geopolitics.in January 2011

(19)
Acquisition jan.qxd 1/3/2011 4:45 PM Page 62
requirement: the vehicles wanted will be
specifically for military use. Recently, some of
the companies in India have come with very
innovative indigenous products, which were
displayed at the Defence Expo 2010.
The Army requires the vehicle to “provide
360 degrees observation all around the vehi-
cle”. It should “ergonomically and comfort-
ably seat five soldiers” with full battle load
and driver. The soldiers should be comfort-
able in observation and effective use
of weapons.
The RFI also points out the protection
level of the vehicles. The vehicle must comply
with the NIJ III standard (National Institute of
Justice of USA, Standard III). The American
Department of Justice through the National
Institute of Justice has set the standard of
armouring based on the capability to defend
against weapons. Level three is the level
where the armour can provide protection
against automatic assault rifles like M16,
AK47 and machine guns like M80 or equiva-
lent. In terms of bullet size, the armour
should be able to provide protection against
9.6 g (148 gr) 7.62x51mm NATO M80 ball bul-
lets and below. This standard is desired for the
top, sides, windshield and side glasses. These
parts during the movement and otherwise
come under direct fire and since a majority of
insurgents these days use assault rifles, this
level of protection is adequate for the vehicle.
Although not adequate for grenades and land
mines like clamour mines, the level is consid-
ered sufficient for urban CI ops, especially in
J&K and the Northeast where landmines and
Claymores are not used.
The bottom and undercarriage, which
generally have to deal with stray bombs
and grenades generally scattered by
insurgents to deny the forces swift
movement, should be capable of
affording protection against the
blast of a hand grenade
www.geopoliics.in
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DEFBIZ
ON A WAR-FOOTING: The Army requires the vehicle which should have 360 degrees
observation and effective use of weapons
containing up to 100 grams of Penta-Erythri-
tol Tetra-Nitrate (PETN) explosive.
The vehicles should also have firing ports
on all the sides to give all-round strike capa-
bility to the troops. Enough space is required
for soldiers to use their personal automatic
weapons. The firing port when not in use
should also have the same level of protection
to that of the sides of the vehicles. The vehicle
must have a hatch at top with a suitable
mounting for the in-service Light Machine
Gun (LMG). The mounting should permit fir-
ing of the LMG through 360 degrees while
providing protection to the firer from all
A MATTER OF
PROTECTION: A vehicle
with all-d
direction
protection to the firer is
necessary
(20)
Photo courtesy: moterbeam.com
directions. There should also be arrange-
ments to prevent a grenade from being
lobbed through the hatch when open.
It seems the Indian Army has planned to
have flexibility in the use of the vehicles
across the nation if and when the need arises
and also foresees the expansion of its CI role.
For transporting these vehicles when require-
ment arises, these must be transportable
through rail “standard rakes without necessity
of Over Dimensional Container (ODC) Clear-
ance and in an in-service transport aircraft
(IL-76)”. The transportability by standard
rakes will save time and cost. Air transporta-
bility will also ensure the vehicle to be trans-
ported at a very short time to any part of the
nation including bases in the interiors.
LBPVs must have “environmental con-
trol arrangements, which should be capable
of maintaining the ambient temperature in
the cabin between +22°C and +25°C. The
vehicle must also have auto-defrost capabili-
ty on all glass panes (including windshield,
window and side glasses)” and must also
have “adequate safety measures against
accidental locking”.
The acquisition of LBPV under the
specification mentioned will have sub-
stantial impact over the operational
capability of the Indian Army in future
CI operations and will take the trans-
portation to the next level which at
present uses armoured commercial
vehicles which are short of the require-
ments. With that the Indian Army will move
into the arena of customised vehicles for
specific uses.
January 2011
DefBiz january.qxd 1/3/2011 5:03 PM
DEF BIZ
NOTICE TO
DEFENCE FIRMS
THE DEFENCE Ministry has
issued show-cause notices to
the four foreign and three
Indian armament compa-
nies to explain why they
should not be blacklisted
after being named in the
Central Bureau of Investiga-
tion (CBI) FIR against former
Ordnance Factories Board
(OFB) Chief Sudipto Ghosh
in a corruption case in
May 2009.
The foreign firms in the
dock are Israeli Military
Industries (IMI), Singapore
Technology, BBT Poland and
Media Architects Singapore,
while the Indian ones are
HYT Engineering, T S Kissan
& Co and R K Machine Tools.
This was stated by the
Defence Minister A K Antony
in a written reply to Lok
Sabha recently. The CBI had
issued a chargesheet against
Ghosh, T S Kissan and R K
Machine Tools, among
others, till now.
In respect of the other
companies, the CBI report
indicates there is prima facie
or circumstantial evidence
of payment of illegal gratifi-
cation to Ghosh. The matter
is under investigation.
www.geopolitics.in
Page 21
g
GEOPOLITICS
NEW POLICY
INDIA’S DEFENCE ACQUISITION COUNCIL
(DAC) has just put its seal on two policies, a
new version of the Defence Procurement
Procedure and a new Defence Production
Policy. The DAC is set to formally approve the
new policies within the next few weeks.
Indian media quoting from the draft poli-
cy said: “Only those weapon systems/platforms
will be procured from abroad which cannot be
NAL FOR PRIVATE PARTNERS
NATIONAL AEROSPACE
Laboratories (NAL), the
Bengaluru-based nodal cen-
tre for the design of the
Regional Transport Aircraft
(RTA), is set to issue expressions of
interest (EoIs) to invite potential
partners for the project from the pri-
vate sector, from both India and
abroad, according to NAL Director
AR Upadhya.
“The Centre has given us a direc-
tive to design a framework to form
a joint venture (JV) for carrying out
the RTA project through public-private
partnership. We have already drafted the
EoI, which will be issued in a month's time.
The JV will be for design, development and
manufacture of the RTAs. It ( JV ) could be
two separate entities too. Roping in
cost-sharing partners within a segment or
a particular activity ... that has to be looked
at,” Upadhya said.
In a recent interview to an English daily,
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made/developed within the
country in specified timeframes
to meet critical operational
requirements. All such projects
will necessarily include transfer
of technology, unless exceptions
are required for specific reasons,
to ensure subsequent genera-
tions of the weapon systems are
developed indigenously.”
The production policy allows
for government funding of new
technology projects up to 80 per
cent of the cost by domestic
private companies.
The approval procedures for develop-
ment/integration/make of new defence
systems indigenously are being “further
simplified”, according to the policy.
The production policy says domestic fund-
ing will apply to “strategic and critical
technologies” to “reduce vulnerabilities” in case
of sanctions and denials.
he said the government had given NAL the
mandate to do a one-year feasibility study
on the configuration definition and systems
definition for the national aircraft for region-
al connectivity.
Stating that NAL would submit
the feasibility report to the govern-
ment by April 2011, Upadhya said
that around 120 airfields, each with
3,000-5,000-sft runway, had been
identified across the country for
facilitating landing of these smaller
aircraft. About 50 per cent of the
country’s population live close to
these smaller airfields. So, there is a big
requirement for the establishment of indige-
nous aircraft manufacturing industry, he said.
“Of the 450 airfields that the country has
at present, only 70 are operational. There is a
potential to convert the remaining airfields
into airports,” Upadhya said, adding that
India required 1,300 aircraft by 2015,
of which 240 were expected to be RTAs to
connect smaller towns and cities.
January 2011
DefBiz january.qxd 1/3/2011 5:03 PM Page 22
DEF BIZ
NAVY TO GET LPDs
THE INDIAN Navy has been given the ap-
proval for acquisition of four landing platform
docks (LPDs) to transport and land various el-
ements of amphibious forces to support shore
operations.
The amphibious warships, with helipads
and capacity to move a large number of troops
and tanks or humanitarian aid, would be a
match to the second largest combat ship in
the Indian Navy's flotilla, INS Jalashwa (earlier
USS Trenton).
‘OUR OFFSET POLICY IS COMPLICATED’
NONE OTHER than Indian Air Force (IAF)
Vice-Chief Air Marshal Barbora has
criticised the public and private defence
industry for lacklustre performance in the
aerospace sector and attributed the slow
pace of indigenisation to complicated
defence policy, especially on offsets.
Speaking at the fifth international con-
ference on Energising Indian Aerospace
Industry organised by the Confederation of
Indian Industry (CII) recently, Barbora said
a “well-defined offset policy is the need of
the day”.
Barbora said that an esti-
mated $20 billion (`90,800
crore) was “hanging” to be
absorbed by Indian industry.
And the figure is likely to esca-
late up to $40 billion by the
end of the year.
“Our offset policy is very
nascent. It is complicated and
foreign vendors find it difficult
to understand. I know a com-
pany, which has submitted its
(offset) proposal at least 20
times. It results in delays in
procurement,” he said and added: “Certain
countries like Brazil, Spain have well-
defined offset policies. We should take good
www.geopolitics.in
g
The approval for LPDs has been
given by the Cabinet Committee on
Security (CCS) “Buy and Make
Indian” clause of the the Defence Pro-
curement Policy (DPP-9). "Under the
'Buy and Make Indian' category, the
Defence Ministry would invite pro-
posals from those Indian industries
that have requisite financial and tech-
nical capabilities to enter into joint
ventures and also absorb technology
and undertake indigenous manufac-
ture of the warships," Chief of the In-
dian Navy Admiral Nirmal Verma said recently.
The Navy has also invited information from
the global vendors for supply of Landing Craft
Mechanised (LCMs) that can be carried by am-
phibious warships to land troops or tanks
during assaults on the coastline. So far, the In-
dian Navy has four LCMs, which were bought
during the acquisition of Jalashwa from the
US. The Navy is looking for LCMs ,which are
able to carry 150 troops with gear or a T-90 or
T-72 tank from ship to shore.
points from them. We started late and we
are also slowing down.”
Under the defence procurement policy,
it is mandatory for overseas firms securing
Indian defence contracts to outsource 30
per cent of the defence deal to Indian com-
panies as offset works. The offset obligation
applies to all capital acquisition catego-
rized as Buy (global) or Buy and Make with
transfer of technology, where the estimated
cost of the procurement proposal is $67
million and above.
India annually imports
about 80 per cent of aero-
space products, including air-
craft and parts. Barbora added
that current foreign direct
investment limit of 26 per
cent in the defence sector was
a “restricting factor”. “Foreign
companies are reluctant to
offer and transfer cutting-
edge technologies because of
lack of management role in
Indian companies,” he said.
Reminding Indian scientists
that “time and tide wait for no
one,” the IAF Vice-Chief added: “By the
time you come up with something, it’s
redundant.”
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US-INDIA
DEFENCE
TIES
WORRY
ISRAEL
IAI President Itzhak Nissan
ISRAEL IS concerned over losing
its largest defence market to
close ally US, which has reached
an understanding with India
that could result in billions of
dollars of American defence
sales to New Delhi, according to
a media report.
“(US President) Obama is
embracing the Indian Prime
Minister and 40 to 50 billion
USDs worth of deals are being
wrapped up in one shot,” Israel
Aerospace Industries (IAI) Presi-
dent Itzhak Nissan told Middle
East Newsline adding, “We don’t
have such personalities.”
Israeli defence companies
have been urging their Defence
Ministry to ease export controls
arguing that the new controls,
demanded by the United States
in 2005, were hampering mar-
keting and technology transfer
required to maintain exports.
India is Israel's largest
defence market accounting for
almost 50 per cent of Israeli
sales. IAI dominates the Israeli
defence presence in New Delhi
and is about to conclude a $1.1
billion project of supplying three
Phalcon airborne early-warning
systems to the Indian Air Force.
January 2011
DefBiz january.qxd 1/3/2011 5:03 PM Page 23
CONTRACTS FOR TATA’S DEF
BRAHMOS FACILITY
THE RUSSIAN-INDIAN joint
venture BrahMos Aerospace
Ltd. has signed new contracts
on supplies of BrahMos mis-
siles till 2017.
Under the contracts, mis-
siles will be supplied to the
Indian Air Force, the Navy and
the Indian Army. It is also
agreed that if India intends to
acquire new Russian non-
atomic submarines, Russia's
Rubin Central Design
Bureau for Marine Engi-
neering will prepare
variants to be equipped
with the BrahMos missiles.
It is understood that
India intends to acquire
six non-atomic sub-
DESIGN CONTRACT FOR FGFA
RUSSIA AND India have agreed
about the estimated cost of a
design contract for their joint
fifth-generation fighter aircraft
project (FGFA) at $295 million,
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited
(HAL) Chairman Ashok Nayak
told Russian news agency RIA
Novosti in an interview recently.
"The cost of preliminary design
is estimated at $295 million. The
work is expected to be complete
within 18 months," Nayak said.
Russia's Sukhoi and India's Hin-
dustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL)
agreed in early 2010 to jointly develop a
fifth-generation fighter jet based on the
prototype T-50 design. India confirmed
www.geopolitics.in
g
marines. The Indian Navy will
put out a tender to purchase
submarines with a standard
power plant. Russian
agency Rosoboronexport
said it offered the Amur-
1650 submarine to partici-
pate in the Navy’s tender
for six non-nuclear sub-
marines.
Established in 1998,
BrahMos Aerospace, a
joint Indian-Russian ven-
ture, produces and
markets BrahMos super-
sonic missiles, whose
sea-based and land-
based versions have been
successfully tested and
put into service with the
Indian Army and Navy.
Analysts estimate
that India could pur-
chase up to 1,000
BrahMos missiles for
its armed forces in
the next decade,
and export 2,000 to
other countries dur-
ing the same period.
that it had finalised a draft contract at a
meeting with Russia in early October.
Nayak said the contract could be
signed by the representatives of India's
(23)
NOVA INTEGRATED Systems Ltd, subsidiary of Tata
Sons Limited, is developing facility in
Aerospace and Precision Engineering Special Eco-
nomic Zone (SEZ) Adibatla, Andhra Pradesh. The
main Greenfield facilities for radar, missile and un-
manned aerial vehicles (UAV) are being planned
and will be ready by 2011. Nova is bringing in and
developing cut-
ting-edge tech-
nology to India in
this strategic sec-
tor where indige-
nous capability is
desired.
Nova Inte-
grated Systems
has been set up
with a view to
achieving self-reliance in defence and aerospace
systems, and will focus on the manufacture and in-
tegration of systems, sub systems, and, accessories
for missiles, radar, UAV, electro-optics, electronic
warfare and homeland security systems.
NOVA has already set up the interim integration
and testing facilities for radar and electro-optics at
Hyderabad. UAV, electronic measures and surveil-
lance systems are the major tactical component of
today’s warfare. Till now India is majorly dependent
on imported systems, Nova plans to provide cutting
edge solution in this sector.
HAL and Russia's United
Aircraft Corporation (UAC)
during a visit by Russian Presi-
dent Dmitry Medvedev to
India on December 20-22. The
two sides agreed to develop
both a single-seat and a two-
seat versions of the aircraft by
2016, focussing on the single-
seat version in the initial
stages of development. The
costs will be shared equally
between Russia and India.
The first Russian prototype
T-50 made its maiden flight in January
2010. The new fighter aircraft is expect-
ed to enter service with the Indian Air
Force by 2020.
January 2011
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g
GEOPOLITICS
DEFBIZ

QUICK IMPACT
BUT AT WHAT COST ?
The US “Foreign Military Sale” scheme has become the
major armaments provider for many nations, including
India. ABHIJIT BHATTACHARYYA argues that while the
scheme is certainly advantageous for the beleaguered
US economy, it can be good for India only on a
short-term or temporary basis. In the long run,
it will ensure the loss to indigenous
enterprise to be self-sufficient in defence
and the country cannot afford that
MURKY DEAL:
Foreign military sales
scheme is far-fetched
aspiration for India.
Seen in the picture is
US Army M107
Howitzer

www.geopolitics.in January 2011

(24)
Def F Military sales.qxd 1/3/2011 5:05 PM
O
NE OF the murky and opaque of
all international businesses is
the financial transaction of arms
between buyer and seller, the
occasional high profile defence
of its being “government-to-government
transaction” notwithstanding. “Government-
to-government” argument will hold good only
if, and when, the manufacturing unit/supplier
of the transacted product also belongs to the
seller government thereby justifying its action
and existence as being that of the govern-
ment. Thus, there exists two sets of arms
manufacturers, private and government.
Before the demise of the USSR, virtually all
shipyards and aviation factories belonged
to the state. Hence, India could successful-
ly pretend to defend her actions while
buying Soviet-made everything; from
tank to tanker and aircraft to rotorcraft.
It was virtually the unsaid and unwrit-
ten Soviet counterpart of America’s
“Foreign Military Sale” scheme, which
bypasses the complex bidding process
like quotation, tender, etc.
Thus, ever since the Indo-Soviet security
pact concluded on August 9, 1971, Moscow-
made machines had a field day of being a
monopoly supplier in which price of transac-
tion could never be doubted or questioned
owing to “government-to-government” trans-
action. It was an exclusive, confidential and
mutual privilege between the buyer and seller
and hence beyond the gaze of public and
beyond scrutiny of the people. No one dared
question the method and methodology of the
financial transaction because there was no
private player involved in the deal; hence “no
possibility” of going through third party assis-
tance or help. The Indo-Soviet arms deals of
the 20th century were the precursor to the
present US scheme of foreign military sales
through which Washington DC’s arms are now
transferred to specific and friendly countries
and a “strategic partner” like India.
However, US “foreign military sales”
programme manages government-to-govern-
ment sales and are usually backed by “foreign
military financing”, thereby providing grants
and loans to help foreign customers (coun-
tries) purchase weapons and equipment
produced by US companies but sold through
their government. The other important but
smaller fully-paid purchases by foreign cus-
tomers is also overseen by the unit of foreign
military sales. The main characteristic of the
foreign military sales programme is that the
foreign military financing scheme does not
provide any cash grants to foreign countries; it
only pays for sale of the stipulated goods or
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DEFBIZ
SORRY PLIGHT: Israel’s fighter-making
capability has totally been phased out
because of US FMS scheme
services through foreign military sales or
direct commercial sales.
The USA being the sole superpower, its
foreign military programme, supported by
foreign military financing, reaches out to
70-plus countries across the globe. However,
there was a time, at the height of the Cold
War, in the 1970s, when more than 80 coun-
tries “benefited” from the US foreign military
sales scheme.
The USA now is in dire need to explore
new markets to sell military hardware to
bring about a balance to her shooting unem-
ployment figures and sustaining the tradi-
tional military edge over friends and foes
alike. In fact, the lifeline of American domi-
nation over the outside world and a key
source of technology development to a great
extent rests on the use of indigenous US mil-
itary hardware and extensive application
thereof around the globe: from South Ameri-
ca to South Korea and New Zealand to Ice-
land. The idea is to infuse and implement the
policy of “interoperability”, which implies
that if the same types of US-made weapons
are used by several friendly states as clients,
Washington DC being the producer thereof,
would automatically enjoy the confidence
and have an upper hand thereby ensuring
status quo of her being the leader and super
power of the “free world”. It is a smart and
clever way of getting oneself positioned as
numero uno amidst the group of fighting and
(25)
feuding client states. Clients may quarrel but
the common leader supplies the common
fighting tools. It is business as usual for the
USA as the producer to make profit through
foreign military sales across the board.
Perhaps the best and one of the most
successful of all US foreign military sales proj-
ects fructified with the sale of F-16 “Fighting
Falcon” aircraft to the air forces of NATO
members. It was referred to as “the deal of the
century” by the Europeans who resented the
“forced entry” of the American aircraft in their
backyard at the expense of their armament
industries. The statement of French General
Hugues de l’Estaile in 1973 said it all: “The real
stakes are whether Europe will have an aircraft
industry or whether it will be a captive market
for America.” In a way, US “foreign military
sales” does destroy or diminish the indige-
nous enterprise of military industry of the
client country importing the American hard-
ware. Such is the domination of “foreign
military sales” of the USA that the F-16 fighter
manufacturer, Lockheed Martin (though orig-
inally General Dynamics was the maker of the
machine) to date has a total of 4,519 aircraft
ordered or requested, including planned
USAF procurement of 2,230 and 28 embar-
goed Pakistani Air Force fighters.
However, despite the European resistance
to the choice of American fighter aircraft
(which implied the defeat for European tech-
nology), real pressure sprang up from the Pen-
tagon and the US Air Force. In the mid-1970s
the US Secretary of Defence, Jim Schlesinger,
was determined to have the same type of
fighter on both sides of the Atlantic — unlike
the US made F-104 Starfighter (nicknamed
“Flying Coffin” or “Widow Maker” by the then
West German air force) — which had never
been adopted even by the US Air Force.
When F-16 finally won the US Air Force
contract in January 1975, “with the eventual
prospect of orders for 650 planes” (Jane’s all
the world’s aircraft 1975-1976; page 341-
342), falling in line for Europe was only a
question of time as the “Pentagon rolled on”.
President Gerald Ford, who on a visit to
Brussels for NATO meeting, made it a “point
of discussing the deal” with the Belgian
Prime Minister Leo Tindemans. “Could you
imagine us using our President as a sales-
man?” exclaimed an executive of French
fighter manufacturer Marcel Dassault!
At last, on June 6, 1975, just at the time
of the Paris Air Show, the triumphant outcome
was announced. All four NATO countries (Bel-
gium, Denmark, Netherlands and Norway)
went for the US made F-16 fighter thereby
heralding, according to Defence Secretary
January 2011
Def F Military sales.qxd 1/3/2011 5:05 PM
DEAL OF THE CENTURY:
F-16 fighter falcon
Donald Rumsfeld, “a new stage in inter-
national collaboration”. The relentless pres-
sure of the US government breached the Euro-
pean resistance thereby also underlining the
basic weakness of the latter. Europe simply
was not prepared to build its own independ-
ent defence forces. Hence, Europe failed to
generate its own aerospace industry, at least
temporarily. “Foreign military sales” by Wash-
ington triumphed in Europe.
Another classic, but forgotten, chapter
of the “foreign military sales” is that of the
story of the Israeli Air Force. Today, of the
total 461 combat capable aircraft, 312 are
Lockheed Martin F-16s and Israel’s fighter
making capability has simply vanished. The
whole and sole source of Israeli combat air-
craft is the USA’s “foreign military sales”.
There, however, was a time when the bible of
world aviation, Jane’s all the world’s aircraft
1983-1984 devoted eight pages to describe
the multiple facets of Tel Aviv’s flying
machines with description of fighters, light
military transport and business transport
aircraft. Today, the same aviation encyclope-
dia’s 2010-2011 edition has virtually nothing
to report, except a page to depict the sorry
plight of Israel’s combat aviation enterprise.
It was the story of the early 1980s (when
the US made F-16 was desperately trying to
scout for overseas customers), when the
Israeli government gave its approval for Israel
Aircraft Industries (IAI) to develop Lavi (Young
Lion), a new single-seat air defence and
ground attack fighter for its air force. Being in
the “final design stages”, the Lavi was to be
slightly smaller than (the then) General
Dynamics F-16, incorporating proven state-
of-the-art technology. Expected to be the
“workhorse” for the Israeli Air Force, a require-
ment of at least 300 Lavis was projected. With
an emphasis on “close air support and inter-
diction roles, with a secondary capability for
air-to-air self-defence to and from the target”,
Lavi’s design characteristics included “high-
speed penetration, high manoeuvrability,
first-pass bombing accuracy, and battle
damage tolerance for safe recovery”. Thus
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DEFBIZ
being the virtual rival to US made F-16,
Lavi’s success could jeopardise American
prospects. Understandably, Lavi did not see
the light of day and not surprisingly “foreign
military sales” subsequently made Israel
wholly an extension and a continuation of the
US Air Force-used fighters, thereby ensuring
the successful application of “interoperabili-
ty” concept of Washington DC.
Thus what began in a small scale “foreign
military sales” to four European nations of
NATO in the 1970s, now stands expanded with
the entry of Greece in 1989-1990, Italy in 2005,
Portugal in 1994, Bahrain in 1990, Egypt in
1982, Oman in 2005, Pakistan in 1983, Singa-
pore in 1988, Thailand in 1988, and Turkey
in 1987.
Although India made a modest beginning
under America’s “foreign military sales”
scheme in the aftermath of her drubbing in
the Sino-Indian war in 1962, today the
prospect of an expenditure of $80 bn for her
defence forces in the next five years under-
standably makes New Delhi the closest
“partner target” to the USA’s armament export
drive. In fact, the process has already begun as
India’s biggest arms supplier is apparently
shifting from Russia to America. Under foreign
military sales, New Delhi has already signed a
$170 mn deal for 24 Harpoon Block II
advanced air-to-surface anti-ship missiles and
$647 mn contract for 145 US howitzers. Also in
the pipeline are American Strykers and the
Javelin third generation anti-tank guided mis-
siles and Patriot Advanced Capability-3
ground-based anti-ballistic missile system.
Purchases already made are the Boeing
maritime reconnaissance and Lockheed spe-
cial operations C-130J aircraft.
Today, USA feels the renewed need to pay
greater attention to foreign military sales of US
weapon systems because it “helps her balance
of payment and retain high paying, mostly
union jobs. In addition, such sales reduce the
price for the platforms that the US military
acquires, allows for modernisation of existing
systems and provides for greater interoper-
ability with US forces”. Thus, weapons
programmes like the F-16 and F-15 are solely
sustained by foreign military sales, and with-
(26)
out adequate overseas orders these two
major platforms will simply go out of pro-
duction thereby creating more chaos to
the already existing economic downturn to
the US systems. Foreign military sales for the
USA is more crucial and critical today than
ever before; a matter of survival or extinction
of the armament industry of Washington DC.
The final call to the entire issue now is:
why has India got hooked in US “foreign mili-
tary sales?” In what way is it going to benefit or
fit the Indian defence deals and the connected
industry? Is India on course to be in the same
boat as Pakistan with similar/identical US-
made weapon systems in the future? Will it
ultimately augur well for India in the long run?
The answers to all these questions,
perhaps, lie in the changed geopolitics and
economics of the 21st century. For far too
long India had put all her aviation and naval
eggs virtually in one basket held by Moscow.
However, the demise of the unified USSR
came as a rude shock as hardware became
difficult to be repaired, replaced and retrofit-
ted thereby resulting in avoidable cost and
time over-run. India perforce looked to the
“foreign military sales” route via Pentagon. It
was a good decision but it was also an expen-
sive switchover. It saved the situation as it
became a government-to-government deal.
Thus defence contracts between India and
the USA have flourished and all military hard-
ware from Washington DC to Delhi promises
to come fast and quick.
However, there is also an inherent dan-
ger; the flow of foreign military sales is solely
at the hands of the Pentagon and Washing-
ton DC can be notoriously fickle-minded,
intolerant and impatient at the slightest sus-
picion and provocation. Also, the use of
common weapons systems between the two
belligerent nations like India and Pakistan
can create unforeseen and unanticipated
problems to say the least. In brief, therefore,
India’s excessive banking on the US weapons
systems coming through the “foreign mili-
tary sales” route may be a sound decision
tactically; but one needs to see beyond one’s
nose — nay, beyond visual range and ulti-
mately beyond the horizon. Temporary
import of sophisticated weapons could be a
good beginning; but one’s own capacity-
building certainly needs to be the corner-
stone of one’s long-term strategy. Buying the
“best technology” quickly from abroad will
tactically help India, no doubt, but if resort-
ed to ceaselessly will ensure loss of indige-
nous enterprise to be self-sufficient in
defence. And no country can afford to be big
and play big, after completely surrendering
to Washington’s “foreign military sales”.
January 2011
Interview Rick.qxd 1/3/2011 5:11 PM Page 61
“AN
ALTERNATIVE
SYSTEM FOR
CISMOA, IF
NEEDED”
GEOPOLITICS met Rick McCrary, Director, F/A-18
Super Hornet programme in India, to know
more about the evolution of the programme
and the technical aspects of the Super Hornet
that has made the plane one of the best fighters
in the world. His answers:
On the evolution of the F-18
The first flight of the F 18 of Block 1 was
in 1995. Now we have Block 2, which is
an entirely new airplane, which first
flew in 2005. So, of the 450 airplanes
that we delivered till date, about 130
were the Block 1. Both Blocks have the
same airframe but their avionics are
different. Block 1 has previous genera-
tion aviation, and Block 2 has our Joint
Strike Fighter avionics. In fact, we
changed the entire front of the air-
plane. We have built it around the AESA
radar with the same specification as
was in JSF. The difference is that our
radar is produced by Raytheon and
Lockheed and by Northrop. We decided
to change the airframe when we were
integrating the AESA radar in the air-
www.geopolitics.in
g
GEOPOLITICS
INTERVIEW
craft. AESA generates a massive
amount of heat, it consumes more than
double amount of heat as it comprises
hundreds of tiny radars, which are indi-
vidually controlled and can track and
make radar maps individually for target
acquisition. We knew that we needed a
big cooling system and it is fitted at the
back of the aircraft. In order to have
truly capable AESA radar you have to
design the airplane around it. Then, of
course, there are different materials,
with different frequency ranges.
It’s an incredibly capable system.
Massive amounts of information that
Photo: H.C. Tiwari
this system can bring need better data
collection; so we have a fiber optic net-
work, which is part of this integrated
body that feeds into our advanced
January 2011
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Interview Rick.qxd 1/3/2011 5:11 PM Page 62
computer system to have better data col-
lection. It enables us to then integrate the
displays system with the component of sit-
uational awareness — the electronic sig-
nals received by the sensors, the radar sig-
nals plus the helmet-mounted cueing sys-
tem. Whereever you look at the airframe,
you can designate a sensor that brings the
threat info into the system, then process it
with the right weapon, targeting data
directly onto those weapons, and also pass
it to other aircraft.
When was the makeover done and what
are the advanced airframe features?
This was done in 2005. The Navy declared it
operable in 2006, so it’s a new airplane; it’s
the most modern airplane to fly. The JSF
(F-35 by Lockheed Martin) will be similar
when it flies although it’s facing a few prob-
lems right now. And, of course, JSF has
broader stealth characteristics to it. We too
have stealth, it’s very effective. We believe
that we are really looking for survivability
not stealth. We use a combination of stealth
to avoid a threat, which is always the best
way. And then we have great decoy system.
So even if a weapon comes near the air-
plane we can remove the threat. So it’s all
about survivability. We have produced
about 300 of the Block 2, which is on offer
to India.
On the Australian programme
This is the same aircraft that is being
offered to India. They have 24 of the 2C
models after that we have the configura-
tions called F+, so it’s an upgrade option to
be converted to E/A 18 G. They haven’t
made decision for upgradation, but if they
will, we can do that locally in Australia.
On the convertibility of Super Hornet
to Growler
Yes is the answer. But it would be a signifi-
cant modification, as the wiring that we
have done for Australia. We can do the
upgrade in their hangar. Because all we do
is complete the wire harness. So what we
do to convert an F to a G, is drop the gun
out and you replace that with an avionics
package, which manages the AW system.
Sensors and antenna are inserted at our
stations. In the 12 F+ that the RAF has,
there are cut-outs there with backing plates
on it. But the IAF hasn’t indicated any
interest in it today and in the 126 on offer.
The two-seaters are trainers not the tactical
two-seaters. Even our trainers are convert-
ible. We convert back and forth. So, if the
Navy gets an F model, they can either use it
www.geopolitics.in
g
INTERVIEW
F/A-18 SUPER HORNET: A big buy to strengthen Indian air power
THE FLIERS
ACTUALLY FLY
WITH THE
‘GOD’S EYE
VIEW’ AS
WE CALL IT
as a two-seater trainer or a tactical. They
have seen the amount of information com-
ing in, and they have now shifted their
order towards two-seaters. Originally, they
were just going to get about a third of their
fleet as two-seaters, to replace the F 14s,
and the rest would be single-seater to
replace their C models. The amount of
information that comes into the cockpit
and the value is in the two-seaters.
On the production facility
It is built in St. Louis, which is the head of
our defence systems. So, we build over
12000 fighters there and half of those are
F-4s. We are in partnership with another
company that builds the centre frame for
us. It builds that up in California, near
LA and ships it to us. We build the wings
and the front and all other stuff. And
we populate it with the equipment in
St Louis.
(28)
On the capability of F/A-18 to pass on
information to other fliers
We are fully networked within the US sys-
tem and we will be networked here as well.
We are going to change our network system
to be compatible with the Indian network.
We get information from the sensors and
pass it on to other players — like our classic
Hornet, which has older radar and classic
system now flies with weapons only —
using weapons picture through the Super
Hornet and pass that information to other
fighters. The information goes straight to
its weapons and pops on the screen for the
pilot to confirm, but he never has to put in
anything himself. So, we are really deliver-
ing the weapons remotely from that per-
spective. We also take information from
AWACS, AWC and other systems that give
us a broader air picture and complete situ-
ational awareness. The fliers actually fly
with the ‘God’s eye view’ as we call it, to
know who our friends or the friendlies are.
It’s all part of the situational awareness
package, to know where the enemy is,
where my friends are. And it will direct the
fleet. So, the two-seater is often used as a
battle director system; it can direct the
single-seater aircraft around. It can assign
targets. It’s entirely software driven.
The one central will tell the others that
this is your. Here, the aircraft has the
advantage of AESA radar accuracy. So, they
still have their own radar, which is good for
some operations. But in place of fitting the
AESA into old aircraft, we just feed them
the information.
January 2011
Interview Rick.qxd 1/3/2011 5:12 PM Page 63

g
INTERVIEW

On the business of geopolitics have done this for the bulk of our sales, all
These are government-to-government around the world.
sales. It’s still government-to-government NOBODY CAN
BE COMPARED
even though it’s competitive. This is FMS, Offset percentage
the US government is competing. Boeing It’s difficult, but we have worked in places
puts in the bid, Lockheed puts in the bid,
but at the end of the day the US govern-
TO THE where we had 100 per cent offsets. It was
difficult to deal with. The difference here
ment takes the guarantee. We are working TECHNOLOGY is the Transfer of Technology ( ToT)

WE HAVE
on behalf of the government. requirement and no other country that we
dealt with had that. It’s a challenge but we
Similarity of equipment between USAF
Super Hornet and those offered to India
TO OFFER do that.

We always tailor our aircraft for the cus-
tomer, like you want different data link, you
want different communication system. So agreement, so we have absolutely no con-
it’s not exactly the same as the US. Even trol over it. And when we remove some-
where it’s different, the US government certi- thing from the airplane we need to provide
fies its capability. It’s safe to fly. They take the an alternative system to ensure the air-
first airplane to our test facility and fly it for plane is fit for the purpose. This is not new
several months to ensure that it’s going to to India. Any country that wants a sepa-
meet the performance that they signed on rate system, we make the changes. We do
for. So, the US government certifies the per- the engineering and the US government
formance of the aircraft. Even if it’s different, certifies its performance. So, if CISMOA is
it’s certified by the US government. So, even not signed, we will have to provide an
if we put the equipment in as the manufac- alternative system, to meet the one speci-
turer, the US government has to certify it for fied by India.
two reasons: one, safety in flight and the oth-
er, it doesn’t interfere with the installed On offset
equipment. So, they are responsible for the Offsets are part of most of our sales. And,
performance of the aircraft. of course, even in FMS, the US govern-
ment has nothing to do with offsets. So
On CISMOA they say to the contractor: ‘This is yours to
CISMOA is a government-to-government deal with.’ It’s a separate contract. And we
ON COMPETITION
NOBODY CAN BE
COMPARED TO THE
TECHNOLOGY WE
HAVE TO OFFER.
WE ARE
INCOMPARABLE.
THIS IS A PURPOSE-
BUILD STRIKE FIGHTER, THE OTHER COMPETITORS ARE
INTERCEPTORS WITH THE SECONDARY MISSION TO
STRIKE. THE AESA RADAR GIVES US THE CAPABILITY, AND
IT’S A NEW PLANE. NO ONE ELSE IS FLYING WITH THE
AESA RADAR.
On the bidding process
ToT is all about manufacture of the air-
craft; we are fully prepared and have sub-
mitted a compliance report, that over a
period of years you can manufacture the
aircraft in the country. It’s same for all
competitors. First 18 aircraft will be deliv-
ered. Starting with number 19, there are
kits, so the first some number of kits are
big parts. And then those kits become
more kits over time and then it’s all the
parts. And during that timeframe you start
manufacturing the parts. HAL is already
building the gun bay door, and over time
like I said, and that’s the ToT and it’s a
massive programme. Building an airplane
is a massive job. Even in St. Louis, a lot of
parts comes in kits, and we assemble, test
and then we deliver it.
On the cost component of assembly
I don’t really know the answer; it will be
different here and in the US, as there is
different labour costs. We have quoted for
the first 18 aircraft, and for the kits. Any-
thing quoted in US will be in US pricing.
But things down here, we don’t know what
your rates are, so we could not quote that.
On competition
Nobody can be compared to the technolo-
gy we have to offer. We are incomparable.
This is a purpose-build strike fighter, the
other competitors are interceptors with
the secondary mission to strike. The AESA
radar gives us the capability, and it’s a
new plane. No one else is flying with the
AESA radar.
On certification
The department of defence does that. The
US Navy and the US Air Force also certify.
They have to comply with the FAA rules,
but they are the certifying agency.
On the Indian aerospace industry
I think there is more and more
opportunity in the Indian aerospace indus-
try; there are lots of niche players.

www.geopolitics.in January 2011

(29)
ch self add new:ch self add one page new 2.qxd 5/25/2010 11:56 AM Page 4

CH cover may new:cover novemver NEW.qxd 5/3/2010 12:55 PM Page 1

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Wilbur Ross, Sanjay Aggarwal
Head, WL Ross CEO, SpiceJet

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& Co.

WARRING OVER THE TURNAROUND

SPICEJET COMETH?
Arvind Jadhav
CMD, Air India

DASHED
TO THE GROUND
RARELY HAS NATURE REACTED SO
RUTHLESSLY AS EYJAFJALLAJOKULL DID
BRINGING INTERNATIONAL AVIATION TO
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Spl report Raj mehta new26.qxd 1/3/2011 5:26 PM Page 60

g
GEOPOLITICS
FOCUS

LEADING THE
FORCES OR
MUDDLING ALONG
Maj Gen (Retd) RAJ MEHTA believes that the political
establishment and the services are together responsible for
this sorry state of affairs. Will the country learn from the best
practices of other nations and incorporate them in the higher
defence organisation? A special report

THREE SERVICE CHIEFS:

The IAF, the Navy and the
Army have a strategic role to
play in India's security
interests

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www.geopolitics.in January 2011
Spl report Raj mehta new26.qxd 1/3/2011
FINE-TUNING FOREIGN POLICY: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh discussing strategic security issues with US President Obama,
during his India visit
M
EDIA, THINK-TANKS, India
watchers and the common
man all believe that the
current security situation
within India and in the
South Asian region is a matter of grave
national concern. It is, however, a moot
point whether India’s hapless ruling coali-
tion and Parliament share this concern. The
UPA was unable to open the parliamentary
lock through the entire winter session, with a
fractious opposition hell bent on scoring
brownie points on issues of accountability
and endemic corruption. India’s apex lead-
ership, both civil, and, by extension, its mili-
tary leadership, is thus under substantial
operational stress.
With the Af-Pak region threatening to
spin out of American-NATO control, with
increasing Sino-Pak collusion in the PoK
(Pakistan-occupied Kashmir) region and
Chinese defence-related proactivity in Tibet
and all over the South Asian region; with the
need to promote better relationships with
Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and countries in
the Indian Ocean littoral, one would have
thought that India would have been deeply
concerned and would have consistently
fine-tuned its defence and foreign policies,
bringing its military leadership to the fore-
www.geopolitics.in
5:27 PM Page 61
g
FOCUS
front of the country’s security concerns. This
has regrettably not happened.
For the first time since attaining its Inde-
pendence, India hosted the heads of
state/government of all five permanent
members of the UN Security Council (US,
Russia, China, Britain and France) in the
INDIA'S
BOTH CIVIL AND
MILITARY
LEADERSHIP ARE
UNDER
SUBSTANTIAL
STRESS
same year. The sequence began with British
Prime Minister David Cameron in July 2010.
In November, US President Barack Obama
followed. The visits of French President
Nicolas Sarkozy, Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao and Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev in December are all of signifi-
cance, provided there is synergy within the
(33)
Indian political establishment and its mili-
tary establishment as to desired gains. This
does not appear to be the case.
Let us, therefore, review our defence
organisation and reflect on why there is such
an inexplicable disconnect between the
political hierarchy and its defence compo-
nent.
EVOLUTION OF INDIAN HIGHER
DEFENCE ORGANISATION
On Independence, Lord Mountbatten and
his Chief of Staff, Lord Ismay, recommended
a pragmatic system, which was based on a
Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) for opera-
tional handling and administration of each
Service, and a Chiefs of Staff Committee
(COSC) for central coordination. The COSC
was to be supported by other committees
with civil service members in them, to
improve coordination between the Services,
and between the Services and the Ministry
of Defence (MoD). The system was work-
able, but the senior civil servants of the time
intervened to completely distort the concept
of “civilian supremacy” to give it their own
interpretation of “bureaucratic control” by
issuing an edict that made the Services
“attached” to the MoD, thereby exposing
them to suffocating controls.
January 2011
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g
FOCUS

Post the Kargil War, the findings of the

Kargil Review Committee (KRC) contained a THE PRESENT SYSTEM
damning indictment of our national securi-
ty system. The KRC led to the formation, in
April 2000, of a Group of Ministers (GoM) to
suggest reforms through four specially man-
dated Task Forces. One of them was the Task
Force on Management of Defence, headed Supreme Commander of Indian Armed Forces
by former Minister of State for Defence,
Arun Singh.

THE CURRENT HIGHER DEFENCE

SYSTEM
Let us, for a moment, examine the existing
structure. The President is the Supreme Cabinet Committee & Security (CCS) NSC NSA
Commander of the Indian armed forces and Ministeries
the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS)
headed by the Prime Minister, assisted by
his Home, Defence, External Affairs and
Finance ministers is the country’s apex
security decisionmaking body. The National Shiv Shankar
Menon
Security Council (NSC), along with the
Home Defence External Affairs Finance
National Security Adviser (NSA), works par- P Chidambaram A K Antony S M Krishna Pranab Mukherji
allel to the CCS. The NSC comprises of a
Strategic Policy Group (SPG), a National
Security Advisory Board (NSAB) and a Secre- Strategic Policy Gruup National Security Secretariat provided by the
tariat provided by the Joint Intelligence Advisor Board Joint Intelligence Committee.
Committee. (JIC). The SPG is responsible for
inter-ministry coordination and comprises
the Cabinet Secretary, three Service Chiefs
and secretaries of key ministries beside
heads of key Intelligence agencies and the Three Security Chiefs
Governor of the Reserve Bank of India.
The MoD is required to ensure effective Cabinet Secretary Governor RBI
implementation of the Government’s K M Chandrasekhar Dr D Subbarao
defence policy directions. It is organised as
four departments (defence, defence produc-
tion, defence research and development
and ex-servicemen’s welfare) with an advi-
sory Defence (Finance) division. The
Defence Secretary is its civilian head and Army — General Navy — CNS Admiral Air Force —
V K Singh Nirmal Verma Pradeep Vasant Naik
also deals with the Integrated Defence Staff
(IDS), the three Services and Inter-Service
Organisations. making apparatus that the Arun Singh Task failure of the Iranian hostage rescue mission
The COSC is a forum for the Service Force thus homed in on to was the absence in 1980, and which were still evident in the
Chiefs to discuss defence matters and ren- of objective and unified apex military advice invasion of Grenada in 1983.
der advice to the MoD. The senior-most and oversight to Government that was free In the pre-Goldwater-Nichols era, the
Chief is the Chairman. Admiral Arun of inter-Services rivalry. What it suggested United States military had a system very
Prakash notes in “India’s Higher Defence after detailed worldwide study was the similar to the Indian one, with field com-
Organisation: Implications for National introduction of the Chief of Staff (CDS) sys- manders reporting to their respective
Security and Jointness”, that when he tem. What it used as a model was the Amer- Service Chiefs. These Chiefs comprised the
became Chairman of COSC in February ican system, enshrined in the Senators Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. The Joint
2005, he was the fourth successive incum- Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Chiefs of Staff elected a Chairman to com-
bent in six months. He adds with sobering Reorganization Act of 1986. municate with the civilian government. The
realpolitik that in his 20-month tenure as What did the US Goldwater-Nichols Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in turn report-
Chairman, COSC, there was rarely a mean- Department of Defense Reorganization Act ed to the Secretary of Defence, the civilian
ingful debate… “Because of the unstated of 1986 do? The Goldwater-Nichols Act was head of the military. Both the Chairman of
understanding amongst the Chiefs that ‘if a bold and revolutionary political initiative the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of
you don’t interfere with my plans, I’ll not to fix problems caused by inter-Services Defence reported to the President of the
comment on yours’”. rivalry, which had emerged during the Viet- United States, who is Commander-in-Chief
The serious anomaly in the decision- nam War, contributed to the catastrophic of all US armed forces. This system led to

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Spl report Raj mehta new26.qxd 1/3/2011
intense inter-Services rivalry.
Peacetime activities (such
as procurement and creation
of doctrine, etc.) were tailored
for each service in isolation.
Just as seriously, wartime
activities of each service were
planned, executed, and evalu-
ated independently. The cre-
(L-R):Barry Goldwater, William Flynt Nichols, K Subramanian, Arun Sinha and
ation of a unifying Air Land
Admiral Arun Prakash
Battle Doctrine in the late
1970s-early 1980s, which
attempted to synthesise the capabilities of
the Services into a single doctrine, revealed
the serious lack of inter-Services synergy —
a weakness that was exposed in the US inva-
sion of Grenada in 1983.
The first successful test of Goldwater-
Nichols was the 1991 Gulf War (“Operation
Desert Storm”), where it functioned exactly
as planned, allowing the US Commander,
Army General Norman Schwarzkopf, to
exercise full control over Marine Corps,
Army, Air Force and Navy assets without
having to negotiate with the individual serv-
ices. Under the Goldwater-Nichols Act, mili-
tary advice was centralised in the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs as opposed to the Service
Chiefs. It increased the ability of the Chair-
man to direct overall strategy, but provided
greater command authority to “unified” and
“specified” field commanders. Goldwater-
Nichols changed the way the Services inter-
act. The Services themselves “organise, train
and equip” forces for use by the combatant
commanders (CCDRs), and the Service
Chiefs no longer exercise any operational
control over their forces. Rather than report-
ing to a Service Chief operationally, the serv-
ice component forces support the CCDR
responsible for a specific function (Trans-
portation, Strategic, Joint Forces, and Spe-
cial Operations), or a geographic region of
the globe (Europe, Middle East, etc).
SERVICES AND POLITICAL
APPREHENSIONS IN INDIA
Besides the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy,
China, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singa-
pore, Thailand and Sri Lanka, all have a
duly-appointed Chief of Defence Staff
(CDS), who enjoys the full confidence and
trust of the head of government, and to
whom he directly reports. In India, howev-
er, even though the Government accepted
the CDS suggestion, it slipped in a caveat
that there must be political consensus on
its implementation. The political parties by
and large have not even replied to the Gov-
ernment’s request for their response.
Within the Services too, there is lack of
consensus on creation of this office. The
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5:28 PM Page 63
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FOCUS
Army has come around to accepting it, not
so the Navy and Air Force who fear that
their Service interests may get swamped by
the sheer size of the Army as well as the pre- to the Chiefs of Staff Committee (CISC).
sumed inability of the CDS to comprehend
how the Navy and Air Force look at opti-
mum utilisation of their capability and
reach and their plans to help convert India
into a regional power of substance.
Given its size, geographical location,
trade links and the EEZ (Exclusive Econom-
ic Zones), India’s security environment
extends from the Persian Gulf to the Straits
of Malacca across the Indian Ocean, includ-
ing the Central Asian region in the North
West, China in the North East and South
East Asia. This is how the Navy sees itself; as headquarters have been re-designated and
a strategic player of substance, with vast
areas of security responsibility far away
from the mainland but key nevertheless to
the nation’s security. The IAF sees itself as a
strategic force with trans-oceanic reach and
is now projecting itself into sole command
of space and therefore satellites and
weapons using space as well.
The IAF and the Navy, as per Admiral
Arun Prakash, strongly feel they have a
much bigger strategic role to play in secur-
ing India’s strategic security interests than
the Army, which, these Services feel, is
deeply committed as a ‘landlubber’ to
mainland security challenges and their
extension into the peripheral region. It
therefore does not seem well disposed to
the concept of “theatre commands” that lie
at the heart of what the other two Services
feel ought to be the true DNA of the Indian
security system.
There is another dissonance too and this
is between the perceived Indian strategic
aims, military doctrine and the need for
acquiring modern military hardware. There
is a major problem here, because our strate-
gic vision has not been officially stated even for final arbiter of the nation’s destiny; the
though it can be extrapolated. Also, because
there is dissonance between politician-mil-
itary and bureaucrats, we have often ended
up buying hardware that is not in conso-
nance with our needs and for which
military use and justification has then got
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to be created ex-post facto.
This problem has been felt
by all Services almost since
Independence.
INDIAN JUGAD (IMPRO-
VISED) TO THE RESCUE
In the manner that
India seems to have an
unenviable copyright on,
we have muddled along, in
the absence of political
and services consensus on the CDS, by cre-
ation of an Integrated Defence Staff (IDS)
under the Chief of Integrated Defence Staff
This organisation is meant to support the
COSC in performance of its role and func-
tions, and bring together and coordinate
several functions, including the formula-
tion of long-term and Five Year Plans and
Annual Budgets have been brought under
the IDS. Tri-Service bodies promoting
‘jointness’ and ‘synergy’ among the armed
forces have been set up like the Defence
Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Strategic
Forces Command (SFC) and the Andaman
and Nicobar Command. Individual service
integrated to the Ministry of Defence as
part of the ‘Integrated Headquarters of the
Ministry of Defence’.
THE WAY AHEAD
Given the “banana republic” kind of outlook
that the beleaguered ruling coalition is
exhibiting; the dismal outlook of a fractious as
well as fractured opposition, there seems little
hope of our exhibiting the national and politi-
cal resolve that will see a way out of this mess
and put politico-military relations on a
healthy track that promotes Indian national
interest over all other (sectarian) interests. For
them, it seems cruelly apt to apply the words
of G K Chesterton: “It is not that they don’t
know what the solution is; what they don’t
know is the problem.” The skeptical observer
might wonder whether the larger military
establishment, given its unease and visible
discomfort with a unified strategic security
vision is also not guilty of displaying the same
weakness that has remained as a legacy with
us since the Battle of the Hydaspes in 326 BC
— abysmal lack of a strategic culture. What
seems possible and the right way forward is
Supreme Court of India, to step in and
demand legislation that removes the
leadership and operational stresses from our
politico-military apparatus.
(The author is a Chandigarh-based analyst.)
January 2011
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PERISCOPE
g
GEOPOLITICS

LCA INITIAL OPERATIONAL CLEARANCE IN JANUARY ‘11

AFTER NEARLY three decades of develop-
ment, India’s indigenous Light Combat
Aircraft (LCA) will obtain its Initial Opera-
tional Clearance (IOC) around the middle
of January 2011, taking its last step before
induction into the Indian Air Force (IAF).
As India’s long-time-in-the-works proj-
ect, LCA design and development by the
Defence Research and Development
Organisation (DRDO) and Hindustan
Aeronautics Limited (HAL) was approved
by the government in the late 1960s. Nick-
named ‘Tejas’ in 2004, the LCA designing
had been launched in 1985 by the Aero-
nautical Development Agency (ADA)
under the DRDO with HAL as the nodal
manufacturing agency.
With the IOC coming in
January, the IAF intends to
induct two squadrons of the LCA by the
middle of 2011. The IAF had first placed
the orders for 40 LCAs in March 2005.
The first 40 LCAs will be powered by
the American General Electric GE-F404
engines. The government had, a couple of
months ago, chosen the GE-F414 as the
new engine for future
LCAs after rejecting its
competitor, Eurojet’s
EJ200 engine. A total
of 99 GE-F414 engines are
to be purchased under
the deal with General
Electric.
The IAF may ultimately have around
200 LCAs (10 squadrons) in its fleet, pri-
marily to replace the ageing Russian
MiG-21 and MiG-27 fighter jets.

SUPER HERCULES New Mi-117 choppers

DELIVERED
DEFENCE MAJOR Lockheed
Martin delivered the first of
six C-130Js to the Indian Air
Force at Marietta on Decem-
ber 17. The first two
C-130Js would be flown to
India in January. The IAF
would deploy this latest fleet
of airlifters, configured for
special operations and
airborne assault, on the out-
skirts of New Delhi to cut
down on response time in
situations akin to the 26/11
terror attacks.
The C-130J Super Her-
cules airlifters, capable of
for IAF
operating from unprepared
runways, would be based at
the Hindon Air Force station
in UP’s Ghaziabad’s district.
The planes are equipped
with air-to-air refuelling
capability and have self-pro-
tection systems that improve
chances of survival in hostile
situations. The delivery of
the airlifters is part of a
$1.2-billion (`5,400 crore)
contract the Defence Min-
istry had signed in 2008 for
six C-130Js, under Washing-
ton’s foreign military sales
programme.

INDIA WILL begin inducting deliveries of 80 Mi-17-V5 heli-

the first lot of 80 Russian
Mi-17-V5 helicopters, con-
tracted under a $1.34-billion
deal inked in December 2008,
from March 2011 onwards, ac-
cording to Defence Minister A
K Antony.
These helicopters will be
utilised for special heliborne
operations, air maintenance,
troop and equipment trans-
portation, search and rescue,
casualty evacuation and in
armed helicopter roles. The
copters are expected to con-
clude by 2014, as per the con-
tract, which also envisages an
offset obligation by Russia to
the tune of $405 million.
While bolstering IAF’s
medium-lift capabilities, the
new helicopters will also make
it possible for the force to de-
ploy additional choppers for lo-
gistical support in ongoing
anti-Naxal operations. The
choppers will replace 50 old
Mi-8s in the IAF fleet.

(36)
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Periscope jan.qxd 1/3/2011 5:25 PM Page 13
COAST GUARD SHIP ‘VIJIT’ COMMISSIONED India’s oldest sub
retires State for Defence on December 13.
INDIAN COAST Guard ship ‘Vijit’, second
in the series of 90-metre Offshore Patrol
Vessel (OPV), has been commissioned at
Goa by M M Pallam Raju, Minister of
Scorpenes to get lethal plus!
THE NAVY is weighing a proposal to mod-
ify the under-construction Scorpene sub-
marines to enable the boats to stay un-
derwater for longer periods and enhance
their combat capabilities. It is considering
to equip the submarines, being built at
Mazagon Dock Limited (MDL), with an air
independent propulsion (AIP) system that
can recharge their batteries without hav-
ing to surface for more than three weeks.
Conventional submarines have to surface
almost every second day to run their air-
breathing diesel engines, running the risk
of detection.
Six Scorpene submarines are being
built with transfer of technology from
French firm DCNS, under a `18,798-crore
programme called Project 75. DCNS CEO
Patrick Boissier, who accompanied French
President Nicolas Sarkozy, during his recent
www.geopolitics.in
g
This OPV has been designed and built
indigenously and is fitted with most-
advanced navigation and communica-
tion equipment, sensors and machinery.
The ship is designed to carry one twin-
engine light helicopter and five high-
speed boats for search and rescue, law-
enforcement and maritime patrol. It is
also capable of carrying pollution
response equipment to combat any oil
spill contamination at sea.
ICGS Vijit will be manned by eight offi-
cers and 82 men under the command of
Deputy Inspector General Naresh Kaul
and will be based at Porbandar.
visit to India, says that his company is in
talks with the Navy to equip the sub-
marines with AIP systems. According to
Boissier, if a contract were to be placed by
next year, AIP systems could be integrat-
ed into the fifth and the sixth submarines
rolling out of MDL in 2018. The systems
can be retrofitted on the first four sub-
marines later under an upgrade pro-
gramme. The Navy is also looking at an in-
digenous AIP system being developed by
the Defence Research and Development
Organisation.
Navy Chief Admiral Nirmal Verma has
said that the first Scorpene submarine
would enter service in 2015 and the re-
maining six within a span of three years.
The Navy was supposed to induct its first
Scorpene in 2012, but the project has
been delayed.
(37)
INDIA’S PRECARIOUSLY low submarine
strength took a dive on December 15 with the
decommissioning of the Navy’s oldest foxtrot-
class submarine, INS Vagli, which retired after
36 years of service.
Commissioned in August, 1974, INS Vagli
was commanded by 23 officers in all major
tactical exercises off both sea-boards and in
the high seas. With its retirement, the naval
submarine strength has come down to 14 age-
ing vessels of which only eight-nine are opera-
tional at any given point of time.
In 1999, the Cabinet Committee on Security
decided to create two production lines for sub-
marines with foreign vendors to achieve an
indigenous design and manufacturing capa-
bility. While the first line to produce six French
Scorpene submarines is operational at the
Mazgaon Dock, the second line too received
government approval recently.
NAVY WANTS
VIGIL ON
UNGUARDED
BENGAL STRETCH
THE INDIAN Navy has asked the Border Secu-
rity Force and the customs department to beef
up their presence along the 160-km-long stretch
of water that runs through the Sunderbans.
Navy officials are concerned that even two years
after the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, such a long
stretch has remained unmanned.
This stretch provides almost free-entry rights
to the Indian waters where ships from
Bangladesh are allowed to travel a long stretch
before reaching the Customs checkpoint at
Namkhana, about 120km south of Kolkata. Ac-
cording to an Indo-Bangladesh trade agree-
ment, ships from Bangaldesh can enter India
through Bihari Khal by going through a routine
check by the BSF.
January 2011
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g
GEOPOLITICS
COVERSTORY

CYBER WARFARE
THE NEW
FRONTIER

IF WARFARE IS GOING TO BE
CONDUCTED IN CYBER SPACE
AND IF THE COMBATANTS OF
THE FUTURE ARE GOING TO
BE IRREGULARS, THEN CYBER
TERRORISM IS THE LOGICAL
PARADIGM OF FUTURE
CONFLICTS, ARGUES
PRAKASH NANDA

(38)
www.geopolitics.in January 2011
Cover story cyber war NEW.qxd 1/3/2011
I
NFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) is a
double-edged sword, which can be
used for destructive as well as con-
structive purposes. It has now created
for the mankind a fifth dimension to
land, sea, air and space, though unlike
the other four dimensions it is completely
man-made and man-controlled. We all know
how through the constructive use of IT, India’s
profile and wealth have gone up enormously
in the world. However, at the same time — and
this is the destructive aspect — India now
ranks fifth among countries reporting the
maximum number of cyber crimes, according
to a recent report released by the Internet
Crime Complaint Centre of the United States.
In fact, it is said that with India becoming
home to the fourth-highest number of Inter-
net users in the world, cyber crimes have been
rising at more than 50 per cent every year. The
great virtues of the Internet — ease of access,
lack of regulation, vast potential audiences,
and fast flow of information, among others —
have been turned to the advantage of groups
committed to terrorising societies to achieve
their goals. Cyber weapons are very different
from conventional weapons in the sense that
they are very easy to replicate without spend-
ing much money. Actually, the total expendi-
ture is in the creation of the first or original
weapon. Through the applications of these
weapons, one can adversely affect individuals,
organisations and countries — both singly
and combined.
Terrorism on the Internet is a very dynamic
phenomenon: websites suddenly emerge, fre-
quently modify their formats, and then swiftly
disappear — or, in many cases, seem to disap-
pear by changing their online address but
retaining much the same content. Recently,
Indian Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar
admitted that cyber terrorism and cyber
attacks had emerged as new threats with a
capability to paralyse the critical infrastruc-
ture of the country. "The damage of such
attacks could range from a simple shut down
of a computer system to complete paralysis of
a significant portion of critical infrastructure,"
he said.
That India is undergoing a turbulent phase
with regard to cyber crimes is evident from the
attack by Chinese hackers to the computers in
the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) not long
ago. The sinister attempt was made around
December 15, 2009. Investigators are still com-
ing to terms with the depth of the damage. The
hackers had aimed high — their targets were
the cream of India’s national security set-up:
the then National Security Advisor M K
www.geopolitics.in
4:59 PM Page 39
g
COVER STORY
Narayanan, Cabinet Secretary K M Chan-
drasekhar, PM’s then Special Envoy Shyam
Saran and Deputy National Security Advisor
Shekhar Dutt. The four and up to 26 others
were squarely in the crosshairs of the hacking
attempt. The timing of the espionage attempt
had investigators suspecting that the Chinese
hackers were desperately trying to access any
data on India’s position at the Copenhagen
Climate Summit.
In March 2009, a China-based cyber spy
network had hacked into the government and
private systems of 103 countries, including
those of many Indian embassies and the Dalai
Lama. In May 2008, hackers from China
attacked the Ministry of External Affairs’
(MEA) website. Despite official denials, at least
one website reported that the hackers had
stolen the log-in identities and passwords of
several Indian diplomats. In any case, a huge
number of 9,052 Indian websites have been at
the mercy of an anti-India community, that
too in the last three-four years. Hackers from
across the Indian borders have become a new
threat point for the government. Of course,
INDIA IS
UNDERGOING
A TURBULENT
PHASE WITH
REGARD TO
CYBER CRIMES
cyber attacks from across the border are not
new to India. It happened for the first time
when, during the nuclear tests at Pokhran in
1998, Pakistan hacked the websites of Zee
News and India Today. The Pakistan-based
hackers, GForce Pakistan and Pakistani Hack-
erz Club, owned up to the intrusion, leaving
threatening messages and demanding a stop-
page to the N-tests. Even after the Parliament
attacks in December 2001 and later a massive
troop stand-off between India and Pakistan,
several hacking incidents were reported.
Subsequently, the Pakistani hackers
targeted the Indian website www.armyinkash-
mir.com, which was providing factual infor-
mation about daily events in the Kashmir Val-
ley in 1999. The hackers posted photographs
showing the Indian security forces allegedly
killing Kashmiri people and blamed the Indian
(39)
government for "atrocities” in Kashmir. Obvi-
ously, it had the intended impact in the Valley.
Similarly, in 2008, techno-savvy terrorists
based in Pakistan used the Internet to send
terror e-mails a few seconds before triggering
the serial blasts across the country.
In December 2008, the Eastern Railways
portal was hacked by Whackerz-Pakistan. The
official site www.easternrailway.gov.in bore a
strange look. When opened, the top scroll on
the site, which normally consists of official
announcements, had unusual notes. The first
note read: “Cyber war has been declared on
Indian cyberspace by Whackerz-Pakistan (24
Dec-2008)”. This was followed by two other
abusive notes. The threat note also claimed
that servers of Indian financial institutions
would also be hacked with the help of the
group’s members working in computer
departments of “foreign companies”. The
scene became grimmer after the 26/11 Mum-
bai attacks in 2008. The Pakistani group, Pak-
istan Cyber Army hacked the websites of the
Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, the Centre
for Transportation Research and Manage-
ment, the Kendriya Vidyalaya of Ratlam (a
chain of schools run by the Indian Army) and
the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation of India
(ONGC). The damages took a long time to fill.
Hostile neighbours, or for that matter exter-
nal enemies can always create havoc by
indulging in what is now well known as cyber
war. For instance, it is now an open secret that
Russia launched an unprecedented cyber war
against Estonia in May 2007, soon after Eston-
ian authorities began removing a bronze
statute depicting a World War II-era Soviet sol-
dier in Tallinn (capital of Estonia). Though offi-
cially Russia denied it, the fact was that its
cyber attack virtually crippled Estonia’s digital
infrastructure by clogging the websites of the
President, the Prime Minister, and Parliament
as well as staggering the country’s biggest
bank and the sites of several daily newspapers.
In fact, the attack totally destroyed Estonia’s
financial system for a few weeks.
The attack on Estonia was one of the most
publicised hacks in recent computing history.
But it wasn’t the first case of cyber espionage,
nor the most egregious. It’s the “tip of the ice-
berg of the quantity and quality of attacks that
are going on,” says O Sami Saydjari, president
of the Cyber Defense Agency, a security con-
sultant, and a former Pentagon computer
security expert. Israel, Pakistan and the United
States have all been accused of launching sim-
ilar attacks on adversaries.
China, however, may be the most active.
Washington has accused the China of hacking
January 2011
Cover story cyber war NEW.qxd 1/3/2011 4:59 PM
READY, AIM, ENTER…
IN A CYBER war, the enemy's main goal is to
penetrate the rival's computer networks,
exploit its communication networks and to
manipulate its digital information.
Other cyber tactics are less sophisticated.
The attack that temporarily brought down
the Estonian networks began with a flood of
bogus messages targeting government
servers, called a “denial of service” attack.
The approach harnesses “botnets”— mas-
sive networks of interconnected computers
to bombard targeted networks with infor-
mation requests while masking the location
of the primary attacker.
Another technique is the use of “mal-
ware”, “spyware,” and other malicious pro-
grammes imbedded into computer systems
to steal information without user knowl-
edge. The software is designed to hide
undetected and siphon information from its
host — everything from secrets stored on
personal computers to military mainframes.
Less common but far more worrisome are
cyber attacks aimed at critical infrastructure
— like nuclear-power-plant control systems,
banks, or subways. In March 2007, the US
Department of Energy's Idaho Lab conduct-
ed an experiment to determine whether a
power plant could be compromised by hack-
ing alone. The result — a smoking, self-
combusting diesel generator incapacitated
by nothing more than keystrokes — sent
shivers (according to CNN) through the pri-
vate sector. The worries were apparently
well-founded. In January 2008, a CIA ana-
lyst told US utilities that hackers had suc-
ceeded in infiltrating electric companies in
undisclosed locations outside the United
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COVER STORY
States and, in at least one instance, shut off
power to multiple cities. The hackers then
demanded money (as reported by AP).
As regards India, the immediate threats
are from our immediate neighbours, Pak-
istan and China, it is believed. According to
the Intelligence Bureau, China may try and
destabilise our economy by launching
attacks on our banking sectors. Pakistan, on
the other hand, may attack essential com-
modity-related services instead.
Reports indicate that for a terrorist
organisation, the easiest way to launch an
attack on India would be through the cyber
route. It is high investment, but it saves
them the trouble of manpower on the field
and the impact such an attack could cause is
immense. IB reports also suggest that terror-
ist organisations could start an Internet war
by hacking into websites and sending out
viruses to destabilise the enemy nation. The
forms of cyber assaults would include cyber
vandalism, destruction of essential com-
modity-related sites (ESCOMs) and phish-
ing.
Cyber war on India is likely to be fought
in three stages. First, the enemy would
bring down the control systems of defence
installations, Parliament, railways and air-
ports. Second, they would look to attack
financial services such as banks and stock
markets. Finally, ESCOMs and other utilities
services will be taken over.
Cyber crime experts say this is a danger-
ous scenario. It will surely create a lot of
panic and if they succeed, it could cause a
lot of destruction, since it would take days
before the services actually recover.
(40)
government computer networks at the US
Departments of State, Commerce, and
Defense — in some instances making off with
data. But accusations of Chinese cyber med-
dling reached a crescendo in June 2007, when,
according to the Financial Times, hackers
broke into a Pentagon network that serves the
office of the Secretary of Defense, briefly shut-
ting it down. Chinese electronic espionage has
also been suspected against British compa-
nies (Rolls Royce is one example), as well as
government agencies in France, Germany,
South Korea, and Taiwan. “Chinese capabili-
ties in this area have evolved from defending
networks from attack to offensive operations
against adversary networks,” Deputy Under-
Secretary for Defense, Richard P Lawless told
a House Committee in June 2007. However,
China, like Russia, denied the accusations.
Fortunately, no hostile neighbour has
caused that harm to India as yet, but our com-
panies and financial institutions are appre-
hensive of cyber attacks. In 2006, IBM con-
ducted a global survey of more than 3,000
INDIA
PERCEIVED
CYBER CRIME
AS A GREATER
THREAT THAN
PHYSICAL
CRIME
Chief Information Officers or other individu-
als qualified to answer questions about their
company’s IT practices. It included 150
respondents from India. The survey showed
that Indian businesses perceived cyber crime
(44 per cent) as a greater threat than physical
crime (31 per cent) to their business. They
believed that one could always damage
telecommunications or rail links, disrupt
power supplies and harm other important
parts of India’s infrastructure through
cyber attacks.
As for individual attacks, the trend has
been on a constant rise. According to the lat-
est report of the National Crime Record
Bureau (NCRB), the maximum cyber crime
cases, about 46 per cent, were related to inci-
dents of cyber pornography, followed by
hacking. This number must have gone up, giv-
en the fact that this NCRB report was out in
2007. Experts have always paid scant respect
to the recorded cyber crime statistics since
this only reflects the cases registered by the
January 2011
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Indira Gandhi International Airport

Terminal 3
Cover story cyber war NEW.qxd 1/3/2011 5:00 PM
police. It has no relation to the actual number
of cyber crimes happening in the country as
well as complaints taken by the public to dif-
ferent police stations where they are refused.
However, if we take the figures given by the
cyber cell of Delhi Police, one gets a trend and
that is a matter of concern. The number of
registered cyber crimes is going up constantly
year-after-year and here most of the cases
have been e-mail hacking and online matri-
monial frauds. According to the Delhi Police,
in 2009 e-mail hacking and the consequent
cheating cases went up by 150 per cent. It is
said that in many a case, Nigerian gangs are
very active in India, particularly during festive
seasons when massive purchases are done
online, thanks to the system of credit cards
and online bank accounts.
It is obvious that cyber criminals, unlike
other criminals, are educated. They are not
necessarily motivated by notoriety, unless
they are government-sponsored to do mis-
chief in enemy countries or are
hard core terrorists. Hackers, other-
wise, want to earn quick money. In
fact, the demographic profile of a
typical cyber criminal is changing
rapidly, from a bedroom-bound
geek to the type of organised gang-
ster more traditionally associated
with drug-trafficking, extortion and Eastern Railways
money laundering. Cyber criminals
can earn thousands without leaving
their homes. In fact, to make more
money than can be made by selling
heroin. According to NCRB report,
most of the offenders are in the age
group of 18 and 30 years. Kendriya
Vidyalaya of
That brings us to the question on Ratlam
how do deal with the cyber crimes?
It is no doubt a Herculean task, giv-
en the fact that the technology
involved in cyber crimes is so fast
changing, any law would find it dif-
ficult to keep pace. Second, any
effective law will need international
cooperation in the sense that the criminal is
not supposed to be physically present in the
country where the crime is committed. Unfor-
tunately, there are no international rules and
conventions as yet to deal with cyber crimes.
Obviously, there is need now to tighten inter-
national digital legislation and of cross-border
law-enforcement co-ordination to fight cyber
crime.
That brings the scope of national laws. In
India, cyber crimes come under both the
traditional Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the
Information Technology Act, 2000, which was
amended in 2008. And herein lies, according
to the experts, confusion. Since policing is a
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COVERSTORY
“State” subject and the complaints have to be
lodged with the local police, it all depends
under what laws the police register the cases,
and in most cases, the police prefer the age-
old IPC simply because the local police is not
conversant with the intricacies of the IT Act,
which is a central legislation.
Other than the police officers, in India,
lawyers and judges are not properly trained in
cyber law aspects so that cyber criminals may
be suitably punished. In the absence of proper
training, there is almost no conviction of cyber
criminals in India. The major problem has
been due to the lack of what is called Cyber
Forensics. We know how forensic devices are
important in normal criminal investigations
to gather evidence to prove in a court but to
prove cyber crimes, electronic evidence and
their collection and presentation have posed a
challenge to investigation agencies, prosecu-
tion agencies and judiciary.
Realising the gravity of the situation, the
INDIAN WEBSITES
HACKED
¬
¬
¬
Zee News
¬
¬
¬
Indian Institute and sometimes non-understand-
of Remote
Sensing
India Today
Oil and Natural Gas
Corporation of India
government has now devised what is now
known as the Crime and Criminal Tracking
Network & Systems (CCTNS) project, and this
has been formally approved by the Cabinet
Committee on Economic Affairs of the gov-
ernment. It has a financial cushion of 2,000
crore as per the 11th Five Year Plan. The proj-
ect would be initiated by the Ministry of Home
Affairs and implemented by the National
Crime Records Bureau. The CCTNS project is
to be implemented in a manner where the
major role would lie with the state govern-
ments in order to bring in the requisite stakes,
ownership and commitment, and only certain
core components would be in the hands of the
(42)
central government, apart from the required
review and monitoring of project implemen-
tation on a continuing basis.
The broad objectives of the CCTNS project
are streamlining investigation and prosecu-
tion processes, strengthening of the intelli-
gence-gathering machinery, improved public-
delivery system and citizen-friendly interface,
nationwide sharing of information on crime
and criminals and improving efficiency and
effectiveness of police functioning. The proj-
ect aims to fulfil various specified objectives
over a period of three years. Accordingly, in
December 2009, the Parliament of India was
told that the Government of India (GoI) was
interconnecting about 14,000 police stations
and 6,000 police offices across the country
through CCTNS. The government is also
examining the feasibility of connecting hotels
and guesthouses to the CCTNS system.
While cyber experts are eagerly waiting for
the actual implementation of the CCTNS sys-
tem, it is also being felt that another
improvement that is urgently
required to be adopted, implement-
ed and inculcated by the Judges of
District Courts, High Courts and
Supreme Court of India pertains to
techno-legal acumen and knowl-
edge. Techno-Legal acumen is diffi-
cult to acquire as it requires a sound
working and practical knowledge of
both technical and legal aspects of
the Information and Communica-
tion Technology (ICT)-related
aspects. Issues like Cyber Law, Inter-
national Telecommunications Laws,
Cyber Forensics, Digital Evidencing,
Cyber Security, etc. pose difficult
able legal issues before the courts.
The judges in India must fill in this
much-needed and unnoticed legal
gap that has not yet been explored
by them.
It must be realised that cyber
threats are worrisome and, therefore, the gov-
ernment must come out with strong and prac-
tical solutions to counter such threats. But giv-
en the very nature of IT revolution, there can-
not be a single solution to deal with these
threats. There is a need for what is called a
techno-legal “harmonised law”. We need a
good combination of law and technology in
such a manner that it is in harmony with the
laws of various countries keeping in mind
common security standards. In this era of e-
governance and e-commerce, a lack of com-
mon security standards can create havoc for
global trade in goods and services, not to talk
of military matters.
January 2011
Cover story cyber war NEW.qxd 1/3/2011 5:00 PM
READYING FOR
THE STRIKE
As the threat of cyber terrorism looms large over the future, RADHAKRISHNA RAO
takes a look at how India is prepared to deal with it
T
HE UNPRECEDENTED com-
munications revolution that
was ushered in by the cyber age
has turned the world into a ver-
itable "global village". Indeed,
cyber space has radically trans-
formed the way individuals and societies
communicate by overcoming the barriers of
time, distance and natural impediments. But
on the flipside, the cyber revolution has led
to terrorists, white collar criminals and anti-
social elements making use of the cyber
space to realise their "devious and dangerous
objectives". Indeed, there is a growing per-
ception that the next war could start and end
in cyber space. As pointed out by strategic
analysts, the ancient art and profession of
warfare is now all set to enter the domain of
cyber space after being fought on land, sea
and in the air. Sometime back, defence
experts had expressed concern over the outer
space emerging as the battlefield for the next
world war. With leading space-faring coun-
tries, including India, hinting at developing
devices aimed at ensuring the safety and
security of their space assets, the possibility
of space becoming the fourth dimension of
the warfare has been taken for granted.
In the Indian context, the threat of cyber
terrorism has assumed serious proportions
with a number of terrorist groups targeting
India making extensive use of cyber net-
works. For instance, Pakistani-sponsored ter-
rorist groups make extensive use of cyber
communications to "create and sustain the
state of disturbance" in the Kashmir Valley.
Not surprisingly, the Government of India,
with a view to countering cyber attacks, has
come out with a decision to enforce stricter
norms for foreign communications equip-
ment vendors and service providers. As a part
of this strategy, the government is exploring
the possibility of putting in place a National
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COVERSTORY
Testing Facility fully well-equipped to certify
all imported software and hardware pro-
cured for key information systems used by
Indian agencies including the security estab-
lishment.
Indian security agencies have been
expressing concern about malware or spy-
ware embedded into imported hardware that
could ultimately be exploited by unfriendly
countries to hack the information networks
with serious consequences for India. On
another front, with a view to securing vital
areas such as banking, defence, railways, civ-
il aviation, atomic energy as well as oil and
gas, there is a proposal to set up a high-pow-
ered computer emergency responsive team
for each of these sectors.
In a development that has rattled the Indi-
an defence establishment and security set
up, the possible role of Indian Army officials
in a suspected cyber-espionage case follow-
ing the hacking of a computer system of a
Major of the Indian Army located in the
Andaman island is being probed. Investigat-
ing agencies are now probing the circum-
stances leading to the "cyber security
breach" leading to the siphoning-off of
"highly sensitive and top secret" data by Pak-
istan. Whether this leak was deliberate or due
to the "devious doings" of Pakistan-based
hackers, no one is sure as yet. But one dis-
turbing feature of the whole episode was that
the files found in the computer system of the
Major were beyond the sphere of his work.
Incidentally, Andaman and Nicobar deploy-
ment is a part of the tri-service command
where all the three wings of the Indian
defence set-up work in unison under the
overall command of the Integrated Defence
Staff (IDS).
One of the theories doing the rounds is
that the computer of the Major in the
Andamans was accessed from two proxy
(43)
servers. The location of one of the servers has
been traced to Pakistan while there is no clar-
ity on the origin of the other server. A forensic
report makes it clear that some vital files and
e-mails were deleted from the computer after
it was seized by the authorities. Significantly,
the Major came under the shadow of suspi-
cion after a tip-off from American intelli-
gence agencies that were busy studying the
content of suspicious internet communica-
tions as part of their wider probe related to
the Lashkar-e-Taiba operative David Headly.
To their surprise, the American probe agen-
cies detected a user in the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands transmitting a picture of a
serving Indian Brigadier who was attending a
training programme in the US to a computer
based in Pakistan. This was how the needle of
suspicion was pointed towards the Indian
Army Major located in the Andaman.
Amidst this bleak scenario, it is appropri-
ate that the Indian Army has directed its offi-
cials to keep away from social networking
sites, including Twitter, Facebook and Orkut.
They have been asked not to post sensitive
information like their rank, unit or posting
location. Not too long ago, Chinese hackers
are known to have used social networking
sties to break into the computer systems of
the Indian defence establishment. On its part
the Indian Army has decided to crack the
whip on erring and defaulting Army officials.
Counter-espionage agencies in the country
have been directed to take up the challenge
of tracking and monitoring social networking
portals more strictly and initiate action
against erring officials.
As part of the long-term plan to ward off
the threat of cyber espionage originating
from unfriendly countries, India is now
working towards preparing a blueprint for
counter-cyber warfare. According to a pro-
posal now receiving the serious attention of
January 2011
Cover story cyber war NEW.qxd 1/3/2011 5:00 PM
the National Security Council, Indian agen-
cies may be asked to enhance capabilities to
exploit the shortcoming in the information
systems of the countries that are inimical to
India and also collect online intelligence of
their important military activities including
defence build-ups. The proposed blueprint
includes plans to set up exclusive laborato-
ries in research institutions to simulate cyber
attacks with the assistance of ethical hackers.
In addition, these specialised laboratories
would be the focal points for training intelli-
gence agencies for offensive and defensive
cyber techniques. As things stand now, the
National Technical Research Organisation
(NTRO), the Defence Intelligence Agency
(DIA) as well as the Defence Research and
Development Organisation (DRDO) will be
the key players in giving a practical shape to
this blueprint of immense national interest.
In particular, the plan also points out to the
possibility of setting up early-warning capa-
bilities about impending attacks on the
country's information systems and evolving
expertise in the area of cyber forensics.
Meanwhile, a well-documented study of
the future of geo-political relations with Chi-
na, brought out by the US military, reveals
that the Chinese government is moving
ahead vigorously with a well-conceived plan
to develop a full-fledged cyber warfare divi-
sion. The report makes it clear that the Chi-
nese government is assembling a team to
deal with "electronic and online arenas".
Chinese warfare strategists are clear that by
crippling or destroying the economic, com-
munications and strategic networks and
infrastructure, it is possible to bring the
adversaries to heels. In the ultimate analysis,
cyber warfare can prove even more deadly
than ballistic missile strikes.
Clearly, in a cyber war, the adversary is
not only invisible but also attacks could be
mounted with a high degree of unpre-
dictability on civilian and defence assets.
Stealth and anonymity are the other advan-
tages of a well-planned cyber war. Because
cyber communications is still in an evolu-
tionary mode, there is no fool-proof firewall
with which to protect the information sys-
tems from the manipulations and machina-
tions of well-trained and highly-motivated
hackers.
That China has for quite sometime been
active in siphoning off of sensitive and
strategically significant information stored
in the computer systems from across the
world, including India, became clear after
the release of the report, Shadows in the
Cloud in April 2010. This well-documented
report is considered a tribute to the
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g
COVERSTORY
painstaking research by a team of experts
from Information Warfare Monitor and the
Shadowserver Foundation. While Informa-
tion Warfare Monitor is a joint endeavour of
the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global
Affairs, University of Canada, and SecDev
Group, an operational consultancy group
located in Ottawa, the Shadowserver Foun-
dation set up in 2004 is composed of volun-
teer security professionals specialising in
monitoring malware and malicious attacks
on computer systems. This report went to
reveal — beyond the shadow of doubt — that
Chinese hackers could break into high secu-
rity computers systems belonging to govern-
ments, diplomatic missions, as well as busi-
ness and industry, from across the world.
In addition to hacking the information
networks of Indian defence establishments
and Indian diplomatic missions in various
parts of the world, Chinese cyber spies had
also targeted leading Indian daily, The Times
of India, FICCI (Federation of Indian Cham-
ber of Commerce and Industry), DLF India,
Tata Group, Indian Railways, New Delhi-
based strategic think tank Institute for
Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA), the
INDIA IS
WORKING
TOWARDS
PREPARING A
BLUEPRINT FOR
COUNTER CYBER
WARFARE
NIC (National Informatics Centre) as well as
many multi-national corporations operat-
ing in India. As it is, the Indian defence set-
up has always been suspicious of possible
cyber attacks originating from China.
Although the identity and motivation of the
hackers are not known, there is ample evi-
dence to show that the entire operations
were directed from a site in Chengdu in Chi-
na. As pointed out by a report in the New
York Times,"the intruders pilfered classified
and restricted information from the highest
levels of the Indian Defence Ministry."
Among the institutions targeted by the
Chinese hackers were the National Security
Council Secretariat, 21 Mountain Artillery
Brigade based in the North-East and Air
Force Station in New Delhi. What's more, the
computer systems being operated by Indian
(44)
military colleges were also taken over by the
elusive Chinese cyber spies.
Some of the documents stolen by Chinese
hackers are known to include secret assess-
ment of the security situation in Assam,
Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura as well as
the Maoist insurgency in India. In the after-
math of Chinese cyber invasion, Defence
Minister A K Antony had called upon the
Indian armed forces to coordinate closely
with various national cyber agencies for
evolving a crisis management plan to count-
er the looming threat of cyber terrorism.
While addressing the United Commanders
Conference held in New Delhi in April 2010,
Antony observed, "Of late, extraordinary and
unprecedented cyber crimes have taken
place across the globe, exposing gaping
holes in cyber security systems. Although
Defence Services at all levels have taken
steps to counter cyber threat through strin-
gent implementation of cyber security poli-
cy, there is still a requirement to ensure that
all loopholes in this regard are suitably
plugged."
Significantly, a year before the India-spe-
cific cyber espionage from mainland China
came to light, the same research group had
tracked a cyber spy network in Hainan island
of China, which had successfully managed to
siphon off classified documents from govern-
ments and private organisations in more
than a 100 countries including the Tibetan
government-in-exile headed by His Holiness
The Dalai Lama. In this instance, Chinese
hackers are known to have exploited a system
called Ghostnet to steal the files from the
information network of the Tibetan govern-
ment-in-exile. As it is, for long the Dalai
Lama's office was concerned over the possi-
bility of Chinese cyber spies hacking into its
computers. Investigations went to show that
Chinese hackers had copied and stolen files
from the computer network of the Dalai
Lama and his Tibetan government-in-exile.
The Chinese government has vehemently
denied the involvement of Beijing in the
cyber espionage endeavour originating from
mainland China. In the absence of a clear-cut
proof and clinching evidence to establish the
involvement of the Chinese government, the
Indian gssovernment has decided against
taking up the issue with the authorities in
Beijing. But India should take all precaution-
ary measures and initiate a technically-resur-
gent action plan to insulate itself against the
threat of cyber espionage emanating from
across the borders. That is simply because
cyber spies have no physical boundaries to
negotiate while giving a practical shape to
their "evil designs".
January 2011
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g
GEOPOLITICS
SPOTLIGHT

CHINA’S
CHINA’S STRATEGY: China is trying to
resolve its emerging territorial and
boundary disputes by raw show of
strength rather than negotiations

INFOWAR STRATEGY M
China is more convinced than ever that as far as the PLA is
concerned, a military revolution with information warfare as
the core has reached the stage where efforts must be made to
catch up and overtake rivals. GURMEET KANWAL examines
the possibilities under these circumstances
ANY OF Asia’s leaders met
at the East Asia Summit in
Hanoi in the last week of
October 2010 to discuss
geo-strategic and econom-
ic issues of common interest. However,
most of the discussions on the sidelines of
the summit focussed on China’s aggressive
posturing in its area of influence. China’s
recent assertiveness in the South China Sea
and belligerence towards Japan are early
indicators of its emerging proclivity to settle
territorial and boundary disputes by force

www.geopolitics.in January 2011

(45)
China.qxd 1/3/2011 4:53 PM Page 60
rather than through diplomatic negotia-
tions. India’s unresolved territorial and
boundary dispute with China and an un-
demarcated Line of Actual Control (LAC) on
the Indo-Tibetan border do not augur well
for long-term peace and stability between
these two Asian giants.
China’s continuing opposition to India’s
nuclear weapons programme; its nuclear
and missile collusion and intimate defence
cooperation with Pakistan; its support to the
military regime in Myanmar; its inroads into
Nepal; increasing activities in the Bay of
Bengal; its attempts to isolate India in the
ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF); and, its
relentless efforts to increase its influence in
Bhutan and Bangladesh — are all pointers to
a carefully orchestrated plan aimed at the
strategic encirclement of India.
EMERGING MILITARY DOCTRINE
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is rapid-
ly modernising itself and is known to be
preparing to fight a “limited border war
under hi-tech conditions”. According to the
White Paper on China’s National Defence
(2000), “China is engaged in developing a
“revolutionised, modernised and regularised
people’s army with Chinese characteristics.
(It is) endeavouring to transform its armed
forces from a numerically superior to a qual-
itatively superior type and from a manpow-
er-intensive to a technology-intensive type,
as well as to train high-quality personnel and
improve the modernisation of weaponry in
order to comprehensively enhance the
armed forces combat effectiveness.”
ENHANCING MILITARY CAPABILITIES: The People’s Liberalisation Army is
modernising itself and preparing to fight the next generation hi-tech war
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g
SPOTLIGHT
CHINA IS
ENGAGED IN
DEVELOPING A
MODERNISED
PEOPLE’S ARMY
WITH CHINESE
CHARACTERISTICS
Since China’s ignominious incursion into
Vietnam in 1979, PLA doctrine has evolved
from Mao’s “people’s war” to “people’s war
under modern conditions” through a “limit-
ed/local war” phase to the current doctrine
introduced in 1993. The new doctrine is more
assertive than previously and is not bound by
any restrictions to confine and limit future
conflict to within China’s national boundaries.
Underpinning the new professionalism of the
PLA is the basic doctrine of “active defence”
(jiji fangyu) that seeks to conduct “people’s
war under modern conditions” (better under-
stood as “local wars under hi-tech conditions”
— gaojishu tiaojian xia de jubu zhanzheng.
The ‘active defence’ doctrine calls for inte-
grated, deep strikes — a concentration of
superior firepower that is to be utilised to
destroy the opponent’s retaliatory capabilities
through pre-emptive strikes employing long-
range artillery, short-range ballistic missiles
(SRBMs) and precision-guided munitions.
(46)
David Shambaugh, a well-known China schol-
ar in the US, has written: “Rather than con-
ducting a ‘people’s war’ (a strategy to ‘lure the
enemy in deep’ into one’s own territory), the
PLA doctrine of ‘active defence’ calls for for-
ward positioning, frontier defence, engage-
ment of the enemy at or over the border and
potential engagement in conflict beyond Chi-
na’s immediate periphery… this doctrine is
essentially pro-active and seeks to take the
battle into enemy territory.”
Beijing has defined the following five like-
ly limited war scenarios: Military conflict with
neighbouring countries in a limited region;
military conflict on territorial waters; unde-
clared air attack by enemy countries; territori-
al defence in a limited military operation; and,
punitive offensive with a minor incursion into
a neighbouring country.
The new doctrine and the strategy and
tactics associated with it have been influenced
by the lessons of Gulf War I in 1991 and the
Iraq War of 2003, both of which have been
extensively studied by Chinese scholars. The
doctrine requires the creation of a capability
to project force across China’s borders through
rapid deployment, conventional SRBMs and
cruise missiles, information warfare, electron-
ic warfare, precision-guided munitions, night-
fighting capabilities and other advanced mili-
tary technologies.
China also follows ‘anti-access’ strategies
to deny access to the adversary to its planned
launch pads in an endeavour to prevent build-
up of forces for a war against China. Planning
for anti-access strategies flows from the
apprehension that if superior, well-equipped
forces (like the US and its allies) are allowed to
arrive in the war zone with the force levels and
in the time frame planned by them, they are
bound to prevail. The Chinese calculate that
“by mounting a credible threat to do so, they
will be able to deter the United States from
intervening in the first place, or at least limit
the scale and scope of that intervention”.
The Chinese aim to deter a conflict or at
least delay the opponent’s preparation till the
PLA is better prepared to react. The PLA seeks
to achieve this aim through attacks against air
bases and ports and other elements of the
logistics chain and against information sys-
tems so as to disrupt command and control
during build-up. While anti-access strategies
are unlikely to succeed in preventing conflict
completely, these could impose considerable
delay and caution during build-up.
RMA WITH CHINESE
CHARACTERISTICS
The PLA expects to fight the next
war under conditions of what it calls “inform
ationisation” or “informationalisation”. In
January 2011
AD dummy.qxd 10/7/2008 7:25 PM Page 1
China.qxd 1/3/2011 4:53 PM Page 62
the White Paper on National Defence (2004),
informationisation was explained only in
general terms, but bears repeating: “To adapt
itself to the changes both in the internation-
al strategic situation and the national securi-
ty environment and rise to the challenges
presented by the RMA (Revolution in Mili-
tary Affairs) worldwide, China adheres to the
military strategy of active defence and works
to speed up the RMA with Chinese charac-
teristics:
„ To take the road of composite and
leapfrog development.
„ To build a strong military by means of
science and technology.
„ To deepen the reform of the armed
forces.
„ To step up preparations for military
struggle.”
PLA analysts have called the ongoing
RMA an “informationised military revolu-
tion”. It emerges that informationisation
“clearly relates to the PLA’s ability to adopt
information technologies to command,
intelligence, training and weapon systems.
This would include broad investment in
new automatic command systems linked
by fiber-optic Internet, satellite and new
high-frequency digital radio systems… The
PLA can also contest the information battle
space with its new space-based, airborne,
naval and ground-based surveillance and
intelligence gathering systems and its new
anti-satellite, anti-radar, electronic warfare
and information warfare systems… There is
increasing ‘information content’ for new
PLA weapons as it moves to link new space,
airborne and ELINT (Electronic Signals
Intelligence) sensors to missile, air, naval
and ground-based ‘shooters’ to enable all
its services to better use new precision-
strike weapons”.
According to General Liu Huaqing, Vice
Chairman of the Central Military Commis-
sion, “Information warfare and electronic
warfare are of key importance, while fight-
ing on the ground can only exploit the vic-
tory. Hence, China is more convinced (than
ever) that as far as the PLA is concerned, a
military revolution with information war-
fare as the core has reached the stage where
efforts must be made to catch up and
overtake rivals.” According to the 2004
White Paper, “In its modernisation drive,
the PLA takes informationalisation as
its orientation and strategic focus.” The
PLA has adopted what it calls a “double his-
torical mission” and a “leapfrog develop-
ment strategy” — accelerating military
informationisation while still undergoing
mechanisation.
Developing cyber warfare capabilities
www.geopolitics.in
g
SPOTLIGHT
“RATHER THAN CONDUCTING A ‘PEOPLE’S WAR’ (A
STRATEGY TO ‘LURE THE ENEMY IN DEEP’ INTO ONE’S
OWN TERRITORY), THE PLA DOCTRINE OF ‘ACTIVE
DEFENCE’ CALLS FOR FORWARD
POSITIONING, FRONTIER DEFENCE,
ENGAGEMENT OF THE ENEMY AT OR OVER
THE BORDER AND POTENTIAL ENGAGEMENT
IN CONFLICT BEYOND CHINA’S IMMEDIATE
PERIPHERY… THIS DOCTRINE IS
ESSENTIALLY PRO-ACTIVE AND
SEEKS TO TAKE THE BATTLE
INTO ENEMY TERRITORY.”
DAVID SHAMBAUGH,
WELL-KNOWN CHINA SCHOLAR
is seen as presenting a level playing field in tinue to generate some local tensions, the
an otherwise David versus Goliath scenario CMC has identified space and the oceans
as Chinese hardware is no match to the as the new areas where future conflict
weapons technology fielded today by the might take place.
US and its allies. Recent cyber attacks China is modernising rapidly and
directed against Taiwan and the US are steadily enhancing its military capabili-
indicative of the efforts to develop new ties. The military gap between China and
techniques, viruses and logic bombs. India is growing as India’s military mod-
Information warfare will be crucial in the ernisation is constrained by its low
opening phases of a war aimed at the re- defence expenditure, which is now less
unification of Taiwan or a border conflict than two per cent of the GDP. The Chinese
with India as it will be important to knock are continuing to drag their feet over
out the adversary’s communications infra- resolving the territorial and boundary dis-
structure by cyber as well as physical pute with India. Hence, China poses a
means. A private army of “laptop warriors” long-term strategic challenge to India as a
— young civilian hackers on whom the competing regional power in Asia, but will
state can bank during crises — is being remain a military threat till the territorial
developed for this purpose besides the and boundary dispute is resolved. India
employment of regular PLA personnel. needs to take this reality into account and
distinguish between what China professes,
CONCLUSION that is peaceful co-existence, and what it
Compared to China’s historically reactive actually does. In the near future, a situa-
stance of luring the enemy in deep and tion of tenuous peace and tranquility is
destroying him through strategic defence, likely to continue to prevail along India’s
the present doctrine is essentially Himalayan frontier. It will be punctuated
pro-active and seeks to take the battle into increasingly by patrol face-offs, Chinese
enemy territory. It also strives to achieve incursions and intrusions across the LAC
surprise in a pro-active manner that is and new claims on Indian territory as hap-
demonstrated by new “quick-strike” tac- pened in the finger area of the Sikkim
tics. The aim is to catch the enemy unpre- plateau in May-June 2008.
pared in order to inflict substantial dam-
age on strategic targets and disrupt logis- (The author is Director,
tics to gain psychological ascendancy. Centre for Land Warfare Studies,
While the land frontier is expected to con- New Delhi)
(48)
January 2011
Internal security cover jan.qxd 1/3/2011 5:09 PM Page 1

geopolitics
INTERNAL SECURITY

Photo courtesy: janayuddha.blogspot.com

THE ‘PAK’
CONNECTION
How serious are the links between Indian Maoists and Pakistani militant outfits?
briefs january.qxd 1/3/2011 5:14 PM
IS
INTERNAL SECURITY B R I E F S
CRPF
TRAINING
CENTRE IN
BENGAL’S
NAXAL
HOTBED
THE CRPF is setting up a train-
ing centre and four barracks for
its jawans in West Bengal,
which is to come up on 212
acres of land at West Midna-
pore — one of the three dis-
tricts affected by Left Wing
Extremism (LWE). The four
places where the camps and
the offices will be set up
include Narayanpur, Bhaduta-
la, Rangamati and Bhinsol.
At present, 33 companies of
CRPF are camping in the three
LWE-affected districts of West
Midnapore, Purulia and
Bankura, with 24 companies —
the highest — at West Midna-
pore. About two months ago,
the CRPF shifted its eastern
headquarters from Chhattis-
garh’s Raipur to Kolkata due to
security reasons.
The CRPF has also asked for
30 acres near Kolkata for free to
set up a training camp for its
Mahila Battalion. The state
government, however, is yet to
zero in on the land.
The Centre, meanwhile, has
allotted money to Bengal to set
up a school for the Counter
Insurgency Force at Salua in
West Midnapore.
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Page 4
g
IAP FOR NAXAL-HIT DISTRICTS
THE CENTRAL government has approved the
much talked-about Integrated Action Plan (IAP) Naxal Affected Districts
for Naxal-affected districts that envisages gover-
nance reforms and devolution of power to grass-
roots’ institutions in these areas. The IAP will be
initially implemented in 35 of the worst-affected
districts in the Red Corridor, with funding of `25
crore each for flagship programmes like the
MNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural
Employment Guarantee Scheme) and midday meal
scheme among others. The overall plan envisages a
`13,742 crore outlay for 60 affected districts to be
disbursed in the next three years. The Planning
Commission, which was instrumental in preparing
the IAP, had been keen to increase its scope to all
affected districts in this fiscal but Home Minister P
Chidambaram’s line that the 35 worst-affected dis-
tricts should take it up first, appears to have pre-
vailed. The Planning Commission had set five
parameters for the districts to benefit from the plan,
which included those districts having 25 per cent
and above tribal population, 50 per cent poverty
ratio and a 30 per cent forest cover.
ARMY TO CAMP IN RED BASTAR
THE ARMY is setting up a massive training base While the Army leadership emphasises that
at the doorsteps of the worst-affected Naxal com- its plans are limited to training and there will be
bat zone in Bastar, marking its presence in the no active troop deployment against the Maoist
war against Maoists. Manoeuvre ranges have insurgency, it is believed that the training facili-
been finalised in Narayanpur district where train- ty would necessitate logistical support to the
ing will be given to the troops. police forces if the need arises.
The 100 sq km area lies in the foothills of Abu- Since Maoists ambushed and killed more
jhmad, a thickly-forested plateau, straddling than hundred CRPF men in Bastar this sum-
Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. It is one of the mer — incidentally one of the ambushes took
only regions of India unsurveyed by the govern- place close to the proposed training range —
ment and considered out of bounds for the an intense debate has raged over whether at
administration, entirely controlled by insurgents, all the Army should be drawn into anti-Maoist
and often described as a Maoist-liberated zone. operations.
(50)
January 2011
briefs january.qxd 1/3/2011 5:14 PM Page 5
SURVEYING OF RIVERINE GAPS
RAJARHAT TO HOUSE NSG COMMANDOS
FOR KOLKATA & EASTERN REGION
JUST FIVE days ahead of the second anniver-
sary of the Mumbai terror attack, the two-year-
long search for a training centre for the elite
National Security Guards (NSG) came to an
end in Kolkata with the hub set to come up on
a 300-acre plot of land at Jagadishpur-Rajarhat
area near the Dum Dum airport.
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs is pay-
ing `600 crore to the state government to ac-
quire the land. It is to be based on the model of
the NSG hub in Manesar.
Following the 26/11 attack, Union Home
Minister P Chidambaram had announced the
setting-up of four more NSG hubs — in Mum-
bai, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad — in
the country.
By choosing a 300-acre plot for the elite unit,
the NSG has cut down on its demand for a 600-
acre plot. The unit will respond to any terror at-
tack that may take place in any state of the
eastern region.
BSF JAWAN CAN NOW CATCH SOME SLEEP
INDIA’S JAWANS guarding the borders can finally
catch some sleep. The Border Security Force (BSF)
has asked all units to give the men and women
www.geopolitics.in
g B R I E F S IS
THE GOVERNMENT has approved a new
project for increased surveillance of river-
ine gaps along the Indo-Pak border on the
Punjab frontier. The Border Security Force
(BSF) will get new infrastructure for the
project.
The new infrastructure would be the
first of its kind in the country and could
be immensely useful in critical situations.
The infrastructure would include illumi-
nation of the points along the riverine
gaps and raising of new posts.
At present, the NSG unit in Kolkata is sta-
tioned at a temporary barrack at Badu —
25km from the Dum Dum airport. It regularly
conducts mock drills at different vital installa-
tions — the last one having been held at the
Metro station at Esplanade.
deployed along the borders six
hours sleep every 24 hours, and a
day off every week.
So far, BSF personnel could not
sleep for more than two hours at a
stretch, it is said, causing much
anguish to the personnel in the
force, which, incidentally is short
of manpower, and keeps an eye on
more than 6,600 km of Indian
borders.
In the paramilitary forces, there
was no concept of a holiday. On
their formal holidays, the jawans
would still not be able to leave
their border outposts. But now the situation will
change for them, except those who are deployed in
highly sensitive areas.
(51)
INTERNAL SECURITY
RUBBER
BULLETS TO
DISPERSE
MOBS
Trial runs for firing rubber bul-
lets from Kalashnikov automat-
ic rifles to control mobs have
been completed. Following
that, a decision to use rubber
bullets was taken during a
meeting of senior officials of the
Ministry of Home Affairs which
has constituted a special group
to analyse various methods
needed for controlling violent
crowds with the least force in
the backdrop of large-scale vio-
lence in the Kashmir Valley this
summer.
It is learnt that the Defence
Research and Development
Organisation (DRDO) conduct-
ed the field trials for using the
weapons, the first of which were
introduced in 1947. They would
be seen in action soon particu-
larly in the valley. The use of
rubber bullets will lessen the
risk of fatalities while control-
ling crowds, it is hoped. The
rubber bullets from the AK-47
rifles may not prove fatal if not
fired from a close range and if
they don’t hit a vital organ.
AK-47, a selective-fire, gas-
operated 7.62x39mm assault
rifle, was first developed in
the Soviet Union by Mikhail
Kalashnikov. AK-47 stands
for Kalashnikov automatic
rifle, 1947 model.
Another riot-controlling
device that has been cleared
is the ‘dazzler’, which uses
laser beams to disperse
mobs by causing
temporary
blindness.
These may also
be handed over to
security forces operating
in Kashmir-like situa-
tions soon.
The dazzler
may help in
restricting stone-
pelters, as it can be used
towards individuals,
rendering them tem-
porarily blind. These
devices can be use-
ful in restricting
mobs between a range
of 50 metres and 250 metres.
January 2011
Maoists and Pakistan.qxd 1/3/2011 5:17 PM
PAKISTAN
AND THE NAXALITES
BEN WEST analyses the often-repeated charge of cooperation
between Pakistani militant outfits and Indian Naxals
I
ndian Maoist militants, known as Nax-
alites, have been meeting with mem-
bers of the outlawed Pakistani militant
group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), accord-
ing to the Director-General of Police
for Chhattisgarh. Based on information
from a police source, state police chief
Vishwa Ranjan said on November 11,
2010, that two LeT operatives attended
a Naxalite meeting in April or May.
While their presence at the meeting
still needs to be corroborated, the chief
said, it appears very likely that the
Naxalites held the meeting to adopt a
new policy and plans for increasing
“armed resistance” in order to seize
political power in India.
Indian authorities are
using the alleged meet-
ing between LeT
operatives and Nax-
alites as evidence that
Pakistan is trying to forge
relationships with the Naxalites,
which India has long suspected.
India blamed the LeT for the 2008
Mumbai attacks and the
2001 Parliament attack. For
the Indian public, LeT also
has become synonymous with Pak-
istani intelligence operations. The
group that Indian officials refer to as
“LeT”, however, is no longer an ally of
Pakistan and has changed so much in
NAXALITE WEAPON: AK-47
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GEOPOLITICS
INTERNALSECURITY
recent years that we have started to refer to it
and similar groups as “neo-LeT”.
Before this latest accusation, Indian offi-
cials implicated at least six other militant
groups in Naxalite activities (with varying
degrees of Pakistani support). Linking the
estimated 10,000-strong Naxalites to mili-
tant groups backed by Pakistan, India's main
geopolitical rival and primary source of
external security threats, creates a “night-
mare” scenario for India. Indeed, Indian
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has
labelled the Naxalites “the biggest internal
security challenge” to India. Taken at face
value, reports of such an alliance lead to
visions of well-trained, well-disciplined
Naxal militants expanding their near-daily
attacks on low-level rural targets in eastern
India (known as the “Red Corridor”) to
political and high-tech targets in Kolkata,
Hyderabad or even New Delhi. But such
visions are alarmist and do not reflect the
true nature of the very limited Pakistani-
Naxalite relationship.
(52)
STRATFOR has watched Indian officials
link Pakistan to the Naxalites before, but we
have yet to see significant changes on the
ground that would give any credence to the
scenario outlined above. Many Indian offi-
cials are equally insistent that no connec-
tions exist between Naxalites and Pakistan.
Although the Naxalites have provided
rhetorical support for Kashmiri (and other
anti-Indian groups) opposition to New Delhi
over the past year, there has been little action
to back up the rhetoric. The Indians have
long feared that outside powers would
manipulate grassroots’ groups in India and
further destabilise an already regionalised
country.
When the Naxalite movement began in
the 1960s, New Delhi feared Beijing was try-
ing to get a foothold in India, and for the past
50 years, India has demonised Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI)
for allegedly supporting militant operations
in India. To better understand the allegation
that Pakistan is supporting the Naxalites, we
have decided to investigate the sources of
Naxalite weapons and training to get an idea
of how much outside help the Naxalites rely
on in the first place, since this is one way to
measure the level of outside assistance. The
study below focuses on what types of arms
Naxalites have access to, how they got them
and who they got them from. While we did
find evidence of some Pakistani involvement
in supplying the weapons through third par-
ties, the Naxalites appear to remain a very
self-reliant group that has not established a
January 2011
Maoists and Pakistan.qxd 1/3/2011 5:18 PM
UNITED STATES
5 KEY SOURCES
FOR WEAPONS
strong partnership with Pakistan when it
comes to weapons and training.
WEAPONS
Local Indian media sources report that Nax-
alite forces have an arsenal of approximately
20,000 weapons — an average of two
weapons per soldier. The Naxalites have
obtained this arsenal from four different
sources:
From Indian security forces, either by
Naxalite raids on their outposts in Nax-
alite-controlled areas or bribing or
coercing members of the security forces
to sell or give them firearms and ammu-
nition, along with ballistic vests and tac-
tical gear, including night-vision optics.
This is the source of most Naxalite
weapons, which include Indian-made
assault rifles, light machine guns and
carbines that fire 5.62mm NATO ammu-
nition; variants of the AK-47 that fire
7.62mm rounds; and locally made shot-
guns of various gauges. Israeli-made
sniper rifles have also been found in
Naxalite caches on a few occasions, like
the Galil 7.62mm rifles that India
acquired from Israel in efforts to target
Naxalite leaders in the first place.
Theft from businesses operating in the
Naxalite-controlled areas, including
fertilizer distributors and mining
companies that maintain stocks of
explosives, blasting caps and detonators.
Local arms factories run directly by Nax-
alites or other criminal groups. These
operations demonstrate a wide range of
craftsmanship, from assembling
makeshift weapons from discarded parts
to more advanced forging processes.
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INTERNALSECURITY
PAKISTAN
INDIA
These factories also produce homemade
mortar rounds and components for
improvised explosive devices.
Procuring foreign weapons, ammunition
and explosives from external militant
and criminal groups operating within
and outside of India. Details on the types
of weapons procured this way are avail-
able from seizures of weapons ship-
ments into India that have included
rifles in the .315- to .30-06-calibre range.
Such shipments are traded for smuggling
services or purchased with funds from
banditry, extortion or revolutionary tax-
es. Purchasing weapons from the outside
is very expensive. According to a 2009
India Daily News article, Naxalite expen-
diture reports seized by police showed
that, over a six-month period, one zone
command spent more than three-quar-
ters of the unit's budget on weapons
($70,214), with the rest ($20,604) spent
on supplies. Such evidence suggests that
Naxalite weapon procurements from the
outside have their limitations; obtaining
them locally is far cheaper and can be
done by virtually any Naxalite fighter.
The Naxalite arsenal is vast and diverse,
consisting of weapons manufactured in Chi-
na, Russia, the United States, Pakistan and
India. Photographs of Naxalite units in train-
ing or on patrols show fighters wielding a
variety of rifles in different calibres and condi-
tions, indicating a lack of weapons uniformity
across Naxalite units. While this does suggest a
certain level of resourcefulness among the
Naxalites, it also means that parts and ammu-
nition are not interchangeable, which is an
important tactical limitation. If one rifle
breaks, its parts cannot be easily replaced. If
(53)
RUSSIA
CHINA
Graphic: Ruchi Sinha
one militant runs out of ammunition, he can-
not turn to his neighbour for more rounds.
Standardised weapons are a key advantage for
organised militias (the Taliban, for example,
virtually all use a variant of the AK-47), an
advantage the Naxalites appear to be lacking.
The lack of weapons uniformity among Nax-
alite groups indicates that they do not have a
benefactor that has bestowed on them a
reliable, standardised arsenal and have had to
build up their own from scratch.
OUTSIDE SUPPLIERS
There are numerous reports in open-source
media in India and elsewhere that link Nax-
alites to a number of militant and criminal
groups throughout South Asia. These groups
interact with Maoists from Nepal, secession-
ists in India's restive northeast, ISI-backed
Islamists from Bangladesh, criminals from
Myanmar and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka. Weapons flow
among these groups in a region that has his-
torically been a rich environment for seces-
sionist movements. The British originally
encouraged strong regional identities
throughout the Indian subcontinent to pre-
vent the various ethnic groups from uniting
in opposition to British colonial rule.
The Pakistanis continued that strategy in
order to maintain leverage over India, sup-
porting anti-Indian groups primarily in the
contested Kashmir region and later in
Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan), which
they used as bases for extending their activi-
ties into India. India also supported
anti-Pakistani groups in Bangladesh in an
attempt to offset this Pakistani pressure.
The Naxalites have benefited from this
arrangement, directly from foreign powers
January 2011
Maoists and Pakistan.qxd 1/3/2011 5:18 PM
like Pakistan and, for the most part,
through indirect relationships with other
regional secessionist movements that
also oppose New Delhi.
STRATFOR sources in India claim that
Pakistani intelligence has established
business relationships with Naxalites to
sell arms and ammunition and lately has
tried to use Naxal bases for anti-Indian
activities. There is evidence that the ISI is
providing weapons and ammunition to
the Naxalites in exchange for money or
services, mostly through third parties like
the United Liberation Front of Asom
(ULFA) or the ostensible Bangladeshi mil-
itant leader Shailen Sarkar (both are
described in more detail below). Naxalite
leaders in India deny cooperating with
Pakistan but have very publicly pledged
their support for separatist movements
in India. STRATFOR sources in the Indian
army say they are investigating but still lack
the evidence to prove a direct link between
the Naxalites and the ISI, since the Pakista-
nis continue to play a peripheral role.
The groups below are reported to have
had contact with the Naxalites and to have
provided various levels of support. Some of
these groups have established links to the
ISI, which makes them possible conduits of
contact and support between Pakistan and
the Naxalites.
ULFA, one of the largest, most violent
secessionist movements in India's
northeast, is accused of working with ISI
Islamist assets along the Indian-
Bangladeshi border, where it controls
smuggling routes through the Siliguri
corridor. The Indian government accus-
es the Naxalites of working with ULFA to
smuggle drugs and counterfeit money
through Siliguri on behalf of the ISI in
exchange for weapons and explosives.
The People's Liberation Army of
Manipur (PLAM) is a secessionist group
in the northeastern Indian state of
Manipur. According to Indian security
officials, the respective political wings of
the PLAM and the Naxalites signed a
document in October 2010 pledging to
“overthrow the … Indian reactionary
and oppressive regime”. However, there
are no documented instances of PLAM
providing material support to the Nax-
alites. Indian intelligence agencies
report that a militant from Manipur who
was arrested in 2007 revealed that the
PLAM leadership was in frequent con-
tact with the LeT leadership in 2006 as
directed by the ISI.
The National Social Council of Naga-
land-Issac Muviah branch (NSCN-IM) is
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INTERNALSECURITY
NAXAL AGGRESSION: In the worst case of
guerrilla warfare, Maoists blew up a railway track
in Jharkhand killing over 100 people
a secessionist movement in the north-
east Indian state of Nagaland. Indian
Home Secretary G K Pillai said in June
that the leader of NSCN-IM helped
members of the Communist Party of
India-Maoist (CPI-M) smuggle weapons
through Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Indian officials in the state of Tripura
accused the NSCN-IM of working jointly
with the ISI in assisting militant cadres. much assistance from an outside govern-
The People's War Group (PWG) was a
militant faction of the Communist Party
of India-Marxist/Leninist until 2004,
when it left and helped form the CPI-M,
which is the political arm of the Naxalite for Islamabad, which seeks to operate very
movement. In 2004, the PWG received
bomb-making materials and training
from groups like ULFA and NSCN-IM in
Bangladesh in exchange for smuggling
drugs into India, an effort organised by
the ISI between 2000 and 2004, when the
PWG was not under the Naxalite
umbrella.
LTTE is an ethnic secessionist move-
ment in northern Sri Lanka that was
defeated by Sri Lanka's military in 2009
after 26 years of fighting. According to a India, reminiscent of the 2008 serial bomb-
surrendering Naxalite commander,
LTTE militants taught Naxalites how to
handle mines and grenades at a camp in
Bastar, Chhattisgarh state. LTTE fighters being, reports of Pakistani-Naxalite coopera-
have fled Sri Lanka since their 2009
defeat, and Indian authorities suspect
that Tamil fighters are providing training ty groups that give both Pakistan and the
for Naxalites in exchange for safe haven. Naxalites plausible deniability. Until we see
Nepalese Maoists comprise the militant
wing of the Unified Communist Party of
Nepal. They have exchanged training
and weapons with Indian Naxalites, and
there are also reports of Nepalese
Maoists receiving medical care at Nax-
alite camps in India.
(54)
Shailen Sarkar is a member of the Com-
munist Party of Bangladesh. The Indian
Home Ministry accuses Sarkar's group
of training Naxalites at ISI-funded
camps in Bangladesh. The ministry also
claims that Sarkar has met with Naxal
leaders in India.
Evidence of direct links between the
ISI and the Naxalites is hard to come by.
The connections above show only links
between Naxalites and Pakistan via third
parties, which makes it hard to measure
the influence that Pakistan has over Nax-
alite militants. Pakistan likely wants to
keep its activities in India covert so as not
to exacerbate an already tense diplomat-
ic situation. Murky, circuitous relation-
ships are most likely preferred in this
kind of environment.
Indeed, Pakistan does not necessarily
need much more than murky, circuitous
relationships in order to keep pressure on
New Delhi. The Naxalites are a low-mainte-
nance, self-sustaining movement that will
continue to undermine Indian rule in the
country's east — Pakistan does not need to
expend more resources to sustain this, and
the Naxalites are likely wary of undermining
their own local legitimacy by accepting too
ment. While something like a standardised
arsenal compliments of the ISI would
benefit the Naxalites operationally, such a
move would be a high-risk, low-reward effort
subtly in India for the time being while
tensions over the 2008 Mumbai attacks con-
tinue to cool off.
The lack of evidence of an institutional
relationship between Naxalites and Pakistan
does not mean that personal relationships
between ISI assets and Naxalite cadres could
not develop through the limited interaction
now taking place. A combination of more
aggressive people from both sides could cer-
tainly lead to more concerted attacks in
ings in cities throughout India.
Such attacks, however, would likely be
more of a one-off exception. For the time
tion will continue to surface, though this
cooperation will probably involve third-par-
indications from either the Naxalites or Pak-
istan that they are willing to establish more
robust connections and become more
aggressive toward India, a coordinated
militant campaign remains unlikely.
(Republished with permission of STRATFOR)
January 2011
Document1 11/26/2010 2:48 PM Page 1
CPO officers 2.qxd 1/3/2011 4:49 PM
CPO OFFICERS POINT FINGERS AT
SIXTH PAY COMMISSION
The Central Police
T
Organisation officers are an
unhappy lot, courtesy the
Sixth Pay Commission. Not
only are the salary
structures skewed in favour
of the Indian Police Service
officers, the recruitment
and promotion rules too
are unfavourable, as
ROHIT SRIVASTAVA found
out after meeting officers
from the paramilitary forces
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g
GEOPOLITICS
INTERNALSECURITY
he Sixth Pay Commission (SPC)
has created a number of anom-
alies in the paramilitary forces.
The paramilitary force officers
are a dissatisfied lot, especially
with the introduction of new tenure policy
for IPS (Indian Police Service) and recruit-
ment rules for cadre officers.
The SPC has seen opposition from
across the central services, particularly the
armed forces. Everyone in the country is
aware of the grievances of the armed forces
but rarely has any one heard about the dis-
content among the paramilitary cadre offi-
cers, which began with the Sixth Pay Com-
mission and has compounded with the
new tenure policy for the IPS on central
deputation and the new recruitment rules
(56)
for the Central Police Organisation (CPO)
cadre officers.
The SPC has brought down the grade of
the CPO cadre officers in the second in
command (2IC) ranks, equivalent to a Lt.
Colonel in the Army. A Lt Colonel is in the
pay band (PB) of four whereas the 2IC is in
the PB of three. This has resulted in a differ-
ence of around `20,000 in salary. A 2IC offi-
cer in the BSF told geopolitics: “Army and
BSF both operate on the LoC (Line of Con-
trol) together. If a unit each of the Army
and BSF are in the area and by chance the
commanding officers of either are not pres-
ent, then by grade of pay (which decides
the seniority) the Lt Colonel will be the sen-
ior officer even though the BSF 2IC has
more experience.” It generally takes an offi-
TUG OF WAR: CPO officers have
strongly opposed the new tenure
policy and recruitment rules
January 2011
CPO officers 2.qxd 1/3/2011 4:49 PM Page 61
cer 18 years to become a 2IC in the
paramilitary forces while now after the Ajay
Vikram Singh Committee (in 2001, the
Ministry of Defence formed a committee,
headed by then Special Secretary, MoD,
with representatives of the three Services
with an aim to achieve ‘combat effective-
ness’ by bringing down the age profile of
the battalion/brigade-level commanders,
which submitted its report in February
2003) recommendation, an Army officer
becomes a Lt Colonel after 13 years.
It is important to note that the Army at
present has more than one Lt Colonel in any
of its units unlike the CPO that still has only
one 2IC in any unit. In many of the Army
units, a Lt Colonel heads companies. In an
army battalion, there are three companies
but in many of the CPO battalions, the num-
ber of companies is around six or seven.
Thus the workload in the paramilitary bat-
talion is far more in comparison to the Army.
The matter doesn’t rest there. Promotion
opportunities in the CPOs also play a
significant role. Promotions in the paramil-
itary forces are based on vacancies and not
on the years of service. The paramilitary
forces have gone through a phase of
abrupt, unplanned expansion creating
numerous bottlenecks across the hierarchy.
When the forces expanded the induction of
the officers increased and so did the num-
ber of top posts. In these forces, therefore,
promotions take place smoothly. According
www.geopolitics.in
g
INTERNALSECURITY
to an ITBP (Indo Tibetan Border Police)
officer, there was a time when officers in
the expanding forces would get quick pro-
motions and within three-four years of
service an Assistant Commandant (AC)
would become a Deputy Commandant
(DC) but now the situation has reversed.
However, forces like the Sashastra
Seema Bal and ITBP which have seen
expansion recently, do not have to face
such acute bottlenecks and thus less dis-
satisfaction. But the promotions have
direct links with the salaries and that is
hurting the officer cadre. One officer said,
“I don’t want one more star but find it diffi-
cult to accept the salary loss that I incur
due to this new system. For salaried per-
sons like me `20,000 matters.” This highly
decorated officer has undergone training
PROMOTIONS
IN THE
PARAMILITARY
FORCES
ARE BASED
ON VACANCIES
(57)
WARY ABOUT THE
FUTURE: Lapses in
deputation policy of IPS
are apparent
for promotion and is
awaiting promotion orders
for the last year. He further
said that for promotions,
credentials and decora-
tions have very little rele-
vance. In fact, his batch-
mate from the IPS is his
immediate senior.
Deputation to the IPS is
another major issue.
Sources suggest that the
promotion from AC to DC
generally takes seven years
and from DC to 2IC anoth-
er seven. The new recruit-
ment rule of October 2010
implies that the CPO cadre
officers will have to spend
at least five years at the AC
level to qualify for promotion to DC and
similarly another five years as DC to qualify
for 2IC and a further five to become a Com-
mandant — thus at least 15 years of service
to become a Commandant and another five
to qualify for the post of Deputy Inspector
General (DIG). Incidentally, it is in the DIG
rank that an IPS cadre officer can move on
deputation. So, for any cadre officer, it will
take at least 20 years to become a DIG. Of
all the DIG posts, one-fifth are reserved for
IPS and Army officers. So, the actual oppor-
tunity available for the CPO cadre declines
rapidly. The loss of pay due to these promo-
tions is enormous if the whole career is
accounted for.
On the other hand, any IPS officer
becomes a DIG after completion of 14 years
of service. So, if two officers join the forces
simultaneously and are promoted regular-
ly, the one from the paramilitary cadre will
become a DIG six years after the IPS officer.
Efficiency and performance have no roles
to play in the promotions.
At the senior level, the system becomes
uneven for the cadre officers. In the ITBP
there are 56 Commandant posts that are
filled entirely by cadre officers and an equal
number of 2IC posts. However, at the DIG
level, the number of posts shrinks to 44
with 20 per cent of them reserved for those
on deputation. So, for 56 Commandants,
the opportunity available to become a DIG
is limited to 35. This shrinks further to three
January 2011
CPO officers 2.qxd 1/3/2011 4:50 PM Page 62
TO OVERCOME SHORTAGE: The Kamal Kumar Committee has been set up to make a
realistic assessment of shortages existing in the different cadres
at the Inspector General
(IG) rank. The sanctioned
post for IG is six with half of
them reserved for the IPS. To
top it all, if enough cadre officers
are not available with the
required eligibility, then IPS offi-
cers are promoted. So, from the
35 DIGs from the cadre serv-
ice, only three would make it
to an IG’s post and since the
Recruitment Rules (RR) men-
tions “if failing by IPS” or to put
it simply, if the cadre officer fails to
qualify for an IG’s post, then it is to
be filled up by an IPS. The policy-
makers, therefore, were well aware
that even three officers would not be
available from the 456 AC appointed 25
or 30 years back.
The system is totally IPS-centric at the
higher level (see table below). In any state
there are around 3 or 4 Director General
rank officers and the intake per year per
state varies but cannot be more than six or
seven in the case of large states. Thus,
almost half of the IPS officers would reach
IG and above rank (if a state receives six or
eight IPS at the Superintendent of Police-
level in first posting and it has four DG
ranks — ADGP, ADG Vigilance and so on,
half of the IPS officers will be able to fill the
ranks of IG and above). And with the
avenues available in the paramilitary
forces, the late promotees would easily find
themselves in these forces.
www.geopolitics.in
g
INTERNALSECURITY
In the CPO, while the IPS officers have
been given reservations, at another level,
there is a shortage of IPS officers across
the nation. The Kamal Kumar Committee
(formed by the Ministry of Home Affairs
and headed by Kamal Kumar, IPS to make
a realistic assessment of shortages
existing in the different cadres of the para-
military as well as the growing need of IPS
strength in view of the expansion plans of
the various State and Central Police
Organisations for 2009-2020 time period
— the committed submitted its report in
October 2009) recommended that the IPS
intake must be increased to 130 per year
for another ten years (2009-20) and addi-
tional intake of 448 officers through other
means should be done to take care
of shortages.
Said a senior CPO cadre officer, “The
system pushes IPS to the commanding
officer’s chair.” The comfort level that is
enjoyed between the IPS and the Ministry
of Home Affairs is one of reasons for the
preferential treatment being meted to the
IPS. He further said that the “desire
Year of Batch Total Actual Drop- among the cadres to become DGPs is
CSE Intake Intake outs there but it is very unlikely because of the
2002 2003 56 49 7 government policy”.
2003 2004 88 77 11 There have been numerous suggestions
2004 2005 88 80 8 that the CPO should be run by cadre offi-
2005 2006 103 90 13 cers who understand the force better and
2006 2007 103 89 14 know about its everyday working and
Total 438 385 53 operations. But, in spite of numerous
Number of IPS intake over the years failures and loss of lives during shabbily-
executed operations, the organisations
are still run by unspecialised IPS, who are
neither interested in nor inclined towards
solving the problem.
It is also felt that retired officers of the
paramilitary do not support and voice
their concerns like ex-servicemen do. The
attachment that armymen have for their
units, regiments and services are missing
among the paramilitary veterans.
In any case, since the leadership at
higher levels in the CPO mostly comprises
IPS officers, it doesn’t suit their interest to
take sides with the cadre officers and
jawans. Nor for that matter is their attach-
ment to the organisation deep. An officer
pointed out to geopolitics: “Since these
are unorganised services, there are
no temptations for the IPS personnel to
fit in.”
Whatever the reasons, the discontent
among the officers of the CPOs and their
gradual devaluation is creating bad blood,
which can result in a backlash in many dif-
ferent ways. An officer summed it
up quite eloquently: “The government’s
Sixth Pay Commission has created a class.”
(
January 2011
Diplomacy cover jan.qxd 1/3/2011 5:07 PM Page 53

Photo courtesy: escapedtolatinamerica.com

geopolitics
DIPLOMACY

THE OTHER RISING STAR

Brazil, the sleeping giant has woken up

CAN INDIA THE THIRD PHASE

RESOLVE NEPAL’S OF INDIA’S
DEADLOCK? LOOK-EAST POLICY
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INDIA AND BRAZIL:

NEW POWERS ON THE HORIZON
The two countries are
far apart from each other
but are not dissimilar. Over
the years, moves between
India and Brazil —
diplomatic and economic
— have brought one closer
to the other. ASH NARAIN
ROY believes that it will be
in the interest of India
to foster closer ties with
Brazil, the sleeping giant
that has woken up

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D
O THE rest need the West? That
is what several geopolitical
sages are presently discussing.
Alluding to the growing irrele-
vance of the Western powers
and the corresponding rise in the global
clout of China and India, the New Atlanticist
said recently, “The World without the West is
becoming preferentially and densely inter-
connected.” It further said, “If during the
1990s, rising and resurgent powers tried to
deepen their connection with the Euro-
Atlantic hub, they are now taking more steps
to tighten the relationships between
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SPECIALFEATURE
themselves to bypass the West.” The message
in this prognostication is unmistakable.
With the US in constant decline and los-
ing much of its sheen as the world’s sole
superpower, the focus has shifted to ‘Chin-
dia’. The ‘elephant vs. the dragon’ debate has
become the fashionable buzzword of con-
temporary global discourse. But Brazil too
has a story to tell.
India and Brazil are the two whales in the
global ocean who along with South Africa
have taken concrete steps to forge a neo-
Gondwanan alliance. Since the world has
looked at global trends and developments
through the distorted lens of US hegemony,
it has failed to give proper consideration to
significant developments elsewhere. Brazil,
Russia, India and China (BRIC) and India,
Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) are in the
process of building parallel international
systems and networks. However, besides
China, only India and Brazil, the two flour-
ishing democracies, are the likeliest candi-
dates to rise as great powers who have the
potential to become superpowers.
Brazil hasn’t received the attention it
deserves. In their obsession with the US and
Pakistan, India’s strategic community and
opinion-makers haven’t focused their glare
on the importance of the India-Brazil part-
nership. India and Brazil are not only stable
democracies, they are now trillion-dollar
economies. Like India, Brazil too has made
rapid strides in international affairs and
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GEOPOLITICS
global diplomacy. Way back in 2003, Presi-
dent Lula had said rather bluntly, “We will
not accept any more participating in inter-
national platforms as if we were the poor
little ones of Latin America, a ‘little country’
of the third world… This country has every-
thing to be the equal of any other country.”
Historically, Indian foreign policy has
been shaped by a quest for global power sta-
tus. IBSA initiative represents a significant
avenue through which India is pursuing its
leadership aspirations. Politically, IBSA fits in
neatly with Delhi’s political priorities and
interests in the global system, with its need
to forge alliances with other developing
countries. Economically, it dovetails with
India’s policy to continue reforms initiated in
1991 to liberalise the Indian economy.
Brazil’s dominance in Latin America is a
consequence of the country’s geography,
population and economic size as well as its
military strength. Brazil too harbours global
aspirations. To this end, it skillfully utilises
multilateral institutions to stake its claim as
a global actor, while also projecting itself as a
bridge between the major powers and the
South. Brazil regards India as integral to its
strategy of promoting its economic interests
by strengthening its economic linkages with
continued on page 64
A STRONG BOND: India and Brazil
have taken significant steps to forge
meaningful ties
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GROWING STRONG
The long distance kept India and Brazil apart in the past. But, with the world
increasingly turning into a global village, the two countries are working hard to
take their relationship to a higher level, both in range and magnitude, asserts
MARCO BRANDAO, Ambassador of Brazil to India, in a candid conversation
with PRAKASH NANDA
Photo: H.C. Tiwari

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A
t the outset let me say that unlike India,
Brazil is a very lucky country. It is lucky
because it has a stable neighbourhood,
with most of the countries valuing democracy
as the best political system. All our govern-
ments in the region are now democratically-
elected. And it has helped. Brazil has no prob-
lems with its neighbours. We have no border
problems. We are located in a conflict-free
region that includes a no-nuclear zone. We
are a huge country with abundant natural
resources. We do have a very cohesive social
structure. Though we have a big population, it
is manageable.
Brazil’s foreign policy strives for global
peace and stability. Our mantra is multilater-
alism, be it politics or economics. We do not
believe in any ism, including the so-called
Third-Worldism. That explains why despite
our great admiration for India, Brazil did not
join the Non-Aligned Movement. We strongly
believe that all the global problems or dis-
putes should be resolved through talks or
negotiations. Brazil attaches the highest
importance to the United Nations. That is why
we are consistent in our resolve that the world
body must reflect the real world. We will keep
on coordinating our endeavours along with
India, Japan and South Africa for the four
countries getting their rightful places as the
permanent members of the United Nations
Security Council. It is not that countries like
Brazil and India demand to be recognised as
big powers. On the other hand, the world
expects us to have increasingly global respon-
sibilities, evident from the fact that we are
already on the big table of G-20.
I am indeed happy that during his recent
visit to your country, President Obama did
support India as an aspirant for the perma-
nent membership. I do not pay much impor-
tance to the WikiLeaks’ disclosure of the
American diplomats describing India, Brazil
and South Africa as a “self-appointed” group
working for the permanent membership. After
all, we will go by what the US President says
publicly, not what its diplomats think private-
ly. As regards Brazil, even though ours is a left-
of-the-centre government, we have excellent
ties with the United States. Let me be very
candid in admitting that in our part of the
world, we cannot live without the United
States. Good relations with the Unites States
are absolutely essential for facilitating our
economic growth. Whether it is trade or
industrial growth, we cannot have a con-
frontationist policy towards the United States.
It is not that we have no issues with the Amer-
icans, but these are to be resolved through
talks only. Maybe some Latin American coun-
tries are very vocal in their criticism of the
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United States, but we are not so. In fact, Brazil
and the Unites States are exemplary friends,
given the quality of our interactions in such
fields as tourism, culture and academics.
As I have already pointed out, multilater-
alism is our most important diplomatic tool.
As a developing country like India, we are for
equitable global development. Similarly, we
do not want the world to be dominated by any
single country — politically and militarily.
Towards this goal, we are coordinating our
efforts with like-minded countries like India.
India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) forum
needs to be seen in this context. We three are
democratic countries in three different
regions but through consensus are acting
together on burning global issues. Similarly,
we have the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and
China) platform, which I consider essentially
to be an economic forum on the global eco-
nomic issues, though some would like it to
have political overtones as well.
TRADE
BETWEEN
BRAZIL AND
INDIA MORE
THAN TRIPLED
IN THE LAST
FIVE YEARS
Coming specifically to Indo-Brazil bilater-
al relations, there are no concrete problems as
such. But unfortunately, there is the distance-
factor. The distance between our two coun-
tries is so huge that we do not know one
another well enough. Our air and shipping
links are very weak. We must do something
about it. Of course, it is a growing process. But
we must promote a lot of interaction between
Indians and Brazilians in the fields of tourism,
banking and academics. Regrettably, we do
not have a single bank in India. Nor for that
matter is there any Indian bank in Brazil. Our
respective media does not cover news about
one another. My countrymen are totally
dependent on the American media to know
and understand India. Same is also your story
as far as Brazil is concerned. We must get
together to have our own news. That is the
best way to bridge the gap between our two
countries.
It is heartening that our political leader-
ships have started realising the importance of
the relationship between India and Brazil.
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Politically, we are now very close. Even in the
military sphere, our connection is getting
stronger with each passing day. Brazil is
discussing with India how to develop joint mil-
itary products. My Defence Minister has visit-
ed the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL)
in Bengaluru. India has already bought some
planes for its VIPs from Brazil. We, through
IBSA, have conducted joint military exercises.
Even otherwise, our respective military officers
have been exchanging visits of late.
Economically speaking, trade between
Brazil and India more than tripled in the last
five years. Bilateral trade has increased from
$2.340 billion in 2005 to $7.461 billion (October
2009 to October 2010), although it corresponds
to a small proportion of the total of Brazilian
exports (2.2 per cent in 2009) and of its imports
(1.7 per cent in 2009). According to the Min-
istry of Commerce of India, for the financial
year, Brazil is responsible for 0.5 per cent of the
total of Indian exports and accounts for 0.73
per cent of the total of Indian imports.
In relation to Brazilian exports, the sec-
tors of crude oil (HS Code 27090010) and raw
cane sugar (HS Code 17011100) represent
the most dynamic sectors and account for
61.38 per cent of total exports from Brazil to
India by October 2010. Regarding Brazilian
imports, only “diesel” (HS Code 27101921)
represents 41.01 per cent of all purchases
until October 2010. Other generating sets
wind-powered (HS Code 85023100), poly-
ester-textured yarn (HS Code 54023300) and
cotton yarn (HS Code 52052310) also have a
relative importance in the total of Brazilian
imports up to October 2010.
It is a happy sign that more and more
Indian businessmen are now visiting Brazil.
On an average we are issuing 20 business
visas every day. Indian companies have
started investing in Brazil. Tata Consultancy,
Mahindra Automobiles and Bajaj are already
there. Some Indian companies have also
invested in our sugar industry and agricul-
tural products. Indian pharmaceutical com-
panies are also going. We would love more
and more Indian technologies in Brazil and
here the sky is the limit.
At the end, I must tell you that world’s
purest Indian cows are only available in Brazil.
Over the recent centuries, Indian cattle have
got mixed with those coming from central and
West Asia. But in our case, we imported pure
Indian cattle long time back when we found
that those from the European origin did not
survive in Brazil, possibly due to the climatic
factors. But Indian cattle, maybe because of
common tropical weather, not only have sur-
vived but also prospered in Brazil. Our entire
cattle population is almost of Indian origin.
January 2011
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continued from page 61
other developing countries. Central to
Brazil’s strategy is a desire to link its domes-
tic political priorities, including poverty
reduction, with its foreign economic policy.
Brazil has for long been projected as the
‘country of the future’. Today, many Brazil-
ians would like to believe Brazil itself is the
future. Brazil is the eighth biggest economy
in the world. It has the largest tropical forest
and largest reservoir of fresh water. It is self-
sufficient in oil and gas. Petrobras is the
fourth biggest company in the world, larger
than Exxon Mobil, Apple and Petrochina. It
has a market value of $214 billion, which is
more than that of Microsoft and Wal-Mart.
Petrobras will be spending over the next few
years $224 billion in exploration and produc-
tion. This is the largest corporate investment
plan in the world at the moment.
A newly-tapped oil field off the coast of
Brazil could contain up to 15 billion barrels
of oil. If these figures were confirmed, it
would double Brazil’s known oil reserves. It
would also be the biggest oil field discovered
in the Americas since 1976 when Mexico
found the giant Cantarell field in the Gulf of
Mexico. Brazil has discovered billions of bar-
rels of oil in the last few years, mostly in
deep, pre-salt fields off its south-eastern
coast. The discoveries should make Brazil
one of the world’s top 10 oil producers.
Brazil is an agricultural superpower. It has
the largest surplus land that can be brought
under cultivation. Its potential to feed the
global population can be gauged by the fact
that Brazil can add 130 million hectares of
land which is equal to the total area cultivat-
ed by India to feed its billion-plus
population.
Bilateral trade between India and Brazil
has picked up in the last few years. But it is
still much below its potential. It is likely to
increase to $10 billion in the coming three-
four years from $5 billion at present. Indian
companies have started showing interest in
Brazil and Latin America. Renuka Sugars has
made investment in Brazil worth half a bil-
lion dollars. Almost all major pharma players
of India have established their presence in
Brazil with supply of bulk drugs, finished for-
mulations and establishment of manufac-
turing units and joint ventures.
India and Brazil have begun to work
together in various fields, including aviation,
engineering products, agriculture-based
industries, energy including ethanol, IT,
banking and urban infrastructure. IT,
biotechnology and pharmaceuticals are key
areas where India has made investments in
Brazil. Tata Consultancy Services, Ranbaxy
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and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Limited have
made a mark in Brazilian market.
Finally, as R Viswanathan, India’s
Ambassador to Argentina, Uruguay and
Paraguay, says, the gaze of Indian compa-
nies “is falling on Latin America, where
hyperinflation and currency devaluation
no longer dominate headlines… Latin
America is becoming stable and increasing-
ly growing and prosperous market that
offers opportunities for our companies.” To
a large extent, India’s decision to explore
the Latin American market is guided by
China’s massive investment in the region.
India and Brazil have taken significant
steps to forge meaningful ties in unconven-
tional areas, including defence. An India-
INDIA AND BRAZIL
ARE PURSUING
THE JOINT
DEVELOPMENT
OF HI-TECH
MILITARY
AIRCRAFT
Brazil joint defence committee is already
operational. The two countries are now pur-
suing the joint development of high-tech-
nology military aircraft through continuing
contacts already established between the
Defence Research and Development Organ-
isation (DRDO) and Brazil’s Embraer.
Embraer, one of the largest aircraft manu-
facturers in the world, tapping specific
segments in defence aviation, is already sup-
plying aircraft, which are used by India as part
of the country’s squadron for movement of
VVIPs within the country and often abroad.
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The two sides have already appointed
defence attaches in their respective
embassies in Brasilia and in New Delhi to do
the spadework for intensified military
co-operation.
Brazil’s Defence Minister Nelson Jobim vis-
ited India in early 2010 to prepare the ground
for significant defence ties and defence co-
operation. Indo-Brazilian co-operation in this
sector represents a significant diversification
of India’s quest for arms and defence technol-
ogy. Although Brazil has few external threat
perceptions, it has traditionally developed a
strong indigenous defence industry, co-oper-
ation with which will considerably increase
India’s options.
India and Brazil have also enhanced
co-operation in science and technology,
nuclear energy, space and defence for mutual
benefit. Biotechnology, information technol-
ogy, marine science, and nanotechnology are
other areas that have been identified where
significant potential for co-operation exists.
By 2050, Brazil will be the world’s fourth
largest economy, outranked only by China,
US and India. Brazil enjoys privileged geo-
graphic position as it doesn’t border any
hostile power. The same can’t be said about
China, Russia and India. Like India, Brazil’s
weight in international economic and
political forums has raised manifold. On
issues like climate change, nuclear prolifer-
ation, food security and international
trade, their positions will matter even
more. The very fact that Brazil will host the
World Cup Soccer and the Olympics in 2014
and 2016 respectively is recognition of its
clout and potential. The sleeping giant has
woken up.
(The author, Associate Director with the
Institute of Social Sciences, specialises in
Latin American affairs)
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ASSESSMENT

DEALING WITH
NEPAL
Nepal's politics is dangerously adrift and nothing can be worse — both for Nepal
and its closest and most important neighbour, India. K V RAJAN looks at the
scenario and offers a prescription for the path ahead

N
EPAL is going downhill at an
alarming rate. A consensus is
essential for peace to be con-
solidated and the Constitution
to be written — but is rendered
impossible by the trust deficit between its
political leaders and parties, compounded
by serious inter-party as well as intra-party
differences (including within the Maoist
leadership). There is very little prospect of
the Constitution being written even within
the new deadline of May 29, 2011.
Nepal continues to have two armies —
one official, the other Maoist — but no Prime
Minister, since repeated "elections" for the
Photo courtesy: ?
successor to Madhav Kumar Nepal, who
resigned several months ago under Maoist
pressure, have yielded no results. There is
considerable popular disillusionment with
all the political parties, thanks to the naked
display of their single-minded pursuit of
power without any thought of the country's
expectations or needs. There is a near-total
absence or failure of all institutions (with the
exception of the Army — but it is far from
certain as to how the Army will react if the
present drift continues).
The death of G P Koirala has removed
from the scene — the one leader of stature
who, whatever his shortcomings may have
been, was capable of creating a sense of
responsibility among party leaders. The
restoration of democracy with promises of a
federal structure has created an explosion of
ethnic demands which is only one among
POLITICAL INSTABILITY:
Nepal's political situation is like a
dark tunnel with no hope of light

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ASSESSMENT

many pretexts for the existing environment ful attempts to neutralise the Army's resist-

of impunity and violence, precipitating a
possibly dangerous economic crisis. It is
arguable whether the present trends, leading
to a disaster scenario of national as well as
regional proportions, can still be reversed. A
"sustainable" process towards a peaceful,
stable and increasingly prosperous Nepal
seems a remote prospect, and India perhaps
needs to factor this in when considering its
medium-term options.
At the core of this grim situation is the
inability or unwillingness of the Maoists to
transform themselves into a normal political
party committed to peaceful democratic
processes, contrary to their assurances when
they entered into a Comprehensive Peace
Agreement with the main political parties,
agreed on a ceasefire, submitted to UN mon-
itoring of their armed cadres, stood for elec-
tions, and came out as the single largest par-
ty in the Constituent Assembly elections in
2008. Maoist leaders do make reassuring
noises about their commitment to "compet-
itive politics" (significantly, not to a multi-
party democracy); but their resistance to
making serious progress on the inte-
gration and rehabilitation of their
militia, their disinterest in disman-
tling front organisations which
engage in systematic intimidation
and violence, and their continuing
ideological rhetoric favouring a
"people's republic" as the ultimate
objective, fuel serious concerns
about their agenda.
It is now clear that there are seri-
ous ideological divisions among
Maoists at the top, and also a com-
petition for personal power. The
three factions, which could be
described (at the risk of oversimplifi-
cation) as "pragmatic", "hard line"
and "expedient", are respectively led
by Baburam Bhattarai, Mohan
Baidya "Kiran" and Prachanda. The
pragmatic group argues that it is
premature and risky to abandon the
democratic route to capturing pow-
er as being urged by the hardliners,
and questions the logic of an ultra-
nationalistic, anti-India line
favoured by the other two; Prachan-
da's tactical flexibility (try for peace
and Constitution, but prepare for a
revolt) keeps the party intact and
himself at the helm of it, albeit at the
cost of his eroding personal credibil- GRIM SITUATION: Inability of Maoists to commit
ity. All three leaders maintain their themselves for a peaceful democracy is the key reason for
commitment to achieving the objec- the continuing stalemate
tive of a "people's republic", and
THERE ARE
SERIOUS
IDEOLOGICAL
DIVISIONS
AMONG
MAOISTS AT
THE TOP
none of them has attempted to moderate the
mindsets of Maoist cadres away from the use
of undemocratic methods in pursuing their
goals. Clearly, arms and use of violence are structive use so that the Maoists can be per-
considered necessary and useful to all
Maoist factions in marginalising the tradi-
tional political parties and ensuring capture either their sense of security or self-respect
and consolidation of power.
The Maoists see the Nepal Army as the
most important hurdle in their way, and
have been making repeated but unsuccess-
ance to them. It would be logical to assume
that the Maoists will not agree to integration
or rehabilitation of their armed cadres with-
out an accompanying change in the charac-
ter of the Nepalese Army.
The Nepalese Army does need to become
more professional, more democratic, more
transparent, and, more accountable. It does
not have to get politicised in the way the
Maoists appear to expect: "civilian control"
of the Army, certainly, cannot be translated
into its "Maoisation". While a resolution of
the differences between the Army and the
Maoists on integration looks extremely diffi-
cult, given the entrenched positions on both
sides, India's traditional contacts with the
Nepal Army could, perhaps, be put to con-
suaded that they can disarm in a result-ori-
ented, time-bound manner without losing
— supposedly their two principal concerns.
Maoist intentions as regards India remain
opaque. Maoist leaders seem to be torn
between the need to make overtures to India
so that it drops its reservations
towards them, and the need to main-
tain a minimum stance of assertive-
ness vis-à-vis India in order to retain
their credibility in the eyes of their
cadres. The fact that India has made it
clear that a Maoist return to power is
an unwelcome proposition and is
widely perceived to be influencing
friendly political parties to oppose the
Maoists is a complicating factor. Anti-
Indian activities are in direct propor-
tion to the level of political insecurity
the Maoists feel because of India's
engagement with other political play-
ers in Nepal.
India's concerns stem from four
fronts: the strong anti-Indianism,
which seems to be an inalienable part
of Maoist ideology, and which they
have tried to spread throughout Nepal
in a way that threatens to take anti-
Indian sentiment to unprecedented
levels; the frequent rhetoric suggest-
ing keenness to intensify links with
Indian Naxalites; the attempt to play
the China card in a way which might
actually threaten India's strategic
interests in Nepal; and the stated ide-
ological commitment to transform
Nepal's multiparty democracy into a
North Korean or at least a Chinese
model, through the use of violence
and non-democratic means if
necessary.

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“IF REACTIONARIES'
CONSPIRACY AGAINST
NEPALI PEOPLE'S
POLITICAL ASPIRATIONS
DEEPENS, ALL CAMPUSES
AND UNIVERSITIES
COUNTRYWIDE SHOULD
BE TURNED INTO MILITARY BARRACKS.”
PRACHANDA,
NEPAL'S MAOIST CHIEF
The unprecedented level of anti-Indian-
ism that manifests itself regularly is not lim-
ited to the Kathmandu Valley, nor to the fold
of Maoist cadres, even if the Maoists are
without doubt the main instigators of attacks
on India. India has to do some introspection
to see if there are more sensitive ways of
managing its relations with a neighbour,
with which its shared affinities and comple-
mentarities far outweigh the differences and
irritants, keeping in mind a natural psyche
on the latter's part of being "India-locked".
Should India be alarmist about the possi-
ble influence of Nepal's Maoists on its own
Naxalite problem? There is little hard evi-
dence about substantive cross-border inter-
actions between left-wing extremists of the
kind and on a scale which should cause seri-
ous concern, but the example of Maoists
succeeding in their country, professing
democracy but through the use of non-dem-
ocratic means, will undoubtedly have an
impact on Naxalite strategies. There are
already early warning signs that the open
border makes monitoring and management
of movements of even well-known left-wing
leaders very difficult. Of late, Maoist leaders
and documents speak assertively about step-
ping up interactions with Naxalites in India,
and there seems to be some evidence of
arms transfers taking place, as also insurgent
groups from the North-East considering
operations from Nepal since Bhutan and
Bangladesh are no longer hospitable terrain.
Maoists have made no effort to reduce
their overtures to China; in fact, China's own
increasing visibility in Nepal cannot but be
seen in India as an exercise in calibrated
provocation by Beijing in its backyard. The
sudden expansion of "Confucian centres",
proliferation of high-level visits, Chinese
support for infrastructure projects and
exchanges on defence and security coopera-
tion are clearly intended to send signals to
Nepal as well as India, that China is keen to
upgrade its bilateral ties with Nepal and help
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ASSESSMENT
“A STRONG
POWER
CENTRE
WOULD BE
NECESSARY TO
ACHIEVE
PEACE,
STABILITY AND PROGRESS IN
NEPAL.”
HU JINTAO,
CHINESE PRESIDENT
the latter reduce its excessive dependence
on India. The Chinese government has
announced an additional package of $7.31
million to Nepal, increasing its annual finan-
cial assistance to Nepal to $21.94 million. It
has also assisted Nepal in over 20 infrastruc-
ture developmental projects. China is also
expanding its relationship from state-level to
people-to-people level by funding and
establishment of front organisations in
Nepal.
India should have and project the self-
confidence of a major power in its interac-
tions with China, and not hesitate to engage
purposefully with China on respecting our
core sensitivities in Nepal. It is most unlikely
that at this particular juncture the Chinese
would accord higher priority to its interests
in Nepal if they impinge adversely on India's
core concerns.
How should India deal with an unstable,
increasingly radicalised and nationalistic
Nepal? The Maoists are a political reality that
cannot be wished away. India will have to
ANTI-INDIAN
ACTIVITIES ARE IN
PROPORTION TO
THE LEVEL OF
POLITICAL
INSECURITY THE
MAOISTS FEEL
devise a "tactical" approach which gives the
Maoists a sense of political security and
offers them a chance to moderate their
extremist positions on these fronts, enabling
the Constitution to be written and progress
made on integration and disarmament of
their militia. A small window of opportunity
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GEOPOLITICS
“NOW IT HAS
BECOME
INTOLERABLE, WE
CAN NO LONGER
TRUST THE MAOISTS…
THE MAOISTS HAVE
GONE TOO MUCH FAR,
HOW WE CAN COOPERATE WITH
THEM.”
MADHAV KUMAR NEPAL,
NEPAL PRIME MINISTER
for India does exist as long as the Maoists are
finding their feet, i.e., for the next few years.
If they refuse to play ball, other options may
have to be considered in consultation with
the international community. Once they
develop their capacity to form a government
on their own and have succeeded in sub-
stantially undermining the institutions and
other major parties, compromises may not
be feasible.
India also needs to urgently evolve a
more innovative, ambitious programme for
inclusive development in Nepal, while
simultaneously addressing the sources and
reasons for the spurt of anti-Indian activity
in that country. Here again, past experi-
ence would suggest that we should avoid
exclusively government-to-government aid
programmes, which inevitably get politi-
cised, or create misunderstandings
because of poor delivery or high costs, and
offer instead cooperative, interdependent
projects in the private sector or at the com-
munity level, where the Nepalese side is
given a sense of equality and ownership.
A plan for the accelerated development
of Nepal, which will protect trade, tourism,
investment and development from political
shortcomings and vicissitudes, will also
help counter anti-Indian trends by demon-
strating India's commitment to the welfare
of the people of Nepal, giving the latter a
sense of hope for the future and the feeling
that the winning side is democracy and
development backed by India. The com-
mon people should be at the core of this
plan. India needs to be clear about its own
priorities in Nepal. If a stable, prosperous,
democratic and peaceful Nepal is the real
objective, then its policies should be fash-
ioned, refined or redefined to sub-serve
that objective.
(The author is a former Secretary,
Ministry of External Affairs and was
Ambassador to Nepal from 1995 to 2000)
January 2011
India Look East.qxd 1/3/2011 5:15 PM
diplomacy
India has slowly but surely
consolidated its ‘Look East’
policy to firmly entrench
itself as a key player in the
Asia Pacific region. Now it’s
time to go to the next level,
explains S D MUNI
LOOKING BEYOND ECONOMICS
www.geopolitics.in
Page 54
g
GEOPOLITICS
PERSPECTIVE
I
ndia’s ‘Look East’ policy has entered its
third phase of evolution with a thrust on
emerging strategic balance in the Asia-
Pacific region. The seeds of strategic
focus could be traced to Rajiv Gandhi’s
period during the late Eighties when great
power relations in the Asia-Pacific had started
changing. The then Soviet Union was folding
out and China was preparing itself to claim
major stakes in the strategic architecture of
the region. Rajiv Gandhi undertook a visit to
China in December 1988 to break the ice in
bilateral relations and deputed his diplomats
to facilitate the resolution of the Kampuchean
issue that had created misunderstanding
between India and ASEAN.
Narasimha Rao, who was involved in the
Rajiv Gandhi period’s ‘Look East’ initiative as
Foreign Minister, picked up the threads of the
policy again when he became Prime Minister
in 1991 and repackaged the policy with a
(68)
strong economic content to suit the require-
ments of the day. This was the first phase of
‘Look East’. The strategic and security compo-
nent, however, was never lost on Rao’s moves
and even when India’s ‘Look East’ policy was
defined in term of economic engagement with
the ASEAN region, India finalised deals of
servicing MiG fighter aircraft with Malaysia
and Laos and established defence training
and cooperation missions in the region.
The second phase of the ‘Look East’ policy
was announced during the NDA regime by the
then Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha, who
introduced defence co-cooperation as the
major plank of this policy along with econom-
ic engagement. In an address at Harvard Uni-
versity in September 2003, he said: “The new
phase of this policy is characterised by an
expanded definition of ‘East’, extending from
Australia to East Asia, with ASEAN at its core.
The new phase also marks a shift from trade to
January 2011
India Look East.qxd 1/3/2011 5:15 PM Page 55
wider economic and security issues, including
joint efforts to protect the sea lanes and coor-
dinate counter-terrorism activities.” In the
third phase, India is expected to situate itself
as a major factor in the unfolding strategic
balance of the region where signs of China’s
assertiveness and US re-engagement are
becoming clear.
The first two phases of the ‘Look East’ pol-
icy have enabled India to rehabilitate itself in
the region and consolidate its position as a
friend and sincere partner in cooperation for
development and security. Such rehabilitation
and consolidation was necessary to break
nearly four decades of isolation caused by the
cold war and the Sino-Indian conflict in the
Himalayas. In the process of rehabilitating
itself, India graduated from a sectoral to a full
dialogue partner of ASEAN by 1995 and
became a summit-level partner by 2002. Being
a full dialogue partner, in 1995, India was
invited to join the ASEAN Regional Forum
(ARF), the first security grouping established
in the region in July 1994. A major landmark in
India’s integration with the region has been its
participation in the East Asia Summit (EAS),
established in 2005. This was an indication
that now onwards there were no barriers to
India’s active involvement in the affairs of the
Asia-Pacific region.
It may be recalled that there were reserva-
www.geopolitics.in
g
PERSPECTIVE
tions on the part of some of the countries like
Malaysia and China for the participation of
India, along with that of Australia and New
Zealand, in EAS, but these reservations were
set aside in view of the strong support from
rest of the members, particularly Singapore,
Indonesia and Japan. Therefore, when the
ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting (ADMM)
decided to change its format by expanding its
membership as ADMM-Plus at its fourth
meeting in May 2010, India was invited to join
with seven other countries, namely Japan,
China, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand,
Russia and the United States.
Outside ASEAN, India has been engaged
with the countries of the region in two other
forums, namely BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Ini-
tiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Eco-
nomic Cooperation) and Mekong-Ganga
Cooperation Initiative (MGCI) established in
1998 and 2000 respectively. The only multilat-
eral forum in the region, where India is not
represented, is Asia-Pacific Economic Com-
munity (APEC), though there are also strong
advocates of India’s membership, which for
the moment stands frozen. A notable aspect of
India’s approach to regional groupings in East
Asia has been to cultivate those where China
is not present like BIMSTEC and MGCI and
throw its weight with those where China is
being engaged in extended multilateral
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GEOPOLITICS
interactions. India’s support for the expansion
of EAS to include Russia and the US in July
2010 may be mentioned in this respect. India
has made special efforts to enhance coopera-
tion with the new ASEAN members, namely
Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, all
of which also happen to be located on
Chinese periphery.
This regional integration of India with
East Asia carried through its ‘Look East’ policy
has proved to be advantageous both to India
and the countries of the region in concrete
terms. For instance, India’s bilateral trade with
ASEAN has increased manifold under the
‘Look East’ policy; from $2.3bn in 1991-92 to
more than $45bn in 2010. Four of the ASEAN
members — Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia
and Thailand — account for most of this trade.
The phenomenal growth in Sino-Indian trade
should also be seen as a part of India’s
eastward economic engagement.
China, Japan, Singapore and South Korea
have also emerged as strong investors in India
from its eastern neighbourhood. By 2010, the
flow of investments into India from the east is
nearly $15bn, with Singapore alone account-
ing for more than half of this amount. India, in
turn, has also made matching investments in
the East Asian countries, with the highest
Indian FDI of $14.23bn going to Singapore by
2008-2009. India’s conclusion of Free Trade
Agreement with ASEAN and bilateral ‘Com-
prehensive Economic Partnership/Coopera-
tion Agreement’ (CEPA/CECA) with
Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea is
bound to provide greater momentum to the
prospects of trade and investment.
India’s defence and security cooperation
with the countries of east has also been
strengthened under the ‘Look East’ policy.
This dimension was boldly highlighted in
2002 by Indian escort of US ships in the
Malacca Strait to protect them from piracy.
Since then, regular high-level political visits
between India and the East Asian countries
have taken place to discuss broader issues of
regional and global security as also to firm up
critical bilateral cooperation in the areas of
defence, security and economic engagements.
Defence Minister A K Antony’s participa-
tion in the ADMM+8 in Hanoi in October
2010 and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s
visits to Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam and the
Republic of Korea during October-Novem-
KEY PLAYER: Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh at the ASEAN Summit,
Hanoi, Vietnam, held in October 2010,
to strengthen the regional integration of
India with East Asia
January 2011
India Look East.qxd 1/3/2011 5:15 PM Page 56
diplomacy
GEOPOLITICS
ber 2010 may be recalled as the
latest examples of such high-lev-
el interactions. Regular consulta-
tions on foreign and defence
affairs at ministerial and senior
official levels have been institu-
tionalised and strategic partner-
ships of varying depths and
intensities have been established
with a number of countries.
Indian Navy and defence
forces hold regular training, exer-
cises and visits with almost all the
countries of the East-Asian region,
including with China and in the
South China Sea. In some of the
countries, India has set up
defence and airforce academies
to impart training on a perma- HIGH-LEVEL INTERACTION: Defence Minister A K Antony
participated at the ADMM+8 in Hanoi in October 2010
nent basis. India’s relations with
Singapore are the closest in this
respect. India has also started supplying
defence equipment and exchanging defence
technologies to the countries of the region.
The proposals of joint defence production
with Singapore and Indonesia are being
actively pursued by India.
The strides made by India to engage with
the Asia-Pacific region through its ‘Look East’
policy are impressive but in no way adequate.
The other major players in the region like the
US, China and Japan are far ahead of India. It
has been noted earlier that the range of FTAs
and CEPA/CECA put in place and being pur-
sued between India and the region both at the
regional and bilateral levels will give a definite engage itself strongly with the region and the
boost to its economic engagement. However,
India will only be able to harness the full
potential of its economic cooperation with the
region by hastening the pace of its domestic
economic reforms and further opening of its
economy to Asia and the world.
In defence and security matters, India has
to catch up with the fast pace of China, not
only in military modernisation but also in the
area of offering military hardware and tech-
nologies. It is worth noting here that Philip-
pines, a traditional military ally of the US, has
started exploring the possibilities of acquiring
arms from China. India is still new in the field
of maritime and military diplomacy. The qual-
ity and quantity of its defence production is
not yet fully geared to the value and culture of
exports. India has surely become conscious of
this but building required capabilities will
take time.
The challenge of the third phase in
India’s ‘Look East’ policy arises from the dis-
turbed regional strategic balance in East Asia
due to China’s rise and the perception of US
constraints on playing its traditional role of
www.geopolitics.in
g
PERSPECTIVE
ensuring stability. The revival of tensions in
South China Sea over territorial disputes
between China and the South East Asian
countries, the China-Japan spat on the fish-
ing boat incident around the disputed
Sankaku/Diaoyu Island and now the North
Korean offensive against the South are all
indications of the disturbed regional strate-
gic balance.
The East Asian region is clearly uneasy
with the unexpected assertiveness in China’s
stance and values a multilateral strategic bal-
ance in the interest of peace and stability.
There is a clear demand that the US should re-
other rising powers of the region like India
should come actively forward to ensure stabil-
ity of the regional balance. The East Asian
countries find India’s response below their
expectations. Even the US President Obama
during his visit to India called upon India not
only to ‘look east’ but to ‘engage’ (i.e. actively 2006 at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore
participate) with it.
India is burdened with constraints at two
levels in this respect. At one level, India is nei- Indonesia. In the Asia-Pacific region, India’s
ther economically deep pocketed nor over-
stocked by defence goodies to be as generous
as China in meeting the expectations of its
regional friends. This weakness may be over-
come through the establishment of trade and
economic arrangements in the region, and
economic reforms and enhanced defence
production at home. India has also not made
proper use of its soft power in the region,
which is embedded in its civilisational and
cultural linkages, a vibrant diaspora and bur-
geoning impact of Bollywood.
The establishment of Nalanda University
in 2010 is an indication that India is awaken-
ing towards this asset, but the project is still to
(70)
take concrete shape and there are
many other areas of soft power wait-
ing to be harnessed. It is only by rein-
forcing its economic, security and
cultural cooperation with the individ-
ual countries and multilateral fora in
the region that India can augment its
potential to play an effective role in
the region’s strategic balance.
At the other broader strategic
level, India faces a dilemma due to
uncertainty in the US-China strate-
gic equation. This equation ranges
from the scenarios of G2 to an inten-
sifying new cold war between them
and both of these extreme possibili-
ties are uncomfortable for India.
While the former would tend to iso-
late India in the region the latter
may force it to take sides between
the two contenders. India had coor-
dinated its efforts with the US, Japan and
Australia to provide relief to the tsunami-
affected east and has also, by now, remark-
ably improved its strategic understanding
with traditional US allies like Japan, Australia
and the Republic of Korea. But it would cer-
tainly not like to go piggyback on the US or a
coalition put together by it to confront or
contain China as long as its rise remains
peaceful and orderly.
The Chinese proposal to divide the Indian
Ocean and the Pacific with the US as their
respective areas of influence as also Obama’s
call on China in November 2009 in Beijing to
help ensure South Asian peace and stability
has raised the levels of anxiety and concern in
New Delhi. India is happy to see the revived
interest of the US in East Asian affairs. Much
before Obama’s reassuring visit to India in
November 2010, Pranab Mukherjee, the then
India’s Defence Minister, speaking in June
said: “India is one of the important legs of the
Asian juggernaut along with China, Japan and
growing ties with the United States and other
countries in North and South America brings
with it a commensurate role in the region…
India’s role is crucial for ensuring and main-
taining long-term peace, stable balance of
power, economic growth and security in Asia.
This being the driving aspiration of India’s
Look East policy, it will get a strategic direction
and gather further momentum as the equa-
tion between a turbulent US and a rising
China settles down in Asia.”
(The author, a former Indian Ambassador
to Laos, is Visiting Research Professor, Insti-
tute of South Asian Studies, Singapore.)
January 2011
final geo subcscribe add:final geo subcscribe add.qxd 10/30/2010 2:19 PM Page 2

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TechScan Jan.qxd 1/3/2011 5:33 PM Page 24

TECH SCAN
AKASH MISSILE TO RAMP UP AIR DEFENCE
INDIA'S FIRST modern air
defence system is ready to roll off
the assembly line. An operational
Akash missile system, developed
by Bharat Electronics (BEL) in
Bengaluru, is all set to be deliv-
ered to the Indian Air Force (IAF)
by March 2011. This first Akash
squadron will protect the
Gwalior Air Base, where the IAF
bases its Mirage-2000 fighters.
BEL will follow this up quick-
ly with a second Akash
squadron by December 2011,
which will safeguard Lohegaon
Air Base at Pune, a major base
for the front-line Sukhoi-30MKI
fighters. Meanwhile, another
defence public sector undertaking, Bharat
Dynamics, will build six more Akash
squadrons, most of these for the IAF's new
fighter bases along the Sino-Indian border,
including Tezpur, Bagdogra and Hasimara.
BEL is building two Akash squadrons
for `1,221 crore. The ground infrastruc-
ture would cost another `200 crore, so
each squadron effectively costs about
`700 crore. That is not just significantly
cheaper than foreign procurement, but
also permits better maintenance and
g
allows for continuous technological
improvements.
The Indian Army is also close to order-
ing a high-mobility version of Akash,
mounted on T-72 tanks, that can move
alongside tank forces. One of the Army's
three strike corps, which attacks deep into
enemy territory, has no anti-aircraft “area
defence system”; the other two strike
corps are equipped with the vintage Russ-
ian SA-6, designed in the early-1960s. This
makes them dangerously vulnerable to
enemy fighters if they advance
deep into enemy territory.
The Akash — developed by the
DRDO, in partnership with BEL,
under the Integrated Guided Mis-
sile Development Programme — is
a sophisticated amalgam of sys-
tems working in concert. The heart
of the Akash is a mobile Rohini
radar, which can detect an aircraft
when it is 120km away; automati-
cally, a coded electronic interroga-
tor ascertains whether this is an
IAF aircraft, or a civilian airliner.
With the target identified, the
Rohini radar alerts the Akash
squadron headquarters, which
then controls the engagement.
As the enemy fighter races in at about
15km per minute, the task of shooting it
down is allocated through a secure digital
link to one of the squadron's two missile
“flights”, which are normally about 25km
away, to cover the maximum area. The
designated Flight Control Centre locks its
sophisticated 3D phased-array radar onto
the enemy fighter and calculates the
launch parameters for an Akash missile to
shoot down the target at its maximum
range of 25km.

BEEFING UP THE BIOLOGICAL PROGRAMME

IN THE wake of chemical and nuclear
threats, the Institute of Nuclear Medicine
and Allied Sciences (INMAS) of Defence
Research and Development Organisation
(DRDO) is strengthening its chemical,
biological, radiological and nuclear
(CBRN) defence by extending training
programmes to private and government
institutes, health organisations and para-
military forces. This would also include
health institutes such as PGIMER where
doctors and nurses are to be provided
similar training in order to prepare them
to deal with CBRN casualties.
More than the CBRN threat from other
countries, today it is the threat of prolifer-
ation of such highly devastating agents
into the hands of terrorist organisations
across the globe. Also, there could be inci-
dents where the disaster is a natural one,
as was the recent case of Delhi University
Cobalt-60 disaster. In contrast to the high
intensity of threats, the awareness is very
low among professionals and public.
Keeping this in mind, for the first time
INMAS would have a CBRN training insti-
tute, where paramilitary, employees at
government orgainsations, health insti-
tutes and civilians would be trained to
prepare them for any CBRN mass casualty.
Keeping the importance of hospitals
and health research institutes in mind,
INMAS had already published a 250-page
book on medical management on CBRN
casualties and distributed it in hospitals
including PGIMER. It had trained a sec-
tion of doctors, nurses, and other health
professionals on how to treat a patient
exposed to radioactive agents prior to
the Commonwealth Games
at Delhi.
The training is based on the
existing defence technique of
NBC currently being used in
the military. This would be
modified for the civil sector. For
instance, the technology used in
military tanks to counter NBC attacks
would be modified and simplified for the
use of personal vehicles.

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www.geopolitics.in January 2011
TechScan Jan.qxd 1/3/2011 5:33 PM Page 25
SINGLE-HAND CARBINES
A CARBINE that can be fired on the ene-
my using only one hand is all set to make
its debut in the armed and paramilitary
forces, providing an impetus in fight
against Naxals and in counter-insurgency
operations.
The Army is about to start trials of
BRAHMOS TESTED
INDIA'S SUPERSONIC cruise missile,
BrahMos was successfully flight-tested
from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at
Chandipur, Orissa, the mission high-
light being to perform tricky manoeu-
vres, rolls and a vertical dive towards the
targeted area in the Bay of Bengal even
as it flew at a velocity of 2.8 times the
speed of sound. The missile travelled its
full range of 290km. It was the missile's
Block III version, boasting advanced
guidance and upgraded software that
was tested. The flight established the
missile's precision strike capability in
mountain warfare.
DRDO GOES FOR NANO TECH
IN AN attempt to provide the impe-
tus to nano technology, the
Defence Research Development
Organisation (DRDO) will be set-
ting up a nano foundry in
Bengaluru or Hyderabad. The
foundry, which is expected to cost
`500 crore will develop nano products
from nano designs. Its primary aim will
focus on three products: nano compos-
ites, nano electrodes and bio-sensors.
The nano foundry project will be part
www.geopolitics.in
g
these single-hand carbines that has a
lethality range of 200 m and hold 30
rounds in the ammunition cartridge.
Developed by the Armament Research
and Development Establishment, Pune,
the carbine will screen multiple sites to
strike a target accurately.
Besides the new carbine, the defence
laboratory has also started working on an
intelligent rifle with embedded sensors.
The Gen Next rifles will have systems to
coordinate with a backpack computer or
a head-mounted display for the future
soldier for better and accurate strike.
The Pune laboratory is also developing
technologies to convert the Indian Air
Force's existing stock of "dumb bombs"
into "smart bombs" for precise hits at a
distance of 20km. This will be done by
inserting a guidance system in the nose
and tail of the ammunition so that it can
be guided by a laser or a seeker.
The only supersonic cruise missile in
the world today, BrahMos is said to be
one of the unparalleled missiles. It has a
track record of successive successes in
its both ship-launched and ground-
launched versions against ship-based
and land-based targets.
of a cluster with the partnering
of IITs and other academic
institutions of India. The R&D
facilities for nano technology
can be used by industry and
academic institutions for
research purposes.
Nano technology has several
applications — from agriculture to
defense — and the DRDO has already
invested `200 crore for developing nano
technology applications.
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NEW ELECTRONIC
WARFARE TEST RANGES
INDIA WILL build two ranges for testing
radar-based electronic warfare systems, as
it seeks to strengthen its capability in the
field, seen to be vital in war scenarios.
One range would come up in Chitradurga
in Karnataka and another in Tandur in
Andhra Pradesh, which would test "non-
communication" and "communication"
EW systems, respectively.
Once the two new testing ranges are oper-
ational in 2012-13, experimental and R&D
tests can be conducted. The present EW
systems have been integrated with MiG-27
fighters and operational flights are slated
next year. They would be integrated with
MiG-29 fighters and the light combat air-
craft next year.
CVRDE TO MAKE
GEARBOX FOR AIRCRAFT
CHENNAI-BASED Combat Vehicles
Research and Development Establish-
ment (CVRDE) will develop the gearbox
for the Advanced Medium Combat Air-
craft (AMCA), a fifth generation aircraft.
The Aircraft Mounted Accessory Gear-
box (AMAGB), developed by CVRDE for
the Light Combat Aircraft, Tejas, has
received the "type approval" from the
Centre for Military Airworthiness and
Certification (CEMILAC). The Indian
Navy has also approached the CVRDE for
gearboxes for its submarines, being
developed indigenously.
January 2011
EDIT Rigt Angle December.qxd 1/3/2011 5:30 PM Page 35
Russia, the all-weather friend
P
rime Minister Manmohan Singh and Russian Pres-
ident Dmitry Medvedev have just concluded the
11th annual Indo-Russian summit, a feature that
started in 2000. Indian media might not have given
the event due coverage, but compared to the over-
hyped visit of US President Obama in November, its results
are more tangible. The Obama trip saw India and the United
States signing some 20 agreements worth $10 bn. In contrast,
the "low-profile" visit of President Medvedev to
the country resulted in 30 bilateral agreements,
of which the deal on the joint production of
fifth generation aircraft alone was worth $30
bn. In fact, when one talks of India's broad
strategic interactions with the outside world,
there is no parallel to its bourgeoning all-
weather relations with Russia. While one is not
belittling the growing Indo-US ties, the reality Prakash
is that of all the P-5 countries (US, UK, France,
China, Russia — all permanent members of the United
Nations Security Council), it is Russia that shares most of
India's global vision and concerns.
Russia gives India around 70 per cent of its defence needs.
And importantly, defence cooperation is not exactly restrict-
ed to a buyer-seller relationship; it includes joint design,
research and development, joint production, training, and
service-to-service contacts. Russia shares its most sensitive
and newest developments in technology with India, some-
thing that the United States is reticent to do. BrahMos missile
system is a shining example of this type of collaboration.
Presently, several similar joint development projects in areas
of cutting-edge and frontier technologies are being pursued.
Besides, Russia has so far maintained its policy on not pro-
viding our adversary China (or for that matter Pakistan) the
same weapons system it supplies to India.
Some critics do point out that in today's arms bazaar,
Russia is not exactly a great market, given the comparatively
poor technology associated with its weapons. But then, no
nation would fulfil the requirements of India like the Russians
and no one else would be willing to lease their nuclear sub-
marines to the Indian Navy. Notwithstanding the much-
hyped 2008 civil Indo-US nuclear deal, it is Russia rather than
the United States that proved to be a better partner in aug-
menting India's nuclear power by not hesitating to transfer
the so-called "dual-use technology" on a range of sensitive
areas such as reprocessing technology, joint thorium fuel
cycle nuclear power projects and fast neutron reactors.
Similarly, no country other than Russia has collaborated
with India in its several space technology-based cooperation
projects.
Though it is below potential that the present bilateral
two-way trade is only $7.46 bn (2009) and present two-way
investment is approximately $5.5 bn, it is, perhaps, not
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www.geopolitics.in
GEOPOLITICS
g
Right Angle
properly highlighted that one of India's most significant over-
seas investments ($2.8 bn) has been in Sakhalin-I (Siberia) for
extracting oil. That is not all. India has also invested more in
that region through ONGC Videsh Limited — $2.1 bn was the
investment for buying a British company called Imperial
Energy in the Tomsk region in Siberia. So, India has had an
energy strategy of investing in equity in that region and this
continues. India has been discussing with the Russian side on
several more investments where ONGC Videsh
Limited is willing to go along with Russian oil
and gas majors like Gazprom and Rosneft to
invest in different regions of Siberia and even
North Russia. In Siberia, the regions are
Sakhalin-III and there is a region on Timan
Pechora, as well as an interest on the Indian side
in the Yamal peninsula, which is a gas-rich area
Nanda in Northern Russia. India has been keen to
acquire a stake in Sakhalin-III. It was reassuring
that the summit meeting witnessed meaningful agreements
on all these areas.
All this, however, does not mean that there are no hiccups
in Indo-Russian ties. The two countries have not yet come to
terms with the new situation where private players and
organisations are dominating the economic contours in the
two countries and where they have to deal with each other
directly without governmental interventions. The result is
that not many Indian businessmen are sure of their returns
on investments in and trade with Russia. Even in military
sales, the Russians have to re-establish their
Soviet-days' reliability in not only timely delivery of the
products but also with commitments for after-services and
spare parts.
However, these hiccups pale into insignificance if one
sees the broad strategic framework. The fundamental real-
ity is that though Russia may have lost its position as a
super-power in Cold War equations, it is still a big power if
one goes by any possible definition of the elements that
constitute power. It is huge and possesses the largest land-
mass of the earth as a single country. It strategically abuts
on Central Asia, China and Iran, an area of political securi-
ty and economic interests to India. Russia is endowed with
enormous natural resources, technological capacities and
trade potential. Above all, it has a highly talented reservoir
of human capital. It still is the most important military
power in the world after the United States. Most signifi-
cantly, Russia, perhaps, gives a higher priority to India in
its foreign policy and strategic calculations than the Unit-
ed States or other power centres of the world, their
acknowledgment of India's rising importance
notwithstanding.
prakashnanda@newsline.in
January 2011
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