Military Power and Policy in Asian States: China, India, Japan by Onkar Marwah

Author:Onkar Marwah [Marwah, Onkar]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, Social Science, Political Science, World, Military Policy, Asian, Regional Studies, General
ISBN: 9780429727207
Google: aK6bDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 15559922
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1983-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

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India’s Military Power and Policy

Onkar Marwah

Introduction

Over the past thirty years, India has slowly but steadily built up one of the world's largest armed forces establishments from the minimal forces existing in 1947. The country then possessed an army of 300,000 soldiers, an air force of two fighter and one transport squadrons, and a navy comprising four sloops, two frigates, and some harbor defense craft. The capacity to manufacture lethal armaments was almost nonexistent. At independence, the military officer corps consisted largely of noncommissioned officers, captains, and majors, and the country's new leadership had had little experience with the role or use of armed forces as instruments of state policy.

By 1979, India had acquired the world's third largest standing army, fifth largest air force, and eighth largest navy.1 Its domestic armament industry was the biggest among Third World noncommunist states in value, volume, diversity of manufacture, and research and development facilities.2 The country's military officer corps numbered 30,000-40,000, with substantial numbers among them trained for staff level duties. The Indian leadership had also absorbed lessons from four substantial external wars and one continuing internal war in northeast India. In all of those conflicts the country was engaged in negative interactions with one or another of the world's major military powers.

Through its recent nuclear and space activities, India has exhibited an ability—and some suggest the intent—to acquire strategic weapons and a delivery system at some point in the future.3 The world's tenth largest industrial base and third largest supply of skilled and technical manpower have been supporting the military effort. Unique among Third World states, the increases in Indian military capability have been overseen throughout the past three decades by civilian regimes which have been sensitive to the functions of the military but which have allowed the latter no role in political decision making.

The preceding (and probably continuing) growth in Indian military capacity has been derived from a combination of circumstances. Some of these have been the result of deliberate national policy decision, some have been responses to the actions of other states, and some have been a function of the realities of the Indian political environment. In the first category were decisions pertaining to the international political role sought by India in the postwar period. Most importantly, these included the decision to avoid direct participation in military alliances while simultaneously seeking to enlarge nonmilitary interaction with both the liberal Western and socialist blocs of states. The second category of influences encompassed the actions of other states that were perceived negatively by India. The principle episodes included: the U.S.-Pakistani mutual security pact of 1954 and the consequent free supply of $2 billion worth of arms to Pakistan; the forceful manner in which China established its claim in 1962 to territories in dispute with India; the implications of the increasing great-power naval deployments in the seas around India; and the indirect effects from the flood of modern weapons being supplied to states around the Persian Gulf. To be included in this category in

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