23/4 Security & Defence | India.pdf

Discussion

At independence India was notably under developed. The Party of Government, the Congress Party, under Nehru had a strong socialist colouring, which led to a close association with the USSR and the adoption of Soviet Five Year Planning. The consequence of the resulting ‘Licence Raj’ was the 1991 Balance of Payments Crisis, an IMF bailout and a neoliberal flavoured liberalisation producing economic growth with its benefits however distributed unequally. Naturally a surge to populism occurred meaning a shift rightwards to the Hindutva BJP as the new Party of Government. The neoliberalism oriented PM Modi has nevertheless maintained the Russian connection in a counter to the China oriented Pakistan, while also responding to the US World Island Containment II strategy. Building on the India US Malabar Naval Exercises from 1992 the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, The Quad, involving Australia, India, Japan and US, has evolved to be a mini NATO with various disclaimers of any Containment Mark II of China intent being made by Australia, India and Japan from time to time, if not by the US. In Indian military affairs, there is a weak domestic Military Industrial Complex MIC given a mainly public sector armaments production: there is a reported 70% reliance on imports and a 70% reliance on Russia within that. It is a semi rogue nuclear weapons state with a policy of minimum deterrence, No First Use and being a party to the Wassenaar Arrangement dual use control regime, while objecting to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty on their being flawed and discriminatory. Its principled position is subtly different to that of the fully rogue Israel, Pakistan and North Korea. India has become the Number Four economy in a clear historical reversion (see 15/0 + 19/0 for the Statistics Analyses) and there is the natural ambition to sit at the top table as a major power. Being a semi detached Inner Crescent World Island territory, India is an important geopolitical player and a swing factor in World Island co-ordination as is the similarly semi detached Outer Crescent Japan. The Indian purchase of the Russian Triumf S-400 system underlines the swing factor status and also incidentally the honest to goodness value for money fundamental science employed by Russia in its armaments.

AR Research and Opinion