Friday, 12 September 2014
Chinks in the armour / "Defence in Knots" cover story
Chinks in the armour
Modernisation freeze and policy drift over the past decade is aggravated by a part-time defence minister
Sandeep Unnithan | | September 11, 2014 | UPDATED 12:02 IST
An Indian soldier with US marines during a joint military exerciseAround 2:30pm each day, the sentries near the large sandstone Ashoka lions on the first floor of South Block stiffen to attention. Arun Jaitley has entered his wood-panelled office in room 134 after a short drive from the finance ministry office in North Block. This daily change of guard, when the finance minister segues into defence minister, has been a ritual for more than 100 days. The trouble is that the challenges before the defence ministry are full-time. Just as they are for the country's armed forces, currently carrying out an unprecedented humanitarian relief operation in flood-ravaged Jammu and Kashmir."The defence ministry requires undivided attention," says former defence secretary Ajai Vikram Singh. "The present arrangement is unfair to both ministries and the person in charge."
The ministry's spectacular drift over the past decade has seen a muddled policy to buy arms, a stunted capability to build them domestically and a shortage of critical equipment. India's aspirations for a seat at the UN Security Council are unleavened by the fact that for three straight years it has been the world's largest net importer of defence equipment, sourcing arms worth Rs.83,458 crore or nearly 60 per cent of its needs from four P5 nations. China, which the armed forces see as a major military strategic threat in the foreseeable future, meanwhile, went from being the world's largest arms buyer to the fifth-largest arms exporter.
Jaitley is not a plodder. Defence ministry officials say he is quick to grasp complex issues and takes swift decisions. His ministry recently raised foreign direct investment (FDI) to 49 per cent in the defence industry, pending for over a decade, and has a nuanced policy on dealing with defence firms which sets aside his predecessor A.K. Antony's sledgehammer approach of blacklists. There are early signs that his Government emphasises boosting domestic defence production: Jaitley has thrown open to Indian industry a contract to make 197 Light Utility Helicopters worth more than $1 billion, which the Ministry of Defence (MoD) earlier planned to import.
In the coming months the defence minister also needs to fix the defunct defence industrial complex which, despite massive investments, does not yield results. The Ordnance Factory Board alone consumes Rs.1,200 crore each year and is hugely inefficient. It charges the MoD Rs.1.4 crore to overhaul an Infantry Combat Vehicle, instead of Rs.20 lakh it should cost. The reliance on external sources is complete. India has just two indigenous defence platforms which it has designed and built and can offer for export: the Pinaka multi-barrel rocket launcher and the Akash surface-to-air missile system.
Import dependence disrupts preparedness. An IAF official grimly notes how India's joint project with Ukraine to upgrade more than 100 An-32 transport aircraft has hit a rough patch-five An-32s sent to Ukraine for modernisation are stranded there because of ongoing tensions with Russia. Ukrainian factories also supply the IAF's primary long-range missile, the R-27 for Sukhoi Su-30s and MiG-29s and gas turbines that power most of the present frontline Indian naval warships.At the core of India's military mess lies the inability of the defence ministry to perform a critical role: lay out a modernisation blueprint. The defence ministry has been unable to bridge the gap between the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) which designs weapons, the public sector undertakings that produce them and the armed forces which require them. It has failed to prioritise acquisitions; the system currently encourages a first-past-the-post procurement method.
The fault could lie in the lack of a comprehensive national security policy which meshes foreign, economic and defence policy objectives and guides a modernisation programme. Defence planning, instead, flows out of a slim document called the 'Raksha Mantri's Operational Directives' issued every five years. These directives guide all hardware acquisition and shape India's defence posture. The directives are, however, collated from recommendations from the armed forces themselves.
The only vision statement, the 15-year Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan of the three armed forces, is a hardware shopping list. It leads to an inter-services scramble to prioritise arms purchases-the emphasis is on platform replacement rather than capability planning. Individual services function in silos. Coordination among them is hampered by the absence of a full-time chief of defence staff (CDS) as recommended by the Kargil Review Committee in 2001. The CDS is yet to be appointed but his staff, more than 300 service officers who make up the Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff (HQ IDS), is already in place. Critical reforms suggested by the HQ IDS have been ignored by the services. These included a Logistics Command, which could procure supplies for all three services. Service brass are quick to approve reports that expand their empires and swift to reject those that suggest reducing their turf.
Nearly 60 per cent of the Rs.2.2 lakh crore defence budget is spent on manpower costs, leaving only 40 per cent for the services to urgently buy helicopters, submarines and combat jets. Even so, a sluggish acquisition system means it takes the defence ministry nearly eight years to get any weapon system through competitive bidding. Delays in DRDO project are so legendary that Prime MinisterNarendra Modi recently admonished their "chalta hai" (anything goes) attitude. "The world will no longer wait for us."
The only one waiting, it would seem, is the Indian soldier. For comfortable combat boots, lightweight bulletproof vest and a reliable assault rifle. A systemic inability to provide a modern infantry combat kit sees the soldier tucking a one-litre packaged water bottle into his bandolier- his belt has no loops to hang the small military-issue bottle.
The rot within India's war machine is not a military secret. The MoD has, for over a decade, received at least half-a-dozen reports calling for reform. The Kargil Review Committee of 2001, which led to Groups of Ministers' reports recommending a revamp of the structure, the Vijay Kelkar Committee of 2005 which suggested boosting indigenous defence manufacturing and, finally, the 2012 Naresh Chandra Task Force on national security which recommended restructuring the defence forces to meet new challenges of special operations, space and cyber attacks.
Arun JaitleyNone of these reports have been implemented in their entirety. The Kelkar Committee which pushed for corporatising the struggling Ordnance Factory Board and opening up the sector to private sector giants, was shelved reportedly because then-defence minister Antony did not want to upset the powerful trade unions.The MoD and the armed forces have stubbornly resisted internal reform that could partly reduce pressure for enhancing the defence budget. Internal MoD finance reports from 2011 note a wastage of more than Rs.5,400 crore each year. The Army Service Corps, for instance, buys food worth Rs.2,122 crore but spends Rs.1,500 crore on manpower, an acquisition cost of 70 per cent. (Food Corporation of India has an acquisition cost of 16 per cent.) Nearly 75 per cent of the MoD-run Border Roads Organisation's (BRO) engineers are deployed in administrative jobs instead of in the field. This, even as construction of over 200 strategic roads of more than 13,000 km in the north and North-east are years behind schedule.
High-value defence purchases- such as the Navy's need to import and build six new conventional submarines for Rs.60,000 crore-are not subjected to critical review. A similar 2005 contract to build six Scorpene submarines for Rs.23,000 crore in India, is already five years behind schedule and has not transferred technology.
Merely increasing FDI will not bring in technology. "If that were the case, India should have been a global hub for mobile phone handsets because it has had 100 per cent FDI in telecom for years," says the CEO of a private sector defence firm. Even the other preferred route, of licensed production hardware such as Sukhois, is not the answer.
"Licensed building degrades our capability to produce indigenously designed and developed hard- ware," says Vice Admiral Raman Puri, former IDS chief. Fixing the mess calls for tremendous investments of time, effort and political will. It can only come from a defence minister who stays the reform course.
Followthe writer on Twitter @ SandeepUnnithan
Friday, 5 September 2014
Warship deal runs aground
Warship deal runs aground
Defence Ministry flags irregularities in purchase of mine-sweepers
Sandeep Unnithan | | September 5, 2014 | UPDATED 12:59 IST
A South Korean Navy minesweeper ofthe type India hopes to acquire.India's first major defence hard-ware import from East Asia is in jeopardy after the defence ministry flagged irregularities in a Rs.2,300 crore deal to buy eight mine counter-measure vessels from South Korea.On May 29 this year, the ministry encashed a Rs.3 crore bank guarantee furnished by the Kangnam Corporation, which had been shortlisted to supply the minesweepers to the Indian Navy. The liquidation of the guarantee came after an inquiry by the ministry found that the South Korean shipyard may have hired middlemen to facilitate the contract. Employing middlemen in defence deals is banned.
Vendors have to sign a pre-contract Integrity Pact stating that they will not offer bribes and are required to furnish a bank guarantee of Rs.3 crore. "There are questions about the people who the Korean shipyard hired and we are looking at whether their presence in negotiations can be construed as vitiating the process," a defence ministry spokesperson told India Today. The ministry is now awaiting the opinion of Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi to whom the case was forwarded in July.
Amit Cowshish, a former financial adviser to the defence ministry, says the quantum of the deviation from the agreement will determine the Government's next course of action. "Breach of the pre-contract Integrity Pact is a very serious matter and it will be difficult for the Government to compromise its own stand."
Kangnam Corporation was shortlisted as it was the cheaper of two firms that had bid for the proposal that was floated in 2008. The Navy wants eight 800-tonne vessels with composite anti-magnetic hulls that can clear sea mines laid by enemy warships, submarines and aircraft to blockade harbours during war. Two vessels would be imported from the foreign vendor for Rs.2,300 crore, a cost that covers technology transfer to build the remaining six vessels at the Goa Shipyard Ltd (GSL).The Navy plans to eventually get 24 such vessels over the next decade at a cost of Rs.24,000 crore. GSL is expected to build 16 more minesweepers in two batches of nine and seven, for a total Rs.16,000 crore. In 2008, Kangnam had bettered Italy's Intermarine Shipyard to close the deal, and by October 2011 it concluded price negotiations with the defence ministry. Kangnam's closest competitor, Italy's intermarine also approached the central vigilance commission with allegations of a lack of transparency in procedure. But sometime in 2012, a BJP MP who is now a cabinet minister in the Narendra Modi Government, wrote to then defence minister AK Antony, raising questions about the presence of defence agents hired by the South Korean shipyard at every stage of negotiations with the government. The ministry launched an internal inquiry which established deviations in the procedure.
As a consequence, the ministry did not sign the contract with the Korean shipyard. (Kangnam Corporation did not respond to a detailed questionnaire sent by India Today). Defence ministry officials believe that the agents were camouflaged as Kangnam's 'offset managers' to handle the mandated defence offsets in the deal, or the reinvestment of 30 per cent of the Rs.2,300 crore contract back into India. The name of a prominent Delhi-based arms agent has been doing the rounds as one of the possible beneficiaries of a three per cent commission in the deal.
Initially though, the defence ministry chose not to act on the findings of the inquiry. It just put the deal in limbo, not unlike the Army's case for acquiring 197 light utility helicopters where procedural deviations had been noticed in 2012. The case remained dormant till it received a fresh impetus when South Korean President Park Geun-he visited New Delhi in January this year. In a joint statement with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, she flagged the pending deal and asked "for his interest in support for the export of Korean minesweepers to India".
After a nudge from the political leadership, the acquisition wing of the defence ministry held a series of meetings between January and April, in which they finally discovered deviations in procedure. This led to the Kangnam bank guarantee being encashed in May.
When the NDA Government took over, it reviewed the UPA's blacklist of global defence firms. In two major decisions, the defence ministry lifted the 2005 ban on South Africa's Denel as well as the ban on dealings with Italian conglomerate Finmeccanica that was imposed after allegations of bribery in the VVIP helicopter deal came to light in 2012. The minesweeper deal also figured in the new Government's first Defence Procurement Board meeting on July 11 but a final decision on it is pending.
The Navy, meanwhile, distraught over gaps in its minesweeping capabilities and the possibility of procurement delays, has strongly pitched for a relook at the Kangnam deal, arguing that its requirement of the minesweepers is extreme and urgent. "We don't have sufficient minesweepers to protect even one harbour in a crisis," a senior naval officer said. Only seven of the 12 minesweepers that were acquired from the erstwhile Soviet Union between 1978 and 1988 are in active service. And only four of them were considered fit for a mid-life upgrade. Delay in the Korean deal, therefore, may compromise the Navy's minesweeping potential.
For the defence ministry, it is a case that can no longer be swept under the carpet.
Friday, 8 August 2014
The quiet general
General Dalbir Singh, the quiet general
Sandeep Unnithan August 8, 2014 | UPDATED 14:49 IST
General Dalbir SinghAs an instructor at the IndianMilitary Academy (IMA) inOctober 1987, General Dalbir Singh, then a captain, urgently dialled a senior regimental officer in army headquarters and requested to join his unit. The 4th battalion of the 5th Gorkha Rifles was among the first two Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) units deployed in Sri Lanka. Earlier, a visit to his former commanding officer's family in Dehradun to convey he had been killed by the LTTE, told him the IPKF was not on an ordinary peacekeeping mission. In 24 hours, Company Commander Dalbir Singh was on an An-32 into Palali airbase in northern Sri Lanka where his unit was extricating a Sikh Light Infantry company, savagely ambushed by the LTTE in University of Jaffna. India's 26th Chief of the Army Staff, General Dalbir Singh, is someone who chooses his battles carefully.Two years ago, as commander of the Dimapur-based 3 Corps, he remained silent after being subjected to an unprecedented public attack and disciplinary action by the then army chief General V.K. Singh. The outgoing chief had directed his ire at a raid conducted by a Corps military intelligence unit. But the intense, personal nature of the barrage seemed more to do with halting General Dalbir's chances of becoming army chief.
The public attack by the ex-chief continued even after General Dalbir was exonerated of all charges by the defence ministry and cleared as army chief by the outgoing UPA government, a decision ratified by the Narendra ModiGovernment in June this year. In July, a petition filed in the Supreme Court by his IMA batchmate, LtGeneral Ravi Dastane, challenged his elevation as Eastern Army commander in 2012. The petition resurrected some older charges of negligence filed by V.K. Singh but the court refused to stall his appointment. "It was clear in my mind that I had done nothing wrong," the General told close associates when the attack resumed this year. "The truth shall prevail." In public, he maintained a studied silence throughout, talking on national television only to make a statement after taking over as army chief on July 31. He laid down his priorities-modernisation of the force, development of critical infrastructure and welfare of ex-servicemen. Lieutenant General Jasbir Singh (retired), his schoolmate from Sainik School, Chittorgarh, recalls him as a brigadier trekking to all the 50-odd counter-infiltration posts strung along the LoC in north Kashmir.
Outgoing army chief General Bikram Singh described his successor at a private gathering in the Capital as a "soldier's general" and "rooted to the ground". It was, perhaps, a reference to his humble background-the son of a junior commissioned officer from Bishan village in Haryana's Rewari district who tilled the family land and attended classes in an open-air school. Admission into the Sainik School in 1965 put him on course for the National Defence Academy and finally an army commission in 1974. He is among the first service chiefs in recent years not to attend the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington, though not a prerequisite for becoming army chief.Like Bikram Singh, General Dalbir assiduously avoids the media. On July 31, there was that brief finger-wagging warning from him to Pakistan that incidents such as the beheading of Indian soldiers in 2013 would not be tolerated. And then, silence. The media shyness may be a continuation of his predecessor's plan of insulating the Army from media exposure and restoring the sanctity of the chief's office after two years of public hazing in V.K. Singh's tenure. "The nation's weapon of last resort had become a subject of drawing room gossip," says a senior army officer. The new chief has also gone the extra mile to trim public ostentation. Visitors who flocked to the open house he threw at his official home the evening of his takeover, July 31, were instructed to come without bouquets and gifts.
Keeping the world's third largest army away from media gaze may be the easy part, but restoring its sharp edge in his 30-month tenure will be a Himalayan task for General Dalbir. Little has changed since a March 2011 internal army assessment revealed deficiencies of Rs.60,000 crore in the stock of ammunition, missiles and vehicles. It will take at least five years of enhanced budgetary support to restore the Army's ability to fight a fullscale war against Pakistan or China.
The service also needs to allocate resources for a 90,000-soldier Mountain Strike Corps. The Corps was sanctioned at a cost of Rs.64,000 crore.
Most of this money will be spent to equip the Corps with helicopters and howitzers. This will prove to be a major worry given the Army's snail-paced acquisition. It got its last new 155 mm howitzer when General Dalbir was a company commander in Sri Lanka. Its last major doctrinal and acquisition thrust came in General N.C. Vij's tenure between 2003 and 2005.
Assisted by then vice-chief Lt- General Shantanu Choudhary, Vij initiated the Mountain Strike Corps proposal, built a counter-infiltration fence along the LoC and formulated the Cold Start doctrine in case of war with Pakistan. LtGeneral Syed Ata Hasnain, former Commander of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps, sees a similar alignment in the Army with Lieutenant General Philip Campose's appointment as the vicechief. "This is an excellent opportunity for General Dalbir to replicate that model and put the Army on the path of modernisation," says Hasnain. The 760 km LoC with Pakistan isthe frontage for a potential arc of instability this year. The United States military drawdown from Afghanistan coincides with Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir later this year.
Army officials anticipate heightened infiltration from across the border. The 3,000 km disputed border with China is also being attended to, but quietly. General Dalbir's plan involves speeding up the Army's mobilisation along the border. He has prioritised building up of border infrastructure with China. This preparedness will not, however, come in the way of India's ongoing military diplomacy with China. The two sides resumed military-to-military exchanges in 2013 after a four-year break. The Border Defence Cooperation Agreement between the two countries will ensure that incursions like the one in Ladakh's Depsang area in April last year don't escalate into hostilities. Shouldn't be a hard task for a man who thinks before he fights.
Follow the writer on Twitter @SandeepUnnithan
Saturday, 19 July 2014
Air India One is a sitting duck for missiles
Why Modi's Air India One is a sitting duck for missiles
Sandeep Unnithan New Delhi, July 19, 2014 | UPDATED 18:36 IST
Narendra Modi being received by Chief BRICS Coordinator in Brazilian Foreign Affairs Ministry Luis Lopes on his arrival at Fortaliza International Airport for the BRICS Summit on July 14, 2014.
The Prime Minister was flying from Frankfurt to New Delhi on a route passing over southern Ukraine on July 17. Air India has clarified that the PM's aircraft was flying over 200 km south of where MH17 was shot down and hence was in no danger.
However, Air India One, a Boeing 747-400 detached from Air India's civilian fleet to fly the Prime Minister, does not even have rudimentary protection against incoming missiles.The irony is that the aircraft, equipped with self-protection systems - the IAF's VVIP Boeings - does not meet the Special Protection Group's (SPG) requirements for four engines.
In 2009, the IAF's Communications Squadron inducted three specially-equipped 46-seater Boeing Business Jets (BBJs) for Rs.936.93 crore.
These aircrafts flown by Air Force pilots from the IAF's communication squadron are equipped with Electronic Countermeasures that can protect the planes from incoming missiles.
The Rs.200-crore ECM suite has a Missile Advanced Warning System that sets off an alarm in the cockpit when a radar locks onto the aircraft. The aircraft can then launch chaff and flares to decoy incoming missiles.
The BBJs with a maximum range of 11,000 km and twin engine configuration are deemed insufficient for a long range VIP aircraft.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives at Tegel Military Airport in Berlin on his way to Brazil to attend the BRICS Summit, on July 13.
Air India One was one of two AI aircrafts in the vicinity of MH17. AI113, a 787 Dreamliner, flying from New Delhi to Birmingham, was less than 50 km away from MH17.
"The Ukrainian ATC requested AI113 to contact MH17 because it had disappeared from their radar. It was only after the AI pilot landed in Birmingham did he realise his close shave," an Air India official said.
Also read: Missile that downed MH17 is Indian Navy's primary defensive weapon
MH17 was given a different, more direct, flight path by the Ukrainian ATC, a common practice to save fuel and time. Most international air traffic now steers away from Ukraine. They were earlier asked only to avoid Simferopol on the Crimean peninsula, a known hot spot.
Defence analysts say the incident illustrates why India needs to acquire four-engined aircraft such as the Boeing 747-800 retrofitted with self-protection suites.
Air Force One, a converted Boeing VC-25A used by US President Barack Obama, and Ilyushin IL-96 four-engined jet, used by Russian President Vladimir Putin, feature missile protection systems and special escape capsules.
"The fact is that Air India One is a simple commercial airliner without any self-protection systems. All it can do is stay far away from conflict zones," says Air Vice-Marshal (retired) Manmohan Bahadur of the Centre for Air Power Studies.
Military experts say that the capture of military-grade weaponry by non-state actors puts global security at risk. "(Japanese) Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has spoken of an arc of peace and prosperity, but there is also an emerging arc of asymmetry that is developing which we need to guard against," says Vice-Admiral Anup Singh, a former eastern naval commander.
All Israeli commercial airliners have been equipped with directional infrared countermeasures or DIRCM pods that jam incoming missiles. The pods were installed after an Israeli-owned chartered airliner was targeted by, but escaped, two shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile launched by Al Qaeda operatives near Mombassa in Kenya in 2002.
Missile that downed MH17 is IN's primary defensive weapon
Missile that downed MH17 is Indian Navy's primary defensive weapon
Sandeep Unnithan New Delhi, July 19, 2014 | UPDATED 14:52 IST
The Shtil missile on board an Indian Navy Talwar class frigate.
The Buk missile's naval variant the "Shtil", dubbed the SA-17 "Grizzly" by NATO, was inducted on board the three Russian-built Talwar class frigates beginning in 2003 and their follow-on class, the three Teg class frigates, beginning 2012.
An earlier verison of the Shtil, dubbed the "Kashmir" (NATO SA-11 "Gadfly") by NATO, was first installed onboard the three Delhi class destroyers beginning in 1997.
These warships form the protective screens in carrier battle groups centering around the Vikramaditya and the Viraat.
The Shtil represented a quantum jump for the Indian Navy which had relied on the older RZ-61 "Pechora" second-generation missiles onboard the five Russian-built Rajput class destroyers.
The Pechora is what is termed in military parlance a "command-guidance, line of sight weapon".
The missile rides a beam projected by the tracking radar towards the target. It requires the warship radar to continuously "illuminate" the target. The missile is extremely vulnerable to decoys and jamming.
The Shtil, however, is a radar-homing guidance missile that is faster and less vulnerable to jamming.
The 5.5-metre missile that weighs over 700 kg can shoot down targets 25 km away. The missile uses an onboard radar to trigger off its warhead when it approaches the target. Manufacturers claim it can be used against cruise missiles, helicopters, ballistic missiles and even shore and sea-based targets.
With delays in the induction of the "Long-Range SAM" missile being developed by the DRDO and Israel - the missile was to equip the Vikramaditya and the Kolkata class destroyers - the SA-17 is likely to be the Navy's principal defender at least until the end of this decade.
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