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Hindustan Times
a day ago
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Rising defence prowess key to Viksit Bharat goal
The recent military entanglement between India and Pakistan, apart from showing India's defence sector as the new fulcrum of sovereign assertiveness, also reflects a tectonic reorientation in the strategic doctrine and economic philosophy of a new, Aatmanirbhar (self-reliant) Bharat. India's defence exports have risen 33 times in the past 10 years, from $113 million in FY16 to $2.8 billion in FY25, positioning India as an important player in the international defence supply chain and as a credible contender for a place in the stratified hierarchy of global arms export. India's share in global defence exports, as per the World Bank's SIPRI trend indicator, has risen from 4% in FY14 to 10% by 2023. This quantum leap reveals a structural recalibration of India's military-industrial complex into a globally competitive entity, with supply chains extending across 80 partner nations. This reconstitution of India's martial-industrial complex has been undergirded by a dual-front approach. The proliferation of strategically positioned defence corridors such as the Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu nodes, encompassing 11 high-potential nodes, has already yielded ₹8,658 crore in realised investments, with 253 MoUs facilitating a pipeline of ₹53,439 crore as of February 2025. And, a deliberate pivot toward high-velocity platforms including precision-guided munitions, supersonic cruise missile systems such as BrahMos, and autonomous counter-drone frameworks such as the recently test-fired Bhargavastra system signal India's foray into fifth-generation, asymmetrical warfare capabilities. Furthermore, if India sustains its current growth momentum, its defence exports are poised to cross $5 billion by 2030. The confluence of this industrial build-out with the Centre's allocation of ₹1.12 lakh crore towards domestic defence production, with more than ₹27,000 crore earmarked for the private sector, signals a transition from buyer-seller asymmetries to a collaborative co-development paradigm. This shift can elevate India's position in the global defence value chain, particularly for aerospace platforms, unmanned systems, and advanced electronics. India's FY26 defence budget registered a robust 9.53% year-on-year increase and accounts for 13.45% of the total Union budget for the fiscal year. This marks a strategic realignment towards comprehensive military modernisation and national security preparedness. The capital outlay of ₹1.80 lakh crore reflects a deliberate pivot towards indigenous defence manufacturing, bolstered by a 43% surge in the capital budget of the Indian Coast Guard and a significant ₹7,146 crore allocation to the Border Roads Organisation (BRO). Notably, defence R&D witnessed a 12% increase, with enhanced support for innovation through schemes like iDEX and Acing Development of Innovative Technologies with iDEX (ADITI). This recalibrated fiscal trajectory underscores a paradigm shift in India's defence sector outlook, one defined by technological infusion, strategic autonomy, and economic multiplier effects. Amidst this, China's martial-industrial edifice, long vaunted for its scale and spectacle, appears increasingly encumbered by the weight of its own contradictions. Like a giant with feet of clay, Beijing's defence establishment has showcased its technological feats with dramatic flair, yet beneath the surface lie cracks of overreach, secrecy, and rigid strategy. It is no wonder that following the cessation of India-Pakistan conflict for the time being, Chinese defence equities are coming under serious correction, with serious doubts now being raised about the capability of their defence systems. China's share of global arms exports, at 5.9% between 2020–24 (this is as per SIPRI), is down from earlier periods. This betrays a deeper malaise: An export profile shackled by political dependency. Over 63% of these exports flow to a narrow set of clients, with Pakistan as the fulcrum, rendering Beijing's ambitions of becoming a global defence hegemon contingent on a single, often unstable, axis. While China remains ensnared in the logic of gigantism projecting strength through the mass and momentum of platforms — India's emerging model privileges resilience overreach, credibility over choreography, and co-development over coercive export pipelines. India's recalibration also manifests in the reconstitution of its geopolitical partnerships. While historical dependence on Russian platforms remains substantial, India is increasingly pursuing joint development and licensed production arrangements with technologically advanced yet strategically non-aligned states such as Armenia, the UAE, and Indonesia, thereby insulating its defence supply chains from great power entanglements and rendering its strategic autonomy both more credible and operationally viable. Meanwhile, policy instruments such as the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme and sectoral Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) liberalisation to up to 74% via the automatic route have converged to establish a facilitative investment architecture that is simultaneously protectionist in vision yet liberal in execution. As global defence budgets continue their secular ascent in response to escalating multipolar frictions, India finds itself not just a passive observer but a participatory actor in the emerging security-industrial continuum, where defence is no longer a revenue draining exigency but a profit generating, employment intensive, and diplomatically potent sector capable of reshaping trade alignments and security cartographies. India's defence sector is transcending its historical shackles and assuming a pivotal role in anchoring macroeconomic stability, technological innovation, and global strategic relevance in a volatile, uncertain, and increasingly securitised world order. As the government operationalises its vision of Viksit Bharat@2047, the defence apparatus is not only being fortified against contemporary security threats but also positioned as an engine of innovation-driven growth, seamlessly integrating geostrategic imperatives with industrial advancement. This perhaps could be the most fitting tribute to Indian defence forces. Soumya Kanti Ghosh is member, 16th Finance Commission, and group chief economic advisor, State Bank of India, and Falguni Sinha is economist, State Bank of India. The views expressed are personal. Get 360° coverage—from daily headlines to 100 year archives.
NDTV
2 days ago
- Politics
- NDTV
Chinese Military Evades Questions On Performance Of Weapons Used By Pak
Beijing: The Chinese military on Thursday declined comment on the performance of China-made weapons used by Pakistan in the recent conflict with India. Chinese Defence Ministry Spokesperson Sr. Col. Zhang Xiaogang also played down the reports of India recovering an unexploded PL-15E, a radar-guided beyond visual range missile, said to be the most advanced rocket of its kind produced by China. "The missile you mentioned is an export equipment and has been shown at defence exhibitions at home and abroad many times", Zhang said in the Chinese defence ministry's first media briefing after the May 7-10 military conflict between India and Pakistan. India and Pakistan are neighbours that cannot be "moved away", Mr Zhang said, parrying questions about Indian officials' assertions that China provided air defence and satellite support to Pakistan in the military conflict and Chinese weapons systems performed below average. Considering the large-scale use of Chinese weapons supplies by Pakistan and the all-weather ties between the two countries, the Chinese official media showed considerable interest in the India-Pakistan military confrontation. About two weeks after the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, in which 26 civilians were killed, India carried out precision strikes on terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on May 7 under Operation Sindoor. Pakistan attempted to attack the Indian military bases on May 8, 9 and 10. The Indian side responded strongly to the Pakistani actions. According to a recent report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China has emerged as the largest weapons supplier to Pakistan, accounting for 81 per cent of arms procurement of China's all-weather ally from 2020 to 2024. The procurement included the latest jet fighters, radars, naval ships, submarines and missiles. Both countries jointly manufacture J-17 aircraft, the mainstay of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF). (Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Forbes
2 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Global Military Spending Surges As Arms Control Mechanisms Collapse
At the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit last year in Washington D.C., the corresponding press release noted that arms control, disarmament, and non-proliferation remained critical to achieving the organization's security objectives. With the war in Ukraine still going strong, global trends in military spending are not reflecting these objectives. A range of escalating security challenges has triggered destabilizing arms races worldwide. Global military spending reached $2.7 trillion in 2024, representing a 9.4% jump in real terms from 2023. Unsurprisingly, Ukraine and Russia have dramatically boosted their military budgets. Ukraine's military spending surged 640% between 2021 and 2022, according to while Russia's rose by 31%. In 2024, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute released a report showing that Ukraine allocates $64.7 billion — roughly 24% of its gross domestic product — to defense, whereas Russia spends about $149 billion, or 7% of its GDP. But the arms build-up is not limited to Russia and Ukraine. Over the past decade, more than 100 countries have expanded their defense budgets. Including Russia, European military spending climbed 17% to $693 billion in 2024, the same SIPRI report found. With the exception of Malta, all European countries increased their military spending in 2024. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a military budget of almost a trillion dollars for 2026, including at least $175 billion for a Golden Dome Defense System— a layered missile shield designed to protect the U.S. from long-range and hypersonic missiles, which travel at over five times the speed of sound. In response to the news, Beijing called the Golden Dome 'deeply destabilising in nature.' Yet for the last two decades China has been investing in hypersonic weapons— which follow unpredictable paths and can be maneuvered mid-flight, making them difficult to intercept. China's military modernization, marked by three decades of consecutive growth, saw spending rise 7% to $314 billion in 2024. This surge sharply contrasts with global trends in military spending several decades ago. From 1983 to 1993, world military expenditures dropped over 40% in proportion to GDP, from 5.7% to 3.3% of world GDP. The 1990s remain the decade with the fewest state-based conflict deaths since the 1950s, raising questions about the causal relationship between military spending and conflict. Today's arms race unfolds after the repeated failure of critical arms control agreements. The last remaining treaty between the U.S. and Russia on nuclear weapons is New START, which was signed by then leaders Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev in April of 2010. Though an agreement was made in March of 2021 to extend the treaty, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022 and Russia's subsequent refusal to submit to on-site inspections several months later, Moscow officially stopped participating in the treaty the following February. Russia also withdrew from the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty in May of 2023 (which bans nuclear test explosions) and the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty in November 2023. Even as U.S. President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin continue to engage in talks about the war in Ukraine, the status of New START (which expires in 2026) and its future replacement remain unknown. Russia has rejected any nuclear arms control talks with the U.S. arguing that the West would first have to change its 'anti-Russian attitudes.' This wasn't the first time that Russia reneged on an arms' control agreement. One of the notable cases was Russia's development of the Novator 9M729 (first test fired in 2014), a cruise missile which has a range of 2,500 km, which violated the landmark 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The INF prohibited the US and Russia (then the Soviet Union) from developing and deploying ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with a range between 500 and 5,500km, eliminating an entire category of nuclear weapons. As concerns about Russia's pursuit of ground-based missiles persisted, the U.S. withdrew from the INF in 2019. Russia's INF breaches likely spurred NATO and its allies to enhance their own long range strike capabilities. The U.S. and Germany announced in 2024 that Germany would host ground based medium range missiles (including SM-6, Tomahawk missiles, and hypersonic weapons) which can target Russia directly by 2026. Though these missiles are designed to only carry conventional warheads, they sparked a reaction from Moscow that additional nuclear tipped medium range missiles could be deployed. Russia further alarmed the West by unveiling an intermediate range ballistic missile called the Oreshnik in Dnipro, Ukraine – capable of carrying six nuclear tipped warheads and striking European capitals within 12 to 16 minutes. Meanwhile France, Germany and Poland signed a letter of intent committing to agree to jointly produce their own medium-range missiles, with a range over 500 km. As for the U.S., in addition to its investment in the Golden Dome, Washington. is accumulating an arsenal of ground-launched strike systems with ranges exceeding 500 kilometres, and working to become a hypersonic missile superpower over concerns of China's rising power. This arms race between the U.S. in China is especially concerning given that there is no bilateral arms control agreement, and alongside Russia, neither country has ratified the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. While China signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of nuclear weapons in 1992 (the U.S. and the Soviet Union signed in 1968), it does not adhere to the spirit of the treaty, having increased its nuclear arsenal considerably. By 2030, the PRC will potentially possess over 1,000 operational warheads, while Russia and the U.S. each possess over 5,000. With arms' control talks increasingly sidelined, the arms race of the 21st century is not only more expensive than during the Cold War, but potentially more dangerous.
Time of India
2 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
'The missile you mentioned ... ': Chinese military dodges questions on performance of its weapons used by Pakistan against India
The Chinese military on Thursday declined to comment on the effectiveness of Chinese-made weapons used by Pakistan during its recent military confrontation with India, including the recovery of an unexploded PL-15E missile, China's advanced beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile. The missile you mentioned is an export equipment and has been shown at defence exhibitions at home and abroad many times, Chinese defence ministry spokesperson Sr. Col. Zhang Xiaogang said in his media briefing responding to media queries. "India and Pakistan are neighbours that cannot be moved away. We hope both sides remain calm and restrained and avoid actions that could escalate tensions," Zhang said during the ministry's monthly press briefing. He reiterated China's position of promoting regional peace and expressed readiness to play a 'constructive role' in achieving a lasting ceasefire. The comments come in the wake of India's retaliatory strikes under "Operation Sindoor" conducted from May 7 to 10, targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The strikes followed the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam that left 26 civilians dead. During Pakistan's attempted counterattacks on May 8, 9, and 10, remnants of Chinese-made weapon systems were recovered, raising questions over their effectiveness. While the Chinese government has avoided directly addressing these reports, state-run media have shown heightened interest in the India-Pakistan clash, reflecting the depth of military ties between Beijing and Islamabad. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China supplied 81 per cent of Pakistan's total arms imports between 2020 and 2024. These included advanced fighter jets, naval vessels, submarines, and missile systems. China and Pakistan also co-produce the JF-17 fighter jet, the backbone of the Pakistan air force.
Time of India
3 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Amid calls for arms embargo, who supplies Israel's weapons?
Amid calls for arms embargo, who supplies Israel's weapons? (Photo: AP) Spain has asked European countries to suspend arms shipments to Israel, as international condemnation grows over its conduct in Gaza. At a meeting of the "Madrid Group" hosted by the Spanish government, the Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares called for an immediate suspension of Europe's cooperation deal with Israel and an embargo on arms shipments. "We must all agree on a joint arms embargo," said Albares prior to the conference. "The last thing the Middle East needs right now is weapons." Among those at the meeting were representatives from Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Morocco and Brazil, along with several intergovernmental organizations. However, only a fraction of the nations represented at the Madrid Group meeting actually supply Israel with armaments. Israel is also one of the world's top exporters of armaments, so it has a powerful internal supply of weaponry as well. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in March reported that Israel is the 15th biggest importer of arms globally, despite it being actively involved in conflict, accounting for less than 2% of global imports. Its imports have also dropped by around 2.3% in the last five years, compared to the preceding period. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like '5월 한정, 직장인 대상 대출 가능 여부 무료 조회 급증' 신청 몰려 조기 마감 우려 직장인 대출 센터 더 읽기 Undo Crucially, three nations account for almost all of Israel's weapons supply: the United States, Germany and Italy. US is Israel's biggest arms supplier By far, the US is the biggest arms supplier to Israel, both since the October 7, 2023 attacks and also historically. Though its proportional supply has reduced over the last decade, it still accounted for about two-thirds of Israel's imports from 2020 to 2024, according to SIPRI. This includes aircraft, armored vehicles and guided bombs. Israel is also the top recipient of US aid historically, according to the US-based, nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). As well as a substantial economic contribution between 1946 and 2024, Israel has received $228 billion (€200 billion) in military support from the US. Today, most US foreign aid to Israel is military spending. This includes an existing agreement to provide $3.8 billion in support until 2028. Most aid provided by the US must be spent on the purchase of American military equipment and services, according to the CFR. It's unlikely that the US will change its support for Israel. Attempts led by independent senator Bernie Sanders to withhold billions in military sales to Israel were rejected by the US Senate in both April 2025 and November 2024. Germany will continue to provide Israel weapons Germany is a long-time diplomatic and military supporter of Israel. From 2020 to 2024, Germany accounted for about a third of Israel's incoming arms supply, mostly naval frigates and torpedoes. SIPRI researcher Zain Hussain told DW via email that "Israel has relied on Germany for […] naval capabilities," and that Israel has an incoming submarine order from Germany. Germany's arms supply to Israel has also included armored vehicles, trucks, anti-tank weapons and ammunition. And that is unlikely to change, despite Spain's calls for an embargo. "As a country that understands Israel's security and existence as a core principle, Germany is always obliged to assist Israel," said German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul on Monday. Those comments came as German Chancellor Frederich Merz told public broadcaster WDR he "no longer understands" Israel's objective in Gaza and that its actions could "no longer be justified by a fight against Hamas." Despite Merz's remark, any future restriction on Germany's arms supply would be a significant development. Germany provided more than €131 million ($137 million) in arms exports in 2024, according to government statistics. The figure in 2023 was €326 million. Italy accounts for 1% of Israel's arms Italy contributes around 1% of Israel's weapons. But by Italian law, it is prohibited from doing so given the conflict. The Italian government has been critical of Israel's actions, but reports last year found it continued to supply Israel following the commencement of hostilities in October 2023. That reportedly included €2.1 million ($2.4 million) in the last quarter of 2023, during which Israel's offensive was underway. That was despite assurances from the Italian government that shipments had ceased. Analysis performed on government accounts by Italian news outlet Altreconomia found Italy supplied €5.2 million in arms to Israel last year. Some EU nations have reduced their exports Israel has no shortage of armaments, either produced domestically or through its major backers. Despite pressure from European nations to adopt an arms embargo, Hussain said the most effective block would require Israel's primary armorers to join up. "The USA and Germany are the most important suppliers of major arms to Israel. For there to be maximum pressure on Israel's major arms capabilities, these states would have to be involved in an arms embargo," Hussain said. Some European nations have either stopped the supply of weaponry, or have suspended export licenses. These include France, Spain and the UK, though their contributions are less than 0.1% of Israel's total intake. However, a study of UK trade data, cited by The Guardian in May, found that the country sent Israel thousands of military items despite the export ban. A major change in US foreign policy would be required for Germany to heed Spain's call, said Catherine Gegout, an international relations researcher at the University of Nottingham in the UK. "I think there would be much more pressure on Germany if the US changed as well," Gegout told DW. "But I'm not sure the rest of the EU states [opposing arms] will be enough to change that special relationship with Israel." Despite Germany's long-standing commitment to Israel, Gegout said its ongoing weapons supply is becoming a problem for the European Union. "I think it's a gigantic problem for the EU that Germany is sending so many weapons," Gegout said. She said Spain's attempt to implement an arms embargo serves both a direct and symbolic purpose for countries that may oppose Israel's activities in Gaza.
