In 2012, fight fear and win

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, said it just right. Taking over the presidency at the depth of the Great Depression of the 1930s, he declared, in his inaugural address, that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” In many ways that statement sums up the outlook of  the world in the coming year.
More than anything, fear seems to have paralysed governments, investors, bankers and businessmen across the world. Things are not as bad as they were in the 1930s, but few will disagree with the proposition that the world—say in Europe or the Arab world— feels that it is standing on the edge of a precipice.
 In India, the fear has been of a different kind. It was triggered by the succession of scams that were unearthed in 2010 and by the high-profile arrests— Suresh Kalmadi, A Raja, Kanimozhi and others—of 2011.

India
This fear has led to a policy paralysis in government which in turn has led to a decline in the sentiment favouring India. No doubt there are several factors involved in the free fall of the rupee or the decline in foreign direct and institutional investment in India, but in considerable measure it has also to do with India’s lack of confidence in itself, an irrational doubt or fear of the future.
There are many ways at which we can look at the year 2012. This is the year when many countries in the world will mark time as they go through the process of changing their leaders. The United States, Russia, France, China, Venezuela, and South Korea will be among the nations which are likely to see a change of leadership, either through election, or design. Another angle of approach to the year would be to gainsay the manner in which the economic crisis in Europe plays itself out. You could also say that 2012 will be another year, just like the ones before it with the passing away of some old things and the birth of some things new.
Howsoever unified the trends appear when looked at on a global scale, India will, as usual, be different. Its defining general elections are slated for only 2014. Yet there will be a number of state assembly elections which begin to reveal the contours of that battleground. Economically, too, India could find a sweet spot despite its horrendous fiscal situation. Any growth above 6 or 7 per cent will still be growth, and if by summer the monster of food inflation is decisively defeated, we could have some easing of the interest rate regime which gives a needed push to the economy. And if the government can come through with some version of FDI in retail, it could get foreign investment in India moving again.
But all this presupposes certain things. The Congress has not been very good at running things in the last two years and change can come only if it is able to overcome its funk of the anti-corruption movement. The almost sequential revelations relating to the Commonwealth Games, 2G and other scams followed by the series of high-profile arrests unnerved the government. But we still do not have a clear explanation of why the government dealt with Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev the way they did, or why they mishandled the whole FDI in retail issue.
 This certainly gives ground for the fear that in 2012, neither the party, nor the government will be able to get its act together. But Congress scion Rahul Gandhi’s decision to increase his stake in the politics of the country dramatically is portentous. His Uttar Pradesh venture is no longer a set of guerrilla raids to irritate Mayawati, but a full-fledged campaign which is bound to play a decisive role in the fortunes of the Congress party in particular and Indian politics in general.

China
In contrast to India, the developments in China will be more dramatic, but only in the longer run. They will involve an entire turnover of its leadership. Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, as president and prime minister respectively, are unknown quantities for most of the world. Yet their actions and perspectives will play a vital role in shaping the world’s economic and political profile in the years to come. But 2012, will be a relatively eventless year in China because this is the year of transition and that event will occur only through the party congress which takes place in October or November.
In India, the year will see a great deal of reflection on its relationship with China. This is not only because of the huge trade ties that the two countries have established, but also because this happens to be the 50th anniversary of the 1962 border war. While in China the event is almost forgotten, in India it is a national trauma and it definitely colours the lenses through which we view China. 2012 is not 1962. That was the time when we did not even know what was on the other side of the Thag La ridge. Today, not only would we have enough foreknowledge of any Chinese plan to attack us, but we also have nuclear weapons and the Chinese are, if anything, rational actors.
War is not a likely scenario in South Asia for that reason, not with China, nor with Pakistan. But that does not rule out proxy war of the kind Islamabad is fighting against us. But even there, 2012 is not likely to be a problem year, because that is the year when, officially at least, the US begins to pull out its troops from Afghanistan.

Options
This has concentrated the minds of the GHQ in Rawalpindi on the AfPak region, to the relief of the Indians. But, the situation in Pakistan, like that in India, is unfolding at its own pace, rather than that of the rest of the world. And in many ways it looks more portentous. For the first time, civil society, politicians and the judiciary are ranged against the Army, albeit for their own respective motives. But, and this is the curious way things happen in Islamabad, without a pliant judiciary to endorse its act, the Army is going to think twice before overthrowing a civilian government.
Even so, there are enough wild cards that can make 2012 a memorable year for the wrong reasons. Principal among these is the prospect of conflict in the Persian Gulf region which affects our oil supply. The clock has begun ticking with Barack Obama signing the US sanctions law and there are enough irrational actors in Israel and Iran who can precipitate the situation. This is one fear which has a rational basis. The other wild card is a dramatically vicious terrorist act, perhaps with the use of a “dirty” bomb.
There is a certain duality in our leadership system upon which we will depend to make 2012 a shining year. At its worst it is the fumbling gang that can’t shoot straight, evidenced by the manner in which the government handled the Baba Ramdev episode.
On the other hand, the debates over the Lokpal Bill in the Lok Sabha showed that our Parliament still has the spark that is needed to give us a political system that works.
Perhaps, we too, should follow the counsel that Krishna gave to Arjuna, who was beset by fear of the future at the field of Kurukshetra—  you really have no choice but to go forward.
Mail Today January 3, 2012

2012 brings hope for Congresss Party's future

Who will deny that 2011 has been the Congress party’s annus horribilis? From a party that actually enhanced its position in the 2009 general elections, it was, by 2011,   a shambolic collection of politicians trying to play politics. Remarkably, however, 2012 offers hope, not because the economy will suddenly recover, but because of a possible conjunction of events that could be triggered by a good showing in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, as well as a victory that would wrest power in the assembly elections in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
When you look back at the year you may wonder what the party was up to. It was true that the chronicle of this tragedy had been foretold in 2010. It began with the IPL controversy that cost Shashi Tharoor his job. In April, reports of possible corruption in the 2G scam deal took on life with the Radia tapes going public. The key point in these tapes was the shenanigans that accompanied the reappointment of A Raja as telecom minister in 2009.

2010
In June 2010 when the auction price of the 3G spectrum went over Rs 60,000 crore there was a dawning realisation as to how the country had been had in the allocation of 2G spectrum by Raja in 2008. The CAG report on the allotment of the 2G licences was tabled in the Lok Sabha in November 2010. It held Raja responsible for violating guidelines and indulging in favouritism leading to a loss of an astonishing Rs 1.76 lakh crore by mishandling the allocation of the 2G spectrum. The rest is of course easily remembered—the arrest of Raja, his associates and the DMK’s Kanimozhi.
The spectrum allocation scam may have been huge, but it was given a run for its money by the Commonwealth Games scams which also played out through the year with investigations yielding evidence that a great deal of corruption took place in the organisation and conduct of the games.
The cavalier manner in which the government viewed these issues was apparent from the episode relating to the appointment of PJ Thomas as the Central Vigilance Commissioner. The selection of the CVC is done by a panel of three, including the leader of the Opposition. At the meeting to discuss the appointment, the leader of the Opposition, Sushma Swaraj, cited a pending chargesheet against him for a scam in Kerala. But she was overruled by the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister. The spirit of the three-member panel is that the decision should be unanimous, but by ramming through the appointment, the government was displaying its couldn’t-care-less attitude. The tawdry outcome of the story was that the Supreme Court quashed Thomas’ appointment, leaving a lot of egg on the UPA’s face.
But can 2010 explain the extraordinary events of 2011? It is a measure of the reluctance of the Congress-led government to check such activities that A Raja, Kanimozhi and Suresh Kalmadi were only arrested early this year after the corruption issue had fissioned. It began in April 2011 with Anna Hazare’s fast that compelled the government to negotiate with his team on a Lokpal Bill. The civil society uprising so addled the government that it decided to treat another wannabe anti-corruption crusader, Baba Ramdev as a VIP, perhaps with the hope of using him against Hazare. Then, in an equally addled decision, it decided to crack down on his protest.

Hazare
The charges of corruption were a body blow for the party. It is no secret that Raja was reappointed to the telecom ministry over the objections of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and at the insistence of party chief Sonia Gandhi. The Congress party chief is also responsible for the whole Lokpal fiasco whose origins can be traced to her decision to revive the National Advisory Council (NAC) which acts as a civil society interface of the government.
It is the decision of the NAC to take up the Lokpal Bill that probably triggered Arvind Kejriwal, Prashant Bhushan and Co to get Anna Hazare into the picture. The NAC’s latest is the Food Security Bill whose consequences will only be known in the years to come. But if the past is any measure, it will only increase the scale of corruption hugely since money is to be made in procurement, storage and distribution of foodgrain. More foodgrain procurement, means more money to divert into dirty pockets.
The denouement of the Lokpal issue is still playing itself out. The UPA is not covering itself with glory by mindlessly surrendering all to the Hazare activists. Take for example the issue of SC&ST reservations. Some minor parties put up the demand in the all-party meet and the Congress tamely accepted this. Clearly, the Lokpal monster is something we will have to slay sometime. The powers that are being accumulated into one entity will unbalance the constitutional scheme and sooner, rather than later, a corrective will have to be applied.
The issue has poisoned the entire system. Parliament has virtually stopped functioning and Anna Hazare seems to have become an oracle who has views, firm views, on any and every thing. Far from being apolitical, Hazare is displaying a robust political appetite. Who knows we may have a future president-dictator in waiting!

2012
The UP assembly election offers a point of inflection for the fortunes of the Congress and the UPA. It has had the virtue of getting young Rahul Gandhi off the fence and into the hurly burly of the political process. Till now he was content with guerrilla strikes where he would land up spending a night in some Dalit home or communing with some rural folks somewhere. Now, the Congress scion has clearly put down his own stake in the coming UP elections. This means that he, personally, stands to lose or win, not some party functionary.
This is a good thing, and it should be said at the outset that defeat, too, will serve him well in terms of experience and maturity. The more interesting issue, however, is just what would constitute “victory” in the UP context. Most observers say that if the Congress can get 100 seats, the broad number of assembly segments that it won in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, it would be a spectacular showing. Indeed, some 50-75 seats  would definitely constitute victory.
Besides UP, Punjab and Uttarakhand, elections are expected in Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Manipur. The Congress would have to try hard to lose in Punjab, Himachal and Uttarakhand. In Gujarat, Modi remains strong, but he has been around for a decade and has enemies within and without his party. Wresting three states from the Opposition and doing well in the strategically important state of UP will give the party a huge psychological boost.
 More important, it will establish Rahul Gandhi’s political credentials and put him firmly in track to assume larger responsibilities. So, far from the end of the world of Mayan prophecy, 2012 could well mark a renaissance for the Congress party.
Mail Today December 21, 2011

Our Cinderella, the LCA, must step out

It has been called the "Last Chance Aircraft", and worse. Its designers and developers have been excoriated for endless delays. But the time has come to say it: In the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), India may finally have a winner.

We say "may" because the "last mile" is often the most difficult one to cross. This requires first, an emphatic ownership of the step-child by its primary operator, the Indian Air Force(IAF), its chosen manufacturer, the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and its parent, the Ministry of Defence. Second, and most importantly, it needs a serious managerial boost so that the production of the aircraft- whose significant bugs have already been worked out-can be undertaken on a modern industrial scale.

Winner

But the payoffs are tremendous. The country gets a highly capable multi-role fighter which it can acquire in significant numbers at a reasonable cost. It also gets a potential weapons system which it can export, for commercial gain, as well as to push its military diplomacy. It would be fair to say that the LCA is the only significant weapons system created by the country's vast defence research and production base which can compete with contemporary products -including the Chinese JF-17- and win.




Though the IAF says that it is committed to bringing the aircraft into squadron service, its current plans cater for just two squadrons of the aircraft, where they ought to be really talking of several. But that is not entirely the IAF's fault; the process of productionising the aircraft has been excruciatingly slow and past delays have made the IAF leery of putting their eggs in the LCA basket.

Till now, the ADA and HAL have built eight prototypes and six limited series aircraft and it has undertaken some 1800 takeoff and landing cycles without (touch wood) a single accident. Pilots swear by its ease of handling and maneuverability. However, according to reports, the true initial operational clearance (IOC) of the LCA has been delayed yet again. The IOC, which means the aircraft can be flown by any military pilot-not just test pilots- was technically available since January 2011, but there are a range of issues that have yet to be sorted out to the air force's satisfaction.

Now, say reports, the final operational clearance will only be available by the end of 2014. This provides an invaluable opportunity to set in train steps that will ensure that the LCA emerges as the first class product that it intrinsically is.

Simultaneously, the efforts to come up with a Mark 2 version of the aircraft with a more powerful GE F414 turbofan engine, have been completed, with the prototype slated to fly by 2014 as well. And, the naval version of the aircraft which is expected to be used by the country's indigenous aircraft carrier is also in its last stages with two prototypes to take to the air soon.

It is important to see the aircraft in comparison with the others that are flying, both as potential adversaries, as well as competitors for the export market. The aircraft under 10 tons of operational empty weight are the American F-16, the Chinese JF-17, the Swedish Gripen. Of these the LCA is the lightest at just 5.9 tons.

In part this is because of its use of carbon fibre composites. The US and the Chinese aircraft have a carbon composites content of near zero, while the more modern Gripen has 30 per cent content by weight. The LCA has 45 per cent, but as much as 90 per cent of the surface of the LCA is made of carbon fibres. This makes it light, strong and rugged, since the carbon fibre composites neither age nor corrode.

Stealth

But its most important quality is that it does not reflect radar beams, unlike the metallic components of aircraft. In other words, this gives the LCA a naturally low radar signature or 'stealth' characteristics. Given its small size anyway, it is, in the words of a former fighter pilot, "virtually invisible" to adversary fighters.

The use of carbon fibre gives the LCA another advantage: with its low operational empty weight, and compared to an aircraft with similar engines, the LCA has greater thrust to weight ratio. The LCA Mk 2 is likely to have 1.53, compared to the other agile fighter, the F-16's 1.64. The Gripen has 1.44 and the JF-17 has 1.28. Indeed, the LCA's rate of acceleration compares favourably with heavy two-engined fighters like the Eurofighter, which has a thrust to weight ratio of 1.64.

Carbon fibre parts do not deteriorate with age or corrode and hence the navalised version of the LCA will prove a big advantage. But it is true that carbon fibre parts are expensive to make and ideally, the process should be automated and procured in large numbers to keep their prices low. India has already invested a great deal in this technology beginning with the Dhruva programme in the mid-1980s and it is one of the world leaders in such technology.

Clearly, its natural stealth characteristics, low operating costs, maneuverability and its sensor and weapons suite make the LCA a real player in the global market. Indeed, according to an air force officer, the performance of the LCA as a fighter exceeds that of the Mirage 2000, even when the latter is upgraded.

Although the IAF has committed itself to inducting two squadrons of 40 LCAs, its actual needs are much greater. As of now the air force puts "close air support" or missions in support to the army in a low priority. But there is great need for the IAF to take up that mission seriously, especially in the mountain areas, and for that the LCA is the ideal machine. Further, the IAF's reliance on heavy and expensive fighters would make its reaction time to emergencies-cruise missile or UAV ingress at the country's periphery-rather slow because they cannot afford to base their expensive assets too close to the border. Here, the LCA provides a quick reaction option as it can be forward based.

Export

The most interesting aspect of the LCA is in relation to exports. This is clearly the one worldclass product which can be used to woo friends and allies, especially in the neighbourhood. The LCA gives India the option to compete with the Chinese JF-17 in a score of countries including Egypt, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka.

Indeed, there is a wider market, too, if HAL is willing to dream big and do something about it. There is a market for some 3,000 fighters to replace the MiG-21s, F-5s, early model F-16s which will retire in the coming 10-15 years in countries of Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific and elsewhere. Getting even ten per cent of that market would be a stunning achievement for India.

But to reach that goal, India needs to think big. HAL, is still making its current limited series aircraft by hand, as it were, and it has no experience in sales and marketing abroad. As it is, there will be a need to transform HAL's work culture to make a product to the highest world standards. Equally important would be product support, again an area in which the HAL has not done too well in the past.

But all this cannot be done by the HAL itself. The LCA programme was a national endeavour to lay the foundations for India's aerospace industry. If it is to meet that mandate- and it is on the threshold of doing that- it needs attention right now from the topmost levels of government and the Ministry of Defence.
Mail Today December 15, 2011

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/indian-light-combat-aircraft/1/164326.html

"Victors" can become victims of the endgame

The breakdown in the US relations with Pakistan could well have a positive outcome. It could have the effect of tearing the veil of hypocrisy in the AfPak situation, and focus the attention of the world on the real problem—Pakistan. The danger from the US walking away from Afghanistan would be the civil war it could unleash in that hapless country, and, the certainty that its territory would be used for training jihadi terrorists from across the world, at least for some time.
But if the US disengages from Pakistan, the situation would be qualitatively worse—a country armed with nuclear weapons, as well as a self-created grievance against the United States (as well as India), would be a clear and present danger, not only to those two countries, but the many others whose nationals gravitate to the AfPak border for terror training.

Sovereignty   
One explanation for the Pakistani decision to ratchet up tensions, because of the incident in which 24 Frontier Corps (FC) soldiers were killed in a NATO airstrike, is that the establishment—the Army and the politicians—want to keep on the right side of public opinion which is deeply hostile to the US. Another is that it is the Army leadership’s way of keeping on the right side of its increasingly radicalised middle-rung officer cadre. A third explanation is that it is Pakistan’s hysterical response to the recent India-Afghanistan strategic partnership deal.




The death of the Pakistani soldiers in the region is not unusual. After all, by its own reckoning, the Pakistan Army has lost over 3,000 soldiers in combating the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Over seventy of these have been killed on account of firing from the Afghan side in the recent past.
There seems to be a fundamental variance between the versions of the two sides. And, significantly, Islamabad has refused to participate in any joint investigation of the incident.
Islamabad has been inconsistent with regard to hostilities in the area anyway. It has signed more than a dozen peace deals, but then even carried out massive offensives using fighter bombers and artillery against the TTP. Now it is once again believed to be negotiating with them. Its attitude towards the militants is inconsistent in another way. It treats some as enemies and others as friends, even when they reside in the same area—North Waziristan.
Pakistani sovereignty has been breached more than once, and not by the US alone. Columnist Nasim Zehra pointed out in an article recently that 17 Pakistani soldiers were killed in an incident by the Taliban near the area of the NATO strike recently. So the area is not exactly under the control of Pakistan  which, in any case, allows the Taliban of Afghanistan to shelter in its territory  and move back and forth unhindered. Their breach of Pakistan’s sovereignty seems to be condoned, while efforts by the US and Afghanistan which, by the way, could have sanction under international law under the doctrine of hot pursuit, have been thwarted.

Deals
The US is vitally dependent on Pakistan to execute its withdrawal strategy which involves fighting and negotiating a deal with the Taliban. In the short run,  it needs Islamabad’s cooperation in supplying its forces in Afghanistan, and, it also needs Pakistan to work out a peace deal with the Taliban.
Islamabad clearly has different ideas. The way it sees it, is that it is winning and that is why it is taking the risk of continuing to ride the jihadi tiger. They hope that they will be soon able to create an Afghanistan which is totally purged of American and, of course, Indian influence. That is why it has now upped the ante by boycotting the Bonn meet on the future of Afghanistan. Its attitude seems to signal that the NATO and US must concede it an upper hand in any post-pullout situation. In other words, it is laying out clearly the price it would charge for permitting them to use its territory to resume their military supplies to Afghanistan.
As usual, Pakistan is gambling in the short run, hoping things will work out in the long run by themselves. But it may be miscalculating. Ever since 2008, the US has been working on what it calls the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) that brings supplies through various Central Asian republics, from Baltic ports via Russia, and Black Sea ports via Turkey. According to one estimate, as much as 75 per cent of the US supplies are now coming through the NDN. By the end of next year, NATO and US dependence on Pakistan for their logistics could end. Pakistan would still be important for the US/NATO role in Afghanistan, but it would have lost a huge leverage.
The Pakistani military which is clearly playing the dominant role in making policy in Islamabad needs to carefully think through its options. The chances are that the US will remain engaged in Afghanistan, albeit in a different way—through Special Forces and air support. So it is not as though Islamabad will be working on a clean slate minus the US after 2014. No doubt the generals think they can manage the situation, but most countries would think carefully about buying the enmity of the United States, even, or especially, in its present weakened condition.
For the rest of the world, the concern should be as much about Afghanistan, as Pakistan. A Taliban takeover of a ruined country like Afghanistan, as we have noted, would be a threat, but a containable one. But should the TTP and the mullahs take over Pakistan, the situation would be very different. They would inherit a country with nuclear weapons, a flourishing nuclear industry infrastructure, universities and laboratories which could churn out bioweapons and other horrors.

Contingency
Analyst B Raman has also pointed out that while there was little danger of a traditional coup in Pakistan—one led by the chief of army staff and endorsed by the doctrine of necessity by its Supreme Court—there is no gainsaying the possibility of a coup at the lower level of officers who are less cynical and more ideological and, as the bin Laden incident revealed, vociferous and angry.
In another context, in 1999, General Mohammed Aziz Khan told his boss, the then army chief Pervez Musharraf, that we have them (the militants) by the scruff of their necks. The moot question today is who has whom by the neck.
India remains a sideshow for Islamabad for the present. Those who say that Pakistan’s current benign attitude towards India is tactical, born out of its compulsion to handle the US and Afghanistan, are right. If that policy comes apart, we could see a resumption of business as usual with Pakistan.
Many analysts say that notwithstanding everything, the Pakistani core establishment remains strong, and the chances of a jihadi takeover of Pakistan are slim. But the brinksmanship that this “core” is undertaking could lead to disaster. They may think that they can control the aroused passions of the people with regard to the West and continue to ride the jihadi tiger to victory in Kabul. But they could well end up inside it.
As the decade unfolds, regardless of the outcome in Afghanistan, the world could be compelled to confront a radical Pakistan which is armed with nuclear weapons. It would be a good idea to begin planning for that contingency now.
Mail Today November 8, 2011

My review of Martin Van Creveld's The Age of Airpower

  
At a time when India is on a major drive to develop one of the most powerful air forces by the year 2020, this study questions the utility and the logic of air power in modern warfare

 

WITHIN a matter of weeks India is expected to take a decision to buy 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA). The original approval was for aircraft worth $8.52 billion, the current estimate, for the aircraft will be either the Eurofighter or the Rafale, could be twice that sum. And if the rupee behaves the way it does, the figure could be even higher.
 The MMRCA will be India’s frontline fighter only for two years and then it is expected to be supplanted by the Russian fifth-generation fighter, which, too, India plans to acquire in numbers. Whether or not the country can afford what will easily be one of the most powerful air forces in the world by 2020 is another matter.
 And if we go by what Martin Van Creveld, one of the world’s leading military historians, has to say, we may be simply throwing good money away. Air power, argues this original and authoritative study, has never lived up to the billing given to it by its proponents who have been carried away by the image of the men who fly the superb aerial fighting machines.
 Instead of being carried away with the technological wonder of aerial machines, Van Creveld has measured air power in terms of military effectiveness in relation to the other services, as well as where it eventually counts — against the enemy.

Ironically, the principal object of air power hubris is the United States, whose air force is by far the most powerful in the world. In 2002 it overwhelmed Iraq with the “shock and awe” of its air force. It did wipe out Saddam Hussein’s forces, but it unleashed another adversary — the guerrilla — who has never quite been vulnerable to air power.
The problem, as Van Creveld demonstrates in a survey that begins with Italians throwing hand grenades at Libyan guerrillas in 1911, and ends with the ongoing war in Afghanistan, is that air power either delivers too little, or too much.
It is too little when it fails to interdict the North Vietnamese supply lines to the South in the 1960s, or to check the Taliban with drones and round-the-clock surveillance in Afghanistan. And it is clearly too much when it wipes out entire cities, as in the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in that fateful August of 1945.
His claim is not that airpower was never effective. But that in the historical perspective, it has already peaked in World War II, when, as he points out, “no large-scale military operation that did not enjoy adequate air cover stood any chance of success.” With the spread of nuclear weapons, the ultimate threat of total destruction that air power could bring, itself became absurd, because it created a situation where both the attacker and the attacked would be obliterated.
 The problem in fighting the wars of today is of a different kind. The rise of the global media has made strikes against cities and civilians a taboo. Despite the super-accuracy of UAV-borne missiles, there are civilian casualties.
 According to US figures, 2,157 Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders and cadre have been killed in drone strikes in the tribal regions of Pakistan, as against just 138 civilians since 2006. But as anyone familiar with the issue knows, the propaganda value that the Taliban have got from these “collateral” deaths has been enormous. The fact is that there is no such thing as a surgical strike, especially not in crowded Asian environments.
 The IAF may be still growing and buying top-of-the-line fighters as though the country’s treasury is bottomless, but other air forces are, as Van Creveld points out, in decline. Take America’s F-22, the world’s best fighter (though grounded at present because of an embarrassing little glitch). The original plan was for the US to acquire 750 aircraft, but the number was first lowered to 648 and then successively to 442, 339 and 277, till the previous US Secretary of Defence decided to terminate the programme at 187. The Eurofighter, too, is going that way, especially now that the European economies must retrench.
The issue is not that the aircrafts are not good — they are first-rate — but whether or not the expense involved in buying and maintaining them is commensurate with the kind of missions they will be involved in.
At the end of the day, there is a genuine need for leaders to balance their needs with their budgets, as well as stay focused on the outcomes. Armies, as Van Creveld points out, are still needed to conquer and pacify enemy territory, and navies remain the best means of carrying heavy loads across long distances and projecting power abroad.
Mail Today November 27, 2011