Crisis in command: Indian military’s stocks are running low

In 1971, India defeated Pakistan to liberate Bangladesh in 13 days. Today, Russia’s war on Ukraine is already in its 13th week now. It has upended what had become accepted military wisdom in India about “short and swift wars” being the only future. That belief was ingrained after the 2001 terror attack on Parliament and the 2008 Mumbai terror strikes, leading to what was popularly known as the ‘Cold Start’ strategy. But that is in the past now.

Air Chief Marshal V R Chaudhuri recently highlighted the “need for us to prepare for short swift wars as well as be ready for a long-drawn standoff akin to what we are seeing in eastern Ladakh.” That raises obvious questions. How many days does India expect its military to be prepared to fight a war for? What, for planning purposes, are the government’s orders to the military?

India doesn’t have a ‘National Security Strategy’ or a formal ‘White Paper’ on the subject. The only political direction to the military in existence is the Raksha Mantri’s Operational Directive (OD) of 2009. In the eight years that it has been in power, the Modi government has failed to issue a new OD. Senior military officers and bureaucrats say the matter has been hanging fire despite many discussions between the government and the military because any major change in OD could invoke political accountability.

As per former Army Chief Gen. N C Vij, the 2009 directive says, “We should be prepared to fight on both fronts simultaneously a war at 30 days (intense) and 60 days (normal) rates”. The intense and normal rates refer to the rate of expenditure of ammunition during war (based on estimates, historical data and technical specs), with intense rates consuming three times the quantity of normal rates. This means, the Indian military needs to be stocked for 40 days of intense warfighting.

This figure sounds excessive, and the stocking of ammo and supplies has never reached that level. Following the 1999 Kargil War, the Army introduced the concept of Minimum Acceptable Risk Level (MARL), a bottom-line requirement of ammo for 20 days of intense warfighting. This is the minimum inescapable ammo requirement to be held for operational preparedness. A stocking level lower than for 10 days is ‘critical’. Critical shortages in ammunition were publicly highlighted by CAG reports regularly – until Rajiv Mehrishi as CAG in 2017 decided not to upload such reports.

During the 1965 India-Pakistan war, when the UNSC was pressing for a ceasefire, Lal Bahadur Shastri asked Army Chief Gen. J N Chaudhuri if India could press home its advantage if he delayed accepting the ceasefire. Chaudhari told the PM that the ammo stocks were too low to sustain conflict, which forced Shastri’s hand. It was a miscalculation. It was later ascertained that India had fired only 14% of its ammo stocks while the Pakistani Army had used up close to 80% of its ammo.

Following the 2016 Uri terror strike, which led to the trans-LoC surgical strike, the Modi government woke up to the shortages in ammunition and greater financial powers were delegated to the Army Vice Chief to bring the stocks to above critical level. This was specifically meant for the Pakistan border. “We had an internal discussion and decided to focus on 10 (I) (10 days of intense war) along the western border,” the late Gen. Bipin Rawat argued in September 2019, “If we can’t win a war with Pakistan in 10 days, there is no point of a war.”

But even Gen. Rawat believed that a war with China will be long-drawn, “and hence it is felt that we should prepare for 30 (I)” against China. That is easier said than done. Building up stocks to that level needs money – to buy ammo, store it, keep it safe and secure, and to replenish stocks as their shelf life expires. Most of the ‘critical’ ammo comes from foreign manufacturers, which means it is expensive, and requires the exchequer’s support.

The exchequer has been stingy when it comes to the defence budget, with a marked decline in defence spending as a percentage of GDP in recent years. A big share of the budget goes towards salaries and pensions of a manpower-intensive force, leaving little for modernisation. The IAF is already down to 30 fighter squadrons against the 42 it needs; the Navy has 130 vessels against the original goal of 200 (later revised down to 170). This is all a direct consequence of the poor state of the Indian economy which has not recovered from the dual shocks of demonetisation and GST. The pandemic and the current geopolitical scenario have only made things worse, further widening the power gap with China.

‘Atmanirbharta’ and ‘Make in India’ chants notwithstanding, it is unlikely that the military will be able to build up stocks for 30-40 days of warfighting anytime soon. Many argue that it would not matter as India has nuclear weapons. “Our nuclear weapons are not for Diwali”, Modi himself had said at an election rally in Pokharan in April 2019, in the wake of the Balakot strike. This is the biggest risk caused by India’s economic decline and poor state of defence preparedness – a lowering of the threshold for thinking of nuclear weapons.

A new USIP report warns that “It is the unpredictable evolution of these dangerous dynamics in combination — India-Pakistan crises, China-India border violence, and resurgent terrorist threats — that should raise concern that inevitable flare-ups could spiral.” Building up the strength of the military, including its stocks, is the way to deter the worst possibilities. During the 1999 Kargil War, then Army Chief Gen. V P Malik was compelled to state, “We will fight with what we have”. That spirit of defiance alone may not be enough to see India through in future wars.