Getting Indian Army future-ready: Why lean, mean, modern military is need of hour

The Indian Army’s reform measures are in the news in all forms of media. Two issues that have caught the attention of lawmakers and defence analysts alike are, firstly, the need for an infusion of technology and force modernisation, and secondly, the reported deficiency of manpower in the army. The first issue was addressed by the author in the article published in the Firstpost on July 16, 2024.

It has been widely reported that there has been no fresh recruitment of regular soldiers in the Indian Army since 2020. In 2022, the first batch of Agniveers were recruited. Reportedly, there is a mismatch between the number of fresh recruits and regular soldiers retiring every year, leading to an overall deficiency in the army. As per the article published in The Print dated June 13, 2024, the manpower deficiency in the Indian Army could be in the range of 1,27,660 to 1,68,660.

Several countries have successfully carried out manpower reductions for a variety of reasons. It would be instructive to see how two of the advanced militaries have implemented reforms leading to manpower reduction.

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The United States

The breakup of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War radically altered the US’s threat scenario. Beginning in 1988 and through most of the 1990s, the US armed forces conducted a series of downsizing programmes. Known as the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC), five such rounds of base closures were conducted in 1988, 1991, 1993, 1995, and 2005.

Rationale for Troop Reduction and Implications: By 1988, the Soviet Union had begun withdrawing from Afghanistan, and there were plans to cut Soviet armed forces in 1991 by approximately 700,000 military personnel. At the same time, the Iraq-Iran War had ended and the communist regimes in Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania had fallen. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, it was assessed that the US and Europe faced little conventional threat; hence, a decision was taken to reduce the size of the US armed forces.

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In 1990, the total number of active-duty military personnel in the US armed forces was over 2.1 million, which by the year 2000 had reached a figure of 1.4 million, a cut of over 6 lakhs. Similarly, there were cuts in equipment and weapon platforms to allow the country to enjoy the ‘peace dividend’. A comparison of select major combat systems in the service in the US military from 1990 to 2017 is reflective of the kind of cuts the three services faced.

The navy’s major warships were reduced by more than fifty per cent, as was the air force, which saw a reduction of manned combat aircraft by more than half. The most significant cut was in the army’s main battle tanks, which were reduced by 85 per cent. Most of these cuts were attributed to reductions in conventional threats post-Cold War. However, there were reductions in manned aircraft and tanks even after the year 2000, when the country was involved in the Global War on Terror (GWOT).

The cuts in the armed forces were accompanied by changes in operational doctrine. The US armed forces, which were organised, trained, and equipped to conduct large-scale manoeuvres against the conventional Soviet army, were reorganised and re-equipped to undertake counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations post-9/11 attack.

The manpower reduction of the US armed forces continued through the years of GWOT and reached the bottom figures in 2017, when the Trump administration reversed the trend and began increasing the strength.

Such was the scale of reduction in manpower that there was a perception among some analysts in the US that they were made too quickly and severely. The US enjoyed a brief period of unipolarity, and thereafter the world has returned to the days of great power competition. Today, China is a formidable military power, and Russia is fighting to regain its lost glory. Even though the US is the strongest military force in the world, its ability to gain and maintain local military dominance against China and Russia has declined. A 2020 RAND study has assessed that even if the US military has a 10-per cent real growth in defence spending, it will take 10 to 15 years to reverse the decline in its military power.

China

The modern People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has its origin in the civil war (1927–1949) between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forces and the nationalist Kuomintang forces. The PLA initially relied on mass mobilisation to fight guerrilla wars. Even though the modernisation of the PLA had begun in the late 1970s, it largely retained its original organisation and structure till the 1990s, when the US demonstrated its technological prowess in the Gulf War and the third Taiwan Strait crisis (1995-96). The Chinese leaders acknowledged the deficiencies of the PLA and launched the modernisation programme.

The impetus provided by the demonstration of US technological prowess led to many years of double-digit annual increases in the defence budget and multiple iterations of manpower reduction. In the 1990s, the estimated strength of the PLA was 3 million, of which the strength of the army was over 2 million. In 1997, President Jiang Zemin announced a reduction of manpower by 5 lakhs, with the biggest cut in the army amounting to over 4 lakh soldiers. The second tranche of manpower reduction was announced in 2015 with a proposal to further reduce the strength by 3 lakhs. Today the assessed strength of PLA is 2 million, with the army accounting for less than one million.

Creation of Conditions Conducive for Military Reforms: In the 1980s and the 1990s, China famously adhered to Deng Xiaoping’s “hide your strength, bide your time” approach to foreign policy by maintaining a low profile and accumulating strength. It avoided direct conflict with major powers, remained neutral in disputes that did not directly concern China, and focused on developing an economic and technological base.

China is conscious of its technological differential with the US. Accordingly, in the Chinese scheme of things, technology is factored differently from how the US armed forces do. Chinese military leadership realises the weakness of the PLA in the future battlefields. Consequently, they plan to bridge the technological gap with the US using creative strategic thinking—using speed, surprise, deception, and stratagem. Grey zone and hybrid warfare are part of China’s strategic thinking. China’s policy of avoiding direct confrontation with the US, yet being prepared using creative strategies, allowed it time to undertake human resource reforms and force modernisation.

As far as India is concerned, following Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to Beijing in 1988, border talks were undertaken by the two countries. In the next decade and a half, three bilateral agreements were signed between the two countries, in 1993, 1996, and 2005. These agreements led to maintenance of the status quo and reduction of forces by both countries on the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Subsequently, two additional agreements were signed in 2012 and 2013. By signing the bilateral agreements in the 1990s, China was able to reduce the chances of military confrontation on its Western front with India.

The policy of avoiding direct confrontation with major powers and having secured the LAC allowed China over two decades of uninterrupted time for human resource reforms and force modernisation. It was after Xi Jinping came to power and China had grown in stature and power that it began challenging the US hegemony, both on economic and military fronts. Frequent military standoffs have also been reported on the LAC—in Depsang (2013), Chumar (2014), Burtse (2015), Doklam (2017), and Eastern Ladakh (2020).

Manpower Optimisation by the Indian Army

Restructuring and reorganisation of the Indian Army and manpower optimisation have been a subject of deliberation within the army for over a decade. There is, however, no report in the media of any concrete proposal or implementation strategy for human resource optimisation until the manpower deficiencies were reported recently.

The military capability of an army is a function of several factors, including manpower, equipment, operational concepts and doctrine, and logistics, among others. Among these stated factors, the size of the armed forces is an important determinant of the military power of a nation. There are several studies that suggest that the size of the armed forces is one of the fundamental conditions for effective deterrence, besides increasing the chances of victory in wars.

The principal capability of any army is its ability to deploy soldiers on the ground. Technology can help soldiers to be more effective, but numbers are important. As Joseph Stalin reportedly said, ‘Quantity has a quality of its own.’ The reduction in manpower can be offset by the infusion of better systems. However, it is also the case that a smaller army cannot ensure dominance if the threat assessment demands the presence of boots on the ground.

Today, India’s external and internal security situation is a cause of concern. There has been an ongoing military standoff with the PLA in Eastern Ladakh since 2020, leading to the near-permanent deployment of troops on the LAC. The Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan has had permanent deployment of troops for a long time. The situation in Afghanistan is fragile, and China is making steady inroads in South Asia.

China’s ever-growing Navy has a permanent presence in the Indian Ocean region. Nepal, the Maldives, and Bangladesh require attention at the highest level in the country. There is also a rise in terrorist violence in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), and violence has been witnessed in the northeastern part of the country. In addition, neither has Pakistan’s intention nor has the capability to calibrate violence in J&K and the rest of the country diminished.

Under these circumstances, the manpower deficiency of the Indian Army has been reported by the media. Downsizing of militaries following victory in major wars or conflict situations is not an uncommon phenomenon. The US military saw significant downsizing following World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. China initiated military reforms and manpower cuts following the implementation of the policy of avoiding military conflicts and securing LAC from any imminent military confrontation.

Military modernisation and human resource reforms cannot be divorced from each other. The two reforms require deliberate planning, financial resourcing, an implementation strategy extending over decades, and oversight at the highest level. Implementation of reforms may create temporary instability in the organisation, which must be factored in the plan.

It, therefore, behoves India’s defence establishment to undertake a study at the highest level that can recommend an appropriate plan and a roadmap for military modernisation and force optimisation, keeping in mind the assessed threats.

This was the last part of a two-part series on the reforms in the Indian Army.

The author is a Research Fellow at MP-IDSA. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.