India's defense expenses to be 2nd highest ($100 bil.) in Asia-Pacific by 2016

[LongLiveBritian]

To be honest Singapore's security situation is far worse than India's, they're a tiny city state surrounded by big neighbors.

Look how tiny the UK is, aren't we still powerful we are surrounded by many bigger european countrys.

 

[LongLiveBritian]

And good luck to india, I hope you grow strong.

 

[LongLiveBritian]

I'm very doubtful of the $100 billion defense budget by 2016 forecast. With analysts predicting a $2 trillion Indian economy by 2016, $100 billion means 5% of India's GDP which is exceedingly high for any country.

They can do what they like, and what they think is best for them.

 

[justanobserver]

To be honest Singapore's security situation is far worse than India's

I hope you were being sarcastic.

 

[mike05]

Singapore is not India or vice versa. We live in a region where two of our adversaries have nuclear weapons. So please stop condescending on us. We are okay with spending 3-4% of our GDP on defense. Remember India is a vast country, we need to protect all our coastline from our opponents, otherwise Mumbai like Incidents would become quite common.

Every male citizen in Singapore serves a 2 year stint with the army, if the situation is as serious as you say why not petition the govt to have conscription of all India male citizens? I have made sacrifices for my country for her defence and yes our security situation is no less worse then your abeit a smaller scale which is why we try to be friendly with our neighbours

 

[LongLiveBritian]

I hope you were being sarcastic.

Yeah exactly the nerve of some people these days, Singapore is a developed country for gods sake!

 

[justanobserver]

Yeah exactly the nerve of some people these days, Singapore is a developed country for gods sake!

The entire ASEAN region is highly integrated and that itself is a testament to its stability. Just look at South Asia, Pakistan refuses to even give us even MFN status !

 

[black flame]

All hints point to one direction that India is preparing for a major war..offensive weapons are not bought at whole sale for defence. If anyone is being assertive in Asia is India.

well china is number 1 in asia Pacific does that mean china preparing for a major war........... dont u think this comment is idiotic......... just because u cant spend it that dose not mean that no one should and more over all that we are spending is to over haul the soviet era equipments........... so keep ur thoughts straight

P.S. my intention is not to derail the thread or troll by dragging china.....

 

[Dash]

I'm very doubtful of the $100 billion defense budget by 2016 forecast. With analysts predicting a $2 trillion Indian economy by 2016, $100 billion means 5% of India's GDP which is exceedingly high for any country.

The defence budget will never be 100 billion in 2016, The artricle is saying we might buy defence equipment worth that much by 2016, so spread it over 6 years which is about 16 billion per year for our 35 billion budget, which is fair enough.

 

[su-47]

IMO the GOI should focus on spending for infrastructure, food security and education etc.

The China government has trillions in surplus and can well afford to spend more on defense plus their infrastructure is already top notch. Understandably every country needs good weapons for defense but having a nuclear weapon is already a good deterrent. Building the country up will least give it a good foundation and prosper in the future.

Right now it seems India is caught up with a arms race with China which is similar to what happened to Russia and US during the cold war. Luckily India has many innovative companies who are making money for the nation unfortunately the GOI is just squandering it like no tomorrow again IMO.

No, you are wrong here. We are NOT in an arms race with China. If you see, our defense budget is not abnormal in any way. 2.5% of GDP is reasonable by all means, and our economy can back it. Our defence budget keeps growing as an absolute figure as our economy grows, but in terms of percentage, it is still very reasonable

With regards to China, India has no aggressive weapon procurement, but rather a 'minimum credible deterrence' policy. And our nukes can't really be called 'defence' since any potential Sino-Indian conflict will be limited in nature and conventional, since neither country has plans to have full out conflict that can go nuclear, and neither has an aggressive nuclear policy (both are committed to a 'no first use' policy).

To be honest Singapore's security situation is far worse than India's, they're a tiny city state surrounded by big neighbors.

I have lived in Singapore before, and their situation is 'different'. I can't call it better or worse. Due to their small size and lack of strategic depth, they are more vulnerable to a conventional attack from much bigger enemies.

But at the same time, Singapore has a decisive qualitative edge in weapons over its neighbours, and more importantly, they face less threat of war than India does. If you remember, India fought its last war in 1998. When did Singapore have to defend itself against enemy invasion? Also, when was Singapore ever under threat of nuclear war?

 

[Nomenclature]

The entire ASEAN region is highly integrated and that itself is a testament to its stability. Just look at South Asia, Pakistan refuses to even give us even MFN status !

I wouldn't call ASEAN 'highly integrated', it hasn't moved much beyond economic integration and mistrust between some member states are still deep.

It's still a resounding success though, as long as one realize its limitations.

 

[indianpatriot]

it says that India after China may end up spending $100 billion in defense by 2016...thats through the fact that Indian military imports like MRCA deal,subs,aircraft carrirs and others...and as India is a pro military regime like Israel,Paklistan and US and Russia...so i m nt surprised!!!

as far as military spenig is concerned...its only 1/8th of India's budget while infra takes away 37% and poverty alleciation and other social issues take away another 15%....now India also has state budgets...like that of UP where I live has an annual budget of about $36 billion which compeltely goes to good causes!!now of india's budget goes three times i.e. our economy goes three times which will happen by 2018 or so...then we can very well affor it all!

 

[justanobserver]

I wouldn't call ASEAN 'highly integrated', it hasn't moved much beyond economic integration and mistrust between some member states are still deep.

It's still a resounding success though, as long as one realize its limitations.

At the very least its economically integrated!

Mistrust (need a stronger word) here is insanely high, by WTO rules, every nation has to give the other other MFN status ! And don't get me started on having "bleed by a 1000 cuts" as a state policy !

 

[black flame]

I fail to see how that matters unless the us economy fails completely, China can work out a weapon for bonds deal with the us in their favour and still have a tons of cash after.

Singapore spends a lot on weapons too but that was only after the nation was developed to acceptable levels, after building a good manufacturing base we now even manufacture our own weapons as opposed to buying them.

mike no offense but Singapore is just half the size of bangalore and more over which is the smallest metropolitan when compared to the other metropolitan cities in the country and it is easy to administer such a small country and administration of a huge country like india has its own pros and cons and if u want u can implement any rule say the cleanliness i appreciate it but it is whole different ball game here so don't compare the ease with which u develop the infrastructure and others it cant happen over a year it will take time may be decades for a country of this size........... and don't talk about the poor people since our defense spending on GDP % is small compared to other countries its just 2.5 and rest goes for the infra and poor people development BS

 

[sab]

IMO the GOI should focus on spending for infrastructure, food security and education etc.

The China government has trillions in surplus and can well afford to spend more on defense plus their infrastructure is already top notch. Understandably every country needs good weapons for defense but having a nuclear weapon is already a good deterrent. Building the country up will least give it a good foundation and prosper in the future.

Right now it seems India is caught up with a arms race with China which is similar to what happened to Russia and US during the cold war. Luckily India has many innovative companies who are making money for the nation unfortunately the GOI is just squandering it like no tomorrow again IMO.

There is enough money for infrastructure too....If you are interested you can visit ite of the Planning Commission of India. I can provide some information too...Real problem is improper planning , inefficiency and unutilization of funds....Many state can not even fully use the funds provided for different project in stipulated time....and there is corruption too.........