Why India needs to reduce the size of its Army

[Stephen Cohen]

Why not maintain a bigger reserve & srsly look at the CAPEX:OPEX budget of Army

Army Reserves whether big or small are also a part of the Army

And they dont come for free Their CAPEX and OPEX is all part of the over all budget

The question is : How many Armed soldiers we need given what our enemy can throw at us

Have you ever considered : How many Armed males can
Pakistan mobilise and make them attack India

Even if they are armed with just with an AK 47 and an RPG and Hand grenades or IED s
That is why 70 Percent of our Army is facing Pakistan
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We can always reduce manforce with technology but unfortunately that is not the case for the Indian army at the moment.

The US adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan have SHOWN the Limitations
of Air power and other High technology

Ultimately you need MEN to fight with enemy men and hold territory

Have you ever considered : How many Armed males can
Pakistan mobilise and make them attack India

Even if they are armed with just with an AK 47 and an RPG and Hand grenades or IED s

That is why 70 Percent of our Army is facing Pakistan

That becomes the basis for our Military force planning

 

[third eye]

most of our budget goes on salary and pension.we should do what china did,reduce size of army personal and increase money in r&D and defence acquisition.

Seriously do you believe this actually happens in China ?

 

[mkb95]

Seriously do you believe this actually happens in China ?

Hu Jintao announced reducing the army personal by 300,000 during victory day parade.

 

[third eye]

Hu Jintao announced reducing the army personal by 300,000 during victory day parade.

Okay...and do you believe & accept it ?

 

[Grevion]

The US adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan have SHOWN the Limitations
of Air power and other High technology

Ultimately you need MEN to fight with enemy men and hold territory

Have you ever considered : How many Armed males can
Pakistan mobilise and make them attack India

Even if they are armed with just with an AK 47 and an RPG and Hand grenades or IED s

That is why 70 Percent of our Army is facing Pakistan

That becomes the basis for our Military force planning

What I meant there was that we can substitute Armed men with technologies which allows us to do the same thing but with no loss of lives.
Armed Drones are a example so is US Zumwalt class destroyer which is mostly automatic and requires less sailors then a normal destroyer but these tech are costly and are not fully matured to replace the traditional ones which are more convenient and are less costly.

 

[mkb95]

Okay...and do you believe & accept it ?

we can only take his word for that.btw its also beneficial for their army.having large no. of soldiers worked for them in korea but not in iraq for sadam hussen.
in today's warfare,technological edge matters most.

 

[PARIKRAMA]

What we need is a much deeper modernization.
Cutting armed forces may not be the most righteous decision but definitely using assets on deputation to shore up other forces may be a good way of using them efficiently.
One thing i do consider is that opex of armed forces in terms of salaries and now pay revisions plus retiral benefits and pensions are going to bloat a lot more in coming times. Especially bcz Indian army avg age is still in 30s which implies an ageing arming over time will be a good cost intensive for the exchequer. No doubt they served our country, but statistically speaking it does eat up a massive chunk of budget which in turn means more limited resources availability for modernisation

One more option is using existing folks to delegate them into MSC and use it efficiently too. But as i said priority should be on modernisation and thus we will see the use of rationalisation word more often to cut this cost mounting of armed forces in terms of salaries/pensions and the jargon used will be cutting the flab and leaner and meaner armed forces.

 

[Echo_419]

Army Reserves whether big or small are also a part of the Army

And they dont come for free Their CAPEX and OPEX is all part of the over all budget

The question is : How many Armed soldiers we need given what our enemy can throw at us

Have you ever considered : How many Armed males can
Pakistan mobilise and make them attack India

Even if they are armed with just with an AK 47 and an RPG and Hand grenades or IED s
That is why 70 Percent of our Army is facing Pakistan
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The US adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan have SHOWN the Limitations
of Air power and other High technology

Ultimately you need MEN to fight with enemy men and hold territory

Have you ever considered : How many Armed males can
Pakistan mobilise and make them attack India

Even if they are armed with just with an AK 47 and an RPG and Hand grenades or IED s

That is why 70 Percent of our Army is facing Pakistan

That becomes the basis for our Military force planning

What about their logistics,our army(even if greatly reduced) will be easily able to handel them the days of large armies are gone

 

[Nair saab]

How about increasing the Budget instead of downsizing the number ...

Even after having one of the biggest army in the world we where always outnumbers in every war we fought.... India is the only country which faces hostile neighbor in two fronts ... one small and crazy armed with nukes another one is the biggest army in the world withnukes, a world super power... and what more both of them are allies ...

qualitative army instead quantitative is a good idea for smaller nation but our boarders and problems are just far too overstretched ...

 

[Stephen Cohen]

What about their logistics,our army(even if greatly reduced) will be easily able to handel them the days of large armies are gone

You are not appreciating the problem of Armed Militias and Armed civilians

Pakistan can easily mobilise TEN MILLION armed civilians

And Then there is the Fatigue factor

The reason US soldiers could not hold on To Iraq and Afghanistan
is because of fatigue ; they were simply too overstretched

So if you reduce the number of soldiers ; the LOAD becomes more on the remaining soldiers
who will simply succumb to Fatigue

 

[Nair saab]

how about a compulsory military deputation for all able youth (atleast men) for 2 years ... it will produce us a disciplined youth and unlimited pool of trained fighters who will hold out the nation even in a India Vs rest of the world ...

A Nation full of figthers is better then having a small trained defending army...

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

@Echo_419



I disagree ; India needs a Large Army

India has NO concept of lakhs of Armed civilians like Pakistan

If Indian Army falls ; then India Falls

Hence we need a very large Army
Otherwise the Hordes from across the border will swamp the country and reach DELHI

You don't win wars by huge ill equipped army,rather a bit smaller army more well equipped.More numbers you have more maintainence,salary,pensions and equipping costs -these eat away at budget for R & D and actual hardware acquisitions.This mass man approach is 20th century concept,not a 21st century age of special forces, precision munitions-digital battlefield.
Our southern command is clearly overbloated and such large forces are not needed there but closer to the borders.So instead of raising more and more regiments and increasing the financial strain -we should redeploy some of these assets.
Instead of huge numbers we should increase the firepower of the existing units with more artillery,PGMs,Army air aviation assets,new assault rifles etc.

All modern armies like russia,usa,china have moved towards this trend,India does possess a huge paramilitary force.And delhi is pipe dream,in case of total war both opponents will be destroyed by nuclear attacks.

 

[Levina]

This is true.Southern command needs to be downsized,or a part of its assets transfered to chinese border.
Our army is too big atm,too many salaries,pensions,too much equipment requirements.

Sir,
I am not sure if we have surplus soldiers.
Since last 2 decades I have been hearing it from Indian army officers that Army is short of its sanctioned strength of soldiers. At one point of time (in TOI prolly) I read the number was 50000, now it is about 18% in the officer category.
Ostensibly, GOI will bring the shortfall down to 12 per cent by 2021- that's another 6 years from now. Right now, they are improving on the situation in 2010, when the Army was 26 per cent short of its sanctioned strength of soldiers.

 

[MilSpec]

This is true.Southern command needs to be downsized,or a part of its assets transfered to chinese border.
Our army is too big atm,too many salaries,pensions,too much equipment requirements.

And we don't have enough funds to support that? How about we set the system up where politicians cannot siphon Trillions of rupees from the exchequer?

We are becoming a society of bean counters where we are ready to leverage security and sovereignty for a cleaner balance sheet, an extremely dangerous precedent to set for future generations.

 

[Levina]

how about a compulsory military deputation for all able youth (atleast men) for 2 years ... it will produce us a disciplined youth and unlimited pool of trained fighters who will hold out the nation even in a India Vs rest of the world ...

A Nation full of figthers is better then having a small trained defending army...

Do we need it?
We are the largest voluntary army in the world.. if am not wrong.