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nuance of the difference between equality and equity.

A Eurocentric Perspective
The authors conclude that economists generally would be well advised to follow the examples of many great economists of the past and present including William Petty, Francois, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, and Jeremy Bentham, to name just a few. What then should be the agenda for economists? In general, economists need to pay much more attention to ethical i ssues when they do economics and be much more aware of the ethical implications and underpinnings of their theories and policy prescriptions. One could add the important lesson that economists need to shed their insularity and imperial h ubris and learn to freely collaborate with philosophers, social anthropologists, and political scientists, a sterling example of which is the collaboration between

A martya Sen, the economics Nobel Laureate, and the philosopher Bernard Williams. Ironically, this well crafted monograph fails to live up fully to its title and intent. Although it does not suffer from sins of commission, it has conspicuous gaps of omission. For one thing, it has a wholly eurocentric perspective that completely ignores the rich insights into the inter relationships between economics and e thics explored in Indian classics like K autilyas Arthashastra and the south I ndian savant Thiruvalluvars Thirukkural An Ancient Tamil Classic of Political Economy. Likewise, one could instance the influential Confucian paradigm of ethics in the east Asian countries. Even within the western canon, the authors, surprisingly, ignore the significant contributions such as Ian Littles A Critique of Welfare Economics and Ethics, Economics, and Politics. They also do not recognise the un avoidable element of indeterminacy in

choosing the societal rate of discount, or the importance of the weights and measures problem in welfare economics, as so well analysed by Sen. This is not to deny that within its chosen frame of reference the authors have made a substantial contribution. P ossibly a revised second edition could fill the gaps.
Anand Chandavarkar (anandchand@ starpower.net) is an independent scholar based in Washington DC.

References
Hausman, Daniel M and Michael S McPherson (1996): Economic Analysis and Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). (2006): Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy and Public Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Miller, David and Michael Walzer (1995): Pluralism, Justice and Equality (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Sen, Amartya (1987): On Ethics and Economics ( Oxford: Basil Blackwell). Walzer, Michael (1983): Spheres of Justice (New York: Basic Books).

Systemic Problems in Indian Defence

Verghese Koithara

he Indian discourse on defence is largely about the nature of threats the country faces, and the kind of preparedness and responses the threats call for. The capabilities of Indias defence institutions and the effectiveness with which the overall system functions are little discussed. Indias steadily increasing military superiority over Pakistan from the late 1960s has deprived the country of an incentive to introspect on systemic problems. The stabilisation of military capa bilities on the China border, beginning about the same time, further dulled the inducement to do this. As a result, almost all serious analyses of system issues in the defence sector have come from outsiders. The first of these was Kavic (1967). It was followed by Cohen (1971). In the second half of the 1980s, when Indias military modernisation efforts showed a marked upswing, outsider interest in this field perked up again. Two perceptive books that came out as a result (they looked at different facets of the problem) were Tanham (1992) and Smith (1994).

Arming without Aiming: Indias Military Modernisation by Stephen P Cohen and Sunil Dasgupta (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press), 2010; pp xvi+223, Rs 499.

In Arming without Aiming: Indias Military Modernisation, Stephen Cohen and Sunil Dasgupta have examined the systemic problems of Indian defence with candour and insight. Cohens unmatched four decades experience, studying and writing on Indian security issues, gives this book an exceptional degree of feel for the ground. The book has come at a time when a serious and more participative discussion on the issues flagged in it is badly needed.

Biggest Arms Importer

India is currently importing military equipment at an unprecedented rate. This has made India the biggest arms importer in the world, a position it looks set to hold for some years to come. Every country producing advanced military equipment

the United States (US), Russia, Israel, France, the United Kingdom (UK), and others is courting India to sell its wares. And the country now has the money to collect these offerings in spades. In India, not only the strategic community, but also powerful corporate houses, which sense business opportunity in offset and subcontracting work, back the import drive. Weapon imports by a country like India must serve at least two major objectives. One, the hardware being imported must support thought-through strategic and operational objectives cumulatively, synergistically, and cost-effectively. Two, these imports must enable the country to develop quickly the techno-industrial base necessary to become a competitive weapons producer the way China has become with far less access to foreign technology. The Indian system today is not capable of meeting either objective. Weapon systems are being procured incrementally, based on the strategies the different services pursue, and the political and export motivations of foreign countries. There is no overarching strategic framework guiding the procurement process. As for building indigenous techno-industrial capabilities, the country has got better at reaching

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technology transfer agreements. But a significant ability to internalise transferred technologies, and to make use of them to move up further, is something that has yet to be demonstrated.

while preparing to fight two big ones against nuclear armed neighbours (p 172).

Disregard and Distrust

Disregard and distrust of the military, which began as a personal predilection of Indias first prime minister, gradually became a structural feature of defence functioning as a result of the narrow institutional interests of the defence bureau cracy. This has acted as a serious roadblock in improving defence efficiency. As long as India defines civilian control as, in effect, civilian dominance over armed forces, and allows the latter only a limited role in policymaking, it cannot expect to increase its efficiency in turning resources into power (p 147). The problem is exacerbated by the fact that Indian bureaucrats, unlike their counterparts elsewhere, develop very little subject expertise. The critical bottleneck, one unlikely to be remedied soon, is the lack of civilian expertise in defence and security matters despite the proliferation of research centres and think tanks devoted to defence and security matters (p 144). Partly as a result of this, and partly because of the unproductive working relationship between civilians and the military, the Ministry of Defence, the secretariat in which competing service v isions of security and military modernisation are supposedly

Major Disabilities
There are four major players in the defence field in India. They are (in descending order of policy influence) bureaucrats, technocrats, the military and political leaders. (Political leaders, who sit at the top of the heap, come last because of their lack of interest in defence policy.) The relationships among these four players cannot be described as anything but dysfunctional. There is neither leadership nor an effective organisational framework to reconcile their differences and align their a ctivities. As a result, the country has not been able to develop a viable approach to modernise, much less transform, its armed forces. This failure has become considerably more consequential now than earlier because of the greatly increased fund flow into defence, and the lobbies that has attracted. The major disabilities of the Indian defence system, identified in the volume, are well known but have yet to be taken seriously. They are (1) a lack of political direction in defence matters; (2) dysfunctional civil-military relations and an acute shortage of civilian expertise in defence matters; (3) poor joint working among the three services; (4) a seriously under- performing research and development system; (5) an ineffective defence purchase system; and (6) a faulty understanding of what constitutes modernisation. Indias political leaders, through their hands-off attitude, have let the defence bureaucracy, the defence technocracy, and the three services create virtual fiefdoms for themselves. The failure of the office of the defence minister to provide leadership for the defence system, and the failure of the national leadership to fit defence capability well with the other resources of the State to improve the countrys security environment, constitute serious neglect of political responsibility. It will require more statecraft than hardware to extricate the Indian military from the position of simultaneously fighting several small wars on the home front

coordinated, seems singularly incapable of fulfilling its f unctions (p 149). India has joint service training institutions at many levels. These have helped create good personal relations, but not joint functioning among the three services. Indias services are basically on their own; they follow independent strategies and are ready to fight different wars, and they have been promulgating war fighting and strategic doctrines independent of each other and without reference to any overarching national strategy (p 151). (None of these doctrines carry government imprimatur.) There is little synergy in the development and execution of plans, at both strategic and operational levels. As in the case of the dismal civilmilitary relationship, it is the failure of the political leadership to assert itself that is mainly to blame for this. But there is also another factor at play here. It is the big gulf that separates the army, in the manner of functioning, from the navy and the air force

Dysfunctional Defence System

The army is a much more threat-oriented service than the other two, and it has to shoulder very diverse responsibilities. It has serious day to day military work to handle, in relation to external as well as internal threats. About a third of the

Second International Workshop Announcement

Politics in the Global Age: Sovereignty, Citizenship, Territory and Nationalism

Centre for Comparative European Union Studies (CCEUS) at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS), Indian Institute of Technology Madras, is organizing its second Summer Workshop from 6-10th of June at IITM, Chennai on the theme of Politics in the Global Age: Sovereignty, Citizenship, Territory and Nationalism. This workshop is funded by the European Union. The Workshop is intended for young faculty, doctoral students and senior postgraduate students in political science, international relations, sociology, political philosophy, history and other related disciplines. The last date of application is 28 Feb 2011. CCEUS will pay travel, board and lodging costs of the participants. Please log on to www.hss.iitm.ac.in/eu/secondworkshop.htm for the theoretical framework, workshop structure, faculty profiles, and application and registration details.
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rmys combat manpower is involved in a internal security. About half of its combat units are deployed in Jammu and Kashmir to perform interrelated external defence and internal security tasks. This need for manpower-intensive deployment (the armys personnel strength is five times that of the navys and the air forces combined) has made it difficult for the army to go for serious technology upgradation. The navy and the air force, largely free of peacetime operational commitments, are able to do this. They are building sinews to serve broad objectives sea con trol and sea denial in the case of the navy, and air superiority in the case of the air force. Both also seek capabilities to operate in distant areas, in partnership with foreign forces. Public perceptions in India about the achievements and capabilities of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which are shaped by nationalistic media commentary, contrast sharply with the estimates of professional observers abroad. DRDO officials (are) engaged in exaggerated and wildly over-optimistic statements of their own capabilities, and civilian politicians with little knowledge of strategic or military affairs, let alone the intricacies of military technology and hardware (have) allowed DRDO a free hand for decades. The civilian bureaucrats who advise politicians are rarely experts themselves, and defence research is conducted without any accountability (p 33). This, of course, is a view consistently expressed by the Indian military in private. The DRDO has not only failed to develop useful systems on its own, but has also failed to make durable technology gains from the many licence manufacturing projects involving technology transfer. Indias defence purchase system is overwhelmed today by its vastly increased responsibilities. While it has fair capability to buy through government channels abroad, it has repeatedly run into trouble when choosing from multiple vendors. This happened in the 1980s with purchases from Bofors of Sweden, Westland of UK, and HDW of Germany. There have been more recent cases involving countries as diverse as Israel, Singapore, and South

A f rica. All the big purchases India has made so far from the US have been through the US governments Foreign Military Sales route. The first multi vendor purchase involving US companies that India will make is the $12 billion buy of 126 Multi-Role Combat Aircraft. Buying high technology systems from abroad is an extremely complex process, as it involves subjective trade-offs among a host of factors such as suitability, quality, long-term support, technology transfer, immediate and long- term costs, post- purchase constraints, and financial offsets. The Indian system, as it stands today, is structurally incapable of address ing this task effectively. The last of the major deficiencies highlighted in the volume is Indias very flawed understanding of what modernisation is all about. Indias vision of modernisation is essentially confined to the induction of high technology hardware. True modernisation calls for innovative thinking across a range of fields, with personnel and organisations the most important. This is ignored in India. The authors point out that, while the latest hardware is being inducted, the (fighting arms of the) army remain caste- and ethnolinguistic-based (p 4). India has shown a marked inability to make organisational changes, and adapt foreign best practices to Indian circumstances. The Indian emphasis on techno logy as the key to modernisation and transformation reduces the incentive for organisational change (p 145). The authors pessimistic prognosis for modernisation has led them to warn the US that Techno logy transfer as the main means of modernisation will certainly fail to address Indias deeper modernisation problems, which are fundamentally organisational, and that placing military modernisation at the centre of the (US-India) relationship invites failure (p 172). The Indian state has repeatedly shown itself incapable of reforming its dysfunctional defence system. The latest demonstration of this involved the Kargil Review Committees report (unclassified version published in 2000), and the four follow-up committees inquiring into defence, intelligence, border management, and internal security. The reports of these committees

were prepared expeditiously, and were processed quickly through a group of ministers headed by the deputy prime minister, and the cabinet committee on security headed by the prime minister. Since a Bharatiya Janata Party-led government, seen as security-minded was in power at the time, there was considerable expectation that reforms, which had eluded Congress governments during their many decades in power, would take place. But it did not happen. Actions to implement the report on d efence were particularly disappointing. This failure, however, did not create even a ripple in the media. The explanation for this is the Indian publics utter lack of awareness of how dysfunctional and wasteful the countrys defence system is. For that reason alone this book, which covers its vast and important subject concisely and stimulatingly, and does not rationalise or pull punches as most writings on the subject do, needs to be read widely.
Verghese Koithara (koithara@gmail.com) is an independent strategic analyst.

References
Cohen, Stephen P (1971): The Indian Army: Its Contributions to the Development of a Nation (Berkeley: University of California Press). Kargil Review Committee (2000): From Surprise to Reckoning: The Kargil Review Committee Report (New Delhi: Sage). Kavic, Lorne J (1967): Indias Quest for Security: Defence Policies, 1947-1965 (Berkeley: University of California Press). Smith, Chris (1994): Indias Ad Hoc Arsenal: Direction or Drift in Defence Policy? (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Tanham, George K (1992): Indian Strategic Thought: An Interpretive Essay (Santa Monica: RAND).

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