The new Defence Minister will have to hit the ground running to sustain the pace of modernisation of the armed forces amidst the ever present threat of a two-front war with Pakistan and China. The eastern neighbour has stepped up its efforts to modernise its forces thereby posing a direct challenge to India and it can ill afford to lag behind in operational readiness due to lack of State of the art weapons and allied systems. 

In this backdrop, the new Minister will have to ensure that the depleting fighter squadron strength of the IAF is addressed immediately. Even though, the first lot of Rafale jets will start coming in by this year end and entire lot of 36 expected to join the IAF in two years, the IAF will still fall critically short of fighter jets to ward off any threat from China.  It is fast modernising its air force and the IAF, now down to 32 squadrons though the sanctioned strength is 42, is faced with a real threat.  Moreover, the squadron strength is expected to fall down to 28 by end of next year.

The government issued a global tender for acquiring 114 fighter jets last year worth over five billion dollars to close the gap and the new minister will have to address this issue on an urgent basis to enable the IAF to be become a modern, potent and strategic fighting force.  This matter assumes greater importance now with China backing Pakistan in its efforts to modernize its air force and the IAF has to prepare itself for fighting a two-front war if need be.

Besides bolstering the operational capability of the IAF, the new minister will also have to pay attention to the long delayed project to acquire six more conventional submarines.  At present, the navy has 13 odd submarines with half of them in the last leg of their operational life.  Even if the six Scorpene submarines, now under construction at Mazagon Docks Limited, Mumbai, join the service in the next two year, the navy still has to have new submarines to replace the ageing fleet and have a fleet of 24 submarines. 

The government earlier this year floated tenders under the Strategic Partnership programme to build six submarines within the country and the new minister will have to propel the process.  Incidentally, China has 50 submarines thereby presenting a grave threat to India's maritime interests especially in the Indian Ocean region. 

As regards the Army, the new defence minister will have to carry forward reforms now underway to make the force more effective to fight modern day conventional war besides handling insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir and the North-East. 

Efforts are already on to make the Army lean and mean to meet future challenges by merging various administrative and operational units for effective command and control structure besides saving money.  Moreover, plans are on to free up mid level officers from administrative postings and deploy them on operational duties thereby making the shortfall on the one hand and ensuring lesser administrative structures which are no longer needed.  The Army also plans to cut flab by undertaking manpower reduction of 1.5 lakh personnel over the next five to seven years to save Rs 6000 to 7,000 crores in terms of salaries and pensions.

This apart, the new minister will have to address the issue of shortage of ammunition and weapons to even fight a ten-day war as pointed out the Comptroller and Auditor General(CAG) in its report some time back. 

Moreover, the Standing Committee on Defence, in its report tabled in Parliament early this year had flagged the budgetary allocations were enough for the Indian Army's modernisation programme, to equip itself for a 'two-front war'. The deposition of the vice chief of Army Staff before a parliamentary panel in March last year exposed the state of modernisation in defence, as he claimed that 78 per cent of Indian Army's weaponry is vintage.  

Given this report card about the state of affairs of the three Services, the new minister will have to focus on the Nareendra Modi government's programmes like 'Make in India' and bigger role for the private sector in manufacturing big ticket items like fighter jets, warships and tanks within the country.

The 'Make In India' project has to be boosted to meet the growing demand of the armed forces for modern weapons on the one hand and make India self-reliant in defence production and make it a industrial hub for building weapons on the other.

Coming to budgetary allocations, the armed forces have to make do with lesser capital as major chunk of the budgetary provisions are taken away by salaries, pensions and revenue expenditure.  In fact, only 25 to 28 percent budget is available for modernization and acquisitions due to ever increasing pension and salary bill.  The new minister will have to ensure that a balance is arrived at between capital and revenue heads in the defence budget to ensure that modernization does not falter due to want of funds.

As the nature of warfare is fast changing due to information technology, the country will have to change its old mindset of working in silos and the armed forces will have to integrate to achieve military and political objectives while fighting a war.  This is imperative as advanced countries including China are now using space also to advance its strategic interests and India is now on its way to have its own Space Command besides Cyber division to meet the challenge.  However, the minister will have to ensure the pace of integration does not slacken due to administrative and financial hurdles.