Sections

Introduction

Strategic Direction

Effective Defence R&D Model

The DRDO: Strengths and Weaknesses

Incentivising the Industry

The Academia: Graduating from Consultants to Innovators

Services at the Fulcrum: Transformation with Specialisation

Role of the Government

References

Introduction

Over the last several decades, technology breakthroughs have been occurring at a very fast pace, with transformative effects on the nature of warfighting. This three-part series ventures to analyse whether or not India has taken the right steps so far towards leveraging disruptive military technologies for enhancing our comprehensive military power. Part I and Part II of this write-up have identified technologies with significant potential for military applications, presented a classification based on their expected impact on future warfare, and reviewed the status of global research on four technologies which deserve the maximum focus, namely, AI & robotics, quantum, nano and hypersonic weapon technologies.

The discussion so far clearly establishes that, while India may have taken some welcome initiatives for boosting R&D in these niche technologies, they are not commensurate with our aspirations as a rising regional power. More importantly, if corrective action is not taken on priority, our already adverse military balance vis-à-vis China may continue to deteriorate as the years go by.

Existing studies on rejuvenating our weak military industrial complex have mainly focused on measures which need to be taken by the Government, the DRDO, the Industry and the Academia. Here we explore an introspective approach for the Armed Forces, based on the conviction that the primary hurdles to realising a vibrant defence R&D model exist within the Armed Forces, and can be largely overcome through internal re-structuring.

Strategic Direction

For any significant R&D in disruptive technologies to be undertaken, the operational need for the same must first be established. Unfortunately, efforts being undertaken in this direction are woefully inadequate, as indicated below:-

• Our 15-year operational and technology perspective plans fail to capture the changing nature of warfare in the 21st Century [1].
• Even after having been in play for over three decades now, the Current ‘ICT’ RMA has not been adequately embedded in our operational concepts. As yet there is no doctrine for network centric warfare (NCW); and while (arguably very weak) doctrines on information warfare (IW) exist, the same is not true for cyber warfare, electronic warfare (EW) and psychological warfare.
• As regards disruptive military technologies, our Armed Forces are not yet off the starting block towards generating doctrinal thought.

It is imperative, therefore, for our military leadership to provide strategic direction and issue doctrines to trigger the leveraging of these technologies.

Effective Defence R&D Model

Apart from a few success stories, India’s track record in the indigenisation of defence products has been far from satisfactory. For instance, despite nearly 30 years of development effort, hardly any of our C4I2SR/ Tac C3I systems have as yet seen the light of day, despite the fact that the relevant information and communication technologies (ICT) were available within the country. The reasons are as under:-

• It is clear that a strong synergy is needed amongst the five main stakeholders: Government, Armed Forces, DRDO/ PSUs, Industry and Academia.
• Our premier academic institutions and industrial houses are comparable to the best in the world. Even the DRDO, despite its uninspiring performance in general, has its merits. The end results, however, are far from satisfactory. Where, then, lies the malaise?
• Two reasons stand out: firstly, there is an abject lack of military domain knowledge within the Industry, the Academia, and even the DRDO; and secondly, no central agency has taken on the arduous task of creating the desired synergy.
• It is the Services, with support from the Defence Ministry, which are best placed, indeed responsible, to act as the fulcrum for Defence R&D. However, in order to play such a role successfully, if indeed they can muster the will to step up to this task, the Services would need to undergo transformative re-structuring.

The DRDO: Strengths and Weaknesses

The DRDO is weakly structured to produce cutting edge defence technologies at par with the best in the world. Its establishments are not very successful in attracting the best human resource coming out of our premier institutions such as the IITs/ IISc. The DRDO’s commitment to deliver top-of-the-line products within acceptable time-frames also leaves much to be desired, primarily due to its lack of accountability to the end-user, ie, the Defence Services. Thus, while there are islands of excellence within the DRDO and some good products developed by its establishments have been successfully deployed by our Armed Forces, these are few in number and mostly fall short when measured against global benchmarks.

That stated, the DRDO has two distinct advantages over the Industry and the Academia: firstly, unlike the Industry, profits are not a constraining criterion; and secondly, the DRDO community possesses relatively better domain knowledge about our Armed Forces. Therefore, provided suitable organizational re-structuring is carried out to address the weaknesses brought out above, the DRDO could indeed contribute usefully towards R&D in disruptive technologies.

Incentivising the Industry

India’s investment in R&D is very low when compared to other countries. As per the 2018 Economic Survey Report, in 2015 India spent $48.1 billion on R&D, which was 0.8% of the GDP and the country has 156 researchers per million of the population. In contrast, the US invested $479 billion which was 2.8% of the GDP, and has 4,231 researchers per million of the population, while China spent $371 billion, which was 2% of its GDP, and has 1,113 researchers per million of the population. Israel’s investment of $12.2 billion, while significantly less than India in absolute terms, was 4.8% of Israel’s GDP. It outperformed India, USA and China in the number of researchers per million of the population, with the number at 8,255 [2].

A related issue with Indian research is the disproportionate amount of money (over 60%) being spent on government R&D. A very high proportion of this goes to the DRDO, with not very encouraging results. In most countries producing state-of-the-art technologies, private investment into R&D far outstrips that by the government. Indian manufacturers need to increase their investment into R&D, and in turn need to be incentivised by the Government. However, despite modifications to the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) carried out by the Government over the years, the Industry has not thrown up any noteworthy defence technology success stories so far. The reasons for this, therefore, need to be analysed [3].

The Academia: Graduating from Consultants to Innovators

A close scrutiny of DPP 2016 shows that the role of the Academia is limited to providing advice, when co-opted on various committees/ panels. The underlying thought process appears to be that while the Industry which must form R&D partnerships with the Academia, the commercial interface for acquisitions with the MoD/ Services must be provided by the Industry.

This relegation of academic and research institutions (other than Government institutions such as the DRDO) to being a third party in technology development appears to be a fundamental flaw in the existing mechanisms to sponsor front-line research. It is felt that our premier technological/ research institutions hold the key to successful indigenous innovations in disruptive technologies. However, the existing eco-system for Defence R&D does not appear conducive for effectively tapping their potential.

The above scenario needs to be contrasted with, for instance, the methodology adopted by US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which directly partners with the Academia for innovative research. A sterling example of their approach for harnessing the potential of the Academia is their JUMP program. In this arrangement, DARPA, a consortium of industry partners, and several universities identified after thorough research, have come together to sponsor fundamental research in microelectronics technologies at the universities [4].

In the Indian Army, a mechanism for sponsoring research on defence technologies in our premier Academic institutions does exists in the form of the Army Technology Board (ATB), which earlier functioned under HQ Army Training Command (ARTRAC), and now operates under the wings of the Perspective Planning (PP) Directorate of the Army Headquarters, with its activities being coordinated by the Army Design Bureau (ADB). The ATB interacts directly with the IITs/ IISc, amongst other R&D agencies including the Industry, with the sole aim of developing new technologies and products required by the Army. However, the results achieved by the ATB ever since its inception have not been very encouraging, despite the eagerness often exhibited by the Academia to participate and deliver results in service of the Nation.

One of the ways in which the tremendous research potential of our academic institutions may be effectively utilised is by creating technology innovation centres within the academic institutions, jointly funded by the Defence Services and the Industry, and with continuous active participation from both these partners, especially the Services [5].

Services at the Fulcrum: Transformation with Specialisation

From the above discussion it emerges that we are in a situation where the DRDO’s delivery on the R&D front has been far from satisfactory, the Industry does not feel motivated enough to allocate resources and participate in defence projects, and we have not been able to tap the high potential which exists within our premier academic institutions to contribute towards fulfilling our defence technology needs. This leads to the suspicion that at least some of the reasons for these failures on multiple fronts in our efforts to harness defence technology might emanate from structural and functional deficiencies within the Defence Services.

The need for the Services to act as a fulcrum in the R&D process has been highlighted above. However, in order to play this role effectively, the Services need to undergo an internal transformation, as explained below:-

• Simply stated, the current R&D is ineffective because the scientists do not understand warfare, and the soldiers (in the right places) do not understand technology. Consequently, the desired interfaces between the Services on the one hand and the Industry and Academia on the other are not efficient enough to result in successful R&D. While making the scientists understand warfare may be an infeasible proposition in the Indian context, the reverse is not true, as there are enough soldiers who understand technology pretty well.
• The important role which technical specialists in the defence forces need to play for successfully harnessing the power of complex technologies, especially those which manifest in the information and cognitive domains, cannot be over-emphasized. This role commences at the stage of product conceptualization itself, and extends across all stages of R&D till successful fielding of the product, and even beyond. In contrast, for projects such as the main battle tank (MBT), the technical qualifications of the military project manager need be just sufficient to churn out the desired qualitative requirements.
• With the right organizational re-structuring and change in HRD policies by the Services, it would be possible to achieve the desired synergy in the R&D ecosystem. However, these steps will only be taken if the Services recognise the importance of nurturing a culture of specialisation. The seemingly innocuous requirement of ushering in such a culture, requiring not too many resources but essentially a change in mind-set as well as the will to follow it through, is perhaps the most daunting obstacle preventing successful defence R&D.
• Organisational re-structuring involves strengthening project management organisations (PMOs) in terms of both the quantity and quality of personnel, making the DRDO accountable to the Services, establishing incubation centres in our research institutions jointly manned by scientists and soldier scientists, and creating R&D institutions which are captive to the Services. On this critical issue, it is worth taking a cue from the manner in which the US DOD and its subordinate Services are structured to carry out defence R&D [6, 7].
• HRD policies must undergo significant modification to enable the creation of more streams of specialisation and super-specialisation, giving ownership of technology to specific technical arms/ services, providing multiple repeated tenures to specialists in vacancies related to their specialisation, getting the most talented soldiers to opt for specialisation, protecting their careers up to the highest ranks, life-cycle association of specialists to projects, and other such measures. Most of the measures listed here would be considered by most decision makers in uniform today as undesirable, for reasons which are beyond the scope of this work.
• More importantly, the powers that be are convinced that the above measures are not really needed. Indeed, the current conviction is that the task of the Armed Forces is merely to churn out qualitative requirements, which the R&D ecosystem (DRDO, Industry and Academia) must then convert to military systems, and it is this ecosystem which is unable to live up to the expectations of the Nation. This mental model has failed us miserably so far. Only transformative thinking by our military leadership can change the abysmal state of affairs of defence R&D in India [8].

Role of the Government

The Government, too, has a pivotal role to play in rejuvenating the defence R&D ecosystem, in the following areas: many of the measures listed above require government approval; only the Government can suitably incentivise the Industry and nudge the Academia towards undertaking defence R&D; and last but not the least, cutting edge R&D is impossible without adequate funding. Having said that, it is clear that none of the other stake-holders are motivated enough to push for transformative change, nor should they be expected to. That responsibility rests solely with the Armed Forces.

Concluding Remarks

This work has attempted to analyse whether India has been able to leverage disruptive military technologies well enough to address our national security concerns. At the outset, from amongst a whole spectrum of emerging military technologies, it identifies four critical technologies, namely, AI & robotics, quantum, nano and hypersonic weapon technologies, for assessing India’s performance in this area. Having arrived at the conclusion that we are presently far off the mark, this paper adopts an introspective approach with respect to the Armed Forces, aimed at rejuvenating our ailing military-industrial complex.

These measures call upon the Armed Forces to first of all provide strategic direction and establish operational needs for emerging disruptive technologies. Even more importantly, they need to expand their current role in defence R&D, which is largely restricted to churning our qualitative requirements, and act as a strong fulcrum through all stages of R&D. For this, it is imperative for them to undertake organisational restructuring based on a culture of specialisation.

Disruptive military technologies are, by definition, those which are expected to transform the nature of warfare. It follows therefrom that, in order to harness these technologies, the characteristics of our war-fighters must also undergo a change. Accepting this fact, and bringing about such a change, is by far the biggest challenge which we need to address while gearing up to fight wars in the Information Age.

References

(1)     Technology Perspective and Capability Roadmap (TPCR) – 2018, Ministry of Defence, Government of India, https://mod.gov.in/dod/news/technology-perspective-and-capability-roadmap-tpcr-2018-0, accessed 19 Jun 2018.

(2)     Transforming Science and Technology in India, Economic Survey Report 2018 Vol I Chapter 8, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, pp. 119-130.

(3)     Defence Procurement Policy 2016, Ministry of Defence, Government of India, 2016, pp.191-240.

(4)     U.S. Electronics Innovation Leaps Forward Via Joint University Microelectronics Program, News and Events, Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, US Department of Defence, 17 Jan 2018, https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2018-01-17, accessed 17 Jun 2018

(5)     Lt Gen (Dr) R S Panwar, Artificial Intelligence in Military Operations- A Raging Debate and Way Forward for the Indian Armed Forces, Pub. Vij Books India Pvt Ltd, Accessed 12 May 2020, https://www.amazon.in/Artificial-Intelligence-Military-Operations-Forward/dp/9388161122.

(6)     Fact Sheet: Communications-Electronics RDE Centre, US Army RDECOM Website, https://www.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/419768.pdf, accessed 12 May 2020.

(7)     Fact Sheet: Army Research Laboratory, US Army RDECOM Website, https://www.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/-419767.pdf, accessed 12 May 2020.

(8)     Ibid.