Not surprisingly, today, India has the third largest Army, the fourth largest Air Force and the seventh largest Navy in the world. India is fifth on the list of the world’s biggest military spenders. Further, given changing geopolitical considerations, Defence remains a critical sector from the perspective of national security and the government is well aligned in its goal to develop a high degree of self-reliance in Defence, as in other sectors.
Currently, the country is at the right juncture to build a vibrant local defence industry ecosystem that could support both domestic and export demand. With a mix of defence public sector undertakings and private companies, as well as research capabilities and manufacturing set-ups, India has a huge defence industrial base. This provides an excellent opportunity to build and/or scale up an industrial base centred on indigenous manufacturing. Co-creation and subsequent manufacturing for India and for the world, is a goal we can aspire to achieve in this sector. However, if we need to accelerate the pace of indigenization, we perhaps need a quantum leap in the way it is approached.
India today has the width and the weight to invest in co-creation programmes through collaboration with willing global players with the goal to co-develop relevant technologies and IP in critical areas. With a co-owned IP in areas of strategic importance, not only can India commercialize production locally, but also use its base to become a global supplier and exporter of defence technologies.
A co-development and co-creation led strategy would be attractive to global players at both Government to Government as well as Government to Global Private sector level. A shared research and development programme will distribute the risks among the parties, and if the outcome is breakthrough innovation, the rewards could be significant for all. There are several examples of such a model thriving in this part of the world, such as the UK-Japan co-development program for joint air-to-air missiles, UK-Singapore collaboration to co-develop new technologies that will power the future of aircraft propulsion, better counter-terrorism measures and a more efficient military logistics system.