India’s Comprehensive National Power: Is Bharat Ready? • #TheGunnersSight

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: good evening and welcome to this joint session of p gurus and guna short once again today sri ayur ji is away he is on some personal you know trip so i am standing in for him and today we are going to talk about india's comprehensive national power and the question before us is barat ready barat is ready for what the current situation where it is or where it is going forward and that's what we are going to examine and joining me in today are two new participants not exactly new but two younger participants two younger gunners and i'd like to welcome them in uh yeah let's welcome yeah here comes colonel rajiv agarwal and general abe dayal uh colonel rajiv agarwal was there last week with me in uh you know the gunner site general abe dayal is just joined in he's recently retired and he's one of the brightest parks i've come across from a long time i still remember getting him the best student prize in the long country staff course you know when he was a young captain and i was just about to take over my unit those days it's it's good that he's here and this today what we are going to do is we're going to tread new a new ground and and we also get filling a new ground with uh the next generation right when i say next generation board general rajiva uh colonel rajiv agarwal and general abe dayal are actually my next generation so and we need to get fresh ideas coming in and i'm very happy that you know the gunners have joined in and we're going to make this stronger as we go along right with this let's talk about india's comprehensive national power and the question is is barat ready look we all know that india is going to be the fastest growing economy not now quite some time even for a decade or so and that's what it is and as china is declining usa has gone into its own problems and with wars all around and things like that it's important for us to understand the global scenario and what i'd request both of you is to first give this outline of a global scenario where we're going to you know exist geopolitically and in that what are the metrics of our national power comprehensive national power and and then where do you think we're going to go ahead and how do you think we up uh national power will grow or reduce but i think it will grow right it's a matter uh this thing and what should we do to you know uh you know overcome is salient weaknesses which are there i mean let's not fool ourselves india has its weaknesses and we need to be honest about it with this i'll first request colonel rajiv agarwal because he has to leave at 8 30 for another uh you know commitment of his let him talk and then we'll [00:03:05] Rajiv Agarwal: get to uh abe dayal rajiv over to you thank you sir thank you for uh giving me this opportunity and today sir the topic that we are discussing on the subject it is a very vast uh you know canvas uh that uh can be covered and why i felt uh when i wrote this piece on comprehensive national power was because uh we keep on uh discussing or focusing on singular threads so sometimes we are focusing on india's economic growth sometimes we are focusing on how india's securing its energy then we come to how india's you know proving itself as a rising military power and a global military power both in terms of capability as also in terms of you know defense production and self-reliance and at other times we talk of other things whether it is diplomacy or foreign policy etc but uh in that sir what i felt that we do not get the complete picture and to get the complete picture we need to have a canvas where we can thread each of these important factors which totally in cumulative form uh you know bring about a picture as far as what is the national power of a nation so that is where this idea it had been going on in my mind for a long time but you know it took time for you can take it off for a subject yeah please continue so uh so uh that that was the background to it and like you said setting the scenario so we don't have to go too far uh uh in a time even if we start from uh 2020 i mean this present decade so much has happened in this uh six years of this decade that it is almost pushing uh you you know uh the uh previous times uh into irrelevance if we just take these six years and just to give you a few of the examples covet 19 happened which just devastated the entire world and people had to find ways how to counter it how to you know come out of the isolation etc then before we could come out completely of the covet 19 uh warfare i mean the covet 19 pandemic the russia ukraine war broke off in february 2022 which disrupted everything that was there especially in the european sector which was as it is finding a very difficult and it was like a period of turmoil after covet and then suddenly we find ourselves in the west asian conflict starting in 23 where against the run of play in the initial part of 23 everything was going gungho as far as west asia was concerned whether the saudi iran peace deal etc but suddenly the gaza war broke out and then with russia ukraine theater and the west asian theater we found that the entire uh you know world west of india was getting a conflict uh prone embroiled in the conflict and that had direct implications on how india was interacting with the balance of the world and growth and before we could realize what how to go about everything the operation sindoor happened when uh as a result of the uh you know uh terror attack so in these last six years itself so much has happened which has affected the entire world but one thing i realized was that amongst every thing if you pitch each of these events against how each of the countries in the world has reacted or you know come out of it india seems to uh fear better than others covet 19 india you know that vaccine in metri program or exported i would say uh you know helped more than 110 countries encountering the covet uh pandemic in russia ukraine war we were virtually you know isolated but because of our uh strategic autonomy and the policy of securing a national interest we remained uh and continued to buy the russian oil in gaza war again you know uh despite the fact that state of hormones was not blocked they were uh impacts but india maintained a very fine balancing policy you know uh giving a rap on the knuckle on israel whenever there were uh civilian casualties at the same time maintaining a very cogent position on the palestinian issue and the most important thing that i have found which triggered me to write this was the iran war iran war and the closure of straight of hormones has brought the world energy security and the economy at large at a very very high risk scenario but which is the country which is still doing well and has not been largely impacted by this energy crisis again you come to the same conclusion it is india for the first few weeks and months india uh found it very difficult to you know get its oil supplies and the energy supplies in order but diversified very soon sir and by the end of may both in the month of june and july we have been able to import five million barrels per day which is our energy requirement because we diversified uh uh the resources sources from which we get and so the predominance of gulf giving is the oil has been overcome to a large extent so when we thread all these things i find that india has done reasonably well although we cannot say that you know india is on top because there are like you said in your opening remark there are a number of weaknesses and vulnerabilities which will have to answer or overcome before we can be seen as marching on the growth path towards uh becoming a developed economy by 2047 but that for that we have got 20 years and the if we are able to identify these vulnerabilities and maintain a sustained path i'm sure you'll be able to uh you know go ahead on that coming to comprehensive national parser i think i i did a quite a bit of research both on the western media as well as others so there were basically eight factors major factors which were being considered by most of the scholars and strategic analysts in that and those are economy of a nation military power and capability governance and leadership knowledge education and information then science and technology and innovation then human resource and last but not the least very very important geography and natural resources and there is one institute sir which carries out a very holistic mathematical modeling of this uh uh thing comprehensive national power that is the lawy institute in australia and they they analyze these eight factors across many more sub factors which amount to more than 110 in in a total and then they carry out this mathematical model and as per that mathematical model india stood third in 2025 among the uh uh committee of nations behind us and china although i must say here that india being third is a factor of only the mathematical numbers the gap between second and third is quite a bit so us was at i think 75 or 79 points out of 100 china was at 70 71 and then india was third at 40 40.1 percent or something so the gap is huge but the trajectory is in the positive direction and as we go along and discussing each of the threads we'll be able to find out what where we have gone uh we have where we have done well and where we need to do better [00:10:39] Speaker 1: yeah so what do you see going ahead where where do you see our thing going because i'll i'd like to finish with you before i get to abe all right and uh how do you see and what do you what do you think are the drawbacks in our comprehensive national power and how do you see them making being made up [00:10:58] Rajiv Agarwal: uh so uh basically uh if we talk of economy we have been able to sustain an economic growth of about 6.5 percent for last two three years and imf projection say that we will still remain the fastest going economy for the coming years so sustaining a growth of 6.5 percent is not difficult for india because with the consumption economy of 1.4 billion almost 3 percent gdp is acquired only by the domestic consumption economy but this 6.5 percent growth is not going to be sufficient because of two reasons this growth will not get us to the target of a developed economy in 204 because it will not raise the par capita income plus the drawback is that the manufacturing base and the export base remains uh quite low so till that time the export and manufacturing and export is dependent not only on manufacturing but also the quality of manufacturing we've heard number of stories uh you know coming out over the years where indian manufactured ghosts have been not been found up to the mark by the countries or the entities which have imported and sometimes they have been rejected so this is one thing that i think we have to focus on that as we move along the manufacturing as well as the quality both have to grow then only the exports will grow then only the economy will get that a boost which is required to uh get onto the path of you know a developed economy and a better per capita income the second thing is uh what i what i would classify under the head of science and technology so you know uh we have been we have become more of a science servicing economy rather than science developing economy and uh what i wrote was i mean uh uh we can keep uh uh sending our uh engineers or doing innovations uh uh in small manner but till that time we are able to uh have a equivalent of a google or a meta or some kind of a global uh you know uh it or uh that kind of a company we are not going to be there at that pedestal where we are looking at ourselves same goes for semiconductor and high tech right now we are fabricating assembling the semiconductor but most of the material and the semi-prepared products from uh abroad mostly china till that time we are able to reduce their dependency on that it is not going to you know get us to a level where we are looking at so whether it is science and technology innovations economy coming to the military i mean we have we have made huge strides from where we were in mid 2000 tends to uh right now especially on the factor of self-reliance and the factor of defense manufacturing the private players coming in is has been a huge boost as also now that india started exporting defense products however small i mean even if we leave out some niche items like bramos etc even if small ammunition or components are being exported that figure that has been given by the government of 39 000 crore is no mean feat for a defense economy which india was but again like i said we have to move uh faster and reach the goal where we are not dependent on it and to me the most vulnerable part of the service in that is the air force where we are running short of not only the number of aircrafts and squadron but also not finding the right combination or the right uh you know uh answer to our requirement of fourth fifth and even the sixth generation aircraft mostly because even i mean i'm not a technical expert on air air aspect but i think two things are keeping us behind one is the avionics the electronics and the engine and and both these things we are reliant on foreign companies and entities which uh like the tejas uh mark one a is lagging behind because we are not getting the g404 engine so these are some of the aspects uh we need to you know keep uh doing well population we have got the best best advantage in the world as of now we got a median age of 29 uh years and 64 percent which is the working age population against a global uh you know trend where the population is aging and the working population is no longer available in countries especially the western countries so how we exploit and utilize this dividend which is going to be there for with us for next 20 years is most important we may be doing well as far as education is concerned despite all the tamasha that happened uh has happened because of the uh paper leakage etc but stem education is you know improving we we are having foreign universities coming in and our iits and ims you know setting up campuses abroad our medical uh you know issues are becoming better the infant mortality and the maternal mortality rates are going down all these are positive indicators but can we say that we are there the answer is no because there's a huge road which has to be traversed before we can reach to the place uh where we can say so i i mean these are some of the things that come straight to the uh mind that i could say [00:16:23] Speaker 1: well thanks a lot i'll get now abe and yeah over to you abe your views in this whole business of comprehensive national power the global scene as you see it and everything like uh over to you [00:16:35] Speaker 3: uh thank you sir uh in fact uh rajiv as a as a very wonderful uh researcher has laid down the entire exploded version of the whole aspect which we were discussing today so i would like to get down to very basic level and to say that we as a country are standing at a very inflection point in our history today and we are no more merely a country with of immense potential we always used to keep talking that india's next century is india's century and we are we have immense potential we have to realize it and things like that we are increasingly becoming country of consequence and and we have seen this in the you know uh fastest growing one of the fastest growing major economy as rajiv just said we are a pioneer in digital public infrastructure which a lot of uh you know countries we we keep on seeing regularly videos of various foreign diplomats coming in you know buying a cup of tea or something or a you know a plate of pakoras from a street vendor and paying through a upi and things like that so i think our digital public infrastructure is a model for the world and we have immersed amidst the as a war around us as an anchor of stability as an anchor of stability in increasingly volatile multipolar world we are having a very unique position of sitting in all the three blocks so to say and you know uh we have a choice of uh choice of you know going along or not going along with any of them so and our diplomatic space is also uh expanded remarkably and and through multi alignment and our strategic economy and things like that so i feel that this is the time when india like since you asked the question about where do we see bharat at this juncture i feel and like rajiv has also said that we have we have we are sitting at a very very uh advantageous position we are sitting at a very very uh benign position at this moment but when we talk of our comprehensive national power and like rajiv listed out all those eight uh factors in which the low institute considers that we possess almost every ingredient of national power in good measure very good measure and a little less measure be it demography or our geography where we sit as a as a strategic location at the intersection of the indo-pacific we are sitting there and rapidly expanding economy largest growing economy economy i think uh some estimates said that till 2030 will be the largest fastest growing economy our technological capabilities our military strength which has been adequately uh witnessed during operation sindur and any other uh operations our diplomatic reach our ours is a vibrant democracy cultural influence our soft power and so on i could continue naming them and we are you know we are very happy thinking that yes we have all these aspects all these attributes to our country but comprehensive national power in my view cannot be measured simply by the size of our economy or the strength of our armed forces or our population you know or or if they are their median age is uh 29 or 39 it can only be measured by our ability to convert these attributes into influences into resilience and into strategic outcomes so we now have to identify if we are able to do this or not yes we have got the raw material but are we converting it into into influence because like like i said our country is making consequences these days so comprehensive national power cannot be measured simply by this you know these factors we need to see what we are doing to harness it to take it to the next level so it will depend on how we convert our economic growth into technological leadership our our demography into uh the demographic strength or the demographic demographic dividend we keep talking off into human capital by skilling our uh our population making them um you know employment ready and so on so forth our military capability how do we take it to the next level to make it into a credible deterrence so that our our enemies uh you know not not you know um are not able uh looking into our eyes and saying by this is a country which we need to be careful of and and a diplomatic goodwill into our strategic influence so i think uh this comes in the top of my mind as our top priority in our public policy framework today and our action plan as on today if we have to look at our comprehensive national power we i can keep talking about uh what are our shortcomings what are our um and what do we need to do which i think uh possibly after intervention we can continue on it sir [00:21:19] Speaker 1: okay so thanks a lot for your views but let me put in and a few issues and we can discuss these also see first and foremost this issue of comprehensive national power if i go back in time is a chinese construct there was nothing like called china you know comprehensive national power say about 15 years back i never heard it suddenly one fine day the chinese came out why did they come out with this you know how to understand this they came out with this because they framed this concept of chinese comprehensive national power as it suited them as it suited their narrative of growth to say that we are going to be number one you know it's part of their narrative and no one knew what this comprehensive national power was until last year the australians came out with that in their report and they've said india's number three and you know like uh karl rajiv said there's a big difference between one two and three and then but what's the difference between three and four it's again huge so why what does it tell you if you read this report carefully on those eight metrics which they had put out right the gap between one and two is good huge the gap between two and three is also big and the gap between three and four is also big after four everyone is in a punch right now you ought to see this against something else so i'll go back in history and you have to understand this in the global context see when around uh 2000 2000 maybe 2000 up to 2010 even up to 2020 what what does the global seem like you had afghanistan war going on right the precursor to what is happening in between russia and ukraine had started 2014 minsk agreement to you know 2014 krimia problem had started and all that and that there was a virtually a war out there only thing is we didn't know it as a war but there was a problem europe knew it was getting into trouble okay and you saw the uh you know americans were deeply involved in afghanistan india was completely consumed by pakistan in that period okay completely we were having a handful from 20 to now so many incidents happened okay attack on our parliament and this and that and everything so we never had time for this comprehensive national power and all that or develop anything we were only virtually we were looking at how to stem the tide from pakistan at that point of time what was china doing china was enjoying a peace dividend it was standing away from the rest of the global turmoil and quietly bringing up its national strength not comprehensive national power its national strength in terms of modernizing its military in terms of you know improving its trade in terms of making good its manufacturing i would say that first 20 years of the century was the sweet spot for china you have to understand this but intrinsically in this sweet sweet spot for china there were a couple of problems for china and that is something which people have to understand before this itself the one child policy was biting into them the demographic decline had started they came out with it last year that they finally accepted but within china everyone knew we're going they're going to decline they didn't have idea as to how fast they're going to decline their decline was foretold by themselves if you read the chinese versions of their thing it is very clear and the second is that politics which i spoke of yesterday china was becoming too market oriented for the chinese communist party to be comfortable so they turned right right this was in 2017 19th party congress where xi jinping did a hard left turn and then he broke alibaba that and group shares then he broke the fintech system the educational technology broke and the property bubble also broke now as this was happening you are right this sweet spot in which china was was vanishing wolf warriorism came cobit came like what general what kanal rajiv said and the trust which or the expectation from china started vanishing turning into distrust its periphery which was completely dependent on china was going against it and to the extent today though china has claimed that south china sea and all they overextended every day they're having problems with philippines over three shoals out there they're not able to move forward people say they'll come to malacca and all i don't think they've got a hands full and they suddenly realize that they're not a military power they thought they were that's the first thing so you see now in the past five six years actually india has moved into that sweet spot of what china is because today you see china is overextended struggling in south china sea and its demography and its demography and internal problems they're in a mess usa is stuck in iran iran west asia everything is in a topsy-turpy world europe russia is in another mess right and if you go into africa and the wars of the sahel you'll see a whole lot of bloodshed there so which is that particular country which is progressing without any full you know with the command full stop india and this will continue for the next five years six years if you don't and thankfully pakistan after sindhu has piped down and pakistan has got its own problems today pakistan is a dead duck virtually economically it cannot revive militarily also it there's some funny things going on there without getting sucked into pakistan if you look at it this is our sweet spot and we put china in its place militarily we put pakistan in its face militarily there's no foreseeable war coming no one can invade us from you know anywhere else so we have this thing to move forward so that is the one major thing one has to understand whether you call it comprehensive military power or not or comprehensive national power as per which metric it doesn't matter the second thing which is very important to understand for all of us is you know we saw we keep talking of viksit Bharat gdp and growth rates and this and that and all the metrics of power and all my definition of viksit Bharat is the poorest indian the day the poorest indian has you know has you know uh sardak bisley uh you know and uh what's that sardak bisley and uh i'm forgetting it okay right and he's got roti kapda and makan the six parameters if he has yeah sardak bisley pani roti kapda makan these six parameters of the poorest indian has we have developed there is doesn't matter because everyone else was above that how do we are able to lift him to that level will be the metric by which we are powerful if you see all over the world the country which has the inner strength is the more powerful nation always right that is something which is almost immutable okay now what i'll do is uh i i you know went before before coming here i was fiddling around with ai and i asked ai about india's comprehensive national power where is it going and all and i got some nice little answers can i have the slide up please i'll explain to you uh yeah see this this is the thing they the ai this is the ai thing with very nice attractive it's a rising global power india because of its strategic cultural and economic influence they're using the word influence right yeah is also what it's a conglomeration of a distillation of thoughts which have come all over you know from various articles and then it says it's an economic power with the largest population which points have been made fifth largest economy soon to be the third tech and digital innovation in military and space major armed forces nuclear and space capabilities indigenous defense industry and this i would add your nuclear capability your indigenous nuclear capability indigenous it's not only defense space missile and nuclear make a huge power block very few countries have then you have soft power and talent bollywood global diaspora top scientists and all that which is there g20 and global diplomacy g20 brick squad voice of the global south which you know both my co-panelists have spoken about but equally this says there are some national limitations we have challenges to overcome we have problems of economy technology and governance hurdles there's no doubt about it okay what are those you have a low per capita income poverty inequality corruption issues technology gap uh you know that's major we lack in r d we have weak technique technological infrastructure and we are behind china and us that's okay that's not a great thing well it doesn't matter whom you are behind the metric for me is that we can change it right then you have diplomatic uh limits uh the ai says few few global alliances but i think that's our strength their ability to operate with anyone so it's the way you look at it many of these things are the way you look at it regional tensions basically pakistan and china right inconsistent foreign policy fine take it for what it's worth and then you have infrastructure wars poor public services aging infrastructure urban challenges we know that and we're doing many things in fact today if anything we are the fastest growing in the world the fastest growth of infrastructure is today in india okay but that is not the issue the key issues are this look india has to take a call if you want to be a power of consequence with great comprehensive national power whether you want to be a vixit bharat or a surakshita bharat or arakshita bharat all three things are connected if you don't find the balance between these three you are in a problem today you are this is out of balance we've seen what's happening in jarkand what happened in that cockroach party are you you know spending enough into your defense is a question mark we don't have a national strategy we don't have a national strategy for development you it's okay to say vixit bharat but do you have a strategy to get that vixit bharat or clear roadmap some fuzzy things are there i want to be ai power this and that without thing there is somewhere some roadmap is there but are we all in harmony with that or security security is a big black hole and if you want to be a the third largest accord with great comprehensive national power you have to think beyond india india has that capability i keep saying this the sovereignty and uh integrity of india the territorial integrity of india we can handle with what we have in terms of armed forces power and all that our our problem is can we go overseas can you project your power across we've started doing it it's not as if you're not we've already started projecting power into the south china sea in some indirect manner right we can but do you have it are you doing it as a better strategy or you're doing it inorganically that's the thing if you do it organically good if you're not doing you're doing it in a sporadic or inorganic manner there's a problem then our political leadership we are divided and uninspiring that's our history our political leadership look you have mr modi who's given a whole lot of things but he's not the only person if there's a cabinet is that cabinet in sync with it are they going are they inspiring people or is it just that they're just parroting what the leader says or for that matter is the opposition in opposition just for the sake of being an opposition to oppose whatever is done and are they pulling the whole thing back farm laws look at what happened in the farm laws the farm laws was something which was piloted by the opposition when they were in power it was blocked by the opposition then which is today in power so when the formulas came up by this current thing the same opposition the guys who made this farm laws initially came back to block it so this tit for tat political vendetta will not leave us take us anywhere and we need to be honest about this unless our political leadership can get over the hump it's going to be difficult we lack strategic communication then that was quite evident during obsendur and beyond also even now at the national level we don't know how to convey what we are good at or armed forces are disintegrated you can't continue in an untheaterized manner for all these years i mean we've done it in 19 you know 2020 22 2000 uh you know the present uh foreign minister's father mr cape subramaniam he his committee the cargill review committee said we should have a theater commander 25 years have gone and still no theater commander and we're still debating whether we should have one or not i mean that's the thing that's it both our panelists have said scientific and technological approach we lack how do you bring it and the last thing is our willingness to apply national power when required we have a lot of power are we willing to apply it on ground that's the that's the problem which uh you know we face right so i thought i'll put all these some of these some of these we have done in a manner some of these we might not have done and there are more i mean this is a huge subject but i thought these were the key subjects right so before i go for questions abe i'd like your views on some of these or anything more which has come to your mind on you know in the course of the past half an hour yeah so yeah so so [00:37:11] Speaker 3: what i think is that when we are looking at the comprehensive national power and we look at these metrics uh what we need to do is to actually dissect and see as to what are the problems we are facing like the biggest thing is that when we keep up to keep talking of science and technology the biggest thing is that our uh in our investment into r d is actually pittance you know our uh investment in r d is just 0.7 of the gdp and if we compare it with the countries like israel which puts in about six percent south korea which puts in about 5.2 percent and the united states about 3.4 percent of the gdp and imagine the size of the gdp of united states and 3.4 percent of that is such a huge one and just five days back so on the fifth of uh august in the times of india on the cover uh leaf there was an article in which it said that the government is putting in 54.5 percent if i don't if i remember correctly and the uh private sources are putting only 39.7 percent uh into the r d while as in these countries which i just mentioned outside the public uh involvement that the government's uh investment is much lesser just in in the range of about 25 percent and the private industry is putting in a lot of money so the point is that i know in r d everything cannot succeed so there has to be a lot of sunk cost but to be able to bear that sunk cost is what is uh required right now so if we do not put in money into an r d we'll keep remember remaining uh an importing army like for example in case we are talking of defense technology we are importing uh till very recently we were the number one it's a very very bad distinction but we were number one at 11 of the world's arms share today of course we have come down behind ukraine uh at 8.3 percent uh but but it's not a very big uh thing so first thing when we talk of science and technology i think r d investment is a very important thing the next thing is that we may be considered as a you know a very large economy we may be considered as this i mean of course we had reached fourth in nominal uh terms in our gdp but now we have slid down to fifth and now sixth and we are third in the purchasing power parity and everything but the problem is not the size of our economy the problem is our uh per capita we are 149th globally with less than 300 dollars per per capita income which we have so when we have a larger base but it thins down when it comes to per capita and because of our population it's a no-brainer so the point is that the are we able to give that individual those six uh basics which you just talked of we are not so i think that is another important thing is that that we have got the uh industry gap because of r d we've got a per capita income which is very less we have got a large security problem because of our extended coastline and you know we always do remember that it our coastline is about some some 7500 kilometers now with the latest survey uh measures it has been found out that our coastline is something more than 11 000 kilometers so we have to guard that with our national with our cap uh island territories and everything then there are a lot of economic drags on our this thing uh which which all of us are aware of so the point is that in case we understand that what are the shortcomings which we face as a nation and only then the larger indices will not only put us to that path we need to identify our civic sense our large population our skilling you see our demographic dividend we talk of we've got a young population and all that but in case we do not skill our that that young population so called it can become like a time bomb it can become like a you know a very negative thing rather than becoming a positive positive thing for us so when in public policy discourse when we are talking of it we must identify these aspects and look at how do we uh you know uh identify these so possibly these are the few things which i identified and with the list which you had just shown sir and possibly uh with your intervention thereafter we can look into what all we should do to possibly take ourselves into that line of uh you know uh to a [00:41:30] Speaker 1: stronger comprehensive national power so to say sir yeah thanks a lot i think you put everything across quite well uh we'll take a few questions because we'll entertain a lot of them and through the questions we'll be able to answer many more yeah can we have the questions please yeah okay thanks a lot abhishek for your contribution uh also yeah what is this kalishnikov d kalishnikov thanks a lot again for your contribution yeah next please and we are becoming a youtube member thank you and mary kane thanks a lot for your contribution madam and sir don't you think we need to improve our power projection capabilities we can easily be the regional power in the indian ocean region and south asia region with our economic and military heft but we are always reactive yeah over to you a bit well it's a very uh logical question [00:42:34] Speaker 3: and i don't deny only thing is that the national um uh you know what is the thought process which we have at a nation's level are we an exploratory army like uh you know anything happening anywhere in the world you will find when the united states forces are there uh they can be there in afghanistan they are there in iran they are now in the strait of hormuz our concern and our national uh you know ethos is that our military is for guarding our our sovereignty of our nation we are we have never been an exploratory army or you know going out so if that is the concept which we follow the strength wise uh we are we are becoming a very uh good uh a very good army in this army army forces actually but the aim is to keep the sovereignty of our country in place so yes uh while we can go ahead and do a power projection in the indo-pacific and all that we are in any case our navy is doing but the point is that we are not wanting to go in and you know capture somebody else's land or capture somebody else's sea bases or something like that or make a you know nine dash eleven dash line or something to say that this is my area nobody else can come in or you know uh not allow freedom of navigation uh in these in the in the indo-pacific or something like that that's not our aim our aim is to have a strong military so that it can have a deterrence capability it can have capability to guard our borders and guard our sea lanes of communication and also guard our uh the coastal areas as well as our island territories so i think that is uh the reason why we uh what you're saying uh can be done but is not being done yeah next question please ask experts [00:44:22] Speaker 1: how long will the u.s and other nations trouble us to derail us yeah [00:44:30] Speaker 3: that of course you should ask them but yes there is a lot of effort which we see uh overtly and covertly uh trying to derail us but um you see the point is that nobody likes somebody else to come in competition and with india being the largest democracy and we gaining our economic heft military heft and all that thing there would be there would be uh people countries who try to derail us so to say how long will they do it they'll continue doing it the point is that we need to find our ways and means how to you know to guard against that and uh be on our path what we have laid for ourselves [00:45:13] Speaker 1: yeah yeah this is directly to you uh i want your views on india versus china comprehensive national power how much are we behind the ms1 you are amitesh is a guy who's who is you know enamored by china he doesn't believe that china is going on so you that's how it is yeah see the point is uh yeah so [00:45:35] Speaker 3: like uh uh kal rajiv before he left he had also mentioned that the um the uh comprehensive national power index index which the lowey foundation has worked out in which the usa was number one and china was number two and we were number three at a very very large gap maybe i think 20 or 30 points gap is there but like uh jen shankar also mentioned that you know these uh aspects the number game is not a very rightful uh this thing for uh you know to to discuss you know a lot of uh indices which we hear how how happy is a country how much freedom of press is there so this is one of those numbers yes we see china has uh gained i mean in it had a you know unstoppable economy for many many years decades actually but the point is that the china has slowed down china is on the decline india is on the other hand on the rise to say that we are in direct competition in terms of comprehensive national power with china or with united states or anyone who's number four trying to get into number three it is not we have to find our own path we have to find our own trajectory we need to know as to what is good for us and we have to work towards that the first step towards that is to identify our own weaknesses and it necessarily not happen to say that what are the weaknesses of china or somebody else that we should avoid we have our own set of problems we have our own set of challenges we have our own set of shortcomings so we need to look at that and we need to improve our condition rather than only gazing at china or gazing at usa or gazing at anyone else so yes uh in terms of numbers quantifying if you see we are much behind china uh the numbers uh number game if we take it that way we are we are definitely there but are we looking at only competing so that we beat china by lesser and lesser margin and then we can overtake them no i don't think that is the aim the aim is that we need to improve our comprehensive [00:47:38] Speaker 1: national power as is in context for us yeah you also must understand uh you know that uh the comprehensive national power of iran in those metrics of the louis institute will be absolutely at rock bottom okay it is at rock bottom but if you see what iran is doing to usa and the entire gulf is something completely different so you must understand the comprehensive national power is a number and that number won't feed people it won't fight battles you know it will not you know fight disasters it will not do many things which are needed to keep people in good nick the number game if you get caught and these numbers can be manipulated so that's why i said this comprehensive national power is a dangerous narrative and so leave it at that okay next so in addition to raising gdp the ongoing process of the census woman reservation electoral sIR looks of our deal limitations are all steps to strengthen barat's comprehensive national power your views [00:49:01] Speaker 3: yeah you want me to uh so uh sir what i feel is that yes every every small step which we take internally makes us strong externally you see all these things of you know contribution earlier uh contribution of women in our uh policy and decision making the the concern of you know uh there was a lot of uh thing about this the the sir the people of uh the the the foreigners who have who would uh immigrated or migrated for uh you know various political reasons into our country all these things weaken us and if we are doing all these small little actions to strengthen ourselves from within i think all this will lead us to become strengthened from without from outside so i think yes everything which we do to strengthen ourselves whether it be increasing the civic sense it's a small little thing like having civic sense the the thing has started off you know there was a lot of laughter and a lot of a lot of uh you know rebuking uh uh uh people saying that we should we are focusing on making toilets you know and there was there was a movie also made and there were a lot of uh you know thing but yes cleanliness having a sanitation drive having civic sense the the uh the cleanliness competition between the cities etc has started why are all these things happening because these are the things which we had forgotten these are the things which we are not we were not focusing adequately or enough so if we do all these things these may look like a political issue but all these issues are there to strengthen ourselves from within so i feel yes it uh if we look at it we can look at the comprehensive national power in this because we are still [00:50:45] Speaker 1: getting strengthened we are getting powerful it is a comprehensive national park yeah will us use nukes on iran [00:50:55] Speaker 3: i personally well i don't think no no no you see the point is the only country which has used nukes only country which has used nukes in the history is united states and the kind of backlash which they have got for that is uh you know i don't think usa or for that matter i believe very very uh firmly that no country despite having the nuclear weapons will ever use nuclear weapons these weapons are not for war fighting these weapons are a means of deterrence and uh only for you know yeah okay okay uh your next [00:51:29] Speaker 1: question uh i see the army and navy playing a very active role in tech and platform development why not so from air force what's the difference and why is this situation your views yeah this i can say [00:51:44] Speaker 3: with very very great confidence because you know um i was in the acquisition wing in the ministry of defense for three years before i superannuated now the point is which in fact uh rajiv also mentioned before he left the in the air force it is a very very niche technology in the sense uh we have we are not manufacturing aero engines although a lot of efforts have started off recently but we are not and there are very few uh com you know companies in the world or nations which are into aircraft engines so this is a very very major shortcoming in which because of which the like safran brett and whitney a few of these companies are only making aircraft engines for the entire world the second is about avionics so while india has got a very good grip on the electronics and you know coding and all that yet avionics is a specialized field which we are still not where we are supposed to be for you know for advanced fighter aircrafts yes we are making aircrafts we are making helicopters we are making we have made pages fighter aircraft and all those things but the kind of requirement which we have for five and a half or six generation aircraft those kind of avionics we are still not into it while as for the for the land forces and for the navy navy actually had been uh is a very good example because they started very long back and even in the iits and iit daily etc there are uh they had opened up departments of warship designing and things like that which are now coming off asian and giving us the good dividends and we are making all our all our naval platforms in india and a lot of larger uh land platforms like the tanks and the artillery guns we've recently given orders for the artillery guns from the from indian sources from bharat forge and tata and so this is what the difference is and i'm very sure that in times to come we will also reach there in the aircraft but that's the comparison uh why we are not there in the aircraft design and manufacture as we are in the land system [00:53:46] Speaker 1: and the sea systems yeah what is the power projection strategy that india has oh well very simply we don't do power projection but we are prepared for out of area contingencies please remember there's a difference between power projection and out of area contingencies power projection is to make your presence felt far away out of area contingencies is not territorial but in the indian ocean region if there's a problem we react to it and right not only indian ocean region many places for example we've done disaster management many places evacuation of indian personnel from far away yemen and beyond or even from wuhan we got people back from china we responded to emergent situations and we develop i mean we contribute a lot to the un right and to that extent if you see power projection in a very indirect manner we project our power through the un forum not directly so we leave it at that you have to understand we don't do power projection that's not a national capable that's what they also said a little while back we are not someone to go and you know grab someone's territory we don't know to become the policeman of the world and things like that yeah so next question will pakistan do something oh yeah do you think they can do or will [00:55:12] Speaker 3: do it yeah it's anybody's guess but you see the point is like general shankar just mentioned that they've got subdued after operation sindoor despite trying to make to the tell to the world that they have won the thing and like he also mentioned about the economy you see what we have is in a management term we call as something called as a dime paradigm in which diplomacy information military economy everything comes into place so we have to they were only fighting the information battle which of course now the the proofs are there and the satellite images are there which is showing uh them in bad light to say that yes they have lost very comprehensively but at the same time uh to say that they will do something something can be a bad action on the border to uh you know a larger incursion or whatever like that so they keep doing some pinpricks here and there which they will keep doing because they've got uh uh you know to have the relevance of their military they need to keep doing something otherwise the military will be rejected by their nation so the point is that will they do something large and big if they do then they'll they'll face the consequences i can only say and i'm not a you know a fortune teller who can say that will pakistan do something or not but yes we have to be prepared for it and like uh our people have said that operation sindoor has just been suspended for a while it has not been uh it's not over [00:56:32] Speaker 1: yeah all i'll say is you know pakistan will do something it's it's actually doing something that's called collective suicide we'll leave it at that okay next uh with respect to the recent mecca agreement if we have to project our power if a relatively far away power tries to collude with our enemies are we capable of punishing it not because we want to conquer but as a deterrent [00:56:58] Speaker 3: yeah i feel that you know yeah i'll just take a small shot at it sir please read about this mecca agreement saudi arabia turkey and pakistan coming together and saying that a war against one will be war or against everyone or nothing you know they it's got some uh cosmetic value definitely the point is that the are we capable of taking care of uh if there's anything which is there that's the most important thing which we which we realize with the reach of our navy with the reach of our aircrafts we dev and of course we're looking at only a pakistan then we are definitely able to take care of this particular thing in case something adverse happens against us so i feel that you know these these um uh in bilateral trilateral uh sort of agreements and arrangements keep happening you know one one agreement happened sometime back also and when the pakistan foreign minister was asked that you are the only uh you know islamic country which has got nuclear weapon would it also mean that in case there is something that your nuclear weapon will also be used so he had to give a very you know vague answer so i think let's leave it at that and not these things should not be able to uh you know we should not be able to you know bother us too much we should only look at our capability will we be able to handle them one by one or collectively [00:58:24] Speaker 1: that's what we must focus on look uh get back to the thing look are we capable of punishing it which country are you talking of you're talking of turkey you think we can't punish turkey first and foremost you have the missiles to go and hit turkey turkey doesn't have it the other way around first let's be very clear about it i'm taking turkey as an example second what have you done you already sold something to armenia you're already in talks with cyprus you're already in talks with greece and that foreign minister of uh turkey hakan fedan he's gone and said here mafko romeriko i have what are you talking you have to talk think differently yaksha this is we are in a different league you see people must realize that you know many of us don't know our own strength and we are shy of projecting this is the indian habit but we have tremendous value the only nation which can project power up to india is us and india us is also not in a position today to do anything the and forget the only way china can do anything is through the himalayas it does can't do anything through the ior so there's not we are very safe or geographic position gives us that immunity people don't understand it and or like i said like what general deyal also said or armed forces are very strong we are see somalia somalian pirates do something we go and react there up to the horn of africa you are developing great nagobar island and that's why china will not come to this side let me assure you this so i think you need to have confidence in your own growth you are the third largest power the gap doesn't matter but you are still the power third largest and if iran which is was nowhere in that scene can do what it has done just think what india can do to any power who tries to become inimical to us okay yeah as a direct consequence to the prior question why don't we develop strategic bombers and increasing increase our avex yeah how do you are there you were there in the ministry they would know [01:00:49] Speaker 3: this fully well no see see the point is that uh how do you know that we are not doing it the point is that we yeah that's a good question see the point is that we go by a capability development uh you know there's a integrated capability development plan we've got a 10-year plan with which we have we've come down to uh defense capability uh uh plans you know so the point is that it's not a haphazard growth or haphazard capability development everything has been planned for of course every capability which we are looking for whether it it's avax or they're all prioritized and the budget allocation is done as for that so to say that you know today morning i wake up and say that let me buy a few avax or let me make a few avax or something like that or a few bombers it doesn't happen that way it's a very long drawn process of capability development which is which is going as per the required uh this thing and there's a there is a entire the defense secretaries one of the major important uh you know charter is in this vertical so please be assured that whatever capability development we are going through right now is in a very very planned manner and it will deliver whenever the thing is and also if there's a requirement a search requirement at any point of time we also have plans to go in [01:02:06] Speaker 1: for that so rest assured things are in good hands yeah that's an important thing we have a tremendous search capacities which we which we often underestimate yep next yeah why do we get obsessed with developed nation tag what's wrong with being semi-developed and but still economically and militarily powerful logical question yeah yeah i think he he said it yeah yeah i think uh i think these are uh cosmetic [01:02:38] Speaker 3: things uh whether we are being called a developing nation or a semi-developed nation or a developed nation i think these are just tags like you just mentioned and we should not overtly uh or you know very very uh we should not put too much of uh thing we are going at our own trajectory we don't want to space up so that you see the point is that we've got a lot of conflicting requirements in our country food drain security pharma security and you know education plenty of things which are there so to to say that only to gain our military power or you know comprehensive national power in which military is a very important aspect and to say that we are developed because our economy is at 4.15 trillion dollars or we are only a developed country in case our military is this number of strength it doesn't happen that way i mean i would rather be called a developing nation i'm happy with it but the point is that i should be able to uh protect myself i should be able to put in money where uh the the requirement is whether it is for for for elevating people out of poverty or giving them food or giving them shelter or giving them the road and water etc which jankar just mentioned so i'm okay i'm okay to say that i'm a developing nation uh maybe you know anything but the point is that we should not go after these tags what will happen if tomorrow you are said you become a developed nation so just after except for being very happy about it to say that okay i'm in the league of united states and this and that does it make a difference it should not make a difference except for looking after our own populace looking after our own uh requirements and priorities which as a nation we have that's all is what is [01:04:16] Speaker 1: required yeah how about adding some curd to greased turkey yeah thanks a lot for that comment it's a nice way of finishing off today i think we've done for the day i thought we had a tremendous discussion on india's comprehensive national power you know when so much turbulence is around it's good to discuss these things to see where we are and where we have to go and we've been quite candid and what we have to do which is i'd like to thank general abe deyal and of course colonel rajiv agrawal for having come and you know given their views uh we've benefited a lot we'll see you next monday on the gunner site and of course tomorrow morning we're going to discuss uh about america's forever war or is iran there in the the part of the america's forever wars but that's tomorrow morning uh i'm sure uh [01:05:17] Speaker ?: uh uh uh uh uh uh [01:05:29] Rajiv Agarwal: uh