The defence industry
As the war of words with India escalates into the real thing, we must take a hard look at our defence industry. While nothing that we do today will affect the course of the present situation, our aim should be beyond the immediate future. Over the last two decades the concept of defence production has undergone a sea change, once upon a time everything that mattered was lumped under the public sector, the private sector has only recently been invited to play any role. That is at it should be, except for honourable exceptions the public sector is notoriously inefficient, the cost benefit to be derived from profit-saving is more than offset by overheads galore. Not to say that all the big bucks have been spent by the public sector, in the non-lethal area of military industrial activity, the private sector has been very much a fact of life, most of our Quartermaster stores and supplies comes from the private sector. In the context of overall defence spending, a major share has been taken by engineering services, almost all construction activity being handled by the private sector, one daresays that public sector enterprises like the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) responsible for the development of the Silk Route, the Karakoram Highway Project (KKH), acted in part like the public/private role of the US Corps of Engineers.
Spending on defence can be a substantial drag on the economy or a shot in the arm, depending upon the level of indigenous production as opposed to imports. During the Vietnam years, the US economy had an unprecedented boom, revived during the modernisation drive of the Reagan era. Between Vietnam and Reagan’s military revival, American economy remained in the doldrums. At this time, despite our efforts, the ratio of Pakistan’s dependence on foreign manufactured items to domestic production is not at all favourable, we have, therefore, a severe strain on the economy as a result, a negative flow from Pakistan to foreign manufacturers. This is compounded by other structural imbalances that affect our normal economic growth. Lip-service palliatives are resorted to for the benefit of the gullible intelligentsia and our (more than gullible) masses from time to time. Has anyone come forward with a comprehensive plan to energize the defence industry in such a manner that reduces our total dependence on foreign imports? This is despite the fact that the size of our armed forces is enough to generate a favourable economy of scale by the sheer volume of numbers required to be produced. Buy-back schemes have still not been implemented despite good faith, the vested interest of “Agents commission” is too powerful a money-force to be surmounted.
The first task is to clearly demarcate the industries into (1) lethal (2) non-lethal and invite private sector participation on a need-to basis as opposed to required confidentiality, not that any research and development remains secret for any length of time. Obviously the lethal industries would include besides (a) arms (b) ammunition and (c) missiles, etc gun platforms i.e. combat aircraft and armoured fighting vehicles. Whereas non-lethal items would include among its heads (a) transportation (b) communications equipment (c) electronics, (d) Quartermaster stores (clothing, food items, furniture (e) general supplies, etc. Pakistan has managed to indigenize Quartermaster stores and general supplies to a large extent while in the lethal range almost all our small arms are produced locally as well as quite a range of ammunition including that of tanks and artillery.
While one is proud of the achievements of the Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF), Wah, one is sad to say that the we have been fed with achievements of 60s vintage in the past decade, it is time to say goodbye to past laurels. One sees no reason why the changeover of calibre of our basic infantry weapon from NATO standard 7.62 to 5.56 has been delayed. Contrary to our experts’ filibustering, one does not need a new factory, only partial modification of the existing one. With the flashpoint increasingly likely to be Kashmir, sooner than later, our soldiers in the mountains will face (at the very least some of the time) the Poona manufactured Indian 5.56 calibre rifle which is being quickly inducted into the Indian Army’s mountain divisions on an emergency basis. Without comparing the virtues of the Poona 5.56 to the Wah 7.62 G-3 in any number of ways, even those who are not laymen can well understand logistics and be horrified to learn that an Indian soldier armed with a 5.56 rifle can carry almost 200 rounds of ammunition to our infantryman carrying a 100. In mountainous terrain, there may thus be a dead heat between motivation surmounting logistics. While India went ahead with their plans for their infantry soldier entering the 21st century we have become hostage of the “caseless ammunition” research, vested interests have ensured that we got nowhere, everytime a decision is about to be taken, it is conveniently shelved on some excuse. This is an excellent case for investigation as all sorts of dirty tricks have been employed as foot dragging methods. Lt Gen (Retd) Talat Masood, Secretary, Defence Production has been the Chairman POF for many years before taking up his present important post. What innovative ideas can we expect from his doorstep if he could not solve this basic policy problem? Will someone ever be held to be criminally accountable, even if it may be a studied case of benign, vested neglect?
While we may have gloated over Indian discomfiture about the Bofors scandal, what have we been doing about the modernization and range of our Medium and Heavy artillery? While the fact remains that the Bofors gun could have been edged out by both the Austrian or the French offers, unfortunately we are still on the tip of the iceberg as regards our own production plans. One hastens to add here that the Air Defence concept separated from conventional Artillery is a brilliant concept which was excellently displayed during Ex Zarb-i-Momin. The major essential items (among many others) for any land war are the small arms for the soldier, the armoured vehicles (both tanks and infantry carriers), anti-aircraft artillery/missiles and the artillery guns of various calibre. As regards tanks, we certainly have the capability of producing our own and the COAS has confirmed a likely indigenous production date. Our reliance on M113 A1 or A2 APCs may survive a war with India in the near future, for the rest of the 20th century and for the beginning of the next we must look for a new generation of armoured fighting vehicles, stop banking on a model obsolete two decades ago, which has even gone out of production elsewhere. After all, opposing us would be Russian-made BMPs, both tracked and wheeled, it is high time we went in for a series production of our own, asking an interested manufacturer for investment on a Buy-Back basis or even collaboration in a series production with Turkey, Iran, China, UAE, Saudi Arabia, etc. Our facilities simply need to be upgraded, our vendor industries may not be sophisticated, they are sufficiently skilled to produce almost all mechanical parts. One must commend Ministry of Production’s recent initiative to have an indigenously manufactured all purpose military truck. HRF Taxila is already doing a commendable job vis-a-vis almost the complete range of T-59 parts. Year after year, we have had excellent Seminars in POF attended by world renowned manufacturing experts, rarely have we taken benefit of their advice, the show has just been an occasion for media self-propagation rather than downstream force-multiplier effect on our plans to modernize our armaments industry. In India we have an opponent that matches us to an extent in quality of equipment but certainly has overwhelming numbers. While Ex Zarb-i-Momin has gone a long way in restoring faith in the prowess of our men and material, particularly in their inherent motivation and excellent training for war, it is time we came off the theory bench and got into the line of practical implementation.
In the field of combat aircraft we have made definite progress in the BMR area, at least our available aircraft can be rebuilt under our own resources. We must emulate S. Korea and Turkey which have insisted on transfer of technology for purchases of F-16s. Turkey even manufactures the F-16 engines under licence on a Buy-Back scheme, that is the essence of economic planning in the defence field, do not enter into any contract, i.e. if you can help it, except on a transfer of technology/Buy-Back basis. While one gives lip-service attention to all such ideas in theory, in actual implementation the performance falls far short of being satisfactory.
How long can the public sector bear the financial load of our arms industry? If India had not been such an implacable foe one could have even called the defence expenditures extravagant. As it is we have to swallow this economic bitter pill if we have to fight for our freedom, that day is not far away. It is time that we got the private sector into the act. A few months ago Col (Retd) Sarwar Cheema, Minister of State for Defence, held an eloquent “Question and Answer” session at the FPCCI, Karachi, unless there is something escaping the media attention the actual process of bringing the private sector into the “Sacred Sector” has stalled. Eloquence has to be translated into action of sorts. Force-feeding of private sector enterprise into the lethal arms category works elsewhere in the world even gets a bad name like the “military-industrial complex”, unless a deliberate privatisation effort is made, investor confidence will remain shy.
While we are ready as never before to fight a war with India, all the portents being favourable, a democratic government, a motivated well-trained army, the right environment within Kashmir and Khalistan, a PM with good international credibility, a gradual consensus among our leading political groupings and arms and equipment good enough for a war in the near future (this year or the next), it is to the immediate future beyond that we must see and plan for. Our defence industry must begin to pay us some dividends in return, we must have exports to balance our defence purchases, in jobs for our workers and myriad other benefits, all derivatives of indigenous production. What our military experts need is private sector “Brain Trust” to induct investment and skill on a priority basis into the Defence Industry. It is high time we got on with it on a war footing.
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