Tuesday, December 05, 2017

Jobs, Promises, and Cash

India's procurement industry is just about the biggest threat to India's national security that exists out there.

Whenever I read about the latest exploits of the clusterfuck known as the Indian Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) I wonder which foreign enemy was behind its establishment:

In mid-November the Indian procurement bureaucracy won another victory and persuaded the government to cancel a half billion dollar deal worked out in 2016 for an Israel firm to set up a factory and team with an Indian firm to produce Spike ATGMs (anti-tank guided missiles). The army has been warning for over a decade that without a new ATGM India would be at a serious disadvantage. But the procurement bureaucracy and DRDO (the Indian Defense Research and Development Organization) said it could develop and build a comparable ATGM in four years. This was an absurd claim, even by DRDO standards.

So India's army will go even longer without an effective infantry anti-tank weapon.

DRDO again proves it is just a jobs machine that provides money to cooperative politicians for nothing but promises of actual weapons that actually work.

Of course, India is still trying to get a new fighter as their older Russian planes quite literally fall out of the sky as they get too old to fly.

If India can screw the pooch on a big ticket crucial item like a new fighter, effing up a mere anti-tank missile is child's play.

But I joke. DRDO isn't the biggest threat to India. Only China and Pakistan have actual nuclear weapons. So there you go.

UPDATE: While America can be relieved our procurement process isn't that bad, our warship industry has lost its edge. And we could see the result in a generation if we don't fix it.