India hasn't had a coup in the modern era. India's government enabled a corrupt military and society. And then equally large China rose in power far beyond India and can now make good on Chinese claims against large portions of India's territory.
Suddenly an unprepared military with a corrupt procurement system backed by a corrupt education system and the caste system's effects that will not die matter an awful lot to the defense of India:
The rapidly modernizing Chinese military and increasingly aggressive Chinese demands to settle old border disputes has forced India to take a realistic look at its defense spending and the current state of its armed forces. For the first time in its history the modern state of India faces a very real military threat. That’s because China considers colonial era border agreement illegal and wants 90,000 square kilometers back. India has refused, especially since compliance would mean losing much of the state of Arunachal Pradesh in northeastern India and some bits elsewhere in the area.
There is one glaring problem with this Indian situation. The more Indians examine the state of their own military, especially compared to what China is doing with its military, there is growing alarm. China not only spends more than three times as much as India each year on defense but gets better value for what it spends. China not only spends much more on modernization (and has the equipment to show for it) the Chinese procurement bureaucracy is far less corrupt and inept. While both nations have problems with corruption China has made a more determined effort to curb the corrupt practices in the military. India is only starting to uncover hidden corrupt practices that generations of politicians and bureaucrats have deliberately ignored (and profited from). But with the growing Chinese threat there have been a more investigations and honest audits of the Indian military.
Do read it all.
This is not to say that the Indian military is inept. It has not just relied on mass to defeat Pakistan in wars. And India does have combat-experienced leaders. But size was the ultimate safety net.
But China is now the primary threat to India. What was once good enough to provide a solid margin of error against smaller Pakistan (which is why Pakistan uses nukes to deter and terrorists to fight India) is now clearly insufficient to prevail against China if China makes a serious effort to humble India in war.
The bad terrain in the north may limit China's capacity to take more than the disputed border region--although Chinese infrastructure construction is eroding that shield. But the loss of that territory would be a large blow to India. But would it be a large enough blow to make any Indian nuclear threats to deter China from attacking credible? When China has nukes, too?
I think that in the long run India's democracy will give them the edge over autocratic China. But rule of law is the source of that edge, and India has yet to come to grips with defeating corruption to provide that edge. So India has to survive the short and medium runs and set the conditions to prevail in the long run. Will they? On the bright side, China will no doubt falter in their rise. So India has a chance. In the long run.
While I think it is appropriate for America to consider how an expeditionary Army could assist India against China, as part of a general move to see how the Army can contribute its core capabilities to a war against China as I discussed in Military Review, we have to be wary of the risk of exposing our force to defeat if the Indian armed forces can't hold the line against the now-obviously superior Chinese military.
We have to consider that simply increasing military-to-military cooperation between America and India isn't nearly enough. We need to help India develop rule of law (but don't let any of our Chicago officials participate).
