1. The simplest argument is that a nation’s GDP doesn’t just reflect its internal wealth but also its strategic importance in the world and its neighborhood. As economic wealth increases, a nation must spend proportionally on its military strength to support and protect its prosperity. Not necessarily as an imperialist bastard, but as a matter of minimum deterrent. Failure to do so poses a serious risk to national security and trade – FDI investment is especially sensitive to such risks, and an increase in sovereign risk will increase the cost of borrowing for local firms in international markets. Look at India, it desperately needs to expand into blue seas to protect the trade routes between ASEAN and the Middle-east and in case it fails to do so China definitely would (in fact it has already offered Somalia a Navy help) – do we want Chinese Navy in the Indian Ocean? A country like Sri Lanka can ignore that because it doesn’t have the resources. But India due to its GDP is in a league where it can’t – it simply has to keep up with the other guys in its GDP league, especially if they are in its neighborhood. That is what every nation in history has done and must do if it wants to survive. What I am trying to say over here is that the needs of the nation are often linked to its GDP.

2. Economy always moves in cycles, the current recession no matter however severe it becomes is nothing supernatural. Every country will reduce its defense expenditure during recession and I bet they would do it proportional to how rich they are or in other words – their GDP. In fact for growing nations like India it makes even more sense to go in sync with GDP, because less dollar value expense during recession should be compensated by higher dollar value expenditure during boom.

3. Civilians aren’t masters and neither are the armed forces slaves. I have been in NCC for an year and I can say that our forces are heavily underpaid compared to global forces. But I won’t not argue over it. I would only say that military pay should be in tandem with average working earning standard of the country – and the GDP reflects that. Keeping military budget at a certain ratio with GDP would mean that our soldiers are receiving salaries proportionate to national earning, which is the least they and their families deserve.
All laws are made in the legislature and such a measure, even if it is binding (which is certainly not what I am proposing), can be changed by the legislature.

4. All things are right or wrong in retrospect. If Nehru believed in Panchsheel, modern military strategists in India have the opinion (which was recently submitted to GoI) that for the next 20 years China would be so busy expanding its economy that a military conflict with India is out of question for it. That is true. But it is needless to say that China follows an active containment strategy for India – both on the political and military fronts. China is known to have posts in Myanmar from where our military base in Andamans are observed 24×7, it has supplied Pakistan nuclear know-how, its relationship with Nepal is rather sweet under the Maoist regime (as I gathered from the newspapers in my recent visit to Kathmandu). The SAARC summit in Dhaka saw the emergence of a new pro-China front comprising Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. In the future China will think of monetary aid to India’s poor neighbors to further its strategic interests and such strategy has been successfully tried by it in South America where even US is feeling cornered by the dragon.
But the biggest threat is that China is actively planning diversion of Brahmaputra’s (Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet) waters. Although China has denied such reports, India has to maintain a minimum credible military deterrent to thwart off such threats from China. China has kept its defense budget consistently proportional to its GDP.
I wonder with a 2.1% of GDP military budget to 4.5% of GDP budget of over twice the GDP how far behind India will be after 20 years. Let us not repeat the mistake of Nehru – wise men make mistakes, only fools repeat them.

5. How many agencies in India have successfully spent allocated money? I bet the armed forces have been one of the most efficient at it! Let us not play blame game. If tomorrow there is a war are we going to tell our military – “Dudes its your fault – you couldn’t spent the allocated money” !! I guess not – why? Probably because they will be dead !
If a critical agency is not able to spend allocated budget it means that we have to increase its internal efficiency, not cut back and laugh!

6. I guess the strategic importance of India, China and Pakistan are exactly in the order of their GDP so I don’t see the point over here.

7. Guns vs Butter – I guess this article was written before blasts in Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Mumbai. Athens was a great civilization- built on the foundations of Art, Craft, Philosophy and Literature. It looked down upon Sparta, its neighbor, with contempt for its military way of life. Its own army was a hired one (probably like India has hired military hardware). Too bad, had it not been for the military might of the Spartans the Battle of Plataea would have been lost to the Persians. The only way to create peace and prosperity is to guarantee them.

History has shown that India defense planning has been weak – from the Persians to the English to the Chinese we have failed at every frontier. Even today the general awareness among the masses about military realities is non-existent even among the 50% educated masses – forget the other half. In a democratic country political will is derived from public awareness. In a nation where even the national parliament is not completely educated perhaps its not that bad an idea to maintain a sanctum sanctorum of military budget.

It is better to have a lazy argument than to have no argument at all.