The MIC of the west grew out of the world wars, but the world wars were themselves an offshoot of industrialization and mass production techniques, steel and internal combustion engine tech. The US MIC is post WW2. The Russian MIC was post WW2. British and French MIC to, German and Japanese industry got converted from mainly MIC to mainly civil. Once wars among these nations became rare, their excess MIC production went to feeding other countries. China is a late entrant and its share of exports reveal that fact.Sagar G wrote: I think Indian requirements are itself so huge that we can maintain an MIC comfortably, what we see in the west is a result of greed rather than a necessity to maintain there MIC..
The USA and USSR keep their MICs going by massive arming and exports during the cold war. They now have to survive on exports alone and Russia is contracting. The US keeps its MIC alive by making wars. Waging war is an integral part of keeping the US MIC well oiled. The US alone is capable of supplying the entire world with arms. If you consider all the others the world, in the absence of major wars has an excess industrial capacity for arms and arms industries are desperately searching for exports. Arms are freely available to anyone who cares to buy them, provide they have money to keep the employees of the MIC nations employed.
Indian bureaucrats and technocrats seem to have recognized this and I have heard them say that "XYZ can be freely imported and it does not make sense to set up a production line". I had never understood the meaning of such statements until I saw the news about MoD telling HAL to forget about HTT 40 and concentrate on what is NOT available to us relatively freely and cheaply.
If something is available from more than one company in the world who are competing with each other, India will set up a competition and place huge orders knowing that the winning company will become rich and the losing company will have heartburn and will be ready to do whatever it takes to get other orders. India has done this for MRCA. combat helicopter, light helicopter, assault rifle, Howitzer, refuelling tanker, ab initio trainer and advanced trainer, engine for LCA, engine for Jaguar. If there are many companies ready to sell, India is ready to buy. When there is a single supplier company with a monopoly, the rules change.