Have we learned nothing over the centuries??chanakyaa wrote:India to go ahead with S-400 missile
Nothing new here in the above link. I'm NO arms/defense expert to opine on the necessity of above purchase or the strategic value associated with it, but I don't like the fact that India is about to spend Rs. 39,000 crore on something that will contribute the least to what India desperately needs is massive infrastructure investment. This is the same amount of money to put 4-6 lines of my home town Mumbai metro in just one city. Such defense expenditures do not have the same economic multiplier effect (and magnitude) as infrastructure development or in-house industrial production. If done locally may be slightly better, but no comparison to infra/tech spend. Just as an example, the impact Mumbai metro of property values from Varsova (one end) and Ghatkopar (other end) has been massive. Construction along the line is going up as if there is no tomorrow, people are being employed and multiplier goes on and on.
Looking at India's public debts, country does not have the same luxury as thollar country to print as and when desired. Hypothetically if India needs to spend $x billions with rus, assuming some new-clear deterrents achieve the same objective, India is better off spending that amount of money with rus-ian industrial giants for heavy equipment makers, technology cos or providing infrastructure contracts to their companies. It is money better spent this way than supporting their MIC. Better yet, spend that kind of money for infra/tech development at home and let YooS, Ooiurope, Rus-ian companies bid on it, win it and implement it. Let them come here, stay, spend, pay tax, build, develop, and hopefully come back for more. The multiplier effect on the Indian economy will be massive.
If not, those fancy S-X00 tubes will be sitting in some corners of the country, providing some security of course, but what good is it if your economy still sucks (or not up to its fullest potential when thousands of youth graduating each year have to find unrelated jobs just to stay employed). We will look at the fancy tubes and feel good but that is about. Again, no defense expert myself, but I'm sure some smart people know what they are doing because Rs. 39,000 crore (or whatever the number) is no small change.
Economic wealth without the means to protect it is an invitation to disaster. Invasions today can and do take place without a shot being fired in anger.
OBOR/CPEC/BRI/CATSAA or any other alphabetic soup imposition on a sovereign country because THEY have the military might to back it up is just one example. Trade treaties are another.
SL is just an example that one cannot help pointing out over and over again. A country that the hans have done and dusted. All the cunning of the poisonous SL politicos has come to naught. They have simply been swallowed whole by the hans and the SLs dare not protest because of the han military might. No other country has also come to SLs aid because of the same reason.
The pakis are now being set up after decades of chinese psyops and softening up. This is nothing but a version of the stockholm syndrome playing out on a national scale. The pakis have not even recognized the insidious and strangulating chinese embrace that has gradually enveloped them over decades. The dumb f(uks are still singing praises of their "taller than the mountains deeper than the sea, sweeter than honey etc etc" friends. They have become refugees in their own land. The hans have pulled off a brilliant coup and not a shot has been fired. In fact, the invader has been royally welcomed and feted.
And you want to build rail lines in your hometown??
India is now being taken seriously in the comity of nations precisely because of her growing military as well as economic strengths.
The military strength has to grow in a healthy balance with the growing economic heft otherwise we will be left bleeding in the dust by our enemies, both military and economic enemies.