According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, India's defence budget was 2.7 per cent of its GDP during 2003-04 as compared to 3.9 per cent for Pakistan, 4.1 per cent for China, 3.3 per cent for the US, 2.8 per cent for South Africa, and 4.6 per cent for Iran.
BY KAUTILYA KUMAR
It is fashionable these days to discuss soft power as a stand-alone and influential category that can further national interest. Nothing could be more wrong.
Soft power is only an extension of the hard power of a country. This is best explained if we look at the example of the US, the most successful exponent of soft power.
It is often argued that American soft power, essentially the celebration of individual enterprise, helped the US win the Cold War decisively.
The communist bloc under USSR did not have any answers to counter the American soft power, it is pointed out.
What is unsaid is that this soft power was backed by substantial military might that helped the US to find allies in the developed economies of Western Europe and force the communist bloc into a doomed arms race.
Let us not forget that the soft power of Soviet Russia did have enormous influence in significant parts of Asia, South America and Africa. That wasn't enough.
The arms race drained the Soviet economy and accentuated the collapse of communist societies. In India's relations with Pakistan, a country which is a quasi-military dictatorship, hard power is extremely important.
The US had the luxury of not sharing a boundary with the USSR. The short history of Indo-Pak relations is a story of four wars and an unfinished territorial dispute.
As long as Pakistani security establishment retains control over the social and economic fabric of that nation, peace between the two neighbours will be tenuous and subject to a balancing of armed might.
Come to think of it, India spends far less on defence needs than many other countries.
According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, India's defence budget was 2.7 per cent of its GDP during 2003-04 as compared to 3.9 per cent for Pakistan, 4.1 per cent for China, 3.3 per cent for the US, 2.8 per cent for South Africa, and 4.6 per cent for Iran.
It is unfair to question the call for more funds to defence services.
