The Hindu : THE T-90 AND THE SECURITY CALCULUS

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 20, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

THE T-90 AND THE SECURITY CALCULUS

WITH THE HEAVY Vehicles Factory at Avadi assembling and rolling out its first T-90 tank, questions have arisen about the indigenisation of this Russian-made fighting machine and the role it will play in India's security calculus. The Indian Army says it looks forward to the indigenisation of the T-90, which is expected to form the fighting nucleus of India's armoured corps. This process of indigenisation will begin only in 2006-2007 and its success will depend critically on how the country's ordnance factories fare in manufacturing these state-of-the-art Main Battle Tanks. The T-90 deal signed in February 2001 between India and Russia is a two-stage agreement. The first provides for the purchase of 310 MBTs, 124 of them in a ready-to-use configuration and 186 in either a semi-knocked-down (SKD) or completely knocked-down (CKD) condition. The second part of the agreement covers the licence to manufacture these machines and the transfer of the associated technologies to India.

India's T-90 acquisition was a response to Pakistan's decision to purchase the Ukrainian T-80 in the mid-1990s. Islamabad's move sent waves of anxiety through the Indian defence establishment, which felt that the induction of the T-80s would result in an unacceptable shift in conventional ground power equations in the region. A parallel anxiety related to India's own MBT, the Arjun, which seemed a long way from series production at that time. Doubt about the speed and effectiveness with which India could upgrade its existing fleet of T-72s was another factor behind the country looking overseas with a view to acquiring third generation MBTs. An armoured hybrid of the T-72 and the T-80 in some respects, the T-90 is a technologically sophisticated fighting machine that will provide the armoured corps with significantly enhanced mobility, firepower and protection. In the MBTs already imported, there have been problems with the thermal imagers that are critical to their much-acclaimed night-fighting capabilities. The Army, however, believes these and other technical glitches are minor and can easily be fixed.

What impact will the induction of the T-90s have on the prospects of the Arjun? Defence Minister George Fernandes has repeatedly said that the T-90 acquisition was made to complement the indigenous MBT and not to cripple it. The Army top brass intones that the latter will be the mainstay of the Indian armoured corps in the future. But behind such positive remarks lurks a sense of uncertainty. The Arjun project, conceived in 1974, has been dogged by delays and subject to a series of technical revisions. Its development was speeded up in the 1980s. The successful trials of the pre-production series in the Mahajan range in Rajasthan in early 1993 boosted the morale of Arjun's designer, the combat vehicles arm of the Defence Research and Development Organisation. While this MBT's indigenously produced armoured plate, 120-mm gun, rapid mobility, manoeuvrability, and night-vision device are highly regarded, it lacks a couple of the T-90's advanced features, most importantly the protective system to defend it from missile attacks. The Army has placed an order for 124 Arjuns with the Ordnance Factory Board. Transfer of technology for the production of this series is said to be under way. Nobody, however, seems willing yet to offer any commitment on a time frame for the induction of these tanks into the Indian Army. With its licensed manufacture scheduled to begin in a few years, "Bhishma" (the T-90) bids fair to outflank the Arjun and become the spearhead of the Indian Army. With mid-life upgrades, this state-of-the-art fighting machine should serve the armoured corps for another three to four decades.

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