The Indian Air Force has increased its capabilities and preparedness, says chief Naik
Although China was a step ahead of India in its defence prowess, India had built up its own capabilities and the country would not see a repeat of the 1962 Indo-China war, Air Chief Marshal P.V. Naik told a press conference at the Maintenance Command Headquarters here on Monday. He responded to a host of questions on China's growing “assertiveness” and India's preparedness.
“Ten years ago, our country did not have money. Now with economic growth, money is not a problem. India started [upgrading] its capabilities five or six years ago. China started before that. They have a lead over us. Our aim is to prevent a repeat of 1962. With the capabilities that we have built up and are in the process of building, a repeat of 1962 can never happen,” the Air Chief Marshal said.
When asked, he said he did not think the Chinese would attack in the near future. He said China was a sovereign country and all India could do was to strengthen its own capacities.
The situation that was 20 years ago remained the same; the Indian Air Force (IAF) had taken measures to increase its capabilities in the East as well as the North, Air Chief Marshal Naik said.
“Anything that interferes with the country's development and aspirations is a threat — whether distant or close. If you go threat by threat, it's a no-win situation and you land up in an arms race. We know the aspirations of our country and where it is heading. We have to build capabilities accordingly. We have prepared a long-term integrated perspective plan, which at the moment is up to 2027,” he said.
As part of the upgradation, the IAF is bringing in trainer aircraft from the United States, Korea, Switzerland, Poland and Russia. Asked about the concerns over America's supply of the same to Pakistan, the Air Chief Marshal said, “We have expressed our concerns and the Americans have appreciated them. We are also getting [aircraft] from Russia and Europe. So, we have not put all our eggs in one basket.”
The Air Chief Marshal said there was a need to speed up the procurement procedures. Air Chief Marshal Naik said although the IAF was not involved in the Adarsh housing scam, its image had suffered.
Keywords: India, China, Sino-India relations, 1962 war, bilateral ties
China's JF-17 is not all indigenous as some seem to suggest here. It is believed to be a development of the Russian Mig 33 project, which was terminated by Russia and developed further by China.
All said and done, India is making an effort in the right direction by investing in building indigenous systems eg: LCA, Arjun MBT, INS Arihant. India has also found success in the Akash SAM, Nag anti-tank missiles, etc. please do not ignore such facts. Also another fact is that some of these technologies are not advanced enough to counter foreign threat, hence as of now we still need to get advanced foreign equipment to keep our defence forces up-to-date and help them put up a fight against a much stronger enemy. DRDO and its various sister organisations are doing a good job. It's difficult to compare a 75% indigenous LCA built completely in India with a JF-17, built in jointly by China & Pakistan.
Its always better and advisable to go in for procurement of High Technology weapons at competitive rates instead of wasting money on development of our own system and lagging far far behind. Instead we can put our money in the R&D of newer Technologies and should be parallel in the future generation weapons.
Does China buy their Defense equipment? Mostly no. They will manufacture it. Why does India buy Defense toys? Corruption and the netas in power have to make money. Well in 1962 Indo-China war Indians did not have the right munition. We should do what we do best, and that is pray and be spiritual.
We should stop purchasing arms from others, Its time we have our own govt funded establishment to get going. The sooner we do, better off we are.
As in the United States, a committee of parliament should be given powers to question the Army,Navy and Air Force officers before expenditure on high value defence procurements are approved. At the moment there doesn't seem to be any proper civillian oversight on defence expenditure. Defence should not be treated as a holy cow. People through their representatives should have the means to find out how collosal ammounts of their money is spen.
The Indian air force, amongst the other defence segments in the nation, has more often than not relied on other nations than our own strength for its equipments. Its high time the government looks into this and acts swiftly to make our nation's defence holistically self dependent before diplomatic paths shift course.
Ok now that we have the capability to defend can we spend the money on poor to create more jobs.
The more acceptable way to ensure our security vis a vis China is to strengthen our diplomatic ties and trade relations.Military solutions are usually short lived and at very heavy costs. India has a great oppurtunity to enhance trade relations and help better understanding between the two Asian neighbours .Had we done this before 1962 we woulkd not have faced the nightmare that we faced after 1962.
I do not understand why we still have to import fighter trainers from other countries including Poland after 60 years of independence and an independent fighter jet development programme. What is still lacking in the Indian mindset? Is it low-esteem, fear of probing the unknown? And why is this?
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