The Self-Reliance Paradox Behind India’s War Ambitions

General Dhiraj Seth’s address at the NDTV Defence Summit had two big claims. The first was that victory is defined in terms of territory taken, secured and defended by soldiers. The second one was that in a prolonged war, self-reliance is the determining factor. He also acknowledged that the capability clock is less fast than the technology clock.

That admission may be the most revealing part of his speech because it exposes the gap between India’s strategic ambitions and its ability to sustain them. The question of territorial gains is particularly significant in South Asia as the strategic situation of 1971 is no longer prevail. General Seth’s mention of 1971 war, trying to project that sense of victory into South Asia today ignores the shift that nuclear weapons have ushered in.

It represents one rung on an escalation ladder. This is a scenario that Pakistan has anticipated for decades evident in India’s doctrinal evolution from Sundarji doctrine to the Cold Start doctrine. In case of an Indian attack, Pakistan would certainly have a strong response, both conventional and otherwise.

There is another paradox in General Seth’s argument. Victory in modern wars can be defined not only in terms of occupation, but also by the ‘pauses’ in the conflict, the recurrent short bursts of military action and the growing blurs between the conventional military operations and technological domains of warfare. India Pakistan crisis in May 2025 demonstrated how quickly the military conflict can spread between the two nuclear neighbour neighbors. The constant introduction of more advanced conventional systems, long range precision strike capabilities, drones, air defence and other new technologies have reduced decision making time.

In this context, claims that emphasize territorial conquest as the key to a victory can heighten the strategic equation of the dangers. They do not strengthen strategic stability; they can only make it seem that future conflicts will be about ever greater and more ambitious military goals.

Furthermore, state may be able to capture territory without having a viable political and military means of ending the conflict. The crux of the question is not only how much territory an army can take, but whether it can absorb losses, get additional equipment and deal with the escalation in a way that will allow it to reach a politically acceptable end state.

This leads us back to self-reliance where India’s discourse appears to diverge from the realities on the ground. According to SIPRI, India is the second biggest importer of major arms in the world in 2021-25, accounting for 8.2 percent share of global imports. Arms transfers by India fell by 4 per cent in the last five years, while global arms transfer increased by 9.2 percent.

What is important, therefore, is the decline itself, rather than treating it as evidence of strategic self-reliance. India continues to be one of the world’s biggest importers of arms. The changing composition of those imports is also noteworthy. Also, Russia’s Indian arms imports share fell from 70 percent in 2011-15 to 40 per cent in 2021-25, whereas France and Israel saw rises in their shares.

This represents diversification of suppliers, but diversification does not necessarily equal self-reliance. Having multiple foreign suppliers rather than relying on a single supplier can reduce specific vulnerabilities without fundamentally changing the underlying dependence on external sources.

The Tejas Mk1A provides a useful test of this contradiction. The aircraft is often presented as evidence of India’s emerging defence-industrial strength, yet it remains dependent on American GE F404 gas turbine engine. The 2021 contract covered 99 engines valued at approximately $716 million. Deliveries were scheduled to begin in March 2024, but GE didn’t meet the schedule, citing supply chain constraints.

The delays continued when GE missed its March 2026 deadline to deliver five additional engines. In June, the sixth engine failed to pass the HAL acceptance tests, while approximately 30 airframes were either under construction or at advanced stages of manufacture, awaiting engine delivery. According to HAL, it has invoked the liquidated damages clause against GE. Even after the lastest engines were delivered in August, only ten engines had been delivered against the order, nearly five years after the contract was signed.  

The consequences are ultimately borne by the Air Force, which has roughly 40 squadrons against the authorized strength of 42.5. This reflects Gen Seth own observation that capability can be constrained by what external suppliers can or cannot deliver. The most important question is what happens during a crisis, when the production of a flagship fighter remains dependent on a supplier whose deliveries can be delayed even in peacetime?

The real issue is speed. Gen Seth cautioned that battlefield is evolving at a pace never seen before. Yet it took years for the flagship fighter to receive its engines, at a time when drones, electronic warfare, and AI systems are changing in months. A procurement system with its years-long lag cannot be expected to prepare adequately for wars in which technologies and operational requirements change within months.

Modern defence production is an international enterprise and even highly developed countries remain reliant on complex global supply chains. The more pertinent question is whether critical dependencies can turn into chokepoints in the event of a protracted war. The distinction between local manufacture and genuine wartime strength becomes significant when the production of a flagship indigenous fighter remains dependent on foreign engine supplier.

Atmanirbharta is the stated strategic objective and Gen. Seth’s emphasis on it reflect its importance within India’s defence planning. But repeated announcements from public platforms do not, by themselves, constitute its achievement.

Furthermore, bold claims about territorial victory carry additional risks in context of two nuclear-armed powers. Engine deliveries, stockpiles, production capacity and development cycles will ultimately provide the material basis for such credibility. Until those capabilities are established, the speech remains an articulation of an aspiration, while India’s import figures indicate the distance between that aspiration and its current defence-industrial position.