Toys they force you to buy

COVER STORY

defence dud deals

 

Toys they force you to buy

Logic in the world of bullets, bombs and ballistics dictates that China is the most populous, Gulf is overflowing with petrodollars, Israel or Iran have the utmost threat, conventional wars may never happen. Still why is India buying so many weapons – to be the world’s largest weapons importer and fourth-largest defence spender by 2020 ahead of France, Japan and UK. Is India really under so much threat or is it because few individuals and countries make money in every deal? Buying the most expensive or sophisticated arsenal is not end of the problem but the beginning of a new arms race.

 

by Neeraj Mahajan & Anil Tyagi

 

Money is everything and there is no patriotism, ethics, morality, sanctity of borders or qualms about supplying arms to army or mercenaries—in the business of weapons and missiles. The huge and unending demand from Army, police and terrorists who are the biggest consumers – makes arms a recession-proof industry. Armed forces spend over $1,000 billion annually to purchase or upgrade military hardware and consumables. A thin veil divides the legal and illegal business of arms. There are no separate factories, channels of supply might be different but products are the same. An AK 47 in the hands of Police or militants might originate from the same factory.

 

The $1.465 Trillion global arms industry is largely unregulated and controlled by —USA, UK, France, Russia, and China and some 35 less significant weapon producing countries. As the only five permanent members of UN Security Council – the big six sanction all make war and peace and pocket 90 per cent of profits from the arms exports. It is an industry, where effectiveness of a product is decided by the number of people it can kill, where death and destruction is celebrated as victory. French investigators probing the charges of bribery against former President Nicolas Sarkozy in the ‘Karachi Affair’ involving the sale of French submarines to Pakistan and frigates to Saudi Arabia discovered that the 11 French naval engineers were killed in the Karachi bomb blast allegedly triggered by Pakistan’s ISI to seek revenge because bribes secretly promised to them were not paid...Read More