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In 1961, US president Eisenhower, in his farewell address, warned against the increasing influence of the US military-industrial complex (MIC) beyond the country’s essential defence needs.
Eisenhower, who served as commander of Allied forces during World War II, stated, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist”. His warning about the growing influence of the MIC takes on new relevance in today’s India, where the Modi government has recently opened the door to the private sector for missile production. Indian government’s decision to involve the private sector in missile and other sensitive military hardware will add another layer of instability to a fragile regional security environment.
Last month, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh approved transferring missile technologies developed under the state-owned Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to the private sector. As per reports, the new policy covers a range of systems, including land-attack cruise missiles, surface-to-air, anti-radiation, air-to-air missiles and anti-tank weapons. Under its initiative, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has already started sharing sensitive technologies with the private sector through the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), which acts as an interface between government agencies and the private sector.
Throughout history, India maintained strict governmental control over the production of missile technologies and rocket systems. Now, the course of action, particularly in missile manufacturing, has changed. This marks a clear shift towards the US arms manufacturing model, one in which MIC drives weapons production, sustained demand and expanding weapons exports. But the US case is totally different from India’s. In the US context, this system complements its projection of global power and a vast network of alliances. In the South Asian context, this logic of private-sector weapons production works under far more dangerous circumstances.
Commercial production of missiles and weapons systems creates a structural problem that state-owned manufacturing units largely avoid. Once private companies such as Adani Defence and Aerospace India invest heavily in manufacturing, supply chains and human resources dedicated to weapons production, they require uninterrupted, high-volume orders to remain profitable.
In the South Asian context, sustained demand for more missiles is most readily created by a climate of heightened crisis, massive stockpiles and the real possibility of conflict because only a persistent conflict can reliably consume those weapons at the rate modern production systems are designed to supply. The result is a quiet but powerful incentive -- the more missiles India will produce commercially, the greater the pressure to keep the regional security environment fragile enough to justify commercialisation of the defence sector. Subsequently, with a large stockpile of privately manufactured missiles in the Indian arsenal, the incentive for rapid escalation and a pre-emptive strike will only grow faster.
The greater danger lies in the very character of the MICs. Once private investment, production capacity, and commercial interests are embedded in missiles and defence manufacturing, the system gains momentum of its own. This creates an enduring institutional bias towards higher output and continuous technological advancement. In the South Asian context, where nuclear rivals India and Pakistan share a history of animosity and mistrust, such a mechanism of commercial weapons production fuels the security complexes. Each commercially developed missile in India’s inventory will further lock the entire South Asian region into an expensive arms race driven by commercial and industrial imperatives rather than serious strategic calculation.
India’s decision to share sensitive missile technology with the private sector won’t remain a purely domestic ecosystem for weapons manufacturing. This initiative will carry dangerous implications for a region already marked by recurrent crises, unresolved border disputes and the presence of nuclear weapons. The South Asian region can ill afford an arms race in which the production capacity of sophisticated missile systems expands faster than the framework available to manage their consequences.
India, therefore, needs to assess the strategic consequences of its missile technology sharing with the private sector. The strategic environment in which this industrial shift in arms manufacturing is taking place is not conducive. Moreover, India’s decision to place missile and weapon-system production in commercial hands risks becoming a dangerous accelerator of instability.
What may seem like a step towards self-reliance in the defence sector could actually lock the entire region into a faster, less controllable arms race. Therefore, New Delhi’s vision for commercialising its missile and space technologies may serve its military ambitions, but without a corresponding mechanism for bilateral crisis management, this initiative risks commercialising instability in crisis-ridden South Asia.
The writer is associate director of research at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS), Islamabad.
