UGC NET/JRF EXAM, DEFENCE AND STRATEGIC STUDIES, June-2020* (Paper-II)

The Indian defence industry is largely dominated by government-owned/controlled entities, with the private sector playing a peripheral role.

The dominance of the public sector is ensured through eight giant defence public sector undertaking and forty-one ordnance factories that are under the control of the Ministry of Defence.

Besides, there are fifty odd research laboratories under the umbrella of the Defence Research and Development Organisation. But the story of the Indian defence industry is one of great disappointment.

However, under the 'Make in India' programme, the Government of India, in a major policy decision, decided to throw open the defence sector to private investment with 26 per cent equity stakes for foreign companies in any defence joint venture.

Further, the government decided to increase the cap from twenty-six per cent to forty-nine per cent which has subsequently been increased to a hundred per cent.

Despite the numerous reform measures undertaken under the ambit of the 'Make in India' programme, the Indian defence industry still suffers from several legacy issues.

This reform agenda should begin with an overarching and integrated institutional structure that would be responsible for the three critical but interrelated functions of procurement, production and R&D.  For India to establish a credible industrial base, improved R&D will play a vital role.

This needs to be corrected by making the DRDO accountable, bringing the R&D labs and the industry together as a team and encouraging the industry to spend for greater resources on in-house technology development.

According to passage, the reform agenda in India's defence industry should begin with:

In other words, true realism is an art more than a science, in which the temperament of a statesman plays as much of a role as his intellect. While the roots of a realism hark back 2,400 years to Thucydides' illusion-free insights about human behaviour in The Peloponnesian War,

modern realism was perhaps most comprehensively summed up in 1948 by Hans J. Morgenthau in Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace..., the effort of a German refugee who taught at the University of Chicago, in order to set the stage for my larger discussion about

geography: for realism is crucial to a proper appreciation of the map, and in fact, leads us directly to it. Morgenthau begins his argument by noting that the world "is the result of forces inherent in human nature," And, human nature, as Thucydides pointed out, is motivated by fear (phobos), self-interest (kerdos), and honour (doxa).

"To improve the world, "writes Morgenthau," one must work with these forces, not against them." Thus, realism accepts the human material at hand, however imperfect that material may be.

"It appeals to historical precedent rather than to abstract principles and aims at the realization of the lesser evil rather than of the absolute good." For example, a realist would look at Iraq's own history,

explained through its cartography and constellations of ethnic groups, rather than to moral precepts of Western democracy, to see what kind of future Iraq would be immediately capable of following the toppling of a totalitarian regime. After all, good intentions have little to do with positive outcomes according to Morgenthau.

In the passage, one of the arguments is "Тo improve the world, one must work with these forces, not against them." Choose the forces referred to in this context.