India can learn from Azerbaijan how to spend smart on military

Over the past few days, India's defense budget has come under the spotlight all over again, Report informs, citing The Print.

Former Indian Army chief General Ved Prakash Malik told ThePrint that his country is not spending much on defense. With China's defense budget nearly four times that of India, Malik argued that India's defense budget should be at least 3 percent of the GDP.

Although the armed forces' capital budget saw a significant 19 percent jump in the Budget 2021 presented last month, the increase in the overall allocation was only 1.5 percent, with the total defense budget now amounting to 2.14 percent of the GDP.

As per the Swedish think tank Stockholm International and Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) figures, between 2009 and 2018, Azerbaijan spent about $24 billion on defense. On the other hand, Armenia spent a little more than $4 billion during the same period.

Another smart thing that Azerbaijan did was diversify, not just in terms of equipment but also the source. Armenia focused on buying the big toys from Russia, which also supplies to Azerbaijan. But then, Azerbaijan was intelligent enough to diversify its procurement and depended on Turkey and an odd vendor – Israel.

According to the British Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), "Israel was Azerbaijan's first largest military trading partner in arms imports in 2015-2019. Its share of Azerbaijan's arms imports during that period was 60 percent, with Russia providing 31 percent and Turkey 3.2 percent. The remaining 5.8 percent was divided between Ukraine, Belarus, Pakistan, and China."

It meant that Azerbaijan used weapons such as Turkey's weaponized Bayraktar TB2 drone and the Israeli Heron-TP drone that swung the Second Karabakh war in its favor.

The IWPR added, "The Azerbaijani government prefers current political allies when choosing partners for military trade. Thus Russia was its main partner in 2010-2015, Israel in 2015-2019, and Turkey in 2020."

"The message on the wall is very clear. It is not about spending big but spending smart within what your pocket allows," The Print added.