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Title India's Increasing Defense Spending under Modi Era: Impact on Regional Strategic Stability of South Asia

Author(s) Rehman Tahir

Abstract The arrival of Narendra Modi in Indian politics as the fourteenth Prime Minister has changed the main course of Indian defense policy by revisiting and improving the conventional foundations of Indian strategic thinking. Modi's way of managing the mainstream security challenges of traditional and non-traditional nature has generated a new debate in contemporary world politics in which the leading architectures of Indian national security policy and strategic planning have decided to improve the role of war-fighting capabilities of regular Indian armed forces. The government authorities under the leadership of Modi have accepted the significance of modern warfare technologies in the conventional and non-conventional defense domains. This objective has led the New Delhi-specific security establishment to allocate sufficient financial resources to the Indian armed forces and let the Indian defense planners upgrade the country's domestic defence industry. The quest for obtaining modern warfare technologies and integrating these advanced technologies with the conventional defense system of India has resulted in New Delhi's growing strategic engagements with the great powers. Parallel to signing various defense agreements and security deals with the great powers, New Delhi has started exploring the new domains of the international community for expanding its strategic engagement across the globe. Thus, signing strategic collaboration has convinced Indian leaders to focus on the scientifically advanced and technologically advanced nation beyond the great powers. Prime Minister Modi's strategic vision is important in this regard because the ultra-national agenda of Modi has brought various policy reforms in the fields of security and defense. The hardcore nationalist agenda of Modi has even improved the role of the indigenous defense industry by introducing various new programs in the defence sector. These developments are purely domestic matters of Indian politics. However, the impacts of these national-level developments cannot be separated from the ongoing strategic matrix between New Delhi and Islamabad. In other words, the impacts of Modi's decision to increase Indian defence spending on the scope of regional strategic stability cannot be marginalised in the South Asian intense security environment. The growing defense spending of New Delhi leaves worse impacts on the values of peace and stability in the South Asian region under nuclear shadows. Therefore, this research provides a comprehensive understanding of India's increasing military budgets under the Modi government and its relevance to the notion of strategic stability between the pair of South Asian nuclear weapon states. Key Words: Indian Military Spending, Modi‘s Defence Budget, Military Modernization, India-Pakistan Conflict, Strategic Stability.

Type Thesis/Dissertation MS

Faculty Social Sciences

Department International Relations

Language English

Publication Date 2023-08-22

Subject International Relations

Publisher NA

Contributor(s) NA

Format Chicago Style 16th Edition

Identifier NA

Source NA

Relation NA

Coverage NA

Rights NA

Category NA

Description