Absorption of Hi-Technology Products in the Asian Defense Market

Haroon J Qureshi gives an exhaustive survey about induction of hi-tech projects in the region.

Asian countries are among the largest defense spenders in the world. Despite a dip in 1997 a constant military build-up has taken place region-wide over the past 20 years. During the last two decades defense spending has increased all over Asia; during the period 1980-1990 it grew by over 40% and continued to grow by 26% during 1990~2000; whereas it dropped by 11% globally; in fact it is still on the rise in Asia. In the year 2000 the following Asian countries were amongst the world’s top defense spenders:

Country Rank in World’s highest spending

Japan 4th
China 8th
India 11th
South Korea 13th

Region wise, in the 90’s; Central Asia grew by 21% spending US$ 2.4 billion, Eastern Asia up 21% spending US$ 96 billion and South Asia up by a walloping 50% spending US$ 15 billion while Oceania remained steady at US$ 7.3 billion.
The 1997 financial crisis hit the defense spending as well, both in terms of reduced levels of procurements, and in terms of US$ value, as Asian currencies devalued, restraining foreign procurements, as the cost of supporting the already ordered procurements simply skyrocketed.
Global spending is now largely driven by two factors
i- Post cold war rebuilding of forces
ii- Europe modernizing to NATO standards from Soviet equipment.
Where as conflict perpetuates defense spending in Africa; more varied reasons drive up defense spending in Asia.
The main players at the core of conventional arms build up; in northern Asia were China, South Korea and Taiwan, in the southeast Asia main spenders included Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand and in the south Asia India and Pakistan were the main spenders, India spending nearly 4~5 times that of Pakistan.
The 1978 Deng Xiaoping doctrine identified defense build up as one of the four key areas of nation building in China’s drive to re-emergence as a major power, the drive takes a near constitutional imperative, of course the three other elements of the doctrine gave china a strong economic growth. Most defense spending in Asia has been due to doctrinal change in these nations.
Before we touch upon the subject of absorption of high technology, we need to see how do military decision makers specify high technology products for the future defense plans of a country?
THE WESTERN MODEL In the advanced military nations like USA, UK and France etc., the process is more or less defined and established, however in Asian countries, like Pakistan, India, Sri- Lanka, Bangladesh and the likes, there is often no such established procedure.
First let us look at how advanced nations develop and induct (hi-)technology products for their ...
o Immediate
o Intermediate
o and Future
...defense plans, the objective being to choose the correct technology, at the correct price, in the correct time frame: The following can broadly define the road map
The military technology think tank
1. POLICY MAKERS: make national foreign policies and objectives;
2. THINK TANKS: paint threat scenarios to implement these policies; asking the armed forces to implement or defend these.
3. ARMED FORCES: define the equipment assets required to implement the defense objectives (of course besides trained men in uniform).
4. DEFENSE TECH INDUCTION INSTITUTIONS (DTI) paint a face to the equipment that armed forces desire and go to the industry with a wish-list.
5. DEFENSE INDUSTRY offer conceptual product solutions in response to the wish-list; some times the industry initiates concepts and product solutions instead of waiting for a wish list.
6. DEFENSE TECH INDUCTION INSTITUTIONS select from the available concepts offered by the industry, or counter propose a concept that industry should produce.
7. GOVERNMENT funds these concepts to create “proof of concept” real products.
8. ARMED FORCES than evaluate and approve the suitability of the “proof-of-concept” product.
9. DEFENSE INDUSTRY gets funded by the government for production of the product and life cycle support.
We can now see that the actual implementation is defined by the last 7 activities; with a major role shared by the Armed Forces; the Defense Technology Induction Institutions and the Defense Industry, it is more of a triad, with a pivotal role shared by the Institutions and the Industry.

Government
MoD
Armed Forces
DTI Institutions
Defense Industry

These DTI institutions work within the military doctrine think tank; they have a permanent place in the planning framework of the defense establishment. Such institutions are constituted of well balanced human resources; inducted from all available resources of the nation, including the

• Armed forces
• Technology experts
• Strategists
• Industry specialists and
• Futurists

The members of this think tank team have a well balanced mix of service tenures. Some of the members have full career tenure, other have medium and short term tenures, and yet others have ex-officio tenures. The think-tank experts include on-call consultants from the academia, historians and indirectly connected industry. The variable tenure perpetuates fresh ideas and concepts in the system, yet the system provides continuance to the programs which are being pursued till they achieve success or are considered failures, whereas fixed constituency organizations tend to become stagnant, opinionated and in-fertile of new ideas and concepts.
Futurists have their own place in the evolvement of high technology, a lot of today’s technology perhaps has roots of inception in the science fiction of yesteryear, and Asimov must have had something to do with this.
At times, new technology programs get conceived and emerge as a result of in-direct recommendations of political policy think tanks, e.g. Rand Corporation, painting future scenarios that create new threat perceptions, necessitating redefining of the conduct of military activity in long term future and hi-technologies required to meet these objectives.
It is more often than not; that technology resources for threat deterrence scenarios, often have major high-technology content. Once these technologies have been identified there are established procedures to channel funding to these programs and to actively monitor them. Usually more than one defense industrial manufacturer is funded to design and manufacture a proof-ofconcept; POC; product; the products so produced are evaluated and the better of the available product is than put to production by the successful manufacturer. The government and MoD’s involvement is limited to funding and program monitoring.
Larger program funding is often debated by committees of the legislature and funded by approval. The system is pragmatic and technological programs are funded IN or OUT based on their usefulness or futility. The armed forces are not totally independent in inducting solutions - they have to provide rationale to the MoD and debate this with the government to appropriate funding and its continuance. It has been seen that defense programs initiated and appropriated get extended or cut down with changing times and their appropriateness.
To exhibit how procurement programs are microscopically grilled by the US government, consider the current US programs; Crusader 155mm self propelled artillery program that has already been funded US$ 2 billion, has been slashed and funds diverted elsewhere, since scenarios have changed and the program is greatly delayed. The F-22 Raptor risks cost cuts and perhaps reduced number requirements; the V- 22 Osprey delay may cause trimming of project by Army and Air Force. The financial office of the congress is questioning the cost effectiveness plans for B-767 Tanker Lease by USAF; the F-35 JSF also risks cuts in numbers. The Army’s LHX Comanche helicopter program also risks numbers cut or outright cancellation if costs continue to increase and schedule slips as some of the roles expected from the LHX can now be handled by the maturity of the UAVs. The Navy is restructuring the next generation DDX stealth destroyers. Every dollar spent must be justified by appropriateness.
THE ASIAN MODEL Good for the modern nations... but how do nations in the Asia select and absorb hi-technology for defense. To start with, each country has regional and area specific threat perceptions, which are not truly global in nature, and each may actually require a unique solution. Compare the threat perception of Indonesia; Pakistan; Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar... each one has a differing high technology defense need to counter these threats. So the choice of defense technology equipment greatly differs, some threats require little more than brute force, troops on the ground, in the air and at sea; whereas other may only require “deterrence” to thwart nations from engaging in wars.
Regardless of the threat perceptions Asian nations often do not have defense technology planning institutions, similar to the DTI institutions of the west; in some cases institutions that do exist do not have an open horizon as their western piers. Even when such institutions exist; their vision and objectives are often narrow and “tunneled”. And even when they make good decisions the available funding may not match there technology induction recommendations. A case in point PAF’s plans to induct US$ 3.2 billion Mirage 2000 program that succumbed to financial constraints and the US$ 1 billion Augusta 90B that nearly drove PN bankrupt ~ the choice of technologies presumably correct were financial quagmires. The lesson being that technology induction agencies must work in sync with the government purse managers so that decisions are balanced and well gelled with the national plans.
The absence of broad based technology think tank / induction institutions actually perpetuates the basic objective to choose the correct technology, at the correct price, in the correct time frame. Such instances the correct technology can only be selected in exceptional cases, or by good luck. In Asian countries we commonly hear of incorrect, delayed or expensive inductions, not to mention scandals they leave behind, irrespective of the country; thelka.com, Bofors FH177, Augusta; MIG29 procurement etc., have all left scandals across various borders.
As if the absence of a structured induction methodology and long term doctrine institutions is already not big enough a predicament in the induction road map, when a technological demand is spelled out by the armed forces there isn’t an industrial infrastructure to back up the wish list from the military planners. In most Asian nations the available infrastructure almost entirely government owned establishments, who by nature of their constitution have heavy feet and have absolutely no method or system to evaluate the actual cost of the equipment produced.
But who really defines the wish-list in Asian countries? Usually it is the Armed forces alone. In many instances Armed forces personnel are not always trained to select (high) technology options; they lack the futuristic vision and do not have the proverbial “god’s-eye” view of the available options vis-a-vis the national defense plans, on a doctrinal level. When equipment specifications are defined, it is often the effort of junior to mid ranking staff officers who may or may-not be aware of either the spectrum of technologies in the future or the available funding and specially not the long term ramifications of a technological choice.
So their wish lists, (GSR/ASR/NSR) are often extracted from:

i) Western military catalogs
ii) What another nation has in its arsenal:

a. Such technology may or may not be appropriate for the nations own military doctrine, or the available technology support infrastructure.
b. It maybe too expensive to induct
c. It maybe simply too com- plex to maintain.

iii) Often it is based on the experience of the last war...
a. Some technology may or may not have much rele - vance to the next war at all.
iv) Or most commonly what a supplying nation is willing to give:

Such give-aways may be more for keeping the sup plying nation’s fledgling defense industry alive rather than the actual deployment appropriate- ness of the nation.
b. Or at times to keep the recipient country under its wings.
There is little home grown local technology induction, for technologies that are available from international sources. Only those technologies are pursued for local development that cannot be easily sourced from foreign sources, and costs are never really taken into consideration. An example is Pak Army’s UAV program, Artillery Fire Control Computer etc., the failings of these programs; lost time; relevance to actual usage and other elements that people inside the program are aware off. In India we see glaring examples on how NOT do design military technology in form of the disastrous ARJUN, or the indigenous HS-748 based AWACS. Even the LCA and LHA programs are bad examples at best.
Least to say the failings are often because unrealistic GSRs have been set which maybe too global in nature or unattainable targets, that are chased without relevance to time. A 303 gun from the last war if finally produced in 2002 may not stand a chance against an AK-47 or the M-16 modern rifle... so programs have to fit in the correct time frame.
No criticism meant, just a fair assessment... and perhaps a wake up call. In the absence of a pragmatic and fully briefed institution even when some sort of technological infrastructure is available there is often no structured selection and funding mechanism that can support and monitor home grown programs.
Most Asian nations commonly opt to taking their technological wish-lists to the Western, Chinese or Russian arms sources. But when ever the wish list contains any worth while high-technology, the political smorgasbord kicks-in and weapon system technologies are supplied or denied to implement the supplying nation’s policy own financial plans. Real high-technology systems are often denied rather than supplied. Ironically by the time Asian nations eventually get to induct the so-called high-technology; it is no-more high! At best it has become perhaps medium or even low technology. At times when this wish-list can be full filled by western suppliers, Asian nations do not have the money to pay for it, or at times they simply cannot afford to maintain these technologies.
A case in example was the induction of a squadron of MIG 29 fighters by the Bangladesh Air Force, within 3 years the political government has decided to dispose these off as they think they cannot afford to maintain them anymore. Another example is the induction of Israeli Super Scout UAVs by Sri Lanka; these were quickly lost to iteration, insufficient training and maintenance, as they perhaps did not have the infrastructure to ingest a technology of this sort. The Malaysian buy of 8 + 8 F-18 hornets and M-29’s was more a geopolitical decision and of a militarily correct decision.
Restrictive supply regimes, from the west, created opportunity for non-traditional suppliers of technology like South Africa and Israel to become a source of supply of technology to many Asian nations. South Africa itself developed technology due to the embargos it faced during the apartheid period, and partnered with Israel in the period to develop its defense industry. In fact the Pakistani defense industry needs to thank Mr. Pressler for enacting a lob-sided embargo on Pakistan, which forced it to develop its defense technology. Be it a 303 rifle or the Ghauri, it can surely be said that had the arms pipe line continued from the west to Pakistan, their may not have been a Ghauri or Shaheen.
Back to the induction and absorption issues, the reason for such hap hazard induction and use of technology has more than one reason, not always blamable on the policy makers of these nations. There are less than 5 Asian nations that have any major local defense industry; these include India, Pakistan, Iran, Malaysia and Indonesia. Most defense industries in these countries are state owned and huge cost heavy organizations. Though such establishments have their own momentum and advantages, they can only keep pace with more traditional technologies, like metallurgy, gun powder, airframe overhauling and steel structures. Electronics, which is often the core of high technology weapon systems, is not a forte of large state establishments.
As if the above problems are already not distorting the hi-tech military absorption, it is a universal observation that true cutting edge high technology is often not born in large state foundries and forges, not that state machineries are a dead weight in the resource pool of Asian nations, they play a very important anchor stone role for a country, the high tech technological sparks are usually born in the private industry.
The private industry however usually does not have an acceptable and established role in the Asian defense production industry. So ill defined is the role of the private industry that the laws governing technological development, production and procurement of indigenous defense technology, are the same as those governing the procurement of fertilizer or flour. This is ironic and private technological proponents soon turn into the waste of financial debris; leaving the armed forces dependent on the traditional defense supplying nations of the west.
Where as in the west the industry is funded to produce “proof of concept” products, which if found suitable are put in production; no such luck in countries like Pakistan, here the feeble private industry is expected to fund the development of a concept into a product; and the onus of getting if evaluated for suitability of purpose continues to be borne by the industry. No wonder we do not see private high tech industry in sight, no business model can justify the viability of a private high tech electronic business on these terms of induction.
It can be understood that large military programs like Tanks, Missiles, Submarines, Aircraft can only be produced by large state funded establishments; however the technologies involved are usually traditional and have little element of high technology; as in “today high tech”. The smarts that go “inside” these platforms is what is makes these products high-tech e.g. the fire control system in a tank, the avionics and weapon targeting in aircraft and navigation, sensors and combat systems of high tech submarines. Usually such high tech emanates from the private sector. Even in the defense industry of the west a lot of high technology work is contributed by the smaller more agile infrastructure.

THE TECHNOLGIES: The role of high tech weapon systems in modern warfare was most recently visible in US war in Afghanistan and not so distant past in Bosnia, Kosovo and a decade ago in Iraq. In Afghanistan it was no military match, whereas in Kosovo and Iraq the odds were heavily tilted in favor of the US forces. The importance of high technology cannot be under estimated. Most visible were four key elements that played the dominating role:

i) Unmanned Aerial Surveillance ii) SIGINT assets (both COMINT and ELINT)
iii) Precision Targeting with airborne and ground weapons
iv) Modern Air Power

Modern Air Power has been with the US for many years with a continuous improvement, and what makes newer aircraft more capable is avionics, enhanced navigation, weapon targeting systems, ECCM and radars; little has changed in the actual aircraft.
A new product that has emerged as a real multiplier high-technology is represented by the Predator armed/unarmed and Global Hawk long endurance UAVs; these platforms provided the vital ‘real time” information for identifying targets that can be engaged by aerial or ground weapons.
Precision targeting played a highly pivotal role, it was an orchestrated effort where ground based forward air controller picked up small targets with hand held target identification devices. These FACs than handed over multiple targets to incoming attacking aircraft electronically using datacom links, the technology involved in this force multiplier actually originated from a small private Israeli company, that enables the high flying aircraft to automatically deliver smart ordinance to fox hole sized targets.
These are not the only technology that made a mark, stand off precision targeting weapons gliding down a target beam or autonomously gliding to a target, practically a very small percentage of bombs dropped were dumb bombs, most were some sort of smart variants with strap on guidance.
Other Asian nations have also acquired and evolved high tech “glide bombs” giving stand off ranges of over 100 miles, while the aircraft launching these weapons stay out of the harms way at altitudes of over 30,000 ft a 100 miles out.
Modern high technology in conflict reduces human losses for the US forces, as most damage can be inflicted from the air with effective strikes in a vast, rugged and unfriendly territory, that would other wise have been killing fields for the infantry men. Compare the weapons used in the Sri-Lankan - Tamil conflict, the weapons of choice were totally different and so is the outcome.
Though not visible at all, SIGINT played vital spear head role in these wars, military and political communication is intercepted way before the secession of the military offensive. The information so gathered is used to crystallize tactical and political military road maps. SIGINT continues to play the key role during and after the war.
SIGNIT and EW have a very important place in the future battle field, though no match, US forces had a field day in Afghanistan as the opposing forces often used simple VHF and HF radios to communicate revealing their location and identification. In Chechnya Russian ELINT sleuths used hi-technology to trace Mr. Dudayavs satellite phone call to get him. The US chase of Al-Qaida is almost totally based around COMINT efforts.
In the Pakistan India scenario a key reason that prevented war between India and Pakistan were actually the weapons of “mass destruction”. Perhaps had it not been the long range weapons, we may have seen another 65 or 71 style regional war. These long range missile based systems have also changed the role of strike aircraft; the reliance of deep penetration delivery aircraft has greatly been reduced.
The key programs to mention in the India Pakistan scenario include ICBMs like the Prithvi, Agni, Akash, Trishul and very recently Bramhos PJ-10 1st generation anti-ship super sonic cruise missile. India has relied greatly on leasing assets from Russia including Beriev A-50/A-50U Mainstay airborne early warning aircraft, IL-78MK Midas air-to-air fuel tankers, and TU-22 M Backfire and TU-124 M Bear surveillance aircraft. It has also leased 6 Kilo class nuclear powered submarines, and the 45,000 Tons Admiral Gorshkov is likely to be inducted.
On the Pakistani side Ghauri, Shaheen, Ghaznavi and Shaheen ballistic missiles have added tremendous delivery abilities, Baktar Shikan anti-tank and Anza short range MANPAD anti-aircraft missiles. The Augusta 90 induction in Pakistan is a major development, not only because of a clear transfer of technology but also because this is one of the very few AIP programs in the world. Al-Khalid and Al-Zarar tanks, Talha APC programs have had good success.
India has lately established closer military ties with Israel, perhaps due to common ideological enmity towards Muslims; the cooperation includes deployment of 2 squadrons of Searcher-II UAVs, up-gradation of M-46 guns to 155mm, MAPO / Elbit Indian MIG-21-93 upgrades and huge transfers in electronics and El-op surveillance equipment.

HUMAN RESOURCES & INFRA STRUCTURE
Coming back to the infrastructure and human resources available in the Asian markets to ingest and maintain either the western acquired technology, a country like Pakistan is in good shape, our human resource is rich and we see little holes in this area, if anything we lack the infrastructure to harness and channelize these resources. The nuclear weapon and missile programs are testament of the abilities and quality of our human capabilities.
In terms of infrastructure we have more than adequate infrastructure to do develop defense technologies, in fact at times duplicated facilities, presently many of the facilities are under utilized. It is however very important that institutional channelization needs to be seriously looked into and the focus of these institutions been carefully directed. A major area that needs to be harnessed and put to its optimal use is the private sector; there is a great need to put a mechanism in place to harness this potent pot full of high tech ideas and deliverables.
If we go back and have a good look at developed nation’s technology induction triad - of Armed Forces, the DFI Institutions and the Defense Industry - you see a major role of the private defense industry - this is almost totally missing in our case. Whereas state owned establishments in Asian nations are playing an unparalleled role; having said that we need to pay careful attention to the economic realities. This century has been declared as one of economic wars. We saw that large Russian state establishments, that actually gave USSR the teeth in the cold war, crumble to economic realities; the buildings that housed them now host cobwebs and are sanctuaries for bats.
China took heed to the writing on the wall and changed the operational conduct of its similar state establishments making them answerable to their costs, which will allow them to see these industries for many years to come. Chinese factory 788 that produced advanced avionics and radars for all its aircraft became a large producer of fax machines and cable TV equipment, still continuing to produce defense goods. The role of Chinese defense industry has greatly changed and private enterprise has been given a much larger role since the fall of the iron curtain.
Nations like Pakistan that do not have the financial strength to match their defense preparedness needs and Pressler like constraints should look at force multipliers and technological upgrades, at times with COT (Commercial Off the shelf Technology) programs where ever possible. We have learned that commercial technology can often be horizontally and vertically applied to defense applications. Times have changed since US DoD had Ada software developed specially for defense software programs. Now normal PC platforms can be used for many military applications, after all when PC based computing can be used on the MIR and ISS - they can surely do many a job in military platforms. Bye-bye Ada, C and VB languages can do may manmachine interface front end computer applications in military programs.
10 years ago when every one believed that avionics equipment for fighter aircraft had to designed to withstand a road roller, the pressures of the 1991 gulf war, saw GARMIN GPS-100 a commercial GPS receiver installed in the cockpits of British Jaguars and French Mirages and they performed flawlessly. PAF inducted commercial navigation equipment in its front line fighters, and got operational results surpassing military specific equipment. There are lessons to be learnt from here; technology integration is the need of the day for cash strapped Asian nations like Pakistan.
Even super powers like USA, highlight the role the private industry plays even in the active battle theatre; the following US DoD directives point to the importance:
DOD Instruction 3020.37: The DoD components shall rely on the most effective mix of total force, cost and other factors considered, including active, reserve, civilian and contractor (industry) resources necessary to fulfill assigned peacetime and wartime missions: AF Pam 10-231 Federal Civilian Deployment Guide: “Civilians have established themselves as an integral and vital part of the Department of Defense’s total force team. With distinction, they perform critical duties in virtually every functional area of combat support and combat service support, both at home and award.”

CONCLUSION
Looking at the above, we in the Asian Nations need to look at their own specific scenarios:
(i) Adopt intelligent up-gradation solutions rather than outright induction of new armaments.
(ii) Financially wise defense technology industry absorption paths
(iii) What cannot be over emphasized is the fact that state owned industries must only be involved in strategic programs
(iv) Most non strategic defense production technologies must be in the private sector, giving a much larger role to the industrial infrastructure of the country
(v) Home grown programs even if deficient in features compared to foreign option must be preferred
(vi) Cost effectiveness must never be overlooked, least these lead to military success by national failures
(vii) Up-gradation and Force multipliers are the order of the day.

About the Author
Haroon J. Qureshi is a US educated electronic engineer by background, he is the managing director of East West Infiniti (Pvt) Ltd., a leading electronics company in the private sector which has been involved in the design, production and induction of defense electronic products in the Pakistani Armed forces. A company he co-founded in 1984 after his return from USA. He did his BSEE from University of Engineering and Tech., Lahore and MSEE from University of California at San Jose, California, USA.
Hailing from a military family, he has been closely associated with the armed forces since an early age, a keen technology watcher and enthusiast, he has been involved in the design and development of some major force multiplier and military product upgrades in Pakistan, including ground to air radio equipment, unmanned aircraft, anti aircraft missile trainers, positioning systems and RF data products.
He is a visiting speaker at the engineering universities of the country and keenly supports electronic projects at academic institutions, an ardent Amateur Radio operator (AP2HJ), a model aircraft hobbyist and a keen musician. Member of IEEE, AIAA, ARRL, PEC and PSI. Mr. Qureshi has an involved family with a wife, two sons and a daughter.