Defence Offsets: International Experience and Implications for India

V N Srinivas

‘Defence Offsets: International Experience and Implications for India’ is a book about India's defence offsets policy and an outline of international experience on implementing defence offsets. India’s defence offsets policy is nascent. The country’s defence expenditure has been growing considerably in recent years, and so is its defence capital acquisition budget that caters for the procurement of defence platforms and associated equipment. In the absence of sufficient indigenous capability to meet its defence requirements, the country is dependent on imports for a long time now. It has become one of the leading arms importing nations among the developing countries, with its burgeoning arms import bill having enormous scope for leveraging offsets. Self reliance in arms imports has been a long cherished aspiration of the country for several decades now, and offsets are expected to pave way for improving the self reliance quotient of the country significantly. The country offers huge opportunity for leading arms manufacturing companies of the world, from whom India imports its defence equipment, to undertake a variety of offset activities such as foreign direct investment in joint ventures involving India’s public and private sector companies; subcontracting work in the country; and, investment in country's defence research and development efforts etc. The book highlights whether defence offsets indeed deliver intended results and difficulties associated with such assessment. The perspectives of the United States, the leading arms manufacturing and exporting country of the world, have been brought out in detail. Similarly the views of European Union, whose members are both major providers as well as beneficiaries of defence offsets, have also been brought out. Finally, a few suggestions have been made for improving India’s defence offsets policy in the years to come. In sum, the book provides an overall view of defence offsets and relevance of international experience in this field for India’s defence offsets policy.

V N Srinivas Wing Commander V.N. Srinivas is a serving officer of the Indian Air Force, commissioned in the Accounts branch in 1985. He is a post graduate in business administration from Panjab University, Chandigarh and a graduate in Law from Delhi University, besides being an alumnus of Defence Services Staff College, Wellington. He has served at various frontline bases of the Air Force. He also served as Joint Director Naval Plans (Financial Planning) at Naval Headquarters from 2001 to 2004 under a cross exchange programme of Service officers. He was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi during 2005-2009. His areas of research include Defence Budgeting, Arms Trade and Defence Offsets. His earlier book titled Budgeting for Indian Defence – Issues of Contemporary Relevance has won critical acclaim.