How much should India spend on defence?

[livingdead]

We should spend as little as possible, if we can get away with 1%, why not. Ultimately we only need to have a credible deterrent and invest the rest on our people. What is the use of nukes, if you cant reduce spending on conventional arms.
The people who you should not listen to too much, are those from forces. They will always want shiny toys to play wth, even if you cant afford.

 

[Nicky G]

We can't just go top down here. Obviously the budget is limited however we need to develop more room to increase defence spending if required. So we need to come up with the must have items over the next decade or so and work out at what time how much needs to be spent.

Overall, in my view, we should gradually increase the spending as the capital intensive part might be more at the beginning to close to 3% a year over the next five to ten years. Then maintain or only slightly increase the absolute value, which would naturally bring down the percentage spend as the GDP grows.