By this logic, we should fund both our R&D pipeline and modernization of our forces parallely by increasing our defence cap-ex from pitiable 20-24 billion dollars a year to a whole 100 billion dollars or so, there by bringing our defence expense to about 165 billion dollars or 4.1% of our GDP from pitiable 1.9% of our GDP as of now.
Yeah but at what cost? It’s very easy for us sitting online to say “just raise defence capex to $100B,” but the government doesn’t get to think that way. They can’t just pull tens of billions out of thin air without answering some basic questions.
Can they slash salaries and pensions? Of course not, these are legal and institutional obligations for both civilian and defence personnel.
Can they cut operational spending? Only up to a limit. Fuel, maintenance, logistics, ammunition stockpiles — these aren’t luxuries that you can shut off.
Just because GDP is growing doesn’t mean the government suddenly has an endless pool of money. The microeconomics matters. Every extra rupee sent to defence has to come from somewhere else, health, education, infrastructure, food security, debt servicing. A government isn’t running a single-sector business; it has to juggle multiple priorities at once.
And here’s the important context people ignore: central capex in H1 2026 has already grown by around 40% year-on-year. That doesn’t mean defence automatically gets a 40% jump. Capex includes railways, highways, power, digital infrastructure, green energy, space, atomic energy, all the things that actually raise India’s long-term national power. If the government undershoots on these, there’s a cost. If it overshoots and cuts something else, there’s a cost too.
Even within this tight space, defence capital spending has gone up about 9.1% YoY. That’s steady, sustainable growth. You don’t go from $20–24B to $100B overnight without wrecking the fiscal math.
So the whole “just increase defence capex to $100B because GDP went up” argument doesn’t hold any water. Growth in GDP doesn’t automatically mean unlimited budgetary space. Governments deal with hard ceilings, trade-offs and non-negotiable expenditures. It’s not as simple as wishfully moving sliders up and down.
Again you need to stop looking at Defence budget through % of GDP. Look at it % of Budget because that is what matters. Govt's revenue doesn't necessarily increase at the same rate as GDP. Infact it almost always grows at an inadequate rate in a developing country like India..
