Please take a good, long and hard look at the table below .
India’s total defence budget outlay has risen 8 fold in the last 25 years ( $11 billion to $91 billion) while Iran’s has risen only 3 times (from around $3 billion to $8 billion in the same period).
In 2001, India and Iran defence spending budget was almost the same at c. $ 10 billion. In 2025, Indian defense outlay however was 12 times bigger than Iran’s.
Yet , in per-capita terms the defence spending of India today in 2025 is lower than that of Iran ( $6.2 million Vs $ 9.5 billion)… And this in spite of the crippling economic sanctions that was imposed on Iran by the entire world (except maybe China, Russia and North Korea and to a very small extent by India) in the last 25 years!
India in the last 25 years has been spending year on year billions of USD on defence procurements of hi-end, hi-tech and big-ticket armaments from the West. Whereas severely sanctioned Iran seems to have had no other choice but to invest only in relatively low-end , low-tech , cost-effective missile and drone technology with which, however to the whole world’s astonishment, in the ongoing war with the combined might of Israel and America, Iran has so far been able to extract a heavy price from both countries in terms of pain, pelf and prestige !
So, the question I now ask myself is this :
Was Iran wiser and much smarter than India in investing and spending on its defense and national security in the last 25 years?
Was there probably overspending if not profligacy on the part of the MoD and Defence General Staff in going for such “big-ticket and heavy-hitting miltary hardware” — through Rafael jets, Bofors howitzers, Apache helicopters, Russian second-hand aircraft carriers and Israeli radar systems— and underspending on cost-effective spending strategies on less sophisticated but no less deadly asymmetry-warfare arsenal , such as what Iran seems to have adopted with not inconsiderable success today ?
Food for thought indeed for the Comptroller and Auditor General of India ( past and present)?
Hmm… I wonder ! 🤔
Sudarshan Madabushi