In 2022, India’s expenditure on military equipment upgrades and building military infrastructure along its disputed border with China accounted for 23% of its overall military budget.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) said in a report published on Monday that India, which has increased its focus on building defense capabilities and strengthening military infrastructure along the China border, will be the world’s fourth-largest military spender in 2022, after the United States, China, and Russia.
Saudi Arabia was ranked fifth. The five countries accounted for 63% of all military spending worldwide. The fourth-highest country in the world in terms of military spending was India, at $81.4 billion. It was up 47% from 2013 and 6% more than in 2021. The Sipri report stated that India’s spending surge “shows the repercussions of its border tensions with China and Pakistan.
The report comes as India and China have been stuck at a standstill along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh since May 2020, with talks underway to reduce border tensions. On Sunday, the two parties held the 18th round of military discussions to resolve unresolved issues.
According to the report, India’s expenditure on military equipment upgrades and strengthening military infrastructure along its disputed border with China accounted for 23% of total military spending in 2022, with salaries and pensions remaining the largest expenditure category in the Indian military budget, accounting for roughly half of total military spending.
Based on Air Marshal Anil Chopra (retd), director general of the Centre for Air Power Studies, India faces unique security difficulties because it has two nuclear-armed Neighbours with whom it has had full-scale wars, and the military continues to face one another at the frontiers.
India has taken numerous actions to improve its defense self-reliance over the previous four to five years. These include designating a separate budget for buying military hardware produced domestically, increasing foreign direct investment (FDI) from 49% to 74%, and selecting hundreds of weapons and systems that cannot be imported and will be indigenously produced during the next five to six years.