'Be Indian, buy Indian' for strategic autonomy

Being a big-budget arms importer does have its advantages in world affairs, but India also needs to pace up indigenous weapon development. Our record on this has been patchy so far

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India has long been counted among the world's top importers of arms. So, any slip in our worldwide rank grabs attention. According to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), Ukraine displaced India as the top arms importer in the period from 2020 to 2024. Kyiv's orders accounted for 8.8% of all arms imported globally over that five-year span, having risen 100 times since 2015-19.

New Delhi's ranked second, with an 8.3% share of defence imports, down from 9.8% in Sipri's previous report for the period 2019-23. With Ukraine at war with Russia for the past three years, its leap to the top of Sipri's chart is no surprise. It has had to rely on armoury from the US and Europe to defend itself, although with Washington's change in stance towards Kyiv under Donald Trump's presidency, further shifts could be in store. Of course, since we are not in an arms race, our relative position is irrelevant. What matters is how well we are equipped to deal with external threats.