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“Otherwise, it seems likely that a militarily weak India will one day need to call Washington for essential help at a decisive moment.”

Sorry. That never happens. Its Pakistan that goes to Washington for help, not India. You probably confused India with Pakistan like most Americans.

India may not have a lot of things but the one thing India has is military power. Besides during Iraq war it was Washington that came to New Delhi asking for help.

Suppose, for example, that a botched coup leads to civil disorder in Pakistan. Who is better prepared to use persuasion and force to assure that several Pakistani nukes do not get into the hands of Islamic terrorists intending to use them on India? India, or the US?

Whatever India's military capabilities may be for such a crisis, as the Bin Laden raid demonstrates, those of the US are far more substantial than those of India. In fact, India does not even have the Chinook and Apache helicopters used on that raid or any equivalents, let alone the ancillary equipment and men trained and ready for deep incursions into hostile territory.

By spending a lot of money in opaque ways, after ten or twenty years, India might develop and produce the needed military equipment through indigenous manufacturing -- assuming that is, the Americans or Europeans or Israelis can be persuaded to provide the technology.

As best as I can tell, India's strategy for dealing with a major crisis with Pakistan is to engage US mediation by threatening war, a war that would almost certainly soon become a nuclear war. Except for US intervention, that very nearly happened after the Mumbai attacks.

Call me an opinionated American if you will, but India being strong enough to avert a nuclear war with Pakistan seems to be in India's interest. Among other things, that requires that India have a robust ability to monitor and defend her borders and lands against Pakistani terrorism -- and that India have the ability to do this as soon as possible, not on the vague, extended time frames used in India's arms indigenization program.

Logically, that means India needs to purchase military equipment from foreign suppliers and get it into the hands of her armed forces on an expedited basis. If not, in the event of an emergency, I am sure that India's Foreign Ministry knows how to reach the US State Department. For the sake of Mumbai, the rest of India, and the world, I hope that the US and India and their relationship -- more than friends, less than allies -- are able to bring any such crisis to a successful resolution.

The key concern for India must be not if she has military power, but if the military power that she has is adequate to her needs and national security strategy. Many Indian and independent professional military observers overseas see grave deficiencies, with India lacking a clear national security strategy, a reliable procurement program suited to that strategy, and then the budgeted resources to carry it out.

Reliable, independent measures show that corruption is a major problem in India, including in military procurement. Although India needs to develop her indigenous arms industry, to do so in an effective manner will require the adoption of First World business practices. Otherwise, vast sums will continue to be be squandered by India for weapons that will be late, flawed, and over budget with a Made In India stamp.