You have to judge the results based on input and output.
Result is the output, isn't it? And you agree with me then.
Was the investment worth the product? Did it come in a timely manner? Did it meet requirements? Did it meet your goals?
Valid questions.
The beauty of private defence firms is that the government doesn't have to fund the majority of it.
I am all for private companies coming up with something useful and at par with modern weapon systems. As one Chinese member rightly pointed out, which many don't seem to grasp, is that it is easy for a private Indian company to get civilian technology from foreign collaboration and produce world class products, but it is virtually impossible to get military technology from foreign collaboration and produce world class products.
Let's be realistic here.
They are performance based and only get paid when they show results. As it stands now, they keep throwing good money after bad. By the time they overcome the next challenge it is already obsolete.
I agree. I don't agree with this idea of continuing with throwing money.
When there is a state monopoly, it cuts out competition and there is nothing driving them to do better. The same substandard results will always be good enough at the local level and never good enough on the global level. Having a publicly listed company that is not immune to the judiciary goes a long way to battling corruption.
No one is talking about state monopoly. When I say performance of a company does not depend upon its ownership, does not mean companies enjoying state monopoly will always succeed. Read my comments properly.
The three things you get going private:
1) results = compensation
2) open playing field = competition
3) transparency = less corruption
You can have the same thing in an MNC as well, and you talk about that in the following portion of your comment. Read what you wrote:
The argument was made over how a communist Soviet MIC could be successful and not be private. They had competition by having multiple design institutes and manufacturers. They had result oriented compensation by reward and the threat to your family if you failed. The sheer mass of input was enough to overcome many challenges smaller MICs have been unable to overcome. 30% of GDP was pumped through this system and no other state could do this nor would they want to. This model was based on the sacrifice of resources for the masses in the name of defence. It is not a model that is compatible in this day and age. Also underwriting this was a massive education system designed around it.
In the Indian context, I am having a hard time believing any private company will be able to invest the amount of money that is invested in DRDO projects. I wish that was true.
There are a few points that can be applied from it.
1) appropriate education programmes
2) enough firms to make competition
3) performance based results
In India, we have none of the three. Even our top institutes, such as, IITs, IISc, ISI, etc., are not producing enough research publications as are universities in the West.
The difference is the scale and application of such a system. Private firms can operate in any sized environment because they tailor themselves to the supply and demand.
Perhaps you are correct. Hire and fire policy is easy in a private company, but will that work? This in itself is a big debate, but I won't go into that now.
They can draw talent from wherever they need to because it is a global system.
No they can't. We are talking about military technology here.
You can get the same results as the Soviets for less public expenditure.
In DRDO's case, yes.
The firms will do what they need to, the government just needs to offer enough compensation to make it profitable.
And the government will almost certainly operate on tenders, and companies will cut corners; yes, these private companies, and the end result will be a shoddy piece of useless junk. I am still waiting for one Indian car that can make a name for itself in the west, just one car. There are many many models from Japan, Korea, etc., that are turning heads in the west. Until that happens, don't expect any private company to deliver a product anywhere close to some of the missiles that DRDO has produced.
