Abstract
Most national defense industries face a dilemma between technological self-reliance and (inter)dependence. While indigenously building weapons increases self-reliance, it can come at the cost of economic and technical efficiency. Conversely, interdependence helps a state integrate into global innovation/production networks and potentially access the most advanced weapons, but forsakes self-reliance for short-term efficiency gains. How do states act in such a dilemma, especially when acquiring large, technologically complex platform weapons systems? Despite being a major rising power, India’s defense industry remains surprisingly understudied in this regard. In this paper, I argue that domestic *belief coalitions* comprising political, military, and technocratic actors shape how India navigates its self-reliance dilemma. In a comparative case study of advanced warship and main battle tank procurement in India, I identify and test the causal role of *techno-nationalist, techno-strategic, and techno-epistemic beliefs* in shaping a higher level of technological self-reliance in naval warfare than in land warfare. My analysis draws on expert interviews with high-level Indian military officials and technocrats, as well as political speeches, policy documents, and strategic doctrines. My findings show that the breadth and robustness of coalitions of different technological beliefs can facilitate defense indigenization and self-reliance or, conversely, entrench existing dependencies by shaping what is seen as feasible and desirable. This paper challenges mainstream systemic and structural explanations of defense technological self-reliance, while enriching sociological and ideational political economy approaches to military innovation and defense studies. My focus on domestic beliefs opens the black box of decision-making in the Indian defense industry, offering an actor-centric perspective on the conditions and drivers that have shaped varied outcomes of the self-reliance dilemma in conventional weapons procurement. India’s emerging role as a significant security and defense industrial actor especially raises the empirical relevance of this research.
Panel: Stepping into the Future: Military Technology, Innovation Practices, and Contemporary Challenges