Preparing Against Joint China & Pakistan Threat, India Buys More Weapons Than Any Nation : Report

India was the world's second largest importer of arms and military hardware between 2021 and 2025, accounting for 8.2 percent of global arms imports, according to SIPRI's latest Trends in International Arms Transfers report. Only Ukraine, fighting a full-scale conventional war, imported more weapons during this period, making India the largest arms importer among nations not actively engaged in a major conflict. But the ranking itself is less significant than the supplier breakdown and the direction it points. Russia remains the single largest source at 40 percent but that figure has fallen sharply from 51 percent in 2016-20 and 70 percent in 2011-15, reflecting a deliberate, phased migration away from Soviet-era dependency. The space vacated by Moscow has been filled by France at 29 percent and Israel at 15 percent, both now structurally anchoring India's Western procurement pivot. India's imports also fell by 4 percent between the two periods, partly attributable to growing domestic production, though delays remain a significant challenge. The strategic drivers are clear: China, with whom tensions along the Line of Actual Control have remained elevated since 2020, is identified by SIPRI as the primary long-term security concern. Pakistan, simultaneously, has climbed from tenth to fifth among the world's largest arms recipients, with imports growing 66 percent and China supplying 80 percent of its hardware.The China comparison is the most instructive data point of all. Beijing has cut its arms imports by 72 percent and now ranks 21st globally having built the domestic capability that India is still attempting to replicate. The gap between China's achieved self-reliance and India's Aatmanirbharta ambition is the clearest and most honest measure of how far India still has to go.