Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dramatic purchase of 36 Rafale jets has drawn extreme comments. One, that this is a bold, gutsy decision of a leader who is not afraid to break the multiple logjams in defence acquisitions. Two, that it is a panicky decision to fill a crucial gap in a fast-depleting Indian Air Force Order of Battle (ORBAT) with obsolescence of the entire MiG series (MiG-29 apart), and is typical of our bandaid-tourniquet doctrine of defence purchases.

There's truth in both arguments, though I am more inclined to the first view. This is a gutsy decision which breaks a stalemate and ends, at least for the moment, the vicious lobbying, leak-versus-leak battles in New Delhi. But there is also merit to the second view. How did India paint itself into such a corner, weakening its strategic posture? The result was it ended up making possibly a $5 billion purchase off-the-shelf in a wartime-like haste, embarrassing for the aspiring globaliser fielding the world's fourth largest army and listed, traditionally, as the top military importer in the world.

Stockholm-based SIPRI, which estimates import data in terms of constant 1990 value dollars, puts the value of India's total arms imports in five years (2010-14) at a little over $21 billion, and about three times the second largest, Saudi Arabia. Pakistan is a little bit behind, with just over a fourth of India's arms import bill, although that figure could need some correction for the complexities of putting a realistic value of imports from the US and China, both "special relationship" suppliers. The SIPRI figures look accurate if we compare them with the only reliable rupee data available with us, in the form of answers to Parliament questions: Arun Jaitley said India's arms imports were around Rs 83,000 crore in the past three years, and Manohar Parrikar said Rs 1,03,000 crore in five years, or $16 billion. But if you think 1990 rupee-dollar, SIPRI' s $21 billion would be in the ballpark.

Two points arise from this. First, that Modi's decision to order these Rafale jets off-the-shelf was wise and brave, like a senior doctor risking immediate surgery to save a deteriorating patient. The second is a question. How did the fourth largest military machine in the world get itself in the ICU in the middle of the night over a weekend needing emergency surgery?

Or, to make it inconvenient for this columnist, you could summarise and reword the same questions as something like: Mr so-and-so, go get your head examined, how can you accuse a country importing more armaments than the next three countries in rankings together of suffering from a fear of buying? How can this country then be perpetually short of crucial weaponry? Aren't you a jumble of contradictions?

These are perfectly valid questions and I have no defence except to say that this reflects the multiple paradoxes and contradictions of India's defence planning. You want to appreciate this better, read this dubious honour of being the top importer along with the statements of successive service chiefs on crucial shortfalls. For me, the most telling statement of all came from General V.P. Malik, in the early days of Kargil in 1999 when he said in frustration: "We will fight with what we have." He was the chief of one of the world's largest and finest armies.

To delve into this maze of contradictions, you need to write a couple of tomes. Some have been written too. My favourite is Arming Without Aiming, jointly written by the foremost expert on South Asian militaries, Stephen P. Cohen, and Sunil Dasgupta (who worked with me in this magazine two decades ago as a young reporter learning to cover defence). Both are based at Brookings in Washington now and bemoan lack of a culture of strategic thinking and planning in India. The Indian doctrine, they imply, is purely tactical, episodic, immediate-need-based, and conforms to the basic Indian approach to all infrastructure: create shortages and then keep planning to deal with them. My own most telling insight on this sits in my rather flimsy personal archives. It is a handwritten note scribbled with a pencil on a scrap from Jaswant Singh. He slipped it to me with a smile at a strategic affairs brainstorm at Schloss Leopoldskron, Salzburg, in the summer of 1994, as General Sundarji held forth on the weaknesses in India's strategic doctrine. "I headed the parliamentary committee to examine India's military-strategic doctrine," wrote Jaswant Singh. "We concluded there was no strategy and no doctrine."

There is zero evidence this has changed. Because if it had, we would not be buying frontline fighters off-the-shelf as if picking groceries at a supermarket after 17 years of debates, controversies and near-scandals. This has been the consistent history of our defence purchases except, say, a remarkable 1985-89 phase under Rajiv Gandhi which, sadly, became a problem and made our fear of buying an incurable virus. The result of this piecemeal approach is that our armed forces are under a constant stress with shortages. The same disease had plagued us during, and in the course of, every war, even if we leave out 1962 as an exception. We believe in 1971 Indira Gandhi and Jagjivan Ram gave the armed forces a free hand and time to build up fully before going to war. This included emergency, bulk import of used Soviet-made T-55 tanks from Poland, induction of heavy, but short-legged Sukhoi-7s for close support (it ended up with the highest attrition rate). And now, scholar Srinath Raghavan tells us in his wonderfully researched and written 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh that on the eve of 1971 the government of our greatest anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian leader ever, Indira Gandhi, secretly pleaded with the Israelis for crucial weaponry, including long-range mortars, though we did not have diplomatic relations with them. Of course, the Israelis helped as they had done twice in the past.

Remember the initial setbacks IAF suffered in Kargil, when two MiGs and a Mi-17 attack helicopter were lost and all crew were killed, except one taken POW? A fourth, a sturdy photo-reconnaissance Canberra (since retired), was nursed back to base by a deft crew. All were hit by shoulder-fired missiles. It needs to be said that it was because IAF commanders were still operating in old derring-do, precise, daylight, low-level strike missions of the pre-missile age. The result was losses while very little was achieved with old-fashioned bombs, rockets and strafing. Once again, tactics changed after setbacks (recall the loss of all four obsolete Vampires sent out over Chamb in the first air battle of 1965, not to be used again in that war).

Again in 1999, the IAF suffered no casualty in nearly 50 days of more effective operations after the first few. It not only changed tactics, but also imported-again from Israel in an emergency-laser pods to rig on Mirage-2000s to carry out precision bombing of Pakistani positions at night. If you scratch your memory, or look at archives, those are the videos the IAF displayed at one of the press conferences in the decisive phase of that war and when the tide turned.

This isn't meant to be a comprehensive litany of our short-termism. It is to explore a limited question, with apologies to Erica Jong: Why this fear of buying? Since 1987, one reason is the Bofors syndrome. Every defence purchase is fraught, delayed or "thrown in orbit" as Lutyens description goes for sending a file into a permanent spiral of indecision. This makes New Delhi the easiest playground for arms dealers, middlemen (by whatever name you call them) and a new phenomenon, the dedicated, B-to-B, arms bazaar media. Public is confused between negotiations, shifting requirements, a constant whiff of scandal and a belief that the system is owned by this massive, evil arms trade. At the same time, we continue importing more than any other nation in the world. You want a paradox: A.K. Antony, our most risk-averse, most anti-US defence minister since 1991, ended up buying more from the US, and directly, on government-to-government basis and off-the-shelf (C-130s, C-17s, P-8Is) than in our entire independent history. Modi has resumed that de-risked, emergency buying tradition, though with great dash.

The only way to fight phobias is to face them. It is fashionable to curse Rajiv for Bofors and more, but the truth is, 1985-89 was the only period in our history that weapon acquisitions were proactive, futuristic and redefined the largely defensive tactical doctrines until then. Sundarji's Brasstacks and Checkerboard were aggressive and aimed at delivering crushing blows in enemy territory than merely protecting your own. The fear of Bofors has blighted South Block since. But think. In a war even today, bulk of the hardware the three forces will field was ordered by Rajiv, from Mirages to T-72 tanks to new series MiGs, BMP armoured fighting vehicles and, of course, Bofors artillery. In these years our defence budget crossed that Lakshman Rekha of 4 per cent of GDP.

Today it is well below 2 per cent of a growing GDP, and quite adequate. For a reality check, our five years' defence imports are two-thirds of our gold imports in a year and, more tellingly, less than a tenth of the import bill of Reliance Industries and about a seventh of Indian Oil Corporation, a PSU. But controversy dogs only defence imports not because they are huge, but because they are small, piecemeal, with many vendors, and the "system", wrapped-in-latex post-Bofors, is petrified of handling it. If you give up that fear, you can embark on another systematic modernisation as in 1985-89.

If you don't, you will again land up in the ICU over a weekend needing emergency transfusion, if not surgery, soon enough.

Follow the writer on Twitter @ShekharGupta

To read more, get your copy of India Today here.