India’s arms imports fell by 4% between 2016-2020 and 2021-2025, but the country remains the world’s second-largest importer of military equipment, accounting for 8.2% of global arms imports, a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said on Monday.
The report on “Trends in International Arms Transfers” said that India’s arms imports are driven by tensions with China and Pakistan.
“The decline in imports can be partly attributed to India’s increasing ability to design and produce its own weapons, although there are often significant delays in domestic production. However, India’s recent orders or planned orders – including up to 140 fighter aircraft from France and 6 submarines from Germany – indicate its continued and perhaps increasing dependence on foreign suppliers,” the report noted.
Ukraine, which received 9.7% of total arms transfers in the period 2021-2025, is the world’s largest arms importer.
The latest data on international arms transfers shows that Russia was the largest supplier of military equipment to India during 2021-2025, but arms exported from Russia have declined significantly over the past 15 years as India works to diversify its arms suppliers and promote self-reliance in the defense manufacturing sector.
Over the past decade, India has shifted its military relations away from Russia toward Western suppliers, especially France, Israel and the United States, the report said, after comparing data over two five-year periods. “The largest share of Indian arms imports during 2021-2025 came from Russia, at 40% – a much lower share than in 2016-2020 (51%) and almost half that in 2011-2015 (70%). India is increasingly turning to Western suppliers.”
India has been locked in a border dispute with China in eastern Ladakh and launched Operation Sindoor against Pakistan during 2021-25, a period that saw the armed forces undertake a range of emergency procurements to remain battle-ready. To be sure, India was the world’s second largest arms importer after Ukraine during the period 2020-2024 as well, and its arms imports declined by 9.3% during the previous five-year period (2015-2019).
The report said that France and Israel are the second and third largest suppliers of weapons and equipment to India, representing 29% and 15% of the country’s arms imports.
He adds that Pakistan’s arms imports increased by 66% between 2016-2020 and 2021-2025. “China supplied 80% of Pakistan’s arms imports in 2021-2025, up from 73% in 2016-2020.” From air defense systems to fighter jets and missiles, Pakistan deployed an array of Chinese-origin weapons against India during Operation Sindoor – the four-day military standoff between the two nuclear-armed neighbors last May following the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 people.
“In South Asia, the large volume of arms imported by India is largely due to the perceived threat from China and to India’s long-standing conflict with the main recipient of Chinese arms exports, Pakistan,” said Simon Wiseman, senior researcher at the SIPRI arms transfer programme. “The imported weapons were used in the 2025 conflict between India and Pakistan, both of which are nuclear-armed states.”
India has taken several measures to enhance self-reliance in the defense manufacturing sector in recent years. This includes imposing a gradual ban on imports of various types of weapons, systems, munitions, subsystems and critical components, creating a separate budget for the purchase of locally made military equipment, increasing foreign direct investment from 49% to 74%, and improving the ease of doing business.
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On February 1, India raised its defense spending by more than 15% on the back of Operation Sindoor, with the exception of… $7.85 lakh crore for critical sector in the Union Budget 2026-27, including capital expenditure of $2.19 lakh crores to enhance the capabilities of the Armed Forces with new weapons and systems including fighter jets, transport aircraft, helicopters, warships, submarines, artillery guns, smart weapons, missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and a variety of unmanned systems.
Allocated budget $1.39 lakh crore to procure locally sourced military equipment to enhance self-reliance in the defense manufacturing sector, up from $1.11 lakh crore in 2025-26.
