India has emerged as one of the biggest arms importers in the world, second only to war-torn Ukraine during the period from 2021 to 2025, while Pakistan has significantly increased its weapon purchases, according to the latest report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), titled Trends in International Arms Transfers, 2025.
However, there is an encouraging trend. The efforts towards Atmanirbharta in defence could possibly be bearing fruit as the report shows that India's share of global arms imports has reduced from 9.3 per cent in the 2016-2020 period to 8.2 per cent.
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Russia continues to be India's largest arms supplier, accounting for 40 per cent of India's arms imports.
Pakistan follows India in fifth place in the SIPRI list, with China supplying 80 per cent of the country's weapons. Islamabad also seems to have majorly increased its weapons purchases as the country's share in global arms imports has gone up from 2.8 per cent in 2016-2020 to 4.2 per cent in the 2021-2025 period.
SIPRI identified 162 states and four non-state armed groups as recipients of major arms in the period. The top five recipients, namely Ukraine, India, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan, received 35 per cent of the total global arms imports in the aforementioned period.
The SIPRI report states that India's arms imports are driven by tensions with both China and Pakistan.
As India’s push for defence self-reliance continues to gather momentum, the SIPRI report indicated that this could be one of the reasons for the decline in procurement. "Indian arms imports fell by 4.0 per cent between 2016–20 and 2021–25. The decrease can be partly attributed to India’s growing ability to design and produce its own weapons—although there are often substantial delays in domestic production," the report reads.
However, the country's recent orders and planned orders, including the Rafale fighter jets deal from France and six submarines from Germany, indicate its continued and probably increasing reliance on foreign suppliers, the report observed.
While India seems to be moving away from Russia and is looking to Western suppliers, especially France, Israel and the USA, Pakistan has increased its defence supplies from China, from 73 per cent in 2016–20 to 80 per cent now.
Russia’s share of Indian arms imports dropped from 70 per cent in 2011–15 to 51 per cent in 2016–20 and then to 40 per cent in 2021–25, the report observed.
