NEW DELHI: India and the US on Friday agreed to go in for co-development and co-production of advanced weapon systems, with Washington pushing New Delhi for early decisions on offers ranging from the next-generation Javelin anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
But India will not jump headlong into any venture without first ensuring the US sticks to its promise to provide "ground-breaking technology" on par with its closest allies, even though the Modi government is keen to strengthen the moribund domestic defence production sector.
The decision to revive the floundering Defence Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI) between the two countries, as also work towards the extension of the 10-year India-US defence framework, was taken after visiting US defence secretary Chuck Hagel held delegation-level talks with his Indian counterpart Arun Jaitley.
As the name DTTI suggests, the US is eager about "trade" as the world's largest arms exporter. Having bagged Indian defence deals worth $10 billion in the last decade, with more like the ones for Apache and Chinook helicopters on the way, has only served to whet its appetite. But for India, the focus is on "technology" to ensure it can build a robust defence-industrial base to shed its embarrassing tag of being the world's largest arms importer.
So, it was the importance of "technology transfer" that Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed in his meeting with Hagel, holding that he was keen to see "further progress" in bilateral defence ties, including in "defence manufacturing in India".
Jaitley, in turn, said, "The development of our own indigenous capabilities is a major objective that guides our present policies. In this direction, we have taken steps to raise the FDI cap (from 26% to 49%) in the defence sector. We look forward to work closely with the US in this regard," said Jaitley.
But India is still not fully convinced about the US as a reliable long-term, high-end defence supplier, given its propensity to impose sanctions and stringent export control laws. The US, however, believes it can effectively marry trade and technology, with benefits for both.
Stressing that "security, stability, freedom of sea lanes, economic development and energy" is in the interest of the two countries as well as the Asia-Pacific region, Hagel said the US wants to be a partner in India's military modernization and recognises its needs to strengthen its defence-industrial base.
The US will be led by its under secretary of defence acquisition, technology and logistics Frank Kendall in the DTTI. The Indian points-man, in turn, will be the defence production secretary, which is a comedown from before since former national security advisor Shivshankar Menon earlier led the initiative. Jaitley, incidentally, accepted Hagel's invite to visit Pentagon when he goes to Washington to attend the annual meetings of IMF and World Bank.
Of all the joint development and production offers, the US is especially keen to push the case for fourth-generation Javelin ATGMs, which even President Barack Obama has personally pushed with Modi. The Indian ATGM project, after all, is going to be worth over $2.5 billion. Javelin is in contention with the Israeli "Spike" tank-killing missiles to bag the project, as was earlier reported by TOI.
With the 1.13-million Indian Army grappling with a huge shortfall of 44,000 ATGMs of different types, the project involves an initial direct acquisition of the man-portable "tank killers", with a strike range of 2.5km, followed by technology transfer to defence PSU Bharat Dynamics for large-scale indigenous manufacture. The Army is keen to equip all its 382 infantry battalions with third and fourth-generation ATGMs.
who wants a submarine that cant resurface after it has dived,only the taliban will have interest in it ,if india waits around for the spanish to fix its overweight problems ,well it will be too late to rescue its underwater forces.
