New Delhi :Barack Obama will be the guest of honor at Indias Republic Day parade on Jan. 26. On display will be the countrys military hardware, much of which dates from the Soviet era. One of the topics of discussion when Obama meets with Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be how to upgrade Indias defense capabilities.
India, the worlds largest importer of weapons and defense systems, spent $5.6 billion in 2013, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The present regime led by Prime Minister Modi wants to spend more visible from the fact that since taking power in May, hes signed off on $20 billion in arms procurement proposals, about double the amount spent in the prior fiscal year.
Harsh Pant, a professor at the India Institute of Kings College London, estimates the costs of modernizing Indias weaponry will run to $130 billion over the next seven years. A lot of Western arms exporters would be interested in that, he told the Businessweek.
The U.S. displaced Russia as Indias top supplier of armaments in 2013a major coup, considering that just four years earlier sales by American defense contractors to the country amounted to only $237 million. The Modi administrations shopping list includes everything from heavy guns to submarines. Boeing is close to winning a $2.5 billion order for 22 Apache helicopters and 15 Chinook heavy-lift transport aircraft. During Obamas visit, the two countries are expected to discuss plans to develop and produce weapons. It will be more than a buyer-seller relationship, feels Tanvi Madan, an India specialist at the Brookings Institution.
India is counting on improved defense ties with the U.S. to help neutralize the threat from its northern neighbor. The Peoples Liberation Army is in the midst of a substantial upgrade: Last March, China announced a more than 12 percent increase in the military budget for 2014, to almost $132 billion. The countries dispute their borders in the Himalayas and Kashmir. The Chinese are also longtime suppliers of weaponry to Indias bitter rival, Pakistan. We face a coordinated China-Pakistan axis, says retired Indian diplomat G Parthasarathy.
American administrations spent the last decade rebuilding ties with India, with an eye to creating a military counterweight in the region. Those efforts may get a boost from Obamas nomination of Ashton Carter for secretary of defense. As No. 2 at the Pentagon from 2011 to 2013, Carter helped oversee a program to increase technology transfers to India.
Imports account for more than two-thirds of Indias military purchases, by some estimates. That dependence leaves the country vulnerable in negotiations with foreign contractors, according to Bharat Karnad, a research professor at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. We are the foolish rich guy easily separated from his money, he says.
India doesnt have a strong record in designing and building its own sophisticated weaponry. On Jan. 17 the government held a ceremony in Bangalore to celebrate the completion of the Tejas light fighter aircraft, a project that had been in the works since 1983. The Defence Research and Development Organization, a government-run agency with a near-monopoly on military research, is more notable for its self-promotion than the production of weapons, according to a report from Brookings analysts Stephen Cohen and Michael OHanlon.
Modi sees increased military spending as a way to help jump-start his Make in India campaign. To help Indian defense contractors become more competitive, the government has eased limits on foreign investment in the local arms industry. Its also leaning on foreign suppliers to share some of their valuable know-how with Indian firms. Dassault Aviation won a 2007 competition to supply the Indian air force with 126 Rafale fighter jets, but wrangling over whether the French company will guarantee timely delivery of the 108 planes to be assembled locally by state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics has delayed the contracts award reports Businessweek.
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