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Defence Minister Antony’s US visit : Prospects of military deals |
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Defence Minister A.K. Antony ended his three-day visit to Washington on Sept. 10 with meetings with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Advisor Stephen Headley.
Many defence deals are reported to have come up for discussion Antony had with top US officials. The Minister denied reports that the visit was purely connected with defence procurements. But the fact that he was accompanied by the Defence Secretary and the Director General (Acquisition), among others, establishes that many military items in which India has shown interest and has expressed willingness to deliver figured in Antony’s talks with his US counterpart Robert Gates, during his three-day visit. Talking to newsmen in Washington (Sept. 9), Antony rejected the suggestion that his trip was focused on defence procurement but confirmed that some specific issues such as a quest for 126 multi-role combat aircraft were discussed in “general terms”. The Government of India has issued a Request for Proposal for the nearly $10 billion deal.
Robert Gates is believed to have raised the issue of disqualification of an American arrow space company, Sikorsky, for competition to sell VVIP helicopters to India. Its S-99 Superhawk was rejected during technical trials for a contract for the supply of 12 VVIP helicopters to the Indian Air Force earlier this year.
There are several big ticket defence items on the table between India and the US, none bigger than the contract for 126 fighter jets that New Delhi wants to buy to ramp up its Air Force. Arguably the largest single item, it is the one-time military purchase in history, worth between $8 billion and $10 billion. Winning the contract means thousands of jobs spread across years for the Boeing, which makes the F-18 Superhornets in St. Louis, Missouri or Lockheed Martin, which makes the F-16 in Fort Worth, Texas, at a time US cities and towns are bleeding jobs. Although Washington has not overtly voiced its expectations on this matter, the fact that the Defence Minister was accompanied by the Director-General (Acquisition), besides the standard delegation of Defence Secretary and three senior officers from the Services, points to the business on hand.
The US has also offered to sell India 24 Harpoon missiles under a $170 million deal, in response to a request from New Delhi for these air-to-ground anti-ship missiles. “India intends to use the Harpoon missiles to modernize its Air Force Anti Surface Warfare mission capabilities and improve its naval operational flexibility,” the Defence Security Cooperation Agency said in its communication to Congress. The Harpoon is an all-weather, subsonic, over the horizon, anti-ship missile which can be launched from surface ships, submarines and aircraft. And Harpoon Block II is the latest version that can strike land-based targets and ships in littoral environments and can discriminate target ships from islands and other nearby land masses. While there was no immediate word from the Indian side, the agency said. “The Government of India has requested a possible sale of 20 AGM-84L Harpoon Block II missiles and 4 ATM 841. Harpoon Block II Exercise missiles.” Boeing will be the prime contractor for the missiles, designed to assist the Indian Navy to develop and enhance standardization and operational ability with the US.
Since the Kargil conflict, India has spent a whopping $25 billion in defence imports, with Russia, Israel, France and the UK cornering most of the contracts. Russia, of course, leads the pack with annual arms sales to India worth around $1.5 billion, followed by Israel with $1 billion.
Quoting specific examples sources said the US was keen to sell its Active Electronic Scanned Array Radar to the Air Force. This highly sophisticated and expensive system has features like L-3 communications, occupies less space than the conventional radar and has a simpler design and has a synthetic aperture view. This radar system can be fitted on F-16s and F-18s and the technology could not be so far transferred to India under certain dual-use clause restrictions. The NSG clean waiver to the nuclear deal had opened this field and the US companies would now press hard to bag the contracts, they said. Similarly, another big ticket item on the US table was the low frequency radar for the Indian Navy. The low frequency radar has the unique capability of covering large range and avoiding the enemy radar detractors.
Also on the table are several agreements the two sides have been working on, including the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA), under which Indian and US militaries can refuel ships and aircraft in cashless transactions that are balanced at the end of the year. There is also the Communication Inter-operability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) that will enable the two militaries to communicate on a common platform and contentious end-user agreements have been on the backburner for some time due to the Left parties restraining the hand and New Delhi’s own long-standing reticence about military arrangements with the US. But with the Left disengaging from the UPA Government, the Indian viewpoint is gradually beginning to change in consonance with the deteriorating security situation in region, especially with Pakistan’s steady descent into chaos. Indian officials reject the proposition that New Delhi is becoming a military ally, much less a lackey, of Washington. But they stress that consorting equally with all international powers is in India’s interest, pointing out that Indian forces have even undertaken joint military exercises with China.
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