Motives behind US arms sales to India

Source
China Military Online
Editor
Li Wei
Time
2020-03-05 20:27:57
 

By Li Mengyuan

US President Donald Trump made his first official visit to India on February 24-25, during which the two sides inked an arms deal worth more than USD3 billion, whereby India will buy 24 MH-60R Seahawk anti-submarine helicopters and six AH-64E Apache armored helicopters from the US. That Trump prioritized the arms deal over a trade deal with India revealed his “America first” philosophy behind the support for New Delhi.

Washington and New Delhi have had closer military cooperation in recent years in spite of their divergences on issues such as trade, religion, and ethnic minorities.

While defining China and Russia as its strategic rivals, the US views India as a pivot of its “Indo-Pacific strategy” and believes that incorporating more American elements into the Indian military will deepen the security cooperation mechanism among Washington, Tokyo, Canberra, and New Delhi.

The Indian government is faced with protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act across the country. The support from US will not only give New Delhi more confidence at home, but also raise its international standing. Besides, India has always been trying to strike a relative balance when getting along withmajor countries, so the purchase ofa certain number of American weapons and equipment for the Indian troops that are mainly equipped with Russian pieces exactly embodies India’s pursuit of the balance.

Knowing so well with what New Delhi is thinking, Trump showered too much praise on India during his two-day visit, sparing no effort to curry favor with India.

India and Pakistan have had constant border disputes recently. India’s revocation of Article 370 of the Constitution in August 2019 further exacerbated its conflicts with Pakistan in Kashmir. Moreover, India lost face after its aircraft was shot down during the “February 27” air battle with Pakistan that year, and its navy wants to take more aggressive steps to dominate the Indian Ocean and engage in the South China Sea. Under such circumstances, the Indian military urgently needs to buy advanced weapons to reinforce its strength and deter potential rivals.

For instance, the MH-60R Seahawk helicopter that takes a major part in the latest US-India arms deal boasts all-weather combat performances and can be deployed on multiple types of naval vessels to perform diverse tasks, meeting the Indian navy’s demand for ship-borne helicopters. According to another source, the Indian military will also move faster to purchase the AIM-120 air-to-air missiles and the NASAMS-II air defense missile systems from the US. It’s foreseeable that the US is going to help India compete with its regional rivals by hawking more tactical weapons to India.

When addressing a 100,000-people welcome rally in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad on February 24, Trump said the United States should be India's premier defense partner, which sounded like a warning that India should further shake off its reliance on Russia for weapon imports.

Russian equipment consistently accounts for over 60% of India’s total weapon import and is more than four times the amount of American equipment. The latest purchase of five sets of Russian S-400 air defense missile systems cost more than USD5 billion. Yet India, which upholds weapon import diversification, wouldn’t put all its eggs in one basket, so the American military industry finds its way to the Indian market.

Some media report that Washington and New Delhi are also in talks about a nearly USD10-billion equipment deal. This South Asian country is without any doubt an important arms market with great prospects for Trump, who has touted weapon export as his political achievement. Following the Communications, Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) in 2018 and the Industrial Security Annex (ISA) in 2019, the US is likely to further deepen the military cooperation with India and export more weapons to it using technology transfer as a bait.

On the surface, Washington and New Delhi each get what they want through the arms deal, but we can well imagine how many benefits the India can really get under the “America first” policy. The affinity in appearance cannot hide their underlying interest divergences.

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