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United States curbs on Javelin missile sale cloud Indo-US relationship

arp2041

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A dangerous flashpoint in United States-India relations faces visiting US Secretary of Defence, Leon Panetta, who faces tough questions from Indian officials on Tuesday. The US State Department has slashed India’s request for Javelin anti-tank missiles, offering instead a smaller quantity that Washington sources say is “less than half of what India has requested for.”

Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials are furious that Washington, an avowed strategic partner, has pared down India’s requirement of Javelin missiles, even while arguing that defence sales are a cornerstone of the US-Indian strategic relationship.

“This (US reduced offer) is a deal killer. Washington will not dictate the quantity of weaponry we need. This will severely damage the prospects of US vendors in future arms contracts,” a South Block official told Business Standard.
This unexpected rebuff stems from the US Department of Political-Military Affairs, a State Department office that examines the political fallout of proposed US arms sales. Pol-Mil Affairs, as this department is called, often nixes or curtails arms sales because they might “destabilise the regional military balance.”

Neither the US Embassy in New Delhi, nor the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), is prepared to reveal the reason provided by Washington for slashing the Indian request. The Ministry of External Affairs and the MoD have not responded to requests for comments.

US Embassy spokesperson, Peter Vrooman, said, “We don’t discuss individual sales. Secretary Panetta looks forward to having an exchange with the Government of India on a broad range of issues.”

Andrew Shapiro, the Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, had told Business Standard, in an exclusive interaction during his visit to New Delhi on April 17, that Washington had cleared the transfer of technology for manufacturing the Javelin missile in India. Given that readiness to transfer high-end technology, the curbs placed by Washington on the missile numbers remain inexplicable.

The FGM-148 Javelin, built by US companies Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, is one of the two anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) that the Indian Army is evaluating for its 350-odd infantry battalions. The other is the Spike, built by Israeli company, Rafael. These are both shoulder-launched, “fire-and-forget” ATGMs, which means that they autonomously track their targets after they are fired by a two-man crew.

Both missiles are scheduled to come to India for user evaluation trials later this year. However, the Javelin has already impressed the Indian Army. During joint exercises with the US Army, Indian missile crews have fired ten Javelin missiles. All ten hit their targets.

The US industry, which has heavy stakes in a successful Javelin sale to India, is sharply critical of the State Department for curtailing the Indian request. “Offering a reduced number of missiles will almost certainly kill the Javelin deal; in fact it seems to almost be designed to be so. It seems as if Hillary Clinton herself remains unconvinced about the India relationship and is trying to set a different tone,” complains an industry member.

A key US frustration in the defence relationship has been New Delhi’s refusal to sign three defence cooperation agreements that Washington has pressed for: a Communications Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA); a Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-spatial Cooperation (BECA); and a Logistics Support Agreement (LSA). New Delhi believes that signing these agreements would put it overtly in the US camp, diluting its “multi-aligned” foreign policy that emphasises strong relations with multiple foreign powers.

There are also growing frustrations in Washington over India’s resistance to allow US “end-user” inspections of weaponry sold to Indian security forces. New Delhi regards end-user monitoring as a violation of sovereignty.

United States curbs on Javelin missile sale cloud Indo-US relationship
 
If the Americans want to act pricey , buy Russian , Israeli or French . Simple. It will send a subtle message as well .
 
Drop the Javelin, pick something else - simple as that. Why would you wanna buy something which they don't want to sell in the first place.

What's wrong with Pinaka?
 
Drop the Javelin, pick something else - simple as that. Why would you wanna buy something which they don't want to sell in the first place.

What's wrong with Pinaka?

:blink: Buddy, you might google for Javelin once more if you confuse it with Pinaka.
 
If the Americans want to act pricey , buy Russian , Israeli or French . Simple. It will send a subtle message as well .

If it was that simple than why GOI buys arms from US on the first place, there is no doubting the fact that American arms are world class & there delivery schedules for the same are of a true professional nature (eg. C-130s which we got before time), There are certain arms which all three - Russian, Israeli or French cannot offer because they don't have it, to become a world class force we have to look up to the Americans (sadly it's a necessity) & also by moving closer to US we can somewhat minimize the risk of a disaster in any future war with China as no other country can challenge China, though this should never be at cost of our sovereignty.
 
Drop the Javelin, pick something else - simple as that. Why would you wanna buy something which they don't want to sell in the first place.

What's wrong with Pinaka?

What is common between Javelin and Pinaka?
 
Politics at work nothing more they would sell their own gran if they had the chance
 
If it was that simple than why GOI buys arms from US on the first place, there is no doubting the fact that American arms are world class & there delivery schedules for the same are of a true professional nature (eg. C-130s which we got before time), There are certain arms which all three - Russian, Israeli or French cannot offer because they don't have it, to become a world class force we have to look up to the Americans (sadly it's a necessity) & also by moving closer to US we can somewhat minimize the risk of a disaster in any future war with China as no other country can challenge China, though this should never be at cost of our sovereignty.

So we buy only those many javelins that they want to sell us ? Our own needs go to hell ? You don't make sense .

Btw , i don't think you read about the Israeli Spike , the other contender for this deal .
 
We needed American weapons for only second-line equipment from the U.S., such as transport (C-17, C-130J) or maritime patrol aircraft (P-8I) but when it comes to strategic weapons we always go with our true partners Russia, France and Israel hence why we picked Rafale, you just can't trust the yanks.
 
to become a world class force we have to look up to the Americans (sadly it's a necessity) & also by moving closer to US we can somewhat minimize the risk of a disaster in a future war with China as no other country can challenge China.

To become a world class force we need to make our own stuff and to make our own stuff we need to get as much tech as we can to increase our knowledge base.
What u see here are short term measure to maintain a credible deterrence and if m necessity arises to secure our interests ,a credible aggression based force.

America is a means to an end ,not The mean to an end. America can shove it for all i care. We have always done to the best of our means and will continue to do so.


The important thing is we cant risk relying on anyone by our selves ,we knew it even in the cold war era but fortunately Russia turned out to be very reliable in its demands.So ties with Russia improved.

If America cant be reliable and stable in the folowthru of its deals then its logical to not prefer America.

what do u want?we beg em ....plz plz give us Arms? lol ...
i sense a little amt of paranoia in ur comment.
 
Obama come to India talked about waiving sanctions on dual-use technology which was not worth the paper it was written on.



India exempted of US sanctions only


Don't trust America they care only about their own agenda we need to play double game with them and make a visit to Tehran that will ruffle a few feathers in Washington.
 
They, the Yanks refuse to sell smaller quantity, which india might reverse engineer in near future....thats the whole deal here....
 
Its very tough to understand the US, on one hand they talk about TOT and on the other they refuse to supply the qty asked by us. Anyways they are at more loss than us.
 
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