To match India’s defence purchases, Pak trying to get more F-16s from US: Report

 

Pakistan is trying to get more F-16s from the US as well as looking towards countries like Russia and France for new aircraft to replace old ones to match India’s defence purchases, according to a report.
Jane’s Defence Weekly reported this week that Pakistan would seek to purchase ten F-16 additional planes from the United States if the current deal for eight of these fighter jets is successfully concluded.

Dawn quoted the Jane’s Defence Weekly that Pakistan wants new 16C/D Block 52 multi-role fighters, which are equipped with precision strike capability, as it would enhance its capability to reduce collateral damage in the war against terrorists who often hide among civilians.
A “decision in principle has been made to buy 10 more F-16s,” a senior Pakistani government official told Jane’s, while adding that “the exact timing to place an order is yet to be decided”.

He said Pakistan Air Force needed to retire 190 planes by 2020, forcing the country to look for various options.
The official said that the strong resistance it faced in the US Congress for buying a small batch of eight planes was “discouraging”.
“That’s why we are looking at other options too, such as buying them from Russia or France.”
The official noted that while French planes were “very expensive, the Russians are not and they are equally good”.
Last week, the US Senate rejected a move to shoot down the proposed sale of eight F-16, which is now in its final stages.
On Saturday, the 30-day mandatory period, that allows Congress to block an arms sale to a foreign country, also passed.
Although some technical details are still being worked out, the deal for these eight aircraft is almost final, the report said.
In September last year, Russia offered to sell Su-35 planes to Pakistan, which are among the fifth generation aircraft, it said.
Pakistani officials say that India’s defence purchases also influence their search for a matching technology.
India is already working on a plan to replace its current fleet of planes with fifth generation aircraft by 2020, forcing Pakistan to do the same.
They say that while Pakistan is not looking to match the exact number of planes the Indians have but they would like to maintain a fleet of 350 to 400 aircraft.
Pakistani officials point out that they also have a large-scale defence collaboration with China, “which is a great source of strength” for the country.
The eight planes that Pakistan is buying from the United States include two single-seat F-16Cs and six twin-seat F-16Ds, along with associated equipment – for about $699 million.

 indianexpress

India to make additional Scorpene subs: Parrikar

India is trying to increase the number of Scoprene Submarines that the Mumbai-based Mazagon Docks Limited (MDL) is making. The MDL is tasked to produce six submarines in collaboration with French company DCNS. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, while answering a question on Defence shipyards in the Lok Sabha today, confirmed the stand of the government. When South Mumbai MP Arvind Sawant asked about the future orders of the MDL, Parrikar said: “The initial yard (MDL) where the submarine is being laid....is already vacant. 
We are trying to increase the number of submarines that they are making.” Though Parrikar has in the past mentioned that more number of Scorpene submarines could be built, his response in the Lok Sabha was a clear indication that more such vessels could be added. The first of six Scorpene diesel-electric attack submarines (SSKs), the INS Kalvari, was set afloat for sea trials in December 2015. 
The vessel is scheduled to be commissioned in September 2016. The 66-metre-long INS Kalvari is part of a $3.6 billion contract signed with DCNS in October 2005. While the first four subs are conventional submarines, the last two are to be equipped with the Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) system, which will enable the vessel to stay underwater for longer. In the past 15 years, India’s submarine arm is the slowest growing in the otherwise fast-growing war machinery. 
The submarine plan announced in 1999 had spoken of having 24 modern submarines by 2030. Half way through, the INS Kalvari will be the first submarine.  India currently has only 14 submarines: nine Kilo class (EKMs), four German-designed HDWs (SSKs) and one Akula class nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) on lease from Russia (since 2012).  The US Department of Defence, in its annual report to the US Congress, spells out the rise of China’s submarine fleet. ‘Military and Security Developments involving the People’s Republic of China 2015’ says the Peoples Liberation Army Navy has 68 submarines.

 tribuneindia

US moves to harness India to anti-China “pivot”

The head of the US Pacific Command, Admiral Harry Harris, gave a highly provocative speech in New Delhi last week in which he laid out the “next steps” in Washington’s strategic agenda for India. Claiming to be “a bit moonstruck…by the opportunities a strategic partnership with India” provide, Harris said he envisioned the US and Indian navies jointly patrolling the Indian and Pacific Oceans in “the not too distant future.”
He also urged India to form a quadrilateral security “dialogue” with the US and its closest military allies in the Asian-Pacific region, Japan and Australia.
Later the same day, Admiral Harris proposed that the recently established annual trilateral Indo-US-Japanese naval exercise take place off the northeast shore of the Philippines, just outside the South China Sea—a contested region where the US has been encouraging its allies to press their territorial claims against China.
In sum, Harris urged India to become a “frontline state” in the US drive to strategically isolate, encircle and potentially wage war against China.
By virtually any measure, India is a poor country. But US imperialist strategists, including the Pentagon war planners, have been touting it as a “strategic prize” since the beginning of the 21st century. The efforts to harness India to US imperialism’s predatory global agenda, through a combination of threats and poison-chaliced inducements, have greatly intensified since the Obama administration announced its anti-China “pivot” in 2011.
US strategists covet India for multiple reasons. It is the second largest of the world’s “emerging economies.” It has a huge military, armed with nuclear weapons and a rapidly expanding blue-water navy. From a geostrategic standpoint, it dominates South Asia (the Indian subcontinent), providing a potential base of operations for projecting US power across much of Eurasia, including towards neighbouring China and the energy-rich Middle East and Central Asia.
Last but not least, India protrudes far into the Indian Ocean, providing easy access to the entire northern half of that ocean, which, as a recent US Naval War College-sponsored study notes, “has replaced the North Atlantic as the central artery of world commerce.”
The strategists of US imperialism view dominance of the Indian Ocean as essential to US global hegemony. First and foremost, because it is at the heart of US plans to impose an economic blockade on China through strategic maritime “chokepoints” in the event of war or war crisis. But also because the Indian Ocean is a key staging ground for US military operations in the Middle East and East Africa.
In pursuit of its own great-power ambitions, the Indian bourgeoisie has tilted ever more decisively toward Washington, even as the US has emerged as an incendiary power that wages illegal wars and otherwise violates national sovereignty and precepts of international law at will.
The Congress Party-led government that ruled Indian from 2004 to 2014 entered into a “global strategic partnership” with Washington, helped legitimize its efforts to isolate and bully Iran, and rapidly expanded ties between the Indian military and the Pentagon, including weapons purchases.
In the 22 months during which Narendra Modi and his Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have formed India’s government, New Delhi has integrated itself ever more fully into Washington’s strategic offensive against China.
This has included:

•  Joining Washington in painting China as the aggressor in the South China Sea, although it is the US that, in the name of “freedom of navigation,” is arrogating to itself the right to patrol China’s shores and to have in place the naval might to quickly seize the Straits of Malacca and other strategic chokepoints;
  
•  Expanding bilateral and trilateral military-security cooperation, including military exercises and strategic planning, with the US, Japan and Australia;
  
• Collaborating across South Asia in countering Chinese influence, including in the January 2015 regime-change operation in Sri Lanka that saw Mahinda Rajapaksa replaced by a president ready to degrade Colombo’s ties with Beijing and launch a security “dialogue” with Washington.

Harris’s New Delhi speech was aimed at stoking suspicions and inflaming tensions between India and China, the better to bind New Delhi to America’s strategic agenda. It is part of an unrelenting campaign to force China to forgo any challenge to US global hegemony.
Earlier last week, Harris ordered an aircraft carrier-led US Navy strike force to enter the South China Sea. This week, the US and South Korea launched their largest ever Korean Peninsula war game, and did so on the basis of a new operational plan that provides for pre-emptive strikes on North Korea and the occupation of the North up to the Chinese border.
It took Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar a full two days to respond to Harris’s speech, indicating that the BJP government was taken aback by the admiral’s public airing of Washington’s “asks” of India. Parrikar rebuffed the suggestion that India will mount joint navy patrols with the US, but in a manner that very much left the door open to such a possibility in the future.
The BJP has already reversed the decision taken by the previous government and supported by India’s military-security establishment to reject three agreements the Pentagon considers “foundational” for joint action with foreign militaries. The agreements had been rejected on the grounds that they threatened Indian sovereignty and security.
According to press reports, when US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter travels to India next month he will sign at least one of these—a Logistics Support Agreement (LSA) giving the US military routine access to Indian ports and naval bases, including for refuelling. The LSA’s importance is underlined by the comment of a high-level Indian official who last December said that the only remaining hitch in giving the US military access to Indian bases was, “What happens in the case of war?”
The burgeoning military-strategic alliance between US imperialism and the Indian bourgeoisie constitutes a huge threat to the masses of South Asia and the world.
Washington is drawing on the political and military support given it by New Delhi to recklessly pursue a confrontation with nuclear-armed China, a course which, whether deliberately or through miscalculation, threatens to ignite a world war.
The Indian bourgeoisie, for its part, is using the enhanced diplomatic, military and geopolitical power it derives from its junior partnership with Washington to pursue its longstanding goal of imposing itself as the regional hegemon of South Asia. Under the BJP, India has aggressively asserted its interests with all its neighbours, including building new military installations along the disputed border with Pakistan and instructing army commanders in the disputed Kashmir region to be more militarily assertive. Last year saw the worst border clashes between India and its nuclear-armed rival, Pakistan, in more than a decade.
Pakistan has repeatedly warned that Washington’s strategic embrace of India has overturned the balance of power in South Asia, fuelling an arms race—warnings the US has cavalierly ignored. These warning have become shriller in the past year due to the strengthening of the Indo-US alliance and Modi’s efforts to bully Pakistan. Militarily, Pakistan has responded by announcing the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, and politically, by seeking closer ties to China.
Aware that the US was intent on harnessing India against it, Beijing long sought to avoid antagonizing India and attempted to enlist it as a partner in its land and sea Eurasian transport initiatives. But with Modi integrating India into Washington’s anti-China “pivot,” Beijing has moved to place Pakistan at the center of its plans to circumvent America’s “chokehold” strategy, announcing that it will invest $46 billion in a Pakistan Economic Corridor linking western China with the Pakistani Arabian Sea post Gwadar.
The US, which has used the Pakistani elite and Pakistani military as satraps in its geopolitical machinations for the past six decades, is not about to cede Pakistan to China. The axis between the Pentagon and Pakistan’s military is a source of continuing mistrust and friction between New Delhi and Washington.
Nevertheless, Washington’s strategic offensive against China and its drive to make India the south-western pillar of its anti-China “pivot” have an incendiary geopolitical logic: the US-China conflict is becoming ever more entwined with the reactionary geopolitical conflict between India and Pakistan, adding to each a highly explosive new dimension.
As the International Committee of the Fourth International explained in its statement “Socialism and the Fight Against War,” published last month, the only progressive basis on which to oppose Washington’s insane attempt to uphold US global hegemony through aggression and war is to counterpoise to the imperialists’ war map the map of the class struggle—that is, the building of a global working-class movement against war on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program.

Keith Jones/wsws

India Test Fires Nuke Capable SLBM K-4 Secretly

 

India has reportedly conducted a test of its home grown intermediate range Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) K-4 secretly from an undersea platform in the Bay of Bengal in a bid to boost its deterrence capability by strengthening the second strike fire power.
Even as the authorities of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) are tightlipped about the secret test, a reliable defence source on Tuesday confirmed ‘The Express’ that this nuclear capable missile was fired from a submerged pontoon positioned nearly 30 feet deep sea offshore Vizag coast on Monday.
Launched underwater, the missile developed indigenously by the DRDO, surged to the surface leaving behind a ribbon of thick smokes. Although the result of the test was not known, the source claimed it’s take off was smooth as a powerful gas generator successfully ejected it from the pontoon.
The first test of the missile was also conducted secretly on March 24, 2014 and the DRDO admitted it officially only in January last year in the Aero-India show. The K-4 missile is best in the world in its class and it is faster and stealthier. Once operational, the two-stage missile will equip the country's first nuclear-powered submarine ANS Arihant.
Working very covertly under the secret K-project for last nearly two decades, prime focus of the DRDO was to make the weapon system lighter and faster having both cruise and ballistic variants. A very few countries have the triad of firing nuclear tipped missiles from air, land and undersea. Other countries, which have the capability, include Russia, USA, France, Britain (UK) and China.
A defence scientist said the K-4 missile will supplement its cousin 750-km range K-15 missile (renamed as B-05). Nuclear powered INS Arihant submarine which is likely to be commissioned in the Navy shortly will be equipped with four K-4 missiles or 12 K-15 missiles. The missile has to go for three/four more trials before being inducted in the navy.
As reported by 'The Express' earlier this manoeuvrable missile having an innovative system of interlacing in three dimensions can also cruise at a hypersonic speed. This exceptional feature of the weapon system makes it difficult to be tracked easily and destroyed by any anti-ballistic missile defence systems. The missile has a high accuracy of close to zero circular error probability (CEP).
The underwater launched ballistic missile is about 12 metres long with a diameter of 1.3 metres. It weighs around 17 tonnes and is capable of delivering two tonne warhead up to a distance of over 3,500 km. The missile is powered by solid rocket propellant. High power long range tracking systems were spread along its trajectory to track the flight path.India has reportedly conducted a test of its home grown intermediate range Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) K-4 secretly from an undersea platform in the Bay of Bengal in a bid to boost its deterrence capability by strengthening the second strike fire power.
Even as the authorities of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) are tightlipped about the secret test, a reliable defence source on Tuesday confirmed ‘The Express’ that this nuclear capable missile was fired from a submerged pontoon positioned nearly 30 feet deep sea offshore Vizag coast on Monday.
Launched underwater, the missile developed indigenously by the DRDO, surged to the surface leaving behind a ribbon of thick smokes. Although the result of the test was not known, the source claimed it’s take off was smooth as a powerful gas generator successfully ejected it from the pontoon.
The first test of the missile was also conducted secretly on March 24, 2014 and the DRDO admitted it officially only in January last year in the Aero-India show. The K-4 missile is best in the world in its class and it is faster and stealthier. Once operational, the two-stage missile will equip the country's first nuclear-powered submarine ANS Arihant.
Working very covertly under the secret K-project for last nearly two decades, prime focus of the DRDO was to make the weapon system lighter and faster having both cruise and ballistic variants. A very few countries have the triad of firing nuclear tipped missiles from air, land and undersea. Other countries, which have the capability, include Russia, USA, France, Britain (UK) and China.
A defence scientist said the K-4 missile will supplement its cousin 750-km range K-15 missile (renamed as B-05). Nuclear powered INS Arihant submarine which is likely to be commissioned in the Navy shortly will be equipped with four K-4 missiles or 12 K-15 missiles. The missile has to go for three/four more trials before being inducted in the navy.
As reported by 'The Express' earlier this manoeuvrable missile having an innovative system of interlacing in three dimensions can also cruise at a hypersonic speed. This exceptional feature of the weapon system makes it difficult to be tracked easily and destroyed by any anti-ballistic missile defence systems. The missile has a high accuracy of close to zero circular error probability (CEP).
The underwater launched ballistic missile is about 12 metres long with a diameter of 1.3 metres. It weighs around 17 tonnes and is capable of delivering two tonne warhead up to a distance of over 3,500 km. The missile is powered by solid rocket propellant. High power long range tracking systems were spread along its trajectory to track the flight path.

newindianexpress

India To Sign Contentious Logistics Agreement Allowing US Access to Indian Military Bases

  The BJP leaders from Prime Minister downwards are unsparing in their criticism of the Congress. But paradoxically the NDA Government is following almost all the major policies of the UPA Government, including its economic policy of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation and its foreign policy of widening and deepening India’s ‘strategic partnership' with the United States.
  Recently some reports have appeared in the foreign press that the NDA is engaged in (unannounced) parleys with Washington on a military Logistics Support Agreement (LSA). If this agreement is finally reached, all the major Indian seaports and airports will come under the ‘absolute control’ of the Americans. What is intriguing is that the Modi Government has not contradicted these reports. This lends credence to the veracity of what has been reported. (The Citizen Bureau adds: India and US are preparing to sign a the key military logistics agreement when top officials of both the US and India meet here next month, April.
The three long pending contentious agreements that were resisted by the Left, as well as some sections of the BJP, when the Congress government was in power are expected to be inked when US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter visits India.) The proposal of an LSA is not new. It has been there for quite some time. For instance, a paper by Saroj Bishoyi titled Logistics Support Agreemen: A Closer Look at the Impact on Indo-US Strategic Relationshipand published in the Journal of Defence Studies (organ of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses) as far back as 2013, deals with the LSA in extenso. It says, inter alia, that:
  “The crux of the defence cooperation is related to defence procurements, transfer of dual-use technologies, research and development, and India’s defence industrialisation. The two countries now talk about collaborating on multi-national operations and strengthening the ability of their armed forces to respond quickly to disaster situations by mitigating logistics shortfalls. The US even looks towards building a long-term strategic partnership with India to support its ability to counter the emerging security threats and to develop procedures for facilitating cooperation infuture contingencies.
 However, such practical cooperation between the armed forces of the two countries and their ability to perform effectively get affected by the absence of proper logistics support arrangements. For removing such barriers and enabling practical cooperation, the US first proposed a Logistics Support Agreement (LSA), the India-specific version of the Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA), at the sixth meeting of the India-US Defence Policy Group (DPG) in June 2004. The arrangement aimed at the exchange of logistics support, supplies, and services between the armed forces of the two countries on reciprocal basis.”
  What is adumbrated is, in fact, an India-US military alliance. Jawaharlal Nehru never agreed to such an alliance. Even in the wake of the humiliating military defeat at the hands of the Chinese in 1962, Nehru refused to go under a US ‘umbrella’ which was offered to him at that time and tenaciously stuck to his policy of non-alignment. He was critical of all military alliances like the NATO, MEDO, SEATO, ANZUS, etc. It may be recalled in this connexion that the Soviet Union entered into the Warsaw Pact with her Eastern European allies only as a response to the NATO which sought to encircle the Soviet Union.
  Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, at the beginning of his tenure as a politician as the Finance Minister in Narasimha Rao’s Cabinet, first scrapped the Nehru-Mahalanobis paradigm of development in which both public and private sectors would co-exist side by side but it is the public sector which would occupy the ‘commanding heights’ of the economy. Thirteen years down the line, as the Prime Minister of the UPA Government, he abandoned the policy of non-alignment and opted for the policy of ‘strategic partnership’ with the USA, although India had become far stronger militarily in the last fifty years.
  The proposed LSA is, without doubt, a part of the US policy to contain China—its rising military strength and domineering stance which aims eventually to surpass the USA as a military power and emerge as the world hegemon. It is with the express objective of containing China that India has held several joint naval exercises with the US, Japan and Australia in recent times. Also without doubt, China’s hostility to India has been unrelenting in the past half-a-century. But that does not, per se, provide a rationale to India’s entering into a military alliance with the US which will compromise or abridge India’s sovereign rights and deny its right to make independent policy options in times of crisis. The LSA will also undoubtedly further antagonise Beijing. Clearly, the LSA or any such Indo-US alliance will be a one-way street: it will be used in the interest of the US. When US and Indian interests do not coincide, it is the US interests that will prevail and decide how the agreement is implemented.
  India has been facing continual terrorist attacks, big and small, planned and carried out by Pakistan and its ISI behind the fig-leaf of ‘non-State actors’. This fact is quite well to known to the US. Still, Washington continues to keep military ‘parity’ between India and Pakistan. It continues to give financial aid and supply military hardware to Pakistan on the specious plea of helping Islamabad in the ‘global war on terrorism’, knowing full well that such help will be used against India.
  In fact one of the articles that has appeared in the foreign press says that the US wants to rope in Pakistan and Afghanistan as well so that it has complete control over this part of Asia not only vis-à-vis China but also Russia, with which India has a long-standing relationship of mutual trust and cooperation. If signed, the LSA will enable the US to use Indian seaports and Army and Air Force airports for deployment and actual warfare. India’s growing proximity to the US is worrying Russia at a time when Washington is vigorously pursuing a policy of isolating Russia and imposing economic sanctions on it in the wake of the Ukraine dispute. This has driven Moscow closer to Beijing. It is a development that works against India’s overall strategic interests.
  Two decisions taken by the Modi Government on assuming power in the field of defence were unexpected. One was to ‘scale down’ the size of the Mountain Strike Corps which the UPA Government had decided to raise specifically to meet the growing Chinese threat in the North-East and to operate in Tibet if needed. The excuse the NDA offered was the high cost of its raising—Rs 64,678 crores. Much work had already been completed by then. But halfway the project was all but abandoned. It was said the money needed would instead be spent on building aircraft carriers. How the strengthening of the Navy could be a substitute for what the Army desperately needed for land-fighting in the North-East was not explained.
  The second unexpected decision was to go slow over the acquisition of 126 French Rafale Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA). The Rafale was selected by the IAF from among six alternatives it had including one offered by the USA. The fleet strength of the IAF had been reduced to a mere 24 squadrons against the sanctioned strength of 40 squadrons. The IAF desperately needed to phase out its old fighter aircraft to retain its air superiority over Pakistan and replenish its fleet strength. When the French Rafale was selected after extensive trials in preference to the US alternative, Washington was palpably unhappy.
  It was said the high cost of the Rafale was delaying the completion of the acquisition process and negotiations were on with the French for a mutually acceptable price. During Prime Minister Modi’s visit to France in April last year, it was reported that for the present India would buy 36 Rafales in a fly-away condition in view of the ‘critical operational requirements’ of the Indian Air Force. Co-production of the aircraft in India with the HAL was being discussed, but the French were not prepared to guarantee the performance of the aircraft built by the HAL. On the Indian side there were those who questioned the selection of the Rafale in the first instance.
  When President Francois Hollande visited India during the Republic Day celebrations this January, there were press reports that the Rafale deal had not figured at all during Hollande’s stay in India. Now the Rafale deal seems to be as good as dead because nothing has been heard either about the Rafale deal after this or about India seeking other sources for acquiring the required number of MMRCA the need for which is increasing by the moment.
  The question of an India-US Logistics Support Agreement has re-surfaced at this time. If India is drawn into a comprehensive defence alliance with the US, with Washington having total and unconditional access to and control over our air and sea ports, it is quite likely that India will be asked to buy all its military hardware from the US or from close US allies like Israel.
  (The Citizen Bureau adds: The Indian defence establishment has not been supportive of the deal earlier. This is reflected in an article written by now retired Major S.G.Vombatkere in 2010 where he said: “The LSA clearly envisages providing logistic bases for the US military. This needs careful thinking-through; it could be the thin end of a wedge commencing with providing facilities for docking or landing, victualling and re-fuelling for US military ships and aircraft, later expandable to ammunitioning that includes stockpiling US weapons protected by US military personnel stationed on Indian territory. The serious problem with this is, a US weapon stockpile is an attractive target for militants and terrorists, and a successful attack can well become reason for the US to multiply its military presence on Indian soil, even without this provision built into the LSA.”)

 thecitizen

Ahead of PM Modi's visit to Israel, India lines up defence deals worth $3 billion

 

Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's first visit to Tel Aviv later this year, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) has begun to clear a slew of defence deals with Israel. The deals, some of which have been pending for long, are together worth well over $3 billion.

Defence ministry sources on Tuesday said while the deals for Spice-2000 bombs and laser-designation pods have already been cleared by the CCS, the ones for acquisition of two more Phalcon AWACS (airborne warning and control systems), four more aerostat radars and the medium-range surface-to-air missile system (MR-SAM) for the Army are now on the anvil.

TOI had last month reported that most of these deals had reached the final stages of approvals, while the negotiations for the initial Rs 3,200 crore contract for 321 Israeli "Spike" anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) systems and 8,356 missiles were also making some headway after being stalled for months.

Both the 164 laser-designation pods (Litening-4) and 250 advanced "Spice" precision stand-off bombs are meant to arm IAF fighter jets like Sukhoi-30MKIs and Jaguars for greater lethality and accuracy.


The around Rs 10,000 crore joint development of the MR-SAM for the Army, in turn, will follow the similar ongoing DRDO-Israeli Aerospace Industries projects worth around Rs 13,000 crore for the Navy and IAF. The IAF-Navy variants have an interception range of 70-km, while the one for the Army will be 50-km.

The acquisition of two additional AWACS for over $1 billion, in turn, will be a follow-on order to the three such "force-multipliers" already inducted by the IAF under a tripartite $1.1 billion agreement inked by India, Israel and Russia in 2004.The AWACS are basically Israeli early-warning radar suites mounted on Russian IL-76 transport aircraft. With a 400-km range and 360-degree coverage, they are "eyes in the sky" capable of detecting incoming fighters, cruise missiles and drones much before ground-based radars.

Similarly, the four new aerostat radars - sensors mounted on blimp-like large balloons tethered to the ground - will follow the two such EL/M-2083 radars inducted by the IAF under a $145 million deal in 2004-2005.

timesofindia

India, US closer to pact to share military logistics: officials

 

India and the United States are closing in on an agreement to share military logistics after 12 years of talks, officials said, a sign of strengthening defence ties between the countries as China becomes increasingly assertive.
The United States has emerged as India's top arms source after years of dominance by Russia, and holds more joint exercises with it than any other country.
It is in talks with New Delhi to help build its largest aircraft carrier in the biggest military collaboration to date, a move that will bolster the Indian navy's strength as China expands its reach in the Indian Ocean.
After years of foot-dragging by previous governments over fears that the logistics agreement would draw India into a binding commitment to support the United States in war, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration has signalled a desire to move ahead with the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA).
That would allow the two militaries to use each other's land, air and naval bases for resupplies, repair and rest, officials said.
Admiral Harry Harris, head of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Command, said the two sides were working on the LSA, another agreement called the CISMOA for secure communications when the militaries operate together, and a third on exchange of topographical, nautical, and aeronautical data.
"We have not gotten to the point of signing them with India, but I think we're close," Harris, due in India this week, told the U.S. House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.
The progress comes as the countries consider joint maritime patrols that a U.S. official said could include the South China Sea, where China is locked in a territorial dispute with Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan among others.
Both sides, though, said there were no immediate plans for such patrols, which drew strong condemnation from Beijing.
An Indian government official said the main impediment to signing the LSA had been cleared, after Washington gave an assurance that New Delhi was not bound by it if the U.S. went to war with a friendly country or undertook any other unilateral action that New Delhi did not support.
"It has been clarified that it will be done on a case-to-case basis; it's not automatic that either side will get access to facilities in the case of war," the official familiar with the negotiations said.
India's previous centre-left government was worried the agreements would undermine India's strategic autonomy and that it would draw it into an undeclared military alliance with the United States.
Concerns linger over the proposed communications agreement, with some branches of the military including the air force fearing it would allow the United States to access their communications network.
U.S. officials said they hoped that once the logistics agreement was signed, the others would follow.
A U.S. defence industry source engaged in business in India said there were expectations the LSA could be sealed by the time U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter visited New Delhi in April.
The source said Modi's office was directly involved in the matter and actively considering the agreements as a key for enhanced cooperation.
India has been alarmed by Chinese naval forays into the Indian Ocean and its involvement in maritime infrastructure on island nations that it traditionally considered its back yard.
It has moved to shore up naval forces and build defence ties with Japan and Vietnam, besides the United States.
"There is growing convergence between Obama's Asia pivot and Modi's Act East policy," said Saroj Bishoyi, an expert on the proposed India-U.S. collaboration at the government-funded Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi.
"The LSA currently appears to be a doable agreement."

 ibnlive

Defence budget raises serious questions about India’s national security plans

 

When it comes to the defence budget, there were three things that surprised many observers yesterday. First, in a break from tradition, the finance minister Arun Jaitley did not mention the outlay for defence in his budget speech to the Lok Sabha. Second, the budget documents had halved the eight demands of defence budget to four, rearranging them more logically into Revenue demand and Capital demand for defence services, defence pensions and another demand for all the other expenses under the defence ministry.
And third, the numbers of the defence budget, for the first time since the mid-1980s, has also included defence pensions.  These are, however, insignificant issues compared to major concerns raised by the defence budget. The allocation for the next year is only 1.71 per cent of the GDP, perhaps the lowest since the 1962 India-China war. Even if defence pensions are included, the budget amounts to 2.26 per cent of the GDP, which is far lower than the 3 per cent of GDP recommended by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence in its reports spanning a decade.
 The yardstick of 3 per cent of GDP is important because the defence services formulate their Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan (LTIPP) which prioritises their procurement over the next 15 years based on that yardstick. Continued shortfall in defence allocation by that yardstick means that the gaps in defence modernization widen with every passing year. While the desirable equipment profile of the armed forces, as per the defence secretary’s testimony to Parliamentary Standing Committee last year, is 30:40:30 (30 per cent state-of-the-art, 40 per cent current and 30 per cent nearing obsolescence), experts estimate the current profile to be 15:45:40.
Any more deterioration of the profile – an inevitability considering the budgetary allocation — will constrain the defence services from fulfilling their primarily role of defending the country.  Related to the issue of overall defence allocation is the proportion of the budget earmarked for capital expenditure, which is used to buy weapons and military equipment. While the budget allocates Rs 82,332 crore for pensions and Rs 95,852 crore for salaries, it allocates only Rs 78,586 crore for capital expenditure by the defence services. A significant portion of that amount, to the tune of 60 per cent, is already committed to paying for weapon systems and military platforms already bought by the defence services. Even then, the defence ministry could not spend 13.5 per cent of its capital budget for the defence services this year.
 This limitation of non-availability and non-expenditure of funds for new procurement is reflected in the fact that the defence ministry has been unable to sign many new major deals this year. Rafale fighters, M-777 artillery guns and Russian frigates are prime examples of equipment where deals could not be signed.  A lot of focus in defence procurement in recent years has been on bureaucratic procedures and decision making. The defence ministry has also been very vocal about the Make in India scheme, with little to show for as results. Revision of Defence Procurement Procedure and other related policies are important but perhaps not critical to the problems.
 It is much more about the resources available to the defence ministry to buy big-ticket equipment.  In simple words, the defence budget may seem high in numbers, but a large portion is committed to just paying the soldiers and ex-servicemen. There is little money available to buy new weapons, and even among that, that money is already committed to equipment under supply. This puts a serious question mark about India’s national security plans. Let’s hope the parliament will devote time to raise that question when it discusses the union budget.

 indianexpress

When it comes to the defence budget, there were three things that surprised many observers yesterday. First, in a break from tradition, the finance minister Arun Jaitley did not mention the outlay for defence in his budget speech to the Lok Sabha. Second, the budget documents had halved the eight demands of defence budget to four, rearranging them more logically into Revenue demand and Capital demand for defence services, defence pensions and another demand for all the other expenses under the defence ministry. And third, the numbers of the defence budget, for the first time since the mid-1980s, has also included defence pensions.
These are, however, insignificant issues compared to major concerns raised by the defence budget. The allocation for the next year is only 1.71 per cent of the GDP, perhaps the lowest since the 1962 India-China war. Even if defence pensions are included, the budget amounts to 2.26 per cent of the GDP, which is far lower than the 3 per cent of GDP recommended by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence in its reports spanning a decade.

The yardstick of 3 per cent of GDP is important because the defence services formulate their Long Term Integrated Perspective Plan (LTIPP) which prioritises their procurement over the next 15 years based on that yardstick. Continued shortfall in defence allocation by that yardstick means that the gaps in defence modernization widen with every passing year. While the desirable equipment profile of the armed forces, as per the defence secretary’s testimony to Parliamentary Standing Committee last year, is 30:40:30 (30 per cent state-of-the-art, 40 per cent current and 30 per cent nearing obsolescence), experts estimate the current profile to be 15:45:40. Any more deterioration of the profile – an inevitability considering the budgetary allocation — will constrain the defence services from fulfilling their primarily role of defending the country.
Related to the issue of overall defence allocation is the proportion of the budget earmarked for capital expenditure, which is used to buy weapons and military equipment. While the budget allocates Rs 82,332 crore for pensions and Rs 95,852 crore for salaries, it allocates only Rs 78,586 crore for capital expenditure by the defence services. A significant portion of that amount, to the tune of 60 per cent, is already committed to paying for weapon systems and military platforms already bought by the defence services. Even then, the defence ministry could not spend 13.5 per cent of its capital budget for the defence services this year.
This limitation of non-availability and non-expenditure of funds for new procurement is reflected in the fact that the defence ministry has been unable to sign many new major deals this year. Rafale fighters, M-777 artillery guns and Russian frigates are prime examples of equipment where deals could not be signed.
A lot of focus in defence procurement in recent years has been on bureaucratic procedures and decision making. The defence ministry has also been very vocal about the Make in India scheme, with little to show for as results. Revision of Defence Procurement Procedure and other related policies are important but perhaps not critical to the problems. It is much more about the resources available to the defence ministry to buy big-ticket equipment.
In simple words, the defence budget may seem high in numbers, but a large portion is committed to just paying the soldiers and ex-servicemen. There is little money available to buy new weapons, and even among that, that money is already committed to equipment under supply. This puts a serious question mark about India’s national security plans. Let’s hope the parliament will devote time to raise that question when it discusses the union budget.
- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/arun-jaitley-defence-budget-raises-serious-questions-about-indias-national-security-plans/#sthash.VU0OuUVo.dpuf

Indian Air Force Has Only 32 Squadrons - Lowest In A Decade

The Indian Air Force has just 32 squadrons of fighters - the lowest in a decade - to guard the Indian skies, top IAF commanders have confirmed to NDTV.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has flagged the worry with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and made a detailed presentation recently on the operational difficulties that the IAF faces because of the depletion in fighters.

After the air force de-commissioned three of the aging Russian-made MiG 21 squadrons, bringing down the total number from 34 to 31 fighter squadrons, an additional squadron of the Russian-made Su-30 MKI has been raised.

The Indian Air Force needs at least 42 squadrons of fighters to protect its western and northern borders with Pakistan and China. By 2019 -2020 it will lose another 14 squadrons of the vintage MiG 21s and MiG 27s. There are 16-18 planes in one squadron.The force now depends on Su-30 MKI and MiG 29s, the British-made Jaguar and French-made Mirage 2000s. An upgrade of the Jaguar fighters being carried out by the public sector Hindustan Aeronautics Limited or HAL has been delayed by two years.

The government's plan to plug operational gaps by inducting 36 French-made Rafale fighters and with indigenously made Tejas fighters too hasn't come through yet.

Commercial negotiations with France for the Rafale are far from over and although the IAF has agreed to induct Tejas fighters, it is yet to get the first aircraft.

The Tejas - which was showcased at the Baharin air show for the first time this year - has not yet got a Final Operational Clearance (FOC).

The aircraft - in the making for over 3 decades - had several deficiencies, which are now being addressed by HAL in consultation with the IAF.

"Its performance at Baharin was however encouraging and we hope the FOC comes through soon," a senior officer said, adding, the "IAF is ready to induct as many Tejas fighters as possible to plug the gaps."

"Till recently, we were more interested in defending the process of acquisition, then the outcome, and as a result no one really cared about requirements and operational preparedness," the officer said, referring to the decade-long talks to acquire medium multi-role fighters from France, which the Narendra Modi government had to cancel because of severe infirmities in the negotiations.

 ndtv

US close to signing defence deals with India

The U.S. is close to signing three foundational agreements with India in fields of defence and communications that will give a big boost to the bilateral ties, a top American military commander has said. “We were moving out aggressively in technical field with DTTI (Defence Technology and Trade Initiative),” US Pacific Command Commander Admiral Harry Harris said in response to a question on India-US defence relationship.

One of those is the LSA — Logistics Support Agreement — which allows us to do the cross servicing — acquisition cross servicing, for example, he said during his testimony before the House Committee on Armed Services.

“Another one is called the CISMOA (Communications and Information Security Memorandum of Agreement), and it involves communications security so that we can be assured that India will protect our communications as we would protect theirs,” Harris said.

The Pacific Command Commander is headed to India next week for a wide range of talks with his Indian counterparts.

PTI/hindu

‘Asia will be divided if India joins US patrols’

Any move by India to join the US Navy to jointly patrol the disputed South China Sea will be against its national interest, would divide Asian countries and further escalate regional tensions, a state-run Chinese daily said on Friday.
The Chinese media’s reaction came after it was reported in January that the US and India had talked about launching joint naval patrols in the South China Sea for safeguarding freedom of navigation. But India clarified there would be no such patrols and the US also subsequently denied having any such plan.
“Military collaboration between Washington and New Delhi has been heating up in recent years. Nonetheless, the only purpose of the latter to conduct bilateral naval patrols with the former without its interests being hurt is to meet the demand of the largest world power,” an article in the state-run Global Times said on Friday.
“In this way, the US can include India as a ‘vassal state’ like Japan and Australia, which will damage India’s dignity and deter its pursuit to become a great power,” it said.
Playing up India’s concerns over the US’s move to sell F-16 fighters to Pakistan, the article said “even though New Delhi obeys Washington, it’s not likely that it will see the desired return”.
“The White House’s sale of fighter planes to Pakistan provides the latest example,” it said.
“India once mulled over deepening its military cooperation with the US in hope that the latter would cancel the endorsement for its perennial regional rival. But the US has its strategic needs by the sale of weapons and has never changed minds despite India’s long-running objection,” it said.
Playing down reports that India may join joint patrols with the US in the South China Sea where Beijing is locked in a major confrontation, the article said any such move by India would divide Asian countries.
If New Delhi chooses to follow in US’ footsteps, it means the country is taking part in US’ “pivot to Asia” strategy and adopting a major strategic shift, the report said. “This move will inevitably divide Asian nations into two camps.”

 asianage

Parrikar: Get 314 deals cleared in 3-4 months

The defence ministry on Tuesday took stock of the various modernisation projects for the armed forces, holding that arms acquisition proposals worth Rs 1.5 lakh crore were cleared by the NDA government since it assumed office in May 2014.
"Of them, 81schemes have fully matured. Moreover, another 66 schemes worth around Rs 2 lakh crore have been accorded AoN (acceptance of necessity or preliminary approvals) over the last two years," a defence ministry official said.
 After the defence acquisitions council (DAC) meeting chaired by Manohar Parrikar on Tuesday evening, officials said "a letter of intent" had been issued to Goa Shipyard for the Rs 32,000 crore project to construct 12 mine counter-measure vessels (MCMVs) for the Navy with foreign collaboration. The DAC also cleared the followon order for 619 high-mobility 6x6 vehicles from the Tatas at a cost of Rs 457 crore.

TOI had earlier reported that while the NDA government has indeed set a scorching pace to clear new defence acquisition proposals, the follow-through has been slow to ensure they swiftly lead to inking of actual contracts. At the DAC meeting, Parrikar took note of the fact that despite "concerted efforts" there were 314 cases which had not yet fructified. "Of them, 86 schemes worth Rs 1.5 lakh crore are now close to the final stages of approval. The minister directed all concerned that efforts must be made to get them cleared in the next four to five months," the official said. Parrikar also advised the Army, Navy and IAF to review their acquisition projects which have been pending for long, and are yet to fructify, for their "contemporary relevance".
The three Services will now take forward "only the relevant schemes" and junk the rest after the review. The minister also reviewed proposed capital acquisition proposals and budgetary requirements of the three Services for the next 10 years. "This will be an ongoing exercise to refine and further mature the long-term budgetary planning," the official said.

timesofindia