Defence cooperation is likely to be the key outcome of U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to India. An announcement may be made for the local production of mini Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and surveillance systems for transport aircraft.
The biggest deliverable will be the renewal of the Defence Framework Agreement, which is to expire this year, by another 10 years. Since the first agreement in 2005, the U.S. has bagged defence deals worth about $10 billion with deals of similar value in the pipeline.
The framework agreement will lay the road map for transforming defence partnership beyond defence sales to enhance training of each other’s personnel, increase the scope of joint exercises to improve interoperability, etc. In this direction, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the National Defence Universities of both the countries is also on the cards.
A senior U.S. defence official told The Hindu: “We want this to be seen as more than a buyer-seller relationship.”
While the long-pending deals for 22 Apache attack helicopters and 15 Chinook heavy lift helicopters will not be signed, discussions are on to identify projects for co-development and co-production under the Defence Technology Trade initiative (DTTI). This also augurs well for India’s ‘Make in India’ campaign.
Two projects which have made progress for co-production are Raven RQ-11 mini Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and surveillance modules for C-130J transport aircraft.
While the Raven RQ-11 is a hand-held, battery-operated UAV built by Aerovironment and has been exported to 25 international customers, India operates or has on order 12 C-130J aircraft built by Lockheed Martin for tactical and special operations.
India has a large requirement for UAVs of different configurations in a variety of roles from surveillance, law and order to disaster management.
Other projects under discussion include the possibility of cooperation on next generation aircraft launch system for aircraft carriers and a revised offer from BAE Systems for the local assembly of M-777 Ultra-Light Howitzers.
