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The UK is committed to helping India build advanced fighter aircraft. This is why


Meeting here with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday during his visit to India, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was the first Western leader to take steps to reduce India’s dependence on Russian weapons. . Both leaders called on Russia to immediately cease fire in Ukraine.

Photo by Sonu Mehta / Hindustan Times via Getty Images | Hindustan Times | beautiful pictures

Britain has promised to help transfer advanced technology to produce fighter jets in India – the first concrete attempt by the West to free India from dependence on Russian weapons.

The move was announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson when he visited his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in New Delhi last week, when India and Britain reiterated their commitment to cooperate in defense and security matters.

Details of the project are not announced but the US defense is announced Defense News reported that the offer could relate to the UK’s sixth generation Tempest Future Combat Air System programme.

The UK also announced that they will be releasing a open a general export license to India to speed up defense procurement. This is the first time this facility has been expanded to a country outside the European Union and the United States

If the US is really serious about helping allies and friends, it can. But Russia and China have built a dependency over decades.

Bruce Bennett

Defense Researcher, RAND Corporation

“The new open public license system will greatly enhance India’s access to weapons and technology,” said research professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore C. Raja Mohan. UK related technology.

Johnson also announced that a trade deal between India and Britain would be ready in October. Negotiations on the deal began in January but an interim deal Johnson will sign during his trip has already been delayed. did not materialize.

You are one step ahead

In India’s embrace, London was one step ahead of Washington.

When US and Indian foreign and defense ministers meet in Washington At the beginning of April, there was no transfer of weapons technology. The two sides only promised to create a “framework to promote cooperation” in important and emerging technologies – such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and semiconductors.

Bruce Bennett, an assistant defense researcher at California-based RAND, said the US is slowly waking up to Russia and China using economic leverage for political purposes.

“If the United States is really serious about helping allies and friends, it can do so. (But) Russia and China have built a dependency for decades. Turning that dependence on It’s not going to happen for months or even months. years,” Bennett told CNBC.

Like the US, Britain aspires to reduce India’s dependence on Russia and draw Delhi closer to the West.

C. Raja Mohan

Institute of South Asian Studies, NUS

NUS Professor Mohan said: “While India is unlikely to abandon ties with Russia immediately, the UK move will allow India’s strategic cooperation with the West to develop faster. “Like the US, Britain wants to reduce India’s dependence on Russia and draw Delhi closer to the West.”

Indian defense expert and founder of defense magazine in India, Pravin Sawhney, rejected the British offer, saying it would not be helpful. “India has too many types of fighter aircraft, and there will be restrictions on the type of technology transfer. Russia doesn’t have those restrictions,” he said.

Largest arms importer

For at least the past decade, India, the world’s largest arms importer, has diversified its supply and imported weapons from France, the US and Israel.

However, replacing Russia will be a difficult task.

Russia accounts for more than 60% of India’s total armament, which requires a constant supply of spare parts.

India imports 46% According to SIPRI, a Swedish institute that tracks its worldwide arms exports and imports from Russia from 2017 to 2021. France is followed by 27% and the US at 12%, according to the institute. .

Imports from Israel came in fourth place. India occupies 37% of Israel’s total arms exports during this period.

Describing the Indo-Pacific as “the geopolitical center of the world”, Johnson said Britain was pursuing an “Indo-Pacific tilt”, ignoring its own questionable human rights record. Modi’s Hindu nationalist government for the sake of Western geostrategic interests in India. Pacific.

India is at the heart of Western nations’ Indo-Pacific strategy, an effort to contain China’s belligerence in the region. India is also one of the members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which includes the US, Australia and Japan.

As a country that relies heavily on Russian weapons for much of its arsenal, India has not joined its Quad partners in condemning Russia’s gratuitous and illegal attack on Ukraine, nor has it imposed sanctions against this country.

In fact, India has increased purchases Russian oil and coal defy international sanctions against Moscow.



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