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10 September 2010 By Rick Rozoff A September 8 report by a leading Canadian
newspaper cited the Indian branch of the Deloitte
consulting firm estimating the world’s second most
populous nation plans to spend as much as $80 billion
for its defense sector in the next five years. It quoted an Indian journalist, Rahul Bedi, a
contributor to Jane’s Defence Weekly, as stating “No
one else is buying like India.” [1] Earlier this year the authoritative Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
disclosed that India had become the world’s
second-largest importer of weapons from 2005-2009,
“importing 7% of the world’s arms exports.” Only China
imported more weaponry, though that nation is slated
to purchase less foreign arms, both aggregate and
percentile, in the coming years and the largest
foreign supplier of its weapons is a non-Western
country, Russia. During the five-year period mentioned above, Indian
arms imports more than doubled from $1.04 billion in
2005 to $2.2 billion in 2009. Over the past 20 years
Russia has been far and away the main provider of arms
to India, as the Soviet Union had been in previous
decades, though “The United States, currently India’s
sixth-biggest arms supplier, seems likely to leapfrog
to second position once New Delhi starts paying for a
series of recent and ongoing acquisitions.” [2] Those contracts include $1.1 billion for C-130J
Super Hercules transport planes, $2.4 billion for
Globemaster airlifters and $2 billion for P-8I
long-range maritime patrol aircraft. (A version of
Boeing’s Poseidon reconnaissance and anti-submarine
warfare Multimission Maritime Aircraft modified for
Indian use.) Reports in both the Russian and Chinese press
speculate that when U.S. President Barack Obama visits
India in November he “may secure $5 billion worth of
arms sales,” a deal that “would make the US replace
Russia as India’s biggest arms supplier” and “help
India curb China’s rise.” [3] The unprecedented weapons transactions could
include “Patriot air defence batteries and Boeing
mid-air refueling tankers. “Observers point out that the role of India’s
biggest arms supplier is shifting from Russia to the
United States.” [4] A Chinese news source added that Washington will
also supply New Delhi with howitzers and that “the
total cost of the deal may exceed $10 billion….” The Economic Times of India disclosed in July that
“talks are underway between Indian and US officials
over a deal to sell 10 Boeing C-17 [Globemaster III]
military transport aircraft to the Indian Air Force (IAF).” Wang Mingzhi, a military strategist at the People’s
Liberation Army Air Force Command College, warned
“once India gets the C-17 transport aircraft, the
mobility of its forces stationed along the border with
China will be improved.” [5] The C-17 carries a payload of 164,900 pounds for
2,400 miles and 100,300 pounds for 4,000 miles without
refueling. In late August the U.S. signed a $170 million deal
to supply India with 24 Harpoon Block II advanced
air-to-surface anti-ship missiles. This February the Wall Street Journal revealed that
the Obama administration, with a renewed focus on the
Asia-Pacific region, intends to massively increase
arms sales to both India and its nuclear rival
Pakistan. U.S. military sales to Pakistan have risen
to $3 billion a year and are expected to nearly double
in 2011. As for its neighbor, “India is one of the largest
buyers of foreign-made munitions, with a long shopping
list which includes warships, fighter jets, tanks and
other weapons. Its defense budget is $30 billion for
the fiscal year ending March 31, a 70% increase from
five years ago.” [6] In January U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
visited India and later in the month Washington
secured a deal to sell India 145 U.S. howitzers for
$647 million. “The Obama administration is trying to persuade New
Delhi to buy American jet fighters instead [of Russian
ones], a shift White House officials say would lead to
closer military and political relations between India
and the U.S. It would also be a bonanza for U.S.
defense contractors, and [the White House] has
dispatched senior officials such as Mr. Gates to New
Delhi to deliver the message that Washington hopes
India will choose American defense firms for major
purchases in the years ahead.” The Wall Street Journal quoted Tom Captain, vice
chairman and Global and U.S. Aerospace & Defense
director at Deloitte headquarters in New York, as
claiming “For 2010 and 2011, India could well be the
most important market in the world for defense
contractors looking to make foreign military sales,”
where Russian equipment accounts for about 70 percent
of that currently in use. Referring to India’s plans to spend $10 billion for
126 multirole combat aircraft, Captain added: “That’s
the biggest deal in the world right now. If it goes to
an American firm, that would be the final nail in the
coffin in terms of India shifting its allegiance from
Russia to the U.S.” [7] Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral
Michael Mullen was in the Indian capital on July 22-23
and met with Defence Minister AK Antony, Air Chief
Marshal Pradeep Vasant Naik and other military
leaders. As a local news agency divulged, “Mullen’s
visit comes at a time when both sides are looking at
expanding defence cooperation across a swathe of
areas. “The visit also coincides with intensified lobbying
for the $10 billion contract for 126 fighters for the
Indian Air Force (IAF).” [8] The White House is negotiating new export control
agreements with India to assist American arms firms to
sell more high-technology weapons to the Asian nation. At the top of the list of U.S. objectives in
expanding military ties with India are replacing
Russia as the country’s main arms supplier and the
concomitant supplanting of Russian political
influence, further tightening an Asian NATO around
China [9] and weakening the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization [10], all to ensure unimpeded American
presence and domination in Eurasia. After the end of the Cold War and the fragmentation
of the Soviet Union, the Pentagon was given free rein
to operate worldwide, including in parts of the planet
hitherto inaccessible to U.S. troops and bases. U.S. European Command, through the expansion of
NATO membership and graduated partnership programs,
has secured the Defense Department a prevalent role in
almost all of Europe and the South Caucasus. Central Command has extended its role from the
Middle East to Central Asia and further into South
Asia and the Indian Ocean. On October 1, 2002 U.S. Northern Command was
established to oversee North America from Mexico’s
southern border to the Arctic Ocean. Six years later
U.S. Africa Command was launched to subordinate 53
nations on and off the coasts of the continent to
American military and geopolitical strategy. In the past decade the Pentagon has deployed
troops, military equipment and ordnance – in some
instances missiles – to new locations in Eastern
Europe and the Black Sea region, the Middle East
including the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, Central
and South Asia, Northeast Africa and South America. The final frontier is Asia from China to Iran, with
those parts of it not covered by Central Command
assigned to U.S. Pacific Command, the largest overseas
military structure in the world. Its area of
responsibility takes in India, China and 60 percent of
the population of the Earth. In the 1990s so-called neoconservatives and
realists alike from Paul Wolfowitz to Zbigniew
Brzezinski triumphed in the emergence of the U.S. as
the first, uncontested and only international
superpower – what its current head of state Barack
Obama called the world’s sole military superpower in
Oslo last December – and crafted plans to continue
that unparalleled role into the indefinite future.
What they agreed on was the need to guarantee that no
other nation or group of nations rose to challenge
American global supremacy, either on an international
or a regional basis. By regional was understood any part of the world.
The most likely rivals would arise in Eurasia, the
American geopoliticians warned. The ultimate nightmare
for the imperial strategists was some version of what
former Russian prime and foreign minister Yevgeny
Primakov promoted as a strategic triangle of Russia,
China and India. An Indian commentary of approximately ten years ago
described the U.S. counter-strategy as a policy of
cultivating closer state-to-state relations with every
nation in the world than any of those countries have
with any other state, even their neighbors. Thus the U.S. is arming India and Pakistan,
regional military rivals possessing nuclear weapons
outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime,
as it is deepening defense ties with other nations on
both sides of local conflicts and disputes: Armenia
and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, Greece and
Turkey over Cyprus and the skies over the Aegean Sea,
Croatia and Slovenia over the Adriatic coast, Serbia
and Kosovo over the latter, recognized by almost
two-thirds of United Nation member states as a
province of the former, and so on. As the American corporate consultant quoted earlier
pointed out, the best way of transforming the foreign
policy orientation of other countries and
subordinating them to Washington’s global political
agenda is by penetrating and gaining control over
their armed forces. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Africa
Command alone have provided the Pentagon mechanisms
for initiating and consolidating bilateral military
ties with over 100 of the world’s 192 nations (in the
UN). NATO and AFRICOM have given the Pentagon a
continent apiece. That is in addition to other,
frequently older, military client states in Latin
America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and the
Asia-Pacific region. By supplying arms to those nations and eliminating
traditional rivals for that role, Washington is laying
the groundwork for integrating most every country in
the world into its military network. Weapons sales are
followed by instruction, maintenance, upgrade and
field training agreements, with U.S. military
personnel assigned to the purchasing nations. Regional and other multinational air, naval,
interceptor missile, armored and ground combat
exercises and war games are held to test weapons in
live-fire and other maneuvers and to provide the U.S.
opportunities for simulated warfare against potential
rivals’ equipment, tactics and warfighting doctrine. Pilots, soldiers, marines and sailors, including
special forces, from military client nations are
provided training in their own countries, in the U.S.
and in third countries to ensure weapons, deployment,
command, communication and combat interoperability
with the Pentagon for global missions. This July the Reuters news agency reported that
U.S. arms sales abroad could surge from $37.8 billion
to $50 billion next year, an increase of almost
one-third. Vice Admiral Jeffrey Wieringa, director of the
Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency – in
charge of international financial and technical
assistance, training and services and other
military-to-military contacts – estimated a year ago
“that weapons sales could reach a record $50 billion
this year.” [11] He added that U.S. arms sales have expanded from $8
billion ten years ago to $37.8 for the fiscal year
ending this September 30 “and they are likely to
continue growing in coming years….” “Among the biggest potential arms deals on the
table now are huge fighter jet competitions in India
and Brazil, various modernization programs for Saudi
Arabia, and continuing support for arms sales to Iraq,
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Lebanon.” Wieringa was also cited applauding “a drive by
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other departments
to reform cumbersome U.S. export laws,” thus opening
the floodgates for U.S. weapons sales throughout the
world. [12] Four years ago the New York Times documented that
“A total of $21 billion in arms sales agreements were
signed from September 2005 to September 2006, compared
with $10.6 billion in the previous year,” according to
Pentagon data. [13] Nations that had never purchased American weaponry
before and that only had negligible armed forces now
offer lucrative prospects for American arms
manufacturers. India is preeminent in the first
category. The weapons manufacturers’ wares are produced for –
deadly – use and not for simple display, deterrence
and (dubious) prestige. Weapons sales are promoted through international
arms shows and exhibitions, but more so through actual
demonstrations. War games suit that purpose, but war
itself does it to a greater degree. The U.S. offered the world large-scale military
hardware expositions in the three wars it launched in
less than four years: Yugoslavia in 1999, Afghanistan
in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. The recent announcement that the U.S. will supply
Saudi Arabia with a staggering $80 billion worth of
arms in the next few years is paralleled by its plans
to become India’s main arms provider. Weapons transactions are inextricably connected
with overall military integration, and since 2002 –
immediately following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan
and the Pentagon and its NATO allies moving into new
military bases in that country, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan
and Uzbekistan – Washington began regular (annual)
air, sea and land maneuvers with India of
ever-increasing scope and intensity. Last October 12-29 the U.S. Army participated in
the latest and largest of Yudh Abhyas (“training for
war”) war games held since 2004 with its Indian
counterpart. Exercise Yudh Abhyas 2009 featured 1,000
troops, the U.S.’s Javelin anti-tank missile system
and the first deployment of American Stryker armored
combat vehicles outside the Afghan and Iraqi theaters
of war. The Strykers were tested against Indian T-90
tanks, “currently the most modern tank[s] in service
with the Russian Ground Forces and Naval Infantry.”
[14] The U.S. ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer, said
of the military maneuvers: “The broadened and
unprecedented scope of Yudh Abhyas stands as a
testament to the growing people-to-people and
military-to-military ties of the United States and
India, one of the key pillars of the expanded
U.S.-India strategic partnership.” [15] The Pentagon showcased both the Strykers and the
Javelin third generation anti-tank guided missiles
during the biggest-ever joint U.S.-Indian ground
combat exercises and not without the desired effect. An American press agency disclosed on September 3
that “Russia has traditionally been India’s largest
arms supplier but following evidence of the
capabilities of U.S. military equipment during joint
exercises with the Indian army, navy and air force,
the Indian army decided to purchase several hundred
Javelin anti-tank guided missiles, demonstrated during
the war games….The Javelins were deployed for Indian
forces for the first time in the Yudh Abhyas 09 joint
military exercise in Babina, the largest war game that
the two armies have had.” [16] Last month the Times of India reported that “India
will order a ‘large’ number of the quite-expensive
Javelin ATGM systems from the US. “The deal for the man-portable, fire-and-forget
Javelin ATGM systems will once again be a direct
government-to-government one under the American
foreign military sales (FMS) programme, without any
global multi-vendor competition. “While the exact number of Javelin systems India
will induct is yet to be In July the Raytheon Company announced that India
is evaluating the Patriot ground-based anti-ballistic
missile system for purchase and deployment and that
the U.S. had provided New Delhi with “classified”
material on it recently. Sales of Patriot Advanced
Capability-3 interceptor missiles to India are
reported to be on Barack Obama’s agenda during his
November visit. By acquiring them, India would join fellow
Asia-Pacific nations Japan, South Korea and Taiwan as
well as NATO members Germany, Spain, the Netherlands
and Greece and U.S. Middle East military clients
Israel, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates. Joseph Garrett, Raytheon vice president and deputy
for Patriot programs, disclosed that “A number of
exchanges have taken place between the government of
India and the US and information has been given to
India at the classified level.” Patriots were “successfully used during both Desert
Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, Patriot’s
manufacturer Raytheon has said.” [18] Seven consecutive years of Yudh Abhyas war games
aren’t the only joint U.S.-Indian military exercises
held each year of late. In fact they are full spectrum
in their range. Starting shortly after the end of the Cold War,
Washington initiated joint Malabar naval exercises
with India. Suspended after the latter’s nuclear tests
in 1998, they resumed in 2002 and have grown in scale
over the years. Malabar 2002 included standard maritime maneuvers
but also anti-submarine warfare exercises. The 2003
drills featured an American guided missile destroyer,
a guided missile cruiser and a nuclear-powered fast
attack submarine and two Indian guided missile
frigates, a submarine and several aircraft which
concentrated on anti-submarine warfare tactics. 2004 saw a continuation of anti-submarine drills
and included a U.S. nuclear-powered fast attack
submarine and anti-submarine and maritime surveillance
aircraft. The next year’s war games featured a U.S.
nuclear-powered aircraft supercarrier for the first
time and included a 24-hour simulated “war at sea”
with the two nations’ navies engaging in mock combat. In 2006 an American expeditionary strike group (the
USS Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group) consisting of
over 6,500 U.S. Navy personnel, amphibious ships,
cruisers, destroyers and submarines participated in
the exercise for the first time. Also, with the
inclusion of the Canadian navy the 2006 Malabar
exercises expanded for the first time beyond the
bilateral format of the preceding two years. The next year was a watershed one in many respects.
Malabar 2007 included 25 warships from five nations:
In addition to the U.S. and India, participating
countries were Australia, Japan and Singapore, at the
time leading to suspicions of American plans to forge
an Asian NATO. The drills were held for the first time in the Bay
of Bengal off India’s eastern coast, which further
raised Chinese concerns, and extended into the Andaman
Sea near the strategic Strait of Malacca. The U.S. supplied 13 warships including the USS
Nimitz nuclear supercarrier, the USS Kitty Hawk
aircraft carrier, the USS Chicago nuclear submarine,
two guided missile cruisers and six guided missile
destroyers. Japan provided two destroyers, Singapore a
frigate and Australia a frigate and a tanker. Malabar 2008 returned to a bilateral context with
the involvement of the USS Ronald Reagan Strike Group,
a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine and a P-3
Orion anti-submarine plane. 4,000 personnel from three nations – the U.S.,
India and Japan – participated in last year’s exercise
which included anti-submarine warfare, surface
warfare, air defense and live-fire gunnery training
drills. Malabar 2010 was conducted in April with ships,
submarines, aircraft and personnel from the U.S.
Navy’s Seventh Fleet, among which were a nuclear fast
attack submarine, two guided missile destroyers, a
guided missile cruiser, a guided missile frigate, Sea
Hawk helicopters, anti-submarine aircraft and Navy
SEALS. The Pentagon hasn’t been content to exercise its
troops and weapons on India’s soil and off its coasts.
Starting in 2004 the U.S. has also led annual air
combat maneuvers called Cope India. The first series of bilateral aerial warfare
exercises tested U.S. state-of-the-art F-15 Eagle
fighters against Russian-made MiG-21, MiG-27, MiG-29
and Sukhoi Su-30 opposite numbers along with
French-made Mirage 200 fighters. The U.S. warplanes
were consistently bested by their MiG-21 and Su-30
rivals. The Cope India maneuvers, like comparable ones in
Romania and elsewhere in Eastern Europe and the Red
Flag air combat exercises in the U.S., provide the
Pentagon an opportunity to engage and compete against
advanced Russian military aircraft for use in real war
scenarios in the future. Cope India 2005 pitted American F-16 Fighting
Falcons against India’s most advanced, largely
Russian-produced, fighters in – for the first time in
joint U.S.-Indian air exercises – a combat environment
controlled by airborne warning and control system
(AWACS) aircraft. The next year over 250 U.S. airmen stationed
throughout the Pacific region accompanied F-16
Fighting Falcons to India for Cope India 2006. The
F-16s were deployed against the most advanced fighter
in the Indian Air Force’s arsenal, the Su-30 MKI
(adapted from the Russian Su-30) as well as MiG-21,
MiG-27, MiG-29 and Mirage 2000 fighters. In 2008 an Indian Air Force contingent of eight
Su-30 MKI fighters, two Russian-made in-flight
refuellers, a Russian heavy lift transport aircraft
and almost 250 airmen “winged their way halfway across
the globe to the deserts of Nevada,” to participate in
an Exercise Red Flag, held three or four times a year
in Nevada and Alaska and “acknowledged to be the most
advanced and professionally challenging fighter
exercise conducted anywhere in the world.” [19] The exercise marked several precedents: It included
the largest single deployment of the Indian Air Force
outside India. It was the first time that the air
forces of nations not in NATO or those of major
non-NATO allies – India and South Korea – participated
in Red Flag air combat maneuvers. “It was also the
first time that the SU30 MKI, a frontline combat
aircraft of Russian design, made its appearance in the
American skies and that too in a multi-national
congregation.” [20] India was elevated to the status of an American
strategic military ally, on the level of a NATO
partner, on June 28, 2005 when U.S. Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Indian Defence Minister
Pranab Mukherjee signed the New Framework for the
U.S.-India Defense Relationship, in effect a ten-year
defense pact. India has become the convergence point for the
U.S.-led NATO bloc moving from the west into Central
and South Asia and the expansion of an Asia-Pacific
NATO growing from its Japan-Australia-South
Korea-Taiwan nucleus to absorb the ten members of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN):
Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar,
the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal,
Mongolia, New Zealand and the five former Soviet
Central Asian republics – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – are to
varying degrees being integrated into the structure as
well. India is also intended as a central locus for the
U.S. global interceptor missile grid based on land and
sea and in the air and space, linking deployments in
Eastern Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, the South
Caucasus and the Middle East to those in Japan, South
Korea, Taiwan, Australia and Alaska, including the
latter’s Aleutian Islands. Moving the Asian giant into the Pentagon’s column
will not only affect the balance of forces in Asia but
throughout the world. 1) Toronto Star, September 8, 2010
http://world.globaltimes.cn/asia-pacific/2010-07/550830.html 4) Voice of Russia, July 11, 2010 http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/../12033554.html 5) Global Times, July 13, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../u-s-expands-asian-nato-to-contain-and-confront-china U.S. Expands Asian NATO Against China, Russia
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/../u-s-expands-asian-nato-against-china-russia Australian Military Buildup And The Rise Of
Asian NATO
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/../australian-military-buildup-and-the-rise-of-asian-nato 10) The Shanghai Cooperation Organization:
Prospects For A Multipolar World http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/../150 11) Reuters, July 19, 2010 |
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