Hagel Visits India Seeking to Sell Weapons
By Gopal Ratnam Aug 7, 2014 9:46 AM ET
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel arrived today in New Delhi seeking to remove barriers to the sale of American weaponry to India, the world’s largest arms buyer.
Boeing Co. (BA) wants to sell more helicopters in India, and Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) is keen on exporting transport planes and providing technology for an Indian version of an anti-tank missile it makes with Raytheon Corp. (RTN)
Standing in the way are Indian restrictions on foreign defense companies owning majority stakes and U.S. curbs on exporting certain technologies. A resolution hinges on the Obama administration’s ability to energize what’s long been an up-and-down relationship with India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party won a May election with the country’s biggest mandate in 30 years.
“There’s a degree of disappointment and a degree of frustration” among U.S. officials “in dealing with India, because India itself has not really resolved” what kind of relationship it wants, Sadanand Dhume, a South Asia analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, a policy organization in Washington, said in an interview. “The U.S. is not used to dealing with this neither fish-nor-fowl kind of country.”
To underscore the importance the U.S. attaches to bolstering defense trade with India, Hagel brought with him Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer, and Puneet Talwar, the assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs. Together, Kendall and Talwar, whose Indian-American heritage made headlines in India when he was named to his post, oversee U.S. arms exports.
No ‘Second Cousin’
Asked about India’s reluctance to embrace the U.S. as an ally and defense partner, Hagel told reporters traveling with him en route to New Delhi, “The U.S. is mindful of the sensitivity of India’s independence, and it has been an independent non-aligned nation since it became a democracy.”
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