Israel steals huge defense contract from US
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government will buy 8,356 Spike missiles and 321 launchers from Israel in a deal worth 32 billion rupees ($525 million), defense ministry sources told AFP.
The government is moving to speed up long-delayed defense orders and bolster its military. The Israeli deal comes after recent firing along India's border with nuclear-armed rival Pakistan and tensions with giant neighbor China.
The procurement deals, worth 800 billion rupees ($13.1 billion) in total, were cleared at a meeting of India's Defense Acquisition Council, headed by Defense Minister Arun Jaitley, on Saturday.
"It (the council) has cleared a deal for Spikes," a defense ministry official, who asked not to be named, told AFP.
"It's a fire and forget kind of missile," the official said, referring to the fact the missile locks onto targets before firing.
"You can say there was a rival bid from the US for its Javelin missiles," the official said, adding that India's army trialed the Spike missiles "successfully last year".
Significantly, this latest development comes just one month after India agreed to buy 262 Israeli-made Barak 1 surface-to-air missiles for its navy, to the tune of $144 million.
India is currently the largest buyer of Israeli defense hardware, and Israel's military delegation to India is second only in size to its delegation to America. The two countries also have a Joint Working group on counter-terrorism, with bilateral ties flourishing under India's new Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
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Modi and US President Barack Obama agreed on greater defense cooperation during a meeting in Washington last month, when the US reportedly lobbied for its Javelin missiles.
"The DAC (Defense Acquisition Council) took the decision based on purely technical reasons and based on hard facts. It had been on the agenda for some time," another unnamed defense ministry official told AFP.Israel's defense industry has demonstrated once again that it is capable of independence. That has huge implications for future relations with the United States. Change - but good change for once.
Labels: India, Narenda Modi, Rafael
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:36 AM
4 Comments:
STEALS IMPLIES SOME WRONGDOING ON THE PART OF ISRAEL RATHER THAN THAT THEY SUBMITTED A BETTER BID THAN THE US. MAYBE YOU WANT TO RETHINK THE HEADING?
Capable of Independence, as long as all the IP/royalty arrangements are kept up and paid on time for any co-developed technologies... both ways. Competition is good for technology innovation. But make sure not to undermine any intellectual property agreements...
Should we now fear of Obama's revenge?
India gets more sophisticated and cheaper goods.
So why shouldn't they go for the better deal?
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