US S Secretary of Defense James Mattis seems to have been eyeing India for quite some time now. Undoubtedly, his top priority is to ensure that the new India-US “major defense partnership” ends up being more than a talk-shop on strategic issues of mutual concern.
Top of his agenda is the sale of 22 Sea Guardian remotely-piloted vehicles, a $2 billion sale that could see the Indian Navy acquire the world’s most advanced maritime reconnaissance drone.
While the drones India is looking at will come unarmed, they are fully weapons-capable and will come with seven external stations for carriage of payloads. This payload could eventually include Hellfire air-to-surface missiles presently being acquired by the Indian Air Force and Army along with 22 US-built Apache attack helicopters India first contracted in September 2015 in a $3 billion contract.
The Sea Guardian Multi-Mission Maritime Patrol Aircraft can fly non-stop for 27 hours at an altitude of 50,000 feet. It can be remotely piloted or operate fully autonomous missions. Equipped with a multi-mode maritime radar, the Sea Guardian can observe the movement of Chinese warships and submarines when they surface.
In December last year, towards the end of Barack Obama’s final term as President, the US Congress passed an amendment called “Enhancing Defence and Security Cooperation with India,” which eventually resulted in India being designated a “major defence partner,” a designation reaffirmed during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US in June this year. If a deal for the drones is concluded, this would be the first US sale of the Sea Guardian to a non-NATO partner nation and the first sale of an extremely sensitive US system under India’s “major defence partner” status.
Over the last three years, China has deployed nuclear attack submarines in the Indian Ocean region along with fleet support ships and warships, apparently to fight piracy off the coast of Somalia. The Indian Navy believes that the Chinese presence in these waters has less to do with the fight against lightly armed Somali pirates and more to do with Beijing’s elaborate plans to strategically encircle India by establishing ports and military facilities in the Indian Ocean region such as its new logistics hub in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa.
Earlier this year, the Commander of the US Pacific Command Admiral Harry Harris said there was nothing to prevent a Chinese aircraft carrier battle group from sailing into the Indian Ocean at any time. According to the Admiral, “I believe India should be concerned about the increased Chinese influence. If you believe there is only a finite amount of influence in the region, then whatever influence that China has is influence that India doesn’t have.”
According to sources, the “next step after this is 5 squadrons of Avengers for the IAF for which the IAF has written a letter of request to the US government.” A deal for Avengers, which could be worth a reported $8 billion “is being considered by the White House for approval after a Guardian deal is signed.”
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