Lockhead Martin to sell weapons to India...
- Thread starter dabrownguy
- Start date
Well it is all over , Its open Secret now , WHat are India is planning .... that news what i can get right now on internet is of 2002 , well i read all this on Indian news paper.shamayel said:
[bPeace brokers answer South Asia's call for arms[/b]
One of the little noted paradoxes of the recent crisis between India and Pakistan was that some of the same countries desperately seeking to avert war between the two nuclear powers were the same ones avidly seeking to sell them weapons.
The United States, Britain, France and Russia all sent diplomats to stop New Delhi and Islamabad from going to war over Kashmir, fearing it might lead to a nuclear exchange. But at the same time, their respective military industrial complexes were supplying India or Pakistan - or both, in some cases - varied military goods or competing for future arms contracts.
In April, the United States signed a US$146-million deal with India for eight Firefinder AN/TPQ-37 fire-finder/counter-battery radar systems, built by Thales Raytheon Systems Corporation of El Segundo, California.
Another 20 "big ticket" military items were approved by the Bush administration for sale to India. These include 40 General Electric (GE) F404-GE-F2J3 engines and advanced avionics for the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) program, submarine rescue facilities and ground sensors and electronic fencing for installation along the Line of Control (LoC). Pakistan is also being sold these satellite-linked sensors made by the Los Angeles-based Cooperative Monitoring Center of Sandia Laboratories and has unofficially been told that "low key" military sales will resume shortly.
The US is also interested in selling helicopters to replace the aging GKN Westland Mk 452 Sea King fleet, P-3C multi-mission maritime reconnaissance aircraft, and Harpoon anti-ship missiles.
US ambassador to India Robert Blackwill has hinted that measures were being initiated with Congress to release 20 arms licenses to New Delhi. Washington earlier this year lifted restrictions on military sales to India and Pakistan, imposed after their nuclear tests in 1998.
Britain, which dispatched Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to Islamabad and New Delhi to lower tensions in the region, also sought to close the deal with the Indian Air Force (IAF) for 66 BAE Systems Hawk training aircraft worth well over a billion dollars.
While in New Delhi, Straw rejected news reports that that Britain had imposed an arms embargo on India and that it had opposed the sale of Hawk trainers. Straw had pressed equally vehemently for the jet trainer during his visit to India in February, following up the sales pitch of Prime Minister Tony Blair and Defense Secretary Geoffrey Hoon, both of whom visited India and Pakistan this year to broker peace. And Sir Kevin Tebbit, Britain's Permanent Under Secretary in the Defense Ministry, too, pitched in for the BAE trainer during a visit to Delhi earlier this year as head of a delegation seeking to further "strategic dialogue".
In fact, as ministers warned Britons to leave the region amid the threat of nuclear conflict over Kashmir, Britain granted arms export licenses to India and Pakistan throughout the recent escalation of tensions. In some cases the number of licenses increased from the end of last year, before the recent tensions flared.
They were approved as India mounted its largest military build-up in 30 years along the Kashmir LoC after a suicide attack on the Indian parliament on December 13, which New Delhi blamed on militants backed by Pakistan.
At the same time, ministers and officials were quoted as indicating Britain was clamping down on arms sales to both countries, although Straw insisted that exports had not been suspended.
According to Saferworld, a London-based international security think tank, the figures revealed the government's own criteria on granting licenses was not being implemented rigorously. The figures reveal that the Department of Trade and Industry issued 39 export licenses to India and four to Pakistan between May 1 and May 20. About 25 licenses, which included military aircraft, related equipment and components, were granted to India in December, then three in January, eight in February, 30 in March, 45 in April and 21 in the first three weeks of May.
Three licenses of the same category were licensed to Pakistan in December, one in January, 20 in March, five in April and three in the first three weeks of May.
In 2000, Britain granted some 700 defense export licenses to companies selling weapons to India worth around 64.5 million sterling ($98.8 million). These included components for air-to-surface missiles, aircraft machine guns, armored personnel carriers, combat aircraft, torpedoes and combat helicopters. The UK also sold India military aircraft engines, military communications equipment, tear gas and other riot-control equipment and air-to-surface missiles.
In the same year the UK sold six million pounds sterling worth of weapons to Pakistan. This included components for combat helicopters, frigates and naval vessels, as well as military communications equipment, military training aircraft and military utility vehicles.
Britain seems happy to sell the same weapons to two countries on the brink of all-out war. Such a policy also appears to violate the European Union code of conduct on weapons sales. The code says that weapons must not be exported if they could: affect regional stability; provoke or prolong armed conflicts; be used for external aggression; or to assert by force a territorial claim. Given the standoff between India and Pakistan, UK weapons sales appear to contravene all those restrictions.
On June 1, Straw said that arms sales to the sub-continent need not be suspended during the present tensions because they are "not relevant" to the current fears of war. That is hard to reconcile with the fact that components for Jaguar bombers, supplied to India by Britain last year, are being upgraded to give them the capability to carry nuclear missiles. BAE has so far licensed the production of 126 Jaguars in India.
Meanwhile, Russia, which called upon President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to meet at a regional security conference at Almaty in Kazakhstan, remains the largest military hardware provider to India.
Around 50 of the 310 Russian T-90 main battle tanks (MBTs) that India bought last year for around $700 million have arrived and been absorbed in three "sabre" or strike squadrons in regiments deployed across Rajasthan against Pakistan's Ukrainian T 80UDs based in Sindh province.
Also, about 10 of the 40 Su-30 Mk-I fighter aircraft, fully upgraded to their multi-role capability with French, Israeli and locally developed avionics and weaponry, are scheduled to arrive soon. Almost a squadron of upgraded MiG 21 "bis"-93 ground attack interceptor fighters are ready. The deal for the 44,500-tonne Kiev-class Soviet aircraft carrier, Admiral Gorshkov, and the "associated" leasing of two Akula-class Type 971 nuclear-powered submarines, is also nearing completion.
France, too, is pushing its military hardware in the region at the same time that President Jacques Chirac has spoken with both Musharraf and Vajpayee to try and dissuade them from the path of conflict.
Its Direction des Constructions Navales is on the verge of closing a deal with the Indian Navy to build six Scorepene submarines. The two sides had last year signed a memorandum of understanding for the Scorepenes, and Indian navy sources said France had agreed to arm the Scorepenes with Exocet SM 39 anti-ship missiles made by Aerospatiale, giving the navy a decisive edge over the Pakistanis.
The Indian air force has also opened preliminary discussions with Dassault Aviation of France to acquire Mirage 2005 fighter aircraft to enhance its strike and nuclear deterrence capabilities. Official sources in New Delhi said that the air force plans to acquire 126 Mirage 2005s to equip seven squadrons that will comprise the "backbone" of India's strategic nuclear command.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/DG09Df03.html
