India has signed a defence deal with the US to acquire 31 MQ-9B drones. The deal is worth USD 3.5billion and is believed to boost India’s defence preparedness, primarily with neighbours like Pakistan and China in focus.
As part of the deal, General Atomics, the US manufacturer of the drones, will also set up a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility in India. This move is being seen as India’s efforts in getting major defence giants across the world to invest in India.
Experts from the field of defence and bilateral relations are seeing this deal between India and the US as a significant milestone in the strategic relations between the two nations. It is believe that the acquisition of these drones will not only help India boost its capacity but also at the same time detect adversarial advances on its land or at sea which will eventually help in planning a timely prevention.
These drones are expected to enhance the ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) capabilities of India’s armed forces across domains. At the same time, the Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul facility would also support India’s long-term goals of boosting indigenous defence capabilities.
It is the foreign military sales (FMS) system under which the deal between Indian and the US has been completed.
In a recent joint statement during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US last month, the US President Joe Biden had also welcomed the progress towards India concluding procurement of the 31 MQ-9B.
Today, the India-U.S. bilateral cooperation is broad-based and multi-sectoral, covering trade and investment, defence and security, education, science and technology, cybersecurity, high-technology, civil nuclear energy, space technology and applications, clean energy, environment, agriculture and health.
Regular exchange of high-level political visits has provided sustained momentum to bilateral cooperation, while the wide-ranging and ever-expanding dialogue architecture has established a long-term framework for India-U.S.
Defence relationship too has emerged as a major pillar of India-U.S. Cooperation in counter-terrorism has also seen considerable progress with intelligence sharing, information exchange, operational cooperation, counter-terrorism technology and equipment.
The two sides have agreed to work closely for India’s phased entry into the global export control regimes to strengthen global non-proliferation, arms control, as well as nuclear security.
