The agreement signed between US President Joe Biden and Indian PM Narendra Modi marks a new beginning in defence partnership between the two countries which was earlier governed by acquisitions and not technology transfer. After the Chinese debacle in 1962, India consciously opted for a strategic defence partnership with the Soviet Union, with the induction of MIG21 aircraft and technology transfer thereof. Instead of boosting our R and D, design capability and Make in India, Nehru consciously opted for the technology transfer route (Buy Technology and Make in India ) as the predominant policy for building military industry complex.
Be it frigates for the Navy, tanks for the Army, or fighter aircraft for IAF, it was USSR all the way. Nehru’s clear predilection for socialism clearly drove our defence technology cooperation with the USSR. The 1971 war with Pakistan, when the Nixon Administration took a stridently anti-Indian position by sending the 7th fleet, took the Indo-Soviet cooperation to a crescendo, inking the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation. No wonder, close to 85% of defence inventory is of Russian origin. There have been outliers, though when India acquired the Jaguars from the UK in 1978 and Mirage2000 from France in 1982 as a riposte to Pakistan buying F16 aircraft from the US. Both in Jaguar and Mirage, there has been no provision for technology transfer.
Given India’s bitter experience with the Americans in the 1971 war, the civil nuclear agreement in 2005 between the two countries during the Manmohan Singh regime can be termed as a watershed moment. In weapon acquisition, the relationship has been largely driven by Foreign Military Sales (FMS) arrangements under the aegis of DSCA, where India gets its preferred military equipment sourced from the USA. Many of the frontline acquisitions like gun locating radar, surveillance aircraft and heavy lift aircraft have been sourced through the foreign military route accounting for nearly 20 billion dollars since 2002. The popular impression has been that the USA doesn’t believe in technological collaboration and knowledge transfer, except to countries like Japan, Israel and South Korea, but as a seller of critical platforms and equipment.
With this backdrop, the MoU which has been signed for powering the LCA aircraft with a G414 engine and that 11 critical technologies would be transferred to HAL can be called historic. It is worth recalling that India ventured into the Kaveri engine programme in 1986 to power the LCA aircraft with an indigenous engine. However, due to its design failure after auditing by Snecma, the initial LCA prototype aircrafts were being powered by G404 engines. Against this backdrop, the proposed TOT collaboration for a G414 engine would be timely because India is only familiar with the technology of Russian engines. It may be noted that the DRDO is still going for an upgraded version of the Kaveri engine called Ghatak .The other collaboration being envisaged is to make India a hub for maintenance and repair for forward deployed US Navy assets. Even for the UAVs, a comprehensive MRO facility in India is being contemplated.
A major highlight of the Biden-Modi agreement is India’s plan to procure thirty-one MQ9B predators from General Atomics at a cost of 3 billion dollars. This is a major development since all the UAVs of the HAL variety have been procured from IAI Israel. MQ9B is a hunter-killer UAV where it moves from surveillance, intelligence, and reconnaissance role to a hunter-killer role. Operating from a service ceiling of 50,000 feet as against 35,000 feet of Israeli UAVs. This procurement would be a major game changer in India’s capability for surveillance coupled with lethality. A joint production of jet engines, long-range artillery, and ICVs is also being contemplated. From being sellers, Americans have come a long way to become technology and production partners with India.
The sane voice and vision of Dr Kalam has become very salient for India. He clearly foresaw the limitation of ToT arrangements and the need to forge alliances with OEMs and design houses to foster our military industry capability. Joint R and D collaboration with the Israelis for manufacturing MRSAM (Medium Range Surface to Air Missile) is one such initiation. This imaginative design and development collaboration found fruition when the 1st batch of MRSAM was delivered to the IAF in 2021. Kalam also sowed the seeds of a joint venture for cruise missiles (BRHAMOS) with Russia in 1998. This has been a salutary move by India when these missile systems are in heavy demand both by our services and foreign countries. Quite clearly, instead of reinventing the wheel, Joint Ventures and partnerships with reputed OEMs and design houses will help both our private sector and public sector players to have credible collaboration and potentially make India a global hub of defence manufacturing instead of being a major importer.
It is interesting to glance through our past effort for building our Military Industry Capability through IGA and ToTs with the Soviet Union giving way to competitive tendering and the thrust towards import substitution by Making in India. Competitive tendering has widened our choice of technology and coalescence of Soviet systems with Western systems. Henry Kissinger wrote that there is no longer balance of power but the balance of equilibrium. India’s defense ties with Russia and USA is emblematic of this equilibrium act. All the same, the Biden-Modi honeymoon in defence cooperation and technology undoes the ghastly specter of the Seventh Fleet trying to twist India’s arm in its war engagement with Pakistan in 1971. It’s interesting to see, how the wheels of historycan turn socialism on its head when Russia disintegrated and India is not putting all its defence requirements in the nest of the Soviet Union. More interestingly, the USA is now considering India as a serious technology partner, which will keep Pakistan, its erstwhile military ally and China at bay.
(Prof Misra was JS (HAL) in the Ministry of Defence)
