US offers to co-develop advanced Javelin missile with India

SOURCE: Ajai Shukla  | Business-standard.com

The US Deputy Secretary of Defence, Ashton Carter, who arrives in India on Monday for a two-day visit, has masterminded a proposal that could dramatically boost US-India defence relations.

The US Department of Defence (Pentagon) has written to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) proposing that the two countries collaborate in jointly developing a next-generation version of the Javelin anti-tank missile.

India has been offered a specific share of the development programme and requested to respond by a specific date. The Pentagon is going ahead with this progamme on its own if India chooses not to participate.

Last year, Carter had proposed that US companies could join hands with Indian partners in setting up manufacturing facilities for five major systems in India. These include the MH-60 Romeo multi-role helicopter, built by Sikorsky and Lockheed Martin; a delivery system for scatterable mines; and the M-45 127 millimetre rapid-fire naval gun. Later, the US proposed co-producing the Javelin missile, which is built by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin;

New Delhi has not yet responded to the co-manufacture proposal. Now Carter has raised the ante with his proposal for co-developing the next-generation Javelin.

India has a successful co-development project with Russia for the Brahmos cruise missile, and with Israel for the Long Range Surface to Air Missile (LR-SAM) and Medium Range Surface to Air Missile (MR-SAM). But with the US, India has only bought equipment over-the-counter. American equipment has not even been manufactured in India with technology transfer, far less co-developed.

US officials, speaking anonymously, confirm that the co-development proposal will be on Ashton Carter’s discussion agenda during his meetings in New Delhi on Tuesday. Carter will be meeting a range of Indian officials, including National Security Advisor, Shivshankar Menon.

Top Indian MoD sources confirm to Business Standard that the US co-development proposal for the next-generation Javelin has been received and is being evaluated.

A senior DRDO source also confirmed the US offer, but played it cool. He said, “The DRDO welcomes co-development of advanced weapon systems, provided there is real technological collaboration involved. India needs to fill its technology gaps and co-development should ensure that both partners build upon their mutual strengths.”

Carter’s proposal is part of a 15-month-old American push to intensify its defence relationship with India. Earlier, in response to New Delhi’s interest in the Javelin, the US State Department had observed that fulfilling India’s requirement would “alter the regional military balance.” Worse, Washington refused to transfer key technologies that New Delhi insisted upon as a part of the deal.

That approach changed dramatically since June 2012, when then US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, nominated Ashton Carter, to break down the bureaucratic barriers in Washington that impeded the US-India defence relationship — which Washington had determined was pivotal to America’s future in Asia. A formal mechanism called the DTI — tellingly, the US called it the Defence Trade Initiative, while India referred to it as Defence Technology Initiative — was set up. Carter co-chairs it along with National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon,

A close watcher of the Pentagon says Carter has pushed the US bureaucracy hard to change their approach to India. Earlier, US officials regarded India as just another non-NATO country — one with which America did not even have a formal alliance, and which was unwilling to sign cooperative agreements with the US.

“Before Carter got to work, releasing technology to India required a comprehensive justification to be made out. By April 2013, Pentagon officials needed to justify why a particular technology could not be released to India,” says the Pentagon watcher.

The Javelin is now a focus area for Carter. At one stage, the Indian MoD was close to buying a rival missile, the Israeli Spike, for its $1-1.5 billion tender for 8,400 missiles and 321 launcher units for the army’s 350-plus infantry units. But the MoD, wary of a single-vendor buy, ordered a “technology scan” to ascertain that there was no missile on the market other than the Spike.

The FGM-148 Javelin, jointly built by US companies, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, is the world’s premier man-portable, anti-tank missile. It gives infantrymen, highly vulnerable to enemy tanks on the battlefield, a weapon with which to destroy heavy armoured vehicles from a distance of 2.5 kilometres.

But the Israeli Spike, while not nearly as capable, is likely to be a good deal cheaper. If the MoD chooses price over capability, the Spike is likely to emerge the winner.

“But if the MoD agrees to Washington’s co-development proposal, the Javelin would become the clear front-runner for the $1-1.5 billion Indian contract. That is now a realistic prospect,” says a well informed member of the US defence industry.