India and America will jointly build drones to counter the expansionist China. A senior Pentagon official said on Thursday that the US wants closer ties with India to counter China. India will manufacture these drones and export it to other countries in its region. India wants to diversify its weapons, which are mainly manufactured by Russia. Along with this, India wants to develop its own defense industry.
Eli Ratner, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, told reporters and defense experts, “We want to support India on both fronts and are doing so. It practically means that we are going to work together with India. On co-production and co-developing capabilities that will support India’s own defense modernization goals.
India can export these defense equipment at affordable cost to its partners across the region including South and South East Asia. Eli Ratner also cited the possibility of developing drones launched from airplanes and anti-drone defense systems. He also said that the Pentagon is looking at opportunities for co-production of key capabilities in the near and medium term, but did not specify what those opportunities are.
Eli Ratner said, “We are having good conversations with our counterparts in the Government of India at the highest level about our respective priorities in this regard and we look forward to making a big announcement on this front soon.”
Let us tell you that relations between America and India were going on in trouble for many years. But China’s aggressive policy brought the two countries closer together during the tenure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former US President Donald Trump. The US designated India as a major defense partner after Trump took office in 2016. Since then the two countries have signed agreements that facilitate the transfer of top-class weapons and further deepen military cooperation.
