US To Work With India On Drone Development With An Eye Toward China

A senior Pentagon official announced on Thursday that the United States and India will co-develop drones as Washington wants tighter ties with Delhi as a means of fending off China.

This official stated that India would produce these planes and export them to other nations in the neighbourhood.

Delhi wants to diversify its primarily Russian-made armaments while simultaneously growing its own defence industry.

Eli Ratner, assistant secretary of defence for Indo-Pacific security affairs, told a group of media and defence experts, “And we want to support India on both fronts and are doing so.”

Ratner explained that this would entail tight collaboration with India in order to co-produce and co-develop capabilities that would help India’s own defence modernization objectives.

Following that, India will be able to “export to our partners across the region, especially in South and Southeast Asia, at competitive prices.”

Ratner mentioned the potential for creating drones that are launched from aircraft as well as anti-drone defence systems.

He said that the Pentagon is looking into “options to co-produce important capabilities” in the short and medium term, although he did not specify which ones.

Ratner stated, “We’re having productive discussions with our colleagues in the Indian government at the highest levels about our respective goals in that area, and we hope to have more to share on this front in the near future.

Relations between the United States and India were strained for a long time, but under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former President Donald Trump, the nations’ shared fear of an assertive China helped to forge stronger ties.

After designating India as a “major defence partner” in 2016, the two nations have subsequently negotiated agreements to make it easier to transfer high-end weapons and expand their military cooperation.