The News
India’s defense procurement strategy has pivoted away from Russia and toward the West.
New Delhi and Moscow’s joint plans to develop helicopters and fighter jets have been shelved, and a proposal to lease a nuclear submarine from Russia is unlikely to go ahead.
The shift reflects India’s efforts to reduce reliance on Russian weapons and “move closer into the US defense orbit” in order to strengthen relations with Washington as Donald Trump’s tariff threats loom, Bloomberg wrote.
In 2009, 76% of India’s arms imports came from Russia, compared with 36% in 2023, while New Delhi has signed contracts worth nearly $20 billion with US manufacturers. However, India continues to buy cheap energy from Russia.
SIGNALS
India to diversify its weapons imports to boost security
India, the world’s biggest arms importer, is attempting to diversify its supply as increasingly contentious borders with nuclear-armed neighbors China and Pakistan escalate security concerns. “India has slowly shifted to Western-origin platforms because the military is increasingly comfortable with such technology,” an Indian military expert told Bloomberg, after a history of US defense sales to Pakistan and reluctance to share technology and expertise with India. At the same time, India’s domestic weapons manufacturing has surged in the last decade making it one of the most successful examples of Modi’s ‘Make in India’ economic growth program, The Economic Times wrote.
War in Ukraine ‘shatters’ image of Russian military might
Russian arms are one of the few finished products the country produces that are sold globally, meaning they hold huge economic importance for Moscow, US think tank RAND wrote, as well as offering wider geopolitical influence. However, following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent imposition of Western sanctions, Moscow has had to rely on arms imports from Iran and North Korea “to stay afloat” and is even suspected of buying back some of its own tanks and missiles from India and Myanmar, according to Nikkei Asia. Despite this, Moscow “still has cards to play,” the Italian Institute for International Political Studies wrote. With 40 existing military-technical agreements with African countries, Russia remains the “partner of choice” for many anti-Western authoritarian regimes across the continent.