In an indicator of the furious pace at which India-US military ties are expanding, all three services are girding up to hold the next rounds of joint combat exercises with US forces at various times between August and October.
India is also finalizing several big-ticket defence purchases from the US, with the nearly $2billion deal for eight Boeing P-8i long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft being just one example. India has already signed a $962 million deal for buying six C-130J Super Hercules aircraft.
The procurements, of course, hinge on the finalization of two key India-US military pacts — the End-Use Verification Agreement (EUVA) and the Communication Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) — which too is underway on the quiet.
'Red Flag' exercise to cost Rs 100cr
"Given the Left's propensity to create a panga (problem) on everything to do with US, the intertwined Indo-US defence ties at several levels are being kept largely under wrap," said a top official.
The flurry of joint exercises, of course, is simply breathtaking. India and the US have held as many as around 50 such wargames in the last seven years to build "interoperability". By contrast, the combined figure for India's military exercises with Russia, France and UK is not even one-third of that.
And the exercises certainly don't come cheap. India is shelling out a whopping Rs 100 crore or so to participate in the celebrated "Red Flag" exercise at Nellis US Air Force base in Nevada, the training ground for Nato air combat forces.
Eight Sukhoi-30MKIs, one IL-78 mid-air refueller and an IL-76 heavy-lift aircraft, along with over 150 IAF personnel, will shortly leave for the US to take part in the exercise scheduled from August 9 to 24.
Around the same time, between August 1 and August 24, a US special forces contingent will be at the Army's unique Counter-Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School at Vairengte (Mizoram) to match their anti-terror skills with Indian forces in the "Vajra Prahar" exercise.
The Navy is also finalizing plans for the 14th edition of the Malabar wargames, which will be held on the western seaboard in September-October this time.
Incidentally, the 13th Malabar wargames, held in the Bay of Bengal in September last year, had been expanded to include Japan, Australia and Singapore, apart of course from India and US. This had riled China no end. Itlodged strong protests against the so-called "axis of democracy" emerging in the Asia-Pacific region. Not to be left behind, the CPM and CPI, too, had organized protests along India's east coast, holding that the US was using India to build up a security cooperation arrangement to "contain" China.
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