Israel’s Military Supplies to India

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Mar-07-2009 21:15

By Hari Special to Salem-News.com

Alliances between nations are getting harder to track, and they have certainly changed since the end of the Cold War.

Indian Arjun tank Courtesy: defencetalk.com

(TORNOTO, Canada) – India’s main supplier of advanced military hardware is Israel. In the 1990s India took a major decision to procure arms from Israel after its much-touted Defense Research and Development Organization failed to develop any high-end weapons systems.

To keep abreast of its neighbors, from 1965 till 1997 India purchased weapons from the Soviet Union, and later Russia – the preferred choice for the last 40 years as its weapons were cheap, reliable, rugged and direct copies of advanced weapons in the West. Almost 70 percent of India’s weapons are of Russian origin.

The fall of the Soviet Union halted its secret development and sales of weapons, thereby letting the West develop countermeasures.

Short of cash, the new Russian Federation from 1990 to 2001 sold its trade secrets to anybody who wished to buy them. In short, India lost its advantage with Russian hardware, as China bought everything that India already had. Also, countermeasures developed by the West for Russian hardware became available to Pakistan. In short, India was at a disadvantage on both fronts.