The UK has pledged to help India build advanced combat aircraft. this is the reason

Britain promised to help transfer advanced technology to produce fighter jets to India, the West’s first concrete attempt to wean India off its dependence on Russian weapons.

The move was announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson when he visited his Indian counterpart. Narendra Modi In New Delhi last week, when India and the United Kingdom reiterated their commitment to cooperate on defense and security issues.

Details of the project were not disclosed, but the US defense publication. Defense News reported The offer likely relates to the UK’s sixth-generation Tempest Future Combat Air System program.

The United Kingdom also announced that it will publish a file Opening a General Export License for India Simplify defensive acquisitions. This is the first time this facility has been expanded to a country outside the European Union and the United States.

Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore, K.

Johnson also announced that a trade deal between India and the United Kingdom would be ready by October. Deal talks began in January, but the interim agreement Johnson was due to sign during his trip did not materialize.

The United States is only gradually waking up to the fact that Russia and China are using economic leverage for political ends, said Bruce Bennett, a California-based defense research associate at the RAND Corporation.

“If the United States really wants to help its allies and friends, it can. (But) Russia and China have built a dependency for decades. And that dependence will not change for months or even a few years,” Bennett told CNBC.

Mohan, a professor at the University of New South Wales, said that while India was unlikely to abandon ties with Russia immediately, the British move would allow India’s strategic cooperation with the West to grow even faster. Like the United States, Britain wants to reduce India’s dependence on Russia and bring Delhi closer to the West.

Indian defense expert and founder of the Indian defense magazine “Force” Praveen Sawhney rejected the British offer, saying it would not be useful. “India has too many types of combat aircraft and there will be restrictions on the type of technology transfer. Russia does not have such restrictions. Putin is a one-stop shop for India.”

The largest importer of arms

For at least the past decade, India, the world’s largest arms importer, has worked to diversify its supply and import arms from France, the United States, and Israel.

However, removing Russia will be a daunting task.

Russia accounts for more than 60% of all Indian arms and requires a constant supply of spare parts.

India imported 46% of its weapons from Russia between 2017 and 2021, according to Sweden’s SIPRI Institute, which tracks arms exports and imports worldwide. It was followed by France with 27% and the United States with 12%, according to the institute.

Imports from Israel ranked fourth. Indian actress 37% of all Israeli arms exports during this period.

Describing the Indo-Pacific region as the “geopolitical center of the world”, Johnson said Britain was chasing the “Indo-Pacific mile”, ignoring Modi’s Hindu nationalist government’s questionable human rights record in favor of Indians. Geostrategic interests of the West Indians in India. security.

India is at the heart of Western countries’ strategy in the Indo-Pacific region, which is an attempt to contain China’s aggressiveness in the region. India is also a member of the Security Dialogue Quartet, which also includes the United States, Australia and Japan.

As a country that relies heavily on Russian weapons for most of its arsenal, India has not joined its Quadruple Partners in condemning Russia’s unlawful and unprovoked attack on Ukraine, nor has it imposed sanctions.

is over, India increased its purchases Russian oil and coal in defiance of international sanctions against Moscow.