The ongoing controversy on end-use monitoring of defence equipment from the US takes my memory forty six years back, to 1963 when a hundred member strong team of the United States Supply Mission in India (USMSMI) was accommodated in the Ashoka hotel, Delhi to monitor the military aid extended by the US to India following the Chinese attack.They were monitoring the deployment of infantry equipment provided for the new mountain divisions being raised at that time, and not high tech equipment. In 1964, the Chavan-McNamara agreement provided for 500 million dollars aid — half loan and half grant, for five years.The aid programme was wound up at the outbreak of the Indo-Pakistan war in September 1965. Since India’s foreign exchange position was precarious and the West cut off aid, India had no choice but to turn to the Soviet Union for defence equipment for all three services.The Soviet imports were on 10-12 year credit with very low interest and repayable in non-convertible rupees. The western countries wrongly perceived a close Indo-Soviet military relationship with a large number of Soviet personnel advising and training Indian forces.Therefore they completely cut off all military sales to India under the fear that their equipment technology would be compromised.This fear was totally unfounded but it prevailed. Then came the Pokhran nuclear test of 1974 and the technology denial regime imposed by the West was lifted only recently with the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) waiver.

Indian defence modernisation upto the world class standards is a necessity if India is to play a global role. The international armaments market has undergone a radical change in the post cold war years.Today, the US spends nearly half of the world’s defence expenditure and a much higher proportion of the world’s defence R&D expenditure. It has publicly asserted that it will have greater military capability than any other power or combination of powers. In these circumstances the US happens to be the unrivalled source of military technology. Western Europe and Russia are the other two sources. In case of western Europe, they often depend on the US for subsystems and components. In such cases, the US has a veto on the European countries selling arms to particular countries. Israel too is emerging as a supplier of sophisticated defence technology and most of its systems have US technology or components and are therefore subject to a US veto. Another recent trend is for armament firms to merge and in the process often US connections get established. In the post cold war era, armed forces in most of the countries have been reduced and the world. Demand for armaments has gone down. The revolution in military affairs have led to more accurate, stand-off weapons. The unit costs of weapons have sky-rocketed and R&D costs have gone up manifold.Consequently, in Europe, countries have to develop weapon systems jointly. All these factors have led to the US dominating the armament technology and the market.

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