Strategy of US behind technology denials is a strategy to keep defence capabilities of countries in check while dominating its rivals and allies. This is also aimed towards maintaining a vibrant defence industrial base back in US. This can be sited with a few incidents.
During the joint exercises held with US prior to 2012 Indian soldiers had tried and selected Javelin antitank missiles. On 17th April 2012, Mr. Andrew Shapiro, the Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs had voiced that Washington had cleared the transfer of technology for manufacturing the Javelin missile to be manufactured in India. Soon after this curbs were placed by Washington on the number of missiles that could be manufactured. This jeopardized the deal with and as a collateral fallout a lot of time got wasted in the whole process delaying the procurement of the much needed antitank missiles for the Indian army. US administration had clearly known that such curbs would further hinder the process of acquisition of the necessary defence technologies related to anti-tank missiles by India and by the virtue of the vulnerabilities of the Indian industrial defence base which in addition to procuring antitank missiles is deficient in producing key technologies like fighter jet engines, aircraft carrier related technologies and many others could successfully persuade the Indian government to agree to accept CISMOA, BECA and LSA.
Thanks to DRDO that anti-tank missile Nag has made significant progress since then.
Again only very recently US Defence Secretary Mr. Ash Carter refused South Korea ,a long standing ally of US, key technologies for the development of their fighter jet KF-X. The denial was a setback as South Korea was already promised
of the transfer of due technologies by Lockheed Martin for the development of their fighter jet. The denial comes as US tries to push F-35 to all potential customers having requirements of fighter jets in order to meet the overwhelming expenses being incurred in its development. This denial comes as North Korea had recently been provocative in her actions despite US presence in South Korea itself. Through this denial US supposedly wants to keep the development of South Korean jet on hold and in the eventuality of South Korea managing to acquire the technologies , the US circle's thoughts are that the technology acquired would be inferior than the technologies developed in the US thus resulting into a fighter jet inferior to F-35 with whose influence US can dominate the regional airspace.
On the other hand US keeps on providing relatively high-end technology platforms like F-16 fighter jets and armed helicopters to terror havens like Pakistan who invariably trains all its arms against India and has taken up the responsibility to covertly carry out and support unjust Jihad all across the globe.
By providing high-tech defence equipment to Pakistan US only provokes the rivalry of acquisition of arms and lethal defence platforms in the subcontinent. Recent attacks in Gurdaspur and Pathankot in India had revealed that terrorists were Pakistani citizens and had used equipment like binoculars which were made in USA having US army markings possibly given by Pakistani army which also procures US made military equipment. Even US and Western citizens are
the sufferers of such nefarious ploys of Pakistan which take several forms of execution across varied demographies. As a fall out of such terror attacks, and since India recently is looking more towards USA for defence related equipment , India and other rivals of Pakistan and countries having affinity to US and India would be in look out for better or equivalent arms and
platforms leading into requests for interests (RFI) thereby providing greater opportunities for arms trade for the US companies . This is a US strategy to create market for the products of the defence industrial base in US.
The sudden denials after the promise of technology transfer also points towards the US strategy to delay the acquisition of key technologies to the defence forces of other countries and keep them dependent on the final products of US defence industry thereby keeping the US defence industrial base dominant in all respects and to make way for possible arm twisting of the Governments to submit to the terms of US like Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA); Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geospatial Cooperation (BECA); and a Logistics Support Agreement (LSA),
which in turn paves the pay for US troops to station on the foreign soil to fulfil their ambition of global dominance.
Countries falling for US technologies and thereby submitting to the demands of the US government should carefully consider the terms of the agreements with US. This is also the same reason why developing countries like India should keep on pursuing research and development of all defence technologies and try to become self sufficient and only depend on time tested defence acquisition partners for acquisition of key defence technologies and platforms as defence is a key area
upholding the sovereignty of a country.
Written by Debojyoti Kumar
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