• India has lengthy been one of many world’s greatest arms consumers, counting on others to equip its forces.
• But New Delhi is investing closely in home manufacturing to arm itself and export to the world.
• Recent weapons gross sales and army workout routines within the Middle East replicate that new outward focus.

India has lengthy been the world’s largest arms importer, counting on different international locations to produce it with tanks, warships, and fighter jets. But it has been investing closely in its home arms trade with the aim of equipping its personal forces and growing its arms gross sales around the globe.

New Delhi has made headway towards that aim with its “Make in India, Make for the World” initiative, launched in 2020, and by forging nearer protection relationships with different international locations.

India’s have to wean itself off its heavy dependency on arms imports turned extra obvious after Russia attacked Ukraine in 2022. New Delhi nonetheless has shut ties with Moscow however the warfare has made the Russians much less reliable suppliers.

Recent arms gross sales and workout routines illustrate how India seeks to show that home arms manufacturing into overseas gross sales and even perhaps take a few of that market away from its greatest provider.

Shopping round

In September 2022, India agreed to promote its highly effective Pinaka multi-barrel rocket launchers to Armenia — the primary overseas export of the Pinaka — together with anti-tank missiles and diverse ammunition in a $260 million deal.

That sale got here two and a half years after Armenia purchased 4 of India’s Swathi counter-battery radars, which observe incoming artillery and rockets and plot return fireplace, for $40 million, selecting the Indian choice over equal Polish and Russian techniques in what was thought-about a big achievement for the then-nascent Make in India program.

New Delhi’s aspirations for a foothold in the African and Middle East arms markets would undoubtedly get a lift from a large arms offers with Egypt. Over the previous decade, Egypt has spent massive sums on high-end weapons techniques, primarily from France and Russia. Between 2015 and 2019, Egypt was the world’s third-largest arms importer.

India has been enhancing its ties with Egypt, as seen of their expanded army exchanges.

India’s air power and navy participated in Egypt’s Bright Star-23, a multilateral army train, in September. It was the primary time India had joined, and through the drills, an Indian air power Il-78 tanker refueled Egyptian MiG-29M and Rafale fighters — Russian- and French-made jets, respectively.

That refueling underscored the diploma of interoperability the militaries have developed and illustrated the international locations’ quickly rising protection ties — ties which will translate into arms gross sales, notably of India’s domestically developed weapons.

In January, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi visited New Delhi and met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The leaders discussed “defense platforms” and “equipment-related linkages” and deepening cooperation between their militaries and protection industries.

In June, Modi visited Egypt, the primary go to to Cairo by an Indian chief since 1997, the place the 2 leaders determined to spice up cooperation in a number of fields, including security and technology. During Modi’s go to, a former Indian Air Force chief told Indian media that the international locations have been desirous to cooperate on army analysis, improvement, and manufacturing.

“There is a very significant possibility of exporting weapon systems, sensors and platforms and also supporting Egypt” in its efforts to “building up their own industrial complex,” the previous air power chief was quoted as saying, noting their “commonalities of equipment, and thinking.”

There have been experiences that India is focused on selling Egypt about 20 its Tejas mild multi-role fight jets and in organising manufacturing strains for that plane and for Indian-made helicopters in Egypt.

In February, the chairman of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, which makes the Tejas, said the corporate was in talks to produce 35 Tejas Mk-1As to Egypt alongside a whole know-how switch that will allow Cairo to construct the plane domestically. (Egypt and India collaborated on improvement of the Helwan HA-300 mild supersonic interceptor within the Sixties, however that challenge was finally canceled.)

India has additionally proven curiosity in exporting its domestically developed Akash medium-range air-defense system and the BrahMos cruise missile to plenty of international locations, including Egypt. Brahmos is a joint Indian-Russian enterprise and officers are actually angling for billions in overseas gross sales of it.

Cashing in on the worth market

While a few of these offers may undoubtedly enhance India’s protection exports, it’s nonetheless early days. After all, Indian protection exports in recent times have been negligible in comparison with heavyweights just like the US and France, and New Delhi stays closely reliant on imports.

In the approaching years, India may carve out a large place for itself within the growing market for “value arms,” which caters to international locations in search of a greater deal on older or barely much less succesful {hardware}.

With an even bigger share of that market, India may change Russia and compete with China for exports, income from which might additionally assist Indian companies develop indigenously made tools to meet home necessities.

While promoting arms to Armenia could finally be seen as the beginning of the Make in India initiative’s formidable effort to take New Delhi from the being the world’s largest arms importer to a major exporter, making that transformation is far simpler stated than carried out.

Securing even larger offers with Egypt and different international locations, and sweetening the pot with know-how transfers and different incentives, would possibly get that effort farther off the bottom, serving to India stand out in a crowded market.

Paul Iddon is a contract journalist and columnist who writes about Middle East developments, army affairs, politics, and historical past. His articles have appeared in quite a lot of publications targeted on the area.