US okays sale of $82m worth anti-ship missile system to India

According to, the US State Department's Defense Security Cooperation Agency said, the agreement consists of a Harpoon Joint Common Test Set (JCTS), a Harpoon intermediate-level maintenance station, spare and repair parts, support, test equipment, publications, and technical documentation, as well as personnel training, it said.

It also comprises technical, engineering, and logistics support services, it added.

"This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to strengthen the US-Indian strategic relationship and to improve the security of a major defensive partner, which continues to be an important force for political stability, peace, and economic progress in the Indo-Pacific and South Asia region," the statement said.

The principal contractor will be the Boeing Company.

"This proposed sale will improve India's capability to meet current and future threats by providing India with flexible and efficient Harpoon missile maintenance capabilities to ensure maximum force readiness. India will have no difficulty absorbing this equipment into its armed forces," the announcement added.

The US recognizes India as a major defence partner since India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Washington in June 2016.​​​​​​​

The US has already sold India some $18 billion worth of weaponry over the past decade. One deal worth $3 billion is for 10 Boeing P-8I long-range maritime patrol aircrafts for the Indian Navy under the US’s foreign military sales programme, even as four such aircrafts from a previous $1.1 billion deal of 2016 await delivery by 2021-22. India had additionally acquired eight P-8Is under a $2.1 billion agreement of 2009. In 2011, it had bought 10 Boeing C-17 Globemaster III heavy-lift military aircraft worth $4.1 billion.

In 2015 India signed further deals, one of $3 billion for 22 Boeing Apache Longbow attack helicopters and another of $1.1 billion for 15 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters, with an inbuilt clause for follow-on orders for 11 more Apaches and six Chinooks. The order for six of the latest version of the Chinooks, the AH-64E Apache Guardian, has been firmed up at $930 million. Boeing warded off competition from Russia, which had offered its Mi-28N Night Hunter helicopter gunship and the Mi-26 heavy-lift helicopters.

Another deal, for the Indian Navy, is of $2.6 billion with Lockheed for 24 anti-submarine warfare Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawks. India is also procuring, for $1 billion, the Raytheon/ Kongsberg National Advanced Surface to Air Missile System-II (NASAMS-II) that will provide a missile shield over the National Capital Region of Delhi by securing the airspace against aerial threats from drones to ballistic missiles.

Yet another order is for 145 M777 howitzers, worth $737 million, the BAE Systems’ M777 being a 155 mm 39 calibre towed gun. India is also purchasing 12 General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, or Predator B drones for its Navy at a likely price of over $2 billion. The deal might be expanded to cover non-maritime versions for the Indian Army and IAF. This will make India only the third country, after the UK and Italy, and the first non-NATO state to be offered these armed drones by the US.

In 2016, the US recognised India as a Major Defence Partner (MDP) to liberalise transfers of arms and technologies to it. The US also conducts more military exercises with India than with any other country. Consolidating these links was the US Senate’s passing of the National DefenceAuthorisation Act that confers on India the status of a NATO ally. The legislation opens up more advanced weaponry and sensitive technologies for India.

A key spin-off of the inaugural India-US 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue in New Delhi in 2018 was the signing of the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) that enables the US to part with sensitive communication equipment and codes for real-time operational information.

It grants India access to the big database of American intelligence, including real-time imagery, as also to the highly coded communication systems equipping the high-end military platforms the US sells to India, such as the C-130J Super Hercules, C-17 and P-8I.