India-Israel to Significantly Upgrade Relations

[Big_Zukini]

India's PM Modi has now landed in Israel.
His staff told Israeli media he will announce some significant upgrade of relations.

I'm sure there's going to be a lot of stuff about investments in the private sector, but if they announce anything related to additional military cooperation I'll post it here.

Recently India issued $8.6 billion in contracts for various Israeli aerial munitions like SPICE, Ice Breaker, Air Lora, and is rumored to show interest in the Golden Horizon.
India and Israel are also jointly developing and manufacturing some things like the Barak system.

My bets are on:

• More joint projects, though I'm not sure if any specifics will be given.
• Bigger Israeli involvement in India's domestic aviation projects.
• Ground systems to either modernize or replace Russian systems that are barely supported.
• Generally perhaps replace the Russia-France-Israel trio with just France-Israel as the main suppliers. If that's the case then that's long overdue.

 

[Ainen]

Generally perhaps replace the Russia-France-Israel trio with just France-Israel as the main suppliers. If that's the case then that's long overdue.

Israel simply doesn't produce system range Russia does, and without Russian base much of it won't be even needed.
Poor Modi at this point, should he go anywhere, it's always an immediate 180 turn expectation.

 

[Big_Zukini]

Israel simply doesn't produce system range Russia does, and without Russian base much of it won't be even needed.

It doesn't need to. Nor does France, to expand in India as well.
India has an increasing number of domestic projects that can be significantly boosted by replacing some of the complex components with foreign ones through imports and ToT.

India could technically buy Merkavas from Israel, but a more realistic approach would be to set up local production of an AFV of their choice and have foreign companies come in and handle things like munitions, sensors, digital systems, and so on, while India slowly absorbs these components for local production and eventually takes over from them.

Also if you combine the Israeli and French DIBs, you get an overall fairly comprehensive package of importable items even without much of a domestic DIB.

 

[Ainen]

It doesn't need to. Nor does France, to expand in India as well.
India has an increasing number of domestic projects that can be significantly boosted by replacing some of the complex components with foreign ones through imports and ToT.

But that's, for the most part, exactly what Israel does.
This appeared to be main direction of Indian movement - Russia and Israel are main international benificiaries of "Make in India". Israel as solutions manufacturer, Russia - as platforms manufacturer.

The problem is of course it's a strategy reliant on India moving forward.

France tends to defend itself from any international encroachment, sometimes directly, sometimes via italian strikes on already signed deals (X-guard). It's also a rather ... special partner for co-development (no, not just for germans).
US is that lord that does not share power, and as soon as it got into position of key enabler(F404/414), it openly started using it as a negotiation pressure point.
Which is why, I guess, US gets only limited access to Indian strategic procurement.

 

[Big_Zukini]

I agree that France is a very weird partner to have, with how it tries to ban competition instead of offering more value, but India sees the value in continued partnership so I'm not going to judge.

Other than that, I don't see your point. Israel has a lot to offer India. India wants to accelerate its progress and needs partners for that. Overall good match.



JPost reports that India could be a customer and partner for the Iron Beam HEL.
Also that Israel could classify it as a "special strategic partner" similar to the US and Germany.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-887854

 

[Ainen]

Other than that, I don't see your point. Israel has a lot to offer India. India wants to accelerate its progress and needs partners for that. Overall good match.

It's certainly a lot - it is just that in most cases, Israel/Russia in India is a team job. Like look at your list:

SPICE, Ice Breaker, Air Lora, and is rumored to show interest in the Golden Horizon.

These are carried either by Jaguars and Mirages (both on their way out), or by various Russian aircraft. There's certainly Tejas...but it's small, it won't be able to effectively carry half of the list.

USA and France come on their own with their own ecosystems. France was quite cooperative before 2010s, but it's largely in the past.

 

[Big_Zukini]

Yeah India is certainly not very receptive to the idea that France keeps blocking integration of just about any weapon system on the Rafale.

But as their main buyer, India could try to strong arm it.
As a side note, it is curious and more so weird that India is publicly showing interest in French and Russian next gen jets FCAS and Su-57. Both of which carry more political weight than actual utility.

In another forum, I made the case of a new Israeli fighter jet program, one that uses either the US or India, or even Germany, as partners, with the aim of designing an airframe suitable to local needs on the basis of a foreign jet.
A derivative option of that is for Israel to help India develop its fighter aircraft.
India does all the work on the engine (Israel likely cannot assist due to tech agreements with the US), but Israel can help do a lot of the things around it like the avionics and armaments.

 

[Flyaway]

No way will Germany partner with Israel over any military program at the moment and anyone who thinks this hasn’t been paying attention.

 

[Big_Zukini]

No way will Germany partner with I srael over any military program at the moment and anyone who thinks this hasn’t been paying attention.

IAI BlueWhale:
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-israel-aerospace-delivers-unmanned-sub-to-germany-1001536018
Arrow 3 in Germany:

Germany investing in developmental Arrow 4:
https://www.hartpunkt.de/bundeswehr-will-israelisches-waffensystem-arrow-4-beschaffen/
Germany expanding Heron deal:
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-...ollow-on-arrow-3-deal-heron-drones-1001526988
UVision to provide Hero 30, 90, 120 to Germany:
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-israeli-firms-to-arm-germany-with-suicide-drones-1001508356

 

[Big_Zukini]

Interest also reportedly (by Times of India) shown for Iron Dome, Iron Beam, David's Sling.