NEW DELHI — India has ruled out putting boots on the ground in Afghanistan. The announcement came after delegation-level talks Sept. 26 between visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and India’s defense minister, Nirmala Sitharaman.
Sitharaman said, however, that India’s efforts to build Afghanistan economically will continue. “We are also at the moment training their officials in good governance. India’s contribution has been there, and we shall expand if necessary,” she said.
At $3 billion in expenditures, India is currently the fifth-largest donor with assistance generally towards infrastructure products in Afghanistan, said an official of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.
“We look forward to sharing some of our most advanced defence technologies through the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative,” Mattis said, however, he did not mention the sale of Guardian maritime drones to the Indian Navy, which the U.S. approved in June.
Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan a senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation said, ”While the two may have discussed the drones, there was clearly no agreement or announcement about it. It may be that there are still issues to be worked out, such as how many, offsets clause, cost etc.”
India and the U.S. agreed to “refocus” on the Defense Technology and Trade Initiative, or DTTI, a mechanism initiated by the outgoing Obama administration with New Delhi to identify the co-development and co-production of high-tech weapons. The DTTI lost steam after the Trump administration came into power in January.
“We also discussed how to refocus and re-energize the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative as a mechanism to promote technology sharing as well as co-development and co-production efforts,” Sitharaman said.
A senior Ministry of Defence official said that “refocus” on DTTI will essentially mean only the F-16 Block 70 fighter aircraft on the table, and that there are no major weapon projects “on the horizon.”
Dhruva Jaishankar, a fellow in foreign policy at Brookings India, noted, “The DTTI is a process, not a project. It is meant to facilitate technology transfers in any area that India requires, and the US allows.”
Vivek Raghuvanshi is the India correspondent for Defense News.
