NEW DELHI: A trade deal may not quite be on the horizon during U.S. President Donald Trump’s upcoming India visit but he can expect a couple of high-value defence contracts. The Indian government has cleared the purchase of 24 MH-60 Romeo multi-role helicopters worth nearly $2.6 billion—a longstanding requirement of the Indian Navy. Another deal for six more Apache attack helicopters for the Indian Army could come through. Over the past 15 years, India has imported defence deals/platforms worth $20 billion from the United States. If strategic ties with the U.S. have risen to a new level, India has kept one of its old allies—Russia—happy too. Defence acquisitions from Russia have been to the tune of $16 billion in the last decade or so. India also buys defence items from Israel and France (the Rafale fighter jets). In this episode of ‘Simply Nitin’, StratNews Global Editor-in-Chief Nitin A. Gokhale explains how India keeps balancing the see-saw to keep key global defence players engaged.
Nitin A. Gokhale is a media entrepreneur, one of South Asia's leading strategic affairs analyst and author of over a dozen books so far on military history, insurgencies and wars.
Starting his career in journalism in 1983, he has since led teams of journalists across media platforms.
A specialist in conflict coverage, Gokhale has covered the insurgencies in India’s North-East, the 1999 Kargil conflict and Sri Lanka’s Eelam War IV between 2006-2009.
Gokhale now travels across the globe to speak at seminars and conferences, and lecture at India’s premier defence colleges. He has founded three niche portals, Bharatshakti.in, stratnewsglobal.com and Interstellar.news.
