U.S. defense firms trying to find bigger foothold in India

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/us-defense-firms-trying-to-find-bigger-foothold-in-india/2012/09/01/b5a11082-f1d2-11e1-b74c-84ed55e0300b_story.html?hpid=z3


Rama Lakshmi/THE WASHINGTON POST - At a factory in the middle of a large swathe of pastoral farmland, Indian and American engineers pore over mechanical drawings as other workers weld and rivet the parts of the American Super Hercules military transport aircraft.

ADIBATLA, INDIA — The strategic defense partnership between the United States and India should have been a match made in heaven. The first is the world’s biggest arms manufacturer; the second is among the biggest arms importers.

But the legacy of decades of mistrust, together with lingering barriers to technology transfer, continues to dog defense trade between two allies whose relationship President Obama said would be “one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century.”

A year after the crushing blow of losing India’s mammoth $12 billion contract for 126 fighter aircraft, the United States is now paying closer attention to India’s concerns. Many of the problems date back to the fallout of the U.S sanctions imposed on India in the wake of its nuclear tests, a move that froze technology sharing.

“We want to knock down any remaining bureaucratic barriers in our defense relationship and strip away the impediments,” Ashton Carter, the U.S. deputy defense secretary, said during a visit to India in July.