"The biennial exposition, said to be the largest in Asia"
April 12, 2012 10:39 AM Subscribe
India's DEFEXPO 2012, is 'not a carnival in the truest sense', but rather ' the seventh in the series of biennial Land, Naval and Internal Security Systems Exhibition . . . clearly steering the path of steady growth . . . receiving overwhelming and unprecedented international response.'
As for arms dealers? 'On arms dealers, the minister [India’s Defence Minister AK Antony] insisted, “There are none I am aware of.”'
The Times of India has more, with coverage from The International News on India's increased defense spending. But India is not alone in South Asia.
The Times of India has more, with coverage from The International News on India's increased defense spending. But India is not alone in South Asia.
The dragon’s new teeth: A rare look inside the world’s biggest military expansion, The Economist, 7 APR 2012
BBC News has a little article on the Rafale deal, with The Guardian a little more skeptical of the political maneuvering and the Times of India chalks it up to previous actions by the other bidders in terms of imposing economic sanctions.
I also found an unsourced article that basically says it was ALL politics.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:29 AM on April 14, 2012
BBC News has a little article on the Rafale deal, with The Guardian a little more skeptical of the political maneuvering and the Times of India chalks it up to previous actions by the other bidders in terms of imposing economic sanctions.
I also found an unsourced article that basically says it was ALL politics.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:29 AM on April 14, 2012
On the contrary, I would regard consistency of support and spares through varying political climate a basic operational requirement, not just politics. It's bad enough that India is having trouble creating its own self-contained defence industry, but if you can't depend on tech import partners sticking to their contractual obligations you have a real problem. Writing it off as "politics" might be mostly accurate, but a bit of an oversimplification.
For an arms-importing nation, a scenario like the Exocet in the Falklands War is pure nightmare.
posted by vanar sena at 3:43 PM on April 15, 2012
For an arms-importing nation, a scenario like the Exocet in the Falklands War is pure nightmare.
posted by vanar sena at 3:43 PM on April 15, 2012
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As colourful and nice a read as it is, I'm a bit disappointed with the Open magazine's piece in that all it tells us is that, well, salespeople feed off on brands and like to show off, and that defence deals attracts these boisterous, filthy rich types. Would have been better if it somehow got into the details of how a particular deal was gathered together; that would have had some meat. This, on the other hand, feels a bit atmospheric like Coleridge's Kubla Khan.
In particular, I'm curious about the Tetra and / or the Rafale deal, the former being an example of a "bad" (in the sense that there's a whiff of bribery and shoddy equipment) deal, the latter presumably being "good".
posted by the cydonian at 12:39 AM on April 13, 2012