IN recent times, we have seen Washington closely embracing India and
going out of the way to support it on different fronts including for the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group as well as the permanent berth at the UNSC. Going a step too far in love of India, Obama administration has opened its entire defence kitty to the South Asian country having hegemonic and expansionist designs – something that should and would have raised alarm bells in our concerned quarters.

Declaring it as a major defence partner, the US has made India eligible to buy some of the most sophisticated American-made weapons and technology without first having to receive a licence. According to an official of Obama administration, India is now the only country outside the formal treaty allies of the US that has gained access to almost ninety nine percent of latest defence technologies of the Americans. If we go back in the past, we come to know that the US had virtually no defence ties with India but today apart from a renewed Defence Framework Agreement, the country has become a larger supplier of defence equipment to India, and even the biggest in the last few years with contracts worth almost $ 13 billion. Given the belligerence posture and hegemonic designs of India, we believe that the latest US decision will prove to be disastrous one for the region which is already bitten hardly by decades of conflicts and unrest. This will disturb conventional arms balance in the region, leaving Pakistan with no option but to also modernize its weaponry from different sources to counter the Indian antagonism, which could once again be gauged from the recent statement of Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh who said that their troops will not keep an account of their bullets when they started spraying them on Pakistan. All these favours on the part of US to India leave no doubt in anybody’s mind that New Delhi is being equipped and prepared to contain China and Pakistan. We hope our policy makers both in Islamabad and Rawalpindi will take full stock of the growing US-India defence relations and while comprehending its fuller implications will work out a strategy to counter it.

Source : pakobserver.net