The trend I see is, whenever we go training with US , we get shown new weapons, new technologies and voila, we have newer shopping lists to buy from the US. What are your thoughts guys? Till about a decade we were pretty content with our Ilyushins and after a few exercises (and esp post 26/11) we found new love with the C-17. When our troops trained in Alaska we were shown a few new gadgets and end result, a new list of 'evinced' interest. I say, nice soft way of marketing American tech to us Indians . Your thoughts?
I think this is an incredibly simplified view of things. Indian miltary planners are far too shrewd to be sold a product they don't need and fall in love with it just because they are shown it in a joint ex. There is a correlation but there isn't causation, the two (sales and exercieses) just go hand in hand as ties between India and the US improve.
We held joint exercises with the US stryker brigades, but chose not to buy the strykers. We routinely train with their special forces, but haven't purchased any of their weapons, like their rifles or scopes or NVDs. We did not purchase C-17 after any particular exercise. We purchased it because it brought a capability that no other aircraft in the world did, considering their load and their ability to operate from rough, short airstrips. Which new "gadgets" were we shown in Alaska, which we expressed interest in? Could you be specific? India's procurements are on the basis on their necessity, not on the basis of who they exercise with. You seem to want to be a parent who is wary of their little kids crying for candy when they pass a candy shop, and therefore desperately try to distract the child's attention. The Indian armed forces do not behave like little kids near candy shops, AFAIK. If you have a specific instance of a procurement that you think was unnecessary, and you can show that it was done after a military exercise with the US, please provide the details of that. This seems more like your suspicion than reality. Go into the specifics please - which equipment was brought after which exercise, and was it an unnecessary purchase, were alternatives available elsewhere, etc etc. Without all these specifics, this thread would just be about each person's general distrusts and suspicions.
There is nothing wrong in marketing weapons during exercise. Also nothing wrong in buying if it makes sense. As I heard C-17 bring capabilities we never had, it can easily fly full load from Leh, something IL-72 cannot do.
Dont forget the US is the biggest arms producer and exporter among all, and their defense industry is quite influential in policy circles....so the OP is not all wrong in saying that 50+ joint exercises were conducted in a single year to promote military hardware - defense products are not something thats sold over the counter or on TV - they need a different set of marketing and sales pitch - possibly like live demo's, joint exercises, wars, insurgencies etc. But arms or systems marketing in not the only aim of a joint exercise, recently its being increasingly used as a geo strategic tool, it also builds up force interoperability which is a reality in any future wars. Recent wars are not between two countries like earlier days, nowadays wars are fought by camps - at least on one side. Any major war other than those fought against Islamic countries will surely see collaboration between muliple countries and these exercises will come very handy at that time - first to devise strategies and second to operate or use each others systems.
