India Today – August 13, 2018

AUGUST 13, 2018 INDIA TODAY 33

an off-the-record conversation, a

senior air force commander uses

the word ‘game-changer’ three

times to refer to the Russian

S-400 long-range missile system.

“The system can knock down

anything that flies, at a range of

nearly 400 kilometres,” he says. In Washington, suspense

over a different game—to persuade India from not going

ahead with a proposed $4.5 billion (Rs 39,000 crore) buy

of five S-400 missile systems—ended with the US Senate

and House on July 24 finally passing a modified version of

a bill that allows India to buy the Russian weapon system

without the threat of US sanctions.

As late as July 21, it appeared India would attract US

sanctions under what is called the Countering America’s

Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). The bill,

which came into effect this year, penalises countries doing

business with arms firms in Russia, North Korea and

Iran. The US state department issued a statement terming

the S-400 sale as ‘potentially sanctionable activity’. In the

end, Indian officials say, it was US defense secretary James

Mattis, an ardent proponent of a CAATSA waiver for In-

dia, who prevailed over the US state department.

The Modi government’s gambit of digging its heels

in seems to have paid off. Modifications to Section 231

of CAATSA enable the US president to waive sales like

the S-400 to protect US alliances, like the one it has with

India. “The deal is almost at a conclusive stage,” defence

minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the media recently.

It is hard to recall the last time the acquisition of a

single weapon system by India became such a huge foreign

policy challenge as it has with the S-400. Sitharaman

recently said the Indian side had conveyed to the US that

India had time-tested relations with Russia, the S-400

deal was being negotiated for several years and that

CAATSA was a US law and not a UN law, implying it did

not apply to India.

The CAATSA waiver comes just before India’s first

‘2+2 dialogue’ with the US. Secretary of state Mike Pom-

peo and defense secretary James Mattis will be meeting

their Indian counterparts, foreign minister Sushma

Swaraj and Sitharaman, in New Delhi on September 8.

The missile deal itself is likely to be signed during another

important meeting—Prime Minister Modi’s summit with

Russian president Vladimir Putin in India later this year.

The US is India’s largest arms supplier after Russia.

US firms have sold India over $10 billion worth of

military hardware, mainly aircraft, over the last

decade. The IAF operates frontline US aircraft like

the C-17 Globemaster, the C-130-J Super Hercules

and will soon receive Apache helicopter gunships and

Chinook transport helicopters. A key worry among US

policymakers is that radar signatures and transmission

frequencies of their aircraft being exposed to the S-400

missile system and used by Russia to counter them in

other potential conflict zones. India is believed to be

By Sandeep Unnithan

INDIA HEAVES A SIGH OF RELIEF AS US

RELENTS ON ITS PURCHASE OF THE

S-400 RUSSIAN AIR DEFENCE MISSILE

SYSTEM THAT THE IAF NEEDS BADLY

IN

WE MADE IT CLEAR

THAT CAATSA WAS

A US LAW AND

NOT A UN LAW.

NEGOTIATIONS FOR

THE (S-400) MISSILES

HAVE BEEN ON FOR

SEVERAL YEARS.”

NIRMALA SITHARAMAN

Defence Minister

THE

GEOPOLITICAL

MISSILE

THE BIG STORY S-400

SPUTNIK

THE CAATSA

CHANGE THAT

BENEFITS INDIA

The National Defense

Authorisation Act (NDAA)

specifying the budgetary

spends of the US military

has inserted a modified

waiver to Section 231

of CAATSA, enabling

‘presidential certifica-

tions designed to protect

US alliances, military

operations and sensitive

technology; encour-

age allies and partners

to reduce inventory of

Russian-produced major

defense equipment and

advanced conventional

weapons’.

S400 TRIUMF

Indispensable for

credible deterrence

Defence-S-400-Aug13.indd 40-41 8/1/2018 6:32:50 PM