By Arshaluis Mgdesyan
An interview with Dr. Swasti Rao, Geopolitical Expert and Defense Consultant to the Indian Ministry of Defense, talks to CivilNet about the rapidly expanding military cooperation between India and Armenia. In recent years, the defense relationship between India and Armenia has emerged as one of the most significant developments in South Caucasus geopolitics. What began as modest cooperation has transformed into a comprehensive strategic partnership, with India becoming Armenia’s largest defense supplier.
CivilNet: What are the key areas of defense cooperation currently being pursued between Armenia and India?
Dr. Swasti Rao: Well, as you know, India and Armenia ties have taken a very strong fillip after 2020. Especially in the last two to three years, India has emerged as one of the key defense suppliers to Armenia. In fact, India is Armenia’s number one defense supplier, followed by France as the number two defense supplier. So right now, I think the most important department of our bilateral ties is certainly defense industry cooperation. There is no doubt about it.
India is also very proud to offer Armenia state-of-the-art platforms at prices which are very competitive. You know, really the Western equipment is very expensive, but Indian equipment is as good but not expensive. So I think that’s a mutual win-win there. Like I said, recently we had a military escalation with Pakistan after Pakistan infiltrated a terrorist attack on Indian soil, and I’m sure that the Armenian partners observed closely how well the Indian air defense systems, especially the indigenous air defense systems, worked.
So whether it’s air defense, whether it’s the towed artillery systems, whether it’s radars, whether it’s ammunition – I think the breadth of that defense cooperation is already very huge, and I’m sure it is going to grow.
CivilNet: How has Indian defense export policy influenced its military partnership with Armenia?
Dr. Swasti Rao: Currently in India, there’s been a shift that not many people notice – while India for many, many decades has been the world’s largest defense importer, under the current government and under the current leadership of the Ministry of Defense, we are also trying to emerge as a net defense exporter.
India has already exported 24,000 crore Indian rupees ($2.9 billion) worth of defense equipment until last year. We want to take it to 50,000 crore Indian rupees ($6 billion) worth of defense equipment by the end of this decade. So with this kind of target, of course, countries like Armenia become very important because apart from Armenia, and apart from a couple of more countries in Southeast Asia like the Philippines and Vietnam, where we also export the BrahMos missile, which is a cruise missile, Armenia is the only country where we are actually exporting advanced Indian platforms. Other of our defense exports are mostly to do with secondary equipment and dual-use equipment.
So in that sense, Armenia also gives us an opportunity to showcase the efficacy of advanced Indian platforms. That has been a major shift in terms of how India looks at its defense industrial policy. Secondly, as you may be aware, the Ministry of Defense has come up with two flagship defense industrial corridors in India, where I’m an advisor and consultant. Under this, we’ve already had very meaningful conversations with the Armenian side.
What I really like to underscore is that this is also an opportunity for like-minded partners to come invest in India. If they don’t want to invest, they can bring technology – we find the investors. Ultimately, it is about making for India, making for those partners, and also co-producing for the world. So I think the opportunities are actually limitless, and we need the right-minded and like-minded partners to come and have meaningful conversations.
CivilNet: What role do regional security concerns play in shaping the defense relationship between Armenia and India?
Dr. Swasti Rao: Yes, of course. The defense industry cooperation that has been going on for the last two years alone – that is just one part of how India is looking at its policy in the South Caucasus. There are also other reasons. I mean, we clearly see that there’s a geopolitical convergence as well, because Azerbaijan, as you know, is being supported by Turkey, supported by Pakistan. Azerbaijan has also come out, I would say, very blatantly against Indian interests when recently we had a terror attack from Pakistan.
So on the other hand, you see an emerging cooperation between Greece, India, Armenia, also supported by France. So you do see that there’s a larger geopolitical convergence. It’s not just about the defense industry relations. These regional considerations are important for us.
Secondly, a thing that is not really mentioned too much because it is still in the stage of evolution is the connectivity that Armenia provides to us, because Armenia is very much a part of the International North-South Corridor. We are also in a trilateral framework with Armenia and Iran to explore this connectivity better, because right now India is looking at expanding its footprint in regions of Europe – for example, in Central Europe, in Mediterranean Europe, in the South Caucasus. So I think Armenia also becomes a strategic gateway for us.
So it is a relationship which has all the right ingredients. The speed at which the relationship has grown itself speaks volumes of just how much potential we have. I think this year sometime, we should be able to elevate the relationship to a strategic partnership level at least, so that it is able to do justice to where the two countries are going.
CivilNet: What can you say about the Armenia-Greece-India relationship in the defense area?
Dr. Swasti Rao: Like I said, India is already a very close partner to Greece, especially to France, and of course Greece also very recently. I do see that there is a lot of potential among these countries. They are all like-minded countries, India’s partners. So India and France already have something called the Defense Industrial Roadmap, where we are brainstorming things like co-producing for the world.
Especially Armenia becomes important here because India is Armenia’s largest defense supplier, but the number two defense supplier is France. So it only makes sense for India and France to then co-produce in order to supply to Armenia. And then, of course, Greece is another partner with whom we recently had a strategic partnership. Greece is also becoming very important to us in this particular sector.
I see that Greece makes a lot of sense here. I personally think that there would be a win-win situation if this kind of framework is set up where like-minded partners can come and export together and sell together. It would also build trust and it would also build reliability, which is a very important factor of any defense industry relationship. So I think there is a lot of potential for India, Greece, and France to have a trilateral kind of interest in developing Armenia’s resilience in terms of its defense readiness.
CivilNet: The last question about technology transfer. What can you say about technology transfers in the defense area between Armenia, Greece and India?
Dr. Swasti Rao: Technology transfer does remain a very technical issue. A lot of times when we say technology transfer, we are not really looking at the intellectual property. We are looking at a certain part of that technology to be transferred. I think there is, again, this is going to be supported by like-minded partners and partners whom we have the trust and reliability factor in place.
So yes, we do understand that in today’s defense industry relationships, it is not just about buying and selling. It is also about co-producing. It is also about building the entire infrastructure. So technology transfer is a part of that, but I think we need to have more informed discussions around technology transfer because it can often be used in a very confusing manner, because no country is going to give you 100% technology transfer for anything. But at the same time, you can work that out in degrees.
That’s what we said – I think the idea is to build more trust and more reliability by getting in more people and more partners. That’s why I also said that the defense industrial corridor is such a great idea because we are capitalizing on other partners’ technology and we are bringing our investments. Basically, we can put a better product together for whoever needs it around the world.
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