India spurns US offer and purchases guided missiles from Israel for $525m

Was just taking a peek to see what our friend Israel's been up to and saw this interesting tidbit.

Deal for at least 8,000 missiles and 300 launchers comes amid border tensions with China and exchanges of fire with Pakistan. ndia has opted to buy Israel’s Spike anti-tank guided missile, a defence ministry source said on Saturday, rejecting a rival US offer of Javelin missiles that Washington had lobbied hard to win.

India will buy at least 8,000 Spike missiles and more than 300 launchers in a deal worth 32bn rupees ($525m), the source said after a meeting of India’s Defence Acquisition Council.

Wonder if it has anything to do with this...Israel-US ties have reached 'crisis' point, Lapid says

Israel and the United States are in the midst of a “diplomatic crisis,” Finance Minister Yair Lapid told a town hall meeting in Tel Aviv on Saturday.

“We need to approach [US-Israel ties] as if it were a crisis situation and to deal with it,” Lapid said. “Our relations with the US are vital and important for the State of Israel, which is why it should do everything in its power to extricate itself from this crisis and restore good ties.”

The latest sign of tension was evident this past week during Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon's trip to the US, when he was categorically snubbed by the Obama administration.

We are living in interesting times.

I guess the missiles and launchers were a bit old. I'm sure Israel will send in the bill for them soon, so the US can replace them with new ones for free.

a reply to: Sirrurg

So this is like a weapons yard sale? Ha.

a reply to: ~Lucidity

It would be nice to know your source...oh, wait.

India spurns US offer and purchases guided missiles from Israel for $525m
www.theguardian.com...

Senior US officials had said they were still discussing the Javelin order as part of a broader push to deepen defence industry ties with India by increasing the share of production done in the country.

Analysts estimate that India, the world’s largest arms buyer, will invest as much as $250bn in upgrading its Soviet-era military hardware and close the gap on strategic rival China, which spends three times as much a year on defence.

a reply to: TerrorAlertRed

Oh thank you! I must have inadvertantly erased or pasted over it. Yes, it was The Guardian.

So does this mean the usa will go after India because weapons of mass destruction?

Seems to be the usa's M.O.

a reply to: sarra1833

Ha. Probably not, seeing as we were trying to sell missiles to India as well but Israel won the contract...oh...wait. Well probably not anyway as India needs them as defense against Pakistan.

Why they need missiles with nukes pointing at each other is nuts anyway, even though India does have a no-first-use nuke policy. I guess they just need them to stop those tanks rolling across the border.

Sigh...

a reply to: ~Lucidity

Given that we provide Israel with most of their money and arms.. we probably just indirectly sold those missiles ... Israel probably just got some markup profit

Nah just delete this reply mods.. I'm tired and rambled more than I'd like to

Just thinking out loud.... Where does China drill/amass forces?

a reply to: sarra1833

What kinds of weapons of mass destruction?

#weatherwars

India and US to launch joint weather satellite
www.un-spider.org...

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will jointly build and launch an all-weather satellite to support disaster and risk management, understanding movement of tectonic plates to climate change and estimation of crop and tree cover, as reported the Deccan Chronicle.
“It is the turning point in India-US relations,”

The satellite will be launched onboard an Indian rocket in 2019 or 2020.