 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. U.S. President Donald Trump is on his maiden visit to India from the 24th to 25th of February. It's a short visit of 36 hours, but it's high on optics. And he's likely to sign a series of deals with India on trade, on defense. But it looks like, given latest reports, that the trade deal is off the agenda. But the defense deal is on. A lot of analysts think that it's a good thing that the trade deal is off because there were too many tensions. And the sort of defense deal being part of the agenda shows a continuity in the strategic partnership. To break down the defense deal, we have with us D. Raghunandan from the Delhi Science Forum. Raghun, welcome to NewsClick. But before we go into the details of the deal, I mean, just to put things in context. You know, it's argued that the U.S. is a declining power. Economically, you see it with its sort of recalibration on trade policy. It's pulled out of many trade deals. It's running the WTO down. But it is still seen as the preeminent military power. And in that context, how important are foreign sort of defense deals in sort of U.S. foreign policy influence? Yeah, well, we need to look at this both from a general U.S. policy point of view and U.S. policy under Trump point of view, which I think are quite different. In the pre-Trump era, the U.S. was really interested in projecting power in different parts of the world in making alliances so as to act as force multiplier for U.S. influence and reach. Trump's foreign policy is very different. He's not interested in alliances. He's not interested in military extensions far beyond the U.S. borders. For him, it's about money. So, he's in India looking for Indian purchase of military equipment and the more the better. As far as the U.S. influence is concerned, India would of course look at this from a longer term perspective. Trump is after all a transitional figure. At the most, he's going to be around for another four years. And India wants to cultivate the United States for a longer term strategic and defense partnership and will be viewing at defense acquisitions from that point of view. And the defense partnership for the last decade or so has been on an upward trajectory. You've seen India as one of the biggest arm purchases from the U.S. It signed a lot of agreements on logistics exchange. There are these military exercises. There's a communications and security agreement. Can you put this sort of the defense partnership and perspective in terms of what it means for India as added to the U.S.? In the broader picture, the U.S. is looking for a strong military partner in the Indian Ocean and the Southern Oceans area. Particularly with a view to containing China's growing influence and spread in this region. And was looking to India to partner the U.S. in this effort. Joining with Australia, perhaps with Japan, extending that alliance, etc. From the Indian point of view, India is looking for a powerful ally in the U.S. India is engaged in diversifying its defense acquisitions away from an over-reliance on Russian arms. And India had long been looking for an opening to acquire specialized defense equipment from the U.S. But which was not open until the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal was struck because India's nuclear posture was an obstacle from an American legal and strategic point of view. Now that that's been opened, you see in a sense the floodgates opening a bit as far as Indian acquisitions of U.S. military equipment is concerned. But again, as I said under Trump, you will perhaps not see this Indo-U.S. military engagement and relationship going very far. Because as I said, Trump is not particularly interested in that aspect. India is looking to expand its presence in this region. But I think you would understand as we have discussed earlier in Newsclick, India is currently hampered by a lack of funds to invest in the kind of equipment they would need for a greater outreach capability in the Indian Ocean region. And link to that reports indicate that it's quite a small deal in terms of the amount of equipment involved, money as well. And it's been a deal that's been long-pending. So can you just take us through the nitty gritties of the deal itself? What's on the table? I think it's important for us to look at what's on the table as well as what's off the table. What's on the table now is acquisition of a few helicopters for the Indian Navy. The Indian Navy has been short of helicopters on its various battleship platforms and has been looking for acquisitions for several years. It had shortlisted a few and from among them had identified the American Seahawk SH-40, the Sikorsky range of helicopters for quite some time. But negotiations had earlier broken down over prices. Now there's a reconsideration and now India thinks it has got what it wants. So that's one purchase but then we must keep in mind it sounds big because it's $2.0 billion but it's only 24 helicopters that we are looking at. They are very good helicopters, powerful, equipped with radar, avionics, etc. which will add to the naval capability in helicopters. The other acquisition that India was looking at from this visit is a missile defence system for the capital around Delhi which currently uses a Russian missile defence system which is somewhat old and perhaps not up to requirement in the current circumstances. So India was looking to the US missile system but I think that's a deal that's not going to get struck while Mr. Trump is here because India has been expressing its concern over the very high price tag. Currently the US is asking for something like $1.9 billion on this. India expects the price to be at a billion dollars or less. So that's a big gap in prices so I think that's going to be, you may have an expression of interest or an MOU signing pending price negotiations which will then fructify later. Trump will definitely come and push for the 114 fighter aircraft deal which came up in India after the Rafale deal was wound down from 126 to 36 aircraft. But all indications are within the Indian defence establishment that that 114 fighter deal is perhaps likely to go off the shelf for now. India is quite likely to acquire an additional bunch of Rafale aircraft in which case this 114 fighter deal I think may not fructify at all. So it's going to be a very restricted military deal but enough for I think Trump to go back to the US and say well I've come back with a good deal. I've got so many billion dollars out of this and more to come. So clearly as you underline it's a minor deal but in terms of conclusions I just want to get you to put this in context of Modi's big make in India strategy which includes a strong defence component as well. And in terms of do any of these deals have domestic manufacturing, transfer of technology? In fact that is what is notable about all the defence deals India has struck with the US. All Indian acquisitions from the US have been specialised US military equipment in necessarily small numbers because they are specialised equipment. You don't require them in the hundreds of the thousands. You require a few of them but they are powerful weapons or they are force multipliers like maritime reconnaissance aircraft, the P-8I series of maritime reconnaissance which India has acquired from the US. A couple of ships that India has acquired, a few specialised helicopters, the Apache helicopters, the Chinook helicopters and now the Seahawk. All these are in numbers like 20, 25, 30. So at scales of that nature none of them lend themselves to transfer of technology, manufacturing in India and so on. Which in any case is really outside the purview of most US military sales abroad. The US is not famous for sharing technologies, is not famous for co-production and even with its closest allies in NATO or with Japan there is only minor amounts of sub-assembly that take place in these countries. So even if India goes in for broader acquisitions from the US, the chances of that involving transfer of technology are I think very remote. And as far as making India therefore is concerned, I don't think any of these US acquisitions link up with that. There was some talk in this in the earlier 126 aircraft deal which Rafal finally won. And now in the maybe on, maybe off 114 aircraft deal that F-16 or something could shift their production line to India because they are closing down in the US. If that happens and that's a remote, if then there could be some boost to the make in India program, otherwise not. Thanks Raghu for underlining that you know the respective of the optics that you see in the media and from both leaders. It is really a small deal and sort of laying it within the context of make in India. Thank you very much. Thank you for watching NewsClick. We'll be back with more analysis post the Trump visit.