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Saying it with Guns
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Aston Carter woos India with promises of new weapons and easier ways to buy them
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Ashton B. Carter
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By Dilip Kumar Mekala
New Delhi: The United States has once again showed its commitment to India on defence co-operation and
stability in the south-Asia region. Speaking at a lecture organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry
(CII) on 23 July 2012, US deputy secretary of defence, Dr Ashton B. Carter said, “We want to be India's
highest-quality and most trusted long-term supplier of technology — in such fields as maritime domain
awareness, counter-terrorism and many others”. He also said, “We are committed to India's military modernisation.
India is a top priority in our export considerations”.
After Secretary Leon Panetta’s visit in June 2012, the US is now looking forward to make innovative
investments. “We want to develop a joint vision for US-India defence co-operation”, Dr. Carter said.
Though there is no pre-conceived model for such a relationship, the United States hopes
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to develop the relation based on mutual trust, sharing and reliability. “It will be shaped by our own strategic decisions and by a deep strategic dialogue, such as that which Secretary Panetta was engaged in”, Dr. Carter added.
Defence Cooperation
To improve trade with Indian companies, Carter said that the US is taking steps to knock down all bureaucratic
barriers and strip away impediments. Three major initiatives in this regard are — improving the export
control system, steps to improve foreign military sales, research & development (R&D) and co-production
with India.
Firstly, America is improving its overall export control system, under President Obama’s 2010 Export
Control Reform initiative. The current export control system of the US, which prevents high-end technology
from going to states that shouldn’t have it, is rigid and controls too many items for the wrong reasons.
“India has been very frank in expressing its concerns with US export controls and technology security
policies. We are taking steps to address these concerns”, Carter said.
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