NEW DELHI (Realist English). India is the largest purchaser of Israeli-made, spending in excess of $1bn per year. India is the largest buyer of Israeli-made arms. New Delhi annually buys more than $1 billion worth of weapons from the Jewish state, the publication the Middle East Eye reports.
India, since 2017, has also become a strategic partner and a co-producer of Israeli weapons. Over the past five years, both countries have conducted joint military drills and hosted police and army training and exchange visits.
But it hasn’t always been this way. Until 1992, India did not have diplomatic relations with Israel.
Though military deals only proliferated once diplomatic ties were established, the countries did have clandestine relations before 1992.
Israel provided India with weapons in 1962 and then in 1965 in the wars against China and Pakistan. By the early 1970s, the Indian military establishment was impressed by and enamoured with Israeli technology, reminds the Middle East Eye.
Following several interactions between military leaders in the early 1990s, India agreed to assign a defense attache to Tel Aviv in 1995.
In 1999, Israel provided India with urgent assistance in its war with Pakistan, a move that established Israel as a reliable military partner.
Between 1997 and 2000, 15% of all Israeli arms exports travelled to India. By the mid-2000s, this had increased to 27%, with India broadening its range of purchases, such as surveillance equipment, drones and surface-to-air-missiles. Between 2000 and 2010, India spent around $10bn on Israeli arms.
Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi entered office in 2014, around 42.1% of all arms exports from Israel have landed in India, with Azerbaijan (13.9%) and Vietnam (8.5%) and the United States (6.2%) making up the other major customers.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), weapons deliveries to India from Israel increased by 175% between 2015 and 2019.
According to Sipri, weapons deliveries to India from Israel increased by 175 percent between 2015 and 2019.
Meanwhile, Israeli arms exports increased 19 percent between 2012-16 and 2017-2021. Its own spending on arms increased by 3.1%.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), India’s military expenditure in 2021 amounted to $76.6bn, the third-highest in the world, after the US and China. Between 2017-2021, India and Saudi Arabia were the world’s leading importers of arms, each accounting for 11 percent of global trade.
Increasing hostilities between India and China has also meant that a de facto arms race has emerged between the two countries.
In 2021, India and China accounted for around 63% of the entire military expenditure for the Asia and Oceania region.
