The Geopolitical Missile

India Heaves a Sigh of Relief as Us Relents on Its Purchase of the S-400 Russian Air Defence Missile System That the IAF Needs Badly.

- Sandeep Unnithan

IN an off-the-record conversation, a senior air force commander uses the word ‘game-changer’ three times to refer to the Russian S-400 long-range missile system. “The system can knock down anything that flies, at a range of nearly 400 kilometres,” he says. In Washington, suspense over a different game—to persuade India from not going ahead with a proposed $4.5 billion (Rs 39,000 crore) buy of five S-400 missile systems—ended with the US Senate and House on July 24 finally passing a modified version of a bill that allows India to buy the Russian weapon system without the threat of US sanctions.

As late as July 21, it appeared India would attract US sanctions under what is called the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). The bill, which came into effect this year, penalises countries doing business with arms firms in Russia, North Korea and Iran. The US state department issued a statement terming the S-400 sale as ‘potentially sanctionable activity’. In the end, Indian officials say, it was US defense secretary James Mattis, an ardent proponent of a CAATSA waiver for India, who prevailed over the US state department.

The Modi government’s gambit of digging its heels in seems to have paid off. Modifications to Section 231 of CAATSA enable the US president to waive sales like the S-400 to protect US alliances, like the one it has with India. “The deal is almost at a conclusive stage,” defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the media recently.

It is hard to recall the last time the acquisition of a single weapon system by India became such a huge foreign policy challenge as it has with the S-400. Sitharaman recently said the Indian side had conveyed to the US that India had time-tested relations with Russia, the S-400 deal was being negotiated for several years and that CAATSA was a US law and not a UN law, implying it did not apply to India.