The US-India defense ties will be put at risk should New Delhi purchase Russian S-400 air defense systems, a senior American diplomat warned, noting that India should think very carefully about making such strategic choices.
“At a certain point, a strategic choice has to be made about partnerships and a strategic choice about what weapons systems and platforms a country is going to adopt,” Alice Wells, US principal deputy assistant secretary for South and Central Asia, said this week at the hearings on US interests in South Asia and the budget for the fiscal year 2020.
India’s procurement of the S-400s “effectively could limit India’s ability to increase our own interoperability,” she said, explaining that Washington has “serious concerns” about the implications of the $5 billion deal signed with Russia in October on India-US defense ties.