In a bid to expand India's role as an important defence exporter in the world, An "implementing arrangement" concerning the procurement of defence material and equipment was signed by the India and Philippines at the Camp Aguinaldo, headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines earlier this month.
Indian Ambassador to Philippines, Shambu S. Kumaran, signed the pact on behalf of New Delhi.
While there is a lot of speculation as to whether the sale of the much coveted BrahMos Missile would be facilitated by this agreement, it is to be noted that the agreement does not specifically mention anything about the BrahMos supersonic missiles yet.
An Indo-Russian joint venture, BrahMos, can be fired from ships, submarines, aircraft, and ground launchers. The initial versions of the missile go up to the range of 290km but last year India tested an extended range of around 400 kilometres, with more versions of higher ranges above 1,000 kilometres currently under development. BrahMos is considered to be the fastest supersonic missile in the world and it is known to be a leader in that category of missiles.
Philippines has long since expressed its interest in buying the BrahMos missile from India, but had hit a roadblock last year because of budgetary limitations due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This new agreement paves way for its purchase, although concrete news regarding a contract of sale specifically for the cruise missile is yet to be seen.
Experts have already started to weigh in, saying that the purchase of the cruise missile would majorly boost the Asian nation’s ability to defend its coastal areas against Chinese threats in the South China Sea. A few experts have also pointed out that while the procurement of the BrahMos looks good on paper, even with BrahMos, the country doesn’t have a budget to configure the ships to launch them.
The infamous South China Sea Dispute, where Beijing's claims on the entire South China Sea, stretching across 3.6 million square kilometres as its territory which was subsequently invalidated In 2016 by the international arbitration ruling, still hasn't stopped China from violating Philippines sovereign territory. China has refused to accept the ruling and since then, the militarization and Chinese aggressiveness in the waters poses threat to the Philippines.
Comments