After a much-heralded trip to India where a new strategic agreement was to open the door to joint India-U.S. development of jet engine and aircraft carrier technology, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is coming home with a just $2 million agreement to co-develop better chem-bio gear and a solar generator.
When asked by the pool of reporters traveling with him whether he was disappointed in the outcome, the defense secretary emphasized he was not.
“Some of the projects that we’re launching just now are in part intended to blaze a trail for things to come,” Carter said.
In January, when President Obama visited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the two signed a joint statement of cooperation on several fronts. On defense, the two countries agreed to “pursue co-development of four pathfinder projects” and to “form a working group to explore aircraft carrier technology sharing and design, and explore possible cooperation on the development of jet engine technology.”
Carter said Thursday that the two small projects moving forward were the result of DOD asking the U.S. defense industrial base to nominate some smaller initial projects that could be presented to the Indian government as some of the four pathfinder projects, “and then it is still India’s choice which ones they want to seize on,” Carter said.
In order to work, the business cases for both U.S. industry and India’s interests have to align, Carter said.
“The whole point is to make these industrially and economically successful projects. So they’re not things that can be dictated by the governments; we try to involve industry,” Carter said.
India is the last stop on Carter’s 11-day swing through the Asia Pacific that he undertook to participate in an annual security dialogue in Singapore. His trip was extended to shore up defense strategic partnerships with key allies in the region to counter China’s recent buildup of artificial islands to support a military installation in the South China Sea.
