India and US expand naval cooperation with plans for new submarine testing facility
PTC News Desk: India and the United States are significantly expanding their maritime cooperation, with plans for a new naval submarine testing facility and other strategic developments. This move marks a further strengthening of the bilateral defense relationship between the two countries.
During Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s ongoing visit to the US, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed to enhance the deployment of military liaison officers. According to a statement from India’s Ministry of Defence, this agreement includes the deployment of the first Indian Liaison Officer to the Headquarters Special Operations Command in Florida, USA.
The Indian Navy currently has a liaison officer stationed at the US Central Command in Bahrain, while the US has a liaison officer based at the Indian Navy’s Information Fusion Centre in Gurugram, near New Delhi. Ely Ratner, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs at the US Department of Defense, highlighted the significance of this agreement in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
Ratner expressed enthusiasm about the enhanced ties, stating, “I signed a liaison officer agreement to strengthen the ever-growing ties between US and Indian armed forces. The DoD looks forward to hosting Indian officers at US commands.”
In addition to the liaison officer deployment, India plans to assign naval personnel to the Combined Task Force ‘CTF 150’ headquarters in Bahrain next year. This task force operates under the coalition of multinational naval forces to combat piracy and other maritime threats.
The Ministry of Defence also reported that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh visited a state-of-the-art water tunnel facility in Memphis, Tennessee, which is used for testing submarines, torpedoes, naval surface ships, and propellers. The visit aimed to support a proposal for establishing a similar facility for indigenous design and development in India.
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Singh also met with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who emphasized the growing defense industrial ties between the two nations. Austin remarked, “We share a vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific” and noted the importance of expanding defense cooperation and co-producing more capabilities.
Both leaders praised the progress of the Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness initiative, a Quad partnership aimed at enhancing maritime security in the Indian Ocean Region. They also commended India’s efforts to improve maritime domain awareness for regional partners.
Next month, India and the US will host the ‘INDUS X’ Silicon Valley summit in the US. The ‘INDUS X’ initiative, which stands for the India-US Defence Acceleration Ecosystem, aims to create a defense innovation bridge between the two countries. This initiative seeks to foster collaboration among startups, industry leaders, academia, and governments to accelerate the adoption of advanced technologies and bolster the war-fighting capabilities of both nations.
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