Pentagon creates India Rapid Reaction Cell

The Pentagon has established a first-ever country special cell to speed up its defence ties with India and accelerate the process of co-development and co-production of hi-tech military equipment in the country.

Established soon after Defence Secretary Ashton Carter assumed Pentagon’s leadership role in February, India Rapid Reaction Cell (IRRC) is headed by Keith Webster, Director, International Cooperation Office of the Under Secretary of Defence for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.

India is the only country to have a specific cell of its kind inside the Pentagon.

Currently, seven persons are working on this cell, representing various wings of the U.S. Department of Defence.

Given the new thrust to India-U.S. defence relationship under Mr. Carter, officials say there is quite a few on the waiting list who have shown keen interest in working at the Pentagon’s IRRC.

“The purpose of IRRC is to work all the initiatives that we have ongoing under [India-U.S.] DTTI [Defence Trade and Technology Initiative] — both the initiatives that for example came out of the joint statement between the [U.S.] President and the Prime Minister in January [in New Delhi] to move quickly and timely and be through, which in my opinion requires dedicated support to ramp up the operational tempo,” Mr. Webster told PTI.

In the next coming months, a series of high-level exchanges are scheduled to take place, including that of Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar to the Pentagon.

Defence and Strategic relationship would be a key topic of discussion when U.S. President Barack Obama meets Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly in New York later this month.
IRRC, he said, had been instrumental in accelerating the DTTI projects and had started the process to send some new proposals to India for co-production and co-development.

The mobile hydroelectric initiative and for-the-next- generation initiatives required negotiations, conclusion and signing of bilateral agreements.

In a joint statement, the two countries announced four products for co-produced-next-generation Raven unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), ‘roll-on, roll-off’ intelligence- gathering and reconnaissance modules for C-130J Super Hercules aircraft, mobile electric hybrid power sources and uniform integrated protection ensemble increment-2 [chemical, biological warfare protection gear for soldiers].

In addition, Mr. Obama and Mr. Modi announced that working groups will be set up to explore development of aircraft carrier technologies and jet engines.

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Source:Thehindu

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