International Business Times:
India, currently the world’s largest arms importer, plans to sell its supersonic BrahMos missile to Vietnam, marking a paradigm shift that is being seen as a response to neighbor China’s rising military muscle-flexing in the region.
Besides, India is also eyeing countries such as Indonesia, South Africa, Chile and Brazil to sell the advanced cruise missile system. The cruise missile are considered as the world’s fastest that can travel at a speed that is more than three times the speed of sound.
Brahmos missiles are manufactured by BrahMos Aerospace, an Indo-Russian joint venture.
The export of the missile system is also aimed at increasing the defense capabilities of India’s partners in the region, apart from increasing India’s revenues from arms exports, Reuters reported.
“Policymakers in Delhi were long constrained by the belief that advanced defense cooperation with Washington or Hanoi (Vietnam) could provoke aggressive and undesirable responses from Beijing,” Jeff M Smith, director of Asian security programmers at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, was quoted as saying by the agency.
Vietnam had sought to buy the supersonic missile in 2011, but India was reluctant to sell, fearing China, which views the weapon as destabilizing. However, things have changed after Prime Minister Narendra Modi was voted to power in May 2014.
