Haaretz:
The on-off Spike missile deal between India and Israel is an ongoing saga – a weaponized, geopolitical soap opera.
Back in 2014, India’s state-run Defence Acquisition Council, chaired by the then defence minister, Arun Jaitley, cleared the purchase of 8000 Spike missiles, over 300 launchers, and technology transfer from Israel to Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL), one of India’s state-owned ammunition and missiles manufacturers.
This $600 million deal to purchase the man portable “fire and forget” Spike missiles, which have a four kilometer range, was hailed as a major milestone in defense cooperation, a “flagship deal that cemented the budding Israeli-Indian security relationship” – a win-win situation for the buyer (India, the world’s largest importer of arms) and the seller (Israel – for whom India would become one of its largest clients).
