TheChek News Flow

Defense cooperation between Israel and India is expanding, with joint projects by leading companies in both markets. This allows Israel to reduce its dependence on the West, which has proved problematic during the Swords of Iron War; for India, it offers a much needed toehold in the Middle East

The current Gaza war is unprecedented in Israel's history – from the horrors of October 7, which left an entire country scarred, to the domestic rift, international isolation and the warfare itself that has gone on for over a year and a half, with varying intensity. The Israeli military has been operating in several theaters and required huge amounts of shells, bullets and bombs, as well as replacement parts for systems that were hit in battle or worn out by unceasing use.

While the United States stepped up to help, the extremist government in Jerusalem meant that other friendly countries in the international arena kept their distance and limited defense exports. The international pressure resulted in the government decision to invest in the promotion of Israeli arms production. In that context, many were surprised to discover that India has become almost as important a crutch to Israel as the U.S., helping out with advanced drones, thousands of shells and countless crucial components.

In February 2024 Indian media reported that India was providing the Israeli military with Hermes 900 drones. This advanced aerial vehicle had just begun coming off the production line in a factory set up in Hyderabad, as part of the cooperation between Elbit and India's Adani Group, and rather than being delivered to the Indian military as planned, some were sent to Israel. In May 2024, Spain denied a docking permit at the port of Cartagena to a ship, the Marianne Danica, which was flying the Danish flag. The reason: it was carrying explosives from the Indian port of Chennai to Israel.

These shipments are but the tip of the iceberg. A review of records indicates dozens such shipments from Indian defense companies to Israel since the start of the war. These include thousands of 155mm shells from companies such as Kalyani Strategic Systems, to light firearms and accessories from PLR Systems and components for advanced technological systems from INDO-MIM. There is also no shortage of defense-related shipments in the opposite direction, from Israel to India.

In fact, efforts to measure the relationship using the usual indexes of imports and exports fail to grasp the entire picture. "The Israeli defense industry has become, if not a subsidiary of the Indian defense industry, at least its full partner," says a senior Israeli businessman who has been living and working in India for many years, who asked to remain anonymous.

"If you look at it in perspective, you can identify three phases in the history of the Israeli defense industry. We started out dependent on the French, switched to the Americans and now we are switching to the Indians. There is no other way to describe this," he said. Many Israelis recall the French-made Mirage 3, the star fighter jet of the Six-Day War, but the French arms embargo, imposed just before that war, forced Israel to find new partners. Ever since the 1970s, when the U.S. was engaged in the Cold War against the Soviet Union, Israel served as a testing ground for new American military technologies, and occasionally as an avenue for deals that Washington preferred to distance itself from, like the Iran-Contra affair.

Cooperation with India, which began later, developed despite the uneasy history of relations between the two countries. India has a large Muslim minority – some 15 percent of its population – and was instrumental in establishing and leading the Non-Aligned Movement beginning in the 1950s. As such, India maintained a cold, even hostile attitude toward Israel for decades. Only after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians in the 1990s did the two countries initiate full diplomatic relations. This did not prevent continued vociferous criticism of Israel on the Palestinian issue, nor close relations with countries that are far from Zionist sympathizers, most notably Iran.

It was in the 1990s that defense cooperation began. However, the critical stage came in the 2000s, following India's adoption in 2005 of a policy requiring new defense contracts to include a minimum 30 percent offset contract – meaning the arms exporters would also have to purchase military goods in India.

"At this point," says the senior Israeli businessman, "all the world's defense industries became anxious, since there is nothing to buy in India. There's no defense industry."

Israeli firms, however, jumped at the opportunity, led by the three defense giants – Rafael, Elbit and Israel Aerospace Industries. "They set up huge offset contract departments to look for and develop suppliers."

A survey posted on the Indian defense ministry website indicates that out of 56 offset deals since 2005, 23 (41 percent) are with Israeli companies – more than the U.S. or all European countries. In retrospect, this decision evidently paid off for India. Smaller Indian companies, such as Rangsons Electronics (purchased in 2015 by Cyient) and INDO-MIM, which specializes in metal injection molding, grew within a few years by hundreds of percentage points, thanks to cooperation with foreign companies – mainly Israeli ones.

"You cannot tell where Indian industry ends and Israeli industry begins," points out the businessman. "Every company that manufactures physical parts, regardless of composite materials, metal or plastic – they all have ties of one type or another with Israeli companies."

Diplomatic relations between the two countries have grown even warmer under the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, elected to office in 2014. In 2015, his new government announced its Make in India initiative, which called for more local production lines and companies. Israeli companies continued to lead cooperation efforts. In fact, it proved virtually impossible to track the full and dizzying range of cooperation between giant Indian companies, both government-owned and private, such as Bharat Electronics and Adani Group, and such Israeli companies as Elbit, IAI and Rafael.

To name but a few, in addition to the Elbit-Adani Hermes 900 joint venture: Elbit and Kalyani's Bharat Forge have set up BF Elbit for cooperation in the field of artillery; the Kalyani Group has established KRAS, a joint venture with Rafael, specializing in integration and manufacture of components for Spike missiles, Barak 8 missiles in cooperation with IAI, and guidance kits. In 2023, Elta, a subsidiary of IAI, acquired the Indian firm HELA, which provides maintenance, repair and overhaul product support for advanced radar systems.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 brought about even tighter cooperation. Israeli companies benefited from the Indian military's continuing use of Russian technology, while the Russians were suddenly unable to provide support services. "The Russians turned all at once from arms exporter to arms importer," says the businessman, explaining that this made them unable to service Russian arms purchased by clients like India.

Ever since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Israel captured numerous Soviet arms used by its enemies, Israel has acquired extensive experience in maintaining and upgrading Russian systems. "If you want an advanced night vision sight for a T72 [Soviet] tank – you turn to Elbit or Rafael. If you want pods for Sukhoi aircraft, you turn to Elta." The Israeli companies stepped up to fill the void for India.

Israel's help in servicing India's Russian-made arms is one of the reasons India has sided with Israel over the last year and a half. Despite harsh criticism at home for providing arms to Israel, the government has remained firm. Israel "is a country that has stood by us at different moments when our national security was under threat," Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told parliament in December 2024, adding that India is pursuing its interests.

This has not prevented India from continuing to enjoy warm relations with Iran. In fact, just a month after the first Iranian missile attack on Israel, in April 2024, India signed a first-of-its-kind agreement with Tehran. Under the agreement, Indian government-owned company Indian Ports Global is to manage the Iranian port of Chabahar for 10 years. At the time, the U.S. threatened that business with Iran may constitute a violation of the sanctions against Tehran. India, for its part, dismissed those threats.

"India conducts itself differently than the West. It does not see international relations as a zero sum game," says Lauren Dagan Amoss, a researcher of India's foreign and security policy at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. "It can work with Iran and Russia as well as with the U.S. and Israel. This has made it a very flexible player in the international arena. While to Western eyes such a plurality of ties could be perceived as a disadvantage, to Asian eyes it's an advantage. India is simply maximizing its value as an international player. For example, the port it is constructing in Iran serves a purely financial interest – there is no ideological connection with Iran here."

The Israeli government is one of the few to have benefited to some degree from the election of Donald Trump – at least in the initial days of his presidency. Joe Biden's red lines have been erased, and the new president managed to bring about the first stage of a hostage deal. On the other hand, the president's unpredictability, the new administration's isolationist tendencies, and the zeal with which it is abandoning all components of soft power are a clear warning sign to anyone who relies on America's broad shoulders. Israel already felt the sting with Netanyahu's latest visit to the White House, which turned into a humiliation at the hands of the president.

According to Dagan Amoss, one should not expect India to provide the same kind of patronage that Israel has enjoyed with the U.S., but Indian flexibility offers some significant advantages. "Here is an international player capable of talking to both Iran and Israel, to Russia and China as well as the U.S., to both the Middle East and Africa. This is a country that Israel could use to develop economic and diplomatic ties in the region.

"Today, India is far more reliable than many other countries," Dagan Amoss points out. "It is an important power both in the Indo-Pacific as well as worldwide, and it wants a foothold in the Middle East, too. It's in Israel's interest that this happens."

Israel, however, holds an outdated view of India, she says, and this underestimation of the country could be to Israel's disadvantage. "The more relations between the U.S. and China deteriorate, the more India's importance is expected to increase. As of now, Americans are best served by nurturing India and its relations with the country."

Not that there aren't difficulties in working with India, from complex regulation to cultural discrepancies, she says. "But Israel has yet to exhaust the potential of ties with India. For all the cooperation, we are still not like the French, not like the Australians in terms of our level of cooperation. When India decides to go for mega-projects, it is uncertain whether we will be there."

"Israel needs to make a decision to roll up its sleeves and make an effort, but we are still in a mindset that we know better and we will teach those Indians. This will not get us anywhere."