Amid growing military ties between India and the US, the Indian military is moving closer towards deals for procuring American defense equipment worth over $7 billion from the United States, including armed drones and naval spy planes.
The two projects are moving ahead separately, since one of them is a tri-services project while the other is being steered by the Indian Navy.
“All the three services are collating their requirement for the armed drones which will give us a strong capability in terms of high-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles and also enhance our capabilities to carry out surveillance,” government sources told ANI. They said since some of the capability requirements of the three services would be different from each other, their collation would take a few months and a Letter of Request is expected to be issued to the American government for the government-to-government deal by the February-March time frame. The Trump administration had approved the sale of armed drones to India in June this year and offered it to be equipped with required missiles and other systems. The project is expected to cost over $4.5 billion
The other major deal in the pipeline is the project for the acquisition of the 10 additional P-8I anti-submarine warfare and long-range surveillance aircraft which would be adding to the existing fleet of 12 such planes in the Indian Navy. The proposal is expected to be put up before the Defense Acquisition Council in the next meeting,” the sources said.
The P-8I planes are expected to cost $3 billion. These planes would also be acquired under the FMS route once it gets final approval from the Cabinet Committee on Security headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the last decade, India has inducted a large number of American defense hardware including Apache attack choppers, Chinook heavy-lift Helicopters, C-17 Globemaster and C-130J Super Hercules Transport aircraft, M-777 ultra-light howitzers and AN-TPQ weapon locating radars.
Last updated: December 26th, 2025
