Moscow and New Delhi have signed a $5.4 billion contract for the supply of Russia’s S-400 air defense system to India, with deliveries scheduled to start in 2020.
India will receive ten battalions of the system, with a battalion normally consisting of 8 launchers, 112 missiles, and the associated command, radar and support vehicles.
Pakistan is close to China so far as economic relations and security relations are concerned. Pakistan’s relations with the USA are facing difficulties at this moment, but with China relations are fine, and those relations may be strengthened.
Pakistan expresses concerns on this deal because from the Pakistani perspective, it upsets the equation of conventional weapons that exist in this region especially between India and Pakistan.
Relations between India and Pakistan are extremely volatile, with time to time violent border exchanges regarding the disputed territory of Kashmir. Pakistan’s relations with Russia have improved over the last two or three years, so Russia will be more inclined to use its influence for promoting dialogue and peace in the region.
Pakistan, like India, has nuclear weapons, and the imbalance in conventional weapons is compensated, because both have nuclear weapons, which deters the two sides from crossing the limit whenever there is a conventional exchange of fire between India and Pakistan in either Kashmir or on the international border.
Sputnik / ABC Flash Point News 2018.
