The United States and India finalized a $3.5 billion deal Tuesday for India to purchase 31 MQ-9B drones – the SkyGuardian variant of the famed Reaper drone produced by General Atomics Aeronautical.
The Indian Defense Ministry announced that two contracts were signed on Tuesday: one with the U.S. government to procure the drones under the Foreign Military Sales program, and another with the Indian branch of General Atomics for logistics, maintenance, and repair.
Tuesday’s signings were the culmination of eight years of negotiations between India and both the Trump and Biden administrations, plus a lengthy approval process in the U.S. Congress. The State Department approved the deal and notified Congress in February 2024.
“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by helping to strengthen the U.S.-Indian strategic relationship and to improve the security of a major defense partner,” the State Department said in February.
The State Department saluted India’s “commitment to modernizing its military” and said the advanced drones would help the Indian military conduct “unmanned surveillance and reconnaissance patrols in sea lanes of operation.”
Sameer Lalwani, a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace, told the Hindustan Times on Wednesday the unmanned aerial vehicles would bolster India’s strategy of “deterrence by detection.”
“The drones will help India detect adversarial advances on land or at sea early, including from China, in order to interdict them early and prevent conflict,” Lalwani explained.
Fifteen of the new drones will go to the Indian Navy, while the Indian Army and Air Force will receive eight each.
The SkyGuardian variant of the Reaper drone (and its naval version, the SeaGuardian) can fly over the horizon for over 40 hours at high altitudes in all weather conditions, thanks to longer wings and more efficient engines than earlier models. The drones carry an array of sensors that can integrate seamlessly with other intelligence-gathering systems to provide outstanding surveillance capabilities over land and sea, General Atomics says.
The MQ-9B can be armed, and according to the Times of India (TOI), it will be. One of India’s objectives for the drone program is reportedly bolstering its ability to “destroy selected targets with precision.” All 31 of the American aircraft will therefore be armed with Hellfire missiles, GBU-39B precision glide bombs, and possibly other weapons.
An Indian official told TOI the American drones will “provide a quantum jump in the ISR capabilities of our armed forces.” ISR stands for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance.
India evaluated the General Atomics drones by leasing two of them in September 2020. One of the platforms crashed in September 2024, but by then India had already been impressed by the ability of the drones to monitor Chinese warships and surveillance assets in the Indian Ocean.
The official who spoke to TOI said India has struggled to develop its own “hunter-killer” drones, especially with the long range and anti-submarine warfare capability necessary for covering the vast Indian Ocean.
Tuesday’s deal was India’s second-largest arms purchase from the United States, the largest being India’s acquisition of a fleet of Boeing C-17 Globemaster II transport planes in 2019.
Until fairly recently, India obtained the majority of its military hardware from the Soviet Union and Russia. India still strives to maintain good relations with both Russia and the United States, but it has been pivoting away from Russian military equipment since the invasion of Ukraine.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed a desire to develop domestic military production using Western technology. Modi plans to buy $100 billion in arms over the next decade, and according to Indian officials, very little of it will come from Russia.
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