The idea of taking over the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk may have been a bluff to get a better deal on Russia's Admiral Gorshkov. If so, it didn't flyThe controversy over India's purchase of a globally capable aircraft carrier is finally laid to rest. Last week, when U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was in New Delhi, the defense community in India was abuzz with rumors that India would be purchasing the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk (BusinessWeek.com, 2/26/08), which is slated for decommissioning this year. The Bush Administration tried to shoot down the speculation, growing across the blogosphere in both India and the U.S., that the Americans were preparing to take the unprecedented move of sending an aircraft carrier to another country's navy. "The Navy has no plans of transferring the Kitty Hawk to India," said Lt. Col. Clay Doss, a U.S. Navy spokesperson in Washington. Still, Indian defense analysts insisted the two governments were indeed considering a deal.
It's now becoming clear, however, that the Indians were fanning the Kitty Hawk rumors in order to get what they really wanted—a better deal on an aircraft carrier they've been trying to buy from Russia. On Feb. 27, India's Defense Secretary V.K. Singh put to rest the speculation about the Kitty Hawk by announcing that New Delhi had renegotiated a deal with Moscow to buy a Russian aircraft carrier, the Admiral Gorshkov.
India had originally decided to buy the Gorshkov in 2004 in a $1.5 billion deal—along with fighter planes and helicopters—and paid over $500 million in advance with a delivery date of 2008. However it's now 2008 and India still doesn't have its carrier. That's because the Russians say they need to further modernize the ship before they can deliver it to the Indians. To pay for the additional work on the Gorshkov, Moscow wants an additional $1.2 billion from India. Many defense analysts now believe the Indians used the Kitty Hawk as a ploy to push the Russians into committing to the delivery, albeit overdue, of their carrier.
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