The United States may offer India advanced Raytheon Co radar as part of a bid for a multibillion-dollar fighter-jet contract, the head of the Pentagon agency handling the matter said Wednesday.
The possible supply of an Active Electronically Scanned Array radar, or AESA, was under study, Air Force Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kohler, head of the Defence Security Co-operation Agency, told the Reuters Aerospace and Defence Summit here. "We are looking at that now," he said. "We have a very rigorous disclosure process and that is being reviewed."
AESA radar would make the US fighters more lethal and less vulnerable. Raytheon says it gives more time for target observation, information sharing and assessment by commanders before critical decisions are made. Kohler said he expected Pakistan, India's archrival, to modify plans to buy Boeing Co F-16s from the United States as a result of the October 8 earthquake that killed more than 70,000 people.
"I think what we were ready to do right before the earthquake is probably going to have to change," he said. "We are expecting either that it will be stretched out over a longer period of time or maybe broken up into different options or maybe reduced," he said.
"We'll have to sit down with them and talk about it. We'll get back with Pakistan early in the new year and see what they want to do," Kohler said.