In October last year, India and the US sealed the BECA (Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement) agreement to further boost bilateral defence ties. The pact provides for sharing of high-end military technology, logistics and geospatial maps between the two countries.
AUSA Global 2021: Army chief pushes for stagnant end strength numbers to pay for new weapons
17 March 2021
by Ashley Roque
A couple of months remain before the Biden administration and the Pentagon unveil the fiscal year 2022 budget request, but Army Chief of Staff General James McConville said he is prepared to sacrifice a larger force to spare new weapons programmes.
The four-star general spoke on 16 March at the virtual Association of the US Army’s (AUSA) annual Global Force conference and provided a peek into the tough budgetary options he is facing.
“Its end strength, its structure, its readiness, and its modernisation,” Gen McConville told the audience. “On the end strength and structure, I don’t see us growing at the rate I would have liked to have grown. In fact, we’re probably going to have to flatten out end strength where we are right now.”
The US Army is moving forward with plans to gain a better footing in Asia, in part, by building out a multi-domain task force (MDTF) outfitted with land-based, deep strike capabilities. Past service leaders had floated the idea that the unin.