Full transcript of “India Officially Ends ₹13000 Crores US Stryker Deal After Fails in Ladakh. Ends Dependency on USA”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 Jai Hind friends, welcome all of you to Path Finder. Friends, in a very very major update, the deal that was signed between India and America for Stryker tanks worth around $.5 billion dollars in the year 2023 has now been officially terminated by India here. You guys can see the news here, friends. Just came out two days ago today. You can see it here also. Indian Army Has Now Rejected US Stryker Armored Vehicle After Trials. And by the way, I will talk in detail why it has exactly been rejected here. Also we will try to understand what alternative has been found out by the Indian Army. But friends,
0:45 if I want to tell you very briefly here, then this update is basically told by our Defense Secretary, Mr. Rajesh Singh, that the US Striker armored vehicle had design issues. Number two, its engine which was currently installed was of only 350 horsepower, which they said was incapable of working on the terrain of our Ladakh and now it has been confirmed in the trials that this engine is not able to work there. Number three, this engine does not have efficacious capability, friends. Meaning an ability to move on land as well as on water. That kind of capability is
1:33 not seen in it. Because of which we are not going to procure this particular armoured vehicle from you. We will talk about this entire development. I will also tell you what the deal was. The shortcomings in the Striker Armored Vehicle due to which it has been rejected will also be discussed. And now we will also discuss about the indigenous alternative that the Indian Army is looking at. Friends, there is also a Canadian angle in this, I will discuss that as well. Let's start with me. My name is Anirudh. If you guys want to follow us and get updates on our lectures, you
2:18 can do so through the Telegram channels given here. Friends, before moving forward, I would like to tell you all that to make your UPSC exam preparation easy and affordable, Unacademy has made all UPSC related resources available for free. Be it monthly current affairs magazines, previous year questions, summaries of NCERT notes or free mock tests of prelims. The links to all these things are given in the description box below. If you have any doubt or any query, you can directly call on these phone numbers given on the screen. And our dedicated counselling team will also provide you assistance. Alright, coming directly to the news. Friends, let me give you a little background. It is exactly 2 years from today. It is around June-July 2023. The two plus two ministerial talks that take place between India and America.
3:06 You may know that under this, India and America had made an agreement that we will procure America's Stryker 8 by 8 Infantry Fighting Vehicles from you. This is obviously its technical name. In simple language you can also call it tank. And it was also decided in the deal that in the beginning we will take some tanks directly off the shelf from America. Meaning it will be prepared there itself. We will take them to India and after that we will produce it locally. And obviously you will have to do customization as per the needs of India. This was no small deal. The deal was made for 530 vehicles. It is estimated
3:52 that a deal worth Rs 1.5 billion was signed. If you convert it into Indian currency, then this deal was worth around Rs 12 to 13000 crores. You can see its picture here. Friends, this is the Stryker armored vehicle that we were going to procure. Here carefully look at one thing, we did a deal with America and even then this armoured vehicle is mainly used by the US army. But friends, look carefully, its manufacturer is actually a Canada based company. General Dynamic Land Systems which bases its production on the plant in Ontario. Now, this deal was going well. There was
4:38 no problem in this. But the first problem comes in October 2024. Remember the time when diplomatic tensions between India and Canada had increased a lot. India and Canada had also recalled their respective diplomats and ambassadors. At that time too, voices were raised from India that we should not move forward with this Striker deal. You guys see here Indian Army's plan to buy Ontario produced Stryker armoured vehicle hits the spot. This news is of 18 October 2024 and at that time for a moment it really seemed that this deal would be cancelled here. But thankfully the relationship got improved there and after that the deal started progressing again here. You can see the news of February 5, 2025 here. The
5:24 deal for the Stryker Infantry Vehicle had already started moving forward with America. But friends, obviously the Indian Army said that okay, it is moving ahead. You will have to get the trials done. And now friends, when the trials started, which by the way were going on for the last few months, which were high altitude trials in Ladakh, there were a lot of deficiencies in this particular Stryker armoured vehicle, which started coming to the fore. First of all, the 350 horsepower Caterpillar C7 engine that was installed in it. It turned out that it does not work at such high altitude. After that, General Dynamics, the company which manufactures this, said that we will also provide you a 600 horsepower engine in it. But India said, look, the core design itself is
6:10 not right. Because of which it will not be able to work in the mountainous terrain like Ladakh. And thirdly, which was the biggest reason, it doesn't have the efficacy capability, which is very important. Because if you look at all these areas of ours, be it the Leh Ladakh area or the Siliguri Corridor area, in all these areas, along with the land, we also get to see seasonal rivers there. Where you sometimes have to take your tanks across rivers with shallow water depths. Where this tank cannot go and this was the biggest trigger point because of which we basically have finally cancelled this deal here. Although the results have
6:57 not come here yet, but already on social media and then on television media, there are many experts, who are veterans, who keep giving their opinion from time to time. He also said the same thing here. He said it doesn't matter it is worse in way too many things as compared to our what. After that he said that the striker is not even amphibious. Essential to operate Punjab front and even Ladakh etc. Such things were being said. And friends, there our army based on the trial performance Indian Army officially recommended that the Striker procurement will be scrapped. We are not going to take it any further. But here the Indian Army said that obviously we need some alternative. And right there, friends, he mentioned that the
7:43 Wheeled Armoured Platform, which we call WHAP or WAP, developed jointly by DRDO and Tata, is now being considered here. He has not yet announced whether he will definitely take it. He said that we are considering it here and that too because first of all it is an efficacious design. Number two is a 600 horsepower engine. Number three is modular armor and all the other features that you used to see in the Striker are already available here. Let me give you an update about this. Age on April to 2025 its metal cutting ceremony has already taken place, friends. Under which its prototypes have been launched. Its prototypes are installed at the Pune facility of Tata Advanced Systems.
8:29 And let me also tell you that its field testing has also been done in Ladakh. Efficacy trials have also been conducted in this. And 80% of the content included in it is indigenous content which is already included. Once again let me be very very clear. A decision has not yet been taken in its favour. But yes, the striker from USA has been officially rejected here. By the way, India has also offered to America that if you have an affibes variant which can run on both land and water. If you offer that to us then we can discuss it. But first you give us that offer. And in return he said that we also have our own wheeled armoured platform. We will consider that also here.
9:15 Friends, I think this is a great move that the Indian Army and the Ministry of Defence have taken here for two reasons. First of all, when this deal was signed, not the striker deal, many questions were raised even then. Look here, many people were saying that Striker does n't have that quality. So this is obviously an outcome of foreign lobbying that we are also considering it. Whereas we have much better armoured vehicles available than that. Then why are we taking it ? So seen from that perspective, I think this is a very very good decision that has been taken. Number two, if we do this, then friends, we are slowly moving towards Self Reliance in Defence. We are already supporting our domestic industry. We are eliminating dependency on foreign supplies. Let's see what happens. Whatever your opinion is, definitely tell us
10:00 in the comment section. Thank you so much for listening.
