Boeing team gets involved as US-India deal for P-8I Poseidon naval patrol aircraft remains stalled: Report

Talks between India and the United States for the acquisition of six more Boeing P-8I Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft remain stalled, reportedly due to a sharp increase in price and a "widening trade confrontation", a report said. The negotiations remain stalled despite several high-level engagements, including direct intervention by senior US defence officials and Boeing executives, the report added.

From specific counter-insurgency operations to being deployed during the ongoing face-off with China, or keeping an eye on the submarines of the adversary in the oceans, the P-8I is a reliable first-responder platform for the Indian Navy. In September 2023, it completed ten years of deployment with the Indian Navy and has already clocked more than 40,000 mishap-free flight hours. During the 2017 China-India border standoff, the aircraft played a critical role by conducting surveillance along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Codenamed "Neptune", the Indian Navy currently operates a fleet of 12 Boeing P-8I Poseidons.

More than 160 P-8 aircraft are in service across the globe and have together accumulated more than 500,000 flight hours. Besides India and the US, P-8s are operating in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, and Germany.

As far as the Indian Navy is concerned, the biggest consequence of the delayed deal will be the pressure of having to commit to rigorous Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) patrols across vast regions of the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, and other key checkpoints with its current resources. For a long time, the Indian Navy has set 18 as the minimum number of P-8I aircraft needed in its fleet to ensure it has eyes at multiple operational sectors simultaneously.

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Officials are well aware of the challenges posed by the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) submarine patrols, which increasingly adopt longer endurance profiles and more complex deployment patterns, Defence Security Asia said in a report. "What was once considered one of the most politically secure and operationally indispensable defence procurements in India’s maritime arsenal has instead become a case study in how economic coercion, inflationary pressure, and geopolitical misalignment can derail even the most mature military partnerships. The stalled P-8I deal, far from being a routine procurement dispute, now sits at the intersection of India’s maritime security imperatives, America’s tariff-driven economic statecraft, and the accelerating naval assertiveness of China across the Indian Ocean Region (IOR)," the report stated.

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"The P-8I’s true strategic value lies in its ability to compress the maritime kill chain by fusing wide-area surveillance, target classification, and strike cueing into a single airborne node that can operate seamlessly with surface combatants, submarines, and shore-based command centres," the report added.

India-US defence deals

Earlier in August, senior defence officials rejected a Reuters report claiming that New Delhi had paused talks to procure defence equipment from the US in the wake of US President Donald Trump's aggressive 50 per cent tariffs. The purchase of six Boeing P-8I reconnaissance aircraft and support systems at a cost of $3.6 billion was mentioned in that report.

“The news reports on India pausing the talks related to defence purchases with the US are false and fabricated. It is clarified that the various cases of procurement are being progressed as per extant procedures," a statement from the defence ministry officials read.