Friendly Foreign Countries
- A Friendly Foreign Country means any country not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and specified as a friendly foreign country in the report required under 10 United States Code 2350a(f)(2).”
- Friendly Foreign Countries (Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Finland, India, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine).
- Security assistance is a subset of a larger, more general category called security cooperation and consists of a group of programs, authorized by law, which allow the transfer of defense articles and services, including training, to friendly foreign governments or international organizations.
- The security assistance program is an important instrument of U.S. foreign and national security policy.
- The principal objectives of security assistance are to Support the political, economic, military, technological, and national security goals of the United States and to strengthen the military capability of selected friendly and allied countries by enabling them to Deter and defend against possible aggression; Maintain regional military balance and defense posture; and Enhance coalition interoperability.
- And Eligible recipient of security assistance is any friendly foreign country or international organization determined by the president to be eligible to purchase or receive (on a grant basis) U.S. defense articles and defense services, unless otherwise ineligible due to statutory restrictions.
Indian designation of FFC
- India’s growing economy, strategic location, mix of friendly and diplomatic foreign policy and large and vibrant diaspora has won it more allies than enemies.India has friendly relations with several countries in the developing world. Though India is not a part of any major military alliance, it has close strategic and military relationships with most of the fellow major powers.
- Countries considered India’s closest include the Russian Federation, Israel,Afghanistan,France,Bhutan,Bangladesh,and the United States.
- Russia is the largest supplier of military equipment to India, followed by Israel and France.According to some analysts, Israel is set to overtake Russia as India’s largest military and strategic partner.
- India also enjoys strong military relations with several other countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, Singapore, Brazil, South Africa and Italy.
- In addition, India operates an airbase in Tajikistan, signed a landmark defence accord with Qatar in 2008,and has leased out Assumption Island from Seychelles to build a naval base in 2015.
- India has also forged relationships with developing countries, especially South Africa, Brazil,and Mexico.These countries often represent the interests of the developing countries through economic forums such as the G8+5, IBSA and WTO.
- India was seen as one of the standard bearers of the developing world and claimed to speak for a collection of more than 30 other developing nations at the Doha Development Round.
- Indian Look East policy has helped it develop greater economic and strategic partnership with Southeast Asian countries, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. India also enjoys friendly relations with the Persian Gulf countries and most members of the African Union.
- The Foundation for National Security Research in New Delhi published India’s Strategic Partners: A Comparative Assessment and ranked India’s top strategic partners with a score out of 90 points : Russia comes out on top with 62, followed by the United States (58), France (51), UK (41), Germany (37), and Japan (34).
