A single bribe almost ruined a protection partnership most individuals didn’t know even existed. It took India and Italy virtually a decade to get well.
The story of how that rupture occurred — and what it uncovered about Italy’s quiet however deep position in India’s navy — is important to understanding why each nations now deal with their renewed ties as one thing too helpful to lose once more.
When Indian authorities cancelled the AgustaWestland helicopter contract in 2014, the fallout went far past the headlines. Torpedo provides to the Indian Navy’s Scorpène-class submarines froze, upgrades to over 20 Sea King helicopters stalled, and a naval gun contract went unsigned. For almost a decade, a corruption scandal held Indian-Italian protection relations hostage.
As we speak, the 2 nations are rebuilding their partnership with better ambition. The most recent achievement got here throughout Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s go to to Rome in Could 2026, the place India and Italy signed a Defence Industrial Roadmap, defining their relationship as a “Particular Strategic Partnership”.
A relationship as soon as outlined by diplomatic estrangement and suspended contracts is now recast as a pillar of the 2 nations’ defense-industrial methods. But the importance of this shift is tough to understand with out understanding what the rupture reveals within the first place. Typically ignored is Italy’s position in Indian protection procurement, however the document reveals that Italian know-how is deeply embedded within the Indian Navy. The disruption that adopted the AgustaWestland scandal uncovered each the extent of Italy’s integration into Indian naval capabilities and the prices that come up when a procurement controversy disrupts a broader strategic partnership.
As New Delhi and Rome pursue a brand new part of protection cooperation centered on co-production, know-how switch, and industrial integration, the central problem is not restoring the partnership however making it resilient. The institutional belongings that will have prevented the final rupture nonetheless don’t totally exist. Constructing mechanisms able to insulating strategic cooperation from future procurement disputes is, due to this fact, not merely a lesson from the final decade. Concrete actions, similar to a standing dispute decision channel, outlined know-how switch benchmarks written right into a co-production contract, and a devoted fast-track acquisition lane, are all conditions for the ambitions that each governments now share.
What Italy Put in India’s Arms
Whereas Italy is never counted amongst India’s main protection suppliers — a bunch consisting of Russia, France, and the US — Italian know-how is woven via the Indian navy, particularly its navy. Understanding the Indian-Italian protection partnership begins with recognizing how a lot of India’s functionality already rests on Italian know-how, from subsystems and superior supplies to finish platforms, together with naval weapons, helicopters, and torpedoes.
Odero Terni Orlando (subsidiary of the Italian firm Finmeccanica) Bharat Heavy Electricals Restricted has licensed-manufactured the (OTO) Melara 76-millimeter gun in India since 1994. Designed in Italy and utilized by 60 navies worldwide, right now it sits on dozens of Indian warships and Coast Guard vessels. In November 2023, Bharat acquired a new $310 million contract to fabricate 16 upgraded variations of the gun for brand spanking new ships constructed at each Backyard Attain Shipbuilders & Engineers and Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders.
The helicopter story runs deeper. First Agusta, the Italian firm that will finally change into AgustaWestland, after which Leonardo, started promoting helicopters to India within the Nineteen Seventies. The Agusta-Bell AB.212ASW, the anti-submarine warfare variant of the American Bell 212, constructed beneath license in Italy by Agusta — operated from shipboard platforms for anti-submarine warfare and search-and-rescue missions
Italy additionally provided India with the Breda 40-millimeter anti-aircraft gun system, fielded on smaller naval vessels. The Black Shark heavyweight torpedo designed for India’s Scorpène-class submarines was one other Italian contribution, provided via Leonardo’s Whitehead Alenia Sistemi Subacquei subsidiary. The 127-millimeter naval gun, Italy’s bigger deck gun used on frigates and destroyers, was additionally within the pipeline for Indian warships earlier than the AgustaWestland scandal froze protection ties.
A sample turns into evident, as Italy’s position in India’s naval structure doesn’t seem as peripheral, however structural. From weapons to helicopters, to torpedoes and hearth management techniques, Italian know-how has embedded itself within the Indian Navy, typically via license manufacturing that positioned Indian employees and Indian factories on the heart of manufacturing. {That a} construction this intensive might be dropped at a halt by a single procurement scandal is exactly what makes the AgustaWestland affair value revisiting.
The AgustaWestland Rupture
The resilience of the Indian-Italian protection relationship allowed it to outlive a decade-long freeze resulting from scandal, however the related prices — specifically, diminished operational readiness and misplaced market alternatives — shouldn’t be ignored.
In 2010, India signed a $432 million contract with Leonardo’s subsidiary AgustaWestland for 12 VIP helicopters to hold the Indian president, prime minister, and different dignitaries. In February 2013, Italian authorities arrested Finmeccanica’s (now rebranded as Leonardo) personal CEO, Giuseppe Orsi, on allegations of paying $60 million in bribes to win the contract. India’s protection minister ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation probe the very subsequent morning.
What adopted was a swift and complete freezing of bilateral protection ties. India cancelled the helicopter contract, launched investigations, and suspended Leonardo from defense-related enterprise in India. The ban additional blocked the provide of 127-millimeter naval weapons, Black Shark torpedoes for Scorpène submarines, and a midlife improve of over 20 Sea King naval helicopters.
Across the identical time, the bilateral relationship suffered one other setback. In February 2012, the Enrica Lexie case triggered a chronic diplomatic and authorized standoff that will devour each governments for almost a decade, exacerbating the bilateral channel via which any industrial rehabilitation would have needed to journey. Taken collectively, the Enrica Lexie case and the AgustaWestland scandal left Indian-Italian protection ties burdened by two unresolved crises concurrently. In 2016, when Finmeccanica rebranded itself as Leonardo, India didn’t take away the ban on the entity.
For seven years, Leonardo remained outdoors India’s protection market. The ban shut the Italian agency out of a variety of protection competitions during which its merchandise would in any other case have been robust contenders.
Political re-engagement and the quiet rehabilitation of relations got here in November 2021. The Indian authorities prohibited Leonardo from making any monetary claims primarily based on earlier agreements, which meant that it must begin over. Leonardo accepted the circumstances and agreed to withdraw monetary claims linked to the cancelled helicopter order. India’s legal and financial-crimes investigative companies continued their investigations, however the determination nonetheless marked a calibrated political reopening of defense-industrial ties between the 2 nations.
What adopted was a mixture of strategic persistence and a gradual rebuilding of belief. Leonardo made its means again quietly — first via civil aviation, then via supplying Whitehead Alenia Sistemi Subacquei torpedo to the Indian Navy, then via the Adani partnership to construct a complete helicopter ecosystem on Indian soil. On the diplomatic observe, Italy and India upgraded their relations on the sidelines of the assembly between Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in March 2023, which marked 75 years of diplomatic ties.
The Circumstances for Reconciliation
Restoring protection ties displays a broader recalibration of bilateral priorities, marking a departure from the logic that sustained the freeze for almost a decade. With legal investigations nonetheless stay and the scandal politically energetic, any coping with Leonardo carried authorized publicity and reputational danger that no Indian authorities wished to soak up, therefore exclusion remained the trail of least resistance.
The lifting of the Leonardo ban in 2021 didn’t occur as a result of the authorized cloud had totally cleared, nor as a result of Italian lobbying had lastly worn New Delhi down. Slightly, the strategic atmosphere that made the rupture tolerable modified — on either side — in ways in which made continued estrangement extra pricey than reconciliation.
On the Italian aspect, Italy’s abandonment of the Chinese language Belt and Street Initiative flagship undertaking created a necessity for credible different companions in Asia. India was a sexy candidate in some ways. It’s a democracy, a rising protection market, and a rustic whose naval modernization program supplied particular openings for Leonardo and Fincantieri. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 sharpened the logic additional and prolonged it to the Indian aspect of the equation. For Italy, the conflict triggered a surge in European protection spending and a scramble for industrial capability, at a time when Leonardo and Fincantieri have been looking for new markets and reliable companions to complement an more and more overstretched European industrial provide base. A big, fast-growing, and politically aligned market like India happy each wants.
For India, the Russo-Ukrainian Battle uncovered the structural fragility of a protection structure constructed overwhelmingly round Russian platforms, on the exact second Russian provide chains have been fracturing beneath sanctions, and Moscow’s strategic reliability was turning into a severe query. Whereas India’s response was to not abandon Russia altogether, it accelerated diversification with new urgency. The Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) program — Modi’s flagship effort launched in 2020 to localize protection manufacturing and minimize import dependence, amongst different issues — now operated in a much more acute strategic atmosphere. Companions wanting to supply real know-how switch fairly than completed merchandise have been abruptly scarcer and extra helpful, because the conflict stretched the capability of established suppliers and made overreliance on any single supply a legal responsibility. Italy, with its strengths in naval artillery, undersea warfare, and rotary-wing platforms, was nicely positioned to fill that position, if the 2 governments can set up the requisite political circumstances.
Since 2023, a brand new strategic partnership framework and private affective ties between Meloni and Modi have added a brand new dimension to bilateral relations. What was as soon as a cautious, conditional rehabilitation now acquired institutional substance: annual summits, structured international and protection ministerial dialogues, common joint workout routines and coaching between the 2 militaries, and a co-production agenda.
The place India and Italy Stand As we speak and What’s Actually at Stake
The connection has moved from procurement towards industrial integration, anchored in co-production and know-how switch. What’s at stake is whether or not that shift produces actual Indian functionality or merely relocates meeting traces.
In November 2024, Modi and Meloni unveiled a four-year Joint Strategic Motion Plan, outlining initiatives to barter a protection industrial roadmap, discover co-production and co-development alternatives, and improve cooperation in counterterrorism, cybersecurity, and maritime infrastructure.
By the Indian armed forces’ personal projections — cited by Adani Defence on the announcement of its partnership with Leonardo — India would require greater than 1,000 helicopters over the approaching decade. Leonardo, via Adani, is now positioned to provide a big share of that demand — inbuilt India, by Indian employees, with Italian know-how. Leonardo has already established a presence in India via its provides of heavyweight torpedoes to the Indian Navy and is now increasing cooperation with the Coast Guard. Italy can be in discussions to provide coach plane and superior naval weapons and, crucially, to determine native manufacturing traces with full know-how switch.
Supply, nonetheless, is the important query for India. In most previous offers, international companions transferred meeting work whereas retaining the supply code, design rights, and important subsystems that design the actual industrial capability. A real switch would require entry to design documentation, software program supply code, and the manufacturing know-how behind key subsystems. Whether or not Italy will go additional than its predecessors is the query. The 2026 Defence Industrial Roadmap commits either side to co-design and co-development fairly than licensed meeting alone, which indicators a willingness to share extra — although the actual check will probably be what’s written into the contracts, not the communiqués, will in the end decide the success of the settlement.
The co-production frameworks now taking form between Italy and India give that shift institutional type. India has signed analogous agreements with over a dozen companions, together with different European Union nations. What distinguishes the Italian relationship is the best way private rapport on the high, and institutional substance beneath, reinforce each other. The chemistry between Modi and Meloni provided the political will to maneuver shortly. The commercial match between the 2 protection sectors gave it one thing sturdy to construct on. The India-EU Defence and Strategic Partnership, signed in January 2026, lends an extra institutional impetus to the bilateral relationship.
Talks on the finish of April 2026 explicitly framed the commercial partnership inside the Aatmanirbhar Bharat imaginative and prescient, with either side exploring co-production of navy {hardware} and co-development of important applied sciences for India’s coastal protection pressure. Maritime safety emerged as a parallel axis of convergence, with each New Delhi and Rome highlighting enhanced info trade via the Data Fusion Centre – Indian Ocean Area in Gurugram. Throughout Modi’s Could 2026 Rome go to, the 2 elevated relations to a particular partnership — the best they’ve reached — and agreed to collectively design, develop, and produce protection tools. That settlement explicitly targets helicopters, naval platforms, marine armament, and digital warfare. The go to gave a political capstone to what was already constructing on the industrial stage. This co-production structure, with its significantly broader ambitions, has implications for the way each nations strategy protection self-reliance and energy projection.
Why Neither Facet Can Afford To Underestimate This Second
India and Italy’s partnership is now too consequential to depart uncovered to the following controversy. All sides brings one thing the opposite can not simply supply elsewhere, and the price of squandering that once more can be far greater than in 2013.
Italy’s worth to India is particular. As a center energy, Italy can not supply the procurement quantity out there via the US, nor the low costs and simple financing which have lengthy made Russian {hardware} engaging to India. What it presents is precision in naval techniques, underwater warfare, aerospace engineering, and electronics — precisely the place India’s modernization gaps are deepest and the place know-how switch, not mere buy, is the one enduring reply.
India’s worth to Italy is equally structural. India isn’t solely a buyer, however a platform that may soak up Italian know-how, manufacture at scale, and feed Indian-made techniques again into international provide chains. The Italian protection trade, led by Leonardo and Fincantieri, is constructed on strengths in protection electronics, plane, helicopters, naval artillery, and warships. India wants all of it.
The prices of the 2013 to 2021 rupture mustn’t require elaboration, however they bear restating. At exactly the second the Indian Navy’s operational calls for have been rising, given Chinese language naval exercise within the Indian Ocean expanded, the fleet pressed forward with an bold enlargement and modernization program. But, suppliers denied Italy entry to weapons, torpedoes, and important platform upgrades. For the higher a part of a decade, Leonardo remained excluded from one of many world’s fastest-growing protection procurement markets. All of this adopted from a single corrupt transaction. The dangers of a second rupture — whether or not via institutional complacency, bureaucratic attrition, or exterior strain to redirect Italian protection know-how towards India’s strategic rivals — would carry a significantly greater worth, affecting not solely protection procurement however the manufacturing and industrial cooperation already in dialogue.
The broader strategic atmosphere solely reinforces the urgency of nearer coordination. Rising instability throughout the Center East has more and more linked the safety dynamics of the Mediterranean and the Indo-Pacific, fairly than separating them. The identical transport lanes and vitality flows run via each, so {that a} disruption at a chokepoint such because the Suez Canal, the Bab-el-Mandeb, or the Strait of Hormuz is felt without delay in European and Indian ports. For India and Italy particularly — each peninsular buying and selling economies whose vitality imports and exterior commerce transfer overwhelmingly by sea, and infrequently via the exact same corridors — a disruption in a single theater now carries direct strategic penalties for the opposite. It’s exactly on this context that Modi and Meloni have more and more articulated an “Indo-Mediterranean” strategic imaginative and prescient, a framework recognizing the rising linkages between the 2 areas and the necessity for stronger political, financial, and protection coordination throughout them.
The 2 states have already absorbed the price of wasted years. The commercial foundations are actually firmly established, whereas the institutional frameworks have been restored via appreciable effort. What stays is the tougher work of consolidation. India ought to speed up Italian participation in naval modernization and helicopter manufacturing — the place the Adani-Leonardo joint facility already gives an industrial anchor — whereas publishing binding know-how switch standards. It also needs to create a fast-track acquisition lane for strategic companions investing regionally beneath Aatmanirbhar Bharat, with mandated determination timelines giving corporations the planning horizon to commit. It also needs to transfer urgently to operationalize the Data Fusion Centre – Indian Ocean Area maritime safety framework agreed to throughout Modi’s Rome go to. Italy, for its half, ought to decide to transferring important applied sciences in naval artillery and underwater techniques, and formally designate India as a “tier one” industrial accomplice beneath its nationwide protection export framework. Lastly, each governments ought to set up a standing dispute decision channel designed to guard strategic cooperation from particular person procurement controversies. Sturdiness, in different phrases, is an institutional achievement that needs to be engineered intentionally and defended actively. A second rupture, in a extra interconnected and extra contested strategic atmosphere, would value excess of the primary.
Chiara Boldrini holds a Ph.D. from the College of Bologna. Her analysis focuses on worldwide safety and Indian international coverage, and he or she has beforehand been a visiting researcher at the Council for Strategic and Protection Analysis in New Delhi. Her work has appeared in Battle on the Rocks, The Dialog, and 9DASHline.
Gaurav Kumar is a New Delhi-based journalist and researcher related to the United Service Establishment of India, the nation’s oldest protection and strategic affairs assume tank. His work focuses on Indian international coverage, protection, and safety within the Indo-Pacific. A daily opinion columnist for the South China Morning Put up, his writing has additionally appeared in The Indian Specific, Firstpost, Honest Observer, and Small Wars Journal.
Picture: Workplace of the Prime Minister of India through Wikimedia Commons
