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What India's S-400 purchase meant for sanctions
Summary
A retrospective on the Russian missile deal and the US sanctions law that hung over it.
What did India's purchase of the S-400 missile system mean for its ties with Washington? On 5 October 2018, India bought the Russian-made system, a deal that potentially exposed it to US sanctions under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, known as CAATSA.
The law behind the risk
CAATSA is a US federal law that imposed sanctions on Iran, North Korea and Russia. It works by preventing US companies from doing business with sanctioned entities. The Senate passed it on 27 July 2017 by 98 votes to 2, after the House approved it 419 to 3. President Donald Trump signed it on 2 August 2017, though he believed the legislation was seriously flawed.
Why the deal mattered
The purchase placed a Russian defence-industry product at the centre of a possible clash with US sanctions policy. The S-400 deal was part of Russia's defence industry exports, and the sanctions law was the mechanism through which Washington could, potentially, respond to buyers of such systems. India therefore faced a possible penalty for a deal it had chosen to make.
The exposure was framed as a possibility rather than a certainty on 5 October 2018: the sanctions were described as a potential consequence of the purchase.
