By Emily Wax

The Washington Post

NEW DELHI -- In the ballroom of a five-star hotel here, executives from Lockheed Martin, the world's biggest arms supplier, threw a candlelight reception one recent night to woo Indian defense experts as their country embarks on a major military shopping spree.

India plans to spend an estimated $100 billion on defense over the next decade to modernize its Soviet-era arsenal. With its growing military footprint, India is steering away from traditional ally Russia, its main weapons supplier, and looking toward the United States to help upgrade its weapons systems and troop gear.

As the world's largest democracy, India is seen as the most dependable U.S. ally. But India's expanding military ambitions, and the U.S. role in selling this nuclear-armed nation more firepower, is starting to worry its neighbors, especially perennial rival Pakistan. India also has ongoing border disputes with another Asian giant, China, which defeated it in a short 1962 war.

"This increase in India's military spending is seen with rising anxiety here in Pakistan," said Hasan-Askari Rizvi, a leading defense analyst in Pakistan, which receives substantial U.S. military assistance in its fight against Taliban insurgents in the country's northwest. "As long as India builds pressure on Pakistan militarily, Pakistan won't move troops to fight the Taliban, period. In the future, there could potentially be a situation like the 1965 war between India and Pakistan, where both used American weapons against each other."

India is pushing the Obama administration to ease the acquisition of U.S. weapons and technology. Already this year, a high-level U.S. government group cleared the way for Lockheed and Boeing to offer India cutting-edge radar technology for fighter jets. At the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman are sponsoring little league baseball teams

About 70 percent of India's military equipment comes from Russia, said Sitanshu Kar, a spokesman for the Indian Defense Ministry. But some Indian officials have complained about the quality and cost of Russian equipment and have advocated a shift to U.S. suppliers.

"We've had a long-standing relationship with Russia. But that's changing now," Kar said.