There's other examples too: Despite a chilly relationship and very different values, the US and Russia have worked together for two decades on the ISS. The world is littered with current projects or their results that involved significant international cooperation and shared expertise.
The argument that it shouldn't happen, or isn't in countries' best interests, or not with India in this case-- those might be interesting ideas to explore, but that doesn't mean it can't or doesn't happen successfully. Practically no country has independently built all of the technology that it both uses, fully understands, and can now produce on its own. What we're really talking about here is teaching-- teaching another country how to do something. I don't need how teaching necessarily disadvantages the student country. It doesn't replace their own initiative to learn and internalize the material, but it does bootstrap the process.
The problem is there is a big crossover between space tech and missile tech, so you have to see that other country as a very close ally to start that kind of tech transfer.
>There's other examples too: Despite a chilly relationship and very different values, the US and Russia have worked together for two decades on the ISS. The world is littered with current projects or their results that involved significant international cooperation and shared expertise.
All tech they both already had.
> Practically no country has independently built all of the technology that it both uses, fully understands, and can now produce on its own.
That isn't an argument for choosing to transfer a particular technology to a particular country.
>What we're really talking about here is teaching-- teaching another country how to do something. I don't need how teaching necessarily disadvantages the student country. It doesn't replace their own initiative to learn and internalize the material, but it does bootstrap the process.
It makes that tech much more easily spread in an age where the west is already worrying about North Korea/Iran/etc's long range missile programs (which they are collaborating on!, point you, but thats a reason why not to share technology willy nilly, point me).
There's actually tons of knowledge transfer, everything but ITAR. For example, NASA publishes a lot of information in the open, as long as it's not ITAR-restricted.
India would not be dependent on the US if we used some of our expertise to teach them. It doesn't have to a black box that "just works" without any understanding of it. There's also no reason knowledge sharing couldn't take in the context of market economics. The experts that helped India wouldn't be working for free. It also doesn't have to contradict different interests, values, etc.: Vastly different groups can still have some areas of collective self-interest that coincide. India for example is the world's largest Democracy. That alone is a good reason for the US to want to help make them successful and provide to them scientific help that advances their society and thereby assists in their long term stability.
Unrelated: Your profile, "cognitive radio" sounds fascinating!