Ramaswami: ATTACK ON PEACE & SECURITY******************************************************************************************************************* US is exerting pressure on India to completely depend on it for all its defence requirements. It is under US pressure that Indian government has allowed 100 per cent private investment in defence production. It has threatened sanctions when India intended to purchase advanced missile defence system S-400 from Russia. India-US nuclear deal initiated the process for strengthening the defence partnership between the two countries and a slew of defence deals were signed that severely compromise India’s strategic, defence and security interests. COMCASA, LEMOSA are two such examples. Even during the present trip, Trump intends to sell US weapons to India and increase India’s dependency on the US. All these measures are extremely dangerous to the security and sovereignty of our country. Under Trump, US imperialist aggression has intensified, bringing the world closer to nuclear holocaust. The US has withdrawn from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, one of the pillars of global disarmament. The doomsday clock indicating the proximity to man-made catastrophe is at its closest to midnight since its origin in 1947. Trump has also championed a space-based missile defense layer, setting the stage for a dangerous weaponisation of space. The US has brought West Asia to the brink of another catastrophic war by withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal and assassinating Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. It continues to blatantly support Israeli aggression on Palestine and neighbouring countries and is the largest weapons supplier to Saudi Arabia whose war on Yemen has led to one of the worst humanitarian crises of the century. In South East and East Asia, through initiatives such as the Indo-Pacific strategy and the QUAD, the US has been promoting a provocative encirclement of China alongside its trade and technological wars. In Latin America, it has supported and endorsed coups and coup attempts in Bolivia and Venezuela. Consequently, US defense spending has steadily increased since Trump came to power. Today, the US military budget is not only the highest in the world but is more than that of the next 11 countries combined.