NEW DELHI, 30 March 2005 — Publicly disappointed by the impending US sale of F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, India is privately buoyed by Washington’s offer to improve military cooperation and help it become a “major world power”, analysts say. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been circumspect in his reaction to Washington’s offer to discuss defense transformation with India and assist it “become a major world power in the 21st century”. “As far as India is concerned, there is an offer. But the terms and conditions, we do not know. It is premature for me to say. We will discuss with (Washington),” Singh said late Monday.
Analysts, however, said Washington’s statement marked a historical shift in its relations with India and that its significance is not lost on the leadership in New Delhi. “Even India, with a long tradition of making foreign-policy self-goals, will find it hard to say ‘no’ to the extraordinary offer the Bush administration has put on the table — a promise to assist it in becoming a world power in return for resumption of arms sales to Pakistan,” political commentator C. Raja Mohan said. “As India finds itself at a critical moment in its recent effort to transform its security situation and alter its global standing, it will be compelled to take a long hard look at the US proposals,” Mohan wrote in an article for the Indian Express newspaper.
The US proposal came even as it announced plans to beef up the military of New Delhi’s nuclear rival, Pakistan, by selling it an undetermined number of sophisticated F-16 combat planes. In his official reaction to the sale of jets to Islamabad, Singh expressed “great disappointment”, saying the decision could have “negative consequences for India’s security environment”. But Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee welcomed the US offer to boost New Delhi’s missile defense and other security initiatives, including the sale of military equipment.
“Naturally, we will discuss them (the proposals) and if military aircraft and other weapons, needed for our national interest, are available from the US, we will certainly consider them,” Mukherjee said.
A US official said Washington was prepared to “respond positively” regarding the sale to India of the next generation of F-18 combat aircraft, and the more fundamental issue of defense transformation. This would include areas such as command and control, early warning and missile defense. Mohan, meanwhile, did not believe the sale of the jets would spark a regional arms race. “Today, no one in India can credibly argue that additional F-16s in Pakistan’s hands will alter the military balance in South Asia,” he said.
The Hindustan Times newspaper said the US decision to sell F-16s to Pakistan had in any case been an “open secret” for more than a year and in fact posed no real threat to India’s security as the Sukhoi 30 fighter jets it has in its fleet are superior to the F-16s. India’s air force, however said it would have to fully investigate what Washington is offering before being in a position to decide if it indeed wants F-16 and F-18 jets. “The IAF (Indian Air Force) will have to see the cost benefits, technology as well as after-sales dependability in the spares supply chain,” a top air force official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
He said the IAF was in contact with a number of potential suppliers, including Russia’s Mikoyan-Gurevich, French military aviation firm Dassault and Saab, a British-Swedish consortium, in its efforts to acquire 126 war jets to bolster its fleet by five squadrons from its current 34 in the next 15 years. Lockheed Martin, which makes the F-16s and F-18s, had become merely a “fourth vendor”.
“We have to choose between the Mirage-2000 5 and MiG-29K, which we are already flying, the unfamiliar Grippen of Saab and the F-16s which Pakistan is getting,” the IAF official said.
N.C. Sareen, a former IAF chief, warned that “Americans are like camels who like to sit next to you if they get upset and so one has to secure counter-guarantees of 15 years of spare parts supply before clinching a big-ticket deal like the F-16s.”
India was a Cold War ally of the Soviet Union and maintains close ties with Iran, which the United States accuses of developing nuclear weapons and supporting Middle Eastern extremist groups. The IAF, the world’s fourth largest air force, is saddled with hundreds of ageing MiG-21s which crash with such great frequency that the Russian-built aircraft have earned the sobriquet of “flying coffins.”
