India's decision to select Dassault Aviation of France to supply 126 Rafale multi-role fighters caps a process that began in 2007 to replace the Indian Air Force's ageing MiG-21s and augment its fleet of Sukhoi 30MKIs. Given the size of the contract — which, at upwards of $10 billion, is the largest defence deal struck by India — the acquisition of the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) was viewed in many quarters as a purchase in which political and strategic considerations would, or even should, play a role. Such a view was bolstered by the fact that each of the six competing aircraft originally short-listed had a lot to offer, the differences between them lying more along the perimeter than in the core. That technical and commercial factors prevailed over extra-contractual considerations became evident when the competition, following a slew of technical tests, was narrowed to two — the Rafale and the Typhoon, produced by a consortium of four European countries. Clearly, the selection process was uninfluenced by the United States administration, which had lobbied hard in favour of Boeing's F/A-18 and Lockheed Martin's F-16, suggesting that the acquisition of either was an important element in forging a closer strategic relationship. The rejection of the U.S.-manufactured aircraft underlined that we had, as one commentator wryly but wrongly noted, “settled for a plane, not a relationship.”
At the same time, it would be naïve to assume that arms purchases, particularly big ticket ones by a large nation such as India, are free from strategic implications or considerations. Indeed, for India, the Rafale acquisition widens its strategic options in a world where multi-polarity is a fact of life. At a more immediate level, the decision to buy the fighters, which has been greeted with unabashed glee in Paris, could provide the leverage for India to hold France to its promise of increasing cooperation across a whole range of areas, but especially in the nuclear and defence fields, including the greater sharing of technology and expertise. Of particular interest to New Delhi, is the question of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) equipment transfers. The Nuclear Suppliers Group reneged on its 2008 bargain with India last year by banning the sale of ENR items but France — a key member of the nuclear cartel — has said it will not be bound by the new restrictions. The French must now be held to their word. As for the IAF, the acquisition of the Rafales may stem, in the near- or medium-term, the problem of the reducing number of squadrons. However, the IAF's long-term combat aircraft requirements will need to be met by developing the promised fifth-generation fighter in cooperation with Russia and overcoming the problems that have delayed the induction of the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft.
Keywords: Dassault Rafale, fighter jet deal, Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft, defence deal, Dassault Aviation, MiG-21, Sukhoi 30MKI, MMRCA, Tejas Light Combat Aircraft, Indian Air Force
Hope this deal will be more technical rather than political based
...which defend the largest democracy of the world
History shows that no war was won with foreign weapons.Our future safety lies in being self relient in this field. But the crux of the problem is that we are technologically far behind . Not enough goes into research . Above all our policies are such that it promotes mediocrity .The best brains are made to flee.For how long can we continue to fight with foreign weapons?
First thing first going by the veiled threats handed out wrapped in diplomatic niceties by America to us post the Indian decision in favor of Rafael, USA is no friend of India, never has and never will be no matter how hard we Indians run behind them with pots of milk and honey. The way American administration and commentators spoke and speak belies any shard of sincerity. Till date India is yet to see any tangible benefits of Indo US Friendship. Thinking of shoving down obsolete fighters who have reached and tipped over in terms of their air frame, flight & upgrade envelopes .Europeans are no better, they proved to be equally bad losers. I guess with their economies down the loo hence the concern of losing this big ticket gravy train. Despite the so called defrosting of relationships America and all other European Democracies have still withheld assistance to India in terms of sales of nuclear technologies and purchases and all other defense related technologies, then on what basis to they claim this feeling of getting molested in the MMRCA race ??? Nothing could have been more demeaning that these democracies doing nothing worthwhile for India despite leaving no stone unturned tome toming their love and pain for the world’s largest democracy post 2008 Bush induced defrosting of cold war hang-up’s . To the west – the taste is in the eating and not advertising I guess. Back up your intent with hard core action which the west has collectively failed to do so so far. To hitch our bandwagon with many fathers in case had we opted for EF-2000 and then in wartime slapped with sanctions by any one single partner in the consortium would be a bad choice for India as the past has shown Europe of doing it. What would we have done then at least with France the past has been quite a fair weather road. French do not let ideology come in the way of doing pure business, and if it is to be so, then where is the problem? Russians have been known to burn bridges at the most inopportune times and being true to their nature they have been doing it with India post the 1990’s and counting. They seriously were never the contenders in this game. I respect the decision of India and it is now time to bargain the hardest for every franc you are going to spend hereafter for the toys you are about to buy and this goes out for our dishonest, corrupt, debouch and depraved media to now close ranks and back your nation come hell or heaven. Our defense blind political leadership has taken a decision which may feed or starve our Air Force with very negative effect if this deal were to break for any reason now, let it go through and let our boys get these capable platforms and do what they are best at. Remember, in the forces there is a sacrosanct saying “It’s never the machine, but the man behind the machine”. Trust Rafael to prove to be a vajra in the able hands of our mighty air force. Let them have it without any delay, they deserve it.Let one and all understand if you do not know how to bow before the need of feeling secure for a nation of a billion democratic people, then you better learn to bow before the colors of money, either way pick and choose your cake or pie. It’s no more those days when head’s you won, tails I lost and the Dollar and Euro belonged to your grand dad. Accept and respect.
"comment to mr. udayan's statement"
sir, defending our country is more of a priority than poverty. What is the use of talking about poverty when a country is unable to curb its internal and external tensions leading to failed states like somalia and other african countries. Considering the uncertainity prevailing in india's backyard with two nuclear armed adversaries, it is inevitable to buy into such big budget defence deals. Also considering india's growing economy (3rd largest in asia) such deals are justifiable.
I am glad India did not choose outdated F-15 Eagles or F-16 Falcons or F/A-18 Super Hornets or even worse the Russian MIG-29s. Rafale most probably outclasses all these mentioned probably in every aspect incl. latest avionics, maneuvariblity etc etc. But it may not match the prowess of a EF-2000 (Eurofighter) or an F-35 Lightning. But good decision overall by India. It should make sure that France cuts of all advanced technologies to Pakistan and China both. Eurofighter 2000 probably has more baggage that comes with it and complications because of the number of countries involved. Good choice India but make sure to hold France tight on suspending arms transfers to states that are inimical to Indian national interests.
The kind of geaography our country has, with China at one side and Pakistan at the other, it makes sense to keep our forces ready at any point of time (agreed that we protect our country and not attack by choice). Technology upgradation is not just required to scare off enemy,( which would anyways is not a possibility looking at the progress China has made and the fact that it has communist government, large reserves to spend and public voice does not contain much weight)it will also provide immunity to our soldiers. More technical edge our soldiers have over any intruders, lesser is the risk involved to their life. And afterall a country is made by its people only, and their life is of utmost importance. And as already mentioned, the expenditure on such venture contributes b/w 2-3% of our GDP and will effect other sectors development either.
We spend a huge chunk of money on defence. But if we don't spend that
chunk on defence, we may loose a chunk of our motherland...
However, we should aggressively go forward in direction of being self
reliant for defence..
The IAF must have indicated that they would be comfortable with either of the finalists. The next major factor would be price. The last but not the least consideration is strategic and political. This is neither the first nor the last in India's defence procurements. Those who plan to market their products to India must plan on long term relations than short term gains.
@K VijayKumar and Vdayan, Do not blame defence spending for poverty. It is corrption,vote-bank oriented and politically motivated development planning which is responsible for Illiteracy and poverty.If you have a look at the total amount we claim to have spent on poverty alleviation, povery would have disappeared by now.India spends far less in terms of share of its GDP on defence compared with its neigbhours.If you plan to invest this $10 billion on education, what amount you plan to spend on educating China and Pakistan to see the futulity of an overt or covert war ? It takes only one side to start a war but two or more to fight.India needs to protect its economic growth lines. This is a premium that we have to pay to avoid a war while we try to eradicate corruption and force political leaders to change their thinking.
Air Chief had hoped that the deal would have been finalised in Nov 2011 itself accordin to reports. MOD has to be congratulated that the delay in announcing the results of the bid is not extraordinary considering the snail paced the observed norms of bureaucracy. Hope this announcement will be followed by actual commencement of Manufacture bny Dussalt soonest. It is in the interest of India we should reduce our dependence on Russia and look West for our advanced weapon platforms. It was promised in 2001 that LCA would be manufactured in squadron strengths in a decade i.e by 2010 , yet we hear only sporadic reports of the Tejas passing this test or that. Govt/MOD cannot go on shifting the goal post. Here too we must hold the ADA and MOD to their word.
@Vijayakumar, @Udayan
You cannot just feed in the people by giving them free bread. What they need is livelyhood... our country needs more jobs.. means more industry.. DRDO, HAL etc are trying hard to create state of the art technology to build aircrafts, ships and weapon systems indegenously. A deal like MMRCA with such huge technology transfer and excahnge with such top level foreign companies would help them realize this dream of creating our own strong defense industry. Just imagine if India turns from a defense importer (70% imports at present) to an export regime, then our defense industry would be the biggest industrial sector in our country, even bigger than our Automotive industry. Coming back to Rafale deal, we have put a clause of reinvesting the 50% of the deal back in indian defense industry. That means the money what we spend on this deal will come back to our own people only with more jobs in our country. we cannot make our society impotent forever by feeding free meals!
A very well written article.
I am surprised by a few comments mentioned above. As has been rightly
mentioned by Tilopa India's budgetary spend on defense is on lower
side as compared to either the developed or developing economies. Both
Pakistan and China have higher budgetary allocations and India can't
afford to maintain it's minimum deterrence levels in the conventional
warfare arena without even spending this much.
Let's also not forget the huge spends and premium pricing India had to
incur during the Kargil conflict due to ad-hoc purchases of critical equipment. It's better to be augment our forces during time of relative peace.
@Amrit: India is already investing a sizable amount into R&D. But generally such investment is not advisable unless we are planning to produce that particular weapon system in large quantities. As it is we are already developing our own fighter plane - Tejas, but the development cycle is quite lengthy.
Tilopa, I am sure, knows that GDP is not the money available to the government for public spending. The relevant figure in the argument is the defence expenditure as a percentage of total government revenues.
@Amrit Juneja: Please do not compare the cost of the WAR head with domestic use Jet planes costing between 200-400 crores. These planes also contain small missiles and other combat weapons of mass destruction. It includes the cost of all these weapons with the fighter planes.Again this deal affect us politically internationally with France being supportive to India's strategic needs.
Being a layman, i do not know the actual costs incurred in commissioning
a fighter jet neither do i know the details of the contract in question
(whether it contains a maintenance clause, etc.) but on doing the math,
its clear that one Rafale costs 430 crore rupees!! Now that is a lot of
money for an airplane! I bet even a fraction of this 54000 crore spent
on R&D would do wonders to develop our defence capabilities.
Better sense prevailed eventually. Rafale is a true omni-role fighter available in the market. Rafale holds it's own when pitted against typhoon, so no need to worry about it's credentials as a better air to air platform.It has got a truly amazing offensive as well as defensive gear to perform any kind of mission in adverse conditions. Rafale marine version can well find it's way in to our future aircraft carriers thereby beefing the naval muscle. Very happy to see rafale in iaf colours.
@K.Vijayakumar: The defense budget of the Republic of India stands at $36.03 bn and it is just 2.5% of the GDP. Given the situation of india it is not really big.India still refrains from spending too much on defense unlike other countries. So the military budget will unlikely affect other sections of the economy.
Medias and defence experts term this deal as one of the biggest defence of country so far and succefful bidder overpassed traditional Russian and modern USA fighters. When we go through the deal amount emanates lot of questions in comman man mind. MIGs are popular for crash and when ever try to fly immediately hits the ground with less occasion not taking any lives. PM should form an expert committee to overlook any kind of bribe, kickback or any kind of compromise approach adopted in this deal to clear all kind of scams and kickbacks. This is an big ticket deal and amount involves raises eyebrow of citizen of this country that someone got some amount of bribe from this deal. Such news appears in later years take all the measures to clean up and prove that maintained transparency and accountability in each and evey stage of biddign process to picking the right bidder to supply fighter. Another thing is are we going to use these fightes or just to showcase world that we also streghten
The deal goes to Rafale as it turn out to be one of the best as compared to all competitors,though critics don't think that.but deal also has some politico-strategic dimension and India already have mirage2000, so we have good idea of France's post deal behavior compared to European union's for typhoon.this is the first abroad deal for rafale. as of now, it has been used exclusively by France.there is no wonder that due to this deal European union get some jitters and startetd criticizing deal.we as Indian can only hope that it might prove vital to India's air defense....
Apt title,clean article.Liked this line "The rejection of the U.S.-manufactured aircraft underlined that we had, as one commentator wryly but wrongly noted, “settled for a plane, not a relationship.”
Your editorial and also the article by Mr.Dixit provide a detailed account of strategic implications of Rafale deal and the potential benefits that would accure to India in the fields of nuclear engineering, missile development, avionics and intelligence gathering. The fact that there were many contenders for this deal and Dassault could win the contract suggest that Indian Government, particularly MOD, is able to overcome pressures from USA and Russia and only technical and price considerations have played a role in finalizing the order. We sincerely hope that the selection process is fair and transparent and the ugly head of "scam" will not raise its head as many a good deal is in cold storage due to opaque selection process.
This $ 10 billion -- couldn't it have been used to develop the nation's woeful infrastructure? In my impressionable years, newspapers I grew up reading (hmm?) used to frequently display "guns versus butter" charts showing how many poor children could be vaccinated for the price of one squadron of fighter planes; or how many hundred thousand homes could be given free electricity for the price of one aircraft carrier, and so on.And now The Hindu is going the way of its dumber competitors in making music for the politicians, bureaucrats, generals and brokers who benefit from these deals. It is time you started asking the right questions again. We the people are so alone now.
During trials for short listing a weapon there are no other considerations except the GSQR laid down by the Service HQ. All those which meet the GSQR are short listed. This is the job of the Service Trial Team and the W E directorate.
Next comes the selection of the best ( on various laid down parameters comprising strategic, political, economical etc). This is the job of of the MoD. The two distinct phases are never mixed.
The opinion makers and knowledgable people in the country in general never question the huge capital expenditure incurred by the government in the purchase of military equipment from time to time. Is this "holy cow" treatment given to defence expenditure justifiable in a country where a large section of the people goes to bed on empty stomach? A national debate on this matter is called for.
the editorial adheres to the golden standards of Hindu. Succinctly written and well researched. When are you guys planning to have a Mumbai publication ,would want my next generation to read a good newspaper.
The Rafale won because it was the lowest priced. It is no secret that
the Eurofigher performed better on all the tests carried out by the
IAF. The country must decide whether it needs to focus on quality for
this bid, or whether cost concerns are more important given the
eventual induction of technologically superior fifth-gen fighters in
future anyway. There may also be other concerns regarding the Transfer
of Technology agreements and clauses, along with France's role as a
nuclear fuel supplier, given the iron-clad assurances it gave us on
the NSG waiver. Also, as a word of caution to the Indian Defence
Ministry and to the IAF, I would suggest circumspection in dealing
with the Russians in the matter of fifth-gen fighters, given the
latter's habitual reneging on price and contractual terms, and the
interminable delays witnessed with the Gorshkov/Vikramaditya handover
and deployment. It has left a very bad taste in the mouths of both
Indian Defence Ministry mandarins and the Air Force
Hindu Editorial, has been opposing nuclear cooperation with the west. Today I was surprised to find the suggestion about holding France to its word on nuclear cooperation. "The Nuclear Suppliers Group reneged on its 2008 bargain with India last year by banning the sale of ENR items but France — a key member of the nuclear cartel — has said it will not be bound by the new restrictions. The French must now be held to their word."
As a layman, I do not know how the Rafale compares with the EuroFighter technically. Howerver, the deal for the purchase of Rafale aircraft may provide India with access to wider cooperation with France as you have pointed out. France has supported India on numerous occasions in the past and has proven to be a reliable partner. These are important considerations for India. Moreover, the country's biggest adverseries are China and Pakistan and the Rafale is in all probability superior to the fighters that they possess even if the EuroFighter is a better fighter as some reports suggest. Therefore, the purchase of the Rafale is likey to play a major role in detering them from making any adventuous moves against India. In the long run, it would be wise for India to design and build it's own fighters.
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