Editorial: Top gunning for the F-35

NEW DELHI: Earlier this month, President Donald Trump said that the US will sell F-35 stealth fighter jets to India, which would help the nation join the elite club of countries with state-of-the-art stealth fighters, a grouping that includes the US, UK, Japan and Israel.

The announcement is significant for India considered in the backdrop of how our neighbourhood belligerents are amping up their airpower portfolios.

While China is making no bones about its stealth prowess, Pakistan has set its sights on next generation jets, even as India is faced with the dilemma of sticking to its long standing defence ties with Russia or making the quantum leap to bring home the world's most advanced fighter.

It's a multi-dimensional decision as picking up the F-35s has serious geopolitical and financial ramificiations. Priced at a whopping $80-100 million per jet, the F-35 is the second most expensive combat jet after the F-22 Raptor, another US-made fighter that has not been offered for sale to India.

Procuring an F-35 from the US could adversely impact India's The Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) programme for which the government had cleared a sum of Rs 15,000 cr in March 2024.

The AMCA project hopes to provide India with the first prototype of its indigenous 5.5 generation fighter jet by 2028, followed by mass production in 2035. Obviously, there is a defence budget consideration that needs to be kept in mind, before India takes on such a huge gamble.

India also needs to assess its air warfare preparedness, vis-a-vis its squadron strength. Currently, the Indian Air Force operates only 31 squadrons with each squadron assigned 13 aircraft which is much below the sanctioned strength of 42 jets.

The IAF is plagued by its inability to replace its deteriorating Soviet era fleet of MiG 21 aircraft, which has a dismal track record of safety, owing to the numerous accidents. There's also the homemade HAL's Tejas fighter jet which is beset by production delays. For the past two decades, the IAF has banked on its workhorse, the Russian Sukhoi SU-30MKI, while only recently gravitating towards the French Rafale jets to plug the shortfall in fleet.

The depletion is even more pronounced when you consider how China recently showcased its sixth generation J-36 fighter jets while deploying its J-20 stealth jets at airfields in India's line of sight.

Apart from conducting a cost-benefit analysis encompassing the 'off the shelf' price, the technology transfers (an interim purchase of a small number of F-35s would imply we spend a bomb on an aircraft that arrives without the transfer of cutting edge radar and avionics tech to India), life cycle costs, as well as maintennance, India also needs to consider the strategic fallout of leaning on the Americans when it comes to high tech defence equipment.

The primary bone of contention here is India's close defence ties with Russia, which has acted as a deterrent to the US, owing to Washington's reticence to sell its stealth fighters to countries where its technology might be ripped off by political adversaries. Indian political pundits are also of the opinion that the US cannot be trusted as an all weather ally of India given the historic burden of Indo-US ties.

Analysts are quick to point out how the US was the first nation to impose wide ranging sanctions on India in the aftermath of the Pokhran II tests. As a result of that, restrictions on a few select entities remain in force to this day. New Delhi must remember that at the bargaining table, each nation is bent upon guarding its own interests and its turf.