- Joined
- Aug 20, 2010
- Messages
- 7,868
- Likes
- 23,312
The F-35 is an offensive asset and it is never a good idea to give Americans the direct control of offensive platforms. There are other reasons as well which we can only estimate based off public information:I get geopolitics
But if we have flirted with USA buy acquiring Globemasters posideons engines for Tejas c130 and chinnoks and others ....why not F35 ...
RIGHT NOW we are outnumbered and outgunned
We need F35 now even forty planes will make Plaaf shit their pantsx
We can't be naked for 15 years Plaaf will be hitting sixth gen by then
And god help us if Pak follow up J10 with J31
- The lead time for F-35s is around 7+ years to free up as around 6 countries ordered it between 2022 and now apart from the pending orders. Poland, Germany, Finland, Romania (finalizing it) and Sweden (rumoured) are leading the race.
- There is no ToT coming to us; spending that much money & not having any form of control is silly.
- You can kiss the Indian strategic autonomy goodbye with the F-35. We are at a geopolitical stage where our rise is seen as a threat to the bipolar world order by the Americans as well as the Chinese. US wants to make India another political version of Japan/Philippines and that is not what we want.
- Transport aircraft are low-value strategic assets despite their importance on troop logistics. Frontline fighters? There the crème de la creme.
So yea, we would rather wait a bit longer and have our own strategic platforms than to panic and buy something that relegates us to another “has-been” power before even reaching the status of a superpower.