No one is friend there is nothing like friends in this world. Only friend of india is bhutan. And Mauritius and Israel but no one else. Be practical.
Everyone have just gains india will think how much to milk us they will think the same.
No one is friend. No one.
Everyone thing is for interest.
If we would have ever thought Americans or xyz as a friend then we would have allowed them to build a military base and place there missiles. But it's not going to happen. For me there is only one thing national interest.
(India is quite proud of their nonaligned policy status. They view this discussion about the AS-400 as a policy issue and not a technical tactical and a technical one. So - US-indo pacific command chief.)
You misunderstand what I am saying, just because we buy American equipment doesn't make us stooges to their will. I have never said we shouldn't buy from France or Russia.
IAF buying the C-17, C-130J, Apache Block 3, Chinooks, soon NASAMS-2. IA the M-777, IN the MH-64R along with the P-8I were never transactional and certainly not some quid pro quo. These were contracts given out based on strategic and tactical needs. Pure and Simple. IAF felt a long need for strategic airlifter (C-17 at that time was the only proven, reliable and heavy duty airlifter that could carry shot tons of weight out to far flung corners of the country, thus helping in rapid mobility). Chinooks (won a competitive tender), C-130Js full-fill a key role of maintaining some of the most important strategic locations. Rapid mobility was one of the key lessons learned from Op Parakram. M777 will rain down destruction on the front line specially with the New mountain corps. P-8I was acquired as replacement for the Tu-142M for long range recon, anti sub and anti ship capabilities. These are platforms meant to support a war effort and no one including the US will stop us from using these platforms. These are guarantees the forces have, if you really think India is going to pay out billions and won't be able to use this kit in a war, then you have little faith in the services or the MOD or PMO.
You can't call Israel a friend and then vote against them with Unwashed Abduls (Palestinians and Iranians). Do mean to say Russia isn't our friend or even France? Off course, they are our friends, we have had cordials relations with them for decades. US just happens to be the newest friend on the block. Israel gets existential help from the US and have deep strategic friendship. Which means, we will have common friends. We can agree on many things while not agreeing on others.
There is an old saying 'trust but Verify' that has always been the attitude of the Services when it comes to such deals whether it be with US, France, Russia or Israel. All deals in the past be it with France, Russia or US have had issues and pain points. Some have a taken several years to fix. The Mig-21s, 23s, 27s, 25s, 29s, MKI, T-90 all deals had issues including TOT, spares availability, quality, etc. Plenty of issues with Scorpene deal. Jaguars too had many issues early on. Mirages were better deals because they were more of less off the shelf purchases. The lessons so far is that while TOT is nice to have, the more complex the deal the more complex the execution and the more difficult it becomes to have reliable capability on the ground. Between crony capitalists, corrupt babudom and inefficient MOD/PSUs the forces end up operating equipment that is decades out of date.
However, so far the US products have shown the good availability, reliability among our fleet of C-130Js, C-17s, P-8I. Due to the vast scale of US MIC, our forces benefit with decent after sales. While open points remain for offset obligations, these are being resolved on a case by case basis. MOD or the forces have taken a slow and sure approach towards buying US equipment. It took several years of work on the ground to establish a lot of things. We didn't rush to sign any agreements, including CISMOA, BECA, LSA etc. These were done after careful and close negotiations. The US relations will stabilize and be enhanced further. They have shown keen interest in the SSBN program, so instead of 2 we get 3 competitors. I am open for open competition and may the best deal win.
For MRCA both EF and Rafale were the finalists and they were clearly better, MRCA-2 is a waste of time, Rafale should be acquired atleast 5 sqds ideally off the shelf with not too much dire need for TOT, as long as the aircraft can be reliably maintain and operated with critical spares being made in India. Same goes for Scorpenes, we only a couple of years ago ironed out all the TOT related issues and the line can be kept going by ordered another 6. P-75 is another waste of time
https://www.business-standard.com/a...mos-for-defence-dr-bhamre-119021200361_1.html
https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...y-along-china-border/articleshow/71108992.cms
https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...g-nuclear-submarines/articleshow/49131287.cms
Just as we went ahead with S-400 and we can manage US through talks. A lot of background discussion keeps happening everyday and if you believe that there isn't a huge amount of time and effort being put to negotiate deals, terms, agreements with all our major trading partners including US, France, Russia, etc then you are being very naïve.
Even signing of COMCASA or any other agreement doesn't automatically mean we will blindly put specialized US kit of all US platforms, nor should we.
We could avoid all this nonsense and just buy Indian and/or export Indian. Actually we don't need Rafale or SH for IN, if LCA mk-2 Navy can be delivered by 2027 and we think forward and already work on AMCA-Navy for 2030 and beyond.
