Two Words on India's Figher Decision

American-Indian relations certainly don't ride on this decision, but I think India made a mistake from the perspective of their own self-interests in knocking out the American entries in their fighter-buy competition:

India eliminated the U.S. F-18 and F-16 from the competition to sell India 126 jet fighters. The U.S. aircraft lost out, not on technical grounds, but because India believed that America could not be relied on to continue supporting the aircraft if India got into a war (like with Pakistan) that the U.S. did not agree with. India sees the U.S. economic sanctions against India in the late 1990s, after India revealed its nuclear weapons program, as an example of this. India has long accused the U.S. of "tilting" towards Pakistan diplomatically. The two remaining fighters (Rafale and Typhoon) are built in Europe, a region that India sees as more dependable when the chips are down.

Europe is more reliable? I have a one word answer to that: Taiwan:

But if it comes to Hindi-Chini Bang Bang, who is more likely to cave in to Chinese pressure to cut off technical support and weapons and spare parts supply: Sweden, France, the EU, or America? If you wonder, consider who still sells to Taiwan over Chinese objections. And who would be more likely to send their own fighter squadrons to India's aid if it came to war? I'm not saying that India would either want our help or that it would necessarily be in our interests to do so, depending on the circumstances; but just in the theoretical level, the question is easy to answer as well.

This is far more than a fighter plane decision, as important as that is on its own. It is a decision about the shape of India's total defense environment for a generation.

Europe has already largely exited the market for Taiwanese big ticket arms purchases, and America is the last supplier standing. Europe is not nearly as steady as India thinks.

And if India thinks a European supplier would help them in time of war, I have another word: Libya. Just look at the Libya War and see how much air power Europe has scraped together to operate out of European air bases.

India will get high quality planes no matter what choice they make. But India is making this plane decision affected by lingering attitudes from the Cold War era, I think.

Of course, as the Strategypage post notes, perhaps it is about bribery opportunities. Strategic considerations fall away completely if that is the angle.