Rahul Bedi 
Chandigarh: Donald Trump’s comeback to the US presidency has spawned optimistic speculation in Indian security and defence circles – that a line is likely to be drawn by his incoming administration under the disquieting issue regarding the Modi government’s alleged involvement in Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Pannun’s planned assassination in New York last year.
But a cross section of senior military veterans and analysts believe that any US willingness to help Modi bury l’affaire Pannun could come at a heavy price under Trump, which they anticipate may well be the $25-billion purchase of 114 US fighters by the Indian Air Force (IAF) as part of its long-pending Multi Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) requirement.
“The MRFA is needed as of yesterday,” Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh had declared last month in his annual presser, highlighting the criticality of timely platform procurements to sustain the IAFs operational readiness by boosting its fighter squadron numbers that had declined to 29-30 from a sanctioned strength of 42 squadrons. This former number will reduce further imminently, after the IAF’s two remaining ground attack MiG-21’Bison’ squadrons, comprising 40 legacy platforms, are number-plated or decommissioned next year.
Three US-origin combat aircraft are amongst eight overseas fighters potentially vying for the IAF’s MRFA buy. Analysts are of the view that the inbound Trump administration could possibly use the political leverage it clearly has over Delhi to acquire one such fighter type as an undeclared form of ‘blood money’ for Washington to diplomatically entomb the Pannun dispute. To be sure, legal proceedings on the Pannun case would continue in a New York court but care would then be taken to firewall the Indian establishment and its senior officials and leaders from embarrassing allegations of involvement.
The 78-year-old president-designate fancies himself as a master negotiator, capable of deploying his business acumen into the world of politics and diplomacy, especially by taking advantage of potentially profitable, but questionable, deals, including those involving allies.
In official circles in Delhi, Trump’s return to the White House is widely viewed as a boost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP-led government that has faced a certain amount of unwelcome scrutiny from the Biden administration and Democratic lawmakers for avidly propagating Hindu nationalist policies domestically, and more, recently, allegedly planning and executing extra-judicial killings in the US and Canada.
A recent Bloomberg analysis of which world leaders would profit or lose from Trump’s return, anticipated that Modi would agree to deals with Washington, without the ‘finger wagging’ he has had to recently endure. It also goes on to state that a Trump presidency may not support Canada’s push to hold the Indian government accountable for the killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Nijjar in British Columbia last June. Trump’s animosity towards and disdain for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is well known.
Other diplomatic and policy analysts in Delhi suggest that, for assorted security, strategic and commercial considerations, and in consonance with Trump’s personal equation with Modi, Washington’s new administration would summarily move towards concluding the Pannun affair, albeit gainfully, perhaps in exchange for US fighters for the IAF.
No serving or retired Indian military or security official, or diplomat, was willing to be named in commenting on such a sensitive and speculative matter, but many privately conceded that such a ‘trade-off’ could ensue, given Trump’s widely acknowledged ‘transactional’ propensities. “Trump is a typical businessman, forever looking to leverage his advantage for profit,” said a retired three-star IAF officer. It’s quite conceivable that Trump, along with his like-minded cabinet, could foresee a ‘ripe deal’ in settling the Pannun matter to suit a panicked Indian government, by manoeuvring it to their pecuniary benefit.
But what, after all, is the putative MRFA procurement, who are the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) competing for it and how favourably does the US line up in this race?
Delays in inducting some 180 variants of the indigenously developed Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) to replace legacy fighters like the MiG-21’s and 100-115 ageing SEPECAT Jaguars has prompted the MRFA acquisition, the request for proposal (RfP) or tender for which is likely to be dispatched sometime in 2025 or early the following year. In his October presser, ACM Singh had declared that if the under development advanced LCA- Mk2 and the MRFA purchase progress as planned, the IAF could conceivably deploy 36 fighter squadrons over the next decade.
The MRFA procurement envisages importing a squadron of 18 fighters in flyaway condition from a shortlisted OEM, six of whom responded to the IAFs April 2019 request for information (RfI) offering eight fighter types. The remaining 96 platforms would be built indigenously, via a collaborative venture between the qualified OEM and a domestic strategic partner (SP) from either the private or public sector, with progressively enhanced levels of indigenisation in a deal, currently estimated at around $25 billion.
The OEMs who responded to the RfI include Dassault (Rafale), Eurofighter (Typhoon), Sweden’s Saab (Gripen-E), Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation and Sukhoi Corporation (MiG-35 ‘Fulcrum-F’ and Su-35 ‘Flanker-E’ respectively) and the US’s Boeing and Lockheed Martin (F/A-18E/F ‘Super Hornet’ and F-15EX ‘Eagle’ II and the F-21, principally an upgraded F-16 derivative, configured specially for the IAF).
In view of Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, evaluating the two fuel-intensive Russian fighters for eventual IAF acquisition was, according to senior officers ‘ totally irrational’, considering the grave spares and components crisis the force is facing with regard to its fleet of 259 multi-role Sukhoi-30 MKI’s and some 60 MiG-29UPG fighter-bombers.
“Delhi’s druzhba or friendship with Moscow, which sustained prodigious bilateral military commerce between the two, worth over $70 billion over nearly six decades, seems to have more-or-less run its course,” said former MoD acquisitions advisor Amit Cowshish. The materiel road for India, he added, now leads to Western vendors and towards fast-tracking ‘atmanirbharta‘ to indigenously develop weapon systems and platforms, or to a practical blend of the two, underscored by technology transfers.
The Typhoon had been rejected earlier during trials conducted 2010 onwards for the IAFs binned Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) contract floated in 2007, as were the Gripen-E and the US’s F-18 and the F-16 – the precursor to the F-21 – on multiple operational capability counts. Moreover, the Gripen-E and the F-21 were single-engine platforms, and though the MRFA RfI had not specified any preference for fighters with single or dual power packs, the IAFs intrinsic preference for the latter remains unstated. And though the OEM’s claimed that their platforms had since been equipped with newer and more advanced technologies and weaponry, the IAF, it seems, remained unimpressed.
Vajraang formation comprising of a C 130 Super Hercules transport aircraft in the centre flanked by two Rafale multirole fighters on either side on Republic Day, January 26, 2023. Photo: PIB
The Rafale, on the other hand, is favourably placed in the MRFA sweepstakes, due not only to its operational superiority over its competitors, as acknowledged by the IAF but more recently by the Indian Navy (N), that is negotiating the purchase of 26 Rafale-M (Maritime) fighters for deployment aboard INS Vikrant, India’s indigenously built aircraft carrier. Dassault had also recently secured clearance to establish a fully self-owned maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility near Jewar International airport in Uttar Pradesh to support not just the IAFs fleet of some-50-odd Mirage 2000Hs fighters and eventually 62 Rafales, including 26 of the IN, but also the 42 Rafale’ operated by the Indonesian Air Force, thereby enhancing its MRFA acceptability.
Once the purchase of 26 Rafale-Ms by the IN is completed, the Indian military would have an aggregate of 62 of these French fighters in its inventory. “Adding to these numbers makes eminent commercial, logistical and operational sense”, said military analyst Air Marshal V K ‘Jimmy’ Bhatia (retd). Besides, acquiring supplementary Rafales under the MRFA purchase, he added would also streamline the IAFs diverse fighter catalogue, which currently features seven different aircraft types, sustaining all of which was not only an enduring logistical challenge, but also a hugely expensive affair for the financially overstretched force.
But despite these obvious advantages favouring the Rafale, a slew of recent media reports, quoting unnamed official sources, ruled the French fighter out of the MRFA contest. These stated that the government wanted to ‘play safe’ by pursuing a ‘non-controversial path’ in executing the MRFA buy, since the IAFs 2016 purchase of 36 Dassault Rafale’s for around Rs 59,000 crore via a government-to-government deal, had become hugely contentious and a major parliamentary election issue in the 2019 polls. Allegations of wrongdoing in this purchase had also featured in the Supreme Court, where matters of national security were, perforce, made public, these reports claimed.
Moreover, these media accounts quoted unidentified defence officials as stating that even in the event of the Rafale being shortlisted as the IAFs MRFA choice, Dassault would be unable to supply the platforms for at least 10 years due to pending orders from various other countries. Such delays, the reports added, would undermine the MRFA programme’s urgency in making up IAF fighter squadron numbers swiftly, adversely impacting Rafale’s chances in the MRFA contest.
Hence, this process of elimination leaves only Boeing’s twin-engine F-15EX Eagle II all-weather multirole 4.5 generation fighter in the fray. Derived from the erstwhile McDonnell Douglas F-15E ‘Strike Eagle’ model dating back to the mid-1980s, the upgraded Eagle II conducted its first flight in 2021 and become operational in June 2024 with the US Air Force that, so far, has placed an order for 104 units.
Trump’s possible ‘aircraft-for-Pannun’ gambit would eventually depend on the culpability levels of India’s security establishment in the Sikh activist’s intended killing, and the credibility of its denials which, so far, has been somewhat questionable. If so, it’s conceivable that Trump’s scheme could prevail and perhaps lead to the IAF spending $25 billion to acquire a US-origin fighter.