After reading this looks like India has its hands full this arms deal can upset more people than we think.
Boeing's dogfight for the 126-combat jet India contract involves half a dozen arms makers across the world. But the first scrape begins at home in the US. When Condoleezza Rice, dubbed the 'warrior princess' in peacenik quarters, offered India both F/A-18 Super Hornets and advanced F-16s, she set off a minor spat between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
(The four other contenders for the deal are Dassault Aviation of France with the Mirage 2000-V, SAAB of Sweden with the JAS-39 Gripen, RAC of Russia with the MiG-29 MRCA and the British-German-Italian-Spanish consortium with the Eurofighter Typhoon. With New Delhi slated to issue its Request for Proposal (RFP) sometime in the next few weeks, you will find a lot of these nationals in New Delhi's swank hotels and bars.)
Boeing and Lockheed, like all American arms makers, share an unusual relationship. They are rivals in a sense, but they also collaborate on many projects, such as the one for the F-22 Raptor Stealth Fighter. The F/A-18 itself is a piecemeal jet âââ‰â¬Å the airframe is made by Boeing IDS and Northrup Grumman, the engine by General Electric and the radar by Hughes. Beneath the veneer of civility and cooperation, US arms companies are only too ready to shoot each other down âââ‰â¬Å without taking aim.
Boeing IDS officials will tell you why the F/A-18 Super Hornet is the best choice for India. It is a twin-engine MRCA, it is an F/A (for fighter/attack), and can be made for navy and air force). It has a long upside life, with orders from US Navy going into 2016 with ever newer technologies. F-16s? It's the end of the road for that fine plane. Even the USAF does not buy them any more, and once the order from the F-16-obsessed Pakistanis is fulfilled, Lockheed will close the assembly line in Texas.
Indian military planners hear all this with karmic elan, knowing that in New Delhi's scheme of things, a RFP today might mean acquisition a decade down the line, if at all. In any case, in the words of one senior IAF official familiar with the activity around MRCA acquisition, Boeing starts at bottom of the pile, for several reasons.
First among them is the famed unreliability of the American political system, as the Pakistanis found to their horror with the supply of F-16s. Then there are legacy issues: the IAF is long used to Russian systems and although its inventory has increasingly grown wider why add American to the mix now? And whatever happened to the indigenous LCA? Most of all can we really afford $ 7 billion for jets that cost around $ 53 billion apiece?
Boeing officials smile benignly at such questions, proffering answers that sound like they are selling large tractors rather than lethal jets that could raze towns and cities some day. They speak of joint manufacturing, using India's talent pool, and above all, interoperability with US systems and forces. They speak of their investments in India, the $ 5 million a year for IISc, the $ 100 million maintenance and training hub in Nagpur. They use the word 'offset' euphemism for investment -- quite often. And of course, there is the subtle hint that they are pulling their weight in getting the US-India nuclear deal through.
In March this year, a group of Indian test pilots was visiting US as part of the increasingly frequent military exchanges between the two countries. Although a visit to Boeing IDS was not on their itinerary, Boeing executives managed to get them to spend a day at St. Louis, where they were given a flight test review of the F/A-18 E/F and a tour of the production facility, besides a briefings on the P-8A. Indian pilots were also walked through the T-45, on which they will begin training on in Pensacola, Florida starting June this year. "The transparency was amazing considering they are non-starters going into this," an airman from the group told TNN.
Remarkably, an Indian media crew from Washington, largely clueless about the business of military purchases or working of combat aircraft, was put through an identical presentation. Boeing officials cheerfully laughed through crashed F/A-18 landings on a simulator ("There goes another $ 53 million!") and suffered shirty questions on American reliability and India's need for expensive arms. "That's for the Indian government to answer," said Dave Scweppe, Director of Boeing's International Business Development. "We are in this for the long haul."
