Here is a story:
In 1993, Pakistan Student Association at Georgia Tech decided to take part in the yearly football (soccer) tournament. We got a team together, practiced a fair bit. Result was a 0-7 loss in the first round. Next year, I suggested that we convince Muslim Student Association to field one team where our best players would have a chance to shine & sub-par players like myself could cheer from the sidelines & enjoy the match. A few emotional guys were too high on nationalism. We also went & saw the movie Cool Runnings (about Jamaican sled team in winter olympics); the result was that emotions won over reason. Result: 0-6 loss in the first round. Next year we fielded the first MSA team which went all the way to finals. We had Egyptians, Morroccans, an Emirati, a Turk or two & of course 3 or 4 Pakistanis. It was great to taste victory for a change & see our team win all the matches except the final - that match is a story in itself.
All the nationalists insisting that Pakistan should go alone into Azm are not thinking realistically. Pakistan does not have the economy or the industrial base to go alone. No miracle would create the basis for an entire program out of thin air. As I said in another thread, we got JF-17 right this one time but the lesson is not that we can or should do it alone. The lesson is that we should get into a partnership. Emotional decisions have very high costs. Don't turn JF-17 into Pakistani version of Jamaican team in winter olympics. Concentrate on getting the economy & governance on the right track first. It is not imperative to have an indigenous 5th generation fighter program. We are not India (look at them fumble out of misplaced pride). Suppose Azm becomes a success somehow (probably at great cost). But by creating an island of technological excellence in PAF, would there be off-sets in Pakistan's economy? Would there be a symbiotic ecosystem of technology companies that boost the quality & class of industrial output in general? Or would we have an equivalent of PAC making its own nuts & bolts at (presumably) much higher than market cost? I am not sure that it is doable or desirable to go alone. Security is not the only challenge facing Pakistan. Economy, social indicators (literacy, for example), HDI improvement are equally (if not more) important issues. If Azm does not help with these (by buoying the high tech economy) & instead becomes a drain on precious resources - there is a real chance of that actually - then is it desirable?
I believe that jumping into Azm & missing TFX was a mistake in hind-sight.
I don't think the issue is solely nationalism (re: AZM), but rather, a significant lack of knowledge about nation-building and public policy. The latter requires a different mindset that takes years to develop. The ones at GHQ, AHQ, and NHQ spent years training to be soldiers and decades to be good military leaders. But the development track does
not result in being a good nation-builder because you were never trained or cultured in that area. Our generals did not spend nearly enough time (if any) on how an economy works or the key details of high-tech industry; they operate on a fiscal mindset of, "I have X budget, how do I meet my needs within X?" For a general who's given a budget, that's perfectly fine, but policymakers don't think like that -- they ask, "how do I make X budget become X+1?"
So in terms of TFX and AZM, the PAF will look at it in terms of, "TFX is Western fighter, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions, too expensive, we make our own fighter."
The policymaker will actually get up and ask Turkey, "Okay, thanks for inviting us to the TFX,
how will you make this ITAR-free? How much will you transfer to Pakistan in terms of co-production? What will Pakistan need to provide to contribute to the development of XYZ?" and so on.
To its credit, India has a team of policymakers who'll ask prospective sellers and partners those questions. When we read about it in the media, we're all laughing at the exceedingly high expectations and demands of the Indians. Yet in reality, the OEMs tend to play ball more often than not, at least at some level (e.g., if they won't share the technology, they will invest back into India's key industries as part of an offset. That investment can help a key Indian industry grow and, in turn, that generates ForEx, employment, tax revenue, etc).
Likewise, one might argue, from a
foreign policy standpoint, that it was wiser to take up France's offer to build the Mirage F-1 in Pakistan (under the Sabre II initiative) and co-invest in the Chinese J-10. On one hand, you make the French happy by giving them a bonus on an old fighter (but still a capable jet if given the upgrades, e.g., SOW, ECM, etc). On the other hand, you show the Chinese you'll help them in a high-risk, high-reward project.
When the TFX was at its highest risk (back when the Turks invited us in 2016), we had the potential to reap the highest reward. IMHO it wasn't even a hindsight problem. Anyone with eyes could come to this forum's Turkish section and evaluate what they see from the public reports. The indications of the Turks making solid R&D progress were all there -- however, we had a lot of naysayer noise coming from uncles who were literally contradicting the facts. E.g., Noise = "Turks import Thales kits and assemble them" and the fact = "Aselsan is manufacturing and supplying radars to Thales."
Simply put, the wrong people were allowed to make the wrong decisions at the wrong time. That's our typical Pakistani way.
