By Prof Satya Narayan Misra
Heisenberg, the doyen of quantum physics, postulated in 1927 that it is impossible to simultaneously know the exact position and momentum of a particle with infinite precision.
Nearly a century later, economists, strategists, and political leaders are getting reminded of that uncertainty principle: wondering how Trump, the unguided missile, pans out in position, direction, and momentum even after taking charge as the 47th President on the cold blustery forecourts of the White House.
Trump is well aware, of how the rise of global leaders like Putin and Xi Jinping has already roiled the international landscape, challenging the US standing as the global hegemon. However, the US is aware that it is the global hegemony accounting for 26 percent of global GDP, 40 percent of global military expenditure (as per SIPRI), and 60 percent of military R& D expenditure, giving the primacy in the design and development of state-of-the-art technology, both in civil and military segments. Trump is aware that the US has a head start in areas like stealth fighter aircraft, where India had a design and development contract with Russia for a FGFA way back in 2010, which has now been shelved.
Trump has offered to Modi its F-35 stealth aircraft during his visit to the US in February this year.
India-Russia-US defence cooperation conundrum
It is interesting to see how the India-US defence cooperation is going forward, seemingly with speed but then there are hiccups.
While it is natural to expect that India, as the world’s largest democracy, would have found a natural ally in the USA, being the oldest and most powerful democracy, Jawaharlal Nehru did not give in to the US overtures to become a military alliance partner in the now defunct Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) formed in 1954 to contain China in Asia. Instead, Pakistan became a trusted US military partner.
Taken by surprise by the Chinese attack in 1962, the pacifist in Nehru extended a hand to his ideological ally Nikita Khrushchev, the erstwhile USSR PM, for the production of MIG-21 fighter aircraft through the technology transfer route. The Sixties segued into the Seventies when India understood the chicanery of Nixon in sending the Seventh Fleet to scare India in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War against Pakistan in 1971, little realising, how Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi found a trusted ally in Leonid Brezhnev ready to retaliate against the US threat through its aircraft carrier fleet.
The USSR stood rock-solid behind New Delhi in the UN by exercising a veto in favour of India. The 1971 Indo-Soviet agreement was a watershed moment for both countries when they became strategic partners. India’s military industry complex produced tanks, frigates, missiles, and fighter aircraft under the rubric of the Indo-Soviet Strategic Partnership architecture.
In May 1974, when India conducted its Peaceful Nuclear explosion (PNE), America continued with a contrite approach towards India by imposing sanctions.
Light Combat Aircraft
It is not commonly known that one of the indigenous programmes, Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), which was to replace the ageing MIG-21 aircraft, was hugely affected as Marconi Marine and Optical Company (MMOC), an American company, reneged from its commitment to developing the flight control system (FCS).
It was thanks to the dynamic leadership of aerospace scientist and former President APJ Abdul Kalam and the perseverance of Kota Hari Narayan, the then Programme Director of Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), that the FCS was successfully designed and developed in India.
The transfer of technology (ToT) for the MIG-21 was followed by technology transfer for producing T-72 tanks in India in the 1970s followed by its upgraded version, the T-90, of which we have produced around 1,000 tanks.
In the fourth-generation fighter aircraft segment, we inked a major licence agreement to produce SU-30 aircraft in India. So far, there are around 250 such aircraft, designated Su-30 MKI, and they are capable of firing a range of precision missiles as well as the 290-km range BrahMos, which flies at three times the speed of sound.
The air-launched variant of BrahMos has effectively been used against Pakistan recently against a dozen targets.
Su-30 and BrahMos, produced in India under ToT from Russia, are much cheaper to produce, and are comparable to US or European systems.
Stealth aircraft and the evolving contours
India has been looking for a design, development and production contract for a stealth aircraft and discussion gained momentum with the Russian Design Bureau with HAL, the Indian defence public sector undertaking in 2007. In terms of technology, the stealth aircraft enables it to avoid detection by enemy radar substantially by its highly faceted angular airframe which deflects radar waves and uses radar absorbent material on the surface, internal weapon bays, engine design to reduce infra-red signatures and low radar cross section.
It was the Russian physicist Pyotr Ufimtsev who propounded the theory for stealth aircraft in 1960s, saying it was the shape rather than the size that defined stealth properties but it was the US that pioneered the technology, and flew a stealth aircraft in 1977.
Russia followed in 2000, and China in 2011.
India’s quest for design and development partnership with Russia was formally sealed when a Preliminary Design (PD) contract was signed in 2010, with each country putting in $295 million. The Russians recognised that they can profit from India’s design and development (D&D) capability in electronic warfare (EW) systems, while India was looking for ToT stealth technology. Under the PD contract, Indian engineers underwent 20 training courses in Russia.
Unfortunately, India withdrew from the project in 2018 due to cost and ToT concerns.
Interestingly, Russia flew its SU-57 E stealth aircraft at the recent Aero India 2025 show in Bengaluru and invited India again to rejoin the project in this critical segment.
India signed a similar contract with Israel for developing medium range surface-to-air missile (MRSAM) in collaboration with Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), and these are being produced indigenously since 2023. Notably, these MRSAMs have also been used effectively against Pakistani military targets after Islamabad escalated India’s war on its terrorists initiated on May 7.
The US offer of F-35
There is now a sea change in US approach to defence collaboration with India, notwithstanding with its earlier reluctance to part with critical technology. It’s now about TRUST (Transforming the Relationship Utilising Strategic Technology), COMPACT (Catalysing Opportunities for Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce and Technology for the 21st century) and ASIA (Autonomous Systems Industry Alliance).
This process of openness was shared with full gusto when former US President Barack Obama urged India to buy its Lockheed Martin F-16 or Boeing F-18 Super Hornet, offering their ToT as well as that of Raytheon’s AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array Radar).
India had floated a tender for 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA). Both the US and Russia were understandably miffed when India opted to buy the Rafale from France’s Dassault as the IAF was keener to take a variant of Mirage, of which they have 55 in their inventory.
Recently, PresidentTrump said, “We are paving the way to provide India with F-35 stealth fighters.”
While Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said that a process will be followed towards a final selection, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had the last word when he said, “As strategic and trusted partners, we are actively moving in the direction of joint development, joint production and transfer of technology.”
The Russia-US defence conundrum
Given India’s poor R&D base, India opted for buy and make the MIG-21 in 1964 with the erstwhile USSR. Russia filled that role admirably well.
In contrast, the US approach has been to sell their systems instead of parting with their technology, the exceptions being Japan in the Fifties and South Korea and Israel in the 1970s.
The technology transfer honeymoon with Russia has continued with INS Vikramaditya aircraft carrier for $2.3 billion, Brahmos cruise missiles, S-400 air-defence systems, and Kamov helicopter.
The Kargil War
The year 1999 was a watershed moment for India when it was taken completely by surprise by the influx of Pakistani armed intruders into Indian territory in the absence of a proper surveillance radar.
India’s top scientists, DRDO’s APJ Abdul Kalam, the man behind the success of some critical defence development programmes, had envisaged a technologically advanced indigenous radar cover but it did not go through.
India then procured US war technology giant Raytheon’s Weapon Locating Radars (WLRs) in 2004 to enable the Indian Army locate the enemy’s artillery gun positions.
This, in fact, was the first defence purchase of a hi-tech system from the US, and expanded the choice for acquisitions; till then, it was a single source buy from Russia under an inter-governmental agreement (IGA).
The US, Europe, France, Israel, South Korea, were now in the fray to sell and supply modern weapons to India.
In fact, India has since acquired from the US, under the government’s Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme, Boeing’s P-8I Maritime Patrol Aircraft ($3.2 billion), C-17 Globemaster III strategic transport aircraft ($4.1 billion), CH-47 Chinook heavy lift helicopters, Apache AH-64 helicopters, Lockheed Martin’s C-130J transport aircraft, and BAE Systems’ M-777 Ultra Light Howitzers, a US successor variant of Swedish Bofors that India had acquired in the 1980s. Both these guns have been used to demolish Pakistani positions, Bofors in the Kargil War, and M-777 in the recent conflict post Pakistan army’s Pahalgam terror attack.
The FMS deals skirt the international competitive bidding process, introduced in the 1980s, in favour of government-to-government single vendor agreements.
India acquired the S-400 anti-missile systems as well as the Kamov helicopters from Russia under the same model.
India has also bought 31 US General Atomics’ highly advanced MQ-9B Predator drones for its Navy, Army and Air Force for $3.3 billion.
Some of these are armed with Hellfire Missiles and some have 24×7 sophisticated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capability.
Indian forces now seem to have a preference for US and European weapons, partly also due to Russia’s war with Ukraine which has disrupted supply chains.
Pakistan army’s recent terror and military attacks have triggered a high demand for mostly indigenous but also substantially some foreign arms. The resulting big defence deals should be at the heart of President Donald Trump’s interest in India.
The F-35 vs SU-57 indigenisation debate
Experts are of the view that armaments, avionics and stealth capability of the F-35 is more sophisticated than that of the SU-57.
On the other hand, the SU-57 is perceived to be much easier to keep at high availability rate, has double the range and can cruise at over double the speed, carries a much larger radar and missile payload, with far superior flight performance at all speeds.
India itself is also trying to develop an indigenous stealth aircraft, with ADA as design agency and HAL as production agency in collaboration.
The Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), an upgraded version of HAL’s Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) has the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) approval for $1.8 billion, aiming to produce 200 stealth aircraft, powered by GE-414 engines.
Conclusion
To be fair to the DRDO, its track record to develop critical defence subsystems like Focal Plane Array, AESA radar, passive seekers and propulsion systems is far from edifying.
A committee headed by Kalam in 1993 to work on India’s Self Reliance Quotient had placed it at 30 percent with a target to improve it to 70 percent by 2015 by building massive test facilities, bolstering design and development capability through partnership with reputed design houses. MRSAM and BrahMos cruise missiles are a testimony to that vision.
Our SRI (Self Reliance Index) has hardly moved up as in the areas of propulsion, weapons and sensors, our dependence on imports is too high, and a realistic option for India’s DRDO and HAL is to partner either with Russia or the US to take a dispassionate decision, to partner in depth and range of technology transfer, cost and willingness to empower our skilled personnel to absorb front end technology.
India-made weapon systems like Akash, and drones, have proved their worth in neutralising Pakistani forces. India must follow the make-in-India route, with ToT and collaborations as required, for newer generations of aircraft, drones, EW Systems, space-based systems, satellite communications and whatever the armed forces need.
— The author is a former Joint Secretary (HAL) in the Ministry of Defence.
