We Indians have a few grim choices before us. The only aircraft the Gorschkov can accommodate, the Mig-29Ks, have been paid for, so no smart sidestepping is possible to acquire an old American carrier, for instance. But there are many purchases from Russia in the offing, including the army’s MBT, the Akula, the power reactors for Kudamkulam and the AWACS. There are many more yet to be negotiated, among them the mother of all deals — the Multi Role Combat Aircraft. Russia has much to lose in commercial terms by standing us up, but may make up in sales of high-tech weapons to a cash rich China.

In the final analysis, therefore, these weapons sales on such a large scale are part of the new political rearrangement going on in the world. There are many areas where only the Russians have stood by us, but if a political rearrangement is going on, we must start by looking for other collaborative ventures and why the Russians are getting away with no offsets? Only the old-timers will remember that we went to the Soviets, in the first place, in 1965, when the British Admiralty — to whom we looked up for so much — turned us down flat on a request for modern submarines. The Gorschkov deal will have to be re-negotiated, but there is little doubt that we must — as the navy chief had suggested — take a relook at where we are going, in relation to the US , the EU, Russia and Israel.

... contd.