Ultimately all this must fit into the principle of broader national interests and geopolitical strategy to sustain them beyond system costs and performance factors. The question of American reliability will worry a lot of minds for a long time. European policies in the past have raised doubts about the impact of US policies on even product support; and now EU partners’ differences may also impact their future actions. The Soviet Union (and the relationship it had with us) disappeared long ago, and new dimensions are already impacting Indo-Russian arms relationship, not the least of them being the Russian high-end military technology flows to China, and the China-Pakistan strategic nexus where China is one of the two suppliers of high-technology arms for Pakistan’s air force. The signals Moscow is sending out are not very helpful. In the ultimate interest, the decision about the new combat aircraft should rest on broader national interests.

The writer, a retired air commodore, is director of an independent professional think-tank, the Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi