Asserting that India’s air superiority is threatened by China and Pakistan, a prominent US think tank has come out with the prescription that the country should opt for cheaper fourth-generation-plus Western fighters instead of expanding the indigenous Tejas programme.
The Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace released on Monday a 60-page report on what it calls “The Manifold Travails of the Indian Air Force” that essentially urges IAF to “revisit some aspects of its current approach (on acquisition of fighter planes).”
“It (IAF) should be cautious about expanding the Tejas acquisition beyond six squadrons and consider enlarging the MMRCA (Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft) component with the cheapest fourth-generation-plus Western fighter available,” says the report, authored by Senior Associate Ashley Tellis.
The Carnegie report also calls upon India to “reassess the decision to develop the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft indigenously and avoid weakening the collaboration with Russia on the PAK-FA programme”.
Claiming that the IAF is “in crisis” despite being a world-class combat arm, the report argues that “falling end strength and problematic force structure, combined with its troubled acquisition and development programs, threaten India’s air superiority over its rapidly modernizing rivals, China and Pakistan”.
“India needs to safeguard its regional air superiority over both Pakistan and China by mustering the requisite end strength and enhancing its extant operational advantages,” the report says, urging New Delhi to expand its investments in advanced munitions, combat support aircraft, electronic warfare, physical infrastructure, and pilot proficiency “while being realistic about its domestic capacity to produce sophisticated combat aircraft”.
The report casts doubts on IAF’s likelihood of reaching its goal of 42-45 squadrons with some 750-800 aircraft by the year 2027, noting that the plan is “stymied by serious constraints on India’s defence budget, the impediments imposed by the acquisition process, the meagre achievements of the country’s domestic development organizations, the weaknesses of the higher defence management system, and India’s inability to reconcile the need for self-sufficiency in defense production with the necessity of maintaining technological superiority over rivals”.