WASHINGTON – Two US aerospace firms are jostling with global rivals to win a $11-12 billion Indian fighter jet contract, hoping a nascent US-India strategic partnership can help seal the deal. As defense contracts go, Delhi’s bid to replace 126 aging MiG fighters is large, but hardly a show stopper. Still, in an industry where billion dollar contracts are commonplace, the project is turning heads. “It is not the price,” explained Ron Somers, president of the US-India Business Council, “the $11 billion is great, but this is geopolitical.” India, after 50 years of depending on Russian fighter technology, is casting around for a new partner. To play that role US firms Lockheed Martin and Boeing are pitched against Europe’s Eurofighter, France’s Dassault, Sweden’s Saab and Russia’s RSK MiG.
Whichever company and country wins, the deal could help cement military and strategic ties with one of the world’s fastest emerging powers. “You are talking about aligning how you work together for the next two generations,” Somers told AFP. Experts say that the Indian Air Force, by looking beyond Russia’s MiG-21s, could remove one of the last vestiges of Cold War power politics and set the stage for a revamp of India’s military outlook. “The supply of the MiG-21 established the Soviet Union as a close ally of the Indian government in the ’60s and it led to the 1971 Indo-Soviet friendship treaty,” said Sunil Dasgupta, an India military expert and lecturer at the University System of Maryland.
“Whichever aircraft is chosen is going to be the mainstay of the Indian Air Force for maybe 30 years.” The training and maintenance contacts that come with that could prove invaluable in boosting ties with India’s powerful military. “Whoever supplies this kind of equipment is able to get a very deep ‘in’ into the system,” said Dasgupta, who recently co-authored a book on modernizing India’s military. Somers – who is helping lobby for Lockheed Martin and Boeing bids – hopes the US trump card will be rapidly developing strategic and military ties between the two countries.
