The French Connection | Deccan Chronicle
The Indian Air Force has spelt out its choice in the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) deal to acquire 126 fighters, and the decision now lies with the Indian government, and the French, to finalise the contract. The Rafale, IAF’s choice, has come full circle in the process. Dassault, its maker, had first offered the older Mirage 2000 fighters, withdrew it, bid the Rafale, was almost disqualified in 2009 when high-level diplomacy saved it, went on to top the field trials along with its European cousin, the Eurofighter Typhoon, and is now all set to win what’s arguably the biggest, and most keenly contested, defence deal on offer.
Yet, in some ways, it’s not the end of the acquisition process, but the beginning of an intense last stage. Now, it’s Dassault’s to do the bending. So, what’s the MMRCA? Why is India ready to pay nearly $20 billion to buy these aircraft?
Twenty five years ago, the Indian Air Force had some 40 squadrons, and was the pre-eminent air force in our part of the world, with a combat edge in numbers, technology and training over not only Pakistan, but even over China. Since then, however, the IAF’s combat strength has continuously dwindled, to about 28 squadrons today, due to the phasing out of fighters of the 1960s and 1970s vintage — the MiG 21s and MiG 23s. The IAF wants to buy seven squadrons of multi-role fighters to arrest the decline in combat strength numbers.
When the IAF began to look for a suitable fighter, the technology and costs of military aircraft had changed, and the world was moving towards multi-role platforms – aircraft that could be used in not only air-to-air combat, but air-to-ground attack, deep strike, nuclear missions, anti-ship strikes, etc. What’s more, the Soviet Union had imploded, and Russia had become an uncertain supplier, prompting India to look to reduce dependence on it. And India was already acquiring the Su-30 MKI air superiority fighters at the high end, and confidence in the development of the indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft at the low end had risen. Inevitably, the Air Force began to look for a medium-weight, high performance, multi-role jet, and invited global vendors to bid.
With a deal of this size, along with the quantitative imperative to maintain squadron strength, the IAF had to also achieve a transformation of Indian air power in proportion to the shift in economic, strategic and geopolitical power shift from North Atlantic and Europe to Asia. It’s not only China that is rising, India is on the ascent, too, and it’s a trend that will continue for some decades.
Textbook procedure
The acquisition process has seen an agonising and exacting evaluation of over 650 technical and operational parameters against which the IAF benchmarked not one or two but six aircraft. It’s a tribute to the IAF, a reflection of its professional standards that it has done so in five years – from the request for information to the request for proposals, operational evaluation, and then field trials in the vastly different terrains in which its aircraft must operate – from the hot climes of Nagpur to the jungles of the north-east to the high altitudes of Leh. For the contenders, it was an ordeal by fire virtually, and obviously showed up the limitations of each.
Even the losers of the bid acknowledge that the evaluation has been thoroughly professional, fair and free of the much-suspected geopolitical/strategic considerations. It’s to the credit of the government that it allowed the evaluation to be done completely on the basis of operational and technical parameters.
The Rafale has been declared the lowest cost bidder, or L1. In the old days, that used to mean unit cost of an aircraft. In the more professional cost evaluation of today, it takes into account the life cycle costs of operating the aircraft over 40-50 years. It also includes offsets to the Indian aircraft industry and the transfer of technology in critical areas – the idea being that this should be the last ever import contract for combat aircraft.
The Rafale
The fact that the Rafale has been found to be the most suitable aircraft after this tough evaluation is an indication of how advanced it is. The Rafale is a delta-wing, twin-engine, nuclear capable fighter with exceptional stability due to its advanced fly-by-wire technology; its canards give it high agility in dog fights; and the high-performance Snecma M88 engines give it an operationally advantageous power-weight ratio and a range of 3,600-3,700 km.
With its ability to be armed with beyond visual range missiles, all-aspect air-to-air capability, anti-ship strikes, medium-range missiles, standoff precision-guided munitions and anti-radiation missiles, the Rafale brings a whole range of capabilities to the IAF.
The MMRCA is key to the IAF’s force structure. It can perform in sub-continental territorial defence scenarios as well as in operations that India might undertake under UN aegis or in a coalition of the willing in its strategic neighbourhood – from Central Asia to the northern Indian Ocean, from the Suez to Shanghai, from Aden to South China Sea. This is a large neighbourhood, and the MMRCA will help transform Indian air power from a sub-continental power to that of a continental power.
That transformational role extends to another dimension as well. Conventional wars of the 1971-type are not possible today. Those involved large numbers of casualties and the deliberate destruction of industrial infrastructure, etc. Such wars are not palatable to political leaderships today. The political leadership hesitates to use ground and naval forces. As a result, the salience of air power has increased.
The ability to penetrate, persist, attack precisely and carry out warfare at the strategic and tactical levels with minimal bloodletting and collateral damage makes air power attractive as a military option, especially as military and political objectives have to be achieved speedily against international intervention and the media. Speed, range and penetration have been a problem in expanding Indian power projection until now.
The Western narrative of the “changing nature of war” is built on the experience of the US and European air forces in the past 20 years in one-sided air wars in the Gulf, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya, etc., where Western air forces operated in previously sanitised air spaces, dominated them, and did not have to provide cover to ground and naval forces.
That does not work in the India-Pakistan, India-China scenarios, where we will be up against more or less equivalent forces and where any future conflict is unlikely to be limited to only the air dimension. The MMRCA will have a major role in sanitising airspace over our ground and naval forces over a vast geographical space and hit a large number of enemy targets on the ground, in the air and at sea. That’s why the IAF undertook such an agonising and exacting evaluation of the six aircraft. The Rafale will be crucial in the war scenarios India envisages – limited war under a nuclear overhang – because it affords both conventional and nuclear deterrence, and firepower, against adversaries.
The Technology Imperative
India will buy 18 Rafales in flyaway condition and will make 108 at HAL, Bengaluru, under licence and transfer of technology. The total order, in time, may go up to 189, and the deal value $20 billion or more. The size of the deal alters contract dynamics entirely. Not only Dassault but the entire French combat air industrial capability is at stake. It’s an opportunity for India to drive the hardest bargain on price and technology.
Technology from the Rafale, its advanced avionics, powerplant, etc., is vital to fill crucial gaps in Indian technological capability. Skillful negotiations with the French on critical technology transfer should help enhance Indian combat aircraft industry. The MMRCA deal can be a win-win — a new lease of life for the French industry, and take-off for the Indian industry.
The final commercial negotiations for the deal are set to begin, but there are already attempts by competitors to question the wisdom of choosing French. It’s important for the government to close the deal early to put a stop to all speculation, allegations and conspiracy theories.
(Air Vice Marshal (retd) Kapil Kak is additional director of the Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi)
(As told to S. Raghotham)
