The Real Reasons for Rafale
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The Real Reasons for Rafale’s Indian Victory
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By Giovanni de Briganti
PARIS --- While many observers cite technology
transfer, prices and performance as being major
factors in India’s selection of the Rafale as its next-
generation fighter, reality is very different even if
these factors obviously did play a significant role.
In the same way that it is true that Rafale lost
several competitions through no fault of its own,
it must be recognized that its victory in India was
also won, to a great extent, through no fault of its
own. The real reason for its victory is political,
and the long memory of Indian politicians was a
major contributing factor.
This is not to say, however, that Rafale’s own
impressive qualities had nothing to do with its
selection. The Indian Air Force, which was
extensively briefed by the French air force in the
autumn, was particularly impressed by its
operational performance during the Libyan
bombing campaign and in Afghanistan. Rafale
also has a naval variant which could be of future
interest to India, given its plans to buy and build
aircraft carriers, while the recent decision to
upgrade India’s Mirage 2000H fighters will
simplify the air force’s logistics chain, as these will
share with Rafale many weapons and other
equipment.
The Indian Air Force also is a satisfied user of long
standing of French fighters, going back to the
Dassault Ouragan in the 1950s. It was also
particularly appreciative of the performance of its
Mirages during the 1999 Kargil campaign against
Pakistan, and of the support it then obtained from
France. During that campaign, India obtained
French clearance – and possibly more - to
urgently adapt Israeli and Russian-supplied laser-
guided bombs to the Mirages, which thus able to
successfully engage high-altitude targets that
Indian MiG-23s and MiG-27s had been unable to
reach.
Rafale was preferred because of lower costs, and
the Indian air force's familiarity with French
warplanes such as the Mirage, Bloomberg
reported Feb. 1 quoting an Indian source who
asked not be named. "Unit-wise, the French plane
is much cheaper than the Eurofighter. Moreover,
the Indian air force, which is well equipped with
French fighters, is favouring the French," the
source said.
To Indian officials, France’s steadfastness as a
military ally contrasted strongly with that of the
United States, which stopped F-16 deliveries to
Pakistan (but kept the money) when it found it
expedient to do so, and slowed or vetoed
delivery of components for Light Combat Aircraft
that India was developing. And, of course, the
1998 arms embargo, decreed by the US after
India’s nuclear test in May of that year, left a very
bad taste in Indian mouths. France, on the
contrary, was the only Western nation not to
impose sanctions.
That, Indian sources say, was New Delhi’s real
reason for eliminating Boeing and Lockheed
Martin from the fighter competition; India has
resolved, these sources say, to buy only second-
line equipment from the U.S., such as transport
(C-17, C-130J) or maritime patrol aircraft (P-8I).
Vital weapons such as missiles and fighters,
when they cannot be locally produced, will
remain the preserve of France and Russia.
Political considerations were also a significant
factor playing against Rafale’s final competitor, the
Eurofighter Typhoon. As this aircraft is produced
by a consortium of four nations, each with
different foreign policies and different attitudes
and tolerances to arms exports, Indian officials
were a bit nervous about their ultimate reliability
as a single supplier.
Germany is a long-standing Indian aviation
partner, and a respected role model for Indian
politicians, many of whom were educated there.
German companies – essentially the former
Messerschmitt-Boelkow-Blohm, now part of
EADS - helped Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.
develop both the LCA and the Advanced Light
Helicopter, now called Dhruv. These links were
the reason the Eurofighter bid was led by
Germany’s Cassidian, and not BAE Systems, the
former colonial power. But Germany had
dithered over technology transfer for LCA, soft-
pedaled on ALH tech transfer when German
pacifists raised their eyebrows, and coughed
when India almost went to war with Pakistan
over Kargil and Kashmir, so in the final analysis it
could not be considered a reliable supplier of
major weapons.
Italy has never sold a major weapon to India, and
so could bring neither influence nor reputation to
support Eurofighter, while the third partner,
Spain, is totally absent from the Indian military
landscape.
This left BAE Systems as the best-known
Eurofighter partner in India, and so by default as
its ultimate public face. BAE in 2003 sold £1.5
billion’s worth of Hawk jet trainers to India, with a
follow-on, £500 million order in 2010. However,
its previous major sale to India was the Jaguar
light attack aircraft in the 1970s. In fact, this
aircraft was jointly developed by Britain and
France on a 50/50 basis, and while it was license-
produced by HAL it was never really successful
as a fighter. Furthermore, France could claim as
much benefit from its Indian career as BAE.
Taken together, the Eurofighter partner nations
posed an even thornier problem: in case of war,
German law prohibits deliveries of weapons and
spares, Italian law and public opinions would
demand an embargo, which Spanish legislation is
murky. What would happen, Indian politicians
must have wondered, if after buying the
Eurofighter they went to war? Would spares and
weapons be forthcoming, or would they be
embargoed? The political risk was obviously too
big to take.
Weapons also played a significant role in
persuading India to opt for Rafale: not only is its
weapons range mostly French-made, and thus
not subject to a third-party embargo, but so are
all of its sensors. Eurofighter, whose air-to-air
missiles include the US-made AIM-120 Amraam
and the German-led IRIS-T, and whose primary
air-to-ground weapon is the US-made Paveway,
was obviously at a competitive disadvantage in
this respect.
Furthermore, the Rafale is nuclear-capable and
will replace the Mirage 2000N in French service as
the carrier of the newly-upgraded ASMP/A
nuclear stand-off missile; it is also capable of firing
the AM-39 Exocet missile, giving it an anti-ship
capability that its competitors do not have. India
is also interested in fitting its BrahMos supersonic
missile to a wide range of its combat aircraft, and
Rafale could apparently carry it.
Given that India had sworn to buy the cheapest
compliant competitor, it would have been unable
to justify picking the Rafale had this not been
offered at the lower price. While official figures
have not been released, and indeed may never
be, initial reports from New Delhi claim that Rafale
was offered at a unit price of $4-$5 million less
than Eurofighter, which is a surprisingly large
advantage given the French aircraft’s reputation of
being high-priced.
The French offer also featured substantially lower
costs of ownership, according to the same
reports, thanks to lower fuel consumption and
simpler maintenance requirements.
If true, these figures imply the French offer
undercut Eurofighter by over $600 million, which
is a large enough difference for one French insider
to wonder whether Dassault Aviation will ever
make any money on the contract.
But, even if it doesn’t, the Indian contract gives
Rafale instant legitimacy, not only because of the
thoroughness and transparency of the bidding
process, but also because India is the only
country to have fought four and a half major
wars since 1948, and so knows something about
air combat.
For Dassault, the Rafale program will now remain
active, with a stabilized production line, for
decades to come, and the company will have that
much more time to find additional customers.
Keeping its production line and supply chain
humming at an economically-viable rate are
sufficiently valuable achievements to push
immediate profits into the sidelines. Supporting
126 – and possibly 206, if India buys an optional
second batch – combat aircraft, and providing
spares, fixes and upgrades over the next 40
years, will generate gigantic profits, and this more
than justified lowering Dassault’s notoriously high
profit margins.
And, as French Defense Minister Gérard Longuet
told reporters during an impromptu press
conference in Parliament, France may soon find
“that good news travels in formation,” implying
that further, long-deferred contracts might soon
be announced.