The red bear is a player in the arena as much as the Chinese and the US are. As US shores up india against China, we will see how the game pans out.
For a relatively small market like Pakistan wwill the Red bear shrug off the cash rich Indian Cow? I somehow doubt that.
The real question is how much of a threat does the red bear feel from the US push into the Chinese backyard. If it decides that the time is right to support the Chinese against their arch enemy and play the big game in the Indo Pak arena, so their hands remain clean(relativley!!!) they will venture in. There are huge gians to be made from a US retreat in the South China Sea and a combined venture shares the risk of any fallout.If the US retreats from here where would the next line be drawn??? The middle East ? How relevant will the oil reserves remain for the next 2-3 decades??
So in sahort the Rusasian claculus is a difficult one to gauge. Needless to say they have no love lost for Pakistan and if they can find a way to cripple us in the bargain and gain a victory without engaging in a war then all the more better for them. However the Pakistani strategist will be looking at its options, pros and cons, the risks and whether these could somehow be mitigated(the Chinese angle comes to mind again).I would say iffff at all we buy from the Red bear, we will probably buy a hybrid platofrm with capabilities incorporated from multiple vendors and the Chinese assuring us a smooth supply chain of spares or even perhps limited manufacturing capabilities for over haul and depot level maintenance. This is a very far fetched idea still and this is how I would be evaluating it.
As to Putin visiting, you dont get him to visit over a poxy promise. Offer him hard cash and a promise of a done deal and see how he comes running.
My 2 paisas worth.
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This is the biggest bug bear in the whole scenario. Somehow I dont see this deal happenning for another 2 years and if the deal from the US is juicy enough India may yet ditch the French and go for US hardware manufactured locally. The advantages are immense , the price being a major one plus the opportunity to build top notch hardware in house. So India will procrastinate and the French will have their balls squeezed till there is no juice left in them. Strategically this has been a great game. Technically the idea of 40 platforms at 8 billion never made any sense. So much as we poke fun at them, the strategy is sound, in fact brilliant as you have deprived the main adversary of weapons from 2 sources for over a decade, and worthy of praise.
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