US F-35s, Bombers At Aero India An Outcome Of iCET Talk Between Doval And Sullivan

From fighters to bombers, US left no stone unturned to showcase its might at Aero India 2023. It plans to take defence and security ties with Delhi to ‘newer heights’.

The defence partnership between the US and India is poised to reach “newer heights” after both sides gave wings to the US-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET). American airpower dominated Indian skies with their fighter jets and bombers at last week’s Aero India 2023.

The massive show of airpower by the US overshadowing others is a “testimony of deepening of defence ties” between Washington and New Delhi at a time when the US is keen on “weaning away” India from the Russian platforms, a top-ranking official told ABP Live.

The official, who did not want to be named, said the arrival of two F-35 fighter jets and two bombers from the US to India is “hugely significant” and the move was finalised when both sides successfully launched the iCET during the visit of National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval to Washington. He spoke to his US counterpart Jake Sullivan then.

Under the iCET, both sides have decided to develop a new bilateral Defense Industrial Cooperation Roadmap to accelerate technological cooperation between both countries for the joint development and production, with an initial focus on exploring projects related to jet engines, munition-related technologies, and other systems.

“The coming in of these hi-tech assets from the US is an outcome of that understanding which was reached during iCET when both NSAs met … It is paving the way for greater defence industrial collaboration,” the official said.

According to another official source, the US showcased its F-35 and F-16 fighter planes and supersonic heavy bombers B-1B Lancer at Bengaluru not to make a “sales pitch” to the Indian Air Force but to “send signals” to China and Russia that India is now its security partner.

While the US is keen to participate in the $12 billion IAF programme to procure fighter aircraft to address the issue of depleting squadrons, the manifestation of US’ might last week was not aimed at that, sources said.

The sources underscored that the US’ show of strength on Indian soil was not to mollycoddle the Ministry of Defence or the IAF to buy its products but it was more targeted asserting the fact the India, which has been a ‘Major Defence Partner’ of the US since 2016, is Washington’s foremost security partner in the Indo-Pacific region.

Besides, the sources said, India has already bought several strategic aircraft signing billion dollar deals with the US in the past.

According to the sources quoted above, as tensions with Russia and China heighten, the Joe Biden administration will now be focussing on the “manifestation” of India-US defence ties in the coming years by way of greater show of military might in India's defence and homeland security exhibitions.

Some of the mega defence deals between India and the US took place in 2010-11 and in 2021. In 2010 and 2011, India procured from the US 10 C-17 Globemaster strategic military aircraft and six C-130 J Super Hercules jets for a total cost of $6.5 billion. Following that, in 2021, the US cleared the sale of P-8I patrol aircraft to India for $2.42 billion.

'CHINA IS WATCHING'

Arun K. Singh, former Indian Ambassador to the US, believes that India has effectively worked out a strategy in which it has been able to signal to the world that it will “take its own decision based on its own national security”.

“The US is basically attaching importance to the US-India relationship and showcasing the fact that since 2016 India has been their ‘Major Defense Partner’. The iCET has surely provided an added dimension to the deepening of India-US defence partnership,” Singh said.

He added: “US sending its fighter jets to India has other meanings too. Armed forces of both these countries are doing joint military exercises both bilaterally and multilaterally so this is targeted at that. They are not sending the jets only to lure the government to buy them. For that, there is a process and that lobbying is happening elsewhere.”

Singh also said that the US is also signalling the fact by sending its high-tech military assets to India that Russia’s “capacity and ability are diminished” and so India should opt for American platforms. 

Derek J Grossman, Senior Defence Analyst at the US-based RAND Corporation, however, believes that the US showcased its latest fighter planes in the “anticipation” that the IAF will procure those in the future in “furtherance of the burgeoning US-India security partnership”.

He believes that the US will “never” be able to sell the F-35s to India because of the Russian S-400 air defence missile system bought by New Delhi.

Jedidiah P Royal, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, who was on a trip to India mainly due to the show, said at a press conference last week: “India is one of our premier security partners in the Indo-Pacific … What we are trying to do is to create a relationship that is layered at multiple levels that allows us to think together to transfer information, to transfer capability, knowledge, to exercise and train together in a manner that allows us to meet the current security environment.”