posted on Jan, 3 2010 @ 09:27 PM
Greetings,
It seems that the Chinese find it easier to mitigate the risk of the rapid modernization of the Indian Air Force infrastructure along its borders (3
new Su-30MKI squadrons and perhaps eventually 5) by opening up their shiny toys more to the Pakistanis.. and quite rightly so.
The Pakistanis, who are not so much in favor (anymore) with the US in terms of getting military assistance (in the form of blank cheques and winged
weaponry seemingly an overkill for fighting footsoldier-terrorist-talibans) , will also understandably gravitate to Chinese.
Pretty much sets the pattern of how things will slowly shift and settle into new partnerships and alliances.
What is interesting is how the Indians,(who are still IMO fence sitting with non-alignment vis-a-vis the west/Russia) will look and react to this. The
Indians seem to be alarmingly complacent with the apparent edge in fighter force generations over the Pakistanis, and hence they(Indians) were busy
playing catch-up to the rapid military infrastructure modernization of the Tibetan plateau by the Chinese.
The Indian response could very well lie somewhere in the soup of the 'LCA induction, MRCA selection>>induction, FGFA/PAK-FA selection>>induction,
naval carrier fighter selection>>induction. In this soup are also ingredients of incorporating new n/w centric warfare methods: AWACS, MD, space-based
monitoring assets etc etc.
But unfortunately, the general trend in the higher echelons of Indian strategic thinking and foresight is just to complacently fall back to this
'soup or magic potion' as a means of salvation, without realising that it will take the better part of this decade for this 'soup' to spit out
nuts and bolts (operational fighter squadrons).
And in the interim, Pakistan (with no real plans for building an aircraft or n/w centric infrastructure from scratch) can just 'assemble' a new 100
a/c strong air force from 'aircraft kits' they get from China within a 2-3 years.
All this amounts to the risk exposing India to scenario not seen before and since the 80s: fighter generation equality or even inferiority with
respect to Pakistan.
Cheers,
DD3