Not to mention commissions, markup, and kickbacks.
Such snares, including Bofor weapons, Rafale, Tejas, etc., are frequently included in Indian defense purchases.
Indian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter bd popeye
- Start date
Not to mention commissions, markup, and kickbacks.
Such snares, including Bofor weapons, Rafale, Tejas, etc., are frequently included in Indian defense purchases.
—China can’t count on Pakistan to meaningfully counter India in the long term simply because India’s growth is set to far outpace Pakistan’s.
The recent flood has further devastated Pakistani economy. 90% of the country’s crops are obliterated. Millions people displaced. Problems Pakistan can’t afford. It’s already asking for another bailout.
—In the future, China can’t count on Pakistan. And Pakistan has to tone down its rhetoric/hostility towards India as balance of power shifts more and more towards India
The recent flood has further devastated Pakistani economy. 90% of the country’s crops are obliterated. Millions people displaced. Problems Pakistan can’t afford. It’s already asking for another bailout.
—In the future, China can’t count on Pakistan. And Pakistan has to tone down its rhetoric/hostility towards India as balance of power shifts more and more towards India
Well, it's more akin to other 2020s generation of deeply upgraded 4th gens - so the real lag behind isn't that terrible. More or less local Gripen E, but (optimistically) about 10 years later. Not great, not terrible - upgraded rafales, typhoons, gripens and (maybe?) J-10s will still be in production.
It's the fastest way to get something reasonably competitive to be produced locally. reasonably locally.
They do. But Tejas mk.1A isn't exactly a 100% modern 4th gen, having AESA is nowhere near enough for that.
India equates buying "sophisticated" platforms to acquiring capabilities. Just look at the talks they're in with the US for MQ-9 Reapers. $3 billion for 30 drones. The Reaper has strengths like high endurance and weapons payload, but they're going to pay $100 million per unit for a non-stealthy, low to average speed, that requires lots of attention from ground operators for piloting? Reapers (and drones in general) are also much more accident prone compared to manned aircraft. Those 30 will get attritioned.
Since they see China as their main rival, they should actually not waste time, effort and money trying to indigenize all their weapons across the board (tanks, aircraft etc) at this point. Better to focus on certain specialized capabilities for "asymmetric" warfare like what China did with the US, and still doing to a certain extent. Or what Russia does with NATO. India has the problem of a much lower baseline industrial capability though so they'll need to get that working first. That's a whole other topic actually more to do with the country's policies on the civilian side.
The other thing about India (the govt & elites, not the internet Jai Hind fanboys) is they believe in the Multipolar world like China and Russia, but see the US as "First among equals" and top superpower. True the US is still at the top, but India believes it is equal with China in this world order. China obviously doesn't see the relationship that way. India is not even competition, only the US is.
For ref, I'm not really familiar with India. I read some of Pravin Sawhney to get understanding of how India views the world and what their military strat is, since he seemed to be more fair views on China. Might be even too flattering on some things he says actually.
dont get by tejas mk1a is not a 4th gen statement ?
it obv wont be as good as the modern 4.5 gens but 4th gen?
Indians are deluded. They all seem to think indigenous means things are cheaper. What they don't realise is that it's much more expensive to develop your own platforms than to import tried and tested foreign ones. It's only now that China's domestic programmes are paying off, it would have been far cheaper to buy Russian and American planes.
As a country they seem to be very lacking in engineering skills.
The reaper deal sums up India. They've splurged their military R&D budgets on unrealistic goals like modern fighter jets, tanks and aircraft carriers. So when it comes to something they should be able to develop - a no frills turboprop MALE drone they are forced to pay the American MIC premium.
In the pursuit of trying to learn, understand, and discern some of Indian Military and it's leaders past and present mindset in terms of their true capability in modern warfare I have tried to read some of Indian Military analysis from western think tanks (which are hard to come by for some reason) that are nothing but sycophantic in their assessments. Highly inflating India's supposed mountain warfare skills, and the military's extreme professionalism but I guess that's to be expected from the west in their pursuit of trying to woo India fully into their camp for obvious geopolitical reasons.
But I can't seem to understand nor fully appreciate where this much vaunted and undeserved praise comes from? Which country or countries did India masterfully showcased it's full martial abilities that can be truly said objectively as brilliant. Does beating Pakistan back in 1971, 1999 Kargil War makes Indian military prowess that much better over China's PLA?
According to this retired LT. General, the Vostok exercise of Russia with China and India among other participating countries is simply low for India in terms of learning, evaluating actual battlefield tactics in stark contrast to what India is doing with it's participation with American military from RIMPAC, Malabar exercise, Special forces exercise etc..because all their exercises with western military, especially with the U.S. are all about military interoperability, whereas military exercises with Russia is all about Russian intent in showcasing their military weapons for economic, prestige purposes. Not to mention that Russia for all it's assumptive position as one of the top best military power couldn't even beat Ukraine despite it's her supposed advantage that in the 6 months of the war and it's still going (the general said this with a very dismissive tone towards Russia.) At the same time, while India has only sent around 400 of their troops in this latest exercise, it's still far better qualitatively compared to what the PLA sent, since their troops are "allegedly handpicked from the entirety of the PLA." Moreover, Indian airforce fighter pilots are far more professional and tactically more proficient than their American counterparts. The general goes on to state with an emphasis that China's PLA may have sent more troops and equipment at this latest Vostok 2022 exercise to hone their military prowess since they never experienced modern combat/war unlike India.
So as you can see, India despite it's current defense expenditure is already ahead of China in almost every category that matters militarily sans budget, industrial capability, imagine what India can do to China when it achieves it's long assumed mantle of a superpower country with $5Trillion economy? China wouldn't have an iota of chance.
Perhaps, I am being too bias with my own pro-China stance that am not giving the good General due deference to his learned opinion especially one that seem to dismiss the PLA and highlights INdian military prowess like it's already an equal to that of the U.S. military.
But I can't seem to understand nor fully appreciate where this much vaunted and undeserved praise comes from? Which country or countries did India masterfully showcased it's full martial abilities that can be truly said objectively as brilliant. Does beating Pakistan back in 1971, 1999 Kargil War makes Indian military prowess that much better over China's PLA?
According to this retired LT. General, the Vostok exercise of Russia with China and India among other participating countries is simply low for India in terms of learning, evaluating actual battlefield tactics in stark contrast to what India is doing with it's participation with American military from RIMPAC, Malabar exercise, Special forces exercise etc..because all their exercises with western military, especially with the U.S. are all about military interoperability, whereas military exercises with Russia is all about Russian intent in showcasing their military weapons for economic, prestige purposes. Not to mention that Russia for all it's assumptive position as one of the top best military power couldn't even beat Ukraine despite it's her supposed advantage that in the 6 months of the war and it's still going (the general said this with a very dismissive tone towards Russia.) At the same time, while India has only sent around 400 of their troops in this latest exercise, it's still far better qualitatively compared to what the PLA sent, since their troops are "allegedly handpicked from the entirety of the PLA." Moreover, Indian airforce fighter pilots are far more professional and tactically more proficient than their American counterparts. The general goes on to state with an emphasis that China's PLA may have sent more troops and equipment at this latest Vostok 2022 exercise to hone their military prowess since they never experienced modern combat/war unlike India.
So as you can see, India despite it's current defense expenditure is already ahead of China in almost every category that matters militarily sans budget, industrial capability, imagine what India can do to China when it achieves it's long assumed mantle of a superpower country with $5Trillion economy? China wouldn't have an iota of chance.
Perhaps, I am being too bias with my own pro-China stance that am not giving the good General due deference to his learned opinion especially one that seem to dismiss the PLA and highlights INdian military prowess like it's already an equal to that of the U.S. military.
This kind of attitude is why they’ll never get there…
I jest I jest. But they’ll continue to punch below their weight until they change their attitude.
PS does this General know what the Americans actually think of the Indian Navy?
So I sort of went down the rabbit hole and end up digging on the background of this retired Lt.General just to peer more into his insights and to see if his anti-China rant is a recent phenomenon or his stance has been with him for a long time which is more than fine. But boy oh boy, I found the retired General's personal blog and took the time to read some of his insightful analysis that combined Gordon Chang's penchant for calling for China's imminent collapse along with Peter Zeihan's dismissive attitude towards China's impending collapse. The man oozes with hatred for China, there's not a single piece on which he never took the opportunity to denigrate China at every turn. And the man seems to seethe that China is being poised or talked about as the incoming new superpower because he literally dedicates most of his writing trying to convince his readers of why China can never be a superpower but India will be.
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