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The befuddling aspect of Ashley’s analysis is the relevance and/or pertinence of the ‘India chose a plane rather than a relationship’ statement that Ashley keeps throwing about. India made the right decision selecting the best options available. Whatever the final selection is, be it the Eurofighter Typhoon or the Rafale, it will provide the Indian Airforce with a solution that is not only technologically capable against its adjacent neighbors, but also a solution that has a lot of future growth capacity (something that the F-16, for example, does not have) plus a lot of technology transfer and accessibility to advanced Western knowhow (something that neither of the American offerings would have provided due to restrictions on what can be given to the Indians as compared to what the Europeans were willing to provide).

As for the ‘relationship’ part, the simple question would be what relationship? India has already spent billions of Dollars on American equipment, and will spend billions more. Missing out on the M-MRCA deal will not break any relationship, and for the matter a lot of money is heading Boeing’s and Lockheed’s way. Billions of it. Thus, the argument that India did not settle for a relationship is moot.

India made the best choice – the Eurofighter and the Rafale were the best choices, and this will be seen more and more as time progresses (both in terms of aircraft development, as well as technology infusion into the Indian aerospace/defence/advanced sector). The F/A-18E/F would also have been a good choice all things being equal (and all things were obviously not equal). As for the F-16, I still maintain that the only aircraft that would have been a (far) worse choice was the MiG-35.