Russia has backstabbed India on a lot of arms purchases and sold them fourth rate garbage they usually don’t sell anyone else except African countries.
India has had better luck with Israel and NATO equipment, and would be better going there to get more. There is talk about selling F-35’s to India, as well as modern Abrams tanks if they ditch Russia completely.
F-35’s? No way. One will end up in the hands of who knows?
[India has had better luck with Israel and NATO equipment, and would be better going there to get more. There is talk about selling F-35’s to India, as well as modern Abrams tanks if they ditch Russia completely.]
This is why so many foreign investors made a beeline for China instead of India when both countries had comparable income. Even at a time when Chinese incomes are almost 5x India’s, foreign investors still largely prefer China, because doing business in India is like pulling teeth, and this is when investors are looking to put capital into India. When you’re talking about selling arms, you don’t want to know what the Indian will demand. It won’t necessarily be your first-born, but it probably won’t be far off.
A while back, I was traveling through the Orient and got into an involved conversation with an Indian-American with a thick Indian regional accent who was on his way to meet a supplier in China. I asked him why he was dealing with Chinese suppliers. Surely Indian suppliers were cheaper. He said, basically, that the Indian stuff was way crappier, and the bureaucracy was just byzantine. In essence, he said life’s too short.