Mort Walker wrote:1. No one is living under a rock, but pretending everything is just fine and looking the other way is another matter - especially when it comes to Russia. You are deliberately obfuscating the issue when it comes to Russian racism and trying to equate it to the real problems of India-US relations. Even with defense deals of $50 billion plus over a decade, India-Russia trade is declining. Russia is becoming less important to India, than to SE Asia, China or the US.
Since you seem to be suffering from profound taqleef due to Russia being liked by Indians, here is the issue again, so that you get it this time.
Your claims of Russian racism being some sort of all pervading issue are not credible, there are many reports on the matter and many of us have had opportunity to look into it. They range from attacks on Indians to people having glowing experiences. Its sad that there are neo nazi Skinheads in Russia who spit on their own country's fight against fascism and its ties to other countries and the Soviet Unions wide and varied ethnic mix. Its the same way we'd be sad that any country has such dolts within its country. Knowing the challenges India is going through in managing its own issues would usually make us circumspect about other countries as well, unless they act snooty.
They are furthermore irrelevant to the issue of Indo-Russian strategic ties which are beyond these irritants since the Russians neither hector India on its foreign policy publicly, nor do they send missionaries to convert Indians or engage in free armament transfers to Pakistan.
On the other hand, they do back India on important strategic security initiatives, enable its nuclear deterrence via transfer of technology for its preeminent fighter program, plus its nuclear submarine program as well as its nuclear reactor technology. These aspects along with the energy reserves Russia has, its permanent UNSC seat will make it a continued important partner for India going forward.
These are balanced out vs Russia's occasional glitch vs its committed supplies, its sales to PRC and so forth. If you merely gauge relations via trade, India's "trade" with PRC will dwarf many other nations. PRC is actually a strategic competitor for India. Doesn't mean though we can't cooperate on areas where it benefits India.
In fact, purely given strategic concerns, its in India;s interest that Russia remain strong to balance out US or western power and provide an alternate power center and armament supplier which can be relied on till the date India's MIC is strong enough to meet all its own needs or most of them.
The rise of PRC in a similar manner, while not to India's interest actually helps to make the US accommodate Indian concerns better.
In the same vein, Indo-US trade ties make those ties important as versus the aforementioned irritants of "supahpahwah" stuff which your posts also demonstrate. The more India and US trade, share military training, the more it acts to keep PRC on their backfoot.
Similarly, your complete inability to acknowledge the problems in Indo-US relations and your tendency to jump on Russia as an excuse to compensate does not make for a compelling argument. US has issues. But frank fact of life -most Indians don't care for another nations internal issues & think it infra-dig to comment. Unfortunately, the behavior of some khan busy bodies who go around acting snooty with other folks has Indians wade into the sludge.
And so it goes.
In short India balances its relationship with multiple power groups in order to ensure its interests are served and will continue to do so. And Russia offers a compelling proposition for India to continue to engage with it.
Your response on the other hand has been Russians suck!! Putin is a meanie!! Russia bad 3rd world country!! Russians are racist!! It doesn't make for any compelling argument.
2. Russia ties are strong today because of legacy defense deals and the purchase of nuclear reactors. By 2020 these "strong" ties will diminish because Russia will no longer be able to timely supply goods and services be it on their reactors or weapon systems. The only option for a large country like India is to build up its own military-industrial complex. This is done not with a reliance on Russian technology, but a cooperation between government-academia-industry. Anything any of us say about "learn to live with it" matters none. India-Russia relations by the numbers is declining, sure there is nothing wrong in giving lip service to it, but others in this forum are stuck in the 1970s.
Unfortunately, the human beings on this forum don't have the perspicacity and sagacity which you possess by virtue of your amazing crystal ball which seems to look into specific points in time, such as 2020.
Five years from now by which, magically "strong ties will perish because Russia will no longer be able to supply XYZ". On the contrary, judging by recent news, ties with Russia may actually accelerate, given a strong nationalist Govt is in power till 2019 which will build up its own MIC, yes, but also make sure ties with traditional, reliable suppliers like Russia are maintained on an even keel.
Funnily enough Russia has been pumping huge amounts of money into its MIC and the results are now more and more obvious.
For somebody accusing others of living in the 1970's, you seem to be reliving the Cold War all over again. Meanwhile:
- More Arihant class subs (more orders for Russian factories which provide key items)
- Brahmos NG program and Brahmos-M program (again with Russian involvement)
- Ka226 program for the IA/IAF
- Assistance with several classified strategic programs
- Nuclear program/civil
These are barely the tip of the iceberg as our ties with Russia involve strategic areas where which we don't publicize.
While India will and should build up its own MIC, its ties with Russia will likely remain strong & even move to the next level as Indian R&D starts looking towards funding more and more ambitious ventures, which Russia has been traditionally ok with, but which alarm the west.
3. The FGFA was agreed upon over 8 years ago before Gorshkov, Akula deliveries and other deals in light of the success of the Brahmos which India had more control of in development. In that time it has sucked up tens of billions of India's funds
Please prove where exactly those numbers tens of billions are coming from. This sort of hyperbole is what makes your arguments unsustainable.
So far, India has invested Rs 1,418 Crore in the FGFA. That translates to around 14 Billion rupees and $236 Million, which is entirely reasonable given the quantum of effort.
http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease. ... lid=121471
which could have been used for the LCA. A comparison of the FGFA to LCA is entirely relevant from an operational and fiscal point of view. The funds could have been used to push the LCA in numbers of several hundred by today and the MMRCA or Rafale would not have been needed. I'll take 10 LCA before a single FGFA or any other 5th gen fighter. Even purchasing more Su-30MKI would have been better than the FGFA. Who know what FGFA will be in unit price for India, over $120 million? One thing I agree with Philip is that the services have to live within fiscal reality and fight wars with that constraint. A 5th gen fighter can be eschewed with several hundred home grown Tejas MkI/MkII and home grown AWACS.
Unfortunately, $236 Million committed for the FGFA PDA even if transferred for the LCA would have merely made the IAFs 5G plans more stretched & risky, which is not a good thing given the threats we face. $236 Million would have bought us 8-10 more LCAs not the "numbers of several hundred by today" and so forth.
Operational point of view comparing the LCA to the FGFA is meaningless. One is a lightweight fighter of 4G+, other a LO,5G, long range platform.
Purchasing more Su-30 would not add anywhere near the strike power the FGFA will. Kindly see the IADS our primary opponent has and then reassess.
As regards agreeing with Philip, I have to grin here, its literally a ROTFL moment. You quote the most rabid pro Russian on this forum to justify some sort of anti FGFA diatribe. If anything Philip would probably shut down all acquisitions in the IAF in favor of the FGFA.
yanks running US policy behave a lot more like the pakis than the russians.