A U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II displays at Aero India 2023 | Photo: Ministry of Defence
The Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightening II Joint Strike Fighter landed at Aero India 2023 at Yelahanka in Bengaluru on Monday. Since then, pilot, Major Kristin “Beo” Wolfe, has received well-deserved applause from the crowds at the show for her flight display.
There’s also all-round wonderment about ‘what its presence at the show means’. ‘Is it going to be offered to India? Why did the U.S. send it here, on what must have been a very expensive tasking,’ have been the big questions this week.
If we ignore older aircraft like the F-16, the fifth generation F-35 is the most ordered aircraft out there, today, in terms of pending orders, as well as the number of countries that have ordered at least one of its three variants.
It also remains the one U.S. fighter in production that has never come up for discussion between India and the U.S. It’s neither been offered nor requested.
Examining why that might be, helps not only in determining it as an option for India or not, but also nailing down the relationship status between the two countries.
But first the aircraft.
What is the F-35?
Without getting too technical, the F-35 is a single-engine, single-seat, stealth fighter developed after its fifth-generation predecessor, the F-22, which is no longer in production.
The aircraft comes in three flavours: The F-35A is a standard, land-based, air force fighter. The F-35B model is a Short Take Off and Vertical Landing or STOVL aircraft, like the now retired Sea Harriers of the Indian Navy. The F-35C is a conventional, carrier-borne, naval fighter that launches from the catapults of the CATOBAR system of an aircraft carrier. The U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps remain the only operators of the F-35C because no other F-35 operator country operates CATOBAR aircraft carriers.
At least one of these three models of the F-35 has been ordered by 17 countries. A total of 3,445 aircraft have been ordered with almost 900 aircraft delivered. The latest numbers say the cost of the F-35A model has fallen from from USD 221 million in 2007 to USD 79 million per aircraft.
The buy-in from such a large number of operators has helped costs to be distributed with the assurance of technical problems being gradually resolved.
Engagement on F-35
So how come it’s never been offered to India?
The U.S. has offered all its other fighters that are still in production to India. The rapprochement of the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal that came into force in 2008, coincided with the beginning of serious U.S. defence sales to India, beginning with the C-130J Super Hercules, C-17 Globemaster III, P-8I, CH-47F Chinook and the AH-64E Apache.
Still on offer to India are the Lockheed Martin F-16, and Boeing’s F/A-18 and F-15EX fighters. But not the F-35.
It’s not that the U.S. hasn’t thought about this. In 2018, the head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific command, Admiral Harry Harris, testified to the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, saying, “At the moment, India is considering a number of U.S. systems for purchase, all of which USPACOM fully supports… (including) F-35 Joint Strike Fighter”. This was the first time such a reference was made in this context.
Privately, U.S. Government officials have explained this to be their general expectation of progress in relations between the two countries, something that would eventually lead to the F-35 being offered to India. But progress in relations can be difficult to quantify.
F-35 customers
A quick look at the countries that have purchased or been offered one of the three models of the F-35 shows that, besides the U.S. — what’s noteworthy is that all of them are NATO member countries or in the case of Finland, now a NATO candidate.
If not NATO members, they’re either Israel*, Singapore, Australia, South Korea, Japan or Switzerland. But note, all these countries are either treaty allies, alliance partners, have close military relations with the U.S. or have historically purchased arms from the U.S.
[*The Israeli F-35 is a fourth variant called the F-35I.]
So, to be an F-35 operator country, you have to be on a certain team.
India-U.S. military relations
A U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress makes a flyover during Aero India 2019, Feb. 20, at Air Force Station Yelahanka, Bengaluru, India | Photo: U.S. Air Force/Senior Airman Juan Torres
There is no question that military relations between India and the U.S. have grown much closer over the last three years, especially after the June 2020 border clashes after Chinese PLA intrusions into India’s northern Ladakh region. In terms of military aviation examples, India allowed the U.S. B-52 nuclear bomber to fly over Indian soil during Aero India 2019 without protest from anyone. India and three other F-35 operator countries – the U.S., Australia and Japan have come together to form the Quad group, which they insist is not a military alliance, but their navies conduct the annual large scale naval exercise Malabar. These measures are evidently meant to challenge China’s expectations of dominating the Indo-Pacific region.
That sounds like progress in relations.
Outside the F-35 team
But while India might have many interests that converge with the U.S. and its western allies in the context of the challenge from China, it’s simply not on the same team.
This has become starkly and helpfully evident from India’s independent and nuanced positioning on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, even though it could be argued that it’s neutral and abstinent stance on the issue is less in exercise of strategic autonomy and more a result of the loss of it, because of its continued, substantial reliance on Russian military kit that remains critical for the Indian armed forces. It might well be in India’s interest to vote the way it does at the UN, but it’s disingenuous to consider it autonomy.
The F-35 is built specifically for the NATO and allied ecosystem. No country has become an F-35 operator without first having operated older U.S. fighter aircraft. India has never operated any U.S. fighter aircraft. And to be an F-35 customer, you have to be on the same team. But even being part of a team is clearly not enough.
Türkiye was famously kicked out of the F-35 program, even though it’s a key member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
This was because Türkiye acquired the Russian S-400 air defence system. Any country that operates the system could, theoretically, figure out the vulnerabilities in the stealth features of its F-35 fighters, and there’s a chance these vulnerabilities could then leak back to Russia.
India has also acquired the S-400 system. And while the U.S. has not sanctioned India for the purchase under its CAATSA law, it has made clear its unhappiness with the acquisition. Turkey was sanctioned under CAATSA in 2020.
So it’s clear that even with all that progress in bilateral relations, India is not part of the subset of countries that would be waived into the F-35 club. And with the S-400, the prospects of India acquiring the F-35 diminish even further, which is a score for Russia, succeeding in effectively denying that technology, and closer relations with the U.S., by making the sale to India.
But all that apart, would India even want it?
Issues with F-35 in Indian fleet
First, India is working on its own fifth generation Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) program.
Secondly, while the cost of the F-35 has come down significantly to something like USD 80 million per aircraft — in some ways cheaper than other, ostensibly older generation aircraft, it remains eye-wateringly expensive to fly, with a cost of operation of USD 41,986 per flight hour. This is far higher than fighters like the Gripen, F-16 and F/A-18.
The single engine aircraft also has a service life of only 8,000 hours, lower than some of these other fighters.
And then there are sovereignty and data security concerns linked to the aircraft, with firewalls needing to be erected to safeguard data belonging to partner countries, after complaints emerged about software onboard that tracks virtually every operational and maintenance detail of each F-35 fighter.
Finally, inducting the F-35 would disrupt, if not completely overturn, the chessboard of India’s existing planning on force structure, expenditure and domestic production requirements. An F-35 with Indian tricolour roundels would require a complete restructuring of these plans.
A U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II displays at Aero India 2023 | Photo: Ministry of Defence
To paraphrase…Dil ke ḳhush rakhne ko ‘ġhālib’ ye ḳhayāl achchhā hai lekin ham ko ma.alūm hai jannat kī haqīqat.
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