India's S-400 Triumf pact with Russia gives it a solid air defence; why go for Rafale when drones are cheaper and reliable?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian president Vladimir Putin announced the $5bn (£3.8bn) deal for the S-400 Triumf in New Delhi on Friday despite mewling sounds and threats from Washington. Modi put India’s security first and did it with minimum fuss and in double quick time, ostensibly spurred by the Donald Trump grumpiness. It was a risk worth taking and the US is hardly likely to take on the world’s largest democracy. Though the renewed nexus between Russia and India over arms buying will tee off the US military hardware complex seeing as how it has been trying hard to move India away from that Russian shopping mall.[caption id=“attachment_3053640” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Russian S-400 Triumf air defence system. Reuters[/caption] India has spent over $100 billion in the past decade on armament and weaponry and over 60 percent of that has gone to Russia despite raw deals in the past and wrangles over spare parts. The S-400 is one of the most sophisticated surface-to-air defence systems in the world. It has a range of 400 km (248 miles) and can shoot down up to 80 targets simultaneously, aiming two missiles at each one. China has it and now so do we. And it is effective. Two questions arise. If this massive deal was so transparent and neat and clean why the same measures couldn’t have been used for the Rafale which, like it or not, leaves one pretty uncertain about what is going on even now. Two, and this is going to be increasingly pertinent do we now need the Rafale in its first batch of 36 or the home-assembled 126 more jets seeing as how fighter aircraft are being eclipsed as weapons delivery systems by missile technology. There are no Biggles type romantic dogfights anymore and the old Spitfire versus Zeros and Messerschmitts and Focke Wulfs are gone. Today, drone technology is leaping ahead and pilotless aircraft controlled by cyber jockeys are cheaper, save lives and training costs for human pilots. In fact, even the day of the jackal is over and you won’t need a sniper for an assassination. A drone, the size of a bee, can accomplish the wet mission with far more accuracy. None of this is groundbreaking stuff. Several countries are downsizing or considering downsizing their air forces for more practical weaponry in this new age. Surface-to-air missiles are now the top priority in maintaining national security rings. In his paper on the subject of jets becoming redundant and not finding markets, Shangsu Wu at the Military Studies Program of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University says: “With high procurement costs and training, maintenance, and upgrading costs, as well as their vulnerability on the ground, the burdens of operating fighter aircraft are increasingly heavy everywhere, including Southeast Asia. Surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) present an alternative means of air defense. Though several types of fourth generation fighters have been introduced into the region, most Southeast Asian air forces have only purchased a few squadrons of them since the end of the Cold War. Because of a ceiling of operational readiness and the broad air space of most regional countries, the limited sizes of these fighter fleets means they may not be able to respond to intruders or other contingencies all the time. Furthermore, those small fleets, usually concentrated in one or a few airbases, could be vulnerable to a pre-emptive strike, especially from an extra-regional power.” Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore are some of the countries creating a SAM defensive strategy. SAMs need storage and positioning. No runways, no airports, no infrastructural back up of nature called for by fighter aircraft. Maybe India could consider a drive up the cutting edge of military technology. Between an S-400 system and multi-mission drone fleets on specific target missions, even a fifth-generation fighter like the experimental F15X in the US turns into a luxury that has a low relevance performance envelope.