Study of an arms deal: why India favours the Rafale

With the recent news that the negotiations on the adoption of the Rafale as India's MMF (Medium Multi-role Fighter) are moving ahead again, it’s worth asking what considerations might have influenced India's decision-making. Especially considering that the MMF tender is also the largest arms deal of the largest democracy in the world.

Ultimately governments make purchase decisions about multi-million dollar military hardware pretty much the same way that you or I might choose a mobile phone provider or car insurance. Essentially it all boils down to 4 things: performance, cost, customer service and trust.

1. Performance

Q: Does the product meet (or exceed) your requirements?

Let’s start by comparing the two finalists in the Indian MMF tender: the Dassault Rafale (France) and the EADS Eurofighter Typhoon (UK, Germany, Spain and Italy). (I’ll get to the eliminated offerings from the US later on.)

Both the Typhoon and Rafale are delta winged, multi-roled, fourth generation fighters (France was originally part of the Eurofighter programme) designed in the late 70's. To a layman, both aircraft are very similar, but the devil is in the detail.

The Eurofighter arguably has the edge in BVR and WVR (Beyond Visual Range and Within Visual Range) air-to-air engagement capabilities. However this does not play in its favour in terms of the Indian tender as the Indians already have a superb air-to-air machine in the form of the Russian Su-30 MIK (reportedly more advanced than the Su-35 Flanker-E in operation in the Russian air force).  

Where the Rafale has the upper hand is that it is considered to be an Omni-role fighter rather than the Multi-role Typhoon. It means that the aircraft was designed to perform various missions at the same time. Multi-role aircraft can be outfitted for various missions but often can only conduct one or two at a time. During the Libyan bombing campaign, the French operated Rafales in pairs, switching from observation to strike to aerial area denial at a moment’s notice. Whereas UK Royal Air Force often deployed 2 types of aircraft simultaneously, the Rafale means that you can perform the same missions with half the number of aircraft. 

Other advantages include a navalised version of the Rafale already in operation in the French navy (important to the Indians, who want to develop their own aircraft carriers), the ability to carry AM 39 Exocet anti-ship missiles as well as nuclear cruise missiles and finally the fact that the Rafale is compatible with French-made munitions already in use in the Indian Air Force on their Mirages (the predecessor of the Rafale), greatly simplifying logistics.

2. Cost

Q: Does the product offer good value for money?

It’s been suggested that the Rafale is being offered 5 to 6 million dollars per unit cheaper than the Typhoon. Were that the case, it’s rumoured that Dassault would effectively be foregoing any profit on the deal. If so, the price would be unbeatable.

3. Customer service

Q: How good is the after-sales service?

Germany (one of the 4 partner countries developing the Eurofighter) has been a more important aviation partner for India, helping to develop a native helicopter programme in recent years. Germany's standing is also helped by the fact that many members of India’s ruling class have been educated there and the German political model is often drawn for inspiration in India. However recent German flakiness in terms of technology transfers - and the ever-looming constraint that German law requires them to cease the supply of weapons and spares to their partners if they were to engage in a war - make Germany too unreliable a defence partner in the eyes of the Indians. 

Conversely France and Russia (India’s premier defence partner) have the advantage of not being subject to national or international arms embargoes when dealing with other states, so the supply chain would almost always be guaranteed. 

4. Trust

Q: Do you trust the product (or rather the people who make it)?  

As with consumer goods, trust is largely earned by getting (1) to (3) right. But trust also comes down to more intangible factors – in particular strength of relationship and political will.    

In this context, the Eurofighter is a thorny proposition for the Indians. It is built by a conglomerate of four nations, each with their own separate foreign policies and arms trade laws. Italy and Spain have never sold anything major to India, military-wise. Britain recently sold a batch of training aircraft to India, but the last combat aircraft sold to India was the Jaguar in the 70s. And that was developed 50/50 with France, so Britain and France share the credit for that. 

Here again the Rafale has the edge. The Indian air force has been using French aircraft since the 1950s and since then it has been involved in four major conflicts. The Indians have found the French to be particularly accommodating in terms of logistics and technology transfers – especially when they asked them to help modify their Mirages for use with Russian- and Israeli-made munitions in 1999.

It is this solid trust (or lack thereof) that eliminated the US offerings very quickly. Other than the fact that the American F16s and F/A 18s were not as advanced as their European rivals, the US has been supplying Pakistan (India's perennial enemy). It is also a well known fact that the US sold "incomplete" F16s to Pakistan (they lacked advanced radar), both of these  factors making the US an unreliable partner in the eyes of India. 

In the end, it’s probably trust that will have tipped the balance in France’s favour. A neat reminder that, like consumers, arms buyers want to have warm and cuddly feelings too.

Arming rebels : Playing with fire ?

Last week both the French and British governments announced that they would seek to lift an EU blanket arms embargo on Syria, allowing them to begin supplying opposition forces to Assad's regime with weapons and munitions. The move was backed by US yesterday during a conference by the US Secretary of State John Kerry. However as of right now, Britain and France have yet to convince their Europeans partners, especially Germany, that lifting the embargo would help to stabilise the rapport de force between the various factions fighting in Syria. 

France and Britain's positions are understandable: the war has been raging on for 2 years, it has displaced over 450,000 Syrians and almost triggered a war with neighbouring Turkey. The stakes are high. Assad's regime has much to answer for, including the massacre of civilians by Shabiha militias, but what keeps Western politicians up at night is Syria's extensive arsenal of chemical weapons. Will Assad ever use them against his people? Unlikely since he would probably lose support of Russia and China. But what if the Sunni extremist factions of the rebellion got hold of them? Could they be used against Israel or sold to extremist movements? More likely they could be used in the inevitable retributions that would follow the collapse of the Assad regime.

The history of Syria is marred with tensions between the Sunni majority and the Alawite population, of which the Assad family is part. In the 14th century Alawites were declared enemies of Islam by radical Sunni clerics and the various fatwas issued against them resulted in massacres. The Alawites finally got their own back when Hafez Al-Assad seized power. Originally a Baathist (who strove for the creation of a unified secular state across Arab lands) Al-Assad senior became embroiled in a civil conflict against the Muslim Brotherhood, eventually culminating in the eradication of the Brotherhood at the brutal Battle of Hama in 1982. Since then the Alawites have enjoyed preferential treatment under the Syrian regime, stoking the flames of ancient hatred and resentment against them. Many radical Sunnis still consider them the worst enemies of Islam and it is conceivable that atrocious exactions will befall them if the Assad regime were to collapse.  

So what do Britain and France hope to accomplish by arming the rebels?

Assad is being supported by Russia (as well as Iran and their proxy army Hezbollah, who want to extend Shia influence in the region). The Sunni rebels are being supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar (two Sunni nations). But what about the moderate/secular branch of the rebellion? That is the imbalance that France and Britain want to address. If the Assad regime were to be toppled today, the Sunni rebel factions would be in a clear position of strength. As much as the West wants to see Assad gone, the idea of a radical Sunni Syria, with access to a large stockpile of chemical weapons is not a particularly appealing one. (Especially to Israel.) So by arming the "secular" branch of the rebellion, the French and the British hope to redress the balance of power within the opposition, keeping the radicals in check if the Assad regime were to fall. 

It's an extremely risky proposition though. First of all, arming the rebels would be a breach of international law, as the Russian Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov recently pointed out. It wouldn't be the first time in history that states have armed rebel factions, especially during the Cold War, but this could have serious repercussions for France and Britain in terms of international relations. This could be worsened by the fact that Britain and France would have no control of how the weapons and training they provide would be used in the conflict. It is very possible that in-fightingcould break out between the various rebel factions if the Assad regime were to be deposed. All that France and Britain would have accomplished would then be the extension of the civil war - with all the unpleasant consequences that civil wars tend to have. And the civilians, as usual, would bear the brunt of these consequences. 

Britain and France's proposal is driven by two calculations - one geo-political, the other domestic. Firstly an attempt to break the political deadlock at the international level. Assad enjoys protection and military support from Russia and China. This effectively shields him from direct military intervention by Western powers. As unethical as Russia's support of the Assad regime is, their arms supply are not illegal and there is not much that the US, France and Britain can do about it. This is causing much frustration and arming the rebels is seen as "doing something". The second factor is political opportunism. Things aren't exactly going well domestically for David Cameron and François Hollande, but recent military involvement by the two nations during the Arab Spring have emboldened the two leaders on the international stage and given them a taste for statesmanship.

For the moment Assad has the upper hand. He is in control of 70% of Syria and enjoys the protection of powerful allies. There is very little sign that things could change and arming the rebels is a reckless and short-sighted solution - if you can call it a solution at all. Arming sections of the rebels could bring the conclusion to the conflict sooner, however it is more likely that it would fuel an extension of war in the resulting power vacuum that would inevitably follow the downfall of Bashar Al-Assad. How many more would die or be displaced then?  

Unmanned warfighting: The legacy of the Industrial Revolution

The success of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) has made the drone business one of the fastest growing sectors in the aviation industry. It is thought that the US military has over 7,000 of them, from only 50 a decade ago.

Drones have proved their usefulness in conventional military applications (surveillance, overwatch of combat troops and close air support for example) as well as intelligence operations (the CIA operates a significant number of drones independently from the military). Their success has also opened up a huge new market in commercial and civilian uses for unmanned vehicles in the air, on land and on sea. 

What excites most journalists – and understandably so – are the ethical and legal issues raised by the use of drones in military and law enforcement roles. Notably habeas corpus, collateral damage and right to privacy. At a deeper level, so the argument goes, drones are challenging the moral calculus of warfare - built as it used to be on the value of human lives risked or saved and age-old martial values of honour and sacrifice. 

Viewed through the lens of history however, there is nothing intrinsically revolutionary about drones in terms of either the underpinning technologies or the calculations driving their development.  

Put simply, a drone is an armed plane that can fly itself (or be flown remotely) and target with precision. The novelty lies not the component parts but in the bundling. After all, we’ve been building war planes for almost 100 years, autopilot features have been around on aircraft for over 40 years. The success of drones is in combining old concepts (such as a planes carrying bombs) with new technology like GPS and satellite communications. Drones simply enhance a portfolio of already existing capabilities.

More fundamentally, drone warfare is arguably just a natural step in a 200 year old evolutionary continuum. 

The industrial revolution kickstarted the mechanisation of labour and it wasn't long before the military of industrialised states began seeing the potential of these technological breakthroughs in military applications. More and more machines were introduced into military arsenals - trains, aircraft, armoured vehicles, trucks etc. Machines increasingly complemented and sometimes replaced the role of man and animal both on and off the battlefield. Take the Gatling gun, which made its battlefield debut in 1862. Dr Gatling developed the weapon in order to reduce the number of overall lives lost in the American Civil War. The idea was that a Gatling Gun crew could do the same job as a company of riflemen - thus reducing the need for more soldiers on the battlefield and reducing the overall number of people put in harm’s way.  

As armies modernise, hardware becomes more complex and thus more and more expensive to build, maintain and train on. Governments expect their money's worth, hence the increasing emphasis on the survivability of military hardware. From an infantryman's Personal Protective Equipment to modern electronic counter-measures, an increasing amount of research and development is being directed towards safeguarding a government's "investments". Reducing/eliminating human risk is simply part of the same calculation.  

And what if we look forward along the same continuum, say 50 years into the future? My prediction is that the future will re-frame our view of the ethics of drones, just as the past helps frame our understanding of the technology.