The F-16 debate to date has focused on the military balance between India and Pakistan. Many SM commenters have noted that even though India will be allowed to buy U.S. arms, it's unlikely to do so because the U.S. has been an unreliable supplier.
Today a NYT story took the opposite tack: F-16 sales to India are good because they'll keep the production line open in case the U.S. military ever places another order.
"The reopening of sales to Pakistan and the opening of sales to India extends the life of the production line, the Fort Worth operation and the entire F-16 supply chain throughout the country. It also provides the Air Force with a warm production line should it want extra F-16's."
Lockheed is talking like a business, not saber-rattling like the U.S. government:
"If India's requirements are beyond any existing fighters, we are prepared to make upgraded F-16's to India's specifications with complete transfer of technology," Mike Kelly, a Lockheed senior executive said in an interview last month with the Press Trust of India, a New Delhi news agency. "We have, in the past, taken up building of such exclusive fighters for the U.A.E. and we are prepared to manufacture F-16's to India's special requirements."
India already writes software for Boeing and Lockheed :
Boeing... is already relying on Indian companies to provide software for its new commercial jet, the 787 Dreamliner...
The U.S. as hopeful suitor: it's a newly respectful tone in the media's handling of this story.
India wants a tech transfer agreement rather than an outright sale:
India... is proposing that it buy 18 F-16's outright and that the remaining 108 be built in India under a licensing agreement... Under these arrangements, the F-16 is mostly built in the United States, then broken down. The pieces are then shipped overseas and reassembled... "India wants to do what China has done," said Stephen P. Cohen, a senior fellow and South Asian specialist at the Brookings Institution, a liberal Washington research group. "They want to take a technology, improve it and then build it themselves. They've already done this with ships and now they want to do it with aircraft from the U.S."
The F-16 'sale' to Pakistan is actually a free gift:
Because of Pakistan's meager economy, $3 billion in American aid will be provided to buy the F-16's. India, by contrast, has enough money to pay for a large order of fighters itself.
If India does buy from the U.S. rather than France or Russia, the smart money is on the cheaper F-16s rather than F-15s or F/A-18s:
The Boeing F/A-18, which is used exclusively by the Navy and Marines, is capable of shipboard landings. India, which has just completed building its own carrier vessels, may find this feature attractive, but the price of $50 million for each plane could stand in the way. The top-of-the-line F-15, which costs around $65 million a plane, may also prove too costly to buy in large numbers.
