India’s ambitious military modernization program to upgrade its Cold War-era vehicles and equipment is viewed as saber rattling by its neighbor and perpetual adversary Pakistan, a scholar of the region said June 3.
Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, program coordinator of the Centre for Strategic Studies at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, said India is modernizing its air force with newer, more-capable jets but not downsizing its ranks, according to its newly purchased capabilities.
The country is on the cusp of a $20 billion deal to purchase nearly 130 Dassault Rafale fighter jets that could be signed within three months, according to media reports. At 1,500 aircraft, the fleet would be 30 percent bigger than its Pakistani counterpart.
“Even though the air force is buying more expensive things, it should be downsizing in numbers like every Western air force has done, because you can do more things with fewer planes,” he said. “This is not happening.”
“Pakistan has been, traditionally, the quality air force and India has been the numerically superior air force,” he added. “So now, what you see is India is basically disrupting the balance. It is becoming supposedly qualitatively better and quantitatively better and that is scaring the living daylights out of the Pakistanis.”
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