Trump wants to sell same F-35s to India that Musk was slamming in November

Between 2019 and 2023, India emerged as the world's largest arms importer — according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) — followed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In the coming decade, as per the U.S. Congressional Research Service, India is expected to spend more than $200 billion on modernising its defence services.

Given the size of the pie, it was only to be expected that a hard-nosed businessman like US President Donald Trump would want a larger share of it. Indeed, before beginning his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Trump told reporters in typically blunt fashion, "We'll be increasing military sales to India by many billions of dollars. We're also paving the way to ultimately provide India with the F-35 stealth fighters."

The stated official reason behind the "billions of dollars" in increased defence spending, of course, was Trump's desire to reduce the trade deficit with India. Hence, the increase in military sales will begin this year itself, and eventually move on to F-35 fighter jets, the US President said yesterday, 13 February.

Modi's cheerleaders would no doubt see the addition of F-35s to India’s defence arsenal as a major win, given the minuscule group of nations allowed to buy them from the US, among them Israel, Japan, and NATO states.

The fly in the ointment, however, is a post by Elon Musk from only a few months ago, as reported by NDTV. Now one of Trump's special advisors in charge of the freshly minted department of government efficiency (DOGE), Musk appears to pretty much come and go as he pleases from the White House, even using it as a venue for his meeting with Modi.

However, writing on X in November 2024, Musk was scathing in his criticism of the F-35, calling its design a "broken jack of all trades". And following it up with, "Crewed fighter jets are an inefficient way to extend the range of missiles or drop bombs. A reusable drone can do so without all the overhead of a human pilot..."

Not content with that either, he raved, "Some US weapons systems are good, albeit overpriced, but please, in the name of all that is holy, let us stop the worst military value for money in history that is the F-35 program!”

It would be interesting to know if his point of view has changed in the roughly three months that have elapsed since that stinker of a post.

Meanwhile, for decades, Russia has been India's biggest weapons supplier, but President Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine has understandably diminished its weapons-exporting capability, with France recently supplanting it as the world's second largest arms exporter behind the US.

As per SIPRI's study, "Arms exports by the United States, the world’s largest arms supplier, rose by 17 per cent between 2014–18 and 2019–23, while those by Russia fell by more than half (–53 per cent). France’s arms exports grew by 47 per cent and it moved just ahead of Russia to become the world’s second largest arms supplier."

Russian fighter jets have long been part of India's military fleet and in recent times, it has offered to make its fifth-generation stealth fighter jet Sukhoi Su-57 in India for the Indian Air Force, a Russian and an Indian official said earlier this week.

While Trump has not provided a timeline regarding the supply of the much vaunted F-35s, foreign military sales typically take years to work through. As a Reuters report stated, "India has agreed to buy more than $20 billion of U.S. defense products since 2008. Last year, India agreed to buy 31 MQ-9B SeaGuardian and SkyGuardian drones after deliberations that lasted more than six years."

Details of the defence deal are easily obtained from the joint statement issued by both countries. But the perceived glamour of the F-35 club pales in comparison to the nitty-gritty of advanced weapons and surveillance systems.

Will India still join the privileged group of F-35 buyers? Foreign secretary Vikram Misri told the media after the meeting, "I don't think with regard to the acquisition of an advanced aviation platform by India, that process has started as yet. This is currently something that's at the stage of a proposal."

In diplomat-speak, that's as clear an answer as can be hoped for.