India's Rafale Selection Puts Global Fighter Aircraft Programmes in Turmoil

摘要

India's stunning selection of the RAFALE fighter aircraft from among six options which included the EUROFIGHTER, the Lockheed Martin F-16, the Boeing F/A 18, the Saab GRIPEN and the MiG-35 has shaken the global fighter aircraft market like no other procurement programme in recent memory. The professional and transparent manner in which the Indian MoD went about the procurement has surprised one and all. More importantly, not bowing to political pressure from the Americans and later the four countries of the Eurofighter consortium has made this a 'benchmark' procurement, something that other countries on the verge of major defence purchase decisions, might like to look up to. Barely days after the 1 February 2012 decision to announce Dassault as the lowest bidder from among the two technically qualified contenders, the other being Eurofighter, India received a visitor in the form of Celso Amorim, the Brazilian Defence Minister who asked for access to the MMRCA evaluation process files, which his Indian counterpart, A.K.