Key Points and Summary – As India retires its last legendary MiG-21 fighters, its air force is shrinking to a historic low of just 29 squadrons, falling dangerously behind a rapidly expanding China.
-To counter this, New Delhi faces a critical and long-delayed decision for its next 5th-generation fighter.
-The choice is a high-stakes geopolitical dilemma: the combat-proven but expensive American F-35, or Russia’s Su-57, which offers local production but is seen as a “huge bet” on a “dying” and unreliable defense industry.
-This decision will define India’s military power and its strategic alliances for decades.
F-35 Stealth Fighter vs. Russia’s Su-57 Felon: India’s Choice
WARSAW, POLAND – After 62 years in service, the Indian Air Force (IAF) is going to retire its fleet of Mikoyan MiG-21 fighter jets.
The last MiG-21s still in service are with the 23 Squadron, known as the Panthers.
These jets will be retired on September 19 in a ceremony to be held at Chandigarh Airbase.
These MiG-21s were game-changing at the time, being the first supersonic fighter in IAF service.
They not only made New Delhi a regional power above every other air force of their adversaries, but they also symbolized the beginning of what became a decades-long defense industrial partnership between India and Russia.
In subsequent years, the IAF would operate successively more advanced MiG-23, MiG-27, MiG-25, and Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighters.
However, the MiG-21’s retirement will reduce the IAF’s overall fighter force to 29 squadrons, down from an all-time high of 41 and the lowest level since the 1960s.
Moscow has been fighting to convince New Delhi to place an order for a Russian fighter to increase those IAF numbers.
Indeed, there are those in the Indian defense establishment who are uncertain whether Russia has the correct answer for today’s armed forces’ requirements.
The IAF has spent almost three decades planning, hearings, negotiations, upgrades, and conducting endless back-and-forth evaluations of different options to replace the MiG-21.
So, the question that no one has the answer to is: what to replace it with?
East or West?
How that issue is resolved has far-reaching implications that will inexorably alter India’s security relationships and military-industrial ties.
The choice being presented to the IAF now is to either continue on its relationship with Russian industry, procure the Sukhoi Su-57, hope it turns out, or decide to go with the US F-35.
The in-between solution and the easiest and safest choice would be for India to acquire modern fighter aircraft from France, as it has already with its procurement of the Dassault Rafale.
India signed for 36 of this type almost a decade ago and recently purchased 26 more of the carrier-capable Rafale M version for the Indian Navy’s carrier.
The only difficulty with that option is that the Rafale, for all its impressive capabilities, is not an actual 5th-generation fighter aircraft.
India’s long-term defense requirements must factor in the growing number of 5th-generation fighters entering the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) ‘s inventory, as part of its calculations.
The IAF is now being presented with a choice: either the US aircraft or the latest Russian Sukhoi model.
Whichever the IAF decides to acquire, the force will have a difficult job keeping pace with its regional rivals.
A look at the latest data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) yearly publication, The Military Balance, frames the problem for India very starkly.
From 2014 to 2024, the PLAAF added 435 fighter and ground-attack aircraft to its fleet, while Pakistan gained 31. In the same period, the IAF’s total inventory dropped by 151 and continues to decline.
The 5th-Generation Decision: Su-57 vs. F-35 JSF
The IAF currently has plans to acquire over 500 jets, which are officially supposed to be Indian-designed and/or produced.
So, the decision that the IAF will have to make is how to acquire enough 5th-generation models to maintain parity with the Chinese, as well as deciding from where and how many years in the future to purchase them.
India has its 5th-generation project, the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft, but it is likely a decade away from entering production.
Meaning that for the immediate future, if the IAF wants a 5th-generation platform, it will either have to choose between the state-of-the-art US-made F-35, or stick with its long-term partner, Russia, and buy the Su-57.
Why Su-57 for India?
The advantages of the Sukhoi Su-57 are purely political. Moscow is willing to set up a licensed production line in India.
This conforms with New Delhi’s priority that whatever the IAF procures should ideally be manufactured locally – the “Make in India” initiative.
But the Russian aircraft suffers from numerous problems related to the fact that the pressures on Moscow’s industrial sector due to the war with Ukraine have led to the Su-57 being produced in small numbers. The program also has trouble being barred to a raft of foreign-imported components now denied to it due to sanctions.
F-35 for India?
In contrast, the F-35 is a well-established platform and has been purchased by more than 14 nations, in addition to the US.
A lifetime supply of spare parts, technical support, and future upgrades will be amortized across a large total number of aircraft produced.
These are a huge advantage.
If India acquires the Su-57, it is likely to be the only foreign customer.
India will become the proverbial “canary in the coal mine” with a fighter program that either sinks or swims depending on whether Russia’s industry survives.
“That is a huge bet to place on a dying Russian defense industrial base,” said a former, retired flag-rank officer who spoke to National Security Journal.
“The F-35 might be hugely expensive by Indian standards and its integration into the rest of the Indian armed forces platforms might be an arduous – if not impossible – task. But at least you know the companies that built it will still be around 30 years from now.”
About the Author
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
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