Tarang Shakti will be good for UP and Tamil Nadu defence corridors, bring European investment

Tarang Shakti is a fine example of how India’s Soviet-era Air Force has now modernised to a world-class infrastructure, now capable of holding war games with the F-18s and F-16s.

Air Marshal A.P. Singh briefing media on Tarang Shakti in New Delhi, Wednesday | Smruti Deshpande | ThePrint

The Indian Air Force is set to create history on 6 August 2024 by launching its maiden multinational Air exercise, Tarang Shakti, or ‘power of the wave’. Earlier scheduled for late 2023, this state-of-the-art war-gaming in Indian flannel skies is finally happening in two phases. First, at the Sulur Airbase in Tamil Nadu in August, and second, in the deserts of Jodhpur in September.

The list of invitees and participating aircraft is quite impressive. About 10 countries will participate actively, with 18 nations acting as observers. The participating nations include, apart from India, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Greece, Singapore, UAE and Spain.

Déjà vu

This is not the first time India has joined wings with friendly countries. In the devastating India-China war of 1962, Moscow refused to help New Delhi against its then-communist ally. It landed the most humiliating defeat on a shocked nation that had been romanticising the Nehruvian worldview of a peaceful co-existence with China.

Determined to modernise, India, a year later, participated in a joint air exercise (code-named Shiksha) with the US, UK, and Australia. Then-US President John F Kennedy’s readiness to offer help against China and later for Shiksha made him an icon in New Delhi. However, a lasting alliance between India and the West, particularly India and the US, couldn’t ever be formed.

Geopolitical travails from arch-rival Pakistan and the undoing of the Cold War era led the destiny of a battered Indian nation in a different direction. The Soviets emerged as the biggest ally of an officially non-aligned India for the next few decades. Half a century later, the owl of Minerva has quite literally started its flight all over again in a radically changed geopolitical landscape. Through the shades of twilight, it is chasing India’s dream of becoming a developed nation by 2047, when the grand old civilisation embodied in our young country will turn 100.

Tarang Shakti is a fine example of how India’s Soviet-era air force has now modernised to a world-class infrastructure. It is now capable of holding war games with flying machines such as the F-18s, F-16s with Airborne Warning and Control Systems, A-50s, Rafales, Eurofighter Typhoons and the C-130s.

These formidable air assets will form red and blue teams to simulate different war scenarios and test their respective interoperability and joint manoeuvres. For the uninitiated, in a war game, the blue team plays the attacker and the red team plays the defender. All possible war-like situations are created in a controlled environment. For instance, in a multinational air exercise, the usual scenarios are visual range/ beyond visual range games, and the speed and promptness with which teams react to Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) instructions. Additionally, all possible ground contingencies are exercised, simulating a special forces attack on airfields and radars amid scenarios of communications failure, just like in a real war.

Fundamentally, it will be portraying the strategic will in India to repeatedly engage with friendly countries in consolidating strategic signalling to protect and fight for its core interests.

Additionally, these war games will be an opportunity for India to showcase its capabilities in research and defence production through industrial defence aviation exposition. In a first, the defence aviation expo will see participation from five defence public sector undertakings (DPSUs), 20 private companies, 20 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and 16 start-ups.

Tarang Shakti has generated remarkable interest in Berlin. The lure of defence-industry cooperation is evident in German participation this year, which I will turn to in a while.

First, a few words on sustained strategic signalling.

Connect the dots

Merely two months ago, the Indian Air Force had participated in Red Flag Alaska 24-2, a US Air Force-led war game with friendly nations. Here, the IAF competed with the air forces of the US, Singapore, UK, Netherlands, and Germany.

On its way back from Alaska, the Indian contingent paused in the Mediterranean for joint sorties with Egypt and its latest strategic partner Greece before finally landing in India on 24 June.

In July, Beijing and Moscow conducted joint naval exercises with artillery fires and anti-submarine drills at a Chinese military port in the South China Sea. Codenamed Maritime Cooperation 2024, it was followed by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov proposing to join Chinese and Russian forces to counterbalance the US. A day before Lavrov’s statement, two Russian and two Chinese bombers, jointly patrolling the Alaskan airspace for the first time, were intercepted by US and Canadian jets.

Beijing and Moscow’s ‘No limits friendship’ and the latter’s military activities in the Indo-Pacific have intensified since the West isolated Russia for its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.  These dynamics have further linked the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific theatres, highlighting the grave geostrategic implications of ‘indivisible security’ from West to East, which was first exemplified by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

India’s pitch is to retain multi-alignment that allows it to manoeuvre its multi-directional foreign policy with both Western partners and Russia. However, the growing bonhomie between Russia and China is and should be a concern for New Delhi, regardless of its penchant for strategic agnosticism.

In terms of stratification of priorities, it is more important for India to counter the asymmetric rise of China as the latter seeks to unabashedly dominate the larger Asian order and the “Global South”. India’s repeated strategic cooperation with Western partners reflects this core foreign policy imperative, batting for the utility of multi-alignment at the same time. At its most basic, it’s strategic common sense for a country with India’s past, geography and challenges.

The German lure to IAF tenders

Germany, a recent strategic entrant to the Indo-Pacific club, will be flying its Typhoons and Medium Transport Aircraft (MTA), the A-400M, at the Tarang Shakti. It’s important to note that the IAF has recently issued a tender for MTAs to replace its ageing fleet of AVRO-748 and An 32s.

Germany’s A-400 M is competing for that IAF tender and Berlin will be showcasing its capabilities in war simulations to acquire an edge over its competitors.

Russia was a natural choice for India when the latter began planning to replace its ageing MTA fleets in 2009. However, after years of negotiation, the deal got suspended due to disagreement over the FADEC, Full Authority Digital Engine Control, of the aircraft.

India has lately diversified its MTA acquisition, getting the first batch of C-295s from Spain in 2023. The second part of the order will be made in India.

The main contenders for the recent IAF tender are Brazil’s C390 by Embraer, Germany’s A-400M by Airbus, and Russia’s Ilyushin Il-276 by the United Aircraft Corporation. C390 boasts of the cheapest deal and Brazil is willing  to co-produce and share the FADEC with India.

Before the war, Ukraine, too was a major contender, having offered its An-178 MTA aircraft to India. Kyiv’s ongoing defence cooperation with New Delhi for upgrading nearly 100 An-32 aircraft of the IAF also worked in its favour.

However, Airbus, a consortium of France and Germany, gets an edge because of delivery payloads up to 37 tonnes, higher than its competitors. This is relevant for India because it’ll be useful in transporting equipment to the high altitudes of Leh and Ladakh, ensuring more fuel efficiency and saving crucial time in crises.

Air-to-air re-fuelling capabilities also make it a more attractive choice for India, which has been looking for this technology for its MTAs. Germany, which is aiming for an enhanced defence industry partnership and a “symbiotic relationship ” with India, has made a good case for its A-400Ms. But finally, an overall package will be key.

Tarang Shakti and the defence aviation expo provide another good opportunity for European investments in the new defence industrial corridors of Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. This will only aid India’s ‘builder’s defence ecosystem’ and enhance its over-arching prowess as a global player.

The writer is an Associate Fellow, Europe and Eurasia Center, at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. She tweets @swasrao. Views are personal.

(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)