As a thai whose nation adopted lots of Pali/Sanskrit words, I have to look up the word origin https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/pracanda because I suddenly understand the meaning of "Prachan", in thai it means "confront". Indian naming always gives sci-fi kind of vibe.
>> Indian naming always gives sci-fi kind of vibe.
In an ironic twist of linguistic history, most US combat helicopters were given American "indian" names (Apache, Comanche, Black Hawk etc). I like such conventions. I wish that more nations adopted and stuck to them when introducing new equipment.
Apropos of nothing much but just on the general theme, when I worked for a few defence companies in Europe, it was common to rename equipment or systems for the Australian market. We'd come up with some way to justify the renaming; often there was some small change or configuration alteration we could point to. We had to rename feminine sounding names or acronyms to something that sounded suitably roughty-toughty for the Australian market.
I genuinely never knew how necessary that was; if it was just something we'd ended up doing based on rumour and speculation, or if re-acronyming something from AMELIE to TOUGHGUY really did make it more likely to get the sale in Australia.
Well, the Royal Navy had "tribal class" destroyers, of which I remember only the HMS Ashanti, and perhaps the Pathan. Whether the eponymous "tribes" appreciated the tributes, I never heard.
The US Navy has some well-understood conventions, including leading-class warships (one battleships, now nuclear submarines) named after states, aircraft carriers named after earlier warships (Enterprise, Wasp) or battles (Yorktown, Saratoga).
Not always, during WW2 most of their tanks were simply named "Panzer" ("Armor") with a version number. They also had the big cat tanks at this time too though.
It is a bit bizarre given the role the US Army played in that genocide. But the Army does only use those tribal names with formal permission from the tribes themselves.
The only information there resembling 'formal permission' is this quote -
>On June 10, 2012, Lakota elders ritually blessed two new South Dakota Army National Guard UH-72A Lakotas at a traditional ceremony on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. Ceremonies like these happened often over the past several decades.
As I said, "in an ironic twist of linguistic history".
This is a story about a new helicopter, in India. But in the america's long ago "indian" was applied to indigenous groups by people looking for a route to India who didn't know where they were. And then, centuries later, the names for those groups were adopted as names for American helicopters. It is a long joke that I guess not everyone can appreciate.
Tl;Dr: it's tricky. and because it's not that simple.
I don't know your background and maybe you're from a first nation or tribe, but there isn't a common agreement between the populations of existing tribes and nations on what is offensive or incorrect. This isn't to say that any term is acceptable, but Indians, however incorrectly labeled by a colonizing group a few hundred years ago, is literally how some choose to identify themselves here in North America.
I say this as someone from India and event there, there isn't a common agreement or knowledge to arrive at an "inoffensive" term for folks who live here. Most just use the descriptor left by the British and say "Red Indians" with no malice implied.
Because it’s not offensive or incorrect. American Indians have adopted and use the term themselves. Most official American Indian organizations are named as such, and not as “Native American” or “First Nations”, though the latter is also catching on, especially in Canada.
Where do attack helicopters fit into modern war, out of curiosity? From my very uninformed point of view -- seems like in a world where man-portable weapons are getting more and more capable, being in a relatively (compared to jets) slowly moving, lightly (?) armored flying vehicle would be pretty terrifying.
I think we’re in a transition period where it looks like drones will probably replace scout and attack helicopters. In the mean time a chopper like this probably still has a role, but I think they’re on the wrong side of history with this.
For now though, while western militaries can afford to hand out LAWS and MANPADS to their troops like sweets, India’s main rivals probably can’t. Yes an individual MANPAD is much cheaper than a chopper, but to defend your entire army from a few dozen choppers you’ll need to hand out a heck of a lot of MANPADS to get the coverage.
The main saving grace of a system like this is that the munitions, unguided rockets and cannon rounds, are pretty cheap. In contrast while drones are much cheaper than the chopper, they’re very expensive as munitions.
> The main saving grace of a system like this is that the munitions, unguided rockets and cannon rounds, are pretty cheap. In contrast while drones are much cheaper than the chopper, they’re very expensive as munitions.
Based on the current war in Ukraine, this isn't true at all.
Even relatively expensive loitering munitions (compare to mortars dropped from DJI drones) like the Switchblade 600 cost in the range of $10,000-20,000 per deployment, significantly cheaper than the flight costs for a rotary light attack sortie and much cheaper than even the "low-cost" missile option for the Prachand (the Thales FZ275 LGR - the high-cost option is the MBDA Mistral, which costs $300,000 per deployment).
There is no scenario in which a manned rotary craft competes with a drone on cost.
And to actually the thread, drones ARE being worked on that can go do search and rescue, bringing back the victim. Safer for crew, better coverage and can get into places a traditional rotor craft can't.
It's not a moved goalpost. Remember that Hind type helicopters are used in both transport and attack roles. There aren't yet any comparable drones, nor even any drones with a comparable transport lift capability. A drone which can lift a guy on a stretcher can only do a small fraction of what transport helicopters do.
This whole thread was a great example of how internet forum debates go off the rails. No true scotsman can fit through the eye of needle carrying a coconut.
> Every drone competes favourably with Chinook on cost.
Technically the space shuttle had limited autopilot capabilities so you could see it as a drone carrying humans, one of which happens to be a pilot who will control it at other times, but that's just a coincidence. And it was way expensive. You fool, you absolute fool.
And anyway, what is a fly-by-wire system, but a drone that is piloted remotely... for very small definitions of "remote."
I dunno. I don't think there's any productive discussion possible with people who are (for some reason) willing to ignore context and widen your claims so you can be wrong.
> I dunno. I don't think there's any productive discussion possible with people who are (for some reason) willing to ignore context and widen your claims so you can be wrong.
I feel like you may be in need of some introspection.
The runtime cost of helicopters is pretty terrible, though. You can easily exceed the cost of several expendable "switchblade" type drones simply taking off and flying to the target.
Range and eyeballs are the elements a lot of people leave out. Helos carry the eyeballs with them long ranges. Drones require radios with enough bandwidth for real time video. Which at the range of 100s of km is very non trivial and non cheap.
That’s to say switch blades don’t have comparable range obviously, and that’s not nothing.
Apples and oranges. A switchblade is only ever useful against a target. It doesn't have the firepower to suppress enemy movement, to cover an allied advance, or decimate an area of ground when you cannot pinpoint a target's exact position. A helicopter with some FFARs and a machine gun can.
If the helicopter can do something that no drone can, then it does compete regardless of the extra cost/complexity/manpower needed to deploy it.
Exactly this, it ludicrous to try and compare the cost of a handful of switchblade drones, which are single use with a warhead equivalent to a light mortar shell, to an entire attack helicopter deployment.
No question helps are very expensive, but the vast majority of the costs are incurred whether you deploy it or not. They can range over hundreds of miles performing a wide variety of tasks and carry far more capable sensor, communications and weapon systems than drones.
As I said I think drones are here and very capable, and they’re the future for these sorts of missions, but we’re not quite there yet.
It seems like helicopters coupled with drones and ground forces could play a role in a rapid advance. They’re probably DOA for urban environments though, just based on what we’re seeing in Ukraine.
> western militaries can afford to hand out LAWS and MANPADS to their troops like sweets
They can't. These are expensive in the West due to the privatized defense industry racking up prices. Russia and China can. And countries like India, who buy from them cheap, can.
I mean, nothing fits into modern war when cheap portable anti tank and air defense system exist.
It's always been the same, I think people are confused because for decades the US has been attacking AK47 wielding farmers with $$$ cutting edge technology but wars between relatively equivalent forces is always a blood bath, everything you can come up with has a cheaper counter measure
> The impetus for the development of the LCH Prachand came in the form of the Kargil War, a conflict fought between India and neighbouring Pakistan in 1999, which revealed the Indian armed forces lacked a suitable armed rotorcraft capable of operating unrestricted in the high-altitude theatre.
In that conflict, Pakistan downed more than one Indian MiG with a man-pad, so I presume this scenario is not lost on India w.r.t. development of this aircraft.
Manpads really aren't all that effective against helicopters. I don't think anything has fundamentally changed in the past 40ish years in regards to the ubiquitousness of manpads or how they work. Helicopters are comparatively cheap, effective, flexible and difficult to shoot down without proper AA, but that's what combined arms is for, or a lot of luck. Only about 40 helicopters were lost to hostile fire in Iraq from 2004-2009. I'd say the flexibility is the main reason why you can't get rid of helicopters in modern armies. There are just things that planes can't do without protected airspace or a controlled airfield.
> Only about 40 helicopters were lost to hostile fire in Iraq from 2004-2009
Russia has lost that many helicopters in about 9 months in Ukraine, id say the effectiveness of helicopters is largely dependent on the capabilities of your opponent and whether or not you can gain air superiority.
Russia has made a lot of mistakes that have nothing to do with Ukraine. I find it difficult to draw any accurate or useful conclusions from the war that translate to the US or Western armies other than don't repeat Russia's mistakes.
I certainly wouldn't base any opinion on the effectiveness of helicopters in general on Russian performance in the current war.
> I find it difficult to draw any accurate or useful conclusions from the war
How about the side that can out produce and outspend (or has friends that do) will come out on top. Same lesson from ww2 . The tricky bit it to stay standing till then
It seems hard to generalize lessons about wars. I remember commenters who thought the couple day timeline was realistic, presumably because they were used to the way the US invades countries. Most armies aren't Russia, most aren't the US...
I dunno, maybe we need to get, like, France and the UK to duke it out again? (kidding obviously).
> I certainly wouldn't base any opinion on the effectiveness of helicopters in general on Russian performance in the current war.
Sure but (and I could be wrong here) isn't this the first time that modern Russia helicopters has gone up against modern MANPADS in a near peer type of conflict?.
Id say it shows at least the effectiveness of different MANPADS against specific countermeasures no?.
If the conclusions you want to draw are about Russia, fine. But it's simply not comparable to how Western armies function. I don't see how you're going to remove all the noise from the data like lack of maintenance, bad training, lack of readiness, outdated hardware, bad doctrine execution, bad leadership, etc.
I think there will be statistics for the performance of Russian helicopters against western MANPADS from Afghanistan during the 80s. I'm not expecting that the MANPADS will have got worse since then.
My understanding is that many helicopters are not equipped with the necessary countermeasure systems. The Russians send out a mix of machines, some with and some without the necessary gear. These groups ore often ovewhelmed by multiple manpads fired at the same time.
Manpads have changed massively. There are still 30+yo systems in the field, which gives a false impression of the tech, but there are also very sophisticated new systems too.
I am very much pro Ukraine and all that. But please let’s keep having respect for other humans. No matter how much we hate them. That’s also part of our value system we’re defending over there.
"Orcs" is an incredibly gentle term, but fair enough, they're not literally orcs. "The Russian invaders who rape infants and then throw them in mass graves with their parents failed to establish air superiority partly due to the effectiveness of the manpads."
Related, but it's pretty eye opening to see left-leaning people being marketed and fully sold a war.
I can only surmise this latest rehash of "support of troops" is about the best chance/narrative that team donkey has for the upcoming elections. Cognitive dissonance banalities(1) notwithstanding.
Yes I missed your point and thinking about it I don't know what's your point when you've said "Oooh, do America/Iraq next"
I thought it was about the relativity of a standpoint and mirror positions. For that I've replied "use Vietnam", because in the atrocities of the US Iraq is relativly moderate and not very interesting to do a "The American ..." but the Phoenix program is much more so.
I don’t think, that politics is a topic for HN. But orcs is too nice word for the beasts who put the corpses of men in the city center and force the little crying kids to identify their dead parents. And then shoot whole families as a punishment for resistance. And the western countries are very worried again.
Attack helicopters are designed for anti-tank, and some anti-infantry and escort. Yes they’re vulnerable. You’re trading off that risk with being able to being able to move extremely quickly and long distance compared to the tanks they’re fighting.
If you want to be very safe you can sit static encased in a metre thick steel shell, but you won’t achieve anything.
In an army, there is a perennial unsolved debate between the tank and the anti-tank corps. The tank guys think you'd be crazy to be on a battlefield if you're not protected by a solid meter of steel and capable of pulverizing anything you point your turret at, while the anti-tank guys think you're crazy if you're sitting trapped in the highly visible steel cage everybody is shooting at.
My takeaway is that India can use this as a means to get greater internal investment - every $Xm dollars a copter costa is not sent to US firms but becomes grist to the mill for Indian metalworkers, Indian engine manufacturers etc etc.
Just keep the corruption out of the process and let the multiplier do its work.
My point was more that spending government dollars on internally sourced services is always a better multiplier (for that governments economy).
TIL there is move in California to have UoC source it's cafeteria meals direct from California farmers (shortening the supply chain, increasing profits and consistent income for farmers)
I know that has a lot of issues but I think it is a very appealing move. Maybe farmers co-ops next?
1. Governments spending tax dollars should make efforts to keep the multiplier in their economy. For something like a hi-tech helicopter there will be a supply chain hundreds of firms long, many small and looking to grow and provide jobs.
2. India has an advantage (certainly compared to US purchases, maybe less to Soviet via China) in labour costs - building a helicopter to the "same" spec in India just costs less than in Ohio, and that means more copter for your rupee
3. Pretty much every government in wartime finds out its supply chains are borked - there is always a shell crisis. It's one reason the US armed forces are so effective - they have been in live wars for thirty years. No chance for a torpedo to be developed that simply does not explode.
If my understanding of history is correct the Indian military was one of the biggest historical customers of the Alouette helicopter, so this is continuing a long historical track record of India buying this tech from France.
Super interesting about all the high altitude needs of this and the Cheetah with links in other comments. I remember growing up in Colorado there were certain places and certain mountain passes that most helicopters couldn't do, I even remember one time an Antanov was ad DIA and couldn't take off because of the combination of altitude of the runway and particularly warm temperatures that day
I worked on heliportable seismic crews a long time ago all over the western and central US. Many of them used Bell helicopters Jet Rangers. Hueys were still dominant in offshore operations flying out of Louisiana.
In the mountain states there were several bad crashes and enough of them involved Jet Rangers that it acquired the nickname "Death Ranger" on a couple crews I was with. Probably not the helicopter's fault since it has a great reputation everywhere else. Bad things happen when you ignore safety training and maintenance. Those seismic crews were full of dopeheads.
For lifting in the mountains you almost always saw the French Aerospatiale Lama. It was a great helicopter and when equipped with a long enough line could move your drills and assorted equipment anywhere on the slope.
Most pilots back then were Vietnam veterans. You always knew you were in good hands with one of those guys flying. I imagine most are retired by now. One in my area rebuilds helicopters for military museums and other clients. I see him fairly often on low level flights checking everything out on his latest rebuild.
I've loved helicopters since I was a kid growing up near Ft Hood during the Vietnam War. The skies were always filled with helicopters. To this day when I'm inside and hear a chopper I feel the urge to run outside a see which one it is. I am apparently too old now to reasonably expect to be able to grow out of it. They all have distinctive approach and departure sound profiles. The strangest helicopter I have seen was a full-size robotic chopper (large enough for pilot and co-pilot but it had no cockpit windshield at all) that was flying along near my house one day less than a hundred feet off the ground. I looked for any documentation online about it but only found one military chopper that looked like it and no mention of civilian use.
Is there any point to helicopters anymore with the increasing capabilities of drones?
See Turkish drone use in UA/RU war. For a single helicopter, you could blanket the skies with drones. Now they aren't dirt cheap, $5 million, but that's a hellva lot cheaper than a single heli.
No drone yet has the situational awareness and reaction time to match a pair of humans in a helicopter. The ability to react quickly to an evolving situation hasnt yet been replicated.
Cool helicopter! It brought me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole and it looks like there's an even bigger one: the Mi-26.
"In early 2002, a civilian Mi-26 was leased to recover two U.S. Army MH-47E Chinook helicopters from a mountain in Afghanistan." [1]
And here I thought the chinook was big, this thing is the tow truck you call when you get your chinook stuck in the mud.
Is a squad 8 people? I guess that’s close. I was thinking more about light attack helicopters like the article one though. A mi24 is a freak of nature right?
I believe current trends in warfare are extremely interesting. I've come to the conclusion that we're slowly reverting towards WWI trench warfare once again.
Tanks and aircraft have become extremely vulnerable due to smart munitions with shaped charge warheads and anti-aircraft missiles (both SAM and MANPADS). This means that breaking through enemy lines becomes all but impossible or only at enormous human cost.
It wouldn't surprise me if chemical warfare is once again used to break the stalemate. Other options are autonomous killing machines and drone swarms (which we're already seeing to some extent).
According to Wikipedia it's based on the previous Indian helicopter, the Dhruv, which was developed with German help (MBB, now Airbus) and uses French engines (Turbomeca, now Safran).
What does that have anything to do with what's been posted on here? Just seems like a sly remark to make.
For instance, every time the US makes advancements in technology, we don't scream that it solves the plethora of disproportionate issues it has for a developed nation. Why? It does not advance the conversation and is unrelated.
Ah but those are Americans commenting on the state of their country.
I'm assuming the person who made the comment is not from India in which case it truly is a sly remark. If my assumption is wrong, feel free to discard my original comment.
This is my stance on these things:
- If the discussion is regarding topic A about a country X, pointing out an unrelated shortcoming when you're not from country X makes you sound like a douche.
- If the discussion is about that shortcoming itself, it's open-season for discussion regardless of where you're from.
- If the discussion is about country X, you are from country X, and feel that something else about the state of your country should be brought into discussion, it's valid.
Love how people jump to flag this comment as irrelevant, when the op just says that basic sanitation should be prioritised over military helicopters.
One thing that opened my eye recently to how nationalistic Indians are, is a new Indian colleague. So much false history and propaganda. Great guy though.
> when the op just says that basic sanitation should be prioritised over military helicopters.
Why can't a country do both? Most countries in the world are investing in military, space or other national security related projects. They all have some internal issues they are facing. It doesn't make sense to prioritize only one thing over the many issues a country faces.
Because money is a finite resource. The budget has X Rupees and and Y topics to split them under, and any rupee spend on the military is one that isn't spent on toilets or schools or childcare.
Yes, but this is an allocation problem. Is it feasible for India to allocate 100% of its budget to toilets when it has border conflicts with its neighbors and terrorism around?
Here comes the butthurt brigade. Any time any positive news about India comes out, these trolls come trotting out, with the same tired-old tropes: toilets, casteism, patriarchy, etc.
You seem really butthurt about something. And yes the Wikipedia article you linked literally talks about how the government has made cleanliness a priority. India lives rent free in your head it seems
That rotor looks like it is made out of lego. Vertical box structures, square intakes... i dont see any attention to "stealth" features. It looks like an overweight cobra or apache. Im not convinced.
Big warning here: India is silently on Russia's side wrt the invasion in Ukraine, and Russia badly needs both allies and new weapons.
Not sure however if India want to risk sanctions for jumping from a silent alliance to a de facto support by supplying Russia with combat helicopters and/or spare parts. They probably already received lots of calls from the Kremlin.
New attack and scout helicopters are probably not on the top of Russia's shopping list for foreign weapons purchases. Their own tactical helicopters have not performed well against Ukrainian air defenses and there's no reason to think these Indian helicopters would fare any better.
More likely Russia is trying to obtain spare parts to keep their existing weapons operating. They're working hard to source those through neutral countries, either purchasing locally manufactured products or employing straw buyers to purchase from Western manufacturers.
Do you have evidence? India was one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement, and I believe their current stance is a result of their fidelity to the movements ideals.
Again, repeated claims that India is siding with Russia proffered with no arguments whatsoever. The whole funding the invasion narrative is complete nonsense. The EU still is the largest importer of Russian crude oil, is the EU siding with Russia too?
"Despite U.S.-led efforts to isolate Russia’s economy and hasten the war’s end, India has chosen to increase imports of Russian oil ten-fold, while increasing that of fertilizer eight-fold. Together with China, Indian purchases of Russian goods have largely negated the effect of transatlantic energy sanctions, and India further funds Russia’s war machine by purchasing big-ticket items, such as submarines, tanks, fighter aircraft and surface-to-air missile systems — a full half of the country’s arms imports come from Russia."
This is completely different from what is happening in the EU, which reduced by a lot the imports from Russia of gas, oil and other goods. My gas/electricity bills more than doubled because of it, still I'm all for cutting any support of Putin, but there's a line between that and economic suicide that at the moment can't be crossed. Ideally, we'll get there in some time; India doesn't even show they aim at that in the long run. Also, I used the word "silently" which makes a world of difference.
Moreover, if you're from India and take my post as a personal attack on your nation or nationality, you are way off track.
The article reads like a self serving western narrative loosely based on cherry picked facts.
India has clearly stated it will buy cheap oil where ever it's available on the market, there is nothing special about russia, look up the actual quantities of oil and LNG imports from russia to india vs india's other suppliers.
What made india load up on russian oil is the incredibly short-sighted and ineffective sanctions on russian oil from the west that only made russian oil available at a discount.
EU didn't stop buying russian gas, russia and the nord stream pipeline saboteurs didn't give them a choice. And if you want to talk about war profiteering look to the profits of american oil and LNG companies that are replacing EU's supplies and rift it's causing between EU and USA.
Energy is the lifeblood of any human society/economy, A country of 1.4 billion with a per capita GDP that india has cannot afford to take a hypocritical moral Highground when doing so in an environment with rising energy prices means people starve.
Not trying to defend India here, I don't think there is anything to defend. I don't think people truly comprehend how deeply rooted agenda driven narratives are in western media. I mean it's not unique to western media but the diversity of narratives in the west unlike the sanctioned narrative in china gives people in the west this false illusion that the lens their media is seeing the world through must be accurate(it isn't).
Another agenda driven narrative recently being put forward is Saudi Arabia siding with russia over the US. Why? because OPEC didn't follow US's lead on market manipulation (price caps, crude supply) and dared to think and act independently.
I read the article. And, unlike the blatantly biased article, I used my brain cells too.
"India has chosen to increase imports of Russian oil ten-fold,..."
These numbers mean nothing if we don't know the absolute numbers. So, for example, if India was buying <0.1% of oil from Russia earlier, it would now by buying < 1%...
They have always maintained that they have a large population to support, and will go for the cheapest option out there.
BTW: there is nothing stopping countries like Germany and USA from opening their checkbooks and subsidizing Indian oil purchases to help them buy more Saudi or African oil. Nothing. Don't expect a country with 1/10 the GDP of the US to harm its economy to fight someone else's war.
India now gets about 12-18% of its oil from Russia (depends on how you count "indirect" purchases). The problem with embargoing Russian oil is that they are the no. 2 exporter (about 11% of Global exports). Basically Russia produces about 10-11 million barrels per day (mbd) but only uses about 3 mbd domestically, allowing them to export the remaining 7-8 million. The US produces more, but it consumes most of what it produces, leaving it as the No. 3 exporter, and that number is falling as we pull back on oil exploration and investment, making Russia and Saudi Arabia more important each year to the global oil market.
Demand for oil is relatively inelastic -- e.g. estimates are something like -.05 in the short term and -.03 in the long term. So just disappearing Russian oil from the market would result in a ~220% increase in oil prices (a very rough estimate, but a ballpark) -- oil would cost roughly $200. That would destroy the world economy and cause mass starvation as well.
So what happens is that an embargo is created and the supply drops, and prices go up, by, say, $20, and then Russia comes along and says "We'll give you a $15 discount if you buy our oil". Then there are lots of buyers, of which India is only one, that agree to this. The end result is that Russia makes $5 more per barrel than before the embargo, but they sell a bit less oil. Everyone else pays a bit more. As this happens, word gets out that Russia is selling oil for $15 below market and the world price falls. As the price falls, the discount narrows. Presently, the discount is $5 (and it's still falling).
In the same way, the US and Europe continue to buy Russian oil, often laundered through third parties. But they all pretend that they have moved off of Russian oil, even though everyone knows it's just gone through some shell companies.
There are now attempts to set a price cap on Russian oil by the G7 nations -- Russia sells about 3 mbd to G7 nations now. But again, this same process will happen. Russia will say "no, I won't sell to you at this low price", at which point the G7 nations have to get their oil from somewhere else, and they outbid existing buyers so the price goes up, then Russia offers a discount that's a little bit lower than the price increase, and prices fall down a bit, but not all the way to what they were before. Russia makes more money per barrel, but sells a bit less. Everyone else pays more per barrel.
Many don't remember the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, but basically OPEC announced it was refusing to sell oil to Western powers in order to punish them for supporting Israel in the 1973 war. At that time, people understood that not being able to buy OPEC oil would cause them to suffer, but that knowledge appears to have been lost, and now we are imposing self-embargoes of oil against the No 2 supplier. But the world is a lot bigger now, with most of Russia's oil being sold to Asia, and Asia still understands the basic supply-demand relationships that the West appears to have forgotten. You can't expect the world to voluntarily agree to $200 oil. They will continue to buy from the lowest bidder, even if the G7 nations self-impose a higher price for their own purchases.
All these attempts to prevent two nations from trading in commodities -- e.g. banning the insurance of Russian oil in London -- don't actually work, as both China and Russia now offer insurance on Russian oil and also maintain their own fleet of tankers and there is a vast network of pipelines running across central asia. The result will again be that the market share of London insurers will fall as ships are insured elsewhere. The economic share of shipping in Europe will fall as other nations' fleets are used, etc. Oil is just too important to the functioning of the global economy for nations to agree to a doubling of its price.
India could benefit greatly from restricting the emmigration of her top talented people. Right now the smartest Indians work abroad. The increasingly anti-west foreign policy might be early indications of steps towards that.
India is not anti west. The west has this binary/absolute way of looking at things, "either somebody is with them or against them". India recognises the world is a much more complicated place and sees the world through its own perspective rather than whatever self serving agenda driven perspective the west deems as the only valid one.
India has a long track record of being a non-aligned power. If anything india has been moving closer and closer to the west since the 90s. I think this misinterpretation of india being against the west by some in the west is because they expect their allies to be cronies who'll toe the line.
But even that perspective that you ascribe to India is reductive. It seems in your view, India are the only ones who understand complexity, the West are just arrogant morons. In reality, everyone's equally just looking out for themselves. In the West we don't care about Kashmir, in India people don't care about Ukraine. It's the same, until one day India will discover that Russia is useless against China and the US and the West are not. And then there will be a realignment. When it happens it won't be about any fancy ideals, it'll just be interests realigning.
I haven't ascribed an independent perspective to india exclusively, merely pointed out india has an independent perspective. And I did not say west are arrogant morons I said "Some in the west".
I agree with you and as does anybody with even a passing familiarity with international diplomacy, foreign policy by its very nature is about engaging with other countries to further a nation's self interests.
The problem is western democracies need to create a narrative of being the white knights of the world in order to justify use of force, coercion or influence to their people no matter how hypocritical that narrative might be considering their own actions in the past. This absolute narrative by extension also means anyone who isn't falling in line with the party line is painted as being on the "wrong side of history".
India is neither aligned with the west nor russia because of a single policy issue like china, and india does not see the world as a bipolar place like west vs russia, west vs china, whoever vs whoever...
India always engages and will always engage with nations where mutual interests are aligned, help where it can, and be assertive where it needs to be.
India is already aligned with the west in containing china amid other common objectives in the indian ocean through QUAD.
Also china isn't that big of a bugbear for india as some outside india think it is. China is the dominant strategic regional threat but is by no means even remotely close to an existential one.
Hasn't China repeatedly invaded parts of India's mountain regions though, and killed Indian troops? My understanding is that even though tensions have cooled a bit recently, Chinese troops have still not pulled back. Generally invasions stoke a lot of nationalism, so it's hard for me to understand how India wouldn't see China as a 'bugbear' when China is literally invading it. I'd be curious to learn more about Indian public opinion on China
There is no love lost between india and china due to events in the recent past.
The Indian people and government are furious with china's flouting of the agreed upon status quo at the border and it comes with all the nationalistic fervour that fury entails. It has also eroded india's trust in china at a diplomatic and military level.
India has been trying to counter and contain china's influence in the region with limited success and all of India's politcal, diplomatic and military institutions see china as our biggest threat.
The nuance in the "bugbear" thing is that this accelerated re-orientation against china is not coming from a place of fear, it's coming from a place of "Come at me bro".
While on paper it might seem like India is militarily outmatched by china the geopolitical and tactical reality is that china is incapable of mounting a meaningfully successful attack against India without itself suffering politically, militarily, economically and diplomatically.
I don't see how domestic policy is relevant to a discussion about perspective of India's foreign policy alignment concerning the west. And don't mistake me for a champion of Indian government either.
I'm not a fan of the Indian government's tendency to behave like a nanny state over the past decade by arbitrary filtering/banning content on the internet. I'm not a fan of a lot of things that the Indian government does or how it goes about doing them.
As far as tiktok, there are plenty of reasons to ban it and there are plenty of reasons not to, though it seemed more reactionary than well thought out.
I don't think nuanced decision making is a strong suite of Indian government when it comes to technology especially censorship(VLC was blocked for god's sake) in direct contrast to how well it seems to be executing the India stack at scale.
>It's the same, until one day India will discover that Russia is useless against China and the US and the West are not. And then there will be a realignment. When it happens it won't be about any fancy ideals, it'll just be interests realigning.
This binary choice of aligning and then trapping oneself into being subservient to one sides is exactly what India is trying to avoid.
Ukraine may be fending off Russians with help of the west and may even push Russia all the way back, but their families, cultural & human capital, infrastructure are all being eroded, significantly. Future generations of Ukraine will have to pay this debt.
India voluntarily making a choice which would bring it in the cross-hairs of China or the West would be a catastrophic failure of imagination.
>It seems in your view, India are the only ones who understand complexity
In a sense, Yes; because of its unique History and Geography.
There is no other place on Earth with the same degree of diversity in various aspects like Religion, Philosophies, Social structure, Cultural diversity, Languages, Food, Ethnic groups, Economic strata, Education etc. which exists as a single Nation, thriving and moving forward.
The rest of the World and in particular; "The West" can learn a lot from India on how to live together in spite of differences.
Pardon me for trying to educate people. A simple search (before you made the clueless comment) on "India Nation State" would have given you plenty of papers/articles.
Russia being useless against China is still much better than Russia openly siding with China (and Pakistan) against India. You can't defeat geography, no matter how much common ground increases between India and the West.
>The increasingly anti-west foreign policy might be early indications of steps towards that.
There is no 'anti-west' foreign policy. India follows neutrality in most geo-political nonsense due to its non-alignment philosophy. It has followed it for the past 75 years and will continue to follow it.
If people want to leave your country, it makes more sense to make them want to stay rather than force them to stay. Besides, in the end, emigration is good for India. Indeed one of the things that India wants from the UK for a trade deal is relaxed visa rules.
All love is irrational. I would still rather love. Some people stay because they care, no need to be disparaging of them. You and I would not enjoy the peace and comfort of the modern world without it because somebody is irrationally willing to live/die for you and me.
There's nothing wrong with nationalism. But typically your sales pitch has to be your country is actually good, not we have to force you (and millions of others) to be here otherwise it won't be good.
There can be a lot wrong with nationalism, depending on the definition. I love "us" can also be I hate "the others". And quickly become "the others must not exist". For some arbitrary distinction of what is "us" and what is "others".
Sure, I grew up with a moral system which teaches, all world is your family. Of course, you will feel closer to the ones you live with, just like any big family.
No, no sales pitch needed. You either already love your community and your country or you don't. No one should force themselves or others to love or hate it.
The level of pride in being American that Democrats have by and large is still a kind of nationalism, albeit surely a more nuanced and conscientious one than the ones Republicans have (again by and large). Can't comment on which side is actually better for the country (that's politics), but my point is that Democrats (and allied liberals) are hypocritical in the sense that their pride is supposedly healthy patriotism while another's pride is 'nationalism'.
Ultimataly both Democrats and Republicans are sustained by extensive sales pitches of what America (TM) is all about. Democrats seem to think their politics represents the One Final Political Solution to End Misery Everywhere, but it is still based on aforementioned sales pitches all around ("We're on the Good side!").
Indian society is hostile towards women's and LGBTQ freedoms. Why should an Indian woman or LGBTQ person (or both) who has emigrated to a freer society have to go back to that?
It is 'hostile' today also to a whole bunch of other freedoms. It isn't realistic to expect that India will automatically have the same values as the West, and while it is at that to also anticipate & go ahead of the West on that same yardstick, because only the West can define the values of the West.
What India does need to do is to define its own response to the question of how society views LGBTQ. In some cases, in some sections of traditional society, it has developed an answer that is inclusive and friendly. In some other cases it is simply copying from the West, which is what the mainstream discourse is also heading towards. The latter imo is not authentic and will fail India in the long run.
"whether people can live the life they want" is itself influenced by culture, i.e. it is one thing to say that LGBTQ+ should not be ostracized but another to come up with specific models of how to deliver on this value.
What I'm trying to say is that there need not be just one way to deliver on this value -- there can be more than one valid approach to making LGBT folks have freedom & respect.
For sure. The idea with the 'indigenous' approach would be that it does actually address the problem meaningfully rather than just being a lousy alternative.
India has historically been pluralistic and a one-size-fits-all approach would actually be an unwelcome deviation. With regards to women, for example, even one of Manu's commentators (Medhatithi iirc) states that women used to follow one of two lifestyles: (1) being the traditional housewife, patriarchy & all or (2) having a career (academic) and being independent, implying that those 2 options were not available at the time the commentator lived. Indians today do have the freedom to look back at this past and rework & innovate -- rather than simply saying the West is the best.
