New Delhi: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent visit to India produced no publicly announced breakthrough regarding the protracted negotiations between GE and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited over the local manufacture of F414-INS6 afterburning turbofan engines to power two of the Indian Air Force’s future combat aircraft.The respective readouts of the October 20 meeting in Mumbai, between Rubio and external affairs minister S. Jaishankar, included discussions on defence, energy, trade, and critical technologies, including US efforts to expand crude oil sales to India.The US account went further, with Rubio advocating increased Indian purchases of American defence technologies and systems. Some media reports said the Secretary of State pressed New Delhi to reduce its reliance on Russian materiel and deepen military interoperability with Washington, presenting increased purchases of US technology as a ‘win-win’ for both sides.Yet neither account referred to the General Electric (GE) engine on which the IAF’s upgraded 4.5-generation Tejas Mk2 fighter and the under-developed fifth-generation Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) depend. Whether the F-414 figured in private discussions between the two foreign ministers, however, remains unclear.According to defence industry officials and IAF veterans, the engines conspicuous absence from the public accounts is telling. They see it as exposing the gap between the political and diplomatic rhetoric surrounding the India-US strategic partnership and the hard bargaining required to deliver the much-touted defence-industrial cooperation. There is little doubt that the IAF’s stakes over the F-414 are colossal, as it is counting on both the Tejas Mk2 and the AMCA not merely to replenish its dwindling fleet – down to 29 squadrons against a sanctioned strength of 42.More critically, the IAF is seeking to bolster its combat capability against the growing 5th-generation fighter threat from China and Pakistan, and the prospect of 6th-generation stealth aircraft emerging in the longer term. The collusive military partnership between Beijing and Islamabad compounds the IAFs ‘two-front’ security challenge, making the timely induction of additional, more capable fighters imperative.Narendra Modi and Joe Biden in June 2023. Photo: Twitter/@narendramodiThe anticipated F-414 agreement dates back to June 2023, when GE and HAL signed a memorandum of understanding during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to Washington. It envisaged the joint production in India of GE’s 98-kilonewton F-414 engines, with the US completing its congressional notification process in August 2023 to clear the way for further negotiations. But over three years after this widely celebrated announcement, a technological and commercial agreement for the F-414s remains elusive.Last month, HAL chairman Ravi K. said technical discussions had been completed, and the company was awaiting GE’s commercial proposal in October. But he declined to elaborate on what those discussions had covered, and as this month comes to a close, the absence of an agreement leaves the F-414 programme on hold and hugely nebulous.Furthermore, the complexity of the F-414 programme is complicated by two parallel negotiations over the GE powerpack.‘No final agreement’One involves the aforementioned dialogues between GE and HAL to locally build these engines, while the other is between GE and India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation, through its Aeronautical Development Agency, for around 15-odd F-414s to eventually power the AMCA’s prototypes and limited-series production units. The F-414 has also been shortlisted for the Indian Navy’s planned Twin Engine Deck Based Fighter.Also read: ‘Make in India’ Risks Becoming Foreign Tech Assembled at Home as Questions Loom Over India’s Fighter JetsBut it is the AMCA negotiations that have reportedly run into a sharp price escalation, considerably muddling matters for both sides. Estimates that once put each engine at Rs 70–80 crore, have reportedly risen to more than Rs 200 crore, according to media reports in June citing unnamed officials. GE has also reportedly sought an investment of around $800 million from India to establish a dedicated F-414 manufacturing facility in India.To be clear, these numbers belong to the F-414 discussions for the AMCA separate from those involving the Tejas Mk2. And, while both involve the exact same F-414 engine, they cater to different aircraft requirements and are also tied up in complex, confidential technology transfer and commercial talks.“The fundamental problem is that India has locked its advanced fighter plans around an American engine without first securing a final agreement on its production and technology transfer,” said an industry official, requesting anonymity. This, he added, leaves GE in a strong, arguably pole position in talks over pricing, the extent of technology transfer, intellectual property rights (IPR) for the engine and the extent of local manufacture.A cross-section of senior IAF veterans involved in force planning while in service concurred, adding that GE was well positioned to exploit India’s dependence on its F-414 engine to its advantage. As a private corporation answerable primarily to its shareholders, GE they maintained was under no obligation to advance Washington’s strategic agenda or act in concert with the US government and State Department to further it. Nor did it have much reason to concede terms favourable to India, particularly when it knew Delhi had ‘limited room’ to walk away from the F-414 deal.Changing engines for both combat aircraft at this stage would be a massive undertaking, entailing costly redesign work and protracted delays. As one two-star IAF veteran succinctly put it, India desperately needed the F-414 to keep its fighter programmes moving but could well face a double whammy: paying far more for it than anticipated while still failing to secure the level of technological autonomy it sought.Against this backdrop, Rubio’s visit offered an opportunity to give the stalled negotiations fresh political impetus and move beyond Washington’s routine verbal assurances of a strategic partnership with India by signalling a willingness to put a workable F-414 offer on the table. But that opportunity appears to have been missed, leaving the IAF’s fighter plans hostage to an engine agreement still mired in hard bargaining and with no resolution in sight.