One of the biggest defence deals in history is now taking shape, with New Delhi planning to buy 114 more Rafale jets on top of the 36 already in service and the 26 Rafale-M carrier variants ordered for the Indian Navy. India’s Defence Secretary, Rajesh Kumar Singh, said recently at the NDTV Defence Conclave 2026 that the procurement would “enable us to create a second production line for fighter aircraft in the country”.
Dassault Aviation, the maker of the Rafale, submitted its formal technical and commercial proposal in August, and the Defence Ministry and Indian Air Force are now examining it. NDTV reports that about 96 of the 114 jets would be built in India and 18 delivered from France, though details are still being finalised. Singh has said the government aims to conclude the contract by the end of this financial year. The deal is estimated at ₹3.25 lakh crore, roughly A$48 billion. Nothing is signed, and the final price depends on negotiations still ahead. But once concluded, this would rank among the largest single defence acquisitions in history, and India’s biggest-ever fighter jet purchase. It is a bet on a partner whose aircraft had, over a year earlier, already been tested in actual war.
That war was Operation Sindoor. Launched on May 7, 2025 after the Pahalgam terror attack, India struck nine terror sites inside Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. India gave Pakistan an off-ramp by only striking known terror hideouts and intentionally did not target any military facilities.
But Pakistan did not take it and attempted to escalate by trying to hit India including civilian targets with drones, loitering munitions and ballistic missiles. India thwarted the attacks with its air defence system and then hit over 10 Pakistani air bases on May 10 strategically decimating its military capabilities.
Videos filmed by Pakistani civilians and satellite imagery showed the scale of the damage: a demolished command-and-control facility at Nur Khan, a runway cratered at two separate points at the Mushaf (Sargodha) base, and more than half the F-16 hangar at Jacobabad reduced to rubble, alongside further damage at Murid and Rahim Yar Khan. Smoke over multiple Pakistani installations was filmed and broadcast within hours. Independent analysts like noted war historian Tom Cooper also put the number of Pakistani aircrafts destroyed to around 19. According to him around six PAF aircraft were destroyed in air-to-air combat; the remaining were likely destroyed before they could take off!
Pakistan’s counter-claims of downing Indian jets or inflicting comparable damage never cleared the bar of evidence. Over a year on, no independently verified imagery or confirmed wreckage has surfaced yet— in an era when satellite operators and open-source analysts scrutinised every square kilometre of the conflict zone. In any case aerial skirmishes occur in any conflict, and the loss of platforms comes with the territory.
In Operation Desert Storm, the coalition lost dozens of aircraft, but no one doubts who won. The blow to Pakistan was so severe that its own military leadership pleaded for a ceasefire within 88 hours, which India agreed to as its strategic objectives had been met. At a moment when conflicts elsewhere in the world drag on inconclusively for years, the episode is worth studying simply as a case of decisive, calibrated force applied with a clear endpoint. The Rafale, flying at the centre of India’s strike package alongside SCALP missiles and HAMMER bombs, emerged from Sindoor as a bet that paid off — and perhaps a central reason New Delhi is now pursuing one of the largest fighter jet acquisitions of its kind.
That operational vindication sits atop a defence relationship built for exactly this kind of stress test. France was India’s most consistent major-power defence supplier through decades when Washington kept New Delhi at arm’s length over sanctions disputes, and remains the rare partner willing to transfer sensitive technology and co-produce on Indian soil rather than simply sell off the shelf. The relationship rests on a strategic partnership dating to 1998, refreshed through a 2023 Indo-Pacific roadmap, spanning civil nuclear cooperation, space, submarines and now a prospective second fighter line. At a moment when Washington’s judgment looks less certain than it once did — a chaotic exit from Afghanistan, an unresolved standoff with Iran — a deep, tested partnership between India and France is a genuine stabiliser, and arguably a working blueprint for a credible security architecture in a multipolar world.
Australia should be paying closer attention. Canberra, Delhi and Paris held their first trilateral dialogue in September 2020. The forum has since met only sporadically, most recently when the three foreign ministers gathered on the sidelines of the G20 in Johannesburg in February 2025. The Lowy Institute has warned that, without institutionalisation, the grouping risks becoming “another underused diplomatic forum.” That would be a waste. All three countries have a shared interest in an open, rules-based Indo-Pacific and in the maritime security challenges posed by China’s naval expansion. A regular trilateral would give Canberra a strategic channel that does not depend on Washington’s attention.
There is a reason Canberra has been cautious. Australia’s September 2021 cancellation of its submarine contract with France’s Naval Group, announced alongside AUKUS, badly damaged the relationship, and Emmanuel Macron accused Scott Morrison of lying. Ties have since recovered. Within months of Anthony Albanese taking office in 2022, French Rafales were in Australia for Exercise Pitch Black, and France has since taken part in Pitch Black in 2024 and 2026 and in Talisman Sabre in 2025. France’s ambassador, Pierre-André Imbert, told AFP in July 2025 that defence and security was now “the first pillar of our cooperation” and that “we have a very good level of cooperation.” That recovery is a foundation to build on.
A country of Australia’s size and geography doesn’t have to choose between the Anglosphere and everyone else, but it does have to decide whether it will only ever act through Anglophone structures, or finally build the independent partnerships a genuine Indo-Pacific power needs.
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