Indian foreign secretary Vikram Misri told reporters that the process was “at the stage of a proposal.”
Foreign military sales prospects for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II fighter jet have sustained a couple of recent setbacks. First, this past March, Portugal’s outgoing Defense Minister Nuno Melo, out of displeasure with U.S. president Donald Trump’s NATO policies, cast doubt upon whether Lisbon would follow the recommendation of the Portuguese Air Force to purchase the fifth-generation fighter. And just last week, South Korea announced its decision to eschew the F-35B for a drone mothership.
Meanwhile, a recent near-death experience for a Lightning II against a Houthi surface-to-air missile (SAM) probably didn’t do much to help the stealth jet’s sales prospects either.
So then, what’s the newly beleaguered Lockheed Martin to do?
Lockheed’s Plan for the F-35
Keep plugging away, that’s all. A Reuters story penned by Utkarsh sheds some light on this subject. To wit:
“Lockheed Martin expects to be awarded a finalized contract on its F-35 jets, which have been beset by delays in a technology upgrade, sooner than it previously anticipated, the U.S. defense contractor’s finance chief said on Wednesday … The fighter jets in lot 19 could potentially be awarded sooner than the second half of this year, which was the company’s earlier timeline, newly appointed CFO Evan Scott said at a Bank of America conference … The F-35 program has been bogged by delays in rolling out an upgrade to give the jet better displays and processing capabilities for its electronic systems … Last month, Lockheed beat expectations for quarterly profit and reaffirmed its annual forecasts, buoyed by resilient demand for its missile systems and fighter jets.”
So then, Portuguese and South Korean setbacks notwithstanding, perhaps Lockheed Martin’s continuing sales prospects for its flagship Skunk Works product aren’t so bleak after all.
Who Is Lockheed’s Next F-35 Buyer?
So then, who is the likely unnamed customer for this hush-hush deal?
One distinct possibility is India. During his February 2025 White House meeting with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, Trump stated that Washington would eventually provide F-35s to New Delhi, but didn’t provide a timeline. Concurrently, Indian foreign secretary Vikram Misri told reporters that the process was “at the stage of a proposal,” whilst Rahul Bedi, an India-based defense analyst, said such a deal could “take several years.”
However, those statements were made before Operation Sindoor, the latest hot war between India and Pakistan. Therein, the Indian Air Force lost one of its much-ballyhooed French-made 4.5-generation Dassault Rafale fighter jets in a dogfight against a Pakistani Air Force using Chinese-made Chengdu J-10 “Vigorous Dragon” fighter jets and PL-15 air-to-air missiles. Needless to say, this was a huge shock and embarrassment to the former and a major source of bragging rights for the latter, as well as a major cause of concern as to whether Western air combat technology is lagging behind China’s.
As The National Interest’s Harrison Kass notes, “the stealth-mimicking efforts of the Rafale’s design don’t appear to have been effective enough to have evaded detection from Pakistani aircraft and/or ground missiles.” Therefore, it can reasonably be postulated that the loss of the Rafale has given the Indian Ministry of Defence an extra sense of urgency to acquire true stealth fighter capability, and who better to turn to for such a capability than India’s biggest partner in “The Quad?”
About the Author: Christian D. Orr
Christian D. Orr was previously a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ) and 19FortyFive. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.
Image: DVIDS.
