Comment by Riaz Haq on November 27, 2025 at 10:05am

Fidato
@tequieremos
“Tejas is no match to JF-17. Babus in India cannot manufacture planes. Pakistanis know more about Indian Airforce than Indians themselves.”

~ Abhijit Lyer
@Iyervval

https://x.com/tequieremos/status/1991892627978117559?s=20

About Abhijit Iyer-Mitra

Abhijit is senior fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. He used to coordinate the National Security Programme at ORF. Abhijit has been a visiting fellow at Sandia National laboratories Albuquerque and the Stimson centre in Washington DC.Abhijit is a defence economist by training. He has written for national and international dailies and has several academic publications and books.

https://www.orfonline.org/contributors/abhijit-iyer-mitra

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Big setback for India as Armenia halts negotiations to purchase Tejas jets, decision made after Dubai crash

https://www.india.com/business/big-setback-for-india-as-armenia-hal...


New Delhi: Armenia has halted negotiations to purchase Tejas fighter jets from India. According to Israeli media outlet Jerusalem Post, this decision was made after the Tejas aircraft crash at the Dubai Airshow on November 21, killing Indian pilot Wing Commander Namash Siyal.

Armenia was preparing to purchase 12 Tejas aircraft from India for approximately $1.2 billion (Rs 10,000 crore). The deal was in its final stages, which could have been Tejas’s first foreign deal.

However, there has been no official statement from the Armenian government on this matter. The Indian government has also not yet commented on this report.

Why is Tejas special?
Currently, the top fighter jets in the Indian Air Force (IAF) fleet include the Sukhoi Su-30MKI, Rafale, Mirage, MiG-29, and Tejas. Tejas is unique and distinct from the other four fighter jets because of its distinct features.

Most of the aircraft’s components are manufactured in India. It is equipped with the Israeli EL/M-2052 radar, a modern technology, which enables Tejas to track and engage 10 targets simultaneously.

The Tejas can take off from a very short runway, i.e., about a 460-meter runway, and its weight is only 6500 kg.

The Tejas crash at the Dubai Air Show
An Indian Air Force (IAF) Tejas fighter jet crashed on Friday, 21 November 2025, during a demonstration at the Dubai Air Show, at around 2:10 pm local time.

The incident occurred during an aerial display on the final day of the Dubai Air Show. The Tejas fighter aircraft was performing a low-altitude manoeuvre. The aircraft suddenly lost altitude, and within seconds, it crashed to the ground. The aircraft exploded and caught fire. The pilot, Wing Commander Namash Siyal, died on the spot.

Comment by Riaz Haq 4 hours ago

Pakistan–Libya US$4.6 Billion Defence Pact Signals Strategic Shift in North Africa’s Military Balance


https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/pakistan-libya-4-6-billion-defen...


The landmark agreement underscores Libya’s push to rebuild its fractured armed forces while accelerating Pakistan’s rise as a cost-competitive defence exporter beyond Western and Russian supply networks.



(DEFENCE SECURITY ASIA) – Pakistan and Libya reportedly inked a US$4.6 billion (approximately RM21.62 billion) defence deal, marking a significant development in South–South military cooperation and aligning Libya’s efforts to rebuild its armed forces with Pakistan’s expanding role as a competitive defence exporter beyond traditional Western and Russian supply networks.

The scale, scope and timing of the agreement underscore a recalibration of defence diplomacy across North Africa and South Asia, where affordability, rapid induction timelines, operational sovereignty and reduced political conditionality are increasingly decisive factors shaping procurement behaviour.


For Pakistan, the reported pact marks one of the largest single defence export packages in its history, matching in headline value its earlier US$4.6 billion (RM21.62 billion) JF-17 agreement with Azerbaijan, while for Libya it represents a rare attempt to pursue structured, state-to-state military modernisation after more than a decade of fragmentation, attrition and institutional decay.


The deal is widely understood to have been formalised during Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir’s historic mid-December 2025 visit to Benghazi, the first by a Pakistani military chief to Libya, where discussions culminated in the signing of a military cooperation framework at the headquarters of the Libyan National Army (LNA) under Field Marshal Khalifa Belqasim Haftar.

This engagement, conducted against the backdrop of Libya’s unresolved political bifurcation and Pakistan’s export-oriented defence industrial push, has been interpreted by regional analysts as a pragmatic alignment driven less by ideology than by hard operational requirements and mutual strategic opportunity.

Beyond its immediate transactional value, the agreement reflects a broader shift in how emerging and post-conflict states structure defence partnerships, prioritising turnkey capability packages and long-term sustainment over isolated platform acquisitions.


For Libya, the decision to engage Pakistan signals a strategic intent to rebuild military effectiveness through institutionalised training, maintenance and doctrine transfer rather than reliance on ad hoc foreign support or proxy forces.

For Pakistan, the deal reinforces a deliberate effort to translate operational experience and indigenous production capacity into enduring geopolitical influence across Africa and the wider Middle East.


Taken together, these dynamics suggest the Pakistan–Libya defence agreement is as much a statement of strategic positioning as it is a procurement contract, illustrating how defence exports are increasingly being leveraged as instruments of diplomacy, influence and long-term alignment in an evolving multipolar security order.

Strategic Context and the Revival of a Dormant Defence Relationship

Libya’s pursuit of a comprehensive defence partnership with Pakistan reflects a recognition that its post-2011 security vacuum cannot be addressed through piecemeal acquisitions, irregular foreign assistance or reliance on proxy forces alone.

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