Bangladesh’s decision to sign a Letter of Intent on December 9, 2025, with Italy-based Leonardo S.p.A. for the potential acquisition of up to 16 Eurofighter Typhoon multirole combat aircraft has triggered a quiet but intense reassessment within India’s strategic and defence establishment. In New Delhi, the move is widely interpreted less as a transformative shift in regional military balance and more as a politically resonant signal of Dhaka’s evolving external alignments, one that carries loud symbolism but limited operational consequence.
The announcement, made under the interim administration led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus following the August 2025 ouster of Sheikh Hasina, represents Bangladesh’s most ambitious airpower initiative since independence. For Indian analysts, however, the significance of the deal lies not primarily in the combat potential of the Eurofighter Typhoon, but in what the procurement suggests about Bangladesh’s foreign-policy recalibration—specifically, a tentative pivot away from its traditional reliance on Chinese and Russian defence suppliers toward Western European aerospace partners.
Within Indian strategic discourse, this shift is read as an attempt by Dhaka to diversify its security relationships and signal strategic autonomy at a moment of domestic political transition. The optics have been amplified by remarks attributed to a Bangladeshi official suggesting that “the possibility of deploying Eurofighter Typhoon has increased due to the Indian Air Force’s use of Rafale.” In New Delhi, this statement has been widely interpreted as framing the Typhoon deal as a counter-prestige acquisition—reactive rather than requirement-driven, and shaped as much by regional status considerations as by Bangladesh’s actual threat environment.
Scepticism has been sharpened by public commentary from retired Indian officers. Former Indian Navy Commander Sandeep Dhawan questioned the urgency of the interim government’s defence push, asking why Dhaka appeared to be rushing to conclude multiple major deals—including the Eurofighter Typhoon, Türkiye’s T129 ATAK attack helicopter, and the Hisar air defence system—ahead of elections. His assertion that Bangladesh faces “no threat from India or any other nation” has resonated across Indian strategic circles, where concerns about opaque financing, political signalling, and external influence remain pronounced.
From New Delhi’s vantage point, the reported cost of the Typhoon deal—estimated at around US$3 billion—has raised immediate red flags. That figure would consume the bulk of Bangladesh’s annual defence budget, which stands at roughly US$3.7 billion, prompting Indian analysts to question the sustainability of such an investment. These concerns are compounded by Bangladesh’s ongoing negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and reports of unpaid dues exceeding US$57 million to Indian power suppliers, a juxtaposition that has fuelled doubts about fiscal coherence and long-term force readiness.
Despite the intensity of unofficial debate, India’s official response has been notably muted. This restraint reflects a deliberate effort to avoid public escalation or the appearance of insecurity, while internally cataloguing the Typhoon move as a data point in Bangladesh’s shifting foreign-policy orientation rather than as an immediate military threat. Across Indian defence planning establishments, a broad consensus has emerged that the acquisition, while symbolically disruptive, does not fundamentally alter the regional balance of power.
Geography underpins this assessment. Bangladesh’s lack of strategic depth severely constrains the survivability and operational freedom of high-performance combat aircraft, regardless of their sophistication. Indian analysts routinely note that Bangladesh’s key airbases—Kurmitola near Dhaka, Zahurul Haque in Chattogram, and Jessore in the southwest—lie within 100 to 200 kilometres of Indian territory. In a high-intensity conflict scenario, these bases would fall well within the strike envelope of India’s short-range ballistic missiles, air-launched cruise missiles, and precision strike assets.
The presence of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile looms particularly large in Indian assessments. With a range approaching 900 kilometres, BrahMos is viewed as a decisive runway-denial weapon capable of cratering airfields and destroying parked aircraft in the opening phases of conflict. Indian strategic commentary has repeatedly characterised Bangladesh’s prospective Typhoon fleet as vulnerable to pre-emptive strikes, noting that platform performance is ultimately negated by basing environment.
India’s deployment of the S-400 Triumf long-range air defence system further reinforces this imbalance. With an engagement envelope extending up to 400 kilometres, the S-400 provides India with the ability to detect and potentially engage high-value airborne targets shortly after take-off, compressing Bangladesh’s usable airspace in crisis conditions. This technological edge, combined with India’s layered air-defence and strike architecture across the eastern theatre, underpins New Delhi’s confidence in its enduring air dominance.
Numerical asymmetry also looms large. The Indian Air Force’s Eastern Air Command alone fields more than 200 combat-capable aircraft, enabling sustained operations, saturation tactics, and multi-axis attacks that would rapidly overwhelm a small Typhoon fleet. Within this framework, Indian planners have characterised the Eurofighter as a “glass cannon”—a technologically advanced platform whose survivability is undermined by the absence of hardened infrastructure, dispersal bases, and layered air-defence coverage.
From a force-structure perspective, Indian strategists argue that the acquisition of a limited number of high-end fighters cannot meaningfully narrow the gap between the Indian Air Force and the Bangladesh Air Force. India operates over 30 fighter squadrons equipped with a diverse mix of Rafales, Su-30MKIs, Mirage 2000s, MiG-29UPGs, and indigenous Tejas aircraft, supported by airborne early warning, electronic warfare, and network-centric battle management systems.
The Rafale, in particular, features prominently in Indian analysis of the Bangladeshi Typhoon move. New Delhi’s decision to select the French fighter over the Eurofighter during the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft competition remains a touchstone for discussions on cost-effectiveness and life-cycle affordability. Indian officials have long noted that choosing the Eurofighter would have added billions of dollars in acquisition and sustainment costs—an argument now repurposed to question Bangladesh’s ability to absorb similar financial and logistical burdens over a projected four-decade service life.
Indian analysts also stress that Bangladesh lacks critical enablers such as airborne early warning and control aircraft and integrated electronic warfare networks comparable to India’s Phalcon and Netra systems. Without these, even advanced weapons like the Meteor beyond-visual-range missile cannot be exploited to their full potential, as missile effectiveness depends on sensor fusion, off-board cueing, and real-time battlespace awareness.
Logistics and sustainment form another pillar of India’s assessment. The Eurofighter’s multinational supply chain—spanning the UK, Germany, Italy, and Spain—is viewed as inherently more complex and politically sensitive than the Chinese and Russian ecosystems that have historically supported Bangladesh. Indian naval strategists point out that reliance on maritime supply routes through the Bay of Bengal exposes spare parts and technical support pipelines to interdiction during crises, particularly given India’s dominant naval presence in the region.
European defence suppliers, Indian analysts argue, are also constrained by export controls, alliance politics, and consensus-based decision-making, potentially limiting their responsiveness in wartime scenarios. In contrast, China has demonstrated a greater willingness to sustain partners under conflict conditions. The result, in Indian strategic reasoning, is a platform that offers exceptional peacetime performance but faces availability risks precisely when deterrence credibility matters most.
Beyond military calculus, the Typhoon deal has been absorbed into a broader Indian debate about Bangladesh’s political trajectory in the post-Hasina era. Concerns about rising anti-India sentiment, minority rights controversies, and Dhaka’s warming ties with Pakistan and Türkiye colour interpretations of the procurement. For some voices, the deal signals a deliberate effort to dilute India’s traditional influence; for others, it represents an expensive but largely symbolic assertion of autonomy.
This duality captures the essence of India’s reaction: vigilance without panic, scepticism without complacency. Officially, New Delhi continues to prioritise diplomatic engagement, mindful that cooperation with Bangladesh remains vital on issues ranging from border management and water sharing to counter-terrorism and regional connectivity. The absence of public condemnation reflects a strategic choice to avoid hardening positions or pushing Dhaka toward overt counter-balancing behaviour.
Privately, however, Indian planners caution that sustained procurement signalling perceived as anti-India posturing could erode trust over time. The Eurofighter Typhoon deal is thus viewed as a test case—an indicator of whether Bangladesh seeks genuine strategic autonomy or is merely reshuffling dependencies.
For India, the episode reinforces a core tenet of its strategic culture: maintain overwhelming capability while exercising restraint. In South Asia, perception often travels faster than capability, shaping narratives even when the underlying balance remains unchanged. New Delhi’s response to Bangladesh’s Eurofighter gamble reflects confidence in enduring asymmetry—and a belief that, in the end, symbolism cannot substitute for structural realities.
