No. Not this. Though this is just in reality, leasing the drones.
In this case, you have us getting drone data from a third party source outside India.
With F-35 and with several of the amerian 'capital assets' - such as CATOBAR tech, it means you permanently have murrican military servicemen directly embedded on your air force base or navy ship, as only they are authorized to service F35 or operate the CATOBAR.
Which means FAN Charles De Gaulle has permanently some murrican navy seamen posted on it.
Thats not dealing with murrican operators, thats having the fangs of america in your military body directly. THATS when you can kiss any war without murrican approval goodbye.
Rest is just nonsense IMO, because saying 'no murrican capital assets' is not the same as saying 'dont get any other guys' either. French maal or Russian maal does not come with said strings attached - what they give you, they give you good. And remember, murricans will NEVER EVER EVEEEEEEER let you integrate rooski or desi maal with their platforms -they didnt even allow Israel to do that when it mated with some of our maal - we and isreal figured that out on our own.
What America is good for, is precisely this kind of shit - intel grathering apparatus, wich some of them they can cut off from us (Like pred. drones) but in some cases they cannot (like the poseidons) in a pinch(They can still fuckem up longterm by refusing servicing but that still buys room during war itself).
IMO, what we should be getting from murrica are more army related stuff. I am highly impressed with their artillery systems - even when they are expensive and shit, their effectiveness aka bang for their buck is quite high and that is what india should be focussing more amreeki maal for. Because barrels last a longass time as far as war is concerned and we can certainly make the ammo on our own and use it with impunity as long as the barrel freaking lasts.