Self reliance is very important as we can see with USA temporarily not updating Ukrainian F16's radars and jammers and degrading them in the process. Then it is better to have a weapon with worse performance than the best thing on the market but not being subjected to whims of same random leader on the other side of the world who things that your struggle for independence is inconvenient for his business.
Sooner or later people will figure out that it is working exactly the same with nuclear weapons and then non-proliferation treaty will be null and void.