The BRIC concept originated from Goldman Sachs and South Africa was not and is not part of it. GS considers SA part of the “Next 11” group of emerging nations along with Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey, Vietnam, Iran, South Korea, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt and Pakistan.

The BRICS diplomatic entity operates in its own universe of diplomatic relations.

Ha, ha, I forgot that even GS did not want to include SA with BRIC, and inclusions of SA with BRICS community more on Political move. Anyway the inclusion of SA in BRICS economically is a joke, considered how far the gap SA has with the rest of BRIC. Anyway GS loved on their statistical grouping that they have made another next grouping the MIKT (Mexico, Indonesia, Korea (ROC), and Turkey), as follow on group to BRIC.

Back to the topic. If really SAF going to let go those Grippen, can they still resurect the Atlas Cheetah ? From what I gathe4, they are still on reserve.

Yes, the Arabs gulf oil rich emirates and kingdom, basically ‘buy’ their population for social stability in the costs of authoritarianism. The other poorer Arabs try to do the same, however since they can’t put as much money to the population like the rich gulf states, well it only raise social imbalance cost with authoritarianism flavors. Recipe for social powder keg, thus the Arab spring.

China knows that eventhough they already raise about half of billion of population out of poverty, but still the other half living in near poverty or poverty. Thus their homework for social development still large since off course they still want to maintain their own flavour of authoritarianism, thus they still have to spend much of their GDP on ‘buying’ their population for social stability.

This will reduce the portion of economy to other spending including defense, relative to the size on their GDP. Don’t get me wrong, their defense spending capabilities still huge and can still continue to increase. However this does not mean the same proportion of GDP can be used to military relative to the proportion of GDP that can be used to military needs in other large economy with more affluent population.

I think GDP per capita and standard of living is the smallest variable, as not all countries may allocate budget which allows for said higher standard of living. Nominal overall GDP and perceived threat is probably much more influential.

On contrary, it hold similar variable as Nominal GDP. At least some of us in Financial industry believe that so. Why ? Simply put, the more affluent your sociaty are, the more develop your social infrastucture, the larger percentage of your GDP can be allocated to non social-nation building thingy including military.

It does not mean they will then allocated to military, they may choose to allocated for further improving social and other infrastucture. However they can afford to, if they choose to do it. Japan only allocated around 1% of their GDP to military, however if they choose to allocated more than 5% of their GDP to defense like Singapore did, and they can do it without sacrificing their social development.

While smaller GDP percapita nation if they put say more than 2% of their GDP to military, then it will be done on the costs of social development such as poverty reduction. That’s why the moment smaller GDP percapita nation put more than 2% of their GDP to defense like say Pakistan or Egypt, then it will cost them on social development, ussually in term of social imbalances, and supporting infrastucture, thus make them less attractive for Investment. Many factors contribute to an attractiveness of one country for Investment. And how much your spend percentage wise of your Economy for national development relative to the conditions of your society affluent ( i,e your Percapita income as one factor) is ussually being used as one of main variable. This used to gauge the government commitments on building for socia stability and development infrastructure, vis a vis, non development related issue like Military/Defense.

Historically, what China doing right now in the case of South China Sea is much in the way balancing domestic bravado and regional politics reality. Seeing China media and forum, whille many clouded by nationalistic bravado, but from time to time you will see some red lining from sources that matter..China know’s well they can militarily defeat their small neighbours, but will face tremendous difficulty if those neighbours (including Japan, Taiwan), join together..which also potentially bring India..and off course US.

This will happen if they moved forcefully on south china sea…since nobody will let China dominate SCS by her own. SCS is too important sea lane to be dominate by China alone. Also China knows that if they done that, then their neighbours will choke 3 important lifeline to SCS, which are Malaka, Sunda, and Lombok straits to them, which render SCS useless. In short cooller heads in China in the end will not let this happen.

What China wants is they will always be included on any solutions on SCS. They know, based on geographically, they can’t claim SCS. However what China do, is to make sure nobody will left them behind on SCS. In the end they will participate on how to share SCS resources and control..because again cooller heads in China knows that.

For comparing the military build up based solely on GDP sizes, can be much missleading. Yes China economy presently number 2 in the World, however with 1.2 billion souls to feed, they also need much resources to feed those population properly. Despite their success on reducing poverty and increase the number of middle class, however just like much of the rising Asian economies, in average the living standard still much bellow the average of Western Euro zone, North America, Japan and Australia.

Put it an example why GDP sizes can be missleading as proxy on how you can spend militarily. Indonesia has 4-5 times GDP/Economic sizes than Singapore..well we should be able at least spend on our defense 2-3 times more than Singapore. The reality, in average, Singapore spend nearly twice than Indonesia on defense due to the fact average Singaporean living standard already much higher than average living standard of Indonesian. Thus the amount of resources that Indonesia must provide for social development will take much of the economy realtive with what Singapore did. Thus Singapore will have enough extra fund to spend on non social development activity including defense.

This also happen betwen China vs Japan, China vs US. Relative much higher living standard of average American and Japanese, will free much more portion of their economy on defense compared to China. This will happen even in the future. You guys already see how China growth decreasing. This is not surprising for us that earn our living on Financial industry. Since this is the cycle that China will face as the stages of their economy begin to mature.

This is what the cooler heads in China realise, rather that some nationalists bravado on the internet forums of chinastrong fanboys.

http://m.upi.com/story/UPI-53631373908627/

Well there are potential 77 F-16A and 16 F-16B from Mid-East Super Power arsenal that being unloaded. Potential target is customers from Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Well perhaps some Balkan and Eastern Europe will be interested ? After all it will be promised at bargain price.

Double Post

FA-50. Why bother with surplus F-16 :dev2:

Seriously, getting western fighters can provide additional adjustment on supporting infrastucture and familiarizing. Off course can be done, but economic wise Mig 29 will be more appropriate for Vietnam in replacing Mig 21. Afterall if we are talking surplus, there are ample surplus Mig 29 on Rusian and Ukraine inventory plus appropriate refurbished and modification program.