Sorry Malandro your financial reasoning makes no sense. There is no 700 million US dollar check siting in in someone´s drawer waitintg to be spent, it’s actually a new LOAN, we’ll be paying interest and not receiving it. If we don’t buy the FX then the money doesnt exist at all.

Second, Embraer created a tough political trap for the government when they “married’ Dassault before the first bids wer submited some years ago. After that Embraer put ou a number of advertisings and press interviews declaring the Mirage as a “Brazilian aircraft” and comparing it’s participation in the FX bid to the COMPLETELY different case odf the AMX program where Embraer participated from scratch and developed the wings by herself. In this case they would only be responsible for the final assembly of French-manufactured subcomponents in Brazil, painting and ground and flight pre-delivery testing. OH yeah! They’d be responsible also for the aircraft manuals…

Flankers (Su-33) may be able to operate from the Brazilian Aircraft Carrier São Paulo, IF they fit it with a new ski-jump in the bow, beefup the landing area of the deck as well as the arrestor gear, definetely a minor endeavor compared to purchasing a new aircraft carrier…

In terms of used aircraft I would much rather wish to see the Purchase of dome 50 currently mothballed Italian AMX aircraft in order to give us the anti-shipping strike capability that they have while reducing the number of different aircraft being operated by the Brazilian Air Force.

Buying fighters from the US is a very hard decision today since they won’t sell us the BVR missiles or give us access to the software codes we may need to upgrade the aircraft ourselves, this was the main restriction to the F-16 in the FX bid and it stands for the used F-16s ou even US or Canadian used F-18s.

Commonality between the Brazilian Navy and Air Force future fighter fleets is quite desirable but that would lead us to other four aircraft (F-18, Rafale, Su-35/33 or the MiG-29 derivatives. The problem is that unfortunately the Brazilian Navy doen’t have a clue when it will be able to field the next generation fighter for it’s aircraft carrier…. Ther’s simply no money available for it…

Should the Brazilian Air Force discard the non-Navy compatible aircraft (Gripen, Mirage 2000 and the F-16) today? I’m not so sure myself.

Comments?

Regards,

Hammer

Man! Am I disapointed at this cowardly government! TEN full years after this re-equipment program began and all we manage to do is to scrap the bid at this very advanced state! Shame on you Mr. Lula!

The official reason is that a new generation of fighter aircraft is dawning, but in reality it´s just a way to push away the outrageous lobbying by Embraer for the Mirage 2000… This a a major governmente screw-up! I have no words… 😡 😡 😡 😡

🙁

Regards

Hammer

Goin back to the core issue…

As Malandro said military cooperacion already exists between mercosur nations. The Argentine Navy regularly uses our São Paulo Aircraft Carrier to maintain their pilots’ carrier qualification… the ARA has both a pretty decent carrier fighter plane and a competente ASW aircraft the S-2T Tracker wich may be invaluable if a joint mission is needed. The Brazilian Navy only operates a hand-full of Skayhawks and tthey only carry Sidewinders of an earlier generation, no anti-ship or air-to-ground weapon…

Military cooperatin is happening right now in Haiti where Chilean and Argentine helicopters are ferring brazillian troops as well as from other countries that make up the bulk of MINUSTAH forces.

A joint intervention force? I’d wait first for a NATO-type organization involving south eastern latinamerican countries and west african nations…

Well someone has to manage the South Atlantic while the US is busy in the Middle East…

; )

A-29s and AMXs make sense but I really can´t believe that Venezuela and Embraer are not talking seriously about the R-99A AWACS aircraft. Without such capability the current venezuelan fighter fleet is blind and deaf…

The local production agreement that´s been disclosed in brazilian press is for the the Ipanema agricultural crop-spraying plane, no menace whatsoever to anyone (besides grasshoppers and other bugs/pests).

I belive most of you have very adequately identified the amazing global (military and political) risks involved in a preemptive bombing of Iran by the US or Israel… Some issues still remaisn to be addresses in my view.

1) Both Iraq and Afghanistans military were in shambles after years of global military and economic sanctions, Iran on the other side is as strong as it’s ever been since the fall of the Shah in 1979

2) The military in Iran have had many YEARS to conjure a myriad of possible war scenarios against US forces in the Gulf region

3) Iran can attack simultaneously at american troop concentrations and air bases in the west (Kuwait and Iraq) end to the east (Afghanistan) without needing overflight authorizations by any other country.

4) Infiltrating Iranian Special forces into Iraq or Afghanistan is childsplay, compared to similar american efforts into Iran. Iranians ought to be able to find many more collaborative locals in this innitiative than the US…

5) Are there any US carriers INSIDE the Gulf today? These should provide for a undenyable target to Iranian anti-naval assets.The Gulf may become way too small for a US Carrier Task Force to safely manouver in… Mining the 50-odd kms of the Ormuz Channel must be part of the “War 101” course at Teheran Military College…

6) After the removal of hundreds of US fighters from the Gulf Area after the “end of the war”, are actual fighter fleets enough to resist an Iranian Air Force surprise attack? How long would it take to reconvene these forces after a preemptive attack by Iran?

7) What would be the US Government´s reaction to the Iranians using the “Bush Doctine” card at the UN Security Counsel to justify their own attack against US forces in the Region…

8) The Osirak Reactor attack happened at a time when no one really expected that Israel would have the balls to attempt pulling it off. An attack against Iran today would happen in a completely different environment. I don´t think Syria, Saudi, Turkey or Jordan would be cought unaware and unprepered for such an attempt by IDFAF. That leaves the mission to the Israeli Navy and their submarine launched cruise missiles.

9) let´s suppose the US is able to win Iran over, after a short camoain. How much more are the americans willing to spend to occupy Iran? another US$100Bi a year ON TOP of the ammount needed for the two last countries invaded? Can the US economy afford to see the the Iranian crude production drop to close to ZERO after insurgents regularly sabotage it? (“where have I seen this happen before?”)

Finaly, I´d like to add this last remark. I come from Brazil, and since the 80s our country has voluntarily opted to outlaw, through our constitution, the research and development of nuclear weapons. After the unilateral policies of the Bush administration started to be implemented in Afganistan and Iraq there are more and more people here saying that this US stance is the only good reason for a country to have nukes. These being the only kind of country the US NeoCons in charge respect, countries with nuclear weapons… See their respectful and cooperative stances toward India and Pakistan and their newfound will to negotiate with North Korea until all avenues are exausted….

This is definetly bad news for all of us…

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