Without any political consideration, an air strike by Israel over Iran would have the same result as the air strike over Syria. I’m not even sure Iranian air defense would know the Israeli are there until bombs start falling. Of course because the country has deep it might be more difficult to escape.

However Tony Blair hasn’t be called by justice over the war in Irak for nothing. Such an act would be illegal and there are too many elements to involve (Saudi etc..) for such a strike to go according to plan. A wikileak is just a bunch a guy talking. I doubt very much that Israeli planes can land or use Saudi air space without Iran knowing about it.

The reason US and Israel are “negociating” is only to make sure the sanctions take effect. Iraq or Afghanistan show that some country are only comfortable going to war when their adversary can no longer fight effectively. In a way the war is already going on, they only hope to win it without a “hot war”.

But a air strike by Irael alone is just a fantasie. Iran may have poor air defense but enough rockets to sink some boat. All you need is one tanker going at the bottom for a International incident, and I don’t think anybody want that.

One of the LCS designs has the EADS TRS-3D radar. The other has the SAAB-Ericsson Sea Giraffe radar.

http://www.thalesgroup.com/Countries/United_States/What_we_do/Defense_in_the_U_S_/

http://www.thalesgroup.com/Pages/PressRelease.aspx?id=6173

Thales need EADS North America in order to better propose its products in the US. But its still 100% Thales. And BTW they have already been selected by the UK for the T45 and Netherland frigate as well. So it is safe to say that along with french frigates they have been chosen to equip 1/3 of the most recent frigates been deployed. And if they win the US bid…:rolleyes:

At the end of the Cold War the US militaro-industry decided that they had to find a way to keep making lot of money and so they decided to carry on the arm race alone inventing fantasist menaces.

Europe has other priorities (education, healthcare…) than just inventing new “generation” aircraft to drop more and more expensive bombs on peasants. We need to realise that at some point we will need to stop spending too much money building things we do not need. As far as platform are concerned it is my beleive that the F-22 like aircrafts are going to be around for sometimes. The electronic is going to keep evolving, but the airframe is going to remain more or less the same. As far as interception and air policing are concerned manned aircraft have a bright future. Satellites can be destroy, signals jammed and if a “hostile” is coming toward you, you want to be sure that someone will be able to press the button to destroy it. So 15 years from now the EU country are going to develop a F-22 like airframe with cheaper and more mature technologies. What really makes a modern aircraft modern and relevant in today battlefield are its sensor, weapons, ECM, etc… Stealth design is just for the commercial. F22, F35, rafale ? The only common thing with these aircrafts is that their electronics cost almost 3/4 of their R&D.

And I’m sorry, I know I’m not going to make a lot of friends, but in europe, France is the only country with a coherent defense industry. The french army doesn’t always have the most recent hardware but at least they build what they have. France as one of the highest research funding in europe and even if our aircraft carrier has many problems at least we have plane to fly on them. Our submarines arent the biggest but at least we have our own missiles (last time I checked UK is begging France for help to upgrade their trident… oh and they dont have the money yet). And while the typhoon customer are still debating what to include in the tranche 3a (and then a 3b…) rafale is fully operational for the navy and air force. So when they ask to lead european projects, maybe we should let them…

Also Thales is second most capable electronic company after rayton they are even competing to provide a radar to the us littoral ship. Russia even invited France to join the T50. But of course like for the Airbus tanker, most US are simply incapable to accept that european can do good stuff. So I do hope people join Neuron, unfortunatly the tendance today is no longer exclusive european cooperation. I think depending of the winning of rafale or typhoon in india or brezil the “european” 5th generation fighter will be cooperation between france and other non-european country while typhoon will have to survive F35 competition on its own soil. Unless the Typhoon is sold to India there will be no cooperation outside europe for its development. Only UK has hope to start a new program and then hope for cooperation. Germany, Italy, Spain and the rest of Europe will have to choose between a french or a british projetc like they had to choose between rafale or typhoon. I’m pretty sure France will be up for the next round since they have commited to the rafale. UK will have to choose between Typhoon or F35 or have a very poor version of both. 15 to 30 years from now between losses and repair even the US will have all but a symbolic number of F22 making the F35 their only front line fighter.