Perhaps they got a clue about how unstable their big neighbour to the north actually is. The planes might actually come too late.

Saudi Arabia has hundreds of Tornados and F-15’s, supported by AWACS and tankers. A few MiG-29’s and Ka-50’s won’t deter any Saudi plunge into lunacy.

I think this is a case of some gov’t official wanting to say that his country has flashy jets – much like Gaddafi’s rearmament of Libya in the 1970’s and 1980’s (how many of those MiG-23’s are still packed up in their crates?)

Excuse my sarcasm, but those dumb yokels couldn’t possibly have any use for anything except what the wonderful western world cares to drop on their plates… handy they have their plates at our feet so that our leftovers just land on them like that… they only need F-5s or ancient model F-16s that are worn out already… or whatever we don’t want right now.

Couldn’t possibly be that they have defence needs let alone the way out suggestion that they might have even thought about their current and potential future needs and made a decision based on reason and potential future growth… nahh MIG must have just bribed the appropriate official before Boeing could.

Oh yes, the Yemeni’s are very adept at keeping aircraft servicable. Heck they managed to keep 5 out of 10 MiG-29’s in flyable condition for a couple of years when they first bought the type.

Most of these 3rd world countries acquire high tech aircraft and then are unable to maintain them due to lack of infrastructure or lack of funds. Look at Bangladesh with the MiG-29 or Nigeria with the Jaguar. By this logic such purchases are a waste of money.

It would be better to spend money on keeping pilots in the air or acquiring adequate training and logistical infrastructure. That is why many airforces have scrapped their fighter components or have reduced them to symbolic numbers such as most Eastern European states.

Finally Yemen is extremely poor – average GNP according to the World Bank is only about US$490 compared to a regional average of US$6,000. Furthermore economic growth has been slowing down over the last few years from 6.5% pa in 1998 to 3.6% pa in 2002. Compare that to a population growth of about 3%pa and the picture is one of economic stagnation. About 40% of the population live in poverty, while literacy is only about 49%.

Now how can you justify the acquisition of costly and most likely unnecessary military hardware over much needed economic and social programs?

I agree that offsets seem to be more important than capabilities – but the same appears to be happening virtually everywhere. Though apparently offsets and local assembly requirements often increase the price of such acquisitions as money is needed to establish local plants that often will be useless after the project is completed or that will never develop sufficient economies of scale especially as the market is oversaturated with suppliers, overhaul facilities etc.

It’s all part of the current lovely wave of economic rationalism in which the government must turn a profit but where the private sector is often still highly protected.

Might be a similar scenario to the USN EP-3E collision with the J-8, except that the Herc was on a Special Ops mission and not ELINT?

The question arises as to how far the US would let the Soviets go. If the Soviets attack West Berlin, would that warrant a US response? Old saying: “Is it better to be Red than dead?”

On a theoretical basis, many of the NATO partners were probably not really that capable in terms of quality of equipment.

As mentioned the only truely capable aircraft were a few USAF F-15’s, some ageing Phantoms and a few Canadian F/A-18’s.

Meanwhile Greece, Turkey and Italy were equipped with lots of junk such as the F-104 or F-5. The F-16’s were simple fighters, while the Tornado fleet probably would have suffered severe losses as they would have been using the low altitude tactics that proved inneffective in 1991.

As someone mentioned, unless CONUS forces were rapidly deployed to Europe, the Soviets probably would have had the upper hand, albeit with heavy losses.

At least scum like Saddam worked to get where they got, while those aristocratic prats were born with a silver spoon in their mouths

I almost want to pretend like I didn’t see that statement. I don’t care how these royals rose to power, don’t ever say anything that puts Saddam in any form of a good light.

He’s a horrible creature, and his “work” as you call it, has resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent people!

Hey I mean it. And those royals probably killed a lot of people to get into power anyway. It’s only now in the 21st century they can pretend to be civilised.

On a side note, that seems to be very popular among Westerners – in the past they wiped out native populations and conquered the entire world and now they pretend to be civilized and preach peace and love and all that crap.

But they still support their little psychotic proteges like the Frenchies did with Iraq and Libya, or what the USA is doing with Saudi Arabia or Australia’s support of Soeharto in Indonesia who killed hundreds of thousands.

So Saddam ain’t that bad – he’s just did what those nice, civilised and peaceful Westerners taught him to do.

Crown Prince Frederik has apparently a golden wing attached on his right chest. Is is a pilot wing?

Most of those aristocratic types wear medals and other military memorabilia – I s’pose it makes them feel important and takes their mind away from the fact that tax payers generally fund their rich and luxurious lifestyles.

At least scum like Saddam worked to get where they got, while those aristocratic prats were born with a silver spoon in their mouths.

I say “off with their ‘eads!”