It would be great if Singapore purchased F-15’s. Then those conservative dweebs in Canberra would literally s@#t their pants, just like they did when Indonesia purchased 4 (that’s FOUR) Flankers.

God forbid should any of Australia’s neighbours acquire a serious offensive capability, cause the only time we’d see John Howard would be in his bomb shelter where he’d hide from those Yellow Hordes! 😀

Originally posted by mixtec
Bae has managed to sell the Hawk to 3 members of its former empire: Australia, Canada and South Africa. I dont call that selling very well. Noone is showing interest in the T-50 and Im willing to make you a very large bet no customers will suddenly appear when it reaches production status. Same for mig-AT. Do you want to know why this is? As Dubya explained about africa:

This reason also holds true for the decline in AF purchases world wide. Since their are no cheap options for 3rd world nations to buy new fighters, they continue to use old ineffective fighters like the mirage 3/5 or mig-21. If the F-5 were to come back on the market and under developed countrys started buy them in large quantity, I garantee you would start seeing the richer developed nations buying up the new generation advanced trainers to counter this.

So the fact that F-5’s are not being produced is a good thing because most developing countries don’t spend their cash on pointless military equipment they don’t need and can’t afford.

Originally posted by Indian1973
> Also right now it might be time to relinquish Chechnya.

why? every part of ones country is worth fighting for, you dont
put an economic value on it. its a matter of principle.

also leaving chechnya would hugely encourage the islamists and
soon they would start biting all over the place….

Even if the people living there want their own country or if they live in another country that you consider your’s because of some vague historical connection?

I am technically a Croatian, so if your logic applied (i.e. fighting for every part of one’s country), then Croatia would be part of Greater Serbia.

I think it’s time the Ruskies swallowed their pride.

They should re-orient their military to a defence force and forget about force projection or being a major player in global affairs. From an airforce persepctive, this means keeping only Su-27/ MiG-29 and MiG-31 series a/c along with Il-78 tankers (it is a big country after all) and A-50 AWACS.

That would mean retiring all strategic bombers (Tu-22M/Tu-95/Tu-160) and the bulk of the Sukhoi strike fleet (Su-24/-25) and even large numbers of strategic transports such as Il-76 or An-22. Money saved from this (and the sale of newer versions of retired a/c to countries such as India and Algeria) should be allocated to keeping up flight hours and increasing financial incentives to attract young men and women to joining the military.

Also right now it might be time to relinquish Chechnya.

Because if that report is true, they won’t have an airforce soon anyway.

But then again, I am just a dodgy University student who is arguably clueless in these matters….

Originally posted by GarryB

“Don’t you think this is very problematic? What client comes after Burma – Bin Ladin? “

To be brutal, why not? NATO and the US Supported the KLA, a terrorist organisation, against the Serb Army and Police. Don’t they want their own back? (BTW killing young people in a nightclub in reprisal for an ambush that killed KLA members smuggling weapons is not the act of a freedom fighting group).

“There’s no countries around Serbia & Montenegro that pose a serious threat to their security currently.”

Except if the KLA decide they want full autonomy and NATO helps or Ignores the situation.
Croatia and Slovenia are hardly mates. And then there are Bosnian Muslims and Croats.

As they say one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.

Even Mr Bin Ladin & Co. are freedom fighters in some people’s eyes. Same thing with KLA. Also the guys that fought against Serb occupation forces in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia are also terrorists according to your definition. As was Mr Tito and his partisans when he was fighting against the Nazis in WWII.

As for the countries that pose a threat to Serbia I wouldn’t exactly call Slovenia, Croatia or Bosnia a threat. Serbia would still kick their respectives butts in any war.

As for Kosovo, give it to the Albanians. Serbs were only 10% of the population. Historical reasons are a load of BS. Because then Italy could claim everything from Libya to the U.K. becuase they ruled there 2000 years ago.

Su-22’s

I should have added the word “Fitter.” I know Syria has Su-22’s and i assume that some of these are still operational and that at least some SyAF pilots would know how to fly them.

At least Afghanistan wasn’t bombed back to the stone age by the Yanks – they had already done that themselves!