Besides what’s the point of NATO membership these days other than fighting in America’s dirty little wars?

I think one would be better off developing bilateral defence ties with the West. That way you don’t have to contribute forces to pointless wars or spend too much money on even more pointless defence equipment.

And before someone goes “but what if Russia becomes resurgent,” the answer is 14 Gripens with 5 pilots will not stop the Russians if they go loopy and try to invade the whole of Europe. Nor will the entire decrepit forces of the EU mean much if someone decides to eat up Eastern Europe.

By the time NATO responds, Hungary and who ever would be long under Soviet control.

Me thinks that NATO mistakes “liberating” for “defence.” If they are so keen on defence why not actually beef up Eastern borders (e.g. by stationing British or German forces in Europe) as opposed to letting the Eastern borders become a walkover?

In fact scrap NATO for it serves no purpose, and instead develop an integrated European defence force.

NATO’s basic requirement is that one should be able to police their own airspace.

However for most countries even this can be an expensive task, especially if they try to pretend to be a rich NATO country and buy some overpriced US/European jet.

well, it looks that North Korea has already got MiG-29C.

And South Korea’s sharp end has 60 F-15K’s and 160-odd F-16C/D’s. Backing them up are F-5’s and F-4E’s as well as A-50’s in the future.

Not to mention PACAF forces in Korea with 3 F-16 squadrons and 1 A-10 squadron in Korea, plus 2 more F-16 and 2 F-15 units in Japan as well 5 USN/USMC F/A-18 squadrons in Japan. So that’s 100 US fighters in South Korea, and 160 in Japan (assumes 25 aircraft per USAF squadron and 12 per USMC/USN squadron) backed up by tankers, AWACS etc.

I don’t think the Ruskis would hesitate selling Flankers to Iran. Nor would the US go ballistic over it other than some rhetoric.

And I also think that the reason why the USA dominates every conflict is because the enemy usually refuses to fight in any meaningful way. I think the way to stop the US warmachine is to simply try to deprive it of bases. Does anyone think Qatar or Bahrain would really support US actions if they knew that there would be large numbers of missiles smashing into their cities and economic infrastructure. Or if in the case of Iran, they provided Shiite insurgents in Iraq with more firepower and embedded advisors and started wreaking havoc on US forces, while at the same time shutting down the Straits of Hormuz. Serbia could have had infiltrators working in Albania or even attempted to infiltrate Hungary. This would mean that the US would have to get involved in with ground troops and one could attempt to cause US casualties (the Clinton regime was vulnerable here).

The US can be beaten – Vietnam, Somalia and now Iraq and Afghanistan are proving this. Timing is critical. Arguably one should attack just before the US attacks so there is enough overlap and confusion as to who attacked first. Given global opinion to the US, the world will most likely take sides with the non-US party and will leave the US isolated with its usual cronies.

Heavy initial American casualties plus massive economic damage from things such as closing the Strait of Hormuz should hopefully make the US public turn against the war.

War is not just a matter of technology and firepower. It’s also very much about willingness to fight.

And in the end, even if you know you are going to lose you should aim to take out as many of the enemy as possible.

My point in buying American C-17’s and C-130J’s is that they exist whereas the A400M hasn’t even flown in prototype form. It has had a very protracted development period and will most likely be late into service. Meanwhile the RAF still has over 20 ancient C-130K’s that will need replacing, especially as service in Afghanistan and Iraq take their toll on airframe life.

Basically I was promoting the safe option as opposed to an aircraft whose in service entry date is a guess at best.

As for European versus American, the current British deployment strategy (operational integration with US forces in alliance type operations) actually favours US aircraft because of the commonality between types.

But anyway, assuming this sale is for real, who could have imagined at the Flanker family aircraft would be selling this well so long after the fall of the Soviet Union! Good for them! An order for 50 large fighters is very good news for the Russian Industry. Now what will Sirya, Libya, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco buy next?

Regards,

Hammer

Syria – probably Flankers if they can afford them
Libya – probably Flankers
Jordan – not Flankers. They’ve just acquired a large fleet of second hand F-16’s.
Egypt- Either more F-16’s (courtesy of US tax payers) or perhaps Chinese J-10 paid for out of their own budget.
Tunisia – Probably nothing for the time being and then second hand F-16’s to replace the 12 F-5’s.
Morocco – Probably nothing. They are currently upgrading their Mirage F1’s and don’t seem to be able to afford much else.

Any news on additional Indonesian Su-27/-30 purchases? They have 4 and are meant to acquire at least 8 more.

Well, if the RAF needs a boom tanker, they could always borrow one of Italy’s 4 KC767s (1 available, and 3 more under modification in Italy), or if the mission is in the Pacific area one of Japan’s 4 KC-767s (first 1 undergoing flight testing)… all of which are equipped with a boom (Italy’s also have under-wing H&D pods) for the Japanese F-15s (& maybe F-2?) and the Italian F-16s.

It depends on whether Italy or especially Japan would support whatever action is happening. In Japan’s case it should be remembered that it still operates under the peace constitution and that even it’s presence in Iraq was more humanitarian than combat orientated. Just because countries are allies doesn’t mean that they will bend over backwards to accomodate each other.