Indeed – the taking of these lands was an exercise not dissimilar to Iraq’s attempted reintegration of Kuwait a few years back. The US position in this regard is disappointing. Note also the volume of existing aid, much of it provided by way of military grants.

hehehe if only Saddam had the guts to ask for a few billions in aide to pull out of Kuwait in 1991, who knows maybe he would have gotten it.

Take it elsewhere, Sameer……….

Grey Area
Moderator

1. BAe Lightning
2. all those early flying barrels, as MiG-15/17, Saab Tunnan, Pulqui etc.(except the Sabre)
3. A-6, EA-6B
4. F-4
5. MiG-21 another flying barrel
6. X-32
7. MiG-19 and it’s Chinese clones
8. LCA
9. Etendard
10. Gloster Meteor

🙂
Give the LCA a break mate, its just that its paint job really does not help its looks at all.
and guys, the JSF is clearly a sexy fighter.

The Pro israel lobby is probably the most influential in the US, Israel is one of the richer countries in the world, why they get so much aide is beyound me, I’d rather see that money go to Africa where people really need it.

I am not the biggest fan of the Palestinian cause but why should the US pay for Israel to withdraw from land it is not supposed to be on anyway? 🙂

At the moment the Rafale is out of the scope of Indias financial capabilities.
The Mirage 2000-5+ is more than enough to counter F-16s, Su-30KK, MiG-29s, FC-1 or J-10 for the next decade and behind. Contrary to the ‘Tejas’ it could be assembled in short notice and benefit from the avionic developments of the Rafale too.

It depends Sens, it depends, if the Govt maintains its commitment to keep the defence budget at 2.5% of GDP and after India updates its price index by next year, the defence budget itself should stand at close to 25B USD plus 7-10B USD capex by next year from the current 16-17B defence budget. With 130B in reserves, 25B of which can be despensed within 3 days, nothing is beyound India’s financial reach ( the economy is one of the world’s fastest growing now, this is nt the India of the 80s and early 90s anymore), it al depends on the threat perception of the region, if the peace process continues as is, we may not see the Govt move in for a 9-10B big bucks defence procurement, also the IAF may simply be sticking to the Mirage because they do not wish to see yet another 5 year wait for the bureaucrats to again figure out what fighter suits India best.
In my opinion they should cancel the m2k-5 deal alltogether, increase MKI numbers to 220, upgrade the MiG-29s, buy as many used Mirages as possible (in good condition) and begin the big bucks investment in the PAK-FA but unfortunately I fear that the leaders of my country are too shortsighted.
In any event the LCA should be enough to handle anything in the neighbourhood upto an F-16 C.

But its interesting to see that the IAF has been quietly upgrading its birds over the years, the vanilla su-30k series carrying the R-77 is but one example, i still remember how even a few months ago, such a claim would have been ridiculed by most members here.

Finally PV-2 Tejas will take to the skies this month as per the ADA and the LSPs will come online ahead of schedule.

That post, if true, simply says that the Russians send purposely dubious designs so as to make sure that no intelligence agency actually gets to know about the true design of the said missile. Hence the technician in question is lamenting this point as they have to always check that they are proceeding with the right design and not the false one.