I doubt Argentina would ever buy Chinese, even under current regime. Even Russian equipment has been brought in extremely small numbers (some Su-29 aerobatic aircraft and a couple of Mi-8S).

My money is on ongoing circus and no decision to be made in next few years, especially as we have Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games coming up.

Olympic Games are stupidly expensive – indeed they sunk a Greek plan to buy 60 Eurofighters.

What is clear is that Brazil isn’t that interested in acquiring new fighters.

43 A-1M AMX are scheduled to serve to 2032 (modernisation in period 2013-2017).

57 F-5EM/FMs are currently being delivered with similar sort of lifespan. 11 of these were recently delivered from Jordanian stocks.

12 x Mirage 2000 expire in late 2013 and no overhauls seem planned. By the looks of it Mirage 2000 goes way of dodo.

Clearly the Brazillians think upgraded F-5/AMX/EMB-314 combo supported by tankers (KC-767) and AWACS (EMB-145 R-99) is sufficient for their needs.

Not to mention Brazil’s AF has AWACS etc.

F-16 is more than sufficient as is JAS-39.

Rafale is overkill in an environment where the main treat is narco terrorists and where:

a.) Most neighbouring countries don’t have fighter planes (Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Guyana, Suriname, French Guinea)
b.) Neighbouring countries that do have fighter planes generally field 3rd generation (Argentina, Colombia) or have small basic 4th generation fleets (Peru)
c.) Only Venezuela operates small numbers of advanced 4th generation aircraft but not enough for power projection.

Yep!

http://thediplomat.com/new-leaders-forum/2012/03/20/how-europe-shies-from-taiwan/

Korea has never operated a non-US fighter and I don’t think that’ll change now.

About the only country that is a potential buyer of Rafale or Eurofighter in whole of East and SE Asia is Malaysia.

The rest are all either firmly with US or firmly with Russia and have been for decades.

Personally my money is with F-15.

Given no Argentinian pilots are flying Mirage III/V for at least a year now, training probably won’t be “minimum.”

Plus there’s incorporation of a new type into the logistics systems, developing tactics for them, developing training programs, incorporating them into current defence structure, training maintainers etc. All takes time and money.

Incorporating news types is always challenging and time consuming. Even with JF-17, PAF is only up to 2 squadrons since induction in 2010. And that’s for home manufacturer air force with urgent need for new fighters.

Tens of billions are needed not just for fighter aircraft but for training, weapons, ships, transport aircraft, SAMs, MPAs etc.

As certain African countries can atest to, just buying equipment without creating a proper structure to operate them is a waste of tax payer dollars.

And even if Argentina wanted to buy 40 JF-17 and 4 ZDK and some S300s, where’s it going to find the money to do so?

Given dire economic conditions in Argentina, we might as well be debating equipping Mozambique’s Air Force with Flankers or Ireland’s Air Force with F-22s.