The pro Kerry support of the Indian lobby was not very wise. With Bush visiting Muslims but skipping Hindu party, the reaction was clear. With US getting more victims in Irac no is hoping to see terrorists. Pakistan is doing a great job. Hope to see more positive results in this war.

What a bunch of BS. Indian Caucus in the US has equal number of republicans as well as democrats. Every year they have one republican and one democratic co-chairperson. Same goes for Senate Friends of India.

Everyone knows that the P-3Cs, PHALANX and TOW2A aare all meant for Pakistan’s defenses against India.

Now, no Indian lobby nor any lobby for that matter can block a sale when a US President is all for it. What they CAN do is to ensure there are conditionalities put between the time a deal is done and a goods are delivered. That is why you have pending legislation in Congress, all with Republican backers as well that make conditionalities with such a language that it’s hard for any administration to veto them.

The P-3Cs and any other deal, including the F-16s are planned for the 2004-05 to 2009-10 year range when the $1.5 billion military aid to Pakistan is to be disbursed, with specific proliferation, terrorism and other benchmarks that Pakistan has to meet every year for funds to be disbursed. Now if within any year if the Congress does not appropriate funds for FMS to Pakistan, deliveries will stop, otherwise they go on.

Let’s see the specifics of these deals, the timings of schedulted deliveries etc. and balance that out with Congressional mandates.

Coming to the serious discussion, P-3Cs are definitely a big asset for Pakistan.

I don’t think they will be blocked. entagon is unlikely to put in writing anything they are not sure that Congress will approve.

What is interesting is the funding. $1.2 billion in the P-3C, TOW deal leaves $300 million left in their 5 year freebie from America.

Are the cobras, spare parts etc. also to be paid for with the remaining $300 million? Those are the things to watch out for.

As to Congress, they will not block this one now for sure. What might happen is that once the deal is done, they are likely to hold up delvieries contingent on specific actions by Pakistan, such as access to A.Q.Khan, Pakistan’s warheads being secured etc.

I can see PAF Fan has come back with a new name after being banned :rolleyes:

At this rate IAF will soon have no Mirages left. Sabotage?

BTW, here’s a testimony by Ambassador Teresita Schaffer, South Asia expert, to the Senate in July. The topic was Pakistan.

But the United States should be selective about military supply. For many years we provided generous military supply on the theory that a robust conventional force would reduce Pakistan’s perceived need to depend on nuclear weapons. There is something to that argument, but it is also true that Pakistan has periodically undertaken reckless policies that were strongly contrary to U.S. interests. The incursion into Kargil is a case in point; so is Pakistan’s unwillingness to abandon the option of returning to active support for the Kashmir insurgency. Because the possibility of war between South Asia’s two nuclear rivals is a major issue for the U.S., I believe that U.S. supply of major weapons systems should only proceed if we are confident that Pakistan’s foreign and security policy is compatible with U.S. interests. Some of the items Pakistan would like to buy, such as the F-16 aircraft that were denied it in 1990 (and for which we finally reimbursed the funds Pakistan had spent in 1998), would currently be inadvisable.

Vikas,

Read the book Ghost Wars. Pakistan diverted a lot of US given weapons as well as much of the funds to Kashmir. Page 221. Do you know which country’s artillery, high altitude equipment, MANPADs etc were used during Kargil by those who started it? 🙂

As to Iraq, superpowers can start adventures, dependent nations cannot.

Actually, Golden Arrow, what you said was that the use of Chinese “radar and avionics” means we can “forget about FC-1s handling Western AAMs and AGMs”. Not sure where the transition to only “radar” came from, nor am I clear why that makes a difference.

To prevent this from becoming a diversion, let me bring it back to the LCA. Do you believe that an Indian-developed radar system will give the LCA any chance against Russian and other Western GAMs and AAMs?

And if you believe the LCA has at least some chance, can you explain to us why the IAF rejected it 18 months ago? And what can you tell us to prove that the miracle development of the MMR over 18 months, from unacceptable to usable, is real?

I’m not sure where you pulled the “IAF rejected the LCA” out of. The IAF has placed an order to HAL to build the LCA.

As to Indian developed radar “having a chance” against Western or Russian systems, I don’t see why not. The specs are impressive and the IAF is testing it. So far they like it. Let’s see about the LSP ones (Limited Series Production) as to what radar goes into them.

The good news is that the Indian media is ever skeptical and will not miss pointing out any gaps. You will not find an IAF chief who initially says “MMR sucks” but make a U-turn in a few months without giving details as to what has changed. There will be clear reports as to what the expectation is and what has been delivered, with a lot of details.

Also, with reliable allies like Israel and Russia, there will be no dearth of AGMs and AAMs available for the MMR to control. 😉 The Europeans have no qualms too given India’s buying clout. There are no sanctions or anything like that.