CHINA at least three times as formidable as the former USSR. Sorry, you’ve lost all credibility…………

Consider America’s favourite hoo-rah narrative of why the Soviet Union lost the Cold War: because Reagan escalated military spending, forcing the Soviet Union to follow suit, thereby bringing a faltering economic system to the point of collapse. That is to say, America won because it could out-spend the Soviet Union. Well, guess what –beginning around a decade from now, and increasingly thereafter, China will be able to out-spend the United States.

Yeah I think only JSR has ever suggested that Rafale is underpowered. 😛

That may or may not be true. Yet, China’s neighbors feel threaten and that is the reality. Which, is why I stated China should have taken another approach. (and still could)

Never thought I’d see a Scooter post that I agree with!

The question of whether China’s territorial claims are justified or whether its actions are reasonable is irrelevant to the matter at hand. The fact is that most regional powers have been spooked by China’s actions in recent years and have reacted in ways that are detrimental to Chinese interests: they have increased military spending, increased regional dialogue and cooperation, and welcomed the US pivot with open arms. Irrespective of what China’s intentions actually are, these are negative developments.

Incidentally, the fact that we are seeing these tensions emerge so early actually undermines the notion that China has long range plans to annex the region into a Sino co-prosperity sphere or whatever. Because if China did have such plans, the way to go about executing them would be to keep smiling, preaching ‘peaceful rise’ rhetoric, and accepting whatever insults are offered by the western barbarians and other inferior races right up until the point the knife goes in, something which could only occur once China is in a position to neutralise American power in the Pacific — optimistically, fifteen years from now. That China is managing to anger and frighten others already indicates that what we are seeing here is standard great power hubris, not a calculated prelude to conquest.

Really, I see this vast increase in defense spending as having little value for China.

The only major power which has expanded its military out of step with its economic base in recent history is the United States.

And of course it wasn’t merely about dollar spending either. The period was accompanied by wars of aggression waged against Afghanistan and Iraq, coupled with the threats of same against Iran and North Korea.

Compared to American militarism and bellicosity, China is a cuddly teddy bear.

Inducting a sub-sonic point defence fighter is a waste of money.

For the UK, sure. 🙂

I was wondering if this video would make an appearance on the board. Cool stuff — not sure about linking it to the Cyclone fiasco tho.

Whilst we’re going off on tangents, you’ll notice that if you are to believe the arguments advanced by certain folks in defence of certain programs, these kinds of fiascos should never happen — after all, these are professionals operating with all kinds of knowledge that we proles could only dream of. Indeed, we can only conclude that CH-148 is an excellent program and our impressions of it profoundly misguided. And so on and so forth for all seemingly disreputable procurements. Is this not a liberating discovery? And I hear that we have always been at war with Eurasia.

I understand the disadvantage against stealth targets… that is a consideration but not for facing enemies that are not fully stealth or 4th gen… so there is a bit of a grey area to think of…

Even vs. non-VLO targets, the radar signal can be detected by opposing ESM at greater range than the radar itself can detect objects. LPI features complicate this, but I suspect the basic relationship vs. similarly advanced ESM systems (SPECTRA, etc.) remains. And therefore so does the basic principle that it is a bad idea to fly around radiating in all directions. Obviously AWACS do this, but they are meant to be protected both by distance from likely threats and the combat aircraft they are operating in concert with.

Passive systems in contrast are always on, draw much less power (which certainly matters for aircraft constrained in electricity generation, equipment size and weight, and heat dissipation) and cannot be detected.

With the advantages of radar being undermined by VLO technologies in contrast to the comparatively limited prospects for thermal, optical, and EM emissions camoflauge, I think passive systems are very much the way forward.

From the GRIPEN thread :

Like spud said, a major hardware addition would not have been very likely as a simple upgrade…The JSF programs provides all hardware at the onset, with software enhancing the capability over the blocks….The services are very weary of future hardware promises that do not materialize, such as the IRST for the F-22 , the HMS/HOBS for the F-22 etc etc etc

I guess my comment was another angle on the question of whether a Super Hornet-esque development path would’ve been preferable, with F-35 ‘Block I’ delivering the engine and airframe with SH Block II innards, and ‘Block II’ delivering EO DAS and all the other fancy stuff ~5 years and a few hundred (B-model?) airframes later. I wonder if such an approach might not have allowed F-35 to reach squadron service years earlier, thus obviating the need to life extend existing aircraft.

I don’t tend to frequent the F-35 threads these days, but the point of confining discussions to their proper threads is well taken.