Financial decision. It would take several billion dollars of modifications to make F-22 exportable. Money the Pentagon could not afford to lose when only a few dozen jets would be sold.

The Pentagon was entirely supportive of the idea, as was LM. Nor did the Bush administration have a problem with it. The problem is that there was (and is) legislation in the way that would require the US administration to expend political capital to remove, which in turn would require Australia to expend its own diplomatic capital to persuade the Americans to make the effort. And there wasn’t much point in doing that when everyone already knew what the outcome of any Australian evaluation of the F-22 would be: too expensive to purchase in required numbers. Australia could afford to purchase a couple dozen but what would be the point? It was too short-legged and limited in payload options to take over from the F-111.

If the FB-22 had gone ahead the picture and outcome could well have been different. Maybe Australia would be looking at a mix of FB-22s and Gripens right now…

Way better than India anyway for all its prosperity India has 30% of its population living in poverty officially it could be as high as 50 if they use proper measurements.

Sure, but that’s not what matters in this context. The United States would be a nation of no particular global significance if the welfare of its poor were accounted some value: we’d all be following the fortunes of the Swedish krona instead. In terms of economic clout, and the military clout that said economic clout allows, and a nation’s overall geopolitical clout of which those aforementioned factors are the primary (but not sole) inputs, it’s raw wealth that matters, not how it’s distributed.

Incidentally Brazil’s GDP is currently (albeit not for much longer) greater than India’s (and Russia’s for that matter) anyway.

Why do Brazil need all these expensive fighters anyway ? They have no threats

Neither does the United States have threats even vaguely commensurate with its level of military spending.

In any case, Brazil’s military expenditure is indeed rather modest and measured. And that modest and measured expenditure will come to constitute one of the larger military budgets in the world over the coming decades.

Brazil is very, very different from India economically. *snip*

Thanks for those additional points. I didn’t mean to suggest a particularly deep similarity between the two nations, merely in that they’re both rapidly rising stars destined to assume leading places in the world economic order.

Yeah, we will see about that. Brazil always is on the verge of economic prosperity.

It’s a long-term game. China’s development story didn’t start when consumer media outlets started noticing it in 2005, it started back in the 70s. Brazil just knocked Italy off as the world’s 7th largest economy, at what point will you concede them as serious players?

In assessing the sustainability of Brazil’s current economic growth path, Goldman Sachs ranks Brazil 2nd of the 15 most promising developing nations (BRIC + N-11), behind only South Korea.

I’d be very reluctant to make predictions about any country decades ahead, & especially Brazil.

It’s certainly not an exact science. Nonetheless, looking to the future (i.e. ‘the coming decades’ not ‘next month’s poll numbers’) is what responsible national security orgs and governments must do, and interested observers would be well advised to follow their example.

Not that there’s actually been much sign of such forward-thinking and planning from the western democracies of late.

Yeah … what?

I’m far from convinced that Australia’s selection of the F-35 was a good idea then or now, but AMCA would be way the hell down on the list of alternatives. I look forward to seeing how the program pans out but for Australia? No.

Oh and I know all about federation, regardless mate- Australia is still a colony of England.

I would’ve thought we were more a colony of America at this point…

The joint strike fighter was intended to be a low-cost fighter for all three branches of the military that was simultaneously stealthy and supersonic — and in the U.S. Marines version, able to land vertically like a helicopter.”

It really does sound ridiculous when written out like that. :rolleyes:

Russias Tanker fleet is about 5-10% of US Tanker fleet capability.
Its a big different.

Russia has no interest in policing the world.

Could the F-35’s internal bays be plumbed for carriage of additional fuel stores? For use in such scenarios as carrying a pair of RATTLRS-class AShMs externally for maritime strike?

GREAT HELICOPTER FOUR STARS WOULD FLY AGAIN