That is not a good thing at all.

It’s not a ‘good’ thing, but increasing energy consumption is certainly a hallmark of development. Of course you can use more direct indicators of such, but I’ve already posted HDI (derived from life expectancy, literacy and education measures and wealth) and more finely tuned indicators are hard to get comprehensive and cross-comparable results for.

The broader point that I was making is that Iran is a significantly more developed nation than Pakistan or India. Given that background, and their already non-negligible aerospace experience, there would be relatively little difficulty in establishing e.g. Su-30SM production facilities in Iran along the lines of those in India. No, it won’t happen overnight, but nor is it a generational project.

China can sell the jf-17 to Iran directly. it doesn’t need Pakistan’s permission as it’s not their design and there’s little they can do about it.

Maybe so, but the only production facilities are in Pakistan. Doesn’t make a difference if Iran is willing to set up its own of course, but there is still no clear rationale why Iran would be interested in JF-17 in the first place — just because they have light fighters now doesn’t mean they need them in the future. Indonesia is replacing its F-5s with Su-35s!

With the Russian economy in doubt, military spending decreasing [….] it’d be wiser for Iran to buy J-10s and J-31s instead.

What does one thing have to do with another? If anything history demonstrates that it is the other way around: look at the bargains various nations (especially China and India) scooped up after the end of the Cold War specifically because Russia was weak and needed every export customer it could get. The decline in the value of the Russian rouble makes its products more affordable and attractive on the export market.

another factor is supplier dependability
who knows what the world politics may look like 10 or 20 years from now
Russia may alter its stance towards Iran, as may China, for whatever reason
Iran has a military full of equipment from a former ally

so it might be wise for Iran to diversify its military imports between the two
also because China does have an edge on Russia in certain fields, like UAVs
and this way Iran can also play them against each other, negotiating the best deals

Exactly so.

hm, I’m surprised Iran hasn’t looked into building nuclear power plants yet, it’s the most efficient source of energy and a trademark of developed countries
weird Iranians…

And I wonder how they could kick their economy into gear? Maybe some trade and foreign investment would help?

/snicker

You mean they were ahead way back when Sony Betamax was state of the art. Today’s Iran could barely build F-5 variants.

Today’s Iran can barely build F-5 variants with zero external support. What can India or Pakistan build with zero external support? MiG-21?

Electricity Consumption (kWh) per Capita in 2012:
Pakistan: 452
India: 744
Iran: 2762
China: 3475

That’s true, but it’s not like Iran can build anything in 5 years anyways. They’re way behind even India and Pakistan.

Iran received massive tech transfer from the US prior to the 1979 revolution and has used that industrial base to maintain and upgrade aircraft in service to the present day. In broader development terms Iran is light-years ahead of both Pakistan and India with higher HDI than China, Turkey, or Brazil — an impressive performance considering it has been achieved in spite of wide ranging sanctions/isolation from both the west and Arab neighbours.

Lots of phones and cars look slick/sleek and modern and boring. Although slick/sleek does contain a note of approval, I don’t see any real conflict between the adjectives.

The only possible way to justify a three-tier combat air arm for Iran is by using multiple vendor nations for strategic reasons and if one of the three is a cross-breed trainer/light attack craft like Yak-130.

In any case, unless Pakistan has decided to distance itself from Saudi Arabia, JF-17 will not be heading to Iran.

Given that Su-30SME seems to be at least one of the directions Iran is heading in, J-10 is the other platform that might make sense in the short-term to constitute a hi-lo mix. Or, given that Iran appears to want local production of Su-30, and doesn’t seem nearly as fussed about armaments as most nations in the region, it could well be that they occupy themselves with the Su-30SME project for another decade at modest induction rates, and then shift to either T-50 or J-31 according to the political winds at the time.

Incidentally, I wouldn’t be surprised if the choice of Su-30 over Su-35 was driven at least in part by the much broader userbase of the former (esp. India) and consequently greater flexibility in acquiring spares. Once bitten, twice shy.

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Hmmmm… I’m not sure that any nuclear attack – however small could be considered “trifling”!
And take a look at the attached image from a cold-war Soviet bunker. There’s some familiar-looking aircraft on there that seem to suggest the Soviets didn’t consider the risk of a UK attack entirely “trifling”

If the Soviets were deterred by the American nuclear arsenal (and the conventional arsenals of all the NATO powers) then the British nuclear arsenal was superfluous to that purpose. If the Soviets were not deterred by the American nuclear arsenal (and the conventional arsenals of all the NATO powers) alone, then how likely is it that the addition of the relatively small British nuclear arsenal to that sum made the difference?

I’m confused by your argument: You say Britain only had nuclear weapons to “keep us a player on the global stage” – but deny that they offer the UK “an outsized role on the global stage”. What’s the difference?

Apologies for the confusion — I meant that Britain’s nuclear weapons, through their deterrent function, all but ensure that it will continue to exist as a sovereign territorial entity with its attendant population, i.e. the UK remains on the stage. However, those nuclear weapons do not allow or help the UK to play any role on the stage, that is to exert influence upon other entities/actors and shape the board according to its interests.

You also talk about nuclear weapons being useful for weaker states who can’t guarantee security by conventional means”.. well wouldn’t that also apply to the UK or France just as much as to North Korea, or indeed any smaller nuclear-armed state potentially facing the conventional forces of America, Russia or China? Once again – it’s the whole argument of deterrence.

It could apply to the UK or France. The question is whether a credible threat exists that would justify the investment in nuclear weapons and render acceptable their opportunity cost in the form of diminished conventional forces and/or higher taxation and/or reduced public services. I think you could make the case that, for the UK today, there is no such credible threat.

As you say yourself,”no one has ever threatened the survival of a nuclear-armed nation” So doesn’t that alone justify having them?!

If the UK did not already possess nuclear weapons and their associated delivery platforms and have all the associated expertise, I think it would be foolish to undertake to develop such at this point in time. Maintaining and updating an existing nuclear capability obviously requires far fewer resources and therefore the threat level necessary to justify doing so is much lower. I don’t actually have a strong opinion as to whether the UK (or anyone else) should or should not retain a nuclear capability. I do think that we should be honest about the rationale for and utility of that capability and its limitations and costs.

Well, as I said: “Why does the United Kingdom try to be a ‘good’ country?”

I did not say the United Kingdom was a good country, or even a ‘good’ country; I said why did we try.

Why would you think that the UK tries to be a “good” country? I’m not even sure what that means.

The Deep State within the UK, as with all nations, acts according to its interests — its own interests, and (we shall grant for the sake of argument) what it perceives to be the nation’s interests. Undoubtedly the Deep State believes its actions and policies to be justified, else it would not pursue those actions and policies. The rationale it offers to the general citizenry to justify those actions and policies may or may not differ from what it articulates internally.

The most plausible interpretation of your notion of the UK trying to be “good” country concerns the notion of being a good “international citizen” in the form of engaging with international institutions, upholding international law, and so forth. But in this the United Kingdom is no different from any other nation: it upholds international law and engages with international institutions when doing so serves its interests (see above) and it violates or denigrates international law and international institutions when it does not (as in the case of Assange).

The differing propensity for nations to ‘respect’ international law and institutions is partly a function of their structural and geopolitical realities (e.g. weaker states tend to favour international law and international/multilateral institutions as protecting their interests, while stronger states tend to ignore or deprecate them as obstructing their interests) and also a function of the extent to which they were involved in writing the rules in the first place (obviously if one wrote the rules one will tend to find them generally amenable) and the extent to which the circumstances under which those rules were written or acceded to still obtain. In all cases nations pursue their own interests, and there is nothing ‘good’ or ‘bad’ to be said about their propensity to respect international law and international institutions. At most one can observe the hypocrisy of a nation’s words in contrast with its actions, or the one-sided nature of international instruments such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — one-sided according to the configurations of power that obtained at the time.

As an aside, you can be certain that there are people in Moscow right now asking why Russia bothers trying to be a “good” country.

Well to answer one of your questions – surely it WAS a deterrent for the Soviet Union – just as Soviet nukes were for the west?
That was the whole argument of Mutually Assured Destruction.

The difficulty with this argument is that the United States was already providing a comprehensive deterrent against potential Soviet aggression in the form of both conventional and nuclear forces, to which the UK’s nukes constituted a trifling addition.

Indeed, in the real world we know that the British nuclear program, far from being a manifestation of the Special Relationship™ as claimed by Carter, was in fact driven by the desire to maintain Britain’s independence from the United States and its security guarantees. This may have been (and may be) an entirely sensible objective, but it is not one that allows or helps the UK to “play an outsize role on the global stage” — it merely ensures that the UK remains on the stage and able to function as an independent actor.

I would also wager that after the Black Buck raids and the sinking of the Belgrano, the Argentinian Junta were suddenly very mindful of the UK’s nuclear capability – especially as it was Mrs T’s finger hovering over the button.

Surely the risk of nuclear attack for Argentina was not when they were already reeling from the imposition of British power (non-nuclear, you may note) but rather in the event that they succeeded in repelling the British counter-attack and/or sinking much of the task force? In this context the function of nuclear weapons (directed at, one assumes, Beunos Aires, or the Falklands themselves, or both) would be to deny Argentina victory and salvage British pride.

And today? Well I bet fat Kim in North Korea knows exactly who has, and doesn’t have such a capability

I’m sure he does, but not for the reasons you imagine. Undoubtedly the North Korean leadership has observed that neither the United States nor anyone else has ever threatened the survival of a nuclear-armed nation. Indeed, this points to the real utility of nuclear weapons as being most useful for weak states that, in the presence of a credible threat, are unable to guarantee their security by conventional means: North Korea, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, perhaps India. Paradoxically, it is the Big Five nuclear powers — those with the most comprehensive nuclear arsenals — that are today least in need of nuclear weapons.

I suppose the question back would be – would you feel safer NOT having a nuclear capability?

Well, I live in a country that lacks a nuclear capability, and I’m pretty comfortable with that. Certainly if Australia were to choose to develop nuclear weapons, I don’t believe I would either feel safer or be safer as a result.