India cannot be blame for IL-214 as it cannot contribute anything. so there is no chance of India has any impact on IL-214 schedule.

Cute, but in the long run Russia needs India to help fund its projects more than India needs Russia for JV and ToT.

The flip side of the FMS deals India does is that whilst they cant negotiate much, there is very little scope for corruption as no middlemen, and they always seem to be delivered on time (sometimes even early!) with excellent after sales and spares support. Just look at the C-130J and C-17 fleets in action.

Surely a lesson in defence procurement can be learned here?

That the FMS system is a good way of handling small, off-the-shelf procurements? But for the most part India shouldn’t be making such procurements anyway. IAF shouldn’t be acquiring 6+6 C-130Js, but rather setting up local production base to build 50+ (instead of MTA) at reduced unit costs.

Whoever fired that missile, it was totaly irresponsible to do so knowing that civilian airliners were still cruising daily in the same airspace.
Moreover it was the responsability of those who intended to use such a powerfull weapon system :
1- to close their airspace or at least inform the international civil aviation organization that they will potentialy shoot at any aircrafts even above 30,000ft.
2- to learn how to use it properly to prevent any mistake

On the contrary, it was totally irresponsible for civil aircraft to be flying in a war zone that included the use of airpower on one side and, consequently, the well-publicised use of surface-to-air missiles on the other. It is not incumbent on the parties fighting a war to make life safe for rich westerners who happen to blunder into it, rather it is the responsibility of the Ukrainian government to inform airlines of potentially unsafe airspace, the responsibility of the airline to select safe operating routes, the responsibility of governments to inform travelling citizens of potential dangers, and the responsibility of passengers to be vaguely aware of goings on in parts of the world they are busily flitting over.

Who called Putin a baby-murderer? there has been some mad speculation in this thread alright. But look at the identities of the posters promoting some of these mad theories.

I can’t find the post at the moment (possibly it was deleted) but there was certainly at least one poster who expressed a view of that kind.

As for mad speculation, I think my favourite is that it was an Irsaeli plot. No doubt the timing was convenient for Israel, but that’s all. It’s in the same category as the suggestion that the US government was behind 9/11 because it was the perfect vehicle from which to launch the ‘Project For A New American Century’. It was, but that doesn’t mean they did it. Skepticism should always be tempered by Occam’s razor. In this case, Occam’s razor suggests that MH17 was probably shot down by Ukrainian separatists armed with a Buk M1 system in a case of mistaken identification.

Another great article from Harvard IR Professor Stephen Walt (yes, I am a registered member of the fan club) on the relationship between this tragic incident and its broader political context.

Foreign Policy – The Perils of an Itchy Trigger Finger

I still find most commentary on Ukraine to be unsophisticated and wrong-headed. Instead of trying to understand Russia’s actions over the past five months, Western officials and numerous pundits have from the start blamed the entire mess on Russian “aggression” and accused Putin of wanting to recreate the old Soviet empire […] understanding Russia’s motives should not be so difficult. No great power is indifferent to potential threats in its immediate neighborhood […] Consider what the United States has done to prevent rivals from gaining a significant foothold in the Western hemisphere. Among other things, Washington imposed a 50-year embargo on Cuba, which still stands, and tried to overthrow or assassinate Fidel Castro more than once. It supported brutal dictatorships in Guatemala and El Salvador, turned a blind eye to right-wing death squads in several other countries, and backed the contras in the Nicaraguan civil war, at a cost of more than 30,000 dead.

[…]

In all likelihood it was Ukrainian separatists who brought down the plane — possibly with Russian assistance — and blame rests first and foremost with them. But the United States and the EU are not blameless. Not because they deliberately sought to foment instability in Ukraine, but because they have pursued idealistic goals in a naïve and unrealistic manner. U.S. policy may have been inspired by a sincere desire to help pro-Western Ukrainians achieve greater prosperity and more effective government, but noble aims count for little when pursuing them does more harm than good.

U.S. officials should keep another lesson in mind as well. They can be cavalier about trying to spread democratic values because the negative fallout from these efforts tends to happen to other people far, far away. The United States did lose 4,500 soldiers and several trillion dollars in Iraq, but Iraqis suffered hundreds of thousands killed and wounded and face an increasingly bleak future today. If the crisis in Ukraine continues to drag on — or, God forbid, gets worse — it is Ukrainians who will suffer the most, along with innocent victims like the passengers on MH17.

I want to emphasize that I am not trying to absolve those who fired the missile of responsibility for the 298 lost lives. Nor am I attempting to absolve Russia for providing them the weaponry, if that proves to be the case. The blood of the victims is on their hands. But the harsh reality is this: States play hardball when perceived vital interests are at stake, and the United States is no exception in this regard. Any country that threatens a great power’s core strategic interests should not be surprised when it reacts in ways that run counter to the Marquis of Queensbury rules. We don’t have to like such behavior — indeed, there are good reasons to condemn it — but there’s no excuse for failing to anticipate it.

If true this report probably sounds like the deathknell for the LCA programme. If the IAF reckon the LCA MKII will miss the 2018 flight test deadline, then realistically this plane wont enter service till around 2025. That is over 10 years from now.

Hyperbole much? :rolleyes:

If Tejas Mk. 2 enters service in 2025 that will put it a mere 7 years behind Gripen E. If only Tejas Mk. 1 could’ve trailed Gripen A by a mere 7 years.

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140719/DEFREG03/307190020/S-Korea-Opts-Twin-Engine-Fighter-Development

ROK Join Chiefs of Staff decided to opted for twin engines KF-X design despite worries of Higher Development costs.

Hot sex!

So we’re looking at an aircraft developing somewhere between 46,000lb (2xEJ230) and 52,000lb (2xF414EPE) maximum thrust.

But … is JCS actually the deciding authority here? Or are they merely another party like DAPA, KAI, etc. expressing their preference?

+1 for Vetinari and Amiga500

Well before this tragedy it was obvious how deeply ingrained anti-Russian sentiment remains amongst US and British media, and how effective the western infowar apparatus has become. Nobody doubts that RT is a fountain of pro-Russian propaganda, but the belief that things are substantially different over at e.g. CNN is wishful thinking, as anyone who observed the deference and enthusiasm of the western media in the build-up to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq would know. Vietnam was a long time ago, and the west has well learned how to tame and manipulate its ostensibly free media to serve the foreign policy agenda of the day, e.g. by practices of ’embedding’ journalists in military units, aided by long-term structural changes that mean news orgs have fewer resources available to do their own investigative reporting and are, consequently, much more reliant on government press briefings than they used to be.