Nobody said a word about cheating the partners. Only idiots would do cheating openly, wise men just keep unwanted facts concealed.

It is funny how you really believe these HUGE contracts are being won using presentation slides and technical specs 😉 Which planet do you come from?

I think the reason a nation is unwilling to accept losses is simply because besides the economic factors a war has also human factors, Pilots specially the US pilots are always in danger of becoming POWs, and POWs in the media are important tools to swing people`s opinion about a war.

The US air force is unwilling to accept losses because it means not only losing face to the international public but more important lossing the support at home.

For example the Russians were unwilling to accept or acknowledge that the former USSR was fighting a war in Afghanistan to the then Soviet population and specially to the Russian people claiming the Soviet soldiers were helping Afghan civilians, the Russians even sent mostly Ukrainians, Belarussians and other former USSR republics men to fight the war becuase the war was in fact quit unpopular.

All the nations need to control the Media in order to avoid panic and a feeling of defeat among their citizens therefore hidding losses from public view is important, it is not only a matter of prestige but a matter of keeping the masses willing to accept a war.

We can say the same about the over inflated kills that usually all nations claim, looking at the Iranian claims or Iraqi claims during the Iran-Iraq war we see that both nations tried to portrait their air forces as winning the war to boost the nationalism in their populations and to make them willing to accept the human losses by giving them the impression that the war is going to be short, the most bloodless humanly possible and more important that their Government is WINNING THE WAR .

For example Syria claims that Israel lost some F-15 to Syrian AF MiG-25s as a response to an Israeli claim of MiG-25 kills done by Israeli F-15s, however both sides are unwilling to accept each other score.

Weapons sellers and makers need good advertisement so usually are supported by their Governments and accept claims favouring their products.
MiG is unwilling to accept scores that portrait MiG fighters as lossers and the same is for Boeing or Lockheed.

Not all by vietnamese alone. 😉

i know but according to a japanese book named “Famous Airplanes of the World” about the MiG-21 it is said that during the Vietnam conflict the F-4 shot down 86 MiG-21s and were lost 53 F-4 shot down by MiG-21 (some people put this in close to 60 F-4s lost to MiG-21)so as we can see the MiG-21 was not a slouch.
However even MiG-17 managed to shot down F-4s some accounts put them into 23 F-4s lost to MiG-17s.
The MiG-23 also is reported to have shot down an even number of F-4s versus the MiG-23 lost to F-4s but these were not achieved in the Vietnam war.
The total number number claimed of F-4 kills in the Vietnam war is 199 however 101 were MiG-17s not exactly a F-4E counterpart pictures tell more than accounts that are usually bias however gun sight camaras are better than combat aircraft debris

Lets remember we are not counting the total MiG-21`s kills but to put it into perspective the MiG-21`s claimed victories are close to 120 victories against US manned and unmanned aircraft and in it are included a RA-5 Vigilante and F-105s

Seems you do not know much about the situation there. Did the AH-64 return from a battle with Republican Gards before, when it was forced to an outside landing through a hit suffered by that or a mechanical failure suffered during flight. Please tell us. I do not exspect, that the Apache-crew waits for captivity next to it. When a Kiowa or another Apache could lift them out quickly. 😉

Sens the Iraqi insurgenst managed to shot down another AH-64 in April 11 2004, i mean not the regualr army of Saddam, but a bunch or insurgents, is difficult to believe that in war an AH-64 can be shot down by insurgents and not Mighty MiG-29s, but it is true, the Apache is not an invulnerable weapon it can be bring down and saddly people got hurt and kill.

The Russian side has a problem. Despite some few exceptions, the western fighters scored better most the time. The ratio is not so important for the western side, when you are the winner. Did the AF fullfill the task? Defend it the own troops and supply lines against air-attacks. Did it create enough fire-power to support own troops. Did it strangle the enemy troops? If those tasks are fullfilled, even a negativ exchange ratio is a good one. 😉
Perestroika was introduced by Gorbatschov to overcome the culture of lying. Grown over decades to survive in a depressive system, which did not tolerate mistakes. (Remember Stalin) 🙂
There was a thumb-rule exported with Russian weapons-system till the 80s.
To better the number of real kills by 4 times and reduce the number of real losses by 4 times too. Sounds strange, but worked for decades. The feeling inside Russia and the former WP was, the West has something similar. If it is so, the claims will even out.
For someone not accustomed to such thinking, it is strange or unbeliveable at least. 😮
But those claims have to serve the home-audiance at first. If real losses and missing victories had been published, how have the wise leadership (Stalin)explained his own failures related to that. Even Putin prefers to ignore some mishaps and shortcomings, when there are not the people and money to change this. [After some time the lying Cd. of the Norther Fleet (Kursk loss) was dismissed, but the real reason for that loss not officially published, so many Russians still believes the former lies.] :diablo:
A classical example for that behavior was/is the Korean War. You need no gun-footage to verify a kill. Date, time, location and units involved gives it away, when both sides publishes their datas.
We keep in mind, that in most cases the victim was surprised and did not know what hit him really. When more infos come in afterwards, the real reason could be find out. But most time the first reports lived on. This data were handed to the public by superiors. So there is not great eagerness to correct those datas at first and the words of the superiors by doing that. Still a widespread understanding of credibility in my eyes.
As I said before, it does not matter if the ratio of the Six-Day-War 1967 was 1:12 as published first or the 1:5 corrected by the history branch, when learning more details later. It changed nothing about the results of that war and the achivements of that AF. Real dogfights were the exception, when most victims were surprised. Not looking into a specific situation reveals nothing about the capabilities of pilots/fighters envolved in that.
It is no simple task. Flying near the ground, it could have been the guns of a fighter, a ack-ack or someting other. Very high above there was not such question at first. Later in the 70s the situation becomes more complicated, when fighters used AAMs regulary and SAMs were a constant danger. In most cases damage were not inflicted by an direct hit, but from splinters shed by different warheads nearby. Near the ground none could differ between a Grail or Atoll, at least, when AD-units and fighters became mixed in the heat of battle and a striken aircraft moved on for some time, before coming down.
Much simpler examples are the Korean War and the skirmishes between India and Pakistan. How much did the claims differ. Try the Russian style of counting and you will be surprised, at least when it comes to Korea.
I give in, not easy reading and hard to swallow at first. Please try out first, before blaming me for that injustice. 😉

I think the whole picture is more complex, i admitt the former USSR was a nation that used propaganda and misinformation, but also in western sources we can find the same degree of propaganda.
I read cuban sources about the war in Angola and you see the South Africans did not have an easy time, i have seen interviews to former Russian MiG-15 pilots who claim the good qualities of the MiG-15 and at the same time proved the good qualities of the MiG, even many western reports show how good was the MiG-15 over the F-86 in some flight regimes.

If we match the MiG-15 to the F-86 we find are equals.
If we match the F-4E to either the MiG-21 or MiG-23 we find no real superiority of the Phantom even we find the F-4 Phantom had trouble handling earlier Mig-17 and MiG-19, same is with the MiG-29 or Su-27 matched to the F-15 or F-16 even in mock combat the Su-27 is superior in agility to the F-15 and in the 1980s and 1990s the MiG-29 was a better dogfighter than the F-16 and F-15.
we know that the MiG-25 was able to shot down an F-18, that the western powers admitted at least 40 aircraft lost among them several F-15Es, F-14, F-18 and F-16 and another larger number of Panavia Tornado in the Irak war we even saw their Pilots captured and paraded in front western TV audiences even some AH-64 down by Iraqi peasants.
We have seen pictures of F-15, F-16 and F-117 shot down over Yugoslavia but always the western claim their pilots outflown the opposition and only SAMs kill their aircraft.

To me the western powers have been very keen in show their pilots as the best in the world but still weak nations have inflicted them loses.
Here we are not talking about a Russia-US air to air combat in the literal meaning but Weak third world nations inflicting kills to major superpowers.

Politically Korea and Vietnam were lost wars and the Iraq war still lingers on.

Well, it seems to me that it would be extremely simple for the Russians to prove that they were air-to-air kills. Just supply the gun/HUD camera footage.

the same should be applied to the western aircraft kill claims, to the moment i have only seen the Libyan MiG-23 shot down on the F-14`s head up display gunsight footage and pictures just of F-15s wearing the kills.