how’s Greco-Russian relations these days? it’d be nice to see a pak-fa in HAF colors 😉 it’d give the Bulgarians a big scare!

I ‘ve replied in length about that eventuality in the main forum. Short answer: No way Greece will buy russian aircraft. And certainly not with this PM anyway! My opinion is that relations are better than most other EU countries, but have certainly lost momentum and with this PM could possibly cool further. The fate of the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline will be one interesting thing to see how relations will go. Right now it faces risks, after the change of the Bulgarian (the real one) goverment, which is pro-USA. Our PM is pro-USA too, but he can’t back off from that. But if the Bulgarians “burn” it, it will cool further greek-russian relations, because that pipeline was mutually beneficial.

Sure it would give the… Bulgarians a big scare. 😀 Even the visit of Su27s and 30s at Tanagra had provoked unrest to the Bulgarians 😉 For a moment they thought they ‘d actually may have had to face them over the Aegean. I think to recall that there were even diplomatic protests to us and to NATO from our neighbour.

Anyway, even if Segolen actually rises to power, I doubt that France will ever, ever, get involved to any serious arms deal with Turkey, so many reasons for that. Which in turn indeed leaves only German and American options available. But the Turks want to design and build the ship themselves, so the foreigners’ involvement will probably be restricted to subsystems alone.

I agree, but in politics, “never” is a big word. It’s even bigger when there is a change in power. If France was to transform in fervent supporter of turkish entry in EU, it would be worth a frigate contract for example. Unlikely given the turkish mistrust and antipathy towards France, even with Sarkozy out of the way, but i always leave a window open in such cases.

My main gripe with the EU is that it demands this subservience in almost all aspects of government that should be the sole preserve of the nation state in order to get into the trade club. No other trade bloc tries that.

This is the main problem with British policy. The EU isn’t supposed to be a trade union anymore. That’s why demands interference in domestic matters of governance. The trade union was back when it was called EEC (European Economic Comunity).

The reason of why your goverments chose to stay in the evolution of the EEC into something that goes beyond a trade union, the EU, are political mainly. It’s the same reason for which the EU was thought, instead of staying as “EEC”. With the global market and new rising powers, each single country in a trader’s union, would , eventually become insignificant. If each state, remained individual in a traders union, sooner or later, they would find themselves politically powerless, against new and old superpowers and economically they would be “bought off” or in the best case, end up isolated in their own small world, living wealthy, but with no impact on world evolution. Much like Switzerland living her own dream surrounded by EU countries, staying happy with the money they make from banks.

The problem is, countries like Germany, UK, France, etc, that are used in being big powers, influent powers, could never settle for that fate. That’s why the “EU” was invented. Something beyond a trade club of individual countries. This isn’t just about money either, it’s about political influence. It’s about not becoming marginalized. It’s securing your own markets, securing your own energy routes, securing your own access to ports, BEFORE someone else does.

Even economically speaking, each country alone and its currency alone, would become vulnerable to foreign powers. China is rising. USA is still strong. Russia is recovering. India is on quick growth. In today’s market, staying alone against a giant, means, that sooner or later, your currency will be attacked and the “big fella” will buy you off.

At the end of the day, in the EU, those with more political and decisional power, are the big countries, including UK. The big countries are using the smaller ones as their shield to hold the attack from outside. You go to Greece, almost all supermarkets are now Carrefour, Lidl, Aldi etc. In the 90s they were all greek. But they couldn’t compete with much bigger competitors, especially in market with common rules, made in Brussels. Now your companies that buy off smaller fish, grow bigger and will be able to have more chances to survive a say, Chinese competitor tomorrow, rather than making the same end of the small fish. So you ‘re in the EU, because you don’t want the same to happen to YOUR companies by the US , Chinese, Russians, etc, in some future day. The smaller countries in a way or another, they would get bought off. Better from you than from the Chinese, although at least, they don’t worry about political influence, because they didn’t have one in the first place. And since politically their interests lie more in Europe, they also use the big ones as their own shield for the future.

Of course a PM can’t go on public TV and say “We must be in EU because we fear an economic competition with USA and China or a new cold war with Russia or we may have someday to counter another superpower’s plans for the control of energy routes and we can’t do that alone”.

That’s why the plan for the EU, is a federation-like model. This will theoretically allow the EU to act as one, superpower, with common resources and interests, capable to stand her own ground to other superpowers, economically, militarily and politically. You can’t expect to do that, if each country has different foreign policy, defence policy, different currency, different economy rules, different trade rules, etc. They will simply take you down one by one.

Basically, if the EU doesn’t work out, in the best case scenario, the big european countries will remain spectators on a game that others partecipate and the results affect their fate without being able to do anything about it. Maybe it’s a rough analogy, but it will be a bit like being Austria in the middle of the Cold War. With the difference, that in the Cold War, there was no global economy, so the Russians couldn’t affect much Austria. Now even the Chinese can. Or the Russians that provide the majority of EU’s gas.

The price to avoid all that, is giving some of your sovereignty to Brussels. On the bright side, you ‘ve much more power there than most of the other 26 countries. Britain in particular, being an ex empire, can’t possibly let herself an isolated spectator looking the world change while she stays in “happy isolation” , and aspiring in the best case simply to see USA retain her power and be happy in acting as her sidekick. That’s why your politicians put you in the EU, despite your population being against. You could have maintained a customs Union with EU if trade was all your politicians had in mind.

The story of this procurement is the most complicated i ‘ve seen. No wonder why there are so different opinions.

Just a question. Is there a timeline about WHEN (more or less) the Tejas Mk2 could be available for industrial production? (i suppose you won’t mass produce the Mk1).

So this announcement is no big deal. It has happened before. It could mean everything but it could also mean nothing. Still, it seems that something is moving.

No, this time it’s for real. It’s their reply to the greek FREMMs. They can’t let it without answer.

I
I’m no expert on Greek internal politics but are you really saying that Greeks don’t have internal political problems? Apart from the fact that every nation does, Greece seems to be having some problems at the moment (large riots last year etc) that a bit of common national pride towards an outside aggressor might help to solve.

Ok, i tried to hold back, but i must make 2 comments on that.

1) The “large riots” last year, were 300-500 anarchists that were left free to burn Athens, because the goverment was afraid to send the police to stop them. This year that anarchists from all Europe came to Greece hoping to repeat them (they were thus much more than last year), they were charged by the police and almost nothing was destroyed. Because we had a socialist goverment, and thus immune to the accusation of “police brutality”.

2) If we wanted an outside aggressor to solve our problems, we could find someone smaller in size than Turkey. Turkey is a pretty bad choice for that. It’s like Mexico choosing USA.

3) Do you think that we actually helped the turkish generals prepare their plans against Greece and that were revealed now? I think not.

4) The biggest problem is economy and nothing more would make our politicians happy than getting rid of the defence budget. They ‘ve been proposed mutual cuts to Turkey since like 2002, Turkey denied, we ‘ve cut ours anyway from 4+% to 2.5% of GDP. There must be a more economic way to solve internal problems than having an arms race with Turkey. like giving the money of the aircrafts to the farmers instead, that in these days are blocking greek roads. You know, the turkish plan of crisis with Greece, didn’t move the farmers one bit from their road blocks. Giving them money will.

5) Suppose that Greece is the provocator and has absolutely wrong in everything. Well, at least there is this. We are ready to accept our fate in the hands of foreign judges
http://www.icj-cij.org/jurisdiction/index.php?p1=5&p2=1&p3=3&code=GR

List of all countries:
http://www.icj-cij.org/jurisdiction/index.php?p1=5&p2=1&p3=3

All Turkey has to do is submit a similar declaration and we can both open any dispute against each other to the court.

We even let them start EU negotiations despite the fact that they have casus belli against us. What else must we do to show that we don’t use them to solve our internal problems? Kneel down and kiss their shoes?

Is “supercruise” one of the goals of the PAK-FA project?

It will be nice to have a russian definition of supercruise soon! 😀 Imagine the joy in this forum! Endless debates about whose supercruise is the true one. LMs? Euros? Russians? 😀

There is a general trend emerging in Indian defence purchase in that if the equipment is not of either US or Indian origin the whole deal ends up getting cancelled due to some corruption charges. So dont be surprised if a European plane wins the whole deal gets cancelled due to some allegations :D:D:D:D

Interesting. Well, i am pretty sure that your gov and airforce can arrange the criteria in a way to avoid having a european win, if it’s not desired to win. That would avoid the “scandal”.

But, on the other hand, i suppose it could happen exactly as you say. I am pretty sure that no matter who wins, some of the losers will accuse you of something, so you won’t avoid “scandal accusations” anyway.