I often enjoy speculating on where we would all be if the dreaded Euro had never been introduced and if it was not the EU but still the Common Market. We almost certainly would not be having this debate.

That is an interesting hypothesis. Surely we wouldn’t have this debate. The problem is that, despite the fact that in Germany the populist press has cultivated the view of “we are the victims of the euro, we are the cow that the other milk”, the reality is just the opposite. Germany has something like the 90% of the trade surplus of the eurozone exporting to the smaller countries. For the time being, China and India are relatively harmless , yet profitable, export markets for Germans. BUT, this won’t last forever. At some point they too will manufacture competitive products and will want to export them to euro. The Eurozone is built as a way to put a fence around a domestic market in order to compete with 2 rising powers that each has over 1 bln people as its own market. To put a very simple example. Before the euro, if i wanted a service that i could buy let’s say through the internet from abroads, i would simply look which costs less drachmas. Today, if you give me the same service, the one in euros and the other in pounds, i will pick the one in euros. For the simple fact that it’s my currency, i don’t have to worry about exchange rate. It’s a very simple but effective way to show the power of euro and how it serves Germany.

And it also has to do with political power. Just watch what happened last month. Obama calls Merkel about the greek crisis. When was the last time a US President called a German cancellor for a crisis before the euro? How long will the Chinese or Indians accept a european being head of IMF in the future if the euro didn’t exist?

And that’s why i think that the Germans will bite the bullet and accelerate EU integration… Thanks to the humble PIGs, that act as catalyst (50 years later they will thank us). 😀

The euro was expected to have problems as it was born without central economy control. But i believe this will change.

Switzerland may continue living on her own, without worrying about political power or China. After all, as long as they have descrete banks and stay neutral, they have competitive advantage over any other country. But when your source of wealth isn’t something so unique and there are some new elephants on the horizon coming to play on your yard, you ‘d better find an elephant too… That’s why the euro exists.

Yes, exactly the point I was trying to make; under the circumstances it seems absurd that no politician will break ranks!

The political bankruptcy has preceeded the economic one. The current political establishment is at its last breaths. Exactly because they see that the bail out isn’t bailing out, they don’t want to share the weight of the failure. Besides, it’s in the greek tradition to have tendencies to self-destruction and fighting each other.

I would like to thank you for posting such an informative answer to my brief comment. I take it you are Greek?

Yes i am Greek. I have written an exhaustive reply this time too, but i clicked a browser button by mistake and lost it all. 😮

It is difficult to tell from your excellent written English (that would put many native speakers to shame on this forum).

You are too kind, but you flatter me. I myself can see many mistakes i do, afterwards. And i don’t have big experience in written english, it’s just that greek comes to my aid, since it’s very flexible and usually helps Greeks to adapt well to foreign languages by instinct.

You are quite correct about how simply the crisis is presented in most of the UK media; most British people take little interest in our own financial woes let alone any crisis abroad.

The problem with media worldwide is: 1) the interests of the owner or state behind them, 2) the quest for sensationalism.

For example, 300 hooded anarchists, which do their usual drill because the state allows them to, make the news, since they infiltrate peaceful protests and turn them into a battlefield. 200.000 peaceful protesters that gather for more than a month each night, don’t make the news.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-CLlaZV2lg&feature=related
Greek police said they were 80.000, but there were at least 200.000. BBC said the police version… A tv director that used to cover the electorate campaings of our socialist party and has experience in crowds, said they were 500.000, because they are not all seen in this video.

Yet, they are the real news, because they don’t follow a party. On the same square, both extreme left wingers and their right wing counterparts co-exist (on different angles of the square) and with different motives and demands, but they have something in common. They want something to change in the parliament, because they are sick and tired with the politicians. And they are the news, because they are not hooded, since they don’t have anything to hide.

It is very interesting what you have to say about the Greek crisis (did you see the thread on this subject?)

No, i rarely visit this forum subsection, it was by pure luck that i read this topic.

particularly that you think that there is no hope of Greece having any option than to default. Clearly there seems to be some attempt by France and Germany to stall any default (presumably because their banks are the most exposed).

My opinion is of little worth. Others much more experts than me say that with THIS plan, we only accumulate more debt, even with the rosiest scenario. See here (professor of economic history -in Britain too once- and former advisor of our current PM):

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2011/06/02/saviour-of-last-resort-the-modest-proposal-as-the-eurozones-last-line-of-defence/

Not to menton Nouriel Roubini and Paul Krugman, both of which have long said that Greece needs a haircut. Germans and French don’t want that because their banks would lose money. Ok. The question is, what do WE do to protect OUR best interest? Nothing. It’s all about how much our default will cost the Germans vs how much prolonging our non default costs them. If they see that letting us default will cost them less, they will let us default, only with more debt on our shoulders from the loans they give us.

That is just ridiculous! One of the questions that I keep asking myself when it comes to the Greek debt crisis is where did all the money go to? I think an example like that answers my question. It seems incredible that anybody would take-out such a loan.

No, it’s not ridiculous, it’s what creditors do and why banks make money (out of thin air often). Think that we finished paying debts towards the 3 great powers of the greek revolution in the 70s i think. They ‘re doing it again actually:

http://www.economist.com/node/18897845?story_id=18897845

Basically, we are bankrupt. We can’t pay this debt, they know it, we know it. This rollover, rollovers bonds that are TOXIC. Right now they worth 40-50% of their face value in the market. If some crazy man would buy them that is. So they do us a favour by postponing them by 30 years, when we ll have to pay them at FULL value PLUS with 11% interest. And they call this “bailing US out”. The best part is that at the same time, these bonds disappear from the banks’ accounts, avoiding them to writen them down at reduced price and this will help them pass the new “bank stress tests” (which are a fraud really, since from what i read, most greek banks are once more expected to pass them, although they are zombies right now).

And our socialists were taking loans since 1981 with such reckless terms, believe it or not, because after the fall of the greek junta in 1974, they invested politically on the memory of that, making everything “loose”. And they used loans as “easy road” , thinking that later they would stop it. But once you get the habbit… Green is socialist goverments, blue is conservatives. Debt and deficit charts:

http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/9223/greekdebt.jpg

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/8793/greekdeficit.png

At the end, having countries like Greece are every creditor’s dream, even if we default. Quoting from memory, thanks to interests, since 1980, for a debt for 350 bln, we ‘ve already paid 480 bln in expiring bonds and their interests. If you consider that we ‘ve spent 4-7% in weapons and that we have a big trade deficit, we ‘ve spent it to boost our creditor’s economies and we still owe them…

The question isn’t what the Germans and French do. They do their best interest and if it wasn’t for the effects of our default costing still now more than the effects of our non default, they would have let us default already. The problem is that unless something changes (Marshal plan, haircut to the debt, eurobonds, something), while they cover themselves, we are burdoned with more debt and do nothing on OUR interest. But if WE don’t protest, i bet Germans and French will have no problem at all, by letting us getting loans and loans forever, having us indebted for the next 200 years after taking all enterprises they can, and being happy with collecting the interests. Collecting the interest alone can make you take back the capital several times. Which is much many times more than zero that you get from a default.

And to go to the issue of YOUR strikes, YES, you should strike. Because, you must show to your politicians that you have a limit. If you don’t , they will pressure you more and more. The crucial point is not to do destructive strikes, like our unionists do (or the comunist party that can send party members to occupy a harbour even if the workers there don’t partecipate). He may be a Marxist professor (ironically also professor of our PM), but here he makes some good points from a sociologic and political science point of view:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUpSsSlstfg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fULk35gtDp0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjzm0uU4DYk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHTi2GlgoCA

And, although it is almost sacrilegeous to mention it all the developed nations are or have agreed to “write-off” hundreds of billions of third world debt without the remotest guarantee that it won’t happen again………talk about monopoly money!! Except that is OUR money!

There is no guarantee that it won’t happen again, because it has, it is and WILL happen again. Bankruptcy is known since ancient Greece, at last to my knowledge. Sometimes it happened officially, other times unofficially where debts were forgiven or simply postponed with external help to the point that became politically prohibited to be asked for (Germany is an example). Spain has defaulted more than 10 times in the last 200 years. There are other countries that they aren’t bankrupt because they are too big to fail. Japan has 200% debt. What are you going to do? Simply the rating agencies prefer to close an eye. This means that at some point Japan may burst without warning… Spain and Portugal were attacked by rating agencies and markets hard, while Italy with 120% debt is kept to a relative silence.

Which is why even the US fears our default. Because there are many that don’t want the speculators to see that the EU can’t defend itself and the investors to withdraw from bonds of highly indebted markets. Then it’s also the “precedent”. What about the next country in trouble? Will they believe the “bail out” story or prefer to default immediately? And what if every country on trouble starts leaving the euro instead of eternal austerity?

This is why the EU will either accelerate its integration or collapse. Because as it is now, the periphery will enter a never ending austerity, which will create pressure to leave it. So, the Germans will have to decide, whether they want to continue their investment in the euro (which is the most likely) or let it collapse.

We are actually Britain’s best hope for the collapse of EU. Because as Nicholas Ridley once said “the EU is a german racket with the purpose to take over Europe”. He was right. Just look at Germany’s trade surplus and your trade deficit. They ‘ve been killing the competition thanks to the euro. And it’s their long term investment for when the Asian emerging giants will be more direct competitors to their products than they are today.

talk about monopoly money

Money is really monopoly money ever since they ceased to have a reflection on precious metals. That’s why gold is rising to historic highs, since it’s the only “non monopoly money” around, in a world with many uncertainties. The good part with writing off debt, is that you can be sure that this happens because you ‘ve already taken enough back, to the limit of that country’s capacity and you ‘ve more profit by letting them breathe again than sucking a dead body. Remember: an alive debtor is more profitable than a dead debtor. Or to put it as in the ancient greek comedy ” You can’t get it from one who doesn’t have it.”

http://www.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780195308044/studentresources/archives/lucian_menippus/?view=usa

Another misconception in foreign press, specially German, is that it’s all fault of the previous “New Democracy” party. It’s true that they lost any control of the deficit. But the big debt was done in the decade 1980-1990 by the socialists, along with continuous deficits.

To give an example, last month we paid off a bond of the 80s, with face value of 1 bln euro, that had something like 17% interest and we paid it now for something like 55 bln euros. These are absurd numbers, but the socialists were getting loans on absurd terms.

It is interesting that, despite the obvious state of the Greek economy, the critical votes to decide their financial survival were split absolutely along party lines. And the Greek people are upset that their standard of living hasn’t been maintained; a standard of living it appears that they couldn’t afford to enjoy in the first place.

Pardon me for saying so, but on foreign media, the story is sold in a simple manner, since people deep inside like simple stories, cliches and stereotypes.

Greek people are divided in various groups and are upset for the same, but also for different reasons.

Political parties positions (only those in parliament):
– Socialist ruling party: They went on with “bail out mk.1 plan”, which failed, and now will proceed with “bail out mk2”, which will also fail. The leader is a populist caught with the hot potato in his hands, he tried to do some things, did reduce the deficit by 5% in a year, but with cutting mainly wages-pensions, while leaving untouched the interests of many unions and the pubblic sector, which are the priviledged sectors of his party. This policy brought deep recession, 200.000 new unemployed in the private sector in 1 year and 20% of small enterprises to shut down. Because he was TOO socialist (he is actually the President of Socialist International) to start the cuts from the public sector (who is unproductive), he didn’t really open the “closed” (aka protected) professions, he didn’t reduce the “state”. As a matter of fact, the strictly state expenses increased compared to before the crisis…

The sad thing is that the IMF/EU “controllers” let him go on with that policy, which is something that i can’t explain…

Politically he is wavering, in June he practically resigned as PM in order to form a coalition goverment with New Democracy, only to change his mind a few hours later, after members of his family and party convinced him not to do so. Of course this has signed his political end, as a PM that resigns and un-resigns in one afternoon, can’t lead a party for long. In fact, the next day he appointed the ex greek minister of Defence as minister of economics, his arch-rival for the party leadership in the last years and the goverment is effectively going on with the political capital of the minister of economics. Papandreou has extinguished his political capital.

– New Democracy (so called conservative) opposition party: It didn’t vote the “bail our mk.1 plan”, asking for a plan that would also bring growth, voted in favour of most of the individual laws afterwards. Voted against the new bail out plan again this time, will vote in favour of individual laws, but has raised the flag of “re-negotiating” the plan if they take power. My personal opinion is that if they had been in the place of the socialists, they would have done the same, but they let the socialists take all the heat, while they collect the anger to win the next (probably anticipated) elections. The leader is also a populist one and i fear an even more dangerous, because he has trapped himself in a position that cultivates to the people high expectations about a “miraculous re-negotiation”, which i doubt can be done. Also, his party lacks members of big experience to rule effectively the country in crisis. I consider the leader desperate to become PM, who would do anything to achieve that.

– Small right wing party (Laos): Has voted in favor of “bail out mk.1” as “bitter medicine”, now to save its electoral strength voted against “bail out mk.2” with the excuse that “we gave the gov a chance, they blew it, we can’t trust her again, we need to go to elections”. Populist leader.

– Small leftist party (SYRIZA): Party that has raised much talk and clash in Greece as is often accused to be on the side of anarchists that burn Athens. In fact, its parliament members always run to Courts to bail out anarchists or to defend arrested left wing terrorists. Their position is basically this: We go to the Europeans and demand another viable plan , unless they want us to default and explode on their face. The leader is a relative young fellow, selling populism even in the hour of crisis.

– Comunist Party (KKE). Their position is very simple: “This debt isn’t of the people, we don’t recognize it, it needs to be written off”. And they all lived happily ever after.

Both the SYRIZA and KKE present their positions as an alternative to the bad, austerity measures. Meaning, they actually sell to the people, that with their method, the standard of living won’t go down…

———————————————————————

Reasons to be upset:
– The former New Democracy goverment, hid the deficit. They went to elections saying the deficit was 6% and the former PM was actually saying that “the US crisis found us armoured and we suffered much less damage than other countries”. It is characteristic, that this man, to this day, has not said a single word nor did he apologise for anything. He now sits at the back rows of the Parliament (like a student who wants to chat during school class), never asks to talk and the last we saw of his was in the voting for “bail out mk.2”, where he said “Waiter, send me a salad and gyros with everything on”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLG2rWcsYYw

Out of his party, nobody is prosecuted for the economic disaster.

– The current PM Papandreou, is yet another populist fraudster. He is only good when speaking to foreign press, as he appears a gentle, calm, mild tempered leader who bears the cross of his country. Well, yes, but he is also the man, that as opposition leader, was sabotaging through strikes of his powerful unions any attempt of the previous goverment to make new pension law, privatizations, etc.

Here Papandreou on the streets againt pension reform. Now, since he stopped the previous gov from doing a milder one, he had to do a much worse one:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zJBHXtUG-pQ/S_WOcn0ou1I/AAAAAAAACJ4/i4GlIu59nC0/s1600/PAPANDREOY.jpg

Here Papandreou with the unionists of the water public enterprise of Thessaloniki where the unionists had gifted him a T-shirt with “not for sale” on, when the New Democracy goverment wanted to privatize. Now he has to sell it himself. Oh the irony!

– There are people, who are upset because the goverment still now doesn’t want to change things that SHOULD change. Nobody has been fired from the public sector and 200.000 lost their jobs in the private sector, who is the one that actually produces wealth. In theory they liberated closed professions that should bring 1% increase to GDP. But they are pseudoliberalizations really and i am amazed that the IMF/EU officials don’t do anything about it. The problem is, that the socialist party is the one mostly responsible for the way that the public sector (dis)functions in Greece and the tolerance towards unionists, that this policy is so deeply rooted within them, that it’s like expecting Hitler to dismantle the SS. Only with the gun on their head will do it. And since they don’t do that, the private sector pays the price, plus more taxes to the usual tax victims and VAT increased and special tax increases, that kill the economy even more. In fact, they raise the taxes, but don’t collect more money, because they ‘re strangling the economy.

– There are people that are angry because the current PM won the elections with the slogan “There is money!”, while it has been revealed that he knew the real condition of the economy and at the same time he was in contact with Strauss-Kahn , he was still giving some raises (i think to farmers?), only to come up later and shout “hello world, the previous gov was hiding the deficit, we found it. Oh and there is no money”.

– There are people, that combined with the above point, believe that this goverment has no legitimate mandate to govern, as they were elected with promices of raises and they ended up with unprecedented cuts.

– There are people that are angry because they believe the “easy solutions” of the opposition parties and believe that the other parties would give them a better solution (or utopia).

– There are people whose interests are threatened and don’t want to.

– There are people that still haven’t realised what has happened and refuse to face reality.

– There are people that are angry with foreign press, that presents a blown out reality of the average Greek, by taking as example the exeptions rather than the rule (ex. the average Greek doesn’t get pension at 50, doesn’t get 2000 euro pensions, doesn’t lay on the sun , etc, but that’s what makes foreign press more happy, as traditionally a bit of spice gives life to an article and people feel better about their own woes when they have someone else to despise).

– There are people who were paying taxes regularly and are angry because they are fed up to be those who always get axed again and again, while others get a free pass once more. To give an example, it is well known, that out of free professionists, 7 out of 10 declare less than 8000 euros income. And only now the gov decided to do something about them, making them pay 300 euros this year and 500 euros from next year plus something that may add by using some “criteria” (house, car, swimming pool). But in substance, the reduction of the deficit by 5% was done, once more, by squeezing those who were paying taxes (those on salary and pensioners). The economic ministry actually messed up the last years tax policy so badly, that this year, they have to pay back money to the usual tax evaders. Major failure , which again amazes me that passed through the “OK” of the EU/IMF “experts”.

– There are people who are angry, because they are asked to do sacrifices, but there is no way out of this. The “bail outs mk1 and 2”, buy time, but, combined with the deep recession, increase the debt to levels that they are not sustainable. So one gets angry and says “so why shouldn’t we default now, instead of 3 years from now that we ll have 100 bln more debt?”

– There are people that say “i prefer a quick hard pain with immediate default, than a long pain which leads again to a default”.

– There are unemployed people that are angry and have nothing to lose.

– There are the conspiracy theory fans that believe that our PM organized all this with foreign speculators, in order to loot the country.

– Everyone is angry because no politician will go to jail.

The goverment has also been tragically inadeguate in explaining to the population exactly the situation and why the alternatives presented from the opposition aren’t the correct ones.

The worse, is that, they don’t have a plan out of this. They execute a plan to the degree they can, while they themselves admit that it won’t bail out Greece… An ex minister with the goverment party voted “yes” to the “bail out mk2” while saying “between a knife and a gun”, i choose the knife. This is the reality. Greece doesn’t have a chance in hell to avoid default even if follows the plan to the letter. Unless something changes from the side of the EU. Something that will allow growth or at least a market-friendly agreement with the creditors for a debt restructuring. Until this doesn’t happen, people will grow more and more angry, because they don’t understand why they have to follow a path that leads back to default, only with bigger debt this time.

a standard of living it appears that they couldn’t afford to enjoy in the first place.

This is something very relative… Before this crisis has begun, i had written in this forum, that Greece is a country with poor economy, but not so poor citizens. At least a part of them wasn’t… Greek deficit closed on 2010 at 24 bln euros. Greek tax evasion is with modest estimates at 25 bln euros (others put it at 40 bln). Meaning, if there wasn’t tax evasion, deficit would be zero. But part of the tax evasion, is also due to the “black economy” fueled in big part by the almost 2 mln immigrants, most of which are illegal and “don’t exist” for tax purposes. This is yet another mistake made by the greek leftism, since it allowed in 2002 , through Dublin II Treaty, to become the human dumpster of the north Europeans and in the last years, we get 155.000 new illegal migrants per year, who fuel and make grow the black economy even more. And the state now has both the Greeks tax evaders and the hordes of migrants who evade taxes to deal with. Ironically, the greek state was collecting more taxes in 2000 than they did in 2009 or 10 or 11.

The other sure thing, is that Greece, exactly due to the socialist policies made in the 80s and onward, doesn’t produce the wealth that it should if it was a “normal” country.

Now the average Greek has a reduction of standard of living of about 30%, with final stage of 40%. The problem is that this is distributed unevenly. The rich are barely touched, since they evade taxes anyway. The lower class is striken to oblivion and the middle class is now dying, becoming the new lower class. Basically Greece is living at bankruptcy conditions. The only difference is that the official declaration hasn’t come yet and that instead of happening once and for all, it is taking some time to arrive to the finish, at the cost of increased debt.

My own position on this is:
1) I supported the “bail out”, despite being pessimist and subsequently positive that it won’t work to the intended purposes.
2) I still think that the price to pay for increased debt, is maybe worth it, to make structural changes. Although if the gov continues with “half-ass” ,as the Americans would say, changes, i will may have to review that.
3) I also think that we did need to give to the EU banks some time to cover their arses.
4) I won’t support anymore this program when i see that there is no reason at all anymore to wait before defaulting. We started with debt at 120%, at 2014 it will be at 160% and with the best scenario, it will stay so for a couple of years and rise to 200% afterwards. We are talking of adding another 300 bln euros of debt to the country. This is madness. Sometime soon Greece will have to tell our European friends: “Friend, let’s leave the lies alone for a minute and let’s talk honestly. This bail out sends Greece back to debt jail in a darker cell. Do you want to help us restructure our debt in a friendly and less painful way with our creditors or not?” And if they say no, default.

This professor is a Marxist, but on the specific subject, he is correct. Once you see that your debt is unsustainable, you have to restructure. Or suffer even worse default.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4OOsowEANk

The greek goverment is running out of political time. Last year they were sayin “In 2011 we will go out in the markets”. They were saying “we are beginning to exiting the tunnel”. Nobody buys that anymore. And people aren’t living in the 1800s. Nowdays they can understand what’s happening.

5) The best thing that Greeks politicians could do, is form a “unity” goverment with non politicians as ministers. Because politicians always weigh the political costs. The best way for Greece to make reforms, is with technocrats, not politicians. But they are too power hungry to do so. That’s why ancient Athenians were sending their politicians to exile! They knew the drill!

6) The privatization plan that predicts 50 bln is a joke. It predicts selling one public enterprise every 10 days. Even if that was doable, who will buy all that? Not to mention that many talk of high treason, since the stock market has dropped so low, that it will be like selling everything for a fifth of their real value.

Conclusion: Unless something is done to give the population a perspective that this will lead to a definitive solution of the debt somehow, Greece will explode well before 2014. I will be surprised if the current goverment will make it up to the end of the year.

The best news i read 1 or 2 days ago was about the French giving advanced weapons to the rebels. This is the way to go. Otherwise others after Norway will be left without bombs too…

It appears that Gadaffi has sources that replenish his ammunition. This means that at least his infantry has no trouble fighting with infantry weapons. Which means that the Rebels must beat them on the ground and that air support all this time wasn’t enough for them. So Sarkozy must give them better weapons and hope that they will do the job. Because otherwise this will take a while…

Did they ever get the missile with that kind of range figured out? Last i remember they were having a time of it with the 150km ranged missile.

I don’t know my friend. That’s what’s on the brochure… :p A Russian poster may have more detailed or “inside” information about real performance.

This is the safest bet imho.

I agree. 😀

Suicidal mission but worth a try. IIRC, IAF jags are specially focused on such low level heroism. They are very confident/pleased with what the Jag can do – hence the $ 2 bil tag to upgrade the engines. IIRC, Jags did exceptionally well in exercises conducted with the USAF and USN.

In war, casualties are expected…

Tough proposal – you’d need a few growler types in there i’m guessing – that is one big ass radar system, and the missiles are command guided (arent they?).

EW aircrafts would be useful yes. And i am not speaking of a “permanent solution”. But let’s say that you need to pass from an area guarded by S-300 (to perform a strike mission let’s say). If you send a very large package, there are chances that if the S300 sees itself overwhelmed, it will prefer to hide to fight another day, rather than suiciding. It’s what USAF does in every war basically. Not sure how effective this would be against the Chinese, but theoretically i included it. :p Yes, AFAIK they are command guided.

You forget one option – use stealth a/c 😀

Yes, of course. I included only the solutions readily available for IAF today.

Don’t forget that the German ICE Phantoms have also had airframe upgrades and changes adding further 4000 hours.

I was about to say that. But the flying hours of the airframe is something relative. They are “guaranteed” flying hours, which are usually exceeded. I remember once on greek tv an army aviation mechanic, explaining about the fact that we still fly Vietnam era Huey helicopters, that, as long as they mechanics inspect regularly the airframe and perform local repairs (i think he said they X-Ray the airframe and some other too technical for me things), being old doesn’t mean that it’s not safe enough, as long as spare parts exist.

Besides, the Germans are rich, they withdraw their aircrafts (and not only that) too early. They retired their RF-4E in 1993, we took them and still fly them.

The ICE must have added structural enhancements and i would be surprised if it can’t go to 6000hrs even without.

Besides, it’s not like Croatia will have to send them pulling high Gs every day. I ‘d say up to 2020 they could last with a contained to moderate use.

120km range is a lot less than any vaguely modern S-300 variant, not to talk about S-400.

S-300 MPU1: Search radar: 300km, missile engagement range: 150km (source: HAF’s website).

PMU2: engagement range: 200 Km.

IMHO, to kill the S300, you have the following options:

1) Stand-off ammunition fired in excess of the S-300 engangement’s zone capable on locking to the S300’s radar position. Enough ammunition to saturate S-300’s own missiles (since they have anti-ballistic ability too) and eventually SHORADS that protect it.

2) If you lack ammunition with so much range, go in flying very very low. Because the performance of the main radar degrades on lower altitudes, hence why it is used as auxiliary the 76N6 low altitude radar, which though has lesser range than the main radar. So one could try to fly very very low, preferably take advantage of mountain cover up to a point, gain altitude, fire the missiles to saturate the S300, drop low down again and flee. It would probably imply losses, but the target should be destroyed. Or, you can fly at below 30 ft, which is the minimum engangement altitude of the S300 and drop an iron bomb on it without the S300 being able to respond. :p

3) Soft kill the S300 with so many large numbers of aircrafts that will force it to hide and wait for an ambush opportunity (one of the reasons that the low altitude radar is a mast-like 33m high radar, is to allow the S300 to get into the woods and use the 76N6 radar as its only radar, above the tree line).

* Precautionary step: Take out any other main air defence radars in the wider area before going after the S300. Just in case they play “smart” and use the main radars for surveillance while keeping the S300 with radar switched off on “stand-by” and before you know it you are inside the engagement zone of the S300 that you *thought* was elsewhere. This will force the S300 to emit with its own radar and reveal its position.