Interesting way to fix the trade imbalance

[richlevy]

The US is considering supplying F-16's to both India and Pakistan. The most likely use of these aircraft will be against each other, so it should be an interesting field trial.

His statement Saturday came a day after U.S. officials announced the sale of F-16 jet fighters to Pakistan and signaled that India could move ahead with its own weapon buys. The two nuclear-armed neighbor countries have been rivals for decades, and have fought three wars since their independence from Britain in 1947.

India expressed "great disappointment" over the U.S. decision to sell fighter aircraft to Pakistan, and said doing so would tilt the military balance in the region and could harm India-Pakistan peace talks that began last year.

There is nothing sweeter for an arms supplier than to sell to two historical enemies in an arms buildup.

[jaguar]

Nothing sweeter than selling planes capable of carrying nukes to the supplier of nuclear tech to pratically every pariah regime which also happens to be a nuclear armed state that has encouraged islamic extremism for decades and is a dictatorship dangerously close to civil war. Oh and snubbing an increasingly important allay in the process setting back relations a few years.

Most fucking shortsighted politically myopic move I've seen in a while.

[Beestie]

Even I'm having trouble with this one.

[Elspode]

If you simply juxtapose this opposite Bush's plan to fix the economy ($2.50/gallon gas by summer), it makes a lot more sense.

Line the pockets of those who will be donating heavily in the next campaign, and you'll get even more Right Wing Conservatives elected.

[Griff]

India expressed "great disappointment" over the U.S. decision to sell fighter aircraft to Pakistan, and said doing so would tilt the military balance in the region and could harm India-Pakistan peace talks that began last year.
As long as we sell fighters to Red China at the same time, I'd say we've covered all our bases.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by jaguar

Nothing sweeter than selling planes capable of carrying nukes to the supplier of nuclear tech to pratically every pariah regime which also happens to be a nuclear armed state that has encouraged islamic extremism for decades and is a dictatorship dangerously close to civil war. Oh and snubbing an increasingly important allay in the process setting back relations a few years.

Most fucking shortsighted politically myopic move I've seen in a while.

You know, I didn't think the F-16 could mount nuclear weapons on it's hardpoints when I read your post until I checked here .

The F-16 has six underwing hardpoints and one under-fuselage hardpoint for the carriage of fuel tanks or weapons. A huge variety of weapons can be carried, including air-to-surface missiles, "smart" bombs, conventional iron bombs, and even tactical nuclear weapons.

It's the end of the world as we know it

[xoxoxoBruce]

and even tactical nuclear weapons.

Tacticals aren't what we normally think of as "atomic bombs". Being much smaller, one will probably only take out a couple hundred thousand people.......Oh wait, India........ make that a million.

There is nothing sweeter for an arms supplier than to sell to two historical enemies in an arms buildup.

Krupp built a 400 year dynasty on that premise.