I thought we ended all this with the collapse of the Soviet Union back in 89. It's looking like I was wrong. Silly me to think that nations would lay down their arms and turn to more pressing problems like keeping people feed and housed.
Arms race round two
The U.S. is about to sell the Suadi government 84 F-15 fighter jets at a cost of $60 billion. Now on whom do you suppose the Saudis would want to use those jets? In digging around I find that Iran had orders to Russia for a nice fleet of their 250 SU-30s which is comparable to the F-15 back in 2008. There is also rumors that Iran may buy some more 'goodies' from China but no proof as yet.
This is all disheartening news. You know as well as I do when a boy gets a BB gun or his first shot gun what the first thing he wants to do with it. First it will be practice in the desert then when he's had enough practice he'll head for the bullys or at least the ones he thinks are bullys. Problem is Mom, Sis and the baby land up getting shot in the process.
So now we take the fight to the corporate level as in who makes the better aircraft? Mine's bigger better and faster than yours and it can kill a billion zillion in the process.
Robin Williams was right when he said "If we can't f*ck it then we kill it".
10 comments:
I said it to much during Bush but the cold war never ended as they always said. It just went a little farther underground and got colder.
The entire time they touted the end of the cold war I am sure I wasn't the only one constantly writing about Russia's new high tech weapons not to compete with ours but to beat them.
I didn't know that Robbin Williams said that. It's like dogs, "If you can't eat it or fuck it, piss on it."
Oh well, it's just a bunch of monkeys fucking around, don't take it all too serious or it will drive you as crazy as I am.
I have a completely different take on this, and it doesn't involve the kind of arms race that took place between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. from 1946-1985.
The F-15 is old technology. This sale to Saudi Arabia is the current equivalent of in 1965 selling a bunch of Korean war-era F-86s to the Philippines.
If there is an arms race involved, it's between the Saudis and some of their neighbors in the region, such as Israel and maybe Syria.
The upside of this sale is that it will help reduce our massive trade imbalance. The Saudis pile up oil-revenue dollars by the tens or hundreds of billions annually. If they keep piling them up without buying from us, it's like a bigger and bigger sword of Damocles over our head. So, if the Saudis want to pony up some more money for a few used but still useful KC-135s, maybe a few C-140s and KC-135s, by all means, let's do business.
Agree in a sense with SWA but don't understand whom the F15's are to be used against. Just to maintain a balance of power in their own neighbourhood?
Of course, Russia and China are developing their own high tech weapons and if Europe could ever get its shit together, they should be developing their own. We are back in 1890 in terms of global politics and the machine gun of 1914 has been replaced with nucs.
This is also an excellent posting Sir! I didnt even know about the new fighter plane deal with the Saudi's ... or even about perhap's a chance of China doing business with Iran ( I can tell you though that I will bet my paycheck, that this war in Afghanistan is all being fought for China to mine all the copper out of as well as other resource's) ... but why wouldnt none of this suprise me? Because of all the crap I been writing about the defense business/ contracting and so on ... and how it is more big business as usual ... frankly Guy ... none of these folk's who dictate any of this ... give a rat's ass about human lives ... and even as I wrote countless posting's on ... today's war's are STRICTLY corporate manufactured war's ... that havent a goddamn thing to do with freeing any damn body from oppression or any of the other nonsense that the herd masses believe from being forcefed with this stupidity. As far as gun's ... of course it's no secret I am pro 2nd amenddment bigtime in my journal, as a kid ... I basically grew up with gun's, throwing knive's and archery ... for me it was a sport. I done alot of hunting too ... mostly in Upsate New York (where I started as a child) then in area's of Southern California and Nevada, and last would be in the Big Thicket region's of Southeast Texas, where I stopped my hunting career several year's back after a Deer kill that went very unpleasant and made me think of what I was doing. But yes ... I still have had more gun's till this day (handgun's for personal urban defense) than I can even recall how many.
SW this is a corporate arms race to see who can sell the most old technology. The F-15 we almost no longer use unless it's for an air show.
Fodder I'm sure the Ruskies had a bunch of their planes sitting around collecting dust. What better opportunity to clean out the closet and make a few bucks. They're sure not making anything on their wheat crop this year.
As always this is about making money but what is the end result? A whole bunch of innocent people get killed in the process. Not to worry it's just colateral damage you know.
We have to keep building new planes. How will the next generation of video game flight sims be made?
Interesting discussion. I'm not sure which side to take. With Russian and American proxies facing off against each other -- but not the U.S. squaring off against Russia -- it's like that old saying "the more things change, the more they stay the same."
But like SWA says, at least Saudi Arabia is actually buying something from us.
RC the war is just a diversion for the Chinese. While we're busy fighting the Chinese will be taking all the wealth.
Randal who wants to play video games with drones? Robot warriors are just not as fun as blood and guts.
Tom I guess the price of gold is just too high for the Saudis. Jets are cheaper.
RC the war is just a diversion for the Chinese.
Airplanes, cars, wars, are just interesting ways to help control the populations on this rock to help keep it from becoming even more over populated.
I don't care who we sell planes to, as long as they use them to kill others with, I'm tired of all the fucking monkeys on this rock. Kill them all, let their gods sort them out.
I'm going camping in the morning, the rest of you monkeys are in charge while I'm gone.
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