not a good deal...wasting

[Mehfooz]

Hi everyone..

Pakistan Airforce is trying to induct gripens and negotiating with the swedes.For a deal of 2.3bn usd..for 60 gripens I think..Y don't they go for 30 rafales at the same price cause rafale can really counter SU-30MKI.and these 30 would cost 2.2 bn usd just 50mn usd over 2.2bn and would be enough for the time being.If we can get them at a unit price of 75mn usd.not a bad deaal .and the important thing is that rafale is far more superior to gripen and can counter SU-30MKI where as gripen could only dream of doing such a thing.30 rafaels can take on 30 SU30's actually more then this in diff situtions but 60 gripens could not take on even 20 SU 30'S in any situation and also the threat of sanction on the part of gripen where as rafale's deal is a safe one...THAT IS THE REAL THREAT TO PAKISTAN AT THIS TIME..soooo what do u guys think.. :?: :?

 

[Londo Molari]

hehe... every week someone new to the board posts "why doesn't PAF do this" or "why doesn't PAF do that". Dude, PAF knows full the capabilities of all aircraft, and they also know the capabilities of India, and they know what they need. If they are not going for Rafale, then there is probably a very good reason which you don't know. In the case of Rafale, I think there are two reasons:
One, the Rafale is not $55 million as you say. Since PAF can only a afford around 40 units, the per unit cost will be high, at around $80 million/aircraft. That is not affordable to PAF.
Two, with the new European Union rules, if one European country decides that it is not ok to sell arms to a country, ALL of them must do the same. So since England (good buddy of the U.S.) has decided that PAF should not be sold fighters, Sweden and France both can no longer do the same. So the Gripen, Mirage 2000, Rafale, Eurofighter are all out of the equation unless every single European country says that its OK to sell fighters to Pakistan. And with a dictatorship (in Pakistan), thats not going to happen.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Sweden actually has a declared policy of not selling any weapons to any countries engaged in any form of hostilities.

The Swedes have said that (again) in the "open" last week in Defence News when they were explaining their position on selling weapons systems to Pakistan.

The reason as to why they are selling Eryie is because they regard it as a defensive weapon system - and thus not in breach of national policy.

A good example of a current situation is that the EU has an arms embargo on China for the killing of protesters during the Tianenmen Sq demonstrations.

France wants to sell weapons to China - but Germany has just had a parliamentary vote where the Parliament went against the preferred wishes of Chancellor Schroeder - and re-affirmed their committment to not selling arms to China. At this stage the majority (IIRC over 80%) are opposed to selling China weapons technology - so the ban will stay in place.

The EU is not a dictatorship - it is a common Union of nations that runs on concensus. As a concensus - the majority decision holds. That in reality is the way a democracy works. Otherwise you would have the major economic powers (eg UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain) dictating what the other member nations will do. That is obviously not the case.

Some of the members of the EU (like Spain and Germany) have had bad economic experiences where some of their companies have complained about the theft of technology and manipulation of what they see as dual use technology - because they feel that China is not sincere about clamping down on breaches of the IPO. That is also why some members are resisting on WTO membership etc...

These things are far more complex than blaming it on a singular issue such as a UK alliance to the USA. The resistance to weapons tech sales is one classic issue where there are multiple agendas in play here. Most of them revolve around the principles of abuse of international standards of behaviour in dealing with host countries technologies.

The current member nations of the EU are as follows:

Austria
Belgium
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Poland
Portugal
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
The Netherlands
United Kingdom

It would pay to actually refer to the EU site if you want to understand the complexity of their decision making processes wrt to topics such as this.

 

[tatra]

The EU is not a dictatorship - it is a common Union of nations that runs on concensus. As a concensus - the majority decision holds. That in reality is the way a democracy works. Otherwise you would have the major economic powers (eg UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain) dictating what the other member nations will do. That is obviously not the case.

Hold on to your hat, GF, I think Londo meant "with [selling to ]a dictatorship" rather than "with [selling by] a dictatorship.

 

[Londo Molari]

ROFL Tatra... you're right. I'll fix tha right now. I meant they aren't going to be selling to a dictatorship (Pakistan). Poor GF and his big reply, LOL :

Gary - Thanks a lot Londo.