Things to think about:
1. There is no doubt that the J-10 uses Lavi technology. Nothing that looks that much like a pair of ducks-
www.strange-mecha.com...
www.usiap.org...
can possibly be a crocodile.
But NOT because the Lavi is a superior design. Rather because it is not. This being the proof in many ways of Israeli 'collusion' in that _nobody
would want that aircraft_ if the plans were not made available 'for free'.
Indeed, the Lavi project is based on /early/ 1980's technology in everything from composite engineering and structural design to avionics. While the
Israeli's admittedly stole-without-recompense-
>>
A 1983 study of the Israeli defense industry raises another point about sharing technology with Israel:
A number of U.S. companies have expressed concerns that doing business with an Israeli company would probably result in all of the U.S. company's
ideas and designs being appropriated without proper compensation. The U.S. company could expect to find itself competing with its own technology and
designs in the international marketplace.57
Although this sentiment may be too generalized, it represented the feelings of some US industry officials, based on prior experience with the basic
Sidewinder and AIM-AL air intercept missiles.58
>>
www.fas.org...
Many American systems leverages. Israel then reverse engineered them and -would- have sold them for export. Because it was known all along that an
A-4 replacement would not be viable in a modern warfare condition nor for export (see AMX). And the 'sexy' Lavi fighter would, because that's the
kind of moron that most Air Forces employ.
BUT. The Young Lion had all of 5,000lbs of fuel onboard. Less than even the F-16. It was /grossly/ underpowered for the amount of weapons it was
going to lift. And it compensated by using MASSIVE fuel tanks on all three inboard stations, limiting it's ability to carry useful (heavyweight)
standoff munitions inboard, and compromising the 1,500lb stations on the mid wing with equally high tunnel drag.
NONE of this has changed with the J-10.
For all that it is likely a pretty good turn and burn airframe, it never will stand tall to even F-15 BVR dominance because now that BVR _works_ it
you are looking at X4 (at most, assuming the outboard station is 500lb rated and not 300lb) 30km SD-10 type miissiles. While the F-15 can carry X6,
60km, AIM-120D. And the 100-150km BVRAAM is going to be available through the F-35 program.
So the Chinese have effectively bought themselves an F-5E, stuffed a /monster/ (thirsty) AL-31FN engine into it. And not clearly improved the fuel
fraction to pay for that upthrust. While having little or no multirole options beyond dumb bombs on fuselage/inlet stub pylons.
Whoopy.
I hope the Israeli's were /well paid/ (intentionally or otherwise) for their 'betrayal' because the J-10 is a piece of crap that has soaked the
Chinese economy for most of the 1990s.
PLEASE, keep right on investing that way you toothless dragon. Because as long as you buy Western /junk/ you won't develop your own capabilities
which include the 'Zero Threat' (to use another war) of platforms we have truly never seen before, as a doctrinal or technical approach.
Other stuff. I wouldn't be surprised about PAC-2. Since we went to PAC-3 ERINT, and the remaining earlier missiles have been upgraded, there is
again a 'big deal' factor involved. I imagine we bought influence and cheap trade with that secret and while such is not a good way to bleed our
own industry dry for the bottom line of a consumerist economy run amok, what people don't understand is that the Cold War came a lot closer to
bankrupting OUR economy (and has, even since Kennedy played with deficit spending and LBJ wanted a 'great society') than is commonly
acknowledged.
Python 3? It's their damn missile! Same for P-4. Neither one is all that capable (in many ways it represents the
cave-man-adds-more-and-more-fletchings-to-arrow solution to some difficult aeros problems) in the trans-merge battle. But both are sufficiently
differentiated from AIM-9L and various research programs to hold their own, valid, patents. Or RAYTHEON wouldn't be marketing them for Rafael.
Harpy and Taifun and Chukar-as-Delilah are more worrisome. Simply because they offer the combination of range and good autopilot plus cheapness
sufficient to saturate a defensive screen within a reasonably small missile (think CSS-N-1 for comparison).
THEL. That I would have to see. If only because I don't think Israel would sell something that could come back (via the China/Iran IRBM connection)
to threaten their ability to use air or missile strikes of neighboring Arab states. Again, a double-bluff (junk deal) seems more likely.
As regards politics.
The USSR had a Constitutional provision by which any state which wished to could secede from the Union. The U.S. Constitution does not. And we
fought the bloodiest war in our history to prove it.
The U.S. backed down from invading Cuba (as we should have, to secure our borders), not because the Russians could 'win' a nuclear war with us. For
indeed, October 1962 was the ONE TIME when we /should/ have gone 'all in' in intimidating a nuclear madman. But rather because we were embarrassed
about prior screwups and hence cowed by our own moral torpitude. Last but not least, we maintain this little thing called the Monroe Doctrine by
which, even today, most of the American Hemisphere is OFF LIMITS to foreign martial imperative, evem those based solely on arms exports.
Those disparate elements come together in Taiwan. For the ROC is indeed a rogue province of China, as proven by failure to recognize the Island as
the rightful ruler of the PRC in the UN. And Taiwan's failure to declare independence (for fear of an a$$ whoopin').
Whereas Cuba never was even a U.S. territorial protectorate.
And of course the Chinese are not afraid of nukes like we are.
If we can declare an entire hemisphere 'demilitarized' then they can do the same.
If we can illegally blockade a sovereign nation based solely on a desire to oust a dictator who isn't playing nice with the Mafia interests, then the
Chicoms have every right to 'clean house' with a rebel province.
And lastly, the WHOLE THING IS A BLUFF!
Because Taiwan is the Israel of the PRC. Their access point for banking 'real money' (not Yuen) and their tech syphon using Western Manufacturing
capabilities.
Thus the notion that the PRC will do more than bleed the U.S. dry trying to protect what _we cannot_ (if the Chinese are serious, our battle groups
will find razed earth in the 10-20 days it takes to really get a response together) is itself ridiculous.
Because you don't kill a combined cash cow and stalking horse.
IMO, we need to look towards home and start to accept that the World At Large no longer is so young and helpless as to be readily bullied.
1. If we lose our 'hegemony' over the entirety of SEA. It will crush our economy. If that happens, the various debt holding nations (a majority
of whom are in Asia) will either collapse themselves or try to 'foreclose' on U.S. properties and national assets. And we will nationalize to deny
them (this will crush the USD which will pose an even greater risk to the World Economy but the Euro is strong and the Yuen is decoupling from it's
historical 8.3 ratio so there is a good chance they will survive.).
What will the outcome of this be? U.S. military aristocracy will collapse. Money will return to MASSIVE reinvention of our civil manufacturing base.
And we will no longer be dependent on foreign SLAVE LABOR. No matter who owns it. Whoopy, China, you go right on ahead and /own/ Asia. Because
loss of that dependency will be like taking a junky off of heroine. Hard withdrawal followed by better health.
2. The world is breeding at an impossible rate. We cannot sustain 10 billion people. We _can_ sustain (at American standards of 'civilized'
living) roughly 1.5-2 billion. The only way to get there is to make a world government with common laws that restrict 8 children families by
'whatever means necessary'. That cannot happen if our 'own you but don't want you to be a part of U.S.' attitude prevents the development of
foreign populaces which consider our ways to be alien. It MAY happen once China has amalgamated her own sphere of interest, if not under a pagoda
then at least within a free trade commercial democracy.
3. Israel. I despise the nation. I despise /anyone/ who uses the "Awwwh Po Baby!" sentiments of one truly repugnant act (The Holocaust) to
justify a reoccupation and disenfranchisement of an area and people who had NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FIRST OFFENSE.
And who, indeed, had been entirely self sufficient for the nearly TWO THOUSAND YEARS since the last Zionist State was kicked out of the region.
_By Italians_.
The very notion is that of being kicked out of an apartment by a landlord from Cleveland and then going back, 20 centuries later, and declaring the
squatters have no right to be there because this is 'historically yours'.
Utter Crap.
Israel is a dustbowl on the sea. There is nothing there 'historically' but rotting brick and heat a sane person would not waste /spit/ on.
Not when they had been offered Eden like areas of Ethiopia by Haile Silassie. And similar, non-contentious accomodation within 2 South American
countries. I grew up in a nation where religion and state are rightfully kept separate so don't talke to me about God and a 'Safe Haven For Jews'
either.
Because belief is something you carry around inside, not a place you bow to or demand recognition of long after the fact.
And any moral superiority the Israeli's had over the Arabs-as-Indians 'savages relocated' DIED when they allowed their Lebanese allies to play
ravening butcher inside Sabrah and Shatilla.
More important than any of these things, are the economics. As is, Israel cannot stabilize as a nation. If she were to reoccupy from the Cedars in
the West to the Damascus Gates in the East to the River Jordan and beyond in the South, she would /still/ be hard pressed to survive in a world where
the demographics favor Arabs who breed like rats. And where Israel itself is merely a stopping-over point for most immigrants (who quickly see how
bad it is) on their way to Europe or the Americas.
Which is where our 2+8 BILLION dollars of aid really pisses me off. Because it is better to pull the plug and let things 'settle as they might' I
have no idea how this would turn out. But I think it is better to let it happen NOW than to continue to abide a polarized standoff in a phonebooth
geography.
Syria is the true WMD manufacturer in the ME, Iran is the up and comer while Saudi quietly bought East Winds from the PRC almost 3 decades ago.
Israel has Jericho and some top notch conventional forces who are most likely spoiling for the chance to play Wehrmacht In Russia.
But either way, it is not an area from which anything but 'last man standing' outcomes will prevail. And I would prefer it happen before the
consequences can reach out to Europe or the U.S. on long range systems deriving from Chicom ballistics tech.
Israel, I am very afraid, is the wound which will never heal. So must be cauterized by fire.
The difference (in justification) between my contempt for them as a nation and my desire to be free of their lamprey effect in Washington D.C. is two
fold:
1. Their 'marvelous intel' did not prevent 9/11. Nor can we adequately maintain that they get Soviet goodies for us when the A#1 technical threat
is from the EU. No 'special relationship' there. Just a common interest which has long since died.
2. I would not help them in a war. But nor would I punish them if they spanked the Arabs and took all their lands. Because THAT is the _only_
'justifiable outcome' of warfare. That from an alterred future, you might eventually have enough land to become stable and thus enough strength to
become **peaceful**.
CONCLUSION:
Somewhere along the course of the 20th Century, we lost track of the realities by which people evolve, through conflict, as societies. Probably even
'harmfully interfered' with that development via profiteering and direct intervention in two World Wars which should have rightfully united at least
Europe if not the Far East as well.
I don't /think/ it is too late for U.S. to turn away from such destructive mediation as we rethink our own perspective on finding a national destiny
at home. Strict population limitation, economic rebuild, replacement of imported ethnic of slave labor as a 'service economy' baseline using
intelligent, anthropomorphic robotics. And heavy investment in Fusion, Macroengineering and Genetics to improve our _selves_ as much as our society.
All come to mind as being better places to throw money than Iraq or Israel of China.
OTOH, what I _know_ is that we cannot continue to 'hold things together' which either need to explode. Or fall apart and reform.
Because quite a few of the children of this One Earth are now unruly adolescents with the strength to royally kick our butts in any local theater we
care to overstep their maturation process. And so we must proceed from ruling their childhood to bearing ourselves with some august dignity in
LEADING THEM BY EXAMPLE. So that they may stabilize 'out of envy', when they are read to do so.
Inidividual weapons system tech don't matter as much with that attitude. Because the 9,000 mile water barrier will always secure U.S. from the
_logistics_ of invasion.
And our real strength will become apparent when we stop wasting money on martial containment. And simply let our economy reachieve that 'too big to
bite a chunk off of' level of commercial power by which a quiet word in 'choosing a brand' is as much of importance as 'taking sides' in any
fuss.
If we must deny war as a tool in doing this. We should do so across the board. Making it a _Crime Against Humanity_ for every soldier in uniform to
fire a single shot outside his own borders. Subject to a death penalty for everyone involved at the World Court level.
This too would go a long ways towards generating 'extreme prejudice' of disinterest in military tech proliferation which Israel now admits to being
a principle source of income. But it would also mean giving Policing Forces (of incredibly advanced capability) and probably Nukes to the UN to
reinforce the 'no fighting, ever!' clause.
KPl.