On Wed, 17 Sep 2003 11:11:24 GMT, Tom Cooper wrote:

The Austrian and Greek delays have been due to budgetary problems, I
think. I don't see any reason why Greece won't buy Typhoons.

Phil, there is always a similar explanation when a gov wants to find a way
out.

Here in Austria, we spend EUR 40 million a day for stuff that is not needed,
and structures too old and unable to modernize.

I would imagine all govmts waste money, as do all large
organisations in general -- what point are you trying to make?

And still, a majority of the
population is against the EF-2000s, because these should be "unaffordable"
and "too expensive"....

The same could be argued for any Austrian military expenditure; so
it's up to the Austrian people to decide what sort of military
posture they want, and then spending money accordingly. If Austria
wants to have an air force, Eurofighter is not a bad choice as far
as value for money goes.

The Norwegians don't lack money, but want to save
more for their "future generations", which will have to live with the fact
that their country is not an oil exporter any more. And the Greeks, well,
that's really a special story....

Greece has been historically in adversity with Turkey.

If I was spending millions on fighter aircraft (or on anything)
else, I'd insist I had the source code to the software, so I had the
abilty to alter it. Not only that, there's also security
considerations: if one doesn't have the source code (and even if one
does) there always the possibility that a backdoor's been put in it
-- the original supplier could broadcast a predefined code, which is
picked up by the aircrafts' radars, and makes them work less
efficiently.

Well, that's the difference between the US producers, and the EADS: the last
will have little problems in supplying the full technical and software
documentations to their clients. The US are frequently reluctant to do so.

Then no-one with any sense will buy from them. Note that in
mass-market software, this is already happening: many countries[1]
are moving away from Microsoft Windows towards Linux because they
don't want the US govmt to spy on them, or to be dependent on forign
technology.


[1]: e.g. Germany, Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, Thailand, China, Japan,
South Korea.

In the case of the EF-2000 this will be ultimately important to do, as
otherwise the plane would be useless for the end-user.

So Eurofighter will supply the relevent information, yes?

IMHO, this is the "largest" problem he the Europeans are seriously
negotiating with the Saudis for sale of advanced combat aircraft to SA -
and
without a direct US involvement in the deal.

What about al-Yamamah?

Who cares about the past?

My point being that that was a British contract to export arms to
Saudi; it's happened in the past, which is an indication that it
is plausible it'll happen in future.

For security reasons? Or commercial ones? Or both?

For all the possible reasons: as first, the Saudis might for the first time
since the WWII buy combat aircraft without the USA having even a slightest
word to say or decide about their decision. The Saudis might get a "full
standard" fighter and not a downgraded "something", like F-15S.

Clearly it'd be in the Saudis interests to do this.

The Saudis
will be paying billions of bucks to the Europeans, and not to the USA - and
do this as long as the EF-2000s might be in their service. The USA will have
absolutely no control over these assets in Saudi hands, and thus not be able
to prevent their _eventual_ use against US allies in the area etc., etc.,
etc....

Which is, of course, a selling point for the European arms industry.

I'm all in favour of arms races if they help British industry.

Well, from what I can understand this is not really the wish of the British
public....

Depends how the question is put to them. Phrase it in terms of
employment: should thousands of skilled British workers be put on
the dole, blighting whole communities for generations, or should the
govmt support the retention of jobs -- and it's decent well paid
jobs we're talking about, not ****ty little McJobs or working in a
call center. Put like that, I'm sure how the British public would
respond.

Not only that, doing otherwise is demeaning. The USA would never
accept a British veto of US arms shipments, so why should we of
theirs? I'm all in favour of Britian being an ally with the USA, but
I'll never support Britain being subordinate.

I wonder how much defence contractors donated to the Bush campaign?

Regardless the sum, it's your bet.

Not sure what you're getting at.

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