"Penta" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 17:22:09 -0500, "Kevin Brooks"
wrote:


The article notes that the US is concerned over giving Arrow, with its
greater range, to a nuclear nation that is involved in a current bout of
"missile diplomacy" with another nuclear armed state. Personally I can
understand our reluctance to contribute to, or even possibly contribute
to,
any imbalancing of the delicate status quo that currently exists between
India and Pakistan. I'll bet that the US will in the end only sell
Patriot
to India if they also allow Pakistan to buy it--it is in our interest to
maintain the staus quo, as we saw when we allowed pakistan to buy those
airborne radars to offset the Indian purchase of Phalcon from Israel.

You misinterpreted what I said, perhaps understandably.

I meant to say that, perhaps, the US should give a fair shot to
foreign suppliers for our own forces.

We do, to the point of even having a program that specifically targets
foreign products for US evaluation and purchase (Foreign Competitive Testing
Program); the most recent list of products just hit the street:

http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/...0123-0928.html

Note that list is only for the current year's batch--ongoing testing and in
some cases purchases continue form the past years' lists. You'll note an
Israeli product or two on that current list.

We have bought tactical bridges from the UK, small arms form the Italians
and Germans, etc. I believe even the AT-4 stems from a Swedish product,
IIRC. And IIRC we purchased mineclearing apparatus from Israel. My only
personal encounter with Israeli products was a batch of .45 cal pistol ammo
from IMI we came across back in the late eighties--it did NOT receive a very
complimentary review (it hrepeatedly jammed in my old Remington manufactured
M1911A1 that had never before, or did later, exhibit that characteristic
with other ammo).

Brooks


Also, I'm not talking about China. I'm talking about the side cases,
like the Philippines, Singapore, etc.

John