Comments on: Re-alignment

By: Gregory Kong

Gregory Kong — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 07:54:41 +0000

And for crying out loud, do you really want to be the world’s only superpower? Doesn’t anybody here believe in competition? Granted, an arms race is not what anyone wants to see… much. Still, it’s not as if India is a theocracy, or an autocracy. And it’s not as if they’re trying to shut down McDonald’s for selling beefburgers. I grant you there are Hindu loonies acting very much like small scale jihadis, but this is not the policy of the Indians as a whole.

Sell them the equipment, but not the technical knowhow. Let the OEMs (Lockheed, for all I know) perform maintenance on them. Keep your technicians American. That way, if you get into a shooting war, (or they do), you can simply withdraw support and watch these very expensive toys break…

By: Flatlander

Flatlander — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 05:10:58 +0000

I suppose that the Indians never know when they might need to assault their own beaches. Or those of their neighbors to the east, west or south. The flexibility is nice to have I suppose when you live in that kind of neighborhood.

By: Byron Audler

Byron Audler — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:11:32 +0000

Flatlander, you can accomplish the same with a RoRo or a SeaBee. Amphibs are for beach assaults. Period. Dot. End of Sentence.

1390, I didn’t say that India would be an adversary to the US, at least not directly. But a large, powerful force projection navy with amphib capibility CAN threaten the resources of Indonesia and Malaya…not to mention, all that empty land in Australia.

By: Soldiers Dad

Soldiers Dad — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:18:32 +0000

“Plus I don’t understand how it helps to help a potential enemy improve their arsenal.”

Maintaining the military/industrial base to manfacture state of the art things…like fighter aircraft is enormously expensive.

The combined economic might of the Euros barely keeps one European Fighter in production. The US can barely afford to keep two in production.(Watch the F-22 die a slow death when the F-35′s start being delivered)

Our less than good friend Putin has one of the worlds largest military manufacturing capacities…he either needs to export or go bankrupt.

Denying him an order of 200 is pretty much forcing him to close a production line.

By: Flatlander

Flatlander — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 20:57:31 +0000

There are a number of reasons for India to have amphibious capability. Indian territory includes two large archipelagos – the Lakshadweep Islands to the southwest, and the Andaman and Nicober islands far to the east of the Indian mainland. There are hundreds of islands, but few are permanently inhabited. The Andaman and Nicobar islands were devastated in the 2004 tsumani.

By: Theodore

Theodore — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:17:16 +0000

India wants a blue water navy for the same reason we have one – they’re a trading nation with a big coastline. Geographically, they resemble an island – their land frontiers are mostly protected by hostile terrain, but they have two long coastlines. They also occupy a very central position in the world today, with the Middle East and its oil on one side and Southeast Asia with its wide range of natural resources on the other. India accesses vital resources and markets via the sea; guaranteeing that access means seapower.