Quote :

"Bush to Urge Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia, Gulf States (Update3) By Holly Rosenkrantz July 28 (Bloomberg) -- The Bush administration is planning to ask Congress next week to approve an arms-sale package to Saudi Arabia and five other Persian Gulf countries that may total more than $20 billion, Rebecca Goodrich-Hinton, a Defense Department spokeswoman, said. Included in the package are advanced satellite guided bombs, fighter-aircraft upgrades and new naval vessels. The administration also plans to announce a new 10-year military aid package to Israel and Egypt. The steps are part of an effort by the Bush administration to counter Iran's rising influence. "

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ab5vv05V6wQ8&refer=home

What a great idea!!!1@

Seriously, are we ever going to learn that this isn't a good idea?

7/28/2007 3:39:49 PM

Iran's influence is rising because we do things like this.

7/28/2007 4:12:28 PM

too bad we didn't learn shit from selling stuff to Iraq in the 80s

7/28/2007 4:24:31 PM

we gotta pay for that body armor somehow

7/28/2007 4:26:18 PM

i know. god forbid we do it by nixing useless gov't beauracracy

7/28/2007 4:27:17 PM

Quote :

"i know. god forbid we do it by nixing useless gov't beauracracy"

amen

7/28/2007 4:37:07 PM

In the real world, it's easier to just sell arms.

7/28/2007 4:45:57 PM

Quote :

"The steps are part of an effort by the Bush administration to counter Iran's rising influence."

Perhaps Bush forgot to log on to cnn.com to see that Ahmedinejad has made friends with all the Arab leaders in the past year or so.

7/28/2007 7:18:40 PM

The Saudi leadership is still leery of having their role as a top dog in the Arab world usurped. For a while there were rumors of them starting their own nuclear program, but I suspect nothing came of it.

7/28/2007 8:16:37 PM

^ Actually, a handful of Arab countries are intent on having their own nuclear programs for energy purposes. Egypt and SA come to mind. In a few to several years, they will have them.

7/28/2007 8:19:00 PM

Oh, that I believe. I specifically meant a weapons program, to counterbalance the Iranians. It was just one example I can remember hearing of them demonstrating a wariness of Iran's recent prominence.

7/28/2007 8:27:11 PM

Quote :

"The military assistance agreements would provide $30 billion in new U.S. aid to Israel and $13 billion to Egypt over a decade, Goodrich-Hinton said"

Why are we giving $43 billion to fund other countries armies?

7/28/2007 9:14:21 PM

so that the army can have a continuous supply of hot, jewish whores while in Iraq.

7/28/2007 9:16:21 PM

^^so we can lose a few skyscrapers...durr

7/28/2007 9:27:30 PM

How else to you propose to pay them for their oil?

7/29/2007 5:51:47 PM

ok i dont know how much yall agree with me but i talked with a dude thats was going to baghdad in 2 weeks like 2 days ago....hes going in as some kinda office job in the greenzone...not just as someone that goes to iraq to fight....he went to college so hes getting a higher up job...well he said the government briefs u on all kinds of shit the media doesnt know about and a lot of it is classified...he told me iran versus the rest of the arab states and iran would probably win

like turkey, jordan, saudi arabia, etc versus iran and iran wins...i told him i couldnt believe iran was that strong and he was like yep

7/29/2007 7:13:28 PM

dude we have talked about this before.

iran vs. all gulf states, iran wins hands down

but if turkey joins the arab countries, then iran will be slaughtered. turkish forces are pretty good, battle tested and ready, and have the latest equipment from the US like F16s and shit.

from that other thread a month ago, this is what i said:

Quote :

"No not Saudi Arabia at all. They have money, so they have lots of shiny new weapons, but they are incompetent, and their forces are small as their population is small. My guesses are Pakistan, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. let's look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_size_of_armed_forces http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_active_troops http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures Rank - Country - Active troops - Res. troops - Paramilitary - Def. budget - Tanks - Fighters (rank by number of active troops) 7. Pakistan 619 528 302 4.26 2368 451 8. Iran 552 350 11,390 6.30 2200 302 9. Turkey 514 378 149 12.00 4205 430 11. Egypt 450 254 405 3.10 3680 567 14. Indonesia 316 400 207 1.30 1300 ??? 16. Syria 296 354 108 0.80 4600 144 25. Saudi Arabia 200 20 15 21.00 432 397 28. Israel 187 1425 8 9.45 3950 600 Look at Saudi Arabia's defense budget ($21 billion), but they don't have much troops or tanks. They do have lots of fighter jets. Anyway, it is an inexperienced army, and they would lose fighting pretty much any same sized army with the same numbers of troops and weapons. Also, their defense budget is the highest in the world as a percentage of GDP (see pic at bottom). Wow, Egypt has the highest number of fighters and 3rd highest tanks, but their forces are smaller in size, and I am not sure as to their skills. Syria has a SERIOUS number of tanks (India has 5,000!!!), but they don't have fighters, and their equipment is dilapidated, and they aren't spening much on defense either. Going purely by all those numbers, I would say Turkey, but then again, Pakistan has NUKULAR weapons, so that's a bullet proof deterrent when defending. Without the NUKULAR weapons, Turkey comes out first I guess. And I put Israel in there for comparison. Military_expenditure_percent_of_GDP In large size: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Military_expenditure_percent_of_GDP.PNG "

[Edited on July 29, 2007 at 7:37 PM. Reason : ]

7/29/2007 7:29:21 PM

o well its a good thing he went to college then.

7/29/2007 7:30:27 PM

Iran against the Arab states, maybe... through in Turkey and no way. (not to mention we would be involved, even just our air power would thwart any aggressive action)

Quote :

"Seriously, are we ever going to learn that this isn't a good idea?"

Why is it a bad idea? Sell them last generation equipment, make some money, counter-balance Iran a little... they will never pose a threat to us, am I missing something?

If we don't sell them equipment, the French/Germans/Chinese/Russians/etc will.

7/29/2007 7:33:01 PM

Quote :

"Iran's influence is rising because we do things like this."

7/29/2007 7:57:34 PM

Quote :

"too bad we didn't learn shit from selling stuff to Iraq in the 80s"

Forget Iraq, how about Iran in the 1970's? Remember, the only active fleet of F-14 Tomcats is flown by our favorite Islamic Republic (yes, I know most of this equipment is in serious disrepair now, but still...). Prior to the revolution, Iran had one of the meanest military machines using the best American equipment money could buy.

7/29/2007 8:04:34 PM

Quote :

"If we don't sell them equipment, the French/Germans/Chinese/Russians/etc will."

7/30/2007 12:00:59 AM

^^ As I recall, didn't things go to shit because Jimmy Carter cut back on the military support that was propping up the Shah?

7/30/2007 12:47:25 AM

i dont know how to answer the post above(i'd guess yes) but the shah was hated in iran btw...

7/30/2007 1:06:27 AM

Quote :

"Why are we giving $43 billion to fund other countries armies?"

Military industrial complex?

7/30/2007 1:56:52 AM

i've usually been a W supporter... but this is a bad idea methinks.

7/30/2007 2:51:24 AM

in general, i don't worry about selling our goodies because we'll have to turn around and fight it so much as I worry that they won't guard the secrets carefully enough.

most of the time, we don't sell the REALLY good stuff to anyone but top-tier allies (and we usually don't sell the very top shelf stuff to ANYONE).

there is nobody on the planet who can truly threaten America. We could stomp the bejeezus out of any other country, and any really foreseable combination of countries--and that's on THEIR turf. On home soil, America is basically completely invulnerable to any conventional military attack. I'm not sure the rest of the world COMBINED could really do jack shit to us here.

Iran having a few F-14s wouldn't make any difference even if they worked (and if they didn't have Tomcats, they'd have more Fulcrums or Flankers). I don't know what they're talking about selling here, but I doubt it's that big of a deal (although I raise an eyebrow at the notion of the Saudis being considered real allies). Oh--we train a lot of their personel, too (some of their aviators, for example, go to our flights schools, along with those from Germany, Italy, Singapore, and prob some other places).

Even when we do sell someone really world-beating shit, they usually have a tiny fraction of what we do...a good example of this is our SPY-1 RADAR on our AEGIS ships--we sold it to Japan and I think Spain, but they only have a couple. We have dozens--and we kept the super-badass missiles it supports to ourselves, selling them only the "pretty damn good" ones.

Other truly top shelf stuff like our stealth aircraft are for us only--hell, we're about to retire the F-117, and we still bogart that shit.



I'm not commenting on whether or not this is a good idea--I'm just filling out the argument with the side that isn't being fully presented in the thread.

[Edited on July 30, 2007 at 4:29 AM. Reason : asdfasd]

[Edited on July 30, 2007 at 4:30 AM. Reason : asdfasd]

7/30/2007 4:19:16 AM

true, what also is not seen is that SA's tank force is composed of really fucking good tanks, not t-72's and shit like the other countries have really. Israel is the only one with really modern tanks (and a mix of old ass ones as well). Turkey has a mix as well.

^is correct. the jsf is being shared with the UK but they want complete access to it, which so far we have been reluctant to give...

7/30/2007 9:38:21 AM

we can barely invade/occupy iraq. Theres no way we could occupy many stronger countries like iran and china. Sure nobody can defeat our military here but going into somewhere else is a whole different story.

[Edited on July 30, 2007 at 12:05 PM. Reason : ha]

7/30/2007 12:05:26 PM

^ The problem with Iraq, and any war from here on out, is that our goals aren't to indiscriminately kill as many people as possible. This is practically what was done in WWII before, but it won't work today (for political reasons). If this was our strategy, we could easily take on the rest of the world.

And this is what military might is good for. It's why people are saying Iraq isn't a military solution.

7/30/2007 12:23:40 PM

Quote :

"we can barely invade/occupy iraq."

dude, we invaded iraq and took the place over in a couple of weeks. hell, we did it in a couple of months in 1991 when they were like the 4th or 5th most powerful military in the world.

what we're trying to do right now is nation-building, which we're not good at. In addition, tons of people there don't want the building.

Do not confuse that with our nation destroying capabilities.

7/30/2007 3:05:28 PM

Quote :

"we can barely invade/occupy iraq. Theres no way we could occupy many stronger countries like iran and china. Sure nobody can defeat our military here but going into somewhere else is a whole different story."

How did Jon Stewart put it? We may not be good at nation building, but we're still the undisputed best at nation "UN-building". To clarify, if something went down with Iran, our goal wouldn't be to invade, occupy, and conquer, it would be to simply destroy. Kind of like a repeat of the 1990s but on a much more massive scale.

[Edited on July 30, 2007 at 3:27 PM. Reason : .]

7/30/2007 3:26:15 PM

Quote :

"How did Jon Stewart put it? We may not be good at nation building, but we're still the undisputed best at nation "UN-building"."

more proof that Jon Stewart says funny, but un-true things. then again that's his shtick. as for nation building... that you know, little thing, known as the 2nd and 3rd ranking economies in the world? oh yeah that would be JAPAN AND GERMANY....

7/30/2007 8:42:03 PM

regardless, nobody who has a clue would argue that we aren't the undisputed top dogs in the nation un-building arena. it's a very, very distant fight for 2nd place.

7/30/2007 11:16:05 PM

we couldn't take out all the combatants without a full scale urban invasion. If we just killed innocents the rest of the world and mainly the us citizens wouldn't put up with it and we would eventually lose. Theres no way we could easily take out Iran or China or anybody stronger. Sure if they were the aggressors we could easily defeat them but I'm talking about going to their place beating them.

Mainly because antitank technology is far too mobile and has caught up with our armored vehicles. When this type of thing is going on right near civilians theres no easy way to win.

7/31/2007 3:08:52 AM

Winning a war is not about taking out all the enemy's combatants. That is a means, not an end, and operating otherwise is a stupidly inefficient means of waging war. Hard kills of men, machines, and infrastructure are inevitable, but that's not the ultimate strategic goal.

and we could doubtlessly beat China, Iran or anyone else into subsmission if push came to shove. Molding their societies might be another matter, but I guarantee you that simply knocking either of their military's dicks into the dirt would be quite doable.

7/31/2007 3:27:21 AM

not to sound like an arrogant american...but it seems like we could just bomb the shit out of any country we wanted to

i mean like if every fighter jet the US has flew over china and dropped one bomb each, it seems like we could totally fuck up a country really quick

7/31/2007 3:44:55 AM

i know we "could" do that. I mean if you want to go into what we "can" do we "could" destroy the entire planet 1000 times over but thats not feasible just like what you guys are saying. We would lose the support of the rest of the world and our own people. Antiwar movements would be bigger than ever and there would be a shortage of soldiers. Inhumane acts would turn the world against us and ruin our economy.

Theres no way you could take out Iran's paramilitary without either killing millions of civilians or going town by town.

7/31/2007 4:00:53 AM

^^haha, that would be very much easier said than done

and don't get me wrong--fighting China would be a bad thing...I'm just saying that we'd win, and the outcome would never be in question. The economic fallout would be a helluva mess for everyone, though.

^i'm not even talking about flattening a country from end to end, although yes, we could do that, too, regardless of whether or not it's really a viable option on the table (it's always a viable option given the right set of circumstances...but it would have to be a pretty far-fetched scenario).

i'm also not talking about trying to go "town to town" and dig out every last dude with a rifle who might try to resist. That is generally completely unnecessary to win a war.

War is, in one definition, a continuation of politics via the use of force. In other words, you don't have to kill them all and totally destroy their military. Aiming to do that is attrition warfare. Doctrinally, we practice maneuver warfare--which is the degradation of the enemy's means to mount an effective military resistance to the point that they essentially say "Fuck it, this isn't worth it. Have it your way."

[Edited on July 31, 2007 at 4:12 AM. Reason : asdfasd]

[Edited on July 31, 2007 at 4:13 AM. Reason : asdf]

7/31/2007 4:03:27 AM

duke, i was wondering if you could settle a question i had...i had one friend tell me russia has some new fighter jet thats better than our shit...i have another friend that was like "yeah right, the US has better shit than everyone"...what do you think?

7/31/2007 5:21:32 AM

production or experimental? experimental - meh probably about even
production - us hands down

the ruskis have some nicely maneuverable jets but much less sophisticated avionics and weapons, plus that whole stealth thing....

7/31/2007 11:13:55 AM

^ Yeah, the ruskies have have always had us beat in regards to maneuverability.

But as I recall our shit is faster, stealthier, and packs a greater punch. I'm sure that our pilots are better trained as well.

7/31/2007 11:17:22 AM

I guess the Bush regime didn't get the memo that Saudi Arabia is the one who's funding fundamentalist ideology all over the world and not to mention how many Saudi nationals was it that flew planes into the World Trade Center? But we get oil from them so I guess it makes it okay.

And by all means let's keep giving weapons to Egypt so when the Muslim Brotherhood finally gets control of things they can head straight to Israel. But then again we have been stuck up their (Israel's) ass for so long that they should be well supplied too.

7/31/2007 11:46:16 AM

yes b/c joe schmoe Saudi will have access to these things....

7/31/2007 11:49:16 AM

The Russians always talk REALLY big about their equipment. But anytime in the past 30 years it has been used it has proven to be less than adequate, especially when faced up against Western equipment.

Throughout the 80's Russian tank technology was thought to be at least equal to ours, however both the T-80, and even the newer T-90, proved to be lacking when compared to their Western counterparts.

Quote :

"Antiwar movements would be bigger than ever and there would be a shortage of soldiers. Inhumane acts would turn the world against us and ruin our economy."

If Iran/China were the aggressor, I think you are dead wrong. I don't think we would ever attack either of those two countries unless we(or our allies) were attacked first.

Quote :

"Theres no way you could take out Iran's paramilitary without either killing millions of civilians or going town by town."

Who cares if their paramilitary survived? I don't see the US trying to nationbuild in another country for quite some time. The objective would be to destroy their military/infrastructure/government so they could not longer project any power outside their borders.

7/31/2007 11:49:36 AM

so russia decides to counter our arms deal and ship the Iranians 150 fighter jets....I thought our sanctions prohibited arm sales to Iran? Russia is just sitting on the fence fingering themselves by voting for sanctions, and then selling equipment. WTF is wrong with Putin?

7/31/2007 11:50:16 AM

yep, and then leave

7/31/2007 11:50:48 AM

Quote :

"duke, i was wondering if you could settle a question i had...i had one friend tell me russia has some new fighter jet thats better than our shit"

I've heard about some mock confrontations between the Russian built Su-27 and it's variant the Su-30 vs. the F-15C, but nothing substantiated. The F-15 loses in all the anecdotes though.

That being said, the F-15 predates almost everyone on TWW having been first flown in 1973 an the first of the C models flown in 1979. The Su-27 entered service about 6 - 7 years later. So, yes the Su-27 is newer and probably performs better than the F-15C. I'm not sure how it stacks up against the F-16 or F-18.

That being said, at the moment, the F-22 is the premier fighter aircraft in the world right now, just available in only limited quantities at the moment.

7/31/2007 11:51:27 AM

f-15 > f-16 ~ f-18

7/31/2007 11:54:12 AM

defined by what?

F-16 is far more maneuverable than either of them
F-18 is newer, and less prone to mechanical failure
F-15 is flat out old. I've got a friend who is a trunk-monkey in the E variant and they're very maintenance intensive.

P-51 ftw (except not so much against them)

7/31/2007 12:02:36 PM