> At 12:10 PM 2/9/02 +0100 J. van Baardwijk wrote: > >Then why does the US not share the technology with us?
Share? Sell you mean. All of these high tech capabilities are EXPENSIVE. All defence spending is expensive because you have to build reliability into it, which is why it frequently takes so long in the development cycle. The US will also only sell its top grade stuff to specific countries, and it is always sold on with all sorts of caveats about how it is used and especially how its technology is used. (How the Israelis have gotten away with the use of their F-16s I'll never know.) Australia, fortunately, is one of the countries that has pretty reasonable access to a lot of US technology. That is why we were the only foreign air force to operate F111. Hell, once the US shut down its F111 fleet, we've had access to the latest and greatests. We are also the only country that built F/A-18s and Blackhawks. The Australian government traditionally goes for technology transfer when getting military equipment. We still remember 1942, when the only fighter aircraft we had in Australia were Hawker Demons of 1932 vintage. As a backup, we designed and built our own fighter, based on an Australian made variant of the AT-6 Harvard. Fortunately we got P40s before too long and eventually Spitfires. All of this has come at a sizeable portion of our budgets over the years. But we have long decided what role our defence Forces should undertake - essentially, defence of the Australian continent and surrounding seas. We are no longer contemplating forward defence, which is what got us into Vietnam, where we fight on other people's territory apart, probably, from New Guinea if required. We also recognise the likelihood of operating as a component of an international force, as we have done in Afghanistan, where we provide some of the sharp end but someone else (spelt the US) provides the logistics. If Taiwan blows up, we'll be there. > > 1) Giving you technology is useless when you don't spend the necessary > money on your military budget to implement it. As above. However, it is up to each government to define its role and capabilities. For Australia, the only foreseeable threats are Indonesia and maybe the Philippines. Probably the most likely is if Irian Jaya blows up into a full on secessionist war with Papua New Guinea getting dragged in. Indonesia has the greater numbers but we have a qualitative difference in equipment. We can hit the Presidential palace in Djakarta, almost at will. They've not got anything that can hit anything apart from desert. > > 2) You Europeans have a long history of sharing technology with countries > in the axis of evil. Erm, and I don't suppose the US supported Saddam all during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s? Yes, the French in particular are geared towards exporting military equipment, and so do the Brits. But almost all of that is still home grown technology. And don't forget, it is Israel and Taiwan that have both built their own F16 equivalents based on US technology. In Europe it is only the Swedes who've done anything similar by using F100 engines in the Gripen, and that was all approved. Does all that US equipment shipped out to Saudi look particularly secure these days? I'd be surprised if Saddam doesn't know an awful lot about AWACS by now. Oh, and by the way. The Netherlands have just decided to buy the JSF, in case you were wondering. Brett
