(phil hunt) wrote in message ...
On 9 Jul 2003 23:40:26 -0700, JGB wrote:
The simple
fact is
that the Lavi wasn't much better than an F-16C, and would cost Israel
much
more due to the lack of economies of scales, as it might only need one
or
two hundred at most, whereas the US had produced close to 2000 F-16s,
and,
as I said, the US would never actually tolerate funding a competitor.

Couldn't Israel have funded construction itself? Another small
country, Sweden, manages to.

Yes, you're basically right that Sweden is an anomaly. A relatively small
country of about 8 or 9 million that manages to develop and produce
some of the finest military equipment in the world, as well as automobiles
and other high priced consumer goods. Still, Sweden's population is
nevertheless over 50% larger than Israel's, and it has not been involved
in a single war in well over a century, and sits on mountains of iron
with a highly educated population. Israel, by contrast, is a mere 54
years in the making, with smaller population, that was only recently
industrialized, and has been expending vast treasures and large amounts
of blood over that period of time with little letup. Israel bit off more
than it could chew with the Lavi in the early '80s. But at this time it
would not be sensible to produce a first rate platform on its own. Even
France, Germany, England and Russia will have a tough time keeping up with
latest generation US platforms, such as the F-22. They are getting WAY
too expensive! What ISrael has done is become a first rate producer of
subsystems and spare parts. For Israel, victory or defeat will come in the
first hours of any future major war anyway. It would probably be nuclear
anyhow. In retrospect, the Lavi was a mistake, but an understandable one
given that Israel had been let down many times in the past by its principle
arms suppliers. Frankly, the best thing that could happen to ISrael is if
the entire world would be a global arms and aid embargo on the ENTIRE
MIDDLE EAST, including Israel and the Arab and Muslim countries altogether.
Even with US aid, the strain of keeping up with Arab oil money that
lures US, French, Russian, English,German and others to sell the Arab states
all the arms they can get away with is simply too much. That's why I support
a TOTAL cutoff of ALL aid and arms sales to the ENTIRE region!