Mike wrote:
Those aditionnal 100 are not so speculative.

Until they're included in a current budget cycle, I'm inclined to call them
speculative. Plenty of planned systems have not been bought under similar
situations.

Please note that my skepticism has nothing to do with France or Rafale in
particular.* It's just the nature of defense procurement worldwide that
anything in the outyears, especially past five years, is always subject to
change. To assume anything past the current five-year budget cycle for any
military is a certainty is unwarranted optimism, IMO. And even the
five-year plans are never cast in stone.

* Indeed, I'm disgusted by the anti-French bigotry (verging on racism)
displayed by some posters here.

--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"If brave men and women never died, there would be nothing
special about bravery." -- Andy Rooney (attributed)