Comments on: Wanna buy an F-16?

By: Steven E. Ehrbar

Steven E. Ehrbar — Thu, 18 May 2006 22:08:52 +0000

The only sensible purchaser interested in the F-16s would be a country that already has F-16s, and most likely those operating F-16A/B Block 15s without the OCU (to minimize operating incompatibilities; note that these are the least-upgraded F-16s in service anywhere)ówith the excepton that the Russians or the Chinese might like a few to test capabilities. Now, my resource on military aircraft is eight years out-of-date, but such operators were:

Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, Israel, Netherlands, Norway, and Pakistan (Block 15 no OCU); Indonesia, Jordan, Portugal, Singapore, and Thailand (Block 15 with OCU); and Bahrain, Greece, South Korea, Taiwan, and Turkey (other models of F-16).

And, of course, those countries, being dependent on U.S. support to operate them, would only buy them with U.S. permission (if only unofficial backchannel permission).

By: Robin Goodfellow

Robin Goodfellow — Thu, 18 May 2006 21:43:13 +0000

Iran already has a couple F-14s from the days of the Shah, I doubt these would make a difference.

By: Fausta

Fausta — Thu, 18 May 2006 16:47:57 +0000

If Hugo's been maintaining those jets as carefully as he's been looking after the roads, I so hope the Iranians buy them. However, the story is all part of Hugo's http://www.noticierodigital.com/img2006/hugoboss.php (pdf file) marketing competitive authoritarianism: Antagonize the superpower: "Trashing the superpower serves the same purpose as antagonizing the domestic opposition: It helps to unite and distract his large coalition -- with one added advantage. It endears him to the international left." Additionally, the jets story was hyped by the media, while yesterday a much more interesting story was ignored: Earlier this month, Iranian authorities gave backing for the launch of an oil exchange that traded solely in euros. Some reports have suggested Iran's move may be part of a bid to undermine the importance of the dollar. . . . Experts have suggested that, should Iran demand payment for its exports in euros, central banks could opt to convert some of their dollar reserves to euros and therefore possibly trigger a further decline in the US currency. Underreported, except at al-Jazeera, was also Iran and Venezuela joined forces to undermine the U.S. dollar last February. (I had a related post yesterday, with apologies for the shameless self-promotion)

By: A.M. Mora y Leon

A.M. Mora y Leon — Thu, 18 May 2006 16:23:08 +0000

Here

By: A.M. Mora y Leon

A.M. Mora y Leon — Thu, 18 May 2006 16:22:23 +0000

Here is a Venezuelan take on the whole F-16 issue:

http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/2006/05/16.html#a2860

Enjoy!