A simple question on Reciprocity of Arms Trade

[Mav3rick]

Sir its either the PLO led govt. in Ramallah or the Hamas in Gaza that we can send the weapons to. We can't really give weapons to Palestinian civilians, thats practically impossible.

And what sophisticated arms do you have in mind sir that we can provide PLO with that Iranians can't or are not willing to offer them if they REQUEST. The problem is Palestinian authority won't accept such arms, not from Iranians not from us, one they are not having and not planning on an armed resistance and secondly as they are bankrolled by the Americans.

Given the support, the general public will rise to the occasion, if need be they will form their own resistance group; one focused on liberation rather than political point scoring.

I have light light arms such as assault rifles (AK series) in mind, along with some anti-Armour weapons to take on Israeli Gunships and Tanks. I am speaking of a full fledged urban warfare, it's not like the Palestinians or Lebanese can suffer any more than they are already suffering.

Hamas will accept of course graciously, if you want to go on that path. But then why not equip rebels in Mali against the French for providing Indians with Rafael. Or Chechen or other Caucasian rebels against Russia for providing them, well almost everything.

Let's choose our battles, one at a time. Our immediate focus should be on anti-US forces.......that is if they continue to sell weapons to India.

And agreed; however, we are no allies of France.

India has the money, it buys weapons from across the world. If it suits them they cancel the deal, like what they did with Spike ATGMs from Israel. And still Israel will be lining up next time when the Indians need some arms, money talks.

Correct, money does talk indeed. But how about increasing the cost of the same business so much (I am referring to consequences of such deals) that it negates all the financial attractiveness of that deal?

I totally agree with that. This is something we should do with much more vigor and plan.

The problem is US consider India as its ally as well. We can't tell them to end or curtail their alliance with India when we are the closest ally of their future global rival. It is not providing them with any aid or free arms that we can complain about. It is merely selling them arms like rest of the developed world.

As I said above, let's raise the stakes of all those deals. And our alliance with any US rival can be inconsequential as we can stay neutral in any engagement but that works both ways.

And no they have not denied us their arms at all. We not buying those 18 F-16's was not because US was not willing to sell them to us but we wanted them to pay for those F-16s on our behalf. You see the difference.

Now here I have to differ. They did offer us F-16's Block-52+ which was always conditional. The conditions that the Jets came with should lead to court martial of officers who acceded to those demands by the US. The weapons came with strings attached even though we bailed out the Lockheed Martin facility and thousands of jobs with our procurement of F-16's at full price.

And yet, we cannot procure F-16's Block 70 along with ToT even if we offer full price for it. We cannot procure F-35's and so on and so forth. We were even denied the AH-64D which we requested so many times, let alone the predator drones!!

Goday Goday pukh hai bhai yahan, so we can't really twist arm of a global super power because it is providing weapons to our enemies.

Iran had oil and I for one don't want Pakistan to become North Korea.

China wants us to maintain a friendly relationship with US. They don't want us to become an enemy of the US.

And no US won't attack us even if we openly declare ourselves their enemies. All it has to do is declare us a terror sponsoring country, put sanctions, the west will follow its lead and our economy will grind to a halt. No CPEC won't save us as most of the markets won't want to deal with us.

Pakistani economy was 5 times smaller than that of India in the 90s, at the start of the century it was 6 times smaller, today it is 8 times smaller. Without a growing economy and an open access to global market this gap will further increase, which in turn will increase gap between our respective defense budgets and hence our defense preparedness. Do we really want to go there just because US is selling Indians some arms?

What my countrymen do not understand is that we have leverage over the sole super power. All roads to Afghanistan lead through Pakistan, all practical routes atleast. It is all about raising the stakes and the US knows this. Unfortunately, we have given them too much leverage over us and this needs to end, and quickly. All we need to do is covertly arm the Talibaan and they will annihilate any US presence in Afghanistan........and I mean light weapons which can be used against US ground armor and rotary gunships. Afghanistan can be worse than Vietnam for the US forces, or it can be what the US wants it to be........for the right price.

And we did not become a North Korea even after Pressler Sanctions! There are other countries which have a massive stake in our well being, countries in the middle east, countries in the west and even European countries. We have excellent relations with China which will VETO anything against us at the UN, we have increasingly good relations with Russia. We have had great relations with Turkey and Saudi Arabia etc. We can develop better relations with Iran and other Pacific countries.

The world is not uni-polar any more. Each country has its own stake and its own interests to look after.......the recent vote at UN against US is proof enough.

It is time we stopped selling ourselves short........or die with some dignity.

Imagine some general traded in all that potential revenue and national integrity for a one night stand with Kim Kardashian or Megan Fox. Like Nawaz Sharif.

I seriously doubt that. It's probably because of fear more than for personal gain; fear of what the US would do to Pakistan.....unfounded fear.