Too Little, Too Late, We Already Have Superior UAVs...

[AstanoshKhan]

Pakistan Army ‘Not Impressed’ With US Offered Drones: Pakistan

“Too Little, Too Late, We Already Have Superior UAVs”

Mariana Baabar

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan military sources say they are not impressed by the offer of the United States to supply RQ-7 Shadow Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), as they already have superior quality UAVs, which they have upgraded, and which are in use.

The disappointment is understandable since unlike the drones that fly and take out targets inside Pakistan’s Fata region, the ones being offered to Pakistan are unarmed and commonly used for intelligence gathering.

Later, when DG ISPR Major General Athar Abbas was asked about the overall weapons being provided to Pakistan for counterinsurgency and other military supplies, he remarked, “Too little, too late”.

It was US Defence Secretary Robert Gates who, in a meeting with the media at the residence of the US ambassador, said the US was enhancing Pakistan’s intelligence capabilities. He said the offer comes because Islamabad had requested for them. “We have a lot of information on the Afghan side that we share … we also help Pakistan build its own capacity. We will be providing them with UAVs (Shadow) together with equipment and training,” he said.

To a question whether the US was attaching any conditions to these UAVs, he replied, “I do not know”. In the past, the US was wary of passing on the drone technology to Pakistan as Islamabad could use it in areas other than it had specifically been given for.

One American journalist accompanying him asked about the possibility of stopping arms sale to India and Pakistan altogether. “We have to judge each country’s requirement on its own. We sell Pakistan F-16s and we sell India transport aircraft. We make a decision judiciously,” Gates replied.

Gates appeared relaxed with the questions being thrown at him by the local and US media but it was the ‘D’ word that he refused to entertain. Though several questions relating to US drones were asked, he shrugged them off and would not even give an answer as to whom in the US this question could be put.

When he said that there were no US bases inside Pakistan. he refused a reply when asked from where these US drones flew. Amongst the defence secretary’s aides in uniform that greeted the media before he arrived were those who offered their greetings in chaste Urdu and one of them also spoke excellent Pashto!

More about this article could be find from the link provided. Thank you

 

[jawadqamar]

Pentagon chief defends arms sales to India, Pakistan

By Julian E. Barnes (Los Angeles Times)

January 23, 2010

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates leaned on India and Pakistan during his trip to South Asia this week to set aside a simmering rivalry and confront militant extremists. At the same time, Gates and other U.S. officials pushed arms sales that could fuel the antagonism between the two countries.

Gates' trip was framed by that apparent contradiction in U.S. policy. On his arrival in Pakistan, a television news interviewer put the question bluntly: "Why re-arm both countries?" The Pentagon chief sidestepped the question.

But Gates and other officials explained afterward that Washington hopes the military cooperation will help the U.S. win the trust it needs to advance its goals in the region. And, besides, they said, the two countries could get weapons elsewhere, so why not from us?

"I think we have to make these decisions judiciously," Gates said. "But we also do not simply want to turn over these military relationships to other countries who don't have as many scruples as we do in terms of making these decisions."

The U.S. has increased annual military aid to Pakistan to about $3 billion a year and taken on controversial projects, such as helping to refurbish and expand Islamabad's fleet of F-16 fighter jets.

Gates said Thursday that the U.S. also would provide surveillance drones to the Pakistani military, acceding to a long-standing request.

Two days earlier, Gates praised an expanding arms trade with India, saying that U.S. weapons would give New Delhi "the best products in the world."India is also weighing major aircraft purchases, including billions of dollars worth of fighter jets.

Expanding the conventional military power of two sometimes bitter adversaries may not seem like the best strategy for distracting the nations from their rivalry. But U.S. officials see signs that both countries may be starting to trust Washington's counsel.

After the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, India took U.S. advice against ratcheting up tensions with Pakistan, despite its impatience with the response to the Pakistani-based militant group believed responsible for the strike.

Pakistan, for its part, has taken action against militant groups in its tribal areas. It has 140,000 troops on its western border who have been engaged in a sustained assault on Taliban and Al Qaeda hide-outs since late April.

Military officials said the Pentagon was being careful to not alter the balance of power in South Asia, even when providing F-16s to Pakistan."Another squadron of F-16s means they [Pakistan] will lose the next war with India a little slower," said a U.S. military official in Islamabad, speaking of the arms sales on condition of anonymity. "They are not going to defeat India because we gave them a squadron of F-16s. The military overmatch India enjoys is just too great."

Washington is sensitive to the risk of dramatically increasing one country's military prowess beyond the other's, which would change the calculus and potentially trigger the very war the United States wants to avert.

For example, the United States wants Pakistan to expand its surveillance capability, but it does not want to deliver long-range or heavily armed drones that Pakistani engineers could re-engineer into a platform for nuclear weapons.

Similarly, India covets high-tech fighters, but the United States does not want to offer it stealth jets that could penetrate Pakistani airspace without challenge.

Nonetheless, the technology and logistics agreements that go along with an expanded defense trade will bind the United States and India closer together, officials said.

Likewise, officials believe that providing Pakistan with weapons -- even those not specifically intended for counter-insurgency operations -- is crucial to Washington's larger goal of countering Pakistani distrust.

"How do we close the trust deficit? By acting like friends," the official said. "By being willing to do things to meet their perceived needs, even if it does nothing for us."

 

[Awesome]

Couldn't have said it better.

We already have UAV capability and tons of it! We're very actively pursuing UCAV capability, whose prime target will be terrorists and not India. We're not going to send UCAVs against the IAF, we might send UAVs though just to snoop around till they get shot down.

To sum it up, UAVs are India centric, UCAVs are Taliban centric. So what the heck are them Americans thinking offering us things we don't even need.

 

[mughaljee]

Brothers,
Are we Frined (USA+Pakistan) in past or now.?

 

[Mercenary]

Don't Worry....USA in the early 1980's offered us A-10's but we refused and instead later on we got the trusty F-16

 

[SBD-3]

Today we had a very important statement from rehman malik
Daily Express News Story
where is he pointing UAVs or UCAVs

 

[AstanoshKhan]

Don't Worry....USA in the early 1980's offered us A-10's but we refused and instead later on we got the trusty F-16

Had we demanded F-16s in the start and they offered A-10s instead and later agreed to handover F-16s? that's what your post means?

The time and approach of PAF has changed since then. We weren't able to produce anything locally related to aviations but Alhamdulillah Now we are and Inshallah we are going to see an ammunition equipped drone made by Pakistan in the near future.