Romania - US military relations

Sorry, I was not clear.

I said

"It is basically a declaration of How many bodies do you need in Afghanistan for your war to provide drugs to Russia by Romania."

you said:

Drugs to Russia get there throw Kazakhstan not Romania

What I meant to say was that the choice of worn out old model F-16s instead of nice near new Gripens is a case of Romanian politicians saying to the US we are part of the coalition of the willing, so how many of our soldiers can we send to fight in the various wars you (US) are involved in. I singled out the war in Afghanistan as the one they seem to currently want to focus on with the result that Afghans can now grow drugs with impunity to kill Europeans in general and Russians especially and earn money doing so.

Lots of Jamacians killed recently because the US wanted a drug dealer sent to America. It seems it is a different standard for people who create drugs for different markets.

Romanian politicians are incoherent and incompetent.

Good to know they have embraced democracy and capitalism so quickly.

Romanian politicians just want to kiss some ass.US offer no power and influence.

The ass kissing is noticed in the US. I can't deny an F-16 purchase will certainly gain Romania much more in terms of power and influence than a purchase of Gripens even though it is a much better aircraft in this particular case.
Down the line you will find closer ties with the US, and joint training exercises etc etc which would not occur if you bought Gripens.

Regarding real fighters vs LIFTs, I think national interests and pride get in the way too much in Europe.
You would think that Europe would have sorted its sht out and been much more pragmatic than it has but the power of the MIC is too much.
The result is the Gripen, Rafale, and Eurofighter and purchases of F-18 and F-16 and F-35 in the fighter aircraft category yet there is no decent medium transport aircraft in Europe yet. They are working on the A400M, but there is no European equivelent of the An-124, or Il-76.
You'd think they'd get together and instead of everyone buying fighters that some could just get LIFTs and spend limited defence budgets on something NATO needs.
Right now there is only the US which has all the pieces of the chess set.
The rest of NATO combined comes up short in lots of crucial areas.
Look at Kosovo, everyone turns up with fighters yet there are only American long range bombers, jammer aircraft, etc etc.
One of the main reasons that my country (New Zealand) got rid of their LIFTs and Skyhawks was the realisation that they were costing us money and against any threat that could attack us down here they would not last long. We are very active in international peacekeeping operations, but we know the last thing any international coalition wants from New Zealand are subsonic Skyhawks that have been upgraded to 90% the capability of an F-16... especially when everyone else brings fighters too.
So we cut the fighters that we never use and spent some real money on our navy an army, both of which we use a lot.
Somebody hijacks an airliner here and threatens to crash it into something and our airforce probably couldn't do much about it now.
When we had two dozen Skyhawks and a similar number of Airmacchis we would probably not be able to do anything about it either, because more than half were based permanantly in Australia and the other half were in Ohakea which is quite a long way from our main cities and international airports and both aircraft are subsonic.
So nothing is changed except our Army and Navy are better funded.

Romanians don't want romanian soldiers in Afganistan.We don't care about Afganistan.
Russia's drug problem is also because the corruption that exists in Russia.
America will not favor us no mater what.We can't even get visas for America.So much for friendship and collaboration.
Grippen and Eurofither would have invested money in my country and that mens new jobs.America offers no offset.

We may not buy the planes or there pources may be delayed because the Romanian prime minister sayed that the first payment of 750 million $ has not been done.

Well both of them have modernization program witch will keep them alive for long time.

I don't know what year f16s they are getting, but our oldest f16 (1988) breaks all the time... pretty much, everytime it lifts off in the air, something breaks... I think US wants Romania to buy those old jets, because then they will need replacement parts for them, which is how US will get rid of phased out F16s and make money on it too... oh yeah, and forget about anything advanced on those, unless its been in service for 10 or more years and/or US have something 1.5 generations better, they wont export it...

Unofficial media reports earlier said that the U.S. government was ready to give the F-16s for free, if Romania would take responsibility for modernizing them, training the pilots and upgrading flight strips to accommodate the jets.

We get 24 F-16 for 1.3 billion dollars. Theoretical they are free but 400 million dollars for pilot training an the rest for upgrading the planes.The planes are F-16 C/D block 25.

I think it is a shame the in service RuAF Mig-29s didn't get an SMT upgrade as part of the upgrade includes self testing components that reduce maintainence costs by a reported 40% yet cost only about $6 million per aircraft.

RoAF had an upgrade for the Mig-29 in colaboratin with Elbit Systems and DaimlerCrysler Aerospace called Mig-29 sniper.

...and lets face it Romania doesn't need real fighters anyway, Hawks or Yak-130 type LIFT (Lead in Fighter Trainers) jet trainers are really all they actually need for air policing duties over their airspace.

We have a subsonic plain build in our country with similar capabilities IAR 99 Soim.

Without politics the best fighter for most of eastern europe would have been upgraded Mig-21-93s with helmet mounted sights and R-77 and R-73 missiles, with perhaps a new engine fitted that was a bit more fuel efficient and with a slightly larger internal fuel fraction.

We have it already is called Mig-21 Lancer.

Good to know they have embraced democracy and capitalism so quickly.

Is not a problem of democracy or capitalism is a problem of low quality politicians.

Regarding real fighters vs LIFTs, I think national interests and pride get in the way too much in Europe.

Then you don't understand Europe and national interests are very important.

Then you don't understand Europe and national interests are very important.

I know that personal self national interests is what makes NATO incredibly inefficient.

If it was a group having picnic everyone brings chocolate cake and only one or two countries bring the rest of the food.

Within NATO how many different fighters were there?

How many different JSTARS aircraft or AWACS aircraft?

Everyone bought material to support their own industries instead of what the collective organisation could make use of so in the end on any mission to invade xyz country each NATO country will bring their own fighter aircraft... few of which will have much in common apart from fuel types and it will be up to the US to pay for the expensive bits that are called force multipliers like AWACS and tankers and jammers et al.

The new Eastern European additions haven't improved the situation because they are busy retiring their old Soviet fighters and replacing them... largely with old NATO fighters.

The new entrants should be buying stuff NATO needs like transport aircraft or tankers... the former they could use commercially to offset their cost and actually be useful to the countries economy as well as being useful to NATO... but no... in the East of Europe they need fighter planes...

The irony is that the economies within the EU are different enough to warrant different currencies, because export oriented economies benefit from a lower currency value, but in the Euro zone the Euro is kept with a high value to suit countries like Germany.

If they could unify the currency you'd think unifying the military purchases would be easy in comparison.

I know that personal self national interests is what makes NATO incredibly inefficient.

NATO should have been dissolved in the 1992

How many different JSTARS aircraft or AWACS aircraft?

How many countries need them?

Everyone bought material to support their own industries instead of what the collective organisation could make use of so in the end on any mission to invade xyz country each NATO country will bring their own fighter aircraft... few of which will have much in common apart from fuel types and it will be up to the US to pay for the expensive bits that are called force multipliers like AWACS and tankers and jammers et al.

Because it creates jobs in their on countries an gives the countrie some independence to producing is own weapons.

The new Eastern European additions haven't improved the situation because they are busy retiring their old Soviet fighters and replacing them... largely with old NATO fighters.

The new Eastern European additions are to poor to buy or are not interested in buying super toys.

The irony is that the economies within the EU are different enough to warrant different currencies, because export oriented economies benefit from a lower currency value, but in the Euro zone the Euro is kept with a high value to suit countries like Germany.

This is because the EU is led by countries like Germany ,France ,Great Britain sometimes to the detriment of other countries members of EU.

NATO should have been dissolved in the 1992

Agree, but with every bureaucracy there is power, and few give up power so easily.

How many countries need them?

Every country that goes to war in another country should have them.

They are essential force multipliers that greatly increase the chance of success.

Because it creates jobs in their on countries an gives the countrie some independence to producing is own weapons.

The high moral Europe/West should not be creating jobs and economies with weapons of war, the purpose of such technology should be for defence... as dictated by their defence departments. Countries should be allowed to produce what they want but such products should not be forced upon their own country just to create jobs... it would make rather more sense to spend that money on products your citizens actually want, and being a small cog in a military machine their defence spending should not be to create local jobs, but to provide collective security.

Sadly the reality is that NATO turns up to a fight with a dozen different types of fighter aircraft and all the gaps have to be filled by the few... US, France, UK... but of course with every deployment it is tradition for the UK government to cut military funding to the bone.

The new Eastern European additions are to poor to buy or are not interested in buying super toys.

That is why I am suggesting specialisation. The poorer countries don't need to waste money on hundreds of fighters... NATO forces already have plenty of those. Buy tanker aircraft. Transport aircraft. Jammer aircraft. Find a gap in European forces and fill it.

But no everyone needs flash shiny fighters they may never use except at airshows... the New Zealand Air Force was the same... money wasted on things we never used.
We could have spent money on long range transport aircraft which could have been useful. Maritime Patrol aircraft are useful. Even two or three AWACs aircraft would have been more useful than our two dozen Skyhawks.

When assisting the Australians in East Timor would they be glad to see two AWACS aircraft arrive? Or would a dozen A-4 Skyhawks be more useful?

This is because the EU is led by countries like Germany ,France ,Great Britain sometimes to the detriment of other countries members of EU.

Exactly... one or other side will win... High Euro vs low Euro. What the EU needs is two currencies, one that is high and one that is low and the countries can join one or the other depending on their economies.

Instead it is one size fits all... which is never true.

Vladimir79 wrote:How much influence can you buy with a handful of used F-16s? It isn't enough to buy one B-2 bomber.

Nobody makes money selling automobiles my friend. They make money selling PARTS.

I don't know what year f16s they are getting, but our oldest f16 (1988) breaks all the time.

The 24 f16 are getting are from 1982-1984!!!

There were 3 major offers
First offer:
24 f16 block25 at a price of 1,3 billion dollars that include pilot treading, ammunition and plan reconditioning.The pains are from 1982-1984. Offset 0%.Flight cost per hour 4000 dollars(i am not 100% on that).

Second offer:
24 new gripen for 1,3 billion dollars includes training for 30 pilots and 60 repairer crew does not include weapons.For SAAB was important that Roumania buys gripen other smaller countries would have been intrastate to buy gripen and Romania would have become a repair and maintenance center in ester Europe .Offset 100%.Flight hour estimate 3000-3500 dollars.

Third offer:
24 Eurofighter from 2003-2004 1 billion dollars pilot training and maintenance.Offset 80%-100%.Flight hour at 50000$ dollars?

SAAB promise to bring other companies to invest in Romania in other economical sector then weapons including telecommunication.
SUA promise that we will be getting 24 F16 block52 in 4 or 5 years and 24 f35 in
15 years to replace the 24 F16 we are buying now.The cost of the f16 block52 and 24 f35 have not been disclosed.
Eurofighter consortium has also promise to bring investment in Roumania.

Nobody makes money selling automobiles my friend. They make money selling PARTS.

Parts for our planes will be very expensive.

The f16 were chosen for political reason.The president of Roumania said in a privet discussion that as long as he is president Roumania will buy plans only from America.
This means that there were no negotiations and any shit of an offer will get we will accepted it.

That Gripen deal sounds the best to me.

Useful little aircraft relatively cheap to operate, but the fact that you get to open a support centre means you can probably get some real discounts on support costs.

From your previous posts your leaders blind loyalty is not benefiting your country very much at all... perhaps better relations with other EU countries might benefit you more?

The irony is that if you had a clear use for the US then you wouldn't need to suck up to them... they would be sucking up to you.

Look at the aid Egypt gets from the US for being nice to Israel...

Problem is the strings attached...

The huge Irony is that in 5-10 years time the F-16s will be available at give away prices as the F-35s start entering service and replace them... hopefully current operators will get bargain offers for planes and spare parts reserves that can be cannibalised...

Exactly... one or other side will win... High Euro vs low Euro. What the EU needs is two currencies, one that is high and one that is low and the countries can join one or the other depending on their economies.

Eastern Europe is a pool of qualified and unskilled workers and dumping market for western products.Western Europe has no gain if we get economical sustainable.To enter EU Roumania hat to sell most of its companies(some could have been profitable) to western companies for little money.

Useful little aircraft relatively cheap to operate, but the fact that you get to open a support centre means you can probably get some real discounts on support costs.

If Ruomania would have bout Gripen SAAB could get other customers like Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia so SAAB had a a loot of interest in the deal with Roumania.

The irony is that if you had a clear use for the US then you wouldn't need to suck up to them... they would be sucking up to you.

We should have negotiate using the missile shield a bargaining chip.

The president of Romania sed that we should buy at least 30 fighter by 2013.

That is why I am suggesting specialisation. The poorer countries don't need to waste money on hundreds of fighters... NATO forces already have plenty of those. Buy tanker aircraft. Transport aircraft. Jammer aircraft. Find a gap in European forces and fill it.

We have 5 c-130 Hercules (2 functional) by the end of the year will have 7 c-27j Spartan (we have 3 at the moment) an 4 AN-26.
My country has no nabouring country that could a sure Romanian air space.We need fighters.

Seems to me the only benefit your new relationship with the US has gotten you is troops in Afghanistan.

Perhaps someone in your country needs to suggest to your president that a better relationship with your european neighbours might be more beneficial.

The whole point about sucking up to a foreign country is to gain an advantage in something, or some benefits.

The fact that your president says in private that he will only buy American will get back to America and they will not bother being nice and friendly.

Your president should mention closer fraternal ties to Serbia and Belarus and watch the price of those F-16s go down, or some other much better offer...

Your president should mention closer fraternal ties to Serbia and Belarus and watch the price of those F-16s go down, or some other much better offer...

Serbia and Belarus don't produce supersonic multi-roll fighters.Our relationship with Russia have never been god ,most of the time bad just like now.

Well the obvious alternative is to say you are looking at JF-17s from China... cheap and simple plane... you don't have to buy it, but a potential for purchase needs to be credible.

Near future plans of most NATO countries will be to introduce the F-35 when it is ready so there will likely be an enormous flood of F-16s on the market at give away prices.

Of course considering your location and the threats around you, you could probably just buy some L39s or L59s or perhaps Yak-130s or Mig ATs.

I would suspect it would be more valuable for NATO if you operated some Il-76s, with production of the Il-476 being started soon getting in a putting in an order for 8-10 Il-476s would give you a small fleet of strategic transports that you could use in NATO missions, and when they are not working for NATO or the UN you could use them for commercial missions to keep the crews in practise and generate revenue.

Honestly some transports will be more useful to any NATO or UN mission than any number of fighters, and they will do a much better job than the C-17s other NATO countries have bought.

Of course considering your location and the threats around you, you could probably just buy some L39s or L59s or perhaps Yak-130s or Mig ATs.

We have a plain build in our country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAR-99.
We can't buy russian and chinese plains.

Well there you go, you should be building 250 of those, with maybe 100 with a single seat configuration and a small radar in the nose... a French one or perhaps Israeli.

Fit it with French or Israeli AAMs and you support your local defence industry, and don't need to waste money on US F-16s.

By saving that money by getting lead in fighter trainers or LIFTs you can spend more of your budget on transport aircraft that are actually much more useful.

BTW this link has better info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAR_99

Looks like a neat little aircraft...

Vladimir79 wrote:The F-16s they are getting are just as obsolete as Soviet MiG-29s.

When did the MiG-29 become obsolete?


I wasn't aware that either the MiG-29 or the F-16 was obsolete. I was under the impression that they are both very capable aircraft, quite deadly with a competent and skilled pilot.

The corrupted Titus Corlatean romania's foreign affairs press Naton to redeploy in eastern countries.
If Russia intervenes and saved threatens peoples in Ukraine from Nazis corrupted bunch of rogues in Kiev, it is sure that we will see a dominos effect. Many of these corrupted governements that occured since 1991 in Central Europa, all are going to collapse.
Russia will have to save people that ask her for help. This is the right thing. If Russia doest not react the troubles will reach Russia.

All these corrupted governements that ally to US were very friendlly with Yeltsin governement.

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140410/DEFREG01/304100034/Romania-Presses-NATO-Redeployment-Over-Ukraine-Crisis?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|p

This Corlatean guy is very useful. Is not whether NATO want but whether can do anything and the answer is not they can't.
Fundamental fragmentation of the coalition, vast extinction of new military hardware and serious lack of cash  put coalition to a serious degree of disarray.
This is only gonna get (much)  worse. People like this ...Gypsonian delegate help by exposing this facts.

Hannibal Barca wrote:
This is only gonna get (much)  worse. People like this ...Gypsonian delegate help by exposing this facts.

Actually, the "Gypsonian" Foreign Minister has made a purely political statement and nothing more. Given the tight stranglehold in which Romania is kept by IMF and the World Bank on one side and by the European Commission on the other, the US are completely free to send to Romania whatever troops and military equipment they see fit and for as long it suits them. No one here is in position to stop them or at least to question them, unfortunately. Whatever the US would be doing in Romania, it's definitely not because any Romanian official asked them to. After all, this isn't the Treaty of Warsaw anymore, right?  

nemrod wrote:
The corrupted Titus Corlatean romania's foreign affairs press Naton to redeploy in eastern countries.
If Russia intervenes and saved threatens peoples in Ukraine from Nazis corrupted bunch of rogues in Kiev, it is sure that we will see a dominos effect. Many of these corrupted governements that occured since 1991 in Central Europa, all are going to collapse.

Well, "corrupted man" means nowadays in Romania whoever did something to displease either EU or US or both. It's actually beginning to have a positive connotation as we got baffled to see Yanukovich blamed for doing exactly what the American-appointed puppet does in Romania and gets praises from EU and US.    Wonders of "democracy".

Also, dynamics in Eastern Europe are quite confusing. Suffices to say that it's highly unlikely to find two countries with the same agenda in this region. Each one carries the past on its shoulders like sold rock.