Romania - US military relations

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.

Intrigado wrote:

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.

In fact what I mean, is if Romania's justice system worked normally, Titus Corlatean, beside many others would be in jail.
Nevertheless, I won't blame all romanian' political' arena, on contrary. They are many -unlikely in Poland, where near all polical class does not worth. I've already talked about Poland, and since the early last century, most political polish desserve the despise. Poland will go nowhere, it is one the poorest country, and it will remain the poorest- romanian politicians who has enough wisdom to see what, and where is Romania's interrest.

I bet that the next surprise will come from Romania, Grece -before Germany- who will oriented toward friendly relationship with Moscow.
I have confidence on romanian's intelligence.

The Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2014, 6:37 p.m. ET.
       
U.S. Tests Missile System Bound for Romania

By Julian E. Barnes

WASHINGTON--The U.S. military said on Wednesday that it conducted a successful test of a portion of the missile-defense system intended to become the cornerstone of the U.S. missile shield in Europe.

The test was conducted on a land-based Aegis weapon system in Hawaii, similar to the equipment the U.S. plans to deploy next year in Romania.

The U.S. currently uses Aegis radar aboard Navy ships to track missile launches. As part of its effort to expand Europe's missile defenses, the U.S. is planning to deploy a so-called "Aegis Ashore" system in Romania.

"What we have done is tested a system similar to what we are shipping to Romania," said Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.

Vice President Joe Biden visited Romania this week as part of a U.S. campaign to reassure allies in East Europe in the face of Russia's intervention in Ukraine.

The test of the missile-defense system, which occurred Tuesday evening in Hawaii, didn't involve the attempted intercept of a real ballistic missile. Instead, officials were testing the Aegis system's ability to detect and launch the SM-3 interceptors. Raytheon Co., which makes the SM-3 missile, said a more-advanced intercept test is scheduled for the system next year.

Eastern European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have been fiercely supportive of the missile-defense system, seeing it as symbolic investment in their defenses by the U.S.

But Russian officials have fiercely criticized the ballistic-missile-defense system despite repeated denials by the Pentagon that the U.S.'s missile defenses are aimed at Moscow or would be even be capable of stopping advanced Russian missiles. Russian officials have threatened in the past to increase deployments of advanced weapons if the U.S. continues to deploy the missile shield.

Riki Ellison, the chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, hailed the test and said the system holds the promise of being used in the U.S., Japan and elsewhere to defend against missile threats.

We have a few Romanian members here, I wouldn't mind hearing their take on this.
Much obliged.

I have my interpretation but I am very much interested to hear from as many Romanians as possible before saying mine.

Hannibal Barca wrote:I have my interpretation but I am very much interested to hear from as many Romanians as possible before saying mine.

Well, I was hoping to be spared the humiliation but.....  Our hare-brained and spineless politicians are so pathetically grateful for America's decision to place this part of the ABM shield in Romania that this business is entirely an American one; if they decide to bring here missiles with nuclear capacity or whatever else would suit their needs, those idiots wouldn't do anything else but nod and smile. Now, of course, people endowed with a bit of sense aren't happy with this development and ask why would we need such defense system as we don't have anything to do with either Iran or North Korea, the rogue states against which it was said that is necessary to build this kind of shield. But these people are quickly silenced with a "Would you want to happen again as it did in 1940?". We have a kind of "besieged fortress" mentality and, whatever this shield means to the US, from our point of view, it means that the Americans have reasons to defend a land we cannot defend by ourselves, just as, if you allow me to say this, just as Hitler was interested to defend us because he was really defending his main source of oil. As, due to three centuries of long and ugly common history, Russia is pinpointed as the main source of danger to Romania, considering the story with the Republic of Moldova as well, many of my co-nationals and, of course, the government think that in case of something, the US would want to defend their precious shield, just as Nazi Germany guarded its precious petroleum with the utmost care. That's all.   Only that, as I heard, the systems seem to be designed to be mobile; if things run amok, the US soldiers can simply load them in trucks or whatever and hit the road, leaving us mired in whatever sticky situation they brought upon our heads.   But that's not official, you can imagine.

As for the Joe Biden thing....people here were commenting that he must have come to find his other son a well-paid job, as the caring father he is.   Officially, he was asked to pass on the request for a permanent American base in the port of Constanta and probably assured that the deals with Chevron keep running smoothly. Instead, he wiped the floor with us for being corrupted oligarchs, praised some judicial institutions that are keeping alive the holy NKVD tradition and assured us the US are going to comply with the provisions of Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. I never felt so ashamed in my life.

Thanks Intrigado for that detailed opinion.
Seems many of us eastern Europeans are in a same mess (ruled by easily bought, spineless, corrupted politicians who bow to Brussels and bend-over for Washington, completely forgetting national interests). I read a comment yesterday by a Chinese guy who basically said: Europeans have no real sovereignty, they are governed by their elites, but the real ruler in almost all European countries is the American ambassador. It's very sad, but very true.

I guess that's why many here (yours truly included) can't wait for the 'Empire' to fall...oh that 'll be the day...

Intrigado wrote:

Hannibal Barca wrote:I have my interpretation but I am very much interested to hear from as many Romanians as possible before saying mine.

Well, I was hoping to be spared the humiliation but.....  Our hare-brained and spineless politicians are so pathetically grateful for America's decision to place this part of the ABM shield in Romania that this business is entirely an American one; if they decide to bring here missiles with nuclear capacity or whatever else would suit their needs, those idiots wouldn't do anything else but nod and smile. Now, of course, people endowed with a bit of sense aren't happy with this development and ask why would we need such defense system as we don't have anything to do with either Iran or North Korea, the rogue states against which it was said that is necessary to build this kind of shield. But these people are quickly silenced with a "Would you want to happen again as it did in 1940?". We have a kind of "besieged fortress" mentality and, whatever this shield means to the US, from our point of view, it means that the Americans have reasons to defend a land we cannot defend by ourselves, just as, if you allow me to say this, just as Hitler was interested to defend us because he was really defending his main source of oil. As, due to three centuries of long and ugly common history, Russia is pinpointed as the main source of danger to Romania, considering the story with the Republic of Moldova as well, many of my co-nationals and, of course, the government think that in case of something, the US would want to defend their precious shield, just as Nazi Germany guarded its precious petroleum with the utmost care. That's all.   Only that, as I heard, the systems seem to be designed to be mobile; if things run amok, the US soldiers can simply load them in trucks or whatever and hit the road, leaving us mired in whatever sticky situation they brought upon our heads.   But that's not official, you can imagine.

As for the Joe Biden thing....people here were commenting that he must have come to find his other son a well-paid job, as the caring father he is.   Officially, he was asked to pass on the request for a permanent American base in the port of Constanta and probably assured that the deals with Chevron keep running smoothly. Instead, he wiped the floor with us for being corrupted oligarchs, praised some judicial institutions that are keeping alive the holy NKVD tradition and assured us the US are going to comply with the provisions of Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. I never felt so ashamed in my life.

Thank you very much for the detailed insight!

Romania-Insider.com

May 1, 2014 08:14 am

Romania wants more NATO troops locally, even permanent base: “Russian threat is a reality, and we need support”

Romania wants and needs more American troops stationed locally, as the country covers the Eastern NATO border, said Foreign Affairs Minister Titus Corlatean. Romanian authorities even hope the Alliance will create a permanent military base in Romania.

“We are the first country in which the missile defense system will be deployed. In 2015, the system be operational [in Romania]. We are interested in having a strong political, military, and economic presence of the United States in Romania,” said Corlatean in an interview for Washington Post.

The message increased the level of interest in Washington, the Romanian Minister added, reinforcing that the Russian threat is a reality, and that Romania needs support. American troops are currently stationed at the Mihail Kogalniceanu military base in the Dobrogea region, close to the Black Sea shore.


The minister also underlined the need to increase defense expenditures, as well as Romania’s willingness to share the burden of these expenses. “Our target is to reach by 2016 2 percent of GDP allocated to the defense budget. We encourage other European allies to do the same.”

All these while the US rediscovered the geo-strategic importance of Eastern Europe, after previously focusing on the Asia – Pacific region.

Corlatean met US Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington earlier this week during a conference in Washington organized by the Atlantic Council of the United States. According to a release from Romania’s Foreign Ministry, they discussed the developing situation in Ukraine.

The system that established after the death of Chausescu know that is gonna dethroned and vanished once Russia and co. come back as the leading force in Romanian's economic life and with the current trend this will be well before the end of this decade. Given the global financial outlook, trying to resist this is futile IMO making  your position even worse, trying already to make deals with the new status quo is a safer bet if you ask me. One way or an other China's hegemonic position in Europe's economic life is a certainty, so...
Just my humble opinion.

Romania wants more NATO troops locally, even permanent base: “Russian threat is a reality, and we need support”

If that's how they feel, than that's how they feel...no point arguing about it.
Shame how the "Orthodox world" forgot all about being Orthodox (not excluding Macedonia here, mind you)...but that's nothing new really.

But Christian Orthodoxy aside, people are stupid to the n-th degree, time and time again in history.
I guess it always has been easy to sell polluted water to the thirsty and rotten food to the hungry for top dollars.

Sad thing that.