US military supplies to the region and india pakistan military balance.

After the Taliban Air Force, time to battle the Taliban Navy news
09 March 2009
For long, these funds have been allocated to Pakistan under the guise of helping it fight the Global War on Terror (GWOT).

Sometime in February this year, the Pakistan Navy was provided the clearance to acquire three types of anti-submarine warfare (ASW) sonobuoys - totaling 445 units - under the Foreign Military Sales programme. This piece of anti-submarine warfare equipment is of the same class as contracted for the US Navy.

Indeed, the contract signed with suppliers is a joint contract for the US and the Pakistan Navy.

The sale was cleared, presumably, even as the Obama administration was instructing General Electric not to operationalise two new LM 2500 gas turbines it has contracted to supply the Indian Navy for its state-of-the-art, indigenously designed, Project 17 stealth frigates.

The first of three frigates, INS Shivalik, is ready to commence sea trials but the programme will now have to go on hold – at least for a few months –with the Obama administration reviewing its military relations with a number of countries, including India.

Here is the complete article by domain-b

The article goes on to analyse why it is that USA is doing what it is doing.

USA is equipping Pakistani military forces for free, the purpose is to restore some confidence into them and keep them engaged in the war USA and its allies are fighting in the region.

The equipment is for free due to the well known fact that Pakistan can not afford to support its military forces any more.

We have to remember that for USA to keep its pride in Afghanistan, feeding biscuits to Pakistan is necessary, just like in the good old "soviet invasion of Afghanistan" days (i think this is a stupid approach, however that is what is happening).

The article focuses too much on the equipment side, these equipments are a part of the equation, if we ordered them, USA will not decline handing them over to us.

The Pakistani Navy is not capable of providing the basic number of ships and aircrafts required to even make their presence felt in any regional conflict with us, from the shipbuilding and acquisition plan for the next decade or two, they will not achieve this capability any time soon, while we will keep on adding to the numbers and types.

I bet Pakistan is busy lobbying in USA to get more military material and we are busy lobbying against it.

The GE LM 2500 turbine that the author is angry about is hold up due to differences in the current administrations view of including these components into foreign military sales (requiring deeper level of authorisation), its not a ploy to slow down Indian naval build-up.

-------------------