Pakistan Lets China View US Stealth Technology

Oswald McWeany writes "Tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan have moved up a notch in light of news that Pakistan allowed China to examine the downed stealth helicopter used in the operation to kill Osama bin Laden. Pakistan also provided Chinese intelligence with samples of the 'stealth skin.' 'Pakistan enjoys a close relationship with China, which is a major investor in telecommunications, ports and infrastructure in the country.'"

Re:300 million dollar helicopter

[afidel]

It's only $300M because there was an entire multidecade R&D program behind it and there have only been a few units produced, the marginal cost of a unit is probably no more than $60-70M (base unit is $44M, add 50% for materials and advanced electronics). Heck they might also be assigning the cost of the Comanche program to those few units since to my eye it looks like the took the Comanche tech and applied it to a Black Hawk.

Re:Oh boo hoo

[Dahamma]

Well, Pakistan does have an "accept several hundred billion dollars a year from the US" deal. If China's making them a better offer, then Pakistan's actions make sense.

You put that in quotations as if it was a quoted fact... but several hundred billion dollars a year? The US yearly defense budget is a bit over $600B, Pakistan doesn't get half of that. The real number is $1-2B. Still a lot, but off by a couple orders of magnitude there ;)

Though to your point, the US just withheld $800M of that yearly aid last month after the latest concerns about Pakistan's military allegiances. Looks like that might backfire if they just get money from China instead.

Re:Oh boo hoo

[Dahamma]

Because they are a nuclear power with a large fundamentalist population ruled by a military oligarchy. So the US gives that oligarchy shitloads of money to both bribe them for support and try to keep them in power to prevent another Iran.

Of course, the US gave lots of money and weapons to the Iranian government before the revolution there, and in the end all that did was make the new regime both heavily armed and even more pissed off...