This is a drop in the bucket in terms of their trade deficit, but selling a crapload of expensive weapons to the Saudis and other OPEC states is a good way for the US to recoup some of that oil money.
It doesn’t really look at a casual glance that others are seeing it this way, and the Israelis are understandably nervous. Or that is they are, but not so much that $3B per annum in aid from the same US military industrial complex can’t mollify them. And you can bet they’ll get all the good stuff too.
Some people have a problem with this, but as I’ve always said, I’d back Israel against any country over there. It is the only real, functioning democracy over there (wish that it were the case also for Lebanon) which needs outside assistance to maintain the status quo. Said status quo isn’t great, but I don’t see any viable options that everyone can agree on.
Israel is suffering from a real lack of leadership at the highest levels, but at least steps are being taken to get the IDF back to brass tacks so they aren’t embarrassed by Hezbollah in Round 2, whenever that is. It occurs to me that you could (in the context of the Mid-East) look at the sales to the Arabs as the "carrot", and the aid to Israel as the "stick" of American foreign policy. Just a thought.
The idea of JDAMs in the inventory of a probable eventual enemy (House of Saud is unlikely to stand forever) on the face of it sounds like really bad idea, but if the Americans sell them the hardware, they know what it can do, most likely where it is, and in any event they’ll have a lot more of it and better trained troopies to use the stuff when push comes to shove. Besides, it’s only a matter of time (if it hasn’t happened already) before Iran or China comes up with GPS guided bomb kits that they’ll sell to anyone. And never forget the Russians…
Speaking of Russia, there was an article in JDW for 27 July about the US offering the Joint Strike Fighter to India. This is obviously designed to frustrate said Russians, and helps convince the Indians that the US can be worked with. The Yanks get themselves so worked in a twist about inspecting peoples’ nuclear plants, particularly foolish in the case of India which has had nuclear weapons for 30 years. They seem to have worked something out, which should help bring our common interests with India into focus for all parties.
I’ve seen a bit of traffic on the state of the US economy, particularly their massive trade imbalance. Oil is a large chunk of that, and the exporting of manufacturing jobs to China, etc. has really undermined the position of the US as the dominant economy of the world.
How long they can maintain what they have, let alone if they can recover what they have lost, is a serious concern to the rest of us “western” democracies. For ideas on that, see my earlier posts (and the plethora of stuff on the web) about seriously developing REAL alternatives to oil. Ethanol is NOT one of them, although it’s making a lot of corn farmers more financially solvent (ha!) in the meantime.
The US needs to sell as much of this expensive stuff as they can to recoup the development money, but at the same time I’ve not heard them offer the F-22 Raptor to anyone, so they maintain an edge. That too is good for us, even if a lot of people forget which side their bread is buttered on…
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