India's police to get American 3D technology, weaponry boost

[asianobserve]

And out of all these platforms, South Korea has not sold even a single piece to any other country, except to Turkey

Pls take note that in 2010 SK sold worth $1.19 Billion of arms around the world. This figure is expected to rise this year with the sales of F50 KAI Golden Eagle to Indonesia. The target for SK is around $4 Billion annual arms sales.

 

[ace009]

The assistance the Japanese received from the US in recuperating from ww2 cannot be understated. Apart from financial assistance, the Japanese received immense technical assistance from the US.

Hell, the US still have a naval base in Japan whilst the Japanese constitution prohibits the recruitment of a military for Japan (although they get around it), their national sport is not sumo wrestling/kendo/karate...its the distinctly american baseball!!...if that's not being a puppet, I am not sure what is!

I don't understand how they suddenly achieved the most vibrant defense industries in the world today - the US, Israelis (US again ), Russians and French are much bigger players than Japan and South Korea.

Besides, the Japanese have always been a war-like nation, extending from the barbaric times of its feudal period to its latest outburst in world war 2!



India has implemented one of the most successful anti-poverty programs in history - we have barely been independant for 60 years... why don't you criticizers ever look at the other side of the bottle?

BTW it is a poor nation indeed that draws national pride on the basis of economic prosperity alone.

Actually, economic prosperity is indeed more important than "national sovereignty and pride" - Pakistan is a case in point. For 40 years Pakistan played at "sovereignty and pride", to the point of destroying their economy by bad policies and expensive defense buildups. Today, their economy is in ruins, their politics is in shambles and their sovereignty has been sold to the US and China (imagine that!). On the other hand, South Korea has a much smaller defense buildup (as a percentage of their economy), depends upon the US for military survival and has built a REALLY good economy. The point is, if you have a good economy, you may keep your sovereignty (or not) but if your economy is bad, you will NEVER keep it.
Compare between the erstwhile USSR and China. From the late 70's the chinese changed to a "capitalistic" system (or what goes for capitalism there). They opened up their economy and country to foreign investments, thereby losing some sovereignty for sure. By the early 1990s, they were becoming an economic powerhouse with double digit economic growth and their country was prospering. USSR on the other hand, kept a rigid communist control, went on spending on their military and in 15 years, imploded in social and economic pressure! By the early 1990s, no USSR - a much more impoverished Russia started out again.

 

[ace009]

Western European and Scandinavian countries have always been considered the best places to live in the world as they offer the best quality of life according to annual UN surveys over the past decade, Japan ranks lower than most of them, Singapore has been in the top ranking for quite sometime, and South Korea is not even in the top 15 or so. So, please check up on your facts before you vouch for something.

I agree that the quality of life in Japan, Singapore and South Korea is the best in Asia and one the best in the world, but there are a lot of factors for that, one important thing being that what they are today, they owe a lot to American support over the past 5 decades, also they are very small countries with a low population. All these 3 countries combined would probably be as big as the state of MP or UP in north India, that makes a huge difference. Plus the Japanese have been more or less self a sufficient nation since the middle ages and equally powerful with a disciplined, hard working and highly dedicated population always. That helps in building a strong, self reliant nation. But there are huge differences between our and their history, culture, civil values etc.

We are taking America's help in things that matter most to us, like defense, trade & industry, education etc since the past 2 decades, depending upon what requirements we have in what sectors and how the American help can be utilized for developing those sectors. We should continue doing that, but that we become an outright stooge to the US.

Forget, Japan. Do you think South Korea has any say in any world affairs ? Whatever they are is solely because of US's generosity towards them to counter the communists in the North and keep a check on their growth. South Korea wouldn't have been a quarter of what it is today, had it not been under the American umbrella since WW2 !

Small countries with small population? It is not the country/ population size that matters so much as the population density. It is resources/ capita that matters more than total resources. South Korea has a higher population density than India even today and Japan had a higher population density than India till the 1990s. Yet they did much better economically than India did.

Scandinavian countries also have very little say in world matters. Actually, they prefer it that way. I would rather have most Indians living a Scandinavian lifestyle with India having very little say in "world matters" than Indians living their present lifestyle with a lot of say in world matters. But that's just me ...