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Buying US weapons puts you in a position of needing US backing for decades. You need replacement parts, maintenance training, and a million other dependencies.
by freeopinion 1y ago
Buying US weapons puts you in a position of needing US backing for decades. You need replacement parts, maintenance training, and a million other dependencies. Naturally, you'd need similar from any supplier. So an important part of your calculus has to be, "Will these guys be around to support me in 25-40 years?" That has never really been a question for the US in the last 75 years.
Now it is.
I don't think anybody fears that the US will cease to be a country. Or even that it will cease to be an important country. The question is whether they will be your reliable ally in 25-40 years, or even in four years. Or will they start some pattern of being your friend for a couple years, then cutting you off for a few years, then trying to re-friend you? That is not a relationship on which anybody wants to build their national security support.
- ben_w 1y ago> "Will these guys be around to support me in 25-40 years?" That has never really been a question for the US in the last 75 years. From the POV of the time? Sure, we can see with the benefit of hindsight that even 40 years was true up until at least 1985, but did people plan that far ahead at the time? 25 years, sure, I think that was true for most of it, with only a handful of exceptions like France and the UK being upset about what happened in response to their actions in the Suez Crisis. IMO correct call by USA there, and I say that as a British citizen by birth, but still means "can we rely on them?" resolves "no", and this loss of de facto independence in what they could do explains much of British foreign policy since then.