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Why America Needs India’s Rockets

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Re: Why America Needs India’s Rockets

#141
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By which definition? The "you could argue" definition that I don't agree with? Or my "personally, I would consider" definition? By the latter, if country A is arming/training/providing insurgents in country B with no previous attacks by B on A, then A is the aggressor. So in the eastern Ukraine case Russia would be the aggressor.

How do you classify overt and covert military activity by a nation whose territory has been annexed towards the nation that did the annexation? Is it an act of aggression?

Given no more information than that, I would say the annexation was the act of aggression and the action in response is defense.

In fact, annexing another country's territory without any provocation is pretty much the definition of "a war of aggression".

Re: Why America Needs India’s Rockets

#142
post #130
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a whole lot of red herrings there, which have nothing to do with nuclear policy or not wanting to empower one side of an ongoing nuclear standoff with superior tech. It does at least tell anyone with a scrap of skepticism though, where you're coming from. Equivocation is at the heart of apologism.

All of these things are incredibly relevant. Over the years, US-Russian relations have fluctuated between begrudging tolerance, open contempt, proxy wars, and even nuclear brinksmanship. While the odds of nuclear conflict between them may be lower then the odds of one between India and Pakistan (And this is an arguable point), it will be incredibly more devastating. As such, it's incredibly disingenuous to claim that…

Except that you reversed the order of that list, which is in fact just the deescalation away from nuclear brinksmanship.

As for devastation, http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockToonSciAmJan2010...

Re: Why America Needs India’s Rockets

#143
post #19

Multiple friends who moved to the USA for their higher education (MS/PhD) in fields such as Aerospace Engg complain about the very tight regulations in the field. For many people, even being top of the class means coming back home, because companies like Boeing/ SpaceX etc have very tight US citizens only rules imposed on them. This is almost completely opposite to the Comp Sci. graduates who assimilate almost immedi…

A rocket is an intercontinental ballistic missile with a different flight plan. So every nuclear power want to stay ahead in the game.

Yes. The more specific regulation is ITAR -- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arm...

Re: Why America Needs India’s Rockets

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you possibly compare the Indian armed action to regain occupied territory and her sovereignty back from the Portuguese to anything else? It was the only time India had to resort to military action, and it was shortly after her independence.

> How can you possibly compare the Indian armed action to regain occupied territory and her sovereignty back from the Portuguese to anything else? Quite easily. The claim was that India was never the aggressor, not that all the aggressions were justified by some extenuating circumstance or national interest or whatnot. The "never the aggressor" claim clearly doesn't hold for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_o…

Thanks for clarifying your points.

I understand what you're saying, but I feel the "aggressor" is the party that first commits an unwarranted action. India was in the process of decolonization and the Portuguese refused to leave, despite prior repeated non-violent requests. If the cops are called on an individual for trespassing, would you call the cops the aggressor for trying to remove the individual?

Re: Why America Needs India’s Rockets

#145
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are underestimating how much importance world politicians give to pieces of paper that mean shit for commonsense. Do you think it is hard for a country like India to send a small nuke to USA and blow it off ? They can send it via ship, commercial jets and what not. The point of MCTR is to prevent a nation from openly admitting they have such a weapon and hence it can not be used as an argument in any future negot…

The issue isn't India performing a terrorist strike agains the US. They'd love to send nuclear missiles to Pakistan, though.

They can already do this, and they don't thanks to

1) Their no-first-use policy

2) Pakistan already having nuclear weapons

Re: Why America Needs India’s Rockets

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> This is because any mature rocket technology can trivially be adjusted to be a nuclear weapons delivery platform. There is also the issue of maintaining the capability domestically. If someone else is too cheap it would destroy the local capability. Imagine the US losing the ability to launch it's own satellites - like it lost the ability to launch people. That said, there needs to be a way to make domestic launch…

On the other side, Lockheed Martin which already builds C-130J Super Hercules in India, now wants to manufacture F-16 too in India.

F-16's are old tech, which the US has been selling to its allies for decades. This helps finance continuing improvement, which keeps the US equipped with the best new military tech.

Re: Why America Needs India’s Rockets

#147
post #2

On the one hand, its rather interesting to see the US, champion of free and open markets, enforce a policy so against that very principle. If I'm not mistaken, not only is US policy meant to assist the private space industry in the US, but to also avoid indirectly assisting the Indian missile/ballistic missile program. Although in India's defense the agency that develops/manages/deploys satellites (ISRO) is separate…

> On the one hand, its rather interesting to see the US, champion of free and open markets

Critics and advocates of American economic policy like to label it as capitalist and / or free-market (like there's a difference), but it's really not.

For one major example, consider the incredible level of restriction on immigration.

Re: Why America Needs India’s Rockets

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can you possibly compare the Indian armed action to regain occupied territory and her sovereignty back from the Portuguese to anything else? Quite easily. The claim was that India was never the aggressor, not that all the aggressions were justified by some extenuating circumstance or national interest or whatnot. The "never the aggressor" claim clearly doesn't hold for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_o…

Thanks for clarifying your points. I understand what you're saying, but I feel the "aggressor" is the party that first commits an unwarranted action. India was in the process of decolonization and the Portuguese refused to leave, despite prior repeated non-violent requests. If the cops are called on an individual for trespassing, would you call the cops the aggressor for trying to remove the individual?

> but I feel the "aggressor" is the party that first commits an unwarranted action

That right there is a problem at the heart of the concept of "aggressor": what time point do we pick as the baseline such that actions that lead to changes after that are aggression but actions before that are the status quo?

This played out in Europe with Alsace-Lorraine, where the Germans felt that the French took it away from them in 1919, while the French felt that the Germans took it away from them in 1871 and they just recovered it in 1919. Oh, but the Germans felt like the French had taken that territory away from them in the 17th and 18th century...

This is obviously a situation that is somewhat different from that of the Portuguese possessions in India. But it highlights the fact that "unwarranted" can be hard to define objectively. In practice, it tends to get defined by the victors writing the history books, though nowadays it can get decided by self-determination referenda and _then_ the victors (possibly of the referendum, possibly of resulting armed conflicts) writing history books.

From our point of view at the beginning of the 21st century, the Portuguese possession of Goa in the mid-20th was unwarranted but the British possession of the Falklands right now is... well, depends on whom you ask, but generally considered warranted. How much of that is because the population of the Falklands is happy being British subjects, and how much is because the British won the Falklands War? I wish I knew. :(

> If the cops are called on an individual for trespassing, would you call the cops the aggressor for trying to remove the individual?

No, I would not. But this isn't a perfect analogy either. I think it would be _very_ apt as an analogy if India had gotten a UN resolution that the Portuguese need to leave; even more so if UN security forces then threw the Portuguese out. Yes, I realize that this was not realistic at the time, for all sorts of reasons, not least of which was the US explicitly saying it would veto any such resolution, if I read the history correctly.

But as it was, the situation is more akin to the owner of the property being trespassed on seeing that the courts and the police won't help him out and personally kicking the trespasser off the property. Would that be described as "aggression"? It starts to depend on your biases, especially if the trespasser had been there for a while. This last is why the concept of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession exists in English common law, so arguments over squatting and tresspassing won't continue ad infinitum. To some extent this gets applied in the international arena. Of course it doesn't always; then you get wars over territorial changes that happened hundreds or thousands of years ago; no shortage of those in recent history.

Anyway, at the time, there were a number of countries that condemned the Indian military action, including some which in principle supported the idea that the Portuguese possessions in India should become part of India. That is, they felt that the ends were good, but that the means were in fact military aggression and needed to be called out as such. We could try to fit that sort of dynamic into the individual trespasser being removed scenario; that would involve there being a dispute about whether the trespasser was in fact now more like a squatter, as well as dispute about whether forceful removal now, as opposed to peaceful removal, or at least removal by police, after some period of time gaining support for the removal was the better course of action...

Where all that leaves me personally is that I consider violent attacks on a previously broadly accepted status quo as "aggression" but I then have to allow that some "aggression" must be morally acceptable when the status quo either was unjust or has become unjust and no other solutions are available. Unfortunately, "unjust" is not an objective judgement either. :(

The situation with the Portuguese possessions falls into the "has become unjust" bucket for me, assuming the population of those areas wanted the Portuguese out. The Portuguese did not put this to a vote at the time, which is somewhat telling; I'm willing to assume based on time period and general zeitgeist that in fact the population did want them out.

Of course I would be happier to assume that sort of thing if I didn't know about counterexamples like the Falklands and Gibraltar. :( But as a point of comparison, Gibraltar _did_ have a vote on the matter in 1967, which is a pretty similar timeframe; presumably the Portuguese didn't put things to a vote because they were fairly certain they would lose.

Re: Why America Needs India’s Rockets

#149
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are underestimating how much importance world politicians give to pieces of paper that mean shit for commonsense. Do you think it is hard for a country like India to send a small nuke to USA and blow it off ? They can send it via ship, commercial jets and what not. The point of MCTR is to prevent a nation from openly admitting they have such a weapon and hence it can not be used as an argument in any future negot…

The issue isn't India performing a terrorist strike agains the US. They'd love to send nuclear missiles to Pakistan, though.

[deleted]

Re: Why America Needs India’s Rockets

#150
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also have to consider that Indian salaries aren't remotely close to US salaries and other local factors. Software engineers make 12x what they make in India. The US can't just have a $73m mission considering the standard of living for engineers and managers here. ISRO is notoriously cheap even by Indian standards. Its probably not realistic to expect this type of pricing the same way the US can't mass produce thi…

This is a very important factor, for sure. Its very fortunate that the Indian education system does produce a lot of engineers. Quality is a problem, for sure, but I would argue it is much easier to train someone who has had some exposure to Math/Science than to start from scratch. This is one of the areas where India's large population and emphasis on education (specifically engineering) seems to be paying off very…

Unfortunately the majority of grads are unemployable. India definitely produces high quality engineers but they are limited to a few good schools and occasionally an exceptional student from somewhere else. You only need walk down the street in India to see ads for private engineering colleges run in shacks.
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