151–160 of 167 posts
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The US, like Britain and much of Europe has a long history of practicing economic protectionism. I wouldn't say its wrong one way or the other, but it is kind of hypocritical to say "Do as we preach, not as we did".
Hypocrisy and US foreign policy goes hand in hand.
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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 i…
Not just the point in time, there's also the level of aggression. Many wars have a set of ever-increasing nonmilitary conflicts leading up to them. If you're not defining aggression as a concrete military action, you have to choose a baseline for this too.
If you're allowing governmental-agression-that-may-incite-war to be counted as a "first aggression", then India is doing this right now in Kashmir. Yes, I know, that situation is more complex (and I'd prefer not to discuss it online; there's a lot of nuance lost and it's frustrating), but there are similarities in the situation.
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Anyway, the definition of "aggression" to be used in this context depends on the context of the original statement, which was the argument that India is less likely to be a security threat because it has never been the aggressor. In this context, it is about military aggression, the argument being that a country more likely to escalate a civil issue to war is more likely to escalate to nukes in this modern age. To be clear, I don't feel that India is at all likely to escalate to nukes, due to various other reasons (including possibly personal bias). But I don't think that "India was never the first aggressor" is a valid argument in support of that.
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The US has not remotely lost the ability to launch people in the context you're suggesting (lost knowledge, lost budget, lost political will). Its literally between launch systems. NASA has failed at how many launch system projects since the Space Shuttle?
I'm not sure it counts as 'failing' when programs are under-funded, then de-funded entirely.
> Since 2005, U.S. satellite manufacturers have been prohibited from hiring India's space agency to launch their equipment. So interestingly why not India then? > Indian Space Research Organization has consistently punched above its modest weight class, racking up a series of cheap and practical achievements. Aren't we using Russian RD-180 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180 engines which also seemed to punch above…
The Indian space program has been using solid fuel rockets in most of their space launchers. I'm not sure how that compares to the (liquid fueled) RD-180 in terms of efficiency, but it's a very different type of engine.
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The Indian space program has been using solid fuel rockets in most of their space launchers. I'm not sure how that compares to the (liquid fueled) RD-180 in terms of efficiency, but it's a very different type of engine.
I think these days you can find solid fuel boosters, LH2-LOX upper stage and storables - all on a single ISRO rocket. Can you also find a kerosene stage?
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The difference being, of course, that the Falcon 9 Full Thrust hasn't actually left Earth orbit yet. Mark to market applies as much to space technology as it does to credit default swaps.
Falcon already delivered DSCOVR to Sun-Earth L1, while PSLV only flew MOM to a highly elliptical Earth orbit and MOM had to use its own propulsion for TMI.
Wait till PSLV delivers Aditya-1[1][2] to L1.
[1] http://www.isro.gov.in/aditya-l1-first-indian-mission-to-stu...
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This is because any mature rocket technology can trivially be adjusted to be a nuclear weapons delivery platform. By assisting India you're paying for their ICBM development. Maybe the line shouldn't be drawn at rockets, but unless you think we should have free & open markets for nuclear weapons I daresay you think the line should be drawn somewhere.
It's funny how US is okay with providing India with Uranium, but space launch contracts? Oh no! They could build ICBMs with that tech!
If you can enrich uranium then you can build an ICBM - it takes a lot of good engineering talent and very expensive equipment for either project. Unless you can somehow get another state to sell you the necessary stuff... but I'd consider purchasing uranium enrichment centrifuges vs purchasing ICBMs to be similarly highly-sketchy endeavours (the ICBM more so, but only because it can be used more or less immediately).
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But you just can't compare private company salaries with government salaries. The perks that are enjoyed by government employees far outweighs that enjoyed by private employees. You might be tempted to think that private employees get "x" times more than government employees and they should be better. But that is not how it works in India. If you are a private employee there is a possibility of getting fired. If you…
I didn't say salaries were directly comparable. Check back with me in 10 years, we'll see which salaries rose faster than others.
In that period of 10 years, the government employees had 3 payscale revisions with each revision bringing them almost on par with the average salary of private employees. I don't see that trend stopping anytime soon. 10 years from now, government employee salary will again be almost on par with average salary of private employees.
So whatever you try to say it won't change the fact. Government jobs are stable (You can't be fired as easily. You will be transferred instead), you get freebies that you would never get as a private employee and not to mention post-retirement support from the government. You get subsidized land rates, cheaper home loans through your own co-operative society (for example: google "ISRO Layout" which was formed only for ISRO employees). All those employees got the land at very cheap rates. Today it is prime land worth close to half a million dollars (See: http://www.99acres.com/residential-land-plot-for-sale-in-isr...). When they bought the land, they just had to pay a few thousand dollars. Try buying land in India as a private employee and you'll see your hard earned savings vaporizing in thin air.
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It's funny how US is okay with providing India with Uranium, but space launch contracts? Oh no! They could build ICBMs with that tech!
AFAIK, they only sold un-enriched uranium. If so, you may not be aware, but enriching uranium is NOT a trivial process. If you can enrich uranium then you can build an ICBM - it takes a lot of good engineering talent and very expensive equipment for either project. Unless you can somehow get another state to sell you the necessary stuff... but I'd consider purchasing uranium enrichment centrifuges vs purchasing ICBMs…
Indian PSU research centers are well-known for being incompetent (including DRDO, CSIR, HAL...) [1]; in this ISRO is something of an oasis (or so I've heard). These orgs are generally neither nimble, nor particularly interested in acquiring talent, unlike their American competitors (or even NASA). Hiring is often one large nationwide JEE-like exam held once a year to recruit new engineers. Not surprisingly few Engine…
From your comment, one can only say that you have 0 knowledge about India/culture and DRDO, you are entitled to have an opinion but please don't have opinions based on incorrect facts/assumptions.
>Given all this, it's not clear how long ISRO will be able to hold on to its first mover advantage, with regards to cheap launches
It isn't "first mover advantage". The term for it is being nimble. ISRO/DRDO run a lot like startups who have little funding, they have brilliant scientists who want to SERVE the nation, also there is no other org you'd work after you leave ISRO/DRDO, there is no Lockheed Martin equivalent in India!
>DRDO is hardly an organization that needs fearing; apart from the above anecdotal data
What data? It isn't just about DRDO, you don't need to "fear" India, don't you know that there have been so many terror attacks on Indian soil and India has never retaliated, only now have we done a surgical strike. So yeah, you never have to fear India at all. If you ignore the "invasion" of Goa when the Indian union was relatively new (and the Shri Vijaya Kingdom which extended to Malaysia) India never attacked another country and it won't, because now, the country faces much larger problems, and India never was territory hungry.
>- The state has hardly had any real geopolitical goals (after Nehru-Indira Gandhi). Yes, it doesn't.
Also, programming isn't as mainstream in India as it is in the US.