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Top 48 air forces in 2020 (based on aircraft quality and quantity)
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E
What is the methodology that you used for your ranking?
I can guess that you somehow combined the arbitrary points that you assigned to the air-to-air and to the air-to-surface capabilities of each model of aircraft listed.
What is the exact methodology that you used?
How did you factor in the presence/absence of special missions aircrafts? The presence/absence of AEW&C aircraft, refuellers/tanker aircrafts, transport aircrafts, and specialized EW aircrafts?
It is understandable that intangibles such as training, maintenance, logistics, tactics and political alliances are hard to objectively quantify. Although those intangible factors will continue to play a significant role in deciding the outcome of air battles, they are hard to quantify and easier to do away with in any arbitrary ranking exercise such as this one.
Another factor to bear in mind is that bomber aircrafts, possessed in abundance by the USAF for example, would play little to no role in the absence of air superiority.
At the same time, the abundance of active special mission aircrafts in the USAF will augment its warfighting capability against any hypothetical adversary both near and far.
Many other countries do not operate anywhere near as many active AEW&C systems, tanker aircrafts, EW aircraft and other special mission aircrafts such as drones, ELINT/SIGINT/COMINT aircraft.
Factoring in other intangibles such as pilot training, tactics, logistics may be troublesome but would likely favour the USAF over closest adversaries such as PLAAF or VVS (Russian Air Force).
These approximate national scores are not 'additive'. One can not merely add the hypothetical 'airpowers' - approximated crudely by your personal ranking - of two disparate countries and hope that two such countries when working together or in tandem would be able to be equally as effective as those numbers suggest.
For example, you can not assume Turkish Air Force and Pakistani Air Force working together would be able to overwhelm the Israeli Air Force or the Indian Air Force .
Likewise, you can not assume that the Indian Air Force and the Israeli Air Force working together can closely match the PLAAF over the Himalayas or Tibet.
Two countries you missed were Qatar and Kuwait. Both countries are tiny and have placed orders for quite a few fighter aircrafts that can boost the number of fighter squadrons in their respective air forces.
Certainly, in terms of inventory, which is all that your ranking apparently scores, we could say the Qatar Emiri Air Force and the Kuwait Air Force could be said to be stronger than much bigger Indonesia. Or Bangladesh. Or Nigeria.
Interesting that.
Qatar should probably order two squadrons of F-35A and a squadron of F-35B citing security needs for the upcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Our Turkish brothers and sisters will be able to benefit quite a bit from an expanded Qatari Armed Forces Air and Naval Arm.
Coupled with airborne early warning radar and ground based BMD radars, a centralized node (Command and Control base) for decision making could be based in Doha (not too far from CENTCOM, for instance) for providing the Qatari Armed Forces Chief of Staff, or equivalent, with a comprehensive real time picture of the neighbourhood.
I suppose the Saudis, Emiratis and Bahrainis acting together could try to create a counterpart of their own. The location of that command and control base could create a dispute. The monarchs of those countries haven't been able to unify their currency yet. They had earlier decided that a unified currency would be launched by 2010.
This arbitary ranking exercise also proves a few points. That no matter how poor, malnourished, ill-educated, corrupt, incompetent, violent, crime-infested or dirty a country may be, if it has adequate population, it can easily become one of the strongest military powers on Earth. A good example could be India.
Its first nuclear reactor was obtained from Canada for supposedly research purposes. The CIRUS reactor was subsequently used by them for developing their first atomic weapons. Although they reneged on their earlier promises not to misuse Canadian technology, they had no shame or misgivings about the issue.
Moreover, they refused to sign the nuclear non proliferation treaty or NPT much like Israel. The reason they cited for their noncompliance was that the NPT ""discriminated against states not possessing nuclear weapons on 1 January 1967," and that it was a "flawed treaty ". It has been argued that their subsequent nuclear reactors also relied on Canadian technology derived from CANDU reactors.
This is ample proof that a country with adequate population can afford to ignore the rest of the world and chart an independent path.
Tiny countries in comparison to China or India would not enjoy such luxury. This should serve as an effective lesson for tiny countries such as Iran, Turkey, Egypt or any countries covered by CENTCOM that want to remove the USA from the region.
Increase your population first, much like China or India. Then, and only then, can you afford to ignore the concerns of the Western powers. Not otherwise.
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Well usually countries which buy aircraft also buy adequate ammunition. I did downgrade ranks of Egyptian and Iraqi F-16s for their lack of AMRAAMs however.
I used F-16C as base (1 air to air and 1 air to ground points). And estimated power. If u have better ranking method u are welcome to use it.
E
A better ranking system can be devised. However, it would be prohibitively time consuming and require quite a lot of effort.
How did you assign points for special mission aircrafts? For AEW&C systems, tanker aircraft, ELINT/SIGINT/COMINT or transport aircraft?
Qatar and Kuwait were ignored. With their confirmed orders, their Air Force would expand further.
E
Based on the airpower scores racked up in this arbitrary ranking, Indonesia also can not be said to be a leader in the ASEAN region.
Indonesia can not be said to be a leader in the wider Islamic world based on the airpower scores of its inventory of aircrafts.
Indonesia can be closely compared with Bangladesh and Nigeria. Arguably it more closely resembles Nigeria than Bangladesh. For example, both Indonesia and Nigeria are the most populous countries in their respective regions of ASEAN and Africa.
Both of these two countries are said to possess the two largest economies within their respective socioeconomic, regional and/or religious bloc. Indonesia being the biggest economy in ASEAN and the wider Muslim world, Nigeria being the biggest economy in Africa, Subsaharan Africa, Western Africa and in what can be termed the Black World.
However, militarily, technologically or in terms of advanced scientific developments, both of these countries are overshadowed by numerous countries within their respective socioeconomic, regional and/or religious blocs.
Indonesia lacks advanced technologies possessed or developed by its immediate neighbour to the South (Australia) or even tiny neighbour in Singapore. In some sectors, other neighbours such as Malaysia or Thailand still lead Indonesia quite comfortably.
Other countries such as Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Taiwan, China or India can also be seen clearly leading Indonesia in various civilian and defence technologies.
Moving beyond the immediate region, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Algeria, Morocco, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan can be said to possess more powerful aircrafts in their inventory.
Many of these countries possess technologies that are yet to be mastered by Indonesia. Such as nuclear weapons in Pakistan, medium range ballistic missiles in Pakistan, submarine launched cruise missiles in Pakistan, partially assembled and manufactured fighter aircrafts such as JF-17.
Similarly, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and numerous other countries may be said to be more advanced than Indonesia in various parameters of interest.
Nigeria would not be too different in that Egypt, arguably, remains the best armed, equipped and trained military in Africa. South African civilian and defence industrial base can be said to be considerably more advanced than Nigeria's in many ways.
Morocco and Algeria can also lay claims to being leaders ahead of Nigeria in some specialized areas or niche areas.
In short, a slightly bigger population and therefore a slightly larger economy, by themselves, are not sufficient to propel a country to the status of undisputed leader of a region or bloc.
Mastery of more complicated ideas, technologies, scientific knowledge is a prerequisite that is ignored all too often.
Indonesia, like Nigeria, trails many countries within the neighbourhood or within their regional, cultural or religious bloc by quite some margin in those aspects.
Indonesia can not be said to be a leader in the wider Islamic world based on the airpower scores of its inventory of aircrafts.
Indonesia can be closely compared with Bangladesh and Nigeria. Arguably it more closely resembles Nigeria than Bangladesh. For example, both Indonesia and Nigeria are the most populous countries in their respective regions of ASEAN and Africa.
Both of these two countries are said to possess the two largest economies within their respective socioeconomic, regional and/or religious bloc. Indonesia being the biggest economy in ASEAN and the wider Muslim world, Nigeria being the biggest economy in Africa, Subsaharan Africa, Western Africa and in what can be termed the Black World.
However, militarily, technologically or in terms of advanced scientific developments, both of these countries are overshadowed by numerous countries within their respective socioeconomic, regional and/or religious blocs.
Indonesia lacks advanced technologies possessed or developed by its immediate neighbour to the South (Australia) or even tiny neighbour in Singapore. In some sectors, other neighbours such as Malaysia or Thailand still lead Indonesia quite comfortably.
Other countries such as Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Taiwan, China or India can also be seen clearly leading Indonesia in various civilian and defence technologies.
Moving beyond the immediate region, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Algeria, Morocco, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan can be said to possess more powerful aircrafts in their inventory.
Many of these countries possess technologies that are yet to be mastered by Indonesia. Such as nuclear weapons in Pakistan, medium range ballistic missiles in Pakistan, submarine launched cruise missiles in Pakistan, partially assembled and manufactured fighter aircrafts such as JF-17.
Similarly, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and numerous other countries may be said to be more advanced than Indonesia in various parameters of interest.
Nigeria would not be too different in that Egypt, arguably, remains the best armed, equipped and trained military in Africa. South African civilian and defence industrial base can be said to be considerably more advanced than Nigeria's in many ways.
Morocco and Algeria can also lay claims to being leaders ahead of Nigeria in some specialized areas or niche areas.
In short, a slightly bigger population and therefore a slightly larger economy, by themselves, are not sufficient to propel a country to the status of undisputed leader of a region or bloc.
Mastery of more complicated ideas, technologies, scientific knowledge is a prerequisite that is ignored all too often.
Indonesia, like Nigeria, trails many countries within the neighbourhood or within their regional, cultural or religious bloc by quite some margin in those aspects.
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I didn't know you were the one that put in the work for it (the force level number stuff for each A/c)....so I might have come off a bit dismissive in my earlier posts as I assumed everything was from another source (I got confused coz of that 2021 World AF cover etc).
A job well done and kudos. You are right that this indeed is better analysis than simple a/c strength number and what lot of others do.
It gives us a basic idea of the raw force level available to each AF to harness.
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The reason Indonesia doesnt have nuclear weapon is merely due to political than capability. Indonesia has already had nuclear research since 1954 and build its first nuclear reactor in early 1960. There is CIA report saying Soekarno seeks to build nuclear weapon during his tenure alone. He was replaced by Soeharto before he can achieve his ambition. Soeharto is more practical and prefer economic growth than becoming some sort of world power like Soekarno.
Pakistan on the other hand needs to have nuclear weapon after India has one already. We dont have such situation. During Soeharto period, Indonesia is the only big guy in the region. Today the situation is different after China emerges and start showing her present in SCS (South East Asia). Despite so, the situation is still under control and we are not going to make one unless there is real threat.
For your information, Indonesia nuclear institution (BATAN) makes their own nuclear fuel already and is under close supervision of IAEA. Indonesia prefers growing their economy than getting sanction from Western world. We can see Iran GDP get stuck the moment they get sanction by UN and US due to their nuclear program under their conservative government.
Many of your analysis actually are not really deep and only see something in the surface to draw a conclusion. I also see emotion has also entered your analyst that make your judgement is not fair. I know some of your other claims are also wrong but I dont want to reveal here as it is related to other brotherly nations, but I want to reveal non Muslim nation example, South Africa. Do you think their defense industry is built by who ? Do you know past history of South Africa, dont you...This is why comparing Nigeria with South Africa is just another example showing that your analysis lack of depth.
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Turkey has 150 male class armed UAV against ground forces... i think the best way would be to compare them with Air to Air capabilities.. other that that wouldnt be fair i think... but we could give little more additional points for having transport aircrafts as they are also important..
E
Irrelevant and false.
Irrelevant because we never discussed why Indonesia lacks nuclear weapons. It is a simple fact that Indonesia, like many other countries, lacks nuclear weapons.
False because, although irrelevant but you brought this topic up, we may as well discuss it briefly. Indonesia simply does not possess the required trained technical manpower, raw materials, industry and political will to build nuclear weapons.
There is not a single commercial nuclear reactor in Indonesia as of today. The evidence for Indonesia's incapability in nuclear technologies is overwhelming.
There has never been a single Indonesian designed and built nuclear reactor in existence. Irrespective of whether the reactors were built for commercial or "research" purposes, there has never been a single Indonesian designed and built nuclear reactor.
This is inaccurate on so many levels, it is hard to explicate.
First, Indonesia has never designed and built an indigenous nuclear reactor. Purchasing research reactors from abroad, which the USA was selling to plenty of countries for such ridiculous programmes as "Atoms for Peace", does not constitute mastery or development of any nuclear technologies.
Two, CIA and other American intelligence agencies had provided the intel that Saddam Hussein-led Iraq was on the verge of developing Weapons of Mass Destruction or WMD. Using such false intelligence, the American administration led the illegal - under international law - invasion of Iraq in 2003.
CIA or other American intelligence agencies are not incapable of intelligence failures. Those same agencies do not only publish reports for the sake of divulging otherwise secret information. They also publish reports with an oftentimes political inclination.
As of 2020, Indonesia has yet to design and built a single nuclear reactor, whether for commercial or 'research' purposes.
This is a false line of argumentation.
For instance, according to this line of argumentation, Bangladesh, Nepal or Sri Lanka needs nuclear weapons more urgently than Pakistan since India already possess such weapons, and the Pakistani Armed Forces is substantially more capable than that of all of those three countries combined in more ways than one.
Similarly, you could argue Japan, South Korea and Taiwan would have needed nuclear weapons since China has long had such weapons and since, recently, North Korea has developed and acquired them.
A similar argument would also hold for numerous other countries in other parts of the world. Plenty of countries in the Latin American region, wary of American history of military interventions, assisted coups and regime change operations, would have all the reasons to develop and/or acquire such weapons.
This line of argumentation can be extended further to the Middle East region. Arab and non Arab majority countries alike would like to develop and/or acquire such weapons to counter the American, Israeli, Russian, French and/or British arsenal.
The same line of argumentation can be equally applicable to many countries in the African region, Caucasus region, ASEAN or Oceania region.
I hope it is clear to see that this line of argumentation does not merit much consideration.
The bulk of the world remains without any nuclear weapons in their inventory, as much as they would have liked reality to be different.
Thank you for this entirely useless piece of information.
Although useless, this piece of information still deserves some thanks because it reveals, once again, that Indonesia has never in its entire history designed and built a single nuclear reactor, whether for commercial or for 'research' purposes.
As much as some people may like to be in denial or would hope reality would be altered, the bitter reality remains that the vast majority of the world's countries are not in possession of any nuclear weapons.
The discussion about Iran is again, irrelevant. The regime has repeatedly insisted it never seeks nuclear weapons. Whether such assurances are credible or not, the fact remains due to their political stance, the West would always oppose Iran so long as the current regime is in power.
As simple as that.
Such examples could be seen in Saddam Hussein led Iraq, where the country was invaded by the USA and allies/poodles (depending on how you call them) irrespective of Iraq abandoning any such programme and undergoing intense UN-supervision (read: Western intelligence operatives scouring the length and breadth of Iraq for any 'smoking guns' evidence) and irrespective of its proven inability to develop any medium, intermediate or inter continental ranged ballistic missiles.
Such examples could also be seen in Libya, where the Gaddafi regime had abandoned its nuclear and WMD programme in exchange for sanctions relief. Only to be backstabbed later, by the same Western powers that had assured him earlier that abandoning nuclear weapons and associated delivery systems development programmes is in the best interests of Libya.
Irrespective of Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programme being shelved, or otherwise, the regime will continue to be under American/Western/Israeli crosshairs due to its very nature so long as it remains in power.
Therefore, while you made an irrelevant detour on the Iranian nuclear file, the point you made was unfortunately not in line with reality.
There are mostly ad-hominems and you would be well served in not resorting to such tactics when presenting your arguments.
Although I could pay you back in the same coin, the fact remains I do not need to as I consider myself above such childish tactics.
If you want to deviate into the topic of emotional outbursts, a certain member @Zafer and his emotional outbursts (that were subsequently well handled by moderator @Test7) or your irrelevant detours oftentimes containing inconsistent and illogical arguments as well as conveniently skirting bitter facts, may be worth taking a look into.
It can be argued that your lengthy detours on Indonesian supposed nuclear capabilities, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, is an example of shallow emotional outbursts that arose due to personal insecurities.
However, such arguments serve no purpose. Ad hominems do not improve the quality of any discussion. All members would do well to avoid ad hominems.
The first question may require rephrasing.
The second question may also require a greater deal of explanation.
Which particular period in South African history are you referring to? And how may they be relevant to our original discussion? That South African civilian and defence industrial development leaves their Nigerian counterpart in the dust?
Let us try avoid emotional outbursts because bitter facts are often hard to swallow.
You are free, at your convenience, to look up the first Muslim majority country to have publicly detonated a nuclear weapon and also the first Muslim majority country to have designed and developed a nuclear reactor.
I can assure you that country would not be Indonesia. I can also assure you that country would not be Nigeria, Bangladesh or Malaysia.
It is not unreasonable, as I have argued elsewhere previously in this forum, to list Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia as, arguably, the five most militarily powerful Muslim majority countries on the planet.
The Emirati regime, the regimes in Morocco or Algeria might also deserve an honourable mention. Perhaps, if the modernization attempts by the State of Qatar are successfully completed, their small but probably well equipped and probably well trained military may also deserve a mention.
I am not sure why your long and irrelevant detours, often filled with irrelevant or false facts and inconsistent and illogical arguments have to do with the totally inadequate Indonesian air force inventory.
The purpose of this thread, by Zionist regime/Israeli (depending on how you view it) member @500 was to approximate, using arbitrary effectiveness numbers assigned to each model of aircraft, to compile a rank of national airpower.
The 'national airpower score', if you can call it so, is a somewhat useful indicator of the effective airpower that can be mustered by a country based on aircrafts in their inventory - as estimated by the member @500.
It is not clear how he addressed such concerns as the multiplier effects of special missions aircrafts and whether the presence of an inordinately high number of bomber aircrafts in USAF inventory distorts the 'national airpower scores' for some countries.
It is also not clear if stealth, or low observable, aircrafts were awarded adequate scores for their air to air or air to surface capabilities.
Some intangible factors, as outlined in my previous post in this thread, were also hard to quantify and account for.
whatintarnation
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I'm not going to address everything but Indonesia does in fact have nuclear reactors built, solely for research purposes, however.
I did a simple google search and found this in a Wikipedia article.
edit: I just found out they're not Indonesian designed but they have been built nonetheless
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This comment is once again showing your impulse to talk about Indonesia geopolitical status with the urge to try to down play it in many of your posts.
I will try to answer it. With our current military equipment we have been regarded as regional power in ASEAN countries and it is actually a general understanding where knowledgeable people usually know. We dont need to have Air Force that is more powerful than Singapore in order to be regarded as regional power/leader in the region.
You need to see what leaders and big country formal think thank opinion to understand geopolitics situation in our region (South East Asia). Obama administration first foreign visit is to Japan, China, and Indonesia. Trump is not a parameter since he is considered as acting beyond the US general foreign policy but Trump administration still show great importance on US-Indonesia relationship despite we reject their demand to give them access for permanent air- refueling airbase where Malaysia fulfill it and Singapore is under US military protection PACT. Japan new administration first foreign visit is to Vietnam (current ASEAN chairman) and Indonesia.
To give you more perspective of what leaders and strategists are thinking I would give this statement from Chinese think thank that has close relationship with China government. It is in Global Times, Chinese government mouth piece. The statements are still fresh.
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Source: Global Times Published: 2020/12/22 19:23:39
Zheng Yongnian (Zheng), Presidential Chair Professor, Director of The Advanced Institute of Global and Contemporary China Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), shared his views on these issues with Global Times (GT) reporter Xu Hailin in a telephone interview.
GT: The world has been through so much in 2020. History will record it. What concerns you the most going forward into next year and beyond? And what do you expect most?
Zheng: Even if there was no COVID-19 pandemic, structural changes in the world had started. The coronavirus has accelerated many of emerging trends. The downfall of China-US ties and the US-launched trade war against China was already happening before the pandemic. These changes are a reflection of the West's relative decline and China's rapid growth. The changes are related to the United Nations-centered world order established after the WWII, and how it can be rebuilt.
The current world structure was basically built with the US as its center. I suppose, in the future world, there might not be any country that can build the world with itself as the core. The world won't be polarized but multipollar: China is growing; Russia remains a strong power; Germany and India are rising; and regional big powers like Indonesia are also getting a bigger role on the international stage.
Therefore, the world in the future will not be US-centered or China-centered, but multipolar. The scope of multilateralism that China has been adhering to is a great trend for the world. This is a reality and it is more in line with the interests of different countries.
Lessons for China from US COVID-19 crisis - Global Times
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I will try to respond to your latest post if I have some time but before that I would like to know your education first if you dont mind. What is your educational status ? Bachelor or master or Phd degree ? Do you get that from Canadian universities or non-Western universities ? I will disclose mine first to make it fair as I am just a bachelor degree from one of Indonesian universities.
If you dont mind to further disclose your identity, are you man or woman ? To make my question fair I will disclose mine as the photo in my profile is my own, so I am a man.
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E
Singapore is a city state.
About 730 sq km in area.
That's no more than 42 km by 30 km at its greatest extents.
"Israel" is a lot bigger. They are also more militaristic and maintain a stronger, more active, more advanced armed forces. Including air force.
It is not at all incredible that about 20,000 sq km could be adequate for basing anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 fighter or combat aircrafts.
As incredible as it may sound at first.
A significant chunk of that 20,000 sq km is also desert.
20,000 sq km is a lot bigger than some people may like to think.
To put things in perspective, if you (or anybody else) were to water a single tree in a 1 km by 1 km plot of land, and repeat this procedure for 20,000 consecutive days, you will still not be able cover every single sq km of territory over there in 50 years.
Now, think how many sq km of land would you need, on average, for a single fighter aircraft. Usually, it is multiple aircrafts that are located in a single airbase.
E
This comment is once again showing your impulse to talk about Indonesia geopolitical status with the urge to try to down play it in many of your posts.
I will try to answer it. With our current military equipment we have been regarded as regional power in ASEAN countries and it is actually a general understanding where knowledgeable people usually know. We dont need to have Air Force that is more powerful than Singapore in order to be regarded as regional power/leader in the region.
You need to see what leaders and big country formal think thank opinion to understand geopolitics situation in our region (South East Asia). Obama administration first foreign visit is to Japan, China, and Indonesia. Trump is not a parameter since he is considered as acting beyond the US general foreign policy but Trump administration still show great importance on US-Indonesia relationship despite we reject their demand to give them access for permanent air- refueling airbase where Malaysia fulfill it and Singapore is under US military protection PACT. Japan new administration first foreign visit is to Vietnam (current ASEAN chairman) and Indonesia.
To give you more perspective of what leaders and strategists are thinking I would give this statement from Chinese think thank that has close relationship with China government. It is in Global Times, Chinese government mouth piece. The statements are still fresh.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Global Times Published: 2020/12/22 19:23:39
Zheng Yongnian (Zheng), Presidential Chair Professor, Director of The Advanced Institute of Global and Contemporary China Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), shared his views on these issues with Global Times (GT) reporter Xu Hailin in a telephone interview.
GT: The world has been through so much in 2020. History will record it. What concerns you the most going forward into next year and beyond? And what do you expect most?
Zheng: Even if there was no COVID-19 pandemic, structural changes in the world had started. The coronavirus has accelerated many of emerging trends. The downfall of China-US ties and the US-launched trade war against China was already happening before the pandemic. These changes are a reflection of the West's relative decline and China's rapid growth. The changes are related to the United Nations-centered world order established after the WWII, and how it can be rebuilt.
The current world structure was basically built with the US as its center. I suppose, in the future world, there might not be any country that can build the world with itself as the core. The world won't be polarized but multipollar: China is growing; Russia remains a strong power; Germany and India are rising; and regional big powers like Indonesia are also getting a bigger role on the international stage.
Therefore, the world in the future will not be US-centered or China-centered, but multipolar. The scope of multilateralism that China has been adhering to is a great trend for the world. This is a reality and it is more in line with the interests of different countries.
Lessons for China from US COVID-19 crisis - Global Times
www.globaltimes.cn
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I will try to respond to your latest post if I have some time but before that I would like to know your education first if you dont mind. What is your educational status ? Bachelor or master or Phd degree ? Do you get that from Canadian universities or non-Western universities ? I will disclose mine first to make it fair as I am just a bachelor degree from one of Indonesian universities.
If you dont mind to further disclose your identity, are you man or woman ? To make my question fair I will disclose mine as the photo in my profile is my own, so I am a man.
1. You again tried to use ad hominems which are unnecessary and drag down the quality of the forum.
Try to address the arguments and ideas rather than the person or individual.
2. You again made unnecessary detours on unrelated topics and came up with useless conclusions.
This thread is about airpower, not about wishful thinking of some CCP bot.
Moreover, rather than some zombie bot in CCP territory, if you like what "professional" sounding think tanks believe, then here's one.
Map - Lowy Institute Asia Power Index
Map the distribution of power across 27 countries in the Asia-Pacific with @LowyInstitute Asia Power Index
An Aussie think tank.
I am not so easily impressed by "professional" sounding/appearing names as I care more about substance than looks or appearances.
Since the think tank is Aussie, it's fair to say they overrate Aussie national power. Let us exclude Australia from that discussion.
According to their (inaccurate but far more reliable than some CCP-zombie-bot) estimate, these are the most powerful countries of Asia-Pacific region. I have excluded Australia from the list because an Australian think tank is likely to be biased in its favour.
RANK SCORE TREND COUNTRY / TERRITORY
- 81.6 UNITED STATES
- 76.1 CHINA
- 41.0 JAPAN
- 39.7 INDIA
- 33.5 RUSSIA
- 31.6 SOUTH KOREA
- 27.4 SINGAPORE
- 20.8 THAILAND
- 20.7 MALAYSIA
- 19.9 INDONESIA
https://power.lowyinstitute.org/countries/australia/
Map - Lowy Institute Asia Power Index
Map the distribution of power across 27 countries in the Asia-Pacific with @LowyInstitute Asia Power Indexpower.lowyinstitute.org
As much as you would like to live in denial, those in the business of studying elements of national power estimate tiny Singapore as ASEAN's most powerful.
Not very flattering for your country, I am afraid.
Also, other smaller countries in ASEAN such as Thailand and Malaysia are said to be more powerful than yours.
Vietnam trails Indonesia but only marginally.
There is no reason to believe Lowy Institute, or any other think tank is the sole arbiter of truth or justice. And definitely not on an issue that is so hard to quantify objectively.
But there is no reason whatsoever to believe Indonesia is the regional big wig, unlike what you would have many members here believe.
Singapore is essentially an American protectorate today, as you rightly explained. They've also cozied up with India, another archenemy of Muslims worldwide. As they have done with Zionist regime/Israel.
Understandably, their evil nature and actions should be revealed to the world. No doubt about that, not one bit.
Still, some undeniable facts can not be changed by wishful thinking.
That Singapore maintains, according to this list, a considerably more powerful air force than any other ASEAN country, also a more powerful navy than any other ASEAN country, and that it does not expand its military might further, visibly, in order not to spark an arms race in the region given the already very significant and visible lead.
Within the wider "Muslim world", it is even harder to see Indonesia as a leader of any sorts. Not when it lacks in financial power, it lacks any definitively attractive ideology, when it lacks soft power, and most importantly, when it lacks any considerable amount of hard power or scientific and technological lead over all other countries in its bloc - the "Muslim world".
3. You should not continue on this path of emotional outbursts and irrelevant detours replete with irrelevant facts and inconsistent logic and argumentation.
No need for any ad hominems.
4. You are free, to explain in great details, how Indonesian air power, naval power, technological marvels, scientific advancements, space programme, nuclear programme lead either the ASEAN region, or the wider "Muslim world", or both.
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Indonesia can bought more fighter aircraft in hundreds if needed, the annual budget of more than 180 Billion US Dollar is clearly let us do that, and period of 1959 to 1965 is the obvious example on how determined Indonesia can be if needed.
E
That is equally as naive as thinking Indonesia can develop nuclear weapons at any time if it wanted to.
Reality is more complicated and oftentimes, bitter reality is hard to accept.
The reality is Indonesian air force, navy and armed forces, in general, remain in pitiful state.
Purchasing weapons is only one part of the equation. Saudi Arabian armed forces do not become exceedingly competent on account of purchasing a lot of overpriced weapons.
Even on this metric, Indonesia has repeatedly fallen short. We are yet to see any real progress on the development of Indonesian Armed Forces.
We have only seen speculation, discussions, negotiations, haggling, cancellation of contracts, failures after failures to meet publicized objectives such as "Minimum Essential Force".
We are yet to see this mythical mighty powerful Indonesian military, Air Force, Navy, Army, Ballistic and Cruise Missile Force, Nuclear Power that can lay waste to countries in any corner of the world.
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So what ? You know money is everything, we had the money and sure we don't need to eat grass every day like mighty Pakistani power
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More than half of Israel territory (about 13,000 km) is Negev desert: 200 x 120 x 220 km triangle. Its enough to put airbases and training + training can be done over sea also.
In terms of military density the world leader is Singapore. It is 1/31 of Israel size, but has very strong air force, army and navy.
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I would just like to add this here (mods can move this and other parts of convo to a new/existing thread if appropriate)...given we are talking/diminishing about Indonesia and its capacity to develop N-WMD.
Looking at science+engg. outputs w.r.t N-WMD-acquired country that seem to be brought up a bunch:
www.scimagojr.com
A) Of course its a "raw" number very much like the OP post, but gives a general idea.
B) If people want to launch into specifics of what I have personally seen through my own extended sampling/assay of papers from various countries, can start new thread etc
C) Further up you go, of course its harder to gain ranks...but interesting to compare fairly equivalent population countries or debated equivalent perceived power etc. w.r.t this conversation unfolding here especially
INA 2010 total = 2.9k (57)
INA 2019 total = 44.5k (21) gained 36 ranks
PAK 2010 total = 7.6k (44)
PAK 2019 total = 24.3k (34) slipped 10 ranks
INA 2010 Physics = 0.3k (60)
INA 2019 Physics = 11.2k (11) gained 49 ranks
PAK 2010 physics = 1k (44)
PAK 2019 physics = 3.6k (29) gained 15 ranks
INA 2010 Engg = 0.4k (62)
INA 2019 Engg = 11.1k (16) gained 46 ranks
PAK 2010 Engg = 0.9k (50)
PAK 2019 Engg = 5.3k (31) gained 19 ranks
Considering this:
A) What it takes to actually make a (crude, semi-advanced or advanced) bomb with well established technology since the 40s,50s,60s respectively. (60 year "freeze" gap now from 60s)
B) The number of countries above Pakistan in the ranking by raw quantity and also known deployed quality (in STEM, S&E, RnD) that dont have nuclear weapons
C) INA has worked in parallel disciplines with test reactors, foreign nuclear institutes/univesities and even medical isotope production w.r.t HEU byproducts
It is indeed only political will (and relevant analysis of geopolitical, geostrategic and economic consequence) that makes up the majority of stop sign for INA --> nuclear WMD
As it really is only political will (mostly driven by strategic need/pressure) that would push far industrially less advanced countries than INA today (at the time of their acquiring, dev, deploy) to go for N-WMD and to pick one of the two N-WMD main routes: fissile material enrichment (U-235) or breeding (Pu-239) and acquire those at any methods necessary (with compromises in each one)....when their current state at the time w.r.t RnD in the field was (and sometimes still is) a major obstacle
All largely depended on what they had ToT transferred from more advanced countries (in the field and industry in general) at the time under various political and economic guises.
Neutron economy is not hard science for 90%+ countries today (and I would suspect majority of members in this forum with a reading over few months of really what amounts to 6 or so papers)
Engineering is where handholding required if not enough assured human capital, funding etc (as is what happened in Pakistan's case with URENCO and AQ. Khan for example).
INA (And even lot more countries less S&E advanced than INA) has more than required on that (technical capability)....say gas centrifuge development....but it would need aforementioned will and consequence.
Longer topic are the status of countries like Japan, SoKo and Taiwan w.r.t disassembled screwdriver bomb. (stay within NPT, but high security readiness).
No one reasonable is also going to suggest Turkey is "behind" Pakistan on nuclear physics research (I can easily bring up specific papers showing this if anyone is interested if the scimajor rankings are not good enough on that particular field)....but Turkey deployed development of a N-WMD intersects again with same considerations as Indonesia to stave it off.
Looking at science+engg. outputs w.r.t N-WMD-acquired country that seem to be brought up a bunch:
SJR - International Science Ranking
www.scimagojr.com
A) Of course its a "raw" number very much like the OP post, but gives a general idea.
B) If people want to launch into specifics of what I have personally seen through my own extended sampling/assay of papers from various countries, can start new thread etc
C) Further up you go, of course its harder to gain ranks...but interesting to compare fairly equivalent population countries or debated equivalent perceived power etc. w.r.t this conversation unfolding here especially
INA 2010 total = 2.9k (57)
INA 2019 total = 44.5k (21) gained 36 ranks
PAK 2010 total = 7.6k (44)
PAK 2019 total = 24.3k (34) slipped 10 ranks
INA 2010 Physics = 0.3k (60)
INA 2019 Physics = 11.2k (11) gained 49 ranks
PAK 2010 physics = 1k (44)
PAK 2019 physics = 3.6k (29) gained 15 ranks
INA 2010 Engg = 0.4k (62)
INA 2019 Engg = 11.1k (16) gained 46 ranks
PAK 2010 Engg = 0.9k (50)
PAK 2019 Engg = 5.3k (31) gained 19 ranks
Considering this:
A) What it takes to actually make a (crude, semi-advanced or advanced) bomb with well established technology since the 40s,50s,60s respectively. (60 year "freeze" gap now from 60s)
B) The number of countries above Pakistan in the ranking by raw quantity and also known deployed quality (in STEM, S&E, RnD) that dont have nuclear weapons
C) INA has worked in parallel disciplines with test reactors, foreign nuclear institutes/univesities and even medical isotope production w.r.t HEU byproducts
It is indeed only political will (and relevant analysis of geopolitical, geostrategic and economic consequence) that makes up the majority of stop sign for INA --> nuclear WMD
As it really is only political will (mostly driven by strategic need/pressure) that would push far industrially less advanced countries than INA today (at the time of their acquiring, dev, deploy) to go for N-WMD and to pick one of the two N-WMD main routes: fissile material enrichment (U-235) or breeding (Pu-239) and acquire those at any methods necessary (with compromises in each one)....when their current state at the time w.r.t RnD in the field was (and sometimes still is) a major obstacle
All largely depended on what they had ToT transferred from more advanced countries (in the field and industry in general) at the time under various political and economic guises.
Neutron economy is not hard science for 90%+ countries today (and I would suspect majority of members in this forum with a reading over few months of really what amounts to 6 or so papers)
Engineering is where handholding required if not enough assured human capital, funding etc (as is what happened in Pakistan's case with URENCO and AQ. Khan for example).
INA (And even lot more countries less S&E advanced than INA) has more than required on that (technical capability)....say gas centrifuge development....but it would need aforementioned will and consequence.
Longer topic are the status of countries like Japan, SoKo and Taiwan w.r.t disassembled screwdriver bomb. (stay within NPT, but high security readiness).
No one reasonable is also going to suggest Turkey is "behind" Pakistan on nuclear physics research (I can easily bring up specific papers showing this if anyone is interested if the scimajor rankings are not good enough on that particular field)....but Turkey deployed development of a N-WMD intersects again with same considerations as Indonesia to stave it off.
