BD has an economy of 110 billion USD dollars growing at 7% a year. It's budget spending to GDP ratio is likely to rise from the current 17% to over 20% by the end of this decade. Looking far forward to 2030, this percentage will get to anywhere from 25-30%.
I would have thought that a country like BD would have procured FC-1 fighters between 2010-2014, J-10B/NG Gripen fighters from 2015-2019 and then 5th generation JSF/J-XX fighters from 2020 onwards.
In the past, BD had no choice but to purchase F-7 aircraft.
That is not the case now, and the only conclusion is that there are absolute morons running the country.
I have a theory. Since Zillur Rahman is old, along with the other old fools on the cabinet (regardless if AL or BNP) an F-7 does look very modern
It's like an F-35 for them
As far as 5th generation fighters go, we can technically afford them, but then we have a massive population to take care of.
there is another problem... Not many bangladeshis support military spendings.... It is you, me or some other people who are interested in military wants advanced techs but my experience of talking military in common people says 80% of them oppose military spendings....
Unfortunately, this is true. But they do have a point. Although it's invalid.
There are several impoverished and underprivileged people in Bangladesh alone. They are assuming that instead of spending on military, they should spend to eradicate poverty. I heard one naive fool who stated that we don't even need a military and we will become like Luxembourg in one day!
Unfortunately for them, it isn't that simple. Our neighborhood is not like that of Luxembourg, and we have a huge and mostly impoverished population to take care of with limited resources, including land.
See from the nature of our system, it doesn't matter if we don't spend at all on military. Poverty will just as be the same as it now. That money would instead go into the pockets of ministers and MPs. And technically, it isn't the job of the military to carry out charity operations, or work to solve global warming issues, other than post natural disaster operations. So, it's better to have something than nothing.
Another potential issue that Bangladeshi people despise about the army is due to the fact that they hold so much land. And I mean, a
LOT of land all around the country. With nothing more than trees and squirrels. And it's not only army, there's land for air force, navy and BGB.
But as history suggests, this was an inevitable outcome. Thanks to the dangerously flawed policies against the military of the Mujib era.
Mujib was not a bad man. His flaw was lack of experience, and made friends and alliances with many bad people. And I mean
BAD people. Probably evil. And he was successful for a separate Bangladesh in a very short period of time. I'd say, there was no such thing as 'quality control' within the AL's rule, then, now and will continue to be that way tomorrow.
Those are the kind of things that many Bangladeshis forget about. And as history states, we are a forgetful nation. When will those "80 percent" start taking responsibility for themselves and be assertive other than allowing others to run the show? Only time will tell.
We are a forgetful nation who simply refuse to take any initiative ourselves.
