Yes Iran needs to be independent but also realistic.
Look at how far the Chinese have come. How did they do it ? Mostly technology transfers honestly.
They made deals with various foreign companies, allowing them access to the Chinese market in exchange for a 50/50 partnership with Chinese firms and full technology transfers.
After a few years or even sometimes after the initial project they no longer required the partnerships. That's how they built the turbines for the 3 Gorges Dam for example.
I believe that 70% of all high speed rail in the entire world is located in mainland China. Deng Xiaoping, China's leader after Mao, was inspired after visiting Japan and boarding their high speed rail line in the 80's I believe it was.
Anyways at first they worked with various foreign firms on a few projects, but now all of their cities are connected by fast, cheap and efficient high speed rail. This while the west, especially the USA, lags far FAR behind.
In any case 5th generation fighter jets are in the realm of only a few nations. Like I said it's not that difficult to come up with a basic design but building, especially mass producing 5th generation fighter jets is extremely difficult.
Even China, with its massive military budget, still purchased SU-35s and jet engines from Russia. Even their J-10 and J-20 use Russian engines. Recently the Chinese claim that they are now using their own engines but who knows. Still look how long it took them and some analysts claim that their engines are under powered.
For Iran it's not impossible to build a 5th generation fighter but it would be much easier and more feasible to work with a larger nation like China or Russia and receive technology transfers with a joint production deal.
Btw the Indians backed out of the SU-57 deal they had signed with Russia. They were apparently not satisfied with the capabilities and features of the jet. Since then the Russians claim that they have worked out the various issues that were plaguing the Su-57 but honestly who knows.
The Indians have now opted to purchase Rafale fighters from France. India claims that their radar can easily pick up the J-20 and that the J-20 is not truly stealth. Again who knows, but right now India is deploying Rafales to counter China's J-20s on their border region.
So in the end it's the USA, Russia, China and as far as Russia, China are concerned some claim that their 5th generation fighter jets are really not as capable.
Aside from those 3, you have BAE systems working on the Tempest, which will be used by the Europeans. Then you have Koreans (KF-X) and Japanese (Mitsubishi F-X) working on their protoypes and the Koreans are first building a non stealth variant I've heard.
And keep in mind Koreans and Japanese have full access to the US market and tech and it's even extremely difficult for them. Turkey was counting on BAE but now they're being blocked, so they're leaning on Pakistan to get access to Chinese technology, but who knows how far that will go. Many of their projects have been sidelined lately like their next gen tanks.
Basically stealth fighter jets, high end semi conductors and hypersonic missile technology. These are 3 fields which are extremely difficult to progress in and only a handful of nations have the ability to produce these products. The fact that Iran has been able to progress with missiles is a good sign, but remember Iran had to purchase missiles from Libya/North Korea in the 80's to be able to get to where it is today.
As far as semi conductors go, the most high end types, anything close to or less than 5 nanometers, require proprietary technology which costs billions and only 1 or 2 companies in the world can build the machinery required to mass produce them.
Stealth fighter jets, again can Iran pull it off by itself ? It's not impossible but it's highly unlikely and in my opinion, it's not feasible for Iran to be able to simply build a world class, competitive stealth fighter (even a prototype) out of the blue, independent from the the few countries who monopolize the technology.
It would be much more realistic, faster and easier for Iran to work with a third party to gain access to the technology. That's just my opinion but as always we can only wait and see.
Look at how far the Chinese have come. How did they do it ? Mostly technology transfers honestly.
They made deals with various foreign companies, allowing them access to the Chinese market in exchange for a 50/50 partnership with Chinese firms and full technology transfers.
After a few years or even sometimes after the initial project they no longer required the partnerships. That's how they built the turbines for the 3 Gorges Dam for example.
I believe that 70% of all high speed rail in the entire world is located in mainland China. Deng Xiaoping, China's leader after Mao, was inspired after visiting Japan and boarding their high speed rail line in the 80's I believe it was.
Anyways at first they worked with various foreign firms on a few projects, but now all of their cities are connected by fast, cheap and efficient high speed rail. This while the west, especially the USA, lags far FAR behind.
In any case 5th generation fighter jets are in the realm of only a few nations. Like I said it's not that difficult to come up with a basic design but building, especially mass producing 5th generation fighter jets is extremely difficult.
Even China, with its massive military budget, still purchased SU-35s and jet engines from Russia. Even their J-10 and J-20 use Russian engines. Recently the Chinese claim that they are now using their own engines but who knows. Still look how long it took them and some analysts claim that their engines are under powered.
For Iran it's not impossible to build a 5th generation fighter but it would be much easier and more feasible to work with a larger nation like China or Russia and receive technology transfers with a joint production deal.
Btw the Indians backed out of the SU-57 deal they had signed with Russia. They were apparently not satisfied with the capabilities and features of the jet. Since then the Russians claim that they have worked out the various issues that were plaguing the Su-57 but honestly who knows.
The Indians have now opted to purchase Rafale fighters from France. India claims that their radar can easily pick up the J-20 and that the J-20 is not truly stealth. Again who knows, but right now India is deploying Rafales to counter China's J-20s on their border region.
So in the end it's the USA, Russia, China and as far as Russia, China are concerned some claim that their 5th generation fighter jets are really not as capable.
Aside from those 3, you have BAE systems working on the Tempest, which will be used by the Europeans. Then you have Koreans (KF-X) and Japanese (Mitsubishi F-X) working on their protoypes and the Koreans are first building a non stealth variant I've heard.
And keep in mind Koreans and Japanese have full access to the US market and tech and it's even extremely difficult for them. Turkey was counting on BAE but now they're being blocked, so they're leaning on Pakistan to get access to Chinese technology, but who knows how far that will go. Many of their projects have been sidelined lately like their next gen tanks.
Basically stealth fighter jets, high end semi conductors and hypersonic missile technology. These are 3 fields which are extremely difficult to progress in and only a handful of nations have the ability to produce these products. The fact that Iran has been able to progress with missiles is a good sign, but remember Iran had to purchase missiles from Libya/North Korea in the 80's to be able to get to where it is today.
As far as semi conductors go, the most high end types, anything close to or less than 5 nanometers, require proprietary technology which costs billions and only 1 or 2 companies in the world can build the machinery required to mass produce them.
Stealth fighter jets, again can Iran pull it off by itself ? It's not impossible but it's highly unlikely and in my opinion, it's not feasible for Iran to be able to simply build a world class, competitive stealth fighter (even a prototype) out of the blue, independent from the the few countries who monopolize the technology.
It would be much more realistic, faster and easier for Iran to work with a third party to gain access to the technology. That's just my opinion but as always we can only wait and see.
corona unfortunally makes me believe that iran will not show off a 10k thrust engine anymore this year but maybe next year iran will most probably show several new tests
security still means if iran is capable to produce it all at home but sure if the first steps get supported the help will be appreciated but iran still needs to be independent in the military production area
these russian hunter drones btw are designed to work the way you mentioned as drone basically beside the airplane who is basically the commander of a squad of drones the chinese have the same concept working on both their stealth bomber and stealth fighter jets
swarm warfare will be very dominant in the next century in warfare and iran already is among the world leading in that aspect showing off swarming drones several times on air
Last edited: