Hi,
It was like a war between the russians and americans as to who could grab more german scientists---.
It is such a fascinating thing to see that what the germans designed around 80-90 years ago was too advanced for the time period.
Indeed, it was truly astonishing, and reminded me of the fact that the basics never change.
Their development was based on a solid educational infrastructure, followed by pure imaginative research. They were brave enough to chase their dreams and unafraid of putting effort and money into ideas that may have sounded crazy at the time. That’s why they had some crazy results and crazy tanks and massive guns. They probably would have been better spending some of that money on the actual war effort rather than new new new, but it’s all about the choices you make.
On the matter of choices, I think Pakistan has made extremely smart choices that have paid off. Some may have been made consciously, others just worked in our favour, but we did OK. Everyone gets carried away with their own ideas, about this deal and that deal. But they forget access to western technology or any other was not an open market for Pakistan. We had to go to the Russians for a steel plant when the west was our friend; we were under military sanctions between 1965 to 1980 and then again in the 1990's. Throughout our history, only the Pentagon and the State department favoured Pakistan because of the "Red" fear, but the Congress, where the pay cheque is approved, has always been pro India, and mindful of our lack of relations with Israel. Some of our compatriots tend to get too simplistic when looking at the position of Pakistan in history, whilsts ignoring the relations to the actual ground realities of the time.
Let’s not forget, Pakistan had zero industrial infrastructure, or any other infrastructure of any kind in 1947. I think I may still have the paper that says we had half of a university, that’s the Punjab university, one campus was in Lahore the other in East Punjab, we got half a university and the total number of enrolled university students was less than 1000 in the entire country. I think we have done ok. If anyone is interested, I can try to find that paper.
On the other hand, India began with all the advantages that we did not, an established government infrastructure, modern ship building industry that started in the early 19th century, multiple armament factories, metals and steel industry, their nuclear body was actual setup in 1945 if I remember correctly, and the list goes on.
Please let’s try and be gentle with our beautiful Pakistan, critcism is good, so is recognition of good.
