Having dumped hundreds of millions of dollars over the last decade-plus creating an air force for Afghanistan, the Pentagon is looking to virtually re-do the entire scheme, proposing another $814 million to replace the Russian-made helicopters the US bought with American-made Black Hawk helicopters.
Afghanistan’s remnant air force at the start of the US occupation included a handful of old Soviet helicopters from the Soviet occupation. With Afghanistan’s limited pilots more experienced at flying Soviet planes, the US bought a number of Mi-17 helicopters from Russia and the Czech Republic, forming the backbone of the Afghan Air Force to this day.
The Pentagon is now arguing that they should replace the entire fleet of helicopters with UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, citing “legal barriers” in the acquisition of additional Russian-made helicopters and parts over the past couple years of hostility.
It is noteworthy that the Pentagon is pushing this plan before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, as Trump is said to plan a rapprochement with Russia which would likely resolve these concerns, at least in the near term.
While the Pentagon is presenting this primarily as a one-off expense that will make it easier to procure parts and replacement helicopters in the future, because in all honesty the US is on the hook for subsidizing the Afghan military more or less forever, it ignores the substantial difficulty of retraining the entire Afghan Air Force in using this totally different style of helicopter.
Retraining is an obstacle which was previously seen as so insurmountable that it was why the US bought Russian helicopters for them in the first place.
What is another billion at this point? Well I guess it is $10 from every taxpayer
Yeah, keep throwing good money after bad into this bottomless pit.
And who will pay for it? Not just one time but forever as Agganistan has no money. What a sweet deal. Like the one in Kosovo where the setup is such that it will prevent US and NATO (also US ) from leaving. Ever. Our friends, Kosovo Albanians have a real taste for destroying Christian churches, monasteries, and cemetaries. Having destroyed a few hundred — now we must keep guard 24/7 around the remaining monasteries. We praise our Pristina friends, while making sure they do not go on a rampage against anything Christian. In Afghanistan we have many tribes that need to be kept apart and prevent them from killing each other. Perfect. Stay for ever. Supply with weapons –forever. Problem is — if Trump is to meet hos key goals, evonomic growth and rebuild military — this is the last thing he needs. He needs to reduce conflicts, not expand, syop nation building, bring bases home to spend on US soil, and ghus save money for economy and military rebuilding. Our own helicopters gave too much mileage on them while we give new ones to Afghanistan, Kosovo, Kurds.
Ok. Helicopters are not an “Airforce”.
They certainly could be. A country too small to deploy and land fixed-wing aircraft without exceeding its borders might stick entirely to helicopters. A country too mountainous for most fixed-wing operations to make sense might stick entirely to helicopters. A country that can’t afford modern fixed-wing combat aircraft might decide to spent half as much on attack helicopters (less if they are older).
An air force is a force in the air.
Who is paying for the helicopters? The USA? What a great deal for taxpayers!
Those particular Russian helicopters were chosen for purchase by the US because their design was specially modified for operations to and from high altitude landing zones and to fly over high mountains.
US helicopters are not designed for that. In fact, US helicopters sent to Albania proved unable to fly over the mountains into Serbia as intended during the Kosovo operations. Afghan mountains are much higher.
US helicopters do operate in Afghanistan, but the Russian machines operate better. They carry heavier loads higher, and can safely get in and out of more places, and over higher places. Afghanistan is all BIG mountains. It is the place that caused the Russians to do this redesign.
This is a billion dollars being spent for something worse, just to buy new from US military industrial contractors.