Stardate 20020831.1947

(On Screen): With little fanfare, an event of deep significance has taken place in Dubai. Kuwait has signed a deal worth $2.1 billion to purchase 16 AH-64D Apache attack helicopters, along with four spare engines for each, weapons, and targeting systems. A deal has been made for a supply of spare parts. 48 Kuwaiti pilots and technicians will train in the US. The first delivery will be in 2005.

Several of the nations in that area have AH-64A's. Saudi Arabia has 12, the Emirates have 30, and Egypt has 36.

Kuwait will be getting D's, otherwise known as the Longbow Apache. Among other differences are a millimeter wavelength radar, the ability to use Hellfire missiles (several hundred of which are also part of this deal), and improved engines.

Why is this significant? It means that Kuwait is cooperating with American plans for an attack on Iraq. This is part of their reward. And it also means they'll have to continue cooperating, because they won't get those helicopters until long after we've fought that war.

All the nations in that area have publicly condemned our plans to attack Iraq, but in some cases it appears it was only posturing. All Iraq's neighbors have had to publicly come out against such an attack for fear that they might face Iraqi military retaliation before the US was ready to go. But in the case of Kuwait, that condemnation was muted. Mostly the Kuwaitis are trying to keep out of the spotlight.

Still, there have been reports that there has been substantial quiet cooperation, and none of the obstructionism that the Saudis have been using. For instance, it's reported that:

Since 1993 the US has pre-positioned weapons, supplies and vehicles in Kuwait and Qatar and on vessels in the region to equip at least three brigades of troops, roughly 9,000 to 15,000 soldiers who would fly there from the US. These troops could be airlifted and ready for action in 96 hours. The 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized) from Fort Stewart, Georgia, is now rotating its three brigades through tours of duty in Kuwait, utilizing prepositioned combat equipment capable of fully supporting a three-battalion brigade based at Camp Doha, just west of Kuwait City.

At the moment, the 3rd Brigade from Fort Benning is deployed, using this materiel, and current plans call for a hand over to the 2nd Brigade, from Fort Stewart, likely around September. The force also includes a number of combat support and logistics units which support ongoing exercises to rehearse the unloading of tanks and equipment from prepositioned ships and the manning of Patriot missile batteries. It has been reported that these exercises have recently involved several thousand more personnel and that the total number of US military in Kuwait has increased to over 10,000.

In my discussion a few days ago about Soviet military equipment, what I claimed was that when a nation doesn't have a lot of money and wants to field an army which looks really impressive, they would invariably go with Soviet equipment. For purposes of impressing the neighbors and of cowing dissent within the nation itself, it works really well, as long as you don't actually expect to fight a major war against a comparably equipped opponent.

But when a nation is truly preparing to defend itself against a formidable threat, and actually wants to equip a military which can fight and win, they want only the best and they usually come to the US, particularly for our aircraft. Pakistan and India have both been competing for a long time to try to get an edge in American jets. Taiwan and South Korea are major customers, and Israel was until it started making its own.

Kuwait isn't trying to build a force that looks good; after its experience in 1990 it wants a force that can actually fight. So like several of the rich nations in that area, their force is mostly made up of equipment purchased from us. Our stuff costs a fortune, but it also wins. Defeat is even more expensive.

Some of the reason why they come to us is the reputation that our equipment has gained because of our own uses of it militarily, in Kuwait and Yugoslavia and Afghanistan and elsewhere, but a lot of it is because our stuff really is that good. It's expensive, but when the survival of your nation is on the line, it's cheap at the price.

But it also means you have to be friends with the US, or else your flow of spare parts will be cut off and your equipment will become progressively more and more useless. This is one of the big forms of persuasion and influence we have in the region, and it's not often given the credit it deserves. If any of the Arab nations which have huge forces of American military equipment ever totally alienate us, their military power will begin to degrade. (Which is one of the big reasons that the government of Saudi Arabia continues to push the rhetoric about how good of friends they and we are.) On the other side of the coin, most of the ones who have decided to remain friendly would like to keep buying new equipment from us, and we can use that as part of negotiations on other issues, or to reward cooperation.

After the Gulf Wa