The U.S. has long had laws that prevent a wide range of equipment, from being exported, without approval of the government. This is to prevent the wrong nations from benefitting from American technology, especially for military purposes. Now the U.S. State Department , in an unexpected move, has halted the export of ship engines (LM-2500s) to India.
Didn't anybody at State run this past the American Desk? Oh yeah, never mind.
If the Indian government had any brains, they'd declare us their enemy. Then we'd give them the damn engines to engage with them, while explaining the engines are useless unless installed in a ship, and Lord knows when they might do that--if they even want to! And they have to have fuel for the engines, anyway ...
UPDATE: What did I say? And the example came so quickly, too:
China is buying the Honeywell LTS101-700D-2 engine for its Z-11 light helicopter. Normally, American military grade equipment cannot be sold to China, but the Z-11 is considered a civilian helicopter. This despite the fact that there is a military version, which is armed with four anti-tank missiles, two 12.7mm machine-guns or four rocket launchers.
It takes a village to screw your friends, I suppose. So when do we get to the "smart" part of our new diplomacy?
