Another sector that should be significantly impacted by theglobal economic downturn is the international arms market, where tighter budgets will favorreverse-engineered knockoffs like the newly marketed Chinese HQ-9 surface-to-air missile:
That pretty much sums up the Chinese arms export model. This particular system is basically a not-so-bad Russian S-300 for less money. That might not havemade for a very tempting sales pitch a year ago, but my hunch is thatit won’t sound half-bad for the foreseeable future. I’m curious to see whether Russia or China supplies Venezuela’s next major hardware purchase, for instance.
Of course, eventually performance will improve, meaning that any inroads China makes in the arms export market could prove durable beyond the belt-tightening period to come.
Meanwhile, here’s Defense Industry Daily on the system’s wider significance:
That wouldn’t be a plug for the F-22, now, would it?