- By Stingray, Thai Intel’s national security journalist
After years of debate, pinging back and forth between various government and the Thai military establishment, the latest here in Thailand, is that Thailand’s defense minister will, within days, table to Yingluck‘s cabinet-the approval to spend some US$150 million to purchase 4 used German submarine, from the “Cold War” era.
According to many military related blog analysis, the used German subs are more “deadly” than what the local Thai press are saying-calling the German sub, quote: “An excellent platform.”
However, within ASEAN, like with Indonesia, such an excellent submarine platform, typically must be up-graded, in order to be cutting-edge. And indeed, Indonesia, has been up-grading its submarine-to the point that recently, after an up-grade, Indonesia press said, quote: “Indonesian submarine is now on par with the region.”
Here in Thailand, however, the situation is different.
That “Ping” back and forth between the various Thai government and the Thai military establishment-indicates a “Political Base” that does not understand or accept, the fundamental rationale of why Thailand needs submarine.
As can be seen by Yingluck’s Defense Minister, who was quoted by the Thai press, as saying, quote: “Now that the Thai navy will get submarines, it must understand how that will impact its overall operation and costs associated with those operations, and the Thai navy should realize, where to save and cut costs.”
Furthermore, local newspaper, such as the Bangkok Post, have reported, that this fleet of Thai submarines, could end up such as Thailand’s drive to purchase a small aircraft carrier-where the Bangkok Post said, have had to remain in docks for most of the time, because of the lack of operational budget.
In the final analysis, if all those foreign blogs on military affairs are correct, that the German submarine is an “Excellent Platform” it appears that Yingluck, is running silent, on the potential future up-grade of these submarines.
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