We don’t have political will why spend 20 billion in arms if you can use that money to build empire for your kids abroad
Even Algeria a country 60 percent the economic size of Bangladesh has a whopping defense spending of 21 billion in 2024. Anything is possible.
Please note! Generation 5 fighters are fundamentally different from previous generations, and buying and using them has completely different requirements. They are more than just the capital cost of buying a fighter jet outright.
1. extremely high maintenance costs.
It is always known that the stealth coatings of 5th generation fighters are very fragile.
Dedicated hangars and regular repainting of the stealth coating is a very large expense.
If we carefully check the maintenance cost of US F-35/F-22, we will find that this money maintenance cost is not within the affordable range of BAF.
2, Tactical significance.
The distance from Dhaka to any location in Bangladesh is not more than 400 KM. the high speed performance (supersonic cruise) of the 5th generation fighters means nothing. Even J-10CE is considered a waste of performance for BAF, JF-17B3 is enough to deal with all threats to BAF.
3. modern advanced military information systems.
Allow me to list an example:
Huawei's latest smartphone.It is the smartphone with the fastest internet speed available. It has satellite calling capabilities. But it can only fully utilize these features in the hands of Chinese users. Because only China has the SkyTalk satellite and only China has the 5.5G communication network. If African users buy it, the satellite call function will be automatically disabled and the communication network can only work in 3G/4G range.
The 5th generation fighter jet is not just a fighter jet, it is also an important port in the modern advanced military information network. It relies heavily on a vast network of advanced military information.
It requires military satellites, early warning aircraft, ground radar stations, tactical command centers ...... Military information equipment, such as military information equipment constitute a huge advanced military information network to provide data support.
If the support of these systems is set aside, the 5th generation fighter is completely inferior to the 4th generation fighter. ------ The design concept of the 5th generation fighter relies on this, and for this reason it discards many of the strong stand-alone capabilities of the 4th generation fighter.
It would not be difficult for most countries to buy 8-10 5th gen fighters. However, there are only a handful of countries that can fully support them properly. PAF will also need to invest extra huge amount of money in upgrading the existing military information systems to be able to use the J-35 properly. otherwise, these J-35s are just a statue purchased by PAF.