One reason why neighbors Peru and Ecuador are more than ordinarily touchy about their long-standing border dispute (see above) is that they are currently competing with each other in an expensive jet air-power race. Last year the Peruvians asked the U.S. to sell them twelve F-86 Sabre-jet fighters. During the past ten months, Ecuador got twelve Meteor fighters and six Canberra twin-jet medium bombers from Britain. Last week came the Peruvian retort: the government announced that it had signed up for 20 of Britain's late-model Hawker Hunters.
Neither Peru (pop. 9,300,000) nor Ecuador (pop. 3,400,000) can really afford to spend millions of...
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