Monday, October 26, 2015

If It Is True...

What Russian Internet is abuzz since this morning, then the radical change of whole naval paradigm is much closer than even most optimistic prognoses predicted. This morning Russian media broke news of  nuclear missile cruiser Admiral Nakhimov, which is currently undergoing deep modernization,  (after the list of state purchases for this modernization was published) to be armed with newest hyper-sonic ASM 3M22, aka Zirkon. 


Very little is known about this missile other than it is true hyper-sonic (M=5 +) High Precision Weapon and that it will change naval warfare drastically. The rumors about this missile were circulating for some years and some of them were absolute rubbish. What was clear, though, was the fact that Russia was well on her way in the advanced hyper-sonic R&D. This, at some point of time was confirmed by none other than Dmitri Rogozin. Procurement of the ASM, against which no defense exists, is a true game changer. I will not go into the details of this game-changing but the future of naval warfare looks very different from hyper-sonic vantage point than it was drawn by many contemporary military thinkers. We'll wait and see.....

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Oh No!! Evil Empire Just Arrested Chewbacca In...Odessa!!

Calling on Victoria Nuland, Calling on Victoria Nuland!!! Urgent!! Save Chewbacca, the Ukrainian "Democracy" is under threat......They finally did it, they arrested him. What an evil people. 


The Empire Strikes Back. I am sure it is Putin's evil plan.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

I Finally Earned The Honor.

I finally earned the honor of being banned from The National Interest discussion boards for pointing out obvious--utter incompetence, including that of Dmitri Simes, in the issues related to Russia. It is difficult to deny the history of amateurish journalism, name dropping and reducing the outlet to the Top-5 whatever they find "hot" at the moment, I guess Top-5 Kardashian moments or Top-5 Cutest Dogs are coming. I usually do not go to TNI that often, nor do I post there often either, especially as of late but my reaction to Simes' article
 
 
was simple. I simply asked those "strategists" (Simes included) to stop pretending that they know or understand anything when it comes to Russia's military-political developments. They are, in fact, utterly unqualified to pass any judgment on that. I just pointed that out, including the fact that US has NO strategy. The reaction was interesting.
 
I was contemplating a bit what to write on that when some people sent me the link to this superb piece by Michael Brenner:

 
This saves me the work of explaining the sewer level at which this whole US Russia "expert" community is.
 
"The swift Russian intervention into Syria exacerbates every one of the contradictory elements in Washington’s various, unintegrated Middle East policies. That is one reason for the unexpected moves by Putin are deeply unsettling. They not only add a major variable, but that factor also involves a self-willed player ready and able to take initiatives which are not predictable or easy to counter. An already fluid field of action, thereby, is rendered even more turbulent by orders of magnitude. Another, related reason is that since the United States has no comprehensive strategy, the repercussions of the Russian actions, military and political, are generating a piecemeal reaction that finds it difficult to gain any intellectual or diplomatic traction in each policy sphere. Theoretically, these developments should highlight the need for such an overarching strategy by underscoring the costs of not having one. There is no evidence, though, of that happening within the Obama administration – or within the American foreign policy community generally.  Why? In addition to the manifest lack of aptitude for such an undertaking, the kinds of conceptual adjustments indicated by the Russian intervention touch on highly sensitive questions of America’s status and mission in the world  which its political elite is unprepared to engage."(c)
 
 Couldn't have said better myself.  This, plus the obvious fact that no number of emigres, such as Simes and current sources they have in Russia (that is mostly in the same old ultra-liberal Moscow Parnassus), will change a simpe fact of Russia-American relations--American side simply has NO meaningful knowledge of Russia. So, here I am, banned and in exile;-),  but this still does not change the simple fact that no person of real decision-making position or power in Russia will communicate anything of value or substance (except for the media-cliches and general policy statements) to any Western "analysts" or "journalist". It is over, the West committed cultural suicide in Russia. So, in conclusion, Brenner again:
 
"These compounded frustrations lie behind the incandescent outrage at Russia’s temerity by American officials and the entire commentariat. The latter category includes highly regarded veteran “Sovietologists” like Strobe Talbott (former high official and now head of the Brookings Institution) and David Remnick (author of excellent books on the break-up of the Soviet Union and now editor of The New Yorker) whose supposed intimate knowledge of Russia is belied by the tenor of their emotional anti-Putin diatribes at once simplistic and at variance with the facts. Americans are reacting erratically to omens of the country’s mortality as global hegemon. 
One never should underestimate the extent to which belief in American exceptionalism/superiority sustains collective and individual self-esteem."
 
 

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

No Comments...Just The Question On What Is He Smoking.


SAINT-NAZAIRE (AP) — France is looking to sell new ships to Russia in the future despite the cancellation of a controversial deal for two Mistral-class warships this year, French President Francois Hollande said Tuesday.


I am sure Russian Navy is dreaming of this transaction. 

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

The Perils Of Mosquito (conclusion).

I was about to continue with fairly extensive conclusion on the topic of Mosquitoes when, well, Russian Navy, or, to be more precise, Red Banner Caspian Flotilla simply demonstrated what those small missile ships, granted, accompanied by a larger corvette Dagestan, can do. The file on REAL distributed lethality is, finally, open. 4 ships, with total displacement of about half that of a single destroyer and the price tag even less than that, launched the salvo of 26 Kalibr cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea. Some time later, those missiles hit 11 targets of terrorists in Syria--about 1500 kilometers away. Strategic ramifications of this are colossal, it was clear already before, but after today it became a reality of an immense power of modern missile weapons and those seemingly "unimpressive" platforms which carry them. After all, the range of Kalibr is up to 2500 kilometers and GLONASS' combat (not civilian) CEP  (Circular Error Probable) is rumored to be about 0.4-0.6 meters, that is 1.5-2 feet. 


Will Russia put active homing device on Kalibrs? Possible, but 5000 kilometer range cruise missiles are already in line for procurement.

P.S. Now I have to rewrite almost completed article for Proceedings submission. The article about, and you may have guessed it already, what else--Mosquito fleet.  

 

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Some Fast Thoughts on Syria

Being extremely busy, I had no chance of offering any remarks on the situation in Syria. I will try to make some points now (very fast).

Hysteria in US media re: Russian airstrikes on IS in Syria revealed....well--it revealed nothing what have not been known before. But let me summarize.

US main-stream and even some "alternative" media and, the so called, "expert community" should implement several measures which may, in the long run, save them at least some remains of what is known as a face--first, they should fire themselves and fade into the obscurity. This hysteria, such as preposterous claims of Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters on Fox News:

Peters: Putin Is Humiliating Obama, Wants to Humiliate the U.S. and Our Military     

tells us this:

1. Peters, who for some unknown reasons, possibly because he met several Soviet/Russian officers at some point of time and served in some "intelligence" outfit in Germany during Cold War, has a reputation of "Russia's military expert" in the US. I don't know, if writing some mediocre prose about Soviet Armed Forces gets one into the "expert community" then, sure, he is an "expert". Never mind that for decade now this "expert" community lives in a state of the deer caught in the headlights of the oncoming car--it can not understand what, why and how hit them when dealing with Russia. Peters is from this cohort of "experts". But his rant exposes as much of his "concern" for the looks of the US and its Armed Forces as his sheer incompetence (the guy still thinks that Iraq misadventure was great) in the subject he allegedly was specializing throughout his "intelligence" career--Russia. 

I have news for Ralph Peters:

a) Russian Air Force is in Syria not because it wants to "humiliate" US or its Armed Forces--they are doing a swell job themselves --but because, if this "military expert" community doesn't know, Russia does have an agency in what she does and it is, as a rule, a very well calculated risk taking. 

b) Russia is in Syria to clean out the mess which Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel and US created there under the pretext of Assad's "crimes"--they turned Syria into the hot bed of terrorism. They empowered IS and other terrorist organizations and now are lying about it. The snafu with "moderate" rebels, who are nothing more than "gentler" version of IS and US support for them, the whole 5 or 6 of them, testifies to the fact of utter irresponsibility and malice on part of the US, whose media and political "elites" think that there are bad and good terrorists. 

c) Russia is in Syria to fight Islamic terrorists THERE rather than in her own North Caucasus, which makes total geopolitical sense for Russian Federation. And, yes, this campaign makes comparisons not only warranted but irresistible and those comparisons are not in US favor. That is why there is so much lying and hysteria in US media an their "experts". 

UN slams 'inexcusable' Afghan hospital air strike that kills 19  

Which brings us to the second point:

2. Some operational and tactical issues. Recent enormous spike in the operational and tactical "assessments" of Russian force deployed to Syria, done mostly by...sigh..whom else--humanities "educated" journo hacks--reveals a huge panic against the background of collapsing American military-technological narrative, which endured since the Gulf War-1. The favorite schtick of Tom Clancy "educated" military "experts" is High Precision Weapons. Obviously, for "experts" of such background, who followed Russian doctrinal and operational development from US media (that is were lied to), it comes as a surprise that Russia DOES have High Precision Weapons and uses them when necessary. 

While many pointed out that Russian planes such as Su-25SM and Su-24M in Syria use free falling bombs (OFABs), which they do, it didn't occur to them that even free-falling bombs, when used with appropriate navigation-aiming complex, provide a very high level of accuracy. But then, of course, there are GLONASS-guided KAB-250s and 500s which are carried by Su-34s and are used widely in Syria against terrorist installations and bunkers. 

 
For those who are interested in the Soviet/Russian High Precision Weapons, they may find some answers here:

Soviet/Russian Guided Bombs

United States does not have monopoly on HPW and all other types of high precision and stand off weapons since 1970s. Obviously, Russia has other options for striking high value terrorist targets--deploying at some point Black Sea Fleet's missile boats, which carry Kalibr missiles (range of 2500 km), into the Eastern Mediterranean. In general, Russia does have options in Syria but we should observe the dynamics of the operation there very cautiously.  After all, it is just the beginning. 

As per media--they will continue to lie, propagate all kind of BS and try to make Russia look like an aggressor. For that I would say: the caravan passes and the dog barks. As per possible, but most likely improbable,  clash between US and Russian Air Forces? I think there are plenty of professionals on both sides on the ground (and in the air) to avoid what could be an apocalyptic event.