Space based recon and targeting Liana finally gets its active radar and imaging constellation (passive Lotos satellites are already in orbit) of Pion-NKS into the final stretch with the launch of KOSMOS-2550 on 25 June 2021.
There is one detail, however, which needs to be explained to laymen--Liana does not "guide" missiles. Missiles are guided by onboard inertial navigation system and correct their path using a wide variety of means from GLONASS to celestial navigation means, to, in case of land attack missiles by means of TERCOM and DSMAC. Liana provides the most important service: it detects the target(s) and "issues" coordinates (targeting data) which allows the guidance of the salvo to the accurate targets' vicinity in which missiles are capable to detect (refined search--dorazvedka) and lock on the target(s) with their seekers, whatever those might be ranging from radar to optronic or mixed. Targeting is the most important thing and Liana is capable to deliver it already, once all Pions are in orbit, well we may only speculate how much territory they will cover but those will undoubtedly be the most important theaters of operations of US and NATO navies. I guess training of TU-22M3s and MiG-31Ks at Khmeimim base has a lot to do with Liana finally coming online in full force. Recall that X-32 has a range of 1000+ kilometers while Kinzhal has a range of 2000 kilometers etc. You know, Mediterranean and all. Recall this from three years ago:
I cannot stop laughing. You all know my attitude towards Western so called mainstream media (MSM), but this is too good. From Glenn Greenwald about Rachel Maddow and her so called "show".
LOL. Throwing out a lawsuit by OAN (One America News) against Maddow on the account of her calling OAN "Russian propaganda", the judge concluded:
On one hand, a viewer who watches news channels tunes in
for facts and the goings-on of the world. MSNBC indeed produces news,
but this point must be juxtaposed with the fact that Maddow made the
allegedly defamatory statement on her own talk show news segment where
she is invited and encouraged to share her opinions with her viewers.
Maddow does not keep her political views a secret, and therefore,
audiences could expect her to use subjective language that comports with
her political opinions.Thus, Maddow’s show is different than a
typical news segment where anchors inform viewers about the daily news.
The point of Maddow’s show is for her to provide the news but also to
offer her opinions as to that news. Therefore, the Court finds that the
medium of the alleged defamatory statement makes it more likely that a
reasonable viewer would not conclude that the contested statement
implies an assertion of objective fact.
I think Maddow would prefer to be sued than have this dismissal of a lawsuit associated with her)))) In related news, because my blog is all about my "opinion", Rachel Maddow should check herself into the mental asylum, because she is nothing more than a sanctimonious ignorant uncultured activist with huge psychological issues, namely cyclical depression she suffered from childhood. Here is a snippet:
Which means she has zero of academic and life qualifications to offer her opinion on any serious global political issue, least of all on matters of foreign relations, intelligence and military, especially in any operational and strategic sense. I know, however, that for people of her lack of culture it is beyond comprehension that in any healthy society, and there are some segments even in America which still qualify, she is and would be viewed as nothing but cheap propagandist sublimating own complexes into a sanctimonious BS on air for a public who, as even court concludes, is aware that Maddow's opinions are nothing more than, well, BS. But then again, whole Western MSM establishment is nothing more than BS-peddling machine. So, court's ruling fully applies. The rest is a judicial psychobabble.
Oops, I didn't know that it is already deployed on some ships but International Naval Salon 2021 (aka IMDS-2021) in St. Petersburg did produce some sensations in weapons, and the most important of them is the introduction of the new AD complex Resurs (Resource) which is already deployed on a number of Russian Navy's corvettes. First, in Russian, creators of NPO Almaz and Fakel explain:
Two missiles, one medium to short range (from 1.5 to 40-50 km) 9M96M and short range 9M100 (from 0.5 to 15 km), both in VLS. The complex is designed based on principle "one target-one missile" and full "shoot and forget" capability. Now get this, read attentively:
Translation:Any ship detection radar with enough accuracy can provide targeting for Resurs, added Pavlov. That makes the installation of the complex on existing ships less expensive.
He also stresses that it can attack any number of targets. But read attentively what is underlined and highlighted in yellow. Basically anything which has VLS can carry a mix of these missiles which can intercept pretty much anything flying above M=3.5. Suddenly, even such platforms as project 21631 missile corvettes can carry a number of such missiles and serve as AD umbrella for a strike group of similar ships, because it will be able to launch Poliment-Redut's 9M96 too in the nearest future.
This is an evil weapon system (wink, wink) which changes a lot in a complex calculus of modern naval warfare and yet another demonstration of a good weapon system's design which seeks a maximum combat efficiency for a good price. I am not sure about feasibility of installation of 3C14 on something like a fishing trawler but it could be a damn humiliating proposition for any combat aircraft (not to speak of a salvo of Harpoons) to be shot down by anything, which carries Positiv-ME radar and 8 UKSK cells, at a distance of 100 kilometers. After all, who knows what do they carry in their VLS cells. Damn, things become very complicated.
In other news. Western journos and "experts" suck. Duh!
And a generic justification for a mess that the US military acquisition system has become from all quarters of the American think-tankdom who care to notice that the United States consistently is not ready to fight real wars. Yet another one of those justifications appeared yesterday in TAC and it is, as is expected, well, generic.
Generic, of course, but the author of the piece takes us on a journey to the La-La Land of the American coherent global strategy:
So it’s worth taking a look at what research, development, and fielding
of new weapons looked like when America had a clear mission—and when the
American defense sector championed merit over politics. In order for
future developments such as the Air Force’s promising Next Generation
Air Dominance program to succeed
And the author gets immediately into the American military myths.
The Lockheed Corporation, predecessor to the F-35’s embattled designer
Lockheed Martin, was responsible for building some of the most
impressive aircraft in history. Lockheed’s Advanced Development
Projects, nicknamed “Skunk Works” as a reference to a 1940s comic strip, built aircraft
that played a pivotal role in countering the Soviet Union during the
Cold War. The F-80 Shooting Star was the first jet fighter to shoot down
another jet, a Soviet MiG-15 fighter over Korea. The ultra-lightweight
U-2 reconnaissance aircraft flew high over Soviet territory, taking
photographs of military installations from up to 80,000 feet and evading
early surface-to-air missiles. The A-12 and SR-71 spy planes added
extreme speed to extreme altitude, blazing past Soviet air defenses at
up to three times the speed of sound. Skunk Works was effective because
its top-notch engineers were allowed to operate with relative freedom
from Lockheed’s bureaucracy and management constraints, and even
encouraged to bypass standard procedures when necessary.
It is forgivable for a person with such a generic background as Chris Nagavonski's, to write a generic and militarily and historically ignorant piece. But what do you expect? Truth is, when talking about American ingenuity and high engineering standards which still worked in the times of alleged American foreign policy "coherence" (a historic and geopolitical unicorn many inside the Beltway still believe in) Navagonski could at least point out to excellent F-16 or F-15 fighters which were the force to be reckoned with in 1970s and 1980s, but using a F-80 Shooting Star, who saw its numbers decimated by MiG-15s in Korea, I don't know what was he thinking. Even introduction of excellent F-86 Sabre didn't overturn kill ratio of American pilots who flew by far superior to F-80 aircraft when fighting Soviet pilots. In the history of the jet-age combat aviation F-80 was not a milestone against the background of Me-262 which was superior still to it and saw a fairly extensive, however late, combat in WW II, one is surprised that openly inferior aircraft would garner such an admiration. But Nagavonski doesn't stop here.
He brings up the U-2 spy aircraft which earned its distinction as US aircraft type which was twice shot down by Soviet Air Defense in 1960 and 1962 and which became obsolete in any serious recon sense barely four years into its service life, because modern air-defense missile systems made it absolutely useless against countries which had them, such as Chinese downing in 1965 Taiwanese U-2 by the Soviet-made S-75 Dvina complex. In other words, U-2 turned out to be useful primarily against backward nations and who can forget this Gary Powers' "surprise, surprise". U-2 is still being used today to monitor all kinds of things using modern recon technology but it is an easy target for any moderately non-ancient combat aircraft and any air defense complex from 1970s. Yet again, how does this aircraft reflect on the alleged American "coherent global strategy" remains a complete mystery to me.
SR-71, of course, is a unique aircraft, not the least due to the titanium obtained from the...ahem, Soviet Union, and saw extensive use over Vietnam requiring almost a week to service for a single sortie, but while it is up to the American side to debate until hell freezes over why the initial retirement of SR-71 happened relatively fast, there is very little doubt that appearance of the S-200 air defense complexes in 1967 and eventual procurement of MiG-25 in 1970 with new air-to-air missile made SR-71 obsolete, same as was the case with U-2, few years after it was deployed. None of the American technology author introduces as, in his opinion, proof of some kind of America's better R&D acquisition practices due to some "coherence" can be taken seriously, because all of those weapons failed to make an impact other than against technologically backward adversaries and all three were obsolete by the time they were deployed against "peer" power.
Remarkably, the best American military technology was produced not because of the "coherence" but because of a scientific and combat tradition which naturally worked in the Cold War period in mass produced and excellent combat aviation ranging from ground-based F-16 and F-15 to carrier-based work horse of F-18, to always excellent US Navy's submarine force which led a revolution in naval warfare and strategic deterrence, which makes U-2 and SR-71 pale in comparison as boutique technological oddities in their "impact". Mass-produced P-3 Orion was a fearsome ASW weapon and in this role was orders of magnitude more feared by Soviet/Russian submariners than some exotic and dubiously "effective" exhibition and PR items. P-3 Orion first flew in 1959, its different and younger mods still fly today--this is 62 years in service, while SR-71 is primarily a museum exhibit with only 32 built, while P-3 Orion saw its production numbers in 750+ range. How's that for comparison?
But that brings us to the main issue--Skunk Works is a fine-fine engineering org and is the American legend and institution which has to have a certain due respect to be paid for. But it is also responsible for F-35 and F-117 which saw its "stealth" characteristics stripped from it in the most dramatic fashion by Serb good ol' Soviet-made air defense in 1999. In fact, the United States didn't produce a good solid combat aircraft in ages. The last, promoted as if it was a next best thing ever, F-22 Raptor, stopped its production run in 2011 and became known in the USAF as "Hangar Queen". The issue which Nagavonski raises but never actually goes to the heart of the matter is that the US military technology almost never encountered first-class opponent since WW II, bar the air-battles with Soviet 64th Air Corps in Korea (Americans are not going to like those kill ratios) and facing off with Vietnamese Soviet-made MiGs-17, 19 and 21s and air-defenses. Period. The rest of opponents were, as Patrick Armstrong says, small fish. As a result, the United States got used to little to no resistance to its hi-end weapon systems in real combat and learned all the wrong lessons, with or without "coherence". Tumultuous events of April this year give some clue that someone does understand that the R&D and acquisition process in the US is a mess. That is why it brought about a rare moment of an actual coherence on part of Biden's Admin which wanted the summit with Russia, and that in itself could be considered a first verifiable encounter with a coherent unicorn.
This is everything one needs to know about (lack of) thought process in London. Not to be outdone, of course, is BoJo's Defense Secretary Ben Wallace who graduated whatever number of weeks from Sandhurst and you can easily look up WHAT Sandhurst really is. Generally, looking at modern "products" of British education system you can see a lot of eccentricity, bordering on epatage, and huge deficiency in both professional (especially military) and statesmanship qualities. This is a problem with "humanities" educated people in general, and with people who graduate from what used to be grossly oversold as "elite" British institutions. Judging by BoJo and other UK "statesmen" such as Gavin Williamson whose military qualifications and education amounted to running a fireplace manufacturing shop and degree in Social Studies, when he was Defense Secretary, things are not going to get better in UK.
Judging by the pathetic state in which one finds UK today it is legitimate to conclude that UK's educational and elite-preparation systems are complete failures, which, if not for this pip squeak of a country being a member of NATO, produce imbeciles who may, indeed, unleash WW III in which UK will cease to exist in a matter of minutes. Well, try to explain this reality to some Oxford graduate who is "educated" in classics and English. But then again, I am on record about Western "elites" and even dedicated a large chapter on them in my latest book. And here we are: when Russian diplomats begin to state that next time Russia will sink whatever enters territorial waters, that matters and people better listen.
Now, the poor guy has to play Orwellian game of propaganda in British tabloids:
Of course, somebody forgot to tell him that there are at least four newest SSKs of project 636 patrolling the Black Sea waters, as I type this, each of them capable of a salvo of 6 3M54 Kalibrs ASM and carry also long range torpedoes which will have little trouble blowing anything out of the water and you cannot shake them off. This is just one of many ways Russia will deal with anything trying to violate her sovereignty. How about Captain of HMS Defender warns his own ignorant and reckless government about that. That will be a much better application of his commanding talents. It is about time UK elites faced the fact that their country is a lap dog and is insignificant economically and, especially, militarily and should behave accordingly.
After that Carter elaborated on the advantages Russia (and China) have when compared to combined West. Russia's MoD and its very own Igor Konashenkov, responding to John Kirby's "comments" nonchalantly stated obvious:
Translation: (Konashenkov) underscored that for Kirby, a former rear-admiral, who called the incident in the Black Sea a disinformation it should be well known that for Russian Armed Forces defending Crimea HMS Defender is nothing more than a fat target in any part of the Black Sea for Russia's anti-shipping missiles.
Kirby, who launched his naval career as SuWa (Surface Warfare) officer, should know how detection, tracking and targeting are done by Russians and what are saturation thresholds of all NATO AD complexes against all types of missiles deployed by Russians. He also should know what it means "tracking by weapon" (Слежение Оружием) and how salvos are formed. So, it is all so cute when people try to deny obvious, thus exposing themselves as guilty and weak party.
In related news, as I predicted for years, Russia started to deploy MiG-31Ks with Kinzhals to Syria and now conducts patrols over Mediterranean (in Russian). To give some idea what it all means--Kinzhal has a range of 2,000 kilometers (with the range of carrier-around 3,000 kilometers) at M=9+ velocity and maneuvers at terminal, making it impossible to intercept by any combination of existing AD means at NATO's disposal. To give an idea what it all means, here is some illustration.
Any Kinzhal launched from Latakia's airspace will reach a target in the Black Sea in about 5-7 minutes, while launched from the vicinity of Rostov even faster. When even Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov (forget Shoigu) states that " we are going to "bomb" them", one should take a note. And yes, there is no "cat and mouse" game, because targeting any NATO asset is continuous and is in real time. Guys, this is not 1980s, this is 2021 and Russians are really good at sensor fusion plus whatever they have in space, and they have a lot. So, the forms have been obeyed and Kirby should know well that right now Russian Navy's task group sails in the vicinity of Hawaii (strictly in the international waters, mind you) and who knows how many 3M14s are currently loaded in VLS of what is on the surface, but more importantly--what is under it.
Which should not surprise anyone, especially when talking about British media which all follow Goebbelsonian pattern in their propaganda. So, as was expected, Russia's FSB Border Guards released a video of warning shots fired by Russian Coast Guard ship.
Traditional procedure is targeting 5 thousands of distance behind the stern, then 5 thousands of distance forward of the bow of intruder, and then... Well, the conditions were somewhat different here and that is why Russia had several strike aircraft in the air. This is FSB, I am sure videos from Russian MoD will follow showing British lying as always. Today Shoigu stated that the next time intruders will be bombed. Russia has many guided and free-falling bombs at her disposal so if NATO wants to play Russian Roulette, they certainly can.
In all this story, however, what strikes one silly is the fact that imbeciles from Downing Street 10 and Whitehall continued to deny that anything happened at all. Dudes, it is 2021--Russians have cameras and Battle Management Systems on Russian ships have a documentation mode from all sensors. How stupid one should be denying the obvious, such as HMS Defender leaving territorial waters after warning shots, when Russians simply released video. So, please, don't continue with those fabulous stories about British cunning and artful diplomacy and experience of international intrigue when those cretins cannot even stage a false flag without real professionals having cramps from hysterical laughter--Skripal Affair, Steele Dossier, anyone--and now this. The military-intelligence top of Zamunda would have performed better and would have come up with more believable BS than British. Embarrassing.
The whole affair shows that you cannot negotiate anything with generally ungovernable and dysfunctional Anglo-Saxondom which is nothing more that a compilation of interest groups fighting for power and incapable to produce any political coherence--a MUST in any relations. There is a lot to talk about International Naval Salon and some new things which appeared at it today. I'll do it later.
Reported initially by The Financial Times (London) and it gives a nice background, granted that such decisions and debates take a fairly long time, for a HMS Defender playing with death in Russia's territorial waters. As I always say, it never is a single reason, it is always a combination of reasons which produces a resultant, like with vectors in Physics. This clarifies it a bit.
According to FT, the Franco-German proposal is “likely” to alarm Poland and the Baltic States, which are hostile to Moscow. It
was also put forward shortly after the incident in the Black Sea, in
which a Russian patrol ship and fighter jet fired warning shots at a
British warship that violated their territorial waters near Crimea.
As I already stated above, such conclusions are never spontaneous and are in works for many days, if not many weeks or even months. That puts British adventurism into a new light and immediate reaction of Franco-German tandem to British provocation is a huge story in itself. I already had an exchange on that with Arctic Fox and Larch445 and here is what Larch, correctly, proposed:
This all has larger implications for Anglo-Saxondom at-large, whose post-WW II iteration of Pax Americana simply ran its course and continental Europe is in a dilemma, an existential one, with one of the options being a complete death of the Western Civilization. But here we are getting into a completely different dynamics which requires extensive elaborations on the subject which Ilana Mercer titled “Why Do WASP Societies Whither?” in her excellent treatise on the fate of white South African population. But this Franco-German "idea" is an illuminating fact of the actual hidden fight within European "elites" some of who may have gotten the idea that they will be next in line for being eaten. London is worrying, or should we say...calling;))) Wink, wink.
The ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in
Engines stop running, the wheat is growing thin
A nuclear error, but I have no fear
'Cause London is drowning, and I live by the river...
The moment I was about to settle into the anticipation mode for the upcoming heat wave, bang, we have some pip squeak pretending that it can play a superpower. Everyone knows already that HMS Defender pretended that she is "stealth" and can defend something and violated territorial waters of Russia near Crimea. The warning shots have been fired and two OFAB-250 have been dropped on the course of British ship in full accordance to both International Law and Russia's Law of State Border and now British say that there were no shots fired and bombs dropped. Yes, yes, and UK is a global superpower and has freest political system and UK government never, like never-never, lies (all the time).
Here is UK naval attache in Moscow getting Russia's position expressed to him in Russian MoD. No sound, and rightly so--those things are seldom made public and, who knows, the British guy may be a very nice fellow who himself may feel embarrassed.
Now, the video of a couple of SU-24 doing their thing.
Now two aspects.
1. Military: BBC correspondent onboard of HMS Defender actually confirmed both artillery shots and bombing. Media also state that the crew of HMS Defender was on their stations during the incident and that indicates that they were doing this "on purpose". My hope is that British Admiralty, known today as Navy Department, understands that under such circumstances the issue here is not Russia easily sinking anything Royal Navy may decide to get into the Black Sea, but the fact that Russia, without going nuclear, can rearrange stones in London in such a way that those in British Defense Ministry who will survive will have to find proper new building to have a place to work, or serve.
I hope they explained this simple fact to all fine lads who man Royal Navy ships, together with the fact, that there will be no United States to help UK in case cretins in London unleash conflict, because there will be no United States. In fact, seeing UK--a secondary power, which has near zero real military capability and a real GDP smaller than that of Indonesia, and even that due to non-productive service economy--trying to play games adults play is rather funny, but it is also dangerous and it may come down to provocation resulting in Royal Navy ship sunk and squealing UK running to the US and NATO for support. British used to be really good at assessing forces, evidently not anymore. Well, they better look up basic salvo equations and see for themselves how many leakers are possible even against the most advanced Royal Navy's ECM and AD. I'll give a hint--many. I am sure Russians know what it takes to deal with Aster family. In other words, UK militarily is at best a lap dog with minimal military capability which is good only for starting the war, in which UK will cease to exist as a country, forget military force, in a matter of 20-30 minutes. I am sure someone knows this in London. After all, Russia is not exactly Argentina, and even there, at Falklands, the Royal Navy had its nose bloodied pretty badly.
2. Political. The UK is already fully declined power, which pretends that, because it has a developed banking sector and Royal Family, it matters. It does not for powers the scale of Russia, China or even the United States which are ungovernable at this moment. The days of glory for UK are long gone, with UK going into the second tier mode immediately after the WW II and then having this formalized by the US in the days of a Suez Crisis. So, the only services to its own grossly inflated ego the UK can offer are those of spoiler either on the service of globalist mafia infesting D.C. and London or in playing a pretend game that UK can develop its own coherent foreign policy. It surely can develop such a policy but it is not going to be coherent due to inability of London "elites" to think in appropriate terms, since British exceptionalism is even deeper seeded than the American one. Indeed, glorious Imperial past can do the trick on you and will make you lose a sense of scale and of proportion.
So, the UK can certainly continue to play big power games but, as is always the case with secondary or tertiary powers, they inevitably overstretch and then collapse. In fact, British history of the 20th century is exactly the exhibit A of a declining power trying to fight a global war and then recognizing that it simply ran out of resources. But that was in WW II. Today the UK is nowhere near, when prorated for the time period, of the UK (BI) of 1939 and is a country whose whole army can fit into the new Wembley Stadium and whose Navy still thinks that it can fight a serious war and survive. Those are dangerous delusions, but I, honestly, cannot recall in the recent two decades at least a single common sense foreign policy idea coming from London. But London has to face a reality that the times of a "big game" are long gone and Russia can wipe out the whole of UK with its navy and army in a matter of minutes, while UK cannot do the same to Russia--she is too damn strong and is in a different league across the board than UK. Simple as that, hence rabid Russo-phobia of British "upper" class. I can feel their pain.
That, in general, gives one a framework for the recent incident and somebody really needs one of the Royal Navy's ship to be send to the bottom and it is a matter of a educated guess where this criminal warmonger (or warmongers) is hiding primarily--in London, or in D.C. Something tells me that looking at Dieppe in August 1942 and such specimens as Mountbatten, who saw thousands of Canadians sacrificed for a murky political goal, may give an idea that there is no atrocity, or stupidity, or turpitude official London can fail to justify. We saw it today and that is typical. Russians know that.
I also love to use Andrei Andreevich Gromyko's famous dictum that ten years of negotiations is better than one day of war. United States desperately needed a summit with Russia after the events around LDNR in April this year. The United States needed this dialogue for a variety of reasons and Russians, as I state non-stop for many years, will talk to the devil himself if need be, because Russians know what real war is better than anyone in the world, let alone American politicians, and Russians are, obviously, keenly aware of the fire power they have at their disposal. At Geneva both sides agreed to talk about "strategic stability".
So, now the dance starts. Speaking today at theCarnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov made a number of interesting points, albeit I cannot even imagine what poor Ryabkov should have thought about this gathering at CIA... pardon me, ahem... Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (LOL))), since at 2:00 after Ryabkov's keynote address, this "esteemed" org had this event planned:
Toward Equity and Antiracism in Nuclear Policymaking. Many national security
institutions—including those in the nuclear policy field—are
strengthening their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Such
efforts focus on the important goal of incorporating diverse voices
in spaces where they have historically been underrepresented, but what
else should equity in nuclear policymaking entail? What are the barriers
to achieving equity? How could diversity, equity, and inclusion
efforts contribute to achieving an antiracist foreign policy? And, how
might such efforts ultimately affect policy outcomes on contemporary
nuclear issues, including Iran, North Korea, nuclear weapons
modernization, and disarmament?
So, nuclear power is now racist. Poor Ryabkov, poor Lavrov--now you understand why Lavrov is a chain smoker? You would become one when you have to deal with woke imbeciles who have nuclear weapons and nuclear power at their disposal--a classic case of a monkey with a grenade. I am sure they need diversity officers on US Navy's SSBNs of Ohio-class and operators of US nuclear power stations should only be judged and allowed to carry out their duties at the controls of nuclear power stations only after they pass Critical Race Theory exam, which, of course, automatically opens many vacancies for "diverse voices". The US is becoming a third world country with an astonishing speed. So, famous Lavrov's meme is perfectly applicable to this situation. But, moving on.
Translation:In the immediate future both our countries will undertake a new round of a multi-level strategic dialogue. We expressed our readiness to undertake this dialogue energetically and without any delay. I hope that in the nearest future negotiating teams will start consultations.
What consultations you may ask. Let me me give you my impression--those consultations will start with defining red lines for Russia. Russians have a very good idea about those red lines and what they want to accomplish.
1. Not to stumble into a direct military conflict, which will have catastrophic consequences for the world. Evidently now the American side also wants this.
2. Russia is ready to discuss US' main concern of Russia's arsenal only so far and even that "so far" will require from the US very serious quid-pro-quo but will not change the balance of power.
3. No negotiations on China-Russia alliance, period.
This will be the start of the dance. The United States desperately needs to win some time, because it thinks that slowing down what I describe for years as Real Revolution in Military Affairs driven by Russia, it has a chance to address at least some exponentially growing gaps in crucial military systems. United States needs to at least try (it is trying now) to get near actual workable hyper-sonic weapon and, possibly, some directed energy weapon. This may happen but even the brief review of preliminary results and progress confirm what many Russian weapons specialists stated many times: probably around 10 years before IOC for such an American weapon. By then Russia will be in the new generation of such weapons and the issue of anti-missile defense inevitably comes forth.
Well, frankly, I don't see how the United States can close this ever-widening gap. With A-235 Nudol and S-500 effectively in IOC and S-400 incorporating S-500's newest radar Yenisey and sharing long range missiles with it, not to mention a plethora of advanced air-defense systems (such as S-350) being deployed--the United States will try to slow down next generation of Russian ABM, Anti-hypersonic and similar systems as much as it can, but Russian advantage here is so massive, that it is difficult to imagine what can the US even propose. When I write that the United States lost the arms race I really mean it, because this is exactly what have happened. The United States bases around the world, as well as the US proper are simply defenseless against Russia's arsenal. The United States wants to talk about it. It also wants to talk about Petrel (Burevestnik) and Poseidon which destroy any hope for the crazies in D.C. to survive. But in general, the MAIN driver in this dialogue for the United States is this: the fear of Russia reaching eventually the threshold beyond which, as American "thinkers" perceive it, she will be able to destroy the United States with a minimal or acceptable damage to herself. This is what really drives many D.C. politicos and is the main reason why the United States literally imposed itself on Russia in Geneva.
But here is the point. Russia will reach this threshold, especially when one considers America's dramatic departure, across the board, in civilizational competition from a position of leadership but here where it all doesn't fit Western logic. Russians abhor war, they hate it, they cannot stand it. Arguably the greatest prose ever written is about hatred of war. It is Russian prose. Today, is the 80th dark anniversary of the unified forces of Europe headed by Nazi Germany committing what Leo Tolstoy wrote about the other war which took place 129 years earlier:
Change the date to June 22, 1941... The whole notion that Russians, who came to abhor war on a genetic level would want to attack first the United States and kill millions upon millions of innocent people: women, children, old people defies imagination and fits perfectly the perverted minds of US establishment none of who ever saw their own wives, children, dear ones killed by being bombed. Yet, when I write about Russia's history being solzhenitsified and being non-existent in any operational sense in the US, here is what the United States "knows" even today. In fact, this is the only thing they know.
This is what Russians grimly mark today on the 80th--their fallen boys and girls, a generation almost entirely wiped out by the combined Europe in 1418 days of WW II. And that is why Russians will negotiate for ten years because they know, unlike their ignorant and uncultured counterparts, that those ten years are better than one day of war. And that is why Russia will never allow her weapons to fall behind. As it is known to every Russian: nobody is forgotten, nothing is forgotten. Simple as that.
She is a magnificent ship (ship, not the air wing) but her CO's cliche about Cat and Mouse game is a bit dated. It was possible to play that in 1970s and even into the 80s. Nowadays, with modern sensors and space-based means of recon--easy to track and develop firing solution on anything above the surface, let alone such a huge ship. Even under the severest of EMCON procedures.
Turkish Navy has released the video of its indigenous Atmaca anti-shipping missile sinking an old TCG Isin of the former US Navy's Diver-class rescue and salvage ship.
Atmaca, whose respectable warhead measures around 250 kilos of high explosives, evidently, had very little difficulty in sending this, 1600 ton of displacement, old timer to the bottom of the sea when launched from the distance of 5 kilometers. Atmaca is yet another iteration of the good ol' veteran Harpoon, being subsonic 800 kilogram total weight anti-shipping missile in a classic 2x4 container scheme and it should add capability to Turkish Navy. But as is always the case with WiKi, nobody will be able to explain how the monstrous Russian-Indian Brahmos with its 3 ton weight, M=3 velocity and a range of 800 kilometers ended up being listed in what amounts to now a basic anti-shipping package of subsonic 250-300 (plus-minus) kilometer range light missiles. I don't know. Completely different class of weapons. But then again, it is WiKi. But for your pleasure--SINKEX. And I, honestly, always hit a mental short pause when I see an old ship being sacrificed. They are never just a pile of metal.
Larchmonter445 asked me to expound on the "operational" exercises of Russia's Pacific Fleet which started before the Geneva "summit" and I start with fresh Zvezda report (in Russian) on the exercise of...sinking a Carrier Battle Group. Pay attention that in this short video the firing solution for anti-shipping missiles is calculated at 422 kilometers which is a routine over-the-horizon launch for missiles of P-800 Oniks or 3M54 Kalibr variety and the location of the exercise, which is "in an area located 2.5 thousand miles (approximately 4.6 thousand kilometers) south-east of the Kuril Islands."
This is easily within the striking distance of Pearl by 3M14 of older versions and, depending on the positioning of the Strike-Search Group (KPUG) within the area, to San Diego by latest version of 3M14M whose range is stated above 4,500 kilometers. This all is about surface group, what is under the surface we can only guess.
It is a little bit of a demonstration of the flag by a relatively modest size task force, which, nonetheless, packs a rather massive punch, plus good ol' combat training in the remote ocean zones is always a good idea. Considering the fact that Zircon (3M22) carrier, fully modernized Marshal Shaposhnikov, is in business at these maneuvers, one can start confidently calculate what size salvo Russia's Pacific Fleet will be able to get into the area when Admiral Nakhimov and "calibrized" Pacific pr. 949AM (Oscar IIs) such as Irkutsk, together with new Yasen-class SSGNs, starting from Novosibirsk, which is undergoing sea trials now, and follow-on of similar Krasnoyarsk, will join in. With the other two Yasens following in 2024 and 2027. All of them are carriers of 3M22 Zircons together with newest corvettes of pr. 20385 most of which are bound for the Pacific Fleet. Together with additional three pr. 22350 Admiral Gorshkov-class frigates. This is what will appear by 2025-2027, not to mention other forces.
So, as you can see, all this is a warm-up for for a much more aggressive Ocean-denial---> Ocean-control posture by Russian Navy in the Pacific, especially when Pacific Fleet's salvo will triple by 2025. There is also no doubt that such a fleet will make appearances in the Chinese ports as it has been done before and under the new circumstances all that becomes extremely significant. Especially considering a totally expected growth of the tempo of Russian-Chinese joint naval maneuvers.
So, this return of Russia's Pacific Fleet to the ocean fits perfectly into the strategic realities of a de facto Russian-Chinese alliance and of restoration of Russia's presence in the blue waters of the ocean. So, here it is.
It was given in April at the height of the tensions, when 404's military adventurism around LDNR threatened to unleash Russia's firepower which would drive the United States to the wall and into the military-political dead-end from which the United States would have to either go out totally militarily humiliated with the immense geopolitical ramifications for itself, or through the escalation to nuclear threshold and then all bets could be off. Chasing Russians with the de facto demand for summit has been a direct result of April events, which have been even compared to Cuban Missile Crisis by former Russia's President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. I wouldn't go as far as to compare these two events, but there is no denial that the probability of a direct military confrontation between the United States and Russia was growing. OK, summit has happened, sides expressed enough respect to each-other and, as I quoted former Soviet FM Andrei Gromyko--ten years of negotiations are better than one day of war. When related to the nuclear superpowers such as Russia and the US this is ultimately, 146%, true.
In related news, Lavrov (in Russian) simply ran over UK's FM Dominic Raab, or speaking in diplomatic lingo--beat the shit out of him. Alexander Mercouris thinks that Lavrov chewed him up. No matter how one calls it--Raab (and UK represented by him) have been put in their place. Here is Alexander's take on that:
But I want to remind you what I wrote more than a year ago about Noblesse Oblige in an exclusive superpowers club. Real superpowers in modern times have a very specific way of interaction because of the enormous stakes for the entire world in such an interaction. The United Kingdom is not in this club, not even close and it is time the UK finally faced the fact that it is a second tier-power way out of league of the US, China and Russia. I don't think UK can adjust its discourse but it really doesn't matter for Russia whose main economic anchor in Europe after WW II was always Germany, while UK's place is lower that that of Netherlands.
So, let's face it, UK is not THAT important for Russia, while militarily...well, I'll abstain from commenting in order not to rub the salt into the wounds of my many British friends, majority of who are great lads and for a guy, like me, who grew up with British rock-music, comedy and wonderful literature, there is still a lot what could be admired in the UK of the past. So, there we are on this Friday. Enjoy, if you can get through my thick Rrrrusian accent.
US (and Western in general) MSM journo is stupid and badly educated. Real journalism requires a very high level awareness and analytical type of mind and an extraordinary level of education in a broader, classical sense, which translates in class and integrity. But as any uncultured human he(she) thinks that he(she) is entitled to be taken seriously. Here, the President of Russia is dealing with the girl who has no concept of throwing rocks while living in a glass house thinking that her high school student news-paper-level "reporting" means anything.
But then again, she is lucky that she is dealing with a former (not really, they never are former) intelligence professional who would eat her bosses for breakfast and will spit them out in a minute, but who is also very humane. Real intelligence professionals, unlike the BS portrayed in Hollywood, avoid "collateral damage" at all costs, their and others' lives depends on that. Here is another example, now of the graduate of the Moscow Institute of International Relations, famed MGIMO, and a son of very high level KGB professional, the President of Azerbaijan wiping the floor with some psycho-bitch from BBC who had the audacity to think that she can compete in wits with people whose educational and cultural level dwarfs pretty much any cretin having positions nowadays in government in both UK and US (well, in EU too) and pedophile-covering totalitarian British Broadcasting Corporation which is...a statutory corporation established by Her Majesty Government.
Apart from not having any class, which is a first indicator of great education, honor and integrity, look at how this pompous idiot from BBC reacted physically when understood that she is being destroyed and being made an Exhibit A of a typical clown working for Western media. Her clutched hands in "house" close to her body speak volumes--a first involuntary defensive reaction. Ilham Aliev could have eaten her alive and humiliated her to the point of her being thrown out even from such a sewer as BBC for being utterly unprofessional. But he gave her a last second exit. Those who recall Vladimir Putin's interaction with bimbo Megyn Kelly and subtly humiliating her--I am not even sure that morons at NBC, BBC or CNN are even brought up above the level of high-schoolers in human, forget about professional, terms, to get it.
All of them are so dumb, so conceited that they don't even understand that the jokes are on them, that they are a laughing stock around the world. And, of course, none of them, with the exception of such people like, say, Sanjay Gupta of CNN who is a bona fide and successful neurosurgeon in his own right and has all qualification for reporting on medical issues, are good for anything. Most of them, however, are the dregs of a degenerate US "humanities" education and wouldn't be allowed in normal society to run a 7-11 convenience store, let alone pretend that they know what they are talking about or pretend that they have real "sources". Russiagate and Steele Dossier anyone? If we talk about Russians, overwhelming majority of them is now keenly aware of what Western media are and it took opening Russia to the world to succeed immensely where no ideological department of Central Committee and Soviet Propaganda ever could--to convince Russians that Western MSM are nothing more than a crude lie-machine, stuffed at best with mediocrities, at worst-- mindless propaganda parrots who don't know shit from shinola.
UPDATE: here is how "free" media operate in the US.
That I want to comment on this "summit". No. There is really nothing to comment on, except that Western journalists are primarily lowlifes and that once you heard the term "Strategic Stability" from the US Department of State, that means only one thing--Russians invented some shit which is really bad for US exceptionalists. Here is Putin responding to CNN's own Moscow's village idiot Matthew Chance.
No, this is the real news (in Russian).
The first serial MS-21 with fully Russian composite wing and PD-14 engines and the delivery starts early next year with two serial MS-21s already being assembled, 6 more being readied and the production run hitting 36 a year after 2022. 3 new assembly lines are getting ready. Borisov is, obviously, happy. Ah, yes, another four serial SU-57s are getting ready for a delivery to Russia's VKS. As for Joe, in a surprisingly lucid moment he stated to Putin that new Cold War is not in the interest of the both sides. Agree. The problem is that many US journos should be tried for war crimes and instigation of the war, other than that, Russia is not going to lay down her arms but, if Joe understands that it is good to talk (in Russian), sure! As legendary Soviet/Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Andreevich Gromyko used to say:"Ten years of negotiations are better than one day of war." He knew what he was talking about.
Whoever left the comment I featured before RT's piece, is very close to truth--I elaborated a lot on this matter. You may find a lot of contempt and revulsion towards US government and "elites" in Russian internet, but you will always feel both latent and explicit sympathy for average America and Americans. It is definitely there. One of the reviewers of my latest book wrote that "He (that is me) weeps at the disintegration of his adopted homeland", of course I do, I observed for more than quarter of a century how everything what was good and decent in America was being destroyed by indoctrinated, uncultured, illiterate graduates of the Ivy-league "humanities" diploma mills and other so called institutions of the higher learning in the US which long ago stopped being academic centers. Now, reading this from a...North Korean girl. Yes, this is how bad it has become. Yet, I thought I had to point this piece of reporting out, because there always was quite a lot of positive which connected Russians to America which does not exist anymore. And it doesn't, it is over. So, does RT really inflame already bad sore of America's disintegration or is this a "shilling", in reality speaking the truth, about the pathetic state the US finds itself in today. I think it is the latter. It is a manifestation of those shades of gray which save people from the bane of Manichean existence.
