Somebody, Please, Educate "Valdai" Boys...

Because RT continues to publish opinions of Moscow's beau monde boys, like Ivan Timofeev's platitudes and cliches ridden piece on "ending unipolarity". Read my lips--"political scientists" everywhere, including Russia, unless they have serious military background, are utterly unqualified for uttering any kind of opinions on modern balance of power. Mr. Timofeev demonstrates it fully (here is his very telling bio, BTW). He concludes:

In terms of the distribution of military capability, the world has been multipolar for quite a while. Critics can argue that the US is still ahead of all other states collectively in terms of its military spending, can project its power across the globe, and has the best-trained military armed with the most advanced equipment. At the same time, the US is not at liberty to start a military conflict against a number of countries without running a risk of huge and unacceptable losses. China is rapidly building its armed forces and would be difficult to defeat, even if nuclear weapons were not involved. While it is possible to imagine China suffering a local defeat, its complete destruction is unthinkable. A conflict with Russia would be no walk in the park either, even if all of NATO’s offensive capabilities are deployed. Indeed, this could actually quickly turn into a nuclear exchange.     

Somebody, please, educated Timofeev on:

1. The real balance of power mover is NOT nuclear, however extremely important for enforcing prematurely buried by many MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), but conventional forces. Only through them the real geopolitical status of the nation is obtained;

2. It is the US which is nuclear-biased nation, not Russia, and this is true precisely for the reasons of the US being by far NOT the best conventional (namely ground forces) power. It, indeed, could turn fast into nuclear exchange INITIATED by the US precisely because it cannot match Russia's conventional capability. I warned about this for many years. Now respectable American military professionals openly admit this reality. Timofeev forgets to point out this crucial distinction, while describing escalation scenario he has no clue about and probably picked up as a rumor on one of Valdai's soirees. Here it is:

If faced with NATO aggression, Moscow would no doubt resort to tactical nukes and would be prepared for further escalation towards the strategic level. Even attacking weaker adversaries such as the North Korea or Iran would be likely to result in significant losses for the US. Pyongyang could well use its nuclear capability even if it risks being completely destroyed by a counterstrike. Iran could be bombed, but an attempt at occupying it like the US did with Iraq would claim too many lives.

"No doubt" by who? By Mr. Timofeev? Did Mr. Timofeev ever hear of mobilization potential, of how combat effectiveness of armed forces are calculated, or about how doctrine describes criteria for the use of nuclear weapons? Of course not, they don't teach those things in "politology". As per US "power projection", Timofeev better learn about the number of wars (all of them "power projecting" and expeditionary) the US "won" in the last 75 years before stating that "power projection" even possible against "near peer"--a condescending term issued by Pentagon--let alone "peer", let alone power which simply beat the US across multiple "domains", especially in strike weapons and air defense. 

I personally am on record for at least 3-4 years now that the US lost the arms race and some gaps will not be closed for many years, maybe ever, and we see it in real time now in SMO in 404. But what is most important and the body of empirical evidence to support this statement is overwhelming: political "science", or what passes for it, CAN NOT and DID NOT produce in decades, especially in the West, any competent specialist on issues of strategy, balance of power and modern operations. None, zilch, nada and Timofeev's statements like that:

The Russian case is more complicated. The country has access to abundant natural resources, and it remains one of the world’s top ten economies despite sanctions (being as high as sixth, when measured by purchasing power parity). While Moscow cannot boast a level of technological development on a par with the US, it still has critical military technologies at its disposal, including nuclear, missile, and space capabilities. However, one of the country’s biggest vulnerabilities is its industrial and human potential. Closing the industrial gap would take time and require tremendous willpower and a concentration of resources. In spite of its leadership in natural sciences, the country has an acute shortage of engineers and skilled industrial workers, which is compounded by the brain drain of the early 1990s and the recent wave of emigration in 2022. Low management efficiency and stubbornly high corruption remain a problem.

... demonstrate his complete loss of contact with reality, especially that of the United States. But it is highlighted in yellow which completes exposure of WHO Mr. Timofeev is and why I am on record that these types should never be allowed anywhere near governing and their ideas of modern geopolitics should be completely discarded as white-board pretentious doctrine-mongering, which is the essence of most modern humanities degrees which do not require serious intellectual and practical effort when speaking about military-industrial complexities of modern world, let alone warfare of the 21st century. And that brings another question of why the RT continues to publish this pseudo-academic drivel. Hey, at least I do not offer my services to open heart surgeons, I know my limitations.