In related news: poor health makes you die faster, poor maintenance makes flying airplanes dangerous and poor water pressure makes showering difficult. But whatever it takes to cope with what's unfolding in 404. But there was some news which are very important:
Translation:The Russian military tested the S-500 anti-aircraft missile system using the R-29RMU.2 ballistic missile fired by the crew of the K-114 Tula cruiser.This is stated in the publication “Ensuring military-technical experiment” of the Book of Records of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.According to the material, the crew of the Project 667BDRM strategic missile submarine Tula took part in providing a military-technical experiment to test the S-500 Prometheus anti-aircraft missile system.As part of this task, an RS-31 missile was fired along a new ballistic trajectory.Which means launching a ballistic missile attack on one or more ground targets from the combat area.The shooting was carried out by an R-29RMU.2 missile from the Laptev Sea at the Chizh battlefield.At a meeting of the board of the Russian Ministry of Defense at the end of January this year, which was dedicated to the implementation of the state defense order, Deputy Minister of Defense Alexei Krivoruchko announced plans for the arrival of the latest S-500 anti-aircraft missile system to the troops in 2024.
S-500 successfully intercepted MIRV(s) of Sea-launched Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. Make your own conclusions what it all means. The gap will continue to grow. Mind you, S-500 is a mobile complex and could be deployed pretty much anywhere.
1. Let's remember that both USSR and USA were into ASAT (anti-satellite) business really early (since 1960s) and first.
2. This latest mass-hysteria as usually fanned by US establishment and its media is not accidental. Once one discounts a normal (for the US) practice to spin anything Russia does into some propaganda BS, this hysteria has a lot more to it than mere completely unfounded concerns about the safety of ISS etc.
3. The main reason for hysteria is the fact that it was A-235 Nudol which destroyed an old recon Tselina-D satellite (a symbolic message for professionals) which was at the 645+ kilometers high orbit and judging by Shoigu's obvious satisfaction (in Russian) with this, we may assume that Nudol is ready to go big time, including its mobile versions.
That is the main reason for hysteria because Russia will not allow the wet US dream of controlling space and thus monitor launches of all serious Russia's weapon systems to come to fruition. This latest launch was a message that the "envelope" is covered and if Nudol itself is an expensive machine (which, btw, reaches Mach=16 in first 3 seconds) which is capable of reaching way higher than 645 kilometers for expensive recon assets of STSS or comms such as Iridium, it merely shows that missile technologies to mass-shoot Starlink spies and everything else in case of war are already in place. Well, S-500 for once, and things of other nature such as laser weapons plus who knows what. That is why such a hysteria. Recall this:
Can this thing fly to 1500 km? Why not? So, this also means the end of the US low orbit system for monitoring launches of hyper-sonic weapons. I have been writing about Russia getting into the revelation mode for years, here is one of the latest ones from 2019. I called that a Real Revolution in Military Affairs for a reason, because it is, and when we talk about ASAT weapons recall what is the full name of this Russian service--Air Space Force (VKS), it wasn't just a new cute title, it was a new force structure designed to fight everything that flies be that in atmosphere or in space. As a saying, a very popular and widely used, for Russia's Air and Space missilery goes: сами не летаем и другим не даём--we don't fly ourselves and do not allow others (c). A classic case of Dog in the Manger.
This is why such a hysterical reaction and a pile of BS (because ISS measures were taken because of the old Chinese satellite which was threatening ISS), but at this stage Russians don't care. In related news of Russia declining especially strongly and having her economy in "tatters"(c). Some guy laments that Russians control now Iran's gas fields. He even cries that:
Although the IRGC has stated in a series
of internal discussions within the Iranian government recently that the
new terms of the Chalous deal that have placed Russian and Chinese
interests above those of Iran are ‘the price we have to pay for Iran’s
access to the technology and manufacturing capacity required for our
missile program’, the ramifications of it are much greater than the size
of future IRGC slush funds in Shanghai and Macau.
I'll give Mr.Watkins, who penned this piece, a hint--he needs to read Iranian Constitution which explicitly states that Iran wants to be a developed country. Combined West will never allow this, while Russia, who is a close neighbor, will. Money is not everything and often they cannot buy technology in the West. Well, Iran tried, alright. In Russia? Boy, judging by the air-show in Dubai, many Gulfies would love to have things like that:
I Hope Iran learned her lesson few years ago after the short "lifting of the sanctions". Russia was just waiting in the wings. Plus, of course, India also couldn't resist and sanctions do not really work, in fact, they often achieve the opposite effect.
Maria Zakharova certainly knows physical principles of boomerang and reacting to Australia "choosing" US-British nuclear subs instead of French diesel ones and we are talking about gigantic multi-billion dollar contract.
Translation: MOSCOW, September 16 - RIA Novosti.The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova, commenting on the breaking the contract between Australia and France for submarines, reminded Paris of their decision in the situation with the production of the Mistral aircraft carriers.
Ah, the karma, what a bitch. Thankfully, Russia never got her Mistrals and that was a huge blessing in disguise, but then again, as I state in my video, it is about both shrinking financial pie of the combined West and about dropping non Anglo-Saxon "ally" of France in favor of the increase of the "cohesion" of Anglo-Saxondom in a face of a lot of geopolitical centrifugal forces exacerbated by the Washington's desire to "counter" China.
I am really impressed with France's insouciance in the times leading to this breach of the contract--did Elysee Palace even try to figure out a pecking order recently? Nah, with people like Macron trying to play a big honcho, it is not surprising that France is bitter because she was decisively shown her proper place of a US lap-dog and that of merely regional power, despite France having her own nuclear deterrent. Macron and his people better wake up and face the reality or, for that matter, learn France's recent history when France actually mattered--yes, yes, I am talking about the times of Charles de Gaulle and France's independent foreign policy. Today, France is just another EU and NATO country living with the phantom pains of past greatness, with the rare exception of football. One had to ask the question, really, on why UK decided to leave the EU? For all degeneracy of British "elites" one cannot deny them some level of intuition and cynicism when deciding which camp to join: doomed EU with a bunch of continental nobodies when taken separately or the United States, which, while in a very rough clusterfuckish shape, at least has some shot at some future, plus London loves to think about itself that it matters, and within the framework of Anglo-Saxondom it does, unlike it is the case when global power balance is considered.
Unlike the UK, France has nobody to run to. Moscow now puts a lot of popcorn in those Kremlin microwaves and is preparing for a circus and a delightful time of schadenfreude. I would. Especially now, when S-500s started to arrive to the front line units (in Russian) and if that wasn't enough, Borisov dropped another bomblet of sorts, when stated that potentially India may become a buyer of S-500s but only after Russia's Air Defense will have all of its needs satisfied (in Russian). After that he proceeded to underscore that Russia will preserve her lead in hyper-sonic weapons and with S-500s now in serial production and being procured to the front line units it becomes clear that any attempts to place any type of low orbit vehicles (that is why the Starlink constellation of mini-satellites is being developed really) and control them there will be, in case of, God forbid, war, stopped and any combat assets destroyed. These are the quickening times and Australia getting (or having them shoved it down her throat) nuclear subs is but one of the increasingly manifest signs of a new multi-polar world taking shape.
for
Washington, whose political discourse is based on American exceptionalism and
foreign policy now is defined completely in terms of military power, emergence
of a “peer” military power is absolutely unacceptable. While China is an
economic giant and is now arguably the largest economy in the world, she still
has a long way to go until she becomes a true “peer” to the United States
militarily. This is not the case with Russia. It becomes also true when one
begins to look at doctrinal and technological developments both in the US and
Russia. The contrast is startling, even if one considers a very dubious US
intelligence on Russia.
Many
things have changed since then but the thesis of a preventive war against
Russia by the combined West, led by the United States, not only didn’t lose
much of its relevance but, in fact, increasingly accentuates the only framework
the United States, as a formal leader of a combined West, uses when dealing
with Russia and, increasingly, China. Preventive war, in all of its knownmanifestations ranging from sabotage andpropaganda to various levels of military
violence, is the only method of conducting foreign relations the United States
knows precisely because the United States doesn’t know what real war is, nor is
it abreast of a profound technological and operational change which is taking
place in the warfare of the 21st century.
The
obverse side of this de facto loss of the arms race by the United States is
astonishing in its volume, in the last thirty years, stream of military and
geopolitical concepts, doctrines, theories and ideas most of which never panned
out and, in fact, played a baneful role in preventing the United States from
facing a global reality described not in US establishment and academe
platitudes but in tangibles. But, of course, you already know all that because that is what I do—I
try to describe the world in tangibles. But here is the thing—the indicator of
any loss or, otherwise, victory is always a gap. This is how we describe the
state of play, in gaps—how large they are and what are the dynamics of these gaps.
Recall how gaps factor in all that:
You see the gap, you see gap's dynamics and you pretty much know who the winner of this particular race is. Easy. But that's sports, where the means of objective control are the deciders of the outcome. While one can debate the validity of one or another referee call, such as shameless dive by Raheem Sterling against Denmark two days ago (not to mention two balls simultaneously of the field), which got England to Euro-2020 finals, in games, in races--it is more difficult.
In the end, time and finish strip are irrefutable proofs of a victory. But that is not the case with international relations, geopolitics and military power. Especially military power. For starters they are infinitely more complex than any sports competition, hence their "rules books" are not books per se, but a gigantic variety of those and require years and years of a professional study. A layman can, and does, understand soccer or ice-hockey rules and tactics, a layman will have a really hard time understanding basic principles of Search Theory, as an example, and why the probability of detection (PD) of the target in search is:
PD=1- exp (-z(t))
Where z(t) is:
Which is, actually, pretty straight-forward with U being the speed of the search object (e.g. submarine), p(rho) is a search area coverage rate (search productivity) and tau is a delay time (time late). Mathematically it is extremely simple but it is a physical essence of this whole "Search" thingy which requires many years of study and experience to grasp it and start thinking in images and concepts which describe all that. This applies to anything military be it basic use of ballistic tables for artillery to ships' maneuvers on a tactical level to thinking in probabilities, required forces and combat effectiveness on the operational and strategic levels. How it is all related to the subject of this post, preventive war that is, you may ask. Here is a straight answer after this fairly long introduction.
Ask yourself a question how the blob in D.C. thinks. I can tell you how: Washington never denounced the preemptive nuclear strike option and I don't mean doctrinal statements about using nukes when there is a danger to the existence of the state, such as Russia's military doctrine explicitly states, same as it is written in many US Nuclear Posture Reviews throughout the last 10 years. I am talking about loosening criteria for a preventive nuclear strike including obfuscated by the military lingo simple military expediency in killing the enemy just because it could be killed with a minimal own costs. Just recall a simple fact that the US is the only country which actually used nuclear weapons. Then recall such things as this in 2008:
Or, let's recall immediate post-WWII plans for nuking USSR which were prevented not by non-existent then Soviet nuclear deterrent but by dubious effectiveness of American nuclear weapons in case of a large scale war in Europe with the Soviet Union. But the United States was always a nuclear-biased nation and even 2018 (Trump's) Nuclear Posture Review included some bizarre things:
In general, Russians were always aware of the US nuclear views and knew that any situation in which USSR/Russia would fall below a certain second (response) strike in nuclear capabilities had a serious probability of initiation of a decapitating American nuclear strike which would, in theory, settle the issue of the American economic and military hegemony once and for all, by means of destroying USSR/Russia. This is not an insane scenario, these things are constantly on the mind of a large portion of the American military-political elite and this is how it views the world. Russians know this and Russia was developing a second strike capability (response-headon, or otvetno-vstrechnyi udar) like there was no tomorrow. Well, Russians succeeded immensely in this field and, in fact, doing so redefined not only the rules for nuclear deterrent but for any type of the war as a whole.
Let me explain. Just a few days ago the news about S-500 passing combat missile launches and of A-235 Nudol, evidently, being developed also in mobile variant, went largely in a matter-of-factly mode but there are some things which need to be understood in their ramifications. S-500 has a range of around 600 kilometers for aerial targets. That, as I already stated before, means that any NATO combat aircraft flying around Berlin, or more generally, over East Germany will be shot down. Same goes for any aerial target over Romania once S-500 are deployed in Crimea. Once one considers the fact that Russians are talking now about "one missile--one target", it becomes clear that targeting for S-500 could be obtained from any source which allows higher uncertainties in targeting of aircraft and that means targeting from such radar complexes as Container, which can see the commercial and combat planes on runway in Netherlands.
This capability alone has strategic ramifications because the only viable instrument in NATO's war plans against Russia was its air-power which was considered "sophisticated" and numerous enough to fight Russia including delivering nuclear weapons. If S-400 wasn't bad enough, S-500 effectively denies NATO air forces any crucial command and control function because any aircraft carrying this mission out will be shot down even before it will be able to detect anything and vector fighter aircraft towards any threat. Obviously, the fact that S-500 is designed to shoot down any hypersonic and ballistic targets with the speed of up to 7 kilometers per second, and low orbit satellites and is integrated with the rest of Russia's AD is a strategic factor in itself which dramatically reduces probabilities of delivering a nuclear, not to speak of conventional, strike against Russia. With S-500 and A-235 Nudol coming on-line and both performing well in tests, Russia continues to develop not only always impressive air defense but the air defense of an immense power, including full blown anti-missile capability, including ICBMs.
This is a gap and the dynamic of this gap is very simple--it is not static, it is widening. In fact, the speed of this widening only increases. At this stage, Russia has an overwhelming edge over the United States both in quality, quantity and combat experience with her air-defense systems and this has become a strategic problem for the United States. American conventional logic of SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defense) operations of throwing a bunch of TLAMs and turning on ECM against some outdated and not realistically integrated third world AD doesn't apply here. In fact, Russia can do her own ECM suppressing and, as RAND's big air operations honcho David Ochmanek admitted in 2019:
This was two years ago, since then any mentioning of F-35 "being unmatched in the skies" can cause a hysterical laughter among air-defense and serious Air Forces professionals and even flag-waiving ignorant fanboys such as David Axe have to report that:
So, how do you fight Russia in the skies? Well, you cannot do that around Russia and in Eastern Europe without losing most of your air force. I omit here extensively discussed reasons for Biden Administration sudden urge to seek summit with Putin. But I have to advance the thesis here that Russia's military edge over the US (and NATO) is much larger than most in the West would admit. There are gaps everywhere and they continue to widen. What are those gaps?
1. We already briefly discussed Air Defense capabilities--Russia's technological lead here is gigantic;
2. Combined Arms capabilities, especially Russia's mobilization and deployment capability, are significantly greater than those of NATO;
3. Missile gap is real and the United States is nowhere near Russia in terms of missile technology. It is not even fair to compare. In fact, it is down right ridiculous. US lag here is counted in generations, not years.
4. Surface fleets--this is the whole other story;
5. Lastly, nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. Avangard, Sarmat, Poseidon, Burevestnik... do I need to say more?
So, if you are in D.C. today and you are one of the representatives of a powerful school of thought that Russia delenda est by any means and anything, including preventive nuclear strike, must be considered to achieve this objective, and you see the dynamics of the so called "arms race" which is being lost and not by slight margin but by "50 lengths", ask yourself a question what military options do you have? Right, only a massive nuclear preventive strike which will be three decades late and, in fact, the more time passes by, even this strike may fail to achieve objective of physical elimination of Russia other than triggering a second strike response which will destroy the United States.
Am I overstating my case? Not necessarily, we can only guess the stakes in the power struggle in D.C. As the events of the last few years demonstrated, Washington is packed with insane people ready to go to any length in their lust for power and quenching their thirst for exceptionalism kool-aid in their delusional state. This insanity may metastasize into the very military-political top who in their desperation from recognizing America's weakness may try to unleash unthinkable, especially knowing that the time is running out and that they will never be able to narrow, let alone close, any gap before America's nuclear strategic arsenal begins to dramatically lose its deterrent effect and Russia will transition into the new military-technological reality as she did last decade with what can only be described as the REAL revolution in military affairs. The Pax Americana is already dead and these are Russia's highly advanced weapons which for now keep relative peace on the globe. They are the guarantee against the preventive war. But will they be enough to prevent a desperation war which may originate inside increasingly chaotic, delusional and irrational American military-political establishment? These are the chaotic thoughts which visited me in the last couple of days.
Pepe Escobar wrote an outstanding piece on Afghanistan and he has the expertise to do so because Pepe spent a lofty amount of time in the region and knows it extremely well. Unsurprisingly, Pepe titles his excellent insight like this:
Translation:Doha, 8 July--RIA Novosti. The delegation of the political office of a radical movement Taliban has arrived to Moscow for negotiations, stated the official representative of the movement Sukheil Shahin, whose leadership resides in Qatar. "The visit will last for two day", stated Shahin who himself is a part of a delegation.
Only real power with enough military wherewithal has real... well power and weight which allows them to broker anything: peace, war, armistice, what have you. Taliban knows that and they talk to Russia. Recall, it matters how you leave. The USSR left Afghanistan in 1989 not only undefeated but left the country which was functional. Many Afghans even today recall those Shuravi who were building schools, hospitals and infrastructure. This is well documented. Late Ahmad Shah Massoud himself is on record that if they would know what would happen to the country after USSR leaving and the collapse of Najibullah government, they wouldn't have resisted. Well, hindsight is a 20/20 vision. Per Taliban's visit--there are many other groups in Afghanistan, including transported by the US from Syria remnants of ISIS and associated Al Qaeda structures which do have an expansionist agenda and will try to continue to destabilize not only Afghanistan but its surroundings. I am sure, this is on the agenda in Moscow in negotiations with Taliban.
In related news, Russia marks today the Day of Air Defense--the only air defense in the world with unrivaled capabilities and a cutting edge technologies. Some of those technologies are beyond the reach of the combined West and will remain such for a long-long time. Speaking on this occasion to Red Star (in Russian), the Superintendent of this branch Major-General Babakov confirmed that S-500 has passed combat missile launches tests and, as he stressed, there are no analogues to this system. Yes, once you consider that a single S-500 in Kaliningrad can shoot down E-3 Sentry over Berlin, not to speak about Poland, you get the idea. Now consider also the fact that naval version of S-500 is being worked on as I type this, make you own conclusions. Russia's lead in AD and ABM complexes today is so colossal, that it does completely change a whole strategic balance calculus. I am writing the article on this now. Especially when taking into account anti-hypersonic capabilities of S-500, S-400 and other latest systems.
For the United States it creates a strategic ambiguity initially and then, if one considers the way US top brass thinks, or, rather, don't, a real gap which cannot be closed. But I am on record since 2017 that the United States lost the arms race and I do not state it lightly or in vain. That is why The National Interest tabloid dedicated the article to memoirs of once negotiator on START:
Her experiences are as relevant to real revolution in military affairs as are my experiences with driving my car to flying a commercial jet airliner. Nice try though. But look at this bird:
Serial MC-21s are already on assembly lines and "hot" heart for PD-8 was recently successfully tested and that means SSJ-100s become russified soon.God, Russia is disintegrating especially dramatically today, wink, wink.
UPDATE: completely forgot. Russia's MoD released a short film to mark Air Defense Day and it shows different generations of AD from 1960s to today and what those guys do. Really nice.
Western media are abuzz--the main dictator of this planet, the abuser of Russia and underminer of the American democracy, the evil Putin has spoken. About hyper-sonic weapons.
In Russian version of Putin's interview he actually spoke (sarcastically) about "pleasant surprise" for the US once it will, eventually, get its hands on some sort of hyper-sonic weapon. And, of course, Reuters lied (I am sure without any malice, wink, wink) or is simply dumb to understand the difference of which I write non-stop. While hyper-sonic "nuclear capable" gliders are cool and are "strategic" it is not them which are the focus of the modern arms race. The real deal are what broadly could be defined as operational-tactical hypersonic weapons designed to be used at the modern battlefield against variety of the enemy's military targets. Russia has one such weapon, hypersonic Kinzhal in IOC since 2017 and in full combat deployment since 2018.
The United States undeniably will be able at some point of time to develop some sort of a glider but I doubt it very much that US military will have anything comparable to 3M22 Zircon or even same Kinzhal anytime soon. Rule of thumb here is this: a generation of weapon systems. The United States lags behind Russia in hyper-sonic battle-field weapons not just by generation, but by two. She simply doesn't have any, while Russia already has Kinzhal in action for 3 years and Zircon is nearing its IOC. That means a NEW generation of weapons is already on the drawing board or even in prototype stage. Ad nauseam, again, not only the United States doesn't have a working prototype of such weapon, including a latest snafu with losing one. The issue, ad nauseam again, here is that the US doesn't have any experience with high super-sonic (M=3+) missiles at all, unlike Russia who deploys an astonishing array of such weapons from 3M54 Kalibr, to P-800 Onyx, capable to attack pretty much anything on land and water, and, of course, X-31, not to speak of deadly X-32. And then, of course, comes this issue of anti-missile systems.
Butt-hurt (nothing new here) Mark Episkopos (another humanities-"educated" so called "expert" from, and you guessed it, The National Interest) already tried to spin BS about S-500.
Mark Episkopos, being an "expert" he is, and citing Sputnik, for some reason, arrives to a strange conclusion about S-500 capability to "reliably" detect F-35. Obviously for people not acquainted with modern battlefield, netcentricity and sensor fusion it may come as a surprise that modern truly integrated AD system sees any so called "stealth" targets and is able to develop targeting for Buk-M3, S-300, S-350, S-400 etc. Moreover, ancient Soviet S-125, when used by skillful Serbs in 1999, also had little problem shooting down what then was advertised as "invisible" F-117. The persistent of "Stealth" myth, and meme, in the US is astonishing, to the point of folly. It is especially true for people in US media who, by definition, are completely removed from analytical apparatus required to understand a complexity of modern warfare.
But what Putin was talking about in terms of a defense from future hyper-sonic weapons, most likely are not just S-500, which is stated to be able to detect, track and shoot down hyper-sonic weapons, especially ones which will be flying at Mach=5-6 (S-400 can do this already). He was most likely talking about defense against what could be defined as "strategic" hyper-sonic gliders which fly at M=20+ and that is a completely different type of weapon and requires a different, from merely hard-kill by anti-missile, approach. Obviously, Russia deploys, now world-famous, meowing A-235 Nudol, and this system becoming mobile is a serious step in countering pretty much any type of exoatmosperic or atmospheric high-velocity and maneuvering targets. But rule of thumb tells us that we, in addition to such missile systems as S-500 or Nudol, may expect appearance of something truly revolutionary which is still hidden behind curtain of secrecy in Russia. Lasers? Sure, we already know about them, like Peresvet, but something tells me some other physics could be involved. In the end, many still cannot get a full meaning of this demonstration which speaks volumes for professionals.
Some Turkish user already uploaded a video of S-400 running its radar systems, namely 40V6MR mast with acquisition 96L6 radar, and, what seems like a 91N6E--another acquisition and battle management radar. I cannot vouch for this video being genuine but to me it looks legit.
So, Turks are already running, it seems, detection routine with F-16 and F-4 as targets. Turks will, already do, want more. Turks know what comes next, and it is S-500--they want it. The reason is simple: look at the map of Turkey and see how much Eastern Mediterranean she will be able to cover--pretty much all of it. Just in case. And it is not just for the reasons of Greece and gas fields, but for the reasons of Israel. Turkish path towards a leadership in Islamic world lies through the fate of Palestine. So, a lot of thing are riding on those systems for Turkey and, just a hunch, SU-35s will follow.
The issue here, of course, is extremely simple--sanction Turkey, and her drift away from NATO only accelerates, and there goes NATO as a viable military organization. Europeans will press on with their own European Armed Forces after that and, in general, it will be yet another Trump Administration's "win" for the United States. Isn't "winning" wonderful? Turks know what they are doing. As I stated before, and, let's be honest, that was very easy to predict, Russia already offered Turkey SU-35s as a "patch" deal until more serious military-industrial cooperation, involving some technology transfer will be hammered out between Turks and Russians.
While Ahmed Aubodouth's (of The Independent) piece is full of butt-hurt delirium so characteristic of UK sewer, aka its Orwellian mass-media, let's be honest--even those morons understand that:
I deliberately, with my nose held, referenced this piece since even this guy gets it in terms of a nightmare. In other terms, however, he, as is expected, doesn't get it--Turkey is her own nation, with or without Putin's "evil" plans, and after Gulenist Coup in 2016 and, now obvious, inside job of shooting Russia's SU-24 down in 2015, or murdering of Russia's Ambassador Karlov, it is clear that Erdogan knew who and how was behind those events. The rest of the piece is a standard "lefty" gibberish, including now tired bromides about European "values". But it is, indeed, a disaster for the US (as is the whole Trump's so called foreign policy, or lack thereof) and the issue here is not just political--it is, in the end, of the military-technological competition. What ALL Western media miss, of course, is the fact that Turkey is back into imperial game and is planning to lead Islamic world in the future. That is the main driver behind Erdogan's vision for Turkey and it goes without saying--one cannot deal with modern West which is becoming increasingly degenerate and not-agreement capable. One cannot also deal with defense of such vision as Turkish one by using American weaponry: a lot of it it is not that good, for starters, as F-35 demonstrated so vividly and, secondly, the United States can always, whenever she wants, shut off both equipment and logistical chains to entities which US dislikes. Turkey qualifies fully for such "treatment" because she increasingly asserts her own interests.
Russia is completely different in this respect. Russians are aware about what Turkey is up to and they have no problem with helping Turkey along her way to Asia greatness and even global relevance. And why not? Turks are striving and will continue to strive for this anyway and trying to arrest this development will merely increase the number of paroxysms and nobody in greater Eurasia really needs or wants that. Islam? Well, that is yet to be seen but one should not also forget that in Turkey Russia is staking a very valuable and voluminous market and hydrocarbons' hub. That, plus Bosporus and Dardanelles, aka Turkish Straits. Russia and her present Black Sea Fleet and what is shaping to be the new edition of 5th Operational Squadron (5 OPESK), not to mention Tartus in Syria, need those. Big, very big politics is involved.
Would Trump sanction Turkey eventually? If he wants to accelerate solidifying Russia and China's positions within Eurasia, sure. But he has to be aware of the fact that this will increasingly shrink both American influence and, inevitably, her market for military toys. Russia, in this respect, knows really well what she is doing--Turkey will need many of those. Many of them already are and will be what neither NATO member, the United States included, can offer. Air Force Times may have their own doubts about SU-57 entering the picture after pretty much (I would assume, I could be wrong, of course--don't take it as a fact yet) settled deal with SU-35s for Turkey, otherwise Rostec's very own Chemezov wouldn't publicly offer them.
It has to be remembered that Erdogan openly spoke recently about not only SU-35s but SU-57s. Will Turkey get her hands on this combat aircraft? We all may discuss all combat virtues and faults of SU-57 whatever we want, but there is very little doubt that today it is the world's premier combat aircraft with unmatched capabilities, which make F-35 look like...ahem...turkey and Russia is putting this technology into series production with contract for the first 76 (three regiments) aircraft for Russian VKS signed just recently. So, Air Force Times needs to update itself. Now, one has to keep in mind Russia's military procurement truism: Russia never offers anything for sale abroad in terms of weapons unless new generation is already in IOC or nearing the conclusion of R&D phase. So, was Erdogan bluffing about S-500? Something tells me that there is a chance he didn't. Obviously not now, but down the road, why not?
Meanwhile, Vladimir Zhirinovsky is Russia's main political clown and once he is gone, his political party (LDPR), essentially a one-man show, will dissolve itself naturally. But as any court jester, Zhirnovsky often speaks the truth, however in a bizarre, caricature form. So, who knows, what Russia has now in works. S-600, 700? Surely, Russia works on something which will follow S-500 which is also now in series production. And that brings us to this issue which I cover ad nauseam--in international relations combination of real military power and fair business is a deadly combination. Real power on the international arena exists ONLY when it rests on a foundation of a REAL military power. Real military power is a combination of factors among which the ability to produce most advanced and effective war machines is a defining feature. No machines--no power. Turks know this damn well. And as in any Asian culture the matter of prestige is of enormous importance. Ignorant filthy-moneyed Gulfie Arabs may have enough money to buy latest Rolls-Royce model or built (or rather pay for) pretty ugly post-modernist skyscrapers but it seems that Turks would rather drive Toyotas and manufacture cutting edge military technology with which they, later, will try to reclaim the glory of a Sublime Porte and for that they need to have more SU-57s and S-500 than Rolls-Royces or Lamborghinis. After all, there is always Aurus, as long as you have a desire to wait in line for couple of years. After all, this, allegedly omnipotent and omnipresent, dude rides in one.
