Butthurt Is Strong on This One ...

The National Interest tabloid cannot give it a rest. They continue to parade their butthurt, or a minute of military porn, LOL))

Visually, the Su-57 is impressive. But the whole purpose of stealth, long-range missiles, and beyond-visual-range detection is that if you can see the enemy with your eyes, you probably did something wrong. Following the fifth-generation showdown at the “Aero India 2025” biennial air show at the Yelahanka Air Force Station, which began last Monday, Russia has continued to hype up its Sukhoi Su-57 (NATO reporting name “Felon”).

Boy, this amateur with degree in journalism (that means he has no real education) is akin to a kindergarten kid who got his candy taken away. Here is his awesome "background", LOL. 

Somebody really has to explain this guy that:

1. So called Stealth is primarily a mythology of the Lockheed it developed to sell this BS F-117 which met ignominious demise from Serbian AD in 1999. So, this Suciu guy obviously doesn't understand that the reduction of RCS primarily in the front semi-sphere is just but one of the measures commonly known as reduction of the physical fields of the platform, not to mention the fact of any Russian AD complex or airborne radar, especially plugged in the combat network, in the US aka CEC--Cooperative Engagement Capability, yes, Russians have analog already well tried in real combat, and neither S-400 nor PESA Irbis on Su-35 or AESA Byelka on Su-57 have any difficulty detecting, tracking and developing firing solution against any "stealth" combat aircraft. I omit here a pathetic range of F-35's arsenal with its AIM-120 AMRAAM with its maximum range of 180 km against hypersonic, 400 km-range R-37 carried by Su-57, Su-35, 30SM and SM2. 

2. There was NO showdown in India. F-35 would disintegrate should it ever try even some parts of the flying routine of Su-57, and I mean literally--it would disintegrate. It is time for fanboys and the graduates of Air Combat University of the Top Gun: Maverick to wake up and try to compare combat proven weapon system against the best NATO AD scoring record air to air kills, with hangar queens of the USAF such as obsolete F-22 and some mediocre at best flying contraption which was made to fight against ... well, someone who has no viable air force. I know, it hurts so badly. But this journo can thank Biden Admin and his colleagues from the whoring "profession" who helped to expose NATO military "power" as that of the paper tiger. So, go on, make my day, punk (c). Ah yes, there was no showdown, Su-57 simply stole the show. 

Ah, The Butt-Hurt.

CNN begins to suspect something. Or rather the imbecile Tim Lister who has to face now his own ignorance. And he butt-hurts in a major way. 

A year ago, a resolute President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled direct from the battlefield of Bakhmut to address the US Congress and meet with President Joe Biden. He was feted as a hero; Ukraine’s determination to resist Russian aggression met with strong bipartisan backing in Washington. One year on, the outlook looks much grimmer. A long-anticipated Ukrainian offensive in the south has made scant progress. Russia appears to have weathered international sanctions, for now, and has converted its economy into a war machine.The Russian way of war, absorbing hideous losses of men and materiel but throwing yet more into the fight, has blunted the Ukrainian military’s tactical and technological edge, as its top general admitted in a candid essay last month. 

There you go--Russian Way of War against "tactical and technological edge" of VSU. That just shows you that an average Anglo-American corporate "journo" is a cretin. But don't relax yet, here comes Bundeswehr, no less than general Christian Freuding (in Russian) explains that while... and here comes same shtick of "huge Russian losses", says that NATO underestimated Russian potential. 

Look at him. A real general, the problem with this moron is that he forgot to ask his relatives how they "underestimated" Soviet Union in 1941. But then again--what they teach in NATO military academies is how to beat third rate militaries, and even that they don't know how to do. Now they all crawl out of their holes to form a new narrative, because these generals wouldn't know how to fight their way out of wet paper bag  and the only thing they know how to do is PR. Now that they have been shown what real war is--they suffer from an acute case of professional jealousy and they cannot deal with it. So, they confabulate. It is sort of understandable, especially against the background of Russian Armed Forces, which as we all know ran out of missiles, are sending seasons greetings to Kiev regime. Many targets have been hit by those non-existing missiles.

About Zircon, Again.

Judging by the stream of the news re: latest launch by Admiral Gorshkov of 3M22 Zircon, tests are very successful and as TASS reports (in Russian) another three launches from Gorshkov are planned by the end of the year. This includes the strike at the target imitating aircraft carrier. This is only natural and easy to foresee. Somewhere in these launches is supposed to be an underwater launch from one of the Yasen-class (project 885) SSGNs, last time it was Severodvinsk, I believe, which was planned to be used as a platform for this launch. As was expected, and guys on discussion boards already pointed out to this fact--there is a lot of butt-hurt and spin in Western media re: this launch. But then again, recall an initial reaction and then torturous (for the West) transition through Kubler-Ross Grief Model. It eneded up, of course, the United States demanding to include those non-existent weapons into the START treaty. I wonder why I don't hear anything yet from our great "strategist", prognosticator of prognosticators, exemplary military mind David Axe, but I am sure he will lend his expertise in Soviet/Russian weapons' programs any minute now.

I am on record, consistently, that moving into hyper-sonic paradigm IS a real revolution, cannot get any more real than that. It is a revolution because it changes the nature of warfare. Putin, when speaking to Valery Gerasimov upon Zircon's launch was explicit--it is event  of a massive scale for Russia. Well, for the world too. Another "expert", Kyle Mizokami, writing about Zircon gets it all wrong. 

Zircon is designed to use white-hot speed to hit targets before they can mount an effective defense. If a defending ship has its search radar mounted 100 feet off the ground and Zircon flies at an altitude of 1,000 feet (the real number might be much lower), the radar should detect the missile around 50 miles. At 1.7 miles per second, Zircon will close the gap in just 29 seconds, meaning the defending ship will need to detect, track, identify, launch defensive missiles, and achieve intercept in less than half a minute. 

As any Russian anti-shipping (or land-attack) missile Zircon has a multi-variant flight paths and it can approach target on different trajectories, including "diving" into the cone of radar blindness, attacking almost vertically, similar to X-32. But this is beyond the point, any intercept of maneuvering M=8+ missile is not the matter of "29" seconds (granted it will be detected at all--and there are reasons to assume that even detecting this type of missile is extremely difficult), it is physically impossible even under the best of circumstances to do anything. The salvo of 4 or 6 Zircons--it is beyond capability of the most advanced anti-air/missile systems to even react and will remain so for a long period of time. 

There is no technological solution for stopping this type of weapons  in the US currently. Ramifications are colossal: generally, it will be slow arduous reshaping of surface fleets towards smaller (frigate size) strike platforms. For Russian Navy, Zircon unties hands in terms of Sea Control not only in littoral and Green Water zones but, upon necessity, in the remote or ocean zone, allowing to guard surface strike groups against any attempts of US Navy to bring to bear its CBGs' fire power. Thus aircraft carriers are finally removed to the niche where they belong--primarily a power projection tool against unstable entities. Obviously a gigantic expenditure of building and maintaining any US Navy's CBG  raises the serious question about a validity of the approach of having roughly $20 billion worth of hardware (CVN+escort ships+air wing) being commensurate with a rather very limited tasks this insanely expensive force can perform under present conditions. It is too expensive to bomb some shithole of a country somewhere, but attacking Russia? What a wonderful collection of expensive, prestigious targets. 

With Russia having officially announced 7 subs and 5 frigates already planned for being armed with Zircon, plus having potentially other 6 modernized Udaloys (project 1155M) armed with a full version (1000+ km range), not to speak of a massive fleet of Russia's small missile ships (pr. 21631 and 22800) slanted to receive Zircon Light (around 500+ kilometer range) version, one is forced to ask a question--What Now? Now Marshal Billingslea will try to, yet again, pretend that Russia will negotiate on her newest arsenal and he will "press" Russians who, probably, will giggle in private about being "pressed", into some sort of compliance with... whatever will be the flavor of the month in D.C. Of course, the most terrifying prospect for the US is appearance of some sort of similar weapon in China's hands. Not that it will happen necessarily, but who knows--Russia will not allow China to fall militarily if the shit will hit the fan (God forbids) and some crazies (and there is plenty of those) in D.C. will decide to finally direct America's implosion outside by starting a "little victorious" war. Even old fool Kissinger noticed:

The US needs to rethink its hegemony and talk to China about imposing limits on their competition, because the alternative is the creation of conditions similar to those that preceded World War I, Henry Kissinger has warned.“Our leaders and their leaders have to discuss the limits beyond which they will not push threats, and how to define that,” said Kissinger, a top diplomat during the Nixon administration, who is credited with orchestrating US rapprochement with China. “You can say this is totally impossible, but if it is, we will slide into a situation similar to World War I,” he warned.

The United States simply has no good options currently. None. The less bad option, however, is to talk to Russians and not in terms of geopolitical BS and wet dreams that the United States, somehow, can convince Russia "to abandon" China--US has nothing, zero, to offer Russia to do so. But at least Russians and Americans may finally settle peacefully this "hegemony" BS between themselves and then convince China to finally sit as a Big Three at the table and finally decide how to run the world. This is the only chance for the US to stay relevant in the new world. US either negotiates and accepts limits of its influence or it will vanish one way or another. Anyway, there is a lot to ponder on this issue, because the world changes with the insane speed. Bad timing, I picked the wrong week to finish my third book, LOL. 

God, do you remember those times when America was fun and laughed at itself sincerely. MAFA--Make America Fun Again, I kid, I kid;) 

Stage-3 Butt-Hurt.

Bloomberg (yes, this famous propaganda outlet) produced today a fascinating example of delusion and an extreme, stage-3, butt-hurt, stage-1 and 2 being butt-hurts which still could be controlled by meditation and delusions. Stage-3 however, while allows one to produce delusions hits hard because those who stick to this delusion begin to understand that this is just that--a delusion and begin to grasp, however fleetingly, an unfolding reality. This is what makes Stage-3 so painful and makes delusions so unconvincing.  Get a load of that:

The real wild card here has been the coronavirus. Not just the direct economic hit, but also Putin’s distant initial reaction and the lack of a fiscal boost, which means he hasn’t seen the sort of rallying effect in the polls that has helped U.S. President Donald Trump and other political leaders. Nigel Gould-Davies, at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, suggests the risk is a repeat of Putin's Kursk debacle two decades ago, when his perceived leadership failure at the time of the submarine tragedy triggered widespread criticism. This isn’t a threat to the plan to change the constitution to allow him to stay on, but his “father of the nation” gambit may be harder to implement, especially if Russia’s under-resourced health system buckles.

The cretinism of this statement is such that it is even difficult to deconstruct it because it is basically a verbal diarrhea which even those who produce it know is shit. Reference to Kursk disaster and alleged "criticism" of Putin, of course, misses this teeny-weeny fact that it was precisely Kursk tragedy which DID reveal to Russia Vladimir Putin Russians came to know and appreciate. Then there was an end to war in Chechnya, then there was a Nord-Ost hostage drama, then there was a tragedy of Beslan and through all of this Putin  emerged as a true statesman and a national leader. But as it was always the case Western journos and "analysts" have huge issues with causality, that is they cannot properly tie together cause and effect (which is normal for people who have no viable education). Drawing parallels to Donald Trump's rating to Putin's position as a national leader is the same as comparing a high-school musical to opera from La Scala. But that is Western journos for ya. 

But why, one may ask, such statements:

Moscow is pragmatic. But Trump will need to make some concession-like noises at least on American production cuts, to help Putin save face. Not easy, but given the shut-ins already triggered by the price fall, also not impossible, with the help of U.S. state energy regulators.

LOL. So, it is not about killing, or letting live, US shale oil whose fate is in Russia's (not even Saudi) hands but to "help Putin save face". This is Stage-3, folks. It is a level of butt-hurt which triggers the only "defense" one hurting (in the butt) can offer--to project own pain onto those who are just alright. You  know like the statement on Russia's "under-resourced" health care. But why, why (wink, wink) such a drama--here is the answer.  

“The U.S. oil industry is being wrestled to the ground by the Russians and Saudis,” Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research in Winchester, Massachusetts, said before the report was released. “Involuntary participation is the best way to put it.” EIA forecasts that the U.S. will return to being a net importer of crude oil and petroleum products in the third quarter of 2020 and remain a net importer in most months through the end of the forecast period. The agency expects Brent, the global benchmark crude, to average $33.04 a barrel this year, down from earlier expectations of $43.30.

Ah, that's warmer. But here is even more increased temperature:

A deal still hinges on some form of co-operation with America, according to delegates involved in the talks. That may be difficult for OPEC to achieve, as President Donald Trump resists any partnership with the cartel that he’s vilified for years. However, the collapse in crude prices to 18-year lows has triggered deep reductions in U.S. drilling that mean a drop in production is inevitable, which could be enough to satisfy Saudi Arabia and Russia. “Nobody’s asked me, so if they ask I’ll make a decision,” Trump said on whether the U.S. would participate in cutbacks. American producers are “already cutting back and they’re cutting back very seriously. I think it’s happening automatically.”

So, Trump DOES make "some concession-like noises" after all to "help Putin save face" as we are told. And sure, he absolutely must "help" Putin to save "face" because the US shale oil industry is being wrecked completely even this very minute I type this, and the United States can do absolutely nothing about it unless (and even this may be too little, too late) it does cut production and gets to negotiate, de facto joining OPEC+ and turning it into OPEC++. If not, follow the news in coming weeks. I warned, genuine multi-polarity is a bitch--one suddenly needs to calculate consequences, a skill long time ago absent from current US political class, which is not surprising once one learns how the "history" is "taught" in the US and, this ever present trouble with cause and effect, add here the sudden epiphany about own self experienced through the acute, Statge-3, pain in the rear and, who knows, one may begin to suspect that producing verbal diarrhea is not the best way to deal with cold hard facts. This, mind you, without us going into the issue of REAL productive economy, which the United States needs to return in some form to its shores, thus giving itself at least some chance to survive intact. But that is a huge, separate discussion in itself since the projection numbers on the US GDP are staggering:

The bank expects second quarter GDP to contract by 33.5%, according to a Monday note. That means the period from April 1 to June 30 is shaping up to be the worst quarter on record going back to 1945, analysts led by Jonathan Golub wrote. It shows the stark effect the coronavirus pandemic is having on the US economy. In the financial crisis, the worst quarter of 2008 suffered only an 8.4% GDP slump, according to Credit Suisse. Coronavirus is also outpacing the previous record — a 10% slump in the first quarter of 1958, amid the Eisenhower recession. 

What it all means in real terms, even if the economy "bounces" back in some way in the future, nobody knows in the United States, unless we are talking about minds of the scale of Michael Hudson. Meanwhile, printing press is overheated and with each cycle it spells the end of the US Dollar as we know it and that can push butt-hurt to 11, granted we somehow survive to observe and experience it. I am not looking forward to it.

Something About "Combat Use".

Leonid Bershidsky is (butt) hurt, badly. So, after Vladimir Putin's air and anti missile defense trolling yesterday--you can see (in Russian) Rouhani's and Erdogan's priceless reactions here:

So, Bershidsky, whose biography you can read here, for some reason (wink, wink) takes it too personally and lets it rip in his piece at Bloomberg (another "fine" specimen of US "fair and balanced" propaganda outlet). Here is what bothers Mr. Bershidsky: 

President Vladimir Putin’s offer to sell Russian air defense systems to Saudi Arabia is about more than mere trolling, even though it caused laughter from Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani.  Putin was trying to persuade the entire Middle East that working with him is more effective than cooperating with the U.S.  One could regard it as a kind of mafia-style protection offer: The new, more aggressive gangster on the block is making a bid because the current king of the streets has grown lazy and risk-averse.

One can almost feel Bershidsky's pain but the problem with this statement is not the fact that there is only one gangster in this story, and that is not Russia, but in the fact that Bershidsky, who hails from an army of brilliant (ahem) "influencers" with degrees in anything but applicable serious professional skills crucial for military and geopolitical analysis, has, as expected, misrepresented risk-aversion for the exercise of sound operational judgement. The United States hasn't "grown lazy and risk-averse"--and Breshidsky wouldn't know it even if explained--it was made such by Real Revolution in Military Affairs whose arrival through new technological means, operational concepts and new force structure, simply removed most (not all) "advantages", often grossly exaggerated, the United States thought it enjoyed for the last 30 years or so. Actually, one of the major reasons this had happened was the category of public with MBAs, stock trading, marketing, finances, banking and journalism backgrounds who could understand some financial bottom lines, for which they tirelessly worked, but had and continue (as Bershidsky so vividly demonstrates) to have huge difficulties with grasping technological, tactical, operational and strategic realities of our modern world.  

Then, Bershidsky makes this bizarre assertion (one would expect it from an amateur):

In reality, it’s the S-400 that Russia has been trying hard to sell to Saudi Arabia, so far without success. It has also offered the missiles to Qatar. Neither the S-300 nor the S-400 has seen any real combat use. Theoretically, and as seen in exercises, these are powerful weapons. But not even Syria’s Bashar Al-Assad, who has had a few opportunities to use the S-300s he received from Russia last year, has done so.

First, Bashar Assad doesn't have full control of S-300 in Syria, at least not yet and it is Russia which defines S-300s use within her military and diplomatic agenda in Syria, not Syrians. It is an obvious fact, which was confirmed couple of days ago:

According to the report, Moscow has prevented three Israeli air strikes on three Syrian outposts recently, and even threatened that any jets attempting such a thing would be shot down, either by Russian jets or by the S-400 anti-aircraft missiles. The source cited in the report claims a similar situation has happened twice – and that during August, Moscow stopped an air strike on a Syrian outpost in Qasioun, where a S-300 missile battery is placed.   

Unlike Israelis or US Military-Industrial-Media Complex Russians, when the deal is a very serious real kinetic military affair between Russia and nations which matter globally (US), or regionally (Israel), seldom runs around praising oneself and own capabilities, since this may adversely affect, usually behind the scene, diplomatic effort. It is one thing to show off salvos of 3M14 burning jihadists in their compounds in Syria, or reveal weapons, such as in Putin's speech on March 1, 2018, to cool the heads of some homicidal lunatics in D.C., totally another--describing everyday contingencies between all players in the region. In fact, Russia officially was very low key on that and that is understandable. 

There is, however, a risible line in Bershidsky's "assertion" about S-300 and S-400 not seeing "any combat use". I would love to use Sergei Lavrov's meme here but I have to restrain myself, because at this stage it wouldn't help the situation. Evidently, Leonid Bershidsky who never spent a day in any serious military position, thinks that "combat use" is when things only "shoot". Well, there is one problem, well, actually two, with this assertion because from the get go he misses:

1. Both S-300 and S-400 systems were delivered to Syria with one thought in mind--to precisely prevent this "combat use" by means of deploying capability which drastically reduces tactical and operational options for all bogeys (Israel, ahem) to make them much more cooperative in a political, as opposed to combat, field. It worked, brilliantly in a strategic sense--with IAF being effectively pushed out of Syria's airspace, while reducing the number of its sorties drastically still. This is not to mention the fact that other systems, such as S1 and Tor M2s, not to mention a very well organized work of Battle Management Centers and Early Warning and Electronic Warfare systems, performing admirably by shooting down all, but one, jihadists' drones and missiles. That is real combat performance and a very impressive one. I will abstain from describing Trump's "very smart missiles" 70% of which (including, rumor has it, JASSM) had been taken down by Syrian Air Defense.

2. Now, most important--COMBAT record of the Soviet/Russian Air Defense systems. Discarding a fear of being called a Russian chauvinist, nationalist or accused of gloating (been there, done that), specifically for Bershidsky--combat record of Soviet/Russian AD systems is without equals in history. No one comes even close to a number of combat episodes Soviet/Russian systems took part in and came out victorious against bogeys. Not least among them is Israeli Air Force. I will quote from my latest:

While estimates vary wildly, approximately 1,737 U.S. aircraft (not counting helicopters) have been lost to hostile actions between 1961 and 1973 in South East Asia, largely over Vietnam.1 The majority of these losses were due to AAA (Anti-Air Artillery) and SAMs (Surface to Air Missiles). During almost 24 months of the Rolling Thunder operation the U.S. lost 881 aircraft; in 1967 alone, the United States lost 62 aircraft to SAMs while losing 205 to AAA. In 1973, during the 19-days long Yom Kippur War, the Israeli Air Force lost over 100 aircraft, most of them to SAMs. This is just a highly abbreviated list of Surface-to-Air missiles engaging all kinds of aerial threats from high value attack and fighter jet aircraft, to bombers, to cruise missiles since the early 1960s. The feature which unifies all entries in this list is the fact that all these surface-to-air missiles and the targeting and launch systems for them were and are Soviet/Russian made. Putting it in simpler, more straightforward language—Soviet/Russian Air Defense systems, when used by skilled operators, have an unrivaled combat history. No other nation has a comparable record of the use of such systems in combat and thus of gaining such a combat experience.    

For Bershidsky--all data was taken specifically from Western sources to avoid being accused of pro-Russian bias. Numbers do not lie, when confirmed. Those have been confirmed (unlike modern-day economic fuzzy data) and even at the lower end of estimates (not to mention a factor of often NON-Soviet/Russian manning of systems--in stochastic combat models multipliers less than 1 are introduced for degraded capability) make a dramatic impression. 

So, in this case, one has to start thinking what this record means for new systems? It means an enormous array of data which is behind honing, design concepts, algorithms, sensors, targeting systems that is, which allow for steady improvements in capability. In the end, this was a major reason Turks "exchanged" F-35 for S-400. I am sure they were made privy to mathematical expectations and probabilities of success for various air attack scenarios against Turkey. They, obviously, loved what they heard and saw and now Turkish officers (the second team) are in Russia training for S-400. So, unless the whole Saudi (ARAMCO) oil facility attack is a false flag by Saudis themselves or by a triumvirate of purveyors of liberty and democracy in the Middle East, aka KSA, Israel and USA, there is pretty much only one thing Saudis can do about defending oil facilities against drone and missile attacks--get systems which work. I know, that makes Leonid Bershidsky's life miserable--after all, he dedicated his journo carrier to writing on things most of which he cannot grasp or doing a hack job for someone else's interests. But in general, I am getting really tired when majors in marketing or broadcasting pretend to be "experts" in fields which are beyond their grasp. No wonder the West is in steep decline.