The Key ...

 ... for this rather thoughtful video:

Are these:

1. Serially produced (6 hulls), apart from single project 661 (NATO's--Papa), project 705 SSNs of the Soviet Navy:

Fully titanium hull which made them the largest titanium made objects on the planet. It also made them due to slick hydrodynamics and bismuth reactor second fastest (after already mentioned single Papa sub) submarines in history. They have been also the most automated subs in history--with crew consisting primarily of 27 officers and a few NCOs. As you may have guessed it--technologies which went into such hulls, from purest of metallurgy to welding titanium elements in the vacuum chambers (some of them huge)--this was and still is the cutting edge technology which only Russia possesses. 

2. This:

A reborn, brand new TU-160M2 strategic bomber which consists of a huge number of titanium parts, including the most crucial--central load-bearing boom which is titanium and requires a state-of-the-art electronic-ray welding. As you may have guessed it--West's "experts" thought that it was impossible to restart the production--as always, they were wrong.

   

These are just but a few examples (not to mention titanium elements, including blades, of Russian PD-8, PD-14 and PD-35 jet engines) of Russia holding a premier position in a full spectrum of titanium expertise. Yes, it is so unglamorous, as you have guessed it, compared to "hi-tech" (/sarcasm) Teslas or Louis Vuitton overpriced junk for cultural riff-raff. But that is the REAL world and if you ask me, I can only speculate (wink, wink) on a dramatic role of titanium (together with advanced composites) playing role in Russia's missilery ranging from ICBMs to hypersonic systems. So, enjoy a thoughtful video. 

And, As Was Expected...

 ... someone again brought delirium on nuclear threshold by Karaganov to the discussion board. So, in order for me not to explain time after time why Karaganov is a shyster and illiterate hack, and provocateur with strong Vlasolvite calling, here is my piece I wrote for VK a few days ago on the issue of Karaganov's calls to lower nuclear threshold. 

Когда Поехала Крыша. Андрей Мартьянов.

Translation: When the Roof Slides (A euphemism for going bananas).

I am getting a bit tired reacting to all kinds of empty suits from sinking Moscow pseudo-academic and pseudo-intellectual beau monde of good ol' boys and girls who have zero expertise in anything, e.g. Karaganov, Trenin, Valdai  boys et al, but who are featured prominently, including at RT and many media in Russia due to all those media personalities being same. So, use Google Translate to get the gist of it. I do not go around suggesting doctors how to treat me, nor do I suggest nuclear power plant's operators how to run reactors--I simply know the limits of my knowledge. Some fvcking self-proclaimed Putin's "adviser" hack with degree in "history" and who never saw serious weapon system in his life suggesting to rewrite Russia's Nuclear Doctrine--this is rich. What's next? Karaganov's "manifesto" on operations of strategic missile submarines?

Moscow's (Pseudo)Intellectual Parnassus Gets A Clue.

I am on record, I do not hold much of the Moscow's "think-tankdom" in high regard, because as any "geopolitical" think-tanks anywhere they are staffed (and stuffed) with good ol' boys and girls whose only claim to any expertise is that of being from the "right" Moscow families and social circle, and their social agility when swimming in the murky waters of Moscow's "intellectual" Parnassus. Fyodor Lukyanov is one of them and he is a darling, together with a number of clueless humanities educated "experts", of RT. You can take a look at Lukyanov's bio and "credentials" here. Yes, yet another Kreakl who still didn't recognize that political science is not a science and that any discussion on contemporary geopolitics without a firm grasp of real economy and military power--two fields which require way more than a degree in philology--is nothing more than a demagoguery using big words. And here is the issue. 

Mr. Lukyanov, narrating beaten to death headlines, concludes:

Fyodor Lukyanov: Russia’s role in the global economic order has turned out to be more significant than the West believed 

It is one of those "Duh" or "No Shit" moments but I want to send you back a few years ago, namely 6 years ago, and remind you that I wrote and warned on the danger of Western, and Moscow's Parnassus, delusions about real economy for more than a decade. 

I write constantly about the parallel universe in which US main-stream media live when dealing with, well, just about anything and, especially so, Russia, but some of the brain farts produced by a bunch of hacks working for US media machine do deserve to be singled out. Here is a today's pearl from Boston Globe.  

The reason I warned and countered this delusion was and remains very pragmatic--US bullying's fundamental principle is "never get to fight a serious enemy". For decades pseudo-economic Voodoo about US (and West's) actual economy, the same as about that of Russia has created a false sense of both security and entitlement on the American part. The reality that US economy and its capability are vastly smaller than was declared, while Russia' economy and its capability are vastly larger than was declared by geopolitical "experts", never occurred to primarily humanities educated "masters of discourse" on the both sides of the Atlantic and that played a crucial role in the military-economic suicide of the United States which we observe right now. Recall, 8 years ago, and I will continue to repeat that ad nauseam:

I observed for decades now a consistent pattern of the wrong assessments, loony strategies and deliberate misrepresentation (lies?) of facts coming from the top of US establishment, which since 1991 lives in the make-believe world built by the triumphalists. It is difficult to explain to the average Joe that Baseball World Series, or Superbowl "World Champions" have no relation to the World and are purely internal American affairs. That there is a huge wide world outside  and that it lives and moves not in accordance to the American narrative. Explaining to American "elite" the fact that US didn't "win" the WW II, that "winning" the Cold War came about because Soviet people simply decided to end it, that Wall Street "economy" has no relation to real economy and that real wars produce misery and destruction on a scale which is incomprehensible for the "populace" of the Washington D.C. "strategists", it is not just difficult--it is next to impossible. So, the events must run the course. But it is already clear that by failing to achieve any sensible political objectives in Ukraine and in Russia, and, by this, starting a massive global re-alignment, the United States sustained a defeat. What will be the consequences of this defeat? I hate to speculate, I just know that they are already big and that the moment of facing the reality is coming.    

I didn't write it because I wanted to exercise my abilities or, rather, lack there of, in global "forecasting" but because I simply know about real economy and technological realities of the modern world just a teeny-weeny more than all those "experts" in Russia who continue to abuse their "intellectual" sinecures and wouldn't know the difference between sine and cosine, let alone between the icebreaker and the ice maker. Today, when some of them begin to wake up to the reality that Russia's economy is not just larger, but much larger than same of Germany--I warned about this fact for years--and that, for example, the United States cannot even develop, let alone produce a completely new Main Battle Tank (MBT) and they recognize that Russia commands an immense share of critical strategic resources, people like Lukyanov begin to write trivial pieces, when the main position and task of all this Moscow "expert community" for the last 10 years should have been a firm delivery to the combined West the facts about the true state and correlations of Russia and the US CINCs (Combined Index of National Capability) and the insistence on framing the academic discussion within those proverbial Barnett's 14 points. They failed miserably, being led on the primrose path by the Wall Street virtual economy and technological "expertise" limited by the knowledge of the brands of luxury cars and iPhones. Well, I am being unjust here: they, probably, have a good expertise in good booze too. 

But then again, can you imagine explaining to those people from Moscow's "geopolitical" Parnassus that the guidance and targeting systems of cruise missiles such as 3M14 or X-101, or satellite constellations of GLONASS and Liana, among many other things, the same as economy which creates them, are the main drivers of modern geopolitics and it is them on which the whole of modern Russian diplomacy and foreign relations are based upon, not some BS pseudo-intellectual constructs about geopolitics whose discussion without real solid expertise in manufacturing, including extraction, technology and weapons is the exercise in futility and demagoguery. And here we are today, the Captain Obvious discovered for himself that Russia's "economic role" in the "global" economy is more significant. I, of course, omit here the issue of military power of Russia which rests on a massive manufacturing, including dual purpose technologies. Enough to take a look at Russia's commercial aviation and the development of even SSJ-100 New. 

But, of course, these are new iPhones which really matter, right? I am sure UK citizens will have no issues with food and heat since they will have new iPhones, assembled in Asia. It is sarcasm, of course, but when I see such "experts" as Lukyanov making discoveries of what is obvious to anyone with a good mind and serious life and industry experiences, I have nothing but contempt and sadness that those "experts" never got their academic priorities straight. But then again, I wrote three books on this issue. Recall the title of the last one.