I do identify myself as a man (that is a Gentleman) and my wife as a woman (that is a Lady--she is a real deal, unlike me being a Gentleman), so Air Canada for us becomes problematic:
Aw, isn't it lovely? So progressive and so...fabulous.
Earlier this year, US airlines
represented by the Airlines for America trade group — including
American, United, and Southwest — announced that they would add an "X" option for non-binary passengers on their boarding passes from June 2019. In March, United Airlines also became the first in the US
to launch non-binary gender options for customers booking flights — it
now offers the gender-neutral title "Mx" alongside "Mr" and "Ms."
So, I guess, airlines will offer an appropriate rigorous training for their "valued" employees because, as we all know, respecting "non-binary" citizenry is one of the most important tasks flight-crews must solve. In related news:
Oh, that oughta solve all Boeing's problems (sarc). Especially when the guy who helped to run GE and Caterpillar(and Boeing)to incredible successes (you know--stock prices), evidently, has an accounting background from Virginia Tech. He even wrote a book on how to become really, really successful. Like really, really successful, especially when running a market research firm and then transferring those relevant (sarc) skills into aerospace industry with all this industry's Quality Management Systems, Quality Assurance procedures, metrology, engineering, specifications and instructions, testing of the materials and systems--you know, all those things they "teach" in the classes on "how to win". Indeed, what can possibly go wrong? After all, Mr. Calhoun should write a second volume of his book on "how companies win" where he will expand on the incredibly "successful" B-737 Max and how he, yes, personally, supervised Boeing's clumsy response, which, together with him personally pushing for B-737 Max, ensured absolutely that Boeing "will win". And it continues to win ever since two B-737 Max crushed killing 300+ people despite the fact that American pilots (forget those "others") warned about issues with the plane on many occasions prior to those tragedies. Hey, what do those pilots know? Same goes to Boeing's B-767 based refueling aircraft. Shareholders were happy and that is the only thing that matters, right? I hope they will arrive, eventually, to the right conclusions at Boeing to address the situation. I am all for real competition in this field, which, as we may learn from this all--exposes weaknesses immediately. I am against any monopoly in this field. In aerospace it is not a good idea.
In general, one is forced, at this stage, viewing this avalanche of not very inspiring (to put it mildly) news from US real economy, reflect on the way true competence and, once legendary, American engineering prowess is being completely diluted with financialization of the whole economy into oblivion, where the only measure of quality becomes, such as a cancerous political correctness and institutionalization of mental abnormality in social life, in it being completely false, an economic equivalency of "bottom line" and stock pricing. It is the road to hell.
Recall also that Iraqi 35th Mechanized Brigade preferred T-90 to US made Abrams tanks. Egypt, meanwhile, altogether produces pre-kitted Abrams tanks in Egypt. I guess Syria answered a lot of questions regarding combat performance of the military hardware. So, as you can see, things are getting extremely interesting in the world. Now, we have to see where this whole anti-Constitutional coup will lead all of us; but if Trump's bold moves and bold anti-interventionist and anti-neocon statements are any indication, we may yet see a long-overdue cleansing of the treasonous camp, as James Kunstler thinks it will happen:
While I work in commercial aerospace industry, I am, certainly, not an insider in a financial-economic sense. The article, however, gives a hint:
While demand for the narrow body
aircraft that dominate most fleets remains strong, demand for larger,
long-haul aircraft like the 787 and Airbus A330 and A350 has weakened. Boeing won most of the wide body orders so far this year but neither
planemaker is selling as many aircraft as it would like amid trade
tensions, concerns over the global economy and the increased ability of
smaller narrow bodies to fly long distances.
Ah, that's warmer. Two major factors on Russian side:
1. MC-21, slated for serial production in 2021, including delays with certification of Russian composites which substituted "sanctioned" ones, is fully capable to carry non-stop 160+ passengers from Moscow or St. Petersburg to Krasnoyarsk or Yakutsk easy-peasy. Same goes for any destination in Europe and Middle East, while good ol' B-777s still fly such routes as Moscow-Vladivostok or Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and cover all needs no problem. MC-21, obviously, will have also no problem reaching from Vladivostok (or Khabarovsk) most cities of mainland China, and all cities in South Korea not to speak of Japan, which realistically is not even considered that much of an abroad for Russian Far Easterners.
Translation:JSC Voronezh Plane Building Society (PAO VASO) just finished assembly of the first experimental long-range wide-body IL-96 400M. Preliminary tests should be conducted from November 2019 through January 2020. Additional certification tests are planned through May 2020 and they should result in issuing of the addendum to certificate of the type in June--qualification of the main change in the design. From 2020 thro0ugh 2023 State Transport Leasing Company will receive five new aircraft. They expected to operate on Moscow-Khabarovsk and Moscow-Vladivostok routes.
This is fast. Now, what would those new IL-96s be in terms of engines? It seems that those will be four engine (PD-18) machines, until PD-35 hits serial production lines roughly by 2025 and will be installed on Chinese-Russian CR-929 and fully redesigned two-engine IL-96. That explains a lot, albeit not all, in terms of this contract between Aeroflot and Boeing. Frankly, these are stunning developments, simply stunning, they also indicate that PD-14 and its up-powered version PD-18 and down-powered PD-10 to substitute French-Russian SAMs on Sukhoi Super Jets, are well in the pipeline for tests and production. Russia, obviously, goes her own way being only the third (!!!) country capable to produce wide-body commercial aircraft and, that is the fact which should have been foreseen by Boeing and Airbus (read: US and EU) when sanctioning Russia's aerospace industry, which went into overdrive instead of collapsing. These new five IL-96s are not going to remove wide-body foreign aircraft from voluminous Russian market, IL-96s which will follow with PD-35 engine will.
A rather interesting article by Andrew Metrick in October issue of the US Naval Institute Proceedings which is a very welcome respite after reading and watching all kinds of min-boggling pseudo-scientific gibberish such as this Swedish dude's "insights". Metrick's article in Proceedings has a very simple title: (Un)Mind the Gap. The Gap, of course, being Cold War's good ol' GIUK (Greenland, Iceland, United kingdom) Gap, which served as a , using Russian lingo, Protivolodochnyi Rubezh (ASW barrier) standing in the way of Soviet submarines trying to break out into the Northern and Mid-Atlantic Ocean to harass NATO-crucial SLOCs and sink all kinds of vessels and naval ships.
Metrick, to his credit, gives some retrospection into Anti-Submarine Warfare of the closing phase of the Cold War 1.0 and writes:
It is an important admission since even in 1990s, due to propaganda inertia even some "analysts" who were supposed to know better didn't know better about USSR and Soviet Navy closing the proverbial "acoustic" quieting/sonar gap in 1980s, which lead to a complete dramatic operational shift in the oceans with Soviet Subs not only breaking through GIUK Gap but traveling to and patrolling entrances to the Strait of Juan De Fuca (forget the Gulf of Alaska--patrols there were a routine in 1970s) in 1980s thus controlling exit of US Navy's subs from their base. Should late Tom Clancy have been alive today he would have had aneurysm reading memoirs such as by CO of the Victor-III class (project 671 RTM) K-492 SSN of Kamchatka Flotilla now Rear-Admiral Dudko, who writes about such operations in his "Heroes of Bangor. Operation Sea Wanderer. Submariners of Kamchatka" (in Russian). As I state constantly, in fact, ad nauseam--the story of the Cold War 1.0 hasn't been written yet. Most (not all) what general public in the West knows about it is sheer propaganda, which was well tailored to the fact of the Soviet collapse. Reality, of course, was much more complex. Metrick's retrospection, in this case, is an effort to be lauded.
Metrick is also correct when points out that:
After the Cold War, the United States and NATO largely abandoned their ASW capabilities.
But, he is not the first one who signals a decay of, usually, very fast degrading and, arguably, most complex naval skills such as ASW. Well, US Navy doesn't like unglamorous, very hard, tedious and complex ASW, aka "slow warfare". Degradation of US ASW was pointed out by US important ASW authority John Benedict as early as in 1997 and then in 2005 providing "score cards" and analysis of the US Navy's ASW trends.
Today, this trend analysis must be adjusted dramatically and the author acknowledges it, while making one major strategic mistake:
The primary mission for Russian attack and guided-missile submarines is
to prevent the reinforcement of the European theater from the United
States by sea. Today’s Russian platforms may resemble those of the Cold
War, but their weapon systems have improved dramatically. Russia does
not need to hunt sealift vessels in the open ocean to halt reinforcement
of NATO across the Atlantic. Its long-range land-attack cruise missiles
can strike the vital North Sea port infrastructure in Belgium, the
Netherlands, and Germany from launch platforms in the Norwegian and
Barents seas. The revolution in Russian naval long-range strike
capabilities has dramatically decreased the relevance of the GIUK Gap.
While Metrick does a good job describing an effect of a salvo of tens of 3M14 missiles on Bremenhaven as a main "unloading point" of arriving NATO reinforcements to attack Russia (yes, namely this way, not the other way around), he is incorrect in assuming that such an asset as Project 885 Yasen-class SSGNs will be involved in striking European ports--for that Russia has more than enough 3M14 and X-101s loaded on a fleet of missile corvettes, SSKs and strategic bombers of Tu-160 and Tu-95 variety. The first salvo from these assets may involve up to 150-200 long range cruise missiles--all of them within the range of any European port capable to receive reinforcements from the US. Yasens are a different breed--they are specifically designed for operations on SLOC, their own ASW (against NATO subs) and, finally, these are dedicated CBGs killers, more so than even monstrous Oscar-II (Project 949A) SSGNs. Next year, first launch of hypersonic 3M22 Zircon is planned from one of the Yasen-class subs. This weapon changes calculus of any war on the high seas completely.
We will never know, of course, a typical load of Yasen-class SSGNs once Zircon is out of IOC and is deployed fully. Even 4-5 of such weapons, when combined with the load of Kalibr (including ASW missiles) family missiles and P-800 Onyx, is enough to deny operations in case of war of couple of US Navy's CBGs, thus removing ultimately required surface escort for reinforcements. In general, all of it doesn't look good for NATO. Metrick DOES conclude along the same lines:
Russia’s new strike capabilities give its navy and, in particular, its
submarine fleet a tremendous ability to influence the European military
balance. The GIUK Gap will not provide a geographic crutch to help
mitigate the threat, as long-range weapons allow Russian submarines to
operate from the relative security of the Norwegian and Barents seas.17
For example, a submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM) with a range of
1,000 miles would give the Russian Navy a potential patrol area of
100,000 square miles from which it could strike Bremerhaven while
remaining reasonably secure.
So, why Metrick's article is important? It DOES acknowledge, however incompletely, a new reality of Real Revolution In Military Affairs in one of very few reputable American military media, which still retains a degree of respect among military professionals globally. There are things I disagree with Metrick on some operational matters, including his generalities about UUVs and operations above Arctic Circle, but at least these are disagreements on practical matters. It is good to see that someone tries to take a realistic assessment of the situation and maybe, instead of unleashing unwinnable arms race, may arrive to a conclusion that some other than military solutions are needed in settling things between combined West and Russia. After all, Russia is not that interested in the West other than the market. West can have its "values" and feel secure about it--Russia doesn't share them. Any attempt, however, to impose those "values" by force will have a devastating response and good that this is recognized, however, implicitly.
First, Huntsman has to specify this "desired effect" of sanction for who? Sanctions worked, actually, a miracle for Russia who, while having increasingly fewer meaningful economic ties to the United States grows her real economy sector quite well. Secondly, does Mr. Ambassador understand that the United States is an ungovernable entity in the state of slow collapse of its governing institutions due to an insidious coup of the Democratic Party and so called (lack of) Intelligence Community against legitimately elected POTUS (no matter how bad or good he is). Does Mr. Ambassador know who this lovely woman is?
Inga Yumasheva is a Member of Parliament (Duma) of Russia from Republic of Bashkortostan and just few days ago she was, well read yourself:
As Inga herself stated today (in Russian) it was a very unpleasant situation. Yes, especially if one considers the fact that after an hour of interrogation she was offered by FBI agent an informal meeting in some cafe. Yes, she is damn attractive woman, very feminine. She, however, added today, that we need to separate American people and US government. Or, I may add, rather lack there of, since, evidently FBI runs its own constitution, CIA does something else, House Democrats continue to lead a coup against legitimate President, while State Department lives in its own world with its own rules and acts as it thinks fit, POTUS and White House be damned:
So, can Mr. Huntsman, please, point out some people in Washington D.C. who are actually competent enough and have enough clout to hold their end of the bargain in case any dialogue between Russia and the US proceeds? Talking just for the sake of talking and maintaining contacts, of course, is fine but, as has been stated not for once--the United States is not an agreement-capable side, anymore, and that is a defining fact behind the mess which US foreign and domestic policies are. In the end, who knows, US Department of Agriculture may decide to arrest Sergei Lavrov next time he visits the United States, and why not?
One of our readers posted this interview of some Swedish Ph.D in something-something waxing technological about (Russian) weapon systems. And since this was posted, I think I owe some explanation of the abyss of technological incompetence and outright imbecility this Ph.D from Sweden exhibits.
I could last only about 8 minutes before I had to do this:
As you may have foreseen, any search on this Swedish military "luminary" produced an incredibly dry little about him, other than his working for some Swedish military-political "think-tank". And this:
Immediately few question arise from this short CV on this dude.
1. What his Ph.D thesis--he received his degree from King's College London--was about? After a brief review of King's College London courses related to warfare I discovered same ol' list of "study" courses which provide mostly zero educational value in actual warfare (and its history) and are remarkably along the same lines as courses in political pseudo-science, including same ol' "security studies" and other primarily "humanities"-driven courses which are specifically designed for people with zero STEM education and serious serious background in weapon systems and their tactics and operational dimension. Just to be completely clear on that--my degree reads like this: Navigator-engineer, a specialist in gyro-inertial navigational complexes of naval strategic missile systems. Based primarily around strategic missile submarines of pr. 667 B-BD (NATO: Delta I-II). This is not to mention the fact of receiving equivalent of B.S. in Military Sciences (a subject non-existent in the most Western world), not to mention the fact having second specialty as an officer of tactical command (platoon+) of naval infantry (marines). My graduate thesis was ASW based. Plus I graduated from some funny officer school, or, rather, school for officers. So, feel the "academic" difference.
2. As it turned out M.S.F.S. from Georgetown is nothing more than Master of Science (really?) in Foreign Service, which, of course, is yet another iteration of the political science, and teaches zero serious warfare-related skills. It is primarily designed for people with, you guessed it, mostly interest in generalities and not learning any practical skills as the record of whopping failures of the United States in the "international (or foreign) relations" demonstrates so profoundly.
So, as you can see, it is very difficult to find anything concrete on this type of "scholars" other than very general and short credentials rundown and that is about it. Ah yes, he also goes by the title of Military Generalist--I have no freaking idea what this is. You can download the publication by this dude and other Swedish "researches" here. It is a remarkable report written by people who can barely operate with basic mathematics and physics and are so butt-hurt that I, after suffering through this dude's commentaries on how Air Defense works, decided to address it. Feel free to listen to a delirium this "scholar" pushes as a fact on some British journo, he repeats merely the idiocy which is in his (and others) publication I mention above. It is a mental rape of warfare, physics, mathematics and, in the end, common sense which is totally EXPECTED from the field of so called Anglo (and lapdogs) military analysis saturated with people with zero understanding of modern warfare. Here is one such example:
The S-400 air defence system is often claimed to have a 400-km range, but FOI’s technical experts estimate that the effective range against maneuvering targets at low altitude is much less, even down to 20 km for smaller targets hugging the terrain.21 Russian specialists have estimated the effective range of the S-400 against old and un-stealthy Tomahawk cruise missiles to be 24–36 km in mixed terrain.22 At low altitudes, the masking effect of terrain, trees and buildings can cause a diagram of the effective range to resemble a Rorschach-blot rather than a neat circle. The S-400 system also has limitations when dealing with a large number of targets that appear within a short space of time, such as a swarm of cruise missiles.23
Let me do some autopsy on this steaming pile of ignorance:
Obviously while citing Roger McDermot's very understandably butt-hurt (I may add) "version" of the events mostly through approximation of what Mikhail Khodarenok or whoever else stated re: April 18, 2018 attacks in Syria, they forgot to mention that ANY air-defense complex has its tactical-technical parameters specified for the types of targets which are classified by, as a rule, their height (altitude), velocity, maneuvering parameters and RCS openly, and in EW environment secretly (that is classified). I will omit here the fact, that same Mikhail Khodarenok, while having an impressive air-defense and General Staff credentials, retired from service in 2000 and, as it is inevitable, had his Form 1A (I used to hold one too) clearance removed. S-400 became operational in 2007 and since then has been "improved" constantly. But, I know that they do not teach basic physics and radar technology, especially as it applies to military, in institutions which this Swedish "scholar" graduated from and let me explain why it is a problem,
1. I quote: The
S-400 air defence system is often claimed to have a 400-km range, but
FOI’s technical experts estimate that the effective range against
maneuvering targets at low altitude is much less, even down to 20 km for
smaller targets hugging the terrain.
If I deploy S-400 in 30 meters from the 100 meter high wall, S-400 range will be about...30 meters in the wall's "sector". But our Swedish friends need to be given a little lesson in the radar work. We will use the simplest physics without going into such parameters as RLP, which is radio-permeability of the environment, refraction and other physical phenomena which define the use of....read attentively, it will matter later in this post, INTEGRATED AIR-DEFENSE system. So, the terrain matters--everyone understand this, but what about this attack on Russia in Baltic region, which Swedish "scholar" dreams about. Well, consider the most primitive example:
Even the brief review of trees' height in Baltic Sea area reveals that the forest canopy of the region is somewhere around 35 meters.
There are many trees which are even higher, some forests in Finland (you see, if Sweden decides to attack Russia) reach even 45 meters in height, while some Polish trees can reach the height of 50 meters. That means that safe elevation of the salvo of NATO's (or Sweden's?) cruise missiles needs to be around 70 give and take some meters. Most likely more. We may assume the area to be mostly flat, which it generally is. So, we have a cruise altitude at around 70 meters while antenna of S-400 (pay attention, I take here now only ridiculous scenario of a salvo against single S-400 divizion), will most likely encounter this 76N6 thingy which reaches 127 ft. (42 meters) high and leads us to this:
2. See highlighted in yellow.
So, what's the deal with those "smaller targets hugging terrain" and less than 20 kilometers? Even when one considers horizon "interference adjustment" for SOME forests along the path. Of course, I omit here other factors, such as multilayered and easily reconfigured (by maneuver on wheels) fully integrated AD network which includes S1, Tor-M2 and Buk-M3 (S-350 Vityaz is coming soon too) and integrated with external targeting means such as over-the-horizon radar, AWACS such as A-50 and 100 and space-based assets, which allow same S-400 attack even low flying targets at the ranges well beyond the horizon by means of active radar homing missiles such as 9M96 which are specifically designed to kill small, high speed, maneuvering targets. NATO doesn't have high speed, maneuvering land-attack missiles. None exist--all of them are subsonic easily defeated missiles, yes, including Sweden's own (in cooperation with Germany) KEPD 350.
3. Obviously our Swedish friends missed this news too:
They could have at least bothered themselves with reading good ol' Soviet AD Combat Manuals. But it seems, these "analysts" are not well acquainted with the basics of AD tactics and combat schemes of deployment which seriously consider.
a) The terrain--limitations, as well as advantages. Elevations matter and increase autonomous (stand alone) detection range;
b) Expected threats and probable threat directions (sectors): cruise missiles, aircraft, ground threats;
c) Meteorological and electric state of the environment factors.
d) Maximization of coverage (overlap) of ground, air and space based means for proper detection, tracking and development of firing solutions with proper target designation between deployed AD means. As an example A-50U (not to speak of A-100) have a superb range (hundreds of kilometers) and clutter filtering specifically against low flying targets and are capable of providing targeting to all AD complexes such as S-300 or S-400.
And then, if you survive listening through the gibberish this "analyst" delivers to British journo, his pearl about Russian anti-shipping missiles is simply one of those WTF moments.
4. So, the dude obviously is so illiterate that he doesn't even know that since late 1970s-early 1980s Soviet (now Russian) targeting radar on ships had and still have (including for shore based complexes such as Bastion or Bal) OVER-THE-HORIZON channels which were realized in such systems as Mineral ME Radar, which can detect and develop firing solution over-the-horizon, way way over the horizon. That allows the use of Russian (and Chinese, I am sure Iranian too) anti-shipping missiles at the maximum range, including receiving of targeting data, which is either ephemerids (Lambda, Phi--Longitude, Altitude) or Azimuth (Bearing)--Range, plus maneuvering elements of targets from external sources (course, speed), such as Satellites (Liana), other ships, aircraft or what have you. He obviously never heard of refined final search (dorazvedka) by missiles with active heads. How the ellipses (2D for surface) and 3D for aerial targets are reduced and uncertainties are resolved--I think this is beyond the scope of this post and requires a very long and very mathematical elaborations. I will just add that it has everything to do with the weight of observations, which brings us to another pearl:
5. I quote: At
low altitudes, the masking effect of terrain, trees and buildings can
cause a diagram of the effective range to resemble a Rorschach-blot
rather than a neat circle.
Is this clown for real? He obviously never heard about resolution of uncertainties and data fusion within network which constantly exchanges and signal processes observation data from every RELEVANT node in it and those nodes are not just a single radar from S-400 but a complex of active radar, optronic, passive inputs from several, sometimes very many, sources. In the United States it has a designated term of CEC (Cooperative Engagement Capability)--an ability to collect, process and represent real time tactical and operational information as a combined PICTURE from multiple sources. This is how Ph.D in physics and long time generally respected naval analyst Norman Friedman defines it: Picture-Centric Warfare.
Mineral
So, in this case I have to ask (rhetorically) myself--if these "analysts" and "military generalist" consult Swedish MoD it is not surprising then that Swedish Navy constantly hunts Russian subs in Baltic and seems never to detect one, while being in the state of constant hysteria. It is not surprising then, that all these "analytical" materials all as one lack any serious numbers or at least competent elaborations on tactical and operational effects, because people who write them, with some very few exceptions, do not operate within a framework in which real military professionals operate. It is downright embarrassing to see a person who goes under the title of military "analyst" spreading a teenage fanboy BS as an "assessment" while having no grasp of basic physical principles realized in modern weapon systems--of course not, one must have serious background in it. So what gives then?
The answer is simple--Sweden is a radically Russophobic nation, to a hysterical pitch Russophobia. Partially it can be explained by Russia winning the Great Northern War thus removing Sweden from the position of Northern (not just Scandinavian) European superpowerdom. Part of it is a memory of embarrassing primarily for the USSR but also for Swedish Navy flop with Swedish Komsomolets in 1981 which fueled flames of Swedish anti-Russian paranoia. Part of it is Sweden turning into cuckold nation long ago and becoming the rape capital of Europe and fighting hard to become #1 in the world, while sticking to the suicidal and humiliating policies domestically. While Swedish women are being raped, sorry, culturally enriched, by hordes of "refugees" Swedes are being intimidated by their "free" media with those crude, Slavic subhumans to the East who are sleeping and dreaming about conquering free Sweden and finally stealing those tremendously important and coveted secrets of Ikea. They cannot conceive that Russians just do not give a damn about Sweden, or about Europe in general anymore and that Russia is long ago is in full defensive posture. In fact, Sweden must face the fact that the times of ABBA are over, and that while Volvo is a good car, Gripen still flies with licensed to Volvo US GE F404 engine. Sweden, of course, leads the world in discovering new genders. So, this, I believe, projected against the background of a general Western intellectual collapse what drives such "researchers" and "scholars" to go out and self-medicate with utter BS designed for consumption of a public which increasingly finds itself already in or ignores rigid shackles of totalitarianism and the death of the free thought and meritocracy in the West. And who can best serve as an exhibit A of this Orwellian reality--Sweden immediately comes to mind. And here you are.
Or many other things of similar nature, so you get the gist of propaganda which was pushed for years at Western and, by design, Chinese, Russian and other consumers of Western mass-media sewer and "analysis". While I may disagree (and radically at that) with Andrei Raevsky's (The Saker) definition of Russian-Chinese relations as symbiotic and as double helix, I feel a need to address the latest events in Russian-Chinese relations and namely a stunning revelation by Vladimir Putin that Russia effectively builds a Chinese (SRPN) Missile Attack Early Warning System. But not only that, once one considers WHAT military and civilian technology Russia increasingly begins to offer for export.
It is an established fact that Chinese economy is about four-five times larger than that of Russia, with Chinese population being 10 times that of Russia. It is also an established fact that Western assessment methods of the actual power of the states are an institutionalized fraud built around dubious at best, deliberate lying at worst, criteria, which are also aggravated with, pardon my French, very shitty so called "intelligence." So, in order to measure actual power and status of the state one must be able to unify economic, soft and military power much of which rests with what time after time, using numbers and opinions of people of such scale as Sergei Lavrov, always comes down to Corelli Barnett's prophetic:
power
of the nation-state by no means consist only in its armed forces, but
also in its economic and technological resources; in the dexterity,
foresight and resolution with which its foreign policy is conducted; in
the efficiency of its social and political organization. It consists
most of all in the nation itself, the people, their skills, energy,
ambition, discipline, initiative; their beliefs, myths and illusions.
And it consists, further, in the way all these factors are related to
one another.
In modern world it is the ability to build machines, amazing machines, which counts hugely towards the status and real power. I addressed not for once this issue. Time to address again. Russia produces machines China cannot. Those machines unlike undeniably impressive China'scommercial technologies, such as 5G, massive commercial shipbuilding or high-speed trains, directly change global balance of power. Russia has a state-of-the-art system which enhances China's global position dramatically, in fact, in revolutionary way, Russia shares (some of) this system with China--this is unprecedented historically. Chinese know that, they also know that it will be Russian aerospace industry, through joint venture which will produce CR-929 with Russia responsible for wing, center section and PD-35 engines for this aircraft. And, of course, Russia supplying domestic versions of SU-35 and S-400 to China.
The question which MUST be asked here is not who is "junior" or "senior" partner in this now almost official alliance, but what technologies and machines Russia is NOT exporting to China. Once this issue is pondered, one will stop driving this propaganda BS about Russia being a "junior" partner. This is not how it works and it becomes increasingly clear that it is Russia's technologies which increasingly drive the emerging security arrangement of Eurasia and globally. China, of course, contributes too, not least through mutual cooperation, such as direct investment into Russia and trade. Enough to take a look at some of the massive gigantic cranes at new Russia's monstrous shipyard Zvezda in the Far East, those cranes and control systems were made in China.
This dated photo merely shows cyclopic Chinese-made cranes, the area today is occupied by the hulls of few new Aframax tankers being built at Zvezda. So, in general, Russian-Chines cooperation, including military one develops extremely well. Obviously, for the combined West which sees the surrounding world only as a place for zero-sum interactions, such a level of relations is simply beyond the grasp. But latest events have shown that "revelation" in terms of Russia's technologies will continue and they will continue to shake and reshape the world in the most profound way. So much for a "junior" partner. So, West's propaganda campaign, against Russian-Chinese relations failed miserably and, in the end, can West provide China with what Russia can--an enhanced security? No, in fact, it becomes increasingly clear that there are no machines in the West which can do that, especially against newly emerging technologies. As, forgive me, I predicted years ago.
