The complex will be used during simulation of the tactical episode Aviamix, in which MiG-31Ks carrying Kinzhal, and escorted by MiG-31BMs, will annihilate "enemy's" air defense systems for provision of the use of ground-attack and close air support aviation. Hm, I wonder why such an unrealistic scenario (wink, wink)--it seems so...so...far fetched. Nah, I am being facetious--the message is clear and it is damn serious. Those who need to know, already received this message. Meanwhile, I can totally imagine (I am one myself) huge swaths of arm chair strategists, analytical and intelligence communities globally salivating waiting for possible (???) shots of Kinzhal doing its Mach=10 thingy. This, I would love to see.
In addition, SU-57s will conduct fighter escort for TU-22M3 and SU-34s during those launching missiles and bombs at targets. So, in general, to put it in simple language--this Aviadarts is about demonstrating one of the scenarios of annihilation of NATO's ABM and Air Defense systems in countries neighboring Russia. Look at the list of participants: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and, you guessed it, China. So, tomorrow, then.
One of the best Russian geopolitical observers, Rostislav Ishenko commented on the death of INF Treaty and Putin's statement at Security Council meeting in this regard couple of days ago. Here are some crucial points he makes on Putin's statement. I already commented exhaustively on the change in the European theater with Kinzhal deployed to Southern Military District.
Translation:This means that, first, Moscow abandoned attempts to save the INF Treaty or to make US go back to negotiating table. Secondly, Russia is not compromising despite demands from Washington. Thirdly, Russian leadership is ready for raising stakes by the US, but points out the danger of "who blinks first" game, because if nobody blinks--the result could be the full scale nuclear conflict with possibility of annihilation of if not humanity, then, of the civilization. Fourth, the promise not to deploy new missiles unless US does it, shows that Russia is ready to create new positions for her missiles.
Buthere is what really is important in Ishenko's piece:
Арсенал возможных
ответов на агрессивную политику США у Москвы практически неисчерпаем. И
Путин фактически заявил уже не о готовности, но о намерении перейти
к действиям, как только нам покажется, что американцы перешли красную
черту. Кремль отдаёт себе отчёт, что идёт опасная игра на грани мировой
войны, но «зачем нужен мир, если в нём не будет России»?
Translation:The arsenal of possible responses by Moscow to aggressive policy by the US is practically limitless. Putin clearly stated not just about readiness but about direct intent to act, once Russia sees that the United States crossed the red line. Kremlin clearly understands that a dangerous game bordering on the world war is ongoing, but "why do we need world where there is no Russia"(c) (using Putin's quote).
I deliberated on military means Moscow has at her disposal very extensively in the last two years. My new book also covers the issue in depth. I just wanted to suggest to read Rostislav's piece in full (Google Translate will do the job) and see for yourself what is the real mood in Russia.
From the get go--let's drop this "far-right" moniker in relation to Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. They are NOT "far-right". AfD is your classic nationalist party, which, against the background of Germany's insane suicidal politics professed by her traditional parties, looks almost alien. They are. For brainwashed, emasculated and culturally "enriched" by rape, lawlessness, gender-bending and suffocated by PC Western parts they seem too "extreme". They are not, they might well be the last vestige of Germanness. Unsurprisingly, AfD soars in what used to be GDR (DDR).
One may begin to wonder about Eastern Germany--ahh, sure, they are still not up to "speed" with allegedly more economically developed West, but they sure as hell still have a lot of real German culture and spirit surviving there--courtesy of the....drum roll...Soviet Union which, having East Germany under occupation, instead of promoting European "values" (ahem), was acting fully in accordance to Stalin's prophetic:"Hitlers come and go, Germany remains". West Germany, on the other hand, was completely emasculated and "enriched", especially by actively Islamizing it.
Frankly, at this stage, I personally don't really give a damn about what may happen with Europe in the future, I simply gave up, and I leave it up to chance--Que sera, sera. Europe is declining, it is easily visible, and in this sense will not be able to make right decision for its own survival. She will continue to be America's doormat, until the United States itself contracts (in progress now), but Germany is interesting in this case, since without Germany there is no Europe. I also do not believe in Germany's return as a global player, she fails in few crucial metrics for that (every European country does), but the fact that Germans at least are trying is indicative of a future configuration for (still larger) Eurasia. As America inevitably and visibly is fading away as a sole (self-proclaimed, mostly) global power, this configuration of political forces in Europe (or whatever will be left of it) will have huge significance for historic fates of what used to be known as Western Civilization.
As Coltrane was (yeah, the real Black Art), so is this girl from India....Mind boggling. Why do you think aliens spoke to Earthlings in The Close Encounters Of The Third Kind using music. It is a universal language.
It is an honorable position, but Perry is wrong--we are NOT sleepwalking into a new arms race, we are already in it and the United States finds itself in a very unusual position--it needs to catch up with Russia, and, to a degree, China. I will omit here, not for once articulated rationales' behind the US withdrawal from INF Treaty, but US needs to "close the gap" as fast as it can. The American move was predicted long time ago and it is to develop a newer iteration of a good ol' Pershing (aka Euromissile) and load as many whatever will be deemed needed (Tomahawks most likely) into the Aegis-ashore installations in Europe, among few other things, measures that is.
Pay attention to this "conventional" qualifier. Sure. Conventional it is, wink-wink. Of course, DJT thinks that he may convince, by killing arms control treaties, China to join the party--wrong thinking. In general, I begin to suspect that Trump and his "team" are secret admirers of Pushkin who wrote to Vyazemski that "long ago the main slogan for every Russian person is the worse the better." Wait a minute... Could it be that Bolton is an admirer of Pushkin? Or maybe even...Russia. That should raise the suspicion among Washington D.C. commissars and American Chekists--could it be that in destroying arms control regime DJT, Bolton and others are acting in accordance to...Russian slogan. In fact, they are acting as...Russians who love this the "worse the better" principle!
Indeed:
WTF is going on?
So, Russiagate, after all, could have been based on real facts of Russian meddling into American democracy by forcing Russian agents DJT (Colonel Trampov), John Bolton (Major Ivan Boltov) and others to implement the evil Russian concept of making shit so bad, that it may become really good, after all. Especially for military contractors. Damn you, Pushkin... Oh, wait. This whole thing needs to be thought over (this weekend)--there are so many signs that Russians as early as 1824, through Pushkin and, later, Dostoevsky, implanted this devastating idea that "worse is better" into American mind and in doing so convinced the United States to become non-agreement capable, ungovernable and utterly bankrupt, including running itself into the ground by trying to win an arms race in which there is only one competitor--the United States which races against itself in whatever little time is left for it to pretend itself scary. This is the situation which needs not Pushkin, though, but likely Gogol or Kafka to describe a full surrealism of contemporary American thinking, which is, indeed, the worse it becomes, the better it is seen for what it is.
Tulsi Gabbard? Here comes Russiagate 2.0. In a self-destructing Republic main stream media are totally adequate to making the US, yet another time, world's laughing stock and confirm US media reputation as a collection of miscreants and lowlifes (many with all those Emmy's, Grammy's, I am sure Oscars and Pultizer prizes). So, Russians are at it again and this time they chose Tulsi Gabbard to manipulate US elections and it must be true since MSNBC and their "investigative" cretins said so:
United States is slowly turning into Idiocracy meets Ninety Eighty Four and, of course, I am sure those unnamed "experts" all graduated Law School at COSTCO or maybe those highly regarded Walmart Schools of Broadcasting to make those conclusions. But we already knew who next Russian Manchurian Candidate will be--Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. On a more serious note--US main stream media (euphemism for mostly, not exclusively, DNC propaganda machine) are in the overdrive to completely turn this country into a paranoid madhouse. Oh wait...
Daniel Larison misidentifies motive, or, rather, doesn't go deep enough. He writes on Bolton's (of course his, Trump is merely a useful idiot in this) success in sabotaging START.
Bolton is against the treaty because it constrains and reduces the U.S.
arsenal. He is against arms control as such. He talks about more
ambitious, comprehensive agreements as a way to cover up the fact that
he doesn’t want arms control treaties to exist. This is not a case of
making the perfect the enemy of the good. It is feigning interest in
“something” better to conceal a desire for destruction.
And still fails to provide the main cause for Bolton's aversion to "reduction of the US arsenal". Yes, we know that Bolton is a chicken-hawk, and we all know his (some) personal qualities which are cowardice and being a beta-male, trying desperately to act out his deep rooted complexes of inferiority. We also know that Bolton is in the pockets of Israeli lobby and Military-Industrial Complex. It is all fine and dandy, but this description can easily be applied to very many (majority, really) people in US political "elites". The main reason for Bolton acting like this is the fact that he believes, as only incompetent people can in lieu of knowledge and sound judgement, in US still being capable to fight and win a war with Russia. This IS both motive and rationale for Bolton's aggressiveness--he really doesn't have a clue about what he is trying to push through. Him being a cuck is an ornament to his, otherwise, full ignorance of serious military-technological issues which drive arms control and evolution of weapons.
Indeed, Bolton is a lawyer by education and, thus, an ignoramus. He, certainly, as many in US government humanities-"educated" operatives, believes that the United States still can outproduce Russia in intercontinental ballistic missiles category, thus, in Bolton's view "winning" an arms race. Maybe even "bankrupting" Russia in the process. That is the thinking of an amateur--the number of times the United States can obliterate Russia (now, I believe it is either 6 or 7) over doesn't change the balance of power. Sure, the United States may go from capability to annihilate Russia 7 times over to being able annihilating her 12 times--this changes absolutely nothing in a dyadic (US-Russia) relation, because it is enough to "kill" the nation only once. After that, game changes. If Russia can obliterate the United States 5 times over, as opposed to US' ability to do so 7 or 12 times, something doesn't add up, in this case, in Bolton's desire to bury START--he is not THAT stupid not to understand this simple fact that cut-off for any strategic nuclear weapons is not 7, not 5 but just 1 time--it is enough to kill the nation once with nuclear weapons. But Bolton still needs this opening for increases in US strategic arsenal. Or maybe he IS that stupid?
Before answering this question we need to answer the other one: are 3M22 Zircon or Kinzhal "strategic" weapons? Technically--no. But realistically--yes. Project 885 Yasen-class SSGN armed with 16-20 nuclear (or even conventionally) armed 3M22 Zircons and "parked" somewhere within the several million square miles area near both US Coasts can deal damage to the United States approaching that by the launch of several SLBMs of Bulava-class by Borei-class SSBN. We live today in the age of a strategic ambiguity which came with real revolution in military affairs and Russia decidedly pulling ahead of the United States in cutting edge stand-off hypersonic precision weapons, both in conventional and nuclear variants. This is not to speak of anti-missile defense systems Russia already deploys. How far back is the United States in this race? I don't know, but I would suggest a generation of weapon systems. Can (I am not saying that he is) Bolton theoretically be aware of this situation, granted that he treats Pentagon as his own fiefdom? I assume some "news", as well (not optimistic) as the time frame for the United States catching up with Russia in this arms race, may have reached Bolton. In this case, demolishing START is an obverse side to admitting the loss in this arms race and trying to impress Russia with sheer number of US intercontinental (and medium-range, of course, with INF being demolished too) missiles--because there is NO quality there.
Russians do not particularly care about how many times over they will be annihilated by the U.S. strategic arsenal--7 or 107--Russians (those who have a professional military background) already know where they are with the next generation of weapon systems, as well as are aware of the increasing technological gap between Russia and the US in systems which really matter for actual war fighting, not just nuclear deterrence. And it is here, in the field of actual combat, where the unprecedented historically shift in military balance happened in the last few years. Or was it that unprecedented? Well, it is just the matter of personal opinion, or is it? No, I am being facetious. Numbers do not lie, that is when professionals handle them. The United States desperately needs some "response" to Russia and in attempts to find it it will inevitably further destroy its reputation, as well as will admit to the fact, by destroying yet another arms limitation treaty, that it has no viable answer to own strategic conventional (and nuclear) vulnerability and lost arms race of which I am writing for years now. So, Bolton may have faith in whatever he wants, including in the American military mythology, but the times when both countries had to, using Khrushchev's lingo, produce ballistic missiles "as sausages" are long gone and new counter-force capabilities are evolving really fast thus making any quantitative changes in ballistic missiles not as important as qualitative ones, including bringing on board competent and realistic American military and political leaders, not the types as Bolton, Pompeo and, in the end, possibly Trump himself.
