Sanctions may make it happen:
…we may undo the work of the Cold War era and stand godfather to a new Sino-Russian alliance. This without doubt would be the stupidest move in the history of American foreign policy. Russia’s economy is weak, but Russia has considerable latent resources in military technology. Russia has a limitless market for natural resources in China and a prospective partner in military technology. If we continue to dismantle our defense capacity while Russia and China nourish theirs, we will be in deep trouble.
The best response to Putin’s challenge would be a massive increase in defense R&D, with a view to neutralizing Russia’s perceived areas of strength in missile and air defense technology (remember how SDI cowed Gorbachev in the 1980s?). That would command China’s respect and reduce Russia’s attractiveness as a prospective partner. The Crimea was, is, and will be Russian, and it’s pointless to cry over milk that was spilled in 1783. We need to think several moves ahead on the chessboard. Otherwise, Chancellor Merkel is quite right: sanctions are pointless.
That would include innovations in Milspace, something that apparently only DARPA is capable of.
Sanctions are the worst “don’t want to appear weak or apathetic, gotta do something!” action.
Initially I thought that Obama’s election wouldn’t be so bad, probably wouldn’t ruin the country.
Then I thought that the country would probably be able to weather the damage even if it’s pretty bad.
Now I have to seriously wonder what the hell the end result of this shit show is going to be.
Unwinning the Cold War would be the most monumental failure in American politics since Buchanan’s presidency, if not worse.
You neo-cons just don’t understand that cutting our military actually makes it stronger. This is why eliminating the Tomahawk cruise missile from our arsenal will make us the greatest military power of all time.
Unwinning the Cold War would be the most monumental failure in American politics since Buchanan’s presidency, if not worse.
It is not like such a thing did not happen before. Honestly did you think the Russians would be content in their role? This was bound to happen eventually. The only question was how and when.
There is little left for the Russian military industry to sell to China at this point. Metallurgical and gas turbine engine technology is probably the main flaw in the Chinese defense sector but even there they have had programs to reverse engineer engines across the spectrum for over a decade now. Perhaps they could also sell them bomber technology but they have been reluctant to do it and I doubt that would change now. Once the Chinese have their next generation engines there is little left to do in order to have a new generation bomber as it is. They already have experience manufacturing large airframes.
The J-20, J-31, Y-20 prototypes should be enough to show they can do it by themselves.
The Russians have a smaller manpower pool, less GDP, are way behind in electronics. The Chinese are going to be the main power in Euroasia going forward. That is one reason why I compare the Russians to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Guess who would be Imperial Germany in that analogy.
The US already is developing technologies to handle such an alliance. UAVs, railguns, lasers, etc. Missile air defense systems cannot beat a laser in speed. Manpower pools become irrelevant once you start using UAVs. Railguns are an interesting way to cheaply defeat masses of armor. AFAIK all those programs are still going forward. There were some cancellations like the ABL but the fact is COIL is an obsolete technology. The military has been more interested in solid state lasers and those projects are still being funded.
With Obama, citing the rise of Hitler and Stalin in defense of his feckless foreign policy is about the most we can hope for.
Other world powers who were once antagonists of the US, such as the UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Japan are now (or were) close friends of the US and well behaved on the international stage. Russia could have easily joined that group, and was in the process of doing so, but they obviously saw the disrespect and disdain with which even close long-time allies are treated by the Obama Administration, then noticed the utter incompetence beneath his pompous overweening ego, and took a different course. Nobody wants to play second fiddle to an arrogant, clueless fool.
So whereas the Russians could’ve had much closer ties to the US and Western Europe, offsetting the rise of Chinese power, Obama and Kerry are creating a situation where an expansionist China will start taking things, fully protected by the Soviet nuclear umbrella and economic leverage over the Europeans.
Completely different. For one the Russians never disarmed. For another their economy was in shambles after the fall of the Soviet Union and it only started growing again after Putin got into power.
When he was first elected, I said, “He’s going to get a lot of people killed.”
That he is an enemy of the United States cannot be doubted. I would just like to know exactly who he is working for.
I’d look into what India has to say about it.
Not a lot. They are the largest buyer of Russian weapons in the world.
Exactly and have border disputes with China. When the world aligns to just us or them the real fighting begins. Since we don’t have empire ambitions we need to keep a world with multiple sides and complicated alliances. India could be a huge player in that.
Have you ever wondered why we see Chinese words spelled like “Qin?” The transcription of Chinese characters into the Latin alphabet (termed, “Pinyin”) was revamped in 1957 during the time that China and Russia were aligned against the West. So it is based, not on English, but on Russian. That is why the name that is pronounced, “Chin” is written “Qin” and “Pinyin” is pronounced “peen een.” Interestingly, Pinyin is as foreign to the Chinese speaker as it is to us. We both have to study it to understand it. The moral of the story is that alliances have consequences.
Bill,
Your comment sounds like a large bucket of gorm! That is, your comment sounds knowledgeable and not, as Rand and JK Rowling put it, gormless.
But when I google for more information, I see a lot of sites that claim that a Russian connection to Pinyin is
a complete myth. Google “Pinyin influenced by Russian” to see some them. Do you have any sources to help me decide whether you’re being gormless or gormfull?
The Chinese don’t need Russia, and would probably find overtures from them embarrassing.
The Chinese need Russian oil and some technology. Russia has to grab it’s near abroad for population growth.
so if a chinese-russian alliance is bad for America, does that mean Walmart is trading
with the enemy?
Trade with enemies is common. What’s your point?