Observations From the Back Row: Russia

Russia's military is overrated

By Rich Kozlovich

Recently I've seen reports of all these amazing tanks and jets Russia is unfolding for the world to see.  Well....so what? 

Nikita Khrushchev, former Premier of the Soviet Union,  claimed “we're turning out missiles like sausages”, and the CIA was either unable or unwilling to confirm or deny it.  It gets tricky here because it's possible the CIA was complicit.  Sound strange?

During WWII the secret agency doing CIA type work was called the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which became the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). We now know the OSS was infiltrated by communists, some of whom migrated into the CIA. Did this impact intelligence? I find it hard to think otherwise, especially since we now know there was support in the CIA for Fidel Castro.

However - we now also know Khrushchev's claims were bogus.   And all this sabre rattling by Putin is much the same.  Advanced weapons systems are massively expensive!   And not just for research, development and manufacturing.  Try to understand - the maintenance of advanced weapons systems is shockingly expensive.  It requires a nation that's a natural capital generator, which Russia is not. 

Now, this isn't anything new to my regular readers - I've been saying this for a long time, but now, according to Geopolitical Futures  "signs of distress are mounting in Russia’s defense industry and military acquisitions. The State Armaments Program is undergoing budget cuts, and the Military Industrial Commission decided to stop full-scale production on its most expensive projects, especially ships and aircraft."

There is an attempt to modernize what they have over spending money - money they don't have - on new systems.  That won't work because Russia's overall technology is 25 years behind. 

Putin's public goals are to create a military with advanced air defence systems, and an army with more tanks and more infantry vehicles,  spending "42 percent in ground forces and in the airborne forces 58 percent".   But they're abandoning "development of several weapons programs, including a new aircraft carrier, a new nuclear-powered destroyer, a strategic bomber and a fighter interceptor."

That means - no money! They have no money, a downward spiraling central planned economy, backward technology - and once you scratch the surface of Russia military you will find bad workmanship and equipment that doesn't work as planned.  Their special forces are top notch, but their military overall is ill equipped, ill trained, ill motivated, undermanned and a demographic pyramid that's all out of whack.  The age group between 15 and 50 is so small Putin can only man three of Russia's seven defensive gaps and that age group is rife with alcoholism, drug resistant TB and AIDS. 

Nothing more exposed how great Russia's military systems look - but how badly it performs as did the United States attack in the first Iraq War.  Iraq's defence system was a mimic of the Russian military - and it shocked the Russians how easily the U.S. overcame them. 

Nothing has changed, nor will it change, because Russia is an economic and demographic mess run by amoral central planning thugs and criminals.