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China must walk the talk and support Russia

by Ghassan Kadi , The Saker, April 12, 2018

This article was written before the most recent missile attack on Syria, carried out by the US, France, and the UK.  Its argument retains relevance.

When Chinese Defence Minister, General Wei Fenghe visited Moscow on the 4th of April 2018 and made his historic comment that he was in Moscow to give a message to America that China stands by Russia (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-04/chinas-new-defence-chief-visits-russia-to-send-a-message-to-us/9616216), he put China in a new and unprecedented global position, because China had never made such direct statements about the USA since the early days of Chairman Mao; and that was a long time ago, when China was not an industrial power and an aspiring global power, and long before the rift between the USSR and Mao’s China began.
A lot has changed since, and neither Russia nor China are today what they used to be a few decades ago, and as they changed, matured and developed, their relationship vis-à-vis each other and the United States seem to have gone the full circle.
Today’s China and Russia are friends and allies; not only by the virtue that they both are desirous to change the unipolar so-called “New World Order” status of the world, but also because they have a huge number of issues that unite their national interests.
According to a Sputnik interview with Ekaterina Blinova on the 5th of April 2018, “Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel argues that the Chinese Petroyuan can’t compete with the Petrodollar as long as China is not a major energy producer” https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201804051063248574-petroyuan-petrodollar-economy/
In reality however, the Petroyuan does not need Chinese oil any more than the Petrodollar needed American oil to be underpinned with. The Petrodollar rode on the back of Saudi oil, and even though America had always been Saudi Arabia’s master and custodian ever since the inception of the Al-Saud legacy, it was not an easy partnership given that the Middle East by-and-large, and Saudi Arabia in particular, are very volatile regions of the world that can at any time implode or explode, leaving old alliances and business agreements and interests in tatters.
As a forethought, we can only expect China and Russia to have a much more stable relationship than that between the USA and Saudi Arabia, and this can be achieved at different levels; militarily, strategically, and economically among other things. Most relevant to this current context is the issue of the potential of the Petroyuan.
With China’s rising economic power that has already surpassed that of the USA on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) basis, China finds in Russia the perfect oil-gas producing partner to give the Petroyuan the proper and stable underpinning it needs to compete with the Petrodollar and replace it as the safe and rightful bid for oil futures.
And if this is not enough, both China and Russia have been accumulating gold, tens of tons of physical gold, the exact amounts of which no one really knows.
It would be foolhardy to imagine that an American/Saudi Petrodollar, unbacked by gold and/or a strong American economy, unbacked by clear and known actual amounts of Saudi reserves, would be able to compete against the rising Chinese-Russian gold-backed Petroyuan in these uncertain and unchartered economic times.
The future of the Petroyuan alone is one very good reason for China therefore to form a solid alliance with Russia.
And now that China has already launched the Petroyuan, then in doing so, it has signalled the economic no-return-point with America, because in the eyes of America, the Petroyuan is now seen as an existential threat that must be destroyed.
Huge as it is potentially, there is much more that unites China with Russia than just the future of the Petroyuan.
Russia is the world’s richest nation in natural resources, and this is not only restricted to fossil fuel and mineral resources, but this also includes fresh water. The potential for agricultural development therefore in Russia is huge. And we have seen how in a few decades, Russia moved on from a net wheat importer to the largest global producer and exporter. On top of all of this, Russia is a highly developed nation with unrivalled military technology.
As a matter of fact, singularly China or Russia alone constitutes a match for America’s prowess and hegemony, one that remained unchallenged ever since the collapse of the USSR.
Ever since the end of WWII, America has embarked on the journey of flexing the muscles of a superpower on much smaller and less advanced nations. To this effect, it shamelessly and bullishly ravaged Korea in the 1950’s. And if this wasn’t enough, America managed to round up the whole United Nations behind its so-called “police action” to subdue the poor and underdeveloped nation of Korea.
But even with all odds stacked up against Korea, America only managed a partial victory, one that was followed by sheer and utter humiliating defeat in Vietnam and lesser humiliations elsewhere later on. In reality however, America has never scored a single post WWII victory in any of the wars it got involved with, and this is not to forget that it has been in a perpetual state of war, against one “enemy” or another, almost continuously ever since WWII has ended.
This brief historic narrative is not meant to tell readers a story they do not already know, but rather to emphasize how Russia and China do, or should, look at this recent American history from a perspective that joins them at the hip.
The “problem” here, if there is any, is that China is a very old nation that has its ancient traditions when it comes to both diplomacy and inter-relationships with other nations. Russia on the other hand, is a younger nation that is geographically more so a part of Europe, and closer to it culturally than China.
China has always been a sole operator, and a nation that is more pragmatic in its outlook than being colonialist and militarily expansive. China seems to naturally and spontaneously follow Sun Tzu’s rules of the art of war, and knows how to win a fight without fighting. Today’s China is more interested in creating overseas markets than colonies. It is therefore in China’s interests to keep Western economies afloat and Western consumers affluent.
But China is becoming increasingly aware that the level playing field that Western free trade agreements espouse is tilted and biased to serve Western interests. If this alone is not enough to send China sceptical about the prospects of its economic future with the West, it can see that the Western economy is on the decline, despite its own efforts to keep it afloat. In other words, in the long term, China realizes that it must develop other markets in developing nations.
The irony here is that the West has grown so dependent on Chinese-made goods, and this ranges from American-designed iPhones to T-shirts. To put it simply, without Chinese imports, the average American consumer will find empty supermarket shelves.
Without claiming that all fresh food on Western supermarket shelves is produced in the West, with the exception of fresh food however and certain special products such as French wine, Scotch Whisky and German-made cars, most manufactured items in America and the whole West are now made in China. For this reason, for President Trump to think that he can win a trade war with China, he has to delve deeply and realize what would happen to America if China decides to ban all exports to America for just one mere solitary week.
As a matter of fact, and this shouldn’t come as a surprise, America actually uses Chinese-made products in its military. This Google link lists a whole number of them:
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=america+used+chinese+made+products+in+its+ilitary&ie=&oe=
What needs to be kept in mind also is that much of America’s economy, its growth or otherwise, is based on its performance as a reseller of Chinese imports. Any growth in this sector is therefore a win for China.
With its pragmatic outlook at the world, China would be now perhaps beginning to grow cynical about its long term prospects with the West, and the American military intimidations in the South China Sea on one hand, and Trump’s trade sanctions on the other hand, would only be intensifying this sentiment.
To move the power base of the world economy from the West to Eurasia is not an easy task and fix that can be done overnight; and both Russia and China are aware of this. This alone is another reason why Russia and China need to develop the Silk Road network and develop the economies of a region that is inhabited by nearly half of the entire world population. After all, put it this way, if in a few decades Eurasia develops and the average consumer reaches economic parity with the average Western consumer, Eurasian economies would not then need Western consumers, would they?
The bottom line here is that China’s global policy of pragmatism ought to take a shift. China may have current and short term interests with the West and America in particular, but its future is with Eurasia.
In the world of big-fish-eats-small-fish, when Japan’s economy was booming, it is arguable whether Japan’s self-imposed geopolitical isolation was a contributing factor to its eventual downfall. China is clearly taking a different path to that of Japan and is actively engaged in strengthening its military. To this effect, if China wants to be the superpower it aspires to be, it can no longer restrict its global influence to making shy UNSC vetoes.
If Trump’s tweets about threatening Russia eventuate into action, Russia will be able to deal with the military threat alone, but China will need to walk the talk of its Defence Minister, General Wei Fenghe at some capacity or another.
When the US-led UN coalition invaded Korea back in the 1950’s, Chairman Mao sent one million Chinese troops into Korea. This did not stop the “police action”, but it disabled it from achieving the resounding success it was seeking.  President Xi Jinping must walk in the shoes of his predecessor. China can put an end to the potential Western aggression against Russia and Syria and avert a potential global catastrophe simply by announcing the deployment of its aircraft carrier Liaoning into the Mediterranean.  No Chinese message could be louder and clearer.


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Scott Kuli
Scott Kuli
Apr 17, 2018 3:57 AM

The writer is making the assumption that the United States intended to win the wars it’s been involved in since WW II. Why would it bother?
Winning is expensive. Most often it’s followed by occupation and pacification.
In the case of Iraq it was only necessary to install a government to get oil deals favourable to US based companies, which it did, and to force Monsanto’s garbage and the other biotech company’s wares on Iraq. That happened.
Why occupy and nation build? Or why buy the cow when you can get a deal on the milk without having to house it, feed it, etc?
That’s how US strategic planners really think.
Bear in mind there is recent evidence to show that however unethical this is, it “works”.
When the Iraqi leadership said publicly they might ask Russia for help against ISIS, a large contingent of US troops were sent to Iraq by Obama, with some very high tech anti-aircraft equipment. This was not about fighting ISIS in Iraq, but a message to Russia to not help the Iraqi government fight ISIS. That was very obvious.
Iraq may not be “occupied” in the sense Germany was at the end of WW II, but if Obama could send troops they didn’t request against their national interests, it certainly showed who was making the decisions for Iraq.
As for competitor nations, why go to war when you can try instead to financially break them (the gameplan against Russia)?
The US isn’t trying to conquer Syria. They’re trying to pick it apart.
As long as they’re not overtly attacking a military response on a large scale is not “called for”. That doesn’t mean that Russia and China aren’t considering one an option, at least in terms of the assets being used against Syria. It just means that for now the US is doing what is “safe” and as far as they can see, effective.

kevin morris
kevin morris
Apr 16, 2018 10:31 PM

‘China…a nation that is more pragmatic in its outlook than being colonialist and militarily expansive’
Why do commentators seeking to paint a rosy picture of China ignore the fact that the country almost doubled in size in 1951 through the invasion and annexation of the erstwhile independent country of Tibet? Does that not count as colonialism and militarism on a vast scale? Why do commentators ignore the claim of the International Commission of jurists that the Chinese have been committing genocide in Tibet? Why do they ignore the fact that one of the growth areas in the former celestial city of Lhasa is prostitution to serve the needs of the vast occupying People’s Liberation Army? Surely one of the major roles of the People’s Liberation Army is in Tibet is to keep in check Tibetans who feel oppressed by the Han colonialists. Surely, there is something wilfully blind about ignoring what is going on in Tibet in order to convince us that China’s is a benign influence in the world?

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Apr 16, 2018 10:51 PM
Reply to  kevin morris

Tibet has been part of China on and off for centuries. The Chinese brought emancipation from a BRUTAL theocratic tyranny, modern education and healthcare and the emancipation of women. The lies of the exile Tibetan Dalai claque, their US paymasters and other Sinophobe racists have long since become utterly boring.

candideschmyles
candideschmyles
Apr 16, 2018 11:24 PM
Reply to  kevin morris

Almost doubled in size!? Tibet is about 1/8th of China by land mass and way less by population. And for millennia has stood out as the least expansionist empire of any. Methinx you read too much msm.

candideschmyles
candideschmyles
Apr 16, 2018 10:29 PM

I disagree with and find the notion of the deployment of China’s one and only 2nd hand aircraft carrier to the med utterly pointless. China is on board with Russia and has thwarted a serious western aggression on North Korea. The increased assertiveness of Russia may be grabbing all the headlines but we should be in no doubt that China was equally bullish through diplomatic channels, as opposed to public statements, that it too had it’s red line and military agression toward North Korea would not go unanswered. Little is known about China’s true military might and it’s expansion in recent years. But I have little doubt that the US could not win a war with it without MAD becoming a reality. China may be quiet but it is not silent and Russia has been given all the backing it requires without meaningless gestures of a floating target.

tomiejones
tomiejones
Apr 16, 2018 5:45 PM

Reblogged this on circusbuoy.

Harry Law
Harry Law
Apr 16, 2018 1:02 PM

The ‘West’ does not abide by International Law, this has been evident since the Iraq WMD debacle and other western aggression in breach of the UN charter and International law in general. Nothing could sum up Western breaches of International law than, as an example, the UK’s ultimatum to Russia to furnish answers to UK charges of responsibility for the Salisbury incident within 36 hours, or else, in breach of 1X of the OPCW convention ‘Consultation Cooperation and Fact Finding’. Then before the bombing began, the US, UK, France should have demanded [it was an obligation] the on site inspections of suspected sites [subsequently bombed] in Syria, they did not, in breach of the convention. …….
Procedures for challenge inspections 8.
“Each State Party has the right to request an on-site challenge inspection of any facility or location in the territory or in any other place under the jurisdiction or control of any other State Party for the sole purpose of clarifying and resolving any questions concerning possible noncompliance with the provisions of this Convention, and to have this inspection conducted anywhere without delay by an inspection team designated by the Director-General and in accordance with the Verification Annex”.
Of course the bombing itself breached the UN charter, this fact is agreed by most International Law Lawyers. The ‘West’ now work on the assumption that ‘what we say, goes’. That attitude will prove disastrous, it might work on smaller states, in fact the threat of sanctions by the US usually has the desired effect on larger states as well. But it will not work on either Russia or China, certainly not on an alliance of the two. It will not even work on Iran or the ‘arc of resistance’ Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah, Iran’s entry as a member of the military alliance of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation [SCO] is guaranteed shortly, ensuring threats from the US on the demise of the nuclear agreement will be futile. In a world where the US has been pushing a ‘might makes right’ philosophy they are going to meet opposition to it from Russia, China and Iran. US warmongers like McCain, Bolton and other neo cons who argue that Russia will fold when confronted by the “exceptional nation” and “Masters of the Universe” are in for a rude awakening. And sooner than they think. It might be useful if China did back up Russia militarily, they do have warships in Tartus, Russian involvement in Syria is financially is taken care of within its training budget, so Chinese military might is not yet required, but they are committed to rebuilding Syrian infrastructure. Russia’s military footprint in Syria is deliberately small, with the promise by Putin that it can change overnight. The moral of the story is ‘don’t poke the bear’.

vexarb
vexarb
Apr 16, 2018 12:24 PM

Don’t worry, Chinese Leadership live in the real world, and they see what is coming down the road. Well prepared but calm, most of them while still in short pants watched their elders prove “the USA is a paper tiger” when it came to fighting China or Korea or Vietnam. BTL Saker Vineyard:
Dr NG Maroudas on April 16, 2018 · at 4:25 am UTC
Of course it is important to establish the facts in a crime, especially the fact that the poison sample submitted by Her Majesty’s Government has turned out to be not a Russian Novichok but a UK/US BZ (British Zyklon?). However, not should not lose sight of the Special Relationships which propelled Her Majesty’s Govt into 3 Resource Wars in 15 years: Cui Bono?
Saddam abandoned the US dollar as international currency, and his country’s bank was not owned by Rothschild. Saddam was hanged, his country was devastated and now it has a Rothschild bank.
Ghaddafi abandoned the US dollar as international currency and his country’s bank was not owned by Rothschild. Ghaddafi was bayoneted, his country was devastated and now it has a Rothschild bank.
Assad abandoned the US dollar as international currency, his country’s bank was not owned by Rothschild and — adding insult to injury — Syria would not even accept Genetically Modified Organisms. His country has been relentlessly devastated for 7 years but still has no Rothschild bank, and Assad himself has been neither hanged nor bayoneted. (“Shame!” cry the Anglo-Zio-Capitalists).
“I care not who governs your country as long as I control your currency”. — Meyer Rothschild, British Financier.

Sushi on April 16, 2018  ·  at 4:55 am UTC
Agreed.
At the present time Russia and China are moving toward the creation of a fiscal regime based on the Yuan. They have already commenced pricing energy in Yuan. Given that China is now the worlds major importer of energy the countries of the middle east will have an interest in repricing in Yuan. Such action will have significant negative impact on the dollar.
Such action also creates the basis for military conflict [with China] as the US seeks to retain its position as global hegemon with all the benefits that accrue from its issue of the global reserve currency.
Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Apr 16, 2018 10:47 AM

Most of the world’s leaders are men over fifty. They grew up watching American, or Americanised, TV and movies. It would inform the thinking of many of them.
Problem is, that now many of their advisors are younger and they grew up playing video games and surfing the net. In other words, they have a more tenuous grasp of reality.
THAT, is frightening.

Anandamide
Anandamide
Apr 16, 2018 8:10 AM

Thanks for this article.
The antagonistic USA and European imperialists have disregarded any notion of living in alignment with the higher laws of nature and how to approach the conflict which naturally arises amongst humans, as a martial art, such as the more ancient culture of China, as you mention….
Seems to me we’re at a threshold where there’s going to be one almighty karmic comuppance for all of humanity to learn a lesson the hard way, so as to wake us up out of our trance, so we can change our ways and learn how to co-operate and share the abundance of the planet, for the benefit of all.
Can anyone imagine what it will take to bring the USA to it’s knees along with the UK? Oooft!!!
Your article is helpful for me to see how this is on the verge of occurring economically and offers a fresh perspective on the motivations of foolishly moving towards war with Russia…. And China.
Unless there’s a miraculous and dramatic evolution in consciousness within major political leaders, it’ll be messy, as the high chair tyrants have lots of powerful toys, and spoilt brats are almost incapable of taking an honest look at their shadow side… Always choosing to take it out on another through lots of bullish screaming and shouting, to try and counterbalance their deep gnawing insecurity.
Donald Trump is such a perfect symbolic figurehead for what the USA establishment has been for so many decades… For me, that’s the true gift in all of this… They can’t hide behind any of their clever masks any more as he presents all of it in a very transparent way for everybody to see…
Denial is a powerful force though.
In America then somehow we need a movement by the people to support a new and fresh political collective of genuine, empowered men and women who have taken an honest look through the pages of history, learned the lessons on an individual level, and are ready to finally acknowledge the bloodlust which the USA has been founded upon, and perversely glorified and how that pattern has perpetuated and strengthened in it’s expression, out into the wider world…. This is also true for the British empire….
From that place of acknowledgement there can be a true handshake with all agitated states and a new maturity to help us navigate through the future…. There’s no more time left for lip service from people who aren’t aligned with their heart and soul and holding positions of power…. Somehow they need to be replaced and we will step into a more mature paradigm on this planet which is worthy of the name human.

Francis Lee
Francis Lee
Apr 16, 2018 7:45 AM

In a way – and I know that this is going to sound crazy/heretical – I feel a bit sorry for Trump. He is so obviously out of his depth. He’s got the neo-con nut-jobs, the screeching bomb-russia-now media, the intelligence ‘community’ the ‘MIC’, APAIC and more on his back and is almost powerless . At a guess, he has said to Putin, ‘hey I have to make a show of being tough on Russia, give me a hand Vald, I’m not going to kill anyone, but I must make a gesture, I’m sure you understand, this is politics after all’. Putin. ‘Okay, but this must be a one-off. You’re not the only who has the hardliners on his back I’ve got the likes of Zhirinovsky and Dugin baying for a hard response. I can’t keep the I can’t keep them in check forever. ‘ Was that scenario? Maybe, but it won’t be made public, we can be sure of that. And if there is an escalation next time Putin’s response will be rather diffferent, as it has to be.

Binra (@onemindinmany)
Binra (@onemindinmany)
Apr 16, 2018 11:56 AM
Reply to  Francis Lee

Yes it does, but you are engaging in the soap opera with personal identity investments. From this moment with you, I now reflect upon the nature of identifying in personal narrative. (Of course you are not personally addressed or required to join me or engage in any but your own interest).
It is the nature of persona to mask, and then the mask operates as coded signals that run a bit like those financial computers that reacted back and forth in microseconds and generated all kinds of financial aberrations that had no basis in anything actual – apart of course from their programming.
The eyes of the world play in the mask, but the eyes of the ‘Spirit’ look at the mask so as to look beyond it.
The mask is always superficial – no matter how complex the rabbit holes of its own obfuscation in symbolic displacement or diversionary lure, because it is the covering over of depth.
The mask of personal and social identity is the development of a dissociated consciousness seeking survival and fulfilment in terms of defined self interest – where the predicates of such definition are split by the experience and reaction to ‘separation trauma’ that is by definition a predicate and not an object of the strategies that develop to mask out or use. Personality types are not better or worse, so much as archetypal patterns that are always entanglement in a fragmented sense of conflict or breakdown of communication. The personality layer can recycle or self-replicate the patterns of trauma and conflict endlessly under the belief it is pursueing power, protection or fulfilment in its own terms – without recognizing that the terms are in fact a kind of program running unaware and unattended as a kind of shadow power, in which our own denials operate through us and call to us the very shadow experience that our personal consciousness was predicated to escape in the dream of overcoming it, vindicating our grievances, and exacting fantasy gratification in a personal sense of power over that which we rejected or found unworthy in our self.
If you consider the core theme of this, it is the universal theme of a personal sense of power and thus inherently defining a personal sense of lack – that experiences its sense of lack or loss in terms of attack, betrayal, rejection and abandonment by an ‘other’. This is the core fear, guilt and grievance that fuels the attempt to empower or protect against the evil seen in the other as the attempt to escape the consequence of holding to a segregative and exclusive wish for power… and protection.
In personal terms the false flag operates to bolster the narrative ‘self’ by re-triggering the inner patterning of self-reaction in terms of a phishing ruse. The capacity for deceiving ourselves is the ‘ability to see’ the cheat in others – regardless their actual extending of communication. And so the fruits of the illusion of power – as a personal weapon or attribute – is cynical and paranoid isolation in subjugation to its own unrecognized and un-owned fear.
There is a monkey trap that uses a staked down gourd, in which is placed a fruit. But the hole is only big enough for the monkey’s hand. The monkey has to release what it wants to free itself – and if it cannot re-evaluate the contextual priority – it grips the fruit as if it is its life – and is stuck – and collected by the trapper.
The willingness to re-evaluate our entanglements at our root is not the persistence of the strategy to ‘win’ and escape the consequence onto the ‘loser’, but to uncover our true self interests as a result of engaging in listening and speaking through such willingness as can be brought forward now.
To write this into the political comment section of ideas, actions and events that promise the unleashing of catastrophic destruction is not an attempt to make anyone else’s choices for them, but to illuminate that the choices dictated by the mask all work the same core agenda and run on an unrecognized and untaken choice to look on the mask. While the nature of psychic-emotional defences is known, it is rarely used to serve the healing or undoing of the mind of the one who thinks to be the psychologist, or social engineer, but rather as a weapon of market (need) and mind capture.
That we are already running (or being run as) identities is not cause for blame and shame, but for a true education and rehabilitation from who we thought we were and what we thought the world is (or should be).
And we engage this amidst the baiting and triggers to all kinds of habits that are unwise to run without bringing to a true conscious appreciation. If we truly desire to embrace what life is, rather than persist in trying to force it to our own image even when such ‘victory’ is in death or conditions that death is called on to save us from.

AntonyI
AntonyI
Apr 16, 2018 6:35 AM

I wouldn’t call Putin and XI friends or allies; they are neighbors and therefore potential rivals. Stupid Ukraine and Syria policy of deep state in US, France, UK and Israel drives these two men into each others arms as the next potential victims of that kind of aggression.
Also gives them bad examples to copy in the future in “their” back yards.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Apr 16, 2018 10:36 AM
Reply to  AntonyI

You’re just projecting Western ‘liberal values’ onto the Russians and Chinese.

The Devil Incarnate
The Devil Incarnate
Apr 16, 2018 11:58 AM

I agree.

AntonyI
AntonyI
Apr 16, 2018 6:29 AM

Macron talks here that he kept Trump in Syria. It came out of his mouth, but was it his own idea? In the last case he not half as clever as he thinks he is. Which population in the EU is going to support more influx of refugees from that region; France alone – only logical conclusion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExbMwHgr2fA

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Apr 16, 2018 10:38 AM
Reply to  AntonyI

Micron takes his orders from his creators, represented by the CRIF, who are mere conduits from Bibi Netanyahu.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Apr 17, 2018 12:14 PM

Not to mention his ex-employers, the Rothschilds.

Kavy
Kavy
Apr 16, 2018 6:16 AM

Apparently, the US is embarrassed by how much more superior the Russian air defense is.
The US armaments industry is privatised and needs constant sales so peace is bad for business. But it also fleeces the tax payer by providing the most expensive products that often don’t work well and always need more money to develop. The ‘Star Wars’ missile defence system is a scam. But the Russian armaments industry is publically owned and only produces exactly what is needed at the minimum cost.
Publius Tacitus — Trump’s Big Flop In Syria
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2018/04/trumps-big-flop-in-syria-by-publius-tacitus.html
Excerpt:
A friend of mine who has expertise in these matters wrote me:
Any air defense engineer with a
clearance that isn’t lying through his teeth will admit that Russia’s air defense technology surpassed us in the 1950’s and we’ve never been able to catch up. The systems thy have in place surrounding Moscow make our Patriot 3’s look like fucking nerf guns.