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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Vladimir Putin looks to secure his voters affections… The news media are still buzzing about the resumption of Cold War era style patrols by their ancient bucket-of-bolts bombers (not that I have anything against old-but-good combat aircraft) right up to the edge of NATO airspace. But for me the most interesting news to come out of Russia these days is that far from being the Neanderthal thug he is often portrayed as being, Vlad had decided it is time to reach out to that segment of the Russian electorate he has always stayed away from…
“See my studdliness, Tovarich!” … he is now actively courting the Russian Gay Vote. Bless.
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When this was getting full publicity, and the press were asking whether Putin waxed, I was torn between two major worries:
A state which is very dangerous may be lead by a man vain enough to wax his chest, and
with all this publicity, how long before western politicians start getting their shirts off? I don’t think I could survive seeing Brown going topless! What price a topless debate between Clinton and Obama? If a Sarkozy must expose themselves, can we be sure it would be Cecilia, not Nicholas? And please Fr Merkel, just don’t!
Please excuse me, I need to go and lie down now.
Thanks for giving me a “I just laughed and snorted Pepsi over my keyboard” moment 😀
His rod is just for show. He actually uses his judo skillz to catch and kill the fish.
MarkE
My money is on iDave to be first…
Perry,
I had previously assumed theTu-95s in Russky service were as old as the US B-52s but I was wrong. They date from the 80s and 90s. You’ll have to scroll down to “Present and Future Status” alas. They’re probably crap nonetheless.
Don’t forget his kits of Polonium tea just ready for export to gullible capitalist tool imperialist Wall-Street puppet states!
Walter,
He’s got his rod out now? – Gods!
Steroids- That explains a lot.
Russia isn’t “The Bare” for nothing.
Couldn’t he just have played the Saxophone like Clinton did ’92?
Brad,
Looks to me more like he’s preparing a rendition on the pink oboe
One good thing about living in the West is that we can still say such things as Mr Putin is going for the homosexual vote.
Should someone say this in Russia the “youth movement” would be likely to pay a visit.
photo shop.
The Bear bomber is sposed to be pretty good. Despite having turboprop engines its faster than a lot of jets.
The RAF guys on arrse.co.uk are talking about it.
When Schwarzeneger and Stallone reached Putin’s age they both started whipping their shirts off. And you couldn’t keep a shirt on Bruce Willis if you’d stapled it to his chest.
It’s just something that happens to some guys when they hit their mid-50s, I guess. Like buying their first Harley and trading in their wives.
Buy the man a bra.
Not that I know the first thing about combat aircraft, but should it necessarily matter, aside from maintenance matters, what aircraft is used to deliver weapons of mass destruction?
Yes.
Generally the faster and higher an aircraft can fly the harder it is going to be to intercept and the aircraft will also need to have the range to carry the payload to the target.
Of course the best way to deliver weapons of “mass destruction” is from under the sea.
Yes.
Generally the faster and higher an aircraft can fly the harder it is going to be to intercept and the aircraft will also need to have the range to carry the payload to the target.
Of course the best way to deliver weapons of “mass destruction” is from under the sea.
Another James,
Fuel efficiency and payload is much more important than speed for patrol and pre-positioned launch platform aircraft. When your job is to hold position and launch if instructed, speed doesn’t matter for much. Besides, there is only ~12% difference in the maximum speed of a Tu-95 and a B-52. Another use for them is to fit them with nuclear weapons and hold them in controlled territory. Keeping them moving can protect them from a first strike.
Good point on the subs, but they can’t be positioned or repositioned nearly as quickly and, obviously, there are a lot of places they can’t go. It is the old case of eggs and baskets.
how long before western politicians start getting their shirts off?
Been there, done that.
On a similar note: how about a little cleavage?
The B-70 was the highest and fastest of them all.
Cancelled.
Too vulnerable.
The B-70 was vulnerable because it delivered dumb bombs. Tu-95 and B-52 were kept because they carry cruise missiles. I doubt there’d be much AD wherever they launch their 3000km missiles from.
How’s Putin faring with the Harry Potter vote?
Bombers-
Range/payload are very important. The US heavies have proved very handy in Iraq and the ‘stan purely because they could remain on station and provide prolonged CAS. I bet none of the B-52 design team foresaw that role!
But where the B-52 really wins over the Tu-95 is probably in avionics. The handful of the Tu-160s that the Sovs can field are in a process of modernization because they still have old dial cockpits and no HUDS so Gawd knows what state the ‘tronics are like in the older Tu-95s*. I suspect as well that the maintainance is nightmare on them. Those big four 15000shp contraprops make a hell of a clatter (many aircrew have ended-up with permanent hearing problems) and where there is noise there is vibration…
I wonder how long Putie-Poot can keep-up this aggressive campaign?
Speed is very important for penetration (oh er, missus!) especially when matched with stealth because the combination seriously reduces the time of reaction that defenders have (What’s that on the screen Yuri! Red Al… BOOM!” A Raptor at Mach 1.5 supercruise is pretty much an unstoppable force. A long(ish)-range supercruise stealth bomber (FB-22?) would be a must useful animal.
Mid, you suggesting they might just be used to truck nukes about the country as a means of dispersal? That could well work. It would certainly annoy the hell out of the Pentagon by putting a strain on the spy satellite network having to watch all those airfields.
* The Sovs are funny like that. Both the MiG-25 and -29 were seen initially as wonderplanes and in many ways they were but in others: notably build quality and avionics and overall sophistication they were found to be suprisingly backward when dissected by western techs. They have historically been great with aerodynamics and propulsion but the rest…
I will only stop calling the Russians “Sovs” when the stop acting like Sovs.
Even the Vulcan and Victor were retro-fitted with stand-off missiles.
The B-70 could have been also.
But Nick, can you seriously compare the avionics (heads up display) needs of a Mach 3, mission launched aircraft with a sub-sonic patrol and hold aircraft? (and Pietr, stand off nukes at Mach 3!?)
Incidentally, I found it interesting that several fighter pilots have reported that the Tu-95 propjet can out accelerate their fighter jets. I’m not sure what that particular talent is good for, but … It appears to be a very effective purpose built craft, unlike the B-52 that is monikered as the Stratofortress, yet morphed into a low and slow incursion bomber and then into a patrol or hold and wait platform.
I believe it was Sun Tzu who said ‘if you would have peace, prepare for war’. (or something to that effect) I believe that still holds true. Researching my comments for these last two defense threads has me extending a lot more credibility to the respective threats posed by
the Soviet UnionRussia and China, and even more so to the fall out (both literal and figurative) from any potential alliances. Russia should be expecting another Barbarossa, this time from the east.Mid — you have put your finger on what I suspect is Russia’s real concern. Would not be surprised to see Russia beat up some weak harmless Euros or southern neighbors just to send a message to the feared Chinese. Think school-yard.
The “peaceful” scenario might be one in which Putin (or his successor) sells Eastern Siberia to China. After all, the Czar sold Alaska to the US, reportedly because he decided that Russia could not hold it anyway. China could certainly pay, since it has all those US Treasury Bonds which are not doing it much good right now.
Suppose Russia could pull off the sale of indefensible Eastern Siberia to China for a good chunk of China’s US financial deposits. EU would be (already is?) effectively a Russian vassal because of its dependence on Russia to fill its huge & growing appetite for fossil fuels. The US would then be neutralized too, because the dollar would be hostage to those Russian-held bonds. And the major reason for China to whack Russia would have been removed.
From Russia’s perspective, what would be wrong with that outcome?
Mid,
I don’t think it’s Sun Tzu.
There’s many variations (because it’s such a bloody obvious doctrine) but the earliest I could find is:
Vegetius (Flavius Vegetius Renatus) AD 379-95
Qui desiderant pacem, paearet bellum
I never mentioned anything Mach 3. That was Pietr’s Odinism (worship of the XB-70). I was merely using the example that if the Sov bomber (Tu-160) two generations ahead of the Tu-95 had a mechanical dial cockpit then God knows what the state of the electronics suite on the Tu-95 is. When I said ‘”tronics” I meant the whole thing – sensors, navigation, attack systems, countermeasures etc…
The Tu-95 could out-accelerate many fighters for short periods of time. This was most noticeable with the chronically underpowered (and fundamentally tree-skimming) RAF Jaguar. Oddly enough the monstrous B-36 (because of it’s enormous wings and therefore low wing-loading) could at it’s 40-50000ft operating altitude out-maneouvre contemporary fighters. Horses for courses but the truly great master more than one trade…
Don’t know about that.
The Concorde was about 40% more efficient at Mach 2.
On the other hand the XB-70A (the one that was lost) got 30% of its lift from compression at design condition.
The big advantage of the Russian planes was their ability to survive EMP due to electro-mechanical systems rather than micro-electronic.
Alisa,
That would remove the last compelling reason to protect the dollar’s strength.
Because Russia has nothing the US wants to buy. That leaves Japan as the only needed ally holding major amounts of dollars. We could make some arrangement with Japan, and then monitize the dollar. (Print lots of them). Russia then holds squat while we have technically met our obligations.
I suspect that they desire an outcome that leaves them with Siberia still in hand. Siberia is their golden goose and the fountain of everything they have. It is more than their crown jewel, it is their crown and their pride. Without it, they are another Ukraine. I suspect.
Nick,
Okay. I kind of view a big bomber of these types as an airborn aircraft carrier. The sort of thing you don’t try to hide. All that it needs is super secure communications to the gen’rals. It is a statement and a starting point. It is perfectly safe up to the start of hostilities, and after they start it has one job. Launch. I guess it seems perfectly reasonable to me that planes of that old of design can still be useful.
If anybody ever tries to take one out, they better be ready to take them all out at once, as well as the subs and silos. It’s rather Strangelovian, but that’s how it was designed to work. I am afraid those days are returning.
Pietr,
It isn’t electomechanical, it’s thermionic valves. Valves will survive an EMP whilst solid-state wont. Apparently, much (I read this ’bout ten years ago) of the Pentagon coms ‘tronics are valve-based for this reason, still.
Mid,
I was talking entirely in terms of non-nuclear warfare. In terms of bombers as conventional strike platforms and by extension a system for (relatively – i.e. non nuclear) warfare. I was thinking in terms of the fact that the projected FB-22 would carry 30 250-lb super accurate small-diameter bombs stealthily and at supercruise speed over a range much greater than existing fighter-bombers such as the F-15E and would achieve a not entirely dissimilar war-load to the B-1B much more rapidly, much more stealthily and with a much higher chance of not getting shot down.
I was not talking launch and be damned!
I was talking limited wars (which short of ’em going nuclear it would be) and “rogue” states such as… Well you know who I mean as much as I do.
Please re-read my comments in this thread. I think I’ve been consistent (more than usual) and if I’ve really dropped a bollock tell me. If you think we’ve been talking at cross-purposes (my sus) then tell me. I’d like to know because it’s my thang…
But, I have never seen the Russkies recent posturing as getting “Strangelovian”. I do not see them preparing for the zero-sum game (and there will be no fighting in the war room). I think they’re just playing the goat ’till they get paid off someway.
I do so hope they use their primary industries to boot-strap a proper economy. Then we can forget this nonsense.
LOL Putin?!? (bonus Right Said Fred reference at link)
Nick,
In that other thread I quoted “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. Russia’s strategic nuclear capacity appears to be legitimate superpower league still up with the US. And I suspect Russia’s conventional military is perfectly adequate for adventurism against everyone except China, India, US, Britain and France. The EU is on the energy leash and will not interfere. Russia and China have been cozying up and invited India to watch them play while pointedly locking out the US. This is from a rather anti American/Iraq war article in the Asia Times. Bottom of page two, top of page three.
So with France, England, and China accounted for, there is only India to side with the US. Likely? India certainly has a long enough history of ‘friendship’ with Russia/SU. Do you seriously think the US will/can go it alone against even conventional Russia military in some Mideast oil field or some other target of choice? Or will we stay home and find some diplomatic way of just letting it all happen?
Also, I think if things do go all Barbarossa with the Russians and Chinese over Siberia, the Russians will not hesitate (much) to nuke. The US would get more fallout than Moscow.
We live in very interesting times.
Probably so. But that would require persuading the Chinese that there are lower-hanging fruit than neighboring empty resource-rich eastern Siberia. The Chinese could easily cross Kazakhstan and seize Caspian resources, but after that things would become a little more tricky.
Interesting times indeed. Russia, China, even international jokes like Venezuela & Iran clearly want to be big kids on the block. The EU is stuck in a time warp, thinking that the world still revolves around them. And the US people (if not the politicians) want to have no part of it. Then there are the wild cards — places like India & Brazil.
Extrapolation of the past may be a very poor guide as to what actually happens in the world in the next few years. A good time for us ordinary people to gather rosebuds while we may — and invest in developing useful skills.
Probably so. But that would require persuading the Chinese that there are lower-hanging fruit than neighboring empty resource-rich eastern Siberia.
You consider territory owned by a MAD-capable nuclear power to be ‘low-hanging fruit’?
The mind boggles.
Ooer, butch!
I see no conflict between Russia and China – or between either of them and the so called “third world”.
Indeed they (Russia, China and their hangers on in Iran, Venezela and so on) are united behind “death to the West”.
As the West is hopelessly disunited (with most of Western Europe and much of the United States thinking, for example, that they can make some sort of peace deal with radical Islam) and collapsing interally anyway (credit bubble financial systems, crushing burden of entitlement programs-welfare states, and endless rules and regulations) it hardly seems worth their effort to destroy us.
However, I suppose they have to find something to do with their time.
This was the bit where you get me rolling my eyes. You really need to stop reading the right wing press in the USA (oh, and the Daily Mail) because it is just as wacko and out of touch with reality as the left wing press in Europe. The truth can be found by looking at the numbers and the fact oil is completely fungible and gas is substitutable. Just take a deep breath and step away from all the daft editorials about Londonistan and similar moonbattery from the right (which is not to say everything is peachy, but describing the EU as Russian vassals is preposterous).
Europe is one-crisis-plus-five-years from simply going wholesale for nuclear power. The fact it chooses to pretend that day will not come does not change the fact the EU is astoundingly rich and technologically sophisticated and all it needs it to have its feet held to the fire.
If Europe is going down, it will be for internal reasons and Russia have little or nothing to do with it and will hardly be in any position to gloat in any case (if you think European demographics are bad, they are glowing golden compared to Russia, which is quite literally dying in front of us (I believe the figure is that Russia is loosing 800,000 people net per year)).
Russia is almost an irrelevance.
This is an excellent discussion, but if only it happened on a differnt thread. If I look at that picture one more time, I think I am going to be sick.
Our host wrote:
Might indeed happen. As I suggested, extrapolation from the past may not be a useful predictor for the near future. However, dear Perry, would you not agree that an all-nuclear, all-the-time Europe would have to be so different in attitudes from today’s politically-correct EU as to constitute a whole new society?
We already know that most of the conceits of today’s establishent left-wingers are plain silly. Anthropogenic global warming is not going to wipe out mankind (or even the polar bear) in the next decade; windmills are not going to save humanity (or even cover their own costs, outside a few niche uses). Yet such demonstrably foolish ideas remain conventional wisdom among those who consider themselves the intelligentsia of the West.
Yes, Europe could could change drastically, and as a result survive & prosper. But Europe is not the only participant in the global drama. And time is not on anybody’s side. Which may lead other players to take actions (within that 5 year window) which are totally outside the very narrow box within which Europe’s Great & Good currently think.
For sure. I almost welcome some gonzo bonkers Putin delivered crisis for exactly that reason. There is nothing quite like cold houses and no lights (not to mention the inability to watch Big Buvvah) to dramatically shift opinions really really quickly and really radically. The analogy with the run up to Maggie Thatcher’s era comes to mind because it takes something like power rationing, garbage collection strikes and rats on the streets to kick the ball onto a whole new playing field.
Hell, a few weeks without the internet would probably do me good. Go for it Vlad, do Europe a favour and shuffle the whole deck.
“gonzo bonkers Putin delivered crisis”
Europeans would respond to a well timed pre-election price hike or other action with the same stalwart resolve Spain showed in response to the Madrid bombings. That is to say, with much name calling and accusations against their own politicians, and a new government that ‘seeks better relations with’ whomever.
Europe will do what Europe always does. That energy dependence means Russia can do what they please outside of Europe and sanctimonious Europeans will see nothing. Hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil (except against the US).
I suspect Putin will play Europe like a Stradivarius. If there is any hope at all it is to be found in the former Soviet dominions, certainly not in the modern and oh so sophisticated western
nationsdistricts.An intriguing historical snippet — When mighty Hitler invaded France with the whole weight of the then-fearsome Wehrmacht, even the feckless French were able to hold out for 6 weeks before surrendering. When a numerically-inferior multi-national coalition, fighting under UN-type rules of engagement, attacked Saddam Hussein’s huge military on its home turf, ol’ Saddam did not last 3 weeks.
The lesson of the failure of Saddam’s military machine is that one would have to be unusually stupid to start a conventional war which might drag in the US on the other side. On the other hand, the staying power of the Islamist irregulars in Iraq shows the limits of conventional military power when exercised with Western sensitivity.
If war is the continuation of politics by other means, then it may be reasonable to assume that the likes of Putin have learned the lessons of Iraq and are now seeking ways to continue politics without risking a full-out military confrontation with the US. Russia may simply look for different ways to achieve what it might otherwise have had to win on the battlefield. The body count could be lower, but the outcome might be drearily familiar.
Mid is probably right that today’s Europe would be particularly susceptible to defeat in such a ‘war by any other means’. On the other hand, maybe Perry is right that a fighting spirit lies just below Europe’s PC crust. We may not have to wait too long to find out which view is correct.
I do strongly very much deeply hope Perry is. I will happily eat my words with humility, not to mention relief.
I think you vastly over-estimate how clever Putin is. And Europe will react quite differently when it has to (i.e. the decades of soft-options and self-delusions are suddenly shown for what they were). As I said, no heating and no lights will change attitudes radically and quickly. It will not be pretty.
I hope you are right, Perry. I doubt it will ever come to turning off the power. I think a little rattling of the energy saber and the European community will find it much easier to close its eyes than to open its mind.
I hope Putin over plays his hand re Europe and brings about the changes you describe. But if Putin’s Russia experiences anything in Europe that resembles what Stalin did in Finland, China could have the same ideas that Hitler did. At that point, anyone who will commit assassinations with radioactivity will probably not hesitate much to use it against an invading army. But perhaps China will have a few nukes addressed to Moscow and thinks that will prevent Russia from launching. The nuclear component and how the players view it and use it is the big unknown. But fallout will play havoc with world food supplies everywhere.
I really suspect Europe will cover its eyes and do a Sergeant Schultz. But I would happily be wrong.
Overall Hussein’s army was hardly bigger than the Coalition’s. Much smaller in Kuwait, the actual theatre of war.
Real Men fish with a shirt on — there’s nothing manly about getting a hook stuck in yer man-boob during a cast.
I suspect Putin will play Europe like a Stradivarius.
I think Angela Merkel, who grew up in Communist East Germany, will be immune. Not to mention Nicolas Sarkozy, whose family fled the Commiefication of Hungary.
AKH,
Thank you. That is a very reassuring point. That and Merkel’s doctorate in physics. Hard sciences are so much more receptive to reality than the humanities are. If there is hope for Europe, it is to be found among prior ‘beneficiaries’ of communist conquest. It sounds like maybe even some western European voters may be realizing this.
Many people trained in the physical sciences have been Marxists – although, it is true, far fewer than those trained in so called “social sciences”.
Also – do not place much trust in Chancellor Merkel (on any matter).
Why (apart from her being a politician)?
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