i have been saying for years that though russia is strong within its borders, it lacks the ability to project power.
no navy, to speak of. oh, they have the missile cruiser with the jump deck, but they could not launch an attack on turkey with it, as they have no way to protect it. end of discussion.
no navy, and no sea lift capacity. simple fact.
no air force w/ a significant air lift capacity, and no way to protect what they do have. a motley collection of flying coffins, some pretty large, but no supply nor any logistic train to support and or protect them under way. in short, russia has no logistics train of any sort, to speak of. (her "invasion" of georgia by a ragtag collection of irregulars on her southern borders proved that ... the invading forces stopped, just where they ran out of fuel and ammo. you haven't read that in the mainstream, because the idiots there didn't notice. dumb shits. you don't believe me, ask janes.)
this is no particular disparagement of the russian military. it is a fine military within russia's border, quite formidable in many respects. but, the fact is, the united states of america is about the only military power on earth that has air and sea lift capacities that can be protected along a path from home to some distant place.
russia does not. china does not. no country in europe does, because they've been sitting on our coat tails for years. i am not convinced that france could keep us out of the mediterranean. israel could, and/but we would have to destroy her to keep her from it. (destroying israel air forces would not be easy, nor would it come "cheap." yes, they are good.)
and, that folks, is the name of that tune.
john jay @ 11.24.2015
I copied,pasted and gave 1000% credit to you for this on FB...it's right on the ball...keep up the good work and happy and safe holidays to you
Posted by: Steve Cournoyer | November 25, 2015 at 04:38 PM
Thats a good observation john, it begs other questions. Kind of difficult to predict what they will do, it isn't the old Soviet Russians in Syria. They definitely have vested interests, they have invested much in their campaign. It would be wrong to view them as a "Jr. Varsity, or better yet "Chickenshits".
Me, I wouldn't bet against the Russians retaliating or upping their game in some unique Russian way. They don't get fancy or do complicated. They tend to turn their back in the way only Russian's can do, or they hit back hard.
Unlike the west, Russian military thinking tends towards waging total war. [edited because of length, not on topic.]
Posted by: Doug | November 25, 2015 at 06:18 PM
This is pretty interesting here john. I say that because outside the echo chamber of amerikan regime state media there is all sorts of informative journalism.
This but one example yet it reveals a trend of "something is happening here".
I'm just a welder, but I can't help but see there is careful and concerted efforts to give the regime and its total fools in washington the finger. Not only that, but the feckless ideology of the red diaper musloid abetting sodomites running things down in that cesspool on the potomac are by their own idiocy are being challenged by real "truth to power" and "smart diplomacy" which deals with things like the truth and reality.
The hegemony of the feckless west just got its ass handed to it.
Putin and his crew have their act together. And the rest of the world outside the western hemisphere is being left for dust. Couldn't happen to better group of useless morally corrupt crap weasels.
The only way this trend of rejecting the west's oligarchs is going to end is if it smarten's the fuck up or they start another world war of anihilation.
Take your pick.
I don't give much hope for the first, and I hope the second is preempted by the economic collapse these fucking maniacs running things have created.
Putin’s pivot to Iran is a strategic decision
http://atimes.com/2015/11/putins-pivot-to-iran-is-a-strategic-decision/
Posted by: Doug | November 29, 2015 at 12:28 PM