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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Which Direction Are Russia's New Nukes Pointed, Anyway? |
| 2018-04-25 |
| h/t Instapundit You might remember Vladimir Putin's speech last month, in which he revealed five "new" nuclear weapons systems. They weren't really new, because as Norman Friedman notes in a new article, "the Sarmat ballistic missile, the Avangard hypersonic maneuvering reentry vehicle, the Kinzhal air-launched hypersonic cruise missile, the Status-6 nuclear-powered autonomous underwater vehicle, and a nuclear-powered cruise missile," are all derived from previous Cold War-era systems. But it was a helluva speech, filled with sound and fury... but aimed at whom, exactly? That's where Friedman's new piece for the U.S. Naval Institute gets really interesting, because he posits that Putin's bluster was not, despite all appearances, aimed at the West. Friedman believes that Putin's real audience sits at the headquarters of the Communist Party of China in Beijing. Friedman reminds us that "Chinese maps still show one of the results of the 'unequal treaties' between the Qing Dynasty and foreign powers ‐ Russia’s possession of large swaths of Chinese Siberia, where many ethnic Chinese live today." And then there's the "intense nationalism" which the CPC has nurtured, especially in the last two decades as the country has grown rich. The view from the Kremlin not only includes Chinese revanchism, but also that "the Russian Army is thinly manned while the Chinese have a seemingly bottomless pool of manpower coupled with increasingly sophisticated weaponry." As I suggested in the past, I don't see "collision" so much as an effort to overthrow Trump (regardless of the motivation of the actors), as an attempt - successful to date, to sour USA Russian relations for the benefit of China. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #1 I'll vote for that. Russia probably has more to fear from the ChiComs than us. After all we are on the same side of the fence on a lot of issues. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2018-04-25 18:23 |