War with Russia
Discussion
AreOut said:
Liokault said:
I think your logic is out.
Yes, so far the out come with and without the transponder has been the same.
If a civ aircraft hits a bear, the result will have not been the same, unless you think that civilian pilots are trying to deliberately ram bears.
I am quite sure the russian pilots have the possibility to detect&evade such encounters otherwise they wouldn't fly.Yes, so far the out come with and without the transponder has been the same.
If a civ aircraft hits a bear, the result will have not been the same, unless you think that civilian pilots are trying to deliberately ram bears.
Liokault said:
Because no one in the military ever took a risk? If they were safe without transponders, they wouldn't need transponders.
they probably have some kind of TCAS system on board (ADS-B receiver or such) so they have the info about nearby traffic, they don't need active transponder to see other planes around, even in a civilian aircraft you can go invisible and still see other planesLiokault said:
I find the clear polarisation of your view point ironic.
What is polarised?You either love war and want to go killing people, or you want peace and not to kill people?
I'd rather polarise based on fundamentals than polarise because of my location on the planet and subsequently whose biased news I'm exposed to.
So are these Bears driving down with transponder on, then turning it off when they get to the UK?
Or are they coming all the way over transponder off? Are all the other countries they fly near having issues? Ie escorting them into our intercept areas etc?
Is this Russia purposely pestering the UK flying right around the North Cape to get here, or just the UK making a song and dance about intercepting them? Hmmmm
Or are they coming all the way over transponder off? Are all the other countries they fly near having issues? Ie escorting them into our intercept areas etc?
Is this Russia purposely pestering the UK flying right around the North Cape to get here, or just the UK making a song and dance about intercepting them? Hmmmm
Mr Whippy said:
What is polarised?
You either love war and want to go killing people, or you want peace and not to kill people?
I'd rather polarise based on fundamentals than polarise because of my location on the planet and subsequently whose biased news I'm exposed to.
So much stupid in one short post, I don't know where to start.You either love war and want to go killing people, or you want peace and not to kill people?
I'd rather polarise based on fundamentals than polarise because of my location on the planet and subsequently whose biased news I'm exposed to.
QuantumTokoloshi said:
hidetheelephants said:
Chest Rockwell said:
Oh don't be such a pleb, like NATO doesn't do the same? And again, they were in International Airspace...so why does it even get a mention in the news?
You're batting for the wrong team.
No, NATO don't routinely fly aircraft with transponders off through busy airways; it doesn't matter whether the airspace is international or not, those onboard will still die if there's a mid-air collision. Thus it is newsworthy.You're batting for the wrong team.
Batting for the wrong team; really?
Edited by QuantumTokoloshi on Friday 20th February 17:44
I'm not a big fan of the Russians but let's not kid ourselves. We (or at least our politicians) are prepared to do dodgy stuff as and when the need arises.
Air Traffic Controllers need transponders to determine height. They are not allowed to use primary radar for height. Thus if the Bears turn off their transponders, civilian ATC have to leave a space around that extends all the way down and up. Whereas for most aircraft they can assume that if their transponders indicate a eheight difference of 500ft, then they are fine. IN some areas they might also have to leave a much bigger space laterally .So this really messes up civil ATC and the use of airspace.
It is highly unlikely that Bears have TCAS in any form as they are very old technologically. They probably do have some military radar though. So they would have some warning of civil aircraft. Probably
It is highly unlikely that Bears have TCAS in any form as they are very old technologically. They probably do have some military radar though. So they would have some warning of civil aircraft. Probably
AreOut said:
Stevanos said:
I'm not convinced, it is dumb behavior and a silly amount of risk taking!
They are just usual army guys who have their families at home, not some japanese or ISIS kamikaze nutjobs.Not a good time to be a Russian Conscript
AP said:
MOSCOW (AP) - Human rights groups have received dozens of complaints in the past month from Russian conscripts who say they have been strong-armed or duped into signing contracts with the military to become professional soldiers. The conscripts are then sent to participate in drills in the southern Rostov region bordering Ukraine.
Because only contract soldiers can legally be dispatched abroad, worries are spreading among families that inexperienced young conscripts could be sent to fight in eastern Ukraine alongside pro-Russian separatists. Many soldiers contend that's already happened.
One former soldier told The Associated Press that he was pressured into extending his service.
When the conscript, Alexander, was due to finish his year of mandatory military service in October, he said his commander told him he had no choice: He had to sign a contract and head to southern Russia for troop exercises. The 20-year-old knew that meant he might end up fighting in Ukraine. Other soldiers he talked to had been sent there.
His commanders "didn't talk about it, but other soldiers told us about it, primarily paratroopers who had been there," Alexander said in an interview with the AP, which is not using his surname for his safety.
The former private first class ended his military service this month. He fled Rostov on Dec. 31 and avoided being sent to Ukraine - although not without first being threatened with prison for desertion. He was able to quit legally only after reaching out to NGOs for help.
http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_306481/contentdetail.htm...Because only contract soldiers can legally be dispatched abroad, worries are spreading among families that inexperienced young conscripts could be sent to fight in eastern Ukraine alongside pro-Russian separatists. Many soldiers contend that's already happened.
One former soldier told The Associated Press that he was pressured into extending his service.
When the conscript, Alexander, was due to finish his year of mandatory military service in October, he said his commander told him he had no choice: He had to sign a contract and head to southern Russia for troop exercises. The 20-year-old knew that meant he might end up fighting in Ukraine. Other soldiers he talked to had been sent there.
His commanders "didn't talk about it, but other soldiers told us about it, primarily paratroopers who had been there," Alexander said in an interview with the AP, which is not using his surname for his safety.
The former private first class ended his military service this month. He fled Rostov on Dec. 31 and avoided being sent to Ukraine - although not without first being threatened with prison for desertion. He was able to quit legally only after reaching out to NGOs for help.
Mr Whippy said:
Liokault said:
So much stupid in one short post, I don't know where to start.
That's convenient, it saves you having to explain your ranting into a cohesive argument.How about you explain why war is a reasonable thing to want to occur for the majority who will be involved?
Dave
Liokault said:
Dude, I don't want to take this off topic and derail into a fight with you, but if you are going to attack people for being polarised, your next line probably shouldn't be "your either for or against". Seriously, do you even know what polarised means?
I didn't attack anyone for being polarised. I just said they were polarised.I'm just surprised that there appears to be no tolerance for not supporting either 'side'
Very few people appear to be able to avoid aligning themselves one way or the other, thinking along parallel lines of thought. Polarising.
A gentleman on AARSE posted this today... makes for good reading.
A link to the thread
http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/chronicle...
emsav said:
Apologises in advance for a very long, hopefully informative postings, like me I sincerely hope it gives you a very insight into the Chinese way of thinking. Unfortunately it has to be in multiple parts because of system restrictions.
Two of my people have just returned from three months in Nanjing, overseeing the development of the new tramway system on behalf of the city and Jiangsu Regional Government. Much of their time was spent talking with high-ranking Chinese government officials and bureaucrats and it is from my conversations with them that I have been able to produce what follows – the Chinese perspective;
They tell me that Vladimir Putin, in the eyes of the Chinese, has committed a cardinal sin by tearing up the international rule book without a green light from Beijing. Therefore, any hope of recruiting Beijing as an ally to blunt Western sanctions is doomed, and with it the Kremlin's chances of a painless victory or any worthwhile victory at all.
Whilst Putin was careful to thank China's Politburo for its alleged support in his victory speech on Crimea, Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has been claiming with his usual elasticity that “Russia and China have coinciding views on the situation in Ukraine.” This is of course a desperate lie. China did not stand behind Russia in the UN Security Council vote on Crimea, as it had over Syria. It pointedly abstained, to show its displeasure. To begin with, Russia's use of a referendum to break Crimea away from Ukraine contradicts one of the core tenets of Chinese foreign policy: mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty and non-aggression and non-interference in another country's internal affairs, including that of Ukraine. China does not support referendums or attempts by domestic groups to seek independence. Similarly, China has never annexed an undisputed territory of a neighbouring country in order to protect the territory's ethnic Chinese majority.
On the surface, one might expect China to support Russia's annexation of Crimea in order to bolster its own claims to Taiwan and disputed territories. But Russia's relationship to Crimea is fundamentally different than any of China's disputed claims. On Taiwan, not only is the military challenge radically different, but Taiwan is an island that China claims authority over, not part of another state.
More fundamentally, the Crimea referendum could be viewed as a protest against the established order and Beijing may well worry that Russian actions will encourage challenges to the Chinese Communist Party's authority at home. Beijing may also be wary that the Crimea or any future referendums in Ukraine could be used as a precedent for similar votes in Taiwan, Xinjiang, and Tibet – any of which would amount to a crisis for Beijing. In other words, China likely sees the Crimea referendum more from the perspective of Kiev than Moscow.
The Chinese leadership is probably viewing Russia's policy as overly aggressive. Chinese military strategists have prided themselves on never occupying foreign territory or invading other countries for purposes other than self-defence. China opposes countries that attempt to use force or intimidation to challenge the sovereignty of other independent states. Importantly, China did not support Russia in its invasion of Georgia in 2008.
All this suggests that Russia's claim that it will seek a closer relationship with China in the event the West isolates it is likely to continue to meet with a very cautious response from Beijing. As much as China may wish to lean on Russia should Beijing find itself at odds with the United States, Xi seeks a new type of great power relationship with the United States that calls for mutual respect, no confrontation, and cooperation. China wants – and some even argue needs – to have good relations with the United States and the international community as it continues to grow. The United States and the European Union are also China's largest trade partners. An embrace of Russia at this time could cost China much global goodwill.
Finally, China does have a relationship with Ukraine that is not irrelevant. It had strong ties on trade, agricultural partnerships, and the military, and will want to see those ties endure under the new Ukrainian government. Xi has also made combating corruption a key domestic agenda. Given that cronyism was a key factor in Yanukovych's demise, it would not be easy for Xi to appear to side with him without negative domestic blowback.
If China hesitates to tilt toward Russia on Crimea, this will not, of course, be a sign that it is ready to join the West in a full condemnation of Russian policy, much less support harsh sanctions or military measures. Even if Russia invades Ukraine proper, Beijing may hesitate to publicly denounce Russia and prefer to sit on the side-lines, as it did in the 2008 Russia-Georgia war. Chinese strategists will question whether Beijing has the leverage needed to convince Putin to change course. In general, China has little appetite for entanglement in conflict far from its borders, especially given multiple challenges in its own neighbourhood.
Allegedly there has been a meeting recently between President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama where Xi Jinping made it abundantly clear that China has nothing in common with the deranged assertions of the Kremlin. Some close to Barak Obama appear delighted by the talks, claiming afterwards that Russia could no longer count on backing from its "traditional ally".
If so, Mr Putin is snookered. He cannot hope to escape financial suffocation by US regulatory muscle as he tries to stir up chaos in the Russian-speaking Donbass by means of agents provocateurs. Nor can he hope to turn the tables on the West by joining forces with China to create a Eurasian bloc, a league of authoritarian powers in control of vast resources. The reality is that China is breaking Russia's control over the gas basins of Central Asia systematically and ruthlessly. Turkmenistan's gas used to flow north, hostage to prices set by Gazprom, it now flows east. President Xi went in person last September to open the new 1,800 km pipeline to China from the Galkynysh Gas field, the world's second largest with 26 trillion cubic meters.
It will ultimately supply 65 BCM, equal to half Gazprom's exports to Europe. Much the same is going on in Kazakhstan, where Chinese companies have taken over much of the energy industry. Many are now describing these moves as the "Chinese commercial colonization" of the region, saying Russia is "painfully" watching its energy domination in Central Asia slip away.
PART 2
Yet more revealing is an e-mail quoting Cheng Guoping, China's ambassador to Kazakhstan, warning that Russia and China are on a collision course, and China will not be the one to yield. "In the future, great power relations in Central Asia will be complicated, delicate. The new oil and gas pipelines are breaking Russia's monopoly in energy exports."
Mr Cheng not only expressed "a positive view of the US role in the region" but also suggested that NATO should take part as a guest at talks on the Shanghai Cooperation group -- allegedly the Sino-Russian answer to EU/NATO -- in order to "break the Russian monopoly in the region." That word "break" again. So there we have it in the raw, what really goes on behind closed doors, so far removed from the pieties of a Moscow-Beijing axis!
The Chinese have never forgiven Russia for seizing East Siberia under the Tsars, the "lost territories". They want their property back, and they are getting it back by ethnic resettlement across the Amur River, Lake Khanka and the frontier regions, posing a significant threat, over time, to the Pacific fleet base in Vladivostok. Add to which the population of far Eastern Siberia has collapsed by some 25% to 6.3m from over 8 million twenty years ago, leaving ghost towns along the Trans-Siberian Railway. Russia has failed to make a go of its Eastern venture. With a national fertility rate of 1.4, chronic alcoholism whereby one in five men between the ages of 16 and 55 die of alcohol related causes, and a population expected to shrink by 30million to barely more than 110million by 2050 -- according to UN demographers, not Mr Putin's officials -- the nation must inexorably recede towards its European bastion of Old Muscovy. The question is how fast, and how peacefully.
There is a faction within China's National Security Council that wishes to "line up with Russia" over Ukraine, hoping to exploit the crisis to gain better terms on gas, food, and raw materials. These voices have been overruled by Xi Jinping. He plays on a more sophisticated strategic stage.
China is likely to walk a tightrope, "hiding its brilliance and biding its time" as the saying goes. This will becomes a harder if the Ukraine crisis escalates. Beijing may have to choose. It is surely unlikely that imperious Xi Jinping will throw away the great prize of G2 Sino-American condominium to rescue a squalid and incompetent regime in Moscow from its own folly.
Mr Putin must realize by now how fatally isolated he has become, and how dangerous it would be to go a step further. Even Germany's ever-forgiving Angela Merkel has lost patience, lamenting an "unbelievable breakdown of trust." Enough of Europe's gas pipelines have been switched to two-way flows since 2009 to help at least some of the vulnerable frontline states, if he tries to pick off the minnows one by one. Eight EU countries have liquefied natural gas terminals. Two more will join the club this year, in Poland and Lithuania.
The EU summit text last week was a call to arms. Officials have been ordered to draft plans within 90 days to break dependence on Gazprom. Even if this crisis blows over, Europe will take radical steps to find other sources of energy. Imports of Russian may be slashed by three-quarters within a decade.
Capital flight from Russia has already reached $70billion this year and we are not at the end of the first quarter 2015. Russia's central bank cannot defend the rouble without tightening monetary policy, driving the economy deeper into recession in the process. Russian banks and companies must roll over $155bn of foreign debts over the next twelve months in a hostile market, at a premium already over 200 basis points.
Mr Putin is discovering that global finance is more frightened of the US Securities and Exchange Commission than Russian T90 tanks. Any sanction against any oligarch linked to any Russian company could shut it out of global capital markets, potentially forcing default. Creditors in the West would be burned. But nobody cares about them once national security is at stake, something markets have been slow to grasp.
Nor has he chosen a good moment for his gamble. Europe's gas tanks are unusually full. The price of oil is poised to fall -- ceteris paribus -- as Iraq's output reaches a 35-year high, the US adds a million barrels b/d a day this year from shale, and Libya cranks up exports again. The International Energy Agency says global supply jumped by 600,000 b/d last month. Deutsche Bank predicts a glut. So does China's Sinopec. Mr Putin needs prices near $110 to fund his budget. He may face $50 for a very long time.
At the end of the day he has condemned Russia to the middle income trap. The windfall from the great oil boom has been wasted. Russia's engineering skills have atrophied. Industry has been hollowed out by the Dutch Disease: the curse of over-valued currency, and reliance on commodities.
He jumped the gun in Ukraine, striking before the interim government had committed any serious abuses or lost global goodwill, a remarkably sloppy and impatient Putsch for a KGB man. He took Germany for a patsy, and took China for granted. He has gained Crimea but turned the Kremlin into a pariah for another decade, if not a generation, and probably lost Ukraine forever. It is a remarkably poor trade.
Thank you all for your time reading this diatribe.
Two of my people have just returned from three months in Nanjing, overseeing the development of the new tramway system on behalf of the city and Jiangsu Regional Government. Much of their time was spent talking with high-ranking Chinese government officials and bureaucrats and it is from my conversations with them that I have been able to produce what follows – the Chinese perspective;
They tell me that Vladimir Putin, in the eyes of the Chinese, has committed a cardinal sin by tearing up the international rule book without a green light from Beijing. Therefore, any hope of recruiting Beijing as an ally to blunt Western sanctions is doomed, and with it the Kremlin's chances of a painless victory or any worthwhile victory at all.
Whilst Putin was careful to thank China's Politburo for its alleged support in his victory speech on Crimea, Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has been claiming with his usual elasticity that “Russia and China have coinciding views on the situation in Ukraine.” This is of course a desperate lie. China did not stand behind Russia in the UN Security Council vote on Crimea, as it had over Syria. It pointedly abstained, to show its displeasure. To begin with, Russia's use of a referendum to break Crimea away from Ukraine contradicts one of the core tenets of Chinese foreign policy: mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty and non-aggression and non-interference in another country's internal affairs, including that of Ukraine. China does not support referendums or attempts by domestic groups to seek independence. Similarly, China has never annexed an undisputed territory of a neighbouring country in order to protect the territory's ethnic Chinese majority.
On the surface, one might expect China to support Russia's annexation of Crimea in order to bolster its own claims to Taiwan and disputed territories. But Russia's relationship to Crimea is fundamentally different than any of China's disputed claims. On Taiwan, not only is the military challenge radically different, but Taiwan is an island that China claims authority over, not part of another state.
More fundamentally, the Crimea referendum could be viewed as a protest against the established order and Beijing may well worry that Russian actions will encourage challenges to the Chinese Communist Party's authority at home. Beijing may also be wary that the Crimea or any future referendums in Ukraine could be used as a precedent for similar votes in Taiwan, Xinjiang, and Tibet – any of which would amount to a crisis for Beijing. In other words, China likely sees the Crimea referendum more from the perspective of Kiev than Moscow.
The Chinese leadership is probably viewing Russia's policy as overly aggressive. Chinese military strategists have prided themselves on never occupying foreign territory or invading other countries for purposes other than self-defence. China opposes countries that attempt to use force or intimidation to challenge the sovereignty of other independent states. Importantly, China did not support Russia in its invasion of Georgia in 2008.
All this suggests that Russia's claim that it will seek a closer relationship with China in the event the West isolates it is likely to continue to meet with a very cautious response from Beijing. As much as China may wish to lean on Russia should Beijing find itself at odds with the United States, Xi seeks a new type of great power relationship with the United States that calls for mutual respect, no confrontation, and cooperation. China wants – and some even argue needs – to have good relations with the United States and the international community as it continues to grow. The United States and the European Union are also China's largest trade partners. An embrace of Russia at this time could cost China much global goodwill.
Finally, China does have a relationship with Ukraine that is not irrelevant. It had strong ties on trade, agricultural partnerships, and the military, and will want to see those ties endure under the new Ukrainian government. Xi has also made combating corruption a key domestic agenda. Given that cronyism was a key factor in Yanukovych's demise, it would not be easy for Xi to appear to side with him without negative domestic blowback.
If China hesitates to tilt toward Russia on Crimea, this will not, of course, be a sign that it is ready to join the West in a full condemnation of Russian policy, much less support harsh sanctions or military measures. Even if Russia invades Ukraine proper, Beijing may hesitate to publicly denounce Russia and prefer to sit on the side-lines, as it did in the 2008 Russia-Georgia war. Chinese strategists will question whether Beijing has the leverage needed to convince Putin to change course. In general, China has little appetite for entanglement in conflict far from its borders, especially given multiple challenges in its own neighbourhood.
Allegedly there has been a meeting recently between President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama where Xi Jinping made it abundantly clear that China has nothing in common with the deranged assertions of the Kremlin. Some close to Barak Obama appear delighted by the talks, claiming afterwards that Russia could no longer count on backing from its "traditional ally".
If so, Mr Putin is snookered. He cannot hope to escape financial suffocation by US regulatory muscle as he tries to stir up chaos in the Russian-speaking Donbass by means of agents provocateurs. Nor can he hope to turn the tables on the West by joining forces with China to create a Eurasian bloc, a league of authoritarian powers in control of vast resources. The reality is that China is breaking Russia's control over the gas basins of Central Asia systematically and ruthlessly. Turkmenistan's gas used to flow north, hostage to prices set by Gazprom, it now flows east. President Xi went in person last September to open the new 1,800 km pipeline to China from the Galkynysh Gas field, the world's second largest with 26 trillion cubic meters.
It will ultimately supply 65 BCM, equal to half Gazprom's exports to Europe. Much the same is going on in Kazakhstan, where Chinese companies have taken over much of the energy industry. Many are now describing these moves as the "Chinese commercial colonization" of the region, saying Russia is "painfully" watching its energy domination in Central Asia slip away.
PART 2
Yet more revealing is an e-mail quoting Cheng Guoping, China's ambassador to Kazakhstan, warning that Russia and China are on a collision course, and China will not be the one to yield. "In the future, great power relations in Central Asia will be complicated, delicate. The new oil and gas pipelines are breaking Russia's monopoly in energy exports."
Mr Cheng not only expressed "a positive view of the US role in the region" but also suggested that NATO should take part as a guest at talks on the Shanghai Cooperation group -- allegedly the Sino-Russian answer to EU/NATO -- in order to "break the Russian monopoly in the region." That word "break" again. So there we have it in the raw, what really goes on behind closed doors, so far removed from the pieties of a Moscow-Beijing axis!
The Chinese have never forgiven Russia for seizing East Siberia under the Tsars, the "lost territories". They want their property back, and they are getting it back by ethnic resettlement across the Amur River, Lake Khanka and the frontier regions, posing a significant threat, over time, to the Pacific fleet base in Vladivostok. Add to which the population of far Eastern Siberia has collapsed by some 25% to 6.3m from over 8 million twenty years ago, leaving ghost towns along the Trans-Siberian Railway. Russia has failed to make a go of its Eastern venture. With a national fertility rate of 1.4, chronic alcoholism whereby one in five men between the ages of 16 and 55 die of alcohol related causes, and a population expected to shrink by 30million to barely more than 110million by 2050 -- according to UN demographers, not Mr Putin's officials -- the nation must inexorably recede towards its European bastion of Old Muscovy. The question is how fast, and how peacefully.
There is a faction within China's National Security Council that wishes to "line up with Russia" over Ukraine, hoping to exploit the crisis to gain better terms on gas, food, and raw materials. These voices have been overruled by Xi Jinping. He plays on a more sophisticated strategic stage.
China is likely to walk a tightrope, "hiding its brilliance and biding its time" as the saying goes. This will becomes a harder if the Ukraine crisis escalates. Beijing may have to choose. It is surely unlikely that imperious Xi Jinping will throw away the great prize of G2 Sino-American condominium to rescue a squalid and incompetent regime in Moscow from its own folly.
Mr Putin must realize by now how fatally isolated he has become, and how dangerous it would be to go a step further. Even Germany's ever-forgiving Angela Merkel has lost patience, lamenting an "unbelievable breakdown of trust." Enough of Europe's gas pipelines have been switched to two-way flows since 2009 to help at least some of the vulnerable frontline states, if he tries to pick off the minnows one by one. Eight EU countries have liquefied natural gas terminals. Two more will join the club this year, in Poland and Lithuania.
The EU summit text last week was a call to arms. Officials have been ordered to draft plans within 90 days to break dependence on Gazprom. Even if this crisis blows over, Europe will take radical steps to find other sources of energy. Imports of Russian may be slashed by three-quarters within a decade.
Capital flight from Russia has already reached $70billion this year and we are not at the end of the first quarter 2015. Russia's central bank cannot defend the rouble without tightening monetary policy, driving the economy deeper into recession in the process. Russian banks and companies must roll over $155bn of foreign debts over the next twelve months in a hostile market, at a premium already over 200 basis points.
Mr Putin is discovering that global finance is more frightened of the US Securities and Exchange Commission than Russian T90 tanks. Any sanction against any oligarch linked to any Russian company could shut it out of global capital markets, potentially forcing default. Creditors in the West would be burned. But nobody cares about them once national security is at stake, something markets have been slow to grasp.
Nor has he chosen a good moment for his gamble. Europe's gas tanks are unusually full. The price of oil is poised to fall -- ceteris paribus -- as Iraq's output reaches a 35-year high, the US adds a million barrels b/d a day this year from shale, and Libya cranks up exports again. The International Energy Agency says global supply jumped by 600,000 b/d last month. Deutsche Bank predicts a glut. So does China's Sinopec. Mr Putin needs prices near $110 to fund his budget. He may face $50 for a very long time.
At the end of the day he has condemned Russia to the middle income trap. The windfall from the great oil boom has been wasted. Russia's engineering skills have atrophied. Industry has been hollowed out by the Dutch Disease: the curse of over-valued currency, and reliance on commodities.
He jumped the gun in Ukraine, striking before the interim government had committed any serious abuses or lost global goodwill, a remarkably sloppy and impatient Putsch for a KGB man. He took Germany for a patsy, and took China for granted. He has gained Crimea but turned the Kremlin into a pariah for another decade, if not a generation, and probably lost Ukraine forever. It is a remarkably poor trade.
Thank you all for your time reading this diatribe.
A link to the thread
http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/chronicle...
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