The Bear Stirs
Listen up, Euro-weenies: that friendly Slavic nation to your East from which you are buying your gas energy doe not have your best interests at heart. The enemy is not a bunch of pathetic morons in Washington, D.C., but rather a group of extremely intelligent and nasty ex-spies in the Kremlin.
Let's examine the past few years in Russia. Freedom of the media has been effectively squashed. Institutionalized bribery is again the method of doing business favored by the Kremlin. Dissent results in Bulgarian-like executions abroad using rare and nasty substances. Clients for Gazprom who are too vocal in their dissent from Russian political goals find their supplies cut off or at least the threat is made. Clearly and unequivocally.
Militarily (the Russians were always very keen to support their military, lest a coup backfire on them and all the better to threaten your neighbors with), the Russians have begun flexing their muscles in a way not seen since ... Chernenko, an acolyte of Brezhnev. For reasons best known to the Russians, they have recommenced long range bomber patrols -- over "their shipping lanes" (huh? ... the only export of any note is energy -- mostly by pipeline). Fleets of subs long laid up are being refurbished and new sub designs are apparently being rushed into production. Bombers long grounded for lack of fuel, are now sucking down tankloads as though it was going out of style. The just exploded the "Father of all Bombs", some type of thermobaric device ... on 9/11. It is reputedly 4 times as strong as the MOAB used by the US and produces twice the thermal intensity. The closest thing to a nuke without using one. Perfect for erasing villages full of Chechens from the map. Enemy troop concentrations too -- like Ukranian troops, or Polish troops. New tank designs with cutting edge armour are rolling off the design boards into production. New fighters to equal the best of U.S. designs are in testing.
Why? Whent he chips were down, did anyone mess with them? Did anyone take any territory that was Russian? Sure, lots of SSRs decided to go it alone without Moscow stealing all their resources, but we are talking about the 'Stans and Ukrainians -- emphatically not Russians, and only Russian by force of arms since various despots in the Kremlin decided to make them "Russian."
And the people running Russia are effectively a very intelligent and organized mafia. Not THE Russian Mafia, but the people who ran the place since Felix Dzerzhinsky, excepting Stalin: the Checka /KGB / FSB. The Soviets had one KGBer for every 425 citizens. The FSB has one for every 297. The KGB was a state within the state, the FSB is the state. FSB personnel (former KGB) essentially own every important industry that has not been re-nationalized. Those who made it big during the Yeltsin years are either dead or in exile abroad, fearing for their lives (unless they have paid tribute). Similar to the KGB, the FSB may infringe any right you might think you have as a Russian citizen. They have their own prison system (although they don't really need it as their power is greater than the KGB's ever was), and control the Duma absolutely.
What do they want? Tough one, that. Russia will be depopulated within 50 years, effectively unable to provide enough personnel to run even the most basic industries, or feed the rest of them. And the population growth rate continues to accelerate deeper into the red. So with the money being squandered on the military to mean anything, we have got to believe that the intention is conquest. Own enough "other" people to preserve the Russian people. There is certainly no possible need for the arms build out we are seeing today, at least for domestic purposes ... assuming "domestic" means the Russian Federation territory as it exists today. If "domestic" means all the SSRs that flew the coop to become "republics" (actually many nasty little dictatorships), then FOABs, bombers, tanks and attack aircraft might have some purpose. The external shows of power designed to warn the U.S. and U.K. to mind their own f-ing business, thank you.
Or, something darker. While the U.S. is getting its ass kicked by a bunch of rag-heads, a rejuvenated Russian army sweeps in for a slice of the Iranian oil fields. This time, I think we can safely say that they would not make the Afghanistan mistake: they have never really had any qualms, are not afraid of getting nuked by an Islamic nation, so they will simply flatten what they need to to secure their gains.
And let's not forget the Europeans ... or the Chinese. The Chinese might -- at some point -- decide that Siberian oil is simply too close and abundant for the Russians to use as a piggy bank for funding their own needs. And there are a lot of Chinese. Well equipped and flush with stolen and bought Western technology. I understand that the latest Chinese littoral subs are excellent. And with little effort I suppose that they might be able to secure the latest in armour technologies. And there are a lot of them, did I mention that?
Net of all this? The Bear was just sleeping. We cannot afford to have some idiot liberal democrat in the White House who believes that we "just need to understand each other and love each other" (those words from arch-moron Doofus Patrick on 9/11 at a memorial service for the fallen). Believe it or not, there are people in the world who want us dead. Just because we exist. That may just include the inhabitants of the Kremlin along with the usual unwashed suspects.
Let's examine the past few years in Russia. Freedom of the media has been effectively squashed. Institutionalized bribery is again the method of doing business favored by the Kremlin. Dissent results in Bulgarian-like executions abroad using rare and nasty substances. Clients for Gazprom who are too vocal in their dissent from Russian political goals find their supplies cut off or at least the threat is made. Clearly and unequivocally.
Militarily (the Russians were always very keen to support their military, lest a coup backfire on them and all the better to threaten your neighbors with), the Russians have begun flexing their muscles in a way not seen since ... Chernenko, an acolyte of Brezhnev. For reasons best known to the Russians, they have recommenced long range bomber patrols -- over "their shipping lanes" (huh? ... the only export of any note is energy -- mostly by pipeline). Fleets of subs long laid up are being refurbished and new sub designs are apparently being rushed into production. Bombers long grounded for lack of fuel, are now sucking down tankloads as though it was going out of style. The just exploded the "Father of all Bombs", some type of thermobaric device ... on 9/11. It is reputedly 4 times as strong as the MOAB used by the US and produces twice the thermal intensity. The closest thing to a nuke without using one. Perfect for erasing villages full of Chechens from the map. Enemy troop concentrations too -- like Ukranian troops, or Polish troops. New tank designs with cutting edge armour are rolling off the design boards into production. New fighters to equal the best of U.S. designs are in testing.
Why? Whent he chips were down, did anyone mess with them? Did anyone take any territory that was Russian? Sure, lots of SSRs decided to go it alone without Moscow stealing all their resources, but we are talking about the 'Stans and Ukrainians -- emphatically not Russians, and only Russian by force of arms since various despots in the Kremlin decided to make them "Russian."
And the people running Russia are effectively a very intelligent and organized mafia. Not THE Russian Mafia, but the people who ran the place since Felix Dzerzhinsky, excepting Stalin: the Checka /KGB / FSB. The Soviets had one KGBer for every 425 citizens. The FSB has one for every 297. The KGB was a state within the state, the FSB is the state. FSB personnel (former KGB) essentially own every important industry that has not been re-nationalized. Those who made it big during the Yeltsin years are either dead or in exile abroad, fearing for their lives (unless they have paid tribute). Similar to the KGB, the FSB may infringe any right you might think you have as a Russian citizen. They have their own prison system (although they don't really need it as their power is greater than the KGB's ever was), and control the Duma absolutely.
What do they want? Tough one, that. Russia will be depopulated within 50 years, effectively unable to provide enough personnel to run even the most basic industries, or feed the rest of them. And the population growth rate continues to accelerate deeper into the red. So with the money being squandered on the military to mean anything, we have got to believe that the intention is conquest. Own enough "other" people to preserve the Russian people. There is certainly no possible need for the arms build out we are seeing today, at least for domestic purposes ... assuming "domestic" means the Russian Federation territory as it exists today. If "domestic" means all the SSRs that flew the coop to become "republics" (actually many nasty little dictatorships), then FOABs, bombers, tanks and attack aircraft might have some purpose. The external shows of power designed to warn the U.S. and U.K. to mind their own f-ing business, thank you.
Or, something darker. While the U.S. is getting its ass kicked by a bunch of rag-heads, a rejuvenated Russian army sweeps in for a slice of the Iranian oil fields. This time, I think we can safely say that they would not make the Afghanistan mistake: they have never really had any qualms, are not afraid of getting nuked by an Islamic nation, so they will simply flatten what they need to to secure their gains.
And let's not forget the Europeans ... or the Chinese. The Chinese might -- at some point -- decide that Siberian oil is simply too close and abundant for the Russians to use as a piggy bank for funding their own needs. And there are a lot of Chinese. Well equipped and flush with stolen and bought Western technology. I understand that the latest Chinese littoral subs are excellent. And with little effort I suppose that they might be able to secure the latest in armour technologies. And there are a lot of them, did I mention that?
Net of all this? The Bear was just sleeping. We cannot afford to have some idiot liberal democrat in the White House who believes that we "just need to understand each other and love each other" (those words from arch-moron Doofus Patrick on 9/11 at a memorial service for the fallen). Believe it or not, there are people in the world who want us dead. Just because we exist. That may just include the inhabitants of the Kremlin along with the usual unwashed suspects.
posted by Zaphod at Wednesday, September 12, 2007
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