[P2P-F] Fwd: Christo

[Michel Bauwens]

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Do We Really Want a New World War With Russia?
Column: Society <http://journal-neo.org/category/columns/society/>
Region: Russia in the World
<http://journal-neo.org/category/locations/russia-in-the-world/>

*[image: 453453444]
<http://journal-neo.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/ee1a3dc9a196329037c336b4b964de64.jpg>Washington
continues making an international fool of herself by her inability to
effectively counter the impression around the world that Russia, spending
less than 10% of the Pentagon annually on defense, has managed to do more
against ISIS in Syria in six weeks than the mighty US Air Force bombing
campaign has done in almost a year and half. One aspect that bears
attention is the demonstration by the Russian military of new technologies
that belie the widely-held Western notion that Russia is little more than a
backward oil and raw material commodity exporter.*

Recent reorganization of the Russian state military industrial complex as
well as reorganization of the Soviet-era armed forces under Defense
Minister Sergey Shoigu’s term are visible in the success so far of Russia’s
ISIS and other terror strikes across Syria. Clearly Russian military
capabilities have undergone a sea-change since the Soviet Cold War era.

In war there are never winners. Yet Russia has been in an unwanted war with
Washington de facto since the George W. Bush Administration announced its
lunatic plan to place what they euphemistically term “Ballistic Missile
Defense” missiles and advanced radar in Poland, Czech Republic, Romania and
Turkey after 2007. Without going into detail, BMD technologies are the
opposite of defensive. They instead make a pre-emptive war highly likely.
Of course the radioactive ash heap in such an exchange would be first and
foremost the EU countries foolish enough to invite US BMD to their soil.

Then came the highly provocative US-instigated coup d’etat in Ukraine in
February 2014, installing a cabal of gangsters, neo-nazis and criminals who
launched a civil war against its own citizens in east Ukraine, an
ill-conceived attempt to bring Russia into a ground war across her border.
It followed two UN Security Council vetoes by Russia and China of US
proposals for No Fly zones over Syria as was done to destroy Qaddafi’s
Libya. Now Russia has surprised the West by accepting the request of Syrian
President Bashar al Assad to help eliminate the terrorism that has ravaged
the once-peaceful country for over four years.

What the Russian General Staff has managed, since the precision air
campaign began September 30, has stunned western defense planners with
Russian technological feats not expected. Two specific technologies are
worth looking at more closely: The Russian Sukoi SU-34 fighter-bomber and
what is called the Bumblebee hyperbaric mortar weapon.

*Sukhoi SU-34 ‘Fullback’ fighter-bomber*

The plane responsible for some of the most damaging strikes on ISIS and
other terror enclaves in Syria is manufactured by the Russian state
aircraft industry under the name Sukhoi SU-34. As the Russian news agency
RIA Novosti described the aircraft, “The Su-34 is meant to deliver a
sufficiently large ordnance load to a predetermined area, hit the target
accurately and take evasive action against pursuing enemy planes.” The
plane is also designed to deal with enemy fighters in aerial combat such as
the US F-16. The SU-34 made a first test flight in 1990 as the collapse of
the Soviet Union and the chaos of the Yeltsin years caused many delays.
Finally in 2010 the plane was in full production
<http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/russia-to-begin-receiving-su34-longrange-strike-fighters-02595/>
.

According to a report in US Defense Industry Daily, among the SU-34
features are:

• 8 ton ordnance load which can accommodate precision-guided weapons, as
well as R-73/AA-11 Archer and R-77/AA-12 ‘AMRAAMSKI’ missiles and an
internal 30mm GSh-301 gun.

• Maximum speed of Mach 1.8 at altitude.

• 3,000 km range, extensible to “over 4,000 km” with the help of additional
drop tanks. The SU-34 can also refuel in mid-air.

• It can fly in TERCOM (Terrain Contour Matching) mode for low-level
flight, and has software to execute a number of difficult maneuvers.

• Leninets B004 phased array multimode X-band radar, which interleaves
terrain-following radar and other modes.

*Now new EW technologies*

Clearly the aircraft is impressive as it has demonstrated against terrorist
centers in Syria. Now, however, beginning this month it will add a
“game-changer” in the form of a new component. Speaking at the Dubai Air
Show on November 12, Igor Nasenkov, the First Deputy General Director of
the Radio-Electronic Technologies Concern (KRET) announced that this month,
that is in the next few days, SUKHOI SU-34 fighter-bombers will become
electronic warfare aircraft as well.

Nasenkov explained that the new Khibiny aircraft electronic countermeasures
(ECM) systems, installed on the wingtips, will give the SU-34 jets
electronic warfare capabilities to launch effective electronic
countermeasures against radar systems, anti-aircraft missile systems and
airborne early warning and control aircraft
<http://journal-neo.org/2015/11/16/do-we-really-want-a-new-world-war-with-russia/%20http://sputniknews.com/military/20151112/1029959990/su-34-electronic-warfare.html#ixzz3rGMrk1Cs>
.

KRET is a holding or group of some 95 Russian state electronic companies
formed in 2009 under the giant Russian state military industry holding,
Rostec.

Russia’s advances in what is euphemistically termed in military jargon,
Electronic Counter Measures or ECM, is causing some sleepless nights for
the US Pentagon top brass to be sure. In the battles in eastern pro-Russian
Ukraine earlier this year, as well as in the Black Sea, and now in Syria,
according to ranking US military sources, Russia deployed highly-effective
ECM technologies like the Krasukha-4, to successfully jam hostile radar and
aircraft.

Lt. General Ben Hodges, Commander of US Army Europe (USAREUR) describes
Russian ECM capabilities used in Ukraine as “eye-watering,” suggesting some
US and NATO officers are more than slightly disturbed by what they see.
Ronald Pontius, deputy to Army Cyber Command’s chief, Lt. Gen. Edward
Cardon, told a conference in October that, “You can’t but come to the
conclusion that we’re not making progress at the pace the threat demands
<http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/21/russia-winning-the-electronic-war/>.”
In short, Pentagon planners have been caught flat-footed for all the
trillions of wasted US taxpayer dollars in recent years thrown at the
military industry.

During the critical days of the March 2014 Crimean citizens’ referendum
vote to appeal for status within Russia, New York Times reporters then in
Crimea reported the presence of Russian electronic jamming systems, known
as R-330Zh Zhitel, manufactured by Protek in Voronezh, Russia. That
state-of-the-art technology was believed to have been used to prevent the
Ukrainian Army from invading Crimea before the referendum. Russian forces
in Crimea, where Russia had a legal basing agreement with Kiev, reportedly
were able to block all communication of Kiev military forces, preventing a
Crimean bloodbath. Washington was stunned.

*USS Donald Cook…*

Thereafter, in April, 2014, one month after the accession of Crimea into
the Russian Federation, President Obama ordered the USS Donald Cook into
the Black Sea waters just off Crimea, the home port of Russia’s Black Sea
Fleet, to “reassure” EU states of US resolve. Donald Cook was no ordinary
guided missile destroyer. It had been refitted to be one of four ships as
part of Washington’s Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System aimed at
Russia’s nuclear arsenal. USS Donald Cook boldly entered the Black Sea on
April 8 heading to Russian territorial waters.

On April 12, just four days later, the US ship inexplicably left the area
of the Crimean waters of the Black Sea for a port in NATO-member Romania.