For those who know nothing about real life in China:
"Allen - nicknamed The Pistol - punched the air with some glee to mark a momentous win. It was a different figure from the one who had tweeted earlier in the week: "This place is horrendous! Dead cat found this morning. Any wonder this place stinks! Must be dead cats all round the town!"
"Journey a nightmare. People are ignorant. Place stinks. Arena's rubbish, tables poor, food is horrendous. Other than that I love China."
"In Nanjing last year a Spaniard told me the Chinese were absolutely disgusting. I get food and all sorts thrown out of the window on to the ground outside my flat, people spit, they're getting better, but they spit most places where they think they can get away with it. Rubbish is everywhere, some places stink so bad you wonder how people can live there."
Google, or any other search engine for that matter, will offer you very few pictures of Chinese hygiene realities of course, but still there are some:
This is how the Chinese comrades
maintain their trains ...
and streets ...
Russian Military Impotence 101
Part II
THE BULAVA: CHECK-MATE COMRADES!
January 2010
It would be safe to say that the Russian sea-launched ballistic missile, named Bulava (Russian for 'mace'), is the most successful weapon system in military history. Ever.
Successful in demolishing its own navy capability, not the opponents.
It was supposed to be the first reliable Russian solid-fueled missile based on a submarine, capable of overcoming US missile defense.
Out of 13 tests, however, 7 or 8 are officially failures, and in fact even Russian sources claim that only one qualifies as successful.
Provided that the main purpose for the new missile was to be able to penetrate US missile defense, it's highly doubtful that this 'successful' test was able to provide that kind of capability. Simply because it was one of the very early ones. They need to first get it fly reliably before testing sophisticated missile defense countermeasures, such as changing course in the middle or terminal phase.
The last 5 attempts were failures, starting with the end of 2008, summer of 2009, then the Russians tried to launch a Bulava missile both in the end of October and November 2009 but canceled those for 'technical reasons'.
Thus, finally, in early December 2009, the Bulava launch failure produced a spectacular show for the Norwegians near Tromso, to the utter embarrassment of the entire Russian military and political establishment. This time the whole world was watching, not to mention that at the same time Barack Obama was in the same Norway, accepting his Nobel peace prize, essentially attracting even more attention to this part of the world.
The Russian ruling elite is used to that kind of military failures, but not international embarrassment of this scale. Tormented by chronic inferiority complex, the Russian elite hates most than anything to appear stupid and impotent in the eyes of the world.
For the outside observer, it's not the numerous failures of the Bulava missile that is most shocking, however. The Russians still don't have any idea what the cause (or causes) for these failures has been, thus, they have no idea how to solve the problem with the missile. It seems they don't have good enough systems to diagnose potential failures.
Even more incredible, they have already designed the submarines (the so-called Project 955, Borei) that were to be armed with the Bulavas and one is already completed and two more are being manufactured. Seems like the comrades were confident the missile will fly reliably, probably based on the fact that Bulava was supposed to be a spin-off of a land based missile, Topol M, which is performing satisfactorily, at least by their standards.
Thus, billions of dollars were spent on something that may turn out obsolete or of very limited value. To get an adequate idea how much a Borei-submarine costs to the Russians, $800 mln (the cost of one such sub) is as costly as at least $8 bln to the Americans (the Russian military budget is more than ten times smaller than the US one).
Each of these Bulava test missiles is claimed to cost $50 mln. Which makes another large pile of cash gone down the drain. Again, if you have a failure but learned from it, it should be considered at least partially useful. The Russians however are in the dark as to what's going on with the missile.
Worst of all, what lies ahead are not just bad options, but terrible ones.
Option I:
Continuing with the Bulava, which would mean they need at least several, 5, or 6, clear-cut successful tests. This means two to three years or more as they were able to have about 2 tests per year on average. It would mean an awful lot of additional money invested with no idea whether it would work since they still don't know why it hasn't so far. And meanwhile, the new Borei-class sub will rust peacefully and two more boat will be manufactured without any idea whether they would be of any use.
Option II
Dump the Bulava and redesign the Borei subs for their more reliable liquid-fueled Sineva missile. But Sineva (which also had testing problems although nowhere near the Bulava fiasco) is a longer missile and to redesign the subs would cost as much as almost to build them anew according to various sources including the Russian general staff sources. Tons of money for new subs to carry really old missiles.
Option III
Another constructor team to build a solid fueled missile with the specifications of Bulava so they fit it into the existing Borei subs. Developing another missile without time-pressuring the engineers means about another 10 years and tons and tons of money with the subs rusting around. Again with no idea whether it'll work. Chances don't look very good, however.
Option IV
New sub and new missile (whether liquid or solid-fueled) – another extremely bad, even more costly and time consuming option.
In other words, the Bulava says: 'Check-mate, comrades, or you better pray to your gods that I'll work in the next 5 tests.
It also remains an open question, even if the Russians were able to create a viable missile out of this project, in terms of flying characteristics, how successful it would be in its maneuvering/countermeasures department.
Equally dubious would be eventual Russian capability to adequately protect their boomers from US and NATO attack submarines and other anti-submarine platforms. They could only serve as serious deterrence against China which has indeed clear-cut ambitions about the raw materials rich Russian Far-East.
EUROPEAN MISSILE DEFENSE 101
17 SEPTEMBER 2009, the Obama administration announced a change in the European missile defense configuration.
No X-Band radar in the Czech republic and ground based interceptors (GBIs) in Poland.
Many news entities announced this to be ‘scrapping, nixing, shelving, etc.’ of the missile defense project for Europe.
Missile defense configuration A is replaced with missile defense configuration B.
First, the initial idea didn’t make military sense in the first place, in terms of military value.
Poland-based GBIs don’t make sense geometrically speaking (in terms of ballistic trajectory). Why?
The distance between the Iranian North-West and Poland is 2,500 km and long range ‘inter-continental’ missiles are those of over 5,000 km range. And the GBIs are designed to deal with long range 'intercontinentals'.
The only way a hit to kill vehicle (such as the GBI) can reliably hit a ballistic missile at these velocities (aggregate velocity of about 24,000 km/h) is if the interceptor is positioned somewhere at the opposite end of the ballistic trajectory of the incoming missile. Anything else is fantasy or extremely low probability event.
Thus, ground based interceptors (in Poland) can't deal with Iranian missiles. They can't deal with Russian missiles either as those would be deployed in the Western parts of Russia and thus even closer to the GBIs in Poland. GBIs would make some sort of sense if deployed in the UK and Portugal as those territories are at about 5,000 (or more) km from potential Iranian launching platforms.
Second, while the X-band radar in the Czech republic makes military sense as a location for such a sensor, how is such a facility survivable since it is a fixed facility so close to Russia?
How can a military planner seriously rely on such a critical facility if it is so close to Russia in a fixed position in a former Soviet satellite country? Who can guarantee, for example, that a sleeper cell of Russian agents in the Czech republic wouldn't be activated to damage or destroy it in a time of crisis? The Czech republic is not Norway or the UK, such a scenario is highly probable and should be seen as realistic by military planners. In fact, fixed radars even in countries such as the UK and Norway cannot be viewed as 100% survivable.
And once the Czech government (of prime minister Topolanek) was toppled in March 2009 (the opposition, including the former communists is against the deployment of missile defense elements there and that was the real reason for Topolanek's fall) how can a serious government rely on the stability and political support from Prague for such a missile defense system? When it is in fact non-existent? Part of the Czech opposition to the fixed X-band radar there actually makes sense, whether one is for or against missile defense. It will be a magnet for all sorts of terrorists to try their luck on it.
Once the Czech political establishment demonstrated political instability and unreliability, it is obvious that this idea was over even if it made military sense. Again, it makes military sense as location. In terms of survivability, however, it is next to zero.
The whole idea of Czech/Poland-based missile defense components was nothing more than a trial balloon to measure up the reliability of the new Eastern European partners and register the reactions of every other entity of interest. The Czechs certainly failed.
The Polish requirement for a Patriot missile battery, operated by Americans at that, is somewhat reasonable as they would indeed need protection from Russian short-range missiles. If that was the whole point of this entire project, then we must see accelerated deployment of Patriots there.
Sensors (mainly radars) in the South, places like Turkey, the Mediterranean and the Black sea and SM-3 missiles in the seas north of Poland and Germany are the adequate components of a viable missile defense system both against Iran and an obviously resurgent Russia. Aegis radar/SM-3 missiles underwent a series of test since the initial proposal was put on the table. Those tests were very successful overall. Most importantly, they offer flexibility and optimal survivability.
The radars in the UK and Thule are perfectly positioned to track long range missiles from Iran on their way to the US. Moreover, as the Missile Defense Agency (MDA)'s director stated a couple of days ago, before a Senate committee delving into the issue, less powerful radars (than the X-band one, that was to be installed in the Czech republic) turned out to be enough for adequate tracking and calculating of the incoming missile's trajectory. Thus a mobile, more flexible, and potentially less expensive Aegis/SM-3 system is what makes sense. Patriot batteries in Poland does make sense as well.
But GBIs/Poland + X-band radar/Czech republic simply doesn't.
In conclusion of this short review, the change of the missile defense plans for Europe are not exactly Obama’s fault of something. For one, the proposal is supported by both the joint chiefs and the missile defense crowd (MDA). And Robert Gates.
A military-political experiment was made and the results are there for the analysts and the planners to consider.
Hopefully, we would finally have an adequate missile defense system in the near future. A sea based system essentially depends on the US government good will only (and not on the momentary political climate in this or that European country). More importantly, nobody on behave of the US government has hinted even for a second that there wouldn’t be such.
Russian Military Impotence 101
There are several major weapon systems that give away the technological and military impotency of the post-Soviet/Russian establishment.
I. Submarine warfare.
Having lost the overall technological competition with the Americans long time ago, the Russians essentially abandoned their vast and not particularly useful submarine fleet. Tens, if not hundreds of noisy submarines rusted to death at abandoned or semi-abandoned graveyards.
They abandoned even their Typhoon-class boomers. Promoted as the biggest (the Russians always boast that they have 'the biggest' something, which is not exactly a good thing as in the submarine business you need to be quiet and maneuverable) they were supposed to have solid-fueled missiles. Did they have solid-fueled missiles? Nobody knows for sure.
It is a fact of life however that their current solid-fueled missile project, known as Bulava turned out to be an almost complete disaster, scoring failure after failure during the tests. So it remains a mystery how they possibly had a working missile a decade ago, when they are unable to make a reliable one now.
But the point here isn’t about solid-fueled missiles, although it illustrates their problem even further but about how to overcome the predicament of Russian submarines essentially being sitting ducks.
Cheap and relatively easy solution, similar to Hitler’s V-2 during the end of WWII. A miracle weapon.
In this case, it is a super fast torpedo, that is supposedly going to make their submarines competitive.
That’s how their Shkval super-fast, supercavitation torpedo concept came around. The Kursk submarine got blown up allegedly thanks to such a torpedo as they are not particularly safe.
The problem will Shkval is that it is noisy, unguided, short range (about 7.5 km) and not maneuverable enough. A shot in the dark. Bad, bad, bad, and bad again.
They (the Russians) pretend that it has some computer program, that would search for its target based on known patterns. In other words a supposedly ‘educated’ shot in the dark.*
It remains a mystery how it would do any good if the torpedo from the enemy boat will be launched from a bigger or rather a significantly bigger distance.
Supercavitation will make a lot of noise and thus spread a lot of data where the launcher of this torpedo is. It’s like signing your own death warrant.
Probably this sad inferiority is the reason why the Russians finally dumped the torpedo on their 13-century client regime – Iran. The torpedo the Iranians ‘tested’ in 2006 was essentially the Russian Shkval.
A super-fast torpedo would be tremendously useful with an adequate homing system and some maneuverability. It seems like the Germans were able to develop such a systems (or so they say) known in military circles as Barracuda.
Good news, it’s the Germans, not the Russians.
* The standard submarine practice is to launch a torpedo QUIETLY and not activate it until the submarine has moved a few hundred meters away, and then activate and guide it to the target.
To be continued …
Mossad Behind Hijacking Russian Weapons
Smuggling Ship
The Russian cargo ship Arctic Sea (operating under false Maltese flag, haha), that has been hijacked in June, appears to have been carrying weapon systems (S-300 missiles) for Iran.
Seems like even the European Union's rapporteur on piracy, Admiral Tarmo Kouts is supporting the theory that Israeli Mossad was behind the hijacking.
The Russian government is playing dumb of course while in the GRU high offices there in Moscow there must have been a lot of cursing and vodka abusing.
Meanwhile, somebody is trying to sell the ridiculous version that Russian military officers have been trying to sell the S-300 missiles without government approval:
“But in Kaliningrad, former high-ranking Russian military officers impoverished since the fall of the Soviet empire have been said to trade in Russian weaponry clandestinely, without Moscow's approval or knowledge.”
Only people with severe brain damage or recent lobotomy can believe that a system that costs hundreds of millions of dollars can be sold independently of the Russian Mafiosi government.
Whether S-300 (and its latest version S-400) are effective against Western and Israeli electronic warfare, to put it diplomatically, is another question. One could probably ask Alexander Lemanski, the S-300/S-400 designer. Unfortunately, he died of a heart attack at the firing range in 2007 when they were testing the systems. The SAM systems were jammed by jamming equipment (of unknown origin) on a helicopter that was taking part of the drill.
The big news here is that the Israeli government has again offered Moscow a face saving exit of this scandal, thus inviting more trouble along the way. Only after Moscow is publicly embarrassed for what they are doing, will they think twice before making more trouble in the future.
Pseudo-Humor For Degenerates or
The Jester Who Cried Funny
If youare a bitter, hard-core left ideologue, with dysfunctional sense of humor and live in New York, you should look for entertainment no further.CBS’s David Litterman is the man. Go get two tickets, both for you and your imaginary friend, the late Che Guevara.
Dave and his political muse, Keithina
From the very beginning of his less than voluntary CBS career, Dave Letterman was only somewhat funny. He tried to compensate that with his weirdness, goofball-ness, and unfortunate segments about his mom. Unfortunate, because they were simply not funny.
For those who don’t remember, he had a segment with a Philippino guy, working in a deli across the street. Never funny. Just weird in his unique Letterman’s way.
Typically, 5 to 7 out of his Top Ten were hopelessly unfunny. Show after show, week after week.
Compare this with Jay Leno's Headlines or Jaywalking. Always hysterically funny.
Even Jay's sidekick was much funnier than poor Dave's.
Again, he tried to somehow compensate for this. Giving away some stupid gifts to the public was one of his lamest.
Yet, in the beginning, he was lucky enough to beat Leno in the ratings as his was the bigger name at the time, even if he was clearly the much more boring clown.
The sensation as to who would succeed Johnny Carson at NBC's Tonight Show was not that Leno got it, but that Letterman DIDN'T. Hence, the artificial interest as to how he would do at CBS.
This was at the beginning of the post-Carson era.
Then Jay Leno got his break, a very cheap one, indeed – in 1995 he had a breakthrough guest - a mediocre, typically one-dimensional British actor (Hugh Grant) who happened to have been dating a famous supermodel. Grant had just been caught with a prostitute in a car somewhere in LA and arrested, mug-shot, humiliated. Because of his good, childish looks and British accent, he was certainly popular with the ladies across the pond. His supermodel girlfriend had no choice but to dump him, of course.
Thus, one beautiful night, instead of sticking to the Late Show (CBS), with Dave the unfortunate jester, a certain number ofpeople switched to NBC to hear Hugh Grant's mea culpa about his sexcapade. And not surprisingly, abandoned Letterman.
Ever since his car prostitute guest, Leno had been consistently beating Letterman until the very end of his Tonight Show. With the gap between the two getting wider and wider.
Why? Because those people who switched, saw that there was a much more entertaining show around.
Leno’s show was about 80% in the range from somewhat funny to really funny.
Letterman is anywhere between 30 and 45% somewhat funny, goofball style.
Dave's really funny stuff is a single-digit rarity and it’s somewhat of a mystery why one would spend a whole hour watching a lot of crap with all the commercials on top, for so little quality entertainment.
So David the Unfunny was always in quite a predicament.
The quality, the entertainment value of his “comedy” show was a constant threat to his reputation and career in general.
Nobody dared call it the crap it was but it was so obvious that at some point the CBS suits felt necessary to assure the public that the Late Show is safe and secure.
Of course it was. Letterman had found and promoted Ray Romano and his sitcom idea, which turned into probably the funniest, best TV show ever, even if the first (and most of the second) season of Everybody Loves Raymond was not particularly good. So the suits had enough reasons to be happy with Litterman, no matter what.
Still, Letteman’s own show remained a bore. Thus, while his future at CBS was secure, his reputation (as a "great comedian",) remained at risk.
And the most immediate threat, ironically, was not the TV audience, the falling ratings, but the live crowd. What if they don’t laugh at his “jokes”since too many aren’t actually funny? Then, the ugly truth of him being too mediocre as far as comedy is concerned would become too obvious.
To hire on duty laughing goons for each show is always a possibility, but a very dangerous one, as somebody in the know can always leak it.
And Dave’s live public is laughing artificially most of the time anyway, so this envelope can be pushed no further. Not in the lifetime of his particular show.
So what’s the solution for the goofball who cried funny?
The answer is obvious. Go political.
Find a secure, ideologically devoted segment of the public that will always love you, no matter how stupid your joke is. If it has the necessary political punch, they will love it no matter what.
This is how Dave Letterman got political, which in a New York, that is infested with bitter-angry, rabid left activists would mean one thing only – pander to the deranged Left.
And so did Dave several years ago. He became the pseudo-comedian version of Keith Olbermann.
Anybody surprised by Dave‘s current predicament?
EVERYBODY SHOULD LOVE RAYMOND (YES, ODIERNO)
Well, the war in Iraq is yet to be ultimately won and you can always snatch defeat out of the jaws of a sure thing, but Obama is not that stupid to screw it up.
The Washington Post is pretending here to know who the real hero was about turning it around.
The general in question had his son in Iraq, losing a hand to a rocket propelled grenade, before he got resolved to push this through to the end.
"It didn't affect me as a military officer, I mean that," Odierno said one evening in Baghdad much later. "It affected me as a person. I hold no grudges. My son and I talked a lot about this. He was doing what he wanted to do, and liked what he was doing."
But he said it did deepen his determination. "I was going to see this through -- I felt an obligation to see this through. That drives me, frankly. I feel an obligation to mothers and fathers. Maybe I understand it better because it happened to me." (Ibid)
Most ironically, and interestingly, in order to sell the surge, he had to set his own insurgency operation against the entire military and political elite, both in Washington and Iraq.
"He and a small group of advisers decided on a course almost the opposite of the plan given them (by his bosses, both military and political, up to Rumsfeld and Bush). Instead of moving out of the cities, they would deploy more forces into them. Instead of consolidating their base structure, they would establish scores of smaller outposts. Nor would they withdraw to the borders. And most emphatically, they would slow, not accelerate, the transition to Iraqi forces.
Odierno realized that to take all those steps, he would need more troops -- and before long, it was clear to subordinates that Odierno was at odds with Casey, his commanding officer." (Ibid)
If Hollywood was not fully dominated by the Sean Penn type of idiots, garnered with Che Guevara acolytes, and sprinkled with the staggering intellectual power of Rosie O’Donnell and Michael Moore, his true story would make a pretty good movie, as it has some really incredible moments.
Most amazingly, Odierno essentially carried on with his duties in clear cut insubordination to his bosses, stuff that may have got him prosecuted:
"But to their subordinates, the disagreement was obvious. "We would backbrief one general and get one set of guidances (Casey), and then brief the other and get a different set (Odierno)," remembered a senior Army planner in Iraq."
According to the article, it was defense secretary Gates who made the decision about the surge on military level once it was formally proposed by Odierno.
News, Breaking News
