Not pictured: Sailors, Planes, Rust, Hope (Russian military photo)
Built in 1985, the Kuznetsov, a 55,000-ton behemoth, is a veteran of a full four deployments and the Russian Navy’s flagship. It’s powered by diesel fuel generators. Serving on the ship is akin to punishment for Russian sailors, who coined the phrase, “If you misbehave, you’ll be sent to the Kuznetsov.”
Most telling are the deepwater tugboats that deploy with the Kuznetsov because the Russian Navy knows the carrier’s “defective” engines will break down at some point. The fuel and engine issues give the ship a maximum endurance of 45 days.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: But the Russian Navy is still dreaming big .... Russia Moves Ahead With Building New Aircraft Carriers (National Interest) ... which in view of the financial crisis not gripping Russia is probably not going to happen.
Update: On the other side of the world the U.S. aircraft carrier fleet wants to go green .... Carrier USS John C. Stennis Leaves Kitsap-Bremerton for Great Green Fleet Deployment (USNI)
9 comments:
In a war against Russia, China, or both of them aircraft carriers are obsolete. Russian and Chinese submarines and anti-ship missiles would likely sink them. As such, it comes as no surprise to me that the Russians are not actively pursuing this right now. Actually the US should probably scrap most of its aircraft carrier fleet and focus on areas that give us maximum utility to defend America.
In a war against Russia, it seems unlikely the US could win as Russian cyber warfare capabilities and its advanced nuclear arsenal would quickly overwhelm the United States while rendering most of America's weapons as very expensive and useless paperweights. The best we can do is twofold. 1.)Look for ways we can add value to nations like Russia and China which would make it less likely they would want to attack us. 2.)Deploy our military assets and upgrade them in such a way that it would make an attack on us to pyric for them to consider.
"Russian cyber warfare capabilities and its advanced nuclear arsenal would quickly overwhelm the United States while rendering most of America's weapons as very expensive and useless paperweights"
this is likely to happen in perhaps a soviets wet dream.
instead of looking for ways to appease nations like china and russia (something we already do) and realizing that victory against the u.s. is already pyrrhic in nature..............
consider over a 1,000 hypersonic icbms traveling at mach 20 effectively falling out of space and knocking out russian command and control, its nuclear arsenal, etc....the mere theory of this happening was enough to scare the kremlin into restructuring its armed forces.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2yfXgu37iyI
Jay,
Thanks for the link on dead hand. Apparently the Russians can launch a nuclear attack based on a computer/sensor detection even if the people who would normally do this are dead or otherwise incapacitated. While the article seems to suggest the system is not active in spite of the fact Russian sources say it is, if I were POTUS and/or US military planners I would assum it is. Furthermore given Russian history and psyche rightly or wrongly they are going to be trigger happy. Combine this with the world's most advanced nuclear arsenal this is a very dangerous situation. As a military planner, I would be very concerned the dead hand system might misintrepet our actions with regards to a test and decide to launch the Russian arsenal at us.
The Russian arsenal is "overkill." We`ve allowed ours to atrophy and we have to many countries under the "nuclear umbrella." As such, we are already at a decisive disadvantage. We REALLY need something like this on our side.
Unfortunately we probably don't have it because 1.) Rightly or wrongly the US leadership deeply regrets the use of atomic bombs against Japan and is deeply traumitized by this and this is communicated to those who operate and maintain these weapons. No wonder no one wants to work on this and the morale among these people are low!! 2.)This means there are going to be numerous safeguards in the US system that are going to make an accidental launch impossible. 3.)The crews are very likely to interpret the real thing as false and not react. 4.) Even if they intrepet correctly, there`s a high degree of probability the crews will hesitate and do nothing. See point 1. 5.) There exists a very wealthy, very media strong, and very politically well connected anti-war lobby who will NEVER allow the US to develop such a system.
If we could develop such a system and lead adversaries such as Russia to believe it might be operational and we could protect it from Russian cyber attacks, this along with what i believe to be some common sense foregin poljcy adjustments that I have mentioned elsewhere might make things pyric enough for the Russians not to consider an attack against us.
At a minimum, I would assume the Russian system is operatiknal considering Russia's prior history, psyche, and current military prowess it would likely be a good idea to rfrain from anything they might view as provicative.
Hurhur,
What you seem to suggest seems to be a wet dream of sorts. The best case scenario is we do that to them and they do that to us. This is well MAAD as in mutually assured destruction which is well mad as in crazy. Furthermore this assumes Russia's first strike submarines allow us time to respond, our arsenal and launch systems are not neutralized by Russian cyber attacks, or not neutralized by Russian ground based defense systems. Getting past all of this may be problematic.
By referring to US foregin policy as pyric, if you mean it tends to have an ideological bent that approaches problem solving from the point of view of how things should be or how they think things should be as opposed to how things really are and they are way to trusting of adversaries or potential adversaries and put to much faith in process as opposed to results, I would tend to agree.
When dealing with Russia and China I prefer the term "add value." Specifically policy makers should ask "what can we do to make ourselves so valuable to them that they don`t want to risk losing it?" By all means this does NOT mean we will necessarily do everything they tell us to do nor will we blindly follow them.
"
According to the Federation of American Scientists, an organization that assesses nuclear weapon stockpiles, in 2013, Russia possessed an estimated 8,500 total nuclear warheads of which 1,800 were strategically operational.[2] The organization also claims that the U.S. had an estimated total 7,700 nuclear warheads of which 1,950 were strategically operational."
The fundamental need of secret will overcome people need to know if a weapon system is going to change the course of action in a war . in another ward's you really think you know what kind of weapons the U.S.military have in store for you.
If you do, well is not a secret anymore.
woah thats epic, dead hand...is it automatic or semi-automatic? 3 duty officers in a secret underground bunker ready to unleash it all....im skeptical but i oddly want it to be true for some reason.
b.poster - with cyber attacks..it is important to note the reality: no govt is safe, it is mutually assured destruction in the cyber realm at this point.
Since the advent of the Nuclear age, the Soviets/Russians have always feared a US first strike, and have historically viewed every US advance in both the technology and ABM systems as a means to enable a First Strike,
(As Gynne Dyer notes in his chapter, "A Brief History of Nuclear War", only about 1/2 were, as from the moment MAD was achieved, theories and programs were funded to try to make MAD moot, and nuclear weapons useable).
Continual US Nuclear threats didn't help.
As the Soviet Union lagged in regards to the Nuclear Triad, Permetr was probably built, ( at one time, between the US, France and Britain, there were over 1600 nukes alone aimed at just the city of Moscow, over 76,000 megatons in total, serious overkill),
And as in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia lost forward deployed nukes, a large amount of strategic depth and deployments on it's flanks, and the economic crisis's eroded Russia's nuclear triad and readiness, Russia probably kept the system active.
The only way we will ever know for sure, ( and only briefly), is if someone drops a nuke on Moscow.
Sadly, the Dr. Strangelove clip cut's out just before ex-Nazi Scientist Dr. Strangelove points out that a Doomsday device only works as a deterrent, if you don't keep a Secret,
And Soviet Ambassador Alexei de Sadeski it's that the Premier of the USSR was due to announce the Doomsday device to the world at the next meeting of the Politbureau, after the weekend was over.
Dr. Strangelove is of course wrong, if MAD does not prevent a first strike, then knowledge that the "enemy" has a doomsday device won't stop one either, so you might as well keep it either secret or unconfirmed.
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