Moscow has lost two full squadrons – about 24 aircraft in total – of its vaunted SU-35 in recent fighting in Ukraine.
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/08/russia-has-lost-two-squa…
Survivability:
China had purchased some two dozen Su-35s from Moscow less than a decade ago, but apparently, just nine are still operational.
Russia’s turning out to be an empty shell.
Russia’s turning out to be an empty shell.
Considering their economic philosophy, it’s no wonder. You need productivity to keep paying for expenses. The economy has to encourage value creation, absent in an economy where you don’t own your own productivity.
China is the latest economy lab, from Communism to Capitalism made them rich. Now the philosophy has shifted back to dictatorship and the war on rich rivals who threaten the dictator. To make matters worse for China, they are also suffering from Capitalist cyclicality.
Just this week a friend was asking how the war in Ukraine would end with the emphasis on Russia’s fate. George Friedman pays special attention to geopolitics, to geography driven policies. His description of Russia is a country with no natural defenses which has been overrun by invaders from all directions, Vikings from the north, Turkic and others from the east. This geography dictates the policy of taking adjacent land to use as buffer zones, or “backyards” as I call them. It’s their version of the Monroe doctrine.
How was Germany neutralized? By making it part (and leader) of a larger political entity.
A Russian Federation would work run by a more democratic regime. China is proof that Communist Dictatorship can coexist with a Capitalist Economy. Unfortunately the Russian privatization following the fall of the Soviet Union was stolen by a small band of thieves and it is under central control as before.
The Captain
is planning on disengaging with the failed Venezuelan privatization that also ended in a Communist dictatorship takeover. The mechanisms were different but the results are the same. I just had an email from a friend and neighbour from Caracas. His three daughters have left the country to Mexico and Colombia and he complains that things keep getting worse.
George Friedman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Friedman