Like I have said, it is well known among a small circle of independent Russian journalists and political analysts that “saving Assad” is only a second distant goal of Putin’s administration. Putin’s primary goal (and probably somewhat delusional one) in the Syrian campaign is to be accepted back into the western…

Well, I don’t need special animations to understand the cost of war. According to modern day historians, about 3.5 million of Germans invaded USSR in 1941. About half million were lost, as killed, wounded, or prisoners. They were replaced, so by the end of 1941 about four million German troops were involved in the…

I agree that one way or another Russia has to maintain high military spending, and an agressive militaristic regime. Why? Just look at georgraphy. Russia has more neighboring states than any other country in the world and the longest land border. As for expeditionary operations, I think Russia is not good at it and…

Yes, I agree. The only reason there hasn’t been a war between the major powers after WWII is because of nuclear weapons. If you study history, the stretch of time from 1945 up to 2014 is actually probably the most peaceful in all of Europe’s history. Except for the Balkan wars of the 1990s, there hasn’t been any other…

The problem is that GWB’s Iraq invasion destroyed the trust the world had in the USA military as the force for the good. Everybody was on-board with USA during the first Iraq war, Balkans, and Afghanistan. But after Iraq II, the system of trust is gone, and the American people are also pretty wary of any invasion in…

Russia (post-USSR) always placed the top spending priority on its nuclear forces, then air force, land force,and then everything else. As a result, they kept updating missile systems, strategic submarines, etc at the time when the Russian navy is a collection of floating antiques.

I believe the decision to increase military spending and the budget of the current year took place a couple of years ago before the major crisis hit. The military spending up to 2020 will be fixed at the current level or reduced. Having said that, for Russia the military spending is more than just for show. Russia has…

Not a bad truck, although I still prefer the new Pilot. Why? With the two rear rows of seats folded, you can fit pretty much anything into the Pilot. Considering that either of the Hondas is normally bought by a casual cargo hauler, Pilot seems like a more utilitarian vehicle. It can carry cargo, or it can seat people…

Black market RPG is not very expensive weapon in most third world countries. Enough of RPG-7 were produced to last another century of wars in Africa and middle-east.

Sounds like a comment from an upset male Audi owner. Guess what, Audi still remains a girlie brand.

Absolutely. I recall how the car geeks used to argume with me 20 years ago that neither Acura, Saab, or Volvo can compete with Germans, because a luxury car needs RWD and V8 engine (as if the take of V8 5-series, even 20 years ago, was more than say 10% of all sales). So what do we see noways? Most Germans selling…

Ah, the wonders of inflation. The base A4 with 1.8T engine and manual shifter had MSRP of about 25K 20 years ago. Now we’re at 37K.

I disagree that the Marxian definition should be viewed as a modern “mainstream” definition of Capitalism. Marxians indeed studied the free and unregulated capitalist system, and their conclusion was that this system will eventually end up consuming itself because of monopolies and cartels. They observed the natural…

For one, I am guessing that the USA does not want to resort to the same thuggish tactics that China is using.

To reverse engineer an aircraft carrier, and its original aircraft is still quite a engineering feat.

Supposedly, the Su-33 is too heavy to take off with a full payload from the carrier. The Mig-29K itself is not the old Mig-29. It’s a major modification to the airframe, considerably increasing the loaded weight and the fuel store.

The decision to replace the Su-33 with Mig-29Ks on the Russian carrier is shroud in rumors. Supposedly, Russians wanted to the replacement to be a second production run of Su-33. However, they switched to Mig-29K because of at least one of these factors:

The worst thing about Prius is bad value. It has relatively harsh ride with lots of cabin noise. Poor equipment. The entry level model with 24K MSRP has no driver power seat. How is this saving anyone any money at all compared to say buying a Corolla for well under $20K, I don’t know.

It’s also the most boring car on the road.

Safelite technicians are going to be busy.