Chinese Stealth Fighter Joins Ground Attack Fighter/Bomber

[MarkD]

I have met quite a few Russians, I worked as a consultant for one guy for several years. I could never square the idea of the 'Evil Empire' with the people I knew. I liked them more than I did most English folks.

I understand you perfectly. I've worked with a number of Russians (mostly immigrants who became citizens). Most are good, hard working people. There are some concepts that seem to be missing (like the idea that you have to TEST a program), but for the most part Russians have been some of my favorite people at work.

Back in the early 80's a guy I knew in school told me his parents took a vacation to Russia. He said it was difficult, because Americans often have this idea that the Russians really "suck ass" (his term), but his parents found them to be fine people.

[Greg]

Back in the cold war days I could often gauge how clued in (or clueless) someone was about the situation by their reaction to the statement "I have great respect and admiration for the Russian people. It's Soviets I despise".

Sad how many people could not see the distinction. Particularly sad (and scary) how many in the military could not.

I have met quite a few Russians, I worked as a consultant for one guy for several years. I could never square the idea of the 'Evil Empire' with the people I knew. I liked them more than I did most English folks.

I've known more than a few Russians. Taking everything with a grain of salt because of selection bias (I knew the ones who left to come to the US), and that the ones I knew were predominantly Jewish (not Orthodox).... Anyway, I seem to like Russians and find them quite admirable as individuals, though on the whole I get along with/fit in with other groups better. But as with some other groups, individual virtue becomes group vice- get too many Russians together in one place and you have pathology. Kind of like Japanese that way.

[moose42]

So anyway back to this Chinese "stealth" fighter. I'm sure it's in no way as stealthy as our stuff, but the fact that they are even working on stealth is kind of interesting. Did Clinton sell them any more secrets we don't know about?

Add the fact that they have a carrier program and the future looks very interesting.

[Greg]

A fear-biter dog still bites YOU, not the other way around.

Entirely true. You plan for the enemies capabilities, not their intentions.

Being objectively expansionist and perpetually on the strategic offensive for *centuries* may have an internal mental and emotional defensive 'justification', but you're still expansionist and perpetually on the strategic offensive.

...ehhh... actually not really...

There have been Tsars who were expansionist certainly; the Crimean war for example was a fairly naked example of imperialist expansionism, as was the Russo Japanese war.

The Soviet leaders were certainly politically expansionist as well.

BUT...

They weren't actually militarily expansionist by conventional definitions; nor were they strategically expansionist.

If they were actually strategically expansionist, in the conventional sense, they would have behaved very differently. The timeline, and targets of their expansion would have been entirely different. They would have handled their proxies and blocs of influence differently.

They were tactically expansionist in some cases; but the only way their strategic actions make any sense at all, is if you view them from a defensive viewpoint and logic.

I must say, I still disagree with you. I notice you agree that they were expansionist, but you seem to be suggesting that there was a strict separation between expansion/conquest as means and ends in Russian (Tsar, then Red Tsar) thinking.

Do you have examples to support this? (That Russian aggression was purely means to something else, not its own end.) I'd love to see some concrete examples, I just can't think of any....

[Aglifter]

OK... I'm, apparently, going to be somewhat of a lone voice...

There are plenty of nice Russians. There are also plenty of completely amoral Russians.

That "Social Divorce" thing that gets mentioned occasionally about Russian society is real.

There is something deeply, and fundamentally, broken in Russian culture. From my, limited experience, it seems to be linked to their parents social standing in the Soviet system.

If they were out in some "village" in Siberia, they were left alone - and usually have a typical "survivor" morality.

If they were from the upper classes - party members, professors at major schools, military officers, etc (Rank was based on origin to a large extent - I knew Belarussian "colonels" who were in their, very, early 20s.) - they tend to be good folks.

Oligarchs/less successful, but w. the same mindset tend to be completely amoral - including their children.

[Mike OTDP]

Chris brings up some very good points. I had a Russian history class in college that covered from the origins of the country to the end of the reign of Peter the Great, and it was amazing how much of the Soviet national psyche was shaped by events six and eight hundred years earlier.

It's tragic, really...because Kievan Rus around 950 A.D. was politically where England was around 1650 A.D. If the Mongols hadn't invaded, the Russians could have had an equivalent to the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights around the time of the First Crusade.

Instead, they sat out the entire Renaissiance under Mongol occupation, and never really recovered. Even Peter the Great couldn't drag them forward 500 years.

[Aglifter]

Its hard to disentangle, both because people can learn their behavior, and because family habits and traditions can carry for a long, long time - but I suspect there is a genetic basis for freedom v. tyranny.

Western Euros, mostly, come off as willing slaves. I haven't seen that in Eastern Euros, but they don't know how to be men, either - sometimes. They can be, but the default seems to be to try to disappear, with the occasional outburst of ghetto scum...