Peter wrote:
because they don’t make anything that anybody wants to buy. Just a load of stuff they dig out of the ground, and do some basic processing on.
Peter, that’s unfair – what about IT, space industry, etc? They can’t sell it anymore due to sanctions and the industries gradually disappearing, again due to sanction, but to say that “there is nothing of value over there except for mineral resource” would be too much even for me…
They never had much of that.
A few success stories e.g. Kaspersky AV but that got hit due to the obvious risk (whether real or not).
Nearly everything they export is the raw material stuff.
It’s true that sanctions prevented them getting some high-end parts, but only high-end parts, not the MAX232 type chips which one sees pictured as “key parts for cruise missiles, obtained by ITAR busting” 
So it’s a bit of a circular argument… For weapons you need no more CPU power than a 32F407 and the chinks sell those to anybody (both legit-IP and copies).
I am well familiar with E European resourcefulness, having come from there, and always admired it. Pre-1980s, a good education system (in science and engineering; rest was BS, and corporal punishment “does work” and I got plenty of it). The USSR built a binary-compatible VAX11-780 (I spoke to a member of that team, many years ago) not to mention countless Z80 and similar copies. My parents worked in a State company whose job was to buy Western bits of all kinds and copy them. But that only ever gets you a few steps behind the West all the time. The computers they used, and AFAIK still use, for S300 missile guidance, are custom machines built out of low level logic. Good for the job but decades behind…
arj1 wrote:
Peter, that’s unfair – what about IT, space industry, etc?
Russian IT is a joke. All hardware manufactured in Russia is at least a couple of technology generations behind the global progress. There is some software development, but countries like India or Ukraine are quite a bit ahead of Russia in this department. Furthermore, the most successful software companies have since well before the war been tainted by collaboration with the Russian security services.
Russian space industry is still trying the exploit the developments from the 1960s. Its recent competitive edge on the world market had to do with costs, not with technological advances.
arj1 wrote:
for Crimea the results of the official one are are, allegedly, not far from the reality – 80%+ voted in 2014 to leave Unkraine, and before 2022 not many Western countries would dispute the opinion that the majority of Crimeans would have voted the same way now, even if the referendum was run by some (hm, which?) independent organisation.
Be that as it may, starting down the path where UN reckognized borders are put in question by public vote or other means of “the population wants that” will almost ALWAYS end up with some form of warfare.
First of all, it is comparatively easy to fill up a stretch of land over time with people you know will vote in your favor. You can use propaganda, freebees, indoctrination and all sorts of other means to influence people into believing they will have it better under someone else’s rule. Landgrab in the end is just that, landgrab. Almost everywhere, where such referendi were held, they were contested and eventually or immediately turned into warfare.
That does not mean that it is not possible that a province or land may change over to another, IF and only IF BOTH countries agree on it and see to it that the transition is peaceful. I am not sure when that happened last, but at least in theory, it is possible. However, this was not the case either with Crimea nor obviously with Donbass.
If we are starting to draw countries borders with pencil, this opens up the way for agressors to fill up the lands they want with people who will vote for them and 10-15 years later force a referendum. Almost all countries where stuff like that has happened to this day are still in some form of cold or hot war.
Ultranomad wrote:
Russian space industry is still trying the exploit the developments from the 1960s. Its recent competitive edge on the world market had to do with costs, not with technological advances.
They still were the only ones to have workable manned spaceflight, over decades once the US scrapped their shuttle. IMHO, the fact that the US did neglect spaceflight for that long was a very wrong sign towards the Russians too and shows how completely naive the West has looked at what they thought was now a friendly nation to their causes.
While russian technology may be way behind, it is pretty dependable. Who cares if the Soyuz capsules are 1960ties technology, hell the US capsules NASA came up with after all that time are nothing but glorified Apollo remakes? Where is the big innovation apart from the electronics inside? After 3 decades of landing people on runways, we are back into water landings and relearning how to do what we did in the 1960ties. The Russians kept going all the time, always had workable spacecraft at their disposal.
Peter wrote:
Wrong forum though. Try some of thesehttps://www.google.com/search?q=social+justice+forum
especially if not participating in GA discussions.
Hi discussion on ‘arguing on the internet’ is very relevant here.
I can do many sarcastic one-liners, but have to actively refrain from doing so, it never brings anything good. Arrgh, but I have some really good ones! Better to leave the keyboard.
That does not mean that it is not possible that a province or land may change over to another, IF and only IF BOTH countries agree on it and see to it that the transition is peaceful. I am not sure when that happened last, but at least in theory, it is possible. However, this was not the case either with Crimea nor obviously with Donbass.
Russia has made sure it is too late for that now.
Referenda tend to be resisted at all costs, for many reasons but basically they are a hostage to fortune. And often the region gaining independence would become an economic wasteland; actually quite likely because poor regions are ideal for a nationalist politician to build platforms (Scotland, Slovakia, Wales, Yugoslavia; it’s a long list). The donor country will end up paying for it.
I can do many sarcastic one-liners, but have to actively refrain from doing so, it never brings anything good. Arrgh, but I have some really good ones!
EuroGA is primarily a GA forum, and I happen to have the (unpaid) job of being the mod+admin. We don’t have income to employ mods.
So the level of off topic material has to be within a reasonable level. There are lots of forums out there, and plenty of stuff to suit every opinion and inclination. Most also love people getting aggressive.
Better to leave the keyboard.
That’s a good idea. Time to stop feeding this topic, for a bit.
Ultranomad wrote:
Russian IT is a joke. All hardware manufactured in Russia is at least a couple of technology generations behind the global progress. There is some software development, but countries like India or Ukraine are quite a bit ahead of Russia in this department. Furthermore, the most successful software companies have since well before the war been tainted by collaboration with the Russian security services.
@Ultranomad, yes, IT hardware is a joke (you would propably know more jokes about it than I do), but software-wise it was not so bad before 2022 – most of my former colleages at the time worked for some IT company. And Yandex had to split because they had a very successful UAV arm that is now based abroad (Israel) and is being (maybe has already been) sold. Nginx, and so on – there are quite a few examples. And yes, you are right – some of those haveve been tainted. Please also keep in mind that many internation IT companies had a lot their devs in Russia.
Ultranomad wrote:
Russian space industry is still trying the exploit the developments from the 1960s. Its recent competitive edge on the world market had to do with costs, not with technological advances.
True again, but one can’t say that it doesn’t exist (US were buying RD engines until recently)… It does exist, although the question now is for how long.
The point I was making is that there are things in Russia that are not mineral resources and are consumed inside and outside of the country.
Thread unlocked. Please, posts only from people who participate here on GA matters.
This is interesting, at 12:03, up to 14:50.
This has probably gone a bit under the radar, but Denmark, Sweden Finland and Norway have now officially “joined” their air forces. They are still separate, but will work under a common operational command. The agreement was signed last month.
I saw this video a few days ago. It’s more or less correct, but the reality is that already since 2013 they have had regular exercises (Arctic Challenge Exercise) hosted by all 4 countries, and were other NATO members have been invited. The next one will be in the end of next month. Everything about separate intelligence etc pre 2023 in the video is not correct. The signed agreement could be seen as more of an official marking of an established practice, but the signing for sure was due to the Russian aggression (as well as Finland and Sweden joining NATO). According to Stoltenberg, Ukraine will be the next nation to join after Sweden.
In the video one can also see the special characteristic of the Norwegian F-35s. The Norwegian F-16s had a similar characteristic, only on the F-16 it was a permanent re-design. I leave it for the “buffs” here to figure out
