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Russian military to purchase 600 planes, 100 ships
Associated Press
MOSCOW – Russian news agencies are citing Defense Ministry officials as saying the country will spend $650 billion to equip its dilapidated military with 600 new warplanes, 100 ships and 1,000 helicopters by 2020.
The agencies quote First Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin as saying Thursday that the ambitious plan envisages eight new nuclear submarines and two Mistral aircraft carriers in addition to the two that Russian is buying from France.
The announcement comes during a large-scale streamlining of personnel in Russia’s bloated and poorly equipped armed forces. The unpopular reforms of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov have seen as many as 200,000 officers lose their jobs and nine of every 10 army units disbanded.
Arrests in Zimbabwe for Seeing Videos
JOHANNESBURG — Dozens of students, trade unionists and political activists who gathered to watch Al Jazeera and BBC news reports on the uprisings that brought down autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt have been arrested on suspicion of plotting to oust President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
James Sabau, a spokesman for the police force, which is part of the security services controlled by Mr. Mugabe’s party, was quoted in Monday’s state-controlled newspaper as saying that the 46 people in custody were accused of participating in an illegal political meeting where they watched videos “as a way of motivating them to subvert a constitutionally elected government.”
The evidence seized by the police included a Read more…
Military Wants More Global Partnerships In Space
US Needs To Better Protect Satellites, Military Says
AP Photo/Department of Defense, Cherie Cullen
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Posted: 5:02 am EST February 20, 2011Updated: 10:21 am EST February 20, 2011
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military needs to better protect its satellites and strengthen its ability to use them as weapons as the uncharted battlefield of space becomes increasingly crowded and dangerous, Pentagon leaders say. A new military strategy for space, as mapped out by the Pentagon, calls for greater cooperation with other nations on space-based programs to improve America’s ability to deter enemies. “It’s a domain, like air land and sea,” said Gen. Kevin Chilton, who led U.S. Strategic Command until he retired late last month. “Space is not just a Read more…
Russia Working on Mysterious Space Plane of Its Own
It’s official: the space race is on again.
54 years after the Soviet Union launched its Sputnik I satellite, sparking the original space race — and 20 years after the USSR’s collapse left America as the sole space superpower — the Russians are back on track. The Kremlin’s military space chief Oleg Ostapenko just announced that Russia is developing a small, maneuverable, reusable space plane to match the U.S. Air Force’s mysterious X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle.
Russian industry has already outlined the craft’s design, Ostapenko said. “As to whether we will use it, only time will tell,” he added coyly.
But it seems unlikely Russia would forgo the opportunity to Read more…
Ignoring China’s Military Buildup At Our Own Peril
China Funneling Weapons to Afghanistan
Originally published on www.DarkGovernment.com
The Chinese are believed to be working with Afghan Taliban groups who are now in combat with NATO forces, prompting concerns that China might become the conduit for shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, improved communications and additional small arms to the fundamentalist Muslim fighters.
QW-1M / SA-18 Grouse Anti-Aircraft Weapon
A British military official contends that Chinese specialists have been seen training Taliban fighters in the use of infrared-guided surface-to-air missiles. This is supported by a May 13, 2008, classified U.S. State Department document released by WikiLeaks telling U.S. officials to confront Chinese officials about missile proliferation.
China is developing knock-offs of Russian-designed man-portable air defense missiles (manpads), including the QW-1 and later series models. The QW-1 Vanguard is an all-aspect, 35-lb. launch tube and missile that is reverse-engineered from the U.S. Stinger and the SA-16 Gimlet (9K310 Igla-1). China obtained SA-16s from Unita rebels in then-Zaire who had captured them from Angolan government forces. The 16g missiles have a slant range of 50,000 ft. The QW-1M is a variant that incorporates even more advanced SA-18 Grouse (9K38 Igla) technology. Read more…
New Russian Missile Penetrates Missile Defense
William Chedsey
The chief of a secretive Russian military industrial corporation boasted to a Russian news agency that a new intercontinental nuclear missile it is helping to build cannot be stopped by proposed U.S. or European missile defenses.
Artur Usenkov, head of the firm Rosobshemash (Russian General Engineering), last week told ITAR-TASS that its unnamed replacement rocket for the aging SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missile, a project begun in 2009 and to be completed possibly as early as 2017, will get past any nuclear missile shield, the London Telegraph reported.
“This applies in the fullest sense to the USA’s anti-missile defense system and to NATO’s European missile defense system,” Usenkov said. The SS-18 is the only heavy ICBM the original START treaty allowed Russia to deploy; its range encompasses the entire continental United States. Read more…
Domestic use of aerial drones by law enforcement likely to prompt privacy debate
AUSTIN – The suspect’s house, just west of this city, sat on a hilltop at the end of a steep, exposed driveway. Agents with the Texas Department of Public Safety believed the man inside had a large stash of drugs and a cache of weapons, including high-caliber rifles.
As dawn broke, a SWAT team waiting to execute a search warrant wanted a last-minute aerial sweep of the property, in part to check for unseen dangers. But there was a problem: The department’s aircraft section feared that if it put up a helicopter, the suspect might try to shoot it down.
So the Texas agents did what no state or local law enforcement agency had done before in a high-risk operation: They launched a drone. A bird-size device called a Wasp floated hundreds of feet into the sky and instantly beamed live video to agents on the ground. The SWAT team stormed the house and arrested the suspect.
“The nice thing is it’s covert,” said Bill C. Nabors Jr., chief pilot with the Texas DPS, who in a recent interview described the 2009 operation for the first time publicly. “You don’t hear it, and unless you know what you’re looking for, you can’t see it.”
The drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan is entering the national airspace: Unmanned aircraft are patrolling the border with Mexico, searching for missing persons over difficult terrain, flying into hurricanes to collect weather data, photographing traffic accident scenes and tracking the spread of forest fires. Read more…
China used downed U.S. fighter to develop first stealth jet
China was able to build its first stealth bomber using technology gleaned from a downed U.S. fighter, it has been claimed.
Beijing unveiled its state-of-the-art jet – the Chengdu J-20 – earlier this month.
Military officials say it is likely the Chinese were able to develop the stealth technology from parts of an American F-117 Nighthawk that was shot down over Serbia in 1999.
Lift-off: China’s J-20 stealth plane has made a successful test flight. Military officials say it is likely the Chinese were able to develop the stealth technology from parts of an American F-117 Nighthawk that was shot down over Serbia in 1999
It was during Nato’s aerial bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo war, that an anti-aircraft missile shot a Nighthawk (pictured). It was the first time one of the ‘invisible’ fighters had ever been hit
During Nato’s aerial bombing of the country during the Kosovo war, a Serbian anti-aircraft missile shot the Nighthawk. It was the first time one of the ‘invisible’ fighters had ever been hit.
The Pentagon believed a combination of clever tactics and luck had allowed a Soviet- Read more…
What kinds of societies create wealth? What kinds destroy it?
There are some activities that are positive sum activities. That is, they are productive. They increase the total of real wealth in a society.
Bill Bonner
There are other activities that are zero sum activities…or even negative sum activities. War, for example. Excess legal wrangling. Paperwork. Too much time spent in schools. Too much support for the unemployed, the malingerers and the loafers. These things decrease the total of real wealth in a society.
Sometimes people are bright, honest and hardworking. Sometimes they are lazy, shiftless and cunning. They always prefer to get wealth and status by the easiest means possible. In some societies, the best way is by working hard. In others, it is by being clever…becoming a lawyer…a banker…or a government hack.
A new society…or a fresh economy (such as one that has just been flattened by war or hyperinflation)…or a new model for an economy…is generally a wealth-creating society.
A free society is also generally a wealth creating society. People do what they want. If they want wealth, they are free to create it.
But as societies (or economies) age, they become Read more…
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