By James De Burghe,
US Senators and congressman, in what the US press describe as near panic, demanded that an investigation be held to determine if the Russian government shared secrets of US weapons captured in Ukraine with China. A strange request that amplifies just how isolated from world events these lawmakers are, given the public speeches made by President Putin of the Russian Federation and President Xi of China on this topic over the past 6 months that have confirmed the exchange of military scientific data and research findings. The US is their common enemy and it would be unusual in view of the close partnership between China and Russia if such exchanges of information did not take place.
The inner complexity of US and NATO weapons in general have not advanced much in the past two decades. Their use against tribesman and goat herders, along with defenceless villages and towns armed at best with late 50’s technologies gave them an undeserved reputation and their manufacturers sat back on their laurels and watched as the foreign sales and profits emerged. Little money was invested into research and development by manufacturers unless they received huge grants from the US government. Net profit margins on weapons crept up until the reached several hundred percent of the factory gate cost. A considerable amount of money was spent in enhanced dividends to shareholders and to lobbying costs and grants to Senators, Congressmen and presidential candidates. The weapons they produced were smartened up on the outside but inside carried little that was new or innovative. Billions of dollars of US taxpayers money was spent on failed projects and even the projects that reached the manufacturing and supply stage were years late and millions over budget. A similar story beset America’s NATO allies outdated science produced outdated weapons at an immense costs to local economies. Vastly complicated weapons that did exactly the same job as their less complex predecessors but required manufacturers help if the suffered even a small breakdown in their components.
Coupled to the circumstances listed above was a total failure of the western intelligence agencies to provide real, accurate and truthful assessments of the arms productions facilities and capabilities of Russia and China. They replaced this failure with false reports that encouraged the US and NATO to believe that Russia and China were weak, militarily outdated and supported by fragile economies. The truth, as we now know was very different. Research and development of military weapons and munitions had increased at dizzying speed from the year 2000 onwards in both Russia and China. Hypersonic weapons passed from theory to trials to mass manufacture in a matter of 7 years, Shared science and research accelerated the process between the two countries. Old weapons stockpiles were reviewed and some older weapons were rebuilt into more modern and innovative versions that enhanced the delivery of more modern munitions. This alone produced a huge cost saving. Aircraft, Tanks, Armoured vehicles of all types were subject to this revision which meant that factories could use much of their existing tooling and manpower expertise to produce these new versions of older weapons. Warship production was quadrupled producing a new type of longer range warships carrying a mix of anti submarine, anti ship and anti air missiles of the latest designs coupled to radar systems that could easily detect the west’s latest stealth aircraft. Some artillery shells, large calibre mortar bombs and aircraft bombs were modified with target seeking devices that improved their accuracy to as little as 3 metres, yet at minimal cost. All of these improvements passed to both the Russian and Chinese manufacturing industries capable of mass manufacture that was 12 times greater than the whole of the NATO alliance combined. This coupled to the production of drones both passive used for surveillance and active used to destroy enemy targets. China’s production of very long range drones capable of in air refuelling and mass attacks in packs of 50 is another factor missed by foreign intelligence services.
What did this mean in reality, the conflict in Ukraine made this all too apparent as the western ‘game changers’ and ‘wonder weapons’ failed to have any real impact on the Russian forces whereas the Russian weapons wreaked utter havoc on western supplied weapons systems, air defence systems and command and control systems. Captured western missiles and guided bombs were quickly analysed by Russian specialists and the Russian electronic warfare systems were upgraded to deal with them, a familiar pattern emerges as the first few of these western weapons get through and them suddenly they fail to penetrate the Russian defences and fall out of the sky. Like the western tanks, and other armoured vehicles before them they leave a patch of burned out land as the sole reminder of their presence on the battlefield.
With support for the Ukraine war flagging in the west, and the western European economies in tatters it is perhaps justified to see the Ukraine war ending in a Russian military victory that will provide the backdrop to a strategic political victory for Russian against both US hegemony and NATO.
With the rise of Trump in the US political battlefield it looks pretty certain, bar peradventure, that Trump will be the next American President. His choice of Vance for a running mate gives us a clear view of the likely direction of US foreign policy in a Trump run presidency. The current anti-Russian hysteria will be replaced by anti-China hysteria (some elements in the US are already blaming China for the Russia-Ukraine conflict), Trumps completely irrational antipathy towards China was expressed last time around with insults and increased customs tariffs on Chinese products entering America, since then the Chinese economy has continued to grow as has Chinese influence in Africa, western Asia, the Pacific island nations and eastern Europe. The US has increased its provocations in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. It is quite likely that the US will manufacture a case against China to blame it for the Ukraine debacle, and accuse it of all manner of offences in the rest of the world in order to justify sanctions and unite its NATO allies against China. We will likely see more invented intelligence dossiers produced to support this attitude and a call for a major military containment of China. Hence the USA will risk jumping from the frying pan of the Ukraine into the fire that would be China, seeing the loss of its major fleet assets and Pacific bases as the cost of military adventurism or worse still the descent into a global conflict and nuclear war.
Surely the American people, and the rest of the world deserve a better future than a choice between two warmongers.
Opinions from the Unity News Network (UNN) editorial team & various contributors. | UNN always clearly distinguishes between news and opinion pieces and as an open minded outlet we publish views from a variety of people and organisation that do not necessarily reflect the views of UNN or its writers. Articles published under UNN Opinions are always opinion pieces and if published on behalf of a contributor will contain that authors name at the start of the piece.
