Russian Air Force vs. US Airforce

i agree proberly usa but russia will put up a big fight but over all russia will win remember nukes

Originally posted by Russian
Stealth tech does NOT always work!

Look at Yugaslaviy(spelling)

2 B2s were shot down!

[Edited on 8-12-2003 by Russian]

LMAO, you are wrong.
Also, It is in my opinion that the USAF would prevail in a war/battle, not only against Russia but against any other Airforce in the world. In fact, in the spirit of fairness, lets make it the USAF Vs Russia AND any other Airforce they want at their side.

Originally posted by manzoor
i agree proberly usa but russia will put up a big fight but over all russia will win remember nukes

LoL, yea dang i forgot all about their "nukes".
oh wait, doesnt the US have one or two nukes as well?
your statement makes absolutely no sense.

[edit on 6/23/2007 by Kr0n0s]

Originally posted by Kr0n0s

Also, It is in my opinion that the USAF would prevail in a war/battle, not only against Russia but against any other Airforce in the world. In fact, in the spirit of fairness, lets make it the USAF Vs Russia AND any other Airforce they want at their side.

I don't mean to nitpick but are you adding a numerical value to the RuAF by teaming it up with ANY other AF?

Now IMHO the USAF does not necessarily have the ability to successfully effect ground strikes and especially achieve+maintain air superiority on every spot on this planet.

Now if you're talking about clubbing opposing forces than that definitely will be the case for a quite a large portion of this planet.

This thread isnt about America trying to bomb Russia. Its about what would happen if the two airforces came out of their SAM umbrellas for an all out air war. America would have a hard time with Russian SAMS and Russia would have just as hard of a time with American SAMS. But this is not the topic of this thread.

Originally posted by Daedalus3

Originally posted by Kr0n0s

Also, It is in my opinion that the USAF would prevail in a war/battle, not only against Russia but against any other Airforce in the world. In fact, in the spirit of fairness, lets make it the USAF Vs Russia AND any other Airforce they want at their side.

I don't mean to nitpick but are you adding a numerical value to the RuAF by teaming it up with ANY other AF?

Now IMHO the USAF does not necessarily have the ability to successfully effect ground strikes and especially achieve+maintain air superiority on every spot on this planet.

Now if you're talking about clubbing opposing forces than that definitely w
ill be the case for a quite a large portion of this planet.

Lol, what I meant was a 2vs1. Having the Russian Af being allowed to have a "team-mate" on their soil. In other words, for example, the Russian AF and say the Iranian AF in a fight against the USAF.
It would be cool if we had a VERY realistic flightsim/war type game that focused primarily on the worlds Airforces that would allow us to size up just such scenarios..
And yes, i do agree with your statement that the USAF does not have the ability to be everywhere at once with enough force to dominate the air.

Originally posted by Kr0n0s

Originally posted by Daedalus3

Originally posted by Kr0n0s

Also, It is in my opinion that the USAF would prevail in a war/battle, not only against Russia but against any other Airforce in the world. In fact, in the spirit of fairness, lets make it the USAF Vs Russia AND any other Airforce they want at their side.

I don't mean to nitpick but are you adding a numerical value to the RuAF by teaming it up with ANY other AF?

Now IMHO the USAF does not necessarily have the ability to successfully effect ground strikes and especially achieve+maintain air superiority on every spot on this planet.

Now if you're talking about clubbing opposing forces than that definitely w
ill be the case for a quite a large portion of this planet.

Lol, what I meant was a 2vs1. Having the Russian Af being allowed to have a "team-mate" on their soil. In other words, for example, the Russian AF and say the Iranian AF in a fight against the USAF.
It would be cool if we had a VERY realistic flightsim/war type game that focused primarily on the worlds Airforces that would allow us to size up just such scenarios..
And yes, i do agree with your statement that the USAF does not have the ability to be everywhere at once with enough force to dominate the air.

Wait till Stellar comes in here, but anyways, lets see, from what I got U.S. has 230 F-15 C/E, the other 500 are F-15 A/B's (obsolete) U.S. aslo has around what 400 F-16C's Blocks 40-60 and 345 F-18's 20+ F-22's,
Russia has
1. 424 Su-27 I don't know how many have been upgraded but Su-27's have been upgraded.
2. 455 MiG-29's A.B/C's not sure how many are C's
3. 369 MiG-31's thats Rus= 1148 to U.S.=1075 now it's all about who's tactics and Radar, RadarJamming capabilities are better, based on all the U.S. info Stellar posted I'm putting my money on Russia.

Originally posted by Kr0n0s

Lol, what I meant was a 2vs1. Having the Russian Af being allowed to have a "team-mate" on their soil. In other words, for example, the Russian AF and say the Iranian AF in a fight against the USAF.
It would be cool if we had a VERY realistic flightsim/war type game that focused primarily on the worlds Airforces that would allow us to size up just such scenarios..

Well I don't know about the Iranian Air Force but there are a dozen AFs that if teamed up with the RuAF would make that side very difficult to overcome. Not going to name any here but there are a few. And on Russian soil?
With air defence?
Oh the odds are in Russia's favor I think.

And yes, i do agree with your statement that the USAF does not have the ability to be everywhere at once with enough force to dominate the air.

I meant that there are some places on this planet that the US can find very difficult to carry out strikes against at all.
And as for achieving air superiority here? Not likely..

I was never talking about being everywhere at once. There are some places where they can't go or can't stay long enough to exert control..

Originally posted by Daedalus3
I was never talking about being everywhere at once. There are some places where they can't go or can't stay long enough to exert control..

True, but overall the USAF has more ability to project power over a greater area of the world (and persist) than any other AF in existence.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Lies according got whom? The Serbs? Do they also not have a vested interest in lies...

Lies according the standards that pentagon have set in wastage, mismanagement and open deception?

Burden of proof is always upon those making the allegations, and speculation and in some cases outright propaganda is hardly evidence nor can it be considered proof.

Burden of proof lies with those who want to discover the truth and not with the factions who have something to gain by denial or deception. I KNOW you do not want to believe this and since i do not really care about how many planes were in fact shot down lets not pretend that i am not stumbling block in this discussion.

The SA-6 has been referred to as the "grandfather" of all SAMs. Although production finished around twenty years ago it is probably still the most ubiquitous Soviet SAM design (which it seems the SA-11 and SA-17 are descendents of) with over 850 launchers built in total and exports to 22-25 countries (although it is retired in Russia - shortly before the breakup of the Soviet Union it was replaced by the SA-11).

It has probably seen more action than any other Russian SAM system: it was used during the 1967 Six-Day War (shot down 65 Israeli aircraft, 95 missiles fired in total), the 1971 India-Pakistan War, and more recently during the 1991 Gulf War, and the NATO actions in the former Yugoslavia and Kosovo. Many aircraft losses (particularly during the Gulf War) were due to SA-6 battery operators using the aforementioned technique of not turning their radars on for more than a few seconds and relying on the IR homing of the missiles themselves, thus not alerting the pilots to the danger.

everything2.com...

Even when the USAF were at it's recent best it lost aircraft to the SA-6 and that was not in unfavourable terrain either. Why should we expect a stripped down NATO ( which has no SEAD/DEAD capacity to speak of without the help of the USAF) to only lose two aircraft in combat? Why should any of us belief this?

Logistical and technical errors in a large and complex agency such as the DoD are inevitable and infamous (trillions),

No it is not and you might want to check on just how well similarly large corporations ( if not in budget) can and do manage their accounts. Whatever the case may be this is US tax payer money and it should be far better managed than private corporate accounts.

especially during a large deployment and mobilization of forces.

Only if your computer systems do not 'communicate' with each other as the Pentagon wants us to believe; Walmart does not seem to have this problem.

"The (Pentagon's) inability to even complete an audit shows just how far they have to go," he said.

Kutz contrasted the department's loose inventory controls to state-of-the- art systems at private corporations.

"I've been to Wal-Mart," Kutz said. "They were able to tell me how many tubes of toothpaste were in Fairfax, Va., at that given moment. And DOD can't find its chem-bio suits."

www.sfgate.com.../c/a/2003/05/18/MN251738.DTL

This is not just regularly mistakes but in fact shows that those who run the US armed forces can in fact either 'lose' entire planes, their chem bio suits ( which they were in fact selling) and the like or are simply using their very bad reputation to hide combat casualties as they did in most wars since the second.

I regard it more as proof of our inability to keep track and manage our inventory correctly rather than proof of our ability to mastermind a cover-up of this magnitude for so long.

And you have every right to blindly trust that there is nothing 'wrong' with losing track of planes or losing them outright but since i have no personal stake in the outcome i don't have to do anything quite as desperate. The fact that there was such as thing as the saving and loans scandal ( the biggest financial scandal in recent times if the pentagon mismanagement has not recently superseded it) which the judge called ' A thousands conspiracies of theft , bribery and fraud'' [ i believe that is a exact quote) shows that these crimes do happen and are in fact covered up for very very long periods of time despite the involvement of hundreds if not thousands of well informed people. How did the USAF expend more ordinance on Laos than they did on Germany without the US congress even being made aware? It's not that the truth is not obvious or can not be found but that you just refuse to acknowledge the true state of affairs.

I must admit that sometimes people do give the US more creditably than is due. Personally I think that practically speaking it just would not be possible.

Nonsense and i will presume that a intelligent person such as yourself must have a good grasp of the facts that you must you know you are in fact misrepresenting just recent history. Why have we still not found WOMD in Iraq and when does the first senior US officials go before the firing squad?

How was the USAF "far more capable"?

The cold war had barely 'ended' [ the total US capitulation were still to come etc] and the run down of the US armed forces had not started so what is your question here?

Size and a sheer numbers of conventional (see parity) aircraft in combination with conventional munitions and weapons only goes so far.

It's not just a question of number of aircraft but their ability and between 1991 and 1999 the USAF SEAD/DEAD capacity were very much ripped apart; the recent invasion of Iraq was made possible by more than a decade of consistent suppression or destruction of Iraqi air defenses and not , as Kosovo proves, by new technology or far better planes&equipment.

The USAF was better equipped during the end of the 20th century and therefore more capable.

It was not as reading of any specific literature would indicate. If you wish we can both go find some specifics ( i have mine somewhere but sometimes the search takes longer than typing these responses) statements and see how the senior officials admit this fact.

You are purposely overlooking and not factoring in the vast amount of variables and conditions unique to both conflicts. Such as but not limited to:

I may be overlooking something but a quick look at the following list suggests to me that you are in fact doing far more of that than i am.

Scale of conflict, training and tactics of the OPFOR, weapons used, friendly tactics, terrain etc...

And how does those 'differences' conspire to make the still large USAF so ineffective in fighting against the Serbian armed forces. So ineffective in fact that they started bombing schools and power stations in true war criminal style? Was it always the mission to destroy Serbia, by destroying it's vital civilian infrastructure, as the last remaining vestiges of the Yugoslavian 'dream' or did they simply resort to it in 'desperation' after they got nowhere trying to interdict Serbian ground forces while taking relatively extensive damage to their deployed combat aircraft?

However I will say that the major factor for the difference in casualties between the two conflicts is the fact that we decided to fight with a mentality of 'safe and ineffective' in 99.

Oh they were VERY effective in bombing civilian infrastructure so it seems clear to me that they did intend to do the Serbs as much damage as possible. Where the idea of 'safe' wars originated i have no idea but i suppose you can't admit to losing lives ( American anyways) when you simply do not have a mandate from the US citizenry.

While the Serbs decided to fight with a mentality of 'mobility, preservation and contempt of engagement'.

As do anyone with half a thought between their ears...

They would not allow us to fight them head on and we were unwilling to put ourselves in a position to engage them regardless.

The point of air defenses is to protect their local regions fixed structures or mobile systems from effective interdiction strikes and, if possible, to prevent overflight entirely.

Choosing to remain safe at FL25 and using GPS bombs to attack everything in the open that was stationary and that resembled a target with no FAC and close support systems will inevitably not yield spectacular results.

Well that may be objectively true but it's not what the Pentagon and army leaders tried to sell the world on.

An antiseptic war, fought by pilots flying safely three miles high. It seems almost too good to be true-and it was. In fact-as some critics suspected at the time-the air campaign against the Serb military in Kosovo was largely ineffective. NATO bombs plowed up some fields, blew up hundreds of cars, trucks and decoys, and barely dented Serb artillery and armor. According to a suppressed Air Force report obtained by NEWSWEEK, the number of targets verifiably destroyed was a tiny fraction of those claimed: 14 tanks, not 120; 18 armored personnel carriers, not 220; 20 artillery pieces, not 450. Out of the 744 "confirmed" strikes by NATO pilots during the war, the Air Force investigators, who spent weeks combing Kosovo by helicopter and by foot, found evidence of just 58.

www.geocities.com...

So they expected to do much better and even thought so until the war ended. How can it be argued that they did not expect spectacular results when they claim so much of the Serbian armed forces destroyed for the loss of only two aircraft? Why do some still, as i once did, believe such lunacy?

Continued

The figures indicate that while more than five weeks of pounding have badly damaged important parts of the nation's military infrastructure, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic retains many of his field forces and air defenses, and much of his fuel and ammunition. His forces generally can communicate with each other, maneuver and arrange for resupply.
The Yugoslav army still has 80% to 90% of its tanks, 75% of its most sophisticated surface-to-air missiles and 60% of its MIG fighter planes, according to official estimates released during the past week. And although NATO warplanes have blown up the major rail links into Kosovo, five of the province's eight major roads remain at least partially passable, according to British officials.

Despite NATO's ability to strike big, immobile targets with precision weapons, its warplanes have failed to attack 80% of the Yugoslav army's barracks. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces have also left untouched, or only lightly damaged, 80% of Yugoslavia's ammunition depots, officials say.
These grim statistics, which add up to the first well-rounded portrait of the air campaign, reflect in part the effect of the persistently inclement weather that has forced NATO to cancel more than one-third of its 4,400 sorties. President Clinton suggested Wednesday that better weather ahead will allow NATO to intensify its campaign; in addition, nearly 400 more warplanes will soon join the bombardment.

Despite the damage to many of its best planes, the MIG fighters, the Yugoslav air force still has 380 of its 450 aircraft. Eight of the country's 17 airfields have not been struck, and six more have sustained only moderate or light damage."Day after day, we see an intricate cat-and-mouse game played between us," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Mark Kirk, a reservist assigned to an attack wing of radar-jamming planes at Aviano Air Base in Italy.
By official estimates, the Serbs still have three-quarters of their most sophisticated surface-to-air missiles, the mobile SA-6, and 60% of their less sophisticated SA-2s and SA-3s.
Many outside analysts acknowledge that they have been surprised by the relative lack of damage done so far by the air campaign.
At this rate, "it would take a very long time to destroy Yugoslavia's military," said Eliot Cohen, a professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who conducted a lengthy study of the 1991 Persian Gulf War for the Air Force.

www.aeronautics.ru...

And while i had to choose carefully to remain inside the three paragraphs ( you might want to read the entire article) i think it's obvious that their initial attacks were so effectively blunted that they had to resort to terror bombing in retribution for the casualties they sustained as well as to somehow end the war without the serious loss of face that would have resulted from leaving without Milosevic being forces from power by his own industrial elite who's facilities were under sustained attack.

Especially when the enemy is continuously moving in dense terrain and under concealment while using highly effective unconventional counter measures.

So the Serbs are just devious and smart enough to survive but not smart enough to actually shoot down NATO aircraft? Why should we be forced to indulge in such extraordinary wishful thinking to defend what is so obviously a lie? How could those Iraqi's face down the entire USAF, and substantial NATO and allies forces, with such SEAD/DEAD capabilities still shoot down four dozen planes while the Serbs managed to shoot down only two while largely preventing the NATO from doing substantial damage to their divisions deployed in Kosovo?

Furthermore, when the enemy is not willing to turn on their radars for an extended period of time to shoot at you it's kind of hard to destroy them when you don't yet have an effective HARM that can deal with radars going off line.

They did switch their radars on but chose to use it to provide intelligence instead of as a primary means of guidance&engagement. If they had the number of systems the Russian armed forces still deploys they could have risked taking casualties by using their best means of attack but as it was they could successfully prevent interdiction by using optical and IR engagement tactics/tracking.

The Serbs never risked their SAM systems more than they had too, they only used them when they were confident of surviving.

There are no such 'givens' in a war and this is a very basic fallacy invented for the sole purpose of attempting to explain what can not be in defense of relatively obvious lies; if this is the type of things you need to assume to believe what you do it's high time to consider if what you believe is not entirely wrong.

They simply wanted to clear the lower altitude of threats, not go all out and try to deny the USAF freedom of travel.

I do not believe that they had the capacity to do the latter but if the reports are in fact accurate 60 destroyed NATO aircraft would prove they almost managed even that.

The USAF on the other hand was not too keen to risk it all by operation in dangerous circumstances where they could really hurt the Serbs.

One does not win wars in this way as was proved by a number of world and regional wars. You are unlikely to hurt those who can truly threaten you , something neither Iraq, Korea, Vietnam or any of the other nations the US government terrorized could ever have managed, if you are unwilling to risk lives to save very many more.

As long as we could maintain the image of being effective we would not risk more than we had to and we were content with seceding the lower altitude to the Serbs.

But the NATO strikes on Serbian ground forces were entirely ineffective as later proved when Yugoslavia rejoined the Dayton accords. The illusion might have in fact been created in the west but the Serbs gave in because their vital services ( electricity generation for pumping water) were being systematically destroyed by illegal terror bombing.

We accepted lobbying bombs from a safe altitude at questionable targets because the outside world did too. To sum it up, both sides played it safe and only fought on their terms, as such both sides came out relatively intact and with little casualties and or losses.

Only the Serbs had large parts of their industrial means laid to waste so that NATO may preserve face by 'winning' this political victory. Both parties did not in my opinion play safe and the one party were forced to fly at high altitudes simply to avoid further casualties against well operated air defenses.

For the US I blame the leadership, to the highest level, starting with the POTUS and down to theater commanders. They cannot understand a simple theme that we have both cited here on ATS numerous times. Don't bother entering into a conflict unless you are fully committed to winning by any means necessary!

They understand that simply theme very well and by 1999 they had already so 'balkanized' the Balkans , yet again, that they only had to deliver the coup against the remaining hegemon's industrial complex which they found a pretext for and then proceeded to systematically destroy after losing enough men&machines to 'prove' to their allies that they had to 'do what it takes' to 'win'. The fools are the person(s) who believes that governmental action and world affairs are being dictated by those who do not understand the likely consequences of their actions or do not have a personal stake in a given outcome. If you still don't know who the real targets of NATO aggression were in the Kosovo campaign you need to start studying the results of American interventionist behaviour in the past few decades.

Same could be said for the Serbs, they could not handle US aircraft other than by general avoidance.

This is a obvious and basic fallacy as it assumes that there was parity in means; Serbia's air defenses were not worth even a small fraction of the cost of the NATO war machinery and i am surprised that you would pretend that the relative effectiveness of those defenses were some kind of given. If one was to purchase a air defense system of the same dollar value as that of the deployed NATO forces in Kosovo and had allowed the Serbian armed forces the use of it i am sure we could agree that no conventional attack would have been possible.

Anyway as I pointed out above it's not that we could not handle them, it's that we choose not to fully try.

And i have sympathy with the overall notion [i believe it's true for the situation in Iraq] but wonder if it applies to Serbia where we have such good evidence that that Serbs too the absolute best of their abilities survived further NATO efforts to destroy the dream of southern Slav's.

Because to the politicians calling the shots appearance is far more important than reality, but they're certainly not fooling us.

The generals made the claims and did their best to hide the fact that they never did find the wreckage of but a very small fraction of what they claimed destroyed.

Continued

Stellar you and I both know we could have done that to Iraq in 91 if we had chosen to. Besides, have you forgotten Afghanistan and Chechnya? Anyway, I prefer we not get into that...

What happened in 91' was bad enough but it took a additional 12 years of continual bombardment and sanctions before they apparently decided that they were 'ready' to invade and occupy Iraq and we are both aware of the results. I am not sure what Afghanistan and Chechnya proves to you but for me it shows that both countries seem to find some kind of benefit in throwing away the lives of it's citizens in wars the states refuse to 'win' as they so easily could. By that i do not mean that they do not apply violence effectively enough but that they choose to direct it in ways that not only prolongs the wars but also makes more enemies.

Recent history has not been conclusive with regards to this subject, too many variables to consider even thought we both seem to have made our mind up.

As long as you assume that the US will always fight third world nations with third world air defenses your arguments are likely to hold up but then i do not believe that will always be the case hence my arguments suggesting that modern air defense are more than able to hold their own ( for the same resource investment) against the aircraft that are being fielded by the worlds premier air forces.

As a side note I'd also like to point out that the effectiveness of strategic/tactical bombing alone as a means of winning a war and or destroying the enemy has long been called into question throughout military history. From WWII onwards I can only think of one case where bombing alone (without troop support) has been effective, Japan during WWII.

Since strategic bombing only became 'effective' ( the allies lost twenty two THOUSAND two and four engine bombers and one hundred and sixty thousand crew members) with the advent of nuclear weapons i think we can learn from that and not assume it would have been different if two rival factions such as the Warsaw pact and NATO tried to bomb each others industrial bases with anything but nuclear weaponry. From world war two onwards we have had no evidence that anything but absolutely overwhelming strength could possibly make tactical or strategic bombing a effective tool against a adversaries; something the US last had in the late 50's and early 60's against entities such as the USSR.

That's due to the fact that all other bombing campaigns have been artificially limited.

Not all but i can agree that the strategic bombing campaign against Germany, North/South Korea, North/South Vietnam and others were not designed to win but simply to devastate and propagate violence with no resolution, but destruction, in aim.

In that one successful case we had a leadership that understood the above quoted principal, they were not afraid to conduct unrestricted air operations regardless of the risk to the enemy and to ourselves.

But once again Germany massively expanded it's economy in those last years of 'unrestricted' [ and it was not] aerial bombardment. The allies won not because they could build four engined bombers faster than the Germans knew how to shoot them down but because the Soviet army were inflicting casualties on the Germans armed forces faster than it could replace them.

Even in 91 the air campaign left the Iraqi military largely intact, only when combined with an overwhelming ground campaign did Saddam's military break. The war over Serbia in 1999 should serve as one more example of why political bombing alone cannot win a war.

While this is true there is still no way to suffer only two fixed wing aircraft losses against a enemy that kept firing missiles till the very last day. There really is no reason to believe such lies and unless someone can present one no one should be forced into believing such things.

If you can prove that the NATO forces were able to destroy more than 50 mostly obsolete planes , but including as many as half of their 20 odd Mig 29's, a tiny fraction of the IFV/APC's and kill more than 500 Yugoslavian military personal we may have a valid argument to suspect that they did not lose very many planes but until then i can not believe that such irrelevent [ if not to the people or families involved] losses could have been inflicted by a force that were superior in any way shape or form.

Stellar

Originally posted by YASKY
Wait till Stellar comes in here, but anyways,

Sorta took the week off but i really can not help with serial numbers or make any specific claims as to which planes were in shot down or where...

lets see, from what I got U.S. has 230 F-15 C/E, the other 500 are F-15 A/B's (obsolete) U.S. aslo has around what 400 F-16C's Blocks 40-60 and 345 F-18's 20+ F-22's,

I think a closer look will reveal a USAF that there is no great dispary in either numbers of aircraft deployed or in their general abilities when operated according to specifications and doctrine...

Russia has
1. 424 Su-27 I don't know how many have been upgraded but Su-27's have been upgraded.
2. 455 MiG-29's A.B/C's not sure how many are C's
3. 369 MiG-31's thats Rus= 1148 to U.S.=1075 now it's all about who's tactics and Radar, RadarJamming capabilities are better, based on all the

The numbers are lower according to the lists i have seen but not greatly so and certainly not enough so to cause problems when it comes to backing up their national air defense system.

U.S. info Stellar posted I'm putting my money on Russia.

I think we should both put our money on never having to find out which of us are/were wrong. If there ever is a future war between the US and China/Russia i am sure it will be another Pearl harbour with American planes lined up just waiting to be destroyed once again sold ou by a leadership that has long given up serving the interest of the American people.

Stellar

All americans they seem to believe that all their military forces, naval, air, etc are always better than the russian. Many use arguments about the money etc. First of all a country as US with so hight debts, that should be the last country to speak about economy, In what world are you living?? Thinking that US is a rich country?. Just look around man. Your country investing in wars around the world and colapsing its own economy.

US have debts to many countries including Russia. Russia owns actually
2 % of the american public debt with a sume of 65 billion dollars. US also have debt with China for more than 300 billion dollars, the second largest owner of US debts in the world. Russia is the 8th largest owner of US debts.

Russia has no debts, maybe being the socond largest producer of oil in the world is in the way. Or being the first larget gas producer?? or havin the largest arsenal of weapong of mass destruction in the world, far higher than USA??

In what you seem to speak a lot advanced technology in standard military equipment, Well in fact this have no real significance couse armor and military equipment such Russia posseses (that in many cases we agree they are old) they are in most cases 20 old but that technology was far ahead of that time. Now recondishioned to meet the new "technologycally advanced" american. You see russian dont need to spend a lot of money in making new standard weopens.. They have the most advenced system for deploing what they own best. WMD. One ex. is their new lasser guided thechnology ( that actually they invented suprised???) .

Seem to be that Russia is always ahead of US in what really matters and this piss of the americans.

A second fact. Well If it was so that US is so powerful, how come that every single war US have been have the late 10 yeras they had loose??


Contrary to Russia that have NEVER suffered a defeat in the whole history of Russia.

Mother Russia!!!!

reply to post by THENEO


Russia believes someone else should have a saying on world affairs. USA has been pushing NATO to do everything. Russia is giving balance. When is the US going to give up going across the world starting wars for oil and gas dependancy. Russia is telling the US to think about what your doing in our neck of the woods.

If I could have one power it would the US but I dont agree with the failed and oppressive foreign policy they follow.

war is not the answer.

just so you know Russia's ground forces would destroy USA ground forces. Thats a fact and the US knows that.
In the air Russia's Sukoi fighters are top notch and have better radar detection than US Planes.
The F-15 which is the main fighter jet needs more than 68% of it's operational fleet re-fitted due to overuse in Iraq and Afghanistan.

lastly, the US cannot afforf to go to war. How many more loans can you get from China. Seriously.

you are 9 trillion in debt from Bush and the last thing you need is another war costing a billion every 3 days.

lets not forgot Russia made it clear they will use nuclear means if war is reached.
All wars from both sides will be dealt with proxy IMO.
They will both arm and help smaller countries.

as much as I hate the lack of russian human rights and their scare tactics the world needs them for balance so the US has to make serious and smart decisions.

please dont vote palin or mccain...please