I don’t think mute people should be the right to make phonecalls. And if someone, apart from being mute, qualifies to work in a callcentre…

Russia always attacked China, not the other way around. Russia wouldn’t have such a long disputed border with China if Russians had not taken land from Asians all the way to the Chinese border. Russia is the one European colonial state from the 19th century that has kept its colonial possessions. Britain, France and Spain had all given theirs up.

All true about Russia’s emperialist expansion into Asia, but the Amur border clashes were in fact started by the PRC, not Russia. It can be argued that the Primorye region has got as little to do with (Han-)China as it does with Russia. An independent Manchuria or even Korea could make more credible claims than either Beijing or Taipei.

China has far, far more reason to be afraid of Russia.

Hardly, the Russian Far East has a dwindling population. Demographics are definately in China’s favour if China wants to go expansionist in the area. Or re-expansionist, if you will 😉

The US and NATO attacking Russia? The US is more likely to involved in a war with China over Taiwan than anything with Russia. I see very little recent news from the Pentagon calling Russia a military threat.

There are lots of American reports of Russia being a “security” threat because of fears that Russian control of its nuclear stockpile is unprofessional and in constant danger of being sold to terrorists.

But that is different from US targeting of the Russian military. There is absolutely no chance of war between the US/NATO and Russia unless Russia invades Poland or Scandanavia.

There is one big problem though: dishonesty on NATO side. The one condition under which the Soviet Union agreed to the reunification of Germany was that NATO would not expand further eastward. While hardly ever believed in the West, the Soviet Union/Russia has been very weary of an overland attack ever since the early 19th century (in less than 150 years Russia had no less than 5 attacks on it’s territory courtesy of Western powers) and still has a bit of a trauma here. The Warsaw Pact was far more a defensive organisation for Russia than the West (or even China) cared for to know, and the countries in Eastern Europe provided with a nice buffer.

Now NATO hasn’t only expanded into former Soviet territory (the Baltic states), but NATO has established bases in other CIS states (Georgia, Kirgyzstan) as well. It’s not too hard to see some justification in Russian fears for Western expansionism, as the West has been repeatedly screwing the Russians West and South over the last fifteen years.

Americans would never expect the 1st Marines Division or the 82nd Airborne to fighting to fighting insurgents (who do appear from time to time in the US.)

The US has used the National Guard a number of times to keep civil unrest down in recent history, with an occasional excess like Kent State in 1970. Also, in 1958 the 82nd Airborne Division was used to give black students the chance to get some non-segregated education in 1958 in Little Rock, Arkansas. There was no fighting, but an ‘insurgency’ wasn’t ruled out.

So unless the Russian Army views muslims as non-citizens, using it for internal strife is a fine way to mess up your armed forces morale and sense of mission.

True, but then again the ‘first line’ troops the Russians have against internal insurgents are MVD troops, not the regular army.

the situation cant be too good if crated Libyan spares are purchased in preference to french made ones.

Lybian spares are made in France too, you know.

Time for me to have that rant again.

Can someone please tell the next of kin that a whole bunch of anonymous people whom they’ve never heard of are offering their sincere condoleances here?
:rolleyes: Those pilots had a job (an interesting one at that), and suffered a job-related accident with injuries incompatible with life. They and their relatives knew that risk, and unless one of the victims was a personal acquintance of one of the members here i can’t see why we have this collective cry’n’condoleance sessions every time a plane crashes.

I doubt the many car-related webforums have such a thread every time someone dies in a car crash either.

“government to government arms sales,” was the term used in the article Arthur…

Which is not the same as a company to government arms sale… which would be the case if it was a non-FMS deal directly with Lockheed. And with a government-to-government deal, the snippets Steve digs out from the Washington catacombs are the thing to go by.

Possible deliveries of F-16s is not a fantasy, but until you know variants & numbers i’d back of on the future OrBat theories. The reports so far speak of transfer: at best those would be block 30 C/Ds, which are hardly modern.

3Wing (not Fighter Wing, sorry) has more than just the two air defence Eagle squadrons though:

3Wg, Elmendorf AFB
12 FS – F-15C(V2) – yellow
19 FS – F-15C/D – black
90 FS – F-15E – red
517 AS – C-12F, C-12J, C-130H – white
962AACS – E-3B/C – green