I haven’t looked at Julia Davis’ Russian Media Monitor for a while to see what Russian state media is up to, decided it was time to see some excerpts.
Let’s set Ukraine aside and look into the future. What is NATO’s vulnerability? Where? In space! Nothing is protected there…after all this technology loses its eyes up above and systems of control the F-35, of which they say they have almost 150, will become the same kind of a plane as our MiG-29, because they won’t be receiving information.
Well, satellite ISR is a point where the West is stronger than Russia. But reconaissance didn’t begin with satellites, either. We’ve done atmospheric overflights since back in the Cold War. There have been many platforms used in this war. JSTARS, Global Hawks, probably other things.
And the F-35 itself isn’t just a client for information; it is a sensor platform itself. I strongly suspect that it was used as such in the present conflict. We know that there were US and a few other NATO tankers flying out to the border with Ukraine and flying ovals. I know that at least one shot from a tanker of an F-35 in stealth configuration refuelling was geolocated to Poland, along the border. Those F-35s aren’t shooting, and I’d guess that they probably aren’t using active sensors, like radars; no reason to pull the radar reflectors then. But it’s probably good odds that they are using passive sensors.
As for “almost 150 F-35s”, the statement is perhaps misleading. From the beginning of the year:
https://www.sandboxx.us/news/lockheed-martin-has-now-built-1000-f-35s/
Lockheed Martin has now built 1,000 F-35s
They’re currently building about 150 a year.
Jumping back a bit:
Skrabeeva: Will we shoot down American satellites?..do we have the necessary weapons in space?
Russia probably can destroy a great many satellites via use of high-altitude nuclear weapons. We did the Starfish Prime test back when there were few satellites in orbit, and it was already bad news then. We talked about Russia considering use of such a weapon recently.
But that is not a selective weapon. Russia using such a thing would also destroy satellites of many countries. That’s maybe not a fantastic move if one’s already a bit short on the friends list.
I don’t believe that Russia has the means to selectively destroy many satellites. And as Musk recently put it, we can launch satellites more quickly and cheaply than Russia can launch weapons to bring them down.
Second, in those means of communication that lie under the seas and oceans.
I mean, okay. If your plan is to start trying to cut off intercontinental communications via taking out space-based and cable-based communication, you can probably disrupt it, but that’s also a direct-war level situation. That’d no doubt disrupt business and all sorts of things, but you probably cannot cut off militaries from getting vital data back and forth via radio, and that’s the kind of thing you’d need to do were things to reach such a stage.
Skrabeeva: But officially, Russia is alone. We don’t have a military alliance with China, Iran, or North Korea. What we have with North Korea can’t be called a military alliance. While the NATO bloc is a military alliance. They have Article 5. In this context, we are alone…Have you seen any North Koreans in Donbas? No! Have we seen them on the frontlines? No! But if a war starts that involves one of NATO members, all 32 countries will step in.
I mean, in theory you have the CSTO, but seeing as Armenia recently called and you didn’t come, I’m not sure how seriously it’s taken.
I don’t believe that Russia has the means to selectively destroy many satellites. And as Musk recently put it, we can launch satellites more quickly and cheaply than Russia can launch weapons to bring them down.
That’s a dicey question. We can absolutely build dinky little low-orbit routers like starlink quickly, but modern spy sats, from imaging to sigint, are multi-ton, billion-dollar pieces of equipment. They definitely can’t be replaced as fast or as cheaply as they can be shot down.
And as soon as you do start breaking them, the massive debris clouds (especially in geostationary and LEO) will make replacing them dicey anyway.
Russia (probably?) still has the ability to launch half a dozen Soyuz rockets a year, which means they’re more than capable of shooting down any satellite they want. But that’s kind of like saying Belgium has the ability to sink any warship they want. Technically true, but not if they want keep being a country.
As for “almost 150 F-35s”, the statement is perhaps misleading.
Makes sense though. Russia only has some 30ish of their SU-57s, which they claim is their F35 killer. They can’t come out and say those planes would be outnumbered 50 to 1 even if they weren’t mostly designed to turn tax money into new dachas.
32 countries will step in.
32 + 1, maybe. Macron probably is still a little chapped that Putin jerked him around early in the war.Currently NATO has 32 members, including France.
Ok, I thought that there was a special relationship involving France and NATO, as in, they weren’t required to participate in joint NATO defence operations while they remained a key player in nuclear weapon defence for Europe as part of NATO.
It sounds like I am mixing something up here…
Basically the opposite way round:
Wikipedia - NATO - Special arrangements
From the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s, France pursued a military strategy of independence from NATO under a policy dubbed “Gaullo-Mitterrandism”. Nicolas Sarkozy negotiated the return of France to the integrated military command and the Defence Planning Committee in 2009, the latter being disbanded the following year. France remains the only NATO member outside the Nuclear Planning Group and, unlike the United States and the United Kingdom, will not commit its nuclear-armed submarines to the alliance.
They left the joint military command for a while, but not NATO itself.
EDIT: They rejoined the joint command in 2009.
