re: Russia Unveils New Main Battle Tank, Among Other Things

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The Russian economy is in the shitter no way to deny it.

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Denied

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At the end of 2014 the rouble was in freefall. By the beginning of 2015, it was worth a third less against the dollar than six months previously (see chart). Amid expectations of a deep recession in 2015, many economists thought things in Russia were going to get even worse. Ukraine, meanwhile, looked in danger of imminent default, with foreign-exchange reserves at dangerously low levels. The ongoing war had destroyed large parts of its economy, and it had not received any financial help from the West for months.


Since then, however, things seem to have got a lot better for Russia. In the last three months the rouble has appreciated by 30%. Government-bond prices have been steadily rising. On March 13th the Russian central bank cut interest rates to 14%, down from 17% in December. The Russian rally is partly down to investors’ mood swings. There is a feeling in the markets that the slump in the rouble went too far, says Timothy Ash of Standard Bank. After all, the optimists say, many parts of the Russia economy look pretty strong. The Russian current account will hit a $65 billion surplus this year. Foreign-exchange reserves, though they have fallen sharply over the past 12 months, are still very high.

Externally, things are also starting to look better for Russia. American and European sanctions on Russia are losing their bite. The European Union's ones, for instance, will expire at the end of July. At that point, sanctions will lapse unless there is a unanimous decision among the 28 member states to keep them going. With Russia courting Greece at the moment, unanimity is an impossible goal. And as oil prices have stopped tumbling, Russia’s economic footing looks a little more secure: oil-and-gas exports make up 70% of Russia’s annual exports and 52% of the federal budget. Russia’s real GDP is likely to contract by 3-5% in 2015, says Mr Ash, but the downturn is likely to be short-lived.

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Wow, you all are still going at it after 3 days.

Well keep fighting the good fight.

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U.S. military dominance ‘no longer assured,’ says House committee

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The House Armed Services Committee is warning that it should no longer be assumed that the U.S. military is either the most technologically superior or the most dominant fighting force, an assessment that comes just as the rise of the Islamic State and Russia is posing a real challenge to the United States.

“[W]ith the continued diffusion of advanced technology, U.S. military technological superiority is no longer assumed and the dominance U.S. forces have long enjoyed in the air, sea, space, and cyberspace domains is no longer assured,” the committee wrote in a report detailing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2016. “Such a security environment demands that the nation’s armed forces are agile, efficient, ready, and lethal.”

The committee said that trend is especially worrying in light of the various national security challenges that have come up in the last year. Those include “the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, growing instability across the Middle East and Africa, and a revanchist Russian Federation.”

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Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey testified in Congress this week on the defense budget. The House Armed Services Committee is warning that the U.S. military can no longer be automatically seen as the most dominant, technologically advanced fighting force. Image: AP

LINK

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Who is going to pay for the Russian build up? The biggest flaw in your arguments is that you refuse to acknowledge that Russia can't afford to rearm to be back to where it was during the 80s. They ran a much stronger economy into the ground trying to keep up with us in the 80s and they will run this one into the ground if they try it again.

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It's the Hitler economic model.

Hyper inflation destroying your country?

Dump everything into the military, borrow from everyone, get a charismatic leader, war.

If you win, you don't have to pay it back.

If you lose, you can't pay it back and become an economic power with a disproportionate amount of influence over the world's banking practices in a half century or so.

The only thing they stand to lose is human life.

Has that ever bothered Russians or Germans?

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Hyper inflation destroying your country? Dump everything into the military

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Common misconception. You are vastly oversimplifying and underestimating the economic strategy and accumen of the Fuhrer and his team.

Unlike the WWII Allied economies, Germany didn't convert to full war production until 1944, when it was already too late. Not doing so was actually central to Hitler's "Kanonen und Butter" philosophy wherby he refused on principle to restrict domestic consumer production. In 1942 Germany produced 30MM tons of steel. Only 8MM went to military production efforts!