PAK FA, T-50: News #1

Good to see everything seems to be going according to plan.

The article I read mentioned from a Sukhoi source that the Nose mounted radar arrays were to be tested, though it wasn't clear if it was one or all three nose mounted radar... most likely all three because they will have been testing the main forward looking radar on Su-30 test bed aircraft, so this will be a chance to test the three arrays together.

Technically you are correct Igis, the Pentagon wanted about 500... at one stage they wanted about 800, but Congress stopped (cancelled) production at 189 airframes.

They produced less that 190 aircraft, but they are officially in service, whereas the PAK FA exists in the form of 3 slightly different prototypes that are to be used for testing.

They will likely put together another 7 flying prototypes so they can get through a flight program of about 2,000 flying hours.

They will likely also develop and produce a few prototypes with India for testing too as the aircraft they are working on will be a little like an Su-30MKI, except instead of being based on the Su-30, it will be based on the PAK FA.

I suspect that by 2020 they will probably have about 50-80 PAK FA aircraft in service and by 2025 that might have increased to about 200, but I also suspect that by 2018 Mig will have revealed its light 5th gen stealth fighterbomber, which might see service in 2022 starting to replace the Mig-29/35.

I have a sneaking suspicion that they might replace the Mig-31 with something bigger... perhaps even related to the PAK DA, that might include very long range AAMs and even ABM missiles... there is little money spent on the Mig-31s at the moment but now that the PVO is now moved from the Air Force to the Space and Air Defence Forces, they will likely have a bigger budget and an interest in spending money to close gaps.

There were planned super long range interceptor variants of the Tu-160 and Tu-22M3, but lack of airframe numbers tended to make it a non issue. Making new PAK DAs means the more uses they can apply to them the more airframes and the cheaper they will become.

I rather suspect that the PAK DA will not be a mach 2 stealthy Tu-160... It would be rather more cost effective to make it a sort of flying wing that is able to supercruise. This would allow long flight range (without AB) yet still good average speed and able to cover long distances faster than Bears.

The PAK DA is supposed to combine a strategic range with a strategic payload and a much much bigger payload for theatre range missions, and as such it should be able to trade fuel for weapons or vice versa. As an interceptor then external weapons become a good prospect, though ideally for supercruise performance to allow getting from place to place quickly internal weapons carriage would be best.

Regarding your comment about the F-35 and Su-35... I pretty much have to agree that the Su-35 will be rather more useful than an F-35 and it will be a fraction of the price too.

Higher speed, longer range, larger sensor apature, and much heavier weapon load.

In many ways the F-35 is a stealthy buccaneer... which is not a totally bad thing as the Bucc was a great plane in my opinion, but not really something amazing on its own.

It was not cancelled like Commanche where no aircraft saw operational service, but the production numbers were only a fraction of what was initially wanted.

With the F-22 and F-35 being insufficient as in having 30 hours of maintenance per 1 hour of flight then it is possible that 50 PAK FA's,

As shown with the Apaches performance in Desert Storm... when you find an aircraft that has high maintainence requirements it doesn't mean it spends more time in the Hangar doing nothing. It means if you want it flying to take more along than you needed and you spend three times the normal budget, increase support staff by 3 times, and simply maintain it harder.

The reality is that if USAF F-22s and F-35s are going up against Russian PAK FAs then numbers will mean zip, and TOPOL-Ms, Yars, and Minutemen will be doing the talking.

the russian aircraft version of shooting down the enemy before he even sees you, could match up to 200 F-22's which are called big wastes of money and "Craptors." That's why 1 PAK FA to 4 Raptors sounds satisfactory.

Such things are like game stats before the game starts... some find it fun to talk about and analyse, but at the end of the day once the game starts the stats mean nothing and the team with the winning score at the end of the game wins... no matter who does what, or gains how many metres, or makes x number of tackles, or x number of handling errors.

50 PAK FAs is a starting figure they will likely have that many by about 2020, but in total they will likely have 200-300 by 2030 supported by UCAVs and including naval PAK FAs based on carriers.

The fact that there are plans for thousands of F-35s suggests that a light 5th gen fighter will probably arrive in the picture too, but likely we will not see anything till the PAK FA is entering squadron service in 2018 or so.

They would never reveal the true number of PAK FA's in the skies today because it was a TOP SECRET program until a few years ago.

40 years ago we probably would have not seen it till it had been in service for 5 years or so, but these days they have relaxed a bit on such things. It is not that it is not secret anymore, but they are not shooting anyone on perimeter fences anymore and seem to be taking pride in the quality of their work and the manufacturers seem happy to let the world see what they have achieved.

Since they are showing you the prototypes flying already, they very well may have double digit numbers of these planes. By 2020 it is certain that they will have 200 PAK FA's along with 8 Borei class submarines and thousands of helicopters.

Nothing is certain, but if the US continues with its ABM system in Europe then I suspect the Russian military will benefit by getting better equipment sooner.

Russia isn't like France or the UK, it's on its own, the bear minds its own business; they wouldn't say publicly the numbers of the stealthy aircraft in the skies today.

Russia has lots of things in common with France and the UK... all former imperial powers, though even with a terrible almost nonexistent defence budget the Russian military in poor shape, but improving and getting new material all the time they always retained the ability to wipe the human race off the planet, whereas France and the UK have perhaps much more compact and capable military forces, their nuclear capacity is far more limited.

p.s. When they publicly say the PAK DA program's prototypes are flying, it means they have some in operation, but of course not as many as PAK FA since they are bombers.

I am a huge fan of Russian and Soviet equipment and weapons, but lets be realistic. There are plenty of fan sites showing PAK DA as being something like this:



The problem is that most fanboys are just boys and their interest is too superficial for them to realise that the design above and hundreds like it have already been put forward and rejected and the aircraft that made it into service was the Tu-160 Blackjack.

Personally I hope they reduce the top speed requirement and go for something like the aircraft above, but with stealth features plus... most importantly the ability to supercruise at mach 1.5-1.8 or so. Flying that fast without AB will mean long distance flights (common for bombers and civilian airliners) will be possible and the aircrafts ability to cover long distances quickly will be greatly enhanced.

Note that the reduces speed requirement would mean a less pointed design with better lift characteristics and a thicker planform with more volume for fuel and fathers of all bombs and mothers of all fathers of bombs etc etc.

As an added bonus it will enable a theatre bomber (offload fuel for extra weapons weight), a civilian airliner (high speed and long range with passengers), and even a heavy interceptor to replace the Mig-31 in the long range patrol and interception role would be useful. A large aircraft that size could carry enormous L band AESA antenna arrays for detecting stealth bombers and cruise missiles and a wide variety of AAMs and perhaps even ABMs could be carried over large distances relatively quickly.

I rather doubt they have even decided on a basic planform for PAK DA, though a new 5th gen engine that is based on the NK-32 that could be fitted to both the Tu-160 and the Tu-22M3 would be very very useful to the Russian Air Force as they currently use different engines (NK-32 and NK-25). Newer more powerful and more fuel efficient engines would improve commonality and reduce costs and remove two different engines from service to be replaced with one. new one that could be used as the core of a new huge turbo fan or prop fan for transports or airliners.

Rolling Eyes Yeah, typically by politicians who want the money to go to something in their own state (= not a real reason) or by people getting their butts handed to them in ACMI (= butthurt).

If all the F-22s and F-35s disappeared instantly along with the expenses they created and all that money was freed up for exotic F-15 upgrades and F-14 upgrades and F-18 upgrades, the US military would not be weakened in the slightest. There are very few roles for which stealth combat aircraft would be necessary or even cost effective.

It is amusing that the F-15 upgrades like Silent Eagle are seen by some as viable solutions... perhaps even a better idea than wasting more money on F-22s, yet the idea of adapting the F-14D to carry AMRAAM was rejected by the Hornet mafia.

I remember reading about a system the USN had where there was a datalink from F-14s to ground forces so the commander on the ground could look at a laptop computer and see what the F-14 above could see with his LANTIRN system. He could put target markers on targets and show the locations of friendly forces and the F-14 pilot could attack the bad guys with a much better idea of where the bad guys were.

Now I realise that spending lots on the F-14 would have reduced spending on the F-18, but at the end of the day the F-14 could have been everything the F-18 was and more... simply because the larger aircraft had more growth potential. The money spent on the F-18 wasn't peanuts and the F-35 is likely going to make the F-18 look cheap.

Of course it doesn't matter how cool the F-35 or F-22 become they will never shoot down a Mig-28 Yakitory fighter like an F-14 did in Topgun....

What is the mmh/fh of a PAK FA? I'm saying the number of aircraft in operation is TOP SECRET, not their specifications which are lies anyway.

The final specifications of the PAK FA are not finalised yet, these are the first flying prototypes, so they havent even completed development let alone frozen the specs for the operational aircraft. The Indians and Russians are putting together quite a purse of funds to create a PAK FAMKI for India and much of that money will develop capabilities that the Russians will likely want.

Of course even when it enters service development will not stop there either and new stuff will be added as it becomes necessary.

Yes, three prototypes. I'm saying if they are publicly showing their prototypes flying then they have double digit numbers of PAK FA's operational.

Then we have to agree to disagree... why would they lie about that? If they didn't want us to know about the aircraft they wouldn't release any information at all. They are clearly proud of their new plane... not everyone is currently building 5th gen fighters on their own.

We will see about PAK DA in a half decade.

The info I have heard is that they will have a first flying prototype in about 2018 or so and it will not be operational till about 2025 as the Tu-160 and Tu-95 are sufficient for the moment.

Regarding the PAK FA they have said that now that they have the 3rd prototype flying that they will make another 7 or so in the next few years up to about 2013... so probably another 3-4 next year and the year after so they will have 10 prototypes by the end of 2013 so they can get through about 2,000 hours of flight tests by 2015 when the first pre production serial aircraft can be built and tested... by 2018 they might have 20-30 including upgraded prototypes and by 2020 they might have 50. Depending on foreign interest and the numbers of the PAK FAMKI bought bought by India they will probably want about 200-250 by 2025... the latter figure including Naval PAK FA aircraft operating on the Kuznetsov from 2020 with nuke propulsion and EM cats. With brand new from scratch fixed wing carriers being laid down in 2023 or so.

Igis, may I ask you what you base your conclusions on and where you get your info from?

I think the PAK FA is cool, and would love for there to be hundreds or even thousands of them, but I guess I am just too cynical and at the same time trusting of Putin.

I think the fact that they have three aircraft flying is amazing enough as it is, and I really don't care much about the F-22 or F-35... the Eagle has never faced a Flanker in real combat and I hope such a trend continues with Russian and US aircraft.

Military stuff in the US is like politics... one side says x is junk and the other side says it is the best in the world.

In Russia there is politics too, but when the Sukhoi mafia says the Su-35S is excellent I agree with them, and when Mig says the Mig-35 is awesome then I agree with them too... at the end of the day I would prefer both to succeed.

BTW sent you a PM.

That is linked to planning and military budgets... over the last 20 odd years the Russian military has been starved of funds and so upgrades and in the case of the navy even routine maintainence has not taken place except for with the core functions (ie SSBNs).

This means that over the next 10 years they are having to spend a much larger amount of money than they would otherwise need to spend to fix things again and get themselves back on track.

The plans are to get 70% of equipment to world standard or better by 2020. It is the same for all branches of the military who have had to get by on very little money.

Having said that of course this huge increase in spending and yet they are still only spending about 10% per year of what the US spends on her military.

This isn't a military expansion... it is a contraction and upgrade.

During Soviet times with pretty much everyone going through conscription their standing forces were massive... up to 3 million in peacetime. The result was a small percentage were actually fully equipped and ready for combat while the rest didn't have the equipment or personnel and wouldn't have either for weeks or months after a call up order.

They had three tiers, with the first tier having new equipment and fully manned and could be mobilised in hours or days. The second tier had a skeleton structure of their men that could be filled out in a week or two but their equipment was not the best and included older stuff that was still functional, but not state of the art. The men in these units will have served in the last 10-20 years so they probably trained on the older equipment and are probably more familiar with it anyway. The Third Tier is a long term reserve that would take months to form up and fully equip. Their obsolete equipment will be better than nothing.

The new structure actually gets rid of the two lower readiness tiers so only the ready to fight forces exist. This means that on paper the forces are much much smaller, but it also means they are much better equipped and unless the conflict lasts weeks the enemy will not notice the difference.

It means all the T-54s and T-55s and T-62s and T-64s and old T-72s and eventually the T-80s can be withdrawn from service... eventually there will only be Armata based tanks.

BTR-80 and previous vehicles and BMP-3 and previous BMPs will be replaced too by Boomerang and Kurganets-25 vehicles which are wheeled and tracked vehicles respectively that will be amphibious and have engines in the front and ramp exits in the rear and possibly also the sides and be in the 25 ton weight class.

They are also trying to unify equipment across the services so SAMs and artillery shells/guns etc etc. They already standardised on cannon shells with the 30 x 165mm cannon standard for navy (AK-630 CIWS), Army (Tunguska air defence vehicle plus BMP-2 and BMP-3 and BTR-80A etc), Air Force (standard cannon used in fighter aircraft and CAS aircraft and helicopters (Mi-28, Mi-24, Ka-50, Ka-52, Ka-29).

All this should streamline production and purchases, as well as training and maintainence and logistics. It will also create standards for design, so if the propulsion plants are all standard then the engine rooms can be designed as a module for instance.


...sorry, I am off topic... I look forward to having long chats... And again welcome the the forum.

BTW 22 trillion roubles over 10 is about 650 billion US dollars over 10 years... in other words they are spending over 10 years what the US spends in 1 year on "defence".

This money they are spending is basically to replace all their old an obsolete stuff they have been stuck with for 20 years, with new stuff... and at the same time these purchases will be investing money into the Russian military industrial complex so it can upgrade to state of the art factories and tools to improve their ability to continue to provide the Russian military with world standard equipment in the future.

It is a lot of money, but it is a fraction of what the US is already spending and is likely to spend over the same period... and they didn't go through the same 20 years with little to no money.

And it is not like the Russians were not involved in conflicts and the US was, though the American campaigns were more expensive "away games".

There are a LOT of reasons for the differences in spending levels.

Of course there are, though some of them become difficult to justify with the neocon mentality that Russia is both corrupt AND bent on world domination and the US is just interested in peace and democracy.

The reality is that there is a lot of built in corruption in the US MIC that they don't call corruption... they call it the way things are done, or call them lobby groups.
The US also is a superpower and has forces and interests all over the world and such things are not cheap to maintain.
Of course Russia isn't even allow a sphere of interest that extends to South Ossetia or Abkhazia let alone anywhere beyond their border area... though I do think Russian assistance will be welcomed... in fact expected when the US forces pull out of Afghanistan.

I can think of a lot of other reasons (building new CVNs ain't cheap, for one), but those are two questions I'd like to know the answers to.

Even if they pay 1 tenth in pay and benefits I would think the fact that they have conscription means a larger number of ex servicemen to pay.

Again in 2010, both nations had a defense budget (expressed as a percentage of GDP) of between 4 and 5 percent. Just a different way to look at the numbers.

So what you are trying to say that countries with bigger economies are allowed to spend much larger amounts on arms... as long as the percents work out similar? Does that work with Chinese defence spending?

Did you pay CLOSE ATTENTION to the timeline graph? Watch as the 2019 becomes 2010. Smile You say that by the year 2020 there will be 50 PAK FA's in service.

The graph can show anything they want the simple fact is that PAK FAs don't magically appear out of thin air... they need orders and money and time to build them... and they are hardly going to build 50 right now and have them finished before the end of this year... and even if they did... what happens if they find they need to make fundamental changes to the design?

They will get through the testing and create a serial design prototype and that will get further testing while the factory where they will be built will tool up and get ready to manufacture them in an assembly line... and that wont happen till after 2015.

In conclusion, the Russians have already spent $600 billion in their upgrades from how much money they made off of oil and will likely spend that same amount or more in the next decade.

I rather doubt that... and even if they did that is half a trillion... and it will not be US dollars... it will be roubles, which as we have seen translates to less than they are spending on new stuff... (22 trillion is rather more than half a trillion and gives you an idea of how little they actually spent on upgraded equipment)

This 22 trillion of new stuff will greatly improve things as it includes training systems and simulators and involves replacing old stuff rather than spending money making it look better than it is.

In some cases upgraded stuff will form the backbone of the military till the new stuff can be produced... so upgraded T-72s till the Armatas are ready etc etc.

At the end of the day the upgraded Flankers (Su-35S) and upgraded Fulcrums (Mig-35S) are practically new aircraft and would actually be very good aircraft in most current modern air forces today, the number of PAK FA aircraft that enter service really depends on the actions of the West regarding a few things... I personally am a little shocked at the west for downplaying the ABM system in Europe as if Russia is being silly... they really don't understand the Russians point of view at all.

The silly thing is that we all remember their over reaction to missiles in Cuba... it is pretty clear they seem to think they won the cold war and therefore don't need to consider Russian interests.

It is rather a bit like after the end of WWI when the western allies turned on Germany to blame it for things it had little control over and for which the western allies were just as guilty of.

This mistake wasn't repeated after WWII because Germany and Japan became important western allies against the new threat.

The amusing thing is that the west wasn't particularly helpful after the end of the cold war and yet seems to act either as victorious winner, or as if Russia owed them something.

Of course the economic problems the world is suffering under now is nothing compared to what the Russians have been through these last 20 years, yet some in the west seem to think Russia owes them something... we hardly welcomed them into the international community as was promised several times.

I actually think Russia would have been much better off if Reagan had been in power at the end of the cold war rather than Bush. I think Reagan was naieve enough to believe the American dream crap that the current and recent regimes have given lip service to over the last two decades.

If the US had introduced something like the Marshall plan to help the Russians and other soviet states through their economic upheaval, they would actually have something to be grateful for now and might be rather more willing to cooperate on a few things... as things are they were hung out to dry and not grateful to anyone.

Iglis, the GVP2020 is a plan about military expenditure in the 10 year period of 2011 to 2020 and does not even include spending for 2010.

The PAK FA has been in the spending planning for long term plans (the ten year ones) and the shorter term planning (the 5 year ones).

If you went back and looked there would be spending for the PAK FA under all its previous names for the last 20 years it has been a program and every time it has not materialised even as a prototype... till now with the first prototype revealed at the start of this year. There are now two more joining that first aircraft and there were probably 3-4 other nonflying prototypes built including scale models used to determine basic shape and internal layout etc etc and to hang as a model to test actual RCS to make sure their computer model is accurate.

If they had 50 built already then testing wouldn't take till 2015 and the dates they talk about for service entry (2015 for first serial production aircraft, with squadron service by 2018) would be shifted forward 2-3 years, as it would be much closer to ready.

They haven't even spent the money India is investing yet... there will likely be a few changes to come.

On the other hand, Russia and the US do have competing interests, and often such competitions can provide the basis for armed conflict. So from that aspect they do have a (small) point.

Two brothers in the same family have competing interests, and they can choose to fight and undermine each other, or they can cooperate and support each other.

The irony is that the US has traditionally followed the former path internationally, while preaching to the world the latter via such propaganda machines as Disney and Seasame Street.

I've always thought that if you could get the US, Russia, and China on the same page, you could abolish the farcical UN and pretty much dominate the globe.

The US doesn't listen to anyone else, it doesn't have allies, it has servants. Russia and China probably wouldn't work for long, and adding the US would never work... the US would demand control because they are spending the most money, but they wont want China or Russia to spend more because that will make them more powerful "partners".

I think the best thing would be for everyone to mind their own business, and handle international conflicts in the UN by TALKING, and internal conflicts internally.

If it's not exactly corrupt, it's certainly not the best way of doing things anymore.

It is by definition corrupt. A company uses its enormous money resources to pay campaign contributions for senators and then expects those senators to vote in their favour... if that is not corruption... what is?

I luv to go to de oli days, and me favourie place is de nile... a beautiful river in de africa dat goes true de egypt... no corruption dere eter.

And lobby groups should all be BANNED. Or exported to Mars.

So it is not corruption but needs to be changed?

Is there someone with a pistol to your head right now?

Just nod and we will send help.

The propaganda is so effective you wont even admit bribery is corrupt... it is part of business.

Makes claims that Russia is so corrupt very interesting... perhaps a better way of saying that is that they are more honest and more democratic than the US

But what do those ex-servicemen receive as benefits?

No idea. Perhaps Vlad could help here?

And I'm shocked that people think ten ABM silos damn near ideally sited for a midcourse engagement against a Middle-Eastern launched ICBM is going to render the Russian strategic nuclear arsenal impotent.

You are talking about the BUSH ABM system.

Read the new START treaty. Strategic systems are strategic systems, whether they are weapons or defences. START is all about balance of forces and to ensure balance of weapons there are numbers limitations. There are no limitations on defence systems.

The current plan has ABM missiles on ships based in the black and med seas. Ships that could in a day or two be moved to near greenland or over the north pole, or even positioned on each US seaboard.

What exactly limits the number of ships in the USN? What limits the performance? The location these vessels can be located?
Nothing you say?

You'd think that they'd at least give us credit for a bit of foresight for once.

??? You are trying to build a system that in its later tiers can stop all types of ballistic threats in significant numbers and you wonder why Russia... a country that bases its defence on large numbers of ballistic weapons doesn't like it?

The whole purpose of MAD... you know. Do you also know the consequences of undermining MAD? Either a new arms race or a preemptive strike. And for what? It is not even so mericans can sleep safe in their beds at night... because a preemptive strike or arms build up will actually do the opposite of that.
This is all about political inertia... a combination of not wanting to look weak, and being able to tell voters you are keeping them safe when in fact you are making things much worse.

See 1960s cuban missile crisis... Kennedy got into power by claiming his predecessor was weak on defence. Once he got into power he saw his predecessor was just being sensible because there was not missile or bomber threat... it was all propaganda.
He went through with his promise anyway and built a huge force of missiles and bombers that the Soviets didn't catch up to till the 1980s... that money invested on alternatives to oil and the US would be completely independent of the Middle East now and we would probably be going to Mars with people.

Politics has a lot to answer for.

Russia should either 1) drop out of the INF and CFE treaties, or 2) potentially far more amusing, petition to join NATO.

Russia joining NATO would be like Turkey trying to join the EU... they would smile and hand a huge stack of forms and say fill these out and get back to us. When the forms are filled out they will go over everything and ask for changes... and when it is all pefect... it was in the wrong pen colour... please do it again... and then the time wont be right or a thousand other different reasons.

In the end, Russia comes off as butthurt because its former allies and proxies in Eastern Europe now want to play with the West. Who's to say those governments can't make that choice for themselves?

Actually I rather think Russia is glad to get rid of that bunch of sponges, at the time they were a convenient place to fight WWIII on, but now they have no obvious use.
As you can tell by how quickly they got themselves under hem of NATO and the EUs skirt and started shouting stuff back at Russia, they really are the little children of the gang that like big guys to hide behind.
They seem to be jumping at the chance to get US troops stationed on their territory... I say do it... shift your troops from Germany to Poland etc... it really doesn't make much difference to Russia where they are based.

Kennedy ranks as probably the worst US President for that reason: risking nuclear war over a damn double standard.

Yet, he managed to hide the truth long enough to appear to be a hero... and that is probably what mattered to him.

Not that this might not have been a good idea, but 1) the end of the Cold War brought out the cut the budget crowd, and 2) some jackhole decided to invade Kuwait around the same time.

The Soviets/Russians largely supported the removal of Iraqi forces from Kuwaite. A marshall plan would have at the same time helped the Soviet states, and probably gotten you more international support from Russia on quite a few things they didn't feel so strongly about.

There can be only one boss in this world.

Why?

During the cold war there was no clear cut single superpower... economic, political, or military.

There is no reason why Russia or China or Brazil or India or many other countries cannot become military and economic superpowers.
For all we know in 50 years time there might be a new superpower based on all the African countries getting together, or a whole lot of South American countries, or Asian countries.
Never say never.

I always thought Russia would dominate the globe someday and that that day would soon come.

Have you talked to them about it? They might not want to be in Americas current position where it has to bully and threaten or bribe to maintain its position.
Russia might just want a high quality of life for its citizens and a modest sized military to keep outsiders who want to change that out.

If they are talking about re-building their military in two decades, then it's not possible as now they have China to compete with as well as the US. Russia will never be able to considering their GNP is less than 3 trillion and China and the US are already in double digits.

The US has the burden of a global empire to maintain, so despite its large turnover it owes more than it owns. If it withdraws from the world it will reduce its costs, but also its income, so that is not really a solution either.
China has a huge population and with wealth will come technology and with technology will come an awareness that people in other countries have social and economic rights.
As these things change and of course as the average wage increases to meet the needs of the new consumerist society all the massive international companies investing billions on factories in China will find it more and more expensive so they will move to Mexico... or even Russia now that it is joining the WTO.
The Chinese have to use this window of opportunity to expand and improve its industrial base, and then invest its own money in furthering that development... but the real point is that China is expanding despite the US trying to stop it, so why can't Russia do that too?

Besides, as I said, Russia doesn't need to compete with anyone... they don't have to sell communism, or democracy... they just have to decide what sort of country they want and work towards building that.

The difference is that those Senators do not vote on what product to choose. They vote on how many to buy. Actually picking the weapon system (i.e. YF-22 over YF-23) is done by the DoD.

And how many top high power military men at the DoD want a nice cushy job at Boeing... why are there so many ex generals in these MIC companies whose only job is to use their old contacts to wine and dine those decision makers at the DOD?

Corruption? Where?

The DoD sets the requirements, companies submit bids, and whoever meets the requirements at the lowest projected cost will win.

Really? No one in America could come up with a cheaper transport than a C-17 to replace the C-141?
The DOD don't bother ordering C-17s anymore because every year congress votes to build x number more for the DOD whether they ask for them or not simply because of where it is made.
Do you think that is because they make a much better product there? India and Australia are paying something like half a billion dollars per plane... does the runway turn to gold as it lands? Is that its short runway secret?

I remember reading somewhere that its high airframe life and short strip performance were used to justify the high purchase price... except the terms of sale specifically say the aircraft cannot be used from short strips and high weights or the long airframe guarantee and promise of low operating costs would be recinded. The C-17 looks like a nice plane but you could get 10 Il-76s and still have money left over to operate them for 5-10 years for that price... they aren't that good.

The lobbying problem extends through all manner of US political issues, many of which have nothing to do with the military or foreign relations. The problems with lobbying are a whole different discussion, but yes, I do think it needs to go away. Along with pork-barrel spending.

The problem with big business in control of things is that they wont give up power easily... I was hoping such a thing from Obama, but he turned out worse than Bush in many ways simply because at least Bush came through with what he promised... even if it did lead the US in the wrong direction.

Exactly. There are NO LIMITS.

But by linking strategic weapons with strategic defences at least the Russians can point to the preamble and say your defences make more cuts in our offensive weapons not only unlikely, but if you keep building up your defences we will start building up our offensive weapons... and it is not because we want to nuke you... it is because we don't want to. The whole concept of MAD was to prevent war... undermining MAD is mad/crazy.

That's always been in the pipeline. It's getting more attention now that it's coming closer to fruition.

There is no way the USN will accept limitations on where they can sail in international waters so this is going to be a real problem for Russia.
More importantly when Russia starts putting S-500s on their ships we will get to a point where it will be an issue for the US.

Remember the hard part is leaving the atmosphere and having something that can manouver in space... once you have that then it is just a little more fuel and perhaps an extra stage and you have very effective global anti satellite weapons... and who relies most on satellites in the world at the moment?

No treaty agreements at this time do, no.

So the US doesn't understand why the Russians are a little upset at the US for trying to set up a multilayer globally mobile anti missile network that when developed and upgraded by 2020 will completely undermine the one thing that has kept peace for most of the cold war.

Pretty sure the US would understand damn quick if this was a Russian military program... I look forward to their reaction to Russia withdrawing from the START treaty and INF treaty and they start building 100 ton liquid fueled rockets with 30-40 MARV warheads each...

I'm partially (still) trying to understand why they thought ten ABM silos would render their strategic offensive missile force inert.

Try thinking about an agreement on how many rounds you can have in a magazine. Both have thousands of rounds of ammo, but in the interests of peace you both decide that a 30 round mag should be sufficient as you are both big fat buggers that are going to stand and shoot from the hip.
The US ABM system is one guy turning up one day with a helmet.
The European ABM system... which is American, is like he turns up the next day with a helmet and a flak vest.
The other guy is getting suspicious, but the guy in the vest and helmet is saying that his abuse is upsetting his wife and sometimes she tries to hit him with a rolling pin and other times stab him with a knife... so he needs the vest and the helmet to protect himself... it is ok... it wont stop a bullet.

Now they are saying that he suspects his wife is trying to buy a handgun so he is going to get a bullet proof vest with hard plates to protect himself but it is OK he wont wear it if we get into a fight.
The other guy has asked for that in writing, but he refused saying you don't need it in writing... just trust me.

Would you be suspicious?

Especially when the guy is dumb enough to release documents about long term expansion and performance improvement plans that include interceptors with multiple kill capability and potential expansion of launch sites.

Of course the other guy is going to demand either defensive measures be added to the agreement, or he is not going to stick to 30 rounds in his mag... he is going to look into armour piercing rounds and perhaps more exotic weapons.

What happens if the other guy turns up in a tank?

ABM systems are not regulated so for all we know the Japanese and South Koreans and the US could build an ABM system in the far east, the US could build another system in Greenland, there could be another system in the UK, or Norway... if they don't object now... when should they object?

Further more the current limits are around 1,500 warheads which is plenty, but in time these numbers would be expected to go down... perhaps as low as 600, with 200 warheads per leg of the nuclear triad in each country, with RS-24 and Bulava missiles carrying 10 warheads per missile that is a total of 40 odd ICBMs and SLBMs... and I can tell you that obviously in the current circumstances with no limits on ABM systems that is never going to be signed off by the Russians.

The original Bush scheme ABM system would have effected the Russians because it would have meant that at least 10 extra ICBMs would have needed to have been pointed at NATO than they would have if there was no ABM system there.
Later plans included interceptors able to hit multiple targets, and of course they could double the number of interceptors at any time without notification because there was no monitoring or regulation. The problem wasn't the original plan, but what it could turn into. A soldier wears armour to protect themselves from injury or death, but they use it to make attacking safer, so it can't be ignored as defensive only... especially when the whole concept of nuclear deterrence is based on the concept that he wont attack me because he knows he will end up being killed.
The ABM system doesn't even have to work... they just need to believe it works to make war more likely an outcome.