The Perfect Soldier: Special Operations, Commandos, and the Future of Us Warfare by James F. Dunnigan
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Russia's China Problem
by James Dunnigan
January 3, 2008
Discussion Board on this DLS topic
Despite a demand for over a billion dollars in additional (above the contract) payments for work on warships, Russia continues to win huge arms export sales to India. Currently, India has over $10 billion worth of stuff on order. While the problems with some of these contracts gets a lot of attention, much else about these deals has gone right. Overall, the Indians are pleased, although they are spending more time looking at arms sales proposals from Western firms. This makes the Russians nervous, which is apparently the intent of the exercise.
China is cutting back on arms purchases from Russia, and is stealing more Russian military technology, so that clones of Russian gear can be built in China. Russia is getting increasingly vocal about this, but otherwise cultivates good relations with China. Meanwhile, Russia is exporting more military gear to other countries. For example, Venezuela has just bought a billion dollars worth of military contracts (Il-76 series).
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