Retired US Army Officer here: I first entered the military in 1978 & both Russia (as the USSR) & China were well defined bad guys, though China, through Nixon, was a "friendly bad guy" as one commentator at the time put it. And that relationship kept us from having to split our focus. And the Russians? There was that hope in the 90's with the fall that maybe they would become a part of the civil world. But no, weak leadership, an oligarchy that craved money & control and a strong group yearning for the days of Stalin over came all efforts so we have Putin today & Xi in China. Both Strongmen yearning power.
You may not have liked Obama or Biden, but then recognized the horrific track record of Russians not keeping any promises or China unsatisfied with it's vast country & still seeking revenge over their country being ripped up by others (the US included --serious trust issues there). Trump envies that power and wants it himself and his appeasement of Russia, at least, empowers Putin to continue in the vein of his power, and knows his country with its dwindling population & poor economy finds support from China, who was an adversary in the past.
Now we find more than just anteannae in drones: All manners of equipment & support is coming from China & will see much more in the months ahead & Ukraine, with just equipment & supplies from us & NATO (I've now separated the two), proven how this small country kept a force that is NOT superior, at bay. We need to keep doing that as soon we will see more activities by the Chinese in the South China Sea, as well as Taiwan.
WWII in Europe would not have happen if everyone stood up to Hitler in Chechoslovakia. No think what inaction could do.
RE: your comment "WWII in Europe would not have happen if everyone stood up to Hitler in Czechoslovakia." He is referring to the 1938 "Munich Agreement" which allowed Nazi Germany to annex the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain infamously declared "Peace in our time!", a cautionary example of the dangers of appeasing Russia in times of escalating tension.
Richard, Spot on! I believe we are the same age. While I never went beyond J.R.O.T.C., I did pay attention. Thank you for your eloquent comment, and thank you for your service
Well said. On a side note, china is and enemy, russia is an enemy, both show this by their constant actions. Hungary and Slovakia have enemy governments and are using NATO as their own personal shield because of western politicians weaknesses. A prime example of Enemies simply being ignored because of our political weakness.
Like Islamic ideology, communism is NOT compatible in any way with Western norms and freedoms, and yet our businessmen continue to weaken Western countries by thinking deal making is the thing to do.
China disrespecting the orange guy wearing diapers on the golf course? Say it isn't so. Everybody is disrespecting us with the clown show going on with this administration.
Ryan: There are a lot of useful comments given by you, but also some omissions that cause misunderstanding. First, antenna technology (CRPA in the dialog) is not particularly an advanced technology any more. Neither is GPS. Second, even with CRPA, the GPS signals must come from at least 4 different satellites visible in the sky. Those satellites have to be spread out, so the antenna has to view just about the entire sky to get a successful location fix. Jamming from the ground can be greatly reduced (around 20 or 30 dB) if the CRPA antenna can null out ground signals. But jamming from the sky cannot be reduced with a CRPA. You can bet that UKR will figure this out and take steps to modify their jamming methods. Third, the GPS signals have strong codes to spread the signal out in the bandwidth and permit some resistance to jamming. Its not much (under 10 dB) but still enough to resist "casual" or incidental jamming signals. Fourth, the navigation methods of cruise missiles, and now drones, has included inertial navigation for quite a while now. In simple terms, a drone can get a successful location fix in friendly territory, and then use inertial navigation to find its way to a target 100s or 1000s of km away. Accuracy is reduced with inertial navigation, which matters for hardened military targets, but this is not a factor for softer civilian targets.
So 2 reasons, none are a good sign. Wonderful! We are trying to appease Russia at the expense of Ukraine, WWIII here we come. Let's hope humanity survives.
Exactly. WW3 is inevitable but the adversary powers that be want to make sure the U.S. sits it out. History has shown that the U.S. sitting out wars has only helped the enemy. This is what they want from the Trump administration. All bluster, hollow ineffectual action.
You don’t need to be a genius to realize that pushing our allies to rearm themselves would lead them to go nuclear. You also don’t need to be a genius to recognize that nuclear proliferation is a bad thing. Imagine Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and Japan with nuclear weapons. We have a narcissistic idiot in the Whitehouse playing Monopoly with Geopolitics.
Since the US can no longer be considered a reliable ally, the EU and Asia Pacific must consider the new reality. The fact that other countries will fulfill their aims to go "nuclear" is just part of the new reality.
Yes, the US has (intentionally or not) taken the global lead (rather than the UN), including (as you point out) managing nuclear proliferation.
While important, the global leadership void and the unofficial "proliferation" of countries into two "powers" (consisting of multiple military and political structures) jockeying for world leadership is the larger problem?
I'm not surprised China is providing support to Russia. And I wouldn't be surprised if they have some sort of plausible deniability built into the methods of supplying those chips to Russia. We've done similar things by supporting rebel groups fighting Russian backed governments.
A) It provides them with intel on the effectiveness of their technology and procedures.
B) It is a cheap way to impact their western competitors/adversaries. One of the thousand cuts.
There's another possible source for these, and many other, semiconductors. Plain old theft. Truck loads of semiconductors are stolen occasionally and wind up on the black market. Of course these "thefts" could be staged as in...a trailer is parked at location 'x' and picked up by the "bad guys".
Does this article refer to "GPS" in the general sense or does this imply that Ukraine drones exclusively use the United States GPS system? The reason I ask is that hobbyist UAV's generally use more that one GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) to provide improved triangulation/accuracy and signal availability over a single satellite navigation system, as the popular DJI consumer drones using GPS (USA), GLONASS (Russia), Galileo (Europe), and BeiDou (China) for improved navigation. Ostensibly this approach is less susceptible to jamming since they all operate on different frequency spectrums, encoding and modulation technologies. Similarly, I assume Russia would also benefit using multiple GNSS technologies.
This may come as a surprise, but "On March 18-19, 2025 (after a phone conversation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin) Russia used .... 2 Iskander-M ballistic missiles, four S-300 anti-aircraft guided missiles and 145 Shahed in Sumy, Odesa, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv and Chernihiv." I guess none of these are "energy and infrastructure targets"?
I remember back in the day our military GPS units were the size of a brick (called PLGRs or "pluggers") and we had to occasionally fill them with classified "red keys" with a KYK-13 ("kick 13") to account for the injected errors. GPS had a capability called Selective Availablilty (SA) where the DoD could inject encrypted errors into the satellite signals to degrade accuracy or make them unusable to civilian GPS worldwide or in targeted regions/countries. In May 2000 President Clinton decided to turn it off entirely and in 2007 we switched to GPS III which eliminated SA. This is why we should have never went away from SA. Yes I'm the old PRC E-7 ("prick E-7") all the privates were sent to look for.
Interestingly, China is supplying chips to Russia, knowingly or unknowingly.
It has become clear that Ukraine will be defeated and absorbed into Russia unless a settlement is reached. In your comments and on X.com, I see a number of people pushing back against a settlement. If a settlement is not agreed to, how long do you think Ukraine can hold out?
I expect when Ukraine falls, it will be a "Homefront Collapse," like Germany in WWI, Russia in WWI, or even the USSR in 1991. It may be sudden. You pointed out the signs in one of your articles on Syria. What should we watch for in the fall of Ukraine? Can it last a year, or is it on the fast track now?
Retired US Army Officer here: I first entered the military in 1978 & both Russia (as the USSR) & China were well defined bad guys, though China, through Nixon, was a "friendly bad guy" as one commentator at the time put it. And that relationship kept us from having to split our focus. And the Russians? There was that hope in the 90's with the fall that maybe they would become a part of the civil world. But no, weak leadership, an oligarchy that craved money & control and a strong group yearning for the days of Stalin over came all efforts so we have Putin today & Xi in China. Both Strongmen yearning power.
You may not have liked Obama or Biden, but then recognized the horrific track record of Russians not keeping any promises or China unsatisfied with it's vast country & still seeking revenge over their country being ripped up by others (the US included --serious trust issues there). Trump envies that power and wants it himself and his appeasement of Russia, at least, empowers Putin to continue in the vein of his power, and knows his country with its dwindling population & poor economy finds support from China, who was an adversary in the past.
Now we find more than just anteannae in drones: All manners of equipment & support is coming from China & will see much more in the months ahead & Ukraine, with just equipment & supplies from us & NATO (I've now separated the two), proven how this small country kept a force that is NOT superior, at bay. We need to keep doing that as soon we will see more activities by the Chinese in the South China Sea, as well as Taiwan.
WWII in Europe would not have happen if everyone stood up to Hitler in Chechoslovakia. No think what inaction could do.
RE: your comment "WWII in Europe would not have happen if everyone stood up to Hitler in Czechoslovakia." He is referring to the 1938 "Munich Agreement" which allowed Nazi Germany to annex the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain infamously declared "Peace in our time!", a cautionary example of the dangers of appeasing Russia in times of escalating tension.
Richard, Spot on! I believe we are the same age. While I never went beyond J.R.O.T.C., I did pay attention. Thank you for your eloquent comment, and thank you for your service
Well said. On a side note, china is and enemy, russia is an enemy, both show this by their constant actions. Hungary and Slovakia have enemy governments and are using NATO as their own personal shield because of western politicians weaknesses. A prime example of Enemies simply being ignored because of our political weakness.
Like Islamic ideology, communism is NOT compatible in any way with Western norms and freedoms, and yet our businessmen continue to weaken Western countries by thinking deal making is the thing to do.
China disrespecting the orange guy wearing diapers on the golf course? Say it isn't so. Everybody is disrespecting us with the clown show going on with this administration.
It's pretty clear that the US switched sides in that conflict a few months ago, everyone just hasn't caught up yet.
Ryan: There are a lot of useful comments given by you, but also some omissions that cause misunderstanding. First, antenna technology (CRPA in the dialog) is not particularly an advanced technology any more. Neither is GPS. Second, even with CRPA, the GPS signals must come from at least 4 different satellites visible in the sky. Those satellites have to be spread out, so the antenna has to view just about the entire sky to get a successful location fix. Jamming from the ground can be greatly reduced (around 20 or 30 dB) if the CRPA antenna can null out ground signals. But jamming from the sky cannot be reduced with a CRPA. You can bet that UKR will figure this out and take steps to modify their jamming methods. Third, the GPS signals have strong codes to spread the signal out in the bandwidth and permit some resistance to jamming. Its not much (under 10 dB) but still enough to resist "casual" or incidental jamming signals. Fourth, the navigation methods of cruise missiles, and now drones, has included inertial navigation for quite a while now. In simple terms, a drone can get a successful location fix in friendly territory, and then use inertial navigation to find its way to a target 100s or 1000s of km away. Accuracy is reduced with inertial navigation, which matters for hardened military targets, but this is not a factor for softer civilian targets.
Can't we just make a deal? 🤣🤣🤣
As long as everyone us clear why China no longer appears to be taking the US seriously...
So 2 reasons, none are a good sign. Wonderful! We are trying to appease Russia at the expense of Ukraine, WWIII here we come. Let's hope humanity survives.
Exactly. WW3 is inevitable but the adversary powers that be want to make sure the U.S. sits it out. History has shown that the U.S. sitting out wars has only helped the enemy. This is what they want from the Trump administration. All bluster, hollow ineffectual action.
You don’t need to be a genius to realize that pushing our allies to rearm themselves would lead them to go nuclear. You also don’t need to be a genius to recognize that nuclear proliferation is a bad thing. Imagine Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and Japan with nuclear weapons. We have a narcissistic idiot in the Whitehouse playing Monopoly with Geopolitics.
Since the US can no longer be considered a reliable ally, the EU and Asia Pacific must consider the new reality. The fact that other countries will fulfill their aims to go "nuclear" is just part of the new reality.
Yes, the US has (intentionally or not) taken the global lead (rather than the UN), including (as you point out) managing nuclear proliferation.
While important, the global leadership void and the unofficial "proliferation" of countries into two "powers" (consisting of multiple military and political structures) jockeying for world leadership is the larger problem?
I'm not surprised China is providing support to Russia. And I wouldn't be surprised if they have some sort of plausible deniability built into the methods of supplying those chips to Russia. We've done similar things by supporting rebel groups fighting Russian backed governments.
A) It provides them with intel on the effectiveness of their technology and procedures.
B) It is a cheap way to impact their western competitors/adversaries. One of the thousand cuts.
Yes, exactly A and B, and plausibility deniability by pointing to "criminals" who "allowed" those chips to be "stolen."
China has also turned a blind eye to the sale of Fentanyl and precursors to criminals in North America.
There's another possible source for these, and many other, semiconductors. Plain old theft. Truck loads of semiconductors are stolen occasionally and wind up on the black market. Of course these "thefts" could be staged as in...a trailer is parked at location 'x' and picked up by the "bad guys".
China bought the previous President, of course they don't take us seriously.
Does this article refer to "GPS" in the general sense or does this imply that Ukraine drones exclusively use the United States GPS system? The reason I ask is that hobbyist UAV's generally use more that one GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) to provide improved triangulation/accuracy and signal availability over a single satellite navigation system, as the popular DJI consumer drones using GPS (USA), GLONASS (Russia), Galileo (Europe), and BeiDou (China) for improved navigation. Ostensibly this approach is less susceptible to jamming since they all operate on different frequency spectrums, encoding and modulation technologies. Similarly, I assume Russia would also benefit using multiple GNSS technologies.
This may come as a surprise, but "On March 18-19, 2025 (after a phone conversation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin) Russia used .... 2 Iskander-M ballistic missiles, four S-300 anti-aircraft guided missiles and 145 Shahed in Sumy, Odesa, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv and Chernihiv." I guess none of these are "energy and infrastructure targets"?
I remember back in the day our military GPS units were the size of a brick (called PLGRs or "pluggers") and we had to occasionally fill them with classified "red keys" with a KYK-13 ("kick 13") to account for the injected errors. GPS had a capability called Selective Availablilty (SA) where the DoD could inject encrypted errors into the satellite signals to degrade accuracy or make them unusable to civilian GPS worldwide or in targeted regions/countries. In May 2000 President Clinton decided to turn it off entirely and in 2007 we switched to GPS III which eliminated SA. This is why we should have never went away from SA. Yes I'm the old PRC E-7 ("prick E-7") all the privates were sent to look for.
https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/modernization/sa/
Interestingly, China is supplying chips to Russia, knowingly or unknowingly.
It has become clear that Ukraine will be defeated and absorbed into Russia unless a settlement is reached. In your comments and on X.com, I see a number of people pushing back against a settlement. If a settlement is not agreed to, how long do you think Ukraine can hold out?
I expect when Ukraine falls, it will be a "Homefront Collapse," like Germany in WWI, Russia in WWI, or even the USSR in 1991. It may be sudden. You pointed out the signs in one of your articles on Syria. What should we watch for in the fall of Ukraine? Can it last a year, or is it on the fast track now?