I don't really mean to sound caustic but you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. There are two big mistakes which are commonly made these days: 1) technology is overrated (vs nature) 2) as humans we think we are in control and only first hand experience would teach us otherwise.
Pull out a phone at -40, it won't even switch on. Circuitry won't work, batteries won't last. Russia is a harsh country, with harsh people which has first hand experience of a territory where western technology wouldn't simply stand a chance.
Same can be said about a human being.
Edit: I'm being downvoted, so let me explain. Drones _can_ be made to function in temperatures way below -40; but humans are at their limit there. My point is: those who are discounting drones overestimate the capability of humans to operate in that temperature.
You defeat Russia before the war begins, by keeping them impoverished as they are today. So long as they retain their current system, they will remain that way perpetually. Putin was bailed out by the dollar induced boom in the price of commodities from 2002-2014, specifically oil; that party is over. He has no second trick up his sleeve, which is why he is now turning to invading his neighbors.
Today Russia's economy is 1/9th the size of the US economy. In just 15 years, the Russian economy will fall to 1/12th the size of the US economy.
When you are so far behind economically, and showing absolutely zero potential for progress, the long-term military threat you can pose (outside of nukes), becomes proportionally restrained. Russia is now a regional power, barely able to maintain its own mass, much less project power against something like NATO.
Russia's ability to project force outside of its borders, is dramatically lower than it was during Soviet times, and it's going to remain that way. There's no need to fight inside of Russia, when they can't fight outside of Russia.
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/could-chinas-renminbi-ri...
>Russia is a harsh country, with harsh people which has first hand experience of a territory
man, i'm a Russian.
> where western technology wouldn't simply stand a chance.
yes. Tell this to millions of USSR soldiers who was squashed by German tanks and aviation until USSR was finally able to ramp up the production of comparable technology in comparable numbers.
Before WWII the USSR's military doctrine (if one can call it that) was to respond to an aggression/invasion with a swift counter-strike using mostly cavalry and a bit of light fast tanks and kick the enemy back where it came from and deal with the enemy there, on their territory... The foundation of that "doctrine" was "glorious" (for the winners) days of Revolution 20 years earlier where such swift cavalry attacks were a powerful tool.
The same way today - manned tanks and aviation is going the way of cavalry 80 years ago. Manned tanks and aviation worked great in the WWII and for decades after that. And Russia today, like 80 years before, bets on the technology that worked in the previous victories (while not paying that much attention to the wars which were lost). With Afghan war that 20th century weaponry started to show it limitations for modern war - the war there there is no concentrated battle groups and fortified front lines, the war where a small relatively cheap, yet precise, weapon like Stinger easily takes out a valuable asset.
The drones will quickly become much better, much smarter and much cheaper. A one old "dinosaur" like F-15 or Su-27/35 (or even F-22) when faced simultaneously with 10-20 stealth drones able to go transonic or even supersonic with computer speed of reaction, able to continuously pull 10g+ without blood leaving the brain/retina/etc... and each firing an air-to-air missile almost simultaneously in choreographed attack pattern - should we make bets whether the pilot of the attacked plane would be able to execute all the necessary anti-missile maneuvers successfully ? :)
Good for you, hope you didn't take it personally. It wasn't supposed to be an insult, it's just the way it is. That's my personal point of view, of an italian who has spent years in Russia and lived in Magadan, Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Nojabersk, Irkutsk.
> yes. Tell this to millions of USSR soldiers who was squashed by German tanks and aviation until USSR was finally able to ramp up the production of comparable technology in comparable numbers.
This never happened. The USSR was never able to "ramp-up". They "made it" just moving whatever they could east and wait for winter. And thats where no german aviation/tank could keep up with the battle, isolated, without fuel, without supplies.
> The same way today - manned tanks and aviation is going the way of cavalry 80 years ago.
This is the point I heavily criticise. Our current technology isn't that great and we are VERY far from the point where an unmanned vehicle will keep up the fight with any manned one. No matter what. Drones are slow and laggy, GPS and network are unreliable, robots (in general) can't deal with harsh conditions - where the "human machine" actually shines showing the results of million of years in evolution. I guess ours are just different point of views.
> The drones will quickly become much better, much smarter and much cheaper. A one old "dinosaur" like F-15 or Su-27/35 (or even F-22) when faced simultaneously with 10-20 stealth drones able to go transonic or even supersonic with computer speed of reaction, able to continuously pull 10g+ without blood leaving the brain/retina/etc... and each firing an air-to-air missile almost simultaneously in choreographed attack pattern - should we make bets whether the pilot of the attacked plane would be able to execute all the necessary anti-missile maneuvers successfully ? :)
This sounds a lot like out of a movie.
imagine yourself in 1917 as a German soldier in trenches with 500 of this
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/12_01/tankDM0212_468x3...
coming toward your positions in formation (http://forums.canadiancontent.net/history/69756-how-worlds-f...) - it wasn't like movie, it were Martians straight out of the "War of the Worlds".
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Downvotes of substantive comments often get corrected by other users before the paint dries. But complaints about downvotes remain forever off-topic.