Russia, China Hold Large-Scale War Games

I thought this an interesting story to share. This is the season for exercises and it comes every year. The scale and scope is something worth noting though.

Pentagon intelligence agencies are closely watching Russian and Chinese war games now taking place in Europe and Asia involving tens of thousands of troops.

It's no small deal here by the standards of the last 20 years of relative quiet and not seeing large scale war games happening from the traditional "East".

Russia’s Zapad-13 military exercises in Belarus are scheduled to end Thursday. They included practice attacks on a western state, said one official familiar with reports of the maneuvers.

Some 13,000 Russian and Belarusian troops took part with over 60 aircraft and helicopters and up to 250 vehicles.

Source

Now I am sure some folks will be quick to ridicule the Russians and Chinese as inferior and second rate...as has come to be common across the internet on these topics. I think it's coming clear though, what once may have been true is no longer quite accurate though.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


a solidification of world powers at a time when America seems to be pissing off friend a foe alike with our NSA spying.... Russia and China are doing several things that would have been un-thought-of not to long ago... everything from monetary agreements which do not use Petrol Dollars to technology transfers. Wonder what the world will look like in 100 years if not sooner?

Maybe we wont have to worry about Obamacare.

May i know when this game happen sir? The link not work on my phone..I think this is not massive war game..but Massive joint preparation of coming "massive" disaster..

With the USA nearly going bomb crazy in Syria this was probably expected.

reply to post by stormdancer777

stormdancer777
Maybe we wont have to worry about Obamacare.

Hahaha, one can only hope and dream.....

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Quick, I will organize the Canadian forces, I just need to make 3 calls and that should be everyone.

The increasing magnitude of these events run by Russia/China is a bit disconcerting. Grant it, i am sure this is all as per the usual combination of geopolitical ballet and training exercise.

reply to post by cheesy


They are both ongoing right now. Russia's ends today I think. It says Thursday. China's just started on Tuesday.

NATO is starting their own war games after this on Nov 2-9 in Poland with 6,000 troops total. Gotta love how we always come in second these days... Anyway, NATO says it's definitely not about Russia while Russia seems to make no playing about the fact theirs IS about attack on Western states.

It is logical, really.. I mean NATO isn't practicing to attack evil gnomes coming up from people's lawns or something. We all know who it's about... I guess it can be said the Russians are at least up front about things.

MDDoxs
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

Quick, I will organize the Canadian forces, I just need to make 3 calls and that should be everyone.

Oh now I could have sworn the Canadians bought some surplus boats to make a Navy of some sort...didn't they? At least enough to chase errant fisherman. Toss that in with some Hockey players on a losing night and it could be a force to be reckoned with.

I do like how we're linguistically programmed to refer to them as 'war games'.

We should call them 'war practice' instead. Much more accurate.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


My buddy John has a boat that we can slap some Royal Canadian Stickers on to, would that count? Those refurbished subs that we bought from the UK i think did the same.

I would love to see a similar exercise to be conducted by NATO, or US, UK, Canada and Australia at the very least.

MDDoxs
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

Quick, I will organize the Canadian forces, I just need to make 3 calls and that should be everyone.

The increasing magnitude of these events run by Russia/China is a bit disconcerting. Grant it, i am sure this is all as per the usual combination of geopolitical ballet and training exercise.

The very same Canadians that refused to sign the Small Arms treaty? War mongering fiends.

Russia is not invading NATO with 13K troops. This is more about the former Soviet Republics that are more and more slipping out of Russia grasp and moving towards NATO. Ukraine in particular has become a huge concern for the Russians again. That larger military exercises are so rare in Russia they do not seem to be much for training so much as PR. It is amazing the stark difference between the US who has large military exrcises across the planet on a near monthly basis and most of the rest of the world where such things are rare and news worthy. China is interesting because it shows they are slowly trying move their army from old Soviet tactics to a more combined arms tactics like the Russians started to a couple of years ago. And yes I know the West has moved beyond combined arms with lots more information and command and control additions but, at its essence its still combined arms. However both these also show the China and Russia are not thinking of anything beyond their own borders.

Wrabbit2000

Now I am sure some folks will be quick to ridicule the Russians and Chinese as inferior and second rate...as has come to be common across the internet on these topics. I think it's coming clear though, what once may have been true is no longer quite accurate though.

From a purely technical aspect yes, they are inferior and second rate when compared purely on technology.

BUT.

Take into account a war wary populous.

A military stretched far to thin.

An economy that has its military at reduced force.

And well, the playing field starts to look very equal, make sense for anyone with a bone to pick to prepare.

Perfect time for other countries to start expressing their will on the world stage.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


One just needs to remember that Russia moved all its forces used in the 2008 war with Georgia under the cover of an exercise. This could be a move to bring in defensive forces closer to NATO borders or be a cover to have them relocate to another area after the exercise is over as the Russians did in 08.

benrl




An economy that has its military at reduced force.

I still cant grasp how a country which military expenidture is more than Russia, China, UK, France and a dozen other countrys acombined can be considerd a "reduced force".

you could cut your forces by half and still have enough to take on Russia and China if they attacked!

crazyewok

benrl




An economy that has its military at reduced force.

I still cant grasp how a country which military expenidture is more than Russia, China, UK, France and a dozen other countrys acombined can be considerd a "reduced force".

you could cut your forces by half and still have enough to take on Russia and China if they attacked!

Americans get confused by term like streched thin and reduced force. Even when we were "streched thin" with Iraq and Afganistan we still had 95% of our active forces in the US or its terrirories not mention several layers of reserve forces and the 54 states and territories with National Guard units. The US accounts for 50% of the words defence spending and when you add in NATO that number becomes 75%. This does not even count other US allies like Japan, Australia, South Korea etc. I think it is hard for people to imagine how completely dominate the US military is on a global scale. They make it look easy to send and supply huges forces all over the globe. Nobody else can even come close to that. However defense spending is a political hot potatoe, if you cut it you hate America and you can bet the military will be claiming its about to shut down as soon as someone mentions budget cuts.