Message posted by Homersonic on March 03, 2008 at 21:09:16 PST:

Aside from the "whose aircraft is better under which pilot's hands?" question about the comparables? Things are starting to change under Putin/Medvedev as they're starting to both pump funding into the Russian military and take a slightly confrontational stance in terms of their relations with "the West."

I'm not about to suggest that there's some sort of magnificent aircraft flying out of Zhukovsky, but there's more to the resurgence of totalitarianism in the post-Soviet Russian state than simply buzzing the U.K., Alaska, and aircraft carriers in international waters with TU-95's.

The Russians are developing the Mig 1.44 and Sukhoi PAK FA, and while these aircraft are on the "slow track" as the money just isn't like it used to be, I think the political developments of the past few years, at the very least, bear watching with a reasonably close eye. While engineering Medvedev's puppet monarchy under "prime minister" Putin is important for the present, the future is going to get interesting, fast.

We're living in a time when the line between democracy and dictatorship has been rendered invisible by a Soviet-era nip and tuck, and we'll see whether the Russians want to back that up with a bulked-up military over the next three-to-five years.

In Reply to: Re: Soviet Stealth posted by Alex (UK) on March 03, 2008 at 13:45:07 PST:

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