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Russia to create Arctic complex monitoring system by 2025
With NATO pushing up to Russia's border, it can forget getting a chunk of the Arctic
Russia to create Arctic complex monitoring system by 2025 with drones and satellites
… from Russia Today, Moscow
Will there be a battle for the Arctic?
[ Editor’s Note: These plans by Russia come as no surprise. As the old saying goes, “possession is nine tenths of the law”.
The Arctic is in Russia’s back yard and next in line come the Canadians, but the Russians will be winning the infrastructure game long before the UN courts eventually weigh in on the contested challenges over continental shelf claims.
New missile technology and a modernized, well trained and mobile military will keep Western incidents down to just that. With NATO pushing up to Russia’s border in violation with the breakup promises of the old Soviet Union, it can forget getting a chunk of the Arctic, other than Norway.
And sanctions will be much less effective as the years go by with the future of big oil barter contracts that will not be going through the international banking system, much less traded on dollars. Reserve currency strength is trending toward how much in-ground resources are behind them. If the US continues its nasty sanctions wars it might find its own banks not allowed to operate outside the Russian system so it can retaliate quickly when the US plays the economic war card.
Up till now resource exploration in the Arctic has been horribly expensive under the harsh conditions. Huge petroleum fields have to be found to make development feasible. And then there is the price wild card. What makes sense at $100 a barrel does not at $60. The Saudis, with their low cost extraction position and small population, can ride out a price drop better than anyone. We watched this happen over the past year.
Have you noticed how the US shale oil bonanza hype disappeared? Well, it didn’t completely as US hypsters are still seeding media for our being energy independent “in a few years”. This seems strange because that whole prediction was based on shale deposits. The con men are still selling the “exports to Europe to push the Rooskies out”.
They never give up, and neither shall we in our efforts to unmask and publicize their parasite schemes and manipulations. They never change their colors…nor shall we…
– First published … August 07, 2015 –
A Russian defense corporation is developing a complex control system for the Artic which will be launched by 2025. The system will include drones and space and underwater satellites, interconnected via transport and communications.”By 2020-2025, a system to monitor the Arctic will be created.
This includes a unified data space, monitoring everything going on in the air, water, underwater and on land,” a spokesperson for RTI Systems corporation, which is developing the system, told RIA Novosti. According to the corporation spokesman, the system has a dual purpose: civilian and military.
“The Ministry of Economic Development wants a civilian version, an integrated database on the situation in the Arctic by 2016.”
The cost of the system will be about 6 billion rubles (around $93 million), while the first stage of the development has been estimated at 300 million rubles ($4.6 million), RTI said, adding that dozens of Russian companies are involved in the process.
The system includes several elements, such as underwater system of lighting, space satellites and Russian “Kaira” drones, RTI Systems’ spokesman said. These elements will be united and coordinated by transport and communications.
“[Then we will have] a management segment, which we are now implementing. This is some kind of Industrial control system (ICS), integration platform, which gathers data from all sources. This is a software complex.”
RTI Systems is a leading Russian corporation in radar systems development, aerospace equipment and navigation technologies. The company says it is among the 100 largest defense corporations in the world.
The underwater shelf geology is supposed to determine legal claims
Russia has recently started developing its northern regions. Moscow now sees the development of the Arctic region as a priority, both for its natural resources and as a potential route for transport vessels from Asia to Europe.
In January this year, Russia’s chief of General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, said that the Arctic will be among the regions which Moscow will be reinforcing in 2015, in addition to Kaliningrad and Crimea.
“In 2015, the Defense Ministry’s main efforts will focus on an increase of combat capabilities of the armed forces and increasing the military staff in accordance with military construction plans. Much attention will be given to the groupings in Crimea, Kaliningrad, and the Arctic,” Gerasimov said.
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But the futuristic craft is actually Russia's proposed new nuclear-powered icebreaker.
The ice-breaking craft, which has been named 'Leader', is designed to keep the Northern Sea Route, along the country's Arctic coast, open all year round.
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The ice-breaking craft, which has been named 'Leader', is designed to keep the Northern Sea Route, along the country's Arctic coast, open all year round
Mr Rogozin, 52, who has been in charge of Russia's defence industry since 2011, revealed that the revolutionary icebreaker would be called Leader.
It would have a working capacity of 110 megawatts and would be capable of cutting through ice up to 4.5 metres (14.8 feet) deep.
And it would be capable of ploughing through ice that is two metres (6.6 feet) thick at a speed of 29 kph (18 mph).
Leader would allow tankers carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) weighing up to 300,000 tonnes to pass through the Northern Sea Route in any season.
The project is being developed at the Krylov State Research Centre in Russia's second city of St Petersburg in the north-western part of the country.
Russia’s enormous icebreaker is 586 feet long and more than 100 feet wide, and will be able to break ice up to 10 feet thick, and 13 feet deep.
Mr Rogozin said that the goal was to build one main icebreaker ship, and two reserve icebreakers, that would replace those that have been in operation since Soviet times.
The unique construction, which does away with the traditional cross-rib design, would give the new icebreaker the highest manoeuvrability in the world, he added.
The Northern Sea Route lies entirely in Arctic waters, from the Kara Sea, off Siberia, to the Bering Strait. Parts are free of ice for only two months a year.
In June, Russia launched its biggest icebreaker yet, The Arktika, in the hopes of maintaining national defences and navigating the Arctic.
At first glance, you might mistake the icebreaker craft design as a spaceship from one of the Star Wars films. Pictured is the Millenium Falcon spaceship
The enormous icebreaker is 178 metres (586 feet) long and more than 40 metres (100 feet) wide, according to Sputnik News, and will be able to break ice up to 10 feet thick, and 13 feet deep.
At its launch, Sergey Kiriyenko, chief executive of Rosatom, said: ‘The Arktika’s launch is a victory in all senses. Today we can say that by the end of 2017, this icebreaker will join Rosatomflot.
'This will open up fundamentally new opportunities in front of our country in terms of maintaining the national defences and year-round navigation in the Arctic and ensuring economic development in a region that is of crucial importance to Russia and the whole world.’
It is unclear if the Leader craft will join the Rosatomflot, or when it will be built.
Which U.S. Senators Want War on Iran
Does USA really want war with Iran and their allies? Find out how many Senators are standing for war!
By David Swanson, WarIsACrime.org
Let’s do the count:
Senators rallying and whipping their colleagues to support the Iran agreement: 0.
Senators admitting that Iran has had no nuclear weapons program and has never threatened or been a threat to the United States: 0.
Senators pushing the false idea that Iran is a nuclear threat but indicating they will vote to support the agreement precisely in order to counter that threat: 16
(Tammy Baldwin, Barbara Boxer, Dick Durbin, Dianne Feinstein, Kirsten Gillibrand, Martin Heinrich, Tim Kaine, Angus King, Patrick Leahy, Chris Murphy, Bill Nelson, Jack Reed, Bernie Sanders, Jeanne Shaheen, Tom Udall, Elizabeth Warren)
Republican (and “Libertarian”) senators indicating they will try to kill the agreement, thereby moving the United States toward a war on Iran: 54.
(All of them.)
(All of them.)
Democratic senators inspired during the repulsive Republican debate Thursday night to announce that they will try to kill the deal (and would rather have a war): 1.
(Charles Schumer.)
(Charles Schumer.)
Democratic senators who haven’t clearly stated a position: 29.
The number of those 29 who would have to join Schumer to kill the agreement and set the United States on a path toward self-isolation, international disgrace, and disastrous illegal immoral catastrophic war that will make Iraq and Afghanistan look like diplomacy: 12.
Can we keep the agreement protected from such a fate?
Of course we can. We’ve been stopping a war on Iran for many years now. We stopped it in 2007. Such things never enter U.S. history books, but wars are stopped all the time. In 2013, the push for a massive bombing campaign on Syria was hard and absolutely bipartisan, yet public pressure played the key role in stopping it.
Now we have the White House on our side for godsake. When Obama wants a horrible corporate trade agreement fast tracked or a supplemental war spending bill rammed through or a “healthcare” bill passed, he twists arms and offers bribes, he gives rides on his airplane, he sends cabinet secretaries to do PR events in districts. If he really wants this, he’ll hardly need our help. So one strategy we need to keep after is making clear he knows we expect this of him.
Senator Sanders has a gazillion fans now, and something like all but 3 of them believe he is a hero for peace. If you’re a Bernie supporter, you can urge him to rally his colleagues to protect the Iran agreement.
In states like Virginia where one senator is taking the right position and one is keeping quiet, urge the first one (Kaine) to lobby the other one (Warner).
Would-be senators like Alan Grayson who want people to think of them as progressives but who have been pushing to kill the deal since before Schumer slithered out from under his rock, should be hounded everywhere they show their faces.
Schumer himself should not be permitted to appear in public without protest of his warmongering.
Just as in the summer of 2013, most senators and house members are going to be at public events in the coming weeks. Email and call them here. That’s easy. That’s the least anyone can do. And it had an impact last time in 2013. But also find out where they will be (senators and representatives both) and be there in small or large numbers to demand NO WAR ON IRAN.
The most expensive weapons system they’ve got (“missile defense”) has been using the mythical Iranian threat as a ridiculous justification for picking your pocket and antagonizing the world in your name for years and years. But Raytheon wanted those missiles to hit Syria, and Wall Street believed they would.
The Israel lobby has much of Congress bought and paid for. But the public is turning against it, and you can shame its servants.
The Israel lobby has much of Congress bought and paid for. But the public is turning against it, and you can shame its servants.
In the long run, it’s useful to remember that lies do not set us free.
If both proponents and opponents of the agreement depict Iran falsely as a nuclear threat, the danger of a U.S. war on Iran is going to continue, with or without the deal. The deal could end with the election of a new president or Congress. Ending the agreement could be the first act of a Republican president or a Schumerian Democratic Leader.
So, don’t just urge the right vote while pushing the propaganda. Oppose the propaganda as well.
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