The appearance of an amazing new supercomputer, Summit, put together at the National Research Laboratory in Oak Ridge by the US Department of Energy places the United States well ahead in a field where China has predominated since 2013. And it does far more than that. Interviewed today in Vzglyad' ru by Nikita Kovalenko, Russian academician … Continue reading The Gap in Super Computers

Relations between the triad dominating most of Syria - Russia, Turkey and Iran - are unstable and have become more so as ISIS succumbed to overwhelming odds against it. Having agreed on a Syrian ceasefire in Kazakhstan, now the cracks in the coalition are showing through. Last week the Russians asked that the Iranians withdraw … Continue reading Iran Alienates Russia

Today in an extraordinarily self-obsessed leading article, Vzglyad' ru declares that "Italy has chosen a man for the removal of anti-Russian sanctions." Well, that man, Giuseppe Conti, is a lawyer with no real political experience of government and a very peculiar curriculum vitae - listing one month studying in the library of Girton College, Cambridge, … Continue reading How Self-Centred Can One Get?

Now that President Putin has a new term of office, it could have been expected that this would provide a great opportunity for fundamental change to put right what has gone wrong over the past decade and a half. Yet the old guard remains - Lavrov at the Foreign Ministry and Shoigu at Defence. The … Continue reading Russian Military Capability in Doubt

Moscow does not give up easily. The President had a long bridge built to join Russia to the Crimea and then apparently drives a large lorry from one side to the other. Perhaps Britain's Prime Minister can score a second by finally building the new railway connecting north and south of England and then drive … Continue reading Is it Worth Wedge-Driving into NATO?

In major conflicts practitioners and historians might argue whether, as Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin believed, morale is more critical to success in warfare than materiel. But in minor wars that have to be confined in time and extent the quality of military technology could matter more. The Russians traditionally relied on the weight of numbers … Continue reading Low Tech Undercuts Local War

Anyone watching the international scene, particularly those transfixed by American television, has long been accustomed to reaching for a stiff drink and succumbing to weary resignation at the endless stream of unhinged hysteria, the fog of verbal war. But then we can switch off and look for rational statements emanating from within government to adjust … Continue reading Russian Hysteria and Russian Sang Froid