Great info. Though, I've heard that China and Russia have had their differences, and that it isn't that far out to imagine that they could have a conflict. Boarder disputes and different outlooks on India, for example.
As China grows and deploys "One Road", it's possible China would become more comfortable in traditionally Russian influenced areas than Russia would prefer.
Great info. Though, I've heard that China and Russia have had their differences, and that it isn't that far out to imagine that they could have a conflict. Boarder disputes and different outlooks on India, for example.
As China grows and deploys "One Road", it's possible China would become more comfortable in traditionally Russian influenced areas than Russia would prefer.
Russia owns the east for the same reason the USSR used to own Ukraine and the baltics: buffer zone. They're not truly interested in those lands, as evidenced by the lack of development--especially since the USSR fell. It's a long, long way from the Urals to Kamchatka and there's almost nothing in between.
The largest city in Kamchatka Oblast is Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, weighing in under 180k and falling. Sakhalin around 500k, Vladivostok around 600k, Khabarovsk 575k, Irkutsk around 580k and 1000 miles inland, which is almost like New York to Denver and you're only about 1/3 the way to the Urals. It's so damn vast and inhospitable, the East is no way to enter Russia.
The best way to make that trek would be along the borders with China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan--all allies with Russia, whom I assume wouldn't just let that happen. On top of that, it would be over less-than-stellar infrastructure--they never developed the road systems we did and they surely wouldn't be a top asset to use against them. The "best" way to attack Russia is, and always has been, through Europe where they strongly guard for just that reason.
Maybe they're technologically inferior from a feature standpoint, but don't win their wars on technological advances, but on pure numbers and will. What technology they do have works better than ours at what it does. They make their products to survive nature, not to simply exist in a conditioned version of it like we have in the west. Check out what Top Gear did to the GAZ-66, a Soviet era military truck..
Russia is basically untouchable, just like the US because of the oceans and allies. If that wasn't true, the Cold War wouldn't have been cold. They are the real-life story of the unstoppable force (USA) vs immovable object (Russia).