We are releasing our investigation on Roscosmos, covering a nearly exhaustive sample of Russian ICBM producing plants. We have investigated both primary ICBM/SLBM producers in Russia, a major producer of launchers, manufacturers of parts and components.
Each material includes an eclectic collection of sources, ranging from the TV propaganda to public tenders, and from the HR listings to academic dissertations. Combined altogether, they provide a holistic picture of Russian ICBM production base that no single type of source can.
If traditional intelligence worked with the deficit of information, modern one must work with its hyper abundance. Our collection aims to introduce the media, academia and strategic community into the hyper abundance, depth and variety of sources on the seemingly impenetrable.
It is two companies within Roscosmos that are primarily responsible for the missile production. The Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology (MITT) makes solid-propellant missiles, Makeyev Design Bureau – liquid propellant ones.
Of these two, the MITT is a far richer company.
We investigated five Roscosmos plants:
1. Votkinsk Plant is one of two key intercontinental ballistic missiles producers in Russia. It is the sole manufacturer of solid-propellant missiles, such as ICBMs Topol-M and Yars, SLBM Bulava as well as missiles for the SRBM Iskander.
Votkinsk has automated an unusually wide variety of its production processes, implementing the fully integrated turnkey solutions in forging (Danieli Breda 🇮🇹) and in precision casting (Shell-o-Matic 🇨🇦). In terms of machining, however, it tends to be relatively frugal.
The Votkinsk Plant machining park consists of a mix of:
a) Modern Western equipment
b) Soviet machines upgraded with modern CNC controllers & servo drives (= "modernization" in the Russian manufacturing terminology)
2. Titan-Barriady is a major producer of launchers, control equipment and electronics for the SRBM “Iskander”, ICBMs “Topol”, “Yars”, and SLBM “Bulava”. Like the Votkinsk Plant, it is also a part of the much richer MITT holding (= solid-propellant missiles).
Titan-Barrikady is a heavily-lopsided enterprise that heavily prioritizes CNC machining. It has more of the modern, sophisticated CNC machinery by the leading Western European and American producers compared to any other plant in this sample.
It's a machining-oriented plant.
As we finished with the MITT (solid propellant), we now go to the Makeyev (liquid propellant). It is much poorer, with more archaic & often physically worn out machinery. Its actually missile production is largely concentrated within the single plant - Krasnoyarsk Plant.
3. Krasnoyarsk Plant is one of two principal ICBM producers in Russia. It is the leading manufacturer of liquid-propellant missiles such as the ICBM Sarmat and SLBM Sineva. It is the most important and best funded enterprise of the (relatively poor) Makeyev company.
It operates with a mix of Soviet stock, mid-tier modern imports (🇨🇿 Czech, mostly), and a few ad hoc machines assembled from the Western European parts. Overall, its park tends to be of lower tier compared with the MITT plants, yet by far the best within the Makeyev structure.
4. Zlatoust Plant is a relatively neglected facility making parts and components for the liquid propellant ballistic missiles (Sineva, Sarmat). It is an example of what a competent management can do with a chronically underfunded military plant.
It will largely switch to the production of civilian goods, household appliances and, most importantly, aluminium extrusion. The competent industrial management kept this plant alive, even when totally neglected by state.
5. Miass Plant is a liquid propellant SLBM producer of secondary importance. A lower priority enterprise of the poorer Makeyev hollding, Miass has faced severe financial constraints. Like Zlatmash, it tried selling to the civilian market, but with considerably less success.
Miass business model included selling the oil storage equipment, brewery machinery, LED lamps and the electricity from its power plant. Overall, it is a military purpose plant which struggled with adapting to the post-Soviet market realities and has very much degraded.
Some takeaways:
a) The Russian ICBM production base is a mix of modern Western equipment & remnants of Soviet machinery
b) There is almost nothing "Russian" out there
c) And, more interestingly, almost nothing Chinese
This suggests the policy of Chinese exclusion, pre-2022
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This collection of sources serves as a technical appendix to our report How Does Russia Make Missiles? On our research methodology see pp. 33-44, on our conclusions pp. 45-46 of the cited report.
Yes, and that is super duper quadruper important to understand
Koreans are poor (don't have an empire) and, therefore, must do productive work to earn their living. So, if the Americans want to learn how to do anything productive they must learn it from Koreans etc
There is this stupid idea that the ultra high level of life and consumption in the United States has something to do with their productivity. That is of course a complete sham. An average American doesn't do anything useful or important to justify (or earn!) his kingly lifestyle
The kingly lifestyle of an average American is not based on his "productivity" (what a BS, lol) but on the global empire Americans are holding currently. Part of the imperial dynamics being, all the actually useful work, all the material production is getting outsourced abroad
Reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Set in southwest England, somewhere in the late 1800s. And the first thing you need to know is that Tess is bilingual. He speaks a local dialect she learnt at home, and the standard English she picked at school from a London-trained teacher
So, basically, "normal" language doesn't come out of nowhere. Under the normal conditions, people on the ground speak all the incomprehensible patois, wildly different from each other
"Regular", "correct" English is the creation of state
So, basically, the state chooses a standard (usually, based on one of the dialects), cleanses it a bit, and then shoves down everyone's throats via the standardized education
Purely artificial construct, of a super mega state that really appeared only by the late 1800s
There's a subtle point here that 99,999% of Western commentariat is missing. Like, totally blind to. And that point is:
Building a huuuuuuuuuuge dam (or steel plant, or whatever) has been EVERYONE's plan of development. Like absolutely every developing country, no exceptions
Almost everyone who tried to develop did it in a USSR-ish way, via prestige projects. Build a dam. A steel plant. A huge plant. And then an even bigger one
And then you run out of money, and it all goes bust and all you have is postapocalyptic ruins for the kids to play in
If China did not go bust, in a way like almost every development project from the USSR to South Asia did, that probably means that you guys are wrong about China. Like totally wrong
What you describe is not China but the USSR, and its copies & emulations elsewhere
What I am saying is that "capitalist reforms" are a buzzword devoid of any actual meaning, and a buzzword that obfuscated rather than explains. Specifically, it is fusing radically different policies taken under the radically different circumstances (and timing!) into one - purely for ideological purposes
It can be argued, for example, that starting from the 1980s, China has undertaken massive socialist reforms, specifically in infrastructure, and in basic (mother) industries, such as steel, petrochemical and chemical and, of course, power
The primary weakness of this argument is that being true, historically speaking, it is just false in the context of American politics where the “communism” label has been so over-used (and misapplied) that it lost all of its former power:
“We want X”
“No, that is communism”
“We want communism”
Basically, when you use a label like “communism” as a deus ex machina winning you every argument, you simultaneously re-define its meaning. And when you use it to beat off every popular socio economic demand (e.g. universal healthcare), you re-define communism as a synthesis of all the popular socio economic demands
Historical communism = forced industrial development in a poor, predominantly agrarian country, funded through expropriation of the peasantry
(With the most disastrous economic and humanitarian consequences)
Many are trying to explain his success with some accidental factors such as his “personal charisma”, Cuomo's weakness etc
Still, I think there may be some fundamental factors here. A longue durée shift, and a very profound one
1. Public outrage does not work anymore
If you look at Zohran, he is calm, constructive, and rarely raises his voice. I think one thing that Mamdani - but almost no one else in the American political space is getting - is that the public is getting tired of the outrage
Outrage, anger, righteous indignation have all been the primary drivers of American politics for quite a while
For a while, this tactics worked
Indeed, when everyone around is polite, and soft (and insincere), freaking out was a smart thing to do. It could help you get noticed