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75% of Russia's Satellite Electronics Come From US
schwit1 writes: One Russian aerospace industry expert noted today that three-quarters of all their satellite electronics comes from the United States: "According to [Nikolay Testoyedov], up to 75 percent of the electronic components for Russian satellites come from the US. Consequently, if it retaliates should Moscow refuse to sell RD-180 rocket motors to Washington — which Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has threatened — Russia's satellite program would be frozen for at least two years. "The imported electronic components in our satellites represent 25 to 75 percent of the total in communications; in military ones, somewhat less; in commercial ones, more," Testoyedov says. Of these imported components, approximately 83-87 percent come from the United States thus giving Washington the whip hand." If we stop providing these electronics he estimates that after their present stock runs out in about a year it would take at least two years before Russia could replace these American-made parts. As the above linked article at The Interpreter mentions, this is relevant in part because of recent talks about U.S. sanctions which could affect this kind of commerce.
Or buy it direct from China, where it's actually made.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
well, yes, considering TI/NS supply most of the space hardened electronics for the entire planet...
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Is TX Instruments somehow related to this story?
Yep.
Who do you think builds radiation resistant electronics? Radio Shack?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
That title is terrible, and not supported by the article.
The article presents some numbers, quoting Nikolay Testoyedov:
Now, I think Slashdot gets off the hook for the misleading title, because the firggin article attributes the 75% from the US number to Nikolay Testoyedov and used the same number in its title. But the article title demonstrates some terrible critical math and reading comprehension skills.
Why? Manufacturing goes overseas because it's cheaper, but when you automate the process or require skilled labor it's not really any cheaper to offshore it. In fact, according to Wikipedia the US has more chip fabs than any other country. Significantly so. In fact in general the US is third in the world (behind China and the EU) in total manufacturing output. It just doesn't have very many manufacturing jobs anymore, because most of the plants went hi-tech.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Creating radiation resistant computer components is not as easy as fabricating a consumer video card. It is extremely expensive and time consuming. In industries that deal with specialty military hardware, you'll tend to see that there are only a handful of those companies in existence and they are concentrated in America (in this case, Texas Instruments has that particular market). You cannot export that sort of fabrication to another country without also exporting the people, R&D, and military secrets along with it.
So yes, it would be very difficult for Russia to find another supplier for a lot of these components or to start manufacturing all of them locally. This is not consumer technology.
China is not as complex. China has a highly centralized autocratic power structure. Their commander of their military is largely the head of the country. Not the president. You can tell because in times of crisis such as TIanaman Square, the people in charge of different branches will start changing hats. And person ultimately in control will be the commander of the military. Which is again, not the president.
The ways in which china is actually simplified via its power structure are many.
In the US, the political gestalt is relevant. In china it something to be controlled but which does not impose itself on the politicians or bureaucrats.
A simplified way of thinking about the US would be to imagine a group of high school students in a stereotypical horror movie. This is useful because the stereotypes can stand in as abstractions of the political mass.
Now, watch that group of teenagers in various situations. Depending on the situation, different teenagers will be in control of the situation. The brain nerd is going to be queried for his opinion when brainy nerd stuff comes up. The macho jock guy is going to be the most relevant when there is some kind of physical threat to the group. One or some collective of the girls might be relevant in various other situation.
And so on. The point is that the people that make decisions changes based on the circumstances.
Your violent alcoholic uncle is usually a joke. But if someone in your family needs to charge into melee or risk getting a bottle cracked off his head... he's probably going to be the guy that steps up. And no one in the group is going to suppress him in that situation.
In the context of the US, the economic and business people are relevant if there is money to be made. They care about that and will buy access... and on top of that, most people appreciate that they're the best people to send into that situation because they'll know what matters and what doesn't for business.
But the way they think and their priorities are specific to their subculture.
Now if you destroy the economic interests in that situation then the business people will abandon it and you'll probably get some faction of the diplomatic wing showing up to make nice with people.
If that all goes to hell and people start getting killed, then diplomats are going to get suppressed and you'll swing over to the hawks. And the hawks naturally have a very different way of looking at the world than do the other groups. Scare the country or present some sort of credible threat to the nation and these sorts of people that normally don't get a lot of attention or authority... are suddenly the most powerful people in the society.
This rapid shift in mentality confuses other powers because they get used to dealing with one faction and they assume that faction is the whole country or will regardless call the shots in any situation.
As such, the peace and diplomacy crew are often assumed to be the only faction in the US of relevance. Enemy powers get used to the dithering of this group when there are minor hostilities. But what happens when a major incursion happens is that these people lose all power. Literally all. They're dog food. And the often irrelevant hawks step into place... and basically do this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
If you don't understand American culture, then you don't grasp that the diplomatic core is the softly spoken words. And confusing that for weakness is a mistake.
The rage, ferocity, and merciless of the American people when this line is crossed is frequently a surprise to rival powers. They don't see it coming.
They get used to in some cases decades of inaction, tolerance, and unconditional forgiveness for various slights or transgressions. But the line is crossed... and things change completely.
We have far more factions than that. Different groups have more credibility in different situations. If you change the conditi
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.