Posted on 11/19/2022 2:29:16 PM PST by lowbridge
Belenko had been a respected pilot with the Soviet Air Defence Forces. But by 1976, he wanted to leave the Soviet Union. At the time, he was based near Vladivostok, as part of the 513th Fighter Regiment, 11th Air Army. The unit lived at Chuguyevka Airbase. It’s worth noting that the Soviet Air Defence Forces were a separate aerial branch from the Soviet Air Force, and that its members were an elite and trusted band. As such, Belenko, too, would be trusted. So much so, that when his blood pressure was elevated on the morning he planned to escape, the flight surgeon believed Belenko when he said he wasn’t nervous about anything, and that his BP was up because he’d been exercising.
Lieutenant Viktor Ivanovich Belenko at the time was learning to fly the new Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 supersonic interceptor jet. Western analysts had not yet examined a real “Foxbat,” and considered it to be a highly capable threat to NATO aircraft. The Secretary of the Air Force, Robert Seamans, had said the MiG-25 was “probably the best interceptor in production in the world today.”
The 29 year old Belenko correctly assumed that the United States would want to obtain a Foxbat.
Belenko planned to deliver one in person, in exchange for asylum. The jet was a voracious consumer of fuel, though, and wouldn’t make it from Chuguyevka to a U.S. or Canadian air base. It could, however, in theory reach a support base in Japan. Maybe.
Belenko set his escape for Sept. 6, 1976, when he would have good weather.
(Excerpt) Read more at sofmag.com ...
the US Military is too expensive too. It will collapse us if we don’t make other nations spend more as well.
I was at Dover AFB at the time, and when this happenef, the ‘oh crap’ was so thick, you could butter bread!
I completely support(ed) Trump-45’s efforts to make the rest of NATO and our other allies maintain their obligations.
I met him in passing one time. He flew into transient alert one weekend while flying across country. Of course he was in a T38.
I read his story in the Readers Digest back in the 1980’s..
When they took him to the grocery store he couldn’t believe all the food that was available to buy.. Back in Russia he would think about America when the Russian government would show them videos about America, He thought if America was so bad how come there is so many cars on the road.. He thought that the Russian Government was lying to the Russian People..
” crappy lives of the folks under communism,”
After I graduated college in the 80’s went to spend some time with family in communist Yugoslavia and East Germany. It was a shocker!
A few years later went back to Germany a few months after the Wall fell. Spent a day at the Brandenberg Gate getting to watching families be reunited. Spent the day crying and smiling!
Have a piece of the wall in my living room.
Wonderful!
After the Cold War was over, we learned that the Soviet economy was far smaller than we had estimated, but that the proportion of resources it dedicated to its military far greater than we had thought. The fatal defect of the Soviet system was that due to the economic dysfunction of Communism, the massive Soviet investment in scientific and technical education and arms research paid only limited if at times significant dividends.
In missile and space technology, for example, the Soviets got ahead of the US by catching us unaware. Then an aroused US surpassed the USSR, getting first to the Moon and developing a massive lead in nuclear armed ICBMs.
Meanwhile, US and British spy efforts learned of Soviet technical research that provided the basis for advanced weapons that could have presented major threats. Stealth, for example, was originally theorized by a Russian mathematician, but a lack of computer capacity made it impossible for the Soviets to attempt. The US though picked up on the idea and made it work -- with the US defense industry even hiring the Russian mathematician after he emigrated.
Similarly, Soviet work on lasers was also more advanced than the US for many years, but we eventually caught up and surpassed them. Laser defense systems are now making their way into US Army and Navy inventories, and in a decade, even US military aircraft will begin to be equipped with defensive lasers.
The way the US system works, we have people paid to be alarmists about enemy weapons capabilities, and people paid to be skeptics. The future being hard to forecast, we tend to hedge our bets and to do the research necessary to stay ahead of our adversaries. In time, the result is better weapons and military capability than our adversaries. It is not a cheap system, but it works.
Thank you for your insight.
“ When they took him to the grocery store he couldn’t believe all the food that was available to buy.”
——————————
That mirrors the experience of one of my father’s Russian cousins who got out in 1974 or 1975. He thought that my father was a member of the elites because we owned a decent-sized 2 story house on 3/4 of an acre, and he thought that the availability of fresh fruit in the local store was because that’s where our family “and the other local elites” shopped. So my parents took him to a store 3 miles away in a poor, mostly black, area…and they had not only the same kind of availability, but (much to his shock) their own cars and homes. He was even more shocked to drive through the middle of McGuire AFB, with fighters and giant transports only 100 yards from the highway.
“ The way the US system works, we have people paid to be alarmists about enemy weapons capabilities, and people paid to be skeptics. ”
————
We should AKWAYS have a Team A and a Team B advising our leadership. Too many yes-men and grifters out there to only have one viewpoint.
The number of defections has greatly decreased of late. Not too many pilots would trade Mother Russia for Dylan Mulvaney Trannyland.
In the public sector the government with the money always gives the money to the people who say and do the government approved agenda.
For most people not in the government, they just want the goveernment to do their agenda rather than the other guy’s agenda.
There are a large nuber of people who just want the gvernment to leave them, and everybody else, alone. But they are not a maority. So they form coaltions with those who want the government to be BIG GOV on immigration, or big gov on national Defense, or big gov on Poverty... or big gov on ....
and each of them says “But my agenda is different. My agenda is a good agenda for Big Government.
I remember taking a military strategy class in college only about five years after this incident. The topic of Soviet technology and their strategy came up and the teacher, Edward Luttvak, commented that a lot of defense analysts were laughing that the Soviets used vacuum tubes in the Foxbat, arrogantly thinking that we were /9-30 years ahead of them. He, on the other hand, Knew what that meant. Quite simply, it meant that this fighter, which was designed for the sole purpose of shooting down the B-70 bomber that we never built, was equipped to fight in a nuclear environment, as the vacuum tubes were immune to electromagnetic pulse, whereas the integrated circuits that we were using were not (and still aren’t). Further, the same analysts laughed when they found that the Foxbat used stainless steel engines, which were far heavier and which melted to some degree when the plane exceeded Mach three. However, the Soviets were able to produce those engines very cheaply compared to the high-tech turbo fans that we were using then, and they didn’t give a damn about the expense because they only wanted the plane to be able to catch a nuclear bomber that could wipe out several of their cities. As with the circuitry, different priorities lead to different conclusions, and our strategies were, for the most part, a bunch of morons.
My father once told me that the only reason that America won wars was because our enemies were more stupid than we were, that after his experience in the Navy and half a lifetime of observing how our politicians work. I see no particular reason to disbelieve what he told me.
“… arrogantly thinking that we were /9-30 years ahead of them.”
Should be “… arrogantly thinking that we were 20-30 years ahead of them.”
“… and our strategies were, for the most part, a bunch of morons.”
————
…Strategists
Agreed. We also have oddballs and visionaries in the system, some of whom are of consequence. Take a look at the lives and careers of physicist Edward Teller, USAF Lt. Col. John Boyd, and Admiral Ernest J. King — three unusual characters who each had a significant role in America’s military and on defense policy.
Yep that is the story I read also..
Our stuff is EMP- Hardened now.
One of my dearest friends in the Air Force was Moody Suter who passed in 1996. Moody was responsible for the concept of Red Flag at Nellis AFB for the USAF. He came up with the idea while an Action Officer in the basement of the Pentagon. He was also the primary fighter pilot to debrief Viktor Belenko. Viktor was kept at a place in Northern Virginia called Airlie. The two got to know each other very well. At some point they went to a shopping mall to look around. I think it was Tyson’s Mall but I can’t recall. As they entered, Viktor became very suspicious of what he saw. He concluded that the CIA had created the entire Mall to make him believe what the West was like. Eventually he realized it was really how things were.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.