Author guest post from Mike Murtagh.

There has been some interesting news and speculation in the media in recent days. This follows the appearance of the leaders of Russia, North Korea and China, along with a multitude of others from republics of the former Soviet Union and The Global South, at a huge military parade in Beijing.

Peter Caddick-Adams, in an online article in ‘The Critic’ covers something that I’ve been banging the drum about for many years. He puts forward the argument that the grandiosity of military displays of the kind to which we were treated a few days ago, are meaningless in terms of drawing conclusions about actual military capability. Sure, the shiny kit on display is something to behold (some of which, incidentally, could be bogus mock-ups and weapon-system concepts designed to intimidate), but in terms of its effectiveness in battle, it’s another thing altogether.

None of this kit has been tested on an actual battlefield, which is where it truly counts, unlike the weaponry deployed by the Western Powers opposing them, and also its troops, come to think of it. China (and Russia, for that matter) has a long record of military imagery over substance, exemplified by such displays. China puts a lot of effort into this kind of thing. Over 70,000 troops and hundreds of shiny new pieces of kit took over 70 minutes to cross Tiananmen Square, but it tells us very little, at least for the time being, about how the Chinese military will perform in a ‘hot’ war.

Caddick-Adams puts it nicely:

‘We must not overlook the immaturity of Beijing’s armed forces. Featuring in the 160 aircraft flypast were three Chinese YY-20 aerial tankers, the first indigenous design of this type, but a combat capability the UK and USA have possessed for the last 70 years. Likewise, Xi has two active aircraft carriers, a third undergoing sea trials and a fourth under construction, with two more planned by the 2030s. New to China, these are warship types the West have possessed for over a century. Additionally, the People’s Liberation Navy have few carrier aircraft and no doctrine or experience in their operational use. Its air-to-air refuellers and its carriers, as with the rest of its army and air forces, are combat virgins, a fact 3 September could not conceal.’

The Chinese, it appears, do not indulge to a significant degree in relevant training and logistic exercises, deficiencies which will come back to bite them in a combat situation.

The severe limitations of Russia’s previously much-vaunted military capability have been cruelly exposed during the continuing war in Ukraine. Indeed, something else might be coming into play in the wider scenario is the highly-likely possibility of Russia becoming very much the junior partner in the alliance with China and North Korea. I believe that this is already the case and that Putin has to be extremely worried about this development. Russia is another country that has ‘parade battalions’ explicitly designed to project an image to the world, but which, although they look pretty, actually have no significant combat capability.

Russia and China have had their border disputes for many years. I can foresee a time, as does Caddick-Adams, when the more economically-powerful Chinese decide to take advantage of the attrition being inflicted on Russia’s military in Ukraine by basically moving across the border to take control of the mineral wealth of Siberia for its own economic advantage. Russia could realistically do little to counter such a fait accompli. As I have stated in a previous blogpost, we live in interesting times!

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