A Series of Export Problems

Defensenews.com published a piece today on the collapsed state of Russian defense exports to China, citing an independent Russian paper.

"From a situation where 40 percent of Russian earnings from arms exports came from China, “recently exports to China of our military equipment and weapons have dropped almost to zero,” the paper said."

This is only the latest in a series of recent export contract alarms. In the last year, India has been battling the Russians over contracts for upgraded Il-38s, Kilo subs and the enormous Gorshkov/Vikramaditya aircraft carrier project.

The general trend indicates serious problems with the Russian defense export industry, in terms of both technological capability and business management. Perhaps the same problems can in part explain the difficulties in equipping Russia's own military - even when the government is able and willing to pay.

It will be interesting to see what kind of impact the recent defense industry restructuring plans (1, 2) might have on these issues.