China out selling Russia in developing countries is a far more plausible scenerio than Russia out-selling the US in NATO countries. Tell me what token low budget item did Greece and SK buy?
Russia has contacts everywhere. A country that already uses Russian technology would make life difficult for themselves if they switched vendors; firstly, it would be a logistical problem, aircraft such as the JF-17 would involve a third party-- Russia, than comes the challenge of familiarizing and training with new weapons, in terms of arms export Russia is one of the largest and offers some extremely competitive systems and reasonable prices, overtaking Russia would be an up hill battles filled with landmines, barbed wire and snipers.
Even countries such as Algeria have purchased 180 T-90's from Russia, and don't get me started with the SU-30's popularity and reputation.
As for "low budget item(s)" Russia has sold items such as S-300's which aren’t cheap and BMP's, just to name a few.
Another point you fail to comprehend is how tied to economic links arms trade is. Economic ties are bargaining chips for arms contract negotiations, and Russia has nowhere near the economic reach of China in the world markets.
Ok they are not for sale, so what? Russia is holding on to a diminishing lead. Technology advantage is fueled by the economy underlying it. Russia being largely castrated as an economic power when the USSR fell, has no hope of catching up the US again.
I was waiting for you to say this (this is also important for ChineseTiger to read), most fields in Russian technology has actually advanced faster after the fall of the Soviet Union. For instance, for decades Russian engines has poor TBO time between overhauls and low service lives, now the standard is 1,000 hours TBO's and 4,000 hours service lives and this number is expected to increase on newer engines, Russian engines have also grew in sophistication, such as metallurgy and digital control systems that supersedes everything before it by a large margin. The same applies for countless other fields such as radars.
There are many reasons for such advances; firstly, there are now free enterprises in Russia, many of these companies work with foreign countries, thus they gather experience and apply it to various programs, remember something such as an aircraft can have dozens or hundreds of subcontractors providing everything from software, to engines and ejection seats, to machining, Russia is growing in many aspects, including software, and Russia has many bargaining chips and they have used them, does Israel not ring a bell? The mere fact that Russia is such an important weapons exporter has caused Israel to rethink its policies and even sell Russia weapons. Russia has also threatened to cut off fuel supplies to get what it wants.
It is also no surprise that American companies have sold powerful computers to Russian arms companies for incorporation in military hardware. Further, even Boeing and many other major international arms companies have good relationship with Russia and Russian companies. Companies such as Boeing even have Russian design headquarters and have publicly stated how important Russia is for sales, they were even kind enough to act as advisors for the Sukhoi 100 so it could get international certification other companies such as Thales were involved as well. Speaking of Thales, France has not been hesitant in selling Russia some of their latest technology such as jammers ect, and that's fine with us since there is always something that can be learned, even Israel is now selling to Russia, and again this is more than fine with us. I remember Israel stopped selling technology to China because of US protest but this has not been a problem for Russia. In the end Russia has established companies with decades of expertise as well as many smaller companies that are growing, an expanding IT sector is also important but Russia's biggest strength has been it diplomacy and smarts, look at all the foreign companies that are more than willing to do business in Russia.
As far as people talking about Russia not setting bench marks, clearly this demonstrates a lack of knowledge, I could write a book on some of the latest weapons and technology that has emerged from Russia, and sadly I would only know a small fraction of the weapons capabilities. I do suggest some research, Russia has set the benchmark for many systems such as supercalvitating torpedoes and HMC, soon the S-500 will re-right SAMS. Also research what many specialists have said about Russian weapons. They were more sophisticated than expected and in some cases found to be superior, even though popular belief said otherwise.
