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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025

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The newer Russian planes are fine compared to anything short of an F-22/35, but they can't build them quickly enough or at all (in the case of MiG 31s, or non-Flanker strike aircraft like the Su-22s and 25s, Tu-95s, etc.) to afford chucking them into the teeth of Ukraine's air defense network Gulf War style and they didn't start the war with huge numbers of them thanks to having next to no procurement budget during the 90s and 2000s. Does the Su-57 do anything that an Su-30/35 or MiG 31 can't also do (The R-37 is indeed clever.)? Who knows, because they've only built ~30 of them.

Mind you, even before being provisioned with Patriots and so on Ukraine started the war with a very good ground-based IADS thanks to being either the second or third-largest operator of the S-300 and other 80s era Soviet SAM systems in the world, especially given an all you can eat buffet of NATO recon. It would've been a tough nut to crack for anyone not named the USAF.