This is just right this guys make comments just to score political points with the general public, and is not Russia who is pushing for the sale of the Mistral ship is the government of France who is pushing for the sale, as always the media in the west is twisting the truth. So keep reading the alternative media.

I like very much this gentleman Paul Craig Roberts. Not because he is anti-US american, but exactly for he is a genuine american character who fights to restore US to keep moving along the path of dignity and world-wide respectability. All these wars that Mr Roberts is reffering to have alreeady damaged the reputation of US to a level that it is now just next to nothing. As a proven US patriot it is not strange at all that Mr Roberts reacts the way he does.

Russia needs this ship far less then France needs the sale. The reason for the noise is not the ship. It is the fear of what France may have promised to Russia in return.

First of all, as I wrote it before, buying that ship is just a waste of money. Secondly: If Russia will have taken advantage of the love-affair between Misters Medvedev & Obama and buy a similar boat in America, those senators will have say nothing. Thirdly: US republican senators; please Mind your own business ! (France is broken, she has over 2000 billion$ of dettes and must buy a new airplane for Sarkonaparte 1er. Getting 600 millions € from "good" Russia will help)... Sincerely. Jean-Claude Meslin

Funny story about the Mistral ship, and I hope that is not similar to the Pentagon buying their 179 air tanker from Airbus EADS was to bait France into NATO now we will see who will be awarded the contract,I see Boing. Hope Russia is not playing stick and carrot.

Paul Craig Roberts is a decent man. However, he does not seem to appreciate that the Republican war mongering, profiteering and Russophobic ideologies are well represented in the Obama administration. The Obama administration's Secretary of Defense shares these ideologies completely and so far Obama’s actual decisions, as opposed to his empty rhetoric, reflect the Republic ideologies. Paul Craig Roberts also knows that this and similar comments have been made by members Obama’s own administration. I do not know why Russia needs this ship when it can build her own battleships and carrier ships but whatever quid pro quo reached between France and Russia, Russia knows that Europe is run by the Americans and that Republican ideologies shape the U.S foreign policies and military doctrines and that Russia, more than any other country, is considered as the real and or imagined eney of the United States since end of WWII and that has not change with the coming of the Obama admin.

Meslin. This ship is not a waste of money, these are very versatile craft with many uses even in the civil sector. Simply buying the ship and studying how it is built will save Russia tons of money. This can bypass most of the R&D costs to build one of these from scratch.

Scrat335 I had to laugh hard after reading your comment. So, according to you it is much better and or easier for Russia not invest in R&D in this area but insteast purchase a ship build according to the engineering design of a foreign country and then study the how the ship was build! Well that information is already Available so why not read the construction manual of the ship, which I am sure is easily obtainable? R&D has many spin offs and no nation can get away with not investing in R&D and still maintain cutting edge in the relevant scientific discoveries and technological innovations in that field. My sense is that Russia is doing this as a quid pro quo for something else. I just do not know what something else is.

You are correct Sarah, it would be better to start from scratch but oil is not $140 a barrel now is it? As for the R&D aspects of it having a set of prints and the finished goods is nothing to scoff at. You will learn things as you go building others and save money by not making the mistakes, if done right. There will be spinoffs either way. This same ship can be converted to a RO-RO very easily.

Scrat335, You suggestion that Russia does not know how to build a Mistral class vessel is a bit of a joke. The Mistral is basically a light carrier equipped with a reduced helicopted complement, no fixed wing aircraft, and optomisied for amphibious landing operations. It looks somewhat like a fusion of the old Soviet Kiev class carriers and the Ivan Rogov class landing ship, albeit using more modern machinery and electronic systems. Aside from other intangibles (such as political pay-offs) it would make more sense to support Russia's shipbuilding industries by designing and constructing an indigenous vessel, ie stimulate home grown industry and help support local jobs. The fact that the feds want to purchase the Mistral suggests there is more to this than just a piece of military hardware.

Scrat335 Do you think that Russia’s security- and scientific know-how- falls and rises with the prices of crude oil! Perhaps we have different understanding of what R&D entails. Russia has accumulated knowledge in naval technology and shipbuilding. As I indicated before, there are many other reasons why Russia may want to purchase foreign build naval carriers/ ship. I do admit that Russia had been damaged by the crisis of 1990s ; that as a result of 1990s crisis, many of Russia's best and brightest scientists and engineers went to the west for better paying jobs but some of them are coming back. It is also pertinent to stress that Russia had and still has deep scientific culture. Of course, there is nothing wrong with Russia purchasing military/ or dual purpose technology from other countries but Russia needs to recover its lost industrial capacity and one way to do that is build its own weapons and build its ships as it has all the natural row/mineral resources and the scientific/technological know-how to build large structures such as naval ships, submarines, etc. Very few nations in the world have what Russia has: highly trained educated people and abundant natural resources and industrial infrastructure. Yes, Russia needs to upgrade its industries and other key infrastructure but it must never compromise its security and scientific/technological development.

Let Russia have half of the ship. Just cut it down the middle and let France hold half of the ship until France knows whether Russia is going to have a national holiday for Napoleon's conquests.

Gazza & Sarah. I made no such suggestion. Russia is capable of building some of the most advanced airplanes on earth not to mention some of the most beautiful. Russia runs the most consistently functional space program in this world BUT how many new modern ships have come off the dock in the last 20 years. Not very many. The USSR built the Typhoon/Akula submarines and the carriers, the USSR built the AN-225 Mira. It seems to me that Russia does not have the will/means to utilize its talents. Russia does need to improve in the ship building sector I think. The reasons for buying this ship are both political and practical in more ways than we can see. I also wonder if Russia really values its Navy like other nations do, do the politicians really think they need one? There are more questions than answers here.

Scrat335 So, Russia maintaining "functional spacecrafts" in space when NASA has none! Now, the United States has been engaged in wars since the end of WWII whereas Russia has not committed itself to of the magnitude of that which it fought in WII. But how it is the United States does not have "functional" or "sophisticated" spaceship even as it seeks to control counterpace? It is remarkable testimony to Russia’s scientific know how and intellectual tenacity to maintain its space program even as the Western capitalist vultures and their Russian oligarches were carefully disremembering the very moral, educational and scientific structures of Russia. Russian scientific mindset is informed by the land and the society and that is why its weapons functioned just fine in WWII when those of supposedly better engineered weapons of German army has failed to fire because they were “too cold”. Russians are very smart and they know what they are doing. So I accept whatever the reason they may wish to purchase this ship but Russians do not just build blink blink weapons and technology: they build their technologies with practical use of them in mind.

Please, all of you RTTV's commentators; when will you realize, mostly if you have children that we must stop putting so much money into military gadgets. I repeat that Mistral (southern french wind) is neither usefull for France or Russia. Let us worry about new priorities related to what our future generations will inherit. . Sincerely...Jean-Claude Meslin

The sale of this War ship to Russia is a precedent on the tectonic scale and the significance is enormous by which Europe rises to its feet and becomes independent at last with Russian help. So far the Americans were able to prevent it on the ideological background but with the collapse of the USSR not only Russia and EU but the rest of the World, including US population but not bankers, are moving forward to the next stage of human development. This sale will open the gates for an uninterrupted Russian-EU cooperation not only economically but militarily and the final step will be comprehensive European security put forward by Putin few years ago which will sideline America on the backdoor. This is a frightening prospect for the Yanks which when it happens it will reduce US to just a regional power and eventually all conflicts in the World will be solved on acceptable terms and Wars as means of profit will be eradicated.