The best laid PLANs of mice and men often go awry.
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Welcome back to another effortpost by me generally on the developing arms race in East Asia, this time covering the People's Liberation Army Navy, hereafter referred to as the "PLAN", and its massive growth... and... mostly, well, its massive growth. What that means is mostly covered in other posts about how other countries are responding to it. The why is a bit difficult because, well, China is not well known for open debate, or open anything, really, which will turn up repeatedly.
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1. What you [might] need to know about South Korea's ludicrous arms buildup
2. We shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches.... uh, what do we do after that again?: The Perilous Defensive Position of Taiwan
3. "You've hit another cargo ship? The Problems with the US Navy: Not all of them begin with "Seven" and end with "th Fleet"."
4. Will China's PLAN survive contact with the enemy?
5. Biden's New START and modern nuclear war
6. First And Last Stand Of The Tin Can Navies [ASEAN + Australia and the smaller adversaries China may contend with]
7. Boned: Problems in the US Air [and space!] Force
8. --Unnamed-- effortpost on Japanese military matters, mostly about how weird the JSDF status is
9. --Unnamed--effortpost on Indian military matters, and why they can't focus on China or buy anything that works
10. --Unnamed--effortpost on the rest of the PLA, mostly the air force though
11. --Unnamed--effortpost on the rest of the US Armed Forces, mostly talking about how the marines are changing and the Army's new love affair with INF-busting weapons
12. Conclusion?

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Glossary:
PLA = People's Liberation Army = the armed forces of the People's Republic of China, or China
PLAN = People's Liberation Army Navy = the naval forces of the PLA
PLANAF = People's Liberation Army Navy Air Force = the air force of the navy of the PLA
Ashm = Anti-ship missile, cruise missile unless specifically described as otherwise--there's only one anti-ship ballistic missile in existence and its efficacy and whether or not it functions is questionable
CIWS = close-in weapons system, like the Phalanx gun or Goalkeeper
VLS = vertical launch system for missiles
AEGIS = Aegis Combat System if described specifically in that context, a US naval warfare system, but we'll usually be talking about "Chinese AEGIS", which is a nomiker used by the Chinese media in particular comparing the Type 346 radar to the AN-SPY family, with which it shares numerous technical characteristics--but how comparable the "Chinese AEGIS" system is to what the US uses is a complete unknown.
SAM = Surface-to-air missile, in this case usually a S-300 derivative
First Island Chain = The islands, stretching from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan, which keep China inside its littoral seas much as the GIUK [Greenland-Iceland-UK] gap has kept various continental powers out of the Atlantic.
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Some PLAN equipment you might see described--the nomenclature is confusing and a relic of the cultural revolution, and as a result China now has more Types than the British.
Type 003 = China's new conventionally powered supercarriers, currently under construction
Type 002 = China's first truly "operational" carrier
Type 001 = China's first carrier, built on a Soviet hull purchased from Ukraine ostensibly to make a floating casino
Type 055 = Guided-missile cruiser, though generally called a destroyer it's probably more descriptively labeled a cruiser
Type 052D = Guided-missile destroyer using "Chinese AEGIS"
Type 052/051B/052B/052C = the gradual progression of evolving Chinese naval tech, largely built as practice/demo ships like the Type 001. Some of the earlier ones are steam-powered but by the Type 052C you have something almost as advanced as the Type 052D, albeit with turbine problems
Type 054A = the standard modern frigate of the PLAN
Type 053[anything] = old PLAN frigates
Type 096 = China's newest SSBN class, under construction
Type 094 = China's first functional SSBN class, very noisy
Type 092 = China's first "SSBN", believed to have never left port with an actual nuke on board
Type 095 = China's newest SSN class, under construction
Type 093 = China's current SSN class, noisy
Type 091 = China's first SSN class, dumb dumb dumb and is at a 1950s tech level
Type 039[A] = China's new SSK class
Kilo = China's older SSK class, imported from Russia
Sovremenny = China's first capable anti-air destroyers, imported from Russia
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1. The Last Time A Rising Navy Challenged A Dominant Foe

The last time we've seen something like this was in the late 19th century. After the First World War shipbuilding was restricted by the landmark Washington Naval Treaty, one of the first great arms control treaties, and during the Cold War the Soviet Union never really had any hopes of surpassing American naval power. China, however, seems intent on replacing the US as the world's dominant naval power, or at least building a force that can stop the US Navy, even combined with the forces of Japan and other regional allies.
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The nations in question, of course, in the last naval arms race, were the United Kingdom and a newly-unified Germany. Germany never reached the level of the UK, but seriously threatened it. Previously the UK had maintained a policy of having more ships than the next two largest fleets combined, but this was no longer possible, and the UK legitimately was fearful for its naval supremacy. It didn't last too long in the end--under a decade--and a resumption was foiled by first a world war and then the Washington Naval Treaty. The impact of the arms race, though, was massive. It set Germany and the UK at odds with each other, it resulted in a general buildup of warships pretty much everywhere [South America was, believe it or not, one of the biggest offenders there], established Germany for a time as the world's second naval power, having eclipsed both France and Russia and turning a small coastal defense navy into something that was able to defeat the Royal Navy itself, though never comprehensively enough to change the course of the first world war.
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China dwells in a much different situation than Germany did at the turn of the last century, so we can only extend the analogy so far--substituting in Japan for the UK, India for Russia, and so on is possible but not, in my view, educational. However, we can see many of the same elements playing in here. China seems intent on replacing the US as a dominant power, or at least as regional hegemon--the ancient tributary system seems to lie fairly heavily on Chinese minds--and in order to do that, it must be able to have some degree of power projection and the capability to deny the US Navy access to areas within the first island chain. It remains to be seen, however, how successful that quest will be. Much as with the dreadnought battleships, I wouldn't be surprised if we never actually do find out if most of the shiny naval toys people have built actually work. But their mere existence shows the mutual hostility developing in the region and demonstrates the size of the Chinese threat.
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Another lesson learned here is that China, like Germany, may not develop a naval force capable of defeating the US comprehensively, but only partially, and that one of the powers--in this case, China--might be pressured to strike first before the US Navy can close the gap. That ~2030 gap I talked about in my last post is, I think, an especially vulnerable point, because China may look at a degraded, but rejuvenating US Navy, then at their own capable forces, and decide to strike then in Taiwan and the South China Sea, only to back down when the US Navy again eclipses them. Whether or not that will happen, we will see--but I find it a very dangerous and perhaps likely possibility.
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2. What the PLAN looked like 20 years ago

The PLAN has undergone an absolutely stunning evolution in the past two decades. In the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis the US could intimidate China with a pair of aircraft carrier strike groups and China could do pretty much nothing about it. Now the US is afraid of sending anything more than a destroyer through the strait.
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Twenty years ago, the PLAN was a bit of a joke. Even Taiwan figured it could hold the seas against the PLAN. It consisted of a few tens of outdated coastal-defense frigates, some Soviet-era diesel-electric subs, and a large number of unsophisticated missile craft. The pride of the Chinese fleet were a handful of destroyers assembled using cobbled-together Western technology--copied French missiles, American gas turbines, the lot. According to American accounts at the time, the instructions for the equipment hadn't even been translated. The most advanced ship in the fleet used steampower. There were nuclear submarines, but of 1950s quality. Of particular note was the fact that the Chinese fleet had no area air defense capabilities--their premier surface-to-air-missile was an unlicensed knockoff of the French Crotale, and couldn't shoot anything outside of visual range, at high altitudes, or really doing anything more sophisticated than trying to kill their ships with low-altitude dumb bombing runs.
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In the past twenty years, however, the PLAN has, much like the German Navy towards the end of the 19th century, gone from an afterthought to the world's second most powerful force. It began, as modern China's military capabilities almost all began, with the looting of the former Soviet Union for naval technology. While Soviet naval tech was generally lacking, it was much better than anything else China could get its hands on after the arms embargo placed on it in the 1990s by the US and Europe in response to Tienanmen and the end of the Cold War. China bought Soviet diesel submarines, Soviet air-defense destroyers, and Soviet aircraft carriers, which it promptly left lying around [and turned one of them into a theme park]. This was combined with copies of various pieces of Western, mostly European, technology for everything from sonars to surface-to-air missiles. China then began developing its first modern indigenous surface combatants, the Type 052C, but there were still problems. The engines were Ukrainian and had reliability trouble, the gun jammed, there was no VLS.
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It is really in the last ten years that things have begun to move extremely quickly, and even only in the latter portion of the decade. In 2012 the Type 001 Liaoning entered service, and although it remains more of a training ship than an operational vessel, and is held back by a poor carrier aircraft, the mere fact that China "built" a carrier was a surprise to many. In 2014 the first Type 052D destroyer came online. It had learned the lessons from the Type 052C, and in just the last six years at least ten have entered service, with a class size of about 23 expected. This rapid expansion is what has frightened competing navies the most--in a little over a decade, the PLAN is constructing more destroyers than the British, French, and Australian navies have in service combined. It is also building the Type 055, which has generally been called a "destroyer" despite being more aptly described as a cruiser in line with the Ticonderoga-class. China has also built 30 modern frigates in the past decade, which has also swelled its numbers, along with numerous smaller corvettes, submarines, and so on.
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This is why the PLAN has become such an object of concern. While it cannot challenge the US Navy yet, at least outside its littoral zones, the decline of the USN and rapid expansion of the PLAN means that it is a serious threat. And the speed at which it has developed has made many fearful. As recently as 2010, the idea of China operating an aircraft carrier or modern destroyers seemed distant, possibly preposterous. Now China speaks openly of having a six-carrier fleet in the 2030s, although, as with many of China's plans to operate full US-replicated tech and doctrine, these may have somewhat caved to realism. China is mighty, but it has already done the easy part--the last part is much harder, in economics and in military matters. Building the software, the institutional knowledge, the hardware to compete with the US Navy will prove difficult.
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3. What the PLAN looks like now--submarines

Submarines are one of the PLAN's weak spots, particularly nuclear submarines. China is, however, making some fairly rapid advances in this area.
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Their nuclear submarine program has been considered a bit of a joke for some time. In the late 1950s when all the cool kids great powers were getting nuclear submarines, China decided [or at least Mao did] that China needed nuclear submarines too. About 16 years later, the product of this effort finally emerged as the Type 091 submarine. Based on 1950s technology, with poor radiation shielding and basically nothing done in the name of noise reduction, and not even a teardrop hull, the Type 091 was probably more of a threat to the sailors who were on it than anyone else, except maybe the two Tench-class submarines that Taiwan operates, which use 1940s technology and are the world's longest-serving submarines, though they're mostly used for training nowadays. Even then, my money would be on the Tench despite the upgrades the PLAN has made to the Type 091. There's only so much you can do to put lipstick on a pig.
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China also produced an SSBN, the Type 092, which was probably the only submarine more useless than the Type 091. About the only useful thing it did for the PLAN was that it served as a test platform for SLBM launches. Reports suggest that the Type 092 is the noisiest SSBN ever made, and is thought to have only ever undertaken a single patrol. It stayed at port for so long that it was thought to have sunk in an accident. And the experience turned the PLAN off from building SSBNs for over twenty years, until the Type 094 came online in 2007.
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More recent submarines are growing in capability, though. The Type 094 is not the noisiest SSBN ever made, and may not even be the noisiest in current service--that honor going to the Delta III operated by the Russian Navy, which uses 1970s technology, and, which, according to the US Office of Naval Intelligence, is about as noisy as the Type 094. The Type 093 is also moderately capable--it actually functions and can fire anti-ship missiles. However, the Type 093 is still considered only comparable to the Soviet Victor III class, again using 1970s technology. Future submarines have not yet been seen, but expectations are that China will make another step forward to late 1980s or early 1990s tech levels, producing something on par with the Los Angeles or Akula for the first time.
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China also operates a fairly capable fleet of coastal diesel-electric submarines. While some are quite old--the Type 035--most are pretty average for the global submarine force, a mix of Kilos and domestic AIP designs. The large number of boats in operation and their anti-ship missile capability means that these should be considered a real threat, at least in the littoral waters near to China, but they aren't decisive by any means, especially since China is facing off against such threats as Japan's Soryu class, probably the most advanced diesel-electric sub in existence.
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In conclusion, the PLAN is still pretty weak on the submarine front--weaker here than on anything but its carrier force, but its capabilities are advancing rapidly and should not be underestimated.

4. What the PLAN looks like now--surface combatants

The surface fleet is definitely the most impressive and capable portion of the PLAN, no questions about it. China once had a fleet consisting mostly of coastal frigates and missile boats. As recently as 2000, its fleet had no real area-air-defense destroyers, and no SAMs that could operate outside visual range. Now, though, the PLAN operates tens of advanced guided-missile destroyers, advanced frigates, and still retains a large number of small, stealthy missile boats.
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The major focus of Chinese warships appears to be on anti-air, with anti-surface being a somewhat secondary concern for all but the smallest vessels. This makes sense when you realize that the primary focus is, at least for the moment, on using land-based aircraft to strike against hostile fleet formations using long-range anti-ship missiles, in a very Soviet sort of way--"Backfire raids" using long-range land-based aircraft with anti-ship missiles were one of the US Navy's major concerns during the Cold War, and the very reason for the F-14's existence along with the AIM-54 Phoenix it carried. However, China has been developing anti-surface capabilities as well using ashms and land-attack cruise missiles [generally the same thing, actually]. Since China has finally developed a VLS system that allows it to use the same launcher for multiple missiles, its most recent ships have become more versatile in that role.
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How effective these ships are at that task is, however, a relatively open question. Their radars at least seem to quite sophisticated, using flat-panel AESA, and have been dubbed "Chinese AEGIS" by the highly reliable Chinese domestic media. The basic platform their surface-to-air missiles are based on also seems to be fairly capable--the HQ-9 is an S-300 derivative, a respectable SAM system though, again, how capable it is against opponents in an active electronic warfare environment is questionable, and it has basically no capabilities against stealth aircraft like the F-35 as far as anyone knows. The efficacy of their CIWS, again, is open to question. Really this is true of everything about the modern PLAN, and PLA in general. The PLA is secretive, has not exported most of its hardware, and has developed largely independently of foreign militaries, though it is definitely influenced by them. Now that the PLAN has moved away from simply copying foreign hardware and patching it together, its capabilities are much harder to discern.
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However, they should be taken as a very real threat, and not written off. My guess would be that their warships are about as capable as most of their non-American counterparts, save those equipped with AEGIS, but that's all my guess is---a guess.

5. What the PLAN looks like now--carriers

The PLAN currently has two carriers in service, and two more known to be under construction, and most suspect that it will build several more. However, at the moment, the PLAN's carrier force is largely a paper tiger, designed around training. The first carrier, the Type 001, basically was a "how do you build a carrier" kit bought from Russia, possibly by accident--the "fully functional" Minsk ended up as a theme park, believe it or not. The hull was purchased from Ukraine and then completed in China years later. It is also believed that the PLAN may have learned some things about aircraft carriers from the HMAS Melbourne, which was sold to a Chinese firm for scrapping--rumor has it the PLAN had no clue this had happened and then had a field day looking at all the stuff that hadn't been taken out. This was back in the old days when nobody could imagine that China would have an aircraft carrier. The Type 002, however, is built from scratch, but isn't particularly capable especially as it's a ski-jump carrier, leaving the Type 003 the first carrier which will prove actually useful.
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The main thing holding China's carrier fleet back, though, is a lack of a suitable aircraft. Originally China was considering purchasing Su-33s from Russia, hardly a good carrier-based aircraft but functional, but after Russia discovered that China had been mucking about building a Su-27 derivative without asking the deal fell through [China tells a different story, saying that Russia demanded exorbitant amounts to reopen production which it was unwilling to pay for a nearly obsolete aircraft]. As a result China operates the J-15 as its naval fighter, with... less than stellar results. It's extremely heavy, and, if it takes off from the carrier, has minimal range if carrying anything at all--it can't take more than two short range air to air missiles into the sky to fight enemy aircraft. However, the J-15 isn't really intended for combat service--it's intended to teach China how to run carriers, and it seems to work well enough for that task, aside from the multiple fatal crashes. There is, however, thought to be a new carrier fighter in the pipeline--most say the J-31/FC-31, which has reduced RCS and a number of carrier-unique features, is being pitched as a carrier-based aircraft and will serve as China's carrier fighter in the future. China also lacks any fixed wing carrier-based airborne early warning, which could prove troublesome--a lack of AEW means that its view is limited by the horizon--and has no resupply aircraft like the C-2 Greyhound. As a result, for the moment at least, China lacks an effective carrier force, but it is likely to continue developing rapidly in the next decade and become a fairly substantial threat. Remember that as recently as 2010, a Chinese aircraft carrier seemed preposterous to many people, and now they have two.

6. Some attention to land-based aircraft

Land-based aircraft as a naval weapon are not generally used by the US, which has never had a reason to develop them as a doctrinal focus. Sure, you could potentially envision them as being used, and there even were situations where they were utilized, but it just wasn't generally a priority or how things were done. For China, though, taking influence from the Soviets, and lying on littoral seas with hostile powers in the First Island Chain, land-based aircraft and missiles are a key part of doctrine. Although this is often viewed as a new thing, called A2/AD [anti access/area denial], it's really the result of a long historical evolution of naval power, probably most refined by the Soviet Union. As a result, land-based naval aviation plays an important role, firing anti-ship missiles at standoff distances at enemy vessels, and shore-based launchers of anti-ship missiles are also an important weapon. The combination of these systems means that venturing within China's littoral seas is a dangerous proposition during war, and some waters, like those of the Taiwan Strait, are effectively considered closed at this point in the event of hostilities breaking out. For this reason air superiority is also important in this sort of naval warfare, as if either side gains air superiority it can pummel its opponents with air-launched anti-ship missiles. China's capabilities in this area are sophisticated and should not be underestimated, but they are unlikely to go through a rapid period of growth like the PLAN's fleet.
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And a brief note dedicated entirely to the DF-21D "Carrier killer" that the PLA likes to show off. It's a pretty impressive capability, on paper, using a ballistic missile to hit a carrier. The CEP [circular error probable] means that it could even happen, presuming that an aircraft carrier was good enough to sit in one place, not moving, long enough to be detected by China. Aircraft carriers look big, but the seas are huge, and they're surprisingly hard to find. They also move quite fast, in excess of of 35mph/55kph, and thus by the time the ballistic missile has launched it might well be out of range given the fact that ballistic missiles are not particularly known for their maneuverability in terminal stages, at least not in the realm of miles. The DF-21D is not a particular threat to the modern aircraft carrier. It could potentially be one if it evolves into a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle, but that's a whole additional can of worms, that I might address a different day.

7. The PLAN's plans for the future--what will it look like in 2030?

Unfortunately the PLAN is not exactly the most open of navies, as I've repeatedly mentioned. There are no public debates over acquisitions programs, no big fleet shape plans, relatively little detail.
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However, a few things are fairly sure bets or publicly announced.
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China has repeatedly announced plans to build a six-carrier force, including the Type 001 and Type 002, but also a pair of Type 003 [already under construction] conventionally powered supercarriers and a pair of Type 004 nuclear powered supercarriers. However, it seems that the Type 004 is currently on hold. Why, exactly, is unclear, but it seems to be technical difficulties, which are not particularly surprising given that China's experience with nuclear maritime propulsion seem to be rather limited and have had poor results in their submarine fleet. The costs were also expected to be too high--China does not have an unlimited quantity of money, despite what it may flaunt, and nuclear carriers are expensive to develop especially given that China has not built a nuclear-powered surface ship before.
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A new carrier-based fighter is almost certainly in the cards because the J-15 is pretty much useless. The FC-31 seems by far the most likely candidate but it could be another aircraft we haven't seen yet. The addition of this aircraft will greatly improve the PLAN's capabilities.
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China also has two Type 075 amphibious assault ships/LHDs under construction, and I would expect this class to be much more prolific. These ships are much more affordable than the full carriers, and focus on areas in which China is particularly concerned--amphibious assaults, say, on islands in the South China Sea or on Taiwan, and anti-submarine warfare, which is of particular importance given that submarines cannot be easily halted with land-based anti-ship missiles and air-launched cruise missiles provided for in their area denial doctrine--submarines are one of the few things that can slip through that net.
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The surface combatant fleet is likely to continue growing, but I am not sure if it will swell much beyond the ~23 Type 052D ships planned and the 8 Type 055s. We're likely to see the retirement of the classes preceding the Type 052C destroyer and the Type 054 frigate, and they may be offloaded to Bangladesh, Myanmar, or Pakistan--there is substantial precedent here, and it seems that China is interested in expanding the naval capabilities of its partners around India.
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The submarine fleet is likely to see rapid expansion if the PLAN is satisfied with the Type 095 and Type 096 classes, and we're likely to see more diesel-electric subs built as well. Submarines are generally quite good at fighting submarines and conducting area-denial missions, and the large and capable subsurface forces of Japan, Korea, and the United States means that this has to be an area the PLAN invests more in--and the fact that several Southeast Asian nations are also looking at acquiring submarines makes the issue more pressing.

8. Conclusion

China has in the past decade gone from a third-rate navy to perhaps the greatest threat the US Navy has faced since the Second World War. This has significant geopolitical implications, and has resulted in neighbors scrambling to overhaul their naval forces. The growth of the PLAN means that the US can no longer easily defend Taiwan or the South China Sea, or any of China's littoral waters. This, more than anything else, is what has everyone scrambling in the US talking about "great-power competition" because denying access to the US Navy and working on power projection, an inherently naval thing, is essentially a clear sign that China is looking to directly compete with the United States. Underestimate the PLAN at your own peril.
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I hope to have more detail and citations in future posts, but unfortunately the PLAN is very secretive [yes, I've said that fifty times already] and this is a pretty big topic to discuss without going into details about all sorts of naval tidbits. Thanks for reading the fourth post in what I hope will be a fairly substantial series, probably around ~12 posts.
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9. Citations

James Holmes, "The Danger Zone In Naval Arms Races"
USNI, Report to Congress on Chinese Naval Modernization
Hans Kristensen, China's Noisy Nuclear Submarines
Eric Wertheim, China's Type 052D Destroyer is a potent adversary
Robert Farley, Let's Talk About The Chinese Navy's Type 055 Destroyer
Ryan Pickrell, Chinese fighter jet holding China back as it builds carrier fleet
Look, much more here is based on loose speculation, more unreliable sources, and stuff I've picked up over the years, because public info is limited. So take everything I say with a grain of salt, but understand that it's the best information I know of.

How Iceland, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands became a haven for cyber-criminals.
We are a group of Russian-speaking independent writers living in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the United States, writing in the genres of LitRPG, RealRPG, fantasy and science fiction.
We are united by a rejection of piracy and infringement of intellectual property rights. Each of us is an ordinary person who devotes all his free time to his favorite pastime. We are not millionaires or published writers swimming in money. Each of us started from scratch and made our own way by publishing on the Internet.
We are currently publishing our books on Russian literary portals https://author.today, https://litnet.com and https://www.litres.ru. Thanks to these sites, we got the opportunity to sell books without going through publishing houses. This is the main difference between us and Western authors, who have the opportunity to go Indie and successfully sell Kindle/Amazon to a multi-million audience.
Thanks to the readers who support us by purchasing our books. Thanks to them, some of our books have become known not only among Russian-speaking readers, but also in Western countries. Our books have been translated and are being translated into English and German, due to which fans of the LitRPG and RealRPG genres are familiar with our work all over the world.
Nevertheless, for many of us, selling books to Russian-speaking readers remains the only source of income. Book translations can cost up to $10,000-$12,000, and the costs do not always pay off.
None of us make huge amounts of money. On average, our monthly income does not exceed $700.
One of the key problems for Russian-speaking authors is the theft of their books and their illegal publication on pirated resources. Books are stolen at the stage of writing, often depriving us of the opportunity to work fully. Criminals deprive us of the opportunity to receive normal wages for our work. At the same time, the “pirates” themselves earn on advertising posted on their sites. Often this is illegal advertising - on such sites you can find advertising banners of illegal online casinos, services of prostitutes, pornographic services and a lot of other advertising prohibited by law. Some of the criminal resources use Google Adsense at all.
The largest of these sites is https://flibusta.is, with its main mirror https://flibusta.site. On the first, there is no advertisement, but the second is completely filled with advertising banners.
This is a well-known criminal resource, which publishes not only books by Russian-speaking writers, but also books by famous Western authors in different languages. For example:

• Stephen King (translation and original): http://flibusta.is/a/19343
• J. K. Rowling (translation and original): http://flibusta.is/a/10536
• George Martin (translation and original): http://flibusta.is/a/7910
• Cosimo Yap (translation): http://flibusta.is/a/229993
• Michael R. Miller (translation and original): http://flibusta.is/a/223665

In addition, there you can find books by almost any famous writer in his native language. No countermeasures from hosting companies should be followed.
Imagine that Andrzej Sapkowski’s books were stolen at the dawn of his writing career and that they were publicly available. They would refuse to delete them, due to the fact that the writer lives in Poland. Sapkowski himself, in order to feed his family, got a job as a sales manager. The world would lose the famous writer and the world of The Witcher. Because of the greed of the owners of pirate sites and the devil-may-care attitude of hosting companies that refuse to comply with the same laws for everyone.
The “pirate” site https://flibusta.is uses the services of the hosting company Orange Website (https://www.orangewebsite.com) from Iceland, and its “advertising mirror” https://flibusta.site uses the services of the French hosting company Scaleway (https://www.scaleway.com).
The site https://flibusta.is is the base of stolen books and a kind of center around which a huge number of sites of smaller criminal gangs revolve, which automatically download books to themselves.
We have sent complaints to both hosting companies. Scaleway reacted absolutely formally. We had to send several complaints to get our books blocked on https://flibusta.site. And so for each individual book. On average, four requests were required, since after the first, all illegally published books remained in their places.
Orange Website responded that the company does not obey the laws of the European Union or the US DMCA and will ignore any complaints until the Icelandic court is ordered. They know very well that we are not in a position to provide financial support for lawyers and the legal process in Iceland. Therefore, such an answer sounded like a mockery.
Both hosting companies are calmly working with cyber-criminals who caused colossal damage to Russian-language LitRPG-authors. We believe that if it was a violation of the rights of writers from France or Iceland, they would certainly react as required by law. But they don't give a damn about the rights of Russian-speaking authors. These companies seem to care more about money from digital criminal gangs.
Among other hosting companies that support piracy and completely ignore complaints under the DMCA or EU Directives, three can be distinguished:

1. Private Layer (https://privatelayer.com). A Swiss company that did not respond to any of our requests.
2. Zomro (https://zomro.com). A hosting company with an office in Lithuania. Several dozen pirate sites have chosen this hoster's servers as a haven for illegal content. In response to complaints, the company redirects to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]), but there is no response from there.
3. NovoServe (https://www.novoserve.com). The company from the Netherlands hosts a total of at least forty criminal sites. As an example, we can give a small list of similar websites:

• https://fantasy-worlds.org
• https://bukvaved.faith
• https://akniga.info
• https://audiobook-mp3.com
• http://booksonline.com.ua
• https://audioboo.ru
• https://vse-knigi.org

Some of these sites simply publish our books, while others sell them illegally, taking advantage of their complete impunity.
The well-known criminal site https://librusec.pro, which openly sells stolen books, uses Wholesale Internet hosting, hosted in the USA (https://www.wholesaleinternet.net), which also does not respond to our complaints, despite the criminal nature of their clients' work. obvious.
We should also mention the messenger https://telegram.org, the support of which does not even consider it necessary to respond to our complaints. There are hundreds of channels out there where people discuss the best ways to steal books and coordinate their activities there. An excellent messenger has turned into a den of criminals who feel great as the support team takes no action. At the same time, the messenger is registered in the USA and must comply with the DMCA law, but does not respond to complaints. Unfortunately, criminals are more important to them than Russian-speaking writers.
We have exhausted all available methods of influence. Now there is a situation where cyber criminals are destroying modern Russian-language literature and at the same time feel completely protected from any consequences. Hosting companies from the European Union work with them in flagrant violation of DMCA law and EU copyright directives.
The only thing that remains for us is to make this situation public, in the hope of a public reaction and possible interest from the police of the countries in which these hosting companies operate. These types of criminals require more public scrutiny than legal claims. We are asking you to post this open letter, or material based on it, wherever possible.
Our main task is to attract public attention and, if possible, the attention of law enforcement agencies to the activities of hosting companies that condone piracy.
To clarify any information, you can contact us through the writers' profiles on Facebook or by Email.
If you have read to the end and are wondering why all this. We are confident that the LitRPG community is full of smart people with competencies in a variety of areas, including copyright laws. If you can advise which intellectual property protection agency or lawyer we can turn to, that will help us a lot.
In addition, perhaps this case will be of interest to someone from the media who will help us.
The authors who signed this open letter:

1. Vasily Mahanenko (https://www.amazon.com/Vasily-Mahanenko/e/B00VRJS5VY)https://www.facebook.com/vasiliy.mahanenko/ [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
2. Michael Atamanov (https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Atamanov/e/B015JOWILA) https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008056425459, [ataman_[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
3. Dan Sugralinov (https://www.amazon.com/Dan-Sugralinov/e/B07BK7PLSN)https://www.facebook.com/dan.sugralinov, [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
4. Alexey Osadchuk (https://www.amazon.com/Alexey-Osadchuk/e/B01AFCEV5W)https://www.facebook.com/a.osadchuk.a
5. Pavel Kornev (https://www.amazon.com/Pavel-Kornev/e/B01J1ZBNIM)https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100007182854693, [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
6. Dem Mikhailov (https://www.amazon.com/Dem-Mikhailov/e/B082KJ56BD)https://www.facebook.com/demmius
7. Roman Prokofiev (https://www.amazon.com/Roman-Prokofiev/e/B081J6C67Z) https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100049146454801, [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
8. Max Lagno (https://www.amazon.com/Max-Lagno/e/B07JGVWQ5R) https://www.facebook.com/lagno.maxim, [lagno_[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
9. Eugenia Dmitrieva (https://www.amazon.com/Eugenia-Dmitrieva/e/B07BK7RDJ1)
10. Dmitry Bilik (https://www.amazon.com/Dmitry-Bilik/e/B07QXQ5WP2), https://www.facebook.com/dima.bilik.52
11. Petr Zhgulyov (https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B087YTZGFZ)https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100015070037569, [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
12. Paul Kite (https://www.amazon.com/Paul-Kite/e/B07L4GXS8N)https://www.facebook.com/paul.kite.pk, [email protected]
13. Mstislav Kogan (https://author.todayid192064964)https://www.facebook.com/mstislavkog, [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
14. Dmitry Raspopov (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WHLG29M)https://www.facebook.com/dmitriyr2008
15. Pavel Chasovskiy (https://www.facebook.com/pavel.chasovskiy)[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
16. Igor Pol (https://www.facebook.com/josselin333)[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
17. Evgenii Berger (https://author.todayzelcber2016)[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
18. Mikhail Ignatov (https://author.todayid54937541)[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
19. Alexander Kronos (https://author.todaykronos)https://www.facebook.com/alexandr.kronos
20. Sergey Plotnikov (https://author.todaysergeyplotnikov)https://www.facebook.com/plotnikovbooks, [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
21. Koscheev Vladimir (https://author.todayepetuk1727)[eric_[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]), https://vk.com/v_koscheev
22. Dmitriy Mazurov (https://author.todaydimm)[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
23. Vladimir Vasilenko (https://www.amazon.com/Vladimir-Vasilenko/e/B07MTMLPLF)https://www.facebook.com/vladimir.vasilenko.71, [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
24. Alexis Opsokopolos (https://author.todayopsokopolos)[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]), https://vk.com/opsokopolos
25. Andrey Krasnikov (https://author.todaya_krasnikov)https://vk.com/a_krasnikov [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
26. Ivan Magazinnikov (https://author.todaymagazinnikov) https://www.facebook.com/ivan.magazinnikov,[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]), https://vk.com/fabervisum

A slow descent into madness: an exhaustive recap of the tell all leak
Supposedly the leaked video (clocking in at 10+ hours) was the second day filming.
I watched the entire thing. This is a rambling list of the thoughts going through my mind while watching, and a fairly comprehensive timeline / summary of events, or at least the juiciest parts. I believe it becomes fairly obvious when my mental state started to decline - I was well into the 5th hour by then.
Part 1: David
The show begins an hour into the video.
A lot of time was spent on David. Asking David the same questions, hoping he’d get a clue. Instead he doubled down on his delusion.
David started in this endeavor by going on two trips with a friend over 20 years ago. He states he did not like it - 25 guys meeting 400 women in a big bar. He said it was horrible - he called the women aggressive and professional daters. He went on another trip with 10 guys meeting maybe 40 women in different cities. He describes receiving catalogs of women and selecting specific ones to meet on the trip. A friend he met on one of these trips introduced him to a web site in 2007.
Lana does not work for the web site or get paid. According to David, the web sites are US sites, they contract through the agency that vets the “girls”. He insists Lana derives no income from the web site or agency. It’s illegal for him to contact her directly? He pays in order to not be scammed.
He has known Lana for 7 years. She was too young at the start - he won’t “date” anyone under 25. He wasn’t talking to Lana for 2.5 years. He’s “dated” 30 girls in Ukraine when he wasn’t talking to Lana. He’s been to Ukraine 20 times. He’s been engaged twice to women over there (and twice in America.)
David says Lana is very poor. Has very few clothes and possessions. She only has five pairs of shoes and gets a new pair of sneakers every 3 years or so. She doesn’t speak English. He bought her an iPhone to talk directly but she doesn’t like the keyboard because of her long fingernails. She can’t talk directly to him on the computer because the agency owns the laptop and monitors activity.
He’s spent $250,000 to $300,000 on “dating” on these sites. He claims he’s a millionaire so the money is no object.
Friends of David appear, say their piece, then disappear.
Cesar appears. David had talked to Maria years ago. Said she was high maintenance.
Yolanda and Usman join in. Usman has poor connection. Usman leaves.
A wild Tom appears. Tom compliments Yolanda’s weight loss. Says he’s not hitting on her, just complimenting her.
Tom doesn’t watch much of the show. Says David is his “fast forward couple”.
Cesar says he visited Maria. Maria wasn’t happy he showed up. But she met him, they took photos, she asked to see his phone and he realized later she deleted the photos. They spent 10 days together, he got a couple of pecks on the cheek and lips? But no intimacy. Specified no tongue. Maria was “pissed off” that he showed up, refused to meet Cesar if the cameras were there. Wanted him to buy her a $500 pair of shoes and $300 dinner.
Tom asks if he packed the chocolate panties. Cesar said he took the beaded candy ones.
Yolanda said Cesar DMd her and left his phone number. Cesar says Yolanda is beautiful and that he “loves chocolate” with a Pervy laugh. But he says he was just reaching out as friends. Shaun asks Cesar if he DMs Tom. Tom confirms that he did, and that the alumni reach out to each other.
Shaun asks Yolanda if she would date Cesar, she replies with an emphatic no.
David went back to Ukraine and met Lana. They kissed, no other intimacy. He proposed, she accepted (they show clips.) Lana is still on the dating sites. David is still on the dating sites because Lana is. Lana is still on the site because that’s where her only friends are, David basically describes her as a shut in with no friends.
At one point later in the show he drops the bombshell “love has nothing to do with it.”
Ed appears. He’s holding Teddy (against the dog’s will) on his lap. Ed shouts into his mic. He yells repeatedly about David being scammed for the better part of 18 minutes.
David gets excitable. Yells about this being bullshit. Yells at Tom that Darcey was still talking to other guys.
The current status of the relationship? David thinks they’re not together. He hasn’t communicated with Lana in 6 days. But their engagement hasn’t been broken. So they’re engaged but no longer together?
Lana refuses to participate because she’s getting hate mail from guys who have seen the show accusing her of being a scammer.
Stephanie appears.
Stephanie says she thinks it’s disgusting that Lana is being discussed like she’s a commodity. Points out that their relationship is transactional. David and Ed are screaming at each other over her. Stephanie Commends David for not worrying about spending $100,000 while Ed freaked out about spending $2.
A clip of David proposing to Lana with a prop fake ring shows. David says the jeweler advises not buying a real diamond because he didn’t know her ring size. Says she wants to choose her own ring.
Return to Ed and David arguing.
Usman appears.
David is getting heated.
Bottom Line: David’s retiring to move to Ukraine, but started the K1 process.
Shaun wraps the segment with David still arguing at the 3-hour mark. Shaun leaves (possibly to drink heavily - I would be if I was her.) I forgot to note that at some point Tom made a remark to Ed about him not being able to see his toes. It was a joke, but went completely missed by everyone else.
David, Ed, Stephanie and Usman chit chat. Usman sings a bit.
Part 2: Yolanda
We resume at 3:30 with Yolanda.
Yolanda had the flu at the beginning of December. She was in a coma for a month and was on a ventilator for 3 weeks. Her kidneys and liver were failing. Her doctor now believes she had Covid-19.
She did not hear from Williams during that time. She heard from him just a couple of months ago. She didn’t tell him about her coma, he was talking about his aunt dying so it “didn’t come up.”
He didn’t reach out directly, he went through “sweetberry” (?) on Instagram to ask if he could contact her again.
Yolanda’s daughter and a PI the daughter hired join in. PI says the accounts have ties to Nigerian scammers.
Usman joins. He knows nothing about Nigerian scammers, doubts they’re Nigerian.
Usman leaves. Darcey joins. She’s wearing a platinum blonde wig, primping a bit, trying to center herself on the bed she’s sitting on. She’s nodding along to absolutely nothing, shaking her head and smiling periodically like she’s involved in a totally different conversation than we are seeing.
Daughter and PI leave. Shaun asks Darcey what she thinks about Yolanda and Williams. Darcey goes into a spiel about being a target and people on IG preying on her. Starts talking about Jesse and Tom. Says she spent a lot of money on Jesse, says she helped Tom financially and bought him clothes and gifts. Goes into a tangent of non-specific items, won’t provide a direct answer on how much she spent but finally claims she spent $2000 on Tom.
Erika appears.
Shaun tries to get back on the topic of Yolanda and Willams. Shaun asks Erika about her opinion on The Williams mystery IG account and the blackmail.
Darcey uses that opportunity to talk about being targeted by a “network of people” that was calculated by “people in different countries to target certain people around the world.”
“Maybe Nigeria was a part of it, Maybe England was a part of it”. After Tom, Darcey says she met someone who targeted her, says it was a couple she knew and Tom was a part of it, says IP addresses traced to Nottingham and there’s a network of people targeting women around the world.
Darcey claims her second time in Amsterdam she was robbed while shopping after Jesse told her to leave her passport if she was going out shopping. Later says pickpocketed. Implies that the robbery was a setup by Jesse.
Shaun tries to redirect the subject back to Yolanda and Williams.
Lisa appears.
Lisa jumps right in with her expertise about Yahoo Boys, G-Men and grooming people. Darcey drops off and Usman reappears.
Lisa’s gravelly voice takes on a fake Nigerian accent as they yell “baby love” at each other.
Lisa goes on about her social media expertise. Explains the three different cultures of Nigeria. She tells Yolanda to join the Facebook Group SSA: Scamming Scammers Action that Lisa is a big part of.
They convince Yolanda to try to call Williams on speakerphone. No answer.
Lisa is also an expert in African and Nigerian accents FYI.
Erika leaves. David reappears.
Lisa dominates the conversation. Keeps recounting conversations and events of hackings and stuff.
Lisa starts talking about Blood Rituals. Sacrifices. Money rituals. Voodoo dolls. Kidnappings. Killing people to bring luck in scamming people. They believe in black magic and juju. Lisa and Usman keep interrupting each other. Usman has never heard of this. Lisa insists this is real. Go to SSA on Facebook, all the proof is there.
Yolanda, David and Shaun are stunned silent.
Usman is trying to fact check Lisa’s completely far-fetched theories. Lisa purses her beak.
Finally, Shaun redirects.
Yolanda says she’s done. If she hears from Williams again she’s done.
Yolanda is getting DMs all the time offering to FaceTime her. David tells her to go get her Groove back in Jamaica. Yolanda and David both get DMs encouraging them to hook up since they’re both in Vegas.
We are 5 hours 10 minutes in. Let’s see a clip! We see Lana before she met David. She’s at the gym. She’s walking around Kiev in a silver puffer jacket and Nikes. She using her iPhone (with her short nails) to take pictures. She’s shopping for makeup. She’s sipping a latte in a cafe while typing on her laptop. She’s talking to a friend on her iPhone. She talks about America. She knows that you can get married quickly in Las Vegas. She tells her friend she has an exciting day tomorrow “I’m meeting an American.” Her friend asks if he’s wealthy.
Shaun points out the inconsistencies in Lana’s apparent poverty and David’s understanding of her circumstances. David says “that’s not real”.
We spent the next 10 minutes or so with Yolanda, Usman, Lisa and Shaun trying to talk some sense into David. It doesn’t work.
Shaun leaves for a break.
Ash appears. We spend the next while discussing quarantine. Ash hadn’t heard about Yolanda being sick, his eyes get wide when he hears her coma tale.
They’re talking about lockdowns and restrictions and being able to go where you want. David thinks they’re talking about Ash being able to visit the US on his Australian passport.
Lisa’s ex-husband just got out of prison.
David lives in a rental house that’s being sold in a month.
Yolanda asks if people read their tweets.
Lisa has a stalker with 25 accounts. Lisa now has her phone number and address. She’s going to have her arrested and “put charges against her”.
David gets death threats.
Back to Yolanda and the Covid.
David leaves.
Tom returns. He asks how many bottles of lube Lisa and Usman used raw dogging it. She said none - I’m guessing she just peed on him a la Dinyell.
More R-rated banter. Lisa tells Tom to ask about Usman refusing to join the mile high club.
Ash looks stunned into silence. Maybe a bit frightened. He’s retreated to his nothing box.
Usman tries to explain about the 70%, that it’s a B and a compliment. Tom asks why she paid twice the going rate for a goat.
Lots of goat talk. Peeing goat talk. Showering the goat. Walking in sandals through mud and goat shit.
Tom makes a crack about not being the only cast members showering with animals. Ash asks about Ed showering with Rosemarie’s father? Then his feed goes out.
Lisa starts talking about gross food. Tom are goat brain in Albania. Lisa starts everything with “Usman, tell them about the time...” then just talks over him to tell the story herself.
Stephanie appears.
Ed appears.
Usman leaves. Lisa tells them about the armed convoy everywhere they went. Ed wants to know about the goat. More goat tales.
7 hour 10 minute mark.
Part 3: Lisa and Usman
Shaun is back with Lisa and Usman. We lose Usman.
Lisa had surgery.
She hurt her baby toe before going to Nigeria. Ruptured a blood vessel. It swelled up in Africa. Returned to the US with a dead/dying toe. Got infected, went gangrenous, was amputated.
Usman returns.
The next segment is insufferable.
Usman says Lisa calls him a N***** frequently. Lisa screams about opening a can of worms.
Usman asks if American women are all like this.
Lisa and Usman are married but keep blocking each other.
Lisa is Usman’s first serious relationship.
Lisa freaks out about women on Usman’s comments and in his DMs.
Says she’s seen the other girls Usman dated, they’re “3 times my size”.
They fight about Trish Playtas.
Lisa talks over Usman. Yells, curses, threatens.
Enter Giant and Aba (?) after 25 minutes of toxic bullshit.
Lisa talks about getting “gangbanged”. (I think she means ganged up on, but she’s so cringe who can tell.)
Lisa has a screaming match. Hangs up because she was “mistreated and disrespected”.
Enter Lisa’s friend Nikki.
Nikki screams about disrespect for the next forever. Lisa returns.
There’s endless raspy screeching about bitches, clowns, motherfuckers and more disrespect. Fuck you. Fuck outta here.
Shaun loses all control.
Aba and Nikki scream at each other some more.
Shaun gives up. She is writing something just below the screen. I suspect it’s her resignation letter.
Finally Shaun redirects the conversation. She brings up the polygamy.
If Lisa has an egg and can tote it, Usman doesn’t want another wife. If Lisa can’t squat and hatch Usman’s offspring, he will take another wife.
Cue Lisa’s expertise on polygamy.
Clip Roll: the night before the wedding, Lisa storms off and disrespects Usman’s brothers the night before the wedding.
Lisa cackles.
Avery and Ed appear.
Usman and Lisa keep arguing.
Shaun asks Avery’s perception. Avery asks “where is the love?” All she sees is them screaming over each other and assert themselves.
Before Lisa can respond Ed jumps in.
Lisa calls the kettle black and says Avery and Ed aren’t portrayed well.
Ed started to watch the show after he decided to be on it.
Ed compliments Usman for being calm and respectful and not using any foul words.
Lisa Cackles. Ed calls her a bull in a china shop “no disrespect”. Says he thought she was the definition of a narcissist, but says she’s actually the definition of delusional.
Lisa interrupts. Usman starts singing. Lisa and Ed scream over each other. Lisa tells Avery to shut up, says she went on Ed’s live drunk and making an ass of herself. Ed keeps screaming “delusional”. Lisa calls Avery a drunk. Avery tells Usman “not all American women are like that”, Lisa rebounds with “that’s why Ash dumped your ass.” Ed tells Usman there are many more nicer women.
Ed: she treated you like a piece of shit. She treated you like a slave.
Lisa: you are a piece of shit!
Ed: you made America Sick!
Lisa: Ed Fuck You! Fuck You!
Lisa: you abused Rose to go on this show because no fucking other woman would! You fucking used her (x 5). Shut the fuck up.
More screaming over each other.
Usman begs Ed to calm down.
Lisa: you’re going to let this fucking pervert who’s got charges for sexual harassment... you’re going to let this idiot come at me with the fucking charges he’s got? This fucking pervert has been grooming women. The women are coming out of the woodwork saying Ed has molested them, he’s groomed them, and god only knows what the fuck else he did to them.
More screaming.
Ed: the internet is fake!
Lisa: Harry (producer) remove these two right now!
Lisa calls them Thing 1 and Thing 2 and demands Harry remove them.
Ed gets cut.
Lisa continues to scream at Avery about glass houses.
Tom appears.
Usman is yelling now.
Shaun tries to gain control.
Tom: I was nervous delivering that letter to Darcey but coming in to this conversation is wild!
Shaun brings up the polygamy subject again.
Lisa might move to Nigeria for The Other Way.
Shaun disappears.
Avery drops.
Lisa says “Tom, this is all for show. It’s a dog and horse, pony show I call it.”
Tom blows smoke up her ass. His idea of love is apparently jealousy, anger and disrespect. He says it’s obvious they love each other because apparently only people truly in love can be that hateful and vicious and angry to each other.
Shaun is back. Darcey appears. Usman is singing. Darcey is swaying to Soja Boy, slurring, “do it big! Lisa, Be the queen!”
Darcey’s been in the sauce.
Usman tells Lisa to cover her bra.
More second wife talk.
Tom asks a question about what kind of second wife Usman would have. Darcey says something. Shaun asks Lisa a question. Usman freaks out and screams “Tom asked me a question, let me answer the question”. This leads to Lisa screaming at Shaun about disrespecting Usman, screams at the producer “you better tell this hostess to shut her mouth” shut up! Shut up!”
Usman keeps yelling. Shaun trying to calm everyone.
Lisa: Barb! Barb! Barb! Do you hear me? It’s time to cut her now! Barb! Cut her now! Barb! Cut the fucking thing, cut it now! She’s disrespecting Usman! Fucking stop it! Stop it barb! Fuck off!
Darcey looks like a confused bobble head.
Lisa hangs up.
Usman and Darcey talk about Trish Playtas.
Darcey: things are don’t differently in America, I’ve been in the entertainment industry way before Tom, way before Jesse.
Usman starts to explain going live with Trish.
Lisa returns.
Part 4: Wrap Ups and “where does your relationship stand?”
Shaun turns to Darcey and Tom, asks where the future of their relationship is. Lisa and Usman respond loudly, not letting them talk.
Finally, Lisa and Usman are gone.
Tom: friends maybe blah blah blah great mom, good person, wish you the best.
Darcey: my journey, my daughters, my brother who passed blah blah blah don’t want toxic negativity
Ash and Avery return: same question
Ash is worried about his hair being cut off on the screen.
Ash started the journey with the intent to propose. Says he loves her. Breaking up was the hardest thing. Future is going to be looking after his family.
Ash answers the question in a concise, straight forward manner.
Just kidding. He uses a lot of words to absolutely avoid answering anything.
Avery says this is a hard question to ask someone who just separated. She trails off. I think... I don’t... I wanted... honestly...
Erika and Stephanie return: where do you stand?
Not even friends. Can they ever be friends?
Stephanie says best case is friends from afar.
Erika says they’ve been friends and fought many many times. She came in today wanting to speak and wasn’t able to do that, but doesn’t hold any hate. It’s going to be hard to see any of this in a positive light.
Erika didn’t get a change to express that she took a big step coming out to her parents then Stephanie dumped her the next morning.
Stephanie came out to her mom too apparently, but it wasn’t like Erika’s coming out (receptive and kind).
Pick up lines:
Asking what they’ve been doing during the quarantine, will air at the beginning of the show.
(Erika makes earrings!)
Shaun has to rephrase the question to Stephanie to ask specifically about... HER ILLNESS!
Bet you didn’t see that one coming.
Yolanda wrap up: no more online dating. She’s going to meet men at the market or the casino. Old school.
Ed wrap up: who cares.
Ok. I guess we do.
Shaun asks about the shower. I just can’t listen to him anymore. Then she asks about the first night they were intimate. I’m going to barf.
Ed takes full responsibility for “not the things I did, but the way I did them”. Rose is mad at him right now. She wanted to reconcile February 9.
Ed is taking a break from dating (sorry ladies!) but Rose taught him to love again and “she didn’t destroy me like my first marriage did.”
His mom is moving in with him. But she’s a nurse so hasn’t moved in yet. Ed’s mom is a nurse caring for a young child with a tracheostomy.
Ed sucks, but a round of applause for Mother Ed is deserved.
David wrap up:
David is going to retire earlier than planned because of the recession resulting from the quarantine.
Shaun asks about the first kiss.
David says something about bowling. He bowls 4 strikes with Lana.
The girls in Ukraine love bowling but don’t get to do that. So he takes them. He bets kisses for every strike he bowls.
Lana is upset over the publicity from the show. Gets physically ill in front of the camera.
If she won’t come to the US or dumps him, he will live part time in the Ukraine - 3 months at a time - to continue dating women there.
It’s over. Thank God.

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Yes, a lot of what's in the Steele dossier can't be proven. But, Trump's shady ties can't be disproven, either. They are out in the open for anyone to see.
An American Interest article, The Curious World of Donald Trump's Private Russian Finance Connections, investigative journalist and economist, Jim Henry, looks into Trump’s Russo-Soviet business connections by researching published sources, interviewing with former law enforcement staff and other experts in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Iceland, searching of online corporate registries, examining court records, and analyzing offshore company data from the Panama Papers.
Why does this matter? Trump’s various unsavory Russia connections aren’t one-offs. Trump is likely to increase waste, fraud, and abuse by encouraging government contractors and private finance deals with our tax $$ and public infrastructure. If the "capital flight" patterns of his business associates are followed, we (the tax payers) will be bled dry.
Some extra thoughts:

• It's not so important (to me) if Trump has done anything illegal or not. Rather, he needs to disclose his tax returns and divest from his nebulous networks of companies. We have a right to know if he's financially beholden to foreign powers.
• Trump's connections to Russia go back to 1987 source
• The US has intervened overseas hundreds of times (which IMO is wrong), but three instances of "karma" have really come back at us: First, overthrowing the elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 eventually led to the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Second, our decision to “give the Soviets their own Vietnam” in Afghanistan in 1979, which eventually led 9/11. Third is the 1990s neoliberal intervention in Russia. The IMF/World Bank restructuring, capital controls, capital flight, and general neoliberalism is of one of the most epic failures in our times — one for which the US bears a great deal of responsibility. As the Soviet Union collapsed in the late 1980s, Western powers did not require that Russia acquire a strong middle-class, which is necessary for democratic capitalism, the rule of law, and stable, peaceful relationships with neighbours.
• Here's a 1995 CS Monitor article on Russian money laundering. It's really not a stretch of the imagination to see a) Russian mobsters in early/mid 1990s were reported to be using shell companies to launder money into US. By 2000 no one would lend money to Trump, and the money he raised came from sources that look a lot like the patterns the CS Monitor article describes.
• The pattern that we're seeing with all this failed real estate development is that Trump licenses his name to the project then the shady financiers collect deposits and abandon the project. Baja condos, Tampa condos, Toronto condos, Daewoo Korean project. Trump Tower Pune allegedly on land acquired illegally (same source as previous), and Trump Tower Istanbul's local partner, Dogan, is tangled in smuggling charges (same source).

I've cut & pasted some key points from Henry's article below, and added other sources as noted:

• From 1992 to the Russian debt crisis of August 1998, the West in general — and the U.S. Treasury, USAID, the State Department, the IMF/World Bank, the EBRD, and many leading economists in particular — actively promoted and, indeed, helped to finance one of the most massive transfers of public wealth into private hands that the world has ever seen. During this period more than $1.3 trillion has left Russia. The pattern is similar for other former Soviet Republics. More deets here
• At this time Trump had just suffered a string of six successive bankruptcies. So the massive illicit outflows from Russia and oil-rich (former Soviet states) like Kazahkstan and Azerbaijan from the mid-1990s provided precisely the kind of undiscriminating investors that he needed. These outflows arrived at just the right time to fund several of Trump’s post-2000 high-risk real estate and casino ventures — most of which failed.
• Donald Trump has also literally spent decades cultivating senior relationships of all kinds with Russia and the FSU. And public and private senior Russian figures of all kinds have likewise spent decades cultivating him, not only as a business partner, but as a “useful idiot.”

Bayrock Group LLC (funding partners for Trump SoHo condo-hotel and Trump International Hotel & Tower in Fort Lauderdale)

• As of 2007, Bayrock and its partners reportedly had more than $2 billion of Trump-branded deals in the works. But most of these either never materialized or were miserable failures.
• Tevfik Arif (Kazakhstan) linked to prostitution, child trafficking. Bayrock started to receive millions of dollars in equity contributions in 2004, supposedly by way of Arif’s brother in Russia, who allegedly “had access to cash accounts at a chromium refinery in Kazakhstan.” Here's loads more info
• Tamir Sapir (Georgia) Tevfik Arif's equity partner in Bayrock. Likely the richest ex-Soviet in the U.S. His Sapir Organization, now headed by his son, Alex, already controlled over 7 million square feet in Manhattan in 2005, but lost hundreds of millions of dollars source
• Alexander Mashevich (Kazakhstan) part of "the Trio" with Patokh Chodiev and Alijan Ibragimov, Kazakh billionaires linked to money laundering, bribery, racketeering, and the Uzbek mob
• Felix SateSatter (Russian) professional criminal, with multiple felony pleas and convictions, extensive connections to organized crime, and CI to FBI and CIA. One notable incident is participation in a $40 million pump & dump securities fraud scheme. Father connected to Semion Mogilevich crime syndicate involved in trafficking nuclear materials, weapons, and more, as well as money laundering. more info
• FL Group (Iceland) FL Group had constructed an incredible maze of cross-shareholding, lending, and cross-derivatives relationships making it almost impossible to regulate “control fraud,” where insiders at leading financial institutions went on a self-serving binge, borrowing and lending to finance risky investments of all kinds. Iceland’s largest banks also made a series of extraordinary loans to Russian interests during the run-up to the 2008 crisis. Arif and Sater discovered FL Group as a veritable piggy bank, persuading it to invest $50 million in the Trump SoHo project and agreeing in principle to as much as another $2 billion in financing for other deals.

Seabeco (fmr investor was co-financer of Trump Toronto Tower and Hotel)

• Boris J. Birshtein, was a close business associate of Sergei Mikhaylov, the reputed head of Solntsevskaya Bratva, the Russian mob’s largest branch, and the world’s highest-grossing organized crime group as of 2014, according to Fortune. Also connected to Semion Mogilevich and in 1993, the Yeltsin government reportedly accused Birshtein of illegally exporting seven million tons of Russian oil and laundering the proceeds.
• Alexander Mashevich and Patokh Chodiev allegedly met by working at Seabeco together
• Birshtein's (now reportedly ex-) son-in-law, Alex Shnaider (Russian) has long business ties to Birshtein and Mikhaylov acquired a Ukrainian steel mill as it was privatized and also has ties to FL Group in Iceland.

Trump Taj Mahal Casino

• Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) imposed a $10 million civil money penalty against Trump Taj Mahal for willful and repeated violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, in particular significant, long standing anti-money laundering violations (source)[https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-fines-trump-taj-mahal-casino-resort-10-million-significant-and-long]

Paul Manafort

• One of Manafort’s biggest clients was the dubious pro-Russian Ukrainian billionaire Dmytro Firtash. By his own admission, Firtash maintains strong ties with a recurrent figure on this scene, the reputed Ukrainian/Russian mob boss Semion Mogilevich. In 2008, Manafort teamed up with a former manager of the Trump Organization to purchase the Drake Hotel in New York for up to $850 million, with Firtash agreeing to invest $112 million, to simply launder part of the huge profits that Firtash had skimmed while brokering dodgy natural gas deals between Russia and Ukraine. Appears in the Panama Papers in companies connected to Semion Mogilevich.
• The Russian puppet president that Manafort was paid to get elected in Ukraine, Yanukovych, was sued for funneling $$ into the US for laundering. Ousted from power in 2014 amid allegations of massive embezzlement, Yanukovych fled to Russia. Ukrainian authorities found a ledger showing $12.7m in off-book payments to Manafort by Yanukovych’s party, payments Manafort has strongly denied receiving. source

Trump Tower Tenants

• Unlike most New York luxury buildings, the tower has no prying coop board and its residents have included “tax-dodgers, bribers, arms dealers, convicted cocaine traffickers, and corrupt former FIFA officials.”
• Russian diamond and real estate tycoon, Lev Leviev, is a close associate of Putin. He recently signed a $295 million deal with Jared Kushner and has been advocating for the lifting of sanctions against Russia. Leviev has come under scrutiny (link) by the United States government and international media for, among other things, both his partnership with a Chinese business group (88 Queensway Group) believed to have funded North Korea an facilitating corruption in Zimbabwe, and his possible role in developing West Bank settlements.
• Khrapunov family bought 3 apartments source Viktor Khrapunov, a former Kazakh energy minister and ex-mayor of the city of Almaty, and his family “conspired to systematically loot hundreds of millions of dollars of public assets . . . and to launder their ill-gotten gains through a complex web of bank accounts and shell companies . . . particularly in the United States”.
• Anatoly Golubchik, Russian mobster, went to prison in 2014 for running an illegal gambling ring out of Trump Tower (reportedly the entire 51st floor). He's also in the Panama Papers and linked to Semion Mogilevich
• Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov has the distinction of making the Forbes 2008 list of the World’s Ten Most Wanted Criminals, and whose organization the FBI believes to be tied to Mogilevich’s. Went to the infamous 2013 Miss Universe as special VIP
• Semion Mogilevich, lifelong criminal with a notable fraud of setting up a fraudulent magnet manufacturing company on the Toronto Stock Exchange and cashing out with $18 million. In 2003, Mogilevich was indicted in Philadelphia on 45 felony counts for this $150 million stock fraud. Brother of the magnet manufacturing company's CEO, David Bogatin, owned five separate condos in Trump Tower that Donald Trump had reportedly sold to him personally. ince the early 1990s, David Bogatin was considered by the FBI to be one of the key members of Semion Mogilevich’s Russian organized crime family in the United States, with a long string of convictions for big-ticket Mogilevich-type offenses like financial fraud and tax dodging.
• Vyacheslav Ivankov, another key Mogilevich lieutenant in the United States during the 1990s, also resided for a time at Trump Tower.
• Felix Sater had an apartment and offices in the Trump Tower. Pic with Trump
• Bank Melli Trump Organization rented Bank Melli several floors of New York office space from 1998 to 2003. The bank remained a tenant of Trump’s for years after the U.S. Treasury Department declared it to be controlled by the Iranian government in 1999. Bank Melli has been accused of helping to obtain materials for Iran’s nuclear program and funneling money to a unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that has allegedly sponsored terrorist attacks. source. In an interesting twist, Trump is the president of two Azerbaijan entities called OT Marks Baku LLC and DT Marks Baku Manaaina Member Corp. The partner in the deal is controlled by Anar Mammadov, the son of the country’s transportation minister, Ziya Mammadov. US officials believe Ziya Mammadov laundered money for the Iranian military. (source)[http://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/23/donald-trump-foreign-business-deals-national-security-498081.html]

Other Here are even more shady ties:

• Trump's Russian Connections as reported in the Financial Times
• Madhukar Tulsi, a prominent real estate executive in India & Trump's local partner. In 2010, Tulsi’s home and the offices of Ireo were raided as part of a sweeping corruption inquiry related to the 2010 Commonwealth Games, because Sudhanshu Mittal was suspected in playing a role in rerouting money earned from Commonwealth Games contracts through tax havens into Ireo’s real estate projects.
• Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi, yes that murdering terrorist... Trump made entreaties to Qaddafi and other members of his government, beginning in 2008, in which he sought deals that would bring cash to the Trump Organization from a sovereign wealth fund called the Libyan Investment Authority. The following year, Trump offered to lease his estate in Westchester County, New York, to Qaddafi; he took Qaddafi’s money but, after local protests, forbade him from staying at his property. (Trump kept the cash.) “I made a lot of money with Qaddafi,’’ Trump said recently about the Westchester escapade. “He paid me a fortune.” source

TL;DR Investigative journalist and economist Jim Henry researches Trump's financial ties to private $$ network coming from Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan etc, with heavy ties to Semion Mogilevich mob.
Edit: formatting, added more people