Sunday, October 07, 2018

Not championing Russian homegrown electronics, semiconductor, and software industries is a weak point of President Vladimir Putin

President Vladimir Putin of Russia is astonishingly good in so many areas. But one weak area that's very important yet not discussed is that you haven't heard much from him - if at all - about the need for Russia to have strong domestic industrial base in electronics, software, Internet services, communication networks, semiconductors, and the like. It's possible that Vladimir Putin doesn't properly understand "stuff" such as Internet, computers, microprocessors, operating systems, routers, etc., and hence doesn't appreciate their power [compared to visible power of missiles, aircraft and ships]. What I term "strategic technological sovereignty" in these areas is crucial already, and is going to become only exponentially more important, as more and more devices/products become connected, and the civilization needs to be shielded from spying and thought manipulation by Western corporations/nations. Even if this independence comes at the expense of technological parity [meaning thereby that homegrown Russian technology stays a bit behind the latest Western technology], that's a more acceptable scenario than depending on West.