Eagle, I don't want to form an alliance anymore.

1995 October.

Zogu sat in the living room. The spot on the living room wall where Hoxha's portrait used to hang had been empty for many years. An Albanian flag had hung there during the Berisha era, but it was later removed, and the wall remained bare for a time.

Now, the Socialist government, under the direction of the Soviet Union, has restored Hoxha's reputation.

The Socialist Party said it would make an "objective evaluation," characterizing him as "a great Albanian proletarian revolutionary who made significant contributions to the anti-fascist war and post-war social transformation, but made some dogmatic mistakes in his later years. Overall, he was seven parts merit and three parts demerit."

The Soviet Union also had to save face. After all, Hoxha had been criticizing the Soviet Union for so many years and had caused a lot of trouble for the Soviet Union by stirring up trouble in the Third World. Slava, as the General Secretary of the CPSU, could not shamelessly praise Hoxha. Otherwise, where would the Big Brother's face be?

The evaluation was broadcast on television. Sako didn't react after hearing it.

He stood up and went out onto the balcony. Several Soviet destroyers were moored in the Durrës port, their gray hulls gleaming coldly in the winter sun. Cranes were unloading cargo on the docks, and goods from the Mutual Trade Agreement were still arriving in a steady stream.

On the distant sea, a cargo ship was leaving the port, leaving a white trail behind it.

Perhaps another group of young people were on that ship going to study in the Soviet Union, and perhaps Alban's classmates were on it.

Sako's life went through a strange cycle from 1985 to 1995.

Hoxha's era was poor but stable. People went down into the mines every day, received monthly wages, queued to buy things, and had portraits hanging on the walls.

The promises of a better life made during the Berisha era have backfired spectacularly. Free markets, democratic elections, and alignment with the West have resulted in wage cuts, wives losing their jobs, savings being swindled out of their savings, government bankruptcy, and neighbors taking to the streets with machine guns.

Now it's back: socialist public ownership, one-party rule, state-owned enterprises and mutual economic cooperation associations.

Well, Albania has spent ten years going through a lot of trouble. It went out there, stumbled, got up, and came back!

It's not shameful to come back; what's shameful is going out thinking there's gold everywhere, only to find it's all pits.

He is tired.

Zogu returned to the living room from the balcony. Leila was cooking in the kitchen, a pot of canned meat stewing on the stove with some onions and potatoes.

A propaganda poster hung on the wall, featuring Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Hoxha, with the words "Long live the invincible Marxism-Leninism!" written below.

The Communist Party didn't lie to them; capitalists really do devour people without spitting out the bones.

After all that fuss, socialism is still the best.

Chapter 127 T90? Actually, it's my T72!

The story of Yugoslavia ended there. In the Balkans at the end of 1995, the Iron Curtain that had fallen in 1946 showed no signs of dissipating; instead, it tore Yugoslavia to pieces.

The Berlin Wall has not fallen, German reunification is still a long way off, and all countries believe that the confrontation between the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, from the ground to space since the end of World War II will continue into the 21st century.

As the Warsaw Pact and NATO continued to expand, the People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia joined the Warsaw Pact after the collapse of Yugoslavia, while the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia joined NATO. Albania, which had maintained its independence for decades, also eventually aligned itself with the Warsaw Pact.

There is no room for any neutral forces in the Balkans, so what about the future?

Some pessimists believe that as the confrontation between superpowers intensifies, the world will have no room for any neutral forces until one of the US and the USSR gracefully steps down from the table.

No one imagined the day when these two once-powerful national edifices would collapse, even though it was an inevitable outcome.

Now, with the story of Yugoslavia temporarily concluded, let's turn back the clock to 1991.

The Gulf War ended in March 1991.

The smoke of war has dissipated in the Middle East, but in the General Staff headquarters in Moscow, another war on paper has just begun.

Ogarkov, the leader of the military reformists and Chief of the General Staff, first convened a meeting to analyze the army's combat situation. Participants included chief designers from the Army General Staff, the Armored Forces Directorate, major weapons design bureaus, academicians from the Academy of Military Sciences... everyone related to the Soviet ground armored forces was summoned.

On the conference table lay intelligence gathered from the Gulf War—satellite photographs, intercepted battlefield communications, publicly released US military data on combat results, and reports compiled by Soviet military advisors.

The report's conclusions caused great concern among everyone present.

The Soviet military may not have been inferior to NATO in strength, but the fact that the Soviet Union's export arms supplies to its allies and proxies might not have been able to gain an advantage in a war against NATO weapons was a big problem!

The Soviet Union couldn't fight alone. Even when two gangs fought each other, it wasn't always the bosses who fought each other; the underlings had to start the fight first, and whoever won would gain more advantages.

Just as a rope can saw through wood and water can wear away stone, advantages are accumulated little by little until the enemy's thousand-mile dike is breached by an ant hole.

在伊拉克的东73度线之战，美国第二装甲骑兵团的M1A1艾布拉姆斯在1500米外锁定了伊拉克的T72M编队。M1A1的120毫米贫铀穿甲弹正面击穿了T72的装甲。T72的125毫米炮弹在那个交战距离上打不穿M1A1的正面。

The US suffered minimal tank losses, while the Iraqi Tawakkarna Division was essentially annihilated. A similar scenario repeated itself in the Battle of Medina Ridge, where the US 1st Armored Division destroyed nearly two hundred Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles within hours.

While the inadequacy of Iraqi military personnel certainly played a role, shouldn't the Soviet Union also reflect on its foreign arms sales practices?

After a moment of silence, someone spoke up.

"Comrade Chief of the General Staff, I think we need to clarify one point first," said a general from the Armored Forces General Directorate. "The T-72s equipped by Iraq are export versions of the T-72M and T-72M1, which are fundamentally different from the T-72B used by the Soviet Army itself."

The difference between the mass-produced, unofficial T-72s used by Iraq and those used by the Soviet Army was significant.

The Soviet T-72 used composite armor, with ceramic layers and special materials sandwiched between steel plates. Its frontal protection was equivalent to more than 500 millimeters of homogeneous steel, and it could also be fitted with Kontakt-1 reactive armor. The ones exported to Iraq used pure steel armor, and the old-fashioned cast steel turrets had no composite layers at all, resulting in significantly poorer protection.

In terms of fire control, the Soviet Army was equipped with the 1A40-1 sight, which included a laser rangefinder and infrared/low-light night vision. The export version of the fire control system was greatly simplified, with reduced ranging accuracy and significantly reduced night vision capabilities. This indirectly led to the Iraqi army being destroyed before even seeing American troops during the Battle of the Eastern Front.

The Soviet army also had relatively complete communication equipment and simple electronic countermeasures devices; the export version was almost completely bare.

The ammunition was also much worse. The Soviet army used the latest fin-stabilized discarding sabot armor-piercing projectiles, while the export version used older models of armor-piercing projectiles, which had a penetration capability that was more than 30 percent worse.

This is the Soviet Union's "swordplay" in arms sales: the equipment exported to its allies was systematically weakened in terms of core technology. It looks like a T-72, and is priced like a T-72, but its actual combat capability is only about 60% of the version used by the Soviets.

A general from the General Staff reminded him: "Comrade General, the problem facing the alliance is that the Gulf War was fought in front of the whole world. What the world saw was that the T-72 was crushed by the M1A1 like a target, and the American and French arms dealers kept loudly proclaiming that our tanks were no good."

In the eyes of customers and the media, and in the eyes of every potential arms buyer—the T72 model is finished!

Our annual revenue from arms sales to foreign countries will inevitably be greatly affected, and all the major design bureaus rely on these orders for their livelihoods. We should now discuss and come up with a solution as soon as possible.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

In April, a report was sent from the General Staff to the Kremlin.

The core message of the report is that the large number of T-72 series tanks currently in service with the Soviet Army need to be completely replaced.

The replacement plan is in place – Project 188, a new model being developed by the Uralvagonzavod plant in Nizhny Tagil (the same plant that designed the T72). Since its inception in the 1980s, the prototype was completed in 1989, and now it is finally ready for service.

Project 188 was a deep modernization and improvement of the T72. The chassis retained the basic layout of the T72, but almost all the core systems were upgraded.

The new welded turret features significantly improved frontal armor protection, equipped with Kontakt-5 explosive reactive armor, providing substantial protection against both kinetic energy penetrators and high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) rounds. The new fire control system includes a thermal imaging aiming channel, resulting in a qualitative leap in day and night combat capabilities compared to the T-72B. Combined with the 9M119 "Reflection" laser-guided gun-launched missile, it can engage targets at a range of 5,000 meters—far exceeding the effective range of traditional tank shells!

There is also a new engine, which is much more powerful than the T72. The new commander's panoramic sight means that the commander can conduct observation and target search independently of the gunner - the so-called "hunter-killer" capability.

During the Gulf War, the M1A1's hunter-killer mode allowed the commander to lock onto the next target while the gunner was still firing at the current target. A traditional weakness of Soviet tanks was the commander's poor situational awareness, which was addressed starting with Project 188.

Defense Minister Sokolov also included a recommendation at the end of the report: to designate the product of Project 188 as the T90.

The reason is straightforward: the military is still arguing about the performance specifications of the next generation of equipment. The biggest consensus that the Kremlin can reach right now is that Project 188 must be renamed and distanced from the T-72.

After the Gulf War, the letters T-72 became synonymous with poison in the international arms market. If the Soviet Army were to name its new tanks as some kind of modified version of the T-72, customers would turn away as soon as they heard the name.

Changing to a completely new model name, such as T90, would at least be a clean start in terms of marketing.

After reviewing the report, Slava then invited Vladimir Ivanovich Potkin, the chief architect of Project 188, to the Kremlin.

"Comrade Potkin," Slava shook hands with Potkin first, "I've finished reviewing Project 188, and I feel it's sufficient to replace our army's existing equipment. How much better do you think it is than the T-72B?"

“Close to half a generation,” Potkin said.

"Our design bureau is responsible for producing the T-72, which I personally believe is essentially a second-and-a-half generation tank. However, the Project 188 is definitely a standard third-generation tank, with generational upgrades in fire control, armor, and situational awareness. If the Gulf War had used the Project 188 instead of the 'monkey-scale' T-72, the outcome would have been completely different!"

Slava nodded, then asked a question that Potkin hadn't considered.

"Hmm... let me think, if the alliance wanted to sell this tank to different allies and at different price points—what would you do?"

Potkin tilted his head, not quite understanding the General Secretary's thought process.

“What I mean is, are you going to do some tiered weakening?” Slava said. “Like the T-72, but please don’t make something like the T-72M, which is garbage. The Gulf War has shown that the future belongs to the information age.”

Potkin thought for a moment, then carefully chose his words: "Comrade General Secretary, it's standard practice to downgrade export models to a certain extent. Core armor material formulas, the latest ammunition models, electronic warfare systems... these things definitely cannot be given away; this is the bottom line for national security."

"I know this is standard operating procedure. But I think your design bureau's 'cutting technique' is not very good. The export version is weakened too much and it's not competitive in the market!"

"You cut down on composite armor and replaced it with cast pure steel, and you overdid the reduction in fire control precision, ammunition, and electronic equipment. The end result was that the customer paid for a third-generation tank but got the performance of a second-generation tank."

We're basically cutting off someone's leg and then selling them a pair of crutches!

Potkin's lips twitched slightly; Slava was right.

"We need to be more careful with our export strategy next time. Customers aren't stupid; the lessons of the Gulf War will make every buyer more discerning. They'll demand testing, comparisons, and real performance data. If we continue with our old approach of giving an empty shell, customers will go to the Americans!"

Did you know that Saudi Arabia spent over a billion dollars to buy American tanks the week after the Gulf War ended? That's enough for so many things we could do! The Americans themselves use one for only about 460 million dollars; how dare they sell it to Saudi Arabia for 1000 million? Why can't we earn that kind of money?

Slava was heartbroken and, in front of Potkin, wore a mask of anguish, pounding his chest and stamping his feet. He felt distressed at the thought that the Americans made more than 500 million from Saudi Arabia for a single tank.

What's more painful than not being able to earn money yourself is having someone else earn the money that you should be earning, and even more!

Potkin then went back to the Department of Defense to discuss the specific plan, and the plan was soon delivered to Slava.

Potkin's plan was this: Project 188 would be sold separately.

The first was the original Project 188, used by the Soviet Army. The second was a dedicated export model based on Project 188. The performance was gradually reduced, from 90% of the original to only slightly better than the T-72.

"I suggest calling the export model T90," Potkin said.

"Where's the original?"

“The original version—” Potkin glanced at Ogarkov beside him.

“Call it T72BU,” Ogarkov said. “It’s low-key, so outsiders won’t take it seriously. But once our intervention forces are on the battlefield, they’ll be in for a world of trouble.”

In the following years, the Soviet Union quickly developed a large number of sub-models for its export T-90 tanks based on the specific national conditions of its sales partners, distinguishing them by adding suffixes to the original model names:

Initially, the Soviet Union produced the T-90-90, T-90-80, and even the T-90-50. Later, as the Soviet Union began to massively apply information technology to military equipment and embrace integrated information and fire control, the battlefield situational awareness, electronic warfare equipment, and interception capabilities of tanks were upgraded. Furthermore, the Soviet Union needed to consider selling equipment to some pro-NATO but financially willing neutral countries. This led to the development of strange, slightly modified versions such as the T-90-90D and T-90-90Dv2 for China, the T-90-80 Titan for Yugoslavia, and the T-90-70 Titan-Super for Ethiopia. This led later internet commentary on the Soviet Union's stingy yet unpredictable and precise sales tactics:

"Countries that frequently sell military equipment to foreign countries know that downgrading high-end weapons into low-end weapons can effectively reduce losses and increase profits."

Legend has it that when Ivanov was a child, he went to the hospital to have his foreskin cut. The doctor, under the pretext of carefully controlling the length, kept cutting until the anesthesia wore off, causing Ivanov excruciating pain. Therefore, when he grew up, he wanted to tell this childhood story to give the T90 series the precise cutting technique…

That's a story for another time.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

After Potkin left, only Slava and Ogarkov remained in the office.

Slava looked at Ogarkov: "Let's put the tanks aside for now. I want to talk to you about a bigger issue: the future of the army."

Ogarkov and others have been discussing this topic for a long time.

"Comrade General Secretary, the lessons we learned from the Gulf War are not just about a single tank, but about the entire army's operational model!"

He stood up and walked to the map on the wall.

“Look at the battle along the 73rd parallel. Every American tank knew where it was (GPS), where friendly forces were (data link), and where the enemy was roughly (information from early warning aircraft). Its tanks were nodes in a network.”

"The only sources of intelligence for Iraq's T-72s were the commander's naked eye and a rudimentary sighting system. I have had many successes in the military's information reform over the years, and I used to think that the reform might soon come to an end. But now, with the rapid advancement of coalition technology, I believe that the road to information reform is far from over."

He turned around.

"Future armored forces will not focus too much on armor-piercing projectiles. The competition between armor and armor-piercing projectiles will never stop; this game has no end, and we certainly cannot give up."

"But I think the three things that are really important are information, battlefield situational awareness, and proactive interception."

Ogarkov hopes to deeply integrate information and firepower to accelerate the cycle of soldiers' observation, decision-making, and action, thereby improving strike accuracy.

The role of military forces should shift to reconnaissance, guidance, containment, and domain control. As for what constitutes information, it includes the number, type, coordinates, operational status, and distance of enemy targets, as well as the types of weapons and ammunition to be used to engage them, target guidance during the attack, damage assessment after the attack, and so on. These are all considered information by Ogarkov.

Slava listened and thought for a while.

"That makes a lot of sense—since the Alliance's economy is doing relatively well right now, shouldn't we start developing the next generation of equipment that fits your theory?"

"We need to develop fourth-generation tanks and new self-propelled artillery. Ideally, the alliance should strive to complete the prototypes before the 80th anniversary of the October Revolution in 1997! They can be used for the military parade."

He paused, worried that Ogarkov might treat this as a political task and mess things up by rushing to meet deadlines, so he quickly said:

"Even if it can't be completed, it doesn't matter. We can just make a concept car shell. Anyway, the Americans have done it before. They tricked us into following their Star Wars program and laser weapons, but in the end, they still canceled it because of the economic crisis."

The alliance isn't short of money right now, so go ahead and do it with confidence. Ideally, we should develop the concept first and announce it in advance, forcing the Americans to follow suit and develop their own! The alliance is now large and powerful, with plenty of resources; we're not afraid to go head-to-head with the Americans!

Slava looked at Ogarkov: "Is it technically possible for us to do this?"

After a moment's consideration, Ogarkov said, "Comrade General Secretary, since there is no problem with the economic support alliance, then the technical issues may not be the most important thing—in Eastern terms, I may have to pour cold water on your enthusiasm."

"I'm not afraid of being discouraged, go ahead and say it!" Slava shook his head with a smile. Over the years, nothing he's done has ever gone smoothly; there's always something going wrong.

"Our bottleneck lies in the system. Comrade General Secretary, there are serious problems among the major design bureaus in our R&D system."

The first is the potential for vicious competition.

The Soviet design bureau competition system itself was problematic. The Soviet approach involved multiple design bureaus submitting proposals for the same requirement, with the winner receiving the mass production contract.

The most typical example in the field of tanks is the long-term competition between Nizhny Tagil, Kharkov, and Leningrad. This system developed serious problems during the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras.

By the late 80s, the competition among these three companies had reached a vicious cycle of vying for budgets, projects, and the attention of the Politburo. Each company desperately tried to prove that its own proposal was the best and that the others' proposals were rubbish, and then used all sorts of means—writing reports, seeking connections, and pulling strings—to win projects.

The simultaneous production of the T-64, T-72, and T-80 main battle tanks is virtually unparalleled in military history. The three tanks used non-interchangeable ammunition, spare parts, engines, and transmissions, creating an unimaginable logistical nightmare.

Competition can no longer produce optimal solutions; competition itself has become the goal—each design bureau is backed by local economic interests, party committee networks, and military factions, so no one can eliminate the others.