Re The Russian CPU is guaranteed to ...... just be a cpu
A Russian cpu would be like a cpu made in China - a cpu that can do some computing tasks at a price and speed that is still useful without questions surrounding its import, a stop over when shipped as part of a larger system. Jobs, security, growth and a full understanding of every aspect of the cpu design.

The NSA and GCHQ have always wanted more info on China. From flying drones Lockheed D-21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... to funding CIA Tibetan program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... to using commercial shipping to gather signals intelligence.
China has its own brands of phones to sell, domestically and globally. Why risk staff wondering around with product lines mentioned in connection with foreign intelligence services?

Re Carter http://www.salon.com/2013/07/1...
It was an interesting decade with Halloween Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re OT, I saw the ASIO lyrics a few days ago linked from a slashdot comment and added the sig.

Re 'My feeling is that European countries want to be friends with the US, because otherwise they get bullied by Russia."
The EU had 2 options - find its own oil and gas globally in the 1950's-70's and undercut protected US/UK oil brands with all the distant start up costs.
Enrico Mattei views on big oil and finding Italy much needed cheap energy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Option two was buy gas from the Soviet Union at set rates with new pipelines.
The Soviet Union and Russia was paid on time and kept to the letter of the contracts with the EU.
The EU and Russia seem to have a new vision of energy exports
Russia Rushes To Seal Ukraine-Bypassing Gas Pipeline: Lavrov Pays Bulgaria A Visit (07/07/2014)
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...

Re Germans would riot (literally) if the US planned to close the base. It is a huge source of jobs, jobs that would otherwise go to US contractors but instead go to local German contractors.
UK and US sites have closed. The locals are unhappy but decades later an understanding of what been occupied is really all about is emerging.

Germany wants its own gov staff back. Germany wants its own trade deals in private. Germany wants its science and banking back. Germany wants its telco sector back. Germany wants its staff to be good Germans, not more loyal to "Five Eyes" plus other nations every working day. Germany wants its own domestic and foreign policy back from the US and UK.
Setting up 'manipulate them through false information instead?" is tricky as West Germany found out. If the staff around your top political leaders work for East Germany - just setting up 'false information' might be noted.
If the tame cleared German staff around your top political leaders work for other nations - just setting up 'false information' might be noted.
So German is been cleared up in public. That reduces any security advantage hidden/cleared German staff have to re invent their pasts helping Western powers.
That reduces any press advantage hidden/cleared German staff pasted to helping Western powers to slow the investigations down.
The Western press spin of protecting German from "commienazis" may not work so well this time.
Re 'What are the implications here?" Germany trades with the world as Germany again, not Germany with 5+ other nations having some real time advantage for their own brands and firms.
German industry can emerge again to trade fully with the world.
No more wondering why Germans where been frozen out of a trade deal or under cut by 5+ other nations again and again.. over decades.

Re "And yet their own intelligence agencies have no issue with sharing and working with the NSA."
The West German "intelligence agencies" grew out of ww2 - some where never vetted, some had their files lost or re written, some where invited in due to needed Soviet skills- no questions asked.
Over time they selected new staff, where exposed due to their ww2 crimes or retired. The next generation was guided into a world of expensive technology to help the NSA, CIA and GCHQ understand and shape the West German teclo system.
Great work, nice pay, dreamy budgets and on the winning team. This went on for decades and the West German staff got very comfortable ensuring the copper and later optical systems worked as installed by the USA. The GCHQ and NSA enjoyed full access to all aspects of West and later German telecommunications with the full help of tame, local German staff per site.
At some point other groups within the German gov would have had enough of all their communications, trade negotiations, science, politics just flowing to the UK, USA and a few other competing countries for free every day thanks to tame German gov and private sector staff.
At some point a white list of tame US and UK helping German staff with telco site/file access would have been created to ensure site access and pass/paper work.
Perhaps other groups in the wider German gov now have a short list of German telco experts/gov staff who are more loyal to the USA/UK than German.
Once the questioning starts beyond now 1 or 2 and grows to 10's, 100's will the US and UK offer their German helpers passports, pensions and residency outside Germany?
Like the nice interpreters get after other occupations are over.

The fix is in for Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ie spend big and you get extra updates.
Australia never wants to face the lack of support it had over issues like radar warning receiver (RWR) and EW threat library information.
Having to fix your imports is hard and very expensive. Australia was not facing the East European threat library. Australia was facing Asia importing US platforms.

In the US the fact that encryption was a part or the origin of the case would not matter much after some quality parallel construction.
Hint at a list of concurrent and consecutive court options and you sign before the case goes to court or turn informant.

China would throw 10x as many half assed shitboxes and still win. They need to be cheap and reliable
Russia and China learned a lot for their well placed spies in the US during Vietnam and later the Soviet Unions experiences in Afghanistan. You dont get a clean airstrip, you get crumbling cement, you dont get moderate temperatures. You dont get to slow fast fighters down, you dont get to go low and see all with the new fast kit you had for the next war.
So you have to invest in a lot of different kit, that looks after the crew and lets you fly a varied missions with the crew returning.
The US has tried to focus on emerging electronics and packing multiple roles into one export winner.
Can expensive mercenaries and contractors flying networked drones really fill in the hours and ammo count when other established systems are replaced by the one export winner?

" international sales will offset at least some of the expense both directly and indirectly." are usually subsidized by the US tax payer as a thank you for shared sites, sites for the NSA, joint training and systems integration. Dont forget the shareholders have to be looked after too.
International buyers will offset their own domestic budgets by supporting the emerging USA systems and request big US discounts over years.
They can always hint at pondering other aircraft next time.

Thinking back to the old hardware you could have a secure sandpit and memory on Unix like devices.
You could have a secure sandpit and memory on consumer computers at a huge cost in cash and GUI slowness.
Speed to market for 1.0, GUI look and feel, security, costs, speed to market with new features vs security.
Helping the police and security services without slowing down the dev and release cycle.
The hardware was just too costly and slow at the consumer level vs a responsive, secure, feature rich software offering.
It was beyond the needs of the beta productivity and games rush to market.