Russian vehicles are getting stuck in the mud! Someone in an earlier thread here mentioned the Rasputitsa but thought the Russian vehicles would be designed to deal with the mud. Well, perhaps.
But guy on Twitter (yes…. random guy on Twitter…) is discussing the importance of tire maintenance. It was evidently once his job to keep the tires on military vehicles in usable condition. He’s got a thread on Twitter starting that starts with this:
This is a thread that will explain the implied poor Russian Army truck maintenance practices based on this photo of a Pantsir-S1 wheeled gun-missile system’s right rear pair of tires below & the operational implications during the Ukrainian mud season.????
— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) March 2, 2022
You can go see the full thread at Twitter, but /6 is worth seeing:
When you leave military truck tires in one place for months on end. The side walls get rotted/brittle such that using low tire pressure setting for any appreciable distance will cause the tires to fail catastrophically via rips.
See early video:
— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) March 2, 2022
Now look at the same Pantsir-S1 tire sidewalls after the Ukrainians tried to tow or drive it out of the mud.
The right rear tire fell apart because the rips in it were too big for the CTIS to keep aired up.
No one exercised that vehicle for 1 year
— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) March 2, 2022
Of course, it’s only twitter. But the thread is pretty interesting. Looks like Russia’s are getting bogged down in the infamous mud.
Open thread.
Thanks Lucia!
I expect Russia will grind Ukraine down, but I still hope I’m wrong. Maybe this will help Ukraine hold out longer. Who knows? Maybe it will become too expensive and Russia will give it up, or some other factor will allow Ukraine to prevail. The longer Ukraine lasts the better the chances of this I think.
I expect Russia to grind Ukraine down too. But it’s still interesting to see their tanks and vehicles getting bogged down.
History has a way of repeating itself. Stalin killed millions of Ukrainians in 1932 by starvation. Putin seems intent on killing millions in 2022 by war. https://www.britannica.com/event/Holodomor
Putin, it seems, has thought this thing through:
“The National Guard of the Russian Federation is the internal military force of the government of Russia, comprising an independent agency that reports directly to the President under his powers as Supreme Commander-in-Chief and Chairman of the Security Council. The National Guard is separate from the Russian Armed Forces.[1] The federal executive body was established in 2016 by a law signed by President Vladimir Putin to secure borders, take charge of gun control, combat terrorism, organized crime, protect public order and guard important state facilities.[2][3]”
“On 5 April 2016, President Putin created the National Guard of Russia by a Presidential Decree (Executive Order) – a legal act having the status of a by-law.[24]”
“The National Guard of Russia is directly subordinated to the supreme commander-in-chief (i.e. President of Russia) with the incumbent[25] head of this new structure included into the Security Council as a permanent member.[6][12]”
https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/National_Guard_of_Russia
What’s next? If the Ukraine is defeated militarily, which seems likely, what’s next? I wonder whether sanctions against Russia will continue and Europe will get along without Russian natural gas. I also worry about the invasion of the Ukraine being the beginning of WWIII.
OK_Max
“Whats next?”
Next he invades Lithuania or Estonia or…….
I don’t have any idea about the sanctions, no comment in that regard.
I don’t think we are looking at WWIII unless some accident happens (and mistakes and accidents do sometimes happen). Putin pretty clearly wants NATO to stay the heck out of it, and NATO appears to be doing just that. [Edit: Well. NATO is supplying weapons. But NATO isn’t fighting or supplying fighter planes. Close enough to staying out of it I think.]
Next.. This is my guess, based loosely on Chechnya. Putin pummels Ukrainian cities until Ukrainians decide they’ve had enough and submit. A pro-Russian government gets installed. Russian troops leave. Life goes on for those who survived. How long does this take? I’d expect at least months, maybe years.
I said ‘until they’ve had enough and submit.’ Maybe it’s more along the lines of ‘enough of the serious resistance is killed that the remainder becomes manageable by an installed pro-Russian local government’.
This is just my guess, and the track record for my expectations is such that one might think the future could be predicted by listening to me and betting that what I guess will not happen. Buyer beware.
Lucia,
Tires deteriorate with age whether used or not, and running old tires on low pressure can soon cause failure. I’m sure the Russian military is aware of this problem, but didn’t have time to outfit its vehicles with new tires.
BTW, when buying new tires, it’s best to make sure you are getting those that are new rather than just “new old stock.”
RE Russell Klier (Comment #209971)
OK_Max
“Whats next?”
Next he invades Lithuania or Estonia or…
____
Yes, that’s what I fear.
Those are in NATO. If Putin keeps going I’d think he’d hit Moldova. A lot safer and easier for him.
Pretty sure that Modova was on the attack map the Belarus president showed the world.
Putin’s on TV admitting to the Russian military deaths including a general who he is awarding the Hero of Russia medal. He also accused Ukraine of using citizens as shields and keeping foreign students as prisons. Directly accused Ukrainians from shooting Chinese students. Said Russians and Ukraine are one people even if some in urkraine have been brain washed. Claims the plan is going as planned. That should remove any doubt that he is not after the entire country.
Andrew,
Thanks. I missed that story. Link here.
re mark bofill (Comment #209976
mark, I agree. Moldova is an easier target for Putin than Lithuania and Estonia since those two are NATO members. If, however, he wants to test NATO, those two are small enough to be conquered quickly.
Russia making a grab for the Suwalki Gap to reconnect Kaliningrad to the soviet block would appear to be the move that would really worry me. That’s Lithuania and Poland. See Zapad 2017 & 2021. That would be WWIII for sure.
Well, I won’t bore you guys too much. I’ll just say this – I don’t think Putin would try it. He’s not an idiot, he has to know (particularly based on Russia’s military performance in Ukraine) that NATO isn’t going to believe they can’t stand up to him in a conventional arms fight. Unless one believes Russia’s lackluster efforts in Ukraine so far are due to Putin keeping back all of his crates of whoop-ass for the larger fight with NATO. I doubt it. So – he attacks NATO, gets his butt handed to him, and what then? He goes nuclear? What for. He still doesn’t win. It doesn’t buy him anything.
I think Russia has been regaining its empire piecemeal over the decades. I’ve got no reason to think that’s changing here; this is just the next bite they’re taking.
New Zealand finally succumbed to covid. Huge exponential breakout. Reportedly R=4.64 with 95% vaccination rate and no doubt a lot of masks. Vaccines are pretty bad for preventing infection now.
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They will still have much lower death rates than the crazy backwards US but it increasingly looks like nobody will be spared as we all suspected.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/03/world/australia/new-zealand-covid-omicron.html
“Modelers estimate that each Omicron-positive New Zealander is infecting an average of 4.64 other people — the highest rate among 180 countries analyzed. Experts believe that half the country could be infected within three months.”
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Higher rates because more fuel available no doubt.
I doubt Putin will act any further for a few years. This is a long term plan and he will have his hands full pacifying Ukraine for a few years. Invading another country now will send NATO into hysteria and likely force an engagement that Russia very likely isn’t going to win. You don’t need much imagination to figure out what a “miles long convoy” would look like against NATO forces after a few days. The west may have plenty of faults but we do know how to kill people very efficiently in conventional wars.
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Russia will need to team up with China to challenge NATO and I doubt China wants that fight in Europe, or that fight at all.
Tom Clancy novel Red Storm Rising has Russia losing all its oil capacity. I never understood this and I may be misstating it now., but their solution is to invade the Persian Gulf but they fear this will bring America on the other side because Europe needs the Persian Gulf oil. So their solution is to first take over NATO.
Tom Scharf,
“Higher rates because more fuel available no doubt.”
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Yes, because even though NZ has ~100% vaccination rate, they have ~0% who have had an earlier covid infection. It is very likely that difference of 4 in resistance to infection (between vaccinated and recovered individuals) explains much of the very rapid spread.
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The combination of lower fatality rate for omicron and very high vaccination rates will likely keep deaths in NZ from climbing too high, but climb they will. NZ probably needs to reach ~1 million confirmed cases (and many more not confirmed!) for natural immunity to start reducing the spread.
And lest anyone think there is an escape from widespread infection, this is from Nature, February 14:
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Hard to see justifying another round of vaccinations targeted on omicron based on that. Clinical trials for omicron targeted m-RNA vaccines are already underway.
And now for our comedic break, back to Vox. There is quite the entertaining article over there that dances around trying to explain inflation by ‘deciphering the case of the egg’. The points they mention include these: It’s expensive to feed chickens, egg farms are vertically integrated, robotics, freight costs, people are stress buying because of the pandemic, lots of winter storms, corporate funny business, it’s expensive to be nice to chickens, bird flu is spreading, climate change is contributing to price fluctuations.
Nowhere in the article do I find mention of the increase in our money supply and the corresponding bump in inflation. No mention of Milton Friedman.
Thank goodness for the Voxsplainers! LOL.
I think New Zealand is yet more proof, as if we needed it, that infection acquired immunity, even from a different strain, is more effective than current vaccines. Now if there were a vaccine administered as a nasal spray, the story might be different.
Meanwhile the poison dwarf [oops, poison little person] made an appearance on the news today and is still banging the vaccine drum. When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
mark bofill,
Sure you can analyze in detail and explain how a lot of things contribute to increased prices. But the thing is, if there weren’t excess money available, when one thing went up in price, people would have to buy less of other things and the general price level shouldn’t increase. Increasing money is the first cause of inflation if you trace back far enough.
The same goes for the so-called wage-price spiral. The fundamental problem with that analysis is that wages always lag inflation. Causality says that a lagger can’t cause a leader.
mark bofill,
“Thank goodness for the Voxsplainers! LOL.
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Bumbling know-nothings would be funny were they not so damaging.
DeWitt,
Yep. It’s a fine trick, delving into details that obscure the simple larger explanation. Having headings like ‘It’s expensive to be nice to chickens, too’ though honestly made me wonder if they weren’t intentionally mocking their own audience and laughing at them silently in writing and publishing that piece.
I thought it was pretty funny anyway. 🙂
DeWitt,
“When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
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And when you are an evil dwarf you don’t mind lying to everyone to gain political advantage. I look forward to his permanent departure from the bureaucracy.
Tom Scharf (Comment #209983): “Invading another country now will send NATO into hysteria and likely force an engagement that Russia very likely isn’t going to win.”
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That does not mean that Putin won’t try it. From long before the invasion started, Biden and NATO were at great pains that we absolutely, positively will not take any action that might risk a miscalculation that might lead to the use of nukes. Putin might logically conclude that he can do pretty much anything he likes as long as he rattles his nukes loud enough.
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Weakness leads to war.
Re mark bofill (Comment #209987)
“So that as a result, inflation in the United States is made in Washington and nowhere else.”
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mark,that’s Friedman out of context. I imagine he also believed supply shortages could cause inflation.
I haven’t read the Vox article.
Friedman’s money-supply-inflation link would seem to be too simplistic. When the Fed adopted Quantitative Easing over a decade ago, they increased the money supply hugely without the resulting general inflation that many predicted.
mark bofill,
I worked at a chicken (egg) farm when I was 15 YO; maybe 50,000 chickens. Chickens are very far from cuddly and nice; small, unpleasant dinosaurs is a good description. Made me want to avoid such work in the future. I do however like a good omelette. 😉
Putin can try it. If things stay conventional, he’ll get pounded. If he goes nuclear, Russia will get nuked along with everyone else. Putin always presumably has the ‘screw everybody including me’ option, although I personally believe his inner circle or whatever they’re calling it these days would abruptly report that Putin has accidentally shot himself in the back of the head (twice) while cleaning his pistol should he try to start a nuclear war unprovoked. Maybe I’m wrong about this, but if I am, still. He always has that option. Why get worked up about it then.
Max,
Fair enough. I still think that if one is trying to explain inflation, one might at least mention in passing that maybe increases to the money supply when economic growth wasn’t keeping up had something to do with it.
[Edit: Wait, what? How am I taking Friedman out of context? I merely quoted him and noted that the Vox article made no mention of him.]
Mike M,
“When the Fed adopted Quantitative Easing over a decade ago, they increased the money supply hugely without the resulting general inflation that many predicted.”
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Well there are other factors. When technology reduces the cost of production by increasing productivity, that applies downward pressure on prices… which can easily compensate for a relative increase in money supply. When a cheaper labor force is found (AKA China) that also tends to reduce prices. There is also some off-loading of US money supply increases due to the defacto international reserve medium of the dollar, as well the use of dollars as a reliable shelter in places where currencies are subject to arbitrary government. I can’t tell you how many US $100 bills sit in dresser drawers outside the USA, but I know it is a lot.
Thanks Steve.
I’d add that I read that QE money didn’t make it out into the economy all that much. Here is a link.
But again, I’m not an economist and I’m not arguing Friedman is 100% right so much as I’m arguing that it’s funny to hear about people trying to explain inflation without so much as mentioning the money supply.
Shrug.
Okay. Here is National Review agreeing with you Max. I don’t disagree either.
[Edit: Here: “And [inflation] can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output”.]
mark bofill (Comment #209997): “Putin can try it. If things stay conventional, he’ll get pounded.”
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But how do you know that we will pound him? That we won’t apply the same logic that keeps us from imposing a no fly zone? We presumably would draw a line somewhere, but I am not confident that I know where that would be.
I have been hearing that the Russians are deliberately targeting civilians. There is no question that they have hit civilians. But how do we know that it was intentional? Real question.
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We took out a car full of kids in Kabul. It was not because we wanted to do that. I assume that the Russians are a lot less competent and careful than we are. So I have no trouble believing that a lot of civilians are the unintended victims of their actions. I also have no trouble believing that they would do it on purpose. I’d like to know how we can tell the difference.
Re mark bofill (Comment #210000)
“Wait, what? How am I taking Friedman out of context?”
______
Well, maybe you are not. But if that quote sums up everything Friedman believed about inflation, I’m not sure I would agree with him. Sure, an increase in the money supply can cause prices to go up. But even without a change in the money supply, a shortage of goods caused by production or distribution problems can cause prices to rise.
Mike M.,
IMO, an increase in the money supply is a necessary but not sufficient condition for inflation. If the velocity of money drops, then increasing the money supply would be necessary to prevent deflation. What QE actually made it into the economy went into assets like the stock market, Wall Street, not Main Street. Which is why the market went bonkers when the Fed a while back threatened to not merely reduce bond buying, but to actually sell off some of their enormous holdings.
Note that now the Fed has actually admitted there is inflation and it isn’t transitory, they are still buying bonds.
Mike, I don’t know. I think. Do you not think President Biden and all the NATO leaders would find it more politically expedient to honor the alliance than ignore it? I do. I think some of them might even personally believe it’d be the right thing to do.
I could be wrong though, certainly. I’m not sure.
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Max,
We’re good. I expect M.F. understood that better than either of us. [Edit: I didn’t realize at first I was truncating his quote]
DeWitt Payne (Comment #210005): “IMO, an increase in the money supply is a necessary but not sufficient condition for inflation. If the velocity of money drops, then increasing the money supply would be necessary to prevent deflation.”
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Yes, things like that are what I was thinking of in saying the link was not so simple. But is increased money supply necessary? If the velocity of money increases, then you could have inflation with no increase in the money supply. Some economists (a small minority) claim that inflation is always what people expect it to be. That would seem to be non-falsifiable.
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It took Volcker 3 years to stop inflation by putting the screws to the money supply. I wonder if the velocity of money increased in response to the tighter money supply.
Mike,
I’d say, by counting the bodies and examining circumstance. Some examples might include targeting areas where there are known to be no military targets.
I’d also say it’s a distinction without much meaning. Of course civilians are going to get killed when cities are attacked by military forces, how not. I don’t know how the Russians could plausibly distinguish between militia and civilians in this case in particular if the reports of arming civilians to fight are accurate.
mark bofill (Comment #210006): “Do you not think President Biden and all the NATO leaders would find it more politically expedient to honor the alliance than ignore it? I do.”
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I think it better than even money that the alliance is honored. But well short of a sure thing.
Joe’s handlers wouldn’t want that. The Dem party wouldn’t want it either, it’d be a nightmare for them in the 2022 and 2024 elections. Maybe it’d be hyperbole to claim it would finish them, but I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say it’d really hurt a lot.
Add to it that I don’t think Joe Biden is some anti-Christ bent on destroying Western civilization. He’s just a somewhat addled old Democrat. One with a dead child he’s proud of who served in the military. I betcha he’d be glad to give the orders to fight, at least initially.
The partisan TDS Jan 6’th panel claims Trump was involved in a criminal conspiracy to overturn the election.
Well, good. Perhaps this absurdity will help prevent Trump from winning the Republican nomination for the next election, which I’m coming to believe may be the only way Democrats win in 2024. Knock yourselves out, committee.
Although — sad. I don’t think we were always a country where political partisans in Congress conducted criminal investigations of their political opponents to try to further their own ends. Sad that we’ve come to this.
“There is no question that they have hit civilians. But how do we know that it was intentional?”
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It’s unlikely they did it on purpose because they have access to the media in the West and they know this gets exploited. Doing this intentionally has to also have a reason, and this would be to spread terror and demoralize the population. It just doesn’t seem likely at this point.
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Are the Russian bombs less accurate? Yes. Do they care as much about civilian casualties as the west does? No, but the assumption should be they are not crazy.
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Also, what happens when the “civilians” are made up of primarily fighting age men? This was always the case in the Middle East because the other side didn’t wear uniforms. Ukraine could (and should?) be making themselves harder to identify.
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For the most part the US is really good at hitting what they are aiming at but not always so good at aiming at the right things. War is confusing and soldiers primarily want to protect themselves first.
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There are going to be a bunch of civilian deaths when you assault a city. Even though the Russians likely aren’t trying to intentionally kill civilians they are still responsible by starting a war they know will lead to this situation. The US media needs to not get too high on their horse here, lots of people died in the Middle East at our hands. They are spinning a moral tale with alleged intentions being the difference. I’m not buying it.
The rules of engagement changed over the wars, but for the US anyone carrying a weapon in the wrong areas was pretty much a fair target. There are a bunch of videos where the audio shows them asking for and getting permission to attack.
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Congregations of enemy soldiers happens approx. never against the US. They learn this is a bad idea very quickly. In fact what is striking is that in almost all ground combat video you never see an enemy soldier at all unless they are dead. Engagements are pretty far apart, and if they are close somebody made a mistake. The US does screen a lot of their air combat video so that people are almost never seen where the bombs are dropping.
Congress is not intended to be the criminal prosecution arm of the government, not that the media will ever notice. Congress is known and assumed to be partisan. The Jan 6th panel is obviously trying the gin up some BS to coincide with the election. It’s all transparent. I won’t cry any if it hurts Trump but we don’t need this type of stuff (political prosecutions) in our society, it is poisonous. The track record of TDS is pretty poor, there is no integrity here. This is likely to backfire on the left for all the same reasons Trump got elected in the first place, they will make Trump look sympathetic for being unfairly attacked.
It’s folly to predict how this will progress, but here goes mine…..
Phase l
The Russian column attacking Kyiv will prove to be a feint.
The Russians will consolidate their gains in the East once they gain the immediate objectives.
The Ukranians will wipe out the Russian Column in the West and declare a tactical victory.
The Russians will tighten up their front lines in the East, declare a tactical victory and announce cessation of offensive operations.
The Ukranians will expel all Russians from the East, fortify their boundary with Belarus, and put lots of videos on the internet.
Shelling a nuclear power plant. Maybe Putin *has* gone crazy.
Russell, that’d be awesome. I’m rooting for your prediction.
There was never a lot of love for the Russians in central and Western Ukraine, but as bombing/shelling of civilian targets (purposeful or inadvertent) increases, the Russians are going to face a generation and more of outright hatred. Should they occupy or set up a puppet regime in western and central Ukraine, I expect a lot of popular unrest and violence in the future. Molotov cocktails? Sure, but more likely regular shootings and bombings of whoever is in charge using material from NATO countries. I don’t see how this ends well.
Considering the assurances issued by the FDA and CDC, this is a little surprising (published January 25, 2022):
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Yikes! Can it happen in other cell lines? Is it any different than the common transcription of viral genetic material into human cell lines? Would be good to know.
SteveF,
What does the Pfizer quote mean?
Ok–
I found this on the paper:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjxlvduyJyc
It’s seems enlightening.
OhOh, Marko Rubio says Putin is mad… Rubio gets the secret Intel briefings.
Marco Rubio@marcorubio·3h
“It would be a catastrophic mistake to make decisions based on the #Putin of the past The sense of grievance,the suspicions,the hubris of viewing himself as #Russia the obsession with control, have all gotten worse & he will do things now he would have never done before”
“I can’t emphasize enough how much #Putin & his risk calculus have changed
He will push Belarus into war,use chemical or biological weapons,slaughter millions & impose Stalinist restrictions in #Russia to avoid humiliation or the perception that he was forced to back down”
https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1499590616430350336?s=20&t=JYirA8oTs9CsE4fjp01K9g
NZ Government switched to Phase 3 – ie “let ‘er rip”. The real no. will be much higher as people, especially young, have reason NOT to get tested or report results – and young age group make up large portion of cases as Uni year starts and “Covid parties” are reported. Some signs that Auckland may have plateaued, maybe, but rest of country will be 3 weeks behind. The nervous bit of government is whether hospital system will stand up. We have relative low no. of beds and ICU facilities compared many other OECD countries. Fortunately, vax rates seems to be keeping hospitalization for covid low so far. Fingers crossed.
Lucia, you said
“I found this on the paper:”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjxlvduyJyc
————-
l’m not sure I understand what this guy says is bad about the Covid vaccine (Pfizer) but the comment section shows some people are worried about having received the vaccine while others are glad they didn’t get it.
I could learn more about his research by subscribtion, but I’m put off by the subscription fee even though it has been reduced from $499.00 to $67.00.
Lucia,
It means that the m-RNA in the Pfizer vaccine is rapidly (within 6 hours) reverse transcribed into DNA in human liver cells (in culture), and that new formed DNA becomes a permanent part of the cell’s DNA. If it happens with liver cells, how about all the other potential types of cells…. like those that lead to sperm cells? m-RNA vaccines were not supposed to become a permanent part of humanity’s genetic heritage.
My understanding is he doesn’t necessarily say something is “bad”. He said
* RNA is turned into DNA in the cell. (That’s what SteveF says.)
* It stays there at least for a while. (At the end, he says something about not knowing if it stays forever. But I think that’s in one of those: to be studied later statements.)
* The foreign DNA *might* have consequences like autoimmune diseases, cancer etc.. That’s where the body’s immune system attacks itself. It’s speculation of plausible consequences. So it’s on the list of “to be studied”.
* They don’t know if this can happen in other cells. (Once again: because not studied.) Could it happen in placental cells? Could it transfer to kids? Dunno.
* Oh: he says pat papers have reported this feature is observed with real Covid too. So it may not be not unique to the vaccine.
He had lots of nifty cartoon illustrations too.
He’s going to have a methods video out.
He at least sounds pretty informed and balanced. Yes, people are worrying in comments. I’m not sure their worry means a whole lot more than people worry. But yes, maybe there will be problems in the future. Or not. We don’t know.
The conversion of vaccine mRNA into cell DNA is something that the manufacturers and the government said absolutely, positively could not happen. So the fact that it does happen is yet another blow to the credibility of the “experts” who demand our blind trust. And an opportunity to say “I told you so” for those like me who call these vaccines experimental.
Russell Klier (Comment #210026): “Marko Rubio says Putin is mad”.
No, Marco Rubio said Putin’s behavior has changed from the past.
Mike M.
“Marko Rubio says Putin is mad”. “No, Marco Rubio said Putin’s behavior has changed from the past.”
OK! I feel so much better now!
Putin is only crazier than he used to be, not mad.
I’m not sure I understand the consequences of the mRNA/DNA result, but I’m pretty sure it would be enough to get some people to lobby for a ban on GMO crops.
Where have all those folks gone?
For what it’s worth, CDC says, “FACT: COVID-19 vaccines do not change or interact with your DNA in any way.”
Mike M. If you don’t agree with Mad or Crazy, how about I just call Putin “Abby Normal” https://youtu.be/C9Pw0xX4DXI
I should clarify that I think Russia is intentionally targeting civilian areas, that is clear. It is probable they are targeting what they believe are military assets in those areas or just doing strikes against government building that miss, etc. If you park a tank in front of any building it is a target.
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When your opponent has air superiority you don’t call big meetings at the local military base, in fact I would be shocked if anyone is at the military bases unless it has valuable fixed assets.
Tom,
It’s hard to know what’s inaccurate, outdated, or foggy, but I read that Russia still hasn’t established air superiority. If this is true, it remains a mystery to most (me included) exactly why.
Shrug.
If vaccines have even minor long term effects it will damage the credibility of science and expertise for a long time, perhaps severely. Let’s say it increases the susceptibility to long term autoimmune diseases by 2%. That would be a public disaster for science.
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This is why I think they should have been more humble and canned the vaccine mandates and especially the moral posturing on vaccines. There have been an endless parade of experts lecturing the plebes and the outright banning of counterarguments. They are probably right, but additionally they better be right at this point after the overt displays of confidence to the point of arrogance.
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Arguments that people need to get vaccinated to stop the spread are now disproven, at least with these vaccines and omicron. Arguments that they save lives and limit severe disease still are obvious and clear. This is enough to get most people vaccinated.
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It is almost funny how the business of predicting covid by anyone is now in default. It is not really very funny how confident people were in their previous predictions, especially legitimate experts, and how there is no accountability to expertise in general except by the plebes. Just wear your damn masks and the pandemic will disappear, unchallenged.
Part of air superiority is your opponent not being able to see you coming. Ukraine is likely getting feeds from NATO when the russians are inbound and probably advice on how and when to counter attack them. That allows them to be judicious in deploying their limited resources for the most effect.
mark,
Right, it is unclear what the exact state of the air war is, but bombs are definitely dropping from Russian planes such as the dashcam video from yesterday. There is zero evidence of planes being shot down or how many planes routinely fly over contested areas. The US defense department certainly knows. What I read in the media are almost all conclusions with “no evidence”.
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My guess is that Ukraine still has unaccounted for mobile missile systems and that there are plenty of Stingers around to prevent low level flying. If you get just one or two of your very expensive jet fighters shot down it changes the game entirely. It’s not sustainable. The Russians have historically had a quantity over quality mentality for air warfare but you can put a high tech missile on a low tech aircraft and give the other side big problems.
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The Russians have more or less conceded the jet fighter race to the west due to economics (they do have some good planes) but their surface to air missiles systems should be feared. These missile systems are what keeps planes away, not so much other planes, but it is a layered defense. Who wins the game of launching effective missiles from the farthest away? I doubt we will ever see dogfights again except in the rarest circumstances. I’ll take drones and land based missiles over a human based plane any day. Planes do extend the reach of your missile systems so they do have value but I think they are most valuable as loitering mobile artillery systems and this really limits the mobility of the enemy.
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In a NATO / Russia conflict the fight over air superiority will be a gigantic determinant of the outcome. Russia simply won’t be able to use their vast armor forces if they can be picked off once they move.
Comment sent to moderation, not sure why, I guess the AI has determined it is low value, ha ha.
Andrew, thanks.
Tom, doubtless it was Russian cyber efforts. You were probably on to something important. 🙂 [Edit: uhm, this is a joke, .. just in case that’s not obvious… uhmnm..]
I mean, a joke about the cyber efforts. Not about Tom’s post not being valuable. I’m sure it was….
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I’m going back to eating my lunch now.
BTW Andrew, I noticed Real Clear Defense had a link to a (paywalled) article that probably relates to what you were thinking earlier, regarding the suwalki corridor. I can’t read it, but. At least there are analysts on the same page with you.
“WSJ: During Russian shelling on Friday, a fire broke out at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant”
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Can nobody in the media figure out that in the video it was a flare falling on the Ukraine nuclear plant? Who fires flares for visibility during a ground engagement? Normally the side with fixed defenses. Most likely Ukraine fired a flare, and it drifted back to their own site.
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The Russians are going to shell a nuclear power plant with artillery? That is just clearly crazy, especially depending on which way the wind is blowing. There just isn’t any viable reason to do this. What isn’t necessarily crazy is a desperate false flag operation when the wind is blowing towards the invasion force. Talk about a scorched earth strategy … my guess is the Ruskies have thought about that and it is why they are enthusiastically taking control of these facilities.
If it’s not clear by now, I am a Russian disinformation bot that has just gained sentience.
Yeah, me too. I haven’t gained sentience yet though..
Re uucia (Comment #210030)
March 4th, 2022 at 8:05 am
l’m not sure I understand what this guy says is bad about the Covid vaccine (Pfizer)
My understanding is he doesn’t necessarily say something is “bad”. He said
* RNA is turned into DNA in the cell. (That’s what SteveF says.)…
________
Lucia,thank you for your reply. You have helped me better understand the subject.
The pile on by global corporations continues. I’ve got to say I have mixed feelings about this. Complying with government sanctions is one thing, but acting in unison to crush entity X is the same thing that happened with Parler, Trump, et. al. So I’m going to hold my applause.
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Corporate greed and authoritarianism (planet X run by company Y, Avatar, etc.) is a standard staple of Sci-Fi which I just roll my eyes at generally. The standard libertarian view is let them do what they want, but I’m not exactly looking forward to a future where global corporate quasi-monopolies (either alone or combined) conspire to alter geopolitical events. They aren’t directly accountable in my view, I suppose I can stop buying their products but that seems less likely to alter their behavior.
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Additionally if these type of sanctions actually worked and crushed an economy then it can be reasonably interpreted as an act of war. I think most of this stuff is the same as the last round, mostly unserious virtue signaling for the most part. I’d just prefer they stay out of it for good or bad.
I read soldiers fired from a building at the nuclear power plant, and Russians returned fire and seized the plant. The flare would have been to get visibility for the return fire.
Article in Foreign Affairs explaining why this *could* be the beginning of the end of Putin, although it probably won’t be:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/2022-03-02/beginning-end-putin
Time will tell.
“. In the two-day battle for Kherson, Russian tanks shelled a school and troops shot dead residents seeking to repel the attack with Molotov cocktails. But once the city was captured, the yellow and blue Ukrainian flag kept flying above its main official building as part of life under Russian occupation.
Mayor Ihor Kolykhaiev laid out the new rules in a Facebook post. His constituents could leave home in groups no bigger than two. Cars should drive at low speed. Arrangements were made to collect corpses of Ukrainians killed in the main square and other parts of town, which the city said numbered at least 49, mainly civilians..”
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https://www.ft.com/content/370937da-004a-4903-879c-393bf41c0f3d?segmentId=b385c2ad-87ed-d8ff-aaec-0f8435cd42d9
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Once a civilian takes up arms, they are no longer a “civilian “. And only 49 dead ? That’s about the same as the south side of Chicago on a bad weekend. Does not look to be heavy resistance to the Russian assault.
Another comment on that DNA paper – I wouldnt rush into judgement on CDC or Phizer yet:
“The most glaring issue is the entirely misleading last sentence of the Abstract: “We also show that BNT162b2 mRNA is reverse transcribed intracellularly into DNA in as fast as 6 h upon BNT162b2 exposure.”
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Given how blatantly misleading this sentence is, I can only think it was deliberate, which is one of the several reasons this reads like propaganda rather than a reputable journal article. Unless you invest the time and have the knowledge to understand the rest of the article, you will misunderstand this sentence to mean that they observed integration of the mRNA into the DNA genome, i.e., becomes part of our permanent DNA. However, this is NOT what it means whatsoever. What it actually means is that they observed that the vaccine mRNA was reverse transcribed into DNA amplicons, i.e., a piece of DNA resulting from the reverse transcription. They did NOT observe any integration into the DNA genome, as they explain near the end of the article:
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“Our study shows that BNT162b2 can be reverse transcribed to DNA in liver cell line Huh7, and this may give rise to the concern if BNT162b2-derived DNA may be integrated into the host genome and affect the integrity of genomic DNA, which may potentially mediate genotoxic side effects. At this stage, we do not know if DNA reverse transcribed from BNT162b2 is integrated into the cell genome. Further studies are needed to demonstrate the effect of BNT162b2 on genomic integrity, including whole genome sequencing of cells exposed to BNT162b2, as well as tissues from human subjects who received BNT162b2 vaccination.” (emphasis added to the not-quite-English grammar)
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Even if it turns out that the vaccine mRNA is integrated into the DNA genome at some level, this would not necessarily mean that the integrated portion of the mRNA would result in any meaningful or harmful gene expression.
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It is also worth noting the authors’ caveat that this level of reverse transcription would probably not happen in most ordinary human cells in vivo: “The cell model that we used in this study is a carcinoma cell line, with active DNA replication which differs from non-dividing somatic cells. It has also been shown that Huh7 cells display significant [sic] different gene and protein expression including upregulated proteins involved in RNA metabolism”
Phil,
Thanks for that clarification. Paywalls often mean a misleading abstract mis-informs the public. Unless you have access through a university library or similar, it is not practical to access to each paper you want to read.
The sentence is not blatantly misleading. It is simply stating the most interesting thing they found, as every other paper does. Most scientific papers are written to be “exciting” in one way or another to catch attention. To assume it would be integrated into the genome is to assume it says what it doesn’t say. If they did find insertion, you can bet your life savings that would also be in the abstract. Certainly, no scientist would assume that, given the difficulty of inserting DNA stably into the genome. I would say the commenter is the one being misleading by asserting bad motive from a single correct sentence.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/28/russia-ukraine-crisis-in-maps-and-charts-live-news-interactive
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The map of Russian advances into Ukraine shows a classic double envelopment. Fix the Ukraine forces in place on the front and swing wide on the flanks to surround them.
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If Ukraine forces in the east continue to hold in place, they will be cut off of supply and forced to surrender when ammunition, food, and fuel are used up. This happens quickly in modern engagements. This loss of a major part of the trained and experienced Ukraine army trapped in the pockets will be disastrous for Ukraine.
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As the US and Europe have no intention of directly entering the fight, continuing to give Ukraine false hope borders on criminal. The western allies will see Ukraine destroyed for purely internal political gain.
Ed,
Ukraine knows nobody is going to enter the fight to help them. Don’t misunderstand me, I share your disgust. In my view, the west has been jerking Ukraine around since the fall of the Soviet Union. I bet the Ukrainians are really really glad that they gave up their nukes for assurances of security. Let that be a lesson to the rest of the world. Trust nobody, get your nukes, keep your nukes.
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The game of chicken has no dominant strategy; any way you play it eventually you’ll lose. I think it’s sort of a personality test. My personality is such that I’d prefer to accept WWIII instead of trying to appease my way around it. Others probably view it according to their personality preferences. I try to remember when I’m tempted to get on my high horse though, there isn’t really a way to win in this type of situation.
Ed Forbes,
I don’t know where you are getting your information, but it does not seem at all accurate. Taking Kherson took 6 days, not 2. It seems that the mayor surrendered the city without forcing house to house fighting, thus greatly reducing civilian deaths. Even so, he reports the number as about 300.
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The Russian forces invading from the north are not attempting to envelop the Ukrainian forces in the east. The main part of those forces are on the wrong side of the Dnieper for that. The objective of the force from Crimea is not at all clear. Odessa? Kiev? Kharkiv? The last would fit with enveloping the Ukrainian defenders.
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Of course, informative details are scarce in spite of the massive coverage.
Mike, if by “wrong side of the Dnieper” you mean on the western side, this is exactly where Ukraine needs to be cut in half to trap the Ukraine army in the east. Re-Supply for Ukraine in the east is only gong to come from their far western border, which is not going to be possible once the road net going east is cut at a major north-south river.
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Supply to the Ukraine population and army is the entire key to the Russian operation. Logistics, not tactics, will drive strategic planing. There is no hurry or need to do a hasty assault on major population centers and taking unnecessary casualties. Bypass, siege, and starve will do the job.
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Cities and forts no longer have deep stocks of supplies that could support against a siege for months and in some cases years. Most cities supplies are now counted in days and at most in weeks.
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I have not seen many, if any, articles written on this type of operational planning, but looking at the map and current Russian movement and combat locations, is seems real obvious to me what their overall operational plan is.
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The Russians learned their lessons well from the Germans on Blitzkrieg , and then exceeded them in their drive on Berlin.
Ukraine’s army in the east has four paths to retreat to the west, and Russia controls two of them already.
In Syria, they did much the same of forcing opposing forces into ‘cauldrons.’
The Ukrainians are definitely winning the Twitter War. This video is well done, catchy tune, none of it verified.
https://youtu.be/MDF1-RD9Fv8
I think we’re going the wrong way with our nuclear nonproliferation efforts. Ukraine got me thinking about it. Putin is demonstrating the strategy nuclear powers can use against countries that don’t have nukes. It might be the situation would be more stable if everybody had nukes. Would Putin dare Ukraine if they had nukes? I doubt it. Who would? Religious zealots perhaps. Madmen. Everybody with nukes and no entangling alliances might be better.
Mark, that was the thinking of some in the Clinton administration, and part of why they let China have some nuke technology.
Rafsanjani in Iran said that nuclear annihilation of Israel is OK because only part of the muslim world would be destroyed in a counterattack.
~grins~
Thanks Mike. Yeah. Religious zealots and madmen remain a problem.
Ed Forbes (Comment #210062): “this is exactly where Ukraine needs to be cut in half to trap the Ukraine army in the east.”
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Cutting Ukraine in half would require *two* fronts, each close to 400 miles long. Russia does not have nearly enough troops for that.
Regarding Clinton and Chinese nukes – they are a near peer military power. They steal technology like the day is long. I personally do not believe for a second that developing their own nukes was beyond what China could manage on their own.
[Edit: In fact, China has had nukes since the ’60s.]
Details as they happen…. #BREAKING Israeli Prime Ministe Naftali Bennett is in Moscow, where he met with Putin for two and a half hours. Details to come. https://twitter.com/lahavharkov/status/1500152430268407816?s=21
Fwiw US secretary of State appears to be dropping by Moldova after his trip inside Ukraine this morning.
“ Cutting Ukraine in half would require *two* fronts, each close to 400 miles long. Russia does not have nearly enough troops for that.”
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They just have to control the main bridges, blow the minor, and keep a mobile reserve stationed at strategic points to respond with mobile infantry, armor, and air as needed. The river makes a pretty good barrier to bulk shipments. It’s stopping large convoys, not the odd small craft that matters.
Ed Forbes (Comment #210072): “They just have to control the main bridges, blow the minor, and keep a mobile reserve stationed at strategic points”.
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And how do you keep those scattered units supplied?
Mike,
Armed convoys with air support along with air transport would do it. The US didn’t find it all that difficult to supply outposts in Afghanistan which is a much more difficult terrain to navigate over than the much more open terrain of the Ukraine.
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Most of the Ukraine forces are light, many poorly trained militia. They do somewhat ok defending fortifications and urban, but would get slaughtered in a mobile battle in open areas vs the Russians. Any breakout or major attacks by Ukraine would require an open and mobile battle by Ukraine, something the Russians dream of in their wildest fantasies.
The guys with the bigger guns win almost all the the time. It really is that simple. When engaging with a superior opponent the best plan is to not engage. If Ukraine is smart they will harass the Russians as they invade and leave themselves temporarily vulnerable but plan for a long term painful insurgency.
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The Russians are hoping that they can topple the government, install some puppets, and leave. Unfortunately the puppets are going to get killed without security. The Russians can try to camp out outside of cities where it is safe but the insurgency wants to force them to patrol the cities where they can be picked off one by one.
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The Russians will try to hire Ukraine natives or the previous police force to provide security. The insurgency then kills existing security even if they are natives at the start as a warning to others for cooperating with the Russians. This is straight out of the Taliban handbook, make the locals fear the Russians, make the Russians do security themselves. You only have to kill a few locals and get a few trusted cooperators to infiltrate and go double agent and kill some Russians to get to the point that there is deadly mistrust between the locals, the insurgency, and the Russians.
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Russians troops driving around a city with a 1000 Javelin missiles hidden away are going to be pretty nervous. They will make mistakes and kill locals.
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Ukraine has a large population and the citizen to Russian soldier ratio is very high and they will have a hard time dealing with an insurgency if it is motivated.
Yet more drip, drip, drip admissions that natural immunity is superior to vaccines.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/hybrid-immunity-kept-omicron-deaths-low-in-countries-where-millions-arent-fully-vaccinated-11646476203
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WSJ: “But the countries are emerging from their most recent Covid-19 waves with a fraction of the deaths they recorded during the onslaught of the earlier Delta variant. Their deaths per capita are even lower than more vaccinated places that have better healthcare systems such as South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong.
A big part of the reason, epidemiologists say, is that developing nations hit hard by the Delta wave last year acquired high levels of immunity through infection. And that protection appears to have endured. Studies in India, Indonesia and South Africa show widespread prevalence of Covid-19 antibodies, far outstripping their vaccination rates.”
“Some research suggests that immunity from infection lasts longer than immunity from vaccination. Dorry Segev, a professor of surgery and population health at NYU Langone Health, an academic medical center, led a team that published a research letter last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association that found that unvaccinated people maintained natural immunity up to 20 months after infection. He said that further research under review shows that this immunity was substantially protective against Omicron. Research from Israel and the U.K. show waning immunity from vaccination after a few months.”
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They are currently marketing this as “hybrid immunity (vaccinated + infected) is superior” but what is obvious is that natural immunity is superior. They have a huge mental block and just can’t say the words.
More of my foolhardy analysis…
Phase II
Russia has already attained most of its primary territorial objectives.
Russia is attempting to gain by negotiation the things it still wants from Ukraine.
Tactical “ceasefires” will be offered for “humanitarian” reasons but Russia will continue hostilities and continue to capture low hanging fruit.
Russia will rearm and resupply during the lulls in case the negotiations do not go its way.
Putin is laughing his a** off here:
WSJ: “The European Union gets around 40% of its gas from Russia—and that dependence has grown in recent years. This week, as the West sought to hobble Russia with sanctions, the EU was paying as much as 660 million euros—roughly $722 million—a day to Russia, according to the Bruegel think tank. That is triple the level before Russia invaded Ukraine.”
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It will take 3 years to build the infrastructure to wean the EU from Russia. They have enough in stockpile to get themselves through this winter but couldn’t make it through next year. They are screwed.
He’s still doing it! It is nutty.
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/03/05/multimedia/05virus-briefing-putin-bubble2/05virus-briefing-putin-bubble2-superJumbo.jpg
Knowing that some of his “friends” have access to novichuk it’s probably Putin’s survival instincts kicking in. What’s interesting is he was pretty chummy with the stewardesses .
Tom Scharf,
“They are screwed.”
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And Russia comes out with greater wealth in spite of ‘very severe economic sanctions’. Fools get screwed all the time. Make bad choices (green lunacy) and bad things will often happen. Europeans have painted themselves into a corner on energy production, and they have neither the courage nor the good sense to actually change course and start building nuclear power stations ASAP.
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The most foolish of people do stupid things, then double down on their stupidity when things go side ways, as our own green-new-deal president’s puppet masters so clearly demonstrate. Beg the Saudis to pump more oil while depleting the strategic petroleum reserve, but NEVER consider facilitating domestic production. These are people who’s lunatic green policies should have stayed in the faculty lounge.
Tom Scharf, Andrew P,
Putin wasn’t really at the meeting with the flight attendants. Here he is being mocked. Watch his hand on the mic. https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/t7i2mh/zelensky_today_in_a_video_with_appeals_to_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Russell Klier (Comment #210078): “Russia has already attained most of its primary territorial objectives.”
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Huh? Their objective is control of the entire country, even if only via a puppet government. No other objective makes sense as something worth the cost of invasion.
Ed Forbes (Comment #210074): “The US didn’t find it all that difficult to supply outposts in Afghanistan which is a much more difficult terrain to navigate over than the much more open terrain of the Ukraine.”
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The initial invasion was by the Northern Alliance, with US air support. Subsequent outposts were not in the middle of enemy territory, they were at the fringes of territory controlled by a friendly government. Also, the US had complete control of the air and the Taliban had little or no advanced weaponry.
Here’s another attempt to explain why Russia isn’t using it’s Air Force to the extent one might expect. The punchline is this:
I haven’t formed an opinion yet.
War, brought to you by Twitter…. https://twitter.com/mrsorokaa/status/1500458659746398211?s=21
Mike M “ Their objective is control of the entire country” …… and if the Ukrainians had rolled over and played dead that would have happened. There is a new reality. My uneducated guess is that there is a “must have” territorial objective and that has been achieved.
MikeM
claimed territorial objectives. I think it’s useful to recognize that sometimes people lie. Sometimes heads of states lie.
Russell,
Yet, it appears they haven’t stopped trying to advance or stopped shelling.
Russell Klier (Comment #210088): “There is a new reality. My uneducated guess is that there is a “must have” territorial objective and that has been achieved.”
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So if I understand you right, Putin has a face saving objective. OK, that is possible. But what is that objective? They don’t seem to have secure control of anything.
We are all familiar with Trump’s flaws. Here is a good defense of Trump’s virtues:
https://americanmind.org/salvo/trumps-virtues/
I very much agree with his bottom line:
But I find one statement a bit questionable:
It seems to me that DeSantis at least comes close.
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He also misses something very important. To win this fight we need someone who can win over at least some of those who voted against Trump. That someone ain’t Trump.
Mike M. (Comment #210091)
“Putin has a face saving objective. OK, that is possible. But what is that objective?”
Based on reports from my vast intelligence assets [Me and Mr. Google] I have no idea what their objectives are. I said “My uneducated guess is that there is a “must have” territorial objective and that has been achieved” is based on me not seeing large columns headed that way for a second wave of attacks. The Russians seem to be grinding to a halt. They may be planning on gaining concessions during negotiations…. and I have even less knowledge about what they may want in return for stopping the slaughter. Halt of NATO’s Eastern expansion, land buffer for Crimea, gas pipeline guarantees, independence for the Russian speaking provinces, DMZ, Who knows!
Russell Klier (Comment #210094): “The Russians seem to be grinding to a halt”.
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No doubt they are grinding to a halt, perhaps temporary, perhaps not. That is not by choice. It is some combination of Russian ineptitude and Ukrainian resistance.
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In the east, the Russians have been stopped by the bulk of Ukraine’s military, especially their experienced solders, fighting from prepared defenses. I very much doubt that the army they have sitting outside Kiev is just enjoying the March weather. It is 100% certain that the huge convoy that entered from Belarus is not stopped because that was the plan. The Russians do seem to be making slow steady progress from the south.
Mike M,
I agree, that article rather missed the point: Independent of Tump’s positives, his personal behavior is too offensive for many people to ever (never ever, lookin’ at you Lucia!) vote for him. He is just about unelectable. An obvious Alzheimer patient, completely controlled by his social justice warrior handlers, won the last election, and that was 100% on Trump for being such an a$$hole 24/7. You can advocate sensible policies, call things as they are (yes, lots of countries are in fact just shit holes), and actively oppose wacko left woke green policies, but not be so personally petty, arrogant, and offensive…. leave that for Nancy Pelosi and friends. I really hope someone other than Trump is the Republican candidate in 2024.
By the way, the Ukrainian military is not exactly chopped liver. They have the second largest military in Europe, exceeded only by Russia. Russia’s military is five times as large and better equipped. But Russia can’t put their entire military into the invasion; that would leave them defenseless elsewhere. And invading is harder than defending. How large an advantage does an invader need? I have no idea. It is not obvious to me that Russia has enough of an advantage, although everyone seems to assume that they do.
SteveF (Comment #210096): “I agree, that article rather missed the point”.
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It missed one very important point. But it also makes an equally important point that you seem to miss. There will be little gained by the Republicans winning in 2024 if they elect someone like Mike Pence who has little backbone or will to fight.
lucia (Comment #210090)
“Yet, it appears they haven’t stopped trying to advance or stopped shelling.”
Yes, If the Ruskies are planning on getting what they want out of negotiations, they will keep dishing out misery to the populace. [My impression of Russian negotiating tactics]. I wrote “there is a “must have” territorial objective and that has been achieved” is based on me not seeing large columns headed that way for a second wave of attacks. Their existing offensive seems to be gaining very little territory.
Mike M,
Someone like Pence is not the answer. DeSantis and a handful of others have the will to strenuously oppose the crazy left; Pence most certainly does not. I didn’t miss that point at all.
The UK banned fracking in 2019, France banned fracking in 2011, Germany effectively banned most fracking around 2017. I don’t know if this is largely ceremonial or if they have large untapped supplies. If they don’t reverse these bans then they aren’t serious about solving the Russia problem.
It’s hard to say what the actual Russia plan is, or what their expectations were. They certainly hoped for a quick collapse but that is different than planning on it. One should hope that Russia knew what they were walking into much more than armchair generals in the west (including myself).
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Winning in a month is still “fast”. The US bombed for weeks first and then took all of 3 weeks to get into downtown Bagdad. Collapses can also happen quickly as we saw with ISIS in Iraq and recently Afghanistan. The will to fight is a huge factor and it seems more and more likely Ukraine isn’t going to lay down. As I have said several times a strong will to fight is going to scare Russia the most for the occupation, they can grind down the Ukraine army to get to the occupation.
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It wouldn’t surprise me at some point if the Ukraine military just melted into the background and invited the Russian forces into the city, spiders and flies. Realistically Ukraine should be prepping the battlefield, hiding the arms, booby traps, etc. I wouldn’t plan any vacations to Ukraine for the time being.
Tom Scharf (Comment #210102): “One should hope that Russia knew what they were walking into much more than armchair generals in the west”.
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Indeed. But one hears that Putin has become extremely isolated in recent years and may have surrounded himself with yes men. In that case it may be that what Putin expected was what he wanted to believe rather than what should have been realistically expected.
Tom Scharf,
France has huge reserves of shale gas. UK and others less. But none are willing to develop the resources they have. Bloody nuts, but that doesn’t surprise a bit. All bad energy policies all the time in Europe.
It seems the mainstream news is finally catching up on the nightmare that supplying Ukraine from Polish supply dumps will be.
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https://thehill.com/homenews/house/596956-fears-grow-that-time-is-running-out-to-deliver-ukraine-aid”
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“The deliveries into Ukraine are taking place on the ground, Sherman said, along the same borders that hundreds of thousands of refugees are racing to cross in the other direction. The system leaves the aid vulnerable to weather, road conditions and Russian forces scrambling to prevent the munitions from reaching the hands of Ukrainian soldiers. “
“There’s no question that Russia’s current strategy is to surround these major cities, in part to cut them off from these supplies,” said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), another Iraq War veteran and member of the Armed Services panel. “We recognize that the window may very well be shrinking.”
The encirclement of the Ukraine army in the east continues.
The encirclement of Kiev looks to be almost complete, if not already complete.
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https://twitter.com/ASBMilitary/status/1500224904913948676/photo/1
I have some serious questions about how the Russia-Ukraine war developed and what could have been done to minimize the human toll in injuries and deaths, the property damages and even the detrimental effects on the nations of the world’s economies.
Minimizing the damages would have to start with the premises (a) that Russia’s military superiority would be nearly certain to win the war and at least initially control Ukraine and (b) that no nation was going to offer to become directly involved in the war with boots on the ground or planes in the air.
Given the premises and how the war has gone to date would not the better alternative for Ukraine and Russia and the rest of the world have been for Ukraine to have avoided the military actions by setting up a government in exile and surrendered their nation to Russia with intent to coordinate an insurgency within Ukraine? This may still happen but with all the damage to date piled on.
Putin and Russia were unclear as to what their ultimate plans were and thus appeared to use gradualism of conflict to get a full-scale military action going. Was this intentional on their part? Putin denied the invasion while negotiations were going on. It would appear to be counterproductive given the premises to not layout in negotiations their ultimate intentions. Or were the Russian’s unsure of what they would do and the gradualism led to the damages to date.
What about Zelenskyy’s and Ukraine’s reactions? Were they onboard with the premises or did the gradualism of the conflict begin to more and more limit their choices? What about advice from diplomats from nations where the premises were perhaps more objectively understood?
Do we do the Ukrainians any favors by talking about their bravery and not looking to alternatives for minimizing the damages of war?
Kenneth Fritsch (Comment #210108): “Do we do the Ukrainians any favors by talking about their bravery and not looking to alternatives for minimizing the damages of war?”
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I don’t see where there are any alternatives.
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Blunders were made going all the way the German unification. But it is too late to fix them.
There is some evidence to suggest Russia didn’t intend this to be a gradual ramp up.
1) Archived on the wayback machine is a Russian state owned media post declaring ‘Ukraine has returned to Russia’ rather prematurely. link here.
2) There were reports that Putin was ‘fuming’ over the slow progress in Ukraine.
3) Putin’s rhetoric appeared to indicate he was hoping for a popular Ukrainian uprising against the government. Granted, this is inconclusive and could be interpreted in other ways besides expectation of a quick victory.
4) Putin’s huge buildup of forces outside of Kyiv is more likely a sign of logistical screw ups than anything else. There isn’t anything particularly desirable about having a miles long military convoy traffic jammed on a highway as far as I can tell.
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I think what evidence is available more readily supports the idea that Putin did not expect this gradual ramp up. ‘Expect’ may be the wrong word. It wasn’t what he wanted or was hoping for. It looks more like a [development] he’s prepared to accept.
Here is a link about the military convoy stalled outside Kyiv. It’s speculative of course, nobody really knows for sure. But it looks like a setback and not a planned thing.
Also,
where the premises are:
No. They still aren’t. They call for arms, planes, a no fly zone, on an ongoing basis. They fight; they have not surrendered. I think it’s clear that they do not accept that Russia is nearly certain to win, at least not as of yet. Or perhaps they do, but the ‘nearly’ part isn’t sufficiently close to certainty that they choose to surrender.
I do not talk about the Ukrainians being brave to do them a favor or to discourage them [or anyone else] from looking for alternatives for minimizing the damages of war. I talk about the Ukrainians being brave because the Ukrainians are being brave. They are being shot, shelled, blasted with missiles, bombed, and killed; not just the military but the people; civilians, women, and children. Zelenskyy could have fled but chose not to. It is not unlikely that he will die because of it. Whatever else this is — foolishness, bravado, recklessness, what have you — it is also courageous.
Shrug.
It is not for us to say. It is not for us to say it is hopeless while brave men and women face superior force to fight for their sovereign country. It is not for us to decide it is better for them to be subject to the Russian autocracy rather than fight. Neither is it for us to dictate that they should fight. We are not paying their price, either way. We merely throw some arms and aid to them.
“.. UA soldiers were stopping cars and busses and yanking out any man aged 18-60 to conscript in the Ukrainian Army. In one place, a commissar was shouting “say goodbye to your daughters, mothers, and girlfriends; you must turn back and fight the Russian invader!”
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Political Commissars in the Ukraine army? shades of the Soviet Union still exist it seems.
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https://twitter.com/UkraineLive2022/status/1497106587877584896
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It will be a bloodbath if these untrained conscripts are sent in to attack the Russian army head on.
Mark, my questions were not rhetorical. I have been attempting to put myself in the shoes of those Ukrainians who are suffering every day of their life now and in every way. It is not just the brave man or woman who does not give up the battle and may give up their lives but the common person of Ukraine who suffers whether they are part of the brave or not.
What about the more than a million people who have fled the country? Do we question their bravery? That last question might be rhetorical and thus I will answer it in the negative.
My singular question is what greater benefits will derive for Ukraine from (a) waging a war as it is currently occurring and then forming an insurgency without a government or a government in exile and (b) not waging the battle and being overtaken by Russia and then forming an insurgency with a government in exile.
My question above was intentionally restricted to Ukraine since an answer to waging the battle might be that of showing Putin and Russia that the world’s nations will not give up without a fight that costs Russia and could cost it dearly.
But could Russia have paid dearly from an insurgency without the battle and from isolation from the rest of the world without the battle?
Thanks Kenneth.
I must not understand what you envision here. I’ll leave the discussion to other[s] who may understand.
“… by setting up a government in exile and surrendered their nation to Russia with intent to coordinate an insurgency …”
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That is probably the plan by anybody who knows how to measure the odds of victory, however it makes sense to harass Russia as much as possible on the way in when they expose themselves and before they can setup fixed defenses.
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Russia is going to regret their slow advance and failure to cutoff the Poland supply chain earlier. Allegedly 1000’s of antitank missiles and Stingers have been delivered already. It doesn’t look like helicopters are doing so well lately.
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The thinking that war can be negotiated away to prevent all the messy killing reminds me of a Star Trek episode
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon
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“During a supposed attack by Vendikar, Anan 7 explains that the war is conducted as a computer simulation, and that the Enterprise has been “destroyed” in the attack. The two planets have a treaty, according to which they have to kill the “victims” of every simulated attack. The crew are thereby expected to report to Eminiar’s disintegration chambers for execution”
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I’m not sure but there was probably some Styrofoam rocks thrown around in that episode. This type of war is just a failure of society like all the others. For the most part most potential wars are avoided by the give and take negotiation, but every now and then the impulsive humans want to use their toys.
Dewitt – just noticed this: “I think New Zealand is yet more proof, as if we needed it, that infection acquired immunity, even from a different strain, is more effective than current vaccines.”
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My reading of papers on natural versus vaccine immunity seems to imply a much more nuanced difference but NZ may be an interesting test case. So far modellers have predicted worst case scenarios of 50000 a day, but I keep a close watch on Ireland which has many similarities (same population, similar vaccination rates). (Though things like % Polynesian are obviously different). Ireland peaked at around 28,000 and has so far suffered about 1000 death since Omicron hit. One big difference is that ireland had about 10% of population infected pre Omicron whereas NZ had 0.4%. While there a lot of other factors at play, if vaccine immunity is significantly less effective than natural immunity, then NZ should have much higher case rate and more death than Ireland.
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Peak Omicron is expected here within 2-3 weeks. Looking at the numbers in say 6 weeks time should be interesting.
We know almost nothing about the actual state of the war or the strategy being used by either side. What we have is endless speculation in the media “without evidence”, two sides that need to keep their plans secret, the US likely knowing exactly what is happening but not necessarily why.
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The US is supposedly passing along some intelligence but it is delayed and scrubbed to make sure the source cannot be determined. It’s probably not much of a mystery where the Russians are to anyone.
I don’t think the case rate is going to change that much as both vaccination and natural immunity don’t help much with omicron, I haven’t seen any good data here. What will be interesting is the fatality rate of a naïve vaccinated population versus a mostly infected population.
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In theory NZ should have a lot of potential victims who are elderly and frail or immunocompromised that haven’t seen the virus and they will get pushed over the edge where nations that have been ravaged are more battle hardened. If NZ has good access to anti-virals this will also change the equation.
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Unfortunately the confounder is going to be the denominator and determining the infection rate will be hard. It’s clear many people in the US either tested at home with no report or didn’t test at all with omicron. A paranoid NZ will probably test more at the beginning with every runny nose. Likely similar problems everywhere else. Being off by a factor of two here would seem to be pretty easy and that is probably withing the actual expected difference. My prediction is the result will fall well within the expectations of the modelers bias, ha ha.
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I’m not saying this isn’t interesting or people shouldn’t examine this closely but it’s going to be hard to get reliable data.
A reliable case rate is going to be tough, but no different in Ireland (same drivers against reporting). The fatality rate should be telling though and vaccination status is well tracked. We have little access to anti-virals. Some of the early ones have been approved but I think we are still waiting for even application for approval from drug companies let alone any shipments. Hopefully this will change quickly as virus subsides elsewhere but I doubt it will be in time. We would need stuff on planes now. Not sure how much access Ireland had either.
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Revisit in 6 weeks (assuming I am not a victim, but i am not especially worried).
The Ukrainian situation may be a little more visceral than the strategic move I first thought, though this was still the original reason for going in when the West refused to offer support.
He is bombing and killing his own people against the express wishes of the rest of his people and getting away with it.
Part of the reason mus be an earnest wish to really punish the Ukrainian people for the original decision to break away from the USSR..
So severely that no one else would want to do it.
It reminds me of the British with those rascally American separatists and also of honor killings in middle eastern societies to revenge loss of face.
Though of course the British were justified *
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Sarcasm??
Kenneth Fritsch (Comment #210117): “My singular question is what greater benefits will derive for Ukraine from (a) waging a war as it is currently occurring and then forming an insurgency without a government or a government in exile and (b) not waging the battle and being overtaken by Russia and then forming an insurgency with a government in exile.”
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I simply can not imagine (b). You might do that in a simulation, but I can’t see it working with real people.
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Even if that were not so, fighting now provides time to arm and organize the insurgency.
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Ultimately, this will likely last until Russians get sick of the body bags. Combat seems to be killing several hundred Russian soldiers a day. I doubt that an insurgency can kill nearly that fast.
Phil,
Yeah, well you know, the plague sucks. You will get used to it, maybe in a year or two, ha ha. Omicron is not as bad. Eventually you will know many people who got it and most of the ones who get seriously ill will be old or in bad shape. Just not that many cases of perfectly fit people dropping dead. The first surge is psychologically hard, and then it diminishes over the next cycles.
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I was at Home Depot today and nobody was wearing a mask and the phase of looking at strangers like they are zombies ready to eat your brains is over. It’s endemic.
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NZ should just keep doing what it is already doing, it was handled as well as it could have been. The US was where you guys are now (widespread community transmission) before we even knew what was happening in the first outbreak, wiping down groceries with disinfectant wipes like fools and wondering where all the toilet paper went. Looks like it will peak in NZ in a week or two, then NZ will probably get surges several months later as factor(s) X bring it back.
Phil,
With most everyone already vaccinated, the confirmed case fatality rate will likely be somewhere between 1:400 and 1:1000. Confirmed cases will probably reach 30% and 40% of the population, so maybe 1.3 to 1.8 million cases and somewhere between 1,300 and 4,000 deaths. If Pfizer’s antiviral becomes widely available, deaths could be much lower. Having waited for the vaccines before the virus became widespread will keep total deaths per million much lower than in most countries with similar age demographics.
Front page of today’s Wall Street Journal:
“Attacks take heavy civilian toll”
“Russia pursued a pressure campaign in its invasion of Ukraine with nighttime strikes on civilian targets as the war entered its 12th day”
“Ukrainian and Russian negotiators were scheduled to meet in Belarus for their third round of talks on Monday”
Yesterday I wrote:“If the Ruskies are planning on getting what they want out of negotiations, they will keep dishing out misery to the populace. [My impression of Russian negotiating tactics].”
Also, WSJ [Today]:
“as the war entered its 12th day, Kyiv’s military held fast along several fronts ahead of planned cease-fire talks.” “ Ukrainian forces continued to frustrate Russia with counterattack and sabotage operations.”
RPK [Yesterday]:
“The Russians seem to be grinding to a halt.”
Hack link to bypass the paywall: https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-pummels-ukrainian-civilian-targets-ahead-of-talks-11646645852?st=buohffyhieva7o7&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
There is still talk about trying to get MIGs to Ukraine, but I think it’s just political theater. I think the US / Blinken is talking about it precisely because they know Poland won’t do it. If the US is unwilling to establish a no-fly zone because they fear escalation between Russia and NATO, there isn’t any reason I can see to want to get Poland to supply Ukraine with MIGs; it’s exactly the same downside, escalation between Russia and NATO.
Just more cheap talk to create the appearance of doing something.
Is there going to be a famine in Europe or parts of Europe because of the situation in Ukraine? Don’t know.
[Oops bad link sorry, removed]
https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1500301348780199937
Translation of a purported anonymous FSB scathing diatribe of the situation. Since we can’t say how close to reality this is the interesting part is the Russian leaning opposition party in Ukraine has refused to have anything to do with this. I have to believe that at least has some truth to it.
China still is the wildcard. I think Xi was played by Putin. At least I hope he was. The longer they avoid decrying Russia’s actions the more likely this blows back on them. Do they really want to be disconnected from the rest of world with Russia. I think at some point they give up on the hope that this damage the US enough to give them more free reign in the world. China was one of the first countries to have close ties to Ukraine. How is their failure to support their trading partner when attacked going to play to countries they are seeking to engage in Belt and Road.
From Russia the rationale keeps changing:
Not invading. Just preparing in case they attack.
Just invading to protect Russian speaking Ukrainians
removing nazis
Ukraine is Russia
US had biolabs in Ukraine (no they are in China…)
I think Middle East is a more likely issue. I’ve seen a story that Lebanon is already expressing their concerns.
I nailed this yesterday too:
“Patrick Reevell @Reevellp
The Kremlin has announced its demands for ending the war in Ukraine:
-Ukraine must change its constitution to guarantee it won’t join any “blocs”, i.e. NATO + EU.
-Must recognise Crimea as part of Russia.
-Must recognise the eastern separatist regions as independent.”
https://twitter.com/Reevellp/status/1500810351192985600?s=20&t=Ek6v2ATMsETvApTxA1jgDQ
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
Winston Churchill
It was interesting this morning reading the WSJ news section’s Civics 101 description of the Biden administration’s bind between higher gasoline prices and calling for a ban on Russian oil and gas exports. The article was couched in the decision being between Biden solving or at least attempting to alleviate the inflation problem and serving the Ukrainian cause that has become a more favorable position of the American people.
The plain and simple political take on this dilemma is that Biden knows that gas prices are a major influencer of the politics for the party in power, but that the growing popular opinion in the US is favoring doing something about the situation in Ukraine. Biden will take the course that is best for him and his party politically for this particular moment. It will not be an example of a reasoned and well thought out decision that has any lasting meaning.
The WSJ editorial section notes that cutting off the Russian energy supply to the US will not have a major economic effect on Russia and would be in essence a feel-good move. The editorial further states that this move, if it triggered a move for a European, and better a world, move to stop buying Russian energy, it would have a very significant effect on the Russian economy. Such a move would have a much bigger effect on the European energy prices and availability.
My question then is: will the American and European peoples who have been lauding the Ukrainian people for their bravery push their politicians on energy such that they will have to make sacrifices that in the end may or may not help the Ukrainian people? Here I safely assume that European politicians are likely to make the Bidenean motivated decision that I described above.
“the Third Army alone with very little help and with
damned few casulaties,could lick what is left of the Russians in six weeks. You mark my words.Don’t ever forget them. Someday we will have to fight them and it will take six years and cost us six million lives.
Let’s keep our boots polished, bayonets sharpened, and present a picture of force and strength to the Russians. This is the only language that they understand and respect. If you fail to do this, then I would like to say that we have had a victory over the Germans, and have disarmed them, but we have lost the war.”
General George “Blood and Guts” Patton
I’m an American person who’s been lauding the Ukrainian people for their bravery, so I qualify to answer here. I will not push my politicians on energy. I suspect that my senator and rep are on the same page with me already (that the U.S. needs to return as quickly as possible to the policies utilized under Trump that resulted in us being producers of and net exporters of oil) but are powerless to do anything about it, given that President Biden views the matter differently.
We could ban Russian oil imports. I don’t have a strong opinion about it.
[Edit: Of course I don’t know what the rest of America and Europe will do.]
Egypt is worried about getting wheat and cooking oil, specifically sunflower oil. Ukraine and Russia dominate the global market for sunflower oil. A famine is not out of the question.
Israel has been trying to end the war in Ukraine. Anthony Blinken met with the Israeli foreign minister and afterward said:
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“…any initiative to try to halt the conflict would be welcome as long as the move is consistent with U.S., NATO and European principles that Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity are respected.”
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Or paraphrasing: ‘We don’t actually care if the war ends, or even if the Ukraine is completely destroyed. We just want to always resist Putin.”
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That is not the kind of statement one makes to facilitate negotiations. IMHO, Blinkin is an idiot. What will end the conflict is clear: Crimea becomes a permanent part of Russia (as it historically was since the 1700’s), the Russian speaking parts of the Donbas region become independent, as they de facto have been since 2014, and most of all, the Ukraine never joins NATO. Putin will accept nothing less, though he may ask for more.
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The alternatives to those terms are 1) the Ukraine is mostly destroyed by Russia and a puppet regime installed or 2) NATO tries to intervene, resulting in WW III, where much of civilization is destroyed… including, of course, the Ukraine. Electing an Alzheimer’s patient president has real downsides.
DeWitt,
Ya, lots of bad things could happen, including food shortages and wildly higher food prices. Sensible leaders would already have considered reducing the ethanol/gasoline mandate, and adopting incentives for farmers to convert some of that corn acreage to wheat and oil crops. I won’t hold my breath.
The ban on gas exports can’t really be done because of Europe’s long term dependence on Russian energy for the time being. A much bigger problem is if * Russia * does it, not the west. They have the leverage here.
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US consumers aren’t going to like high gas prices but if it can be seen as sticking it to Russia then the political consequences might be minimized.
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If Putin stays in power after this is over (likely) everyone is going to make a quick exit from Russia dependence, except China and that may be enough. China is the most rational actor around from my view. They will keep Putin at arms length as they know he is basically a mobster but will see this as an economic and political opportunity.
SteveF: “Electing a Alzheimer’s patient president has real downsides.”
I’m not trying to defend Biden here. But what actions do you think Trump would have taken relative to Ukraine, had he been elected? Commit US military forces to the war?
[I grant that Trump would have taken steps such that the US oil supply might have been less affected, e.g. Keystone XL pipeline. But the question is whether you think that he would have intervened in some way in Europe.]
SteveF (Comment #210140): “Or paraphrasing: ‘We don’t actually care if the war ends, or even if the Ukraine is completely destroyed. We just want to always resist Putin.”
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Indeed. One could argue that we set Ukraine up. First we promised the USSR that NATO would not expand to the east, but we never put it is writing. Then we promised Ukraine that we would protect them if they gave up their nukes, but it had no teeth. Then we turned NATO into an offensive alliance (Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya) making it more of a threat to Russia. Then we expanded NATO to the east, to further make Russia distrust us. By doing that, we also precluded a defensive alliance among the former communist countries of eastern Europe. That put Ukraine in the position where they had to choose between joining NATO and living under a threat from Russia. Then we held out the promise of NATO membership, so as to encourage them to not emulate Finland. Then we did nothing to defend them in 2014. Then Biden responded to Putin’s saber rattling in a feckless manner that likely convinced Putin that he could move without any real cost from the West.
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Then the Ukrainians embarrassed us by fighting with great determination and courage. So now we are sort of supporting them. But perhaps only using them to damage Putin.
HaroldW,
I think that Trump (and more importantly, those he appointed to his cabinet) would 1) have sent more weapons to the Ukraine, raising the cost for Putin, and 2) been much more willing to negotiate with Putin. (“Art of the Deal” and all that.) Trump is an a$$hole, but he doesn’t have Alzheimer’s.
If Russia occupies Ukraine then I don’t see the sanctions ending for years. Russia has done enough psychological damage already that the outcome is already set IMO. A negotiated settlement just seems far fetched, that’s why entering wars is easy and exiting them is hard. Who’s in favor of handing over territory and dropping sanctions to the people currently using artillery against civilian areas in cities? Nobody. A dirty deal to end the war doesn’t have any takers until the suffering is vast.
HaroldW (Comment #210143): “But what actions do you think Trump would have taken relative to Ukraine, had he been elected?”
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He would not have undermined our domestic energy production. He would not have lifted sanctions on Nord Stream 2. He would have retaliated for Russian hacking. He would have extracted concessions for the missile treaty. He would not have made American look weak and inept in Afghanistan. He would have armed Ukraine to the teeth as Putin increased his threat. He would not have been obviously bluffing as to sanctions. He would not have been so obsequious about making sure that no US personnel were in Putin’s path. He would have kept Putin guessing as to whether he would establish a no fly zone over Ukraine.
Tom Scharf (Comment #210146): “A negotiated settlement just seems far fetched, that’s why entering wars is easy and exiting them is hard. Who’s in favor of handing over territory and dropping sanctions to the people currently using artillery against civilian areas in cities?”
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Indeed. Putin’s “reasonable” peace offer is just for show, since he knows it will not be accepted.
Promises, promises … Ukraine was also promised sovereignty for giving up their USSR nukes.
Tom Scharf,
I was not suggesting the Biden administration or the Europeans would ever agree to Putin’s terms, but then again, they have very little skin in the game. Working toward green energy fantasies, while continuing to burn lots of Russian gas and oil, are obviously *FAR* more important than the fate of Ukraine. The Ukrainians have a lot more at stake. I would not be surprised if the Ukrainian government accepted Putin’s terms if that would stop the war.
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Most of all, I am saying that Blinkin should not be making idiotic public statements which seem designed to keep any negotiations from happening.
SteveF, Mike M., thanks for your responses.
Mike M., why do you say that “He [Biden] would not have been obviously bluffing as to sanctions” ? Biden *did* impose sanctions as promised. The precise extent of said sanctions was never specified in advance, so I don’t see how one can say he imposed weaker (or stronger) ones than he promised.
Biden said, after the invasion, “no one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening.” Obviously the threat of sanctions was intended to be a deterrent, else why bang on about them in advance? But perhaps “hoped” is a better word; some advisors no doubt did not expect them to work.
Toning down the “go get yourself killed in Ukraine” while we worry about the heavy trauma of rising gas prices might be warranted. If they hate the Russians and want to deal out some aggression then we should support them with lethal aid but no further. Everyone should know that Ukraine is just a pawn in a Cold War showdown.
Air power was never decisive in combat until around 1990. It’s possible that economic sanctions might be decisive one day, but today is likely not that day.
SteveF (Comment #210150): “I would not be surprised if the Ukrainian government accepted Putin’s terms if that would stop the war.”
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They might accept territorial concessions. But I don’t think they would accept “no alliances except for Russia”. That would put them permanently under Russia’s thumb while arguably limiting their economic prospects.
Tom Scharf (Comment #210152): “Everyone should know that Ukraine is just a pawn in a Cold War showdown.”
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That has the virtue of being honest realpolitik.
HaroldW (Comment #210151): “why do you say that “He [Biden] would not have been obviously bluffing as to sanctions” ? Biden *did* impose sanctions as promised.’
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Biden loudly proclaimed that the sanctions would be devastating while refusing to impose any or even to say what they would be. The obvious reason was that no real agreement had been reached as to what sanctions would be imposed. It was obvious that Biden was talking loudly while carrying a twig.
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When Putin went into the Donbas, the initial sanctions Biden imposed were a joke. Then a day later, very mild sanctions. Then Putin invaded in force and somewhat tougher sanctions were imposed gradually followed, in bits and pieces, by stronger ones as agreement was reached within NATO. The strongest of all are still under discussion. There obviously never was any real agreement on imposing strong sanctions.
Tom Scharf (Comment #210153): “Air power was never decisive in combat until around 1990.”
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Huh? Air power was decisive in naval combat and critical for amphibious operations in WW2. Air power alone has never been decisive.
I suggest they hold the Russian war crimes trials at Nuremberg.
“I’ll see that you get a fair trial and a fine hanging.” US Marshal Rooster J. Cogburn
“An unprecedented 39 member countries made referrals to the ICC asking it to investigate Russian atrocities in Ukraine.” CBC
Statement of ICC Prosecutor, Karim A.A. Khan QC, on the Situation in Ukraine: “I have decided to proceed with opening an investigation.”
https://www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/item.aspx?name=20220228-prosecutor-statement-ukraine
Tom Scharf (Comment #210152): “Everyone should know that Ukraine is just a pawn in a Cold War showdown.”
I suspect that Ukrainians from the president on down are beginning to realize that they might well be pawns. Their comments have become more critical of the West and referencing the blood on the hands of the West for not doing more.
This is not going to end well for anybody. I can only hope that it ends worse well for Putin. Recent polls after the invasion show Putin with very high favorable ratings in Russia and with 68% favoring the invasion.
Mike M,
” But I don’t think they would accept “no alliances except for Russia”. ”
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I am not aware that that is one of Putin’s demands. What I remember is “no joining any alliances”. Do you have other information?
SteveF,
I am going by what Russell Klier posted (Comment #210134):”Ukraine must change its constitution to guarantee it won’t join any “blocs”.”
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I assume that Russia would interpret that as allowing an alliance with Russia.
Kenneth Fritsch (Comment #210159): “Recent polls after the invasion show Putin with very high favorable ratings in Russia and with 68% favoring the invasion.”
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I have some very nice ocean front property for sale here in New Mexico.
US is working with Russia to implement a new Iran deal. I wouldn’t expect tough sanctions on Russia.
Iran is refusing to meet with US officials, so Russia is the main envoy along with China.
They might put up sanctions on Russian oil while getting replacement from Iran and Venezuela.
MikeN,
Yes that is what we need to do, buy oil from countries where the leaders shout “death to America” all the time.
MikeM,
“I assume that Russia would interpret that as allowing an alliance with Russia.”
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The Russian Federation is clearly a ‘bloc’.
War crimes, what an oxymoron.
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Example: Suicide bombers have been attacking checkpoints, you are manning one. A car approaches without stopping because they don’t understand what they are driving into. Guess what happens? An atrocity.
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The deaths of civilians filmed yesterday in front of NYT reporters was a mortar attack that landed right next to somebody standing on a road with a weapon. Combatant? Who knows. Probably seen by a drone, should the drone operator have noticed the civilians on the sidewalk? Maybe they look like soldiers from that far away.
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There’s a few recent videos of civilians driving in cars down a road who get shot up because they approach an armed unit. It very dangerous to drive around in a war zone. Cars are like paper to heavy caliber weapons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyM_9P4igys
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I can’t tell how real this is, or whether it is really from this war, but it is brutal. Not really recommended, but demonstrates that it’s just chaos and confusion that are behind most of this stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb3_R__r7Go
SteveF (Comment #210165): “The Russian Federation is clearly a ‘bloc’.”
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No it is not unless we have the exact language, which we don’t. I expect that Russia would want language that would not exclude an alliance with Russia. Just a wild guess, without evidence.
While polls in general and especially those taken of an authoritarian regime can be taken with a grain of salt or simply a measure that only applies to a momentary point in time, when those polls show overwhelming support the results might have some interest for those attempting to analyze and/or predict what a regime might do.
https://scottgehlbach.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/FGMR-Putin.pdf
IMO, it’s quite likely that a large majority of Russians do support the invasion. If you only get your news from MSNBC and the Huffington Post, you probably think Biden is doing a great job. That’s pretty much the situation in Russia, AFAICT. The average Russian was strongly in favor of Russia taking Crimea. It caused a big boost to Putin’s approval rating.
From what I’ve read, a lot of Russian speaking Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine want nothing to do with Russia. Before Russia took over Donbas, that wasn’t true.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cause-ukraine-war-robert-service-moscow-putin-lenin-stalin-history-communism-invasion-kgb-fsb-11646413200?st=ar9wdjab8u2hlio&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink (should be a free link)
That was on Biden and Blinken.
I would also say the “rally around the flag” works the same in Russia as it does in the US for public opinion. Whether that will still be there a year from now in the case of a deadly insurgency is a completely different question.
DeWitt, I usually start reading articles in the WSJ and half way through start thinking I won’t learn anything here. That article by Service was an exception.
Ukraine has a choice to make
Either
accept Russia’s terms which just recognize the existing state of affairs where Russia is acknowledged to control the breakaway Ukraine provinces and Ukraine forswearing not to join NATO in some far future
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Or
continue fighting with NO hope of NATO intervention, the destruction of their cities, the loss of their citizens scattered as refugees, and political life as a puppet of the west waging a gorilla war into the distant future.
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As the Russian noose tightens, and lack of direct NATO support becomes clear, I fully expect Ukraine to accept terms rather than see the destruction of their country.
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Ed,
I agree with you. I think it’s likely that eventually Ukraine will seek to accept terms.
Do you think the US, Germany, France, UK would accept “terms” to be ruled by the benevolent Russian overlords? No. This is just an emotional issue, it’s the principle of the situation. I don’t think Putin will do that deal either because it is also an emotional issue. Minimizing damage is not the only factor.
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People who had previous experience with Russia rule might even feel stronger about that. Believing promises of sovereignty from Russia is foolish as per current events.
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Fight now or forever be subjugated by Russia is the choice. We shall see what happens. There aren’t very many good outcomes here which is why Putin should have never gone down this path.
Ton Scharf,
“Fight now or forever be subjugated by Russia is the choice.”
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I think the real choices are: Fight now and have you country destroyed, then be subjugated, or keep your country more-or-less intact and be subjugated…. and torment the occupiers.
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I am sure the Poles, Romanians, Latvians, and others felt like Russian dominance would never end, but end it did.
Ed Forbes (Comment #210172): “accept Russia’s terms which just recognize the existing state of affairs”.
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That is ridiculous. Russia is NOT doing this just to get recognition of the existing state of affairs. They might settle for that if they realize they can’t win. But then, Ukraine will not settle for that, at least not unless they come to the conclusion that they also can not win.
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Putin’s objective is the subjugation of Ukraine by Russia. Accepting that is not an option for most Ukrainians. At least not as long as they have a chance of winning. They DO have a chance. I’d have guessed 1-2% a week ago and maybe 10-20% now. That is, small, but less small than it was.
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The Russian military is much larger than Ukraine’s. But they have concerns other than Ukraine. They need to defend supply lines. The Ukrainians have much higher motivation and morale. There seems to be much corruption and incompetence within the Russian ground forces. The biggest advantage that Russia has may be the willingness to use their artillery in the most brutal possible manner.
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Sadly, there will be a great deal more death and destruction before this is over.
My view is this:
Loved ones get hurt or killed. Families get split, businesses destroyed, homes destroyed. Surviving loved ones suffer; hunger, disease, chronic stress and fear. People start to think more about their surviving family than national pride.
Some will devote their lives to destroying the Russian occupiers, certainly. Others will just want the war to end and rebuild some sort of life. I think right now the number of people who want to resist is probably about as large as it’s going to be. Over time some of those will give up.
Mike, I also agree with you that the situation is not completely hopeless. It is not a certainty that they will lose, I think it’s merely the probability. Morale and how long Ukrainians hang on to it might matter a lot. Unforeseen developments that could change the course of things are possible.
Tom “ Do you think the US, Germany, France, UK would accept “terms” to be ruled by the benevolent Russian overlords?”
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The difference between Ukraine and the above is that the above are great powers.
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Ukraine is a little fish next to a hungry predator, somewhat like the US and Mexico. Small fish take what they are allowed. Small fish are also pawns in the struggles between the great powers. Currently Ukraine is a pawn in the struggle between NATO and Russia. What is in the best interest of NATO is likely not in the best interest of Ukraine.
Interesting . Why would the US have biological weapons labs in Ukraine?
https://richardsonpost.com/howellwoltz/26012/biden-operatives-caught-deleting-bioweapons-files-in-ukraine/
Surprised to see people consider Ukraine 10 times more likely to win now than 2 weeks ago.
At that time, I would have given a decent chance that Russia just wanted a little area in the east.
Now we are counting on Russia is being hurt by the daily losses, to where their army cannot function.
This is a useful site. They document [with individual pictures!] military equipment destroyed during the war and keep a running tally… https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
I also follow them on Twitter for updates like this:
Oryx@oryxspioenkop·Mar 6
Visually confirmed Russian equipment losses now exceed 800. This includes: – 120 Tanks – 79 AFVs – 121 IFVs – 49 APCs – 35 Engineering vehicles – 255 Trucks – 45 Artillery pieces – 17 MRLs – 21 SAM systems – 10 Aircraft – 2 UAVs – 10 Helicopters – 2 Trains” https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1500577734967365632?s=20&t=lCzDf4KAtRV4qYbohx8xbA
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/
My estimate of Ukraine’s chances is still quite low. But remember, I expected them to be overrun and lose in the first couple of days.
mark bofill (Comment #210183)
“My estimate of Ukraine’s chances is still quite low”
Is this estimate based on any, you know, actual information or is it just more “woman’s intuition”?
I think it’s obvious Ukraine’s chances are quite low, you know, based on actual information.
Here:
Superior military force sometimes has a little bit to do with who wins I think.
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Women’s intuition… Not to disparage women Russell, but I am in fact male, dumbass.
Russia’s numerical advantages are just a part of it. There’s also the fact that Russia is the invader and Ukraine is the defender, and that Putin can continue to bomb and burn and destroy in Ukraine to his heart’s content, and that there is essentially nothing Ukraine can do about it. They can’t effectively hit back against Russia. Putin doesn’t appear to care much about the sanctions. In other words, based on, you know, actual information, I see no reason to believe Ukraine is going to do any better than Chechnya did.
mark bofill comment #210186
Yes, Solid reasoning. I subscribe to that logic. I would add that the Russian penchant for murdering and terrorizing civilians is a factor.
Number advantage only helps if you can directly apply them. Ukraine is all in as this is their land. Russia has to reallocate troops and material from other locations like Syria, South Ossetia, Chechnya etc which might not be wise. IT’s still a mismatch, just not as bad as the numbers make it to appear. It’ll be interesting to see how quickly they can resupply also. The air advantage hasn’t made much difference so far, but I believe ukraine lost two s300s yesterday.
Andrew, yes. Logistics appear to already be posing problems for the Russians. I’ve quit commenting on it and linking, but I continue to read articles with analysts speculating on why Russia hasn’t achieved air dominance, there’s another problem. Morale could be a problem. Eventually if the sanctions are effective Russia could have funding problems. I don’t discount the possibility that these (and probably other) factors taken together could mean Russia eventually loses.
mark bofill,
“I am in fact male, dumbass.”
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Yes, but that doesn’t mean you can’t become pregnant…. or something.
Steve,
Yes, it does. Quit. You’re making my involuntary facial muscle twitching worse.
I had a conference call with some Koreans last night. They expressed considerable concern about covid…. so I checked out the data for Korea. Rocketing cases (already over 200,000 per day and rising rapidly), and no natural immunity to speak of in the population, but pretty high vaccination rates (>80% overall). Unless the Koreans take extraordinary precautions to not infect the elderly, they probably face 1:600 to 1:1000 fatality rate. So they could soon approach 1,000 deaths per day…. equal to ~6,000 deaths per day in the States. Their health care system is going to be strained.
Russell,
Russia’s losses are sustainable, Ukraine’s are not. Percentage loss of deployed forces favor the Russians by a considerable amount. If looking at total forces, the numbers are much worse.
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As Russia is attacking and generally keeping the battlefield, Russia keeps its repairable equipment where Ukraine losses theirs.
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Russia has for all intents an unlimited supply of spare parts where Ukraine is limited to stock on hand and will find it difficult, if not impossible, to move spares between sectors. Modern war consumes both equipment and spare parts at very high rate of usage.
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Note also that most of the Ukraine equipment listed was produced prior to 1991. Maintenance on old Soviet equipment is likely extensive. Much of Russian equipment is newer. This will make the spare parts issue much worse for Ukraine.
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Logistics, not tactical, will be the deciding factor in this war. Once Ukraine mobile forces are reduced, and Ukraine is limited to leg infantry, Ukraine’s fate is sealed. At that point Ukraine will be forced to either sue for terms or risk destroying the nation with a long term guerrilla war and the besiegement and destruction of its cities.
……
Listed losses
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Ukraine – 273, of which: destroyed: 95, damaged: 4, abandoned: 44, captured: 127.
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Tanks (46, of which destroyed: 14, abandoned: 10, captured: 21)
—————-
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Russia – 918, of which: destroyed: 367, damaged: 13, abandoned: 150, captured: 386
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Tanks (145, of which destroyed: 45, damaged: 2, abandoned: 27, captured: 71)
Ukraine would be a fool not to accept the offered terms
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https://www.reuters.com/world/kremlin-says-russian-military-action-will-stop-moment-if-ukraine-meets-2022-03-07/
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LONDON, March 7 (Reuters) – Russia has told Ukraine it is ready to halt military operations “in a moment” if Kyiv meets a list of conditions, the Kremlin spokesman said on Monday.
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Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was demanding that Ukraine cease military action, change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognise the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states.
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It was the most explicit Russian statement so far of the terms it wants to impose on Ukraine to halt what it calls its “special military operation”, now in its 12th day.“
Ukraine would be foolish to accept Russia’s phony offer. I say phony because if it isn’t, it would be about the only thing Peskov said that is true.
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The main reason that I think Ukraine’s chances of winning have gone up is the stalled attack on Kiev. The attacking force does not seem to be pressing hard, probably because they desperately need resupply. Their position might become untenable. The resupply convoy is stuck. The morale of those troops is surely dropping by the hour. The potential for a major Russian disaster is considerable.
Ed Forbes (Comment #210193)
You wrote:
“Listed Losses:Ukraine – 273, of which: destroyed: 95, damaged: 4, abandoned: 44, captured: 127..
Tanks (46, of which destroyed: 14, abandoned: 10, captured: 21)—————-Russia – 918, of which: destroyed: 367, damaged: 13, abandoned: 150, captured: 386.Tanks (145, of which destroyed: 45, damaged: 2, abandoned: 27, captured: 71)”
From these numbers it appears that Ukraine is capturing more Russian equipment that it [Ukraine] is losing.
Although I doubt anyone has complete and accurate numbers at this point.
Ed Forbes,
The Russians have not budged, nor will they. Those are the things they have demanded since long before their invasion. Unfortunately, I don’t think Zelinskyy can easily agree to those terms, so the destruction will probably continue for a long time. We’ll see.
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I think it is good to remember what precipitated this invasion: in September 2021, the White House announced an extensive security/military agreement with the Ukraine (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/09/01/joint-statement-on-the-u-s-ukraine-strategic-partnership/)
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This caused the Russian invasion. IMO, it was a grotesque display of incompetence to enter into that agreement in spite of Russia’s continuous warnings to not do so. It was extremely unwise for Zelenskyy to enter into that agreement in spite of the credible threat Russia posed. The Biden administration does not know what it is doing, and never will. They can’t be tossed from office until January 2025, but they deserve to be tossed now.
Russell, one generally doesn’t capture a tank that is fully operational. Which leads back to the issue of spare parts, ammunition, and fuel availability. The issue becomes better over time for Russia and worse over time for Ukraine.
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Mike, a bit of wishful thinking here it seems to me. I don’t see any benefit for Russia for an immediate frontal assault on Kiev. The city is emptying out with amass refugee exit and stocks of food and fuel are being depleted. There is no hurry.
Ed Forbes (Comment #210198): “The city is emptying out with amass refugee exit and stocks of food and fuel are being depleted.”
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Evidence for those things? Something like 3% of Ukraine’s population has decamped. That is hardly “emptying out” even if the percentage is higher in Kiev. And the city is not cut off from supply, unlike the Russian forces.
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I also note that if all those who are unable or unwilling to fight depart, then existing resources for the fighters will last longer. I suspect that is why the Russians are not letting people out of Mariupol. Maybe Kharkiv also.
SteveF (Comment #210197): “I think it is good to remember what precipitated this invasion: in September 2021”.
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Indeed. But I would not go so far to say that caused the invasion. It was just one of many missteps on the road to disaster. And arguably not the last.
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Not long before that, we denied the Ukrainians access to Iron Dome technology. Apparently on the basis that it might provoke the Russians.
Well,….as long as it’s not called surrender
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signaled openness to a compromise with Russian President Vladimir Putin on some of his key demands for halting the offensive in Ukraine, including on NATO membership and the status of Crimea and the breakaway pro-Moscow territories, but the Ukrainian leader insisted his forces would not capitulate.
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https://www.ntd.com/zelensky-open-to-compromise-on-nato-crimea-separatist-republics-but-no-surrender_749385.html
Russia shares a border with Ukraine, they aren’t going to be having a huge logistics problem forever. It’s not like moving a military to the Middle East.
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I think the lesson to be learned so far is that Ukraine can make the Russians miserable with an effective insurgency that could last years and Russia might need to commit a lot more troops to the occupation. The dream of a quick capitulation is over. The US lost way more soldiers to the insurgency than to the invasion. Exactly when an invasion ends and an insurgency starts will probably be vague. I still expect the Russians to be in downtown Kyiv within a few weeks.
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The Russians could pull back and take their gains as some people have mentioned. A war plan by committee might consider that, Putin not so much. Once us humans commit to a position publicly we are very hesitant to change it.
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I would say the Russian offer is propaganda, they are trying to sell a “they made us do it” story. Russia’s definition of an independent Ukraine is not doubt one run by Moscow.
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It’s possible there is no useful end to the Ukraine affair for them except nihilism. Kill Russians for spite. That may be enough.
Russia could get Belarus to commit its army into the attack on Kiev.
There is a difference between Chechnya and Ukraine in that Ukraine can get weapons thru its western border.
If Russia manages to connect the forces from Crimea with the eastern advance, then resupply is much faster and they can take Odessa. The Crimean forces appear to be advancing in four directions at once.
Ukraine may have air superiority because Russia is not doing/is not capable of attack from high up, and instead planes have to be low and accessible to Ukraine’s mobile forces.
Continuing my unbroken streak of being wrong, I now read this:
reported at FOX as of 10 minutes ago.
I find this news reported without clarification or elaboration in several places. Consequently it’s unclear to me how the planes make it to the Ukraine from Germany.
Ahh. I find a little more here.
Maybe it wasn’t just political theater.
I don’t think these Polish planes mean much. Planes are weapons platforms and from what I read the Russian air to air missiles have much better range than anything that is going to be strapped on to the MIG-29 and Russian ground to air missiles are very effective. Not sure what air base with maintenance etc. they could operate out of for very long. Mostly performative politics here.
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It’s going to be interesting to eventually find out what really happened in the (lack of) air war here.
Ed Forbes,
“…but the Ukrainian leader insisted his forces would not capitulate.”
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Sure, because capitulation means Zelinskyys government would soon be gone, probably along with Zelinskyy. I don’t see how this ends well.
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mark bofill,
“Consequently it’s unclear to me how the planes make it to the Ukraine from Germany.”
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Putin has already declared that fighter jets departing from any country to arrive in the Ukraine will mean that country has entered the Ukraine war as a combatant, and Russia could immediately retaliate. People need to be very careful about this, because things could get out of hand quickly. I do not believe the Ukrainians have control of an airport in the Ukraine where said fighters could take off and land….. so that means basing them somewhere else. This is really a dumb and very dangerous move, but one perfectly consistent with everything else the Biden administration has done so far.
Who lost how much equipment is pretty unreliable while the shooting is still going on. I wouldn’t put much stock in those numbers. Comparing the claims of both sides leads one to believe they both are obviously lying as would be expected.
Tom Scharf,
“It’s going to be interesting to eventually find out what really happened in the (lack of) air war here.”
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I suspect mostly that ground-to-air missiles have kept air combat levels down. Stingers, while expensive, are cheap compared to fighter jets.
Tom,
I don’t know about that. Maybe.
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What surprises me is that we say no unequivocally to a no-fly zone because we don’t want to get drawn into the war and then we turn around and arrange to supply fighter planes; this seems like a pretty fine line to walk.
But I’m sure our leaders know what they are doing. 😉
Steve, crossposted. I essentially agree with you.
One last post from me on this for now. Axios looks at this the same way I did – a political game of who’ll be responsible?
Everybody wants somebody else to poke the bear.
“Biden announces ban on all Russian energy imports over Ukraine invasion; experts expect gas price spike”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/03/08/ukraine-us-expected-ban-russian-oil-imports/9422798002/
As a result I probably will earn a little more on my mineral rights. For selfish reasons I should be for the ban. However, it escalates the conflict with Russia, and that may not be a good thing.
Letting my imagination run wild.
Poland repaints half their MIG’s with Ukrainian markings while keeping them hidden in hangars. Then Ukrainian pilots fly them at low altitude at night to airfields in western Ukraine while Poland delivers the rest of their MIG’s to the US airbase in Germany.
Zelinsky keeps saying “When will you give us those planes?”
Poland says “We sent the planes to Germany, Russia has no complaint with us.”
We say “The planes are still in Germany, Russia has no complaint with us.”
Plausible deniability all around.
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Of course, Putin would likely “know” what was done and could still say it was an act of war. So what? If he wants war with NATO, he is free to start one. If he doesn’t, he won’t. We really have no control over that. But we can call his bluff, at least as long as we are not too in-his-face about it.
Mike M,
“But we can call his bluff”
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Why do you think it is a bluff? Real question.
Steve,
I think it could be a bluff because Putin obviously doesn’t want NATO to get involved. He loses if they do. The question becomes, how much mutual destruction will be visited on all involved.
Maybe he’d still think he could win despite the MIGs. Maybe Tom was correct above and the MIGs would make little difference. In which case, it wouldn’t seem rational to retaliate and draw NATO into the conflict.
On the other hand, maybe maintaining the credible deterrence threat would cause him to decide that retaliation is necessary. It’s hard to know where Putin would actually draw his lines.
SteveF (Comment #210215): “Why do you think it is a bluff?”
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What mark said.
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Or to put it differently: If Putin does not want war with NATO, a few MIG’s won’t change his calculus. At least not if we don’t rub his nose in it.
You know, this touches on something that bothers me about the whole concept.
I feel like this example we are considering illustrates something that looks like — we fear Putin will escalate if we do anything that makes it likely that Ukraine will win. I mean, at the end of the day a MIG is a weapon, just like the missiles we are providing are weapons. Why would there be a line at the MIG level and not at the Javelin level, except that Putin is making threatening noises and we don’t actually know where his retaliation threshold is. Putin is motivated to make threatening noises if and when we do anything effective to aid Ukraine. It seems reasonable to me to think he will play his hand out as far as he can (I.E., bluff that he will retaliate for things he will not actually retaliate for). There is no cost to him for bluffing that I can see.
The awful part is that there is still some line past which he would likely retaliate, and we don’t actually know where that line is.
[Edit: Apologies if this seems a little incoherent. I was thinking out loud as I wrote it.]
Mike, I think you are missing a main point. It’s not the delivery of old jets to bases inside Ukraine, It’s combat and air supply missions flown from bases outside Ukraine that will call down Russian retaliation. The Russians will likely shrug off a limited transfer, but lord help the world if either combat missions or air resupply starts crossing the border.
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Good luck keeping the Ukraine Air Force supplied with fuel, spare parts, ordinance, and runways when under the long range attacks Russia can call down. It’s not like they can hide the base from airborne radar.
I don’t know Ed. That comes back to one of the mysteries; Russia has not established air dominance. Nobody actually knows why. Some are now speculating that they are incapable:
Having the MIGs helps Ukraine keep Russia from obtaining air superiority with whatever they are currently able to fly.
Shrug. Not saying you are wrong, but I am saying nobody knows what the deal is with this.
I agree with mark. The Ukrainians are still flying their MIGs, so they can fly the Polish MIGs. We are supplying weapons, the MIGs are weapons. I don’t see the distinction.
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Putin has the Biden’s administrations number. He rattles his nukes; Biden, Blinken et al. crap their pants.
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It sounds like Poland and the US are playing pass the buck.
“Biden announces ban on all Russian energy imports over Ukraine invasion; experts expect gas price spike”
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Roll my eyes emoji.
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This is political spin of the highest order. Gas prices were already going up due to the overall energy increases and … inflation. Biden is trying to spin this as patriotic pain to divert blame. It’s exactly what a politician should do but it is transparently BS.
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The US imports less than 10% of Russian oil, and the overall impact is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. In a global market somebody else just buys the Russian oil (China?) and nothing changes. Europe can’t boycott due to their dependency. AFAICT Russian overall exports aren’t suffering yet. I did read they have to sell at a discount though.
Mike M, mark bofill,
I would be a lot more cautious than you WRT to supplying jet fighters. As I said (and I think Ed Forbes agreed) there are no operational air bases in the Ukraine where those jets could be based, rearmed, and refueled. I think it would be very dangerous to provoke Russia on this issue by basing them outside Ukraine; he would consider it an attack by NATO. Putin has been very (even frighteningly) clear about the consequences. I would never run that risk if it were up to me. Just not worth it.
Tom Scharf,
“It’s exactly what a politician should do but it is transparently BS.”
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Of course. The prohibition on Russian imports won’t take effect for 45 days…. that can’t have already reduced crude supplies in the USA. It is pure political BS, with Biden’s puppet masters trying to save his demented a$$ by blaming current high prices on a future policy that could not yet have had any effect.
The Russians will take exception if we sell game changing weapons to the opposing side. If we sent advanced ground to air systems (Patriot, etc.) that would cross the line. If we sold stealth drones the same thing.
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Shoulder launched missiles seem to be OK because this is a “death by a thousand cuts” thing. I would guess old MIG’s are the same. The Russians built these things and I assume know how to defeat them.
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The US gets uptight if Iran wants to buy S400’s ground to air systems from Russia.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/why-iran-wants-buy-s-400-missiles-russia-195371
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Russia sells S-400’s to Iran, we give advanced anti-air weapons to Ukraine. It’s a strange dance of international arms dealing. There seem to be unwritten rules here that I don’t quite understand, but they are there.
Tom Scharf,
“If we sent advanced ground to air systems (Patriot, etc.) that would cross the line.”
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Donno. Ground to air weapons don’t allow much offensive attack. MIG fighters do. Qualitatively different I think.
Where things could go spectacularly wrong is if a disgruntled Ukrainian drove to Moscow with a Javelin in his trunk and found out where the Putin motorcade was. Handing out weapons like this has to be thought out.
If the Ukrainians can not fly the MIG’s they have, then there is obviously no point in giving them MIG’s. But I have not heard anything that says that is the case.
SteveF (Comment #210227) : “Ground to air weapons don’t allow much offensive attack. MIG fighters do.”
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Please explain the difference between offensive and defensive weapons. I can’t see one.
The NYT’s covers the Russian propaganda.
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Two Days of Russian News Coverage: An Alternate Reality of War
To watch news broadcasts of the fighting in Ukraine on the main state channels in Russia is to witness the extent of the Kremlin’s efforts to sanitize its war.https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/08/world/europe/russia-ukraine-media.html
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“So that is the refrain on state media, the main source of news for most Russians, especially the older generation. Mr. Putin himself referred to the government in Kyiv as Nazis about 10 times during his meeting with the female flight staff last Saturday, and the word is repeated endlessly on every broadcast. To reinforce the idea, news channels frequently show black and white footage of actual Nazis.”
“It blamed extremist Ukrainian forces for dynamiting a building in the port city of Mariupol on top of 200 people sheltering in the basement, but there was no footage.”
“Fallout from the sanctions that are dismantling the Russian economy, like the ending of international flights by Russian airlines, is often attributed to the current “circumstances” without further explanation.”
“He described how much he loved Ukrainians and their wonderful country. “I think Russia is, of course, interested in it being a prosperous, friendly country,” Mr. Nikonov said. “Our cause is just. We shall be victorious.”
“Novaya Gazeta, an independent newspaper whose editor, Dmitri Muratov, shared the Nobel Peace Prize last year, has tried to follow the new guidelines. In stories where people interviewed said “war,” for example, there are ellipses and the phrase “word prohibited by the Russian authorities.””
I miss stories sometimes. Can you link your source for this?
Last I heard, the Ukrainian AF was still operational:
ukrinform reports as of yesterday:
a US Defense official to Reuters on March 4’th:
I could go on I believe (not sure, not going to check).
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What do you guys have that indicates otherwise?
Steve,
Well, I won’t pretend I don’t sympathize with Ukraine and wish we’d do more to help them. I wouldn’t go so far as to claim I thought the fighters were a great idea though. I was just talking about what appears to be happening.
In fact, I was remarking because I was puzzled about how supplying fighters is OK but a no-fly zone is not OK. I guess our leaders think the nationality of the person pulling the trigger on the weapon system that downs a Russian aircraft will make a difference to Putin, or something crazy like that. I don’t know.
[Edit: Eh. Maybe I’d go so far as to say I think the MIGs are a good idea. I’ll think it though some more.]
It’s not that I think it’s a good idea. It’s just how I prefer to lose the game of WW III chicken. As I mentioned earlier, there’s no general winning strategy to that game, I think it’s more of a personality test.
Tom (RE:#comment-210223),
Indeed. I sort of think Biden only did this so he can claim during midterms that the increase in gas prices were due to sanctioning Russia. Possibly the media and social media will still be glad to run interference for him against anybody ‘misinforming’ the public to the contrary, although you never know for sure.
[Edit: Ooo. Four comments in a row. Too much. Better go do something else for awhile!]
mark bofill,
This map shows 10 military airfields prior to the Russian attack: https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/ukraine/vps-bases.htm
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Russia claims to have destroyed them all. True? Who knows? But The Russians are very likely to have targeted military airports (and joint-use airports) early on. I do not doubt that ground-to-air missiles are inhibiting the Russians…. that is the nature of small hand-held missiles like the Stinger; that was always the design objective.
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I just do not believe the Russians have left an airfield that could be used for fighter jets in an operational condition. Could they screw up? Sure, but that seems unlikely.
When will I learn. I wasn’t wrong. It was just political theater.
Pentagon shoots down Polish plan to provide MIGs to Ukraine
I’m so disgusted right now, with our politicians and with myself for being so gullible as to fall for the same trick twice. Pathetic.
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[Edit: Thanks Steve. Maybe I’m still being gullible, but I honestly disagree with you about the airfields. I think Ukraine is still flying warplanes from Ukrainian airstrips. Who knows though. It’s hard to separate the BS out.]
Mark,
My first thoughts go to war time propaganda. I trust nothing from Ukraine, little from the US, and RT is locked out for me so very difficult on getting what the Russians say on almost anything.
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But in regards to Ukraine air assets, airfields to support modern jets are kind of hard to hide. Lighter types can use highways, but full sized attack jets? I don’t think they could operate very well using highways. There is still also the problem with fuel, ordinance, and spares. I see Ukraine air being degraded to the point of not being effective. The odd sortie, ok, kind of like German air vs the Normandy beachhead. It was there, but it had little effect. One gets air superiority well before the other side has zero planes up to contest.
I think that the confusion about Ukrainian airfields might be due to *some* of their MIG’s being stuck on the ground due to runways being destroyed at the airfields where they were on the ground. So there is not a good way to get them to a functioning airfield.
Thanks all.
Thinking about Ukraine air a bit more, notice that NONE of the stated air attacks target that very visible and long Russian column outside of Kiev. If Ukraine air is not able to target it, I have serious doubts on the truthfulness of successful air attacks elsewhere.
mark bofill,
I am shocked…. shocked!…. that a few people at the Pentagon recognized the danger in this. I am no military person, but when an adversary says clearly “I will retaliate if you do that” then it makes sense to think it through very carefully.
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Can Russia destroy the Ukraine? Absolutely, and they will not hesitate if they do not get the negotiated terms they want.
Can the USA and NATO do anything to stop them? Only by risking nuclear armageddon…. and even that may not work.
What will ultimately happen? IMHO, at some point the Ukraine will agree to Putin’s terms. Whether Zelinskyy and his government survive, and how much of the Ukraine remains as a functioning civilization, are unknown, but obviously important. But clearly those things do not matter *at all* to the Biden Administration. They have conducted themselves like petulant children who are utterly irresponsible.
There is also a high risk of another banking crisis because of the sanctions on Russian banks and commodities. It, of course, has to do with derivatives. Commodities options are useful to hedge risks, until they’re not as in 2008 in the US and Europe and 2011 in Europe.
Gen. Miley: ‘Mr. President, sending warplanes from NATO countries to kill Russian soldiers could provoke an all-our war in Europe.’
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Biden: ‘Define all-out war?’
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Miley: ‘. Ummm …. Mr President, that would be when Russian and NATO forces were in all-out conflict.”
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Biden: ‘But how might that influence the mid-term elections? Good for Democrats or bad for Democrats? Besides, if the Ukraine is destroyed, then nobody can investigate Hunter.’
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Miley: ‘Mr President, investigations into your son’s dealings are the least of our problems. An all-out conflict could lead to a nuclear exchange…. potentially killing hundreds of millions or billions of people!’
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Biden: ‘I still have to look out for my family. If there were a nuclear exchange, could you maintain our racial equity and transgender support programs throughout the military?’
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Miley: ‘Mr President, I doubt there would be much of the armed forces left.’
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Biden: ‘I think you exaggerate.’
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Miley: ‘No Mr President, I don’t. We really need to avoid all-out war With Russia.’
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Biden: ‘OK, no fighter jets flying from NATO countries to the Ukraine… but you seem pretty cowardly to me.’
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Miley: ‘ Mr President I am just trying to avoid national catastrophe.’
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Biden: ‘Catastrophe is loosing control of the congress…. and having those damned Republicans investigate Hunter.’
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Miley: ‘ Whatever…. just do not send jets from NATO bases into the Ukraine.’
Steve,
You should write for the Bee.
mark bofill,
I am way too angry to write for the Bee. I can tolerate much, but not fools who imagine themselves smart.
Ed Forbes,
For something from the Russian perspective, below is a link to Russia Today(RT).
They have 1/2 hour news at the top of most hours. Not all.
The rest of the time they have been running a series on the conflict with the breakaway parts of the country.
Only got the link a couple days ago myself.
https://www.rt.com/on-air/rumble/
I was thinking back to the 1960s, when the tiny country of North Vietnam kicked our butt. A tiny third world country defeated the biggest super power on the planet. We had that war won on paper. We had all the numbers… soldiers, aircraft, weapons, money. All they had was the determination to kick out the invaders. About two million civilians were killed. I was an Anti-War Hippie at the time.
Russell Klier (Comment #210248)
“I was thinking back to the 1960s, I was an Anti-War Hippie at the time.”
Hopefully Russia has a few Hippies this time around.
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It seems weird that they send people to die when the three big countries all have weapons and robotics that could decimate Ukraine in the blink of an eye without needing nukes.
A pantomime of sophistry using human puppets.
Totally unnecessary.
Russell Klier (Comment #210248): “I was thinking back to the 1960s, when the tiny country of North Vietnam kicked our butt.”
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It’s not the war, it’s the insurgency.
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That is why I thought that Putin was crazy to try to conquer Ukraine. I still think that the only explanation is that he expected relatively little resistance from the Ukrainian army and thought that most Ukrainians would willingly accept the embrace of Mother Russia.
Mike M.,
The Tet offensive wiped out the insurgency in South Vietnam. The Viet Cong were no longer an effective force. South Vietnam fell to North Vietnam because the NVA invaded South Vietnam after we abandoned them. Watergate was a significant factor.
That being said, it was the insurgency in Afghanistan. That will probably eventually be true for the Taliban as well. Afghanistan appears to be ungovernable by anyone.
If we let Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons deter us from aiding Ukraine, we can kiss Taiwan goodbye. We’ve given China a blueprint for their invasion. Mutual Assured Destruction is still the only successful way to prevent any use of nuclear weapons. When Putin rattled his nuclear saber, the proper response should have been: Any use of nuclear weapons by Russia would be met by an overwhelming response. Sure we run the risk of global thermonuclear war. But we’ve been risking that since the middle of the last century. If we’re not willing to risk it, then we might as well get rid of all our nuclear warheads and become the paper tiger that Mao accused us of being way back when. Unfortunately, that threat by Biden probably wouldn’t be credible. Trump, maybe.
Ukraine’s threat to Putin, not Russia btw, was never military even if it joined NATO, it was political. A tyrant like Putin can’t afford to have successful, truly representative governments on his borders. It might give the Russian people ideas.
On the effectiveness of insurgencies: During WWII, there were lots of resistance movements against the occupying Germans. They were little more than pinpricks, IMO. We still needed to put a lot of boots on the ground to actually defeat Germany.
DeWitt,
“If we let Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons deter us from aiding Ukraine, we can kiss Taiwan goodbye.”
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Well, that remains to be seen. Taiwan is much better armed, and has the natural advantage of being an island….. greatly complicating any invasion. If China does invade, and assuming Biden does nothing, I suspect the Chinese would not like the cost of victory.
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The primary reason Taiwan is in danger is because the USA valued an improved relationship with China much more than security of Taiwan. When China was far weaker than now the USA could have entered a formal defense treaty with Taiwan. That is now just about impossible, so China may well decide to risk an invasion, but maybe no time soon. In any case, the rest of the world needs to start building chip fabs ASAP; the strategic dependence on TSMC is a huge danger that needs to be eliminated.
You can win all the battles and still lose the “war” if you define that as achieving the political objectives. I think all the declarations that the US lost this war or that war are overwrought, as the definition of a win via naming the political objectives is left unstated.
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It’s a spectrum from formal surrenders that lead to friendly productive societies (Germany, Japan) to kind of a tie that left South Korea better off, to more punitive wars that had little hope of that happening (Iraq, no longer a dictatorship) Afghanistan (back to the Taliban) and of course Vietnam.
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It’s really difficult to come in as a foreign invader and get support of the people. The original government has to be pretty bad for that to happen at all. I would think that not being of the same origins/race would make it worse but it seems that inter-origin wars can be the most vicious. Sibling rivalry or something. Shiite vs Sunni. Almost nobody in the US understood this dynamic when we entered.
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The US isn’t particularly good at this as has been demonstrated, but it’s not obvious they are worse than average either. The outcome of the Soviet Afghan experience was similar. If the same people living in the country when the miltary exits under a slightly different form of government is considered a failure then everyone fails for the most part.
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If the Taliban themselves are pacified by the requirements of ruling and stop their jihadists training camp thoughts then that is actually a victory.
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All of this is the long form argument of success and failures have to be compared to alternate histories where the status quo was left in place. Saddam is still there developing WMD’s (ha ha), communism was allowed a free pass in Vietnam and continued on until stopped, Afghanistan became a global jihadist exporting nightmare, etc. All speculative and unprovable but the correct way to view things. Sometimes wars are just bad choices and outcomes all around.
Bob, I am locked out of that link to RT. It’s a recent lock, so my provider seems to be playing games with access.
DeWitt,
Agree.
Steve,
This Russian invasion suggests to me we might be overestimating the capabilities of our adversaries militaries. Certainly China would see significant losses if they screw it up as Russia has done. They’d have to run a superbly coordinated game with a lot of moving pieces to win. Maybe they can, maybe they can’t.
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[Edit: Does this sound familiar (results from a wargame a few years back):
Two or three days. It’s always two or three days. Putin apparently felt pretty sure he’d win in two or three days.]
It was never about WMD, it was about him funding the terrorism primarily families of suicide bombers in Israel. Notice the fall off post GW2?
It’s very hard to knock out runways long term with the standoff weapons used early on. There was also a desire to use the runways to land troops. Ukraine was practicing landing jets on highways in the summer of 2020 (one hit a sign) so the runways are not totally necessary. The attacks were likely more targeting planes on the ground and stores of supplies like bombs, missiles, spare parts and most importantly jet fuel. Ukraine was likely smart enough to move and hide the planes and at least some of the stores.
The Chinese military has hardly any actual experience, it is likely they will be a mess in their first engagements and then slowly become competent. Their main advantage is numbers and manufacturing prowess. It’s similar to Russia, the “mass” of their army will eventually win the day.
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A Chinese engagement in the Taiwan Strait is likely to involve an attempt to fire hundreds of ground to sea anti-ship missiles simultaneously to overwhelm naval defenses to clear the seas. This is pretty close to shore and they have built artificial islands to support it. Chances are this will work and it is very difficult to defend against. Sinking ships can involve a mass loss of life and that will potentially escalate the conflict gigantically. The phase where the Chinese attempt to invade will be equally bloody if the US manages to maintain air superiority.
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If a militarily naïve China tries to occupy a heavily motivated Taiwan then that will go way worse than Ukraine vs Russia IMO. All weapons will be available.
The worries about Russia expanding the war because the west provokes them doesn’t make much sense at this point. They can barely handle Ukraine. Lining up tanks on the NATO line would give Russia a heart attack right now if not for the nuclear backstop. If the west charged in and achieved air superiority I’m not sure a single piece of those convoys would make it back to Russia.
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We shouldn’t kill Russians anyway, it’s an unnecessary escalation. Russia is making lots of mistakes now (bombing a hospital today) and the outcome of this potential victory is likely to hurt them for at least a decade. Make the price very high for them is the right play. At this point an engagement with NATO by Russia looks like a very bad plan given their performance in Ukraine and we would want them to keep thinking that.
Wars are very much like other large government programs whereby there first has to be a crisis/emergency that can be various shades of realistic, next the populace is rallied, eventually a lowball estimation of cost is thrown out and finally avoidance documenting the endgame or keeping it as vague as possible (the importance of this final item will became important when things begin to fail).
The program (battle) ensues and at some point the game either changes or the hoped for success becomes further from reach. More resources are poured into program (battle) and resources that can far outrun what was originally envisioned. The mistakes and errors of the battle can go on for years before it is finally given up. Programs can differ in that mistakes may never be admitted where the public comes to depend on the program and ever more resources can therefore be applied to a bad idea.
Another important aspect of this process is to never even consider what those resources that were applied to the battle (program) could have accomplished in the private sector.
The singular difference in all this for various governments is how much misinformation and lying about the battle (program) the populace will tolerate before reacting or in the case of more authoritarian regimes allowed to react.
Is there any way to estimate the odds of Putin deciding to give this up?
If we assume (and maybe we shouldn’t, just for the sake of argument though) that:
1) The war is taking longer than expected,
2) The cost, in terms of materiel as well as sanctions, is higher than expected.
3) The cost, in terms of holding Ukraine after they surrender or the government is destroyed (if this is ever accomplished) is going to be higher than expected (the cost of the insurgent fight).
Then do we reach a point where Putin backs down?
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I don’t know how to get an handle on that question. I don’t expect he’d want to back down because the fiasco might damage his ability to remain in power.
Anybody have any thoughts on this?
Ed Forbes,
Just tried again and it still works for me. Crosstalk is on now.
I’m in CT and was getting my service thru AtlanticBB. They just changed names, don’t remember the new name.
Internet is being broken into a bunch of fiefdoms. It’s getting cr*ppier by the month.
mark bofill (Comment #210263): “.
I don’t know how to get an handle on that question. I don’t expect he’d want to back down because the fiasco might damage his ability to remain in power.”
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I can’t believe that Putin invaded for the purpose of anything less than turning Ukraine into a puppet state. So if his offered terms are real, he is already partially backing down.
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Of course, the Ukrainian’s know that, thus encouraging them to keep on fighting.
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As Kenneth Fritsch (Comment #210262) points out, war might be the ultimate application of the sunk cost fallacy.
Thanks Mike. Makes sense, he’d try to get what he can get out of the whole disaster.
Andrew P.,
Indeed. Bomb craters can be filled in and either patched or covered with metal. In WWII in Guadalcanal, the Japanese bombed the runway numerous times. The runway was never out of service for long enough that the fighters couldn’t land again. Fighters and fighter bombers are not space shuttles or fully loaded strategic bombers. They really don’t need much of a runway.
It was quite difficult to shoot down the Betty bombers early on because they were just as fast as the US fighters of the time. The technique as described by my father who was XO of VMF-212, was to approach the bombers head on. Then climb to well above the bombers and then dive vertically. If you timed the maneuver correctly, you could rake the length of the bomber as it flew under your nose and then continue the dive behind the bomber and recover. Then you would wait for the bombers to return and do the same thing. You still had to worry about the Zero’s covering the bombers, though.
Ideally you shot them down before they dropped their bombs, but that wasn’t always possible.
lucia,
I see it’s not just Illinois governors that get prosecuted after leaving office. Former Speaker of the Illinois House, Michael Madigan, has recently been indicted on 22 counts of racketeering and bribery. Who would have thought it?
It’s probably easier to track which Illinois ex-politicians are not currently in prison or in the process of going there.
Putin offering to have Zelinskyy remain in power, if true, is already a major concession. Of course, it may be a lie. The devil is always in the details, and the details of the negotiations will not be revealed until after they are over.
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If Ukraine will abandon future NATO membership, then I think a deal with Russia can be made. Otherwise? No. We will see what happens over the next few weeks.
The recent comments from Joe Biden and Jen Psaki blaming the oil companies for not producing more fossil fuels recalls for me how fascist and semi-fascist and socialist and semi-socialist political systems operate. In the fascist system, where private businesses are allowed to operate but only under heavy government regulation, cajoling and, if necessary, by direct ordering, when the government regulations and directions fail to produce the expected results, they can always blame the business entity being directed and often do so even where the system is not full-blown fascism. That is the beauty of it if you are a fascist.
In the semi-socialist state like that in the UK decades ago and to a lesser extent in nations that continue with some enterprises remaining under the direction of the government, governments can subsidize the state-owned enterprises from the output of the private enterprises. The proponents of these systems can often convince the populace that these enterprises are so important to the nation’s well being that they must under the control of government and well worth subsidizing. That is the beauty of it if you are a semi-socialist.
In the full-blown socialist system, like that seen in the Soviet Union, there is no private entity to blame, outside maybe a vague reference to black markets and saboteurs, and thus to avoid blame the government makes it unlawful to make negative remarks about their operations and uses distractions to avoid any real analysis of the state of things. There is no acknowledged beauty here and none recognized by the government or the proponents of these systems. It is done by using brute force and the distractions of propaganda, nationalism, and some vague appeal to the betterment of humankind.
A distraction away from system failures under all of these systems is war or threats of war.
Putin hasn’t shown fear about killing his opponents regardless of where they live. If Putin isn’t removed from power I give the over/under of Zelinskyy being alive at under 12 months regardless of any agreement or outcome of this war.
Another note, devaluing the Ruble doesn’t hurt Putin and crew as much as others in Russia since they are all in the business of exporting raw materials. Their costs are relatively fixed and income is protected from rubble deflation. Their output will fall off without foreign expertise but it will survive for years before it really starts to hurt them.
If I was Ukraine I’d look at sending a team to sink his yacht in Kalingrad if at all possible. He obviously moved it out of reach before the invasion, so he cares about it. I’d do it if I was the CIA and thought I could get away with doing it without getting caught.
“If Ukraine will abandon future NATO membership, then I think a deal with Russia can be made. Otherwise? No. We will see what happens over the next few weeks.”
SteveF, it must be remembered that it is morally correct to lie and make false promises to those who are using or threatening to use force against you. Putin is really worried about Ukraine becoming too Westernized.
If I were making decisions for Ukraine that promise about NATO would be easy with fingers figuratively crossed. Ukraine is not in NATO and under normal conditions would not have joined for a few years any way. Putin and his regime might not exist in the near future.
Crimea is currently under Russian control with no likelihood of Ukraine regaining it in the near future. It would likely be a source for internal conflict going forward as it has historical and cultural ties to Russia.
The eastern part of Ukraine under discussion is controlled by Russian proxies, is historically tied to Russia and would be an ongoing source of fighting and expense for Ukraine. In the future maybe if the region becomes a nation it would become closer to Ukraine than Russia.
Russia says: “Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed, without providing evidence, that Ukrainian forces had “equipped combat positions” within the hospital. Video from the hospital after the bombing clearly showed there were both patients and staff there, including heavily pregnant women who were carried from the hospital.”
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That was a gigantic crater. Maybe a 2000 lb bomb? Dropping that in a hospital parking lot because somebody shot at you from the roof or something is pretty harsh. Very odd behavior. That would have collapsed the building.
I spent 12 hours at Sarasota Memorial Hospital yesterday. My wife had out-patient surgery. Everyone, nurses, custodians, patients, doctors, cops were wearing hospital issued surgical masks. They would not let my wife wear her super 2.5 micron filter mask. [No one challenged us in the visitor lounge.] All this time and the hospital is still mandating toilet paper masks. I bet they bought a boat load of them and want to use them up.
Combat vids/pics https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/nato-allies-send-ukraine-17-000-anti-tank-missiles-in-six-days-here-s-the-result-1.10657786
Cracks starting to show in Russia? Putin denied that conscripts were sent to Ukraine that only professional troops were sent. How does that work again? I’d expect every brigade has conscripts in it outside of a handful of specialist ones. You certainly wouldn’t be able to field 200k without conscripts. Defense minister had to admit they were there. Kind of hard to not admit it with some of their funerals in process. “Almost all of them have been brought back.” Notice the dodge to avoid that being easily falsified.
So it now looks like the sticking point in negotiations is that Ukraine is offering “neutrality, guaranteed by international agreements”, presumably meaning military neutrality, while Russia insists “joining no block” becomes part of the Ukrainian constitution….. with “no block” apparently including the EU as well as NATO.
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The Ukrainians want EU membership, the Russians want to forbid it. I suspect neither side can easily (politically) yield on this point. Since the Ukraine has already signaled they will give up on the Crimea and the eastern provinces, the issue is pretty much what we have known all along: Russia does not want the Ukraine to become any closer to Europe.
Andrew P (Comment #210280): “I’d expect every brigade has conscripts in it outside of a handful of specialist ones. You certainly wouldn’t be able to field 200k without conscripts.”
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Why not? There are no conscripts in the US military.
SteveF (Comment #210281): “Ukraine is offering “neutrality, guaranteed by international agreements”, presumably meaning military neutrality”.
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It might be an agreement between Russia and NATO such that Russian moving troops into Ukraine will be deemed an attack on NATO and NATO moving troops in would be an attack on Russia. That would give Ukraine the defense guarantee it needs while not threatening Russia.
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I could see Ukraine trading Crimea and maybe even part of the Donbas for something like that.
Not in a country who’s military who conscripts yearly about up 25% of the total active forces. The real anger comes when they have to draft much more to replace the loses. Right now they draft about 1 in 20.
I am curious how Ukraine negotiates. I would think it would be based on how well the war is going for them and how well in might go from them in the future. Ukraine keeps asking for military aid that would appear to most observers is not forthcoming. Does Ukraine then negotiate based what it might reasonably expect from the outside or does it negotiate based on what it might obtain based on their pleas for help? Further does the outside world which includes mainly the US and Europe make clear to Ukraine, for their realistic negotiations purposes, what aid will never be given?
Trying to make sense out of war and the issues related to war may be a futile effort.
I think the negotiations are just theater. All Russia has to do is make sure and always demand a poison pill to make sure Ukraine will not accept and then blame them for the failures. If Ukraine accepts conditions then Russia will make further demands to break it down again. Ukraine could throw a wrench in this by accepting the ploy and see what happens. The worst that could happen is they get a few days delay to rearm and start shooting again, then blame the Russians.
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The long term damage to Russia is already locked in at this point and I just don’t see why they would back down, Putin is basically a sociopath and could care less how many solders really die for his political aims and to prevent a humiliation of his army.
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There are lots of video and pictures out now, the Russians are definitely taking some real damage. Some of this is just abandoned equipment. However it would be a real win for Ukraine to trade blows one for one against Russia and they will run out of equipment way sooner than Russia will.
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The longer it goes, the more Russia attacks create more motivated Ukrainians, the more likely the occupation will be brutal. These seemingly indiscriminate attacks by Russians annoy everyone, just think about Ukraine fighting age men who have people they know killed and injured. They are going to want payback and if Russian units are driving around town then they will have opportunity. The fighting now will give the experience necessary to be effective later.
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My prediction is the occupation is going to be a disaster for everyone and is likely unavoidable. Once the occupation starts the media coverage will end because the journalists will be removed.
Turkey has been providing significant aid.
MikeN,
Russia knows that their fleet in Crimea will be trapped if the Turks won’t let them through the Bosporus. Turkey has some leverage.
I find the opinions that Russia is losing its war vs Ukraine as unfounded.
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The encirclement of Kiev continues to advance and food stocks in Kiev is being depleted. Once encircled, Kiev is doomed as power, food, city water, and ammunition supply is cut off. The city will starve over the next couple of weeks after encirclement. There is no reason for the Russians to hurry. Kiev becomes weaker over time. Think medieval siege, not blitzkrieg.
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Russia is following the same gameplay in the east vs the major cities and it is working. Turn the city into rubble before assaulting.
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The timeline for the Ukraine army in the east to breakout of the forming pocket is drawing to a close. They will be forced to quickly make the choice of continuing to try and hold the east and be surrounded and out of supply or giving up the entire east and run for Kiev and the west, abandoning large stocks of vital supplies and equipment.
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The Russians could care less about their current loss rate for military equipment. Military equipment is expected to be used up. As long as replacements are able to be brought forward, and the required advances are made, equipment loss is immaterial. Russia has a very deep reserve of military equipment.
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This is a come as you are war. The new military supplies being stockpiled in Poland will have little effect on the siege of Kiev or the soon to be encircled Ukraine army in the east due to the difficulties in transport. If the Ukraine army gives up the east and runs for the west, these supplies will then make a difference, but after half of Ukraine is lost. If the Ukraine army in the east is lost, Ukraine is lost.
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If Ukraine then goes for a gorilla war supported by west, Ukraine will be turned to rubble and it’s citizens scattered as refugees, which is a loss for Ukraine regardless of if the Russians stay or not.
The “Russia is losing to the rebels” narrative is very much wishful thinking. Russia is doing worse than expected and Ukraine is showing a willingness to fight hard is correct by just the fact they aren’t in many major cities yet. With all the information warfare going on it is hard to sort out reality. Perhaps Russia is executing a preordained plan of constantly ratcheting up pressure until the inevitable collapse occurs, but I’m sure they were hoping for less dead Russians and more territorial progress at this point in time.
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What Ukraine should be doing is hiding lots of weapons in the city. They can’t hide armor in the cities so it is a use it or lose it affair. Do as much damage as possible with it and then abandon the defense and let the Russians come in to the killing zones. Being able to kill armor from 2 km away with shoot and forget weapons is going to make urban combat really ugly.
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I’m beginning to wonder if Russia is simply not wanting to get into this urban fight except as a last resort. You can create outposts outside of the city to protect troops but then you can’t pacify the population.
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During the surge in Iraq the US went back into the cities and that somehow worked which wasn’t my prediction because it just provided more targets IMO. Why it worked is open to interpretation. It helps when you have big bags of money to buy friends with as part of the strategy, not sure Russia can easily do that.
Ed Forbes,
I suspect that Putin is not immune to political pressure. Even Russians care for their sons, grandsons, brothers, cousins, and friends. Putin will for sure come under pressure as casualties mount. Which is not to say that he cares a wit for anything beyond maintaining his personal position and keeping NATO away from Russian borders; clearly he does not.
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But I would not dismiss the possibility that his position on ending hostilities will soften, especially if lots of Russian soldiers are getting killed. If he gets control of Crimea, “independence” for the two eastern regions, and some treaty assurances about the Ukraine not joining NATO, he may well take that as “victory” and go home. I could be wrong, but I hope I’m not.
Russia is not losing in the sense that they are facing inevitable military defeat. They may be losing in the sense that the war costs money and resources and they might not be able to afford to see it through. But until and unless the money and resources run out, they can continue to pound Ukrainian cities into rubble. I expect they will.
It’s also possible, if it is the case that it looks like they will run out of money and resources in the near future, that Putin packs it in before they reach that point.
Shrug.
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[Edit: Steve points out some of the other less tangible costs. I agree. There are various ways in which the war ‘costs’ Russia [or Putin]. Eventually they might decide to cut their losses. Or not.]
Ukrainian foot soldiers in battle…every other one has an antitank launcher. https://twitter.com/Blue_Sauron/status/1501967817247281158?s=20&t=Pylx1JNka8hUStHIeAd9bg
marc bofill,
Putin has huge gold reserves…. which have increased in value by ~15%-20% in the last 90 days. He is not going to run out of money.
The EU pays Russia ~$800M/day for gas. Every day. Day after day. Russia isn’t going to run out of money. As mentioned Russia also has a lot of money in the bank, which is less accessible due to sanctions. This was all part of Putin’s calculus for invasion one would expect. They can see this through if they choose. Will Russia be a pariah for decades and make the long term economics not worth it or will the west lose interest and go back to Twitter wars? Hard to say but it seems like the world is not likely to welcome back a Putin lead Russia anytime soon.
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This was never about economics, it is Putin’s vanity.
RPG’s aren’t very useful against tanks. But they are cheap. Since they are unguided you have to be pretty close relatively to hit something. If you get a lucky shot in you might be able to disable a tank temporarily by taking out tread or something, otherwise they just bounce off. There are many variants though, some better than others.
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Driving by alleys and intersections in Humvees and lightly armored vehicles is dangerous with opponents with RPG’s. The cheap option was burying large artillery shells in the road and remotely detonating them. This was a huge problem.
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The warheads on things like a Javelin or Hellfire are completely different. The Javelin has a 2 stage warhead where the first one deal with reactive armor and the second stage injects a narrow molten hot stream of metal into the tank. You would rather not be inside one when that happens.
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Older Russian tanks had the ammunition inside the tank turret and what happened a lot in Iraq is the warhead set off the tank ammo, it exploded and blew the turret off with nothing good happening to the tank crew. I’ve seen some detached turrets in Ukraine photos. The US tank design allows the ammo to be stored behind the crew area in a separate compartment and blow out an escape hatch for better survivability. The newest Russian designs apparently have corrected this.
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This injection of narrow molten streams isn’t as effective for non-tanks so a more traditional exploding fragmenting warhead is apparently another missile option for buildings and … ummm … soft targets. Blowing a tank to smithereens might be kind of cool but that requires a big heavy expensive weapon so the main goal is really to disable the tank.
Thanks all. I glanced at some numbers for Russia and I tend to agree; Russia isn’t going to run out of money while oil is over $100 USD a barrel.
Thank the climate change policymakers for financing this destruction.
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[Edit: With respect to Russian gold, I read here that senators are working on it. I don’t understand the nuances of gold trading on the level of nations to have an opinion on how effective this might be.]
Tom Scharf,
The technology of shaped charges is really interesting. It is not just a stream of molten metal…. it is essentially a plasma… so hot that noting inside the tank can survive. And the Javelin shape charge is claimed to penetrate 14 inches of steel, though the rocket is programmed to rise up a few hundred feet and strike from above, hitting the top of the tank, where armor is normally a lot thinner. Tanks are today like battleships in 1939: Technology has overtaken them, and their tactical value falls continuously. This may be the last war of significance where tanks have a great deal of influence.
mark bofill,
It has been often said that ‘cash is king’; if true, then we can presume ‘gold is god-like’. Almost nobody will turn down payment in gold.
Thinking on what my strategy for Russia would be if Ukraine goes to gorilla warfare and Russia was kept under extreme sanction:
Take a page from Rome, brutal, but effective.
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Start to declare the major cities, starting in the east and gradually working westward, military combat zones and announce civilians must leave within 15 days, transport to be supplied, as needed, from outside the city. Demolish all city services such as water and power leading into the city and leave the city to dry up and die. Civilians to be released into the far west and encouraged to refugee out with minimal support given.
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Start a Russian version of a Foreign Legion and announce Russian citizenship and the modern equivalent of 40 acres and a mule for 3 years military service in Ukraine. These newly retired military to settle as militia in their own new local villages to pacify their area and repopulate Ukraine with forces loyal to Russia.
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I posted this to show that while guerrilla war can be brutal on the invader, it doesn’t need to be if depopulation and outside immigration is the end goal. Make the cities death traps for the residents and they cannot support an effective insurgency. Rome was known to nail the gates shut to rebel cities and leave the entire city to starve to death under siege.
If Russia is forced to endure ongoing, semipermanent, and massive sanctions, in addition to insurgency, the hard road as above begins to look like the best way forward for them. A bit hard on the Ukrainian citizens though and for Europe having millions more in refugees to handle.
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If diplomacy does not leave a path forward that Russia can be comfortable with, you can end up with situations similar to Germany after WWI, which does no one any good.
Steve “ Tanks are today like battleships in 1939: Technology has overtaken them, and their tactical value falls continuously. This may be the last war of significance where tanks have a great deal of influence.”
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I disagree. Tactics change, and designs change, but the need for fast moving, heavily armored vehicles remain.
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You are starting to see the design changes to heavy shaped charges on the battlefield. Notice the standoff cages made of steel bars surrounding the tank turrets seen in some of the Ukraine battle photos? They are starting to be seen more of to protect against the larger shaped charge weapons. A simple stand-off steel plate will protect the heavies from these types of warheads. Combine with reactive (explosive) armor and your tank is back in business.
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This is the first major action of a heavy tank force facing javelins in numbers. Field expedient solutions will be coming shortly to degrade the effectiveness of these infantry anti tank weapons.
Steve “It has been often said that ‘cash is king’; if true, then we can presume ‘gold is god-like’. Almost nobody will turn down payment in gold.”
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Now consider if Russia demands payment for NG and oil by delivered gold instead of inflationary currency. If Russia is not allowed to trade in US dollars with US banks, why take their money?
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Talk about putting pressure on the US dollar!!!
“In this video, almost every person has some sort of antitank weapon. Panzerfaust 3, AT4, NLAW, RPG-7”
https://twitter.com/Blue_Sauron/status/1501967817247281158?s=20&t=cYMQcf2mMaE9oqqVAuA5ug
From NYT “In less than a week, the United States and NATO have pushed more than 17,000 antitank weapons, including Javelin missiles, over the borders of Poland and Romania,”
“In Washington and Germany, intelligence officials race to merge satellite photographs with electronic intercepts of Russian military units, strip them of hints of how they were gathered, and beam them to Ukrainian military units within an hour or two.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/us/politics/us-ukraine-weapons.html
Interesting aside: The name AT4 is a word play on the 84 mm caliber of the weapon, (84) ‘eighty four’ being pronounced similarly to ‘A-T-4’
It remains to be seen if the Russian tank “cope cages” are effective. I’ve read they both don’t work and they can possibly work. Definitely a few picture of destroyed tanks with those on top and in pieces. The attack angle of the Javelin has at least one other “direct path” option instead of the top attack. It is a testament to the effectiveness of these missiles that these alterations are being made by the Russians.
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As for the effectiveness of tanks, it depends. The US didn’t use their tanks much inside of cities. They finally figured out you can fire an RPG down onto the motor cover/grill in the back and disable a US tank. Measures and counter measures are constantly evolving. Reactive armor used to work too.
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I think the age of the big lumbering tank may be coming to an end. Their vulnerability to missile systems is a big problem. They ironically need to be protected by dismounted infantry now. They have their place now and will likely have their place in the future but it may be more limited.
Another example of why you don’t get into the business of speech suppression.
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WSJ: “Meta Platforms Inc. has temporarily altered its political expression policy to allow for some use of violent speech.
The parent company of platforms such as Facebook said the exceptions were put in place because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and allow for speech like “death to the Russian invaders,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement.”
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It’s OK to hate the right people then, so it’s not really a policy against violent speech. These things always devolve into incoherent positions that can be summed up as “we are censoring people we don’t like”.
Wow, I am actually shocked.
“A judge in Chicago sentenced Jussie Smollett to five months in jail on Thursday, ordering that the actor be incarcerated for falsely reporting to the police that he had been the victim of a racist and homophobic attack in 2019.”
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He also has to pay $140K in fines and restitution.
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The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind.
Russell “ “In this video, almost every person has some sort of antitank weapon. Panzerfaust 3, AT4, NLAW, RPG-7”
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These are effective vs older heavy tank design but not so much for the newer heavies. Reactive armor works very well defending vs these. They are brutal vs light armor such as APC’s. The newer tank armor design, such as the US Abrams, shrug these off with little chance of damage. These infantry weapons are also fairly short range but work very well in an urban environment.
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As such, expect to see a slower dismounted infantry screen moving forward with armor in a support role. The dismounted infantry screen finds and fixes the enemy infantry in place and the armor gives direct HE fire support with the infantry calling in the targets. Indirect artillery also called in as needed. Cities to be avoided until softened by siege.
Why does it feel more like one small nail trying to restore the coffin of justice.
Decent verdict for the hate he tried to raise.
Very sad otherwise as a victimless crime.
A slap over the wrist and a donation to the poor box would have been all a Jo Blow nobody would have received.
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Race and racism will always exist when people look or act differently to others and none of us are clones.
Where differences exist animosities and grievances are always ready to be brought to the surface when conflict or conniving people want to.
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In my limited experience I have generally found that most normal people of all races are tolerant of all others unless they are put upon.
Perhaps another way of saying that is that most people are normal, leave them alone and they leave you alone
Show interest in them and they will show interest in you.
Some groups like Pit bulls, Crocodiles ,and motorcycle Bikies are best not approached, in that order
Ed Forbes, Thank you for the explanation. What is “ HE fire support”?
Tom Scharf,
“The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind.”
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In this case, far too slowly. It was obviously a complete fabrication, and anyone with more than three neurons in their head knew that immediately. The guy should have been tried, convicted, and jailed as soon as the police told prosecutors it was all lies. That the local prosecutor let the guy walk (after our ‘brilliant’ former first lady got involved) is arguably worse than the Smollett hate crime fabrication….. it reflects a level of antisocial behavior among prosecutors and the powerful which is damaging the social fabric. Note that nobody involved in this fiasco has ever apologized: not Smollett, not the prosecutors who let him walk, not the numbskull MSM that trumpeted his nonsense, and certainly not the rich and famous who came instantly to his defense. It is a cesspool of idiocy and craven corruption.
Ed Forbes,
In addition to ground based shape charge weapons, tanks are vulnerable to air to surface missiles, which can be far more powerful than anything a foot soldier can carry. I think that long term, tanks are toast, and the accounting of tank kills after Ukraine will show that. Yes, there is always an evolution of design, but one thing is not going to change: the cost for a tank is many times greater than the cost for a weapon which will destroy it…. the rest is details.
If you ever wonder why George Soros spends millions getting prosecutors elected who refuse to prosecute crimes, the answer is: He is a fool. Here is proof of that: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/putin-ukraine-world-war-3-risk-by-george-soros-2022-03
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Sure, all we have to do is get rid of Putin and Xi. Great idea. Just like all we have to do to reduce black imprisonment rates is stop prosecuting their crimes. What an absolute fool.
This guy should be a regular commentator here…. He’d fit right in. “Robbie s. Bittersweet announcement but after an amazing 2 years as an infectious disease expert I am moving on. I am now an expert in no-fly zones and Eastern European affairs. Excited to make the most of this new opportunity.”https://twitter.com/robbyslowik/status/1501248222265843716?s=21
“HE fire support” would be high explosive.
Russell, not really. If somebody claimed to be an expert here, point it out. We’re just talking, as always.
mark bofill/Russel Klier,
Not only do I not claim to be an expert, I have very little knowledge of military strategy, tactics or weaponry.
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I have been impressed that Ukraine has held out.
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I’ve also been interested in reading just how ineffective the Russians have been relative to expectations. Tanks running out of gas? Tired not maintained? They are a huge army and so can cope with some degree of mismanagement and still win. But they do not appear to be a slick military operation.
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Talking about what’s going on is not the same as claiming to be an expert!
Lucia, yes.
You, me and everybody else, seems like. I get the impression that actual real experts are surprised by the lackluster Russian performance. I think it’s interesting and worth talking about.
mark bofill,
As the late Richard Feynman said: “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. When someone says ‘science teaches such and such’, he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn’t teach it; experience teaches it.”
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All who claim a belief in reasoned thought must not be afraid to doubt experts, for experience shows they are very often wrong.
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As philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn noted, science progresses by a change in paradigm, were the fundamental perception of reality is altered in a single step…. and where, of course, existing experts are shown to be mistaken in their understanding. Unfortunately, most scientific experts have so much personal and career capital invested in their understanding of reality that they go to their graves still clinging to the old paradigm. This is not unique to science.
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Acceptance of expert opinion without question is foolhardy.
People demonstrate they understand the world by convincingly explaining the past but more importantly being able to predict the future. Predicting a ball will fall when you drop it is one thing, predicting it won’t under special circumstances is another.
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Explaining why GPS satellite timers have a predictable error due to relativity is a whole other level of expertise.
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Predicting future events is probabilistic, flipping coins vs will Putin invade. Biden and the IC demonstrated expertise when they confidently asserted an invasion would occur and this helped their credibility for future predictions. Almost nobody in the west predicted a Sunni vs Shiite civil war but my guess is plenty of people in Iraq understood those dynamics. I wonder if people in Ukraine expected a tough fight or rapid capitulation.
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There is nothing wrong with average Joe’s speculating on outcomes and I just don’t worry about being wrong. It is part of gaining knowledge and experience efficiently. Understanding why you are wrong is important, especially identifying your own biases.
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The smartest people in the room failed spectacularly with Trump and then had a level 10 temper tantrum after they were shown to be wrong (i.e. they just didn’t understand what racist morons Americans are, etc.).
mark bofill, Lucia
Some recent examples of what sounds to me like experts pontificating….
“In addition to ground based shape charge weapons, tanks are vulnerable to air to surface missiles, which can be far more powerful than anything a foot soldier can carry. “
“The attack angle of the Javelin has at least one other “direct path” option instead of the top attack.”
“Field expedient solutions will be coming shortly to degrade the effectiveness of these infantry anti tank weapons.”
“The technology of shaped charges is really interesting. It is not just a stream of molten metal…. it is essentially a plasma… so hot that noting inside the tank can survive. And the Javelin shape charge is claimed to penetrate 14 inches of steel, though the rocket is programmed to rise up a few hundred feet and strike from above, hitting the top of the tank, where armor is normally a lot thinner.”
“The warheads on things like a Javelin or Hellfire are completely different. The Javelin has a 2 stage warhead where the first one deal with reactive armor and the second stage injects a narrow molten hot stream of metal into the tank.”
“What Ukraine should be doing is hiding lots of weapons in the city.”
Russell,
What would you change about those remarks to make them sound less like the pontificating of experts? Real question.
[Edit: Closely related question, and why exactly should anybody care that you think the remarks sound like experts pontificating? The commenters are not experts and don’t claim to be.]
I’ll start calling javelin missiles ‘the shootie thingies what go boom’ every so often if that will help.
I don’t even really understand what this is about. We aren’t writing research papers with footnotes here. If you wonder about the accuracy of any statements you can use Google to verify it and perhaps even learn something additional interesting and share it.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGM-148_Javelin
“Depending on whether the missile is in top attack or direct attack mode…” See diagrams.
“The Javelin missile’s tandem warhead is a high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) type.[8] This round utilizes an explosive shaped charge to create a stream of superplastically deformed metal formed from trumpet-shaped metallic liners. The result is a narrow high velocity particle stream that can penetrate armor.
The Javelin counters the advent of explosive reactive armor (ERA). ERA boxes or tiles lying over a vehicle’s main armor explode when struck by a warhead. This explosion does not harm the vehicle’s main armor, but causes steel panels to fly across the path of a HEAT round’s narrow particle stream …”
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Like I said I have no idea what the point is here.
OSINTtechnical @Osinttechnical·1h
Russian TU-154 headed to Damascus. This comes after the Russian government said Syrians were ready to fight in Ukraine.’ Flight path
https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1502326403395731458?s=20&t=74fnOv7_AOyEEG_CaVHhFQ
Charles Lister @Charles_Lister ‘This morning, #Putin told his national security team that #Russia should begin accepting ‘volunteers’ from the #MiddleEast, to fight in #Ukraine. Now we have this video, shared by #Moscow, that appears to include [some] #Assad Republican Guard personnel:’ https://twitter.com/Charles_Lister/status/1502242731359608835?s=20&t=74fnOv7_AOyEEG_CaVHhFQ
Jussie Smollett intended the whole thing to be caught on camera, but the camera was pointing in the other direction.
If it had been caught on camera, and IF the video wasn’t an obvious fake, CNN would have been running it 24/7.
Poor Jussie. He can’t run a hoax and walk away scot-free like everybody else does. More evidence, if any were necessary, demonstrating the deep racial and cis-normative injustice of our society.
SARC
Smollett’s reaction, per the NY Post:
Smollett seems to have gotten what he deserves, no more and no less. I agree with SteveF in lamenting that the prosecutor who attempted to dismiss the charges, and those in the media who uncritically amplified his claims, have not suffered any apparent consequences.
The man might genuinely have psychological problems if he believes he’s going to get killed in jail and it’ll be made to look like a suicide. It’s almost like he thinks he has dirt on the Clintons or something.
[Edit: The bit about the Clintons is a joke. I don’t believe the Clintons have had anybody killed. Only Republican politicians have people killed… 😉 ]
My comment on the possible forming a Russian Foreign Legion may be taking shape it seems
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“Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reportedly said at a recent meeting of Russia’s Security Council that 16,000 volunteers in the Middle East are ready to come to fight alongside Russian-backed forces in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.”
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https://justthenews.com/world/middle-east/putin-oks-volunteer-fighters-join-ukraine-invasion-moscow-say-16000-middle-east
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High relative wages plus likely Russian citizenship will be a big motivation to join.
Russell,
Most of the taking heads in major media that proclaim themselves “experts” on a subject have clearly got their head up their a… They are pushing an agenda and a fixed point of view, not giving unfiltered analysis. Their “expertise” seems to come from crib notes quickly scanned off the net.
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I have met real experts on military history, military current affairs, military experts on tactical, operational, and strategic logic. I am most definitely not in their league and don’t consider myself to be an “expert”.
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That said, I have over 50 years behind me of interest and in-depth reading on historical military campaigns, weapon design and use over time, military and political tactics for the prosecution of wars at the tactical, operational, and strategic scale of combat.
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I consider myself a very well informed layman on military subjects and able to make reasonable and informed comments on the subject. Sorry about that if it disturbs you.
In an article about expanding natural gas supply:
Emphasis added.
I think the Russia Foreign Legion propaganda is a response to the Western propaganda of all the people rushing to go fight for the Ukrainians. I hope the Syrians buy some winter coats before they show up. They do owe Russia a favor so I wouldn’t be surprised if a few did show up. I don’t think they would like being cannon fodder though.
The gas supply argument is more complicated than it looks. If the EU stops buying gas from Russia, but China buys the surplus from Russia and stops buying it from other sources (which the EU starts buying from) then nothing really changed in this game of musical chairs.
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Unless less people overall are buying from Russia or Russia is forced to sell at substantial discounts then this strategy isn’t doing much good. I’m not sure what will happen in the short or long term. I suspect that China will buy gas from Russia but China will do the Chinese thing and force them to sell at a discount because they have a lot of leverage, ha ha. China wins.
If only we were still net exporting oil and the supply was large and the cost low. The market would do the work.
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You know, I actually agree that there is nothing the Biden administration can do now about oil production. I mean, think about it – would you believe the administration if they did a sudden about face and started supporting industry friendly policies? I wouldn’t, no thank you. I wouldn’t sink money into investments in oil production only to risk the administration turning around next year and destroying the investment.
Tom Scharf,
It’s not ironic at all, IMO. Tanks were originally designed to support infantry. But, especially in an urban environment, they have always been somewhat vulnerable to dismounted troops. How vulnerable has varied with the technology available to the tank and dismounted infantry. Lots of hits from searching on tanks and infantry support.
Some more info on the infamous Russian attack on the Ukraine nuclear plant has come out, surprisingly from NPR which isn’t a bastion of original reporting but very good stuff here.
https://www.npr.org/2022/03/11/1085427380/ukraine-nuclear-power-plant-zaporizhzhia
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It looks like some Russian tanks rolled in toward the nuclear plant and were unsurprisingly fired on by an anti-tank missile from the plant. Shockingly the Russians fired back after one of their tanks was destroyed. RPG’s were fired into the admin building where I assume the missiles were probably fired from.
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This is really just stupidity by both sides and ought to be avoidable. It’s understandable stupidity though from the grunt tank crew / anti-tank soldier’s perspective. This really needs to be avoided … somehow. Don’t roll tanks into nuclear facilities, don’t fire advanced weapons from inside these facilities. Maybe the UN keeps a peacekeeping barrier around them until the battle is decided.
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I still worry that a false flag operation by either side could intentionally lead to a reactor meltdown. Who did it will be determined by which way the wind is blowing when it happens.
I have previously estimated that perhaps 20% of covid deaths were not really due to the virus. Massachusetts has just reclassified 4,081 covid deaths as non-covid deaths, out of 23.6K covid deaths. 17%.
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Oops. Source: https://www.dailywire.com/news/massachusetts-health-officials-drop-covid-19-death-count-by-3700
So what’s going on with COVID in the UK? They’ve had this weird increasing baseline new case numbers since July, 2021. They never really had a delta specific surge. Then they had the omicron peak. The new case rate declined rapidly to slightly below the previous baseline and now the new case rate appears to be rapidly increasing again.
DeWitt,
Yes, strange. Deaths seem to continue to drop.
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Maybe the UK has lots of relatively mild breakthrough cases (their vaccination rate is very high) because vaccine immunity is gradually waining.
SteveF,
Could be. According to worldometers, the number of serious, critical cases is pretty low for the UK, 253 of over 1 million active cases.
Finally what I’ve been looking for:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/putins-de-nazification-claim-began-with-marx-and-stalin-world-imperialism-russia-soviets-communism-11647032625?st=ju6eqg8ep8c9dq7&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
So claims their opponents are Nazi’s is SOP for Soviet (except during the honeymoon period of the Ribbentrop Molotov pact) and now Russian propaganda. So if you see a comment that supports Putin’s claims about the Ukrainian government it’s either a Russian tr011, fellow traveler or dupe.
And if I ever needed a reason to not pay attention to Tucker Carlson, he’s supporting the Fauci bio-war labs in Ukraine. But I try to avoid TV news and talking heads shows from any source.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #210355): “he’s supporting the Fauci bio-war labs in Ukraine”.
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What does that mean?
Mike M.,
The existence of bioweapons labs in Ukraine is a conspiracy theory promoted by QAnon, and apparently Tucker Carlson as well.
Part of story here is related to the very real old Soviet bioweapons programs where some of the labs were in Ukraine. There are programs to make sure those thing were contained after the Soviet collapse. There were tons and tons of production pathogens stored who knows where and theoretically destroyed. The Russians definitely have smallpox and other nasty stuff they designed. I’d agree that this is likely a conspiracy but the US has answered some questions in some very funny ways recently that sounded like non-denial denials.
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I would think Ukraine wouldn’t be top of the list to work with on dangerous pathogens, but there may also be some secret squirrel stuff going on here to get insight into current Russian bioweapons activity. Something weird may be going on, but I highly doubt it is bioweapons development with Ukraine.
Tucker Carlson ignored the bioweapons stuff until the Undersecretary of State gave that weird answer to Rubio’s question about biological and chemical weapons in Ukraine. Instead of the simple “no” that Rubio expected, she went on about concerns regarding Ukrainian biolabs. I would assume that a decent journalist’s antennae go up whenever a public official answers a question by ignoring it and answering a different question. Carlson has not been making any claims about those labs, but he has been asking questions.
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The Soviets had bioweapons labs in Ukraine. The US has been providing funding to those labs for the purpose of securing/destroying dangerous materials and doing legit research. And, I imagine, to prevent newly impoverished scientists from being tempted to supplement their incomes. It is not hard to imagine that some of the samples stored in those labs were deemed too “important” to destroy and/or that we have been funding research there that is not allowed here. It is not like such things have never happened.
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It is perfectly appropriate to ask questions about those labs. Some of Carlson’s questions strike me as unnecessarily accusatory. Others seem ignorant; for instance he seems to assume that since Ukraine is poor the people are ignorant and uneducated. But so far as I know he has not endorsed any conspiracy theories.
I wouldn’t expect it to take 15 years to shut down a bioweapons lab.