Ukraine

[Chas_P]

Has anyone seen recent video of Putin?

 

He does not look at all well.

3/1/2022

[Gilithin]

Before this can happen, there will have to be a Julius Caesar moment for Putin.

Why? After WWII, the US provided support to (West) Germany despite a significant portion of the country being occupied by Communist forces and all without Stalin being assassinated. I would assume that after the current conflict reaches a non-hot phase, presumably with an occupation of significant portions of South and East Ukraine, it would still be possible for a similar plan to be used for the rest of the country whether Putin is in power or otherwise.

[Winstonm]

Why? After WWII, the US provided support to (West) Germany despite a significant portion of the country being occupied by Communist forces and all without Stalin being assassinated. I would assume that after the current conflict reaches a non-hot phase, presumably with an occupation of significant portions of South and East Ukraine, it would still be possible for a similar plan to be used for the rest of the country whether Putin is in power or otherwise.

 

Because the fighting has to end first. And with it, the risk for future reengagement. No reason to rebuild only to have Putin tear it down again.

[y66]

Tony Blair on How Russia’s War Will Change the World

[kenberg]

Tony Blair on How Russia’s War Will Change the World

 

I finally got around to listening to that this morning. I might well go through it again.

 

There is also a very interesting piece ni Bloomberg reminding us that the Pearl Harbor bombing happened after US sanctions on Japan let them into desperation.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-03/ukraine-war-as-putin-gets-desperate-u-s-should-remember-pearl-harbor?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=220507&utm_campaign=sharetheview

 

The author, Hal Brands, makes a point of saying that analogies are never completely accurate. But I think many have been wondering just what will happen next as we tighten sanctions on Russia. Dangerous times.

[y66]

I finally got around to listening to that this morning. I might well go through it again.

 

There is also a very interesting piece ni Bloomberg reminding us that the Pearl Harbor bombing happened after US sanctions on Japan let them into desperation.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-03/ukraine-war-as-putin-gets-desperate-u-s-should-remember-pearl-harbor?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=220507&utm_campaign=sharetheview

 

The author, Hal Brands, makes a point of saying that analogies are never completely accurate. But I think many have been wondering just what will happen next as we tighten sanctions on Russia. Dangerous times.

Analogies don't have to be perfect. I think Japan also felt war with the U.S. was inevitable so might as well strike first. Dangerous times indeed.

[y66]

The Turkish Drone That Changed the Nature of Warfare by Stephen Witt at The New Yorker

 

The Bayraktar TB2 has brought precision air-strike capabilities to Ukraine and other countries. It’s also a diplomatic tool, enabling Turkey’s rise.

[y66]

On a Russian talk show, a retired colonel stuns his colleagues by pointing out that the invasion isn’t going well

[Cyberyeti]

Reported to me by my friend in Moscow (original in Russian, google translated, source unknown):

 

The Russian government has allowed automakers to release simplified models with lower environmental and safety standards. The corresponding decree of Mikhail Mishustin will be valid until February 1, 2023.

 

Now Russian car factories are allowed to produce cars of any environmental class - even Euro-0. Also, companies can produce cars without anti-lock braking system (ABS), airbags and dynamic stabilization system (ESP).

 

It is assumed that such innovations will allow, in the face of a shortage of imported components, to continue the production of machines and ensure the employment of personnel.

[pilowsky]

It also means they can use the components that make the cars so posh for their (hopefully) dwindling stock of war machines.

I keep seeing reports that Putin is A) on corticosteroids - eg prednisolone, and B) sick with cancer (which would fit with certain types of chemotherapy that includes (A)).

 

A well-known and very common side-effect of treatment with steroids is rage - amongst a whole bunch of other psychiatric symptoms.

[kenberg]

On a Russian talk show, a retired colonel stuns his colleagues by pointing out that the invasion isn't going well

 

From the article: "Mr. Khodaryonok did not immediately respond to a request for further comment." Yes, I can imagine he might not be available for further comments. Ever.

Here is an obvious fact:

When soldiers from country A are fighting soldiers from company B, and when the fighting is taking place for possession of country B, the outcome is a great deal more important to the soldiers from country B.

Khodaryonok reached back to Marx and Lenin for explanations of the problem. Ok, maybe so, but I think that the above Obvious Fact is the place to start.

I have never been in battle or even in military uniform, I have not studied military history, so I agree that I don't know s--t. But some things are obvious even to me.

[kenberg]

Reported to me by my friend in Moscow (original in Russian, google translated, source unknown):

 

The Russian government has allowed automakers to release simplified models with lower environmental and safety standards. The corresponding decree of Mikhail Mishustin will be valid until February 1, 2023.

 

Now Russian car factories are allowed to produce cars of any environmental class - even Euro-0. Also, companies can produce cars without anti-lock braking system (ABS), airbags and dynamic stabilization system (ESP).

 

It is assumed that such innovations will allow, in the face of a shortage of imported components, to continue the production of machines and ensure the employment of personnel.

 

This is a very interesting example of What leads to What, and how prediction is tough.

[kenberg]

It also means they can use the components that make the cars so posh for their (hopefully) dwindling stock of war machines.

I keep seeing reports that Putin is A) on corticosteroids - eg prednisolone, and B) sick with cancer (which would fit with certain types of chemotherapy that includes (A)).

 

A well-known and very common side-effect of treatment with steroids is rage - amongst a whole bunch of other psychiatric symptoms.

 

About 40 years ago I had an auto-immune disease that was treated with prednisone, starting at something like 120mg a day, tapering off over a year or so. At one point I found it difficult to think clearly. I was teaching an advanced math class and my style was to welcome questions and spontaneous discussion. There was a point in the treatment when that was just impossible. I claim that this side-effect has gone away, but we never know.

 

The Ukrainians are obviously suffering greatly but it is hard to see how anyone will come out better from this invasion. That suggests some sort of delusional thinking is going on.

[Winstonm]

I'm not sure if Putin has cancer; however, I'm certain Putin IS a cancer.

[Gilithin]

I'm not sure if Putin has cancer; however, I'm certain Putin IS a cancer.

Putin is actually a Libra.

[johnu]

In a strategic strike against the US, Russia has permanently banned 963 Americans from entering Russia.

 

Among those banned were noted dissidents Rob Reiner and Morgan Freeman. In addition to Biden and Harris, many other administration officials and members of Congress were banned. To show the US that they were deadly serious, Russia also banned John McCain, Harry Reid, and Orrin Hatch, among other deceased Americans. In the case of McCain, Reid, Hatch and other deceased on the banned list, the ban is retroactive to the day before their deaths.

 

Latest list of Americans banned by Russia includes dead lawmakers

 

Russia bans 963 Americans from the country including Biden, Harris, Zuckerberg. But not Trump.

 

Of course, Manchurian President Trump is still welcome to enter Russia.

[blindsey]

To show the US that they were deadly serious, Russia also banned John McCain, Harry Reid, and Orrin Hatch, among other deceased Americans.

 

Presumably Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon are still welcome.

[y66]

This is the edited transcript of a discussion between Henry Kissinger, former US secretary of state and national security adviser, and Edward Luce, Financial Times US national editor, which took place on May 7 in Washington.

 

Financial Times: Earlier this year, we commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Nixon visit to China, the Shanghai communique. You, of course, were the organiser, the orchestrator of this Sino-US agreement. And it was a major shift in the cold war: you split China from Russia. It feels like we’ve gone 180 degrees. And now Russia and China are back in a very tight relationship. My opening question to you is: are we in a new cold war with China?

 

Henry Kissinger: At the time we opened to China, Russia was the principal enemy — but our relations with China were about as bad as they could be. Our view in opening to China was that it was unwise, when you have two enemies, to treat them exactly alike.

 

What produced the opening were tensions that developed autonomously between Russia and China. [Former Soviet Union head of state Leonid] Brezhnev could not conceive that China and the United States could get together. But Mao, despite all his ideological hostility, was ready to begin conversations.

 

In principle, the [sino-Russian] alliance is against vested interests, it’s now established. But it does not look to me as if it is an intrinsically permanent relationship.

 

FT: I take it that it would be in America’s geopolitical interest to encourage more distance between Russia and China. Is this wrong?

 

HK: The geopolitical situation globally will undergo significant changes after the Ukraine war is over. And it is not natural for China and Russia to have identical interests on all foreseeable problems. I don’t think we can generate possible disagreements but I think circumstances will. After the Ukraine war, Russia will have to reassess its relationship to Europe at a minimum and its general attitude towards Nato. I think it is unwise to take an adversarial position to two adversaries in a way that drives them together, and once we take aboard this principle in our relationships with Europe and in our internal discussions, I think history will provide opportunities in which we can apply the differential approach.

 

That doesn’t mean that either of them will become intimate friends of the west, it only means that on specific issues as they arise we leave open the option of having a different approach. In the period ahead of us, we should not lump Russia and China together as an integral element.

 

FT: The Biden administration is framing its grand geopolitical challenge as being democracy versus autocracy. I’m picking up an implicit hint that it's the wrong framing?

 

HK: We have to be conscious of the differences of ideology and of interpretation that exists. We should use this consciousness to apply it in our own analysis of the importance of issues as they arise, rather than make it the principal issue of confrontation, unless we are prepared to make regime change the principal goal of our policy. I think given the evolution of technology, and the enormous destructiveness of weapons that now exist, [seeking regime change] may be imposed on us by the hostility of others, but we should avoid generating it with our own attitudes.

 

FT: You have probably more experience than any person alive of how to manage a stand-off between two nuclear-armed superpowers. But today’s nuclear language, which is coming thick and fast from [Russian president Vladimir] Putin, from people around him, where do you put that in terms of the threat we are facing today?

 

HK: We are now [faced] with technologies where the rapidity of exchange, the subtlety of the inventions, can produce levels of catastrophe that were not even imaginable. And the strange aspect of the present situation is that the weapons are multiplying on both sides and their sophistication is increasing every year.

 

But there’s almost no discussion internationally about what would happen if the weapons actually became used. My appeal in general, on whatever side you are, is to understand that we are now living in a totally new era, and we have gotten away with neglecting that aspect. But as technology spreads around the world, as it does inherently, diplomacy and war will need a different content and that will be a challenge.

 

FT: You’ve met Putin 20 to 25 times. The Russian military nuclear doctrine is they will respond with nuclear weapons if they feel that the regime is under existential threat. Where do you think Putin’s red line is in this situation?

 

HK: I have met Putin as a student of international affairs about once a year for a period of maybe 15 years for purely academic strategic discussions. I thought his basic convictions were a kind of mystic faith in Russian history . . . and that he felt offended, in that sense, not by anything we did particularly at first, but by this huge gap that opened up with Europe and the east. He was offended and threatened because Russia was threatened by the absorption of this whole area into Nato. This does not excuse and I would not have predicted an attack of the magnitude of taking over a recognised country.

 

I think he miscalculated the situation he faced internationally and he obviously miscalculated Russia’s capabilities to sustain such a major enterprise — and when the time for settlement comes all need to take that into consideration, that we are not going back to the previous relationship but to a position for Russia that will be different because of this — and not because we demand it but because they produced it.

 

FT: Do you think Putin’s getting good information and if he isn’t what further miscalculations should we be preparing for?

 

HK: In all these crises, one has to try to understand what the inner red line is for the opposite number . . . The obvious question is how long will this escalation continue and how much scope is there for further escalation? Or has he reached the limit of his capability, and he has to decide at what point escalating the war will strain his society to a point that will limit its fitness to conduct international policy as a great power in the future.

 

I have no judgment when he comes to that point. When that point is reached will he escalate by moving into a category of weapons that in 70 years of their existence have never been used? If that line is crossed, that will be an extraordinarily significant event. Because we have not gone through globally what the next dividing lines would be. One thing we could not do in my opinion is just accept it.

 

FT: You’ve met [Chinese president] Xi Jinping many times and his predecessors — you know China well. What lessons is China drawing from this?

 

HK: I would suspect that any Chinese leader now would be reflecting on how to avoid getting into the situation in which Putin got himself into, and how to be in a position where in any crisis that might arise, they would not have a major part of the world turned against them.

[pilowsky]

Encouraging Reuters reporting on Ukraine progress.

[hrothgar]

Encouraging Reuters reporting on Ukraine progress.

 

Yeap

 

I think that things might start to become interesting.

 

The Russian military has been looking very weak throughout this conflict.

Yes, they can kill civilians and shell cities.

 

They haven't been able to inflict significant damage on the Ukrainian military.

Conversely, the Ukrainian have shown themselves to be very resourceful.

 

Can't help but wonder what will happen if / when the Ukrainians are in a position to consider taking back the Crimea.

[Winstonm]

Yeap

 

I think that things might start to become interesting.

 

The Russian military has been looking very weak throughout this conflict.

Yes, they can kill civilians and shell cities.

 

They haven't been able to inflict significant damage on the Ukrainian military.

Conversely, the Ukrainian have shown themselves to be very resourceful.

 

Can't help but wonder what will happen if / when the Ukrainians are in a position to consider taking back the Crimea.

 

I wonder what the back-office Kremlin Putin gossip is saying when they whisper.

[cherdano]

Yeap

 

I think that things might start to become interesting.

 

The Russian military has been looking very weak throughout this conflict.

Yes, they can kill civilians and shell cities.

 

They haven't been able to inflict significant damage on the Ukrainian military.

Conversely, the Ukrainian have shown themselves to be very resourceful.

 

Can't help but wonder what will happen if / when the Ukrainians are in a position to consider taking back the Crimea.

 

I agree to a large extent. But it's just not true that the Russian military hasn't been able to inflict significant damage to the Ukrainian military. At some point back in May/June, Ukrainian government officials were acknowledging losing 50-100 soldiers a day as KIA, due to be outgunned by Russian artillery. Ukraine has lost >250 tanks (that we know of), and close to 600 armoured/infantry vehicles. This war might look different without either HIMARS, or the massive support from Poland (230+ tanks), or even the support from Germany (top-grade artillery and anti-aircraft gun tanks).

 

And the rout in Kharkiv Oblast was possible only because Russia had thinned its defensive position in the area, and had ignored the signs of a Ukrainian offensive. Ukraine broke through, causing Russia to run away. With its withdrawal from there, the front becomes shorter, and Russia won't make the same mistake twice. They'll also have to withdraw from Kherson at some point, but I don't think we should expect a rout to continue.

 

Meanwhile, I wonder whether Crimea is the line where going for full mobilisation is the less costly option for Putin than not going for it. So I am not sure I look forward to finding out what will happen if Ukraine sets foot on Crimea :unsure:

[Chas_P]

 

Of course, Manchurian President Trump is still welcome to enter Russia.

Meanwhile, back in the states...............

[cherdano]

I wonder what the back-office Kremlin Putin gossip is saying when they whisper.

Wondering who'll lose out in the blame game?

[johnu]

I wonder what the back-office Kremlin Putin gossip is saying when they whisper.

 

I expect many more Putin critics to commit crimes against the state and be sent to prison in Siberia, accidentally jump out of hospital rooms, get killed in random fender benders, unfortunately get into cars that had bombs installed, unluckily touch Novichok, or just have plain bad karma in getting radioactive poisoning from polonium. Russian critics of Putin should never go gambling in casinos because their luck is about to turn deadly bad.