Ukraine 8

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

8 minutes ago, Fez said:

He has long since retcon-ed his thesis. Now he argues that what he meant was that the end of the Cold War proves that liberal democracy will win in the end, not that it has already won and we are in a post-conflict world. Of course, since we conveniently are not and never will be at "the end", he now can never actually be disproven.

The joy of a non-disprovable thesis.

:/

[Luzifer's right hand]

33 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I expect that one day, the executioner and torture chamber will return to some places that are now liberal democracies. 

You mean enhanced interrogation chambers?

[Conflicting Thought]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

I think the problem is that the right lesson of history is not being listened to here.

If we look at Russia, there is absolutely no logical reason why it should be as poor as it is. It has twice the population of France, it is considerably bigger than all the rest of Europe, several times over, with massive and abundant resources. It enjoyed land and trade borders with both the EU and China, two of the three most important economic blocs on the planet. It has (or had) all the trappings of a late 20th/early 21st Century modern country. But its economy was smaller than Italy's when it should have been more like twice or three times that of Germany, and it had a lot of problems delivering healthcare, education and careers. All the excess wealth of the state was being syphoned off by oligarchs and the Russian Mafia, who are so powerful they can bully and intimidate the army (which is demoralised, under-equipped and inefficient as a result), and there was no real attempt to give Russian institutions teeth. The lesson that Putin seemingly learned from 1990s Russia was "being like the West does not work," not "crushing corruption would make Russia great and rich again."

This is where the real damage of Iraq has really come home: it allows people to excuse the behaviour of any country, no matter how much more brutal and obviously horrific (and there is no excusing the horrific things the US did in Iraq), because another country did something that was also bad a few years earlier.

I read the shock doctrine a long time ago, i do remember a chapter on russia, and the "liberisation" of its economy post cold war, and wasnt it americans,the imf and world bank that push for that, wich transaleted on corruption,and oligarch control?.

I know that the problems in russia are more complicated than that, and you cant put all the responsibility in the US, but thet did play an important part on how russia is today.

[Varysblackfyre321]

13 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said:

and wasnt it americans,the imf and world bank that push for that, wich transaleted on corruption,and oligarch control?.

It’s weird how other Former Soviet states including Ukraine managed to not become crypto-fascist states.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

22 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

You mean enhanced interrogation chambers?

Precisely.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Calls for the street the Russian Consulate is on to be renamed Zelensky Street

https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19980031.calls-location-russian-consulate-edinburgh-renamed-zelensky-street/

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Conflicting Thought said:

I read the shock doctrine a long time ago, i do remember a chapter on russia, and the "liberisation" of its economy post cold war, and wasnt it americans,the imf and world bank that push for that, wich transaleted on corruption,and oligarch control?.

I know that the problems in russia are more complicated than that, and you cant put all the responsibility in the US, but thet did play an important part on how russia is today.

This is true. The main problem was the failure to ensure a smooth transition from one-party rule to fully functional democratic institutions; those institutions in Russia were lightly-amended (if at all) versions of the previous institutions, except no longer operating under any kind of ideology and thus very vulnerable to corruption.

Many of the oligarchs made their fortunes by buying the Russian nationalised institutions for peanuts and backfilling their pockets from them, rather than those institutions becoming "proper" corporations with boards, regular changes in leadership etc. In both the political and corporate spheres, there were little to no checks and balances.

The American system is also deeply flawed and has been under sustained pressure for many years now, but it has so far managed to resist becoming so completely exploitable.

[Werthead]

The talks have been put on hold for a day. Apparently they've formed subgroups dedicated to distinct issues, which is interesting.

There has been an admittance that there are language problems (I suspect the Russians insist on calling it a special operation, not a war etc) and it sounds like the main points of dispute are somewhat apart, but there are some areas where they are close to agreement. From that, I suspect there's probably been progress on recognising Crimea and Ukraine retaining its government (Zelensky remaining in power in a post-conflict Ukraine might now be desirable to Putin, especially if it's more of a rump Ukraine than the pre-war Ukraine) but the main issues of the endstate of Ukraine has not been agreed upon, possibly pending further developments on the battlefield.

Both sides are still talking and neither has stormed out in disgust or anything, which I am very surprised by at this point.

[Toth]

Some of the war footage is clearly from videogames, while some of the real war footage still somewow looks like from videogames:

Yes, it's apparently still the Azov battalion publishing this to brag with it, but... well, taking a freaking APC to fight a T-72 and getting out of this fight alive to go immediately shred a BMP-1... that's some nifty marksmanship (though the attempt to have bullets bounce into the legs of the Russians huddling behind the BMP-1 does underline how nasty war is).

[DMC]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

Meanwhile, Francis Fukuyama has a very optimistic prediction for the end of the operation.

I'm surprised he doesn't want to invade Russia to build it into a vibrant liberal democracy.

[Argonath Diver]

2 hours ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

You mean enhanced interrogation chambers?

Firmly Suggestive Interview Rooms?

[Werthead]

This is an interesting piece on how allowing Putin to save face in a negotiated settlement might be a good, but difficult to achieve, idea. At total odds with the article I posted earlier which said he should be denied that to stop him being emboldened for an attack elsewhere later on. The problem here is that either article might be right, or one might be right on a Thursday and the other right on a Friday.

It shows the extreme difficulty of coming up with the right approach, and why the current Western approach of setting the firm red lines on NATO territory, though still hazardous and prone to escalation, might be the best, whilst allowing the Ukrainians to achieve greater successes on the ground and trying to maximise their advantage to get a negotiated settlement. The problem, as said many times before, is to what degree the Russians are prepared to settle for less than their original and completely unstated of objectives. If they are really willing to settle for recognition of Crimea, neutrality and a demilitarised Donbas, whilst pulling out of the areas they have spilled a lot of blood to take (not that they seem to care too much), and if Ukraine is willing to settle for anything less than a return to the 23 February status quo given the enormity of what they have suffered.

[Maithanet]

New Podcast from Michael Kofman (Director of Russian Studies at CNA)

 - Kofman feels that the greatest threat to the Ukrainian military at the moment is potentially getting a portion of their forces cut off in the East.  In some ways the success Ukraine has had in holding the lines in Donetsk/Luhansk means they are at greater risk of encirclement.  But there's obviously fear for Ukraine that if they pull back from their strong positions they will be in a much weaker spot in the east. 

 - Reiterated that Putin has limited options at the moment.  Russia is running low on conventional missiles, their supply issues are slowing things down dramatically, and their military on the whole is not performing well. It is likely Russia will start losing significant combat effectiveness in the next few weeks. 

 - It's possible this is why negotiations are going as "well" as they are.  Putin is trying to keep his options open so that if they need to, they can wrap up a ceasefire pretty quickly.  It's quite possible that Russian combat effectiveness will degrade significantly and they need at least a ceasefire to reorganize their forces.  If a ceasefire is agreed, there's an open question whether Russia will just use that as a pause to rearm or if cooler heads will prevail and a ceasefire leads to a cessation of hostilities.  I would have to think that if Ukraine were given a few weeks ceasefire that they would be flooded with whatever materials they need from NATO (including those MiGs in all likelihood).  Thus if Russia needs to take a quick breather they might find that Ukraine benefits more than they do. 

[Werthead]

5 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

New Podcast from Michael Kofman (Director of Russian Studies at CNA)

Yup, there's been tension for weeks on whether a ceasefire benefits Russia more than Ukraine or vice versa.

Russia maintaining flexibility on all fronts with a range of options to consider is a smart move, but it also means their options are closing as their combat effectiveness dips. The risk, which the Russians might not have considered, is that if their combat effectiveness dips visibly, Ukraine might be emboldened to try to win further victories than take a peace deal that might leave them worse off. But in the meantime, millions of civilians are effectively held hostage. That's going to be a pickle for Ukraine to decide on.

There's a very Russian, brutalist "fair enough" attitude to their warfare, where they regard it as perfectly acceptable for the people they're shooting to shoot back, and there's even been some Russian admiration of the Ukrainian fighting quality (one pro-Putin talk show talking about the Ukrainians having "the second-best army in Europe!" and it would be splendid if Russia could ally with them instead of fighting them). I think that's very brittle and if the Ukrainians achieve a major breakthrough, leaving Russia with potentially achieving nothing for all the expense (and that will cause problems for the regime at home), Russia may feel emboldened to use large-scale bombing to leave more of Ukraine in ashes and to take decades to rebuild, in which time Russia might choose to return or not.

[Werthead]

The US is saying that their intercepts showing Russia asking for military equipment and China responding positively, hence the angry exchanges today.

I would be cautious about that. The Chinese are fully 100% capable of tying up Russia in discussions beyond the lifespan of the conflict, so a Chinese positive response doesn't mean they are going to comply, just that they can have a conversation. I understand that's angering to the US position, but it's also a US reaction to a very Chinese response. That might have been better-handled behind closed doors.

The real Chinese response to the idea of supporting Russia is more starkly telling, and I suspect terrifying to the Chinese tech sector and worrying for the government:

 

[Fez]

6 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Russia may feel emboldened to use large-scale bombing to leave more of Ukraine in ashes and to take decades to rebuild, in which time Russia might choose to return or not.

Unless they use WMDs or call up vastly more troops, I'm not sure Russia is capable of doing much more of that. They seem to have the "dumb" ordinance to do, but I don't know if they have the ability to get in position to drop it on central Kyiv, Odesa, or any of the western cities. Some neighborhoods can get damaged sure, but would there really be any more Kharkiv's or Mariupol's?

Of course, I saw a Ukrainian estimate that about $100 billion in damages have already occurred, so even if the war ended today there's a ton of rebuilding to do. And once the immediate threat is gone I wonder just how much aid, especially no-strings-attached aid, Ukraine will continue to receive.

[Zorral]

5 hours ago, Werthead said:

Francis Fukuyama

Who would ever take seriously -- or even pay any attention to --  Francis Fukuyama ?

 

[Maithanet]

46 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Yup, there's been tension for weeks on whether a ceasefire benefits Russia more than Ukraine or vice versa.

Russia could use a ceasefire to establish supply dumps within Ukraine, which would go a long way towards alleviating their supply problems, particularly around Kyiv. 

For Ukraine, allowing free movement of whatever they want would allow really dramatic amounts of weapons, food and supplies into hard to reach areas like Kharkiv.  The US/EU has a lot more stuff with which to resupply than Russia does, and the sanctions definitely aren't going away under just a ceasefire.  A lot of the rationale for not selling Ukraine bigger weapons (like the MiGs) would go away if Russia and Ukraine are not shooting at one another. 

To me, I think that a brief pause would hurt Russia more than it helps.  This whole situation seems like Russia is sinking deeper and deeper into a morass.  The longer it goes, the worse things get.  Perhaps they can win some additional negotiating leverage in the next week (Mariupol falling would certainly help them), but that is the kind of timeline Russia should be operating on.  They shouldn't be thinking about how to win the war in April and instead focus on how to be done fighting before then.

[Kalbear]

Per reporting I heard on NPR earlier today Kiev has about two weeks worth of food left, and even less medical supplies.

That's a much scarier end to the war than I think a lot of people are talking about. Russia being able to deny major cities actual food and just keep bombing it to rubble is a way for them to 'win' in some way, or at least put massive pressure to settle things. 

[Maithanet]

10% losses in 17 days of fighting is not great for Russia.  The other parts of the tweet discusses that additional forces (either Russian or from other countries) aren't arriving in meaningful numbers yet.  Russia is losing combat power.  Hard to know how much degradation Ukrainian forces are also experiencing, but it is surely significant as well.