Where Do Things End With Vlad? (h/t romad1)

[romad1]

I like this comment

 

[romad1]

THIS is absolutely correct.

 

[gehringer_2]

8 minutes ago, romad1 said:

THIS is absolutely correct.

 

Nice talk, but I'd rather hear that Biden is getting the necessary materiál  into Ukraine.

[romad1]

47 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Nice talk, but I'd rather hear that Biden is getting the necessary materiál  into Ukraine.

He's doing as much as could be expected.  Milley and Austin are doing great things.  Its not like we have an inexhaustible supply of Soviet era systems.

We do need to ramp up production of lines of the good stuff.  And then train the Ukrainian armed forces in the M1, the MLRS, Patriot and so forth. 

[gehringer_2]

13 minutes ago, romad1 said:

He's doing as much as could be expected.  Milley and Austin are doing great things.  Its not like we have an inexhaustible supply of Soviet era systems.

We do need to ramp up production of lines of the good stuff.  And then train the Ukrainian armed forces in the M1, the MLRS, Patriot and so forth. 

Ezra Klein's last podcast was with Volodymyr Yermolenko, he made the point that while everyone underestimated Ukrainian military capability going in, we can't overestimate it now and let up on the level of support.

Putin needs to lose this war. 

[romad1]

7 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Ezra Klein's last podcast was with Volodymyr Yermolenko, he made the point that while everyone underestimated Ukrainian military capability going in, we can't overestimate it now and let up on the level of support.

Putin needs to lose this war. 

Ezra Klein World Historical Genius.

I'm in agreement that Putin needs to lose the war. 

[romad1]

There is an Economist or Atlantic article written in the 1850s floating around my office that discusses the problems of the Russian army in the Crimean War and it reads exactly like what is wrong with the current Russian army. 

One of the other things that resonates with me about the Crimean war is that it may be that portable anti-tank, anti-air systems and long range A2 (anti-access) weapons may well be taking us back to the age of rifles which began in Crimea, was manifest in the US Civil War and reached its extreme in the trench warfare of WWI in which the defense had the advantage over mobile offense.

Now alternatively, the systemic advantages the Ukrainian army has (better leaders, better cohesion) may negate the dominance of man-portable defensive systems.  Also, we (yes we) have the advantage of our superior information integration systems (i.e., RIVETJOINT, AWACS, drones, satellites and our network of trained operators) in which we are capable of destroying defensive systems faster than they can be deployed.

Now to take the lab coat off.  I'm definitely rooting for a rollback of Russian gains and to have them bled white so that Putin loses power.

Edited April 13, 2022 by romad1

[romad1]

Nothing too surprising about this

these have been stop and reads for me. 

[romad1]

Clint Watts was discussing some improvement of the Ukrainian situation in Mariupol this morning that I guess was just happening. 

[romad1]

So this thread is a good read.  The "South" has their view of things.  Many of the problems of the South are based on their resentments of the Rich North in my view and again in my view would improve remarkably with administration of the rule of law. 

That said...the legacy of the Soviet and PRC's gamesmanship and current cash diplomacy in those places and has an effect.  I recall wondering why when South Africa had the World Cup in whatever year they didn't have any concerns about terrorism.  Their story was that terrorism was a Northern problem and a legacy of our imperialist past and South Africa's ANC was once called a terrorist group by the North. 

 

[gehringer_2]

5 minutes ago, romad1 said:

So this thread is a good read.  The "South" has their view of things.  Many of the problems of the South are based on their resentments of the Rich North in my view and again in my view would improve remarkably with administration of the rule of law. 

That said...the legacy of the Soviet and PRC's gamesmanship and current cash diplomacy in those places and has an effect.  I recall wondering why when South Africa had the World Cup in whatever year they didn't have any concerns about terrorism.  Their story was that terrorism was a Northern problem and a legacy of our imperialist past and South Africa's ANC was once called a terrorist group by the North. 

 

The weakness in any of these analyses that include or center around China if of course, that Under Xi, China's international position now has little or nothing to do with actual Chinese historical  or cultural beliefs/tendencies. It's become a one man show, just as Putin's Russia is. The issue in Russia and China vs the West is not North vs South, but the persistence in those places of an internal acclimation to imperial rul.e.

[romad1]

Germany, has a lot to navigate with all this.   Ukraine has been shaming them publicly.  I think the German public are really twisted about how to proceed since they clearly want the Russians to fail in their genocide but also, their costs are really tied to cheap Russian gas. 

Nuclear power would really help right about now. 

 

[gehringer_2]

12 minutes ago, romad1 said:

Nuclear power would really help right about now.

go figure....

Quote

Germany’s leading power utilities have declined to extend the life of their last operating nuclear power plants beyond a government-imposed deadline to shut them down by the end of the year amid calls to keep them running to reduce dependence on Russian gas in the wake of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Germany has been phasing out nuclear power since 2000 and is scheduled to shut down its last three nuclear power plants this year.

Günther Oettinger, a conservative politician and former European Union commissioner, has urged Germany and the power utilities to reconsider and asked the utilities to keep their nuclear plants running beyond the deadline.

“Nuclear power is no longer an issue in Germany. It wouldn’t even be possible to restart the power plants in the short-term,” Markus Krebber, CEO of German energy company RWE AG, told Germany’s Rheinische Post newspaper.

Spokesmen for German utilities E.On SE and Energie Baden-Württemberg AG, known as EnBW, said their companies also rejected reopening a debate about nuclear power in Germany.

The German Economy Ministry said on Friday that it wasn’t considering ordering the country’s last three nuclear power plants to operate beyond their planned shutdown later this year.

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-02-26/card/german-power-operators-reject-calls-to-keep-nuclear-plants-running-despite-ukraine-war-4u3kJkDIz9CSmqYUUviA

[romad1]

Get your eyeballs to this

 

[gehringer_2]

40 minutes ago, romad1 said:

Get your eyeballs to this

 

I have been thinking this very this thought myself..

Quote

If the Soviet Union could deploy thousands of advisers to North Vietnam in the middle of the Vietnam War without triggering a nuclear conflict, the U.S. can deploy advisers to western Ukraine, or at least to Poland, to train Ukrainian soldiers.

 

Also: This line:

"Having sought to upend the notion of truth in the West, they now fall victim to their own pervasive untruths."

Almost verbatim said also by Volodymyr Yermolenko in his Ezra Klein interview.

 

As the Grey Pilgrim observed: "A treacherous weapon is ever a danger to the hand..."

Edited April 13, 2022 by gehringer_2

[romad1]

15 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I have been thinking this very this thought myself..

 

Also: This line:

"Having sought to upend the notion of truth in the West, they now fall victim to their own pervasive untruths."

Almost verbatim said also by Volodymyr Yermolenko in his Ezra Klein interview.

 

As the Grey Pilgrim observed: "A treacherous weapon is ever a danger to the hand..."

We already have private citizen volunteers in Ukraine and recruiting of ground troopers is as public as the doorway to the Ukrainian permanent mission to the UN (saw this last week when I was in NYC) where you can apply to go fight or donate to the Ukrainian MOD. 

So, yeah a squadron of western nuclear-capable fighter bombers might be a bit scary for the policy people.  I totally get that.  But, paint them yellow and blue and just tell Russia that they exist and to suck on that. 

[romad1]

Found the article about the Crimean War which is remarkably consistent with current Russian mil 

The Economist on Russian Military Weakness During the Crimean War in 1854 : UkraineWarVideoReport (reddit.com)

worth a look

[romad1]

Both huge and true

 

[romad1]

Interesting nugget

 

[romad1]

I saw folks groaning about the M113s.  That's not Bradley fighting vehicle which would be something.  But, the M113 is much simpler to operate.

[romad1]

Oh?

 

[romad1]

The counter-battery radars are a huge add. 

[romad1]

Apparently, lots more NATO gear going to Ukraine

 

The M577 vehicles are loaded with C4ISR gear to coordinate counterbattery fire.

[ewsieg]

 

[romad1]

this is so huge!