3002

I feel the exact same way. I often feel in Bizarro land with how much I like Biden when everyone else I know pillories him from the left or right.

At this point I think the only thing that will deter Russia is pressure and making sure Putin knows anything else is a red line where WWIII starts. Also start painting Republicans and Republican virtue signaling attempts as pro-Russian as much as possible.

3003

I’m curious what happens to Zelensky… There are levels to all of this and nibbling at Ukraine was one level, all our war on the country including occupation is another, and taking a democratically elect President captive is another level, and then… what do they do with him? I feel like executing him is an even higher level aggressiveness. Imprisonment?

Beyond claiming territory, this just seems like another whole thing

3004

I’m sure this is nothing to worry about

3005

I see your point. Russia has home advantage, it can mobilise troops in weeks but NATO can only mobilise in months. I also want to check myself from committing the domino theory fallacy (“when one falls, all will fall” is a fallacy).

But…

If Putin moves against NATO proper, it will have to be coordinated with PRC, with an attack to take over Taiwan by force. So US has to fight on two fronts and thus blunting capability on both fronts.

And coordination with Xi’s PRC is not unrealistic: PRC wants Taiwan for ages, not just Xi, but only he is bullish enough to put “all options on the table”. The only realistic ally of Taiwan in short notice is Japan. South Koreans have North Koreans to worry about. But Japan being active militarily would raise alarm bell in Asia all by itself. The historical grievances PRC has with Japan in WW2 is still fresh and is basically shared by every country in Asia, including North AND South Korea. Between letting PRC gets Taiwan or seeing Japan fighting, it is an open question which option Asian countries would prefer.

And the Baltic States worries are all real because Putin has been stirring shit up for years, especially with cyberattacks.

I’m not saying Putin will actually test NATO proper, I’m saying it is not unrealistic to think it can happen, with a little help from PRC. Action we do right now can check those (albeit uncertain) much worse scenario. The question is, how much are we willing to sacrifice right now to stop that scenario.

There is also the moral question. The best case scenario right now is the Russia military gets bogged down in Ukraine, or there is low level insurgency in Ukraine for years. So Russia has no actual capacity to move further east. But given how poorly NATO and friends acted in Afghanistan recently (just up sticks and left, leaving allies to hung out to dry), and how much this “best case” has to be paid in blood by Ukrainians (and Russians), should we just sit here on our corners and say “we will hit Russia with the mother of all sanctions, but that’s it”? With friends like us, who needs enemies?

PS: added links.

3006

I assume Putin thinks that making an example of Zelensky to keep other Ukrainians from being quite so uppity.

3007

My feeling is that the orders are, capture if at all possible. If not kill him. But no video.

3008

Russia has never had any qualms about killing someone like him.

3009

How about if all your family lived near Brussels and the European institutions like mine and you lived near Central London? Would you be as willing to take the risk of nuclear escalation as you are from across the pond?

Edit: I should point out that I generally agree. But back during the Chernobyl incident, we were directly affected by the radioactivity that spread across Europe. So this feels very close to our doorstep.

3010

“Take these seeds and put them in your pockets so when you lie down something will grow here”

Guts she has.

3011

Usually I don’t watch CNN, but it actually seems like they got the scoop on Hostomel. A CNN reporter encountered the paratroopers, and managed to get their permission to film them as they were arriving.

Here’s the footage:

That gave me a flashback to 9/11. I was watching the towers burn live on tv, scared shitless, and my mom came home, took one look at the screen and went “Yikes, where’s Bruce Willis when you need him?”.

3012

Slightly more positive rumors.

3013

Living across the pond doesn’t make one any safer.

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That’s kind of the whole point of MAD. The difference now is that Putin thinks we’re afraid to do anything.
The Soviets knew we weren’t.

3014

Personally I’d want every Ukrainian citizen with a gun. A sniper rifle or an AK for everyone, so every single Russian soldier has a target on their back. That lady who was yelling at the soldier? 50 people come out of their homes and put them down. Turn part of Ukraine into Stalingrad, but with Russia on the receiving end of the devastation this time.

3015

Ukraine put out a notice that anyone who wanted a gun could get one.

They had 100k to give out iirc.

3016

maybe it is time for a new cold war era. Iron curtain and all. And then we wait until Great Russia collapses again.

3017

I lived in Germany in the sixties, the seventies, the eighties, and into the nineties. Including in West Berlin; I worked for a couple of years 100m from the wall. Yeah, it sucks hard, and no, it’s not fair at all, but calculus is still the same. You either risk war or give in to naked aggression. Like nearly anyone sane, I feel war is the last option to reach for, but if nothing else works, what choice do you have?

Of course, if you make the decision that it’s better to live more or less safely in an autocratic system under the rule of kleptocrats, than to risk the destruction of war, that’s a legitimate decision. Just own it.

3018

And giving in to naked aggression tends to lead to war anyway.

3019

After the wall fell, we did some exercises with the former East German army and one of things they continually said was how confounding they found the US Army due to how relatively (compared to the Soviet way they were trained) unpredictable our smaller units were. A battalion may tell a company commander to secure an area, and that company commander may tell his platoons generally where to go and what to do, but after that all options were open. One building might have snipers on the roof and troops at each window, while the next building over would be guarded with mines and dug in automatic weapons, but the building across the way would be empty while the surrounding alleys would be chock full of soldiers and hardened positions. When enemy contact began, US forces were allowed to make up plans on the fly and in the absence of C&C, each soldier was directed to think independently and do what they thought they needed to do to complete their mission and regroup with their unit.

To the former East Germans, this was maddening. Their operations were prescribed down to each fighter and all plans were standardized. If someone lost contact with their superiors, they were supposed to immediately hold in place and do nothing other than reestablish comms. The flexibility and trust in lower ranking soldiers the US demonstrated was anathema to them.

3020

Well if that just ain’t the whole Cold War in a nutshell.

3021

The line is pretty clear. NATO.