3566

Apparently British intelligence believes Russia has yet to achieve any of its day 1 objectives (seen in The Guardian blog, so no link to the specific piece of news).

They’ll sadly win, but it’s looking more and more like an extremely poor showing.

3567

Yes the only hope is that it drags on so long Putin’s position becomes untenable.

3568

Potentially British and American volunteers:

3569

If someone here can translate, that’d be cool to check if this translation is right:

3570

This was alluded to earlier in the day, but is fully deserving of its own focus.

Its nice to see modern incarnations of that spirit

3571

The translation is OK. Also soldiers say they donct know where are they going, the driver says it’s a road to Kiev.

3572

Some interesting background on Zelenskyy

3573

From Thu. evening call

3574

UK Ministry of Defense Update:

3575

CNN reports thermobaric weapon platforms being deployed towards the Ukranian border.

3576

Yes, you can see them in a video tweeted out by one of their reporters here:

3577

Was talking to someone on Twitter about how the “international order” with UN has utterly failed to work. IMO “collective security” is a sham for a very long time, only powerful nations like US kinda made UN work, by enforcing their will and masquerading it as “international consensus”, like Gulf War 1. When powerful nations don’t give a crap, like in Bosnia in 1990s or Ukraine right now, you get might makes right again, or even genocide.

That person also asked how we can rebuild from this. At that point I did not know the answer but a brainwave hit me now: international trade. People had been saying that international trade increases mutual reliance, and reduces chance of war. THAT is the only avenue to peace long term, with the collective security fiction gone.

JIT manufacturing already made war between US and China unlikely because of the huge disruption to bilateral trade if there is a war, and citizens of both countries are too addicted to each other’s products to want a war. Strengthening international trade with your potential rivals will ensure peace. View from this perspective, the problem right now is that Europe needs Russia more than Russia needs Europe, so Russia can afford to give Europe the middle finger and invade Ukraine, and bet that in medium term Europe will just forgive.

Covid however may or have already unraveled international trade, enough to make war between nation bearable.

3578

Well, I hear this, but I think the contrary is true. It has worked, precisely because countries have used it as a system to pursue objectives. It’s a diplomatic system, not a global police force, you see? You have to compromise and you don’t always get what you want etc.

3579

He can be both stupid and brave.

Yes, this. And the worst part is Blitzer repeatedly telling him that we will end up in a hot war with a nuclear power, and all Kinzinger can say is that that is up to Putin. Likewhen the inevitable happens, we can just say well it wasn’t us and that will make the slightest difference to anyone.

It’s basically a way of going on CNN and criticizing what Biden and NATO are not doing. You can’t keep saying we ought to be doing X without simultaneously repeatedly pointing out that we are not doing X. And stupid viewers will be angry that we aren’t doing X.

3580

With the headlines starting to look embarrassing for Putin, I fear that the next step is going to be Putin throwing all the nastiest and overwhelming force he can on the whole population of Ukraine, military and civilians alike. He has always a shown a strong preference for looking cruel over incompetent.

3581

Just want to say that this entire post is excellent and right on target, and I appreciate your effort to pull together the arguments against the insane idea of a no-fly zone.

3582

A couple of thoughts (or repeats of thoughts) based on some of the stuff above.

On Biden’s response; think of how it would have looked if Biden had left open the possibility of coming to Ukraine’s aid with military forces. He would now be facing intense pressure from Ukraine and war hawks everywhere. The US response would now be viewed as extremely weak rather than the relatively positive coverage it gets now, Putin would be able to crow that he had called Biden’s bluff.

I was sceptical about Biden’s line as well at the time, but in hindsight, IMO, he was 100% right. You should never bluff if your bluff will be called, and this was always going to be called by Putin. The only way to prevent that would have been to put American boots in Kiev, which would have been a major diplomatic escalation (and I doubt the Ukrainians would even have agreed).

On the subject of how US forces in Ukraine don’t necessarily mean nuclear war, do keep in mind that any war involves two sides. The WW3 scenarios are instructive - NATO (publically at least) imagined the possibility for conventional warfare. Almost all Soviet scenarios involved limited or unlimited nuclear war. There was never a reality where such a war broke out without it turning nuclear.

Again - the Russians had their nuclear briefcase activated after the cold war in a time of peace due to a weather rocket. Actual hot war = nuclear war.

US/NATO in Ukraine would be a significant escalation of the conflict. We step in and turn the tide (because what’s the point of intervening if we don’t?) This will involve hitting Russian military targets in Russia, because Russia will sure as hell shell NATO positions and fly air support missions from within Russia. Now Russia is losing the war.

Where do you think this goes next? Does Putin pull out Russian troops, admit that he is the bad guy, and allow US/NATO attacks on Russian soil remain unanswered? Or does he escalate the conflict further, using more than 5-10% of Russia’s armed forces? At what point does Putin start wondering whether a limited tactical nuclear strike on Kiev could be a better option than losing in Ukraine?

Because you can ask exactly the same question about US troops in Ukraine, to the subject of Nuclear war. Is the US willing to start a full nuclear war, just because Russia dropped a small tactical nuke somewhere in Ukraine? Well… are you?

I’ve read some people (not here, I think) who seem to imply that Zelenski is weak because he is willing to come to the negotiation tables so fast, and seems to indicate he is willing to give Russia what they want at least on paper (Ukrainian neutrality, etc). But that’s kind of the point. Any hope for peace with Putin relies upon being able to give him some result that allows him to save face.

Putin has to win, even if he didn’t actually win. Be prepared for that. We’re going to hear a lot of people scream because they don’t understand that basic psychological game.

3583

My guess would be the out door for them damn rooskies is more territory in the south, connecting up with the Donbas areas. Purely a guess of course.

3584

At this point there isn’t any criticism of Biden’s pre-sponse and response that doesn’t wind up at why aren’t we fighting alongside Ukraine? Which is insane and, in effect, an attack on a decision made long ago by basically every western leader. But the GOP has to criticize Biden’s response — they’re largely incapable of anything else — so that is where they’re going to end up.

3585

I’m so impressed with the Ukrainians. They’re really making the Russians grind for it.

I have so much appreciation for the quality of tv personality that gets to be president in Ukraine, compared to the quality of tv personality that gets to be president in the US.

I really hope Zelensky doesn’t end up shot in the courtyard of the Lubyanka when this is over.

That is fucking genius. It’ll probably get me flagged by a couple of agencies, but yeah, worth it.

Considering how they’ve performed in anti-terror battles over the years, I think the idea of spetsnaz being on par with our guys is a myth. They really haven’t proved much of anything.

Same with the FSB. If your super secret saboteur-assassins are thwarted by civilian nerds using publicly available tools and (vaguely illegal, but broadly available) data then fuck, man… That’s a long way from the guys you read about in Le Carré novels.

(Obviously the greatest victories of any intelligence agency are the ones we never hear about, but they look very Mickey Mouse based on what we do know)