There’s a bit in Hunter S. Thompsons “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '74” where he speculates on who is on which drugs, based on how they’re acting.
It’s a really good bit. That’s always in the back of my head watching politicians these days. Some of those guys are fucking rolling. I guarantee it.
Thrag
3629
Russian state and media sites continue to come under ddos attacks.
This, from Bernie Sanders, is outstanding.
This is fucking amazing PR / psychological warfare.
Thrag
3633
Also, a Ukrainian minister made a formal request for ICRC assistance with all the bodies of Russian soldiers.
I’m suprised there hasn’t been noise made about offers of asyulm in the west for deserting Russian troops.
I always wondered what war deep in the Meme Age would look like.
Really easy way to sneak in more spies/saboteurs
They have reversed this decision though.
This is the right thing to be doing, but every time I see these offers of military supplies, I wonder how practical they are. If it literally is an allocation of funds, first they have to be spent and goods received. Then they have to be shipped, and what undisrupted civilian shipping routes into Ukraine do we think are still functioning? Then they have to be transported within the county to get into the hands of the soldiers who know how to use them. Is any real percentage of that amount likely to arrive in time to be useful?
I think a big concern is the Russians are clearly trying to cut-off Kyiv. The city’s geography makes that relatively easy. The defenders probably have tons of bullets, but antitank and antiaircraft missiles are another question. And it’s a city of 3 million. Food is another huge issue.
I totally understand this sentiment, and realistically it will take a couple days at least. As for getting them in the right hands, $350 million is a large motivation to get things done and therefore arms dealers (including our own) have always had ways to deliver in a crunch.
CraigM
3640
I’d imagine step 1 is, and will be, Poland. Getting them to Poland is easy. And once there in Lublin, I’d imagine the Poles have already established ways to get them to Lviv.
I don’t think it’s literally an allocation of funds, I think it’s the ticket value of the actual Javelin anti-tank missiles they’re sending across the border into Ukraine. At least, that is what it sounds like.
I agree, Craig; Poland seems like the way to go.
CraigM
3643
Yeah, by all accounts the Polish are in full ‘fuck you Putin’ mode, with complete open borders to Ukrainians, and acting as a transport conduit for people and aid, plus the very active use of their airspace for monitoring.
They very clearly are using historical memory here. And I can’t say I blame them.
That is going to very definitely make getting military aid to Ukraine a lot easier.
@scottagibson I hope and think so too. $350 million in anti tank and anti air rockets already made and sitting in army storehouses and on a Hercules bound for Lublin right now would be the way to go.
I found this website that documents equipment loses on both sides for which photographical evidence exists:
You are going to be losing a lot of detail (and evidence is going to be biased towards Ukraine due to them being the defenders) but it’s telling.
I am thinking this stuff is already in Europe at US bases (munitions sites) and just needs to get to Poland.
I would agree. My point I suppose is that this reality should push us to seriously engage with the problem of how to structure international relations and conflict avoidance. As it stands, we are (perhaps inevitably, though I am not yet ready to throw in that towel) hostage to the threat of nuclear annihilation whenever we have to deal with a nuclear power. This ultimately means that the very types off nations for whom non-violent penalties mean the least are effectively encouraged to use violence to achieve their aims, as long as those aims do not involve direct attacks on other nuclear powers or their iron-clad allies. This is hardly an enviable situation, as it will inevitably lead to a world with a handful of probably tyrannical spheres of influence, opposed perhaps by a single somewhat better sphere of influence.
The only thing I can think of, crazy as it sounds, is to more, not less, widely disseminate nuclear weapons to mid-tier nation states so that no one can be bullied. I am not blind to the fact that this, too, comes with a potentially disastrous price tag, but consider recent history. India and Pakistan, long regarded as less than ideal risks for nukes, have had them for quite some time now with no serious threats of their use. Israel, despite being pressed rather hard in 1973 and depending on which narrative you follow at least feeling an existential threat from Iran, has not either. Neither the US nor the USSR, nor later Russia, or the PRC have used nuclear weapons since WWII. Perhaps the entire non-proliferation regime was misguided from the start. Or not; I am not entirely comfortable with that approach, either!
And I really appreciate the thoughtful discussions. I’m not in this to “win” a point. In many cases, I am happy to be proven wrong, as I tend to be a bit pessimistic.
vyshka
3647
There has been some commentator talk about the fact that the seat Russia currently occupies is the seat the USSR had, so have the UN say that there is nothing in the charter that says that seat is Russia’s and boot them from it, and make them go through the process of becoming a non-veto member. I doubt that will happen.
