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acrashb

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  1. Like
    acrashb reacted to sburke in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    I think that is actually from Dilbert
     
    Elbonia | Dilbert Wiki | Fandom
    Elbonia is an impoverished Eastern European country in the Dilbert universe. In the comic strip, and originally in the TV show, its major commerce was mud. There are also mentions of a currency called the Eye-Crud. Path-E-Tech Management often outsources work there, and has a factory for their subsidiary ElboCo. 
  2. Like
    acrashb reacted to The_Capt in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Bullsh#t.  Military doctrine and NATO Stanags both treat them differently - there are two completely different recording documents and procedures.  The CCW at Geneva, the actual international law, treats them differently - different legal restrictions.  And the use of non-explosive boobytraps, which pre-dates written history is well outside the convention.
    Just because the treaty writers made sweeping definitions resting on sand and weasel words does not clarify anything.  The Geneva convention is very clear on the term boobytrap vs land mine.  You may have overlooked it on the ICRC webpage:
    https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/Article.xsp?action=openDocument&documentId=C247A97A7ABA5900C12563FB00611D94
     
    It also has a definition for “other devices”which encompass IEDs.
    The treaty itself is the legally binding document.  A committee meeting opinion, or legal opinion by the Red Cross legal are just those, opinions…good for them.  The treaty itself has holes one could drive a truck through, but people wanted to feel good and keep trying to make it more than it is.
    I have heard more nonsense attributed to the Ottawa Treaty than I can recall, largely by enthusiastic amateurs.  Some actually believe it is a warcrime to employ AP mines (it isn’t).  The treaty itself was conducted outside of the CCW, largely by political operators (and it shows).  It is not airtight, binding or clear.  In the end it is left up to a state to determine what a “munition” is or is not, which is key to defining “mine”, which is central to the definition of “land mine”.
    People can spin it however they want but I have to ask why did not the Ottawa Treaty define them beyond “well we all know what they mean”?  Even when they used the CCW definition for “mine” verbatim.  Answer: because they could only sell the largely symbolic treaty they had.
  3. Like
    acrashb got a reaction from sburke in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    I believe article 9 is: "‘all appropriate legal, administrative and other measures, including the imposition of penal sanctions, to prevent and suppress any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention undertaken by persons or on territory under its jurisdiction or control’"
    That is a masterclass in weasel words, essentially turning the Ottawa treaty into a virtue-signaling exercise; and apparently there are more AP landmines in the soil today than before the treaty, so the effect of it is at best limited.

    I think the US position on the whole things has merit.  From Wikipedia:
    "the position of the United States is that the inhumane nature of landmines stems not from whether they are anti-personnel as opposed to antivehicle but from their persistence. The United States has unilaterally committed to never using persistent landmines of any kind, whether anti-personnel or anti-vehicle, which they say is a more comprehensive humanitarian measure than the Ottawa Convention. All US landmines now self-destruct in two days or less, in most cases four hours. While the self-destruct mechanism has never failed in more than 65,000 random tests, if self-destruct were to fail the mine will self-deactivate because its battery will run down in two weeks or less. That compares with persistent anti-vehicle mines which remain lethal for about 30 years and are legal under the Ottawa Convention."
     
    I don't know about Ukranian winters; but from survival training in Canadian winters (and not on unusually cold days) you can get by with improvised shelters if you know how to build them and have supplies (including snow) around.  If not, you need fire, as you stated.
    Maybe they wanted to learn how to sing.
    At least this way they get to die heroically.
     
  4. Upvote
    acrashb got a reaction from Huba in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    I believe article 9 is: "‘all appropriate legal, administrative and other measures, including the imposition of penal sanctions, to prevent and suppress any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention undertaken by persons or on territory under its jurisdiction or control’"
    That is a masterclass in weasel words, essentially turning the Ottawa treaty into a virtue-signaling exercise; and apparently there are more AP landmines in the soil today than before the treaty, so the effect of it is at best limited.

    I think the US position on the whole things has merit.  From Wikipedia:
    "the position of the United States is that the inhumane nature of landmines stems not from whether they are anti-personnel as opposed to antivehicle but from their persistence. The United States has unilaterally committed to never using persistent landmines of any kind, whether anti-personnel or anti-vehicle, which they say is a more comprehensive humanitarian measure than the Ottawa Convention. All US landmines now self-destruct in two days or less, in most cases four hours. While the self-destruct mechanism has never failed in more than 65,000 random tests, if self-destruct were to fail the mine will self-deactivate because its battery will run down in two weeks or less. That compares with persistent anti-vehicle mines which remain lethal for about 30 years and are legal under the Ottawa Convention."
     
    I don't know about Ukranian winters; but from survival training in Canadian winters (and not on unusually cold days) you can get by with improvised shelters if you know how to build them and have supplies (including snow) around.  If not, you need fire, as you stated.
    Maybe they wanted to learn how to sing.
    At least this way they get to die heroically.
     
  5. Upvote
    acrashb got a reaction from MOS:96B2P in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    If so, he would be on a plane to Beijing for a permanent vacation.  You may dislike Fox's politics; many or most (I haven't counted) of the commentators are maniacs (Tucker C?); the headlines are florid and the editorials as slanted as in any 'news' organization, but the straight reporting is sound.

    Ukraine | Fox News - ignore the talking-head / commentator videos and enjoy the rest.
    Compare the Fox headline - "Putin expected to seize parts of Ukraine as 'sham' referendums end today" to the Reuter's headline:   "Over 96% said to favour joining Russia in first vote results from occupied Ukraine regions" - although I will say that Reuters appears to have caught up and is now using "sham" to describe the referenda.
  6. Like
    acrashb reacted to sburke in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    I see a window in his future followed by a couple flights of stairs.
  7. Like
    acrashb got a reaction from LongLeftFlank in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    That is the most important part; once momentum builds in the right direction the change of opinion is no longer linear in time and will explode exponentially. The loss of Lyman counters / neutralizes the Putin / Russian narrative they attempted through annexation and will accelerate the reduction in war support.  Near-term future losses - Kherson pocket? - will, I think, seal the deal.

    Then it's rebellion in multiple layers of Russian society.
    Ritter: multi-time sex offender and now sock puppet / asset for Russia.
    "These leaders [Putin's position where he is an authoritarian but not absolute leader], Goemans found, would be tempted to “gamble for resurrection,” to continue prosecuting the war, often at greater and greater intensity, because anything short of victory could mean their own exile or death."
     
    A comfortable exile in China is the best possible outcome now, as so many other doors have been closed.  Based on Putin's ego and Goemans' research, I don't think he'll take it.

    So things will grind on.
  8. Like
    acrashb reacted to billbindc in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Freedman extremely on point this morning: 
     
    “Even by his own standards Vladimir Putin’s speech on 30 September in the Kremlin’s St George’s Hall was unhinged. For those who can face reading it, it can be found here. As he ranted about the west, denouncing it in lurid terms for a range of evils, from imperialism to satanism, it seemed, as Mark Galeotti observed, that he was trying to convince himself as much the outside world about this grand civilisational struggle with the West. The rant had a purpose, which was to demonstrate the irrelevance of legality. The annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, now to join Crimea as part of the Russian Federation, goes directly against the Charter of the United Nations. Instead of this being acknowledged as a foundational document of international law, it was wrapped up in a denunication of the West’s claims about a ‘rules-based international order’, which only reflected their selfish and malevolent interests. Russia was under no obligation to follow those rules. If it wanted to expand its borders, it was fully entitled to do so. 
    Ever since the Kosovo War in 1999, and NATO’s use of the principle of self-determination and reports of atrocities to justify their support of the Kosovar Albanians, he has employed this same combination of claims to rationalise his violations of the sovereignty of neighbouring countries. Hence the contrived processes of sham referendums and fake claims of Ukrainian terror. 
    Implications for Diplomacy
    Although it is always disturbing listening to these rants, the conclusion was not surprising. He explained that this was an irreversible move. This was his political offer:
    Should Kyiv do as he asked and accept the permanent transfer of these provinces, it is not clear what they would be getting in return: Putin presumably would be looking for Ukrainian neutrality and the ending of sanctions. If he was negotiating from a position of strength then these demands might have some credibility. But his position is weak. Ukraine’s only interest is total Russian withdrawal which Putin now says in constitutionally impossible.
    Even those in the West most keen to push for a negotiation around the current territorial holdings should appreciate that however difficult it is to get Russia to withdraw from Ukraine, they are not going to convince Ukraine to withdraw from Ukraine. In addition, while Crimea had a separate status of all its own, because of its annexation back in 2014, it was possible to imagine how it might be dealt with in negotiations by special measures. Now it is just one of five illegally annexed provinces whose fate is tied together.
    Putin has boxed himself in with these moves. Before it was possible to imagine, if always unlikely, that there could be some diplomatic means to bring the bloodshed to an end, for example by discussing forms of shared citizenship for those who wished to be attached to Russia or new forms of security arrangements. That path has now been blocked. The Ukrainian government’s response to the speech was to insist that that they could not negotiate with Russia so long as Putin remains in power. The war is now destined to carry on to its own bitter end. It also means that even should the fighting end it is not clear how issues such as war crimes, reparations and the unwinding of the sanctions’ regime will be handled.
    Implications for Nuclear Use
    Nuclear threats were not as prominent in this speech as they had been in the mobilisation announcement of 21 September. There was a strong implicit reference when he spoke ofRussia’s willingness to use ‘all available means’ to keep safe Russian territory, in its new expanded definition. There was also an explicit hint, when he referred to the US as ‘the only country in the world that twice used nuclear weapons, destroying the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.’ He then added, ‘Incidentally, they created a precedent.’ In the years since 1945 enormous international efforts, many involving the first the Soviet Union and then Russia, went into ensuring – successfully - that this precedent was not followed. But at least Putin did not follow this up with any overt nuclear threats. Conveying a sense of of nuclear menace is part of his strategy, but that is not the same as identifying ways of employing these weapons to help turn the tide of this war without making everything a whole lot worse. 
    The nuclear issue does come into play with Zelensky’s response to Putin’s statement. He announced that he would seek to fast track the country’s accession to NATO. Holding back on that aspiration was the one big concession that Zelensky was keeping available as something that might be put on the table in a serious negotiation. But the Biden Administration quickly dismissed the idea that this could be addressed at speed. Once Ukraine joined NATO it would benefit from the alliance’s Article V and expect active engagement in Ukraine’s defence. This is exactly the development that Putin has been using his nuclear forces to seek to deter. But the application can stay on the table, a reminder to Russia that once nuclear weapons were used in any form they would no longer be serving a deterrent purpose. 
    Biden’s main response, as he dismissed the legitimacy of Putin’s move, will affect the course of the war. He announced that he was pushing forward with the next $12 billion assistance package to Ukraine and imposing more sanctions on Russia and members of the elite responsible for the prosecution of this war.
    The Implications of Lyman
    Meanwhile as this elite gathered to listen to Putin’s speech news was coming in from eastern Ukraine of the effective encirclement of the town of Lyman, a key logistical hub for the eastern Donbas, as anticipated in my previous post. I pointed there to the tension between a political strategy that must have the Russian flag in as many places as possible and a military strategy that should conserve scarce resources, and so trading space for time, abandon vulerable positions to establish stronger defensive lines that might be held until the newly mobilised forces can fill out the front lines. The political strategy has won. Putin’s fixation with taking and holding pieces of territory at whatever cost has made a full defeat more likely. 
    There were believed to be some 2,500 troops in Lyman along with a similar number already pushed out by Ukrainian forces from surrounding villages. Cut off from logistical support, the Russians do not appear to be settling down for a long drawn out defence of their position but instead are trying to get out in some shape or form. There are reports from Ukrainian sources that the Russian troops asked for permission to evacuate but this was denied. Now their position is even wose than shown in the above map. They are trapped, without supplies or reinforcements, and must either surrender or try to find their own way out in the face of heavy Ukrainian artillery fire. Ukrainian forces do not need to storm Russian positions. Instead they can use available forces to press on, making a point of crossing the border into Luhansk. The absence of the forces caught in Lyman, and growing logistical difficulties, means that Russian forces will continue to be pushed back. Ukrainian forces are reported to be pressing Kreminna and may soon threaten the Russian positions in Lysychansk and Severodonetsk, taken in June after a long and costly (for both sides) struggle.
    All this mocks Putin’s announcement, demonstrating that he can’t hold what he has just annexed. The qustion now is how long the Russian people and, most importantly, the members of the power elite, put up with this recklessness. Polling suggests that support for the war has fallen sharply. The latest shows that from 48% of Russians wanting the war to continue in August now only 29% are detrmined about pressing on. Another 15% are lukewarm and 48% want peace. Putin offers no way to fight or negotiate a way to victory. More men may so far have fled the country than joined the army. The audience at St George’s Hall look more perplexed than inspired, watching a man who has lost his swagger, caught up in a deluded world of his own construction, but out of which he has inflicted a real-world catastrophe.”
  9. Like
    acrashb got a reaction from Raptor341 in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Wonderful to hear, too many Americans take Canada for granted.  And conversely, many Canadians are foolishly afraid of our American cousins; some of my acquaintances worry that the US could get bored and invade Toronto, to which I reply "what are you on, crack?  The poutine is in Montreal!"

    The UA likes Canadians too.  They are building igloos in homage :

     
    Was it "crazy batsh**" as in the twitter link, or just a "rant", or was it full-on hitler-in-a-bunker nuts?  I say "rant" designed to send a number of signals, mostly directed at sustaining support from his people (e.g., the cultural stuff about LGBTQ, enumeration of myths and legends about an ancient and imaginary West, etc.) to reinforce their 'common enemy'.  He's still rational and still, to pattern, escalating.
    Contrast that to the measured, but very, very direct messaging from Zelensky:
    And of course, to directly blunt Putin's speech, the application to NATO.
     
     
     


     
  10. Like
    acrashb reacted to chris talpas in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    As a Canadian, I feel the same way about the US.  🙂 
  11. Like
    acrashb reacted to Splinty in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Once again since I can't give you a like directly, 👍👍👍🥃
  12. Like
    acrashb reacted to Splinty in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    As an American I love our Canadian cousins. After all they gave the world Rush. Which to me is the greatest band to ever exist.
  13. Like
    acrashb reacted to MSBoxer in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    My friends from the Great White North, like to refer to the U.S. as "Canada's Basement"  where they hide their simple minded cousins when polite company comes to visit.

    In turn I tell them that Canada is actually our 51st state and is officially known as "Northern North Dakota"
  14. Like
    acrashb got a reaction from G.I. Joe in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Wonderful to hear, too many Americans take Canada for granted.  And conversely, many Canadians are foolishly afraid of our American cousins; some of my acquaintances worry that the US could get bored and invade Toronto, to which I reply "what are you on, crack?  The poutine is in Montreal!"

    The UA likes Canadians too.  They are building igloos in homage :

     
    Was it "crazy batsh**" as in the twitter link, or just a "rant", or was it full-on hitler-in-a-bunker nuts?  I say "rant" designed to send a number of signals, mostly directed at sustaining support from his people (e.g., the cultural stuff about LGBTQ, enumeration of myths and legends about an ancient and imaginary West, etc.) to reinforce their 'common enemy'.  He's still rational and still, to pattern, escalating.
    Contrast that to the measured, but very, very direct messaging from Zelensky:
    And of course, to directly blunt Putin's speech, the application to NATO.
     
     
     


     
  15. Like
    acrashb reacted to Kinophile in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    As @Battlefront.com has noted several times, the UKR trolling of RUS is just phenomenal.
    If you've been watching Russia for anything longer than a few weeks you've probably noticed that the Kremlin will often attempt to deny clean media coverage of a western event/announcement with some pointless RUS violence or a ridiculous (and hence attention grabbing) statement/threat. It's a simple and effective trick, playing off the systemic weakness of free western media to follow the loudest and newest noise by generating competing noise to drown out attempts at true information.
    So it's very satisfying see Zelensky et al repeating the tactic back at Putler, corroding his attempted narrative in Western media.
    Speaking of paying back the same tactic, UKR should offer a nice corridor (avoiding the word "humanitarian") for the Ivans to flee Lyman. Let the convoys move out and then unmercifully shell the living **** out of it, for hours and hours on end with every goddamn weapon at their disposal. Just like those b@astards have done innumerable times since 2014. Really make a point of it - "Surrender and live or Flee and die". 
    No laws against it.
     
     
  16. Like
    acrashb got a reaction from danfrodo in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Wonderful to hear, too many Americans take Canada for granted.  And conversely, many Canadians are foolishly afraid of our American cousins; some of my acquaintances worry that the US could get bored and invade Toronto, to which I reply "what are you on, crack?  The poutine is in Montreal!"

    The UA likes Canadians too.  They are building igloos in homage :

     
    Was it "crazy batsh**" as in the twitter link, or just a "rant", or was it full-on hitler-in-a-bunker nuts?  I say "rant" designed to send a number of signals, mostly directed at sustaining support from his people (e.g., the cultural stuff about LGBTQ, enumeration of myths and legends about an ancient and imaginary West, etc.) to reinforce their 'common enemy'.  He's still rational and still, to pattern, escalating.
    Contrast that to the measured, but very, very direct messaging from Zelensky:
    And of course, to directly blunt Putin's speech, the application to NATO.
     
     
     


     
  17. Like
    acrashb reacted to keas66 in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/30/alexei-navalny-parliamentary-republic-russia-ukraine/
  18. Upvote
    acrashb got a reaction from Harmon Rabb in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    This is the effect of mobilization on the populace:
     
     
  19. Like
    acrashb reacted to LongLeftFlank in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Mainly not being American, while not being a jerk about that fact.
  20. Like
    acrashb reacted to sross112 in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    I can't find any service dates in the articles I looked through but doctors are commissioned as Captains and are pretty much rubber stamped to Major in 5-6 years. Considering this one is 39 and only a major means that they probably suck. So actually what we would normally think, like you said, that someone with this type of loyalty problem wouldn't make Major in a normal military field really doesn't apply that much to the medical field in the military. 
    Now, let's just start this off with me stating right out of the gate that I am not a fan of Putin and this is just my hypothesis.
    I'm thinking that a lot of what he has done in the last couple months has been to give him a case for staying alive at the end of this war. I think we all agree that he pulled the trigger on the invasion under false assumptions about Ukraine and his military's ability to wage war. We can also assume that he expected backlash from the west (big war chest amassed prior to invasion) but that he didn't think it would be as severe as it happened to be and that with a quick war he could get things smoothed out for the Russian economy in the near term. He counted on the gas and oil supplies to keep most of the major European powers either on the fence or ignoring the invasion and not the pretty much unilateral support for Ukraine.
    A couple weeks in the Kremlin realized they were in trouble and it wasn't going to be a smooth blitz. They had to pull out from around Kiev or face a crushing defeat. The military convinced everyone that they had been given bad intel and that Plan A was no longer feasible. Plan B was to flatten everything with firepower and crush the remainder of the Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts. At this time there was the purge of the FSB. Putin clearing out those not in lock step with him and placing the blame on the failed initial invasion on their shoulders. This was public and given to the people as the reason that their vaunted military forces failed. They were deceived and it will be ok, the nazis will still be crushed. The RA hammers Ukraine with missiles and the Black Sea Fleet sorties and shuts down any possible exports, ratcheting up the pressure on the economy and the civilian population. 
    Mariupol falls and the spring offensive grinds into the summer. The Moskva is sunk and the northern pincer is stopped south of Izium. Several generals are fired and replaced for their inability to make things happen and Putin gets frustrated. Ru Nats are pointing out problems and screaming for mobilization. With the military going nowhere fast and taking heavy losses, the massive western support pouring into Ukraine and the western political block not budging he knows the game is up. 
    Looking at the options, like everyone in this forum has liked to point out, his survival chances are severely decreased if the war is lost and it is pinned on him. He isn't stupid, he just sometimes does dumb things. He already has his security apparatus in lock step due to cleansing them earlier. Oligarchs that aren't firmly in his corner keep doing Icarus reenactments so he is making sure the money men are at least not against him even if they aren't actively with him. He decides that he really doesn't need to discredit the military since it has already done that to itself as well as revealed the levels of corruption throughout the entire military industrial complex. Who's left? The Nats. 
    Putin has resisted the mobilization from the beginning as he knows that the military isn't capable of training, equipping and fielding large numbers of troops in time to make a difference. He knows that the mobilization will be a ***tshow. He knows that a large number of citizens from across the country will show up on the battle field untrained, horribly equipped and with low morale. He know the result will be a lot of dead conscripts and this will lead to a lot of angry family members. So he says "fine, have it your way" to the Nats and calls for the mobilization. The results we will see play out over the next few weeks. 
    Now we have the strikes on Nordstream. Someone a bunch of pages back put out the theory that it was to stop any faction that wanted to get rid of him and start the flow of gas again to the west. That makes a lot of sense to me when you look at it from this perspective of Putin trying to stay alive.
    So he has solidified his security, the military is a hollow shell, the moneymen are dead or in line, and the Nats will be discredited. There is a good chance with the collapse of the mobiks there will be a collapse with the RA. Kherson is a matter of time and so Russia will lose the territories they have occupied and the war, but probably not Crimea. At least not right away with everything else. 
    Putin can then speak to the Russian people and plead his case. He was deceived by the corrupt military and military industrial complex that he spent the last 20 years trying to build up. He pumped billions into them and they assured him that the improvements were being made yet it all went into their pockets and poor Russian boys died. The FSB betrayed him and provoked him into a SMO on faulty information that led to Russian boys dying. The Nats were in on it with the rest and pressed for a failed mobilization that led to lots of Russian boys dying. 
    He gives the same old Soviet lines. The People were betrayed by the boyars and they must be purged!! The great Russian nation was betrayed by the greedy RA officers and they must be purged!! The people are innocent victims of these horrible people and Putin will set it right!! 
    I'll bet a couple beers that if he doesn't suffer from acute lead poisoning in the next few weeks he can pull this off. This plays into what those in the know on this forum about the Russian people have said. It gives them the excuse of they weren't defeated by an external enemy but by internal treason. If they are indoctrinated as we think they are and the masses are as inactive as they are said to be they will support Putin and cry out for the blood of the criminals that caused all this. He continues on, a bunch of people die, the gulags get fired up and Russia is back to a miserable 1980 something for a long, long time. New cold war. Russian isolation for a generation. He doesn't care as he still has the perks and remains in power.
    Russian power is neutered and it is a pariah state so that is pretty much a good thing. Easy to keep contained and not able to meddle much with the rest of the world. The only down side is for all of you that want your electric cars as without Russian lithium, copper, nickel and cobalt that vaunted 2035 plan isn't going to happen.
    Edit: I forgot to add about his little buddy Prigozin (SP?), you know, the Wagner guy. Some think that he is angling himself to take out Putin but he also plays into the above. Putin has him being portrayed now as the founder of the most successful military unit in theatre. He will be the one to assume control of the STAVKA and reform the military after their defeat. Quick transition of power to the only respected semi-military guy they have and one that has the backing of the PMC to take out any military groups that might think they want to have a go at ending his regime. It will be telling if in the next few weeks he is given operational control of more units than just the PMC. 
  21. Like
    acrashb reacted to dan/california in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    See below
    I think the AFU are pushing very hard to actually put trenches right across the roads in question, and they have a LOT artillery aimed at that one road out. Unless I have missed something none of the units in the pocket are elite. My two cents is that less than 25% of what was in the pocket ~8 hours ago, it may be two slightly separated pockets btw, is going to get out in any militarily useful form. I think trapped ones will surrender almost immediatly when they realize they have seen their last supply truck.
    The AI will be referred to forever more as the "Russian officer in command".
  22. Like
    acrashb got a reaction from A Canadian Cat in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."  In other words, it is unlikely that Putin intended surgeons, IT specialists, and highly skilled integrated circuit designers to be chewed up on the front line - there is simply no reason to do that, and every reason not to.  He just started a process that could not competently, or in a controlled manner, be carried out the way things are governed in Russia.  The thugs who are implementing mobilization can't tell, and don't care about, the difference between a Buryat farm worker and an urban surgeon.  Quota filled, on to the next batch.
  23. Like
    acrashb got a reaction from Probus in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    This is the effect of mobilization on the populace:
     
     
  24. Thanks
    acrashb got a reaction from Butschi in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Great article, saved. Goemans seems well-grounded and informed, and if a lot of what he says is common sense ("These leaders [e.g., people in Putins' position], Goemans found, would be tempted to “gamble for resurrection,” to continue prosecuting the war, often at greater and greater intensity, because anything short of victory could mean their own exile or death.") then often common sense needs to be researched to have credibility with decision makers.

    And this is why this war and our response is so important: “This will shape the rest of the twenty-first century. If Russia loses, or it doesn’t get what it wants, it will be a different Russia afterward. If Russia wins, it will be a different Europe afterward.”
    And that is why Sun-Tzu said to never leave your opponent with fighting as the only option.  Putin must have read Sun-Tzu as well as having personal experience with rats.
    The end of civilization is a one-way street: it is almost certain that we don't get a second chance (essentially because all of the easy energy is gone - no more crude oil bubbling from the ground, or coal that you can dig without deep mine shafts, etc.).  So on top of the obvious-but-distant (not directly comprehensible) human cost, it's human extinction.  And that's a bad thing.  It may even explain the great filter.
    I don't know about NATO, but the West makes threats - as opposed to stating facts - routinely.  Recent example: Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against the Government of Syria to Respond to Use of Chemical Weapons - Wikipedia - there are others, I'm not picking on any specific president.
     
     
    What does all this add up to?  Putin needs a way out.  He can't win and he can't lose.  We can't count on an assassination or health crisis, too uncertain.  So offer comfortable exile with enough perceived power (over the grounds, the household, for example) - free from threat by the ICC.  I hope that this is happening behind the scenes right now.

     
  25. Like
    acrashb reacted to Haiduk in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Modern wokism is the same social enginering and deconstruction, which affected countries with population much more than 140 millions. 
    In the similar way as this was in Japan. Tradions saved, culture saved, identity - saved. Aggressive militarism and expansionism eliminated. 
    I don't mean "50-years" occupation. Neither by NATO, nor by Ukraine - it's completely impossible. All what I wrote is what hypothetical new Russian powers must to do to fix situation. And partially Russia was doing this "nation building or deconstruction" in 1990-92, trying to break Soviet mentality, but rising KGB-maphia clans took developmnent over own control.
    If we just liberate all our territories, we will not solve main problem and like Zaluzhnyi said we will get next war in 5-10-20 years. Revanchism will grow up again and the bear from cartoon again will stand and roar. But we will be in white coats and white gloves
    Yes, we had collaborators and traitots, which condemned to death hundreds of people. Fortunately some of them already departed to the God's Court, because corrupted Ukrainian courts have littlle trust. 
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