Eddy

Sadly that rabbit hole is currently the most important front in the Ukraine War. That is both wrong and tragic.

One more caveat: 
A big difference in American politics now from even 7 years ago is that there is a lot of actual intimidation going on on the Republican side. GOP pols get swatted (i.e. have bogus hostage/shooting calls made to police with their address), their kids get targeted online, they deal with waves of threatening emails, calls and texts if they publicly break with Trump. Nikki Haley was swatted in December at her home and just applied for Secret Service protection because of the unrelenting and violent comms she gets. When 20 GOP Senators who would have killed for this border bill in 2015 run cowering from it, it's not because they suddenly had a change of heart. They were scared off it for both political and personal reasons. 
One of America's parties has entered a very dark phase and it's not going to get better unless they lose and keep losing.

Agree with pretty much all of the above except for the both sides aspect of it. Partisan extremism has affected the GOP far more than Democrats. Pew has the data: 
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/10/the-polarization-in-todays-congress-has-roots-that-go-back-decades/
 

This, all damn day: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00396338.2024.2309068

Hmm. I'm really not sold on this dronetopianism.
Granted, that is partly cap-badge tribalism. Mind you, in Commonwealth-style armies - and probably most Western-style armies - drones are likely to end up in fires units (that is, artillery units) anyway, so it'd be a change but not a loss of organisational influence. As an example, look at how rockets were absorbed by the artillery fraternity.
But I don't think tribalism is the only reason influencing my thinking.
To start with, it seems like a version of the old argument "if snipers are so great, we should just train every rifleman to be a sniper!" Yes, snipers are great, but the personal attributes required to be a sniper a rare, they're really expensive and slow to train, and the final product is also of niche utility. A notional 18th Sniper Brigade would either be tactically and operationally useless, or a very very expensive hammer being used to crack grapes. Drone operators seem to suffer from the same limitations, and without good drone operators all you'd have is a ToyWorld's-worth of spare parts sitting behind battalion HQ.
Drones are really good at hitting and destroying the specific point they're aimed at, but appear to be pretty terrible at damaging or even annoying anything else. That's kind-of ok as long as you have really super great - and really super reliable - tac ISR. 'Dumb' artillery is good at damaging the thing it's aimed at, and great at suppressing that as well as everything else in the general vicinity. PGM artillery shifts that seesaw towards damage and away from suppression, but retains both effects. Also, the drills required for a single artillery forward observer to remove an entire grid square from your "worried about" list are fast (ie, minutes), simple and well trained. Trying to do the same thing with drones would be extremely slow (ie, hours), require hundreds of operators, and consume the entire cognitive abilities of at least a bde HQ. Hopefully nothing "interesting" happens while they're busy with that.
Logistically, artillery ammunition is famously "heavy", but it is also very compact and simple. The rounds come packed in geometrically simple tubes, they stack really well, and are insensitive to heat, cold, dry, damp, and being bounced around and generally careless treatment. Drones appear to be light and simple and easy - hell, I can carry two in boxes under my arm, and get a dozen in my car! Well, sure, but how does that scale? When every rifle company is firing off 100 munition-drones per day, and every battalion is burning through a thousand ... where are you putting all the dunnage? Who is assembling them? How many trucks are running about in constant loops to bring them forward from Div HQ? Drones are also kinda fragile. That's partly why they are so comparatively cheap, but what is an acceptable dud-rate for drones?
Drones are definitely a problem for conventional artillery, as a supplement to traditional CB. They're also "competition" for conventional artillery, as a supplement to traditional fire support. And that's the key word: supplement. Not replace.
Incidentally, part of the reason 'mil-spec' kit tends to be so expensive is that wars are rare and peace is normal. Most kit spends most - like, 99.something% - of it's time sitting around waiting for a war. But it isn't really just sitting there, it's being used on a regular basis to support training and exercises, and that kit needs to stand up to that regular use and abuse, and then be ready to transition to war-use at a moments notice. That ruggedness and decades-long reliability costs money. COTS drones offer none of that. I get that the flash-to-bang time for drones in Ukraine right now is probably being measured in weeks at best but, again; wars are rare and peace is normal. For a standing army that is mostly at peace - like, oh, all of NATO for the last three quarters of a century - that $1000 COTS drone is going to have to last a lot longer than a few weeks. It's going to have to support multiple courses and exercises, over many years. Occasionally one will be expended in training but, as with Javelins or VLLAD missiles, that's going to be the exception rather than the rule. The rest of the time it just gets lugged around as make-weight.

Right click on the time at the top left of the post and choose copy link
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/feb/01/eu-leaders-gather-for-key-summit-in-bid-to-unblock-orban-veto-on-ukraine-aid-europe-live?page=with:block-65bb73188f08d26c7ae387f2#block-65bb73188f08d26c7ae387f2

Deal reached on 50 billion euros in EU aid for Ukraine (from the Guardian's live updates, which I don't know how to link directly, if it can be)
 

It seems that at least some Russians have come to similar conclusions about war as this forum:
https://www.armystandard.ru/news/2024129114-TnO1s.html
No comment really, except that we should not stereotype the Russian general staff as a bunch of drunks and incompetents stuck in the soviet past. They are learning, even if implementation is the hard part, not theory. 

Perun did a recent video on recruitment which is a perhaps more detailed look at manpower recruitment 😀
Here is the first part of a summary 
Summary is generated using this site => summarize.tech: AI-powered video summaries 
Just pop in the YouTube URL and a few seconds later a summary is generated. Saves a lot of time working out whether something is worth watching or not. Or just getting the gist of a video.
Edited for inclusion!

Perun did a recent video on recruitment which is a perhaps more detailed look at manpower recruitment 😀
Here is the first part of a summary 
Summary is generated using this site => summarize.tech: AI-powered video summaries 
Just pop in the YouTube URL and a few seconds later a summary is generated. Saves a lot of time working out whether something is worth watching or not. Or just getting the gist of a video.
Edited for inclusion!

Perun did a recent video on recruitment which is a perhaps more detailed look at manpower recruitment 😀
Here is the first part of a summary 
Summary is generated using this site => summarize.tech: AI-powered video summaries 
Just pop in the YouTube URL and a few seconds later a summary is generated. Saves a lot of time working out whether something is worth watching or not. Or just getting the gist of a video.
Edited for inclusion!

Perun did a recent video on recruitment which is a perhaps more detailed look at manpower recruitment 😀
Here is the first part of a summary 
Summary is generated using this site => summarize.tech: AI-powered video summaries 
Just pop in the YouTube URL and a few seconds later a summary is generated. Saves a lot of time working out whether something is worth watching or not. Or just getting the gist of a video.
Edited for inclusion!

Perun did a recent video on recruitment which is a perhaps more detailed look at manpower recruitment 😀
Here is the first part of a summary 
Summary is generated using this site => summarize.tech: AI-powered video summaries 
Just pop in the YouTube URL and a few seconds later a summary is generated. Saves a lot of time working out whether something is worth watching or not. Or just getting the gist of a video.
Edited for inclusion!

Perun did a recent video on recruitment which is a perhaps more detailed look at manpower recruitment 😀
Here is the first part of a summary 
Summary is generated using this site => summarize.tech: AI-powered video summaries 
Just pop in the YouTube URL and a few seconds later a summary is generated. Saves a lot of time working out whether something is worth watching or not. Or just getting the gist of a video.
Edited for inclusion!

An article about Russian economics - a very scalding one.

On top of that this happened => Russian Lukoil Refinery Incident Has Moscow Considering Gasoline Export Ban | OilPrice.com. Production of petrol has been halted at one of the biggest refineries and the incident happened on Friday, 12th Jan.
and
They only just re-started gasoline exports in mid-November and now it looks like they may have to stop them again. UATV on YouTube said it was because something (a Catalyst/Catalyser/Cata-something - I have no idea) broke and needs Western parts to fix. Dunno if the cause is true (not sure how reputable UATV is), but I trust Reuters that production has stopped. 

On top of that this happened => Russian Lukoil Refinery Incident Has Moscow Considering Gasoline Export Ban | OilPrice.com. Production of petrol has been halted at one of the biggest refineries and the incident happened on Friday, 12th Jan.
and
They only just re-started gasoline exports in mid-November and now it looks like they may have to stop them again. UATV on YouTube said it was because something (a Catalyst/Catalyser/Cata-something - I have no idea) broke and needs Western parts to fix. Dunno if the cause is true (not sure how reputable UATV is), but I trust Reuters that production has stopped. 

Tom Cooper talking about what he knows best - aviation .
An interesting timeline and suggestion as to what happened to the A-50U and  Il-22M
https://xxtomcooperxx.substack.com/p/ukraine-war-16-january-2024-scratch
P

Pretty good interview with Vice Admiral Oleksii Neizhpapa, Commander of the Ukrainian Navy about the different aspect of the war in the Black Sea.
Navy Commander Neizhpapa on Neptunes' successes, two Russian flagships sunk and the drone war | Ukrainska Pravda

Unlurking from the shadows to add something. This looks to be a Lvkv 90C ( The AA variant) at 00:46 it looks to be a radar dome ontop of the turret.
From what I can find 3 Lvkv 90A was uppgraded to the Ceasar standard (C-version) and I guess all of them where given to Ukraine.
Was looking at other pictures to see if it could maybe be a Norwegian one with a kongsberg remote weapon station. But it looks more like a barrel. To bad quality on the video to be 100 % sure. (Norway is talking about sending some of their Cv90 aswell.)
Starts lurking again. // Jarran

Thanks Bill for posting the Foreign Affairs article. As suspected all is not well in the Russian economy. I actually think the situation is worse than is outlined in the article, especially concerning Russian income from oil and gas. On that note, it looks like the Saudis may have thrown in the towel on maintaining the oil price: 
Oil drops sharply as Saudi price cuts overshadow Middle East tensions (ft.com)
If you're unable to read the article (I can never work out the FTs free to read policy) the Saudis are no longer cutting oil production but instead are looking to maintain there own market share by dropping the price of the oil they produce. As the article headline states, this has already driven down oil prices and will continue to do so. Which for the purposes of this thread means less money for Russia.  

Thanks Bill for posting the Foreign Affairs article. As suspected all is not well in the Russian economy. I actually think the situation is worse than is outlined in the article, especially concerning Russian income from oil and gas. On that note, it looks like the Saudis may have thrown in the towel on maintaining the oil price: 
Oil drops sharply as Saudi price cuts overshadow Middle East tensions (ft.com)
If you're unable to read the article (I can never work out the FTs free to read policy) the Saudis are no longer cutting oil production but instead are looking to maintain there own market share by dropping the price of the oil they produce. As the article headline states, this has already driven down oil prices and will continue to do so. Which for the purposes of this thread means less money for Russia.  

I have been seeing "line goes up" charts about China for at least 10 years now. China has best mobile payments system in the world. China has best bullet train network in the world. China has best surveillance systems in the world. China has best supply chain in the world. China has best drones in the world. China has best EV manufacturing in the world. And while some of these may be true in the abstract, somehow the Chinese government has not been able to convert these economic and technological advantages into global dominance. I am not sure there is enough evidence yet to show that the current Chinese government is capable of influencing foreign affairs in a major way, outside of propping up a few neighboring authoritarian states.
If China was really willing and able to flick a switch and plunge the rest of the world into darkness, it would have done so. But it hasn't. On the contrary, despite the self-own of wolf warrior diplomacy, the government largely still tries to project an image of neutrality because it needs the support of the rest of the world to succeed in its domestic goals. If the Chinese government really wanted to flex, it wouldn't just be selling weapons to Russia, it would trigger a remote kill on every DJI in Ukraine. But instead they're happy to play both sides, because making money is more important than dictating the outcome of a regional conflict. And that's going to be true of regional conflicts all over the world.
So maybe the Chinese military industrial complex eclipses the American one at some point, so what? They'll sell weapons to everyone, just like the Americans did.
The point that I think other commenters are making in this discussion is that over the long term democracy wins out over autocracy. And I think that victory is better seen through a cultural lens than a military one. People all over the world are watching Japanese anime and Korean dramas. Maybe briefly they were watching Chinese palace dramas, but those got too popular so the government squashed them. Remember Chinese hip-hop? Yeah, so do I until the government harmonized it. Maybe gaming is where Chinese pop culture will finally break through? But gaming has been under attack from the government for years now and it remains to be seen if the Disneyfied versions of what the government lets through will continue to resonate with the global audience. And, if they do, how much of that audience will translate gacha games whose stories are deliberately as far removed from political controversy as possible into a greater trust of China-as-global-leader, as the government perhaps hopes?
In recent years, the Xi administration has been pushing Chinese people, Chinese corporations and useful idiots overseas to "tell China's story well", so it can parlay that into global influence, but is that really happening? If the only version of the Chinese story that can ever be shared with the world is a sanitized one, is that really a compelling story? And if the Chinese government can't win hearts and minds, can it ever really achieve the kind of hegemony that the US - or, more broadly, "the democratic west" - does today? Are you really the winner if you sell gadgets to everybody but nobody actually trusts you?

More on this here => 
 
Ignore the click-baity title of the vid. It's a reasonably informative take. According to this guy the problems with the delivery are caused by
1. Currency. The agreement was that India would pay half with Chinese yuan and half with the UAE dirham for the Russian oil. The Indian Govt. was reluctant to use yuan, and now the UAE banks are reluctant to provide dirham because they are concerned that the deals are in breach with of the oil price sanction and they don't want to face secondary sanctions  
2. Russia has increased prices of its oil to above $60 a barrel while Iraq has reduced its price to around the same. Therefore for India, it's less risky to buy the Iraqi oil
3. Clampdown on sanctions. Some of the ships have cargoes that are above the $60 a barrel sanction cost and the Indian ports 
Seems a reasonably solid explanation and he does by and large provide sources. Russia rather desperately needs this money. Their economy is under considerable strain and their rainy day fund won't last forever. Income down, expenditure up and diminishing reserves can't last forever or even very long in a war of this intensity. Especially if they splurge 100s of millions of dollars in missiles on non-military targets. That said, economies are resilient and these conditions can take years and years to have a decisive impact.
This is obviously a land-centric wargaming forum and that's what we are mainly interested in but the economic stuff is really, really important.