billbindc

Classifying that statement as an intentional gaffe at this point.

If Bellingcat's reporting it, it happened. The WSJ article says they believe it was "hardliners" in Moscow trying to throw off the talks. Absolute nonsense. Russian policy is top to bottom frightfulness to coerce and this is of a piece. The only real lesson here is that the oligarchs, up to and including the most powerful, are expendable.

Couldn't tell you how many conversations I had just before it all kicked off with DC folks who said "But it makes *zero* rational sense for Putin to do it!". My particular bias was to look at the capabilities he was stacking up that were way beyond what was needed for pressure but would be required for compellence. This time, unfortunately my bias turned out to be right. Your "reasonable" analysis had a lot of company.

That bit gets a bit complicated. Those jokers don't possess any real power themselves and yet they are saying things that certainly wouldn't be what Putin would prefer. They are doing the running for others who actually do have a power base. I think what they are saying is almost irrelevant to the fact that they can say anything at all. Put another way, an endgame involving a blazing nationalist pushing Putin aside and then signing a treaty with Ukraine wouldn't surprise me in the least.

Cracks widening a bit.

Three key things: 1. Biden is the first American President who came into office with zero illusions about Putin/Russia. 2. The people Biden appointed watched 20 years of mistakes, magical thinking and missed chances. 3. More broadly across the foreign policy establishment there was bipartisan support to take on the task. Putin was entirely unprepared for what the meant in terms of applied full spectrum American power.

The imagination and attention to detail suggest lots of this was planned well ahead: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/fbi-trolls-russian-embassy-with-geotargeted-ads-for-disgruntled-spies/

Very definitely. That logistical wave didn't magically come into being on February 24th. Folks too often forget that the CIA started as and remains to a large extent a paramilitary organization and that portion of the CIA has been working very hard with the Ukrainians since 2014. Even if Putin's political plans had worked, there was a very large resistance movement in the works. In practice, those plans simply had to be altered somewhat to fit the Ukrainian army successfully remaining in the field and an unlooked for flood of EU support. Of interest: https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-secret-cia-training-program-in-ukraine-helped-kyiv-prepare-for-russian-invasion-090052743.html

I agree with all of this. The delta in the situation is that the US admin had done tons and tons of 'what if the Ukrainians hold out' diplomatic and logistical legwork. Once the Russians invaded, the EU governments had already been prepped for the worst case scenario and had already agreed to many of the actions they later took. In fact, DC did such a good job that by the second week EU countries were going beyond what had been asked for. The big question now is holding them to course. You can see the 'war criminal', 'must lose power' etc comments in that light. The White House is locking them into position (as in, it's hard to drop sanctions on someone your government has agreed is a war criminal).

This provides a lot more context to the then controversial steps Zelensky took to secure the political space: https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-zelenskiy-bans-three-opposition-tv-stations/a-56438505 If we remember how clearly the US IC was anticipating Russian military moves, it's now become obvious that it was doing the same on the political side and was advising Zelensky accordingly. There was lots of kvetching about it among the usual suspects in DC who were outside of the magic circle of briefings.

Sure. And as someone pointed out earlier, China has Japan's WWII problem...their fuel travels through a narrow and vulnerable carotid and those nations that have the strength to cut it have evinced an alarmingly powerful demonstration of unity and their willingness to take that kind of action. The PRC's plan for Taiwan was to create an unprecedented and/or complicated situation that would freeze the liberal democracies. Russia just gave those democracies a practice run and a so far quite successful one. Xi will perforce have to pause for quite a while and think through the implications.

My read is that China doesn't want Russia to lose but won't do that much to help Russia win. Their trade with the EU and US is far more important and this debacle creates complications that Xi didn't need. What the PRC will do is be a very friendly neutral to Russia while looking to encourage the non-aligned tendencies of Brazil, India, Mexico, etc.

I'm in a self-driving adjacent business and follow it quite closely. We really aren't that close to true self driving. That said, a battlefield has much less demanding parameters for control and safety than an average American street so I'd expect their advent in the field much sooner than on the highway.

Sorry, meant working on that general.

Note: this isn't a story that illustrates bad morale. It it shows that even in the military, the propaganda put out by the Kremlin is working.

Worth noting that this move will have one pretty bad effect for Moscow: it will potentially annul gas/oil contracts with EU nations who will refuse to resign for similar sized contracts at the same rates. Classic example of short term gain for long term self sabotage.

Correct. It's a low raise by the poorest better on the pot.

Sweeney driving out to where the action was. Looks like confirmation that the thrust towards Brovary is done.

Shoigu and/or the Gerasimov would have to agree (they need 2 of 3 'suitcases') and then are there points at which the order could be refused. I'm wouldn't put too much stock in the ranters on Russia state tv. Putin may have premises we don't share but he's also not shown any inclination to die in a nuclear holocaust either.

What you've done just here is quite good. I suspect lots of us are spreading the word.

There are many things that can be resorted to before nukes. Cyber against the EU/US is coming next almost certainly. Chemical isn't at all unlikely, General frightfulness, civilian slaughter-by-MRLS have begun but there's far more to come. Conventional strikes at or near the border with Poland, Moldava and Romania. Putin has these options and more. He just mentions the nukes for the same reason he fires hypersonic missiles at chicken shacks...it makes the news and creates the simulacrum of potency. I don't think we are very close to nukes yet and not just because irradiating the new Russian empire would be an idiotic way to create it.

This. No response at the first attempt means you get rolled worse down the road. But a tactical nuke on a Ukrainian city isn’t an attack triggering Article 5 and responses don’t have to be an exact tit for tat response.

For starters, his already strained military is going to have to spool up for a conflict with the EU and US (who won't immediately go to war over it but will certainly rush every available force to eastern Europe). There will then be an absolutely ferocious reaction globally to it that will include an immediate and full trade/contact embargo with Russia. China, India, Israel and others will perforce separate completely or more clearly from Moscow. And that's just the immediate reaction. In a sense, Putin is already conducting this sort of campaign in Mariupol. The Ukraine and the world aren't blanching at it but rather increasing aid to the Ukrainian side. Every escalation just makes the moral and political stakes that much more obvious.

There are at least 6 publicly visible US/NATO SIGINT and ISR aircraft up on the western and northwestern Belarus borders at the moment. If Lukashenko decides to go for it, it's not going to be a surprise to anyone.