How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Der Zeitgeist]

1 minute ago, Aragorn2002 said:

How a right wing party can be pro Putin is beyond me.

Simple, it's fascist authoritarianism, just like Putin's Russia. It's remarkable how Russia is constantly referring to its goal as "denazification", never as a fight against fascism (which would have been the wording during Soviet times).

[chuckdyke]

3 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

How a right wing party can be pro Putin is beyond me

So far to the right they are on the left of Genghis Khan.

 

[JonS]

14 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

How a right wing party can be pro Putin is beyond me.

I think that, beyond a certain point on the spectrum of of beliefs and positions, it's not useful to think of the hard right as rightwingonsteriods. The hard right aren't really in to the things traditionally associated with the right wing, such as effective but small government, self reliance, and low taxes. They're more into kleptoctratic autocracies run by a charismatic strongmen, and a barely- or non-functional rule of law. That's an environment which they think they'd personally be able to make out like bandits, or at the very least one in which people they don't like - LGBT+, furriners, libruls, etc - will be actively targeted and victimised.

From that perspective, adulation of Putin makes a lot of sense.

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by JonS

[c3k]

A much more useful measure of politics uses a different spectrum. (BTW, "right wing fascist" was a label used by the Communists in the '20s to differentiate two different forms of socialism).

The spectrum to use is linear. On the far right is total individual liberty. Call it anarchism.

On the far left is total government control. 

Using that, one can see that fascism, socialism, communism are much more closely related than democracies.

There are variants on this, but freedom vs. control is a much more useful measure. It shows that "right wing fascists" are really just a form of left-wing totalitarianism. (And, boy, do they hate being reminded of that.)

 

Back to the fight: Izyum is, once again, the focus of a huge offensive. This is key to Russia's move to try to encircle the Ukrainian salient just south of there.

And what a great opportunity this presents. When the Russians attack, the Ukrainians can slaughter them.

 

Post-war: Clearing out the Russians from the Luhansk/Donetsk/Crimea would be important. Would it be possible to tell the pro-Putinists living there that they need to move to Russia? Similar population shifts have occurred before.

[DesertFox]

8 minutes ago, c3k said:

There are variants on this, but freedom vs. control is a much more useful measure. It shows that "right wing fascists" are really just a form of left-wing totalitarianism. (And, boy, do they hate being reminded of that.)

Completely agree. Nationalsozialismus, Faschismus, Sozialismus, Kommunismus, etc. are only sub-forms of left-wing totalitarism. The answer to the question "who owns the means of production - pivate or state-control" can be a helpfull guide for classification. 

Edited April 6, 2022 by DesertFox

[Harmon Rabb]

43 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

How a right wing party can be pro Putin is beyond me.

I've noticed that Putin enjoys the support of both far left and far right political parties around the world.

Never made sense to me until I found out that one of Putin's big influences on his views on geopolitics is someone named Alexander Dugin.

Dugin is a "National Bolshevik" who wants Russia to conquer even more territory.

This video touches on Dugin as well as the geopolitical aspects of the war in Ukraine. a little info on the military side of things but nothing close as good as the info this topic has.

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Harmon Rabb

[Aragorn2002]

8 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

I've noticed that Putin enjoys the support of both far left and far right political parties around the world.

Never made sense to me until I found out that one of Putin's big influences on his views on geopolitics is someone named Alexander Dugin.

Dugin is a "National Bolshevik" who wants Russia to conquer even more territory

This video touches on Dugin as well as the geopolitical aspects of the war in Ukraine. a little info on the military side of things but nothing close as good as the info this topic has.

 

Yeah, that scared the hell out of me too.

[LongLeftFlank]

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

[JasonC] "It's not any technological revolution to throw away a tank brigade in half a day. People have been doing it with some regularity since the late 1930s. Not one of those occasions meant the end of the tank. All of them mean you need combined arms and you need skillful, not dumb, tactical handling to use the things effectively. Always have.

Tanks are not a panacea. They require close coordination with artillery to suppress dismounted AT systems, and mechanized infantry to get them places armor alone can't easily go, present defenders with a fire discipline dilemma, and the like.

My assessment of the WW2 era and conventional Cold War era down to about 1980 remains the US army adage - “armor does the fighting, artillery does the killing, and infantry does the dying”. 

....all armor is not created equal. APCs are so vulnerable to every weapon system on the contemporary battlefield that they have to be used like WW2 half tracks, as transport to the FEBA not as fighting mounts throughout.

If infantry doesn’t dismount, it faces ambush losses of the kind we’ve seen lower quality Russian forces suffer in Ukraine. So the mere proliferation of armored vehicles hasn’t changed combined arms as much as some thought it would at the height of the Cold War....

Infantry AT has certainly increased in lethality and range, but its range envelopes and effectiveness now mimic the effectiveness of ATGs in earlier eras. They are just a lot easier to move around the battlefield than 2 ton towed ATGs were. In turn this makes them less susceptible to artillery suppression, because they can be in more places and move around more.

Artillery is still their most effective nemesis.... Eyes that guide, battlefield recon, troop skill, comms - all become huge differentiators of effective combined arms vs ineffective."

For those interested, some trenchant comments on the 'end of the tank?' copy-pasted above from @JasonC over at BGG.

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[kraze]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

Yes, but he has withdrawn from Kyiv and now tries to consolidate in the east of Ukraine, so he's not toally out of touch with reality on the ground..

Him saying "we are withdrawing our troops because everything is going according to plan", while his army runs away totally routed from the battlefield, is not because he is in touch with reality.

If putin could - he'd still be ordering berserk rushes of Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy. But that order no longer could've been executed.

[kraze]

43 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

How a right wing party can be pro Putin is beyond me.

You mean a right wing party is pro-someone who declares outright that Ukrainians must be "reeducated" (as in somehow stop being Ukrainian) and those that will oppose "reeducation" - will be killed?

Never before any right wing party in Germany ever did similar things. How indeed.

[LongLeftFlank]

25 minutes ago, Harmon Rabb said:

I've noticed that Putin enjoys the support of both far left and far right political parties around the world.

The horseshoe theory.

While I'm a long way from Left, I have lurked on NakedCapitalism.com for years, a bastion of the 'old Left' (Sanderistas) that often aired some interesting ideas. I've actually met the founder, a brilliant charming lady. But I have had to stop reading lately, sickened by the delusions on there.

Since they take it as read that the US is the Evil Empire and the root of everything bad that has happened in the world since 1776, they've joined ZeroHedge in the sewage tank cheering for Mother Russia and Grand Master P. So it seems all our friends in Ukraine are nazis, Bucha is a fake, etc. Sickening/saddening.

Edited April 6, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[Probus]

3 hours ago, Taranis said:

Personally, I use "nitter" instead of "twitter", which makes it possible not to need an account, as a forum member previously suggested (thanks to him)
https://nitter.net/JominiW

I wish I'd known this before creating a new Twitter account...

[DesertFox]

Let that sink in for a while...

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by DesertFox

[Aragorn2002]

7 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

Let that sink in for a while...

 

 

Pretty disgusting.

[The_MonkeyKing]

13 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

Let that sink in for a while...

 

 

That is incorrect.

EU countries have given a lot more aid than 1bn (1bn is from direct EU budget to military aid). Also count humanitarian aid, financial aid, refugees, individual countries giving military aid, intelligence, resources to Ukraine and military training. This number must be in the tens of bn.

And that money would go to some other energy anyways if not Russian. I also agree somewhat with the argument that immediate energy cutoff is not smart. Phase out of 1-3 years is smart. Russian energy income of 1-2 years is not going to decide things and cutoff would be major hinderance to whole European economy, weakening it.

[DesertFox]

4 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

That is incorrect.

Well it isn´t. Mr. Borell said exactly that.

[The_MonkeyKing]

3 minutes ago, DesertFox said:

Well it isn´t. Mr. Borell said exactly that.

In some sense "correct statement" taken literally but the message is incorrect. EU countries have done great deal more than 1bn.

[chuckdyke]

7 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

In some sense "correct statement" taken literally but the message is incorrect. EU countries have done great deal more than 1bn.

EU response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine - Consilium (europa.eu)

[Battlefront.com]

To chime in on the political spectrum thing... there's so little difference between the extremes of left and right that the traditional view of the political ideologies being a semi-circle "meter" is just wrong.  As you get more and more extreme the extremity itself is the ideology.  The stuff tacked onto it is just for show.  People with such extreme beliefs can switch their allegiances without much difficulty.  The classic example of this is the 1920s/1930s shift of the German population from supporting Communism to supporting the Nazism.  At one point the actively political portion of the population was split fairly evenly between the two ideologies, but once Nazism became dominant the Communists switched sides.

The reason for this is very simple.  If you look at what the ideology promises the individual there's just about no difference between Fascism and Socialism (I'm using Socialism in its pure form, not the watered down versions that we see in places like Europe).  Each promises a strong state that will provide everything for its people, provided they are considered worthy.  Resources are reallocated from the undeserving to the deserving.  All social controls that can be applied to encourage and enforce this mindset are utilized to the fullest extent.  In exchange for this wonderful treatment, adherence to the state must be absolute or you won't be considered worthy.  Any form of distention against the state means you are not worthy, therefore you must be an enemy, and as an enemy it is natural that you be dealt with harshly to ensure that more trouble is avoided.  Territorial expansion is generally acceptable, even desirable, because neighbors are rarely deemed deserving of whatever they have.  And since there's always some undeserving group looking to take away what the deserving people have, there's always an enemy to vilify and target.  Fear is always central to such systems. Cruelty towards anybody not considered worthy is not only allowed but celebrated.

The differences between the structure of Fascist and Socialist nation states is tiny.  In Fascism a few people control all the wealth and levers of power in support of the individual citizens, in Socialism a few people control all the wealth and levers of power in support of the common good.  Both systems use violence and mind control to keep their status at the top.  All forms of distention are viewed as a threat, no matter how mild or apolitical it might be.  Boiled down they are far more similar than dissimilar.

Sociologists and neuroscientists have done extensive studies on this topic and have concluded that a certain percentage of the Human species, irrespective of culture and nationality, is predisposed to being an active supporter of authoritarianism.  No hard number on it, but it is double digits for sure. This is why even in open societies there is always a core of authoritarian minded citizens just waiting for their opportunity to secure power for their cause.

Which is why we can have modern day Russians so excitedly supporting Fascism when just a few decades ago they were ardent Socialists.  It's really the same thing with a different paint job.

Steve

[chuckdyke]

Too cut it short if you want to be a dictator be a benevolent one. Like manufacturing people's cars and child endowment schemes. Once you fail to deliver you soon be out. 

[Fernando]

From what I see in Spain, there are two types of Putin fans:

1. The most extreme part of the far right. It is directly Nazi. They see Putin as Hitler 2.0, with the same values of extreme nationalism and the ability to resort to extreme measures including war. Putin is his hero. They are very, very few.

2. The extreme far left. In Spain, the far left and a part of the rest of the left has historically been anti-American. The extreme far left believes that the war in the Ukraine and most of the rest of the world's problems have been caused by American governments. Therefore they apply the saying that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". it means they see Putin as the only one who has strength and determination to confront the hated Americans. And if the Chinese join Russia, all the better. After all, they are communists.

Yesterday Zelensky addressed the Spanish Parliament. The only party that did not applaud him was  CUP. It is a far-left Catalan independence party that has two PMs. The Bildu Party practically did not applaud. It is a far-left Basque independence party that is the ex-political arm of the terrorist group ETA. All the other political parties applauded Zelensky, including VOx, which is the Spanish far-right party.

There is a Spanish saying that says "Los extremos se tocan" ("the extremes meet one another"). 

[Battlefront.com]

Ukraine General Staff posted some signs that sanctions are already creating problems within Russian society:

https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/288980820081670

Steve

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, LongLeftFlank said:

The horseshoe theory.

While I'm a long way from Left, I have lurked on NakedCapitalism.com for years, a bastion of the 'old Left' (Sanderistas) that often aired some interesting ideas. I've actually met the founder, a brilliant charming lady. But I have had to stop reading lately, sickened by the delusions on there.

Since they take it as read that the US is the Evil Empire and the root of everything bad that has happened in the world since 1776, they've joined ZeroHedge in the sewage tank cheering for Mother Russia and Grand Master P. So it seems all our friends in Ukraine are nazis, Bucha is a fake, etc. Sickening/saddening.

We live in an era of Strasserism, 'social fascism' claims and what used to be called the 'red-brown alliance'. In the end, it's all about opposition to liberal democracies which is why the fight for Ukraine is of outsized importance. Reactionary populism and revanchism must be stopped there or we'll be fighting at worse odds to stop it everywhere else.

[LongLeftFlank]

April unfolding.... 

1. Those gunships gonna make big trouble out on the open steppes.  More MANPADS! 

2. Reach out and touch someone.... 

3. Count 'em! Battle of Britain numbers here. 

 

4. Yup

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[billbindc]

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/06/french-election-markets-skittish-as-far-right-candidate-le-pen-closes-gap.html

On the political front, Putin has a potential windfall in the French elections if LePen wins. At a stroke, the EU is in disarray and France becomes an active stumbling block to stopping Russian ambitions.