How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[sburke]

1 minute ago, Ts4EVER said:

Yeah I have little faith in bitcoin, however, I wouldn't be surprised if China could (for example) push ahead with some state backed digital currency, which would first be used by Russia and other sanctioned countries, but could also be used to undercut the dollar in the third world.

the problem there is no one trusts the Chinese gov't regarding their currency and willingness to alter valuation.  Russia might conceivably buy in for lack of choice, but no other sane currency manager is going to.

[Eddy]

2 minutes ago, sburke said:

okay name one moving in the right direction...just one.  It is too easy to say yes things will change, this could be the moment.  However, if you have no plausible alternative... at all.  then how likely is that what if? Blockchain and crypto baby, that is gonna change the world.. except it is just a ponzi scheme.

Correct. The only currency that could possibly rival the dollar as the reserve currency in the near future (like years away) is the Euro and for a number of reasons that's not going to happen. As for the Yuan, it's not traded enough, CCP have this big sovereignty control thing over their currency and there are trust issues.

As for crypto, it's an asset class similar to gold not a currency.

[poesel]

6 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Thanks for responding.

...But if you're determined to believe the BRICS economies outweigh the G7, I can't really help you further. Have you spent time in any of those 5 countries? (3 for me).

The G7 have a GDP of about 34 trillion US$ while BRICS has about 25 trillion US$ which puts it just ahead of the USA alone.

I have worked in all the BRICS countries and in 4 of the G7. Of course, it depends a bit on where you are, but there is literally a world between these two groups. A world of wealth.

[NamEndedAllen]

42 minutes ago, sburke said:

it has been consistent.  Russia playbook is always about the threat that NATO represents and encroachment all the while being the aggressor every time.  Nothing new there, just more gaslighting

Consistent for Russia, but has that always been China’s position. Security *guarantees* for Russia, and not the same let alone primarily for the victim?!

[womble]

57 minutes ago, NamEndedAllen said:

What!? Security guarantees for Russia? The country currently ravaging every city and civilian it can reach? Raping and pillaging while insisting that Ukraine doesn’t exist as a nation?!! And China says RUSSIA needs security guarantees?? Depending on which official said this, I think we can guess that China’s peace proposal will not be joyfully embraced by Ukraine, sending gifts to China of puppies and rainbows.

At a putative negotiating table, security guarantees for the territorial integrity of Russia are an easy "give", since nobody has any interest in invading them, never* have. Easy to say, "Russia's boundaries, as accepted when they joined the UN after the USSR ceased to exist, are inviolate." It's just the way things are supposed to be, anyway. For everynation.

It's even a lever to press China to herd Putin towards extracting his genitals from the Ukrainian blender he's stuck 'em in, as per their first point: he wants guarantees, they have to be on the same basis as the state Ukraine ends up in.

It's not going to get that for for a while, natch, but security guarantees (or at least assurances** shouldn't be a stopper when jaw-jaw starts to bring an end to war-war. It's all the other contentious bits that will make the process painful and protracted.

* "never", here, being "since 1945".

** for what little they're worth....

[billbindc]

Without question, this will accelerate US/China tensions and reduce squabbling about aid to Ukraine: 

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-war-in-ukraine-china-is-reportedly-negotiating-with-russia-to-supply-kamikaze-drones-a-13909157-4740-4f84-830e-fb3c69bc1dff?sara_ecid=soci_upd_KsBF0AFjflf0DZCxpPYDCQgO1dEMph

[Seminole]

6 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Thanks for responding.

...But if you're determined to believe the BRICS economies outweigh the G7, I can't really help you further. Have you spent time in any of those 5 countries? (3 for me).

‘Determined to believe’?

Not at all, but I’m open the notion that as global productivity continues to increase the relative dominance enjoyed by ‘the West’ shrinks in relative size.  
 

In the early 1950s the Chinese stymied ‘the world’ in Korea.  What do you figure the relative economies compared then to now, when China is the largest trading partner of most nations on the globe.  
 

I get they have a lot more people, so their per capita wealth is still distant to what most Westerners enjoy.  Yet that underscores the point, that when they achieve just 1/3rd our productivity they’ll have much larger economies. 
 

Our relative global economic dominance can really only continue to shrink from here, unless we can convince the BRICS to embrace communism.  

[kevinkin]

 

REUTERS: Ukraine's Zelensky says he plans to meet China's Xi
Zelensky on Friday welcomed some elements of a Chinese proposal for a ceasefire in Russia's war on Ukraine.

I wonder what gifts they will exchange? Xi, a chunk of Russian coal; Zelensky a scale model of a M142 HIMARS?

[DesertFox]

1 minute ago, kevinkin said:

 

REUTERS: Ukraine's Zelensky says he plans to meet China's Xi
Zelensky on Friday welcomed some elements of a Chinese proposal for a ceasefire in Russia's war on Ukraine.

I wonder what gifts they will exchange? Xi, a chunk of Russian coal; Zelensky a scale model of a M142 HIMARS?

Hmm...

President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he needed to start considering peace talks with Moscow when the three leaders met in Paris earlier this month, people familiar with the conversation said.

NATO’s Biggest European Members Float Defense Pact With Ukraine - WSJ

[sburke]

15 minutes ago, Seminole said:

‘Determined to believe’?

Not at all, but I’m open the notion that as global productivity continues to increase the relative dominance enjoyed by ‘the West’ shrinks in relative size.  
 

In the early 1950s the Chinese stymied ‘the world’ in Korea.  What do you figure the relative economies compared then to now, when China is the largest trading partner of most nations on the globe.  
 

I get they have a lot more people, so their per capita wealth is still distant to what most Westerners enjoy.  Yet that underscores the point, that when they achieve just 1/3rd our productivity they’ll have much larger economies. 
 

Our relative global economic dominance can really only continue to shrink from here, unless we can convince the BRICS to embrace communism.  

your assumption is based on a trajectory that is already altering.

China population: Henan shows scale of demographic challenge as deaths outnumber births for first time in 60 years | South China Morning Post (scmp.com)

China is going to face some very big challenges in the next decade(s).  The CCP sits on top of a social contract of improving the lives of it's people.  A contract it has largely lived up to.  However, that contract is now at risk with an aging demographic and regional pension plans failing.  

With China being by far the largest BRIC...  I don't see the trajectory continuing that way.  Russia being the 3rd BRIC... well....  I am not sure the G7 are in as much danger as the chart might say.

Edited February 24, 2023 by sburke

[The_Capt]

46 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

srorss112 helped explain core of my thinking.  To expand a bit, while I don't doubt that a DC force will find it easier to do things like attack or defend to the last man vs. a MC force, it would be much harder to find someone in the DC force to lead an innovative operation of any scale of note.  This is what we seem to be seeing with Russia being absolutely incapable of exploiting any opportunities created by attritional warfare.  Ukraine, on the other hand, has shown the ability to exploit opportunities.

Put another way, you are more likely to get a classically trained guitarist to be able to play heavy metal on the guitar than to get a heavy metal guitarist to play something classical.  If you occasionally want to hear heavy metal, hire the classically trained guitarist.

Steve

I think what is killing the RA is DC at the operational level.  We have not really discussed the differences here but one can do MC at the operational level and DC at the tactical - Soviet doctrine was kinda built for this...theoretically (I kind of think this was BS as the entire Soviet system was pretty tightly controlled but...).

War is multi-dimensional.  So even if you have Gunny Sergeants going all Clint Eastwood and exercising initiative it won't matter if the operational level is doing more conservative DC style C2 - tactical level just becomes fireflies in a jar.  But vice versa can work, again in theory.  The RA can move and control their troops like proper killbots, but if the operational level is able to exploit opportunity and keep the killbots moving towards that opportunity....well you have a solution.

Hard DC is a symptom of an autocratic political body.  One does not give a lot of empowerment in people who have all the guns when you are a dictator.  But you can make it work if you allow higher commanders to run with the ball (or at least did) but you risk them getting too "uppity".  This is what created the whole "Joe Stalin is threatened by Zhukov dynamic". 

I personally don't think it is really "easier" one way or the other.  It affects more than simply how we give orders.  It lays down a foundation of just about every aspect of what follows - from force generation through sustainment, to employment.  MC has different bandwidth requirements than DC - how enablers are packaged and organized.  Even how much fuel they burn.  So it is not a simple as "ok. now you are all empowered/not empowered."  Now re-designing a force to be able to quickly do both is an interesting concept.  

[panzermartin]

So China is crossing the line with arms supply. Pretty fubar situation. Don't want to sound pessimistic but, the endgame seems to be WW3. It always starts "small" and then things escalate out of control. I haven't seen a single step back since Feb24 from any side. Only steps forward to total war. 

Are wars just inevitable dark tunnels of human destiny, when there is a bottleneck, economic or social and old and new must clash to give a violent birth to a new world?

Or are the elites pulling the strings to a choreographed destruction and redistribution of power and wealth. 

Grateful to have experienced the peaceful and prosperous and years of post WW2. Very insecure about the future:( 

[danfrodo]

20 minutes ago, sburke said:

your assumption is based on a trajectory that is already altering.

China population: Henan shows scale of demographic challenge as deaths outnumber births for first time in 60 years | South China Morning Post (scmp.com)

China is going to face some very big challenges in the next decade(s).  The CCP sits on top of a social contract of improving the lives of it's people.  A contract it has largely lived up to.  However, that contract is now at risk with an aging demographic and regional pension plans failing.  

With China being by far the largest BRIC...  I don't see the trajectory continuing that way.  Russia being the 3rd BRIC... well....  I am not sure the G7 are in as much danger as the chart might say.

I am still confused as to how deaths outnumbering births is an issue in short term for china.  Their issue is too many old people relative to young people, which is why I was confused about their zero tolerance covid policy.  Xi et al should want to as many pensioners as possible to die ASAP.  Since every chinese male smokes then covid would clear out a huge number of elderly, lung-vulnerable males -- why wouldn't Xi want that?  

[Letter from Prague]

Smoking (and asthma, interestingly) also makes you less vulnerable to COVID. Something to do with receptors. And China's COVID policy was pretty bad, they outlawed Western vaccines that work well because they wanted people to use the Chinese one, which worked a lot less well, so they ended up with much higher death rates than most other countries.

This happening is pretty good counterargument to the common meme of "totalitarian China is smart and good at long term thinking unlike your stupid democracies where everyone just think of the next election" - China is pretty good at f-ing itself over in grandiose political gestures. They also has months of blackouts and industry disruptions because they stopped importing coal from Australia when some Australian government person said COVID is from China.

Not sure what that means for war, though.

[danfrodo]

2 minutes ago, Letter from Prague said:

Smoking (and asthma, interestingly) also makes you less vulnerable to COVID. Something to do with receptors.

This is a myth.  Itcaught on in social media and other places, it's not true.  It's based on some flawed, rushed early pandemic report that was used to make extraordinary claims on flawed evidence.  This is similar to the flawed report that led to belief in hydroxochloroquine being a magic bullet against covid.  Everyone grabbed onto the early, flawed study and then never noticed or chose to ignore that the data didn't hold up under scrutiny.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41533-021-00223-1 

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(22)00258-2/fulltext

https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/news/2022/smoking-associated-increased-risk-severe-covid-19-outcomes

As Carl Sagan said, the spirit of extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence -- saying that doing constant damage to one's lungs makes them less vulnerable to a respiratory infection seems absurd and would require quite a bit of proof, one would think.  But sadly, as Twain said "a lie can go around the globe twice before the truth even gets its shoes on".

[Letter from Prague]

12 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

This is a myth.  Itcaught on in social media and other places, it's not true.  It's based on some flawed, rushed early pandemic report that was used to make extraordinary claims on flawed evidence.  This is similar to the flawed report that led to belief in hydroxochloroquine being a magic bullet against covid.  Everyone grabbed onto the early, flawed study and then never noticed or chose to ignore that the data didn't hold up under scrutiny.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41533-021-00223-1 

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(22)00258-2/fulltext

https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/news/2022/smoking-associated-increased-risk-severe-covid-19-outcomes

As Carl Sagan said, the spirit of extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence -- saying that doing constant damage to one's lungs makes them less vulnerable to a respiratory infection seems absurd and would require quite a bit of proof, one would think.  But sadly, as Twain said "a lie can go around the globe twice before the truth even gets its shoes on".

Since you focused on the non-important part of the post, I'll do the same and reply that the quote goes way further back than Twain (to Rome even, if you're willing to accept different phrasing) https://interestingliterature.com/2021/06/lie-halfway-round-world-before-truth-boots-on-quote-origin-meaning/

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, kevinkin said:

 

REUTERS: Ukraine's Zelensky says he plans to meet China's Xi
Zelensky on Friday welcomed some elements of a Chinese proposal for a ceasefire in Russia's war on Ukraine.

I wonder what gifts they will exchange? Xi, a chunk of Russian coal; Zelensky a scale model of a M142 HIMARS?

I wonder if China, despite some chest puffing, is not actually reining this whole thing in.  If they can broker/force a peace in this war it will be a win for them.  All we could do was lob kit and kaboodle until China walked in and said “ok, that is enough”?

 

[sburke]

51 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

I am still confused as to how deaths outnumbering births is an issue in short term for china. 

It is a compound problem.  The population is shrinking AND getting older.  If it were just one or the other you might be able to project around, but both... not good.  To make matters even more fun the average person is looking at never really owning their home as the way it is going now their mortgages will last their entire life.  Hence folks using the term Humineral.  people see the state just treats them as a resource.

This is concerning in that part of why Putin seems to have jumped when he did was the view that things were only going to get worse in terms of the force ratio to obtain his goals.  Xi might be thinking the same way.

[Seminole]

6 hours ago, sburke said:

name one currency you would trust more.

If you’re talking government fiat, hard to argue that the dollar hasn’t been the ‘cleanest dirty shirt’ for the last 50 years, but what has happened to its purchasing power over just that time?

If you told me I had to put my savings in one currency and couldn’t purchase anything for five years, I’d select the one that governments can’t print: bitcoin. 
 

 

[chuckdyke]

There is just no room in Europe for an Authoritarian Communist Player. They were permitted their own political parties even a few got elected in various parliaments. By democratic elections their movement died a natural extinction. China European people have spoken the consensus is that your philosophy sucks. 

[NamEndedAllen]

1 hour ago, womble said:

At a putative negotiating table, security guarantees for the territorial integrity of Russia are an easy "give", since nobody has any interest in invading them, never* have. Easy to say, "Russia's boundaries, as accepted when they joined the UN after the USSR ceased to exist, are inviolate." It's just the way things are supposed to be, anyway. For everynation.

It's even a lever to press China to herd Putin towards extracting his genitals from the Ukrainian blender he's stuck 'em in, as per their first point: he wants guarantees, they have to be on the same basis as the state Ukraine ends up in.

It's not going to get that for for a while, natch, but security guarantees (or at least assurances** shouldn't be a stopper when jaw-jaw starts to bring an end to war-war. It's all the other contentious bits that will make the process painful and protracted.

* "never", here, being "since 1945".

** for what little they're worth....

Couldn’t agree more. However, my reaction was about the Chinese mentioning guarantees for RUSSIA but not for Ukraine. I didn’t see a link in the post for that quote, so can’t check the source for that absence. But certainly a peace plan of any credibility would need both sides’ approval. In the absence of guarantees for both countries, it sounded more like a sick joke than an easy bargaining chip.

Not to mention that Ukraine already HAD promises of security guarantees - never ratified, iirc. My sense is at least until seeing the full text of an actual document, I have little faith that Ukraine will find great joy in any Chinese peace plan. Would be happy for Ukrainians if there were one they could embrace. Although such a thing could conceivably be a major blow to the West in terms of international affairs. 

[chris talpas]

8 hours ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/04/answering-call-heavy-weaponry-supplied.html

Those two planned Leopard 2 battalions are now complete with the added Swedish L2A5s and additional german ones.

btw never ever did I think this total tank number would rise to >760

Canada announced 4 more today.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-four-more-tanks-ukraine-1.6759775

Also this was posted by Anita Anand, minister of defence back on Feb 4 so the original ones should either be in Ukraine or next door.

 

[NamEndedAllen]

26 minutes ago, Seminole said:

If you told me I had to put my savings in one currency and couldn’t purchase anything for five years, I’d select the one that governments can’t print: bitcoin. 

Except you could be wiped out. The fraud and the wild volatility make it one heck of a high risk investment.

[kevinkin]

21 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I wonder if China, despite some chest puffing, is not actually reining this whole thing in.

Or China might want to appear to be the "adult in the room" and make overtures toward talks. Meanwhile they their true motivations lie elsewhere. In the end, each side will have to claim victory even though the victory is pyric. Even a hint of CCP support must help Russian moral at this point. Does Biden's "continue to have Ukraine’s back" translate well into Mandarin? Increasingly, it looks like China won't let Russia collapse. That would be bad PR within the ant-west community. 

 

[NamEndedAllen]

34 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I wonder if China, despite some chest puffing, is not actually reining this whole thing in.  If they can broker/force a peace in this war it will be a win for them.  All we could do was lob kit and kaboodle until China walked in and said “ok, that is enough”?

 

I think you are right, and that would put Europe and the USA (Canada too!) in an uncomfortable spot around the world; China the adult in the room, and with the gravitas to make it do.