How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[LongLeftFlank]

On 12/1/2023 at 6:31 PM, LongLeftFlank said:

There seems to be a series of strikes going on targeting Russian air defence assets in and above Crimea, possibly following on the damage done by the freak storm.

I've observed before here (and I am far from the only one) that retaking both banks of the Dnpr river mouth, preferably as far in as Oleshki Sands prior to a ceasefire seems quite strategically important to Ukraine, as it not only puts Kherson out of tube artillery range but somewhat lessens Russian ability to interdict shipping out of Odessa and Nikolaiv.

This terrain is infantry country; marshy (is it true the Ukes can also reflood a lot of this area if they want to?) and road poor. It also lies at the exposed far left end of the Russian front, and is hideously difficult to resupply and support.  As we see....

Any RU defence would need to rely heavily on air power. Sytematically degrading their AD network seems like a nice first step, especially if Ukraine fields F16s this coming spring.

The more imagery I see from the Kherson bridgehead, the more I think this zone is a total no-win death trap for the Russians. They just can't mine their way out of this one.

Those sandbars may as well be bodies of water from a logistical and manoeuvre standpoint.

 

 

[Kinophile]

 

 

[The_Capt]

3 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Is this a public facing argument being made anywhere? I’d love to read it.

You can quote "some guy on the internet for now".  It has come up as both an external and internal "shiny" ploy in discussions (strictly unclass of course).  The whole thing just doesn't make sense.  China has been highly preoccupied with global expansion (Belts, Roads, whatever) with a focus on breaking into Europe, which they continue to do.  They got hit by COVID like everyone else and depending on how much one buys into Glass Dragon theory somehow come out of that deciding its best "new play" was to start a major war over Taiwan?  The internal pressures narrative might hold some water but their economy is still growing.  A major indicator of social instability is the death of a middle class but China's is healthy and the largest in the world:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_China  So I am not fully buying the "China is going to collapse tomorrow, so the CCP is trying to distract them with Taiwan."

I have read Brands and the Thucydides Trap theory has a lot of holes in it.  We have had two major power transitions without full on conflagration between the two primaries in the last two centuries alone.  First was UK and US.  There were wars but not with each other.  And then Soviet Union and West - Cold War definitely but the nuclear equation may have changed how we do this.

It is also very possible to pull oneself into a scenario by simply believing and acting like it is already happening.  If we are in a bar and I am convinced that we are going to fight.  Take off my sweater, start shadow boxing and trash talking you.  Stern looks and posturing.  Well you might have gone into that bar with a totally different perspective and suddenly you are getting into a fight.  Both sides believe they are only defending themselves but before you know it we create a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The current rhetoric around Taiwan sometimes looks a lot like this, except maybe it was China making all the noise to get a reaction.  I have read a lot of wargame results and discussion...they all forget about stuff this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_094_submarine

That is 72 MIRVs, each in the 20-150 kt range.  I honestly think that any fight over Taiwan is as bounded as Ukraine by the nuclear equation.

So what is going on?  Well if you read Chinese doctrine the whole hot and bother on Taiwan could just as easily fit into the 3 - warfare theory.  Now why would they do that?  Well we sure as hell never talk about Africa anymore.  I honestly don't know or come down on either side hard.  We have to be ready to fight anyway but if we get too focused on any one region or issue we do tend to lose sight of the rest of the game - was a fear with Israel, and happened with GWOT/Iraq/Afghanistan/Syria and the rise of Russia.  From a Chinese perspective we in the West have laughably short attention spans, they do see that as a major weakness.  All this sabre rattling and posturing would kind of fit that perspective.

As to "China must do X before Y, because after that they are done like dinner."  Seriously, the one superpower/empire to repeatedly come back is China.  No one else has demonstrated the same ability.  They are doing it right now.  Sure they have pressures but their ability to weather them and...wait for it...sacrifice, is frankly amazing.  China may even take serious hits but I think they have programmed in a lot of resilience and recovery - they always do.  We point to economic issues, demographic issues and political issues but frankly we are all facing similar pressures.  Forecasts of Chinese collapse leading to desperate action before then I tend to take with a grain of salt.  I mean the country had a famine 60 years ago that may have killed 55 million people, and now it is pushing for top slot.

I think the more important question is whether or not China figures that it can retain regional superiority and security without having to replace the USA to do that?  This is the central question for China.  I suspect they are leaning towards "no".  But looking out at 50 year horizons, why start a major war in the Pacific?  Now?  

Finally, linking it back to this war.  Russia got us totally spooked.  We did not think it possible that a Great Power would use military hard power to achieve political objectives...at least not like this.  It was a new age of human security, collectivism, and American exceptionalism.  So it is awfully convenient that we are suddenly really terrified that China is going to do the same thing.  There are times this whole thing feels like a shell game.  We will pivot to the Pacific and the funding and attention will go with it.  We should probably ask ourselves if that is what China wants right now though.

 

[Zeleban]

An interesting article about the consequences for the United States of the defeat of Ukraine in the war with Russia

[LongLeftFlank]

12 minutes ago, Zeleban said:

An interesting article about the consequences for the United States of the defeat of Ukraine in the war with Russia

I'm probably Kamil's biggest fan on this board, but I doubt Point 1 is factually accurate. So the rest of his conclusions become moot.

Nobody disagrees with his central leitmotiv, that the EU needs to stomp HARD on cynical Mittelstand companies that continue to supply and support machine tools to Russia.

But he's a one note trumpet at this point.

I did like this one though....

Ahem, *Kissinger*, cough.

And entirely consistent with my 60 odd years of (curious) lived human experience.

Edited December 2, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[billbindc]

8 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

You can quote "some guy on the internet for now".  It has come up as both an external and internal "shiny" ploy in discussions (strictly unclass of course).  The whole thing just doesn't make sense.  China has been highly preoccupied with global expansion (Belts, Roads, whatever) with a focus on breaking into Europe, which they continue to do.  They got hit by COVID like everyone else and depending on how much one buys into Glass Dragon theory somehow come out of that deciding its best "new play" was to start a major war over Taiwan?  The internal pressures narrative might hold some water but their economy is still growing.  A major indicator of social instability is the death of a middle class but China's is healthy and the largest in the world:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_China  So I am not fully buying the "China is going to collapse tomorrow, so the CCP is trying to distract them with Taiwan."

I have read Brands and the Thucydides Trap theory has a lot of holes in it.  We have had two major power transitions without full on conflagration between the two primaries in the last two centuries alone.  First was UK and US.  There were wars but not with each other.  And then Soviet Union and West - Cold War definitely but the nuclear equation may have changed how we do this.

It is also very possible to pull oneself into a scenario by simply believing and acting like it is already happening.  If we are in a bar and I am convinced that we are going to fight.  Take off my sweater, start shadow boxing and trash talking you.  Stern looks and posturing.  Well you might have gone into that bar with a totally different perspective and suddenly you are getting into a fight.  Both sides believe they are only defending themselves but before you know it we create a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The current rhetoric around Taiwan sometimes looks a lot like this, except maybe it was China making all the noise to get a reaction.  I have read a lot of wargame results and discussion...they all forget about stuff this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_094_submarine

That is 72 MIRVs, each in the 20-150 kt range.  I honestly think that any fight over Taiwan is as bounded as Ukraine by the nuclear equation.

So what is going on?  Well if you read Chinese doctrine the whole hot and bother on Taiwan could just as easily fit into the 3 - warfare theory.  Now why would they do that?  Well we sure as hell never talk about Africa anymore.  I honestly don't know or come down on either side hard.  We have to be ready to fight anyway but if we get too focused on any one region or issue we do tend to lose sight of the rest of the game - was a fear with Israel, and happened with GWOT/Iraq/Afghanistan/Syria and the rise of Russia.  From a Chinese perspective we in the West have laughably short attention spans, they do see that as a major weakness.  All this sabre rattling and posturing would kind of fit that perspective.

As to "China must do X before Y, because after that they are done like dinner."  Seriously, the one superpower/empire to repeatedly come back is China.  No one else has demonstrated the same ability.  They are doing it right now.  Sure they have pressures but their ability to weather them and...wait for it...sacrifice, is frankly amazing.  China may even take serious hits but I think they have programmed in a lot of resilience and recovery - they always do.  We point to economic issues, demographic issues and political issues but frankly we are all facing similar pressures.  Forecasts of Chinese collapse leading to desperate action before then I tend to take with a grain of salt.  I mean the country had a famine 60 years ago that may have killed 55 million people, and now it is pushing for top slot.

I think the more important question is whether or not China figures that it can retain regional superiority and security without having to replace the USA to do that?  This is the central question for China.  I suspect they are leaning towards "no".  But looking out at 50 year horizons, why start a major war in the Pacific?  Now?  

Finally, linking it back to this war.  Russia got us totally spooked.  We did not think it possible that a Great Power would use military hard power to achieve political objectives...at least not like this.  It was a new age of human security, collectivism, and American exceptionalism.  So it is awfully convenient that we are suddenly really terrified that China is going to do the same thing.  There are times this whole thing feels like a shell game.  We will pivot to the Pacific and the funding and attention will go with it.  We should probably ask ourselves if that is what China wants right now though.

 

Interesting.

I would observe that it's pretty clear that the US and China have mirrored illusions about each other. We tend to think China thinks long term and Chinese policy people tend to think that the US is easily distracted. Below the surface neither is particularly true. 

I agree that the models are over determined and people depend on them too much. 

I would quibble with the idea that Chinese sacrifice is built in. Xi used Covid regulations to test out the lengths to which the government could go. He demonstrated that he could go pretty far...until suddenly he couldn't and they had to abandon much of what they had in place. In other words, the idea that China operates long term, that 1950's China's ability to sacrifice still pertains, etc is also a model. And like any model, it looks good until contingency means it no longer fits.

If you ask me, I would say that forget the models and just look at the conditions you can actually see. And what I think China wants is a mix of recognition and security.

Chinese resentments towards the West and the world are deeply rooted in the late colonial experience and permeate Chinese attitudes. So...it's politically important for regime legitimacy. As a party, the CCP has shed most of it's marxist ideological cant and has to depend on more populist rhetoric than in earlier stages. Taiwan is tailor made for that effort.

The security issue is that China is close to peaking in terms of relative power in both the short sense (the US is pivoting as you describe) and in the long term sense that the demographic and economic future for China does not look great. So you have, unfortunately, a state that believes that time is against it and the stakes are high. You can ask anyone who deals with Chinese diplomats and they will tell you that  the sense of aggression and insecurity is palpable.   

I don't think it's much more complicated than that.

[LongLeftFlank]

There's a whole thread over here gents

 

 

[dan/california]

12 hours ago, Letter from Prague said:

They're not at risk of going to go to prison in their home countries if they're dead, so ...

That was my question. In what way is it not a missile? Because you can directly control it and because it can loiter?

The single biggest thing that makes it a drone is that it flys home if you don't find a target worth spending it on. 

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

You can quote "some guy on the internet for now".  It has come up as both an external and internal "shiny" ploy in discussions (strictly unclass of course).  The whole thing just doesn't make sense.  China has been highly preoccupied with global expansion (Belts, Roads, whatever) with a focus on breaking into Europe, which they continue to do.  They got hit by COVID like everyone else and depending on how much one buys into Glass Dragon theory somehow come out of that deciding its best "new play" was to start a major war over Taiwan?  The internal pressures narrative might hold some water but their economy is still growing.  A major indicator of social instability is the death of a middle class but China's is healthy and the largest in the world:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_China  So I am not fully buying the "China is going to collapse tomorrow, so the CCP is trying to distract them with Taiwan."

I have read Brands and the Thucydides Trap theory has a lot of holes in it.  We have had two major power transitions without full on conflagration between the two primaries in the last two centuries alone.  First was UK and US.  There were wars but not with each other.  And then Soviet Union and West - Cold War definitely but the nuclear equation may have changed how we do this.

It is also very possible to pull oneself into a scenario by simply believing and acting like it is already happening.  If we are in a bar and I am convinced that we are going to fight.  Take off my sweater, start shadow boxing and trash talking you.  Stern looks and posturing.  Well you might have gone into that bar with a totally different perspective and suddenly you are getting into a fight.  Both sides believe they are only defending themselves but before you know it we create a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The current rhetoric around Taiwan sometimes looks a lot like this, except maybe it was China making all the noise to get a reaction.  I have read a lot of wargame results and discussion...they all forget about stuff this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_094_submarine

That is 72 MIRVs, each in the 20-150 kt range.  I honestly think that any fight over Taiwan is as bounded as Ukraine by the nuclear equation.

So what is going on?  Well if you read Chinese doctrine the whole hot and bother on Taiwan could just as easily fit into the 3 - warfare theory.  Now why would they do that?  Well we sure as hell never talk about Africa anymore.  I honestly don't know or come down on either side hard.  We have to be ready to fight anyway but if we get too focused on any one region or issue we do tend to lose sight of the rest of the game - was a fear with Israel, and happened with GWOT/Iraq/Afghanistan/Syria and the rise of Russia.  From a Chinese perspective we in the West have laughably short attention spans, they do see that as a major weakness.  All this sabre rattling and posturing would kind of fit that perspective.

As to "China must do X before Y, because after that they are done like dinner."  Seriously, the one superpower/empire to repeatedly come back is China.  No one else has demonstrated the same ability.  They are doing it right now.  Sure they have pressures but their ability to weather them and...wait for it...sacrifice, is frankly amazing.  China may even take serious hits but I think they have programmed in a lot of resilience and recovery - they always do.  We point to economic issues, demographic issues and political issues but frankly we are all facing similar pressures.  Forecasts of Chinese collapse leading to desperate action before then I tend to take with a grain of salt.  I mean the country had a famine 60 years ago that may have killed 55 million people, and now it is pushing for top slot.

I think the more important question is whether or not China figures that it can retain regional superiority and security without having to replace the USA to do that?  This is the central question for China.  I suspect they are leaning towards "no".  But looking out at 50 year horizons, why start a major war in the Pacific?  Now?  

Finally, linking it back to this war.  Russia got us totally spooked.  We did not think it possible that a Great Power would use military hard power to achieve political objectives...at least not like this.  It was a new age of human security, collectivism, and American exceptionalism.  So it is awfully convenient that we are suddenly really terrified that China is going to do the same thing.  There are times this whole thing feels like a shell game.  We will pivot to the Pacific and the funding and attention will go with it.  We should probably ask ourselves if that is what China wants right now though.

 

It all comes down to deterrence, and failures thereof. The invasion of Ukraine was failure of deterrence, Putin thought he could conquer the place for a price he was willing to pay. By continuing to prove him very painfully wrong we increase the level of deterrence throughout our alliance system/sphere of influence.

There is no question in my mind that Xi would launch an invasion of Taiwan if he thought he could do it on the three day SMO model. We have to convince him he CAN'T do that, preferably while having some energy and attention left for the rest of the planet.

The overarching problem I truly CANNOT see a solution to is negotiating some sort of meaningful curbs on global warming at the same time. If you have any credible ideas on fixing that one in the midst of a new cold war, you have my vote for any job on the planet.

 

Edited December 2, 2023 by dan/california

[JonS]

20 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

The fact that there is really only one example

You could add Gulf War (1990 edition) and Afghanistan to that list if you expand the definition to something like "won the (conventional-ish) war before (significant) ground troops were committed (to combat)."

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

The security issue is that China is close to peaking in terms of relative power in both the short sense (the US is pivoting as you describe) and in the long term sense that the demographic and economic future for China does not look great. So you have, unfortunately, a state that believes that time is against it and the stakes are high. You can ask anyone who deals with Chinese diplomats and they will tell you that  the sense of aggression and insecurity is palpable. 

This is the central premise but back to what we can actually see.  China was pursuing a longer term expansionist strategy largely aimed at securing bilateral agreements globally for resources and influence through economic/diplomatic means.  Suddenly, they are on the verge of collapse and need to invade Taiwan to fix that..."how"?

Taiwan is an identity/social issue, not a pragmatic economic one.  So how does China offset its looming economic collapse?  How does it offset its looming demographic collapse?  We have leapt to Taiwan and overt aggression.  Now it could be real.  Or the whole damn thing could be SDI all over again.

How do we know China believes that time is against it?  And is it?  I honestly think we cannot discount the recency effect of Russia's action and impact on western calculus.  We did not see an overt invasion of Ukraine coming, at least no where near soon enough.  And now we are suddenly convinced the other great power is doing the same.  

I mean look at these:

https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2023/02/02/cf-chinas-economy-is-rebounding-but-reforms-are-still-needed

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58957#:~:text=growth of productivity.-,Projections of Income for 2023 to 2033,percent from 2026 to 2033.

If I were a Chinese analyst I am not going to lose my mind over this.  Sure China has challenges - we all do.  US is starring flat lines in the face.  Reduction in works forces and a projected GDP growth trajectory under 3%.  China is looking to GDPs shrinking but still sustaining over 3% growth out to 2028.  If you check to Economic Policies chart, you are not going to see - engage in an incredibly costly major conventional conflict over a single small island of 23 million people.

So is China flexing and doing stretches because it needs to?  Or are they doing it for other reasons?  The single biggest threat to China is a blunting or dislocation of its expansion westward.  The massive markets of the west (and east) have not changed since the Silk Road.  Resources, particularly energy security lie in the west, not Taiwan.  So I am not sure how we suddenly got here but the whole thing feels like a distraction to be honest. 

This is what I honestly see in front of us right now.  China remains our first or second largest trading partner.  They do not appear caged or desperate, yet.  I do not see the cliff face in 2027 (and a little bit of sucking and blowing in the US narrative on that one: "Chinese long-term thinking is a myth, yet they can see out to 2050 and 2027 is their last chance"...I mean which is it?).

Interestingly, this:

" Harvard University political scientist Joseph S. Nye, pointing to research by Yale historian Donald Kagan, has argued that Graham Allison misinterprets the Peloponnesian War; Nye argues that the war was not the result of a rising Athens challenging Sparta, but rather the consequence of Athenian stagnation leading Sparta to think that a number of "Athenian policy mistakes" made war "worth the risk".^[26] Historian Arthur Waldron likewise argued that Kagan and Harvard classics scholar Ernst Badian had "long ago proved that no such thing exists as the 'Thucydides Trap'" with regards to the Peloponnesian War.^[25] Relatedly, political scientists Athanassios Platias and Vasilis Trigkas submitted that the Thucydides Trap is based on "inadvertent escalation" whereas the Peloponnesian war was an outcome of rational calculations.^[29]"

Leads one to wonder "who is trapping whom?" in all this.  I honestly doubt this is a discussion point in US power circles.  I mean we get it (wanna talk about "aggression and insecurity"), the US has sounded the horn of Gondor.  But in the vassal states we kinda are looking at this from a different angle.  I mean do we jump in?  How hard?  Do we really need to spill all the beer?  None of us recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state, kinda like Puerto Rico, but with semi-conductors.  So do we really want WW3 over this?

[The_Capt]

49 minutes ago, dan/california said:

It all comes down to deterrence, and failures thereof. The invasion of Ukraine was failure of deterrence, Putin thought he could conquer the place for a price he was willing to pay. By continuing to prove him very painfully wrong we increase the level of deterrence throughout our alliance system/sphere of influence.

There is no question in my mind that Xi would launch an invasion of Taiwan if he thought he could do it on the three day SMO model. We have to convince him he CAN'T do that, preferably while having some energy and attention left for the rest of the planet.

The overarching problem I truly CANNOT see a solution to is negotiating some sort of meaningful curbs on global warming at the same time. If you have any credible ideas on fixing that one in the midst of a new cold war, you have my vote for any job on the planet.

@LongLeftFlank look here.  Yes, there is definitely an element of this.  Our deterrence failed in Ukraine.  And I think we are still in "how dare they" mode.  Well they "did dare" and continue to.  So we are still stinging from this because Putin just took a big ol poop on the Rules Based International Order.  So now that good ol order it kinda tender and ready to start really deterring...we really mean it this time.  All over the place. Problem with Detterence is that it always comes with an inductive flipside.  A reaction.  Sometimes that can turn into inadvertent compellance and escalations that no one really wanted.

So this war in Ukraine is intrinsically linked to the next one involving the great powers.  It will like shape our thinking for the next decade at least on both sides of any equation.  One thing we can agree upon is that the stakes are high.  China needs to look at Ukraine and go "nope" because the cost would be too high.  But it also cannot go "oh crap" because we overplayed the hand and trigger something nobody really wants.

Finally a little empathy may be helpful too.  

[See: we can do both at once. I mean between war porn and maps of course.]

[Offshoot]

2 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

I'm probably Kamil's biggest fan on this board, but I doubt Point 1 is factually accurate. So the rest of his conclusions become moot.

Perhaps he means in the specific context of Ukraine.

A former economic advisor to Putin in the early days contends that, in terms of actual delivered military aid, Russia is outspending Ukraine, the US, European countries, etc. by 3 to 1 (discussion on this point starts at 6:25).

 

[Letter from Prague]

3 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Interesting, and I don't disagree.

Where do Czechs seem to be leaning these days?

The polls say people want our previous Orban-style oligarch back in charge because somehow the worldwide inflation and instability is fault of the current government, so we seem to be leaning up our own assess it seems.

On the other hand we sent 60 tanks, 130 IFVs, 4 helicopters - basically all we had - to Ukraine, and individual citizens gave 26 millions USD in charity for weapons. Fun fact, the charity has pre-filled gift amounts as multiples of 1968 Czech crowns (~ 80 USD), you'll surely get the reference. I just sent some because I couldn't come up with better Xmas present for Ukrainian friend.

Ultimately there's just 10 millions of Czechs and we're not that rich (there's just 10 millions of Swedes and 6 millions of Finns but they are rich) so we don't really matter much.

Now I'm not sure if I am even answering what you're asking.

[JonS]

2 hours ago, billbindc said:

If you ask me, I would say that forget the models and just look at the conditions you can actually see. And what I think China wants is a mix of recognition and security.

A shout out to my pedantic bros: you say "forget the models" ... then immediately insert more models

This isnt really a dig. We ALL do this - reject models we dont like, and replace them with ones we do (and, crucially, ones we can comprehend). See? I'm doing it right now!

The 'why' is pretty obvious, I think. The world is complex, yo, and summarising it into models is how we can make sense of that complexity.

So " throw out the models" just isn't a practical model for behaviour. At least, not in my model of how things work.

Edited December 2, 2023 by JonS

[sburke]

3 hours ago, billbindc said:

Interesting.

I would observe that it's pretty clear that the US and China have mirrored illusions about each other. We tend to think China thinks long term and Chinese policy people tend to think that the US is easily distracted. Below the surface neither is particularly true. 

+1  This view of China thinking long term is to me a bit of a stereo type.  Having done some amount of business work in China (admittedly limited), my own view is they tend toward the grandiose with decidedly short-term thinking.  Maybe that is just a biased view from the amount of corruption I have been exposed to, but I have yet to experience anything that would make me think China has some genetic predisposition to think long term.

[Letter from Prague]

I'm not sure about "China wouldn't do a thing with Taiwan because it's economically stupid".

I remember the discussion "Russia isn't going to invade because it would be utterly stupid". I remember how it turned into "I really thought they wouldn't invade, because it really was utterly stupid" which turned into "See? It was utterly stupid" and now that the war is likely over and we're looking at the likely end state, we are talking about how "yes it was stupid for sure but if you assign the 'victory points' certain way, maybe it was not utterly stupid".

We can certainly hope China isn't that stupid and would rather sit on its extended back and make hilarious amounts of money than make war and possibly get that extended back kicked in some way. But as they say, hope is not a strategy.

[Letter from Prague]

As for china thinking long term, I always in my mind go back to two specific incidents - one when they killed a lot of their people by relying on their own COVID vaccines, which were not as effective as the Western ones. The other when they decided to punish Australia for their prime minister (or whoever) asking for official investigation where does COVID come from (because China "knew" it was American virus) and stopped import of everything Australian, including coal which they really needed and cause themselves industrial impacts, including blackouts.

That's not a long-term thinking, that's closer to someone throwing a tantrum or coldly deciding that saving face is more important than saving lives, or both.

At the same time, China can do long-term infrastructure projects we can't even dream of in the West, can build and scale industry like noone else and managed to get a lot of people out of actual poverty over last decades.

...

I feel like this is more democracy vs dictatorship thing - democracies tent to average things out, and that's why they take so long to do something, while dictatorships have more "peaks" that can be both peaks of utter stupidity or brilliance. Sometimes you get high-speed rail and sometimes you get invasion of Ukraine.

[Vanir Ausf B]

9 hours ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Another war this war kind of reminds me is the Winter war. In the minds of a lot of people because a much smaller state like Finland still remained independent after it it won the war, but the truth is it also had to give up some territory in the east to the USSR. To this day I see memes related to that war.

"In our war against the Finns we had an opportunity to choose the time and the place. We outnumbered our enemy, and we had all the time in the world to prepare for our operation. Yet even in these most favorable conditions it was only after great difficulty and enormous losses that we were finally able to win. A victory at such a cost was actually a moral defeat. Our people never knew that we had suffered a moral defeat, of course, because they were never told the truth. All of us—and Stalin first and foremost—sensed in our victory a defeat by the Finns. It was a dangerous defeat because it encouraged our enemies' conviction that the Soviet Union was a colossus with feet of clay."

-- Nikita Khrushchev

[dan/california]

18 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

"In our war against the Finns we had an opportunity to choose the time and the place. We outnumbered our enemy, and we had all the time in the world to prepare for our operation. Yet even in these most favorable conditions it was only after great difficulty and enormous losses that we were finally able to win. A victory at such a cost was actually a moral defeat. Our people never knew that we had suffered a moral defeat, of course, because they were never told the truth. All of us—and Stalin first and foremost—sensed in our victory a defeat by the Finns. It was a dangerous defeat because it encouraged our enemies' conviction that the Soviet Union was a colossus with feet of clay."

-- Nikita Khrushchev

Great quote!

 

[dan/california]

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1730995200917393585.html

 

[dan/california]

It just can't be that hard to set up a real assembly line for these things where they aren't put together by packing tape and chewing gum. It is just one more thing in this war where nobody has been able to admit to themselves that this thing isn't ending tomorrow, and we actually have to build some manufacturing capacity.

[dan/california]

 

Even with overhead observation this Russian assault group gets their heads handed to them.

Edited December 3, 2023 by dan/california

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, Letter from Prague said:

As for china thinking long term, I always in my mind go back to two specific incidents - one when they killed a lot of their people by relying on their own COVID vaccines, which were not as effective as the Western ones. The other when they decided to punish Australia for their prime minister (or whoever) asking for official investigation where does COVID come from (because China "knew" it was American virus) and stopped import of everything Australian, including coal which they really needed and cause themselves industrial impacts, including blackouts.

That's not a long-term thinking, that's closer to someone throwing a tantrum or coldly deciding that saving face is more important than saving lives, or both.

At the same time, China can do long-term infrastructure projects we can't even dream of in the West, can build and scale industry like noone else and managed to get a lot of people out of actual poverty over last decades.

...

I feel like this is more democracy vs dictatorship thing - democracies tent to average things out, and that's why they take so long to do something, while dictatorships have more "peaks" that can be both peaks of utter stupidity or brilliance. Sometimes you get high-speed rail and sometimes you get invasion of Ukraine.

Ok let’s not start pointing out temper tantrums by every nation on earth or we will be here all night.  FFS, shall we talk about the US performance during COVID?

I do not know about it being genetic but China essentially collapsed in the 20th century after being a great power in the east previously.  In 60 years they went from being a 3rd world nation that could not even feed its people to a position where they can be considered a challenger.  Poo-poo all you want but that did not just spontaneously happen.  As a nation they must be doing something right because we are all talking about them.  If someone would have told me even 30 years ago Russia would beholden to China in the middle of a European war I would have called them nuts.  Yet here we are.

We are not going to solve for China here but this whole “ya they ain’t so great” followed by “but they only want to destroy our freedoms, today Taiwan, tomorrow Nebraska” is almost as bad as whatever Putin was pushing before this war started.  Respect an opponent until they prove otherwise.  You do yourself no favours assuming they are stupid, anymore than you do assuming they are geniuses.  

As to the current situation, I think we may see some sort of Iron Curtain with Russia, however, it will have holes in it.  We definitely are not going to see a Bamboo Curtain anytime soon.  Our trade with China is simply too large and our lifestyles too dependent.  

https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/china-mongolia-taiwan/peoples-republic-china

That is an eye-watering 3/4 trillion per year.  Sure we could cut them off.  As soon as you can convince North America to stop buying their stuff, or selling our stuff.  And accepting enormous price hikes as we try to re-wire locally.

[danfrodo]

Various war stuff, some already seen here, some not.  And lots about animals in the war at the bottom.  Incredible mouse infestation in one position, awful.  The misery and murder goes on.  Speeding RU Lt hits a group of RU soldiers crossing the road.  As a fellow human, I would normally feel sorry for them, but it's some guys that won't be killing UKR folks going forward at least.

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/2/2209189/-More-Russian-stuff-blowing-up-Resistance-fighters-take-a-toll-on-Russians?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

 

[Elmar Bijlsma]

2 hours ago, dan/california said:

Even with overhead observation this Russian assault group gets their heads handed to them.

I question if the drone operator wasn't doing more harm than good. His directions are vague and untimely.

The Ukrainians are holed up near the dead Russian? I think there's probably more than one dead Russian in that field and the one near the Ukrainian trench is probably not the corpse the Russian attackers would seen as they went forward. This presents the attackers with (incorrect) information that they cannot ignore or even question: They just walked past a Ukr position.

 

Same with the direction of "to your left". Left of our line of advance? Left of where my body is proned towards? Left of where I am looking? Left of where I was looking 5 seconds ago? Because that's the time it takes to pass along information. For that matter, left of where any of my fireteam was looking at any point? None of it is usable information and is only likely to wrongfoot the recipient. Note that they eventually face away from the threat! Meanwhile the dipstick drone guy has compass right in his view! There's a reason you are trained to read a compass!

 

And again with his "He's reloading". He's late on making the call, understandable as he needs to interpret the actions he sees from afar before he passes the info along. But that is the problem, he passes it on to his buddy who repeats it into a radio. By the time anyone on the business end even gets the word the Ukr is reloading, the Ukr has reloaded and is ready to work. As a result any Russian acting on this word of warning does his heroics at the absolute very worst moment to do it.

 

If that drone operator used his tablet to download and view porn instead of giving guidance to the attack, the attackers would have had a better chance.

Edited December 3, 2023 by Elmar Bijlsma