How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Carolus]

Propaganda, subversion and psychological warfare have been considered useful enough that nation states invested a lot of time and money into research and development of related techniques.

At the moment the West is losing on this front, hard, and has been for many years. 

We can decide to try and save most of our civilisation and values, or we can clutch our pearls, aim for purity of idealism, and watch it all go down the drain. 

Cultural practices which lead to the destruction of their own culture should be allowed to be questioned. Cultures which don't change in response to new environmental stimuli are not around for long, historically speaking.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Carolus

[Battlefront.com]

Older cat spotting!

Newer cat spotting:

Steve

[Maciej Zwolinski]

1 hour ago, danfrodo said:

anti-vax 'communication'.  You mean baseless lies and misinformation?  

Most of it, yes.Just like the Russian propaganda.

[Battlefront.com]

Rob Lee defending the MBT's right to exist in future wars.  I am rarely disappointed with Rob's analysis, however this one is quite problematic.  My comments follow:

Several of his points defending are simply about the utility of tracked vehicles vs. wheeled, not about armored tracked vehicles and certainly not MBTs.  In fact, if mobility is the key concern then small, light, and tracked is the way to go for most needs most of the time.  Can build more of them, deploy more of them, maintain more of them, and afford to lose more of them.  Obviously for towing artillery something heavier is needed, but again it doesn't have to be heavily armored.

Rob also said we might be suffering from confirmation bias in determining vulnerability of MBTs to things like FPV attacks.  He posted a video of a tank taking a direct hit and being OK after.  Isn't that confirmation bias?  I mean, looking at the confirmed losses of MBTs it's pretty clear to me that losses are horrific and unsustainable for just about any nation, including Russia.  It's just with thousands of mothballed tanks, and the willingness to use them, Russia has more to burn than others.

In the end Rob falls into the same trap we've seen so many people fall into before.  As debated here dozens of times, the argument that tanks should remain on the battlefield because they are still useful doesn't look at the costs or the alternatives.  Sure, tanks are not utterly useless but a few posts up we saw that Russia has imposed a 10km "no go zone" behind the front for its MBTs unless they are actively engaged in fighting.  I guess Russia has bought into confirmation bias?

Steve

[Maciej Zwolinski]

41 minutes ago, Carolus said:

We can decide to try and save most of our civilisation and values, or we can clutch our pearls, aim for purity of idealism, and watch it all go down the drain. 

That is very interesting in light of your critique of the conservative mind a few pages back. This is a typical conservative position, based on empiricism and intuition (instinct even, and the most basic ones: the survival instinct, the reproductive instinct and preference for "us" vs the "other").

Whereas the left-wing (in US English: liberal) mind is the one more likely to result in the  "pereat mundus, fiat [insert the preferred moral value]" view as a result of deductive reasoning from abstract moral axioms, which is a typical "rational" mental process.

[kimbosbread]

4 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

BTW, Western nations looking for a source of blonde white immigrants (as an alternative to, umm, immigrants who don't look like that) is a standard tankie meme, a cynical variant on 'fighting to the last Ukrainian'.

Oh there’s definitely quite a bit of that, talking to relatives and friends in a few Western European countries.

4 hours ago, Tux said:

I think we should remember that, just like The_Capt, we’re all baffled as to how the Russian Army is still functioning properly.  I’m personally in two minds as to whether we are still in a state of things ‘going slow before they go fast’ (and a collapse is just around that next corner, for reals this time) or whether we’re all culture-blind and missing some peculiar Russian meme that will keep them going for a long time to come.

Yeah, I’m definitely in the same camp. Putin has thrown almost all his cards on the table, and is betting on Russian will. It’s a pity Ukraine doesn’t take a page out of Russia’s bio-warfare during war of survival playbook and let something loose in LDPR. Alternatively, taking out Russia’s refineries within 1000km of the border plus as much power grid infra as possible seems like a good move.

1 hour ago, danfrodo said:

At least in the US the lies were huge and everywhere and now there's big uptake in people not getting vaccinated for everything, not just covid.  We've already seen, in the US, outbreaks in children of whooping cough in anti-vax clusters.  And even a little polio.  

Ironically, the anitvax movement pre-Wuflu was the unholy confluence of Oprah and ethnic slavs in Southern Washington State.

55 minutes ago, Carolus said:

Propaganda, subversion and psychological warfare have been considered useful enough that nation states invested a lot of time and money into research and development of related techniques.

At the moment the West is losing on this front, hard, and has been for many years.

Mmm I dunno, maybe among emasculated 3rd plus generation Americans. Recent immigrants seem to be made of different stuff. My ultranationalist Chinese acquaintances don’t understand how people don’t appreciate how good they have it, and how they can’t see through obvious bull****. Same with the African uber drivers.

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2023/11/13/vladimir-putin-cannot-keep-funding-his-war-for-ever

Vladimir Putin cannot keep funding his war for ever

But after winning Russia’s presidential election in March, he will try

 

 

[dan/california]

52 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Rob Lee defending the MBT's right to exist in future wars.  I am rarely disappointed with Rob's analysis, however this one is quite problematic.  My comments follow:

Several of his points defending are simply about the utility of tracked vehicles vs. wheeled, not about armored tracked vehicles and certainly not MBTs.  In fact, if mobility is the key concern then small, light, and tracked is the way to go for most needs most of the time.  Can build more of them, deploy more of them, maintain more of them, and afford to lose more of them.  Obviously for towing artillery something heavier is needed, but again it doesn't have to be heavily armored.

Rob also said we might be suffering from confirmation bias in determining vulnerability of MBTs to things like FPV attacks.  He posted a video of a tank taking a direct hit and being OK after.  Isn't that confirmation bias?  I mean, looking at the confirmed losses of MBTs it's pretty clear to me that losses are horrific and unsustainable for just about any nation, including Russia.  It's just with thousands of mothballed tanks, and the willingness to use them, Russia has more to burn than others.

In the end Rob falls into the same trap we've seen so many people fall into before.  As debated here dozens of times, the argument that tanks should remain on the battlefield because they are still useful doesn't look at the costs or the alternatives.  Sure, tanks are not utterly useless but a few posts up we saw that Russia has imposed a 10km "no go zone" behind the front for its MBTs unless they are actively engaged in fighting.  I guess Russia has bought into confirmation bias?

Steve

Even Trent gets it. Also a an interesting video, the driver floors it and might have survived the fuel burning off.

[The_Capt]

6 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

All very true, but are we sure West communicated limited scope and purpose of sanctions to Ukrainian public; and did they received the message? Because now we seem to having perception problems about limits of help these people can reliabaly receive. And I know quite plenty measured and knowledgable guys, also former militaries tracking this war from the start (from UA and outside), who simply cannot understand why big business still sell Russians precise machine stuff or top-end electronics used in EW warfare (last case given by Steve, there are more) or how muscovite tourists can continue flock to Europe like they did before the war, with some minor additional difficulties. Mind you- last thing is a status symbol for Russian upper middle class, probably far more important than in our societies (another failure to understand cultural significance of some feature). I am not calling to harm our econimies too much ofc. but we should communicate strategy behind it much better, I believe; the hope sanctions will do more work was quite widespread in UA for last two years, despite logic. So we should be frank with UA from the start in this respect: sanctions are chiefly for post-war bargain, not to cripple their direct war effort in  significant way. Otherwise they risk morale crisis. It naturally is part of the larger problem you descibed before, namely incoherence and lack of defined strategy.

Yes.  To all of it.  A coherent strategy must align positions in tension, balance equities and must have at its core a unified theory of success.  It must be playable and often leave room for emergence and convergence.  Strategy is damned hard, often impossible.  It must be communicated and negotiated.  The West had a nearly impossible task in creating a coherent strategy that could do that across all of the stakeholders…but history does not care if a thing is easy, only of it is done or not.

We did not communicate our strategy clearly because we did not have one.  We cobbled and ad hoc “keep Russia from winning” but never defined that.  What does Ukrainian victory mean?  What are we willing to sacrifice to get the endstate we want (do we want it or do we need it?). Putin has a coherent strategy…a seriously crappy one but it is coherent gotta give him that.

The West will need to learn from this war.  We need unified strategy as much as we need ammunition.  In fact coherent strategy provides ammunition.

[danfrodo]

3 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

But the moment you or any other right thinker gets put in charge of defining The Truth and suppressing Falsehood,

I said in the post I DON'T advocate suppressing what liars want to lie about.  'Right thinker'?  I am nice to you and then you have to call me that?  Jeebus, LLF.   There is an often something called an evidence based reality, which is different than legislating falsehoods & prejudices.

[dan/california]

7 hours ago, Tux said:

No.  As our Left Flank said I’ll leave it for perhaps some of our other Ukrainian members to try and help.

 

I find myself agreeing with this but mainly because I think it must be incredibly difficult to gather so many diverse Allies together to agree a strategy when all but one of them are not at war.  Having said that, surely if there was a coherent strategy we would absolutely not read about it in the tabloids; it would be a closely guarded secret to prevent knowledge of our end goals and strategy from being abused by Russia and others?

Is the third bad assumption that the West has a magic button it can press to quickly make that wonderful situation come about?

I think we should remember that, just like The_Capt, we’re all baffled as to how the Russian Army is still functioning properly.  I’m personally in two minds as to whether we are still in a state of things ‘going slow before they go fast’ (and a collapse is just around that next corner, for reals this time) or whether we’re all culture-blind and missing some peculiar Russian meme that will keep them going for a long time to come. Either way we (Ukraine and the West) basically have achieved what our initial strategy probably was:  something akin to “steadily and smoothly ramp up the pressure and support to avoid the Russian Federation catching fire while enabling Ukraine to bleed the Russian Army until conditions are set for it to collapse”.  Russia hasn’t gone all Yugoslavia and the conditions appear pretty well set for a collapse to happen.

Maybe we can be self aware enough to forgive a few western tacticians for potentially also being a bit nonplussed.

The third bad assumption is that we can finely control the outcome of this war. At this level of societal commitment by both sides the odds of this thing winding down in a controlled manner seem to me to be a lot less than 100%. When the fault line slips on one side or the other it is rather difficult to predict how big the earthquake will be.

[The_Capt]

35 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

I said in the post I DON'T advocate suppressing what liars want to lie about.  'Right thinker'?  I am nice to you and then you have to call me that?  Jeebus, LLF.   There is an often something called an evidence based reality, which is different than legislating falsehoods & prejudices.

The lesson is to never be nice to Long Lefty…it makes him uncomfortable and he lashes out.

[danfrodo]

9 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

The lesson is to never be nice to Long Lefty…it makes him uncomfortable and he lashes out.

I think I did get better treatment from him once a couple years ago when I bit his head off (which I now regret), come to think of it. 

And so back to the war.  Here's today's mix of sadness, disappointment, hopium, copium, and confirmation bias.  Most of these videos seen here already, but a couple I think not.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/24/2207794/-Ukraine-Update-Russia-continues-meat-grinding-around-Avdiivka?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_5&pm_medium=web

 

 

[dan/california]

Another Perun, excellent as always. He gives something close to the highest possible rating to the Orlan 10 and thirty. They remain an unsolved and deadly problem. They also seem to be worth more or less copying....

[cesmonkey]

6 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Interesting clip- reportedly Russians dug a tunnel and detonated a mine in Avdiivka area, after which assault team came out of it and stormed Ukrianian trenches. So mine warfare is back too?

How would like to "solve it"? Everybody in charge is more than aware that Russia wages hybrid war against  NATO for a long time and open societies will fall pray to it to some extent. That's their nature.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 4, 2023
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-4-2023
 

Quote

Russian sources continued to claim that Russian forces were digging tunnels to destroy Ukrainian positions and launch surprise attacks in the Avdiivka direction. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces dug a tunnel to a Ukrainian position and mined it, destroying the Ukrainian position.[35] Russian milbloggers claimed that elements of the Russian “Dikiya Divisiya” irregular armed formation, which is partially staffed with former Wagner Group personnel, dug a 160-meter-long tunnel and used it to detonate explosives under an unspecified Ukrainian position near Avdiivka.[36]

 

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, danfrodo said:

I think I did get better treatment from him once a couple years ago when I bit his head off (which I now regret), come to think of it. 

And so back to the war. 

Good.  Let's knock off the pointless barb trading.  Adds zero of value to this discussion and makes all of you look petty at the same time.

Steve

[LongLeftFlank]

7 hours ago, danfrodo said:

I said in the post I DON'T advocate suppressing what liars want to lie about.  'Right thinker'?  I am nice to you and then you have to call me that?  Jeebus, LLF.   There is an often something called an evidence based reality, which is different than legislating falsehoods & prejudices.

The prior discussion was about censorship of unpleasant or triggering or wev views in the West, which some folks here seemed to think was a good idea so long as it aligned with their own views.

...But if i misrepresented your own views on the subject, I apologise.

Anyhoo, back to the war.

 

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[Haiduk]

Well, it seems the season of mass strikes is opened. But maybe this was a "greeting" with Holodomor Memorial Day and Maidan anniversary (was three days ago)

Since 6-00 of morning Kyiv survived most mass Shakheds attack ever seen - 66 were shot down over Kyiv oblast and Kyiv city. I counted dozen explosions. Total 75 Shakheds were launched from Kursk oblast and Kuban' region. UAVs were launched in several waves more then in 20 groups. Southern groups were circling in Kyiv and Cherkasy oblasts, awaiting arrival of northern groups from Kursk, then they simultainously were attacking the city from different directions. Attack has been lasting almost 2,5 hours. 

Air Defense Command has reported about 71 from 75 shot down Shakheds, then corrected this information to 74 from 75. Also one Kh-59 missile was shot down in Dnipropetrovsk oblast

In result of attack fragments of falling Shakheds damaged power lines in central part of Kyiv, so about 200 buildings now without a power. Two subway stations, located on open surface on the left bank of Kyiv are without power too. Also power lines were damaged in Vyshhorod district of Kyiv oblast - north from Kyiv. The buildng of kindergarden was badly damaged either with Shakhed impact or his falling part, containing a warhead. Five people suffred from attacks, but got only light wounds or just high stress.   

Air Force Command claims about 40 % of destroyed Shakheds are on the count of mobile groups, armed with different machine guns, ZU-23-2 and projectors, mounted on pick-ups. I also heard work of Gepards and launches of missiles. 

But this photo shows a dangerous of such "fire show" watching near the window - the bullet of UKR AA group, falling from the sky hit the frame of appartment window. It already hadn't enough energy to penetrate the frame, but if it hit the window itself, the people behind could got injuries.

  

In this time some Shakheds were painted in dark color, maybe this is against their spotting by projectors, but maybe this is special cover for radar dispersing. Some people talk this could be newest Shakhed-238, but this UAV has jet engine, whilst this night Shakheds had a typical "moped" sound

  

Newest Shakhed-238 for comparison

Edited November 25, 2023 by Haiduk

[Carolus]

10 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

That is very interesting in light of your critique of the conservative mind a few pages back. This is a typical conservative position, based on empiricism and intuition (instinct even, and the most basic ones: the survival instinct, the reproductive instinct and preference for "us" vs the "other").

Whereas the left-wing (in US English: liberal) mind is the one more likely to result in the  "pereat mundus, fiat [insert the preferred moral value]" view as a result of deductive reasoning from abstract moral axioms, which is a typical "rational" mental process.

I said that the conservative mindset has problems when dealing with post-normal problems or populist slogans, but also has its place and advantages in other situations.

I never said I have no conservative positions myself.

The West is dealing with an existential crisis in the 21st century. Part of it are inherent problems which happen without any outside influence.

Part of it is that declared enemies of the West do everything to destroy the West with everything they have except conventional warfare, and in response the West is discussing how much deeper it should bend over to continue take the spanking. 

For my fellow man and the future generations, I hope for them to live in a society that offers them at least a degree of the freedoms and rights I enjoyed myself for most of my life. One in which history books are mostly accurate and not edited at the whim of the regime.

If the West ends and we enter the Russo-Chinese century, this hope is squashed. Chinese schoolchildren will tell you that Mao was a friendly grandpa and Western food sanctions led to the death of millions of Chinese during the cultural revolution. Russian schoolchildren are running around in uniforms and have geography books in which Ukraine doesn't exist. 

And thanks to rampant hybrid strategy, up to a third of the Western population thinks that these are the good guys and America and the EU are lead by a cabal of Jews who invented covid 19 / use Zelensky to funnel money into the industrial-military complex.

There is a nightmare unfolding before our very eyes.

So, since I consider myself a practical person, that means I have positions you can call "conservative" where I consider them useful for the problem. Because you need the right tool for the right problem to get to a solution. Denying yourself a useful tool means that you weaken your own position and your enemies will exploit that 100% of the time, which means everything else you held dear will be lost anyway.

Of course, there is an interesting discussion about the limit of this approach regarding ethics and morality and that what you do for the protection of your values should not render these values ad absurdum, but that might lead to far away from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

However I firmly believe that "turning the other cheek" has its limits when the other person is pistol-whipping you while wearing a Chinese uniform.

Edited November 25, 2023 by Carolus

[LongLeftFlank]

7 hours ago, The_Capt said:

The lesson is to never be nice to Long Lefty…it makes him uncomfortable and he lashes out.

(I do like how Armageddon begins with a sub off Tanzania nuking Borneo)

Red team anecdata

 

"Consolidated companies".

 

[Haiduk]

New batches of Su-34M and Su-35S at least per two of each type have delivered to Russian Air-Space Forces

 

 

[LongLeftFlank]

16 hours ago, LongLeftFlank said:

What I was thinking about earlier was the likely next wave of micro-antipersonnel weapons -- part mine, part drone, part robot dog, part sentry gun, part Furby, part whatever -- that make those meat assaults dead letters before they even finish climbing out of their holes.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/marines-test-fire-robot-dog-armed-with-rocket-launcher

Note this video doesn't actually show the 'goat' walking around with, aiming or firing a LAWS strapped to it.

Note!  the underlying quadrupedal robot is a Chinese-made Unitree Go1, which is readily available for purchase online, including through Amazon. Unitree's website offers the baseline Go1 Air for $2,700 and the Go1 Pro, which it says has more capable sensors that it uses for general movement and object recognition, for $3,500.

So here yet again, we see that while the West can innovate, it's the Chinese who  scale.

[LongLeftFlank]

Tooze on the war economies. For interest, although I think he's lowballing the burden on Russia. 

https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-250-the-precarious-stabilization

Even as it ramps up its war effort, Russia is devoting just over 6 percent of GDP to military spending. This is a serious effort, but far from overwhelming. Even under more serious sanctions in 2023 the Russian economy will have no difficulty paying for the imports it needs and no shortage of suppliers.

[But] the fact that Kyiv is not rocked by surging inflation or a collapsing currency, reflects a remarkable achievement in stabilizing Ukraine’s macroeconomy.... GDP has stabilized at 30 percent below its prewar level.

'secondary income' = foreign financing

Refugees

P.S. If you want an actual 'neo-nazi' take on the war, check out the post comments, which I will *not* link here (and you shouldn't either).

Edited November 25, 2023 by LongLeftFlank

[Beleg85]

18 hours ago, Butschi said:

On the other hand you might ask the question if someone should be obliged to serve - i.e. die for - his country and probably on a strip of land that means nothing to him just because fate willed it that he was born a) on the wrong side of the border and b) with a Y chromosome.

Since today is 90th anniversary of muscovite-made Holodomor, this poster I happened to discover today is best answer to this question:

"Unarmed Ukrainan children/ Armed Ukrainian children"

Yes, cheasy; but the problem is even asking this philosophical question assumes having wide options to choose from.

*(they could show them in more modern equipment riding Bradley).

[Bearstronaut]

On 11/19/2023 at 3:16 PM, LongLeftFlank said:

My best guess as to the origin of @Bearstronaut's handle is here. (and I totally want the score as a ringtone)

You are correct.