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Tomn posted:It's worth noting that if I understood the story right, said near-mutiny didn't actually break out until he was dumb enough to tell someone "20 days left on your contract? Then you have 20 days left to die here." Sensitive, nuanced morale management is not apparently in high supply in Russian command.
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May 30, 2022 16:26
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They're all stressed, frustrated, likely drunk, and toxic masculinity-poisoned
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May 30, 2022 16:33
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:Its somewhat more realist than Mearshiemer but still doesn't really seem to add up. It seems to be less an analysis of what will happen and more of an analysis of things Russia wants to happen, which could plausibly come to pass if the West decides that standing up to Russia is not worth it over the long term.
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May 30, 2022 16:36
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cinci zoo sniper posted:I can’t say I find this agreeable, or especially well written, but this makes much more sense than the usual Mearsheimer vomit about Lebensraum. One thing that gets me about this entire analysis: "Moscow seeks to build and consolidate its “sphere of influence” based on a union between Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, which would help it become a major player with significant power projection and new role in the European security architecture." My question is: How does that work, exactly? The entire analysis seems to assume that if Russia successfully defeated the Ukrainian Army and fully annexed Ukraine, suddenly all the economic and demographic resources of Ukraine will just automatically fall into its lap and strengthen the nation, no questions asked, Russia gains +3 to economy, now Russia advances from Major Power to Great Power in the global rankings. But as we're seeing now for Russia to make any gains at all it's proving necessary to shell the ever-loving gently caress out of the country, essentially obliterating its economic potential, killing or displacing many of the potential tax-payers and key middle class workers, and building up a long hard streak of resentment that'll emerge in an essentially endless war of occupation. The economic value of a nation isn't just in raw land, it's in effective control over its human and industrial resources and Russia is using tactics that'll render most of that either very costly to hold or non-existent. Nor is occupation of Ukraine likely to improve the Russian military since it's not bloody likely that they'll be able to get much in the way of Ukrainian military recruits, and they'd actually made a point of bombing Ukraine's military industrial complex as hard as they could early on. So how does planting a Russian flag over a new Afghanistan make Russia stronger and more dangerous than it was before it pissed its military and economy up a wall trying to take Ukraine? Did invading Iraq allow the US to "impose a new Middle Eastern security order"? Why and how is this analysis so blithe in its assumption that Russia will improve in strength with the occupation of Ukraine? All in all this analysis feels almost like it's basing all its judgements solely on "Russia gets bigger on map therefore better."
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May 30, 2022 16:38
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The agricultural resources can be produced with minimal population for starters and are going to be hugely in demand for the rest of the century. That's a shitload of leverage.
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May 30, 2022 16:42
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Emma Ashford, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, thinks admitting Sweden and Finland into NATO is not a good idea: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-30/russia-ukraine-war-finland-and-sweden-may-hurt-nato-more-than-help Interesting point to me was how the two countries have militaries geared towards defending their own territory, which is not very useful for common defense. Also no need to point out that this person has no say in the actual decisions. I know that.
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May 30, 2022 16:42
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aphid_licker posted:They're all stressed, frustrated, likely drunk, and toxic masculinity-poisoned
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May 30, 2022 16:48
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You cannot salvage realism. The entire ideology is incapable of explaining (let alone predicting) the behaviour of a whole host of countries. It is as laughably idiotic as a school of economics that rejects empiricism.
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May 30, 2022 16:55
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d64 posted:Emma Ashford, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, thinks admitting Sweden and Finland into NATO is not a good idea: Plenty of NATO members have less capable militaries than mid-sized American city's police departments. I think they can chip in 43 troops next time NATO decides it needs to bomb someone.
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May 30, 2022 16:57
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d64 posted:Emma Ashford, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, thinks admitting Sweden and Finland into NATO is not a good idea: Counterpoint: they complement each other as well as Norway, and this will further lock down the Baltic Sea, which helps everyone else there (except Russia). Nobody expects them to send carriers to bomb Cuba or something.
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May 30, 2022 16:57
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d64 posted:Emma Ashford, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, thinks admitting Sweden and Finland into NATO is not a good idea: The article posted:Finnish territory, in contrast, is a strategic nightmare. It would dramatically increase the alliance’s exposure to any future attacks by Moscow: the country shares an 800-mile border with Russia that, as a recent study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies put it, is “highly exposed to Russian military threats.” The article posted:It doesn’t take a genius to predict that 32 nations will be even harder to manage than 30. Before its Ukraine moment, NATO was struggling to maintain the peace between Greece and Turkey, few nations were meeting the 2% spending goal, and President Emmanuel Macron of France had drawn headlines for suggesting the alliance was experiencing “brain death.”
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May 30, 2022 16:57
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:
If that is indeed the Russian play I wonder if they actually buy into their own propaganda about the crisis hurting the west economically to the point that Children of Men conditions are supposedly imminent as inflation and energy prices explode and the influx of Ukrainians are claimed to cause everything from crime waves to STDs. Or if the calculus is to just hold on in hopes of US support drying up after mid terms or the next presidential election? d64 posted:Emma Ashford, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, thinks admitting Sweden and Finland into NATO is not a good idea:
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May 30, 2022 16:58
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aphid_licker posted:The agricultural resources can be produced with minimal population for starters and are going to be hugely in demand for the rest of the century. That's a shitload of leverage. Huh? Isn't agriculture one of the most-labor intensive industries in the world? Kinda famous for it, even. For that matter doesn't effective agriculture tend to rely heavily on local knowledge of soil and weather conditions, and just importing strangers to farm tends to result in decreased output for a while? Also even if it's in demand - is it so in demand that it'd be worth spending whatever Russia has been spending up to now to control it? Is control over Ukrainian grain really going to be the thing that propels Russia to new heights on the world stage? I'm not saying that grain is worthless, but I have a hard time seeing how by itself it'll completely transform Russia's strategic capabilities the way that article claims control of Ukraine will. Tomn fucked around with this message at 17:02 on May 30, 2022 |
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May 30, 2022 16:59
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Tomn posted:It's worth noting that if I understood the story right, said near-mutiny didn't actually break out until he was dumb enough to tell someone "20 days left on your contract? Then you have 20 days left to die here." Sensitive, nuanced morale management is not apparently in high supply in Russian command. The first half of this vid has the audio for that incident, i don't speak russian but it's subtitled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASC2bBGN8RY
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May 30, 2022 16:59
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Wibla posted:That sounds like a problem with Turkey and Greece, not to mention the loving French who still have delusions of grandeur (and the nuclear deterrence to go with it). Not Sweden and Finland, who are generally considered fairly reasonable players. Macron's comment was spot on. It followed Trump being deliberately vague on the USA's article 5 commitments among other signals that it would retreat from the world order it had built.
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May 30, 2022 17:03
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Tomn posted:Huh? Isn't agriculture one of the most-labor intensive industries in the world? Kinda famous for it, even. For that matter doesn't effective agriculture tend to rely heavily on local knowledge of soil and weather conditions, and just importing strangers to farm tends to result in decreased output for a while? No, agriculture grows increasingly capital-dependent and therefore labor-efficient each year. Share of population employed in ag: 
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May 30, 2022 17:04
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PerilPastry posted:If that is indeed the Russian play I wonder if they actually buy into their own propaganda about the crisis hurting the west economically to the point that Children of Men conditions are supposedly imminent as inflation and energy prices explode and the influx of Ukrainians are claimed to cause everything from crime waves to STDs. I think they fully believe it because they need too and the media/political culture run on qanon level insane poo poo and has on and off for the last hundred years. Also I don’t think the midterms change much outside and I don’t think Russia army stays intact til 24.
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May 30, 2022 17:07
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Wibla posted:That sounds like a problem with Turkey and Greece, not to mention the loving French who still have delusions of grandeur (and the nuclear deterrence to go with it). Not Sweden and Finland, who are generally considered fairly reasonable players. Also what the gently caress is she talking about with this Turkey and Greece being about to kill each-other in 2022 thing. Like, that's completely made up lol. Yeah they glare at each-other constantly and a saber gets rattled now and again. All of a sudden though for the convenience of her argument they were apparently about to murder one another in open conflict or something? What?
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May 30, 2022 17:10
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Tomn posted:Huh? Isn't agriculture one of the most-labor intensive industries in the world? Kinda famous for it, even. For that matter doesn't effective agriculture tend to rely heavily on local knowledge of soil and weather conditions, and just importing strangers to farm tends to result in decreased output for a while? No, it's massively mechanized, especially for durable bulk goods like wheat and sunflower seeds, and not particularly difficult. Idk if it's worth it since the whole Russian war was started on the idea that it'd be much easier than it turned out, based on noneconomic considerations, and continued out of sunk cost fallacy, but you will def be able to extract a lot of fealty in the coming decades with a couple million tons of spare wheat lying around.
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May 30, 2022 17:15
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d64 posted:Emma Ashford, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, thinks admitting Sweden and Finland into NATO is not a good idea: Russia would never actually attack Sweden or Finland under any circumstances, so there's no point in having them join NATO, but if they try they risk getting attacked by Russia. great analysis, 10/10 would broadcast Russian propaganda again
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May 30, 2022 17:16
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T80BVs being pulled from storage https://mobile.twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1530953529774448641
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May 30, 2022 17:22
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Flappy Bert posted:No, agriculture grows increasingly capital-dependent and therefore labor-efficient each year. Share of population employed in ag: Sure, compared to itself in the past, yes, but compared to other industries isn't it still pretty labor-intensive? Also since you bring it up I went poking around and found this chart on Ukraine's percentage of people employed in agriculture: https://tradingeconomics.com/ukraine/employment-in-agriculture-percent-of-total-employment-wb-data.html Seems like Ukraine used to employ about a quarter to a fifth of its population in agriculture after the fall of the Soviet Union right up to about...2014. I guess Crimea must have been a major agricultural center? Knocked like six percentage points off the share of employment. The percentage now seems to hover around 14% instead. It's honestly kinda interesting - you can SEE the point where the USSR broke up and Ukraine suddenly went hard into labor-intensive agriculture, with the situation only slowly improving at the turn of the millennium until they hit the 2014 wall and everything got disrupted. Did turn out that percentage employed in agriculture is considerably smaller than industry and more importantly services (over 60%!), though, so there's that. aphid_licker posted:No, it's massively mechanized, especially for durable bulk goods like wheat and sunflower seeds, and not particularly difficult. Idk if it's worth it since the whole Russian war was started on the idea that it'd be much easier than it turned out, based on noneconomic considerations, and continued out of sunk cost fallacy, but you will def be able to extract a lot of fealty in the coming decades with a couple million tons of spare wheat lying around. Fair enough, but I still have questions about how, as the Twitter thread stated, this would translate directly into transforming Europe's security situation in Russia's favor and permitting Putin much greater power projection ability than he had before.
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May 30, 2022 17:25
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aphid_licker posted:No, it's massively mechanized, especially for durable bulk goods like wheat and sunflower seeds, and not particularly difficult. Idk if it's worth it since the whole Russian war was started on the idea that it'd be much easier than it turned out, based on noneconomic considerations, and continued out of sunk cost fallacy, but you will def be able to extract a lot of fealty in the coming decades with a couple million tons of spare wheat lying around. And it is a multiplier effect on their own wheat on the Russian side of the border. Also gas and oil (O&G) resources have evidently been fairly recently identified in Ukraine and the black sea which control of the southern coast (and Snake Island) gives access to and again the benefit if which compliments Russia's existing resources. Makes me think, how much was Ukraine eroding Russian arms sales leading up to 2014, 2022?
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May 30, 2022 17:29
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PerilPastry posted:I can't speak to Sweden but as far as Finland is concerned this is the opposite take of every single military analyst I've seen on the subject. She also seems to be expecting the real Russian army to appear any day now
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May 30, 2022 17:34
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d64 posted:Emma Ashford, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, thinks admitting Sweden and Finland into NATO is not a good idea: I think she's dead wrong about the nature of the Finnish border and doesn't take into account the fact that both countries are already deeply involved with NATO and its command structure, with lots of units already working well alongside NATO, if not inside it. They're not just some "extra burden" to be shouldered. That being said, I don't think she's being entirely unreasonable. Admitting Sweden and Finland into NATO comes with costs, not just benefits, and I understand that some Americans might be wary of having more countries under their defense umbrella—the rest of Europe has spent the last 30 years just taking the money they were supposed to invest in their own militaries and put it to other uses, something that is biting them in the rear end very hard right now.
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May 30, 2022 17:39
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Tomn posted:Fair enough, but I still have questions about how, as the Twitter thread stated, this would translate directly into transforming Europe's security situation in Russia's favor and permitting Putin much greater power projection ability than he had before. I assume that "security architecture" and stuff means, like, "they'll declare war on anyone they don't like and send in the tanks," right? "Security" seems to be even more nebulous than the preceding ideas of "defense." e: I am also skeptical that this geo-resource ""realism"" would turn out to be the case. Would it be good for Russia to be able to export more food? Yes. Will it be a way to make money and perhaps earn some favors? Also yes. Is it going to be these Erlich fantasies from the 1970s where Russia's ability to send out a couple of million tons of wheat makes them the boss hog of the world order? I doubt it very much. Nessus fucked around with this message at 18:01 on May 30, 2022 |
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May 30, 2022 17:58
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Electric Wrigglies posted:Also gas and oil (O&G) resources have evidently been fairly recently identified in Ukraine and the black sea which control of the southern coast (and Snake Island) gives access to and again the benefit if which compliments Russia's existing resources. When all is said and done this is likely what all of this was really all about. Cant let a rival develop its energy sector because its a direct threat to your own profits so gotta steal their poo poo.
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May 30, 2022 18:00
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mlmp08 posted:Don’t be all snarky and condescending. Your posts assume a lot without evidence (assuming a lot about what is and is not shared and how it’s shared as well as the future of unannounced weapons proliferations), and your data about air warfare is pretty bad and full of misunderstandings (for example, how wide Ukraine is and how radar works). Sorry that I don’t have a lot of patience for those wanting to pearl clutch over utter nonsense and having to keep reframing their argument to try and save their narrative. And I am pretty sure I know more about aerial warfare, US/NATO systems and capabilities than anyone else in this thread. But you go on living your best life. 
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May 30, 2022 18:01
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Wibla posted:I'm going to cherry-pick a couple of quotes from this article just to point out how dumb this "analysis" is. My favourite part was the implication that Sweden and Finland are guilty of the crime of not meeting financial obligations set for NATO members. I wonder if there is a reason why they haven’t been doing all things that NATO members must do. Tomn posted:Seems like Ukraine used to employ about a quarter to a fifth of its population in agriculture after the fall of the Soviet Union right up to about...2014. I guess Crimea must have been a major agricultural center? Knocked like six percentage points off the share of employment. The percentage now seems to hover around 14% instead. Definitely not, Crimea is hilly, arid, and <5% of population living there. LDNR area soil is not great either, so I don’t know how to explain this other than bunch of farmers saying “lol” and learning to code. The real answer is probably in the general economic changes after the revolution.  The scale on bottom right is % of agriculturally land area that contains especially valuable soil. Electric Wrigglies posted:Also gas and oil (O&G) resources have evidently been fairly recently identified in Ukraine and the black sea which control of the southern coast (and Snake Island) gives access to and again the benefit if which compliments Russia's existing resources. Burns posted:When all is said and done this is likely what all of this was really all about. Cant let a rival develop its energy sector because its a direct threat to your own profits so gotta steal their poo poo. Those amount to less than 1% of what Russia has. Controlling access to them just allows them to spite Ukraine. The net volume of that stuff in Ukraine would be completely exhausted by hypothetical EU consumption in under a decade, assuming optimistic scenario for volume estimates, and no internal consumption or exports to elsewhere.
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May 30, 2022 18:15
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Those amount to less than 1% of what Russia has. Controlling access to them just allows them to spite Ukraine. The net volume of that stuff in Ukraine would be completely exhausted by hypothetical EU consumption in under a decade, assuming optimistic scenario for volume estimates, and no internal consumption or exports to elsewhere.
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May 30, 2022 18:18
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Djarum posted:Sorry that I don’t have a lot of patience for those wanting to pearl clutch over utter nonsense and having to keep reframing their argument to try and save their narrative. At this rate your rhetorical airframe may end up too close to the Sun. I would take the foot off the pedal if I were you.
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May 30, 2022 18:18
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Djarum posted:And I am pretty sure I know more about aerial warfare, US/NATO systems and capabilities than anyone else in this thread. But you go on living your best life. I know alot about them, as well.
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May 30, 2022 18:21
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Can't we just give Ukraine the Babylon Gun so they can finally hit the Crimean bridge. -- Ukraine is conducting counter offensives today aswell with some small gains made in the north of the kherson region. Ukrainian AF is also running sorties in Izyum with apparent larger gatherings of Russian soldiers targeted. I'd wait for the ISW confirmation on these things being true or successful. But here are the original sources: https://t.me/lumsrc/1621 https://t.me/hueviykharkov/62445
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May 30, 2022 18:27
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Dapper_Swindler posted:I think they fully believe it because they need too and the media/political culture run on qanon level insane poo poo and has on and off for the last hundred years. Also I don’t think the midterms change much outside and I don’t think Russia army stays intact til 24. Usually when your options are cut down to either "believe crazyass thing which might save us" or "admit all is lost, go to my room, lie down, and cry", most people will believe the crazyass thing.
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May 30, 2022 18:28
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Someone did the math (and the legal math) on tariffs as an alternative to embargo. https://twitter.com/lugaricano/status/1531242958552547328
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May 30, 2022 18:30
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PerilPastry posted:If that is indeed the Russian play I wonder if they actually buy into their own propaganda about the crisis hurting the west economically to the point that Children of Men conditions are supposedly imminent as inflation and energy prices explode and the influx of Ukrainians are claimed to cause everything from crime waves to STDs. The Russian government may believe this is coming, and is just waiting for it to start happening, but it is an illusion. I cannot really speak to Europe, but in North America this seems like a quick way to 1) discover your co-worker is a 5th generation Ukrainian and 2) break your nose.
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May 30, 2022 18:37
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https://twitter.com/abarbashin/status/1531298807069171720 Interesting read, if a bit heavy on actual political science.
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May 30, 2022 18:53
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d64 posted:Emma Ashford, a fellow at the Atlantic Council, thinks admitting Sweden and Finland into NATO is not a good idea: Emma Ashford has a controversial pro-Russian authoritarianism agenda that is acknowledged and has caused consternation from members of that same organisation. https://fletcher.tufts.edu/news-events/news/three-ways-looking-think-tank-kerfuffle https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/11/atlantic-council-russia-us-policy-475297 The article in question: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/reality-check/reality-check-4-focus-on-interests-not-on-human-rights-with-russia/ It's a strange article, it seems to be based on the assumption that the US raising issues of the erosion of human rights under authoritarianism and imposing sanctions for human rights abuses is intended to be a way to force democratization on Russia at the expense of US strategic goals. This was penned almost a year before the war... Paired with the quoted article I get the feeling that Emma Ashford has some Cyrillic in her bank account records?
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May 30, 2022 19:04
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Greggster posted:To me it feels like magic (deadly, deadly magic) to be able to shoot actual shells those distances, at what range do you start to need to calculate in the roundness of Earth? If you think that's crazy, imagine firing cannons like from a moving ship, out on the ocean, at a moving target. Using the technology available in the mid 1910s. That's how naval battles were in WW1.
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May 30, 2022 19:09
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cinci zoo sniper posted:https://twitter.com/abarbashin/status/1531298807069171720 I think this raises some good points. Snyder's use of the term fascism is to suggest that Russia can only meet the same fate as germany. It is an argument about a solution, not a real discussion of its political structure. That said, I'm always hesitant to use a 90 y/o ideology to describe modern states, you can say narratives in Russia resemble fascist narratives in WW2, and I'd support that. Different to suggest that Russia is truly a fascist state, and what difference does it make if it a paternal autocracy rather than a fascist state in terms of the suffering it inflicts?
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