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Part of the nature of the Russian state is that it's hard to tell whether Russian oligarchs buying up Finnish real estate was a state sponsored plan or just some new summer dachas. It was informal and deniable, and even if they were intended to be used as resupply points they may have just been currying favor in advance rather than being personally directed to do so. Russia isn't an irrational actor though, they're playing by a different set of rules. They're just playing badly.
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Jan 8, 2023 17:32
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mlmp08 posted:If you take that tack far enough, then humanity itself is irrational based on lovely long-term planning. It makes the typical "rational actor" term used most commonly by people useless to take it that far, though. People have made some pretty compelling arguments that both individuals and groups often do not behave "rationally" in this sense, but then it applies to a much wider array of actors than Russia. If you're going to ignore the assumptions and context behind decision-making, then the word "rational" also no longer has meaning. By your logic, a serial killer who believes everyone else is a genocidal replicant while he's the last human on earth is also a rational actor, because from his perspective it's justifiable self-defense.
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Jan 8, 2023 18:03
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Alchenar posted:Everyone in Eastern Europe over the age of about 40 has actual personal memory of living under the Russian Empire so you can forgive them for not being too sympathetic for the 'well it would be a terrible idea and after a few decades they'd have to give up and go home' argument. And when a living finn tells me about how awful the Suomi SSR was, I will be really concerned for their security. Until then, my focus will be on people who currently, right now, in 2023, are threatened by Russian and have people killed by Russia.
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Jan 8, 2023 19:10
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Quixzlizx posted:If you're going to ignore the assumptions and context behind decision-making, then the word "rational" also no longer has meaning. By your logic, a serial killer who believes everyone else is a genocidal replicant while he's the last human on earth is also a rational actor, because from his perspective it's justifiable self-defense. Yeah, the Russian state is acting rationally based on flawed axioms (Russian "Greatness" is a thing they should care about; the way to achieve "Greatness" is via military might and expanding territory like some sort of 18th century monarch; other nations also somehow care about "Greatness" and are planning to invade Russia and thus must be forestalled; democratic movements aren't real but are evidence of American-driven puppeteering, so we don't have to worry about maintaining control over subjugated populations; racism is a valid framework and it means Ukrainians are inherently weaker than Moscovites and will welcome their rule; randomized terror bombing of civilians is an effective way to subjugate a population and make them surrender to your rule; etc.) Basically Putin is sane and rational by all clinical definitions but bugfuck crazy stupid by any conversational definition.
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Jan 8, 2023 19:31
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Quixzlizx posted:is a genocidal replicant while he's the last human on earth is also a rational actor, because from his perspective it's justifiable self-defense. I don’t think Russia’s perspective is that absurd.
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Jan 8, 2023 19:34
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Ultimately Russia's actions are irrational in the sense that they do not directly or indirectly increase the chances of Russia's survival. You could say that pure, cold, hard realpolitik is rational if it increases your country's power, but funneling lives and materiel into a dark pit of a forever war at your border that you yourself unleashed (notwithstanding NATO encroachment smokescreens which are the direct consequences of your foreign policy) and could end at any time while pissing away international goodwill in pursuit of nostalgic imperialist ambitions that are impossible to realize in TYOOL 2022 is not furthering those goals. EDIT: the rational course of action might have been after the failed Kyiv offensive, to realize plan A (a hail Mary gamble of an offensive) failed and it was time for plan B (ie, some token victory and return to status quo as fast as possible since your gamble did not pay off). In that sense Russia has been acting increasingly irrationally since mid-2022, presumably because there was no plan B, and again, presumably, because Russian victory is a delusional self-evident result and the only question was how fast we got from invasion to victory, rather than taking into account the very real possibility that you might lose (that scenario was ideologically unacceptable and thus not worth considering). I guess Putin himself is acting rationally in the sense that he does not want to get Mussolini'd, which is a real risk if he loosens the reins a bit or is seen to lose the war publicly. Deltasquid fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Jan 8, 2023 |
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Jan 8, 2023 19:38
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I'm not clear on what behavior can reliably count as "irrational"; like other such frameworks, it seems extremely resistant to falsification.
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Jan 8, 2023 19:43
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Here's some more information about yesterday's mistaken interpretation of Finnish parliamentary defence committee's chairman's words. It's a pretty hilarious example of lazy journalism: https://www.iltalehti.fi/ulkomaat/a/96880399-3fb1-463d-a845-d5e13d9d21c3 quote:Häkkäsen lausunto on yksinkertaisesti ymmärretty väärin. Esimerkiksi Kyiv Independent kertoo omassa jutussaan, että Suomi on valmis toimittamaan Leopardeja Ukrainaan, mikäli Eurooppa näyttää asialle vihreää valoa. tuuma = inch (like tum in Swedish) tuuma = thought (loaned from Russian dumat) yksi tuuma = one inch yksissä tuumin = thinking as one/with united thoughts
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Jan 8, 2023 19:45
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Discendo Vox posted:I'm not clear on what behavior can reliably count as "irrational"; like other such frameworks, it seems extremely resistant to falsification. Depends on what you expect states to do. If we take the pure realpolitik school of international relations, states exist to compete with other states and come out on top. See e.g. this blog post explaining the "red queen" concept. quote:One way to think about this (following an IR Neorealism lens) is that the basic goal of all states is to survive. People in power generally want to stay in power; failing that, they want to stay alive. State extinctions – when the state is absorbed or destroyed – pretty much always push the leaders of the old state out of power and frequently kill them. Consequently, regardless of what the common people may want, the leaders of states who make actual decisions will almost always want the state to continue existing (because, after all, that state represents a social order that, by definition, the leaders are at the top of); they will be more attached to this goal than any other collective goal (though they may well prioritize individual advancement over collective security, but that’s a discussion for another time). Consequently, states tend to behave as if survival is their highest priority. Assuming Russia operates within this framework - and that is indeed what IR scholars argue and how they seem to act, as they project this worldview on other countries- then the irrational actions are the ones that lead to destruction of your state, whereas rational actions are those that lead to survival of your state. And, in turn, if Russia acts in a way that makes everybody think "oh boy, this is going to end poorly for them" (eg, invading Ukraine with the army they have) and is not conducive to their survival as a state, then that leads to people calling out the actions as irrational.
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Jan 8, 2023 19:51
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https://twitter.com/ThomasVLinge/status/1612158339181416449
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Jan 8, 2023 19:55
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how much of a threat is the belarussian army?
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Jan 8, 2023 19:57
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Artillery fire in Revachol
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Jan 8, 2023 20:00
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Shibawanko posted:how much of a threat is the belarussian army? None. Their defense budget is lower than any of the baltic states individually. Even less motivation to fight Ukrainians, especially after it has been going badly The real concern is if Russia amasses a force there again to attack from the north which is unlikely for now
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Jan 8, 2023 20:07
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Shibawanko posted:how much of a threat is the belarussian army? Ukrainian officials are saying that they don’t see a scenario where they get involved, but on paper it’s an underfunded, relative to Russian armed forces, light/mechanised infantry force of about 40 thousand, with the military experience of… advising Gaddafi.
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Jan 8, 2023 20:23
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I wonder how much of Belarusias military vehicle stock has been "borrowed" to bolster russian losses? Would factor into any attempted invasion from that direction.
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Jan 8, 2023 21:08
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Just Another Lurker posted:I wonder how much of Belarusias military vehicle stock has been "borrowed" to bolster russian losses? According to Muzyka, that might be going on. https://rochanconsulting.substack.com/p/satellite-imagery-analysis-969th-380
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Jan 8, 2023 21:17
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Just Another Lurker posted:I wonder how much of Belarusias military vehicle stock has been "borrowed" to bolster russian losses? Equipment can't refuse to go. The personnel can, and there's more Belarusian volunteers fighting for Ukraine than there are in Wagner etc. Given the events of 2020 (and the general state of the army) it's hard to see how any attempt to mobilize for invasion would result in anything other than an open rebellion.
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Jan 8, 2023 21:31
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah, the Russian state is acting rationally based on flawed axioms (Russian "Greatness" is a thing they should care about; the way to achieve "Greatness" is via military might and expanding territory like some sort of 18th century monarch; other nations also somehow care about "Greatness" and are planning to invade Russia and thus must be forestalled; democratic movements aren't real but are evidence of American-driven puppeteering, so we don't have to worry about maintaining control over subjugated populations; racism is a valid framework and it means Ukrainians are inherently weaker than Moscovites and will welcome their rule; randomized terror bombing of civilians is an effective way to subjugate a population and make them surrender to your rule; etc.) Essentially this. They're incompetent, corrupt and disorganized which leads to bad outcomes, but it doesn't make them crazy. Indeed, people looting the system before it collapses are probably more rational than the guys willing to fight and die for the invasion. It is a mistake though to look at the corruption and incompetence and conclude everyone is irrational. Organizations can (and usually do) fail through perfectly rational means.
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Jan 8, 2023 21:33
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Deltasquid posted:I guess Putin himself is acting rationally in the sense that he does not want to get Mussolini'd, which is a real risk if he loosens the reins a bit or is seen to lose the war publicly. Putin is acting 'hardcoded' which is a specific way of being irrational. Trend with aging dictators or anyone who gets to be a single point of failure in an operation They have a script and it was obviously successful for some reason even if just mostly circumstantial and less related to merit But even if it was merit based its built around a way things aren't anymore and probably hasn't been for along time
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Jan 8, 2023 21:39
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What's irrational is that the traditional way of doing things i.e. limited military involvement to carve out a chunk of a country with hazy justification and create a frozen conflict was working to defang NATO. Putin was absolutely creating tension within NATO and the EU about how to respond and if those organisations could effectively respond while projecting strength internationally due to the ineffective response from supposed world powers. If he or in the case of his death the Russian successor state to his regime just continued the path they had established, they could have wedged and seriously damaged or even dissolved one or two of those orgs in a few decades or so. Nothing on the time scale of a state. But apparently acting with near impunity wasn't as attractive as the possibility of acting with complete impunity.
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Jan 8, 2023 22:42
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There's a reason all the military/diplomatic specialists this time last year were saying 'this is all a bluff' and all the Kremlin watchers were saying 'no, Putin is absolutely serious and not bluffing about this'. In the Kremlin's perception of What Russia Is, a neutral or Western Friendly Ukraine is an existential threat to the concept of a Russia that is the natural overlord and protector of all Russian peoples. If Ukraine is not a Russian client state then Russia is not an Empire, and if Russia is not an Empire then it is not a Great Power that can sit at the top table with the US and China.
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Jan 8, 2023 22:53
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fez_machine posted:What's irrational is that the traditional way of doing things i.e. limited military involvement to carve out a chunk of a country with hazy justification and create a frozen conflict was working to defang NATO. I don't think Putin wanted to continue the 2014 status quo and western sanctions (as feeble as they were) indefinitely, and Ukraine wouldn't bend to the concessions that he wanted to end the conflict. Meanwhile the unrest in Belarus in 2020 showed that the structure that he had been building was vulnerable even from within and he needed to act to keep order in his empire. The poisoning of Alexei Navalny happened only a couple of weeks after the Belarus presidential election which can't have been just a coincidence, it was because Putin was afraid that things would really slip out of hand. Wanting to find a way out of that situation is in itself rational. Whether the decision to invade was rational depends in the end on the information that his lackeys were feeding him. All reports tell that Putin listens only to a very small inner circle and he doesn't use the internet at all, so he lives in his own echo chamber.
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Jan 8, 2023 23:15
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Libluini posted:I actually used some, so you're wrong. I even looked at Wikipedia before making that post to see if my memory held up, so you're not only wrong, but embarrassingly wrong. You need a lot of insulation to prevent heat from seeping through walls. There are ways to obscure soldiers, e.g. by hiding behind a heater and not moving, but that's not really feasible to do for long or in large scale in an embattled city, for obvious reasons. If there's people or a building heating behind it that may influence readings depending on heating power and building configuration but that's it. You can easily spot someone hiding in let's say a wheelie bin because they'll just heat the whole thing after a couple minutes. Behind a structural wall there's no way to tell. mlmp08 posted:If you take that tack far enough, then humanity itself is irrational based on lovely long-term planning. evil_bunnY fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Jan 9, 2023 |
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Jan 9, 2023 02:03
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A lot of that's just diffusion of responsibility and risk/reward distribution of climate action being skewed for many actors at the very least in the short and mid term, all of which likely happens in foreign policy decisionmaking as well.
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Jan 9, 2023 02:43
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The question of whether or not Putin/Russia is rational keeps coming up every so often, and I feel like part of the problem is that people mean different things by the word "irrational." Is it describing patterns of thought, actions, or the fundamental ability to reason? Is it a pejorative or descriptive term? And part of THAT issue I think is that in common use related phrases like "crazy" aren't exactly used with pinpoint precision. It's like having the following discussion over and over again: "Wow, Crazy's Vlad's prices are absolutely insane!" "No. Vlad is merely energetic as part of an advertising persona, and his prices are low as part of a rational marketing strategy to boost sales. He is entirely sane." "I mean OK yes granted but dude his prices are so low that he's selling out of limited stock he can't easily replace in bulk, and he could raise his prices significantly and STILL sell out pretty quickly. It may be part of his marketing strategy but he's actively leaving money on the table." "That does not mean he is incapable of rational thought. It merely means he is stupid and has incorrectly weighted the importance of driving sales."
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Jan 9, 2023 03:15
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Yeah rationality is basically a three dollar word and additionally discussions of it usually fail to account for how massive the gaps almost always are between publicly stated goals and intentions vs actual goals and intentions. It's almost always more useful to just try to discern the actual goals and intentions, particularly as you can't even begin to ascribe rationality until that is known. Somewhat related: I recently saw some push to describe Putin's actions as being motivated by regime security (as opposed to national security), which while not an entirely fitting explanation does at least point in the right direction. It's also a useful perspective for understanding why Russian nationalists are full of contempt for the conduct of the war, which is quite abjectly a failure from any perspective prioritizing Russian national security. It's not an especially great explanation, but Russian policy towards Ukraine is more defined by conflicting and contradictory russian interests and aims than it is by any particularly strong unitary motivation. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Jan 9, 2023 |
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Jan 9, 2023 03:36
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I thought we weren't allowed to have this discussion. Or is it open season again on this topic?
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Jan 9, 2023 06:43
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MikeC posted:I thought we weren't allowed to have this discussion. Or is it open season again on this topic? Am I allowed to sleep?
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Jan 9, 2023 06:47
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No sleep, only maps (globes are also fine).
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Jan 9, 2023 09:14
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Somebody asked about Bradleys vs Marders and I don't think ever got an answer. I am not a Marder expert but on paper the Bradley has a moderately more powerful and versatile cannon and a farther-ranging, harder-hitting antitank missile system (TOW vs Milan) that is also better protected during crew operation. Marder is about 10MPH faster than Bradley. Marder carries six infantry, Bradley carries six in its infantry fighting vehicle configuration and just two (scouts) in its M3 "fighting vehicle" configuration (it's not a light tank Uncle Sam, I swear). I suspect the Bradley has better survivability but both of these are still vulnerable to RPG strikes and certainly to any functioning ATGM designed in the past 40 years. There are Bradley crew here who are welcome to correct me (as is anyone else). If I were a mech infantry commander in a fast-moving offensive, I'd want Marders to carry my guys, but Bradleys available on overwatch would be nice, too! More professional, though also light, analysis here:https://en.defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tech/german_marder_vs_american_bradley_comparing_the_really_important_details_that_matter-5360.html. Sensors and C2 are far superior in the Bradley, though C2 advantage might be mooted by (presumed) lack of digital C2 at the infantry level of the UAF and made up for by Ukrainian field-expedient solutions like their interface for firing the AGM-88 HARM from Soviet airframes. Lars! fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Jan 9, 2023 |
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Jan 9, 2023 13:54
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Always feels like anyone who could actually authoritatively answer a question like that has signed terrifying documents to ensure that they can't
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Jan 9, 2023 15:22
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Gort posted:Always feels like anyone who could actually authoritatively answer a question like that has signed terrifying documents to ensure that they can't There’s always a surprising amount of info available publicly for any US platform. Most of our combat doctrine is unclassified, and the general info about a thing will usually be available. It might be in an obscure place (like the GAO report I found earlier on Bradley/Abrams combat effectiveness in the first gulf war), but it’s typically out there somewhere. If you’re lucky it’s not buried in a few thousand pages of congressional reports 
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Jan 9, 2023 15:34
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Brad is better on paper, but in practical use they are comparable I think.
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Jan 9, 2023 15:41
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UK considering supplying Ukraine with Challenger 2 tanks to fight Russian forcesquote:The UK is considering supplying Ukraine with British tanks for the first time to fight Russia's invading forces, Sky News understands.
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Jan 9, 2023 16:57
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Deteriorata posted:UK considering supplying Ukraine with Challenger 2 tanks to fight Russian forces If BoJo was still there this would already be done. (Im not a huge BoJo fan but Ukraine support was a upside). As some others have pointed out maybe gas guzzling complex to maintain MBTs is maybe not the best for ukraine right now but im sure their commanders will make good decisions on that so its good to have the option. Seems there is some movement from the West lately, I wonder if its due to developments (Russian attack from north, Ukraine struggling/stalling). There was some article recently where some military guys said that Ukraine really needs attack drones, I hope these will also be forthcoming. Britain does have some capability there as well? These they probably dont want to fall in Russian hands though...
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Jan 9, 2023 17:08
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Its of course motivated primarily by the UK Government feeling left out by France, the US and Germany sending IFVs (and it struggling domestically with unpopularity, weak economy and ongoing transport and nurses strikes) Not sure 10 tanks would really be that useful given tiny number, complicated logistics and training needs, etc, but it would break the invisible wall of no one wanting to be first, and hopefully help put the question of providing Western MBTs in more serious numbers (ie: Abrams or Leopard 2) on the table. It should of course be acknowledged that multiple Eastern Europe countries already donated many of their own, Soviet-era MBTs much earlier in the conflict.
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Jan 9, 2023 17:41
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Isn't there a standardised NATO tank? Just wondering as the concern of here's a handful of another tank that you need to train the operation and maintenance. Seems like it will segment things even more.
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Jan 9, 2023 18:02
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Sad Panda posted:Isn't there a standardised NATO tank? Just wondering as the concern of here's a handful of another tank that you need to train the operation and maintenance. Seems like it will segment things even more. No, there isn’t indeed.
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Jan 9, 2023 18:03
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Sad Panda posted:Isn't there a standardised NATO tank? Just wondering as the concern of here's a handful of another tank that you need to train the operation and maintenance. Seems like it will segment things even more. Ammo and electronics compatibility but think that’s it.
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Jan 9, 2023 18:04
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Sad Panda posted:Isn't there a standardised NATO tank? Just wondering as the concern of here's a handful of another tank that you need to train the operation and maintenance. Seems like it will segment things even more. US, Germany, France and UK all made their own, and only the first two made them in significant numbers --- with the German Leopard 2s mostly split over a whole bunch of countries with most having tiny numbers. (And Poland is starting on using Korean tanks). Edit: actually there were more built than I thought, but I don't know how many are in repairable state? OddObserver fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jan 9, 2023 |
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Jan 9, 2023 18:17
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