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galagazombie posted:This is why I always take doomposting about US/Western military capabilities with a big grain of salt. There is a rich history of the MIC saying that the 1991 Soviet Union is poised to overrun Europe if we don’t cancel all social programs and give them lots of money. Kinda like what's going on with the leaks now being disseminated by WaPo that seem to suggest that America's allies should buy more American weapons.
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Apr 20, 2023 08:23
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the fact that the mic and their assorted thinktanks will always predict doom and gloom to drive arms sales doesn't necessarily mean that they're always wrong about the facts, tho
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Apr 20, 2023 08:36
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galagazombie posted:This is why I always take doomposting about US/Western military capabilities with a big grain of salt. There is a rich history of the MIC saying that the 1991 Soviet Union is poised to overrun Europe if we don’t cancel all social programs and give them lots of money. you can definitely rely on the big contractors and their ghoul mouthpieces to be all chicken little about this stuff, it makes sense for them to clamor for more cash no matter what, but i think it's important to remember the government spent basically half a trillion dollars on a fighter jet that doesn't work. that ain't even an outlier either aside from the scale of it, the MIC is raking in more money than they ever have to make stupid bullshit that doesn't work, instead of manufacturing stuff that's less lucrative but is actually useful. just because the worst people are saying something doesn't necessarily mean it isn't true (but when it is true it's never for the reasons they say, which i think is the important bit)
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Apr 20, 2023 10:52
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Cerebral Bore posted:the fact that the mic and their assorted thinktanks will always predict doom and gloom to drive arms sales doesn't necessarily mean that they're always wrong about the facts, tho yea they couldn't even beat the Taliban, they're losers that have lost almost every war since 1945
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Apr 20, 2023 10:58
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galagazombie posted:This is why I always take doomposting about US/Western military capabilities with a big grain of salt. There is a rich history of the MIC saying that the 1991 Soviet Union is poised to overrun Europe if we don’t cancel all social programs and give them lots of money. They could have and should have if Gorbachev wasn’t naïve and Yeltsin wasn’t a traitor.
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Apr 20, 2023 13:20
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Zhukov should’ve stopped at
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Apr 20, 2023 13:23
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Isentropy posted:Zhukov should’ve stopped at Admittedly, it would have been kind of a fun what if, if the Soviets had kept Japan in the war by delaying August storm (and giving some assurances after Nagasaki) and in turn just completely push everything into Germany in late summer after the supply lines started to catch up. It wasn't going to happen but that was probably the only opening. Ardennes has issued a correction as of 13:41 on Apr 20, 2023 |
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Apr 20, 2023 13:34
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I am more and more convinced they just needed to assign one state design bureau to blue jeans and another to rock and roll, while buying bananas from Angola.
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Apr 20, 2023 13:38
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Frosted Flake posted:I am more and more convinced they just needed to assign one state design bureau to blue jeans and another to rock and roll, while buying bananas from Angola. this and maybe also buy pineapples from somehwere
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Apr 20, 2023 14:00
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the soviet union could have won the culture wars if they had simply nationalized kino and grazhdanskaya oborona
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Apr 20, 2023 14:10
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In all honesty, the Soviets could have held things together if parts of the country wasn’t running out of even bread and even Moscow had a very beet heavy diet. It not really about rock and roll or blue jeans, people were literally going hungry by 1990. By 1991, they only had about 5-5.5b of gold reserves left. It wasn't all a lie, the question is how it got there. Ardennes has issued a correction as of 17:04 on Apr 20, 2023 |
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Apr 20, 2023 14:20
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lobster shirt posted:the soviet union could have won the culture wars if they had simply nationalized kino and grazhdanskaya oborona https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvMDJvlRKC4
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Apr 20, 2023 14:20
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Lostconfused posted:socialism with psychedelic characteristics feel like pure poo poo just want him back x
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Apr 20, 2023 14:24
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I think the main difference is just how obviously far into decline Western societies are compared to where they at the end of the Cold War. These think tanks were over estimating Soviet Capabilities in the late 80s. But now we are in that spot the Soviets were between 1986-91. So I wonder if these reports sometime arent down playing just how bad things out of denialism while still trying to do the make it look bad so LockMart gets more contracts. Like if were talkong about replenishing stocks of artillery we've sent to Ukraine and Javelins in the time frame of maybe a decade and we're doing things like ordering replacement missiles at boutique numbers instead mass numbers you would expect for expenditure both in use and for training I think demonstrates that yeah there is a rot here. Its just the last 20 years has seen an explosion in the propaganda to paper over the obvious rot and people went a long with it because Americans have convinced themsleves it can't be that bad, or it must be worse somewhere else. I think COVID really did a number on just highlighting every single crisis and failure of Late Capitalism, like I didn't even know till recently that last year there was a paper stock shortage and maybe has cleared up by now, but no one is really talking or covering it, because oh yeah theres a paper ahortage sounds like sometbjnf people would say about something in the Soviet Union in 1988
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Apr 20, 2023 15:52
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Not war related but I've seen more homeless people in the past few months than in the past five years, and the cold/flu shelves at the drug market are still empty. The societal rot is obvious, it's there for everyone to see. We're just choosing to ignore it in hopes that it sorts its self out somehow.
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Apr 20, 2023 15:59
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Lostconfused posted:socialism with psychedelic characteristics
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Apr 20, 2023 16:03
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paper stock shortage is still a thing and likely to persist or just become baked in because russia is a major supplier of timber, paper stock, and paper, and also paper production is very energy intensive so lol for europe the us ought to be fine because it is also a major exporter of timber, manufacturer of paper, and has abundant energy supplies but with everything so globalized i have no idea if "ought to be fine" means "is actually fine". like iirc our toilet paper shortage cleared pretty easily because manufacturers just had to switch from commercial to residential stock.
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Apr 20, 2023 16:09
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KomradeX posted:I think the main difference is just how obviously far into decline Western societies are compared to where they at the end of the Cold War. These think tanks were over estimating Soviet Capabilities in the late 80s. But now we are in that spot the Soviets were between 1986-91. So I wonder if these reports sometime arent down playing just how bad things out of denialism while still trying to do the make it look bad so LockMart gets more contracts. I would say the West has perhaps a slower burning but larger systemic issue. The Soviets put themselves in a position where they ran out of cash, but if they had worked out a deal with OPEC (theoretically) it may have stopped a collapse. The system (beyond the post 1985 leadership) wasn’t the problem but the pressure being placed on it was too much for it to handle. The Soviets were obviously way too pumped up as a threat but I don’t actually think the Soviet military was a shell either but the economy sustaining it simply couldn’t function without trade inputs. The West’s issues are a lot deeper and I don’t think are easily fixable, successive generations made the system like this for a reason. You can’t really throw cash at it, trillions can flow through it like nothing. We don’t really know the conclusion at this point but the system is running how it is suppose to. Ardennes has issued a correction as of 16:13 on Apr 20, 2023 |
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Apr 20, 2023 16:10
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I assume paper shortages are good for Canada, because we've got lots of empty land with trees and our entire economy is based on providing raw materials to USA.
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Apr 20, 2023 16:11
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Lostconfused posted:I assume paper shortages are good for Canada, because we've got lots of empty land with trees and our entire economy is based on providing raw materials to USA. What about your vital 'providing real estate to Chinese millionaires' sector?
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Apr 20, 2023 16:23
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Ardennes posted:It really about rock and roll or blue jeans, people were literally going hungry by 1990. By 1991, they only had about 5-5.5b of gold reserves left. I remember reading a 1986 CIA report (it might have been in the WorldBook, this was in college) stating that the average Russian/Soviet (I forget which specifically) consumed more calories daily than the average American. how did things get so bad so quickly? how did they not have the food situation together in the fuckin 80s?
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Apr 20, 2023 16:25
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Lostconfused posted:Not war related but I've seen more homeless people in the past few months than in the past five years, and the cold/flu shelves at the drug market are still empty. I don't think it's that simple. you really only go to the store for flu/cold medicine what, twice a year? a bit more if you have young kids and don't stock up. otherwise you're not even registering that section of the aisle. you drive to a couple stores til you get what you need and myopically extrapolate "wow I guess everyone's sick." it's hard to realize a pattern in a place you rarely visit, and nobody's taught us to pick up on cues like that, so I’m not sure it's a choice as much as obliviousness the cascading amphetamine shortage, though, is loving bonkers and a big red flag. it's been like 8 months and they forecast a resolution in "a few more weeks"
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Apr 20, 2023 16:32
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indigi posted:I remember reading a 1986 CIA report (it might have been in the WorldBook, this was in college) stating that the average Russian/Soviet (I forget which specifically) consumed more calories daily than the average American. how did things get so bad so quickly? how did they not have the food situation together in the fuckin 80s? you know all that b-roll footage of empty of stores and breadlines that is always shown in documentaries and on tv about russia? all of that stuff was shot after Gorby did his reforms. How did the food situation get so hosed? Neoliberalism.
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Apr 20, 2023 16:33
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lobster shirt posted:paper stock shortage is still a thing and likely to persist or just become baked in because russia is a major supplier of timber, paper stock, and paper, and also paper production is very energy intensive so lol for europe Ahh, that makes sense. I thought it was just weird I had not heard about it before till I backed a kickstarter the other day that said that fulfillment might be delayed thanks to the paper shortage. This is based in the UK so lolz but I figured the printing would be done in China like everything else Ardennes posted:I would say the West has perhaps a slower burning but larger systemic issue. The Soviets put themselves in a position where they ran out of cash, but if they had worked out a deal with OPEC (theoretically) it may have stopped a collapse. The system (beyond the post 1985 leadership) wasn’t the problem but the pressure being placed on it was too much for it to handle. The Soviets were obviously way too pumped up as a threat but I don’t actually think the Soviet military was a shell either but the economy sustaining it simply couldn’t function without trade inputs. Well yeah thats the difference the Soviets mismanaged themselves to destruction, though I don't know how much of a deal with OPEC they could have cut with how close the US was to many of the OPEC countries in the 80s. It really shows how people can sense the blood in the water that they didn't go with our plan to do it to Russia again at the start of the war we provoked. But yes the big difference is the Soviet system fell apart from mismanagement, while Western Capitalism is in full free fall because its functioning the way it was ment to
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Apr 20, 2023 16:39
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What’s a good book to read on the decline/fall of the Soviet Union? It feels like something I should know about but I don’t even know where to start.
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Apr 20, 2023 16:41
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ro5s posted:What’s a good book to read on the decline/fall of the Soviet Union? It feels like something I should know about but I don’t even know where to start. Haven't read it yet, but Collapse is supposed to be good. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300268171/collapse/
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Apr 20, 2023 16:45
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Ardennes posted:I would say the West has perhaps a slower burning but larger systemic issue. The Soviets put themselves in a position where they ran out of cash, but if they had worked out a deal with OPEC (theoretically) it may have stopped a collapse. The system (beyond the post 1985 leadership) wasn’t the problem but the pressure being placed on it was too much for it to handle. The Soviets were obviously way too pumped up as a threat but I don’t actually think the Soviet military was a shell either but the economy sustaining it simply couldn’t function without trade inputs. Also IIRC OPEC was flooding the market with oil in order to screw over the Iranians, but that also had a (completely intended) side effect of screwing over the Soviets and making the Iraqis dependent on gulf financing. So it's hard to see OPEC cutting a deal to drive up prices for the benefit of the Soviets without some major pushback from the US.
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Apr 20, 2023 16:47
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sullat posted:Also IIRC OPEC was flooding the market with oil in order to screw over the Iranians, but that also had a (completely intended) side effect of screwing over the Soviets and making the Iraqis dependent on gulf financing. So it's hard to see OPEC cutting a deal to drive up prices for the benefit of the Soviets without some major pushback from the US. That why I was saying theoretically, as unlikely as it was, it pretty much would be the only thing that could save them at that point. They were simply running out of their reserves too quickly. That said, there are some oddities about the 1990-91, while immense pressure was being placed on the Soviet Union as a whole, the 1990 harvest was actually pretty good. The Western press wrote off it as “inefficient” Soviet distribution but they hadn’t had that issue to that degree at that point. The LA Times claimed there were train cars filled with rotting meat around Moscow and that simply they couldn’t get it into stores. On paper, there shouldn’t have been the hunger that was going on, but nevertheless it happened. Overall, their fiscal situation was miserable but there are some lingering questions of what was exactly happening at that time. Ardennes has issued a correction as of 17:06 on Apr 20, 2023 |
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Apr 20, 2023 17:01
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ro5s posted:What’s a good book to read on the decline/fall of the Soviet Union? It feels like something I should know about but I don’t even know where to start. Kotkin's Armageddon Averted
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Apr 20, 2023 17:03
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gradenko_2000 posted:Kotkin's Armageddon Averted genericnick posted:Haven't read it yet, but Collapse is supposed to be good. Thanks, I'll take a look at both of these.
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Apr 20, 2023 18:08
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Mantis42 posted:yea they couldn't even beat the Taliban, they're losers that have lost almost every war since 1945 If they beat the Taliban and win the war that means the budget gets cut. Victory is bad for business. [Leaving aside the greater concern that this isn't possible.]
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Apr 20, 2023 18:10
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not going to read the details of this but: owned. https://news.usni.org/2023/04/20/ra...cs-construction
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Apr 20, 2023 20:47
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galagazombie posted:This is why I always take doomposting about US/Western military capabilities with a big grain of salt. There is a rich history of the MIC saying that the 1991 Soviet Union is poised to overrun Europe if we don’t cancel all social programs and give them lots of money. the Soviet military would have absolutely won a conventional war in Europe pretty much right up to the point the Berlin Wall came down, which is why the West's plans for fighting the Soviets involved deploying nukes early and often
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Apr 20, 2023 20:48
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Mister Bates posted:the Soviet military would have absolutely won a conventional war in Europe pretty much right up to the point the Berlin Wall came down, which is why the West's plans for fighting the Soviets involved deploying nukes early and often yes indeed this is a major reason why the usa never articulated a no first use policy, it would be tantamount to saying "we will not defend our nato allies in a conventional war with nukes" which is tantamount to saying "we will lose a war in europe"
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Apr 20, 2023 20:55
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ro5s posted:What’s a good book to read on the decline/fall of the Soviet Union? It feels like something I should know about but I don’t even know where to start. http://en.kremlingames.com/ has made a couple games about the topic that are apparently quite good, although I haven't figured out how to play them yet. "Crisis in the Kremlin" is a remake of a game from the early 90s (originally by a Reaganite, but the remake was done by communists).
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Apr 20, 2023 23:16
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skooma512 posted:If they beat the Taliban and win the war that means the budget gets cut. Victory is bad for business. idk, the sikhs managed to beat up the afghans black and blue and they had to make do with dumbasses. Maybe ranjit singh was just built different.
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Apr 21, 2023 00:39
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Ardennes posted:The LA Times claimed there were train cars filled with rotting meat around Moscow and that simply they couldn’t get it into stores. On paper, there shouldn’t have been the hunger that was going on, but nevertheless it happened. yeah that happens when a rail system isn’t functioning properly. the reefers don’t get maintained or the reefer fuel tanks don’t get refilled when trains get stuck and delayed. they’re super gross. usually they can refreeze them before unloading them. how much it fucks up the economy depends on the effectiveness of the country’s marine insurance system. even one rail car is an awful lot of meat and would be a big loss for an uninsured shipper. that’s why we aren’t reading about it here in the US.
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Apr 21, 2023 02:12
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Mister Bates posted:the Soviet military would have absolutely won a conventional war in Europe pretty much right up to the point the Berlin Wall came down, which is why the West's plans for fighting the Soviets involved deploying nukes early and often lobster shirt posted:yes indeed this is a major reason why the usa never articulated a no first use policy, it would be tantamount to saying "we will not defend our nato allies in a conventional war with nukes" which is tantamount to saying "we will lose a war in europe"
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Apr 21, 2023 02:57
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No, first use!
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Apr 21, 2023 03:21
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Bar Ran Dun posted:yeah that happens when a rail system isn’t functioning properly. the reefers don’t get maintained or the reefer fuel tanks don’t get refilled when trains get stuck and delayed. It probably didn't have anything to do physically with the trains or marine shipping, that wasn't reportedly an issue. Trains were moving across the Soviet Union, it was when they physically got to destinations but it was the offloading that was being held up. There is an argument to be made in 1991 at least that the massive increase in retail prices may have been part of it as food was being shipped but the citizenry couldn't afford it. That said, there was issue prior to that point. Essentially, the Soviet central planned economy was designed to operate a certain way and in the late 1980s/early 90s as they experimented there does seem more weird issues that seem to crop up. In the West they were just blaming central planning period, but it is clear the situation hadn't gotten that bad until liberalization took place. Ardennes has issued a correction as of 07:42 on Apr 21, 2023 |
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Apr 21, 2023 07:11
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