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PerilPastry posted:
My secret conspiracy theory of why Boris Johnson has turned up the hardliner rhetoric on Russia is that he is secretly ashamed of how poorly Brexit has been going and he blames Putin for manipulating him and planting the idea in his party's collective conscious, and wants to get back at Putin in any way possible.
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May 12, 2022 10:19
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Regarding Ukraine rebuilding, it’s also important to note that there are gas and oil fields in areas which are currently not contested, and there is still a number of operable nuclear plants within the country. Ukraine has what Europe (and especially Germany) needs: energy. Ukraine is being rammed into the EU as quickly as possible, and Ukraine has already been put on Europe’s power grid while the war has been happening. Nobody is really saying this right now, but a busted up, but mostly intact Ukraine is going to be an insanely useful asset for the EU, especially if Russian gas and oil have a stigma attached them. For energy alone, massive amounts of investment capital are going to flow into Ukraine. Another more speculative thought I had is that after this war, Ukraine is going to be in desperate need of labor, and the other EU countries don’t seem very amicable to refugees. Ukraine might be able to generate a massive amount of capital by accepting refugees plus funds from other EU countries to support those refugees. We’ll see about this one, though.
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May 20, 2022 05:02
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There’s some interesting talk in this thread about whether or not Ukraine is ‘losing’ or Russia is ‘winning.’ This is an interesting matter of perspective that has many nuances to consider. Through one lens, Ukraine has basically been ‘losing’ since the very first Russian solder crossed the border and began the full-scale invasion. Countless Ukrainians have been mercilessly butchered, and had their homes and livelihoods completely upended. It’s hard to call that ‘winning,’ no matter how far back you push the Russians. However, if we consider ‘winning’ for the Ukrainians as cultural and national survival, then I would say that they are winning and seriously exceeding any expectations that any outside observes had before the war started. If we consider Ukraine winning a return to the 2014 or 1991 borders, I’d say they are losing, but not by much and it’s still anyone’s game. As a country that’s being invaded by an imperialistic and genocidal power, it’s hard to ‘win.’ From Russia’s perspective, saying if they are winning or losing is a bit easier. Russia has clear strategic goals, and their invasion has a purpose to achieve certain geopolitical outcomes. Russia’s obvious goal at the beginning of the war was to annex the whole country, or at least everything south and east of Kiev. This has been an abject failure. Scaling back from that, their goals (in my opinion) were to control the oil reserves in the north (failure); make a connection to Transnistria (looking like a big fat failure at this point); establish control of the water needed to maintain Crimean agriculture (looking like a win, though this could change); and annex as much of Donbas as they can (looking like a win at this point). So with that in mind, I think we could say that Russia is ‘winning,’ but they’ve had to move the goalposts several times and have burned through an incredible amount of resources. However, since Russia is a major geopolitical player and the aggressor in this war, there are other things outside of Ukraine that count towards ‘winning’ or ‘losing.’ Some examples include Finland and Sweden could join NATO; The Russian Regime has had billions upon billions of dollars in foreign reserves frozen; The Russian economy is getting battered (even if not as badly as predicted by some) and there is massive brain drain happening; the institutional knowledge and credibility of their army is getting totally wiped out; their closest ally, Belarus is looking unstable, with the opposition parties openly calling for sabotage of Russian solders; Even Transnistria’s leadership is distancing itself from the unpopular war and Russian leadership; Russia has even been kicked out of UN Security Council, which is small, but counts for something; Russia is looking more and more isolated on a global scale, which is never a good sign for an imperialistic power. All these things and more are some of the unforeseen costs that Russia has had to pay for this war. Whatever political fallout happens after this war in Russia will also cost the Russian regime a lot. So with all of that said, I think it is hard to say that Ukraine is ‘winning.’ They may be surviving, and making the Russians pay dearly, but they are still suffering an atrocious and criminal punishment at the hands of an unaccountable regime. It’s pretty easy to say that Russia is burning an enormous and unsustainable amount of resources and political capital to get even a little bit of ground. As of today, it looks like any victory that Russia has will be pyrrhic. Dark clouds are gathering above Russia. Will they ‘lose’ in Ukraine? Depends how you look at it. Will they lose in the great game of geopolitical chess that they have been playing against the Western block countries and China for the last 75 years? Almost certainly. The war in Ukraine has put on so many new pressures on the regime outside of the theater of war, that any positive outcome outside of annexing a few hundred miles of scorched earth looks impossible for Russia. Chill Monster fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Jun 1, 2022 |
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Jun 1, 2022 22:57
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crepeface posted:Probably confusing it with the Russia being suspended from the UN Human Rights Council. yes, that's what I did.
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Jun 2, 2022 07:26
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Donkringel posted:So question, when this all started and Russia was getting sanctioned to hell and back, there was an April date and a June date for something BIG to happen, running out of stocks, debt default, etc. Does anyone recall what that was and is Russia still on course for that happening? As previously stated, the Russian government has basically already defaulted, but it was kind of a bullshit default, and it didn't have much of an immediate impact. It will affect Russia after the war, but for the time being, it doesn't make much of a difference because the Russian government isn't seeking credit of any kind. The default was just the US government forcing them into a technical default, rather than them not actually having the money to pay the interest on their bonds. As far as I can tell, the Russian government has money coming out of their rear end and is still able to spend lavishly. The Russian government has also implemented all kinds of strategies to keep their economy afloat in the short term (extremely heavy capital controls, allowing conversion of the ruble to gold, freezing their stock market, ETC), but none of these things actually solve the long term headwinds they are facing. The economic pain that the average Russian person will experience is likely going to unfold slowly. The most damaging effects of sanctions and economic intrigue are likely still months to years down the line. As Mr.Zoo Sniper pointed out, the head of the Russian central bank said July-August is when everything will likely start going to poo poo, but I think it won't be until next year before we actually start to see the full extent of economic fallout.
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Jun 7, 2022 03:47
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Shageletic posted:I'm having trouble believing in the effectiveness of any sanctions especially with a large enough manufacturing economy used to creating its domestic supply lines. I think you have to qualify what effectiveness is in this case. If effectiveness is slowing down the Russian war machine, then maybe they'll work. As pointed out, the Russians cannot simply pull semi-conductors out of their asses, and acquiring them will come with a significant cost, thus further draining the Russian government's massive war chest, and adding friction and grit to the already existing system. If effectiveness is dislodging the regime in power, then they probably won't do anything. From my observations, regimes that are heavily sanctioned seem to be cemented in place because sanctions make great scapegoats to rally around and they fuel (perhaps legitimate) feeling of being victimized by external agents, allowing the ruling regime's mistakes and shortcomings to be overlooked. Though one thing to keep in mind is that these sanctions have heavily focused on targeting elites, which may cause some problems for the regime in the long term, but that has yet to be seen. If effectiveness is causing flaring economic pain to the average Russian, then the sanctions will likely work very well. Being unable to import and export tends to make the average person poorer. The Russian economy has already heavily contracted since the initial set of sanctions in 2014, and those were mild compared to what has been put in place. A big part of me feels very bad for the average Russian, though their plight is far less severe than the average Ukrainian. Chill Monster fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Jun 7, 2022 |
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Jun 7, 2022 18:26
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DarklyDreaming posted:This keeps coming up as a viable path to victory (or something to be called a victory at least) for Russia but it feels off to me. Is anyone in Putin's inner circle willing and emotionally capable of saying "Welp we tried, this is the best we can do for now"? I was expecting this to happen once the Russians had full control over Sievierodonetsk (Seven Donuts, lol). Full control of that city would allow the Russian brass to say ‘mission accomplished, we eliminated the nazis, helped the ethnic Russians who needed it, and liberated our occupied providences in the Donbas! Good job everyone.’ Sievierodonetsk is also a geographically good place to partition the country. Taking Sievierodonetsk thus far has been incredibly bloody and will likely to be incredibly bloody for a while more. It will probably be one of the most brutal battles in the entire war. Not much information is trickling out of there as of today, but once it is in the rear view mirror, we’ll probably be able to see in detail how insane the whole thing was. I also suspect that part of the reason the Russians aren’t letting go of the territory just north of Kharkiv is so they can use it for a bargaining chip if the peace talks come. I am just some guy whose credentials are playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms as a child, so I probably don’t know what I am talking about.
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Jun 14, 2022 04:08
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aphid_licker posted:Presumably not the officers looking at the map and making the decision when to withdraw from a salient tho The information regarding whether or not the soldiers in Zolote were surrounded is conflicting, some sources report that they are completely surrounded, others report that they withdrew, so it's still up in the air whether they are actually surrounded. IMHO, The biggest factor of why the Ukrainians stayed there is that retreating under fire is quite dangerous, so they may have been putting off taking casualties in hopes that the other lines would hold. Also, I think the Russians took the main escape route from Zolote unexpectedly fast a few days ago, which may have thrown a monkey-wretch in withdrawing from the salient, as they would be forced to retreat through flat agricultural fields. Disclaimer that my only military experience is playing Battle Tanx as a kid, so I have no idea what I am actually talking about. Chill Monster fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Jun 23, 2022 |
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Jun 23, 2022 21:58
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On the topic of Russia's use of artillery shells and whether or not they will run out, let pretend that they have a balance sheet called something like 'Putin's-Special-Operation-Dumb-Bombs.xlsx' By all accounts, Russia is burning through a huge amount of artillery shells. Obviously, they are actively manufacturing them too. However Russia they simply cannot just magically turn X rubles into Y shells. To manufacture shells you need several things, including labor (which Russia is having a shortage of, like the rest of the world) and factories. They are naturally constrained in amount of shells can produce. They are almost certainly burning through them faster than they are making them. Seems very likely that they are running in the red, but it's extremely hard to know how big their reserves are. They could have mountains upon mountains in storage, but it's impossible to know for sure without looking at Putin's magic spreadsheet. But there are places we can look for hints. When you start running out of any resource, you start to scraping the bottom of the barrel and looking for it somewhere else. Russia has a huge stockpile in Cobasna. Legend has it that there are mountains of Soviet artillery shells there, just waiting to be uncovered by a plucky group of Russian special ops, and sailed down the Dniester. When Russia starts getting really desperate for shells, we'll probably start seeing things heat up again in Transnistria. Another place to look at is Belarus. They probably have stockpiles of soviet era shells lying around. As of the last few days, the Russian regime has been giving missiles and moving troops through to Belarus. I would assume a part of the reason they are doing this is to trade for and retrieve old soviet artillery stuff. The Belarusian Regime has no use for artillery right now, or likely ever, so if I was in Lukashenko's shoes, I'd just want deterrence, and be happy to trade old soviet garbage for it. Plenty of post-soviet states like Kazakhstan probably still have lots of soviet artillery lying around, but I cannot find anything about them giving it to Russia, so maybe they are doing under the table, or maybe Kazakhstan is waiting for a time when trading shells will give them maximum political leverage over Russia, or maybe they are afraid to because of western sanctions. I dunno. Also I have no idea if China or India even manufactures soviet-compatible artillery, but maybe someone else does. The Russia Regime is likely very concerned about running out of artillery, and if they were smart, they would do whatever it takes to circumvent it. Thinking that artillery a non-issue for them seems shortsighted. In a war of attrition, all resources are finite and the one you don't consider is the one that fucks you. This is the idea I came up with in the shower.
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Jun 26, 2022 23:29
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khwarezm posted:Clearly I don't think any of that, but its neither here nor there to the fact that Ukraine does have a considerable problem with right wing extremism that it has a much softer attitude towards compared to the likes of the Communists. Like I don't think its even possible any more for Russia to conquer the entire country, the best they can pull off at this point is the easternmost quarter, and in doing so, if we go off of voting patterns and such, it would ironically make the remaining Ukrainian state more amenable towards hard nationalism than it was previously. Putin invading has essentially created the monster he claims to be there to slay, right wing nationalist groups like the Azov battalion almost certainly are going to see their star rise if they are able to present themselves as patriotic fighters against murderous foreign invaders, and the spectre of Russia and the obvious danger it has proven itself to be will only benefit nationalist groups further down the line who can rail against the foreign adversary that justifies its brutality by calling everybody in Ukraine Nazis. To build off of this idea a bit, there's a big parallel in the US invasion of Iraq. Before the US Invaded Iraq, there was some militant Islamism people there, but not many and they didn't have a lot of power. After the US invaded Iraq, there was a lot more, and they basically started running large chunks of the country. The invasion galvanized their extremist beliefs There is a weakness in this parallel though. The US was invading Iraq to punish a former client state and tried to legitimize it by installing a non-functioning, DOA democracy on top of an already entirely dysfunctional farce of a democracy. In the case of Ukraine, Russia is invading to install a blatantly anti-democratic government on top of flawed democracy that has been rapidly making changes and reworking itself. This next statement is even more goofy speculation: Nazis tend to not do great in democratic systems and try to topple them any chance they get. However, having a bunch of far-right nuts fighting to defend what is essentially a fledgling 'western' democracy might significantly dampen their recruitment and their will to do the typical idiot-Nazi poo poo after the war. Who knows. I just made all of that up. Chill Monster fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Jun 29, 2022 |
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Jun 29, 2022 06:13
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Re: the language stuff, I read this article a while ago and wondered how accurate it is. It’s very interesting.https://insightonukraine.com/2022/04/07/how-the-war-in-ukraine-is-impacting-language/ Also, all of the Ukrainians I have met (before the war) speak exclusively Russian at home. My (largely baseless) assumption is that Ukrainian is a language spoken by hill bumpkins in private setting and it is viewed as kind of useless/cringey by young people, unfortunately like many less prestigious, dying languages. I am a hill bumpkin so please don’t take offense to that comment if you speak Ukrainian and you are not a hill bumpkin.
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Jun 29, 2022 19:56
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C0N5T1P4T3D posted:Well, sanctions tend to increase patriotic fervor in affected populations. There's a long history of this with America's sanctions on Latin American countries. Yes, These sanctions help the Ukrainians because they gum up Russia's industrial complex, slowing and weakening the war machine. However, the sanctions aren't going to do anything in terms of regime change. The sanctions are just going to lead to the population to feel victimized, and strong-man regimes like Putin's thrive on a populace that feels victimized by external forces.
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Jun 30, 2022 20:22
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KitConstantine posted:Things you do when you care about other countries Wow, this seems incredibly short-sighted on the Russian regime's part. Relations between Kazakhstan and Russia have been deteriorating since this war started, but this is a sign that things are getting really bad. As goofy as the Western Bloc countries look with their disagreements and the German government acting like goobers, they are nowhere near this bad. The Russian government might damage European markets in the short term and prop up the currently declining price of oil with this move, but they're going to have absolutely no allies after this and just a handful of exploitative, distrustful trading partners. This also seems like it is just going to give the Chinese and Indian government further leverage over the Russian government since they will be able to say "WELL, WE CAN NOW GET OIL FROM KAZAKHSTAN TOO, SO YOU'D BETTER GIVE US AN EVEN BETTER DISCOUNT NOW" The Russian government r a bunch of noobs
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Jul 6, 2022 22:48
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The price of gas has been dumping the last couple of days. It's purely speculation on my part, but this is probably going to make paying for the war much harder, especially with all of the economic friction that the sanctions caused. I personally thought that gas would be expensive at least until the fall. I wonder how long Russia can live off of that fabled supply of gold and foreign currency they have. This is not financial advice
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Jul 8, 2022 07:40
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The FIRMS data from the last 24 hours seems to indicate that the amount of shelling that Russian artillery is doing is down-trending considerably. Almost all of the datapoints are behind the Russian front line. Maybe blowing up all of those ammo depots was the secret. Maybe the Russian forces are reconstituting themselves. Maybe it's a cloudy day. We'll find out soon.
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Jul 11, 2022 09:18
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Re: Ukrainian post war authoritarianism, I am an outsider looking in and I have no idea how Ukrainian society or government actually functions, but I cannot see Ukraine slipping deeply into authoritarianism after the war simply because so much of their greatly strengthen national identity will revolve around not being Russian, and not doing thing as Russia does them. As was pointed out earlier in this thread, the Ukrainian language has gained more prominence since 2014 because the Ukrainians want a way to separate themselves from the 'Rashists.' I suspect the political climate post-war will very much be this way as well. There is little doubt that Russia will continue to sink deeper into fascist darkness, and I think that will drive Ukrainians as a whole the other direction. WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Iran stands to lose a lot of it actively supports Russia. Maybe you know something I don't, but I don't really see where you are coming from here. Iran is already sanctioned to poo poo and back. I don't think they have much to lose, and they need cash, so selling Russia stuff is a completely rational move.
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Jul 12, 2022 04:11
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:
I've been reading some pro-Russian gov opinions about the sanctions on Russia, and the idealistic hardliners seem to love them as they view them as cutting down on 'corrupting western influence' and promoting autarky. With that in mind, I don't think that the current Iranian regime gives a rat's shart about the sanctions (though, I know very little about them TBH). They might even like them in some capacity. If I was in the Iranian government's shoes, my line of thinking would be something like "Russia needs drones, I have drones, Russia has cash, I need cash, therefore, I will trade drones for cash, especially if Russia is cutting me a better deal than I could get elsewhere." Where Russia ends up politically after the war, and how my government is perceived by a bunch of governments who despise me anyways would have no effect on my mental calculous of the risk involved.
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Jul 12, 2022 22:39
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Best we can tell, pre-2014 invasion Sevastopol was >50% pro-Russian, and the rest of the peninsula was maybe ~30% pro-Russian. There were some 200-300 thousand people displaced from Crimea before Russia locked it down, and from there your guess is as good as mine on further population movements. Ukrainian sources believe that over 1 million settlers have arrived in Crimea in the recent 8 years. If accurate, with earlier economic movements, internal repressions, and 8 years of living under Russian control, it would suggest that at the moment the absolute majority could be pro-Russian, by design. a fun side note is that Fred Durst might be one of those Crimean settlers https://www.dw.com/en/limp-bizkit-frontman-fred-durst-banned-from-ukraine/a-18933381
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Jul 12, 2022 22:53
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FishBulbia posted:A seven day window is not a frame for judging a half year long conflict. I think it is more about the average amount of shelling than shelling period. All of the sources we have are indicating that as a whole, the Russian army is shelling considerably less than it was like two weeks ago. They are still shelling heavily in certain spots, no doubt, but definitely not at the same rate they were before when the whole region is considered. Whether that’s due to their ammo dumps being bombed, the Russian command deciding to take a break, some other factor, or all of the above, is still up in the air.
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Jul 13, 2022 22:57
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Yeah but this is the same reason Spain didn't join the axis. Even as the war was still going okay if obvious to The outsiders that things were going downhill fast. Well, looks like you might have been right. Iran is basically like "nah, we have a purely defensive agreement. We're not giving them poo poo" https://english.nv.ua/nation/iran-says-it-refused-to-supply-drones-to-russia-russia-invasion-of-ukraine-50256165.html
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Jul 14, 2022 21:05
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Victis posted:Ukraine posted a list of disinformation peddlers, any thread favorites? oh no not my boy Lula da Silva T_T can we get translations of what our favorites said?
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Jul 17, 2022 11:14
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Something might be going on in Chechnya https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...5a8e1b0b8c3df8b I'd take this with a huge grain of salt, but the flames of war may have spread back onto the Russian federation itself. If it is true, it seems like just a matter of time before we see similar things happen in Belarus, Georgia, and maybe even the Altai territory of Russia.
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Jul 21, 2022 10:46
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To me, it is interesting to note that Tolkien invented the Orcs after his experience in WW1 fighting against Germany. Orcs are not from folklore. There are no ancient tales of Orcs, as there are of Goblins and Dwarves and Elves. Orcs are a mythology born of industrialized warfare.
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Jul 24, 2022 09:28
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:This isn't localized to Russia. Wars like this turn people into orcs. Watching your entire class get annihilated in the Somme will make you an anthropoid. Orc is just the closest example that I have heard. I think there is an interesting, but purely speculatory discussion here that is getting lost. The solders of this war will have to reintegrate back into society. After any violent conflict, the solders have to return to society. These people can change the fabric of the society they are returning to. For example, in the US, you can still feel the effects of the Vietnam war today. The shadow isn't as big as it was in the 80s or 90s, but it is still there. Obviously, Russian, Ukrainian, and American societies are very different, but humans returning from a traumatic, violent experience tend to have similar characteristics. Historically speaking, societies tend to have upheavals after wars. In the case of Russia, it seems like there are a lot of negative pressures pushing their society toward fart. The reintegration of their soldiers could have outsized negative ramifications because the Russian State may not have the resources to deal with a bunch of angry, damaged men, who may feel victimized. I am not trying to say they will disintegrate the Russian Federation, but they likely will be a significant societal problem, even if they make up 0.0005% of the total population. How this reintegration will look for Ukraine? I dunno, but Ukraine won't look the same as it did before the war. Materially speaking, the average Ukrainian will be poorer, but other than that, I do not know where to begin to even speculate. Chill Monster fucked around with this message at 11:22 on Jul 24, 2022 |
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Jul 24, 2022 11:15
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While I can sympathize with the point of view of not granting Russians tourist visas, making it harder for Russians to escape Russia is probably not a great move in various respects, which removing tourist visas will definitely do. It’s much easier to leave your country on the guise of going to see the Eiffel Tower and then just bouncing and never going back, rather than trying to apply for asylum from within your own country, or trying to illegally sneak over the border. I also feel like any economy in the world would benefit from an influx of skilled Russian labor, as it seems like the educated middle class are most likely to think that this war, and their government is bullshit, and want to leave. If that El Salvadorian president doofus truly wants a tech economy, he should be investing in getting as many disaffected Russians into his country as possible instead of investing in Bitcoin.
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Aug 11, 2022 11:20
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mobby_6kl posted:Yeah it was pretty obviously bonkers, they were planning to invade and occupy the largest country in Europe of 40 million people with like 150k troops? Nobody expected that to be the actual plan that master strategist Putin would come up with. I was in the boat that thought that Russia wouldn’t invade because it seemed like it had a high chance of going completely rear end-shart for them (as it appears to be doing currently). I even remember going on RT a few days before the invasion and there was some bombastic puff piece titled something like ‘Bloodthirsty Joe Biden wants Russia to invade Ukraine so as many Russians die as possible.” And at seeing that headline I thought “Russia will never invade. There is no way they are that stupid, and even their propaganda mouthpiece is indicating they won’t invade. Not gonna happen.” Yet alas here we are. I think Putin will go down in history as one of the biggest noobs of Machiavellian statecraft
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Aug 17, 2022 01:45
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The attritional phase of this war continues. Ukraine and Russia grind up against one another and wear down each other’s resources. Russia, with greater firepower and more institutions and capital at their disposal is beginning to slow and may stop advancing. However, they can still dig in and once they are dug in, who knows how long they could sit for. Ukraine is close to a default, and is constantly in want of military equipment. They have no capacity to build their own equipment, and are completely dependent on foreign aid. Their infrastructure is shredded and their population has shrunk catastrophically. So far, the Ukrainian army’s only strategic option has been to bleed the Russian army out, which it appears they’ve been unexpectedly and brutally effective at. Both armies have beaten the poo poo out of each other and it’s impossible to tell which army is going to snap first and what snapping would even look like, but eventually one will start running out of resources and the conflict will cool. A lifetime of being a goober has taught me one thing: the resource you don’t consider is the one that runs out first and fucks you. To a goober like me, the one resource which it seems like Russia is going to run out of first is ‘human capital.’ It has been mentioned multiple times in this thread and many other places, that training soldiers takes time. Putting myself in the boots of a hardly trained solder: If you gave me a week of training and told me to go to war, I would probably end up dying at the hands of someone who had 3 months or more of training. A childhood of playing Goldeneye probably wouldn’t help me very much in this situation. It seems to me that the Ukrainians ability to train soldiers has only increased since the beginning of the war since so many other countries are training their troops for them. Russia’s ability to do so has likely been severely compromised because the Russian Army has been (rumor has it) sending their trainers into the war. Even if that isn’t true, they have at least lost lots of high ranking officials, and a couple of elite units with institutional knowledge. Will this lack of human capital and ability to have even basic competence on the battlefield eventually catch up with the Russian’s army ability to hold captured turf?
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Aug 19, 2022 23:50
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Sekenr posted:She was impossible to identify That doesn’t strike me as a retcon at all. Burn shock is a deadly. If you were burnt too bad to identify, the shock probably killed you. I just want to clear up what shock is since a lot of people seem confused. In medical terms, shock is a lack of organ/tissue profusion by blood and thus lack of oxygenation to vital organs. Shock due to loss of blood is specifically called hypovolemic shock, but there are multiples kinds of shock. Burns often lead to hypovolemic, cardiogenic and distributive shock all at the same time, which is one of the reasons they are so deadly and hard to work with. If a concussive blast didn’t kill this lady, then I am sure she died from shock. Chill Monster fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Aug 23, 2022 |
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Aug 23, 2022 18:51
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Since Ukraine pushed through the lines in Kharkiv, the undertones the war and the politics surrounding it has changed. It's now obvious to the entire world that Russia is in poo poo up to its eyeballs. Ukraine retaking everything to the 2014 borders seems inevitable, and returning to the 1991 borders seems much more realistic than before. The attritional phrase of the war has paused, and Ukraine has the initiative, momentum and the upper-hand. The war crimes cannot be undone, and the insane and senseless bloodshed will unfortunately continue, but at least the colonial power is being expelled. There have been numerous discussions about what Ukraine will look like after the war, and I think we now have a clearer idea about how the borders will look. However, where it will be politically and economically are a lot harder to guess, and I wanted to touch on those. First, I would like to make the prediction that after the war, Ukraine will experience healthy economic growth on a higher trajectory than before (perhaps after a slump), and also be more or less politically stable, and less corrupt than before. Why? For all three, Ukraine has a lot of trends and forces working in its favor. Economics and infrastructure are deeply tied. Obviously, the infrastructure of Ukraine has been flatted, and Russia continues to senselessly bomb. The current estimates of how much money it would cost to rebuild Ukraine is around $349 billion euros. Construction of infrastructure is an equation of capital, labor and politics. It requires capital and labor to build and maintain infrastructure. The political atmosphere must also allow for it, by funding it (through bonds, taxes, foreign investment, etc) and not losing that funding to corruption. I see the priority of any elected post-war government being reconstruction of the country, and returning to a norm. Political opposition (whoever they may be) will probably say that reconstruction is going poorly, and would be better under them. So already, politics are well aligned for Ukraine to rebuild swiftly. There is little option for Ukraine after the war except for a massive boom in construction, so much so that labor will likely be the choking point (good for wages). Many countries have already promised to 'rebuild' different parts of Ukraine after the war. How this will actually look is not clear, but one thing is for sure, capital will be flowing into the country like never before, even if many countries efforts are anemic. (take note, capital can be raw cash, but it can also be construction equipment, materials, etc). It may take a very long time for the infrastructure to come back to where it was before the war, but I have no doubt that Ukraine's infrastructure begin to be modernized as soon as the war is over. Ukraine will also likely get a massive growth in 'social capital' (IE, skilled labor and innovators).' Just like in the US after World War 2, lots of determined, young people are will be returning to a peacetime economy with tons of new skills, and I suspect that many of the donor countries will take a hand in further training a skilled labor force. Just like many of the western countries trained people on how to use mortars, they could release stress on existing Ukrainian institutions by training them on how to build a bridge. Lots of refugees will also likely be sending remittances or returning to Ukraine as well. Integration into the EU depends on the country being politically stable and reducing corruption, so hopefully that works out. Does any of this sound right, or do I just sound like a ranting goober? Chill Monster fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Sep 15, 2022 |
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Sep 15, 2022 03:22
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I want to clarify a few things because I feel I might have been misunderstood. The claim I made is that Ukraine would be on a better economic trajectory than it was before, not that its economy would boom overnight. Economic growth happens on trajectories. Each year might be a bit different for a country, but when you take a step back, there is a mean average of growth, and my claim was that Ukraine's trajectory would be higher after the war than before. For a number of reasons, Ukraine has really not had a great growth trajectory in the past 50 years, so my claim is really not that outrageous. What will boom is construction. The Ukrainian government will have no choice but to start pouring the majority of their funds into literally rebuilding the country, and any foreign aid that is given is going to go straight into rebuilding. Construction of infrastructure and buildings in Ukraine will almost certainly be at levels much higher than before the war started, simply because there is no other option when the most basic infrastructure must be rebuilt from scratch. That's what I meant by 'construction boom.' I also said that the attritional phase has 'paused,' not ended. I don't personally don't expect for Ukraine to get back to the 2014 borders by the end of the year, but at the same time, I cannot image a future where they haven't gotten there within a few years. Russia is simply in too bad of shape to hold its conquered turf long term. Remittances often have a positive impact on the economy because they stimulate consumption, and because there a smaller labor force (IE, there are people working abroad, sending money home), there is more upward pressure on local wages. Just google scholar this one if you are skeptical. It is fairly well studied for an economic phenomenon. The comparison to post-WW2 USA might have been inaccurate for a number of reasons, so I am going to redact that and replace it with a better example, post-ww2 USSR. Much like modern day Ukraine, the USSR emerged from the war in extremally bad shape. Then, because of large-scale government investment into infrastructure, the USSR briefly became one of the richest countries in the world during the 50s. That petered out for various reasons, but rebuilding a destroyed country can go very smoothly if the political will, and the trends and forces are pushing it in that direction, which for Ukraine, seems highly probable. While it may take years for Ukraine to return to its prewar GDP, I still think that this country is going to have a bright future. I may or may not be taking goober-pills. Chill Monster fucked around with this message at 10:26 on Sep 15, 2022 |
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Sep 15, 2022 10:21
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MikeC posted:
The human mind is unbelievably good at rationalizing information it is given to make it fit its preconceived notions of the world, even if that information openly contradicts those preconceived notions. Putin might think that he is winning, but with just a few set backs. For people like us who have very different preconceived notions of the world than Putin does, that Russia is getting absolutely shredded militarily, diplomatically and economically are all quite obvious, but someone in Putin's shoes might have (even quite legitimate) reasons to believe that that is not true. All in all though, it's impossible to know what is going on in his head. I am just surprised they are going through with this not-quite-full-mobilization. Things are really starting to look like the 1910s all over again.
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Sep 22, 2022 00:33
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cinci zoo sniper posted:In August, 67% said that the country is moving in the right direction, and 83% approved of Putin. I’ve been wondering this for a while and I’m not Russian so I am talking completely out of my rear end when I write this, but How accurate are opinion polls going to be in Russia right now? Even if the entity which is doing the polling is independent of the government, people might still be paranoid and give answers which they think won’t incriminate them in some way. We’ve recently seen people in Russia locked up for some absolutely ridiculous poo poo, so people might be obfuscating their actual opinions on the matter
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Sep 25, 2022 21:11
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Herstory Begins Now posted:The more we learn about the early days of the war the less I feel like I understand how Ukraine actually stopped the Russian military. Like I get the big picture stuff and all the rot that destroyed the Russians from the inside, but the human side of it of a bunch of lightly armed uncles living in trenches in whatever tree cover they could find getting shelled and fighting off repeated russian armored pushes is just an insane accomplishment. Honestly I think people buy into the pro-ukraine propaganda about Russian incompetence too much sometimes to the extent that they lose sight of just how crazy what Ukraine accomplished really is. Incompetent and rotten or not, the Russian military never stopped being incredibly capable of unleashing destruction around it. Standing up to that and willing the possibility of victory into existence is incredible. One thing I think that gets overlooked about specifically the Kyiv offensive is that Belorussian partisans likely played a huge role in loving up the Russian supply lines and making an already poorly planned push into an unmitigated disaster. While Russia may be incompetent, the “incompetence” we saw on that front far outweighs anything we’ve seen anywhere else at any point in this war.
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Oct 7, 2022 19:37
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To be fair... posted:Zelenskyy is the leader Ukraine needs right now and he is doing everything right as far as I can tell from my computer screen but he was in the panama papers. poo poo, maybe he will be churchill’ed I’m really curious to see what Zelinskyy does after this war. I feel like he will be a bellwether and role model for the rest of Ukraine. The Panama papers made him look not-so-wonderful, but offshoring money and laundering money through your friends seems like it was par-for-the-course for rich Ukrainian dudes. The war might change his behavior. He could have bounced out of Ukraine on day 1 of the invasion and sat in his Italian villa, but he chose to stay and risk his life. Maybe once the existential threat of the Russian invasion is gone, he’ll continue to put the needs of his constituents over his own. It’s hard to gage, but the average Ukrainian’s perception of corruption might change based on the fact that largest factor in them surviving this war as a country is due to Russian corruption and rot. Maybe it’ll be a lesson they take to heart when they are rebuilding their society. Only time will tell.
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Oct 10, 2022 06:49
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Saladman posted:I don’t get why Panama Papers would be bad for him. He is legitimately wealthy through a totally acceptable and fine way to acquire wealth - by being a well-known actor. If I lived in a corrupt and unstable country like Ukraine and I had wealth, even legitimate, I sure as hell would not keep much of it in Ukraine. Not everyone in Panama papers is some corrupt schmuck. I see where you are coming from, and realistically, I would do the same too. However, offshoring and not disclosing large amounts of capital is never a good look, especially when you are running for president on a platform of anti-corruption. I am not trying to make Zelinskyy into some kind of villain, as what he did was pretty much par-for-the-course for rich Ukrainian guys, but it is still problematic in my opinion, and more of a symptom of underlying problems in Ukraine. Again, I think that Zelinksyy will serve as a bellwether for corruption after the war. If he repatriates all of that capital after the war, that would set an amazing precedent. Consider these https://www.occrp.org/en/the-pandora-papers/pandora-papers-reveal-offshore-holdings-of-ukrainian-president-and-his-inner-circle https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/4/pandora-papers-ukraine-leader-seeks-to-justify-offshore-accounts
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Oct 10, 2022 09:31
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Phigs posted:I feel like "over North Korea" and "over Vietnam" are kinda the point though? Those wars were hot, but they were contained within those countries (and spilled out into unfortunate neighboring countries). As hot as they got nobody was supplying South Korea with weapons to fire into China, or Vietnam to fire into mainland US. Just for the sake of not forgetting history, the US repeatedly considered nuking China during the Korean war. It's not like it was something that was off of the table. It just never came to it, fortunately for us. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/examples-of-past-nuclear-threats-between-countries
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Oct 11, 2022 08:43
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