China asked Russia to delay war until after Olympics, Biden officials say
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Exactly, Putin is not the grand strategist the world thinks he is
Chances are the invasion on the northern and eastern fronts are more or less feints, and only the southern front actually matters to him, as it gets him full control of the Black Sea shore and the oil fields. He needs the Ukrainian forces fully occupied elsewhere, and doesn't much care what happens there as long as it absorbs enough of their attention.
China will probably prop Russia up 1) It will get Oil and Gas cheaper 2) A mean Russia keeps the West from picking on China. 3) Russia has a lot of nukes and making it crazy helps nobody.
There's only one way for him out now, and it doesn't involve him being alive. It's only a matter of time at this point.
What way is that? Because I think the one he's banking on is victory in the war over the next four weeks.
Russia will suffer greatly under sanctions, but that itself is unlikely to bring him under.
The Hitler 1945 option.
The other enlightening book is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalingrad_(Beevor_book) which shows just how truly absurd the war between Germany and Russia was and how megalomaniacal the leaders of those countries were.
Honestly, snow and air temperature have a bit of a counterintuitive relationship. It can also be too cold to snow, so a lot of really cold places are actually really dry and get very little precipitation because of that.
It will become even more wet and muddy.
- Israel has a rich history of Palestinian attacks with many Jewish *civilian* casualties, whereas the russian aggression is unprovoked.
- Israeli forces are better prepared and better treated by its country than the russian cannon fodder with e.g. outdated food rations or poorly armored vehicles, though I don't know if that's what bamboozled meant as well.
- I could be wrong, but while not being emotionally prejudiced towards/against Palestine, Israel, Russia and Ukraine prior to the conflicts, in a heuristic sense, just estimating the severity of breaking human rights, russian forces seem to have far worse standards than Israeli forces. Likewise with Ukraine vs Palestine. In case of Ukrainians we see refugees and children hiding in bunkers and being dragged out of them by russian forces. In case of Palestine...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_child_suicide_bombers_b...
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
Your comparison to black people is even less justified, to the point where I won't even comment on it.
Even if everything you say is true, it is inherently wrong as well as unproductive to refer to ethnic/religious groups as "barbarians" based on the actions of some portion of that groups behaviour. It essentialises the group even though there are countless Russians who dont support this behaviour and therefore aren't "barbarians".
Behaviour can certainly be barbaric and referred to as such (I would have had no problem if the original comment said "the invasion of the Ukraine by Russians is barbaric" as an example), but referring to entire nations/ethnic groups/religions as barbarians based on a portion of that group's behaviour is deeply dehumanising and one of the most toxic ways to engage in these sorts of discussions with very negative outcomes for both sides by denying other people their humanity.
Can you name a single time in history ever where framing conflict in such a manner has led to anything positive? Because I certainly can't and there are PLENTY of examples of it being done. However much some people may relish the opportunity to finally have an "enemy" they can dehumanise and hate, it is always ethically wrong as well as being counter-productive to do so no matter how good it might feel to some people.
Focusing on the wrong thing - it seems so. Bamboozled used the word "barbaric" to precise which russians he describes. He didn't use the word to insult all Russians. Have you ever heard the term "Nazi Germany"? Do you think, that people using this term intend to insult Germany? I find that ridiculous in a semantic way, that's just not how words work. Look at 2nd Bamboozled's comment and at Michaelmrose comment.
> (I would have had no problem if the original comment said "the invasion of the Ukraine by Russians is barbaric" as an example)
So you have no problem with what Bamboozled meant, only with how he phrased it. That's splitting hairs.
I just made a direct analogy point to point between Israel's actions and Russia's actions. I do not really believe they can be viewed in a different light, in particular Israel in a more favorable light, which I believe is something you (whoever I wanted to answer to) deduced in your comment. You can put one on one points between the Russian invasion and the Israeli colonization of Palestine, and the only real difference is that in Israel the victims were not white people.
Let's not forget Israel still bombs civilians and children.
How is THAT more justifiable than what Russia is doing, I wonder. Invade foreign land you have no business invading? Check. Drive much of the population away in the process? Check. Confine the invaded populace in specified areas based on race? Russians have not done that yet in Ukraine, I acknowledge that. The first difference in the two conflicts that matters. Kill whoever resists? Check. Routinely bomb civilians? Check.
Does any other detail matter to not condemn the one and condemn the other? What could Russia learn from the Israeli case to make its invasion and occupation equally justifiable?
What bamboozled said was:
> If there’s a lot of snow and temps at the ground are above zero, it’s a worse situation for the Russian barbarians.
Scroll up and you can see for yourself.
"Scroll up and you can see for yourself" my previous comment where I argued the difference.
I honestly don't know if Israeli forces should be called barbaric. It is a narration common enough that it motivated me to investigate - where I quickly discovered many facts speaking in favor of the Israel. Again, I don't support what Israel is doing, but the initial fire of my outrage got quickly quenched by facts. As soon as it turned out to be quite an intricate conflict, I humbly switched my interests on the basis of being too stupid to judge either side.
Meanwhile in case of russian invasion, I just see nothing in defense of the invader. The moral aspect of the conflict is ridiculously asymmetric - like in a Disney movie. On one side there's a small country, with its president risking life in Kiev, on another a Goliath country run by a coward hiding in a bunker, shamelessly lying to his citizens, with the world almost unanimously condemning his war crimes.
So, to sum it up, without defending Israeli forces in Palestine, I see a huge difference between them and the russian barbarism in Ukraine. I don't know if the former is barbaric, but the latter is as barbaric as it gets.
It does sadden me to see how little has been learnt from post-9/11 where muslims or even people wearing turbans were subject to increased demonisation and abuse while everyone applauded.
Individuals should not be targetted and demonising groups based on ethnicity with comments of "Russian barbarians" is a big way this type of thing starts.
Anyway, plenty of people seem hellbent on reserving their "right" to demonise whole ethnic groups when the opportunity arises so going to leave it here. Thank you for the discussion in any case although the outcome very much saddens me.
I feel like I'm talking with a wall. No, we don't agree, we disagree. I've put some effort to formulate specific arguments and I didn't see a response to them.
To say that a plural form describes individuals is outright ridiculous and reminds me of a comment I've seen on Reddit once:
> The individual voice does matter if it's expressed by a large enough group
https://www.reddit.com/r/cynicalbritofficial/comments/63w0qq...
So then what is your problem with the term "Israeli Barbarians" or would it be better if I used the phrase "Israeli Occupiers"? And I presume you also have no issue with "Black savages" or "Black barbarians"? And I'm guessing you also have no problem with "Muslim barbarians" either?
Because remember, it is "ridiculous" to say the plural form describes individuals. So there is no coherent logical standard that makes "Russian barbarians" okay but not those other examples. In these types of cases you need to think about what the norm you are establishing will mean when it is turned against you, and it won't be pretty.
You repeat questions I already answered.
A Russian barbarian calling his mom.
Not sure if it is disinformation, but the Russians announced that there are no conscripts in this war. Time will tell, but maybe the Western media/intel got it wrong?
> Russian law prohibits conscripts from being sent to the front unless they choose to sign a contract and become career soldiers. Currently, compulsory service in the Russian army is one year, including four months of basic training. In reality, says Olga Larkina, chair of the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers, soldiers are either forced to sign a contract against their will, or their military IDs are confiscated, and they are signed to a contract without their knowledge. In recent days, her organization has received dozens of pleas for assistance about this from parents of draftees.
[1] https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/.premium.HIGHLIGHT...
Way harder to do hit and runs on road columns when you can't fall back to where ever but have to follow roads your self.
Source: experience.
Edit: I was thinking of what we had in the Army, which was definitely not guided.
I've never seen a Javelin miss in my entire life. They've got like 5,000 recorded successful engagements.
> Source: experience.
Are you firing them before they've got a chance to get the sensor down to temperature?
I guess you posted that for the compiled footage, but Lord do I hate voice synthesized narration.
From my armchair, it seems totally practical to hit-and-run attack the convoy on foot using fire-and-forget Javelins from 1.5-2 miles away. If the terrain is impassible to vehicles, the attacker can just shoot from the top of a hill and run away down the other side (maybe without even being seen).
From what I've read, they have too few javelins already
Or is the javelin so high up in the air, so it could typically see the tank anyway?
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-docum...
Note that that is a lower bound.
I read a few days ago that Germany's gas reserves were at 31% and they were basically just being helped by the good weather. A colder winter would've made it a much bigger problem. And Germany had very recently decided to basically go cold turkey on nuclear, which means using more gas plants. Now they're thinking of extending the life span of nuclear a bit. Not that a gas furnace can heat with electricity though, so not sure how much that will help.
If you had to replace every single gas heating system that would be both very expensive and without having any actual data I would gather that you wouldn't be able to retrofit all of Germany with that in time. Wood I would gather is gonna be even worse. While I can see how a single family home would convert (lots of folks have replaced their gar furnace with a wood pellet heater w/ auto-feeders), how would that work for apartment buildings with individual gas heaters in the apartments? These are all concrete buildings where it'd be quite the feat to replace the gas distribution with central water distribution for radiators. And those gas heaters do not take a lot of space and are used even in tiny apartments. Where do you store wood pellets in that situation?
Of course there are exceptions where heat is provided remotely already by a "Heizkraftwerk" (e.g. fed from industrial cooling systems or garbage burners).
I don’t think it’s break up, I think it’s resistance, they are getting stalled in the cities.
Ukraine has paved highways moving tanks isn’t an issue, except that the highways run through cities.
The problem is fundamentally that for every soldier and civilian they kill they are creating 5 to 10 freedom fighters. The more people are killed the greater the resistance. The less likely they can hold the country without reprisals from the people. If they have to resort to barbarism to subdue the people then the sanctions will never end.
Putin needs to establish a govt quickly that doesn’t have to resort to atrocities to govern. If he fails to do that he loses the greater overall war.
1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/01/russia-lo...
Didn't this happen two days ago?
That's peace talks. The end of military action is peace.
This is not a definition of "peace" that you share with the Anglophone community in general. Are the United States and Japan currently at war?
Please don't deflect.
Let me ask you: do you think it would be just to have Russia occupy Ukraine? Do you think countries have a right to self determination and sovereignty?
Russia was signatory to the Budapest Memorandum, basically agreeing to acknowledge and help protect Ukraine's borders.
I wonder why you support occupation.
Ukraine will never trust them. But it's enough to take the pressure off, and enough for him to remain in power.
Having watched the previous fall of the soviet union eventually enough people in moscow get pissed off and there is a regime change, although I suspect putin has control of the apparatus and security forces. So, we might just see a Russia civil war.
1. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/eric-swalwell-gun-owners-n...
Best invasion is a cancelled invasion of course...
Tanks and such are maintenance nightmares, and need a lot of material support in order to be effective.
Frozen ground could have made it easier to move around but on the other hand, troops are generally much more miserable when it is cold outside. Don't think that just because they are Russians they don't get cold.
From what I am seeing Russian soldiers do not seem to be prepared well for cold. It seems they thought they will only go for some military maneuvers and then back home, not into full scale winter war.
And another thing I am seeing is that they seem to be trying to find pretext to abandon their equipment. Those tanks stuck in mud -- there are ways to extract them. Russians regularly train in muddy conditions so I can't imagine they are surprised by conditions in March.
I don't understand the narrative that Russia is in any way "losing" here. Taking over a country in the span of a month is considered an incredible military feat, and yet somehow Russia is in "a quagmire" four days in.
It is a humiliating defeat because it indicates that the cost of pacification would be outright horrifying. Full control might well cost a 5 figure death toll and could approach the Russian GDP and this indeed buys you what? The privilege of getting to literally square one in Afghanistan 2.0.
I don't understand your moral stake in it. I also don't know your level of experience. Caveat: As I'm neither a military strategist nor a military historian, my understanding of what constitutes a difficult situation military is rather poor. I've certainly never won any wars. But I wonder why you think marching a few hundred miles from your territory into someone elses territory in a week isn't significant. It took the US a couple weeks to take Fallujah, at an arguably far greater mismatch. Not as close, I know, but America was already in the region. I don't know why you think the cost for one city was thousands of vehicles and soldiers. I can imagine I'd lie about those numbers whichever side I was on, if I was involved. I also don't know that these are massive numbers at the scale of modern war. I don't know why you think air superiority was something they needed to have before going in, or something they had to have in a week, when it's quite possible neither of those are true. I imagine we will know the answer to that one shortly. I don't know why you think their supply of munitions are shrinking, when Russia has a decent sized munitions industry. I don't know why you assume their factories rely on foreign parts, when they might very well be quite autarchical in their operation, as opposed to the western manner of global supply chains. I don't know why you assume the status of the ruble in the foreign markets is directly germane to the continued existence of Russia as a country, when again, they might be quite autarchical. After all, Russia is not America. And finally (for your first paragraph) I do not understand how you have come to the conclusion that Russia is in "a geopolitical position so bad that the only thing keeping the rest of the world from absolutely murdering them is a threat to murder the world combined with a reputation so degenerate that people believe they are apt to do it." given that the worlds largest superpower, China, seems to be behind them, and India also does not seem to be terribly opposed. It seems more that half the world seems to support Russia, and it is that half that manufactures most of what the world consumes. I don't know why you believe Russia's reputation to be "so degenerate". I find the language more charged than necessary.
I don't understand how you know what Putin wants is "pacification" when it could very well be surrender, treaty signing, and then departure, or why you judge 5 figure death counts to be "horrifying" when on the scale of modern war (as opposed to "counter-insurgency" and "counter-terrorism") those seem to be rather small.
Above all, and forgive me as I don't know who you are or what kind of stake you have in all this, but I don't understand why you're grandstanding moral about it.
What makes me say all that is the fact that the moralizing position on this is incomprehensible to me. It feels like everyone got whipped up into a frenzy because all the major western propaganda organs and all the social media astroturfing started marching in lockstep to the drums of war.
If I believed in our rulers, I suppose I’d be marching too. But they’ve lied a lot on every other war. And worse? They’ve LOST every other war. Why follow a bunch of losers?
Some are sad about the situation.
Others are sickingly delighted.
No amount of discussion will help.
The ones who are happy with China and positive toward the Russian action. They are also the first to complain if they perceive any slight or racism towards them. They do not seem to understand that their attitude is causing more skepticism and problems of trust in the western world. Any future disagreement with the west will be explained away as western aggression and that this was the US's plan all along.
No one cares about someone being different. Chinese culture was heavily embraced. Most would prefer to collaborate for a better planet.
People care when someone is a bad actor. Acting in self interest can only get you so far, especially at times like this.
This, quite naturally, leads to the belief that criticism of Russia is overblown, and is rather the West attempting to smear another country that doesn't play by the Western rules. "Don't tell a neighbor how to raise their kids", so it goes.
Also the parallels between Ukraine and Korea are drawn: some Chinese people can see that Russia doesn't want NATO moving up to the border because they didn't want the US doing the same in Korea.
Moreover, Western agitation to provoke the situation is blamed and Ukraine has been tricked by NATO into an alignment that unacceptably threatens Russia but without the commitment to actually defend it. Which, again, doesn't spring from nowhere.
- a lot of equipment is sent to Ukraine: Bayraktar drones, MiGs fighters, javelins to just name the most expensive and effective.
- CIA intel.
- NATO training of Ukrainian soldiers.
- Mercenary/individual forces moving to Ukraine to help.
I think it explains the difference between the defense of Crimea and the rest of the Ukraine...
Western agitation to provoke the situation is a Chinese media talking point. It is hardly credible.
Western leaders were meeting and calling Putin around the clock in the lead up to the invasion trying to negotiate to prevent his actions.
What did China do? They ridiculed the US for 'provoking and causing trouble'. China denied an invasion was about to occur.
You might argue that it is because the west isn't trusted. Why not?? China trusted the west to take investments and have help building up industry. That benefited both parties.
If China didn't trust the US intelligence they should have acted in the right way. A simple example is: Xi demands explanation from Putin about build up of forces near Ukraine. Despite an invasion expecting not to occur, Xi speaks out against invasion.
Xi could have looked good on the world stage by making the right statements to defuse. Instead, no let's ridicule US.
In the West, China growth was seen as an opportunity and partnership by most up until a series of alarming events (very many, I don't want to write a novel) that occurred since Xi came to power. People didn't change opinion over night. China leadership slowly but surely undermined themselves.
Many know their beliefs are wrong and they use this to justify their animosity. There are hints of truth though. The west generally doesn't fight to ensure freedom, it fights for strategic interest. Any further romanticisation is inappropriate in my opinion. Not that other countries are better.
In which country are you and they?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Truce
From that article:
"2004 Athens Summer Games: The Olympic Truce was promoted through Olympic Flame Relay events. The UN supported the IOC in asking the nations of the world to stop all wars for 16 days during the Games."
With each day, Putin is scrambling to find all the help there is.
The only people fighting for him now are psychopaths and conscripts. The latter don't want to be there, and Russia is running out of the former.
Part of the sluggishness has been the desire for the "targeted strike", something that appears to have been reversed with the less discriminate bombing of the last 24 hours.
Conversely, they don't need as much time, given adequate allies.
This is an unwinnable war for Russia, because Ukrainian infantry is armed and not willing to lay down their arms. Russia has learned nothing from e.g. Vietnam.
OTOH, the Chechens reportedly ended up not working out as well as they were planned to, either.
Blame-shift from whom? Who else was telling Russia not to invade until after the Olympics that should shoulder this blame?
' The troops -- who Kirby said were being withdrawn "with the safety and security of our personnel foremost in mind" -- will be repositioned "elsewhere in Europe." '
when's the last time you successfully maintained something resembling internal undecided neutrality on a given topic, instead of resolving your views into a concrete position? it seems to be human nature to know that [something] is [true/false/some other quality], instead of maintaining an ambiguous perspective—even for complex issues, we seem to want to boil them down into something like a polarizing binary choice of belief—rather than allowing ourselves to remain uncertain, as soon as possible—to avoid the mental burden of not having come to a decision yet.
always-online smartphones in everyone's pockets and social media have made the world increasingly polarizing. fence-sitters are not tolerated: pick a side, you're either with me, or against me, and everything I stand for! which is to say, you're emotionally compelled to choose one end of the binary spectrum over the other—when the reality of the situation might not even be a binary choice to begin with!
if human beings were better at remaining "undecided until further evidence" on issues, and if it was more societally-permitted, the world would undoubtedly be a better place.
(is this phrasing less "overbaked"? I still don't see what's wrong with the wavefunction collapse analogy.)
> Every single person in the world knows how to deal with uncertain information from dubious sources: The weatherman says it won't rain [...]
I completely and wholeheartedly disagree with this statement. everyone knows that weather prediction is uncertain, and takes such predictions with a grain of salt accordingly. this is not the case for news media. historically it has been mostly trusted implicitly, and this is largely still the case, but now there's people who don't trust any news media at all (or perhaps only their preferred, alternative sources). regardless, "every single person in the world" does NOT "know how to deal with uncertain information from dubious sources" in the smartphone/social media age. it is delusional to believe otherwise.
It's not a perfect system obviously but yet to see an alternative.
It's obvious from US political coverage, especially since the 2016 election, that the answer to this is: Yes, journalists have incentives to publish sensationalist stories fortified with "anonymous sources" that may be falsified and have little to do with reality for the sake of ratings, clicks and the ilk, as well as pushing either their own or their employers' political agenda(s).
I'll say this clearly: this is true of all media, left, right & everything else.
The media has repeatedly demonstrated that they are just as corrupt as the politicians that they are supposedly holding accountable. The difference is: no journalists have gone to jail for their corruption. And no, I'm not calling for an end to a free press. We, their audience, need to hold them accountable by depriving them of the funds to keep their corruption active. We should demand our journalists hold the same level of integrity we wish of our politicians.
If you want to stay informed and intellectual, a lot of maybes will have to compete for space in your brain.
NYT in this case which seems to have one of the best processes.
However, the Times also employed Judith Miller, which goes to show how little such processes are worth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destr...
"In the buildup to the 2003 war, the New York Times published a number of stories claiming to prove that Iraq possessed WMD. One story in particular, written by Judith Miller, helped persuade the American public that Iraq had WMD: in September 2002 she wrote about an intercepted shipment of aluminum tubes which the NYT said were to be used to develop nuclear material."
Are they really though? NYT for example must write thousands of articles a year and they're human. What's the alternative?
yeah IMHO that's one of the reasons why this problem exists to start with. Back in the print days, "thousands of articles" was not the main incentive. In the "click count" days, it is. I don't have a solution, I'm just suggesting that this is part of the problem.
I'm not sure what the solution is, or if there even is one, but it's become very difficult to trust "anonymous sources" over the last 10+ years or so.
I disagree that this is merely a technological issue. What passes for journalism in this country took a nosedive in 90s, after a handful of corporate conglomerates took over all broadcast news. I am not sure how old you are, but I remember news in 80s. CNN owned by Ted Turner, and the current manifestation are night and day.
p.s. And it wasn't just CNN. ABC's Nightline, for example, was also solid and that only happened because of Turner's CNN. And of course, MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour was outstanding.
You simply made accusations and statements about "good journalists".
If it's a valid, public source, well, even if you don't know the source, if someone is willing to put their name to the news, maybe it's more valid.
Today this deception of journalists being generally competent is just not viable anymore, since people have way too many sources to fact check, and way too many bubbled to blop in.
Managing/selecting a few dozen foreign editors at mainstream outlets, conveniently co-located around DC/NYC, is absolutely within the capabilities of a powerful NatSec apparatus.
No it isn't. People lie and cheat all the time for all kinds of reasons. If there's no source cited it's effectively an opinion piece. Letting someone write articles from home all day long with the option to use an anonymous source is working out about as well as anyone with half a brain would expect. Journalists are not some pure beacons of morality and honesty and they shouldn't be trusted at all. They're strangers on the internet.
Do people actually expect intelligence sources to go publicly on the record ?
Marco Rubio is privy to classified material and doesn't answer to the Biden administration.
They've had a pretty good track record for stuff about this invasion.
Jake Sullivan and others even admitted that some of the "intelligence reports" were fabricated as "deterrence". That is, "If we shout loud enough about <negative outcome> before it happens, perhaps <negative outcome> perpetrators will get cold feet".
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/...
There are plenty of trees to create abatis, log obstacles, post formations, etc. Even civilians could do a lot of it. Get ahead of the curve, and you can do a lot to slow the advance of armored vehicles.
Similarly, for cities...
https://mobile.twitter.com/SpencerGuard/status/1497583307504...
Of course, I'm not there, nor privy to everything that is going on.
There were a few well-publicized incidents of this outside of Kiev, very early in the conflict: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/25/world/russia-ukraine...
e.g.
ABATIS
An abatis is an effective obstacle against tanks and other vehicles in a heavily-wooded area with few roads or trails. An abatis can be constructed rapidly using demolition to fell trees. The trees should be felled at a 45-degree angle to the road or trail. The tree should remain attached to the stump to make the obstacle more effective and difficult to clear.
To calculate the amount of explosive necessary for tree cutting, use the formula: D (diameter of the tree trunk, in inches) squared divided by 50, for a test shot.
This formula is used to compute the amount of TNT required. The results of the test shot will determine if more or less explosive is necessary for subsequent shots.
Place the charges at a height of 5 feet above the ground. The trees will fall toward the side where the explosive is placed. One side of the abatis should be blown, and the other side delayed, until the first row has fallen.
If time allows, mines, wire, and booby traps can be added to make clearing more difficult. Modular Pack Mine System (MOPMS) exploded on the obstacle adds an excellent tank "killer" capability.
Log posts
Posts are among the best antivehicular obstacles because each post presents breaching problems to the attacker. There are no fast methods of breaching a belt of posts. Normally, the attacker will try to bypass such an obstacle. Therefore, post obstacles should be placed where bypass requires much time and effort. Posts should be hardwood with a minimum diameter of 40 centimeters (15.8 inches).
All posts are buried 1.5 meters (5 feet) in the ground, either vertically or at a slight angle toward the enemy, and project between 75 to 120 centimeters (30 to 48 inches) above ground level. The height should vary from post to post. The minimum acceptable density for posts is 200 per 100 meters (328 feet) of front. The spacing should be irregular, with at least 1 meter (3.3 feet), and not more than 2 meters (6.6 feet), between posts.
The effect of post type obstacles can be improved, and the obstacles made more difficult to breach, by weaving spirals of barbed wire among the posts. Exploding MOPMS into the obstacle after completion greatly increases its effectiveness. Conventional mines can also be used to make the obstacle more difficult to breach.
Out here I see the odd tractor with four or even six tires on an axle in the spring.
China is the leading superpower I guess.
It's not the 70s anymore. China is far stronger than Russia, and going forward Russia will be extremely dependent on them, because of sanctions for the Ukraine invasion.
IMHO, China's likely going to be able to turn Russia into a vassal.
But it makes sense for China; why bark yourself, when you have a nuclear poodle?
Far more ideological distant then you might think.
The current Russia has nothing to do with communism, it's all about oligarchs and authoritarian capitalism.
China's ideology "hates" oligarchs, but they are also authoritarian, and have common opposition so working together makes sense. But that's it. Besides "authoritarian" they share very little in common wrt. there ideology.
I'll take that position. China hasn't achieved superpower status. It hasn't chosen to take the necessary risks.
However, due to the astronomical amount of military spending the US continues to commit to I think it's fair to argue the point. China might have been a super power in the 80 with this level of global investment - but the US is just going into orbit.
This sounds like a retcon to me: the USSR was unquestionably a superpower, but had limited force projection (euphemism for carrier groups).
I'd always heard it described as essentially force projection - the ability to fight a war on the other side of the planet - but this is probably just a snapshot in time too.
Does Russia fit that bill? did it ever? I think that's where we get caught up in trying to nail down a definition while it keeps changing around us. The Cold War certainly reached the other side of the planet. They certainly had a sphere of influence.
But I think it seems very obvious that between England and France earning the title, America and Russia earning the title, and now China - the definition has changed each time. So we're trying to argue semantics with a definition we're not clear on - no wonder we get fuzzy results.
Militarily they are not the most advance or spend to that level.
China isn't the largest economy yet. They say they could overtake the US by 2030
I believe they are in terms of economy, supply chain, economic future growth.
> China isn't the largest economy yet.
Personally I think this is done deal and just a matter of time, like global warming, its not complete, but clearly on the path.
In Afganistan the country was occupied, Bin Laden went into hiding and then killed.
Both wars were won and objectives met.
They are still occupied and Bin Laden was killed a decade ago, 2011 and nothing has changed in the country. What was the purpose for the war? I agree Bin Laden had a death sentence but he wasnt even in Afghanistan when he died, and then we stayed for 10 more years doing nothing. The US lost this war, negotiated retreat with the Taliban and they took the country back in a matter of weeks.
> In Iraq leadership was killed democracy installed and oil wells secured. Enemy turned into an ally.
Democracy is installed? Is it our oil now? Were there WMD's (the pretense for the entire war, based on the impressive intelligence capability of the US?). We lost this one too.
They chased him out of Afghanistan, killed him and dismantled his terrorist network. That was the purpose. There were no plans for America to make Afghanistan a state. You leave when you have no reason to be there. The war was 20 years ago.
And with "best friend" I mean only friend they couldn't afford to offend given that they already had been in a tensed situation with "the west".
Like in "the only nation which can still ship you chips and similar if you really mess with the West and the bite back".
Over the decades i ve grown to hate the olympics and other international sports competitions as they are important instruments of nationalism
It's possible to celebrate countries coming together without the basement rhetoric.
I more worry about how much they push whatever host company to expend as many resources as possible in what is often a wasteful way.
I'd rather the Olympics be a nation wide event where a given nation probably has the facilities needed spread out over their country / wouldn't need to waste all that money.
“Don’t do it at all” is a nice one.
I will say that being on a “moral high horse” seems like a good place to be in regards to war.
War raises many moral issues.
https://old.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t55fov/anonymous_c...
I dont think anyone is saying Xi is a foreign policy dummy. They have been pretty non-interventionist and Putin is KGB by his own words.
Immediately before the invasion Putin screamed to the world about their 'no limit alliance' and then immediately invaded a sovereign nation.
If China knew, then their words are lies. Xi Jinping lied to the entire world. Multiple other chinese officials lied to the world.
Worse yet, china's 'constructive' help coming soon is not going to be the help the world wants.
>s if PRC doesn't have recon sats and cyber abilities to make their own determination. NVM western OSINT of RU build up was sufficient to illustrate that invasion was probable. IMO politburo knew chance of build up turning kinetic but was under no illusion they can sway RU pursuing security interests.
That's just it... The idea I have is that China was aware of the new republics to be protected. The build up was to protect those. Not invade and annex all of ukraine.
>RU certainly can't disuade PRC from moving on TW if geopolitical situation dictates.
Nobody is dissuading anything against taiwan. If China wants it, and my pov is that they already own it... they could just take it. They aren't recognized as a country and have no military alliances. Not unlike ukraine.
> It seems US/NATO has failed to sway PRC (and India, UAE, ASEAN, Brazil) will continue to hedge / stay neutral because frankly they're not going to undermine self interest just because white people are now being shelled. So discord sowing continues to further entrench LIO block and shaming developing countries for buying wheat and fuel, which current sanctions explicitly allow.
This confuses me. The point of view that Putin embarrassed China is the neutral position. The China knew about this isn't the neutral position, it's the China is taking up and raising their army for various targets. Obviously Taiwan, but Japan, South Korea, India, and Vietnam.
Afterall, if there's no limits to China Russia alliance. There is no limit in terms of supporting the efforts in Ukraine. But at least so far... China has basically been sitting back. It implies there are limits.
/s Hyde
https://www.reuters.com/world/americans-canadians-answer-ukr...
The article just talks about foreigners enlisting to assist Ukrainian military, and it lists a few personal stories of those. The only potential reference to Sam Hyde is this sentence: "Hyde, a 28-year-old from the U.S. Midwest, said he was already in Kyiv and expected to start military training on Tuesday." This is a wild stretch to use this as an example of Reuters being hoaxed in this article. For all we know, it could have been a different person with the last name Hyde, it isn't exactly uncommon. There are no references in the article to the details that could definitely identify it with the Sam Hyde hoax that we saw on Twitter.