Is Putin’s end game the roll out of a domestic CBDC?
the-blindspot.com
the-blindspot.com
COVID would have provided a much better excuse for isolationism without sending troops anywhere. I think Russian troops in Ukraine has to be read as "Russia's rulers want to control more of that territory."
The apparent ineffectiveness may be an argument that the route to world peace is bureaucratic sclerosis and the inevitable realization of the SNAFU principle.
This is a massive understatement. It makes absolutely no sense in any way. The fact that the author thought it necessary to add some big introduction about their "source" in an attempt to add credibility in what is just some fantasy by someone who really doesn't like the idea of CBDCs is highly suspicious.
It's a novelty take, rather than a serious one IMO.
This is simply not true. We have solid evidence of attempted VDV airdrops and the VDV is an elite part of the army.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/08/vitaly-gerasim...
Anyone is expendable when you're a dictator.
Vitaly Gerasimov was the Chief of Staff of an army (41st Combined Arms), rather than the Army. The similarly-named Valery Gerasimov is the Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.
Respectfully disagree.
Its also not acceptable to downvote because you disagree.
I think a woldview that quickly realises the ridiculouslness of the premise is better grounded in reality than one that seriously considers it.
> Its also not acceptable to downvote because you disagree.
That's on Reddit. Downvotes on HN have always been used to express disagreement.
Not really. There isn't a specific guideline on what downvoting means or what is acceptable to downvote.
Some people downvote comments they disagree with, some do it for comments that don't add anything meaningful to the dicussion, etc.
Some articles are just way too wrong on a fundamental level that whatever it is they want to say is useless IMO / it's just noise.
> IK – I’ve received a guest submission from an informed source that I can vouch for (to some degree). The author wishes to remain anonymous but what I can tell you is that he runs a global technology company from the UK and has close family and assets in both Russia and in China.
Yeah, no. Nobody else would think of slipping in gosbankification. This is Izabella trolling everyone.
A CBDC could easily impose an actually-working tax system and the budget. But I don't see how it would implement the system where the neighborhood cops take your money and split it among themselves. Even shell companies wouldn't help, since in the end money moves to individuals. The whole thing is worse for the cops than for the citizens.
The cops do actually benefit from the isolation in that they can stop pretending that they respect the ‘law’, which they for some reason vaguely kept up until recently—at least on paper. But I don't think that they want instead to have strict ‘law’ and checks among themselves.
Just because a system records citizens' transactions doesn't mean it has to record everyone's transactions, right?
Putin's actions in Ukraine are not a great mystery, and do not require a conspiracy to impose a CBDC to explain. Putin and his circle are in complete control of Russia and Russian politics and face no meaningful domestic opposition. He has no requirement to manufacture a war or other crisis to change economic policy, no requirement to impose a CBDC to exert pressure on his population, and no requirement to exert mass control of his population at all, given his wide popularity.
Regarding Ukraine, Putin judged that the Ukrainian government were pro-West and hostile to his regime, and that this was unlikely to change without some external factor forcing it to. He observed the sanctions situation following the Crimean annexation and judged that sanctions were 1) survivable, 2) not likely to be elevated to the point that they risked European economic growth and energy security, and 3) not likely to be relaxed without significant concessions.
Most recently, Putin observed the Western withdrawal from Afghanistan and concluded Ukraine was an analogous situation: As he saw it, the government was corrupt, it only survived due to Western backing, and its members would flee when faced with rapid defeat (and likely execution). This would produce a power vacuum, and neither the armed forces or the civilian population would offer serious resistance to a new regime. And, presented with a fait accompli, the West would agree to recognise new government in the same way they had with the Taliban despite having fought against them for 20 years.
Based on this, he saw little downside to what he genuinely believed would be a swift and decisive operation to replace the government of Ukraine. After the plan's initial failure, he has no alternative but to try to save some face by completing the conquest or forcing an uneven armistice.
The crypto community is so bad about that.
You'd think some of these folks just looked outside their window for the first time and know nothing else.
He can kick out media folks for any reason he likes.
His war makes his military look weak / strengthened his opponent's resolve.
>Putin is not trying very hard to conquer Ukraine. His expensive weaponry is being held back – he is invading on the cheap with expendable conscripts and lots of shelling from close range.
I find this hard to buy into at this point.
I think more likely he is going to war with what he really has available.
* Logistics is being targeted * Russian army relies in railroads like its 1945 * Ukraine targets logistics as the well identified weak link * Ukraine is defended by everyone and everyone hates Russians. * Morale is Russian army is turbo low. They dont want to kill people who could be their relatives. * Generals on Russian side die further demoralizing them. * They realised top is using them often as cannon fodder. * Logistics company in US army is usually 4 times bigger than in Russian army per organisational unit of army. It means that US understand the war much better than Russia.
I seem to remember that this is largely based on well-known historically different assumptions between the US and Russia/USSR in case of a conflict in Europe.
US expects to fight on the ground in countries that are either allies or whose hearts and minds will need to be won. Also, US has the largest industrial capacity in the world, so they can afford to bring stuff (including chocolate and candies to give around) but they cannot afford to take stuff.
Russia/USSR expects to fight on the ground in occupied countries. Producing and bringing enough from the homeland to feed the soldiers (and the tanks) is too complicated and logistics are easy to target, so the doctrine recommends feeding from the land, aka plunder.
Now I feel bad that it's been flagged.
Putin is Devastating Ukraine to Send the World a Message
https://eand.co/why-putin-is-unleashing-slaughter-in-ukraine...
Trust me, the world doesn't need your ill informed opinion because you have a deadline and a fan base that you need to write for
One thing that invalidates Your post is the logistics. You need tones and tones of material to push war effort and Ukraine destroyed rail connections to belarus and russia at the start of the war. Without good logistics you can't win war.
Other thing that is a "ps" invalidating point is that Putler commited 100% of his best soldiers to this war. Entire set of specnaz and russian marines are deployed.
So yeah, stop thinking like 4d chess are at play.
During the Soviet era, when there was no official exchange between the dollar and the ruble, there was a dollar-based black market. Possibly that would return (if it isn't already).
Putin going a bit mad from years of isolation is a far simpler explanation than a complex scheme involving crypto.
He absolutely does not need to do this thing to have total control of the population. North Korea has total control of its population without digital currency, does it not?
The fundamental way Putin has total control of his population is by having his opponents poisoned, thrown out of windows, or into prison. He has neutered the political system around him, he's shutting down independent media, it's a crime punishable by 15 years in jail to tell anything other than his story about the war, etc.
Why does he need to do anything with a cryptocurrency? He can just keep crushing and killing people.
I can't read the article but I am already sensing from the comments that it is probably totally crackers.
It's crackers.
Wait: it's a Poe? All of cryptography is a Poe.