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Russia/Ukraine conflict

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In terms of collapse I think of Iraq when Saddam's forces were thrown out of Kuwait as being the gold standard. 100 days later it was completely over and there was no army, from about half a million under arms before hand.
Are you sure .... I remember it differently.


After the Gulf War and an unsuccessful Kurdish uprising in 1991, Kurds fled back to the mountains to seek refuge from the government forces.[13] The United States established a no fly zone initiative in Iraqi Kurdistan for the Kurds as an asylum away from the Iraqi government.[13] United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 in 1991 condemned and forbade "the repression of the Iraqi civilian population... in Kurdish populated areas."[13] After many bloody encounters, an uneasy balance of power was reached between the Iraqi forces and Kurdish troops, ultimately allowing Iraqi Kurdistan to function independently.
 
Yes, but as usual for political matters the alternatives could be much worse. A nationalist, semi-authoritarian leader vs a fractured corrupt opposition.
Yes, it is really sad to see such incompetent opposition. That in turn allows unfettered growth of populism.

Ultimately people get the leader they deserve. People seem to want Modi, and I just hope it doesn’t lead to a disaster like Russia. Seems a bit far fetched that such would be the case in a democracy like India, though.

Pakistan has yet to win back its national pride, it has been one disaster after another. India made its choices when nuclear weapons were not held by Pakistan or in mass by China. The time for rapprochement was with Reagan but India would have had to shift.

Pakistan is all but a client state of China with a few Middle Eastern friends for company. They were adept at manipulating US in the past, evidenced by the Afghanistan proxy war as well as more recently, after Sept 11th. US has learnt its lessons and has finally distanced itself from Pakistan.

Their doctrine of trying to match or exceed India Nuke for Nuke has been very bad for their economy. Their military is the puppet master of the elected government.

India is no longer as obsessed with Pakistan as it was in the past century. while it’s economy could have done better, it is doing relatively well, and is stable. India’s main worry is China, with which there are large border areas without any resolution since the formation of India in 1947.
 
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that means India can no longer use Russia as a counter weight and by necessity must turn to Europe and the USA. These are the natural partners of a multi ethnic democracy so it is sad Modi is not moving faster to build connections. He's a bit of a disaster for India.
But Modi doesn't believe in multi-ethnic democracy. His whole USP (or rather the party's) is Hindu-nationalism (what should actually be called Hindu-supremacist). That is why he was such a natural partner for Trump.

ps : Fun fact. Even as people were pointing Kamal Harris is half-Indian .... Modi fans hated Kamala and were all pro-Trump. Infact a lot of anti-Dem pro-Trump twitter trolls come from India.

Coming back to Russia - I'm sure the Ukraine war will have long term effect on 50 year old Indo-Russia military alliance. I expect almost all new arms acquisition to be from non-Russian sources. Esp Israel.

The weirdest part of India-Pakistan equation is that even though both have nukes - that doesn't rule out wars between them. Apart from low-level conflict in Kashmir through proxies that is going on since US trained Islamic Militants in Pakistan / Afghanistan 40 years back ... there have been multiple actual small scale conflicts between them. The theory of mutual assured destruction preventing "hot" wars has failed.
 
But Modi doesn't believe in multi-ethnic democracy. His whole USP (or rather the party's) is Hindu-nationalism (what should actually be called Hindu-supremacist). That is why he was such a natural partner for Trump.

ps : Fun fact. Even as people were pointing Kamal Harris is half-Indian .... Modi fans hated Kamala and were all pro-Trump. Infact a lot of anti-Dem pro-Trump twitter trolls come from India.

Coming back to Russia - I'm sure the Ukraine war will have long term effect on 50 year old Indo-Russia military alliance. I expect almost all new arms acquisition to be from non-Russian sources. Esp Israel.

The weirdest part of India-Pakistan equation is that even though both have nukes - that doesn't rule out wars between them. Apart from low-level conflict in Kashmir through proxies that is going on since US trained Islamic Militants in Pakistan / Afghanistan 40 years back ... there have been multiple actual small scale conflicts between them. The theory of mutual assured destruction preventing "hot" wars has failed.

They actually had a medium scale war in 1999, in Kashmir’s Kargil region. Another disaster created by Pakistan. That was close on the heels of both countries testing new nuclear devices.

Both India and Pakistan probably realize that nukes are not really an option except when the whole thing is going to crap in a very bad way. It’s a doomsday weapon.

India’s right wing is what worries me. I feel they might want to test Pakistan as a way to distract from slow economy and high joblessness. Such a misadventure can result in Ukraine 2.0.

I feel Ukraine is like a test run that all these countries - China, India, Pakistan, and others are watching closely. US and Europe have demonstrated the economic pain that can be wrought on a bad actor. Hopefully, Ukraine war will end soon, with China quietly signaling its limits of support to Putin. (I.e: ’use the nukes, and you are no longer China’s friend’)

Putin hopefully comes to his senses, as the options only get worse and worse with each passing day.

In the long run, I hope there is a fundamental realignment of our supply chains, which I have been wishing for for the last 10-15 years.

The west invests more locally, and in green technologies. It diversifies to more stable countries. India, Mexico, maybe some European countries as well.

Bottomline will be : if you start a major war, you will almost certainly come off much worse after the war than before.

One can only hope this will be the case.
 
Completely misleading given the article was talking about India's overall stance:
"India's refusal to condemn the invasion of Ukraine and efforts to protect trade with Russia mean one of Washington's most valued strategic partners is actively undercutting its efforts to isolate Moscow."

And on the subject of oil/gas, the other nations are may be leaving those out given there are no alternatives, but they have done everything they can in terms of sanctions for practically everything else. India is not anywhere close in this regard.
 
I think the army in the field will see significant collapse by the end of this month. There may be some units left in the field, but they will be low on supply and the Russians will have trouble resupplying them. The Ukrainians will go on the offensive and surround the remaining units into pockets that will either die fighting or surrender.

The collapse of the army will send ripples up the chain of command. If Putin is still in power, there will be purges of the top generals which will destabilize the entire military. Exactly what happens from there is unknown. Losing a significant chunk of the military in a month is almost unknown in history. The USSR went through it in June 1941 when millions of troops were killed or captured, but because it was total war the Soviets rallied and started conscripting anyone who wasn't in a critical industry. The Germans had a lot of ground to cover after the initial victories, so the Russians could trade territory for time. The fall mud followed by the bitter cold of winter was the point where they could stop the losses and turn things around a bit. Being able to ship troops in from the Far East helped a lot too. Those troops arrived in Moscow just as the Germans reached the suburbs.

I can't think of a modern example of an army on the offense having a complete collapse and massive loss of units like the Russians are facing. This war is a massive mistake for the Russians. Their entire army is not big enough to take and hold Ukraine and Ukraine is not going to accept a puppet Russia puts in place. At this point any Ukrainians who might have sort of accepted it are not going to stand for it.

Great assessment. The only question that remains is how long can Putin’s $300 billion in reserve buy itself some needed time? If China will help in any form? And whether India or others will buy Russian oil, which will also give Russia more time. From the beginning of the invasion reporters were questioning Biden if his $1 trillion sanction will work, his reply: wait a month and you’ll see the unprecedented effect.

Just as important as the military lifeline, how much will Putin pump into his own economy? When will the average Russian middle class start to really feel the economic pain and their savings evaporate? Military experts have stated the war is costing Russia up to $20 billion a day, I think that number is too high. Base on the lack of logistics, it might be closer to $1 billion a day. If we split the cost of financing the military and Russian economy at $1billion a day each, the Russians theoretically have 150 days or less, barring any income from oil exports, before they completely have to fold. If Putin does fold before he runs out of cash, how much time will $200-300 billion buy him before the Russian economy collapses? Then there’s this question: how will his military/young men who saw the fighting first hand, shooting of their own wounded soldiers, act of terrorism against Ukraine, being lied to and forced into battle, etc. react when they come home in massive numbers. They surely will be telling their parents, relatives the truth. And ounce the Russian economy feels realPAIN, that’s when things will get interesting.
 
Completely misleading given the article was talking about India's overall stance:
"India's refusal to condemn the invasion of Ukraine and efforts to protect trade with Russia mean one of Washington's most valued strategic partners is actively undercutting its efforts to isolate Moscow."

And on the subject of oil/gas, the other nations are may be leaving those out given there are no alternatives, but they have done everything they can in terms of sanctions for practically everything else. India is not anywhere close in this regard.
Why isn’t the press pummeling Europe for buying Russian gas ?
 
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Why isn’t the press pummeling Europe for buying Russian gas ?
Because they are actively working toward eliminating that dependence?
How Europe can reduce its dependence on Russian natural gas
Is India doing anything like that?

You also changed the subject from the actual article, which is that India is not doing anywhere near the same sanctions on other Russia products (if any), not to mention they have not condemned Russia (which is a big reason for the media criticism). I guess you agree with that point?
 
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Are you sure .... I remember it differently.

The kurds had been fighting before we ever were there, roughly some 1000 or more years. For this discussion I omitted. FYI, I was asked to transfer there. I declined to leave my posting but it was intriguing. Because of those interviews I'm pretty familiar with the Kurds and our recent betrayal of them.
 
Great assessment. The only question that remains is how long can Putin’s $300 billion in reserve buy itself some needed time? If China will help in any form? And whether India or others will buy Russian oil, which will also give Russia more time. From the beginning of the invasion reporters were questioning Biden if his $1 trillion sanction will work, his reply: wait a month and you’ll see the unprecedented effect.

Just as important as the military lifeline, how much will Putin pump into his own economy? When will the average Russian middle class start to really feel the economic pain and their savings evaporate? Military experts have stated the war is costing Russia up to $20 billion a day, I think that number is too high. Base on the lack of logistics, it might be closer to $1 billion a day. If we split the cost of financing the military and Russian economy at $1billion a day each, the Russians theoretically have 150 days or less, barring any income from oil exports, before they completely have to fold. If Putin does fold before he runs out of cash, how much time will $200-300 billion buy him before the Russian economy collapses? Then there’s this question: how will his military/young men who saw the fighting first hand, shooting of their own wounded soldiers, act of terrorism against Ukraine, being lied to and forced into battle, etc. react when they come home in massive numbers. They surely will be telling their parents, relatives the truth. And ounce the Russian economy feels realPAIN, that’s when things will get interesting.
I think the russian reserves will all be seized to pay for the rebuild of Ukraine.
 
What does “NATO, let us win” look like?
Georgia.

For clarity, this is not my preferred outcome. I have always been of the opinion that we hung Georgia out to dry (Abkahazia, South Ossetia, fall of Saakashvili); ditto Moldova (Transniestria); and then we did the same again with Ukraine (Crimea, Donbass). *And that now is the time to stop this.

But we also need to clean up our own act in the liberal-democratic West, which includes tackling free-riders (Austria, Malta, etc**); and 'quisling-splittists-neo-fascistic-shills' (Hungary/Orban; Poland; US/Trumpism; UK/Brexiters; etc) and that it is incredibly difficult to find ways to do this whilst still remaining the liberal-democratic West that we wish to be.

* Was it inevitable? A short history of Russia’s war on Ukraine | Keith Gessen

** Ambiguous alliance: Neutrality, opt-outs, and European defence
What does this mean?

That Russia gets Georgia if they withdraw their troops from Ukraine?
 
.../ These are the natural partners of a multi ethnic democracy so it is sad Modi is not moving faster to build connections. He's a bit of a disaster for India.
Freedom House puts India on downward slope with regards to Democracy. It's no longer ranked as "FREE". It's currently only ranked as "PARTLY FREE".

Source:
 
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The kurds had been fighting before we ever were there, roughly some 1000 or more years. For this discussion I omitted. FYI, I was asked to transfer there. I declined to leave my posting but it was intriguing. Because of those interviews I'm pretty familiar with the Kurds and our recent betrayal of them.
The point being, Saddam’s army didn’t reduce to zero as was being claimed in that post.
 
Because they are actively working toward eliminating that dependence?
How Europe can reduce its dependence on Russian natural gas
Is India doing anything like that?

I think there is quite a bit discussed already about India’s reliance on Russia for arms they have been reducing.

BTW, at one time USSR supplied majority of India’s oil imports. Since now it’s only 3% - it has already done a lot.

Unlike Europe that kept getting Russian gas for so long.

You also changed the subject from the actual article, which is that India is not doing anywhere near the same sanctions on other Russia products (if any), not to mention they have not condemned Russia (which is a big reason for the media criticism). I guess you agree with that point?
Whats your point ? At least it’s not helping KSA starve a million kids in Yemen.

The point that was made there was media has different standards - yes I agree with that point.

Ps : looks like condemnation to me.

 
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