Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
That was never on the table. The issue is whether NATO air power will get involved. Instilling that fear in Putin is central.
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
That was never on the table. The issue is whether NATO air power will get involved. Instilling that fear in Putin is central.
I accidentally hit reply a while ago to criticize the diversion to WWII aircraft but I realized I was really learning something from the discussion even though it was not on topic. I am constantly impressed especially when this is addressed to Ukraine
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TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
All is well then, no one would dare trigger Article 5.
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
I think they're gonna be considerably worse off when half a billion dollars in oil & gas profit isn't dropped in their lap every day.
By 2028 that'll pobably shrink to what.....$50M? And down the tubes from there.
Let's not forget they're not about to invest in this transition. While everyone else is rolling around in sustainable abundance, Russia's gonna be changing rusty spark plugs.
Bet TSLA
Active Member
I've been following Kamil Galeev@kamilkazani on Twitter ever since I saw Karen Rei (Nafnlaus@enn_nafnlaus) citing him. He's been predicting that Russia would lose ever since February. See this thread:
Why Russia will lose this war? Much of the "realist" discourse is about accepting Putin's victory, cuz it's *guaranteed*. But how do we know it is? I'll argue that analysts 1) overrate Russian army 2) underrate Ukrainian one 3) misunderstand Russian strategy & political goals
Reading his posts since then has been quite a history lesson. Way beyond me, I'm afraid. But it's quite clear that the area has an enormously complicated history involving a variety of empires and ethnic groups. And it's also quite clear that any Russian military hardware capability comes from Western support, mostly from Germany. Elon is so, so far out of his depth that he has just about no chance of ever evaluating the truth of anything he's told, never mind having coherent thoughts of his own. Which means it's easy to game him, and he should have the sense to just STFU.
There are no first principles in this mess. Go read Galeev's many long threads on Twitter if you want to learn more.
Of course I'm no expert. Maybe he's making it all up. But he has said many things that have proven accurate over the months since then. And if Karen thinks he should be listened to, that's a major boost to his credibility.
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Maybe. China and the rest of Asia still need to import food, energy and resources, so there are going to be willing buyers.
Wow, what a great thread from February 27. It took me a while to get through it, but it was worth it. Elon really needs to read and understand what the author wrote at the end:
Wow, wow, wow. So true.
I agree with you, but if you are arguing for an expansion to this conflict involving a heavier NATO commitment, that'll probably require the political leadership to make that choice. I doubt the NATO militaries are that bold enough to do that on their own. Fighting a proxy war, yes, but actually taking out the Russian military ... well, they're going to need political cover for that. And I don't see such a backbone in any of our current Western leaders.
petit_bateau
Active Member
This may help anyone interested in the JCPOA linkage to the Iranian drones
www.theguardian.com
Iran breaching nuclear deal by providing Russia with armed drones, says UK
UK joins France in saying apparent drone supply for use in Ukraine leaves Iran in breach of 2015 JCPoA
www.theguardian.com
petit_bateau
Active Member
The entire world (apart from Antarctica) has an enormously complicated history involving a variety of empires and ethnic groups. Unfortunately not all educational systems teach this history, and some are exceptionally bad in their avoidance of it. The locations where the most effective exterminations of the indigenous populations occurred seem to be the most deficient in that respect.
I'm not advocating for NATO to get more involved than it is. Neither the people nor the politicians in western countries want to get directly involved.
If Russia uses any kind of nuclear weapon then the situation will be completely different and the political will among many nations will probably be for direct involvement both politicians and the people. I also suspect that quite a few diplomats have made that clear to Putin.
I could see Biden leading the charge to take action in such a situation. People paint him as a doddering old man, but he has achieved more from Congress in the last two years than most of the recent presidents have in 4 or 8, and with a very narrow majority in Congress. Before Russia's invasion of Ukraine he authorized an unprecedented release of American intelligence gathered on Russia to other world leaders and information made public. He was trying everything possible to get Putin to back down. It didn't work because Putin was operating on his own very flawed intelligence.
When Putin did invade Biden was leading the charge to level sanctions on Russia and started the ball rolling on supporting Europe. He tried to pull the traditional levers of punishment for bad behavior by getting Saudi Arabia to crank up (or down) production to punish bad players, but that relationship was soured by the previous administration and SA didn't want to play ball.
Not every diplomatic move is going to work, but this administration is working hard to get as much of the world as possible on the same playbook.
RobStark
Well-Known Member
Biden called on the civilized world to make Saudi Arabia a Pariah State after the Khashoggi murder. Biden put principle above realpolitik. Trump was quite simpactico with MBS.
Biden alienated SA all on his own. Sometimes taking a principled stand comes back to bite you in the ass.
lolachampcar
Well-Known Member
I'm not sure I "see" a backbone but someone on the US side (likely with a lot of consultation in Europe) is generating an approach that is letting Russia do itself in while teetering on the balance of them using nuclear weapons. Someone or someones are doing a lot of quiet thinking and, collectively, the approach they are using seems to be working. Biden took A LOT of crap for insisting we would not put boots on the ground in the beginning. For all of that I must give them credit.
Had the administration in the US not changed for whatever reason, this whole situation would look entirely different. Ukraine's spirit is phenomenal but spirit without a supply chain and logistics leads to the legend of Ukraine that generations would be talking about (in the absence of a Ukraine).
I just wish there was enough talent and competence in leadership in this world to use this opportunity and adopt a non-mutual assured use of nuclear weapons doctrine. All countries on the planet need to agree to completely isolate any actor that threatens and/or uses nuclear weapons outside of a mutually assured destruction construct least they one day be threatened by a nuclear actor. It is a huge opportunity but I fear we do not have the management to take advantage of it.
Cosmacelf, thanks for the albeit help. The written word is difficult for some of us engineers
As for a Russia in disarray being worse then giving them their way and letting them eradicate Ukraine, I'm afraid I am going to have to take the hard, more difficult road on that one. Stay the course and put as much effort into helping Russia post Ukraine to change its mind about who and what it is and what it wants to be moving forward. A teaching moment centered on self learning coupled with a helping hand. It would seem the Baltic States should be heavily involved in that planning as one of the articles linked above makes abundantly clear. The Western mindset does not have the requisite knowledge to properly plan such a move. I just hope we have the bigger picture desire to not repeat the mistakes of the fall of the wall.
That structure is an existing part of the bridge. There's one approx. 1km either side of the arch section over the shipping lane at the point where the road sections start to climb . What they're for I've no idea.
That video has some points, but I thought this analysis was more on point as to why the Russian Air Force has failed to close the deal. It's the same institutional corruption that led to their army being less competent than Dad's Army.
Is the Russian Air Force Actually Incapable of Complex Air Operations?
True, however it happened, SA is not a fan of Biden.
Question for everyone:
What's going to be the response if Russia continues the infrastructure attacks to a point where it manages to deprive most of Ukraine of power/water/essential services for days or even weeks at a time?
That's going to be a massive problem for the country in general and will also start to affect support of front line troops.
It may be that Russia is starting to run out of long range weapons, but if Iran and even N.Korea step in and supply more, these current attacks could go on long enough to alter the balance of the war.
At what point will the west go 'all in'? (whatever we take that to mean).
What's going to be the response if Russia continues the infrastructure attacks to a point where it manages to deprive most of Ukraine of power/water/essential services for days or even weeks at a time?
That's going to be a massive problem for the country in general and will also start to affect support of front line troops.
It may be that Russia is starting to run out of long range weapons, but if Iran and even N.Korea step in and supply more, these current attacks could go on long enough to alter the balance of the war.
At what point will the west go 'all in'? (whatever we take that to mean).
petit_bateau
Active Member
Those circular pile/pile caps/caissons were used during the initial bridge construction as part of the locating/securing infrastructure for the various construction vessels - transport barges, crane barges, jackups, work barges, etc. You can see them in use with various temporary construction braces around them if you look at the original build photos.
I think Biden has shown just such a backbone in this situation.
IF it is Biden who is calling the shots here, and not the US military running its own show. Not clear to me who is really in charge.
