Russia Invades Ukraine. Again by captaincrunch

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

Originally posted by THG:Poor comrade signym. She is completely reduced to lying. I wonder when she will return to her handler is Russia. Maybe she never came here. That's my bet. She never even came to the states.

I noticed that when SECOND gets his ass thoroughly handed to him, you step in with pure libel.
So prove it, stupid troll.

What you don't understand comrade is that your years of posting here are proof of your identity.

As for you winning out in any discussion between you and SECOND, if it ever happens I'll acknowledge it. So far your posted lies, your responses to what SECOND posts, clearly shows your identity to be that of an anti-American Russian troll.

You never seem to understand that your posts reveal you. I doubt you ever will. Not to worry though, you are not the only one who suffers this.

T

Nobody in the RWED or the entire actual real world needs your approval or acknowledgement. You are an idiot.

Time will prove Sigs right, just as it has continually proven you wrong.

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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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Thursday, June 1, 2023 3:41 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

SECOND, it's embarrassing watching you squirm.

Oh no comrade. Norway, Sweden and Ukraine all becoming NATO members. Oh no comrade. It's embarrassing watching you Russians squirm.

Actually, it brings me great joy.

T

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Thursday, June 1, 2023 5:09 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

Originally posted by THG:Poor comrade signym. She is completely reduced to lying. I wonder when she will return to her handler is Russia. Maybe she never came here. That's my bet. She never even came to the states.

I noticed that when SECOND gets his ass thoroughly handed to him, you step in with pure libel.
So prove it, stupid troll.

What you don't understand comrade is that your years of posting here are proof of your identity.

As for you winning out in any discussion between you and SECOND, if it ever happens, I'll acknowledge it. So far your posted lies, your responses to what SECOND posts, clearly shows your identity to be that of an anti-American Russian troll.

You never seem to understand that your posts reveal you. I doubt you ever will. Not to worry though, you are not the only one who suffers this.

T

Signym posted this idiocy:

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Furthermore, whatever justice there was in fighting WWII in Europe, it was the SOVIETS that won. If you want to credit anyone, give credit where it's due: Russia. Our claims to being Europe's savior are 80% stolen valor.

Russia's military failure in Ukraine follows from its incompetent past. Highlights from Russian history:

1) Russia loses the Russo-Japanese War in 1905
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War
US President Theodore Roosevelt helped Russia and Japan make peace after the war. He won a Nobel Prize for this.

2) Russia loses WWI

3) Russia loses the Winter War with Finland in 1940
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War

4) Russia loses the Continuation War with Finland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation_War

5) If Finland could beat Russia, so could Germany. Hitler decides to attack Stalin, who feared he'd be fired from his job and executed for the crappy way he handled the defense of Moscow. “For half a millennium, Russian foreign policy has been characterized by soaring ambitions that have exceeded the country’s capabilities. Beginning with the reign of Ivan the Terrible in the sixteenth century, Russia managed to expand at an average rate of fifty square miles per day for hundreds of years, eventually covering one-sixth of the earth’s landmass.” You go on to describe three “fleeting moments” of Russian ascendancy: first during the reign of Peter the Great, then Alexander I’s victory over Napoleon, and then, of course, Stalin’s victory over Hitler. And then you say that, “these high-water marks aside, however, Russia has almost always been a relatively weak great power.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/stephen-kotkin-putin-russia-ukr
aine-stalin

5) Russia loses 25 million soldiers in WWII, while Germany loses 7 million. Half of those were killed by US and British Empire soldiers. Literally, Russian soldiers are the worst in the world, but Stalin had so many excess bodies that he could throw their lives away for stupid and pointless reasons. (US deaths: 405,399 because US soldiers were valued by FDR ) During the war, Stalin continued his purges and executed millions of Russians because he had too many to care what happens to them.
"The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic." – Josef Stalin.

6) The USA built atom bombs specifically for Hitler. The USA could have nuked Berlin without any help from Russians, whose only real skill is dying for Mother Russia.

7) Russia loses the Afghanistan War.

8) Russia collapses because of stupidity and incompetence in 1991.

9) Ukraine is defeating Russia, but not as decisively as Finland did in 1939 because Ukrainians aren't particularly competent compared to Russians. As for Finland, it is the world's happiest country for the 6th straight year. Smart and brave people win awards and wars. Stupid people, like Russians, don't win.
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/27/1166180048/finland-is-the-worlds-happie
st-country-for-the-6th-straight-year

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, June 1, 2023 5:17 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Russia won the war against Nazi Germany. That's a historic fact, SECOND, no matter how much in denial you want people to be about it.

And Russia hasn't, and is not, "failing" in Ukraine.

Your head is up your ass, SECOND. By now most people (except THUGR, who is either your sock puppet or incredibly conditioned) realize that everything you post is with the intention to lie. Bc everything you post is in service to your hate. If you do manage to hit on the truth once in a while, it's purely by accident.

You're a sociopath and a troll, Troll.

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Thursday, June 1, 2023 7:54 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:Poor comrade signym. She is completely reduced to lying.

Huh??

What have I "lied" about? Specific examples will do!

Quote:
THUGR: I wonder when she will return to her handler is Russia. Maybe she never came here. That's my bet. She never even came to the states.

SIGNY: I noticed that when SECOND gets his ass thoroughly handed to him, you step in with pure libel.
So prove it, stupid troll.

THUGR: What you don't understand comrade is that your years of posting here are proof of your identity.

HUH?!??

I was against the Vietnam war, not bc it was immoral (which it was) but bc I didn't see the point. Does that make me a N Vietnamese?

I was angry about the invasion of Iraq (twice!) bc it was all done on lies and led to unnecessary suffering and death, here and there, and a budget blowout here.
Does that make me an Iraqi?

I'm against our use of jihadi proxies in Syria and Libya, and our continued occupation and theft of Syrian oil and grain, bc in addition to being vastly immoral it's also incredibly stupid and dangerous to arm and train extremists who you can't just "shut off" when they've served their purpose. Just look at Afghanistan and the leftover "mujahideen". Does that mean I'm Arab, or Syrian, or Libyan, or Afghani?

And I'm against our continued attempts to destroy Russia bc, once again, it's incredibly immoral and stupidly dangerous to test another major power with a nuclear arsenal. RUSSIA is only as big a threat to us and to Europe as we provoke it into being. It's like a bear... don't poke it, and it won' come after you.

We have earned ourselves a metric crap-ton of blowback, THUGR. Most nations are unhappy with our behavior, and the only thing that kept them from taking their revenge was fear. NOT a good place to be!

Quote:
THUGR: As for you winning out in any discussion between you and SECOND, if it ever happens I'll acknowledge it. So far your posted lies, your responses to what SECOND posts, clearly shows your identity to be that of an anti-American Russian troll.

Son, you are so far afield of reality I don't Know what to say. I said Russia would take Bakhmut, and they did. I'm sure they will win the war IN UKRAINE AGAINST NATO.

WHAT WILL YOU DO IF I'M RIGHT?

OH BTW I'm waiting for you to tell all of us WHAT is supposed to happen in two weeks? One week, now.
I suppose that's ONE way to make your predictions come true: Be real specific about the time, but fail to tell us the event!

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Thursday, June 1, 2023 11:27 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Russia won the war against Nazi Germany. That's a historic fact, SECOND, no matter how much in denial you want people to be about it.

You heard of the A-bomb? It would have worked perfectly in Berlin same as in Japan. Victory in Europe Day was May 8, 1945. Hiroshima was bombed 3 months later. The US could have bombed Berlin first then Moscow next if only Truman had known the Russians would still be Berlin and Warsaw 46 years later.**

This is how the Russian Army killed millions of its own soldiers in WWII: Disposable Russian infantry troops in Ukraine often continue trying to advance even after being wounded and fight until killed; in some cases, they have been fired on from their own lines when they try to retreat.

Captured Russian fighters have reported executions under similar circumstances.
This rinse-and-repeat approach would have looked familiar on the Eastern Front 80 years ago.

The result was as grim then as it is now. Disposable troops are fed into the meat grinder and killed or wounded before they can gain enough experience to survive.

An army that can afford such cynical use of troops either has enough manpower to waste — which demographically challenged Russia does not — or is desperate because its forces have proven too ineffective for anything else.

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-russia-uses-infantry-and-mercenari
es-for-attacks-in-ukraine-2023-5

Without end, the Russians threaten A-bomb use to compensate for a grotesquely inadequate army.

** The plutonium A-bomb would have been ready in 1944 if the Manhattan Project had made the implosion design a higher priority, but the Army guys preferred the gun-type bomb design. https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1942-194
5/implosion_necessity.htm

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, June 2, 2023 3:09 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

More bullshit from SECOND. The Soviet Union used attrition effectively and Russia is doing the same, 80 years later.
Troll.

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Friday, June 2, 2023 5:47 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
More bullshit from SECOND. The Soviet Union used attrition effectively and Russia is doing the same, 80 years later.
Troll.

Russians died by the tens of millions. They died in vain because their tactics were not effective. “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic.” The Russians have yet to understand Stalin's bon mot. Once a Russian does, they won't volunteer for Ukraine.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, June 2, 2023 5:48 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Putin and the Psychology of Nuclear Brinkmanship

By Rose McDermott, Reid Pauly, and Paul Slovic
May 30, 2023
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/putin-and-psychology-nuclear-br
inkmanship

ROSE McDERMOTT is David and Mariana Fisher University Professor of International Relations at Brown University.
REID PAULY is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Dean’s Assistant Professor of Nuclear Security and Policy at Brown University.
PAUL SLOVIC is Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon and President of Decision Research.

Shortly after the West rebuked Russia for its 2022 invasion of Ukraine and imposed financial sanctions of unprecedented scope, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he was putting his country’s nuclear forces on high alert. The Kremlin has issued many more nuclear threats, some oblique and some explicit, since then.

The mere possibility that Putin might make good on these threats raises great concern. Even before the war in Ukraine, Russia had reversed its longtime “no first use” policy, under which it claimed it would never go nuclear unless the enemy did so first. Some now believe Russia has switched to an approach known as “escalate to de-escalate,” which holds that nuclear escalation can defuse a crisis by proving one’s commitment to destruction and forcing the enemy to capitulate. In Ukraine, that could mean using a handful of tactical, low-yield nuclear weapons on the battlefield—which CIA Director William Burns and a number of high-ranking U.S. military leaders have warned is possible. Putin, for his part, has merely said that Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons if confronting an “existential” threat.

What constitutes an existential threat, however, is not clearly delineated in Russian strategic doctrine. It lies in the eye of the beholder—in this case, Putin, who retains full control of Russia’s nuclear arsenal, albeit subject to a supposed requirement that Russia’s defense minister and the chief of the general staff of the armed forces authenticate his launch orders. The answer, in other words, comes down to one of the most opaque aspects of the current crisis: the state of Putin’s mind and his outlook on the world.

Much of the debate around Putin’s psychological disposition has centered on whether the Russian president acts rationally. That discussion is an important one, but it has at times lacked nuance. A sounder approach may be to ask what common psychological biases and pathologies, based on behavioral theory and research, shape people’s perception of nuclear war—and how they may apply to the Russian leader. How far Putin will take his nuclear brinkmanship remains anybody’s guess. But a combination of known psychological and cognitive biases, combined with some psychological tendencies characteristic of Putin, could prove extraordinarily dangerous if he feels backed into a corner, with potentially massive implications as Ukraine begins its spring offensive.

SHIELD AND SWORD

A nuclear shadow has hung over the Ukraine conflict from the start. Although the war has been fought by conventional means, Putin would not have started it without his nuclear shield. And his repeated attempts at nuclear coercion have been a central element of his plan to achieve several war aims, although that strategy has met with decidedly mixed success.

For one thing, Putin has raised the specter of nuclear war to deter direct NATO intervention on the battlefield. This has undoubtedly worked, and it provides an ominous lesson to other countries—nuclear and nonnuclear alike—about the room for aggression below the nuclear threshold.

Putin also hoped that his threats would deter, or at least cap, the provision of Western military aid to Ukraine. The level of aid indeed appears to be limited by fears of nuclear escalation. But the success of Russia’s coercive efforts on this front is declining. A coalition of backers has slowly increased its level of support to Ukraine and has accepted at least some risk of nuclear escalation to do so. Its latest step—a joint allied program to train Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets—even opens the door to a future transfer of these highly coveted fighter aircraft.

Putin’s saber rattling has likewise failed to halt the expansion of NATO. Finland has already abandoned its long-standing neutrality and joined the alliance, adding another 800 miles to NATO’s border with Russia. Sweden is only awaiting Turkey’s approval to join next.

Last, and perhaps most important, is Putin’s desire to force Ukraine’s surrender. To support that goal, the Russian president may yet be tempted to engage in more overt nuclear brinkmanship. Overall, in a war that has gone very badly for him, nuclear weapons remain crucial to his plans and future moves.

BLIND SPOTS

In weighing nuclear use, Putin would confront difficult but inevitable tradeoffs between conflicting goals. Nuclear escalation might, in his mind, hasten victory in a grueling war, but he must weigh any potential short-term benefits against the assured harms, both immediate and long term. These include destruction, loss of life, and punishing retaliatory strikes beyond Ukraine’s borders, as the Biden administration and its allies have threatened, as well as irreversible damage—to survivors, to the environment, to the norms of domestic and international politics, to the very integrity of human civilization. This equation, if given due thought and effort, would not encourage nuclear escalation.

The trouble, according to both psychological research and historical evidence, is that people generally struggle to weigh conflicting risks and benefits—including those involving nuclear weapons. Faced with complexity, we simplify, narrowing our focus until a clear choice emerges. Rather than creating a common currency, so to speak, with which to weigh diverse values and objectives in a compensatory manner, we order our goals by priority and focus on achieving the one that is the highest. As the scholars Kenneth Hammond and Jeryl Mumpower have observed, when our values compete, we retreat into “singular emphasis on our favorite value.” This narrowing of attention is known as “the prominence effect.”

Like a spotlight, the prominence effect focuses our attention on what we perceive as the most inherently important attributes of a decision, causing those attributes to assume great and sometimes extreme priority, making a difficult choice appear much easier. In politics, this helps explain the phenomenon of single-issue voters who value a candidate’s position on, say, gun control, abortion, or immigration to the exclusion of any other factor.

The prominence effect has been shown to lead people to disregard humanitarian values, such as protecting human lives or the environment, in favor of more imminent and defensible security goals or salient personal objectives. (Single-issue voting, for example, is particularly common in matters of national security, especially under conditions of threat.) In decisions on the development and use of nuclear weapons, leaders must weigh short-term military and political benefits against vast but hard-to-assess human, social, cultural, and political consequences. The difficulty of doing so in any even-handed way may push long-term consequences, no matter how great their intrinsic importance, outside the spotlight of attention and thus lower the threshold for escalating conflict when under threat or in the face of losses.

THE DEADLY ARITHMETIC OF COMPASSION

Another cognitive bias tipping the scale is our difficulty in computing mass suffering. Most people are familiar with the aphorism that “the death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic,” even if not all of them realize that the saying is frequently attributed to the mass-murdering Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Like other dictums of the sort—“statistics are human beings with the tears dried off”—it captures well our flawed arithmetic of compassion. We care about individual lives, but the fates of nameless, faceless collectives leave us cold, and we become easily inured to large losses of life. This is known as “psychic numbing.”

A single life holds great importance, enough for some people to perform acts of heroism to save complete strangers. It is much harder to appreciate the humanity of groups or entire populations. This defect in our humanitarian accounting has been documented in numerous experiments on life-saving behavior, showing that our intuitive feelings, which we trust to guide us in making all manner of decisions, do not scale up. As the number of lives at risk increases, psychic numbing begins to desensitize us. In some cases, the more who die, the less we care.

Push the numbers high enough, and our feelings of compassion may fade or collapse entirely. A 2015 photograph of Aylan Kurdi, a two-year-old Syrian refugee whose body washed up on a beach in Turkey, generated far more outrage and concern around the world than statistics documenting the hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Syrian civil war up to that point. Larger and larger numbers of dead do not necessarily compound the sense of horror, much less the outrage against those who perpetrate war or genocide. Likewise, a leader willing to countenance nuclear war may not be swayed by the prospect of mass casualties. Past a very low threshold of sensitivity to individual suffering, these numbers may cease to affect decision-making.

FATAL TRADEOFFS AND CHOICES

Research into the prominence effect and psychic numbing suggests general psychological dynamics that could shape Putin’s decision-making. But what do psychologists know about how people think specifically about the use of nuclear weapons? Empirical evidence on this question is understandably difficult to come by. Many public opinion polls have measured Americans’ support for using nuclear weapons. Yet these polls usually fail to posit the tradeoffs that a leader might face in real life, such as the choice between risking the lives of U.S. soldiers and a nuclear strike that will kill large numbers of foreign noncombatants. This was the dilemma at the heart of U.S. President Harry Truman’s decision to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. And this impossible tradeoff is the kind of decision-making environment that allows the prominence effect and psychic numbing to go into overdrive.

In an illuminating 2017 survey experiment, the scholars Scott Sagan and Benjamin Valentino tried to approximate how Americans today would perceive tradeoffs like those Truman once faced. The survey introduced respondents to a hypothetical scenario involving a difficult ground war between the United States and Iran. Respondents were shown a news story that indicated that the war was not going well and estimated that 20,000 additional U.S. military personnel might die if it continued. They were then asked whether they approved of a nuclear strike on Iran’s second-largest city to bring an end to the war and protect the lives of American troops. Participants were told the strike might kill 100,000 Iranian civilians. In a second scenario, the projected death toll was raised to two million Iranian civilians.

The survey results were disturbing. More than half the respondents supported the nuclear option—and, consistent with the effects of psychic numbing, it made little difference whether the strike would kill 100,000 Iranians or two million. Respondents’ willingness to potentially kill millions of civilians to protect 20,000 American service members also points to the prominence they attribute to national security—and the nonprominence of enemy civilian lives.

A study co-authored by one of us (Slovic) replicated Sagan and Valentino’s but probed deeper into the participants’ worldviews. Views on abortion, the death penalty, gun control, and immigration were combined into a single quantitative measure of the degree to which a person generally supported punishing those they viewed as deserving of harsh treatment. The more someone supported punitive policies against others who offended or threatened them (e.g., banning abortion once a heartbeat is detected without exception for rape or incest), the more they supported dropping a nuclear bomb on enemy civilians.

A follow-up survey added questions about racial justice (including on racial disparities in prison sentencing, which often lead to Black people serving harsher sentences than other people who committed the same crimes) and belief in Hell—the ultimate punishment. Respondents who endorsed six or more out of eight ways to punish or restrict the rights of people were almost ten times as likely to approve a nuclear strike on Iranian civilians as those who rejected such punitive approaches. The survey findings have also demonstrated a sense of moral righteousness among supporters of nuclear escalation, who tended to believe that the Iranian victims deserved their fate and that bombing them was ethical. This is consistent with the notion that the perpetrators of harm almost always believe their violent acts to be virtuous. When violence toward the enemy appears not only justified but also virtuous, the threshold for withholding the use of force, or for avoiding escalation, diminishes greatly.

“MEAN, HUNGRY, FEROCIOUS”

It remains impossible to assign a precise probability to a potential nuclear escalation by Russia in Ukraine. It might be easier to predict, however, what one might observe if a Russian nuclear strike in Ukraine is imminent. The nuclear weapons expert Pavel Podvig, for instance, has cited four signs to watch for: more specific nuclear threats from the Kremlin, a rout of Russian forces for which Putin is personally blamed at home, the movement of tactical nuclear weapons from storage into the field, and intercepted Russian communications suggesting possible intent to use nuclear weapons.

But signs that Russia is gearing up for a strike could also be a bluff intended to frighten Ukraine’s allies into standing down. And such signals would only come late in intelligence gathering, meaning there would be little time left to properly evaluate their meaning. Insights from psychological research, however, could shed light on earlier stages of the decision-making process. Factors such as the prominence effect, psychic numbing, and the concept of purportedly “virtuous violence” can help reveal how a leader such as Putin assesses risk—and therefore offer a sense, earlier on, of the relative likelihood that he will go nuclear.

Judging by many of his past statements, Putin’s wish to securely maintain power and his ambition to lead a modern Russian empire into a new golden era are among his most prominent objectives. Both aims will be in jeopardy if the war in Ukraine continues to falter. Still aggrieved by the perceived humiliation of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Putin sees himself as occupying a unique place in Russian history. He is, to hear him tell it, a latter-day Peter the Great capable of winning back lost lands and restoring his country to its previous position as a major world power. Such narcissistic traits tend to amplify the power of psychic numbing and diminish one’s perception of the value of the lives of others—if those lives are even considered at all.

Putin’s cruelty is legendary and has served him well in acquiring and maintaining power. His vengefulness toward those who criticize him or stand in his way is well documented. He has a long record of imprisoning and assassinating political opponents and sanctioning war crimes in Chechnya and Ukraine. He portrays the war in Ukraine as a righteous fight against Nazis and dehumanizes those who dare criticize him, referring to opponents of his invasion as gnats who fly into one’s mouth and should be spit out on the pavement.

Biographers trace this disposition—the belief that brutality is a survival skill—to Putin’s youth. “Post-siege Leningrad,” the journalist Masha Gessen has written of the Russian president’s hometown, was “a mean, hungry, impoverished place that bred mean, hungry, ferocious children.” The young Putin was commensurately quick to anger. If anyone offended him, a friend of Putin’s told Gessen, he “would immediately jump on the guy, scratch him, bite him, rip his hair out by the clump—do anything at all never to allow anyone to humiliate him in any way.” In addition, Putin was heavily influenced by his experience as a young KGB officer in Dresden in 1989, around the time the Berlin Wall fell. He was shocked by the speed with which the power of the people caused East Germany to implode, and he felt betrayed by the lack of response from Moscow. His subsequent desire for control and wealth, as well as his enduring social network, can be traced back to this early experience of rapid social change.

As a leader, Putin has scaled up his siege mentality into what the journalist Michel Eltchaninoff has described as a perpetual sense of victimhood, a fixation on apparent humiliations and insults directed against Russia. He has developed, over the decades, a vision of the world that is paranoid but coherent. Russia, in his mind, has for centuries been the victim of attempts to contain and dismember it. And in Ukraine, Putin is taking it upon himself, once again, to fight back.

HOPE FOR THE BEST, PREPARE FOR THE WORST

Neither heavy losses on the battlefield nor crippling economic sanctions have led Putin to waver. He appears singularly preoccupied with national security and with his own need for control. He certainly considers his attack on the Ukrainians to be virtuous, going as far as to claim that he is “denazifying” a state led by a Jewish president, a man whose grandfather fought the Nazis in World War II. All of this—the psychic numbing, the extreme prominence of security considerations, the purportedly virtuous violence—portends that he will not seek peace short of Ukrainian surrender.

Of course, it is impossible to precisely assess the odds that Putin will use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. But uncertainty and imprecision are not the same as ignorance. Psychological theory and evidence, backed by the history of warfare, point to a high enough risk that Western governments must plan ahead. They should weigh now their possible responses to an escalation that would come as a shock but should not come as a surprise. Unlike opinion surveys that posit a hypothetical risk to U.S. soldiers, Putin’s vulnerability is real and considerable. Russia’s losses have been staggering, far more than the 20,000-soldier threshold that many members of the American public would say warrants the use of nuclear weapons.

That Putin has not yet taken that step, even in the face of huge casualties, is cold comfort. He may wager that time is still on his side and that even a drawn-out, nonnuclear war of attrition will wear out the Ukrainian war machine and its backers. But his narcissistic focus, concentrated around maintaining his hold on power, could drastically shrink the time horizon. As his generals and mercenaries continue their infighting, he may take more risks to end the war sooner. He is a man whom humanity will wish it had kept away from its most dangerous weapons.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, June 2, 2023 9:31 AM

Russia isn't going to use nukes.

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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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Friday, June 2, 2023 10:47 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
More bullshit from SECOND. The Soviet Union used attrition effectively and Russia is doing the same, 80 years later.
Troll.
Russians died by the tens of millions. They died in vain because their tactics were not effective. “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic.” The Russians have yet to understand Stalin's bon mot. Once a Russian does, they won't volunteer for Ukraine.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Did you know that American military learned about Soviet war strategy from captured Nazi Generals? Of course, Nazi Generals were full of bullshit and excuses..."human waves"... "The winter!" "Subhuman barbarians" ... but the reality is that they LOST THE WAR. Today, our military still believes in blitzkrieg even tho it only works half of the time
You learned your bullshit from Nazis, SECOND. No wonder you sound just like them

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Friday, June 2, 2023 3:11 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Scott Ritter is a former Marine Intelligence Officer. He was an inspector for enforcing nuclear treaties with Russia. He first came to my attention as a WMD inspector under Hans Blix in Iraq. He spoke in great depth about the precautions that the inspection teams took to ensure that their inspections were both a surprise (no sanitized sites) and thorough. He spoke in great detail, which I won't go into, but I was convinced that the UNMOVIC inspections were credible and naysayers from the GWB admin were either bullshitters who didn't know WTF they were talking about, or liars.

I don't agree with all of his analyses, but when describing his actual experience he's honest and forthright.
He just came back from a visit to Russia. I would pay attention to his description of Russia, which he says is vibrant and expanding economically, thanks to sanctions.

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Friday, June 2, 2023 10:34 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Maybe too much reality?

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Friday, June 2, 2023 10:39 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Ok, how about a thought experiment?

Let's say that Russia has an overwhelming hand against Ukraine and that NATO is unwilling, or incapable, of helping Ukraine any more.
Russian victory, in whatever form, is assured.
What would Russia do?

I think in order to even try to guess ahead, you have to guess what their goal is. IMHO Russia has no interest in taking Ukraine. They have a few goals in mind, openly stated:

They want to protect the Russian speaking people of Ukraine. That I think would ultimately determine how many oblasts they want to fold into Russia.

They want Ukraine not in NATO.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Saturday, June 3, 2023 1:24 AM

All they want is a buffer from NATO.

I can't blame them. NATO is cancer. It stopped serving its purpose decades ago but just keeps finding new and terrible reasons to keep going.

--------------------------------------------------

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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Saturday, June 3, 2023 2:19 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Ok, how about a thought experiment?

Let's say that Russia has an overwhelming hand against Ukraine and that NATO is unwilling, or incapable, of helping Ukraine any more.
Russian victory, in whatever form, is assured.
What would Russia do?

I think in order to even try to guess ahead, you have to guess what their goal is. IMHO Russia has no interest in taking Ukraine. They have a few goals in mind, openly stated:

They want to protect the Russian speaking people of Ukraine. That I think would ultimately determine how many oblasts they want to fold into Russia.

They want Ukraine not in NATO.

To "protect the Russian speaking people of Ukraine" is easy: those people move to Russia. See how easy that is? Nobody dies. No war. It is a simple real estate transaction and moving vans.

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
All they want is a buffer from NATO.

I can't blame them. NATO is cancer. It stopped serving its purpose decades ago but just keeps finding new and terrible reasons to keep going.

The way Russia politely asks for a buffer is by either invading or threatening to nuke countries that don't want to be Russia's buffer. NATO's purpose was set when Russia invaded Poland, East Germany, etc. Russian troops moved in and never left until the Soviet Union collapsed. Russia regularly threatened to nuke the rest of Europe. Russia stopped the threats for a while but started making new threats to nuke Europe. 6ix, you should know this. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_138294.htm

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Saturday, June 3, 2023 2:33 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
More bullshit from SECOND. The Soviet Union used attrition effectively and Russia is doing the same, 80 years later.
Troll.
Russians died by the tens of millions. They died in vain because their tactics were not effective. “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic.” The Russians have yet to understand Stalin's bon mot. Once a Russian does, they won't volunteer for Ukraine.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Did you know that American military learned about Soviet war strategy from captured Nazi Generals? Of course, Nazi Generals were full of bullshit and excuses..."human waves"... "The winter!" "Subhuman barbarians" ... but the reality is that they LOST THE WAR. Today, our military still believes in blitzkrieg even tho it only works half of the time
You learned your bullshit from Nazis, SECOND. No wonder you sound just like them

Russians deliberately kill Russians. That was the policy in WWII. That is the policy in the Ukraine War. That is why tens of millions of Russians died. They were not killed by Germans. They were killed by Russians. See Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder since 1917 by R. J. Rummel
Download the free book from https://libgen.unblockit.asia/search.php?req=R.+J.+Rummel
https://www.amazon.com/Lethal-Politics-Soviet-Genocide-Murder-ebook/dp
/B073RQ94KF/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Saturday, June 3, 2023 4:57 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Ok, how about a thought experiment?

Let's say that Russia has an overwhelming hand against Ukraine and that NATO is unwilling, or incapable, of helping Ukraine any more.
Russian victory, in whatever form, is assured.
What would Russia do?

I think in order to even try to guess ahead, you have to guess what their goal is. IMHO Russia has no interest in taking Ukraine. They have a few goals in mind, openly stated:

They want to protect the Russian speaking people of Ukraine. That I think would ultimately determine how many oblasts they want to fold into Russia.

They want Ukraine not in NATO.
To "protect the Russian speaking people of Ukraine" is easy: those people move to Russia. See how easy that is? Nobody dies. No war. It is a simple real estate transaction and moving vans.
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
All they want is a buffer from NATO.

I can't blame them. NATO is cancer. It stopped serving its purpose decades ago but just keeps finding new and terrible reasons to keep going.
The way Russia politely asks for a buffer is by either invading or threatening to nuke countries that don't want to be Russia's buffer. NATO's purpose was set when Russia invaded Poland, East Germany, etc. Russian troops moved in and never left until the Soviet Union collapsed. Russia regularly threatened to nuke the rest of Europe. Russia stopped the threats for a while but started making new threats to nuke Europe. 6ix, you should know this. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_138294.htm

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Russians were promised a buffer in 1990. Instead, NATO moved inexorably east, and NATO even destroyed Yugoslavia to make more little NATO-states.

Russia has been politely asking for a buffer zone since 2000. Instead, the west regime-changed Ukraine and promised it entry into NATO (and the EU).

Obviously, polite-asking the collective west doesn't work, since the collective west has no qualms about invading, destroying, or regime-changing nations that don't do whatthey demand, and the collective west is also "not agreement capable".

So where does Russia go from here?

Well, IMHO they started out with the idea that they were going to panic Kiev into negotiating, and it almost worked until BoJo set Zelenskiy straight a year ago March.

They've been slowly cranking up the "pain dial" and attriting Ukraine. But by now it's very clear that Zelenskiy isn't making the decisions (Altho Ukraine is paying the price) so IMHO Russoa has decided they need to make this painful for the collective west.

So I think there are a few things for them to consider.

I think Russia wants to bleed NATO as much as possible by drawing NATO in to commit more weapons and more volunteers and more "advisors" ino Ukraine, where they can be systematically destroyed. They can best do this by attacking portions of Ukraine that the west feels compelled to defend. Odessa and Kiev would be my two gueses, ut in order to get there they need to munch their way thru Kherson and Kharkov. And before THAT, they need to absorb this ~~winter spring~~ ... summer?? ... offensive, and playing defense to Ukraine;s offense is something that Russia does very well.

So, absorb Ukraine;s counteroffensive then slowly make their way west, attriting as much western weaponry as the west chooses to commit.

Ultimately, I think that Russia might wind up militarily taking the entire Ukraine. Not that it wants western Ukraine ... who wants to administer and rebuild a bunch of Russia-haters in the unproductive part of the country? But in order to reach a settlement they can't leave any portion of Ukraine available to re-arm and start the whole thing over again.

If I were Russia, I would break off a chunk of Ukraine and set up a puppet government with a new Constitution that sys they must remain neutral and demilitarized, and let them join the EU. Make the EU responsible for its economic and financial well=being.

Also, Poland and other neighboring states - Moldova, Hungary, Belarus, and Russia = enter into a security guarantee treaty that requires that no neighboring states arm rump Ukraine. That would probably be ideal for Russia. (Other possibilites inclde paring out the various portions of Ukraine to the nations that contributedto its land mass, especially Poland. For whatever reason, I don't tink that Russia would try that, but that could be be wrong.)

The trick is, what next? Russia really wants those missile installations in Poland and Romania gone, and I think that's a reasonable ask, since they were put in ostensibly to protect Europe from ... wait for it... Iran!

CLEARLY that's just a bogus excuse for USA missiles on Russia's border, and that excuse can easily be argued down.

Also, I think Russia is working hard for as much of the world as possibe to de-dollarize, bc the pinch point in the USA then becomes systemic inflation, and THAT will swing the vote.

Anyway, Ill be very curious to see how this all plays out. If it turns out at all like I've reasoned, I'll be vastly surprised but also pleased with myself.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Saturday, June 3, 2023 9:32 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Russians were promised a buffer in 1990. Instead, NATO moved inexorably east, and NATO even destroyed Yugoslavia to make more little NATO-states.

Russia has been politely asking for a buffer zone since 2000. Instead, the west regime-changed Ukraine and promised it entry into NATO (and the EU).

Obviously, polite-asking the collective west doesn't work, since the collective west has no qualms about invading, destroying, or regime-changing nations that don't do whatthey demand, and the collective west is also "not agreement capable".

So where does Russia go from here?

Well, IMHO they started out with the idea that they were going to panic Kiev into negotiating, and it almost worked until BoJo set Zelenskiy straight a year ago March.

They've been slowly cranking up the "pain dial" and attriting Ukraine. But by now it's very clear that Zelenskiy isn't making the decisions (Altho Ukraine is paying the price) so IMHO Russoa has decided they need to make this painful for the collective west.

So I think there are a few things for them to consider.

I think Russia wants to bleed NATO as much as possible by drawing NATO in to commit more weapons and more volunteers and more "advisors" ino Ukraine, where they can be systematically destroyed. They can best do this by attacking portions of Ukraine that the west feels compelled to defend. Odessa and Kiev would be my two gueses, ut in order to get there they need to munch their way thru Kherson and Kharkov. And before THAT, they need to absorb this ~~winter spring~~ ... summer?? ... offensive, and playing defense to Ukraine;s offense is something that Russia does very well.

So, absorb Ukraine;s counteroffensive then slowly make their way west, attriting as much western weaponry as the west chooses to commit.

Ultimately, I think that Russia might wind up militarily taking the entire Ukraine. Not that it wants western Ukraine ... who wants to administer and rebuild a bunch of Russia-haters in the unproductive part of the country? But in order to reach a settlement they can't leave any portion of Ukraine available to re-arm and start the whole thing over again.

If I were Russia, I would break off a chunk of Ukraine and set up a puppet government with a new Constitution that sys they must remain neutral and demilitarized, and let them join the EU. Make the EU responsible for its economic and financial well=being.

Also, Poland and other neighboring states - Moldova, Hungary, Belarus, and Russia = enter into a security guarantee treaty that requires that no neighboring states arm rump Ukraine. That would probably be ideal for Russia. (Other possibilites inclde paring out the various portions of Ukraine to the nations that contributedto its land mass, especially Poland. For whatever reason, I don't tink that Russia would try that, but that could be be wrong.)

The trick is, what next? Russia really wants those missile installations in Poland and Romania gone, and I think that's a reasonable ask, since they were put in ostensibly to protect Europe from ... wait for it... Iran!

CLEARLY that's just a bogus excuse for USA missiles on Russia's border, and that excuse can easily be argued down.

Also, I think Russia is working hard for as much of the world as possibe to de-dollarize, bc the pinch point in the USA then becomes systemic inflation, and THAT will swing the vote.

Anyway, Ill be very curious to see how this all plays out. If it turns out at all like I've reasoned, I'll be vastly surprised but also pleased with myself.

Pick one out of many words you wrote: "Russia really wants those missile installations in Poland and Romania gone, and I think that's a reasonable ask, since they were put in ostensibly to protect Europe from ... wait for it... Iran! CLEARLY that's just a bogus excuse for USA missiles on Russia's border, and that excuse can easily be argued down."

Signym, that is pretty much an excuse for Russia to invade all of Europe and control all of the Mediterranean. Why? you might ask. Because from anywhere in Europe, or the Mediterranean Sea, missiles can reach Russia:

Maximum range of operational missiles in the United States in 2021 (in kilometers)
13,000 Minuteman III: ICBM
12,000 Trident D5:SLBM
2,500 Tomahawk: Cruise Missile
2,500 AGM-86: ALCM
1,000 JASSM/ JASSM ER: ALCM
300 ATACMS: SRBM
240 Harpoon: ASCM
11 Hellfire: ASM
4.5 FGM-148 Javelin
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1309839/us-missiles-range/

Signym, what you think Russia wants -- no missiles on Russia's borders -- there is an answer: NO! Russia can't have control of any land adjacent to Russia, not even one kilometer from the Russian border, and definitely not one thousand kilometers from the border. If Putin decides he can't live with that, there will be war.

By the way, after WWII the Russians killed 2 million Germans. Since Russia does not keep track because lives are unimportant ("One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic"- Stalin) Russia neither knows nor cares how many Germans it killed during peacetime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2
%80%931950)#Legacy_of_the_expulsions

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Saturday, June 3, 2023 9:44 AM

lol

--------------------------------------------------

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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Saturday, June 3, 2023 2:06 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Russians were promised a buffer in 1990. Instead, NATO moved inexorably east, and NATO even destroyed Yugoslavia to make more little NATO-states.

Russia has been politely asking for a buffer zone since 2000. Instead, the west regime-changed Ukraine and promised it entry into NATO (and the EU).

Obviously, polite-asking the collective west doesn't work, since the collective west has no qualms about invading, destroying, or regime-changing nations that don't do whatthey demand, and the collective west is also "not agreement capable".

So where does Russia go from here?

Well, IMHO they started out with the idea that they were going to panic Kiev into negotiating, and it almost worked until BoJo set Zelenskiy straight a year ago March.

They've been slowly cranking up the "pain dial" and attriting Ukraine. But by now it's very clear that Zelenskiy isn't making the decisions (Altho Ukraine is paying the price) so IMHO Russoa has decided they need to make this painful for the collective west.

So I think there are a few things for them to consider.

I think Russia wants to bleed NATO as much as possible by drawing NATO in to commit more weapons and more volunteers and more "advisors" ino Ukraine, where they can be systematically destroyed. They can best do this by attacking portions of Ukraine that the west feels compelled to defend. Odessa and Kiev would be my two gueses, ut in order to get there they need to munch their way thru Kherson and Kharkov. And before THAT, they need to absorb this ~~winter spring~~ ... summer?? ... offensive, and playing defense to Ukraine;s offense is something that Russia does very well.

So, absorb Ukraine;s counteroffensive then slowly make their way west, attriting as much western weaponry as the west chooses to commit.

Ultimately, I think that Russia might wind up militarily taking the entire Ukraine. Not that it wants western Ukraine ... who wants to administer and rebuild a bunch of Russia-haters in the unproductive part of the country? But in order to reach a settlement they can't leave any portion of Ukraine available to re-arm and start the whole thing over again.

If I were Russia, I would break off a chunk of Ukraine and set up a puppet government with a new Constitution that sys they must remain neutral and demilitarized, and let them join the EU. Make the EU responsible for its economic and financial well=being.

Also, Poland and other neighboring states - Moldova, Hungary, Belarus, and Russia = enter into a security guarantee treaty that requires that no neighboring states arm rump Ukraine. That would probably be ideal for Russia. (Other possibilites inclde paring out the various portions of Ukraine to the nations that contributedto its land mass, especially Poland. For whatever reason, I don't tink that Russia would try that, but that could be be wrong.)

The trick is, what next? Russia really wants those missile installations in Poland and Romania gone, and I think that's a reasonable ask, since they were put in ostensibly to protect Europe from ... wait for it... Iran!

CLEARLY that's just a bogus excuse for USA missiles on Russia's border, and that excuse can easily be argued down.

Also, I think Russia is working hard for as much of the world as possibe to de-dollarize, bc the pinch point in the USA then becomes systemic inflation, and THAT will swing the vote.

Anyway, Ill be very curious to see how this all plays out. If it turns out at all like I've reasoned, I'll be vastly surprised but also pleased with myself.
Pick one out of many words you wrote: "Russia really wants those missile installations in Poland and Romania gone, and I think that's a reasonable ask, since they were put in ostensibly to protect Europe from ... wait for it... Iran! CLEARLY that's just a bogus excuse for USA missiles on Russia's border, and that excuse can easily be argued down."

Signym, that is pretty much an excuse for Russia to invade all of Europe and control all of the Mediterranean. Why? you might ask. Because from anywhere in Europe, or the Mediterranean Sea, missiles can reach Russia:

Maximum range of operational missiles in the United States in 2021 (in kilometers)
13,000 Minuteman III: ICBM
12,000 Trident D5:SLBM
2,500 Tomahawk: Cruise Missile
2,500 AGM-86: ALCM
1,000 JASSM/ JASSM ER: ALCM
300 ATACMS: SRBM
240 Harpoon: ASCM
11 Hellfire: ASM
4.5 FGM-148 Javelin
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1309839/us-missiles-range/

Signym, what you think Russia wants -- no missiles on Russia's borders -- there is an answer: NO! Russia can't have control of any land adjacent to Russia, not even one kilometer from the Russian border, and definitely not one thousand kilometers from the border. If Putin decides he can't live with that, there will be war.

By the way, after WWII the Russians killed 2 million Germans. Since Russia does not keep track because lives are unimportant ("One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic"- Stalin) Russia neither knows nor cares how many Germans it killed during peacetime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2
%80%931950)#Legacy_of_the_expulsions

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

I have two words to answer your bogus post, troll:

Flight

time.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Saturday, June 3, 2023 5:04 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I have two words to answer your bogus post, troll:

Flight

time.

Since buildings have a velocity of zero, flight time makes zero difference. Whether flight time is 4 seconds or 4,000 seconds for an American-made missile the Russian building or bridge will not have moved. Russian obsession with controlling their neighbors' lives and weapons means that Russians end up very poor compared to their neighbors and at war with them. Maybe the Russians could learn how to get along with people who aren't like Russians rather than murder them as if they were Russians who have different political opinions than Stalin or, for a more recent example, Putin.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Saturday, June 3, 2023 5:13 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I have two words to answer your bogus post, troll:
Flight
time.

SECOND: Since buildings have a velocity of zero, flight time makes zero difference. Whether flight time is 4 seconds or 4,000 seconds for an American-made missile the Russian building or bridge will not have moved.

OMG, you're stupid!!!
For someone who CLAIMS to be oh-so-scared of nukes (RUSSIA!!! NUKES!!!! AAHHHH!!!!) you have no grasp at all of what flight time means?
I think even THUGR figured that one out, troll.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Saturday, June 3, 2023 8:21 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
OMG, you're stupid!!!
For someone who CLAIMS to be oh-so-scared of nukes (RUSSIA!!! NUKES!!!! AAHHHH!!!!) you have no grasp at all of what flight time means?
I think even THUGR figured that one out, troll.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Signym, like the Russians, you made it clear you know less than you think. Even the signature you use, with that fake Kissinger quote, gives away the truth you don't want to understand. What Kissinger actually said was:

Henry Kissinger said in November 1968, after Richard Nixon was elected U.S. president but before he took office: “Nixon should be told that it is probably an objective of Clifford to depose Thieu (South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu—ed.) before Nixon is inaugurated. Word should be gotten to Nixon that if Thieu meets the same fate as Diem, the word will go out to the nations of the world that it may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”

The quotation referred to America’s role in Vietnam. If America doesn’t stand by its friends and allies, the quotation explains, then it might ultimately be less dangerous to be America’s enemy.

Much more at
https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/it_may_be_dan
gerous_to_be_americas_enemy_but_to_be_americas_friend_is_fatal

Signym, none of this stuff, whether flight time or the actual meaning of what Kissinger said or Russia murdering Russian soldiers in combat, are hard to understand, but Signym doesn't understand and is obviously unaware of that lack. I also don't expect Russians to understand that invading Ukraine and killing women and children is not advantageous for Russia. Russians have always handled the absurdity of how they live and die by denying that they do what they are doing.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Saturday, June 3, 2023 11:13 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
OMG, you're stupid!!!
For someone who CLAIMS to be oh-so-scared of nukes (RUSSIA!!! NUKES!!!! AAHHHH!!!!) you have no grasp at all of what flight time means?
I think even THUGR figured that one out, troll.

SECOND: Signym, like the Russians... blah blah blah ...,

In other words, you don't know the significance of flight time. Pretty much what I thought.

Well, not gonna 'splain it to you!

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Sunday, June 4, 2023 7:02 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

A Russian Duma Deputy stated during a public forum on June 1 that Russia has failed to accomplish any of its articulated goals for the “special military operation” in Ukraine. First Duma Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Affairs Konstantin Zatulin emphasized that of Russia’s officially declared goals at the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine — “denazification, demilitarization, the neutrality of Ukraine, and the protection of the inhabitants of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics”—none have actually been met.[16] Zatulin further noted that as the war has worn on, these goals have ceased to hold actual meaning and suggested that Russian forces should have been more aggressive in efforts to push Ukrainian forces back from the borders of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Zatulin’s critical observations are noteworthy considering that he is a contributor to the Kremlin-affiliated Valdai Discussion Club, which famously upholds views complementary to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the official Kremlin propaganda line.[17] Zatulin’s apparent views of the war represent an absolute minority within the Russian domestic political environment, as self-censorship and general information space repressions are commonplace. However, such statements coming from a relatively mainstream and well-platformed official suggest that a small subset of the predominant pro-war Russian political faction may feel somewhat empowered to voice discontent and advocate for escalated goals as the war continues.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-3-2023

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, June 4, 2023 1:23 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Russians have been criticizing the military for not being aggressive enough since the beginning of the SMO. It's very hard to wage a war of attrition because the front is mostly static and there will be tactical withdrawals. Russians get tired of seeing their troops apparently not making "progress". I imagine even infantry get tired of fighting over the same city blocks over and over again.

Be prepared to see a lot of criticism of the Russia MoD over Ukrainian incursions into Russian Belgorad. IMHO they may be intended to draw Russian troops from Kiev's intended offensive (Zaporozhye?) and also have the beneficial (for Kiev) effect of ramping up criticism of Russia MoD's handling of the war.

But Russia IS making progress. Adiivka and Marinka are both almost surrounded, as bitterly fought over as Bakhmut (but w/o a running commentary from anyone like Progozhin) and which will probably be taken by the end of the month. THAT will end Kiev's shelling of civilians in Donetsk City.

And sooner or later, Kiev will be compelled by the west to launch its Great Counteroffensive and the Russian military will get to do its stuff for real. Some (not me) predict that once the Great Counteroffensive is neutralized, Russian MoD will launch Big Arrow offensives. IMHO they will just keep munching away at the front line, progressing towards Kharkhov towards Kiev, and Kherson towards Odessa.

But we will have to wait and see.

Patience, grasshoppers.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Sunday, June 4, 2023 5:36 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

But we will have to wait and see.

Patience, grasshoppers.

Russian State Duma member Konstantin Zatulin said on Thursday that Moscow failed to achieve goals it had set in its ongoing war in Ukraine, which Russian President Vladimir Putin launched last February.

Zatulin, who serves as the first deputy chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee of CIS affairs, was discussing the Russia-Ukraine war at a foresight forum when he admitted that it was obvious that Ukraine is "dangerous."

The Russian lawmaker added that Moscow doesn't have a solid standing in Ukraine or "enough grounds" to consider whether or not everything has been accomplished or to "assume that we will definitely win."

"What were our goals officially declared at the beginning of the military operation?" Zatulin asked. "You all remember—denazification, demilitarization, the neutrality of Ukraine and the protection of the inhabitants of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, who have suffered all this time. On which of these items have we achieved results to date? None."

Zatulin argued that the concept of a "neutral" Ukraine has "ceased to have any meaning."

This would mean that Ukraine would act as a neutral liaison between the West and Russia, possibly ditch its ambitions to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and to refuse hosting any NATO troops or installations on its territory in exchange for potential security agreements that would prevent another Russian invasion in the future.

"Moreover, some of them [objectives] have ceased to have any meaning. For example, 'neutrality of Ukraine.' What is the meaning of this requirement? None at the moment," Zatulin said. "It will no longer be neutral if it continues to exist. And now the question—since it has already been said here that 'the statehood of Ukraine no longer exists'—will Ukraine under the leadership of [President Volodymyr] Zelensky or his successors exist as a result of everything or not?"

Russia's war has extended to major cities in Ukraine including Kyiv, Kherson, Odessa, and Bakhmut—the latter being the site of intense fighting between Russian and Ukrainian troops. Throughout the course of the war, Western nations, including NATO members, have continued to send humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine and have provided heavy artillery, tanks, and advanced defense equipment to help the war-torn country prepare for its spring counteroffensive.

Zelensky told The Wall Street Journal in an article published on Saturday that his forces are ready to secure victory in its long-awaited counteroffensive, although he admitted that Kyiv could suffer great losses. The Ukrainian president added that he did not know how long the counteroffensive would take and expressed concerns about Moscow's air superiority.

"It can go a variety of ways, but we are going to do it, and we are ready," he told the newspaper. "We strongly believe that we will succeed."

https://www.newsweek.com/russian-lawmaker-admits-moscow-failed-achieve
-goals-ukraine-1804310

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Sunday, June 4, 2023 8:31 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

You're repeating yourself, troll.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Sunday, June 4, 2023 10:07 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
You're repeating yourself, troll.

Ukraine won't be giving any warning to Russia other than the H-bombs exploding in trucks parked next to the Kremlin.

Putin's goal of making Ukraine "neutral" is a failure. Instead, Russia made the Ukrainian military into an enemy that proved to be as strong as the Russian military. The only advantage Russia has, Which.It.Mentions.Every.Day.Of.The.Week, is nukes. But for all Russia knows, Ukraine has nukes and is willing to wipe Moscow off the map if Ukraine looks like it will lose. Russia could be in a nasty situation where Ukraine is willing to commit suicide to murder Russia with no chance of reincarnation for either country. The US could have nuked Russia for many years after WWII but magnanimously did not. Unlike Americans with leftover positive feelings toward Russia from WWII, I don't think Ukraine has enough wholesome feelings toward Russians to not kill them all, especially if Ukraine feels it is losing.

Russia can't stop talking about committing suicide: “Why do we need a world if Russia is not in it?”

Russian state television host Dmitry Kiselyov opened his Sunday primetime show with an ominous allusion to nuclear war.

The comments came just hours after President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian army to put its nuclear arsenal, the world's largest, on “high alert” in response to what he called "unfriendly" steps by the West.

“Putin warned them. Don’t try to frighten Russia,” Kiselyov said, repeating the Kremlin message on state broadcaster Rossiya 1.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/02/28/why-do-we-need-a-world-if-ru
ssia-is-not-in-it-state-tv-presenter-opens-show-with-ominous-address-a76653

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Sunday, June 4, 2023 10:07 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

You're repeating yourself, troll.

Its you who is repeating themselves comrade.
Oh yeah, it has begun.

T

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Monday, June 5, 2023 12:53 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Europe’s energy crisis is Putin’s problem now

With Europe’s fuel prices returning to pre-war levels, Russia has lost its leverage

European wholesale natural gas prices have reached a two-year low, ending last week at €24.84 per megawatt hour, according to analytics firm ICIS.

That's close to the 2010s average of €20.11 — and a major drop compared with April 2022, when gas price benchmarks hit the colossal €200 mark after Russia shut off much of its usual flows of gas to Europe in retaliation.

In 2021, supplies from Russia made up around half of all of the EU's natural gas imports at 150 billion cubic meters a year. By November 2022, it accounted for just under 13 percent — and that number has continued to fall.

Nobody is going to sign a new contract with Gazprom.

https://www.politico.eu/article/putins-gas-problem/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Monday, June 5, 2023 2:30 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Ukraine won't be giving any warning to Russia other than the H-bombs exploding in trucks parked next to the Kremlin.

And Ukraine is getting its H-bomb from...???

You're whacked, troll.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Monday, June 5, 2023 2:36 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
THUGR: Its you who is repeating themselves...

I'm not a plural, THUGR

Also, I may be repeating myself but what happens if I'm RIGHT? It just means you wasted opportunities to actually LEARN something for a change.

Quote:
THUGR: Oh yeah, it has begun.

Yeah, right - the cryptic "it". That's ONE way not to get caught in a bad prediction: Keep it secret!

dood, EVERYONE can see that's a 5-year-old's trick.

****

Seems like Ukraine's go-to-guy for assasination and terrorism, Badunov...or is it Budanov? ... is MIA. And now Kiev has got real-live Nazis attacking over the border. Not a good look for Kiev.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Monday, June 5, 2023 6:31 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Ukraine won't be giving any warning to Russia other than the H-bombs exploding in trucks parked next to the Kremlin.

And Ukraine is getting its H-bomb from...???

You're whacked, troll.

For example of a counting error, 4 million Ukrainians died in Holodomor but the Russians say that number is inflated since no one died. I assume you have forgotten that Ukraine had the third largest number of H-bombs in the world. You assume that Ukraine transferred all to Russia. Since Russians live in the land of "one death is a tragedy, and a million is a statistic", the Russians might not retrieve all their weapons because they make counting errors. So many errors.

Ukraine inherited about 130 UR-100N intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) with six warheads each, 46 RT-23 Molodets ICBMs with ten warheads apiece, as well as 33 heavy bombers, totaling approximately 1,700 nuclear warheads remained on Ukrainian territory.

Despite Russia's claimed annexation of Crimea, which the UN General Assembly rejected as invalid,[17] the Government of Ukraine in 2014 reaffirmed its 1994 decision to accede to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear-weapon state.[18]

Pavlo Rizanenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, told USA Today that Ukraine may have to arm themselves with their own nuclear weapons if the United States and other world leaders do not hold up their end of the agreement. He said, "We gave up nuclear weapons because of this agreement. Now, there's a strong sentiment in Ukraine that we made a big mistake."[19] He also said that, "In the future, no matter how the situation is resolved in Crimea, we need a much stronger Ukraine. If you have nuclear weapons, people don't invade you."[20]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

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Monday, June 5, 2023 6:37 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Seems like Ukraine's go-to-guy for assasination and terrorism, Badunov...or is it Budanov? ... is MIA. And now Kiev has got real-live Nazis attacking over the border. Not a good look for Kiev.

Too bad that Russia cannot decide what to do about criminals:

Elements of the all-Russian pro-Ukrainian Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK) and Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR) conducted another limited raid into Belgorod Oblast on June 4 and are reportedly continuing to operate in a Russian border settlement.

Belgorod Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov responded to a RDK and LSR demand to negotiate for the exchange of captured Russian prisoners of war (POWs). The LSR and RDK addressed a video to Gladkov purporting to show RDK and LSR fighters with two Russian POWs whom they said they captured near Novaya Tavolzhanka. The RDK and LSR demanded that Gladkov arrive at the temple in Novaya Tavolzhanka by 1700 (Moscow Standard Time) to negotiate for the release of the POWs.[5] Gladkov stated that he was ready to meet with the RDK and LSR fighters at the Shebekino checkpoint to negotiate the exchange of the POWs.[6] Gladkov later reportedly refused to meet with the RDK and LSR fighters because he believed that the Russian POWs were already dead.[7] The RDK and LSR released a subsequent video showing themselves with 12 Russian POWs, criticizing Gladkov for lacking courage, and stating that they would send the POWs to Ukraine.[8]

The dissonant Russian responses to and reporting about the limited raid in Belgorod Oblast continue to suggest that the Russian leadership has not yet decided how to react to these limited cross-border raids. The contradictory reporting from official Russian sources about the situation in Belgorod Oblast and Gladkov’s apparent personal decision to respond to the RDK and LSR suggests that the MoD and Gladkov are not coordinating their responses to the raids. ISW has previously reported that Russian officials have disproportionately responded to the limited raids into Russian territory in an effort to assuage growing Russian anxiety about the war in Ukraine while also supporting ongoing information operations that aim to present the war as existential to Russia.[9] Russian responses have primarily centered on informational effects, and there is no indication that the Russian leadership has set a wider policy for preventing further limited raids into Russian border oblasts. It is also not clear if Russian authorities are orchestrating the evacuation response to this activity. An RDK fighter claimed on June 4 that Belgorod Oblast authorities have not organized the announced evacuation measures in the Shebekino area and that Russian citizens have largely fled of their own accord, leaving many settlements in a semi-abandoned state.[10] Gladkov claimed that 4,000 residents from the area are currently staying at temporary accommodation centers in connection with evacuation efforts, however.[11] Ukrainian Advisor to the Internal Affairs Minister Anton Herashchenko stated on June 4 that the RDK and LSR activity has prompted Russian leaders to divert significant forces to stop border incursions, although ISW has not observed confirmation that Russian forces have done so.

The limited raids and border shelling in Belgorod Oblast are increasingly becoming the current focal point for criticism against the Russian military leadership. Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin continued to use the situation in Belgorod Oblast to criticize the MoD on June 3 and 4, specifically calling out the lack of response from Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Colonel General Alexander Lapin, and Chief of the Russian General Staff Army General Valeriy Gerasimov.[12] Prigozhin offered to negotiate the release of POWs held by the RDK and LSR if Russian authorities failed to do so, and responded to criticism of his offer by sarcastically stating that Russia has a problem with people who have “balls.”[13]

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campai
gn-assessment-june-4-2023

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
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Monday, June 5, 2023 7:02 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

How Russia Got the Ukraine War Wrong
by Jordan Michael Smith
https://newrepublic.com/article/172799/russia-got-ukraine-war-wrong-ov
erreach-book-review

In August 1991, President George Bush delivered the most infamous address of his one-term presidency. Speaking to the legislature of Ukraine, then still part of the Soviet Union, Bush expressed concerns about the country’s potential push for complete sovereignty. “Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism,” he said. “They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred.”

Bush’s speech has gotten an unfairly bad rap. His administration reasonably feared that the USSR’s disintegration would mimic Yugoslavia’s descent into devastating ethnic conflicts but with the added catastrophic danger of nuclear weapons. The relatively peaceful demise of the Soviet Union looks inevitable only with hindsight’s benefit; the process could have been much bloodier, as the current Russo-Ukrainian war demonstrates.

The address is striking now for its suggestion that Ukrainian independence would be an act of self-destruction, however. Russia’s invasion in early 2022 showed that Ukrainian nationalism was more powerful, cohesive, and widely shared than anyone knew. Before the war, few would have predicted that this small, newly independent, ethnically and linguistically divided country led by a former comedian would successfully resist the former empire boasting the world’s largest nuclear weapons arsenal.

Two new books by veteran experts in the region help explain this puzzle. Owen Matthews is a longtime foreign correspondent in Moscow, whose book Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin’s War Against Ukraine focuses on decision-making within Moscow circles. Serhii Plokhy is a Harvard University historian, whose book The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History presents the centuries of complicated history between the two countries and surveys Russian myths about Ukraine. Plokhy shows how Russian leaders used these precedents and legends to justify invasion, while Matthews focuses on how Putin exploited the intellectual currents flowing through post–Cold War Russia as a way to keep Ukraine in his country’s orbit. Together, these books help us understand how Russia decided to try to conquer Ukraine—and how Ukraine managed to shock the world with its astonishingly strong resistance.

Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin’s War Against Ukraine by Owen Matthews
Mudlark, 448 pp., $21.99

The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History by Serhii Plokhy
W.W. Norton & Company, 400 pp., $30.00

Both Overreach and The Russo-Ukrainian War devote significant chunks—about half of each book—to the longer history leading up to the war. Plokhy emphasizes that Ukraine had an even more difficult time during the 1990s than Russia did, as its economy cratered, regions splintered, and politicians plundered the country’s resources. In the twenty-first century, however, the country gradually coalesced around a democratic ethos. Meanwhile, President Boris Yeltsin failed either to keep Ukraine in Russia’s orbit or resign his countrymen to the loss of their former empire—and fatefully, he handpicked Putin as his successor.

“Yeltsin placed Putin in charge of waging war against Chechen rebels” when he became prime minister, Plokhy writes. “Putin took control of the war effort in the most public way possible, appearing on television again and again to threaten the rebels and demonstrate his and Russia’s resolve to defeat the insurrection.” Within a few months, he was the most popular politician in the country, with a reputation for effectiveness, patriotism, and ruthlessness. This reputation lasted for more than two decades, until he ordered the Russian military to occupy all of Ukraine in early 2022.

Matthews and Plokhy spend time plumbing the depths of Putin’s psyche, but they arrive at different conclusions. Matthews believes the Russian leader is simpler than the genius strategist that he was often portrayed as in Western media. “He is a smarter, fitter, and more sober version of the Russian everyman,” Matthews writes. Quiet, hypermasculine, humiliated by Russia’s global weakness, prone to corruption and anti-Western sentiment—this explains the president’s decisions, according to Matthews. In trying to subjugate Ukraine, Putin was acting on instinct and grievance as much as on careful strategic calculation.

For Plokhy, Putin is more of an intellectual, interested in the ideas of anti-Communist dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who was passionately committed to the notion of Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians as part of the same nation, if not a single state. Putin has promoted the cryptic philosopher Alexander Dugin, who fashioned the idea of Eurasianism, which suggests that lands in the former Soviet empire belong to Russia for historical and cultural reasons (Dugin’s daughter was killed by a car bomb in Moscow last summer). Plokhy’s portrayal of a deliberate, cunning Putin is broader and explains his popularity better than Matthews’s emotional, impulsive version.

With moral clarity, Plokhy and Matthews both identify Putin as the primary culprit in the war, and Russia as the sole aggressor. They rightly have no time for those who believe Russia was somehow forced or manipulated into invading Ukraine, or that Ukraine is acting as a puppet of the warmongering West rather than fighting for its own freedom. Matthews is more sensitive to how the United States was playing a “double game” in reassuring Russians during the 1990s that NATO expansion wasn’t directed at weakening Russian’s influence or intended to provoke a response from Russia. Plokhy identifies NATO’s 1999 bombing of Serbia as a moment that further damaged relations between the West and Russia—which vehemently opposed the action—demonstrating how little Russia’s views and declared national interests mattered without power commensurate to back up its protests. But this historical background never distracts them from charging Putin with trying to destroy his neighboring country.

Overreach and The Russo-Ukrainian War agree in seeing the war as the delayed effect of the Soviet Union’s crack-up. “Putin’s botched invasion of Ukraine could prove to be the last convulsion of expansive imperialism in European history and mark the final death of the age of empires in the West,” Matthews writes. Unlike with East Germany, Poland, and the Baltic States, the Russian elite (and perhaps the general population) was unwilling to let Ukraine leave the Russian orbit. They made this clear for decades, but Ukrainians wanted to determine their own destiny as part of the West, and the West was willing to encourage them recklessly. Both books recall the late Arizona Senator John McCain’s grandstanding trips to Ukraine amid the Maidan uprising of 2013, declaring that the U.S. was supportive of the protesters in their rebellion, which both over-promised what we would do and taunted the Russians unnecessarily.

Matthews is more attuned to Putin’s thinking immediately preceding the war. He cites three reasons for the choice to invade Ukraine in early 2022. First, Western influence was growing too powerful in a country vital to Russian influence, and, crucially, the efforts to manipulate Ukraine’s politics in a pro-Russian direction were failing. (Neither book states it, but this failure should have tipped off Kremlin policymakers that Ukrainians were committed to their independence from Russian control.) Second, Russia had built a sizable war chest, and Putin was convinced that the country was immune from whatever sanctions the West would level at it if it declared war. This dramatically underestimated the scale of outrage in the developed world to Putin’s actions, anger that combined with fear to inspire a consensus oriented around arming Ukraine to resist Russia and isolating Russia economically. Finally, there was the sheer opportunity. The chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the retirement of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the weakness of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy seemed to augur well for Russia’s action. Putin misperceived these developments as favorable to him when they were actually short-term conditions that belied hidden reservoirs of strength across Ukraine, Germany, and the U.S.

Despite their differences in approach, Overreach and The Russo-Ukrainian War share the understanding that Ukraine’s resilience has shocked everyone, including Ukrainians. Right before Russia invaded, Western leaders advised Zelenskiy at a Munich security conference to avoid returning to Ukraine, lest he be assassinated. “I had breakfast in Ukraine this morning, and I will have dinner in Ukraine,” the Ukrainian leader responded.

Once the war commenced, Zelenskiy’s courage, competence, and determination shocked Kremlin leaders, who expected Ukrainian government officials to flee or surrender. With a worldview warped by faulty intelligence, hubris, and shoddy intellectuals, Russian leader Vladimir Putin anticipated ordinary people welcoming the Russian military as liberators (his delusions and insularity read strikingly here like those of George W. Bush’s administration before the Iraq War). Zelenskiy’s actions equally astonished Western leaders, who didn’t imagine the ex-actor with little political experience being anything more than yet another corrupt, cowardly official. Neither book here offers much insight into the sources of Zelenskiy’s strengths, except to note that his entertainment experience gained him formidable communication powers and led others to underestimate him (much like Ronald Reagan, less the racism and union-busting).

Zelenskiy had company in his fortitude. The president’s decision to remain in Kyiv led other government personnel to do the same, although they had been planning to leave. “Not only Zelensky but, with very few exceptions, heads of local administration did not flee and stood with their people,” Plokhy writes. For years, Russia had demanded that Ukraine’s federal government delegate powers to municipalities, but those reforms inadvertently solidified the country since citizens developed more trust in their local and state institutions. Ukraine’s government has been rife with corruption since its independence, but that didn’t translate into widespread cowardice when wartime arrived. Local and national leaders ensured their constituents saw them walking and visiting neighborhoods, despite the dangers.

The Ukrainian public displayed similarly astonishing levels of defiance and bravery. So many men volunteered to enlist in military service that some were turned away. Citizens marched with national flags and contributed whatever they could to defying the nuclear-armed occupiers in their communities. Russia had been consistently coercing Ukraine in one form or another since 2014, unintentionally stiffening a local nationalism. “A country divided by issues of history, culture, and identity when the Crimea was annexed [in 2014] was now united by the desire to defend its sovereignty, democratic order, and way of life at almost any price,” Plokhy writes.

The flip side of Ukraine’s startling unity and spirit was Russia’s incompetence in the field of battle, of course. Bravado aside, few intelligence agencies, military analysts, or world leaders believed a war would last long if it came. German leaders rejected Zelenskiy’s request for assistance by telling him that “you only have a few hours” until Kyiv was conquered. Putin assumed that he would easily dominate what little Ukrainian resistance existed and proceed to swiftly assert control over the country’s government. Instead, Russia was unable to take Ukraine’s capital city and decapitate its leadership, as Putin had planned. The battle for Hostomel Airport in February proved to be pivotal, as the Russians’ failure to establish early and overwhelming dominance of Ukraine’s airspace meant they couldn’t approach Kyiv.

Matthews provides a particularly vivid account of the battle, illustrating how even a massive military advantage does not translate to victory when an aggressor is plagued by overconfidence, faulty intelligence, and tactical incompetence. Armed with sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons supplied by NATO and intimate local knowledge, the Ukrainians proved adept at curtailing their enemy’s numerical equipment advantages. Matthews briefly profiles a 42-year-old with the unimposing nom de guerre of “Baldie,” who was a crypto dealer and online gamer before he joined up to live on village farms and dodge Russian soldiers. Men like him proved deeply committed to preserving their country’s independence and were resourceful in attacking their occupiers. The airport skirmish was a sign of things to come: Russia consistently underestimated its opponent, and everyday Ukrainians continually surprised everyone but themselves with their adaptability and willingness to self-sacrifice.

For all Ukrainians’ understandable desire to regain all their territory, there is only so much they can do on their own. They depend on weapons and funds from the West, which largely means the United States. President Joe Biden has backed Ukraine but within limits. Perhaps the most original contribution of either book is Matthews’s previously unreported story about back-channel diplomatic talks between the Chinese and Americans through a British think tank, the Institute for East West Strategic Studies. According to Matthews, in the early stage of the war, the Chinese told Institute personnel that they agreed to pressure Putin to stop his nuclear saber-rattling if the U.S. refrained from supplying Ukraine directly with aircraft. The think tank passed on the intel to the Biden administration, which backed off a proposal from Poland to hand off offensive weapons to Ukraine.

This would help explain why President Joe Biden has been so adamant about limiting U.S. involvement in the war at a certain level. Despite the billions of dollars in aid the U.S. has contributed, it has consistently rejected requests for equipment like F-16 fighter jets, battle tanks, and long-range missiles. Plus, the U.S. has reportedly restrained Ukraine from taking the war onto Russian territory.

But it’s difficult to assess the accuracy of this anecdote because Matthews quotes only an anonymous source to support his contention. Throughout the book, in fact, he utilizes such unnamed people as his guides. We frequently hear from people like “a Downing Street aide,” a “former senior official” in Russia, and a “Ukrainian soldier.” Although Matthews is a well-regarded journalist and understandably doesn’t want to compromise the safety of people giving him sensitive information, his book suffers under the weight of so many unidentifiable sources—more than 50 appear in the book. Independent confirmation of his back-channel episode would enhance our understanding of America’s decisions so far.

The potential outcomes of the war are still far from clear. Events on the battlefields are still fluid, and the war will continue perhaps for years to come. In fighting for its liberty, Ukraine has bravely illustrated the value of democracy and shown the world how a small state can resist a larger aggressor when it is united, brilliantly led, and well armed. Yet even if Ukraine ultimately prevails, the cost will have been incalculable. It will take decades for Ukraine to rebuild, untold lives have been lost, and millions have become refugees.

Further, a wounded Russia that has been humiliated on the battlefield and seen its economy ruined through a self-destructive, voluntary war might be even more prone to extremism, paranoia, and aggression than it was before the war, as Germany was after its defeat in World War I. Reports suggest that a group of hypernationalists in elite Moscow circles believe Putin is too soft on Ukraine, pushing for him to use nuclear weapons in the war. Should a member of this clan gain power following Putin, the results could be devastating. Matthews quotes a former Russian official who worked closely alongside Putin for 15 years. “The West could be careful what it wishes for,” he says, ominously. “Whoever comes after will be far worse.”

Download all of Serhii Plokhy’s free books from the mirrors at https://libgen.unblockit.asia/search.php?&req=Serhii+Plokhy&so
rt=year&sortmode=DESC

Download all of Owen Matthews’s free books from the mirrors at https://libgen.unblockit.asia/search.php?&req=Owen+Matthews&so
rt=year&sortmode=DESC

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Monday, June 5, 2023 7:15 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

War is always a partial or full miscalculation. You miscalculate how strong you are and you miscalculate how weak the enemy is. You miscalculate how easy it’s going to be, how low the costs are, how great the benefits. - Stephen Kotkin

We used to believe the Russians had the second-best army in the world. Now we know they have the second-best army in Ukraine. - Ukrainian soldiers’ joke

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Monday, June 5, 2023 8:25 AM

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NATO-trained units will serve as tip of spear in Ukraine’s counteroffensive
By Isabelle Khurshudyan and Kamila Hrabchuk
Updated June 4, 2023 at 12:50 p.m. EDT

When Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive finally begins, the fight will be led by brigades armed not only with Western weapons but also Western know-how, gleaned from months of training aimed at transforming Ukraine’s military into a modern force skilled in NATO’s most advanced warfare tactics.

As other Ukrainian units were fighting to expel the Russian occupiers from the country’s east and south, the brand-new 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade was preparing for the next phase of war from a classroom at a NATO base in Germany.

The brigade’s leadership trained with computers that simulated situations they might face in real life. Deputy commander Maj. Ivan Shalamaha and others planned their assaults and then let the program show them the results — how their Russian enemies might respond, where they could make a breakthrough and where they would suffer losses.

“You understand the overall picture, how it works,” Shalamaha said. “You understand where and what your shortcomings were. And we pay attention to what we failed to do during this simulation.”

Now the war games are over. The 47th brigade and other assault units have been armed with Western weapons, including Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, and relocated to a secret location closer to the front line. During a recent visit by Washington Post journalists, the soldiers were waiting for the order to charge ahead to retake a large swath of Ukrainian territory and tip the war back in Kyiv’s favor.

The counteroffensive will be the biggest test yet of the U.S.-led strategy of giving the Ukrainians weapons and training to fight like an American army might — but on their own.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov called it the “next level” of security assistance, something he and other officials requested from their Western partners. The United Kingdom has been providing basic training to thousands of Ukrainian recruits since last summer. But more recently, whole Ukrainian units have been sent to Germany and other countries to learn “how to operate simultaneously together, like interoperability among the different units,” Reznikov said.

“We need company-level, platoon-level, battalion-level training courses with techniques, with their infantry fighting vehicles, with a commander who will understand how to conduct his forces, support artillery, support reconnaissance operations,” Reznikov said.

Critics of the West’s new emphasis on training the Ukrainians in combined-arms warfare, in which tanks, artillery, combat vehicles and other weapons are layered to maximize the violence they inflict, have pointed out that Kyiv is still missing key elements to fully implement that attack, mainly modern fighter jets. Ukraine is expected to receive U.S.-made F-16s after Washington agreed not to stop allied nations from providing them, but they won’t reach the battlefield in time for the counteroffensive.

One goal of the training is to teach Ukraine’s soldiers how to go on offense. For years, the Ukrainian military focused mainly on defensive tactics — how to protect its territory from attack. Even soldiers who fought Russian proxies in eastern Ukraine for eight years before Moscow’s full-scale invasion had little experience with planned assaults.

The quick, sweeping counteroffensive last fall to liberate nearly all of Ukraine’s northeast Kharkiv region in less than a week was the military’s first planned large-scale offensive in the country’s more than 30 years of independence.

The success in Kharkiv, and last year’s successful defense of Kyiv, were credited in part to previous NATO training for Ukraine’s military, which began after Russia invaded Crimea and fomented war in the eastern Donbas region in 2014. Many Ukrainian commanders, now in senior leadership, took part in such training.

At the training in Germany earlier this year, “the main tasks that were played there were offensive — only going on the offensive,” said a 29-year-old company commander whom The Washington Post is identifying only by his call sign, Tovarish, out of security concerns.

“We were in constant contact with their sergeants, officers, soldiers, as they trained us,” Tovarish said. “We had translators with us, so we could ask any questions. There was never a time when we asked a question, and they didn’t respond. Everything was really at a high level. We saw this other level, and we need to get there.”

Tovarish, a 29-year-old company commander of the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)

Shalamaha said the first tasks working with KORA, a war-game simulator designed for NATO forces, were to plan make-believe operations on foreign soil against a pretend enemy. The instruction progressed to focus on what lies ahead for Ukraine’s military this summer. By the end, Shalamaha was working alongside commanders of other brigades expected to fight in the counteroffensive, coordinating their actions to test how they’d work together on the battlefield.

Others in the 47th brigade received training specific to the weapons or vehicles they’d be receiving, first learning the basics of how to operate them, then how to incorporate them as a single battle unit and then alongside other units.

A 32-year-old private whose call sign is Luke said he remained in touch with some of the American instructors he met. Sometimes he asks for advice or to review some of the things they taught him.

“In Germany, they really gave us a good chance to feel how it’s going to be,” Luke said. “As a team leader, I can command like five to seven people. But when it gets to be more than that, you really do need more practice. And then you’re trying to organize a whole battalion to move at the same time and everybody has to know what they’re doing. It’s really, really difficult.”

The 47th brigade started as a battalion that Shalamaha and Valerii Markus, a famous veteran and author with more than 450,000 Instagram followers, were charged with creating. It eventually grew to a full-fledged brigade intended to break through enemy lines.

“I realized that there was indeed an opportunity to create something — something interesting, something important, which could then grow into something much bigger,” Markus said.

“When I joined the army 12 years ago, I encountered a lot of things that disappointed me very much, that made me hate the army,” he added. “When I received this offer, I saw it as an opportunity to build a unit in which I would have liked to serve 12 years ago.”

Though still unproven on the battlefield, the 47th brigade is armed almost entirely with Western weapons and, in a first, nearly every one of the unit’s soldiers has undergone a weeks-long course with foreign instructors. The 47th’s leadership is also especially young — all born after the fall of the Soviet Union. Alongside Shalamaha, who is 25, Lt. Col. Oleksandr Sak, the brigade’s top commander, is 28. Markus, the chief master sergeant, is 29.

“We are the young generation,” Shalamaha said. “We still have our whole lives ahead of us, and we are now fighting for this state which we want to see for ourselves, for our children, grandchildren, and so on.”

But the biggest change? They didn’t just accept anyone, interviewing every soldier who wanted to join the brigade. Commanders questioned each person’s motivation and readiness. Every candidate had to pass a physical fitness test.

Alyona, a 27-year-old teacher who goes by the call sign Airy, was so angry after the atrocities committed last year by Russian soldiers in Bucha, her hometown, that she applied to join multiple assault brigades. Each time, she was turned away because she’s a woman — told to go home and cook borscht, she said.

Then earlier this year, Alyona reached out to a commander in the 47th brigade. He asked if her mother knew she wanted to fight. She lied and said yes.

“I told him why I’m here, that it’s not to take some photos to post on Instagram,” she said. “This isn’t a joke.”

As she and others in the brigade wait for the order to begin attacking Russian positions, they’re trying to keep their training fresh. Sometimes a commander will scream that someone in their unit is injured — a drill for the soldiers to practice quickly grabbing their tourniquet and applying it to one of their comrades.

Most of their activity is saved for nighttime, when they practice with night-vision equipment. The cover of night helps ensure that any movements won’t be spotted by Russian forces awaiting the counteroffensive.

“We are ready,” Shalamaha said. “We have the motivation of people, we have the equipment and the most valuable thing we have is the spirit to win.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/04/ukraine-nato-training-
counteroffensive-47th-brigade/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, June 5, 2023 9:20 AM

More pirate links on Haken's site. Must be Monday.

--------------------------------------------------

Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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Monday, June 5, 2023 10:39 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

Let's give it another two weeks, shall we?

T

WHAT are we waiting for, THUGR? Something is missing! This time you got a deadline but not an event.
Epic fail.

Try to keep up comrade.

T

Ukraine military urges 'silence' ahead of expected counteroffensive

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Monday, June 5, 2023 12:42 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

HAHAHAHA!!

YOU'RE keeping YOUR predictions silent bc you have... what?

Secret knowledge from der Fuhrer himself?

You're revealing Important Intellignce to Powerful People?

You think anyone is fooled, or impressed, by your claims?

Hate to tell you this, but we don't take you all that seriously. And nobody takes US all that seriously. This is a discussion board, dood, not some super-secret intelligence-gathering site. And I'm sure Russia has MUCH better source of real intel than here!

Oh BTW, your "I've got a secret about two weeks from now and I'm not telling" is not only patently obvious, it's patently childish.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Monday, June 5, 2023 1:30 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Ukraine-Russia border ‘demilitarised zone’ inside Russian territory

A demilitarised zone between 100 and 120 kilometres wide (62 to 75 miles) should be established in Russian border territory with Ukraine as part of any post-war settlement, an adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office has said.

Mykhailo Podolyak, the adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said the demilitarised zone should cover the Russian regions of Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk and Rostov in order to protect adjacent territories in Ukraine.

Such a zone, which cannot be used or occupied by military forces, would likely require “a mandatory international control contingent at the first stage”, Podolyak said.

A demilitarised zone should be a “key topic” of a post-war settlement, said the presidential adviser, adding that such a buffer would “prevent the recurrence of aggression in the future”.

The International Committee of the Red Cross says there are detailed rules for the creation and recognition of demilitarised zones and the concept is not far removed from hospital zones and other areas deemed neutral during conflicts.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/30/ukraine-russia-border-demilit
arised-zone-floated-for-peace-deal

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, June 5, 2023 3:53 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Ukraine-Russia border ‘demilitarised zone’ inside Russian territory

A demilitarised zone between 100 and 120 kilometres wide (62 to 75 miles) should be established in Russian border territory with Ukraine as part of any post-war settlement, an adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office has said...

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

In their dreams!

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

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Monday, June 5, 2023 4:07 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

The Eyes of the World Are Upon Ukraine
By Paul Krugman

June 5, 2023, 3:08 p.m. ET

Seventy-nine years ago Allied paratroopers began landing behind the beaches of Normandy.

World War II was a long time ago, but it still lives on in America’s memory. And the anniversary of D-Day, on Tuesday, seems especially evocative this year, as we await the moral equivalent of D-Day, coming any day now when Ukraine begins its long-awaited counterattack against Russian invaders (which may have already started).

I use the term “moral equivalent” advisedly. World War II was one of the few wars that was clearly a fight of good against evil.

Now, the good guys were by no means entirely good. Americans were still denied basic rights and occasionally massacred because of their skin color. Britain still ruled, sometimes brutally, over a vast colonial empire.

But if the great democracies all too often failed to live up to their ideals, they nonetheless had the right ideals; they stood, however imperfectly, for freedom against the forces of tyranny, racial supremacy and mass murder.

If Ukraine wins this war, some of its supporters abroad will no doubt be disillusioned to discover the nation’s darker side. Before the war, Ukraine ranked high on measures of perceived corruption — better than Russia, but that’s not saying much. Victory won’t make the corruption go away.

And Ukraine does have a far-right movement, including paramilitary groups that have played a part in its war. The country suffered terribly under Stalin, with millions dying in a deliberately engineered famine; as a result, some Ukrainians initially welcomed the Germans during World War II (until they realized that they, too, were considered subhuman), and Nazi iconography is still disturbingly widespread.

Yet like the flaws of the Allies in World War II, these shadows don’t create any equivalence between the two sides in this war. Ukraine is an imperfect but real democracy, hoping to join the larger democratic community. Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a malevolent actor, and friends of freedom everywhere have to hope that it will be thoroughly defeated.

I wish I could say that the citizens of Western democracies, America in particular, were fully committed to Ukrainian victory and Russian defeat. In reality, while most Americans support aid to Ukraine, only a minority are willing to sustain that aid for as long as it takes. For what it’s worth, U.S. public opinion on aid to Ukraine right now looks remarkably similar to polls from early 1941 (that is, well before Pearl Harbor) on the lend-lease program of military aid to Britain.

What about those who oppose helping Ukraine at all?

Some of those who oppose Western aid just don’t see the moral equivalence with World War II. On the left, in particular, there are some people for whom it’s always 2003. They remember how America was taken to war on false pretenses — which, for the record, I realized was happening and vociferously opposed at the time — and can’t see that this situation is different.

On the right, by contrast, many of those who oppose helping Ukraine — call it the Tucker Carlson faction — do understand what this war is about. And they’re on the side of the bad guys. The “Putin wing” of the G.O.P. has long admired Russia’s authoritarian regime and its intolerance. Before the war, Republicans like Senator Ted Cruz contrasted what they perceived as Russian toughness with the “woke, emasculated” U.S. military; Russia’s military failures threaten such people’s whole worldview, and they would be humiliated by a Ukrainian victory.

The point is that the stakes in Ukraine right now are very high. If Ukraine’s counteroffensive succeeds, the forces of democracy will be strengthened around the world, not least in America. If it fails, it will be a disaster not just for Ukraine but for the world. Western aid to Ukraine may dry up, Putin may finally achieve the victory most people expected him to win in the war’s first few days, and democracy will be weakened everywhere.

What’s going to happen? Even military experts don’t know, and I have no delusions of being such an expert myself. For what it’s worth, Western officials are sounding increasingly positive about Ukraine’s chances. And military affairs aren’t like economics, where, say, the Federal Reserve basically works off the same information available to anyone who knows their way around the St. Louis Fed’s economic research website. Defense officials have access to intelligence the public doesn’t, and they don’t want to end up looking foolish, so their optimism probably isn’t empty bravado.

Still, you don’t have to be a military expert to know that attacking fortified defenses — which is what Ukraine must do — is very difficult.

On the eve of D-Day, Dwight Eisenhower told the expeditionary force, “The eyes of the world are upon you.” Now the eyes of the world are upon the armed forces of Ukraine. Let’s hope they succeed.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230605193219/https://www.nytimes.com/202
3/06/05/opinion/ukraine-war-d-day.html/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, June 5, 2023 4:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

HAHAHAHA!!

YOU'RE keeping YOUR predictions silent bc you have... what?

Secret knowledge from der Fuhrer himself?

You're revealing Important Intellignce to Powerful People?

You think anyone is fooled, or impressed, by your claims?

Hate to tell you this, but we don't take you all that seriously. And nobody takes US all that seriously. This is a discussion board, dood, not some super-secret intelligence-gathering site. And I'm sure Russia has MUCH better source of real intel than here!

Oh BTW, your "I've got a secret about two weeks from now and I'm not telling" is not only patently obvious, it's patently childish.

You are without a doubt comrade a complete wack job.

T

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Monday, June 5, 2023 4:56 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Ukraine and NATO, A change in tone and the Ukrainian counteroffensive
Phillips P. O’Brien, Jun 4, 2023
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-31

Another week with almost no change on the front line between the Ukrainian and Russian armies, but this did not stop it from giving some powerful indications of the direction of travel in the war. In particular, two things stood out, the growing focus of Ukraine’s future relationship with NATO, and, the change in tone that is coming out of major western state’s about how the war is trending in Ukraine’s favor. And in many ways the two discussions are interrelated.

Ukraine and NATO

This week saw a fascinating uptick in the discussion of Ukraine’s future relationship with (hopefully in) NATO. Its one of the most fascinating changes that we have seen since February 24, 2022. Then, even the prospect that Ukraine would join NATO far in the future was seen as justification enough for Putin to launch the full scale invasion.

However what the war has shown is that one of the only reasons Putin felt free to invade Ukraine was because it was not a NATO member. Since then, watching the discussion evolve over Ukraine eventually joining NATO has been like watching one of the discussions over Ukraine getting a new weapons systems (think MBTs or F-16s) only longer and more tortured.

Its because the end point of this relationship is clear—at some point Ukraine will have to be in NATO. There can be no permanent peace after this genocidal invasion without it. For Ukraine, Russia is unconquerable. Thus, Ukraine outside of NATO will always be a possible victim of another Russian attack. The country needs to think not years, but decades into the future, when it could be confronted by a rebuilt Russian military.

What the war has shown is that anything short of a full-NATO membership is in security terms, worthless. Ukraine actually had different types of security guarantee given to it a number of times since the dissolution of the USSR. According to the Budapest Memorandum of 1993, for instance, Ukraine agreed to give up Soviet nuclear weapons in its border. In exchange for this, Ukraine had its full territorial integrity, including Crimea, recognized by the USA, Russia and the UK. Of course this did nothing to stop both the Russian invasion of Crimea and Donbas in 2014 and what has come later.

If Ukraine is going to have enduring, long-term security after the war, it will only be through full membership of NATO and the application of NATO’s Article 5. This fundamental difference between Ukraine and the Baltic states, for instance, is what has kept Putin from ever convincingly threatening other former members of the USSR such as Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. It's also why immediately after February 24, Finland and Sweden did their historic pivots and decided to become NATO members.

The importance of this cannot be understated. As a number of Ukrainians said to me during my visit—how can we expect investors to invest large sums of money helping rebuild the country after the war if Ukraine doesn’t have the iron-clad protections of NATO membership? It's a very hard position with which to disagree.

Now for much of the time since February 24, 2022 the idea of Ukraine joining NATO still seemed a step too far. It was seen as potentially too escalatory and too threatening to Russia—a step that would make an eventual peace deal between Ukraine and Russia almost impossible. And then, as with the F-16s to Ukraine idea, the notion of Ukraine joining NATO started to change, and last week it became, for many NATO members of NATO now a question no longer of it—but instead a question of when.

At the end of April, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg ramped up the pressure when he stated during his visit to Kyiv that “Ukraine's rightful place is in NATO. And over time, our support will help you make it possible.”

That statement still had no timetable, and it could be argued that it would be many years after the conclusion of this war before Ukraine would get full NATO membership. This last week, however, the political pressure for Ukraine to have NATO membership at the end of the war (indeed as a condition of any peace agreement) moved up a notch. The number of states supporting NATO membership for Ukraine gained new members from the UK to Romania. And in these endorsements, it was notable that emphasis was put on making this happen as quickly as possible.

https://www.reuters.com/world/path-is-open-ukraine-join-nato-british-d
efence-minister-2023-06-02/

President Macron also made it sound like Ukraine would be in NATO eventually as well.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/05/31/macron-call
s-on-west-to-offer-tangible-security-guarantees-to-ukraine_6028631_4.html

Now Washington DC, the capital that really matters, has still not moved as far. In Secretary of State Blinken’s extraordinary speech of June 2, in which he mocked Russian military power and performance in the most damning manner possible (certainly the most damning we have seen from any leading figure in the Biden Administration), he used lots of words to say nothing specific about the time frame for Ukraine to joining NATO.

“That also means Ukraine’s membership in NATO will be a matter for Allies and Ukraine – not Russia – to decide. The path to peace will be forged not only through Ukraine’s long-term military strength but also the strength of its economy and its democracy. This is at the heart of our vision for the way forward: Ukraine must not only survive, it must thrive. To be strong enough to deter and defend against aggressors beyond its borders, Ukraine needs a vibrant, prosperous democracy within its borders.”

https://ru.usembassy.gov/secretary-blinken-russias-strategic-failure-a
nd-ukraines-secure-future/

If Washington was still not willing to take the ultimate plunge, you could tell the Ukrainians had the bit in their teeth. President Zelensky basically said that Ukraine could understand that NATO membership would not be possible until the war would end—but that Ukraine would expect it immediately afterwards.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/02/russia-ukraine-live-updates.html

This application of pressure by Ukraine will only grow in the coming weeks—as all eyes will turn to the next NATO summit, which will be held in Vilnius in early July. NATO states very much want President Zelensky to attend. Zelensky, however, has refused to say whether he would show—and it seems that he won’t unless Ukraine is given a clear road-map for NATO membership, not some vague promise of future membership. It is actually one of the most important show-downs of the summer. Zelensky is playing a very strong hand. NATO has increasingly identified itself with a Ukrainian victory. If NATO states were somehow seemed to be prevaricating enough for Zelensky to stay away, that would be a little disconcerting and politically for many. My guess is that Zelensky is given enough to allow him to show—though its not yet guaranteed.

However, the NATO discussion in the short term is about to ramp up considerably.

A change in tone and the Ukrainian counteroffensive

Returning to Secretary Blinken’s speech in Helsinki, it still slightly boggles the mind to see the normally carefully spoken Secretary of State, speak so mockingly of Russian power. You can watch the whole speech here—its worth it.

The most belittling line comes about two-thirds in when he starts listing reasons that Putin’s decision to launch the full-scale invasion was so stupid.

“Third, President Putin spent two decades trying to build Russia’s military into a modern force, with cutting-edge weaponry, streamlined command, and well-trained, well-equipped soldiers. The Kremlin often claimed it had the second-strongest military in the world, and many believed it. Today, many see Russia’s military as the second-strongest in Ukraine. Its equipment, technology, leadership, troops, strategy, tactics, and morale, a case study in failure – even as Moscow inflicts devastating, indiscriminate, and gratuitous damage on Ukraine and Ukrainians.”

This speech was accompanied by another indication that Western leaders are growing increasingly skeptical about Russian military capabilities. There was UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace openly wondering if Russian equipment shortages in 2023 would become so severe that the Russians would lose control of Crimea. Again, belittling Russian military capabilities, Wallace opined that Russian losses are so severe that they can't be made up, saying they “cannot conjure tanks and armament they need”

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/2/7405004/

Wallace also said something about the Ukrainian counteroffensive which is worthy of note.

Now both Blinken and Wallace should be receiving the best possible intelligence on these subjects (the state of Russian armed forces and military production). For them to speak so insultingly is either incredibly stupid if it's not true or, far more likely, an indication of what they are being told.

I would wager that major NATO leaderships now believe that there is a far greater chance of a major Ukrainian success this Summer than they were saying only a few weeks ago—when the stress was on Ukraine only being able to achieve limited results.

On the surface, the case for optimism for Ukraine is growing.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, June 5, 2023 5:46 PM

Lets repost this shall we?

T

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Monday, June 5, 2023 9:04 PM