Putin Invades Ukraine II

[dualstow]

Meanwhile, I’m reading a WSJ article about the Russian hacker group Trickbot, and the Ukrainian researcher who supposedly infiltrated them and leaked their info. I hope that doesn’t turn out to be misformation.

[dualstow]

Kriegs, I read the Grayzone article you linked above. I wish it hadn’t been from Grayzone or Max B, as they themselves are highly suspect.
And yet, I have to admit I haven’t seen footage of the theater bombing. While I have a hard time swallowing most false flag accusations, you’ve instilled enough doubt in me that…who the hell knows.

Maybe I just have the urge to be on the side opposite Sean Penn’s.

[vnatale]

I have read several of his excellent books.....

IDEAS

Don't Let Up Now

The West must do what it takes to help Ukraine prevail.
By Eliot A. Cohen


https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... edit-promo

[dualstow]

I have read several of his excellent books.....

Whose? Was Eliot A. Cohen already mentioned above? Or did you mean you’ve read books by Max Blumenthal?

[vnatale]

I have read several of his excellent books.....

Whose? Was Eliot A. Cohen already mentioned above? Or did you mean you’ve read books by Max Blumenthal?

Cohen - the author of the article. I did read that latest book mentioned as part of his biography after the end of the article.

[dualstow]

Is it possible to believe there are hardcore nazis in Ukraine and still think the invasion is wrong and that it’s not about nazis? Because that’s how I still feel. I mean, things may have gotten better — much better — since the pogroms. I don’t think antisemitism ever went away. And you can find really scary allegations of rape and violence with just a casual search of “Azov”, or starting from Kriegs’ links.

I just don’t think that’s Putin’s priority. At all.

[Kriegsspiel]

Kriegs, I read the Grayzone article you linked above. I wish it hadn’t been from Grayzone or Max B, as they themselves are highly suspect.
And yet, I have to admit I haven’t seen footage of the theater bombing. While I have a hard time swallowing most false flag accusations, you’ve instilled enough doubt in me that…who the hell knows.

Maybe I just have the urge to be on the side opposite Sean Penn’s.

Also, Kiev Independent >> Grayzone. Grayzone is trash. It's a perfect example of the horseshoe effect, in this case an extreme far left publication that went so far left it found its true home in the far right.

I linked to that article because of the information on the twitter guy, which doesn't seem disputable, not for anything else they said. I'm glad I could at least convince dualstow to not blindly trust his sources.

[I Shrugged]

I have read several of his excellent books.....

Whose? Was Eliot A. Cohen already mentioned above? Or did you mean you’ve read books by Max Blumenthal?

Cohen - the author of the article. I did read that latest book mentioned as part of his biography after the end of the article.

Eliot Cohen is one of the biggest war mongers among the neocons. And that’s saying something!

[dualstow]

] I'm glad I could at least convince dualstow to not blindly trust his sources.

Yeah, I mean I probably only said it explicitly once in what has become a very long thread, but I acknowledged: FOG OF WAR.
I haven’t changed my stance on Putin’s motives, but it’s really hard to see where this is going and which events are what meets the eye.

[vnatale]

I have read several of his excellent books.....

Whose? Was Eliot A. Cohen already mentioned above? Or did you mean you’ve read books by Max Blumenthal?

Cohen - the author of the article. I did read that latest book mentioned as part of his biography after the end of the article.

Eliot Cohen is one of the biggest war mongers among the neocons. And that’s saying something!

Maybe. But each of his two or three books (including his last one) that I have read have been excellent.

[Kbg]

In response to Vinny's where is KBG.

Not posting much anymore. I am actually an investing/trading guy more than a politics guy and it's a rare thread here that doesn't pull in politics which is a turnoff for me. I came from Bogleheads, never really left Bogleheads but started posting here quite a bit. I'm mainly back on Bogleheads now due to the general down turn in quality of this forum. I didn't read through all the pages of this thread so much of what I have to say has probably already been said...but for what it's worth here's a quick synopsis of my thoughts which will be a mix of political and military observations.

Military

- Probably the biggest "WOW" for me is the impact of small highly capable shoulder fired missiles. I think it's pretty clear we are seeing tanks following in the tracks of horse cavalry and battleships. I saw one clip of an explosion and the turret flew literally hundreds of feet into the air...you can also see in the pictures the power of these projectiles by the extreme destruction of the platforms they hit. In short, if I were a US Army tanker I'd be looking to cross train to another branch.

- It appears airpower is still a very important factor on the battlefield though the limited nature of what has occurred thus far makes it tough to really project what might happen between two capable AFs and associated air defense systems. Back to missiles...huge, huge, huge. Hypersonics significantly ups the game in terms of difficulty in dealing with them. If I were a US defense planner I'd be very worried about our large platform centric approach to war. (There's an old professional's curiosity of almost wanting to see NATO get involved just to see what happens on air side of things.) Finally, drones are here to stay and I'm quite sure they are going to proliferate widely beyond even what they have already. My gut says that control of the air still sets the overall battlespace environment...and it's no secret that being able to contest and defend the air is on the top of Zelensky's weapons wish list. That implies the Ukrainians think it's important.

- On the naval side of things...too limited to draw much of any conclusions. The one big thing that happened (the destruction of the Russian amphib) also had a missile involved. See comment about large platforms above.

- Motivation and competence...I think everyone, military background or not, are beyond impressed with the Ukrainians and beyond surprised at how poorly the Russians have performed. Nothing to add here you haven't been able to read about elsewhere.

Strategy and Strategic Communications

- I've really done a 180. Initially, I was more in the let's be cautious camp but I think it is pretty outrageous the threats Putin has been making. (Supposedly flew a fighter with a nuke on board off the coast of Sweden as simply one example) I get the WWW III fear, I fear it too. But if the new standard is "I get to do anything I want so long as I wave my nuclear stick around" that's a world none of us want to live in and we have to take some risk here. The more "practically useless" nuclear weapons are, the better for everyone and what is going on now is undermining an assumption (that nukes don't have a lot of value except to keep a cap on things) every country has defacto made since the late 1950s. Kennedy had it right during the Cuban missile crisis. We have to stare this one down until Putin blinks or we both blink together.

- Biden is getting his butt kicked in the strategic communications area and the Russians have been allowed to establish the parameters of the war by and large (vis a vis NATO and the US). I'm actually hoping his blunder over Putin remaining in office was not an actual blunder. If it wasn't, it was the first smart move I've seen. In something like this, we need to be laying down some risk for Russia markers as well. And, we had better dang well know where our actual lines are that we are willing to enforce vs. throw out there and then step back from them when push comes to shove. This whole thing is much, much, much bigger and has far more long-term implications than Obama's walk back in Syria.

The Russians have a doctrinal concept called escalation dominance which means using or threatening the use of escalatory measures to force an opponent to give in or shape their response in a way favorable to Russia. If Russia decides to actually escalate that's something we have no control over...but we can call every bluff or react in ways that are damaging to Russia when they throw out bluffs and threats. I think for right now, and for how international relations will be conducted in the future, that we needed to make this Russian doctrine counterproductive to Russia.

- Second biggest WOW factor for me...Germany turned on a dime. Assuming they stick with it...you could push me over with a feather. IDK if the report was accurate but apparently Germany's future military budgets will be LARGER than Russia's...let that sink in for a moment.

Where I'm at now

War is never a good thing in terms of human and many other associated costs. I think it is highly disgusting and even more immoral to fight it in a way that essentially enables both sides to bleed each other out. We are already involved. We don't need to send our military in (and shouldn't unless they cross the NATO line), but I do think we should give Ukraine a blank check for conventional weapons that they want to fight with. Wars are fought to decide big things normally. In my view the things at issue in Ukraine are very big things. We should do everything possible to materially help them win. It's completely not okay to invade another country (or several) for nothing more than territorial ambitions. (And for the hard core right and left wingers, we left both Afghanistan and Iraq and never wanted to stay in either place very long. In my personal view we stayed in Afghanistan about 15 years beyond when we should of and the only reason we stayed as long as we did in Iraq is because we were the buffer between the Sunnis and Shias because we broke their country and all they wanted to do was kill each other. Big mistake breaking Iraq, and a lot of great young Americans died being that buffer which very few countries would have done.)

Side note

We and the Europeans seem to be focused on Putin. From what I understand, the Ukrainians are focused on Russians. The more I've read, the more I've come over to the Ukrainian viewpoint. A good successful butt kicking would probably be a good thing. Maybe the Russians might even get a do over in trying to establish a country that isn't a Czarist, Communist or Revanchist dictatorship.

[vnatale]

Wow!!!!

Many, many, many thanks for the response!

I asked for something and I what I got in response was something like a well thought out magazine article!

Just quickly read it the first time around and will go back to reread it to savor it more slowly.

Wish the forum could be a more hospitable place for you as I always value whatever you've had to say about anything...

[Mountaineer]

Ditto!!!!!!! kgb and Vinny.

[dualstow]

from the new Nonzero newsletter:

More and more Russians are challenging government claims that the war in Ukraine is going as planned—and some are even doing so on state-controlled media. But, warns military historian Lawrence Freedman in his newsletter Comment is Freed, it would be a mistake to think this dissent emanates mainly from anti-war circles and could therefore push Putin toward an accommodating stance at the negotiating table.

Much of the criticism of Putin’s war effort, Freedman says, is coming from “hawkish nationalists.” And “it is the nationalists who have been energized by Putin’s aggression and will be most distressed should he fail [in his war aims].”

https://nonzero.substack.com/p/earthlin ... ationalist

[dualstow]

I don’t think anyone can blame the Bucha atrocities on the Azov battalion.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2022/04 ... -evidence/

[I Shrugged]

While I find the killings by the Russians to be disgusting, I think the situation is pretty normal in war. The civilians are resisting. Some of them are organizers. Etc. Not defending it, just saying this is what happens in war.

Who's a war criminal depends on who wins. Or on who's doing the judging.

[Kbg]

Who's a war criminal depends on who wins. Or on who's doing the judging.

I wouldn't argue your point, there's some definite truth to it.

However, that doesn't mean it still isn't a good idea and legal process to hold people and countries accountable. It definitely shapes how war is conducted and is a moderating influence on an elsewise very unmoderated human activity. It is likely Putin will never be held accountable for his decision to invade Ukraine with zero legal cover. While people like to throw out Afghanistan and Iraq as "whatabouts" the facts are that both had internationally recognized sanction to do so.

While it is likely Putin will never be held accountable at the Hague, I doubt he's ever leaving Russia again in his lifetime if he is criminally charged.

Unfortunately there's quite a bit of nuance in what is and isn't considered lawful that would be good if it was more broadly known in the general public. News sources rarely if ever get or understand what is and is not an actual war crime.

To comment on the current situation a bit

- Invading Ukraine as it was...war crime

- Bucha...war crimes

Anyone held accountable? We'll see. It highly likely does depend on Russia not only losing the war but losing it to the point they would turn over their soldiers.

Orangeman bad really did us no favors when even US judicial venues found some of our guys guilty and he pardoned them. I was pretty outraged.

[Cortopassi]

I felt the need to post because of the alternate universes some of my buddies continue to live in.

Since we own gold, one of my go to sites for articles about it for years has been 321gold.com. But I haven't gone there lately basically because of a disinterest of reading about it day to day.

But I did go recently. The website owner, Bob Moriarty, apparently holds some strong views. I'd be interested if anyone wanted to read some of his posts and comment. Do you know anyone (or do you) feel similarly? It just seem so foreign to me the extent he takes the other side. I mean I know we are likely getting propagandized too, but man he takes it to the extreme.

it's gotten to the point where it seems the standard operating procedure for people of this mindset, on anything is

1) Government says A
2) A has to be wrong. It must be B (or C or D...)

It's like Mary Mary quite contrary. Seriously to the level of black is white and white is black.

http://www.321gold.com/archives/archive ... b+Moriarty

--------------A small clip from the 4/7/2022 one

The whole Ukraine fiasco was created out of whole cloth by the US and the Neocons on behalf of Soros, the Davos gang, Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab. The Rand corporation planned it three years ago.

Zelensky has been playing sock puppet for Nato for years. He’s good at it; he is after all an actor. And while the Russians have been kicking the shit out of the Ukrainians, Zelensky doesn’t care how many of his countrymen die. The latest false flag is the massacre of civilians in Bucha. Zelensky thinks the world is so stupid that they will take his word for the war crimes without investigation. Alas, the murders took place after the Russians left and after the Nazis moved back in. Clearly the world needs to investigate the activities of the Nazis who have been committing war crimes going all the way back to the US sponsored coup in 2014.

And this one just covers about everything: http://www.321gold.com/editorials/moria ... 32822.html

[dualstow]

Yeah, I mean, it’s always nice to have a healthy skepticism of government and newspapers. But we’re living in an age of Make Your Own Facts. When I was younger, I thought so-called old wives’ tales were being wiped out by libraries and newer forms of information. But then it turned out to be more complicated. People buy news services and influence content. Search engines and now social media platforms can be biased. More reasons to be skeptical.

And yet, I didn’t think it would become a free for all of just believing what fits one’s worldview.

Cortopassi, if you haven’t already, I recommend reading desert’s posts in this thread.

[dualstow]

While people like to throw out Afghanistan and Iraq as "whatabouts" the facts are that both had internationally recognized sanction to do so.

To do so… i can’t tell from your sentence if there was international agreement to invade, to condemn the invasions, or to mark the invasions as whataboutism in the context of Ukraine. Throw out as in give an example or throw out as in discard/discount?

Back to Ukraine:
Train station bombed in Kramatorsk, Eastern Ukraine yesterday. Of course the Russians deny the allegation.
Is it legally a war crime? Don’t know. But, 50+ civilians were killed.
Wiki\Kramatorsk railway station attack

[ppnewbie]

Apologies of someone has mentioned this already. I feel like we are accelerating the death of a golden goose (reserve currency status).

Russia, India, China, ASEAN countries, Saudi Arabia. Not sure if any of these countries will really need us in a few years.

The US and Europe are losing their productive edge. So what we had was reliability of our governance and our currency. But if we just erase that faith by cancelling one countries reserves, you just lost the the faith of every other participant.

IMHO - the arrogance of the US cannot change course. It’s too big and entrenched. I wish Biden would call up Zelinsky and tell him to end the war. 72 hours later it would be over (IMHO). But the US and Europe would have to eat some crow. Give up some regions, reverse sanctions, return seized stuff. Shake Putins hand, retract war criminal statements, remove Ukraine from consideration of NATO membership. Internally, stop trying to regime change anything in that region. I don’t see that happening based on the foolish (again IMHO) escalation in rhetoric by the west. You can use calmer words that do not force you and the entire world into a bad hand.

[dualstow]

I wish Biden would call up Zelinsky and tell him to end the war. 72 hours later it would be over (IMHO). But the US and Europe would have to eat some crow. Give up some regions, reverse sanctions, return seized stuff. Shake Putins hand, retract war criminal statements, remove Ukraine from consideration of NATO membership. Internally, stop trying to regime change anything in that region. I don’t see that happening based on the foolish (again IMHO) escalation in rhetoric by the west. You can use calmer words that do not force you and the entire world into a bad hand.

Help me out here. “Give up some regions” means what? How much of the Ukraine should be carved up and handed to Putin on a platter to reward him for invading another sovereign nation? I’m of the belief that it wouldn’t appease him for long. In fact fact, I’m quite sure he’d be more emboldened than ever before to invade other parts of Europe, but I’m still curious about the details you have in mind.

[foglifter]

Apologies of someone has mentioned this already. I feel like we are accelerating the death of a golden goose (reserve currency status).

Russia, India, China, ASEAN countries, Saudi Arabia. Not sure if any of these countries will really need us in a few years.

The US and Europe are losing their productive edge. So what we had was reliability of our governance and our currency. But if we just erase that faith by cancelling one countries reserves, you just lost the the faith of every other participant.

I think US dollar is still strong enough, there is no immediate danger just based on the global share of transactions using USD. However, in the long-term there are alarming signs as Russia and China are working on creating an alternative payment system (https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202112/1241715.shtml). There was another article (I don't have the URL handy) that said there were some other countries (Saudi Arabia, Iran etc.) that were interested in joining this new payment network.

Given how quickly Russia solved the problem with Visa/MC sanctions (Russian banks are now issuing UnionPay cards to their customers. UnionPay is accepted in 174 countries including US. Also, Russian-issued MIR cards are now accepted in 14 countries and the list is growing) it's not inconceivable to expect that Russia and China will act quickly and this new payment system goes live sooner than anyone expected. If this new system will be used for a relatively small number of transactions then it might not pose a real danger to USD reserve currency status. What concerns me is what would happen if more countries decided to move away from the dollar after seeing how quickly USD/Euro accounts kept in foreign banks can be frozen.

[foglifter]

I wish Biden would call up Zelinsky and tell him to end the war. 72 hours later it would be over (IMHO). But the US and Europe would have to eat some crow. Give up some regions, reverse sanctions, return seized stuff. Shake Putins hand, retract war criminal statements, remove Ukraine from consideration of NATO membership. Internally, stop trying to regime change anything in that region. I don’t see that happening based on the foolish (again IMHO) escalation in rhetoric by the west. You can use calmer words that do not force you and the entire world into a bad hand.

Help me out here. “Give up some regions” means what? How much of the Ukraine should be carved up and handed to Putin on a platter to reward him for invading another sovereign nation? I’m of the belief that it wouldn’t appease him for long. In fact fact, I’m quite sure he’d be more emboldened than ever before to invade other parts of Europe, but I’m still curious about the details you have in mind.

My biggest revelation from the last few weeks is that anything can happen. We can keep analyzing who said what and try to connect the dots and then - boom - something happens that nobody expected. As I mentioned earlier, I don't think getting Donbas would end the war (unfortunately ) - not because Putin wants to swallow all of Ukraine, but because there would be no benefit for Russia to just "liberate" (and eventually annex) the Eastern Ukraine. Even though Zelensky publicly said Ukraine is no longer seeking NATO membership (this is just words though and we know what happened to the "not one inch eastward" promise Baker gave Gorbachev in 1990) and Russia recently said it wouldn't be opposed to Ukraine's EU membership, having stopped where things are now Russia would still have a hostile country next door, where Nazi groups are officially included in the military, Russian language, culture and everything Russian is being thrown away, Russian speaking people are persecuted, and the country is flooded with weapons from NATO.

That said, I don't see a clear and relatively fast way for Russia to finish this war. To achieve the goals of "denazification" and "demilitarization" they would really have to go into every major city and "clean up" and eventually take Kiev and ensure that a more friendly government is elected. After WW2 Soviet Union had to deal with Banderites hiding in forests in the Western parts of Ukraine well into 50s! That means the war and post-war cleanup would take years. Will Russia have enough human and financial resources and will to do all that in the conditions of unprecedented sanctions imposed by the West? I don't know. And nobody knows. I guess history will show.

[ppnewbie]

I wish Biden would call up Zelinsky and tell him to end the war. 72 hours later it would be over (IMHO). But the US and Europe would have to eat some crow. Give up some regions, reverse sanctions, return seized stuff. Shake Putins hand, retract war criminal statements, remove Ukraine from consideration of NATO membership. Internally, stop trying to regime change anything in that region. I don’t see that happening based on the foolish (again IMHO) escalation in rhetoric by the west. You can use calmer words that do not force you and the entire world into a bad hand.

Help me out here. “Give up some regions” means what? How much of the Ukraine should be carved up and handed to Putin on a platter to reward him for invading another sovereign nation? I’m of the belief that it wouldn’t appease him for long. In fact fact, I’m quite sure he’d be more emboldened than ever before to invade other parts of Europe, but I’m still curious about the details you have in mind.

I say pick a region or two or three. Here buddy just take it and we’ll send our dancing with the stars guy off to Switzerland. Or we can cry a river for the poor that are about to overrun by famine and continue to bask in war porn on the nightly news.

(Ok ok I k know I’m being obnoxious!)

I say this because I feel like we are pushing giving up everything just because we feel overconfident. Imagine Biden and Boris Johnson, Macron playing chess against Xi, Putin, Modi. I feel like we are going to lose (even if we think we won).