rjshae

It's probably intended for internal digestion, so Putin can redirect passions over the struggling war effort to an external factor.

Bummer. The Little-Known Role of the Soviet Union in the Vietnam War

I'm sure there is biological science taking place in Mongolia, so a biological lab would not be out of place. A bioweapons lab is something else entirely.

I just listened to his filthiest joke ever told. It's... NSFW.

I think the expectation is that they will return home after the conflict is over.

The variants used by the Czech and Croatia military can fire anti-tank guided missiles and other armaments.

The New York Times reports that 50,000 to 70,000 tech workers have now departed Russia with an additional 70,000 to 100,000 to follow. That's a pretty significant brain drain for the Russian economy.

The Fabric of Civilization by Virginia Postrel. It's a history of textiles and its impact on civilization. Interesting factoid: a viking sail took 385 days of labor to produce.

I'm left wondering whether this was a one-time behavior, or if the odds finally caught up to him. There is a legacy culture of reckless jaywalking in certain urban areas (which I've encountered from time to time). Anyway, it's unfortunate. My sympathies for the family.

I've been thinking that we should be encouraging school systems to adopt non-pluralistic voting systems with their student bodies so the next generation will be more receptive to the idea.

Mmm, go with the second.

From the West's perspective the broad Russian plan to take Ukraine appears to have been defeated for the moment and their adventurism contained. I suspect the goal now is to deter future such wars of conquest by Putin, presumably making it sufficiently costly that Russia will settle for a stable compromise. The question in the aftermath is whether to continue the punitive economic sanctions in the hope of bringing down Putin's government. Such may require broader negotiations to settle. Additional negotiation leverage may be provided by a major commitment from the West to broadly implement clean energy programs and to encourage long-term economic and military development of Ukraine (as a deterrent).

The T-72s are probably going to be a stop-gap measure, but better than nothing. Unfortunately, the Ukraine tank factory is in Kharkiv. Then again the Russian tank maker has run out of foreign parts due to the sanctions, so maybe it will be a wash. Russia’s largest tank manufacturer may have run out of parts

The Russian army is still using the T-72, and Poland has 382 of that model. Under the lend-lease model the West could transfer a cost equivalent in modern battle tanks to Poland, then send Poland's tanks to Ukraine.

Yes, most NATO members called for invocation of Article 5 immediately after 9/11. However, there's a certain flexibility in the level of support required to satisfy Article 5, and many countries supplied only token troops to Afghanistan. NATO is still living with the consequences of a historic decision it made hours after 9/11 Military alliances are always a challenge; it's often easier from a command perspective to go it alone.