kanisatha

Yup. Switchblade is pretty awesome too. And just wait until we have the miniature swarm drones up and running, and drones with next-gen AI. But then soon enough others will steal and copy these drones as they have been doing the past 15 years. The drone wars are coming. And humans will cease to be the apex predator in the world. Speaking personally, I just hope I live long enough to have my own drone to take care of stuff around my house for me. That's the dream.

And here's an update on the lessons of Russia's Ukraine misadventure for Taiwan. Another excellent read, @BruceVC. And every item on their list is something I've been talking about for years, but Taiwanese politicians and generals stupidly waste their defense budget on flashy hardware for political PR benefits over practical defense needs, as do other countries I suppose (India being another good example of this phenomenon). https://warontherocks.com/2022/04/eight-new-points-on-the-porcupine-more-ukrainian-lessons-for-taiwan/

Here's the beginning of the long-term damage to Russia: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/13/technology/russia-tech-workers.html https://www.marketwatch.com/story/russias-brain-drain-hundreds-of-thousands-of-professionals-and-highly-skilled-workers-have-left-country-since-putins-invasion-of-ukraine-11649688506

Yup, lockdowns never made any scientific sense anyway and were all political decisions. What the Chinese are doing now is staggeringly stupid. But I'm good with countries like China and Russia doing stupid things, because why should it only be my country (which I love) suffering the consequences of doing stupid things. Our stupid policymaking needs to be offset my stupider policymaking in rival countries. 😉

This is it exactly. China is angry at the "arrogance" of the West, but ultimately understands that if it has to choose between doing business with Russia or the West but not both, there is no real choice there at all. This is especially true right now when China itself is going through some very tough economic and fiscal problems at home. Furthermore, as the world continues to de-globalize as a result of Covid, China stands to be the biggest loser under de-globalization. So China's strategy here is to "help" their Russian ally as much as they can but only while staying well outside the sanctions lines the West has drawn around Russia. They will never flagrantly cross those sanctions lines, even while publicly loudly talking a good talk about how they don't and won't accept or recognize those Western sanctions (just like they have done with Iran and North Korea for years).

I am sure this is just b.s. PR. Russia will try to have its cake and eat it too, by "withdrawing" their troops but continuing to occupy large swathes of Ukrainian territory which they will claim is *not* Ukrainian territory, and in this way try to finesse their claim of a "withdrawal" to then demand that Western sanctions be lifted. But at least the US Administration is already on the record saying our sanctions will not be lifted until "every square inch" of Ukrainian territory is vacated by Russia. Furthermore, I am quite certain, again only speaking for what I expect the US to do and not other Western states, that we will argue that Russian assets under US control will be used to settle any Ukrainian reparations claims against Russia. This would have to go through the US courts, but there is plenty of precedent for it.

Well, for the record, I never bought into the 'Russia-will-win-easily' hype.

Oh absolutely. I am entirely contemptuous of Russian threats and demands of the US/NATO, and my response to them would be to give them both middle fingers and ramp up military aid to Ukraine even more. Today's Russians are such a bunch of whiney crybabies, especially given everything they have done towards others. Take for example their self-righteous outrage at even the prospect of the Ukrainians attacking infrastructure targets inside Russia and claims that such attacks are an unacceptable escalation, because apparently they can invade and literally destroy Ukraine building by building and city by city but Ukraine retaliating by attacking some Russian buildings is an escalation?!!

Some nuclear weapons proliferation experts (academics) have also now said this publicly. The claim is that two of the sixteen P-1000 Vulkan anti-ship missiles had nuclear warheads, which was standard practice during Cold War deployments.

Yeah in the log for the patch that came with the DLC release they say several things that were not available in the OC have now been added to the game. But apparently not retro'd to the OC. https://forums.solasta-game.com/forum/lost-valley-full-patch-notes

Here are a couple of upcoming games I've following. Would be interested in people's thoughts: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1579340/Survive_the_Fall/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1478850/Vendir_Plague_of_Lies/

Two extremely interesting and intriguing recent bits of information: Biden Administration debate on how far to go sharing intel with Ukraine: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-biden-united-states-europe-b12831d7c6990c1b76802b16845b75a2 Russians pissed at extent of US and allied military aid to Ukraine: https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2022-04-15/russia-warns-us-to-stop-arming-ukraine-5694229.html

Indeed. The Slava class was built with the capacity to carry and use nukes for both its anti-sub rocket system and its land-attack/anti-ship missile system. But they have not carried nukes since the end of the Cold War. So I also would agree it is highly unlikely Moskva took on nukes for this mission. But at the same time, many of Russia's decisions in this war make little sense, so who knows. It's possible in the current environment, the Russians saw Moskva's role as including nuclear deterrence against NATO in the Black Sea.

Here's great coverage about the Moskva: https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/04/meet-the-moskva-how-ukraine-nearly-sank-russias-black-sea-flagship/

The new Solasta DLC (it's a full new campaign from level 1 to 12) is out: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1723950/Solasta_Crown_of_the_Magister__Lost_Valley/

Hehe. Beamdog and I have parted company, so I have no interest in anything from them.

Not so in the ICC, where the principle that one was ordered to do something does not count as a defense has been established.

Okay as much as I hate people who whine, I may have to become a whiner myself if we don't get any real information about this game very soon. Why such a strident information blackout? It's downright cruel and mean-spirited that Obsidian is unwilling to say anything about this game.

Still haven't started playing this game, but just saw in Steam that the DLC has a 30-something percent "like" rating. Is it that awful?

Countries never have money for such things as education, healthcare, or infrastructure, but then somehow always have plenty of money for military hardware. It's just like with people: always complaining about no money for food and rent and medical care and school tuition, but have plenty of money for designer clothes, a fancy cellphone, a huge-screen TV, and expensive concert/sporting event tickets.

So then would you say there should be no Article 5 response in case of a 9/11-style attack on any other NATO member (including potentially Sweden)? Or is this just for the US? I'm trying to understand your logic here because the 9/11 attack fully satisfied Article 5 conditions. Also, I vaguely recall that it was NATO, led by France, that invoked Article 5 after 9/11, and not the US.

Russia's position now is a very sharp contrast with its position a couple of months ago, when it explicitly threatened a military response to these countries joining NATO.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/06/bucha-barbarism-atrocities-russian-soldiers/ https://www.tweet247.net/news/world/in-bucha-ukraine-evidence-of-torture-beheadings-by-russian-soldiers https://twitter.com/maxbearak/status/1511947644788170756

A lot of the civilians murdered in Bucha were decapitated. Many had been tortured first before being killed. Sounds very much like Wagner and/or Kadyrov's thugs to me. But what's now happening in Mariupol and surrounding smaller towns is several orders of magnitude worse than Bucha. Estimates are that over 5,000 civilians have been killed thus far (just in the Mariupol area), with some 100,000 trapped and facing starvation.

I did spend a couple of days in Barrow, Alaska, in June, many years ago. It was indeed nuts; kids playing outside at 2 am!! But it was also so very interesting as a sociological experience. Plus, now I can say I have dipped my toes in all four oceans of the world!