kanisatha

As @Malcador said, a Le Pen win would be so much fun to watch unfold, especially watching the heads of Western elites exploding, but for me her plan to withdraw France from the NATO military command structure and her pro-Putin/anti-Ukraine positions are just too stupid to accept.

Yeah I just saw this on the Owlcat forum. My take is that under their current circumstances they are not in a position right now to transition to their next new game. But they have bills to pay and want to keep their people employed, so they're treading water by working on more DLCs for their current game until things (hopefully) get better. Seems like a good strategy to me. But I wonder how the sanctions affect their ability to sell to customers in sanctioning countries.

"Comrade, do you want the pill, or the pistol?"

Yes but this is saying the US government is now committed to proactively doing things to effectively deny Russia victory. From a governmental policy standpoint, it is fundamentally different. And it is huge. Useful to also note that just today a new poll showed that a solid majority of Americans believe the president is not doing enough against Russia and in support of Ukraine. And political pressure on the Administration on this issue is now very much bipartisan and not just Republicans.

This is the million dollar question. And I fear my own answer to it. You may have noticed in recent days an uptick in references by Ukrainian officials including Zelenskiy re. Putin's plans for the use of nukes in Ukraine. Well, that, I fear, will be Putin's endgame here. He will seize as much Ukrainian territory as he can, not only in the Donbass but also in southern Ukraine, and then once his forces no longer can successfully operate on offence and/or Ukrainian forces are shifting to offence, he will demand a ceasefire that effectively cedes all that occupied territory to Russia and threaten to use nukes against Ukraine if Ukraine refuses to accept his fait accompli.

Yeah, you know, just yesterday I saw a news story in which a senior security official in the Biden Administration was quoted as saying that US policy is now to ensure that Russia "does not win" in Ukraine, effectively a denial strategy against Russia. I hope this is true, because then I would finally have something to cheer about.

All of this, yes. But also just the attitude and mentality of: (a) I can do this and get away with it, and nobody can stop me; and (b) I get to do nasty things to someone "inferior" to me that I don't like, and put them in their place.

Correct. And this is something the West will soon need to get a grip on, because even relatively minor states like North Korea and Iran will soon begin to try and use the possession of nukes as leverage to demand and take what they want and "deterrence" against retaliation for their bad behavior. Like anyone else, I have no wish to see nukes getting used by any state, but at the same time it bothers me like crazy that our Western leaders and governments are so very sensitive to the prospect of Russia escalating to using nukes that they end up tip-toeing around Putin and his criminal behavior. Too damn sensitive, imo.

More details are available on this, that across southern Ukraine where Russia still occupies Ukrainian territory, people are being coerced or conned by the Russians into giving up their personal information, giving up their Ukrainian IDs and passports, and signing documents supporting the Russian installed "government" and calling for a secessionist referendum. Well, these areas are not part of the Donbass, so how does Russia justify annexing these regions? Russia's game here is entirely a sham. This is just a blatant land-grab. There are no principles, or even national/security interests involved. It's just an 18th or 19th or early-20th centurey style land-grad, based purely on the notion that stronger countries can take whatever they want from their weaker neighbors.

I read it's 300 defenders still left.

Saw this myself in wire service reports. Blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of people under your occupation. But what's even more shocking is that there are credible reports that Russian troops are threatening and forcing people to be drafted into Russian military service in parts of Russian-occupied Moldova and Georgia as well.

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/