kanisatha

People are always equating Russia and China, but there are some fundamental differences between the two states and regimes. The Chinese, unlike Putin's Russia, do care about such things as their standing and reputation in the world and being *perceived* (I emphasize this word) as a responsible world power. They also, unlike the Russians, don't want to completely reorder the existing international system, because that system has actually been very good to China (for example, China supports globalization, but wants it to be a China-dominated phenomenon, or at least a "neutral" one, rather than a US-dominated one). In international relations literature, states like China are called 'revisionist' states, meaning they want to reorder the distribution of power in the system but while largely maintaining the system in its current form. States like Russia (and Iran) are 'revolutionary' states, which want to fundamentally destroy the existing system and replace it with something else. And for completeness sake I'd mention states like Germany, or Japan, or India, or Brazil, which are considered 'status quo' states, states that are generally satisfied with the existing system and are only seeking marginal changes to suit them (though for some of these states, whether they are status quo or revisionist is open to debate).

Yeah, their own ruleset. Plus, RTwP combat, party size of five, graphics a bit better than the IE games but generally a very similar look, and a huge emphasis on crafting. And there will be future expansions, because a KS add-on was pre-paying for all future expansions.

Heh. You always beat me to it with the Solasta updates! Yeah a great update. I don't care at all about MP, but so many others do, and if that is what gets them into this wonderful game then that's a plus for all fans of the game. And all the other new bits that come with the new DLC are great too. I didn't think the backgrounds feature TA added to the game would have much of an impact, but it is in reality a very nice feature that actually impacts your playthrough. So having nine new backgrounds is great. My only disappointment is that we are still stuck at level 12 max. But given how far they went to tell us from the very beginning that MP was just not gonna' happen, and then they spring this surprise on us, I'm very optimistic now that at some point we will get an expansion to level 20.

That Ukraine would have to give in on NATO membership has been mentioned by many people (myself included) for weeks. The same for getting back the Crimea.

LOL, you guys do understand that the word "liberalism" when used in academic (i.e. political science/international relations) discussions is completely different from that same word used in US domestic politics, right? In other words: liberal/realist, versus liberal/conservative, where those two "liberals" do not at all mean the same thing.

Hehe this is a great line. I need to remember it for use when I'm lecturing to my students on realism v. liberalism.

Awesome! Thanks for sharing. I've also seen a lot of reports of a failed offensive with huge losses near Kharkiv. And reports that morgues in Belarus are overflowing with Russian bodies, with bodies now being stacked outside and beginning to rot. Apparently the Russians are bringing in portable crematoriums to try and dispose of the bodies.

Not so. Gasoline prices here in the US have gone up by 22% in the past two weeks. But I for one do not buy the claim this is all because of the war and the sanctions, which I see as playing only a small role in the price increases. The cost of gas was already going up sharply before the invasion happened, so the real drivers are certain other factors which our government doesn't want to admit to for domestic politics reasons.

Yup. Wanting a green energy system and being anti-nuclear power is literally the case of trying to have your cake and eat it too.

It is my understanding that all the Baltic state governments have now requested that US troops (not NATO troops but explicitly US troops) be permanently stationed in each of their countries. But the US (and NATO) are hemming and hawing because they "don't want to upset or provoke" the Russians. This is the kind of nonsense typical of liberal democracies that the Russians will fully exploit. As for the performance of Russian forces, they will learn from their Ukraine experience and will fix most of their problems before their next war. And in the Baltics they will be fighting the militaries of the Baltic states, not major NATO allied forces, in the first stage of the war. And as much as I have respect for the people of the Baltics, their militaries will not even be a speed bump for the Russians.

Yes it would *not* be a surprise attack like Pearl Harbor. But relatively speaking, it can happen fast enough to prevent meaningful NATO support in a timely manner. And NATO membership for the Baltic states is ultimately irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether states like France and Germany and UK and USA are willing to sacrifice their own cities for the sake of (their Article 5 commitment to) the Baltic states. Recall that famous exchange between DeGaulle and Kennedy in 1962 when France withdrew from NATO's military structure in pursuit of its independent nuclear deterrent. Responding to Kennedy's pleas for DeGaulle to reconsider, DeGaulle said to Kennedy: "Will you sacrifice New York to avenge Paris?" And Kennedy did not have an answer for DeGaulle.

Nuclear proliferation experts (as I'm in this area myself, I'm quite plugged into what they're saying) are now publicly expressing their very real concerns on this question. "If only Ukraine had had nukes ....." That's is how many smaller states that perceive a threat from a larger neighbor see this war. If I were the leader of such a state, I'd go full-bore in pursuit of nukes. To trust the US or NATO or, God forbid, the UN (what a joke) to protect you is folly on the scale of Melos v. Athens.

Exactly! For 70 years academics have been asking this exact question, and hoping we (including policymakers) can come up with a strong policy approach to this conundrem. But we still don't have a good answer. Here's what I see happening a couple of years from now. Russia will launch a surprise attack on the Baltic states, with a plan on taking control of them very quickly before NATO forces can be mobilized, both politically and militarily, to respond. They also won't do the months of build-up on the border like with Ukraine, because that will give NATO the opportunity to counter the build-up. Then, once they have conquered those states, and NATO begins to get its act together under Article 5 to counterattack, the Russians will say to NATO: we will withdraw from all other NATO territories, but the three Baltic states are ours. Let us have them, or we will use tactical nukes against your forces trying to take them back (and maybe even some of your cities). So NATO's choice will be accept an escalation to nuclear war, including cities in Germany, France, UK, and the US coming under attack, or sacrifice the Baltic states for "the greater good."

Yes indeed. And very sad, because the Ukrainians have showed themselves to be a worthy people. But they are being sacrificed/thrown under the bus for the benefit of Europe and America (much like we once did to Abyssinia and Czechoslovakia).

Yeah aid agencies have said they've seen the bodies and taken statements from eye witnesses.

And I, as an academic, have also said this to news reporters interviewing me and in public events at my university. What we are going through now events very similar to events in Europe, Africa, and Asia in the 1930s prior to September 1, 1939. And as far as I am concerned, the single most important and most powerful *lesson* Putin is learning from the Ukrainian war is that the West (both the US and Western Europe) is terrified of the prospect of (stumbling into) WW3, and will go to great lengths to avoid such a prospect even if it means giving the Russians what they want (see all the hand-wringing at both the governmental and public levels in major Western countries). So making threats about "WW3" is now in Russia's interest as a way of cowing the West and getting concessions. And China, and even states like Iran and North Korea, are also learning this lesson. Allowing ourselves to be paralyzed by fear of WW3 is the surest path to WW3. Mark my words: by not being willing to fight the Russians here and now we have not averted WW3. Far from it, we have only strengthened the prospect of a war with Russia down the road, in a much worse situation. And when (not if) the Russians next engage in naked aggression against a weak neighbor (I would put money on a lightning strike on the Baltic states a few years from now), they will be fully joined by the Chinese, and likely even an Iran flush with cash and all the components for a nuke, and a North Korea with nuke-armed missiles that can hold the continental US hostage.

Two things that have come up here are now pretty well confirmed from what I'm reading: (1) In parts of Ukraine under Russian occupation, mayors and other top officials at the city and oblast levels are being kidnapped and murdered by Russian troops or mercenaries. The expectation is that they will soon be replaced by Russian appointees who will then make declarations the Russians want. What we expect to see happen to the Ukrainian national government eventually, we are already seeing happening at the lower levels of Ukrainian government. (2) The story about Russia using "commissar squads" to execute their own soldiers whose enthusiasm for battle is not what it is supposed to be is being confirmed by independent sources inside Ukraine.

I would completely agree with you on this except for one very important detail: YT is a monopoly. So people cannot take their voices elsewhere when YT censors them. Private entities controling content on their platforms is their right, but only so long as they're not the only game in town. It's why I am very strongly in the camp of needing to break up the tech monopolies.

That whole discussion of A-10s for Ukraine was so completely asinine anyway. A-10s would get thoroughly chewed up by Russian SAMs. People glorifying the A-10's performance against the Taliban and ISIS don't have a clue what the A-10 would be up against in a high-tech battlespace.

Here are some more excellent articles, especially for those of you looking for in-depth tactical analyses of Russia's battleplan and battlefield progress thus far, and an assessment of the longterm outcome (last article). These are good examples of the range of sources of my information driving my own thinking and analyses: https://newlinesinstitute.org/russia/russian-success-or-failure-in-ukraine-will-define-global-security-for-decades/ https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/03/10/assessing_the_russian_army_performance_after_one_week_of_war_821037.html https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2022/03/russias-rocket-barrages-reveal-bad-planning-crueltyand-absence-crucial-skills/362911/ https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-03-09/niall-ferguson-ukraine-invasion-struggles-could-be-the-end-for-putin

No, not quite. The question needs to be turned around. Russian victory in two weeks? Because if not, then we will enter a very long stalemate that will ultimately become a "defeat" for Russia. In other words, the onus is on Russia to defeat the Ukrainains in the next two weeks. If they fail to do so, they will be in serious trouble.

Thanks for posting, man. Awesome video!! This video clearly shows why the Ukrainians are beating the crap out of the Russians. These guys are likely simple recruits too. And yet they display incredible professionalism, cool heads, and no fear. They are clearly well versed in mobile infantry anti-armor tactics, have plenty of motivation and high morale, know their terrain well, and are surprisingly well equipped. Each man has at least one portable anti-armor weapon, and they're being very careful with their shots and not just wastefully firing them off. The NLAW is a very good system. But something as basic as an RPG-7 is pretty effective against most of what Russia has in the field. This is how you fight against an armor-heavy enemy: small squads of infantry with lots of portable anti-armor weapons, and where the infantry is mobile and not just sitting in dug-in positions where Russian artillery can blast them. If the Ukrainians have at least 100,000 troops just like these guys (the Ukrainian army before the war was around 150,000 active-duty troops and 900,000 reservists), the Russians are toast.

Yeah this is why I'm quite confident that even after the Russians eventually encircle Kyiv, which will happen simply based on Russia's sheer numbers advantage, it won't necessarily mean Ukraine's defeat. The Russian encirclement will be patchy and weak, with the Russian soldiers not being very motivated to hold their lines, thus providing lots of gaps and holes in their lines. But most importantly, a city being surrounded doesn't automatically mean the Ukrainians give up. They have shown tremendous tenacity in carrying out small, smart counterattacks, which they can do from behind the encircling Russian forces, attacks that will steadily bleed the Russians.

I can actually believe this. We have had several sources report that all of Russia's intel agencies were taken by surprise when Putin went ahead with an invasion. And apparently all the heads of those services were and still are opposed to the invasion. Furthermore, even many top generals in the military were of the belief this was all yet another one of Putin's mind-games with the West and were shocked when Putin gave the order to invade. The rank and file troops also appear to have been convinced they were not actually going into combat. Even after they were told to go into Ukraine, many believed they were going into a peaceful peacekeeping situation and not one where they were going to get shot at. There are credible reports FSB agents have been tipping off both Ukraine and Western intel agencies with inside info on Russian plans. I would not be surprised if Russian military sources were/are also in contact with the Ukrainians and the West in secret. We know Putin's circle of people he talks with has been getting smaller, if that is possible. I would bet right now the only person he listens to is Sergei Lavrov, because Lavrov, like Putin, is also delusional and a true believer in Putin's crazy fantasies. And this is the source of great danger many Western intel analysts are raising the alarm about, that Putin could make a rash decision, not because he's crazy per se but because he is so very isolated and has lost touch with reality. Even setting aside Western/NATO countries, there is a very grave danger that out of frustrationn for the was not going well, anger with the Ukrainians for resistingn him and not giving him what he wants, and to save face, he may actually give the order to use weapons of mass destruction against Ukrainian strongholds of resistence, which of course would be the big cities.

There are lots of reports of how Russian troops are communicating on open unencrypted channels and that this is how NATO intel, Ukrainian intel, NGOs, and even amateur radio sleuths are able to know so much about what's going on within the ranks of the Russian invasion forces. Here are some interesting articles on this: https://news.yahoo.com/cover-town-artillery-fire-online-224642107.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAc94xs22ood4h-qkQzcCk6ZTXPi1yYou_uX0qbtOznG8CkHZyHFtarZbwuSMABCCfddzEc8IDf3HuJgGN9qKTWMllHTtV13mJCHgjQgrlhji2cAltwP1HO9PyB3XkA9VJJ0Eq8cP18LgpAV1atOmJByq6liHzHDAJY50SZo0jqC https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10567135/Mutinous-Russian-troops-overheard-complaining-Ukraine-invasion.html https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/08/vitaly-gerasimov-second-russian-general-killed-ukraine-defence-ministry-claims