pj
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My prediction still stands.
> Alas, my prediction is more October 7. Another
> symbolic date. Birthday of Putin. |
The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom
Henry L. Mencken |
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nikol
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>> I hope it will be not nuclear. // nuke ending becomes more likely.
>> Everyone slowly begins to accept end of operation/war by next year. // March?
Problem is that we are in the deadlock state now. Russian motivation to start this campaign was a feeling of significant disruption of its security. NATO's statement "we are not going to harm you, dear" is not trusted. The conflict will continue till this problem is resolved (negotiated or forced or globally doomed).
Without this resolution any early peace will be not an end of the conflict but a pause. And the pause will not work in favor of Russia, because it will gradually lose its current advantage - control over resources. Of course, the West will adopt. It is the question through which trajectory. |
... What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? (c) |
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rftx713
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| Total Posts: 144 |
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| @nikol, can you elaborate on the deadlock piece? Seems to me things are shifting quite quickly and Ukraine is making their intention to retake all their land quite clear. |
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pj
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nikol is evidently pilled.
Therefore it wasn't an Ukrainian counterattack
but redeployment of Russian
troupes to better fulfill the political aims of the "special war operation." |
The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom
Henry L. Mencken |
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nikol
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@pj / @rftx713
bah..
Since the beginning of this campaign I am observing with terror how perceptions are managed (commonly known as Overton window). What was impossible in Nov21, became acceptable in Jan22, and even at feb22 we could not think where we are now. Jump from Nov21 into Sep22 would have different effect than through the trajectory we all have experienced in between.
>> nikol evidently is pilled
That's the convenient way to explain my opinions, which is opinion as well. What we all see is the shifts of declarations: from "no-no, NATO-Russia conflict is impossible", to the "let's deploy heavy armor: tanks and airplanes" and "send them NATO troops" (not yet official, but already there). Hence, the matrix of war game (actions of them against us) is an escalation vortex, which I extrapolate to "nuke ending". The narrative "we share the same planet" is not there anymore. I do not see it.
Just build mental Nash diagram used in game theoretical analysis:
- NATO/US allows itself to use nukes preventively
- Russia allows itself to use nukes as retaliation or as an existential threat.
And since these policies are very judgmental, their manipulation is very likely by either side.
Now, think yourself, how close we are to the "doom time".
PS. Recently, refreshed the cheat-sheet "What to do in case of nuclear attack". I had these lessons in the last class of soviet school, now time is back.
PSS. Add to this German-Polish territorial-reparational rhetoric and comments of some ex-politician about "unnatural Ukranian borders" and territories, which belong to Poland/Romania/Hungary and you get the picture.
and the winter is coming. We are living in the times of impossibles.
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... What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? (c) |
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NIP247
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What would have been the logic for NATO to seek to attack Russia? None, apart from what goes on in the head of a paranoïd autocrat who has lost connection with reality since surrounding himself with ya-sayers and being in power too long?
Was there an Ukrainian majority for NATO membership before the annexation of Crimea 2014? No. After? You bet
Here's the story, as simple as that: Nobody moved about Georgia in 2008. Obama stood down despite saying use of chemical weapons in Syria was a read line? (Who pushed Assad to use chemical weapons? It's called calling a bluff by procy). So next to a bigger prey, to check if anyone would move: Crimea. When everyone stood down, Putin wrongly thought that (1) nobody would move if he extended his ambitions to the whole of Ukraine (2) it would be a quick move to install his regime, the same as happened in Crimea where only little green men were present but no russian soldiers (go explain the dead soldiers to their moms and the medals for not being there...)
A Munich 1938 deal would be moronic. Now everybody knows what ex-Russian satellites have always known; that if you take a step back, it's interpreted as weakness so Putin takes a step forward.
The western world should have provided the heavy arms from day 1 so that Putin would have understood that they meant business, instead of letting him continue and escalate and make it so much more about prestige. Now we are where we are, and I hope the European population can withstand the economic hardship, given that Ukrainians are paying in blood. May be more difficult with the right wing agitators or in power in Europe, who have been informationally and economically supported by Russia.
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On your straddle, done on the puts, working the calls... |
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pj
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Re possibility of nukulear war.
Two questions
1) In what the state are Russian nuclear missiles?
2) What is the opinion of the Comrade Xi on it?
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The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom
Henry L. Mencken |
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nikol
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1) I do not know, t.b.h.. But given the on-going US-RU disputes because of apparent fears of mutual destruction, I conclude both sides are doing fine. Or does your question imply that Russian arsenal is in the state of near-dismantled or completely not-usable? If you have more info, please, share.
2) In the post-apocalyptic era there is no opinion of Xi. No gas, no EV's, no civilization as we know it. So, who cares...
By the way, I see the biggest threat is not due to Ukraine, but similar to the one coming from Terminator-2 scenario due to internal civil struggle inside US (see my post 6 months ago from 2022-03-25 16:40, at the beginning). |
... What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? (c) |
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pj
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> Or does your question imply that Russian arsenal is in the state of near-dismantled or completely not-usable?
Exactly.
I am sick and tired of Putin's nuclear dick swinging,
so I asked (Ok, not me first) myself.
If US of A is spending more than 21 billion USD for upkeep
of their nukes numbers here
and, therefore, Russia needs to spend a similar amount.
How much of this money was misappropriated?
Just asking questions.
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The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom
Henry L. Mencken |
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nikol
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To start with, we have to match the amounts of Russian salaries levels and compare them to American one, making kind of BigMac index.
Average Russian scientific and engineering worker gets at about $1k a month. $2k/m is a lot even in Moscow, not saying about traditional scientific nuclear centers like Arzamas-16, which are surrounded with poor villages. That's roughly $20k per annum. Compare to 100k/a salary at University. So, here I see a factor of 5 at least.
Of course, I dont know what part of arsenal maintenance costs these salaries take, but as we know Russian military economy is not an economy in our understanding. So, everything I can say in the domain of outside salary cost will be my fantasy.
Besides, where did you get 21b from?
PS. after finishing writing, I found this (now old) document, which compares US's 44.2 to RF's 6.8 (factor of 6.5 !!!)
https://assets.nationbuilder.com/ican/pages/2873/attachments/original/1655145777/Spending_Report_2022_web.pdf |
... What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? (c) |
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pj
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I was asking
> How much of this money was misappropriated?
> Besides, where did you get 21b from?
>> numbers here |
The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom
Henry L. Mencken |
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nikol
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misappropriation=corrupted?
Look into Russian audit reports to begin with. Useful source of data.
I guess the numbers quoted by ICAN include everything.
My guess is that military corruption rates are at 15-20%. All generals want fat pensions. And since they are all opportunistic and risk-takers already at the selection to military schools, I consider it sort of universal (though no, Ukraine is an outlier).
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/study-says-nearly-half-of-defense-spending-for-9-11-wars-went-to-private-contractors
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... What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? (c) |
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nikol
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@pj
Nuclear dick is much closer than I thought of. Vucic estimates that within 1-2 months the conflict will cross the border of Ukraine/NATO and spreads further.
And let's see what will come tomorrow. Russian net is full of expectation. |
... What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? (c) |
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rftx713
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@nikol - what is your perception of the Russian population's support for use of nuclear weapons?
I ask because I feel fairly confident that any politician in the US that suggests preemptively using nukes will get absolutely eviscerated by public opinion. (Even the most extreme Republicans are being forced to walk back positions on abortion, which I feel is perceived to be less "extreme" than nuclear warfare.)
In short, I think Americans in 2022 - despite posturing and loud mouthing - are extremely strongly opposed to using nukes, particularly if they have not been used on them first, period.
I also think it's now clear to Americans that they have an absolutely dominant military (and economic) advantage against both Russia and it's lone semi-ally, and that's before factoring in the rest of NATO countries. To be quite blunt, the US doesn't need nukes to destroy Russia in all out warfare, and probably doesn't need them to do the same to China either if they were to inexplicably support Russia much longer in this conflict.
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nikol
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@rftx713
Mechanism around use of NW does not involve popular opinion.
On the "all-mighty" estimations it is difficult to argue. However, last Soviet war was against entire continental Europe united by the all-mighty power. Difficult to say, really. Let's see.
Partial mobilization is announced. All Europe-Russia ties are cut. 😞 |
... What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? (c) |
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nikol
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@rftx
Bloomberg says third of NATO arsenals are depleted due to help to Ukraine. It will take years to refill.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-09-18/ukraine-war-shows-the-us-military-isn-t-ready-for-war-with-china
The Duran discusses resilience of economies. "Ideological mindset obscures economic analysis of Russia"
https://youtu.be/6v1_39yAQkI
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... What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? (c) |
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nikol
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As I mentioned.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/09/22/russia-nuclear-threat-us-options/
The main problem in these communications is serious gap in perceptions and mistrust.
- West sees and paints Putin's words as a very evil and basic not worth to consider
- "Putin" (taken as wide set of russians) responds to that as malicious disrespect to lawful rights.
Disregarding natural wish to follow propaganda cliche by taking either side I see that the interaction of these matrices will lead us to the nuclear termination as West "is not affraid and brave" and Russia is "deadly offended and is going to defend its sovereignity". It's a dynamics. Someone will hit first either preventively or in defence act. Then the chain reaction will follow. |
... What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? (c) |
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rftx713
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I'm a little bit skeptical of that. I think in games where you get to repeat the same game a huge number of times, you can think of it as matrices interacting and leading to a large but fixed set of outcomes.
Humans and time are both weird - plenty of other outcomes (not necessarily good) that don't lead to nuclear war. Putin could have a heart attack tomorrow, for example. |
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Meanwhile, Ukraine’s territory and population are getting smaller lol |
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pj
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| Google Lyman |
The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom
Henry L. Mencken |
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pj
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> Google Kiev
> LOL
И?
For the rest of us. It's a reference to Margarita Simonyan's
(one of the leading Russian propagandists) answer.
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The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom
Henry L. Mencken |
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rftx713
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| Total Posts: 144 |
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| Risk_Reward - have you thought about the somewhat meta fact that this conversation is even happening? |
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Strange
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@Risk_Reward
Let's take it piece by piece.
In military terms, Russia has shown itself to be completely inept. Even considering the Western help, Russia (1.5 T$ GDP) should have dominated Ukraine (150 B$). Instead, we are seeing what amounts to a stalemate. Imagine that you get into a fight with a toddler and the toddler is holding his own. Unless you are some Russian TV personality broadcasting to an audience of Siberian alcoholics, denying that Russia was utterly humiliated is silly.
PR war is completely lost for Russia. The West is painting a picture of aggression against Ukraine that's very unfavorable to Russia and I dare suggest it's probably mostly true. All this while the Russian leadership and talking heads are squealing loudly in all sorts of ways, suggesting further weakness. This negative perception will filter into reality in terms of business deals etc, being a POS is not a great thing when dealing with democratic counterparties.
Finally, economically Russia is fucked for a long, long time. Given that RUB rate and all economic indicators coming out of Russia are now completely bogus, the best indicator is the balance of the FX reserves. Out of ~350bn left after the EU/US freeze, they've spent 75 by June and I am pretty sure another 50 since then. We are probably talking about 25-50% decline in GDP over the next 3-5 years, complete removal from the funding markets and 50-75% unwind of all Western economic investment since the USSR.
If this is "victory", I'd hate to imagine what defeat would look like. |
'Progress just means
bad things happen faster.’
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pj, Strange, rftx713
LOL I love the smell of triggered pederast westoids in the morning |
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