The Russian Invasion of the Ukraine.

[Meadmaker]

There has been a lot of talk about war crimes. People are really wanting to say that Russia is committing war crimes. An Internation Criminal Court investigation is going on.


I think that's all good, but I wish I saw more reference to something else related to that. War, itself, is a crime. That's not just a slogan. At Nuremberg, two of the counts charged against the defendants were "crimes against peace" and "conspiracy to wage aggressive war."

Of course, only the losers are ever prosecuted, but it's just somehting that I wish I heard. I just think it's a good message to reiterate.

 

[blutoski]

Fox is a bit notorious for seizing on any excuse to push the goal they want to push, after all, even if it's directly opposite of an excuse that they used previously.

One of the elements of propaganda that confused me when I was younger was the inconsistency. "X immigrants are lazy welfare bums who don't understand the concept of hard work... and also they're taking all the jobs because they work harder for less pay!"

It wasn't until later that I understood the target audience isn't looking for a coherent model of the world - they're just looking for soundbite insults and a reassurance that their nonrational biases are shared by a community of like minded people, and that there's at least one narrative that makes their bigotry 'heroic'.

 

[BillC]

The ruble, which had stabilised slightly for a day or two, has returned to sliding, hitting a new low of 0.00830354 to the USD.

On a related note, saw a Tweet that suggested that if the ruble were to lose another 60% of its value, it would be literally worth less than a single sheet of toilet paper.

 

[trustbutverify]

China will forgive them. Russia is pivoting towards a Eurasian alliance. China and Russia are also investing heavily in Africa. Russia can market its products elsewhere if the economically declining West doesn't want them (or is refused them...).

I guess going down with the ship is one way to play it.

 

[Galaxie]

Supposedly, the Russians had a protracted friendly-fire incident in which several tanks and other vehicles were disabled.

https://twitter.com/AVindman/status/1499753688478494721?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1499753688478494721%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2Fliveupdate%2F18hnzysb1elcs%2FLiveUpdate_893fb076-9bc7-11ec-acc4-d608a0e120df%2F0

 

[trustbutverify]

Ingraham: Even if we could expeditiously freeze every oligarch’s luxury assets, would that really stop the suffering of the Ukrainian people? More importantly we have to ask will this all backfire and make things worse for Ukraine?

Video in link

https://mobile.twitter.com/Acyn/status/1499586229179879424

Great to see how much concern Laura Ingraham has for the suffering of the Ukranian people. What a fine humanitarian.

 

[theprestige]

You're right.
That's a correct reading of what I wrote - and it wasn't actually what I meant to write, and that is entirely my fault. Apologies. Could be a result of incomplete editing.

There's a clause missing:
"It would be totally transparent that he ONLY reason for Georgia to join the EU is to fall under this CSDP provision, i.e. to draw EU countries into a direct military confrontation - a war - with Russia should Russia attack."

My point is: No one in the EU is interested at this time to be potentially drawn into a direct military confrontation in Georgia, and so no one can be interested at this time to actually allow Georgia in by way of a very fast - tracked application process. That's just not how the EU works: You typically would have years and years during which the applicant country must make its institutions and economy "EU-ready".

And so, Georgia's public call to become a EU member now has no realistic chance - but it is heard by Putin, of course. The rational course of action for Putin is then to make sure Georgia stop applying to any such Western club - and make sure Putin-style.
This is entirely predictable.
Not that Georgia would be safe if they didn't yell this.
It's just not making their chances any better.

It's like your attractive sister lives next door to a known sex offender of superior strength, and she has no resources to lock her door safely, and you are too far away to come to protect her. It is not smart of her then to come out of the house and call loudly for brother, when there is no way that brother will come. It would be smarter to stay at home and try not to arouse the evil neighbor.

For there may come a time when brother is closer, or the neighbor gets weaker, or loses his appetite for attractive sisters.

No, this is not "giving the sex offender an excuse". It's just being smart: Close your door as best as you can, and try to stay safe.

Thank you, that makes more sense.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I've come to really like these daily briefings:
https://putinukrainebriefing.substack.com/p/putins-war-the-daily-ukraine-brief-1e8?s=w

Also, spoilered for size:

 

[carlosy]

BTW, has there ever been a full blown war in a country with nuclear power plants.
I guess NPPs add a whole new level to war.
What do you do if the staff itself is affected by the war, if the plant can not be maintained to guarantee its safety?

 

[theprestige]

BTW, has there ever been a full blown war in a country with nuclear power plants.
I guess NPPs add a whole new level to war.
What do you do if the staff itself is affected by the war, if the plant can not be maintained to guarantee its safety?

Shut the plant down, lock in all the safety features, and accept that you can't control everything that happens in a war.

Honestly I don't understand all this hand-wringing about nuclear power plants. A single-plant meltdown is not at all like an actual exchange of nuclear weapons. They are not equivalent. Causing the former is not even remotely comparable to initiating the latter.

And I'm pretty sure that causing a meltdown isn't even all that easy to do, if the plant has been properly safetied and shut down. Chernobyl happened because the safety systems were disabled, prior to arranging circumstances to cause the most disastrous possible failure mode. And even that wasn't actually such a world-ender.

 

[jimbob]

This doesn't make Putin seem fully in control of what he has decided to do in a rehersed event on camera

I can't imagine that helps his position amongst his potential succesors

about 50 seconds in

 

[theprestige]

CNN talking head practices amateur Kremlinology, packages it as important insight.

 

[crescent]

The ruble, which had stabilised slightly for a day or two, has returned to sliding, hitting a new low of 0.00830354 to the USD.

On a related note, saw a Tweet that suggested that if the ruble were to lose another 60% of its value, it would be literally worth less than a single sheet of toilet paper.

Ruble, rubble. They've become synonyms.

 

[Galaxie]

BTW, has there ever been a full blown war in a country with nuclear power plants.
I guess NPPs add a whole new level to war.
What do you do if the staff itself is affected by the war, if the plant can not be maintained to guarantee its safety?

Just spitballing, but maybe have a team of experts on standby in the closest friendly territory ready to go in under UN guise. Whether the combatants would allow this is a whole other set of problems, but I don't see a way around UN military action if they are stupid enough to refuse.

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

The ruble, which had stabilised slightly for a day or two, has returned to sliding, hitting a new low of 0.00830354 to the USD.

On a related note, saw a Tweet that suggested that if the ruble were to lose another 60% of its value, it would be literally worth less than a single sheet of toilet paper.

Target is selling a package of 18 "megarolls" of Charmin toilet paper for $18.79US. Since there are 244 sheet per roll, each sheet costs $0.00428US. So the ruble would only have to lose half its value to be worth less than a single sheet of toilet paper.

 

[Ziggurat]

China will forgive them. Russia is pivoting towards a Eurasian alliance. China and Russia are also investing heavily in Africa. Russia can market its products elsewhere if the economically declining West doesn't want them (or is refused them...).

Russia can always find a market for oil and wheat, and China can indeed act as a replacement customer.

But China cannot act as a replacement supplier for the rest of the world. China cannot supply all the high tech things that Russia needs, such as computers. Russia's current best manufacturing process for integrated circuits is 90 nm fabs with not much capacity. Do you know how far behind the state of the art that is? Their home-grown CPU designs (which aren't competitive) are manufactured by TSMC (who is cutting them off), they cannot even manufacture them in Russia. They cannot satisfy their own requirements, and neither can China. Getting cut off from the west will indeed be devastating for their economy. Raw materials aren't enough anymore.

 

[theprestige]

Now that is not what I am arguing.
I am very much for seeking strong allies.
But when you are in a situation where you can be almost 100% that the strong ally is not going to come to your rescue, you should not call on them loudly and for your enemy to hear.

I think it's safe to assume that all of Russia's neighbors are already on Putin's invasion list. Calling for allies isn't for Putin to hear, it's for the rest of the world to hear.

It's for you to hear, as a citizen of an EU member state, so that when Georgia gets invaded, you will know that they called for your help and your protection, and you ignored them. You ignored them than for no other reason than that you'd already decided that they were going to be ignored.

 

[theprestige]

Analogies with robbers and burglars often have one weakness: The victim of a crime, as long as it survives at all, has recourse to authorities - to a force greater than hir own and greater than that of the robber. And so the usual and generalized advice is actually to hunker down, give in to demands, NOT fight back - and try to resolve the situation, get justice and restitution, some time later.
In the case of war between countries, this option, by and large, does not exist.

Yes, and my disdain of analogical arguments in general is well-known.

 

[Ziggurat]

And I'm pretty sure that causing a meltdown isn't even all that easy to do, if the plant has been properly safetied and shut down. Chernobyl happened because the safety systems were disabled, prior to arranging circumstances to cause the most disastrous possible failure mode. And even that wasn't actually such a world-ender.

Chernobyl wasn't just a meltdown, it was an explosion and a total containment breach.

But actually, a meltdown is quite easy to cause, as Fukushima demonstrated. Shutting down the plant isn't enough to prevent it, because the residual decay is still enough to melt the core without active cooling. Most power reactors cannot be safely abandoned for some time after they are shut down. Fukushima was admitedly more than just a melt down, but the point is you still need to keep the plant operating even if you're not running the reactors or else you do risk serious problems. Not Chernobyl level problems, not atomic bomb level problems, but still pretty serious.

 

[theprestige]

Russia can always find a market for oil and wheat, and China can indeed act as a replacement customer.

But China cannot act as a replacement supplier for the rest of the world. China cannot supply all the high tech things that Russia needs, such as computers. Russia's current best manufacturing process for integrated circuits is 90 nm fabs with not much capacity. Do you know how far behind the state of the art that is? Their home-grown CPU designs (which aren't competitive) are manufactured by TSMC (who is cutting them off), they cannot even manufacture them in Russia. They cannot satisfy their own requirements, and neither can China. Getting cut off from the west will indeed be devastating for their economy. Raw materials aren't enough anymore.

It's to the point where India can better afford to buy, maintain, and upgrade Russian military equipment than Russia can.