Mariupol.
We have to save Mariupol.
We have to save people in Mariupol.
They have no time for talks,
bureaucracy or political ping pong.
Russia kills, bombs & shells them. They are dying. In pain. In basements. Scared. They need our help *now*. They need #ProtectUАSky @avalaina pic.twitter.com/BPemawAVDW— Olena Halushka (@OlenaHalushka) March 15, 2022
Before we start, I know the site is behaving wonky and kludgey and weird. I let Cole know earlier today. I see that WaterGirl picked up on it too and has a dedicated post to it. I also know that regardless of what may be going on with the site itself, Twitter’s code wreaks havoc on our site’s code. So I’m going to try to keep the tweets to a minimum. That said, there will still be a fair amount.
Let’s start with NATO. As AL noted earlier, President Biden is heading to Europe next week for an emergency meeting of the leaders of the NATO member states. I expect that this meeting is going to be tense. The reason for that is that pressure is building in the NATO states in Europe, as well as here at home, for NATO to do more. The Baltic states and Poland have been banging the drum about what Putin was really on about and up to for eight years and the rest of the EU, NATO, and the US both before and after Trump basically told them they were overreacting and paranoid because of their history with the Soviet Union. The Baltic states and Poland were right, the rest of the EU, NATO, and the US were wrong. The pressure is now building to do more before the humanitarian crisis turns into what it is intended to be: genocide. Poland has upped the ante:
#UPDATE Poland calls for a NATO peace mission "protected by armed forces" to help Ukraine
"This cannot be an unarmed mission," Vice Premier Jaroslaw Kaczynski says during a visit to Kyiv
"It must seek to provide humanitarian and peaceful aid to Ukraine"https://t.co/Ka1T8abQIX
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) March 16, 2022
President Zelenskyy had this to say about NATO earlier today:
⚡️ Zelensky believes Ukraine will not enter NATO despite 'open door' policy.
“For years, we heard about open doors, but we understand that we cannot enter,” Zelensky told representatives of the Joint Expeditionary Force.
He added that Ukraine needs “new formats of cooperation.”
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 15, 2022
Josh Marshall, the owner and publisher of TPM, seems to think this is some sort of strategic communication in support of a negotiating strategy that Zelenskyy has decided on in order to give Putin an out to end the war:
He's said things similar in the last few days. Seems key as way to move toward non-NATO membership as part of some potential deal, or at least laying the groundwork for the offer. https://t.co/xZ995SzsIX
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 15, 2022
I’m not so sure. Cole called me over the weekend to chat about what is going on in Ukraine. One of the things I said on the call was that when this is over, provided Ukraine survives, I did not see them joining NATO. Not because NATO wouldn’t let them, but because if Ukraine can defeat Russia without NATO doing any more that it is, which is about the least it could do and still be doing something, then why would Ukraine need to join NATO. NATO would not have defeated Putin’s aggression and Russia’s military. Ukraine would have. This would also give Ukraine a 1 to 0 advantage in defeating the Russians over the US by itself, as well as NATO as a whole. I think this statement by President Zelenskyy today is simply a recognition of this reality. I also think that Marshall makes an incorrect assumption: that President Zelenskyy or the Ukrainians wish to give Putin a face saving way out. If this war ends with Ukraine defeating Russia and Putin still gets the prize that Ukraine won’t join NATO, then Putin still wins. This isn’t a negotiation over a trade agreement, we’re not trying to get to the best acceptable negotiated alternative (BATNA). This is a war. The purpose of war is for one side to inflict more pain on its opponent than its opponent can absorb and tolerate. As a result the opponent seeks terms to end the conflict or is utterly defeated. While the Ukrainians have not won this war yet, the Russians certainly aren’t winning. Trying to give Putin a face saving way out isn’t a way to victory. It is a way to once again demonstrate that if he just keeps escalating and being aggressive, then he’ll get what he wants. Which will, just like it did in Georgia in 2008, in Syria, and in eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014, encourage Putin to repeat this whole cycle. I simply don’t think that’s what President Zelenskyy is doing here.
One of the main reasons that I don’t think that is what is going on with President Zelenskyy’s statement regarding NATO is that I’ve been tracking the amount of absolute astonishment, frustration, anger, and hostility towards the US and NATO from Ukrainians who are fighting and trying to survive the Russian reinvasion. I’ve seen poems. I’ve seen tweets. I’ve seen screengrabs of letters and statements. There is art like I embedded at the top of this post. There are the op-eds I’ve highlighted and quoted from. The Ukrainians may be grateful that we and our NATO and non-NATO allies are sending a lot of humanitarian and military aid, that we’ve imposed far tougher sanctions and economic measures than anyone expected we’d be able to, but that doesn’t change their reality: they are begging for our help while they go out every day to fight the Russians and we seem to be too afraid to stand side by side with them in that fight. All while patting ourselves on the back for our restraint.
When this is all over, if Ukraine defeats Russia, some serious questions are going to be asked of the US’s leadership and NATO’s reason for being. My take on President Zelenskyy’s tweet is that it is the first of many of those types of questions coming.
Ambassador Ivo Daalder, the US’s former ambassador to NATO, gets right to the core of the tension between the politics of the problem and effective policy and strategy to deal with it that President Biden and his allies in NATO have to deal with:
Are we over exaggerating what Putin is willing to do if NATO imposes a No Fly Zone?
“We may be, but then we may not be,” says @IvoHDaalder “That’s part of the problem.” pic.twitter.com/mQHKHPD2oG
— The Mehdi Hasan Show (@MehdiHasanShow) March 15, 2022
I just want to take a moment and make one further point here, which is that the best strategic reason for the US and NATO to stay out of things is the one that Tom Nichols keeps articulating. Which is that if NATO does get involved it gives Putin an out. Nichols posits that if the US and NATO get directly involved Putin goes from being an aggressor and invader who is losing to suddenly being the leader of Russia defending it against the perfidious attacks of the US and NATO. I think Nichols has a very good point here. I do not agree with his argument because I think it ignores the fact of just how thorough a job Putin has done in propagandizing the Russian citizenry over the past 20 years. Slava Malamud gets right to the heart of it:
For 2 decades they've been conditioned to idolize the World War II victory and expect a repeat. For 2 decades they were injected with fury and a thirst for revenge upon the West for denying them their empire. It can't be stopped now. This generation knows nothing by pure fascism. https://t.co/gfp8TIvxp4
— Slava Malamud ?? (@SlavaMalamud) March 15, 2022
We either conveniently forget or do not know that during the Soviet Union the history of World War II was written in a very uniquely Soviet way. The NAZIs real target and victims were not the Jews, but the Soviets. The Jews actually helped the NAZIs. And the Soviet Union are the real heroes of World War II who defeated the NAZIs with a bit of help from the US and the other allies. While I have no idea how much post Soviet Russian history or history curriculum were revised to be more in line with what actually happened, this alternate and inaccurate history of World War II is one of the key components of Putin’s grievances against the US and Europe and part of the victim narrative he’s created for Russia. This victim narrative includes that the US and NATO are now attacking and victimizing Russia the way the NAZIs did in World War II. This was a major theme of Putin’s speech three weeks ago kicking off the reinvasion, a major theme of the long revisionist history that he published last year, and a theme that he has returned to time and time again since he first used it at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. As a result, I’m not sure that Tom Nichol’s argument, as logically accurate as it is, is really operable here. Basically, I think Putin has already been using that argument as part of his propaganda.
Not every Russian has been taken in by Putin’s propaganda, but those who haven’t aren’t the majority and they don’t have the power to force change.
One final point regarding NATO. As a result of NATO’s unwillingness to assume any risk based response so far, I expect we’ll not only see a full on arms race in Europe once this is over, but widespread nuclear weapons proliferation. Frankly, if I was Ukraine I’d be working on getting as many nukes as possible right now so that I could get them mounted and pointed at Moscow and then hold a press conference showing them off. No threats, no statements other than “look at we we have here.” Because the real lesson learned from all this is that if you have a bunch of nukes, then you get to do whatever you want. That having nukes makes the nation-state with the largest and most powerful military in the history of militaries afraid to do anything, and the same goes for the world’s supposed greatest military alliance in history. If I’m the Baltic states, as well as Poland, Finland, Norway, and Sweden I’m also starting a nuclear weapons program right away. Same thing goes for Taiwan.
Now we wait to see what comes out of next week’s meeting of NATO’s leaders.
I’m going to put the jump here. So much more on the other side:
As well as in the cities of Kyiv, Izyum, Kremenchuk, Bila Tserkva, Nikopol, Mykolaiv, Kyiv, Izmail, Odesa, Poltava, and the Kryve Ozero area.
CNN reports that according to their team on the ground, loud explosions were heard in Kyiv's suburbs.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 16, 2022
If this British intelligent estimate is correct, this is exceedingly good news!
"Russia is redeploying forces from as far afield as its Eastern Military District, Pacific Fleet and Armenia. It is also increasingly seeking to exploit irregular sources such as Private Military Companies, Syrian and other mercenaries." – UK defense attaché to the US embassy
— Kevin Baron (@DefenseBaron) March 15, 2022
Early today, the senior Russian subject matter expert at the Center for Naval Analysis (CNA – think RAND, but for the Navy), posted this:
Just looking at where Russian ground forces are, which is not substantially past Mykolaiv, I'm skeptical any landing off of Odesa would work out. Not much they can link up with. https://t.co/kHpxGvkrIP
— Michael Kofman (@KofmanMichael) March 15, 2022
Five hours later:
⚡️Russian warships shelled Ukrainian coast in Odesa Oblast on March 15, leaving 2 people injured, according to Odesa authorities.
Satellite images showed 14 ships of the Russian fleet sailing towards the city of Odesa, among them a 120-meter landing ship Pyotr Morgunov.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 15, 2022
Ooopsie!
I’m really posting this to remind everyone, and this applies to me too, that all of us are working with imperfect information right now. So even those of us how do this work professionally, like Dr. Kofman and myself, are giving our best estimates based on our professional expertise and experience. We’re not privy to either Ukraine’s or Russia’s campaign plans and everyone writing blog posts or tweeting about this, even if we are professionals with high level clearances, are NOT read on to any of this stuff because if we were we wouldn’t be writing nightly updates or tweeting about it!
General Burkhard, the Chief of the Defense Staff in France, has made this assessment of the war in Ukraine (I’m using Google translate as my French is no longer very good, though I’ve cleaned it up a bit; let’s be honest, I’m having trouble with English most nights…):
DECRYPTION – For the Chief of the Defense Staff (CEMA), the quick victory hoped for by Vladimir Putin will nevertheless not take place. The observations of General Burkhard wants to be clear on the continuation of the conflict. In a letter addressed to the general officers dated March 9, the Chief of the Defense Staff delivers “a brief assessment of the situation on the war in Ukraine”. “With regard to the sequence of events, I consider that despite the remarkable resistance they are showing, the Ukrainian forces, faced with the difficulty of holding a stretched position, without operative reserve, could experience a sudden collapse”, he writes. The proliferation of fronts is also exhausting the Ukrainian army, and its chain of command is under severe strain. “Civil – or territorial – defense will not end for all that, especially in besieged localities”, adds the general, however, announcing the inevitable shift of the war to guerrilla warfare.
I have no idea if this is based on French military analysis or something else. I do know based on the reporting that with the call up of 100% of the reserves, the Ukrainians now have 200,000 people mobilized to fight the Russians. So if all the Ukrainian Reserves are mobilized and the regular Ukrainian forces and the reserves together equals 200,000 personnel, then this might be what is driving General Burkhard’s assessment.
This would not be good:
⚡️Ukraine’s military intelligence: Russia plans mass logging of Ukrainian forests.
According to a document published by Ukraine's military intelligence, the wood would be sold, and the money would go for the Russian army.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 15, 2022
It is important to remember, because as far as I can tell Fox News seems to care less, that their Ukrainian producer and local fixer was also killed by the Russians yesterday in the attack that killed their videographer and wounded their correspondent.
A local man, who works as a producer, says he has been rejecting Fox News offers partly because of their attitude to security. He says he knows details of the attack. pic.twitter.com/xEX4zni9zW
— Olga Rudenko (@olya_rudenko) March 15, 2022
Here’s the screengrab of the statement of a different Ukrainian producer/fixer for non-Ukrainian news outlets:
A bit more from Odesa as it prepares to deal with either being bombarded by the Russian Navy or having to fend off a landing by the Russian Navy:
Odessa city, which is known as “Odessa mama” is prepared to greet russian nazis. Greeting poster says in poetic Russian language “Mama will bury everyone who will try to touch her”. #UkrainianVictory pic.twitter.com/1YQn6AEyKj
— Daria Kaleniuk (@dkaleniuk) March 15, 2022
Mariupol:
#Mariupol, #Ukraine. #Russian tank fires on a civilian who just stands nearby. As reported, it was an elderly person.#RussiaInvadedUkraine#StandWithUkraine#StopRussianAgression pic.twitter.com/uJAdDIIepF
— Emine Dzheppar (@EmineDzheppar) March 15, 2022
Babel's Telegram channel informs that according to their sources at ?? President Office the stalling of the convoy is related to the safety issues, and it will reach Zaporizhzhia in several hours.
Let's hope it's true. We continue monitoring the situation.https://t.co/dQDrYxRF8V pic.twitter.com/Ha0Zk48CCz— Oksana Pokalchuk (@OPokalchuk) March 15, 2022
An update from Marianna's relatives: her husband called them to say that she and her baby were fine, but they were struggling to get food and water in Mariupol. The city is under Russian siege.Few thousands of people allowed to evacuate yesterday and today, but no supplies let in https://t.co/Q2PzFCAAfu
— Olga Tokariuk (@olgatokariuk) March 15, 2022
Finally some good news. This morning a humanitarian corridor was opened from Mariupol. As of 14:00, 2,000 cars have left and further 2,000 are waiting to leave the city from Mariupol via Mangush, Berdyansk, Tokmak to the non occupied Zaporizhzhia. https://t.co/zYORyNth2y
— Mattia Nelles (@mattia_n) March 15, 2022
After the good news that some 2 to 4 thousand cars have left or are leaving the besieged city of Mariupol, comes the sobering news that no humanitarian convoy is reaching the city. The trucks with tons of aid are unable to leave the city of Berdyansk.https://t.co/HvOGGTl90e
— Mattia Nelles (@mattia_n) March 15, 2022
⚡️Donetsk Oblast Governor: Russia takes patients, medical staff hostage in Mariupol.
Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko says Russian troops entered a hospital on the outskirts of Mariupol.
“Russians drove 400 people from neighbouring houses to the hospital and they can’t leave,” he said.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 15, 2022
Shocking news from Mariupol's main trauma hospital (Nr. 2). Eyewitnesses told the Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIPL) that Russian forces seized the hospital and took staff and patients hostage. Russians are shooting FROM the hospital and shooting at those trying to leave. pic.twitter.com/fid8yPNjGs
— Mattia Nelles (@mattia_n) March 15, 2022
Izium:
⚡️Local authorities cry for help in Izium.
Deputy mayor Volodymyr Matsokin said that residents were left without electricity, water, and food. According to local deputy Max Strel, Russians have been blocking humanitarian aid delivery and civilian evacuation for the last 3 days.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 15, 2022
Hostomel:
⚡️Russian forces shoot at evacuating civilians in Hostomel.
According to National Police, the first 10 buses of evacuees safely left the town, when Russians opened fire on the next four buses. One woman was killed, two men injured as a result of attack.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 15, 2022
Your daily bayraktar!
#Ahora #putin #rusia #ucrania
❗️ Ucrania. Con Bayraktar, así destruyen tropas ucranianas a los tanques rusos pic.twitter.com/MrUxmhs1VZ— Ariel Festa (@TanitoFesta) March 15, 2022
Perhaps we’ll soon have a daily switchblade as well:
The Biden administration is considering providing Ukraine with U.S.-made killer drones — cutting edge guided missiles that could accurately target Russian tanks and artillery positions from miles away, two Congressional officials briefed on the matter told NBC News.
No decisions have been made, but the officials said the White House is mulling whether to equip Ukraine with explosive-laden “loitering missiles,” called Switchblades, as part of a new package of military aid President Biden is expected to discuss on Wednesday.
There are two variants of the weapon, the Switchblade 300 and 600, that have been sold to U.S. Special Operations Command by manufacturer AeroVironment, based in suburban Washington, DC. The 300 is designed for pinpoint strikes on personnel, and the larger 600 is meant to destroy tanks and other armored vehicles.
The Switchblades are essentially robotic smart bombs, equipped with cameras, a guidance system and explosives. They can be programmed to automatically strike a target miles away, and they can be steered around an objective until the time is right to strike. The company says the 600 can fly for 40 minutes and up to 50 miles.
They are a single-use weapon, which is why they have been dubbed “kamikaze drones.” But they are orders of magnitude cheaper than the Hellfire missiles fired by U.S. Reaper drones. The 300 can cost as little as $6,000, by some estimates.
Both weapons can be set up in minutes and launched from a tube. They fly much faster than the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones that Ukraine has been using to inflict damage on Russia, and presumably would be able to penetrate the spotty air defenses Russia is currently maintaining over its forces.
If the Switchblade was given to Ukraine, it could result in the most significant use of the weapon in combat to date. The U.S. military used the Switchblade in combat under limited circumstances in Afghanistan and elsewhere but has not publicized that fact, sources familiar with the matter have told NBC News.
More at the link.
If you’re wondering, here’s the manufacturer’s demonstration sizzle reel video:
Here’s a thread of analysis by a professor of Economics at Mannheim University:
Why do #German politicians appeal to #Russia to end the war but then announce plans to subsidize Russian fuel?
Some thoughts on how all of this fits together…..
— Klaus Adam (@klaus_adam) March 15, 2022
- German politicians do NOT think strategically about how they could change the situation on the ground in Ukraine. Not at all.
- They lack the amibition, the imagination and the trust in their own foreign policy capabilities on the ground & believe they simply cannot affect the situation. But why so?
- They operated under American protection for too long a period of time. Without American cover and leadership, they just do nothing abroad. Instead, they do what they have learned best over the past decades: catering to domestic audiences.
This sort of catering involves: – making appeals to #Russia which are useless on the ground but reach a domestic audience – applauding moral actions by others (Russian TV produces holding up a sign, etc.) – taking some of the “pain” off domestic voters by subsidizing fuel I am not sure this will work so well this time round, as the failure of the ruling elites in Germany have become all too apparent. Yet, they largely continue doing what they used to do. Germany was one of the last Western nations to ship arms to Ukraine. And there is no domestic discussion of further shipments. None! In particular, of shipments that could make a real difference on the ground. The fact that this sort of non-existing foreign policy might imply that Ukraine could fall to Russia is not really an issue of concern for the ruling elites in Germany. This outcome would simply not be considered to be their failure. Germany is not perceived domestically as being able to make a difference. This possible outcome is also not concerning the political elites to much: the US just re-iterated its commitment to defend Nato. They feel safe. And the fact that we might have a very different American president in a little bit over two years is perhaps someone else’s problem. That’s the level of strategic thinking in Germany. Welcome to the biggest Eurozone economy!
Which, perhaps, explains this statement from President Zelenskyy:
President Zelensky says sanctions imposed on Russia not sufficient, calls for a trade embargo, ban on the use of Russian ports, disconnection of all Russian banks from SWIFT. He says the world didn't react strongly enough to Russian seizure of two nuclear power plants in Ukraine
— Olga Tokariuk (@olgatokariuk) March 15, 2022
The Israelis still can’t seem to get their act together!
Israel must immediately allow in all Ukrainians who want to enter, in accordance with the countries’ visa-free agreement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Chief-of-Staff Andriy Yermak said on Tuesday.
“The recent decisions of the Israeli leadership aimed at restricting the admission of Ukrainians, to put it mildly, are surprising,” Yermak wrote on Facebook. “We consider the suspension of visa-free travel and the introduction of the system of electronic permits of the [Interior Ministry] to enter Israel to be an unfriendly step for the citizens of Ukraine, which needs to be corrected immediately.”
Ukraine is considering canceling the visa-free agreement with Israel, Interfax-Ukraine reported on Tuesday, citing an anonymous source arguing that Israel reneged on its side of the agreement.
Yermak thanked Israel for its efforts to mediate between Ukraine and Russia, but warned that Kyiv “will react harshly and promptly to any steps that harm the interests of Ukraine and Ukrainians. I will remind all our partners: Your peoples have long and clearly shown and said what you need to do. See and hear your constituents. They made their choice. They support Ukraine. They are with us. And you?”
The remarks and report came after the Interior Ministry announced that Ukrainians visiting Israel would have to fill out a special form before entering the country. The form asks Ukrainians to declare whether they are arriving at the invitation of an Israeli citizen, and wait for a response from the Interior Ministry before entering Israel.
More at the link.
Finally, here’s an excellent piece of reporting on the additional things that LGBTQ Ukrainians are fighting for given Putin’s notorious homophobia and Russia’s terrible treatment of LGBTQ Russians:
Vira Chernygina, a member of the lesbian-feminist nonprofit Sphere, is in her apartment in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv when we speak over Zoom. Just hours before, Russia launched multiple air strikes on the city, killing at least nine people and injuring 37 more. Chernygina is talking to me during a moment of quiet, between bombings, and she cries throughout our conversation. She tells me how, days ago, her twin sister wanted to flee the country, and begged Chernygina to come with her — in the end, they both stayed. She sobs as she describes how her close friend is currently trying to leave Kharkiv with her two children, but can’t get onto a train because they’re already full when they pull into the station. “I’m really worried,” she says. “I don’t believe in God, but I’m praying.”
Chernygina also tells me about how, when the war started a week ago, Sphere delivered what they could from their community center to help those fighting. This included Sphere’s branded socks, which have little rainbows stitched into them — and she smiles as she imagines LGBTQ+ soldiers on the frontlines wearing them. “We’ve also collected some money,” she says, “for, I don’t know, the future.” Chernygina explains that Sphere already gave half of its money to the army, and is hoping to use the rest to support LGBTQ+ people who’ve been displaced by the war.
Sphere is just one of many LGBTQ+ groups working to help queer people in Ukraine, who, despite being especially vulnerable right now, are remaining resilient and rallying together to fight. Organizations like KyivPride, UkrainePride, Insight and All Out have also been raising money to aid queer Ukrainians in need, while many LGBTQ+ people have been volunteering for combat (the visibility of gay people in the military has been improving since the country’s first soldier came out in 2018, then formed an advocacy group with around 30 other LGBTQ+ soldiers in 2019). A group of LGBTQ+ activists even reportedly captured and beat up some Russian soldiers they found hiding in their office basement. Although it hasn’t been directly confirmed, the news was celebrated by Ukrainian supporters on social media, particularly among the LGBTQ+ community and their allies. “This is our war, the Ukrainians, but we have also been fighting as LGBTQ+ people,” Viktor Pylypenko, who was one of the activists, told Israel Hayom. “We are confronting a tyrannical, homophobic enemy.”
“A lot of queer people are fighting because it’s the fight for our freedom,” says 27-year-old Cay, an Kyiv-based organizer with the activist group Rebel Queers. “Putin’s fascist regime means deaths and repressions for most of us, therefore we’re going to fight until we win.” There are even rumors of a “kill list,” which Putin supposedly wants to enforce in Ukraine — it would allegedly see him kill or round up journalists, activists, minorities, dissidents and LGBTQ+ Ukrainians in camps.
Russia is notorious for its inhumane treatment of queer people. In 2013, the Kremlin passed its so-called “gay propaganda law,” which bans public discussions about homosexuality and the promotion of positive messages about LGBTQ+ issues. In the first five years after the law was enacted, hate crimes against gay people doubled, with Russia providing no anti-discrimination protections for them. Last year, in a further rollback to LGBTQ+ rights, Russia outlawed same-sex marriage and banned trans people from adopting. In Ukraine, life for queer people is better. Since the country gained independence in 1991, following the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s LGBTQ+ community has become increasingly vocal and visible — in 2019, the country held its largest gay pride event to date. And — although anti-LGBTQ+ views still prevail, and same-sex couples aren’t eligible to all the same rights as heterosexual couples (including marriage and adoption) — Ukrainians refuse to sacrifice their freedom.
Much, much more at the link!
And we’ll finish with this:
The Ukrainian Madonna.
By Vladyslav Shereshevsky of Kyiv. pic.twitter.com/ZP7rjUl5dN— Illia Ponomarenko ?? (@IAPonomarenko) March 15, 2022
Open thread!
oldster
“They’re holding in Central Ukraine, the South and West are Still in Serious Trouble.”
I think your meaning would be clearer if you replaced that comma with a semicolon.
debbie
@oldster:
Great way to get this thread started. NOT.
BeautifulPlumage
Didn’t leaders from Poland & Slovakia meet in Kiyv today? Any thoughts on that?
CaseyL
So we armchair strategists aren’t the only ones wondering if NATO can/should be doing more than it is…
VOR
With respect to Russian views of history being skewed. A few years ago, pre-COVID, I had a conversation at a social event with a co-worker from Russia. She was born in the late 80s during the Soviet Union but almost all of her education was in post-Soviet Russia. This was a very bright woman who spoke excellent English and had traveled outside Russia on many occasions. But she subscribed to a variant of the Phantom Time Hypothesis, I’m not entirely clear exactly which version, I think the Fomenko New Chronology. But it was clear this was taught in Russian schools as fact, not conspiracy theory.
BeautifulPlumage
https://mobile.twitter.com/AkinUnver/status/1503846520403148812?cxt=HHwWmICy1amc3t4pAAAA
New tractor game
sanjeevs
I’m a little surprised at the French take
https://twitter.com/DefenseBaron/status/1503871848341196802
Most of the takes I see on JPM’s twitter feed are that the Russians have really stalled out completely.
TaMara
@oldster: Seriously, fuck off, unless you want to pay Adam for the time and effort he puts into these posts, pedantry is a good way to have all of us stop front page posting. Trust me on this. We’re all volunteers here.
oldster
Great wrap up as always. Thanks.
What is your answer to the argument that Biden’s greatest obligation is to avoid WWI and WWIII, ie either a Guns of August scenario or a full-on nuclear exchange?
I assume that will be his position in speaking to NATO and Zelensky. And it looks plausible to me.
I agree about the horrible effects of saying, “we cannot prevent a nuclear armed country from doing what it wants.” But what is the alternative? And can we find it before Kim targets San Francisco?
(Also, BATNA =best alternative to a negotiated agreement. The point is, the BATNA is *not* the outcome of negotiation. A “best acceptable negotiated alternative” would still be a negotiated outcome.)
Gin & Tonic
Israel says “Never again? That just means us. Sucks to be you, Ukraine.”
In addition to the uselessness of NATO, I offer the complete worthlessness of the UN, which cannot prevent one member state from attempting to simply erase another.
Add to air raid sirens those in Lviv. A phone call with a friend there was cut short by one today.
David Anderson
Do you mean East as the West is the border between Ukraine and NATO.
Also, have the Poles, Balts, Finna & Swedes mobilized their reservists?
Poe Larity
As this will be a long war, perhaps we should set up some discussions between Ukraine and ISIS.
oldster
@TaMara:
Okay, can I delete it? The edit has timed out.
I am truly baffled by your response and Debbie’s, but I’m a guest here, so I try to get along.
Calouste
@sanjeevs: The French take is a week old, March 9. Things have changed since then.
Chris
@VOR:
… what, and I can’t stress this enough, the fuck.
Chris
@Poe Larity:
Make it the Kurds. They have long experience fighting neverending wars, and they’re not the massive turd blossoms Daesh is.
Gin & Tonic
@oldster: Grammar pedantry is not well tolerated by some of the front-page posters here.
Kalakal
Adam, while the weird behaviour caused by tweets may be nuisance please don’t cut down on them. I find them a valuable source of information and viewpoints. I’m very grateful to you for going to all the time and effort involved in putting together these posts. A little patience on our part is all that is required to deal with erratic behaviour caused by twitter.
sab
Fox news sent Cucker Tarlson to cover an intifada about ten years back. I wish his camera crew had been less responsible and had not told him to get his fucking head down because that artillery was real.
Kent
I’m not an international affairs expert or negotiator.
But it seems to me that one approach to dealing with the issue of NATO membership is to make Ukraine’s neutrality (or non-membership) subject to certain verifiable conditions on the part of the Russians. Demilitarization of the border region and Crimea, for example. Whatever conditions the Ukrainians feel are necessary to ensure that Russia does not pose a threat. And things that are easily and readily verifiable by international monitoring.
The moment Russia violates any of these conditions, then Ukraine’s agreement not to join NATO is null and void and they can seek immediate membership.
Basically put it back on the Russians to ensure that NATO membership is unnecessary and if they ever make it necessary again, it is back on the table. Meanwhile Ukraine can still do all it chooses to to be ready for NATO membership should they ever need to in a hurry. But as long as Russia behaves they never have to pull that trigger.
Calouste
As the Dutch Prime Minister said: we’re still shipping weapons to Ukraine, we don’t see the need to inform the Russians what and how much. They can find out the hard way. (Ok, he might not have said the last bit)
It always seems to come as a surprise to twitterati that in military affairs and international diplomacy there is stuff going on behind the scenes and not in the open.
sab
@Kalakal: He needs to cut down because they make the site twitchy beyond readability, but I agree they are al useful. Pick the best . Refer to the rest.
Ksmiami
Adam- is there any scenario where member nato nations can individually declare a state of hostilities toward Russia that doesn’t lead to nukes?
sab
@Gin & Tonic: Others demand it.
phdesmond
@VOR:
strange new worlds.
Argiope
@oldster: if I may: while I’m sure your suggestion was made in the spirit of furthering reader comprehension, it would be a fine idea to read the room. Consider whether this is the right time or place to fuss about punctuation. Adam has spent hours compiling an astonishing amount of important information about life and death issues for real people who are suffering now, this very minute while we read these words. There’s a time and a place for us as readers to make a tiny bit of extra effort to interpret intended meanings, and STFU about grammar, spelling and punctuation. This was it.
RaflW
I know China was to some extent in the discussion mix last night, but I do wonder how much US leaders are considering how China would interpret NATO providing more direct intervention in this war. Particularly if UKR isn’t somehow granted speed-membership.
I think there’s a geopolitical balancing act that has to be factored in. Yes we made a big fuss after (apparently) sharing intel with allies and then going public with the broad-stroke gist of it re: the Russian request for aid.
Wouldn’t China be far more likely to provide it, and point to NATO stepping very noticeably and firmly outside their treaty obligations as the reason?
sab
@TaMara: Adam makes mistakes typing.
I have never hit an “m” I aimed at. They all end up either “n” or comma.
And Adam’s posts are long and well researched and not just casual snark. So he hits the wrong key occasionally. Who really cares? We know what he means.
ETA Five corrections before I hit reply, and I hadn’t much to say..
Adam L Silverman
@David Anderson: I meant east. I’ve fixed it. Thanks.
phdesmond
@Adam L Silverman:
thanks for the write-up, Adam.
Calouste
@RaflW: I’m wondering if instead of the NATO peacekeeping force that Poland is talking about, we could have a UN peacekeeping force led by China. It would put China on the spot to back up their talk about de-escalation, and to a certain extent it would improve their standing in the world, so they might be sensitive to that. Not sure whether they wouldn’t put their thumb on the scale for Russia though
West of the Rockies
Personally, I’d love to hear more about how Russia is suffering for Putin’s folly. I know protests are happening and many arrests have occurred. The ruble is decimated, the stock market has been closed for three weeks…
Presumably there is rapidly rising unemployment? Are there growing food shortages (and other goods)? Apparently, dentistry is kaput because all materials are imported.
It would be useful to have this info to help gauge if support in country is fading. If so, might that lead to genuine peril for Putsky? For the anti-war citizens (and there are many), I have genuine sympathy.
Here is my dark side… I’d welcome a dozen drone-strike vids every night.
Comrade Bukharin
@oldster: It definitely seems to me like July 1914, every day creeping closer to the abyss.
RaflW
Honestly don’t know how big a deal this would be, but it sounds like progress if it happens. (Too incremental and small ball? I am not equipped to say).
debbie
@sab:
You know what? It’s just rude.
danielx
A shit ton of bad news, but – thanks again, Adam.
I console myself that Biden will listen to advisors, then make decisions based on his judgment of what is best for the country. Without listening to his critics (much), who will try to crucify him however events turn out. If Ukraine falls, they will say he didn’t do enough and neither did NATO.* If his decisions lead to a larger war, he’ll be a warmonger getting young Americans killed for no good reason.
*Note: except for TFG, who will insist that **none of this would be happening if he was in charge** and **Biden is an illegitimate president who shouldn’t be in charge**. In no particular order and for reasons existing only in what passes for his mind.
Adam L Silverman
@oldster: It’s fine. It did need a semi colon and Anderson was right about east versus west.
TaMara’s frustration is also legit. Far too often it feels like we’re being nitpicked by people who forget we’re volunteers. That if we spend five minutes on a post, or as is the case with these updates I’m spending between three to five hours a day on them from research to writing, but not proofreading the titles, we do it for free.
We’re clearly a bunch of idiots…
Please e-mail me the question from your other comment. I want to deal with it in the post proper tomorrow night.
RaflW
@Calouste: A couple days ago I thought I read here that UN peacekeepers can’t really work. Wrong mission type. And IMO no way that the glacially slow and intentionally complexified institution would adapt peacekeepers to be more actively fighting, as I think would be necessary since just dropping in blue helmet multinationals right now would turn them into missile, bomb and artillery targets.
West of the Rockies
I recall seeing a short black and white movie in junior high (’74-’76) about a WW 2 German soldier who refused to follow orders and kill non-combatants. I believe he was summarily executed. Anyone else recall such a film?
I suspect there are some Russian troops who feel very conflicted. (For those who don’t, more drones, please.)
Calouste
@West of the Rockies: Russia has been pretty self-sufficient food wise since 2014, as a reaction to the sanctions implemented then. They basically stopped importing food, at least from the EU.
sab
@Calouste: China with us? seriously? They are scrambling to be rational without obviously backing us because Russia phucked up so badly.
China does not like us. They think we are a big threat,. Xi went to grad school here, and he does not like us. We need to remember that.
My guess is China will come out more on our side than Russias because the Russians are being idiots. But China is more for them than us. Autocracy before competence is how you pick sides.
phdesmond
@debbie:
in creative writing classes, it is recommended that one say what on liked about a poem before suggesting changes to the author.
oldster
@Adam L Silverman:
Thanks. I apologize for derailing. And I am grateful to all of you for your posts.
YY_Sima Qian
@RaflW: China is trying to muddle through the crisis, not diving headlong into it.
RaflW
@sab: Along those lines is why I think activating NATO overtly (rather than as an arms donor as its member nations are now) would spook Xi. Wouldn’t he see the US using a defensive alliance suddenly ‘on the offensive’ if it actively fought in and on behalf of a country that isn’t a NATO member?
eta: @YY_Sima Qian sure, but they also have worries about the US stepping outside expected, delineated military alliances, don’t they?
Argiope
@West of the Rockies: Masha Gessen did an interview last week with Ezra Klein, who asked some cogent and nuanced questions. Gessen said while the sanctions are on a scale never previously encountered, Russians are used to supply chain disruptions and currency instability. They thought it would take 3 months before the scale would really sink in for ordinary folks and even then, most will likely believe whatever the TV tells them about why the sanctions are happening.
Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
the UN Assembly is the worlds largest debating Club.
the UN Agencies and programs for the most part do great work under horrific situations.
The UN Security Council gave veto’s to the “winners” of WWII, so any proposed action against one of their proxies or their actions, get’s veto’ed, unless, like the Korean Police Action, they forget to show up for the meeting to cast a veto.
All this has long been pointed out, but it’s easy to blame the UN, the UNHR, UNESCO, etc for the institutional failures of the UNSC.
Calouste
@RaflW: Depends on the blue helmets involved. The Brits in Bosnia were notorious for having a rather proactive approach. A friend of mine was a blue helmet in Bosnia with the Dutch, and he joked that they could get counseling if they had to fire their gun, and the Brits would get counseling if they hadn’t fired their gun for a week.
Adam L Silverman
@danielx: Other than my issues with the strategic communications about what we won’t do, I think that Biden and his team have done a very good job overall. My frustration regarding Putin’s ambiguity locking us into exceedingly limited policy options is long standing and almost 8 years old.
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: That is what I thought also, but you know more than me
ETA China does more than muddle, but on a nationwide scale they are doing that .
Carlo Graziani
I have a somewhat different take from Adam’s on the implication of Ukraine winning the war without a NATO intervention.
I believe that it is absolutely vital that they do so, or that they be seen to do so. It is absolutely necessary for the political consequences that Ukraine own the war, and the victory. A victory over Putinist Russsia would be useless, were it credited to NATO.
We need to look over the horizon, at the world that we are hoping will emerge from this war. That world NEEDS A NEW RUSSIA. We cannot allow irredentist narratives to fester, waiting for another opportunity to burst out of the same goddamn suppurating boil. The fucking STORY of how the war ends MATTERS.
Would you like to help the Navalnys — he’s not the only one — to power? Help them discredit the Putins. Don’t feed the Putinist narrative. Give the Ukrainians all the tools they need to finish the job themselves. That will finish the Putinists.
West of the Rockies
@Argiope:
So then Starbucks and McDonalds (etc) departing is not proving an especially punishing blow. Well, I at least hope the piggy oligarchs are suffering.
frosty
@Kalakal: I’ll follow up to Adam by saying his procedure of embedding the first tweet then quoting the rest of the thread as bulleted text in a quote box is excellent. We get to read it all as a single article without the noxious effects of twitter on the site. Good move!
Adam L Silverman
@RaflW: This is not the mission for them. And you’d never get the Security Council to approve it.
Kalakal
Wow, those switchblades really are teeny-tiny.
The 300 weighs 5.5lbs including launcher according to the manufacturers brochure
Poe Larity
@Chris: The Kurds have a life to live. ISIS, not so much.
There’s a reason why some in the US communities wanted to fund the Hekmatyar‘s of Afghanistan (or fund the ISI, who would then fund them) over the more Western-friendly folks in the north who would later become the Northern Alliance.
It was because a salafists with a suicide vest would run straight at a vehicle with a Russian flag. Human-borne IED. They did a good job on the Russians 40 years back.
Ukraine needs that kinda guy right now. Two birds, one stone.
Adam L Silverman
@oldster: No worries. We’re good. Just remember to e-mail me that question.
Jay
@RaflW:
UNSC creates the Peacekeeping missions and the ROE.
the UNSC, ( Korea, Congo) has created Peacemaking missions and the ROE.
Both require that it not be against the US’s, Britain’s France’s China and Russia’s interest, where one of them veto’s the mission.
Adam L Silverman
@frosty: Unfortunately that only works when there isn’t video or images. And a lot of what needs to be posted is reporting by tweet that includes video and images.
Argiope
@West of the Rockies: I think Gessen’s point was that ordinary Russians are learning from state TV that these western companies are tools of a West that has always tried to deny Russia its true and deserved greatness. Pawns, not real actors making decisions in response to Russia’s invasion of a sovereign nation. It’s really Opposite Day over there in terms of what they are hearing about what is happening. And that may limit any groundswell of opposition to Putin, who has benefited over and over again by playing the One Guy Who Fixes Everything to them. Most of the minor past instability is caused by his own actions behind the curtain, so he can claim to be the solution. He’s oz, the great and terrible, except for real.
matt
I was wondering when the drone warfare angle would pick up. Ukraine forces flying Turkish drones have evidently been a great success. I was wondering why we weren’t hearing about more headed into Ukraine.
Adam L Silverman
@Poe Larity: This would be the last thing Ukraine needs. Trust me on this one.
Bill Arnold
@RaflW:
If they work, and they (well, the 600s) are delivered in substantial numbers, they could change the game. Range is long enough to destroy artillery, for example. Destroy fuel tankers. Destroy obvious C&C vehicles. Deployed in numbers, fear of them would cause Russians to abandon a lot of equipment.
Basically, well-armed infantry (+drones) is playing a large role in stopping an (inept) armored invasion. More tools like switchblades would be a further shift. It’s a long way from the 60mm bazooka rockets that my father used in WWII to destroy a couple of German Panzer IV tanks (he called the Mark IVs) in an ambush (+ rifle grenades) in a small town in Germany. The current tech is scary, and getting scarier. Within a few years people will be regularly adapting higher capacity commercial drones with shaped charges or EFPs or other nasty payloads, both for military use and for assassination. (With details plans widely available.)
Omnes Omnibus
@matt: One reason is that we, the public, are not necessarily hearing about everything that is happening.
YY_Sima Qian
@RaflW: Sure China is worried about potential NATO activism outside of its area, & NATO Secretary General has a been making noises about the organization responding more to the China challenge, & getting more involved in the “Indo-Pacific”. However, the US can marshal enough naval & air power in the region, along w/ allies (especially Japan), that any additional assets the European countries can bring (in peace time or in war) is marginal at best. Furthermore, while the likes of France, Germany, the Netherlands & the UK have been a bit more active in showing their flags in the Pacific, I highly doubt many of members of NATO are enthusiastic about getting seriously involved in the Indo-Pacific, especially given the deterioration in security condition in Europe. Bottomline, I don’t think China is worried about NATO so much that it wants get into the mud to counter its moves in Europe.
Martin
All roads point to NATO jumping in. Putin wants it. Ukraine wants it. More of Europe wants it. Hopefully it’ll be a ‘light’ jumping in – no fly, humanitarian corridor, etc. If Putin wants his out, the sooner NATO jumps in the better, or he’ll probably need to keep escalating until they are forced to.
Poe Larity
We need to stop talking about direct funding and instead talk about replacing Egyptian, Greek, Turkish or other NATO member stocks that have ‘dwindled’ or met their expiration dates and must be ‘replenished’.
Iran-contra, Charlie Wilson, people. No need to be Capt. Obvious with our wares. That thinking leaves a footprint outside the current war zone that a combatant could argue was a legitimate target.
Imagine that there might be elements in Russia that want to drag in NATO even if Vlad doesn’t. Remember, we thought Nakita was absolute ruler in 1962.
Rusty
Thank you for these posts. They are extremely informative and I am grateful each day when I see them. Between these and the daily Covid posts (along with a steady stream of healthcare posts) we are being better informed than a large majority of the population. Thank you to all the volunteers for your dedication and generosity of time and expertise.
frosty
@Adam L Silverman: Oh well, do what you can anyway. I rarely watch the videos but will mostly zoom the images to read them. Video and talking is SO DAMN SLOW! I wish they’d give me something to read instead.
Thanks so much for your 3 to 5 hours a day on this.
Jay
@Poe Larity:
the reality is that the ISI provided the vetting and the arms/cash, as an intermediary for the West, with Sawdi Arabia’s and The Petty Kingdom’s assistance.
They had their own agenda, and it was not a Democratic Afghanistan.
YY_Sima Qian
@Jay: The UNSC gave the Big 5 vetos so that they would all buy into the who UN structure. If the big powers did not have veto guard their interests, sooner or later they will start to leave & the UN goes the way of the League of Nations. As it was, all of the big powers (& small) circumvented the UN GA & the UNSC whenever they found it convenient. Toothless as the US already is, even middle powers still do not want to be constrained by it.
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
That was a quibble over punctuation, not grammar.
But we should remember that Adam doesn’t work with a copy editor at his elbow. We should cut him some slack on these things, except when they result in a factual error/ambiguity or potential miscommunication.
YY_Sima Qian
@sab: Correction, Xi Jinping had visited the US for a brief working trip back in the 80s, where he met Terry Brandsted (when he was a county commissioner in Iowa). He did not go to grad school in the US. His daughter went to Harvard, at least for undergrad, not sure about grad school.
Sister Golden Bear
The reactionaries in Texas, Florida, Idaho and elsewhere have made no secret of their admiration for Russia for doing this, and are trying to replicate it here. As I’ve said before, both they and Russia are trying to eradicate — a word I don’t use lightly — LGBTQ+ from public life (and I’m sure they’d like to literally eliminate us if they could get away with it).
Another Scott
Everything’s connected in the GQP…
(via EclecticBrotha)
Cheers,
Scott.
PJ
@Carlo Graziani: I agree with almost everything you said here. A Russia defeated by the archenemy NATO is much more likely to be revanchist than a Russia defeated by weak lil’ Ukraine. A direct war between NATO and Russia also runs the danger of turning the invasion into a Great Patriotic War for the Russians, and get a lot more of them to sign up and prolong the war.
As with all this stuff, I’m just an opinion-haver on the internet, but one thing I would be cautious about is the US or the EU lining up behind some political savior in Russia. We did that with Yeltsin and Putin, and look where it got us. I’m not saying there were a lot of other obvious options at the time, but I am saying that maybe we shouldn’t put our imprimatur behind anyone. Navalny opposes Putinism, and seems to be in favor of a civil society with civil rights, but he’s also a Russian nationalist who supported the annexation of Crimea. I’m not sure we want to be supporting him as leader of a new Russia, whatever it looks like, and however it shakes out. There’s no point in getting rid of one Putin only to have another one take his place.
What we do need to do is what we should have done in 1991, and launch a genuine Marshall Plan for Ukraine and this new Russia, obviously to rebuild, but more importantly to help root out corruption and prevent the oligarchy from coming back. And then maybe we can focus on rooting out the corruption our oligarchs have been seeding here in the US for four decades.
patroclus
These are really excellent posts, Adam. Not even remotely being an expert on these issues, I’ve mostly just lurked through all of them. I’m in the camp of NATO and its member nations giving “all aid short of war” – yet, I fully realize that those terms can’t easily be defined. I also agree with the commentator above that said that this should be (and seen as ) Ukraine defeating Russia; not NATO beating Russia. I think we’re at the stage of Lend-Lease now, that is, Congress just passed an equivalent today and Ukraine is essentially the U.K. in 1941 at this stage. We must be and we must be seen as supporting Ukraine as much as possible and giving them the necessary tools to continue to hold out, inflict pain and eventually prevail. Stingers, javelins, planes and much more (including intelligence) must continue to be provided in increasing amounts.
NBC is saying that there may be a battle in the northwest suburbs of Kyiv going on right now and they are implying that it is a Ukrainian counter-offensive.
James E Powell
@Gin & Tonic:
@sab:
I think it’s a time, place, and manner thing, together with a “do we know each other?” thing.
Here, I feel, it’s out of place. Don’t know if oldster & Adam know each other or have had past conversations, that might make it a nothing to Adam. But really . . .
PJ
@Martin: Why would we want to do what Putin wants us to do?
Also, I’m genuinely asking, have you seen any leaders of other NATO states suggesting that NATO should start “jumping in” (and what does that mean if it means NATO won’t be shooting at Russian troops, planes, or vehicles)? I have only seen pundits and twitterati (and jackals) demanding that NATO “do something!”
Poe Larity
@Jay: I don’t think the ISI needed to do a lot of vetting.
Point is, they won. They’re demonstrably winners against arthritic Russian armies.
All this tactical thinking isn’t going to result in maximizing dead Russian yefréytors.
As Chinese factories are Covid closing, we’re not going to be seeing 250K kill drones arriving in Ukraine soon. So somebody needs to be maximizing the killing and I don’t think silver bullets from Lockheed are going to get the result western twitterers demand.
Citizen Alan
@Argiope: Reminds me of ignorant hillbillies continually proclaiming that the South will rise again.
wetzel
Though I know the President has to feel Dulles looking down telling him we’ve got to stay out, that it could take the whole world to Hell. Putin is down in his bunker with the nuclear button! The truth is that we are allowing genocide on Ukraine, and we have the force to prevent it. There was no way to prevent the Holodomor from the outside. There wasn’t a clear picture at the time. But this is happening in front of our eyes. Who will bring the children back? If the world stands by and allows this to continue we deserve the nuclear fire.
James E Powell
@Argiope:
So, same as here. Ordinary people rarely do anything but follow along.
The question is, are there enough big shots who can & will challenge Putin?
PJ
@wetzel:
Uh, you might want to calibrate your gyro there. It is terrible that thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers have been killed, but if you think those deaths are worth destroying the world, I don’t know what to say.
(And not to go all whatabout on you, but thousands of innocent people are killed in terrible wars around the globe pretty much every year, and we also do intervene in those wars either, though for different reasons (they aren’t white Europeans)).
Kelly
via Sarah Taber
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/6869/text?r=1&s=1
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
February 28, 2022
Mr. Gooden of Texas introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
A BILL
To authorize the President of the United States to issue letters of marque and reprisal for the purpose of seizing the assets of certain Russian citizens, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. ISSUANCE OF LETTERS OF MARQUE AND REPRISAL FOR PURPOSE OF SEIZING ASSETS OF CERTAIN RUSSIAN CITIZENS.
(a) Authority Of President.—The President of the United States is authorized and requested to commission, under officially issued letters of marque and reprisal, so many of privately armed and equipped persons and entities as, in the judgment of the President, the service may require, with suitable instructions to the leaders thereof, to employ all means reasonably necessary to seize outside the geographic boundaries of the United States and its territories any yacht, plane, or other asset of any Russian citizen who is on the List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons maintained by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Department of the Treasury.
(b) Security Bonds.—No letter of marque and reprisal shall be issued by the President without requiring the posting of a security bond in such amount as the President shall determine is sufficient to ensure that the letter be executed according to the terms and conditions thereof.
Poe Larity
@James E Powell:
Nope and nope. Putin is behind curtains 1, 2 and 3 in our future.
Adam L Silverman
@patroclus: I think this is what they’re talking about.
Adam L Silverman
@PJ: There is no way to jump in without entering the kinetic, military part of the war. There is no way to establish a humanitarian corridor without assuming the risk that your troops will be in contact with the enemy.
The worry everyone has is if that happens, what happens next. And that is rooted in Putin being ambiguous about his willingness to use nukes and Russia’s military doctrine also being ambiguous about it as well.
Mallard Filmore
“Imagine you’re a soldier invading Ukraine…and the Russians hand you this:”
https://democraticunderground.com/100216488244
Kent
Exactly. The surest way to turn the world against Ukraine would be for it to become a haven for terrorist extremists. That would be the death knell for a free and independent Ukraine. And once you open that door it is really hard to close it as the US discovered in Afghanistan.
Sebastian
Wow.
Adam, you are outdoing yourself with each post. It is much appreciated.
I am not so sure what to think about the French assessment. Perhaps they just want to be contrarian.
The Russian Army is shit and it’s not getting better for them. If the Switchblade thing is real, and I assume it is, we’ll witness a very large number of sudden violent deconstruction events amongst OrcZ artillery and supplies. What good is a gun without ammo?
Amongst us jackals, what are realistic quantities we can ship to Ukraine?
Poe Larity
A tactical nuke goes off in Ukraine tomorrow.
What is the world going to do? Twitter a lot?
Geoduck
Sort of off-topic, but since the subject of war-drones has come up, folks might be interested in the short film Slaughterbots released by Dust over on YouTube. (Circa 2019, to avoid any confusion.)
As for Ukraine… I guess I ask, if NATO does get directly involved, how much would it take to stop the Russians, short of lobbing nukes? Have any experts commented publicly on it?
terry chay
@Poe Larity: A tactical nuke is basically the size of Hiroshima. There is no level of nuke that does not start WW3.
Geoduck: I believe the prevailing opinion is that destroying Russia in Ukraine is not much a lift for NATO. The question is not the effectiveness, but rather what escalation Putin is willing to go to (e.g. nukes) as well as what would happen on the larger stage. One or both is freezing NATO to not act beyond the lines already set (sanctions, arms driven across the border, diplomatic pressure, likely intelligence and logistical support, etc.). As much as I dislike how many people are dying, the lines drawn were pretty clear from the beginning, though it frustrates some that we can be clear, but Russia can remain ambiguous and use that against the West. Given Russia’s newfound status as a 2nd rate military power with nukes, it is fitting that the responses are asymmetric.
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
website is crashing again.
YY_Sima Qian
At the fundamental level, Chinese official & internet discourse favors Russia not because the CCP regime or most of the Chinese population are necessarily pro-Russia, but that they see Putin as an avatar of anti-Americanism.
Here is an article in the Atlantic the describe it quite well:
To be clear, there isn’t any detectable animosity from the Chinese population to Americans as individuals, American corporations as entities, or American brands. There has been no propaganda effort in that direction. However, there is a great deal of animosity toward the USGov & its associated entities, & there have been massive propaganda efforts to encourage such sentiments. Even during the Sino-US honeymoon period of 1980s, large parts of the CCP regime remained deeply skeptical of US intentions, while other parts of Chinese officialdom & most of the population thought of the US as the promised land. The Taiwan Strait crisis of 1996, the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999, the Spy Plane Incident of 2001 all helped to turn Chinese nationalist sentiments against the US. The wars in Afghanistan & Iraq, & the Global Financial Crisis, greatly undermined the US’s credibility as a desirable model or reputation as a competent actor. Then relations really nosedived during the Trump years, & the COVID-19 pandemic erased any remaining thought that the vast majority of Chinese might have had about the US as a model, & instead hardened the consensus in the CCP regime & among the population that the US is seeking to contain China’s rise, in order to preserve its global hegemony (disguised as the “US led rules based international order”, emphasis on the 1st 2 words). As long as China (& the US) remain trapped in the logic of highly securitized great power competition, verging uncomfortably on a new Cold War, Chinese leaders & population will continue to view the Ukraine crisis, or any other issue involving both China & the US, through that lens. A lot of that kind of thinking in the US, too. Depressing, but it is the reality. In the meantime, China is continuing to calibrating its rhetorical position. Qin Gang, China’s Ambassador to the US, just published an opinion piece in WaPo.
He still does not call it a Russian invasion, nor does he directly criticize Russia for violence against civilians. However, he greatly deemphasized sympathy w/ claimed Russian grievances. There was no mentioning of NATO expansion contributing to the crisis. He did say legitimate security concerns of all countries must be taken seriously (clearly referring to Russia), but did not name Russia or any of its claimed concerns. He was more emphatic that sovereignty & territorial integrity of all countries, including Ukraine, must be respected.
He denied US intelligence claims that China was aware of the Russian invasion & had asked Putin to delay until after the Winter Olympics, or that Russia has asked China for military aid. However, there was enough careful wording there that it might not contradict what had been leaked from the US, & the US leaks were vague enough to offer a broad range of possible interpretations. Putin could have told Xi that he had no choice but to take military action in parts of Ukraine to safeguard Russian security interests (something that would receive a sympathetic hearing in Beijing), & Xi could have told him to observe the “Olympic peace”, without anyone in Beijing knowing that Putin was planning a full scale invasion or that such action was imminent; China might not consider military rations to be “military equipment”, etc.
Sebastian
@Geoduck:
Thank you. I was looking for that.
smike
Thank you.
Jay
@Poe Larity:
the ISI made sure that the “moderate” Afghan resistance didn’t get any help. Ahmed Shaw Massoud was backed by the emerald mines, lapiuzlu, and Iran, not the ISI, CIA, Sawdi’s or the Petty Kingdoms. Post Soviet withdrawals and into the Russian era, his backers were the Soviets/Russia, and Iran.
Sebastian
@Kelly:
I like this guy!
Sebastian
@Kelly:
I like this guy!
Kent
What are they going to blow up with a tactical nuke? All of the major cities in Ukraine are under Russian siege. They would be taking out their own troops. This isn’t a long-distance air war like the bombing of Japanese and German cities.
Nukes are something the Russians lob at London or Paris. Not a city in Ukraine that they have all but surrounded.
Dangerman
Anyone see anything regarding Russians shooting Russian deserters? It would appear Russia did an absolute shit job (among many shit jobs) of dehumanizing the enemy and I could see where desertion might be higher than normal. Well, if they aren’t getting shot.
Redshift
@Adam L Silverman:
Well said. That being the case, I hope that Poland’s proposal gets a serious hearing, and the level of caution maybe adjusted a bit. It does sound like the scenario you were painting a couple of days ago: declare that Western forces are going to enforce the humanitarian/relief corridors Russia has agreed to (and nearly always immediately violated.) They will not shoot first, but they expect not to be interfered with and will not refrain from defending themselves.
Putin will obviously call it a provocation and a secret attack, but he has declared a number of things to be acts of war against Russia (supplying arms, economic sanctions), and still hasn’t lobbed missiles at anyone else yet.
I know those deciding have much greater information than I do, so I’m not going to rant at them if they don’t take my preferred course, but I hope they’re seriously considering it.
Jay
@Kent:
Tactical nukes range from 20kt weapons to 3 to 4 times the power of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Their goals are either the destruction of a massed (Cold War) army, or area denial. One tactical nuke along the supply corridors from Poland in Ukraine, would cut off refugee movements and resupply for months, due to the after effects.
David Koch
@terry chay: Hiroshima was 16,000 tons of TNT. Tactical bombs have been as low as 10 tons.
Redshift
Dunno if anyone else has read the latest letter allegedly reflecting thinking inside the FSB (Russian Intelligence) posted at igorsushko.com. I’m not surprised Adam didn’t include it; we don’t really know if they’re genuine, and this latest one is just bananas. It starts with a plan for a spokesman for the Russian MoD to officially declare that sanctions and military supplies mean that the West has started WWIII, really really, and evaluates steps from there to several scenario outcomes, all of which predict NATO capitulates to most of Russia’s demands.
The earlier letters said that FSB analysts were being pressured to be “patriotic” in their assessments (i.e., not make any assessments of bad outcomes for Russia) so I guess this is more of that. Hard to say what to make of it, or whether officials at any level actually believe any of it.
(As an aside, shades of the Iraq War, where we found out that Cheney et al. were demanding “intelligence” that fit what they’d already decided from our intelligence agencies, and yet it still got widely reported as “flawed intelligence” for years afterward, as if the intel guys had misled those poor innocent Bushies, grrr…)
Chetan Murthy
There’s a major conference, ETAPS, being held in Europe soon. Apparently the organizers decided they would bar Russians from participating because of the war. This resulted in a massive ruckus, with many researchers arguing that one cannot punish individual Russians for the crimes of their government. I know a friend who holds this position, and quite passionately. What’s surprising to me, is that he also was quite passionate that the West (US/NATO) needed to get involved to defend Ukraine.
It seems like he can’t see the … inconsistency there. He wants the West to risk a nuclear war, but can’t be arsed to give up meeting Russians at his favorite computer science conference. It’s perplexing. I mean, in every area of human activity, there will be people who argue that their particular field needs to be exempt from sanctions, and they’ll have more-or-less convincing arguments. But you take all those together, and you basically destroy the efficacy of any sanctions regime.
So confusing. And the worst part is that he claims to be a Kantian when it comes to moral philosphy, and he can’t see that he’s engaging in the worst sort of special pleading, the sort of thing that Kant’s Categorical Imperative was designed to stamp out.
Ah, well.
P.S. So the organizers retracted their rule banning Russians. Sigh.
Margaret
Adam, I’m normally just a lurker but I wanted to break my usual silence to thank you for providing such thoughtful, informative posts. I especially appreciate the way you provide context for each day’s news so that we can better understand how each day’s events fit into the overall picture. I’ve also found your links to be very helpful, so don’t feel that you need to limit the number of links you provide unless you want to.
As much as I enjoy your posts, I know that they take a lot of your time. Please don’t hesitate to scale back and take time for yourself (and the dogs!) whenever you need it. A very brief summary of the day’s major events plus a few links would be great anytime you don’t feel like writing a longer post.
patrick II
I see those many Russians with a “Z” on their chest and can’t help but think it is a preemptive propaganda strike against the possibility that “Z” (for Zelenskyy) becomes an important Ukrainian rallying cry.
Martin
@PJ:
Depends on why he wants to do it. If he wants NATO to enter so he can stop the war, and he’s going to escalate more and more to force our hand, then you have to decide whether to go along or whether to force the issue to a point of no return. Do we want Russia out of Ukraine, or do we want to break Russia? Those are two different goals. And if we want to break Russia, how do we want to do it? There’s nothing stopping us from launching our missiles right the fuck now, or do we want Russia to force *our* hand.
See, diplomacy is about recognizing that someone like Biden is constrained in at least two ways – doing what is in the best interests of the US, and doing what the public desire. Those are often very different things. If you want to convince Biden to do something, you need to help him balance those two to a reasonable degree. So sometimes to get what you want, you need to acknowledge what the opposition needs.
I mean, yeah, emotionally you don’t want to do that, but that’s what makes for good politicians. They can balance that out. What’s more, they can ask for *more* by recognizing what the opposition needs and offering them that. So if Putin needs a propaganda victory inside his country to withdraw his troops, do we really want to deny him that if it means saving thousands of people? This is why criticism of action in situations like this is so common, because there are no objectively ‘correct’ solutions. Is Adam correct in thinking we should be more proactive here? Yeah, for Adam’s view of what our goals here should be. But Biden may have different goals. NATO/EU may have different goals. And they may require a different approach. It’s when they tell you what their goal was that you can best critique whether their actions actually best led to that goal. Again, are you trying to save Ukrainian lives, or to break Russia. Because you probably achieve those in very different ways. I’d argue that if you want to break Russia and not have it look like an act of western aggression, you probably need to be willing to sacrifice Ukrainian lives. You need a catalyst, and Ukrainian civilians are that catalyst. So, is the morally right thing to save Ukrainian lives today, or to defang Russia so they can’t invade Lithuania tomorrow? It’s a counterfactual we can’t test. But this is really the argument taking place inside NATO. The humanitarian situation in Ukraine is terrible, but the military situation is not. From a game theory perspective, it’s doing what NATO wants done – weakening Russia. The west is intact and has the means to rebuild Ukraine. But Russia is going to really struggle to just get back to where they were 20 days ago given the current sanctions. Now, the west doesn’t want to lose Ukraine to Russian influence by openly sacrificing their citizens to achieve that goal.
Martin
@Mallard Filmore: Those are pretty good guns. Even if they were made in WWI.
Rich2506
The Switchblade Drone “wave-off” capability (operator decides target isn’t a threat after all and drone doesn’t attack) reminds me of a review of Marvel’s Iron Man movies, saying that Iron Man was kind of like a really smart drone. He could get really close up and make an intelligent, informed decision as to whether the target needed destroying or not.
Draco7
I’m going to add my thanks and appreciation with the rest of the commenters, Adam. Obviously a tremendous amount of work has gone into these posts.
I have been mostly lurking (but faithfully) on BJ since John’s “I Was Wrong…” post (2006, maybe?), took a break for a couple of months because I felt a need to be
ignorantoblivious, and now am back “glued to the telly” again. A number of commenters have offered their opinions on what should be done, as is their natural function. I’m going to follow their example.Simply put, I want to participate in a counter-propaganda operation aimed in specific at the Russian government, such as it is, and in general (and perhaps in perpetuity) right wing “fifth column” activities in the U.S.. I have some ideas on how to go about it – or at least start – and I’m perfectly open to having them critiqued and/or shot down by other folks if interested. I’m not seeing much media activity that fits that description, and my thought is that if someone was doing it properly I would have seen it.
If someone is aware of an organization that is doing this work in an organized fashion, please advise – no need to duplicate effort. In that case they could use some support. Like a lot of other folks I want to do something, and this is more moderate than a suicide vest (I have read the comments). Thanks again.
Martin
@Chetan Murthy: Academics are *extremely* consistent about ignoring political boundaries to the extent that it’s possible/reasonable, largely because it’s an incredibly diverse community in terms of nationality. You’d be hard pressed to find a STEM department at any major university that didn’t have a faculty member who grew up in or around Russia.
Unfortunately, one of the ways you get through to Putin is by locking Russians out of the global community.
Cathie from Canada
Just a couple of points to add to the discussion:
First, I wonder if the divide I am seeing now between the “NATO must do more” and “too dangerous for NATO to do more” is one of age? Basically, anyone under the age of 45 or 50 doesn’t really understand what it was like to live in the Cold War.
I grew up in it — we had air raid siren drills at school “duck and cover”. International politics all over the world were based on whose “side” a nation was on, and in every war or dispute it was a major issue to be considered. Then, in 1991, History ended and the world changed because people didn’t have to be afraid of nuclear death anymore.
The Russia Ukraine War and the pressure for NATO to act in spite of Putin’s threats has brought all of these memories rushing back, for the first time in 30 years. For me – and for people the age of Biden, Pelosi, Clinton etc — it is an awful feeling. We are extremely reluctant to poke the bear because we know how terrible a nuclear exchange would be and how impossible to stop.
Second, as Markos at Daily Kos has pointed out, widening the war by involving other countries could just result in spreading destruction to cities in the rest of eastern Europe, regardless of whether nuclear weapons are used or not. The goal of NATO was to prevent another war in Europe, not to start one, regardless of how noble the cause.
Chetan Murthy
@Martin: One could say the same thing for bankers, though. Money flows everywhere, and we do deals everywhere, why do we gotta stop doing deals just b/c of a little war? A few war crimes, a few dead pregnant women! I’m sure the enablers in Londongrad who helped all Putin’s oligarchs spread around their ill-gotten gains have their self-serving stories all ready-to-go.
I remember back in the noughties, my manager came to me with a request from our management for me to do an international assignment — or more like, asking if I would be open to one. I said I would, but that I would refuse to do one in any country that I felt was a geopolitical adversary of my country — so no Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan.
I don’t get people who think that somehow in the middle of a war, with our country on one side and the enemy on the other, that the rules don’t apply to them.
Martin
@Jay: Yeah. At one point we had a strategy of nuking a line across the iron curtain border to prevent Soviet tanks from reaching Europe. I’m sure Russia had a similar strategy.
Pretty sure all of those ideas went out the window with reliable ICBMs and ballistic missile subs. The M388 had the small problem of killing the operator about half the time.
Chetan Murthy
@Martin:
The ETAPS program committee put out this text:
So it’s not about people born or raised in Russia, but rather, people affiliated with Russian institutions or companies. Again, I just don’t understand how academics can be so bloody short-sighted. But then, I don’t understand how bankers can be that, either.
prostratedragon
@Another Scott: The most genuine thing I’ve seen that phony bastard do.
Martin
@Chetan Murthy: Well, the difference is that the banking system is where most of the sanctions land. Republicans may want to believe that money=speech, but they’re real quick to acknowledge that money is the engine on which terrorism and wars operate.
Academia likes to believe they’re above all of that. And in a lot of ways they are. But not all. A lot of US academics got caught up helping Chinese scientists figure out how to identify Uyghurs via DNA and other means. But they always, always defer first to being open. They don’t necessarily hold a consistent position with respect to other kinds of interactions, though. They’ll argue that Russian academics should be free to associate but not Russian athletes, for example.
Martin
@Cathie from Canada:
I don’t think so, at least not in the way you’re describing. Its hard to look at human suffering and not want to act. And some of it is actually a step removed. The expression of ‘we need to do something’ is often really a feeling that ‘we need to change the world so that there is a way to do something’. Basically, we want the feeling of powerlessness to go away. But is that strategically the right thing to do? Well, usually no. And there’s a pretty universal feeling of ‘Putin needs to pay’, and the likelihood he pays in any way that satisfies us is pretty fucking small, and pushing for an outcome that does satisfy us is probably going to have a hell of a body count.
People who are older, who have been through this cycle before might find the path to the restrained but disappointing choice a bit easier to reach, but I don’t think it’s because of specific experiences related to the Cold War.
Martin
@Chetan Murthy: In part because academics are part of how we get past these problems. Think of public health conferences. Do you really want to exclude Russia from participating in Covid research? No. You want everyone there. You’re pulling for Russia to succeed every bit as much as the US.
I mean, yeah, they can be a bit naive about this, but their default position of ‘everyone is invited’ is for good reason. I wouldn’t even bother trying to talk them out of it, but it can be fun to challenge the edges of it.
Even freezing out institutions isn’t going to be tolerated by most.
Jay
@Martin:
the ideas are still around, and morons still cling to them.
the basic idea is a tactical nuclear strike causes a pause, at which point the Diplomats gather, and discuss,
The reality on both sides, is that a tactical nuclear strike is responded, in kind.
the 3rd one is responded to with a full on, ( everything but the Presidential Limo) strike with every ally, in the hope that wiping out half the globe will save the other half, for a while.
Pootie Poot knows that, and is playing “nuclear Madman bluff”.
Martin
@Jay: Yep. Problem is, can we trust the guy who made the tactically and strategically idiotic decision to invade Ukraine to make the tactically and strategically correct decision to not fire off nukes when pressed?
Really fucking hard to square that one.
NotMax
@Jay
Putting aside for just a moment that Putin may be totally insane (in which case all bets are off), is it more blunt and crude but not substantively different than the West’s “All options remain on the table?”
Jay
@Martin:
sites f€cked for me, these days, can’t read, can’t comment most of the time on Ukraine threads.
yeah, NATO doctrine in the days of the Fulda Gap, was tactical nukes, then a pause.
it also included suicidal runs at Soviet armoured columns.
Hail Mary’s across the board.
NATO doctrine has changed, faced with realities. Soviet/Russian doctrine has not.
I personally, am more concerned with Covid, than Russian nuclear threats, covid is real and Russian Nuclear Threats have proved empty for the past 20 years.
You are at 17, do you want to hold or hit?
”I have a nuclear bomb, I will hold, I don’t care if the dealer has 21, I have a nuclear bomb”.
Jay
@NotMax:
“All options” range from diplomacy, to war.
it’s a far cry from “aid to Ukraine is an act of war”, etc.
I’m Canadian, we would rather talk you to death than kill you, but, your choice. We are pretty good at both.
all “all options are on the table” is, is a signifier that “if needed, we will “go to the mat”,” but we can on the other hand, do it the nice and civilized way.
thays a far cry from nuclear threats.
prostratedragon
Illustrated with pictures of Putin and that most happy fella, Charles Koch: Koch industries among those keeping Russian businesses open
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
Thank you.
Matt McIrvin
@Jay: In OG Cold War days, the idea was that the Warsaw Pact had a huge advantage in conventional forces, so the tactical nuke threat needed to be there for NATO to have any chance to deter an invasion. So Brezhnev could pledge no first use but NATO could not.
These days it’s the opposite. Russia is the weak party. So they play the nuclear madman.
debbie
Frontline’s episode last night was titled “Putin’s War,” and it began with Putin’s first days at the KGB. The day he wormed his way into Yeltsin’s administration is the origin for today. NATO intervention will only vindicate Putin’s lifelong conviction of the evil of the West. I absolutely understand wanting to end the genocide Putin’s ordered, but NATO presence will only raise Putin’s sense of self-glory. Maybe individual countries should intervene instead.
Mousebumples
Thanks, as always, for these posts, Adam. I intentionally save them for when I wake up in the morning, so I can also have more comments to read from the jackaltariat. I appreciate your insight, and the time you put into these posts.
Blog techy note – Android OS, Brave browser, and other than taking a few seconds to load some of the Tweets, no site issues on my end. ?♀️
debbie
However this “ends” (and I don’t think it ever really will), the primary motivation going forward will be exacting revenge.
There go two miscreants
@VOR: After reading those two Wikipedia entries, I feel totally prepared for whatever insanity today produces! I had never heard of those whackaloon ideas, although I was familiar with Velikovsky’s nutty theories.
Rileys Enabler
Adam, thank you for the time and research and knowledge you put into these posts. Reading through them – and the comments- I feel both better and worse, but always more informed. Thanks also to the jackals that comment and contribute various viewpoints. Y’all keep me saner during these dark years.
Elizabelle
@debbie: I will have to watch that Frontline streaming, if it’s available in Germany. Fingers crossed. Will have more time after Thursday or so ….
Another Scott
A few potentially related tidbits:
– There was a retired general interviewed on the radio yesterday (CBC, NPR, or BBC) saying that the problem with a no-fly zone is that Russia has anti-aircraft hardware outside of Ukraine that can cover her airspace. So, what do we do when they use it (or paint planes with it)? One has to answer that question first.
– Biden and NATO have been consistent, and the US has been consistent for years. NATO is defensive for members. NATO won’t fight in Ukraine. But NATO has been sending weapons to Ukraine for years; having joint training exercises for years; etc. NATO will continue sending weapons, intelligence, etc., but won’t have bootsonaground. VVP’s bluster that joint exercises were an abomination, that kicking Russia out of SWIFT was an act of war, etc., have not stopped them.
– Yes, the value of Ukraine defeating VVP is huge, but it doesn’t devalue NATO. Especially if VVP never sends troops into a NATO country.
– I don’t think that a lesson here is Get Nukes and Be Safe. VVP’s MO is to try to install friendly governments via lies and subversion, and “peacekeeping assistance” (I.e. occupation of Belarus). The army moving in is his last resort. Nukes don’t help in a coup. That could still happen even with nukes. The lesson, IMHO, is to have strong legal and social institutions and ties to the western world.
My $0.02.
Thanks again.
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
Regarding the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT); I think that was a dead letter when the world saw dictatorial leaders in Libya and Iraq taken out, while the Kim dynasty in The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea continues to rule in their dystopian world. Kin has nukes, the others did not.
I suspect watching the horror show in Ukraine right now, a free and democratic nation that had nuclear capability, which it gave up, shipping the weapons to the Russian Federation upon the fall of the Soviet system, now under horrific genocidal attack by a madman in charge of the Russian Federation and those nukes Ukraine gave back to him will put the final nails in the coffin of the NPT.
I would be shocked if technologically advanced nations like Japan, S Korea, Taiwan, Sweden and many others are not now days or weeks away from final assembly of their own Nuclear Strike capability. Keeping final steps in abeyance but with all the trickiest bits either completed or designed and built but not assembled. These nations depended upon the US for their nuclear shield, and then watched in horror as we elected Donald Trump to the most important position in the world. And nearly re-elected him after trying and failing to impeach him for high crimes while in office.
No sane and thoughtful person should remain in a position which relies upon the USA for protection after the events of the past 20 years. AS a nation, we teeter upon the brink of civil war, with a large portion of the nation believing insane and crazy things, paying homage to obviously insane and criminal gangsters calling themselves Republicans — which they are not, they are Fascist totalitarian theocratic fools!From here no one cal tell if they actually believe their insane religious stories, not found in any Holy Book, or just tell the stories to make more people trust in them, like sheep being led by the wolves.
They are attempting to control medical and social constructs of society, to force people into ghettos based upon their political, social, gender and sexual preferences, and to end actual democracy by perverting election processes in state legislatures meeting behind closed doors late at night. Like Witches Covens of the Olden Tymes — only more horrific because it’s real today and was fiction back then.
They want to end public health measures, to return to the days of childhood epidemics of diseases killing and maiming school children, which won’t really matter because those kids go to Jesus, and we need to close public schools anyway, they teach inconvenient truths not found in the only Book we believe in, tales of desert shepherds and farmers from thousands of years ago.
I can’t believe my own eyes as I read that so called leaders of society actually want to undo some of the most important advances civilization has made over the past century. Vaccines don’t work!? That’s why polio went away, and smallpox — mumps and chickenpox and measles making kids blind. Vaccines did that.
I had class mates in grade school die of common “childhood” diseases — Benny was a good kid with a weak heart– now easily cured. A very smart young girl who’s limbs were twisted like the roots of a tree growing in rocks from her bout of polio. She didn’t make it to 4th grade and I am ashamed I no longer remember her name with any certainty, maybe Brenda? or was it Crystal? …. The good old days Republicans want to return us all to~!!~
Theocratic Republicanism wants to end those medical advances. No LEGAL cure for ectopic pregnancy, which would mean my closest cousin would never have been born.
And Putin, one of their heroes, wants to treat Ukrainian peoples as fodder, killing them until the survivors agree to pretend they are Russians now, and that there was NEVER a Ukraine… it was always a tiny, unimportant bit of Russia. Such utter Bullshite!!!
Putin is worse than Hitler, we were all supposed to have learned from our experience putting Hitler down, and now here we are again, a little mad man, Putin, killing like a rabid dog! He needs to be treated like mad dogs have always been treated. Put down quickly and humanely, a single shot.
Instead we have a war, mothers and children being shot down in the streets by deluded Russian kids. The officers telling these Russian kids to kill like this, they all need to be taken out back and shot… the leaders, the professional career military men, those guys are sick perverts, from the sargents up to the top… put those men away in unmarked mass graves along with Putin. And put heroic monuments on the mass graves of the women and children they killed for Putin.
topclimber
Switchblades sound great. Do they require a human operator and if so how long does it take to train?
Bill Arnold
@patrick II:
Sure, but it’s also a Zwastika symbol for fascist Russian Imperialists who have appropriated the word “Nazi” to mean anyone that opposes Russian Imperialism.
wetzel
@PJ: This is World War III. That is how Russia understands it. We are already at risk. Not for nuclear war, but a long, incremental bleeding escalation on Putin’s terms that will ultimately fragment Serbia, Hungary maybe France. It will begin to dawn on us how far Putin will go not only in genocide, but also asymmetric warfare, biological, chemical, etc, but our asymmetric reply (because some of those means are off the table for us) will be interpreted as the escalation because it will be in the traditional plane. The War in Ukraine has to be won if World War III will be won. Both are in doubt. If we are not taking control of the air in Ukraine, it cannot be because we are afraid. That is my point. We cannot be cowards against a great power enemy who is looking at this war with us existentially.
Barry
@matt: “. I was wondering why we weren’t hearing about more headed into Ukraine.”
If the Russian Army is not eager to quickly and widely disseminate information, then s9me techniques might be a surprise for weeks.
Bill Arnold
@wetzel:
However, it can be if we chose not to be gigacidal psychopaths like the current Russian leadership.
And if you seriously think the risk of thermonuclear war is not currently elevated due to Russia’s antics and that it would not be much more elevated if other nuclear powers like the US started responding with their own threats including implicit threats, you are delusional.
H-Bob
A few disconnected thoughts on intervention/participation by NATO:
(1) Instead of intervention/participation by NATO itself, why not by the member nations (e.g., Italy, Netherlands — preferably no country bordering Russia) ? That way, Biden can have the U.S. abstain from participation (and reduce the perception of escalation) and point out that the member nations are exercising their own sovereign powers.
(2) Any activities by the member nations should only be on Ukraine territory or airspace — no activities/attacks on Russia itself;
(3) The member nations should discuss how Belarus is assisting Russia, and argue that other countries can assist Ukraine?
(4) NATO and the member nations should emphasize to China and other “neutral” countries that intervention/participation in Ukraine do not justify Russian attacks on NATO countries (e.g., an invasion of the Baltics). Again, emphasize that no activities threaten Russian territory or airspace.
debbie
@Elizabelle:
If you can access WGBH’s website from Germany, here’s links to the three Putin documentaries Frontline’s aired.
The Pale Scot
@Mallard Filmore:
The Mosin is a great bolt action rifle. That one has a scope and I’m sure it has a new barrel, it’s as good as the Springfield in my cabinet. When my eyes were good back in the day I got six out ten Xs at 500 yards