By this logic, Russia began shelling residential blocks in the suburbs and pounding Kiev proper with missiles "just to make their diversion more realistic." — Count Timothy von Icarus
The Kyiv Axis utilized 70,000 soldiers and 7,000 vehicles. — Count Timothy von Icarus
If one axis out of six has one third of your entire invasion force, it's unlikely to be a diversion. — Count Timothy von Icarus
And was Kharkiv just a longer diversion? — Count Timothy von Icarus
We may well be witnessing the early stages where the economies of India, China and Russia coalesce into a single economic bloc. Such an alliance, undeniably offers advantages that are irresistibly compelling. — yebiga
Whilst, over in Washington and throughout the advanced western world we struggle with systemic racism, equity, inclusion, gender dysphoria and argue over how the climate is changing. — yebiga
This is a false binary. I said that Russia cannot just waltz to the Moldovan border through hundreds of square miles of defenses and through major urban centers when they have failed to make any significant gains since last summer. Moreover, that Russia attacking NATO and opening up a second war through Belarus is preposterous. — Count Timothy von Icarus
This is ridiculous. We can deduce "nothing," from the fact that Russia started the invasion with much more modern tank models and is now relying on early Cold War era equipment? We can obviously deduce that they don't have additional modern or even late Cold War Era tanks to use since they obviously preferred to use more recent equipment. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Old tanks can destroy modern tanks if they have a modern ATGM. Actually, in a night engagement the edge might go to something like a T-55S with modern thermals over something like a base T-72 because it can identify the target first and larger ATGMs have good range, although you're still better off on a modern IFV that can do the same thing. — Count Timothy von Icarus
the very survivable Merkava, — Count Timothy von Icarus
What makes an old tank a death trap is when it doesn't have any of these upgrades. Then you're manually aiming, without thermals or any warning systems for laser designators, radar, etc. while opposing infantry has a host of guided weapons that can destroy your vehicle.
Any tanks, even a fully upgraded M1, the very survivable Merkava, the new Type 10, etc. is unlikely to survive a direct hit from a 152-155mm shell. Digging in just helps with indirect hits. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Maybe the accent of very far east Alaska, the trans-Bering Straight Region? — Count Timothy von Icarus
I am not sure how Russia failing to take meaningful amounts of territory for almost 12 months, despite carrying out large scale offensive operations, while also losing control of meaningful amounts of territory, is not evidence that they can't take more territory. — Count Timothy von Icarus
you tried to back him up with more handwaving. One can't fairly accuse others of "vacuous handwaving" while indulging on his own vacuous handwaving. That was the whole point of the two previous posts and I clearly stated so. — neomac
Yes. And I'm clearly stating that your claim of 'handwaiving' is not a "sharply formed, evidence-accompanied type of claim" and so fails your own requirements. You simply declared it to be so. You require of others what you fail to supply yourself. — Isaac
Suggesting a vague relation between what I’m asking now and what you reported in the past, doesn’t prove that you already offered evidences to answer my question. — neomac
No. You actually taking the bare minimum of effort to look back (or even remember) what has been offered already is what would prove that. The evidence has been given. I'm not going to re-supply it every time it's asked for because the asking is itself just a rhetorical trick to make your opponent's positions sound un-evidenced. If you genuinely have just forgotten or didn't noticed you would be making a polite request for a repeat. You're not. — Isaac
I claimed “I abundantly argued” and that’s a fact. I didn’t claim you agreed or you found my arguments persuasive or that the magical expected effect was changing your mind. — neomac
Then why "apart from the fact…”? If 'the fact' consists of nothing but your having written what you consider to be an argument, then my response doesn't stand "apart from" that fact, it stands alongside it. I've not disputed the mere fact that you've written copious words. I've, in fact commented several times on the inordinate length of your posts. — Isaac
A part from the fact that you were talking about calculations not me and that your defence of Baden’s accusations of “handwaving” against me is handwaving in all sorts of directions, but the point is that there is no way to get rid of the speculative and approximative dimension of geopolitical and moral considerations. That’s why a pretentious accusation of “vacuous handwaving” (or “give me the metrics“ or “no shred of evidence”) which you tried so clumsily to defend, is doomed to be self-defeating. — neomac
Bollocks. It's an absurd argument to say that if one cannot provide the actual mathematical calculations we are therefore in some hyper-relativistic world of speculation and hand-waiving. A bomb is more destructive than a stick. I don't need to do the maths, but nor is it mere speculation. — Isaac
In this thread, we have abundantly seen how problematic is to talk about “demonstrable effect” depending on the nature of the facts (e.g. an accounting of the victims of an ongoing war), the reliability of the source of information (e.g. if it’s mainstream or not mainstream, if it comes from Russia or Western sources of information etc.), the time range in which one wants to see the effects (the chain of effects is in principle endless which can cumulate and clash in unpredictable ways), the relevance of such effects (there might be all sorts of effects not all equally relevant for all interested parties, e.g. not all Ukrainians and Russians think that nationalities are just flags), the explanatory power presupposed by “effects” and “policies” (depending on the estimated counterfactuals, and implied responsibilities), and so on. — neomac
I don't know why you keep thinking this is a remotely interesting line of argument. Yes, different ways of working things out yield different answers. The same is true of your arguments (despite your pretence to some AI-like hyper-rationalism). So what? That just means that the matter is underdetermined - which is the argument I've been making all along. we choose which argument to believe. — Isaac
“Diplomacy” requires leverage namely exploiting or exploitable dependencies over often unfairly distributed scarce resources (related to market opportunities, commodities at a cheaper price, or economic retaliation, military deterrence/escalation, territorial concessions, etc.) — neomac
Not at all. It can appeal to humanity, to popular opinion. It can appeal to public image, future stakes, the willingness to avoid mutual destruction. there's all sorts of levers for diplomacy that are not traditional forms of power. — Isaac
“Sustainable development” and “fair trade“ presuppose public infrastructures, compliance to contracts, a financing flow efficiently allocated to say the least which all require a massive concentration of economic and coercive power. — neomac
No they don't. Things can be fairly traded on trust. and there's absolutely no requirement for "massive coercive power" to simply grow sustainably. what's more, the largest and most powerful force is, as history has repeated shown us, the populace. People strive for their well-being and will strive against authorities which seek to suppress it. It's people who represent the greatest coercive force. Mobilising those people is what drives progress. — Isaac
“International law” and “human rights courts” presuppose the monopoly of a coercive power (the opposite of disarmement) to be enforced or powerful economic leverage (whose effectiveness depends on how unfairly economic resources are distributed) — neomac
again, it does no such thing. Human rights laws were instigated against the will of those in power by force of will from those subject to that power. they are a restraint on power that was opposed at every step. People in power are (or should be) afraid of those over whom they have power. Governments are afraid of revolution. Company boards are afraid of strikes. Leaders are afraid of non-compliance. The moment they're not we get no progress at all. Human Rights are the result of that fear, not the exercise of their power. — Isaac
“Democratic reforms” can happen only if there is democracy (and assumed we share the notion of “democracy”), so how can democratic reforms happen when one has to deal with non-democratic regimes in building institutions like “International law” and “human rights courts” that should support and protect democratic institutions? — neomac
People. It was the people who brought down the Ceaușescu regime, not armies or international law. Workers. — Isaac
“Dis-coupling of politics from industrial influence (share holdings and lobbying)” like in China, Russia, North Korea, Iran you mean? Like in the Roman, Mongol, Islamic, Carolingian Empire you mean? Like in some Taliban village or in some aboriginal tribe in the Amazon forest? — neomac
The latter. If something's not having been done in recent history is your only argument against it being possible then I can see why our politics are at such odds. Had homosexuals ever been allowed to marry in law before this millennia? Good job you weren't involved in that campaign. Had slavery ever been outlawed before the eighteenth century? Did women previously have the vote and merely had it returned to them in 1928?
The idea that if a thing doesn't have precedent it can't happen is utterly absurd. — Isaac
to ensure policies over time one advocates one needs to rely on massive, stable and unequal concentration of power in the hands of few with all related risks in terms of lack of transparency, lack of accountability, exploitation or abuses — neomac
No one doesn't. Progress has been a matter of resisting that power with an equal and opposite power afforded to the masses. — Isaac
That’s what I asked you because that is what Tzeench claimed “the western world under US leadership has been the most destructive force on Earth since WWII” and that is how you interpreted it: “The one that causes most death and misery”. — neomac
@Tzeentch's claim here is pretty easy to support.
We are literally in a 6th mass extinction event heading towards civilisational collapse that is entirely due to US policy and acquiescence of their fellow Western acolytes, not to mention pollution of various other forms as well as neo-colonialism and US imperialism (however "soft" you want to call it -- being smothered by a pillow can have the exact same end result as being stabbed in the chest).
Now, if you want to argue that the Soviet Union, China and India weren't and aren't any better and would have done equally bad or worse things (and did and do their best to help destroy the planet as second and third fiddles) had they been the dominant super power and setting the terms of world trade, I'd have no problem agreeing to that.
But the reality is that the dominant power since WWII setting most economic policies on the planet (what and how things are produced) has been the US, and the consequence has been destruction on a hitherto unimaginable scale.
Unsustainability literally equates to destruction, that's what it means: destroying the ecosystems we require for survival, not to mention a host of other species.
And global unsustainability has been a Western choice, championed by the US and supported by their vassals. The policies for sustainability are pretty easy and known since the 60s (public transport, renewable energy, less meat eating, sustainable fishing, strict care what chemicals are allowed in the environment and how much, and farming in ways compatible with biodiversity and soil protection) and since the 60s the policies critical to sustainability could have been easily implemented to create a smooth transition.
The War on Terror, and now this conflict with Russia and China, are sideshows to the main event. — boethius
Which, as I've mentioned before, is the counter argument to your actual position:
Sure, here I restate it again and bolden it: The end game for NATO/US involvement in this war doesn’t need to be to stop Russia or overturn its regime. But to inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian power (in terms of its economic system, its system of alliance, its capacity of military projection outside its borders, its its technology supply, its military and geopolitical status) to the point it is not longer perceived as a non-negligible geopolitical threat to the West. Outrageous right?! — neomac
The West has no moral high ground. I wish it did, but it doesn't and so there is no justification to "inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian power" because there is no moral superiority. Our system is no better than the Russian system and arguably far worse (if only due to scale). Russian imperialism is a pretty banal reflection of our own imperialism, far from being in some different and worse category, and is far less destructive for the reasons Isaac has outlined in some detail (mainly as it's regional and not global).
The West is not a responsible steward of global affairs and so there is simply not much moral differentiation that justifies sacrificing so many Ukrainians for the US policy of inflicting enduring damage on Russia, as you eloquently put it, which is debatable if that's even happening. — boethius
Russia withdrew from the Kyiv and Sunny axes. It left Kharkiv retreating past Kupiansk because of a general rout in which it turned over warehouses full of munitions and hundreds of vehicles. It withdrew from Kherson City and the general environs, .... — Count Timothy von Icarus
"Setting most economic policies on the planet (what and how things are produced) has been the US"
But such power doesn’t come for free (i.e. not all humanity will benefit from it, no possible cynical abuses or nasty unintentional consequences can be systematically prevented) nor without consensus (e.g. by being the perceived as the lesser evil wrt realistic alternatives). The point is that no long term goal policies (whatever they are) can be ensured if there isn’t enough economic/coercive power to support it, so no economic/coercive power will be likely spent by political elites to pursue such policies if that is perceived as just loss of power for themselves and/or for serving their base.
The theory is pretty straightforward.
1. Russia invades, threatening Kyiv to force negotiations, while occupying the most strategically relevant areas in the south (land bridge to Crimea).
2. Negotiations fail, so Russia switches gear for prolonged war. The Russian army was overstretched and pulled back its lines to something more stable. This was mistakenly perceived (or deceptively marketed?) as a "Ukrainian offensive", which it clearly wasn't.
3. With the prospect of prolonged war and having to take parts of Ukraine by force, Russia's primary concern becomes the prevention of an insurgency. This means it will seek to pacify areas it occupies before conquering more territory - the 'bite-sized chunks' approach. This could take months, or even years.
Some other points:
- Neither Ukraine nor Russia has carried out large-scale offensives since the start of the invasion.
- It's debatable whether the territory lost by Russia was meaningful. Some argument has to be put forward as to why these areas would be strategically relevant. The fact that the Russians gave up most of that territory without a fight implies the opposite. Movement patterns of the Russian forces across the areas of northern Ukraine also do not imply the intent to hold for prolonged periods of time. You can still view these patterns on sites like https://liveuamap.com..
This doesn't explain continued offensive operations against Bakhmut. If the goal is to sit back and consolidate gains, why keep attacking? — Count Timothy von Icarus
This is inconsistent with continued Russian offensive operations. — Count Timothy von Icarus
But Russia isn't sitting back and waiting for Ukraine to attack entrenched positions, ... — Count Timothy von Icarus
Given the shortage of armored vehicles and of well-motivated, well-trained troops on both sides, I would consider regiment-scale operations (3,000-5,000 soldiers) to constitute major efforts. — Count Timothy von Icarus
If their goal is to hold all of Kherson Oblast, ... — Count Timothy von Icarus
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