October 2023 there was similar incident where Chinese cargo ship cut Balticonnector cable and EE-S1 cable. Chip named 'Newnew Polar Bear' under Chinese flag and Chinese company Hainan Xin Xin Yang Shipping Co, Ltd. (aka Torgmoll) with CEO named Yelena V. Maksimova, drags anchor in the seabed cutting cables. Chinese investigation claims storm was the reason, but there was no storm, just normal windy autumn weather. The ship just lowered one anchor and dragged it with engines running long time across the seabed until the anchor broke.
These things happen sometimes, ship anchors sometimes damage cables, but not this often and without serious problems in the ship. Russians are attempting plausible deniability.
After the Nordstream pipeline attacked and destroyed, its reasonable to expect shortened lifetimes for undersea cables and sattelites.
I think Nordstream is more of a special case. It was clandestine, but definitely not terrorism. It was an attack on enemy infrastructure in pursuit of an actual, real-life shooting war. One can argue that it was a bad (or good) idea, or that it was/wasn't effetive, or even that its externalities were beneficial in the long term, etc...
But it's not really in the same category as casually cutting internet lines to your peacetime competitors out of pique or whatever.
Nordstream is also special because its destruction was not aligned with Russia interests. It limited Europe capacity to import Russian gaz lifting one of the reason which might have made the EU reluctent to fully support Ukraine (and causing a major economic crisis in Europe as a side effect).
Between this and the coyness of most European countries governments at the time to comment on investigation, it's not too far fetch to think that Ukraine might be involved.
Who did benefit most from the north stream sabotage? Not Russia, nor Ukraine, but the USA. Their gas replaced Russian gas imports.
The sabotage happened after a simple political decision had been made to turn it off (more accurately to "suspend its certification", as it had yet to actually enter service). So there was never any "need" for sabotage. In any case the sabotage as such had no effect on gas imports.
Who did benefit most from the north stream sabotage?
At the end of the day -- nobody of course, as the whole idea that the sabotage could bring any significant strategic benefit (even in terms of the "psychological" front) was pretty much braindead from the start. Meanwhile all it seems to have brought to the table was added instability, more paranoid thinking all around (in addition to the quite substantial methane release).
But it's definitely easy to see why (at least some of) the Ukrainians thought their side could gain something from of it; or they may not have been thinking in terms of any specific strategic advantage, but rather simply spite.
Either way -- the decision was made, and the job was done.
The problem with Nordstream conspiracies was in fact that you could easily finger anyone as responsible, absolutely including Putin. The benefit to Putin (not "Russia" per se) is that it eliminated the revenue source from gas sales to Europe in the immediate term, and thus made "end the war now" less attractive to his domestic power base (because it wouldn't make them any more money for a few years).
A coup from disaffected underlings unhappy with the status of the Ukraine war is hardly a weird theory. He's fought off one already!
Pointing that Ukraine benefited most from the sabotage is not a conspiracy theory. It would be if there was another significantly more likely explanation but there isn’t.
Russian involvement is a bit far fetched to me. It severely limited their ability to export at a good price when gaz sell is how they finance the war in the first place, and removed their main pressure point on Europe therefore making the war considerably harder to win.
A third party would be more likely (there is a long list: could be the USA, a European country which wants the block to align strongly with the USA, or another power benefiting).
Undersea satellites? You know, like after a launch failure.
It's not a launch failure It's just an underwater satellite. :)
AKA satmarine
Marinesat?
> Undersea satellites?
Yes. Saltellites.
Unless it's on Europa, then it's an extremely successful launch.
it sounds like you've probably never seen this - tanker Minerva Julie (belonging to Putin's friends) traveling through the Baltic Sea suddenly decided to hang around for a week right at the same place where couple weeks later Nord Stream exploded:
I think it's pretty clear that the NordStream explosion was a joint US-Russia-Ukraine operation.
Not sure about joint, might have been half a dozen sides all independently trying to blow it up at the same time. Only way to settle it will be elevating nordstream blowup to an Olympic competition. Will it be summer Olympics (because water) or winter Olympics (because gas supply is so much more exciting in winter)?
It happened in late September… that’s a tricky one, because there’s no Fall Olympics. I think Summer already has enough water sports, so let’s give this one to Winter.
Clearly NordStream was destroyed in a drunken escapade on a rented yacht.
It was clearly Norway trying to sell more gas to Poland.
…wait a second, didn’t Agatha Christie write a book about this?!
A common goal seems to unite people of all nationalities.
It’s like the UN of explosions!
Where is evidence that the US and Russia were involved?
I sense someone hasn't actually read the thread they're replying to.
> it sounds like you've probably never seen this - tanker Minerva Julie (belonging to Putin's friends) traveling through the Baltic Sea suddenly decided to hang around for a week right at the same place where couple weeks later Nord Stream exploded: https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/03/16/23/68797949-11868975...
Just look upthread from my comment.
And Soros was the mastermind.
I'm waiting for Nazis and Jews to be blamed because Godwin's law after all.
The US destroyed the Nordstream pipeline for certain and Sy Hersh has the evidence.
It is more than probable that this incident indicates possible collusion between the Chinese and Russian governments to sabotage European interests. The simplest fix is for Sweden and Denmark to ban Chinese and Russian ships from their territorial waters until they deliver accountable assurances that this sort of behavior will not happen again. Until then, they must be stopped and European countries must play hardball because that's the only language these criminals understand.
Sy Hersh's wild fantasy has already been debunked. He might have a few pieces of the story right but many of his claims are contradicted by reliable open source intelligence. This is what always happens when a journalist works without an editor and rushes to publish before doing through fact checking.
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Yes, of course Putin decided to sabotage the largest infrastructure investment in his country's history, that he worked for a decade to get built.
Putin sabotaged the 3 centuries of Russia’s progress. The pipeline is just a noise here.
>he worked for a decade to get built
that is sweet of you. I just imagine Putin himself welding under water. Not the billions dollars steal by his childhood buddies what typically such Russian megaprojects are.
It's probable the US and possibly Norway did it under cover of BALTOPS 22.
Snopes only offers FUD but not a single contradiction or refutation of any of Sy Hersh's reporting or claims other than it boils down to "it relies on a single source". Sometimes, in secret operations, that's the reality. There exist genuine anonymous sources who cannot be revealed themselves. Part of the principle of benefit-of-the-doubt is trusting that Sy Hersh isn't merely looking for a quick payday to sellout his journalistic integrity for a few dollars and that he isn't an easily-fooled novice when it comes to doing due-diligence on sources and facts. It's mostly a disrespectful hit-piece lacking in evidence. With all likelihood, like the identity of Deep Throat, the truth will come out once the source retires and write a book about it.
If it weren't Sy Hersh, this might be more believable. The guy has been putting some distance between himself and reality for over a decade now.
(Could it be true? Maybe. IDK. No dog in that particular fight. But if you, as an anonymous source, go to Sy Hersh, you're an idiot or don't want large numbers of people to believe what you're saying. Occam's razor suggests the former)
Yup - he's a genuine tragedy.
So another Aaron Maté?
From what I know of the guy, I can't see mentioning the two in the same sentence.
Hersh's (good) works were truly monumental. I'm not aware of anything that Maté has brought to the table that would be even remotely comparable. And unlike Hersh (who for many years enjoyed a reputation seemingly beyond reproach), Maté seems to have started shooting himself in the foot pretty soon after he became widely known.
> Putin sabotaged the 3 centuries of Russia’s progress.
What a farcical depiction of the world. There is more to Russia than Putin's opposition to the west.
>There is more to Russia than Putin's opposition to the west.
definitely. That "more" is the backwater Grand Duchy of Moscow how it was before Peter The Great.
As much as I'd like to blithely believe you actually agree with me, who gives a damn about muscovites, particularly from more than 400 years ago? and what bearing does this have on our conversation?
the 3 centuries of progress started by Peter The Great - importing European values, educated people and technology, science and education - made that Grand Duchy of Moscow into the, in various times in various aspects, great country of Russia (Russian Empire, USSR). Peter The Great "opened windows" into Europe and to Caucasus (for example in the military expedition of 1724 Peter The Great signed treaty with the Armenian dukes). Putin had been actively reversing that process - under him Russia rejected European values, kicked out or suppressed many educated people, and the Russian tech, science and education is going straight downhill. Putin "closed the European and Caucasus windows". Russia is quickly returning back to that state of the backwater Grand Duchy of Moscow.
Putin is hardly the first, or the hundredth, or the hundredth-thousandth russian to agonize between asian and european influences on russian culture.
Secondly, education is not a "european" value, as much as the west would like to claim it.
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They have done this twice before. Russia weaponizes its energy. That has been the pattern.
Yes, this is why having a prompt satellite launch capability to replace attrition losses is now a strategic imperative. We need to be able to put up new ones in a matter of hours, not months.
Why is that? Undersea cables makes way more sense - the issue is we have maritime law that allows any nation state to freely roam over important cables. During wartimes this is a complete different story - ships won't be allowed near the lines, and if they do get close they will be destoryed without prior warning. No more anchoring "accidents".
> maritime law that allows any nation state to freely roam over important cables.
I'd like to see your version of maritime law that doesn't allow freely roaming over important cables. Your country's enemies would gladly drop cables totally encircling you and say "uh uh uh, important cables!" if you tried to leave your perimeter
This assumes people are very stupid, no? Like, as if they wouldn't know what was happening and just had to let it happen?
I realize US politics may suggest otherwise but I can't imagine the military is just gonna stand by and entertain such a farce..
I think you therefore agree with my reductio ad absurdum argument against the GP's claim. Changing maritime law to prohibit free roaming over "important cables" would be a farce. Therefore, the absence of such a law is not "the issue"
It isn't either/or. Satellites and undersea cables serve different use cases. Cables are great for high bandwidth communications between fixed points but they aren't very useful to mobile military forces and they can't be used for anything beyond communications. We don't have enough ships and patrol aircraft to realistically defend undersea cables outside the littorals.
Satellites can serve multiple purposes including communications, navigation, overhead imagery, signals intelligence, weather, etc. They are also vulnerable, but it's possible to launch replacements faster than repairing damaged cables.
Inofficially Europe is already at war, whether it wants to or not. Maybe someone needs to inofficially keep a close eye on those cables and take inofficial countermeasures against inofficial sabotage acts.
Europe is not at war with another nuclear power, no. Ukraine is at war and Europe is giving support to Ukraine as that's aligned with its interest. This support is neither unconditional nor total and doesn't include going to war with Russia.
No we're not. Nobody in the EU has transitioned to a wartime economy. We are helping out a strategic ally. If Ukraine falls tomorrow an cedes add territory to Russia, the EU is not going to continue fighting, because the war will be over.
That of course assumes that Putin stops at Ukraine. The point is that this isn't our war.
Nine years ago I was in Riga talking with a Latvian friend, and even then she was telling me how Russia was broadcasting separatist propaganda into Latvia
While the EU may not be at war with Russia, Russia is already at war with the EU.
Russia is pursuing low stakes, plausibly deniable, minor nuisance actions against the EU and U.S. It does enough to fool itself internally that it has a great enemy in The West, to which it is bravely standing up.
The purpose of this is to unite enough of the domestic population to suppress dissent and keep the current regime in power.
The reality is that it is actually at war with only one small neighbor, which is going so badly that they have had to import troops from North Korea. Embarrassing.
If they actually engaged in war with the EU, more specifically a member of NATO, they would lose quickly. So they stay well back from that line.
The truth is that Russia has been making war preparations for a long time, also within the EU. In Finland even during the "good years" (between fall of the Soviet Union and Georgian war) Russian businessmen kept buying property that made zero financial sense, but was located close to strategic infrastructure or military bases.
You’re in a zero lot line flat and your neighbors house is on fire. I’d be pretty motivated to help out as well, but I don’t think I’d be quite so cavalier about not being on a wartime footing. Russia has shown repeatedly throughout history that it does not honor international agreements in good faith, and that it sees military adventurism as a legitimate way to expand its borders.
After the dust settles on the Ukraine war, if Putin still has the capacity to wage war, he will not likely stop with Ukraine. It is by now obvious that a limited incursion into Poland, for example, will not spark a global thermonuclear war.
Ukrainian suffering is both the litmus test and the vaccination against nuclear escalation that Putin needs to contemplate further expansion.
Political alignments aside, if I were based in Europe I would be very, very concerned.
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This is a wildly unpopular opinion after 2022, but ...
False.
Ukraine not only has everything to do with Europe -- it is unequivocally European in culture, language, historical involvement and (to the extent that Russia is also considered to be unequivocally European) geography.
It isn't something one can even have an opinion about. Any more than one can have an "opinion" about India being a part of Asia.
Yes, and Ukraine has steadily going down in corruption since Zelenskyy. So if you actually care about corruption and aren't a concern troll, you will want to encourage the current regime and not the reverse.
Zelenskyy has stifled opposition and politically persecuted his enemies, actually.
Your comment is pretty myopic considering the fact that Ukraine is in a state of martial emergency and is actively being invaded by a merciless and lawless regime.
She is on a wartime footing, with her very existence as a country once again in jeopardy at the hands of a much more powerful, longtime aggressor.
Realigning political positions in a way that keeps them firmly aligned with the martial interests of the state is expected and required. For better or for worse, Ukraines civil government is, for now, primarily a military organization as the country and its people are fighting for their lives.
This is the one specific case where it is reasonable, just, and needed to require loyalty, focus, and vigor within an otherwise democratic system. There is a reason why martial law grants the president extraordinary powers. If Ukraine survives, she will have to sort out the return to normal democratic rule, but for now the government is at war.
Don't worry about that, he's been doing it since his inauguration. If you think his actions played no part in this war coming to be, you've been informed a bit selectively.
Frankly it would be shocking if there wasn’t some kind of fuckery afoot in any given Eastern European nation. But that in no way justifies this territory grab by Russia, or the invasion in 2014.
Russia is clearly attempting to annex a neighboring country through military adventurism, and is doing so in contravention with all international law, and also in a way that is intentionally cruel and borderline genocidal.
Russia has lost all legitimacy as a nation worthy of being taken seriously as a global citizen, and has reduced itself to a kleptocratic mad-dog rouge state.
The propaganda has landed well on you, it seems.
How can you be so certain it hasn't landed on YOU?
After all I mentioned that corruption has gotten better and you responded with a cookie cutter response about authoritarianism, which is not necessarily the same as corruption.
You've basically eaten Russian talking points and regurgitated them wholesale without even stopping to critically think about context.
Not so much. I have personal involvement that informs my opinion.
Frankly Botswana is beating Ukraine in GDP and Zambia in perceived corruption.
Frankly Botswana is beating Ukraine in GDP
Ukraine's GDP is close to 10x that of Botswana, and in the last year has grown 10 percent over that of 2022.
Try GDP per capita PPP, the measure that matters for average living conditions
When your first attempt at dropping a random statistic gets blown out of the water -- try shifting the goalposts.
I bet you had to look it up as well. I bet you had to go out there, and confirm that Ukraine, a country with 15x the population of Botswana, does indeed have a higher GDP.
To make your discussions easier and less embarrassing in the future, assume that 100 % of the time when someone speaks of GDP, they're speaking of GDP at purchasing power parity per capita.
Assume that 100 % of the time when someone speaks of GDP, they're speaking of GDP at purchasing power parity per capita.
And you can assume that 100 % of the time when someone speaks of the size of their gas tank, they're really talking about MPG while in cruise mode.
I’m serious. Please don’t assume anyone is ever speaking or absolute GDP unless they make it explicitly known. That would be utterly silly.
I'm serious, too.
But given the wildly untenable opinion statement of yours that this now long-flagged thread started off with -- and the obvious irrelevance of any economic performance measures to the Russo-Ukraine conflict -- we see that the entire thread has been utterly silly, from the get-go.
I'm a bit lazy to type right now so Claude can type the message in my stead:
"
Think about comparing two families: the Smiths have 5 people and earn $100,000 per year, while Jones is just a couple earning $70,000. If you only looked at total household income, you'd think the Smiths were doing better. But when you realize the Smiths have to split that money five ways ($20,000 per person) while the Joneses get $35,000 each, the picture changes completely.
That's exactly what happens when we compare countries by total GDP. China's total GDP might dwarf Denmark's, but China has to spread that wealth across 1.4 billion people, while Denmark only needs to support 6 million. It's like comparing a pizza between a huge family reunion and a dinner date - the total amount of pizza matters less than how many slices each person gets.
This is why economists prefer to use GDP per capita - it's like looking at how much pizza each person at the table gets, rather than just admiring the size of the whole pie.
"
I presented some hard to digest (for some) facts in my opening comment here. You'll only need to read European, Ukrainian, and Russian history for 30 minutes to know that. Of course you wouldn't, you're just a parrot repeating propaganda. You have no interest in the truth.
Who needs truth, when you can just ask Claude?
Yes, we are. Outside of Poland, everybody's closing their eyes to it, but war is coming.
We might be able to stop it before it becomes a hot war, but the ambition is there, the indicators are there, the opportunity is there. Assume it's a war. (Unless you're German. I guess our national sport is now making excuses for Russia)
I grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska, near a strategic Cold War military base. I still remember seeing the TU-95 “bear” bombers flying overhead being escorted and turned around by our fighter jets.
It makes it pretty real when 7 year old me is wondering if this one has any nukes on board, and if this will be the day that they drop.
Russia is not to be trusted, imho. They do not honor their international commitments in good faith, and they will expand their territorial claims if they are allowed to do so. Europe, like a frog in a pot, is in peril and they need to take steps to make sure that Russian war fighting capabilities are destroyed through exhaustion in Ukraine.
This of course is tragic for Ukraine, because it means that she will be utterly razed in the process. But if Russia prevails or backs down with strength, it will happen again. And again.
Russias ability to project force in a strategic way must be destroyed. They are not trustworthy stewards of coercive force.
I don't trust Russia either, but are you certain that's a real memory? I'm not aware of any confirmed incidents in which USSR bombers actually flew within sight of Fairbanks. They routinely tested our defenses but they didn't penetrate that far into US airspace.
I wish I had a photograph. I’ve been told before that this was impossible by others. I’ve also been told by others that were there that yes, it happened. It may not have been , however, an aggressive incursion, I have no way of knowing that part for sure.
Having fighters scramble from Eilison was not unusual at all, and when hunting out in that area with my father we saw a few of those. It was pretty distinct from the training and combat training they did, so it wasn’t that hard to distinguish the intentionality and risk tolerance that was reserved for that kind of urgency.
Anecdotally, I’m pretty darn sure that I saw a bear flying overhead just a few miles east-southeast of Fairbanks. I watched it be turned by 3 F4 phantoms. I was with my father and a few of his friends, as well as my brother that would have been 13 at the time. Everyone there remembers the event, and it was talked about for days in Fairbanks, we even had a subsequent training the next week in my elementary school on survival in the event of a nuclear attack lol.
Perhaps it was some kind of clandestine fuckery, perhaps it was an authorized flight, or perhaps it would have been to embarrassing / inflammatory to make it an event of record? I’m sure the answers are quietly sitting somewhere in a musty filing box.
Sadly as a German I must agree. AfD (financed by Russia) and BSW (probably also financed by Russia, or simply hopelessly naive) will fall over themselves making those excuses. Poor Putin, if only someone _talked_ to him ... while Russia is sabotaging of critical infrastructure like train service, hospitals, Internet, politics, and probably more. Russia is like this annoying bench neighbor, who under the table pokes you in the side during class, until they get shoved hard and then act all hurt. Kinda makes AfD and BSW traitors of their own country.
I for one am in favor of giving Wagenknecht a list of must haves for a ceasefire and peace treaty, which obviously will contain giving back all territory to Ukraine, costly reparation for many years to come, and denazification in Russia. With that list we send her to Russia to negotiate. She is only allowed to return, when the points on that list are achieved. She will be the negotiator, the change she will be the change she wants to see. (If it is not obvious to someone, this is rather a joke, since she cannot be trusted to have meaningful negotiations with her idol.)
The exercise left for the reader is to choose two countries that are not adjacent,
and try to plot a path between them without crossing an undersea cable:
Looks like you can get between Costa Rica and El Salvador without crossing any cables.
We are at war. The United States guided an ATACMS missile into Russian territory yesterday. Imagine the absurdity of if China put missiles on the Mexican border and guided them into missile storage facilities 186 miles inside the border.
I think you'll find the ATACMS missile guided itself, based on inertial navigation and satellite positioning data. If your argument is that the United States guided the missile because the US provides GPS, that's a pretty flimsy argument.
Ukraine would have folded within a few weeks without the weapons systems of the combined Western nations. The Biden administration has given Kyiv permission to use U.S.-supplied missiles in Russian territory in a major escalation that now threatens nuclear war due to the first use doctrine updates. A few hours ago reports of UK Storm Shadow missiles being fired into Russian territory emerged. The West is at war.
By that logic every dictator t72 field trip would make Russia participant in that local war... Absolutely absurd statement. Siria civil war would see Russia waging war on Russia since their equipment was in both hands. What a contrived statement that the arm provider is at war itself.
The passive voice is doing a lot of work here.
Who is now threatening nuclear war?
Why do folks like your self make such foolish analogies? If the US had invaded Mexico like Russia invaded Ukraine then yes, it would be completely fine for Mexico to fire missiles into the US.
Russia took land from Ukraine. For how long do you think Ukraine can fire missiles into Russia?
As long as they're able to, until they get their land back.
What about México then? The US took 55% of the country, not only 20%.
Pretty sure we are talking about Ukraine and Russia here, not other conflicts.
You joined a discussion inside the discussion that was about Mexico firing missiles at the US. If you don't want to discuss similarities of both scenarios, don't join the discussion.
Imagine the absurdity of if China put missiles on the Mexican border ...
Imagine the US engaging in an invasion of Mexico as equally stupid and unprovoked as Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Then not only would Mexico have a perfect right to seek whatever help it needed to resist the aggression directed at it, we would -- unless we were damned fools -- fully expect Mexico to seek and obtain that help.
When people say "unprovoked" do they not know the history, or they think the history doesn't matter, or do they just not care?
What did Ukraine do? Just exist ... menacingly?
Actually, that’s probably the key insight. A democratic, successful Ukraine (not a guaranteed thing at any point) would be an existential threat to the “Russian World” narrative from Moscow, and upend the regime. Even a partially successful Ukraine with working if imperfect pluralism, and regular transitions of power would probably be an profound threat, proving that other models could work.
Or they know the history all too well.
As far as we know Ukraine both put them there and guided the missiles. Please provide proof otherwise.
If someone starts blowing up satellites it’s pretty much game over for space based communications.
Kessler is often overplayed. Kessler trashes a low orbit and you wouldn't want to launch more birds into the trashed orbit. But, loads of com sats live in MEO or GEO, which is far too high for the numbers to work. They're all fine.
You will even see Kessler cited as some sort of barrier to leaving, which is nonsense.
Imagine there's a 1x1m spot where on average once per week, entirely at random and without warning a giant boulder falls from the sky and if you're there you will be crushed under the boulder. Clearly living on that spot is a terrible idea, you'd die. But merely running through it is basically fine, there's a tiny chance the boulder hits you by coincidentally arriving as you do, but we live with risks that big all the time. If you're an American commuter for example that's the sort of risk you shrug off.
Likewise, Kessler isn't a barrier to leaving, humans won't be leaving because there's nowhere to go. The only habitable planet is this one, and we're already here.
The most likely explanation for the unexplained disassembly is that Boeing made it. Second, most likely, is a collision with a hunk of something invisible.
The latency on GEO orbits exclude them from many use cases.
GEO is very cramped. It's just a circle, not a sphere.
Edit: I guess I was assuming geostationary. There's a whole sphere of geosynchronous orbits to play with.
Edit2: I was right the first time, GEO (geosynchronous equatoral orbit) / GSO (geosynchronous orbit), apparently. Now my head hurts.
> GEO is very cramped. It's just a circle, not a sphere.
"cramped" the way that like, Alaska is cramped on account of how everybody has to live on the surface, not evenly distributed through the volume of the planet?
Like yeah, it's "just a circle" but did you check the radius of that circle?
Remember if there's debris, the debris isn't stuck in the circle, but, any time it's not in the circle it's harmless. This has the effect of significantly defusing the problem, so in total it's too low risk to be worth considering.
LEO is where starlink is stationed.
Really, there is no good scenario where LEO is unusable due to some dumb reason, like blowing up junk in space. I'm not sure our "world leaders" appreciate this.
Not true. China has taken down 2 US satellites in the last few years.
They shoot down their own redundant satellites, and it was in 2007 in 2010.
Really? Thats wild. How is this not seen as a military provocation?
Because it’s not true
That seems like a reasonable explanation lol
The military is shifting toward LEO constellations for communications such as SpaceX Starshield. Kessler syndrome isn't a serious concern for those because the orbits decay fairly quickly anyway.
That "quickly" is on the order of years (as opposed to decades, centuries, etc). If the Starlink constellation goes boom, you can't start launching new ones for several years -- and then the build-up would take years, from there.
Nah. In any major future conflict, the combatants will go ahead and launch replacement satellites immediately regardless of the risks or long-term consequences (or they'll do it at least as long as their manufacturing and launch facilities survive). A constellation of hundreds of satellites can't go "boom" all at once. Even with a bunch of orbital debris floating around the hazards will be sparse and some satellites will live long enough to be operationally useful.
For the purposes of the crisis, sure. But commerce and average consumer internet access will suffer hugely. Similarly, severing the sea cable had no direct military effect, but was economic damage. Kessler syndrome is still a serious concern even in LEO, just not to the same extent of practically denying access to space for the foreseeable future.
Could they place a giant electromagnet in space to collect debris?
Space is too big, and the field of even the world's strongest electromagnets are too small for this to be practical. And even if it did work, you'd only collect ferromagnetic material.
A large enough electromagnet could actually increase effective drag in conductive materials, which may help. All the non-conductive materials would still be there, and paint chips can be brutal at orbital speeds.
You can have the ability to launch 100 satellites in 10 days, but that doesn't really help if you don't have 100 satellites
Well obviously you need to have a supply of replacements in stock. From a military perspective, think of satellites as rounds of ammunition that will be expended during a conflict.
I think it'd be more apropos to compare them to fighter jets/tanks vs bullets
Not really comparable. A new Starlink satellite costs ~$1M. A new F-35 costs ~$100M, and some of the guided missiles it carries actually cost more than the satellite. The militarized Starshield satellites probably cost more than their Starlink cousins but still I think you get the point that there are orders of magnitude differences in unit cost.
And a bullet costs $0.0001, so it's off just as much in the other direction.
Also, your focus on cost was not the point. The point was numbers necessary. You need $lots of bullets, but you don't need any where near the same number of jets/tanks. You don't need $lots of satellites. You need a much smaller number closer to the number of jets/tanks. At least based on Starlink constellation numbers.
I assume you can get some significant bulk discounts at DoD scale, but it's probably still more like $0.10 than $0.0001, which is admittedly still rather less than $1M
I think you might be getting a little confused by terminology. In military terms a round of ammunition doesn't necessarily describe just a small arms cartridge. It can be any munition that's stored for a long period until needed with minimal maintenance. So even an expensive missile or satellite might be treated as a round of ammunition, depending on the design and concept of operations.
Unless the satellite is meant to collide with another object, it's never going to be considered ammunition. It is a strategic platform for communication or intelligence gathering or maybe both. So calling a satellite ammunition is just belaboring the point for internet points or something.
No, you're still missing an important point. This isn't just semantics. Some types of satellites will be considered ammunition in the same way that some (expensive) aerial recon drones and decoys are already considered ammunition today. Not all rounds of ammunition are intended to physically strike a target.
"we" are not doing anything AFAICT. Various privately owned corporations might be, and that's very different.
Yes, I know the undersea cables are privately owned too.
At this point it's a distinction without much of a difference. For better or worse, SpaceX has now been fully integrated into the US military-industrial complex. They have huge DoD contracts to build out the Starshield constellation, including the prompt replacement capability. The US government is going to treat attacks on our critical communications infrastructure seriously, regardless of whether the hardware is publicly or privately owned.
Not clear how the world's richest man sees this situation. He certainly appeared to feel free to make his own decisions in Ukraine.
It's acknowledged in his original biography that the government could seize SpaceX from him for national security purposes etc
But that's an awfully gray area after the last few months
weren't those cut exactly because they are the starlink backbone when over Ukraine?
> After the Nordstream pipeline attacked and destroyed
This happend a very, very long time ago. Destroing things years after the fact is not logical and is not longer a defensive response. Using this as justification is just trying to escalate.
> its reasonable to expect shortened lifetimes for undersea cables and sattelites
Why is this reasonable? It seems like a pointless attack that achieves little other than reminding the world that horrible, oppessive governments are dangerous to everyone. Oppression is incredibly expensive for humanity, and only benefits the few that are the oppressors.
> This happend a very, very long time ago.
It happened on 26. September 2022. That is not a long time ago.
> It seems like a pointless attack that achieves little other than reminding the world that horrible, oppessive governments are dangerous to everyone
It sends a message, as sabotaging communications is frequently done before an attack. Also it damages morale and is a show of power.
"very, very long time ago", it was two years ago.
Yeah and this time they won't let them get away.
According to Finnish Minister of Defence: "The authorities in the Baltic Sea region have learned from the mistakes of the Baltic Connector investigation and are prepared, if necessary, to stop a ship in the Baltic Sea if it is suspected of being involved in damaging communications cables."[1]
And it looks like according to marinetraffic.com that the Yi Peng 3 is indeed at full stop surrounded by at least 3 Danish navy vessels.
Not confirmed by any mainstream newspaper. The danish forces only confirm, that they are there, but nothing more.
20 hours later they are cited that they cannot board without China's approval. Legally uncharted grounds whether they could or could not. Looks they take the cautious side for the time being.
worth noting that twitter account is not the most trustworthy or independent.
It would be useful to have a site that logs all plausible issues of this kind, at arm's length from Wikipedia editors.
Kind of a "Who watches the watchers?" type of thing.
If that list became popular it would be weaponised by military intelligence.
Why would that not be prone to the same issue you think Wikipedia faces?
Maybe it would not, but putting all your eggs in one basket has never been a good idea either.
I don't think that's what we're doing, considering Wikipedia points to other 'baskets' as sources.
Superior methodology (transcending numerous cultural / psychological / cognitive norms and obligations) is how I would go about it.
For example: banning the conflation of opinion and fact, like what's going on (and always goes on) in this thread, a behavior that is protected (doing otherwise "is not what this site is for").
If an imperfection is noted: log it, investigate, improve. Rinse, repeat.
Also: best prepare one's will, life insurance, etc before undertaking such a project.
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So according to the Bluesky thread, the ship was captained by a Russian citizen. One has to wonder whether this was done with the approval of the Chinese government, or whether the ship was just chosen by opportunity (which seems possible given that China is the second most common merchant flag). Or whether implicating China was even an explicit goal.
For an analogy, it seems like a scrappy preteen throwing around his big brother's name, knowing that if he gets into trouble, big brother will intervene...
(i.e. the European countries might be more wary about boarding a Chinese ship compared to a Russian ship, because escalating against China is scarier...).
Indeed. The best way to understand Russia's approach to foreign policy is that it's an extension of its mafia state-derived domestic policy, where there are no true allies and anyone brought into the circle is tainted through compromising actions to ensure they stay loyal to you.
It's not dissimilar to the way criminal gangs will ensure that they have dirt on anyone joining or intentionally implicate others in order to ensure compliance.
I think China stands to gain from escalation of the war so its possible they approved. It makes Russia weaker and more dependant on them, distracts the US from the Pacific, and weakens Europe in many ways.
Similar to both Russia and China gaining from war and disruption in the Middle East.
There are many possibilities here.
Russian captain, how does the ownership history of the ship look? Could be some sanction evading ship that was owned by Russian interests anyhow.
Doesn't mean its current Russian captain is serving Chinese interests, of course, but at least it seems to be Chinese owned.
China did not want the war in Ukraine, which has created serious problems for them including for Belt and Road. So behing closed doors China must be passed off but Russia is important to them and they can't let them collapse.
Of course Putin knows this hence him somewhat taking the p.
I doubt China will be happy, if Russia staged chinese support. But rumors have it, that the North Korean troop support for the war in Ukraine also came out of the blue for China, so Putin might make a risky gamble here, but I doubt he dares it. If China would seriously drop support for Russia, they would be srewed.
What are some concrete reasons why someone would want to damage these cables? Who benefits?
Assuming it was intentional, just trying the waters. Testing what the response is, who actually responds versus who's willing to sweep the incident under the carpet, how hard any response is and how quickly it happens, how much of the internet infrastructure is affected for how long, etc... etc... that's a lot of useful information as preparation for an actual attack.
This is really interesting how you’ve explained it.
In many professional fights the competitors start matches with light, quick jabs to probe their opponents defense.
This feels just like that now that you put it this way. I never connected those dots though.
Maybe it's because I'm Swedish and we've experienced Russia's "probing defenses" tactic for a very long time (mainly "breaking" into Swedish airspace with airplanes, and discovering submarines at the Swedish shores), but I always thought this was common knowledge, always interesting to learn it isn't for everyone :)
I lived in Taiwan for a while and China does this to Taiwan often. Flying planes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, sailing warships through the strait. It’s portrayed in (US, TW) media as war preparations, but some locals assume it’s all bark with no bite. How are those Russian actions portrayed in Swedish media?
when your enemy cry wolf consistently, you can become complacent and stop being overly alert.
This conditioning is how you prepare for an actual attack, so that they're not prepared at the actual time of the real attack. It's also why some military exercises near a country is considered provocative, even tho it's "just an exercise".
Not to mention that it drains resources to respond/monitor these cry-wolf fakes.
Not just Russian. Even NATO aircraft were rejected frequently, though not anymore for obvious reasons.
The situation escalated beyond probing, this is tit for tat response for Ukraine getting and launching US tactical missiles. Russia seems to be now aggressively monitoring and raiding the submarine pipes and cables. Blowing up of Nord Stream made Russia go ballistic.
> The situation escalated beyond probing
Not sure we understand "probing" differently. Russian currently is at the edges, testing the responses from things like cutting cables and otherwise interfering with the infrastructure. This is what "probing" means for me. "Beyond probing" would be actually launching attacks one way or another, which we haven't seen yet (except of course, for the Ukraine invasion).
> actually launching attacks one way or another, which we haven't seen yet
On the contrary. The attacks have been ongoing for years now. You're looking for the tanks and missiles when the attack is actually happening right under your feet. Rot and corruption are more powerful than any bullets or missiles.
> Rot and corruption are more powerful than any bullets or missiles.
The developed world knows this even better. Offering yachts, real estate, supercars, prostitutes, and other luxuries to oligarchs. Thanks to this their military is rather in shambles right now.
... Wow, this must be peak Kremlin shilling: Blaming other countries for Russia's decades of kleptocratic leadership and endemic corruption at all levels.
It's historically, financially, and strategically incoherent. Trying to bribe people who are already rich with hard-to-hide things, just to make them extra-corrupt in the vague hope that it somehow results in pilfered AK-47s being sold on the black market?
Sorry, but no: Being shaken down by Russian traffic cops for bribes every week is a domestic problem.
Does it? You think Russia can't corrupt a German Chancellor or a US President? Boy have I got news for you!
A next step for them might be to disable/poison something like an entire urban water distribution system. But come to think of it, the US et al. might be able to do the same back to Russia. Because, you see, there is a whole 'nother ladder of escalation to explore.
A submarine cable is an attractive target for Russia because Russia doesn't have cables of their own exposed: Russia is a continental power, not a maritime alliance. A cable attack is an asymmetric attack, difficult to respond to appropriately.
I recently saw a cable from St Petersburg to Kaliningrad at one of these maps.
It would be a shame if somebody dragged a massive ship anchor over it by accident. Through potato field.
Again? [0]
> The 1,000 kilometre (620 miles) Baltika cable belonging to state-owned Rostelecom runs from the region of St. Petersburg to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on the southern Baltic Sea.
> A gas pipeline linking Finland and Estonia and two other telecoms cables, connecting Estonia to Finland and Sweden, were also damaged last month. Finnish police believe damage to the Baltic connector gas pipeline was caused by a Chinese container ship dragging its anchor along the seabed but have not concluded whether this was an accident or a deliberate act.
> The Finnish coast guard said the Russian outage may be linked to the previously reported damage.
>"Beyond probing" would be actually launching attacks one way or another, which we haven't seen yet
he's saying "this was not a probe, this was an actually launched attack"
> Blowing up of Nord Stream made Russia go ballistic
Russia started invading Ukraine six months before Nord Stream blow up. Previously Russia invaded Crimea in 2014.
The next invaded country, will be also an escalation?
All of this is about a few psychopaths filling their pockets with the money that generates the corpses of their criminal business, some encouraging the production of war, others encouraging the waging of war.
Why are these psychopaths and their "business" not prosecuted?
Because their prosecution means going to war. I don't know about you but as someone living less than 30 minutes from Ukraine I don't want my country to go to war.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
> If you want peace, prepare for war
And what makes you think it won't, anyways?
Quoth Churchill: "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile-hoping it will eat him last."
The crocodile is still intent on eating you, even if you're nice to it. I really wish Europe would start understanding that.
If Ukraine falls, the war is coming whether we like it or not.
Who are you referring to? Putin and Russian oligarchs? If so, how would you imagine the mechanics of prosecuting them to work?
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German political and industrial elite with their former chancellor are within the reach of Western jurisdiction. They were smirking at Trump when he was exactly pointing out their dependency on Russian gas so.... who knows...
No, decades of rampant kleptocracy and alcoholism made Russia go ballistic
Decades? I suppose that 40 decades is still decades.
so i guess you've got russia all figured out. what's your excuse for the staggering amounts of violence and invasions from americans?
A savior complex that's sometimes misled, sometimes absolutely warranted.
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>This feels just like that now that you put it this way. I never connected those dots though.
Boxers learned from the art of war, not the other way around.
"Probing attacks" are a standard doctrine. It's not always a clear signal of intent to increase hostilities because it's also just useful as an intelligence gathering exercise.
That's very similar to how the "accidental" flights over neighbouring territory works as far as I understand. This happens regularly between many countries. Just far enough to get some response, but not enough to get shot down immediately.
Which is the only proper response to unwelcome military aircraft.
> This happens regularly between many countries.
I cannot find any lists (either in English or Swedish) but I remember Russia has been accidentally breaking into Swedish airspace like once a year for as long as I can remember. Submarines also sometimes "accidentally" end up close to Swedish shores.
It'd be interesting to see some total numbers, and compare other countries with how often it happens between Sweden/Russia.
Russia wants to end NATO without going to war with NATO.
NATO's political unity and ability to respond is tested with these attacks. Russia does them one after another gradually escalating. Russia maintains plausible deniability or does so small operations that they can always walk them back.
Eventually, some country invokes Article 4 or 5 consultations. Russia hopes that US, Hungary, or Germany waters down NATO response. The conflict continues, but between individual countries not under NATO. NATOs as a organization may continue, but raison d'être is gone.
Russia and these NATO countries being probed are like the two siblings in the back seat. Mom, he's touching me. Stop touching your brother. Mom, he's holding his finger right next to me. Dad eventually says, don't make me pull this car over and start a global thermonuclear war
Not quite. Be careful, Russia invests a lot in disinformation campaigns and spreading (conflicting, but that is part of their doctrine) narratives. Bothsidisms and False Equivalency are some of the common tools in muddying the information sphere.
NATO and Europe did quite a lot to normalize relations with Russia. Russia was invited and became participant of the NATO program Partnership For Peace [0].
The program contains 6 areas of cooperation, which aims to build relationships with partners through military-to-military cooperation on training, exercises, disaster planning and response, science and environmental issues, professionalization, policy planning, and relations with civilian government
Very nice, but the secret services that took over the empire did and does not fancy a rule-based, harmonious order based on mutual relations, human rights, freedom of press etc. As any autocracy or kleptocracy understands, that is very much a threat to their power, beacuse
- Population will demand political influence.
- Mindset. A criminal thinks in terms of I win, you lose. Might makes right. Complete opposite of what makes up the dna of the free world.
The imperative is on us to understand that message really well. It goes slowly unfortunately. It is hard for us to grok.
Notice how on our part, helped via tech oligarchs, there is an incessant bombardment to undermine support for those values. Kremlin troll factories are a thing, but the Chinese are speading up rapidly in the information sphere too. Especially youngsters are targeted.
The war has already begun, but we don´t want to see it. And that is dangerous.
> Be careful, Russia invests a lot in disinformation campaigns and spreading (conflicting, but that is part of their doctrine) narratives.
You may also want to be careful (or not):
- all countries engage in these things
- how things are seem like how they seem, but this is very often not the case...and rather than consciousness raising warnings for such situations, it very often does the opposite
As always, I recommend a meta-perspective on geopolitical stories, it is much more fun than being a Normative, poorly constrained imagination actor like the vast majority of people.
I certainly welcome critical thinking. How GOP got of the rails with the adventures of Bush Jr (War on Terror) is worthy of deep analysis. Backed by Russia, which might give you a pause.
Geopolitical affairs are indeed difficult to follow. It requires deep internal domain(s!) knowledge, which does not fit your average corporate media business model. The niche outlets that do have a capable editorial board are threatened by takeovers [1, 2] from the likes of Axel Springer [3]. 1 Billion USD for Politico. An idiotic sum for a buyer that small, Wikipedia might pique your interest [3]. That is not to say that Politico is useless now, but you can count on journalistic degradation over time.
But sweeping statements are not of help to get a sharper picture. Instead they risk promoting false equivalence and may turn participants(!) of democracies into passive nihilists. Which is precisely the aim of the foreign influence we are talking about.
Do you ever wonder why mainstream school curriculum doesn't include the discipline most suitable for navigating these waters: philosophy?
And if you do now: do you wonder if this is 100% coincidence, or oversight? How often do you hear the idea even discussed, as compared to, say, how often we hear about "misinformation", and the need for more "critical thinking"?
I am glad this situation has a substantial humorous aspect to it, otherwise I'd probably get stressed out about it.
> all countries engage in these things
The post you're responding to, already predicted and addressed this claim:
> Bothsidisms and False Equivalency are some of the common tools in muddying the information sphere.
Right, but that quote is kind of dumb. It implies that disagreements or criticism of the US are coming from russian disinformation agents. You can see how that framing (even if true sometimes!) isn't productive to any kind of actual discussion right?
> It implies that disagreements or criticism of the US are coming from russian disinformation agents
Does it? The post in question observed 2 things:
1. Russia invests a lot in disinformation campaigns and spreading (conflicting, but that is part of their doctrine) narratives.
2. Bothsidisms and False Equivalency are some of the common tools in muddying the information sphere.
Is your point of contention with the truthfulness of either of these observations, or with their proximity to each other?
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These anti disinformation posts are quite peculiar. I'd advise anyone who wants to dig deeper to listen to West Point graduate Mearsheimer:
It takes one hour to listen. Take notes and verify the facts afterwards. No disinformation there, much less Russian.
Mearsheimer has been debunked many a times and his theory just doesn´t hold up with reality. I am not going to debunk it, because I will repeat what other really respectable people have said about the subject.
Just one rebuttal, but there are many more to be found on the internet.
Mearsheimer, who bases his theory on 'Putin never lies'. Sorry if that's your starting point then you're just promoting fantasy.
> who bases his theory on 'Putin never lies'.
Can you cite anything that he has actually said that even resembles this?
It was one of his founding premises of all his discussions at the recent Russian escalation of the war started in 2014. I suggest you go watch those.
Except its always Russia instigating. We never sent someone to look at the spire of Saint Basil (the pathetic excuse offered for explaining the presence of GRU officers in Salisbury carrying out chemical warfare), or really struck at their weak points.
Are you actually saying the US has never engaged in propaganda within another country or attempted to influence the outcomes of their elections or influence their populace to rise up against their leaders?
You cannot be serious with that kind of belief
But of a jump from that to spraying poison all over the place.
Not really sure what you're referring. The US has most definitely sprayed poison all over the place in South America with cocoa plant eradication efforts. Or Agent Orange in South East Asia.
If you mean poison as in disinformation, then you'd be wrong there as well. We literally "bombed" Iraq with pamphlets from airplanes encouraging them to rise up against Suddam and we'd be there to support them; we didn't.
No, the GP means literal poison. Neurotoxin, specifically.
Humorous yet concerning that our governments act like children.
This is strange to me because this is basically forcing drills that better prepare their enemy.
Sound the fire alarm over a birthday cake candle once, and you've got a drill making people get better at evacuating.
Sound the fire alarm over a birthday cake candle several times a week, and people learn the alarm means there's no fire, no need to rush, they've got time to finish that e-mail and grab their coat.
If you never go to war with your enemy, your enemy's continued preparations are wasted money and resources (both political and economic), aren't they?
The type of preparations being forced are things the government should be doing regardless as part of their national defense.
Ironically this is what caused the fall of the Soviet Union.
While not directly addressing undersea cable sabotage this is a comprehensive open access article with case studies on 'hybrid warfare' which provides context to these types of actions. 'Shadows of power beneath the threshold: where covert action, organized crime and irregular warfare converge' - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02684527.2024.2...
When Trump becomes President next year he is expected to demand that Ukraine settle the war with Russia or risk losing US aid and military support. It is why Russia is throwing everything at re-taking Kursk and US is now allowing long range strikes.
If the EU decides to join the US the war is over and Russia will keep the occupied lands. If the EU decides to support Ukraine then because of the devastating sanctions there is a strong chance Russia loses.
So it's in Russia's interest to make life as difficult as possible for Europe over the coming months in order to convince them that ending the war is in their best interest.
> If the EU decides to join the US the war is over and Russia will keep the occupied lands.
As a European, I'd say there is just about 0 chance of the EU unilaterally supporting Russian taken any occupied areas to themselves and Ukraine surrendering. Not only would it signal to Russia that they can take European land without consequences, but public opinion is very much against any sort of cessation of defenses. In my ~30 years I've never seen as strong NATO support from the common man in countries like Sweden and Spain as there is today.
> As a European, I'd say there is just about 0 chance of the EU unilaterally supporting Russian taken any occupied areas to themselves
I agree, but it's not about accepting or saying it's a good idea, it's about whether European countries can replace the US support enough that Ukraine can reasonably keep defending themselves.
I don't know if EU would be able to match the current support the US gives to Ukraine (maybe it already does? Or maybe it exceeds? I don't know either way) but what I'm sure off is that Europe won't stop trying even if it wouldn't be enough.
If you add up all the aid from the US and compare it to aid from the EU plus European nations, I think the share of contributions is roughly equal. But if that’s right (and I did the math in my head while scrolling a huge spreadsheet on my phone), then the loss of support from the US is significant. The US ability to produce armaments is also unparalleled in the West, so a loss of that supply is also a huge issue. Then you have the loss of the US as a military backer which may free Putin to be more aggressive - dirty bombs, tactical nukes, blowing up a nuclear reactor, assassinating Ukrainian leadership, who knows what. It’s a huge problem for Ukraine if they lose the US. But will they? It’s hard to know for certain.
Europe is great at producing armaments as well - but there are a lot of useful armaments that are only produced in the US. If you had to choose either EU or US support, the US is the better option as they can give you things that the EU cannot even though the EU has more people than the US and a good economy.
The Patriot system is one the of best examples. EU doesn't really have anything in this space, but Ukraine needs more of it yesterday.
> The Patriot system is one the of best examples. EU doesn't really have anything in this space, but Ukraine needs more of it yesterday.
The full setup for missile defense. This includes radar, computers and so on.
The European system often contain some American components. Perhaps the French a bit less so.
This has turned out to be a major problem, as the US has used their re-export restrictions on components to block very significant parts of planned European military aid to Ukraine.
I speculate that there will be (already is) some extremely heavy investments in military tech R&D to remove/reduce dependence on American components going forward. As a continent, we can't have our hands tied like this in future conflicts.
Thanks a lot for doing that, even thought kind of ad-hoc :) Some data for guesses is better than none!
I'm guessing that if US pulls their support, EU will try to add as much to cover up for it as humanly possible, as most compatriots see Ukraine as the frontline of something that can grow much, much bigger which because of remembering history, we'd obviously like to avoid.
how sure are you? I think the economic struggles + losing US support would make every incumbent leader lose their jobs until UE is full of Trump supporters
Fairly confident, at least for the countries I frequent and have friends in. As an example, public opinion of NATO in Sweden was really negative up until ~2013 (Crimea occupation) where it kind of was equally positive/negative and then fast forward to today where it's at 64% positive. https://www.gu.se/en/news/opinion-on-nato-record-shift-betwe...
Being a Swede myself, and knowing how apathetic Swedish people are about basically anything, something having that large of support is pretty uncommon and signal a strong will to make NATO and EU defenses stronger, if anything.
Even people I know who been historically anti-"anything military" in the country have quickly turned into "We need to defend our Nordic brothers and sisters against the Russians" which kind of took me by surprise.
> UE is full of Trump supporters
That won't ever happen. Even right-wingers (Europe right, not US right) are laughing at Trump and the Republicans.
To be fair, we do have a couple of hundred years of history where Russia was always the big bad. Pretty much the only large-scale scenario the Swedish military trains and prepares for is a Russian invasion. The enemy always comes from the east.
Even right-wingers (Europe right, not US right) are laughing at Trump and the Republicans.
Any examples you can point to?
> it's about whether European countries can replace the US support enough that Ukraine can reasonably keep defending themselves.
Your economy is nearly 10 times the size of Russia.
If Russia can continue, then you can almost 10 times more easily.
It's not a "can" issue. It's a "are you willing to do more than absolute minimum?" issue.
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> Public opinion is against further weapons shipments to Ukraine
The linked article is about the opinion of Germans about shipments of German weapons. When you don't specify that in the context of this thread, which is about Europe, not Germany, people might mistakenly interpret that as data about Europe.
Okay, now let's see polls for Poland, Finland, or UK.
I know there are some countries where support is less than in other places (Germany being one, as you highlighted).
I still stand by my original statement that unilateral decision in EU of stop supporting Ukraine and letting Russia keep the occupied territories.
Support in Germany is the same as support in Ukraine itself (according to the above Gallup poll at least).
Support in other European countries does not differ much from Germany:
Unfortunately, many of my German countrymen are either stupid or complacent for not wanting more weapon deliveries, so a striving democracy can defend itself.
"If the EU decides to support Ukraine then because of the devastating sanctions there is a strong chance Russia loses."
How did that not work then yet?
They question you're really asking is "why is the war taking so long?"
Because it's a war.
I think he is asking how well the devastating sanctions have been working so far.
Which is a retorical question of course, because obviously they haven't harmed Russia all that much. Actually, they are hurting the EU as well because of the risen energy prices.
> haven't harmed Russia all that much
Ruble is below a single penny.
Interest rates are at 21%, highest since 2003.
Inflation is out of control.
Not really all that rosy.
In Feb 2022, just before the war started, the Rubble was worth $0.012. Now it's $0.0099. That's a 17% value drop in almost 3 years.
It's true, the inflation is high, but nowhere near out of control.
Also, the discussion was about the effect of the sanctions. But the inflation is going up not because of that, but because of the huge amount of Russian government money that's flowing to the military and to the weapon industry.
> It's true, the inflation is high, but nowhere near out of control.
I'm not sure how useful that exchange-rate data is when the Russian government has made it harder to for their people to actually trade away rubles even at a price they like. [0]
I'd also expand the time window: The Jan-2022 ruble had already taken geopolitical damage, because of how Russia attacked Ukraine using insignia-less forces in 2014. In contrast, a 2012 ruble was more like $0.30.
Well sure, but weren't we discussing the effect of the 'devastating' EU sanctions?
If you want to expand the timeframe all the way back to 2012, then the conclusion must be that the effect of the sanctions on Russian policy has been even smaller ..
After all, it didn't stop them from first annexating the Crimea in 2014 and next trying to annexate Ukraine completely in 2022.
none of those things prevent russia from waging war.
All of it are merely suffering that the russian citizens suffer, but canwithstand. Russia does not import food, does not need to import fuel, and can import most consumer goods from china and bypass western sanctions.
Therefore, russia's gov't can allocate most of their internal resources for war production.
It's not so much how much they "can withstand" (under the absolute worst of circumstances), as opposed to how much they are wiling to withstand given that, on a certain level, most of them have to understand that the war is basically optional for Russia.
look, if someone looks like they are losing a war in the beginning, middle and the end act of it, I wouldn’t have much faith that extending it is the best solution to finally win.
Tautological
The Nazis were mopping the floor with Europe until they weren’t. The Japanese were conquering Asia until they weren’t.
But obligatory reminder, that back then there were no nukes. So it is not exactly the same situation.
Eh, MAD brings us back to equilibrium. It's a significantly more dangerous equilibrium, for sure, but we should be much more afraid of a nuclear accident (not reactor meltdowns but accidental weapon launch) than of purposeful use of a nuclear weapon.
Well, the result is the same, no? If one rocket flies, chances are, they will all fly.
Russia will not use nukes. If you believe they will, then they have you exactly where they want you to be.
So how do you know that?
Why wouldn't russia use a tactical nuke in west Ukraine to destroy tank factories? They already are a international Pariah, that is why they align with North Korea.
The only answer is - to remain the last standing they have. But at some point, they might not care. It is dangerous to put someone with nukes in a desperate position. Putin would not survive retreating from Ukraine - he would be in a desperate position if the odds of war are against him - currently they ain't.
Why wouldn't russia use a tactical nuke in west Ukraine to destroy tank factories?
Because the Biden administration communicated to its regime (in late 2022) that this would definitely trigger a massive kinetic response. In particular it indicated that its ground forces in Ukraine would be utterly destroyed (as Putin knows it is very much capable of doing).
Talking and doing are not the same thing. Geopolitics is like Poker, who is bluffing and who is calling it.
You are saying only Putin is bluffing - well, I do read russian military blogs/telegram chats. Spoiler: they also think Biden is bluffing.
Don't you see, how this can turn out wrong?
Anything can happen, and people say all sorts of stuff online.
But from the fact that the warning was expresed privately, and using carefully chosen language (unlike Putin's warnings, which are generally aimed at the public sphere, and are full of bluster) -- and considering, again, that the US is fully capable of carrying through with its promise in this regard -- it seems likely the message was received as intended.
Could still go wrong, but the likelihood of things going wrong by not promising any sufficiently serious consequences at all to Russia's regime if it actually deploys nukes seems to be (unequivocally) far greater.
If the warning would have been really private, you would not know about it. Since you know about it - it was apparently rather a public statement as well. We both don't know about the real backroom deals and what exact words are used there. What are the real red lines that are communicated behind the curtains - most of those statements are just show. Part of the game. I am pretty sure, that Putin would like to remain in power and not radiated. But I would not bet on it. There are rumors he is sick - and sacrifice and suffering is somehow part of the russian mentality.
The threat is public so people like you can go and sow fear because Russia itself has been revealed as a paper tiger. Kleptocracy can only take a modern civilization so far.
"because Russia itself has been revealed as a paper tiger."
I see, you have personally checked the russian nukes and found they are all worthless? Or have access to top secret informations confirming that?
Otherwise it seems a bit out of this world, to claim the country with the most nukes on earth is a paper tiger.
And the russian conventional military is far from a paper tiger as well. That tale comes from the fantasy, that Ukraine is facing russia alone. But the whole NATO is supporting it. Without NATOs weapons and money, Ukraine would have been russian since over 2 years.
But yes, I do have fear. But more from people like you, who look at reality in a way, that fits their ideology.
Just assume for a moment, you are wrong. What would happen as a result, if the people in command would think like you?
No, you don't need to check the nukes. MAD still works just like it has for decades. It's inconvenient but this was where we had to wind up the moment we split the atom. People knew the moment we split the atom that this is where we'd wind up.
> And the russian conventional military is far from a paper tiger as well.
Lol okay.
> Just assume for a moment, you are wrong
How about you assume that you are wrong, and you are volunteering for a world where once a nation acquires a nuclear weapon they are allowed to run roughshod over the entire world, raping whoever they want, torturing whoever they want, and cowards will just line up and beg the victims to allow them to continue? Do you hear yourself?
The alternative here is not sunshine and rainbows. The alternative is an even more vigorous race to nuclear weapons from the most vicious regimes on the planet and more horrific crimes committed and excused under nuclear blackmail.
If Russia launches a nuke, they are the criminals. Not the people who stood up to them and "forced" them to do it. Russia has all the agency in the world. They could turn around and march back to Moscow today. How about you go do your "peacemaking" beggar appeasement routine on VK and tell Russians to tremble in fear of the United States deleting their civilization?
"How about you assume that you are wrong, and you are volunteering for a world where once a nation acquires a nuclear weapon they are allowed to run roughshod over the entire world, raping whoever they want, torturing whoever they want, and cowards will just line up and beg the victims to allow them to continue? Do you hear yourself?"
Yes, I can hear myself. And I never said anything like it. And I doubt you can point to where I said or wrote such things. All this thread was about the question if russia would use nukes.
It is telling, that for you just the realisation of this possibility, automatically assumes surrender.
Well, not for me. I am a strong proponent of weapon delivery and training for Ukraine. Despite the chance, that russia might use a tactial nuke. Rumors have it, that at the succesful Ukrainian Cherson offensive 2 years ago - there was serious fear in russian command and increasing pressure of using a small nuke, so much that some western agencies saw the chance at 50%. If the offensive would have moved on towards Krim, then it likely would have happened. And this still did not change - russia (beyond Putin) is very unwilling to give up the Krim. And I can see worse outcomes, than the Krim remaining russian.
Or do you just want the rule of international law and criminals must not be rewarded for aggression?
Yeah, I would like that, too. But before demanding total victory over russia for the sake of law at the risk of an allout nuclear war, I see some other chances of improving international law. For example doing something about turkeys conquering. Or Aserbaidschan. Or get the US to abolish the hague invasion act
Nobody here believes it's not possible that Russia could use a nuke. They're saying it's unlikely and it shouldn't dictate our decisions. It seems like there's not an actual disagreement here, so have a good day.
"The United States will not fill the Colorado River with gasoline and light it on fire."
Would you embark on some argument about how technically they might actually be able to do that?
I am interested in arguing about real things.
It is real, that russia made nuclear threats and expresses increasing frustration that their threats get ignored.
It is also real, that many people, also here, say the threats are completely empty.
And I am sceptical about that claim.
No idea how your gasoline river fits in that reality.
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> Putin would not survive retreating from Ukraine
A most interesting question is: Would survive Trump?
Neither is now the situation exactly that having nukes, means you can tell everyone to back down and do exactly as you say or else.
The nazis won many wars even tho they lost the big one. Will NATO win against Russia? Who knows. But in the showdown NATO/Ukraine vs Russia, they lost.
“NATO/Ukraine”? I am literally giggling at the absurdity :D Get a grip.
Russia is getting bombed every day and doesn’t even hold all of its initial territory. It is not clear who will win this.
It is extremely obvious that Russia would be crushed within days by a confrontation with NATO (but this conflict almost certainly wouldn't materialize due to nuclear weapons).
> It is extremely obvious that Russia would be crushed within days by a confrontation with NATO (but this conflict almost certainly wouldn't materialize due to nuclear weapons).
It's interesting the extent to which people haven't internalized this. Russia's industry has really ramped up on military production in the past two years, and their military will eventually get to the point where it can cause tremendous damage against a poorly-equipped Ukraine, through attrition. But the invasion revealed how far behind they are technologically, and a combined NATO force would turn off their entire military's command and control on day one of a real conflict.
It's an inversion of the situation forty or fifty years ago, when Europe had to rely on the the nuclear threat because the Russian conventional forces were considered to be overwhelming.
I would say because China and North Korea joined the train of gravy, to the point to NK selling food to Russian Army. Maybe India also helped to sustain the Russian economy for a while.
In any case Russia losing its oil refineries one by one is the real deal here.
> So it's in Russia's interest to make life as difficult as possible for Europe over the coming months
Unsurprisingly this week after Macron speech, "French" farmers decided to organize again on groups directed by leaders and block and destroy Spanish cargo trucks at the frontier, without any policemen to be found at place.
Is obvious that somebody is trying again the old trick to confront and divide in the EU. We had seen the same before in Poland, etc.
But a trick overused can became counterproductive. I'm sure that Macron and other in EU can sum deux and deux and understand that surrender is not an option anymore. Is not just Ukraine but also their own political survival what is at stake. If they let this agents roam free and grow, they will lose gradually the power.
Would be an economical win for Europe if the US drew their aid. The amount of money needed to be spent in military aid across Europe would create markets within the region that would in the longer run create good wealth.
Alone from that reason, USA will not pull their aid. USA cannot afford losing Europe as an arms client
It would be so nice to not be dragged into this war by the aggressor. Russia is playing a very stupid game here.
> Russia is playing a very stupid game here.
They are not, if you take the larger context into account - and that is China and their saber rattling not just against Taiwan but also against everyone else in what China thinks is "their" influence sphere such as the Philippines.
Russia's warmongering (not just in Ukraine, but also via Syria, Iran and Yemen!) is breaking apart both the US and EU internally - recent elections have shown that both populations are pretty much fed up with the wars and their consequences, and once enough countries either fall to Putin's 5th column outright or their governments pull a Chamberlain, China can be relatively certain no one will intervene too much when they decide that now is the best time to annex other countries.
I wonder if anyone thinks this seems likely:
American Secretary of Defense: "Mr. President, the Chinese just destroyed our Naval base in the Philippines, killing hundreds of US servicemen. As part of a plan to annex the country or something."
American president: "Let's not intervene too much."
I don't think the Chinese will attack US infrastructure or vessels directly, they are not that stupid - but they did attack Philippine ships in what is widely recognized Philippine territory [1] or fish illegally in Philippine territory [2].
The only response the entire West was able to give in years of Chinese transgressions were strong words, about as effective as "thoughts and prayers". China is a bully that escalates continuously (similar to Russia's behavior in Syria with the countless "red lines" that were crossed, eventually including chemical weapons) and needs to be brought to its knees before they one day trigger WW3 by accident.
it's why instead of an appropriate, equal and measured response for acts of bullying, any sort of aggression should be faced with overwhelming relatiation.
This is what one would do to a school yard bully. They push you, and you immediately do a full face punch and knee to the nose. Fight to the death from the first push/shove, and let it escalate. One fight, and the bullying is over, or you both get injured sufficiently to go to the hospital. There should be no middle grounds.
Putin and Xi's big advantage over the US is that American presidents get elected every 4 years. If they gradually encroach on their neighbors and make intervention unpopular in the US via propaganda they don't need to attack a US base.
The other big issue is US adventurism in Iraq (and to a lesser extent Afghanistan) has made US citizens wary of any international actions, no matter the details. It's especially galling how many of the same people who were cheering on the direct military conquering of Iraq are now against supporting Ukraine at an arms length. "Can't get fooled again", indeed.
> The other big issue is US adventurism in Iraq (and to a lesser extent Afghanistan) has made US citizens wary of any international actions, no matter the details.
That this is not as big a deal as you think was the reason for my grandparent post. The "US citizens wary" thing can reverse itself the moment Americans are killed by a hostile adversary.
Well the result of China's 5d chess has been to install a leader in the US that is likely to escalate a trade war with china when with an impending demographic crisis they most need someone to stop the trade war. Sheer genius!
The problem with dictators of all kinds is that their personal concerns (say, appearing before the local populace as "the one who re-unified China") can and will trump over what makes sense for the country long-term.
Of course that can and does also happen in democracies, but at least most reasonable democracies have some sort of "checks and balances" that at least prevents open war from breaking out.
The world will be looking to China as a stable partner while the US voluntarily dismantles its economy and very possibly its political system.
So yeah, the US absolutely got outplayed here.
The us is currently one of the most stable economies, so there's a long way to go.
I think it's unlikely that the world will pick an economic partner that:
- builds 90% of the new coal fired plants while the rest of the world (including the US) is decarbonizing
- has 280+% debt to GDP ratio
- has capital controls on its currency (the real exchange rate could change suddenly at the drop of a hat)
Well... that stuff will be easier to overlook when the US deploys its military to deport millions of people operating the most foundational portions of its economy like agriculture and construction.
OK this is some sort of "America bad" fever dream. Listen America isn't perfect or anything, but you're basically looking down the barrel of crazy if you ignore the steel advantages that the US has, and the history and pattern of US recovery from crises
> and the history and pattern of US recovery from crises
Well at least in prior crises, the US had sensible leadership on both sides that was willing to put country before party.
The 47th however? Not just the man himself but especially the cabinet picks are an utter joke. None of the currently known picks are known for any kind of competence or even experience in their respective fields, and there are ideas floating to have the Senate go into recess so the 47th can appoint them without the usual review process - astonishing in itself given that the Republicans control the full Congress, they shouldn't have to fear any of their candidates not getting past the Senate. What politics they want to follow is just as dangerous - Musk and DOGE slashing 2 trillion $ from government expenditure for example, large parts of the government will literally be unable to do their job (which is, among others, to handle crises).
It isn't "America bad" at all! I believe America is the greatest country in the world, its economy is clearly second to none, and it's clearly the best trading partner for the vast majorities of nations. I also believe America will almost certainly recover from whatever dark period it's (probably) about to endure.
But I'm also well aware of the fact the US has gone through extremely dark periods and its past success is not a promise of future success. At the end of the day a country very possibly plunged into Great Depression II and almost certainly with trade policy changing by the day is not a good trading partner.
There is a very real possibility that we deport our way into a famine. The US economy cannot possibly sustain the type of deportations that have been promised and are already being put into motion by the incoming administration.
This was also said about slavery and the economy prospered post-slavery. The US economy is absolutely sustainable by paying citizens legal wages. In fact, it is unsustainable to encourage illegal labor and immigration.
I didn't say anything about long-term viability. I am talking about near-term shocks and then questioning how long a recovery would take. The south's economy was in ruins post-Civil War and only revitalized through immense subsidy, aid, and debt programs. Broadly speaking, the South was in deep, destitute poverty until the New Deal (that is more than sixty years for anyone counting at home!).
Obviously most of that devastation was from the war itself, but if every enslaved person in the country were shipped back to Africa (as many proposed at the time), it absolutely would've had deeply negative near-term consequences. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that economies don't actually depend on labor. Dismissible on its face! And to be explicit: those near-term consequences were morally necessary to bear anyway.
> In fact, it is unsustainable to encourage illegal labor and immigration.
Not sure what this is responding to, tbh
> > In fact, it is unsustainable to encourage illegal labor and immigration.
> Not sure what this is responding to, tbh
I think this is related to this here:
> The US economy is absolutely sustainable by paying citizens legal wages.
They do have a point there - their argument (as I read it) is that the widespread use of undocumented/illegal labor and the exploitation of these laborers in agriculture has led to an economic gridlock situation: employers make big bucks by not paying their fair share in social security and taxes, fair employers have a hard time competing on price because the cost of fair, legal labor is too high, and they cannot raise prices to a sustainable level because the consumers have no money to pay for that because they themselves don't get paid fairly.
The associated economic theory is commonly associated with the economic effects of minimum wage hikes - these lead (despite all the Corporate Whining) to economic growth because the lowest rungs of society, those actually living on minimum wage, go and immediately spend their additional money, similar to what happened with the Covid stimulus checks, while the upper levels of society hoard additional income and do not directly contribute to economic growth.
My rebuttal is that no one is arguing to encourage illegal labor and immigration.
"The US economy cannot possibly sustain the type of deportations that have been promised" is not saying "an economy cannot function without illegal labor." It is saying exactly what it says: an economy cannot sustain (i.e. remain healthy through) the mass expulsion of a huge portion of its lowest level labor force.
I made it explicitly clear that I am talking about an (almost certainly) non-permanent problem: "I also believe America will almost certainly recover from whatever dark period it's (probably) about to endure."
By analogy: The statement that the US economy cannot sustain a 90% reduction in equity values market-wide doesn't mean an economy can't exist that's 10% the size of the United States'. It doesn't mean an economy 10% of the size of the United States' can't grow to become as big or bigger than the United States'. It doesn't mean a 90% drop in equity values would delete the United States from existence.
It means that a sudden 90% drop in equity values would shock the system in intensely undesirable ways.
Mass deportations as proposed would be a gigantic shock to the system, and that shock will almost certainly make the US an undesirable trading partner for some time.
China is building new coal plants but the their utilization rate is going down and is expected to continue to go down because of all the solar, hydro, and nuclear plants they are building.
As far as stability goes, the comment above you talked about a stable trading partner, not a stable economy. China is probably more stable as a trading partner than the US is. The US changes trade policy too often.
Ah yes, Trump famously hates china,
How well did that trade war go last time he was in office? Trick question, farmers got fucked, and rational minds agree that the US lost.
>Initiating steel and aluminium tariff actions in March 2018, Trump said "trade wars are good, and easy to win,"[54] but as the conflict continued to escalate through August 2019, Trump stated, "I never said China was going to be easy."
It doesn't matter what you claim to want to do or who you claim to "hate" if your sheer incompetence prevents you from accomplishing your desire.
Maybe putting a serial business failure in charge of a trade war isn't very effective?
Biden didn't get rid of them, because it's basically impossible to unwind a trade war, and then put some more limitations on solar panels. I don't think there is a clear answer yet on Biden's addition to the trade war. Probably will be "meh".
A trade war between the US and China is almost always going to be extremely negative sum. Both of our countries rely on each other for prosperity and nice shit.
Sure, but I am commenting from a non-military, non-geopolitics, non-strategy related background: It's a stupid game. Stupid in the sense of: I don't like it, I don't want to play it, thus it's stupid.
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Russia has been striking civilian targets throughout Ukraine with ballistic missiles since the beginning of the war.
How is allowing Ukraine to use ATACMS on military targets in Russia an escalation?
That's beside the point.
It is a very clear escalation in US/European involvement. Ukraine were prohibited from using long-range western weapons to attack targets inside Russia up until now.
I'm not saying if it's right or wrong.
But it's a very clear escalation in western 'participation'. Russia have for a long time been saying that such action would be tantamount to a NATO attack, and so everyone involved surely understands that this is an escalation in the NATO-Russia face-off.
> Russia have for a long time been saying that such action would be tantamount to a NATO attack
They say this every time. When Obama sent non-lethal aid, they used the same line.
none-the-less, it is a clear escalation ON THE INVOLVEMENT OF EUROPE AND THE US in the war.
It is not that Ukraine are escalating the war by using long-range missiles. Of course Russia have been using them all along.
But it is a clear escalation in western 'participation' in the war.
So "finally replying to constant attacks" gets redefined by putin as escalation, no surprise here. Or is there any other argument I'm missing?
Well the somewhat obvious thing you’re missing is that Russia is waging a war against Ukraine, not the US or NATO.
From that follows the logical conclusion that it’s not the US’ or NATO’s job to “reply to constant attacks”, and instead getting involved in the conflict is just that — waging war against Russia.
Let me get this one: so russia and now nk waging war about whoever they please is a fact of life, while answering to that is escalation, right?
Would depend on the definition of this term "escalation" that you and many other people use. It sounds to me like a silly thing to say. Isn't it natural to try and win a war as quickly as possible?
Joining in on a war that you're not part of is a deliberate and calculated choice in the same manner starting a war is.
What exactly are we even arguing about? I think it's massively irresponsible of NATO to get involved in the war through military aid. Sanctions and humanitarian aid are one thing, but every single NATO member should have been involved in finding a peaceful way out of this conflict since 2010 or before.
If what you're saying is the opposite, that NATO should attack Russia with as much force as possible to "win the war" (that we have no business being part of in the first place), then I'll just call you crazy and move on. Enough brave soldiers have died on both sides, it's time to find a solution that ends the killing, not amplifies it.
Yes I've heard this magic solution before and it always means the Ukraine giving up and letting the orcs win. Somehow those peacenicks never propose russia going back home, isn't it ironic.
That is a very particular use of the term 'escalation' which is bound to mislead people.
Normally, if we show up at the flagpole at noon to confront each other, and you throw a punch, you have escalated things to a fistfight, and then my return punch is not an escalation. If I pull a knife, I have escalated things to a knife fight. We escalate from fist to knife to gun. Reciprocation - self defense - does not count.
The only way to torture the term into contextual use is to suggest that Russia is not firing rockets at NATO because Ukraine is not NATO, but NATO is firing rockets at Russia because all these missile systems are not Ukrainian, but NATO. This is Putin's framing, and it incorporates the idea that the missile systems are actually being manned but US & EU soldiers.
If you are not adopting that frame, "escalation" only really works if you explicitly define the context as a Great Powers proxy war with a potential nuclear endpoint, where Ukraine is stipulated for the sake of argument to have no agency.
> That is a very particular use of the term 'escalation' which is bound to mislead people.
I am not the OP, but I think your interpretation is not as obvious as you make it to be. This often leads to misunderstandings.
AFAIK military analysts use the term escalation as a morally neutral term. Escalation is anything that goes up on the 'scala' (= "ladder", the Latin root of the word). In this interpretation, D-Day would be an e_scala_tion (climbing up the ladder) simply because opening a new front means number_of_fronts_today > number_of_fronts_yesterday. In this interpretation, self-defense and escalation are not mutually exclusive.
Apparently, the term changed meaning. Many people now treat it the way you do (if I understand you correctly) as something associated with aggression. Therefore, they assume that when someone labels something like an escalation, they mean it is an act of aggression, unjustified, something you should not be allowed to do, and not morally neutral.
I am not saying you are wrong. I am just pointing out that when people talk about escalation, it is worth checking whether they mean the same escalation.
Right. URSS putting nuclear missiles in Cuba was not an escalation then.
I only learned about this a few years ago. Before the Cuban Missile Crisis (where Russia installed nuclear missiles in Cuba), the US installed nukes in Italy and Turkey. This made USSR very upset. Plus, the US was heavily meddling in Cuban domestic affairs. The first two paragraphs are very instructive here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis
My point: I think USSR (and Cuba) had a good reason to install those missiles. It wasn't an unprovoked action.
And as I understand it, part of the solution to the Cuban Missile Crisis involved the US quietly agreeing to abandon the placement of nukes in Turkey.
There is some analogy here for the Ukraine NATO situation.
Definitely! I think the obvious quid-pro-quo would be if Russia and Ukraine both agree to stop targeting anything behind the current front lines.
Arguably, this would even be in Russia's favor, given its manpower advantage. But Ukraine might agree to it to stop civilian terror and power infrastructure attacks.
If a robber is holding an innocent at gunpoint and the innocent pulls out a gun and starts pointing it at the robber, has the situation escalated?
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I mean, maybe. If the robber is using a replica firearm, the innocent may have successfully deescalated the situation.
The question in this thread is more along the lines of "if the robber shouts 'fighting back is a red line!', should we avoid fighting back?"
Whether or not the innocent should avoid fighting back and whether or not fighting back would result in an escalation are two separate questions
Only sorta; they've heavily linked.
The current war in Ukraine is a direct result of the international community not making much fuss when Russia, largely unopposed, took chunks of Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine over the last few decades.
As with appeasing Hitler, we prioritized short-term quiet for longer-term encouragement of aggression.
Ukraine is very clearly a proxy war between NATO and Russia, merely framed as a plucky country defending it's sovereignty, though it is that too, of course.
With all the backlash here, I feel like some kind of radical, but here is a BBC article from 2 DAYS AGO that basically says what I'm saying: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2nrlq1840o
Although they miss out the bit about a media campaign, and so on, of course.
This is the BBC, pretty much the mouthpiece of the UK government.
And although they frame recent actions as trying to give Ukraine an advantage in any Trump negotiations with Russia, the truth is that these missiles will probably not advance Ukraine's military position, but will certainly change Europe and America's standing, possibly to the point of derailing any possibility of negotiation.
> though [Ukraine] is [a plucky country defending it's sovereignty] too, of course
No "too"
It is only that.
If Russia retreated behind its internationally recognized borders and returned Crimea today, Ukraine would stop attacking it today.
That tells you everything you need to know about who the aggressor and escalator is in this conflict.
Anything else is a Russian talking point in service to their trying to lose fewer troops while invading a neighboring country.
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> yeah, fook off, you have nothing to say.
Oh, sorry, I was under the impression you wanted a discussion.
> edit: oh dear, a few people on HN really do not like this take, without offering any take-down
If you just wanted to complain, but not have anyone challenge your opinions, you should have phrased the above differently.
Indeed, you are right, and I apologize.
I took your comment to be a dismissive 'Russia should just retreat' directive.
Ain't gonna happen.
And The problem is, Ukraine really is not just a simple country that got invaded. It really matters, for the whole world, if we let Russia get away with aggression. It matters if we push too hard and in the chaos Russia unleashes nuclear weapons. It matters how the west conducts supposed peace-keeping operations, etc. It's reallt is not just about Ukraine, and the very fact that you (probably not Ukrainian or Russian) are commenting is evidence.
Absolutely! The thing that rubs me the wrong way is that Russia has very intentionally used nuclear sabre rattling in an attempt to limit the flow of Western military aid to Ukraine.
Unfortunately for the world, that's an extremely dangerous propaganda approach to take, because it blurs the actual red lines that Russia would resort to nuclear retaliation. (Of which Russia certainly has some! And possibly even some within Ukraine's military ability to inadvertently cross)
Trusting that "Russia never means what it says" is problematic on so many levels.
Imho, the biggest mistake in the West's approach to the entire war has been its failure to proactively announce military aid changes and the conditions that would trigger them.
It's like the West collectively forgot how to properly create deterrence in the 1960s sense.
F.ex. the West could have publicly announced "If Russia receives military aid from North Korea or Iran, in the form of ammunition or soldiers, then we will provide additional long range strike options to Ukraine and authorize their use against Russian territory."
That might have encouraged Russia to self-limit and not pursue those actions.
Instead, it's been a hamfisted, weak display of waiting for Russia to do something, then hurriedly conferring behind closed doors, then announcing a reaction.
Which... the entire point of deterrence is to cause the opponent not to take the action in the first place. >.<
"Imho, the biggest mistake in the West's approach to the entire war has been its failure to proactively announce military aid changes and the conditions that would trigger them."
Yes, exactly. Everything is justified post-hoc. It's almost as if they are deliberately treating Russia like a naughty child. The last thing we want is a tantrum.
Your link backs up what people here are trying to get across to you:
> Russia has set out “red lines” before. Some, including providing modern battle tanks and fighter jets to Ukraine, have since been crossed without triggering a direct war between Russia and Nato.
And no-one has been 'getting anything across to me', inferring that I'm 'not getting it'. They've been throwing incomplete or irrational arguments, like yours, or simply downvoting.
Sure there have been 'red lines' by Russia, and the US has continuously pushed across them.
But this one was also a US 'red line'. Consistent with keeping a proxy-war in-theater.
Why have they crossed it, now?
What do they hope it will achieve?
Most likely very little militarily.
But maybe quite a lot in shaping or constraining future US policy.
> But this one was also a US 'red line'. Consistent with keeping a proxy-war in-theater. Why have they crossed it, now?
For the same reason they crossed all the others - continued Russian aggression.
Each expansion of US aid or reduction in restrictions on how that aid is utilized has followed logically from Russian actions. Obama started with non-lethal aid; we've initially balked at every single step since that before eventually going "ok, now it's warranted".
It's very clear the US is keeping responses small and incremental to take the wind out of Russian bluster about nuclear holocaust if they do this one more little thing to piss Putin off. It's also very clear the Russian "no don't send Javelins/HIMARS/Patriots/Abrams/MiGs/F-16s/ATACMS, we'll be very mad" has lost a lot of its potency.
So what, would you say, triggered the US to cross their own red line, and a rather obvious principle of proxy warfare?
And, backtracking, how aware have you been about the situation in Ukraine, or baltic sea infrastructure, in the past few months (even year), compared to the last week? Just a marginal increment, no doubt.
> So what, would you say, triggered the US to cross their own red line...
I'd first reject the use of the term "red line" entirely for the ATACMS situation.
"No, not ever" is a red line. The Russians love issuing these for other people, but it's embarassing when they're crossed without significant consequence.
"No, not now" is not a red line. The US tends to shy away from issuing them - one of Obama's biggest mistakes was proclaiming one in Syria and then looking a bit feckless when they violated it. (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-president-bli...)
Letting Ukraine hit Russian territory with ATACMS is like the fourth or fifth expansion of how they're permitted to use that weapons system so far, as was giving them ATACMS in the first place after HIMARS (which saw a similar set of gradually reduced limitations; https://www.defensenews.com/land/2022/07/08/us-to-send-more-...).
> And, backtracking, how aware have you been about the situation in Ukraine, or baltic sea infrastructure, in the past few months (even year), compared to the last week? Just a marginal increment, no doubt.
I've closely followed the situation in Ukraine since Euromaidan.
"I'd first reject the use of the term "red line" entirely"
No doubt, but the fact is the US told Ukraine they couldn't use ATACMS to target Russia, and now, they can.
And it's really more than an incremental change in US involvement in the war. The fact that Ukrainians are supposedly operating these weapons is almost incidental.
I tell my kids they can’t play on their phones yet. They have homework to do.
It would be silly to claim, that evening, that I violated my own red line by letting them have phone time after dinner.
You continue to mix up “not now” and “not ever”.
But they didn't say you can't play on your phones yet.
They said you may not use phones for social media. At all.
And then changed their mind.
Here is a BBC article from 2 DAYS AGO that basically says what I'm saying
Which says nothing at all about the conflict being "a proxy war".
nitpick.
It exactly states that Biden might be stirring things up in anticipation of Trump sueing for a freeze.
Which still says nothing about the conflict being fundamentally a proxy war.
I mean the fact that the US is dictating what can and cannot happen in the war makes is a proxy war almost by definitiion.
But the article itself addresses only the context of ATACMS. Not whether the US is "dictating what can and cannot happen in the war" generally.
Either way -- according the definition in Wikipedia, it is a proxy because one side is strongly supported by an external power. Sounds reasonable, and I can go with it (on at least a technical basis).
Where people go wrong (not saying you here) is when they accept the term "proxy war" and assume (or insinuate) that it means or supports the idea that Ukraine is simply a puppet state, not really fighting out of its own motivations.
The USA, UK and France approving the use of the long-range missiles was described as a response to Russia using North Korean soldiers.
A fair point, but described by who?
And was this just a post-hoc justification, or had the western powers declared that they would retaliate if Russia involved other armies?
In any case, surely the 'punishment' should be directed at North Korea?
Why should it be directed at North Korea?
North Korean troops are helping Russia invade Ukraine (by freeing up Russian garrison troops to participate in their offensive).
Ergo, redress is something that helps Ukraine resist the military advantage North Korean involvement gives Russia -- e.g. being able to target Russian military targets supporting the invasion, in Russia.
> In any case, surely the 'punishment' should be directed at North Korea?
The problem is at least as much Russia inviting NK as North Korea positively responding, aiding Ukraine works against all the belligerents aligned against it, NK as well as Russia, and the North Koreans in Russia are not protected by the Armistice the way North Koreans on the Korean peninsula are.
North Korean soldiers that mysteriously have yet to materialize in a fashion that isn't blatant propaganda.
> are escalating the war (they started, with the long-range missiles),
Wrong. Using long range missiles is not an escalation. Russia has been using them against Ukrainian lands for years now. Why shouldn't Ukraine be allowed to use them against Russian land?
No, you are wrong.
Russia are at war with Ukraine, so they are bombing them. Ukraine have every right to reply with their own long range weapons too, and that would indeed not be an escalation in the fighting itself.
But, the west clearly prohibited the use of their donated long range weapons in direct attacks on Russia, in order to limit their liability, responsibility, 'participation' or whatever, until now.
Russia have been very clear that such permission would constitute an escalation OF WESTERN 'PARTICIPATION' in the war, and even be tantamount to a direct NATO attack, and so it is at least an escalation.
Whether it is right or wrong is not the point, it is a clear change in the depth of western involvement.
> right to reply with their own
This seems like an arbitrary line [0] drawn exactly where it suits your argument. How does having North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia stay on the right side of that line? What about any components that originated outside of Russia but are employed in Russian weaponry or equipment (for example chips)? The information war is a part of "the war", is an "official" non-Russian hacker or troll crossing the line? Or a non-Russian boat or crew employed for acts of sabotage.
[0] It can be fair to draw an arbitrary line, at least you know it's straight and will intersect whatever is unfortunate to be in its way regardless of the side you prefer. But you're trying to draw tiny arbitrary circles around whatever you don't like and that's feeble.
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> The rules of that game are that you keep the conflict within the theater, or risk a world war. That was already breached by Ukrainian incursions into Russia...
In what insane alternate Marvel universe is Russia not part of the Russo-Ukrainian War theater?
The line isn't clear, because there is no line. These lines you keep bringing up are just gamesmanship. Nothing changes because any of them are crossed. The war was fully escalated when they invaded. Ukraine has every right to attack targets in Russia. Russia and everyone else is just posturing to hopefully extract advantages. Everybody is trying to figure out what they can get away with that doesn't negatively impact them. When Trump won the situation changed for the current administration. Do you believe Russia wouldn't use nukes if it would strengthen Russia? Do you believe Europe and the US wouldn't have immediately shut down the invasion if Russia wasn't a nuclear power.
You don't think use of nukes constitutes any kind of 'line'?
> Russia have been very clear that such permission would constitute an escalation OF WESTERN 'PARTICIPATION' in the war, and even be tantamount to a direct NATO attack, and so it is at least an escalation.
Since the war started, Russia has moved their red lines dozens of times. The “escalation” argument lost it's meaning.
This is the US crossing their own 'red lines'.
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Public opinion is being manipulated hard, the U.S. just closed down its embassy in Kyiv:
Russia will not stop taking its land in Kursk back because the Americans tell them to do so, this is just Western delusion, and, as I've said before on this forum, a complete misunderstanding coming from the Westerners on how Russia operates.
> devastating sanctions
Devastating for Europe, you mean.
I'm very curious, can any European here, or perhaps a German for specificity, tell me whether they believe these sanctions have harmed Russia more than Europe?
Also it would be better if any Russians here could answer a similar question
German here. Yes, it seems pretty obvious these sanctions have harmed Russia more than Europe.
Russia: inflation around 8-9%.
EU: inflation around 2%.
That's not a result of sanction, simply Russia spends 40% of its budget on the war, and Europe spends nothing.
Thank you for the information. I believe that only those who are there can truly describe the situation there, beyond what I read in the media
Recently, a professor I know wrote an article about his impressions of Russia and Germany when he attended meetings in both countries.
Can you help to check what he said?
> Macroeconomic data indicates that the European economy is not doing well, but the economic conditions I experienced during my days in Berlin could be described as depression. What surprised me the most was that there were not many people or cars on the streets of Berlin during the daytime on weekdays. Berlin in early October is not yet cold, but the desolate feeling on the streets does not match the image of the capital of Europe's largest economy. Europe's inflation, which started later than in the United States, has also clearly hurt the lives of the people, which was my perception from conversations with taxi drivers during my rides.
> the European economy
Any time you see "European" used in an argument... run away. Europe is a continent. It is huge and varied. There are 27 countries in the EU and further 23 more countries in the European continent. It is very, very hard to generalise about "Europe". Albania and Norway are both in Europe, and, yet, they could not be further apart in terms of human and economic development.
I live in Berlin. Judging Berlin by the traffic on the streets is silly.
Berlin has the lowest car ownership of any Germany city. Part of that is the excellent public transit. Another part is the extensive network of bike paths (combined with flat topography).
Trains run from 04:30-00:30 on weekdays. On weekends they run 24 hours a day.
During rush hour the trains come every five minutes, and the cars are standing room only. (I checked a couple of hours ago.)
As for weekends, why would you drive a car to a beer garden when you can take BVG and talk with your friends on the way?
[Also, Berlin in October is normally f*ing cold. This year was a freakish exception.]
Yes, inflation was pretty high in 22 and 23, that hurt a lot of people.
But his claim of a "desolate feeling on the streets" being an indication of "economic conditions ... could be described as depression" read like badly written propaganda. There's nothing to be checked there, just some vague feelings. Berlin isn't as crowded as he expected, so the only explanation is that nobody can afford a car and half the population is sitting at home wallowing in misery due to economic depression? Really?
Also, here's the sections about Russia, hope any locals can help to check this
> (In Vladivostok) War typically leads to a rise in prices. Several Russian sources have reported that compared to two and a half years ago, current prices have roughly doubled, and housing prices have also increased significantly. However, it is somewhat comforting that the wages of most people have also increased proportionally, so people's lives have not been greatly affected so far. The supply of goods on the market is still quite abundant. Due to financial sanctions from the US and Europe, as well as multinational corporations, many brands' products and services are no longer available in the Russian market. Nevertheless, this does not prevent Russian citizens from drinking cola or eating American fast food. It is said that these brands have localized, but the products remain essentially unchanged: for example, the taste of Russian cola is not significantly different from Coca-Cola, as they can purchase the concentrate from third countries and mix it themselves.
> The official unemployment rate published by Russia is only 2%, and I believe this data is likely accurate. The reasons are not only because the war itself requires the hiring of a large number of young people, but also due to the wealth redistribution, increased consumption, and robust production that the war has brought about. Russia is a country with severe wealth disparity, where the lower classes traditionally lack money for consumption. This war has provided an opportunity for lower-income families to obtain cash flow: by sending their sons or husbands to the battlefield, families can receive a one-time subsidy of nearly 500,000 yuan. Even prisoners in jail can receive this benefit. This sum of money, equivalent to targeted transfer payments and proactive fiscal policies aimed at the poor, has given lower- and middle-income families a chance to gamble their lives for money. This has led to cases where some people join the military to escape punishment and receive subsidies, serve for a year, return home, and then reoffend and go to jail again, relying on a second enlistment to escape punishment and receive another subsidy.
> The increased cash flow among the lower-income population has led to a surge in consumer demand, and the robust production of military goods has also stimulated employment, income, and consumption. While the products of military industry are indeed consumed on the battlefield, for the macroeconomy, what matters is the flow rather than the stock; production and consumption are meaningful in themselves. As for whether the produced goods are expended as shells and missiles on the battlefield or become paper wealth on the other side of the ocean as export commodities, there is no fundamental difference for the current macroeconomic operation.
There are rumors circulating on Chinese self-media about how much the ruble has depreciated on the black market in Russia. I specifically went to restaurants and other consumer venues in Vladivostok to test for any significant difference between the official and black market exchange rates by using US dollars and Chinese yuan for payment. However, neither Russian-run nor Chinese-run restaurants offered discounts for payment in US dollars or Chinese yuan cash. This phenomenon is usually sufficient to debunk rumors about the Russian ruble black market.
The current social mood in Russia is relatively stable, which may be due not only to a decent economic foundation but also to strict control over public opinion. According to our research feedback, even in private settings, if colleagues or neighbors make remarks against Putin or the war, and are reported, those who oppose the war or Putin may face legal troubles.
Did the source also mention that the low unemployment is in no small part due to the would-be workforce going to the frontlines, and also a huge initial wave of emigration to other countries among those privileged enough to own a passport.
And a lot of them are killed, so can't occupy a job anymore
The professor is correct.
As a European, I can say that the sanctions did harm European economies, which is reflected in various political Eu government crises.
It is hard to know how much Russia has been harmed, because both sides probably exaggerate the figures.
I wonder whether "more harm" is the right question. The question should be whether the sanctions have any impact on Russia's war economy, which they do not. If anything, they make Russia more independent and strengthen Russian ties with China and India.
This is all to the detriment of the EU, the only one here who profits is the U.S. by making the EU more dependent.
> It is hard to know how much Russia has been harmed, because both sides probably exaggerate the figures.
> The question should be whether the sanctions have any impact on Russia's war economy, which they do not
Ruble is below a single penny.
Interest rates are at 21%, highest since 2003.
Inflation is out of control.
> they make Russia more independent and strengthen Russian ties with China and India.
ah, so that's why Putin went to North Korea to beg for troops and ammunition?
According to the IWF, 2024 inflation is 7.9% and GDP growth 3.6%:
I do not believe the German inflation numbers. Health care got 30% more expensive with more hikes coming, rents are exploding, groceries are 20% higher since 2022.
My healthcare has not gotten up 30%.
From my recent visits to Lidl, groceries have massively fallen in price. Last year my shopping bill was ~70 EUR, yesterday and the weeks before it is around ~50 EUR. I'd even say groceries are cheaper than before (eggs, oatmeal, apples,...).
Energy prices in Germany with my provider have dropped two times in a row and I got a letter this week announcing a new drop in prices on the 1st of January 2025.
The only thing that is too expensive is Döner. And here, several shops have closed to be replaced by new ones with lower prices, now that groceries (also frying oil) and energy are cheaper again.
I don't know about the Russian GDP, one would assume the growth is mostly from increasing weapon production and from replacing Western imports with in-country production. I don't think Russia is spontanously more productive. Both do not make life easier for people.
One example on energy [0]
From 1.1.2025 on:
29,60 ct/kWh down from 38,22 ct/kWh (-23%)
These consumer side sanctions are idiotic. When a Russian buys a European beer, he spends money which goes from Russia to Europe, and in addition he damages his health.
On the other side, Europe buys billions of dollars of oil and gas from Russia. That money goes in the opposite direction, from Europe to Russia, and is used toward soldier salaries, Iran drones and North Korean mercenaries.
Maybe true for the Netherlands, I apologize, I meant all of EU.
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Neither will Ukraine try to take their territory back as much as sycophants and dictator-appeasers think Ukraine have no agency
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It doesn’t even really stop anything right? Communications just have to route around it and use other cables and satellites. It just seems like Russia wants to be annoying.
Destroying the gas pipeline between Estonia and Finland did take it out for like six months. I think it may have had some negative impact on Estonian electricity prices during that time.
Could this disturb crypto operations in any way?
Not really. If the internet works, sending and using crypto works and it doesn’t use much bandwidth.
The ship was sailing from Russia and the captain is Russian. Using a Chinese ship is a good trick from Putin.
As for the core of your question: there is no benefit, it's just his mentality. "The West" supports Ukraine so let's just do some harm, retaliate in some way. Burn some buildings here and there, plants some inflammable materials on airplanes etc. Pointless for you and me, meaningful for that guy.
"So - according to Russian federal port records, the Chinese ship suspected of cutting the communications cables in the Baltic Sea was captained by a Russian citizen (one Stechentsev A.E.). Interestingly Yui Peng 3 was only transferred to its current owner in China earlier this month.
The ship is carrying goods/oil from Ust-Luga in Russia, to Port Said in Egypt. Same captain also comandeered URSUS ARCTOS also carrying goods from Ust-Luga to Egypt. Mapped using
@SensusQ
. "
Ursus arctos, the scientific name of the brown bear. The name of that ship can't be more Russian LOL
Hard to say. They will claim this is only Flag of convenience as they are caught. However China still has the opportunity to say that this is something for their law enforcement to take care of not international, and then give the captain "a slap on the wrist".
What we don't know is if China knew they were going to try this beforehand or not. Flag of Convenience is common enough that we can't be sure. This could have been planned on the high level from China and we would never know - something conspiracy theorists will run with! If China knew they would probably give the crew a sever punishment, but unofficially it is for getting caught and not doing the act. Most likely though China didn't know before hand.
Ok there's all the signalling between states that breaking a cable has. That also works for false flag operations, or true flag operations while making it look like a false flag operation (etc).
But also, cutting these cables doesn't stop communications. There are other land and undersea routes, and maybe terrestrial radio/satellite routes as well. You might damage these cables so that communications travel other routes which are more observable (or less observable). Or you might damage these cables so you can modify them elsewhere to enhance observability before they're repaired (or as part of the repair process).
Or it could be a training mission for your elite squad of cable biting sharks.
Lots of potential for intrigue here.
Look up 'Grey Zone Conflict': Destroying another country's assets is generally an act of war, but obviously this incident falls short of causing a war. That is the 'grey zone', a prominent feature of current international relations and a major focus of the defense of the democratic world and international order, including in the US military.
The international order is often called the 'US-led rules-based interntional order'. Russia, China, and some others dislike the first element, of course. The second element refers to the legal, rules-based structure (rather than power-based anarchy, which led to the centuries or millennia of war before the 'order' was created post-WWII). Aggressive international warfare is outlawed, for example; if France and Germany have a dispute, there is no question of violence - they use a legal structure to resolve it, which wasn't always true!
Grey zone activities accomplish illegal things without reprocussions. And therefore they also serve the goal of undermining the international order by demonstrating its powerlessness in these situations. In some ways, it's like trolling.
Russia uses grey zone tactics heavily - for example, they used them to capture Crimea (which was before the clear act of war, their 2022 invasion). They use them to run destabilizing 'grey zone' campaigns throughout the world, including directly interfering in elections. The tactics suit Russia in particular because they cannot compete miltarily with the democratic world.
China uses them too, for example using their 'coast guard' and 'civilian' 'fishing boats' to attack (up to a point) and intimidate ships from other countries in the South China Sea. If China used their navy, it would possibly be acts of war. A Chinese coast guard ship shooting water cannon at a fishing boat, though illegal in international waters, isn't going to start a war. 'Civilian' 'fishing' boats from China blockading access to a reef won't either.
Edit:
Before you look at Russia and China and other Grey Zone actors as miscreants, understand that it's just the normal behavior of 'revisionist' powers - those who want to change the current rules. The current rules serve the interests of the 'status quo' powers, who get all self-righteous about 'illegal' activities.
In a more common situation on HN, think of IP outsiders, who break the 'rules' made by major IP holders, such as DMCA or those extending copyright for decades or restricting access to scientific knowledge - the IP holders want the status quo and call violations 'theft' and the outsiders 'criminals', etc. If the US wasn't a status quo power, they'd be doing grey zone things.
(That doesn't at all justify Russia and China's goals of stealing land, oppressing people's freedoms, and solving problems through violence.)
> The international order is often called the 'US-led rules-based interntional order'.
There's the actual international law (and the UN) and there's the US-led rules-based international order (ie, what the US wants basically). They're completely at odds - often times the US (and Israel or a couple of other minor countries) vote against or simply flout whatever the rest of the UN wants.
The US is king of Grey zone actions. Random drone strikes, funding insurgency and terror groups, invading countries without international approval, blockading Cuba, etc. - the list is very long.
So when the US complains about Russia doing similar things (often responding to provocation by the US or NATO), the complaints can easily be filed in the "hypocrisy bin".
> There's the actual international law (and the UN) and there's the US-led rules-based international order (ie, what the US wants basically).
Those are the same 'order', the same thing. The UN and international law are unquestionable, essential parts of the international order.
> often times the US (and Israel or a couple of other minor countries) vote against or simply flout whatever the rest of the UN wants.
Agreed, as I discussed in the GP: the US and its partners often violate those rules and let themselves off the hook, as status quo powers tend to do. It doesn't excuse it at all, but that's not inconsistent with the rules-based order.
Also, with a veto on UN Security Council decisions, if the US votes against something then it's not law.
Russia engages in random drone strikes, funding insurgency and terror groups, invading countries without international approval, blockading Ukraine, etc. - the list is very long. Indeed, russia appears to be king of grey zone actions.
So when russia complains about the US doing similar things (often responding to provocation by russia), the complaints can easily be filed in the "hypocrisy bin".
You have to look deeper into what kind of government has a problem with an international rule-based order. It is not the democratic countries with trias politica that have a problem with that, but autocratic regimes.
How are you going to ethnically cleanse Uyghurs in a rule based order, or run international crime networks at the level of statehood?
Answer is: you can't, unless the common people take ownership over their own countries. Very difficult.
Just a reality check: the United States is currently funding and providing military equipment to Israel, who is carrying out an ethnic cleansing in the Gaza strip. Apparently, democratic governments also have a problem following the rules.
With the far right on the rise, the rules will disappear, because their ideology is "might makes right". That is the mindset of a maffia boss. War and conflict will follow, those who are not powerful enough get trampled.
You seem to be under the assumptions that the rules based international order is a real thing that is being thwarted by Mafia regimes and right wing ideology. First, America is a Mafia regime, under Democrats or Republicans. Many of the biggest Biden donors in 2020 have switched to donating to Trump, not because of ideology, but because they think Trump will be better vessel for their interests. And second, the rules based international order never existed in reality and never will exist because large force welding states will always have disagreements that will sometimes result in violent conflict.
The USA is indeed sliding backwards. State and business interests are getting even more intertwined. There is blindness about that, sure. That might make you feel depressed. Don't turn into a nihilist, as that is nothing more than giving your neck to the butcher.
I also assume you don´t want to know what a non rule based international order will look like. Things are depressing, but can get worse than where we are now.
Society needs to get their act together, but also desperately needs a healthy debate. Corporate media effectively block that, they rather sell the Politeia as entertainment. Still, the onus is on the people.
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> You have to look deeper into what kind of government has a problem with an international rule-based order. It is not the democratic countries with trias politica that have a problem with that, but autocratic regimes.
The democratic countries follow the pattern of status quo powers. Is that because they are democratic or because they are status quo, or some of both?
The rules are of the status quo powers (matching their political cultures), by the status quo powers, for the status quo powers. Of course they follow those rules and support them. The rules seem to require a country to be a democracy to be legitimate - I agree with that as necessary to legitimacy (not sufficient), but obviously that doesn't suit non-democratic countries.
And like status quo powers, when they break the rules - most prominently the US many times, such as the Iraq war; the EU treatment of refugees and undocumented immigrants; and currently by Israel with US sponsorship - then they let themselves off the hook. They engineer technicalities, such as the weak UN resolution arguably authorizing the Iraq invasion; or just look the other way. They say they can't be handcuffed etc. (And some of those actions may be the right choice - I'm not judging - but they certainly violate the rules.)
> The rules are of the status quo powers (matching their political cultures), by the status quo powers, for the status quo powers
That might seem so, and all individuals have some degree of hypocrisy at times, the more a body of multiple countries. Without rules this devolves into warring tribes and fiefdoms, a lesson the societies in the west had learned themselves.
Everyone is invited to be critical and keep your representatives in check. When the people speak loud and clear about what they accept and what not, representatives will have to listen.
If you have rights, use it or lose it.
I will add that Western elites were handcuffed by those international rules, it went against their interests. So no, it is also a self-restriction. The west certainly did have the power to exploit other countries, but instead self-restricted by abolishing colonies.
There are certainly cases of ifs and buts, but the whole idea is that you stand by your values.
You mentioned the US making transgressions. That they get this room internally is certainly a problem of society and the state of ethics. Let´s not devolve in relativism, it will make things worse!
I generally agree; I'm not saying the status quo power - the US-led rules-based international order - is completely corrupt. They do follow the rules sufficientlty to have legitimacy, and there are many good things in those rules, such as univeral human rights, which have accomplished good outcomes. Overall, the world from WWII to about 2015 was the 'best' it's ever been - an explosion of freedom, security, and prosperity.
At the same time, there is some of the same status-quo-power corruption going on.
> Overall, the world from WWII to about 2015 was the 'best' it's ever been - an explosion of freedom, security, and prosperity.
Good point. If we do not halt the corrupting forces we will loose out on the above.
Not like the US follows rules it tells others to follow. Hypocrite in charge.
Prof. Stephen Kotkin — an historian who wrote multiple extensive biographies on Stalin — calls the Russian regime a "gangster regime".*
Once you see them as gangsters, it's not difficult to see why they would do this.
*A full link with exact timestamp of Kotkin saying this is [1]. Here he talks about why Merkel kept making oil deals with Putin even though in hindsight this was probably not the best idea. Kotkin argues that, yes, according to econ 101 trade is good for both parties, but not when the opposite party is a gangster. Merkel thought that Putin was thinking like her, but he wasn't.
It should be noted that Putin was personally an enforcer for St Petersburg's mayor Anatoly Sobchak[1] in the early 1990s, and his "circle of friends" from that time now mans key positions of the entire government. For example, Viktor Zolotov[2], Sobchak's bodyguard and Putin's judo partner, is now in charge of National Guard, despite not having qualifications for the job.
Russia is literally run buy thugs who ran protection rackets not so long ago. So there's much more to this than just a fitting figure of speech. Someone from the worst parts of LA would be better equipped to understand and deal with such people than those who spent their teens and early adulthood playing Model UN at a foreign relations club.
One theme of cyberpunk is that Russia remains a gangster regime in the future. William Gibson's "Kombinat".
This is basically Russian retaliation for US providing Ukraine with ATACMS and first Ukrainian attack using ATACMS.
The "retaliation" against US is to disrupt communications between.. Finland and Germany?
Applying the same logic, Ukraine should retaliate against Russia for bombing their hospitals with an attack on.. Iranian civilian infrastructure? Did I get that right?
Russia is fighting "Western fascists" and NATO. Don't try to understand this.
Russia's regime pretends to be fighting those entities. It's real enemy is simply independent Ukraine with its currently recognized borders.
This is entirely straighforward. Nothing that requires any struggle to understand.
Newnew shipping signed huge contract with Rosatom.
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Tit-for-tat response to the NS2 bombing.
Assuming it bears out that the Russian state is the perpetrator.
The CCP thanks the expendable crew for their sacrifice. May they continue to suck the resources of their new host countries for many years to come.
Given that ships often cut undersea internet cables and China has the biggest export economy, doesn't it make sense that the most likely country to accidentally cut an internet cable would be a Chinese trade ship?
On average, it seems like undersea internet cables break 200+ times per year.
For example, Vietnam's internet cables break on average 10 times per year.
What would be the motivation for a Chinese trade ship to deliberately cut an internet cable? It has next to no impact on internet communication and only serves to annoy a small amount of people for a short period of time. In addition, China and Europe are trying to have a better relationship in general so it doesn't make sense for the Chinese government to order this.
I could believe that cutting one cable was an accident. But two, by the same ship, 60 miles apart?
Absolutely no way this wasn't intentional.
The question then becomes why did they do it in a way where they would be caught
>What would be the motivation for a Chinese trade ship to deliberately cut an internet cable?
Money. Russia is reportedly bribing people into doing sabotage in western nations.
There's also reports that Yi Peng 3 is captained by a Russian national, which would also be another reason for a Chinese trade ship to conduct sabotage operations beneficial to Russia.
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> What would be the motivation for a Chinese trade ship to deliberately cut an internet cable?
The most charitable reason is that they don't give a fluck. Same reason why their rocket boosters just fall wherever they fall, population center or not
Why would destabilising europe before peace talks be beneficial? Seems like they would lose a lot of leverage.
So how long ago were US long-range missiles used to attack Russia?
Because that's what seems to be claimed here, that Russia are retaliating for that.
How long does it take a ship to travel to a 'suspicious' site like this?
versus, how long does it take to intercept the nearest Russian ship, and escort it away as a spy ship and 'potential saboteur'?
The info that the Biden administration would greenlight this, should have been known in Moscow for weeks now. I assume the news arrive later only for us - the public.
So you're saying the spy-saboteur ships have been hanging around, or en route to sensitive areas for weeks, waiting for this to drop?
But only now are they being very publicly outed and moved on?
Title could be a lot more descriptive. Your average reader might scroll on by because that title makes no sense without context.
> Social media reports said that the vessel had a Russian captain, although this has not been independently confirmed.
Yi Peng 3 has been stopped in the Kattegat with Danish navy ships around it for about 11 hours now. Currently HDMS Søløven is anchored right next to it. HDMS Hvidbjørnen was also not too far away before its signal went dark.
To be less ambiguous in word choice, they jammed a satellite from the ground. Russians used a ground based dish to spoof a TV station signal to a repeater satellite, causing TV stations near Ukraine to go down and show an interference error. I'm just clarifying because "sabotage" could mean any number of more costly and damaging things, like a spy loosening a bolt before launch or something. https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2544558-verantwoording-en-b...
>Last ports: Murmansk - Port Said - Luga Bay (never docked, Ust-Luga, Russia)
All the way to Luga and decided to not dock. Large cargo ship pleasure wandering the sea like a yacht.
This is the 2nd time China did this in that Baltic isn't it? Both times look intentional.. maybe don't allow Chinese ships in the Baltic?
No it isn't.
Both of the two Chinese registries are open, pretty much anyone can register ships there. It's a bit like the .tv domain — if you see something.tv you can't assume that it's a company in the country Tuvalu.
Look at the nationality of the captain and the beneficial owner instead.
And as a result .tv domains are not exactly trusted and can't be used for all the things reputable domains can be used for.
IIRC abuse correlates closely with the price of registration for the first year, and poorly or not at all with how open the registration policy is.
Right. So they might need some motivation to change that.
what are you implying?
how do you intend to "motivate" a sovereign country?
Inform them of consequences if they don't make your, hopefully reasonable, changes.
Consequences can range from inconvenient to existential.
Imperialist behaviour won't get you anywhere with a country as large as China.
That would not swing.
Denmark controls the waters of the seaway to Sct. Petersburg and Kaliningrad that are some of the strategically most important ports of Russia.
Blocking of traffic to these would be a severe escalation.
Regularly Russian subs pass through Danish waters - controlled and allowed.
I'd consider the serious escalation of offensive (cowardly) acts were carried out by Russia many many years ago repeatedly, increasingly, throughout Europe (elsewhere too), with mild consequences. Got seriously unabashed escalating further. Being cautious with the nazi Germany blew into the face of the World, will definitely not work with the imperialist Russia either. China acts on behalf of Russia here - Russia being coward for open confrontation with anyone (believed by them) able hitting back hard. China has secondary benefits for self as well.
Was it Shakespeare who wrote “Discretion is the better part of valor”? That level of cynicism might be appropriate here. The cowardice is on the European side, surely?
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Damaging infrastructure is already a severe escalation. Should not have done that.
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Not American - I'm Polish. I've got friends who got drafted already (if only for training) so it's entirely possible I'll join them eventually.
My take is that Russia's plan is to continue sabotaging and a weak (or lack of) response to that only emboldens them.
Also nuclear war with what? Their recent Satan II ICBM test demonstrated that they don't necessarily have the technical chops to launch anything sufficiently capable and it must have come as a surprise to them as well.
On the contrary, chilling would endanger everyone living the in the free world even further.
Nuclear war is not a realistic concern, luckily. If it was, it would have happened after the first "red line" Russia claimed the west had crossed.
We were chill since 2014 if not earlier. It brought nothing but pain both to Ukrainians and to us in the West. It doesn’t work.
It's high time for the West to man up and solve the Russian problem once and for all.
How severe an escalation would it be?
As severe as... say starting the largest war in Europe since WW2 right at our doorstep? Or as damaging our critical infrastructure? Or manipulating our democratic processes?
It's time the West pulls its head out of its ass. We're already at war, whether we want it or not.
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I don't think I have a cause. I'd like to not be constantly attacked by foreign adversaries, is that a cause? But if attacks happen, we can't just ignore them because hitting back might make the abuser more mad.
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Am I missing something, or do you post peacenik appeasement demands under every HN submission? It's such a radically stupid position that I'm legitimately starting to think you're a Russian propagandist. Why would any rational country appease a madman? Because people like you write internet comments about pissing your pants?
If we reach the "to [sic] late YOLO" stage it won't matter what options we picked. That's why appeasement is a fundamentally pointless idea that the US has refused for decades. If you even once play the "give a mouse a cookie" game you will end up surrendering everything to a power that can threaten you with nuclear terrorism. Only a moron would appease Russia in this scenario.
I could be anyone except you. I don't see the relevance in speculating about that.
The US have no qualms appeasing Netanyahu. Biden and his party was even fine arguably losing the election over it. I don't see any contradiction there.
Russia and the US from time to time more or less arbitrarily bombs or invades some other country.
I guess Russia's Holywood need to make better movies depicting their own soldiers as victims of their own wars. Still glorying though. There is work to be done there for sure. The two I've seen depicted soldiers as pathetic losers.
I mean, trying to economically, socially and culturally isolate the US would probably make it wreck even more mayhem over the world than trying to have cultural exchange, be nice, and what not. And when this fails not throwing yourself on a spike might be preferable.
> The US have no qualms appeasing Netanyahu.
The US didn't give Israel Mandatory Palestine - Britain did. America selling arms to Israel is a moot point, and if we want to compare like-to-like then Russia is guilty of the exact same thing with India. But neither situation is an appeasement in the first place, so it's a plainly facetious argument.
> Russia and the US from time to time more or less arbitrarily bombs or invades some other country.
America hasn't arbitrarily invaded any country since the Philippines. Comparing bombings to occupation of a sovereign nation is a faux-pas that reveals you aren't arguing in good faith. They are drastically different things and anyone with a serious perspective of military escalation understands this. I pity you for not recognizing that these are incomparable situations and suggest that you reflect on whether or not this kind of judgement is worth sharing online. Every comment I've read from you repeats the same fearful tone without suggesting a serious response besides giving Russia what they want. You are either falling for propaganda or a blatant mouthpiece yourself.
> trying to economically, socially and culturally isolate the US would probably make it wreck even more mayhem over the world than trying to have cultural exchange, be nice, and what not
A perspective you could only possibly possess if you were economically, socially and culturally isolated from the rest of the world. Or is India and Iran enough to keep Putin company? Some world "superpower" Russia is.
The US didn't give Israel Mandatory Palestine - Britain did.
Well, Britain didn't quite "give" all of Mandatory Palestine, or any of it technically, to the Zionists.
What it did do was first, proactively set a firm date -- at midnight on April 14/15 1948 -- for the Mandate to expire (which it needed to expire soon anyway as the UN was poised to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of the League of Nations). And agree to a pull-out of its forces around the vicinity of the date. Which, while not amounting to a transfer of sovereignty as such to the Zionists, amounted to telling them "have at it", basically.
It had also provided the Zionists with a "moral" mandate that there be some kind of "Jewish home" in Palestine, though that came earlier through various steps (including of course the Balfour declaration). By that time though, the Zionists strill controlled only something like 13 percent of the territory as such.
America hasn't arbitrarily invaded any country since the Philippines.
> Regularly Russian subs pass through Danish waters - controlled and allowed.
I've always wondered how subs handle tidal flows there, and how challenging the tidal flows are.
What I don’t understand - if the yi peng was intentionally trying to damage the FO cables, why would they not spoof or disable their AIS data/broadcast (ship tracking transponder which is the source of this positioning data we see).
Anyone have some insight on that?
AIS is required for large ships in many if not most jurisdictions, to have it turned off is suspicious in itself. If you turn it off then re-appear later on somewhere else having had to traverse the area where the cables where at the time they got damaged, that's suspicious. You could turn it off in port, head out, cut the cables then return and turn it on again, but the window of time you had it off would straddle the cable damage time, and there's a high chance you would have been documented (video, radio traffic) leaving port in that time, and depending on the departure port it may be hard to leave without AIS on as the authorities may notice.
fishing boats and military often have it off btw.
fishing boats turn it off when they're in places they're not supposed to fish
Chinese fishing boats specifically.
Spanish also. And probably many other, seems a common trick.
YESS!! Finally a bsky link instead of X. Hope this is how it is from now on.
Looks suspicious, but there were 4 vessels in the area whose transponder signal was lost by public trackers during that night.
It has also been pointed out that this is a location with lively traffic. So if it turns out that is was an anchor (as in the New New Polar Bear case) that's extra suspicious because anchoring in such location is not normal. On the other hand if it were explosives like in the Nord Stream case, they could have been applied also weeks before.
It looks like that the pilot ship Styrbjoern [1] came along side the Yi Peng 3 today. It traveled from the harbor of Grenaa to the ship and back. It possible that they took some people in for questioning or put a pilot and/or guards on the ship.
On November 21, 2024, 6:35 UTC: It looks like the pilot ship Styrbjoern is traveling in the direction of the Yi Peng 3 bulk carrier again.
C-Lion -> Sea Lion, but not the IDE from JetBrains.
Going from fishing illegally in south american waters to damaging internet cables in Europe.
Should be very easy to verify if this was the cause.
All you have to do at this point is go look at the cable near the crossings.
If there is evidence of an anchor hitting the cables in both of these locations then you've got pretty clear proof.
Someone should obviously be checking into this right now. No point speculating until it's confirmed really.
I guess you might still want to board just to find out weather there is any evidence of intent rather than negligence in the case that this is confirmed to be the cause...
At best fall guy captain will claim ignorance, malfunction, or negligence. Retire or move to some cushy job.
No one will want to implicate China in something that would support Russia's war and would all be afraid of the economic fallout.
This is not how ship registration works. A useful model is to think of a ship's flag like a tld, just because a site is .cn doesn't mean the company is based out of China. Ships usually fly one flag or another based on tax and legislative reasons, and it's often unrelated to the country of origin.
The ship suspected of breaking the cables has been apprehended and it turns out it was currently sailing from Russia with a Russian captain [0].
> The speed of cargo ship Yi Peng 3 was affected negatively as she passed the 2 Baltic Sea cable breaks C-Lion 1 and BSC.
> Before the incidents she held normal speeds. After stopping and drifting for 70 minutes she again held normal speeds. By this time the two cables were broken.
> No. I checked the 5 most close ships heading the same way. They did not slow down similarly in the same wind. The ship most closely resembling Yi Peng 3 actually sped up. The Lady Hanneke.
Some additional information:
- Putin calls the region "NATO Lake"
- German Defense Minister has called the line failure sabotage
- Danish Naval ships are now shadowing Yi Peng
It's unlikely that all information will become public in any meaningful time. I assure you, *someone* is checking on this and verifying. But as is common with many acts like this one side is operating on (not so) "plausible deniability" while the other is just not going to publicly declare an accusation but continue to watch more closely. It's like when a mob boss says "it would be a shame if something were to happen". This isn't evidence in of itself, but contextually it is suspicious as hell.
The other part is that explicit accusations create a lot of political tensions. Obviously so does the actual act of sabotage. But definitive proof is quite difficult to actually reach. Unless there is literally a letter on that captain's desk from a military leader ordering the action (a "smoking gun") then it is easy to just blame the captain and/or crew, as Hank mentions. After all, a country should not be blamed for the actions of individual citizens not made with the direction of that country, though it is also important that countries hold their citizens accountable. Accusations will more depend on how hawkish the leaders are. Obviously all countries play games like this, but certainly some are more aggressive than others. One major country loves to play the victim card while creating "red lines" which violate international laws. So take it as you will
I read somewhere that the captain is Russian. What a surprise.
Crowdsourced military intelligence offers some hope for the future.
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Do we need to get James Cameron and associates to design a DitchWitch that can operate at 2 miles down? How deep can ship anchors go?
> Cable ships also use “plows” that are suspended under the vessel. These plows use jets of high-pressure water to bury cable three feet (0.91 m) under the sea floor, which prevents fishing vessels from snagging cables as thrall their nets.
So when did they start using these and why are we still having issues?
We still have issues for the same reasons buried power, water, gas etc. lines still do. It isn’t a perfect fix.
Botswana is well in the top half of least-corrupt countries. I suspect you know nothing about Ukraine or Botswana.
If a cable goes down, isn't the traffic just re-routed? Don't see the point of intentional damage here.
Dunno what the real reason is, but it's easy to see possible a intentional reason: Testing to see how it well it works and how other nations respond.
Cost of new anchor = X
Cost of fixing cable = >>X
Damage = done
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I guess WWIV has been on a slow burn for going on three years now.
Did I miss WWIII?
More like since Deng Xiaoping initiated the modern Chinese economic strategy in the '80s to control the West through trade.
The West did a fine job of this themselves. Outsourcing to poorer countries is what has made the West so wealthy for so long - goods whose price is subsidized by cheap labor. Now that China and other countries have caught up, the West doesn't get the same discount, but they also don't have their own manufacturing because they all outsourced. We did this to ourselves.
Very much this. We could have also used that time to advance and perfect on-demand production like 3D-printing, enhance our society by promoting more robust and prone to repair products, but instead we clinched on mass-consumption and profit. Our whole economic system needs recheck.
Sorry best we can do is an incompetent admin full of 3rd rate celebrities who explicitly want to dismantle everything our ancestors built with a side of outright grift. The department of education is for losers. What do you mean half the country can't read at a high school level?
It was crossing right on time for the interruptions, a Russian officer was on board, it slowed down while crossing, no other ships were slowing down in that area during that time (rulingnout headwinds) - it cannot get much clearer. China is now participating in hybrid warfare against Europe (unless they present stronger evidence against this assumption)
> China is now participating in hybrid warfare against Europe
Geez, I'm glad you're not war minister. It's a Chinese registered ship with a Russian captain.
If a terrorist crashes a truck with Portuguese plates into the US embassy in Berlin, would that mean Portugal's declared war against the USA?
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Well, yes, Flag of Convenience is a thing.
But there is a "but", which is that in the articles of war, the flag of a ship does have quite a few implications. E.g. when two nations are at war, stopping ships flagged as belonging to the opposition gives certain rights of stopping and searching them, blockading their passage, seizing the vessels and cargo, etc.
And the relevant characteristic in that case is the flag, not the captain's nationality:
> Art. 51. Enemy character. The enemy or neutral character of a vessel is determined by the flag which it is entitled to fly.
If you want to be formal about it, none of the countries with Baltic coastlines are formally at war.
Yes, but there is the huge other "but" that in modern use, a formal declaration of war is no longer necessary, committing acts of war is sufficient for a state of war to exist. (However, committing acts of war without a preceding declaration is of course a war crime.)
Of course this isn't really automatic and triggered by the smallest thing, both sides kind of have to "agree" to be at war, e.g. by a counter-attack, a declaration following the attack or something like that. And nobody really wants to take that bait, due to the huge consequences involved.
Yet, it is China playing with fire here, we all can be happy that none of the affected nations took them up on their "offer" of war.
Just to clarify again, this is a dry bulk / Panamax vessel. It is part of the shipping industry. At scale, it is analogous to a railroad car. In 2015 it was operating as the Avra under the flag of Greece. The foreknowledge of the Chinese government that a Russian officer would conduct hybrid operations from the vessel cannot be inferred from the circumstance. It is like thinking that someone with an American passport is an American spy.
It is quite the opposite from what you are arguing. China is responsible for the conduct of the vessels they allowed to fly their flag.
They can later claim that the crew and captain acted on their own will, without orders from the Chinese leadership. They can duly punish the captain and crew or disavow the vessel and declare them renegade, disallow them to fly their flag. But without such a declaration, a nation such as China is responsible for the conduct of their fleets, be they civilian or military. And any vessel they allow to fly their flag is part of their (in this case civilian) fleet.
Well sure we can both make unsourced assertions all day but as far as I can see the flag state is responsible for illegal conduct of commercial vessels only insofar it has failed to meet its obligations for regulatory and legal oversight.
Well, yes. But I'd claim that having a vessel intentionally damage foreign property and then ignoring the issue and not exercising legal oversight by at least investigating what happened is such a failure in obligations.
Is the US responsible for any crime committed by members of ships that fly the star-spangled banner?
To some extent, yes. US law applies on US-flagged ships.
> A ship's flag state exercises regulatory control over the vessel and is required to inspect it regularly, certify the ship's equipment and crew, and issue safety and pollution prevention documents.
Yes, good points. It's not a wild stretch of the imagination that Mr P and gang are actively trying to drag China into the Ukraine conflict and I'd imagine Beijing is pretty pissed off today about being (ostensibly) implicated in this sabotage. So the usual underhand scheming from the Kremlin imho, don't fall for it. China and Russia's relationship is very complicated of course and there's many a convincingly analysis out there that predicts conflict between them in the near future (an example flashpoint being Siberia).
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Yes, this is what I'm saying, but with less words.
But look around (even in these comments) and look at how many people are thinking "Chinese act of war!!!11!!"
> Yes, this is what I'm saying, but with less words.
That's really not all you are saying, and the difference is important. Maybe not to you, though.
As far as I can tell, you're both saying the same thing: that registering a ship in China does not mean China is responsible for that ship's actions. If you've got a different point to make, please make it clear.
Then, elaborate please, Jochen, what's the important difference?
Yes… A lot of them really need have it spelt out, twice, in large clear type.
So the Russians who are at this point highly dependant on Daddy Xi to keep their economy and military afloat are gonna false flag the West to suck China into a quagmire of a war a few months before the most unpredictable and venomously anti-china president (who has thin skin, a hair trigger, and no qualms about conducting airstrikes on high-ranking Iranian generals unilaterally on a whim) in modern US history is about to take office at the head of a country with the largest functioning stockpile of nuclear weapons and a massive military? You think Chinese intelligence is asleep at the wheel and wouldn't notice given the stakes and absurd levels of geopolitical risk the entire planet is at?
China may back Russia to try to shift perception of the west's military might/will or to drain resources or just to buy Russia by making them dependant to get those juicy Russian natural resources but they aren't going to start world war iii to help Putin with his fetishistic "yet another European dictator" fantasy.
The Chinese know how to play the game same as the Russians and the US. All these little games are just calibrated psyops, why destroy, very publicly, comms lines when tapping it would be far more beneficial to a war effort and much quieter? Maybe to make the West look weak and unable to defend their borders which affects consequences domestically like say channeling political support to isolationist politicians who want to retreat from supporting Ukraine? Cause those politicians didn't make gains in the last European elections or nothing.
Well said.
> If a terrorist crashes a truck with Portuguese plates into the US embassy in Berlin, would that mean Portugal's declared war against the USA?
At the very least, the cooperation of Portugal's authorities would be expected to determine how the truck ended up being used for the attack, and if anyone knew about how the vehicle was to be used.
I expect the same amount of cooperation from China as the flag state.
By this logic, United and American Airlines were complicit in 9/11 as well.
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They're not asking for Russia to get the benefit of the doubt, they're asking (reasonably IMO) for China.
A well-earned result of decades of their hard work, although this is about china-registered vessel
It was the second Chinese registered ship with Russian crew within a short period of time. A year ago this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newnew_Polar_Bear cut the gas pipe and another communications line.
I am sure if the cowardly Russians ever did this to USA, it would cause a much bigger drama and retaliation wave, and China would take the hit as well.
True but China can support or not support investigations and prosecution. After all they are the ones who can exercise their sovereign rights on ships sailing under their flag. I‘m really curious and open minded how this plays out but sadly would be surprised if China would support the EU in this case.
> war minister
Due to an earlier generation's newspeak, that's "defense," not "war."
Are you sure about that?
I happened to notice that at least in some cases, the change of terminology happened roughly when it became clear that offensive war was a losing proposition in terms of money and resources. I suspect that as invading the neighbours became financially irrational, the cool heads that tend to survive in management shifted their stand from mixed offense/defense to just defense.
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Yes Mr Pistorius is „Verteidigungsminister“ as in defence, and it‘s called that way since 1955. Not that hard to find out.
Germany's a good example. In 1914 the ministry was called Kriegsministerium, and an invasion wasn't seen as a necessarily bad idea. I think it already was, but at the time, you could argue in Berlin that a country that started a war could benefit from that war, if executed well. That kind of argument wouldn't make people doubt your judgment yet.
A few years later it was clear that offense was necessarily a resource loss. Someone who wanted to build a career as a civil servant might then see a defense ministry as a viable option, but not any sort of offensive war. Offense was clearly not viable, and therefore not a good basis for budget allocations, and therefore the good career move for the civil servants was to focus the ministries entirely on defense.
I don't know if the evidence is conclusive, but I do think we can say China is supplying Russia with military hardware and supporting them in other ways. So.. it's possible.
China trades with pretty much everybody, don't read too much into that.
China is not allied with Russia and China is unlikely to engage in sabotage like this because they stand nothing to gain from it.
What the words are worth in a time of need remains to be seen. Neither side is exactly trustworthy :)
From what I understood, China was completely blindsided by the invasion (given that it happened so soon after the announcement of the alliance), and actually somewhat pissed. Russia basically used their alliance as insurance against a fully global sanctions regime, and China had to stick around to save face.
Blessedly we're citizens of good and noble western countries that are supremely trustworthy and that would never ever renege on a deal or fight unjust wars.
> China is not allied with Russia
They don't have a mutual defense treaty, sure, but they describe themselves as having a “friendship without limits”. I would agree that China has no interest in getting involved in Putin's idiot war in Ukraine though, and there's zero benefit to China in antagonizing Europe.
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I'm no fan of the CCP either but really what do they stand to gain here? Getting dragged into Russia's conflicts and the sanctions that would ensue would be devastating to the Chinese economy and security of the CCP's control.
The CCP are aware of this fact and they're planning for it, but they're not ready yet.
What they have falls short of a defense pact. The "Treaty of Good-Neighborliness" contains language that the countries shall immediately discuss military options when under attack, but an agreement to talk is not an agreement to join a war.
This is what article 9 says: "When a situation arises in which one of the contracting parties deems that peace is being threatened and undermined or its security interests are involved or when it is confronted with the threat of aggression, the contracting parties shall immediately hold contacts and consultations in order to eliminate such threats."
Russia desperately needs allies. Russia wants China to be their unconditional ally. Unfortunately for Putin, and fortunately for the rest of us, China cares primarily about China.
Reading that thread it sounds like it was a Russian ship that was sold to China last month (perhaps as a pretext to mask this) so ownership is unclear.
I strongly doubt that this is an official military act of the Chinese government. It will most likely turn out that this is not an official military act of any government as the intent was to do this in secret.
Just because the intent was to be secret does not negate an official act of any country. To assume that any military does nothing in secret is naivety at its finest.
So if Trump is against China, and China aligns with Russia, will Trump then support Ukraine? Interesting (and choppy) times ahead.
Even if China doesn't explicitly align with Russia, I believe there are strategic reasons why the US would want a favourable outcome for Ukraine. I outlined a few points in a post a couple of weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42059787
I'm no international relations hawk though, so I'm keen to hear opposing viewpoints.
I used to support Ukraine winning the war at any cost (them losing and that result being recognized implies that warmongering is acceptable). However, that war is now in its third year with no end in sight.
Our (the west's) response to warmongering has been to trickle just enough resources and monies to keep Ukraine from losing but not so much that they win. The "donated" resources of course need to be replenished, the military industrial complex is quite literally making a killing.
At this point the question of declaring a firm stand against warmongering is lost. It's three years and going, warmongering as it turns out is fine. I hate that. My tax dollars are going towards endlessly and needlessly extending human suffering for the benefit of the military industrial complex. I hate that.
So I say, enough of this bullshit. Unless we suddenly send in so much support that Ukraine decisively wins very quickly, I don't want to see a single cent more of my tax dollars going towards this. My taxes are not blood money and the military industrial complex can go fuck themselves.
I think classifying western aid to Ukraine as tax transfer to the military industrial complex is just incorrect. Because a lot of it does/did NOT need to be directly replenished for the donors-- instead the donations was more like getting rid of older stockpiles, and for some systems moving the modernization schedule up.
And I think the attitude "its pointless to try and keep helping against the Russians, people have suffered from them for so long anyway" is completeley beside the point (and dangerous!)-- the main gain from helping the Ukraine in my view is discouraging the kind of neo-imperialistm that led to this attack, and stopping the support just sends a signal to ambitious tyrants all over the world that you don't really care about them plundering their weaker neighbors (and with having the biggest military comes some kind of obligation in this regard in my view).
I also think that you are patronizing the Ukrainians themselves in the worst way-- if anyone should get to decide how long it is worth it to fight for their country, it should be them.
>instead the donations was more like getting rid of older stockpiles, and for some systems moving the modernization schedule up.
That is precisely the benefitting of the military industrial complex that I am fed up with.
>"its pointless to try and keep helping against the Russians, people have suffered from them for so long anyway"
That is not what I'm angry about. I am angry that this war is dragging on far longer than there is any reasonable reason to be. If we hadn't trickled in support Ukraine would have lost already, if we had placed our full weight behind Ukraine they would have won already; either way the war would have ended long ago.
With the question of warmongering settled at this point (it's okay to warmonger, whether any of us like it or not), the only thing I care about is people not dying. I sincerely don't care how the war ends anymore, all I care about at this point is that it stops ASAP, that people stop dying.
>if anyone should get to decide how long it is worth it to fight for their country, it should be them.
If they want to continue fighting that's totally within their right, but I as an American taxpayer am not obliged to foot their bill much less in the manner we've been doing it.
>the only thing I care about is people not dying
If you think Ukrainians are just going to roll over and submit if everyone abandons them and Ukraine must capitulate, you are an idiot.
These are people who's ancestors had their ethnicity half erased. Even this war is part of that erasure. Russia literally kidnaps children to ship them off who knows where.
The Ukrainian people will resist. It will be Afghanistan all over again.
Plenty will continue to die.
A lack of ATACMS will not change that. The ONLY outcome that stops people dying is Russia going the fuck home. Ukrainians have been dying to push out Russian invaders for 10 years now, not 2.
The war is not going well and I could see how cutting the western support could force the Ukrainian loss. We have seen that when the front started crumbling during the period when the ammunition supply from the US was interrupted for half a year.
The west can definitely force Ukraine to sign a humiliating treaty, ceding land and freezing the conflict, there's plenty of leverage for that. If that happens, the days of Ukraine as an independent state are numbered - a new invasion will happen as soon as russians rebuild their forces, and this time it will be done right. People will continue to die even if the country gets erased from the map, just maybe not in the trenches, but in the torture chambers and prisons instead.
Common Ukrainians are increasingly suffering war exhaustion[1], if current trends continue then next year could reach a point that Zelensky might lose popular support all together.
This is alongside war-support exhaustion from America. One of Trump's campaign promises was to end the war immediately ("in 24 hours", I personally think that specific timeframe is untenable), and he won the popular vote which cements that promise as a popular American mandate.
Wars are oftentimes inevitable, but I am strictly of the mind that if wars must be waged that they be decisive and swift so that human suffering can be kept to the absolute minimum. The war as it stands is neither decisive nor swift, and we (the west) absolutely share responsibility in the blood being shed.
And on the note of blood shed, another commenter asked "Whose lives?"[2] when I rebuked him for calling human lives "cheap". I believe we can all agree that all men are created equal with an unalienable right to life.
If we are seriously going to say certain lives are less valuable than others, then I think Putin has absolutely won his warmongering bet on every front possible. If we are happy to see Ukrainians die in place of our own countrymen so we (the west) can point at Russia and laugh, man maybe we deserve to lose the Pax Americana era.
Which cements that promise as a popular American mandate
Do you think the folks who voted for him have a reasonable understanding of what is likely to happen on the ground (and its significance outside the US) after that "mandate" is carried out?
Or do you think they pretty much -- just don't care?
First off, this is a war that America (and indeed the west) isn't a direct party to. The cold hard fact is that this is "someone else's war", and we (America) just got done with the War on Terror which went on for over 20 years. We are war exhausted to begin with.
Secondly, the fact that our response has been lukewarm and insignificant for so long (almost 3 years!) makes the notion of refuting warmongering a laughing stock at this point. We missed the boat in about as glorious a fashion as we possibly could.
Thirdly and finally given the preceding, no: I think most Americans genuinely don't care anymore beyond that the war ends now, that people stop dying now. Keep in mind that the people who voted for Trump (that includes me) also effectively voted against warhawks like Cheney, Bolton, and so on. The American people want peace, tenuous and unfair as it may be.
As for whether Trump forcing the war to a closure would be for or against the notion of peace: Have no doubt about it, we will be losers coming to the negotiating table in shame and that's regardless whether it's Trump or Harris or even Biden for that matter. Putin won his bet, we had our bluff called and we would be there to try and make the best of the bed we made. But if the war ends, the war ends.
I appreciate the detailed and thoughtful follow-up.
However, your final response ("As for whether ...") does seem to be largely avoiding the question it addresses. If we may try again:
"But if the war does end with parameters in the range of such that can likely expect under a Trump-Vance deal -- including of course major territorial concessions, along with likely some kind of statement acknowledging Putin's grievances, and another guaranteeing that he and his people will never be prosecuted; and very likely also, requiring that Russia pay at most a paltry share of the $1T in financial damages which Ukraine is squarely owed -- will the cause of peace be furthered, or will it hindered?"
Considering not just the current conflict, but possibilities of future aggression, and the likely impact on the international system of such a precedence being set.
(Tweaking the goalposts here, but only slightly)
My apologies, I should have been more deliberate:
The cause of peace will be hindered, but this won't entirely be Trump's (or Harris's in another timeline) fault because Biden already missed the boat on this at least two years ago. You can't board a boat that already left port.
The consequences of warmongering are meaningless economical and political sanctions, and a halfassed proxy war from the sanctioning side; this is set in stone now and there's no going back. Peace is actually valued quite low despite narratives to the contrary, as it turned out.
I'm more "glass half-full" than you are on Ukraine's chances of avoiding a worst-case outcome (assuming support continues, even at roughly current funding levels). And as far as the interests of the US are concerned: guaranteeing that Russia's regime understands that it simply won't be allowed to pursue further adventures of this sort.
But at least I can see where you're coming from.
> That is precisely the benefitting of the military industrial complex that I am fed up with.
This whole position just strikes me as misguided, because the numbers simply dont work. At all. Because if what you mainly care about is reducing US taxes flowing into weapon manufacturers, then the Ukraine is such a marginal portion that it basically does not matter at all:
If you said "lets reduce US spending on military to what all the rest of NATO together spends" (mind you, that is still the largest military budget in the world!), then that change alone would save in a single year over 4 (total!) Ukraine aid programs (and this is including all financial and humanitarian aid so far).
If you look at the stock price for major US arms manufacturers (RTX, LMT, NOC-- picked for being large and majority non-civilian revenue), then the whole Ukraine thing is basically not even a blip-- you would not even be able to tell (contrast the whole bitcoin/AI boom which is clearly visible in Nvidia price).
> With the question of warmongering settled at this point
I strongly disagree that this question is settled with a yes. I do absolutely agree with you that the answer from the US and especially its european allies should have been more decisive and unambiguous.
In the end, what the Ukraine war did and still does is establish a price on blatant imperialism. That price needs to be as high as possible to discourage and prevent repetitions as much as possible.
I would argue that this was a success in that regard already, but a small one, especially regarding the EU. Cutting further support would undermine and weaken this even more.
I'd also like to challenge your position on wanting to force an end to avoid further loss of life: How can you be confident that an (immediate) conclusion in Russians favor by cutting Ukraine military, humanitarian and financial aid (possibly also from allies) would actually be a net benefit in lives saved?
If you just look at the first and second Chechen war and the 8 years of insurgency directly after, what would make you confident that the exact same atrocities would not repeat at 20 times the scale?
To me personally, cutting support for the Ukraine when ones country is founded on principles of self-determination, freedom and democracy is peak hypocrisy.
Are there other less partisan sources reporting this? From what I understand, Newsweek has been an alt-right mouthpiece since 2022.
Yeesh, I wasn't aware that that happened at Newsweek. The Gallup link in the sibling comment is the best source, I had seen those results in a couple different places so I just grabbed one from the top of Google (wrongly assuming that remembering Newsweek being on my parents' coffee table 15 years ago is sufficient vetting). Thanks for keeping me honest!
The linked article is just repeating numbers and findings from Gallup:
Thanks for the link! Was really suprised to see EU being favored as brokers over the US.
Makes me kinda curious if there is still significant blame/resentment regarding the Budapest Memorandum (against the US specifically)...
Thanks! The article does indeed seem impartial, at least up until the Trump parts. It's not surprising. My own resolve would probably wane sooner than most Ukrainians. It cannot be easy to live in fear of loved ones dying at any time.
How can people keep repeating the russian talking point that equates helping Ukraine resist the invasion with "extending the suffering". Don't they know what kind of hell the occupied regions have become? One can't pretend not to understand that the ultimate russian goal is complete annexation and assimilation, which by the way will provide ample cannon fodder for the next war of conquest.
I can't take in good faith this whole "suffering" rhetorics -- not containing the imperialistic expansionist nuclear-armed empire is sure to bring more suffering to the world.
I think you're not understanding the whole argument: We're not helping Ukraine defend themselves, we're not containing the "imperialistic expansionist nuclear-armed empire". If we were then this war would have ended long ago and we wouldn't be having this conversation and Trump probably wouldn't have been elected.
No, I am angry because our response has been halfassed and lukewarm. We are keeping the war going with no end in sight, my tax dollars are being used explicitly to extend human suffering rather than end it. Sincerely fuck that noise. Either we go all in or do nothing at all, the current timeline is the worst one we could have possibly chosen.
Yes, I'm definitely not following your argument. You're claiming that keeping the war going is extending the human suffering, while pushing Ukraine towards losing it would somehow end the suffering. That's false. Ukraine under russian occupation would be hell, and Ukrainians know it very well - that's why they are still fighting for survival.
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You are purposely ignoring the point I am making - the suffering WILL NOT end if the war ends. It will become much worse in fact. The only outcome of the aid stopping is the complete conquest of the country, one has to be completely blind or a shill to trust any treaty at this point.
I think the current anemic levels of support are insufficient, and the restrictions imposed on Ukraine in the name of "escalation management" are outright criminal, but even this level support is better than nothing. We are talking about war of extermination here.
If that is still hard for you to understand, ...
Howabout saying "If it helps, ..." instead.
> them losing and that result being recognized implies that warmongering is acceptable
You do realise that the US has more or less constently been at war for the past fifty years. "The west" - whatever that means - can't take a stand against warmongering when they are themselves warmongering all the time. War and the threat of force is part of diplomacy like it or not.
Support to Ukraine is a part of global geo-strategical calculus of which taking a stand against tyranny and defending the sanctity of borders is but a minor part of.
"The military industrial complex" has pocketed trillions upons trillions of tax payers money to arm NATO for a possible confrontation with Russia. Now that Russia is being beaten up and worn down on the cheap, people are throwing tantrums over the amounts that are essentially a pocket change (a half of which stays in the US anyways). How does this make sense?
>on the cheap
Human lives are not "cheap". Sincerely what the fuck, my dude.
Whose lives are we talking about here?
You seem to be worried because of _just enough_ of part of somehow your money is given to Ukraine. Come on. They are fighting for all of us. And all we need to do is to give support. And you are getting tired. I am also disappointed that the west have not acted as a single front. In EU it seems we cannot even put puppets like Viktor Orbán in control. Yes, whole west needs to step up. Russia doesn't listen anything else than force. Period.
I’m fine with using my tax dollars to cripple a geopolitical rival and maintain the Pax Americana status quo
I would be ashamed if my tax dollars were funding what is happening to Gaza.
Agreed, Israel is not even a good ally, they commit industrial espionage against US companies and instigate regional conflicts by leaving their pants down as an excuse to start a war
What’s another suitable country to be a stationary aircraft carrier in the Middle East though
Yep, I'm mostly in agreement with you and am also hoping that the West does enable a sudden decisive victory. The best option would have been to nip it in the bud. Instead, Russia were given the space to landmine swathes of land, modernise their military tactics, and build an alliance with Iran and North Korea. And as you say the wrong kinds of people are winning here.
The only thing is, what happens next if the West pulls out? Ukraine's military collapses, Russia moves in on Kyiv, Putin gains another Belarus-like satellite state, and at least considers encroaching on Estonia, Finland etc... . It's more than just the principle of whether warmongering is acceptable - a lot of people will suffer as a consequence and possibly for decades to come. We have to be really careful to consider which is worse in the long-term.
I agree with both of you, but also want to point out that it's easier to make these criticisms in retrospect.
I think the West was making the best calculus it could as the situation developed. Sure, you can say we should have known Putin was bluffing about redlines. But the downside of all out war is high enough that, when multiplied by the probability, you still get a bad number. I think it's reasonable that Western governments played it cautiously and hoped for a different resolution (like a successful internal coup).
But yes, now we are where we are and it sucks for Ukraine.
>it's easier to make these criticisms in retrospect.
For what it's worth, I've been critical of our (American, subsequently western) response since the first one. Speaking as an American, our response was and still are lukewarm and thus ineffectual in declaring a firm stand against warmongering. I was heartbroken and then angry at being told how (not) valuable world peace actually was.
What Putin did was declare war against the very notion of peace, and the west fucking surrendered it in the worst way possible after preaching so passionately about peace to everyone everywhere everytime.
So by effectively promising to largely validate Putin's claimed grievances and war spoils (via his promised "deal") -- do you think the incoming US president will be acting in favor of, or against "the very notion of peace"?
Any illusions about 21st century US peace preaching should have been given up sometime in, oh, 2003-2011.
And while we concern ourselves deeply about genocide against Ukrainians and Palestinians, somewhere between 1-3 million Uyghurs have been imprisoned in China.
It sucks to finally realize it, but rhetoric has always been exactly that.
I agree with what you have said here, but I don't know if the US is in a position to turn the war around in 2024 without a huge escalation. It remains to be seen if there is any possible way to do that without "boots on the ground" (formally starting WW III) or the use of nuclear weapons (again, formally starting WW III).
There were plenty of options to pressure Ukraine into preventing Russia from having a causus belli in early 2022 (too bad the Biden admin didn't do any of those), but those are gone now and Russia currently controls much of the territory they had as military objectives.
Doesn't need to be a huge escalation.
Just enough to send the tide of attrition turning slowly the other way for a while.
After which HN will instantly fill up with comments about "how badly Russia is losing", "it's clear Ukraine has already lost", and so forth.
There were plenty of options to pressure Ukraine into preventing Russia from having a causus belli in early 2022
Russia never had casus belli in this conflict, and no one did anything to present it with such.
I'm not sure Ukraine wins a war of attrition in any meaningful way. Russia is also shockingly good at wars of attrition, and the entire Russian economy has been built around war with the West. Ukraine is a small state in comparison, and they are running out of men, money, and munitions so fast that even tipping the scales by 10x will sink Ukraine before Russia retreats from the territory they now own. In 2022, the goal would be to make it costly to acquire territory so ideas about attrition would have worked a lot better, but it's 2024 and Russia has already grabbed the land. Someone needs to go take it back.
Here's a memo for you on Russia's causus belli. You can claim that they didn't have a legitimate one (I don't think they did), but they had one that got them enough local and international support to work in both 2014 and 2022: https://www.ponarseurasia.org/vladimir-putins-casus-belli-fo...
In your opinion what could Ukraine have done to avoid the causus Belli in 2022?
The causus belli was twofold, and was aimed at the Russian people:
1. Prevention of NATO encroachment toward Russia
2. Protection of ethnic Russians in Donbas
Any and/or all of the following would have weakened or broken Putin's narrative:
1. Stop the military buildup in Donbas that had started in 2021
2. Cease admission of new NATO member states for 3-5 years
3. Stop the process of Ukraine getting closer to NATO and the EU
4. Reduce or stop US military assistance funding to Ukraine
5. Drop the Biden administration's economic sanctions of Russia
6. Continue implementation of the Minsk accords
7. Stop the planned deployments of US missiles to Ukraine
There are many more options. The US administration in 2020 was bringing Ukraine into the fold (because it wanted to be there), but that is not a recipe for peace. NATO had previously agreed not to get close to Ukraine or other states bordering Russia.
I tend to prefer to read documents from think tanks and professors about this conflict, but I'm sure "Sarcasmitron" has a lot to add on top of that.
If you only listen to think tanks and professors that affirm your preconceptions then you're not educating yourself at all. Liberals fall into the same trap of denying genocides when they demand that Noam Chomsky's memoirs be the only relevant framing of geopolitics. It's a nonsense diversion, and you even added a scoop of ad-hominem on top.
With credit to the parent comment, I've seen the linked video and it's both high quality and entertaining. I'd also wager it's more peer-reviewed than whatever primary sources you use, if you think NATO is the villain for offering the protection Russia's neighbors want.
The basic flaw in what you're suggesting (that the war could have been averted by mollifying Putin on the terms of his stated narrative), is that, as we both seem to agree, the stated narrative was never the real basis for his decision to invade.
Putin's actual reasons, in turn, seem to have been primarily about:
1. Securing the 3 currently (as of Feb 2022) occupied regions, especially the Crimea, for permanent annexation. Russia's position in the Crimea in particular was at the time severely compromised, due to Ukraine's shutting off of its water access. It also "needed" a land bridge (around the Azov) in order to be reasonably secure in the long term. (We put "needed" in quotes here to remind ourselves that this was the regime's internal desire, not any kind of objective or real "need"). As gravy, or as a way of offsetting the cost for the whole operation, there was also the matter of the Donbas region's significant lithium reserves (estimated at $3T).
2. Permanent deterrence of any NATO bid on Ukraine's part, likely involving some form of formal declaration of permanent neutrality (Finlandization).
3. As gravy, anything it could have also won in terms of regime change in Kyiv, preventing whatever rump state (if any) that remained in Western Ukraine from joining the EU, or simply damaging its chances for success and prosperity generally ("wrecking it", in Mearsheimer's words) would have been a very signicant plus.
The thing is, (2) by itself could have been had without resorting to a full-scale invasion. The West was eager for some kind of deal to end the 2014-2022 conflict, and having Ukraine in NATO was always optional, as far as it was concerned.
But the price for Putin -- forgoing his paramount desire for (1) -- would have been far too high. Plus he thinks of himself as a visionary leader, destined to make his mark on history, and for many years had deluded himself as to Russia's actual capabilities for military adventures of this sort.
So that's why he went "whole hog" in Feb of 2022. The main point here is that there doesn't seem to be much logic in thinking the war could have been avoided by addressing the stated narrative. When Putin's real reasons for invading, with emphasis on (1) above, would be in no way addressed by tactical appeasement of this sort.
I think in the postmortem we will figure out that this was about #2 moreso than anything else. He wanted NATO off his doorstep but NATO kept encroaching since he did nothing every time they encroached. This is somewhat the act of a madman, but it's a response to NATO continually breaking promises.
The land bridge to Crimea is nice, too, don't get me wrong.
This is somewhat the act of a madman, but it's a response to NATO continually breaking promises.
It's not, actually. The history around this is widely misunderstood.
Putin was not in power in 1994 or 1997, and that appears to be the last time they agreed to a NATO expansion. Those were the Yeltsin years, and treating the Yeltsin and Putin administrations as though they are the same is like treating the Obama and Trump administrations as though they are the same. Enlargement of NATO kicked into high gear in the early 2000's, and Putin himself has cited NATO expansionism as a reason for this war (as well as the Georgia war and the 2014 Crimea war).
There is no serious analyst on this situation who thinks NATO expansion isn't at least a factor, if not the primary cause.
Treating the Yeltsin and Putin administrations as though they are the same
I'm not, and you're completely misreading me if you think that's what I'm saying.
> he thinks of himself as a visionary leader, destined to make his mark on history
Well put. This seems to get glossed over. Putin doesn't have too many years left in good health and won't go quietly on gardening leave.
I agree with you and would also add that even if the NATO expansion argument is merely a facade, it's not the only one he has to play with.
OP mentioned protecting ethnic Russians in Donbas. Putin's narrative to Russians in fact goes much further than that: he portrays himself as reconquering and unifying the traditional Russian state. Let's not forget the speech he gave shortly after the invasion, in which he described Ukraine as an illegitimate state on Russian soil.
The other narrative he pushes is about neo-Nazis taking control of Ukraine. Iirc one of the aims of the "special operation" is to remove Nazis from the Ukrainian government. Which is obvious bollocks to us in the West, given that Zelensky himself is Jewish. But in Russia the war is successfully portrayed as a sort of rehash of WW2: soviets vs Nazis.
> if there is any possible way to do that without "boots on the ground"
Of course there is but the Western allies are slow to arm Ukraine because they fear the Russian nuclear retaliation.
To recap, Ukraine received very few , around a hundred ATACMS missiles with severe restrictions on targets. They got less than two dozen F-16 jets. This is just nothing compared what the US might be able to send if they wanted to, they have over 300 Falcons at Davis-Monthan AFB (aka Boneyard) to begin with. There are near four thousand ATACMS missiles manufactured so far. And so on, with tanks etc.
If the "tap" were to open full stream instead of dripping, the war would be over very fast. The question is, which end would we get.
Trump is pro Trump-looking-strong, and that's about it. Interesting times ahead for sure, but trying to predict Trump's future positions is a mug's game. I suspect regarding Ukraine, someone will give him a plan that they tell him is fair ($10 says Russia keeps Crimea but virtually nowhere else and Ukraine agrees not to join NATO), and he'll manage to get both sides to sign it by threatening them.
I will be absolutely flabbergasted if he manages that deal. I think Ukraine will have to give up significantly more than Crimea unfortunately:-/
Perhaps. His key leverage here is that he’s chaotic, a lunatic, and will be the CiC, and who the fuck knows what he’ll do if he doesn’t get his way? Enforce a no-fly zone? Flood the country with weaponary? Abandon Ukraine for Russian oil? Leave NATO? Provide explicit nuclear umbrella to the Poles and tell them to have at the erbfeind if they want to?
About the only thing you can rely on is that he’ll do whatever he and his equally loony and chaotic advisors think will make him look good in the short term, based on feels, backed by the might of the American military.
Given all that, is Putin really going to defy him when presented with a deal that Putin has any chance at of spinning as a win at home? Putin's singular leverage is threatening nuclear war, but that only works if you can convince your opponent you're more unhinged than they are, and Putin loses that particular metric to Trump every time.
The whole Trump/Russia conspiracy theory was all fake anyway - the Steele dossier which is the basis of the whole thing was fabricated and is unsourced. I expect him to be relatively hawkish on Ukraine because losing in Ukraine makes the US look weak, although Ukraine is currently losing the war relatively badly so I expect some territory to be ceded to Russia.
This. The amount of downvoting on these comments is proof of the amount of influence propaganda can have on the population. A large number of people here appear to still be convinced that Trump and Russia are working together.
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This line of reasoning keeps popping up and something about it bothers me - why go to war when you can get what you want in other, cheaper ways? It seems likely the correlation is real but so far no one has adduced any reasons to assume the causation actually goes the way they assume.
If you note that what Russia wants is Ukrainian territory (first Crimea in 2014 and then a land connection to Crimea in 2022), that was guaranteed to involve some amount of war. That will give you everything you need to infer the correct direction of causation.
Why do you think Russia wants territory? Why did they suddenly develop an appetite for territory in 2014?
> Why did they suddenly develop an appetite for territory in 2014?
They have wanted it since the fall of the Soviet Union and access to the Black Sea has immense strategic value to them. They only had geopolitical (and local political) cover to get it in 2014 and 2022.
So not because ukraine rejected them in 2013? To be explicit, I still have seen no evidence for the premise that '_some_ amount of war' was inevitable. Belarus would seem to be an obvious counterexample.
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No person seriously discussing that region of the world would have ever thought Ukraine would give Crimea to the Russians without a fight. Countries, in general, don't give up land without a fight. Crimea is also one of the most militarily valuable pieces of land in the world. Putin, at the same time, wanted to do some "re-unification" of some previous Soviet territories including Crimea.
I'm also not sure why you're citing Belarus here. It was split off from the Soviet union in 1990 and governed itself the whole time despite being essentially a vassal state of Russia. Belarus has not ceded any land to Russia, either.
Edit - I see what you're saying about control or territory. If you want control, directly controlling the territory is better than having a puppet government. While Russia would have accepted a puppet government, as they have in Belarus (since there has been no good opportunity to go to war with Belarus to take it over), they had the opportunity to go to war for direct control and the West made it clear that Ukraine as a vassal state was not an option (see the 2014 revolution). If you think someone wants control, why do you think that they see $0 of extra value in directly owning the territory?
> It was split off from the Soviet union in 1990 and governed itself the whole time despite being essentially a vassal state of Russia.
It's obvious that Russia wants ukraine as a vassal as well. I would note that the invasion of Ukraine was launched _via_ Belarus, despite the fact that Russia does not formally control that territory. So again I ask, if Russia can get what it wants (which is _control_, not territory) without going to war, why would it do so?
Let's be plain - we are ultimately dancing around an empirical question, whether Trump will be hawkish or dovish towards Russia. Ultimately I think he's too chaotic for past behavior to be a good guide. So let's see what happens! I for one hope that you are right, but I think I have plenty of reasons to be cautious.
Whoever was POTUS played no role in the timing of 2014. Putin invaded Donbas in 2014 in response to a revolution in Ukraine that ousted the unpopular Russia-aligned Yanukovych. Not because Obama was POTUS or because Trump wasn't POTUS.
Okay, and why did Putin wait until 2022 to (re)invade Ukraine, if that was the goal? Shouldn't he have done it when he had a stooge in the white house?
> Shouldn't he have done it when he had a stooge in the white house?
If you think said stooge is likely to get reelected (which, except for COVID coming out of the blue, was highly likely) and that stooge is already making noise about isolationism, why interrupt?
2022 looks a lot like an "oh shit, plan B" scenario.
> Okay, and why did Putin wait until 2022 to (re)invade Ukraine
Because that's when he had intelligence leading him to believe the Ukrainian regime would crumble quickly or capitulate in the face of a large-scale invasion, and possibly also the NATO would fail to unite and respond, in part due to the success of Russian influence operations, which were not only directed at the US.
Conversely, why not invade to destabilize the incumbency of the non-stooge so that the stooge wins re-election and then use the stooge to negotiate a favorable frozen conflict? Or why even attribute it to POTUS at all? Why not attribute it to the fact that Ukraine's military power was growing due to the Western training that they were receiving over the previous 10 years, and Putin was effectively on a clock to invade? Eastern European conflicts have never revolved around who is POTUS.
Trump didn’t do anything with regards to China the first time around. I think there’s reason to doubt he is opposed to China in any significant way.
In his first administration he engaged directly with North Korea which has been widely regarded as a Chinese puppet state. The last thing China wants, in my opinion, is a united and free Korea.
Although China's been taking over the SCS, I haven't seen many open hostilities between South Korea and China covered in western news media, almost like SK ignores China's activities for the most part. I don't think there's any chance of a reunified Korea under the Kim dynasty or within 10 years.
edit: forgot to shoutout above's username
Considering a significant bunch of Korean companies have production facilities in China, I'd say the relationship is more amiable than say the Japan-China one. Both were aligned in protesting the release of Fukushima water into the ocean for example.
He engaged with North Korea almost as an admirer and their leadership is close to China / Russia.
I'm not sure that means much as far as China goes....
An economic conflict between China and the United States has been ongoing since January 2018, when U.S. President Donald Trump began setting tariffs and other trade barriers on China with the goal of forcing it to make changes to what the U.S. says are longstanding unfair trade practices and intellectual property theft.
Let's not forget pulling out of the TPP, which likely empowered China.
That reads like token efforts and then he just moved on ... quit on the whole thing.
By late 2019, the United States had imposed approximately US$350 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports, while China had imposed approximately US$100 billion on US exports.
Then the Biden admin happened.
The Joe Biden administration kept the tariffs in place and added additional levies on Chinese goods such as electric vehicles and solar panels. In 2024, the Trump presidential campaign proposed a 60 percent tariff on Chinese goods.
It will be interesting to see what happens. 60% all at once would be too disruptive, I think.
Trade conflicts all seem like a test of wills.
But if you're not testing, you're not doing anything.
Well Biden put Catherine Tai in as the chief trade negotiator, who has been hard on China. Tariffs were expanded. And the de minimis exemption was rescinded in august.
So hardly "nothing further".
Sorry - just edited away the "nothing further" part as it was incorrect - a minute before reading your comment.
No worries! Thanks for the correction
Why did they leave AIS on?
Having AIS on is mandatory. I'm sure turning it off would raise even higher warning flags than just leaving it on while doing your shady stuff.
Regardless, there are satellites covering the area, so you wouldn't get rid of being tracked anyways, would just be a bit slower.
Having AIS on is mandatory, but in practice a lot of ships turn it off regardless. From shadow oil fleets laundering sanctioned oil to fishermen, fake or disabled AIS systems are hardly an exception.
I don't think Russia is trying to hide their sabotage, though. Even with AIS disabled, there's no way European intelligence agencies didn't know what ships were floating above these cables at the time they went down.
This was a warning, not a secret operation.
Having AIS on is mandatory, and in many places taken quite seriously. Last night we sailed from Fuerteventura to Gran Canaria. There was a cargo ship with broken AIS in the area, and the VTS broadcasted their position over VHF every half hour (with DSC all ships alarms and everything)
Every recreational sailor knows that AIS is "mandatory." It's completely routine to see commercial ships running without it.
With "commercial", I guess you imply fishing vessels doing this to go fishing outside their delimited area. That's different from a massive bulk carrier in the middle of the Baltic
No I meant what I said. I've never seen a like supertanker without AIS but I've seen smaller cargo ships, ferries, and specifically in northern europe energy company tenders running without it.
> It's completely routine to see commercial ships running without it
I think this depends a lot on the location, as different areas seems to make it different levels of "mandatory". Are you speaking about the Baltic Sea specifically based on experience?
Yes. I spent a pandemic summer sailing the north sea, denmark, sweden with a friend. We sailed much less in the baltic and I admittedly kind of mix the north & baltic in my memory but they are very similar regulatory environments re boats so it would surprise me if it was common in one but not the other.
> they are very similar regulatory environments re boats so it would surprise me if it was common in one but not the other.
One has Russia and their ports, while the other doesn't. So preparedness and military presence certainly is different between the two at least.
I defer to your presumably greater baltic sailing experience.
recent statistic : Global Fishing Watch’s study published in Science Advances on November 2, 2022, revealed that:
Over 55,000 suspected intentional disabling events of AIS signals were identified between 2017 and 2019, obscuring nearly 5 million hours of fishing vessel activity.
This phenomenon accounts for up to 6% of global fishing vessel activity.
Coincidentally (or not) a couple lines were down a few hours ago in this south china sea degrading connectivity
So what would China's motivation be here?
China likely has nothing to do with this. It is unlikely they have any participation or even knowledge of this. Twice now some Russians in a China flagged ship caused trouble, and the China-flagging seems very intentional.
Russia is desperately trying to make the China-Russia thing a reality, and is probably trying to drag them in against their great resistance. China has zero credible reason to be dragged into Russia's nonsense, and a billion reasons why they want nothing to do with it.
The ideal outcome of this is that China realizes that Russia is outright trying to drag them into conflict, and that they repudiate that country entirely.
China has already been involved quietly, funneling weapons and intel to the Russians, essentially playing the opposite role to the US. Make no mistake - this war has a component of the US and China probing each others' capabilities.
The Russians could have done this with a fishing trawler (they cut cables accidentally all the time), so like you I doubt we can infer some nefarious Chinese plot from the flag on the vessel.
I'd say another reasonable view is that China is happy to put morality aside and make money off weapons sales so long as they can get away with it.
Might be just a crew paid off by Russians to do it.
In my country saboteurs largely weren't Russian - it's easier to pay off a local than have ano5 Russian cross the border, when his predecessor gets caught.
China has a lot of interest in the war not ending one way or the other. Their peer competitors are spending resources on it and a potentially problematic regional competitor is becoming more irrelevant the longer it runs.
In the superpower listings they're Number 2 with a bullet.
Finding out how far they can go without consequences / test the will of another nation to do something?
Article indicates this isn’t the first time.
Helping Russia
So what's the strategic importance of this move? inb4 "they're just acting like hoodlums to show off their strength".
Keeping Europe on edge and cowed, so that they spend less time and effort on Ukraine. This allows Russia to capture more of the historic Russian Empire in the east, which makes them more powerful and embarrasses the Western countries, pushing more unaligned countries into BRICS.
The endgame here is to build a new world order with Russia and China calling the shots (actually, China calling the shots, but we're not supposed to say that yet).
This seems very unrealistic, as the resulting distraction is probably of low consequence concerning Ukraine.
Not even replying to the claims about world domination, I don't have time for these... "suppositions".
Yes, and that's half the problem. The only ones taking this seriously are the Latvians, Estonians, and Lithuanians (although the Finns and Poles finally woke up to it last year - also why Poland upped its military spending to 5%). The Estonian military reports are particularly enlightening, and Timothy Snyder offers background into the why.
> although the Finns and Poles finally woke up to it last year - also why Poland upped its military spending to 5%
Poland has been warning about Russia at least for over 14 years now, since before Crimea annexation for sure. It started with Russia invading Georgia, I think.
Likewise, Poland has also been meeting NATO spending quota for years, upping it even more these days.
Poland refused to let another gas pipe from Russia through its territory without it going through Ukraine too, because it was obvious Russia would use it as leverage against Ukraine. This is what actually led to NS project which, for the same reason and this time additionaly because of the risk of creating leverage against other CEE countries, Poland refused to participate in and had been instead alarming that NS will result in troubles with Russia and security of Europe and Ukraine in particular.
Poland has been raising the issue of not only Ukrainian, but Georgian situation too. Many people forget, that Russia has been occupying parts of Georgia for over 16 years now.
Poland, despite paying penalties for that and being called racist etc., has been also blocking illegal immigration influx on its border with Belarus due to it being a hybrid war of Russia against Europe.
If anything, Poland did not sleep over Russia's plans. Quite the opposite, actually.
Yes, sorry, I didn't mean to imply that Poland has been asleep at the wheel. They have indeed been warning about Russia's intentions, although using the Western manner of speaking that accomplishes nothing (not that I blame them - there is little they can do to move the European political center, and getting too shrill would backfire). But no one has been warning as loudly about it as Estonia. Unfortunately, nobody listens to the Baltic countries, or even hears a word they say.
Europe spent half the previous century ravaged by two world wars stemming in part from suppositions, paranoia and alliance networks. Never forget that.
Dude, Chinese state TV still calls Russia a "gas station with nukes." Of course they make money off of it and uphold their agreements but so far China has avoided any direct involvement with Russia's bs.
Also to the point, Burkina Faso with nukes.
"Chinese-flagged" does not equal "Chinese operated"
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So, when do we know it's not just another operation Northwoods?
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How much did Putin pay Xi Jinping for it?
They'll obviously point the finger at another country
Completely aside from the cable discussion, I'm glad this was on bsky. I could finally follow the comments in the link again. I hope this trend continues.
BlueSky has attained critical mass and it is the next generation of microblogging. We’re witnessing the long awaited dethroning of twitter and it will end up ceding the space like Reddit did.
Not sure if you're being serious, but Reddit gets FAR more traffic than Twitter. Twitter is #43 out of all the sites on the internet in terms of traffic. Reddit is #10. Bluesky is not even on the map yet.
Until users get disenchanted with it and move to the next thing....
I never got disenchanted with Twitter. It got boring. If it had stayed the same I’d still be on there complaining about it.
Transitioning from not finding it boring to finding it boring is exactly being disenchanted with it.
That would be true if Twitter hadn't changed, but it really has. More bots, more commercial accounts (or nakedly commercial accounts) and far fewer people getting into deep discussions of Nix and Haskell with dumb jokes.
… which is the way it should be. Users vote with their fingers and eyeballs.
That’s the whole point. These next gen protocols make it easy enough to move on to the next thing.
“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
- Bruce Lee
What happened to Reddit? AFAIK, they're bigger than ever now.
Astroturfing and moderator controlled subreddits have ruined Reddit for me. /r/worldnews is one example of the latter.
Someone analysed a popular post and found that 19 of the top 20 comments were bots.
The Dead Internet theory is all too true.
Reddit's become a propaganda factory, and it's disturbing. Heavily astroturfed subs are creating an echo chamber effect that's clearly damaging users' mental health. The platform's lax security makes it an easy mark for foreign misinformation campaigns. You can still sign up without even an email address!
In any of the larger subreddits, the posts are heavily repost bots and the top comments stolen from the last time it was posted.
It's also astroturfed to death, including moderation.
I think some of the community will also move to substack
As an outsider, I've always associated Bluesky/Twitter with "volitile but potentially cutting-edge reporting" and followed it but with a grain of salt.
When I see an article on Substack I always assume the worst. The signal-to-noise ratio is lower on Medium and Substack than any other social platform I browse, which is a tragic indictment of where long-form blogging has gone.
As with all social media, it's about who you follow. I've found it particularly attractive for international reporting, albeit typically with some clear bent or polemic.
I mean, it's still a very small niche website of again, mostly tech related westerners. Twitter is much more diverse
> very small niche website of again, mostly tech related westerners
That's what they want. A social club with an overton window they like.
It's designed for mass userbase so it can feel like a big party that "everybody" is at. But once "everybody" includes their parents then the party is over.
Diverse is probably a stretch.
More like an echo chamber for the choir preachers.
No it is just a lot more diverse. For example there's a big presence on twitter of Arab politics/politicians or for french rap, or even local Quebec politics. On bluesky it's mostly white dudes talking about tech or about twitter
Nope. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It still seems to require JavaScript be enabled to render anything.
China will do more and more of this as the USA withdraws from policing the world.
China didn't do it and the USA hasn't withdrawn from anything.
That would be the Chinese in Chinese ship.
It wasn't a Chinese ship. It was flagged in China, which is like buying a .US domain name when you don't live in the US. It's simple to do. The captain is Russian and the company who owns/operates the ship is headed by a Russian CEO. The crew was not Chinese either.
I think it's time for a special navy operation which captures a Russian or Chinese cargo ship every time a cable gets damaged. The ships and their cargo could be then sold to the highest bidder.
It that really a precedent we would want to set? It sounds like it would be bad for global trade that state actors could arbitrarily seize privately owned property.
Wrong time getting cuastic (except if you are supporting China and Russia in their bully and troublemaker sabotaging efforts).
Am I hearing this right? You're volunteering to be on the front lines?
If it comes to a war I'm going to be on the front lines anyway, because I happen to live in a country next to Russia. Capturing a cargo ship guilty of sabotage wouldn't make much of a difference in whether a war comes or not.
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... And profits are given to Ukraine.
Ahem... Cui prodest/cui bono?
What kind of interest Chinese could have to damage such cables? IMVHO ZERO. Also I doubt Russians have interests to do so.
Who could be interested?
- some private company for makes and insurance/the public pay to fix something who need money from the owner for other reasons (like I break on purpose my car to get it repaired for free or at least less money than what it would costing me avoiding the self-sabotage);
- some countries wanting war at all costs trying to create a casus belli to justify the push toward WWIII
- some countries experimenting the resilience of their infra
I fails to see any other potentially interested party.
So Two Minutes Of Hate towards Russia is over in this aspect?
Very Orwellish.
What are you even talking about? Are you suggesting that "the West" has a too negative public opinion of Russia or China?
I would argue that interactions/treatment specifically toward Russia, especially by European nations in the last 20 years, was actually too positive and naive-- specifically because unlike Europe, Russia definitely did not leave its imperialistic ambitions behind, and treating/trading with it as a friendly somewhat flawed democracy during those years might have done more harm than good in hindsight.
I'm curious how you think about this?
Just yesterday on the front page there was a topic largely consisting of accusations of Russia breaking these cables.
Now I see a sudden switch of the "criminal" and a possible start of a new 2-minute of Hate.
It's very Orwellish indeed.
People are speculating about whether this was intentional, and, if so, who is to blame.
How is that "Orwellian"?
Russia has quite the recent history of poisoning civilians both native and foreign (do you dispute that?). Those acts are already a significant step above simple sabotage, so why would it be Orwellian to consider them a possible perpetrator?
In my view, common current western view of Russia is everything but:
Orwellian would be a strong, emotional public expressions of hate (with frequently switching target).
Current western view (can only really talk about central Europe) is more of a muted mix of disappointment, sadness and disgust about what Russia did/does in the Ukraine...
Did you even read the thread? It was captained by a Russian, and CN is a Russian ally.
The Kremlin may very well be behind this.
Wow
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It could be false flag operation to create pretext for NATO/EU to block shipping to Russian ports in Baltic Sea.
Similar to Nordstream destruction in 2022 it could have been either Ukrainians or CIA/NSA. This could be last attempt by current US administration elements to create leverage for the Ukraine before negotiations start.
what possible reason would nato need to blockade russian ports that doesnt already exist?
Blockade is legal act of war. RU at war with UKR, not NATO, and vice versa. Hence NATO would need casus belli of RU attacking NATO or NATO owned infra to declare blockade (read: declare war on RU).
Russia isn't at war with Ukraine, it's a special military operation. Declaring a little exclusion zone outside all their ports for live-fire naval exercises isn't an act of war either. It'll be temporary, they'll be over by 2028, honest.
RU's permenant representative notified UN on day of "special military operation" that actions were in accordance with art51 (UN Doc. S/2022/154), i.e. regardless of however media is labelling war at propaganda level, RU specificly using art51 for justification.
Russia is already assassinating and sabotaging in NATO countries, which are legal acts of war too.
They're more grey-zone, since many countries do low level hostilities below threshold of war, which is different end of spectrum than blockade that's closer to unambiguous open warfare.
think of being kura-murza or yashin, both in jail for being political dissidents, only to find our you are being exchanged evil people you are fighting against.
October 2023 there was similar incident where Chinese cargo ship cut Balticonnector cable and EE-S1 cable. Chip named 'Newnew Polar Bear' under Chinese flag and Chinese company Hainan Xin Xin Yang Shipping Co, Ltd. (aka Torgmoll) with CEO named Yelena V. Maksimova, drags anchor in the seabed cutting cables. Chinese investigation claims storm was the reason, but there was no storm, just normal windy autumn weather. The ship just lowered one anchor and dragged it with engines running long time across the seabed until the anchor broke.
These things happen sometimes, ship anchors sometimes damage cables, but not this often and without serious problems in the ship. Russians are attempting plausible deniability.
After the Nordstream pipeline attacked and destroyed, its reasonable to expect shortened lifetimes for undersea cables and sattelites.
I think Nordstream is more of a special case. It was clandestine, but definitely not terrorism. It was an attack on enemy infrastructure in pursuit of an actual, real-life shooting war. One can argue that it was a bad (or good) idea, or that it was/wasn't effetive, or even that its externalities were beneficial in the long term, etc...
But it's not really in the same category as casually cutting internet lines to your peacetime competitors out of pique or whatever.
Nordstream is also special because its destruction was not aligned with Russia interests. It limited Europe capacity to import Russian gaz lifting one of the reason which might have made the EU reluctent to fully support Ukraine (and causing a major economic crisis in Europe as a side effect).
Between this and the coyness of most European countries governments at the time to comment on investigation, it's not too far fetch to think that Ukraine might be involved.
Who did benefit most from the north stream sabotage? Not Russia, nor Ukraine, but the USA. Their gas replaced Russian gas imports.
The sabotage happened after a simple political decision had been made to turn it off (more accurately to "suspend its certification", as it had yet to actually enter service). So there was never any "need" for sabotage. In any case the sabotage as such had no effect on gas imports.
Who did benefit most from the north stream sabotage?
At the end of the day -- nobody of course, as the whole idea that the sabotage could bring any significant strategic benefit (even in terms of the "psychological" front) was pretty much braindead from the start. Meanwhile all it seems to have brought to the table was added instability, more paranoid thinking all around (in addition to the quite substantial methane release).
But it's definitely easy to see why (at least some of) the Ukrainians thought their side could gain something from of it; or they may not have been thinking in terms of any specific strategic advantage, but rather simply spite.
Either way -- the decision was made, and the job was done.
The problem with Nordstream conspiracies was in fact that you could easily finger anyone as responsible, absolutely including Putin. The benefit to Putin (not "Russia" per se) is that it eliminated the revenue source from gas sales to Europe in the immediate term, and thus made "end the war now" less attractive to his domestic power base (because it wouldn't make them any more money for a few years).
A coup from disaffected underlings unhappy with the status of the Ukraine war is hardly a weird theory. He's fought off one already!
Pointing that Ukraine benefited most from the sabotage is not a conspiracy theory. It would be if there was another significantly more likely explanation but there isn’t.
Russian involvement is a bit far fetched to me. It severely limited their ability to export at a good price when gaz sell is how they finance the war in the first place, and removed their main pressure point on Europe therefore making the war considerably harder to win.
A third party would be more likely (there is a long list: could be the USA, a European country which wants the block to align strongly with the USA, or another power benefiting).
Undersea satellites? You know, like after a launch failure.
It's not a launch failure It's just an underwater satellite. :)
AKA satmarine
Marinesat?
> Undersea satellites?
Yes. Saltellites.
Unless it's on Europa, then it's an extremely successful launch.
it sounds like you've probably never seen this - tanker Minerva Julie (belonging to Putin's friends) traveling through the Baltic Sea suddenly decided to hang around for a week right at the same place where couple weeks later Nord Stream exploded:
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/03/16/23/68797949-11868975...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/14/world/europe/nord-stream-...
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us-navy-was-at-...
I think it's pretty clear that the NordStream explosion was a joint US-Russia-Ukraine operation.
Not sure about joint, might have been half a dozen sides all independently trying to blow it up at the same time. Only way to settle it will be elevating nordstream blowup to an Olympic competition. Will it be summer Olympics (because water) or winter Olympics (because gas supply is so much more exciting in winter)?
It happened in late September… that’s a tricky one, because there’s no Fall Olympics. I think Summer already has enough water sports, so let’s give this one to Winter.
Clearly NordStream was destroyed in a drunken escapade on a rented yacht.
https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/nord-stream-pipeline-explos...
Hell, throw sweden in there too: https://omni.se/marinen-pa-plats-dagarna-fore-explosionerna/...
Nope, it was definitely Poland trying to maximise on their gas connection to Norway.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Pipe
It was clearly Norway trying to sell more gas to Poland.
…wait a second, didn’t Agatha Christie write a book about this?!
A common goal seems to unite people of all nationalities.
It’s like the UN of explosions!
Where is evidence that the US and Russia were involved?
I sense someone hasn't actually read the thread they're replying to.
> it sounds like you've probably never seen this - tanker Minerva Julie (belonging to Putin's friends) traveling through the Baltic Sea suddenly decided to hang around for a week right at the same place where couple weeks later Nord Stream exploded: https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/03/16/23/68797949-11868975...
Just look upthread from my comment.
And Soros was the mastermind.
I'm waiting for Nazis and Jews to be blamed because Godwin's law after all.
The US destroyed the Nordstream pipeline for certain and Sy Hersh has the evidence.
It is more than probable that this incident indicates possible collusion between the Chinese and Russian governments to sabotage European interests. The simplest fix is for Sweden and Denmark to ban Chinese and Russian ships from their territorial waters until they deliver accountable assurances that this sort of behavior will not happen again. Until then, they must be stopped and European countries must play hardball because that's the only language these criminals understand.
Sy Hersh's wild fantasy has already been debunked. He might have a few pieces of the story right but many of his claims are contradicted by reliable open source intelligence. This is what always happens when a journalist works without an editor and rushes to publish before doing through fact checking.
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Yes, of course Putin decided to sabotage the largest infrastructure investment in his country's history, that he worked for a decade to get built.
Putin sabotaged the 3 centuries of Russia’s progress. The pipeline is just a noise here.
>he worked for a decade to get built
that is sweet of you. I just imagine Putin himself welding under water. Not the billions dollars steal by his childhood buddies what typically such Russian megaprojects are.
It's probable the US and possibly Norway did it under cover of BALTOPS 22.
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the...
Snopes only offers FUD but not a single contradiction or refutation of any of Sy Hersh's reporting or claims other than it boils down to "it relies on a single source". Sometimes, in secret operations, that's the reality. There exist genuine anonymous sources who cannot be revealed themselves. Part of the principle of benefit-of-the-doubt is trusting that Sy Hersh isn't merely looking for a quick payday to sellout his journalistic integrity for a few dollars and that he isn't an easily-fooled novice when it comes to doing due-diligence on sources and facts. It's mostly a disrespectful hit-piece lacking in evidence. With all likelihood, like the identity of Deep Throat, the truth will come out once the source retires and write a book about it.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/02/10/hersh-nord-stream-sab...
If it weren't Sy Hersh, this might be more believable. The guy has been putting some distance between himself and reality for over a decade now.
(Could it be true? Maybe. IDK. No dog in that particular fight. But if you, as an anonymous source, go to Sy Hersh, you're an idiot or don't want large numbers of people to believe what you're saying. Occam's razor suggests the former)
Yup - he's a genuine tragedy.
So another Aaron Maté?
From what I know of the guy, I can't see mentioning the two in the same sentence.
Hersh's (good) works were truly monumental. I'm not aware of anything that Maté has brought to the table that would be even remotely comparable. And unlike Hersh (who for many years enjoyed a reputation seemingly beyond reproach), Maté seems to have started shooting himself in the foot pretty soon after he became widely known.
> Putin sabotaged the 3 centuries of Russia’s progress.
What a farcical depiction of the world. There is more to Russia than Putin's opposition to the west.
>There is more to Russia than Putin's opposition to the west.
definitely. That "more" is the backwater Grand Duchy of Moscow how it was before Peter The Great.
As much as I'd like to blithely believe you actually agree with me, who gives a damn about muscovites, particularly from more than 400 years ago? and what bearing does this have on our conversation?
the 3 centuries of progress started by Peter The Great - importing European values, educated people and technology, science and education - made that Grand Duchy of Moscow into the, in various times in various aspects, great country of Russia (Russian Empire, USSR). Peter The Great "opened windows" into Europe and to Caucasus (for example in the military expedition of 1724 Peter The Great signed treaty with the Armenian dukes). Putin had been actively reversing that process - under him Russia rejected European values, kicked out or suppressed many educated people, and the Russian tech, science and education is going straight downhill. Putin "closed the European and Caucasus windows". Russia is quickly returning back to that state of the backwater Grand Duchy of Moscow.
Putin is hardly the first, or the hundredth, or the hundredth-thousandth russian to agonize between asian and european influences on russian culture.
Secondly, education is not a "european" value, as much as the west would like to claim it.
They have done this twice before. Russia weaponizes its energy. That has been the pattern.
Russia Georgia Energy Crisis (2006)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Russia%E2%80%93Georgia_...
Turkmenistan (2009)
https://www.rferl.org/a/Pipeline_Explosion_Stokes_Tensions_B...
Yes, this is why having a prompt satellite launch capability to replace attrition losses is now a strategic imperative. We need to be able to put up new ones in a matter of hours, not months.
Why is that? Undersea cables makes way more sense - the issue is we have maritime law that allows any nation state to freely roam over important cables. During wartimes this is a complete different story - ships won't be allowed near the lines, and if they do get close they will be destoryed without prior warning. No more anchoring "accidents".
> maritime law that allows any nation state to freely roam over important cables.
I'd like to see your version of maritime law that doesn't allow freely roaming over important cables. Your country's enemies would gladly drop cables totally encircling you and say "uh uh uh, important cables!" if you tried to leave your perimeter
This assumes people are very stupid, no? Like, as if they wouldn't know what was happening and just had to let it happen?
I realize US politics may suggest otherwise but I can't imagine the military is just gonna stand by and entertain such a farce..
I think you therefore agree with my reductio ad absurdum argument against the GP's claim. Changing maritime law to prohibit free roaming over "important cables" would be a farce. Therefore, the absence of such a law is not "the issue"
It isn't either/or. Satellites and undersea cables serve different use cases. Cables are great for high bandwidth communications between fixed points but they aren't very useful to mobile military forces and they can't be used for anything beyond communications. We don't have enough ships and patrol aircraft to realistically defend undersea cables outside the littorals.
Satellites can serve multiple purposes including communications, navigation, overhead imagery, signals intelligence, weather, etc. They are also vulnerable, but it's possible to launch replacements faster than repairing damaged cables.
Inofficially Europe is already at war, whether it wants to or not. Maybe someone needs to inofficially keep a close eye on those cables and take inofficial countermeasures against inofficial sabotage acts.
Europe is not at war with another nuclear power, no. Ukraine is at war and Europe is giving support to Ukraine as that's aligned with its interest. This support is neither unconditional nor total and doesn't include going to war with Russia.
No we're not. Nobody in the EU has transitioned to a wartime economy. We are helping out a strategic ally. If Ukraine falls tomorrow an cedes add territory to Russia, the EU is not going to continue fighting, because the war will be over.
That of course assumes that Putin stops at Ukraine. The point is that this isn't our war.
Nine years ago I was in Riga talking with a Latvian friend, and even then she was telling me how Russia was broadcasting separatist propaganda into Latvia
While the EU may not be at war with Russia, Russia is already at war with the EU.
Russia is pursuing low stakes, plausibly deniable, minor nuisance actions against the EU and U.S. It does enough to fool itself internally that it has a great enemy in The West, to which it is bravely standing up.
The purpose of this is to unite enough of the domestic population to suppress dissent and keep the current regime in power.
The reality is that it is actually at war with only one small neighbor, which is going so badly that they have had to import troops from North Korea. Embarrassing.
If they actually engaged in war with the EU, more specifically a member of NATO, they would lose quickly. So they stay well back from that line.
The truth is that Russia has been making war preparations for a long time, also within the EU. In Finland even during the "good years" (between fall of the Soviet Union and Georgian war) Russian businessmen kept buying property that made zero financial sense, but was located close to strategic infrastructure or military bases.
You’re in a zero lot line flat and your neighbors house is on fire. I’d be pretty motivated to help out as well, but I don’t think I’d be quite so cavalier about not being on a wartime footing. Russia has shown repeatedly throughout history that it does not honor international agreements in good faith, and that it sees military adventurism as a legitimate way to expand its borders.
After the dust settles on the Ukraine war, if Putin still has the capacity to wage war, he will not likely stop with Ukraine. It is by now obvious that a limited incursion into Poland, for example, will not spark a global thermonuclear war.
Ukrainian suffering is both the litmus test and the vaccination against nuclear escalation that Putin needs to contemplate further expansion.
Political alignments aside, if I were based in Europe I would be very, very concerned.
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This is a wildly unpopular opinion after 2022, but ...
False.
Ukraine not only has everything to do with Europe -- it is unequivocally European in culture, language, historical involvement and (to the extent that Russia is also considered to be unequivocally European) geography.
It isn't something one can even have an opinion about. Any more than one can have an "opinion" about India being a part of Asia.
Yes, and Ukraine has steadily going down in corruption since Zelenskyy. So if you actually care about corruption and aren't a concern troll, you will want to encourage the current regime and not the reverse.
Zelenskyy has stifled opposition and politically persecuted his enemies, actually.
Your comment is pretty myopic considering the fact that Ukraine is in a state of martial emergency and is actively being invaded by a merciless and lawless regime.
She is on a wartime footing, with her very existence as a country once again in jeopardy at the hands of a much more powerful, longtime aggressor.
Realigning political positions in a way that keeps them firmly aligned with the martial interests of the state is expected and required. For better or for worse, Ukraines civil government is, for now, primarily a military organization as the country and its people are fighting for their lives.
This is the one specific case where it is reasonable, just, and needed to require loyalty, focus, and vigor within an otherwise democratic system. There is a reason why martial law grants the president extraordinary powers. If Ukraine survives, she will have to sort out the return to normal democratic rule, but for now the government is at war.
Don't worry about that, he's been doing it since his inauguration. If you think his actions played no part in this war coming to be, you've been informed a bit selectively.
Frankly it would be shocking if there wasn’t some kind of fuckery afoot in any given Eastern European nation. But that in no way justifies this territory grab by Russia, or the invasion in 2014.
Russia is clearly attempting to annex a neighboring country through military adventurism, and is doing so in contravention with all international law, and also in a way that is intentionally cruel and borderline genocidal.
Russia has lost all legitimacy as a nation worthy of being taken seriously as a global citizen, and has reduced itself to a kleptocratic mad-dog rouge state.
The propaganda has landed well on you, it seems.
How can you be so certain it hasn't landed on YOU?
After all I mentioned that corruption has gotten better and you responded with a cookie cutter response about authoritarianism, which is not necessarily the same as corruption.
You've basically eaten Russian talking points and regurgitated them wholesale without even stopping to critically think about context.
Not so much. I have personal involvement that informs my opinion.
Even Botswana and Zambia aren't in the same league: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?...
Frankly Botswana is beating Ukraine in GDP and Zambia in perceived corruption.
Frankly Botswana is beating Ukraine in GDP
Ukraine's GDP is close to 10x that of Botswana, and in the last year has grown 10 percent over that of 2022.
Try GDP per capita PPP, the measure that matters for average living conditions
When your first attempt at dropping a random statistic gets blown out of the water -- try shifting the goalposts.
I bet you had to look it up as well. I bet you had to go out there, and confirm that Ukraine, a country with 15x the population of Botswana, does indeed have a higher GDP.
To make your discussions easier and less embarrassing in the future, assume that 100 % of the time when someone speaks of GDP, they're speaking of GDP at purchasing power parity per capita.
Assume that 100 % of the time when someone speaks of GDP, they're speaking of GDP at purchasing power parity per capita.
And you can assume that 100 % of the time when someone speaks of the size of their gas tank, they're really talking about MPG while in cruise mode.
I’m serious. Please don’t assume anyone is ever speaking or absolute GDP unless they make it explicitly known. That would be utterly silly.
I'm serious, too.
But given the wildly untenable opinion statement of yours that this now long-flagged thread started off with -- and the obvious irrelevance of any economic performance measures to the Russo-Ukraine conflict -- we see that the entire thread has been utterly silly, from the get-go.
I'm a bit lazy to type right now so Claude can type the message in my stead:
" Think about comparing two families: the Smiths have 5 people and earn $100,000 per year, while Jones is just a couple earning $70,000. If you only looked at total household income, you'd think the Smiths were doing better. But when you realize the Smiths have to split that money five ways ($20,000 per person) while the Joneses get $35,000 each, the picture changes completely.
That's exactly what happens when we compare countries by total GDP. China's total GDP might dwarf Denmark's, but China has to spread that wealth across 1.4 billion people, while Denmark only needs to support 6 million. It's like comparing a pizza between a huge family reunion and a dinner date - the total amount of pizza matters less than how many slices each person gets.
This is why economists prefer to use GDP per capita - it's like looking at how much pizza each person at the table gets, rather than just admiring the size of the whole pie. "
I presented some hard to digest (for some) facts in my opening comment here. You'll only need to read European, Ukrainian, and Russian history for 30 minutes to know that. Of course you wouldn't, you're just a parrot repeating propaganda. You have no interest in the truth.
Who needs truth, when you can just ask Claude?
Yes, we are. Outside of Poland, everybody's closing their eyes to it, but war is coming.
We might be able to stop it before it becomes a hot war, but the ambition is there, the indicators are there, the opportunity is there. Assume it's a war. (Unless you're German. I guess our national sport is now making excuses for Russia)
I grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska, near a strategic Cold War military base. I still remember seeing the TU-95 “bear” bombers flying overhead being escorted and turned around by our fighter jets.
It makes it pretty real when 7 year old me is wondering if this one has any nukes on board, and if this will be the day that they drop.
Russia is not to be trusted, imho. They do not honor their international commitments in good faith, and they will expand their territorial claims if they are allowed to do so. Europe, like a frog in a pot, is in peril and they need to take steps to make sure that Russian war fighting capabilities are destroyed through exhaustion in Ukraine.
This of course is tragic for Ukraine, because it means that she will be utterly razed in the process. But if Russia prevails or backs down with strength, it will happen again. And again.
Russias ability to project force in a strategic way must be destroyed. They are not trustworthy stewards of coercive force.
I don't trust Russia either, but are you certain that's a real memory? I'm not aware of any confirmed incidents in which USSR bombers actually flew within sight of Fairbanks. They routinely tested our defenses but they didn't penetrate that far into US airspace.
I wish I had a photograph. I’ve been told before that this was impossible by others. I’ve also been told by others that were there that yes, it happened. It may not have been , however, an aggressive incursion, I have no way of knowing that part for sure.
Having fighters scramble from Eilison was not unusual at all, and when hunting out in that area with my father we saw a few of those. It was pretty distinct from the training and combat training they did, so it wasn’t that hard to distinguish the intentionality and risk tolerance that was reserved for that kind of urgency.
Anecdotally, I’m pretty darn sure that I saw a bear flying overhead just a few miles east-southeast of Fairbanks. I watched it be turned by 3 F4 phantoms. I was with my father and a few of his friends, as well as my brother that would have been 13 at the time. Everyone there remembers the event, and it was talked about for days in Fairbanks, we even had a subsequent training the next week in my elementary school on survival in the event of a nuclear attack lol.
Perhaps it was some kind of clandestine fuckery, perhaps it was an authorized flight, or perhaps it would have been to embarrassing / inflammatory to make it an event of record? I’m sure the answers are quietly sitting somewhere in a musty filing box.
Sadly as a German I must agree. AfD (financed by Russia) and BSW (probably also financed by Russia, or simply hopelessly naive) will fall over themselves making those excuses. Poor Putin, if only someone _talked_ to him ... while Russia is sabotaging of critical infrastructure like train service, hospitals, Internet, politics, and probably more. Russia is like this annoying bench neighbor, who under the table pokes you in the side during class, until they get shoved hard and then act all hurt. Kinda makes AfD and BSW traitors of their own country.
I for one am in favor of giving Wagenknecht a list of must haves for a ceasefire and peace treaty, which obviously will contain giving back all territory to Ukraine, costly reparation for many years to come, and denazification in Russia. With that list we send her to Russia to negotiate. She is only allowed to return, when the points on that list are achieved. She will be the negotiator, the change she will be the change she wants to see. (If it is not obvious to someone, this is rather a joke, since she cannot be trusted to have meaningful negotiations with her idol.)
The exercise left for the reader is to choose two countries that are not adjacent,
and try to plot a path between them without crossing an undersea cable:
https://www.submarinecablemap.com/
Looks like you can get between Costa Rica and El Salvador without crossing any cables.
We are at war. The United States guided an ATACMS missile into Russian territory yesterday. Imagine the absurdity of if China put missiles on the Mexican border and guided them into missile storage facilities 186 miles inside the border.
I think you'll find the ATACMS missile guided itself, based on inertial navigation and satellite positioning data. If your argument is that the United States guided the missile because the US provides GPS, that's a pretty flimsy argument.
Ukraine would have folded within a few weeks without the weapons systems of the combined Western nations. The Biden administration has given Kyiv permission to use U.S.-supplied missiles in Russian territory in a major escalation that now threatens nuclear war due to the first use doctrine updates. A few hours ago reports of UK Storm Shadow missiles being fired into Russian territory emerged. The West is at war.
By that logic every dictator t72 field trip would make Russia participant in that local war... Absolutely absurd statement. Siria civil war would see Russia waging war on Russia since their equipment was in both hands. What a contrived statement that the arm provider is at war itself.
The passive voice is doing a lot of work here.
Who is now threatening nuclear war?
Why do folks like your self make such foolish analogies? If the US had invaded Mexico like Russia invaded Ukraine then yes, it would be completely fine for Mexico to fire missiles into the US.
Russia took land from Ukraine. For how long do you think Ukraine can fire missiles into Russia?
As long as they're able to, until they get their land back.
What about México then? The US took 55% of the country, not only 20%.
Pretty sure we are talking about Ukraine and Russia here, not other conflicts.
You joined a discussion inside the discussion that was about Mexico firing missiles at the US. If you don't want to discuss similarities of both scenarios, don't join the discussion.
Imagine the absurdity of if China put missiles on the Mexican border ...
Imagine the US engaging in an invasion of Mexico as equally stupid and unprovoked as Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Then not only would Mexico have a perfect right to seek whatever help it needed to resist the aggression directed at it, we would -- unless we were damned fools -- fully expect Mexico to seek and obtain that help.
When people say "unprovoked" do they not know the history, or they think the history doesn't matter, or do they just not care?
What did Ukraine do? Just exist ... menacingly?
Actually, that’s probably the key insight. A democratic, successful Ukraine (not a guaranteed thing at any point) would be an existential threat to the “Russian World” narrative from Moscow, and upend the regime. Even a partially successful Ukraine with working if imperfect pluralism, and regular transitions of power would probably be an profound threat, proving that other models could work.
Or they know the history all too well.
As far as we know Ukraine both put them there and guided the missiles. Please provide proof otherwise.
If someone starts blowing up satellites it’s pretty much game over for space based communications.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
Kessler is often overplayed. Kessler trashes a low orbit and you wouldn't want to launch more birds into the trashed orbit. But, loads of com sats live in MEO or GEO, which is far too high for the numbers to work. They're all fine.
You will even see Kessler cited as some sort of barrier to leaving, which is nonsense.
Imagine there's a 1x1m spot where on average once per week, entirely at random and without warning a giant boulder falls from the sky and if you're there you will be crushed under the boulder. Clearly living on that spot is a terrible idea, you'd die. But merely running through it is basically fine, there's a tiny chance the boulder hits you by coincidentally arriving as you do, but we live with risks that big all the time. If you're an American commuter for example that's the sort of risk you shrug off.
Likewise, Kessler isn't a barrier to leaving, humans won't be leaving because there's nowhere to go. The only habitable planet is this one, and we're already here.
GEO is safe for now. But... https://spacenews.com/intelsat-33e-loses-power-in-geostation...
The most likely explanation for the unexplained disassembly is that Boeing made it. Second, most likely, is a collision with a hunk of something invisible.
The latency on GEO orbits exclude them from many use cases.
GEO is very cramped. It's just a circle, not a sphere.
Edit: I guess I was assuming geostationary. There's a whole sphere of geosynchronous orbits to play with.
Edit2: I was right the first time, GEO (geosynchronous equatoral orbit) / GSO (geosynchronous orbit), apparently. Now my head hurts.
> GEO is very cramped. It's just a circle, not a sphere.
"cramped" the way that like, Alaska is cramped on account of how everybody has to live on the surface, not evenly distributed through the volume of the planet?
Like yeah, it's "just a circle" but did you check the radius of that circle?
Remember if there's debris, the debris isn't stuck in the circle, but, any time it's not in the circle it's harmless. This has the effect of significantly defusing the problem, so in total it's too low risk to be worth considering.
LEO is where starlink is stationed. Really, there is no good scenario where LEO is unusable due to some dumb reason, like blowing up junk in space. I'm not sure our "world leaders" appreciate this.
Not true. China has taken down 2 US satellites in the last few years.
They shoot down their own redundant satellites, and it was in 2007 in 2010.
Really? Thats wild. How is this not seen as a military provocation?
Because it’s not true
That seems like a reasonable explanation lol
The military is shifting toward LEO constellations for communications such as SpaceX Starshield. Kessler syndrome isn't a serious concern for those because the orbits decay fairly quickly anyway.
That "quickly" is on the order of years (as opposed to decades, centuries, etc). If the Starlink constellation goes boom, you can't start launching new ones for several years -- and then the build-up would take years, from there.
Nah. In any major future conflict, the combatants will go ahead and launch replacement satellites immediately regardless of the risks or long-term consequences (or they'll do it at least as long as their manufacturing and launch facilities survive). A constellation of hundreds of satellites can't go "boom" all at once. Even with a bunch of orbital debris floating around the hazards will be sparse and some satellites will live long enough to be operationally useful.
For the purposes of the crisis, sure. But commerce and average consumer internet access will suffer hugely. Similarly, severing the sea cable had no direct military effect, but was economic damage. Kessler syndrome is still a serious concern even in LEO, just not to the same extent of practically denying access to space for the foreseeable future.
Could they place a giant electromagnet in space to collect debris?
Space is too big, and the field of even the world's strongest electromagnets are too small for this to be practical. And even if it did work, you'd only collect ferromagnetic material.
A large enough electromagnet could actually increase effective drag in conductive materials, which may help. All the non-conductive materials would still be there, and paint chips can be brutal at orbital speeds.
You can have the ability to launch 100 satellites in 10 days, but that doesn't really help if you don't have 100 satellites
Well obviously you need to have a supply of replacements in stock. From a military perspective, think of satellites as rounds of ammunition that will be expended during a conflict.
I think it'd be more apropos to compare them to fighter jets/tanks vs bullets
Not really comparable. A new Starlink satellite costs ~$1M. A new F-35 costs ~$100M, and some of the guided missiles it carries actually cost more than the satellite. The militarized Starshield satellites probably cost more than their Starlink cousins but still I think you get the point that there are orders of magnitude differences in unit cost.
And a bullet costs $0.0001, so it's off just as much in the other direction.
Also, your focus on cost was not the point. The point was numbers necessary. You need $lots of bullets, but you don't need any where near the same number of jets/tanks. You don't need $lots of satellites. You need a much smaller number closer to the number of jets/tanks. At least based on Starlink constellation numbers.
I assume you can get some significant bulk discounts at DoD scale, but it's probably still more like $0.10 than $0.0001, which is admittedly still rather less than $1M
I think you might be getting a little confused by terminology. In military terms a round of ammunition doesn't necessarily describe just a small arms cartridge. It can be any munition that's stored for a long period until needed with minimal maintenance. So even an expensive missile or satellite might be treated as a round of ammunition, depending on the design and concept of operations.
Unless the satellite is meant to collide with another object, it's never going to be considered ammunition. It is a strategic platform for communication or intelligence gathering or maybe both. So calling a satellite ammunition is just belaboring the point for internet points or something.
No, you're still missing an important point. This isn't just semantics. Some types of satellites will be considered ammunition in the same way that some (expensive) aerial recon drones and decoys are already considered ammunition today. Not all rounds of ammunition are intended to physically strike a target.
"we" are not doing anything AFAICT. Various privately owned corporations might be, and that's very different.
Yes, I know the undersea cables are privately owned too.
At this point it's a distinction without much of a difference. For better or worse, SpaceX has now been fully integrated into the US military-industrial complex. They have huge DoD contracts to build out the Starshield constellation, including the prompt replacement capability. The US government is going to treat attacks on our critical communications infrastructure seriously, regardless of whether the hardware is publicly or privately owned.
Not clear how the world's richest man sees this situation. He certainly appeared to feel free to make his own decisions in Ukraine.
It's acknowledged in his original biography that the government could seize SpaceX from him for national security purposes etc
But that's an awfully gray area after the last few months
weren't those cut exactly because they are the starlink backbone when over Ukraine?
> After the Nordstream pipeline attacked and destroyed
This happend a very, very long time ago. Destroing things years after the fact is not logical and is not longer a defensive response. Using this as justification is just trying to escalate.
> its reasonable to expect shortened lifetimes for undersea cables and sattelites
Why is this reasonable? It seems like a pointless attack that achieves little other than reminding the world that horrible, oppessive governments are dangerous to everyone. Oppression is incredibly expensive for humanity, and only benefits the few that are the oppressors.
> This happend a very, very long time ago.
It happened on 26. September 2022. That is not a long time ago.
> It seems like a pointless attack that achieves little other than reminding the world that horrible, oppessive governments are dangerous to everyone
It sends a message, as sabotaging communications is frequently done before an attack. Also it damages morale and is a show of power.
"very, very long time ago", it was two years ago.
Yeah and this time they won't let them get away. According to Finnish Minister of Defence: "The authorities in the Baltic Sea region have learned from the mistakes of the Baltic Connector investigation and are prepared, if necessary, to stop a ship in the Baltic Sea if it is suspected of being involved in damaging communications cables."[1]
And it looks like according to marinetraffic.com that the Yi Peng 3 is indeed at full stop surrounded by at least 3 Danish navy vessels.
1. article in Finnish https://www.hs.fi/politiikka/art-2000010845324.html
Boarded according to: https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1859132263746744367
Not confirmed by any mainstream newspaper. The danish forces only confirm, that they are there, but nothing more.
20 hours later they are cited that they cannot board without China's approval. Legally uncharted grounds whether they could or could not. Looks they take the cautious side for the time being.
worth noting that twitter account is not the most trustworthy or independent.
What have they posted that was wrong?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visegr%C3%A1d_24#Content details a number of cases.
It would be useful to have a site that logs all plausible issues of this kind, at arm's length from Wikipedia editors.
Kind of a "Who watches the watchers?" type of thing.
If that list became popular it would be weaponised by military intelligence.
Why would that not be prone to the same issue you think Wikipedia faces?
Maybe it would not, but putting all your eggs in one basket has never been a good idea either.
I don't think that's what we're doing, considering Wikipedia points to other 'baskets' as sources.
Superior methodology (transcending numerous cultural / psychological / cognitive norms and obligations) is how I would go about it.
For example: banning the conflation of opinion and fact, like what's going on (and always goes on) in this thread, a behavior that is protected (doing otherwise "is not what this site is for").
If an imperfection is noted: log it, investigate, improve. Rinse, repeat.
Also: best prepare one's will, life insurance, etc before undertaking such a project.
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So according to the Bluesky thread, the ship was captained by a Russian citizen. One has to wonder whether this was done with the approval of the Chinese government, or whether the ship was just chosen by opportunity (which seems possible given that China is the second most common merchant flag). Or whether implicating China was even an explicit goal.
For an analogy, it seems like a scrappy preteen throwing around his big brother's name, knowing that if he gets into trouble, big brother will intervene...
(i.e. the European countries might be more wary about boarding a Chinese ship compared to a Russian ship, because escalating against China is scarier...).
Indeed. The best way to understand Russia's approach to foreign policy is that it's an extension of its mafia state-derived domestic policy, where there are no true allies and anyone brought into the circle is tainted through compromising actions to ensure they stay loyal to you.
It's not dissimilar to the way criminal gangs will ensure that they have dirt on anyone joining or intentionally implicate others in order to ensure compliance.
I think China stands to gain from escalation of the war so its possible they approved. It makes Russia weaker and more dependant on them, distracts the US from the Pacific, and weakens Europe in many ways.
Similar to both Russia and China gaining from war and disruption in the Middle East.
There are many possibilities here.
Russian captain, how does the ownership history of the ship look? Could be some sanction evading ship that was owned by Russian interests anyhow.
It was a Russian ship until a month ago
Do you have a source for that? According to https://www.vesselfinder.com/vessels/details/9224984 it's been registered as Chinese since 2016.
Doesn't mean its current Russian captain is serving Chinese interests, of course, but at least it seems to be Chinese owned.
China did not want the war in Ukraine, which has created serious problems for them including for Belt and Road. So behing closed doors China must be passed off but Russia is important to them and they can't let them collapse.
Of course Putin knows this hence him somewhat taking the p.
I doubt China will be happy, if Russia staged chinese support. But rumors have it, that the North Korean troop support for the war in Ukraine also came out of the blue for China, so Putin might make a risky gamble here, but I doubt he dares it. If China would seriously drop support for Russia, they would be srewed.
What are some concrete reasons why someone would want to damage these cables? Who benefits?
Assuming it was intentional, just trying the waters. Testing what the response is, who actually responds versus who's willing to sweep the incident under the carpet, how hard any response is and how quickly it happens, how much of the internet infrastructure is affected for how long, etc... etc... that's a lot of useful information as preparation for an actual attack.
This is really interesting how you’ve explained it.
In many professional fights the competitors start matches with light, quick jabs to probe their opponents defense.
This feels just like that now that you put it this way. I never connected those dots though.
Maybe it's because I'm Swedish and we've experienced Russia's "probing defenses" tactic for a very long time (mainly "breaking" into Swedish airspace with airplanes, and discovering submarines at the Swedish shores), but I always thought this was common knowledge, always interesting to learn it isn't for everyone :)
I lived in Taiwan for a while and China does this to Taiwan often. Flying planes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, sailing warships through the strait. It’s portrayed in (US, TW) media as war preparations, but some locals assume it’s all bark with no bite. How are those Russian actions portrayed in Swedish media?
when your enemy cry wolf consistently, you can become complacent and stop being overly alert.
This conditioning is how you prepare for an actual attack, so that they're not prepared at the actual time of the real attack. It's also why some military exercises near a country is considered provocative, even tho it's "just an exercise".
Not to mention that it drains resources to respond/monitor these cry-wolf fakes.
Not just Russian. Even NATO aircraft were rejected frequently, though not anymore for obvious reasons.
https://youtu.be/Z_EnkvE6LZA
The situation escalated beyond probing, this is tit for tat response for Ukraine getting and launching US tactical missiles. Russia seems to be now aggressively monitoring and raiding the submarine pipes and cables. Blowing up of Nord Stream made Russia go ballistic.
> The situation escalated beyond probing
Not sure we understand "probing" differently. Russian currently is at the edges, testing the responses from things like cutting cables and otherwise interfering with the infrastructure. This is what "probing" means for me. "Beyond probing" would be actually launching attacks one way or another, which we haven't seen yet (except of course, for the Ukraine invasion).
> actually launching attacks one way or another, which we haven't seen yet
On the contrary. The attacks have been ongoing for years now. You're looking for the tanks and missiles when the attack is actually happening right under your feet. Rot and corruption are more powerful than any bullets or missiles.
> Rot and corruption are more powerful than any bullets or missiles.
The developed world knows this even better. Offering yachts, real estate, supercars, prostitutes, and other luxuries to oligarchs. Thanks to this their military is rather in shambles right now.
... Wow, this must be peak Kremlin shilling: Blaming other countries for Russia's decades of kleptocratic leadership and endemic corruption at all levels.
It's historically, financially, and strategically incoherent. Trying to bribe people who are already rich with hard-to-hide things, just to make them extra-corrupt in the vague hope that it somehow results in pilfered AK-47s being sold on the black market?
Sorry, but no: Being shaken down by Russian traffic cops for bribes every week is a domestic problem.
Does it? You think Russia can't corrupt a German Chancellor or a US President? Boy have I got news for you!
A next step for them might be to disable/poison something like an entire urban water distribution system. But come to think of it, the US et al. might be able to do the same back to Russia. Because, you see, there is a whole 'nother ladder of escalation to explore.
A submarine cable is an attractive target for Russia because Russia doesn't have cables of their own exposed: Russia is a continental power, not a maritime alliance. A cable attack is an asymmetric attack, difficult to respond to appropriately.
I recently saw a cable from St Petersburg to Kaliningrad at one of these maps.
It would be a shame if somebody dragged a massive ship anchor over it by accident. Through potato field.
Again? [0]
> The 1,000 kilometre (620 miles) Baltika cable belonging to state-owned Rostelecom runs from the region of St. Petersburg to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on the southern Baltic Sea.
> A gas pipeline linking Finland and Estonia and two other telecoms cables, connecting Estonia to Finland and Sweden, were also damaged last month. Finnish police believe damage to the Baltic connector gas pipeline was caused by a Chinese container ship dragging its anchor along the seabed but have not concluded whether this was an accident or a deliberate act.
> The Finnish coast guard said the Russian outage may be linked to the previously reported damage.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/finland-says-russian-ba...
>"Beyond probing" would be actually launching attacks one way or another, which we haven't seen yet
he's saying "this was not a probe, this was an actually launched attack"
> Blowing up of Nord Stream made Russia go ballistic
Russia started invading Ukraine six months before Nord Stream blow up. Previously Russia invaded Crimea in 2014.
The next invaded country, will be also an escalation?
All of this is about a few psychopaths filling their pockets with the money that generates the corpses of their criminal business, some encouraging the production of war, others encouraging the waging of war.
Why are these psychopaths and their "business" not prosecuted?
Because their prosecution means going to war. I don't know about you but as someone living less than 30 minutes from Ukraine I don't want my country to go to war.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
> If you want peace, prepare for war
And what makes you think it won't, anyways?
Quoth Churchill: "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile-hoping it will eat him last."
The crocodile is still intent on eating you, even if you're nice to it. I really wish Europe would start understanding that.
If Ukraine falls, the war is coming whether we like it or not.
Who are you referring to? Putin and Russian oligarchs? If so, how would you imagine the mechanics of prosecuting them to work?
German political and industrial elite with their former chancellor are within the reach of Western jurisdiction. They were smirking at Trump when he was exactly pointing out their dependency on Russian gas so.... who knows...
No, decades of rampant kleptocracy and alcoholism made Russia go ballistic
Decades? I suppose that 40 decades is still decades.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK7l55ZOVIc
so i guess you've got russia all figured out. what's your excuse for the staggering amounts of violence and invasions from americans?
A savior complex that's sometimes misled, sometimes absolutely warranted.
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>This feels just like that now that you put it this way. I never connected those dots though.
Boxers learned from the art of war, not the other way around.
"Probing attacks" are a standard doctrine. It's not always a clear signal of intent to increase hostilities because it's also just useful as an intelligence gathering exercise.
That's very similar to how the "accidental" flights over neighbouring territory works as far as I understand. This happens regularly between many countries. Just far enough to get some response, but not enough to get shot down immediately.
> but not enough to get shot down
Doesn't always work
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shoo...
Which is the only proper response to unwelcome military aircraft.
> This happens regularly between many countries.
I cannot find any lists (either in English or Swedish) but I remember Russia has been accidentally breaking into Swedish airspace like once a year for as long as I can remember. Submarines also sometimes "accidentally" end up close to Swedish shores.
It'd be interesting to see some total numbers, and compare other countries with how often it happens between Sweden/Russia.
Russia wants to end NATO without going to war with NATO.
NATO's political unity and ability to respond is tested with these attacks. Russia does them one after another gradually escalating. Russia maintains plausible deniability or does so small operations that they can always walk them back.
Eventually, some country invokes Article 4 or 5 consultations. Russia hopes that US, Hungary, or Germany waters down NATO response. The conflict continues, but between individual countries not under NATO. NATOs as a organization may continue, but raison d'être is gone.
Russia and these NATO countries being probed are like the two siblings in the back seat. Mom, he's touching me. Stop touching your brother. Mom, he's holding his finger right next to me. Dad eventually says, don't make me pull this car over and start a global thermonuclear war
Not quite. Be careful, Russia invests a lot in disinformation campaigns and spreading (conflicting, but that is part of their doctrine) narratives. Bothsidisms and False Equivalency are some of the common tools in muddying the information sphere.
NATO and Europe did quite a lot to normalize relations with Russia. Russia was invited and became participant of the NATO program Partnership For Peace [0].
Very nice, but the secret services that took over the empire did and does not fancy a rule-based, harmonious order based on mutual relations, human rights, freedom of press etc. As any autocracy or kleptocracy understands, that is very much a threat to their power, beacuse The imperative is on us to understand that message really well. It goes slowly unfortunately. It is hard for us to grok.Notice how on our part, helped via tech oligarchs, there is an incessant bombardment to undermine support for those values. Kremlin troll factories are a thing, but the Chinese are speading up rapidly in the information sphere too. Especially youngsters are targeted.
The war has already begun, but we don´t want to see it. And that is dangerous.
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0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_Peace
> Be careful, Russia invests a lot in disinformation campaigns and spreading (conflicting, but that is part of their doctrine) narratives.
You may also want to be careful (or not):
- all countries engage in these things
- how things are seem like how they seem, but this is very often not the case...and rather than consciousness raising warnings for such situations, it very often does the opposite
As always, I recommend a meta-perspective on geopolitical stories, it is much more fun than being a Normative, poorly constrained imagination actor like the vast majority of people.
I certainly welcome critical thinking. How GOP got of the rails with the adventures of Bush Jr (War on Terror) is worthy of deep analysis. Backed by Russia, which might give you a pause.
Geopolitical affairs are indeed difficult to follow. It requires deep internal domain(s!) knowledge, which does not fit your average corporate media business model. The niche outlets that do have a capable editorial board are threatened by takeovers [1, 2] from the likes of Axel Springer [3]. 1 Billion USD for Politico. An idiotic sum for a buyer that small, Wikipedia might pique your interest [3]. That is not to say that Politico is useless now, but you can count on journalistic degradation over time.
But sweeping statements are not of help to get a sharper picture. Instead they risk promoting false equivalence and may turn participants(!) of democracies into passive nihilists. Which is precisely the aim of the foreign influence we are talking about.
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1. https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/06/axel-springer-politico-...
2. https://countercurrents.org/2021/09/a-right-wing-german-news...
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axel_Springer_SE#Criticism
Do you ever wonder why mainstream school curriculum doesn't include the discipline most suitable for navigating these waters: philosophy?
And if you do now: do you wonder if this is 100% coincidence, or oversight? How often do you hear the idea even discussed, as compared to, say, how often we hear about "misinformation", and the need for more "critical thinking"?
I am glad this situation has a substantial humorous aspect to it, otherwise I'd probably get stressed out about it.
> all countries engage in these things
The post you're responding to, already predicted and addressed this claim:
> Bothsidisms and False Equivalency are some of the common tools in muddying the information sphere.
Right, but that quote is kind of dumb. It implies that disagreements or criticism of the US are coming from russian disinformation agents. You can see how that framing (even if true sometimes!) isn't productive to any kind of actual discussion right?
> It implies that disagreements or criticism of the US are coming from russian disinformation agents
Does it? The post in question observed 2 things:
1. Russia invests a lot in disinformation campaigns and spreading (conflicting, but that is part of their doctrine) narratives.
2. Bothsidisms and False Equivalency are some of the common tools in muddying the information sphere.
Is your point of contention with the truthfulness of either of these observations, or with their proximity to each other?
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These anti disinformation posts are quite peculiar. I'd advise anyone who wants to dig deeper to listen to West Point graduate Mearsheimer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
It takes one hour to listen. Take notes and verify the facts afterwards. No disinformation there, much less Russian.
Mearsheimer has been debunked many a times and his theory just doesn´t hold up with reality. I am not going to debunk it, because I will repeat what other really respectable people have said about the subject.
Just one rebuttal, but there are many more to be found on the internet.
https://euideas.eui.eu/2022/07/11/john-mearsheimers-lecture-...
Mearsheimer, who bases his theory on 'Putin never lies'. Sorry if that's your starting point then you're just promoting fantasy.
> who bases his theory on 'Putin never lies'.
Can you cite anything that he has actually said that even resembles this?
It was one of his founding premises of all his discussions at the recent Russian escalation of the war started in 2014. I suggest you go watch those.
Except its always Russia instigating. We never sent someone to look at the spire of Saint Basil (the pathetic excuse offered for explaining the presence of GRU officers in Salisbury carrying out chemical warfare), or really struck at their weak points.
Are you actually saying the US has never engaged in propaganda within another country or attempted to influence the outcomes of their elections or influence their populace to rise up against their leaders?
You cannot be serious with that kind of belief
But of a jump from that to spraying poison all over the place.
Not really sure what you're referring. The US has most definitely sprayed poison all over the place in South America with cocoa plant eradication efforts. Or Agent Orange in South East Asia.
If you mean poison as in disinformation, then you'd be wrong there as well. We literally "bombed" Iraq with pamphlets from airplanes encouraging them to rise up against Suddam and we'd be there to support them; we didn't.
No, the GP means literal poison. Neurotoxin, specifically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_...
Humorous yet concerning that our governments act like children.
This is strange to me because this is basically forcing drills that better prepare their enemy.
Sound the fire alarm over a birthday cake candle once, and you've got a drill making people get better at evacuating.
Sound the fire alarm over a birthday cake candle several times a week, and people learn the alarm means there's no fire, no need to rush, they've got time to finish that e-mail and grab their coat.
If you never go to war with your enemy, your enemy's continued preparations are wasted money and resources (both political and economic), aren't they?
The type of preparations being forced are things the government should be doing regardless as part of their national defense.
Ironically this is what caused the fall of the Soviet Union.
While not directly addressing undersea cable sabotage this is a comprehensive open access article with case studies on 'hybrid warfare' which provides context to these types of actions. 'Shadows of power beneath the threshold: where covert action, organized crime and irregular warfare converge' - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02684527.2024.2...
When Trump becomes President next year he is expected to demand that Ukraine settle the war with Russia or risk losing US aid and military support. It is why Russia is throwing everything at re-taking Kursk and US is now allowing long range strikes.
If the EU decides to join the US the war is over and Russia will keep the occupied lands. If the EU decides to support Ukraine then because of the devastating sanctions there is a strong chance Russia loses.
So it's in Russia's interest to make life as difficult as possible for Europe over the coming months in order to convince them that ending the war is in their best interest.
> If the EU decides to join the US the war is over and Russia will keep the occupied lands.
As a European, I'd say there is just about 0 chance of the EU unilaterally supporting Russian taken any occupied areas to themselves and Ukraine surrendering. Not only would it signal to Russia that they can take European land without consequences, but public opinion is very much against any sort of cessation of defenses. In my ~30 years I've never seen as strong NATO support from the common man in countries like Sweden and Spain as there is today.
> As a European, I'd say there is just about 0 chance of the EU unilaterally supporting Russian taken any occupied areas to themselves
I agree, but it's not about accepting or saying it's a good idea, it's about whether European countries can replace the US support enough that Ukraine can reasonably keep defending themselves.
I don't know if EU would be able to match the current support the US gives to Ukraine (maybe it already does? Or maybe it exceeds? I don't know either way) but what I'm sure off is that Europe won't stop trying even if it wouldn't be enough.
If you add up all the aid from the US and compare it to aid from the EU plus European nations, I think the share of contributions is roughly equal. But if that’s right (and I did the math in my head while scrolling a huge spreadsheet on my phone), then the loss of support from the US is significant. The US ability to produce armaments is also unparalleled in the West, so a loss of that supply is also a huge issue. Then you have the loss of the US as a military backer which may free Putin to be more aggressive - dirty bombs, tactical nukes, blowing up a nuclear reactor, assassinating Ukrainian leadership, who knows what. It’s a huge problem for Ukraine if they lose the US. But will they? It’s hard to know for certain.
Europe is great at producing armaments as well - but there are a lot of useful armaments that are only produced in the US. If you had to choose either EU or US support, the US is the better option as they can give you things that the EU cannot even though the EU has more people than the US and a good economy.
The Patriot system is one the of best examples. EU doesn't really have anything in this space, but Ukraine needs more of it yesterday.
> The Patriot system is one the of best examples. EU doesn't really have anything in this space, but Ukraine needs more of it yesterday.
Are you talking about SAM capabilities or something else? Because there are plenty of SAMs produced by European countries; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surface-to-air_missile...
The full setup for missile defense. This includes radar, computers and so on.
The European system often contain some American components. Perhaps the French a bit less so.
This has turned out to be a major problem, as the US has used their re-export restrictions on components to block very significant parts of planned European military aid to Ukraine.
I speculate that there will be (already is) some extremely heavy investments in military tech R&D to remove/reduce dependence on American components going forward. As a continent, we can't have our hands tied like this in future conflicts.
Thanks a lot for doing that, even thought kind of ad-hoc :) Some data for guesses is better than none!
I'm guessing that if US pulls their support, EU will try to add as much to cover up for it as humanly possible, as most compatriots see Ukraine as the frontline of something that can grow much, much bigger which because of remembering history, we'd obviously like to avoid.
how sure are you? I think the economic struggles + losing US support would make every incumbent leader lose their jobs until UE is full of Trump supporters
Fairly confident, at least for the countries I frequent and have friends in. As an example, public opinion of NATO in Sweden was really negative up until ~2013 (Crimea occupation) where it kind of was equally positive/negative and then fast forward to today where it's at 64% positive. https://www.gu.se/en/news/opinion-on-nato-record-shift-betwe...
Being a Swede myself, and knowing how apathetic Swedish people are about basically anything, something having that large of support is pretty uncommon and signal a strong will to make NATO and EU defenses stronger, if anything.
Even people I know who been historically anti-"anything military" in the country have quickly turned into "We need to defend our Nordic brothers and sisters against the Russians" which kind of took me by surprise.
> UE is full of Trump supporters
That won't ever happen. Even right-wingers (Europe right, not US right) are laughing at Trump and the Republicans.
To be fair, we do have a couple of hundred years of history where Russia was always the big bad. Pretty much the only large-scale scenario the Swedish military trains and prepares for is a Russian invasion. The enemy always comes from the east.
Even right-wingers (Europe right, not US right) are laughing at Trump and the Republicans.
Any examples you can point to?
> it's about whether European countries can replace the US support enough that Ukraine can reasonably keep defending themselves.
Your economy is nearly 10 times the size of Russia.
If Russia can continue, then you can almost 10 times more easily.
It's not a "can" issue. It's a "are you willing to do more than absolute minimum?" issue.
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> Public opinion is against further weapons shipments to Ukraine
The linked article is about the opinion of Germans about shipments of German weapons. When you don't specify that in the context of this thread, which is about Europe, not Germany, people might mistakenly interpret that as data about Europe.
Okay, now let's see polls for Poland, Finland, or UK.
I know there are some countries where support is less than in other places (Germany being one, as you highlighted).
I still stand by my original statement that unilateral decision in EU of stop supporting Ukraine and letting Russia keep the occupied territories.
Support in Germany is the same as support in Ukraine itself (according to the above Gallup poll at least).
Support in other European countries does not differ much from Germany:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/21/barely-10-per-...
> Support in other European countries does not differ much from Germany:
Yes, it seems to differ in at least one place by a lot: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42193290
I'm sure that's true for other places too.
Unfortunately, many of my German countrymen are either stupid or complacent for not wanting more weapon deliveries, so a striving democracy can defend itself.
"If the EU decides to support Ukraine then because of the devastating sanctions there is a strong chance Russia loses."
How did that not work then yet?
They question you're really asking is "why is the war taking so long?"
Because it's a war.
I think he is asking how well the devastating sanctions have been working so far. Which is a retorical question of course, because obviously they haven't harmed Russia all that much. Actually, they are hurting the EU as well because of the risen energy prices.
> haven't harmed Russia all that much
Ruble is below a single penny.
Interest rates are at 21%, highest since 2003.
Inflation is out of control.
Not really all that rosy.
In Feb 2022, just before the war started, the Rubble was worth $0.012. Now it's $0.0099. That's a 17% value drop in almost 3 years. It's true, the inflation is high, but nowhere near out of control.
Also, the discussion was about the effect of the sanctions. But the inflation is going up not because of that, but because of the huge amount of Russian government money that's flowing to the military and to the weapon industry.
> It's true, the inflation is high, but nowhere near out of control.
I'm not sure how useful that exchange-rate data is when the Russian government has made it harder to for their people to actually trade away rubles even at a price they like. [0]
I'd also expand the time window: The Jan-2022 ruble had already taken geopolitical damage, because of how Russia attacked Ukraine using insignia-less forces in 2014. In contrast, a 2012 ruble was more like $0.30.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/31/russia-capital...
Well sure, but weren't we discussing the effect of the 'devastating' EU sanctions? If you want to expand the timeframe all the way back to 2012, then the conclusion must be that the effect of the sanctions on Russian policy has been even smaller .. After all, it didn't stop them from first annexating the Crimea in 2014 and next trying to annexate Ukraine completely in 2022.
none of those things prevent russia from waging war.
All of it are merely suffering that the russian citizens suffer, but canwithstand. Russia does not import food, does not need to import fuel, and can import most consumer goods from china and bypass western sanctions.
Therefore, russia's gov't can allocate most of their internal resources for war production.
It's not so much how much they "can withstand" (under the absolute worst of circumstances), as opposed to how much they are wiling to withstand given that, on a certain level, most of them have to understand that the war is basically optional for Russia.
look, if someone looks like they are losing a war in the beginning, middle and the end act of it, I wouldn’t have much faith that extending it is the best solution to finally win.
Tautological
The Nazis were mopping the floor with Europe until they weren’t. The Japanese were conquering Asia until they weren’t.
But obligatory reminder, that back then there were no nukes. So it is not exactly the same situation.
Eh, MAD brings us back to equilibrium. It's a significantly more dangerous equilibrium, for sure, but we should be much more afraid of a nuclear accident (not reactor meltdowns but accidental weapon launch) than of purposeful use of a nuclear weapon.
Well, the result is the same, no? If one rocket flies, chances are, they will all fly.
Russia will not use nukes. If you believe they will, then they have you exactly where they want you to be.
So how do you know that?
Why wouldn't russia use a tactical nuke in west Ukraine to destroy tank factories? They already are a international Pariah, that is why they align with North Korea.
The only answer is - to remain the last standing they have. But at some point, they might not care. It is dangerous to put someone with nukes in a desperate position. Putin would not survive retreating from Ukraine - he would be in a desperate position if the odds of war are against him - currently they ain't.
Why wouldn't russia use a tactical nuke in west Ukraine to destroy tank factories?
Because the Biden administration communicated to its regime (in late 2022) that this would definitely trigger a massive kinetic response. In particular it indicated that its ground forces in Ukraine would be utterly destroyed (as Putin knows it is very much capable of doing).
Talking and doing are not the same thing. Geopolitics is like Poker, who is bluffing and who is calling it. You are saying only Putin is bluffing - well, I do read russian military blogs/telegram chats. Spoiler: they also think Biden is bluffing.
Don't you see, how this can turn out wrong?
Anything can happen, and people say all sorts of stuff online.
But from the fact that the warning was expresed privately, and using carefully chosen language (unlike Putin's warnings, which are generally aimed at the public sphere, and are full of bluster) -- and considering, again, that the US is fully capable of carrying through with its promise in this regard -- it seems likely the message was received as intended.
Could still go wrong, but the likelihood of things going wrong by not promising any sufficiently serious consequences at all to Russia's regime if it actually deploys nukes seems to be (unequivocally) far greater.
If the warning would have been really private, you would not know about it. Since you know about it - it was apparently rather a public statement as well. We both don't know about the real backroom deals and what exact words are used there. What are the real red lines that are communicated behind the curtains - most of those statements are just show. Part of the game. I am pretty sure, that Putin would like to remain in power and not radiated. But I would not bet on it. There are rumors he is sick - and sacrifice and suffering is somehow part of the russian mentality.
The threat is public so people like you can go and sow fear because Russia itself has been revealed as a paper tiger. Kleptocracy can only take a modern civilization so far.
"because Russia itself has been revealed as a paper tiger."
I see, you have personally checked the russian nukes and found they are all worthless? Or have access to top secret informations confirming that?
Otherwise it seems a bit out of this world, to claim the country with the most nukes on earth is a paper tiger.
And the russian conventional military is far from a paper tiger as well. That tale comes from the fantasy, that Ukraine is facing russia alone. But the whole NATO is supporting it. Without NATOs weapons and money, Ukraine would have been russian since over 2 years.
But yes, I do have fear. But more from people like you, who look at reality in a way, that fits their ideology.
Just assume for a moment, you are wrong. What would happen as a result, if the people in command would think like you?
No, you don't need to check the nukes. MAD still works just like it has for decades. It's inconvenient but this was where we had to wind up the moment we split the atom. People knew the moment we split the atom that this is where we'd wind up.
> And the russian conventional military is far from a paper tiger as well.
Lol okay.
> Just assume for a moment, you are wrong
How about you assume that you are wrong, and you are volunteering for a world where once a nation acquires a nuclear weapon they are allowed to run roughshod over the entire world, raping whoever they want, torturing whoever they want, and cowards will just line up and beg the victims to allow them to continue? Do you hear yourself?
The alternative here is not sunshine and rainbows. The alternative is an even more vigorous race to nuclear weapons from the most vicious regimes on the planet and more horrific crimes committed and excused under nuclear blackmail.
If Russia launches a nuke, they are the criminals. Not the people who stood up to them and "forced" them to do it. Russia has all the agency in the world. They could turn around and march back to Moscow today. How about you go do your "peacemaking" beggar appeasement routine on VK and tell Russians to tremble in fear of the United States deleting their civilization?
"How about you assume that you are wrong, and you are volunteering for a world where once a nation acquires a nuclear weapon they are allowed to run roughshod over the entire world, raping whoever they want, torturing whoever they want, and cowards will just line up and beg the victims to allow them to continue? Do you hear yourself?"
Yes, I can hear myself. And I never said anything like it. And I doubt you can point to where I said or wrote such things. All this thread was about the question if russia would use nukes.
It is telling, that for you just the realisation of this possibility, automatically assumes surrender.
Well, not for me. I am a strong proponent of weapon delivery and training for Ukraine. Despite the chance, that russia might use a tactial nuke. Rumors have it, that at the succesful Ukrainian Cherson offensive 2 years ago - there was serious fear in russian command and increasing pressure of using a small nuke, so much that some western agencies saw the chance at 50%. If the offensive would have moved on towards Krim, then it likely would have happened. And this still did not change - russia (beyond Putin) is very unwilling to give up the Krim. And I can see worse outcomes, than the Krim remaining russian.
Or do you just want the rule of international law and criminals must not be rewarded for aggression? Yeah, I would like that, too. But before demanding total victory over russia for the sake of law at the risk of an allout nuclear war, I see some other chances of improving international law. For example doing something about turkeys conquering. Or Aserbaidschan. Or get the US to abolish the hague invasion act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr.... Or look at some other allies. Etc.
Nobody here believes it's not possible that Russia could use a nuke. They're saying it's unlikely and it shouldn't dictate our decisions. It seems like there's not an actual disagreement here, so have a good day.
Well, this thread for me was literally about:
"Russia will not use nukes."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42197260
"The United States will not fill the Colorado River with gasoline and light it on fire."
Would you embark on some argument about how technically they might actually be able to do that?
I am interested in arguing about real things.
It is real, that russia made nuclear threats and expresses increasing frustration that their threats get ignored.
It is also real, that many people, also here, say the threats are completely empty.
And I am sceptical about that claim.
No idea how your gasoline river fits in that reality.
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> Putin would not survive retreating from Ukraine
A most interesting question is: Would survive Trump?
Neither is now the situation exactly that having nukes, means you can tell everyone to back down and do exactly as you say or else.
The nazis won many wars even tho they lost the big one. Will NATO win against Russia? Who knows. But in the showdown NATO/Ukraine vs Russia, they lost.
“NATO/Ukraine”? I am literally giggling at the absurdity :D Get a grip.
Russia is getting bombed every day and doesn’t even hold all of its initial territory. It is not clear who will win this.
It is extremely obvious that Russia would be crushed within days by a confrontation with NATO (but this conflict almost certainly wouldn't materialize due to nuclear weapons).
> It is extremely obvious that Russia would be crushed within days by a confrontation with NATO (but this conflict almost certainly wouldn't materialize due to nuclear weapons).
It's interesting the extent to which people haven't internalized this. Russia's industry has really ramped up on military production in the past two years, and their military will eventually get to the point where it can cause tremendous damage against a poorly-equipped Ukraine, through attrition. But the invasion revealed how far behind they are technologically, and a combined NATO force would turn off their entire military's command and control on day one of a real conflict.
It's an inversion of the situation forty or fifty years ago, when Europe had to rely on the the nuclear threat because the Russian conventional forces were considered to be overwhelming.
I would say because China and North Korea joined the train of gravy, to the point to NK selling food to Russian Army. Maybe India also helped to sustain the Russian economy for a while.
In any case Russia losing its oil refineries one by one is the real deal here.
> So it's in Russia's interest to make life as difficult as possible for Europe over the coming months
Unsurprisingly this week after Macron speech, "French" farmers decided to organize again on groups directed by leaders and block and destroy Spanish cargo trucks at the frontier, without any policemen to be found at place.
Is obvious that somebody is trying again the old trick to confront and divide in the EU. We had seen the same before in Poland, etc.
But a trick overused can became counterproductive. I'm sure that Macron and other in EU can sum deux and deux and understand that surrender is not an option anymore. Is not just Ukraine but also their own political survival what is at stake. If they let this agents roam free and grow, they will lose gradually the power.
Would be an economical win for Europe if the US drew their aid. The amount of money needed to be spent in military aid across Europe would create markets within the region that would in the longer run create good wealth.
Alone from that reason, USA will not pull their aid. USA cannot afford losing Europe as an arms client
It would be so nice to not be dragged into this war by the aggressor. Russia is playing a very stupid game here.
> Russia is playing a very stupid game here.
They are not, if you take the larger context into account - and that is China and their saber rattling not just against Taiwan but also against everyone else in what China thinks is "their" influence sphere such as the Philippines.
Russia's warmongering (not just in Ukraine, but also via Syria, Iran and Yemen!) is breaking apart both the US and EU internally - recent elections have shown that both populations are pretty much fed up with the wars and their consequences, and once enough countries either fall to Putin's 5th column outright or their governments pull a Chamberlain, China can be relatively certain no one will intervene too much when they decide that now is the best time to annex other countries.
I wonder if anyone thinks this seems likely:
American Secretary of Defense: "Mr. President, the Chinese just destroyed our Naval base in the Philippines, killing hundreds of US servicemen. As part of a plan to annex the country or something."
American president: "Let's not intervene too much."
I don't think the Chinese will attack US infrastructure or vessels directly, they are not that stupid - but they did attack Philippine ships in what is widely recognized Philippine territory [1] or fish illegally in Philippine territory [2].
The only response the entire West was able to give in years of Chinese transgressions were strong words, about as effective as "thoughts and prayers". China is a bully that escalates continuously (similar to Russia's behavior in Syria with the countless "red lines" that were crossed, eventually including chemical weapons) and needs to be brought to its knees before they one day trigger WW3 by accident.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/chinese-coast-gua...
[2] https://maritime-executive.com/article/philippine-official-a...
it's why instead of an appropriate, equal and measured response for acts of bullying, any sort of aggression should be faced with overwhelming relatiation.
This is what one would do to a school yard bully. They push you, and you immediately do a full face punch and knee to the nose. Fight to the death from the first push/shove, and let it escalate. One fight, and the bullying is over, or you both get injured sufficiently to go to the hospital. There should be no middle grounds.
Putin and Xi's big advantage over the US is that American presidents get elected every 4 years. If they gradually encroach on their neighbors and make intervention unpopular in the US via propaganda they don't need to attack a US base.
The other big issue is US adventurism in Iraq (and to a lesser extent Afghanistan) has made US citizens wary of any international actions, no matter the details. It's especially galling how many of the same people who were cheering on the direct military conquering of Iraq are now against supporting Ukraine at an arms length. "Can't get fooled again", indeed.
> The other big issue is US adventurism in Iraq (and to a lesser extent Afghanistan) has made US citizens wary of any international actions, no matter the details.
That this is not as big a deal as you think was the reason for my grandparent post. The "US citizens wary" thing can reverse itself the moment Americans are killed by a hostile adversary.
Well the result of China's 5d chess has been to install a leader in the US that is likely to escalate a trade war with china when with an impending demographic crisis they most need someone to stop the trade war. Sheer genius!
The problem with dictators of all kinds is that their personal concerns (say, appearing before the local populace as "the one who re-unified China") can and will trump over what makes sense for the country long-term.
Of course that can and does also happen in democracies, but at least most reasonable democracies have some sort of "checks and balances" that at least prevents open war from breaking out.
The world will be looking to China as a stable partner while the US voluntarily dismantles its economy and very possibly its political system.
So yeah, the US absolutely got outplayed here.
The us is currently one of the most stable economies, so there's a long way to go.
I think it's unlikely that the world will pick an economic partner that:
- builds 90% of the new coal fired plants while the rest of the world (including the US) is decarbonizing
- has 280+% debt to GDP ratio
- has capital controls on its currency (the real exchange rate could change suddenly at the drop of a hat)
Well... that stuff will be easier to overlook when the US deploys its military to deport millions of people operating the most foundational portions of its economy like agriculture and construction.
OK this is some sort of "America bad" fever dream. Listen America isn't perfect or anything, but you're basically looking down the barrel of crazy if you ignore the steel advantages that the US has, and the history and pattern of US recovery from crises
> and the history and pattern of US recovery from crises
Well at least in prior crises, the US had sensible leadership on both sides that was willing to put country before party.
The 47th however? Not just the man himself but especially the cabinet picks are an utter joke. None of the currently known picks are known for any kind of competence or even experience in their respective fields, and there are ideas floating to have the Senate go into recess so the 47th can appoint them without the usual review process - astonishing in itself given that the Republicans control the full Congress, they shouldn't have to fear any of their candidates not getting past the Senate. What politics they want to follow is just as dangerous - Musk and DOGE slashing 2 trillion $ from government expenditure for example, large parts of the government will literally be unable to do their job (which is, among others, to handle crises).
It isn't "America bad" at all! I believe America is the greatest country in the world, its economy is clearly second to none, and it's clearly the best trading partner for the vast majorities of nations. I also believe America will almost certainly recover from whatever dark period it's (probably) about to endure.
But I'm also well aware of the fact the US has gone through extremely dark periods and its past success is not a promise of future success. At the end of the day a country very possibly plunged into Great Depression II and almost certainly with trade policy changing by the day is not a good trading partner.
There is a very real possibility that we deport our way into a famine. The US economy cannot possibly sustain the type of deportations that have been promised and are already being put into motion by the incoming administration.
This was also said about slavery and the economy prospered post-slavery. The US economy is absolutely sustainable by paying citizens legal wages. In fact, it is unsustainable to encourage illegal labor and immigration.
I didn't say anything about long-term viability. I am talking about near-term shocks and then questioning how long a recovery would take. The south's economy was in ruins post-Civil War and only revitalized through immense subsidy, aid, and debt programs. Broadly speaking, the South was in deep, destitute poverty until the New Deal (that is more than sixty years for anyone counting at home!).
Obviously most of that devastation was from the war itself, but if every enslaved person in the country were shipped back to Africa (as many proposed at the time), it absolutely would've had deeply negative near-term consequences. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that economies don't actually depend on labor. Dismissible on its face! And to be explicit: those near-term consequences were morally necessary to bear anyway.
> In fact, it is unsustainable to encourage illegal labor and immigration.
Not sure what this is responding to, tbh
> > In fact, it is unsustainable to encourage illegal labor and immigration.
> Not sure what this is responding to, tbh
I think this is related to this here:
> The US economy is absolutely sustainable by paying citizens legal wages.
They do have a point there - their argument (as I read it) is that the widespread use of undocumented/illegal labor and the exploitation of these laborers in agriculture has led to an economic gridlock situation: employers make big bucks by not paying their fair share in social security and taxes, fair employers have a hard time competing on price because the cost of fair, legal labor is too high, and they cannot raise prices to a sustainable level because the consumers have no money to pay for that because they themselves don't get paid fairly.
The associated economic theory is commonly associated with the economic effects of minimum wage hikes - these lead (despite all the Corporate Whining) to economic growth because the lowest rungs of society, those actually living on minimum wage, go and immediately spend their additional money, similar to what happened with the Covid stimulus checks, while the upper levels of society hoard additional income and do not directly contribute to economic growth.
My rebuttal is that no one is arguing to encourage illegal labor and immigration.
"The US economy cannot possibly sustain the type of deportations that have been promised" is not saying "an economy cannot function without illegal labor." It is saying exactly what it says: an economy cannot sustain (i.e. remain healthy through) the mass expulsion of a huge portion of its lowest level labor force.
I made it explicitly clear that I am talking about an (almost certainly) non-permanent problem: "I also believe America will almost certainly recover from whatever dark period it's (probably) about to endure."
By analogy: The statement that the US economy cannot sustain a 90% reduction in equity values market-wide doesn't mean an economy can't exist that's 10% the size of the United States'. It doesn't mean an economy 10% of the size of the United States' can't grow to become as big or bigger than the United States'. It doesn't mean a 90% drop in equity values would delete the United States from existence.
It means that a sudden 90% drop in equity values would shock the system in intensely undesirable ways.
Mass deportations as proposed would be a gigantic shock to the system, and that shock will almost certainly make the US an undesirable trading partner for some time.
China is building new coal plants but the their utilization rate is going down and is expected to continue to go down because of all the solar, hydro, and nuclear plants they are building.
As far as stability goes, the comment above you talked about a stable trading partner, not a stable economy. China is probably more stable as a trading partner than the US is. The US changes trade policy too often.
Ah yes, Trump famously hates china,
How well did that trade war go last time he was in office? Trick question, farmers got fucked, and rational minds agree that the US lost.
>Initiating steel and aluminium tariff actions in March 2018, Trump said "trade wars are good, and easy to win,"[54] but as the conflict continued to escalate through August 2019, Trump stated, "I never said China was going to be easy."
It doesn't matter what you claim to want to do or who you claim to "hate" if your sheer incompetence prevents you from accomplishing your desire.
Maybe putting a serial business failure in charge of a trade war isn't very effective?
Biden didn't get rid of them, because it's basically impossible to unwind a trade war, and then put some more limitations on solar panels. I don't think there is a clear answer yet on Biden's addition to the trade war. Probably will be "meh".
A trade war between the US and China is almost always going to be extremely negative sum. Both of our countries rely on each other for prosperity and nice shit.
Sure, but I am commenting from a non-military, non-geopolitics, non-strategy related background: It's a stupid game. Stupid in the sense of: I don't like it, I don't want to play it, thus it's stupid.
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Russia has been striking civilian targets throughout Ukraine with ballistic missiles since the beginning of the war.
How is allowing Ukraine to use ATACMS on military targets in Russia an escalation?
That's beside the point.
It is a very clear escalation in US/European involvement. Ukraine were prohibited from using long-range western weapons to attack targets inside Russia up until now.
I'm not saying if it's right or wrong.
But it's a very clear escalation in western 'participation'. Russia have for a long time been saying that such action would be tantamount to a NATO attack, and so everyone involved surely understands that this is an escalation in the NATO-Russia face-off.
> Russia have for a long time been saying that such action would be tantamount to a NATO attack
They say this every time. When Obama sent non-lethal aid, they used the same line.
none-the-less, it is a clear escalation ON THE INVOLVEMENT OF EUROPE AND THE US in the war.
It is not that Ukraine are escalating the war by using long-range missiles. Of course Russia have been using them all along.
But it is a clear escalation in western 'participation' in the war.
So "finally replying to constant attacks" gets redefined by putin as escalation, no surprise here. Or is there any other argument I'm missing?
Well the somewhat obvious thing you’re missing is that Russia is waging a war against Ukraine, not the US or NATO.
From that follows the logical conclusion that it’s not the US’ or NATO’s job to “reply to constant attacks”, and instead getting involved in the conflict is just that — waging war against Russia.
Let me get this one: so russia and now nk waging war about whoever they please is a fact of life, while answering to that is escalation, right?
Would depend on the definition of this term "escalation" that you and many other people use. It sounds to me like a silly thing to say. Isn't it natural to try and win a war as quickly as possible?
Joining in on a war that you're not part of is a deliberate and calculated choice in the same manner starting a war is.
What exactly are we even arguing about? I think it's massively irresponsible of NATO to get involved in the war through military aid. Sanctions and humanitarian aid are one thing, but every single NATO member should have been involved in finding a peaceful way out of this conflict since 2010 or before.
If what you're saying is the opposite, that NATO should attack Russia with as much force as possible to "win the war" (that we have no business being part of in the first place), then I'll just call you crazy and move on. Enough brave soldiers have died on both sides, it's time to find a solution that ends the killing, not amplifies it.
Yes I've heard this magic solution before and it always means the Ukraine giving up and letting the orcs win. Somehow those peacenicks never propose russia going back home, isn't it ironic.
That is a very particular use of the term 'escalation' which is bound to mislead people.
Normally, if we show up at the flagpole at noon to confront each other, and you throw a punch, you have escalated things to a fistfight, and then my return punch is not an escalation. If I pull a knife, I have escalated things to a knife fight. We escalate from fist to knife to gun. Reciprocation - self defense - does not count.
The only way to torture the term into contextual use is to suggest that Russia is not firing rockets at NATO because Ukraine is not NATO, but NATO is firing rockets at Russia because all these missile systems are not Ukrainian, but NATO. This is Putin's framing, and it incorporates the idea that the missile systems are actually being manned but US & EU soldiers.
If you are not adopting that frame, "escalation" only really works if you explicitly define the context as a Great Powers proxy war with a potential nuclear endpoint, where Ukraine is stipulated for the sake of argument to have no agency.
> That is a very particular use of the term 'escalation' which is bound to mislead people.
I am not the OP, but I think your interpretation is not as obvious as you make it to be. This often leads to misunderstandings.
AFAIK military analysts use the term escalation as a morally neutral term. Escalation is anything that goes up on the 'scala' (= "ladder", the Latin root of the word). In this interpretation, D-Day would be an e_scala_tion (climbing up the ladder) simply because opening a new front means number_of_fronts_today > number_of_fronts_yesterday. In this interpretation, self-defense and escalation are not mutually exclusive.
Apparently, the term changed meaning. Many people now treat it the way you do (if I understand you correctly) as something associated with aggression. Therefore, they assume that when someone labels something like an escalation, they mean it is an act of aggression, unjustified, something you should not be allowed to do, and not morally neutral.
I am not saying you are wrong. I am just pointing out that when people talk about escalation, it is worth checking whether they mean the same escalation.
Right. URSS putting nuclear missiles in Cuba was not an escalation then.
I only learned about this a few years ago. Before the Cuban Missile Crisis (where Russia installed nuclear missiles in Cuba), the US installed nukes in Italy and Turkey. This made USSR very upset. Plus, the US was heavily meddling in Cuban domestic affairs. The first two paragraphs are very instructive here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis
My point: I think USSR (and Cuba) had a good reason to install those missiles. It wasn't an unprovoked action.
And as I understand it, part of the solution to the Cuban Missile Crisis involved the US quietly agreeing to abandon the placement of nukes in Turkey.
There is some analogy here for the Ukraine NATO situation.
Definitely! I think the obvious quid-pro-quo would be if Russia and Ukraine both agree to stop targeting anything behind the current front lines.
Arguably, this would even be in Russia's favor, given its manpower advantage. But Ukraine might agree to it to stop civilian terror and power infrastructure attacks.
If a robber is holding an innocent at gunpoint and the innocent pulls out a gun and starts pointing it at the robber, has the situation escalated?
I mean, maybe. If the robber is using a replica firearm, the innocent may have successfully deescalated the situation.
The question in this thread is more along the lines of "if the robber shouts 'fighting back is a red line!', should we avoid fighting back?"
Whether or not the innocent should avoid fighting back and whether or not fighting back would result in an escalation are two separate questions
Only sorta; they've heavily linked.
The current war in Ukraine is a direct result of the international community not making much fuss when Russia, largely unopposed, took chunks of Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine over the last few decades.
As with appeasing Hitler, we prioritized short-term quiet for longer-term encouragement of aggression.
Ukraine is very clearly a proxy war between NATO and Russia, merely framed as a plucky country defending it's sovereignty, though it is that too, of course.
With all the backlash here, I feel like some kind of radical, but here is a BBC article from 2 DAYS AGO that basically says what I'm saying: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2nrlq1840o
Although they miss out the bit about a media campaign, and so on, of course.
This is the BBC, pretty much the mouthpiece of the UK government.
And although they frame recent actions as trying to give Ukraine an advantage in any Trump negotiations with Russia, the truth is that these missiles will probably not advance Ukraine's military position, but will certainly change Europe and America's standing, possibly to the point of derailing any possibility of negotiation.
> though [Ukraine] is [a plucky country defending it's sovereignty] too, of course
No "too"
It is only that.
If Russia retreated behind its internationally recognized borders and returned Crimea today, Ukraine would stop attacking it today.
That tells you everything you need to know about who the aggressor and escalator is in this conflict.
Anything else is a Russian talking point in service to their trying to lose fewer troops while invading a neighboring country.
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> yeah, fook off, you have nothing to say.
Oh, sorry, I was under the impression you wanted a discussion.
> edit: oh dear, a few people on HN really do not like this take, without offering any take-down
If you just wanted to complain, but not have anyone challenge your opinions, you should have phrased the above differently.
Indeed, you are right, and I apologize.
I took your comment to be a dismissive 'Russia should just retreat' directive.
Ain't gonna happen.
And The problem is, Ukraine really is not just a simple country that got invaded. It really matters, for the whole world, if we let Russia get away with aggression. It matters if we push too hard and in the chaos Russia unleashes nuclear weapons. It matters how the west conducts supposed peace-keeping operations, etc. It's reallt is not just about Ukraine, and the very fact that you (probably not Ukrainian or Russian) are commenting is evidence.
Absolutely! The thing that rubs me the wrong way is that Russia has very intentionally used nuclear sabre rattling in an attempt to limit the flow of Western military aid to Ukraine.
Unfortunately for the world, that's an extremely dangerous propaganda approach to take, because it blurs the actual red lines that Russia would resort to nuclear retaliation. (Of which Russia certainly has some! And possibly even some within Ukraine's military ability to inadvertently cross)
Trusting that "Russia never means what it says" is problematic on so many levels.
Imho, the biggest mistake in the West's approach to the entire war has been its failure to proactively announce military aid changes and the conditions that would trigger them.
It's like the West collectively forgot how to properly create deterrence in the 1960s sense.
F.ex. the West could have publicly announced "If Russia receives military aid from North Korea or Iran, in the form of ammunition or soldiers, then we will provide additional long range strike options to Ukraine and authorize their use against Russian territory."
That might have encouraged Russia to self-limit and not pursue those actions.
Instead, it's been a hamfisted, weak display of waiting for Russia to do something, then hurriedly conferring behind closed doors, then announcing a reaction.
Which... the entire point of deterrence is to cause the opponent not to take the action in the first place. >.<
"Imho, the biggest mistake in the West's approach to the entire war has been its failure to proactively announce military aid changes and the conditions that would trigger them."
Yes, exactly. Everything is justified post-hoc. It's almost as if they are deliberately treating Russia like a naughty child. The last thing we want is a tantrum.
Your link backs up what people here are trying to get across to you:
> Russia has set out “red lines” before. Some, including providing modern battle tanks and fighter jets to Ukraine, have since been crossed without triggering a direct war between Russia and Nato.
This is the latest of a long list of small, slow, racheting-up responses to unilateral Russian aggression. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_lines_in_the_Russo-Ukraini...
no.
And no-one has been 'getting anything across to me', inferring that I'm 'not getting it'. They've been throwing incomplete or irrational arguments, like yours, or simply downvoting.
Sure there have been 'red lines' by Russia, and the US has continuously pushed across them.
But this one was also a US 'red line'. Consistent with keeping a proxy-war in-theater.
Why have they crossed it, now?
What do they hope it will achieve?
Most likely very little militarily.
But maybe quite a lot in shaping or constraining future US policy.
> But this one was also a US 'red line'. Consistent with keeping a proxy-war in-theater. Why have they crossed it, now?
For the same reason they crossed all the others - continued Russian aggression.
Each expansion of US aid or reduction in restrictions on how that aid is utilized has followed logically from Russian actions. Obama started with non-lethal aid; we've initially balked at every single step since that before eventually going "ok, now it's warranted".
It's very clear the US is keeping responses small and incremental to take the wind out of Russian bluster about nuclear holocaust if they do this one more little thing to piss Putin off. It's also very clear the Russian "no don't send Javelins/HIMARS/Patriots/Abrams/MiGs/F-16s/ATACMS, we'll be very mad" has lost a lot of its potency.
So what, would you say, triggered the US to cross their own red line, and a rather obvious principle of proxy warfare?
And, backtracking, how aware have you been about the situation in Ukraine, or baltic sea infrastructure, in the past few months (even year), compared to the last week? Just a marginal increment, no doubt.
> So what, would you say, triggered the US to cross their own red line...
I'd first reject the use of the term "red line" entirely for the ATACMS situation.
"No, not ever" is a red line. The Russians love issuing these for other people, but it's embarassing when they're crossed without significant consequence.
"No, not now" is not a red line. The US tends to shy away from issuing them - one of Obama's biggest mistakes was proclaiming one in Syria and then looking a bit feckless when they violated it. (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-president-bli...)
Letting Ukraine hit Russian territory with ATACMS is like the fourth or fifth expansion of how they're permitted to use that weapons system so far, as was giving them ATACMS in the first place after HIMARS (which saw a similar set of gradually reduced limitations; https://www.defensenews.com/land/2022/07/08/us-to-send-more-...).
> And, backtracking, how aware have you been about the situation in Ukraine, or baltic sea infrastructure, in the past few months (even year), compared to the last week? Just a marginal increment, no doubt.
I've closely followed the situation in Ukraine since Euromaidan.
"I'd first reject the use of the term "red line" entirely"
No doubt, but the fact is the US told Ukraine they couldn't use ATACMS to target Russia, and now, they can.
And it's really more than an incremental change in US involvement in the war. The fact that Ukrainians are supposedly operating these weapons is almost incidental.
I tell my kids they can’t play on their phones yet. They have homework to do.
It would be silly to claim, that evening, that I violated my own red line by letting them have phone time after dinner.
You continue to mix up “not now” and “not ever”.
But they didn't say you can't play on your phones yet.
They said you may not use phones for social media. At all.
And then changed their mind.
Here is a BBC article from 2 DAYS AGO that basically says what I'm saying
Which says nothing at all about the conflict being "a proxy war".
nitpick.
It exactly states that Biden might be stirring things up in anticipation of Trump sueing for a freeze.
Which still says nothing about the conflict being fundamentally a proxy war.
I mean the fact that the US is dictating what can and cannot happen in the war makes is a proxy war almost by definitiion.
But the article itself addresses only the context of ATACMS. Not whether the US is "dictating what can and cannot happen in the war" generally.
Either way -- according the definition in Wikipedia, it is a proxy because one side is strongly supported by an external power. Sounds reasonable, and I can go with it (on at least a technical basis).
Where people go wrong (not saying you here) is when they accept the term "proxy war" and assume (or insinuate) that it means or supports the idea that Ukraine is simply a puppet state, not really fighting out of its own motivations.
The USA, UK and France approving the use of the long-range missiles was described as a response to Russia using North Korean soldiers.
A fair point, but described by who?
And was this just a post-hoc justification, or had the western powers declared that they would retaliate if Russia involved other armies?
In any case, surely the 'punishment' should be directed at North Korea?
Why should it be directed at North Korea?
North Korean troops are helping Russia invade Ukraine (by freeing up Russian garrison troops to participate in their offensive).
Ergo, redress is something that helps Ukraine resist the military advantage North Korean involvement gives Russia -- e.g. being able to target Russian military targets supporting the invasion, in Russia.
> In any case, surely the 'punishment' should be directed at North Korea?
The problem is at least as much Russia inviting NK as North Korea positively responding, aiding Ukraine works against all the belligerents aligned against it, NK as well as Russia, and the North Koreans in Russia are not protected by the Armistice the way North Koreans on the Korean peninsula are.
North Korean soldiers that mysteriously have yet to materialize in a fashion that isn't blatant propaganda.
> are escalating the war (they started, with the long-range missiles),
Wrong. Using long range missiles is not an escalation. Russia has been using them against Ukrainian lands for years now. Why shouldn't Ukraine be allowed to use them against Russian land?
No, you are wrong.
Russia are at war with Ukraine, so they are bombing them. Ukraine have every right to reply with their own long range weapons too, and that would indeed not be an escalation in the fighting itself.
But, the west clearly prohibited the use of their donated long range weapons in direct attacks on Russia, in order to limit their liability, responsibility, 'participation' or whatever, until now.
Russia have been very clear that such permission would constitute an escalation OF WESTERN 'PARTICIPATION' in the war, and even be tantamount to a direct NATO attack, and so it is at least an escalation.
Whether it is right or wrong is not the point, it is a clear change in the depth of western involvement.
> right to reply with their own
This seems like an arbitrary line [0] drawn exactly where it suits your argument. How does having North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia stay on the right side of that line? What about any components that originated outside of Russia but are employed in Russian weaponry or equipment (for example chips)? The information war is a part of "the war", is an "official" non-Russian hacker or troll crossing the line? Or a non-Russian boat or crew employed for acts of sabotage.
[0] It can be fair to draw an arbitrary line, at least you know it's straight and will intersect whatever is unfortunate to be in its way regardless of the side you prefer. But you're trying to draw tiny arbitrary circles around whatever you don't like and that's feeble.
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> The rules of that game are that you keep the conflict within the theater, or risk a world war. That was already breached by Ukrainian incursions into Russia...
In what insane alternate Marvel universe is Russia not part of the Russo-Ukrainian War theater?
The line isn't clear, because there is no line. These lines you keep bringing up are just gamesmanship. Nothing changes because any of them are crossed. The war was fully escalated when they invaded. Ukraine has every right to attack targets in Russia. Russia and everyone else is just posturing to hopefully extract advantages. Everybody is trying to figure out what they can get away with that doesn't negatively impact them. When Trump won the situation changed for the current administration. Do you believe Russia wouldn't use nukes if it would strengthen Russia? Do you believe Europe and the US wouldn't have immediately shut down the invasion if Russia wasn't a nuclear power.
You don't think use of nukes constitutes any kind of 'line'?
> Russia have been very clear that such permission would constitute an escalation OF WESTERN 'PARTICIPATION' in the war, and even be tantamount to a direct NATO attack, and so it is at least an escalation.
Since the war started, Russia has moved their red lines dozens of times. The “escalation” argument lost it's meaning.
This is the US crossing their own 'red lines'.
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Public opinion is being manipulated hard, the U.S. just closed down its embassy in Kyiv:
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-war-latest-us-shuts-...
The current U.S. administration wants to make the most out of the remaining 60 days. Perhaps they have a little help:
https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-77th-brigade-britains...
Russia will not stop taking its land in Kursk back because the Americans tell them to do so, this is just Western delusion, and, as I've said before on this forum, a complete misunderstanding coming from the Westerners on how Russia operates.
> devastating sanctions
Devastating for Europe, you mean.
I'm very curious, can any European here, or perhaps a German for specificity, tell me whether they believe these sanctions have harmed Russia more than Europe?
Also it would be better if any Russians here could answer a similar question
German here. Yes, it seems pretty obvious these sanctions have harmed Russia more than Europe.
Russia: inflation around 8-9%.
EU: inflation around 2%.
That's not a result of sanction, simply Russia spends 40% of its budget on the war, and Europe spends nothing.
Thank you for the information. I believe that only those who are there can truly describe the situation there, beyond what I read in the media
Recently, a professor I know wrote an article about his impressions of Russia and Germany when he attended meetings in both countries.
Can you help to check what he said?
> Macroeconomic data indicates that the European economy is not doing well, but the economic conditions I experienced during my days in Berlin could be described as depression. What surprised me the most was that there were not many people or cars on the streets of Berlin during the daytime on weekdays. Berlin in early October is not yet cold, but the desolate feeling on the streets does not match the image of the capital of Europe's largest economy. Europe's inflation, which started later than in the United States, has also clearly hurt the lives of the people, which was my perception from conversations with taxi drivers during my rides.
I live in Berlin. Judging Berlin by the traffic on the streets is silly.
Berlin has the lowest car ownership of any Germany city. Part of that is the excellent public transit. Another part is the extensive network of bike paths (combined with flat topography).
Trains run from 04:30-00:30 on weekdays. On weekends they run 24 hours a day. During rush hour the trains come every five minutes, and the cars are standing room only. (I checked a couple of hours ago.)
As for weekends, why would you drive a car to a beer garden when you can take BVG and talk with your friends on the way?
[Also, Berlin in October is normally f*ing cold. This year was a freakish exception.]
Yes, inflation was pretty high in 22 and 23, that hurt a lot of people.
But his claim of a "desolate feeling on the streets" being an indication of "economic conditions ... could be described as depression" read like badly written propaganda. There's nothing to be checked there, just some vague feelings. Berlin isn't as crowded as he expected, so the only explanation is that nobody can afford a car and half the population is sitting at home wallowing in misery due to economic depression? Really?
Also, here's the sections about Russia, hope any locals can help to check this
> (In Vladivostok) War typically leads to a rise in prices. Several Russian sources have reported that compared to two and a half years ago, current prices have roughly doubled, and housing prices have also increased significantly. However, it is somewhat comforting that the wages of most people have also increased proportionally, so people's lives have not been greatly affected so far. The supply of goods on the market is still quite abundant. Due to financial sanctions from the US and Europe, as well as multinational corporations, many brands' products and services are no longer available in the Russian market. Nevertheless, this does not prevent Russian citizens from drinking cola or eating American fast food. It is said that these brands have localized, but the products remain essentially unchanged: for example, the taste of Russian cola is not significantly different from Coca-Cola, as they can purchase the concentrate from third countries and mix it themselves.
> The official unemployment rate published by Russia is only 2%, and I believe this data is likely accurate. The reasons are not only because the war itself requires the hiring of a large number of young people, but also due to the wealth redistribution, increased consumption, and robust production that the war has brought about. Russia is a country with severe wealth disparity, where the lower classes traditionally lack money for consumption. This war has provided an opportunity for lower-income families to obtain cash flow: by sending their sons or husbands to the battlefield, families can receive a one-time subsidy of nearly 500,000 yuan. Even prisoners in jail can receive this benefit. This sum of money, equivalent to targeted transfer payments and proactive fiscal policies aimed at the poor, has given lower- and middle-income families a chance to gamble their lives for money. This has led to cases where some people join the military to escape punishment and receive subsidies, serve for a year, return home, and then reoffend and go to jail again, relying on a second enlistment to escape punishment and receive another subsidy.
> The increased cash flow among the lower-income population has led to a surge in consumer demand, and the robust production of military goods has also stimulated employment, income, and consumption. While the products of military industry are indeed consumed on the battlefield, for the macroeconomy, what matters is the flow rather than the stock; production and consumption are meaningful in themselves. As for whether the produced goods are expended as shells and missiles on the battlefield or become paper wealth on the other side of the ocean as export commodities, there is no fundamental difference for the current macroeconomic operation.
There are rumors circulating on Chinese self-media about how much the ruble has depreciated on the black market in Russia. I specifically went to restaurants and other consumer venues in Vladivostok to test for any significant difference between the official and black market exchange rates by using US dollars and Chinese yuan for payment. However, neither Russian-run nor Chinese-run restaurants offered discounts for payment in US dollars or Chinese yuan cash. This phenomenon is usually sufficient to debunk rumors about the Russian ruble black market.
The current social mood in Russia is relatively stable, which may be due not only to a decent economic foundation but also to strict control over public opinion. According to our research feedback, even in private settings, if colleagues or neighbors make remarks against Putin or the war, and are reported, those who oppose the war or Putin may face legal troubles.
Did the source also mention that the low unemployment is in no small part due to the would-be workforce going to the frontlines, and also a huge initial wave of emigration to other countries among those privileged enough to own a passport.
And a lot of them are killed, so can't occupy a job anymore
The professor is correct.
As a European, I can say that the sanctions did harm European economies, which is reflected in various political Eu government crises.
It is hard to know how much Russia has been harmed, because both sides probably exaggerate the figures.
I wonder whether "more harm" is the right question. The question should be whether the sanctions have any impact on Russia's war economy, which they do not. If anything, they make Russia more independent and strengthen Russian ties with China and India.
This is all to the detriment of the EU, the only one here who profits is the U.S. by making the EU more dependent.
> It is hard to know how much Russia has been harmed, because both sides probably exaggerate the figures.
> The question should be whether the sanctions have any impact on Russia's war economy, which they do not
Ruble is below a single penny.
Interest rates are at 21%, highest since 2003.
Inflation is out of control.
> they make Russia more independent and strengthen Russian ties with China and India.
ah, so that's why Putin went to North Korea to beg for troops and ammunition?
According to the IWF, 2024 inflation is 7.9% and GDP growth 3.6%:
https://www.imf.org/en/Countries/RUS
Germany has 2.4% inflation and 0% growth:
https://www.imf.org/en/Countries/DEU
I do not believe the German inflation numbers. Health care got 30% more expensive with more hikes coming, rents are exploding, groceries are 20% higher since 2022.
My healthcare has not gotten up 30%.
From my recent visits to Lidl, groceries have massively fallen in price. Last year my shopping bill was ~70 EUR, yesterday and the weeks before it is around ~50 EUR. I'd even say groceries are cheaper than before (eggs, oatmeal, apples,...).
Energy prices in Germany with my provider have dropped two times in a row and I got a letter this week announcing a new drop in prices on the 1st of January 2025.
The only thing that is too expensive is Döner. And here, several shops have closed to be replaced by new ones with lower prices, now that groceries (also frying oil) and energy are cheaper again.
I don't know about the Russian GDP, one would assume the growth is mostly from increasing weapon production and from replacing Western imports with in-country production. I don't think Russia is spontanously more productive. Both do not make life easier for people.
One example on energy [0]
From 1.1.2025 on: 29,60 ct/kWh down from 38,22 ct/kWh (-23%)
[0]: German https://www.stadtwerke-stralsund.de/news/details/stadtwerke-...
These consumer side sanctions are idiotic. When a Russian buys a European beer, he spends money which goes from Russia to Europe, and in addition he damages his health.
On the other side, Europe buys billions of dollars of oil and gas from Russia. That money goes in the opposite direction, from Europe to Russia, and is used toward soldier salaries, Iran drones and North Korean mercenaries.
Has this been a recent change? In 2023 NL announced they're not dependent on Russian energy anymore https://nltimes.nl/2023/02/10/netherlands-longer-dependent-r...
$1.7b in August 2024 + $2.3B exports to Turkey, much of which is just transshipment to Europe.
https://energyandcleanair.org/august-2024-monthly-analysis-o...
Maybe true for the Netherlands, I apologize, I meant all of EU.
[dead]
Neither will Ukraine try to take their territory back as much as sycophants and dictator-appeasers think Ukraine have no agency
It doesn’t even really stop anything right? Communications just have to route around it and use other cables and satellites. It just seems like Russia wants to be annoying.
Destroying the gas pipeline between Estonia and Finland did take it out for like six months. I think it may have had some negative impact on Estonian electricity prices during that time.
Could this disturb crypto operations in any way?
Not really. If the internet works, sending and using crypto works and it doesn’t use much bandwidth.
The ship was sailing from Russia and the captain is Russian. Using a Chinese ship is a good trick from Putin.
As for the core of your question: there is no benefit, it's just his mentality. "The West" supports Ukraine so let's just do some harm, retaliate in some way. Burn some buildings here and there, plants some inflammable materials on airplanes etc. Pointless for you and me, meaningful for that guy.
Does "Chinese ship" really mean anything here? As far as I understand the ship official registration is a very vague concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_convenience
and according this tweet https://x.com/erikkannike/status/1858883945607094541/history
"So - according to Russian federal port records, the Chinese ship suspected of cutting the communications cables in the Baltic Sea was captained by a Russian citizen (one Stechentsev A.E.). Interestingly Yui Peng 3 was only transferred to its current owner in China earlier this month.
The ship is carrying goods/oil from Ust-Luga in Russia, to Port Said in Egypt. Same captain also comandeered URSUS ARCTOS also carrying goods from Ust-Luga to Egypt. Mapped using @SensusQ . "
Ursus arctos, the scientific name of the brown bear. The name of that ship can't be more Russian LOL
Hard to say. They will claim this is only Flag of convenience as they are caught. However China still has the opportunity to say that this is something for their law enforcement to take care of not international, and then give the captain "a slap on the wrist".
What we don't know is if China knew they were going to try this beforehand or not. Flag of Convenience is common enough that we can't be sure. This could have been planned on the high level from China and we would never know - something conspiracy theorists will run with! If China knew they would probably give the crew a sever punishment, but unofficially it is for getting caught and not doing the act. Most likely though China didn't know before hand.
Ok there's all the signalling between states that breaking a cable has. That also works for false flag operations, or true flag operations while making it look like a false flag operation (etc).
But also, cutting these cables doesn't stop communications. There are other land and undersea routes, and maybe terrestrial radio/satellite routes as well. You might damage these cables so that communications travel other routes which are more observable (or less observable). Or you might damage these cables so you can modify them elsewhere to enhance observability before they're repaired (or as part of the repair process).
Or it could be a training mission for your elite squad of cable biting sharks.
Lots of potential for intrigue here.
Look up 'Grey Zone Conflict': Destroying another country's assets is generally an act of war, but obviously this incident falls short of causing a war. That is the 'grey zone', a prominent feature of current international relations and a major focus of the defense of the democratic world and international order, including in the US military.
The international order is often called the 'US-led rules-based interntional order'. Russia, China, and some others dislike the first element, of course. The second element refers to the legal, rules-based structure (rather than power-based anarchy, which led to the centuries or millennia of war before the 'order' was created post-WWII). Aggressive international warfare is outlawed, for example; if France and Germany have a dispute, there is no question of violence - they use a legal structure to resolve it, which wasn't always true!
Grey zone activities accomplish illegal things without reprocussions. And therefore they also serve the goal of undermining the international order by demonstrating its powerlessness in these situations. In some ways, it's like trolling.
Russia uses grey zone tactics heavily - for example, they used them to capture Crimea (which was before the clear act of war, their 2022 invasion). They use them to run destabilizing 'grey zone' campaigns throughout the world, including directly interfering in elections. The tactics suit Russia in particular because they cannot compete miltarily with the democratic world.
China uses them too, for example using their 'coast guard' and 'civilian' 'fishing boats' to attack (up to a point) and intimidate ships from other countries in the South China Sea. If China used their navy, it would possibly be acts of war. A Chinese coast guard ship shooting water cannon at a fishing boat, though illegal in international waters, isn't going to start a war. 'Civilian' 'fishing' boats from China blockading access to a reef won't either.
Edit:
Before you look at Russia and China and other Grey Zone actors as miscreants, understand that it's just the normal behavior of 'revisionist' powers - those who want to change the current rules. The current rules serve the interests of the 'status quo' powers, who get all self-righteous about 'illegal' activities.
In a more common situation on HN, think of IP outsiders, who break the 'rules' made by major IP holders, such as DMCA or those extending copyright for decades or restricting access to scientific knowledge - the IP holders want the status quo and call violations 'theft' and the outsiders 'criminals', etc. If the US wasn't a status quo power, they'd be doing grey zone things.
(That doesn't at all justify Russia and China's goals of stealing land, oppressing people's freedoms, and solving problems through violence.)
> The international order is often called the 'US-led rules-based interntional order'.
There's the actual international law (and the UN) and there's the US-led rules-based international order (ie, what the US wants basically). They're completely at odds - often times the US (and Israel or a couple of other minor countries) vote against or simply flout whatever the rest of the UN wants.
The US is king of Grey zone actions. Random drone strikes, funding insurgency and terror groups, invading countries without international approval, blockading Cuba, etc. - the list is very long.
So when the US complains about Russia doing similar things (often responding to provocation by the US or NATO), the complaints can easily be filed in the "hypocrisy bin".
https://towardfreedom.org/story/archives/americas/the-u-s-ma...
> There's the actual international law (and the UN) and there's the US-led rules-based international order (ie, what the US wants basically).
Those are the same 'order', the same thing. The UN and international law are unquestionable, essential parts of the international order.
> often times the US (and Israel or a couple of other minor countries) vote against or simply flout whatever the rest of the UN wants.
Agreed, as I discussed in the GP: the US and its partners often violate those rules and let themselves off the hook, as status quo powers tend to do. It doesn't excuse it at all, but that's not inconsistent with the rules-based order.
Also, with a veto on UN Security Council decisions, if the US votes against something then it's not law.
Russia engages in random drone strikes, funding insurgency and terror groups, invading countries without international approval, blockading Ukraine, etc. - the list is very long. Indeed, russia appears to be king of grey zone actions.
So when russia complains about the US doing similar things (often responding to provocation by russia), the complaints can easily be filed in the "hypocrisy bin".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembl...
> 'US-led rules-based interntional order
You have to look deeper into what kind of government has a problem with an international rule-based order. It is not the democratic countries with trias politica that have a problem with that, but autocratic regimes.
How are you going to ethnically cleanse Uyghurs in a rule based order, or run international crime networks at the level of statehood?
The question is: how are you going to integrate criminal and very powerful clangs in a world that is past the French Revolution? We tried, we failed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_Peace
Answer is: you can't, unless the common people take ownership over their own countries. Very difficult.
Just a reality check: the United States is currently funding and providing military equipment to Israel, who is carrying out an ethnic cleansing in the Gaza strip. Apparently, democratic governments also have a problem following the rules.
I am the OP and say: spot on. Also problematic that the Dems do not have the information space to follow their own agenda. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42068340
I went into more detail here about hypocrisy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42203997
With the far right on the rise, the rules will disappear, because their ideology is "might makes right". That is the mindset of a maffia boss. War and conflict will follow, those who are not powerful enough get trampled.
You seem to be under the assumptions that the rules based international order is a real thing that is being thwarted by Mafia regimes and right wing ideology. First, America is a Mafia regime, under Democrats or Republicans. Many of the biggest Biden donors in 2020 have switched to donating to Trump, not because of ideology, but because they think Trump will be better vessel for their interests. And second, the rules based international order never existed in reality and never will exist because large force welding states will always have disagreements that will sometimes result in violent conflict.
The USA is indeed sliding backwards. State and business interests are getting even more intertwined. There is blindness about that, sure. That might make you feel depressed. Don't turn into a nihilist, as that is nothing more than giving your neck to the butcher.
I also assume you don´t want to know what a non rule based international order will look like. Things are depressing, but can get worse than where we are now.
Society needs to get their act together, but also desperately needs a healthy debate. Corporate media effectively block that, they rather sell the Politeia as entertainment. Still, the onus is on the people.
> You have to look deeper into what kind of government has a problem with an international rule-based order. It is not the democratic countries with trias politica that have a problem with that, but autocratic regimes.
The democratic countries follow the pattern of status quo powers. Is that because they are democratic or because they are status quo, or some of both?
The rules are of the status quo powers (matching their political cultures), by the status quo powers, for the status quo powers. Of course they follow those rules and support them. The rules seem to require a country to be a democracy to be legitimate - I agree with that as necessary to legitimacy (not sufficient), but obviously that doesn't suit non-democratic countries.
And like status quo powers, when they break the rules - most prominently the US many times, such as the Iraq war; the EU treatment of refugees and undocumented immigrants; and currently by Israel with US sponsorship - then they let themselves off the hook. They engineer technicalities, such as the weak UN resolution arguably authorizing the Iraq invasion; or just look the other way. They say they can't be handcuffed etc. (And some of those actions may be the right choice - I'm not judging - but they certainly violate the rules.)
> The rules are of the status quo powers (matching their political cultures), by the status quo powers, for the status quo powers
That might seem so, and all individuals have some degree of hypocrisy at times, the more a body of multiple countries. Without rules this devolves into warring tribes and fiefdoms, a lesson the societies in the west had learned themselves.
Everyone is invited to be critical and keep your representatives in check. When the people speak loud and clear about what they accept and what not, representatives will have to listen.
I will add that Western elites were handcuffed by those international rules, it went against their interests. So no, it is also a self-restriction. The west certainly did have the power to exploit other countries, but instead self-restricted by abolishing colonies. There are certainly cases of ifs and buts, but the whole idea is that you stand by your values.You mentioned the US making transgressions. That they get this room internally is certainly a problem of society and the state of ethics. Let´s not devolve in relativism, it will make things worse!
I generally agree; I'm not saying the status quo power - the US-led rules-based international order - is completely corrupt. They do follow the rules sufficientlty to have legitimacy, and there are many good things in those rules, such as univeral human rights, which have accomplished good outcomes. Overall, the world from WWII to about 2015 was the 'best' it's ever been - an explosion of freedom, security, and prosperity.
At the same time, there is some of the same status-quo-power corruption going on.
> Overall, the world from WWII to about 2015 was the 'best' it's ever been - an explosion of freedom, security, and prosperity.
Good point. If we do not halt the corrupting forces we will loose out on the above.
Not like the US follows rules it tells others to follow. Hypocrite in charge.
Prof. Stephen Kotkin — an historian who wrote multiple extensive biographies on Stalin — calls the Russian regime a "gangster regime".*
Once you see them as gangsters, it's not difficult to see why they would do this.
*A full link with exact timestamp of Kotkin saying this is [1]. Here he talks about why Merkel kept making oil deals with Putin even though in hindsight this was probably not the best idea. Kotkin argues that, yes, according to econ 101 trade is good for both parties, but not when the opposite party is a gangster. Merkel thought that Putin was thinking like her, but he wasn't.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/live/jJSDdCPpbto?t=4410
It should be noted that Putin was personally an enforcer for St Petersburg's mayor Anatoly Sobchak[1] in the early 1990s, and his "circle of friends" from that time now mans key positions of the entire government. For example, Viktor Zolotov[2], Sobchak's bodyguard and Putin's judo partner, is now in charge of National Guard, despite not having qualifications for the job.
Russia is literally run buy thugs who ran protection rackets not so long ago. So there's much more to this than just a fitting figure of speech. Someone from the worst parts of LA would be better equipped to understand and deal with such people than those who spent their teens and early adulthood playing Model UN at a foreign relations club.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Sobchak
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Zolotov
One theme of cyberpunk is that Russia remains a gangster regime in the future. William Gibson's "Kombinat".
This is basically Russian retaliation for US providing Ukraine with ATACMS and first Ukrainian attack using ATACMS.
The "retaliation" against US is to disrupt communications between.. Finland and Germany?
Applying the same logic, Ukraine should retaliate against Russia for bombing their hospitals with an attack on.. Iranian civilian infrastructure? Did I get that right?
Russia is fighting "Western fascists" and NATO. Don't try to understand this.
Russia's regime pretends to be fighting those entities. It's real enemy is simply independent Ukraine with its currently recognized borders.
This is entirely straighforward. Nothing that requires any struggle to understand.
Newnew shipping signed huge contract with Rosatom.
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Tit-for-tat response to the NS2 bombing.
Assuming it bears out that the Russian state is the perpetrator.
The CCP thanks the expendable crew for their sacrifice. May they continue to suck the resources of their new host countries for many years to come.
Given that ships often cut undersea internet cables and China has the biggest export economy, doesn't it make sense that the most likely country to accidentally cut an internet cable would be a Chinese trade ship?
On average, it seems like undersea internet cables break 200+ times per year. For example, Vietnam's internet cables break on average 10 times per year.
What would be the motivation for a Chinese trade ship to deliberately cut an internet cable? It has next to no impact on internet communication and only serves to annoy a small amount of people for a short period of time. In addition, China and Europe are trying to have a better relationship in general so it doesn't make sense for the Chinese government to order this.
I could believe that cutting one cable was an accident. But two, by the same ship, 60 miles apart?
Absolutely no way this wasn't intentional.
The question then becomes why did they do it in a way where they would be caught
>What would be the motivation for a Chinese trade ship to deliberately cut an internet cable?
Money. Russia is reportedly bribing people into doing sabotage in western nations.
There's also reports that Yi Peng 3 is captained by a Russian national, which would also be another reason for a Chinese trade ship to conduct sabotage operations beneficial to Russia.
> What would be the motivation for a Chinese trade ship to deliberately cut an internet cable?
The most charitable reason is that they don't give a fluck. Same reason why their rocket boosters just fall wherever they fall, population center or not
Edit: https://x.com/Tendar/status/1859147985424196010
> The skipper of the Chinese ship is a Russian national and the route leads from Ust-Luga (Russia) to Port Said (Egypt).
Is there any data on which country's ships cut the most internet cables?
I think we need a total ships sailing for country / cuts.
This would be an interesting project for someone to work on, I wonder if there's a place where all the internet cable outages + reasons are available?
At the Baltic Sea the cables and such break mostly because of one reason only: russia. [0]
[0] https://www.csce.gov/briefings/russias-genocide-in-ukraine/
Are you there then?
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The Danish defense forces now confirms their presence but they are not providing any other information right now: https://x.com/forsvaretdk/status/1859195509866381402
(This is also a rare English-language tweet from an account that usually only tweets in Danish)
And 4 days ago a Russian spy ship was escorted out of Irish waters:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/16/russian-spy-sh...
So definitely seems like a coordinated attempt to destabilise Europe ahead of anticipated peace talks early next year.
Same in Portugal
https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2024-11-18/russian-ship...
"Russian mission installs more ‘spy’ antennas in Geneva, Swiss TV report claims" https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/foreign-affairs/russian-mission...
Why would destabilising europe before peace talks be beneficial? Seems like they would lose a lot of leverage.
So how long ago were US long-range missiles used to attack Russia?
Because that's what seems to be claimed here, that Russia are retaliating for that.
How long does it take a ship to travel to a 'suspicious' site like this?
versus, how long does it take to intercept the nearest Russian ship, and escort it away as a spy ship and 'potential saboteur'?
The info that the Biden administration would greenlight this, should have been known in Moscow for weeks now. I assume the news arrive later only for us - the public.
So you're saying the spy-saboteur ships have been hanging around, or en route to sensitive areas for weeks, waiting for this to drop?
But only now are they being very publicly outed and moved on?
Title could be a lot more descriptive. Your average reader might scroll on by because that title makes no sense without context.
(you are here)
Much more information here: https://gcaptain.com/details-of-baltic-sea-cable-incident-re...
and some here https://www.newsweek.com/baltic-cable-sabotage-nato-1988689
including
> Social media reports said that the vessel had a Russian captain, although this has not been independently confirmed.
Yi Peng 3 has been stopped in the Kattegat with Danish navy ships around it for about 11 hours now. Currently HDMS Søløven is anchored right next to it. HDMS Hvidbjørnen was also not too far away before its signal went dark.
Also, Russia is sabotaging European satellites:
https://nltimes.nl/2024/11/15/dutch-childrens-channel-outage...
To be less ambiguous in word choice, they jammed a satellite from the ground. Russians used a ground based dish to spoof a TV station signal to a repeater satellite, causing TV stations near Ukraine to go down and show an interference error. I'm just clarifying because "sabotage" could mean any number of more costly and damaging things, like a spy loosening a bolt before launch or something. https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2544558-verantwoording-en-b...
>Last ports: Murmansk - Port Said - Luga Bay (never docked, Ust-Luga, Russia)
All the way to Luga and decided to not dock. Large cargo ship pleasure wandering the sea like a yacht.
This is the 2nd time China did this in that Baltic isn't it? Both times look intentional.. maybe don't allow Chinese ships in the Baltic?
No it isn't.
Both of the two Chinese registries are open, pretty much anyone can register ships there. It's a bit like the .tv domain — if you see something.tv you can't assume that it's a company in the country Tuvalu.
Look at the nationality of the captain and the beneficial owner instead.
And as a result .tv domains are not exactly trusted and can't be used for all the things reputable domains can be used for.
IIRC abuse correlates closely with the price of registration for the first year, and poorly or not at all with how open the registration policy is.
Right. So they might need some motivation to change that.
what are you implying?
how do you intend to "motivate" a sovereign country?
Inform them of consequences if they don't make your, hopefully reasonable, changes.
Consequences can range from inconvenient to existential.
Imperialist behaviour won't get you anywhere with a country as large as China.
That would not swing.
Denmark controls the waters of the seaway to Sct. Petersburg and Kaliningrad that are some of the strategically most important ports of Russia.
Blocking of traffic to these would be a severe escalation.
Regularly Russian subs pass through Danish waters - controlled and allowed.
I'd consider the serious escalation of offensive (cowardly) acts were carried out by Russia many many years ago repeatedly, increasingly, throughout Europe (elsewhere too), with mild consequences. Got seriously unabashed escalating further. Being cautious with the nazi Germany blew into the face of the World, will definitely not work with the imperialist Russia either. China acts on behalf of Russia here - Russia being coward for open confrontation with anyone (believed by them) able hitting back hard. China has secondary benefits for self as well.
Was it Shakespeare who wrote “Discretion is the better part of valor”? That level of cynicism might be appropriate here. The cowardice is on the European side, surely?
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Damaging infrastructure is already a severe escalation. Should not have done that.
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Not American - I'm Polish. I've got friends who got drafted already (if only for training) so it's entirely possible I'll join them eventually.
My take is that Russia's plan is to continue sabotaging and a weak (or lack of) response to that only emboldens them.
Also nuclear war with what? Their recent Satan II ICBM test demonstrated that they don't necessarily have the technical chops to launch anything sufficiently capable and it must have come as a surprise to them as well.
On the contrary, chilling would endanger everyone living the in the free world even further.
Nuclear war is not a realistic concern, luckily. If it was, it would have happened after the first "red line" Russia claimed the west had crossed.
We were chill since 2014 if not earlier. It brought nothing but pain both to Ukrainians and to us in the West. It doesn’t work.
It's high time for the West to man up and solve the Russian problem once and for all.
How severe an escalation would it be?
As severe as... say starting the largest war in Europe since WW2 right at our doorstep? Or as damaging our critical infrastructure? Or manipulating our democratic processes?
It's time the West pulls its head out of its ass. We're already at war, whether we want it or not.
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I don't think I have a cause. I'd like to not be constantly attacked by foreign adversaries, is that a cause? But if attacks happen, we can't just ignore them because hitting back might make the abuser more mad.
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Am I missing something, or do you post peacenik appeasement demands under every HN submission? It's such a radically stupid position that I'm legitimately starting to think you're a Russian propagandist. Why would any rational country appease a madman? Because people like you write internet comments about pissing your pants?
If we reach the "to [sic] late YOLO" stage it won't matter what options we picked. That's why appeasement is a fundamentally pointless idea that the US has refused for decades. If you even once play the "give a mouse a cookie" game you will end up surrendering everything to a power that can threaten you with nuclear terrorism. Only a moron would appease Russia in this scenario.
I could be anyone except you. I don't see the relevance in speculating about that.
The US have no qualms appeasing Netanyahu. Biden and his party was even fine arguably losing the election over it. I don't see any contradiction there.
Russia and the US from time to time more or less arbitrarily bombs or invades some other country. I guess Russia's Holywood need to make better movies depicting their own soldiers as victims of their own wars. Still glorying though. There is work to be done there for sure. The two I've seen depicted soldiers as pathetic losers.
I mean, trying to economically, socially and culturally isolate the US would probably make it wreck even more mayhem over the world than trying to have cultural exchange, be nice, and what not. And when this fails not throwing yourself on a spike might be preferable.
> The US have no qualms appeasing Netanyahu.
The US didn't give Israel Mandatory Palestine - Britain did. America selling arms to Israel is a moot point, and if we want to compare like-to-like then Russia is guilty of the exact same thing with India. But neither situation is an appeasement in the first place, so it's a plainly facetious argument.
> Russia and the US from time to time more or less arbitrarily bombs or invades some other country.
America hasn't arbitrarily invaded any country since the Philippines. Comparing bombings to occupation of a sovereign nation is a faux-pas that reveals you aren't arguing in good faith. They are drastically different things and anyone with a serious perspective of military escalation understands this. I pity you for not recognizing that these are incomparable situations and suggest that you reflect on whether or not this kind of judgement is worth sharing online. Every comment I've read from you repeats the same fearful tone without suggesting a serious response besides giving Russia what they want. You are either falling for propaganda or a blatant mouthpiece yourself.
> trying to economically, socially and culturally isolate the US would probably make it wreck even more mayhem over the world than trying to have cultural exchange, be nice, and what not
A perspective you could only possibly possess if you were economically, socially and culturally isolated from the rest of the world. Or is India and Iran enough to keep Putin company? Some world "superpower" Russia is.
The US didn't give Israel Mandatory Palestine - Britain did.
Well, Britain didn't quite "give" all of Mandatory Palestine, or any of it technically, to the Zionists.
What it did do was first, proactively set a firm date -- at midnight on April 14/15 1948 -- for the Mandate to expire (which it needed to expire soon anyway as the UN was poised to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of the League of Nations). And agree to a pull-out of its forces around the vicinity of the date. Which, while not amounting to a transfer of sovereignty as such to the Zionists, amounted to telling them "have at it", basically.
It had also provided the Zionists with a "moral" mandate that there be some kind of "Jewish home" in Palestine, though that came earlier through various steps (including of course the Balfour declaration). By that time though, the Zionists strill controlled only something like 13 percent of the territory as such.
America hasn't arbitrarily invaded any country since the Philippines.
Grotesquely and profoundly false:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Iraqi_Freedom
> Regularly Russian subs pass through Danish waters - controlled and allowed.
I've always wondered how subs handle tidal flows there, and how challenging the tidal flows are.
What I don’t understand - if the yi peng was intentionally trying to damage the FO cables, why would they not spoof or disable their AIS data/broadcast (ship tracking transponder which is the source of this positioning data we see). Anyone have some insight on that?
AIS is required for large ships in many if not most jurisdictions, to have it turned off is suspicious in itself. If you turn it off then re-appear later on somewhere else having had to traverse the area where the cables where at the time they got damaged, that's suspicious. You could turn it off in port, head out, cut the cables then return and turn it on again, but the window of time you had it off would straddle the cable damage time, and there's a high chance you would have been documented (video, radio traffic) leaving port in that time, and depending on the departure port it may be hard to leave without AIS on as the authorities may notice.
fishing boats and military often have it off btw.
fishing boats turn it off when they're in places they're not supposed to fish
Chinese fishing boats specifically.
Spanish also. And probably many other, seems a common trick.
YESS!! Finally a bsky link instead of X. Hope this is how it is from now on.
Looks suspicious, but there were 4 vessels in the area whose transponder signal was lost by public trackers during that night.
It has also been pointed out that this is a location with lively traffic. So if it turns out that is was an anchor (as in the New New Polar Bear case) that's extra suspicious because anchoring in such location is not normal. On the other hand if it were explosives like in the Nord Stream case, they could have been applied also weeks before.
YI PENG 3 (IMO: 9224984) is a Bulk Carrier and is sailing under the flag of China. Her length overall (LOA) is 225 meters and her width is 32.3 meters. Source: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:21...
It looks like that the pilot ship Styrbjoern [1] came along side the Yi Peng 3 today. It traveled from the harbor of Grenaa to the ship and back. It possible that they took some people in for questioning or put a pilot and/or guards on the ship.
[1] https://www.vesselfinder.com/?mmsi=219003826
On November 21, 2024, 6:35 UTC: It looks like the pilot ship Styrbjoern is traveling in the direction of the Yi Peng 3 bulk carrier again.
C-Lion -> Sea Lion, but not the IDE from JetBrains.
Going from fishing illegally in south american waters to damaging internet cables in Europe.
Should be very easy to verify if this was the cause.
All you have to do at this point is go look at the cable near the crossings.
If there is evidence of an anchor hitting the cables in both of these locations then you've got pretty clear proof.
Someone should obviously be checking into this right now. No point speculating until it's confirmed really.
I guess you might still want to board just to find out weather there is any evidence of intent rather than negligence in the case that this is confirmed to be the cause...
At best fall guy captain will claim ignorance, malfunction, or negligence. Retire or move to some cushy job.
No one will want to implicate China in something that would support Russia's war and would all be afraid of the economic fallout.
This is not how ship registration works. A useful model is to think of a ship's flag like a tld, just because a site is .cn doesn't mean the company is based out of China. Ships usually fly one flag or another based on tax and legislative reasons, and it's often unrelated to the country of origin.
The ship suspected of breaking the cables has been apprehended and it turns out it was currently sailing from Russia with a Russian captain [0].
[0] https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1859132263746744367
The other part is that explicit accusations create a lot of political tensions. Obviously so does the actual act of sabotage. But definitive proof is quite difficult to actually reach. Unless there is literally a letter on that captain's desk from a military leader ordering the action (a "smoking gun") then it is easy to just blame the captain and/or crew, as Hank mentions. After all, a country should not be blamed for the actions of individual citizens not made with the direction of that country, though it is also important that countries hold their citizens accountable. Accusations will more depend on how hawkish the leaders are. Obviously all countries play games like this, but certainly some are more aggressive than others. One major country loves to play the victim card while creating "red lines" which violate international laws. So take it as you will
I read somewhere that the captain is Russian. What a surprise.
Crowdsourced military intelligence offers some hope for the future.
Do we need to get James Cameron and associates to design a DitchWitch that can operate at 2 miles down? How deep can ship anchors go?
They already use such a thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_layer
> Cable ships also use “plows” that are suspended under the vessel. These plows use jets of high-pressure water to bury cable three feet (0.91 m) under the sea floor, which prevents fishing vessels from snagging cables as thrall their nets.
So when did they start using these and why are we still having issues?
We still have issues for the same reasons buried power, water, gas etc. lines still do. It isn’t a perfect fix.
Botswana is well in the top half of least-corrupt countries. I suspect you know nothing about Ukraine or Botswana.
If a cable goes down, isn't the traffic just re-routed? Don't see the point of intentional damage here.
Dunno what the real reason is, but it's easy to see possible a intentional reason: Testing to see how it well it works and how other nations respond.
Cost of new anchor = X
Cost of fixing cable = >>X
Damage = done
I guess WWIV has been on a slow burn for going on three years now.
Did I miss WWIII?
More like since Deng Xiaoping initiated the modern Chinese economic strategy in the '80s to control the West through trade.
The West did a fine job of this themselves. Outsourcing to poorer countries is what has made the West so wealthy for so long - goods whose price is subsidized by cheap labor. Now that China and other countries have caught up, the West doesn't get the same discount, but they also don't have their own manufacturing because they all outsourced. We did this to ourselves.
Very much this. We could have also used that time to advance and perfect on-demand production like 3D-printing, enhance our society by promoting more robust and prone to repair products, but instead we clinched on mass-consumption and profit. Our whole economic system needs recheck.
Sorry best we can do is an incompetent admin full of 3rd rate celebrities who explicitly want to dismantle everything our ancestors built with a side of outright grift. The department of education is for losers. What do you mean half the country can't read at a high school level?
It was crossing right on time for the interruptions, a Russian officer was on board, it slowed down while crossing, no other ships were slowing down in that area during that time (rulingnout headwinds) - it cannot get much clearer. China is now participating in hybrid warfare against Europe (unless they present stronger evidence against this assumption)
> China is now participating in hybrid warfare against Europe
Geez, I'm glad you're not war minister. It's a Chinese registered ship with a Russian captain.
If a terrorist crashes a truck with Portuguese plates into the US embassy in Berlin, would that mean Portugal's declared war against the USA?
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Well, yes, Flag of Convenience is a thing.
But there is a "but", which is that in the articles of war, the flag of a ship does have quite a few implications. E.g. when two nations are at war, stopping ships flagged as belonging to the opposition gives certain rights of stopping and searching them, blockading their passage, seizing the vessels and cargo, etc.
And the relevant characteristic in that case is the flag, not the captain's nationality: > Art. 51. Enemy character. The enemy or neutral character of a vessel is determined by the flag which it is entitled to fly.
http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/instree/1913a.htm
If you want to be formal about it, none of the countries with Baltic coastlines are formally at war.
Yes, but there is the huge other "but" that in modern use, a formal declaration of war is no longer necessary, committing acts of war is sufficient for a state of war to exist. (However, committing acts of war without a preceding declaration is of course a war crime.)
Of course this isn't really automatic and triggered by the smallest thing, both sides kind of have to "agree" to be at war, e.g. by a counter-attack, a declaration following the attack or something like that. And nobody really wants to take that bait, due to the huge consequences involved.
Yet, it is China playing with fire here, we all can be happy that none of the affected nations took them up on their "offer" of war.
Just to clarify again, this is a dry bulk / Panamax vessel. It is part of the shipping industry. At scale, it is analogous to a railroad car. In 2015 it was operating as the Avra under the flag of Greece. The foreknowledge of the Chinese government that a Russian officer would conduct hybrid operations from the vessel cannot be inferred from the circumstance. It is like thinking that someone with an American passport is an American spy.
It is quite the opposite from what you are arguing. China is responsible for the conduct of the vessels they allowed to fly their flag.
They can later claim that the crew and captain acted on their own will, without orders from the Chinese leadership. They can duly punish the captain and crew or disavow the vessel and declare them renegade, disallow them to fly their flag. But without such a declaration, a nation such as China is responsible for the conduct of their fleets, be they civilian or military. And any vessel they allow to fly their flag is part of their (in this case civilian) fleet.
Well sure we can both make unsourced assertions all day but as far as I can see the flag state is responsible for illegal conduct of commercial vessels only insofar it has failed to meet its obligations for regulatory and legal oversight.
Well, yes. But I'd claim that having a vessel intentionally damage foreign property and then ignoring the issue and not exercising legal oversight by at least investigating what happened is such a failure in obligations.
Is the US responsible for any crime committed by members of ships that fly the star-spangled banner?
To some extent, yes. US law applies on US-flagged ships.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_convenience
> A ship's flag state exercises regulatory control over the vessel and is required to inspect it regularly, certify the ship's equipment and crew, and issue safety and pollution prevention documents.
Because US law is strong in this regard, the US military is by far the largest contributor to the count. Less than 200 civilian vessels are flagged in the US; https://www.statista.com/statistics/652126/us-flag-oceangoin....
Yes, good points. It's not a wild stretch of the imagination that Mr P and gang are actively trying to drag China into the Ukraine conflict and I'd imagine Beijing is pretty pissed off today about being (ostensibly) implicated in this sabotage. So the usual underhand scheming from the Kremlin imho, don't fall for it. China and Russia's relationship is very complicated of course and there's many a convincingly analysis out there that predicts conflict between them in the near future (an example flashpoint being Siberia).
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Yes, this is what I'm saying, but with less words.
But look around (even in these comments) and look at how many people are thinking "Chinese act of war!!!11!!"
> Yes, this is what I'm saying, but with less words.
That's really not all you are saying, and the difference is important. Maybe not to you, though.
As far as I can tell, you're both saying the same thing: that registering a ship in China does not mean China is responsible for that ship's actions. If you've got a different point to make, please make it clear.
Then, elaborate please, Jochen, what's the important difference?
Yes… A lot of them really need have it spelt out, twice, in large clear type.
So the Russians who are at this point highly dependant on Daddy Xi to keep their economy and military afloat are gonna false flag the West to suck China into a quagmire of a war a few months before the most unpredictable and venomously anti-china president (who has thin skin, a hair trigger, and no qualms about conducting airstrikes on high-ranking Iranian generals unilaterally on a whim) in modern US history is about to take office at the head of a country with the largest functioning stockpile of nuclear weapons and a massive military? You think Chinese intelligence is asleep at the wheel and wouldn't notice given the stakes and absurd levels of geopolitical risk the entire planet is at?
China may back Russia to try to shift perception of the west's military might/will or to drain resources or just to buy Russia by making them dependant to get those juicy Russian natural resources but they aren't going to start world war iii to help Putin with his fetishistic "yet another European dictator" fantasy.
The Chinese know how to play the game same as the Russians and the US. All these little games are just calibrated psyops, why destroy, very publicly, comms lines when tapping it would be far more beneficial to a war effort and much quieter? Maybe to make the West look weak and unable to defend their borders which affects consequences domestically like say channeling political support to isolationist politicians who want to retreat from supporting Ukraine? Cause those politicians didn't make gains in the last European elections or nothing.
Well said.
> If a terrorist crashes a truck with Portuguese plates into the US embassy in Berlin, would that mean Portugal's declared war against the USA?
At the very least, the cooperation of Portugal's authorities would be expected to determine how the truck ended up being used for the attack, and if anyone knew about how the vehicle was to be used.
I expect the same amount of cooperation from China as the flag state.
By this logic, United and American Airlines were complicit in 9/11 as well.
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They're not asking for Russia to get the benefit of the doubt, they're asking (reasonably IMO) for China.
A well-earned result of decades of their hard work, although this is about china-registered vessel
It was the second Chinese registered ship with Russian crew within a short period of time. A year ago this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newnew_Polar_Bear cut the gas pipe and another communications line.
I am sure if the cowardly Russians ever did this to USA, it would cause a much bigger drama and retaliation wave, and China would take the hit as well.
True but China can support or not support investigations and prosecution. After all they are the ones who can exercise their sovereign rights on ships sailing under their flag. I‘m really curious and open minded how this plays out but sadly would be surprised if China would support the EU in this case.
> war minister
Due to an earlier generation's newspeak, that's "defense," not "war."
Are you sure about that?
I happened to notice that at least in some cases, the change of terminology happened roughly when it became clear that offensive war was a losing proposition in terms of money and resources. I suspect that as invading the neighbours became financially irrational, the cool heads that tend to survive in management shifted their stand from mixed offense/defense to just defense.
Yes Mr Pistorius is „Verteidigungsminister“ as in defence, and it‘s called that way since 1955. Not that hard to find out.
Germany's a good example. In 1914 the ministry was called Kriegsministerium, and an invasion wasn't seen as a necessarily bad idea. I think it already was, but at the time, you could argue in Berlin that a country that started a war could benefit from that war, if executed well. That kind of argument wouldn't make people doubt your judgment yet.
A few years later it was clear that offense was necessarily a resource loss. Someone who wanted to build a career as a civil servant might then see a defense ministry as a viable option, but not any sort of offensive war. Offense was clearly not viable, and therefore not a good basis for budget allocations, and therefore the good career move for the civil servants was to focus the ministries entirely on defense.
I don't know if the evidence is conclusive, but I do think we can say China is supplying Russia with military hardware and supporting them in other ways. So.. it's possible.
China trades with pretty much everybody, don't read too much into that.
China is not allied with Russia and China is unlikely to engage in sabotage like this because they stand nothing to gain from it.
They do have an alliance: https://www.cfr.org/article/china-russia-and-ukraine-october...
What the words are worth in a time of need remains to be seen. Neither side is exactly trustworthy :)
From what I understood, China was completely blindsided by the invasion (given that it happened so soon after the announcement of the alliance), and actually somewhat pissed. Russia basically used their alliance as insurance against a fully global sanctions regime, and China had to stick around to save face.
Blessedly we're citizens of good and noble western countries that are supremely trustworthy and that would never ever renege on a deal or fight unjust wars.
> China is not allied with Russia
They don't have a mutual defense treaty, sure, but they describe themselves as having a “friendship without limits”. I would agree that China has no interest in getting involved in Putin's idiot war in Ukraine though, and there's zero benefit to China in antagonizing Europe.
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I'm no fan of the CCP either but really what do they stand to gain here? Getting dragged into Russia's conflicts and the sanctions that would ensue would be devastating to the Chinese economy and security of the CCP's control.
The CCP are aware of this fact and they're planning for it, but they're not ready yet.
What they have falls short of a defense pact. The "Treaty of Good-Neighborliness" contains language that the countries shall immediately discuss military options when under attack, but an agreement to talk is not an agreement to join a war.
This is what article 9 says: "When a situation arises in which one of the contracting parties deems that peace is being threatened and undermined or its security interests are involved or when it is confronted with the threat of aggression, the contracting parties shall immediately hold contacts and consultations in order to eliminate such threats."
Russia and North Korea have a newly signed defense pact (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/20/world/asia/china-russia-n...). I don't believe Russia and China do, though.
They are absolutely allies, though. Per Putin himself. https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-says-china-is-russias-al...
Russia desperately needs allies. Russia wants China to be their unconditional ally. Unfortunately for Putin, and fortunately for the rest of us, China cares primarily about China.
Reading that thread it sounds like it was a Russian ship that was sold to China last month (perhaps as a pretext to mask this) so ownership is unclear.
I strongly doubt that this is an official military act of the Chinese government. It will most likely turn out that this is not an official military act of any government as the intent was to do this in secret.
Just because the intent was to be secret does not negate an official act of any country. To assume that any military does nothing in secret is naivety at its finest.
So if Trump is against China, and China aligns with Russia, will Trump then support Ukraine? Interesting (and choppy) times ahead.
Even if China doesn't explicitly align with Russia, I believe there are strategic reasons why the US would want a favourable outcome for Ukraine. I outlined a few points in a post a couple of weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42059787
I'm no international relations hawk though, so I'm keen to hear opposing viewpoints.
I used to support Ukraine winning the war at any cost (them losing and that result being recognized implies that warmongering is acceptable). However, that war is now in its third year with no end in sight.
Our (the west's) response to warmongering has been to trickle just enough resources and monies to keep Ukraine from losing but not so much that they win. The "donated" resources of course need to be replenished, the military industrial complex is quite literally making a killing.
At this point the question of declaring a firm stand against warmongering is lost. It's three years and going, warmongering as it turns out is fine. I hate that. My tax dollars are going towards endlessly and needlessly extending human suffering for the benefit of the military industrial complex. I hate that.
So I say, enough of this bullshit. Unless we suddenly send in so much support that Ukraine decisively wins very quickly, I don't want to see a single cent more of my tax dollars going towards this. My taxes are not blood money and the military industrial complex can go fuck themselves.
I think classifying western aid to Ukraine as tax transfer to the military industrial complex is just incorrect. Because a lot of it does/did NOT need to be directly replenished for the donors-- instead the donations was more like getting rid of older stockpiles, and for some systems moving the modernization schedule up.
And I think the attitude "its pointless to try and keep helping against the Russians, people have suffered from them for so long anyway" is completeley beside the point (and dangerous!)-- the main gain from helping the Ukraine in my view is discouraging the kind of neo-imperialistm that led to this attack, and stopping the support just sends a signal to ambitious tyrants all over the world that you don't really care about them plundering their weaker neighbors (and with having the biggest military comes some kind of obligation in this regard in my view).
I also think that you are patronizing the Ukrainians themselves in the worst way-- if anyone should get to decide how long it is worth it to fight for their country, it should be them.
>instead the donations was more like getting rid of older stockpiles, and for some systems moving the modernization schedule up.
That is precisely the benefitting of the military industrial complex that I am fed up with.
>"its pointless to try and keep helping against the Russians, people have suffered from them for so long anyway"
That is not what I'm angry about. I am angry that this war is dragging on far longer than there is any reasonable reason to be. If we hadn't trickled in support Ukraine would have lost already, if we had placed our full weight behind Ukraine they would have won already; either way the war would have ended long ago.
With the question of warmongering settled at this point (it's okay to warmonger, whether any of us like it or not), the only thing I care about is people not dying. I sincerely don't care how the war ends anymore, all I care about at this point is that it stops ASAP, that people stop dying.
>if anyone should get to decide how long it is worth it to fight for their country, it should be them.
If they want to continue fighting that's totally within their right, but I as an American taxpayer am not obliged to foot their bill much less in the manner we've been doing it.
>the only thing I care about is people not dying
If you think Ukrainians are just going to roll over and submit if everyone abandons them and Ukraine must capitulate, you are an idiot.
These are people who's ancestors had their ethnicity half erased. Even this war is part of that erasure. Russia literally kidnaps children to ship them off who knows where.
The Ukrainian people will resist. It will be Afghanistan all over again.
Plenty will continue to die.
A lack of ATACMS will not change that. The ONLY outcome that stops people dying is Russia going the fuck home. Ukrainians have been dying to push out Russian invaders for 10 years now, not 2.
The war is not going well and I could see how cutting the western support could force the Ukrainian loss. We have seen that when the front started crumbling during the period when the ammunition supply from the US was interrupted for half a year.
The west can definitely force Ukraine to sign a humiliating treaty, ceding land and freezing the conflict, there's plenty of leverage for that. If that happens, the days of Ukraine as an independent state are numbered - a new invasion will happen as soon as russians rebuild their forces, and this time it will be done right. People will continue to die even if the country gets erased from the map, just maybe not in the trenches, but in the torture chambers and prisons instead.
Common Ukrainians are increasingly suffering war exhaustion[1], if current trends continue then next year could reach a point that Zelensky might lose popular support all together.
This is alongside war-support exhaustion from America. One of Trump's campaign promises was to end the war immediately ("in 24 hours", I personally think that specific timeframe is untenable), and he won the popular vote which cements that promise as a popular American mandate.
Wars are oftentimes inevitable, but I am strictly of the mind that if wars must be waged that they be decisive and swift so that human suffering can be kept to the absolute minimum. The war as it stands is neither decisive nor swift, and we (the west) absolutely share responsibility in the blood being shed.
And on the note of blood shed, another commenter asked "Whose lives?"[2] when I rebuked him for calling human lives "cheap". I believe we can all agree that all men are created equal with an unalienable right to life.
If we are seriously going to say certain lives are less valuable than others, then I think Putin has absolutely won his warmongering bet on every front possible. If we are happy to see Ukrainians die in place of our own countrymen so we (the west) can point at Russia and laugh, man maybe we deserve to lose the Pax Americana era.
[1]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/653495/half-ukrainians-quick-ne...
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42197023
Which cements that promise as a popular American mandate
Do you think the folks who voted for him have a reasonable understanding of what is likely to happen on the ground (and its significance outside the US) after that "mandate" is carried out?
Or do you think they pretty much -- just don't care?
Note: I'm also going to reply to your other comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42200520) here to save both of us time.
First off, this is a war that America (and indeed the west) isn't a direct party to. The cold hard fact is that this is "someone else's war", and we (America) just got done with the War on Terror which went on for over 20 years. We are war exhausted to begin with.
Secondly, the fact that our response has been lukewarm and insignificant for so long (almost 3 years!) makes the notion of refuting warmongering a laughing stock at this point. We missed the boat in about as glorious a fashion as we possibly could.
Thirdly and finally given the preceding, no: I think most Americans genuinely don't care anymore beyond that the war ends now, that people stop dying now. Keep in mind that the people who voted for Trump (that includes me) also effectively voted against warhawks like Cheney, Bolton, and so on. The American people want peace, tenuous and unfair as it may be.
As for whether Trump forcing the war to a closure would be for or against the notion of peace: Have no doubt about it, we will be losers coming to the negotiating table in shame and that's regardless whether it's Trump or Harris or even Biden for that matter. Putin won his bet, we had our bluff called and we would be there to try and make the best of the bed we made. But if the war ends, the war ends.
I appreciate the detailed and thoughtful follow-up.
However, your final response ("As for whether ...") does seem to be largely avoiding the question it addresses. If we may try again:
"But if the war does end with parameters in the range of such that can likely expect under a Trump-Vance deal -- including of course major territorial concessions, along with likely some kind of statement acknowledging Putin's grievances, and another guaranteeing that he and his people will never be prosecuted; and very likely also, requiring that Russia pay at most a paltry share of the $1T in financial damages which Ukraine is squarely owed -- will the cause of peace be furthered, or will it hindered?"
Considering not just the current conflict, but possibilities of future aggression, and the likely impact on the international system of such a precedence being set.
(Tweaking the goalposts here, but only slightly)
My apologies, I should have been more deliberate:
The cause of peace will be hindered, but this won't entirely be Trump's (or Harris's in another timeline) fault because Biden already missed the boat on this at least two years ago. You can't board a boat that already left port.
The consequences of warmongering are meaningless economical and political sanctions, and a halfassed proxy war from the sanctioning side; this is set in stone now and there's no going back. Peace is actually valued quite low despite narratives to the contrary, as it turned out.
I'm more "glass half-full" than you are on Ukraine's chances of avoiding a worst-case outcome (assuming support continues, even at roughly current funding levels). And as far as the interests of the US are concerned: guaranteeing that Russia's regime understands that it simply won't be allowed to pursue further adventures of this sort.
But at least I can see where you're coming from.
> That is precisely the benefitting of the military industrial complex that I am fed up with.
This whole position just strikes me as misguided, because the numbers simply dont work. At all. Because if what you mainly care about is reducing US taxes flowing into weapon manufacturers, then the Ukraine is such a marginal portion that it basically does not matter at all:
If you said "lets reduce US spending on military to what all the rest of NATO together spends" (mind you, that is still the largest military budget in the world!), then that change alone would save in a single year over 4 (total!) Ukraine aid programs (and this is including all financial and humanitarian aid so far).
If you look at the stock price for major US arms manufacturers (RTX, LMT, NOC-- picked for being large and majority non-civilian revenue), then the whole Ukraine thing is basically not even a blip-- you would not even be able to tell (contrast the whole bitcoin/AI boom which is clearly visible in Nvidia price).
> With the question of warmongering settled at this point
I strongly disagree that this question is settled with a yes. I do absolutely agree with you that the answer from the US and especially its european allies should have been more decisive and unambiguous.
In the end, what the Ukraine war did and still does is establish a price on blatant imperialism. That price needs to be as high as possible to discourage and prevent repetitions as much as possible.
I would argue that this was a success in that regard already, but a small one, especially regarding the EU. Cutting further support would undermine and weaken this even more.
I'd also like to challenge your position on wanting to force an end to avoid further loss of life: How can you be confident that an (immediate) conclusion in Russians favor by cutting Ukraine military, humanitarian and financial aid (possibly also from allies) would actually be a net benefit in lives saved?
If you just look at the first and second Chechen war and the 8 years of insurgency directly after, what would make you confident that the exact same atrocities would not repeat at 20 times the scale?
To me personally, cutting support for the Ukraine when ones country is founded on principles of self-determination, freedom and democracy is peak hypocrisy.
Sources:
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/RTX
https://de.finance.yahoo.com/quote/LMT
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/NOC/
Ukraine aid volume:
https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine
> if anyone should get to decide how long it is worth it to fight for their country, it should be them.
Looks like the popular sentiment over there is shifting towards a negotiated peace with territorial concessions. https://www.newsweek.com/ukrainians-changing-their-minds-war...
Are there other less partisan sources reporting this? From what I understand, Newsweek has been an alt-right mouthpiece since 2022.
Yeesh, I wasn't aware that that happened at Newsweek. The Gallup link in the sibling comment is the best source, I had seen those results in a couple different places so I just grabbed one from the top of Google (wrongly assuming that remembering Newsweek being on my parents' coffee table 15 years ago is sufficient vetting). Thanks for keeping me honest!
The linked article is just repeating numbers and findings from Gallup:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/653495/half-ukrainians-quick-ne...
Thanks for the link! Was really suprised to see EU being favored as brokers over the US.
Makes me kinda curious if there is still significant blame/resentment regarding the Budapest Memorandum (against the US specifically)...
Thanks! The article does indeed seem impartial, at least up until the Trump parts. It's not surprising. My own resolve would probably wane sooner than most Ukrainians. It cannot be easy to live in fear of loved ones dying at any time.
How can people keep repeating the russian talking point that equates helping Ukraine resist the invasion with "extending the suffering". Don't they know what kind of hell the occupied regions have become? One can't pretend not to understand that the ultimate russian goal is complete annexation and assimilation, which by the way will provide ample cannon fodder for the next war of conquest.
I can't take in good faith this whole "suffering" rhetorics -- not containing the imperialistic expansionist nuclear-armed empire is sure to bring more suffering to the world.
I think you're not understanding the whole argument: We're not helping Ukraine defend themselves, we're not containing the "imperialistic expansionist nuclear-armed empire". If we were then this war would have ended long ago and we wouldn't be having this conversation and Trump probably wouldn't have been elected.
No, I am angry because our response has been halfassed and lukewarm. We are keeping the war going with no end in sight, my tax dollars are being used explicitly to extend human suffering rather than end it. Sincerely fuck that noise. Either we go all in or do nothing at all, the current timeline is the worst one we could have possibly chosen.
Yes, I'm definitely not following your argument. You're claiming that keeping the war going is extending the human suffering, while pushing Ukraine towards losing it would somehow end the suffering. That's false. Ukraine under russian occupation would be hell, and Ukrainians know it very well - that's why they are still fighting for survival.
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You are purposely ignoring the point I am making - the suffering WILL NOT end if the war ends. It will become much worse in fact. The only outcome of the aid stopping is the complete conquest of the country, one has to be completely blind or a shill to trust any treaty at this point.
I think the current anemic levels of support are insufficient, and the restrictions imposed on Ukraine in the name of "escalation management" are outright criminal, but even this level support is better than nothing. We are talking about war of extermination here.
If that is still hard for you to understand, ...
Howabout saying "If it helps, ..." instead.
> them losing and that result being recognized implies that warmongering is acceptable
You do realise that the US has more or less constently been at war for the past fifty years. "The west" - whatever that means - can't take a stand against warmongering when they are themselves warmongering all the time. War and the threat of force is part of diplomacy like it or not.
Support to Ukraine is a part of global geo-strategical calculus of which taking a stand against tyranny and defending the sanctity of borders is but a minor part of.
"The military industrial complex" has pocketed trillions upons trillions of tax payers money to arm NATO for a possible confrontation with Russia. Now that Russia is being beaten up and worn down on the cheap, people are throwing tantrums over the amounts that are essentially a pocket change (a half of which stays in the US anyways). How does this make sense?
>on the cheap
Human lives are not "cheap". Sincerely what the fuck, my dude.
Whose lives are we talking about here?
You seem to be worried because of _just enough_ of part of somehow your money is given to Ukraine. Come on. They are fighting for all of us. And all we need to do is to give support. And you are getting tired. I am also disappointed that the west have not acted as a single front. In EU it seems we cannot even put puppets like Viktor Orbán in control. Yes, whole west needs to step up. Russia doesn't listen anything else than force. Period.
I’m fine with using my tax dollars to cripple a geopolitical rival and maintain the Pax Americana status quo
I would be ashamed if my tax dollars were funding what is happening to Gaza.
Agreed, Israel is not even a good ally, they commit industrial espionage against US companies and instigate regional conflicts by leaving their pants down as an excuse to start a war
What’s another suitable country to be a stationary aircraft carrier in the Middle East though
Yep, I'm mostly in agreement with you and am also hoping that the West does enable a sudden decisive victory. The best option would have been to nip it in the bud. Instead, Russia were given the space to landmine swathes of land, modernise their military tactics, and build an alliance with Iran and North Korea. And as you say the wrong kinds of people are winning here.
The only thing is, what happens next if the West pulls out? Ukraine's military collapses, Russia moves in on Kyiv, Putin gains another Belarus-like satellite state, and at least considers encroaching on Estonia, Finland etc... . It's more than just the principle of whether warmongering is acceptable - a lot of people will suffer as a consequence and possibly for decades to come. We have to be really careful to consider which is worse in the long-term.
I agree with both of you, but also want to point out that it's easier to make these criticisms in retrospect.
I think the West was making the best calculus it could as the situation developed. Sure, you can say we should have known Putin was bluffing about redlines. But the downside of all out war is high enough that, when multiplied by the probability, you still get a bad number. I think it's reasonable that Western governments played it cautiously and hoped for a different resolution (like a successful internal coup).
But yes, now we are where we are and it sucks for Ukraine.
>it's easier to make these criticisms in retrospect.
For what it's worth, I've been critical of our (American, subsequently western) response since the first one. Speaking as an American, our response was and still are lukewarm and thus ineffectual in declaring a firm stand against warmongering. I was heartbroken and then angry at being told how (not) valuable world peace actually was.
What Putin did was declare war against the very notion of peace, and the west fucking surrendered it in the worst way possible after preaching so passionately about peace to everyone everywhere everytime.
So by effectively promising to largely validate Putin's claimed grievances and war spoils (via his promised "deal") -- do you think the incoming US president will be acting in favor of, or against "the very notion of peace"?
Any illusions about 21st century US peace preaching should have been given up sometime in, oh, 2003-2011.
And while we concern ourselves deeply about genocide against Ukrainians and Palestinians, somewhere between 1-3 million Uyghurs have been imprisoned in China.
It sucks to finally realize it, but rhetoric has always been exactly that.
I agree with what you have said here, but I don't know if the US is in a position to turn the war around in 2024 without a huge escalation. It remains to be seen if there is any possible way to do that without "boots on the ground" (formally starting WW III) or the use of nuclear weapons (again, formally starting WW III).
There were plenty of options to pressure Ukraine into preventing Russia from having a causus belli in early 2022 (too bad the Biden admin didn't do any of those), but those are gone now and Russia currently controls much of the territory they had as military objectives.
Doesn't need to be a huge escalation.
Just enough to send the tide of attrition turning slowly the other way for a while.
After which HN will instantly fill up with comments about "how badly Russia is losing", "it's clear Ukraine has already lost", and so forth.
There were plenty of options to pressure Ukraine into preventing Russia from having a causus belli in early 2022
Russia never had casus belli in this conflict, and no one did anything to present it with such.
I'm not sure Ukraine wins a war of attrition in any meaningful way. Russia is also shockingly good at wars of attrition, and the entire Russian economy has been built around war with the West. Ukraine is a small state in comparison, and they are running out of men, money, and munitions so fast that even tipping the scales by 10x will sink Ukraine before Russia retreats from the territory they now own. In 2022, the goal would be to make it costly to acquire territory so ideas about attrition would have worked a lot better, but it's 2024 and Russia has already grabbed the land. Someone needs to go take it back.
Here's a memo for you on Russia's causus belli. You can claim that they didn't have a legitimate one (I don't think they did), but they had one that got them enough local and international support to work in both 2014 and 2022: https://www.ponarseurasia.org/vladimir-putins-casus-belli-fo...
In your opinion what could Ukraine have done to avoid the causus Belli in 2022?
The causus belli was twofold, and was aimed at the Russian people:
1. Prevention of NATO encroachment toward Russia
2. Protection of ethnic Russians in Donbas
Any and/or all of the following would have weakened or broken Putin's narrative:
1. Stop the military buildup in Donbas that had started in 2021
2. Cease admission of new NATO member states for 3-5 years
3. Stop the process of Ukraine getting closer to NATO and the EU
4. Reduce or stop US military assistance funding to Ukraine
5. Drop the Biden administration's economic sanctions of Russia
6. Continue implementation of the Minsk accords
7. Stop the planned deployments of US missiles to Ukraine
There are many more options. The US administration in 2020 was bringing Ukraine into the fold (because it wanted to be there), but that is not a recipe for peace. NATO had previously agreed not to get close to Ukraine or other states bordering Russia.
You would greatly benefit from watching https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcfqP0PtWDcGKIHGTTbVl...
I tend to prefer to read documents from think tanks and professors about this conflict, but I'm sure "Sarcasmitron" has a lot to add on top of that.
If you only listen to think tanks and professors that affirm your preconceptions then you're not educating yourself at all. Liberals fall into the same trap of denying genocides when they demand that Noam Chomsky's memoirs be the only relevant framing of geopolitics. It's a nonsense diversion, and you even added a scoop of ad-hominem on top.
With credit to the parent comment, I've seen the linked video and it's both high quality and entertaining. I'd also wager it's more peer-reviewed than whatever primary sources you use, if you think NATO is the villain for offering the protection Russia's neighbors want.
The basic flaw in what you're suggesting (that the war could have been averted by mollifying Putin on the terms of his stated narrative), is that, as we both seem to agree, the stated narrative was never the real basis for his decision to invade.
Putin's actual reasons, in turn, seem to have been primarily about:
1. Securing the 3 currently (as of Feb 2022) occupied regions, especially the Crimea, for permanent annexation. Russia's position in the Crimea in particular was at the time severely compromised, due to Ukraine's shutting off of its water access. It also "needed" a land bridge (around the Azov) in order to be reasonably secure in the long term. (We put "needed" in quotes here to remind ourselves that this was the regime's internal desire, not any kind of objective or real "need"). As gravy, or as a way of offsetting the cost for the whole operation, there was also the matter of the Donbas region's significant lithium reserves (estimated at $3T).
2. Permanent deterrence of any NATO bid on Ukraine's part, likely involving some form of formal declaration of permanent neutrality (Finlandization).
3. As gravy, anything it could have also won in terms of regime change in Kyiv, preventing whatever rump state (if any) that remained in Western Ukraine from joining the EU, or simply damaging its chances for success and prosperity generally ("wrecking it", in Mearsheimer's words) would have been a very signicant plus.
The thing is, (2) by itself could have been had without resorting to a full-scale invasion. The West was eager for some kind of deal to end the 2014-2022 conflict, and having Ukraine in NATO was always optional, as far as it was concerned.
But the price for Putin -- forgoing his paramount desire for (1) -- would have been far too high. Plus he thinks of himself as a visionary leader, destined to make his mark on history, and for many years had deluded himself as to Russia's actual capabilities for military adventures of this sort.
So that's why he went "whole hog" in Feb of 2022. The main point here is that there doesn't seem to be much logic in thinking the war could have been avoided by addressing the stated narrative. When Putin's real reasons for invading, with emphasis on (1) above, would be in no way addressed by tactical appeasement of this sort.
I think in the postmortem we will figure out that this was about #2 moreso than anything else. He wanted NATO off his doorstep but NATO kept encroaching since he did nothing every time they encroached. This is somewhat the act of a madman, but it's a response to NATO continually breaking promises.
The land bridge to Crimea is nice, too, don't get me wrong.
This is somewhat the act of a madman, but it's a response to NATO continually breaking promises.
It's not, actually. The history around this is widely misunderstood.
See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42187155
Putin was not in power in 1994 or 1997, and that appears to be the last time they agreed to a NATO expansion. Those were the Yeltsin years, and treating the Yeltsin and Putin administrations as though they are the same is like treating the Obama and Trump administrations as though they are the same. Enlargement of NATO kicked into high gear in the early 2000's, and Putin himself has cited NATO expansionism as a reason for this war (as well as the Georgia war and the 2014 Crimea war).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO
There is no serious analyst on this situation who thinks NATO expansion isn't at least a factor, if not the primary cause.
Treating the Yeltsin and Putin administrations as though they are the same
I'm not, and you're completely misreading me if you think that's what I'm saying.
> he thinks of himself as a visionary leader, destined to make his mark on history
Well put. This seems to get glossed over. Putin doesn't have too many years left in good health and won't go quietly on gardening leave.
I agree with you and would also add that even if the NATO expansion argument is merely a facade, it's not the only one he has to play with.
OP mentioned protecting ethnic Russians in Donbas. Putin's narrative to Russians in fact goes much further than that: he portrays himself as reconquering and unifying the traditional Russian state. Let's not forget the speech he gave shortly after the invasion, in which he described Ukraine as an illegitimate state on Russian soil.
The other narrative he pushes is about neo-Nazis taking control of Ukraine. Iirc one of the aims of the "special operation" is to remove Nazis from the Ukrainian government. Which is obvious bollocks to us in the West, given that Zelensky himself is Jewish. But in Russia the war is successfully portrayed as a sort of rehash of WW2: soviets vs Nazis.
> if there is any possible way to do that without "boots on the ground"
Of course there is but the Western allies are slow to arm Ukraine because they fear the Russian nuclear retaliation.
To recap, Ukraine received very few , around a hundred ATACMS missiles with severe restrictions on targets. They got less than two dozen F-16 jets. This is just nothing compared what the US might be able to send if they wanted to, they have over 300 Falcons at Davis-Monthan AFB (aka Boneyard) to begin with. There are near four thousand ATACMS missiles manufactured so far. And so on, with tanks etc.
If the "tap" were to open full stream instead of dripping, the war would be over very fast. The question is, which end would we get.
Trump is pro Trump-looking-strong, and that's about it. Interesting times ahead for sure, but trying to predict Trump's future positions is a mug's game. I suspect regarding Ukraine, someone will give him a plan that they tell him is fair ($10 says Russia keeps Crimea but virtually nowhere else and Ukraine agrees not to join NATO), and he'll manage to get both sides to sign it by threatening them.
I will be absolutely flabbergasted if he manages that deal. I think Ukraine will have to give up significantly more than Crimea unfortunately:-/
Perhaps. His key leverage here is that he’s chaotic, a lunatic, and will be the CiC, and who the fuck knows what he’ll do if he doesn’t get his way? Enforce a no-fly zone? Flood the country with weaponary? Abandon Ukraine for Russian oil? Leave NATO? Provide explicit nuclear umbrella to the Poles and tell them to have at the erbfeind if they want to?
About the only thing you can rely on is that he’ll do whatever he and his equally loony and chaotic advisors think will make him look good in the short term, based on feels, backed by the might of the American military.
Given all that, is Putin really going to defy him when presented with a deal that Putin has any chance at of spinning as a win at home? Putin's singular leverage is threatening nuclear war, but that only works if you can convince your opponent you're more unhinged than they are, and Putin loses that particular metric to Trump every time.
The whole Trump/Russia conspiracy theory was all fake anyway - the Steele dossier which is the basis of the whole thing was fabricated and is unsourced. I expect him to be relatively hawkish on Ukraine because losing in Ukraine makes the US look weak, although Ukraine is currently losing the war relatively badly so I expect some territory to be ceded to Russia.
This. The amount of downvoting on these comments is proof of the amount of influence propaganda can have on the population. A large number of people here appear to still be convinced that Trump and Russia are working together.
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This line of reasoning keeps popping up and something about it bothers me - why go to war when you can get what you want in other, cheaper ways? It seems likely the correlation is real but so far no one has adduced any reasons to assume the causation actually goes the way they assume.
If you note that what Russia wants is Ukrainian territory (first Crimea in 2014 and then a land connection to Crimea in 2022), that was guaranteed to involve some amount of war. That will give you everything you need to infer the correct direction of causation.
Why do you think Russia wants territory? Why did they suddenly develop an appetite for territory in 2014?
> Why did they suddenly develop an appetite for territory in 2014?
Did they? They took a chunk of Georgia in 2008 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War) and have been actively occupying some of Moldova since 1990 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria_conflict).
They have wanted it since the fall of the Soviet Union and access to the Black Sea has immense strategic value to them. They only had geopolitical (and local political) cover to get it in 2014 and 2022.
So not because ukraine rejected them in 2013? To be explicit, I still have seen no evidence for the premise that '_some_ amount of war' was inevitable. Belarus would seem to be an obvious counterexample.
No person seriously discussing that region of the world would have ever thought Ukraine would give Crimea to the Russians without a fight. Countries, in general, don't give up land without a fight. Crimea is also one of the most militarily valuable pieces of land in the world. Putin, at the same time, wanted to do some "re-unification" of some previous Soviet territories including Crimea.
I'm also not sure why you're citing Belarus here. It was split off from the Soviet union in 1990 and governed itself the whole time despite being essentially a vassal state of Russia. Belarus has not ceded any land to Russia, either.
Edit - I see what you're saying about control or territory. If you want control, directly controlling the territory is better than having a puppet government. While Russia would have accepted a puppet government, as they have in Belarus (since there has been no good opportunity to go to war with Belarus to take it over), they had the opportunity to go to war for direct control and the West made it clear that Ukraine as a vassal state was not an option (see the 2014 revolution). If you think someone wants control, why do you think that they see $0 of extra value in directly owning the territory?
> It was split off from the Soviet union in 1990 and governed itself the whole time despite being essentially a vassal state of Russia.
It's obvious that Russia wants ukraine as a vassal as well. I would note that the invasion of Ukraine was launched _via_ Belarus, despite the fact that Russia does not formally control that territory. So again I ask, if Russia can get what it wants (which is _control_, not territory) without going to war, why would it do so?
Let's be plain - we are ultimately dancing around an empirical question, whether Trump will be hawkish or dovish towards Russia. Ultimately I think he's too chaotic for past behavior to be a good guide. So let's see what happens! I for one hope that you are right, but I think I have plenty of reasons to be cautious.
Whoever was POTUS played no role in the timing of 2014. Putin invaded Donbas in 2014 in response to a revolution in Ukraine that ousted the unpopular Russia-aligned Yanukovych. Not because Obama was POTUS or because Trump wasn't POTUS.
Okay, and why did Putin wait until 2022 to (re)invade Ukraine, if that was the goal? Shouldn't he have done it when he had a stooge in the white house?
> Shouldn't he have done it when he had a stooge in the white house?
If you think said stooge is likely to get reelected (which, except for COVID coming out of the blue, was highly likely) and that stooge is already making noise about isolationism, why interrupt?
2022 looks a lot like an "oh shit, plan B" scenario.
> Okay, and why did Putin wait until 2022 to (re)invade Ukraine
Because that's when he had intelligence leading him to believe the Ukrainian regime would crumble quickly or capitulate in the face of a large-scale invasion, and possibly also the NATO would fail to unite and respond, in part due to the success of Russian influence operations, which were not only directed at the US.
Conversely, why not invade to destabilize the incumbency of the non-stooge so that the stooge wins re-election and then use the stooge to negotiate a favorable frozen conflict? Or why even attribute it to POTUS at all? Why not attribute it to the fact that Ukraine's military power was growing due to the Western training that they were receiving over the previous 10 years, and Putin was effectively on a clock to invade? Eastern European conflicts have never revolved around who is POTUS.
Trump didn’t do anything with regards to China the first time around. I think there’s reason to doubt he is opposed to China in any significant way.
In his first administration he engaged directly with North Korea which has been widely regarded as a Chinese puppet state. The last thing China wants, in my opinion, is a united and free Korea.
Although China's been taking over the SCS, I haven't seen many open hostilities between South Korea and China covered in western news media, almost like SK ignores China's activities for the most part. I don't think there's any chance of a reunified Korea under the Kim dynasty or within 10 years.
edit: forgot to shoutout above's username
Considering a significant bunch of Korean companies have production facilities in China, I'd say the relationship is more amiable than say the Japan-China one. Both were aligned in protesting the release of Fukushima water into the ocean for example.
He engaged with North Korea almost as an admirer and their leadership is close to China / Russia.
I'm not sure that means much as far as China goes....
He did impose tariffs on imports from China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93United_States_tr...
China–United States trade war
An economic conflict between China and the United States has been ongoing since January 2018, when U.S. President Donald Trump began setting tariffs and other trade barriers on China with the goal of forcing it to make changes to what the U.S. says are longstanding unfair trade practices and intellectual property theft.
Let's not forget pulling out of the TPP, which likely empowered China.
https://www.cato.org/blog/5-years-later-united-states-still-...
That reads like token efforts and then he just moved on ... quit on the whole thing.
By late 2019, the United States had imposed approximately US$350 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports, while China had imposed approximately US$100 billion on US exports.
Then the Biden admin happened.
The Joe Biden administration kept the tariffs in place and added additional levies on Chinese goods such as electric vehicles and solar panels. In 2024, the Trump presidential campaign proposed a 60 percent tariff on Chinese goods.
It will be interesting to see what happens. 60% all at once would be too disruptive, I think.
Trade conflicts all seem like a test of wills.
But if you're not testing, you're not doing anything.
Well Biden put Catherine Tai in as the chief trade negotiator, who has been hard on China. Tariffs were expanded. And the de minimis exemption was rescinded in august.
So hardly "nothing further".
Sorry - just edited away the "nothing further" part as it was incorrect - a minute before reading your comment.
No worries! Thanks for the correction
Why did they leave AIS on?
Having AIS on is mandatory. I'm sure turning it off would raise even higher warning flags than just leaving it on while doing your shady stuff.
Regardless, there are satellites covering the area, so you wouldn't get rid of being tracked anyways, would just be a bit slower.
Having AIS on is mandatory, but in practice a lot of ships turn it off regardless. From shadow oil fleets laundering sanctioned oil to fishermen, fake or disabled AIS systems are hardly an exception.
I don't think Russia is trying to hide their sabotage, though. Even with AIS disabled, there's no way European intelligence agencies didn't know what ships were floating above these cables at the time they went down.
This was a warning, not a secret operation.
Having AIS on is mandatory, and in many places taken quite seriously. Last night we sailed from Fuerteventura to Gran Canaria. There was a cargo ship with broken AIS in the area, and the VTS broadcasted their position over VHF every half hour (with DSC all ships alarms and everything)
Every recreational sailor knows that AIS is "mandatory." It's completely routine to see commercial ships running without it.
With "commercial", I guess you imply fishing vessels doing this to go fishing outside their delimited area. That's different from a massive bulk carrier in the middle of the Baltic
No I meant what I said. I've never seen a like supertanker without AIS but I've seen smaller cargo ships, ferries, and specifically in northern europe energy company tenders running without it.
> It's completely routine to see commercial ships running without it
I think this depends a lot on the location, as different areas seems to make it different levels of "mandatory". Are you speaking about the Baltic Sea specifically based on experience?
Yes. I spent a pandemic summer sailing the north sea, denmark, sweden with a friend. We sailed much less in the baltic and I admittedly kind of mix the north & baltic in my memory but they are very similar regulatory environments re boats so it would surprise me if it was common in one but not the other.
> they are very similar regulatory environments re boats so it would surprise me if it was common in one but not the other.
One has Russia and their ports, while the other doesn't. So preparedness and military presence certainly is different between the two at least.
I defer to your presumably greater baltic sailing experience.
recent statistic : Global Fishing Watch’s study published in Science Advances on November 2, 2022, revealed that:
Over 55,000 suspected intentional disabling events of AIS signals were identified between 2017 and 2019, obscuring nearly 5 million hours of fishing vessel activity. This phenomenon accounts for up to 6% of global fishing vessel activity.
Time to start sailing the south china sea.
https://news.usni.org/category/fleet-tracker
The US has two carrier groups there now, and has maintained a presence there for the last few years:
https://news.usni.org/2017/05/29/brief-history-us-freedom-na...
Coincidentally (or not) a couple lines were down a few hours ago in this south china sea degrading connectivity
So what would China's motivation be here?
China likely has nothing to do with this. It is unlikely they have any participation or even knowledge of this. Twice now some Russians in a China flagged ship caused trouble, and the China-flagging seems very intentional.
Russia is desperately trying to make the China-Russia thing a reality, and is probably trying to drag them in against their great resistance. China has zero credible reason to be dragged into Russia's nonsense, and a billion reasons why they want nothing to do with it.
The ideal outcome of this is that China realizes that Russia is outright trying to drag them into conflict, and that they repudiate that country entirely.
China has already been involved quietly, funneling weapons and intel to the Russians, essentially playing the opposite role to the US. Make no mistake - this war has a component of the US and China probing each others' capabilities.
The Russians could have done this with a fishing trawler (they cut cables accidentally all the time), so like you I doubt we can infer some nefarious Chinese plot from the flag on the vessel.
I'd say another reasonable view is that China is happy to put morality aside and make money off weapons sales so long as they can get away with it.
Might be just a crew paid off by Russians to do it.
In my country saboteurs largely weren't Russian - it's easier to pay off a local than have ano5 Russian cross the border, when his predecessor gets caught.
China has a lot of interest in the war not ending one way or the other. Their peer competitors are spending resources on it and a potentially problematic regional competitor is becoming more irrelevant the longer it runs.
In the superpower listings they're Number 2 with a bullet.
Finding out how far they can go without consequences / test the will of another nation to do something?
Article indicates this isn’t the first time.
Helping Russia
So what's the strategic importance of this move? inb4 "they're just acting like hoodlums to show off their strength".
Keeping Europe on edge and cowed, so that they spend less time and effort on Ukraine. This allows Russia to capture more of the historic Russian Empire in the east, which makes them more powerful and embarrasses the Western countries, pushing more unaligned countries into BRICS.
The endgame here is to build a new world order with Russia and China calling the shots (actually, China calling the shots, but we're not supposed to say that yet).
This seems very unrealistic, as the resulting distraction is probably of low consequence concerning Ukraine.
Not even replying to the claims about world domination, I don't have time for these... "suppositions".
Yes, and that's half the problem. The only ones taking this seriously are the Latvians, Estonians, and Lithuanians (although the Finns and Poles finally woke up to it last year - also why Poland upped its military spending to 5%). The Estonian military reports are particularly enlightening, and Timothy Snyder offers background into the why.
> although the Finns and Poles finally woke up to it last year - also why Poland upped its military spending to 5%
Poland has been warning about Russia at least for over 14 years now, since before Crimea annexation for sure. It started with Russia invading Georgia, I think.
Likewise, Poland has also been meeting NATO spending quota for years, upping it even more these days.
Poland refused to let another gas pipe from Russia through its territory without it going through Ukraine too, because it was obvious Russia would use it as leverage against Ukraine. This is what actually led to NS project which, for the same reason and this time additionaly because of the risk of creating leverage against other CEE countries, Poland refused to participate in and had been instead alarming that NS will result in troubles with Russia and security of Europe and Ukraine in particular.
Poland has been raising the issue of not only Ukrainian, but Georgian situation too. Many people forget, that Russia has been occupying parts of Georgia for over 16 years now.
Poland, despite paying penalties for that and being called racist etc., has been also blocking illegal immigration influx on its border with Belarus due to it being a hybrid war of Russia against Europe.
If anything, Poland did not sleep over Russia's plans. Quite the opposite, actually.
Yes, sorry, I didn't mean to imply that Poland has been asleep at the wheel. They have indeed been warning about Russia's intentions, although using the Western manner of speaking that accomplishes nothing (not that I blame them - there is little they can do to move the European political center, and getting too shrill would backfire). But no one has been warning as loudly about it as Estonia. Unfortunately, nobody listens to the Baltic countries, or even hears a word they say.
Europe spent half the previous century ravaged by two world wars stemming in part from suppositions, paranoia and alliance networks. Never forget that.
Dude, Chinese state TV still calls Russia a "gas station with nukes." Of course they make money off of it and uphold their agreements but so far China has avoided any direct involvement with Russia's bs.
Also to the point, Burkina Faso with nukes.
"Chinese-flagged" does not equal "Chinese operated"
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So, when do we know it's not just another operation Northwoods?
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How much did Putin pay Xi Jinping for it?
They'll obviously point the finger at another country
Completely aside from the cable discussion, I'm glad this was on bsky. I could finally follow the comments in the link again. I hope this trend continues.
BlueSky has attained critical mass and it is the next generation of microblogging. We’re witnessing the long awaited dethroning of twitter and it will end up ceding the space like Reddit did.
Not sure if you're being serious, but Reddit gets FAR more traffic than Twitter. Twitter is #43 out of all the sites on the internet in terms of traffic. Reddit is #10. Bluesky is not even on the map yet.
Until users get disenchanted with it and move to the next thing....
I never got disenchanted with Twitter. It got boring. If it had stayed the same I’d still be on there complaining about it.
Transitioning from not finding it boring to finding it boring is exactly being disenchanted with it.
That would be true if Twitter hadn't changed, but it really has. More bots, more commercial accounts (or nakedly commercial accounts) and far fewer people getting into deep discussions of Nix and Haskell with dumb jokes.
… which is the way it should be. Users vote with their fingers and eyeballs.
That’s the whole point. These next gen protocols make it easy enough to move on to the next thing.
Yes but bluesky does not let you do that!
https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/ulysses-pact/
It doesn't have a polished export UI yet but it is absolutely possible: https://github.com/bluesky-social/pds/blob/main/ACCOUNT_MIGR...
Actually that bit I care less about.
Yeah dude. There will be a next thing.
“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
- Bruce Lee
What happened to Reddit? AFAIK, they're bigger than ever now.
Astroturfing and moderator controlled subreddits have ruined Reddit for me. /r/worldnews is one example of the latter.
Someone analysed a popular post and found that 19 of the top 20 comments were bots.
The Dead Internet theory is all too true.
Reddit's become a propaganda factory, and it's disturbing. Heavily astroturfed subs are creating an echo chamber effect that's clearly damaging users' mental health. The platform's lax security makes it an easy mark for foreign misinformation campaigns. You can still sign up without even an email address!
In any of the larger subreddits, the posts are heavily repost bots and the top comments stolen from the last time it was posted.
It's also astroturfed to death, including moderation.
I think some of the community will also move to substack
As an outsider, I've always associated Bluesky/Twitter with "volitile but potentially cutting-edge reporting" and followed it but with a grain of salt.
When I see an article on Substack I always assume the worst. The signal-to-noise ratio is lower on Medium and Substack than any other social platform I browse, which is a tragic indictment of where long-form blogging has gone.
As with all social media, it's about who you follow. I've found it particularly attractive for international reporting, albeit typically with some clear bent or polemic.
I mean, it's still a very small niche website of again, mostly tech related westerners. Twitter is much more diverse
> very small niche website of again, mostly tech related westerners
That's what they want. A social club with an overton window they like.
It's designed for mass userbase so it can feel like a big party that "everybody" is at. But once "everybody" includes their parents then the party is over.
Diverse is probably a stretch.
More like an echo chamber for the choir preachers.
No it is just a lot more diverse. For example there's a big presence on twitter of Arab politics/politicians or for french rap, or even local Quebec politics. On bluesky it's mostly white dudes talking about tech or about twitter
Nope. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It still seems to require JavaScript be enabled to render anything.
Here's an alternative frontend you can use that doesn't require javascript: https://blueviewer.pages.dev/view?actor=auonsson.bsky.social...
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The ship is owned and operated by russians.
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China will do more and more of this as the USA withdraws from policing the world.
China didn't do it and the USA hasn't withdrawn from anything.
That would be the Chinese in Chinese ship.
It wasn't a Chinese ship. It was flagged in China, which is like buying a .US domain name when you don't live in the US. It's simple to do. The captain is Russian and the company who owns/operates the ship is headed by a Russian CEO. The crew was not Chinese either.
I think it's time for a special navy operation which captures a Russian or Chinese cargo ship every time a cable gets damaged. The ships and their cargo could be then sold to the highest bidder.
It that really a precedent we would want to set? It sounds like it would be bad for global trade that state actors could arbitrarily seize privately owned property.
Wrong time getting cuastic (except if you are supporting China and Russia in their bully and troublemaker sabotaging efforts).
Am I hearing this right? You're volunteering to be on the front lines?
If it comes to a war I'm going to be on the front lines anyway, because I happen to live in a country next to Russia. Capturing a cargo ship guilty of sabotage wouldn't make much of a difference in whether a war comes or not.
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... And profits are given to Ukraine.
Ahem... Cui prodest/cui bono?
What kind of interest Chinese could have to damage such cables? IMVHO ZERO. Also I doubt Russians have interests to do so.
Who could be interested?
- some private company for makes and insurance/the public pay to fix something who need money from the owner for other reasons (like I break on purpose my car to get it repaired for free or at least less money than what it would costing me avoiding the self-sabotage);
- some countries wanting war at all costs trying to create a casus belli to justify the push toward WWIII
- some countries experimenting the resilience of their infra
I fails to see any other potentially interested party.
So Two Minutes Of Hate towards Russia is over in this aspect? Very Orwellish.
What are you even talking about? Are you suggesting that "the West" has a too negative public opinion of Russia or China?
I would argue that interactions/treatment specifically toward Russia, especially by European nations in the last 20 years, was actually too positive and naive-- specifically because unlike Europe, Russia definitely did not leave its imperialistic ambitions behind, and treating/trading with it as a friendly somewhat flawed democracy during those years might have done more harm than good in hindsight.
I'm curious how you think about this?
Just yesterday on the front page there was a topic largely consisting of accusations of Russia breaking these cables. Now I see a sudden switch of the "criminal" and a possible start of a new 2-minute of Hate. It's very Orwellish indeed.
People are speculating about whether this was intentional, and, if so, who is to blame.
How is that "Orwellian"?
Russia has quite the recent history of poisoning civilians both native and foreign (do you dispute that?). Those acts are already a significant step above simple sabotage, so why would it be Orwellian to consider them a possible perpetrator?
In my view, common current western view of Russia is everything but:
Orwellian would be a strong, emotional public expressions of hate (with frequently switching target).
Current western view (can only really talk about central Europe) is more of a muted mix of disappointment, sadness and disgust about what Russia did/does in the Ukraine...
Did you even read the thread? It was captained by a Russian, and CN is a Russian ally.
The Kremlin may very well be behind this.
Wow
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It could be false flag operation to create pretext for NATO/EU to block shipping to Russian ports in Baltic Sea.
Similar to Nordstream destruction in 2022 it could have been either Ukrainians or CIA/NSA. This could be last attempt by current US administration elements to create leverage for the Ukraine before negotiations start.
what possible reason would nato need to blockade russian ports that doesnt already exist?
Blockade is legal act of war. RU at war with UKR, not NATO, and vice versa. Hence NATO would need casus belli of RU attacking NATO or NATO owned infra to declare blockade (read: declare war on RU).
Russia isn't at war with Ukraine, it's a special military operation. Declaring a little exclusion zone outside all their ports for live-fire naval exercises isn't an act of war either. It'll be temporary, they'll be over by 2028, honest.
RU's permenant representative notified UN on day of "special military operation" that actions were in accordance with art51 (UN Doc. S/2022/154), i.e. regardless of however media is labelling war at propaganda level, RU specificly using art51 for justification.
Russia is already assassinating and sabotaging in NATO countries, which are legal acts of war too.
They're more grey-zone, since many countries do low level hostilities below threshold of war, which is different end of spectrum than blockade that's closer to unambiguous open warfare.
think of being kura-murza or yashin, both in jail for being political dissidents, only to find our you are being exchanged evil people you are fighting against.