Nukes
Vladimir Putin recently brought up the idea of using nuclear weapons. When he talked about invading Ukraine he wasn’t bluffing. About using nuclear weapons, unless a Western invader enters Russia, I’d say he is, because use of nuclear weapons is suicidal.
We don’t talk much about MAD these days, which stands for Mutually Assured Destruction. We now have some ability to shoot down incoming missiles but that ability is limited and in nuclear war no one can afford limited. How many warheads would it take to make a nation no longer function? Let me give you a basic idea. I’m going to use the US to illustrate my example because we’re a lot more familiar with American geography than we are with Russian.
We need an easy indicator of large metropolitan areas. I can think of one: cities with major league sports teams, meaning NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA. How many cities are we talking about? Maybe fifty? The NFL has 32 teams, Major League Baseball has 30, and in both cases there are metropolitan areas with more than one team. There are a few cities that don’t have multiple teams, such as Green Bay. Fifty is probably a generous number.
Let’s imagine for a moment that each one of these metropolitan areas was hit with a single warhead a minimum of five times the megatonnage of the Hiroshima bomb. Fifty explosions. What would that do? Probably more than I’ll talk about so I’ll keep it minimal. None of those cities would function. The areas would be hit with a whole lot of radiation. We wouldn’t be able to travel through those cities or close to those cities. If you look at a map it will become obvious that cities are where interstates converge, where railroad tracks converge, and of course where major airports are. Perhaps more obviously it’s where our people are. Assuming we don’t have incredible environmental disasters like really bad disruptions in weather, radiation clouds that move and kill people, food that can no longer be grown – and we already know it will be difficult to distribute what food is grown, we still wouldn’t be left with much of a functioning country.
Russia has less than half our population, that population is now concentrated in cities, and cities of any size are just about all concentrated in the far west of the country in Europe. In other words, what it would take fifty warheads to do to the US could be done with fewer to Russia.
Fifty warheads. We have over a hundred times that. And we have three ways of delivering them.
One is ICBM’s, or intercontinental ballistic missiles. I don’t know if you’ve followed military technology enough lately to hear about hypersonic missiles but ICBM’s have been hypersonic for over half a century. I doubt Russia would be able to intercept any.
The second delivery system is bombers. But a whole lot of our bombers are stealth, a technology no other country has mastered remotely as well as we have. Even if they can figure out a bomber is there, they then have to be able to track it to shoot it down and thus far we have no indication they can, even though they have what are reputed to be the best antiaircraft missiles on Earth. (And we have various strategems to counter them, even if they manage to spot and track our bombers.)
The third delivery system is submarines. Our submarines are extremely quiet, to the point that the Russians won’t know where all of them are if they know where any of them are, possibly those in port. I think we currently have fourteen Ohio class nuclear submarines, the kind that launch nukes. They are capable of launching twenty-four missiles apiece, missiles which can reach Russia from almost anywhere, but we’re limited by treaty to allow only twenty. But that’s twenty missiles, not twenty warheads. These missiles are MIRVed, MIRV standing for Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles, meaning each missile has multiple warheads that can go to separate targets, a little like an Uber driver with multiple fares. I’ve read two accounts of how many independent reentry vehicles are on each of those missiles. One says eight, the other says twelve. Let’s go with eight. In other words, each of those submarines can deliver a minimum of 160 independent warheads. From one submarine. Each of those warheads has a minimum of six times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb, some are way bigger than that. Remember what we figured out 50 could do and that’s to us. One submarine can basically take out all of Russia by itself, with significant redundancy. Meaning even if Russia managed to take out all of our ICBM’s, which is highly unlikely, and all of our bombers, which they flat-out can’t – keeping in mind that at the moment they haven’t yet managed to take out the Ukrainian Air Force, they can cease to exist as a country if they miss a submarine.
As you can see, MAD still works. MAD is a wonderful acronym because it says what it is. And as I said at the beginning, the use of nuclear weapons is suicidal. Putin can’t win by using nukes. He can just end the existence of his country. I suspect that kind of talk isn’t going over well with the Russian military or, for that matter, the Russian electorate.
Not a saber he should be rattling.
02/27/2022 @ 11:57 pm
How is he threatening Finland and Sweden?
“Russia threatens ‘military and political consequences’ if Finland, Sweden try joining NATO”
—-The Hill
02/27/2022 @ 11:59 pm
BTW:
Re Ukraine:
He was bluffing until he couldn’t.
02/28/2022 @ 12:27 am
I don’t want to start splitting hairs again, but…
The use of nuclear weapons is not necessarily suicidal, so don’t declare yourself right yet. It may be, but it isn’t necessarily. The certainty of death depends on many things. One thing it depends on is a nuclear response, which is not a certainty. The second thing is, depending on the size of the warhead(s) deployed, much of the Earth could be survivable, although seriously diminished.
The point of saying that it, Putin may have a reasonable expectation of living 10 or 20 years after a nuclear explosion that kills hundreds of thousands, or millions. He may have bunkers, and food sources, etc. So, it may be deadly for us, but not to him, and therefore not suicidal. And that fact makes it worse. M.A.D. requires a massive exchange of nuclear weapons. Putin’s reliance on them has changed since his army is so much weaker than it once was. They may plan to use tactical/theater nukes.
02/28/2022 @ 12:50 am
https://www.quora.com/Is-an-all-out-nuclear-war-survivable?share=1
The bottom line…
Somewhere between 20% and 50% of humanity will survive, mostly in the southern hemisphere. A nuclear war will be beyond horrible, but it will not be anywhere close to a human extinction.
If you’d like to dig deeper, you can find a more detailed answer here: How many people would survive (globally) the first 30 days after a full on nuclear war/Armageddon?
08/15/2022 @ 12:36 pm
Seriously, Bitey, I really don’t care if the human race survives. I only care about whether I and the people I care about survive and since they probably won’t a nuclear is sure to ruin my day.
02/28/2022 @ 6:35 am
“…Putin may have a reasonable expectation of living 10 or 20 years after a nuclear explosion that kills hundreds of thousands, or millions.
He may have bunkers, and food sources, etc. So, it may be deadly for us, but not to him, and therefore not suicidal…”
It is absolutely essential to understand that Putin thinks of the consequences of a nuclear conflagration strictly and solely in terms of himself and self preservation.
02/28/2022 @ 8:39 am
I’m not saying starting a nuclear war would be suicidal for humanity. In fact I blatantly don’t assume that. I talk about countries no longer functioning as countries and I talk about urban populations getting killed. I’m saying it would be suicidal for Russia to continue to exist as a functioning country.
I really don’t get this insistence that Putin was ever bluffing. He threatened to do something and did it. Bluffing is when you threaten to do something but don’t do it. We have zero evidence that he ever did not intend to to go through with it. Yes, Putin has a history of bluffing with the KGB, but there is no evidence that I know of that he bluffed here. Bluffing is not synonymous with threatening.
I also don’t understand why anyone is positive that Putin is strictly thinking about himself and not his country at all, particularly when it comes to survival. I don’t know where that assumption comes from.
02/28/2022 @ 9:28 am
“Bluffing is when you threaten to do something but don’t do it. “
This is wrong, Kosh. You are operating on the most limited view of a bluff. This view only applies in a game with rigid rules. This does not apply in a situation with infinite, or near infinite variables. “Bluffing”, as it applies in this context is more like a cat toying with prey. It is like a boxer ducking and pumping, or throwing a shoulder indicating movement. Consider a pitched baseball. A curveball is a pitch that is actually thrown, but it gives a false indication of where it is going. Bluffing is deception in the context of war, not necessarily acting or not acting. Your view is too limited. It is not an either/or proposition. It is more like introducing chaos, and choosing an option generated by the chaotic confusion.
As for Putin thinking about himself and not Russia, that’s an easy one. Putin is not acting rationally. What he may gain from this action has no practical value for him. Absolutely none. What it can do theoretically is make him heroic in Russian history. You can’t eat that. You can’t spend it. You can’t wear it. You can’t live in it. You can’t transfer any of it so that anyone else can. It can not be commoditized. It has solely an emotional value, and for a very limited group. It is essentially useless.
To purchase this giant piece of nothing, he has jeopardized his political future, possibly his life, the lives of millions of his countrymen, the status of his family. He has robbed his robber baron class of peers of their status. They can’t travel. They will lose wealth. They are now global pariahs. They are even being protested on the streets of Iran, over the orders of the Ayatollahs. This adventurism by Putin is almost all cost, and zero return. That is not rational. There is zero benefit in that equation for anyone but himself, and that benefit was only in the delusional meanderings “by the banks of his own lagoon”. Say that he considered NATO to be a threat militarily to Russia…a patently preposterous notion. If you do something to entice Finland and Sweden into joining, you have defeated your own purpose. And that is at a minimum. Say that you want to use a mid 20th century weapon of war which consumes massive amounts of fuel, but do not have sufficient supply lines to maintain those antiquated weapons, you’re not being rational. Calling it an overreach is an understatement. Icarus had a far better plan.
Watch his infantrymen following personnel carriers and tanks with a dozen men clustered around a vehicle. This poor tactic demonstrates lack of any training whatsoever. This invasion force is utterly untrained. They make themselves easier to kill. This information is being live-streamed globally. Russia has an untrained invasion force. They appear far weaker than anyone knew a week ago, and not just by the results, but by the tactics. They seek to extort their way to their goal, and the victims are all of the nations of the world. That is not a rational proposition. Even China has to change their view based upon what Putin has revealed about his country in this push for personal glory. China, Iran, US, and all of Europe can see that Russia has nothing to gain from this action, and everything to lose. The notion that Russia does have something to gain from this set of circumstances is not crowdsourced. The entire world sees it differently. Given the utterly rare perspective revealed by the decision making in this event, it must be only the decision maker who views it this way. These actions combined with saber rattling with nukes is so irrational as to indicate insanity. 150 million people are not insane all at once. It is one person. Putin.
02/28/2022 @ 3:05 pm
“These actions combined with saber rattling with nukes is so irrational as to indicate insanity. 150 million people are not insane all at once. It is one person. Putin.”
Putin may well have set the stage for his own assassination.
Now may be a good time to revisit Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”.
Putin would indeed do well to “beware the Ides of March.”
02/28/2022 @ 3:25 pm
Someone please find me a definition of bluffing that doesn’t involve deception. There was nothing deceptive about Putin’s threat. Show me how it fits.
Ron
Agreed that there is no way Russians in general approved of a nuclear threat. That is Putin alone.
02/28/2022 @ 3:42 pm
Ron
I further agree that Putin may have trouble holding onto power. He has not only attacked a friendly people and gotten over 4,000 Russians killed so far, he has embarrassed Russia, made it look weak, butchered his country’s finances with nothing to show for it, united NATO, and gotten Germany to better than double its defense spending. That’s s lot of major problems overnight.
02/28/2022 @ 3:44 pm
And handed Biden the ability to say Trump would have hung the Ukrainians out to dry come 2024.
02/28/2022 @ 4:07 pm
First, let me mention that Switzerland has plugged into the E.U.’s sanctions. Monaco is also cooperating. That means that the two concierge economies for the super wealthy are cooperating in the effort to hold Putin back. This is really new. There is a long list of wealthy rogues who managed to move through Monaco, and bank in Switzerland. There is an implicit contract with the world that you wont do things like, say, make nuclear war extortion threats. You could argue that managing to get expelled from that club involves a deception. Putin has crossed lines.
When Putin was massing troops at the Ukrainian border with Belarus, he claimed that it was just for a training operation. That was a deception. His army is attacking civilian targets. That war crime is a deception. Putin is claiming that Ukrainian air defense attacked the high rise apartment building, and the Ukrainian kindergarten. That is deception. Putin is basically using state terrorism from top to bottom which involves deception…from top to bottom.
Putin is trying to take as much as he can get with the least expense. Georgia and Crimea surrendered. That is his goal. The bully-bluff covers his army’s limitations. Resistance and a protracted conflict exposes them. A bank robber goes into a bank with no weapon, he hands the teller a note claiming that he has a gun. That is a bluff. He still wants to take the money. He bluffs about the weapon because using one returns a stiffer sentence, or one can not be procured. The note covers the weakness of the approach. He still plans to get the money, and every bank’s policy is to give it to them. The process still involves a bluff. Also, the crime, once it is charged is still robbery and not theft. Robbery is taking by force or fear. The weapon does not exist, but the bluff on a piece of paper satisfies the legal requirement for the robbery code. If there were money sitting in the open, and no communication or contact took place, and the suspect merely grabbed a stack of cash and ran out, that would be theft, and not robbery. It may be grand theft, depending on the amount, but it is not considered a violent crime. The ONLY difference is the communication of the bluff.
02/28/2022 @ 5:38 pm
Wrong kind of deception. Not every deception is a bluff. He didn’t walk into the bank with a piece of paper. He walked in with a gun and when he didn’t get the money he started firing it. A bluff is a deceptive threat, a stated threat without an intention to carry it out. Putin’s threat was 100% real and it was all along. Stop defending Kasparov already. He blew it. His prediction was that if we didn’t give Putin what he wanted he wouldn’t attack. That prediction was wrong.
And no, I don’t need to be right, I need the definition to be respected and I can’t find a definition that fits what Putin did.
And no, I am not saying this because of any affinity with Putin but an insistence that accusations have merit regardless of whom they’re aimed at. If you told me that Hitler didn’t give a shit about Germany I’d tell you that you were wrong, that that accusation against Hitler didn’t hold water, and the reason I’d do it is because of the fact that this fictitious accusation is invalid rather than any desire on my part to defend Hitler.
When is a bluff not a threat that someone is either unwilling to or unable to carry out, other than when it’s a kind of hill?
A bluff is what Maxwell Smart says just before saying “Would you believe….”
By the way, I hadn’t heard about Monaco but I had about Switzerland. I was surprised just because of their neutrality. I hadn’t been thinking about the banking angle and I should have been.
Now we just need the Caymans to sign on.
02/28/2022 @ 9:21 pm
Kosher, there were/are not only two possibilities. Each minute brings innumerable choices. Just because action follows does not mean the threat was not a bluff. You’re just wrong. Jumping Jesus, dude, you have been wrong on every count so far, and have the nerve to still fight it. Take a freakin’ lesson. You read Russia wrong regarding NATO. Your analysis of preparedness as a threat is just wrong.
Look at it this way. Putin doesn’t have to say anything. He could just go and take what he wants without giving notice at all. Why does he give any notice? He wants it handed over without any effort.
Also…
The bluff is not just for Ukraine. The bluff is for global democracy. The proposition is that democracy can’t or wont defend itself. As long as it chooses not to, he’s right. As soon as democracy chooses to defend itself, he is wrong. He loses. The bluff is the long game that does not end at Lviv. It projects elsewhere. They threaten anywhere that dares to have elected government rather than that bullshit currently practiced in Russia. The bluff is the implication that you’re next. He’s also bluffing his own people. The people outnumber him. If they wanted to, they could catch him, boil him, and eat him. They don’t because he has successfully bullied them so far. They may call his bluff eventually. We may call his bluff eventually. Ukraine is calling his bluff now. He can’t kill us all, and he can’t kill the concept of freedom. That’s a bluff. It only works if we cave. I personally hope we catch the little fucker and boil him.
02/28/2022 @ 6:29 pm
Being ready, willing, and able to follow through on a bluff doesn’t destroy or diminish the intrinsic notion or value of the bluff as either a strategy or a tactic. In fact, just the opposite is true.
Putin is invading Ukraine because his bluff has been called and he left himself no choice or option.
He bluffed himself into a corner and now must wage a war in order to save face.
His problem is that his calculus re the consequences of initiating shooting war against Ukraine were way off the mark. He was all in on America, NATO, the EU, and Ukraine folding to the bluff.
Now he must deal with a united and galvanized world that has come together against him in ways that he couldn’t have possibly anticipated and prepared for…
His highstakes miscalculation is becoming his undoing. He has become his own worst enemy with nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide.
02/28/2022 @ 7:06 pm
His miscalculation has nothing to do with bluffing. Yes, he miscalculated, and that miscalculation is utterly epic.
But saying he was bluffing without specifying how what he did was bluffing doesn’t help me here. I don’t get how it can be a bluff. Give me a definition of bluffing that fits what he did. The whole idea behind calling a bluff is that the bluffer can’t follow through on the threat, but Putin did follow through on the threat, and you have presented zero evidence that it was ever his intention not to follow through on the threat if he didn’t get what he wanted.
Ron, if I’m missing something here I don’t see it. Please walk me through a definition of bluffing that applies here and show me exactly how it applies. I can’t make a threat that was serious all along fit the definition of a bluff, and I can’t find a shred of evidence indicating that Putin ever did not intend to follow through on his threat if his demand wasn’t met. Find me evidence of that – and Kasparov’s bad call does not constitute evidence – so I can figure out what the Hell you guys are talking about.
02/28/2022 @ 9:39 pm
“Not every deception is a bluff.“
Incidentally, I think this premise of yours is false. In fact, I think it is of profound importance that every deception is a bluff. The way I see it is reality or truth is a closed circuit. Reality, being the whole of all facts and contexts has a connectedness. The one giant context of reality has a bit by bit relationship that forms an unbroken circuit. The only gaps in reality are things not know, and not things that are not real.
Conversely, deception is a break in the circuit of reality. Deception attempts to connect or close the circuit with that which does not exist, either the appropriate context, or the accurate fact, or set of facts. Connecting the circuit correctly delivers reality that is accessible to all. A false connection delivers the appearance of reality that serves no one, but deceives the receiver of the information long enough for the deceiver to move along to whatever he expects to receive by the deception. It is a swindle, or a bluff. It claims to offer value, but gives none.
03/01/2022 @ 12:06 am
Regarding Putin
I would really, really suggest watching this. It is nearly two hours but most of that is question and answer, which I haven’t watched yet. His talk finishes at about the 40 minute mark. It is, to say the least, really interesting.
03/01/2022 @ 1:54 pm
If you choose to distinguish between a bluff and a threat that’s your prerogative….
However, you’re missing the point if you insist on your exceedingly narrow perspective…
A good bluff carries both an element of deception and implied threat.
I’ve been there and done that on more than a few occasions with more than $1000.00 at stake in the pot…
I’ve said that we haven’t discussed the intricacies and nuances of the bluff .
Bitey gets it and you insist on not seeing how the poker bluff works as an analogy of the dynamics of Putin’s behavior early on in his artificially created crisis.
What rankles is the fact that Kasparov appears to have agreed with my assessment and analysis.
Bitey and I have tried to explain and demonstrate the points made on the subject but to no avail…
So here’s my advice to you…
Don’t ever get involved in a poker game where the stakes are greater than pennies, nickels, and dimes.
03/01/2022 @ 2:03 pm
I don’t play poker.
I”m glad Bitey gets it. Are you trying to tell me that neither of you is capable of explaining it to me? No, a threat is not necessarily a bluff. There are threats that are not bluffs but there are no bluffs that are not threats, unless that’s the subtlety I’m missing here. From what I know, whether it’s in poker or anything else a bluff is a false threat.
Kasparov said what he said before the invasion. At that point the possibility existed to observers that Putin was bluffing. Has Kasparov called the invasion a bluff since? I assume he calls the nuclear threat a bluff and I agree with him if he does.
03/01/2022 @ 3:12 pm
A good bluff carries both an element of deception and implied threat.
“…there are no bluffs that are not threats…”
This is the closest you’ve come to “getting it”…
The implied threat is a central element of the deception…
“Has Kasparov called the invasion a bluff since?”
Not that I know of…
Neither have I…
03/01/2022 @ 5:32 pm
I got that concept all along. What I didn’t get was characterizing a threat that was actually carried out as a bluff. I thought the other half of the bluff was that there was not a real intention (or sometimes ability, same difference) to follow up on the threat, and that what made it a bluff was the threat being phony. Which the invasion wasn’t. Am I still missing something, or is that fact that you no longer call the invasion a bluff conclusive?
03/01/2022 @ 4:43 pm
Perhaps salvation would be served if we enlisted a coterie of Jeopardy winners such as James Holzhauer et. al and arranged an ‘anti-tank think tank’ with, say, Bezos, Dyson and Musk. Rather a ‘new world somewhere’ consortium wherein the moderators and geniuses would table a proforma for Putin. My new transcontinental Russian Mag-lev railroad (although valid)-(right now at least) may not be as ‘eco-amenable’ if compared to a very ‘sci-fi global canal.’ Our PEACE ON EARTH PAPER would power point PROGRESS for those who STANDDOWN. No kidding what’s-his-name has lost the ability to cry. That is, when is the last time President Vladimir Putin cried? This bizarre conversation/supposition of who-what-where-when survives FIRE*NUCLEAR*ICE is nebulous! naught! shallow! Those American Express cards would melt in your wallet, ladies and gentlemen. Empiricism would obliterate. Right now ‘yam real personally flush and flamboyant as I sold my Bob Hope autographed copy of ‘The Russians Are Coming’… albeit ‘buyer’ has designated a dimly lit corner for exchange before jetting to the LUXOR for authentication of Bobby Hope’s signature. No bred sivoy kobyly! Also, just about awhile ago I referenced OslashE Etymology Online and got fed up to my ears with REVENGE. Certainly at this junkture Putin is ‘well aware’ that only shock therapy and a straight jacket seal his future. Unless he aligns his intricate zany chamber with six rounds. Please know: [sic] … ‘”In 2100, the population of children globally is expected to be about 1.9 billion.'” What good are we Messrs.
Cain and Abel? No nukes a sane cosmos would provide a Motherland Presidential Election Navalny vs. Zelenskyy, Some of which I see is like pointing out that 66% of N-od is {…}
jpHart
COMET- LO;}
03/01/2022 @ 5:29 pm
“Anti tank think tank…”
I’m dead.
03/01/2022 @ 5:36 pm
As opposed to the alternative, an armed response to undesirable planning, which might take the form of an anti think tank tank.
03/01/2022 @ 9:17 pm
The invasion in and of itself is not a bluff….Any more than an anti think tank is a tank but possibly a weapon of mass anti think.
However, if grand grand plan or scheme is to bluff the implementation of nuclear wmd, the current incursion into Ukraine might be part of the implied threat to employ nukes to halt the proliferation of NATO and the spread of democracy….
03/01/2022 @ 11:32 pm
I can answer your bluff question once and for all.
What was the threat? Was the threat that Putin would invade? No. Invasion is a means to an end. The threat was to take over Ukraine. That is what Putin and his army seem to lack the capability for. There are several things we have learned in the last 6 days. First, the invasion was poorly planned. They assumed Ukraine would fold, and they would be greeted as liberators. Those were two absurdly false assumptions. Second, we learned that his invasion force is poorly trained. No one assumed that a week ago. It was revealed by their tactics. The third thing that we did learn conclusively is that Putin operates by bluffing. Yes, bluffing. He is not using an equipped, well trained, dedicated, modern military force to topple his opponents. He is using fear and intimidation that can be mustered by the belief that that force exists. It does not actually exist. And even if Putin manages to topple the country, he lacks the force to hold as an occupation force. That is the bluff. Ukraine’s resistance has revealed Russia’s inability to follow through with holding Ukraine. He lacks the cards. Putin bluffed.
03/02/2022 @ 7:52 pm
And there you have it. Stated clearly and succinctly.
Well done Bitey, very well done indeed!
03/02/2022 @ 9:15 am
That actually makes sense. We knew he operated by bluffing, he’s famous for a bluff while with the KGB, but I couldn’t figure out this bluff. His bluff was to make Ukraine think he was coming in with capable battle troops so they’d fold. Instead he came in with kids who had no idea they were on a combat mission and the Ukrainians didn’t fold.
Yes, that’s a bluff. Thank you.
03/02/2022 @ 11:59 am
Well, the assumption would have been that an invasion force was from an experienced army. Russia needed basic combat training, and legitimate planning and direction by the generals. This poor performance displayed that Putin’s generals corps gave little or no advice. Putin likely is unaware of that. It is more likely that Putin is deciding, and ruling by edict.
As for not knowing that they were on a combat mission, that is standard practice. The USMC has a practice called “mobilization readiness detail training”…or something like that. I have participated in this twice. The way it works is, you get called in and bring all gear for deployment. You prepare for deployment, and get loaded into aircraft with all of your gear and equipment, and flown around for a few hours. Whether or not you are headed to war is determined by whether or not you land in or near a war zone. If, when you exit the aircraft, it is only training, that will be revealed by the fact that you landed back at home. That’s how the Marine Corps does it. The idea is constant readiness and fast deployment. (We deployed within 48 hours to anywhere). So, it is not unusual that the deployed invasion force did not know they were going to war. The unusual aspect is that they were fully incapable of doing so. From logistics to combat, they were not capable of functioning.
That sort of readiness is expensive. Putin’s kleptocracy is obviously stealing all of the necessary seed corn, and the military crop is thin. Unless the US had personnel planted in the various organizations within the Russian military, the bulk of what they know about Russia’s army was revealed in the last 7 days. He is holding a rubber chicken instead of a saber, and even he didn’t know it. The Czar has no army.
03/02/2022 @ 7:57 pm
A clear case of a dog chasing, and barking at, the wheels of a moving car.
03/02/2022 @ 10:52 pm
The chicken may be a whole lot more rubber than we thought. There’s a news item from the Ukrainians, so far I don’t know if it’s been verified. If it has, it’s way interesting.
Ukraine claims there was an air battle between two Ukrainian MiG 29’s supported by a Ukrainian S-300 antiaircraft battery (they are Russian of course and extremely good) and a pair of Russian Su 35’s, the result being the loss of one of the MiGs and both of the Su 35’s.
If this is true, then the best Russian fighter jet that they have in any quantity (the newer Su 57 they have maybe a dozen of so far) and has some stealth characteristics is more vulnerable than most of the world thought. The Su 35 is supposed to have some stealth though nothing like the US has. The S-300 is very good but it’s not their top of the line and so far it has not taken down any F35’s over Syria. We don’t know what took the Su 35’s down (if true) but if MiG 29’s are than against F35’s or F22’s they’re toast.
03/02/2022 @ 8:31 pm
Thank you, Professor.
03/03/2022 @ 3:23 pm
I just had a strange thought. The Russian economy is about to be in a lot of trouble. Distributing everything to where it needs to go is likely to get difficult. What if he decides that his way out of the problem is central control, specifically in the form of a return to communism? Any chance of that?
03/03/2022 @ 4:13 pm
Putinism relies on a network of oligarchs. Oligarchs don’t want communism, and the Russian people don’t either. My guess is that they will decide that it is ‘us or him’ and get rid of Putin, Putinism, and move closer to being Western.
03/03/2022 @ 5:59 pm
I agree that Putin’s demise needs to come from within. I heard Kasparov quoted today but I can’t tell you who said it as my reception was bad while driving over a mountain range.
He was said to believe that it will be someone on his personal security team(s).
03/03/2022 @ 6:18 pm
I’ll offer this openly. If a member of his security team takes the necessary steps to render him no longer Russia’s leader, and allow the world to step back from nuclear war, that individual is welcome to come and have a cigar and bourbon with me at the Beck home. If he is a friendly enough sort of fellow, he may even get an invitation to come camping this Summer and swap stories with me, my wife, and several friends.
03/03/2022 @ 7:00 pm
Does a plane ticket come with that?
03/03/2022 @ 7:02 pm
At which point they’ll be invited to join NATO, which is what Putin asked for about fifteen years ago.
03/04/2022 @ 11:54 am
K/S,
These apologist statements of yours for the murderous whining thug Putin have become increasingly annoying and from my viewpoint, utterly wrong.
If one is so dastardly as not to be invited to the neighborhood gatherings, is it your belief that burning the house down where they occur a reasonable response?!?
What the hell has happened to you?
03/04/2022 @ 2:51 pm
Art,
What happened to me is that Putin was so, so inevitable and everyone’s acting like he’s a psychotic aberration. He’s not. If someone other than him had taken power and kept it, this is what he’d be doing now.
Tangentially: It’s not that Putin would have been jealous of not being allowed into NATO while Ukraine was considered, it’s that he would have had his fears that NATO was after Russia confirmed. For more on this, see the video link below.
I don’t like the guy, I don’t approve of what he has done and is doing, but this is all so, so predictable other than the failure of the Russian military in Ukraine. He’s the culminating domino in a chain of events begun during the Bush 41 administration. I had to watch the US blow this in slow motion. Russia could have been integrated into Western Europe and instead we have this, not to mention an ally for China precisely when we don’t want China to have one.
If you have time, here:
This is a journalist named Vladimir Pozner who has worked extensively in both Russia and the US. This is a talk he gave at Yale. He talks for 40 minutes. I didn’t get my conclusions from him, we just reached the same conclusions and he has a lot more detail than I did.
Putin’s a bastard, but what we did encouraged Russia to find a leader who is that kind of bastard. Nothing he does surprises me, not even the nuclear threat. I mean it doesn’t surprise me at all, not because he has any intention of using nukes, because that’s not the point. I can go into detail as to why I think he’s doing this but all I’ll get is an earful about how he’s a lunatic and I don’t have the patience for it any more. If he were just a lunatic I wouldn’t find him predictable.
I’m 100% on Ukraine’s side. Russia did not have the right to invade Ukraine. That’s not what this is about. I am not an apologist for Putin, I’m a diagnostician. That’s what this has been about from the beginning. I told everyone he was going to invade, I told everyone why he was going to invade, and what I got was long pointless arguments about bluffing and how he’s a psychotic aberration (other terminology was used, but close enough). And I got quoted in such a way that someone who didn’t read the original thread would conclude that I personally thought Putin would be irresponsible not to invade Ukraine. What I said was that if I had his background and experiences that’s probably what I’d conclude, but I don’t have either and my background has shaped me very differently.
We’ve reached the point where he is a lot less predictable, the reason being he’s facing obstacles he was completely unready for. Before things were going according to plan, but now that the invasion turned out to be inept (though that may change) everything is different. He was expecting Crimea. What he got was closer to Afghanistan but worse. As a result, he’s been backed into a corner and I don’t see a way out for him. If he conquers Ukraine and weathers the sanctions he’ll be back on track so that’s likely to be what he tries. Neither is likely. If he conquers Ukraine he won’t hold it. The civilian population is grabbing guns and heading for the front. They’re flying in from overseas, grabbing guns and heading for the front. The populace will hate the Russians and the Russian population will not approve of what they’re doing. In that respect it will resemble the American Revolution.
And, by the way, I think there’s a possibility if he survives that he may attempt to bring Russia back to communism. This might happen if the sanctions are such that free market food and fuel distribution leaves him with a cold and hungry population, at which point he can say “Capitalism isn’t feeding you. Let me control the distribution of food and fuel and you’ll get fed and be warm.” And people too young to remember communism will think that’s a good idea.
I hope Putin gets replaced so we don’t end up anywhere like that. We’ll see.
03/04/2022 @ 1:23 pm
You know how in zoos they separate predators from prey? You know why they do that?
03/04/2022 @ 3:46 pm
Bitey,
Is it because if they weren’t separated the monkeys would be riding on the lion’s back saying they were just walking tall?
03/03/2022 @ 7:35 pm
Putin’s family can buy a headstone from a NATO country business, after he has personally achieved room temperature. That is as close as that corruption factory should get to NATO. We have our own corruption issues here. We don’t need more of it.
03/04/2022 @ 3:47 am
What are thermobaric weapons?
[In distant dreams of midnights crossed,
I tossed my coins & all was lost]
Will Putin take a long walk off a short peer?
I’ve been I Ching-ing three shiny-bright
quarters attempting to imbibe ILIAD.
If silence is golden,
silver lines the soup kettle, no?
Kiev Zoo
03/04/2022 @ 3:50 pm
“…Putin’s a bastard, but what we did encouraged Russia to find a leader who is that kind of bastard…”
Look, man. This absolutely drives me nuts. There is so much wrong with this that I can’t stand it. I’m curious about where it comes from, but even more than that, I know it is absolutely wrong. There are some other examples of this sort of thought, and they are equally peculiar. But, I’ll focus on this one for now.
Putin, or whatever leader you choose, who does such a thing as Putin has done, is responsible for his actions himself. There is such a thing as suborning, but this is definitely not it. One can’t suborn an illegal or unlawful act by doing a legal or lawful, or ethical thing. The notion that you can is perverted. A lawful act does not give rise to an unlawful act. To think so is to unwind all of civilization. Owning a car suborns the theft of it. Eating an ice cream cone suborns assault to take it away. Owning a house suborns arson. To think suck things isn’t even stupid. It is a war on decency. It turns it inside out. Abel is not responsible for Cain killing him. Whatever “inspired” Cain to kill Abel is within Cain. It does not come from Abel. The victim is not the perpetrator. You have it entirely backward.
Where the idea came from for Putin to invade Ukraine is entirely irrelevant. Putin is responsible for his action. None of that responsibility attaches to Ukraine. None of the attaches to NATO. None of it attaches to the US. That is an insane construction. Putin has to find it within himself to not be a criminal. If he chooses to be a criminal, it is his criminal ass that made the choice. No one else. Furthermore, predictability doesn’t mean squat. Putin, or whatever replacement you have for him, would be a sentient being, not a stone being dropped from a tower. It is not the laws of physics that determined what happened/what is happening in Ukraine now. These are the conscious actions of a human being. The effect does not create its cause. You have that completely backward.
Now, explain how it is that you have this so confused because it comes across as moral decay. How is it that European Jews caused Hitler to murder them?
03/04/2022 @ 4:37 pm
Bitey,
I’m not saying he’s forgivable. I’m saying he’s expected. Yes, he is personally responsible for his actions. Of course he is. I’m also saying that the US could have avoided all this. Instead, George H.W.Bush chose to listen to one of the damned neocons, Paul Wolfowitz, as to how to handle the newly independent Russia. The advice was horrible. But we basically continued that policy under Clinton. Watching this is frustrating because I don’t understand how anyone in the White House didn’t ask: How will the Russians react to our policies toward them? You’d think that would be an obvious question. The answers are damned obvious, and it doesn’t take Monday morning to see them. I can’t figure out how they were missed.
Actually I can. I see the same phenomenon too much. But it’s still hard to watch.
You want to tell me that Putin does this entirely for himself. I think that’s a lousy diagnosis. Thinking that will help us feel better about how we deal with him but I don’t buy it. Now, if he thinks he’s doing what he’s doing for Russia, that doesn’t excuse his actions any more than Hitler thinking expanding into Poland was good for Germany excuses his. My problem is not about justifiability. My problem is about responsibility. But not just Putin’s. We should have at least been wondering what would drive him if we were taking actions that affected him. Now, for us to say “Even if he reacts this way, this is still what we should do” I get but it’s not what I see. I see a bunch of international leaders who are shocked who have no right to be shocked. And they had no right to so thoroughly mishandle the events leading up to the invasion if what they wanted to do was to prevent the invasion. How do you handle a country that used to be a gigantic world power, is a much smaller power now, is having the alliance founded to oppose it growing closer, has been treated by the US government as a second class power, and has an inferiority complex from it? Keeping in mind that the head of their government was high up in the superpower that was the Soviet Union?
I know, let’s all act like their concerns are not worth being taken seriously. What a perfect strategy. Let’s just give them a reason to want to show the rest of the world that they have to be taken seriously.
We said we were going to invade to keep NATO out of here. OK, we’ll invade. We’re a world power. Maybe they forgot we’re one of the world’s foremost nuclear powers so let’s make a point of reminding them and also telling them that coming up on our border like that has consequences. We’re too big a dog to do that to.
How does the world react to that? Bad dog!
I told you a long time ago that you don’t take a scarce commodity, particularly a commodity you made scarce for a given party, and waste it in front of that party. And yes, Putin internationally is another issue of scarce respect. You don’t casually take someone for whom respect is an issue, humiliate him as publicly as possible, and not expect a reaction. The reaction is a sure thing.
I’m not talking about morality here. I know you are. That’s not part of my analysis at all. It hasn’t been from the beginning. It still isn’t. What Putin did is not moral.
It would have been so easy to talk to him seriously. By the time Macron got there, it was a bit late.
Tell me, what do you think of the Monroe Doctrine?
We told Europe how they were going to behave regarding our entire hemisphere. What did you think about the Cuban Missile Crisis? Did we have a right to intervene in sovereign Cuba?
No, none of them are the same. What’s similar is the idea that other countries should take our backyard very seriously.
Again, this doesn’t mean I approve of the invasion. I don’t. It should have occurred to Putin who exactly he was invading. He was invading a country to whom his population is friendly in order to make an international point.
There’s more to it than this, particularly on how Putin views America. See Pozner for that.
Now, if the domino hit Putin he had a responsibility not to fall. A rapist has the responsibility not to rape a girl who dresses provocatively. She is not asking for it any more than Ukraine was asking to be invaded. The domino may hit you but in the name of decency and even realpolitik ignore it.
Just don’t deny that the domino hit him. And don’t deny who pushed it.
03/04/2022 @ 4:40 pm
“…What I said was that if I had his{Putin’s} background and experiences that’s probably what I’d conclude…”
You are wrestling with the predictability of the event. You seem to think that with it being predictable, it would be avoidable. That is the flaw. It isn’t avoidable. Putin was and is determined to take. If he had it all, he would try to take it again. He’s unbalanced. He has always been unbalanced. He is a megalomaniac and a narcissist. Some battles can’t be avoided. They have to be fought. It is not NATO making this battle unavoidable. It is Putin that makes it unavoidable. Putin’s existence makes it unavoidable, and the existence of nuclear weapons makes it possibly final for everyone. That would be the greatest tragedy of all time, but it is all going to end sooner or later. And better that it should end sooner than to live under the heel of some whiny Russian pussy who says that NATO is boxing him into the largest country on the planet. Enough of that bullshit.
03/04/2022 @ 5:25 pm
If he is expected, then he is expected. That is not a failing of those who did not prevent it because it is likely that he was not preventable. Putin is gesturing toward empire, not the USSR.
The Monroe Doctrine has a lot of problems. Our democracy, such that it is, has a lot POF problems. That said, we are not changing the borders of countries by invading them. We are not swallowing up sovereign free nations. We are not putting up an Iron Curtain and telling inhabitants that they can not leave. The Monroe Doctrine is not the moral equivalent to what the USSR did in the 20th century, and Russia is doing now. And check me if I am wrong, but I don’t recall a US president saying that if any nation interferes in a conflict, we will use nuclear weapons on them. I don’t recall the US military attacking a nuclear power plant in a clear case of nuclear terrorism. We have our warts here but we are far from that. You have to draw a line somewhere, wart and all, and save your own ass.
Putin wants to take my freedom away. He can’t have it.
03/04/2022 @ 5:36 pm
Also, Kosher, you are purporting to know what is motivating Putin. You may be right, but it can’t be known. Putin lies to manipulate. This bit delving into respect etc, is just not knowable to the extent that it spreads responsibility beyond himself. We have the bad luck of living at the same time as this guy, and that time also happens to include nuclear weapons. None of those unfortunate facts, combined with the predictability of Putin’s warped psychology makes it incumbent upon anyone to act with pure knowledge and sophistication about a human devil. Some evil is beyond the understanding of normal people. That is especially so while those people are busy going about the business of their normal lives. Putin’s oddness gives him a particular advantage in that it makes him hard to understand. Trump is a similar case, although he lacks a certain edge that Putin has. Their psychopathy makes them nearly impossible to read. I can’t hold it against healthy people that they can’t comprehend a devil. I defend the rights of those normal people to live within their normal psychology. That may be a fatal mix, but it is not a fatal flaw.
03/05/2022 @ 1:03 am
No, I can’t know for sure why Putin is doing what he’s doing. All I have is a series of events and a bunch of if/then’s that line up really well, well to the point where I don’t trust all the other assessments I’ve read here of him.
All I can be sure of is that America fucked up relations with Russia over the past 30+ years and that those fuckups yielded results that one would expect if looked at closely. What would happen if we did this? It happened. That isn’t necessarily causation, it could be correlation, but it fits so damned well.
Could we have stopped him? I don’t know. What I know is that we didn’t give it our best shot.
Yes, Putin wants a return to the Soviet Union, at least partially, but why does he want it? There are two ways of looking at the question. One is dispassionately, the other assumes it’s personal megalomania. What would a rational actor with Putin’s set of experiences do? When the answer is “what he’s doing” I hesitate to conclude that it’s solely pathology.
Maybe it will make more sense to you if you listen to what Pozner has to say. Pozner went so far as to ask – or maybe ihe’s reporting on someone else who asked, I don’t remember – George Kennan for his opinion of what was happening at the time, which I think was that the Clinton administration was expanding NATO toward Russia. (George Kennan may be as qualified a source as Henry Kissinger.)
We should probably stop going in circles. And I’m not suggesting that I think Putin should have your freedom. I’m actually not suggesting that I think Putin should have Ukraine’s.
03/05/2022 @ 3:49 am
“…Yes, Putin wants a return to the Soviet Union, at least partially, but why does he want it? There are two ways of looking at the question. One is dispassionately, the other assumes it’s personal megalomania. What would a rational actor with Putin’s set of experiences do? When the answer is “what he’s doing” I hesitate to conclude that it’s solely pathology.…”
Putin is estimated to be worth somewhere between 100 billion, and 200 billion dollars. I don’t need to emphasize that we are talking about billions because his annual salary is $140,000. It would take a million years for him to earn that much money, Kosh. He doesn’t want a return to the Soviet Union. He doesn’t have the best interest of his people in mind. He is stealing lots, and lots of money. You apologies for Putin are ridiculous. Yes, they are apologies. Yes, they are ridiculous. $100 billion dollar net worth, Kosher. That takes a lot of time on a lot of levels. Theft, laundering, enlisting corrupt help of others, etc. He’s such a criminal, on such a grand scale that his opponents are free governments, not merely people or companies. That sport of crime is corrosive to freedom everywhere. NATO didn’t fuck up. The US didn’t fuck up. You fucked up by not mentioning the level of Putin’s criminality. It matters, and it makes your argument fatally biased. It is not possible that he has anything in mind other than self-aggrandizement.
Oh, and as for “assuming” personal megalomania…did I mention that he’s worth over 100 billion dollars? Did I mention that his salary is $140,000 annually? What does he need that 101st billion for? Braces for the kids? Come on, man.
03/05/2022 @ 3:21 am
Given the serious nature of the event, a criticism of free people, and a free organization as being the cause of an evil person’s actions is an unjust criticism. NATO is not responsible for how a psychologically damaged individual reacts to it. Your criticism rests upon that. Your criticism indicts the concept of freedom itself. In your own analogy, you used the example of the woman dressing provocatively in the rape scenario. Even that casts judgment on the woman. And while no manner of dress justifies a rape, the analogy is not apt. A defensive arrangement of free states is not dressing provocatively. It is merely existing freely.
It’s funny about Pozner. You introduced him the other day as if I was unfamiliar with him. I’ve listened to Pozner since the 70s. He used to be a mouthpiece for the Soviets as far back as when I was a kid. I remember him quite well. He was a frequent guest on the Phil Donahue show, when it was hard to find perspectives like his. Pozner is a survivor. He has said all sorts of things over the years to keep his role. He’s not the most credible sort of person. And he is not obscure.
Russia would ever have fit in NATO. Russia exists for corruption. It is a corruption factory. Democracy and corruption are diametrically opposed. The only thing that changed when the USSR fell was the ideology. It is a pure power system for “elites” with no concern for people. If Russia wants to join the civilized world, it should behave in a civilized manner. It doesn’t, and it hasn’t for over a century. Their lack of inclusion is on them. Stop charging others with their conduct.
03/05/2022 @ 3:53 pm
At the end of WWII the United States instituted the Marshall Plan. At the time, Germany and Japan were fascism factories to perhaps a greater extent than Russia has been a corruption factory. And yet they’ve been our allies for 76 years.
We contrast what the US did in 1945 to what the French and British did in 1918, humiliating Germany by making them surrender in a railroad car rather than in the customary palace, sticking them with the bill for the war, etc. How did that work out?
This doesn’t mean the French and British are responsible for the Holocaust. But they are not completely free of responsibility for Germany going fascist. If you create a favorable enough climate, things grow. The Cold War finished and the US basically went the WWI route. Milder than that, of course, but we also got a milder result.
Russia came out of the Cold War with no democratic experience, no capitalistic experience when it comes to regulating businesses and the workplace, worried about its defense such that Gorbachev agreed to allow Germany to reunify in exchange for a commitment not to grow NATO toward the Soviet Union. What would have been smart was to offer assistance. Instead we deliberately held them at arms length, let our businesses raid their assets, treated them as a second rate power in that the US wanted to behave as a unipolar power, then broke its commitment and grew NATO toward Russia while Russia was no longer involved in an expansionist ideology. Democracy is tenuous, the country is no longer treated with respect, the US has proven itself untrustworthy, so if you’re Russian what do you want? Someone who can bring back great power status. So they turned to a Soviet strongman. And he gave them some of what they wanted. People took Putin seriously.
We could have ended up with an ally. A democratic Russia allied with NATO would make the world a completely different place. Instead we got an invasion of Ukraine. Putin didn’t have a right to do it. Putin is to blame for it. But there’s an extent to which political behavior is predictable. If the State Dept. didn’t keep the White House in the loop as to what might happen and why, heads should be rolling right now.
As to what caused the invasion, I think there are three possibilities. I hadn’t thought about the third one until this afternoon and right now I think it’s the most likely.
1. Putin was afraid of NATO on his doorstep. On one hand, Russia has trust issues with the US and a bad history of being invaded. On the other, NATO has no history of invasion. This seemed most likely to me at the time, particularly given what Russia was saying, but as you noticed there’s something a bit off about it.
2. Russia wanted Ukraine to be part of Russia. Yes, but would he invade to get it? And if that’s what he wanted, why did he make a big deal about NATO to being with and basically signal his intention to invade? That doesn’t exactly work either.
3. I’ll tell you what I think does work, and it also explains why Putin personally more than Russia. I was thinking that NATO on Russia’s border represented a threat. What I think it really represents is a dis. Russia is a world power, do not put your alliance on our border. No one should dare to do that. We’ve got nukes, it’s dangerous to treat us like that. This is about macho posturing. That fits Putin perfectly.
If this is the reason, backing off might have prevented the invasion.
None of this gives Putin the right to do anything. Of course I get that. However, this may have been an ignored opportunity to prevent however many dead we now have.
Now, these events may very well give us and Russia an opportunity to get rid of Putin. To the Russians, he’s not only been immoral and very costly, he’s been embarrassing. Have all these deaths been worth that? I don’t know. I don’t know if it will happen to begin with.
I just think this was mishandled. The clumsiness disturbs me. It looks to me like amateurish diplomacy. This doesn’t look thought through to me.
03/05/2022 @ 10:07 pm
“…The Cold War finished and the US basically went the WWI route. Milder than that, of course, but we also got a milder result…”
This is bullshit. You catch it at end end…”milder of course”. It’s bullshit, Kosh. USSR wasn’t conquered. The free world crushed Germany and Japan. And WWI humiliated Germany, but there is no real comparison to USSR failing as a result of its own conduct. The USSR started as bullshit, and it continued for 70 plus years bullshit-ily. Lenin’s “vanguard party” was a ripoff from the start. They tried to build a socialist state while turning the principles of socialism inside out. They died of their own bullshit.
03/05/2022 @ 4:01 pm
A
woke from a bad dream!
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat
gE Ez 7 HOURS 56 MINUTES UNTIL MIDNIGHT or 500 Hundred Miles
so I again read J. Wolfman’s Bindlestitch ‘This Passage Owns Me’ admiring, learning
astonished that Huckleberry Friend is that old. If it goes without saying, say it anyway?
Also, within my 24 stacks I pen-knifed a stellar DNC solicitation from Dr. Jill Biden. I called
Gloria and Omar’s numbers guy. He said write the check from Candy Colored Clowns
Are Us, LLC. as though it were a foregone conclusion. We then chatted for an inordinate
while about Putin’s Way Fucked Up Hate Machine. I reminded numbers guy that the
great Dr. Karl Friston—Oxford—is on record: [sic] “… if we can cure schizophrenia we
can do anything…” The globe is not your crystal ball, I said in my refined Warsawian b4
ending the never-ending talk.
Do you believe in magic?
03/05/2022 @ 4:28 pm
Can’t we in arrange a summit in Juneau, AK for the love of God~⁉
03/05/2022 @ 8:40 pm
I get your point. It. Holds together logically/historically. The problem is that it is useless in determining what to do now. It may help in how to avoid recreating this problem from a beginning point, but not from unraveling what is/are the main issue(s) now. Finger pointing about the sloppiness about how we got here, or blame beyond what is actually taking place now comes across as apologia. Yes, the house is on fire. Now is not the time to lecture about how Uncle Tony likes to fall asleep while smoking.
This situation currently has one special aspect. That aspect being the fact that Russia has nuclear weapons. If they didn’t, the West would grind them into mud. Their military is garbage, and their technology is not great. Their saving grace, and everyone else’s problem is the broken toy running the country.
Russia has been trying to move into the first world for centuries. During pretty much all of that time, they have been susceptible to angry mobs removing their leaders. They have done it repeatedly, and there is a great fear of that process by its leaders. Democracy itself is a mild form of that, from Putin’s perspective. He actively inveighs against both. A sophistication with how democracy works doesn’t take there, in part because of this.
Meanwhile in the West, we have our own issues with freedom and individualism. Our main challenge is connected to influences from powerful people from places where there is no democracy. They are actively trying to destroy ours while inhibiting theirs. Things are messy. Birth is messy. We can’t throw the baby out with the mess. Well, we could, but we shouldn’t.
Democracy is our baby. Two thirds of my people came here probably as enslaved property. One third were enslaving investors. Together, they managed to prop up a nation dedicated to freedom and profit…and slavery and profit. It’s messy. But, we have freedom. We can study it, cultivate it, improve it, spread it, and protect it. I’m invested in Thomas Jefferson to the extent that he can contribute “life liberty and the pursuit…”. I am not a fan of his drawbacks, but his messy dedication to freedom is useful.
Sometimes it is our job as liberals to point out what is wrong with our baby. Now is not that time. Get in the bucket line. Pass the ammunition. Make more Molotov cocktails than you can throw, and be generous as the Russians are approaching. Once Putin is hanging by his feet, we can take up the overly critical analysis of Dukakis again. Let’s just save democracy first.
03/06/2022 @ 12:21 am
The WWI analogy is definitely a reach. I was comparing approaches more than the specifics of circumstances.
As to the fact that it could do no more good now, my first answer is that my talking about this started before the invasion and this is a continuation of that conversation, though it is now mostly a moot point. My second answer is it could become important if there is a truce any time soon. If not it is totally irrelevant and at this point I think irrelevant is more likely.
And yes, without nukes we would probably have troops on the ground and this would be over.
03/06/2022 @ 2:18 am
I’ve need for my Mindf*uck Cambridge Analytica {X} alas {X) it is misfiled.
Renewed passport photo — awkwardly blinded by the light as well.
One sure bet: Trump’s SAT surrogate cannot sleep. Moscow Assured Destruction.
Curious how Russian Leader can keep food tasters on staff. Beulah and me
dozed during PBS’ Lawrence Welk’s 120 Minutes. And Sunshine and Shadow are
fencing with their tales … we’ve qued ‘Seal Team Six’ & I’m way backlogged with
our Papers R Us queries. O there’s an Austin gun club analytic on serial shooters
with adroit statistical horrific ‘probabilities’ — which I intend to analyze. But not until
Beulah stops bawling over baby Kirill …
03/06/2022 @ 9:28 am
The last time I had a drivers’ license photo I was tempted to take the photo wearing a mask as it’s how I would be most recognizable at the time. Did you consider the same for your passport photo?
Sometimes I go on Quora. This morning I saw a ridiculous question. Usually I pass on those. Today I didn’t.
Is the Israeli mailing service the worst in the world?
Kosh
Add Credential
Answered just now
The Comparative Organization for Postal Efficiency (COPE) did an international test mailings comparison in its 392 member states and Israel did indeed come in dead last, with the average letter mailed within Israel taking two years three months and sixteen days to reach its destination. This occurred because the Likud government downsized the Israeli Postal Service to three carriers and two of those are part time, which they did in the hope of privatizing the mail service. The United States tried to beat this record during the Trump administration but their mail slowing efficiency just didn’t compare to Israel’s. Now, Israel is the worst as a nation but there are regions within member states that are worse. In Texas, for example, the average letter mailed takes two years seven months and twenty-nine days to reach its destination as part of a Texas legislature effort to interfere with mail-in ballots.
Ask a stupid question….
03/06/2022 @ 5:23 pm
Know everything, google. Eyes is an excellent input (Guard
ian) as well as Second Sight Medical Products. Yahoo Finance
ce: My doorstep TIMES arrives in a blue bag and I think of the
Red Cross. Many mysteries hath clues, personal trainer (PT)
& me back to MKE ‘Pretty Woman’ stage left. Curious during
my comp/journalism endeavors now and again viewing the
elder survivors on Fox Notion — an Israeli fundraiser project
which I understand focuses the plight of golden-warrior
frail survivors. Poignant plea. I don’t see it anywhere else
(interior Russia) or never during primetime. Who, what, where
why and when … what now … post haste, all hands, urgent!
The Post way up here is excellent. TY for the Quora detail.
I fibbed about the photo-op glint. I’m still stuck on naming the
the driver in ‘Bobby McGee’. Freezing bags of water. Looking
back in anger. Method Coach (MC) insisted: NOW U/R BEACH
BALL! Yesterday beneath an overpass I loudened-up Blowin’ in the
Wind through the sunroof and a black cat out of the winter weeds
darted fast as thunder across THE ROAD. Tell me all your thoughts
on God, Koshersaalami. Times of trouble have never been sooooooo
understated. Whoosh, windshield wipers and V-UT?! Sandpipers! Ayesh
that’s another artificial blue-blue gardenia. Just in time my burgundy pea
coat got here. NOW wear in hades is my solar windsock? !Nicke-lo;}dion
Despair 🛒
08/15/2022 @ 6:04 pm
Fair enough.
12/28/2022 @ 12:14 pm
https://www.radzone.org/nukemap.php
All thesis words—above below 0 … is it crazy-lazy to presume Putin w/n (I say Putin but he does not act alone. Right-away now he is likely just out the sauna , hears a cork pop — perchance a wafe of grilled pork chops)
We’ll never know if Russia, Inc. would have invaded Ukraine IF U.S.A’s Capitol would not have been breeched. And what in the hypersonic is Nort Korea trying to prove?! Only so many ways to pronounce SNafu
where 00 where are the United Nations Peace Keeping suits? Those sun-glinted blue helmets?