Cold war 2.0

[Virtual ghost]

 

[Virtual ghost]

 

[Virtual ghost]

Biden signs NATO membership protocols for Finland and Sweden

Zelenskyy says ‘we will return’ to Crimea after blasts rock Russian base

U.S. authorizes largest-yet military package to Ukraine

Russia halts oil flows through Ukrainian pipeline

Estonia joins call for ban on Russian tourists

Taiwan says China’s using military exercises to ‘prepare for invasion’

...



I guess you can consider this to be the escalation of events.

 

[yeghor]

CBS deletes documentary promo on corrupt Ukraine military aid after US gov’t pressure

https://thegrayzone.com/2022/08/09/cbs-documentary-ukraine-military-aid-us-govt/

 

[JAVO]

If Ukraine can make or obtain more of these weapons, it seems likely they could have a significant effect on the course of the war.

This is especially true, but in a slightly different way, if they were supplied by another country.

Ukraine's Zelenskyy Appeals for More Western Aid

Western leaders vow continued support for Kyiv’s fight against Russia

www.voanews.com

Pictures released by independent satellite firm Planet Labs showed three near-identical craters that had precisely struck buildings at Russia’s Saki air base. The base, on the southwest coast of Crimea had suffered extensive fire damage with the burnt-out husks of at least eight destroyed warplanes clearly visible.

Russia has denied aircraft were damaged and said explosions seen at the base on Tuesday were accidental.

“Officially, we are not confirming or denying anything; there are numerous scenarios for what might have happened... bearing in mind that there were several epicenters of explosions at exactly the same time,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters in a message.

Exactly how the attack was carried out remains a mystery. Some Ukrainian officials have been quoted suggesting it may have been sabotage by infiltrators. But the near identical impact craters and simultaneous explosions appear to indicate it was hit by a volley of new long-range weapons, capable of evading Russian defenses.

The base is well beyond the range of advanced rockets that Western countries acknowledge sending to Ukraine so far, but within the range of more powerful versions that Kyiv has sought. Ukraine also has its own surface-to-ship missiles which could theoretically be used to hit targets on land.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Down to 14 + 1: Estonia and Latvia quit China’s club in Eastern Europe


BOOM.
This is major development. On itself this isn't that much of a deal but this indicates that this block isn't stable and there is a loss of interest in it. In other words now the main question is probably who is next to walk away. Since many realized that with current developments this block isn't that good idea. Of course this will be nicely presented but the bottom line is pretty clear. My opinion now is that the next most likely to leave are Poland, Czech republic or Romania. Which are some of the most powerful members of this block. Therefore now it is not even impossible that the block pretty quickly disintegrates in a chain reaction. Since the more countries leaves the more pointless the block becomes. In other words China is losing influence and money as this is falling apart. While EU and NATO are strengthening.



Italian right-wingers dump Euroskepticism in bid to win power

While this is interesting but not that surprising. Europe is now so integrated in economic sense that undermining that surely leads into severe economic problems on national level. While right likes good economy and therefore in the end you have to make a choice. Especially now when ties with Russia and China are becoming a no zone that will lose you plenty of votes. I mean the Brexit has shown that you can be a major member of the block that isn't too integrated in it and that has very very good international ties .... and you would still get wrecked by leaving. So if you have even worse cards then that leaving simply isn't recommended, that is simply how it is. The EU is here to stay, how exactly will it look like in the future is still open but the core idea isn't going away, the countries are just too interconnected. When you share with others a parliament, executive government, borders, security in various ways, currency, student exchanges etc. leaving or just talking about leaving rocks the boat too hard.





How real is the danger from Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant?

Estonia stops issuing visas to Russian tourists

Hoping for a political settlement in Ukraine? Stop.

China’s top 5 wolf warrior diplomats sinking their fangs into Europe

 

[The Cat]

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Regarding morals in this war.

Ukraine is in the right because they got invaded. Rus is wrong because they attacked a sovereign neighbor unprovoked.

Besides that I don't see much difference. Meaning I don't expect there to be a moral difference in the way these two countries prosecute the war.

I expect Ukr to kill prisoners, torture, and rape at generally the same rates as the Rus forces. I don't accept the argument that the people making up the Russian forces are any less inherently moral than the people making up the Ukr forces.

The moral difference between UKR and RUS is strategic and not personal. IE Rus is evil for invading, not because the Russian people are inherently more evil than Ukr people.

I expect this is a confusing point to make for those whose only understanding of the conflict is emotional. Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys doesn't work nearly as well when you aren't fighting ISIS or Al Qaeda. There the good guys are the one who aren't burning people in cages or throwing gays off the roof.

In Ukr there is no such personal moral clarity. Hence the push to limit any news coming out that paints Ukr in a bad light.

Most people just care about who the bad guy is, not what the strategic thinking is. And to get most people to go along with sending THEIR tax dollars to a fight across the world for longer than five seconds, they need to be invested not in the strategic value of involvement, but in the emotional value of those are the bad guys we need to fight.

Showing a picture of a crying child is more politically effective than arguing we need to fund Ukr to maintain Nuclear detente. This fact frustrates me more about politics than anything else.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Regarding morals in this war.

Ukraine is in the right because they got invaded. Rus is wrong because they attacked a sovereign neighbor unprovoked.

Besides that I don't see much difference. Meaning I don't expect there to be a moral difference in the way these two countries prosecute the war.

I expect Ukr to kill prisoners, torture, and rape at generally the same rates as the Rus forces. I don't accept the argument that the people making up the Russian forces are any less inherently moral than the people making up the Ukr forces.

The moral difference between UKR and RUS is strategic and not personal. IE Rus is evil for invading, not because the Russian people are inherently more evil than Ukr people.

I expect this is a confusing point to make for those whose only understanding of the conflict is emotional. Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys doesn't work nearly as well when you aren't fighting ISIS or Al Qaeda. There the good guys are the one who aren't burning people in cages or throwing gays off the roof.

In Ukr there is no such personal moral clarity. Hence the push to limit any news coming out that paints Ukr in a bad light.

Most people just care about who the bad guy is, not what the strategic thinking is. And to get most people to go along with sending THEIR tax dollars to a fight across the world for longer than five seconds, they need to be invested not in the strategic value of involvement, but in the emotional value of those are the bad guys we need to fight.

Showing a picture of a crying child is more politically effective than arguing we need to fund Ukr to maintain Nuclear detente. This fact frustrates me more about politics than anything else.

I wouldn't say you are 100% wrong since in the war that has this kind of a size and brutality there are no absolute saints. However I do think you are kinda too relativistic here. The obvious example is the question of rape. The thing is that Ukrainian side is defending and therefore it is much less likely to do rape. Especially since for the most part it has only access to it's own citizens. While attackers that are leveling cities have much more "access" to the civilians of the other side. Plus the fact is that up the hill defense of the homeland attracts all kinds of average people into the fold. While if you are invading you are sending professional solders, militias, mercenaries, ultra nationalists etc. What evidently tilts the odds regarding the odds of making war crimes. If you want American stereotype this war is a lot like the good old western moves. The outlaws are coming while the Sheriff and the deputies are defending the town. There will be shooting, blood, collateral damage and mistakes but you can't really put genuine moral equality here. Since the profile of the people involved on both sides simply isn't identical and one side has much more of "average" people in it. Which wouldn't be doing any of this in the case they weren't openly invaded in their daily life. It is possible that defenders get serious PTSD out of all this and do something "stupid", but that is again mostly on the ones that made extra effort to give them the PTSD.


While this war is here exactly because of strategy, since with Ukraine Russia would be getting huge extra energy supply. Also it would be able to connect to various pro Russian forces in Europe if it has Ukraine. Plus in this case all that food supply chain problems we see would be in Russian control. What means that Russia will be able to control diet in quite large parts of the world and that is pretty big deal ... etc. In other words none of that is really in the interest of the average US taxpayer. While what media are doing is just story for the average Joe, so if you search the net there should be plenty of details about all of this. This is possibly the war that is being recorded down to the biggest detail ever.

 

[yeghor]

Regarding morals in this war.

Ukraine is in the right because they got invaded. Rus is wrong because they attacked a sovereign neighbor unprovoked.

....

In Ukr there is no such personal moral clarity. Hence the push to limit any news coming out that paints Ukr in a bad light.

Most people just care about who the bad guy is, not what the strategic thinking is. And to get most people to go along with sending THEIR tax dollars to a fight across the world for longer than five seconds, they need to be invested not in the strategic value of involvement, but in the emotional value of those are the bad guys we need to fight.

Showing a picture of a crying child is more politically effective than arguing we need to fund Ukr to maintain Nuclear detente. This fact frustrates me more about politics than anything else.

The Phoniest, Most PR Intensive War Of All Time

 

[Virtual ghost]

 

[Virtual ghost]

Russo-Ukrainian War detailed map


The map is static for weeks at this point. What means that the Russia probably got most of what it can achieve. Perhaps they can take a few more cities but for the most part it seems that this is it. Now the real question is how much of the taken land they can actually keep. Since there will surely be a counter attack.

 

[Virtual ghost]

I posted this as a map but there is the video version that is the estimate how the process went.

 

[yeghor]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1558714538719150080

 

[Virtual ghost]

Russia-Ukraine updates: Moscow 'ready to offer' weapons to its allies

Germany sends fighter jets to Indo-Pacific training mission

France says Barkhane mission troops fully withdraw from Mali

William Ruto: From 'hustler' to Kenya's president-elect

Myanmar court jails Aung San Suu Kyi for six more years

Ranks of Japan's once-feared 'yakuza' shrink as new laws, weak economy hit home

 

[Red Herring]

Germany sends fighter jets to Indo-Pacific training mission

I wasn't aware we had as many as six Eurofighter jets that could actually fly

 

[Virtual ghost]

I wasn't aware we had as many as six Eurofighter jets that could actually fly

Nah, the real question is if they have any ammo to take it with them on the trip.



Germany to miss 2 percent NATO defense spending target: think tank

But this is also from today. I just don't get it: US is mad about this for years, quite decent chunk of EU is unhappy with this, while democracies at the Pacific roll their eyes regarding this. Germany has GDP of about 4 400 billion $ but they will miss the target for 20 billion and it will not guarantee that it will meet the target on every year. I mean is this all bad reputation really worth those few billion ? Especially since Germany like to paint itself as a very serious country and you can just invest into your own defense industry that is fairly developed in technical sense. I just don't get it.

 

[Red Herring]

Nah, the real question is if they have any ammo to take it with them on the trip.



Germany to miss 2 percent NATO defense spending target: think tank

But this is also from today. I just don't get it: US is mad about this for years, quite decent chunk of EU is unhappy with this, while democracies at the Pacific roll their eyes regarding this. Germany has GDP of about 4 400 billion $ but they will miss the target for 20 billion and it will not guarantee that it will meet the target on every year. I mean is this all bad reputation really worth those few billion ? Especially since Germany like to paint itself as a very serious country and you can just invest into your own defense industry that is fairly developed in technical sense. I just don't get it.

It's a complex issue.

Look, my mother will celebrate her 75th birthday this fall. She was born in a big city that had been heavily bombed by the allied forces and people were still on post-war foodstamps and food rationing when she was a baby. Despite all the minor crises the country (and she) has gone through since then, she has known nothing but peace, prosperity, stability and safety all her life. During the cold war "the Russian" was "standing at the door" and there was serious anxiety over nuclear escalation, but after the fall of the Berlin wall the defense budget has dropped year after year for a long time. I think I once mentioned that I had to write an essay at school in the late 90s about whether or not NATO had become obsolete because, well, Francis Fukuyama and all that.

That prosperity was build on several questionable grounds, one of them being salaries of German workers rising very slowly which gave German businesses a competitive advantage. Another one was heavily focusing on exports to questionable business partners (read: China). And a third one was the socalled "peace dividend" - money that isn't funneled into the military can be used elsewhere. I have seen former military barracks turned into hotels or residential districts.

Politically and culturally Germany has long seen itself as a broker between Russia and the US. Despite criticism of the Putin government, Germans tended to have a positive image of Russia as a culturally rich country and the Russian people in general.

For decades there was a strong belief that trade and mutual dependence make friends and open armed conflict betwen nations was a thing of the past ... or at least something that only happens in third world countries, not in our neighborhood.

I view military as a necessary evil, nothing to be proud of and idealize (like they do in America) but still necessary. Many Germans to this day maintain antimilitary reflexes that were developed not just as a lesson learned from WW2 but also as a deescalation strategy during the cold war.

And since I just watched a documentary on the history of the pipeline:

When the whole debate over Nord Stream 2 broke out I have to admit that I too was convinced that the main reason the US government was pressuring Germany and even levelling sanctions on the country was that they simply wanted to force us to buy their LNG instead. It was like Coca-Cola warning you not to drink Pepsi because that stuff is unhealthy and you should rather buy theirs! It felt like bullying for thinly veiled selfish reasons (especially coming from someone like Trump!). Gas was and is needed as a bridge technology and a economically and ecologically a direct import from Russia made more sense than shipping LNG around.

 

[Virtual ghost]

It's a complex issue.

Look, my mother will celebrate her 75th birthday this fall. She was born in a big city that had been heavily bombed by the allied forces and people were still on post-war foodstamps and food rationing when she was a baby. Despite all the minor crises the country (and she) has gone through since then, she has known nothing but peace, prosperity, stability and safety all her life. During the cold war "the Russian" was "standing at the door" and there was serious anxiety over nuclear escalation, but after the fall of the Berlin wall the defense budget has dropped year after year for a long time. I think I once mentioned that I had to write an essay at school in the late 90s about whether or not NATO had become obsolete because, well, Francis Fukuyama and all that.

That prosperity was build on several questionable grounds, one of them being salaries of German workers rising very slowly which gave German businesses a competitive advantage. Another one was heavily focusing on exports to questionable business partners (read: China). And a third one was the socalled "peace dividend" - money that isn't funneled into the military can be used elsewhere. I have seen former military barracks turned into hotels or residential districts.

Politically and culturally Germany has long seen itself as a broker between Russia and the US. Despite criticism of the Putin government, Germans tended to have a positive image of Russia as a culturally rich country and the Russian people in general.

For decades there was a strong belief that trade and mutual dependence make friends and open armed conflict betwen nations was a thing of the past ... or at least something that only happens in third world countries, not in our neighborhood.

I view military as a necessary evil, nothing to be proud of and idealize (like they do in America) but still necessary. Many Germans to this day maintain antimilitary reflexes that were developed not just as a lesson learned from WW2 but also as a deescalation strategy during the cold war.

And since I just watched a documentary on the history of the pipeline:

When the whole debate over Nord Stream 2 broke out I have to admit that I too was convinced that the main reason the US government was pressuring Germany and even levelling sanctions on the country was that they simply wanted to force us to buy their LNG instead. It was like Coca-Cola warning you not to drink Pepsi because that stuff is unhealthy and you should rather buy theirs! It felt like bullying for thinly veiled selfish reasons (especially coming from someone like Trump!). Gas was and is needed as a bridge technology and a economically and ecologically a direct import from Russia made more sense than shipping LNG around.

Ok. I know all of this or I can at least see it being that way.
However there is a few important elements here that I just don't see fitting into this, which should make it truly valid. The first one is that rising military spending from some 1.4% of GDP to 2.0% of GDP wouldn't really end your way of life. Especially if the money is invested into already existing defense industry. 2% really is some kinda of a minimum that you can say that your have functional defense force. Therefore when you see that US is evidently struggling from within and you can say the same for UK then it is kinda natural logic to make your own foundations more robust. Especially when you see that your have expanding but evidently undemocratic countries to the east.

Also it was possible to do "experiment" with Russian energy while spending 2% of the GDP on military. Cheap energy in a way only makes this easier to achieve. Since that kinda makes balance and the peace through trade logic work better. Since there is balance of physical power. I understand described logic in the times of complete peace. However dragging your feet during evident emergency really opens some questions what is going on here. Germany evidently wants to be the leader of EU but that includes military, especially in times of war in the house next door.

Just saying.

 

[Virtual ghost]

‘Demilitarization in action’: Ukraine trolls Russia after more Crimea explosions

Scholz on Russia tourist visa ban: Nein!

Open hearts and borders mustn’t end with Ukrainian refugees

3 face death penalty as Donetsk court charges foreigners as ‘mercenaries’

Estonia removes Soviet Union war monuments