Cold war 2.0

[JAVO]

On the topic of the Ukraine war spilling into global nuclear war, this was slightly reassuring. It's the opinion of "former British army officer and former commander of the UK & NATO Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Forces":

Opinion: The most likely nuclear scenario | CNN

How worried should we be about Putin's finger on the so-called nuclear button? In this Q&A, former British army officer and nuclear expert, Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, unpacks the military jargon and argues all-out nuclear war probably isn't on the cards anytime soon.

www.cnn.com

The use of strategic nuclear weapons is extremely unlikely in my opinion. This is a war nobody can win, and at the moment it does not seem likely that this regional conflict in Europe would lead to a global nuclear war which could destroy the planet for many generations.

I am sure the checks and balances are in place in the Kremlin, as they are at the White House and 10 Downing Street to make sure we are not plunged into global nuclear conflict on a whim.

I believe Putin’s tactical nuclear weapons are unusable. Even if their vehicles do work, the minute they turn their engines on to move they will be picked up by US and NATO intelligence.

I hope the private discussions the Biden and Putin administrations have apparently been having are along the lines of, ‘you move your tactical nukes and NATO will take them out with long range precision guided missiles’. It would appear this is the case from what Jake Sullivan, the US National Security Advisor to the White House, disclosed over the weekend.

The most likely nuclear scenario is, I believe, an attack by Russia on a nuclear power station in Ukraine. This could have a similar effect to a tactical nuclear explosion but would be easier to deny for the Russians, who accuse Ukraine of deliberately bombing their own power stations.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1575671474580762624

 

[Red Herring]

After the mass exodus of Russian recrutes: "Sir, we have over-fulfilled our partial mobilization target - more than 300.000 motivated men are now located on hostile foreign territory"

 

[JAVO]

Institute for the Study of War

Russian President Vladimir Putin did not threaten an immediate nuclear attack to halt the Ukrainian counteroffensives into Russian-occupied Ukraine during his speech announcing Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory. Putin announced Russia’s i

www.understandingwar.org

• Russian President Vladimir Putin did not threaten an immediate nuclear attack to halt the Ukrainian counteroffensives into Russian-occupied Ukraine during his speech announcing Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory.
• Putin’s annexation speech made several general references to nuclear use that are consistent with his past language on the subject, avoiding making the direct threats that would be highly likely to precede nuclear use.
• Putin is attempting to force Kyiv to the negotiating table by annexing Russian-occupied territory and threatening nuclear use.[2] He is following the trajectory that ISW forecasted he might on May 13.
• Putin’s call for negotiations and implicit nuclear threats are aimed at both Ukraine and the West; he likely incorrectly assesses that his nuclear brinksmanship will lead the United States and its allies to pressure Ukraine to negotiate.
• ISW cannot forecast the point at which Putin would decide to use nuclear weapons. Such a decision would be inherently personal, but Putin’s stated red lines for nuclear weapon use have already been crossed in this war several times over without any Russian nuclear escalation.
• Russian nuclear use would therefore be a massive gamble for limited gains that would not achieve Putin’s stated war aims.
• The more confident Putin is that nuclear use will not achieve decisive effects but will draw direct Western conventional military intervention in the conflict, the less likely he is to conduct a nuclear attack.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

The media isn't blasting it bc it would start a panic today. But Putin just strait up threatened nukes this morning.

You should be freaking out. It's something to freak out about. I saw it this morning and got so freaked I didn't want to long onto twitter to see the fallout.

If you were waiting for the starting gun, this was it.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

I hope you guys have good IRL friends groups and live close to your families bc I have no idea which way the rollercoaster is headed.

That's why things have been developing so quickly, whoever was holding the reigns of the situation in Ukr has let them slip to now flap in the breeze.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

The people I listen too are spooked.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

This isn't to score any points that doesn't matter anymore, I know a lot of you guys are liberals in Big cities some of which are in europe. Please be safe and think smart. Don't go to some protest if it seems dangerous. Know who you can trust and who you cant.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

It's easier to leave somewhere and not deal with a problem than stay in your house when its on fire. Have a plan to go somewhere to family or friends. Have plans on how to get there, do I have a car, do i not have a car. Can I carry enough food and water on me to get there. Do I have non perishable canned food, including some that can be eaten without being cooked.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Do I have enough medicine? Do any family members have special needs. If you know a diabetic insulin needs to stay in the fridge to stay good. Plan for that eventuality, and other medical ones like it. Have spare meds if you cant function without them.

 

[JAVO]

The media isn't blasting it bc it would start a panic today. But Putin just strait up threatened nukes this morning.

You should be freaking out. It's something to freak out about. I saw it this morning and got so freaked I didn't want to long onto twitter to see the fallout.

If you were waiting for the starting gun, this was it.

The other starting gun was back in the beginning of the war when Russian troops were firing on Chernobyl, which could have drawn a NATO response due to radioactive fallout over Europe. I packed for a bit of an "extended backpacking trip" then, and I never unpacked even though I'm far enough outside of major cities that it's possible I'll survive.

Putin has been threatening nukes for much of the war. He drew several red lines. (Possibly due to lack of more advanced artistic ability?) He likes the sound of his starting gun. It has a little power to startle people, but they're just blanks.

It's true that he could put a live round in there someday soon, but he also knows that the international community, including his own allies, would consider it a negligent discharge.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Just be safe and take this serious everyone, though I disagree with most of you, I still want y'all to be well and keep doing well.

What I've said is a mindset that you maintain, not planning for some catastrophe you predict to be next thursday. You always keep that bag of food and water by the car in case you need to GO

Besides Ukr I would expect the instability to crush Germany and then spread from there to everyone else exposed to the Russian energy market.

We made a statement about adding taiwan to some OFFICIAL airforce initiative today I think I saw, this nuke threat basically enabled aggression in asia.

 

[The Cat]

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

In response to this

 

[Kephalos]

G7 Finance Ministers statement on Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

At their summit in Elmau, G7 Leaders reaffirmed a shared commitment to preventing Russia from profiting from its war of aggression, to supporting stability in global energy markets and to minimising negative economic spillovers, especially on low- and middle-income countries. To deliver on this commitment, today we confirm our joint political intention to finalise and implement a comprehensive prohibition of services which enable maritime transportation of Russian-origin crude oil and petroleum products globally – the provision of such services would only be allowed if the oil and petroleum products are purchased at or below a price (“the price cap”) determined by the broad coalition of countries adhering to and implementing the price cap.

Big Challenges for Russian Oil Price Cap. Ben Cahill. Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The oil market is full of clever people with strong incentives to bend or break rules. If the price cap is imposed, economic theory will collide with the messy reality of the market. Still, this is a better option than the EU embargo and insurance ban. If the price cap legalizes oil trade with Russia but fails to secure full cooperation from India, China, and other countries, the price cap will score a partial victory. It will avoid the worst-case scenario of a market shortage and a huge price spike—but probably will not dramatically cut Russia’s oil revenue.

Price Cap on Russian Oil Exports Would be Futile; West Should Opt for Tariff Instead. Daniel P. Ahn. Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

To significantly reduce Russian oil revenue, Western leaders have only two sets of policy options: to boost Western oil supply and/or to decrease Western oil demand (@Kephalos: demand for Russian oil I would guess). An oil price cap does neither. Worse still, it will not be difficult to bypass: Russian oil would likely continue being rerouted to Asia and could just as easily keep going to Europe and North America blended with other feedstock. Thus, Western leaders would be well-advised to shift their priorities to alternatives that actually work, such as an import tariff.

Price Cap on Russian Oil: The Mechanism and Its Consequences. Иван Тимофеев. (Caveat lector: This might not be the most trustworthy andor unbiased source but it is technically correct in some respects.)

And lastly, Russia is being forced to become the leader of dumping.

The Collateral Damage of a Long Economic War. Nicholas Mulder. Sanctions Have Hurt But Not Felled Russia—and Are Harming the Global South.

There is a notable parallel between the expectations that Russia harbored for its military invasion and what the West hoped its economic sanctions would achieve: both parties wanted to defeat their opponents with a quick, sudden strike producing immediate collapse. This obviously did not come to pass. Indeed, both Ukraine’s recent triumphs on the battlefield and Putin’s eventual turn to mobilization in Russia may foreshadow a long war. Russia and the West have both adjusted and become increasingly hardened targets for each other’s economic weapons. Ultimately, the costs of this economic war will be borne mainly by weaker economies in the global South. States that lack the buffers—whether strategic commodity reserves, liquidity, or trade surpluses—to adapt to the new world of sanctions turmoil are especially vulnerable.

Although Russian President Vladimir Putin managed to avoid a Soviet-style collapse in the face of massive sanctions, the Russian economy has suffered severe damage and is likely to endure more. Russians can expect economic stagnation and growing isolation from the West for the foreseeable future. It is an open question, however, whether this socioeconomic deterioration will move citizens to demand an end to the war, let alone motivate their government to wind down its ongoing aggression against Ukraine. Historically, sanctions have the highest chance of producing major policy change when a political movement can act as a vehicle for popular mobilization. But despite some recent protests, years of intense political repression have reduced the possibilities for effective opposition. Perhaps the best that can be hoped is that economic deprivation will eventually render his regime materially incapable of continuing the war.

The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War. Nicholas Mulder.

 

[JAVO]

The milblogger community may begin to undermine Putin’s narratives to his core audience amidst the defeats and failures of the Russian war in Ukraine, however, especially as their narratives spread to mainstream Kremlin-controlled outlets. Milbloggers are increasingly appearing on Russian state television and in Kremlin-affiliated outlets following the collapse of the Kharkiv frontline and are boldly pointing out failures in the Russian military campaign while exaggerating the need for Russia to win the war and the price Russians should be prepared to pay.

Putin may be experiencing an odd variant of the problems Mikhail Gorbachev encountered resulting from his glasnost’ (openness) policy. Gorbachev partially opened the Soviet information space in the mid-1980s in the hopes that Soviet citizens would give him insight into the causes of bureaucratic dysfunction within the Soviet state that he could not identify from above. But Soviet citizens did not stop where Gorbachev wanted or expected them to and instead began attacking the entire Soviet system. The reforms (perestroika) he initiated after a period of glasnost’ ended up destroying the Soviet Union rather than strengthening it.

Institute for the Study of War

This campaign assessment special edition focuses on dramatic changes in the Russian information space following the Russian defeat around Lyman and in Kharkiv Oblast and amid the failures of Russia’s partial mobilization. Ukrainian forces made continued g

www.understandingwar.org

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Blue force tracker lets you play some fun tricks.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1577165862184054790