History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society, War Commentary

Explaining Russia And Ukraine

23 Comments

This is a little more crude than probably necessary, but it’s pretty much correct.

[Update a while later]

[Update a few minutes later]

Four key Russian railway junctions. It’s a huge vulnerability, and likely part of Ukraine’s plans.

23 thoughts on “Explaining Russia And Ukraine”

    1. The Russian Federal Districts are imaginary constructs with no machinery of government, run by Putin appointees whose job is to forward TPS reports. The “empire” actually consists of 80-some oblasts and historical krais each roughly equivalent to a US state the size of Delaware..And most of the ethnic republics are majority Russian.

  2. It’s doubtful that we would helping Ukraine like we are had Biden not needed to rehabilitate his image after Afghanistan. Democrats were against helping Ukraine since Russia first invaded. Good luck for Ukraine and a miscalculation from Putin.

    A sweary rant could be written about Ukrianiacs falling for and engaging in propaganda but the reality is that people will have different opinions on wars and that doesn’t necessarily mean they are pro Russia or pro Ukraine.

    I’ve long argued a better way for Ukrainiacs to go is to take the concerns of people who think we have other pressing problems and address them to win over support. But the war isn’t just about Putin but fighting people who have America’s best interests in mind.

    This is because many of Ukraine’s supporters are Marxists who might help save Ukraine but will install Putins all over the West. A lot of “conservatives” go right along with it.

    1. It’s doubtful that we would helping Ukraine like we are had Biden not needed to rehabilitate his image after Afghanistan.

      It’s possible that Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine in early 2022 without the weakness shown by the Afghanistan retreat.

      1. This is certainly the case and it is bonkers that our media doesn’t cover Taliban victory parades or anything else that makes our rulers look bad.

        I’m hoping for no more miscalculations for a while from our leaders or our adversaries.

        I want Ukraine to do well and push Russia out or take enough of Russia to get a fair trade but that carries risks to us, even though that is what they have to do. It is telling that both Ukraine and Israel have had to keep secrets from our government to do what it takes to win.

    2. Yes. The Republican populists of the 2020s bear far too close a resemblance, when it comes to their blinkered notions about foreign affairs, to the America Firsters of the 1930s.

      America First != America Only. The people who allege to be content with the U.S. disengaging from the rest of the world if it keeps us out of “foreign wars,” would – one suspects – like a war against a foreign enemy fought on U.S. soil a lot less. I know I would. The U.S. possession of the largest and most capable expeditionary military on the planet has repeatedly proven to be a feature, not a bug.

      And despite a lot of loose usage of the term previously to refer to wars the U.S. was actually an active participant in, the Russo-Ukraine War really is a proxy war where the U.S. is concerned.

      The U.S. does have a lot of problems that need to be addressed. Gutting the Deep State, ending the legal unionization of government employees – except first responders – unleashing the U.S. economy and putting both Social Security and Medicare on sound financial footing would solve most of them. The pittance being spent on aid to Ukraine is couch cushion change by comparison.

      And it’s hardly as though that money isn’t benefitting the U.S. Buying the death of Russia as a consequential threat on the cheap with no U.S. blood spilled will be very beneficial to the U.S. if we have the wit to persevere and keep handing the Ukrainians what they need.

      Leaving Ukraine high and dry after having previously agreed to defend its sovereignty would, unfortunately, be very much of a part with previous incidents of U.S. faithlessness to allies. We’ve been “bowbing our buddies” as the late Harry Harrison put it, ever since the Bay of Pigs with additional episodes in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The wonder is that anyone still calls our number when they get in trouble. Who will our next “bowbed buddy” be? Taiwan? Philippines? The Baltic States?

      The U.S., should it choose to play turtle-turtle going forward, is likely to find the world a far less deferential place as nations looking not to be the U.S.’s next “bowbed buddy” do the sensible thing and get them some nukes instead of trying to build huge military establishments – except for maybe some frigates and destroyers to escort vessels engaged in their in-bound and out-bound trade.

      The one thing the world is dead solid certain not to do, should the U.S. largely absent itself from world affairs in future, is continue on in pretty much the way things have been since the end of WW2. I don’t think the change will constitute an improvement.

  3. Please enlighten me how the entire Democrat party and a huge portion of the GOP are now full blown NEOCONS and are 100% behind shoving billions of dollars into project Ukraine. Corruption, grift, control by the MIC?

    1. Or a relatively principled stand against tyranny? My take is that while aid to Ukraine been carried out somewhat incompetently and with considerable lack of enthusiasm, Russia won’t build an empire this time around – they’ve lost too much and have so little to rebuild it with.

      I remain intrigued why you think your arguments have any traction at all. Everyone has corruption, grift, and even an MIC. Not everyone invades neighbors. It’s interesting how you repeatedly excuse the invasion of Ukraine on the basis of what’s supposedly wrong with the Western world. It’s like excusing an aborted murder because a neighbor who interfered happened to be a criminal.

      Are only the perfectly virtuous allowed to prevent evil?

      1. Yes. One hears endlessly about how corrupt Ukraine supposedly is. The Wikipedia rank-order list of nation-states and territories based on perceptions of corruption by outsiders doing business in these places ranks Ukraine as being tied for 104th place on a list of 180 countries with Serbia, Algeria and Brazil. The corruption “scores” of all four are 36 on a scale where Denmark leads with a score of 90 and Somalia brings up the rear with a score of 11.

        Russia is in another 4-way tie at 141st place along with Guinea, Uganda and Kyrgyzstan, all with scores of 26. Smack between these quartets is yet another at 126th place and scores of 31. It’s members include El Salvador, Togo, Kenya and, whaddayaknow, our neighbor to the immediate south, Mexico.

        The world, it seems, is a fairly corrupt place – on average. A score of 50 or 51 would place one’s nation half way between the bottom and top of the scale, but the bottom half of the scores are held by just over 2/3 of the listed nations.

        The U.S., for reference, ranks 25th with a score of 69.

        Ukraine is nothing special in the corruption department.

    2. Republicans have a long history of hating Russia and wanting to help other countries fight off Russia. Even the Republicans against our involvement hate Russia but they think other important issues should take precedent at this moment.

      Democrats have a long history of supporting Russia. What changed? Putin personally embarrassed Obama in Syria. Acting against the USA is acceptable because Democrats have long allied with the global left to overthrow our system of government. The global left used to not only include Russia but be led by Russia.

      Embarrassing Obama is an unforgivable sin and Russia became an enemy of the global left overnight. Add a little TDS into that so that the left thinks fighting Russia is sticking it to Trump and you get cult zealotry.

      The war in Ukraine is part a fight for Ukrainian freedom but is in large part intraparty fight between the global left. Yes, the former KGB neo Stalinist trying to rebuild the USSR is still a Marxist. People on the right are pulled in because of their historical relationship with Russia and Democrats use this to drive a wedge between hawks and people more concerned with what is going on in the USA.

  4. Karl, that is a straw man argument, and a relatively naive one at that. Or do you think Stalin was in some way virtuous because he helped defeat Hitler? It may be that only the perfectly virtuous can actually prevent evil. Otherwise, you’re simply substituting one evil for another. Look at the world around you. That’s what’s happening.

    1. The U.S. is not an empire. The only genuine imperialist to ever occupy the White House was Teddy Roosevelt. He did his poor best to give us an empire based on our “winnings” from the Spanish-American War, but none of his successors had any enthusiasm for continuing the project.

      A genuine empire rules its subordinate domains via officials with titles like Consul (Rome) or Governor-General (Britain). Who, pray tell, is the American “Governor-General” of Australia?

      There is still a British Governor-General of Australia, by the way, though the job is now a toothless sinecure for the politically favored – a bit like many U.S. ambassadorships.

  6. I took the whole article, as “persuasive” as it was, with a very large crystal of rock salt due to his technical evaluation of Soviet/Russian arms technology. He derided the MiG-25 as garbage, because it couldn’t dogfight. The MiG-25 wasn’t a fighter. It was an interceptor, designed specifically to intercept and shoot down the Mach 3 B-70 bomber we were “developing.” All it had to do was get from the ground to 70,000 feet and Mach 3 in a really big hurry, fire a couple of air-to-air missiles directed by an on-board radar so powerful that turning it on with the plane on the ground was prohibited for safety reasons, waiting for the hit, and then landing. It met every one of those requirements splendidly.

    Also, his characterization of the AK-47 is way off base. A lot of US military prefer it to our assault weapons. I have one, and prefer it to my AR-15. Both of which, I hasten to add, were lost at the bottom of the Pacific in a cruise ship sinking I was recently on….

    When two things you know about in an article are wrong, you have to question the rest of the things about which you know nothing.

    1. The XB-70 never made it past the prototype stage, preempting the purpose of the MiG-25. It must speak volumes about the Soviet system that they went ahead with it anyway.

  7. In the 2003 Iraq war, we supposedly neutralized Baghdad’s power grid by dropping carbon fiber chaff on its electrical substations, causing them to short. My fuzzy recollection is that F-117s did the job. If it is even a thing, drones would have absolutely no problem taking out the Russian railroad electrical supply.

    Or our electric power grid, for that matter…

    2. Also note the absolute effectiveness of the Northrup-Grumman E8 JSTARS and its contribution to The Highway of Death Feb. 26-27 1991.

  8. “The U.S. is not an empire.”

    Not in name but in reality. The Australian Government is ever mindful to not upset the US. Comes from the US defending Australia early in WW2 when the Brits abandoned us. Australia goes to war by the side of the US. It is regarded as an insurance policy in case Australia is attacked because we sure are not capable of doing it ourselves.

    1. No, not “in reality.” I know the relevant military history too. The Brits didn’t “abandon” you. After the Japanese took out Prince of Wales and Repulse on the first day of U.S. participation in the war, the Royal Navy was very much on the back foot and couldn’t do much with what they had left. They did their best and took more losses, including Singapore while we Yanks were figuring out what was what. We got that sorted fairly quickly and went on offense even though badly outnumbered at first – Doolittle Raid, Coral Sea, Midway – you know the list.

      Sorry we weren’t there to keep the Sons of Nippon off of you lot at Darwin, but after we did show up, they never did that again.

      But this relationship is one of long-time alliance, not of Imperium and Vassal State. If America actually ruled Australia, for example, the U.S. Constitution would be the law of the land in Oz as well as here and you guys would still be able to own guns.

      Look at a video of Peter Zeihan doing his standard lecture sometime. He lays out, very clearly, the huge difference between the post-WW2 liberal trading order established by the U.S. and an actual empire. He has his quirks and blind spots but his analysis of the Bretton Woods global order, and what motivated it, is spot on.

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