Good morning world! pic.twitter.com/Mf5TrXf3K9
— Ukrainian Air Force (@KpsZSU) October 12, 2022
I had a much longer day than I expected – nothing really bad, just things kept popping up – and I have an early start tomorrow. So I’m going to just do a brief post tonight.
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:
Good health to you, fellow Ukrainians!
Today I took part in the work of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe – outlined the most important things for us in achieving peace and restoring Ukraine and the international legal order after this war.
We also have a powerful response from PACE, which is the first international organization to designate the current regime in Russia as terrorist.
It is very important that this is a political signal. A signal to all states – members of the Council of Europe and all states of the world, that there is nothing to talk about with this terrorist group, which appropriated Russia and unleashed the most heinous war in Europe in 80 years.
Terror must be responded with force at all levels: on the battlefield, with sanctions, and legally
We will create a special tribunal for the crime of Russian aggression against Ukraine and ensure the operation of a special compensation mechanism so that Russia will bear responsibility for this war at the cost of its assets.
I am grateful to all our partners in the Council of Europe who work for justice for Ukraine and our entire continent. I am grateful to our PACE delegation for truly effective work!
I am also grateful to all Ukrainian diplomats and our friends in the world and in the United Nations who helped consolidate the world community of states in such a way that we gained the highest support at the UN General Assembly for the entire time of the Russian terrorist war.
The world sees what is happening. It knows the price of the farce that Russia staged in the occupied territory under the guise of sham referenda. 143 UN member states supported the resolution, which protects the basic principles of the UN Charter and condemns Russia for the criminal attempt to annex our territory. This is a record number of states supporting Ukraine today. But I believe that there will be more.
Four states came out on the side of Russia – this is very eloquent. North Korea, Nicaragua, Belarus and Syria. Such a list that everything is clear.
I am grateful to each of the 143 states!
Today, an important meeting of our team, which deals with the issue of the release of prisoners, took place in the online format with representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international organizations related to this process.
Very important things were said. In particular, those concerning the institutional work of the Red Cross to guarantee the safety of those held in Russian captivity.
I believe that the International Committee of the Red Cross is not a club with privileges where they get paid and enjoy life. The Red Cross has obligations, primarily of a moral nature. The mandate of the Red Cross must be fulfilled. It is necessary to immediately do what is completely logical for the Red Cross.
There is Olenivka. In fact, a concentration camp where our prisoners are kept. Access to them is required, as it was stipulated. The Red Cross can make it happen. But you have to try to make it happen. Ukraine is ready to facilitate this.
The mission of the Red Cross can work on the model of the mission of the IAEA. But this requires leadership. Conscientiousness is required. Understanding who and why created such an institution as the Red Cross is required.
I am grateful to the team that continues to engage in exchanges: Budanov, Yermak, Usov, Maliuk. Today, we managed to return another 20 Ukrainians from captivity. 14 warriors of the army, four warriors of the territorial defense, one national guard and one warrior of the Navy. We are working on getting everyone back!
Our Air Forces continue the battle for Ukrainian skies. As in previous days, I received hourly reports of downed Russian missiles and drones. During the day, 11 missiles were fired, six missiles were shot down in Mykolaiv, Lviv and Dnipropetrovsk regions. Thank you to everyone who fulfills this task!
We urgently restore damaged infrastructure objects.
I also want to celebrate today the warriors of the 5th separate assault regiment of the Ground Forces, the 1st separate battalion of the marines and the battalion of the 4th brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine for their skillful and heroic actions during the defense in the Bakhmut direction.
This direction is still one of the toughest on the front. Thank you to everyone who defends our positions there and inflicts tangible hits on the occupiers.
Now Russia is sending thousands of its mobilized men to the front. They have no significant military training, but their command does not need it at all. They expect that the mobilized Russians will be able to survive in the war for at least a few weeks, then they will die, and then new ones will be sent to the front. But during this time, such use by Russian generals of their people as “cannon fodder” makes it possible to create additional pressure on our defenders.
It’s a tangible pressure. And I am grateful to all our warriors who endure it. I am also grateful to the partners who understand that in such conditions we need an increase in defense assistance. I thank everyone who fights, works and helps to protect Ukraine!
Tomorrow we will definitely celebrate – everyone in their place – one of our most important days. Intercession, Day of Defenders of Ukraine. The holiday of all our warriors – from ancient times to the present, from the Cossacks to the insurgents, from all of them to the warriors of the modern army.
Tomorrow will be the 233rd day of our full-scale defense. And new steps that bring us closer to peace and victory.
We do not relax! We beat the enemy! We follow the safety rules! We listen to the air alarm signal, especially tomorrow!
And we do everything to strengthen Ukraine!
Glory to Ukraine!
Here is former NAVDEVGRU Squadron Leader Chuck Pfarrer’s most recent assessments for the situations in Izium, Kherson,
IZIUM/1315 UTC 13 OCT/ UKR intel reports extremely low morale among RU reinforcements, leading to desertions, refusals and even outright mutiny. RU combat engineers are reported to be building a triple line of defensive trenches near the P-66 HWY. pic.twitter.com/tBE7QLaBSY
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) October 13, 2022
KHERSON/2130 UTC 13 OCT/ 19 UKR Close Air Support (CAS) missions were carried on in the last 24 hours, with approximately 6 occurring in the Kherson AO. UKR Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) missions continue with an additional six Russian SAM complexes reported destroyed. pic.twitter.com/yBMLmf0Dr5
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) October 13, 2022
What air defense doing?
DOING HARM: The UKR air force continues its successful campaign of Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD). The UKR General Staff has revealed that Ukrainian Forces interdicted three Russian S-300 air defense complexes in the vicinity of Tokmak in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. pic.twitter.com/06cobntieO
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) October 13, 2022
TOP GUN: Friend & colleague @HeliosRunner reports that in the last 48 hrs a UKR pilot destroyed 5 Shahed-136 drones & cruise missiles. His aircraft was hit today, but he managed to steer the wreckage away from the city of Vinnytsia before ejecting safely. Hang loose, Maverick! https://t.co/bDYJdL91h8 pic.twitter.com/M9JJRtzdBQ
— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) October 13, 2022
For our drone enthusiasts:
WW1-style duel. Ukrainan Mavic-drone, which we have delivered to one of the airborne units in Donetsk region, destroyes russian opponent. Amazing!
Pls support our Armed Forces: https://t.co/nw19NpRIN6 pic.twitter.com/2vaCBQINQK— Serhiy Prytula (@serhiyprytula) October 13, 2022
More air defense is on the way:
I’m grateful to my 🇪🇸 colleague Margarita Robles for the decision to send 4 Hawk air defense systems to Ukraine. It's quick response for 🇺🇦 request at #Ramstein 6
There are more Hawks on the way.
Today air defence is a priority not only for Ukraine, but for all of Europe.
🇺🇦🤝🇪🇸— Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) October 13, 2022
And winter gear from the Great White North!
Brief updates:
– Canada to provide $47M of supplies (500k winter uniforms!)
– France to provide 3 advanced MLRS systems
– NATO meeting: Ukraine air defence at top of agenda
– AFU destroys russian s-300 batteries
– AFU continues to liberate villages in Kherson— Maria Drutska 🇺🇦 (@maria_drutska) October 12, 2022
Obligatory since we’ve referenced Canada:
Also, obligatory: Canada’s unofficial alternative national anthem
For those who might be interested:
Before I forget — please feel free to join my online meeting with @BulletinAtomic on Nov. 9.
It’s 100 seconds to midnight now, but when the warmongering imperialist regime in the Kremlin loses power, this world will be a much safer place.https://t.co/e42ODqpDyy pic.twitter.com/VGRuYomqM6— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) October 13, 2022
That’ll do for tonight.
Your daily Patron!
These days, I learned a new profession. Cameradog 😀
Just kidding. I was honored to be a part of the documentary about Ukrainian animals. So after some time, you’ll be able to watch my ears there 😆 pic.twitter.com/FV9cmcvk0m— Patron (@PatronDsns) October 13, 2022
And a new video from Patron’s official TikTok:
@patron__dsns Everybody scream!😅 #песпатрон
♬ S.I.M.P (Squirrels In My Pants) [From ‘Phineas And Ferb’] – Geek Music
The caption came translated tonight!
Open thread!
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
Very glad to see more air defense on the way, and hope it is only the beginning of a deluge!
Yep. The man these people are dying for probably spends as much time thinking about their fate as he does ants on the ground under his shoe. I know armchair (or sofa in my case) diagnosis is frowned upon, but putin and his cronies seem to be the epitome of sociopathy.
Thank you as always, Adam. Hope tomorrow is a slightly less busy day for you.
Dan B
@Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: It seems that empathy for anyone is seen as weakness and since the world is seen as dog eat dog, weakness is suicidal. Conservatism is gone there is only reactionary politics versus democratic.
Winston
Why don’t we just nuke these mother fuckers and get on with peace?
Jay
Frist?
Jay
@Jay:
Nope.
Dan B
dmsilev
I was surprised to read about the Hawks, since I thought those were long-since-retired antiques, but apparently upgraded models of the system are in active use in a bunch of countries (but not the US).
MobiusKlein
@Winston:
Because that kind of peace nobody will live thru
Winston
@MobiusKlein: Yes we will.
Dan B
@MobiusKlein: It also kills civilians including children. As much as the rage I feel would love to bomb Moscow there are people who do not deserve to die.
Tony G
It seems interesting that of the 14 non-Russian former “Soviet Socialist Republics” only Belarus opposed the UN resolution. It seems like the other ones in Central Asia and the Caucasus are not too eager to fall in line behind the leadership of comrade Putin.
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
@Winston: Because that would be catastrophic for way more people than just the russian government and military. Or do you think there’s a forcefield around russia and none of the fallout would reach anyone else?
Winston
@Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: not much
Chetan Murthy
@Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: I don’t know what Winston’s deal is, but …. they’ve been a “kill ’em all (with nukes) and let God sort ’em out” fanboi before. Probably best not to engage.
Captain C
@Alison Rose 💙🌻💛:
At this point, since I think those who believe this are vastly overestimating the survival rate of the new mobniks and what passes for their units (very few want to be there, and many if not most will likely surrender or desert at first opportunity), I have to wonder if Putin’s plan is to make the Ukrainians kill so many of them that they (the Ukrainians) get sick of it and sue for peace.
Tony G
@Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: That seems like a fragile “system” for deploying troops. By definition, low-ranking soldiers outnumber and have more firepower than their officers, and at a certain point people who are being led to their deaths will fight back. Traditionally, I guess, NCOs keep the rabble in line, but maybe the Russian Army is running short of NCOs at this point. Seems like a train wreck that might get worse soon.
Shalimar
@Winston: Hell of a bet you’re willing to make with billions of lives. Thank god it isn’t your choice.
Tony G
@Captain C: That would not be a very smart plan on Putin’s part. At this point the Ukrainian Army has been watching civilians being slaughtered for almost 8 months. I’m pretty sure that they’ll have no qualms about continuing to kill Russian soldiers. Putin does not seem to be a very bright guy. He’s been doing the same thing for decades, and he doesn’t know how to change.
Chetan Murthy
@Captain C: [I don’t mean this as a correction, and certainly not in the sense of it’s “Ukraine” not “the Ukraine”, but] IIUC, the term of art is “mobik”, not “mobnik”. I don’t pretend to understand Russian, but apparently that’s the term. Why it’s “mobik” and yet “vatnik” …. i got no clue ah well.
Winston
@Chetan Murthy: Like you think you know what’s going to happen, and what if you’re wrong?
Captain C
@Chetan Murthy: Ah, thanks. Wasn’t sure.
Jay
@Dan B:
the Complimentary All Inclusive “Holiday” in Russia is for Vatniks from the DPR, LPR and Crimea to “holiday”, ahead of UA advances in those regions until the sucessful completion of the “Special Military Operation”.
That way they don’t have to call it “The Evacuation of the Quislings and Russian Civil Overseers”.
Shalimar
@Winston: What do you think is going to happen? You seem to be saying Russia won’t be able to respond to a first strike, even though nuclear strategy for 70 years has been that the victim will have time to respond.
Jinchi
I wonder if it’s also an attempt to scare up new recruits in place. Just separate all the males between 15 and 65 from the evacuees and – presto – fresh reinforcements. Putin wouldn’t even need to spend money on transportation or housing.
Tony G
@Tony G: “UKR intel reports extremely low morale among RU reinforcements, leading to desertions, refusals and even outright mutiny.” — Actually, it seems like some kind of resistance is already happening. I’m pretty sure that once this starts it’s very difficult for even competent officers to stop. It’s very hard to get men to risk their lives under the best of circumstances. When it becomes obvious that their lives are being wasted for no reason there is no logical reason to not rebel.
Chetan Murthy
@Captain C: Heh, neither am I. I’m just going by what I see used all over ….. sigh. I have this fanciful idea of learning Ukrainian, but that might not even help here, since the word “mobik” is Russian. And besides, I’d wanna learn …. German [Goethe, Schiller, Heine], Italian [Dante], Spanish [Cela, Vargas Llosa, Garcia Marquez], [and brush up on my French] before I got to Ukrainian. Ah, well.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
mobik’s are the mobilized cannon fodder.
vatnik’s are Russian carpetbaggers, pro-Russian trolls, media and Ukrainian Quislings.
Winston
@Shalimar: Russia wont be able to respond. they will only be able to first strike.
Adam L Silverman
@Winston: I like Dr. Strangelove as much as the next guy, but it’s not meant to be treated like an operational instruction manual.
Jinchi
@Shalimar: Winston reads like a lot of the Russian mil-bloggers posted by Dmitri (@wartranslated) . It’s utter nonsense fantasy.
dexwood
@Winston:
i once had a great dog named Winston. He was a better person than you. Why don’t you go fuck yourself.
Repatriated
@Captain C:
“…Killbots have a preset kill limit… ” – Z. Brannigan
Shalimar
@Winston: So you’re an idiot who is sure of things no one can know for sure. Got it.
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
@Winston: Oh, I didn’t realize I was talking to a nuclear weapons expert. How fortunate. Please, quantify “not much” for us. How many Ukrainians would die from it? How many Estonians? Latvians, Finns, Lithuanians, Kazakhs, Armenians, Georgians, and fucking so on? If you think sacrificing hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of people is perfectly acceptable, then explain to me how you are any different than the Kremlin?
Dan B
@Jay: A “holiday” for quislings makes sense.
Shalimar
@Jinchi: Yeah. I see.
Shalimar
@Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: You’re leaving out that even if he’s right and there is no response, murdering millions of Russian civilians still would make Winston an evil asshole.
Dan B
@Jinchi: So many advantages but the mutinies and killings of officers have already begun so it would be risky to put Ukrainian men in with untrained Russian cannon fodder.
Jay
@Tony G:
Dimitri, (War Translated) had posted a translated phone call between two Wagner guys, (in different units), in which one of the Wagner guys “bitched” about the Prisoner recruits, half of whom wouldn’t deploy, 1/4 surrendered first chance they got, and 1/4 who took their AK’s and side arms back with them to Russia to restart their criminal careers.
Kyle Rayner
@Chetan Murthy:
Vatnik comes from the adjective “vatnaya” referring to cotton military uniforms, so the diminutive uses the n very naturally. Mobik is just… mobik. Idk how it got shortened to that exactly, but there’s definitely no n after the b in mobilizatsiya.
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
@Shalimar: True, and thank you for calling me on that. I admit I struggle to think of russian civilians because…you know…but the US killing millions of them would not be okay.
Chetan Murthy
@Kyle Rayner: aha! or, uh, o.i.c. make sense! Thank you for the explanation!
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Jay: It sounds like the 1/4 who surrender the first chance they get are the smart ones.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: P.S. It is no longer surprising to me that random commenters have deep knowledge of relevant (or, heck, irrelevant) fields of human endeavor, and somehow arrive most presently upon their hour.
HumboldtBlue
Sen. Chris Murphy
Jay
BeautifulPlumage
@Tony G:
“…at a certain point people who are being led to their deaths will fight back.”
Chuck Pfarrer’s 2nd map includes a description of a UK reported event where new conscripts shot their commander and surrendered with weapons
Jay
Amir Khalid
@Tony G:
I’ve been reading and hearing that the Russian army, where all authority comes straight from the top, doesn’t have an NCO corps the way other armies do. So there are really no sergeants to keep the boys organised and in line. It shows in small things like poorly kept field encampments, and big things like running away when they see Ukrainians coming.
glc
@Adam L Silverman: There’s a phrase that serves many purposes: “That was intended as a warning, not a suggestion.”
Also covers jumping in elevators for that matter.
Jinchi
@Alison Rose 💙🌻💛:
This is a typical estimate for how many could die from a “limited” nuclear exchange. These studies often focus on an exchange between India and Pakistan because (a) they don’t have ‘that many’ bombs, (b) they’re smaller in size than the big boys and (c) you can study the worldwide effects of an exchange localized to a particular region.
You don’t have to be anywhere near the war to die from it.
Winston
So we will see, and if Russia nuke us what will you say?
Jay
hotshoe
@Chetan Murthy:
— and so elegantly re-phrase a master’s classic line, too.
Winston
@Winston: We should have nuked them first ?
Jinchi
@Jay: Curious question for anyone with experience, but how exactly would the Ukrainians handle the surrender of large numbers of enemy soldiers at the frontlines in the heat of battle.
That must be a logistical nightmare, even if preferable to the alternative of exchanging fire.
Shalimar
@Winston: If they nuke us,it will prove you were wrong about their ability to retaliate if we struck first.
Jay
@Amir Khalid:
correct. Russian Army NCO’s, (other than Contract Soldiers) are 2 year conscripts just like the rest of the proles.
They, like Jr. Officers are expected/needed to “lead from the front”, and as a result are heavily attrited in combat.
Ruckus
@Tony G:
Russia does not believe in NCOs as we and other militaries do. It is a severe issue for them because there are basically no leaders other than officers, no one with control other than officers. And not anywhere near enough officers means they have a fighting force that is basically rudderless. Russian society and military is a top down society. Think the one guy on a horse with a sword and everyone else is walking. It isn’t of course that bad but it is like that from a operational concept. Very few people have any level of authority. When that upper level fails there is no one else to take up the slack.
Shalimar
@Jinchi: I don’t know what their procedures are, but Ukrainians have been handling the surrender of large numbers of Russians over the last 6 weeks.
Jay
@Winston:
Russia/Pootie-Poot has been threatening to nuke “us” since 1999 if we crossed any of his “red lines”.
Guess what, no nukes and every one of Pootie-Poots redlines eventually crossed.
Russia isn’t going to even use a small tactical nuke or engineer a “nuclear accident” in Ukraine, as that will result in the swift destruction of the Russian Military, (everywhere) and make the isolation and sanctions against North Korea look generous.
Russia’s not going to Nuke anybody in “The West” either.
Man you are so gutless and gullible.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Could we just not have a nuclear war, please? It’s a really bad idea. Thank you.
livewyre
@Winston: To be entirely fair, you’re not the first one to lash out in fear with the aim of looking tough. Someone named Vladimir beat you to it. That’s why so many folks are getting paid to push wild fantasies of pulling out of aid or striking first. Present company excepted.
phdesmond
@Chetan Murthy:
i thought of a calm but perhaps convincing argument for people who persist in calling it “the Ukraine.”
my phone number used to be KIrkland 7-1000, but i call it 547-1000, because AT&T changed the rules for telephone numbers a half century ago.
a similar argument can be made using the Postal Service and the mid-century switch from New York 16, N.Y. to NY NY 10016.
also, it will make your conversational partner feel quaint, if you do it subtly. :-)
Jackie
@HumboldtBlue: Chris Murphy has great ideas! From his lips to President Biden’s ears!
Sister Golden Bear
@Captain C: Killbots have a preset limit doncha know.
Carlo Graziani
@Jinchi: In WWII surrender was often one of the most dangerous things a soldier in any army could attempt, even to the US army.
Much depends on the security of the units that one is surrendering to. Surrender to a large, advancing formation, a you might just be disarmed and sent to the rear. But surrender to a small unit, like a platoon, that can’t afford to detach personnel to guard or escort you, in the middle of an action? There’s a much cheaper and more expedient option, and no JAG is watching, and there’s no time to waste…
It’s wrong, and illegal, but it pretty much happens in all wars to some extent.
Citizen Alan
@Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: Hey, Winston’s not saying we won’t get our hair mussed. /s
Chetan Murthy
@phdesmond: You’re a kind person. Me, I react to those types with “do you also continue to use the n-word? How about calling the Chinese capital Peking? Is it Bombay or Mumbai? Burma or Myanmar? Grow the fuck up.”
Jay
@Jinchi:
Ukraine has distributed hundreds of thousands of flyers and cards instructing Russian soldiers on the proper way to surrender, ( and the Ukrainian “bounties” they will be paid if they bring their gear, (tanks, jets, APC’s , IFV’s, etc) in working order). They also have the option of eventually attaining Ukrainian Citizenship under certain conditions.
Once surrendered, they are disarmed, gathered in groups, ( in shelter), fed and sent to the rear when an empty vehicle is available. (Most supply trucks return from the front empty).
As in WWI and WWII, it only takes a guy or two to guard and escort the surrendered to the rear.
“Captured” are often a different matter, but unlike many troops in WWI and WWII, there seem to be few Russian troops willing to fight to the last bullet, then surrender when surrounded. Most Russian troops still willing to fight seem to perform uncommanded “straightening of lines” manuevers.
Winston
@Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: You Squeamish assholes think they think the same about you?
Chetan Murthy
@Jay:
I’m reminded of that long video interview with the former RU tank-driver who surrendered and ended up as the tank mechanic for the UA armored company to which he’d surrendered. He said something like “it is my little dream to someday gain Ukrainian citizenship.”
All I can say is “bravo!” And I hope he obtains it.
Another Scott
Shocking!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Chetan Murthy
@Winston: Shorter Winston: “I’m not sayin’ we wouldn’t get our hair mussed”
Jesse
Nicaragua? Huh.
Captain C
@Chetan Murthy: Yeah, I wish I was one of those people who could learn a new language in nothing flat.
Ken B
I’ve been thinking more and more that it would be really nice to have something like NAFO to smother the right wing’s lies and bullshit.
Also the anti vaxxers. Same group or another one, I dunno.
I know that still leaves the networks, but at least the echo chamber might get muted.
phdesmond
@hotshoe: would you be horseless Hotspur?
phdesmond
@Chetan Murthy: that is slightly harsher, i must admit … but no less accurate.
Chetan Murthy
@Captain C: I was monolingual until age 26 (French, for work); what worked was to be completely fearless of making mistakes, and having patient co-workers. That, and 2 months at the Alliance Francaise taking immersion courses a half-day every weekday.
Russian used to be high on my list, b/c Turgenev (also, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, but … *especially* Turgenev). But now? Not so much. I doubt I’ll still be around when Russia has become sufficiently reformed (if ever) that i could learn it without feeling anger.
Jay
Jay
@Ken B:
apparently up here, the nutjobs are “demanding” blood and plasma transfusions that are certified to be from unvaxxed donors.
The Red Cross here does not gather or track that here,
so, “no blood for you”.
NutmegAgain
@Winston: Are you old enough to remember the Chernobyl disaster as an adult? Because I am. And I remember the children with ungodly birth defects, which was only one consequence of exposure to that radiation.* Since I also had–and have–family living in Europe, I remember their panic and watching the patterns of the dust cloud, which no one can control of course.
*I am of course also of an age to remember safety drills where we went down into the basement of the school, and sat in the hallway with our jackets over our heads. Even at that age I doubted that my thin windbreaker was going to do any good, but in those days school kids were mostly compliant.
HumboldtBlue
Jay
OT, but,
Kyle Rayner
@Chetan Murthy:
It’s very satisfying to see someone else rank Turgenev over the other two.
topclimber
Adam has enlightened many of us over the years about asymmetric warfare, where in the right circumstances a small movement can out perform a much bigger foe (think Al-Qaeda vs. US).
Winston has now demonstrated asymmetric blogging: one idiot/troll elicits multiple comments from jackals who cannot help but point out his stupidity. Way to go Winnie!
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
@Winston: You’re seriously calling me squeamish because I don’t think we as a nation should indiscriminately murder millions of people?
How can I put this civilly. Oh wait, I can’t. Go fuck yourself, you abominable trashfire.
Chetan Murthy
@Kyle Rayner: Between “Torrents of Spring”, “First Love”, and some of his short stories about serfs in Russian viillages, he’s my favorite Russian author. And “Clara Milich”. Boy howdy.
Jay
Redshift
@Chetan Murthy: Yeah, there sure is a lot of pie around the place tonight…
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: How did they capture them ? A box leaning on a stick (with a string attached), and a picnic spread underneath it? Man, those are some forlorn mobiks. I’m glad they got themselves captured without much damage.
Jackie
@topclimber: He’s the 2nd person I’ve pied. Tasted delicious!
Winston
@NutmegAgain: I am 75
Redshift
@Jay: Yeah, I feel like one of the things the Ukrainians have done really well is to make it clear to poorly trained RU troops that it’s safe to surrender, and by constantly reiterating that war crimes are being investigated and documented, reduce the inclination of their own troops to take revenge on surrendered RUs for those actions.
phdesmond
@Winston:
i am 3.14-you.
Winston
@Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: i said they wouldn’t be squeamish about killing you.
Redshift
@topclimber:
That’s what the pie filter is for. Don’t be shy about using it where it’s warranted, it works amazingly well to keep the discussion more pleasant for everyone, better than any other automated moderation tool I know of.
gwangung
@topclimber: High class trolling there. I’m actually impressed.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani: Posted the below response to your NSS comment in the previous thread. Re-posting here in case the other one is dead.
James E Powell
@Tony G:
Since Putin is trying to reconstitute the Russian Empire, why doesn’t he just annex Belarus. They seem simpatico.
James E Powell
@Ruckus:
Is there some Russian or Soviet explanation for that?
Jay
Longish thread,
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
@Winston: So what? You could say that about a lot of people. I’ll point out that I’m queer and Jewish. There are literally millions of people in the world who would happily ice me. But because I’m not a bloodthirsty monster, I don’t think they should all be preemptively killed.
You need to stop. This is really despicable.
Sally
Can we please remember that the abbreviation for Ukraine is UA. The abbreviation UK refers to the United Kingdom.
Kyle Rayner
@Chetan Murthy:
I’ve never known where to start on his shorter works so have only read Fathers & Sons. I consider it the greatest pre-modern tragedian novel I’ve ever read. (The greatest modern tragedian novel I’ve read is Roadside Picnic by the Strugatskis, though I’m told I must finish their Hard to Be a God before casting my final vote.) Thank you for listing the works that stuck with you – I’ve made note. :)
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: With all due respect, two thoughts:
China steals Western technology.
3. But that is as nothing compared to the current situation, where China is manifestly and belligerently threatening a deadly war against Taiwan. Taiwan is an American ally and a peaceful and democratic nation. If China were acting this way towards Japan, should we turn a blind eye? And if not, then why would we turn a blind eye in the case of Taiwan?
Chetan Murthy
@Kyle Rayner: Oh, I forgot about Fathers and Sons! That was great! Re: what to read, I found his short stories to be just wonderful. That said, Torrents of Spring is some effed-up relationship stuff. effed-up. Twwwwwwiiiiisted.
Another Scott
For the lawyers: On the lighter/nighmare side…
Whoops.
(via Popehat)
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay
@James E Powell:
it goes back to Imperial Russia and their reliance on a Conscript Army. The Soviets carried on the “tradition” but with Commisars out ranking” officers.
Then you have the conditions of hazing in the Soviet/Russian military that a “proper” NCO Corp would put a stop to. In part it is driven by the ingrained “we had to deal with this shit, why should the new recruits have it any different”.
When Russia “tried” to professionalize it’s military, they didn’t bother to try to professionalize any part of the Corps other than Officers and Special Forces.
Bill Arnold
@Sally:
And the three letter (ISO) code is UKR
The Pale Scot
@Carlo Graziani:
” Shock troops don’t take prisoners”
All of my USMC (Korea, Vietnam) uncles
Winston
@Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: Yeah and I feel for you. I’m native. Do you feel for me? My family was 1000s of years before you came here to supress us.
Kineslaw
@Carlo Graziani: This is very true. The difference is all Ukranian soldiers know anything they do might be being recorded and could end up on social media and their government needs help from the rest of Europe & the US. They also know Ukraine is encouraging Russian soldiers to surrender and treating them well as both a battlefield military tactic and a PR military tactic.
I doubt that will prevent all incidents of surrendering soldiers ending up killed, but the incentives and circumstances are different that WWI and WWII.
Chetan Murthy
@Winston: I coulda sworn Ted Kaczynski was still locked-up in Florence ADX. But no, he’s free and commenting on this here blog.
Feathers
@Chetan Murthy: There’s a new translation of Fathers and Children (apparently a more exact translation of the title) from the New York Review of Books that I want to read. Found out about it in Brandon Taylor’s newsletter. Wonderful discussion of the book: Zaddies and They Kids
Winston
@Chetan Murthy: ? are you insane?
Chetan Murthy
@Winston: Clearly didn’t get good marks in high school English, eh? Try again, Ted.
The Pale Scot
Because good NCO’s are leaders that have the trust and respect of their men. That’s politically dangerous to an authoritarian regime.
Remember the film Platoon, Beringer and Defoyr, You’re going to say no to those guys?
Winston
@Winston: And we welcomed you. And you killed us.
Jay
Shalimar
@Winston: Supress is a drug for allergies.
Jay
@Carlo Graziani:
towards the end of WWII in Europe, there was a bit of a mad rush amongst Nazi troops to flee west to surrender to the Brits, Aussis, Kiwis, Canadians, Americans, French, Brazilians, Indians. etc, rather than surrender or even fight the Red Army.
I wonder why that was?
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: China did indeed steal western IP, & still does, as had every country during their catch up phases of development (the US, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.). However, the idea that Chinese entities are only capable of copying & not innovation is woefully out of date. If that was the case, the Biden Administration would not be imposing these restrictions to maintain US technological leadership. One cannot steal one’s way to leadership. In fact, the intent of the restrictions is to prevent Chinese entities from legitimately purchasing US products, & will instead encourage further IP theft & smuggling of US products to circumvent the restrictions.
As for the Taiwan, I think this article in Foreign Affairs is the best take & the best recommendations:
How to Avoid a War Over Taiwan
Threats, Assurances, and Effective Deterrence
The technological Cold War against China does nothing to make Taiwan safer, & is in fact highly damaging to the Taiwanese economy, since semiconductors & microelectronic products account for the largest portion of Taiwanese exports to Mainland China, & Taiwan runs a huge trade surplus w/the Mainland. If the US’ semiconductor industrial policy succeeds, it will come at the expense of South Korea & Taiwan. Its aim is to hobble the Chinese demand for semiconductors, which is a key & highly profitable market for South Korean & Taiwanese companies. At the same time, the US is twisting the arms of South Koreans & Taiwanese to build fabs & foundries in the US, investments that TSMC’s leadership has been on the record of being deeply skeptical of the economic viability. The EU & Japan (& China, too) are also pushing the same players to build factories w/in their borders. So, if the US policy is to success, the global pie will be smaller, the US (& EU, Japan, & China), will want larger slices of the smaller pie, that necessarily means the hollowing out of South Korean & Taiwanese semiconductor industries. You cannot escape the arithmetic. For Taiwan especially it will be economically debilitating, given the importance of the semiconductor industry to its competitiveness. Gina Raimondo captured the inherent contradiction & incoherence when she talked of the dangerous dependence on China, & as evidence cited the fact that the US purchases 90% of the most advanced semiconductors from South Korea & Taiwan.
Of course, the US industrial policy on semiconductors may well fail.
way2blue
@Jinchi: I wonder something similar—how would Ukraine handle thousands of POWs? Logistically. In the midst of a war. Could they be housed in other countries?
Chetan Murthy
@way2blue: Somehow I feel that “three hots (actual hot meals, worth eating) and a cot” will be so compelling that most of these POWs will not want to go home, or back to war. I mean …. conditions for RU soldiers are *miserable*.
OK ok ok, I’m *hoping*. I saw that pic of some UA soldiers making themselves a massive sushi meal, and couldn’t help but smiling.
livewyre
@Winston: Have to admit, I wasn’t exactly expecting “land back” used as a justification for nuclear first strike. Unless the argument is that refusing to indulge one’s own extermination fantasies is a form of continued oppression, in which case, as stated, somebody on a different continent kind of beat you to it.
I wonder if there’s something comforting about imagining oneself as big and scary a monster as one’s rival, ready to outdo them by any conceivable measure – willing to do what it takes. That would be understandable. Not excusable, but understandable.
Chetan Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: “Wandel durch Handel” has evidently not worked with China, either. It’s in the US’ and West’s interest to find other trading partners who aren’t gearing up for a major war: we don’t need to be financing the next big war, right after we financed this one.
way2blue
@Another Scott: That photo made me laugh. Thanks.
Ruckus
@Shalimar:
Seems like arguing with him is a total waste of time and electrons.
Here’s a guy who has zero understanding of what would happen if even 10% of the nukes made it to their targets. He doesn’t get that it’s not thousands that would die but billions. And those left would likely starve in a short while if the lasted through the radiation poisoning. He seems to think the world is true and false, yes and no, black and white. He values life as if it will still be around after a global nuclear war, that he will be fine, even if he does manage not to be blown up and that the world won’t change. He expects the supermarkets to be open and full of food, the gas stations to be refilled by all the gas trucks that no longer exist from the refineries that blew up in the first nuclear strike because they are so far away from the population centers. Trying to talk his dumb ass down off his ledge of nuclear warfare is an utter waste of time and effort because he has zero understanding of just how big one nuclear blast would be and how many nuclear warheads would likely land in the US, even if only that 10% hit or actually went off
That bakery outlet at the top of the comments section is a very nice tool. Much nicer tool than winston.
Captain C
@Chetan Murthy: I took Latin in high school, and then Russian in college (I was a Russian History major of all things); I remember little of both. I made sure to learn a few dozen words of Japanese before going there in 2019; I used the Pimsleur lessons and they worked well for me.
As to literature, well, where to begin…
way2blue
@Jay: Good. I read about the Nord Stream 2 offer yesterday but didn’t know if it was real. Or a taunt. Glad to hear Germany blew them off…
Chetan Murthy
@Ruckus:
The living would envy the dead, is what would happen.
Captain C
@The Pale Scot:
Definitely not if you’re the green lieutenant.
Chetan Murthy
@Captain C: I learned French at 26; I’m 57 now, so ….30yr has passed. I prefer to believe that if I were to immerse myself into any Latin culture, I could pick up the language just as quickly. And nearing retirement-age, I feel like maybe it’s time to give it a try. It’s a pity I never learned how to vacation properly ….
Jay
@way2blue:
Compared to the living conditions for mobiks, a large canopy tent, two or three heaters, cots, sleeping bags, warm clothes, communal showers and toilets, three square a day, some medical care would be a huge step up and not that expensive or take up a lot of space.
The biggest issue with large numbers of POW’s is keeping order in the camps, (roles filled by Officers and NCO’s in WWII, but not possible with RA POW’s) and keeping them positively occupied,
Some number of POW’s who wish to “switch sides” can be “paroled” and given non-combat roles.
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: ISTR that during WWII a lot of German POWs were brought to North America and spent productive and (to their view) rewarding time here; many chose to stay at the end of hostilities, IIRC.
sab
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
@Winston: Yes, I do, in fact. What’s your point here? Because of the oppression and violence against your ancestors, you’ve got carte blanche to call for mass murder of millions of people who didn’t have a hand in it?
You ever heard of a little blip in history called the fucking Holocaust? Would it be okay for me to say “let’s carpet bomb Germany and Austria”? I lost family to the Nazis. Doesn’t mean I want to become as base and barbaric as they were.
You need to step the fuck off, dude.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
there was a program in all the Western Allied nations of “Volenteer Labour” from POW’s. They were paid a small amount, got to leave the camps for the day, and do basic labour. Quite often they worked in the labour areas such as logging, farming, road work where a massive shortage had been created by mobilization.
In both the German POW Camps for “Western” POW’s, and Allied Camps for Axis POWs, education and sports were a key means of preventing “social ills” due to confinement.
Jay
Jay
Carlo Graziani
@YY_Sima Qian: In that same not-yet-dead thread, I responded! Here it is:
Probably only you and me in this thread now. I’ll read more deeply into the commenters that you recommend. I don’t really disagree about the mismatch between day-to-day policy and the NSS goals, but I don’t think that really points to an incoherence, so much as to how relatively quickly relations have degenerated, and how hard it is for coherent policy to keep up.
I have many accomplished Chinese academic colleagues, and the prospect of a true freeze of intellectual/academic exchanges strikes me as implausible even in AI research, despite the fact that government officials may come to see it as necessary. Nonetheless, I will push back a little on a minor point: metrics of scientific achievement such as “quantity of highly cited papers in top publications” are highly unreliable indicators of preeminence of a scientific establishment. Such metrics are routinely gamed, especially in establishments that prize them, and occasionally weight them more highly than actual accomplishment (I could tell you stories…). I believe that there still exist structural, institutional, and cultural reasons that advantage US R&D over that of other nations, including China, and while there can be no guarantee that these reasons will persist (heavens knows they are certainly not rooted in a superior educational system!) “catch-up” is certainly not a simple matter of investment, whatever the CPCs view of the matter may be.
The degeneration in bilateral relations does grieve me. Nonetheless, it seems to me that whatever the defects of US policy towards China, they proceed from a clearer perception of the world, of Chinese power, of Chinese intentions, and of US interests, than the CPC’s perception of US power (hard and –importantly– soft), of Western cohesion, of China’s own neighbors’ attitudes towards itself, of just about anybody’s intentions, and perhaps arguably (although I recognize the arrogance of this statement) of where its own true interests lie. CPC’s leadership sometimes seems to have inherited the old imperial involute outlook, refusing to understand the world as it is rather than in terms of psychological projections of what it chooses to see. Hence absurd bits of theatre like Xi lecturing visiting EU officials on their false consciousness leading them to the error of supporting the US against Russia last spring.
I worry about how hard-shelled that epistemic bubble is. I hope that the events of this year have caused some fissures in it. I realize that everyone always wants the other guy to give,but in this case I believe that the CPC is going to have to allow a dose of reality in — Xi is going to have to listen to people occasionally telling him things he doesn’t want to hear — before things can really get substantially better.
Ruckus
@James E Powell:
It’s old school military. The officers were higher up on the royalty scale. They got all of their power from the king. The concept of any level of power other than one class of people was considered insane. And the opposition was basically very similar in make up. No one trusted the bodies. The pecking order was fixed through out society, wealthy/poor. The officer rode a horse, everyone else walked. This was warfare till about 100 yrs ago. As that changed and countries got bigger and more populated and actual production manufacturing arrived and vehicles became a reality and humans had been fucking in big enough numbers to be more than just small towns any more, military force became a different business. It could no longer be just one wealthy dude on a horse and everyone else. Some countries have never really changed all that much in structure from the time of kings and paupers. Russia is one of them. And one of those concepts that haven’t changed is trust. The top end does not trust the lower ranks and the lower ranks do not trust the top. So the top end is still a relatively small percentage of the population and most everyone else is a relative poor. In Russia there are a small number of multi billionaires while the average salary is $20K/yr. Is it somewhat better than it was 50 yrs ago? Yes. But some things take a lot longer to change. The power/money segment is not a lot different than here, high wealth, low/no taxes, all the power. And vlad sits at the top of that heap. He is supposedly the wealthiest man in the world, while his salary is something like $150K/yr. Do the math – you’ll need a special calculator. It’s somewhat like a lot of our wealthy, worth billions, pay a lower tax rate than most employed people, think their shit doesn’t stink (it does, often far worse) and everyone else. Now our economy does make this a bit more equitable but not all that much more.
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: Thanks. It is useful to have your perspective, looking at both sides.
Ruckus
@Chetan Murthy:
And likely not be living for long…
Jay
Jay
sab
@Ruckus: Not regarding that commenter, but the pie filter would work better if using emojis didn’t block it. If you add an emoji in your nym, once a front pager clears you then you cannot be blocked in the pie filter. The emoji gets you through the filter. Your basic nym is blocked, but your nym with emoji has clear sailing.
Carlo Graziani
(Late) Public Service Announcement:
“Winston” is a known troll. The threads that he infects tend to see their signal-to-noise dwindle to zero, as serious conversations become choked out by kindly-meant but misguided and unavailing attempts to educate him, disbelieving efforts to understand what the hell he is on about, probes of his sanity, and exchanges of invective. As you have perceived by now, he is mean-drunk aggressive, has the intellect of a woodchuck, and is about as pleasant and as persistent as a crotch rash. His true milieu is YouTube comment threads, not adult conversation.
Best practice is to ignore him until he goes away, lest you catch a touch of what ails him. Remember, “When you get into a shouting match with an idiot, it can be difficult for onlookers to ascertain which one is the idiot…”
Ruckus
@sab:
I fully agree. It is however much better than nothing.
I also wish the current software/servers would actually load the site in one fell swoop, instead of 3 or 4 swoops. Oh well, it’s still a lot better than what we had 20 yrs ago. And that beat the hell out of 40 yrs ago……
Frankensteinbeck
@Carlo Graziani:
This is one of the most dangerous types of troll, and a dynamic I first noticed in the Obama years. In those cases it was blatantly politically motivated. During election years, when a thread was about cheering how great some Democrat was, one of a small number or known nyms would parachute in and turn it into an argument about whether some Democrat was bad. It wasn’t that anyone agreed with them, and the argument might not even be angry, but they could reliably get good news completely abandoned as a conversation topic.
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
@Carlo Graziani: I know you’re right. Sometimes when people say things that are so beyond the pale, though, it’s very difficult not to respond. And then when they decide to act like no one else in the world has ever been through anything bad besides them, well. Bah.
But you are indeed right. Might be nice if he could just get yeeted from the blog entirely.
kalakal
Nice to see this phrasing from the BBC today
* I don’t mean the air raids are nice, I mean it’s good to see a major news organization give no credence to any of Putin’s territorial claims and just flatly state that Crimea is Ukranian
Captain C
@Chetan Murthy: If you’re enjoying yourself you’re doing it right.
Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom
Is it moi or is Zelensky getting a trifle pissed off with the International Red Cross?
sab
@Ruckus: Agreed. I treat the emojis in the nym as a flashing light and skip them.
The online world is an exciting development. I remember when my lapsing Catholic husband had online arguments with some RWNJ cardinal somewhere in the USA. That cardinal wouldn’t even have acknowledged him in meatspace, but online they were almost equals. Of course it ended badly, but challenged bullying often does. Husband now talks to a real priest. I’m not Catholic. I don’t see what his problem is with my church ( English king divorced in the fifteenth century? That was a while back in history.) Whatever. I am glad he is searching.
sab
@Ruckus: Agreed. I treat the emojis in the nym as a flashing light and skip them.
The online world is an exciting development. I remember when my lapsing Catholic husband had online arguments with some RWNJ cardinal somewhere in the USA. That cardinal wouldn’t even have acknowledged him in meatspace, but online they were almost equals. Of course it ended badly, but challenged bullying often does. Husband now talks to a real priest. I’m not Catholic. I don’t see what his problem is with my church ( English king divorced in the fifteenth century? That was a while back in history.) Whatever. I am glad he is searching.
sab
@Ruckus: Agreed. I treat the emojis in the nym as a flashing light and skip them.
The online world is an exciting development. I remember when my lapsing Catholic husband had online arguments with some RWNJ cardinal somewhere in the USA. That cardinal wouldn’t even have acknowledged him in meatspace, but online they were almost equals. Of course it ended badly, but challenged bullying often does. Husband now talks to a real priest. I’m not Catholic. I don’t see what his problem is with my church ( English king divorced in the fifteenth century? That was a while back in history.) Whatever. I am glad he is searching.
sab
@Ruckus: Agreed. I treat the emojis in the nym as a flashing light and skip them.
The online world is an exciting development. I remember when my lapsing Catholic husband had online arguments with some RWNJ cardinal somewhere in the USA. That cardinal wouldn’t even have acknowledged him in meatspace, but online they were almost equals. Of course it ended badly, but challenged bullying often does. Husband now talks to a real priest. I’m not Catholic. I don’t see what his problem is with my church ( English king divorced in the fifteenth century? That was a while back in history.) Whatever. I am glad he is searching.
Nora Lenderbee
@Jinchi:
Well hey, when global warming gets bad, we can solve it *and* overpopulation in one swell foop.
/s
sab
@sab: Edit didn’t work this time. Saw the duplicate but could not fix/ delete.
livewyre
@Carlo Graziani: Well, while we’re arguing, I have a nitpick or two on that. In the absence of technical measures, i.e. banning from the site on the basis of advocacy for a war crime (no matter how clownishly exaggerated), we’re left with social measures – and urging everyone to exercise their individual discretion in refraining from interacting with a supposedly deliberate and competent provocateur seems well-meant but hard to substantiate as such. If everyone can’t be kept from biting at once, then at least we can shape how it’s done.
Rather, I think we’ve done well in allowing this one to work to his own discredit alongside amicable discussion of the previous topic. A telling contrast, I’d say, and a demonstration of how fear twists itself into uselessness, no matter how feigned for effect.
ETA: Of course I’ll honor the implied request not to offer any more direct responses. The routine has played itself out either way.
sab
YY_Sima Qian: My older sister has spent her whole life trying to bridge China and America. She has done it throuugh art history. Weird way, but there are cultural touchstones and connections. Her kids are more technological in their interests.
Ruckus
@Carlo Graziani:
When my limit is reached here on BJ I just put them in the pie filter. I have 4 people in there now and one of them hasn’t shown up for quite a while. The nicest thing about the pie filter is that if enough people put someone in it, they get few responses and usually just fade away.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani: Agree on the limitations of metrics & how they can be gamed. However, those same metrics were being used a decade or two ago to argue how the Chinese were incapable of innovation or meaningful scientific research. Again, the greatest evidence of China’s advances is in fact the lengths the US is now willing to go to slow it down.
At this point I do not have much hope either superpower is capable behaving responsibly to prevent sleepwalking into a Cold War (& remember in the US the executive branch is not the only player, there is also Congress which is even more hawkish). There need to be a concerted effort by all of the other players to make it clear to both superpowers that the world is not interest in being divided into blocks, the flowery rhetoric from Beijing & DC notwithstanding. The Global South countries can put pressure on China, & the western countries on the US.
Absolutely China’s actions has contributed greatly to the downward spiral, & this is especially the case wrt to the EU & South Korea. The laundry list is long: making artificial islands out of the atolls it occupied in the Spratley Islands, likely crimes against humanity committed in Xinjiang, turning Hong Kong from a soft authoritarian government into a hard authoritarian one, economic sanctions against Norway, Australia, South Korea & Lithuania for foreign policy slights, the general “Wolf Warrior” style of prickly & arrogant public diplomacy, & the “unlimited friendship” w/ Russia (which does in fact have limits). However, if you tabulate the most disruptive escalations since 2017, most of them have come from the US side: the trade war & the ever escalating tech war.
At the end of the day though, neither China nor the US can dictate terms for the relationship, or indeed dictate terms to the rest of the world. China is not strong enough to do so (& probably never will be), & the US is no longer strong enough. You can see evidence even from the tech war. The latest tech restrictions are unilateral US efforts, because months of consultations w/ allies failed to secure their agreement to follow suit. Administration officials are claiming that some countries fear Chinese retaliation but are gratified that the US’ extraterritorial restrictions (on non-US companies w/ US technology content) serve the same effect. This does not make sense because the more united multilateral western efforts are, the more effective they will be, the less vulnerable each individual participant will be to Chinese retaliation, & the more likely to compel changes in Beijing. These comments read to me like Administration officials looking to save face. More likely the US allies simply are skeptical or even disapprove of the US’ approach. The US has been trying to form a “Chip 4” alliance (the US, Japan, South Korea & Taiwan) for a year to choke off Chinese access to advanced semiconductors, but have yet to succeed because of strong resistance from South Korea to being ensnared in the tech Cold War.
(In the meantime, South Korea, Japan & the EU are mighty pissed at the 100% American content provisions for electrical vehicle subsidies.)
YY_Sima Qian
@sab: These are not good times for people trying to build bridges across China & the US. We take it from both sides. I have to say there is not yet any significant unfriendliness toward Americans in China, either from the people or from the government bureaucracy. Very different if you are a diplomat or in particular journalist, both of whom are targeted by the CCP regime, the latter especially. That also naturally affects the coverage of China in western MSM.
I am increasingly concerned by the sense of alienation many Chinese (both Chinese nationals & Chinese Americans) are feeling in the US, especially those working in technology or STEM academia.
Jay
@Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom:
it’s not just Zelenskyy
One of the duties of the IRC is to visit and monitor the treatment of POW’s, DP’s and Refugees. They are not doing that at all in regards to Ukrainian POW’s, DP’s and Refugees.
And that’s after they very publically “bothsided” “war crimes”, didn’t apologize or retract and went to Moscow to suck Pootie-Poots ass.
Ruckus
@sab:
I’ve posted here before that I attended a Catholic HS for freshman year. I’m not Catholic. At the time I was sort of agnostic. That freshman year set me on my way to disregard all religion. I looked into many of them. Once attended a Quaker service with my sister and then had to run interference with the idiot non Quaker preacher who was supposed to run her circle when she passed and tell him and the 60 or so guests how a Quaker circle actually works.
I don’t tell anyone that their choice of religion or their choice of no religion is correct/incorrect but for me it’s none. I find peace in living and not worrying about what might or might not happen.
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
Here. in YVR, since the start of Covid, there have been a serious uptick in hate crimes against the visually Asian*.
I blame the Cons, the retoric out of the US Reich Wing, (it cross’s borders), and The Epoch Times.
And that is despite a fairly strong anti-CCP ethnic Chinese-Canadian protest movement.
*(visually Asian because the racists morons can’t tell the difference between a Sikh and a Muslim so quite often they are targetting other Asians in the belief they are targetting Chinese.)
Ruckus
@livewyre:
There is always a limit to the level of civility or lack thereof. We all have limits and some here have pretty high limits, which I applaud them for. I also note that we don’t have to answer to everyone that comments, scrolling on by can often be the best answer to someone. The pie filter helps with that scrolling on by, it gives one the option of reading on occasion and a check point to answering when answering really doesn’t help in any way.
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: Yes. I live in Tim Ryan’s district. I understand what he is doing, but it completely alienates my family. I don’t think it bodes well for the future.
Of course he is running for Senate now and I support him. But same concerns. Alternative is Republicans. I do not understand why we can’t be sensible, but…
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani:
I do want to focus on this section, because I don’t think it is actually true. I have already discussed the difficulties the US has had forming a coalition to restrict China’s technological development. The US was only able to convince the UK & Germany to drop Huawei in their 5G telecom infrastructure by threatening intel sharing, not because the US presented evidence that Huawei gear actually are risk. After all UK & German intelligence had set up centers to examine Huawei gear that go into their telecoms, including source codes, all paid for by Huawei. They don’t have that kind of access w/ any other equipment vendor. The dynamic of the US’ effort to restrict Chinese technological development is one if the US pressuring its very reluctant allies & partners, not yet succeeding. Taiwanese government & corporations follow the US sanctions not because they believe these tech. sanctions against Chinese entities will be beneficial (the consensus is that they will be detrimental), but because they are not in a position to refuse. (Kind of like how Chinese entities comply w/ western sanctions against Russia.)
There is indeed now western unity on Russia, & will continue for some time. There is consensus around approaches to China on some areas: criticisms & sanctions for conduct in Xinjiang & Hong Kong, threatening economic cost for unprovoked invasion of Taiwan (meaning in the absence of Taiwanese government declaring de jure independence), screening Chinese inbound investment in high tech sectors (or differences on the degree of restrictions). However, there is no consensus in other important areas: intense zero-sum competition across all areas, restricting China’s technological or economic development, defining competition w/ China in ideological terms, etc. After all, the US is seeking to maintain its global hegemony, the EU does not seek hegemony for itself.
As for China’s neighbors, they are indeed wary, as would any small country next to a major power. So far as I can see, they are not so different from the wariness that India’s neighbors have toward India, Russia’s neighbors have toward Russia, or indeed many Latin American countries have toward the US. Those countries have all responded by partnering w/ China (& sometimes the US) to balance the influence of their powerful neighbor, much as China’s neighbors have partnered w/ the US. However, do not confuse such hedging w/ support for a confrontation w/ China. Singapore’s PM has vocally warned against such confrontations (or decoupling) to American audiences on multiple occasions in the past 2 years; Vietnam has been much less vocally w/ China in the last 2 years; Marco, Jr. in the Philippines continues to play a double game; South Korea is trying as hard as it can to avoid having to take sides in the tech Cold War; Malaysia & Indonesia continue to emphasize partnership w/ both the US & China; Laos & Cambodia are essentially Chinese client states; Myanmar has no options but China; Mongolia continues to emphasize partnership w/ both Russia & China; Nepal continues to tighten relations w/ China to counterbalance India; Pakistan has a solid alliance w/ China; the Central Asian Republics are all turning to China, now that the Russia centered security architecture in the region is coming undone. The only countries in the Asia Pacific region that are all in w/ the US are Japan, Australia & Taiwan, & both Japan & Australia are also looking to preserve rooms for maneuver w/ China.
YY_Sima Qian
@sab: If I lived in Ohio, I would hold my nose & vote for Tim Ryan for Senate, simply because the GOP alternative is worse, but I will definitely feel nauseous doing it.
YY_Sima Qian
@Jay: This is why I find Falun Gong propaganda, & those Hong Kongers/Taiwanese who play up anti-Chinese stereotypes to show how Mainlanders are inferior/uncouth, to be so stupid. The bigots can’t tell Chinese from Mongolians/Koreans/Japanese, think they can tell Mainlanders from Hong Kongers/Taiwanese?
Winston
Nobody is threating nuclear war, except Putin. That is obviously a relief to the jackals.
Winston
Jews and White Europeans invaded America and enslaved blacks. Fact. And killed millions of natives.
Winston
Now they are doing it again AND threatening to bomb us with nukes.
Jinchi
@sab:
I think WaterGirl is going to hex you for letting the trolls know how to slip past the filter.
Aussie Sheila
@Winston: F..k off
Barry
@Tony G: “Traditionally, I guess, NCOs keep the rabble in line, but maybe the Russian Army is running short of NCOs at this point. Seems like a train wreck that might get worse soon.”
The Russian army doesn’t have much of an NCO corps. They rely on hastily-trained officers. Who are among those being ‘mobilized’.
Barry
@Jinchi: “That must be a logistical nightmare, even if preferable to the alternative of exchanging fire.”
It’s a ‘problem’ to be desired. Search them, put them in trucks and truck them back.
Princess
I don’t like to pie anyone but just put a second person in there.
I wish we could get rid of emojis in nyms altogether. It feels very “Look at me! Look at me!” I’m glad most don’t use them.
evodevo
@Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom: Well, when you see what the returning UA captives look like – half-starved, with multiple injuries – it’s obvious Red Cross is NOT doing their job. And the Amer Red Cross had a LOT of scandals just a few years ago, so belief in their effectiveness is suspect…
kalakal
@YY_Sima Qian:
@Carlo Graziani:
Dead thread I expect but
One of those difficulties is the historical precedent of the US abusing their own system of technology transfer blocking for commercial advantage vs other western countries such as UK and Germany under the COCOM system.
Essentially anything that used US technology in any way at all had to recieve a US export licence to sell to the Soviet Union. This led to occasions on which a European company would have a contract put on hold for an extended period while waiting for approval from the US, and then mysteriously a US company popping up and being able to offer immediate fulfillment of the deal.
This actually happened at a company I worked for, Systime, concerning systems derived from DEC PDP-11s. It lead to allegations of CIA burglaries in the UK parliament, a serious rift between Thatcher & Reagan, and Systime eventually going out of business.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systime_Computers
Part of the problem was US intelligence agencies were given full details of any potential contract by companies in other countries and allegedly were passing these details to US competitors who, using this information, could present the Soviets with deals that just undercut the third country ones which in the interim were on hold awaiting US approval . .
In the light of current events a major controversy at the time was turbines for Russian pipelines .
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/07/02/world/mrs-thatcher-faults-us-on-siberia-pipeline.html
Thatcher eventually told the US to sod off and approved the deal.
Carlo Graziani
@livewyre: I’m reminded of this classic XKCD cartoon.
Perhaps that would be the beginning of the best technical filter: whenever a known troll posts anything, have a legible thumbnail-sized version of that cartoon appear in the offending post, to remind people that refuting a Winston on the internet is like bailing pee out of a pool with a bucket.
YY_Sima Qian
@kalakal: This has happened recently, too. When the US placed tech sanctions on Huawei, US companies had a much easier time obtaining exemptions than non-US companies. (This was under the Trump Administration.) Needless to say the other countries (most of whom are US allies) were not amused.
sab
@Jinchi: She could always ask the blogmaster if she could fix it. Just saying.
ETA They think we need a pie filter. so maybe we need a pie filter that works.
WaterGirl
Wow. 50 comments / replies related to Winston.
Maybe don’t let him derail the conversation next time?
Carlo Graziani
@YY_Sima Qian: There’s a lot here to respond to, but I would like to drll down on what I consider a category error: the assimilation of US tactical/operational errors with CPC errors of strategic vision and understanding. In my opinion, critiques of technology export restriction policy, where arguable, amount to the former, whereas critiques of China’s aggressive and disruptive self-interested attempts to reformulate the international order are tantamount to the latter.
Everyone has their preferred framework, and I wouldn’t expect to thrust mine on you where it is unwelcome. Nonetheless, when I was writing The Resumption of History, in the end I was writing about the importance of “Rules-based international order” to safeguarding democracy and personal liberty, and the importance of ensconcing that principle at the core of Western strategy. It is perfectly clear that CPC not only places no value on either democracy or personal liberty, but is actively hostile to “Rules-based order”, misunderstanding (IMO) it as a containment strategy directed at itself. Moreover, CPC is utterly blind to soft power of values, believing that all international influence derives ultimately from big carrots or bigger sticks.
This is the sense in which I caim that the US/Western view derives from a clearer understanding of strategic reality. There is, in my opinion, no comparable set of delusions operating to dangerously distort strategic appreciation in US policy, and whatever one may think of the effectiveness of the Biden administration’s China policy, the administration’s analysis of CPC politics, strategy, and intentions is far more clear-eyed than can be said for Beijing’s understanding of any Western political process.
livewyre
@Carlo Graziani: I mean, sure, there’s the normative tech-libertarian-shaded sentiment that everyone should individually and rationally choose to do the right thing if left to their own devices, and it’s just a matter of encouraging that to happen by leaving them alone enough. But how would the internet be if that was really the extent of how it worked?
If we have the measures to identify a troll, then old-fashioned banning is a technical option, especially given a basis. But the social norm seems to proscribe that in favor of giving the side-eye to anyone who responds to provocation, as if provocation only works if one’s faith is weak. A provocateur gives up if everyone knows better in that scenario, and the onus is on everyone else involved to know better on their own, maybe with a reminder or two. This applies to all forms of provocation equally, whether casual or crank or contracted. Needless to say, my own experience has not given me confidence in this scenario, and it smacks a bit of victim-blaming, but it’s not my place to decide how things work here, so let’s keep it in mind and see.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani: The problems w/ the “rules based international order” that the US especially but also Western countries in general like to harp on have always been “what rules”, “whose rules”, & in what ways are the US & western countries actually constrained by these rules? That is why there is not much buy in outside of the “West” of 30+ countries to this “rules based international order”.
The US + the West has indeed constructed an international order after a fashion, & in bursts following WW II (the UN) & end of the Cold War (the WTO) there were even honest attempts to make them truly more rules based. However, the US (& other great powers) then proceeded to sideline & paralyze these organizations when they chafed at the constraints on their freedom of action. In the case of the WTO, the US (under Trump) bears primary responsibility for paralyzing the functioning of the organization, by refusing to confirm judges to adjudication panels, something Biden has yet to remedy. While China has certainly sought to take advantage of every loop hole in WTO regulations to maximize its advantage, which is what countries do, at the end of the day China did follow through on the commitments it put down in writing to accede into the WTO. China may exhaust every means to drag out WTO adjudications as long as possible, but when handed adverse verdicts China actually has a good record of compliance. The US? Not so much.
How has this “rules based international order” deterred or punished the US when it sought to act outside of it? When it invaded Iraq on false pretenses? When it held prisoners indefinitely w/o trial at Guantanamo Bay? When it launched trade wars in contravention of WTO rules in every direction during the Trump years? When it pulled out of the JCPOA & the Paris Accords? When it plays judge/jury/executioner w/ its drone warfare? How does this “rules based international order” deter or punish US allies/partners for actions outside of it? Such as Israel in Palestine? The Gulf States in Yemen? Turkey in Syria? India in Kashmir? Human rights abuses by the Communist regime in Vietnam? It’s not a “rules based” order if there are no consistent rules applied to all. Not if it is “rules for thee but not for me”.
Like I said, there is indeed something of an “international order” currently underwritten by the US & the West, primarily for their benefit, others have benefited along side (much of E/SE Asia, including China). Some countries seek to preserve the current arrangements because they continue to benefit from it, others because they prefer the devil they know versus the devil they are not sure about, still others are ambivalent or have little invested in the current order. & that is the reality. China seeks to change the order (subvert if you will) so that it is more advantageous to China, but it would like to maintain an orderly & predictable world. On that its strategic objectives are quite different from Russia’s. However, for the vast majority of the world (including most US allies & partners), a Cold War dynamic between China & the US is not their idea of preserving the existing order, or maintaining an orderly world.
What the world actually needs is a rules based order that have consistent & transparent rules, rules that constrain the great powers as well as small countries (no more UNSC veto power!). That is not what the US is currently offering. There is no appetite in the US for repairing & reforming the UN or the WTO. The only bipartisan consensus is maintaining primacy & hegemony. To that end US foreign policy is leveraging organizations that it leads, such as NATO, or ad hoc “mini-lateral” groupings where it can dominate the agenda, such as the G7, “Five Eyes”, AUKUS, the “QUAD”, etc., & through these groupings setting the agenda for the world. However, these groupings can no longer dictate the agenda for the world, nor do these “mini-lateral” groups make a “rules based international order”, because there will be limited to no buy in from the rest of the world. China isn’t offering anything better, all the flowery language from Beijing notwithstanding. It wants largely the current order, but w/ China replacing the US (yet unwilling to underwrite security in far off lands, that the US used to do but is also now more reluctant to do), or at least China alongside the US.
A truly rules based international order will not originate from great powers, who will always want to preserve the prerogative to act as they please.