Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 420: A Very Brief Wednesday Night Update

War for Ukraine Day 420: A Very Brief Wednesday Night Update

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(Image by NEIVANMADE)

It was an exceedingly long, though productive, day today. So just the essentials tonight.

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:

At the state level, everything is being done to increase the ability to defend against Russian strikes – address by the President of Ukraine

19 April 2023 – 23:47

Good health to you, fellow Ukrainians!

I am on my way back from a working trip.

Today I was in Volyn, visited our border guards, on the border, in particular, with Belarus. Arrangement of the border, defense, development of the border area – many issues. Volyn shows true strength, and this is felt in the way the region strengthens the security of the entire state.

I awarded our border guards… Together with all our defense and security forces, border guards are fighting on the frontline, particularly in the most difficult areas. Bakhmut, Donetsk region in general… True heroes who successfully completed hundreds and hundreds of combat missions.

We are also preparing new units – units of border guards in particular – that will join our active actions, the movement that we are gradually building up.

We constantly work on the development of our regions – absolutely all of them. Today in Volyn, I held a broad meeting with the region’s leaders, local law enforcers, military personnel, and all those responsible for the security and social condition of the region. We agreed on several infrastructure projects that will strengthen Volyn – this is important – and will make it possible to guarantee long-term jobs and economic growth. I am sure that we will definitely implement all this. Very soon.

We continue to prepare our international steps not only for this week, but in general for the near future. The defense of Ukraine, the rules-based international order remain the number one issue on the global agenda.

By the way, I am grateful to the United States for another package of military support announced today.

And today I would like to note separately our defenders of the sky – the Air Forces and the corresponding units of other branches of the troops.

At the state level, everything is being done to increase the ability to defend against Russian strikes. Air defense systems and other weapons to protect the sky are already here in Ukraine, they are really powerful. But they should be – and, I am sure, will be – even more powerful.

I am thankful to everyone who, with their accuracy and speed, ensures the effectiveness of all the weapons that our state has received!

Soldiers of the 160th Odesa anti-aircraft missile brigade of the “South” air command and mobile fire groups of the 164th Slobidska radio engineering brigade of the “East” air command were particularly effective this night. Thank you! During the day, our soldiers protected the skies of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Kyiv, the region, other cities, other regions of ours…

Glory to each and every one who is now fighting for our country, for the sake of Ukraine!

Glory to our strong people!

Glory to Ukraine!

There was no operational update from the Ukrainian MOD today. However, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Malar provided this statement:

Bakhmut:

Here’s the full video from that second tweet:

Vuhledar and Avdiivka:

Kharkiv:

Ukraine’s 10th Mountain Assault Brigade’s motto is “With a shield or on a shield!” Our’s is “Climb to Glory!” Either way, well done! And, from the brigade combat team I was assigned to – the Iron Brigade – always Strike Hard!

Here’s some stuff for you logistics afficionados:

And here’s today’s DOD announcement of the latest round of material and equipment going to Ukraine:

RELEASE
IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Biden Administration Announces Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine

April 19, 2023 

Today, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced critical new security assistance for Ukraine. This includes the authorization of a Presidential Drawdown of security assistance with more ammunition for U.S.-provided HIMARS, artillery rounds, and anti-armor capabilities essential to strengthening Ukraine’s defenders on the battlefield valued at up to $325 million.

The Presidential Drawdown is the thirty-sixth such drawdown of equipment from DoD inventories for Ukraine that the Biden Administration has authorized since August 2021. The capabilities in this package include:

  • Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS);
  • 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds;
  • Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles;
  • AT-4 anti-armor weapon systems;
  • Anti-tank mines;
  • Demolition munitions for obstacle clearing;
  • Over 9 million rounds of small arms ammunition;
  • Four logistics support vehicles;
  • Precision aerial munitions;
  • Testing and diagnostic equipment to support vehicle maintenance and repair;
  • Port and harbor security equipment;
  • Spare parts and other field equipment.

The United States will continue to work with its Allies and partners to provide Ukraine with capabilities to meet its immediate battlefield needs and longer-term security assistance requirements.

This is a smart assessment:

Especially if the strategy that I highlighted the other night from Haas and Kupchan is adopted.

Well this happened!

Obligatory:

That’s enough for tonight!

Your daily Patron!

And a new video from Patron’s official TikTok:

@patron__dsns

Я не жартую :)) #песпатрон #патрондснс

♬ Swalla – ✨Sama✨

The machine translation of the caption is:

I’m not joking. :)) #песпатрон#патрондснс

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

49Comments

  1. 1.

    Gin & Tonic

    Since some of us aren’t done laughing at Sarah Bils, here’s a great audio clip. Some dude on her podcast, clearly American, says “Donbas Devushka” with an American accent. So a russian speaker correctly pronounces “devushka” — and then our friend Sarah *corrects him* — incorrectly, of course, and says “roll the D a little”. Which isn’t actually a thing in any Slavic language. Yeah, I’m having more fun with this than I probably should.

    pic.twitter.com/EcEuQ3ex94
    — ✙🍉 Constantine 🍉✙ (@Teoyaomiquu) April 18, 2023

  2. 2.

    Anoniminous

    Don’t laugh at wire guided TOW missiles. In the Yom Kippur War they achieved 90% hit rates. Kill rates depended on the target and where the target was hit. They’ve only gotten better since. The Ukrainians have been using them to good effect in Bakhmut.
    And at $93,640 a pop they are a damn sight cheaper than Javelins at $240,000 per.​
     

    ETA: the “don’t laugh” thing was entirely serendipitous.

  3. 3.

    Roger Moore

    @Anoniminous:

    The TOW is a classic example of success breeding success.  It worked well enough that everyone wanted to buy them.  Because everyone wanted them, they could manufacture in bulk and bring the price down.  Because there were lots of them, they were worth investing in improvements.  Because they made improvements, they worked even better and everyone wanted them more.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  There’s a reason a missile fielded more than 50 years ago is still in production.

  4. 4.

    MomSense

    I’ve lost my ability to be civil when people say fucking stupid blame NATO for Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine.  JFC there are some senior hippies who cannot grasp the reality that Russia is an oligarchic petrochemical state ruled by a psychopathic dictator.
    I may have to start counter protesting these fucking assholes.

  6. 6.

    The Pale Scot

    The satellite responsible for digital communication between commercial aircraft, ATC & dispatch over Asia-Pacific and the U.S. west coast is down. Crews will have to use old-school HF radio on the Pacific crossing.

     

    Why is my Spidey Sense twitching?

  8. 8.

    Gin & Tonic

    More linguistic fun. Russia apparently intercepted this audio of “NATO soldiers” talking about targeting. The russian-appointed guy in charge of Zaporizhzhia says “by accent it is difficult to determine which country the mercenaries are from.”

    I had no difficulty determining where they’re from.

    ⚡⚡⚡Russians published secret radio communications of NATO troops in Ukraine 🤡

    Poor FSB bastards skipped English lessons 😂 pic.twitter.com/ao5vJOoOfh
    — Mykhailo Lavrovskyi (@Lavrovskyi) April 19, 2023

  10. 10.

    Adam L Silverman

    Also, everyone ignore the social media posts claiming the Russians blew up a NATO training facility in Lviv with a khinzal and killed several hundred US and allied general officers and senior uniformed personnel. There’s no such facility. There was no khinzal strike. We don’t have that many generals.

  15. 15.

    Bill Arnold

    @MomSense:
    Add revanchist and imperialistic and change state to kleptocracy and I would agree. Though “pathocracy” is arguably more appropriate.
    I’m with Carlo last night; the Russian Federation’s activities interfering with the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections are not easily forgiven.
    Just the loss of momentum vs global heating/GHG emissions during the Trump administration was an act of mass murder and mass extinction.
    And separation of Mr. D.J. Trump from the levers of power was costly, in several senses.

  16. 16.

    zhena gogolia

    @Gin & Tonic: And the guy says “Ukrainians” but the caption says “хохлы”. They couldn’t find an English equivalent for that.

  17. 17.

    Anoniminous

    @MomSense: ​
     
    People from my old New Lefty past who used to be capable of rational analysis have turned into raving fruit bats, incapable of using their brains for a purpose other than keeping their ears apart and heads from imploding.

  21. 21.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gin & Tonic: It might help if I could spell kinzhal correctly.

  23. 23.

    zhena gogolia

    @zhena gogolia:
    Aha, not Russian.

    Vajrayāna (Sanskrit: वज्रयान, “thunderbolt vehicle”, “diamond vehicle”, or “indestructible vehicle”), along with Mantrayāna, Guhyamantrayāna, Tantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, are names referring to Buddhist traditions associated with Tantra and “Secret Mantra”, which developed in the medieval Indian subcontinent and spread to Tibet, Nepal, other Himalayan states, East Asia, and Mongolia.

  24. 24.

    Anoniminous

    @Jay:

    The U.S. supplied the missiles to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

    Sources:  Popular Mechanics and personal conversations with the guys who built the things at the time.  That was around the time Raytheon was about to or just had bought the weapon from Hughes – can’t remember which this many decades later.  They wanted to hire me because I was a Real Time microprocessor hardware/software cross-over nerd.

  27. 27.

    Jay

    @Anoniminous:

    Yom Kippur War
    The missile was employed by Arab armies during the initial phases of the Yom Kippur War.[14] Later in the war, the Israelis adopted new tactics and learned to neutralize the threat by employing large concentrations of artillery fire to either distract or kill the missile operators.[14] Other improvised methods used by the Israelis to defeat the Malyutkas involved firing in front of the tank to create dust, moving back and forth and firing at the source of the missile.[15] These Israeli tactics were later adopted by NATO forces to counter the threat posed by Warsaw Pact ATGMs.[15] In total, Malyutkas knocked out more than 800 Israeli tanks and other combat vehicles during the war.[16]

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M14_Malyutka

    Israel’s initial battlefield defeats seemed so severe, that on October 9 Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir ordered Israeli nuclear strike planes and missiles to go on alert. When the United States found out, it began transferring enormous quantities of conventional weapons to bolster the Israelis, including 72 Phantom and Skyhawk jets, 200 Patton tanks, then state-of-the-art TOW missiles and heavy artillery.

    https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/1973-yom-kippur-war-gave-world-horrifying-glimpse-what-modern-mechanized-warfare-would

    1982: Lebanon War
    The Israel Defense Forces used TOW missiles during the 1982 Lebanon War. On 11 June, Israeli anti-tank teams armed with TOW ambushed Syrian armoured forces and destroyed a number of Syrian Soviet-made T-72 tanks. Estimates vary regarding the number of T-72s destroyed by TOWs (vs. the number destroyed by Merkava MBTs), with the lower end at nine and the high end attributing “the majority” of the 30 T-72s destroyed by Israeli forces in the war to Yossi Peled’s anti-tank TOW units.[30] This was probably the first encounter of the American anti-tank missile with the newer Soviet tank.[31]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-71_TOW

  32. 32.

    Another Scott

    @Jay: OTOH, …

    JTA.org:

    Two U.S. Anti-tank Weapons Used by the Israeli Army

    April 18, 1974

    SEE ORIGINAL DAILY BULLETIN FROM THIS DATE

    The Israeli Army disclosed today that it was using two potent American anti-tank weapons. The disclosure was made as Israeli and Syrian forces continued battling for the 37th day with heavy artillery and tank fire on the slopes of Mt. Hermon and along the Golan Heights. One Israeli soldier was wounded during the night by Syrian shelling of Israeli positions on the strategic peak of Mt. Hermon. There were no further reports of Israeli casualties in today’s fighting which was reported to be mainly long-range artillery and tank duels.

    The army said today that since the Yom Kippur War it has added the Tow and the Low. American anti-tank missiles that were first used by American forces in Vietnam in 1970. The Tow. the more complex of the two, is operated by a four-man crew and can fire missiles at the speed of sound up to 3000 yards. The missile’s trajectory can be diverted in flight to follow a moving target. The Low. operated by a single soldier, can fire a missile up to 1000 yards that can penetrate over 11 inches of steel.

    […]

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  33. 33.

    Jay

    @Another Scott:

    Date October 6–25, 1973
    (2 weeks and 5 days)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War

    From your cite,…..

    The army said today that since the Yom Kippur War it has added the Tow and the Low.

    BTW that’s the LAW, not the Low.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M72_LAW

    Syrian and Israeli clashes over the Golan Heights continued into 1974, mostly harassment.

    In the Yom Kippur War it was the Saggar that had the massive kill ratio. Unlike the TOW, the Saggar, which is pretty much obsolete these days, is fired and controlled by a prone operator, lying on the ground or in a scrape, is guided by eye, and the whole set up is less that 2 feet tall, with the launcher/missile being the tallest portion. The launcher/missile can also be 6 feet away from the operator.

    The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) learned about the Sagger’s effectiveness a year later when Egyptian and Syrian combined arms offensives launched the Yom Kippur War. The prolific use of Sagger missiles by Egyptian infantry wrecked the IDF’s early counteroffensives in the Sinai and battered its tank fleet. These disasters proved how British-made Centurions and American-made M60 tanks faced an existential threat against Sagger missiles, whose maximum effective range of 2 500 meters at the hands of a well-trained operator was far more accurate than Western 105 mm guns. The Sagger could penetrate 430 mm of steel armor and there was nothing that could blunt its explosive force. Examining Soviet accounts reveals the IDF lost hundreds of tanks to Sagger missiles within a few days.

    http://www.military-today.com/missiles/malyutka.htm

    Service history
    In service 1970–present
    Used by See Operators
    Wars
    Vietnam War
    Third Indochina War
    1982 Lebanon War
    Soviet–Afghan War
    Iran–Iraq War
    Gulf War
    War in Somalia (1992–1993)
    War in Afghanistan[1]
    Iraq War
    Syrian civil war[2]
    War in Iraq (2013–2017)[2]
    Russo-Ukrainian War
    Yemeni Civil War (2014–present)
    Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen
    2016 India-Pakistan Border skirmishes[3]
    Conflict in Najran, Jizan and Asir

    BGM-71 TOW

  34. 34.

    Another Scott

    @Jay: Ooh.  A link battle! ;-)

    Here’s another – PopularMechanics.com:

    Although built for the battlefields of western Europe, the TOW’s baptism of fire took place in the skies over Vietnam, with the helicopter-mounted TOWs killing North Vietnamese tanks in the 1972 Easter Offensive. The U.S. then supplied the missiles to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. (The Israelis discovered TOW couldn’t fly over salt water—in this case, the Suez Canal, which affected the control wires and caused the missiles to veer off course.) U.S. forces later used TOW missiles in the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  35. 35.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Also, everyone ignore the social media posts claiming the Russians blew up a NATO training facility in Lviv with a khinzal and killed several hundred US and allied general officers and senior uniformed personnel. There’s no such facility. There was no khinzal strike. We don’t have that many generals.

    Russian agitprop has been making such claims since the siege of Mariupol, never w/ any credibility (but that goes w/ Russian agitprop by definition).

  36. 36.

    Lyrebird

    @Gin & Tonic: Yeah, I’m having more fun with this than I probably should.

    Have all the fun you want!  I will now think of her as Dave-oozhka.

    And “roll the D” goes up there with the “Fraunch Fries” line in some stupid teen movie I once watched, but at least that actress was making a fool of herself (her role) on purpose!

  38. 38.

    YY_Sima Qian

    I hope Ukraine is getting the BGM-71E versions w/ tandem warheads to defeat the reactive armor that is common on Russian main battle tanks, or better yet the F versions w/ top attack capability.

  41. 41.

    Jay

    @Another Scott:

    Between the Azores and Israel, the aircraft had to follow an extremely precise route. Flying exactly along the airspace border between hostile Arab nations to the south and European nations to the north, the transport craft flew down the middle of the Mediterranean Sea to Israel.[1] Fighter escort was deemed necessary for this leg of the journey, so American fighters from the U.S. 6th Fleet escorted the transports to within 150 miles (240 km) of Israel, where Israeli Air Force Phantoms and Mirages escorted them into Ben Gurion Airport. Along the Mediterranean route, American ships were stationed every 300 miles (480 km), and an aircraft carrier every 600 miles (970 km). These precautions appeared justified when unidentified Arab fighters made threats over the radio, but no conflict ensued. Upon arrival, the transports were unloaded by U.S. and Israeli servicemen before they returned home and supplies were expedited to the front where they arrived within a few hours. The first C-5A transport airplane arrived at Lod airport at 18:30 local time on 14 October.[4]: 114  That same day the Battle of the Sinai had concluded in Israel’s favor. A major Egyptian thrust had been stopped with the destruction of many attacking tanks, and Israel was now winning the war.[2]: 87–88 

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Nickel_Grass

    On the night of October 15, 750 of Colonel Matt’s paratroopers crossed the canal in rubber dinghies.[202] They were soon joined by tanks, ferried on motorized rafts, and additional infantry. The force encountered no resistance initially and fanned out in raiding parties, attacking supply convoys, SAM sites, logistic centers and anything else of military value, with priority given to the SAMs. Attacks on SAM sites punched a hole in the Egyptian anti-aircraft screen and enabled the IAF to strike Egyptian ground targets more aggressively.[203]

    On the night of October 15, 20 Israeli tanks and seven APCs under the command of Colonel Haim Erez crossed the canal and penetrated 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) into Egypt, taking the Egyptians by surprise. For the first 24 hours, Erez’s force attacked SAM sites and military columns with impunity, including a major raid on Egyptian missile bases on October 16, in which three Egyptian missile bases were destroyed, along with several tanks, for no Israeli losses. On the morning of October 17, the force was attacked by the 23rd Egyptian Armored Brigade, but managed to repulse the attack. By this time, the Syrians no longer posed a credible threat and the Israelis were able to shift their air power to the south in support of the offensive.[204] The combination of a weakened Egyptian SAM umbrella and a greater concentration of Israeli fighter-bombers meant that the IAF was capable of greatly increasing sorties against Egyptian military targets, including convoys, armor and airfields. The Egyptian bridges across the canal were damaged in Israeli air and artillery attacks.[5]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War

    So, in less than a day, the IDF received TOW’s, trained Operators on it and rushed them to the front that was already won?

    Popular Mechanic’s said you would have a flying car in 1963, so you are your 5th one now, right?

  43. 43.

    AlaskaReader

    @MomSense: I have read that the Pope tried to blame NATO.  I have heard Putin try to blame NATO.

    Could you name these ‘hippies’ you speak of?

  44. 44.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Carlo Graziani: Thanks! Work & life have intervened for the past couple of weeks. Now that Chinese borders have reopened, US based corporate & division leaders are now all rushing back to reconnect w/ local teams, suppliers and customers. & it is a very different competitive environment in China from pre-pandemic, across a multitude of sectors.

    I still read Adam’s posts & all of the comments everyday, but did not have anything of value to contribute.

    I was also distracted by all of the brouhaha over Lee Hsien-Long’s (Singaporean PM), Anwar’s (Malaysian PM), Macron/van der Leyen’s, Braerbock’s, & Lula’s visits to China, & their various pronouncements.

    Macron supposedly has asked his foreign policy advisor to work w/ China to develop the terms upon which Ukraine & Russia might be brought to the negotiating table. If true, it is a naively fanciful exercise. 1st, it is clear China is not investing any skin into peace in Ukraine for the foreseeable future, & instead is leaning further into its entente w/ Russia as a bulwark in its Great Power Competition(TM) w/ the US. 2nd, neither Ukraine nor Russia are interested in talking right now. The only ways the war ends is either Ukraine pushing Russian invaders outside of its borders (which will take the rest of the year even under the most optimistically imaginable scenario), or if both Ukraine & Russia become exhausted years down the line & sue for Armistice that freezes the conflict along whichever Line of Actual Control at the time (which would be a terrible & terribly unjust outcome for Ukraine). The point about Putin trying to come back in a few years a la 2nd Chechen War is an overlooked but very valid one.

    Macron’s energies are better focused on forging EU unity/coherence & developing military capabilities so that Europe is not so dependent on the US for security, leading edge technology, & global finance. That is the true foundation for any European strategic autonomy.

    I have also been relieved that the Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen’s transits through the US & meeting w/ House Speaker McCarthy did not set off the Fifth Taiwan Strait Crisis. It seems Beijing, DC & Taipei still retain some competence in crisis management, but I don’t have much confidence in their skills at creating conditions that prevent crises from emerging in the 1st place.

    Then there are the developments in the ME, w/ Saudi Arabia & Iran continuing their prescribed program of normalizing relations, facilitated by Beijing. Iran even invited the Saudi King for an official visit (would be very interesting to see if MBS actually goes, no way King Salman cross the Persian Gulf). The Gulf States are also renormalizing relations w/ Assad, & Qatar & the UAE are renormalizing relations w/ each other as well. A large prisoner exchange happened in Yemen, & there seems to be progress toward formally ending the ruinous Civil War there. Things are shifting in the ME, toward what I can’t say.

    Finally, there has been an interesting series of signals from US allies & partners that suggests discomfiture & quietly expressed alarm at the escalating Sino-US geopolitical rivalry, & attempting to chart out their own strategies for managing China’s rise that assert their own agencies & interests (which prizes coordination w/ the US as ideal but not yoked to the hostile US bi-partisan consensus wrt China). There is Macron’s controversial comments during the return from Beijing (which I don’t think are that controversial in Western Europe, but Politico.eu did a hatchet job on translation & selective quoting), van der Leyen’s address the European Parliament, Australian FM Penny Wong’s speech a couple of days ago. Lee Hsien-Long has been speaking for the ASEAN countries on this since 2018. (All of their comments take multipolarity as a given, which is the position of Global South countries too, even though it seems to be a dirty word in DC.) Even Taiwan’s politely declining McCarthy’s visit to the island.

    I have always thought that constraint on China & the US to stop a dangerous turn toward a new Cold War & global fragmentation can only come from middle powers & small powers banding together. I am increasing pessimistic as to whether Beijing & DC can steer clear of that fate themselves. Unlike immediately following WW II or for much of the Cold War, however, power & wealths are much less concentrated among great powers, so middle & small powers have a better chance of prevailing over the great powers if they can coalesce around some common positions. Perhaps we are witnessing the beginnings of this development. Of course, there are middle powers that look to egg on the Sino-US Cold War: Russia (the worse the Sino-US relations, the more leverage Russia might have over China), India (Modi seems to want India to reprise China’s role in the latter 3rd of Cold War 1.0 & reap the same benefits), the UK (because the Tories can’t seem to conceive of the UK’s relevance in global affairs as anything other than the US’ most loyal sidekick).

    For the past few weeks I have had the feeling that geopolitical forces are moving at an accelerated pace, but direction is utterly opaque.

  47. 47.

    Manyakitty

    @Lyrebird: that movie is ‘Better Off Dead’ and is a CLASSIC. That particular scene leaves me in tears every time because of its ridiculousness. 😂😂

  48. 48.

    Another Scott

    @Anoniminous: @Jay:

    Another. NationalInterest.org:

    Israel’s initial battlefield defeats seemed so severe, that on October 9 Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir ordered Israeli nuclear strike planes and missiles to go on alert. When the United States found out, it began transferring enormous quantities of conventional weapons to bolster the Israelis, including 72 Phantom and Skyhawk jets, 200 Patton tanks, then state-of-the-art TOW missiles and heavy artillery.

    Even if you don’t like the linkies, you haven’t addressed Anoniminous’s personal conversations with people who were actually involved.

    Wikipedia is great, but is not the only source of knowledge on this stuff.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

Comments are closed.