I Come at You! is the motto of Ukrainian Special Operations. It is the translation of the motto on the ribbon the wolf is standing on in the crest above. The motto was the battle cry of Svyatoslav the Brave, grandson of Rurik, and Prince of Novogord and Kyiv from 945 until he died in 972.
On this Special Operations Forces Day, I salute our soldiers, who have become known across the globe for their exceptional skills and dedication! Your bravery and professionalism make us all proud. May you continue to achieve success in your missions and be an example of… pic.twitter.com/XB8jPI50nC
— Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) July 29, 2023
On this Special Operations Forces Day, I salute our soldiers, who have become known across the globe for their exceptional skills and dedication! Your bravery and professionalism make us all proud. May you continue to achieve success in your missions and be an example of excellence and cause for admiration throughout the world.
On the occasion of Special Operations Forces Day, President @ZelenskyyUa visited front-line positions of @SOF_UKR near Bakhmut and greeted our heroes. pic.twitter.com/CQMY9VTujM
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) July 29, 2023
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.
Special Operations Forces mean heroism, about which impossible to tell details, they inflict particularly tangible blows on Russian terrorists – address of President of Ukraine
29 July 2023 – 15:58
Dear Ukrainians, I wish you good health!
Today – in Donetsk region. Chasiv Yar, Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, Druzhkivka, Kostiantynivka. With our warriors, our heroes.
I congratulated and had the honor to personally congratulate, shake hands, and award warriors of the Special Operations Forces on the occasion of their professional day. They are always at the hottest areas of the front, on the most responsible, special tasks. And now is the same – near Bakhmut, I came to them. I thanked the guys for their strength and heroism, for their professionalism, and their extremely professional defense of Ukraine.
Special Operations Forces mean such heroism about which impossible to tell the details. Only years later – such specifics of operations. The guys inflict particularly tangible blows on Russian terrorists.
What we can talk about now, of course, is participation in key combat operations. Bakhmut in particular, Avdiyivka, Krasnohorivka, Maryinka. Soledar. Together with everyone, they defended Kyiv and Hostomel, and Bucha, and Irpin, and Moschun, and Makariv. Snake Island – also SOF together with intelligence, together with the Alpha group and the Navy. Kinburn Spit. Kherson. Now – the liberation of Staromayorske, this is also a result, in particular, of the SOF.
During the war, 17 warriors of the Special Operations Forces were awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine. Thirteen of them, unfortunately, posthumously. In total, 2,520 SOF warriors were awarded state awards. Thank you, warriors, for your results for Ukraine, for all our people! Thanks for the chevron, it’s a real honor! And once again I wish you the most important thing – victory! Victory over Russian evil.
Dnipro. The work at the site of yesterday’s missile strike was completed already in the morning. Nine people were injured, including two children and teenagers. Everyone was given the necessary help. For every such blow, for all Russian terror, the enemy will surely feel the force of justice. We will not forget or forgive anything and none of them.
Today is the anniversary of Olenivka, one of the most vile and cruel crimes of Russia. The deliberate, pre-planned killing of captured Azov warriors.
Let every loss of Russia be retribution for its evil, and let every occupier, every Russian murderer, all those responsible for this terror against Ukraine and Ukrainians know – while they are still alive – that justice wins. Ukraine will win!
Thanks to everyone who brings our victory closer! Eternal memory to everyone who gave his life for the sake of Ukraine!
Glory to Ukraine!
Nothing inspires more admiration and respect than experts in their fields. The enemy does not feel safe at night or during the day, in summer or in deep banks of snow, behind armor or hidden in a bunker. You work tirelessly. You work mercilessly. You work effectively every day to… pic.twitter.com/BcSJOTYyj8
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) July 29, 2023
Nothing inspires more admiration and respect than experts in their fields. The enemy does not feel safe at night or during the day, in summer or in deep banks of snow, behind armor or hidden in a bunker. You work tirelessly. You work mercilessly. You work effectively every day to bring our victory closer. Thank you for your service!
Bakhmut:
WARNING!! WARNING!! INTENSE & MILDLY GRAPHIC!! WARNING!! WARNING!!
Assaulting and clearing trenches in the Bakhmut direction under enemy artillery shelling. Video by the 3rd Assault Brigade, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Company.https://t.co/5DgLZNhWf2 pic.twitter.com/1JwbxB78yG
— Dmitri (@wartranslated) July 29, 2023
ALL CLEAR!!
Russian Occupied Crimea:
Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency reported explosions occurred overnight “as a result of sabotage” at a Russian ammunition depot near Cossack Bay in Russian-occupied Crimea, where it said the 810th separate marine infantry brigade is located. It shared this video. pic.twitter.com/cNXQ5ndYWi
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) July 29, 2023
Donetsk:
Detonation of Russian ammunition in Donetsk, now. pic.twitter.com/4L7Ckt9q6a
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) July 29, 2023
The Chonhar Strait:
Locals confirm that one strong explosion was heard early this morning in the area of the Chongar bridge. Some sources claim that the bridge was hit by a Storm Shadow and that the bridge was allegedly damaged. However, there is no video / photo evidence of the damage to the… pic.twitter.com/MaOWrvk2KU
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) July 29, 2023
🌉/4.1. The Russian-appointed head of the occupied part of the Kherson region claims that there was a strike on the area of the railway bridge connection between the Kherson region and Crimea.
P.S: Unfortunately he doesn’t want to provide more clear footage for the damage… pic.twitter.com/KY5PaX3dsS— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) July 29, 2023
Being dependent on the Starlink Snowflake is not sustainable. The New York Times has the details:
On March 17, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the leader of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, dialed into a call to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Over the secure line, the two military leaders conferred on air defense systems, real-time battlefield assessments and shared intelligence on Russia’s military losses.
They also talked about Elon Musk.
General Zaluzhnyi raised the topic of Starlink, the satellite internet technology made by Mr. Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, three people with knowledge of the conversation said. Ukraine’s battlefield decisions depended on the continued use of Starlink for communications, General Zaluzhnyi said, and his country wanted to ensure access and discuss how to cover the cost of the service.
General Zaluzhnyi also asked if the United States had an assessment of Mr. Musk, who has sprawling business interests and murky politics — to which American officials gave no answer.
The power of the technology, which has helped push the value of closely held SpaceX to nearly $140 billion, is just beginning to be felt.
Starlink is often the only way to get internet access in war zones, remote areas and places hit by natural disasters. It is used in Ukraine for coordinating drone strikes and intelligence gathering. Activists in Iran and Turkey have sought to use the service as a hedge against government controls. The U.S. Defense Department is a big Starlink customer, while other militaries, such as in Japan, are testing the technology.
But Mr. Musk’s near total control of satellite internet has raised alarms.
A combustible personality, the 52-year-old’s allegiances are fuzzy. While Mr. Musk is hailed as a genius innovator, he alone can decide to shut down Starlink internet access for a customer or country, and he has the ability to leverage sensitive information that the service gathers. Such concerns have been heightened because no companies or governments have come close to matching what he has built.
In Ukraine, some fears have been realized. Mr. Musk has restricted Starlink access multiple times during the war, people familiar with the situation said. At one point, he denied the Ukrainian military’s request to turn on Starlink near Crimea, the Russian-controlled territory, affecting battlefield strategy. Last year, he publicly floated a “peace plan” for the war that seemed aligned with Russian interests.
Worried about over-dependence on Mr. Musk’s technology, Ukrainian officials have talked with other satellite internet providers, though they acknowledged none rival Starlink’s reach.
“Starlink is indeed the blood of our entire communication infrastructure now,” Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s digital minister, said in an interview.
At least nine countries — including in Europe and the Middle East — have also brought up Starlink with American officials over the past 18 months, with some questioning Mr. Musk’s power over the technology, two U.S. intelligence officials briefed on the discussions said. Few nations will speak publicly about their concerns, for fear of alienating Mr. Musk, said intelligence and cybersecurity officials briefed on the conversations.
U.S. officials have said little publicly about Starlink as they balance domestic and geopolitical priorities related to Mr. Musk, who has criticized President Biden but whose technology is unavoidable.
The federal government is one of SpaceX’s biggest customers, using its rockets for NASA missions and launching military surveillance satellites. Senior Pentagon officials have tried mediating issues involving Starlink, particularly Ukraine, a person familiar with the discussions said.
The Defense Department confirmed it contracts with Starlink, but it declined to elaborate, citing “the critical nature of these systems.”
Other governments are wary. Taiwan, which has an internet infrastructure that could be vulnerable in the event of a Chinese invasion, is reluctant to use the service partly because of Mr. Musk’s business links to China, Taiwanese and American officials said.
China has its own concerns. Mr. Musk said last year that Beijing sought assurances that he would not turn Starlink on inside the country, where the internet is controlled and censored by the state. In 2020, China registered with an international body to launch 13,000 internet satellites of its own.
The European Union, partly driven by misgivings about Starlink and Mr. Musk, also earmarked 2.4 billion euros, or $2.6 billion, last year to build a satellite constellation for civilian and military use.
“This is not just one company, but one person,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, a cybersecurity expert who co-founded the Silverado Policy Accelerator think tank and has advised governments on satellite internet. “You are completely beholden to his whims and desires.”
Much more at the link!
This excerpt from the NY Times reporting should have everyone’s bump of trouble throbbing!
At times, Mr. Musk has openly flaunted Starlink’s capabilities. “Between, Tesla, Starlink & Twitter, I may have more real-time global economic data in one head than anyone ever,” he tweeted in April.
Whether it is electric vehicles, Starlink terminals and service, reusable rockets, or Twitter, Musk is not selling people and their government services. Rather, he is exploiting the lack of laws and regulations to turn people and their governments into commodities that he can profit off of. Musk’s real business model is collecting and using everyone’s – every person’s and every state’s – economic data to enrich himself and enhance his personal power. This will not end well!
For you drone enthusiasts.
Aerial reconnaissance is a crucial component of warfare. Thanks to it, defenders gather and pass on information, neutralize the enemy, and most importantly, save lives, not only of soldiers but also civilians.
🎥 92nd Mechanized Brigade pic.twitter.com/qhozjHXqFn
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) July 29, 2023
We got an exclusive look at Ukraine's latest sea drone, used to attack Russia in the Black Sea. Fast, nimble and packed with 100s of kg of explosives. Naval drones just hit the Kerch Bridge and they say the drones are limiting the Black Sea Fleet's movements. pic.twitter.com/Rmm2RRZxoF
— Alex Marquardt (@MarquardtA) July 29, 2023
The cost:
… I will not have to write about the war in my country.
As many Ukrainians now say, adapting a well-known phrase: next year in Crimea.— Anastasia Magazova 🌻 (@a_magazova) July 29, 2023
Two distinguishing features about my local park in Kyiv. The absence of men. It’s a public holiday and virtually only women and children are to be seen here. And, trenches. Nobody is complacent about the ongoing threat to 🇺🇦 from 🇷🇺. pic.twitter.com/tr8PHHPGo4
— Dame Melinda Simmons (@MelSimmonsFCDO) July 28, 2023
Vovchansk:
Two weeks ago, mandatory evacuation was announced in Vovchansk. 184 children have been safely evacuated. These kids have already gone through 7 months of occupation, then constant Russian shelling, and now this. pic.twitter.com/m8CTDOQfHJ
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) July 29, 2023
The groom could not wait to kiss the bride. He kissed her when she walked down the aisle, and during the ceremony. He kissed her after his vows, after hers, and again when they finally said “I do.”
Maks and the bride, Yuliia, had no time to lose.https://t.co/okp4WAyYxe— Cassandra Vinograd (@CassVinograd) July 28, 2023
The groom could not wait to kiss the bride.
He kissed her when she walked down the aisle, and during the ceremony. He kissed her after his vows, after hers, and again when they finally said “I do.”
Maksym Merezhko, 43, and the bride, Yuliia Dluzhynska, 39, both serve in Ukraine’s military and had traveled to Kyiv the night before from the eastern Donetsk region. They had no time to lose.
After a three-day honeymoon in the Carpathian Mountains, Ms. Dluzhynska said, “We will go to war.”
The celebration was provided free of charge by Zemliachky, roughly translated as “Women Compatriots,” a charity group that provides uniforms, boots and other essentials to female soldiers but, because of demand, recently started to organize their weddings. The couple had been officially married days before, signing a marriage license in a stuffy room in Sloviansk. But they wanted a true celebration.
“It takes a lot of time to organize a wedding, and when you are on the front line, you don’t have that free time,” said Kseniia Drahaniuk, Zemliachky’s co-founder.
Everything is donated — the dress, venue, photography, flowers, hair, makeup, rings, cake, lingerie and the honeymoon, too — saving couples significant expense and the stress of planning.
After their honeymoon, they would head to Donetsk, back toward the front line. Ms. Dluzhynska had a simpler wish for their future. “The main thing is to survive,” she said.
Much, much more at the link!
Saudi seeks to woo developing nations for Ukraine peace talks next weekend in Jeddah, amid push by US and other western nations to erode Russia’s support among ‘global south’ nations https://t.co/0xwCMI4sw1 w @SameralAtrush & @felschwartz
— Henry Foy (@HenryJFoy) July 29, 2023
Good luck with that! From The Financial Times:
Saudi Arabia has invited leading developing nations to meet in a bid to win their backing for Ukraine, as the US and other western powers seek to weaken global support for Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
Senior officials from China, Brazil, South Africa and India — Russia’s partners in the BRICS grouping — have been invited to attend two-day talks in Jeddah next weekend, alongside more than 30 other states, according to four people with knowledge of the meeting. Russia has not been invited.
The gathering, a successor to similar meetings in Copenhagen last month, will try to persuade countries from South America, Africa and south-east Asia to back Ukraine’s peace plan, which calls for an end to the war by reclaiming its territory currently occupied by Russian troops.
National security advisers or their equivalents have been invited to attend the meeting, which comes amid intense fighting in southern Ukraine. Kyiv has so far made hard-fought but limited gains in its summer counteroffensive.
Other G20 members such as Mexico, Indonesia and Argentina have been invited, according to one of the people, alongside countries that have supported Ukraine such as Japan and South Korea. More than a dozen European countries have been invited, alongside the EU itself, in the form of Brussels representatives.
In the future, everyone will host Ukraine peace talks for 15 minutes. https://t.co/d8K9T0PLmE
— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) July 29, 2023
Another country heard from:
For the first time, Putin says Russians can't stop firing back while Ukrainians are attacking. pic.twitter.com/Jdig2e0jg4
— Dmitri (@wartranslated) July 29, 2023
That’s enough for today.
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Open thread!
Jerzy Russian
I think a marginal tax rate of 90% could fix a lot of things regarding what is wrong with Musk. I am flexible with the exact number (I will consider 95% for example). After a few years of that tax rate, we can apply less drastic measures such as kicks in the junk when minor course corrections are needed.
Alison Rose
No answer in this case is a pretty clear answer. And not a good one. Also “genius innovator” my ass. If Muskrat is a genius, I’m the Queen of England.
Sweet quick video of Zelenskyy popping into another gas station and getting hounded for selfies with everyone :)
Thank you as always, Adam.
Feathers
Another issue is that these satellites mess with ground astronomy. Sending up another set of satellites because Musk owns the first is really not a reasonable solution to the problem.
Carlo Graziani
@Feathers: I’ve heard less grumbling from astronomers about this, lately. Some of it is resignation, but also machine learning techniques are much better at cleaning up the data nowadays so as to remove satellite tracks. There is always some signal-to-noise loss, of course, but the sky has not gone opaque.
YY_Sima Qian
A Twitter rant from Tatarigami_UA on the ineffectualness of certain high level Ukrainian commanders, that has contributed to the slow & bloody advance to date, specifically deficiencies in managing/coordinating multi-brigade battles.
Also relevant was the exchange further down about the Ukrainian Army lacking a division/corps (or Russian Group Army) level organization to fight such battles.
Carlo Graziani
Ammo-depot-go-boom is a story worth tracking. According to Michael Kofman, on the latest War on the Rocks podcast, UA is relying a great deal on deep interdiction in the counteroffensive, and is currently in the situation of having ground fires superiority over the Russians, who are experiencing ammunition shortages—still lots of barrels and tubes, not so much to shoot from them. So identifying depots and blowing them up on a continuing basis is a crucial condition for offensive success, as this is largely an artillery war.
Adam, thanks again.
YY_Sima Qian
China has already banned Tesla vehicles from sensitive sites (military, intelligence, State Security, police, & higher level government offices). The city of Chengdu is currently hosting the World University Games, Xi is taking part of the opening ceremony & staying for a couple of days. During these 2 days, Teslas are banned from parts of the city, which is an inconvenience for Tesla owners (there are many).
Honestly, though, I am not sure why Chinese designed/manufactured by Chinese marques, w/ all those cameras & sensors, would be any more secure from the Chinese perspective. They all run off Android for software. This applies elsewhere, too.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani: Between Starlink, Project Kuiper, & the planned EU/Chinese constellations, the LEO will be very crowded. Russia & India are supposedly planning their own constellations, but I am skeptical if they will reach fruition, & how many satellites they will manage to loft if they do.
Carlo Graziani
@YY_Sima Qian: Kofman asserted that the units performing best are the ones that have been in the fight the longest, whereas the newly-Western-trained-and-armed units have not given a very good account of themselves. He pointed out that this is not so surprising, as those new units have only 3-4 months training in NATO-style combined-arms warfare (i.e not nearly enough), whereas the older, blooded units have figured out what works for them.
It might be that as the new units are rotated out and back in to the fight, their combat experience will bear fruit and they will grow in proficiency. Kofman suggested, however, that training to NATO standards was a mistake, and that the West should arm and supply the UA in a manner that best conforms to the type of fighting that they understand already. While that seems to make general sense, I was unclear on what changes that would imply in detail.
cintibud
@Carlo Graziani: Still would suck for amature astronomers who prefer visual observations
ColoradoGuy
@YY_Sima Qian: That brings up a fascinating concept: geo-fencing for electric cars. It’s a standard feature of DJI drones, after all … they just won’t enter fenced-off areas.
Now, in a car, I don’t expect it to take over the steering, but a bright dashboard display could say “turn forbidden” and if the driver continues, flash “turn around immediately” and if the driver continues, turns off the motor. This wouldn’t be a big software patch, and it would certainly work.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani: I think Kofman said that the Ukrainian Army enjoys advantage in tube artillery (at least in some sections of the front, we have to keep in mind that the group did not visit every place), but the Russian Army still enjoys superiority in rocket artillery. The Russians are also using cluster munitions, FAE rockets, & has a significant advantage in rotary wing aviation. So, overall I would not say Ukraine enjoys a fires advantage anywhere.
The Ukrainian Army is having some success striking at Russian depots & command posts, but I think Franz Stephan-Gady has said that the campaign has not been coordinated enough for the Ukrainian Army to take full advantage (I assume he means striking at depots & command posts in a sector in quick succession, & then immediately launch an assault to take advantage of the ammo shortage & command confusion). Russian dispersion & camouflage efforts have also made the depots & command posts more difficult to find, & reduced the impact from strikes on each site.
Carlo Graziani
@cintibud: Yes. I do seem to recall that there was some agreement to coat such satellites with low-albedo coatings, which should lower their detectability by small amateur telescopes (12″ or less, say). Not sure how that worked out in practice, though.
It would principally affect long exposures, since small field-of-view × short time = small probability of seing a satellite. The Vera Rubin Observatory (huge FOV × years of exposure) would be well and truly screwed, if their processing software could not handle satellite tracks.
Adam L Silverman
@Alison Rose: Elon is a complete fraud. Here’s the details. I’m embedding the first tweet, then links to both the rest of the exceedingly long and detailed thread at the the Thread Reader App and the Internet Archive.
Thread reader app. Internet Archive.
YY_Sima Qian
@ColoradoGuy: Geofencing can be hacked fairly easily by determined effort. All of Ukraine (I think, certainly the front line regions) is geofenced by DJI, after all, & yet they are ubiquitous among both Russian & Ukrainian units.
Adam L Silverman
@YY_Sima Qian: Well that was planned for tomorrow’s night update.
Adam L Silverman
@YY_Sima Qian: @Carlo Graziani: What we’re going to see emerge is a Ukrainian way of war. Or, rather, we’ve been observing it and we’re going to get to watch it evolve into something mature and robust. They will take the combined arms training and adapt it to make sense for them. Or, given the reporting we’ve seen on the deficiencies in the US training, the Ukrainians will develop their own based off of the concepts.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani: Yes, I think Kofman’s observations are valid. It was always far too optimistic to expect brigades hastily trained in a few months, on an unfamiliar doctrine, could perform to a high level. However, NATO military can only train the Ukrainian units to the NATO way of war.
However, I am very struck by Tartarigami’s comments on the Ukrainian Army lacking the division echelon. One of the themes relayed by Michael Kofman/Franz Stephan-Gady/Rob Lee is that the Ukrainian offensive has been piecemeal, w/ each brigade fighting on its own (launching company & battalion sized attacks). That might be a deeper & more urgent doctrinal issue to resolve, but one that is surprising. The Soviet Army had divisions, group armies & fronts.
YY_Sima Qian
@Adam L Silverman: Didn’t mean to ninja your post. Looking forward to your take.
Adam L Silverman
@YY_Sima Qian: It’s fine. I’m actually thinking of doing the long one he did of the most recent Russian field manual he got his hands on.
Gin & Tonic
For “I come at you” guy, the preferred Romanization is Svyatoslav. Interestingly (to me, anyway) it’s an archaic Ukrainian usage, when two of what are now separate noun cases were treated as the same.
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
The NATO standard is 6 months basic.
The next 6 months is Squad and Company training.
The next year is MOS and Brigade level training.
So 2 years training to become a barely functional combined arms combat force.
And that is in an environment that does not involve the intense use of drones and the Information Space that the Ukrainians are creating.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
the Ruzzian one, or the DPR/LNR one?
Alison Rose
@Adam L Silverman: I remember reading part of that (probably here, LOL) and not being surprised in the least. What a piece of trash.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: Fixed.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: And that assumes air superiority via US aviation combined with coalition partners.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: DPR/LNR. I think I already covered the Russian one.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks.
YY_Sima Qian
@Jay: I would think the Ukrainian units that were trained in NATO countries already had basic, & could already function at the squad level at least? Still, a few months is far too compressed.
Villago Delenda Est
Elno Musk is not to be trusted. He’s wingnut friendly, if not a fucking outright Nazi.
Timill
@Jerzy Russian: And what effect do you expect that to have? 90% of $0 is still $0.
Musk has no income, only capital appreciation.
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
I have seen a bunch of Interviews with ex-NATO Internationals,
They had nothing nice to say about the UA Basic Training. It’s still dominated by Soviet Conscript models.
Chetan Murthy
@Timill: one presumes that like many many extremely rich people he funds his lifestyle via loans against his appreciating capital assets.
Timill
@Chetan Murthy: Exactly. But taxing his income at 90% will have no effect at all, because he doesn’t have any. And, indeed, takes care that he doesn’t have any.
RevRick
@YY_Sima Qian: Between space junk and greenhouse gas caused climate change, these negative effects of technology argue against any civilization ever achieving the ability to travel interstellar space. If any such civilization exists.
Jay
@Timill:
The Apartheid ManChild has an annual salary as CEO of various ventures.
Geminid
@RevRick: The other day I saw a picture of sign:
Alison Rose
@Geminid: Whenever people babble about aliens visiting us, I’m like, for one thing, if there is a species out there that is intelligent enough to have achieved interstellar travel, we would look like a bunch of doped-up babies to them. How could we possibly be of any interest to them? And even if they swung by just on a lark, I’m pretty sure after observing us for all of three minutes, they’d be like “fuck this shit” and zoom off.
Jerzy Russian
@Timill: Well, yes. Add on a wealth tax then. Also too, the kicks in the junk should still be in play independent of the tax situation.
Chetan Murthy
@Jerzy Russian: Auction off those kicks and we could balance the Federal budget.
YY_Sima Qian
Following up on the coup in Niger, Senator Chris Murphy has a good Twitter thread highlighting the excessive militarization that has characterized the US’s engagement w/ every region for 2 decades.
I think he is wrong that developing countries are opting for autocracy because of reduced engagement by the US & increased engagement by China. Democratic decline is a global phenomenon, & China has been agnostic as to how the countries it engage w/ organize themselves politically. In any case, China is not active in the Sahel due to the instability. In many developing countries, there is strong sentiments that their immature & flawed democracies have failed to deliver development. They also see democracy faltering in the West.
W/ the coup in Niger, Russia through Wagner now has a foot in every country in the Sahel, a region that used to be exclusively French sphere of influence. Of course, it was also once Qaddafi’s money that held sway among the disaffected groups in the region. Overthrow of Qaddafi, domestic misrule by the national governments, decades of French exploitation post-decolonization, & lack of Chinese engagement have all created a vacuum for Russia.
Anoniminous
@YY_Sima Qian:
Nobody with a functioning brain can look a Brexit* and then claim Democracy is an ipso facto innately superior form of government. There’s a reason Argumentum ad populum is a Informal Logical Fallacy.
* or Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, for that matter
Chetan Murthy
@Anoniminous: i don’t think anybody sensible argues that democracy is a better form of government in the short-term. The argument has always been that for the longer term it is better, because democracies allow polities to correct mistakes without requiring violent overthrow of the government. Obviously longer term could be pretty long-term.
Carlo Graziani
@Chetan Murthy: I’ll chime in here, because this happens to be the hill I’d die on.
The term “liberty” is unfashionable, and abused, and idiotically confounded with the term “freedom,” to which it is not at all synonymous. It had a very much more nuanced and ideologically solid meaning to the philosophes of the Enlightenment—who educated the Founding Fathers of the US Constitution—than it appears to have today to many. But liberty matters, because it is the heart of the distinction between the West and its discontents and competitors.
“Liberty” is not about personal freedom, but about governance by consent and under law. The key characteristic of a state that confers liberty to its citizens, and protects it, is that those who govern are themselves governed by the law, are subordinated to it, and live under norms that give them no choice but to submit to the law when their choices are legally impermissible.
Obviously, this is an ideal, imperfectly realized everywhere. The law can sometimes be bought, or corrupted, as we know. But the ideal itself is of the highest importance, because if it winds itself around the brainstems of enough citizens, then that fact deepens the protection of those laws, by embedding them in norms. I believe, as I’ve written before, that it is precisely this effect—the fact that even Trump appointees were sickened by Trump’s efforts to remain in power after losing the election—that supplied the guard rails which made the January 6 putsch attemp a pathetic non-event. And I still have hopes that such attachments to liberty-driven norms will ultimately save Israel from Netanyahu’s scheming.
To be clear: this is a very minimalistic view of what distinguishes a democracy from an authoritarianism. Yes, democracies can freely choose to be stupid, to be bullies, to be illiberal. But the preservation of popular reverence for the supremacy of law over politics is precisely the element that creates the space to hope for progress. That is the genius of the Enlightenment notions of governance, and that is what is worth preserving, and defending, against the claims of alternative socio-political orderings made by the blocs now challenging the West, be those claims founded on nationalist-religious-ethnic particularism or on economic success translated to national power. Liberty, read as the abhorrence of governance above law, is what defines “The West” in the end. Everything else is noise.
Chetan Murthy
@Carlo Graziani: Carlo, with respect, your definition doesn’t distinguish the pre-civil-war US from the post-civil-war US. Both were rule-of-law states (sure, within limits) and democracies. Only, they defined their “citizenry” differently. And so if we look at today, the illiberal tendency need only go in the direction of removing certain groups from citizenship, and they can retain the rule-of-law that you posit, for everybody else while still qualifying as democracy.
That doesn’t sound like democracy to me.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: Then there is the Jim Crow South, where the black population had all the citizen rights under law, but were thoroughly excluded & suppressed in reality.
We are also seeing GOP states changing laws to neuter the powers of governors as soon as Dems win. Liberty for the “in group”, sh*t for everyone else.
Respecting the outcome of an election is the very last line of defense, not the tripwire.
YY_Sima Qian
OT, in light of the tumult in, I found. This illuminating essay by Yossi Klein Halevi in the Times of Israel.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: Thanks, that’s a very good essay. The author describes the various fault lines dividing Israeli society today including among others, the division between the Ashkenazi Israelis of European origin and the Mizrachi Israelis from North Africa and the Middle East.
The former group formed Israel’s elites ever since the country’s founding; Israelis used to say that the country was run by “WASPS”: White Ashkenazi Sabra Paratroopers. Ashkenazi tend to be lighter skinned than Mizrachi, “Sabra” (a local cactus) used to denote the native born, and the Paratroopers, along with pilots and now cyberwarriors are the military elite that as Reservists, still make up much of Israel’s political and business elites.
The author anayses the historical context of other divisions within Israeli society, including the secular/religious, Jewish/Arab, and modernist/reactionary.
This makes for a long essay, but it covers a lot of ground efficiently. The author makes a key point early on, that the last election showed an evenly divided electorate. As it turned out, Netanyahu won a 64-56 Knesset majority because the leftwing Meretz party and the Arab Balad party fell short of the 3.25% threshold for Knesset representation. This effectively wasted 6% of the vote.
That election- the fifth in four years- was characterized by apathy on the Jewish left and the Arab community, and motivation on the part of Netanyahu’s three religious coalition partners, two conservative and one radical. Current polling shows that Netanyahu’s coalition would lose badly if elections were held soon, and this provides a powerful incentive for the parties to maintain the government.
Barring a collapse of the coalition, new elections won’t be held until 2027. Netanyahu and his fractious allies will face some tough economic and security challenges though, in addition to the ones they have created with their vindictive assault on judicial independence.
For those in opposition, the challenge will be to maintain a deeper and more tenacious engagement in the political process. As the author says:
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: Thanks for the additional color!
As much as I enjoyed Halevi’s essay, I am frustrated by the liberal’s tendency to correctly identify the problems but being blind to (or afraid of) taking the analysis to the logical conclusion toward underlying causes & their solutions:
How could an Israel that explicitly identifies itself as a Jewish state ever not alienate its Arab minority? A US that defines itself explicitly as a White Christian nation will disaffect every minority w/in its borders. That applies to other countries, too. Whereas countries such as Britain, France & Germany have tried to expand the notion of what makes one “British”, “French” & “German” to accommodate their minority & immigrant populations, & Halevi suggests invoking the “Isreali” identity that include its Arab population, I think the contradiction w/ Israel as a Jewish state is irreconcilable. An Arab Muslim (or Christian) cannot ever be a Jew, unless he or she converts.
Halevi see the stresses that occupation of the West Bank (more than occupation, but also colonial settlement & slow motion ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population) imposes on Israeli democracy, but he does not dive deeper on the insidiously corrosive ways that a militarist Israeli hegemony is fundamentally detrimental to domestic democracy & liberalism. Israel is running a colonial regime in the West Bank, it is keeping Gaza Strip an open air prison, it freely retaliates disproportionally or attacks preventively into Gaza, Southern Lebanon & Syria, & it does not hesitate to impart collective punishment. Israel has less respect for international law than most great powers, & that’s saying something. I imagine many of the protestor in Israeli streets are OK w/ the occupation & the settlement program. The Israeli reactionaries & Hama/Hezbollah have an unholy symbiotic relationship, where each can justify its existence using the hostilities of the others, hijacking the rest of their respective populations to their enterprises.
Halevi firms believes that Israel is under siege, ever on the precipice of disaster. Perfectly understandable, given the historical experience of pogroms, oppression, the Holocaust, Arab invasions to strangle Israel in the womb, the Yom Kippur surprise, etc. However, the current Israel is by far the strongest military power in the region, enjoys unreserved protection of the strongest great power in the world, enjoys the support of the EU, & has a burgeoning partnership w/ the Sunni Arab elites to check Iran. Assad’s Syria is a broken place. No great power is hostile to Israel, all want to be on good terms (whoever holds power in Jerusalem). The great powers & the Sunni Arab elites do not give a damn about the Palestinians. The current Israel has a nuclear arsenal that promises would be invaders w/ destruction. To still act as if though Israel is always on the edge of annihilation, as opposed to a militarist regional hegemony, dooms Israel to policy choices & actions that will deteriorate its position long term. Its gross overreaction to each actual & perceived threats ensures prolonged hostility from the Arab street (as opposed to the elite). Its apartheid regime in the West Bank & punitive policies in Gaza & southern Lebanon erode sympathy & support from liberal forces in the West (including liberal Jews). A state that believes itself under perpetual siege will always be vulnerable to illiberalism & authoritarianism. That is just how human psychology works, reactionaries thrive on fear.
Judicial independence is the last line of defense for Israeli democracy, not a tripwire. Just like sanctity of election results is the last line of defense for American democracy, not a tripwire. We are where we are because liberal or moderate (or just non-reactionary) politicians failed to act when the tripwires were tripped, & instead prioritized maintaining stability & viability of institutions over defeating the reactionaries.
Carlo Graziani
@Chetan Murthy: @YY_Sima Qian: As I wrote, it is a minimalist requirement, that does nothing to guarantee that such law-bound democracies shall not behave badly or cruelly, towards others and towards its own. Quite simply, no such guarantees are possible.
All law-bounded governance does is create space for progress to be conceivable, and for hope to be rewarded, even if over long historical times. And behold! The US is a far more equitable place today, with respect to Blacks than it was in 1860 or 1950, and with respect to Native Peoples than in 1820, and with respect to LGBTQ than in 1985, and so on. We need to look forward to see that this work continues and that existing progress is protected, which certainly entails more political struggles (with the likes of DeSantis, for example). And ultimately, there are no guarantees, because there cannot be, at least until humans become angels.
But the core principle that must be protected to enable such progress is law, and the shared ideal that nobody is permitted to be above the law. That is the last defense. Once that is gone, so is hope of progress. Until that point, one can justify one’s patriotism on grounds other than mere nativity. After that point, all one has is ethno-nationalism.
And that is why it is so important to propagandize for Liberty. Because it is stronger the more people believe in it and regard it as normal, and are outraged at transgressions against it. This is why the norm-breaking of the Trump years was so potentially dangerous, and why I at least was relieved and even a bit proud to see how abjectly the January 6 putsch fell apart in the face of outrage over the violation of this ultimate norm. We must build our defenses there, at popular expectation of government by laws, and shore them up when they seem weakened. It is literally the foundation for everything else that we dare to hope for in human affairs.
YY_Sima Qian
@Carlo Graziani: No argument there.
Carlo Graziani
@YY_Sima Qian: I’ve never been as well-satisfied in a Nolo contendere. Thank you.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: You are correct about the symbiotic relationship between Hamas/Hezbollah and Israel’s reactionary right. During the communal rioting brought on in Israel by its 11 day Gaza war in 2021, the national police chief complained that when he was able to calm a city down, Itamar Ben-Gvir would come and figuratively throw gasoline on the embers, exploiting his Parliamentary immunity. Now Ben-Gvir is Netanyahu’s security minister, and is in charge of the police. He’s an accelerationists, and he’ll blow up the country if he doesn’t blow up the coalition government first.
The situation of Israel’s Arab minority is complex. They were repressed harshly in the first years of Israel’s independence, and have been discriminated against ever since. But they are very slowly being integrated into Israel’s social and political institutions, including the tech sector. Ironically, labor economists warn that with so much of the nation’s Ultra-Orthodox community refraining from participation, Israel needs to further integrate its Arab citizens into its higher skilled work force if it is to maintain economic growth
As was discussed a couple nights ago, the Labor-led coalitions included a couple small Arab parties. Their leaders held minor posts- assistant minister and the like.
This became impossible after the Second Intfitada, and the suicide bombing campaign that accompanied it. That marked a real watershed in Israeli attitudes. But there was a promising development in June of 2020. Then, Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid surprised everyone by cobbling together a majority that included the 4 Arab Ra’am party MKs. Netanyahu assailed Lapid for aligning with an Arab party, but Ra’am chief Mansour Abbas fired back, saying that Netanyahu had tried to get him to join a Likud-led coalition first.
After Amnesty International labeled Israel an “Apartheid State,” a journalist asked Abbas if it was. He answered the question by saying that however one describes it, Israel’s status as a Jewish state is a fact. His job as he conceives it is to win his people their rights within the nation. His party increased its Knesset representation by one MK in the last election, and an estimated 20-30% of Israeli Arabs vote for the Zionist parties. Some of the more conservative Druze even vote for Likud, and evidently identify more with their Mizrachi neighbors than with their Arab compatriots.
Israeli’s 300,000 Druze are integrated into the IDF including leadership positions. Israeli Arabs are not, but the IDF takes Arab volunteers. Some change out of uniform when visiting their homes because many of their neighbors frown on military service. They may be more open about IDF service in the south, where a Bedouin regiment has patrolled the Negev for decades. That also happens to be the Ra’am party’s stronghold.
Interviewers find that many Arabs serve in the IDF for economic reasons. Others will say that they serve because Israel is their country and they want to defend it. I might find that hard to believe if I did not understand that even though they may be discriminated against, Israeli Arabs have more political and civil rights than citizens do in any Arab nation in North Africa and the Middle East.
As for external threats, it is true that Israel does not face any neighbors dangerous in a conventional sense. Syria will not always be broken though, and Iraq’s future is unpredictable. Iran seems a long ways away, but a ballistic missile can cross that space in 30 minutes or less.
As for current threats, last year an article in Qatar-base Al Jazeera said that Hezbollah controls a stockpile of over 100,000 rockets. Other estimates agree. And Hezbollah brags about its capability to wreck Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities if provoked. This why Israel has conducted its “war between wars” in Syria, recent years conducting well over 200 bombing raids in an effort to keep Iran from adding to Hezbollah’s stockpile.
For various reasons, I actually think that there is a good chance this situation will improve by the end of the decade, and that includes a possible resolution of the Palestian question. But with this current Israeli government, the situation will almost certainly get worse before then..
Chetan Murthy
@Carlo Graziani: Carlo, by your definition, pre-Mandela/deKlerk South Africa was a law-bound democracy, no? The white minority got the rule of law, didn’t they?