Lightning fast British policy in action. Why house building is so broken in this country: Plans for 97 homes on a derelict site near a railway station, on land granted to developers in 2008, finally passes thanks to government overruling opposition who took it to the High Court, because quote the plans were 'excessive'.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
That display text is so stupid it is practically parody. They genuinely seem to believe any response to their acts is beyond the pale, and get offended by it. It takes a lot of mental gymnastics to manage that.
During WW1 the Germans managed to believe that
1) Sinking merchant ships without warning was A OK 2) Said merchant ships having guns and shooting back at submarines was evil and piracy.
They actually hung a British Captain for having the temerity to fight back
To be pedantic: shot Captain Fryatt by firing squad.
I checked my memory to confirm this, and discovered that he not only has a monument in Liverpool St Station but also a pub at Parkeston (Harwich) named after him - both I presume because he served on railway-linked ferry services.
Putin can have pretty much anything he wants where he is now. I doubt he'd risk that. I do think though that peace at the price of gviving him a role in Brokeback Mountain 2 is a price worth paying.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
Because Putin alone does not decide, he does not have singular control. There are command chains that have to carry through.
Russia has restarted rail traffic over the Kerch Bridge. After some minor repairs.
That's very - courageous - of them.
If the bridge collapses under a train of tanks...then that will be proof karma's a bitch.
That can't be true. (My bottle of hat sauce is poised)
Well, that's what Russia are claiming.
They may of course be lying.
However, I can imagine they would be willing to take a risk unless it was literally falling in the water. They are totally fucked if they don't have it.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
Can we, the French and Americans retroactively wave nukes at all the people who’ve defeated us in wars? Asking on behalf of an orange wanker who may become president of the US.
This is a brilliant thread on all the implications of the Bridge Blowout
“The Kerch Bridge has been heavily damaged by a large explosion. One of the two road bridge spans is in the water, the second road lane has blast damage and a cistern train of fuel was set on fire in the same blast in multiple places.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
You spend so much of your life online, I’m surprised you need it explaining! Russia is currently arm-wrestling with both its arms. In Kherson, where its troops are subject to the modern version of a medieval castle siege; and in Kharkiv/North Luhansk, where we’re likely to soon see another Ukrainian thunder run possibly as far as the border.
If you’re arm wrestling with both arms, there’s nothing you can do stop yourself being punched in the face. And that’s what’s going to happen next. A third thrust, with the biggest component of Ukraine’s army, down to the Black Sea coast, to split the whole battlefield in two. Kersh Bridge is part of the shaping for that operation, as was last night’s missile attack on a rail depot that feeds Melitopol.
The moment will come when either the Russian army completely collapses, or events in Moscow overtake events in Ukraine. Don’t know which first or when but it’s got to be under a year away, outside but growing chance this side of Xmas.
Russia has restarted rail traffic over the Kerch Bridge. After some minor repairs.
That's very - courageous - of them.
If the bridge collapses under a train of tanks...then that will be proof karma's a bitch.
The Emperor* is finding gainful employment in Ukraine it seems.
*The Emperor Mong. Believed by some to be the author and encourager of all acts of gross stupidity. That little voice in your head saying “what could possibly go wrong”? That’s him.
Lightning fast British policy in action. Why house building is so broken in this country: Plans for 97 homes on a derelict site near a railway station, on land granted to developers in 2008, finally passes thanks to government overruling opposition who took it to the High Court, because quote the plans were 'excessive'.
The supply demand imbalance in the UK housing market is only going to be solved by a Labour Government, and one that is willing to pass new legislation to defang the nimbies at that. Expecting the current lot to do anything about it, irrespective of whoever is leader, is pointless.
Russia has restarted rail traffic over the Kerch Bridge. After some minor repairs.
That's very - courageous - of them.
If the bridge collapses under a train of tanks...then that will be proof karma's a bitch.
That can't be true. (My bottle of hat sauce is poised)
Well, that's what Russia are claiming.
They may of course be lying.
However, I can imagine they would be willing to take a risk unless it was literally falling in the water. They are totally fucked if they don't have it.
Well anyway if they are taking the risk of sending a train over a seriously compromised bridge then it's probably a bigger sign of desperation than if they didn't.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
There are hundreds of ways the war could effectively end.
It could end with Russia chased out of the Southern Coast and most of Donbas and Lushensk, while still holding Crimea. Ukraine might not being strong enough to flush their last forces out, might be unwilling to negotiate, and the conflict could be essentially frozen, with neither side able to carry out offensive operations.
It might end with Putin's death or arrest.
It might end with a revolution in Chechnya, and Russia effectively ceding Ukraine to hold onto another of its provinces.
But ultimately, despite all the rhetoric, Russia does not have unlimited resources: people or bullets or artillery or rockets or even trains to get them to the front. At some point, young Russian men will decide that being sent to the front line is a death sentence and will refuse to go. (Better to fight the riot police than to fight the Ukrainians.)
My forecast has always been that the resources of the Russian state become exhausted. Now, maybe they withdraw and pretend the war is still going on, and lob artillery shells and rockets at rump Ukraine. Or maybe the current regime falls. But if Russia cannot continue to fight, that it won't. That's simple reality.
This is a brilliant thread on all the implications of the Bridge Blowout
“The Kerch Bridge has been heavily damaged by a large explosion. One of the two road bridge spans is in the water, the second road lane has blast damage and a cistern train of fuel was set on fire in the same blast in multiple places.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
You spend so much of your life online, I’m surprised you need it explaining! Russia is currently arm-wrestling with both its arms. In Kherson, where its troops are subject to the modern version of a medieval castle siege; and in Kharkiv/North Luhansk, where we’re likely to soon see another Ukrainian thunder run possibly as far as the border.
If you’re arm wrestling with both arms, there’s nothing you can do stop yourself being punched in the face. And that’s what’s going to happen next. A third thrust, with the biggest component of Ukraine’s army, down to the Black Sea coast, to split the whole battlefield in two. Kersh Bridge is part of the shaping for that operation, as was last night’s missile attack on a rail depot that feeds Melitopol.
The moment will come when either the Russian army completely collapses, or events in Moscow overtake events in Ukraine. Don’t know which first or when but it’s got to be under a year away, outside but growing chance this side of Xmas.
We do not know if its the knockout blow, We dont have any information on Rusian re-inforcements brought in (they are) other than some have been encountered. Wo do not know whether the Russians have any attacking capacity forming elsewhere away from the two, possibly soon to be three drives from the Ukrainians. All we can do is take an assessment with stories that Ukraine appears to be throwing in battlefield reserves into opening a further thrust and there are no notable reports of the former two at having any predicted impact or causing concerns.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
You spend so much of your life online, I’m surprised you need it explaining! Russia is currently arm-wrestling with both its arms. In Kherson, where its troops are subject to the modern version of a medieval castle siege; and in Kharkiv/North Luhansk, where we’re likely to soon see another Ukrainian thunder run possibly as far as the border.
If you’re arm wrestling with both arms, there’s nothing you can do stop yourself being punched in the face. And that’s what’s going to happen next. A third thrust, with the biggest component of Ukraine’s army, down to the Black Sea coast, to split the whole battlefield in two. Kersh Bridge is part of the shaping for that operation, as was last night’s missile attack on a rail depot that feeds Melitopol.
The moment will come when either the Russian army completely collapses, or events in Moscow overtake events in Ukraine. Don’t know which first or when but it’s got to be under a year away, outside but growing chance this side of Xmas.
And again you haven’t addressed the point. All of the above is highly plausible and means a Russian defeat. And at that stage Putin - in desperation - will surely launch WMD of some kind because defeat means gaddafi style death for him. He will be totally cornered and out of other options
And then you are relying on his chain of command disobeying him, or some neat little coup that removes him and does not replace him with someone even crazier
This is what you HOPE. And what if your hopes are misplaced?
This is a brilliant thread on all the implications of the Bridge Blowout
“The Kerch Bridge has been heavily damaged by a large explosion. One of the two road bridge spans is in the water, the second road lane has blast damage and a cistern train of fuel was set on fire in the same blast in multiple places.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
You spend so much of your life online, I’m surprised you need it explaining! Russia is currently arm-wrestling with both its arms. In Kherson, where its troops are subject to the modern version of a medieval castle siege; and in Kharkiv/North Luhansk, where we’re likely to soon see another Ukrainian thunder run possibly as far as the border.
If you’re arm wrestling with both arms, there’s nothing you can do stop yourself being punched in the face. And that’s what’s going to happen next. A third thrust, with the biggest component of Ukraine’s army, down to the Black Sea coast, to split the whole battlefield in two. Kersh Bridge is part of the shaping for that operation, as was last night’s missile attack on a rail depot that feeds Melitopol.
The moment will come when either the Russian army completely collapses, or events in Moscow overtake events in Ukraine. Don’t know which first or when but it’s got to be under a year away, outside but growing chance this side of Xmas.
The bridge is a big part of it. Outside the US military, air mobility is a joke. Every army on the planet needs hundred or thousands of tons of supplies per day to keep fighting. Apart from the US, that has to go land or by sea.
This is a brilliant thread on all the implications of the Bridge Blowout
“The Kerch Bridge has been heavily damaged by a large explosion. One of the two road bridge spans is in the water, the second road lane has blast damage and a cistern train of fuel was set on fire in the same blast in multiple places.
Conclusion: Russia cannot win, has probably lost, it’s all about how bad and bloody is the defeat
One mind blowing revelation: Ukrainians are now using suicide attacks as a weapon of war. This was not a one off
You are assuming a suicide bombing.
Why not - driver stops truck. Claims breakdown. Jumps on the back of motorcycle that happens to be there. 2 minutes later…
Did you read the thread? The guy is quite persuasive on that point. Suicide. Tho of course we don’t know yet. Others are claiming a missile
The Ukes have form here
“Yesterday,this young amazing Ukrainian Soldier blows himself up to destroy a bridge to prevent Russian tanks from advancing! He is just one of the heroes who should be recognized. My heart breaks for his family&friends #UkraineRussia #Ukraine #RussiaUkraineWar #UkraineUnderAttack”
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
You spend so much of your life online, I’m surprised you need it explaining! Russia is currently arm-wrestling with both its arms. In Kherson, where its troops are subject to the modern version of a medieval castle siege; and in Kharkiv/North Luhansk, where we’re likely to soon see another Ukrainian thunder run possibly as far as the border.
If you’re arm wrestling with both arms, there’s nothing you can do stop yourself being punched in the face. And that’s what’s going to happen next. A third thrust, with the biggest component of Ukraine’s army, down to the Black Sea coast, to split the whole battlefield in two. Kersh Bridge is part of the shaping for that operation, as was last night’s missile attack on a rail depot that feeds Melitopol.
The moment will come when either the Russian army completely collapses, or events in Moscow overtake events in Ukraine. Don’t know which first or when but it’s got to be under a year away, outside but growing chance this side of Xmas.
And again you haven’t addressed the point. All of the above is highly plausible and means a Russian defeat. And at that stage Putin - in desperation - will surely launch WMD of some kind because defeat means gaddafi style death for him. He will be totally cornered and out of other options
And then you are relying on his chain of command disobeying him, or some neat little coup that removes him and does not replace him with someone even crazier
This is what you HOPE. And what if your hopes are misplaced?
Well, because the alternative (appeasement) is worse.
You want to buy a little temporary security by giving into nuclear blackmail now. But all that does is make future nuclear blackmail more likely. And it means that next time, the blackmailer will expect us to fold.
You are under the misapprehension that giving into Putin makes us safer. It does not. It means I'm very slightly less likely to make it to 2024, but makes it massively less likely I will make it to 2030.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
There are hundreds of ways the war could effectively end.
It could end with Russia chased out of the Southern Coast and most of Donbas and Lushensk, while still holding Crimea. Ukraine might not being strong enough to flush their last forces out, might be unwilling to negotiate, and the conflict could be essentially frozen, with neither side able to carry out offensive operations.
It might end with Putin's death or arrest.
It might end with a revolution in Chechnya, and Russia effectively ceding Ukraine to hold onto another of its provinces.
But ultimately, despite all the rhetoric, Russia does not have unlimited resources: people or bullets or artillery or rockets or even trains to get them to the front. At some point, young Russian men will decide that being sent to the front line is a death sentence and will refuse to go. (Better to fight the riot police than to fight the Ukrainians.)
My forecast has always been that the resources of the Russian state become exhausted. Now, maybe they withdraw and pretend the war is still going on, and lob artillery shells and rockets at rump Ukraine. Or maybe the current regime falls. But if Russia cannot continue to fight, that it won't. That's simple reality.
If Putin is smart he'll seek asylum in the UK. Ask for a billion pounds, and concede anything that Ukraine wants. A luxury flat, as much daytime tv as you can eat, and as much Deliveroo as you can watch. He could have a cantileved ding table too whereby his guests were not only a long way away, but were swept by the winds and at every moment in peril of plummeting onto the nasty tarmac that has replaced the honest cobbles.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
You spend so much of your life online, I’m surprised you need it explaining! Russia is currently arm-wrestling with both its arms. In Kherson, where its troops are subject to the modern version of a medieval castle siege; and in Kharkiv/North Luhansk, where we’re likely to soon see another Ukrainian thunder run possibly as far as the border.
If you’re arm wrestling with both arms, there’s nothing you can do stop yourself being punched in the face. And that’s what’s going to happen next. A third thrust, with the biggest component of Ukraine’s army, down to the Black Sea coast, to split the whole battlefield in two. Kersh Bridge is part of the shaping for that operation, as was last night’s missile attack on a rail depot that feeds Melitopol.
The moment will come when either the Russian army completely collapses, or events in Moscow overtake events in Ukraine. Don’t know which first or when but it’s got to be under a year away, outside but growing chance this side of Xmas.
And again you haven’t addressed the point. All of the above is highly plausible and means a Russian defeat. And at that stage Putin - in desperation - will surely launch WMD of some kind because defeat means gaddafi style death for him. He will be totally cornered and out of other options
And then you are relying on his chain of command disobeying him, or some neat little coup that removes him and does not replace him with someone even crazier
This is what you HOPE. And what if your hopes are misplaced?
It’s not certain that losing the war means the end for Putin, he’s held such absolute power it will be difficult to arrange a coup. Attempting to use WMD guarantees his end. Because the order wouldn’t be followed. But if they were, then external actors would precipitate his demise. Base case is still no coup, Russia loses completely and Putin dies at some point of natural causes. But there are plausible scenarios where he exits earlier.
I don’t have a rosy forecast for what follows him. I think most likely the Russian federation will implode, possibly with multiple Chechen wars at once. But I’m not worried that the lawn I just reseeded is going to be scorched. I do think we have lost Russian supplies of gas for what might prove to be an indefinite period. And I also think Ukraine will need to pay a horrific further price in lives before this is done.
This is a brilliant thread on all the implications of the Bridge Blowout
“The Kerch Bridge has been heavily damaged by a large explosion. One of the two road bridge spans is in the water, the second road lane has blast damage and a cistern train of fuel was set on fire in the same blast in multiple places.
Conclusion: Russia cannot win, has probably lost, it’s all about how bad and bloody is the defeat
One mind blowing revelation: Ukrainians are now using suicide attacks as a weapon of war. This was not a one off
You are assuming a suicide bombing.
Why not - driver stops truck. Claims breakdown. Jumps on the back of motorcycle that happens to be there. 2 minutes later…
The truck was moving at the time it blew.
If it wasn't a suicide bombing it was remote controlled.
Both are possible.
The former has alarming implications for Russia.
I wouldn't have to be remote controlled: the truck could be travelling on its own for a few hundred meters. (Which I'd probably want if I was on a motorbike!)
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
You spend so much of your life online, I’m surprised you need it explaining! Russia is currently arm-wrestling with both its arms. In Kherson, where its troops are subject to the modern version of a medieval castle siege; and in Kharkiv/North Luhansk, where we’re likely to soon see another Ukrainian thunder run possibly as far as the border.
If you’re arm wrestling with both arms, there’s nothing you can do stop yourself being punched in the face. And that’s what’s going to happen next. A third thrust, with the biggest component of Ukraine’s army, down to the Black Sea coast, to split the whole battlefield in two. Kersh Bridge is part of the shaping for that operation, as was last night’s missile attack on a rail depot that feeds Melitopol.
The moment will come when either the Russian army completely collapses, or events in Moscow overtake events in Ukraine. Don’t know which first or when but it’s got to be under a year away, outside but growing chance this side of Xmas.
And again you haven’t addressed the point. All of the above is highly plausible and means a Russian defeat. And at that stage Putin - in desperation - will surely launch WMD of some kind because defeat means gaddafi style death for him. He will be totally cornered and out of other options
And then you are relying on his chain of command disobeying him, or some neat little coup that removes him and does not replace him with someone even crazier
This is what you HOPE. And what if your hopes are misplaced?
The assumption that defeat in Ukraine is terminal for Putin also needs to be questioned. To deploy an analogy that's been floating round quite a lot recently, there's no need to blame the good Czar for Russia's shortcomings when you can go after the bad Boyars instead.
Kill a load of generals, lick wounds, plot revenge.
This is a brilliant thread on all the implications of the Bridge Blowout
“The Kerch Bridge has been heavily damaged by a large explosion. One of the two road bridge spans is in the water, the second road lane has blast damage and a cistern train of fuel was set on fire in the same blast in multiple places.
Conclusion: Russia cannot win, has probably lost, it’s all about how bad and bloody is the defeat
One mind blowing revelation: Ukrainians are now using suicide attacks as a weapon of war. This was not a one off
You are assuming a suicide bombing.
Why not - driver stops truck. Claims breakdown. Jumps on the back of motorcycle that happens to be there. 2 minutes later…
Did you read the thread? The guy is quite persuasive on that point. Suicide. Tho of course we don’t know yet. Others are claiming a missile
The Ukes have form here
“Yesterday,this young amazing Ukrainian Soldier blows himself up to destroy a bridge to prevent Russian tanks from advancing! He is just one of the heroes who should be recognized. My heart breaks for his family&friends #UkraineRussia #Ukraine #RussiaUkraineWar #UkraineUnderAttack”
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
You spend so much of your life online, I’m surprised you need it explaining! Russia is currently arm-wrestling with both its arms. In Kherson, where its troops are subject to the modern version of a medieval castle siege; and in Kharkiv/North Luhansk, where we’re likely to soon see another Ukrainian thunder run possibly as far as the border.
If you’re arm wrestling with both arms, there’s nothing you can do stop yourself being punched in the face. And that’s what’s going to happen next. A third thrust, with the biggest component of Ukraine’s army, down to the Black Sea coast, to split the whole battlefield in two. Kersh Bridge is part of the shaping for that operation, as was last night’s missile attack on a rail depot that feeds Melitopol.
The moment will come when either the Russian army completely collapses, or events in Moscow overtake events in Ukraine. Don’t know which first or when but it’s got to be under a year away, outside but growing chance this side of Xmas.
And again you haven’t addressed the point. All of the above is highly plausible and means a Russian defeat. And at that stage Putin - in desperation - will surely launch WMD of some kind because defeat means gaddafi style death for him. He will be totally cornered and out of other options
And then you are relying on his chain of command disobeying him, or some neat little coup that removes him and does not replace him with someone even crazier
This is what you HOPE. And what if your hopes are misplaced?
Well, because the alternative (appeasement) is worse.
You want to buy a little temporary security by giving into nuclear blackmail now. But all that does is make future nuclear blackmail more likely. And it means that next time, the blackmailer will expect us to fold.
You are under the misapprehension that giving into Putin makes us safer. It does not. It means I'm very slightly less likely to make it to 2024, but makes it massively less likely I will make it to 2030.
Yup. All basic Game Theory stuff. Goes back to papers written in 60s on stability in conflicts.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
There are hundreds of ways the war could effectively end.
It could end with Russia chased out of the Southern Coast and most of Donbas and Lushensk, while still holding Crimea. Ukraine might not being strong enough to flush their last forces out, might be unwilling to negotiate, and the conflict could be essentially frozen, with neither side able to carry out offensive operations.
It might end with Putin's death or arrest.
It might end with a revolution in Chechnya, and Russia effectively ceding Ukraine to hold onto another of its provinces.
But ultimately, despite all the rhetoric, Russia does not have unlimited resources: people or bullets or artillery or rockets or even trains to get them to the front. At some point, young Russian men will decide that being sent to the front line is a death sentence and will refuse to go. (Better to fight the riot police than to fight the Ukrainians.)
My forecast has always been that the resources of the Russian state become exhausted. Now, maybe they withdraw and pretend the war is still going on, and lob artillery shells and rockets at rump Ukraine. Or maybe the current regime falls. But if Russia cannot continue to fight, that it won't. That's simple reality.
If Putin is smart he'll seek asylum in the UK. Ask for a billion pounds, and concede anything that Ukraine wants. A luxury flat, as much daytime tv as you can eat, and as much Deliveroo as you can watch. He could have a cantileved ding table too whereby his guests were not only a long way away, but were swept by the winds and at every moment in peril of plummeting onto the nasty tarmac that has replaced the honest cobbles.
Lightning fast British policy in action. Why house building is so broken in this country: Plans for 97 homes on a derelict site near a railway station, on land granted to developers in 2008, finally passes thanks to government overruling opposition who took it to the High Court, because quote the plans were 'excessive'.
The supply demand imbalance in the UK housing market is only going to be solved by a Labour Government, and one that is willing to pass new legislation to defang the nimbies at that. Expecting the current lot to do anything about it, irrespective of whoever is leader, is pointless.
The sad reality is that NIMBYism is how you get elected to local government in large parts of the country. If you are in opposition, you oppose some locally contentious developments supported by the incumbents. If you are the incumbents, then you backtrack on what you were going to do to avoid getting voted out. This is what determines the outcome of many local elections. The lib dems and the greens are the absolute masters of this game.
Many MP's also get in on the act and get elected to Parliament on the same basis.
It is one of these things that is incredibly frustrating for everyone involved, but it is just democracy. People want to have control over what gets built in their local area.
A relative of mine was a very senior Council official and he fought (successfully) for 20 years to stop the field being built on outside his house. Another acquaintance was a very senior planning consultant who complained about objectors endlessly but also opposed developments he didn't like when they affected him.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
You spend so much of your life online, I’m surprised you need it explaining! Russia is currently arm-wrestling with both its arms. In Kherson, where its troops are subject to the modern version of a medieval castle siege; and in Kharkiv/North Luhansk, where we’re likely to soon see another Ukrainian thunder run possibly as far as the border.
If you’re arm wrestling with both arms, there’s nothing you can do stop yourself being punched in the face. And that’s what’s going to happen next. A third thrust, with the biggest component of Ukraine’s army, down to the Black Sea coast, to split the whole battlefield in two. Kersh Bridge is part of the shaping for that operation, as was last night’s missile attack on a rail depot that feeds Melitopol.
The moment will come when either the Russian army completely collapses, or events in Moscow overtake events in Ukraine. Don’t know which first or when but it’s got to be under a year away, outside but growing chance this side of Xmas.
And again you haven’t addressed the point. All of the above is highly plausible and means a Russian defeat. And at that stage Putin - in desperation - will surely launch WMD of some kind because defeat means gaddafi style death for him. He will be totally cornered and out of other options
And then you are relying on his chain of command disobeying him, or some neat little coup that removes him and does not replace him with someone even crazier
This is what you HOPE. And what if your hopes are misplaced?
Well, because the alternative (appeasement) is worse.
You want to buy a little temporary security by giving into nuclear blackmail now. But all that does is make future nuclear blackmail more likely. And it means that next time, the blackmailer will expect us to fold.
You are under the misapprehension that giving into Putin makes us safer. It does not. It means I'm very slightly less likely to make it to 2024, but makes it massively less likely I will make it to 2030.
Yup. All basic Game Theory stuff. Goes back to papers written in 60s on stability in conflicts.
Game theory may seem to apply, but it doesn't. You can extrapolate, if you wave your arms, all sorts of things - they're not necessarily true.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
You spend so much of your life online, I’m surprised you need it explaining! Russia is currently arm-wrestling with both its arms. In Kherson, where its troops are subject to the modern version of a medieval castle siege; and in Kharkiv/North Luhansk, where we’re likely to soon see another Ukrainian thunder run possibly as far as the border.
If you’re arm wrestling with both arms, there’s nothing you can do stop yourself being punched in the face. And that’s what’s going to happen next. A third thrust, with the biggest component of Ukraine’s army, down to the Black Sea coast, to split the whole battlefield in two. Kersh Bridge is part of the shaping for that operation, as was last night’s missile attack on a rail depot that feeds Melitopol.
The moment will come when either the Russian army completely collapses, or events in Moscow overtake events in Ukraine. Don’t know which first or when but it’s got to be under a year away, outside but growing chance this side of Xmas.
And again you haven’t addressed the point. All of the above is highly plausible and means a Russian defeat. And at that stage Putin - in desperation - will surely launch WMD of some kind because defeat means gaddafi style death for him. He will be totally cornered and out of other options
And then you are relying on his chain of command disobeying him, or some neat little coup that removes him and does not replace him with someone even crazier
This is what you HOPE. And what if your hopes are misplaced?
Well, because the alternative (appeasement) is worse.
You want to buy a little temporary security by giving into nuclear blackmail now. But all that does is make future nuclear blackmail more likely. And it means that next time, the blackmailer will expect us to fold.
You are under the misapprehension that giving into Putin makes us safer. It does not. It means I'm very slightly less likely to make it to 2024, but makes it massively less likely I will make it to 2030.
You consistently make this accusation that I want to "give in" to Putin and "appease" him. It is quite wearying because it is false, and you surely know it
I agree with Joe Biden (not a thing I often say) we need to find an off-ramp for Putin, because he is a mad cornered bastard with nuclear weapons. This is a dangerous situation for all of us, like it or not
This peaceful solution needs to be sufficiently humiliating and costly for Putin that he never tries this shit again, but it will also give him something meagre but solid that he can claim as a victory to his poor people, justifying his colossal blunder
It might be something like the Elon Musk solution (tho Ukraine will surely ask for NATO membership, and rightly won't accept neutrality). This is not appeasement, Joe Biden is not an appeaser, this is the art of diplomacy: trying to find the sweet spot that ends a war
Is it easy? No, it's horribly difficult. Is it worth trying? Of course - because the alternative is at least the continuation of this war and tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of extra corpses, Russian and Ukrainian alike, and at worst we go to total nuclear war, which obliterates us all
As an aside, pro-Russian Twitter (Will Schryver, etc.) has moved on from:
It's all going swimmingly.
to
Actually, it's not the Ukrainians that are fighting, it's US and British special forces who have been secretly smuggled into the country, and one third of Ukrainian forces area actually NATO troops. If it was up to the Ukrainians, they'd have all surrendered and they'd be happily Russian citizens now.
They're barking, of course. The British Army is so small you could probably fit all of them into Wembley Stadium. The special forces would barely fill the royal box.
The level of self-delusion being used to avoid facing the truth - that the Russian Army is shit - is really quite something to behold.
I'm reminded of Overy's seminal book about why the Allies won WW2. He runs through all the obvious: economy, manpower, technology, leadership, strategy, etc and acknowledges the contribution of each.
But he closes the book with an analysis of morality and the often underestimated benefits from having a 'cause' that you believe is just. Both directly in terms of troop morale and the ability to do what you want with minimal coercion and indirectly through resistance in occupied territories, better intelligence, covert help from neutral countries, and so on.
If Ukraine had unilaterally invaded Russia rather than vice versa, Russia's military response might have been rather more effective.
Lightning fast British policy in action. Why house building is so broken in this country: Plans for 97 homes on a derelict site near a railway station, on land granted to developers in 2008, finally passes thanks to government overruling opposition who took it to the High Court, because quote the plans were 'excessive'.
The supply demand imbalance in the UK housing market is only going to be solved by a Labour Government, and one that is willing to pass new legislation to defang the nimbies at that. Expecting the current lot to do anything about it, irrespective of whoever is leader, is pointless.
The sad reality is that NIMBYism is how you get elected to local government in large parts of the country. If you are in opposition, you oppose some locally contentious developments supported by the incumbents. If you are the incumbents, then you backtrack on what you were going to do to avoid getting voted out. This is what determines the outcome of many local elections. The lib dems and the greens are the absolute masters of this game.
Many MP's also get in on the act and get elected to Parliament on the same basis.
It is one of these things that is incredibly frustrating for everyone involved, but it is just democracy. People want to have control over what gets built in their local area.
A relative of mine was a very senior Council official and he fought (successfully) for 20 years to stop the field being built on outside his house. Another acquaintance was a very senior planning consultant who complained about objectors endlessly but also opposed developments he didn't like when they affected him.
All true. OTOH Labour's powerbase is in cities and university towns. It'll be much easier for them to dismantle parts of the green belt and ram through developments with primary legislation (a modern analogue of the New Towns Act) with powers that constrain the ability of nimby pressure groups and their puppet local councillors to oppose them.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
You spend so much of your life online, I’m surprised you need it explaining! Russia is currently arm-wrestling with both its arms. In Kherson, where its troops are subject to the modern version of a medieval castle siege; and in Kharkiv/North Luhansk, where we’re likely to soon see another Ukrainian thunder run possibly as far as the border.
If you’re arm wrestling with both arms, there’s nothing you can do stop yourself being punched in the face. And that’s what’s going to happen next. A third thrust, with the biggest component of Ukraine’s army, down to the Black Sea coast, to split the whole battlefield in two. Kersh Bridge is part of the shaping for that operation, as was last night’s missile attack on a rail depot that feeds Melitopol.
The moment will come when either the Russian army completely collapses, or events in Moscow overtake events in Ukraine. Don’t know which first or when but it’s got to be under a year away, outside but growing chance this side of Xmas.
And again you haven’t addressed the point. All of the above is highly plausible and means a Russian defeat. And at that stage Putin - in desperation - will surely launch WMD of some kind because defeat means gaddafi style death for him. He will be totally cornered and out of other options
And then you are relying on his chain of command disobeying him, or some neat little coup that removes him and does not replace him with someone even crazier
This is what you HOPE. And what if your hopes are misplaced?
Well, because the alternative (appeasement) is worse.
You want to buy a little temporary security by giving into nuclear blackmail now. But all that does is make future nuclear blackmail more likely. And it means that next time, the blackmailer will expect us to fold.
You are under the misapprehension that giving into Putin makes us safer. It does not. It means I'm very slightly less likely to make it to 2024, but makes it massively less likely I will make it to 2030.
Yup. All basic Game Theory stuff. Goes back to papers written in 60s on stability in conflicts.
Game theory may seem to apply, but it doesn't. You can extrapolate, if you wave your arms, all sorts of things - they're not necessarily true.
The papers I’m taking about were written at the RAND Corporation (mostly) and were exactly on the subject of stopping wars escalating into nuclear conflicts. Amusing little numbers such as Herman Kahn’s “The problem of reaching 1975, alive”. Which is mostly easily found in his “On Thermonuclear War”.
Lightning fast British policy in action. Why house building is so broken in this country: Plans for 97 homes on a derelict site near a railway station, on land granted to developers in 2008, finally passes thanks to government overruling opposition who took it to the High Court, because quote the plans were 'excessive'.
The supply demand imbalance in the UK housing market is only going to be solved by a Labour Government, and one that is willing to pass new legislation to defang the nimbies at that. Expecting the current lot to do anything about it, irrespective of whoever is leader, is pointless.
The sad reality is that NIMBYism is how you get elected to local government in large parts of the country. If you are in opposition, you oppose some locally contentious developments supported by the incumbents. If you are the incumbents, then you backtrack on what you were going to do to avoid getting voted out. This is what determines the outcome of many local elections. The lib dems and the greens are the absolute masters of this game.
Many MP's also get in on the act and get elected to Parliament on the same basis.
It is one of these things that is incredibly frustrating for everyone involved, but it is just democracy. People want to have control over what gets built in their local area.
A relative of mine was a very senior Council official and he fought (successfully) for 20 years to stop the field being built on outside his house. Another acquaintance was a very senior planning consultant who complained about objectors endlessly but also opposed developments he didn't like when they affected him.
All true. OTOH Labour's powerbase is in cities and university towns. It'll be much easier for them to dismantle parts of the green belt and ram through developments with primary legislation (a modern analogue of the New Towns Act) with powers that constrain the ability of nimby pressure groups and their puppet local councillors to oppose them.
A large part of Labour’s base is very very Green. They would react to going after the Green Belt with the joy with which they react to fracking.
As an aside, pro-Russian Twitter (Will Schryver, etc.) has moved on from:
It's all going swimmingly.
to
Actually, it's not the Ukrainians that are fighting, it's US and British special forces who have been secretly smuggled into the country, and one third of Ukrainian forces area actually NATO troops. If it was up to the Ukrainians, they'd have all surrendered and they'd be happily Russian citizens now.
They're barking, of course. The British Army is so small you could probably fit all of them into Wembley Stadium. The special forces would barely fill the royal box.
The level of self-delusion being used to avoid facing the truth - that the Russian Army is shit - is really quite something to behold.
I'm reminded of Overy's seminal book about why the Allies won WW2. He runs through all the obvious: economy, manpower, technology, leadership, strategy, etc and acknowledges the contribution of each.
But he closes the book with an analysis of morality and the often underestimated benefits from having a 'cause' that you believe is just. Both directly in terms of troop morale and the ability to do what you want with minimal coercion and indirectly through resistance in occupied territories, better intelligence, covert help from neutral countries, and so on.
If Ukraine had unilaterally invaded Russia rather than vice versa, Russia's military response might have been rather more effective.
The depth of German ideological commitment in WWII was startling - Hitler faced only paltry resistance right until the end. The military fought for him, fanatically, until he did the one unquestionably good action of his life.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
You spend so much of your life online, I’m surprised you need it explaining! Russia is currently arm-wrestling with both its arms. In Kherson, where its troops are subject to the modern version of a medieval castle siege; and in Kharkiv/North Luhansk, where we’re likely to soon see another Ukrainian thunder run possibly as far as the border.
If you’re arm wrestling with both arms, there’s nothing you can do stop yourself being punched in the face. And that’s what’s going to happen next. A third thrust, with the biggest component of Ukraine’s army, down to the Black Sea coast, to split the whole battlefield in two. Kersh Bridge is part of the shaping for that operation, as was last night’s missile attack on a rail depot that feeds Melitopol.
The moment will come when either the Russian army completely collapses, or events in Moscow overtake events in Ukraine. Don’t know which first or when but it’s got to be under a year away, outside but growing chance this side of Xmas.
And again you haven’t addressed the point. All of the above is highly plausible and means a Russian defeat. And at that stage Putin - in desperation - will surely launch WMD of some kind because defeat means gaddafi style death for him. He will be totally cornered and out of other options
And then you are relying on his chain of command disobeying him, or some neat little coup that removes him and does not replace him with someone even crazier
This is what you HOPE. And what if your hopes are misplaced?
Well, because the alternative (appeasement) is worse.
You want to buy a little temporary security by giving into nuclear blackmail now. But all that does is make future nuclear blackmail more likely. And it means that next time, the blackmailer will expect us to fold.
You are under the misapprehension that giving into Putin makes us safer. It does not. It means I'm very slightly less likely to make it to 2024, but makes it massively less likely I will make it to 2030.
Yup. All basic Game Theory stuff. Goes back to papers written in 60s on stability in conflicts.
Game theory may seem to apply, but it doesn't. You can extrapolate, if you wave your arms, all sorts of things - they're not necessarily true.
The papers I’m taking about were written at the RAND Corporation (mostly) and were exactly on the subject of stopping wars escalating into nuclear conflicts. Amusing little numbers such as Herman Kahn’s “The problem of reaching 1975, alive”. Which is mostly easily found in his “On Thermonuclear War”.
Sure. I've dug around in those old papers. They're very good. The ideas about high speed railways for example.
"Game theory", as now used, is maths though. (I suspect you'll accept that, but if not I partly agree with you - game theory ought to be fun!)
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
You spend so much of your life online, I’m surprised you need it explaining! Russia is currently arm-wrestling with both its arms. In Kherson, where its troops are subject to the modern version of a medieval castle siege; and in Kharkiv/North Luhansk, where we’re likely to soon see another Ukrainian thunder run possibly as far as the border.
If you’re arm wrestling with both arms, there’s nothing you can do stop yourself being punched in the face. And that’s what’s going to happen next. A third thrust, with the biggest component of Ukraine’s army, down to the Black Sea coast, to split the whole battlefield in two. Kersh Bridge is part of the shaping for that operation, as was last night’s missile attack on a rail depot that feeds Melitopol.
The moment will come when either the Russian army completely collapses, or events in Moscow overtake events in Ukraine. Don’t know which first or when but it’s got to be under a year away, outside but growing chance this side of Xmas.
And again you haven’t addressed the point. All of the above is highly plausible and means a Russian defeat. And at that stage Putin - in desperation - will surely launch WMD of some kind because defeat means gaddafi style death for him. He will be totally cornered and out of other options
And then you are relying on his chain of command disobeying him, or some neat little coup that removes him and does not replace him with someone even crazier
This is what you HOPE. And what if your hopes are misplaced?
Well, because the alternative (appeasement) is worse.
You want to buy a little temporary security by giving into nuclear blackmail now. But all that does is make future nuclear blackmail more likely. And it means that next time, the blackmailer will expect us to fold.
You are under the misapprehension that giving into Putin makes us safer. It does not. It means I'm very slightly less likely to make it to 2024, but makes it massively less likely I will make it to 2030.
You consistently make this accusation that I want to "give in" to Putin and "appease" him. It is quite wearying because it is false, and you surely know it
I agree with Joe Biden (not a thing I often say) we need to find an off-ramp for Putin, because he is a mad cornered bastard with nuclear weapons. This is a dangerous situation for all of us, like it or not
This peaceful solution needs to be sufficiently humiliating and costly for Putin that he never tries this shit again, but it will also give him something meagre but solid that he can claim as a victory to his poor people, justifying his colossal blunder
It might be something like the Elon Musk solution (tho Ukraine will surely ask for NATO membership, and rightly won't accept neutrality). This is not appeasement, Joe Biden is not an appeaser, this is the art of diplomacy: trying to find the sweet spot that ends a war
Is it easy? No, it's horribly difficult. Is it worth trying? Of course - because the alternative is at least the continuation of this war and tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of extra corpses, Russian and Ukrainian alike, and at worst we go to total nuclear war, which obliterates us all
There's nothing to be gained from appeasing shitbag because he'll just be back for more later. Reward his bad behaviour with little prizes and he'll logically assume that more bad behaviour in another few years' time will be rewarded with more little prizes. Russian speaking parts of the Baltic States and a chunk of Lithuania as a land bridge to Kaliningrad are obvious future targets
Give him nothing, so he knows his boundaries in future, and we'll be a whole lot safer. If he needs to shore up his position at home then a propaganda campaign for all the gullible twats amongst the Russian population (nasty NATO beat us, not the Ukrainians) and a mass slaughter of scapegoat generals ought to suffice.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
You spend so much of your life online, I’m surprised you need it explaining! Russia is currently arm-wrestling with both its arms. In Kherson, where its troops are subject to the modern version of a medieval castle siege; and in Kharkiv/North Luhansk, where we’re likely to soon see another Ukrainian thunder run possibly as far as the border.
If you’re arm wrestling with both arms, there’s nothing you can do stop yourself being punched in the face. And that’s what’s going to happen next. A third thrust, with the biggest component of Ukraine’s army, down to the Black Sea coast, to split the whole battlefield in two. Kersh Bridge is part of the shaping for that operation, as was last night’s missile attack on a rail depot that feeds Melitopol.
The moment will come when either the Russian army completely collapses, or events in Moscow overtake events in Ukraine. Don’t know which first or when but it’s got to be under a year away, outside but growing chance this side of Xmas.
And again you haven’t addressed the point. All of the above is highly plausible and means a Russian defeat. And at that stage Putin - in desperation - will surely launch WMD of some kind because defeat means gaddafi style death for him. He will be totally cornered and out of other options
And then you are relying on his chain of command disobeying him, or some neat little coup that removes him and does not replace him with someone even crazier
This is what you HOPE. And what if your hopes are misplaced?
Well, because the alternative (appeasement) is worse.
You want to buy a little temporary security by giving into nuclear blackmail now. But all that does is make future nuclear blackmail more likely. And it means that next time, the blackmailer will expect us to fold.
You are under the misapprehension that giving into Putin makes us safer. It does not. It means I'm very slightly less likely to make it to 2024, but makes it massively less likely I will make it to 2030.
Yup. All basic Game Theory stuff. Goes back to papers written in 60s on stability in conflicts.
Game theory may seem to apply, but it doesn't. You can extrapolate, if you wave your arms, all sorts of things - they're not necessarily true.
Game theory applies alright, it can't not, because by definition it applies to all situations where A and B make consecutive decisions based on the decisions made by the other.
It is not however as straightforward as suggested. For instance, the Once you have paid the Danegeld you will never get rid of the Dane argument ignores the NATO point. There is an argument (and this is merely a theoretical point before some armchair general denounces my poltroonery) that the safest thing is to abandon Ukraine now, leaving untested by either side and therefore intact the idea that NATO is untouchable, rather than risk a nuke into say Poland which would either entail Armageddon, otr show the world that you can poke NATO and get away with it.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
You spend so much of your life online, I’m surprised you need it explaining! Russia is currently arm-wrestling with both its arms. In Kherson, where its troops are subject to the modern version of a medieval castle siege; and in Kharkiv/North Luhansk, where we’re likely to soon see another Ukrainian thunder run possibly as far as the border.
If you’re arm wrestling with both arms, there’s nothing you can do stop yourself being punched in the face. And that’s what’s going to happen next. A third thrust, with the biggest component of Ukraine’s army, down to the Black Sea coast, to split the whole battlefield in two. Kersh Bridge is part of the shaping for that operation, as was last night’s missile attack on a rail depot that feeds Melitopol.
The moment will come when either the Russian army completely collapses, or events in Moscow overtake events in Ukraine. Don’t know which first or when but it’s got to be under a year away, outside but growing chance this side of Xmas.
And again you haven’t addressed the point. All of the above is highly plausible and means a Russian defeat. And at that stage Putin - in desperation - will surely launch WMD of some kind because defeat means gaddafi style death for him. He will be totally cornered and out of other options
And then you are relying on his chain of command disobeying him, or some neat little coup that removes him and does not replace him with someone even crazier
This is what you HOPE. And what if your hopes are misplaced?
Well, because the alternative (appeasement) is worse.
You want to buy a little temporary security by giving into nuclear blackmail now. But all that does is make future nuclear blackmail more likely. And it means that next time, the blackmailer will expect us to fold.
You are under the misapprehension that giving into Putin makes us safer. It does not. It means I'm very slightly less likely to make it to 2024, but makes it massively less likely I will make it to 2030.
Yup. All basic Game Theory stuff. Goes back to papers written in 60s on stability in conflicts.
Game theory may seem to apply, but it doesn't. You can extrapolate, if you wave your arms, all sorts of things - they're not necessarily true.
Game theory applies alright, it can't not, because by definition it applies to all situations where A and B make consecutive decisions based on the decisions made by the other.
It is not however as straightforward as suggested. For instance, the Once you have paid the Danegeld you will never get rid of the Dane argument ignores the NATO point. There is an argument (and this is merely a theoretical point before some armchair general denounces my poltroonery) that the safest thing is to abandon Ukraine now, leaving untested by either side and therefore intact the idea that NATO is untouchable, rather than risk a nuke into say Poland which would either entail Armageddon, otr show the world that you can poke NATO and get away with it.
It applies to all situations where decisions are made.I do not know of a real world situation where it has been applicable though.
Lightning fast British policy in action. Why house building is so broken in this country: Plans for 97 homes on a derelict site near a railway station, on land granted to developers in 2008, finally passes thanks to government overruling opposition who took it to the High Court, because quote the plans were 'excessive'.
The supply demand imbalance in the UK housing market is only going to be solved by a Labour Government, and one that is willing to pass new legislation to defang the nimbies at that. Expecting the current lot to do anything about it, irrespective of whoever is leader, is pointless.
The sad reality is that NIMBYism is how you get elected to local government in large parts of the country. If you are in opposition, you oppose some locally contentious developments supported by the incumbents. If you are the incumbents, then you backtrack on what you were going to do to avoid getting voted out. This is what determines the outcome of many local elections. The lib dems and the greens are the absolute masters of this game.
Many MP's also get in on the act and get elected to Parliament on the same basis.
It is one of these things that is incredibly frustrating for everyone involved, but it is just democracy. People want to have control over what gets built in their local area.
A relative of mine was a very senior Council official and he fought (successfully) for 20 years to stop the field being built on outside his house. Another acquaintance was a very senior planning consultant who complained about objectors endlessly but also opposed developments he didn't like when they affected him.
All true. OTOH Labour's powerbase is in cities and university towns. It'll be much easier for them to dismantle parts of the green belt and ram through developments with primary legislation (a modern analogue of the New Towns Act) with powers that constrain the ability of nimby pressure groups and their puppet local councillors to oppose them.
A large part of Labour’s base is very very Green. They would react to going after the Green Belt with the joy with which they react to fracking.
Should also threaten relatively few Labour MPs, which is the crucial point. Say that, for argument's sake, Starmer has a majority of 50, and a massive planned development of the Oxford-Cambridge arc will enrage local nimbies in four or five Labour-held constituencies. That being the case, why wouldn't you?
Prioritising new homes where they are most needed for young families over the howls of elderly shire Tories who don't want their views spolied is a worthwhile investment of political capital. And so long as they plan the developments sensibly and avoid concreting over nature reserves then the only lobby group they're going to have to deal with is the CPRE. Zero fucks given.
The fear of escalation after the Kerch bridge is like the fear you feel when your team are sending bouncers down at the fast bowling tail ender before your second innings.
No, it’s like your fast bowlers sending bouncers down in the 4th innings.
To mix sporting analogies, the whole war has been a giant rope a dope. Ukraine extracted a very heavy price for the territorial gains Russia made. The Russians punched themselves out, while Ukraine floated like a butterfly and gave them 1000 bee stings. The knockout blow is now fast approaching.
I admire your confidence but I question your logic
How do you deliver a “knockout blow” to an an unstable autocracy armed with nukes?
You are presuming that, when facing total defeat (and likely his own death) Putin will simply accept this. Why should he do that?
We can hope that if and when he pushes the button nothing happens and his generals rush in and rugby tackle him. Adieu Vladimir
But that’s a hope. We cannot know this
They didn’t nuke Afghanistan and they’re not going to nuke Ukraine either, for lots of very well rehearsed reasons.
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
You still haven’t described the “knockout blow”
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
You spend so much of your life online, I’m surprised you need it explaining! Russia is currently arm-wrestling with both its arms. In Kherson, where its troops are subject to the modern version of a medieval castle siege; and in Kharkiv/North Luhansk, where we’re likely to soon see another Ukrainian thunder run possibly as far as the border.
If you’re arm wrestling with both arms, there’s nothing you can do stop yourself being punched in the face. And that’s what’s going to happen next. A third thrust, with the biggest component of Ukraine’s army, down to the Black Sea coast, to split the whole battlefield in two. Kersh Bridge is part of the shaping for that operation, as was last night’s missile attack on a rail depot that feeds Melitopol.
The moment will come when either the Russian army completely collapses, or events in Moscow overtake events in Ukraine. Don’t know which first or when but it’s got to be under a year away, outside but growing chance this side of Xmas.
And again you haven’t addressed the point. All of the above is highly plausible and means a Russian defeat. And at that stage Putin - in desperation - will surely launch WMD of some kind because defeat means gaddafi style death for him. He will be totally cornered and out of other options
And then you are relying on his chain of command disobeying him, or some neat little coup that removes him and does not replace him with someone even crazier
This is what you HOPE. And what if your hopes are misplaced?
Well, because the alternative (appeasement) is worse.
You want to buy a little temporary security by giving into nuclear blackmail now. But all that does is make future nuclear blackmail more likely. And it means that next time, the blackmailer will expect us to fold.
You are under the misapprehension that giving into Putin makes us safer. It does not. It means I'm very slightly less likely to make it to 2024, but makes it massively less likely I will make it to 2030.
Yup. All basic Game Theory stuff. Goes back to papers written in 60s on stability in conflicts.
Game theory may seem to apply, but it doesn't. You can extrapolate, if you wave your arms, all sorts of things - they're not necessarily true.
Game theory applies alright, it can't not, because by definition it applies to all situations where A and B make consecutive decisions based on the decisions made by the other.
It is not however as straightforward as suggested. For instance, the Once you have paid the Danegeld you will never get rid of the Dane argument ignores the NATO point. There is an argument (and this is merely a theoretical point before some armchair general denounces my poltroonery) that the safest thing is to abandon Ukraine now, leaving untested by either side and therefore intact the idea that NATO is untouchable, rather than risk a nuke into say Poland which would either entail Armageddon, otr show the world that you can poke NATO and get away with it.
It applies to all situations where decisions are made.I do not know of a real world situation where it has been applicable though.
No it doesn't. Me deciding what to have for dinner has no games theory implications.
Whereas wars and strikes and such are entirely governed by it. It is almost always illuminating to ask in any negotiation what cards your opponent has in his hand and what he believes you have in yours.
Comments
Why house building is so broken in this country: Plans for 97 homes on a derelict site near a railway station, on land granted to developers in 2008, finally passes thanks to government overruling opposition who took it to the High Court, because quote the plans were 'excessive'.
https://twitter.com/feedthedrummer/status/1578389951623954432
I do think we’ll be nostalgic for Putin before too long. When we have a bunch of nuclear armed mafia micro states. That’s gonna be fun.
“The explosion on the Crimean bridge: A 🧵 #CrimeanBridge”
https://twitter.com/r__politik/status/1578718844012544002?s=46&t=sr-xGwAptf2DowA9uCxjkA
How do we go from here - Ukraine winning - to there - Ukraine has won, Russia has retreated and Putin has gone - without Putin doing some mad shit to stop this happening?
I have to say that if I had been alive at the time, after the war I would have found the twat responsible for his murder and beaten him senseless.
Gen. Sergei Surovikin was in charge of Southern Ukr ops around Kherson.
That's very - courageous - of them.
If the bridge collapses under a train of tanks...then that will be proof karma's a bitch.
Should be sacked in the morning, probably won't be.
They may of course be lying.
However, I can imagine they would be willing to take a risk unless it was literally falling in the water. They are totally fucked if they don't have it.
“The Kerch Bridge has been heavily damaged by a large explosion. One of the two road bridge spans is in the water, the second road lane has blast damage and a cistern train of fuel was set on fire in the same blast in multiple places.
Implications 🧵”
https://twitter.com/trenttelenko/status/1578747721766227969?s=46&t=sr-xGwAptf2DowA9uCxjkA
Conclusion: Russia cannot win, has probably lost, it’s all about how bad and bloody is the defeat
One mind blowing revelation: Ukrainians are now using suicide attacks as a weapon of war. This was not a one off
If you’re arm wrestling with both arms, there’s nothing you can do stop yourself being punched in the face. And that’s what’s going to happen next. A third thrust, with the biggest component of Ukraine’s army, down to the Black Sea coast, to split the whole battlefield in two. Kersh Bridge is part of the shaping for that operation, as was last night’s missile attack on a rail depot that feeds Melitopol.
The moment will come when either the Russian army completely collapses, or events in Moscow overtake events in Ukraine. Don’t know which first or when but it’s got to be under a year away, outside but growing chance this side of Xmas.
*The Emperor Mong. Believed by some to be the author and encourager of all acts of gross stupidity. That little voice in your head saying “what could possibly go wrong”? That’s him.
Next up, a train load of veterans of the war stop in Moscow?
It could end with Russia chased out of the Southern Coast and most of Donbas and Lushensk, while still holding Crimea. Ukraine might not being strong enough to flush their last forces out, might be unwilling to negotiate, and the conflict could be essentially frozen, with neither side able to carry out offensive operations.
It might end with Putin's death or arrest.
It might end with a revolution in Chechnya, and Russia effectively ceding Ukraine to hold onto another of its provinces.
But ultimately, despite all the rhetoric, Russia does not have unlimited resources: people or bullets or artillery or rockets or even trains to get them to the front. At some point, young Russian men will decide that being sent to the front line is a death sentence and will refuse to go. (Better to fight the riot police than to fight the Ukrainians.)
My forecast has always been that the resources of the Russian state become exhausted. Now, maybe they withdraw and pretend the war is still going on, and lob artillery shells and rockets at rump Ukraine. Or maybe the current regime falls. But if Russia cannot continue to fight, that it won't. That's simple reality.
Why not - driver stops truck. Claims breakdown. Jumps on the back of motorcycle that happens to be there. 2 minutes later…
And then you are relying on his chain of command disobeying him, or some neat little coup that removes him and does not replace him with someone even crazier
This is what you HOPE. And what if your hopes are misplaced?
If it wasn't a suicide bombing it was remote controlled.
Both are possible.
The former has alarming implications for Russia.
The Ukes have form here
“Yesterday,this young amazing Ukrainian Soldier blows himself up to destroy a bridge to prevent Russian tanks from advancing! He is just one of the heroes who should be recognized. My heart breaks for his family&friends
#UkraineRussia #Ukraine #RussiaUkraineWar #UkraineUnderAttack”
https://twitter.com/_imaqib_/status/1497461726102446081?s=46&t=y3s2AUiW-s0TJC3ZFYqA6Q
You want to buy a little temporary security by giving into nuclear blackmail now. But all that does is make future nuclear blackmail more likely. And it means that next time, the blackmailer will expect us to fold.
You are under the misapprehension that giving into Putin makes us safer. It does not. It means I'm very slightly less likely to make it to 2024, but makes it massively less likely I will make it to 2030.
I don’t have a rosy forecast for what follows him. I think most likely the Russian federation will implode, possibly with multiple Chechen wars at once. But I’m not worried that the lawn I just reseeded is going to be scorched. I do think we have lost Russian supplies of gas for what might prove to be an indefinite period. And I also think Ukraine will need to pay a horrific further price in lives before this is done.
Kill a load of generals, lick wounds, plot revenge.
If you knew the fuel train schedule, perfectly possible to time the blast without a suicide bombing.
Note that the PIRA did multiple truck bombs of the form I suggested - driver jumps on a motorcycle, leaving a locked lorry behind then.
Many MP's also get in on the act and get elected to Parliament on the same basis.
It is one of these things that is incredibly frustrating for everyone involved, but it is just democracy. People want to have control over what gets built in their local area.
A relative of mine was a very senior Council official and he fought (successfully) for 20 years to stop the field being built on outside his house. Another acquaintance was a very senior planning consultant who complained about objectors endlessly but also opposed developments he didn't like when they affected him.
I agree with Joe Biden (not a thing I often say) we need to find an off-ramp for Putin, because he is a mad cornered bastard with nuclear weapons. This is a dangerous situation for all of us, like it or not
This peaceful solution needs to be sufficiently humiliating and costly for Putin that he never tries this shit again, but it will also give him something meagre but solid that he can claim as a victory to his poor people, justifying his colossal blunder
It might be something like the Elon Musk solution (tho Ukraine will surely ask for NATO membership, and rightly won't accept neutrality). This is not appeasement, Joe Biden is not an appeaser, this is the art of diplomacy: trying to find the sweet spot that ends a war
Is it easy? No, it's horribly difficult. Is it worth trying? Of course - because the alternative is at least the continuation of this war and tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of extra corpses, Russian and Ukrainian alike, and at worst we go to total nuclear war, which obliterates us all
But he closes the book with an analysis of morality and the often underestimated benefits from having a 'cause' that you believe is just. Both directly in terms of troop morale and the ability to do what you want with minimal coercion and indirectly through resistance in occupied territories, better intelligence, covert help from neutral countries, and so on.
If Ukraine had unilaterally invaded Russia rather than vice versa, Russia's military response might have been rather more effective.
"Game theory", as now used, is maths though. (I suspect you'll accept that, but if not I partly agree with you - game theory ought to be fun!)
Give him nothing, so he knows his boundaries in future, and we'll be a whole lot safer. If he needs to shore up his position at home then a propaganda campaign for all the gullible twats amongst the Russian population (nasty NATO beat us, not the Ukrainians) and a mass slaughter of scapegoat generals ought to suffice.
New Thread, Appeasers
It is not however as straightforward as suggested. For instance, the Once you have paid the Danegeld you will never get rid of the Dane argument ignores the NATO point. There is an argument (and this is merely a theoretical point before some armchair general denounces my poltroonery) that the safest thing is to abandon Ukraine now, leaving untested by either side and therefore intact the idea that NATO is untouchable, rather than risk a nuke into say Poland which would either entail Armageddon, otr show the world that you can poke NATO and get away with it.
Prioritising new homes where they are most needed for young families over the howls of elderly shire Tories who don't want their views spolied is a worthwhile investment of political capital. And so long as they plan the developments sensibly and avoid concreting over nature reserves then the only lobby group they're going to have to deal with is the CPRE. Zero fucks given.
Whereas wars and strikes and such are entirely governed by it. It is almost always illuminating to ask in any negotiation what cards your opponent has in his hand and what he believes you have in yours.