Ukraine

[Corso]

I haven't heard one peep from mainstream news organizations that addresses the general point of view that John Mearsheimer advanced in the Cambridge University virtual presentation I posted; he not some wingnut and his position isn't unique, just ignored by the powers that be. I've listened to a couple other more general foreign policy presentations he's given and for my money the electorate needs to be hearing this stuff if we're to avoid these sorts of catastrophes going forward. And this has zero to do with giving Putin a pass; as the instigator of violence on Ukraine I hope he pays the heaviest price possible (I'm thinking the Hague and a rope) but the US has got to take a long, honest look in the mirror or we're going lose this planet.

Here's the link again for convenience; it's well worth listening to:

Spot on John!

Measheimer lays the facts out clearly, without politicizing.

Mainstream news: Since when (in recent times) ever really care about the truth?

Everything now is is either left or right, with us or against us, black or white, but the world and everything in in it is a deep, murky grey.

[bcm119]

I haven't heard one peep from mainstream news organizations that addresses the general point of view that John Mearsheimer advanced in the Cambridge University virtual presentation I posted; he not some wingnut and his position isn't unique, just ignored by the powers that be. I've listened to a couple other more general foreign policy presentations he's given and for my money the electorate needs to be hearing this stuff if we're to avoid these sorts of catastrophes going forward. And this has zero to do with giving Putin a pass; as the instigator of violence on Ukraine I hope he pays the heaviest price possible (I'm thinking the Hague and a rope) but the US has got to take a long, honest look in the mirror or we're going lose this planet.

Here's the link again for convenience; it's well worth listening to:

John, the main stream media is covering a brutal war that is changing by the hour. Perhaps they can be allowed to hold off on pontificating about our supposed missteps in the decades leading up to it? Is this relevant to how we're going to get aid to Kyiv before people start starving to death?

And, in your desperation to blame this all on US foreign policy, you are parroting a very US-centric world view that disregards the free will of other countries. Surely your stance is quite the opposite, but then again, you end by implying it's up to the US to save the planet? The constant demands from the far left to "look ourselves in the mirror" doesn't have the atonement effect on the global stage you think it does. I'm not the only one who holds this opinion. See the article below, particularly this quoted passage:

"Leftists in particular may think, when criticizing NATO expansion, that they are correcting their own or fellow citizens’ biases as citizens of an imperial power that has often acted in bad faith. They may think they are adequately acknowledging this fraught legacy by focusing their critique on what they perceive to be Western expansionism. But they in fact perpetuate imperial wrongs when they continue to deny non-Western countries and their citizens agency in geopolitics. Paradoxically, the problem with American exceptionalism is that even those who challenge its foundational tenets and heap scorn on American militarism often end up recreating American exceptionalism by centering the United States in their analyses of international relations. It is, in Gregory Afinogenov’s words, a “form of provincialism that sees only the United States and its allies as primary actors.” Speaking about Eastern Europe and Eastern Europeans without listening to local voices or trying to understand the region’s complexity is a colonial projection."

The American Pundits Who Can’t Resist “Westsplaining” Ukraine

[theflashunc]

I haven't heard one peep from mainstream news organizations that addresses the general point of view that John Mearsheimer advanced in the Cambridge University virtual presentation I posted; he not some wingnut and his position isn't unique, just ignored by the powers that be. I've listened to a couple other more general foreign policy presentations he's given and for my money the electorate needs to be hearing this stuff if we're to avoid these sorts of catastrophes going forward. And this has zero to do with giving Putin a pass; as the instigator of violence on Ukraine I hope he pays the heaviest price possible (I'm thinking the Hague and a rope) but the US has got to take a long, honest look in the mirror or we're going lose this planet.

Here's the link again for convenience; it's well worth listening to:

There was the in-depth Q&A with him in the New Yorker, just to name one I've seen recently.

I have a hard time squaring the circle on the logic of, one the one hand: The world is defined by what the Great Powers do, and in this day and age that means the largest nuclear powers. And Great Powers will at times overstep their hands and misread the situation on the ground. Absolutely agreed on both points. With the conclusion, on the other, being this is and the outcome is entirely the fault of the United States.
Putin lost the disinformation campaign in the build up to the conflict. If anything he handed the West their greatest intelligence success in decades. He has galvanized allies across the EU, NATO and elsewhere, and if anything is pushing countries that were in his traditional field of orbit ever closer to the US, NATO and the like. Hell, this whole crisis has upped German defense spending to unprecedented postwar levels.

So from the cheap seats and using Mearsheimer's own rationale of Great Powers misunderstanding the spheres of influence and the reactions of other Great Powers, it seems like Putin has badly read the room, kneecapped his own country economically, and further diminished what influence he had in the region. Never mind this ain't exactly the greatest showing for a military that was supposed to bulldoze through the country. Even the Air Force can't maintain full air supremacy.

Mearsheimer's entitled to his opinion, and I don't disagree with the assessment that Ukrainians in proxy to a Great Power state need to think carefully about how their choices will be perceived by the nearby power. But they're showing for the last two weeks they're willing to go down fighting for self-determination free from Russian influence in their country. And none of what Mearsheimer has said publicly at this point, as the Russian military continues to bog down, the Russian economy gets clobbered and ever more countries apply for EU and NATO membership that he says "You know guys, Putin might have also screwed the pooch on this one."

[vertical_doug]

It's times like this when I think back to the Stephen Hawkings Lecture in Tokyo in the early 1990s. When asked if there was intelligent life in the Universe, he said he thought life was abundant, but it would eventually destroy itself.

You could hear a pin drop in the room after that statement. We may yet prove Hawkings right.

[jclay]

When asked if there was intelligent life in the Universe, he said he thought life was abundant, but it would eventually destroy itself.

We're doing it. Species extinction, unsustainable population growth, boundless resource consumption & environmental destruction and nuclear saber rattling which sooner or later will not end well be it via evil, miscalculation or fuckup. Hell, the cold temp reservoirs necessary to the operation of the heat engine we live on are warming and melting, and we keep buying larger vehicles, building larger houses, etc. It's not that we'll eventually destroy ourselves (and most higher order life), we're still at the party as the Titanic roars into the ice field.

There was the in-depth Q&A with him in the New Yorker, just to name one I've seen recently.

"You know guys, Putin might have also screwed the pooch on this one."

Glad to hear that alternate viewpoints are getting a modicum of exposure. Putin may well have screwed up but Ukraine is paying the cost and I think Mearsheimer makes a strong case that continued avoidance (allowing for slow, positive change in the relevant areas) was possible.

Is this relevant to how we're going to get aid to Kyiv before people start starving to death?

The constant demands from the far left to "look ourselves in the mirror" doesn't have the atonement effect on the global stage you think it does. But they in fact perpetuate imperial wrongs when they continue to deny non-Western countries and their citizens agency in geopolitics. [/URL]

It's relevant bc recognition of any problem is the first, necessary step to it's address. Though it may well be too late from Putin's perspective I just don't see a problem with with a ring to Putin and asking if he will cease and withdraw if NATO membership is taken off the table. Of course we won't do it for reasons similar to Putin's likely rejection but we'd give nothing meaningful up; we're still armed to the teeth; and responsibly unable to exercise our superior military power (which is neither news to, nor the ramifications lost on, any major power). If he doesn't agree then he loses even more in the court of international opinion, possibly including changes in his relationship with China.

I don't deny a country's agency but the major influencers are pretty obvious. We could have told Ukraine that we'd pressed our luck hard enough for the foreseeable future and that further NATO expansion, arms sales and so on would be dangerously destabilizing and not on offer. Refraining from aiding a governmental overthrow might have been a good idea, too.

We're not in a gunpowder limited world anymore and it's kinda like investing; it's the potential downsides of decisions, often ignored, that can do the most damage; and the potential downside in this age is nuclear destruction. If humanity doesn't start backing away from that then the only framework question is whether the proximate trigger to destruction of advanced life on this planet will be the controlled flight into ground of conventional environmental degradation or catastrophic nuclear exchange. And it ain't about utopia or lefty this/that; it's about survival of the planet and it's remaining species.

[Scott G.]

[snip]
I don't deny a country's agency but the major influencers are pretty obvious. We could have told Ukraine that we'd pressed our luck hard enough for the foreseeable future and that further NATO expansion, arms sales and so on would be dangerously destabilizing and not on offer. Refraining from aiding a governmental overthrow might have been a good idea, too.[snip]

Putin always did rate NATO and Western intelligence agencies much higher in effectiveness than the NATO member states did.
Here in the weeds, NATO is a small, hollow shell of what it once was, that Putin feared expansion seemed liked political theater.

[vertical_doug]

We're doing it. Species extinction, unsustainable population growth, boundless resource consumption & environmental destruction and nuclear saber rattling which sooner or later will not end well be it via evil, miscalculation or fuckup. Hell, the cold temp reservoirs necessary to the operation of the heat engine we live on are warming and melting, and we keep buying larger vehicles, building larger houses, etc. It's not that we'll eventually destroy ourselves (and most higher order life), we're still at the party as the Titanic roars into the ice field.



Glad to hear that alternate viewpoints are getting a modicum of exposure. Putin may well have screwed up but Ukraine is paying the cost and I think Mearsheimer makes a strong case that continued avoidance (allowing for slow, positive change in the relevant areas) was possible.



It's relevant bc recognition of any problem is the first, necessary step to it's address. Though it may well be too late from Putin's perspective I just don't see a problem with with a ring to Putin and asking if he will cease and withdraw if NATO membership is taken off the table. Of course we won't do it for reasons similar to Putin's likely rejection but we'd give nothing meaningful up; we're still armed to the teeth; and responsibly unable to exercise our superior military power (which is neither news to, nor the ramifications lost on, any major power). If he doesn't agree then he loses even more in the court of international opinion, possibly including changes in his relationship with China.

I don't deny a country's agency but the major influencers are pretty obvious. We could have told Ukraine that we'd pressed our luck hard enough for the foreseeable future and that further NATO expansion, arms sales and so on would be dangerously destabilizing and not on offer. Refraining from aiding a governmental overthrow might have been a good idea, too.

We're not in a gunpowder limited world anymore and it's kinda like investing; it's the potential downsides of decisions, often ignored, that can do the most damage; and the potential downside in this age is nuclear destruction. If humanity doesn't start backing away from that then the only framework question is whether the proximate trigger to destruction of advanced life on this planet will be the controlled flight into ground of conventional environmental degradation or catastrophic nuclear exchange. And it ain't about utopia or lefty this/that; it's about survival of the planet and it's remaining species.

Mearsheimer opinion is not uninformed, but it is shaped by a particular world view. He has gotten some things spectacularly wrong, (think EU did not revert back to its former pre-soviet warring states, more countries shouldn't have nukes). The line between deterrence/detente and appeasement is a fine one. It did not work with hitler pre-1940 and its possible this would not have worked with Putin.

I think Ian Bremmer has been more right about Russia in the Putin era and prefer to listen to him.

[bigbill]

The "think tanks" are helping out.

This is a good link. http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/20...wants-war.html

[j44ke]

Haha

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/03...for-ukrainians

[choke]

From today.....start at 47:00



Apparently these labs are run by the DOD. These are from a Bulgarian reporter.

https://armswatch.com/category/weapo...gical-weapons/

https://armswatch.com/the-pentagon-bio-weapons/

[choke]

I know that a lot of you are tired of hearing about warnings from an earlier time. However, I came across this one that I thought was worth sharing. This is from US Ambassador Burns (current CIA Director) to SecState Rice in 2008:

"Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests."

https://books.google.com/books?id=UD...erests&f=false

[jclay]

I don't see this as appeasement, at least in the sense of the Hitler benchmark; this is real politic amongst military peers either of whom can, right now, start a nuclear exchange that will destroy the planet. It also involves Russia's Monroe Doctrine-esque stance on Ukraine & Georgia; clearly we wouldn't put up with Russia or China doing in countries south of Texas what we have been doing on the western flank of Russia. We got lucky twice; shoulda pushed back from the table but we can't help ourselves. Stress any system hard enough and something's gonna give. We simply can't force the world to comport to our will, but we can cause it's destruction by trying.

The US bitches about Russia's annexation of Crimea; WTF did anyone think would happen if Ukraine became western aligned??? And we're relinquishing Guantanamo, a piece of dirt to which we have exactly zero legitimate claim (or need), when?

I don't agree with Mearsheimer's assertion that this is entirely on us; I think his language was too strong, hopefully just to make a point. Whatever the provocation, the one who throws the first punch started the fight and in a squabble between nuclear powers that becomes a very big deal. But we kept ignoring Putin's warnings and the warnings from the disfavored of our own peeps, kept pushing, kept encouraging Ukraine; it doesn't matter if Putin misread the room or his military. Ukraine is paying a terrible price and there is a robust case for having been able to avoid it in a fashion that allowed Ukraine to putter along MOL as it had been.

Of course Mearsheimer (and the other seasoned & well informed folks who warned against excessive overtures to Ukraine) might have been wrong but at this point we know that those who prevailed in US foreign policy, were (assuming they weren't hoping for this sort of confrontation, which may be assuming too much).

Well, I've got nothing new here; off to the shop to finish a frame.

[j44ke]

Someone evidently unplugged Chernobyl. Means nuclear fuel in storage at Chernobyl is no longer being properly cooled. Not optimal.

[j44ke]

...

Well, I've got nothing new here; off to the shop to finish a frame.

...

[vertical_doug]

Someone evidently unplugged Chernobyl. Means nuclear fuel in storage at Chernobyl is no longer being properly cooled. Not optimal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherno...uctural_design

I think this is false statement, because even if you unplugged it, the site is in no need of being cooled. The solid waste is inside the previous concrete tomb. The new containment site is just to allow the clean-up and dissassembly of the existing structures. There is no need to cool the nuclear waste anymore. I think the primary purpose is to monitor nuclear dust and radiation levels.

Maybe BigBill can chime in if I am wrong on this.

[jclay]

When asked if there was intelligent life in the Universe, he said he thought life was abundant, but it would eventually destroy itself.

You could hear a pin drop in the room after that statement.

As kind of an aside, that's something that has baffled me for at least two decades; not Hawkings prediction, but that something that appears so self evident as that is, that people with enough going on in their brains to want to listen to him would be speechless after hearing the prediction!

[bigbill]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherno...uctural_design

I think this is false statement, because even if you unplugged it, the site is in no need of being cooled. The solid waste is inside the previous concrete tomb. The new containment site is just to allow the clean-up and dissassembly of the existing structures. There is no need to cool the nuclear waste anymore. I think the primary purpose is to monitor nuclear dust and radiation levels.

Maybe BigBill can chime in if I am wrong on this.

The media is trying to apply Fukushima to Chernobyl. Apples and oranges. The containment at Chernobyl is to keep the rain off the contaminated waste and allow for the remainder of the reactor to be disassembled and sealed up. Reactor cores have decay heat after their shutdown. This is from the decay of fission particles in the fuel matrix and the exothermal result peaks after shutdown then decays away over time. The used cores from US Navy ships are shipped to storage in metal casks on railcars with no source of external cooling. A core within a cask might sit on a railcar in a storage facility for a year or more before it ships to Idaho.

Chernobyl needs a containment building for the same reason US naval cores are put in a metal container, they are highly radioactive. Like terminal dose in less than an hour radiation levels. A new core that has never reached criticality could be used as a coffee table. A used core can emit thousands of REM an hour. About 5000 REM immediately incapacitates and will result in an awful death.

[vertical_doug]

Actually, it's not. You had a lot of people probably hoping someone like Hawking's would say something about we discover wormholes and explore the universe. Instead, he basically said, 'no we're dead. '

On another aside with smart people, Richard Feynman when working on the Manhattan Project would play practical jokes on other members of the project . However, he said he never play practical jokes on Edward Teller. His reasoning was Teller was too just smart and figure it out before you had time to enjoy the joke so it was a wasted effort.

[vertical_doug]

On a follow-up to my money comments regarding Russian, both Gazprom and Rosneft paid their bond coupons and maturing bonds this week. Putin may be making a lot of pronouncements on not paying, paying in rubles , not exporting commodities etc, but actual Russian Corporates are not following.

I think for the very Wealthy, a fate worse than death is becoming poor. Putin is making a lot of Russians very poor including the ultra-rich. They are beginning to not listen.

Final thought- The Nazis were stopped at Stalingrad in the Winter by the USSR in 1943. It was the greatest defeat of the German Army and a turning point on the Eastern Front. It also broke Hitler's sense of invincibility.

Here's hoping Kyiv can stymie Russia long enough for Putin to have is Stalingrad moment. It'd be ironic if the same Russian Winter that stymied Napoleon and Hitler stymies Putin.

[ColonelJLloyd]

Haha

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/03...for-ukrainians

Haha indeed.