Xerxes

Nope. The "Tet" offensive was a strategic defeat for the United States (the image of Viet Congs poping out in the capital Saigon out of nowhere was too much bear for the Johnson and the population at large). Following the Tet offensive in '68, the Viet Cong as fighting force was largely de-fanged and the North Vietnamese regular army took up the burden of war. You are gauging victory vs. defeat with number of death as a KPI. If Jonhson administration failed in their objectives than they lost the war. It matters not to classify at political or military defeat.

We were given the book to read in College I think (or maybe it was high school) stupid me I never read it !!!

Watched Game of Thrones latest epsidoe. I was/am a huge fan. But I feel a sense of fatigue as the storyline draggggs on. Actually having a blast watching Rings of Power compared to House of Dragons.

Meet the new intelligent officer of the Red Army Edward Snowden granted Russian citizenship - BBC News

Thanks for the reponse. Putin is no Peter the Great though, despite what he says. The latter pulled Russia out of medievalism and opened it to the West and pulled forward kicking and screaming. The Ottoman empire lasted for 800 years (pretty long if you ask me) if I were to go to its origin of House of Osman. It was in fact suppose to end much sooner than it did was it not for the rivalery between Western powers and Russia that perserve it not create a vaccum of power for Russia to step in. Ottomans are actually a good analogy to Russia as they sat as overlords over their dominions with no notion of such thing as "Turkey proper". The Turkish nationhood came after. The Austro-Hungarian empire is not a good example. That multi-facet empire was not going to have a long life anyways. It died soon after childbirth. The Habsburg did though last for a very long time, just not in their last incarnation.

You should not. I dont think anyone here agrees with those narratives, but it does not change the fact that there is a Kremlin point of view in all this. Perhaps, half false, half correct, but it is there.

And @Viking you and others talk about self-determination and why there is a need for an empire in the 21st centuary. And i would agree with you as Westerner. But the world does not moves as fast as the West thinks it ought to or it should to. Just because the Western world is done squeezing its imperial subjects in Africa and Asia with their shiny imperial boots rubbing on their subject' necks does not mean that other power have the same timeline. What if you were a Mughul aristocrat or a merchant living in India few hundred years ago enjoying the good life, discussing investment thesis on Dutch East India company on message boards, you may have objected the Dutch and the British slowly but surely eroding and strangling the living light out of Mughul Empire. From your perspective, why is this happening ???

The largest country in the world does not need more land. And actually yes it is complicated. What Russia needed was an empire and its buffer-states/protectorates to defend itself against military, economical and ideological threats as seen from the Moscow/St-Petersburg (with the rare exception of Peter the Great who opened toward West, most of their leaders looked inward). Going back to days of Charles XII, Napoleon, Hitler & now NATO, the West always moved eastward. I bet you never seen Charles XII, Napoleon, Hitler & NATO in the same sentence. Russians do. Outrageous isn't ? Westereners may not understand that concept (yes yes yes NATO never threaten etc etc.) but that is because it is being seen from a Western centric point of view. That being said, what Putin specifically needed, even more than empire, was to destroy the what-could-have-been scenario as Ukraine became more and more Westernized & modernized while its own society degraded and stagnated. Russia is not turning the clock, because there is no clock for Russia to turn back. Just because we may have a clock in the West does not mean that they do as well. What happened in the 1990s was merely a blip, just like the October Revolution in 1917 was a blip, before its resurrgence under a different avatar: Soviet Union. This documenatry is from pre-invasion, pre-Covid era. Great documentary on Russia's imperial past. The host is the same BBC gentleman that reports from Moscow today on the current conflict. I would highly recommend for folks to read up on Russian history. Actual books. No blogs. No 5 min YouTube. Do not outsource.

Very well said. @changegonnacome +20 million Soviets i would argue ... not just Russians

There is a low chance of a coup. There is more power concentrated today in the Kremlin than it has ever been.

The West should not give in to nuclear blackmail. Period. That said with Kiev in the driving seat, they should be aware that there is a non-zero (however small) chance of a mushroom cloud, either as a test or an actual tactical attack, or a conventional attack on a nuclear reactor etc. all it takes is a hypersonic missile. A major problem that Russia has, there is a huge gap in terms of capabilities between its antiquated/used-up conventional weaponry and its world-ending arsenals. So going from one to another is a big leap on the escalation ladder.

@Dinar Back in Feb-March, I argued for exit ramp, fortunately for Kiev (and unfortunately for the Kremlin) the conflict unfolded in a way that exit ramp is looking more and more remote. The sinking of the flagship in the Black Sea didn’t help either. We have for all intent and purposes linked ourselves as the “weapon supplier of last resort”. Kiev pretty much owns the narrative.

If you get a chance take a read at the Appendix of the LOTR called (I think) “Durin’s Folk”. It is an interesting read on one of the most famous of the dwarf families, elements of which were used for Peter Jackson’ Hobbit’s Trilogy.

it is a beautiful show indeed. Everything coming along nicely. Just finished the latest episode. On Sauron, I would say no more and I don’t want to spoil it, as other have spoiled it for me. And don’t look online for the answer either. The Fell Elf character know as “Lord Father”, I think might be the Mouth of Sauron. My wild guess.

Ukraine is the aggrieved party. They are the ones doing the fighting (and dying) and frankly doing so as the first line of defence (while we chill). So they need to consent .. not West. Ukrainian have established some leverage via their most recent offensive, which in turn means Russia has lost leverage. So I don’t think we are going to see much talking until Kremlin re-establish back some sort of leverage. (Whatever that means) West’s role here is to bleed dry a historical geopolitical foe that has always cast a wary eye on the West, to clear its own arsenal of the old inventory, to test new weapons …. …. Keep doing that until that opportunity exists (politically correct of saying the same-thing for those who see things in a black and white cartoonish way: help the Rebel-Alliance-Ukrainian defend Soviet Union II) On nuking Kiev, I don’t think the man is itching to do so. He has grown reckless but not that stupid. That said given the stupidity we have seen so far coming from Kremlin there is a non zero chance of something happening with the nuclear reactors and that would be less direct, more Kremlin-like (ambiguity) and accomplish the samething, which is to add a fresh dose of complexity and terror. On a different note, anyone has any comparison case study of this episode of Kremlin doubling down … to the “Surge” in 2007, when Bush & Co doubled down as part their de-nazification campaign of Ay-Raq. Or is that something we don’t want to remember !! And prefer not pointing out.

I have said some pages ago, that negotication with him at this point are unlikely to yield any results. So I dont disagree with your comment. But I do know that at the very least, he needs to do something to offset the Ukrainian advance in summer, to regain leverage. The worse thing the West can do is to give in into his nuclear blackmail. All I am saying is that what he says today is more consequential than what he was saying six months ago.

Stalin and Mao, while did not have the overwheling nuclear superiorty that Russia has today, were at the helm of nuclear-armed nations. And they both have their hands tainted by tens of millions of death. So in other words, genocidal characters armed with nukes. Yet, West was happy to talk and negotiate with them and to dine and wine with them. There is no morality involved here (i.e. the Hitler comment, whose name gets thrown alongside Munich everything we take the moral highground; yet, we never talk about Stalin and Mao, because they do not fit our current narrative). Kissinger and Nixon had no problem dumping Repulic of China (Taiwan) out of UN, and recognizing PRC as "China" because it made sense at the time as a counter-weight against the Soviet Union. We didnt seem to have a problem of working with Stalin, eventhough Stalin just two years earlier participitated in the rape of Poland hand in hand with the Nazi (the famed Molotov-Ribberntrop pact). It is just business of geopolitics and deciding to which direction we think the world should go. And once we decide, we built narrative around it. Everyone loves a 1938 Munich comment. Posturing and positioning of both sides tell you all you need to know: West has positioned themselves as "this is our chance to ruin Russia". Russia has positioned itself as "we will not back down; we told you not get close to us; now we will scorch earth ("Ukraine") if we have to". Poor Ukrainian are stuck in between, neither here nor there. Obvisouly, with such huge gap in terms of "posturing" on the two side, are we really surprised. Both sides have dug their heels.

Putin may have been 'shocked' by West's reaction function as well as his own military's deficienies in the early months of the war and the weeks leading to it, so whatever came out of his mouth (output) was based on very faulty inputs (wrong presumptions and faulty chain of command). Now, whatever is coming out of his month (output) is based on relatively more correct inputs. Just to say that if what he said back in early weeks/months of the war didn't matter that much and dismissed, today they do matter, so we should at least take note.

I have the US Dollars that came out of David Sokol's privatization attempt of Atlas ready for re-deployment. I have GOOG, AMZN, BRK, RTX, DIS, SBUX -- all current holdings as potential "add on targets", but the more the market goes down, the more difficult it is for me to chose which ones to add. Some of these aerospace names do not follow the normal business cycle, others like Starbucks are more cyclical but even then they probably benefit from so called "lipstick effect" I also have Transdigm and Lockheed as new additions, but not really a price target. The higher rate seem to bite Transdigm stock price faster it seems.

War on the Rocks Not sure who recommended to me this Podcast. As it is the only non-investing podcast I listen to. The recent episode (there is a part 2 to it) was fun to listen to as it delves into 1990s. There are not much books written on the Chechen conflicts. The podcast also recommends a recent book called "Command" written by one of the guests on that episodes. Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine: Freedman, Lawrence: 9780197540671: Books - Amazon.ca Here is a review from The Guardian and The Economist: Command by Lawrence Freedman review – inside the war room | Politics books | The Guardian In war, the key tussles are often between generals and leaders | The Economist The book boast a 600 page and looks to be a great addition for my (anybody else's) unread pile of books.

@Parsad You forgot one thing: President Biden beaming in pride as he runs for a second term on the back of presiding over the humiliation of Russia and the return of the Internationalist/Globalist as a specie. On nukes, Russia is indeed bluffing. I am of that view as well. But I would add that we also thought they were bluffing in Feb 2022, where they mounted a full scale invasion that made absolutely no sense. Our current point of views are shaped on what we know and what we think we know, steeped in analysis. Not what we dont know. For whatever reason, there was tripwire that went off in Kremlin in second half 2021 early 2022. Even Lavrov probably did not know the extent of Russia involvement on the eve of the invasion & certainly not us. Of course, we in the West can look back and build a narrative around it, in terms of why/what and write essays about it etc. But that is after the fact, when we do our analysis, establish new biases etc. On China, you are correct on everying except the assumption that Bejing can CTRL-Z an already exploded Russian tactical nuke. If it were to happen it will be a fair accompli based on some nonsense about terrirtoral integrity of newly annexed region .... there would be no posturing. But like it said, my biases tells me that were are not there and wont be there, but certainly the pathway is being created via annexation to bring those newly "minted" territories under its nuclear umbrella. With Russia, it is all about grey zones and ambiguities and hybrid wars and plausible deniability. That is how they ran the 2014-2021 war in the Donbas region. Hybrid war. They were there but not there but still there but really not there but kind of there.

Babylon Berlin Season IV It is all in German. I didn’t understand a word. But looks sick !! @Spekulatius let me know if you were able to figure out who is Sauron in the “Rings of Power” !!

@Pelagic I agree. I said earlier that it is low risk, (even lower than six months ago) given the framework that has been established in the past six months. My comment was about NATO response to a hypothetical tactical nuclear strike somewhere in Ukraine. Even a NATO direct conventional strike against Russian forces only in Ukraine has no tangible benefit given the shamble position of the Russian military forces already there BUT has all the downside of whatever we are not thinking about it.

and what would President Biden say exactly as he address the nation that we are blowing things up inside Russia proper. That is for all intent and purpose a declaration of war. You may think it is limited strikes and what not. But the other side doesn’t see that. If Russia couldn’t hide its full scale military invasion behind “special ops bs”, the West cannot hide its open declaration of war behind some “proportional NATO response mumbo jumbo”