Russia-Ukrainian War

[Spekulatius]

3 hours ago, UK said:

https://eurasiantimes.com/ukraine-russias-nuclear-capable-kh-55-missile/

This probably means they run out of regular an newer missiles, Now they are using Cold War stockpiles, same that they do with tanks etc.

[no_free_lunch]

7 hours ago, UK said:

https://eurasiantimes.com/ukraine-russias-nuclear-capable-kh-55-missile/

The article says that Ukraine managed to shoot it down, which is interesting.  Maybe one of the faults with this strategy is allows testing of defense capabilities against these weapon systems.  Not something you really want to reveal.

Edited November 19, 2022 by no_free_lunch

[no_free_lunch]

Does anyone have any thoughts on the escalating protests in Iran?  Perhaps I am over-focused on Ukraine but it seems the flare up in Iran seemed to roughly coincide with the start of weapon deliveries to Russia.  Do people feel there is some kind of a link?

Edited November 19, 2022 by no_free_lunch

[Spekulatius]

19 hours ago, no_free_lunch said:

Does anyone have any thoughts on the escalating protests in Iran?  Perhaps I am over-focused on Ukraine but it seems the flare up in Iran seemed to roughly coincide with the start of weapon deliveries to Russia.  Do people feel there is some kind of a link?

I don’t think there is a link between drone deliveries from Iran and the protests there. The protests were caused by the Morality police killing teenagers in custody. The longer term reason is off course the more oppressive nature of the regime. Protests have been occurring from time to time in Iran over the years, but this time, they seem to be more persistent and spread deeper into the society (used to be just students etc).

 

If anything, the causal linkage goes the other way around. Irans Autocrats have declared the US their enemy number 2 (Israel is #1) so their involvement against the Ukraine countering US aide is on brand and a welcome diversion from the troubles at home.

 

 

[Pelagic]

21 hours ago, no_free_lunch said:

The article says that Ukraine managed to shoot it down, which is interesting.  Maybe one of the faults with this strategy is allows testing of defense capabilities against these weapon systems.  Not something you really want to reveal.

 

They're subsonic cruise missiles that fly mainly at low altitude to avoid detection, at almost 50 years old they're not particularly novel technology. Ukraine claims to be knocking down ~80% or so of incoming missiles in the last few attacks with recently donated NASAMS systems performing quite well against them. Still, a barrage of 100 missiles leaves 20 or so that hit targets and inflict significant damage. Iranian ballistic missiles, if/when they're acquired, will be more difficult to deal with. 

 

A good video of a low altitude intercept.

 

 

 

Russian strategy seems reminiscent of the early days of strategic bombing in WWII where if you send enough bombers, some are bound to get through and cause damage to civilian infrastructure. Maybe this particular empty missile was fired as a decoy to draw fire from active missiles or it was just a Russian commander needing to claim they launched x number of missiles and didn't have enough so converted that one into service, who knows.

[Xerxes]

23 hours ago, no_free_lunch said:

Does anyone have any thoughts on the escalating protests in Iran?  Perhaps I am over-focused on Ukraine but it seems the flare up in Iran seemed to roughly coincide with the start of weapon deliveries to Russia.  Do people feel there is some kind of a link?

 

No relation. Just a coincidence. It was always bound to happen. People had it with the elite pillaging the country. The actual trigger could have been anything. These things cannot be predicted in terms of timing. 
 

Now that is not to say Israel/U.S./Saudi are not taking advantage and doing what whatever that they do best. (I.e creating more problems and making life miserable for the commoners) 

 

@Spekulatius

 

Nope. U.S. is always enemy number one. 

[aws]

Good speech yesterday on why Ukraine matters by the Secretary of Defense

 

https://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech/Article/3224089/why-ukraine-matters-remarks-by-secretary-of-defense-lloyd-j-austin-iii-at-the-h/#.Y3oveNRofQI.twitter

 

 

[Xerxes]

More or less a good speech. I browsed through it fast. Prefer video format when it comes to speeches to better gauge their body language (genuineness etc). 
 

That said, too bad that level of global leadership wasn’t there in 2003-05.

 

“Aeroplane mode “ON””. 

[Xerxes]

That was 4 days ago.
 

Come now, Mr Zelensky, no one is going to think any less of you. Shit happens. Unfortunate but understandable. “own it” and move on.

 

It is not worth it.
As tempting as it is. 
 

 

[Spekulatius]

12 minutes ago, Xerxes said:

That was 4 days ago.
 

Come now, Mr Zelensky, no one is going to think any less of you. Shit happens. Unfortunate but understandable. “own it” and move on.

 

It is not worth it.
As tempting as it is. 
 

 

He is clearly wrong. Got to move on.

[Xerxes]

[no_free_lunch]

On 11/20/2022 at 10:28 AM, Xerxes said:

 

No relation. Just a coincidence. It was always bound to happen. People had it with the elite pillaging the country. The actual trigger could have been anything. These things cannot be predicted in terms of timing. 
 

Now that is not to say Israel/U.S./Saudi are not taking advantage and doing what whatever that they do best. (I.e creating more problems and making life miserable for the commoners) 

 

 

I will just drop this one as if I am the only one believing it I'm likely wrong.  For what it's worth, I was implying more the latter of what you said, the protests are completely independent but the western media and intelligence will take the opportunity and do what it can to further revolt.

[Xerxes]

The Western and Israeli intelligence are not saint, if they could create a civil war at a cost of 100,000+ death they would. No ethics. It be would be as easy as drinking water. No second thoughts. All fun and game. And 15 years later they would get Michael Bay make a Hollywood movie about a few fancy Navy Seals doing “heroic” things. A broken country is far less likely to be a threat than a stronger one.

 

But fair is fair, this specific situation is on Iran’ own government mismanagement of resources along other things (a very long list). And it has been compounding for a long time. Sadly Western sanctions made the bad actors stronger as they control the international trade routes, borders. The initial blame though lies squarely with one person only (“paramount leader” and his cronies), who on an unrelated note, interestingly enough is not even Persian but is an ethnic Azerbaijani lol. 
 

What is so unique about the death of that lady was that she was a nobody. Just came to visit the capital as tourist. She was not an activist. She was not journalist. She was not trying to make troubles with government. Just a normal person from the provinces going to visit Tehran. And that struck a chord with people, who saw her as themselves, or their own sister etc. 

[Spekulatius]

@Xerxes It looks like the situation in Iran gets more and more out of control. It’s not just about womens rights in major cities, there now minorities protesting as well in the South (Belutshistan ) and the North (Kurdistan). Once you start to use tanks against citizens, there is no going back, this either gets under control, or the government topples and their heads may roll as well.

[Dinar]

1 hour ago, Xerxes said:

The Western and Israeli intelligence are not saint, if they could create a civil war at a cost of 100,000+ death they would. No ethics. It be would be as easy as drinking water. No second thoughts. All fun and game. And 15 years later they would get Michael Bay make a Hollywood movie about a few fancy Navy Seals doing “heroic” things. A broken country is far less likely to be a threat than a stronger one.

 

But fair is fair, this specific situation is on Iran’ own government mismanagement of resources along other things (a very long list). And it has been compounding for a long time. Sadly Western sanctions made the bad actors stronger as they control the international trade routes, borders. The initial blame though lies squarely with one person only (“paramount leader” and his cronies), who on an unrelated note, interestingly enough is not even Persian but is an ethnic Azerbaijani lol. 
 

What is so unique about the death of that lady was that she was a nobody. Just came to visit the capital as tourist. She was not an activist. She was not journalist. She was not trying to make troubles with government. Just a normal person from the provinces going to visit Tehran. And that struck a chord with people, who saw her as themselves, or their own sister etc. 

Do you think that had ayatollah Montazeri became supreme leader, things would have been different and how?

[Xerxes]

6 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

@Xerxes It looks like the situation in Iran gets more and more out of control. It’s not just about womens rights in major cities, there now minorities protesting as well in the South (Belutshistan ) and the North (Kurdistan). Once you start to use tanks against citizens, there is no going back, this either gets under control, or the government topples and their heads may roll as well.

Agreed. And a paranoid regime could be at its worse. Tightening the screws even more. 
 

The other alternative is that the people with the most to lose (elite* with commercial interests) would throw in the towel with the current masters (Clerics) and outcome of that would be nationalist regime but in the hands of military (elements of IRGC perhaps) and the likes bent to do major reform but also to keep its interest. 

*they have red lines too. 
 

But I don’t think you ll see a wholesale 1979 like situation. If it’s close to that, external forces wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to interfere (if not already), and if done overtly as an attempt to break the nation, this may act as a dampener. Just like how Iraqi invasion in 1980 acted as a unifying forces and ultimately made the regime what it is today. 
 

 

[Xerxes]

6 hours ago, Dinar said:

Do you think that had ayatollah Montazeri became supreme leader, things would have been different and how?

I heard his name a lot when I was a kid. He was the “heir” before losing to an internal coup and being put in house arrest permanently. If Khamenei survived for +30 years it was only due to how cunning he was in eliminating rivals.

 

It is really hard to say (answer yr question) but I would say there is everything wrong when power and religion are mixed into one voice. The little I know of Montazeri was that he could have been the passive “paramount leader” on the top. 
 

 

[james22]

What we’re witnessing is, in short, the least expensive generational kneecapping of a geopolitical rival in world history.

 

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2022/11/21/some-hard-truths-about-the-russo-ukraine-war-n1647585

[UK]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-24/kremlin-faces-rising-ire-from-wives-mothers-of-mobilized-troops?srnd=premium-europe

 

In a video appeal posted by Verstka on Nov. 9, the wife of one those mobilized said his company commander revealed that only about 30 out of 200 men had made it to safety after they came under fire in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine. In another video posted a day later by a group of 20 women on the Russian border with Ukraine, they vowed to go to the front line to recover their husbands and sons and brothers. “If they don’t come out and help us, we’ll go, including a pregnant girl,” one of them said, adding that their relatives were without body armor or helmets and dragging wounded comrades with them.

 

 

[John Hjorth]

Heartbreaking post by @UK above.

 

https://news.yahoo.com/man-mothers-wives-russian-soldiers-154601275.html

 

A dictators worst nightmare and foe: "Are you a man or not?" : The russian mothers! 

 

Russian worker arriving at home after a long working day - hungry and tired :

 

Wifey at dinner table : "When are you going to do something about it?"

 

Hungry and tired husband, a bit puzzled : "What?"

 

Wifey: "My son!"

 

Hungry and tired husband : "What should I do about it?"

 

Wifey: "You'd better figure it out. ... Untill you have, this meal is last one I served for you. And say welcome to the couch at night untill you have."

 

Hunger and crossed legs are roots for revolutions. 

[Xerxes]

The rent-seeking system will save itself before that happens. Too much at stake ! 
 

Putin’s vertical of power or not, such overt failure is not looked upon kindly and nor tolerated. If he cannot end the war satisfactorily, than the system (not people) would move against him. 
 

 

Edited November 24, 2022 by Xerxes

[John Hjorth]

@Xerxes,

 

It has actually happened in Russia before. 1998 Russian miners' strike . 

 

I think it was @Cigarbutt who posted about it in some relevant and related context some years ago here on CoBF.

[Xerxes]

Thanks. I am less familiar with that period. 
 

I referred to the word “system” in my earlier post. Going back to Yeltsin era, I would say that the “system” in the 90s was the oligarchs, who decreed by consensus. And they did save themselves (or so they thought) by backing Putin at the time. 
 

The “system” today is unlike that of the 1990s with the de-centralized gang of oligarchs. The “system” today is the Russian political and security establishment that presides over an immense amount of wealth and assets that have been accumulated over the past two decades. At the very top seats the patriarch.

 

If the war continues to take a political and economic toll, in my opinion that rent-seeking establishment will move first and fast before such ‘revolutionary’ ideas take hold and topples the whole complex. 
 

There are no Vulcans in the Kremlin, but they do follow the ethos that “the need of the many outweighs the need of the one”

 

Who and what comes after, we don’t know. 

Edited November 24, 2022 by Xerxes

[John Hjorth]

@Xerxes,

 

The whole thing going on since February this year is just pure play madness - and very grim, indeed.

 

You are in Canada, I'm living [basically - on surface - still in calm and peace] - in the distance of about 1,200 km from Kyiv, about 20½ hours by car - in the northern part of Europe.

 

Mentally it's tangible [if something even can be mental and tangible at the same time].

Edited November 24, 2022 by John Hjorth
Spelling

[no_free_lunch]

I fear that Russia is a long ways from the point of revolution or "rent seeking".  Hope to be proven wrong but it seems this can continue.   From what I have read, they are targeting conscription in the poorer parts of the country and from their ethnic minorities.  In the major cities there is less of a push.  Also the infamous use of prisoners as cannon fodder to buy time and keep the hot spots busy.   

 

The Russian sources I follow talk of a buildup of military production.  Extra shifts, production on onverdrive, that sort of thing.  Could be just propaganda but it seems plausible.  I hope that western sanctions limit the effectiveness of their equipment but then it seems they can just buy from China or perhaps India to bypass, I am not sure how rock solid the sanctions are in that case.  Certainly oil continues to flow.

 

I still feel that Ukraine needs to push and take the pain to try to gain more territory and as fast as possible.  Russia has this history of taking losses so better to try to grind them down before they can replace the qualified men and equipment.   Maybe just maybe, there is still a military option and they can force some sort of near collapse of the Russian army.  My main concern right now is actually some type of peace deal, not that I don't want peace - I do, but that it will never be honored and the fighting will just continue in a year or two.   They need to get Russia out now and then fine, there can be a peace deal.

Edited November 25, 2022 by no_free_lunch