Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Poopymonster]

I was born quite some time before 1990, not that it's relevant. I don't believe Putin would resort to using nukes, because MAD.

He wouldn't be the first Boomer to want to burn everything down because things didn't go his way. I doubt he will.

[Mihalik]

I was born quite some time before 1990, not that it's relevant. I don't believe Putin would resort to using nukes, because MAD.

When did the Russians last invade a western aligned democratic country in Europe where NATO would have been in position of imposing a no fly zone that would require actually shooting down Russian planes?

Because that's not something that has happened before. Ever.

[XDurionX]

I miss @Skroe sometimes. He'd have a six-chapter book on this written in four minutes.

And most of it would've been his headcanon.

[YUPPIE]

Hmmmm also a symptom of long term abuse of cocaine and barbituates. Doctors pumping up an aging autocrat with crazy ass drugs. Basically Hitler, again.

he is on equal footing with hitler now in atrocities. I remember when people were in denial of this even before the comparisons rose, but people don't believe how many people Putin has killed even before Ukraine.

[Breccia]

Uhm Vladdy boy, that shit might explode on launch.

So, a lot of people know that nuclear weapons have a really involved arming/detonation setup. It took the world's best scientists years to figure it out. If a nucelar missile is going to explode in launch, it means one of three things.

1) It was meant to do that. I handwave that. Putin's a murderer, but not "nuke my own country to false flag" level of psycho.
2) Some one-in-a-million crap goes on in the onboard systems, along the lines of "your car starts up by itself and changes all the radio presets" level of unlikely.
3) The missle's structure is failing, there's a leak, the fuel explodes, turning the missile into a giant dirty bomb. It's the best option of the three, but still horrifying.

Aging missiles have other big problems too, like "doesn't fly straight" or "second stage doesn't separate" kind of problems that kind of work themselves out over the Atlantic. This could be why Putin's chasing those newer, flashier versions, like Trump with a passing whore when he could just treat his wife like he loves her.

I don't know how good the USA's setup is either, but that's not the issue. We're not launching first. We don't need to be as worried as Russia that our shit won't go where we tell it to.

[Afrospinach]

I don't believe Putin would resort to using nukes, because MAD.

Russia does have a statement of intent that they will use nuclear force against a conventional threat that threatens the security of their state.

This is a long standing position not something that was said yesterday or anything ie not an escalation.

[MCMLXXXII]

Come on, don't be so harsh. When Putin was young all the cool kids wanted to be Stalin and sticked their shoebrush under their noses.

[Elegiac]

I miss @Skroe sometimes. He'd have a six-chapter book on this written in four minutes.

While it's not a six chapter book, here's a very relevant post he made in response to that one time Russia's only aircraft carrier kinda caught fire.

That's mostly a commentary on Russia's defense industrial complex. The United States is (and has long been) principally a sea and air power. Not surprising considering we're on another continent from most of the human race, separated from the lot of you by two vast oceans. Russia has been principally a land power for all its history. And to this day that is still generally true.

The thing is, the Soviet Union had the wealth and the technical expertise to indulge in having a considerable Navy. And there is no mistake it, Russia produced some very capable submarine and ship designs over the decades. But modern Russia is not the Soviet Union. Its had a decades long industrial decline that makes maintaining legacy hardware and legacy infrastructure more difficult than ever (something I have discussed in extreme detail in this forum with regards to Russian Soyuz and Proton rocket production). Russia got by for a long time life extending its inheritence from the Soviet union, but as vehicles and facilities aged, as the workforce retired and was replaced by a younger, untrained work force, that has changed. And Russia doesn't have the wealth to indulge in this kind of stuff anymore in general.

Case in point, consider Russian improved Akula-class submarines. Officially, they are supposed to have the acoustics comparable to a 688i, an improved Los Angeles-class submarine. In reality, according to western subject matter experts and submarine officers, because the Russians Navy don't engage (and can't afford) in the extensive maintience required to keep noise level down to what the "spec" noise level is supposed to be, the real noise that the Akula II submarine produces is comparable to much older submarines. They're very detectable. The US and its allies by contrast, engages in that levels of maintenance.

So if here is the question: if Russia can't take care of its things properly, then why have those things at all? Especially if they are old and not part of Russia's core security strategy. Improperly maintained Akulas will not be able to do their job and kill Ohio-class SSBNs before they get their ballistic missiles off. So what's the damn point of them? Why continue to spend money maintaining them? It's the same thing with this carrier. Russia's carrier strategy is different than the US one, but it's carrier strategy also is a bizarre holdover from an entirely different mode of military affairs that doesn't do anything towards Russia's current approach.

So why mention it at all? I'm not a Russian taxpayer, so why should I care? Because it's a bellwhether as to the true shape of the Russian threat, which is to say, schitzophrenic. Consider Russia's current detterence sub building program, the Borei, with it's missile the Bulava (basically a Russian Trident I). Over 30 years ago when the United States resolved to build the Ohio-class submarine it also decided to mass (and rapidly) retire the 1960s and 1970s era "41 for Freedom" fleet of submarines... a very diverse family that carried a very diverse set of missiles. The US plan was, by the year 2000, to have one class of Ballistic Missile Submarine carrying one ballistic missile type. Russia planned to do this in the early 2000s. The plan was by 2015 to have an all Borei SSBN-fleet with an all-Bulava ballistic missile force. Why is this good? Because it means you're not longer paying for the support infrastructure and costs associated with other families of submarines and missiles. That is why the US ditched the 41 for freedom (despite some hulls having decades of life left and missiles being 10 years old), and that's why Russia was going to ditch everything from Borei.

Except that didn't happen. Now it's going to keep it's Delta III and Delta IV submarines alongside Borei, semingly forever, along side the last Typhoon, for some reason.

That's why it's worth highlighting. For all of Russia's bluster about the Borei and the Bulava, the Su-57 PAK FA, the Armata and this and that, its still the country that can't quite its Soviet-era subs, its Soviet era-missiles, its Su-27 derivatives, and its Tu-72s. And most of this is due to corruption. When the US consolidated its defense industry in the 1990s, a lot of jobs were lost and a lot of companies were bought by other companies and relocated. Your dictator, Vladimir Putin, has a powerbase built around transferring state money into the coffer of his cronies, many of whom are in the industrial sector. So of course Vladimir Putin will never sign a budget that ever truly sees the Su-27 line permanently shut down, or the shipyards that support the aging Soviet ships consolidated. That would mean starving companies and officials of public funds, even though it would seriously enhance Russian security.

And this is how a crane falling on a carrier matters, and how this fire matters. Because that shipyard, this ship, should have been scrapped many years ago. But there it floats, a monument to Russian government corruption.

This is the real Russian threat. Russia is dangerous for a lot of reasons. But the danger is tempered by the fact that the greatest enemy of Russia turns out to be Russian practices like buying more 1970s era Su-27s (slightly modernizing them, calling them the Su-35) and keeping obsolete ships in service.

TLDR: Russia's military capabilities have constantly been hindered by massive levels of corruption in the Russian defense sector - corruption which still has not been resolved and is a massive factor in why its performance in Ukraine has been such a circus.

[YUPPIE]

what the hell is Xi Jinping doing, though? He hasn't invaded Taiwan yet in this distraction despite all the fears, and he hasn't provided substantial, if any, aid to Vlad's conquest.

[MCMLXXXII]

So, a lot of people know that nuclear weapons have a really involved arming/detonation setup. It took the world's best scientists years to figure it out. If a nucelar missile is going to explode in launch, it means one of three things.

1) It was meant to do that. I handwave that. Putin's a murderer, but not "nuke my own country to false flag" level of psycho.
2) Some one-in-a-million crap goes on in the onboard systems, along the lines of "your car starts up by itself and changes all the radio presets" level of unlikely.
3) The missle's structure is failing, there's a leak, the fuel explodes, turning the missile into a giant dirty bomb. It's the best option of the three, but still horrifying.

Aging missiles have other big problems too, like "doesn't fly straight" or "second stage doesn't separate" kind of problems that kind of work themselves out over the Atlantic. This could be why Putin's chasing those newer, flashier versions, like Trump with a passing whore when he could just treat his wife like he loves her.

I don't know how good the USA's setup is either, but that's not the issue. We're not launching first. We don't need to be as worried as Russia that our shit won't go where we tell it to.

Seeing this whole, how do we have to call it, intervention's progress, I'm going to pick option 3.

[draynay]

what the hell is Xi Jinping doing, though? He hasn't invaded Taiwan yet in this distraction despite all the fears, and he hasn't provided substantial, if any, aid to Vlad's conquest.

Stinks when your heroes let you down.

[Elegiac]

what the hell is Xi Jinping doing, though? He hasn't invaded Taiwan yet in this distraction despite all the fears, and he hasn't provided substantial, if any, aid to Vlad's conquest.

The invasion of Taiwan is a pipe dream and China stands to benefit considerably from Russia being knocked down a few pegs. There's your answer.

[Mihalik]

what the hell is Xi Jinping doing, though? He hasn't invaded Taiwan yet in this distraction despite all the fears, and he hasn't provided substantial, if any, aid to Vlad's conquest.

The Chinese will sit this one out. They'll fleece the Russians and make bank off the sanctions.

And they won't invade Taiwan because unlike the Russians the Chinese won't over-commit to shit they aren't ready for.

[Shadowferal]

I was born quite some time before 1990, not that it's relevant. I don't believe Putin would resort to using nukes, because MAD.

Yeah, people keep fearing Russia nukes, but keep forgetting the other countries that have them. And after seeing their military on display, I should wonder if Russia's nukes aren't rusty firecrackers that may blow up on their own soil...

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what the hell is Xi Jinping doing, though? He hasn't invaded Taiwan yet in this distraction despite all the fears, and he hasn't provided substantial, if any, aid to Vlad's conquest.

Why are you disappointed?

[Kallisto]

what the hell is Xi Jinping doing, though? He hasn't invaded Taiwan yet in this distraction despite all the fears, and he hasn't provided substantial, if any, aid to Vlad's conquest.

It's almost as if we could see Russia build up for basically a year when it came to Ukraine and absolutely nothing with China in regards to Taiwan. Outside ramblings of lunatics.

[DarkAmbient]

Russia does have a statement of intent that they will use nuclear force against a conventional threat that threatens the security of their state.

This is a long standing position not something that was said yesterday or anything ie not an escalation.

It's a threat. I don't believe it's one he would make good on, because there's nothing in it for him.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

what the hell is Xi Jinping doing, though? He hasn't invaded Taiwan yet in this distraction despite all the fears, and he hasn't provided substantial, if any, aid to Vlad's conquest.

I'm not sure kicking off WWIII is really in China's best interests.

[Shalcker]

Related, bank runs don't happen when everything is fine. They happen when there's enough evidence that the bank/banking system is in trouble to the point that the question is even raised. If you told, for example, Germany, "Your banks are not safe and they'll collapse shortly" you'd get a bunch of blank stares. There's zero evidence that Germany is in that kind of trouble, banking or otherwise. Nothing would happen.

Banks did fail in Germany in 2008 (HRE had to be nationalized in the end).

Remember, a ruble was 0.013 dollars in mid-Feb. It's 0.0075 now. That's way more of a loss than 20% for 3 months can possibly overtake. If you didn't withdraw dollars, you got fucked.

It's at 0.0084 right now; it never was at 0.0075 so far (lowest was 0.0079).

Those dollars in bank will follow current exchange rate either way, so if you believe that currency exchange drop will outpace inflation nothing stops you from keeping them in the bank.

But currency rates have stronger and easier controls then inflation in non-essential goods, so that isn't certain to be true depending on your consumption profile.

Now again, The Prisoner's Dilemna is a good depiction, but the underlying premise needs to be considered. The DA doesn't knock on random-ass doors and offer them a plea deal. They offer it to people in handcuffs in a room with a one-way mirror. Even if, as you rightly suggest, every single Russia leaves their money in the bank, they'd minimize the remaining damage. But they are still stuck with rubles, which are worth as much as a Putin promise to not kill journalists.

There is no "prisoner dilemma" unless you're rich enough to go above government guarantee - and even then banks will help you split it to be fully insured anyway.

In case of bank failure Russian Deposit Insurance Agency picks up the tab.

[Elegiac]

I'm not sure kicking off WWIII is really in China's best interests.

You know what the big irony is?

China is likely to continue doing to Russia what Russia did to the Ottoman Empire. Taking advantage of its decline and reaping the benefits of conflict between it and its breakaway states.

Banks did fail in Germany in 2008 (HRE had to be nationalized in the end).

The difference is people aren't claiming the German economy was good in 2008. You're claiming that the Russian economy is fine.

[YUPPIE]

Stinks when your heroes let you down.

vlad was counting on his support, evidently