Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[blandy]

6 minutes ago, Anthony said:

Sanctions, beyond the obvious, have a very important effect. They force the sanctionee's hand. In this case Russia know that their economy is now going downhill. This means they now have a limited window of opportunity to achieve their aims, before the whole invasion becomes economically unsustainable. This leads them in to making tactical decisions that are less based on what the situation on the ground merits, and more driven by the macroeconomic strategic situation.

In short, they generally have to attack before they are ready. They no longer have the resource of time. You can see that they they are using one of their few plentiful resources - people.

Do you think the incoming arrival of western tanks and more AFVs and so on, and potentially even aircraft might be having a stronger, or additional impact? I think you're right that sanctions, though they take a while, do definitely have an effect in this type of situation, but personally I think western arms and materiel and training and support are having a stronger current effect.

[chrisp65]

6 minutes ago, blandy said:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?end=2021&locations=GB&start=1960

Not very good lobbying from the military infrastructure, then

 

I’d already looked at that graph, is it interesting. 1960’s, would that be peak nuclear arms race / Cold War / Cuba / Vietnam?

The figures underneath for individual countries are also interesting. UK spending 50% more than EU (not automatically a bad thing).

I think at current levels of expenditure, there’s a lucrative living to be made. I certainly think military tech companies have ridden any decline far better than expenditure on boots.

[PussEKatt]

I dont think Putin is the type of person to just walk away if Russia lose,he is also unlike Hitler in that he will not commit suside.IMHO he is the sort of person that if he is going to lose then he wants everyone to lose with him,eg start a nuclear war.

[blandy]

4 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I certainly think military tech companies have ridden any decline far better than expenditure on boots.

This Russia war is an example of how things change - for instance a couple of years ago or so, Johnson was in front of the Defence Select Committee talking about Tanks and how (to paraphrase) we don't need them any more. He was wrong then, but it's clear now that any thinking about binning off Tanks is ludicrous. So that means that (potentially) there's money needed to be spent on (more) new or upgraded tanks for the Army. Then there's the impact UAVs have had on the battles in Ukraine. Not necessarily expensive or highly complex ones, but that's another area where it now seems highly desirable to expand UK capabilities. Something that was on the cards in the early 2000s up until about 2017, when the Government abandoned all kinds of programmes in that area. Suddenly the emphasis is back on UAVs. And on the Chinese Balloon thread is another example, around Balloons. And so on and so forth. In terms of defence companies themselves, well, there are now only a very few, whereas there used to be loads. Many have just been either eaten up and formed into one bigger one, or have stopped doing business because the Government spending disappeared and for example the Gov't decided not to buy British stuff, but to go "off the shelf" with US kit, or kit from elsewhere. Not necessarily always aa bad idea, but it is very often a false economy. So while you might point at, say, BAE Systems as a huge defence company, that seems to be doing well, where's GEC? Where's Racal, where's English Electric, where's hundreds, if not thousands of other smaller defence companies? The sector is much smaller than it was. The big ones left have gone/had to go multi-national. Most of (say) BAE's profits come not from the UK, but from overseas. To an extent the UK benefits from those profits from overseas being used to pay for R&D and programmes for the UK. To develop a fighter, or a tanker, say, Tornado was multi national, as was Typhoon. The next one, Tempest - again that's going to be multi-national. So there's little indigenous UK capability or capacity for defence manufacturing and so on in wide swathes of military expenditure. There are national submarine and shipbuilding yards, but not so many as there used to be. The carriers are made by an international consortium - British, French, Norwegian companies and so on (under British prime contractorship).

So I think the Russia war has potentially provided a jolt to thinking, both around "what kit do we, or might we need", "Have we actually got adequate capability overall" "do we need to spend more on defence?" and in almost every instance the answers are not favourable. The decline has in essence gone too far and not been addressed.

[Genie]

17 minutes ago, PussEKatt said:

I dont think Putin is the type of person to just walk away if Russia lose,he is also unlike Hitler in that he will not commit suside.IMHO he is the sort of person that if he is going to lose then he wants everyone to lose with him,eg start a nuclear war.

I think if he was cornered in a room by US marines he’d take the easy way out. 

[PussEKatt]

Just now, Genie said:

I think if he was cornered in a room by US marines he’d take the easy way out. 

I think he would press the nuclear button long before that....... hope Im wrong.

[Genie]

Just now, PussEKatt said:

I think he would press the nuclear button long before that....... hope Im wrong.

He can’t just press it like it’s always ready to go. A huge amount of planning needs to go into firing one, and people like NATO are constantly watching the tell-tale signs that would suggest it’s being prepared.

[PussEKatt]

Just now, Genie said:

He can’t just press it like it’s always ready to go. A huge amount of planning needs to go into firing one, and people like NATO are constantly watching the tell-tale signs that would suggest it’s being prepared.

Like I said.I hope Im wrong.

[Anthony]

50 minutes ago, blandy said:

Do you think the incoming arrival of western tanks and more AFVs and so on, and potentially even aircraft might be having a stronger, or additional impact? I think you're right that sanctions, though they take a while, do definitely have an effect in this type of situation, but personally I think western arms and materiel and training and support are having a stronger current effect.

I'd suggest it focuses their thinking. I suppose they are doing the human wave thing (for example) moar and moar harderer, than like what they was before.

Arseholes, they are. I wonder if they all know that their exit strategy is a pipe dream, but they refuse to admit it to each other? At work it's all 'highly focused to the end goal' and at home at the kitchen table it's all 'we're ****'

[MakemineVanilla]

Any thoughts on Seymour Hersh's revelation?

He's been right in the past.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh

Quote

In February 2023, in a post to Substack, Hersh claimed that the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines had been carried out by the US Navy, the CIA, and the Norwegian Navy, under the direct order of President Biden. Hersh's report relied on an anonymous source who stated that, in June 2022, US Navy divers placed explosive C4 charges on the pipelines at strategic locations selected by the Norwegians. The source said that charges were placed under the cover of a multi-nation wargame simulation known as BALTOPS 22, and remotely detonated three months later by a signal from a sonar buoy dropped by a Norwegian P-8 surveillance plane.[57][58]

Russia's foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said the United States had questions to answer over its role in the explosions.[59] A spokesperson for the United States National Security Council said the report was "utterly false and complete fiction".[60] The CIA said the claims were "completely false", and this was also the reaction from the Norwegian Foreign Department.[61]

 

[bickster]

4 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

Any thoughts on Seymour Hersh's revelation?

No corroboration and relies on a single anonymous source of information

Quote

Claim That US Blew up Nord Stream Pipelines Relies on Anonymous Source
Seymour Hersh presents factual background material, but his case for conspiracy is held together by a seemingly omnipotent anonymous source.

Snopes

[villa89]

14 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

Any thoughts on Seymour Hersh's revelation?

He's been right in the past.

Thoughts, 1. He's full of it 2. A stopped clock is right twice a day.

[Nigel]

18 hours ago, blandy said:

It's doing better than ours! They're selling (at a discounted price, but still selling a load of it) oil and gas to India, China and so on. they're running a big deficit (so are many nations). Their GDP is predicted to change by between something like -1.5% (according to Russian economists) or grow by 1.5% (IMF prediction). It's not really tanked, because of the non-western nations carrying on trade, or filling the void (see India, China) and even the West continuing trade in some stuff. I mean it's not doing well, and sanctions and the costs of war are clearly taking a toll, but it's not terminal or anything.

Thats not really the case. Seems to be a bit of underestimation as to how bad russia are doing. 

They have just posted their worst ever financial figures since 1998.  Oil and gas, obviously their big guns, were down by 46% compared to this time last year, but their total income was down 35%. Tax reductions have hit hard too. All this with expenditure through the roof (5 times more than last year)

All this doesnt take into account the full extent of the sanctions that have increased again, and the fact that these numbers are increasing massively month on month.

They are surviving solely down to dwindling reserves, once they are gone they are in trouble.

This is only going one way

[Mandy Lifeboats]

This graph is a little confusing but sum up Russia's economic problems.  

The grey area is the highest and lowest Russian oil has been in recent times for every month of the year.  

2022 saw the price steadily fall. 

2023 has started worse than 2022. 

Those figures aren't disastrous (yet) but it shows a clear picture.  Russia has lost its affluent customers and is now struggling to sell its oil without massive discounts.  

That's at a time when it needs huge amounts of money to build gas and oil infrastructure to serve its new customer, rebuild its military and replace the skilled workers who are dead, disabled or have disappeared abroad.  

[Genie]

18 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

This graph is a little confusing but sum up Russia's economic problems.  

The grey area is the highest and lowest Russian oil has been in recent times for every month of the year.  

2022 saw the price steadily fall. 

2023 has started worse than 2022. 

Those figures aren't disastrous (yet) but it shows a clear picture.  Russia has lost its affluent customers and is now struggling to sell its oil without massive discounts.  

That's at a time when it needs huge amounts of money to build gas and oil infrastructure to serve its new customer, rebuild its military and replace the skilled workers who are dead, disabled or have disappeared abroad.  

*still a stronger economy that the UK  

[Nigel]

16 minutes ago, Genie said:

*still a stronger economy that the UK  

.....but we are not funding a war

[Genie]

7 minutes ago, Nigel said:

.....but we are not funding a war

That’s debatable…

[Nigel]

2 minutes ago, Genie said:

That’s debatable…

There's a big difference between giving money and what a direct war needs

[Genie]

Just now, Nigel said:

There's a big difference between giving money and what a direct war needs

Yeah, I know it’s not close to the main reason our economy is in the toilet, but we are spending billions on guns, tanks, ammo, surveillance, combat readiness, training etc for this war. 

[Nigel]

21 minutes ago, Genie said:

Yeah, I know it’s not close to the main reason our economy is in the toilet, but we are spending billions on guns, tanks, ammo, surveillance, combat readiness, training etc for this war. 

It has to be considered insurance money. 

Not the best, but its not our own doing.