It's like someone invents a super weapon which changes the fortunes of any war, they go bankrupt and no-one else even bothers to pick up the patent. — Isaac

Abstract. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine emphasises the role social media plays in modern day warfare, with conflict occurring in both the physical and information environments. There is a large body of work on identifying malicious cyber-activity, but less focusing on the effect this activity has on the overall conversation, especially with regards to the Russia/Ukraine Conflict. Here, we employ a variety of techniques including information theoretic measures, sentiment and linguistic analysis, and time series techniques to understand how bot activity influences wider online discourse. By aggregating account groups we find significant information flows from bot-like accounts to non-bot accounts with behaviour differing between sides. Pro-Russian non-bot accounts are most influential overall, with information flows to a variety of other account groups. No significant outward flows exist from pro-Ukrainian non-bot accounts, with significant flows from pro-Ukrainian bot accounts into pro-Ukrainian non-bot accounts. We find that bot activity drives an increase in conversations surrounding angst (with p = 2.450 × 10−4 ) as well as those surrounding work/governance (with p = 3.803 × 10−18). Bot activity also shows a significant relationship with non-bot sentiment (with p = 3.76×10−4 ), where we find the relationship holds in both directions. This work extends and combines existing techniques to quantify how bots are influencing people in the online conversation around the Russia/Ukraine invasion. It opens up avenues for researchers to understand quantitatively how these malicious campaigns operate, and what makes them impactful. — The interaction of bots and humans in discussion of the Russia-Ukraine war

What's with this obsession with what 'The Ukrainians' say? It's our decision to send weapons, our decision to support propaganda efforts, our decision to supply intelligence, our decision to avoid and block negotiations... these are all our decisions.

Stop hiding under the skirts of what 'The Ukrainians' say and have the balls to make up your own fucking mind. — Isaac

The West has managed to develop "woke warmongering" somehow.

Not-supplying-arms would be a micro-aggression against the mythical representation of the oppressed Ukrainian: all further discussion is taboo.

The shortest answer is that to assess such responsibility one should be able to distinguish what is feasible (by the ruler) from what is desirable (by whom? The ruler? Humanity? You?). Being the most influent and powerful ruler on an “anarchic” international system doesn’t necessarily imply that the ruler has enough power to reset the world according to what is desirable on a global scale (BTW the scientific investigations on the global environmental effects of human development, its promotion and popularisation are all integral part of the US-led world, so global environmental self-awareness are also a product of the evil American demiurge). — neomac

This does not in anyway even contradict the my statement:

Why wouldn't the party with the most influence and power in setting a policy, not be the most responsible for the results? — boethius

Everything you said doesn't comment on who's most responsible for the result of a policy. Sure, the most influent party does not control events, but they would still be most responsible. If all the nation-states together push for this policy (to do nothing about environmental catastrophe) the most influent party would still be the most responsible.

The idea that environmentalism is a US policy to begin with is truly remarkable, but we could continue that discussion in the climate change thread.

Who would? — neomac

The question is not who would, the question is "would you?"

You can answer no. Now, I'm pretty sure many members of the Nazi community in Ukraine would genuinely have no upper bound on the sacrifice of Ukrainians they are willing to make to fight the Russians.

Give the example and tell me how many losses would be worthwhile to you (if you had to choose)? — neomac

Deflection, deflection, deflection, as soon as it's "what cost is reasonable" it's somehow all of a sudden a ephemeral netherworld of philosophical speculation we can hardly even scratch the surface of.

I don't think the scenario of removing Russia from Ukraine is feasible, so this question is more relevant to people who think it is feasible, who support the Western policy that explicitly has this as the goal.

However, I have no problem answering these sorts of questions on the premise it was feasible.

I'd be willing to sacrifice 30 000 troops if that would achieve removing Russia from Ukraine entirely and completely end the war that way. Beyond 30 000 I would start to be uncomfortable that the cost is worth the outcome and would believe it is better to give up territory to preserve lives and end the war that way.

However, if there was some credible way to just remove Russia from Ukraine and completely end the war and achieve peace (something that I don't believe is actually feasible, but if I'm assuming it is) then 30 000 killed I'd find a reasonable cost, I'd hope for less but be satisfied if spending 30 000 lives achieved this military objective and bought peace with such methods.

In the real world, an attempt to remove Russia entirely from Ukraine by force I would expect would cost hundreds of thousands of lives and not succeed, and, even if it did, would not result in peace but the war would still be on.

I'd also expect Russia to deploy nuclear weapons effectively, if such a campaign were to start to succeed, bringing an end to the campaign and getting more people killed for the foolishness of Ukrainian and Western leaders.

Give the example and tell me what’s the number you start feeling uncomfortable with. — neomac

Obviously, negotiating a resolution based on the accepting the Russian's offered terms before the war, the main one being not joining NATO (which is only useful to join before the war ... not after the war), is my first choice.

However, if I was in Ukrainian government and was advising negotiation and the war breaks out anyways because no one listens to me, I'd be comfortable with a few thousand losses to arrest the initial Russian invasion and stabilise lines. This is a reasonable objective due to the logistics of invasion.

There is some value in "national pride" and contract soldiers sign up to do this particular duty, so it is, to an extent, part of the social contract. Of course, the point of arresting the initial invasion, of a larger force that cannot be defeated in any reasonable analysis (there is no scenario where Ukraine marches on Moscow), is to create negotiation leverage by demonstrating the capacity and will to fight.

The larger force can very likely win, true at massive losses to your own side but nevertheless substantial losses to the invading force as well, that represents both military and political risks of all kinds. There are big incentives to reach a resolution even if the larger force can likely win by brute force.

Losses beyond this I would be uncomfortable with. The negotiation position does not get better and simply gets worse the more the war continues. A resolution after a few days has the big advantage to the invading force that the cost has been very low, therefore they do not need to gain much for it to be a win for the domestic population. The higher the cost paid, the more the stronger party requires compensation for the cost, not less.

Of course, I don't like the Nazi's in Ukraine but they can be dealt with in another way; it's not reasonable to get ten's of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people killed and traumatise and displace millions simply because some Nazi's would die too.

Had the negotiation at the start of the war succeeded, and 2000 to 3000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed, I'd be satisfied with the result and military performance and it a reasonable cost in lives to negotiate independence and a lasting peace for the rest of Ukraine.

What you want to achieve militarily and politically in this sort of situation is stable lines by falling back, inflict cost but preserve forces, rely on logistics stabilising lines anyways, and then negotiating the best possible deal with the leverage one has.

If the deal isn't "what is desirable" as the least influent party in the situation, that's just how politics goes sometimes.

Conclusion: I don’t answer your questions not because I’m emotionally uncomfortable, but because I’m intellectually uncomfortable to answer heavily framed questions for which I can't provide a meaningful answer (even if I was tempted to answer them exactly the way you would answer them). I’m interested to argue about morality and geopolitics, not about morale and military. — neomac

Your analysis made no sense and I'll ignore it, does not support your conclusion, and your conclusion is false anyways.

These are not heavily framed question, it is the business of war to sacrifice lives to achieve military outcomes by force. You cannot speak of outcomes without also speaking of the lives reasonably sacrificed to achieve those outcomes. That's what war planning and the consideration of war is about: we are wiling for these people to die to achieve these objectives. That's what sending soldiers to die is premised on: that it is a reasonable sacrifice and the people making the decisions are comfortable with the expected results.

Can unexpected things happen and more people die than is reasonable? Yes. That is called a mistake, disaster, catastrophe. Why? Because more people died than is reasonable to achieve insufficient objectives.

However, to start the analysis an idea of what amount of lives is worthwhile to spend to achieve what must be posited.

I discuss policies as any avg dudes who is neither a politician nor an activist. And since I’m in a philosophy forum, I’m interested to explore assumptions and implications without feeling pressed by political/military/economic urgency, or frustrated out of lack of expertise. — neomac

Well, thanks for clarifying you have no idea what you are talking about.

However, if you're interested in assumptions, the assumption of commanding soldiers to fight in a war is that there is something that can be achieved militarily and the cost in lives is reasonable. The implication of war is people die.

If there is a way to avoid more people dying through talk that is preferable. Sometimes it is not possible, the Nazi's could not be talked out of their mission and neither the Japanese, insofar as there was the slightest hope of victory. However, the Russian-Ukraine war is far closer to a border dispute than a campaign of world or hemispherical conquest, there is no pathway to outright victory (except Russia employing nuclear weapons, which they are unlikely to do) and so talk is the only viable pathway to peace and will happen sooner or later.

Concerning the question about Finland/Europe, you shouldn’t ask me, you should ask Russia. To your questions, I would add mine: e.g. was there any scenario in which Ukraine was invading Russia? Was there any scenario in which NATO or the US was going to invade Russia?
NATO enlargement can grow the military and reputational costs and threats against Russia’s imperialism. That’s the point. — neomac

You made the claim Finland joining NATO is some big geopolitical strategic loss to Russia, I pointed out it doesn't really change anything ... and now you say I should ask Russia about it?

The difference with Ukraine compared to Finland is that there is an important Naval base in Crimea, there are lot's of Russian speakers in Ukraine, Ukraine is a former soviet republic, and there is first and foremost an economic conflict over Ukraine (spheres of influence of the major powers).

Finland was never part of the Soviet Union, was squarely part of "the West" and never part of Russia's sphere of influence. There is no conflict between the West and Russia over Finland.

This conflict is the US wanting to expand it's imperial influence in Ukraine and diminish Russia's imperial influence, made the bold move of orchestrating a coup to replace a legitimate leader willing to compromise with Russia (i.e. not insane and in power because many Ukrainians did, maybe still do, support compromise with Russia over conflict and warfare).

There are two empires sorting out the question of who indeed does have more influence over what happens in Ukraine at the end of the day.

Neither empire has a moral case.

The Rest is not an economic-military-technlogical integrated block yet as much as the West. And again power must be understood in relative advantages, timing, trends. You are unnecessarily focused in the present (which is not what geopolitical agents do when engaged in power struggles). Things my look very differently over the next decades depending on how this war ends. — neomac

That's because actual evidence exists in the present and only speculation exists about the future.

To conclude one speculation is better than another, turns out requires evidence in the present to support.

Until EU will build enough unity to support of common foreign strategy and cumulate deterrent/coercive power against competitors like Russia, China and the US.
This war suggests that the EU is not only far from that, but things may go awfully wrong if the alliance with the US will break. The void or significant weakening of American hegemony in Europe can likely boost the economic/military/ideological competition between European countries (the premises are already there, see the divergence between the UK and the EU, Eastern European countries and Western European Countries wrt the war in Ukraine, the rivalries between north Europe and South Europe about the immigrants) which can’t rely on the Western-lead international order, and between global powers (now including the US) which will bring their competition in the heart of Europe worse than in the past decades (including during the Cold War). And will more likely encourage authoritarianism even in Europe, to control ensuing social unrest (the right-wing turn in many European countries may favour this trend). — neomac

This seems accurate.

I don’t claim to be an impartial observer if that means that I do not have preferences or that I didn’t pick a side: I prefer an avg life in the West than an avg life in China, Russia or Iran. I side with a strategy that weakens Russia’s aggressiveness as much as possible. But this partiality is perfectly compatible with objectivity in understanding how the game is being played by competitors. And presenting it as honestly as possible (at least if one is not doing propaganda!). — neomac

This literally means:

“A proponent of US foreign policy” — neomac

If you are supporting the arms supply to Ukraine and the policy of not-negotiating, even frustrating any attempt to do so, but "let them fight".

If you are starting to doubt if the lives this policy costs are worthwhile to spend, then "preferring the Western avg life" does not exclude the idea that Western intervention in Ukraine is not leading the avg Ukrainian to the avg Western life, but to trauma and sadness and death.

What you describe is definitely the recipe, just to me seemed like more work, and higher risk, to coverup crime that happened in another country anyways. But I guess they'd still have to talk to me and that would be work.

Whistleblowers tend to be accused of something to shut them up. Nobody wants to investigate middle class and upper class crime, — unenlightened

Here's how ChatGPT summarises the accusations against me contained in a single email:

Based on the context you provided, there are several potential crimes that could be involved:

Embezzlement: If the accusations of the CEO issuing loans without the authority to do so are true, then it could be considered embezzlement.

Fraud: If the CEO deliberately misled investors about the company's financial situation or the legitimacy of the loans, then it could be considered fraud.

False representation: If the CEO is falsely representing themselves as the legitimate CEO of the company and issuing loans without proper authority, then it could be considered false representation.

Shareholder oppression: If the CEO is using their position to gain personal advantage at the expense of other shareholders, it could be considered shareholder oppression.

Breach of fiduciary duty: If the CEO is not acting in the best interests of the company and its shareholders, then it could be considered a breach of their fiduciary duty.

It is important to note that without more information and investigation, it is not possible to determine definitively if any of these crimes have been committed. — ChatGPT

Email literally contains the statement:

All other options will reveal serious accusations with the risk to damage the reputation and valuation of the company. — Absolute Madlad, member of the board of directors

Which is basically copy and pasting the definition of blackmail from the dictionary into your email and pressing send.

If the accusations aren't true ... it's just really, really dumb blackmail.

But, kids, if you want to extort someone, do it over the phone. Simple, clean, and if it doesn't work you can just deny the whole conversation ever happened or not "what you meant, what you actually said was this different thing" ... you happened to have come up with after discussion with your lawyer.

I guess this guy thought I would go along with it and wanted to entrap me in an actual crime of the coverup (covering up the allegations of wrongdoing is still a crime even if the wrongdoing being alleged turns out to be false) and hiding things from investors and auditors, so that I'm still committing serious fraud even if I realise later the original accusations aren't true.

Bold, but stupid.

Of course, my response the next day was:

If what you say is true a serious crime has been committed that I have, as an “illegitimate CEO”, been fraudulently representing the company these past years and everything I have signed is invalid.

If what you say is true, a second serious crime has been committed in that you are soliciting me to engage in a conspiracy with the other board members to cover up this crime, under the threat of blackmail of a poor performance review as well as the reward of a recompense of the CTO position.

There is no other interpretation of your letter I am able to arrive at. — Boethius, CEO

What may also surprise you even more is that this goes on for 7 pages of dense type ... with some paragraphs underlined and in bright red, which definitely indicates to me the work wasn't even finished (which in some ways supports your observation of a half-educated rookie but I think a rookie would be particularly concerned about the formatting and not leaving red editing markings on the document).

It's mostly just rambling about points of law (in English, so not that useful in a jurisdiction where English isn't an official language) without even tying these observations about the law to the case, including some that seems to contradict the main claim that I have no evidence at all, just perception:

There is therefore no requirement of certainty or a high probability of an offence having been committed. When considering whether to initiate a criminal investigation, it should be borne in mind that the purpose of a criminal investigation is precisely to investigate an offence instead of settling any other legal disputes. A mere allegation of an offence does not exceed the threshold required to initiate a criminal investigation. Appropriate concrete grounds for the decision to initiate a criminal investigation must be presented. In borderline cases, the interest of solving a crime is relevant, and it is more important in the case of serious offences — National Special Prosecutor

So suddenly borderline and not a "high probability" just a "good probability" of serious crime?

Is he claiming this case is borderline ... or just casually observing that this would be true if the case was borderline (i.e. a bunch of evidence existed), but we actually know it's not borderline at all and Boethius is a raving lunatic imagining things.

Which definitely seems odd to bring up the borderline concept if you're main conclusion is:

Boethius has not presented any concrete, objectively observable evidence to support his claims. A mere allegation of an offence or a person's own perception of a criminal incident does not cross the threshold for a criminal investigation. — National Special Prosecutor

Seems pretty strong words to me, nothing borderline about it.

Also, why would it take 7 pages to explain there is absolutely nothing to see here.

What is shocking is the lack of clarity about what are undisputed facts and what are your claims and what are 'their' claims/interpretations. This is so basic and important in matters legal, that the report is actually useless and uninformative. I don't think the quality is good enough for it to be a big conspiracy; it looks more like like some half-educated rookie saddled with making a report to close the 'case', that was never really opened, and no one was ever going to look at. — unenlightened

Oh totally, it was totally shocking to me receiving this document, totally floored.

It's actually difficult to imagine a prosecutor sitting down and writing a sentence with the word "murder" in it and not then reviewing that it means exactly what he intends to mean and there is no room for this sort of conversation. Especially if your goal is to avoid there being an investigation, the word "murder" is easily a land mine that can be counter productive to that goal.

I'm careful about what I say in completely banal emails about the most trivial stuff as a board member of small companies ... so the idea a prosecutor would not write carefully about murder is truly incredible.

Now, indeed, does seems like "some half-educated rookie saddled with making a report to close the 'case'" so what makes this document even stranger is that it's written by the third or fourth senior prosecutor in the entire country, the special prosecutor directly under the deputy prosecutor, under the prosecutor general, equal, or then just below, the senior prosecutor that runs the national prosecution authority. I also went through the whole thing with other national prosecutors, who initially told me the investigation had already started (as the evidence is overwhelming; especially that the initial statement of police to not investigate, that I made a mere accusation, cannot possibly be true, a "mere accusation" is exactly that, just making an accusation without any evidence at all (not even testimony: just accusing someone, no further details, which is indeed insufficient to start an investigation); so seeing tons of evidence, hundreds of attachments, recordings etc. they were completely panicked).

As for conspiracy, does seem I'm alleging that, but I actually went to some lengths as to explain the motivations of police to claim I'm making a mere accusation without any evidence at all makes zero sense, especially as it's not even their jurisdiction and all they have to do is forward the evidence to the Financial Intelligence Unit.

This is what puzzled me about attorney's telling me exactly this would happen (certainly they've seen this before, and it's just "the way of police" basically), but I really had a hard time imaging why.

None of the people I'm accusing of laundering money even live in my country, so all local police needed to do is forward the evidence to the Financial Intelligence Unit who would forward it to Interpol. It's a lot more effort to (as you point out) to write hasty analysis that can be easily proven false. Now, if that happened (evidence forwarded along) and nothing came of it, which seems likely, then there wouldn't be any issue, certainly no way to allege a coverup. The evidence is "somewhere" and I'd go about my business, maybe ten years from now some detective is interested in the story as the same names come up with similar allegations; that was honestly my expectation.

The police also make there initial decision that I'm making "mere accusations" without even phoning me. Which honestly just seems dangerous, as even if you wanted to coverup the crime ... you'd be even more motivated to understand what evidence exists in order to craft your narrative.

Of course, they could have easily just stone walled on "no investigation, police discretion, we'll give no reasons" but the problem that arises is that they put me under investigation instead, so now the investigation is started which should be unbiased and consider equally my evidence against the people accusing me. This is what causes the whole catastrophe with police, as it's simply bad optics already on the surface that someone reports money laundering and then the person involved in that reports them for a crime and police start an investigation into the whistle blower (classic retaliation that's supposed to be illegal).

From what I can tell, police just do these big favours for the attorney's of the people accused of money laundering (I was put under investigation, told I'm going to jail, for what no one can say, but told all claims would be dropped if I signed the severance package, took the money, a cool million Euros ... though, to be clear, not real money, but a promise to find it later ... maybe, but a 20 000 Euro down payment to ease my suffering).

But why do these favours? Get these reports, hear a story from the counter-party attorney's, not even bother to phone me to followup on the crimes I filed and then put me under investigation ... but also not even phone me about that either.

I very much doubt police got any benefit, it just seems that's what police do about money laundering.

But what's clear is that once the coverup starts, it's a strong commitment of the whole system, then it just snowballs until you get the above kinds of paragraphs making false statement about what evidence the Financial Intelligence Unit has and what they have said, or not said, which is aggravated fraud to misrepresent an authority's statements, and particularly aggravated if we're talking about a police unit that investigates organised crime.

What I can say in this experience, is that criminals are really stupid and not at all the cunning planners we see in movies and series ... which kind of makes sense when you think about it, as if you're smart (which I expect all participants of the forum to be) and you sit down and weigh the costs and benefits of being involved in organised crime, it's really hard to say it's worth committing crime to risk being murdered and also need to worry about police catching you for decades. Smart people do legitimate business.

Rather, the reality seems to be that criminals are really dumb, but society organised to finance organised crime (through prohibition), and police are woefully under staffed to catch these dumb criminals most of the time, so they have the habit of just dismissing cases. Now, normally that's fine as as most cases you don't find the key evidence if there's no investigation. What's unusual about my case is that I'm sent the paperwork, then blackmailed (accused of signing illegitimate loans) ... in an email.

Absolutely stupid. If you're going to extort someone, have the decency to do it over the phone so there's no need to report it to police.

If you ask ChatGPT this question it responds:

"The statement says that Boethius has "justified cause to believe" that the police are planning to murder him due to the reports he has filed. This suggests that he has some evidence or reasoning to support his belief, rather than it being a mere speculation or assumption."

Further enquiry leads to the conclusion:

"You raise a valid point. It is possible that the prosecutor who wrote the statement did verify that Boethius contacted the National Bureau of Investigation's Financial Intelligence Unit and did not receive a reply or enquiry. The prosecutor may have based the statement on Boethius claims as well as any available records or evidence that support the claim.

However, it is also possible that the prosecutor did not independently verify the information and simply included it based on Boethius' claims. In any case, it is important for authorities to conduct a thorough investigation and verify all relevant information and claims to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the information."

Which sounds reasonable enough, definitely whatever the truth of these statements is, should be verified.

Interestingly, ChatGPT does understand the implications of contradictory evidence:

Would not the existence of a response make the statement in this report that there was no response false?

ChatGPT: Yes, if it is true that Boethius received a response from the Financial Intelligence Unit, it would make the statement in the report that he "did not receive any reply or enquiry" false or inaccurate.

If there is evidence that the Financial Intelligence Unit did respond to Boethius email, it would be important to clarify this discrepancy in the report and determine why the incorrect information was initially presented. It could be an honest mistake or a deliberate misrepresentation, and it would be important to understand the context and implications of the error.

However, the fact that Boethius received a response from the Financial Intelligence Unit does not necessarily prove or disprove the validity of his claims or the existence of any wrongdoing. The prosecutor would still need to conduct an independent investigation and evaluate the evidence presented to determine the facts of the matter.

Prompt: What good faith and bad motivations could there be to make this false statement?

ChatGPT: There could be several reasons why someone might make a false statement, knowingly or unknowingly. Some possible good faith and bad motivations that could lead to the false statement in this report are:

Good faith motivations:

1. Lack of knowledge or information: The person who made the statement may not have had access to all the relevant information and may have assumed that no response was received from the Financial Intelligence Unit.
2. Miscommunication: The person who made the statement may have received incorrect information from a source and believed it to be true.
3. Memory lapse: The person who made the statement may have genuinely forgotten about the response from the Financial Intelligence Unit.

Bad motivations:

1. Cover-up: The person who made the statement may have deliberately concealed the fact that a response was received from the Financial Intelligence Unit to cover up any potential wrongdoing.
2. Misdirection: The person who made the statement may have intentionally created a false narrative to mislead the prosecutor and prevent them from pursuing an investigation.
3. Malice: The person who made the statement may have acted out of malice towards Boethius, and deliberately provided false information to harm his credibility.

It is important to note that without additional information, it is difficult to determine the motivations behind the false statement. The prosecutor may need to investigate the matter further to uncover any potential wrongdoing or misrepresentations. — ChatGPT conversation

It is very strange. I don't know the law of your country because I don't know where you are from, but in my country (Spain) it is illegal to make official requirements or communications in a language that the interlocutor cannot understand. — javi2541997

Yes it is very strange. explanation is a good one, but even then the original decision should be in the official language and then there would be a translation for Interpol. Certainly they can just email each other in English and maybe some reporting mechanisms specific to Interpol that would be in English, but since neither is the case here it's just sloppy work (and certainly they don't expect me to get this document anyways; so, corruption breeds in darkness).

But yes, law is likely exactly the same as in Spain, that decisions and procedures (anything "official") are in the official language and that in some cases you can have thing translated (for instance anything to do with crime) and in other cases you'd have to pay your own translations. Some bureaucracies have service in English and in some narrow areas you need to talk through an interpreter (when there's potential legal consequences of the conversation, bureaucrats will speak through an interpreter so that they are certain they are following the law).

It is true that you have English skills, BUT I personally think that the prosecutor acted with bad faith or at least with bad praxis. Can you ask your lawyer ask or inquire something related to this issue? — javi2541997

I have asked attorney's and lawyers; they just say it's of course strange and unusual. There's not really any doubt about what the language act says, and I've also recorded law enforcement also clarifying this on multiple occasions, and they like giving their speech that of course we're in this country and decisions are in the official language, establish language dominance.

Does the law of your country allow this kind of procedure? — javi2541997

No, it's really clear that all legal procedure is in the official language in the language act, then a whole bunch of paragraphs of who non-native speaker has right to translations and interpretation in what context etc.

The reason that legal procedure must be in the official language is that the only law that exists here is in the official language, and attorney's have on multiple occassions explained to me the subtle differences between the official English translation (that even comes with the preamble that it's not official for purposes of law) and the actual law, in connotation, scope, and in some cases seems just bad word choice on the part of the translators. Mostly reading the English translations is pretty accurate, but because there are differences, all legal decisions and procedures must be in the official language.

As is the case in every country (there's an official law, in an official set of languages, and the law is practiced in that official language). It's as strange this decision is in English as it would be if it was in Swahili or Chinese, as far as the law is concerned.

It will be quite incredible when a judge needs to order the translation of the above document, written by the National Prosecutors of the same country, for the document to be submissable as evidence in court.

And I'm also in an EU country, and all these language laws are pretty standard as they also relate to European citizen rights in other EU countries, so probably pretty much the same as in Spain.

I'm a native speaker, not a lawyer, but somewhat familiar with formal language. — unenlightened

Really appreciated your analysis, thank you.

Yes, it's badly written, which is another point I've made which is just "how do we even know what's meant?"

Of course, the whole thing could be easily solved by prosecutors just issuing a clarification that "this means that", which they haven't done. I expect because then that creates further paper about this report that's made in English ... that's already a legal problem in itself.

The author of this report stated in an email (asking me to rewrite everything as he didn't understand the mentioned emails) that "English isn't my working language" (which I don't see how rewriting things in English is going to solve).

But yes, certainly we can interpret things as just badly written hodgepodge of claims we are dismissing.

Which is what I expected, what the summary says which is purely dismissive, no explanation, nothing to see here.

But it just bothered me that it was called a summary, that's really unusual in this sort of paper work, it's usually "decision this or that".

And this has been my main point, that this paragraph, at minimum, should be clarified what the author claims the meaning to be. But authorities can't even do that: send me a short message that this sentence does not mean what you say it means.

My guess is that since I never made this claim (only that I feared police), if they clarify they are saying I've made this claim they know my response will be the whole entire letter I wrote clarifying I am definitely not claiming I know police to intending or planning to murder me, but it is a reasonable fear in this kind of situation after the police assaulted me (how do I know they would draw the line at assault).

Is it possible that your complaint had an international aspect and that this was a token arse-covering report to Interpol or someone? — unenlightened

This is a really good point. I didn't think about that, but would be a good explanation.

The person who I'm told is behind the deal (and told this to the prosecutor -- the name that was so alarming and I went to police originally for protection from) has a red notice from Interpol, as we speak, for money laundering.

One reason I've pressed forward in this, I'm not accusing anyone of laundering money who isn't already accused by Interpol of laundering money. And these engineering projects are literally for diamond mines in Africa, in the countries at the very top of the risk of money laundering list, and I have all the paperwork about them, so I'm pretty far from making any fantastical claims at the end of the day. It's not like I'm accusing the Norwegian Sovereign wealth fund of some crazy corporate scheme, I'm accusing someone already accused of laundering billions of dollars, a colonel (some reason you need a colonel to do engineering in Africa), and then a bunch of middlemen that arranged the papers, licences and engineering documents (that apparently I'm supervising).

The other reason is they send me all the paperwork of these deals, which I can for sure tell you is money laundering as they put me down as senior manager (in charge of an engineering project budgeted at over a couple hundred million dollars). So, I'm pretty sure the senior manager of a money laundering operation can clarify if it's about laundering money or not. And, if I might be murdered / disappeared as a loose end anyways, I'd rather people have a chance to know why.

For people's curiosity, the summary was a one page document with a bunch of boiler plate and simply stated:

"No concrete grounds have been presented in the case to support the allegations made by [Boethius] in his writings. There is no reason to suspect an offence in the case. No pre-trial investigation will be initiated."

However, this is only a statement about a very narrow jurisdiction over police, not the underlying money laundering.

So why it's so important to state that I already sent all the evidence to the Financial Intelligence Unit (in internal prosecutor documents I'm not intended to see but other prosecutors may review) and did not get a reply (implying the evidence was not actionable enough to even reply to me), as that would explain no record of ever transferring the evidence that is not in their jurisdiction to the proper jurisdiction and also heavily implies there is no evidence and it's all just my "perception" (the word this prosecutor used elsewhere in the document); as obviously, if there is evidence of money laundering, police don't investigate, then I claim police are covering it up, assaulted me etc. it's bad optics at best if it turns out to be money laundering all along, makes my accusations against police more credible if my accusations of the underlying money laundering are also supportable (so, therefore, if other prosecutors, for example who also got all my evidence to start, may wonder what the Financial Intelligence Unit would say about all the evidence of money laundering, certainly would ease their minds to know the Financial Intelligence Unit as the same information and has not acted).

So, it's a really important phrase that accomplishes 2 important legal things to claim I already sent the evidence to the Financial Intelligence Unit and they did not even reply (implies there is so little merit the experts on money laundering don't even reply).

So, a really brazen levels of fraud ... that can be proven to be a false statement in a criminal process with simply producing the response from the Financial Intelligence Unit.

Of course ... I'd need to be alive to do be able to do that (presumably, it is philosophy forum after all, so we should keep an open mind, but still, I think the point can be defended).

I am not a native speaker, but at least I understood the same and I guess I am following your point. The fact that a specific police department is conspiring against you. — javi2541997

Thanks for your input. As for a native speaker, the author isn't a native speaker either, so it's also useful to get the impression from similar English levels.

On the other hand, I can't understand why you want to use English in your procedure, or I am not seeing your strategy clearly. — javi2541997

This is not my choice.

It's absolutely incredible that this document is in English to begin with. I receive lot's of correspondence from the government about all sorts of things, it's always in the official language of the country (why wouldn't it be) and in some very limited cases there's an official translation that comes with or after the official documents. For instance, all the other internal documents I received in my requests for information are in the official language.

It's also in the law that legal procedure is in the official language, as with every country this is an important legal detail of what language we're even talking law in.

Also, considering I was not sent this document when the decision was made, but only a summary, it's not in English for my convenience (if that was even a valid reason) as I wasn't supposed to get this internal document. I had to phone half a dozen times making the argument that "summary" must be a summary of something more complete and I want that more complete document.

They'd be like, "document, what document" and I'd be like "well, when I write a summary, which I do often as a corporate executive, it's usually a summary of a thing, if it was just the thing I wouldn't call it a summary ... I'd just call it 'the thing', so please go double check because I don't understand how the summary doesn't summarise something longer of which there's merit in writing a summary to begin with."

Eventually they just sent me this document some months later.

It's not only not for my convenience but would cause all sorts of problems if I did get this document, the mere fact it it's English is of course reason to retract the decision (it makes no reference to official law, which is in the official language; I've gotten this lesson a dozen times over the years that arguments, statements, representations, in English of or about the law may not be accurate and cannot be official; the official translation into English of the law makes clear it's not itself officially the law etc.).

I was honestly floored to get this document in English. Indeed, my request was I wanted the official complete decision and an official translation (I have a right to translations if it concerns crime).

So, the only explanation I can find is that it's in English for the benefit of other prosecutors, that writing in the official language with reference to the official law wouldn't make sense to people legally trained in that language. And these are national prosecutors and I went through everything with a few other prosecutors before they made a case and then gave the decision to this prosecutor (probably because of their level of English).

On the main point of the issue: reporting crimes such as corruption or money laundering is a very serious issue. Keep in mind that in these crimes will be involved police departments, politicians, judges, prosecutors, etc... It is like opening up the Pandora box. Prepare yourself with the consequences, because all the dirty public workers will go against you. — javi2541997

Yes, the point of my second comment was I was well aware of the consequences. Police told me to talk to attorneys and they all said the same thing, like literally 2 dozen of them.

However, if my evidence wasn't absolutely clear and all recorded in email and recorded phone conversations (which I have a right to do in my jurisdiction) then definitely there'd be no point, totally agreed.

But, on the rare occasions you're simply delivered the evidence (for years I suspected the deals of this other board member was money laundering, but of course did nothing as I had no evidence, and I guess he got overconfident and so one day he just sent me the evidence), then everything with the police I recorded, it's a surprise and not something I looked for, but I feel a deep responsibility to go the distance.

Of course, I'd rather not be murdered, and if this is simply what this statement says police are planning to do, then additional opinion that's what it appears to say is really useful. Likewise, if people have a different impression, then maybe there is less cause for alarm. The false statement about the evidence the Financial Intelligence Unit has is already pretty bad ... just not as bad as being murdered.

Also, to satisfy people's curiosity, the reply to my email requesting advise of what to do and my evidence be reviewed was the following:

Dear Mr. [Bothethius],
In response to your email on April 8th, 2021, we would propose for you to discuss with a [national] attorney / law firm many of which can be found on the internet and have information on their webpages also in English. They would be able to advise on what the civil and criminal law options would be in this case and would be able to provide support in filing a criminal complaint to the [baddass] police if that were the solution you would choose or possible civil law litigation options.
Sincerely yours,
[Baddass police officer] — Baddass Bureau of Investigation

Which to me definitely looks like a response and not not-a-reply and also makes clear they didn't get, much less review, any evidence (which they didn't, I sent a short letter asking for advice), and they would only do so after I file a criminal complaint, which is indeed the law (and you cannot report crime directly to them as a normal citizen, only to local police, which I then do).

And to be clear, "money laundering" was in the subject of my email "Request for advice on irregular business patterns - money laundering always one explanation".

I then did consult with attorneys, although I didn't see why I should pay for the analysis of actual money laundering nor what usefulness that even has, what matters is evidence and whoever is in charge of money laundering in police should have it and decide what to do, if anything, and maybe it's evidence that's useful in 10 years because same stupid people keep doing the same stupid shit.

Anyways, every attorney I talked to agreed the evidence I had was reasonable suspicion of money laundering, that the specific crimes carried out to coverup the money laundering was in any case clear crime ... but recommended not to report it to police. I'm like "what, why shouldn't we report money laundering to police?" most would then not answer just say they couldn't help me. One told me that what would happen is the police will never investigate the money laundering and I'd be put under investigation instead, even without evidence, and the police would try to put me in jail, but in any case destroy my career. One attorney told me that even if it was them in my situation with the same evidence, that that they agreed was unambiguous crime, that even then, reporting this sort of thing as an attorney, the police would not even investigate (and put them under investigation instead and try to destroy her career, just from being under investigation for crime as an attorney, isn't a good look). One attorney just flat out told me that they did not trust police to investigate this sort of crime.

Now this was truly incredible to me as in nearly 2 decades of managing organisations, dealing with institutions, dealing with lawyers and attorney's and auditors (both acting for and against my interest), and all sorts of legal issues, law this, clause that, regulation such-and-such, proper procedures, cross those t's and dot those not i's, definitely pay the taxes, not a single time did any legal professional ever present the idea or give the impression that the law, at the end of the day, simply does not matter at all, and to not report crime to police (which there is no risk, at least in the law, of doing when it comes to money laundering, as the threshold of evidence is incredibly low, "irregular business pattern" suffices; and, in other situations, it was super important to report crime as a board director as then you can't be liable for covering it up, or from lost funds due to the crime that even if the money won't be recovered, if you say the invoice was fraudulent and paid by accident then it's important to report that for your own liability and for auditing reasons etc.), so this was entirely new legal concepts suddenly coming from this class of individual, that it's now important not to report crime because police will commit crimes against you if you do that.

Naturally, I had to see this for myself.

I’m neither arguing that “climate change isn’t happening” nor that “won't be extremely bad”. I’m questioning your way of assigning responsibility and its implications. — neomac

Ok, well good to know we agree on the scientific facts.

You also seem to agree the US is the world's super power and global hegemon ... and not merely today but, most critically, in the 1990's after the fall of the Soviet Union and before the rise of China US was even more top dog than it is now, and it's that decade that was the most critical for setting climate and environmental policy.

Why wouldn't the party with the most influence and power in setting a policy, not be the most responsible for the results?

I already argued against this miscaracterization of my views.
- your basic framework of "US good” as opposed to your basic framework “Russia good”, “Iran good”, “China good”, “North Korea good”?
- the war in Ukraine is morally justified if it is sacrificing Ukrainians for this US "rules based order” as opposed to “the war in Ukraine is morally justified if it is killing,raping,deporting,destroying Ukrainians for Russia anti-West order?
- without any benefit to Ukrainians: as opposed to “without any benefit to Russians”?
I questioned the assumption that the West “is sacrificing” the Ukrainians. — neomac

I'm not mischaracterising your views, I'm literally asking questions that you keep deflecting from. That the questions are uncomfortable for you and you prefer not to answer them simply emphasises the incompleteness at best, and inconsistencies at worst, in your position.

You should not have a problem answering the question of how many Ukrainian lives you'd be willing to sacrifice to achieve what. And, for the sake of argument, let's just say you're able to decide the number and the goals. This would be the start of defining your position.

Would you be willing to sacrifice a million Ukrainians on the battlefield and still lose, a more-or-less fight to the death scenario, as the principle is more important than the result?

Do you find it acceptable the losses since Russia's offer last spring (assuming the offer was genuine: give-up claim to Crimea, independent Donbas) in the event the lines do not change further?

Would the losses since the Russian's offer be worth it in the event Ukraine outright loses?

Finally, to achieve the goal of removing Russia further from Ukraine, both including and excluding Crimea, how many losses would you (if you had to choose) be worthwhile?

If you want to discuss, don't deflect further with "Ukrainians want to fight it's not my decision, the West is just supplying arms", but engage in the argument and put yourself in the position of choosing the number of lives for the given scenario. Certainly you'd be willing to sacrifice 1 Ukrainian to achieve complete removal of Russia from Ukraine if it was both possible and your decision to make (I'd make the same decision; one life for the complete end of the war? no hesitation, will obviously save many more lives than the war continuing), so just keep increasing the number from there until you either reach a zone where you start to be uncomfortable (100 000, 200 000, 500 000) or then never become uncomfortable and inform us every single Ukrainian life is worth sacrificing to remove Russia from Ukraine.

And these sorts of decisions are part of NATO military training (which I've done) that the cost in lives must be justified by the worth of the objective achieved. The mere fact the other side is presumably "bad" (otherwise why are we fighting them) does not justify fighting at all cost to both your own troops as well as civilians. We are willing to sacrifice X to achieve Y is the fundamental framework of all military decision making.

For example, I think we'd agree the North Korean government is a terrible dystopian tyranny and if there was some easy way to topple the current government and put in a new one (even just our normal Western track record of how these things go is still likely far better than the current North Korean government). We could get rid of the tyrant, bring some brand of freedom to North Koreans, generations of benefits. So why don't we? Because the evaluated cost is too high. No one's willing to risk Seoul being nuked to free the North Koreans and likely so many North Koreans would die in such a war that the argument that we're helping them is tenuous at best.

I can’t answer such a question if I don’t know how I am supposed to do the math or if it makes sense. — neomac

Then you have no place in policy discussion about warfare, because that's what it's about.

An example of this sort of math is that when the allies cracked enigma in WWII for that to be useful they needed to ensure the Nazi's did not figure out they figured it out.

Therefore, they did the math and calculated how many U-boat attacks they need to let happen in order for the Nazi's to not get too suspicious.

Why don’t you pick whatever historical example and show me how YOU would do the math? Here is an example: ”Civilian deaths during the war include air raid deaths, estimates of German civilians killed only by Allied strategic bombing have ranged from around 350,000 to 500,000.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War_II). By taking into account that the civilian deaths were estimated in the range of 350,000-500,000, do you calculate that it was morally worth bombing Nazi Germany or not? How did you calculate it?

Exactly why strategic bombing is so controversial is that it's difficult to argue it saved more lives than it cost, which is the usual framework for these sorts of calculations. The allies needed to let some ships (that they knew would be attacked) sink to the bottom and thousands of sailors dead because keeping the information advantage and destroying the U-boat fleet slow enough for the Nazi's to not realise their communications are compromised would save far more lives in total than maximising the short term benefits of the information, which would have no other explanation than communications had been compromised.
— neomac

It has already harmed Russian’s political standing:
- Reputational costs: e.g. Russian military standing didn’t impress on the battlefield — neomac

Certainly Russia's reputation is decreased in the West ... but is it really true world wide? Vis-a-vis China, India, most developing nations? Certainly not enough for these nations to stop trading with Russia.

- Security costs: e.g. NATO enlargement and the rearming of European countries — neomac

Is there any scenario in which Finland / Europe is going to invade Russia? Does any of that actually matter in the current geopolitical "power struggle" as you put it?

- Economic costs: e.g. economic decoupling between Russia and the West
It’s Russia which increased power and influence, or it’s Iran and Saudi Arabia that increased power and influence over Russia? — neomac

That's how political blocks work. If you are in a geopolitical power struggle with the West, then being economically tied to the West exposes you to coercion (the whole point of the sanctions). Sure, Iran and Saudi Arabia (and obviously China and India) have more influence with Russia, but there's no evidence right now these parties are seeking to harm Russia through those economic ties and influence, whereas that's very clearly the West, and in particular the US', stated policy since decades (containment, no "peer competitors" can rise in any region etc.).

In short, I'm not at all convinced the war has increased Western power and influence in the world and decreased Russia's. If you want to point out China's power and influence has increased even more than these parties, I'd agree, but I don't see how that's good imperial stewardship on the US's part.

What might be the lesser evil for the US is to break a Western-lead globalization which was benefiting more EU, Russia and China than the US. And re-compact the West in a logic of political, economic, security blocks as in the Cold War. But this attempt may fail not necessarily because of Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia have significantly increased power and influence. But because of EU, in particular Germany and France ,are fed up with the US. Or because of a domestic internal crisis in the US. — neomac

The primary reason Germany and France would be fed up with the US is that the US creates this mess in Ukraine and then also blows up European infrastructure.

But, otherwise, I agree that the US' main competitor in this conflict is the EU and the possibility of the Euro emerging as a "peer competitor" to the USD.

We discussed that already. I’m not a “proponent of US foreign policy”. One thing is to try to make sense of what the US is doing, another is to decide what do about it. As far as I am personally concerned, independently from what the US does, I can only say as much: I’m a person who prefers to enjoy standards of life, freedoms or economic opportunities of avg Western people instead of enjoying standards of life, freedoms or economic opportunities for avg people living in authoritarian regimes like Russia, China or Iran. Therefore I’m inclined to see as a threat an increase of power and aggressiveness of such authoritarian regimes at the expense of the West. If the West can and wants to do something against such threat, then I would welcome it. And since I’m aware of how messy and dirty human history is, I limit myself to reason in terms of lesser evil. — neomac

It's difficult to interpret this as something other than being a proponent of US foreign policy.

But if you really want to believe yourself to be some impartial observer, then we can discuss on that basis. If that's true you should have even less problem answering questions of what you feel is a reasonable sacrifice to achieve what, as you can be more objective in evaluating the costs and the benefits.

However we can use the Russian actions to make an educated guess and my view is that the Russians leaving Kherson voluntarily points towards it neither being particularly stragetically relevant, nor the Russians being willing to pay a high cost for holding it. — Tzeentch

Something that is worthwhile to note is that in any city the Russians held and then left, mostly the pro-Russian population would immigrate to Russia.

According to this UNHCR data sheet (https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine), some 2 874 806 Ukrainians have refugee status in Russia.

Since a big part of the value of territory is the people living on that territory, causing these population movements is an equally important method of imperialism as territory, of which the West is equal partner in, nabbing some 5 million Ukrainian refugees to help bolster EU GDP.

“Setting most economic policies on the planet (what and how things are produced) has been the US” may have significantly contributed to many events: triplication of the World population, peace/ greater wellbeing/cultural emancipation in Europe, technological progress, rise of competing powers (like China and Russia), not just destruction of “the ecosystems we require for survival” or its destruction on a “unimaginable scale” (whatever that means). — neomac

It's only within the last 100 years that humans believed species could even go extinct, so what is happening previously unimaginable.

However, if you want to argue climate change isn't happening, species loss isn't happening for this and a bunch of other reasons as well, or this environmental destruction, to the extent you agree it's happening, won't be extremely bad, better to argue that in the climate change thread.

For this thread, I'm sure you can appreciate that someone who concludes the environment has been grossly mismanaged and the US primarily responsible, won't assign much moral superiority to US foreign policy.

Of course, the debate remains, even in your basic framework of "US good", as to whether the war in Ukraine is morally justified if it is sacrificing Ukrainians for this US "rules based order" without any benefit to Ukrainians.

As well, even assuming it's true that it's morally justified to sacrifice Ukrainians (or let them sacrifice themselves for Western purposes), if the war is actually harming Russia and benefiting the US.

As yet, no pro-US policy proponent here has answer the question of how many Ukrainian lives are worthwhile to sacrifice to accomplish what objectives.

Likewise, if Russia survives sanctions, as they seem to be doing, and stabilise the front, which they seem to be doing, and continue their arms manufacturing, which they seem to be doing, how exactly does this war harm Russia's geopolitical standing, compared to increasing power and influence and put them in a position to strike deals with Iran and Saudi Arabia for example?

Now, if Russia is gaining power and but China even moreso, for all the reasons we've discussed and you seem to agree with, ok, sure, maybe Russia's relative power vis-a-vis China is decreased, but if this China led block that includes Russia, in whatever influence you want to assign them, is on the whole increasing in power, how is this good for the US?

Just repeating that US is good and Russia is bad doesn't resolve any of these questions.

First, power struggles do not need moral justification to make sense. And most certainly they do not need to be grounded on your understanding of “moral justification” (which I find questionable for reasons I argued a while ago). — neomac

In philosophy, which to remind you we're on a philosophy forum, any decision reflects the moral reasoning and values of the person making the decision.

If you're doing something to increase your wealth and power, such as building an empire, then empire building would be the justification for the action in such a moral system.

You are obviously a proponent of US foreign policy with regard to this Ukraine war, if your justification is that it's good for US empire then that's your justification.

To say "power struggles do not need moral justification to make sense" is to say they may not make sense for a moral system that is not about gaining as much power as possible, which is to be expected.

You seem to assume I'm asking you to justify things beyond your own justification for things, which is not what I'm asking. I'm asking for your justification, it's not more complicated than a power struggle and you happen to be on one side by virtue of birth, had you been born Russian you'd be on the other side, then you can simply state so.

Old tanks can destroy modern tanks if they have a modern ATGM. Actually, in a night engagement the edge might go to something like a T-55S with modern thermals over something like a base T-72 because it can identify the target first and larger ATGMs have good range, although you're still better off on a modern IFV that can do the same thing. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure, you can fire a modern ATGM from an older tank, or any vehicle, but the point of my analysis was to demonstrate these tanks are useful without any upgrades at all. Any upgrades can make them significantly more "survivable" as you just point about the:

the very survivable Merkava, — Count Timothy von Icarus

And so if these T-55 can be upgraded to "very survivable" it is just further advantage for Russia in having thousands of them.

However, my argument does not depend on any upgrades at all and so whatever upgrades the Russians add to these tanks just makes them even more useful.

What makes an old tank a death trap is when it doesn't have any of these upgrades. Then you're manually aiming, without thermals or any warning systems for laser designators, radar, etc. while opposing infantry has a host of guided weapons that can destroy your vehicle.

Any tanks, even a fully upgraded M1, the very survivable Merkava, the new Type 10, etc. is unlikely to survive a direct hit from a 152-155mm shell. Digging in just helps with indirect hits. — Count Timothy von Icarus

First, we don't exactly know what upgrades Russia is putting on these tanks.

Second, digging in also protects against direct fire. You can literally just build a bunker around your tank protecting also against direct fire.

On the cheap, tanks can be deployed in a defensive fixed position by just digging a ramp and so the tank can peak over the ramp and fire and then hide again. If these positions are on elevated terrain, makes it even harder to assault.

Tanks in fixed positions are vulnerable to both air power and artillery ... but if Ukraine has no advantage in either area then adding T-55's all over the front line makes it harder, not easier, to assault Russian lines.

Even if it was true that "digging in just helps with indirect hits" (which obviously is not true) if Ukraine's only recourse is direct fire with its own tanks, to take out T-62s or T-55s, they need to get relatively close and will be vulnerable to being destroyed, if not by return fire from these tanks, then everything else the Russians have that can destroy tanks.

Think it through, if you imagine an entrenched infantry position with machine guns, and missiles of various kinds, and mortars and supported by artillery in the rear, maybe some mine fields in front ... and then you add tanks, even older tanks, it makes it harder, not easier, to assault this position.

Think of these older tanks as armoured field guns.

Since you're so focused on these T-55s, here is literally the first video that came up in searching T-55's in Ukraine ... which describes how Ukraine is using T-55's.



A video which comes to the exact same conclusion as I presented above, that such older tanks cannot destroy modern tanks, but can still destroy other armoured vehicles and support infantry.

This is a false binary. I said that Russia cannot just waltz to the Moldovan border through hundreds of square miles of defenses and through major urban centers when they have failed to make any significant gains since last summer. Moreover, that Russia attacking NATO and opening up a second war through Belarus is preposterous. — Count Timothy von Icarus

None of these positions I was arguing.

However, it's not a false binary that one definition of a "better" army is winning on the battle field.

If you say it's going to happen, certainly you can argue that. However, actual arguments are needed to lend merit to such a position.

For example, The Nazi's and Japanese in 1944 still held more territory than they started out with, but were rapidly losing territory, suffering under strategic bombing and, most critically, fighting against larger armies and navies and airforces with larger populations and industrial capacity that would win any attritional warfare. There was lot's of factors that could be pointed to in 1944 to support the argument the Nazi's and the Japanese were on the pathway to defeat with little they could do about it (especially after D-Day).

Had the Nazis had a much larger industrial output, larger population, better access to oil, more soldiers, better control of the skies and oceans, then obviously the end result of defeat, even after D-day and fighting on two fronts, wouldn't have been all that clear if the Nazi's were in a position to win a war of attrition if the lines stabilised in the East and West.

This is the key point, if the potential for manoeuvre warfare is exhausted in this conflict in Ukraine (lines are simply too well built up and enough men mobilised to defend) then it's an attritional war which favours the Russians. Really strong arguments would be required to argue somehow Ukraine has an advantage and can "win" (whatever definition of winning you want to use that requires Ukraine winning battles and taking territory).

But all you seem to do is note deficiencies of and damage to the Russian military, which even if it's all 100% true and not a smidgeon of fabrication (which almost all the evidence we are talking about can be fabricated entirely or then misrepresented, such as dressing up a Ukrainian loss as a Russian loss, or implying a few ambushes or lost skirmishes are representative of the whole war), doesn't lead to any conclusions, if things are worse for the Ukrainian army.

However, as I mentioned, it's obviously in theory possible Ukraine has some hidden well trained and well equipped and supplied army assembled in secret by NATO which is about to enter the theatre and cut through Russian lines with ease using their NATO tanks protected by a vast fleet or NATO AA batteries and f-16s, that turn out to be far superior to any Russian defence. However, by definition such a hidden force we don't know about, so we can note that it's in the realm of possibility but there's currently no reason to believe it exists.

This is ridiculous. We can deduce "nothing," from the fact that Russia started the invasion with much more modern tank models and is now relying on early Cold War era equipment? We can obviously deduce that they don't have additional modern or even late Cold War Era tanks to use since they obviously preferred to use more recent equipment. — Count Timothy von Icarus

For example, yes, we can deduce nothing from the appearance of T-55's.

If they are just used as essentially stationary guns on fixed defensive positions, well why not use them? It's just common sense that a tank, even an older tank, can still fire at stuff and armour can still stop most munitions and shrapnel. If you place the tank behind further fortifications it can be just as well defended as any modern tank; of course, it cannot manoeuvre but if that's not what you're using it for then that doesn't matter.

Of course, it becomes a target for artillery, but it could take significant amounts of artillery to destroy a tank in a fortified bunker ... time that is both valuable and exposes their artillery to counter battery fire.

It doesn't matter how old these weapons are, you still have to deal with them, and pretty much anything that fires projectiles more modern than a musket can be of some potential use on hundreds of kilometres of defensive lines, hence Ukrainian's using Maxim machine guns.

Where modern and updated weapons are critical is in manoeuvre and precision, but that's not the kind of warfare that's happening right now. T-55 can still send rounds down range, can still hit buildings, can still blowup APC's, suppress infantry, engage older tanks, and can still critically damage even the most modern tanks.

And again, the Ukrainians are using WWI machine guns and WWII artillery and likewise any tank they have or can get, I believe a bunch of T-55s as well, so by your logic Ukraine is losing.

In a huge battle space such as Ukraine there is literally no reason to not position some functioning weapon somewhere if you have it.

They're now using old model T-55 tanks from 70 years ago. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Case in point, the Ukrainians are using the WWI era Maxim machine gun which is even older than the T-55. So, do we therefore conclude Ukraine is certainly going to lose for using even older equipment?

Obviously not. The reality is that a lot of weapons produced even over a hundred years ago are still better than nothing, especially in a defensive role in fixed positions along hundreds of kilometres of front and secondary and tertiary lines, an old machine gun or an old tank is not really wasting any space and is better to have than not.

In short, we can deduce absolutely nothing from the mere appearance of old weapons systems in the war theatre ... and the Maxim machine gun, which the Ukrainians are using, wins this competition in any case.

As goes the mother-load of sanctions against Russia, so goes US global authority. China has played a pivotal role in using its economic might to mitigate the expected damage that the sanctions were expected to cause Russia. As a result Russia's foreign reserves were restored, its inflation rate is at historical lows and its' GDP virtually at prewar levels. This stare-down, more than any results on the battlefield has fractured the aura of Western invincibility. — yebiga

I wouldn't go so far as to say Russia surviving sanctions in itself somehow destroys US hegemony, but it certainly does form a strong experience and alternative economic network for other countries to be more belligerent, if not hostile, to US interests.

There's definitely some signs this is occurring, certainly a lot of talk of trading in other currencies, but it will take some time to see if it is more than just talk.

The non-western world may have reached an event horizon. Whilst, over in Washington and throughout the advanced western world we struggle with systemic racism, equity, inclusion, gender dysphoria and argue over how the climate is changing. — yebiga

I have mentioned a few times that (regardless of ones personal politics) most of the world is ideologically far closer to Putin than the West, and even farther from the "Woke West". The world is in general authoritarian outside the West (even in those non-Western states that are democratic).

To what extent Western policy makers and talking heads thought the world would unite around the Western banner I'm not sure, but to the extent the belief was genuine it was completely delusional and has significant geopolitical consequences.

Apparently. There is a hilarious level of faith in this supposed "real Russian military," that is just waiting to take the gloves off. How many pairs of gloves must they have had on this point? — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is not the hypothesis, at least on this forum.

The hypothesis is things are not going better for Ukraine, and evidence seems to suggest far worse.

There are two sides to the conflict. Even if all your examples of Russian criticism are true ... there has to be some reason to believe things are not just as bad for Ukraine.

The way the Western media evaluates and presents the war is as if they presented only the picture of the face of one boxer after every round and just pointing to cuts and bruises conclude this boxer is getting a beating and will certainly lose. Obviously, all this does is beg the question of how the other guys doing.

If the Ukrainian military was just "better" then it would not be the case that Russia woul be occupying any part of Ukraine right now.

The criticism of Russia from the point of view that they aren't winning "hard enough" and "easy enough" is still Russia winning.

In any big conventional war each side has battles they win and battles they lose.

Now, we don't have all that much reliable information from the front line, but the reason to assume Russia can sustain things longer than the Ukrainians is that they are simply bigger with a bigger population and more capabilities. For example, that Russian airforce has not established total air superiority is not the same as saying their hundreds of more planes than Ukraine isn't an effective tool.

As I mentioned in a post above, my guess would be the conflict transitions into a frozen conflict with neither side able to carry out major offensives.

However, as discussed with @ssu there isn't much historical example to support that conclusion, and the nature of the fighting maybe intrinsically "unfreezeable" with simply too many drones and too much artillery and missiles. Losses would need to get to a sustainable level for the conflict to start to freeze. Indeed, even before the age of drones, frozen conflicts usually have either a formal cease fire or then some natural barrier, usually both. There's of course the Dnieper river but it does not seem politically viable to retreat to there, so if Ukrainian forces just stay in Eastern Ukraine and their losses aren't sustainable then it's unclear to me how that plays out.

Now, if you say there's some brand new 200 000 strong army well trained on an island somewhere in secret that is coming to burst through Russian lines with tanks that Russia has no weapon that can penetrate them and it's simply total carnage all the way to the Azov sea, that is hypothetically possible.

So we'll see if this new Ukrainian offensive we've been hearing about gets under way, but at least with the information that's available online, whatever problems the Russians have ... the Ukrainians also have those problems just less sustainable because they are a smaller population.

Furthermore, the factors in Ukrainians favour summer / autumn year, mainly that Russia had not yet mobilised and so the original roughly 200 000 strong force was stretched over a long line (in addition to the impact of sanctions and general disruption to Russian society of starting a massive war), sparsely defended without many fortifications ... is no longer true this year.

It is very difficult to see any factors in Ukraine's favour at this point in the war that would lead to routing the Russian our of Ukraine, or ever being able to do so.

There's the Western tanks, but I have not seen any analysis that these are significantly more effective than Russian tanks, many are older models (I believe there are a bunch of Panther 1's throw in there for example), many are having their armour downgraded as we speak, and whatever advantages these tanks may have seem countered by the lack of much experience operating these tanks and the immense logistical complexity of fielding a hodgepodge of different tanks.

Certainly better than no tanks, but does not seem a potential game changer but rather simply propping up Ukraine so as to avoid a total collapse.

Me personally? Nope. — jorndoe

Then we're in agreement on the fundamental morality of these situations.

We're all helpless pawns here. — EricH

I fear this to be true.

Let's not forget that Putin instigated the invasion, enlarging the world's largest country (perhaps temporarily), and might well be the one individual that can end the war today. — jorndoe

The conflict started in 2014 and was Ukraine that attacked Russian speaking break away regions and the threat to Russia's naval base in Crimea due to a coup in Ukraine.

Of course, doesn't necessarily justify simply taking Crimea and propping up the separatists and then a full scale invasion last year, but it's pretty much the exact same doctrine US used to invade Iraq and also pretty much the same thing as the Western supported Saudi invasion of Yemen (following a coup that the Saudis and we Westies claim is illegitimate, justifying invasion).

I have no problem with the idea all these invasions are immoral, but if you support the US right to invade Iraq as "preemptive defence" or then the Saudi invasion of Yemen "because coup! illegitimate!" then you need to present some moral theory where "when we do it it's ok" that doesn't reduce to "meh, interests".

Hypocrisy does not make a thing in itself true or false, good nor bad, but does take the edge off moralising about it.

China has been playing the situation carefully. They want good relations with the US. Xi does, anyway. The balloon launchers apparently have other plans. — frank

The several hundred billion dollar question in this situation is how intent Xi is on conquering Taiwan.

This is why my question about Russia being a proxy to China's force projection is in the form of a question. It depends on what China is trying to achieve.

If it really does want to take Taiwan in the short term, then agreeing to or even encouraging Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a geopolitical master stroke if China takes advantage of the US pivot to Europe and can and does conquer Taiwan.

Not to say China somehow engineered the situation from the beginning, US was on a collision course with Russia anyways, but rather clever geopolitical opportunism.

If China has zero intention of conquering Taiwan anytime soon and just wants to continue their economic growth for a decade or two, then the war Ukraine brings a lot of economic benefits to China such as a significant protected market for Chinese engineering services and obvious cheaper access to resources.

They're a stabilizing force for Russia at this time, at the price of Russia's future submission to China. Biden has pitted himself against Putin's regime. Xi says no. — frank

I think submission is too strong a term. Russia still has a lot of leverage in terms of resources, some key military technologies as well as thousands of nuclear weapons. Russia has also tripled trade with India which serves as a hedge against over reliance on China.

Certainly the war benefits China and removes Russia's arbitrage position selling to the West, which is bad for Russia all else being equal ... but all else isn't equal and the war also removes the West's influence in Russia as well as weakens the US' geopolitical and reserve currency position.

We'd need to know what Putin and Xi are actually intent on accomplishing to evaluate their decision making. For example, if Putin wanted to put Russia in a more authoritarian direction, the war obviously accomplished that too.

Neither — frank

Well, consider the Chinese point of view, especially if what you say is true and that China is now the main player.

Of course, doesn't exclude Ukraine having it's own reasons to want to be a proxy force, likewise doesn't exclude Russia wanting to throw it in with China, but if Russia depends on China to sustain themselves economically and survive sanctions, presumably China has reason to.

Would China be so bold with these recent exercises without the Ukraine war happening?

I think the most significant player on the scene now is neither the US nor Russia. It's China. Russia is now dependent on China. The way Xi behaved when he visited Russia broadcast his domination of the whole region. — frank

Yes, totally agreed the Russian war effort is completely dependent on economic support from Xi.

Xi launching the "exercise" to surround Taiwan is also further critical support, teasing a two front war.

Indeed, one question I posed to the pro-US policy side to this debate is whether this was a US proxy war against Russia, using Ukraine ... or a Chinese proxy war against the US, using Russia.

I’m talking about future plans of course and I’m not denying the historical rejection of Ukraine’s NATO membership. — invicta

In which case it's not speculation but basic inference that the policy is not to let Ukraine in.

What you're proposing is an entirely speculative scenario where that policy changes. Now, definitely just because it's speculation doesn't mean it won't happen, you can argue the why and how, but the position that the future will resemble the past is not speculative, it's the default epistemological position; it's the idea that it won't, that the sun will not in fact rise tomorrow or Ukraine will in fact join NATO, which requires the burden of evidence.

Without strong evidence and arguments that the policy will change, the reasonable position is to assume that it won't change.

NATO or No Europe and US will support and supply as long as the Ukrainians are willing to fight for their land and go to toe with this foxlike enemy that Putin really is. — invicta

The problem is there may simply be a limit to what Ukraine is able to do on the battle field.

Russia not only has a much larger population, but as importantly, has more capabilities: more artillery, more planes, more bombs, more missiles, more types of drones, more electronic warfare suites.

Along with conventional attritional fighting (which does not favour Ukraine), there is a learning race going on between Russia learning to adapt to Ukraine capabilities and tactics and vice-versa, as well as each side learning to deploy their capabilities effectively and perfecting their tactics.

For a bunch of mathematical reasons, having more capabilities (things you can do that your opponent is simply unable to) is a massive advantage in this learning competition. At some point, the Russians may learn to adapt to Ukrainians tactics and capabilities (which are limited in configurations, due to having less of them, meaning Ukraine may not be able to adapt to the adaptation) while learning to efficiently deploy their own capabilities and tactics. At some point, the Russians may find a configuration of tactics and capabilities that Ukraine simply is unable to adapt to.

Running out of ammunition, such as artillery shells and AA missiles, greatly accelerates this process.

Maybe Ukraine has some big surprise in store, has secretly trained a large army with hundreds of tanks and aircraft and thousands of missiles that NATO has assembled in secret, but if that's not the case, it seems to me at least, the war has reached this learning inflection point where Ukraine cannot deal with Russian advances and cannot carry out their own counter-offensives.

At least all the reports I read of the different kinds of missile strikes, the overwhelming artillery advantage, glide bombs and increased effective use of electronic warfare, it's really difficult to imagine how Ukraine is able to deal with it in a sustainable way.

This sounds like speculation at this point, NATO’s stance is flexible especially during this conflict. As the Russians are clearly playing dirty then NATO expansion in this front seems the only logical step at this point. — invicta

Noting that NATO has not let Ukraine join for decades is not speculation.

Speculation would be the idea that NATO would let Ukraine in all of a sudden to punish the Russians ... after winning and Ukraine loses?

Think it through, if the goal was protecting Ukrainian sovereignty, NATO would have just let Ukraine in anytime since 2008 or then the US and UK just act unilaterally and send in their troops to protect Ukraine from invasion.

That doesn't happen because that's not the goal.

Your arms dealer is like your meth dealer: maybe you need the meth to keep going but he's not your friend.

From a trade perspective a Ukraine that will bounce back and flourish once more in farming and other agricultural industries is not just better for the whole of Europe but beyond and could prove to be fertile in other areas too. — invicta

Agreed. Definitely peace is far better for everyone than war.

From a military POV the Russian move that occurred will set Russian back decades as they will be unable to modernise technologically and so militarily for years to come but only relying on its nuclear deterrent as defence. — invicta

This is highly debatable.

First, China can supply most engineering services and products the West can, and second Russia has comparable technology and capabilities to the West in key areas: missiles (in particular AA missiles where Russia seems to exceed Western capabilities), submarines (maybe the US' are better, but Russia still has a bunch), and, most importantly, nuclear weapons.

Historically, fighting a war, even a costly one, and winning results in a far stronger military and arms industry than at the start of the war. Even the disastrous American civil war (where the US didn't even "win" anything) is credited as placing the US on the path of military super power, which then gets boosted by being on the winning side of WWI and WWII.

Indeed, the common adage among war planners is that a military that doesn't fight any wars gets lazy and soft and "battle tested" is where you want to be with your equipment, training and doctrines.

If I had the choice I would rather fight the Russians at the start of this war than now. Maybe things will just fall apart randomly any day now as has been continuously predicted by Western media since day one, but that's not the historical pattern. Indeed, the largest army ever assembled was the Soviets at the end of WWII and that was after sustaining some 20-30 million killed, mostly soldiers.

Indeed, the benefits of war experience is so high that Germany is able to make a second world war after losing the first! That's how powerful these effects are.

What I think is important for Europeans and Ukrainians to consider, is that the more adversarial our stance towards Russia becomes, the greater their territorial ambitions will become. — Tzeentch

Totally agreed.

Though I highly doubt any direct conflict with NATO, as long as NATO is a thing, but conquering all of Ukraine is certainly something being considered.

In terms of further into the future, Russia's concerns I would guess are more being invaded, for their resources as climate change starts to collapse global supply chains, and so the current war is good strategic positioning, mainly securing the Azov sea and preventing any buildup East of the Dnieper, as well as "war hardening" the Russian economy and society and war materials production.

That is if the Russian war planners are looking into the future, it would be preparing Russia as a target of resource wars, not waging their own.

We are heading, fairly rapidly, to a global scenario of planetary scale crop failures and large parts of the globe currently inhabited no longer being inhabitable, hundreds of millions of climate refugees (at any one time, a few billion deaths overall), the break down of the global trading system and general chaos.

At best.

The current war is a terrible move if you believe the US led Western model of business as usual is "where it's at", but if you can read the writing on the wall then everything that has happened within Russia are things you would want to do if you had carte blanche to "brace for impact". Of course, it would be politically impossible to do those things without having a war.

To what extent Russian war planners consider the obvious future I don't know, but the Kremlin obviously does know about climate change as they keep investing in Arctic infrastructure far ahead of time. Additionally, they don't even need to do their own analysis, the pentagon and various other European militaries regularly come out with the hard facts of what climate change means in terms of defence implications, so all Russian war planners have to do is read Western war planners thoughts about the matter; which, presumably, they do at least read.

I see a way for Ukraine to still emerge victorious but having to concede territory only short term and momentarily and in so doing joins NATO aka US army branch in Europe. — invicta

The problem is NATO doesn't let Ukraine in ... which they could have done any day since 2008, or even 1991.

No one in NATO actually wants some insane escalation with Russia that results in the use of nuclear weapons, so we don't see that escalation.

For the past year the total fantasy has been peddled that somehow NATO can "avoid escalation" (which they don't really hesitate to say to explain policies like no-tanks-for-you!) but also Ukraine will win.

But what is the definition of escalation at the end of the day?

Ukraine winning.

That's what would cause Russia to behave differently, such as deploy nuclear weapons, so if you're trying to avoid those actions then you're trying to avoid what would cause those actions and so, in this case, trying to avoid Ukraine winning.

Ukraine winning is not and has not ever been the policy, at least in military terms.

I'd be willing to believe that some neocons actually believed sanctions may collapse the Russian government, or society as a whole, and actually wanted that, but it doesn't seem to me that the war planners managing the war part made any real effort to help with that, otherwise there wouldn't be an ammunition problem.

This is the only way and they must be brought to reason to do so and that is the collective will of the Ukrainian people to do this. — invicta

It also requires NATO's will to invest further on behalf of Ukraine rather than insofar as it serves US interests, which is not a controversial explanation of US foreign policy ... in literally the history of US foreign policy until now.

Nice read. An analysis that is both rational and not corrupted by the typical cartoon narratives that immerse all our collective sources of information. — yebiga

Thanks.

It's also nice that essentially pure propaganda positions without any evidence at all (like Russia will lose due to their own incompetence, or sanctions will collapse Russian society any day now) have largely exited the debate, even in the Western media.

But why stop short of following your own rational arguments to their logical conclusion?

Not only was this war against Russia never ever winnable but...

The only conceivable path to some kind of victory for the USA was a vague hope that the combination of kinetic war and economic sanctions might cause a coup in Moscow and a coup that by chance was compliant to western demands.

This theoretical possibility was always a reckless gamble. And yet, this calculus was the singular rational idea underpinning the western strategy in this war. But by May/June of 2022 it was clear that there was not going to be any coup that might favour western interests. The Russian public was not only not in revolt but had displayed a distinctly anti-western fervour - so that even if a coup did occur it would likely be something hardline and more militaristic. — yebiga

It's not clear to me if war planners in NATO thought this was ever likely.

Also, NATO doesn't escalate enough the kinetic war part of such a strategy; whole reason for my musings on the ammunition shortage is that it does not fit the apparent objective.

It could be the white house thought this was possible and did the sanctions part, but the pentagon never really followed through on the kinetic part (otherwise there would not be an ammunition shortage and you wouldn't suddenly discover by surprise you could send tanks this whole time).

For, there is always the context of nuclear weapons, and too much escalation would likely lead to their use, which the US would not have a good response for.

As I've mentioned, the core geopolitical reason for the conflict is the status of the USD in world trade.

The war creates a fractured multi-polar world rather than a fluid multi-polar world. The reason the US would want to manage a transition to a fractured multi-polar world is to reduce the risk of being replaced of sidelined to zero.

Without war the US would be facing the real risk of becoming irrelevant in the globalised trade system it created and underwriting the stability required for the USD as "a service to the world" to be replaced entirely the time be replaced militarily as well.

The war significantly weakens the West and accelerates multi-polarity, but at the same time keeps the US as the top dog in the Western system.

Macron seems to have figured that out recently and is like "merde alors" all of a sudden.

Sanctions on Russia are also a form of market protectionism, tightening the US grip on Europe while also making a new market for US gas. The US guessed, correctly, that European leaders would be too weak and clueless to do anything about it and they would prefer the fantasy film version of reality that this is somehow World War Two ... 2 with a happy Western ending at the end.

It was game over as soon as Russia was in a position to annex the contested territories because NATO won't go to war against Russia for Ukraine, which would be the only conceivable way to reclaim them. It's not a movie. The bad guys win sometimes. The challenge now is for the West to engineer a situation where this doesn't look like an abject loss. I stick to my idea that a reduced Ukraine gaining NATO membership is this compromise. Russia gets its land bridge and NATO gets to fully hem it in. Ukraine gets to sacrifice just its arms and its legs rather than its head too. Sad, but... — Baden

Indeed, it's not a movie.

This would be a good outcome for the West, but I doubt is possible.

The time to leverage the capacity to fight irrationally to the death is before fighting irrationally to the death, not afterwards.

Negotiation is of course still possible but Ukraine would need to offer deep concessions. The problem of the path of fighting irrationally to the death is it quickly locks the policy in as the sacrifice quickly becomes too great to compromise.

It's basically war diplomacy 101 that you leverage the cost of further fighting as soon as possible, even if you would lose and it's not "rational", it is still a cost the opposing side will need to pay and so motivates a compromise. But the key word is compromise.

However, if you want to lock in sanctions and make them irreversible, transition the EU to US gas, fracture the global financial system to keep the USD relevant, prevent the Euro becoming a peer currency competitor, then you need to make sure Ukraine keeps fighting even if there is no logic (for them) whatsoever to do so, and just accept some temporary negative PR when Ukraine starts to break down ... which, sadly, is easily managed in this day and age; it's not like anyone remembers the Afghans. They can just take the L and we all forget about it.

Well, the people in the Pentagon aren't dummies either. My guess is by now they have fully realized Russia's plans to take it as slowly as it needs to in order to avoid an insurgency. Perhaps the Pentagon even understood this before the war fully got underway. If we can conceive of these ideas, so can they. — Tzeentch

Yes, maybe we're overthinking their overthinking, but ammunition is just so basic to war fighting that it's difficult to believe it's just been overlooked.

If they knew Russia was going for a 'bite-sized chunks' approach, then they don't have to do much in order for Ukraine to hold out for a long time, since it's already baked into the Russian strategy. I imagine the pacification of the occupied areas may take months, perhaps even years. — Tzeentch

In military terms I completely agree, but running out of ammunition has the political risk of collapse of the Zelensky regime with someone willing to negotiate with Russia.

So, maybe if that happens it's fine, just one way to exit, throw Zelensky under the bus, blame the Ukrainians for not being "plucky" enough to pull a victory out of a hat in dire circumstances.

Likewise, if the only meaningful policy priority was simply to separate Europe from Russian resources, commit Europe to American LNG, then that's obviously happened both with blowing up Nord Stream as well as getting the Europeans to put out a warrant for Putin's arrest. It would take decades for a Russian-European rapprochement to happen, Europe "got over" the transition from Russian resources, so maybe the war is just on zombie mode until it ends one way or another, no reason to escalate further with Russia as mission accomplished.

I don't want to toot my own horn, but the advance on Kiev having been a dual-purpose operation is a theory I've been sharing here for close to a year now. (And I still believe it is true, so we're in agreement there). — Tzeentch

Yes, it's pretty obvious that taking the land bridge was plan B for Ukraine not capitulating or negotiating, but lot's of people had this position since the first weeks of the war when Ukraine didn't capitulate. @Isaac and myself, and @ssu also agreed Russian generals had such a backup plan (but debate remained on how likely they thought they would need it as well as the FSB and Kremlin's evaluation, which honestly I'm sure how likely they thought Ukrainian capitulation and, more importantly, if they would have not invaded if they thought the current situation would happen; odds don't really matter if you're committed anyways).

My guess is that the situation is a lot more dire than western sources are letting on, and that even copious amounts of ammunition would not make any significant difference on the battlefield.

A lot of folks seem to believe the Ukrainian forces have "ground the Russians to a halt", but I think that's wrong. — Tzeentch

I agree. The narrative has moved from "Ukraine is winning" to "stalemate" as a transition to "Ukraine is losing".

However, even if copious amounts of ammunition now won't make that much of a difference, ammunition production has long lead times, so you would have had to have worked out this point in the war at the start of the war in order to decide not to ramp up ammunition production because it doesn't matter. The decision was made over a year ago, not today. And there's basically no military scenario where less ammunition is as good or better than more ammunition.

So credit to pentagon analysts who worked out Ukrainian sustainment is simply impossible beyond a certain point and so just no reason to produce more ammunition.

However, this contradicts the apparent policy to prop up Ukraine as long as possible without ever negotiating. Indeed, even if you did plan to negotiate you'd want more ammunition to increase your leverage, both in terms of terrain held at the ceasefire as well as the credible potential to be able to keep fighting. "We've run out of ammunition so now we want to negotiate," is not a good negotiation position.

So, there's no obvious answer to this "run low on ammunition policy", but certainly it was thought out, not some accident, at least by Pentagon top brass who obviously understand things like "rounds down range" is important to keep doing insofar as the war continues.

I've thought of a few possibilities, however:

1. It's part of the drip feed arms calibration to send equipment but then kneecap ammunition. If you don't want the Ukrainians to have any chance at all of defeating the Russians in Ukraine you control the ammunition they have and ensure they simply never have enough ammunition to sustain an offensive all the way to the Azov sea to cut off Crimea (which, to remind everyone, Russia would likely result to nuclear weapons if that were to occur; at the least, pentagon planners would make their decision based on that assumption). In return for this favour, perhaps Russia keeps an apparent stalemate that looks nice in the Western news (for example not open up another front on the rest of the thousand kilometres of border, which is all technically "the front"). Evidence for this is that obviously the policy is to drip feed arms, so the answer to "why not more ammunition?" may simply be the same as "why not tanks and fighter jets from day one?"

2. The decision to continue fighting is purely political for short term PR reasons and makes no military sense, pentagon top brass are simply undermining the White house's policy, by "forgetting" to produce more ammunition. The white house is full of myopic idiots led by someone with Alzheimer's, focused on the news cycle who don't understand anything about war fighting so we'll just go ahead and bake in a Ukrainian defeat from the get-go, ensure they can't do something too stupid by taking away the means. Evidence for this would be pentagon top brass literally stating Ukraine achieved all it could reasonably achieve militarily and it would be good to negotiate.

The pentagon does just do its own thing every once in a while, like the time it had its jihadist equipped and trained forces fight the CIA's jihadist equipped and trained forces in Syria.

3. Every war planning scenario in which Russia does not collapse internally results in Ukraine simply being unable to sustain the war effort under attrition conditions, and for "reasons" playing this out is a better option than negotiation. For example, it may simply have been a bet on Russian internal collapse, and if that doesn't happen then unfortunately it's just going to be tough watching the Ukrainian military get totally destroyed and Ukrainian society fall apart. However, I very much doubt pentagon war planners actually want to bet on Russian internal collapse, and managing the ammunition is a war planners thing. So this sort of turns into scenario 2 in that maybe the white house was willing to bet Ukraine on an internal Russian collapse, but the pentagon didn't really support this strategy whole heartedly.

4. Shit happens. Nothing is ever organised 100% efficiently. Can't exclude this option entirely when it comes to military affairs. The argument against this is just that "how much ammunition do we need if the war goes to X date" is a pretty simple calculation to make. It's difficult to believe it's just an oversight, and given the lead times required if you calculate you'll need to produce more of anything at all in a war you want to get that capacity online as soon as possible so it's there when you need it.

This was likely their plan from the start, since the threat of a Ukrainian insurgency was ever-present, and taking too much territory that they couldn't effectively control and pacify would be a guarantee for such an insurgency to materialize. — Tzeentch

I agree that there was never a plan to occupy more territory than the Russian speaking regions they currently have, but I'd also agree with @ssu that plan A was a negotiated resolution with Kiev. The purpose of encircling Kiev to bring the war to the capital and put the diplomatic pressure for a negotiation, and if not, then it occupies the large majority of Ukrainian forces (i.e. is also a giant fixing operation, as the capital is always the priority) while the Southern regions are occupied and pacified.

If the West refuses, either because the US strongarms the EU, or because the EU remains ignorant, likely more Russian aggression will follow. Though even then it remains to be seen whether their aim is to take all of Ukraine, or only those areas which are strategically relevant - it's even possible that what they hold now is all they intend to take. — Tzeentch

Agreed.

Note that the US doesn't care about instability in Eastern Europe - it in fact believes it to be instrumental to their goals among which are unity and remilitarization of Europe. Ironically, Europe seems to be the key to peace. — Tzeentch

Also agreed, but the only problem in this logic is that if the goal is to prop-up Ukraine indefinitely you wouldn't plan on running into a ammunition problem. So could also just be that there's not really a clear overall plan. The support to Ukraine is delivered primarily through NATO, so maybe the US can't just show up and declare their purpose of keeping Eastern Europe unstable indefinitely; so lot's of different plans and ideas happen simultaneously, which, in the end, keep planning incoherent and things unstable.

This is something I have to degree with. The objective seems to prevent Russia from gaining an all out victory, but Ukraine not having the ability to defeat the Russians. — ssu

Yes we agree on this point.

I think in basic military terms it's certainly possible, as even if lines collapse in Donbas, Ukraine has lot's of fall back positions including a giant river.

Russia would need another go at Kiev for a chance at all out victory, which certainly doesn't feel likely but who knows.

The only problem with this theory is exactly what you mention next:

And likely after this year, it will be far harder for Ukraine to succeed as Russia will likely get it's wartime manufacturing running.

This war is simply a conventional war and the Western military industry isn't geared up or willing to commit to a war. It's been optimized to fight basically "colonial wars" with very costly weapon systems with low production quantities. Not to increase production on a huge scale. The only huge commitments we have seen are investments in the energy sector to replace the Russian exports. There actually for example Germany could act rather quickly. — ssu

While it seems clear the goal is to prop up Ukraine and never negotiate, the commitment to that long term seems low, as ramping up production of munitions doesn't happen and sooner the better and simply maintaining the status quo on the front requires constant supply of munitions.

There's report now of batteries simply running out of shells and having no resupply for days, and very little when it comes in. One counter narrative is the shells are being saved for the big counter offensive, which I guess is possible but is still not a good position to be in.

It seems to just be taken for granted by Western powers that they can't produce all that many shells.

This whole running low of ammunition is honestly a confusing part of the situation. It doesn't seem possible as an oversight, and that it's industrially impossible for the entire West to produce more shells seems implausible, and if it's a deliberate decision then it's difficult to make sense of. If it's policy, then my best guess is that it was calculated that Ukraine simply cannot sustain their operation beyond a certain date (in terms of casualties and all sorts of other supplies such as AA missiles) and there was therefore no use in increasing production of shells. Or then maybe it's all a ruse.

The fact is that Soviet Union lost the Afghan war, just as the US lost Vietnam and Afghanistan. That they withdrew (with Soviet Union in a less humiliating way than the US from Afghanistan) doesn't change the reality. Neither Moscow or Washington DC were in peril. — ssu

Yes, I agree these are not good parallels for the reasons you state. Empires withdraw when their reasons for the invasion in the first place was expecting an easy time and picking low-hanging fruit, but even then can easily be literally decades later.

The biggest long conventional war was the Iraq-Iran war, but neither side was significantly more powerful than the other.

If you would consider the Arab-Israeli conflict also a proxy war, there's the example of winning in direct military terms. But then both sides could be argued as being proxies. — ssu

I think what's more dissimilar as a parallel is that the Arab countries were not large industrial nations and entered into a trench-attrition phase of warfare. Maybe it is a somewhat a parallel of the first phase of the Ukraine war, in stopping the encirclement of Kiev, that a smaller force can put up a fierce defence.

In addition to there being no close parallel, there's also the drones and missiles. The Western media seems to assume that it's essentially WWI style stalemate, because there are trenches, but I'm not sure that's a good assumption is my basic point with this reflection. It could be, but I also think it's also entirely plausible that Ukraine reaches a point of exhaustion and things start to unravel quickly; the main argument for this would be that Russia works out effective use of all it's capabilities and Ukrainians simply can't deal with it at some point. It is the learning curves on different capabilities that may simply arrive at some overwhelming synergy; especially if Ukraine also runs out / low on shells and AA missiles.

It seems it will have little impact on the war maybe now Russians have confidence and confirmation to retreat. — invicta

The summary from the BBC is possibly the dumbest true statements I have ever read in my entire life.

It seems it will have little impact on the war maybe now Russians have confidence and confirmation to retreat. — invicta

I'm not sure what you mean here.

Putin if he doesn’t feel the noose tightening round his neck will at least change it for a looser fitting noose for now. — invicta

Think about where this sentiment comes from, because there is zero evidence Putin is under any domestic pressure or then oligarch pressure at all. Since the start of the war, Putin's popularity has increased, and pretty much all his notable critics within Russia are criticise him for not winning the war hard enough, not mobilising soon and big enough, not using nuclear weapons already etc.

Throughout this whole conflict Western media has developed a representation of the average Russian as some sort of mythological reflection of our own feelings about the war, basically to the point of assuming Russians think Russia is the enemy because we think Russia is the enemy. This is really far from any reality we have any evidence for.

Putin would be in danger if there was some total collapse of the Russian military in Ukraine. This was maybe-sort-of-possible had the West organised some sort of heavy weapons surprise (and a lot more heavy weapons than they have given even up to now) in Ukraine (also taking advantage of the initial impact of sanctions pressure / disruption to society) last year, but the weapons drip feed policy ensured there was zero chance of that, because that's not the goal.

To continue my military analysis, which, to remind everyone, so far been pretty accurate: such as

1. Predicting Ukraine would not be able to compete on the battlefield without armour (the whole javelins and other shoulder launch missile will defeat euphoria was has proven to be completely delusional for the reasons I expounded on),

2. That Russian morale would not just randomly collapse leading to being routed out of Ukraine, based on the idea Russians have internalised Western beliefs and feelings about the war (why would they?)

3. Most importantly, Western policy is to drip feed weapons into Ukraine enough to prop up the Ukrainian military but remotely not enough to threaten Russian defeat in Ukraine, much less on Russian soil.

4. The Russian military and high command is not incompetent and will just randomly lose due to bad decision making.

5. Ukraine does not have the force capabilities to cut the land bridge (which is the critical strategic step, and offences elsewhere, such as Kherson and Kharkiv, only mattered if they led to cutting the land bridge, which they didn't). And the reason to predict Ukraine doesn't have the force capabilities is the simple symmetry between Russian and Ukrainian problems on the battlefield ... just a lot worse because Ukraine lacks entirely whole categories of capabilities. I.e. the only reasonable prediction would be that Ukrainian offences result in the exact same stall as Russian offensives did.

As well as other predictions such as sanctions wouldn't collapse the Russian economy (even islands can withstand far worse sanctions).

All predictions vehemently argued against by US policy proponents, on this forum and elsewhere, to justify the US policy position at various times. For, at the start of the war, no one wanted to escalate into a full scale war we have now where tanks and planes and so on need to be poured into Ukraine, so it was essential to believe that Javelins and other man portable arms (and the "pluckiness" @Isaac definitely found the right word for) could somehow defeat Russia in military terms ... and since that wasn't really believable that it doesn't matter because sanctions will collapse the Russian government, and if that didn't happen then morale will be so low of these Russian soldiers doing something the West disapproves of and is wagging their fingers about that they'll just give-up on mass.

All entirely delusional beliefs at the time, and it's good to remind ourselves of why they were necessary: negotiated peace was the only rational option for flesh and blood Ukrainians (not some heroic mythological amorphous mass of willpower, without any distinguishing personalities having any worth or consideration, ready and willing to sacrifice themselves for a Western WWII nostalgic trip down heroes lane), and Russias offer of giving up claim to Crimea and independent Donbas was obviously far, far better option that a long and total war in Ukraine. No one really disputed that, which is why the only way to make the policy rational was with the idea victory would be easy.

Now that a diplomatic resolution is no longer even an idea (which people should remember that it was at the start of the war and for months, even the most ardent pro-US talking heads would discuss the idea of a negotiated resolution and the different talks that happened at various points), we are in the classic scenario (since a while) of the costs being so high for each side that neither can compromise.

A entire year after supplying tanks would have made a major difference (at the start of the war obviously) the West has finally supplied some tanks. My prediction on this is too little too late. If hundreds of Western tanks, with well tankers having trained in the West since the start of the war, joined the Ukrainian offensives last the summer, maybe that would have been a big difference, actually cut the land bridge for example.

Tanks supplied now, at best, will maintain Ukrainian lines (in the sense of keeping the slow pace of defeat, hopefully to a crawl). Certainly, far from irrelevant, but 100% inline with drip feed theory: prop up the Ukrainian military so they don't lose outright but don't supply or do anything that may actually seriously threaten the Russians.

In other words, Western tanks at best are keeping Ukrainian force capability from attritting further, but there's zero reason to believe such equipment now actually increases Ukrainian strength compared to last summer. At best, I would argue, Ukrainians have a similar force than they had last summer ... and I would argue this at-best scenario is unlikely and what is likely is the attrition is starting to have an impact (not only in terms of casualties, equipment and ammunition, but there's starting to be reports of Ukrainian drone operators saying Russians are starting to perfect their anti-drone processes).

Compare this to the Russian side of having called up hundreds of thousands of troops that were not in theatre last year, build out significant defensive structures along the entire line in multiple layers, that weren't there last year, and all the learning of capabilities (that the Ukrainians don't have at all) such as anti-drone electronic and other capabilities, their standoff strike capabilities (ballistic and cruise missiles and glide bombs) as well as artillery tactics.

I.e. in terms of learning there is only even potential parity in capabilities Ukraine also has in similar quantity, such as infantry, but in capabilities Ukraine basically lacks entirely they do no learning at all and in areas where they have far less quantity (or then running out of ammunition) the learning they have done is not as significant.

Which is why the "Russians are incompetent" theory was so essential, as even if Russian capabilities weren't optimally deployed at the start of the war (which for sure was not optimal, which is a difficult standard to achieve, though obviously by now neither incompetently deployed), the more the war continues the more Russians would learn to deploy those capabilities effectively. People had this idea that if Russians fell into an Javelin based ambush or something similar once ... they would just continue to do that forever.

What we have seen instead of not-learning-from-damage, again entirely predictably, is the Russians learning from damage (whether they are "mistakes" given the context and information at the time or just the nature of fighting a war that sometimes your enemy wins here and there, doesn't matter in terms of learning to avoid damage in the future), such as consolidating their lines rather than expose weak points to being overrun by surprise attack or then special forces penetration of sparsely defended areas etc., moving to standoff strikes rather than expose planes and helicopters to shoulder fired missiles and other AA systems, and basically just attritting the Ukrainians with a massive artillery advantage.

Currently the direction isn't good with the slow fall of Bahkmut and from my interpretation of the West's actions is scrambling to try to at least arrest Russian advances, that an actual stalemate is the best case scenario for NATO (that the Western media keeps on repeating it's already a stalemate because this is Western policy, to just have a stalemate); however, what's currently happening is not a stalemate and it's anyone's guess how long Ukraine can maintain slowly losing before a complete collapse of command structure.

The world has never had a long war of this kind (WWI and WWII are really totally different situations, and there are few parallels with any of the post-WWII US wars or even Chechnya, which is arguably closest) so I would argue there are no historical parallels to base on in terms of evaluating military end-points. Frozen conflict is what happened in places like Korea, but the Korean war was a very different political and military scenario and totally different terrain.

However, generally speaking, when a small proxy force is propped up to fight a larger force, the larger force either leaves, the proxy force loses, or there's a negotiated peace (favouring the larger force). There are few, if any, examples of the proxy force simply winning in direct military terms, and in the case of the larger force leaving (Soviets in Afghanistan or US in Vietnam ... or US in Afghanistan) usually terrain and logistics favour guerrilla and insurgency tactics and the value of the land to the larger power is relatively low, quickly becoming a pride thing rather than making any military sense to continue fighting, none of which is the case in Ukraine.

Because everyone is just standing in line to attack Belarus. :D
What's the play here? — jorndoe

Most of what politicians say is for their domestic audience.

Belarus has been supporting Russia, so naturally the question arises of what Russia will do for Belarus.

Even if Lukashenko is a dictator, he still has to worry about PR and if he gets formal security commitments from Russia it makes him look like a more competent statesman (which is the image he wants).

And Russia's troops are already there, it looks good to have allies for the Russian audience, and signing these sorts of papers cost nothing, so it's an easy PR win. Maybe not so significant in the grand scheme of things, but at least easy.

No one was standing in line to invade Finland either and Finland is not about to open up a second front with Russia to help Ukraine, but Finland joining NATO played well with domestic audiences in the West.

Of course, one can argue in both cases that who knows what will happen in the future, but that's not what actually drives these sorts of processes. If long term thinking was relevant, we wouldn't have things like climate change.

That’s what I asked you because that is what Tzeench claimed “the western world under US leadership has been the most destructive force on Earth since WWII” and that is how you interpreted it: “The one that causes most death and misery”. — neomac

@Tzeentch's claim here is pretty easy to support.

We are literally in a 6th mass extinction event heading towards civilisational collapse that is entirely due to US policy and acquiescence of their fellow Western acolytes, not to mention pollution of various other forms as well as neo-colonialism and US imperialism (however "soft" you want to call it -- being smothered by a pillow can have the exact same end result as being stabbed in the chest).

Now, if you want to argue that the Soviet Union, China and India weren't and aren't any better and would have done equally bad or worse things (and did and do their best to help destroy the planet as second and third fiddles) had they been the dominant super power and setting the terms of world trade, I'd have no problem agreeing to that.

But the reality is that the dominant power since WWII setting most economic policies on the planet (what and how things are produced) has been the US, and the consequence has been destruction on a hitherto unimaginable scale.

Unsustainability literally equates to destruction, that's what it means: destroying the ecosystems we require for survival, not to mention a host of other species.

And global unsustainability has been a Western choice, championed by the US and supported by their vassals. The policies for sustainability are pretty easy and known since the 60s (public transport, renewable energy, less meat eating, sustainable fishing, strict care what chemicals are allowed in the environment and how much, and farming in ways compatible with biodiversity and soil protection) and since the 60s the policies critical to sustainability could have been easily implemented to create a smooth transition.

The War on Terror, and now this conflict with Russia and China, are sideshows to the main event.

Which, as I've mentioned before, is the counter argument to your actual position:

Sure, here I restate it again and bolden it: The end game for NATO/US involvement in this war doesn’t need to be to stop Russia or overturn its regime. But to inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian power (in terms of its economic system, its system of alliance, its capacity of military projection outside its borders, its its technology supply, its military and geopolitical status) to the point it is not longer perceived as a non-negligible geopolitical threat to the West. Outrageous right?! — neomac

The West has no moral high ground. I wish it did, but it doesn't and so there is no justification to "inflict as much enduring damage as possible to Russian power" because there is no moral superiority. Our system is no better than the Russian system and arguably far worse (if only due to scale). Russian imperialism is a pretty banal reflection of our own imperialism, far from being in some different and worse category, and is far less destructive for the reasons @Isaac has outlined in some detail (mainly as it's regional and not global).

The West is not a responsible steward of global affairs and so there is simply not much moral differentiation that justifies sacrificing so many Ukrainians for the US policy of inflicting enduring damage on Russia, as you eloquently put it, which is debatable if that's even happening.

Unfortunately, the time of a diplomatic resolution that could have been easily negotiated is now long past and the conflict will likely continue until either the collapse of the Ukrainian military or then the conflict slowly freezing, neither side having the appetite or even capability for a major offensive.

My guess is that the conflict will slowly freeze, with lines not only far worse for Ukraine than Russia's offer at the start of the war but also without any actual end to the war there will be little repatriation of Ukrainians that left and likewise little reconstruction.

And notice how the BBC doesn't tell us which Filipino YouTube celebrity was running the show.

What are they hiding?

It's first of all important to remind ourselves of how exactly these leaks happened:

The documents were initially posted on a small private chat group of the Discord social media platform called Thug Shaker Central, with around two dozen members.

Some of these files were then shared on a public chat group, the earliest of these we've been able to identify appeared on 1 March.

More were placed there over the following days, and later shared more widely on other channels.

These channels aren't about politics or military intelligence, they're for players of the computer game Minecraft and another for fans of a Filipino YouTube celebrity.

In one of the channels, after a brief argument about Minecraft and the war in Ukraine, a user says "here, have some leaked documents" and posts several screenshots. — BBC

You see, when you join Thug Shaker Central you're not just joining any ol' sleeze den internet forum: You enter into a sacred pact with your fellow Thug Shakers to step up or shut up and if a fellow Thug throws down some jive turkey Minecraft nonsense like the crass newb that he is you don't hesitate one single fraction of a second to uno reverse that shit with some highly classified information that would embarrass your entire country and risk decades in prison if it got randomly spammed on the internet. But when your this deep in shaking the thug out of life that you're literally in the centre of it, you don't look back, you not only double down with your classified information to win the debate on the nuances of Minecraft mechanics but you do it like it ain't even nothing to you breaking the Espionage act. Just a Tuesday.

Absolute fucking legend.

As for the leaks themselves, what's gotten most of the attention has been transcripts of South Korean and Israeli officials discussing sensitive topics, presumably not knowing the NSA's in the room with them writing down everything they say, and also a bunch of information about Ukrainian force strength, equipment, casualties etc.

The CIA quickly came out and with their own uno reverse of all that shit, showed everyone who's the master, saying the docs were altered and the Russian casualty figures were actually the Ukrainian casualties and vice-versa. Basically a 10 to 1 ratio, so big if true either way (but since Russia fires about 7-10 times more shells and has all sorts of capabilities Ukraine doesn't have at all, and most casualties in this sort of warfare are due to artillery it's, at the very least, really difficult to imagine Russia suffering 10x casualties ... and a lot more plausible Ukraine is, though who knows and who knows what the methodology of these US intelligence estimates even was, without which estimates don't mean all that much).

But I don't know, for my part I'm not one to question Thug Shaker Central. Their word is their bond. No cap.

And to be honest, if you're leaking secret military intelligence information to win a Minecraft debate I'm pretty sure you have no time to alter the documents, you're in a situation that requires cat like reflexes.