This is an interesting comment and its great to see a source.
I just want to add a bit to France's threats to deploy troops to Ukraine for direct conflict. There's a serious case to be made that this is France playing a game of chicken, essentially trying to get the Russians to have to consider that as a possibility and plan for the contingency, thus occupying their time and forcing them to hedge resources they would otherwise employ.
Certainly nobody knows for sure - unless they have penetrated French intelligence - but this seems to be the majority take of US foreign policy analysts I've read.
Whether such a game of chicken is responsible or not is its own discussion. Although one could also point to escalatory rhetoric from the other side.
>Whether such a game of chicken is responsible or not is its own discussion.
I'd argue giving in to nuclear blackmail is irresponsible. Personally I'd like to see the US version, with the Russians having to pause and think about what the eventual, complete loss of all their conventional forces in Ukraine looks like should they advance too far.
Then again, that's probably what the US has already communicated to them in private regarding use of tactical nukes.
This isn't what nukes would entail, for either side. If the US nukes Russian forces in Ukraine - Russia is going to retaliate with large scale nuclear strikes on the US. It's for this reason that if the US did want to go nuclear, it would likely be with a massive first-strike effort directly on Russia, which Russia would respond with in kind. The US has wargamed with tactical nukes a bunch - it always results in rapid escalation to 'the end.' I'm sure Russia has concluded the same. Neither side is ever going to threaten to go a 'little' nuclear.
I’m sorry, to clarify: The US version of the aforementioned game of chicken. That is, the threat of conventional military action.
It was widely reported that the US privately communicated the consequences of tactical nuclear weapon use to Russia, while maintaining an element of strategic ambiguity. Most reports suggested these consequences involved a full-scale conventional military response within Ukraine’s borders, thereby disincentivizing use.
In terms of subsequent escalation: As you pointed out, Russia of course knows using nukes against the US is literal suicide.
This scenario does not make any sense. Should the pandora's box of nuclear use be opened, it's not getting closed. And in this context, large scale conventional forces aren't much more than sitting ducks that would just be met with further nuclear strikes. It's for this reason that there's few, to no, scenarios involving nuclear weapons that don't result in global nuclear war, and thus the end of the developed world, if not of humanity.
The West wouldn't be replying in kind with tactical nukes, because that leads to escalation as you said. It's about proportional cost imposition as a means of deterrence.[0]
It's also possible the opening salvo of such a response might see tactical nuclear deployments neutralized via conventional means.
Absolutely, I completely understand the idea and motivation, but I'm arguing that it's impossible, and so unlikely to be our plan. The entire reason tactical nukes are desirable is because they obliterate conventional forces, and Russia has thousands of them. And keep in mind "tactical" often kind of masks what these are - these are not glorified bunker busters.
The bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to several times larger, would generally be considered "tactical" in modern times. These are massive weapons. Then there's ADM/'nuclear landmines' [1], and more. In the absolute worst case scenario, there's even the possibility of transitioning to strategic weapons. Approaching this sort of battlefield with conventional forces is not a viable idea.
So I have no idea what the US will do if Russia resorts to nuclear usage in Ukraine, but I think this scenario can logically be discarded as one of the possible options. It plays well in the media, but it simply does not make any strategic nor logical sense.
>Approaching this sort of battlefield with conventional forces is not a viable idea.
It's almost certainly unstated US foreign policy on the matter, and not just a media bluff.
They might have thousands but they don't have thousands deployed. Moreover, use with any kind of frequency would just trigger a strategic US response, which would defeat the entire purpose—assuming there was purpose in the first place, which there isn't given conventional cost imposition.
Despite chill messaging, I suspect the US's strategic trigger finger is far itchier when things get real, and Russia knows this. Their triad has two arms which very possibly are entirely negated, and their C&C infra is garbage. There's a very real risk they'd just straight up die and accomplish nothing.
You're conflating the two types of nukes here. Tactical nukes tend to be just physically much smaller than strategic. They can be used in artillery, normal missile systems, mines, etc. For instance one defector even claimed that the USSR had developed suitcase nukes that they were stashing in various locations in the US, which would be easier than ever now a days. [1] There is no concept of deployment for these - it's simple and normal usage. When you speak of deploying, you're talking about strategic nukes. These are the absolutely massive weapons (both in terms of payload and also in terms of literal size) that are generally launching out on ICBMs. Russia has around 1700 strategic nukes deployed, and thousands of tactical nukes of all shapes and sizes.
All that said I do agree that this would result in mutual mass strikes with strategic weapons, and whatever tactical weapons may be appropriate for such a strike. This is why I think direct conflict with Russia, or Russia using nuclear weapons of any sort in Ukraine, is likely to escalate rapidly to what would be the defacto end of the world.
Read the above link. There are currently a minimum of 1,710 known deployed Russian strategic nukes. But speaking of a deployed tactical nuke is somewhat nonsensical. It's like talking about a deployed 155mm shell. Firing them requires nothing particularly unique and knowing the exact amount available is impossible, other than that it's certainly in the thousands. That's again the primary difference between strategic and tactical.
My previous reply was talking entirely about tactical nukes. They're not exempt from the concept of deployment. Even the Russians don't just let them float around willy-nilly. Most sit in storage.
>But speaking of a deployed tactical nuke is somewhat nonsensical.
The people whose job it is to track deployments of tactical nuclear weapons would probably disagree.
Well nobody is entirely sure how many tactical nuclear weapons Russia has. Nobody is really sure of much really. Do you remember that early propaganda wave about needing to only give Ukraine $xx billion more because Russian was imminently running out of missiles? It was Stoltenberg that called it the 'critical phase' of the war, then repeated by all the media, late 2022 if I recall correctly. Everything on these topics is at best kind-of-sort-of-not-really intelligent guesses. We can't even get the vaguely right ballpark figure for their conventional warheads, and there's minimal effort to keep that classified relative to nuclear.
But strategic nukes are a different beast those simply because of their size and requirement for specialized launchers, as well as their relative incongruence with conventional weapons delivery devices. You're not launching a strategic nuke out of a conventional rocket system (as could be the case for a tactical nuke) for sure! So this makes them, more or less, able to be reasonably estimated. It's still a pretty big guessing game, but it's generally going to be at least roughly in the right ballpark.
The article makes an assumption that Ukraine has out-innovated Russia in terms of drones. That used to be true (in 2022-2023), with Ukraine's adapting low cost high availability commercial drones as weapons. However since the war has entered the long term Russia's industrial sector has outsupplied Ukraine in terms of quantity of drones, and has reached parity in terms of quality. The realities of the battlefield has seen the cheap and available commercial drones ineffective against mitigations (electronic warfare, surveillance and counter-battery, out-ranging and out-timing). Therefore the contest around drones has moved from quantity of commercial drones to cost-effective quality of drones in the face of countermeasures. This has even pushed some areas of the front to stop using FPV drones (on both sides) in favor of more traditional military drones.
The point of this is actually one of cost. Drones are effective weapons in large part due to their cost-effectiveness. As frequency-hopping modems, larger processors, and multi-frequency antennas are added to cheap drones they start getting expensive - to the point the cost-effectiveness suffers and their drawbacks start becoming more serious.
The article lists drone missions: mine clearing, evacuation, aerial drones, land drones, demining drones, ... . These are mainly overstretches. In terms of how drones have actually been employed in the war, there are naval drones which have been effective at holding Russia's Black Sea Fleet at risk, there are FPV drones which have been used primarily to stall the frontline defensively, and there are long range drones (not mentioned) that are used as an alternative to e.g. ballistic and cruise missiles.
There are R&D projects, many of them failed at employing drones for many missions. There are some partial successes in using them to lay mines (and fake mines). But there isn't as much success in using them for de-mining. Lifting a person for evac is very challenging to do with a drone, especially an autonomous one. Somehow "surveillance" doesn't make the list, but probably the #1 contribution/mission of drones is battlefield visibility.
The article compares taking 200 artillery shells to kill a building, vs 1 drone to kill a soldier. This is not only inaccurate, but it's apples-to-oranges.
Drones have not replaced artillery in the Russo-Ukraine war and they aren't going to. Drones cannot be massed because they interfere with one another in the electromagnetic spectrum. They also require a significant number of people to operate compared to artillery. The munitions on drones are far less powerful than artillery (e.g. drones have trouble destroying armor, artillery doesn't). Simple means (mesh, nets, smoke) can shut down drones - but have nothing on artillery. There's so much to say here but it's not even comparable and the article bases its primary takeaways from this incorrect assumption.
The article discusses that drones can fly "up to 22km". It doesn't mention that these require re-transmitter drones, which need separate pilots, separate modems, logistics coordination and ultimately - a much higher price tag. It can be worth it for certain missions, but it's hardly true that innovation has somehow created drones that are just better units. It's more that the employment of drones in warfare has gotten better - the command and control has gotten better.
The artificial intelligence aspect of drones is typically a "terminal flight system", one that can take over to seek non-moving targets once EW has shut down communications. While its true that Russia and Ukraine both use terminal flight guidance systems to deal with the "last mile" of EW cover, its nearly impossible to use this to hit moving targets or to hit vehicles with armor in the areas that are needed to achieve disablement or a kill.
The DoD has applied Project Maven to solve the problem the article discusses: automatically identifying targets to strike (which honestly applies to more than just drones - can be used for artillery, etc). Unfortunately Project Maven has been disappointingly significantly less accurate than human analysts at identifying battlefield targets on the same imagery.
I could go on, but I think the article is kind of stuck in 2022?
There's a certain pitch one can make for drones, and Ukraine is making that pitch. But I suspect the author might have too narrow a set of sources or some kind of biased interest, for what they are writing about.
> Drones cannot be massed because they interfere with one another in the electromagnetic spectrum. They also require a significant number of people to operate compared to artillery.
I think we've all seen these drone shows, where a large swarm maneuvers to make shapes in the sky, right? We're not far at all from one operator controlling a swarm, capable of pre-programmed formations and maneuvers.
The economies of scale work overwhelmingly in favour of drones -- small, light, disposable.
In theory, sure, but those swarm shows are pre-programmed: they aren't reacting dynamically to a (chaotic) situation on the ground and they aren't communicating with operators.
There's some far-flung future in which drones are fully autonomous and in fact don't even need antennas. At that point it's possible they can be massed. But it's a bit of a science fiction. At least, there isn't any such product available (commercial or military) and this isn't how drones are being used in war.
For economies of scale - true also of artillery and other equipment! The more you can scale production the more cost-effective the weapon. As mentioned, drones in the Russo-Ukraine war are starting to see their cost-effectiveness wane due to having to become larger (larger munitions, large antennas, etc), heaver (bigger batteries, larger munitions, etc), and non-disposable (high cost frequency hopping gear, difficult to find munitions, difficult to source batteries, etc).
Giant technological leaps could happen, but it's nerve wracking to bet the outcome of a war on something like that.
Meanwhile, the front line troops are reporting that almost all the drones are FPV guided. Computer vision apparently just isn't good enough to fly in through a doorway, like the FPV drones are used.
(Sure, you could make a cluster of GPUs do that, in a test. It's completely different to do it in war.)
I suggest following the thousands of drone videos that continue to come out of the conflict. They contradict much of this analysis.
Small and medium drones are much more precise than artillery and remain incredibly effective at surveillance, spotting and at attacking the poorly operated, low survivability armor that Russians have, despite countermeasures. Ukraine is now domestically mass-producing bomber UAVs able to deliver multiple mortar rounds semi-autonomously on a target. While ECMs (jammers) have undoubtedly reduced drone effectiveness, ECMs come at a cost. A small ECM will have a very localized effect, while a large ECM can be taken out with anti-radiation missiles, as the Ukrainians have been doing.
Everyone is also recognizing the huge psychological effect of drones in the battlefield now. Any kind of massing is getting increasingly risky, communications, autonomy and mobility become critical.
The main point of the article is that the war is driving innovation in drones, which is pretty self-evident and doesn't seem overstated at all.
It needs to be noted that these drone videos are highly filtered - they are used as fundraising tools by Ukraine Armed Force units and then what "trends" are the spectacular videos (and often are out of context).
So while you may see videos of drones taking out tanks, they are often tanks that have already been killed and drones come in on an immobile target, etc.
You would also think that Ukraine is using more drones than Russia - based on the videos. But Russian Armed Forces don't need to fundraise for their equipment on Telegram, and what videos of Russian drone attacks that are published don't make it to trending in American social media (because "disinformation").
What's happening on the battlefield and what you see in those drone videos are very different due to selection bias.
Drones have less of a psychological effect than, say, glide bombs or artillery. This is due to the size of the munitions.
The broad thesis that war is driving innovation in drones isn't incorrect. But the supporting material in the article is (I've listed some of them above, and you seem to agree with them, point by point?). The article is overstating the case for drones, even calling them the successors of artillery. That's all my comment is addressing - let's right size and calibrate this: drones are being innovated on, however they are less effective at higher expense than they used to be, they very well may continue to trend in that direction, and they aren't a replacement for conventional weapons.
I guess another way to put it is the title of the article isn't wrong. But if you read the article, the content clearly is.
> So while you may see videos of drones taking out tanks, they are often tanks that have already been killed and drones come in on an immobile target, etc.
Those tanks are immobilized by other drones or mines.
> You would also think that Ukraine is using more drones than Russia - based on the videos.
Yep, Ukraine uses more drones than RF in both absolute and relative terms, because Ukraine uses 10x less artillery shells.
No, I don't really agree with any of your points, I think they're either incorrect or not relevant. And the rest of the content in the article beyond the headline is reporting, not making a value judgment, so I don't see how it's wrong.
Oh interesting. No rebut of specific points or facts, just blanket disagreement?
I think its hard to call a whole article "correct" or "incorrect." This article makes many assumptions, states many things as facts, and yes - makes judgements. For the reasons states above I think the article overstates its case. It's behind the newest reporting by around two years. It misses or completely excludes important details (e.g. range requirements for retransmitter drones).
That doesn't make the article wholey incorrect or worthless. But yeah I think if someone is reading that article they should be aware of its inaccuracy, factual deficits, etc...
Happy to dive into any of the one-by-one points in the GP comment if there's questions or skepticism.
Overall oil refineries are decent targets because they are high cost and statically located and therefore difficult to defend, but Ukraine certainly wishes it had more conventional weapons at longer ranges so that it could strike deeper and dynamic targets.
Ukraine doesn't have many better alternatives. They can strike some energy infrastructure (which they've done) in an effort to affect Russian willpower. It can also try to hit airfields (which they've done) hoping to take out equipment, but Russia has been pretty good at moving equipment out of the way.
The strike campaign itself has been moderately effective but definitely short of a war-winning enterprise. Estimates on the actual damage on production and exports has ranged between the fantastical (28%) to the banal (6%). It looks like domestic petrol supply has been hit the hardest in terms of tangible economic costs, since oil prices have remained reasonable with lessened seasonal demand and lower OPEC supply targets. Russia has additionally made deals with Kazakhstan and Belarus to attempt to mitigate some of the economic effects, has been able to repair oil refinery damage, and has experimented with a range of mitigations.
The strike campaign has been further complicated by the US election year. The Biden Administration has asked Ukraine to stop targeting oil refineries, because global oil instability could cause a crisis that ultimately causes global issues, rising prices, and Biden a second term. Such strikes are expected to uptick after November. And with the possibility of long range missiles from military sponsors, plus winter-time difficulties, this might be a good window to see what Ukraine can really do.
Either way I think the article is not about the long range drones you are alluding to here, but the small commercial sized drones and mid-cost military drones that are based on them.
Moving equipment like fighters and bombers out of range of drones achieves a significant tactical victory for Ukraine by reducing loiter time at target for Russian aircraft. Incremental losses of both aircraft and crew also have compounding effects, since pilots for logistics roles like in air refuelling become scarce.
I agree that lack of weapons for direct assault limits some of the upside benefits as in "you cannot directly win a war on defensive moves" but you can force a better, safer, more advantageous outcome. In effect, Russia is losing a war of attrition on it's economy and materiel side. It does have massive manpower and stocks. It doesn't have infinite supply of economic resilience and home front tolerance for a failing economy undermines Kremlin myths.
Sometimes, not losing is the best you can get pending more help.
I disagree that failing to hit targets is a significant tactical victory.
But I agree that they should continue the strike campaign. They can't do much else on the battlefield right now. It's the right thing for them to look at areas they can raise cost and complexity for the Russians. I just wouldn't round it up too much...
I disagree that Russia is losing a war of attrition on economy (look at Russia's economy vs Ukraine's!). On a materiel side, maybe, Russia is using a lot of its stockpiles and those will eventually dwindle. But Russia is not somehow out of the fight when those stockpiles get low. On the other side of attrition, Ukraine is low on military aged men, artillery, fortifications, air defense. There's a strong argument to be made that Russia is the one winning the war of attrition, at least for the foreseeable future.
Russia is winning right now. But that doesn't mean it will win. The future isn't determined. I agree with you that a prolonged war won't necessarily go Russia's way, and that it may eventually lose the will to continue.
Russia can win the war of attrition only if allies stop backing Ukraine, which is exactly what Russia hopes to achieve through bought shills and "useful idiots" like those who delayed aid for Ukraine in US Congress for instance and the likes of Orban and Co.
However if these shills would fail to stall the allies, Russia would surely lose in the long run. I.e. Russia can't sustain long war of attrition, despite smokescreen of having supposedly infinite supplies.
I disagree with this other than that Ukraine will definitely lose if its backers stop supporting it.
It's not really clear that Russia would surely lose the war of attrition. A realistic scenario, assuming Ukraine's sponsors sustain its support: Ukraine and Russia continue sustaining losses as they are, Russia ramps up equipment production to offset what its needing to take out of storage, still the war slows down into more static trench warfare, Russia is able to maintain the willpower to stay in the fight, and Ukraine runs of out military aged men before Russia does.
I'm not saying the above will happen. I'm just saying that the above isn't a contrived, unrealistic scenario. No matter how much Ukraine's sponsors supply it with equipment, unless they themselves enter directly into the war there's no way to offset that huge attritional asymmetry.
Russia can't ramp up production sufficiently - not for the scale of war that Putin is waging now. And this is only going to get worse for them. It's a key factor - shortages will kill its military potential eventually. While allies can sustain production as long as they are willing to. So Russia bets on lack of will on their part.
I see your point and I think you have a reasonable point of view, although I don't share it because I think to have that point of view you have to make assumptions I'm not comfortable making.
I think there's a lot of variables in terms of how the timeline could progress: how Russia is able to draw on other sources (trade) for equipment, how global economic winds enable Russia to deal with its labor shortages, how deep those stockpiles really go (already Western observers have significantly underestimated them), how much materiel is needed to sustain a war of attrition (in which Russia isn't advancing), how much Russian air power plays into a future timeline and how and whether Ukraine can mitigate Russian air power starting from its current air defense deficit.
When I look at these, and other variables and unknown quantities, it's hard for me to draw out that Russia is destined/doomed to lose a war of attrition, if supply just continues a little bit longer. We've witnessed Russia adapting significantly during the war - even avoiding (so far) a general mobilization. Furthermore I can think of several more ways in which Russia could win the war with sustained sponsorship of Ukraine (that never test scalability of equipment manufacture). In short, I respect that you've got that view, just uncomfortable of making the assumptions to get there myself.
I wouldn't call even a six percent reduction 'banal'. But it depends on the amount of resources invested on both sides.
As a hypothetical:
If the attacker invests approximately zero resources, the defender invests crazy amounts of resources, then even approximately zero actual damage is a great outcome for the attacker. The real damage is in the resources wasted on defense.
Btw, this is pretty close to what our societies did to our own civilian air travel in response to terrorist threats in the 2000s.
(I have no special insight into the numbers for the current war. But I wouldn't sneeze at 6% reduction.)
Even those percentages of dropping oil profits can be pretty crippling for Putin. Especially since they can repeatedly hit what Putin wastes resources on repairing. And they should continue doing that even more.
But they surely need more effective ways to take out Russian military airplanes, especially those which are bombing the front line and cities. Not sure why allies can't supply them with needed technology to do it - they should possess some.
Russia's latest tactic uses fairly massive old-school dumb bombs, retrofitted with satellite guidance kits. These glide bombs are said to be launched by aircraft from high altitude, just outside of Ukraine's radar range. They have thus far proven highly effective and very difficult to intercept.
Not sure F-16s would help here in patrolling closer to launch points and intercepting the aircraft prior to dropping their payloads; or whether they would be too vulnerable. But, it does seem like a job for stealth interceptors, and certainly makes the case for air superiority.
With F16s it rather depends what air to air missiles they are supplied with. There are some that could take out Russian planes from a fair distance. But I'll give you stealth would be better. I'm surprised at how wimpy the west has been with air support - two years in and not an F16 in action. If they'd lent a couple of F35s with volunteer pilots it could have given Russia something to think about.
Yeah, no doubt the F-16s would be equipped with appropriately-ranged missles. The question is around their own vulnerability while patrolling/acquiring targets.
Seems to imply a job for stealth, or otherwise establishing air superiority. But, even with the latter the outcome might be variable—especially for eastern / northern Ukranian targets—without incursion into hostile (Russian or Belarusian) airspace.
Agree 100% on Western support. Seems we've been fighting to "not escalate" versus fighting to win. But, it's already a war with Ukrainian cities being pounded. In this context, "not escalating" seems to be a euphemism for "losing".
It's getting better with France and UK pushing to drop that "not escalate" demagoguery in favor of actually facing the problems. And it's helping.
Macron surprisingly was very on point about using the uncertainty tactic as a deterrent method, instead of "we won't do this / we won't do that in order not to escalate". It's good he finally got to that point, though it should have been clear from the start.
Other allies should also remove all restrictions for Ukraine on using weapons to hit targets directly in Russia.
What also works as a deterrent is Russia knowing that for any hit, they'll be hit by Ukraine in return, and not just on the front lines, but anywhere inside their territory.
Agree 100%. As it is, the risk is all on the Ukrainian side, save for Russian casualties (which Russia has shown to be of little concern, as they shovel everyone from prisoners to conscripts to the front lines).
They need to have more downside risk, which doesn't come from the West constantly reassuring them that we won't "escalate". Hitting targets in Russia would definitely change the calculus. As would enforcing a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine.
I was glad to hear Macron and others turn the corner there. But, I hope they're willing to back it up, else the bluster would do more harm than good.
I guess there may be an element of slowly boiling the frog in that the west was nervous about getting into a nuclear war with Russia which is understandable. But I think there should be an understanding that invading basically democratic countries is unacceptable and we'll make it a pain for the Russians until they rethink.
I heard an interesting idea to blockade their oil by hitting empty tankers sailing into Russia to pick up oil. That would create a major headache for them without actually killing many people.
You can't do it slowly, when they are actively attacking. Besides, their nuclear bluff got old and finally (as it should have been from the start) less and less allies pay attention to it. As Macron responded to that - France also has nuclear weapons. That's the way to shut Putin up.
Exactly this. The idea of "not escalating" means we are always responding to Russia's latest escalation, so are perpetually a step behind. No risk to Russia and no way to win a war.
And, falling for the gambit that Putin was a madman who would readily use nukes even if it meant mutually assured destruction was dumb from the start. If he was an irrational madman, so ready to destroy the world, then he could have done that from the start.
He can't be this crafty authoritarian, executing on a set of well-understood geopolitical strategic goals AND an irrational madman who doesn't care whether the world exists at all. You have to pick one.
> Estimates on the actual damage on production and exports has ranged between the fantastical (28%) to the banal (6%). It looks like domestic petrol supply has been hit the hardest in terms of tangible economic costs, since oil prices have remained reasonable with lessened seasonal demand and lower OPEC supply targets.
Isn't that the point, though? Hit refineries, forcing Russia to sell more crude oil to the world, and have less refined oil internally to turn into gas, etc?
That's partly the point yeah. Every war is an iterative set of actions and mitigations. The point I'm making is that so far the actual effect created by the strikes hasn't come close to winning the war, and its hard to project the numbers culminating in a war-winning economic catastrophy.
None of that is to say Ukraine shouldn't try, or that it doesn't have some "annoying" affect that increases costs and complexity for Russia. It does. Just want to be accurate about the level of affect and its potential.
And again, I think November after the election is going to be the best show of what Ukraine can do.
I clicked through to the article. I think the title is inaccurate. The paper primarily goes into detail about the Department of Defense heavily investing in startups, incubators and silicon valley. That's the vast majority of the paper. The paper has significantly less in the way of laying out how that's been successful, or how that's transformed the MIC.
This follows (NYT?) reporting that Project Maven hasn't yet been successful, with it under-performing human analysts significantly in core missions (identifying targets).
I think a more accurate headline might be, "how the Defense Department is transforming the MIC; a bold bet on silicon valley, high-tech systems and AI"?
Posting from another account (home vs work computer). You can reach me at either.
> The US wants to prevent China's rise to global hegemon status. It has no problem with China growing in general.
The US want to prevent China's rise to even a regional hegemon status. It has a problem even with China growing to equal economic power (without a "hegemonic" component").
It would be hard to separate "growth in general" from "growth that contributes to a relative power gap narrowing." They are practically indistinguishable, so I don't see much point in trying to test from it.
> "If need be" being China starts a conflict with it's neighbors who have asked the US for help. The US will not launch missiles at China if their GDP grows too high or the BRI grows larger.
Which neighbors? So far we've discussed Philippines and Taiwan and shown this isn't true.
> The US will not launch missiles at China if their GDP grows too high or the BRI grows larger.
It would. But it would engineer a conflict to justify such an act by.
> No, the country causing instability here is the one launching missiles into the Taiwan Strait (which was happening long before the "Pivot to East Asia"), salami slicing territory, attacking vessels in the South China sea, and starting border skirmishes with India. US diplomacy and military deterrence aren't causing instability, they are holding it back.
No. The US has undertaken a significantly different policy position in order to engineer, amplify, and become in involved in existing and new disputes (which all countries have).
> Wrong. If China wanted to minimize risk of conflict with the US, it would cease stealing US IP and military secrets (again, started happening before "Pivot to East Asia"), operating unofficial police stations on US soil, hacking into US companies and infrastructure, etc. China wants to keep tensions just below the threshold that would trigger a serious conflict while antagonizing the US in ways that help it grow.
Minimize risk within the context of the situation. It's absurd to think that a country trying to grow would just say, hey the US is creating conflict over this, let's shrink to minimize risk.
This is a straw man.
> This is why I dismissed the earlier post as a gish gallop, because it was full of subtly wrong things like this that I didn't want to spend time debunking.
This has been the pattern so far though. Lots of high level accusations ("that's mental gymnastics") and no substantive specific points. If there are factual errors, discuss them, and draw out where there are issues. In any case, having a "subtlely wrong thing" is a far cry from your claim of "mental gymastics". I'm honestly trying to figure out where you think factually and logically this is wrong. What you've provided so far is hard for me to differentiate from grief over preferred vocabulary, high level pronouncements, and advancing a different but not contradictory idea.
> Biden has made multiple remarks that the US would defend Taiwan, but they've always been walked back by the White House.
This is a political tactic. It's like when Biden stated Putin should be assassinated, and then later in a small statement it's made "not official".
This is clearly and evidently the US policy, as its pushing allies and forming coalitions to interfere in a strait crisis. If this was just some rouge statement by a lone official (accidentally: the President) none of those efforts would be underway.
> Bush made similar remarks in 2000 and 2001, before the "Pivot to East Asia", and they were also walked back
Right. The Bush Administration had considered making this pivot before the Obama Administration actually did, but got bogged down in the Middle East. Interesting point though.
> The US still abides by the 45 year old Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances.
For some very complex definition of "abides." The US was supposed to reduce military shipments to Taiwan. They've increased them. The US is supposed to recognize Taiwan as part of the Republic of China. It's amplified language of independence.
> Meanwhile, China decides to surround the island with warships and conduct live-fire exercises because a single US representative visits
A US representative visit is an act of recognition of statehood. An example of the change in policy that you deny above. And an example of the US not "abiding" by Taiwan treaties.
> Who is the one destabilizing the region again?
The US, as clearly evidenced by all of the above.
> I see no reason for this conversation to continue any further at this point. Bye.
What is it that you were trying to get out of the conversation? I was (and am) trying to establish specific factual and logical context framing. Ultimately the purpose is to support the very top post - which is to understand how and why China would use access established to US infrastructure.
Based on your comment I suspect that you agree in most part with China only using that in case they engage with the US. But you'd not frame their access as a "deterrent" but as something else. Like "aggression". But it would all be flip flopped around with the facts not subtly wrong.
I'm happy to continue to discuss. But I think we can both agree about the top comment that China isn't collecting this as a surprise weapon, but in case the US engages in, and as a deterrent to, the US engaging in military activity against it.
Tesla not only looks at these, they coordinate their fixes and disclosure. Tesla runs a bug bounty program https://bugcrowd.com/tesla, contracts with security research companies to audit its vehicles, has a security researcher program where they share more access & documentation for researchers who have helped improve vehicle security, and put up both vehicles and cash in pwn2own.
Obtaining code execution, persistence, or privilege escalation on a Tesla is a formidable challenge. Pwn2own went many years without there being any compromise of the vehicle, and last year's compromise was done by a firm that dedicated a lab and team of people for more than 6 months.
The (ahem) road to this state is probably littered with lessons learned. I'm hopeful that Tesla will share that history, allows its people to write about it, and let the wider community generalize and learn. There's a lot more than cars out there.
Temporary destruction of farmland isn't nearly at the level of a priority as fighting for territorial control of your country. Ukraine has in fact flooded farmland (outside Kiev) as a countermeasure against Russian activity.
I don't imagine this objection as rising nearly the to level of overriding the priorities of war objectives / victory.
Here are reasons I can think of for either side of the conflict to blow the dam up.
We need to note that contextually, the dam was blown up at the start of Ukraine's Counter-Offensive against the Russian positions in the south of the country.
Purely mechanically looking at "who benefits" I have the following understanding.
Reasons it could have benefited Ukraine:
1. The flooding destroyed the Russian first lines of defence along the Dnipro as well as their artillery ranging Kherson
2. The flooding created an emergency situation on the ground requiring evacuations and therefore double-tasking Russian forces which were supposed to defend the primary surge toward Tokmak
3. The destruction of the dam makes Russian occupation of the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant more difficult
4. The destruction of the dam makes Russian occupation of the Crimean Peninsula (which gets its water from the dam) more difficult
Reasons it could have benefited Russia:
1. If Ukraine's counter-offensive had included an attack across the Dnipro, this action would have delayed that front, allowing Russian forces to focus on the three other main fronts. (Based on what we know now it appears this was not part of Ukraine's action plan, but that's not to rule it out entirely)
I regret that Hersh's reporting relied on anonymous officials. That's not a dig on Hersh - this is the standard for journalism on these topics. As a standard it creates a deniability to any story that comes out e.g. "they probably made it up", "the source doesn't know what they are talking about", "the source is influencing the journalist for their own ends".
I think Hersh's article is interesting and useful however. There are specific details that journalists can dig into in the future to find validating hard facts. This may ultimately press a government to cop up to involvement over time, once enough evidence has mounted. That's not to say there aren't possible false leads and inaccuracies in his report.
For the linked article - it commits far more journalistic sins than Hersh's article - in an attempt to take it down. Through continued use of insinuation, analogies, and strawmen the author makes the strongest possible case that there's not merit to Hersh's argument - but for me it comes across as Sophomoric.
In terms of who destroyed the pipeline it is clear that the United States, United Kingdom and Ukraine had strong motives - and the US and UK capability. It's difficult to read commentary that dismisses these motivations out of hand as outrageous. Or at least, I'm coming in with priors that significantly diverge from these commentators.
There's nothing wrong with anonymous sourcing, but if your thing is based on a _single_ anonymous source, AND you've cultivated a reputation for being a credulous crank (see also the sourcing on the alternate universe Bin Laden writing Hersh did), AND you don't have any kind of editorial machine to back up your sourcing, AND the claim is incredibly inflammatory, then probably that's going to present a problem.
>For the linked article - it commits far more journalistic sins than Hersh's article - in an attempt to take it down. Through continued use of insinuation, analogies, and strawmen
Like what? Give some examples.
Hersh's article is just made up fiction. Hersh has a habit of making up "anonymous sources":
>As soon as he has made an assertion he cites a 'source' to back it. In every case this is either an un-named former official or an unidentified secret document passed to Hersh in unknown circumstances. ... By my count Hersh has anonymous 'sources' inside 30 foreign governments and virtually every department of the U.S. government.
Doesn't have to mean that he makes them up though: when a group of professional "truth fabricators" (or rather "doubt fabricators", they don't really need their stories to be water-proof) has learned that he makes for an effective mouthpiece eager to believe he'll be swarmed with "sources".
it's a useful heuristic of mine to massively distrust anyone who makes silly claims like assigning probabilities at 1 decimal point to things like this:
> 1 Opposition: Opposition forces in Syria (Liwa al-Islam) carried out the chemical attack. 96.4%
> 2 Syrian army: The Syrian army carried out the chemical attack. 3.6%
though it helps when they also explain the process with nonsense like:
> The few prior instances of chemical attacks against civilian targets contain factors that make them poor comparisons to the attack in Syria, leaving motivation as the primary factor. An analysis of the motivating factors behind such an attack results in the Syrian army being twice as likely to launch such an attack compared to an Opposition group, i.e. 67%-33%.
I really hate this style of analysis. It's transparent, yes: it's a prior being updated by evidence to produce a posterior, and you see where the rabbit goes in the hat. But this just puts a sciencism gloss on what are basically qualitative arguments.
A short version of their argument is "You might think for any number of reasons that the Syrian government launched the missile, but other peoples calculations of the launch location were wrong and ours were right so it couldn't be the government." Their prior begins at 95-5 for the government doing it, then it becomes 69-31 for the government doing it when they show a video of an anti-government guerrilla wearing a chemical hazard suit, then it becomes 7-93 in favour of the opposition once they decide they know the launch site. The launch site evidence is supposed to mean the Syrian government's probability is divided by 3 and the opposition's probability is multiplied by 15. That's the whole argument, that's where the rabbit is in the hat. After that point, no other evidence can adjust anything.
Most of the other evidence is just conjecture: they assign a 90% confidence to the evidence point "No western countries shared their evidence that the Syrian government did it" and they feel this fact is enough evidence to half their confidence in the Syrian government doing it. As proof for this, they literally say "The US says they have signals intercepts saying the Syrian government did it, but what if they actually have signals intercepts from the Syrian government asking if they did it or maybe they did admit to doing it but they were lying" This is not evidence.
This really seems like crank people trying to apply a rational choice / scientific skeptic veneer to a process of qualitative reasoning. And frankly I flicked through another ten or fifteen pages on the blog and almost everything discussed was discussed in the exact manner LessWrong/Slate Star Codex commenters would, and many of the issues being discussed were the exact issues discussed on those sites.
(I have no prior at all on the Syrian gas attacks, as I don't pretend to know anything about Syria or chemical weapons)
None of what you said mentions of any specific details of either article, whatsoever. What specifically is an example of an insinuation you object to? Maybe pick one straw man and point it out? Otherwise, what's the informational content behind all this verbiage?
Seems to me equally likely he's saying they'd pressure Germany to not use it or introduce sanctions (to bring an end to Nordstream 2, as a source of foreign currency for Russia and as leverage over the EU). Additionally wasn't Nordstream 2 not yet operational, and mostly Nordstream 1 that was sabotaged?
Nord Stream 2 was operational. It was also targeted but one of the pipes was hit twice, leaving the other intact.
Up to that point, the Russians clearly communicated to Germany that the flow of gas could be resumed either by dropping the sanctions to "repair" Nord Stream 1 or by opening Nord Stream 2.
The reason given by the Russians as to why Nord Stream 1 wasn't running at capacity was technical problems. First it was a turbine which eventually was replaced by Germany. Next it was allegedly damage to a control unit. The Russians claimed the repairs were impossible because of the sanctions.
So up until the bombing, Nord Stream 2 was always there as a possible fallback. Had Germany run into difficulties procuring gas from other sources up until winter, there was this dangling bait in reach of the German government. A freezing population would have been very unkind to a government that refused to open the second pipeline just for political stance.
Since the bombing it has become clear that operating any pipeline through the Baltic might only last for a short time.
Nordstream 2 was not delivering any gas at that point, Germany had refused the offer to open NS2 (after a series of comically timed "repairs" that just happened to require the new sanctions to be broken) and showed no signs of relenting. I think it is an enormous leap to assume that Germany would in this alternate reality inevitably relent and do what amounts to a pro-Russia stance in backpedalling and using NS2, that would not only fracture the country internally but would cause a foreign policy nightmare at the heart of the EU and NATO. As we have seen it was well within the world of possibilities to stand up LNG terminals for delivery by tanker, this would've been known to both Germany and the USA who would have been in discussion about this the entire time Nordstream was being discussed.
My position is: we just don't know yet, nothing is completely certain. I am surprised that people seem 100% convinced because they read an article by Hersh that paints a nice story and uses an as-yet unnamed source as proof and are prepared to take it all at face value. It may well turn out that the USA was responsible after all. But this recent article is, as it stands, no more than a story. It's still completely possible Nordstream 1/2 was blown by the Russians or the Ukrainians or the Brits or the Poles...
> Nordstream 2 was not delivering any gas at that point
I agree. I meant "operational" as in "ready to operate". Sorry for causing confusion here.
> I think it is an enormous leap to assume that Germany would in this alternate reality inevitably relent and do what amounts to a pro-Russia stance in backpedalling and using NS2, that would not only fracture the country internally but would cause a foreign policy nightmare at the heart of the EU and NATO.
I live in Germany. Through the entire summer I heard more and more people (and from surpising directions) voice their frustration that Nord Stream 2 wasn't opened in the face of gas shortages. Where I live, every week protests gathered that demanded NS2 to be opened and sanctions to be lifted.
The signs of a weak polar vortex came in around that time https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32985927. Had Europe seen the kind of winter that eventually befell North America, matters would have shifted dramatically. From the outside there was no way of knowing whether an already weak looking German government would not flip whith riots at the door.
For what it's worth I think your use of "operational" was in this context more correct than mine :)
You've probably got a better feel for public opinion in Germany than I do - I'm over the border in Czech Republic so while we'd have also suffered with a gas shortage, the idea of any concessions to Putin here is nearly unthinkable (people crowdsourced a fucking tank they called "Tomáš" for god's sake :D). I figured Germany might be more forgiving, but would still be very resistant and would be supported in doing so by its NATO allies in any way possible.
The majority in Germany, as far as I can tell, is in favour of sanctions. Not so much because of NATO, but because of all the wrongs that are carried out by Russia and a feeling of helplessness.
However, there's also another thing going on. As I said, there are people protesting. They hold banners calling for peace. But they walk behind a row of martial sounding drums. And if you ask them how peace would be achieved they tell you that military support for Ukraine must be stopped. And if you look at them, you realise you've seen them before. Also the drummers. It's the same people who did pretty much the same walking and drumming against masks and vaccines. That movement was known to be heavily influenced by Russian propaganda and RT in general. The biggest support for this "movement" is seen in the former socialist east, by the way. Which is suprising if you look at the rest of the non-Russian former eastern block and how Russian geopolitics are viewed there. It is not suprising if you know that there is still a lot of distrust towards anything western or American there.
I'm sure that, in between all of that, a winter with failing heating and a crashing industry would have tipped something over.
“Put an end to it” seems to carry a bit more finality then “we are going to encourage to not use it, or introduce sanctions to not use it”. Especially in light of the damn thing actually being destroyed…and an end being put to it.
The action that was taken, even though it’s not acknowledged, has brought weight to the statement.
I think if they were planning to do this they wouldn't have sent Joe Biden out and said "alright, drop a little hint that you're going to bomb Nordstream in the event of a Ukraine invasion". And if they were planning to do so and Biden blurted it out (because ... he's Joe Biden) I imagine any plans to bomb the pipeline would surely have been scrapped as he'd have just given the game away.
More realistic is the old man who has famously delivered gaffe after gaffe, who has repeatedly stumbled on his speeches and said dumb shit, said something a bit inelegant that everyone's now seizing on like a bunch of qanoners baking the latest q-drop on 8chan
Even a gaffe doesn’t change the core strategic value, it only adds another variable to consider as part of the possible blowback of the operation.
Regardless, it’s apparent that even with a Biden gaffe in the mix, if the US was responsible it was done in a way that preserved enough mystery to minimize the blowback.
Right, this is what I'm saying. The situation is anything but clear and I don't think Biden's comments that day tell us anything concrete about this one way or another, and I think it's a mistake that some people think it does.
If the USA didn't commit this, then through their various covert actions over the last half-century they only have themselves to blame for the suspicion that it was down to them.
I don’t think the gaffe proves it on its own, it’s the gaffe comment, the fact that the US policy towards Russia/Ukraine directly benefited from it’s destruction, there was bi-partisan opposition to the pipeline, and our history in such things that make me believe the US probably did it.
As President Obama famously supposedly said: “Never estimate Joe’s ability to fuck something up”
A general criminal law principle known as the corpus delicti rule provides that a confession, standing alone, isn't enough for a conviction.
I am not taking a position. I'm saying no one has presented hard evidence. And until they do, if ever, both sides will play hot potato and nothing will happen.
When someone presents hard evidence for either position I'll listen to them happily.
He said that in the context of sanctions, and which did end up shutting it down long before it was blown up. It only appears to be a threat of destruction retroactively because it was later blown up. There were no articles claiming he was threatening to blow it up at the time. Everyone knew the context was with regards to sanctions at the time.
You're looking at a youtube short that explicitly cuts out any semblance of context. The entire world had been discussing nothing but Russian sanctions for weeks at that point. And no, it wasn't a weird way to threaten sanctions, and no one at the time thought any differently, otherwise there would've been a flurry of articles saying Biden threatened to blow it up. But that never happened.
You're looking at a youtube short that explicitly cuts out any semblance of context.
> Lol. Here's the video.[0] The 'context' you're arguing for was a question posed to someone else. The question she asked to Biden--the immediate context for his comment--clearly strengthens the argument that this was a threat against the pipeline.
> The entire world had been discussing nothing but Russian sanctions for weeks at that point.
I don't even know where to start with this one.
> And no, it wasn't a weird way to threaten sanctions, and no one at the time thought any differently,
Listen to the lady in the video above. Why's she so flabbergasted after Biden's answer? How does her follow-up question make sense if she thought he was talking about sanctions?
> otherwise there would've been a flurry of articles saying Biden threatened to blow it up.
> Why's she so flabbergasted after Biden's answer? How does her follow-up question make sense if she thought he was talking about sanctions?
She just asked how Biden would do it, since the pipeline was within Germany‘s control. And he answered: „We will be able to do it.“
He did not identify who „we“ is and how it‘s done. „We“ could be the US and Germany together, it could be the western World or it could be the US alone. If it were the US alone it could be done by imposing sanctions on that particular pipeline and it could be done by putting diplomatic or economic pressure on Germany (many ways to do that) and it could be done by putting sanctions on companies that interact with the pipeline and so on. It could also be done by using force, but that is merely one of many options and I believe that Biden at that time didn‘t even know how himself. He made a strong assertion in order to take control of the situation and he did.
Yes. We can continue to hold reservations but that can be considered evidence. It is akin to someone getting killed and someone else prior saying they would kill that person. It doesn't mean they actually did it, but it is suspicion and motive that should lead to further investigations. That Germany and other countries aren't looking into it can also be considered circumstantial evidence.
It‘s not evidence because the pipeline wasn‘t that important anymore. They also looked into it. And finally any of them could have done it themselves as well. Nothing points to the US specifically.
For the US such an operation would have a huge amount of risk and they have to gain nothing until the war is over and even after that very little or nothing. (Potentially they can sell their gas - but others as well.) So why do it?
On the other hand, Germany had to gain a bit (shutting down the voices calling for it being opened) and Russia had to gain a lot (sowing distrust within NATO; forcing a change from NS1 to the remaining NS2; as a show of power and a threat; making a strategic change impossible to shut down future opposition within the power structure of Russia) or just to complete their shift to trade with China now instead. The NS2 project was already dead.)
The US runs no risk at all in doing something like this.
They've been doing war and killing innocents ("collateral damage", sorry...) for decades, all in the name of some doubtful "freedom and democracy", and what has happened to them? Nothing whatsoever.
Your original claim, which was an opinion stated in the form of a fact, was that it is a Nothing Burger.
Stating one's opinions on social media is generally fine, but stating them in the form of facts is dangerous in that it can cause other agents in the system to have incorrect state, which can have very serious causal consequences, up to and including death, which most people claim to be "a big deal".
It is counterintuitive to think in this way, but many useful things are counterintuitive.
Seymour Hersh's sources for My Lai gave their names and went on the record. The soldiers who revealed it went on TV and testified before Congress. I'm pretty sure that he had additional anonymous sources, but to get it published he had to be able to back it up.
Abu Ghraib was uncovered by Amnesty International and the international Red Cross and they had tons of photos.
By the time Hersh first wrote about Abu Ghraib there had already been reporting on abuses by Amnesty International, and several days earlier some of the photos had been shown on 60 Minutes (as he mentions in the piece). The piece cites an Army report, credited to two named generals, and names seven suspects, six of whom were under active criminal prosecution. His report was published (and vetted!) by The New Yorker. The difference between that piece and this one in terms of sourcing and credibility is like night and day.
I just want to add a bit to France's threats to deploy troops to Ukraine for direct conflict. There's a serious case to be made that this is France playing a game of chicken, essentially trying to get the Russians to have to consider that as a possibility and plan for the contingency, thus occupying their time and forcing them to hedge resources they would otherwise employ.
Certainly nobody knows for sure - unless they have penetrated French intelligence - but this seems to be the majority take of US foreign policy analysts I've read.
Whether such a game of chicken is responsible or not is its own discussion. Although one could also point to escalatory rhetoric from the other side.