I keep seeing this stupid article pop up on my feed, with people celebrating supposedly how the Western media is being brought to heel and is being forced to admit the truth. This is wishful thinking. It is a psyop article. /1 independent.co.uk/news/world/eur…
Even with Russia's material advantages, a 20:1 advantage in artillery (40:1 in ammunition) on Russia's side would entail a complete, rapid collapse of Ukrainian lines. There would not be enough Ukrainian artillery to even conduct artillery skirmishes. /2
Moreover it has nonsensical statistics like outnumbered in artillery range - artillery restricted to a range of 25 kilometres, while the enemy can strike from 12 times that distance. They are literally counting Iskander for 300km range
What the hell is a Tochka missile, then? /3
Together with the hyping of Russian armaments and downplaying the Ukrainians' own, the article also downplays Ukrainian losses, using Zelensky's 100 killed figure and ignoring prisoners in the LDPR to say Russia only has 5600 POWs /4
And the puzzle is completed when towards the end it hypes up the capabilities of Western weapons systems - "Javelin and NLAW anti-tank systems supplied by the US and UK have proved effective in the battlefields around Kyiv and Kharkiv and remain so in the Donbas." /5
"Switchblade attack drones have also inflicted significant damage on the Russians."
And what's more?
"The assessment was compiled before the announcement by the British government that it will supply a small number of M270 multiple-launch rocket system" /6
So let's put all parts of this narrative together: 1. Russia has many more weapons than Ukraine 2. Despite this Ukraine is holding out reasonably well 3. Western weapons are good and Ukraine isn't wasting them 4. Game changers are coming.
Stop falling for this shit. /7 END
P.S. Just a snapshot of top Europe region articles on the UK Independent, which ran the famous "40:1" article. Single articles don't define narratives by themselves but operate within a discursive matrix. Given these articles, how do you think that article fits?
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A very good question, and one that I will use as a jumping off point. Just why is the Western media so aligned with the Zelensky team’s provocations and media narratives? It’s fundamentally an alignment of interests. /1
While some will say that the media is just whatever the “deep state” tells them to say, and there is much truth to the role govt plays in shaping media narratives, this view is too simplistic as it does not account for factions within the govt and the agency of journalists. /2
In their minds Western press has created a mythology around itself as the protector of free speech and the common people, based on the legacy of legendary investigative journalists like Ida B. Wells who exposed the epidemic of lynching in the Southern USA. /3
There's a lot of commentary out there that attempts to glean some sort of endgame scenario out of a key phrase or two out of the mouth of Lavrov or Peskov or some other government official. Let me clue you in on how governing a bureaucracy works. /1
This was written by Han Fei, a Chinese strategist during the late Warring States period, and it is remarkable in the canon of ancient philosophy in that it is nothing but practical insight into the flow of power in a bureaucratic setting. Very readable even for non-philosophers/2
The idea of a leader as a cipher, someone who holds his cards close to his chest and carefully manages bureaucratic rivalries is something that has been said about Putin, actually. Richard Sakwa, one of those Western scholars who isn't garbage has described him as... /3
Strelkov came out with a series of posts analogizing the current conflict to the Russo-Japanese war. It is a reflection of just how warped his thought processes have become. He has a point to prove, and it's a dumb one.
The defending side in 1904-05 (Russia) had apparently underestimated people it thought were racially inferior and therefore mobilized too late and by the time they were ready to fight, the economy collapsed and the war was over boohoo. 😢
But hold on, which side is viewing the other as subhumans and bragging about how easy it is to fight? Which side is carrying out desperate mobilization and scrounging weapons from abroad? Which side is demanding a decisive battle by zerg rushing to the Donbass front?
Another theory thread, prompted by a strange article demonstrating some of the typical cognitive biases of Western analysts. /1 warontherocks.com/2022/06/not-bu…
Kofman and Lee argue, as I have argued that there is a lack of personnel in Russian units. However, for them, the problem is a lack of light infantry and not the general manpower shortages associated with downsizing to brigades. There is this bizarre light infantry fetish. /2
The observation that Russian units are centered on vehicles and that there aren't enough dismounts because men have to be manning vehicles is well-taken. It is an issue, though I am not sure how relevant this is given the nature of this war in its current stage. /3
I am not defending the EU as an organization, but let it be said that every step of this process to their own economic self-destruction has been pushed by the citizens of the EU that attacked every attempt to to step on the brakes.
If the ideologists of liberal democracy believe in popular sovereignty, then this is a good example of it, with solid majorities in most major EU countries supporting harsher measures against Russia. They should be proud that they browbeat their minders into submission.
I'll comment on the 2nd Amendment because it should highlight the sclerotic nature of a country devoting itself ideals that were conceived of in a completely different society centuries ago. The founding fathers of the US did fully intend for citizens to own weapons of war.
What is commonly thought of as the 2nd Amendment was a carryover from British colonial law that mandated every free white male to keep a rifle and field kit in the event of militia callup. It was intended to create an army on the cheap, and the USA repackaged this as a "freedom."
The early US had a very minimal central government that could only do tariffs and excise taxes to raise money. The had no funds to raise a proper army, and service in state militias in those days saw men paying out of pocket. Many were armed neighborhood watches that...