Yes, but that is very gentle mode of war from the Russian perspective. Those who decry happening as "madness" or call it "unimaginable" are either clueless (Westerners) or liars (Russians). Russian war in Ukraine is going on *extremely* soft mode. Because Ukraine has air defence
Soviet Union had the largest and the most comprehensive air defence system in the world. It was largely developed as a countermeasure against the U.S. airforce superiority. You have a large and great airforce? Fine, we'll build the large and great air defence. And they did
After the collapse of the USSR, the bulk of the Soviet military was inherited by Russia. But Ukraine also got a substantial part of it, including the air defence. It declined through the 1990-2000s and by 2014 Ukraine was effectively demilitarised. Its army was dysfunctional
After Crimea and the start of the war in Donbass, the army improved significantly, including the air defence. Old Soviet air defence system was reinforced by the modern digital equipment and software, specifically the PLC industrial computers
In 1991-2014 Russia fought in countries with zero or weak air defence. Thus it resorted to the indiscriminate use of airforce, bombing cities like Grozny or Aleppo to the ground. Neither Chechens, nor Syrians could do anything against the airforce turning their cities to the dust
Syrian example illustrates the Russian mode of war and its consequences. Syrian war was *way* worse than the Iraq or Afghanistan. Look at the population graphs for all three countries and you may notice a very particular trend for Syria. Russia enters the game
If Ukraine didn't have significant air defence, Russia could have resorted to the same indiscriminate use of the airforce as in Syria or Chechnya. But it can't. A thorough air defence system made the use of the airforce very risky and difficult. Russia will just lose its aviation
Russian war in Ukraine is unprecedentedly soft and gentle. Consider this. They are raising a Peski town with thermobaric artillery rather than with a bomber. Why? Ukraine has air defence. That's why Russia is so gentle and slow. It can't bomb everything to the dust as in Syria
To sum up:
1. Russian war in Ukraine isn't cruel. It's very gentle, because Ukraine has means of defence. Previous victims of Russia did not
2. Russian mode of war is pure evil
3. Russian public opinion preferred not to notice or condone that evil till they got hurt themselves
4. The strange softness of the Russian army in Ukraine results from Ukraine being armed. Therefore, arming Ukraine is the single best way to deescalate this conflict. The better is Ukraine armed, the more Russia will deescalate. At some point they'll try to back off
5. Russia is a large and strong military machine without *any* ethical or humanitarian concerns. In Syria they literally depopulated a large country. Russian public opinion ignores or endorses it. Ergo, Russia must be demilitarised to minimise the danger it poses to the world
6. Demilitarisation of Russia requires its breakup. Should Moscow keep control over its colonies, it will endure through the hard times and then rebuild its military again. The only way to prevent it is to allow the colonies to break away from under the power of Moscow
7. Russian Federation is the extreme anomaly. It is the last European colonial empire that still continues to exist. Some of these colonies are predominantly white, others are POC-populated. All of them however, should receive a chance for independence from the metropole. The end
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Soviet output of armaments was absolutely gargantuan, massive, unbeatable. “Extraordinary by any standard” , it was impossible for any other country to compete with.
From 1975 to 1988, the Soviets produced four times as many ICBMs and SLBMs, twice as many nuclear submarines, five times as many bombers, six times as many SAMs, three times as many tanks and six times as many artillery pieces as the United States.
Impossible to compete with.
Which raises a question:
How could the USSR produce so much?
It is not only that the USSR invested every dime into the military production. It is also that the Soviet industry was designed for the very large volumes of output, and worked the best under these very large volumes
We are releasing our investigation on Roscosmos, covering a nearly exhaustive sample of Russian ICBM producing plants. We have investigated both primary ICBM/SLBM producers in Russia, a major producer of launchers, manufacturers of parts and components.
Each material includes an eclectic collection of sources, ranging from the TV propaganda to public tenders, and from the HR listings to academic dissertations. Combined altogether, they provide a holistic picture of Russian ICBM production base that no single type of source can.
Overall, you can expect tech moguls to have much, much higher level of reasoning abilities compared to the political/administrative class. But this comes at a cost. Their capacities for understanding the Other (masses count as the “Other”) are much poorer.
E.g. Putin is much, much less of an outlier in terms of intelligence compared to Thiel. He is much more average. At the same time, I am positively convinced that Putin understands the masses and works with masses much better.
One problem with that is that too much of the supply chain for drone production is located in China. The thing with drones is that they grew out of toys industry. Cheap plastic & electronic crap that all of a sudden got military significance
That is also the major problem I have with "China supports Russia" argument. China could wreck Ukraine easily, simply obstructing & delaying the drone/drone components shipments. That would be an instant military collapse for Ukraine.
Both Russian and Ukrainian drone industries are totally dependent upon the continuous shipments from China. To a very significant degree, their "production" is assembly from the Chinese components which are non alternative and cannot be substituted with anything else (as cheap).
No, Israel being a republic causes it to be more barbaric towards the conquered population than Russia, and with no escape. There is simply no room and no possibility for any sort of integration whatsoever.
Were Israelis slaves to a Big Man, integration would be conceivable.
Crawling on the knees before your Big Man is Lindy
Scaleable, manageable, robust
Every nation on earth will concede to it, after the sufficient amount of sticks (and may be some carrots, but that is optional). Which makes it very, very scaleable
In contrast, crawling on the knees before an other nation is not Lindy. No people on the earth will ever accept it, no matter the degree of violence applied.
That's why republican dominion over the disenfranchised colonial periphery is always so fragile. Not scaleable at all.
Today I will introduce one more concept critical for understanding of how the manufacturing industry has evolved over the last few decades. It is the shift of technological knowledge from esoteric to exoteric
In the pre-digital era, manufacturing used to be mysterious, esoteric
To visualize how the manufacturing worked in the pre-computer/early computer age, imagine the atmosphere of magic, mysticism, enigma. That would be not very far from truth.
To illustrate the idea, I will give you one simple, straightforward example. The train car production.
Train production is a very, very rare example of a Russian machinery industry that survived through the post-Soviet collapse. Of course, it contracted. Of course, it suffered losses. Still, it made it through, while most of the Soviet machinery sector was simply wiped out.