The Putin mobilization speech seems pretty much vaporware. Eight months ago, Putin invaded Ukraine with his best-trained, best-equipped 175,000 troops. That army is now wrecked, its equipment depleted, maybe 50,000 killed, who knows how many maimed/wounded. 1/x
So now he's calling up a reserve army of 300,000: worse-trained, worse-equipped. How much can they accomplish against a Ukrainian force that is progressively better armed every passing month? 2/x
The Ukrainian battlefields get muddy soon. Then it gets cold. Do the 300,000 reservists have mobility? Do they even have proper winter gear? 3/x
It all seems like a fantasy drafted on paper by generals who don't want to get thrown out of windows ... repeated on TV by a leader isolated from reality by the lies he demands to be told. 4/x
Which is not to say that Putin's army lacks options. They can try even more heinous terror tactics against Ukrainian civilian populations: rocket attacks on cities, etc. Probably that's what Putin will do. But as plans go ... 5/x
... it's a plan for maximizing human suffering, not for achieving any strategic objectives. Putin's crimes are terrible, but Putin's goals seem already irretrievably lost. END
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EG from February 2022. It seems even more pertinent now that Putin is calling up reservists who are probably even lower in morale than the conscripts he tossed into the fight half a year ago 2/x
At this point in war, you'd need a preliminary hearing that the deserter/POW is not implicated in war crimes against Ukrainians. But if he can clear that test 3/x
The peak years of the baby boom in the US were 1957-61, when as many as 4.3 million were born each year. That massive cohort is beginning to turn 65 this year. That's driver 1 of the US labor shortage of the 2020s ...
Other drivers are the ravages of drugs and addiction on native-born workers, the inadequacy of childcare, and more mysterious factors that have reduced the work commitment of post-boomer cohorts. (See this interesting post by @tylercowenmarginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolu… )
@tylercowen Join all that to multiple rounds of massive economic stimulus under Trump and Biden - and, poof, labor shortages especially in lower-wage job categories.
The US border is being overwhelmed for two main reasons: flaws in the US asylum system and the ultra-hot US job market, literally two openings for every one available US worker. The DeSantis airlift assumes the border problem is a *plot* by disloyal elites theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day. Childcare systems still have not returned to pre-pandemic normal. Result: 3.4 million eligible workers remain outside the workforce.
For workers *in* the workforce, there are two job openings for every one of the (few) currently unemployed
Watching the filming of a Nollywood historical movie in Benin City, Nigeria, last October. The red doorway belongs to one of the city's oldest surviving dwellings, dating back to pre-colonial days
With the director in front of the house, she was a fan of @TheAtlantic
@TheAtlantic This is very possibly the largest brasswork ever cast in Benin CIty, about twice human-size. It was done for the 5th anniversary of the ascension of the present Oba. The unveiling was scheduled for the day after I left the city, so I captured it still wrapped in plastic
Atrocities on the retreat don't improve a defeated aggressor's position on the battlefield. They do substantial harm to the defeated aggressor's future negotiating position when he must sue for peace.
When this war ends, Russia will still need to negotiate the lifting of western sanctions. New EU candidate member Ukraine will have a powerful veto over sanctions-relief. Russian leaders are deluded if they imagine they can just withdraw and sulk.
Russian leaders are also deluded if they imagine they will remain as easily in control of their own society after a military defeat of this scale. See fates of Argentine generals after Falklands 1982; Greek junta after Cyprus 1974. Defeat+ continuing sanctions? Even worse outlook
The unveiling today of the Obama official portraits at the White House opens an awkward question: what is to be done about a Trump portrait? Thread ...
In some ways, the problem is not as hard as it sounds. It's entirely up to the current president which (if any) portraits are to hang in the White House and where. There's no obligation to hang all the portraits, that's what the National Portrait Gallery is for. 2/x
In one way, Trump himself made the problem easier. He signed a law in 2018 prohibiting the use of public funds for presidential portraits. The eventual Trump portrait, if ever painted, will be a purely private matter. 3/x