Megathread on the Nova Kakhovka dam.

Tl;DR all signs point to structural failure.

RF can be blamed for not maintaining it or water levels, UA for ostensibly weakening the structure and raising levels upstream, both for a variety of reasons - but neither blew it up. It broke. Those insisting either "blew the dam", especially drawing those conclusions before any of this data was collected is a partisan hack at best. Sorry, not sorry.

Nexta readers melting down over South Africa extending blanket diplomatic immunity to BRICS summit attendees: 🧵 "Let's do a terrorism lol"

Point 1 is questionable at best, forces in the PMR are cut off from any semblance of support and supplies, making a move on Moldova is a) unwise and b) is out of character for the PMR. They want independence, not Moldova.

Point 2 and 3 are far more interesting 1/18🧵

https://twitter.com/LudmylaFirebird/status/1628436640661209090

2/18 Should be clear to all by now that maskirovka, or the use of deception in war is part of Russian doctrine, in fact it's a staple of many doctrines. My namesake wrote:

The NPT has no such stipulations. There's an informal understanding that the 5 recognized nuclear weapon states not use NW against non-nuclear states except in response to a nuclear attack or a conventional attack in alliance with a nuclear state.

It is however not codified. That last part has some crucial implications. For one, technically, India, Pakistan and Israel are not bound by that informal understanding, as they are not among the five recognized nuclear weapon states.

It doesn't clash at all. Russian losses don't include Wagner, DNR, and LNR casualties. They were always tallied separately.

Kamdash is in Afghanistan.
The Battle of Kamdash was in '09.
Wagner wasn't there.

This is beyond lazy. Why are you this bad, Sam? twitter.com/i/web/status/1… @SamRamani2 your linked TG post is about Hasham, not Kamdash. Proof read.

Want to elaborate on China having:
- cancelled 3.4b debt (00-19) [1]
- Restructured/refinanced 15b [1]
- renegotiated at least 26 loans [1]
- Has rarely seized assets, preferring to write-off[2]
- set lower interest rates than western loans [3]
Sources and supplementary reading🔽

https://twitter.com/IndieKyiv/status/1592474802593628160

[1] ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/cariwp/2…

These articles are written precisely for the reasons you state, to retain US leadership role in the face of Beijing's ever increasing influence in Africa.

Why would someone write an op-ed to an American outlet to offer China policy recommendations?

https://twitter.com/McFaul/status/1592393002215165953

Also not sure about no one in the world. The Chinese certainly do, and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali has described China as "the most reliable friend and the most cherished partner of Ethiopia"

There isn't a need for such op-eds aimed at Xi, he's already engaged there.

Mini-rant.

1/? Realism isn't an ideology. It's a theoretical framework, and it's descriptive, the purpose is making predictions and explaining state behaviour based on empirical observations of how the world is. The purpose is to create a predictive and explanatory tool.

https://twitter.com/McFaul/status/1481497276518305794

2/? Neoliberal Institutionalism conversely is prescriptive rather than descriptive, it makes assumptions based on how neoliberals think the world _should_ be, rather than how it empirically is. It is an ideology masquerading as a descriptive theoretical framework.

1/3 I appreciate a good recommendation. But when bobby no follows comes in like "Mr. Academic who has (critically) read 100s if not Ks of articles/journals/books on the subject, you obv never read, so read, of all things Snyder, which has rightly... 2/3 been lambasted as "simplistic as it sounds and is based purely on conventional wisdom and current liberal narrative. It also suffers from the notable disadvantages of being empirically inaccurate and wrong."

see: kirkcenter.org/reviews/this-i…

1 As someone else quipped dude, you can't denuclearize DPRK, how are you going to denuclearize Russia?

Did the US and Canada need to be decolonized for parliamentary democracies to form? did either need to be demilitarized?

Those aren't necessary conditions for democratization

https://twitter.com/apmassaro3/status/1572111208710541313

2 but democratization isn't the point, it's just flimsy justification for the objective of dismantling Russia.

Fact of the matter is we know unequivocally that this doesn't work, and in fact has the inverse effect. The classical example is Versailles.

Ooh, can I play, too? 🧵

1 RS-28 Sarmat, with yield assuming a configuration of 10 750kt MIRVs, and keeping in mind that nukemap doesn't take MIRVS into account nor equivalent megatonnage (10x750kt is more destructive than 1x7500kt).

https://twitter.com/TheTruth712121/status/1571435047760142343

@LvivTyler Long ago, Caucasian Albanians lived in the south eastern Kavkaz. Mesrop Mashdots created both the Armenian and Albanian alphabets.

Azeris believe that the Armenian alphabet was stolen from the Albanians, and because there's Armenian script throughout ancient Armenia, it must @LvivTyler then be Albanian script, and therefore Azerbaijani lands.

It's kinda like England claiming Iroquois lands as ancient English lands, combined with a Goebbelsian falsification of history and historical maps that everyone but Turkey and Azerbaijan are in on, combined with

"Ukraine will become China without a democratic Europe"

For funzies: 🧵 Grozny, Chechen Republic, Russian Federation, without a democratic Europe: