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Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Kamil Galeev
@kamilkazani
Founder @rhodusinc
Fellakommando Südost 🇩🇪🇪🇺🇺🇦 Profile picture @littlegravitas@c.im 🇺🇦 🇪🇺 💙 #FBPE Profile picture otaria123 Profile picture 🇺🇦🇺🇲☕️Coffee&Robots🤖🌊🇺🇦🇺🇲 Profile picture Michael Hood Profile picture 1329 subscribed
Sep 25 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
The Rhodus Story

On a sunny spring day of 2022 someone transferred me 10 Ethereums. That was a lot of money. With this money I could do something big

So, I decided to do something interesting 🧵 Image Not long before that, I wandered into an article «Germany and Czechia help Russia to build ballistic missiles Sarmat and Sineva with the nuclear warheads» (2017). A case study on the Krasmash missile producing plant, it posed some questions that analysts seldom ask:

🤔 Image
Sep 22 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Yes, certainly. Our decisions are primarily guided by impressions

1. Russian defeat makes an *impression* that one can hardly win a war of conquest anymore

2. Russian victory makes an *impression* that one absolutely can

The cost of (2) will be enormous The first order effect is that it will encourage the wars of conquest, and encourage globally. There are perhaps few nations in this world that do not believe that a piece of their neighbor’s land belongs to them by right

There will be way more attempts for territorial conquest
Sep 21 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Why fund Ukraine?

1. This world consists of states

2. That are war machines optimised for war purposes

3. Allowing the war machines optimised for war purposes to make territorial conquests and get away with this, makes the world unsafe

The unsafe world will cost you more 🧵 4. Many in the US take their current material prosperity as granted

5. It is not

6. Unprecedented in the world history, it became possible only in the unprecedentedly safe world

7. When the world becomes less safe, you will have to say goodbye to the current prosperity
Sep 21 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Even if we have the blueprints, executing their design may be difficult to impossible. What we lack is the:

1. Material culture
2. Knowledge ecosystem

these blueprints had been created within

They are essentially relics of a lost (alien and incomprehensible) civilisation
Image This applies to the seemingly mundane stuff. For example, even though Russian tanks are based on the Soviet blueprints, Russian tank barrels are of lower quality & durability than Soviet ones. Design may be the same, but details of the original production processes are lost
Sep 20 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
On the chokepoints of the military production, I strongly recommend reading this. It gives a sufficiently good first introduction into the problem

No military industrial complex in the world can execute the mechanical design of weaponry other than based on the CNC technology* Therefore, supply chain for the quality CNC equipment (including both mechanical and electronic components) being controlled by the US allies is of major and under appreciated strategic significance
Sep 18 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I think that a military conflict between China and the US is highly probable. I also think that China will lose it. While the US hard power (& the quality of strategic thinking) may have substantially deteriorated since 1991, China:

1. Is much weaker
2. Won't catch up China is overall much more backward in terms of technology & manufacturing than almost anyone in the US foreign policy establishment is ready to admit. Beijing knows it, DC doesn't

Which, again, shows how much did the American strategic thinking deteriorate since 1991
Sep 3 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
1. Time exists

2. Things change with time

3. In 2014, Russia could reasonably expect a fairly high level of acceptance

4. Which was not the case in 2022

5. This invasion was planned based upon the picture of how it *used* to be

6. Which became completely outdated by 2022 7. As time exists, you should not presume that the opportunities you have now will last forever

8. They probably won’t

9. In 2014-2015, Russia had a high chance to launch a successful full scale invasion

10. But it did not

11. I think this was due to the crash in oil prices Image
Aug 24 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
François Guizot defined feudalism as perhaps the only form of tyranny that will be never accepted by the ruled. The theocratic despotism, the monarchic despotism can be genuinely loved and voluntarily accepted by their subjects. In contrast, the feudal despotism is always hated
Image What makes the difference is that a monarch/theocrat does NOT act on his own behalf. To the contrary, he represents something larger, superior to himself. It may be God. It may be an idea. Anyway, he is only a representative of something bigger, making his rule more acceptable Image
Aug 23 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Prigozhin was a junior member of the St Petersburg gang. A vassal of Putin's vassal. Still, a rightful member of the gang that constitutes the core of the ruling elite. Consequently, his death will make an impression of the regime killing its previously untouchable core members If the regime has indeed killed one of its core members, then the St Petersburg gang is probably not as united as it seemed to be. The death of Prigozhin reflects the depth of divisions in the narrow circle of upper elite.

This is the impression it makes on the outsiders
Aug 16 • 20 tweets • 5 min read
Daily reminder

1. Complex weapons such as the WMD/delivery systems include precise parts

2. Production of precise parts relies on subtractive processes

3. Which had overwhelmingly relied on the manual control even in 1991

4. But have been radically computerized since then 5. As the production of precise parts switched from the manual to computer control, the labor capable of producing precise parts (-> weaponry) manually was lost

6. The tactic knowledge has been lost, too

7. Which cements transition and makes it absolutely and 100% irreversible
Jul 23 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Starting from today, I will be publishing selected threads in my newsletter. I will start with three Why Russia will lose this war?

kamilkazani.substack.com/p/why-russia-w…
Jul 16 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
This is a very common mistake

“They” who “know better” do not exist as a coherent group. There’s no “them”

If I were to name the most underrated force in the world, I would choose the information asymmetry. We systematically and semis-consciously underestimate how great it is https://t.co/bRt4mSEHxH
Image Consequently, the line of argumentation:

“They can’t do something so obviously stupid/irrational”

Is usually wrong. They absolutely can. Why?

Because it is NOT obvious. You mistakenly think it is obvious because you ignore the elephant in the room - the information asymmetry Image
Jul 15 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Soviet military doctrine was shaped by the WWII experience

Russian military doctrine was shaped by the Gulf War impression

The former felt the need to build a strong land army. The latter felt no need to. Very large missile forces + small expeditionary corps was deemed enough The Russian military doctrine was built upon assumption that a small expeditionary corps will be enough to crush any rival on the post-Soviet space. Meanwhile, large missile forces will disincentivize external players from interfering

Strategic missiles were heavily prioritised
Jul 14 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Of course Switzerland is a giant. The industry is based upon:

1. Mature mechanical engineering
2. Innovative digital control technology
3. Continuous tradition of craftsmanship

You may try to develop (1) and (2). But you cannot acquire (3) anytime soon. That is just impossible Much of what is usually referred to as "expertise" (believe the experts) is just infallibility ex cathedra ideology. It is based on a social convention and not on the objective reality. In contrast, the craftsman expertise is real, very difficult to pick and impossible to fake
Jul 14 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
1. Every major military industrial complex in the world relies upon the CNC cutting machines to mass produce precise components -> weaponry

2. No one is capable of producing them without the continuous import of machines, machine parts and expendables

3. From the U.S. allies https://t.co/UZ1qF3YTYA
Image The vast qualitative gap in the machine tool production is of major strategic significance. First, catching development producers produce subpar equipment. Second, supply chain for their production starts in Western Europe or Japan for the lack of alternatives

See Russia (2015) Image
Jul 1 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
You can start with this (1/2):

CNC controllers (Fanuc, Siemens, Heidenhain)
PLC controllers (Siemens)
Electric linear actuators (Fanuc, Siemens)
Linear Displacement Sensors (Heidenhain, Siemens, Renishaw)
Spindles (Kessler, Fischer, Ibag)
Electric motors (Siemens, Fanuc) Ballscrews (THK, NSK, Hiwin)
Turrets (Duplomatic, Sauter, Baruffaldi)
Hydraulics (Bosch-Rexroth)
End Mills (Sandvik)
Cutting fluids (ZET-Chemie, etc.)
Bearings (SKF)

This list is by no means exhaustive. It just gives you some idea of where to look into
Jun 30 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Daily reminder

Russian capacity for the production of weaponry is critically dependent upon the uninterrupted supply of the machine tools and parts by the U.S. allies

Why? For the lack of alternatives. China is not an alternative people think it is, esp. when it comes to parts Sanctions are inefficient in undermining the Russian weaponry production capacities, as they do not adequately target its main chokepoint - production base. More specifically, machining equipment which is necessary to produce precise components and, therefore, weaponry
Jun 29 • 20 tweets • 7 min read
The media and the academia are obsessed with the unimportant. Once you interiorise this principle, their obsession with "Putin's philosopher" Dugin becomes almost forgivable

There's no philosopher at the Putin's court

The king doesn't need a philosopher

He needs a jester🧵 As I said, obsession with the (supposed) "philosopher behind the Putin's plan" is almost forgivable, considering that the dominant Western discourse in Russia is mostly a projection of Western intellectuals. They project their fears, of course. But also their hopes and dreams
Jun 28 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
1. Kornilov putsch fails
2. Purges against its real or imaginary supporters follow
3. Two months later the Bolsheviks come to power

Focusing on whether the putsch was orchestrated by the government (it probably was) is missing the point. Staged or not, its consequences are real There is often an implicit assumption that the "serious" ventures have serious consequences, while the "non-serious" (stage, orchestrated, just a show) ones don't

This assumption is completely and fundamentally wrong. It is usually the other way around
Jun 24 • 32 tweets • 11 min read
Where is Russia going?

Prigozhin's mutiny looks shady. And that is fine. Many coup stories sound shady even in retrospective, as they often included some elements of 4D chess by the political leadership. Still, their consequences were real.

So let's talk of the consequnces🧵 Raising a mutiny in the south, far off from the capital may sound like a dumb plan. Unless this was not a plan at all. My hypothesis: it looks like a false start

23 June - Wagner mutiny
24-25 June - "Scarlet Sails" in St Petersburg

Both Putin and Medvedev were expected to come
Jun 24 • 35 tweets • 10 min read
What is happening in Russia?

The mutiny is real. It is also unlikely to succeed. Most probable outcome is:

1. The mutiny fails
2. The regime stands (for a few months)
3. Upon its suppression, regime becomes increasingly dysfunctional -> falls

In other words, Kornilov putsch🧵 Let's start with the "real" part. A sizeable force of Wagner troops have left their positions in East Ukraine and entered the Russian region of Rostov Oblast. This is a real mutiny