As I understand it there has been an unspoken agreement between the people and the leadership: you give us stability, peace and order so we don't need do get involved in politics and can go about our daily lives and we'll turn a blind eye to your riches, despotism and foreign policy excursions.
If that it s the case, he just broke the contract.
He also just played his last card (annex a country illegally and threaten to nuke anyone who disagrees) and is about to be caught out. He's got nothing left to negotiate with.
future headline?
Breaking News! Putin Falls From a Seventh Story Window!
putin's plea/speech is basically a giant disinformation commercial for loyalty to the motherland
his war against a schizophrenic mirage of nazis and liberal democracies must be fought and at all cost(s) to boot?
surely a huge portion of sane people understand he is advocating putting the russian people on a turbo rocket sled to massive death, destruction and ruin
how long before there is a color revolution against his foolishness?
As I understand it there has been an unspoken agreement between the people and the leadership: you give us stability, peace and order so we don't need do get involved in politics and can go about our daily lives and we'll turn a blind eye to your riches, despotism and foreign policy excursions.
If that it s the case, he just broke the contract.
He also just played his last card (annex a country illegally and threaten to nuke anyone who disagrees) and is about to be caught out. He's got nothing left to negotiate with.
putin's plea/speech is basically a giant disinformation commercial for loyalty to the motherland
his war against a schizophrenic mirage of nazis and liberal democracies must be fought and at all cost(s) to boot?
surely a huge portion of sane people understand he is advocating putting the russian people on a turbo rocket sled to massive death, destruction and ruin
how long before there is a color revolution against his foolishness?
Just for perspective only in the past year did I finally hear a description of just what a tactical nuke is. And I just learned a little bit more by googling. . It is a "little" nuclear bomb. The size used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, although they can be much more powerful. Somehow that just isn't what I would call small or little. Hard to call any nuclear weapon small or limited, imho. . That's all. I never really felt the need to know exactly how small they are or how big they could be. They somehow just sounded small whenever mentioned in conversations on matters that may find them useful or needed. They have been mentioned a lot recently. Perhaps I am the last person around these parts to know something like this as I usually am. So forgive me if I mentioned the already well known and obvious.
nothing wrong with admitting ignorance about something you don't know Kurtster.
The other thing to remember when it comes to tactical nukes is that they only work effectively on concentrations of troops. Ukraine have been very careful to keep their forces spread out. Moreover, at the frontline the Ukrainian troops are very close to the Russian forces, so basically tactical nukes (apart from all the other consequences) would have very little benefit on the battlefield.
Which leaves two other options: bombing selected cities with nukes (like Kiev or Kharkiv) like the US did in Japan or an all out strike.
Neither option promise much from a Russian point of view. If they took option a) NATO would immediately install a no-fly zone and state any further use of nukes would entail NATO retaliation (tit for tat, or in this case tit for two tats). Russia would lose the war.
If OTOH Russia evaporated the entire country then think WWIII. We all lose.
The other factor is that the Russian nuclear arsenal is probably as bad as its conventional and using it might expose its glaring weakness to a much more powerful adversary. My guess is that they realise not using it holds greater leverage than using it.
There is no way he can win the war against Ukraine now, even if does use tactical nukes or chemical weapons.
Just for perspective only in the past year did I finally hear a description of just what a tactical nuke is. And I just learned a little bit more by googling. . It is a "little" nuclear bomb. The size used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, although they can be much more powerful. Somehow that just isn't what I would call small or little. Hard to call any nuclear weapon small or limited, imho. . That's all. I never really felt the need to know exactly how small they are or how big they could be. They somehow just sounded small whenever mentioned in conversations on matters that may find them useful or needed. They have been mentioned a lot recently. Perhaps I am the last person around these parts to know something like this as I usually am. So forgive me if I mentioned the already well known and obvious.
His army has been defeated; all he has left is nuclear weapons.
what is putin's goal? (remember he is kgb) occupation and oppression you wouldn't use a such weapon or messy technology on a piece of real estate that you covet he is obviously forced into the long game using energy and other commodities and any alliance with other authoritarian regimes making people suffer, especially innocent peaceful people is his modus operendi submission and surrender is the preference how does he get there? destroying necessary goods and services like electricity, food, water, shelter, etc. psych tactic to break the will of the victims all the while controlling the media narrative at home through manipulation the russian people are being force fed a steady stream of ukrainian dehumanization agitprop whipping up some hatred and bloodlust
There is no way he can win the war against Ukraine now, even if does use tactical nukes or chemical weapons. As the Ukrainians put it, this just raises the cost of fighting for freedom but in no way changes their determination to fight for it. They are not going to roll over and play dead now that they know they can and will win.
So this leaves Putin's primary goal to be to stay in power at home by projecting an image of a grand-daddy tsar who is looking after the best interests of Russia. But this is getting to be an increasingly difficult thing to sell to the Russian public now that he has trashed the military, made Russia look weak in the eyes of the rest of the world and had his economy ring-fenced by the rest of the global economy. So he's resorting to the victim-of-NATO narrative that plays so well at home with the propagandists hyperventilating at every opportunity. But I doubt everyone in Russia is buying it.
Most importantly, he's getting quite a lot of criticism from the right-wing/nationalists for cocking it up so badly. They still have a free reign to voice their opinions it seems. And this dissension will be confusing the silent majority who generally avoid getting involved in politics.
So Putin's days are numbered. Not because the Russians are suddenly going to turn into Europhiles and create a model western democracy, but because the nationalists are so pissed with the widespread incompetence of both the military and the political leaders. The big question will be what or who follows Putin and how will they ever manage to MARA. My guess is they will fail and Russia is going to break up into smaller dominions sooner or later. And I bet China is not averse to the idea of reabsorbing a large swathe of Siberia within its hegemony. Likewise, Turkey no doubt would like to expand its influence on the Turkic states.
Putin wanted to be remembered as the guy who reunited the great Russian empire. Instead he is going to be remembered as the guy who killed it.
Seems things could go either way.
Russia has the resources to continue, slowly pounding away at Ukraine,
with the chief benefit of disrupting western markets, inflating prices, weakening economies,
while they continue to sell their oil to China and India.
Suppose if the Russian military has enough,
or political leaders,
that could be a game changer.
But what general doesn't enjoy a good war?
"Even Comrade Lenin underestimated both the anguish of that nine hundred mile-long front, and our cursed capacity for suffering." Boris Pasternak - Doctor Zhivago
Seems things could go either way.
Russia has the resources to continue, slowly pounding away at Ukraine,
with the chief benefit of disrupting western markets, inflating prices, weakening economies,
while they continue to sell their oil to China and India.
Suppose if the Russian military has enough,
or political leaders,
that could be a game changer.
But what general doesn't enjoy a good war?
â¦one where an inordinate amount of his peers have also been killed.
Seems things could go either way.
Russia has the resources to continue, slowly pounding away at Ukraine,
with the chief benefit of disrupting western markets, inflating prices, weakening economies,
while they continue to sell their oil to China and India.
Suppose if the Russian military has enough,
or political leaders,
that could be a game changer.
But what general doesn't enjoy a good war?
Not so much ethnic cleansing as removing any latent opposition by terror.
btw, looks like the Russian military is quickly falling apart in Ukraine, going by various Twitter feeds.
Yeah, Putin has shot his bolt; now things get really scary.
Not so much ethnic cleansing as removing any latent opposition by terror.
btw, looks like the Russian military is quickly falling apart in Ukraine, going by various Twitter feeds.
The Economic Weapon punctures the myth that sanctions have been an alternative or antidote to war, while tracing their shifting purpose from preserving inter-state relations to toppling internal political regimes. Based on rigorous and broad research, it offers crucial lessons for historians and policymakers. Despite the hopes pinned on them, sanctions typically donât produce the regime change desired, and they take an enormous toll on those subjected to them. The very anticipation of sanctions triggers actions that preclude their effectiveness: aggressive statesâ ambitions are stoked further by desire to secure additional resources to immunize against the deprivations of threatened sanctions. The premise of sanctions â that societies make political decisions based on economic rationalism like fear of falling living standards â is not borne out by history. People often prefer bad conditions to foreign rule.
