Putin's war

@engineer,

One wonders what he thinks he achieves by putting his nuclear forces on alert. Does he really think the West is going to risk a nuclear exchange now, after the invasion? If anything, it makes him look weaker, as if he's got nothing else at his command.

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@hightor,

Looking back to the age of nuclear deterrence in the last century: nuclear weapons were the "fuel of the Cold War".

In Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, Kissinger attempted (in 1957) to sell the idea that a limited nuclear war is a plausible outcome of a crisis between two nuclear armed states.
Perhaps this is Putin's idea, too.

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@engineer,

The Caracao Cup final is going ahead between Liverpool and Chdlsea. Now Chelsea are owned by Russian billionaire, and close personal friend of Putin, Roman Abramovich.

There have been calls for his ownership to be suspended and assets seized. Clearly deciding to jump before he was pushed he has given management of the team over to a charitable trust.

Both teams have come out heavily in support of Ukraine, and yellow and blue flags as being waved in the crowd.

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@hightor,

Interesting article but it appears to be based on a highly selective examination of the relevant facts and an apparently deliberate misrepresentation of Trump's actions and statements.
1. Democrats created the fiction of Trump's supposed collusion with Putin, and the DOJ Special Prosecutor has made significant progress in unravelling the Illegal activities of the Clinton campaign in creating it.
2. It was Joe Biden who really threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine if they didn't fire a prosecutor conducting an investigation of a Ukrainian Petroleum firm, then in the process of appointing his son, Hunter to a very lucrative position on their Board of Directors, for which we was and is entirely unqualified.
3. Trump's support for Ukraine was clear, and the "genius" remark attributed to him was clearly directed at Biden's likely inept response.

To avoid distraction, I'll respond to your AGW issue on the GW thread

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@Lash,

Lash wrote:

glitterbag wrote:

That's an interesting thought, but this is an invasion not a revolution. War modes will be changing constantly, and all the civilians can sit back and criticize but the matter will take many paths before it's settled. Frankly it's shocking to me how many Americans are so uninformed and resistant to this matter. We apparently can organize like crazy to avoid health issues to save our 'freedoms', but worry about Ukraine citizens being blown away like dust..........not so much.

I bet there are fewer than 5 people posting who have any sort of military service, most of us are posting about our political likes and dislikes which serves no purpose in a effort to remain free.

So, British soldiers never set foot on North American soil to get colonists back in line?

Oh dear, are those soldiers posting on A2K? Are you sure you taught history???

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Putin's recent (and rather odd) statement announcing an alert for Russia's nuclear forces; coupled with the evidently unexpected strength, effectiveness, and likely continuation of the Ukrainian resistance, creates a very strange and possibly dangerous situation for the Western Powers. This appears to be an act of somewhat irrational desperation on Putin's part - certainly not one likely to actually improve his current position, which has been badly impacted by the unexpected strength of the Ukrainian resistance (and some inept moves on the Part of the Russian military) , together with the Worldwide public reactions to both.

I hope we, the UK and France are taking some positive actions to match Putin's action with our own alerts - no point in making a big public event out of it - it is sufficient that Putin's advisors and military forces detect it. Deterrence remains critical, especially with a potential foe who may be losing his marbles in the midst of a major setback.

The determined, effective and heroic resistance of the Ukrainians is indeed unexpected and inspiring. Happily it is also inspiring some positive action on the part of Ukrainian's western neighbors. The U.S. should begin now to actively support and backup their efforts in any way we can, though I expect little from our feeble President.

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@georgeob1,

I was happy to see your quasi-positive response was balanced with a remark about "our feeble president". No point in being all glowing patriotic when you can go Party first, right Comrade?

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@Walter Hinteler,

[quote="Walter Hinteler"
This policy change is indeed a historic turnaround for Germany.
Basically, Germany's entire foreign and defence policy has turned around 180 degrees today.[/quote]
Very welcome and timely news !

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@glitterbag,

glitterbag wrote:

I was happy to see your quasi-positive response was balanced with a remark about "our feeble president". No point in being all glowing patriotic when you can go Party first, right Comrade?

I understand Biden is in Delaware for the weekend. Anyway, nothing yet heard from him.
It's true that party politics have become rather bitter and polarized here. It is more than a little interesting to note how swiftly those who worked so persistently to undermine the Trump presidency by any (often illegal) means available to them, have suddenly rediscovered piety and loyalty.

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@georgeob1,

What illegal means?

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Has the DEFCON rating been adjusted for the US or Russia? (What do they call their national defense rating system?)

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@hightor,

I'm pretty sure this is just PR. A scare tactic to see which way Europe will jump. Putin has one country he dare not cross and that country is China. China would react extremely poorly to anything even close to real use of nuclear weapons and he is counting on China to sustain his economy against a western boycott.

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@Mame,

Mame wrote:

What illegal means?

You can start by reading some of the materials from DOJ Special Prosecutor Durham's reports.

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@georgeob1,

Righto.

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@Lash,

FPCON hasn't changed, still at Bravo.

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@Mame,

Are you talking about this:

Tucked inside the court filing, John Durham laid out a good chunk of the case he’s building, and it was stunning. Durham revealed the outlines of a corrupt conspiracy by operatives linked to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The exposed conspiracy allegedly made a contrived, fraudulent and shocking attempt to entice the FBI and CIA to use their powers against the rival Trump campaign and presidency.

This recent filing by Durham was designed to have two effects. First, and most important, he has now made any decision by the president or attorney general to dump him much more difficult to undertake. The last time a president fired a special prosecutor who was making significant progress, he lost his presidency.

Second, Durham has signaled to the American people that his investigation has legs, despite perceptions of plodding inertia. He has provided hope that accountability in D.C. — rare as a MAGA sticker on a Prius — actually might happen.

Durham’s filing triggered hyperbolic conjecture on the right and nervous silence on the left. Don’t be distracted by reactions driven by politics. Look at the actual words Durham used; they’re troubling enough on their own.

Those words are found in a section of the filed motion titled “Factual Background.” In it, Durham expands on information that led him to indict an attorney connected to the Hillary Clinton campaign, Michael Sussmann, for allegedly lying to the FBI.

According to Durham, Sussmann brought information to the FBI in September 2016 that he claimed proved a direct connection between candidate Trump and Russia to get the FBI to investigate. But Durham says Sussmann falsely told the FBI that he was not presenting the information on behalf of any client when, in fact, he was billing the Clinton campaign for his time.

etc.

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@georgeob1,

With Putin's attack on Ukraine, the previous policy, justified as it was, has lost its meaning. Today's decisions are right

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@engineer,

engineer wrote:

I'm starting to think Putin really miscalculated here. It looks like he expected to roll into the capitol without a lot of problems and the country would just fold while the International Community looked on. Now he's getting a tough response from Ukraine and a very coordinated response from the International Community. Also, lots of credit to Biden and Johnson, this is the most coordinated diplomatic response I've seen in a long time. I read in the Guardian that Johnson has been instrumental in getting Germany to go all in, including sending arms. Biden's approach of revealing intel ahead of the invasion now looks nothing short of brilliant. He's completely cut the Russian propaganda machine off at the knees, preventing their misinformation from getting traction.

Putin's miscalculation is very evident now, though I'll readily concede that I did not expect the Ukrainian resistance to be nearly as strong and effective as it has turned out to be. The serious errors in Russian military operations (for example sending heavily loaded transport aircraft, unescorted into an area in which they didn't yet have control of the airspace) were also a surprise.
On reflection your suggestion that Biden's continued recitation of our intelligence findings was an inspired way to defeat Putin's likely propaganda, is indeed a thought provoking insight, though had the strength of the Ukrainian resistance been less, it likely wouldn't appear very inspired right now. That said, I can't dismiss the possibility of knowing intent. We should wait to see how the (sometimes opportunistic) after action reports & analysis treat the matter.

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Moscow braces for market meltdown Monday as new sanctions hit

Quote:

Moscow is bracing for economic panic as markets open on Monday morning, with the value of the rouble expected to plummet after the US and European Union announced unprecedented sanctions over the weekend.

Those measures targeted the Russian central bank, which has intervened to prop up the value of the rouble following Vladimir Putin’s order to invade Ukraine. They also marked the first time Russian banks have been excluded from the Swift international payments system.
...

Videos circulated on social media of long lines at some Russian ATMs on Sunday morning, although the rush for currency is expected to begin in earnest on Monday as markets open.

There are already signs that the value of the rouble has tumbled. By Sunday evening, Russia’s Tinkoff Bank was buying dollars for 89 rubles and selling them for 154 roubles, nearly double the price just three weeks ago.

The sanctioning of Russia’s central bank, which experts called “unprecedented”, could halt or limit interventions to prop up the value of the currency, making it harder to insulate Russians from the economic backlash of the invasion.

“Sanctioning the central bank is unprecedented,” said Maria Shagina of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs and the Geneva International Sanctions Network. “I think for one of the largest economies in the world – the size matters here. Previously it was only Iran, Venezuela, Syria that were under a maximum pressure campaign.”

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@georgeob1,

I think the other part is how prepared NATO and affiliated countries were to respond to the invasion. Russia's playbook called for a certain amount of paralysis on the part of the west (which is certainly in line with history), but two days in, Putin faced a unified front across the EU (now including Hungary where the leader is a Putin ally), the US, Japan and he's not getting a lot of love from China. It seems like a lot of groundwork was laid in the days leading up to the invasion for that to happen. And while China is I'm sure happy to see the US distracted, they will also be happy to make bank from a depressed Ruble, sticking it to the Russian economy. Given all the noise from the US, my guess is the State Department can claim credit for that.

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