world war 3 thread

[sonatine]

Olha Koba, a psychologist in Kyiv, said that "anger and hate in this situation is a normal reaction and important to validate." But it is important to channel it into something useful, she said, such as making incendiary bombs out of empty bottles

[sonatine]

the hot political take around the gov watercooler is putins just going to apeshit and try to wholesale murder every living thing in ukraine for the next week or two.

related note NYC has put itself on 'ultra high alert' (lmao) regarding russian cyber attacks.

translation: they think they are going to pull the plug on NYC's grid. which would be uhhh bad. just... real bad.

[Sanlmar]

I’ve written over the years about doing physical security for substations in the northeast. I am absolutely convinced that the grid will come under attack. Easy target. Built during simpler times.

We have never had a war with a foreign enemy on domestic soil. That narrative will inevitably change. What constitutes the definition of invasion will be redefined.

My difficulty is forecasting the grid outage consequences in a constructive way.

I know your nat gas (you are propane?) generator does a weekly test of itself but give it a pm with a service guy.

[sonatine]

Sanlmar https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...ippled-ukraine

[sonatine]

(sorry if weve had this convo before)

[sonatine]

https://politizoom.com/the-best-expl...y-performance/ ( warning article is very badly written)

a not terrible piece of insight from a mil guy. tldr russian graft and corruption are almost entirely unchecked so they basically dont have a conventional military force at this point. so you have shit like convoys with cheap chinese tires on trucks.

also pretty much all their recent wars have been russian advisors giving terse directions to pro-russian locals on the ground. this war is not that.

whats curious if they dont even mention the decade+ of CIA training UA has been getting to help it deal with its separatist problems. so you know, not a great piece of journalism. but the corruption -> shitty army angle does hold up to scrutiny.

christ knows i dont want to find out the hard way but honestly you gotta wonder how many of their nukes are even in serviceable condition. which probably explains this:

probably related: russia reached out today to re-open discussions on the START nuclear reduction treaty, im told. makes sense. russia has about 4500 nuclear warheads.. why just get rid of the duds quietly when you can turn it into PR event and bargaining chip all at once.

still nice to see.

[betcheckbet]

Normally I’d be convinced this was a fake viral video Under any other circumstances.

[sonatine]

heard someone posit that russia was rope-a-doping and waiting for the US to get more involved before they start landing actual body blows.

that said, RU just reached out to china to request arms and support so honestly while im not ruling that out, i wouldnt bet on it.

[Sanlmar]

Why you leaving out Syria and India? I’m checking thread title. Seems germane

[sonatine]

Sanlmar im skeptical about this china/india alliance because china matters everywhere and india simply doesnt. indias involvement in any of this is a massive head scratcher because india and china armies _constantly_ murder each others soldiers in kashmir and not in small numbers. honestly i think modi sees america as a nation in terminal decline and is grabbing for life preservers because he thinks the futures of tech jobs and shitty sosh media apps are going to somehow be russian/chinese. which honestly demonstrates how truly cloistered and feeble modi's world view is and exactly why he got on so well with trump. syria i have little to work with, its a russian vassal state. what am i missing about syria here? blind spot?

[sonatine]

i urge you to digest the entire thread, its basically a ted talk about how russia has de-intellectualized its military to eliminate potential threats in the ranks while essentially elevating its mafia to be above soldiers socially.

but yeah this right here is a fuckin gem and we literally saw a rogue FSB officer call the cherry picking data issues out 2 weeks ago:

Embedded Tweet

[sonatine]

btw china is rolling out new covid lockdowns so factor that into your russian war hell bingo card.

[sonatine]

by the by, putin is in fact playing hitlers game flawlessly:

- be the aggressor against dovish adversaries
- demand concessions to pull the plug on aggression
- scale up aggression/concessions against your next target, rinse wash repeat

like im sorry but thats exactly what hes doing.

1. Chechnya, 1999 - 1 million
2. Georgia, 2009 - 4 million
3. Syria, 2015 - 17 million
4. Ukraine, 2022 - 44 million

hes basically chipping up. i think putin's immediate ambitions probably do not extend beyond ukraine and that chunk of moldava, but he's already offered the 'concession' olive branch regarding control of those 'independent' areas in ukraine and probably decided to simply gamble for the whole of ukraine when he didnt get his interim concessions.

gotta wonder what math got china, india, and russia to fall into line here.

[sonatine]

chinese tech stocks are down two trillion+ today

Panic Selling Grips Chinese Stocks in Biggest Plunge Since 2008

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...itical-worries

[sonatine]

it really is interesting that trump and johnson rode into office on the literal exact same waves of populist / protectionist / right wing xenophobic agitprop and suddenly russia is totally comfortable with launching an invasion on european soil.

that said try to find a pandemic that ended without a russian invasion hot on its heels. seriously, go look.

[Sanlmar]

Quick aside.

Population growth is vital for economic growth, and the two are tightly correlated. But the United States just had the lowest population growth in history, and it was close to none at all.

it would behoove you to always remember that India is still growing. Never be dismissive

[sonatine]

"Ukraine and Russia reportedly draw up fifteen-point draft deal to end war, terms include Ukraine renouncing NATO membership ambitions, limits on armed forces in return for security guarantees"

make of that wha tyou will

[Bob]

a treaty with putin is not a valid security guarantee, but nato ambitions might be?

[sonatine]

a treaty with putin is not a valid security guarantee, but nato ambitions might be?

personally i just assumed all the shit-talking UA was doing at NATO inaction throughout this was scripted so they could lend an air of legitimacy to any potential deal with a 'no NATO ambition' clause in it.

the only goal here is just to get RU tf out of UA and quietly shore up UA defenses after the fact.

[sonatine]

like this is so poignant;

*CORRECT: BIDEN DID NOT SPECIFY WHETHER DRONES WOULD BE ARMED

yeah we are shipping thousands of kamakaze drones to UA but dont sweat it putin they arent armed.

you know, until they are.