Ukraine, Russia, and the West

You think he’s not doing it?

https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1498922758985691137

This could get interesting. Drone pilots don’t die (well usually). I don’t think the world has seen a major siege attempted where the other side still has drones flying around picking off armaments.

I wonder how fast Turkey can make these things and get them to Ukraine.

Also do Russians have good anti-drone defense systems they can deploy in the field? I know they have some. But how close do they need to be to the armaments they’re protecting?

Also why doesn’t the US also sell them drones and train them on it? Is that somehow a red line whereas giving them SAMs and Stingers isn’t? Maybe they’re being trained on US drones right now - keeping the element of surprise until they start using them.

I’m telling you guys. Drone warfare is a whole new world.

This is disappointing. Says UKR only has 12 drones (but more on the way). And the freaking Chinese drones that civilians use for reconnaissance could be grounded by China at any time. Also Russia has used those same drones to drop explosives in Donbas in the past.

I thought fighter jets did end up going to Ukraine

I think that was propaganda. Unless the lie is that they are actually going but the countries are denying it. I feel like that would be an easy lie to disprove though. So most likely no planes imo.

https://twitter.com/AnshelPfeffer/status/1498721820941463565

My experiment with following Dee Snider has ended after 2 days. Nothing offensive just endless nonsense.

It’s an old talking point that was already being used to justify the invasion before it started.

I think toddler-brain, as @chrisv calls it, gets a bad rap. If toddler-brain says, “Hmmm, it seems like Putin is a bad guy,” that’s a model that actually gets us pretty far. At least in some ways, just as far as John Mearsheimer’s idea that Ukraine suffers because they were insufficiently pragmatic about what Putin wanted and what he might do to them.

One of @BillHaywood’s first posts yesterday was a link to something written by John Matlock, whose views are similar to Mearsheimer’s. Matlock says this crisis was predictable. In fact he did predict it. In 1997! Maybe that seems impressive, but if it took 25 years to occur, maybe it wasn’t all that certain to happen. And even if it was, toddler-brain would make the same prediction (though it wouldn’t do so until Putin became President in '99).

Matlock says this crisis was “willfully precipitated” by US Presidents and NATO. Well, toddler-brain says the same, albeit about Putin. Unfortunately we probably can’t get agreement on which claim is correct.

Matlock says this crisis could have been avoided by guaranteeing Putin that NATO would not expand. Toddler-brain disagrees but these assertions can’t be checked.

Matlock says this crisis can be resolved by common sense, i.e. giving Putin what he wants. To be fair, this was before the invasion so it’s not clear if common sense now dictates we back off so that Putin can carve up Ukraine at his leisure. Toddler-brain says this won’t work. It’s unlikely we’ll be testing this difference.

One more thing to look at would be what Matlock and Mearsheimer predicted about what Putin would do in the lead-up to the invasion. I don’t think that’s in any of the material that’s been linked, so TBD. Obviously toddler-brain says Putin was going to do exactly what he’s done and has something to say about how he’ll proceed, too.

Toddler-brain doesn’t seem so bad at making predictions, even compared to the experts! Twain said God created war so Americans (quintessential toddler-brains) would learn geography. Well, toddler-brain can be also be refined with historical fact and political science and philosophy and what have you, but I don’t think we need PhDs in these areas to look at the situation and have reasonable, maybe even useful things to say about it.

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Sounds like you’re not going to take it anymore.

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Toddler-brain got us into WWII. Messer and Matlock would have kept us on the sidelines - clearly the pragmatic choice. The world would be a very different place right now.

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I took it for 2 days. but no, not anymore.

https://twitter.com/olgatokariuk/status/1498916774397550595

That’s a lot of dumplings!

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https://twitter.com/ABarbashin/status/1498915988154335235

https://twitter.com/ABarbashin/status/1498915990402383872

https://twitter.com/ABarbashin/status/1498915991950172160

https://twitter.com/ABarbashin/status/1498915993434923010

Biden’s master plan to pit Russia against the EU while he reaps the spoils. Genius!

Hmm - this is very interesting if true. I wonder how fast Turkey can crank these things out.

Hey let’s see some actual toddler brain

https://twitter.com/adamcrafton_/status/1498929370357972994?s=21

Fuck me man I just put my daughter down to bed this hits hard

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I wonder if maybe Putin isn’t planning to invade Kyiv. Just cut off Kharkiv and all the predominantly Russian-speaking areas, claim them for Russia, then say “ok truce” and declare victory.

I think he could take a lot of the east and lay siege to Kiev and then the extortionate negotiations begin.

https://twitter.com/VladDavidzon/status/1498688774640914433

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Yeah it seems like Russia won’t start really negotiating until they at least have Kyiv surrounded. But they do seem to be going really hard at Kharkiv while Kyiv is pretty peaceful right now.

https://twitter.com/MarQs__/status/1498921371015000066