Re: The Russia vs Ukraine show
Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2023 1:12 pm
I heard via NBC that someone has claimed that he was on a second Wagner plane, and that he uses body doubles. Which sounds like total BS but who knows..
Leaving false strength conventions behind
https://www.exodus-strength.com/forum/
pissed off putin?GlasgowJock wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 10:29 am https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66599733
Completely shocked I tell you, shocked!!1
I don't think anyone fully understands what has occurred with Prigozhin. It is probably one of the most bizarre coup attempts in history. That said, my take:mikeylikey wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 6:31 pm Serious question…
Was Prigozhin an idiot for getting on a plane in Russia? Or was he smart enough to know Putin could kill him no matter what he did and it’d be less painful to just let it bappen.
IOW is he Carlo gullibly getting in the car to the “airport” or is he Tessio going, “meh:.. that’s business”
mikeylikey wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 6:31 pm Serious question…
Was Prigozhin an idiot for getting on a plane in Russia? Or was he smart enough to know Putin could kill him no matter what he did and it’d be less painful to just let it bappen.
IOW is he Carlo gullibly getting in the car to the “airport” or is he Tessio going, “meh:.. that’s business”
that's a great questionmbasic wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 6:09 ammikeylikey wrote: ↑Wed Aug 23, 2023 6:31 pm Serious question…
Was Prigozhin an idiot for getting on a plane in Russia? Or was he smart enough to know Putin could kill him no matter what he did and it’d be less painful to just let it bappen.
IOW is he Carlo gullibly getting in the car to the “airport” or is he Tessio going, “meh:.. that’s business”
so then the question is .... were the 8 other people getting on the plane with Prigozhin idiots?
I don't think Putin is killing his top generals. I think it is mafia style killings by Putin's captains. If someone starts to gain Putin's esteem, Putin's captains will put get rid of them. They don't want a challenge to their position.mbasic wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 8:07 ameventually get killed by Putin, even if the fake-coup had never happened. Apparently, the higher up in the ranks you are in RUS, or the more success you have running your part of the military .... well, you are at risk (From Puty) for various reasons. Its a fine line: ou want to do a good job so you don't get sacked or killed, but you don't want to do TOO GOOD of a job either
point is same, it seems when you get a little too involved in the political/military system over there, all roads lead to unfortunate accidentsaurelius wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 10:05 amI don't think Putin is killing his top generals. I think it is mafia style killings by Putin's captains. If someone starts to gain Putin's esteem, Putin's captains will put get rid of them. They don't want a challenge to their position.mbasic wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 8:07 ameventually get killed by Putin, even if the fake-coup had never happened. Apparently, the higher up in the ranks you are in RUS, or the more success you have running your part of the military .... well, you are at risk (From Puty) for various reasons. Its a fine line: ou want to do a good job so you don't get sacked or killed, but you don't want to do TOO GOOD of a job either
From that standpoint okay. But it is vastly different for Putin to be killing people versus Putin's captains acting independently. We could be seeing a consolidation of power in the Kremlin at a level below Putin with Putin more of a figurehead. This is actually more dangerous for UKR and the world at large because who do we deal with? Who is/are the person/people that need to be negotiated with?
If there is one thing I have learned from the movies is that you don't do this sort of thing without clearing it with the boss first.aurelius wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 10:05 amI don't think Putin is killing his top generals. I think it is mafia style killings by Putin's captains. If someone starts to gain Putin's esteem, Putin's captains will put get rid of them. They don't want a challenge to their position.mbasic wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 8:07 ameventually get killed by Putin, even if the fake-coup had never happened. Apparently, the higher up in the ranks you are in RUS, or the more success you have running your part of the military .... well, you are at risk (From Puty) for various reasons. Its a fine line: ou want to do a good job so you don't get sacked or killed, but you don't want to do TOO GOOD of a job either
There is zero chance a plane was shot down by Moscow without the midget giving the order.mikeylikey wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 10:48 amIf there is one thing I have learned from the movies is that you don't do this sort of thing without clearing it with the boss first.aurelius wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 10:05 amI don't think Putin is killing his top generals. I think it is mafia style killings by Putin's captains. If someone starts to gain Putin's esteem, Putin's captains will put get rid of them. They don't want a challenge to their position.mbasic wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 8:07 ameventually get killed by Putin, even if the fake-coup had never happened. Apparently, the higher up in the ranks you are in RUS, or the more success you have running your part of the military .... well, you are at risk (From Puty) for various reasons. Its a fine line: ou want to do a good job so you don't get sacked or killed, but you don't want to do TOO GOOD of a job either
Agreed. I was referring to all of the other 'mysterious' deaths of Russian high ranking officers. I don't believe UKR has the capability to assassinate Russians. That would make them probably the world's best black ops outfit.
You need to watch more movies. These things start to happen when the boss is perceived as weak.mikeylikey wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 10:48 amIf there is one thing I have learned from the movies is that you don't do this sort of thing without clearing it with the boss first.
“Our experience since the foundation of the Republic,” wrote journalist Walter Lippmann in 1943, “has shown that domestic division over foreign relations is the outward and visible consequence — and not the cause — of an insolvent foreign policy.”
By “insolvent,” Lippmann meant a foreign policy with strategic ends beyond its military and diplomatic means. His argument resonates today as House Republicans resist the White House’s request for a new aid package for Ukraine. Prevailing opinion in Washington holds that GOP recalcitrance is causing problems in the United States’ Ukraine strategy. But it’s at least in equal measure the consequence of them.
Those problems were laid bare this past week in bracing remarks by Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top general, in an interview with the Economist. He pronounced that Ukraine’s counteroffensive, in which the West had invested great hopes and billions of dollars in armaments, was unlikely to achieve a decisive breakthrough: “Just like in the First World War, we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate.”
This was foreseeable. A year ago, when Ukraine had the momentum — having routed the Russians in Kharkiv and Kherson — Gen. Mark A. Milley, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggested a negotiated settlement to the war. Like Zaluzhny, he made an explicit comparison to World War I, noting that early on in that war it became clear that it was “not winnable anymore, militarily.”
It’s quite possible that negotiations were at that point infeasible — that the Russians would have refused any talks, and that the Ukrainians could not have been dissuaded from making a decisive push to retake more of their occupied territory. But at least in public, the Biden administration made no effort to try. After Milley’s exploratory statements were roundly dismissed, the White House committed to backing Ukraine’s counteroffensive as long as it takes.
As Zaluzhny diplomatically pointed out, the U.S. administration didn’t always act decisively. Long-range missiles and tanks “were most relevant to us last year, but they only arrived this year,” he told the Economist, which made it easier for the Russians to retrench.
Whether this was because of bureaucratic inertia, or President Biden’s effort to manage escalation risk, the result in the same: Ukraine today finds itself worse off than it was last November. Its troops are exhausted and depleted, its weapons stocks are running low, and Western publics are more polarized over providing further support.
Republican members of Congress who have voted no on Ukraine aid bills — their growing ranks now include House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) — are widely maligned among Washington’s foreign policy elite. At worst, they are cast as authoritarians who want Russian President Vladimir Putin to win; at best, they are isolationists who don’t understand the United States’ historic role in the world.
Some Republicans skeptical of Ukraine aid surely fall into these categories. But others have well-grounded concerns about the viability of the U.S. strategy. Aid votes are one of Congress’s few points of leverage over an administration’s foreign policy. A recent letter to the Biden administration from a group of House Republicans insists that before Congress approves more funding, “we should understand the end-state goal and exit criteria” — hardly an impertinent request.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive was supposed to sustain political support for Kyiv by proving that it could reconquer lost territory. Now, supporters of Ukraine might need to make the inverse argument: Ukraine is not reconquering substantial territory, and aid is needed indefinitely to forestall a devastating defeat.
The window for a negotiated settlement favorable to Ukraine — if there ever was one — has surely closed, as Russia sees a technologically stalemated battlefield in which it has a long-term advantage in manpower. Ukraine now needs to outlast the Russians; Putin is not immortal, and authoritarian power transitions can be bumpy.
The United States should never recognize Putin’s illicit conquests. But it might need to pivot from dreaming of victory to preparing to live with stalemate. The stalemate in World War I was broken by U.S. entry as a direct combatant against Germany. But there is virtually no appetite in the United States for direct war with Russia. Russian victory in Ukraine would be a terrible blow to U.S. interests, but not terrible enough to risk nuclear war.
The foreign policy establishment’s ambitions for a defeated Russia, contrasted with the attritional slog on the ground that has developed instead, reflect classic strategic insolvency. If the administration articulated an achievable endgame and the plan to attain it, congressional resistance to Ukraine aid might stop growing.
Most in Congress see Russia as an American adversary and understand the importance of an independent Ukraine. It should be possible to rally congressional majorities around that shared vision. But as the counteroffensive winds down, Ukraine’s supporters will need to rethink their political approach. It won’t work anymore to simply deride or condescend to skeptics. They aren’t the problem; the strategy is.
Perhaps the push and pull in Congress can help forge a more durable one.