yesterday i ran into a couple articles that explain why we have government…
Congress earmarks climate grants for rich, white areas – E&E News Members of Congress used earmarks to steer millions of dollars to affluent, largely white communities through a federal climate-mitigation program that is supposed to prioritize helping disadvantaged communities, an E&E News analysis shows. The earmarks, included in the $1.5 trillion fiscal 2022 spending plan signed by President Biden last week, direct spending in a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant program that FEMA recently redesigned to stress environmental justice. But lawmakers directed FEMA to give millions of dollars in grants to some of the richest and whitest communities in their districts. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) got $2.25 million for Newburyport to rebuild a coastal retaining wall that protects the city’s downtown and a waterfront boardwalk. A city of 18,000 on Massachusetts’ exclusive North Shore, Newburyport has a median household income of $111,000 and a population that is 93 percent non-Hispanic white, according to census figures. Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) got $350,000 for Longboat Key to elevate a flood-prone roadway. The town of 7,500 people on the Gulf Coast south of Tampa has a median household income of $108,000 and a population that is 95 percent white.. Rep. David Price (D-N.C.) said in a statement that his $2.175 million earmark for Wake Forest to repair a reservoir dam will protect both the town and downstream communities from flooding. Wake Forest, a town of 48,000 people in eastern North Carolina, has a median household income of $100,000 and is 70 percent white, Lawmakers included a total of 68 earmarks worth $154 million for FEMA’s climate-grant program in the Homeland Security spending bill. The program, called Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, has $1 billion to give this year to states and localities for projects that build long-term resilience to hazards including flooding, wildfire and storms. FEMA revised its selection process for BRIC grants last year after the agency faced criticism for giving most of the money in 2021 to affluent coastal states such as California, Maryland and New Jersey. The largest single grant last year was a $50 million award to Menlo Park, Calif., a rich Silicon Valley city that is home to Facebook headquarters. The new process, effective this year, adjusts the scoring system that ranks grant applicants and gives points to projects that benefit disadvantaged communities. FEMA has a broad definition of a “disadvantaged community” that includes not just low-income areas but also areas with high housing, energy or transportation costs, and areas facing disproportionate impacts from climate change. BRIC is one of 21 programs the administration chose as the first to implement Biden’s Justice40 initiative, which directs at least 40 percent of climate and energy “investment benefits” to disadvantaged communities. Matt Corridoni, a spokesperson for Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), said the two affluent, largely white communities for which Auchincloss got BRIC earmarks “were deemed disadvantaged” by Congress and the administration. Corridoni did not provide documentation of the designation after a reporter made several requests. Auchincloss got $1.5 million for a river dredging project in North Attleborough and $975,000 for dam improvements in Somerset. North Attleborough’s median household income is $92,000 and its population is 86 percent white. Somerset’s median income is $90,000 and its population is 95 percent white. A total of $25 million of BRIC earmarks are going to communities that have a median household income of at least $90,000 or a population that is at least 90 percent white, E&E News’ analysis shows. More than 93 percent of that money is from earmarks sponsored by Democrats or independents aligned with Democrats. * * * * * COVID Bailouts Helped Politically Connected Businesses More Than Others – New Research –
COVID has been a painfully expensive ordeal for countries across the world. Aside from the medical cost of vaccines, testing and treatment, economic aid for furlough schemes and sector bailouts dealt a serious blow to public finances.
Nations responded by distributing vast sums of money which are unlikely to be recouped. The UK alone spent £261 billion across different relief schemes, of which £15 billion is expected to be lost due to fraud and errors.
While the government can make a compelling case for the huge sums spent over the course of the pandemic so far, it is worth taking a closer look at where some of the money has gone.
Our research reveals that when it came to financial assistance by the government, some businesses were more likely than others to receive it. These included firms with political connections, and those owned by large and influential shareholders.
We discovered this by looking at a sample of publicly listed UK firms and examining their political connections using a variety of databases. We found that companies with powerful majority shareholders or with political links (a politician member of the board, for example), had a higher likelihood of being bailed out. This suggests that some firms were able to leverage their political capital to gain a competitive advantage.
I’d like to see all of the awards, and all of the earmarks.
” Rep. Al Lawson (D-Fla.) got $4.7 million to establish a disaster shelter in Gadsden County, where the median household income is $41,000 and 56 percent of the residents are Black.
Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) got $7.8 million for storm sewer improvements in North Chicago, which has a median household income of $43,000 and a population that is 30 percent white.
The leading recipient, Harris County, Texas, got $38 million for several flood-control projects.
Harris County, a middle-income area with a large Hispanic population, has received hundreds of millions of dollars in mitigation grants from FEMA over the years and is one of the top overall recipients. The county includes most of Houston and its suburbs.
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
[The problem with the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 is that security guarantees were made by the US, UK, and Russia. At best it was signed wearing rose colored glasses with respect to future Russian leadership. Mostly though it was a matter of elite convenience and political expedience to achieve progress on controlling nuclear proliferation on the fledgling Ukraine’s dime. NATO was not involved making the involvement of the US and UK limited in response capability given the rest of NATO were the closest neighbors to Ukraine that would be most effected if war broke out.]
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
The unfolding invasion of Ukraine will have far-reaching repercussions that extend way beyond a breach of international law and a violation of the country’s territorial integrity. As American international relations expert David Yost notes, Russia’s actions will weaken the credibility of major power security assurances, undermine the nuclear nonproliferation regime and dampen prospects for future disarmament.
Putin’s decision to invade is in direct violation of the Budapest Memorandum, a key instrument assuring Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The memorandum was struck in 1994, following lengthy and complicated negotiations involving the then Russian president Boris Yeltsin, Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, US president Bill Clinton and the then British prime minister John Major.
Under the terms of the memorandum, Ukraine agreed to relinquish its nuclear arsenal – the world’s third-largest, inherited from the collapsed Soviet Union – and transfer all nuclear warheads to Russia for decommissioning. This enabled Ukraine to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear state.
The NPT is a legally-binding instrument that recognises only five countries as legitimate holders of nuclear weapons: China, France, Russia, the UK and the US. All other countries are banned from developing a nuclear arsenal and those that have, including India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, are not parties to the NPT.
In exchange for giving up its nuclear arsenal, Ukraine initially sought legally binding guarantees from the US that it would intervene should Ukraine’s sovereignty be breached. But when it became clear that the US was not willing to go that far, Ukraine agreed to somewhat weaker – but nevertheless significant – politically binding security assurances to respect its independence and sovereignty which guaranteed its existing borders. China and France subsequently extended similar assurances to Ukraine, but did not sign the Budapest Memorandum.
The Budapest Memorandum consists of a series of political assurances whereby the signatory states commit to “respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine”. But the meaning of the security assurances was deliberately left ambiguous. According to a former US diplomat who participated in the talks, Steven Pifer, it was understood that if there was a violation, there would be a response incumbent on the US and the UK. And while that response was not explicitly defined, Pifer notes that: “there is an obligation on the United States that flows from the Budapest Memorandum to provide assistance to Ukraine, and […] that would include lethal military assistance”.
Russia first broke its commitments under the Budapest Memorandum in 2014, with its annexation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine. The international response at the time was lacklustre – although the US and the UK did subsequently step up their efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s armed forces through training and provision of lethal defensive arms. At the time, a committee of the UK House of Lords noted that:
“As one of the four signatories of the Budapest Memorandum (1994), which pledged to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the UK had a particular responsibility when the crisis erupted. The government has not been as active or as visible on this issue as it could have been.”
Serious violation
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine today is an even more serious violation and effectively buries Russia’s assurances in the Budapest Memorandum. Not only that, but Putin’s recent order to put Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces “on high alert” is a further repudiation of Russia’s assurances towards Ukraine, as it raises the spectre – no matter how distant – of a nuclear war.
The US and UK responses in the face of Russia’s recent aggression have been limited. Both countries offered Ukraine financing, military equipment and training and have applied increasingly strict sanctions on Russia. But they have ruled out any direct intervention, such as imposing no-fly zones over Ukraine, for fear of being dragged into a war with Russia. While this limited response fulfils the letter of the US and UK’s commitments under the Budapest Memorandum, the impression that emerges is very much that Ukraine was left on its own to fight an unlawful, nuclear-capable aggressor.
It is unsurprising, perhaps, that some Ukrainian leaders and the public feel betrayed and consider that the security assurances they received in the Budapest Memorandum are not worth the paper they were written on.
This may have far-reaching consequences for the future of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. Other states in Russia’s neighbourhood – and in the wider world – may begin to question whether such assurances are sufficiently reliable to ensure their long-term security. This may, in turn, undermine the credibility of major power security assurances, previously used as bargaining chips to dissuade countries such as Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine from possessing nuclear weapons.
This experience may also change the rhetoric around nuclear nonproliferation that, at present, casts states seeking nuclear weapons as “international pariahs”. In light of Ukraine’s experience, the pursuance of nuclear weapons to safeguard one’s sovereignty and independence may be seen as more legitimate.
The image of Ukraine being invaded by Russia despite its security assurances and being left largely to fend for itself in this conflict may trigger a resurgant interest in nuclear weapons. Some evidence of this has already begun to emerge, for instance in Japan, where the former prime minister Shinzo Abe argued that “Japan should break a longstanding taboo and hold an active debate on nuclear weapons – including a possible ‘nuclear-sharing’ programme.”
Such a development would be dangerous not only because it serves to weaken the nuclear nonproliferation regime, but it could also lead to increased chances of an avoidable nuclear war.
“Pif iz er notes that: “there is an obligation on the United States that flows from the Budapest Memorandum to provide assistance to Ukraine, and […] that would include lethal military assistance”.
This is quite simply a lie.
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
[Maybe, but it is not entirely clear to me exactly whom that you are accusing of telling the lie. The quote was from the Conversation piece which linked to Brookings Institute where the transcript of a panel discussion of the Budapest Memorandum regarding the Russian seizure of Crimea can be downloaded. The following are Pifer’s words on this from the uncorrected transcript
But the fourth question, the one we’ll talk about today, and I think some Ukrainians would say the most important condition, was nuclear weapons confer security benefits. What provides for Ukraine’s security after the nuclear weapons are gone? And these questions were taken up in a discussion originally between Ukraine and Russia, but then taken up in a trilateral process which was joined by the United States over the course of the fall of 1993. And in January of 1994 Presidents Clinton, Yeltsin, Kravchuk signed the Trilateral Statement in Moscow. And that document contains the security assurances and basically said when Ukraine accedes the non-proliferation treaty as a non-nuclear-weapons state the United States, Russia, and Britain will provide these security assurances to Ukraine. And in the fall of 1994 Ukraine acceded to the NPT as a non-nuclear-weapons state, and on December 5, 1995 Presidents Clinton, Prime Minister Major, President Yelsten, and then-Ukrainian President Kuchma signed the Budapest Memorandum. Now that document contains a set of security assurances in which the United States, Russia, and Britain agreed to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, its independence, and its territorial integrity, they agreed not to use force or threaten to use force against Ukraine, and they agree not to apply economic coercion against Ukraine. And I would argue that most of those commitments have now been violated over the course of the last year by Russian actions, beginning with the seizure of Crimea and then with Russian support for the separatists, and then actual presence of Russian military forces in Eastern Ukraine.
A couple of observations about the Budapest Memorandum. It is the Budapest Memorandum on assurances not guarantees, and that’s an important distinction. The difference is for an American a guarantee means commitment of military force. NATO allies have a security guarantee, South Korea and Japan, by virtue of the mutual defense pacts have a security guarantee. In the case of Ukraine we were talking about assurances which was something less, it meant that 82nd Airborne was not coming, and that was understood in Kiev. We were very clear on that question. A second point is that the actual Memorandum does not prescribe specific actions except in two cases. It prescribes a consulting mechanism and it prescribes an appeal to the United Nations Security Council in the event that nuclear weapons are used against Ukraine or threatened against Ukraine. But other actions are sort of left undefined, but that’s actually not unusual. If you look at the North Atlantic Treaty Article 5 it says NATO allies will consider an attack against one an attack against all and that they will respond as they deem appropriate, but it does not prescribe specific actions. But it still was I think clear from the negotiations that took place between Washington and Kiev and also with the Russians that it was understood that if there was a violation then — I mean Ukrainian concern as articulated to us was about Russian violations of Ukrainian sovereignty or territorial integrity — that there would be a response incumbent on the United States and on Great Britain…”
[So, who is telling a lie; the Conversation, Brookings, or Pfizer?]
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
The relatively recent link and full article from a credible source posted here at 7:58 AM 3/23/22 and presently awaiting moderation should shed considerable light on the issues surrounding the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, that was supposedly meant to protect the sovereignty of Ukraine.
Absolutely nothing in the Budapest Agreement commits anyone to ” defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine when Putin’s Russia seized control of Crimea as they promised to do in the Budapest Accord of 1994″.
Hard to comprehend this line of thought when the agreement is well known. Not only that, but the only requirement of that agreement in the case of an attack it to appeal to the UN Security Council for assistance.
Which means if the attacker was Russia that appeal was totally worthless as Russia has veto power over the Council. Ukraine was well aware of that in 1994.
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
Well – err – yes, but when the full article that I copied from the Conversation escapes moderation here, then that will become more clear as it essentially confirms what I wrote above regarding the memorandum as “a matter of elite convenience and political expedience to achieve progress on controlling nuclear proliferation on the fledgling Ukraine’s dime.” However, that article also explains how that grand bargain has likely backfired on the US and UK in the long run as well as Ukraine.
The Doomsday Clock has been sitting at 100 seconds until midnight for a couple of years now, but has not been updated since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia began.
Ukraine paid nothing for the removal of the nuclear weapons, they actually made money on the deal. Russia bought the nuclear material, and the US paid for the removal of everything else.
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
‘Ukraine paid nothing for the removal of the
nuclear weapons, they actually made money on the deal’
Did Ukraine actually have a say in the USSR parking a large portion of their thermonuclear arsenal in Ukraine? Why even bring that up.
You might just as well argue, as I have, that Ukraine – since it exists as ‘Russia’s little brother’ has no business to expect being treated any better than lately. (This may be true, but it is also extremely offensive to 44 million people.) Geopolitics is a bitch!
The Budapest Agreement, or Memorandum, was not a treaty, in that the US Senate did not approve it. Somewhat like the Paris Climate Accord, in that it was signed by one President, and ignored (‘abrogated’) by a subsequent President.
This is one way of staying out of huge conflagrations which Congress never approved of. It doesn’t always work.
Also to be noted, apparently there is no agreement NOT to use TACTICAL nuclear weapons when one who possesses them thinks ‘Why not? We’ve tried everything else.’ Truman refused to do this in Korea. Who knows about Putin?
I would be moving the Doomsday Clock forward a bit, if it were up to me.
Fred, you need to read the agreement. All tenets were kept. It was merely to get the nuclear weapons out of Ukraine. Neither the West nor Russia wanted them there, and Ukraine certainly could not afford to keep and maintain them even if they could figure out a way to get around Russian control of their launching.
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
However, the ‘reward’ for turning over the nukes – because there needed to be a reward apparently – was a guarantee of territorial integrity. Are you going to insist that was something of a formality?
Apparently Ukraine took it seriously – go figure. Perhaps they were desperate.
At the time, the ‘great powers’ assumed that Russia could only grow more ‘westernized’ over time. Totally ignoring a historical tendency for Russia to always feel persecuted by their western neighbors, or perhaps one might say ‘all countries to their west’ (including US).
There is a certain inevitability to current events in Ukraine. Hopefully they won’t spread further west.
NATO’s chief, Jens Stoltenberg, says the alliance will double the number of battlegroups in its eastern flank by deploying four new battle groups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, a significant bolstering of NATO’s presence in the region.
Nato will deploy significant extra troops to countries in eastern Europe which are part of the alliance, but UK ministers warned there would be no forces going to Ukraine itself to avoid an “existential” war between Russia and the west.
Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary general, chaired a virtual summit of 30 leaders on Friday (Feb 25), where the agreement was made to amass forces in eastern Europe. …
It would seem that no one in Europe or further west wants a world war over events in Ukraine.
Except Russia, which doesn’t seem to care much about this.
It looks much more serious than what started WW1, and certainly on a par with what started WW2, if you seriously believe that Ukraine has as much right to exist independently as Poland did.
Russia is in some sense a very poor country. With a GDP the size of Italy’s, as it is usually pointed out. A lot of historic places, a lot of history, a lot of wealth buried in the ground, but otherwise nothing much for them to lose in a global conflagration, or so they seem to think. Maybe we’ll find out afterwards that they were really just bluffing.
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
(CNN)Madeleine Albright died just as the murderous historic forces that she had spent her career trying to quell are raging in Europe again, unleashed by a nemesis, Vladimir Putin, who she had consistently warned was a grave threat to peace.
The first female secretary of state was exiled twice as a child refugee from the country of her birth, the former Czechoslovakia, by fascist and communist tyranny. That experience and the impact it had on her family forged her destiny as an academic, a diplomat and an American patriot. It also informed her approach to post-Cold War Europe and the shattering conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo during her time in the Clinton administration, as well as her strong support for NATO expansion into former Warsaw Pact nations. As he held Ukraine hostage before the invasion, Putin sought to force the Western alliance to reverse that move east.Albright’s passing on Wednesday comes at a moment when Europe is again being swept by fears of a belligerent Russia, mass refugee flows, civilian carnage and the fear of nuclear war as Putin’s invasion of Ukraine shatters 30 years of strategic stability. Until the end of her life, Albright was sounding the alarm about Putin’s intentions and character and she predicted the strategic disaster and bloody resistance he would face if he invaded Ukraine. “Instead of paving Russia’s path to greatness, invading Ukraine would ensure Mr. Putin’s infamy by leaving his country diplomatically isolated, economically crippled and strategically vulnerable in the face of a stronger, more united Western alliance,” Albright wrote in an essay in The New York Times on the eve of the war last month. “Ukraine is entitled to its sovereignty, no matter who its neighbors happen to be. In the modern era, great countries accept that, and so must Mr. Putin,” Albright wrote. “That is the message undergirding recent Western diplomacy. It defines the difference between a world governed by the rule of law and one answerable to no rules at all.”Those words, some of the last Albright would publish, defined a diplomatic career characterized by staunch support for democracy and the right of people to live in freedom, but also a willingness to try to talk strongmen down, including Putin or the late North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Il, the father of the Stalinist state’s current dynastic leader, whom she had visited in 2000.’Smart, but a very bad person’Albright had an early chance to examine Putin’s character, and she was the first senior US official to meet the new Russian President, early in 2000, soon after he took over from Boris Yeltsin. She emerged from their first three-hour encounter in the Kremlin praising the Russian leader’s “can-do approach” as she sought ways to engage Moscow in order to avoid a return to the Cold War chill. But as she revealed in The New York Times last month, her private opinion, recorded as she flew home, was more scathing and ominous and has been borne out by subsequent events. ” ‘Putin is small and pale,’ I wrote, ‘so cold as to be almost reptilian,’ ” Albright recalled in the Times essay. She also quoted another of her impressions at the time that predicted more than 20 years of growing hostility to the West, which culminated in the invasion.” ‘Putin is embarrassed by what happened to his country and determined to restore its greatness,’ ” Albright wrote, quoting her impressions at the time.Ironically, Albright used that meeting to try to convince Putin to show mercy in a war against separatists in the Russian republic of Chechnya, which involved a relentless bombardment that killed thousands of civilians. “Neither of us minced words on Chechnya,” she told reporters after failing to ease an offensive by Moscow that is now seen as a blueprint for the relentless bombing of civilians in Ukraine in a bid to break their will and resistance. Albright was generally supportive of efforts to convince Russia that NATO did not pose a threat to its security — at a time when the Obama administration tried to “reset” relations with Moscow.But by 2014, when Putin annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in what was, in hindsight, a rehearsal for his march into the rest of the country last month, Albright was again warning of the Russian leader’s wider ambitions.”Putin is delusional,” she said on CNN’s “New Day” in March of that year. “I think either he does not have the facts, he’s being fed propaganda or his own propaganda,” she said, responding to Russia’s claims it had a right to be in Crimea, which mirror the Russian leader’s justification for the wider war eight years later.Again, in 2016, Albright was warning of the need to confront Putin, calling him “smart, but a very bad person” in an interview with Austria’s Die Presse.But Albright’s domestic political loyalties as a Democrat had occasionally led her to disregard her own instincts. In 2012, for instance, she argued that then-Republican presidential nominee and now-Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah didn’t know what he was talking about when he said Russia was the number one security threat. But unlike many others, she said “sorry.””I personally owe an apology to now-Sen. Romney,” Albright said at a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee in 2019. “We underestimated Russia, and Putin has put them back on the scene.” A fervent Trump criticAlbright, a Georgetown University professor, had spent decades studying communist and fascist autocracy before she was plucked from relative obscurity to be then-President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the United Nations. That experience also informed her outspoken criticism of ex-President Donald Trump, who she warned was a threat to American democracy long before his denials of his 2020 election loss and incitement of the US Capitol insurrection. “I am not calling him a fascist — I am saying he has undemocratic instincts that trouble me a lot,” she told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in 2018. Albright put her comments about Trump in the context of the need to confront anti-democratic movements early on, before they mushroomed into dangerous extremism. Trump’s anti-immigrant demagoguery and hostility to refugees troubled her, especially as someone who had sought a haven from tyranny in the US.At the end of her life, Albright made no secret of her fear that vicious political forces of extremism, which had defined her destiny and caused so much carnage across the decades in Europe, were stirring again.”I am in my 80s and I have seen an awful lot. It took me a long time to find my voice,” Albright told Zakaria in the 2018 interview.”I did not have a high-level job until I was 55 years old. And I’m not going to shut up, frankly. I do think it’s important for those who have seen these kind of things to put out a warning.”
… Mr. Putin’s revisionist and absurd assertion that Ukraine was “entirely created by Russia” and effectively robbed from the Russian empire is fully in keeping with his warped worldview. Most disturbing to me: It was his attempt to establish the pretext for a full-scale invasion.
Should he invade, it will be a historic error.
In the 20-odd years since we met, Mr. Putin has charted his course by ditching democratic development for Stalin’s playbook. He has collected political and economic power for himself — co-opting or crushing potential competition — while pushing to re-establish a sphere of Russian dominance through parts of the former Soviet Union. Like other authoritarians, he equates his own well-being with that of the nation and opposition with treason. He is sure that Americans mirror both his cynicism and his lust for power and that in a world where everyone lies, he is under no obligation to tell the truth. Because he believes that the United States dominates its own region by force, he thinks Russia has the same right.
Instead of paving Russia’s path to greatness, invading Ukraine would ensure Mr. Putin’s infamy by leaving his country diplomatically isolated, economically crippled and strategically vulnerable in the face of a stronger, more united Western alliance.
the real takeaway for me from that was that Mad Albright was still lucid and insightful up to a few days before her death.
“what do we have an army for?” was not her best moment in my opinion at the time. so i was surprised when i found myself saying much the same thing when Putin invaded Ukraine.
still, the image of a serbian (?) boy crying his heart out after an American plane had killed his entire family [mistaking a farm cart for a tank…they all look the same from twenty thousand feet] hasn’t left me.
maybe massing our forces opposite Putin’s forces before the invasion would have been a better answer to what do we have an army for.in spite of treaties and former agreements and provocation….to a a provocation.
so far, i like sanctions better, if only our own dear people can withstand the terrible costs to themselves in the form of less gas at higher prices.
Not even, but perhaps almost the worst case is that Russia will resort to using tactical nuclear weapons and anthrax or nerve gas to force Ukraine to surrender, and the West will allow this to occur, maybe adding a whole bunch of additional sanctions.
(The real worst case would be like in ‘Dr Strangelove’ or ‘Failsafe’.)
It has been said by military experts that ‘losing 10% of a sizeable military force’ is enough to destroy it’s ‘military effectiveness’. This asserts that losing 10% will so devestate troop morale that they will be rendered ineffective’.
The Romans used a process called ‘decimation’ (i.e. allowing 10% of a legion to be killed or maimed) to ‘harden’ its forces. Teach them how to fight & win, as it were.
Political (?) experts have noted that losing 10% means they still have 90% left to ‘carry on’.
There are still apparently a lot of ‘conscripts’ (draftees) in the Russian army. Their morale would be questionable, ‘going forward’.
European leaders have suggested that use of chemical or biological weapons by Russia would be enough to bring about the creation of a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
Seems like that could be the next escalation, before using nukes maybe.
WASHINGTON— U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) joined his colleagues, led by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), in introducing a Senate resolution urging the Biden Administration to facilitate the transfer of aircraft, such as MiG-29s, and air defense systems to Ukraine. The resolution text can be found here.
“We must do everything in our power to help the people of Ukraine defend themselves against the monstrous actions of Vladimir Putin,” Senator Romney said. “That means getting them the capabilities they need—MiG-29 jets, air defense systems, anti-tank missiles, ammunition—to fight and keep their land and skies safe. America has a responsibility to defend freedom around the world, and we must not wait any longer—get Ukraine what they need now.” …
the US and NATO are defending Ukraine…as promised. I don’t think amybody anticipated that Russia would use nuclear blackmail to cover its “minor” aggression against Ukraine. That threat, or bluff, changes the picture a bit. Even in an honest world a promise will change when the conditions change beyond the reasonably expected limits forseen at the time of the promise. As it is the US and NATO countries are providing what appears to be very effective aid to Ukraine . It takes a different form than massive air and ground forces…that I, even I, would have used..but then saner people than I had to respect the nuclear threat. Ukrainian people are paying the price of our having to take the nuclear blackmail seriously. But it is still possible that our help will defeat Russia (Putin). Then we need to think hard about preventing this kind of threat from succeeding again….something that willl not be helped by everyone and his kid brother getting his own nukes. which seems to be what the politicians in the rest of the world are thinking in terms of.
I don’t think it is wise to let things like Mitt Romney or Lindsey Graham decide how and when we go to war.
Recent US history (going back to 9/11 or earlier – ‘Tonkin Gulf’) indicates that neither the Congress nor the President should be deciding ‘how and when we go to war’. Maybe get an AI to do so?
An AI would be exactly like a human except faster because an AI would be programmed by human consciousness except it would still be a computer able to recall more and process information faster. Watching others die on TV is certainly a physically cleaner way of waging war, but not necessarily more innocent.
My second point was that watching others die on TV does not affect a lot of people as much either when compared to being in the fighting personally oneself. Of course though, then much of that might be because in war, then anyone could be next (including oneself). I guess that maybe an AI could be programmed to have concern over its own survival or not, while us biological intelligence critters all share that concern with very few exceptions.
Just got back from a funeral service and my future looks to be getting busier soon now. Take care – til next time.
i’m not sure computers process more information than people. they certinly “read” faster and do calulations faster. but human brains are much better at parallel processing of an almost infinite amount of “data” and far more likely to discover something previously unnoticed than a computer. ….well, a person could argue about that. (but a computer couldn’t.)
and yes, worrying about who might be next is probably something we do better than computers. you could, i suppose. program a computer to recognize imminent catastrophe to itself and react to avoid it, but it wouldn’t care.
i wonder if you count all the time it takes to program a computer when calculating it’s “speed”? it’s real fast at doing the same thing over and over again. not so fast at figuring out the next best thing to do.
hope whatever you have to do is enjoyable. i’m stuck in the big muddy myself.
yesterday i ran into a couple articles that explain why we have government…
I’d like to see all of the awards, and all of the earmarks.
” Rep. Al Lawson (D-Fla.) got $4.7 million to establish a disaster shelter in Gadsden County, where the median household income is $41,000 and 56 percent of the residents are Black.
Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) got $7.8 million for storm sewer improvements in North Chicago, which has a median household income of $43,000 and a population that is 30 percent white.
The leading recipient, Harris County, Texas, got $38 million for several flood-control projects.
Harris County, a middle-income area with a large Hispanic population, has received hundreds of millions of dollars in mitigation grants from FEMA over the years and is one of the top overall recipients. The county includes most of Houston and its suburbs.
RE: Barkley Rosser’s AB post on February 27, 2022 –
[The problem with the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 is that security guarantees were made by the US, UK, and Russia. At best it was signed wearing rose colored glasses with respect to future Russian leadership. Mostly though it was a matter of elite convenience and political expedience to achieve progress on controlling nuclear proliferation on the fledgling Ukraine’s dime. NATO was not involved making the involvement of the US and UK limited in response capability given the rest of NATO were the closest neighbors to Ukraine that would be most effected if war broke out.]
[The linked article below has meat on the bone.]
Ukraine war: what is the Budapest Memorandum and why has Russia’s invasion torn it up?
Published: March 2, 2022 8.02am EST
The unfolding invasion of Ukraine will have far-reaching repercussions that extend way beyond a breach of international law and a violation of the country’s territorial integrity. As American international relations expert David Yost notes, Russia’s actions will weaken the credibility of major power security assurances, undermine the nuclear nonproliferation regime and dampen prospects for future disarmament.
Putin’s decision to invade is in direct violation of the Budapest Memorandum, a key instrument assuring Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The memorandum was struck in 1994, following lengthy and complicated negotiations involving the then Russian president Boris Yeltsin, Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, US president Bill Clinton and the then British prime minister John Major.
Under the terms of the memorandum, Ukraine agreed to relinquish its nuclear arsenal – the world’s third-largest, inherited from the collapsed Soviet Union – and transfer all nuclear warheads to Russia for decommissioning. This enabled Ukraine to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear state.
The NPT is a legally-binding instrument that recognises only five countries as legitimate holders of nuclear weapons: China, France, Russia, the UK and the US. All other countries are banned from developing a nuclear arsenal and those that have, including India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, are not parties to the NPT.
In exchange for giving up its nuclear arsenal, Ukraine initially sought legally binding guarantees from the US that it would intervene should Ukraine’s sovereignty be breached. But when it became clear that the US was not willing to go that far, Ukraine agreed to somewhat weaker – but nevertheless significant – politically binding security assurances to respect its independence and sovereignty which guaranteed its existing borders. China and France subsequently extended similar assurances to Ukraine, but did not sign the Budapest Memorandum.
The Budapest Memorandum consists of a series of political assurances whereby the signatory states commit to “respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine”. But the meaning of the security assurances was deliberately left ambiguous. According to a former US diplomat who participated in the talks, Steven Pifer, it was understood that if there was a violation, there would be a response incumbent on the US and the UK. And while that response was not explicitly defined, Pifer notes that: “there is an obligation on the United States that flows from the Budapest Memorandum to provide assistance to Ukraine, and […] that would include lethal military assistance”.
Russia first broke its commitments under the Budapest Memorandum in 2014, with its annexation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine. The international response at the time was lacklustre – although the US and the UK did subsequently step up their efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s armed forces through training and provision of lethal defensive arms. At the time, a committee of the UK House of Lords noted that:
“As one of the four signatories of the Budapest Memorandum (1994), which pledged to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the UK had a particular responsibility when the crisis erupted. The government has not been as active or as visible on this issue as it could have been.”
Serious violation
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine today is an even more serious violation and effectively buries Russia’s assurances in the Budapest Memorandum. Not only that, but Putin’s recent order to put Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces “on high alert” is a further repudiation of Russia’s assurances towards Ukraine, as it raises the spectre – no matter how distant – of a nuclear war.
The US and UK responses in the face of Russia’s recent aggression have been limited. Both countries offered Ukraine financing, military equipment and training and have applied increasingly strict sanctions on Russia. But they have ruled out any direct intervention, such as imposing no-fly zones over Ukraine, for fear of being dragged into a war with Russia. While this limited response fulfils the letter of the US and UK’s commitments under the Budapest Memorandum, the impression that emerges is very much that Ukraine was left on its own to fight an unlawful, nuclear-capable aggressor.
It is unsurprising, perhaps, that some Ukrainian leaders and the public feel betrayed and consider that the security assurances they received in the Budapest Memorandum are not worth the paper they were written on.
This may have far-reaching consequences for the future of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. Other states in Russia’s neighbourhood – and in the wider world – may begin to question whether such assurances are sufficiently reliable to ensure their long-term security. This may, in turn, undermine the credibility of major power security assurances, previously used as bargaining chips to dissuade countries such as Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine from possessing nuclear weapons.
This experience may also change the rhetoric around nuclear nonproliferation that, at present, casts states seeking nuclear weapons as “international pariahs”. In light of Ukraine’s experience, the pursuance of nuclear weapons to safeguard one’s sovereignty and independence may be seen as more legitimate.
The image of Ukraine being invaded by Russia despite its security assurances and being left largely to fend for itself in this conflict may trigger a resurgant interest in nuclear weapons. Some evidence of this has already begun to emerge, for instance in Japan, where the former prime minister Shinzo Abe argued that “Japan should break a longstanding taboo and hold an active debate on nuclear weapons – including a possible ‘nuclear-sharing’ programme.”
Such a development would be dangerous not only because it serves to weaken the nuclear nonproliferation regime, but it could also lead to increased chances of an avoidable nuclear war.
“P
if iz er notes that: “there is an obligation on the United States that flows from the Budapest Memorandum to provide assistance to Ukraine, and […] that would include lethal military assistance”.This is quite simply a lie.
EMike,
[Maybe, but it is not entirely clear to me exactly whom that you are accusing of telling the lie. The quote was from the Conversation piece which linked to Brookings Institute where the transcript of a panel discussion of the Budapest Memorandum regarding the Russian seizure of Crimea can be downloaded. The following are Pifer’s words on this from the uncorrected transcript
But the fourth question, the one we’ll talk about today, and I think some Ukrainians would say the most important condition, was nuclear weapons confer security benefits. What provides for Ukraine’s security after the nuclear weapons are gone? And these questions were taken up in a discussion originally between Ukraine and Russia, but then taken up in a trilateral process which was joined by the United States over the course of the fall of 1993. And in January of 1994 Presidents Clinton, Yeltsin, Kravchuk signed the Trilateral Statement in Moscow. And that document contains the security assurances and basically said when Ukraine accedes the non-proliferation treaty as a non-nuclear-weapons state the United States, Russia, and Britain will provide these security assurances to Ukraine. And in the fall of 1994 Ukraine acceded to the NPT as a non-nuclear-weapons state, and on December 5, 1995 Presidents Clinton, Prime Minister Major, President Yelsten, and then-Ukrainian President Kuchma signed the Budapest Memorandum. Now that document contains a set of security assurances in which the United States, Russia, and Britain agreed to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, its independence, and its territorial integrity, they agreed not to use force or threaten to use force against Ukraine, and they agree not to apply economic coercion against Ukraine. And I would argue that most of those commitments have now been violated over the course of the last year by Russian actions, beginning with the seizure of Crimea and then with Russian support for the separatists, and then actual presence of Russian military forces in Eastern Ukraine.
A couple of observations about the Budapest Memorandum. It is the Budapest Memorandum on assurances not guarantees, and that’s an important distinction. The difference is for an American a guarantee means commitment of military force. NATO allies have a security guarantee, South Korea and Japan, by virtue of the mutual defense pacts have a security guarantee. In the case of Ukraine we were talking about assurances which was something less, it meant that 82nd Airborne was not coming, and that was understood in Kiev. We were very clear on that question. A second point is that the actual Memorandum does not prescribe specific actions except in two cases. It prescribes a consulting mechanism and it prescribes an appeal to the United Nations Security Council in the event that nuclear weapons are used against Ukraine or threatened against Ukraine. But other actions are sort of left undefined, but that’s actually not unusual. If you look at the North Atlantic Treaty Article 5 it says NATO allies will consider an attack against one an attack against all and that they will respond as they deem appropriate, but it does not prescribe specific actions. But it still was I think clear from the negotiations that took place between Washington and Kiev and also with the Russians that it was understood that if there was a violation then — I mean Ukrainian concern as articulated to us was about Russian violations of Ukrainian sovereignty or territorial integrity — that there would be a response incumbent on the United States and on Great Britain…”
[So, who is telling a lie; the Conversation, Brookings, or Pfizer?]
Pardon me. I made an intermediate copy in Word to edit out extraneous carriage returns and got more than I bargained for in the past. sorry.
Do you not know how to C & P information???
The relatively recent link and full article from a credible source posted here at 7:58 AM 3/23/22 and presently awaiting moderation should shed considerable light on the issues surrounding the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, that was supposedly meant to protect the sovereignty of Ukraine.
Absolutely nothing in the Budapest Agreement commits anyone to ” defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine when Putin’s Russia seized control of Crimea as they promised to do in the Budapest Accord of 1994″.
Hard to comprehend this line of thought when the agreement is well known. Not only that, but the only requirement of that agreement in the case of an attack it to appeal to the UN Security Council for assistance.
Which means if the attacker was Russia that appeal was totally worthless as Russia has veto power over the Council. Ukraine was well aware of that in 1994.
EMike,
Well – err – yes, but when the full article that I copied from the Conversation escapes moderation here, then that will become more clear as it essentially confirms what I wrote above regarding the memorandum as “a matter of elite convenience and political expedience to achieve progress on controlling nuclear proliferation on the fledgling Ukraine’s dime.” However, that article also explains how that grand bargain has likely backfired on the US and UK in the long run as well as Ukraine.
The Doomsday Clock has been sitting at 100 seconds until midnight for a couple of years now, but has not been updated since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia began.
Ukraine paid nothing for the removal of the nuclear weapons, they actually made money on the deal. Russia bought the nuclear material, and the US paid for the removal of everything else.
Now the bill for the externalized costs is still being paid.
‘Ukraine paid nothing for the removal of the
nuclear weapons, they actually made money on the deal’
Did Ukraine actually have a say in the USSR parking a large portion of their thermonuclear arsenal in Ukraine? Why even bring that up.
You might just as well argue, as I have, that Ukraine – since it exists as ‘Russia’s little brother’ has no business to expect being treated any better than lately. (This may be true, but it is also extremely offensive to 44 million people.) Geopolitics is a bitch!
The Budapest Agreement, or Memorandum, was not a treaty, in that the US Senate did not approve it. Somewhat like the Paris Climate Accord, in that it was signed by one President, and ignored (‘abrogated’) by a subsequent President.
This is one way of staying out of huge conflagrations which Congress never approved of. It doesn’t always work.
Also to be noted, apparently there is no agreement NOT to use TACTICAL nuclear weapons when one who possesses them thinks ‘Why not? We’ve tried everything else.’ Truman refused to do this in Korea. Who knows about Putin?
I would be moving the Doomsday Clock forward a bit, if it were up to me.
Fred, you need to read the agreement. All tenets were kept. It was merely to get the nuclear weapons out of Ukraine. Neither the West nor Russia wanted them there, and Ukraine certainly could not afford to keep and maintain them even if they could figure out a way to get around Russian control of their launching.
That is an entirely rational synopsis.
However, the ‘reward’ for turning over the nukes – because there needed to be a reward apparently – was a guarantee of territorial integrity. Are you going to insist that was something of a formality?
Apparently Ukraine took it seriously – go figure. Perhaps they were desperate.
At the time, the ‘great powers’ assumed that Russia could only grow more ‘westernized’ over time. Totally ignoring a historical tendency for Russia to always feel persecuted by their western neighbors, or perhaps one might say ‘all countries to their west’ (including US).
There is a certain inevitability to current events in Ukraine. Hopefully they won’t spread further west.
If the memorandum were a treaty, it would be taken more seriously.
Or, at least, hopefully it would be. It probably isn’t really worth the paper it’s printed on.
Just in from the NY Times…
NATO’s chief, Jens Stoltenberg, says the alliance will double the number of battlegroups in its eastern flank by deploying four new battle groups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, a significant bolstering of NATO’s presence in the region.
Apparently, this was decided a month ago.
Nato to deploy extra troops to alliance nations in eastern Europe
Nato will deploy significant extra troops to countries in eastern Europe which are part of the alliance, but UK ministers warned there would be no forces going to Ukraine itself to avoid an “existential” war between Russia and the west.
Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary general, chaired a virtual summit of 30 leaders on Friday (Feb 25), where the agreement was made to amass forces in eastern Europe. …
It would seem that no one in Europe or further west wants a world war over events in Ukraine.
Except Russia, which doesn’t seem to care much about this.
It looks much more serious than what started WW1, and certainly on a par with what started WW2, if you seriously believe that Ukraine has as much right to exist independently as Poland did.
Russia is in some sense a very poor country. With a GDP the size of Italy’s, as it is usually pointed out. A lot of historic places, a lot of history, a lot of wealth buried in the ground, but otherwise nothing much for them to lose in a global conflagration, or so they seem to think. Maybe we’ll find out afterwards that they were really just bluffing.
[RIP, Madame Cojones.]
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/23/politics/albright-putin-russia-ukraine-analysis/index.html
Albright predicted Putin’s strategic disaster in Ukraine
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN
Updated 6:41 PM ET, Wed March 23, 2022
(CNN)Madeleine Albright died just as the murderous historic forces that she had spent her career trying to quell are raging in Europe again, unleashed by a nemesis, Vladimir Putin, who she had consistently warned was a grave threat to peace.
The first female secretary of state was exiled twice as a child refugee from the country of her birth, the former Czechoslovakia, by fascist and communist tyranny. That experience and the impact it had on her family forged her destiny as an academic, a diplomat and an American patriot. It also informed her approach to post-Cold War Europe and the shattering conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo during her time in the Clinton administration, as well as her strong support for NATO expansion into former Warsaw Pact nations. As he held Ukraine hostage before the invasion, Putin sought to force the Western alliance to reverse that move east.Albright’s passing on Wednesday comes at a moment when Europe is again being swept by fears of a belligerent Russia, mass refugee flows, civilian carnage and the fear of nuclear war as Putin’s invasion of Ukraine shatters 30 years of strategic stability. Until the end of her life, Albright was sounding the alarm about Putin’s intentions and character and she predicted the strategic disaster and bloody resistance he would face if he invaded Ukraine. “Instead of paving Russia’s path to greatness, invading Ukraine would ensure Mr. Putin’s infamy by leaving his country diplomatically isolated, economically crippled and strategically vulnerable in the face of a stronger, more united Western alliance,” Albright wrote in an essay in The New York Times on the eve of the war last month. “Ukraine is entitled to its sovereignty, no matter who its neighbors happen to be. In the modern era, great countries accept that, and so must Mr. Putin,” Albright wrote. “That is the message undergirding recent Western diplomacy. It defines the difference between a world governed by the rule of law and one answerable to no rules at all.”Those words, some of the last Albright would publish, defined a diplomatic career characterized by staunch support for democracy and the right of people to live in freedom, but also a willingness to try to talk strongmen down, including Putin or the late North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Il, the father of the Stalinist state’s current dynastic leader, whom she had visited in 2000.’Smart, but a very bad person’Albright had an early chance to examine Putin’s character, and she was the first senior US official to meet the new Russian President, early in 2000, soon after he took over from Boris Yeltsin. She emerged from their first three-hour encounter in the Kremlin praising the Russian leader’s “can-do approach” as she sought ways to engage Moscow in order to avoid a return to the Cold War chill. But as she revealed in The New York Times last month, her private opinion, recorded as she flew home, was more scathing and ominous and has been borne out by subsequent events. ” ‘Putin is small and pale,’ I wrote, ‘so cold as to be almost reptilian,’ ” Albright recalled in the Times essay. She also quoted another of her impressions at the time that predicted more than 20 years of growing hostility to the West, which culminated in the invasion.” ‘Putin is embarrassed by what happened to his country and determined to restore its greatness,’ ” Albright wrote, quoting her impressions at the time.Ironically, Albright used that meeting to try to convince Putin to show mercy in a war against separatists in the Russian republic of Chechnya, which involved a relentless bombardment that killed thousands of civilians. “Neither of us minced words on Chechnya,” she told reporters after failing to ease an offensive by Moscow that is now seen as a blueprint for the relentless bombing of civilians in Ukraine in a bid to break their will and resistance. Albright was generally supportive of efforts to convince Russia that NATO did not pose a threat to its security — at a time when the Obama administration tried to “reset” relations with Moscow.But by 2014, when Putin annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in what was, in hindsight, a rehearsal for his march into the rest of the country last month, Albright was again warning of the Russian leader’s wider ambitions.”Putin is delusional,” she said on CNN’s “New Day” in March of that year. “I think either he does not have the facts, he’s being fed propaganda or his own propaganda,” she said, responding to Russia’s claims it had a right to be in Crimea, which mirror the Russian leader’s justification for the wider war eight years later.Again, in 2016, Albright was warning of the need to confront Putin, calling him “smart, but a very bad person” in an interview with Austria’s Die Presse.But Albright’s domestic political loyalties as a Democrat had occasionally led her to disregard her own instincts. In 2012, for instance, she argued that then-Republican presidential nominee and now-Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah didn’t know what he was talking about when he said Russia was the number one security threat. But unlike many others, she said “sorry.””I personally owe an apology to now-Sen. Romney,” Albright said at a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee in 2019. “We underestimated Russia, and Putin has put them back on the scene.” A fervent Trump criticAlbright, a Georgetown University professor, had spent decades studying communist and fascist autocracy before she was plucked from relative obscurity to be then-President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the United Nations. That experience also informed her outspoken criticism of ex-President Donald Trump, who she warned was a threat to American democracy long before his denials of his 2020 election loss and incitement of the US Capitol insurrection. “I am not calling him a fascist — I am saying he has undemocratic instincts that trouble me a lot,” she told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in 2018. Albright put her comments about Trump in the context of the need to confront anti-democratic movements early on, before they mushroomed into dangerous extremism. Trump’s anti-immigrant demagoguery and hostility to refugees troubled her, especially as someone who had sought a haven from tyranny in the US.At the end of her life, Albright made no secret of her fear that vicious political forces of extremism, which had defined her destiny and caused so much carnage across the decades in Europe, were stirring again.”I am in my 80s and I have seen an awful lot. It took me a long time to find my voice,” Albright told Zakaria in the 2018 interview.”I did not have a high-level job until I was 55 years old. And I’m not going to shut up, frankly. I do think it’s important for those who have seen these kind of things to put out a warning.”
Putin Is Making a Historic Mistake
NY Times – Madeleine Albright – Feb 23
Fred,
Thanks. She was a real giant on foreign policy.
<a href=”https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/23/opinion/putin-ukraine.html?smid=tw-share”>Putin Is Making a Historic Mistake</a>
NY Times – Madeleine Albright – Feb 23
<i>Madeleine Albright died on Wednesday, March 23 in Washington. She was 84. This was her final piece for Times Opinion, published Feb. 23.</i>
the real takeaway for me from that was that Mad Albright was still lucid and insightful up to a few days before her death.
“what do we have an army for?” was not her best moment in my opinion at the time. so i was surprised when i found myself saying much the same thing when Putin invaded Ukraine.
still, the image of a serbian (?) boy crying his heart out after an American plane had killed his entire family [mistaking a farm cart for a tank…they all look the same from twenty thousand feet] hasn’t left me.
maybe massing our forces opposite Putin’s forces before the invasion would have been a better answer to what do we have an army for.in spite of treaties and former agreements and provocation….to a a provocation.
so far, i like sanctions better, if only our own dear people can withstand the terrible costs to themselves in the form of less gas at higher prices.
Not even, but perhaps almost the worst case is that Russia will resort to using tactical nuclear weapons and anthrax or nerve gas to force Ukraine to surrender, and the West will allow this to occur, maybe adding a whole bunch of additional sanctions.
(The real worst case would be like in ‘Dr Strangelove’ or ‘Failsafe’.)
It has been said by military experts that ‘losing 10% of a sizeable military force’ is enough to destroy it’s ‘military effectiveness’. This asserts that losing 10% will so devestate troop morale that they will be rendered ineffective’.
The Romans used a process called ‘decimation’ (i.e. allowing 10% of a legion to be killed or maimed) to ‘harden’ its forces. Teach them how to fight & win, as it were.
Political (?) experts have noted that losing 10% means they still have 90% left to ‘carry on’.
There are still apparently a lot of ‘conscripts’ (draftees) in the Russian army. Their morale would be questionable, ‘going forward’.
European leaders have suggested that use of chemical or biological weapons by Russia would be enough to bring about the creation of a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
Seems like that could be the next escalation, before using nukes maybe.
WASHINGTON— U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) joined his colleagues, led by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), in introducing a Senate resolution urging the Biden Administration to facilitate the transfer of aircraft, such as MiG-29s, and air defense systems to Ukraine. The resolution text can be found here.
“We must do everything in our power to help the people of Ukraine defend themselves against the monstrous actions of Vladimir Putin,” Senator Romney said. “That means getting them the capabilities they need—MiG-29 jets, air defense systems, anti-tank missiles, ammunition—to fight and keep their land and skies safe. America has a responsibility to defend freedom around the world, and we must not wait any longer—get Ukraine what they need now.” …
Resolution Urging MiG-29 Transfer to Ukraine
a slightly different take:
the US and NATO are defending Ukraine…as promised. I don’t think amybody anticipated that Russia would use nuclear blackmail to cover its “minor” aggression against Ukraine. That threat, or bluff, changes the picture a bit. Even in an honest world a promise will change when the conditions change beyond the reasonably expected limits forseen at the time of the promise. As it is the US and NATO countries are providing what appears to be very effective aid to Ukraine . It takes a different form than massive air and ground forces…that I, even I, would have used..but then saner people than I had to respect the nuclear threat. Ukrainian people are paying the price of our having to take the nuclear blackmail seriously. But it is still possible that our help will defeat Russia (Putin). Then we need to think hard about preventing this kind of threat from succeeding again….something that willl not be helped by everyone and his kid brother getting his own nukes. which seems to be what the politicians in the rest of the world are thinking in terms of.
I don’t think it is wise to let things like Mitt Romney or Lindsey Graham decide how and when we go to war.
Recent US history (going back to 9/11 or earlier – ‘Tonkin Gulf’) indicates that neither the Congress nor the President should be deciding ‘how and when we go to war’. Maybe get an AI to do so?
Dobbs
earlier.
but AI is going to be worse. count on it.
Coberly,
An AI would be exactly like a human except faster because an AI would be programmed by human consciousness except it would still be a computer able to recall more and process information faster. Watching others die on TV is certainly a physically cleaner way of waging war, but not necessarily more innocent.
Ron
certainly to the first. AI is “human” to the extent that human error is not ruled out. human recognition of error would be ruled out.
i don’t understand your second point. but cetainly AI is not going to be affected by “watching others die.”
Coberly,
My second point was that watching others die on TV does not affect a lot of people as much either when compared to being in the fighting personally oneself. Of course though, then much of that might be because in war, then anyone could be next (including oneself). I guess that maybe an AI could be programmed to have concern over its own survival or not, while us biological intelligence critters all share that concern with very few exceptions.
Just got back from a funeral service and my future looks to be getting busier soon now. Take care – til next time.
Ron
been seeing too mny funerals myself lately.
i’m not sure computers process more information than people. they certinly “read” faster and do calulations faster. but human brains are much better at parallel processing of an almost infinite amount of “data” and far more likely to discover something previously unnoticed than a computer. ….well, a person could argue about that. (but a computer couldn’t.)
and yes, worrying about who might be next is probably something we do better than computers. you could, i suppose. program a computer to recognize imminent catastrophe to itself and react to avoid it, but it wouldn’t care.
i wonder if you count all the time it takes to program a computer when calculating it’s “speed”? it’s real fast at doing the same thing over and over again. not so fast at figuring out the next best thing to do.
hope whatever you have to do is enjoyable. i’m stuck in the big muddy myself.