Really Awful “Rhetoric”
Really Awful “Rhetoric”
“Rhetoric” in quotes because it may not be just that. I have not been posting much, partly because I had a wedding for daughter, Sasha, last weekend, but also because I am seriously demoralized by the current situation, and every time I think I have something intelligent to say about the economics of it, that seems to keep changing, although I shall soon.
Anyway, I have to get off my chest what I have heard from my wife, Marina, coming out of Russian language sources, not reported in English language media. This is from an hour and a half presentation by a man named Padkin (don’t know first name and googling does not bring him up, maybe spelling off) who apparently heads something in Moscow called the Foundation for Conceptual Technology, which also does not come up on a google. Anyway, this guy was calling for the use of Russian tactical nuclear weapons against NATO members, more specifically against Ankara, Turkey where drones are being produced that the Ukrainians have been successfully using against the Russian military, and also against two air bases in Poland that have been used to ship arms to the Ukrainians. About the only good thing that can be said about his broadcast is that he said warnings should be sent first so that civilians can be removed.
I do not know how this is gong to end, but that high level Russians are talking like this in public is very bad news. I note that it was a Russian TV anchor back in 2014 who was the first person in a major nuclear power since 1962 to talk about using nuclear weapons openly and seriously after the essentially wimply economic sanctions were imposed after Russia annexed Crimea. That guy talked about how dare the US do such a thing when Russia could “incinerate New York City.”
Barkley Rosser
Russian nuclear attacks on two NATO countries? Color me skeptical. Sounds like this “Padkin” is fake news.
Joel
He is real, Valeriy Pyakin
The original script
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_War
Barkley,
Congratulations. Life is precious and time is uncertain, so enjoy what you have.
Unfortunately, mutually assured destruction offers no protection from aging psychopaths that choose to steal representative democracy to take it out on one last joy ride. Fortunately, the show is never over until the fat lady sings.
Joel,
I am not sure what you mean here by your “fake news,” but this broadcast really happened and this guy is for real, even if, hopefully, what he recommends is not being taken too seriously by Putin and his military commanders.
Barkley:
Foundation for Conceptual Technologies – YouTube
How about Valeriy Pyakin? Valeriy Pyakin – WikiMANNia
This is how the world ends… (Paraphrasing TS Eliot.)
The Smaller Bombs That Could Turn Ukraine Into a Nuclear War Zone
NY Times – March 21
Imagine what Wm Tecumseh Sherman could
have accomplished in Georgia if only
he had had access to tactical nukes.
Imagine what Wm Tecumseh Sherman could
have accomplished in Georgia if only
he had had access to tactical nukes.
Turkey backed Azerbaijan against the Russian backed Armenians. The Armenians were routed thanks to drones developed and provided by the Turks. This war didn’t get a lot of press coverage, but the result was telling. Tanks and trucks and artillery are all vulnerable to drone warfare, and you don’t need a superpower’s infrastructure to use them successfully. I’m not surprised that this is a sore point. Armenia was clobbered. The Armenian president was kicked out of office. It was a debacle.
Back in the 1990s, I went to a aviation industry show and met with some folks from the Turkish equivalent of the FAA. They said that Turkey was surrounded by sharks, and it was hard not to agree with them. They also said that the Turkish vision was to be the go-to place for aviation technology in Central Asia, You know, learn to fly, repair a plane, figure out that fancy radar system you bought, and as a bonus you get to lie on a pretty Turkish beach, eat some good Turkish food, visit some historical sites, and all that without having to deal with the exotic West.
Russia has long had a fixation on its great victory over the Nazis in the 1940s. They were giving Great Patriotic War speeches in the Politburo even as the USSR sank into the sunset. Watching the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, it’s almost like watching a war in a time capsule with an attempted blitzkrieg that failed followed by a range of classical tactics rather than more modern ones. The Nazis did well with their blitzkriegs, but the military world learned how to deal with them. Now, we know that fast moving tank columns can quickly outrun their supply chain and that the rapid advance means exposing one’s flanks.
Times change, tactics have to change. Some time back there was a Youtube video of a Syrian tank being stalked by, I believe, a group of Kurds. It was almost comical with the tank clanking along and like half of everybody in town skulking along behind it, the tank crew oblivious. Nowadays we know that you can’t just send a tank. You have to send infantry with it, but the tank just clanked along. We were assured by the Youtube narrator that it was destroyed shortly afterwards, off screen.
The Russians provided air support in Syria, but it was mainly bombing. The Russians would pound a target city to rubble and then the Syrian ground troops would move in to pick off the survivors. The Russians weren’t on the ground there. They’re on the ground in the Ukraine, and they seem to be taking the bomb-to-rubble approach. That will take a lot more bombs and bombing than it took in Syria. Then, they’ll have to figure out how to get boots and puppet administrators on the ground. Right now, the story is, that Russia is trying to hire Syrians.