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> Eventually Russian factories will run out of machine spare parts and everything will grind to a halt Probably not. The Russian economy is unusually self-reli

> Eventually Russian factories will run out of machine spare parts and everything will grind to a halt Probably not. The Russian economy is unusually self-reliant, a legacy of Soviet times. It's pretty common to discover that for some niche weird thing there are only a handful of manufacturers in the world and one of them is Russian. For example: one reason it's hard to build nuclear reactors is that the containment hull has to be made of a special kind of steel that you can only buy from two companies in the world. One is Japanese, the other Russian. In particular their military is unusually self reliant. That's why they're famous for weapons exports rather than imports. > I do have a subscription to the Economist The Economist was pretty consistently writing deranged propaganda about Russia even 5 years ago so I really doubt you're getting accurate information from it now.

deleted 4y ago
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emteycz 4y ago
I still have few "made in CCCP" things at home. All of them were unbelievably shit compared to their western not-competition at the time of manufacture. Especially computers, while the west already had Windows and internet and 3.5" floppies, 8bits with tapes were just getting started here - and of course it all was a copy of western designs. And most of it was made outside Russia anyways - e. g. they used Czechoslovak factories a lot because the quality was and is like from another dimension; our army refused Soviet tanks because of the shit quality and instead made our own based on the same design. That was when they were "self-reliant" for decades. After the fall, they switched to globalized manufacturing completely. And now you're saying they will be able to switch back in months, with much worse economy and nobody willing to help them? I'm laughing very loudly.
- native_samples 4y ago
  But the argument here is not that they'll have to make do with lower quality parts. It's that they won't be able to get or make the parts they need at all. That is a very different and much less likely argument, especially as there are still many countries they're trading with through which imports can be routed.
  - emteycz 4y ago
    No, today it's the same. They're thousands of miles away from today's precision manufacturing. They won't be able to make usable parts. If they try to use whatever they produce, their machines will likely explode, or at least grind to halt.
    - emteycz 4y ago
      And their "friends" like China won't ever let them have the machines that produce machines, because that's how they dominate others (and China learned that well from the West).
      - jupp0r 4y ago
        A good part of Chinese high tech factory machines are made in places like Germany [1]. This is slowly changing though as China is becoming a major exporter of production machinery themselves, albeit starting from the low tech side of things (think plastic molding).
    - native_samples 4y ago
      So then they'll buy more parts from their friends in Germany? After all, they have to sell the Russians something in return for all that gas. I think you are seriously over-estimating what sanctions can do. Even if some Russian machines do explode, much harsher sanctions have routinely failed elsewhere. It'd be nice if this is all it took to end the war but it seems unrealistic to assume so.
      - emteycz 4y ago
        Where is that elsewhere? I visited some sanctioned places and it was as I said here - yeah they make some stuff, and all of it is shit, doesn't work at all, or breaks down very soon. There's a reason why there's a car repair shop at every corner in Iran.
jupp0r 4y ago
> The Russian economy is unusually self-reliant Not anymore from what experts are writing, but only time will tell. Aircraft industry is a good example [1], as most planes operated in Russia require western maintenance parts that can’t easily be replaced. Other examples are in gas and oil drilling equipment [2]. > The Economist was pretty consistently writing deranged propaganda about Russia even 5 years ago You call warning about the danger of Russia invading neighboring countries driven by the ideological shift towards imperialism “propaganda”? [1] https://www.frost.com/frost-perspectives/will-sanctions-from-the-usa-and-allied-countries-cripple-the-commercial-russian-aerospace-industry/ https://www.frost.com/frost-perspectives/will-sanctions-from... [2] https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/putin-admits-western-sanctions-have-disrupted-russian-oil-industry-11649945252 https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/putin-admits-western-sancti...
- native_samples 4y ago
  5 years ago? It was all about how Putin was secretly manipulating western elections via social media and leaders via secret blackmail material. All that stuff was nonsense from day one.

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emteycz 4y ago

I still have few "made in CCCP" things at home. All of them were unbelievably shit compared to their western not-competition at the time of manufacture. Especially computers, while the west already had Windows and internet and 3.5" floppies, 8bits with tapes were just getting started here - and of course it all was a copy of western designs. And most of it was made outside Russia anyways - e. g. they used Czechoslovak factories a lot because the quality was and is like from another dimension; our army refused Soviet tanks because of the shit quality and instead made our own based on the same design. That was when they were "self-reliant" for decades. After the fall, they switched to globalized manufacturing completely. And now you're saying they will be able to switch back in months, with much worse economy and nobody willing to help them? I'm laughing very loudly.

native_samples 4y ago
But the argument here is not that they'll have to make do with lower quality parts. It's that they won't be able to get or make the parts they need at all. That is a very different and much less likely argument, especially as there are still many countries they're trading with through which imports can be routed.
- emteycz 4y ago
  No, today it's the same. They're thousands of miles away from today's precision manufacturing. They won't be able to make usable parts. If they try to use whatever they produce, their machines will likely explode, or at least grind to halt.
  - emteycz 4y ago
    And their "friends" like China won't ever let them have the machines that produce machines, because that's how they dominate others (and China learned that well from the West).
    - jupp0r 4y ago
      A good part of Chinese high tech factory machines are made in places like Germany [1]. This is slowly changing though as China is becoming a major exporter of production machinery themselves, albeit starting from the low tech side of things (think plastic molding).
  - native_samples 4y ago
    So then they'll buy more parts from their friends in Germany? After all, they have to sell the Russians something in return for all that gas. I think you are seriously over-estimating what sanctions can do. Even if some Russian machines do explode, much harsher sanctions have routinely failed elsewhere. It'd be nice if this is all it took to end the war but it seems unrealistic to assume so.
    - emteycz 4y ago
      Where is that elsewhere? I visited some sanctioned places and it was as I said here - yeah they make some stuff, and all of it is shit, doesn't work at all, or breaks down very soon. There's a reason why there's a car repair shop at every corner in Iran.

jupp0r 4y ago

> The Russian economy is unusually self-reliant Not anymore from what experts are writing, but only time will tell. Aircraft industry is a good example [1], as most planes operated in Russia require western maintenance parts that can’t easily be replaced. Other examples are in gas and oil drilling equipment [2]. > The Economist was pretty consistently writing deranged propaganda about Russia even 5 years ago You call warning about the danger of Russia invading neighboring countries driven by the ideological shift towards imperialism “propaganda”? [1] https://www.frost.com/frost-perspectives/will-sanctions-from-the-usa-and-allied-countries-cripple-the-commercial-russian-aerospace-industry/ https://www.frost.com/frost-perspectives/will-sanctions-from... [2] https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/putin-admits-western-sanctions-have-disrupted-russian-oil-industry-11649945252 https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/putin-admits-western-sancti...

native_samples 4y ago
5 years ago? It was all about how Putin was secretly manipulating western elections via social media and leaders via secret blackmail material. All that stuff was nonsense from day one.