4 ms·

You'd have to be either a liar or a fool to publicly admit that you've deciphered something about your opponent's secret capabilities. The allies didn't go brag

by kibwen 2y ago

You'd have to be either a liar or a fool to publicly admit that you've deciphered something about your opponent's secret capabilities. The allies didn't go bragging to the Nazis every time that they broke the enigma machine.

Tade0 2y ago
There's a whole field of study, named Kremlinology, dedicated to deciphering what was it that the people there actually meant by saying this and that. I used to think that I had some additional insight, hailing from a country neighbouring Russia, but it takes being born on former soviet territory to fully understand their line of thinking. It's not that it's particularly sophisticated - just utterly foreign to anyone even west-adjacent.
- medo-bear 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - jfengel 2y ago
    Maybe we could have avoided it. Maybe not. It's wishful thinking to say "All we had to do was give them what they wanted." I'll skip the tired historical comparison, but just point out that we can't know the counterfactual. I certainly do not deny American entitlement and exceptionalism, and I think it's a massive mistake on our part. But nobody in the US (or Europe) has any designs on Russian territory. Our mistake as about how we treat our friends, not our enemies. The Ukraine war was put NATO even more on Russia's borders, and Putin has been NATO's greatest salesman. It's hard to foresee an outcome that doesn't end with Ukraine (in whatever territory it can keep) joining NATO. America definitely needs to fix its attitude. But Russia appears intent on completely misunderstanding us, and doing so in ways that get its ass kicked. That's not good for anybody, but Russia least of all.
    - medo-bear 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - ceejayoz 2y ago
        > Russian territory is stupendously rich in vital natural resources, to the extent that sooner or later it will become a super power just on this account alone. I'm not just talking about oil but fresh water and oxygen too. "Mr. President, we must not allow a̶ ̶m̶i̶n̶e̶-̶s̶h̶a̶f̶t̶ an oxygen gap!"
      - TheLoafOfBread 2y ago
        > Russian territory is stupendously rich in vital natural resources If space industry will get going in next 50 years, then this is going to be completely irrelevant.
      - JohnBooty 2y ago
        Russia will always have an adversarial relationship with Europe. Russia is huge. Its borders are essentially indefensible and (justly or not) it will always be insecure about its own territorial integrity unless it controls the countries around it as buffer states. Russian territory is stupendously rich in vital natural resources, to the extent that sooner or later it will become a super power just on this account alone. So why hasn't this happened yet? Russia is resource-rich but sparse. There are riches in the ground, but everything is 1,000km from everything else. This makes it hard to transport goods and also hard to have a prosperous middle class outside of Moscow or a few other cities. Also, considering what has gone on with Russian natural gas, many countries don't exactly love the idea of relying on Russia for crucial resources. Russia also has poor farmland and can't feed itself easily without grain from places like Ukraine. Maybe after 50 years of global warming some tundra will thaw and then they can grow wheat in Siberia. I'm not exactly "blaming" Russia here. Russia's territorial concerns are, well... hey... you know, the Cold War really happened, and the wounds are still there. Both sides.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - 2y ago
  - mola 2y ago
    Avoided by them taking Ukrain and all other eatern bloc countries without a war,just with corrupt politicians and some well timed assisanation. Kremlin never hides it's imperialism. Maybe just listen to that?
  - lawn 2y ago
    > If instead we listened to what they were actually saying about the expansion of NATO toward their borders this conflict could have been avoided. Yes, we should have seen their invasion before it started and helped Ukraine defend against it better. Because, surely, you're not suggesting that we should have let Russia rape, murder and pillage Ukraine (and other countries) without any resistance?
  - racional 2y ago
    If instead we listened to what they were actually saying about the expansion of NATO toward their borders this conflict could have been avoided. Actually the West did listen, and as a result took the crucial step of formally denying the NATO memberships requests of Ukraine and Georgia in 2008. But Russia invaded anyway -- because all this NATO noise was never the real reason they sought to pacify Ukraine in the first place.
medo-bear 2y ago
I think this is pretty effective. These systems cost a lot to develop. If they are worthless then that money could definitely have been better spent elsewhere. There is a real sense of worry about the financial burden of Ukraine conflict amongst Ukraine's supporters
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  > These systems cost a lot to develop. If they are worthless then that money could definitely have been better spent elsewhere. We're basically using Ukraine to dispose of an outdated system ("In 2007, the U.S. Army terminated the ATACMS program due to cost, ending the ability to replenish stocks"; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM-140_ATACMS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM-140_ATACMS) we intend to deprecate. The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_Strike_Missile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_Strike_Missile is intended to replace it and has seen its first deliveries last year. There's little indication they're worthless, and an article breathlessly citing someone saying "This is a signal to the whole world, not just the West, that Western weapons are no match for Russian arms" is not a change to that.
onemoresoop 2y ago
Russian propaganda's target audience isn't very smart nor things critically. But their propaganda overall has been an effective operation I'd say.
JohnBooty 2y ago
It's kind of a cliche, but it's a cliche for a reason. USSR/Russia has always loudly overstated the capabilities of its military and military hardware. The US tends to stay mum about the capabilities of its hardware and when it talks about them, it tends to understate. Even when the F-22 shot down that Chinese balloon (a hilarious use of cutting-edge air power) it was more impressive than it might have seemed at first glance. For years the claimed ceiling of the F-22 was 50,000 feet. But then they mentioned that it shot the balloon down from a height of 58,000 feet. Now the Wikipedia article (after years of edit fights) seems to have settled on 65,000 feel and the official USAF page says "above 50,000 feet". Maybe a trivial example but kind of representative. (Don't get me wrong, the US "flexes" military might in other gaudy ways. I'm not saying we are humble and Russia is not. It's just funny how the two countries go about it differently....)

by kibwen 2y ago

Tade0 2y ago

There's a whole field of study, named Kremlinology, dedicated to deciphering what was it that the people there actually meant by saying this and that. I used to think that I had some additional insight, hailing from a country neighbouring Russia, but it takes being born on former soviet territory to fully understand their line of thinking. It's not that it's particularly sophisticated - just utterly foreign to anyone even west-adjacent.

medo-bear 2y ago
[flagged]
- jfengel 2y ago
  Maybe we could have avoided it. Maybe not. It's wishful thinking to say "All we had to do was give them what they wanted." I'll skip the tired historical comparison, but just point out that we can't know the counterfactual. I certainly do not deny American entitlement and exceptionalism, and I think it's a massive mistake on our part. But nobody in the US (or Europe) has any designs on Russian territory. Our mistake as about how we treat our friends, not our enemies. The Ukraine war was put NATO even more on Russia's borders, and Putin has been NATO's greatest salesman. It's hard to foresee an outcome that doesn't end with Ukraine (in whatever territory it can keep) joining NATO. America definitely needs to fix its attitude. But Russia appears intent on completely misunderstanding us, and doing so in ways that get its ass kicked. That's not good for anybody, but Russia least of all.
  - medo-bear 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      > Russian territory is stupendously rich in vital natural resources, to the extent that sooner or later it will become a super power just on this account alone. I'm not just talking about oil but fresh water and oxygen too. "Mr. President, we must not allow a̶ ̶m̶i̶n̶e̶-̶s̶h̶a̶f̶t̶ an oxygen gap!"
    - TheLoafOfBread 2y ago
      > Russian territory is stupendously rich in vital natural resources If space industry will get going in next 50 years, then this is going to be completely irrelevant.
    - JohnBooty 2y ago
      Russia will always have an adversarial relationship with Europe. Russia is huge. Its borders are essentially indefensible and (justly or not) it will always be insecure about its own territorial integrity unless it controls the countries around it as buffer states. Russian territory is stupendously rich in vital natural resources, to the extent that sooner or later it will become a super power just on this account alone. So why hasn't this happened yet? Russia is resource-rich but sparse. There are riches in the ground, but everything is 1,000km from everything else. This makes it hard to transport goods and also hard to have a prosperous middle class outside of Moscow or a few other cities. Also, considering what has gone on with Russian natural gas, many countries don't exactly love the idea of relying on Russia for crucial resources. Russia also has poor farmland and can't feed itself easily without grain from places like Ukraine. Maybe after 50 years of global warming some tundra will thaw and then they can grow wheat in Siberia. I'm not exactly "blaming" Russia here. Russia's territorial concerns are, well... hey... you know, the Cold War really happened, and the wounds are still there. Both sides.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - 2y ago
- mola 2y ago
  Avoided by them taking Ukrain and all other eatern bloc countries without a war,just with corrupt politicians and some well timed assisanation. Kremlin never hides it's imperialism. Maybe just listen to that?
- lawn 2y ago
  > If instead we listened to what they were actually saying about the expansion of NATO toward their borders this conflict could have been avoided. Yes, we should have seen their invasion before it started and helped Ukraine defend against it better. Because, surely, you're not suggesting that we should have let Russia rape, murder and pillage Ukraine (and other countries) without any resistance?
- racional 2y ago
  If instead we listened to what they were actually saying about the expansion of NATO toward their borders this conflict could have been avoided. Actually the West did listen, and as a result took the crucial step of formally denying the NATO memberships requests of Ukraine and Georgia in 2008. But Russia invaded anyway -- because all this NATO noise was never the real reason they sought to pacify Ukraine in the first place.

medo-bear 2y ago

I think this is pretty effective. These systems cost a lot to develop. If they are worthless then that money could definitely have been better spent elsewhere. There is a real sense of worry about the financial burden of Ukraine conflict amongst Ukraine's supporters

ceejayoz 2y ago
> These systems cost a lot to develop. If they are worthless then that money could definitely have been better spent elsewhere. We're basically using Ukraine to dispose of an outdated system ("In 2007, the U.S. Army terminated the ATACMS program due to cost, ending the ability to replenish stocks"; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM-140_ATACMS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM-140_ATACMS) we intend to deprecate. The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_Strike_Missile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_Strike_Missile is intended to replace it and has seen its first deliveries last year. There's little indication they're worthless, and an article breathlessly citing someone saying "This is a signal to the whole world, not just the West, that Western weapons are no match for Russian arms" is not a change to that.

onemoresoop 2y ago

Russian propaganda's target audience isn't very smart nor things critically. But their propaganda overall has been an effective operation I'd say.

JohnBooty 2y ago

It's kind of a cliche, but it's a cliche for a reason. USSR/Russia has always loudly overstated the capabilities of its military and military hardware. The US tends to stay mum about the capabilities of its hardware and when it talks about them, it tends to understate. Even when the F-22 shot down that Chinese balloon (a hilarious use of cutting-edge air power) it was more impressive than it might have seemed at first glance. For years the claimed ceiling of the F-22 was 50,000 feet. But then they mentioned that it shot the balloon down from a height of 58,000 feet. Now the Wikipedia article (after years of edit fights) seems to have settled on 65,000 feel and the official USAF page says "above 50,000 feet". Maybe a trivial example but kind of representative. (Don't get me wrong, the US "flexes" military might in other gaudy ways. I'm not saying we are humble and Russia is not. It's just funny how the two countries go about it differently....)