Ukraine

[EvilRoy]

Or we could, y'know, accelerate efforts to get off oil?

Anyone?

This conflict may be another major push for Europe to do that. I don't want to go down the crazy hole of implying that this was all an enormous xanatos gambit by "the west", but there's no denying that Europe not being attached to Russian fossil fuels is a really good thing for a number of other players. Not only will other fossil fuel producers like north American and middle East groups get an early boost, but believe it or not a lot of those extremely wealthy oil companies are investing heavily in renewable energy in a bid to ensure their futures regardless of the environmental outcome. They want to be the energy sector no matter what so in the short term they'll suck Europe (and everyone else) dry of cash and in the long term they'll turn right around and sell renewable energy generators that were bankrolled by those very profits. Texas oil companies are startlingly into this, but it's not widely discussed because they aren't done making oil money so they don't want to blow it.

Even without Russia turning off the gas the recent decisions to not continue with new pipelines and the nervousness that comes with depending on an apparently unstable entity for energy has already done a number on the economics of fossil fuels on Europe. With the recent push into renewable energy there's no longer a guarantee we will return to the status quo with fossil fuel producers as we have after previous conflicts. Since oil is no longer the best/only option, there is no need to accept dependence on groups that aren't trusted.

As much as I want renewable energy to succeed as soon as possible this also makes me nervous for the future of Ukraine. And regular citizens of Russia who carry no blame in this. Ukraine needed those pipelines, all they have is wheat at the best of times and economically they've always struggled. In the unfortunately very unlikely case they are not taken over by Russia they're still fucked because so much of the economy depended on facilitating Russian raw materials to Europe and exporting back to Russia. If they don't win they are now attached at the hip to an effectively doomed economic entity.

 

[Baffle]

The US/Western Europe has been good at forgetting stuff they care about after a few years.

Yeah, but it's usually us doing them!

 

[Silvanus]

As much as I want renewable energy to succeed as soon as possible this also makes me nervous for the future of Ukraine. And regular citizens of Russia who carry no blame in this. Ukraine needed those pipelines, all they have is wheat at the best of times and economically they've always struggled. In the unfortunately very unlikely case they are not taken over by Russia they're still fucked because so much of the economy depended on facilitating Russian raw materials to Europe and exporting back to Russia. If they don't win they are now attached at the hip to an effectively doomed economic entity.

This has made me remember with dry amusement all those columnists and op-ed writers who moaned about solar and wind energy because its supposedly unreliable.

Unreliable? Unlike oil, which depends on the continued goodwill of a small number of unstable despots half the world away? That kind of reliability you're after?

 

[Silvanus]

Yeah, but it's usually us doing them!

Oh, I don't know. The Western media cycle started to ignore the plight of the Kurds pretty quickly. And Yemen. And Tamil.

Though western governments did facilitate those first two outrages, even if they didn't directly perpetrate them.

 

[Dalisclock]

Probably a joke that belongs in the Elden ring thread but who knows anymore.

Priorities

 

[Bedinsis]

Disgraceful. Taiwan is completely out of place within that otherwise alphabetical list.

Presumably it is sorted under "R" as in "Republic of China".

---

I hope this message isn't too tacky, but there is an itch.io bundle for Ukraine going on right now.

Bundle for Ukraine by Necrosoft Games and 738 others

Bundle for Ukraine: 998 items for $10.00

itch.io

The proceeds go to two organizations providing medical assistance and helping kids readjust after war.

 

[bluegate]

I hope this message isn't too tacky, but there is an itch.io bundle for Ukraine going on right now.

Bundle for Ukraine by Necrosoft Games and 738 others

Bundle for Ukraine: 998 items for $10.00

itch.io

The proceeds go to two organizations providing medical assistance and helping kids readjust after war.

Seems like a pretty good deal for a tenner.

 

[Kwak]

They bombed a children's hospital.

 

[Agema]

Or we could, y'know, accelerate efforts to get off oil?

Anyone?

Or, quite the opposite.

Public opinion in the UK has tended to drive anti-fossil fuel policy, much to the obvious chagrin of the Conservative Party whose green policies are little more than grudging concessions with heavy hype to make it look like enthusiasm. As a result, North Sea oil prospecting has taken a dive (there's not much left in it anyway) and fracking was blocked in northern England.

But... some people can't help but view a problem as an opportunity. And for the Tories, the opportunity is more fossil fuels. If Russian gas is disapproved of and prices go up, it's a perfect opportunity to sell exploiting what fossil fuels are left in Britain. So, let's have earthquakes damage the properties of poor people in Lancashire, whilst rich Londoners make a ton of money. Arguably, that's the last 40+ years of British economic policy in a nutshell: fuck the country as hard and brutally as possible, extracting all the profits to London.

 

[Dalisclock]

They bombed a children's hospital.

I'm guessing they here is the Russian military.

I'm waiting for the "revelation" that it was clearly a " Ukrainian Nazi nerve gas factory" or some BS like that

 

[CM156]

I'm guessing they here is the Russian military.

I'm waiting for the "revelation" that it was clearly a " Ukrainian Nazi nerve gas factory" or some BS like that

"The hospital attacked us first. It was self-defense."

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I'm guessing they here is the Russian military.

I'm waiting for the "revelation" that it was clearly a " Ukrainian Nazi nerve gas factory" or some BS like that

"The Ukrainians brought this upon themselves by not acceding to our entirely reasonable demands...."

 

[Agema]

Well, that's contingent upon a single thing which you admitted in the next paragraph: the forces sustaining losses are wagering they'll win the battle, and if they've don't they've handed their own materiel gift-wrapped to the enemy unless they scuttle it.

Only if the two armies have compatible equipment - they frequently don't. Otherwise, what they get are a few vehicles they can use for a short time (for disproportionate effort given the unfamiliarity) before they run out of whatever ammo and spares they were also able to capture. Armies certainly did fix up captured tanks and send them back at the enemy, but they were almost always a mere handful and didn't last long. The exceptions tend to be where a force has simply run away and left all their equipment and/or a supply base has been captured, not captured tanks from a battlefield. There's also a relatively higher utility to a force that otherwise doesn't have tanks or the means to procure them.

Scuttling a tank is not difficult. Once a tank is disabled, the crew tend to GTFO. They can wreck it upon departure with some basic explosives in the interior: plus of course the ammo that is likely to still be inside that will also go off. Alternatively, they can probably fire an AT projectile into its big, fat, badly armoured arse (that's filled with a very breakable and flammable engine) from the safety of their own lines.

Which is what I'm pointing out: a combat-ineffective vehicle is a liability to that force for so long as the engagement lasts, or until it's scuttled. Either way incurs a cost in time, manpower, and materiel, and thereby the choice to employ those resources restoring a combat-ineffective vehicle to functionality, or to support combat-effective vehicles. That's simple cost-benefit analysis, based on potentially wildly-varying circumstances.

It's just not true, though.

1) The tank costs nothing whilst it sits inactive on the battlefield. Neither side can use it, and neither side is likely to try to recover it whilst under fire.

2) Its potential utility to the enemy after the battle if captured, as above, tends to be very low. The decision to allocate resources after the battle to repair it (or not) are at least options, all of which are better than a destroyed tank... bar one. That one option is to destroy broken tanks on the assumption they could not be repaired... which is no worse than having a tank destoyed on the battlefield in the first place.

 

[Agema]

"The hospital attacked us first. It was self-defense."

"The hospital was staffed by Nazis."

 

[Eacaraxe]

Why do you guys know so much about tanks?
Is it a weird fetish, or is this something any responsible informed citizen should have basic knowledge of?

Well, as others have stated, we're history buffs. And, I can only speak for myself, but I rather like knowing on what my government spends over a trillion a year (after accounting for slush funds, black budgets, and appropriations nominally earmarked for another department but actually spent by the DoD), and the utility of those outlays compared to those of competing states.

 

[Baffle]

I'm waiting for the "revelation" that it was clearly a " Ukrainian Nazi nerve gas factory" or some BS like that

"What's a maternity ward if not a soldier factory?"

 

[Baffle]

But... some people can't help but view a problem as an opportunity. And for the Tories, the opportunity is more fossil fuels. If Russian gas is disapproved of and prices go up, it's a perfect opportunity to sell exploiting what fossil fuels are left in Britain. So, let's have earthquakes damage the properties of poor people in Lancashire, whilst rich Londoners make a ton of money. Arguably, that's the last 40+ years of British economic policy in a nutshell: fuck the country as hard and brutally as possible, extracting all the profits to London.

And call it levelling up.

 

[Kwak]

They have a history in hospital destruction.

Russian–Syrian hospital bombing campaign - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

They got away with that too. Russia is just full evil now.

 

[Agema]

"What's a maternity ward if not a soldier factory?"

I think there's a quotation about strategic bombing (can't remember whose) that goes something like: "It takes 18 days to build a tank, 18 months to build a factory and 18 years to build a human".

 

[Agema]

And call it levelling up.

I read an economist's analysis of the Conservatives' "levelling up" document. He described it as a brilliant, informed and insightful analysis of how government policy had failed the north and midlands of England since the 1980s, which then advanced policy proposals hopelessly underpowered to meaningfully fix anything.

So, in other words, all words and no action.