Interesting Links for 17-03-2022
Mar. 17th, 2022 12:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewducker- Why comments are usually terrible, and how to make them better
- (tags:comments web )
- I can see 29 distinct colours. How about you?
- (tags:colour eyes genetics )
- The happiness of love turns to sadness when unspent.
- (tags:love dogs death sadness grief )
- Disney employees are staging walkouts over company's response to the 'Don't Say Gay' bill
- (tags:Disney LGBT )
- Ukraine-Russia peace talks make significant progress as 15-point plan to end war drawn up by officials
- (tags:Ukraine Russia war )
- Americans overestimate how big minorities are (I'd be very surprised if Brits didn't think the same)
- (tags:USA minorities polls demographics viaJennieRigg )
- His software sang the words of God. Then it went silent.
- (tags:Jews singing religion computers death lgbt )
- UK sets out action plan to tackle inequality based on recommendations from a commission that concluded there was no systemic racism in Britain.
- (tags:UK racism )
- Why Russians Support Putin's War Against Ukrainians
- (tags:Russia Ukraine war polls )
- France ends gas heaters subsidies, boosts heat pumps in bid to cut Russia reliance
- (tags:France heating electricity Russia )
- Russian war in Ukraine 'largely stalled on all fronts', UK claims
- (tags:russia ukraine )
- In-flight surgery with a coat-hanger and silverware
- (tags:surgery airplanes )
no subject
Date: 2022-03-18 02:36 pm (UTC)Ukraine doesn't have much offensive capability. They have tanks, artillery and fighter-bombers but probably not enough to push the Russians out of positions they are determined to defend. If they try and fail to push them out they risk giving the Russians a much needed morale boost and ruining the only army the Ukrainians currently have in the field. So difficult and risky for them to ask for something they possibly can't take by force.
They have enough defensive capabilty to slow down the Russians and probably hold them more or less where they are and to do so in a way that is very costly and painful for the Russians (as well as for Ukraine.)
So the questions become how long is Ukraine prepared to accept a hostile but static enemy army in its country, how long is the West prepared to sanction Russia and how effectively can Russia fill in the economic gaps left by the sanctions. Who runs out of means and will first?
If the West is prepared to sanction Russia for the long haul and able to demonstrate that this is true (and probably also be willing to soft sanction other nations who actively help Russia so as to keep the Chinese neutral) then I think the Ukrainians should ask for Crimea back. If not, then they might need to settle for less.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-18 02:50 pm (UTC)But I wouldn't sign up to lose any more bits. And I'd backstab Russia over any kind of "No NATO" as fast as I safely could.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-18 03:04 pm (UTC)If Russia can insist today on Ukraine not joining Russia then they then still have great power status and we have lost the one chance we will have to remove it from them.
If they are left with any bargaining positioning (other than the threat of the use of nuclear weapons) at the end of this conflict they are going to remove the ability of the West to hurt them through sanctions and then try again for Ukraine, and the probably the Baltics states.
The best way to get an organisation to change is to give it an existential scare but then leave it intact to reform itself.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-18 03:07 pm (UTC)But promising that you'll do something while the enemy are shelling your cities doesn't feel like something that should be binding.
I'm not actively convinced that they *can* remove the ability of the West to harm them through sanctions. I think that doing so would mean they were a much poorer state, and that this is further than they are willing to go in the long term. (A few months, sure, but permanently moving to that?)