1. Russia makes more weaponry than its enemies. If nothing is done about its military production, Russia will win this war
2. Establishing the new political rule:
Always bet against the US allies
3. With the absolutely destructive effect on the US policy and standing in Asia
4. The Russian victory in Ukraine will radically devalue the worth of the US alliance in the eyes of the world
5. Yes, America lost asymmetric wars before. But this is the first time, it will be defeated in the symmetric warfare
6. Its standing will be adjusted accordingly
7. Yes, never bet against the US rule will stand for a while (don't declare the war, don't attack the US soil)
8. But now it will be supplemented with always bet against the US allies
9. Promises, guarantees and commitments are not worth much. America is weak -> backs off easily
10. The world is guided not so much by the "rational choice" (abstraction), as by impressions (real thing)
11. Defeats in the asymmetric warfare may have raised a suspicion of weakness
12. But the belief in the US ability to win a symmetric war was never undermined
Now it will be
13. In the post Ukraine war reality, the world will be governed by the new impression:
The US is withdrawing from the symmetric wars, because it cannot win them
13. And the US commitments are not worth much, because the US is simply incapable of fulfilling them
14. Asian countries have every reason to expect the Ukraine scenario in the Pacific:
US give promises they cannot fulfil -> You stand against the invader -> Get steamrolled -> Be left to your fate among ashes and ruins
Why not accept your fate now, skipping ashes & ruins part?
15. Should Ukraine lose, I expect "standing up against China" becoming a politically indefensible position in Taiwan
16. The preventive lowkey surrender will look as the only reasonable & responsible choice
17. With a good degree of certainty, you may consider Taiwan as gone
18. Yes, there are strong reasons for the US to avoid a potential escalation with Russia
19. But most of these reasons apply to the escalation with China, perhaps even to a greater degree
20. Therefore, we can expect the US to be *less* decisive about China than about Russia
21. A defeat in Ukraine will vastly undermine the US political standing in Asia
22. Its allies will be under impression that the US is either uncommitted or incapable to win. Probably, both
23. While China is certainly very committed to win
Only a fool will stand on its way
24. Now an interesting thing is that the US have every chance to win. That is because the supply chain for precision metalworking equipment is controlled by its allies
25. And metalworking is how you make weaponry. No, it's not all about microchips. Production of complex weaponry such as an intercontinental ballistic missile is primarily constrained by the metalworking capacity. And metalworking capacity is mostly precision machining capacity
26. In late 20th c. machining has very quickly went from the manual to computer control. As a result, it became very much more productive. At the same time, machining equipment, parts and consumables became increasingly more difficult to produce
That's how the air defence missiles has changed (Kalinin Plant, Almaz Antey)
Before: manually operated, steel instruments, often domestically produced
Now: computer controlled, carbide instruments, nearly 100% Western import
27. This had a double effect on catching development powers:
a) Allowed them to produce precise parts (-> weaponry) cheaper and more consistently than before
b) Made them almost totally reliant upon the Western import to produce weaponry
(NITI Snegireva)
28. And China is a catching development power itself. It cannot substitute for the Western import, and won't be able for a while. It may produce more lasers than anyone. But when you want a precision laser cutter, you are not gonna buy Chinese
You gonna buy Trumpf (Germany)
29. Western machine tool producers may not be technically breaking sanctions. That is because sanctions are designed not to work. Trumpf for example, continued supporting its laser cutting equipment in Russia well into this war and is almost certainly continuing it now
30. Once again, it's not about Western producers "breaking sanctions". It is about Russian capacity for metalworking (= weaponry production) being almost fully based upon the equipment imported from the US allies between 2003-2023
If you want to make an S300 erector...
... You will need a Tos Varnsdorf (Czechia) machine
Production of metalworking equipment has been outsourced to the West, long, long before this war started
31. How can Russia even continue producing complex weaponry if we don't see the Russian machinery around? Where is Russian machinery?
People with above room temperature IQ have been asking this question for long, long time
32. And if your ruling class has not been asking this question, that is not because it is "dumb", but because it consists of low curiosity people
They are not really low in intelligence. They are just low in curiosity
33. People on top spend half of their life forcing their way to the top and the second half guarding their position
You spend your youth climbing the ladder, and maturity kicking the ladders away
There is no time for curiosity or pursuing any sort of deep personal interest
34. Our social hierarchies select for high ambition low curiosity people. Productive, socially intelligent, people on the top tend to be shockingly narrow minded
They can't think out of the box, because they don't have out of the box knowledge. They never had time to acquire it
35. A life spent in acquiring unobvious knowledge is the life not spent in forcing your way to the top of the hierarchy. And vice versa, a life spent acquiring the knowledge that allows you to even ask the right questions will not lead you to the top of the hierarchy
The end
I will post revised and edited versions in my substack and patreon. Generally speaking, what I post here is more of notes than texts in their own rights
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The funny thing with the GFM Steyr is that it is not even a large business. In 2021, its revenue was estimated at only 32,5 million euros. In 2022, it rose to 69,8 million (for obvious reasons). Yet, the Russian artillery industry is critically dependent upon this single company
First, the existing park of GFM Steyr machines requires a steady supply of parts and expendables to keep them running. Consider this one single SXP-55 radial forging machine operating at the Motovilikha Plants, a major artillery & MLRS producer
13-14th cc. - the Turkic State
14-16th cc. - the Circassian State
1517 - the Roman Conquest
Neither political realities, nor the political imagination of pre-modern polities had anything to do with an idea of nation state. Which was not even a thing before the French Revolution
Pre-history of pretty much any nation state is fictitious and largely made up. We describe very bizarre (from a modern standpoint) political orders and imaginations in a way they would make for a teleological nation state narrative
75 years since the first partition, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not over. Based on the last four weeks , we can only expect it to escalate, resulting in more mutual dehumanisation, more reciprocal violence, more of the previously uninvolved joining it on either side 🧵
What kind of conflict it is?
Contrary to the popular opinion, this is not a war of religion. Religious or eschatological interpretations too often obfuscate the underlying reason of why it all happens
Territory
This is and has always been a territorial conflict
You will not understand dynamics of either the Arab-Jewish or Muslim-Jewish relations without realising the territorial nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
(as no side ever will say it fights an unjust one)
Consequently, neither of our wars can have limits or boundaries. The Just War argument logically excludes a possibility of limiting the war-related violence
And vice versa, if we wage a total war of the unlimited violence, the enemy must be also total, absolute
That is a Nazi
Consequently, mass indiscriminate killing of civilians will be almost invariably justified with the WWII references & allusions
In the Russian Empire, Jews were not normally allowed to live east of the Pale of Settlement (red). While few privileged categories like rich merchants were allowed to settle in Russia proper, the absolute majority was locked to Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Lithuania
This however, applied only to the Western, Ashkenazi Jews
Bukhara Jews of modern Uzbekistan, Karaites of Crimea or foreign "Oriental" Jews were free from such limitations and could settle anywhere
Many Ashkenazi bought Ottoman passports specifically for this purpose
"My father was a Turkish subject and, therefore, I am a descendant of Janissaries. Who spared neither women, nor children, nor the underground millionaires"
has different meaning than it seems. It refers to the practice of buying the Ottoman passports for freedom of travel
There's more plants than herbivores, more herbivores than carnivores etc. The lower trophic levels weigh more. And "more" means few orders of magnitude more
Perhaps, we need to introduce an idea of a technology chain pyramid 🧵
Consumer goods would constitute the lowest trophic level. Which means, the largest level by far. There's just way more of them compared all the upper levels combined
This is also the only level of the technology chain visible to the general audience
"Everything produced in China" means "everything I buy is produced in China". And everything I buy means consumer goods
1. We see only the lowest trophic level of the technology chain 2. We notice it is dominated by the Chinese production 3. Voila, China produces everything