Posts Tagged ‘russia ukraine war’

The DaTechGuy Peace Plan for Ukraine: Sell Russia the Donbas region.

Posted: July 6, 2024 by datechguy in war
Tags: ,

There are a lot of reasons why the war in Ukraine continues on. The Russian “official” Casus Belli was to protect ethnic Russians in the area. While that concern has some legitimacy to it that’s the thing about creating an empire of unwilling states, when your people move there and said empire breaks up as empires do the folks who moved there they tend to be disliked by the natives.

#unexpectedly of course

The actual Casus Belli had two additional components that were likely much bigger drivers.

  1. The desire to re-establish the old Russian control of Ukraine which predates communism by a century or more.
  2. Biden telegraphing to Putin that if he went into Donbas it was OK (People tend to forget that 2nd part)

Putin being Putin seeing that Biden was Biden then decided to go all in rather than just settling for Donbas and Biden being Biden (or whoever was actually running the country) swiftly offered Zelensky free passage out of Ukraine before it fell. Zelensky showing that he’s more than just another corrupt kleptocratic answered in words that Ukrainians will never forget:

“The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride,”

There is not a lot to admire about Zelensky but with that answer he likely saved not only his country but likely Moldovia too. The aid came and the Russians were stopped and Kiev held.

In the western part of the country Russia had much more success and Ukrainian attempts to drive them out have met with failure. Russia can’t go beyond Donbas without a major escalation and for all the weapons granted them by NATO allies Ukraine can’t drive them out.

This leads to stalemate and Attrition.

Russia having been invaded twice in the last two centuries by the single most powerful military in the world at the time (Napoleon 1812, Hitler 1941) is now VERY worried about NATO being right on their border (the Finish borders is not suitable for an invasion of Russia). To a westerner the idea of NATO invading Russia might seem insane but Russia fought a war with Poland in the 1920’s and didn’t do all that well and given the failures of the Russian war machine exposed by this war that fear along with saving face is high on the Putin agenda.

Meanwhile Ukraine isn’t all that anxious to give up a chunk of their country even one with a huge Russian ethnic population, they fear that peace might give time for Russia to reset rearm and have another go, plus frankly Zelensky and his pals have been making out like the bandits they are from the grift that comes from western aid. His decision to stay and oppose Russia may have paid off for Ukraine as a nation but it’s paid off big time for him personally. If the war ends so does the gravy train.

In the end however the Ukrainians can’t win a war of attrition and the longer it goes on the better the chance Russia might actually have a 2nd go at Kiev or that NATO & or US troops end up being thrown in the fray.

In short the war is now pretty much become a body and money pit, and unless it ends the potential for someone to do something stupid to generate a wider war or a bigger crises keeps increasing.

So how do yo solve the problem of Russia not wanting to lose face and Ukraine wanting to drive them out?

The problem is in fact simple: SELL RUSSIA THE DONBAS REGION!

The Price can be set very high high enough to mask what will in effect be reparations for the invasion. The folks concerned about the cut off of their graft have little need to worry as the rebuilding costs will be considerable with a lot of money to be skimmed off the top from the coming western aid. Meanwhile both Ukrainian and Russian conscripts who are dying by the ton can get out of this alive and rebuild their lives while Drone technology can give early warning if Russia starts to prepare for a second Round OR if Ukraine decides to try to take the sold region back.

This is the best and simplest way to end the war. Won’t please everyone but the alternative is that this war eventually ends will Russia troops in Kiev or NATO troops in Moscow and the price of either of those options is too terrible to contemplate.

Sell the Russians Donbas and let’s move on.

Always Look on the Bright Side of the Ukraine War

Posted: June 26, 2024 by datechguy in war
Tags: ,

I’m not a big fan of continuing the war in Ukraine.

When the potential for the entire country to fall existed and Kiev itself was under threat the necessity of preventing Russia from steamrolling the breadbasket of the area and potentially going beyond said borders in my opinion justified western aid, even to a country as corrupt as Ukraine.

And while others discouraged Ukraine drone strikes in Russia I disagreed. Ukraine & Russia are at war and such strikes are of course legitimate acts of war no matter what the potential for escalation is.

And while a stalemate does weaken the Russian military which isn’t a bad thing the potential for this conflict to go beyond their borders or go nuclear remains and that alone is a good reason to find a peaceful solution before things get worse.

Well they’ve gotten a bit worse:

If these reports are correct that’s an escalation that is not helpful and frankly I think this move by South Korea is foolish as well:

South Korea is now rattling its sabers in response to the news from North Korea. After an emergency meeting of its National Security Council, the non-communist Korea stated it would send arms to Ukraine, something it had previously decided not to do.

I think that’s foolish because if I was in charge of South Korea, I’d welcome this move.

Yes it does give troops of the north experience in actual combat which is a valuable commodity, but I think there are many more positives than negatives here for the south.

  1. Every NK soldier who is sent to Ukraine is a soldier not able to be on the front lines of the DMZ.
  2. Every NK soldier casualty in Ukraine not only bleeds that army but might be a source of demoralization for soldiers told to fight thousands of miles from home.
  3. If NK casualties become high enough it might cause some pushback at home. It’s one thing to lose a son or daughter fighting against the South close to home, it’s quite another to do so in a war 10,000 miles away in a fight that has no relation to their land.

None of this makes this escalation a good thing but as this post suggests one should always look at the bright side of things and anything that weakens the North Korean army or has the solid potential to create dissent at home certainly qualifies as such.

Ukraine: Not My Call, Not Yours Either

Posted: June 15, 2024 by datechguy in in Ukraine, war
Tags: , ,

Aboard a Chesapeake Bay steamer, not long after his surrender, the general [Joe Johnston] heard a fellow passenger insisting that the South had been “conquered but not subdued.” Asked in what command he had served, the bellicose young man — one of those stalwarts later classified as “invisible in war and invincible in peace” — replied that, unfortunately, circumstances had made it impossible for him to be in the army. “Well, sir, I was,” Johnston told him. “You may not be subdued, but I am.


― Shelby Foote, The Civil War, Vol. 3: Red River to Appomattox

I usually don’t engage all that much on twitter anymore as so few people know how to have a spirited argument in a respectful way but once in a while I see something that jumps out at me. Such a thing happened today when someone was going over Putin and his faults.

Now as a person who knows his history and Putin’s KGB background you didn’t have to sell me on his faults even before the war on Ukraine began. It also seemed clear to me with the offensive near Kiev that Putin had more in mind that the Donbas region when he got started and fears of his forces driving beyond the borders were legitimate and even if you thought the threat of such a thing was not legitimate if you are a resident of Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia your fear of such a possibility is certainly legit as the three occupations of those countries by Communist Russia, then Nazi Germany then Communist Russia again are still in living memory.

As we all know the Ukrainians managed to stop the push of Kiev but the Russians had success in the Donbas region likely with the help of the large Russian population there left over from the days that they were part of the both the Soviet & Russian empires, Ukrainian counterattacks which seemed promising faded and the front lines have been fairly static for a bit with the Russians holding Donbas and neither side at the moment getting clear advantages.

The Russians have the advantages of numbers and a much larger population to draw from, the Ukrainians have the advantage of fighting on home turf and a large amount of foreign aid that even subtracting what is being used as graft makes a big difference, but a war of attrition by its very nature favors the side with the larger population plus Russia has the advantage of huge domestic energy supplies and a strong market for such energy if they wish to export to India etc.

Still this is bleeding Putin and thus you have seen some peace offers coming from Russia and the Ukrainians have to this point dismissed them. This is their right. They are the ones who are fighting this war, doing the bleeding and dying and living with all the risks of war which when it affects water and electrical supplies can quickly turn a 21st century lifestyle into a 17th or 18th century lifestyle.

Now all of the rest of us have a right to an opinion on what Ukraine should do, but it seems to me that being 10,000 miles away from the front lines and only risking tax dollars it’s not my place to tell people to go and fight and die. Nor is it the place of others to demand they fight to the last nor degrade those who might decide it’s not worth the cost anymore. The idea that Putin is a bad man and working for his own motives and that Ukraine is better off making a peace deal of some kind is not mutually exclusive.

Now of course the ideal would be Putin going back where he started from but it seems to be that even with weapons and supplies from the west the Ukrainians have neither the manpower nor the skill to force the Russians out of the areas they hold. Furthermore there is always the threat of Russia using tactical nukes if they feel the situation gets out of hand. The genie’s that would let out of bottles would not bode well for anyone.

Still in the end it’s their decision. If they feel it’s worth the hardships of war for months or even years to retake the parts of the country the Russians hold, I respect that. It’s their call not mine. There is a nobility in such a call whatever the result and no matter how it works out nobody should think less of them for doing so. Hey, they might think that Putin will reach the point of exhaustion and withdraw on terms favorable to Ukraine, if they can pull that off they deserve congratulations and admiration.

On the other hand if they eventually decide otherwise, that their people just can’t bear the costs of war anymore I’m certainly not going to critique them as Putin apologists or being on the other side or traitors for reaching the point of war exhaustion that I think a lot of the people online pushing them to keep fighting would have hit long ago. It’s very each to make that call from the safety of a keyboard far away in a comfortable home where your food and electricity supply is not in doubt. If they make a deal, they make a deal and it’s their deal to make.

What would I do? That’s a post for another day.

Five AM Thoughts Under the Fedora Chicago on the Potomac What are they Hiding? , War involves killing? Who wouda thunk it! ,Get on With it, Adjusting the Schedule

Posted: March 25, 2024 by datechguy in Israel vs Hamas, News/opinion, under the fedora
Tags: , , , , , ,

During the Obama years when his administration was young I pointed out repeatedly that he was basically a cheap Chicago Machine Pol.

It’s apparently much worse in the sense that his administration and the Biden admin that his people control have basically brought Chicago politics to the national level, where every part of government is used to quell & destroy opposition on one hand and the levers of power simply exist to enrich friends and perpetuate the machine, even down to the lowest civil service level.

They have remade the courts, the civil service and even the military in their image and the consequences of this are likely to destroy America or drive it toward Civil War and worst of all they’ve done it at the behest of our enemies.

I really don’t have words to describe what I think of the people who have allowed it to happen for the sake of power, status and greed but that’s a post Christian society for you.

A couple of days ago I saw it theorized that the reason Gallagher is resigning in a way to prevent his +15 GOP seat from being filled is to help the Democrats get the House long enough to declare Trump an “insurrectionist” and try to disqualify him per the SCOTUS ruling that killed the cases in Colorado etc.

There was a time when I would have laughed such a theory out the door but the incredible irrational fear and obsession the deep state and the left has of Trump has demonstrated that no tactic is beyond them.

This type of fear suggests that however bad and whatever illegalities and unconstitutional acts I might suspect have been going on during the Biden/Obama years, it’s much worse and they’re totally afraid of being exposed.

I must confess that I’m completely confused by how some people react to events in Ukraine and Russia

They are at war with each other and now have been for over two years. During war both sides try to attack the other, try to destroy infrastructure and target the other side. This tends to lead to death and destruction the scale of which depends on the size of the parties involved and the state of their military. This is how war actually works. It’s why it’s something to be avoided if at all possible.

So will people PLEASE stop having fits when Ukraine hits Russia and when Russia hits Ukraine and acting all shocked when it happens and concentrate on finding ways of ending the war instead. Surely there are easier ways of acquiring graft then this and frankly for those worried about the Russian Bear the lessons of this war would seem to be that the bear is not what people think it is.

Speaking of Military Confusion I’m a tad confused by Israel’s delay in moving into that final big Hamas City. I understand there might be logistical issues that they may be working out and given what we’ve seen there is plenty of mopping up to do farther north but I suspect if anything is going to move Hamas to made a deal for those hostages it’s the impending fall of that final safe haven.

Of course I’m still shocked they haven’t gone all General Sherman or more General Lemay on Gaza but that’s their call not mine.

Finally day one of up at five off to work at 6am, mass at 6 pm and home maybe 7-8 has gone without incident. It’s been 20 years since I’ve done 10 hour days so the real test isn’t the easy Sunday, it will be the Monday facing rush hour traffic and the Wednesday when I’ve done four straight.

Given the Biden economy & and the debt it’s helped me accrue combined with the empty tip jar I’m thinking of picking up a part time job on that now free day I have but I’m going to wait till I’ve done this a month or so to see how this sixty something body handles 10 hour days over the long haul first.

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