Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[OttoVonBismarck]

The problem with thinking, at least to my opinion, a Taiwanese invasion won't lead to a global depression is I am fairly certain the U.S. will defend Taiwan at least with naval operations. Americans will directly die at Chinese hands. The American people will not tolerate "business as usual" with China during a shooting war, and the economic back and forth at that point all but certainly escalates into a global depression.

I actually think there are arguments to be made that we have let economic integration with certain countries go far beyond what is desirable. I think we have kind of been waking up to that in America with China the last 10 years, even before Trump. Covid-19 actually also highlighted some of the risks of just assuming you can always "ship it in from China", so far this hasn't materialized into any large scale change in policy. But it has lead to some small ones, you are starting to see rumblings of U.S. "Industrial Policy" which we haven't had in 50 years, with the government encouraging things like domestic production of Rare Earths, silicon chips etc. You are also seeing some American businesses looking afield from China to neighbors like Vietnam and India. It's like 500 steps away from being any serious distancing from China, but I think the dialogue is happening and some very early steps are happening too.

There is an assumption built up from the 90s that economic interdependence in the modern age was only going to continue and grow. The punch, punch, punch of Trump's Trade War, covid-19, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I think a lot of countries are going to be wondering if we've become too interdependent. There are economies of scale and efficiencies to the interdependences we have, which is why they developed more or less organically. But they aren't that old. I graduated High School in the mid-1980s not long after we had really started to open up to China, even in my lifetime the relationship with China has changed massively, even moreso in the late 90s when WTO opened up to them. It may seem unthinkable that the world could be any other way, but it was another way, and not ages ago in history books, in most of our lifetimes.

I don't really think we should distance from China just out of fear of the economic fallout from a Taiwan War (which I think is much less likely than the Ukraine War was), but I do think we have to more seriously think about strategic and even just basic supply chain risk from over-dependence and over-interdependence with one large country that itself has anti-Western strategic goals.

[Jacob]

In addition to governments thinking about these things, I expect corporate leaders are reevaluating the risk/reward of outsourcing and complex multinational supply chains vs more local or at least alliance contained supply chains as well.

As Otto says the punch punch punch of Trump, Covid-19, and war in Ukraine makes what previously seemed like unimaginable disruptions much more concrete.

[Tamas]

I do miss the days when different countries had different things.

Dare we dream?

STFU that was my family's first car and compared to other Soviet shit it was pretty good. After my dad sold it tp a guy in town, we saw it every once in a while on the road even when it was past 20 years old.

Our last Lada (a Lada Samara) however, started rotting and falling apart after 3 years, much like its home of origin at the time.

[Berkut]

The no fly zone demands (coming from non-Ukrainians) I see as extremely naive. I don't think most people realise that means flying CAP which in turn means pre-emptively destroying Russian air defences. If we do that, we might as well do it with nukes, it's there where it'd end.

Yeah. It just risks conflict with Russia which is unpredictable and decisions being made faster than the speed of sound by pilots. 

Yeah,see this is what he meant by people don't understand what a no-fly zone means.

There isn't a "risk" of conflict with a no-fly zone. There is absolutely going to be conflict. Because to enforce it, you have to send your planes into the zone in question. And you cannot do that *until* you radically degrade the enemies air defense capability. You cannot send multi-million dollar aircraft and pilots into an area with active AD, and just hope the bad guys don't shoot the sitting ducks out of the sky (and that is what they would be if you just tell them to go fly around in an area with SAMs all over the place).

A no fly zone is something you put into place *after* you suppress enemy air defences, not before.

[DGuller]

Can no-fly zones be enforced by SAMs from outside the Ukraine?  What's the range of the best SAMs the West has?

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Full agreement on the first two paragraphs.

My point was regarding your third paragraph: China is both more relevant for global supply chains and more self-sufficient than Russia. So economic sanctions would not hit it as hard or are so drastic as to not be palatable for the West (that was my assumption) or lead to the global depression you outline. But the Russian experience, where the West can inflict outsized economic pain at relatively low own cost would not be apply to China invading Taiwan. And they know that.

isn't China like really dependent on a steady flow of oil from the ME? Much of it coming through the straits of Malacca.

[The Larch]

Long thread about Russian performance esp. paratroopers:

https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1499377671855292423

Argues that Russian paratroopers are mostly an intimidation, not combat force and that their use indicates that Putin considered the invasion a case of putting down a mutinous province that can be quickly scared into obedience - explaining their struggles in many areas to make much headway with ground forces.

Interesting, it really reinforces the impression that the initial invasion was very sloppily planned, or planned under really wrong assumptions. The worrying part is that now Russia will correct itself and it risks getting ruthless and much bloodier.

[Jacob]

Interesting, it really reinforces the impression that the initial invasion was very sloppily planned, or planned under really wrong assumptions. The worrying part is that now Russia will correct itself and it risks getting ruthless and much bloodier.

Yeah, I'm seeing reports (not sure how credible) that Russia has plans for pacifying the Ukrainian population, including public executions.

Incidentally, Putin's recent TV speech says the invasion is "proceeding as planned".

[The Brain]

Incidentally, Putin's recent TV speech says the invasion is "proceeding as planned".

To plan to fail is to plan to fail.

[Jacob]

Another thing I saw - social media, so take with the appropriate amounts of salt - that the Russians are planning to land in Odessa soon and that the ships loitering off shore are the ones that transited through the English Channel back in January (or whenever that was).

[Berkut]

Another thing I saw - social media, so take with the appropriate amounts of salt - that the Russians are planning to land in Odessa soon and that the ships loitering off shore are the ones that transited through the English Channel back in January (or whenever that was).

That is a long damn time for some infantry to be sitting around on a ship.

[celedhring]

Another thing I saw - social media, so take with the appropriate amounts of salt - that the Russians are planning to land in Odessa soon and that the ships loitering off shore are the ones that transited through the English Channel back in January (or whenever that was).

They were pictured off the Crimean coast this morning - and the US said that they had seen naval movement there and a landing was likely. But the day is practically gone and there's no news of a landing.

[The Brain]

The Ghost of Tsushima hangs over Russian naval operations.

[Jacob]

That is a long damn time for some infantry to be sitting around on a ship.

I'm guessing they put the infantry on board later.

[Jacob]

They were pictured off the Crimean coast this morning - and the US said that they had seen naval movement there and a landing was likely. But the day is practically gone and there's no news of a landing.

Interesting