Meanwhile in Ukraine

[Smitty-48]

what is at Ivan's immediate disposal to escalate to the strategic, to wit the high seas ?

as usual, it is all about the submarines

1. attack undersea cables to sever lines of communication

2. mine the sea lane choke points to sever the global supply chain

3. move to first strike counterforce posture : nuclear deescalation

[Speaker to Animals]

I don't mean to sound all Tom Clancy or anything, but there had to be more to this. I wonder if there was a coup planned to coincide with the invasion and it just got exposed in the worst possible way.

This almost could have worked really well if Putin had a coup planned that included part of the Ukrainian army, but that just sounds ridiculous when you write it.

Nothing about this invasion makes any sense at all. He could have threatened them and consolidated those breakaway territories as new Russian territories. This simultaneously would have expanded his reach closer to Crimea and made a very solid case that NATO can't possibly protect Ukraine. The risk would have been minimal.

But this. What the ever fuck is this? He can't possibly win the insurgency. Can nobody in his inner circle even say that without getting shot? Is that the problem? This is unwinnable. Actually taking control of the territory and the government is only going to make so much worse for them too. This is not actually the point of no return. The point of no return is capturing the surface of Kyiv and Zelensky himself. Then they just bought a ticket to the biggest insurgency since Algiers.

[Smitty-48]

I don't mean to sound all Tom Clancy

but this is just like a Tom Clancy novel

this is the nightmare scenario dystopic future

out of some 1980s thriller novel

happening right before our eyes

[Speaker to Animals]

what is at Ivan's immediate disposal to escalate to the strategic, to wit the high seas ?

as usual, it is all about the submarines

1. attack undersea cables to sever lines of communication

2. mine the sea lane choke points to sever the global supply chain

3. move to first strike counterforce posture : nuclear deescalation

I just realized something.. It's been almost a decade since I fucked with GPS, but I think Musk could theoretically bounce broadband off those satellites in geosynch. So if we have one sitting up there above Ukraine, and he has Starlink sats off around the horizon but out of range of any anti-sattelite missiles they can launch from their aircraft, he might be able to use that geosynched sat for privileged data. I just don't know for sure if the antenna package could be updated to receive and transmit packet data like that.

My guess is that they are going to first cut Europe off from natural gas.

The ban on Russian oil is going to be fucking stupid, obviously. It's going to create an artificial scarcity in the biggest markets (North America and Europe). That will drive up prices and further fuck up our own economies. But prices are global and lots of countries still will buy oil from Russia -- at those prices we inflated for them. The republican party is probably stupid and anti-American enough to push hard for an oil-embargo while fighting tooth and nail to block the corresponding windfall tax on American oil companies to offset the hit on our economy too. So it's basically a suicide pill fed to us by a pro-Russian political party at this point.

The Russians don't really need to fuck with the Internet or the global supply chain. Our leadership is just as fucking dumb as Putin.

[C-Mag]

Russia is now cutoff from the West.
No Netflix, No Twitter, No McDonalds.

Imagine what happens to a nation without Toxic Western Woke Culture. Do you think average Russians are going to decry their lack of ability to see Black History Awareness month on Netflix

[Smitty-48]

I mean, back in the 1980's

this is what I thought 2022 was going to be like

none the less

that came up fast

2022 seemed so far away back in the 1980's

[C-Mag]

Not that Washington DC cares

[Smitty-48]

Not that Washington DC cares

but we are at the threshold now

that level of conflict

where congress would declare war formally by the Hague Convention

the Pax Americana has fallen

the Soviets are over the Rubicon

like a fucking Tom Clancy novel going down real world in real time

[SilverEagle]

Not that Washington DC cares

Lol right. That hasn’t stopped them. Hell it has never even slowed them down. War? What war? It’s a police action you silly citizens.

[Smitty-48]

Lol right. That hasn’t stopped them. Hell it has never even slowed them down. War? What war? It’s a police action you silly citizens.

there is actually no need for congress to declare war against Russia

it's a frozen conflict

15 minutes notice to launch on warning

the National Command Authority is at war with the Russians at all times

hence the DEFCON & FOOTBALL

at short notice, Article II empowers the POTUS to fight a thermonuclear war as necessary