They influenced Western perceptions of the conflict in Ukraine’s favor, it’s now being perpetuated more by Germany than by the US, and it could thus perhaps last a lot longer than many expected.
And probably not a ploy either conceived or executed by Trump. It's not like he's running the show, except maybe at the margins... like the beautification projects and other restorations of national monuments.
I believe drones are going to change one crucial thing: the mobilizable masses. Being a European warrior between the 8th and 15th centuries required athletic talent, good horsemanship, long training for expertise with the lance, sword, axe, mace, and other weapons, and a great deal of courage. Otherwise, being an infantryman required great strength, endurance, and courage, not to mention expert archers. The mobilizable pool was small. From 1498, Murten, the Swiss, then the Landsknechts and the tercios, with the pike, demanded great strength and enormous courage, relegating cavalry to the background. Numbers rose considerably. The French Revolution replaced courage with conscription, and numbers increased tenfold. Automatic weapons and artillery almost eliminated the need for athletic strength, so numbers could rise further. Today, the drone replaces courage and the slightest athletic ability. A child can pilot a killer drone, so can a physically disabled person, an old man, a woman nine months pregnant. It also replaces courage. The pilot can kill without risk, safely, from the rear. So the pool of volunteers can multiply. Note that in France, there is talk of teaching video games to children in school... Do you see where this is going? No longer need for an entire army of athletic, heroic, resolute soldiers. A bunch of cowardly woodlice on their sofas will suffice.
How 2 ident ical people are fighting each other for the benefit of he West is unbelievable.. There is a mix up in the minds of Ukrianians to allow this to happen. PLEASE Ukrainians for your own good WAKE UP.
It's obvious that if influence agents throughout the EU plant in people's minds the idea that only a large military-industrial complex will be able to pay for pensions, healthcare systems, various benefits, and free education, it should work."
I quite agree with the author along the subject line. Putin's personality and certain common traits among people who hold top political power for a long time seem to connect all the dots. One way or another, I don't see a "reasonably clean" ending like those of WW1, WW2, the Korean War, or the Vietnam War.
My comment is somewhat off the main theme of this post. When archery first appeared, it held some battleground advantage - arrows can reach a distance beyond a knife, axe, or spear, yet arrows can be aimed for a pinpoint attack without burning down a whole forest, etc. The weapon of choice for assassins was likely to be arrows. Then there were the firearms. Once firearms reached the ordinary people and the political winds blew in a certain way, assassins preferred firearms.
Modern drones provide mostly qualitative superiority over firearms (precision and maneuverability) and somewhat in quantity (10s of kilograms of explosives versus the bullet/shell of firearms). I also smell the political winds have returned to the era of ordinary people getting fed up with suppression and want to be left alone (in the name of democracy or any other fancy terms). No matter how military geniuses can use drones to change the face of war, ordinary nameless faceless young people will use drones to change the face of politics. Yet the change that follows may not be what the assassins wanted.
I think it is a profound mistake to consider US as more subdued with respect to Russia-Ukraine War compared to Germany. It is the US that in a way started and insisted on the continuation of this war. It serves long term strategic interests to have a weakened Russia, a prostrate Russia, and if possible, a de-nuclearized Russia. All the better to deal with China, having the ability to use Russia as one side of a pincer. The fact that Germany is moving in the front line in this war is even better and was something pursued for years now. Look, Trump is just an oversized marionette that loves wars, especially profitable ones, and where the "enemy" is crushed and humiliated. Russian leadership, taking cues from Trump and puting its hopes on Trump is a sign of lunacy. But here it is Poutine being the marionette of the oligarchy.
One time I watch a podcast with Dima from "Dialogue Works" where the guests were Gilbert Doctorow and John Helmer. That was maybe one, two years ago, cannot remember, the war is dragging on for over 4 years now. They came to blows in the first 10 minutes. Now, they are almost the same in what they present: Poutine is dragging his feet because reasons (oligarchy). Mobilizing for a bigger war could end up putting the entire economy on a war footing, which could lead to nationalization of parts of economy that were stolen in the 1990s, and this is something that oligarcy would rather have, at the cost of Russia loosing the war.
The reaction (non-existent) of Poutine to the drone attack on the Black Sea resort that lead to the killing of 7 and injury of 11 is really raising hackles in the Russian public. I am quite afraid that the elections in September will lead to fraud that will hard to mask... Unless Potine changes tack.
"Mobilizing for a bigger war could end up putting the entire economy on a war footing, which could lead to nationalization of parts of economy that were stolen in the 1990s, and this is something that oligarcy would rather have, at the cost of Russia loosing the war."
The Western Europeans (and the USA) still pretend to exist in the pre-1945 Dream-World like the nuclear age has never started. I made many attempts to visualize the possibility of Russia going down under the weight of NATO/Ukraine drone onslaught and at the end it always seemed like a ridiculous idea. MAD is still real and those who act otherwise have the depopulation of this planet on their low quality minds.
Lukyanov's observation on Trump, if true, suggests that he, like Zelensky, did not sincerely desire an equitable peace, but only was dissuaded—however briefly—by cost-benefit analysis. The EU, like the UK's Johnson, convinced both Ukraine and the U.S. that victory was doable.
All this shows that political outcomes are heavily based on zero-sum frameworks that prioritize military gains above other considerations. The West cares more about winning than Russia. Putin's timidity, in effect, means that Russia puts the lives of its enemies over those of its own forces.
While it is true that Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated, Anchorage was only a successful ploy to string Russia along.
And probably not a ploy either conceived or executed by Trump. It's not like he's running the show, except maybe at the margins... like the beautification projects and other restorations of national monuments.
Don't make excuses. Where does the buck stop in your world?
I believe drones are going to change one crucial thing: the mobilizable masses. Being a European warrior between the 8th and 15th centuries required athletic talent, good horsemanship, long training for expertise with the lance, sword, axe, mace, and other weapons, and a great deal of courage. Otherwise, being an infantryman required great strength, endurance, and courage, not to mention expert archers. The mobilizable pool was small. From 1498, Murten, the Swiss, then the Landsknechts and the tercios, with the pike, demanded great strength and enormous courage, relegating cavalry to the background. Numbers rose considerably. The French Revolution replaced courage with conscription, and numbers increased tenfold. Automatic weapons and artillery almost eliminated the need for athletic strength, so numbers could rise further. Today, the drone replaces courage and the slightest athletic ability. A child can pilot a killer drone, so can a physically disabled person, an old man, a woman nine months pregnant. It also replaces courage. The pilot can kill without risk, safely, from the rear. So the pool of volunteers can multiply. Note that in France, there is talk of teaching video games to children in school... Do you see where this is going? No longer need for an entire army of athletic, heroic, resolute soldiers. A bunch of cowardly woodlice on their sofas will suffice.
How 2 ident ical people are fighting each other for the benefit of he West is unbelievable.. There is a mix up in the minds of Ukrianians to allow this to happen. PLEASE Ukrainians for your own good WAKE UP.
It's obvious that if influence agents throughout the EU plant in people's minds the idea that only a large military-industrial complex will be able to pay for pensions, healthcare systems, various benefits, and free education, it should work."
I quite agree with the author along the subject line. Putin's personality and certain common traits among people who hold top political power for a long time seem to connect all the dots. One way or another, I don't see a "reasonably clean" ending like those of WW1, WW2, the Korean War, or the Vietnam War.
My comment is somewhat off the main theme of this post. When archery first appeared, it held some battleground advantage - arrows can reach a distance beyond a knife, axe, or spear, yet arrows can be aimed for a pinpoint attack without burning down a whole forest, etc. The weapon of choice for assassins was likely to be arrows. Then there were the firearms. Once firearms reached the ordinary people and the political winds blew in a certain way, assassins preferred firearms.
Modern drones provide mostly qualitative superiority over firearms (precision and maneuverability) and somewhat in quantity (10s of kilograms of explosives versus the bullet/shell of firearms). I also smell the political winds have returned to the era of ordinary people getting fed up with suppression and want to be left alone (in the name of democracy or any other fancy terms). No matter how military geniuses can use drones to change the face of war, ordinary nameless faceless young people will use drones to change the face of politics. Yet the change that follows may not be what the assassins wanted.
I think it is a profound mistake to consider US as more subdued with respect to Russia-Ukraine War compared to Germany. It is the US that in a way started and insisted on the continuation of this war. It serves long term strategic interests to have a weakened Russia, a prostrate Russia, and if possible, a de-nuclearized Russia. All the better to deal with China, having the ability to use Russia as one side of a pincer. The fact that Germany is moving in the front line in this war is even better and was something pursued for years now. Look, Trump is just an oversized marionette that loves wars, especially profitable ones, and where the "enemy" is crushed and humiliated. Russian leadership, taking cues from Trump and puting its hopes on Trump is a sign of lunacy. But here it is Poutine being the marionette of the oligarchy.
One time I watch a podcast with Dima from "Dialogue Works" where the guests were Gilbert Doctorow and John Helmer. That was maybe one, two years ago, cannot remember, the war is dragging on for over 4 years now. They came to blows in the first 10 minutes. Now, they are almost the same in what they present: Poutine is dragging his feet because reasons (oligarchy). Mobilizing for a bigger war could end up putting the entire economy on a war footing, which could lead to nationalization of parts of economy that were stolen in the 1990s, and this is something that oligarcy would rather have, at the cost of Russia loosing the war.
The reaction (non-existent) of Poutine to the drone attack on the Black Sea resort that lead to the killing of 7 and injury of 11 is really raising hackles in the Russian public. I am quite afraid that the elections in September will lead to fraud that will hard to mask... Unless Potine changes tack.
"Mobilizing for a bigger war could end up putting the entire economy on a war footing, which could lead to nationalization of parts of economy that were stolen in the 1990s, and this is something that oligarcy would rather have, at the cost of Russia loosing the war."
Rather not have?
THX, you are correct, and that was my intention to write.
No worries.
The Western Europeans (and the USA) still pretend to exist in the pre-1945 Dream-World like the nuclear age has never started. I made many attempts to visualize the possibility of Russia going down under the weight of NATO/Ukraine drone onslaught and at the end it always seemed like a ridiculous idea. MAD is still real and those who act otherwise have the depopulation of this planet on their low quality minds.
Lukyanov's observation on Trump, if true, suggests that he, like Zelensky, did not sincerely desire an equitable peace, but only was dissuaded—however briefly—by cost-benefit analysis. The EU, like the UK's Johnson, convinced both Ukraine and the U.S. that victory was doable.
All this shows that political outcomes are heavily based on zero-sum frameworks that prioritize military gains above other considerations. The West cares more about winning than Russia. Putin's timidity, in effect, means that Russia puts the lives of its enemies over those of its own forces.