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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   34440 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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Russian rockets crossed over the Polish border, killing two farmers.

Polish government official says national security meeting was called due to "emergency situation"

Pentagon is ' aware '

https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-11-15-22/index.html

This stirred something in me that is rarely stirred (I was born in Poland). Some sort of patriotic anger. The Poles, along with the former Soviet states and most of Eastern Europe, absolutely loathe the Russians.

I imagine this isn't enough to send in the troops - but I could see myself reading a history book in 30 years about how Poland, and by extension, everyone else, were pulled into the Great Russian War by a bomb and two dead farmers.

Edit: Russia calls it provocation that Poland stated this

https://english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2022/11/16/Russia-says-Polish-statements-of-Russian-missiles-hitting-its-territory-provocation-

I imagine this isn't enough to send in the troops - but I could see myself reading a history book in 30 years about how Poland, and by extension, everyone else, were pulled into the Great Russian War by a bomb and two dead farmers.

The problem here, I think, is simple to state, but devilishly complicated to solve: is NATO membership worthwhile?

If things did unfold as it seems, then Russia is responsible for a military attack on a NATO country. If it's "accidental," Russia essentially has to sacrifice someone's head on a platter--even though there's no reason to think Putin wouldn't just send some of his own troops to take responsibility, to keep the West guessing. But if there is no reprisal, then Poland, at least, has to be asking, what's the point of belonging to NATO? NATO, the alliance that was specifically created to deter Russian military incursions?

On the other hand, if there is reprisal... maybe WW3? A big NATO fight in Europe basically guarantees an attack-of-opportunity on Taiwan, and god-only-knows where else.

And if this is actually a Ukrainian false flag somehow, like... what a way to gamble. But I suppose a nation faced with a genuinely existential crisis has no reason to not gamble with the fate of the whole world, beyond pure, likely supererogatory altruism.

A year ago I'd probably have said "this is surely an accident and Russia is going to make that very clear very quickly, possibly with generous payments to next-of-kin." Today? I just don't know.

Arent a few farmers dying extremely weird? What’s the possibility that the missile falls on a farm exactly where the handful of people are at that moment.

According to German news, it was two, so likely a married couple, which means their house got hit (edit: or tractor apparently), so not particularly strange from that aspect.

An extremely unlucky coincidence is more probable than intentional Russian strike, or Ukrainian provocation though. Putin is a trickster, and a manipulator, yes, but he won't get anything by striking Poland, the only far-fetched explanation (that it's an "off-ramp" that would allow him to justify withdrawal from Ukraine) I think we can dismiss. Also some pro-Russians push the version that it's an attempt of Ukraine to draw NATO into the war — I too find not credible. Mostly because American GEOINT and MASINT is quite advanced, and with American help Poles won't have trouble to piece together what exactly happened.

I think we should look at the event holding this thought — that in a day, or two, or maybe a week NATO will know precisely what happened — whether it was a Russian missile, or a Ukrainian AA missile, or maybe both (e.g. if Ukrainian missile intercepted a Russian missile, and they both fell on those poor farmers). And I think Russian, Polish, Ukrainian and American authorities understand this. Kuleba already said that it wasn't a Ukrainian missile

https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1592633235754057728?cxt=HHwWgIDQqazflZosAAAA

if he lied, or even was misinformed, Ukrainian credibility will take a hit. At the same time, Russians are no strangers to lying (think of their behavior during MH17 events), so they'll say "it wasn't us" either way.

EDIT: Remember the Ukrainian airplane that Iran shot down (what an irony)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_International_Airlines_Flight_752

Americans leaked that it was Iranian AA the next day, on Jan 9th. And they were monitoring Iranian airspace in the aftermath of Soleimani just as they monitor Ukrainian airspace now.

if he lied, or even was misinformed, Ukrainian credibility will take a hit.

The one thing I have found consistently weird about the entire Western perception of this conflict is the universal mass-amnesia of the fact that Ukranian and Russian are birds of a feather. I personally tune out everything that comes from the mouth of a slavic leader as an obvious fabrication, and wait for the independent corroboration of events.

I don't think it's fair. When an American politician lies, Americans blame him personally (or maybe his party, like "GOP always lie"). On the other hand, when someone not from the US lies, the blame is put on culture like in your case "post-Soviet leaders always lie, it's because the culture of mistrust yada-yada". I guess it's sort of outgroup homogeneity?

Are you sure on your probabilities? If they are actual farmers the farm even a small size would be like 10 acres. Maybe 5 humans on a family farm? Your talking about 1/1000+ probability that a missile hitting the farm would kill someone.

Now if a missile fell in a suburban housing project maybe you have a 20% chance it’s close enough to kill someone. But on a working farm?

I think it's probable that it might be more complicated than just "a missile fell on a tractor", but rather it was due to some false positive of a guidance system. Still it doesn't mean that it was intentional. Kinda similar to my theory of COVID-19 — it might be a lab leak, but not an intentional release in order to [decimate Chinese/Americans/old people/enter your reasoning here].

Well I also thought maybe Poland added some flair to the missile. But yes on a big farm it seems improbably a missile just happened to hit the tractor humans were in.

Not only that, if you look at the photos it looks like the missile directly hit a tractor.

No one knows what it was programmed to do exactly but here's a good example scenario:

The missile should fly 400km Westward, but a sensor malfunctioned and miscounted its distance. Once that sensor thought it had been 400km, it turned on the visual targeting system. Normally, this would look for a building of a certain shape - but in the middle of a field, it found no buildings. It went to secondary targets, tanks and so on. It found a tractor and went for it.

Is that how missiles work though? That sounds way smarter than I assume missiles are.

Here's the wiki on the s-300, which is likely what this was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-300_missile_system

It seems like there is a base station with a radar on it that it uses for target acquisition, not on the missile itself.

That’s true for acquisition, but if you look at Specifications for the table of weapons launched, the more recent ones have their own radar.

Looks like these are radar-guided, so it probably homed on the radar reflection of the tractor.

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