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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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The way the Russian government is handling the war in Ukraine strongly reminds me of the Kursk incident.

As a brief reminder, the incident featured a Russian nuclear submarine that experienced a fatal malfunction: the explosion of a torpedo that then triggered more of its torpedoes to explode. The blasts killed most of the crew and the few that remained alive sheltered in the tail end of the submarine, which dropped to the bottom of the Barents Sea. The incident received international attention in August 2000 because of a seemingly endless series of mishaps during the rescue operation:

  • the Russian Navy was accustomed to frequent comm equipment failure so it didn't take any action when the Kursk failed to check in.

  • the Navy's rescue ship was a former lumber ship and could only operate in calm seas.

  • the admiral in charge of the military exercise that Kursk was part of informed the Kremlin of the incident about 12 hours after it it took place.

  • the next day, the same admiral informed the Russian press that the exercise had been a resounding success.

  • one of two Russian submersibles used for the rescue operation collided with the Kursk and required repairs.

  • the second submersible was used but failed to locate the Kursk.

  • the next day, the first submersible was fit for action and sent to attach itself to the Kursk, but it took too long and it ran out of batteries. There were no spares, so the rescue operation had to be put on hold until the batteries was recharged. Meanwhile, the weather got worse and the operation had to be held off until the next day.

  • the first official report of the incident to the Russian media stated that the Kursk had experience a minor technical difficulty.

  • Russian officials first stated that the problem was a result of a collision, most likely with a WWII mine.

  • the second submersible was damaged again while being it was being prepared to be lowered for another mission.

  • the second submersible was repaired and made two attempts to attach itself to the Kursk, but both failed. As it was being picked up by its ship, it was seriously damaged.

  • a few days into the operation, the Navy was reporting that from the evidence it had obtained there had been no explosions on the Kursk. (This despite the first two explosions being serious enough to be heard by other vessels taking part in the training as well as seismograph sensors operated by multiple other countries.)

  • initial offers of international assistance were denied. Only 5 days later were they accepted.

  • another admiral of the Russian Navy stated that the incident occurred because of a collision with a NATO submarine. Other officers backed up this report, although no evidence was produced. They kept to this line for nearly two years after the incident.

  • after the wreck was lifted from the sea floor and transported to Russia, an investigation found the incident to have been caused by (get ready) torpedo explosions. It is suspected the root cause was a faulty weld. Also, the automated recording system was disabled along with the rescue bouy.

(For others like me who accidents fascinating I recommend reading the full wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kursk_submarine_disaster. Spoiler alert: the remaining Kursk sailors died within a few hours of the accident. The wikipedia entry contains some quite disturbing details of how they died, eg. "(..) abdomen was burned by acid, exposing the internal organs, and the flesh on his head and neck was removed by the explosion.")

What stands out to me here, just from the perspective of incident response is:

  • ineffective incident management. Awful communications. General lack of understanding of the problem at hand, what to do, etc.

  • ineffective rescue equipment. Outdated, unmaintained.

  • numerous human errors: the rescue submersibles were damaged multiple times by their operators!

  • lack of transparency with public. Numerous false statements eg. calling the incident a "minor malfunction."

  • blameful-postmortem. Blaming WW2 mine, at first, then trying to sell a completely made up story about a collision with a NATO vessel.

From where I stand, I see all of these patterns replaying themselves in the current war in Ukraine.

  • Frequent painful logistics problems. Problems with supplying front-line troops with food, water, even adequate clothing.

  • Ineffective, outdated, unmaintained weapons and vehicles. No air superiority. Foreign-made drones that don't work well in cold weather. Not being able to defend bases hundreds of kilometers inside the motherland from a suicide drone strike. The infamous analysis of truck tires from the beginning of the conflict showing that regular maintenance was not done.

  • Bad management. Awful communications. Changes in leadership. Risking and losing high-value equipment like the Moskva.

  • Lack of transparency. 3 day "special operation" that has been going on for 300+ days. The need to mobilize 300k civilian men to fight what was supposed to be a simple little conflict.

  • Lies. Painting the conflict as fight against nazism, Satan, or NATO (ironic to pull the NATO card again after the "collision with NATO submarine" during the Kursk incident). Even starting the conflict by staging a military exercise that, allegedly, even the participants didn't know was the first step in the war. Reassuring the Russian public that Russia will bear no economic pain from being cut off from various trade systems. Repeated threats of using nuclear weapons. Threatening Finland and Sweden.

Note that I'm not touching on the moral aspects of the war, just on the operational ones. In both of these stories, the salient patterns appear to be corruption, inadequate training, lack of management, and constant lying and bluffing that serves to create internal confusion.

If these patterns reflect reality, then the future doesn't look good for the Russian government. I can see two probable ways this can end: a long, drawn burn that ends in the eventual "suffocation"--lack of basic resources to continue the conflict--or a quick, short ending meant to stop the hemorrhaging of resources on a futile conflict. Either is catastrophic or nearly catastrophic for the Federation.

One of the tragic parts of the Kursk incident is that Russia declined several Western offers of aid (from the US and parts of Europe) until such time as it's own efforts had completely failed several days later. In particular putting national pride above the lives of it's sailors seems like quite a tragedy for the families of those lost.

But perhaps that also speaks to attitudes toward the current situation that I have trouble understanding from a Western perspective.

In particular putting national pride above the lives of it's sailors seems like quite a tragedy for the families of those lost.

Question: do you think Ukraine should surrender to Russian demands immediately, or do you think that it should continue to lose its men at the front and lose its women (and therefore its next generation) to permanent refugee-vacation in glamorous Western Europe?

Because for one of those cases, you have no cause to be finger-wagging anyone else at placing national pride above human lives.

Russian demands currently include destroying Ukrainian nation, and they aren't exactly shy of proclaiming it. It's not a matter of "pride", it is a matter of survival - both national, political and for millions of Ukrainians, physical - since Russians are not exactly shy of just murdering whoever dares to oppose them or look at them in a wrong way, or just looks suspicious enough, in places which they are occupying.

Russian demands currently include destroying Ukrainian nation

I'm pretty sure if Ukraine willingly gave the rest of the donbass, made public statements about becoming neutral towards the russian culture and interests, including allowing russian to be taught again in schools, russia would make peace.

The issue with the dehumanization of the orcs and with the tribal manicheanization of russian interests that the western media and people parrot is that despite having some elements of truths, overall obviously leads to a criminal utilitarian disaster of continued intense human lives and economic attrition.

russia would make peace

Today yes. Tomorrow maybe. A few short years later no.

Giving in to salami tactics is choosing to lose one slice at a time. Russia now shows a pattern of invading Ukraine and the most recent invasion included an attempted decapitation of the Ukrainian government. It would be madness to start trading territories for extremely temporary peace now. Russia would merely grow hungrier by the eating.

So is it your belief that all Ukrainian territories pre-2014 can be recaptured through force?

I'm pretty sure if Ukraine willingly gave the rest of the donbass, made public statements about becoming neutral towards the russian culture and interests, including allowing russian to be taught again in schools, russia would make peace.

No they wouldn't. Why would they if they can take the whole thing in three days (as they were sure at the start)?

Also, guess what, Ukraine did all that. Almost all.

Donbass was occupied by Russia since 2014 (so were Crimea, which somehow the Russian propagandists always ignore) and Ukraine de-facto accepted this situation, due to inability of changing it. It obviously was just a stepping stone for Russians which only encouraged their appetites and showed them Ukraine is weak and the West is indifferent, so why not finish the job?

Ukraine has never been any threat to Russian culture - majority of Ukrainians speak Russian at least as the second language, for majority in large cities, especially in the East and the South, it is the primary language at home, huge number of Ukrainians worked in Russia, etc. Before Russia started its war with Ukraine in 2014, Russian was taught in schools freely and there was no restrictions - they came after 3 years of war, in 2017.

As for "interests", given that the official position of Russia is that Ukraine should not exist as a nation and should be owned by Russia instead, since "we are the same people" and Ukraine is "an artifact of Western meddling", it is impossible for Ukraine to both exist and "become neutral towards Russian interests" - you can not be neutral in the question of your own existence.

The issue with the dehumanization of the orcs and with the tribal manicheanization of russian interests that the western media and people parrot is that despite having some elements of truths

Like 100% of those elements. When somebody fires a stream of rockets each containing a ton of explosives into a densely populated city, pretending they do it because they don't teach enough Russian in the same city, and not allow 80% of the population that speaks Russian there to speak Russian more freely, and that's why they all have to be murdered by Russian rockets - I have no trouble figuring out which side is evil here. And no fancy words like "manicheanization" will change that. Whoever fired the rockets dehumanized themselves by their own actions.

russia would make peace.

Yeah, and sign peace promising respecting remaining part of Ukraine. Maybe it should be signed in Budapest and called Budapest Memorandum II ( see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum )

So is your position that no peace should ever be signed with Russia at all?

I am well aware of this broken promise but should we be consistent and take into account other broken promises?

The Ukrainian people voted in vast majority to stay in the USSR

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_Union_referendum