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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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The Big Serge has a good overview of the RU-UA war. The TL;DR is that Ukraine has burned through multiple iterations of armaments and is now reduced to begging for active NATO matériel, hence Germany's reticence to send Leopards. One should understand that Europe's and even America's production capacities have atrophied badly over the decades. Losing hundreds of tanks - the number that Ukraine is asking for - isn't something you replenish within a year.

Serge's prediction that Ukraine will lose the war "gradually, then suddenly" seems plausible given Russia's attrition strategy. If we assume that Russia will win this war, then the question needs to be asked.. how much will actually change? Ukraine as a country isn't particularly important and the population is likely to be hostile to Russia, meaning that to integrate it into Russia proper will be difficult if not impossible.

I keep hearing hysterical rhetoric that the West must win this war or... something something bad. It reminds me of the flawed 'domino theory' that was used to justify the Vietnam intervention. While I don't think NATO will ever proceed towards direct intervention á la Vietnam, I can't help but think that too many of the West's elites have trapped themselves rhetorically where Ukraine's importance is overblown for political reasons (so as to overcome domestic opposition towards sending arms) and it has now become established canon in a way that is difficult to dislodge.

The TL;DR is that Ukraine has burned through multiple iterations of armaments and is now reduced to begging for active NATO matériel, hence Germany's reticence to send Leopards.

If this is the level of analysis on offer, it's beyond worthless. Russia too has "burned through" much of their advanced equipment and is now mostly limited to their own domestic new production or mothballed shit from the '50s and '60s. Of course Ukraine wants good weapons, rather than the outdated military surplus most countries have been dumping on them. This is not an indication that anyone is "winning" or "losing". This is what happens in attritional combat.

Germany isn't reticent to send Leopards because the Ukrainians are losing, they're reluctant to send them because they don't have very many and their politics is incredibly fucked up around military matters, for understandable historical reasons. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/21/what-is-stopping-the-supply-of-german-made-leopard-2-tanks

Here's a technical video about IFVs specifically, what sorts are involved, how many, tactics etc. https://youtube.com/watch?v=UGZi-F3tz-o

And for example in https://twitter.com/witte_sergei/status/1616478656863571969 this twitter poster demonstrates being unable to distinguish between "losses and captures confirmed by reliable public info" and "actual losses and captures".

And fails to understand that Russia has more weaponry than Ukraine.

Or is deliberately lying and misleading pro-Russian troll. Or both. Take your pick.

is twitter poster demonstrates being unable to distinguish between "losses and captures confirmed by reliable public info" and "actual losses and captures".

...that was absolutely a case of sarcasm, Oryx is deemed very unreliable by the pro-Russian side as people took a look at his claims and found he'd verify a loss based on a photo that was e.g. not even from the war,etc..

Oryx is apparently run by some Bellingcat guys, of the 'Russia will run out of cruise missiles any minute now' fame.

Oryx is deemed very unreliable by the pro-Russian side

I wonder what this people think about Russian MoD claims :)

Has Big Sergei made fun also of all Russian MoD claims that were equally suspect as Oryx listings?

And is rejection of Oryx based "he refused to list 'destroyed' HIMARS" or anything more serious.

as people took a look at his claims and found he'd verify a loss based on a photo that was e.g. not even from the war,etc..

Is it just me or

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is displayed?

I seem to remember that ArmchairW was definitely not some epitome of high quality.

And overall I expect that in thousands of cases some sneaked through, Oryx is quite good but not some god. Definitely at least some checking is done, many many claims were rejected as invalid or pointed out to be duplicates.

I would care more about response to discovered problems and is it something systematic.

I seem to remember that ArmchairW was definitely not some epitome of high quality.

He, like SergeW, are partisan and thus prone to biases, but his reviews of Oryx were more or less correct.

I've noticed him having not the best record in prediction and being too optimistic many times, but he's still one of the better pro-Russian accounts.

However in regards to the reviews of Orxy, I've gone through several of them, and he wasn't being irrational about it - just well motivated to find problems.

Another demonstration of why adversity is absolutely necessary for any measure of quality.

Is it just me or

Locked account.

Dude was under severe attack from the malformed dogs and got burnt out on the whole thing of spending hours daily researching and posting.

He kept locking and unlocking his account even while he was active.

It got to the point they were making up stories about his time in the army, photoshopping pictures of him etc, making parody accounts etc.