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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25688 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025

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I think the weakness with this analysis is that it focuses mainly on Russia for the first two points and misses the context for Ukraine. Point number two is even more dire for Ukraine than Russia, especially manpower-wise. There's really no solution for it other than getting Western countries to send troops, and I don't see that happening.

My read is that Ukraine in 2025 is similar to Germany in 1943 -- everyone who knows anything about the war knows that the loss inevitable given the strategic picture. But still, they have to play pretend to keep the public morale high and go through the motions just in case Ukraine rolls a series of nat-20s, or to maximize its negotiating position, or to squirrel away more personal wealth. But just because the war is inevitably lost doesn't mean Russian propagandists are right and Ukraine is just two weeks away from collapse. It can still drag the war out for two more years and inflict hundreds of thousands more Russian casualties.

In 2025, Russian forces have made significant territorial gains in Ukraine, capturing approximately 165 square miles in the four weeks leading up to November 11, 2025. At these rates, Russia should be able to take all of Ukraine in a few decades.

If it worked like this WW1 would have ended in the 1960s or something. Just stop with this, it's stupid and makes me assume I'm reading assbrained worthless propaganda. The only worse thing you could do is start blurfing about the Budapest Memorandum.

Edit: Whoops I meant to reply to @theSinisterMushroom with this.

Budapest Memorandum

Can you give me a brief case against the Budapest Memorandum's relevance to this issue?

So the Budapest Memorandum said, in brief, that Ukraine would give up the Soviet nuclear weapons stationed within its borders, and in return the other signatories would agree not to attack them. Also, they would agree to go before the UN and raise a formal stink on Ukraine's behalf in the event that someone else attacked them. It wasn't an especially great deal, but Ukraine didn't have the ability to launch the weapons so their leverage was not that of a proper nuclear power.

However, Ukraine-aligned propagandists shitting up places like /r/worldnews love to refer to it as a "security guarantee" and behave as if it's outrageous that everyone hasn't declared war on Russia already. That and the aforementioned linear model of war where Ukraine loses its last mile of territory in 2060 are the two big tells that you're looking at pro-Ukraine, well, drivel.

Ukraine didn't have the ability to launch the weapons so their leverage was not that of a proper nuclear power.

Oh, come on. It was Ukrainians soldiers and scientists that maintained these weapons. Yeah, they didn't have the launch codes, but it would have taken them less than a year month to hack a solution to make them operational.

Edit: just to reiterate, since I drastically adjusted my estimate, the Ukrainian nuclear forces had full physical control over the ICBMs, had detailed plans for these weapons, had been maintaining them for years. The only thing they did not have were the launch codes

The only thing they did not have were the launch codes

Not launch codes; PAL codes.

Permissive Action Links (and their Russian equivalents) are designed for paranoia against literally this scenario - someone with physical control of the weapon activating it. The weapon is designed in such a way that it is impossible to remove or bypass the PAL without rendering the weapon useless (basically, other stuff breaks first).

To turn a PAL-protected nuke into a working nuke (without the code), you have to disassemble it and remanufacture the physics package. This is easier than somebody acquiring nukes ex nihilo, because you can at least recover the weapons-grade plutonium* and as such you can skip the actinide acquisition, nuclear reactor and reprocessing plant. But it's not trivial; you still need the actual bomb-manufacturing plant.

*This is somewhat more complicated if the PAL fired one of the lenses, because then the core will have been pulverised by the (conventional) explosion. My limited understanding, though, is that they aren't generally rigged to do that on tamper; it's more a deliberately-triggered self-destruct.

So about eleven months longer than it takes American and Russian forces to meet up and shake hands in the ruins of Kiev after they're branded a rogue state, you mean. Get out of here dude, nobody wanted them to keep those weapons.

Get over yourself dude. Necessity is the mother of invention, and if the Ukrainians had decided to keep them, and the Russians/Americans invaded, they could have had two dozen hacked up nuclear ICBMs launched in days.

Edit: That said, they were never going to keep them, as never in their wildest dreams would the Ukrainians of the 1990s have predicted that Russia would be the one attacking them. And also, if the Russians had attacked, many soldiers would have refused orders to launch. But some still might have. Would you have taken the chance were you Russia?

Get over yourself dude. Necessity is the mother of invention, and if the Ukrainians had decided to keep them, and the Russians/Americans invaded, they could have had two dozen hacked up nuclear ICBMs launched in days.

They get wiped from the face of the planet the moment anyone anywhere believes they're even vaguely contemplating such a thing. Fuck off with this stupid fanfic, dog.

You've had multiple warnings for low effort snarling. Banned for two days.

Yes, no one wanted them to keep those weapons, and yet giving them up seems an obvious mistake in hindsight.

It reminds me of this bit of supposed* German WWII propaganda.

*It’s probably real, but I’ve never bothered to verify.

/images/17633013471257672.webp

I think it is probably from the period, I am much less convinced it is German. For one thing, the text is English. Also, the perspective is more Western Allied. For a German propagandist, the fact that the Allies were able to push back Fascist Italy would not be sufficient reason to suppose that the Allies could also push back the Wehrmacht in its homeland.

It's in English because it's aimed at the Allies. Cornell thinks its genuine.

Thanks for the link. I could only find Reddit links when I briefly searched, but I’m glad to see it on a more reputable site.

Which is, of course, why the Allies did not march all the way to Berlin from Italy; they invaded Normandy.

Point number two is even more dire for Ukraine than Russia, especially manpower-wise. There's really no solution for it other than getting Western countries to send troops, and I don't see that happening.

The solution is actually pretty easy, and Russia is already doing it. Based and trad white Russia is importing thousands of Arabs on the promise that they can settle in Russia if they survive the war. Go to various third world shitholes and promise citizenship for service, an EU visa is vastly more valuable than a Russian one. EU/USA visas would of course have to use oblique language regarding "Ukrainian freedom fighters" in credible fear of "Russian atrocities." But as long as one is as brutal as the Russians have been, you don't end up with many of them leftover anyway.

May I ask why are you talking of 'based and trad white Russia' as if this was some sort of pwnage? I'm sure you're also aware that the very simple reasons why the notion of 'based and trad' Russia even exists is that Russian society a) does not promote or expect white ethnomasochism b) does not normalize feminism and the LGBT+ agenda. That's it; there's nothing else to it. The idea that Russia is a white supremacist or nativist regime which strictly limits immigration is a fantasy alleged by virtually nobody anywhere.

Russia can only do that because they punish deserters and disappearing into the Russian countryside sucks. US made the same deal for local allies in Afghanistan and every ANA proceeded to both defect to the taliban and demand asylum in the USA for the promised riches available to every ubereats rider. The EU making that offer just ends up with a shitload of refugees making demands for asylum from 'forced recruitment'.

If throwing thirdworlders into the war to cripple Russia is the objective, the easier thing to do is pretend to be a Russian recruiter and hire from the opposing tribe. You'll have instant fratricide if you get a Sunni Iraqi in the same recruiting office as a Shia Iranian, and the only way to stop them infighting will be to hire a mutually hated enemy like an Indian to be introduced. For the price of a Novorossiysk embassy officers annual Lada payments and an Air India flight, the west can flood Russia with "volunteers" that will murder each other on sight and leave the corpses for noble muscovy to deal with.

Makes me wonder if Putin is thinking: "And come winter, the Arabs will freeze to death".

It's not like random largely-unabsorbed ethnic groups of Islamic leaning fringes are anything especially new for Russians. If anything their border population is already worse and more warlike.

Whatever Putin is thinking, it's a fair bet that Russian commanders and soldiers on the ground are going to have no problem putting Arab adventurer mercenaries in higher risk roles with worse equipment compared to Russians serving their country.

From what I recall these foreigners were not trusted with guns because they are too incompetent and presumably disloyal. Foreigners were pressganged into mobik support as porters and trenchdiggers. They're basically GLA workers with shoes pre-issued. Russia would have 0 problems sending them all to die, problem is whether they would even do so in the first place. Actual adventurers seeking to kill are rare and usually are ideologically motivated or psychologically damaged or have ulterior motives like the columbian cartel boys racking up xp in Ukraine before going back for the real war. Most pressganged foreigners in Russia end up in low risk (to Russia) roles that still need to be done, which means Russia needs to liquidate these guys by some other means to avoid paying out recruitment bonuses.

It can still drag the war out for two more years and inflict hundreds of thousands more Russian casualties.

This is always the thing though -- does something else happen in those two years that changes the reality.

"Maybe the horse will sing!"

A much more cultured way to make that point :-)

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