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Ukraine and Russia

Howell's Ukraine-Russia [news, email, comment, blog] webPages :

Table of Contents


Maps of Ukraine [war [forecast, battles], losses, oil, gas pipelines, minerals]

Wow! I was totally surprised by this ethnic map!! View John J. Mearsheimer, Uof Chicago, presentation : Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault?
 2015 energy-cg.com and 24Feb2022 Howell - Russian territorial aspirations
Speculations on my part that show you just how stupid I am.
Again from John J. Mearsheimer, Uof Chicago, presentation : Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault?
 Again from John J. Mearsheimer, Uof Chicago, presentation : Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault?
Again from John J. Mearsheimer, Uof Chicago, presentation : Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault?
 Again from John J. Mearsheimer, Uof Chicago, presentation : Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault?
liveuamap.com Daily updates of [battle, military disposition, activity]s
(initially from Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog, also interesting)
 02Mar2022 msn.com: Will Russia invade Moldova? Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko may have inadvertently revealed Vladimir Putin’s battle plan during a national security council meeting – and it appears to include Moldova.
24Feb2022 from Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog :
@AGHamilton29 - Here is a liveuamap.com of all the verified Russian attacks on Ukraine as of 3:30 am last night. Just a reminder that just a day and a half ago, Putin was claiming he was just sending in “peacekeeping” forces to defend the area circled in yellow.
 24Feb2022 bloomberg.com - Locations of Reported Attacks [24,25]Feb2022
27Feb2022 ukrinform.net - Russian losses update - As Deputy Defense Minister of Ukraine Hanna Maliar posted on Facebook, the total estimated losses of the enemy over the previous three days (February 24, 25, 26) in the war of aggression of the Russian Federation in Ukraine are as follows:

personnel - about 4,300 (being specified)
tanks – 146
armored combat vehicles – 706
aircraft – 27
helicopters – 26
Buk systems – 1
mortars – 49
Grad systems – 4
automotive equipment – 30
tanks – 60
UAVs – 2
ships / boats – 2
air defense systems
03Mar2022 Russia’s losses reached nearly 9,000 in a week – Zelensky 		26Feb2022 kyivindependent.com - Russias losses to date
As normally is the case for wartime claims, these might be exaggerated, a there is no comment about Ukraine's loss
Again from John J. Mearsheimer, Uof Chicago, presentation : Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault?
 220227 bloomberg.com: EU Share of Natural Gas Imports Coming From Russia, 2020
2015 Energy Consult Grp - Ukraine civil war, preconflict oil and gas situation
energy-cg.com comment: see note (2) below
 ...08Mar2022 add electrical power generation [dam, nuclear, coal, gas] later ...
eng.minerals-ua.info - Mineral Resources of Ukraine - Metallic minerals
 eng.minerals-ua.info - Ukraine metallogenic provinces
Note for "Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault?" map : The close correspondance between this graph and my first guess of "Russian territorial aspirations", for which I foolishly ignored the ethnic component of the underlay map. But do Russian-speaking ethnic Ukrainians want to be part of Russia? (obviously Russian speaking ethnic Russians seem to? What about Tartars? What about ethnic distributions before the Holomodor?

Note for Howell 25Feb2025 for map of "Russian territorial aspirations" : The 2015 map of energy-cg.com suggests the Novorissiya region (yellow), all the way to the Danube river, which corresponds to my initial guesswork 5 years out (to 2027) based on WWII, written before noticing their map.

Note for energy-cg.com comment for map of "Ukraine civil war, preconflict oil and gas situation" : "The map to the left [below] illustrates the Ukraine oil and gas situation before Russian annexation of the Crimea. We created this map to provide perspective on where Ukrainian oil and gas regions are in relation to the rest of the Ukraine. The primary onshore oil and gas productive regions are the Dneiper-Donetsk and Pre-Carpathian Basins. The primary offshore area, and the one most prospective for new, large conventional oil and gas reserves, is the Black Sea-Crimea Basin. Also presented on the map are the two large shale gas concessions previously awarded by the Ukrainian government: Olesska awarded to Chevron, and Yuzovsky awarded to Shell.' ... "The importance of the gas volumes for both residential and industrial use is the primary reason the Ukrainian government was aggressively seeking to expand domestic production through deepwater exploration and shale gas development."

Stray [thought, quote, history]s

"... History never repeats itself, but it rhymes. ..."
(I forget -> Benjamin Disraeli or Mark Twain?)
"... Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it.                          
        But for those who learn the lessons of history, they too are doomed to repeat it...."
(quote of ???, with Bill Howell addition)
Andrea Chalupa, third-generation New York Ukrainian, published in English in 2012:
"Orwell and the Refugees: The untold story of Animal Farm"
In addition to a Ukrainian context for the book, Orwell's only substantial publish self-description is in the book, provided after insistence for the Ukrainian language version during WWII. Ukrainians self-identified with the horse, which was worked to death.
The US Army confiscated all copies in Ukrainian refugee camps after WWII,
pretty much under Stalin's order, like much of the US WWII effort because of Roosevelt and his top aides and administration.
"... [Autonomous vehicles, language translation, speech recognition, video tracking, etc]
are currently riding the Great Wave of Deep Learning Neural Networks,
at a very immature stage, and pregnant with possibilty.
Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) may comprise the effective avant-guarde "Idiots Guide to Deep Learning",
while more powerful techniques, hidden in obscurity, burrow towards the future.

But a Ukrainian mathematician, Ivenenkhov(?spelling), of the University of Moscow,
is credited by Juergen Schmidhuber of the Swiss AI Lab
as being one of the earliest researchers to establish a NN-specific basis to Deep Learning.
That happened in the era that saw the world at a precipice :
Cuban Missile Crises, then USA President John F. Kennedy's assasination.

Being a prick, I won't hesitate to demand that Ukranians light a path
for a brighter mathematical future right now. Perhaps you are busy at the moment?
...so just as before, this is the best time for genius to manifest? ..."
 (Bill Howell)
06Jan2023 Someone (Jim ?? as Hussar Sundowner coffee, part Ukrainian) said that the Ukrainian Orthodox church was the 3rd split-off from Catholicism, after ?East Romans?, then Protestants (Lutheren?).



15Mar2022 Howell: Quick summary, still more questions

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: RE: issue #82 - Madness and Civilization
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2022 19:44:29 -0600
From: Bill Howell. Hussar. Alberta. Canada
To: Perry

I don't expect to participate in your Thursday chat, as I am behind schedule with 3 out of my 5 peer reviews still due for this summer's https://wcci2022.org/ conference, plus other stuff. However, I put some time into following the Ukraine-Russia situation up until Tuesday a week ago, 08Mar2022, and have few [link, comment]s that others might find useful and/or irritatingly unconventional. If the links don't work, see "Note 1 viewable links" below my signature block.

1. John Mearsheimer - This is the best presentation I've seen for the current situation, even though it was given in 2015!! It's >1 hour long, but I've written outline notes for it, including most questions at the end. Note -:
John J. Mearsheimer, Uof Chicago, GREAT presentation 04-07Jun2015 : Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault? "... John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in Political Science and Co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, assesses the causes of the present Ukraine crisis, the best way to end it, and its consequences for all of the main actors. A key assumption is that in order to come up with the optimum plan for ending the crisis, it is essential to know what caused the crisis. Regarding the all-important question of causes, the key issue is whether Russia or the West bears primary responsibility. ..."

2. Maps of Ukraine [war [forecast, battles], losses, oil, gas pipelines, minerals] -
I was caught off-guard by the very strong Ukrainian ethno-linguistic separations. [Resources, process, manufacture] are also very important, and figured critically in WWII, so I was reasonably familiar with these (or at least, vaguely remembered), albeit way out of date. More maps must be added here for the modern economy!

3. News feeds - Two Ukrainian online news feeds are my primary source of information. Items with links have been accumulated on webPages for each source, with an intent to eventually build auto-analysis at a primitive level (see "Note 2 auto-analysis of text streams"). 4. [random, scattered] questions -
My questions had been evolving rapidly up until 08Mar2022, when I stopped daily updates. I intend to update every few weeks from now on. Many are out of date, and most taught me lessons after follow-up. So here are some recent ponderings :

Bill Howell
Member of Hussar Lion's Club & Sundowners, (retired from volunteer FireFighters Jan2021)


************************

Note 1 viewable links:
Full-text viewable links - in case my links above are flawed (I typicallss them up!). You MUST select the FULL link, and paste to your browser!! Lazy double-click won't work.
Note 2 auto-analysis of text streams :
This is actually of primary interest to me : augmentation of my primitive [script, program]s to effectively cull information from sources. For example, I should be able to construct estimates of Ukrainian deaths from the feeds (Russian deaths are regularly totalled, but not Ukrainian until recently). For many key issues - we don't need humans fumbling through feeds, and we don't need mis-information from mainstream media. Tools are there for individuals to do this, but I haven't seen an open source setup for that.

05Mar2022 Scenarios by Others

04Mar2022 Howell: Russia preserves some infrastructure? No Ukraine scorched Earth?

This double-sided question is : News items - Russia [preserve, destroy] : News items - Ukraine scorched Earth :

02Mar2022 Howell: more questions

28Feb2022 Howell: new OPEC++, aligned with [China, Russia] economic priorities?

China is by far the world's largest oil importer (I think), and is strategically very vulnerable to oil&gas imports. Collaborations with Arab states and Persia is critical. China has long promoted a US-dollar independent concept for international trade. The extreme indebtedness of the [US, Europe, ], and yes, China, combined with China's "official crypto" only policy, plus its current real estate shambles, may offer opportunities that could mesh with [Persia, Russia, other OPEC+ members]. Further, while [Kuwait, Qatar] may be very comfortable with the USA, Saudi Arabia may not be. OPEC++ (= OPEC+ add possibly Saudia Arabia on US-dollar independent trade currency), may present an opportunity for a changing world as per Ray Dailo's book, and Russian papers for some decades.

Russia has an easy, albeit very long, land pathway to the Persia Gulf, and dominated the recent ISIS (ISIL) battle situation in Syria, where the US was not at all effective. Muslim Afghanistan is a great example of how things have always turned out very badly for US-backed countries since North Korea. Russia has vast Muslim affiliates (the "Stans"), and knows how to manage such situations. Just apply the normal terror at home and do unto others, and be sure to program your intellectual robots (especially [academic, media, civil service, teacher, trade union]). Russia is weak in manufacturing and hi-tech, which China dominates.

In the extreme, it quite possibly could be of potential interest to Turkey as well, who also are not happy, in this case with the EU. Turkey is probably not interested in being politically trapped, and while powerful, it has to reach compromises.

India has long been close to Russia, especially with [Pakistan, Bangladesh, China] at shared borders, and border disputes. I suspect that Indill want to play everyone against each other, but they may be very sensitive about a possible changing wwod order, and how they need to fit to that.

A Russia-China agreement might be possible on [oil&gas, trade currency, non-West (but not exclusive!)] market with special member priviledges, and there should be a way to package this for [Arab, Persian, Pakistan, India] to make it attractive. Furthermore, such an arrangement could formalize exisiting pragmatic arrangements to circumvent Western economic sanctions. My guess is that an such agreement would require a time-frame similar to that establishing the European Union, even though much simpler without a tight political union. It may not even be necessary - events could go this way anyways of their own accord.

Let see if this idea of mine turns out to be just as stupid as my "Action Plan: What would I do if I was Putin?" scenario (below). Maybe this one will last a week before being blown o of the water.

28Feb2022 Russian [plan, action]s, my naive reflections

I completely misread Russian [plan, action]s, doing as per the saying "Generals plan for the last war", only in my case I referred to WWII (ouch). From what I have read so far, their [objective, plan]s are brilliant, and they have been brilliantly executed. Of course, stray missiles and actions, running out of fuel etc are the norm in war, and deadly if they go too far. But that certainly doesn't seem to be the case here, in spite of Western journalists' lack of insight.

I don't like socialism [here, China, Russia, elsewhere], and I think their systems are frankly evil. But one must be able to see the enemy's [strength, weakness]s and learn from them. I think that is hard for all or us. Vladimir Putin is absolutely right - Russia's core security interests ARE threatened, whether they are "evil" or not (they are, I think). Of course, eveyone else's scurity is threatened as well - share and share alike.
  • I remember reading that a Ukraine thermal (coal) power plant was burned, I have no idea of the extent of the damage. I imagine that a Russian priority is to preserve critical infrastructure and plants, but not so much the population. It would be crazy for either side to destroy extremely valuable assets, but maybe there are crazy people out there?
  • The Chernobyl nuclear plant site has been taken over. It is a nuclear plant graveyard for one of four RBMK-1000 reactors from the 1986 explosion during a safety test, but the other 3 were still running until 2000. This seems to be a waste of resources under the present circumstancesunless the Russians wamake sure that the operaable plants aren't damaged. They were being decommissioned, I have no idea to what degree that happened - probably slowly.
  • 28Feb2022 a first round of Russia-Ukraine negotiations ended without any resolutions, but it is a start. This must been on the plans of both sides. Russia may not want quick negotiations. With major cities under siege, a month without [water, food, electricity, medical] will allow the Russians to "rescue" cities that are being hostage by criminal Western elements, with massive media coverage of Russian relief efforts. The only solution would, of course, be a Russian invasion to destroy the criminal elements and free the Ukrainian people. Sounds insanely kindergarten, right? But Western intellectuals, and modern Western media, have always bought horseshit like this. It's what they are made of. The Ukrainians and anybody else can say whatever they want, but even Russian subjegation is a normal choice over massive deaths and goulags.
  • The Western media is being handled very well, and the Russians don't have to worry to much about unsubstatial yap that will paint itself into a corner. What needs to happen from the Russian side is an effective perversion of US [leadership, media, trade unions, voters]. They down this supeerbly in the past, and with today's Western political correctness and socialist [academia, civil servant, te, population], it should be much easier to direct the Amereicans into betraying their own interesst, as well as that of the resto of the free world.
  • The eternal wedge between [USA, EU] is an obvious objective, and once theat dies down, this may progress.
  • Getting the USA to finance Russia's war and provide [science, tech, aircraft, tank, material, plant]s is already being accomplished by high [oil, gas?] prices and availability. But in WWII, Rthe Soviets actually were given everything for free in vast qntities. The USA is mainly responsible for the [suvival, spread] of socialism! (FD Roosevelt, and his [KGB advisors, Set sympathisers, socialist voters. I "greatly dislike" Stalin, but I have no respect for the FDR [puppet, moron, traitor].)
  • Now is the time to intiatiate higher-level strategies, such as my sub-section above "28Feb2022 Howell: new OPEC++, aligned with [China, Russia] economic priorities?". Although OPEC, like cartels historically, has traditionally been like a bag of cats, having a much broader OPEC++ with the weight of China, may make enforcement slightly more workable. A take-over of Persian Gulf areas, with Saudi involvement, could be a very big stick to use if things get unruly. This pre-supposes major Russian bases in the area, and the establishment of a major set of Chinese bases as well, possibly in a Persian Gulf puppet state. It would be dcult to do without some level of indifference or participation of India?
  • There are many other high level strategic [opportunity, threat]s too, it's just that I am slow and cannot think what they are yet. Sheesh, I can't even plan the obvious pre-game moves, and every strategic news item, however obvious it should always have been, is a surprise to me.
  • 01Mar2022 Progress of EU proposals to grant EU membership to the Ukraine totally surprises me, as I didn't think they would dare engage in a major war. I wonder if some deliberate tardiness will be invoked, to show good intentions without having to actually engage. the other hand, this might be perfect for Russia: invoke a puppet state, preferably headed by much of Zelensky's me, to end up with a Russian puppet state within th. Russia already has ties with Hungary, and all EU must trade with Russia, so it's not actually an extreme idea?
    Questions :

    26Feb2022 Howell - AM I A MORON OR WHAT?

    Only one day after I post, my scenarios out to 10 years are a joke on myself!
    Russian assaults are ALL across the Ukraine, not just on the borders of the rebel regions [Luhansk, Donetsk]. I heard yesterday abut activity at the Chernoboyl nuclear power plant, but had no details and thought it was just an advance Russian special forces party, a missile strike, or something to [take, protect the site. It now looks like a modern blitzkrieg, meaning there is not much hope at all. Guerilla warfare works wonders against US operations, and mauled Russia in Afgan mountains, but would it be a HUGE mistake in the Ukraine? My guess now is that Russian control will be achieved within 5 days, with only [mop-up, imprisonments, deportations] operations remaining (watch me under-estimate this time). This is a great opportunity to flood the West with refugees, and to populate portions of the country with with Russians, especially around the Black Sea. Also - a flood of [spies, sleeping agents, disrupters] to the West. It's about time we flounder and fail yet again.

    01Mar2022 Perhaps my key failure has been to mis-understand the key advantages of [meticulous planning, extensive prep, thorough logistic, innovative use of new capabity]s and how that might lead to a [quick, almost irreversible] victory, where that is possible. The less time that enemy [military, political leadership, civil service, propaganda] have to [think, react], and the more that a juggernaut keeps enemies off balance and [in disarray, confused], the less chance there is that endless [mistake, sure]s can bog down the initiative. Don't forget the 3 to 10 times [resouce advantage, and [experienced, practiced] cart [troops leeaship], as per military thinking going back thousands of years. A tough one is always advanced [technology, tactics], which takes years of prepaation and ongoing change.

    26Feb2022 (original) Well, maybe my speculations weren't ALL wrong across ALL time? Makes that Biden and his administration, and the civil service are just as [naive, traitor] as Roosevelt and clan? I doubt very much that Biden etal. are THAT bad, but I've been wrong before.. :

     24Feb2022 from Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog :


    Action Plan: What would I do if I was Putin?

    First draft outline : 24Feb2022

    I have no [background, knowledge] in this area, so what follows is a completely whimsical view. I don't have any original thinking here, in general I'm just using [WWI, China, Vietnam, Afghistan] as historical precedents. I don't like socialism, but it won 40 years ago in the West, and will likely explode in popularity over the next generation.

    Ukraine Population (2022) - worldometers.info
    The current population of Ukraine is 43,303,109 as of Tuesday, February 22, 2022, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data, equivalent to 0.56% of the total world population. Note that the Ukraine is larger than Canada by the measure that counts most : people. Canada is listed at 37,742,154
    Perhaps more to the point are estimates of 150k Russian troops for the invasion as cited widely a few days ago, but with a country-wide invasion, I assume that they would need far more than that, perhaps north of 1 million (1:43) to police-control through-out the country, and to track down [hold-out, guerilla]s.


    Territorial objectives : [Accelerate, increase] programs to [destabilise, corrupt] the USA from within and neutralize it's influence Get the "NATO" nations to betray themselves, and [promote, fund] Russian [strategy, economy, war] : Germany can be an ally : Make sure that potential NATO allies shy away from it : Manage the Muslim nations - a potential threat Use [Japan, China, Arab, Persia, Pakistan]
    Here I split apart to add comments for each of [Japan, China, Arab, Persia, Pakistan]

    China :
    Japan :
    I should have many more news items! Japan & Australia (onon-European nations) are fantastic!
    Cower [Ukraine, Baltic, Moldavia, Romania, Turkey] India - the rising power Southeast Asia Australia, New Zealand

    Action Plan: What would I do if I was the Ukraine?

    25Feb2022 - initial placeholder only for now


    Summary

    This webPage addresses the current situation (Jan2022) between [Russia, Ukraine], with a barely-addressed intent to approach it as a challenge in designing a [board, computer, online] game. The webPage is important, as it allows me to communcate with contacts in a somewht detailed manner, allowing others to point out weaknesses in my thinking.

    Light [yap, arm-wave]ing about the [Russia, Ukraine] situation is of almost no interest to me, although very rarely somebody does come out with a gem. For sure, many who are interested in the theme will be convinced that they know the [data, truth], but even for academic experts that is a stretch, and for the rest of us it almost never the situation other than as a description of the [vaccum, nonsense] in our minds (or perhaps this is just me).

    So here is an ugly question. Given : are we that far away from machine capabilities for which humans are NOT an effective competitor, albeit perhaps still an essential hybrid component, as is the case with the Chinese game of Go (Deep Mind's Alpha Go), with the most advanced levels of "fully digital" [medical, legal] diagnostics for which Deep Learning systems have bee built? I don't know. Even though my priority hobby since 1988 IS neural works, I have NOT jumped into Deep Learning. But it is a fascinating aspect of the [Russia, Ukraine] situation.

    For example, a neighborhood kid (young adult must be close to finishing high school) plays WWII online games, and has contact with a Russian. He also has some idea of how to update military equipment to modern day, but says that would be a huge endeavor. Presumably miltary groups on all sides have done this? Also, "John", a co-owner of a regional board game outlet that hosts player tournaments of [Dungeons & Dragons, Magic the Gathering, etc] has been part of a team that designed a commercial board game.

    To partially satisfy the "Zero-dimensional thinkers", here are some of my rather brainless quips (at l-east I tried, but I'm no expert, and I'm only human) :

    Introduction

    "... Just as a picture is worth a thousand words, a great question is worth a thousand answers. ..."
    (Bill Howell addition to popular quote)

    My opinion on the January 2022 situation between [Russia, Ukraine] has been [asked, offered] several times between mid-December 2021 and mid-January 2022. When preparing this webPage response for a variety of [inquiry, exchange]s, it became apparent that I could NOT easily provide a solid response, and that the best approach for now might be to detail a partial framework for such an analysis, and possibly a very few "multiple conflicting hypothesis". As usual, by far the most important aspect to me is not any answers, but questions. "Zero-dimensional thinkers" are going to hate this approach.

    Furthermore, I asked a friend who owns a board-game store how hard it is to design a [computer, board] game for this type of strategic situation. It turns out that has already been part of a similar board game team, and sees it as a straight-forward challenge (I assume an insane amount of work). So it's more fun to frame this webPage as a basis for a [board, computer, online] game, and get him (and others) come back and blow apart my clumsey thinking. So why not have a game to fight over the framework of a game to simulate WWIII or something, based on the current [Russia, Ukraine] situation? So the game gamers prepare the ground for gamers of the game?

    Beyond their fanastic [collection, interpretation] of historical data in great detail, I have almost zero confidence in the strategic analysis of essentially all [government, academic] analysts. It is un-imaginable to me that they could ever hope to to comprehend real players, although I suspect that almost all belief that they do : just as puppet-traitor Roosevelt thought so in WWII, and even the far more insightful Churchill. Even though Churchill was [duped, unable to comprehend Hesse], he is still one of my favourite characters of history. At least he [eventually, honestly] commented "... I think we got the wrong guy ...", if I remember correctly.

    This webPage serves only to provide a fraction of my thinking about the situation between [Russia, Ukraine] in circa January 2022. More extensive work is out of the question, as I would only consider more work after completing the WWII project of my father and I, if I ever even get back to that : "Icebreaker unchained : We should have lost WWII" (directory tree of many files - perhaps start with "Script for Icebreaker Unchained.odt".

    It is not intended that you should read through all the verbiage below. A fair portion relates to my own past reading, communications] on the subjects of [history, war, etc], and I am certainly no expert in these areas. However, it does provide "multiple independent personal pathways" through the subject, however incomplete and superficial. Perhaps readers can contrast this to their own paths. So pick and choose your way through...

    I don't have to put anything [nice, optimitistic, inspiring, humanitarian] - just look at all of [media, academic, government policy, etc] and you can get your fill any day of the year. Hopefully this webPage isn't more of the same. Don't believe anything I've written. I certainly don't, but then again I like to question everything, dig deeper, and spot glitches in ideas.

    This webPage is in honor of my father, Niel C. Howell, who died 23Dec2021. He's not here to call me a "dumb sunnovabitch", so don't blame any of this on him. As he might say :

    Russia

    "... Adversity builds character, whilst affluence destroys it. ..."
    (Bill Howell)

    Russia has the military capability, has used it within the last few years (Ukraine, Georgia, Syria, Afghanistan), and has credibility as a threat and not just a yapper. To me, the only real question for this whole issue is whether Russia has sufficient "control of Western democracy puppets" via [politician, advisor, trade union, military, academic, teacher, media] agents and spies, to do what they have so easily accomplished since 1917 :

              "... You must program your intellectual robots.
                       If you don't, you may rest assured that your enemy will. ..."     (Bill Howell)

              "... Modern education has failed to enhance thinking, other than by rote.
                       [long years of experience, high ranking expertise, management, human resources]
                          do not select for strong thinkers, but rather against.
                    [solid, strong, creative revolutionary] thinking (<1:[100, 10k, 1M] research scientists),
                       are NOT properties of individuals,
                           as [solid thinking is not consistent, strong thinking rarely occurs twice,
                                and revolutionary almost never occurs] in the same individual.
                    So it all fits together : Genius as commonly perceived does not exist. ...."       (Bill Howell)


  • Russia can greatly benefit from, and easily take advantage of, Western trends :

    Ukraine

    Ukraine [can, has, will] fight, but is at hopeless odds to a determined Russia. If things get really tough, they will fold to avoid the worst impacts of a bloody invasion, but necessarily it's bloody aftermath. The USA [can't, won't] fight in the Ukraine, and everybody knows it. Everyone does expect [rhetoric, lecturing, posturing], and even the Russians (most of all) expect a windfall of USA cash to prop up their failing image.
    The best outcome for the Ukraine might be for long-term international financial support for rebuilding their economy in collaboration with Russia, along with fairly open access to the [EU, international] markets, especially for their agricultural products, and possibly for military goods (that may be a stretch?).

    Rhetoric not war

    Immediate borderlands : Poland, Scandanavia, Baltic, Romania, Bulgaria

    Not knowing better, I will assume that these countries are far more attentive to the [Russia, Ukraine] situation than citizens of the [USA, EU] for solid, and terrfying historical reasons, but they will be looking to NATO as a buffer without getting directly involved, for now.

    Germany, post-Merkle debacle

    Germany has painted themselves into many corners, and will avoid any conflict and fight escalatation of the situation. This parallels pre-Barbarossa WWII almost exactly, except Germans at that time weren't as stupid as today's Merkel era voters.

    Turkey, France, Italy, rest of EU

    07Feb2022 No time for this now ....

    USA

    07Feb2022 no time to elaborate this now. In any case, it is far less important at this stage to cover better-known entities such as the [USA, EU], which are more familiar, whereas I have though relatively less about those below (exception China). As stated several times already, the big challenge for the USA is per Arnold J. Toynbee's "challenge and response", not "resting on one's oars". I could be surprised, but the Americans have long been better puppets than transformers, and I don't see any sign that they will ever wake up.

    A particular issue for the US is their recent extrication from Afghanistan, and total losall objectives for getting into it, which may have beeevitable, and which certainly highlights limitations of their reach and power. Furthermore, the present administration and its voters have a strong pacifist, possibly somewhat isolatnist viewpoint. This doesn't look like a starting point for serious involvement.

    The Americans [want, have] to believe that economic sanctions work. Perhaps I am too cycnical in asking wherther their [government, academic] economics researchers have anything that works? I see it does - in their minds. On the other hand, US embargoes on Japanese oil etc were critical in WWII.

    European Union (EU)

    See my comments for the USA. Somehow, given the current instability of the EU, it does get one thinking that now may be the time for a [Napoleon, Hitler] to finally unify them. Just kidding... but they do not seem like a likely arrangement for effect defense, more like a likely [dupe, loser], which seems to be their path for some decades. Still it's OK as as they have a baby-sitter (who may be going bankrupt).


    Over the horizon of time and space

    China

    What does China want, what can they can get out of this? Taiwan, and expansion of Naval control to the next ring islands in the Pacific are obvious objectives. Perhaps they too, could easily be able to get what they want and to get Western democracies to pay for it. They've already accomplished a great deal via climate change funding etc. They haven't even started to throw their weight around beyond a regional sphere [Vietnam, Phillipines, Taiwan, second ring of Pacific islands]. Perhaps they now have more influence in SE Asia than the USA (eg [Siam [Thailand, Cambodia, Laos], Burma (Myamar), Indonesia]?).

    But a [Russia, China] pt could be a possiibility. Thanks to neighbor "Scottie"or reminding me of this!

    [Arab, Persian] nations

    07Feb2022 No time for this now ... other than to say that many civilisation have been steam-rolled by either Arab or Persian floods. It's hard to imagine that the disparate groups coup collaborate effectively, but will this change? The Ottoman empire provides one example. Ghenghis Kan, Timur Lenk] are other examples of the past, examples with direct relevto Russian history (and of course a good chunk of the world).

    India

    India is not on many people's radar screen, except forward thinkers who are actually watching the radar. With the [ongoing, rapid] Chinese working population decline since 2010, India is the last of the massive new emerging economies to bcome dominant, and many expect them to eclipse both the [US, China], (perhaps by 2050?). If I am not mistaken, India is [oil, gas] poor, and is rapidly outgrowing their coal if they haven't already done so.

    Pakistan

    07Feb2022 No time for this now ... other than to say that Pakistan is a very special Muslim nation that doesn't seem to me to fit in so well with other major Muslim blocks. It is an enigma to me.

    Japan

    07Feb2022 No time for this now ... but they seem rather distant, and have to focus on China (and as always, Russia)!


    Players, puppets, rhetoric

    07Feb2022 No time for this now ....


    Vladimir Putin

    07Feb2022 No time for this now .... but the [background,inking, capabilities]of Putin and his staff are by far the most important factors for the [Russia, Ukraine] situation. It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall.


    Strategies for hunting lions

    07Feb2022 No time for this now ....


    Strategies for preying on democracies and weak [dictatorship, monarchy]s

    07Feb2022 No time for this now ....


    Always-shifting alliances

    07Feb2022 No time for this now ....


    World War II (WWII) versus 2022 context

    "... Fools and cowards must be conquered. It is unethical and immoral not to do so. ..."
    (Neither Joseph Stalin nor his favourite hero Timur Lenk said this. English wasn't their language, and they would not have wasted their time on drivel.)
    "... We learned all of the WRONG lessons from WWII, but that may be changing?
    Collective security is obvious, but that isn't WWII specific. ..."

    By far the gratest amount of work that I have done on WWII is on the unfinished video project of my father and I "Icebreaker unchained : We should have lost WWII" (directory tree of many files - perhaps start with "Script for Icebreaker Unchained.odt". That project cannot reasonably condensed for the current webPage, nor would I be happy with any simplistic "zero-dimensional" quips to summarize it. I have no interest in catering to that type of reader.


  • Calculus of War

    Calculus of War

    "... There are no innocents in war, just as there are no innocents in peace. ..."
    "... If you dare peek too closely at history, it will destroy all of your [belief, analysis, theory, model]s. ..."
    "... Great periods of war in history : desperation, affluence, religion, natural quasi-cycles? ..."
    "... Sun Tsu? ..."
    "... Bakunin, Marx, Lenin - ..."
    "... [Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolph Hitler] almost like twins ..."
    This very incomplete section is a placeholder for fascinating research. My familiarity is based on doing peer reviews of [Russian, Chinese] conferences because of my activities in neural networks.

    07Feb2022 No time for this now ... I was going to add the peer review references.


    General [limitation, constraint]s




    Personal contacts

    07Feb2022 I don't have time to elaborate, other than a quick search for past emails...

    General [limitation, constraint]s


    References

    Here is a selection of a few of the relevant historical books in my personal library :