War in Ukraine

Hopeful - in other words President Biden got no commitments from China. Nor did President Biden issue threats to China. As for using international companies as an example of pulling out of China I doubt that makes any difference to China at all.

The answer to sanctions is telling. As there are discussions and movement on setting up a validation process to determine who and is and who is not complying with sanctions. Whether this is understood to be a requirement of NATO or all nations lacks clarification.

 

Yeah, military strategy is way outside of my realm of expertise, but I would think the idea would be to make them sit way into Ukraine with their resources remaining thin until they completely collapse then rapidly re-take the territory. Just thinking through it though, I'd tend to wonder if that took long enough if the Russians would develop better supply capabilities to the front line. But, again, largely just spit-balling here.

 

Santa got one!

 

They would. One of your primary military objectives would be to hit supply lines to keep them from building better supply capability. The Russian army actually has a logistics division that does things like build new rail lines and lay fuel pipes. You have to constantly hit that stuff and keep them from becoming self-sustaining - drones, missiles, whatever.

 

It would appear the vaunted Russian army would have trouble finding its own ass with both hands.

 

BlackRock says Russia's war in Ukraine is the end of globalization - CNN

 

I think this will be interesting to watch. I've worked in the tech industry for 20+ years, and I've watched the transfer of high tech manufacturing to offshore sites, and the move to lean supply chains in the name of higher profits. These days, a good portion of my engineering staff (more than I'd like) is consumed by dealing with component shortages - we're constantly revising our BOM/PCBs so we can continue to ship product.

Sure, there's some political will and a security argument to not having foreign dependencies. But at the end of the day, we're an economy made up of greedy capitalists. I don't see the bean counters at the top changing their minds anytime soon...

 

Not buying it. I've seen this movie before. Time goes by & people become more more complacent & pursue "whatever" (in this case low costs), an exogenous event shakes things up, they overreact in the opposite direction in the short run & then as time goes by the trend picks back up. It makes no sense to have supply chains that are built for infrequent, unpredictable events at the expense of being the best during times of smooth sailing. The exception is proving the rule.

 

Under normal circumstances maybe...but there's been a major global disruption/supply chain issue since late 2019. That's a long time & it's not going away anytime soon. I think you're right in that it'll be a knee jerk the other direction, but I don't think it comes close to before. World's too unstable.

 

Ok this was funny

 

Isn't he the mayor of Kiev?

 

How a teenage girl reading the constitution in front of Putin's riot police became a symbol of Russian resistance

She is a lone teenage girl sat cross-legged and armed with nothing more than the Russian constitution.

They are a line of Moscow’s notoriously brutal riot police, equipped with shields, batons and helmets.

But the image of a young pro-democracy demonstrator single-handedly defying Vladimir Putin’s security forces looks set to become one of the most powerful symbols of resistance to the president’s autocracy.

Olga Misik, 17, was photographed sitting in front of the officers reading out the country’s constitution – which affirms the right to peaceful gatherings – during protests on Saturday.

 

Part of the problem for Russia is that, for many soldiers, their heart just isn't in it. They know they are there to steal another sovereign country (like Hitler was doing), not to "de-Nazify" Ukraine. To win a fight with a halfway decent opponent over a large geographical area, you need soldiers focused and committed. Knowing that you are the bad guy in the conflict is demotivating and destructive to morale.

 

Basically, Putin did a terrible PR job of convincing this war was just to his people. He should have thrown in some fake wmd's to justify the invasion.

 

Meantime on the NATO front, this is the head of state for Estonia?

 

One thing I've noticed -- Ukraine, Estonia, & a lot of other countries -- a lot of young, dynamic leaders. Using just Ukraine, you have several mayors, congress members, Zelensky, who are young/relatively young.

It would be great if we could start moving away from electing so many people in their 70s/keeping folks in congress well into their 80s.

 

So he is. Thanks