& BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2022-02-28 Mo:The tactical dance of professional modern warfare. Attackers creeping forward in small mutually-supporting combined-arms on the ground, and defenders dancing backward, abandoning each position just before attacking artillery registers on it. And in the air above are the eggshells-armed-with-hammers that must rely on their own speed and on the suppression of enemy fire to stay alive themselves. Things get even worse for the attackers when they move from the countryside into the city. For the defender in the city, the key skill is figuring out when it is time to bug out through the hole in the back of your current building and move to the next one. For the attacker in the city, the keys are… well, there are very, very few good keys. All of this is well known, and it makes modern warfare a matter for professionals. All of which is prelude to the question: Just what the hell does the Red Army think it is doing in the Ukraine?
I have been using Flightradar to watch EU and American planes flying resupply into eastern Poland and Hungary. A Global Hawk is patrolling from Hungary to Poland. Earlier it was patrolling Ukraine's border with the Black Sea.
Interesting that a F16 fighter has been flying near the Hungary Moldova border.
A Global Hawk has been patrolling the border also. A small sig intel spy plane is flying in Lithuania.
It's great to see you quoting Matt Levine. He does a good job of explaining the world of finance and he can be very funny.
May I recommend Angry Staff Officer. It's a mix of modern military, military history and science fiction fan service. There's a good article there comparing Afghanistan, not to Vietnam, but to China, and an interesting article on the return of large scale operations to US military thinking. I'm waiting for their take on the Ukraine.
Last year, I was reading up on the origin of multicellular organisms, and it appears that in some simple cases it involves certain cells of an organism using already existing bad news cell shutdown signals to keep neighboring cells from reproducing. In exchange for not dividing, they reap the benefits of being in a larger organism. It might even make sense for a cell to specialize and rely on nearby cells for certain functions. Since all of the cells are close relatives, cheating usually isn't worth it. It's not a prisoner's dilemma so much as a shield bearing soldier's dilemma in which dropping one's shield would endanger oneself and the entire line.
Much of it seems more prosaic and pedestrian than anything to do with artillery and technology; in many cases, it looks like they drove their tanks until they ran out of gas, and then they abandoned them. Communications and resupplies seem interrupted or nonexistent. You can’t do much with a T-90 and no fuel except get burned to death when someone shoots it with their endless supply of anti-tank weapons. So you’re not going to stick around.
But yeah, there does not seem to be any strategy in evidence.
Pretty sure that's from Matt Levine, not "David". At least, going by the Money Stuff newsletter in my in box.
I have been using Flightradar to watch EU and American planes flying resupply into eastern Poland and Hungary. A Global Hawk is patrolling from Hungary to Poland. Earlier it was patrolling Ukraine's border with the Black Sea.
Interesting that a F16 fighter has been flying near the Hungary Moldova border.
A Global Hawk has been patrolling the border also. A small sig intel spy plane is flying in Lithuania.
It's great to see you quoting Matt Levine. He does a good job of explaining the world of finance and he can be very funny.
May I recommend Angry Staff Officer. It's a mix of modern military, military history and science fiction fan service. There's a good article there comparing Afghanistan, not to Vietnam, but to China, and an interesting article on the return of large scale operations to US military thinking. I'm waiting for their take on the Ukraine.
Last year, I was reading up on the origin of multicellular organisms, and it appears that in some simple cases it involves certain cells of an organism using already existing bad news cell shutdown signals to keep neighboring cells from reproducing. In exchange for not dividing, they reap the benefits of being in a larger organism. It might even make sense for a cell to specialize and rely on nearby cells for certain functions. Since all of the cells are close relatives, cheating usually isn't worth it. It's not a prisoner's dilemma so much as a shield bearing soldier's dilemma in which dropping one's shield would endanger oneself and the entire line.
Much of it seems more prosaic and pedestrian than anything to do with artillery and technology; in many cases, it looks like they drove their tanks until they ran out of gas, and then they abandoned them. Communications and resupplies seem interrupted or nonexistent. You can’t do much with a T-90 and no fuel except get burned to death when someone shoots it with their endless supply of anti-tank weapons. So you’re not going to stick around.
But yeah, there does not seem to be any strategy in evidence.
n-grams
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=the+environment%2Cenvironmental%2Can+environment%2C+ecology&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cthe%20environment%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cenvironmental%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Can%20environment%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cecology%3B%2Cc0
Maybe start with "* environment" to get a sense of the more frequent contexts.
Cf.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=energy&year_start=1500&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cenergy%3B%2Cc0
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=gravity&year_start=1500&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=intoxication&year_start=1500&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cintoxication%3B%2Cc0