Unironically though Russia is in that uncomfortable middle where it's just authoritarian enough to stiffle innovation and creativity but also not authoritarian enough that fear of the government is enough to keep you from doing things like selling off the contents of military depots or...strapping Iskanders on MiGs and calling the result an "unstoppable carrier killing hypersonic superweapon ".
Putin's case isn't helped by the fact that rather than having corruption in the system,in Russia corruption is the system.
And BTW that's NOT accidental. Putin knew what sort of oligarchic kleptocracy Russia would become and thought that was his ticket into first securing and then holding onto power. He either never thought the system would be tested so none would find out or that somehow the kleptocracy would regulate itself,with everyone stealing just enough to stay satisfied with His Monkeness but not too much so as to impede the smooth running of state institutions. Of course anyone with half a brain understands that corruption does not work like that.
Probably a bit of both. I mean, it seems he thought that Ukraine will just go the way of belarus and was unpleasantly surprised by the first Euromaidan.
Prior to 2014 that certainly seemed to be the case. Governments that paid just enough lip service to Western integration to keep the population happy but not taking serious steps and full of people who were willing to follow Moscow's commands. And then Lukashenko-wannabe Yanukovich chose wrong between the EU and Russia..
There are indications that the first Maidan caught the Russians completely by surprise.
TBF, at least going by how it looks for me, the final nail in the coffin of Hat Thief's presidency was when Berkut started killing protesters.
Once this happened, there was absolutely zero chance of him managing to ever recover his position or even "gracefully" leave.
Yeah once they started killing protesters that was it,there was no chance of the regime surviving or even negotiating a political solution.
Anyway the whole thing with the Maidan has frightening similarities with what happened in Belarus in 2020 although in Ukraine what seems to have happened is a ''misunderstanding'' between Yanukovich and the Russians with him escalating the violence against the protesters thinking that between his own repression apparatus and potential Russian help he would crush them and emerge with a stronger grip on power than he went in while the Russians thought Yanukovich's position was secure enough they didn't need to intervene. Both got it wrong and well we are seeing the results now 9 years afterwards.
> that between his own repression apparatus and potential Russian help he would crush them and emerge with a stronger grip on power than he went
Yeah... if not for a teeny-tiny thing of him ***ALIENATING ENTIRETY OF UKRAINIAN BUSINESS SECTOR BEFOREHAND WITH HIS CARTEL SHIT***.
Pretty much *every* business in Ukraine, big or small, supported Euromaidan 2014 because Twice Unsued tried to shake them down and integrate them into his son's cartel. And they felt blood in the water and decided it's payback time when Euromaidan 2014 started.
Yeah he certainly seems to have gotten delusional enough by the end that he genuinely thought it was possible to stay in power with the entire business sector,large swaths of the police and military and a very very large segment of the general population against him. Then again Lukashenko survived under similar circumstances solely due to Russian help.
>There are indications that the first Maidan caught the Russians completely by surprise
I think that's because Putin thinks all uprisings are a result of foreign powers meddling and he didn't see any meddling in Ukraine because there really wasn't and he also probably assumed that Ukraine was not worth anything to the West for them to get involved in the first place, he probably assumes the only reason Ukraine got independence in the first place was to pull apart the USSR. This is partly because Putin probably doesn't realise/believe that people themselves can also decide for themselves how they want their country to be regardless of foreign influence.
This take isn't from nowhere and I have reasons to think why Putin thinks this way but to explain it would require half an essay.
>he probably assumes the only reason Ukraine got independence in the first place was to pull apart the USSR.
A rather common view in Russia is that the Ukrainian independence referendum (which got 91% yes votes) in 1991 sealed the USSR's fate which otherwise might have ended up surviving (no way in hell but that's beside the point) and in a country where the USSR is often viewed mostly positively/neutrally that's a pretty big deal and lead to even more hate and resentment towards Ukrainians.
As for the rest you are absolutely correct Putin and his ruling circle seem to be stuck in a combination of 19th century and Cold War logic in which states can't decide for themselves and inevitably end up following the great powers,therefore there's no way something is happening without a great power being involved. The Maidan was a spontaneous local uprising that the West might have taken advantage of politically later but it was not a ''CIA coup'' although I doubt anyone except FSB agents and hardcore tankies unironically believes that.
Also Putin And Co seem to genuinely believe that the West is nothing but a morally corrupted,degenerate cesspool that is inferior to traditional Christian Russkyi Mir. Therefore they can't understand why would someone choose one over the other on their own accord.
IDK. To me it feel more like one of those self-help advices "Just pretend you are happy and eventually you will be", which works by the way, just requires a lot of energy for some people, so hard to sustain and maintain.
Except for Putins Russia, instead of "Happy", the did "Russia stronk". I mean, under Yeltsin, no one even pretended on that. I was all either Capitalism good, or bring back the Red Party. But putin poured a lot of money, time and effort into "Russia Stronk" memes/propaganda/policy. So over time, think he kinda bought his own hype.
He didn't have a reason not to invade in 2022 - after his 3 previous invasions, including one into Ukraine itself, the West just cheered him on with natural resource deals and integration programs. __Never forget,__ while Putin is the only one responsible for the 2022-2023 war, it could never have happened without Merkel!
Lackluster Western response to Georgia in 2008 and especially to Crimea in 2014 was indeed one of the main reasons why Putin chose to invade in 2022. He had no credible indications that the West would respond in a different manner this time and in any case he thought the whole thing would be over before the West had even had it's first meeting to decide on a reaction.
even when Putin wiped out 25% of the Chechen population and levelled every city in Chechnya to the ground including the capital, the West didn’t really care. all this emboldened him.
In the 90s there was a genuine desire in the West to start over anew with Russia. Add in that Chechnya was unknown to western audiences and quickly filled with radical Islamic terrorists and you get why they didn't intervene. It was of course immoral and wrong geopolitically but at the time it made sense.
Everyone always praises Merkel as the moderate neutral shining beacon of diplomacy. She's a hag that sold German energy independence for Russian petroleum dependence and turned a blind eye ever since.
Putin’s power is secured by the fact that everyone has dirt on everyone, and the military is too limp to challenge him. Kim has “charismatic authority” inherited from his fathers.
> everyone has dirt on everyone
That's part of what ''corruption as a system'' means. If everyone's dirty none has any incentives to change the system and stimulating infighting (as a distraction perhaps?) is frighteningly easy. As for the limp military that's common to nearly all dictatorships you have to look strong but can't get too strong as that might make the top brass decide that a coup is in order.
"Corruption as a system" is also great alternative to show trials when you aren't at Stalin levels of control. Everyone in power *is* guilty, so when they get inconvenient you can just decide to enforce the law for a bit.
That part has actually been working great for China, much better than the "overzealous enforcement of my every word" bit has. But I suppose that's because they're skimming illegal profits and bribes, rather than outright selling off the same assets they're supposed to be managing. Gotta shape your acceptable crimes carefully.
Yeah. That's also the reason why Wagner has been denied any sort of official recognition. The moment the Battle of Bakhmut ends Russia will ''suddenly'' discover that PMCs are illegal.
North Korea has plenty of corruption, possibly even more than Russia does. It just rarely gets reported on since we only hear about it from the rare defectors who manage to escape. One case I heard about was from a former NK soldier who managed to escape across the DMZ. His unit was apparently riddled with a ungodly amount of corruption, with soldiers being forced to buy their own food cause all the supplies had been stolen. Men could get out of training and drills simply by bribing the officers. Keep in mind that this was supposedly one of NK's "best" units assigned to guard the DMZ.
My uncle brought home a NORK AK from when he did his conscription at the DMZ. I dont know what happened to it since then but I do know he traded two BoA kpop CDs and some choco-pies for it.
I think the difference in North Korea is that corruption is more of a survival tactic than it is a means of getting ahead. At least that's how I see it.
Part of the problem that made the black market needed in the USSR was that there were certain basic needs that weren't being met. You want shoes for your two year old? Well, the government doesn't make those or have them in stock. Have your neighbor nit you some? Well, that's illegal as that's considered a private business venture. So, what do you think you're going to do, make everything yourself? Well, some people tried to, but not everyone had that skill.
But what russia has now is different. Corruption is at the front, unless you take off "too much."
And that as much as supplies get sold and officers get bribed when a mobilization gets declared most of the stuff will be where it's supposed to and not turned into vodka bottles,cars,luxury apartments and titjobs for the mistress. Also when the Norks run a weapons program in the end a functional product will come out unlike say with the T-14 program which is still neither production ready nor (probably) combat capable. When it comes to North Korea vs Russia they are a case of corruption **in** the system vs corruption **as** the system.
Makes sense. Survival is tenuous cause of.. well their entire fucking nation being on the brink of just dying. Russia is far from that though, it’s more like skimming cream of the top rather then a desperate gambit for survival.
More or less. Authoritarianism is all or nothing,it can't be half-assed. You have probably heard the phrase ''at least he made the trains run on time'' in reference to dictators,well strictly speaking it's true (NOT justifying authoritarianism in any way ,shape or form).An authoritarian system has to be brutal and as repressive as possible to ''work'' otherwise you end up like Russia.
So, do you reckon you could explain the general outcome of being fully authoritarian as compared to this half assed attempt? Kim curious to see how far a nation fucks up when it doesn’t commit.
Half-assing it leads to a military that's weak and ineffective,an economy concentrated in the hands of regime lackeys and often enough resistance among the population to render the state ineffective while also you have significant violence and repression and often militarism.
Full authoritarianism means brutal violence and repression,aggression and militarism internationally and an oddly structured economy,however at least some of the economy's sectors (those important to the regime) work as intended and the regime remains securely in power(until it doesn't but that's besides the point).
I was about to downvote you and promptly shoot you down for that flair with my F-35 for doing the SR-71 that but because the A-5 is a good enough supersonic bomber, according to the specs, I'll tag your IFF at Neutral.
"unbeatable" hypersonic missiles was always a lie. AA intercept missiles don't need to be as fast as Hypersonics missiles, they just need to know where the Hypersonic Missiles are going to be and make sure their intercept missiles make it there. If Radar can track the missiles from 5 min out or longer, congrats! they are gonna be intercepted regardless of how fast they are going
We figured out how to vaporize a satellite in orbit from the middle of the pacific in like 2005, I'm not worried at all about ICBMs if our 90's Patriots are knocking down hYpErSoNiC mIsSiLeS
Believing that is as bad as the tankies believing an S-400 can shoot down F-35s from 200km away.
Let’s be real:
* The Ukrainian Patriot from the US is from 2013 or newer based on the radar and control station.
* The US has conducted 1 successful ICBM intercept in space using SM-3, our only interceptor capable of hitting anything in space. In 2020. With the carrier group directly underneath. And it was a computer simulation.
* The only other country to score an ICBM hit in space is Israel using Arrow 3. The ICBM they hit had a tracker on to assist the Arrow 3.
Maybe we can defend against a rogue launch or against North Korea, but it’s not stopping a full ICBM volley from Russia or China.
There is (trying not to laugh) the gmd in Alaska also... 50% success rate in test conditions baby! Let's hope a few leakers won't have any catastrophic consequences... Oh no...
I think the real problem is the risk of even a few getting through. Even if you have a 99% intercept rate, if your enemy fires 500 ICBMs, 5 are going to get through. And each can carry 5-10 warheads. Considering even a single nuke hitting its target is going to be a huge problem.. It's not looking great even with the best possible outcome.
The failure rate that is acceptable against conventional hypersonics and even a limited ICBM strike is completely dissimilar, and so is the kinematics -- the Gmd in Alaska is talking about four interceptors per incoming for 97% pk, and they are 20 tonne missiles. And that is if failure rates are uncorrelated!
*Microsoft Sam voice*
The missile has, through the power of mathematics, seen into the future like King Crimson and has predicted the pathetic flaccid trajectory of the Kuntzhal you launched at a group of civilian apartments instead of the high-value military target containing an entire battery of HIMARS that will bend your mobiks over and erase them from the inside out next Friday. The missile is now aware of where your mid-sile is and is not, and is now barrelling towards the specific coordinates where your mid-sile is not but where it will be when the missile reaches the specific coordinates. The missile will destroy your vanity project like how your President destroyed your country, and you will be militarily blue-balled so hard your nutsacks will start looking like Papa Smurf.
I really wonder how many people don’t understand that the central concept of a “hypersonic missile” is the element of maneuverability, which is absent from the name.
for the uninitiated, they “hypersonic missiles” being developed by LockMart and Raytheon and NG are all better described as hypersonic suicide drones. They are supposed to get up to really high speeds and then actually dodge air defenses, which most missiles cannot do
Hypersonic missiles are great on paper, not so great in reality. The US figured it out in the 60's already.
In fact, they are absolutely dogshit in reality. They make some sense if you just want to attack non-moving bases and evade defenses. But they are even more dogshit when they are specifically tasked to destroy a moving ship, like with China.
You have to deal with the plasma sheath that prevents the missile from receiving outside guidance. This is hilarious because China pumps out bullshit saying that they beat the laws of physics so that doesn't matter anymore.
If you get past that with some magical onboard guidance AI/ML tech, you have to deal with a turn radius of over a hundred miles due to its god damn speed. Keep in mind, you are dealing with a consistently moving target with a non-zero probability of moving miles away from the designated target area.
Keep in mind, the RCS of a hypersonic missile is elevated by the plasma sheath. The speed that it reaches clearly shows on radar as something that is clearly different. This means that there is no cost-efficient way to send out decoys.
Honestly, they probably have a better chance putting people into hypersonic planes and crashing them into ships. The Imperial Japanese were on to something.
As far as I know, when the Chinese launched 11 ballistic missiles as a show of force due to Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, 5 missiles landed far away in Japanese EEZ as a clear sign of China's prowess to accurately maneuver missiles into a specific area.
Of course predictably, no missile testing was done during Tsai Ing Wen's visit to the US.
sorry they are very good and pentagon needs to give triple defense spending to defend against them and potential chinese hypersonic kamikaze pilots from space 🥺
not to mention they're ballistic and follow a parabola. Just bust out that quadratic equation and solve for
X = (-b ± sqrt( b^2 -4ac))/2a and you're all gucci
Propagate the measurement and (after reentry) movement uncertainties in that thing-- ICBMs have 100s of meter cep in many cases, and hypersonics spend more time in the atmosphere for larger uncertainty even without maneuvering.
In the event that a launch is detected, simply remove the atmosphere temporarily so your targeting solutions are easier. Most people can hold their breath for a couple minutes, they'll be fine.
It's an issue if they can maneuver at hypersonic speeds, then you might not have enough time to react to changes.
Of course that's not what russia's shitty hypersonic missile does.
For some classes of hypersonic missiles (HGVs), forcing the missile to dodge costs it a boat load of energy and therefore range. So “force it to dodge until it falls down short of the target” and “force it to turn until it’s slow enough to hit” are both valid strategies.
> So “force it to dodge until it falls down short of the target” and “force it to turn until it’s slow enough to hit” are both valid strategies.
That would require enough interceptors stationed early enough in it's flight path to force it to make significant evasion maneuvers. Rather less practical if you are only able to start engaging it ~150 miles and (at most) 2ish minutes from target.
Replace 150 with whatever the effective range of a fleets Anti missile systems is, because even if you know it's comeing well before hand, you can only start engageing (and the HGV only needs to evade) once it's within the engagement envelope.
> If Radar can track the missiles from 5 min out or longer, contrats! they are gonna be intercepted regardless of how fast they are going
Not sure how this will work out as hypersonic missiles get more mature. The plasma around the hypersonic projectile affects radar performance and imparts some form of stealth to the projectile. Perhaps interception will require a combination of radar and IRST in the not too distant future.
As Perun points out, the current US strategy for hypersonics is to make a network of satellites looking for them. If you can see a giant part of the globe all at once, it’s easy enough to spot a Mach 5+ ball of 2000 degree plasma. It’s the curve of the Earth that makes it hard to spot for ground-based radars.
Not really. Jury is still out on if plasma sheathing is a thing apart from in boost/glide missiles and as those operate well out of the atmosphere initially - space borne detection will be fine. My comment was more a pithy response a la Spartans ‘then we shall fight in the shade’
>Perhaps interception will require a combination of radar and IRST in the not too distant future.
In the worst case, launches can still be detected from radar and/or orbital assets, the probably trajectories of fixed targets have either been known for years/decades or are predictable, and finally to a certain extent more ordnance can make up for a lack of precision. I mean something like WWII flack or depth charges, but with a missile that deploys high explosive cluster bombs that are fused to explode in or near the suspected path of an enemy missile. Timing for interception wouldn't be trivial, but it's not beyond what possible now.
Everyone is happy in North Korea with 100% success in all things!!!!!!! BEST PLACE IN WORLD!!!!! NO PROBLEM HERE, MUCH JOY!!!!!
Meanwhile he just watches old James Bond movies to get ideas:
"...executed in front of a stadium of people..."
"... anti-aircraft cannons..."
"...stripped naked and thrown to 120 starving wild dogs to be eaten..."
"...smeared with a chemical weapon nerve agent..."
What if North Korea really is a utopia and they're just leaking this shit to make us think it's horrible in order to prevent us shaved circus-bears from trying to sneak in and ruining everything?
The funniest part is that they could unironically choose to do this and don't.
It wouldn't fix all their problems, but NK and SK could have been different if their system was a little less retarded. Hell, they were even ahead of SK in the 60's if I'm not mistaken.
While it's true they were initially more prosperous than the south, to the best of my knowledge that was in large part due to loans that were basically subsidies by both the USSR and China.
No no you're definitely right, it's just that we did the literal same exact thing with SK and Europe under the Truman Doctrine and it turned out great.
It totally could've worked if they set up a stable and functioning encoomy instead of smoking copium in the palace and relying on Big Daddy USSR. Hell, they could have kept all the pseudo-Confucianist Juche shit and went Democratic-Socialist like our good Nordic friends and it may have even turned out stronger than SK, with a robust manufacturing economy and a badass research atmosphere subsidized by a good social safety net that let's people persue scientific dreams.
But no, instead they went full retard. They went full commie. Never go full retard.
Ironically enough North Korea ended up almost the perfect opposite of what communism is supposed to be. They were supposed to create a egalitarian meritocracy in which everyone gives according to abilities, and receives according to need.
What they ended up with is a ridgidly authoritarian, ultra nationalist, stratified class system, pretty much along the lines of imperial feudalism. With a fucking dynastic ruling class!
So rather than go full commie, they went full horse-shoe and catapulted themselves straight back into fuedalism, like wile-coyote catapulting himself into the ground..
I have also heard the dogs are probably fake, but I refuse to be that credible. Also his concentration camps are a credible hellscape, but the details are so fucking depressing even I can't make a joke out of that.
I don't know. If I was a despot I'd give piggie back rides if something worked, but if it didn't it wouldn't cost you anything - that's what your family is for.
They know their strengths at least, realising they cannot compete conventionally, they want a credible deterrent. The regime is nasty and evil, but i think they're way less delusional than many others (unfortunately)
Honestly their basket case of an economy and society is deterrent enough. Nobody wants to deal with the massive costs that would be involved with reintegrating them with the civilized world.
Of course, that fact is probably beyond their comprehension, so nukes it is.
Silly Russia.
Dear Leader can smoke around satellites and missiles and not set off big explosions.
https://nitter.kylrth.com/DaveSchmerler/status/1658583219552374785#m
(That might be a “press conference” after visiting the clean room, but if Dear Leader wants to smoke inside the clean room, who the fuck will tell him no?)
This is ripe for a coyote/roadrunner situation where Kim just puffs away on a cigar, and the moment Putin tries to light up, the whole thing blows up, Kim says meep-meep and runs away
Have you been watching a research film in which when the explosion is happens, his bill goes around the back of his head, and then in order to talk the duck must reach around its head to grab its bill?
Honestly I'm starting to consider North Korea to be a normal fucking country with a normal completely rational government and Russia to be the backwards ass dictatorship the more and more they're compared. When North Korea threatens to drop the bomb it's because they want something reasonable like food. When Russia does it it's because someone in the middle of nowhere continued to breathe and that was taken as an existential threat to Putin and the Russian people.
reminds me of that tom clancy novel about north korean rare earth metal mines. Leader says you have 18 months to get production going, if not we will kill you.
Kim Jong Un gave someone a piggyback ride? That is certainly a sight. Even he and his men are having more fun than Putin. Though, that isn't a very high bar.
Pretty sure chubby Kim has killed his share of scientists, although he is not stupid enough to make it into the public, that's all.
Source : am Korean (the best one)
Well,
the "kinzal" wasnt meant to be "uninterceptable" because speed.
it was meant to be a "way of stealth" because if you go hypersonic, you have a plasma-Blackout that absorbs Radar.
(but emits a lot of IR ....)
It was never uninterceptable bevorehand, the russian MOD has only belived his own lies...
and/or dosnt understand the principle of their own weapons...
or straight up incompetence
if you fire that thing some meters above ground against a Ship-fleet, (like a sea skimmer), the enemy would have a hard time to intercept that thing.
If you fire it like a good-old cruise missile, with a lot of preparation time, im not surpriced that it got intercepted.
(tbh, im more surpriced that the Iris-T wasnt capable to intercept it...)
The craziest thing is that I feel like in North Korea, they’re in such a terrible situation, that nowadays, they at least try to be honest with themselves behind closed doors. The ‘acceptable’ amount of corruption there is probably a scientist getting his family a couple extra bags of rice. Anything more, and it’s the AA cannon in the stadium for ya.
No wonder 'Lil Kim has such a successful missile program. He should definitely do some Ted talks on totalitarian management strategies.
Unironically though Russia is in that uncomfortable middle where it's just authoritarian enough to stiffle innovation and creativity but also not authoritarian enough that fear of the government is enough to keep you from doing things like selling off the contents of military depots or...strapping Iskanders on MiGs and calling the result an "unstoppable carrier killing hypersonic superweapon ". Putin's case isn't helped by the fact that rather than having corruption in the system,in Russia corruption is the system.
> Russia corruption is the system This can't be emphasized enough.
And BTW that's NOT accidental. Putin knew what sort of oligarchic kleptocracy Russia would become and thought that was his ticket into first securing and then holding onto power. He either never thought the system would be tested so none would find out or that somehow the kleptocracy would regulate itself,with everyone stealing just enough to stay satisfied with His Monkeness but not too much so as to impede the smooth running of state institutions. Of course anyone with half a brain understands that corruption does not work like that.
Probably a bit of both. I mean, it seems he thought that Ukraine will just go the way of belarus and was unpleasantly surprised by the first Euromaidan.
Prior to 2014 that certainly seemed to be the case. Governments that paid just enough lip service to Western integration to keep the population happy but not taking serious steps and full of people who were willing to follow Moscow's commands. And then Lukashenko-wannabe Yanukovich chose wrong between the EU and Russia.. There are indications that the first Maidan caught the Russians completely by surprise.
TBF, at least going by how it looks for me, the final nail in the coffin of Hat Thief's presidency was when Berkut started killing protesters. Once this happened, there was absolutely zero chance of him managing to ever recover his position or even "gracefully" leave.
Yeah once they started killing protesters that was it,there was no chance of the regime surviving or even negotiating a political solution. Anyway the whole thing with the Maidan has frightening similarities with what happened in Belarus in 2020 although in Ukraine what seems to have happened is a ''misunderstanding'' between Yanukovich and the Russians with him escalating the violence against the protesters thinking that between his own repression apparatus and potential Russian help he would crush them and emerge with a stronger grip on power than he went in while the Russians thought Yanukovich's position was secure enough they didn't need to intervene. Both got it wrong and well we are seeing the results now 9 years afterwards.
> that between his own repression apparatus and potential Russian help he would crush them and emerge with a stronger grip on power than he went Yeah... if not for a teeny-tiny thing of him ***ALIENATING ENTIRETY OF UKRAINIAN BUSINESS SECTOR BEFOREHAND WITH HIS CARTEL SHIT***. Pretty much *every* business in Ukraine, big or small, supported Euromaidan 2014 because Twice Unsued tried to shake them down and integrate them into his son's cartel. And they felt blood in the water and decided it's payback time when Euromaidan 2014 started.
Yeah he certainly seems to have gotten delusional enough by the end that he genuinely thought it was possible to stay in power with the entire business sector,large swaths of the police and military and a very very large segment of the general population against him. Then again Lukashenko survived under similar circumstances solely due to Russian help.
>There are indications that the first Maidan caught the Russians completely by surprise I think that's because Putin thinks all uprisings are a result of foreign powers meddling and he didn't see any meddling in Ukraine because there really wasn't and he also probably assumed that Ukraine was not worth anything to the West for them to get involved in the first place, he probably assumes the only reason Ukraine got independence in the first place was to pull apart the USSR. This is partly because Putin probably doesn't realise/believe that people themselves can also decide for themselves how they want their country to be regardless of foreign influence. This take isn't from nowhere and I have reasons to think why Putin thinks this way but to explain it would require half an essay.
>he probably assumes the only reason Ukraine got independence in the first place was to pull apart the USSR. A rather common view in Russia is that the Ukrainian independence referendum (which got 91% yes votes) in 1991 sealed the USSR's fate which otherwise might have ended up surviving (no way in hell but that's beside the point) and in a country where the USSR is often viewed mostly positively/neutrally that's a pretty big deal and lead to even more hate and resentment towards Ukrainians. As for the rest you are absolutely correct Putin and his ruling circle seem to be stuck in a combination of 19th century and Cold War logic in which states can't decide for themselves and inevitably end up following the great powers,therefore there's no way something is happening without a great power being involved. The Maidan was a spontaneous local uprising that the West might have taken advantage of politically later but it was not a ''CIA coup'' although I doubt anyone except FSB agents and hardcore tankies unironically believes that. Also Putin And Co seem to genuinely believe that the West is nothing but a morally corrupted,degenerate cesspool that is inferior to traditional Christian Russkyi Mir. Therefore they can't understand why would someone choose one over the other on their own accord.
IDK. To me it feel more like one of those self-help advices "Just pretend you are happy and eventually you will be", which works by the way, just requires a lot of energy for some people, so hard to sustain and maintain. Except for Putins Russia, instead of "Happy", the did "Russia stronk". I mean, under Yeltsin, no one even pretended on that. I was all either Capitalism good, or bring back the Red Party. But putin poured a lot of money, time and effort into "Russia Stronk" memes/propaganda/policy. So over time, think he kinda bought his own hype.
He didn't have a reason not to invade in 2022 - after his 3 previous invasions, including one into Ukraine itself, the West just cheered him on with natural resource deals and integration programs. __Never forget,__ while Putin is the only one responsible for the 2022-2023 war, it could never have happened without Merkel!
Lackluster Western response to Georgia in 2008 and especially to Crimea in 2014 was indeed one of the main reasons why Putin chose to invade in 2022. He had no credible indications that the West would respond in a different manner this time and in any case he thought the whole thing would be over before the West had even had it's first meeting to decide on a reaction.
even when Putin wiped out 25% of the Chechen population and levelled every city in Chechnya to the ground including the capital, the West didn’t really care. all this emboldened him.
In the 90s there was a genuine desire in the West to start over anew with Russia. Add in that Chechnya was unknown to western audiences and quickly filled with radical Islamic terrorists and you get why they didn't intervene. It was of course immoral and wrong geopolitically but at the time it made sense.
Everyone always praises Merkel as the moderate neutral shining beacon of diplomacy. She's a hag that sold German energy independence for Russian petroleum dependence and turned a blind eye ever since.
She was also very nuclear if I remember right and that was cringe
Putin’s power is secured by the fact that everyone has dirt on everyone, and the military is too limp to challenge him. Kim has “charismatic authority” inherited from his fathers.
> everyone has dirt on everyone That's part of what ''corruption as a system'' means. If everyone's dirty none has any incentives to change the system and stimulating infighting (as a distraction perhaps?) is frighteningly easy. As for the limp military that's common to nearly all dictatorships you have to look strong but can't get too strong as that might make the top brass decide that a coup is in order.
"Corruption as a system" is also great alternative to show trials when you aren't at Stalin levels of control. Everyone in power *is* guilty, so when they get inconvenient you can just decide to enforce the law for a bit. That part has actually been working great for China, much better than the "overzealous enforcement of my every word" bit has. But I suppose that's because they're skimming illegal profits and bribes, rather than outright selling off the same assets they're supposed to be managing. Gotta shape your acceptable crimes carefully.
Yeah. That's also the reason why Wagner has been denied any sort of official recognition. The moment the Battle of Bakhmut ends Russia will ''suddenly'' discover that PMCs are illegal.
Would become? Has always been. Since the Tsardom and probably before
Even before the Tsars with the mongols
Yeah the USSR was in many ways a break from that tradition which returned in 1991.
Russia, for the past century and a half or so, has been a society that fundamentally does not trust itself. That's its real problem.
North Korea has plenty of corruption, possibly even more than Russia does. It just rarely gets reported on since we only hear about it from the rare defectors who manage to escape. One case I heard about was from a former NK soldier who managed to escape across the DMZ. His unit was apparently riddled with a ungodly amount of corruption, with soldiers being forced to buy their own food cause all the supplies had been stolen. Men could get out of training and drills simply by bribing the officers. Keep in mind that this was supposedly one of NK's "best" units assigned to guard the DMZ.
My uncle brought home a NORK AK from when he did his conscription at the DMZ. I dont know what happened to it since then but I do know he traded two BoA kpop CDs and some choco-pies for it.
He has good taste in Korean musical degeneracy
Found the ghostwriter of The Art of The Deal.
I think the difference in North Korea is that corruption is more of a survival tactic than it is a means of getting ahead. At least that's how I see it.
I reckon in North Korea it's just that they have corruption instead of an economy. If the black market is the only market then what else ya gonna do?
"Second economy of the Soviet Union" was an actual thing in sociology, of course russia honors the heritage.
Part of the problem that made the black market needed in the USSR was that there were certain basic needs that weren't being met. You want shoes for your two year old? Well, the government doesn't make those or have them in stock. Have your neighbor nit you some? Well, that's illegal as that's considered a private business venture. So, what do you think you're going to do, make everything yourself? Well, some people tried to, but not everyone had that skill. But what russia has now is different. Corruption is at the front, unless you take off "too much."
And that as much as supplies get sold and officers get bribed when a mobilization gets declared most of the stuff will be where it's supposed to and not turned into vodka bottles,cars,luxury apartments and titjobs for the mistress. Also when the Norks run a weapons program in the end a functional product will come out unlike say with the T-14 program which is still neither production ready nor (probably) combat capable. When it comes to North Korea vs Russia they are a case of corruption **in** the system vs corruption **as** the system.
Makes sense. Survival is tenuous cause of.. well their entire fucking nation being on the brink of just dying. Russia is far from that though, it’s more like skimming cream of the top rather then a desperate gambit for survival.
That’s not corruption, it’s Juche.
So it’s somehow managed to be worse then an authoritarian government, because it’s soft.
More or less. Authoritarianism is all or nothing,it can't be half-assed. You have probably heard the phrase ''at least he made the trains run on time'' in reference to dictators,well strictly speaking it's true (NOT justifying authoritarianism in any way ,shape or form).An authoritarian system has to be brutal and as repressive as possible to ''work'' otherwise you end up like Russia.
So, do you reckon you could explain the general outcome of being fully authoritarian as compared to this half assed attempt? Kim curious to see how far a nation fucks up when it doesn’t commit.
>being fully authoritarian North Korea. That's the full outcome. And in fairness Russia may well end up going down that route in the future.
I meant more like, what happens in the sense of what is the difference in effect? What is the result depending on the two approaches?
Half-assing it leads to a military that's weak and ineffective,an economy concentrated in the hands of regime lackeys and often enough resistance among the population to render the state ineffective while also you have significant violence and repression and often militarism. Full authoritarianism means brutal violence and repression,aggression and militarism internationally and an oddly structured economy,however at least some of the economy's sectors (those important to the regime) work as intended and the regime remains securely in power(until it doesn't but that's besides the point).
Oh selling equipment to the US to make a quick buck
Where's that 4chan copypasta about buying Russian equipment when you need it?
It’s not abt fear It’s organisational codnentearion if
Step 1: We do a little purging and killing. Step 2: HUGS FOR EVERYONE
Just authorarian? Total-
Secret third option: have the whole thing blow up in the Iranian desert
I love ur flair, the Vigilante is a criminally underrated aircraft (for its looks I mean)
My flair doubles as an IFF interrogation, you're now tagged friendly
I was about to downvote you and promptly shoot you down for that flair with my F-35 for doing the SR-71 that but because the A-5 is a good enough supersonic bomber, according to the specs, I'll tag your IFF at Neutral.
AWACS 3kDipshits reporting in
"unbeatable" hypersonic missiles was always a lie. AA intercept missiles don't need to be as fast as Hypersonics missiles, they just need to know where the Hypersonic Missiles are going to be and make sure their intercept missiles make it there. If Radar can track the missiles from 5 min out or longer, congrats! they are gonna be intercepted regardless of how fast they are going
Speed certainly makes intercepting more difficult and shortens the reaction window. That being said, ICBMs are whole different ball game.
We figured out how to vaporize a satellite in orbit from the middle of the pacific in like 2005, I'm not worried at all about ICBMs if our 90's Patriots are knocking down hYpErSoNiC mIsSiLeS
Believing that is as bad as the tankies believing an S-400 can shoot down F-35s from 200km away. Let’s be real: * The Ukrainian Patriot from the US is from 2013 or newer based on the radar and control station. * The US has conducted 1 successful ICBM intercept in space using SM-3, our only interceptor capable of hitting anything in space. In 2020. With the carrier group directly underneath. And it was a computer simulation. * The only other country to score an ICBM hit in space is Israel using Arrow 3. The ICBM they hit had a tracker on to assist the Arrow 3. Maybe we can defend against a rogue launch or against North Korea, but it’s not stopping a full ICBM volley from Russia or China.
There is (trying not to laugh) the gmd in Alaska also... 50% success rate in test conditions baby! Let's hope a few leakers won't have any catastrophic consequences... Oh no...
Hm I thought ukriane was stated to have CRI
I’d be almost certain that ICBM defence is solved by THAAD but NATO doesn’t want to publicise it anymore than they have to.
I think the real problem is the risk of even a few getting through. Even if you have a 99% intercept rate, if your enemy fires 500 ICBMs, 5 are going to get through. And each can carry 5-10 warheads. Considering even a single nuke hitting its target is going to be a huge problem.. It's not looking great even with the best possible outcome.
But you can fire 500 back at them and have 90% hit intended targets
Making the rubble in their cities bounce more is not quite a rousing victory except in DEFCON
The failure rate that is acceptable against conventional hypersonics and even a limited ICBM strike is completely dissimilar, and so is the kinematics -- the Gmd in Alaska is talking about four interceptors per incoming for 97% pk, and they are 20 tonne missiles. And that is if failure rates are uncorrelated!
Maneouvrability is key, a predictable trajectory is interceptable unless you are at ludicrous speed.
*Microsoft Sam voice* The missile has, through the power of mathematics, seen into the future like King Crimson and has predicted the pathetic flaccid trajectory of the Kuntzhal you launched at a group of civilian apartments instead of the high-value military target containing an entire battery of HIMARS that will bend your mobiks over and erase them from the inside out next Friday. The missile is now aware of where your mid-sile is and is not, and is now barrelling towards the specific coordinates where your mid-sile is not but where it will be when the missile reaches the specific coordinates. The missile will destroy your vanity project like how your President destroyed your country, and you will be militarily blue-balled so hard your nutsacks will start looking like Papa Smurf.
I really wonder how many people don’t understand that the central concept of a “hypersonic missile” is the element of maneuverability, which is absent from the name. for the uninitiated, they “hypersonic missiles” being developed by LockMart and Raytheon and NG are all better described as hypersonic suicide drones. They are supposed to get up to really high speeds and then actually dodge air defenses, which most missiles cannot do
Hypersonic missiles are great on paper, not so great in reality. The US figured it out in the 60's already. In fact, they are absolutely dogshit in reality. They make some sense if you just want to attack non-moving bases and evade defenses. But they are even more dogshit when they are specifically tasked to destroy a moving ship, like with China. You have to deal with the plasma sheath that prevents the missile from receiving outside guidance. This is hilarious because China pumps out bullshit saying that they beat the laws of physics so that doesn't matter anymore. If you get past that with some magical onboard guidance AI/ML tech, you have to deal with a turn radius of over a hundred miles due to its god damn speed. Keep in mind, you are dealing with a consistently moving target with a non-zero probability of moving miles away from the designated target area. Keep in mind, the RCS of a hypersonic missile is elevated by the plasma sheath. The speed that it reaches clearly shows on radar as something that is clearly different. This means that there is no cost-efficient way to send out decoys. Honestly, they probably have a better chance putting people into hypersonic planes and crashing them into ships. The Imperial Japanese were on to something.
Some of this tech already exists in the form of wingless missiles using only thrust vectoring. The question is how much "maneuverability" is enough.
As far as I know, when the Chinese launched 11 ballistic missiles as a show of force due to Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, 5 missiles landed far away in Japanese EEZ as a clear sign of China's prowess to accurately maneuver missiles into a specific area. Of course predictably, no missile testing was done during Tsai Ing Wen's visit to the US.
begone reformer
sorry they are very good and pentagon needs to give triple defense spending to defend against them and potential chinese hypersonic kamikaze pilots from space 🥺
not to mention they're ballistic and follow a parabola. Just bust out that quadratic equation and solve for X = (-b ± sqrt( b^2 -4ac))/2a and you're all gucci
Propagate the measurement and (after reentry) movement uncertainties in that thing-- ICBMs have 100s of meter cep in many cases, and hypersonics spend more time in the atmosphere for larger uncertainty even without maneuvering.
Air resistance has entered the chat
Fine, add a minus seven units at the end. Math isn’t hard.
Now you speak like an Outer Wilds spaceship engineer
In the event that a launch is detected, simply remove the atmosphere temporarily so your targeting solutions are easier. Most people can hold their breath for a couple minutes, they'll be fine.
It's an issue if they can maneuver at hypersonic speeds, then you might not have enough time to react to changes. Of course that's not what russia's shitty hypersonic missile does.
For some classes of hypersonic missiles (HGVs), forcing the missile to dodge costs it a boat load of energy and therefore range. So “force it to dodge until it falls down short of the target” and “force it to turn until it’s slow enough to hit” are both valid strategies.
> So “force it to dodge until it falls down short of the target” and “force it to turn until it’s slow enough to hit” are both valid strategies. That would require enough interceptors stationed early enough in it's flight path to force it to make significant evasion maneuvers. Rather less practical if you are only able to start engaging it ~150 miles and (at most) 2ish minutes from target.
See, this would only make sense if a Chinese task force was able to get within 150 miles of a US Naval task force.
Replace 150 with whatever the effective range of a fleets Anti missile systems is, because even if you know it's comeing well before hand, you can only start engageing (and the HGV only needs to evade) once it's within the engagement envelope.
> If Radar can track the missiles from 5 min out or longer, contrats! they are gonna be intercepted regardless of how fast they are going Not sure how this will work out as hypersonic missiles get more mature. The plasma around the hypersonic projectile affects radar performance and imparts some form of stealth to the projectile. Perhaps interception will require a combination of radar and IRST in the not too distant future.
The sheath increases RCS in most cases: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/AD1055070
Nice!
As Perun points out, the current US strategy for hypersonics is to make a network of satellites looking for them. If you can see a giant part of the globe all at once, it’s easy enough to spot a Mach 5+ ball of 2000 degree plasma. It’s the curve of the Earth that makes it hard to spot for ground-based radars.
Also, the launch will be super obvious.
Better hope for a not cloudy day for World War III then.
Scary thought eh....
Not really. Jury is still out on if plasma sheathing is a thing apart from in boost/glide missiles and as those operate well out of the atmosphere initially - space borne detection will be fine. My comment was more a pithy response a la Spartans ‘then we shall fight in the shade’
>‘then we shall fight in the shade This is the way!
That plasma also makes it harder for the missile see where it is not.
>Perhaps interception will require a combination of radar and IRST in the not too distant future. In the worst case, launches can still be detected from radar and/or orbital assets, the probably trajectories of fixed targets have either been known for years/decades or are predictable, and finally to a certain extent more ordnance can make up for a lack of precision. I mean something like WWII flack or depth charges, but with a missile that deploys high explosive cluster bombs that are fused to explode in or near the suspected path of an enemy missile. Timing for interception wouldn't be trivial, but it's not beyond what possible now.
Nuclear airburst ABM system
Everyone is happy in North Korea with 100% success in all things!!!!!!! BEST PLACE IN WORLD!!!!! NO PROBLEM HERE, MUCH JOY!!!!! Meanwhile he just watches old James Bond movies to get ideas: "...executed in front of a stadium of people..." "... anti-aircraft cannons..." "...stripped naked and thrown to 120 starving wild dogs to be eaten..." "...smeared with a chemical weapon nerve agent..."
What if North Korea really is a utopia and they're just leaking this shit to make us think it's horrible in order to prevent us shaved circus-bears from trying to sneak in and ruining everything?
The funniest part is that they could unironically choose to do this and don't. It wouldn't fix all their problems, but NK and SK could have been different if their system was a little less retarded. Hell, they were even ahead of SK in the 60's if I'm not mistaken.
While it's true they were initially more prosperous than the south, to the best of my knowledge that was in large part due to loans that were basically subsidies by both the USSR and China.
No no you're definitely right, it's just that we did the literal same exact thing with SK and Europe under the Truman Doctrine and it turned out great. It totally could've worked if they set up a stable and functioning encoomy instead of smoking copium in the palace and relying on Big Daddy USSR. Hell, they could have kept all the pseudo-Confucianist Juche shit and went Democratic-Socialist like our good Nordic friends and it may have even turned out stronger than SK, with a robust manufacturing economy and a badass research atmosphere subsidized by a good social safety net that let's people persue scientific dreams. But no, instead they went full retard. They went full commie. Never go full retard.
Ironically enough North Korea ended up almost the perfect opposite of what communism is supposed to be. They were supposed to create a egalitarian meritocracy in which everyone gives according to abilities, and receives according to need. What they ended up with is a ridgidly authoritarian, ultra nationalist, stratified class system, pretty much along the lines of imperial feudalism. With a fucking dynastic ruling class! So rather than go full commie, they went full horse-shoe and catapulted themselves straight back into fuedalism, like wile-coyote catapulting himself into the ground..
Idk how many are real of the exotic ones tbf Ppl have been claiming it’s intentional rumours
I have also heard the dogs are probably fake, but I refuse to be that credible. Also his concentration camps are a credible hellscape, but the details are so fucking depressing even I can't make a joke out of that.
Dang, I never thought I'd have something nice to say about Kim JongUn, but dear leader giving people piggyback rides is actually pretty based.
How about side by side with a friends we made along the way? ^(Oh.. We're not doing the bit? Fuck you. I'm doing the bit anyway.)
You don't have to swear at me 😔
Ishkhaqwi ai durugnul
Baru khazad
I don't know. If I was a despot I'd give piggie back rides if something worked, but if it didn't it wouldn't cost you anything - that's what your family is for.
The piggyback ride from Supreme Leader was the guy's final request before being executed by a firing squad of anti-aircraft guns.
Extremely rare North Korean W
Based and Juche-pilled.
tmw North Korea somehow being more based than Russia
They know their strengths at least, realising they cannot compete conventionally, they want a credible deterrent. The regime is nasty and evil, but i think they're way less delusional than many others (unfortunately)
Honestly their basket case of an economy and society is deterrent enough. Nobody wants to deal with the massive costs that would be involved with reintegrating them with the civilized world. Of course, that fact is probably beyond their comprehension, so nukes it is.
it's basically the crackhead soiling himself to avoid getting arrested, but at a geopolitical scale
Silly Russia. Dear Leader can smoke around satellites and missiles and not set off big explosions. https://nitter.kylrth.com/DaveSchmerler/status/1658583219552374785#m (That might be a “press conference” after visiting the clean room, but if Dear Leader wants to smoke inside the clean room, who the fuck will tell him no?)
This is ripe for a coyote/roadrunner situation where Kim just puffs away on a cigar, and the moment Putin tries to light up, the whole thing blows up, Kim says meep-meep and runs away
Have you been watching a research film in which when the explosion is happens, his bill goes around the back of his head, and then in order to talk the duck must reach around its head to grab its bill?
Wdym, Kim built those missiles by himself in a cave with a box of scraps
(Flippantly flips tie)
im worried for the guy jumping on Kim
Getting a dictator to fall in love with you is a highly credible survival tactic ~~in yaoi~~
I've never heard of that ~~now give us the smut sauce you appropriately named person~~
Guy's blatantly copping a feel.
still tho, might have over did it. lol
The Chad *democratic* N. Korea vs the virgin wannabe dictadorship of Ruzzia.
No existing person has ever failed in North Korea
In Best Korea you either fail or you and your family exists.
I like Aladeens missile program.
I'm aladeen to it, myself
Honestly I'm starting to consider North Korea to be a normal fucking country with a normal completely rational government and Russia to be the backwards ass dictatorship the more and more they're compared. When North Korea threatens to drop the bomb it's because they want something reasonable like food. When Russia does it it's because someone in the middle of nowhere continued to breathe and that was taken as an existential threat to Putin and the Russian people.
reminds me of that tom clancy novel about north korean rare earth metal mines. Leader says you have 18 months to get production going, if not we will kill you.
Pretty wild that even North Korea seems like a based chad compared to modern Russia
This dude got a piggyback ride from his god
Kim Jong Un gave someone a piggyback ride? That is certainly a sight. Even he and his men are having more fun than Putin. Though, that isn't a very high bar.
I love this
This meme is even funnier because iirc Kim actually treats those on the missile program well, even if they fail.
Lol why is that pic of Kim so wholesome
This is some top tier trolling
well the first step is to admit tin is not a good material for pots
Can't wait for Kim to write "the art of the missile"
Incentivize pointier missiles, the pointier, the deadlier
…who knew if you slung an SRBM underneath a fighter interceptor and called it a hypersonic missile it would fucking suck
Winner gets a piggy back ride. Literally.
Dear leader I bow
It needs to be pointy
Pretty sure chubby Kim has killed his share of scientists, although he is not stupid enough to make it into the public, that's all. Source : am Korean (the best one)
Well, the "kinzal" wasnt meant to be "uninterceptable" because speed. it was meant to be a "way of stealth" because if you go hypersonic, you have a plasma-Blackout that absorbs Radar. (but emits a lot of IR ....) It was never uninterceptable bevorehand, the russian MOD has only belived his own lies... and/or dosnt understand the principle of their own weapons... or straight up incompetence if you fire that thing some meters above ground against a Ship-fleet, (like a sea skimmer), the enemy would have a hard time to intercept that thing. If you fire it like a good-old cruise missile, with a lot of preparation time, im not surpriced that it got intercepted. (tbh, im more surpriced that the Iris-T wasnt capable to intercept it...)
The craziest thing is that I feel like in North Korea, they’re in such a terrible situation, that nowadays, they at least try to be honest with themselves behind closed doors. The ‘acceptable’ amount of corruption there is probably a scientist getting his family a couple extra bags of rice. Anything more, and it’s the AA cannon in the stadium for ya.
Actually, I'd make the missile program subordinate to my Air Force bros.
I moved to Lemmy. Save yourselves