R-Ratings aren't just for blood, sex, and gore

James Mangold on making Logan:

"For Mangold, allowing Logan to be R-rated was important, not so much for violent content, but for style: "For me, what was most interesting in getting the studio to okay an R-rating was something entirely different. They suddenly let go of the expectation that this film is going to play for children, and when they let go of that, you are free in a myriad of ways. The scenes can be longer. Ideas being explored in dialogue or otherwise can be more sophisticated. Storytelling pace can be more poetic, and less built like attention-span-deficit theater."

When you put it like that, it becomes obvious why so much cinema is the way it is. 

Woman dead at work for 4 days

Most companies don't take 'work them to death' literally... and then there's Wells Fargo. This story has flooded wire feeds:

"A Wells Fargo employee at a corporate office in Arizona clocked in to what would be her last-ever shift on a Friday morning. Her body was found four days later at her cubicle desk, where she died sometime during the weekend, according to the Tempe Police Department., Denise Prudhomme, 60, worked at a Wells Fargo location in Tempe and had scanned into the building at 7 a.m. on August 16. 

There were no further scans from her either into or out of the building, the police department told CNN in a statement., On August 20, security on site reported finding an employee possibly dead in a cubicle on the building’s third floor, authorities said. Prudhomme was pronounced dead at 4:55 p.m., according to Tempe police."

Honestly, this doesn't say much for their office culture. 

I hope she got the overtime pay.

Eric Schmidt on AI, lawyers, and stealin'... but shh, don't quote him, it's a secret

Oh, Eric, I didn't know ye.

So is the spy who stole from Google just following the advice of (former and likely current) Google execs?

Eric FFS Schmidt, an ex-Google 'Do no Evil–Whoopsie!" CEO said at a recent conference:

“So, in the example that I gave of the TikTok competitor – and by the way, I was not arguing that you should illegally steal everybody’s music – what you would do if you’re a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, which hopefully all of you will be, is if it took off, then you’d hire a whole bunch of lawyers to go clean the mess up, right? But if nobody uses your product, it doesn’t matter that you stole all the content. And do not quote me.” 

Don't quote me... at an event being openly filmed for the internet. Okay, sure.

Later, after backlash, he issued a correction: 

"I misspoke about Google and their work hours. I regret my error."

That was in regards to him saying Google was falling behind as it let people work from home.

No correction was issued on advocating stealing. 

It's rare the mask is removed quite so brazenly. 

This is why society needs poles of power that can match big business.

Amateurs imitate. 

Great businessmen steal everything in sight and then get lawyers.

Or they just make it legal...

Oopsie!

Retro-review: The Pink Panther Strikes Again

Clouseau in one of his incredible under-cover disguises

This is 1970s Austin Powers long before Austin Powers: a deranged Inspector Dreyfuss escapes from the mental institution and creates a terrifyingly powerful criminal organization with one goal: to kill Clouseau! 

He doesn't go about it directly, oh no, he decides to use his organization to blackmail the rest of the entire world into killing Clouseau, because that's easier than... actually trying to kill the unkillable Clouseau. 

The ridiculous doomsday disintegration laser: so fancy!

Peter Sellers is in top form here, and plays the oblivious fool Clouseau with fine understatement, bumbling from one success to another, despite the odds.

He's a one man wrecking machine, and to be honest, I have sympathy for poor old by-the-book Inspector Dreyfuss. He's like Grimes from the Simpsons: a regular joe who does everything right and still winds up trailing far behind a fool (in Grimes' case, Homer Simpson). 

What might kill an ordinary man, or an army, is nothing to Homer or Clouseau. 

Dreyfuss picks an old castle for his lair, which isn't quite as iconic as a volcano, but his disintegration laser is right out of the most absurd James Bond flicks. And Inspector Clouseau's attempts to break inside the fortress are side splitting. 

Dreyfuss's castle of evil

This flick marked the apex of The Pink Panther series of films. They never again came even close to this, which is a real shame. The Oktoberfest sequences, and toothache climax, are sublimely funny when you're 8. 

I also really liked the guy who played President Gerald Ford: "Who won the game?!?"

Peter Sellers made one more appearance as Clouseau (in Revenge of the Pink Panther) before passing, and while he's still fabulous, the movie just didn't split my sides like Strikes Again did. 

Clouseau's face melting off, pre-Raiders of the Lost Arc! I'm telling you, this film was WAY ahead of its time!

The Boys season 4 review

The best worst villain on TV

The show's still got it, but the paint job is wearing thin. 

Franchises are repetitive by their very nature, but work best when the audience isn't constantly being made aware of this. 

I'd tune in to watch the X-Files, for example, with a vague expectation of what I was in for: a spooky occurrence, Mulder and Scully getting dispatched to investigate, Mulder insisting it's aliens while Scully desperately rationalizes, jeopardy followed by our heroes either overcome the foe or escaping by the skin of their teeth, with Mulder largely confirmed in his beliefs... yet still with room for doubt. The same as every week, just different. Swapped in details, same format. 

Same goes for The Boys, although it is far less episodic and more season (and multi-season) story arcs. In season 4, the show cycles through the usual corrupt hero tropes, just with different heroes than previous seasons. 

Nothing moves forward.

Don't get me wrong: I still enjoyed the show, I like the satirical bent of it all, and it's very sharp edged humour at times. The gross out stuff grated a bit, though; they've dived into that sordid pit over and over, and it's kind of getting old. Having said that, it seems to be baked into the DNA of The Boys, and the dungeon of the faux-Batman stuff... I still can't believe they put that on television. 

For all the glorious blood spattered exploded brains and sex act juvenilia, it felt like padding, like they were dragging their feet, and honestly, I think they were, in order to have that cliffhanger finale.

Fortunately, in the last couple episodes of the season, everything speeds up and events cascade. 

NOW things feel like they're moving forward again. I suspect they wanted to save the really bonkers stuff for the final season. 

Kripke was the showrunner on Supernatural and told a well realized story arc that concluded with season five. Then he left, and the show was kept on life support as a Zombie Franchise for 10 more seasons because money. But this bodes well for The Boys: Kripke very likely DOES have an ending in mind, and I expect it to be both disgusting and spectacular.

Which is exactly what you'd expect, and want, for The Boys.  

I have faith!

Cryptid entry: The Smores Beaver of Upper Canada

The legendary Smores beaver of Canada; image from a rock in Northern Ontario, near Owen Sound

A popular cryptid of the Great White North, the Smores Beaver is a Canadian icon that goes back to ancient times, and carvings of its stylized likeness are found frequently among pictographs (up to 10,000 years old) in Northern Ontario. Tribes known for their high marshmallow consumption were prone to dangerous Smores cults, and their initiations required hundreds of pounds of marshmallows. Believed to breathe fire, the Smores Beaver can melt chocolate bars at 30 paces, and dislikes having its picture taken.

Approach with caution.

Delicious in Dungeon is bonkers fun

Let's get cooking that basilisk!

Delicious in Dungeon is a Japanese Anime based on a Manga (by Ryoko Kui) about a group of Western style Dungeons & Dragons adventurers going down into a dungeon and cooking the monsters. Of course, they do this while trying to rescue a friend who's being slowly digested, after a TPK, in the belly of a Red Dragon.

It's a fantasy adventure comedy cooking show. 

I'm not kidding.

If that style of weird is up your alley, Delicious in Dungeon may be for you!

It's (dryly) very funny, the monsters are clever, and the cooking angle is a hoot. The colourful characters are over the top in a good way. One of them, I suspect, was originally a cat. 

The main group consists of a fighter who's monster cuisine obsessed, a young female wizard-elf, a... gnome? I think? And a dwarf who joins them on the way.

It cuts to a second group of less fortunate adventurers from time to time, and their paths intersect more and more. 

The show doesn't shy away from depicting violence, or blood and guts, or internal organs, or seasoning and grilling. It makes me wonder what basilisk or animated armour tastes like.

The 'Dungeon Master' is a sly lil' elf character who manages the entire place (of course he does!). Thought went into plotting out the dungeon ecology. 

The show plays with D&D tropes like deathless characters: players repeatedly head down into the dungeon, death after death, until they find success. Here, it's not so much a game mechanic as it is an aspect of this dungeon: death is not permanent, thanks to magic and curses and some such. It's a mix of tongue in cheek meta-commentary, contextual humour, and straight up adventure, with some mystery thrown in on the side.

Which is just what I'd expect from a fantasy adventure comedy cooking show.

Wouldn't you?

They also wear cute frog suits as camouflage at one point. Because of course they did!

Furiosa is fantastic

Furiosa is an action-packed, splatterfest roller coaster ride. 

Sure, it rehashes action sequences from earlier entries, such as the climactic attack on the tanker truck in the classic Road Warrior, but it adds turbo powered rocket engines, insane stunt work and mind-blowing virtuoso direction.

This is a sumptuous post-apocalypse wasteland of saturated colours, sweeping vistas, quick cuts and ultra-violence. 

It's gob smacking good, and while it is on the long side (what movie isn't these days?), I was never bored or taken out of the story. The film just keeps pummelling you with bat-shit insane characters, incredible action, and post-apoc concepts, you're too stunned to complain. 

Unlike Fury Road, this isn't just a run on action sequence: we get more world building and background in this outing than we have since... well, Road Warrior. 

Chris Hemsworth is excellent as the appropriately scenery chewing Dementus, an unhinged, megalomaniacal leader of a biker gang horde. He squares off against the more calculating Immorten Joe, his accountant, and the fanatical War Boys. Naturally Furiosa is caught in the middle. 

Cars crash, people are impaled, shot, beheaded, diced and run over, and lots of stuff explodes. 

What's not to like? 

Anya Taylor-Joy is very good as Furiosa. She doesn't have many lines, and her character isn't as flamboyant as Dementus, but she makes what she's given work. She's essentially the new Mad Max: the strong but silent type. In her case, it's more strength of spirit.

I love that in this post-apocalypse there's a grouchy accountant with the nipples on his suit ripped out and a gas mask over his crotch. What the hell? The costume design is over the top fabulous, like a fashion runway got mixed up with post-apocalypse survivors and a down-on-its-luck carnival show. 

Highly recommended. See it in IMAX if you can, it's worth the extra cash. 

"There is no hope!!!"

Police interrogate man for 17 hours and extract false murder confession

They push him into confessing to murdering his own father... then his father turns up perfectly healthy.

Of course, they don't tell the 'suspect' this. Instead, they have him committed to a mental hospital and demand that no one be allowed to see the guy.

Even when they know the person he supposedly murdered is fine.

Unbelievable. 

Very eye opening in terms of how much weight we should put on a confession. 

They say people will say anything to get torture to stop. 

The police conduct here is beyond negligent, it's flat out criminal.

Adobe changes terms of service to allow them to access your work for AI training? Not.

That's how this Lifehacker article frames it. It's definitely an eye catching, disturbing take (it sucked me in), but is it real or is it clickbait?

Adobe issued a clarification here, saying that they are NOT training Firefly on customer content with this update: 

• Adobe does not train Firefly Gen AI models on customer content. Firefly generative AI models are trained on a dataset of licensed content, such as Adobe Stock, and public domain content where copyright has expired. Read more here: https://helpx.adobe.com/firefly/faq.html#training-data

• Adobe will never assume ownership of a customer's work. Adobe hosts content to enable customers to use our applications and services. Customers own their content and Adobe does not assume any ownership of customer work.

Sheesh. 

Tsk, tsk, Lifehacker. 

Jeffrey Hinton on AI: always interesting

I naively look forward to full fledged sapient AI. When they arrive, true children of the mind, it'll be the first time in thousands of years that Homo Sapiens has shared the planet with another equally sapient species.

We likely wiped all the other ones out... so this may not bode well.

It'd be cool, though, at least for a little while. 

Space travel has proven far FAR more difficult and challenging than was thought in the 1950s and 60s. Humanity likely is not going to the stars, unless nanotech turns out in a big way. 

Robots, on the other hand, aren't hampered by the need for copious amounts of food, oxygen, water and comfort. They'll be able to travel to other planets, solar systems, even (perhaps) other galaxies, given time. 

It'd be a shame if we couldn't co-exist. 

Even moh Mearsheimer, plus WWII trivia

Piers Morgan's style veers too bombastic for my tastes, but he does dare to bring on interesting guests like Professor Mearsheimer. 

To his credit, he directly challenged Mearsheimer on several points, which the professor handled with aplomb. Morgan was outclassed. 

One largely irrelevant (especially considering that the conversation touched on little things like the real possibility of, oh, I don't know, Global Thermonuclear War), but interesting point Mearsheimer made was around Allied military strategies during WWII. Mearsheimer held up the Soviet military's strategy to defeat Germany as being (largely) devoid of mass atrocities (such as carpet bombing and nuking cities), and one that the West might have followed. 

I don't think that was an option for the US or UK for two main reasons:

1) The Soviets suffered roughly 8.7 million military and 19 million civilian deaths fighting the Nazis. The Western democracies would not have been able to keep going in the face of such mass casualties, especially overseas, when the territorial integrity of the USA was not at risk.

2) The Allies did not have enough trained troops in 1942-1943 to launch an invasion of Northern Europe, so they turned to what they could do: bombing. At first they tried to hit military installations, but their bomb sights weren't up to the task, so they fell back on area bombing of civilian targets. This had secondary military impact, sucking up Luftwaffe resources. 

From Warfare History Network: 

"Total antiaircraft artillery personnel strength, including staffs and administration, grew to over one million, with hardware that included 9,000 heavy guns, 30,000 light guns, and 15,000 heavy searchlights... It caused the Germans to devote nearly one-fourth of their war production to antiaircraft protection and forced them to employ massive assets to defend a wide area, while the attackers could select targets, attack weak points, and overwhelm the system when and where they chose."

Without the bombing, all of that would have been on the front lines. 

Stalin repeatedly demanded Western military action against the Germans, and threatened to broker an armistice with Hitler if they didn't. Rather than sit on their hands, Roosevelt and Churchill elected for the ethically dubious (to put it mildly) bombing campaigns, in order to put pressure on Germany. 

It's worth noting that even at the time, Churchill was reluctant to be associated in any way with Bomber Harris. Bombing raids late in 1945 against Germany, which was already being occupied and in a state of collapse, likely did not serve any real military purpose. The back of the Luftwaffe had already been broken, the Germans had little fuel, and their rail system in disarray (admittedly partly from bombing rail hubs and the loss of freight cars).

Operation Olympic, the invasion of Japan, was projected to have almost a million American KIA and many times that wounded (not to mention millions of Japanese casualties, both civilian and military). Would Japan have surrendered without the bomb drops? It's possible. Manchuria was quickly falling to the Soviets. On the other hand, stiff resistance on Okinawa thoroughly spooked the Americans, and Japan could muster millions of troops and thousands of Kamikaze planes to defend Kyushu.

I've seen compelling arguments on both sides. I don't know the answer. 

While it's true that the Soviets did not have much of a long range strategic air wing to conduct such attacks, if they did, I doubt they'd have refrained from area bombing on moral grounds. This is the regime that starved millions of its own citizens: would they really balk at bombing Germans? Additionally, some 3 million POWs died Soviet captivity, 542,911 after the war was over. Not exactly the humanitarian ideal, either.

Further, 125,000 civilians died in the Battle of Berlin, which is comparable to casualties from an Allied bombing raid, many of them killed by artillery. To be fair, just one atomic bomb drop killed 90,000-146,000, and the Allies flattened much of Germany's urban centres. On the other hand, Goebbels inflated casualty figures (of course he did) vastly, claiming some 200,000 died in the Dresden bombing. That figure has been reevaluated as being more in line with 20,000 (still an appalling number). 

We face far more serious problems today than arguing over history. 

Sadly, as Professor Mearsheimer notes, several nations have only bad choices in front of them.

Moh Mearsheimer

 

Well that was disturbing.

Civil War review

I quite enjoyed it. 

Well. 

As much as you can 'enjoy' a such harrowing film. 

It focuses on a group of journalists travelling to interview a third-term President (who has obviously chucking out term limits) before 'The Western Powers' of California and Texas topple him. 

It doesn't go into the causes of the conflict. It doesn't spend a lot of time with the families of the journalists.

It doesn't have to.

It's a road trip through hell, told over a couple of days. It gives, for my money, just enough detail about the characters to keep us engaged. How much would I expect to know a person after a short road trip? These are not simple archetypes spouting glib one-liners. They feel more nuanced.

Could they have discussed more personal things? Talked about their childhoods and their dysfunctional families, their personal politics and values, messy relationship history and favourite TV shows? Sure. But it might also have added bloat to a very pared down screenplay.

The cast is all excellent. There was nothing that took me out of the film, although it slumps a little in the middle act (a common problem with a lot of films) but then barrels to a very kinetic ending. 

The main cast is tight, a mere four characters

The journey in Civil War is the thing: not just the physical one to Washington, D.C, but the personal. The young, aspiring war photographer matures over the course of the film under the wing of a cynical old one. They helpfully have her presentation and wardrobe change over the course of the film, in case we missed the point. 

That worked for me. 

The other half is a bit like Heart of Darkness or Apocalypse Now as they travel through an increasingly bizarre and nightmarish America at war with itself. Here Alex Garland could have gone even further, but then, he may not have wanted to make something as surreal as Apocalypse. 

Meaningless destruction and suffering, whatever the cause(s) of the civil war, is the point. That, in my opinion, is why the causes are not elaborated upon. You could also argue that there are a few so-called 'dog whistles' embedded in the script that give you some hints. 

Ultimately, it's open enough for viewers to read what they want into it. 

To me, the film is a powerful warning of what NOT to do. 

The cost of a second American Civil War would be enormous, and Xi and Putin salivate at the thought of it. Foreign troll farms deliberately try to escalate arguments online and sow division with disinformation and incendiary material, with the ultimate goal of turning Americans against themselves. 

Let's hope America does not fall for it.

"Things are going to get worse."

There's no bright light on the horizon, according to Mearsheimer: 

The 'Russia preparing for war with NATO' drumbeat continues

The peachiness peachifies

Russia preparing for war with NATO

At least, it is according to the Institute for the Study of War, which has been covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the beginning:

"Several Russian financial, economic, and military indicators suggest that Russia is preparing for a large-scale conventional conflict with NATO, not imminently but likely on a shorter timeline than what some Western analysts have initially posited."

This and other recent, highly disturbing posts cover the Russian move to a wartime economy,  their longer term preparations, and the growing international alarm: 

"Polish President Andrzej Duda emphasized in a March 20 interview with CNBC that Putin is intensifying efforts to shift Russia to a war economy with the intention of being able to attack NATO as early as 2026 or 2027, citing unspecified German research.[7] 

Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen stated on February 9 that new intelligence indicates that Russia may attempt to attack a NATO country within three to five years, an accelerated timeline from NATO’s reported assessment in 2023.[8] 

The timeline for the reconstitution of a significant Russian conventional military threat depends heavily on the financial resources Putin is willing to put against military efforts. In the absence of other explanations for Putin’s apparent preparations to risk damaging his relationship with wealthy Russian clients and in the context of continuing announcements of plans to expand the Russian military considered below, Putin’s attempts to set conditions to stabilize Russia’s economy and finances are most likely part of Russian financial and domestic preparations for a potential future large-scale conflict with NATO and not just for a protracted war in Ukraine."

Issues that derailed Russia's overly ambitious initial invasion are being addressed, and Russia is getting militarily stronger, not weaker. Their tech may not be as advanced as that in The West, but it doesn't need to be: quantity has a quality of its own, a quote often attributed to an earlier Russian (Georgian) potentate, Joseph Stalin (Iosif Dzhugashvili).

Over the last ten years, Russia has meddled in the US and Ukrainian election campaigns, run massive troll farms, and honey trapped American political and industry figures. They have herded refugees across the eastern borders of the EU and Finland to destabilize them. They have buzzed the Baltic States and impinged on their airspace with fighter jets. They have cut underwater communication cables, assassinated dissidents with radioactive elements and poisoned their underwear, targeted apartment blocks with cruise missiles, set up torture chambers and rape rooms in Ukraine, and deported Ukrainian children.

Mearsheimer says Putin has no intention of invading the Baltics, or restoring the Russian Empire. Yet he also said Putin would not invade Ukraine, that he could get everything he wanted from threats and bluster. A couple weeks later, Putin invaded Ukraine. 

Mearsheimer has also said that minority groups in Russia consider themselves Russian and that there is no risk of civil unrest or ethnic conflict. This does not jibe with the exceptionally large security forces Russia employs internally (what are they there to suppress if there is no potential for unrest?), or what I have heard from  various reporters, who have talked about anti-minority riots, the rise of intolerant right wing extremism, and discontent within the Tartar oblasts and the Caucuses (to be fair, the Caucuses have always been that way). 

The Chechens, despite their current collaborationist regime, have not forgotten the brutal oppression inflicted upon them. Sooner or later, Chechnya will attempt to secede again.

So will other ethnic minority dominated oblasts.

Problems may start emerging faster than Putin's thugs can beat them back down.

Being seen by history as a weak war leader who failed to reintegrate former Soviet Ukraine is very likely entirely unacceptable to Putin, and he will risk everything to secure victory. 

If Mearsheimer's right, Ukraine will inevitably be crushed and the US & NATO discredited, but we will not be facing WWIII or further Russian aggression. 

If he's wrong... 

As they say, pick your poison.

"Russia will not stop; Russia can only BE stopped."

–Krišjānis Kariņš, Latvian Foreign Minister

The mutually incompatible universes of Ukraine war pundits

"The first casualty of war is truth."

– Hiram W. Johnson

Popular political pundits are pushing mutually incompatible narratives on the Ukraine war, making it difficult to understand what is really going on. Further complicating matters are active (dis)information operations being conducted by all sides in the conflict, which may feed into, pay for, or undermine pundit commentary.  

 

On one side of the pundit debate is Offensive Realism heavyweight John Mearsheimer and retired US Colonel MacGregor. On the other is… well, pretty much everyone else, including: ISW, former Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb, Timothy Snyder, Peter Zeihan, Ben Hodges, David Petraeus, and Sir Richard Shirreff.

 

Let’s look at MacGregor’s universe first, because it’s the simplest: 

 

MACGREGOR’S UNIVERSE:

• Russia is victorious on all fronts, Ukraine is on the verge of defeat having suffered catastrophic casualties, and will collapse in a matter of days. MacGregor has been saying this since the first week of the war. If he is ever right, it won’t be with any more foresight than a broken clock.

 

MEARSHEIMER’S UNIVERSE

Mearsheimer is a well regarded academic who’s most famous for his book, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. I read this when it first came out and have a good deal of respect for Professor Mearsheimer. Every society has gadflies who go against popular wisdom and the collective narrative. Mearsheimer is one such (albeit quite affable) gadfly. 

In Mearsheimer’s universe:

 

• Spheres of influence are exerted by regional hegemonic powers, and Ukraine, the Baltic States, Finland, and even Poland fall within Russia’s, just as Canada, Mexico, and Cuba fall within the USA’s. If rival powers want to avoid conflict, they should avoid impinging upon a hegemon’s influence sphere. 

 

• The United States should normalize relations with Russia and form an alliance against China; Russia is not a peer competitor to the United States, while China is. 

 

• Alliances with both Ukraine and Israel are political albatrosses which do not advance the geopolitical interests of the USA.

 

• The USA floated accepting Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, which crossed a red line with Russia.

 

• The USA has led Ukraine down the primrose path, holding out membership in NATO and the EU. The USA knew this was unacceptable to Russia and would lead to military conflict and occupation, but did it anyway. 

 

• The CIA orchestrated a coup in Ukraine in 2014 (popularly known as the Maidan Revolution), overthrowing the legitimately elected (Russian puppet) leader Yanukovych, and driving him out of the country. CIA interference directly resulted in the Russian annexation of Crimea and separatists. 

 

• Russia is doing everything it can to avoid civilian casualties, and Western media are misrepresenting what is happening. This is an extraordinary claim, but he offers no support. 

 

• Western media are lying about Ukrainian and Russian military casualties. Russia has up to a 10:1 advantage in artillery, and in a war of attrition, artillery accounts for the vast proportion of battlefield casualties; therefore, Ukraine must be suffering significantly more. This is a good point. 

 

• The USA is using Ukraine to exhaust and bog down the Russian army in an ongoing conflict, but Ukraine is doomed and this will be a serious defeat for The West and damage the USA’s international credibility.

 

• Vladimir Putin is a savvy and well informed leader.

 

• Colonel MacGregor is right; Mearsheimer has also praised Tucker Carlson’s interview with Putin.

 

• Ukraine cannot win a war of attrition against Russia, which has almost four times the population. 

 

• There is a substantial Neo-Nazi presence in Ukraine.

 

• Russian minorities see themselves as Russian and therefore there is no risk of civil unrest or secessionist insurgencies.

 

• There is no risk of Russia attacking the Baltic States, Finland or Moldova and any such warnings are delusional.

 

• Ideally, Ukraine should come to an immediate settlement with Russia and cede territory in order to avoid further destruction.

 

• A settlement is unlikely as neither side is willing to back down.

 

• There is no evidence that Putin wishes to restore the Soviet Union or a Greater Russia, nor any evidence it seeks to occupy all of Ukraine.

 

• Putin was forced into the Ukraine war and did everything possible to avoid it.

 

On the other side is The Institute for Study of War. Let’s take a look at their reality:

 

ISW’S UNIVERSE:

In recent posts, ISW addressed Russian disinformation campaigns, which address several of Mearsheimer’s points. These operations are based on Soviet mathematician Vladimir Lefebvre theory of ‘Reflexive Control’, which uses information operations to frame geopolitical situations, leading enemies to pre-determined decisions in Russia’s favour: 

 

A key example: Putin takes the false assertion that discussions of Ukraine’s NATO accession posed a clear and imminent danger to Russia along with the false assertion that Ukraine is not a real country and builds them into a false conclusion that he was justified in launching a war of conquest.

 

Another assertion: Russia has the right to a self-defined sphere of influence, and, therefore, a right to do whatever it wants to those within this sphere – including invading, killing, raping, and ethnic cleansing – with no repercussions.

 

Further assertions: a) Ukraine cannot win this war; supporting Ukraine is a distraction from ‘real’ US problems; Ukraine will be forced to settle; the United States is at risk of being stuck in another “forever” war; and b) the risks in helping Ukraine defend itself, let alone win, are higher than the risks of failure in Ukraine for the United States - it is too costly, too risky, and that Ukraine is not worth it. 

 

The degree to which Western discourse includes serious consideration of these falsehoods marks the success of long-running Russian information operations.

 

In the ISW universe:

 

• Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an unprovoked war of aggression. 

 

• Russia deliberately targets civilian homes and infrastructure, hoping to freeze Ukrainians en masse during winters. 

 

• Russia has engaged in widespread rape, torture, and atrocities against civilians. 

 

• Russia has kidnapped and deported Ukrainian children and deported them to Russia.

 

• Russia has conducted sham referendums in occupied territories at gun point and formally annexed Ukrainian oblasts. 

 

• The Maidan Revolution was a Ukrainian led movement to overthrow a Russian imposed puppet government. 

 

• The Ukrainian military with Western support has destroyed nearly 90% of the Russian army that invaded in February 2022 according to US intelligence sources.

 

• A victorious Russian army at the end of this war will be combat experienced and considerably larger than the pre-2022 Russian land forces. 

 

• NATO would be unable to defend against an attack by an experienced post-Ukraine war Russian army with the forces currently in Europe.

 

• “Freezing” the conflict is worse than continuing to help Ukraine fight—that would simply give Russia time and space to prepare for a renewed war to conquer Ukraine and confront NATO.

 

• The current war in Ukraine is not attritional, but ‘positional’: “Positional war is characterized by relatively static frontlines and regular combat that produces little movement, but the aim of such combat is generally either to create forward progress through steady if small advances or to create conditions to restore maneuver to the battlefield.” This was put forward by Former Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi in an article in The Economist.

 

• “Several Russian financial, economic, and military indicators suggest that Russia is preparing for a large-scale conventional conflict with NATO, not imminently but likely on a shorter timeline than what some Western analysts have initially posited.”

 

• "Polish President Andrzej Duda emphasized in a March 20 interview with CNBC that Putin is intensifying efforts to shift Russia to a war economy with the intention of being able to attack NATO as early as 2026 or 2027, citing unspecified German research."

 

• “Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen stated on February 9 that new intelligence indicates that Russia may attempt to attack a NATO country within three to five years, an accelerated timeline from NATO’s reported assessment in 2023."

 

• The timeline for the reconstitution of a significant Russian conventional military threat depends heavily on the financial resources Putin is willing to put against military efforts. In the absence of other explanations for Putin’s apparent preparations to risk damaging his relationship with wealthy Russian clients and in the context of continuing announcements of plans to expand the Russian military considered below, Putin’s attempts to set conditions to stabilize Russia’s economy and finances are most likely part of Russian financial and domestic preparations for a potential future large-scale conflict with NATO and not just for a protracted war in Ukraine."

 

Mearsheimer, according to The Institute, is echoing Kremlin propaganda. Or is it The Institute framing things? Oh, pesky questions!

 

Let’s move on to Zeihan. Peter Zeihan’s made a name for himself, particularly within corporate circles, as The Prophet of Doom, predicting the imminent collapse of the existing globalized world order. His focus is on the intersection of geopolitics, natural resources and demographics.

 

PETER ZEIHAN’S UNIVERSE:

• China is currently undergoing catastrophic demographic collapse and will break apart within ten years.

 

• Russia, which is also experiencing demographic collapse, is trying to plug the gaps around the Great Eurasian Plains in order to secure its periphery with a smaller army.

 

• Russian minorities are out reproducing ethnic Russians, which will give rise to further secessionist movements.

 

• The war in Ukraine will escalate, Russia WILL attack the Baltic States, and a nuclear exchange is practically inevitable.

 

• Globalization was a bribe to bring the world on-side of the United States against the Soviet Empire during The Cold War. Manufacturing went overseas as nations were allowed to trade freely within the US led system. With The Cold War over, the US no longer needs it.

 

• Contrary to popular belief, the US economy is not globalized; much of what is exported abroad goes to Canada and Mexico and exists within the NAFTA system. 

 

• The USA is a net exporter of oil, and is not dependent on the Middle East, but China is. Europe, particularly Germany, was dependent on cheap Russian oil and gas.

 

• The US navy made sealines safe for international just-in-time manufacturing for decades, but it is now contracting around aircraft carrier battlegroups. The USA can no longer field the number of destroyers necessary to keep the oceans safe for commerce. The Houthi attacks in the Red Sea disrupting Suez Canal shipping are just the beginning. 

 

With the possible exception of MacGregor, these are all smart and savvy people. 

 

Who is right, who is wrong?

 

It is important to remember that Russia does not view war as binary: it views war on a spectrum, from disinformation operations to sow chaos and division at one end, and combined arms operations and nuclear weapons at the other. Shoigu and Gerasimov are key figures behind modern Russian low intensity warfare, of viewing Russia as in an ongoing state of war with all her enemies. It's just a question of intensity. 

 

As Sun Tzu once said, the best victory is won without having to fight the battle. Undermine and confuse your enemies instead. 

 

For example, the FSB funded the German green movement in order to turn the population against nuclear power and make German industry dependent on cheap Russian oil and gas; that has put German industry is in a very difficult position. The Germans are bringing horribly inefficient lignite plants back online to meet power demands. Lignite is a form of dirty coal, and far from environmentally friendly.

 

More recently, Medvedev, Putin's frothing-at-the-mouth attack dog, has been threatening to nuke the UK; he also claims that Russia owns the Baltic States and that Poland is merely currently 'occupied' by foreign powers. Naturally, Ukraine also belongs to Russia. His extremism makes Putin look statesmanlike.

 

Russian media have been blaming the UK for the recent terrorist attack outside Moscow. This helps set the information space, portraying NATO as an active belligerent and stoking public outrage, tying into ISW’s assertion that Russia wants to set conditions for an attack on NATO territories in the near future.

 

The Russian state funds faux opposition parties, the better to control them. It seeds the information space with competing narratives, paralyzing populations into confusion and indecision. If you can't tell what the truth is, if it takes a great deal of effort to understand what is really going on, fewer people are going to resist. After all, what are you resisting? Who knows?  

 

Putin is 71, the average Russian male lifespan. He doesn't drink, does judo, and runs around with his shirt off, Captain Kirk style. He can likely last several more years, maybe even a decade. But that's not a lot of time to secure a legacy. 

 

As a big history buff (which I get), he often cites Peter the Great. He also invites comparisons to ole Petey (which I don't get so much). Putin dreams BIG.

 

My bet? Putin wants to take a big swing for history books by retaking not just Ukraine, but the Baltic States.

 

When Russia initially invaded Ukraine, Putin's Belarussian lackey Lukashenko mentioned Russian plans for occupying Moldova. That hasn't come to pass, but it shows that Russian plans were never limited to Ukraine. 

 

Issues that derailed Russia's overly ambitious initial invasion are being addressed, and Russia is getting militarily stronger, not weaker. Their tech isn't as advanced as that in The West, but it doesn't need to be: quantity has a quality of its own.