Been Away: Need to post here more

[degringolade]

 

Symbolism / Hugo Simberg/ The Wind Blows

The war between one flavor of Russians-vs-another flavor of Russian (Muscovite Rus (MR) or Kievan Rus (KR)) is getting kind of stale, I mean, who really cares here in the US besides:

•  the arms manufacturers, 

• the Politicians who take their the Arms Manufacturers paltry bribes to fund them, 

• The Politicians who whip up hatred of the “other” for political gain.

• and the military brass angling for post-retirement coin with the arms manufacturers?  

Can’t really say that it is any different than what is going on in Myanmar, except for the Ukrainian women are much closer to our cultural vision of beauty than the women in Myanmar, so some folks get het up easier.  Oh, and we have been hating Russians on an industrial level since ‘45.  

I look at this little kerfuffle much in the same way that Europeans looked at the American Civil War, a testing ground for new weapons and the tactics they engender to take home to increase the lethality of their army the next time they go a-viking or get invaded by an overenthusiastic neighbors.

Since actual unbiased reporting is so scarce on the ground, I have to go back and look around for a range of sites displaying different levels of stridency for one side or the other.  This is not so much a search for truth but the seach bits of data which I can try (and usually fail) to tease out just what the fuck is actually going on.  I think that I am moderately well informed, but that is just a feeling.  I suppose that is the best anyone can do.

I have a bunch of sites that I read daily (well, not so much read, as search for something that I might be interested in that doesn’t reek of being any sort of propaganda.  This is usually a failure).  The way that most folks deal with issues of war and peace on the internet is quite similar to the way folks deal with sports.  People root for their team.  But there are folks out there who do know what they are talking about and present their take on things in light of the ideological lenses that they openly wear and the team they support.  There is still value in these folks' knowledge and a narrow view of what is going on.  You just have to understand the individual prejudices and points of view.  You don’t have to agree, but rejecting their statements out of hand is foolish in the extreme.

I look at this issue in terms of sports fans.  There is a subset of the sports fan population that doesn’t really have a preferred team, but they watch their sport with interest and usually a fair bit of knowledge.  They don’t listen to the team's supporters explaining why their team is brilliant, they just watch the game.

All that meandering brings me to my point of discussion for the day.  I have been pondering HIMARS.

Simply put, we were stupid to send these to that conflict.  Even should these weapons systems be put to good use there, the actual process of using them by the KR will allow the MR to develop countermeasures.  I’m not saying the weapons systems won’t be effective, but the MR’s military is fully capable of adapting to the capabilities of the system.  Should the rumors of one of the systems already having been sold to the MR, that adaptation will be even faster.  

War isn’t static.  The US should know this better than anyone.