Monday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, May 16, 2022
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45 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Motive unknown but racism would not seem to play a part as the congregation is primarily Asian, and the shooter too.
Russia likely to have lost third of its Ukraine invasion force, says UK
“Russia has now likely suffered losses of one-third of the ground combat force it committed in February,” it said. “Russian forces are increasingly constrained by degraded enabling capabilities, continued low morale and reduced combat effectiveness. Many of these capabilities cannot be quickly replaced or reconstituted and are likely to continue to hinder Russian operations in Ukraine. Under the current conditions, Russia is unlikely to dramatically accelerate its rate of advance over the next 30 days.”
Finland and Sweden confirm intention to join Nato
Well done Vlad, well done.
What kind of parents did the Buffalo shooter have? Well, they gave him an assault rifle for his 16th birthday.
John Fetterman, currently leading in the PA Dem. US Senate primary, had a stroke late last week. He’s in hospital and recovering.
Good grief. Sen. Chris Van Hollen has also had a stroke. He is also in hospital and recovering.
@MarkedMan: So they were shits. Now we know.
‘Failure of an American ideology’: why Covid has an outsized impact on the US
@OzarkHillbilly:
There is a saying that “if it can’t go on like this, it won’t.” Russia’s rate of loss is not sustainable, the military in Ukraine can’t endure a war of attrition. My guess is the Russian presence in Ukraine is perhaps two or three months away from an implosion.
@charon: Agreed, this will not end well for Putin. Wish I could say what that will mean.
@OzarkHillbilly: @charon: Rules of war include dealing with the war dead. This is gruesome and macabre but was reading an article (about a month old) about how Ukraine is fulfilling it’s responsibilities but also exercising psychological warfare.
Ukraine is scanning faces of dead Russians, then contacting the mothers
I don’t know if it’s rude to talk of other sites but does anyone know what’s going on with Balloon Juice? Have not been able to log on since Friday. There is a 522 that shows up saying there is a problem with the host. I follow Adam Silverman about the war in Ukraine on BJ, I think his coverage is very well done.
Listen to this podcast this morning. Politically/policy-wise I’m more progressive but temperamentally I’m right with them. Discussing Roe v. Wade and the response to the SC leak. Worth a listen.
https://www.thebulwark.com/podcast-episode/tom-nichols-this-isnt-therapy-its-politics-2/
@Mr. Prosser: Same here. I go for the war summary also. Yes, it has been down.
There was some imbedded tweets over at Lawyers, GUns, and Money blog indicating it’s some sort of issue with their blog hosting service. It’s being worked on but must be pretty catastrophic if it is taking this long.
@Mr. Prosser:
Only that other people are seeing the same problem.
@Scott: @Paine: Thanks for the info.
WRT to Finland and Sweden joining NATO, here is some perspective:
Stop Making a Big Deal of NATO’s Next Members
@Mr. Prosser: I’ve been having the same problem, glad to know I’m not alone
Did you guys watch the lunar eclipse? It was pretty cool looking here, we had clear skies. The coyotes started howling all over the place during the totality.
@Jax: Cloudy skies here.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is very mad at the press for portraying her as “unintelligent,” which is, of course, totally not true.
WRT loonies running for office*, just wanted you to know that not all the wackos are GQP’rs. Apologies for the length , but it’s, well, I dunno.
*This was taken from the official Voter’s Pamphlet, and was provided by the candidate.
I’m waiting for Tues tally on how many votes he gets.
Our state motto could be Oregon, things sure are different here.
The greatest American actor working today.
@Flat Earth Luddite: That’s good, but not remotely the nuttiest thing I’ve seen in a voter’s pamphlet.
In this season’s, for instance, we have a candidate for governor whose entire message is:
@Jay L Gischer:
Sadly, the message resonates with many.
I come from a time and place where our politicians were venal and corrupt, but at least they stayed bought.
@Mr. Prosser: Me too. I’ve stayed up late to catch Silverman’s Ukraine coverage. And no insight on the problem, or recovery time.
Silverman’s main conclusion for weeks, largely backed by British Ministry of Defense reports, has been that there’s little or no change in the military situation. The Brits have gone public with their estimate the Russians have lost a third of their strength. Boris Johnson has been taking a lead role in supporting Ukraine, which tells me, given he’s a major trimmer, he thinks Ukraine has already won. I suspect we didn’t rush those M777 mortars to them because they were available, but because U. S. intelligence identified a Russian vulnerability. I’d love to see an assessment of U. S., now Ukrainian, counter-battery capability v Russian.
I’m looking forward to getting Silverman’s reports back.
@charon:
I concur.
Indeed, if Russia keeps feeding scraped together and/or reconstituted units in as they become available, and if the Ukrainians keep hitting the supply lines in sequence, the collapse might come even sooner.
An indication of Ukrainian operational intelligence; they appear to be specifically targeting Russian trucks and other supply/support assets.
And around Kharkiv it looks like they may be trying to cut the Russian supply route from Belgorod to Izyum, which the Russians set up on route parallel to the front.
Another indicator of Russian lack of focus:
This map of Russian roaming SIM connections to the Ukrainian cellphone nets (!)
Its not an exact map, apparently: the SIM data geolocation algorithm seems to be a bit glitchy, and the connection apparently can get handed on to neighbouring stations if traffic is high.
But one thing stands out like a sore thumb: the massive concentration west of the Dnipr around Kherson.
In short: Russia failed to shut down Kherson operations and focus everything on Donbas.
Just like in the “take Kyiv” operation, they spread out their efforts onto secondary targets.
Win in Donbas, Kherson is probably holdable or recoverable.
Lose in Donbas, lose Kherson also.
As Napoleon said: “If you aim to take Vienna; then TAKE VIENNA.”
And also notable: Russia is still not putting in an all out effort to achieve air supremacy over Donbas front.
Multiple instances of Ukrainian air strike in the area; and of Russians failing to press an all-out attack on Ukrainian army in Donbas from the air.
I’d bet that failing to shut down Kherson front is a political thing: reports of setting up an “autonomous government” there that will “request annexation”.
As if that matters one bit.
@gVOR08: Dr. R. North over at TurbulentTimes has focused his analytics on what’s been going on in the Ukraine. Quite fascinating, particularly when the dissection is continued by the commentators. Ignore the three or four Russian trolls–they’re pretty obvious (and with stupid arguments).
@JohnSF:
Russian pilots in Ukraine using insecure, non-military navigation equipment: UK defence secretary:
I guess you go to war with the army (and air force) you don’t have.
@JohnSF:
My emphasis.
I have seen data what they are really concentrating on is the supplies – ammunition storage, oil tanks, etc. – the “logistics.”
And, of course, railroads – much less wear and tear on the vehicles to move them by rail, less fuel usage also. (Attacking landing boats too).
@gVOR08:
@JohnSF:
There was a Ukraine news site sourced article in the last few days that attributed to a source only ID’d as an Ukraine general, that the war will be effectively over by August as both sides will be exhausted. I suspect that Ukraine can hold out longer, due to support from NATO and righteousness of their cause.
@Sleeping Dog:
Difficult to tell what the exact nature of Ukraines supply situation is.
They can call on the West for massive amounts of money and materiel, but the military economy system has to be under a lot of stress.
They have the advantage of numbers, unless Russia fully mobilises (and perhaps even then, if Russian mobilisation is as cocked up as everything else Moscow touches) but training may be a problem.
My ill-informed guess is, the Russian army will break before Ukraine runs out of trained soldiers.
@JohnSF:
That seems to be the quiet part that no one wants to say outloud. The NYT article yesterday quoting from bloggers embedded with the Russian troops, beginning to speak somewhat truthfully about how the war is going isn’t a good sign for Putin.
@Scott: With all due respect, who has been saying that this is huge in any way other than political? It’s not a huge slap in Putin’s face because now he’ll have to face the might and majesty of the Swedish army — although they did kick Russia’s ass a few hundred years ago — but because this is exactly the opposite of the outcome Putin wanted, a more unified, rather than more fragmented, Europe.
@sam:
I wouldn’t put as much meaning into the carrying of GPS by Russian pilots. It’s what I would do if in conflict with the west due to the possibility of us screwing around with their version of GPS (GLONASS, IIRC). Equipping oneself with a cross-check could easily be nothing more than common sense.
If one is looking for an example of Russian incompetence, check out the failed attempt at fording the Siverskyi Donets river last week. It is all but unthinkable they failed to supply artillery and air support for a battalion placed in the highly vulnerable position of being first across the bridge. All but unthinkable they aren’t scouting for enemy artillery before attempting it. There is something very very wrong in the Russian army. They should’ve learned that by now and fixes should be in place.
@wr:
@Scott:
If they were back at Cold War levels, it would be quite an issue for Russia.
From the 1950s to 1980’s the standing army was about 500,000 and the mobilizable reserve around half a million.
IIRC there was a territorial defence force as well.
They aren’t gong to back to those level quickly; but they have reintroduced conscription (of both men and women, incidentally).
Sweden may have been neutral: it was never pacifist.
I suspect one significant difference will be that both Sweden and Finland will now be plugged into the NATO integrated electronic intelligence gathering/distribution nets.
Radar and integrated sonar nets from the Aaland Is and Gotland, makes the Baltic in effect a NATO lake. And places NATO assets almost within strolling distance of Murmansk.
https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1525748588445302784
A thread:
Downthread a ways:
https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1525748621098029056
Some time ago, someone asked what “Christian” meant in the popular parlance of contemporary politicians who swear by it. The answer they want might have a good start here:
Kristin Du Mez: How Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith | Amanpour and Company (YouTube, 18:25) The impetus for the interview seems to be a book she’s publishing titled “Jesus and John Wayne: How Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith”, and the interview suggests that a lot of the roots are actually specifically tied to anti-communist, pro-patriarchy positioning by evangelical pastors in the 60s and 70s.
The NYPost has a report that Russian commanders are shooting and killing wounded Russian s0ldiers rather than getting them medical attention.
@JohnSF: When I was a kid (60s) browsing through the World Book Encyclopedia, there was a graphic on the world air forces. I clearly remember that Sweden had something like the 5th largest Air Force. Even today, they have a pretty large indigenous defense industry (because they were neutral for decades), producing their own fighters and other weapons. I’m pretty sure not much goes on above and below the Baltic Sea that they don’t know about.
@charon:
It would fit that someone Benito lauds as “smart” would go to the expense in human lives and treasure to wage a war with status quo antebellum as his objective.
@Scott:
It’s a tendency of some in the Western Alliance countries to misunderstand the European neutrals.
During the Cold War arguably the most militarized countries in Europe were Finland, Sweden and Switzerland.
The theoretical size of the fully mobilised Swiss Army in the 1970’s was around 1.5 million, and the gun holding per capita was higher than the US.
In the words of one Swiss at the time:
“Other countries have an army. We are an army.”
Both have declined since 1990 for the Swiss.
But arguably still applicable to the Finns.
@David S.:
Ayup! Fighting the “godless Communitsts” was job one all right.
@Mr. Prosser: There’s now a statement up at
https://balloon-juice.com/ saying there was a data center problem. Says BJ is OK but may be a few days before they’re back up.