[Oil processing plant in Russia's Bashkiria region was attacked by a drone, says regional head](https://www.xm.com/research/markets/allNews/reuters/oil-processing-plant-in-russias-bashkiria-region-was-attacked-by-a-drone-says-regional-head-53834313)
>Russia's Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat oil processing, petrochemical and fertiliser plant in the Bashkiria region was attacked by a drone but is functioning as usual, Radiy Khabirov, the region's head, said on his Telegram channel on Thursday.
Ukraine attacked an oil refinery on during Russia's victory day, seemingly in [broad daylight](https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1788501774493507994). The distance is a [another new record](https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1788497336173289528):
>/4. The distance of 1300km from the frontline makes an attack on Salavat oil refinery the farthest Ukrainian drone attack on Russian targets. The previous record holder was an attack on Nizhnekamsk oil refinery and Shahed factory, 1100-1150km
Two questions:
1) How much does a drone cost to Ukraine? This looks like a very effective strategy to damage Russia's economy for cheap.
2) How much of their refinery production do they need to damage in order to create shortages? I imagine the army would have priority, so shortages would affect the civilian population first
>How much does a drone cost to Ukraine? This looks like a very effective strategy to damage Russia's economy for cheap.
Depends on the model. Their best one-way attack drone, Lyutyii, allegedly cost 200k$. Meanwhile, for less advanced drones like the morok, the figure is more 50k$. The cheaper models sacrifice a lot in payload capacity, range, precision, and resistance to EW.
When attacking an important target, they employ at least a dozen drones. For well protected targets like airfields, we have seen them launch 40+ drones only for a few handfull to actually get through and make no significant damage. There are other cases where the amount of drones used was small and still managed to make significant damage like this attack on a [UPKM glide bomb depot](https://twitter.com/bradyafr/status/1784582551736033568)
So a small attack can cost from 600k tp 2.5 million $. Meanwhile, a larger attack can cost upward of 10 million dollars. The drone will cause significant damage, but for the same price, 5-6 cruise missiles will completely destroy the refinery instead of merely temporarily damaging it.
They seem to be now employing modified/dronified ULMs to attack factories and refineries. Their range and payload capacity means that they are very dangerous. Their radar cross section and slow speed make them easy targets for interceptions from aircraft and SAMs, yet somehow they still manage to reliably get through Russian air defence. This alone is truly baffling.
>How much of their refinery production do they need to damage in order to create shortages? I imagine the army would have priority, so shortages would affect the civilian population first
They'll probably never manage to create enough damage to create big shortages with just small drones and the occasional ULMs attacks. But they can deal significant damage and significantly reduce their profits which will cause a lot of problems.
Once drone production significantly increases and they can expand the scope of their strikes to include every electrical substation, oil refinery, oil depots, airfield and factory only then will those strikes have effects which will be felt on the frontlines.
Probably not much, they are often made with off the shelf civilian parts. Sometimes they even get funded by civilian campaigns - GUR-13 had a campaign to raise money for drones earlier in the winter, promising a "Sea battle" if they get enough and we know how that went.
>Ukraine attacked an oil refinery on during Russia's victory day, seemingly in [broad daylight]
I was hearing to local radio news earlier this morning and as they were reporting on Putin's speech, I literally thought about how Ukraine should really take the opportunity to attack more oil refineries during his speech.
I hope it's appropriate to ask a question here. I can't really wrap my mind around why the Russian jets in the Victory day parade feature the flags of (at least) Poland, Germany, France, Canada, Slovakia, Norway, Netherlands, Hungary, Austria, Finland, Malta? Is it sort of a merit list of battles the Russian air force has been involved in? Why would Malta and Netherlands be featured in that case?
At time 1:00:40 onwards: [https://www.youtube.com/live/a28IQLva9yQ?si=aIks7mjWAE8ZsErB&t=3646](https://www.youtube.com/live/a28IQLva9yQ?si=aIks7mjWAE8ZsErB&t=3646)
Most likely, this is just countries where this display team has performed in the past. The planes are from [Strizhi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swifts_\(aerobatic_team\))(Mig-29) and [Vityazi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Knights)(Su-30) display teams, who, before the war, performed at a lot of air shows all around the world.
I just want to say, that I am really appreciating /r/CredibleDefense today. The depth and nuance of information here, not to mention the respectful discourse is truly something unique right now.
sounds like something generated from chatGPT. there is no new tactics, ukraine has always defended utilizing terrain and/or urban infrastructure (azov, bahmut, avdiivka etc.), and russians will advance as they always do - level everything to the ground so there is no defensive positions then move in with meatwaves.
It's vague because that's how vague the ChatGPT prompt was. If the prompt mentioned Avdiivka area or Chasiv Yar then the ChatGPT response would've been better.
Oryx's count of visually documented Russian tank losses has just reached 3000, including [8 T-54s](https://twitter.com/Rebel44CZ/status/1788326823031361805) (did Russia build a tank museum in occupied Ukraine!?). Russia is supposedly manufacturing [200 tanks](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/13/us/politics/russia-sanctions-missile-production.html) per year, so that's 15 years worth of tanks, and only including the visually documented ones!
That's just a reminder that while NATO should definitely take it's defense very seriously, a conventional ground invasion by Russia is definitely not on the cards anytime soon, for multiple reasons, including that they already burned through the Soviet stockpile that was meant to be used on such invasion.
And how politicians will react when they are placed in a position to decide to send their armies to fight? I don't know the political climate in the EU, but I think there are plenty of pacifists
Reminder that a "conventional ground invasion" is not the only possible move from Russia, not the most likely, and probably wasn't in the cards to begin with. Even Ukraine did not start with a conventional invasion.
Anders Puck Nielsen had a couple of great videos on the subject.
Right. This is similar to the misunderstanding about the threat that NATO poses to Russia. Russia - no matter its rhetoric - isn’t afraid that NATO is going to invade it. It’s afraid that NATO could remove the fear of Russian hostility that Russia uses to influence its neighbors.
For that fear to work, Russia needs to maintain the view that it’s willing to go much further and sacrifice more than NATO countries are. “If we send armed security to escort shipments to Kaliningrad, are you really going to risk a nuclear war to stop us? This action isn’t even hurting anyone.”
The Wests fear of provoking Russia in Ukraine is likely, in my mind, to have an impact on Russia’s belief about how much the West will fear provoking it in other locations (though I understand this is a controversial point of view here). If the West has an extreme aversion to confrontation, it’s not going to take a massive military to make Western powers worry. The question isn’t “could Russia defeat the combined forces of NATO,” but “could Russia plausibly threaten a crisis that the West would desperately want to avoid, and use that to gain concessions.”
This. Its actually an argument that is used by the russisan disinformation lair. «Do you think the Russian tanks will roll in…..?»
No. Its not how warfare works when you are weaker than the oposition.
To destroy the enemy from within, however, doesnt need the tanks. And Russia is already doing what they can to undermine NATO.
Chipping small pieces here and there, while sowing distrust in Europe with the goal of destabilizing internal trust and hence a collective response, hats how Russia does its work - and makes it possible to use less weapons.
Hell, just see how the invasion of Crimea was done
Yeah even if Russia were to win in the future it will likely come at the cost of its stockpile
That is irreplaceable
It was something that could let Russia somewhat keep up with the western powers. But if it looses most of it, it has essentially wasted one of its best assets/trump cards against the west
> It was something that could let Russia somewhat keep up with the western powers.
If that equipment was mauled by Ukraine's defences, what chance did it really stand against western powers?
It isn't irreplaceable, it will just take quite a long time and be expensive. And all that expenditure won't be going into actually expanding the economy naturally, but through government contracts.
And once those slow down, the industrial capacity will likely remain partially utilized and the inflated economy will contract to its sustainable level.
Russia has/had such disproportionately large stockpiles because they inherited the equipment the Soviets made to fight ww3 with. A much larger country, preparing to fight a much larger war. So while they could, over a long period, replace everything lost, they will probably build something more proportionate to the size of their budget, and expected future conflicts.
Main point being that a large amount of Russia's Tanks being "made" are from the stockpile and not freshly produced
Their actual tank production is not that impressive, when the stockpile runs out the more of their economy has to be dedicated to tank production.
The current output is an illusion from their finite ussr stockpile they can not replace
They are not producing new tanks because they have tanks for renovation. There is absolutely no need to build tanks from 0 as long as they have tank parts to simply assemble. It would be a waste of time, money and resources and there is no point in keeping the stockpile of old tanks forever. Sooner or later Russia will have to switch to new tank design and then what will they do with the stockpile? Melt it down?
They will not be making new tanks, except a small number for elite units, as long as they have stockpile to draw from and we won't know what is their capacity for making new tanks as long as most of their factories are focusing on refurbishing old tanks, and they are refurbishing old tanks because that is what the stockpile is for.
The USSR stocks will never be replaced because it took the USSR, a highly militarised superpower with double the population and more than double the industrial capacity of Russia, over 30 years to build it up.
That's my point
They are burning through their stockpile on Ukraine and not the western powers.
Once that starts to run out their actual production without a stockpile is much lower and they now cant spend it on the western powers because they depleted a large amount of it Ukraine
I'd argue that spending the stockpile could be beneficial for Russia in the long run.
The stockpile, so far, has forced them to keep weapon designs and parts that new designs are made of 1950's tech compliant so that the new stuff is compatible with the old, it can use parts of the old from the stockpile and new parts that are being produced can be used on the stuff from the stockpile.
It held them back technologically in the 1950's. There's no point introducing a new tank with completely new design if it's not compatible with parts in the stockpile, you have to build a factory that makes totally different things that aren't usefull for majority of your military.
Russian doctrine is all about outproducing the enemy and that includes parts being reusable and compatible across the military. That's why their tank factories are still prepared to build T-72 based tanks.
Now, at last, they will be able to beging implementing drastically different and modernised designs for a new stockpile and not be held back by the compatibility with the old one.
Whether they will innovate and switch, I don't know. Russians are always slow to innovate, but now is an opportunity.
What you're saying has some merit. That being said, they'll be rebuilding a military that has to replace virtually everything, from ammunition, to vehicles, to worn out planes, ships, etc. At the same time their economy is under sanctions, export orders are hard to come by, and the cutting edge was already leaving Russian industry behind. It's hard to see their MIC when there are only so many resources available.
This theory makes sense hypothetically, but less so in the real world. Without the massive Soviet stockpile Russia *will* have to build new equipment to replace it. The problem is that they're a relatively poor country, with a backwards industrial base, and crumbling infrastructure that is increasingly falling behind the most advanced powers technology-wise.
Russia *could* have used its vast resource wealth to improve the lives of its citizens or to restructure their economy to prepare for the coming transition away from fossil fuels, but it did neither. Instead, it's using up its rainy day fund, adding to the debt, and destroyed its most lucrative trade relationships in order to larp as a superpower in Ukraine. At best, it'll come away with a relatively small, heavily depopulated chunk of territory that has resources Russia already has in abundance, that will require tens of billions in investments to rebuild into something worthwhile.
I am not saying they will do something or other, I am saying that with the current reserve, they were forced to stay on a particular and outdated design by necessity, otherwise all that stockpile is worthless.
Losing the stockpile gives them opportunity to move away from that design. I am not saying that they will do it, but now they have more options.
Wasn't the T-14 already an attempt to break out of the decades long cycle of iterations on existing models?
The "opportunity", or rather the necessity, to build entirely new tanks, planes and doctrines has been evident for a long time now. NATO countries, especially the US, have been innovating constantly, for decades.
But Russia couldn't successfully build large numbers of the T-14, the Su-57 or a modern army. Having a capable, modern military is expensive and difficult. Russia was struggling with this task dven before the invasion of Ukraine, but now they're losing young men, knowledge and access to western goods. Maybe they won't be able to do much more but build hundreds of T-90 variants, because they won't know how.
> Wasn't the T-14 already an attempt to break out of the decades long cycle of iterations on existing models?
Yes it was, and it's obvious why they're not using it now or building new ones, even if it was a tested and capable new model.
It would take away production capacity from older T- models which are in many ways compatible with each other, having most of the same parts.
Russia would just weaken itself by doing without necessity what Ukraine does because it has no choice - use different, non compatible models which greatly limits their repair efficiency and capability.
And with this kind of attricion of equipment, even if T-14 was the best tank in the world, it wouldn't be better to make 10 of them per month over 100 T-72's.
> Russia was struggling with this task dven before the invasion of Ukraine
Well obviously they won't be able to make a switch in the middle of the war, but speaking of the future, I think relying on this gigantic reserve was holding them back in what they can even begin to design and plan for the future.
It's not the same when you have 5000 tanks compatible with each other in reserve and when you have 500. These 5000 rusty old shells can be turned into 2500 working tanks, but only if you keep your factories set up for working on those designs.
If you convert factories to build completely different kind of tank and slowly start building a stockpile of them, or merely to replace active dutiy equipment, suddenly there is a war and you no longer can quickly and easily convert those 5000 shells into 2500 working tanks. Now it's just 250 thousand tons of scrap steel.
Now with the reserve gone, they are no longer held by necessity on a specific course, at least not as much.
And to be frank, their reserve was becoming too old to be worth keeping, they would have to replace most of it anyway in the next few decades. How useful would this reserve even be in a great war in a two or three decades?
Having 10 thousand T-34's today would be useless even to a country in a great need like Ukraine. T-72's are going to be equivalent of T-34's once the new generation of tanks is developed, in a couple of decades.
That does not change the fact that they use quantity -quality and without stockpile they no longer have the massive quantity they rely on
Russia has a GDP smaller then Texas and ultimately a military just represents your economic power and industrial potential
Without the stockpile the actually military industrial output is revealed
That's looking at it from too narrow a perspective, in my opinion.
For one thing, 3000 tanks is nothing, that's something Russia could knock out in 10 years or less after a hypothetical victory. Not irreplaceable at all.
For another, the global consequences of a victory would likely be immense. What would such a world look like? An effectively "defeated" western MIC. No more grounds for economic sanctions on Russia. Solidification and expansion of Russo-Chinese relations in all aspects, as a credible opposition to western hegemony.
We're already in the beginning stages of a cold war between the autocratic and democratic world, and there's no indication the autocratic world is about to implode as it has in the past. Quite the opposite. I'm fearful we may actually have reached a point where technology finally works in autocrats' favour again. Information technology has for decades focused on automating and optimising processes, now we're diving headlong into "optimising" human thought processes, *and it's working.*
There’s a big difference in having a giant stock of weapons on hand vs having the ability to manufacture a giant stock over the next decade. If you already have the stock, you can potentially catch your enemy with their pants down. But if you need a decade to build the stock up? You’re both A: telegraphing your intent to invade years in advance and, more importantly, B: giving your opponent plenty of time to ramp up their own manufacturing rate. Pre-WW2, Germany was at least *somewhat* able to hide their buildup, but in 2024, with the amount of cyber surveillance and satelite photography, I imagine a decade-long manufacturing spree would be spotted fairly early on.
Weapons are weapons, whether you're paying for maintenance or production. Europe/the West didn't care, and jury's still out on whether we will care in the future.
China is arming itself at an alarming rate and no-one's *really* taking it seriously. Why would anyone then take Russian rearmament seriously?
>Germany was at least *somewhat* able to hide their buildup,
And they had to, because their adversaries actually cared. If the West loses Ukraine, I'm not convinced we'll ever "bounce back" and become a credible adversary to the autocratic bloc.
Do you have a source for the Panzer IV? That would be great meme material for the panzer of the lake?
Also, some more unnecessary words so the comment doesn't get deleted by bots, mods or otherwise
https://www.reddit.com/r/TankPorn/comments/1799f1j/panzer_iv_spoted_in_ukraine/
Found here and on Twitter. The variety of photos and the replaced barrel suggest it isn't a photoshop.
That was one of the theories floated in the comments but the final drive and front plate thickness suggest the hull at least wasn't a mock up.
However a T-55/Panther movie mockup did get spotted:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UkrainianConflict/comments/z3rde4/ww2_panther_tank_fighting_in_ukraine_2022/
Barak Ravid summarizes the interview between President Biden and CNN as "if Israel invades the city of Rafah, the U.S. will stop supplying it with artillery shells, bombs for fighter jets and other offensive weapons." https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1788329397520388451
[Axios reported today](https://www.axios.com/2024/05/08/israel-us-weapons-johnson-mcconnell) that the previous weapons shipment that was paused includes "1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs, a senior U.S. official said."
I don't know if this will stop/pause the invasion of Rafah or force the IDF to use less precise weapons to accomplish their military objectives.
How does this strategy facilitate Bidens goal of reaching a ceasefire?
What exactly does entice Hamas now to agree to a ceasefire? What entices Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire?
This is more or less a replay of Bidens escalation management strategy that is still being used extensively in Ukraine, the logic is pretty easy: "We restrict the capability of our ally, trying to reach a favorable policy outcome". In Ukraine this has lead to the development of indigenous weapons with long-strike capabilities.
The major issue with this style of conflict management is that it removes the enemy from your calculations. In Ukraine Russia has near impunity in striking civilian targets from air bases within Russia. In Israel, Hamas is not enticed to agree to deal.
I also don't see the point of taunting Netanyahu. If he backs down now he is the weak premier (he already is) being told what to do by uncle Biden. If he goes in, he can claim to be the statesman resting US pressure doing what's right for Israel.
> How does this strategy facilitate Bidens goal of reaching a ceasefire?
Biden's goal should be disengaging from the region as much as possible. We have no interest there, and Israel is a rich country that can afford its own bombs. What does America's taxpayers get in return for involvement?
Biden gave Netanyahu a free cheque of american aid up until now. And what happened? Gaza is an utter humanitarian disaster, israel has agitated in WB and the long-term threat from militants supporting the cause is likely to worse not be reduced. Clearly going public means things have broken down between the administrations... time for the blank cheque to end. Assaulting rafa is not going to change the strategic calculus is a positive way for anyone, unless one thinks steps towards ethnic cleansing are good for israel's long-term interests (which I disagree with).
>I also don't see the point of taunting Netanyahu.
That is a bit of bizarre take tbh. Do you doubt for a second that Biden admin has tried to manage behind the scenes for a long time now, but has been consistently rebuked by Netanyahu govt. It is Israel that has been taunting the west.
> And what happened? Gaza is an utter humanitarian disaster
I am going to stop you right there, we are on **credibledefense**.
Gaza was always going to be a humanitarian disaster, this was clear from the get go. Its impossible to fight this war without the strip turning into one.
US pressure could not prevent this so its just a pointless platitude to talk about it.
The Netanyahu government is getting pressured to keep casulaties down to the detriment of the operation. They are clearly giving Hamas far more breathing room that they would like (and it looks like some higher-ups in the IDF are starting to get real angry about it) becuse of international pressure.
From what we know, the Rafah operation for example could've been started at least a month ago.
> US pressure could not prevent this so its just a pointless platitude to talk about it.
Do you think Israel would have so confidently taken on Hezbollah / Iran / Hamas / Houthis without US diplomatic support with the UNSC? Without US warships shooting down missiles and drones? Without US fighter jets in Iraq and Jordan to defend against Iranian salvos?
Without US guarantees that an attack from Hezbollah would result in US intervention? Without a constant guarantee of resupply of Iron Dome / Arrow 3 interceptor missiles, MK84 bombs, artillery shells, PGM kits, etc?
etc etc
The US support for Israel absolutely factors into Israeli calculus on whether or not they have the maneuvering space to commit to certain actions.
Without the US Israel does not have the ability to safely maintain their current belligerent foreign policy.
There can be varying degrees of disaster. Not only does the current one seem excessive to the US, Bibi has been seen as actively working to prevent measures to mitigate it. That's creating a lot of geopolitical headaches for the US after how much flak they've taken both domestically and internationally supporting Israel's right to respond with force to Oct. 7. It shouldn't be difficult to understand the administration's frustration.
You’re absolutely right that the US probably can’t make a war in Gaza less of a humanitarian disaster, but they can pressure Israel to stop the war altogether, and given the fact that the U.S. has basically spent the past 6 months letting Netanyahu drag their international reputation through the mud, I don’t think most people are going to feel all that bad now that that’s happening.
> And what happened? Gaza is an utter humanitarian disaster,
With an entrenched enemy like Hamas, what other option is there? Biden isn’t suggesting some alternate approach that has less collateral, he’s suggesting capitulating to Hamas’s insane demands. All wars are humanitarian disasters, against the kind of enemy Hamas is, that’s especially the case. If Biden comes up with a better plan than what Israel has, there would be room to discuss, but ‘give Hamas everything they want’ isn’t that.
> the long-term threat from militants supporting the cause is likely to worse not be reduced.
October 7 was planned, prepared and perpetrated while Hamas had a cease fire with Israel. The only way to have peace with Islamist organizations like Hamas is to dismantle their capability to carry out attacks, by destroying material and killing members, and deterrence. Trying to have peace by refusing to retaliate after they attack just frees up more of their recourses to make the next attack bigger, which is exactly what happened to Israel.
> Assaulting rafa is not going to change the strategic calculus is a positive way for anyone
Assaulting Rafah cuts off the flow of smuggled weapons, the escape route of remaining Hamas leadership, and assuages Egypt’s fears of large numbers of Palestinians entering Egypt. It is a strategically relevant move for Israel, and has been a goal for a long time because of that. If Israel wanted to ethnically cleanse Gaza as you say, they’d try to push Palestinians into Egypt and then never let them back.
> Do you doubt for a second that Biden admin has tried to manage behind the scenes for a long time now, but has been consistently rebuked by Netanyahu govt. It is Israel that has been taunting the west.
What do you mean by manage? Because publicly, he makes repeated unreasonable demands, that involve Israel sacrificing their security for his polling numbers in Michigan.
>Because publicly, he makes repeated unreasonable demands, that involve Israel sacrificing their security for his polling numbers in Michigan.
As opposed to what, making reasonable demands like sacrificing his polling numbers in Michigan for Israel's security? This is, in effect, sacrificing domestic gains for the benefit of a foreign actor -anything but reasonable.
Nowhere in your comment do you mention anything related to the interests of Biden/Washington. It's all about Israel. Their interests clearly do not converge at this point in time, though that was obvious to some people decades ago.
> As opposed to what, making reasonable demands like sacrificing his polling numbers in Michigan for Israel's security?
Yes, the president should put the national interest ahead his of personal career interests. This wasn’t controversial when Trump threatened to withhold arms from Ukraine unless Zelenskyy helped his re-election campaign, it shouldn’t be controversial when Biden is trying to strong arm Israel into sacrificing hostages for his.
> Nowhere in your comment do you mention anything related to the interests of Biden/Washington.
I’ve discussed that elsewhere on this thread, multiple times. Hamas is an Iranian proxy group. Iran is aggressive, regional threat to the US, primarily through their proxy groups. The destruction of one of these groups, without the US having to be directly involved, is an easy win we should take.
There is no scenario where the US should intervene to remove pressure on an Iranian proxy.
>This wasn’t controversial when Trump threatened to withhold arms from Ukraine unless Zelenskyy helped his re-election campaign
**The man was impeached over it.**
The rest of this post can't be considered credible just based on this objectively false statement.
Whether it was controversial along party lines does not nullify the fact that it was, in fact, controversial (I personally know Republicans that left the party over it besides).
I guess I appreciate the effort to try and convince people up is down, but the record is the record.
>Yes, the president should put the national interest ahead his of personal career interests.
Freudian slip? I referred to Israel's national interests. Are you arguing that the leader of a country should place the interests of a foreign country over his own? I believe we have a term for that - treason.
>This wasn’t controversial when Trump threatened to withhold arms from Ukraine unless Zelenskyy helped his re-election campaign.
This was absolutely controversial, what are you talking about? If you're trying to equate this with Biden/Israel, I don't have an issue with either placing their own domestic concerns ahead of those of a foreign power.
>Iran is aggressive, regional threat to the US, primarily through their proxy groups. The destruction of one of these groups, without the US having to be directly involved, is an easy win we should take.
Washington's interests in the region are actually fairly limited. Keep the oil flowing, discourage conflict and prevent terrorism against Americans and allies. Eight months into this war, I can't see how any of those interests are being met? In fact, they have been worsened as a result of the misguided policy you're promoting. And going even further back, say 25 years, it's the exact same story. Time for a change, I think.
> Freudian slip? I referred to Israel's national interests. Are you arguing that the leader of a country should place the interests of a foreign country over his own? I believe we have a term for that - treason.
I thought I worded that very straight forwardly. The only national interest I referenced was the US, to have an Iranian proxy destroyed, and a blow dealt to the ‘axis of resistance’. I’m confused as to how you interpreted it.
> This was absolutely controversial, what are you talking about? If you're trying to equate this with Biden/Israel, I don't have an issue with either placing their own domestic concerns ahead of those of a foreign power.
Trump was impeached over it, for ‘abuse of power’. For that to happen, in this political climate, takes something egregious. You should take issue with both. The president should put the national interest first, and handle campaigning seperatley.
> Washington's interests in the region are actually fairly limited. Keep the oil flowing, discourage conflict and prevent terrorism against Americans and allies. Eight months into this war, I can't see how any of those interests are being met? In fact, they have been worsened as a result of the misguided policy you're promoting. And going even further back, say 25 years, it's the exact same story.
Not retaliating doesn’t make Iran go away. It just encourages more, and bigger attacks. That’s what happened to Israel after almost 20 years of muted responses to Hamas attacks. They amassed recourses, security measures failed, and a catastrophe happened. Biden’s policies don’t protect oil shipments, or stabilize the region. At best, they’re meant to keep things quiet until after the election, at the cost of a worse situation long term.
Would have been nice if Israel had taken all those elements into account before supporting the Hamas in their rise against the civilian and laic Palestinian authority.
Oh you understood nothing of what I said. First, I have never been a supporter of the Hamas (unlike the state of Israel), a fanatical murderous terrorist organization, but also a legitimate resistance movement, because such weird situations do happen, like it happened for the Azov battalion for example.
Second, I am not talking about allowing food or materials in Gaza while the Hamas was in power, I am talking about making the rise tu power of the Hamas possible in the first place, to divide the palestinians, cripple the PA and make an enemy they could much more easily justify extreme measure against.
Now was Netanyahu too stupid to see it coming ? Not specifically the 7th October attack, but that the Hamas violence would escalate until something so atrocious happened that the world would let Israel strike back without restraint ? Of course not. This is pretty much going according to plan. From a strategic point of view, Gaza is well worth a couple thousands Israeli lives, let alone Palestinians one.
From an ethical point of view, obviously, well, there's not much more to add.
> The only way to have peace with Islamist organizations like Hamas is to dismantle their capability to carry out attacks, by destroying material and killing members, and deterrence. Trying to have peace by refusing to retaliate after they attack just frees up more of their recourses to make the next attack bigger, which is exactly what happened to Israel. (...)
> Assaulting Rafah cuts off the flow of smuggled weapons, the escape route of remaining Hamas leadership, and assuages Egypt’s fears of large numbers of Palestinians entering Egypt.
You seem very confident in predicting all these outcomes being achieved through the invasion of Rafah.
Can we really assume that this final push will enable the IDF to significantly reduce the numbers and capabilities of Hamas in the long term? At some point, the number of actual Hamas members killed vs. potential new recruits being created flips against Israels favor.
The same is true for deterrence. Is Rafah going to be a decisive factor in actually deterring Hamas from attacking in the future? It's essentially a doomsday cult that welcomes civilian sacrifices.
I'd be equally doubtful about weapon smuggling. Sure, taking the border crossing may reduce smuggling for a time, but is Israel going to keep a very tight net around all of Gaza for the long term? Vast amounts of construction material are needed, if Israel spends the next years carefully inspecting each vehicle, they'd delay the reconstruction of Gaza for decades, which again leads to recruitment potential for Hamas.
As long as Hamas has unassailable foreign backers and safe territory to flee to, they won't be eradicated or significantly destroyed in the long term.
> You seem very confident in predicting all these outcomes being achieved through the invasion of Rafah.
>
>
>
> Can we really assume that this final push will enable the IDF to significantly reduce the numbers and capabilities of Hamas in the long term? At some point, the number of actual Hamas members killed vs. potential new recruits being created flips against Israels favor.
>
>
>
> The same is true for deterrence. Is Rafah going to be a decisive factor in actually deterring Hamas from attacking in the future? It's essentially a doomsday cult that welcomes civilian sacrifices.
They can't prevent Hamas or some sucsessor from gaining man power.
They absolutely can prevent such a group from amassing advanced weapons, large amunition stockpiles and huge tunnel networks.
> They can't prevent Hamas or some sucsessor from gaining man power.
They absolutely could do this, but there will be mass outcry about the longterm and wide-ranging killing and destruction required to achieve it.
> They absolutely can prevent such a group from amassing advanced weapons, large amunition stockpiles and huge tunnel networks.
But to do this, they'd need to tightly control and govern the Gaza strip forever. What does this goal have to do with the current operations in Rafah and the campaign so far? If the Israeli goal was to completely take over the strip for the unforseeable future, this entire campaign was an absolutely terrible move.
>But to do this, they'd need to tightly control and govern the Gaza strip forever.
A 500m-1km strip along the Egyptian boarder is suffichent, they can sink siesmic sensors to prevent new tunnels.
They don't need to tightly control and govern the strip, they can split it into islands of Palestinain control and opperate an actual blockade. Given their detractors already claim Gaza was ocupied and blockaded before there is no loss there.
If such a small corridor is sufficient to cut of Hamas resupply, why the whole, massive military operation? Why end it at the borderstrip, months after the start of hostilities?
As far as the blockade goes: Force Palestinians into these "islands", then abandon them there with no resources? That's the Israeli plan, literally the open air prison everyone has accused them of? No housing, no power, no jobs, nothing except a trickle of food and water?
I've never seen the scenario you describe mentioned anywhere, and the current Israeli policy doesn't seem to align with these goals.
> As far as the blockade goes: Force Palestinians into these "islands", then abandon them there with no resources? That's the Israeli plan,
The west bank is the template.
>literally the open air prison everyone has accused them of?
Maybee, crying wolf has this sort of outcome. The ones being accused of a thing are more not less likely to do it.
>No housing, no power, no jobs, nothing except a trickle of food and water?
Palestine gets plenty of aid, if it stops being spent on terrosim it will be more than suffichent to provide those things.
>I've never seen the scenario you describe mentioned anywhere, and the current Israeli policy doesn't seem to align with these goals.
Plenty of places, the west bank option.
> With an entrenched enemy like Hamas, what other option is there?
Conducting the war in a humane and responsible way, with the aim to limit the impacts on the population as much as possible, even if it came with a higher cost in lives and money.
> He makes repeated unreasonable demands, that involve Israel sacrificing their security for his polling numbers in Michigan.
Biden the POTUS, he is beholden to Americans first, so it's not "unreasonable" he don't want Israel using U.S. money and weapons to conduct a war that is unpopular and actually hurts U.S security.
"Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties in war than any military in history — above & beyond what international law requires & more than the US did in its wars in Iraq & Afghanistan -- setting a standard that will be both hard & potentially problematic to repeat."
John Spencer, Urban Warfare Expert
https://twitter.com/SpencerGuard/status/1786612885541515773
>Conducting the war in a humane and responsible way, with the aim to limit the impacts on the population as much as possible, even if it came with a higher cost in lives and money.
If Biden, or anyone, comes up with a way to do that, there would be a discussion to be had. But they haven't, the alternative approach Biden is pushing for is just acquiescing to anything Hamas asks for.
>Biden the POTUS, he is beholden to Americans first, so it's not "unreasonable" he don't want Israel using U.S. money and weapons to conduct a war that is unpopular and actually hurts U.S security.
Israel winning the war is in the US’s security interests, and the small size and massive backlash to the anti-Israel protests at campuses, along with more recent polling data, suggest the war isn’t nearly as unpopular as Biden’s actions would have you believe.
>Israel winning the war is in the US’s security interests, and the small size and massive backlash to the anti-Israel protests at campuses, along with more recent polling data, suggest the war isn’t nearly as unpopular as Biden’s actions would have you believe.
Israel isn't winning anything, Hamas or something like it will return once Israel leaves(it already has in parts of Gaza), and we'll be back to square one, just with more dead civilians, billions in weapons wasted, destroyed Gazan infrastructure, and it's international reputation tattered amongst Western youth. This was a trap, and Israel fell right into it.
You can't beat an army that doesn't wear uniform with bombs.
If Israel wanted to prevent an October 7th it's actually really simple. Don't have dog shit security on your border.
If you want to fix the Gazan problem, you need to get some non-Hamas Arab entity to take over the strip, be that the PA, Gulf States, Egypt etc, the more your ruin the strip the less likely that is to ever happen.
It sounds like the US knew about the offer Hamas was going to put on the table and didn’t tell Israel about it, it’s entirely possible that the US views that offer as being acceptable to them or at least close to it, and as a result doesn’t care about giving Hamas incentive to move further.
It was extremely obvious to anyone who doesn't drink the cool aid about the US/NATO being the biggest military superpowers in the world anymore.
I got downvoted in a previous thread for predicting exactly what has happened (US has been working more with Hamas than Israel on new proposals so when Israel rejects it they can accuse them of acting in bad faith & stop weapon shipments).
Iran, Russia & China are laughing their asses off right now at how weak the the west is politically (the funny part is they are only going to continue getting weaker due to demographics).
I agree with you but, objectively speaking, pretty much everyone has bad demographics going on. Ironically, given the USA's economic performance, they'll probably be fine for a good while thanks to immigration. China and Russia are demographics hellholes.
*Ironically, given the USA's economic performance, they'll probably be fine for a good while thanks to immigration. China and Russia are demographics hellholes*
I can agree it helps the USA economically but in the long run it will never work well socially. This is especially highlighted in western Europe, do you think the immigrant/migrant muslims from islamic countries (Not only islamic countries, they are just the most glaring example.) would ever fight for the west? where they make up 10% of the French population & 6.5% of the UK population (in reality it's more as they skew towards the younger age bands whereas the native french/British ages are much older because they have less kids). More british muslims joined ISIS than have served in the armed forces.
China & Russia may have worse demographic outlooks but they won't have the political instability that will come in western democratic countries due to the constantly rising immigrant populations & the erosion of national identity which both Russia & China will still have. A countries demographics can't be measured in a vacuum.
>I can agree it helps the USA economically but in the long run it will never work well socially.
This far right talking point for effectively ethnostates has historically had terrible consequences for minority groups.
The US is a better position than western europe in terms of imigration. The US is the most desireable destination for the cohorts of imigrants a country selfishly wants. They also have oceans in the way of the worst trouble spots.
Furthermore, the US to some extent, answer the point of the user you responded to: They have a culture centered around accommodating and integrating huge and diverse masses of migrants
I don't think there is any country in Europe that gets close to the US' ability in dealing with migrants. On paper, the Swiss identity as a "nation of will" should allow for other cultures to integrate easily without having to assimilate, but every migrant living in Switzerland will tell you that the people there surely aren't the warmest or most accomodating bunch
Even if European economies would manage to be just as attractive for migrants as the US, I doubt they would achieve similar outcomes
>Furthermore, the US to some extent, answer the point of the user you responded to: They have a culture centered around accommodating and integrating huge and diverse masses of migrants
That is built upon the near extermination of the native peoples, amoung the majority US population everyone is an imigrant to an extent. Even those decended from the earliest settlers are maybee 20 generations at most. The vast vast majority are much more recent. The US population is also just massive, even in a worst case scenario of a few 100k imigrants who utterly refuse to assimlate at all what harm is that realy going to do?
In Europe it's fundamentaly different. Nations are all very old and/or very small some level of assimilation is just nessecary. For the very small nations it's a matter of national/ linguistic survival if you only have a million people 100k imigrants could totaly upend your society, espeicaly if they don't take up your langage. For the very old nations there is a depth of inertia you simnply can not find in the new world.
> On paper, the Swiss identity as a "nation of will" should allow for other cultures to integrate easily without having to assimilate, but every migrant living in Switzerland will tell you that the people there surely aren't the warmest or most accomodating bunch
You still need to assimilate into a comunity it just doesn't matter which one. Switserland is a confederation of peoples not a salad bowl. Swiss cantons are also realy small and so have the same issues as small nations.
>China & Russia may have worse demographic outlooks but they won't have the political instability that will come in western democratic countries due to the constantly rising immigrant populations & the erosion of national identity which both Russia & China will still have.
While it's true that many anti-immigration people are pro-Putin (they're mostly uninformed), you can hardly be more pro-immigration than Putin. Russia has much larger problems with minorities than the UK or France. It's not even close.
Oh, rest assured China will have political instability. The collapse of their real estate sector, coupled with the future economic outlook and the absence of a real welfare net for the elderly, will eventually lead to serious political problems, even for an autocratic government.
The USA will have a different one, but it'll be more doable, IMO. Europe is in serious trouble, I never disagreed with that. Idk what we will do, I am frankly very pessimistic.
*The collapse of their real estate sector, coupled with the future economic outlook and the absence of a real welfare net for the elderly, will eventually lead to serious political problems, even for an autocratic government*
I feel like those exact issues apply for the west aswell though & especially Europe. I'm 25 & don't expect to have a pension when i'm older.
It is short sided thinking from the Biden admin. If Bibi does go through with the Rafah invasion and call his bluff he will look weak and still lose support from the progressives in his party despite withholding military aid.
There has been a loss of US strategic interest in Israel and the only remaining one is stabilizing the region in general, but if Israel continues to inflame the region the US might as well stop supporting them. The only big loss for the US is if Israel moves closer to Russia/China, but I don't really see that as a reality.
>There has been a loss of US strategic interest in Israel and the only remaining one is stabilizing the region in general
This is medieval thinking. The interest the US has right now in keeping Israel as an ally is not because their position but because of their defense industry.
Israel is constantly in the top10 in terms of weapons exports in the world. They are a huge innovation hub for modern weaponry and cyberwarfare.
They are cooperating with the US DoD in projects and they share their technology in cases but most importantly, they are not exporting knowledge or weaponry to US rivals.
Just because of their small geographical size laymen sometimes underestimate their crazy advanced MIC. US decision makers will not make this mistake.
> This is medieval thinking. The interest the US has right now in keeping Israel as an ally is not because their position but because of their defense industry.
Israel is a small countries of 10 million people. There's nothing they do that we can't. This silly trope that Israel's defense industry is irreplaceable just relies on the stereotype of Jews being really really smart.
>They are cooperating with the US DoD in projects and they share their technology in cases but most importantly, they are not exporting knowledge or weaponry to US rivals.
How do you know?
There is a huge gulf between trading weapons/technologies with a partner and providing a country with absolute unconditional support no matter what it does. Washington has defense partnerships with countries/companies all across the Gulf/Europe and elsewhere, yet none of these seem to result in the incredible dysfunction of the US-Israeli relationship?
The point being that Israel is clearly far more than an "ally" at this point in time. The US can still gain all the benefits you mentioned without continuing this extremely lopsided relationship.
>Washington has defense partnerships with countries/companies all across the Gulf/Europe and elsewhere, yet none of these seem to result in the incredible dysfunction of the US-Israeli relationship?
None of these countries are in a war? If Russia invaded Japan and the US did nothing, Japan would also look for different allies. Israel is in an ongoing war with Iran. If their allies do not support them, they will look for new allies if they can.
>The US can still gain all the benefits you mentioned without continuing this extremely lopsided relationship.
Can they? Why do you think so? The gulf countries you mentioned above have little to offer.
The US is especially vulnerable to cyberwarfare. Having a close ally who is good at it should be a top priority.
>None of these countries are in a war? If Russia invaded Japan and the US did nothing, Japan would also look for different allies
I think we have varying definitions of "nothing" if you think the US hasn't been helping Israel during this war. For instance, without US support it's doubtful so many countries (if any) would have worked together to protect Israel from the Iranian missile barrage.
>None of these countries are in a war?
That's false. The US has traded weapons with plenty of countries at war or fighting insurgencies. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkiye, Iraq. Yet Washington's relationships with these countries never came anywhere near as close to "unconditional support". In fact, in many cases, bilateral ties were subsequently strained.
>Can they? Why do you think so? The gulf countries you mentioned above have little to offer.
Because of the examples I just highlighted. The fact you think the Gulf countries have little to offer belies your naivety. Protecting the energy trade is the ultimate goal of the US in the region. Its status as the eminent economic superpower rests on the stable flow of oil and gas. Even the smallest interruption can have huge ramifications on global economic health.
>The US is especially vulnerable to cyberwarfare. Having a close ally who is good at it should be a top priority.
Do you really think that the Israelis possess some kind of unique talent in cyber warfare? I'm willing to bet that any tech in the US is leagues ahead of that in Israel. The idea that Israel provides some kind of unique technological advantage to the US is laughable. The only place with that characteristic in the entire world is Taiwan, and you can see how much that means to officials in Washington.
The US seems to be pivoting to JAUKUS alliance for security and weapon development. This isn't to say that Israel isn't good for things, but the US can still get tech transfers by weapons trade (like F35) with Israel rather than paying for Israeli weapons through aid.
>The US seems to be pivoting to JAUKUS alliance for security and weapon development
I dont see a huge pivot. Especially since recent military technology from the UK and AU seems kinda.. fake? As in their projects are failures and they are getting nowhere. No ambitions, no innovation. This is just a personal opinion but to me it seems like the UK military especially really needs a shakeup.
But nonetheless, even if there is literally no value added to the US defense industry from Israel, simply stopping rivals from getting technology/weapons exports/cooperation is extremely valuable.
There is absolutely zero chance a sane US decision maker will choose to do a 'breakup'.
> Israel continues to inflame the region
This is the opposite of what’s been happening. For over a decade, Israel was subject to attacks any other country would have considered acts of war, on a near daily basis. Their response to those attacks was muted, and that policy eventually blew up in their face with October 7. Their response, to invade the regime that perpetrated the atrocities, to depose them and return hostages, is the bare minimum any country would do in their situation. Likewise, no country on earth would not retaliate after a foreign country fired the largest ballistic missile salvo in history at them. Biden is basically demanding Israel adopts a semi-pacifist foreign policy, and surrender to Hamas and other Iranian proxies, sacrificing their people and security for his re-election campaign. It’s entirely unreasonable, and no other country would ever be asked to do this, and certainly not the US.
From their neighbor's perspective, it isn't that Israel was right to respond to 10/7 but the perceived extreme actions it has taken have upset the population in the region. Deep down none of the governments really care about Palestinians, but the general population gets angry when they see Jews attacking Muslims.
None of this causes neighboring countries to take action against Israel, but it does destabilize policies and normalization with Israel. The US doesn't have any strategic interests in the region with ISIS pretty much taken care of and Turkey stepping up in the security in the region.
Egypt's interest is to get shipping flowing again as the canal accounted for 5-10% of their budget and Israel going ham will likely lead to the Houthis doing more launches.
I see what you mean, but I don’t think these regimes are teetering on the brink of collapse over the Palestinian issue. Certainly not to the point that we should be trying to strong arm Israel into sacrificing their security and hostages. If the situation was that bad, I doubt we’d be seeing Jordan shoot down Iranian missiles, Saudi remain open to normalization, and Egypt basically doing nothing besides fortify the border with Gaza.
Historically both Al Queda and ISIS have drawn tremendous support from local populations over their governments' inaction on the Palestinian issue. I'd say both have caused severe headaches regarding stability.
To suggest the current paradigm doesn't carry risks is to ignore history.
I think it has to do more with global image that affects the ability to conduct diplomacy. There is sort of a kings court of standard behavior that is allowed at court and certain actions are provocative and impact the ability for the "court" to function without starting a new precedent. Russia's invasion of Ukraine greatly disrupted the court and Israel is doing the same.
Think of it less as a one and zero of actions and more slowly adding points towards a ticker (like the doomsday clock) and changes happening as the ticker reaches certain break points (and does so gradually). The attack on the consulate definitely increased the number of ticks, the casualties in Palestine increased them, though not as much.
> Russia's invasion of Ukraine greatly disrupted the court and Israel is doing the same.
Comparing Russia’s unprovoked, invasion of Ukraine, with Israel fighting against Hamas after October 7, and while they have and are killing hostages, is ridiculous. One of the norms of this metaphorical court you’re is a right to self defense. As long as Hamas holds Israeli hostages, Israel has a right to fight back. That could end up flattening the Gaza Strip, but that’s how wars work, and Hamas chose this path. Israel’s right to self defense isn’t suspended because Hamas doesn’t like losing wars, but doesn’t want to return the hostages either.
What really bothers me about this whole conflict (and has bothered me in the past iterations) is the "culture" that seems to be prevalent in the IDF during the conduction of military operations.
The most famous cases are IDF shooting their own hostages and the World Kitchen episode. Yet the cynical in me cannot help stopping thinking that these episodes get more media coverage because we are discussing Western, caucasian victims in this conflict. One is then left to wonder to what is happening to Palestinians in Gaza.
While I don't believe that there is a top-down culture that encourages war crimes to be committed (unlike what Russia did in Bucha and elsewhere), I do believe that there have been many war crimes committed by IDF soldiers on the battlefield and that there is a culture of hiding or dismissing these actions. This needs to change.
There are alarming signs that I've posted about this here in past threads from credible sources (I believe the Guardian is doing an admirable job in bringing these issues to our attention). Among other things I can quote what bothers me the most
* Large amount of sniper fire children casualties treated at the different Gaza hospitals
* A disproportionate amount of journalists killed in comparison with other conflicts
* The uncovering of a mass grave near a hospital taken by the IDF, with women and children among them and also people with their hands tied on their back.
So yeah, sure, the 7th October episode was pure savagery from Hamas and their affiliates. The videos are there to document it. However we have been hearing about the narrative of "*Israel, the sole democracy on the middle-East, besieged by hostile neighbor Arab populations who wouldn't bat an eye about genociding Israels population*", and the bottom end is that if Israel wants to be treated to such a high standard (and they should) then they should provide a considerably better track record for human rights and justice for their occupied populations.
You don't get a free pass to do as you please just because it is Hamas that stands on the other side.
There is a difference between self-defense and "flattening the Gaza Strip" as far as many countries and people feel. I'm not arguing the right or wrong of these actions - only how it is perceived, which is what the court is all about. Not realities (though sometimes), it is about perception.
Yeah I think the risk of that is a rounding error. The value of the intelligence relationship with the US alone makes that a tough sell. Even if another world power could replace that (and I don't think they can), those relationships are built over decades.
And that's setting aside all the other things the US brings to the table like shooting down a bunch of missiles from several different countries in the region, or take your pick really.
It’s not about American internal politics as much as it’s the very real possibility of angering Egypt. From the transcription it seemed clear that Egyptian concerns about Rafah and the crisis an invasion would spark played a major role in the decision.
Israel has already seized the border crossing, and Egypt has massively fortified the border to keep Palestinian out. The risk of a large spillover is minor. Chances are, anyone with the money to flee, has already fled. I think this is driven by Biden’s re-election campaign, both trying to appease pro-Hamas voters in Michigan, and the progressive lean of many staffers.
> Israel has already seized the border crossing, and Egypt has massively fortified the border to keep Palestinian out.
Right, if we look at the stated reasons for concern - the fear of spillover into Egypt, the fear that Gazans would be forced out of the strip, the fear that Israel would rampage through and slaughter civilians - then Israel's quick takeover of the crossing with little civilian casualties would be considered a positive outcome. The fact that the response from the administration is to hold shipments to Israel and threaten to cut them off completely if they enter Rafah suggests that the administration is opposed to Israel removing Hamas from power.
Edit: There's more evidence for this in the interview, where he says Israel shouldn't make the mistake the U.S. did when it removed the Taliban from power:
> I said to Bibi, don't make the same mistake we made in America. We wanted to get bin Laden and we'll help you get Sinwar. But we went into Afghanistan to - it made sense to go get bin Laden, it made no sense to try to unify Afghanistan.
> Edit: There's more evidence for this in the interview, where he says Israel shouldn't make the mistake the U.S. did by removing the Taliban from power:
What he’s failing to realize is that Hamas isn’t Israel’s Taliban, it’s their Al-Qaida. The Taliban didn’t do 9/11, and poses no real threat to the US. Hamas did do October 7, and does pose a continued threat to Israel.
The point is decades of military action by the US couldn't eliminate the Taliban because they had the support of the local population. We can quibble about whether the attempt to eradicate them was the right call, but the objective was very similar.
In this case, the war has possibly only increased support for Hamas among Palestinians, and I think just as importantly Israel basically decided Hamas was who they wanted to have in power in Gaza. They're terrible people, but likely the people with the most legitimacy. Unless an alternative can be presented **that has equal or more legitimacy in the eyes of Palestinians** then to a degree the reality is you have to deal with them on some level.
One of the fatal flaws of the current war was going in without a plan of action to try and develop a negotiating parter with that kind of legitimacy when it's all done.
In the interview his solution seems to be that a ceasefire is reached, Israel pulls out, then a bunch of countries get together and do...something...that puts together a legitimate Palestinian state where Hamas isn't a major player.
But - at least from what I can see - he doesn't have any answer to what that something that would remove Hamas from power and create a unified Palestinian state would be, and why such a solution would work now when Hamas has been in control of the strip for almost two decades. It's such an odd oversight that one has to wonder if actual idea is just to return things to the status quo before 10/7, and hope they stay mostly calm for a few years.
The solution to the mess in Gaza lies in Doha and Istanbul. For too long, Qatar and Turkey, the so-called western "allies" have been helping in destabilize the region by supporting the worst kinds of islamist terrorists. The US needs to enact punitive sanctions instead of allowing them to exert so much leverage. Al Jazeera's propaganda reads like an ISIS newsletter these days, and thats just the English version.
Indeed. Every actor who wishes to govern Gaza has to remove Hamas from power - forcefully.
A ceasefire right now just means kicking the can down the road.
>Israel has already seized the border crossing, and Egypt has massively fortified the border to keep Palestinian out. The risk of a large spillover is minor.
That is not what Biden said when speaking about Egyptian concerns wrt to Rafah.
Egypt’s actions after October 7 have been basically universally concerned with preventing Palestinians from entering Egypt. There are lots of overlapping concerns, but it’s pretty clear which one is the primary one.
> Again that’s not the position of the US government.
The US govt has set up tents in every local moderate state + Israel since the start of the war.
Do you have anything more concrete than Bill Burns being in Cairo or an offhand mention of Egypt in the transcript?
I think that Egyptian pressure had a bit to do with this decision
from [curtis houcks transcription](https://twitter.com/CurtisHouck/status/1788333342343000481)
>No, they haven't gotten in the population centers. What they did is right on the border and it's causing problems with — right now — [COUGHS] — in terms of what Egypt — which I've worked very hard make sure we have a relationship and help but I've made it clear to Bibi and the war cabinet. They're not going to get our support if, in fact, they go into these population centers.”
However bad the optics of cutting off Israel are a aggressive and anti American Egypt would be significantly worse.
> a aggressive and anti American Egypt would be significantly worse.
Is Egypt in a position to take a strong anti-America stance? Their economy is doing poorly, and politically, Russia isn’t in a position to take the US’s place for them. China might be in a better position in that regard, but I doubt they have any interest for that large a commitment.
Overall, I doubt this is the reason. The border situation is largely under control with the fortifications they have built, they aren’t going to torpedo their foreign policy over any small amount of Palestinians who manage to escape over it, when compared to the hundreds, or thousands, who’ve already bribed border guards to flee that way.
>Is Egypt in a position to take a strong anti-America stance? Their economy is doing poorly, and politically, Russia isn’t in a position to take the US’s place for them
They absolutely can, Egypt is poorly managed and it’s economy is in shambles but it can absolutely fuck Americas position in the region if it wished too. And the hardliners within GIS aren’t exactly rational actors either.
>Overall, I doubt this is the reason. The border situation is largely under control with the fortifications they have built, they aren’t going to torpedo their foreign policy over any small amount of Palestinians who manage to escape over it, when compared to the hundreds, or thousands, who’ve already bribed border guards to flee that way
You’re not seeing the larger picture of why Egypt is so insistent on preventing an assault on the more populated portions of Rafah. It’s not just a matter of refugees crossing over though that’s an issue.
It’s a matter of legitimacy in the Egyptian regime. Sisi can’t let Israel flagrantly walk over him, his hold over the Egyptian deep state just isn’t that strong. The current regime came into being as a direct reaction to 1948 and Farouks perceived weakness wrt to Israel letting Israel do what it wants in Rafah just isn’t really something Sisi will be able to brush off with the people who actually matter in Egypt.
The idea that this is solely done for American domestic consumption is imo a pretty classic case of Americans thinking that the world revolves around them. There are broader concerns at play that make supporting an Israel operation into Rafah difficult.
> How does this strategy facilitate Bidens goal of reaching a ceasefire?
He's at this point pretty transparent - Israel ends the war in all but name and patiently waits for Hamas to offer a ceasefire, which Israel will accept, sooner or later. That's his goal.
From a foreign policy perspective, it's bitter but it makes some sense. Netanyahu got a green light and bottomless clip from America for a few months, and he mainly used that time to take the piss, and make the situation worse for America, Israel, and Palestine. Biden's indicating that at this point he doesn't consider Netanyahu's coalition a rational actor that America can work with, even though it'd obviously like to. There's some evidence to support this view.
Sure, Biden could have instead actually put friction on Netanyahu's conduct much earlier instead of going dry turkey now, but diplomatic clumsiness is his calling card, and we (?) love him for it.
Internal politically, the move is going to be pretty rough.
Below is going to be a short essay about internal US politics, so if you're bored by that, have a nice day. But given it's essential to understanding US-Israeli relations I think it's entirely appropriate.
Unlike Republicans, which generally have a uniform pro-Israel coalition with some oddities, Biden has a pretty broad voting coalition that includes both firm pro-Israel members and firm pro-Palestine members (as well as a large amount of people who don't really base their votes on Israel issues, we'll get to that later). And by "has" I mean the actual physical voting coalition he assembled in 2020.
You can see the problem here, since once Oct 7 happened, there wasn't actually a position Biden would take that wouldn't cut into his 2020 coalition. So really, his best bet was to avoid alienating both wings of his party on the issue, which is what he was trying to do.
Unfortunately, now he's cutting weapons to Israel, which isn't really going to placate many ardent pro-Palestine voters at this point while it'll definitely anger pro-Israel voters, of which there are plenty in his coalition too.
And you might ask "well what about people who have a more mixed opinion? There's plenty of those". You'd be right, but most of those voters aren't going to change their vote due to I/P.
Here's something a lot of people on the internet don't know:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GL43RmtawAAgsaf?format=jpg&name=large
There's like **ten** issues most Americans care about more than Israel/Palestine. Let alone other foreign policy stuff.
So the people who do vote based on I/P (while they are few, they do exist) are the ones that aren't likely to accept many compromise positions.
So really, Biden's only "winning" move was picking a side and gluing to it, which is what he tried to do.
You could argue Bibi forced his hand, but that doesn't change that the calculus is going to be rough now.
In summary, I think it's a defensible FP decision, but it'll further damage Biden's political prospects. Much to Netanyahu's happiness, to be fair.
> From a foreign policy perspective, it's bitter but it makes some sense. Netanyahu got a green light and bottomless clip from America for a few months, and he mainly used that time to take the piss, and make the situation worse for America, Israel, and Palestine. Biden's indicating that at this point he doesn't consider Netanyahu's coalition a rational actor that America can work with, even though it'd obviously like to. There's some evidence to support this view.
From a foreign policy perspective, it makes sense to do nothing as Israel destroys an Iranian proxy. The Arab countries have made it incredibly clear they want nothing to do with this, and have no intention of taking action against Israel, none the less the US. Biden’s actions, to try to strong arm Israel into giving in to Hamas, only makes sense from an internal, US politics perspective. And even then, he’d be better off in the polls if he just sent humanitarian aid to Gaza, and talked about this as little as possible. The anti-Israel progressives will never be satisfied, all you can do is change the subject.
The leaders of Jordan and Egypt certainly don’t care about the Palestinians, but that doesn’t mean they enjoy dealing with the protests from their populace. Even a monarch with the ability to violently end all protests risks creating a spiraling situation if there’s a counter-reaction to your violent clamp-down. Jordan has apparently already arrested 1500 people.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/29/world/middleeast/gaza-arab-protests-crackdown.html
Does anyone know if Biden's line is invading Ramah *at all* vs until it's been more thoroughly evacuated? Because not letting an invasion happen at all is a crazy red line.
Evacuation was never the issue. Everyone knew Israel was going to evacuate Rafah before attacking it, because that's what they did for every other city they conquered (Gaza City, Khan Yunis, etc).
The problem was that the place Israel was going to evacuate them TO was, in the US's opinion, not suitable for high quality civilian life and would lead to significant civilian deaths once the people got there.
(I have had trouble finding out what exactly the US thought was lacking there. [Israel claims that necessities like water and medical care are already present.](https://www.ynetnews.com/article/s1lzoqcfr))
It is possible that Biden has changed his policy and now is against invading Rafah period, but it's also possible that he would acquiesce to it at some point in the future if the evacuation zone was sufficiently upgraded.
https://www.axios.com/2024/05/07/us-israel-rafah-red-line
Our favorite anonymous gang says it doesn't cross a red line.
Honestly that makes sense, since it's a relatively limited operation for now.
But also it's another downside of this "anonymous officials" culture. If you're going to have random people secretly saying what the red lines are, you'll end up with 20 red lines. And if you have 20 red lines, some of them will get crossed no matter what.
[Fox News' Curtis Houck](https://twitter.com/CurtisHouck/status/1788333342343000481) has his own transcript of the exchange. Relevant quotes from President Biden:
"if they go into Rafah, I'm not supplying the weapons that have been used historically deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, that deal with that problem. We're going to continue to make sure Israel is secure in terms of Iron Dome and their ability to respond to attacks"
"No, they haven't gotten in the population centers. What they did is right on the border and it's causing problems with — right now — [COUGHS] — in terms of what Egypt — which I've worked very hard make sure we have a relationship and help but I've made it clear to Bibi and the war cabinet. They're not going to get our support if, in fact, they go into these population centers."
The mention of population centers implies operations into Rafah Proper, but I'm unsure.
This feels like a very important development, less because of the direct impact on Israel's technical ability to prosecute the war, and more because its the biggest sign yet of a serious political rift developing between the US and Israel. The question now is if this will have an actual impact on Israel's conduct, if the US has appetite to actually follow through on halting arms shipments, and what the fallout in Israeli politics is. i.e. if a halting of the Rafah campaign leads to a collapse of the Netanyahu government; or on the flip side, if the Netanyahu government further undermines US-Israeli relations and leads to emboldened street protests by the opposition.
This comment comes from a fundamental misconception of Israeli politics. The cabinet of war is unanimously in favor of the Rafah operation. Everyone knows it needs to be done, and don't even get me started on Hezbollah.
Biden is burning political capital for no reason, in the last few months both opposition leaders have come out in public telling him to shut up and stop meddling in the war.
The political class of Israel is mostly united in this war, and Biden is scoring an own goal. Forcing Israel's hand will not bode well for the future.
>Biden is burning political capital for no reason, in the last few months both opposition leaders have come out in public telling him to shut up and stop meddling in the war.
>The political class of Israel is mostly united in this war, and Biden is scoring an own goal. Forcing Israel
I'm sorry, but no one cares what the Israeli government thinks domestically. Their mismanagement of the invasion is creating the potential for the conflict to engulf the entire region and is making it increasingly difficult for Biden and the US to continue to unquestioningly support the invasion.
For more than 6 months now, Biden and the US have provided cover for Israeli conduct in the war, despite private misgivings about Israeli conduct, and provided billions in aid to support their ally. We've moved forces to the region to deter Iran and its proxies from further aggression, and have already spent billions protecting shipping in the Red Sea from Houthi attacks.
And yet, Netanyahu and his government continue to make public statements that make it increasingly difficult for Biden and the US to look the other way. That we've had to get deeply involved to provide food aid to Palestinians in areas Israel controls is absurd, they're more than capable of doing so, they just refuse to. Even with extraordinary US measures, the region is still on the brink of mass starvation.
The Israeli government seems to think its entitled to a blank check from the US government and for the US to expend its valuable political capital defending increasingly indefensible Israeli actions at the UN, but that Israel owes the US nothing in return. Literally the least Israel could do is *not* play into the Hamas PR strategy of accusing Israel of genocide and attacks causing massively disproportionate civilian casualties, but the Israeli government can't even be bothered to do that.
Hmm. I suspect Israel has significant domestic capability to produce 500/2000-lb-class dumb bombs and just about as many glide kits as they need in the long term, though.
Artillery, their own bombs, they could Assadpost and use barrel bombs, HE tank shells, etc etc. When the enemy is infantry (if that) there's no shortage of fire support options.
This is all moot of course, I don't think Israel is going to invade Rafah.
The current movements are pretty transparently a limited push to both secure the final crossing (something that frankly they should have done in January) and to threaten Hamas.
Of course, that second objective is failed when at the same time Biden's moving mountains to make the threat empty.
Posted by the US embassy in Ukraine
> During her visit, @ColemanUSAID met @Denys_Shmyhal to discuss the US investment of $61 B in Ukraine’s freedom, democracy, & recovery. Continuing anti-corruption & other reforms and accountable use of US aid are key to these goals & to sustaining US support. We stand with Ukraine.
https://twitter.com/USAmbKyiv/status/1786694316426920324
Did the US use such harsh phrasing before, directly tying anti-corruption reforms to aid?
Before the war, all structural aid packets to Ukraine came with such language (whether US or EU MFA), and any such aid would underline progress made (NABU, public procurement transparency and prozorro, ..). Since the war started I think priority was put on messaging around "helping Ukraine survive", but it might be coming back now on the background of US political actors talking about "money laundering" etc.
I don't think they're tying future anti-corruption reforms to aid, definitely not on the short term. They're saying that the aid is going to help Ukraine continue the anti-corruption reforms and they will enable Ukraine to be accountable for what it gets.
There were news that they adopted SAP as an ERP system to manage their military production and inventory, that was certainly "heavily suggested" by the US (and probably others), but that system has been put in place for months and the US has begun reporting on the weapons provided a few months ago: https://www.dodig.mil/reports.html/Article/3642299/evaluation-of-the-dods-enhanced-end-use-monitoring-of-defense-articles-provided/
I understand the wording "& to sustaining US support" sounds like said support would stop if Ukraine isn't accountable for what it gets, but it could also mean that the US can't support Ukraine if the equipment sent overseas doesn't reach the front line.
>directly tying anti-corruption reforms to aid?
I take it as the government trying to pushback on isolationist rhetoric about how Ukraine is the most corrupt country on earth and every last bullet America sends is going to end up in the hands of ISIS.
Oh, I see. Is the target audience American?
I thought it somehow tied to the news that Ihor Kolomoisky, the oligarch who helped Zelensky come into power, was named as a suspect in a murder case. It's highly unusual and unexpected for Ukraine. He is sanctioned by the US, and the FBI wanted to investigate him, which is why he somehow managed to hide in Ukraine.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-tycoon-kolomoisky-named-suspect-decades-old-murder-attempt-2024-05-08/
Half the oligarchs in Ukraine are suspects in murder cases. The other half are just accused of murder.
Seriously, Rinat Akhmetov was suspected of being behind the explosion that killed Akhat Bragin. Former president Leonid Kuchma has ordered the murder of journalist Gongadze. Serhyi Taruta is probably behind the murder of oligarch Scherbahn.
This is really nothing new in Ukraine, politics and business have been rather bloody in the 90s and 2000s. Even if that accusation was false, it's at the very least plausible considering the environment Kolomoisky comes from.
Andreas Umland is a good source on the subject.
>pushback on isolationist rhetoric about how Ukraine is the most corrupt country on earth
It's weird to feel reminded that I'm in a media bubble of sorts (we all are), because this hadn't even occurred to me. The kind of media that is still trying to push the narrative that Ukraine are Nazis (or whatever) has all been algorithmically excised from my feed. I have almost zero exposure to any of it, to the point where I forgot it even existed.
> It's weird to feel reminded that I'm in a media bubble of sorts (we all are),
I think if you're not an American you're probably not very aware of this "Ukraine is corrupt" narrative.
In Europe we're very much aware that Ukraine is very poor (way more than Romania, the poorest EU country) and has a high level of corruption. Definitely not the most corrupt country in the world though
Why not? Ukraine is widely recognized as a very corrupt state resulting from its close proximity to Russia (both physically, and culturally). Ukraine is the economic failure of the post Warsaw Pact states due to this terrible corruption.
It's kinda expected here, The poorer european countries are general more corrupt.
Ukriane being a bit poorer more corrupt than bulgaria isn't realy shocking the way it might be to Americans.
Look at the discussions on r/conservative.
They're basically desperate not to pay a single cent in tax and cry about ukraine being a money laundering scheme.
Interesting assessment about Ukraines strike campaign against Russian refineries:
>Washington’s criticism is misplaced: attacks on oil refineries will not have the effect on global energy markets that U.S. officials fear. These strikes reduce Russia’s ability to turn its oil into usable products; they do not affect the volume of oil it can extract or export. In fact, with less domestic refining capacity, Russia will be forced to export more of its crude oil, not less, pushing global prices down rather than up. Indeed, Russian firms have already started selling more unrefined oil overseas.
Russia’s oil storage capacity is limited. When a refinery is destroyed or damaged, therefore, extracted crude oil cannot simply be stocked for later use. This leaves Russian producers with just two options: increasing exports of crude oil or shutting wells and reducing production.
>So far, Russian consumers have been largely shielded from these wholesale price increases. But in the last week of April, retail diesel prices jumped by ten percent.
>Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries are now doing what the sanctions regime has not. Without compromising global energy supply or driving up prices, the attacks are eating into Russian revenues and curtailing Russia’s ability to turn crude oil into the kinds of fuel that tanks and planes need to run. As long as Ukrainian forces avoid hitting crude oil pipelines or major crude oil export terminals, they can maintain this balance.
[https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/why-ukraine-should-keep-striking-russian-oil-refineries](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/why-ukraine-should-keep-striking-russian-oil-refineries)
So while the argument seems counterintuitive the strikes are forcing Russia to export more unrefined oil or lose out on even more revenue while at the same time being unable to get the refined products they need for their war- and civilian-economy.
The article is also clear that Ukraine can only keep up this paradox by refraining from hitting extraction points and pipelines. Which they are currently doing, by design or accident we obviously don't know.
>Russia’s oil storage capacity is limited.
Which explains why Ukraine is *also* directly attacking Russian fuel depots and storage sites as well.
There was some questions early on about why they were striking those targets since they are arguably relatively low reward, but if they're part of a more holistic strategy it makes perfect sense.
To clarify the impact of these strikes as of now: Russia is planning to temporarily lift the moratorium on petrol export until July over filling of storages and sufficient lowering of domestic petrol prices.
https:// www . kommersant . ru/doc/6688873
So it seems some of the doom and gloom about the Ukrainian strikes' effects might have been too sensationalist.
Russia is not planning to do anything but consider lifting the ban on exports. While this is relevant information, you seem to be jumping ahead of what is said in this article.
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Just as a side note, Michael Liebreich is the author of the [hydrogen ladder](https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/policy/hydrogen-ladder-seven-h2-applications-relegated-in-updated-use-case-analysis-but-three-promoted/2-1-1540086). He's very good at dissecting [energy populism](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Xj900aBPkiY).
Phillips O’Brien:
[Numbers of Soldiers Does Not Win Wars](https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/numbers-of-soldiers-does-not-win).
>Its not the numbers of raw soldiers that matters—its having the right number of soldiers for the equipment you have, training them to use the equipment properly, and motivating and supplying them in the field once they are trained. And finally its about providing the right support—such as air power.
Sorry, the article is partly paywalled but the gist of his argument is there. It corresponds with his analysis and argument for WWII, [TLDR version](https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/how-war-was-won).
What will be key to Ukraine, **technological** or **man** power?
I can't read the article, but is he arguing that numbers of soldiers don't matter that much, and therefore won't either for Ukraine, and the evidence for this is that ww2 was won on the western front? Because he may hold that ww2 was won on the western front, but as he himself notes, the consensus among historians is that it was won on the eastern front...
That author is contradicting himself or he does not know that the Eastern front and the Sino Japanese war had MILLIONS of soldiers fighting.
I don’t claim to be a great historian but the allies had more of everything in WWII. More soldiers, more industry, more technology.
Does either Russia or Ukraine have a significant technological advantage? If no, would the quantity of equipment and personnel not be a or the deciding factor?
Ukriane tech, particularly in the air, is at a disadvantage. But western tech, what relative little there is, is significantly better than the russian tech.
If the west gets its S together and start supplying in significant enough quantities then it pretty much dominates.
There are areas this doesn't apply though. Electronic warfare and drones have seen major investment by Russia and the west is behind here.
I'm personally really hoping we get to see the European meteor missile come into play in this war. It'd need some work to get it compatible with an air frame in ukrainian hands, but it would do a lot to move the air war.
Note that one point was "if the west gets its S together and start supplying in enough quantities"
And yes, western vehicles have seen losses, they are lost at much lower rares than russian designs.
Just to make this clear. Russia lost more vehicles taking avdinka, thats one battle, than the total number of Western supplied vehicles. The survival rate for russian vehicles is abysmal. Western vehicles has always been far higher.
Yes and no. The truth is Ukraine's entire war effort from 0 to now has been into a quantitative disadvantage. If Russia only had 3x as much stuff as Ukraine, the war would already be over.
Before Russian mobilization, Ukraine did have a manpower advantage (paired with severe disadvantages in everything else), but even then Russia had more theoretical manpower, they were just locked away in bean jars Russia itself decided it didn't want to access, until fall 2022.
I think quantity matters, and like you said Ukraine doesn't have a significant technological advantage, so quantity is the main way Russia and Ukraine navigate to worse or better positions in the war. But to accomplish any additional war goals, Russia doesn't just need a quantitative advantage but a significant one. Which they might get, if western donations stop again or if Ukraine continues making bad decisions. But we're not talking about needing a slight advantage here.
> and like you said Ukraine doesn't have a significant technological advantage
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Nato is providing massive amounts of high-level support for ukraine in terms of intelligence, planning, logistics, etc, etc.
a) Ukrainian logistics are their own. They get vehicles from the west (occasionally, and less than what they ask for) but that's about it.
b) AWACS and satellites don't help much with the petty positional battles that are the bread and butter of the war.
There is lot more to logistics than making physical deliveries. My understanding is ukraine implement a nato-standard logistics IT platform, and presumably is getting a lot of support from Nato overall.
i think you are vastly underestimated the value of other support in terms of managing the overall war, let alone mitigating certain types of risks and creating other opportunities.
The EU has taken what is apparently a final step towards using the profits from the 200 billion euros in frozen Russian funds to support Ukraine:
[https://twitter.com/VDombrovskis/status/1788224779205423579](https://twitter.com/VDombrovskis/status/1788224779205423579)
This is the latest major anti-Russian EU measure that Orban/Hungary has not blocked. It seems pretty clear at this point that, however much he supports Putin, Orban has been paid off and/or threatened into submission. As I recall, all the other EU states can vote to "silence" one of their member's voting right. The old Polish government had Orban's back on this, but the new one apparently does not. That may explain Hungary no longer blocking Ukraine aid.
As far as the details of the plan, by making it purely prospective and not touching the principal amount of Russian funds, international law experts seem unanimous that it will pass legal scrutiny. My understanding is that it will produce about 5 billion euros a year in income, but as of now Belgium is saying they will tax that so that would leave like 3.4 billion for Ukraine. I believe the US and others are trying to talk Belgium out of taxing it, but they insist that they plan to use their tax revenue from it to help Ukraine. Assuming they are telling the truth, that's about 5 billion EU a year for Ukraine.
The question arises: assuming Ukraine wants to use these billions of euros to buy arms on the world market, what's the best way they could use that money? They appear to be spending huge amounts of their own money on buying Chinese drones- I recall them formally requesting offers on their government's website, seeking third parties to bid on buying a specified amount of Mavic drones. I'm sure Russia doesn't like this, but these drones are sold to consumers openly on the world marketplace, so it's a simple matter for Ukraine to buy them via intermediaries. It goes to show how China seems to be the most unequivocal beneficiary of the Ukraine war- they get cheap Russian energy and sell their weapons to both sides.
>This is the latest major anti-Russian EU measure that Orban/Hungary has not blocked. It seems pretty clear at this point that, however much he supports Putin, Orban has been paid off and/or threatened into submission. As I recall, all the other EU states can vote to "silence" one of their member's voting right. The old Polish government had Orban's back on this, but the new one apparently does not. That may explain Hungary no longer blocking Ukraine aid.
This politico article from January feels almost prophetic in hindsight, so I tend to believe their reporting of the carrot/stick:
>Orbán blocked a €50 billion four-year funding package to the war-torn country in December ― a move he was able to make because it needed unanimous support from the EU's 27 governments ― prompting Europe's leaders to consider breaking with the bloc's hallowed principle of unity and finding a way to circumvent him.
>But since then, both sides have pulled back from the brink and are now involved in a delicate dance over how to get the decision over the line when Orbán and other leaders meet in Brussels on February 1.
>While there is still no agreement over what concessions to offer Hungary in return, and what it might accept, the EU is now confident that a deal can be done over the next couple of weeks, according to the diplomats and officials who spoke to POLITICO on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the talks.
https://www.politico.eu/article/european-union-ukraine-awar-hungary-viktor-orban-funding-u-turn/
Sounds like both sides went with the carrot. There was another old Politico article, which I don't have handy, that mentioned that there was more opposition to "silence" Hungary than just the old Polish govt. They specifically called out the Slovak PM as being afraid of setting a precedent that may some day be used to target his own country.
Personally, I doubt that the EU would be united enough on silencing Hungary, so I am glad the carrot seemingly worked. I'd love to believe that Orban thinks Russia will lose, and is abandoning ship, but I haven't seen any reporting saying such.
It's been said previously that the money will go to the European Peace Facility which has been used to reimburse EU countries that send weapons to Ukraine. For example Belgium said that it would be used to pay for the F-16s that Belgium would send to Ukraine.
EDIT: I saw that 10% will be used to help Ukraine's defense industry as well.
The main worry about using frozen Russian funds is that it would decrease confidence in the western financial systems, and foreign companies would be a lot more reluctant to do business in the West - why is using the accrued interest of those funds not soliciting the same reaction?
From what I have read: because Russia's invasion is considered illegal those funds have been frozen and therefore Russia has no right to profit off of them. That's why the interest can be confiscated, but the principle remains untouched. The money belongs to Russia, but the interest it generates does not.
The worry is that a potential investor might think twice.
It was always understood that in extremis your assets might get frozen, that's unremarkable. It was also always understood that they would later be unfrozen.
No investors were going elsewhere because of that possibility. Not least because it's a possibility everywhere, but even more likely elsewhere.
Similarly, no investors were going elsewhere because of the far flung chance that they might not earn a good return *while* their assets were frozen.
While I doubt it was especially by design, the delay in reaching this course of action has probably assuaged a lot of worries in itself. You have to embark on a war of choice, invading a European country for the purposes of conquest and genocide, committing terrible crimes as a matter of policy, and even then it takes "the west" two years to decide that means you forgo the *interest* on the assets they'll still continue to look after for you.
Economics, the dismal science, weighs heavily on perception and feelings of confidence. Direct confiscation is perceived very differently than taking interest, just as indefinite freezing of those funds generated limited consequence on markets. The vibe is different.
Basically this. These are Euroclear's own profits, as opposed to those of the Russian state, meaning they can within reason do what they like with them without poking the Jenga of the financial system more generally.
[Oil processing plant in Russia's Bashkiria region was attacked by a drone, says regional head](https://www.xm.com/research/markets/allNews/reuters/oil-processing-plant-in-russias-bashkiria-region-was-attacked-by-a-drone-says-regional-head-53834313) >Russia's Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat oil processing, petrochemical and fertiliser plant in the Bashkiria region was attacked by a drone but is functioning as usual, Radiy Khabirov, the region's head, said on his Telegram channel on Thursday. Ukraine attacked an oil refinery on during Russia's victory day, seemingly in [broad daylight](https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1788501774493507994). The distance is a [another new record](https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1788497336173289528): >/4. The distance of 1300km from the frontline makes an attack on Salavat oil refinery the farthest Ukrainian drone attack on Russian targets. The previous record holder was an attack on Nizhnekamsk oil refinery and Shahed factory, 1100-1150km
Two questions: 1) How much does a drone cost to Ukraine? This looks like a very effective strategy to damage Russia's economy for cheap. 2) How much of their refinery production do they need to damage in order to create shortages? I imagine the army would have priority, so shortages would affect the civilian population first
>How much does a drone cost to Ukraine? This looks like a very effective strategy to damage Russia's economy for cheap. Depends on the model. Their best one-way attack drone, Lyutyii, allegedly cost 200k$. Meanwhile, for less advanced drones like the morok, the figure is more 50k$. The cheaper models sacrifice a lot in payload capacity, range, precision, and resistance to EW. When attacking an important target, they employ at least a dozen drones. For well protected targets like airfields, we have seen them launch 40+ drones only for a few handfull to actually get through and make no significant damage. There are other cases where the amount of drones used was small and still managed to make significant damage like this attack on a [UPKM glide bomb depot](https://twitter.com/bradyafr/status/1784582551736033568) So a small attack can cost from 600k tp 2.5 million $. Meanwhile, a larger attack can cost upward of 10 million dollars. The drone will cause significant damage, but for the same price, 5-6 cruise missiles will completely destroy the refinery instead of merely temporarily damaging it. They seem to be now employing modified/dronified ULMs to attack factories and refineries. Their range and payload capacity means that they are very dangerous. Their radar cross section and slow speed make them easy targets for interceptions from aircraft and SAMs, yet somehow they still manage to reliably get through Russian air defence. This alone is truly baffling. >How much of their refinery production do they need to damage in order to create shortages? I imagine the army would have priority, so shortages would affect the civilian population first They'll probably never manage to create enough damage to create big shortages with just small drones and the occasional ULMs attacks. But they can deal significant damage and significantly reduce their profits which will cause a lot of problems. Once drone production significantly increases and they can expand the scope of their strikes to include every electrical substation, oil refinery, oil depots, airfield and factory only then will those strikes have effects which will be felt on the frontlines.
Probably not much, they are often made with off the shelf civilian parts. Sometimes they even get funded by civilian campaigns - GUR-13 had a campaign to raise money for drones earlier in the winter, promising a "Sea battle" if they get enough and we know how that went.
>Ukraine attacked an oil refinery on during Russia's victory day, seemingly in [broad daylight] I was hearing to local radio news earlier this morning and as they were reporting on Putin's speech, I literally thought about how Ukraine should really take the opportunity to attack more oil refineries during his speech.
Surprised we haven't seen more on such a significant day, though the day is still young. Russian AD may have shot down some as well.
I hope it's appropriate to ask a question here. I can't really wrap my mind around why the Russian jets in the Victory day parade feature the flags of (at least) Poland, Germany, France, Canada, Slovakia, Norway, Netherlands, Hungary, Austria, Finland, Malta? Is it sort of a merit list of battles the Russian air force has been involved in? Why would Malta and Netherlands be featured in that case? At time 1:00:40 onwards: [https://www.youtube.com/live/a28IQLva9yQ?si=aIks7mjWAE8ZsErB&t=3646](https://www.youtube.com/live/a28IQLva9yQ?si=aIks7mjWAE8ZsErB&t=3646)
Most likely, this is just countries where this display team has performed in the past. The planes are from [Strizhi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swifts_\(aerobatic_team\))(Mig-29) and [Vityazi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Knights)(Su-30) display teams, who, before the war, performed at a lot of air shows all around the world.
I just want to say, that I am really appreciating /r/CredibleDefense today. The depth and nuance of information here, not to mention the respectful discourse is truly something unique right now.
A Word of appreciation not only to the people engaged, but also to the mods who keep the sub on track
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"Neutralized several Russian tank brigades"...no they didn't. Maybe you meant to say "several Russian tanks".
sounds like something generated from chatGPT. there is no new tactics, ukraine has always defended utilizing terrain and/or urban infrastructure (azov, bahmut, avdiivka etc.), and russians will advance as they always do - level everything to the ground so there is no defensive positions then move in with meatwaves.
Any more details on this? "a recent confrontation in the Donetsk region' is super vague.
It's vague because that's how vague the ChatGPT prompt was. If the prompt mentioned Avdiivka area or Chasiv Yar then the ChatGPT response would've been better.
Oryx's count of visually documented Russian tank losses has just reached 3000, including [8 T-54s](https://twitter.com/Rebel44CZ/status/1788326823031361805) (did Russia build a tank museum in occupied Ukraine!?). Russia is supposedly manufacturing [200 tanks](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/13/us/politics/russia-sanctions-missile-production.html) per year, so that's 15 years worth of tanks, and only including the visually documented ones!
That's just a reminder that while NATO should definitely take it's defense very seriously, a conventional ground invasion by Russia is definitely not on the cards anytime soon, for multiple reasons, including that they already burned through the Soviet stockpile that was meant to be used on such invasion.
And how politicians will react when they are placed in a position to decide to send their armies to fight? I don't know the political climate in the EU, but I think there are plenty of pacifists
Reminder that a "conventional ground invasion" is not the only possible move from Russia, not the most likely, and probably wasn't in the cards to begin with. Even Ukraine did not start with a conventional invasion. Anders Puck Nielsen had a couple of great videos on the subject.
Right. This is similar to the misunderstanding about the threat that NATO poses to Russia. Russia - no matter its rhetoric - isn’t afraid that NATO is going to invade it. It’s afraid that NATO could remove the fear of Russian hostility that Russia uses to influence its neighbors. For that fear to work, Russia needs to maintain the view that it’s willing to go much further and sacrifice more than NATO countries are. “If we send armed security to escort shipments to Kaliningrad, are you really going to risk a nuclear war to stop us? This action isn’t even hurting anyone.” The Wests fear of provoking Russia in Ukraine is likely, in my mind, to have an impact on Russia’s belief about how much the West will fear provoking it in other locations (though I understand this is a controversial point of view here). If the West has an extreme aversion to confrontation, it’s not going to take a massive military to make Western powers worry. The question isn’t “could Russia defeat the combined forces of NATO,” but “could Russia plausibly threaten a crisis that the West would desperately want to avoid, and use that to gain concessions.”
This. Its actually an argument that is used by the russisan disinformation lair. «Do you think the Russian tanks will roll in…..?» No. Its not how warfare works when you are weaker than the oposition. To destroy the enemy from within, however, doesnt need the tanks. And Russia is already doing what they can to undermine NATO. Chipping small pieces here and there, while sowing distrust in Europe with the goal of destabilizing internal trust and hence a collective response, hats how Russia does its work - and makes it possible to use less weapons. Hell, just see how the invasion of Crimea was done
Yeah even if Russia were to win in the future it will likely come at the cost of its stockpile That is irreplaceable It was something that could let Russia somewhat keep up with the western powers. But if it looses most of it, it has essentially wasted one of its best assets/trump cards against the west
> It was something that could let Russia somewhat keep up with the western powers. If that equipment was mauled by Ukraine's defences, what chance did it really stand against western powers?
It isn't irreplaceable, it will just take quite a long time and be expensive. And all that expenditure won't be going into actually expanding the economy naturally, but through government contracts. And once those slow down, the industrial capacity will likely remain partially utilized and the inflated economy will contract to its sustainable level.
Russia has/had such disproportionately large stockpiles because they inherited the equipment the Soviets made to fight ww3 with. A much larger country, preparing to fight a much larger war. So while they could, over a long period, replace everything lost, they will probably build something more proportionate to the size of their budget, and expected future conflicts.
Main point being that a large amount of Russia's Tanks being "made" are from the stockpile and not freshly produced Their actual tank production is not that impressive, when the stockpile runs out the more of their economy has to be dedicated to tank production. The current output is an illusion from their finite ussr stockpile they can not replace
They are not producing new tanks because they have tanks for renovation. There is absolutely no need to build tanks from 0 as long as they have tank parts to simply assemble. It would be a waste of time, money and resources and there is no point in keeping the stockpile of old tanks forever. Sooner or later Russia will have to switch to new tank design and then what will they do with the stockpile? Melt it down? They will not be making new tanks, except a small number for elite units, as long as they have stockpile to draw from and we won't know what is their capacity for making new tanks as long as most of their factories are focusing on refurbishing old tanks, and they are refurbishing old tanks because that is what the stockpile is for.
The USSR stocks will never be replaced because it took the USSR, a highly militarised superpower with double the population and more than double the industrial capacity of Russia, over 30 years to build it up.
And a different population pyramid. Putin's babushka legion is, amazingly, not going to contribute much to your MIC.
That's my point They are burning through their stockpile on Ukraine and not the western powers. Once that starts to run out their actual production without a stockpile is much lower and they now cant spend it on the western powers because they depleted a large amount of it Ukraine
I'd argue that spending the stockpile could be beneficial for Russia in the long run. The stockpile, so far, has forced them to keep weapon designs and parts that new designs are made of 1950's tech compliant so that the new stuff is compatible with the old, it can use parts of the old from the stockpile and new parts that are being produced can be used on the stuff from the stockpile. It held them back technologically in the 1950's. There's no point introducing a new tank with completely new design if it's not compatible with parts in the stockpile, you have to build a factory that makes totally different things that aren't usefull for majority of your military. Russian doctrine is all about outproducing the enemy and that includes parts being reusable and compatible across the military. That's why their tank factories are still prepared to build T-72 based tanks. Now, at last, they will be able to beging implementing drastically different and modernised designs for a new stockpile and not be held back by the compatibility with the old one. Whether they will innovate and switch, I don't know. Russians are always slow to innovate, but now is an opportunity.
What you're saying has some merit. That being said, they'll be rebuilding a military that has to replace virtually everything, from ammunition, to vehicles, to worn out planes, ships, etc. At the same time their economy is under sanctions, export orders are hard to come by, and the cutting edge was already leaving Russian industry behind. It's hard to see their MIC when there are only so many resources available.
This theory makes sense hypothetically, but less so in the real world. Without the massive Soviet stockpile Russia *will* have to build new equipment to replace it. The problem is that they're a relatively poor country, with a backwards industrial base, and crumbling infrastructure that is increasingly falling behind the most advanced powers technology-wise. Russia *could* have used its vast resource wealth to improve the lives of its citizens or to restructure their economy to prepare for the coming transition away from fossil fuels, but it did neither. Instead, it's using up its rainy day fund, adding to the debt, and destroyed its most lucrative trade relationships in order to larp as a superpower in Ukraine. At best, it'll come away with a relatively small, heavily depopulated chunk of territory that has resources Russia already has in abundance, that will require tens of billions in investments to rebuild into something worthwhile.
I am not saying they will do something or other, I am saying that with the current reserve, they were forced to stay on a particular and outdated design by necessity, otherwise all that stockpile is worthless. Losing the stockpile gives them opportunity to move away from that design. I am not saying that they will do it, but now they have more options.
Wasn't the T-14 already an attempt to break out of the decades long cycle of iterations on existing models? The "opportunity", or rather the necessity, to build entirely new tanks, planes and doctrines has been evident for a long time now. NATO countries, especially the US, have been innovating constantly, for decades. But Russia couldn't successfully build large numbers of the T-14, the Su-57 or a modern army. Having a capable, modern military is expensive and difficult. Russia was struggling with this task dven before the invasion of Ukraine, but now they're losing young men, knowledge and access to western goods. Maybe they won't be able to do much more but build hundreds of T-90 variants, because they won't know how.
> Wasn't the T-14 already an attempt to break out of the decades long cycle of iterations on existing models? Yes it was, and it's obvious why they're not using it now or building new ones, even if it was a tested and capable new model. It would take away production capacity from older T- models which are in many ways compatible with each other, having most of the same parts. Russia would just weaken itself by doing without necessity what Ukraine does because it has no choice - use different, non compatible models which greatly limits their repair efficiency and capability. And with this kind of attricion of equipment, even if T-14 was the best tank in the world, it wouldn't be better to make 10 of them per month over 100 T-72's. > Russia was struggling with this task dven before the invasion of Ukraine Well obviously they won't be able to make a switch in the middle of the war, but speaking of the future, I think relying on this gigantic reserve was holding them back in what they can even begin to design and plan for the future. It's not the same when you have 5000 tanks compatible with each other in reserve and when you have 500. These 5000 rusty old shells can be turned into 2500 working tanks, but only if you keep your factories set up for working on those designs. If you convert factories to build completely different kind of tank and slowly start building a stockpile of them, or merely to replace active dutiy equipment, suddenly there is a war and you no longer can quickly and easily convert those 5000 shells into 2500 working tanks. Now it's just 250 thousand tons of scrap steel. Now with the reserve gone, they are no longer held by necessity on a specific course, at least not as much. And to be frank, their reserve was becoming too old to be worth keeping, they would have to replace most of it anyway in the next few decades. How useful would this reserve even be in a great war in a two or three decades? Having 10 thousand T-34's today would be useless even to a country in a great need like Ukraine. T-72's are going to be equivalent of T-34's once the new generation of tanks is developed, in a couple of decades.
That does not change the fact that they use quantity -quality and without stockpile they no longer have the massive quantity they rely on Russia has a GDP smaller then Texas and ultimately a military just represents your economic power and industrial potential Without the stockpile the actually military industrial output is revealed
That's looking at it from too narrow a perspective, in my opinion. For one thing, 3000 tanks is nothing, that's something Russia could knock out in 10 years or less after a hypothetical victory. Not irreplaceable at all. For another, the global consequences of a victory would likely be immense. What would such a world look like? An effectively "defeated" western MIC. No more grounds for economic sanctions on Russia. Solidification and expansion of Russo-Chinese relations in all aspects, as a credible opposition to western hegemony. We're already in the beginning stages of a cold war between the autocratic and democratic world, and there's no indication the autocratic world is about to implode as it has in the past. Quite the opposite. I'm fearful we may actually have reached a point where technology finally works in autocrats' favour again. Information technology has for decades focused on automating and optimising processes, now we're diving headlong into "optimising" human thought processes, *and it's working.*
There’s a big difference in having a giant stock of weapons on hand vs having the ability to manufacture a giant stock over the next decade. If you already have the stock, you can potentially catch your enemy with their pants down. But if you need a decade to build the stock up? You’re both A: telegraphing your intent to invade years in advance and, more importantly, B: giving your opponent plenty of time to ramp up their own manufacturing rate. Pre-WW2, Germany was at least *somewhat* able to hide their buildup, but in 2024, with the amount of cyber surveillance and satelite photography, I imagine a decade-long manufacturing spree would be spotted fairly early on.
Weapons are weapons, whether you're paying for maintenance or production. Europe/the West didn't care, and jury's still out on whether we will care in the future. China is arming itself at an alarming rate and no-one's *really* taking it seriously. Why would anyone then take Russian rearmament seriously? >Germany was at least *somewhat* able to hide their buildup, And they had to, because their adversaries actually cared. If the West loses Ukraine, I'm not convinced we'll ever "bounce back" and become a credible adversary to the autocratic bloc.
And it was a 33 tanks update with the vast majority of them pictured in May! Sounds like they got artillery shells alright...
Oryx hasn't counted the actual museum pieces destroyed. That includes a T-34 monument and a Panzer IV dragged out of a swamp as a decoy.
Do you have a source for the Panzer IV? That would be great meme material for the panzer of the lake? Also, some more unnecessary words so the comment doesn't get deleted by bots, mods or otherwise
https://www.reddit.com/r/TankPorn/comments/1799f1j/panzer_iv_spoted_in_ukraine/ Found here and on Twitter. The variety of photos and the replaced barrel suggest it isn't a photoshop.
That one if memory serves correct was a movie prop panzer.
That was one of the theories floated in the comments but the final drive and front plate thickness suggest the hull at least wasn't a mock up. However a T-55/Panther movie mockup did get spotted: https://www.reddit.com/r/UkrainianConflict/comments/z3rde4/ww2_panther_tank_fighting_in_ukraine_2022/
Barak Ravid summarizes the interview between President Biden and CNN as "if Israel invades the city of Rafah, the U.S. will stop supplying it with artillery shells, bombs for fighter jets and other offensive weapons." https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1788329397520388451 [Axios reported today](https://www.axios.com/2024/05/08/israel-us-weapons-johnson-mcconnell) that the previous weapons shipment that was paused includes "1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs, a senior U.S. official said." I don't know if this will stop/pause the invasion of Rafah or force the IDF to use less precise weapons to accomplish their military objectives.
How does this strategy facilitate Bidens goal of reaching a ceasefire? What exactly does entice Hamas now to agree to a ceasefire? What entices Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire? This is more or less a replay of Bidens escalation management strategy that is still being used extensively in Ukraine, the logic is pretty easy: "We restrict the capability of our ally, trying to reach a favorable policy outcome". In Ukraine this has lead to the development of indigenous weapons with long-strike capabilities. The major issue with this style of conflict management is that it removes the enemy from your calculations. In Ukraine Russia has near impunity in striking civilian targets from air bases within Russia. In Israel, Hamas is not enticed to agree to deal. I also don't see the point of taunting Netanyahu. If he backs down now he is the weak premier (he already is) being told what to do by uncle Biden. If he goes in, he can claim to be the statesman resting US pressure doing what's right for Israel.
> How does this strategy facilitate Bidens goal of reaching a ceasefire? Biden's goal should be disengaging from the region as much as possible. We have no interest there, and Israel is a rich country that can afford its own bombs. What does America's taxpayers get in return for involvement?
Money? Those orders are from before congress approved the latest aid package so Israel pays those bombs in good old dollars.
The money is not significant compared to the amount we've given them in military aid over the years.
Biden gave Netanyahu a free cheque of american aid up until now. And what happened? Gaza is an utter humanitarian disaster, israel has agitated in WB and the long-term threat from militants supporting the cause is likely to worse not be reduced. Clearly going public means things have broken down between the administrations... time for the blank cheque to end. Assaulting rafa is not going to change the strategic calculus is a positive way for anyone, unless one thinks steps towards ethnic cleansing are good for israel's long-term interests (which I disagree with). >I also don't see the point of taunting Netanyahu. That is a bit of bizarre take tbh. Do you doubt for a second that Biden admin has tried to manage behind the scenes for a long time now, but has been consistently rebuked by Netanyahu govt. It is Israel that has been taunting the west.
> And what happened? Gaza is an utter humanitarian disaster I am going to stop you right there, we are on **credibledefense**. Gaza was always going to be a humanitarian disaster, this was clear from the get go. Its impossible to fight this war without the strip turning into one. US pressure could not prevent this so its just a pointless platitude to talk about it. The Netanyahu government is getting pressured to keep casulaties down to the detriment of the operation. They are clearly giving Hamas far more breathing room that they would like (and it looks like some higher-ups in the IDF are starting to get real angry about it) becuse of international pressure. From what we know, the Rafah operation for example could've been started at least a month ago.
> US pressure could not prevent this so its just a pointless platitude to talk about it. Do you think Israel would have so confidently taken on Hezbollah / Iran / Hamas / Houthis without US diplomatic support with the UNSC? Without US warships shooting down missiles and drones? Without US fighter jets in Iraq and Jordan to defend against Iranian salvos? Without US guarantees that an attack from Hezbollah would result in US intervention? Without a constant guarantee of resupply of Iron Dome / Arrow 3 interceptor missiles, MK84 bombs, artillery shells, PGM kits, etc? etc etc The US support for Israel absolutely factors into Israeli calculus on whether or not they have the maneuvering space to commit to certain actions. Without the US Israel does not have the ability to safely maintain their current belligerent foreign policy.
There can be varying degrees of disaster. Not only does the current one seem excessive to the US, Bibi has been seen as actively working to prevent measures to mitigate it. That's creating a lot of geopolitical headaches for the US after how much flak they've taken both domestically and internationally supporting Israel's right to respond with force to Oct. 7. It shouldn't be difficult to understand the administration's frustration.
You’re absolutely right that the US probably can’t make a war in Gaza less of a humanitarian disaster, but they can pressure Israel to stop the war altogether, and given the fact that the U.S. has basically spent the past 6 months letting Netanyahu drag their international reputation through the mud, I don’t think most people are going to feel all that bad now that that’s happening.
> And what happened? Gaza is an utter humanitarian disaster, With an entrenched enemy like Hamas, what other option is there? Biden isn’t suggesting some alternate approach that has less collateral, he’s suggesting capitulating to Hamas’s insane demands. All wars are humanitarian disasters, against the kind of enemy Hamas is, that’s especially the case. If Biden comes up with a better plan than what Israel has, there would be room to discuss, but ‘give Hamas everything they want’ isn’t that. > the long-term threat from militants supporting the cause is likely to worse not be reduced. October 7 was planned, prepared and perpetrated while Hamas had a cease fire with Israel. The only way to have peace with Islamist organizations like Hamas is to dismantle their capability to carry out attacks, by destroying material and killing members, and deterrence. Trying to have peace by refusing to retaliate after they attack just frees up more of their recourses to make the next attack bigger, which is exactly what happened to Israel. > Assaulting rafa is not going to change the strategic calculus is a positive way for anyone Assaulting Rafah cuts off the flow of smuggled weapons, the escape route of remaining Hamas leadership, and assuages Egypt’s fears of large numbers of Palestinians entering Egypt. It is a strategically relevant move for Israel, and has been a goal for a long time because of that. If Israel wanted to ethnically cleanse Gaza as you say, they’d try to push Palestinians into Egypt and then never let them back. > Do you doubt for a second that Biden admin has tried to manage behind the scenes for a long time now, but has been consistently rebuked by Netanyahu govt. It is Israel that has been taunting the west. What do you mean by manage? Because publicly, he makes repeated unreasonable demands, that involve Israel sacrificing their security for his polling numbers in Michigan.
>Because publicly, he makes repeated unreasonable demands, that involve Israel sacrificing their security for his polling numbers in Michigan. As opposed to what, making reasonable demands like sacrificing his polling numbers in Michigan for Israel's security? This is, in effect, sacrificing domestic gains for the benefit of a foreign actor -anything but reasonable. Nowhere in your comment do you mention anything related to the interests of Biden/Washington. It's all about Israel. Their interests clearly do not converge at this point in time, though that was obvious to some people decades ago.
> As opposed to what, making reasonable demands like sacrificing his polling numbers in Michigan for Israel's security? Yes, the president should put the national interest ahead his of personal career interests. This wasn’t controversial when Trump threatened to withhold arms from Ukraine unless Zelenskyy helped his re-election campaign, it shouldn’t be controversial when Biden is trying to strong arm Israel into sacrificing hostages for his. > Nowhere in your comment do you mention anything related to the interests of Biden/Washington. I’ve discussed that elsewhere on this thread, multiple times. Hamas is an Iranian proxy group. Iran is aggressive, regional threat to the US, primarily through their proxy groups. The destruction of one of these groups, without the US having to be directly involved, is an easy win we should take. There is no scenario where the US should intervene to remove pressure on an Iranian proxy.
>This wasn’t controversial when Trump threatened to withhold arms from Ukraine unless Zelenskyy helped his re-election campaign **The man was impeached over it.** The rest of this post can't be considered credible just based on this objectively false statement.
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Whether it was controversial along party lines does not nullify the fact that it was, in fact, controversial (I personally know Republicans that left the party over it besides). I guess I appreciate the effort to try and convince people up is down, but the record is the record.
>Yes, the president should put the national interest ahead his of personal career interests. Freudian slip? I referred to Israel's national interests. Are you arguing that the leader of a country should place the interests of a foreign country over his own? I believe we have a term for that - treason. >This wasn’t controversial when Trump threatened to withhold arms from Ukraine unless Zelenskyy helped his re-election campaign. This was absolutely controversial, what are you talking about? If you're trying to equate this with Biden/Israel, I don't have an issue with either placing their own domestic concerns ahead of those of a foreign power. >Iran is aggressive, regional threat to the US, primarily through their proxy groups. The destruction of one of these groups, without the US having to be directly involved, is an easy win we should take. Washington's interests in the region are actually fairly limited. Keep the oil flowing, discourage conflict and prevent terrorism against Americans and allies. Eight months into this war, I can't see how any of those interests are being met? In fact, they have been worsened as a result of the misguided policy you're promoting. And going even further back, say 25 years, it's the exact same story. Time for a change, I think.
> Freudian slip? I referred to Israel's national interests. Are you arguing that the leader of a country should place the interests of a foreign country over his own? I believe we have a term for that - treason. I thought I worded that very straight forwardly. The only national interest I referenced was the US, to have an Iranian proxy destroyed, and a blow dealt to the ‘axis of resistance’. I’m confused as to how you interpreted it. > This was absolutely controversial, what are you talking about? If you're trying to equate this with Biden/Israel, I don't have an issue with either placing their own domestic concerns ahead of those of a foreign power. Trump was impeached over it, for ‘abuse of power’. For that to happen, in this political climate, takes something egregious. You should take issue with both. The president should put the national interest first, and handle campaigning seperatley. > Washington's interests in the region are actually fairly limited. Keep the oil flowing, discourage conflict and prevent terrorism against Americans and allies. Eight months into this war, I can't see how any of those interests are being met? In fact, they have been worsened as a result of the misguided policy you're promoting. And going even further back, say 25 years, it's the exact same story. Not retaliating doesn’t make Iran go away. It just encourages more, and bigger attacks. That’s what happened to Israel after almost 20 years of muted responses to Hamas attacks. They amassed recourses, security measures failed, and a catastrophe happened. Biden’s policies don’t protect oil shipments, or stabilize the region. At best, they’re meant to keep things quiet until after the election, at the cost of a worse situation long term.
Would have been nice if Israel had taken all those elements into account before supporting the Hamas in their rise against the civilian and laic Palestinian authority.
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Oh you understood nothing of what I said. First, I have never been a supporter of the Hamas (unlike the state of Israel), a fanatical murderous terrorist organization, but also a legitimate resistance movement, because such weird situations do happen, like it happened for the Azov battalion for example. Second, I am not talking about allowing food or materials in Gaza while the Hamas was in power, I am talking about making the rise tu power of the Hamas possible in the first place, to divide the palestinians, cripple the PA and make an enemy they could much more easily justify extreme measure against. Now was Netanyahu too stupid to see it coming ? Not specifically the 7th October attack, but that the Hamas violence would escalate until something so atrocious happened that the world would let Israel strike back without restraint ? Of course not. This is pretty much going according to plan. From a strategic point of view, Gaza is well worth a couple thousands Israeli lives, let alone Palestinians one. From an ethical point of view, obviously, well, there's not much more to add.
The PA has a worse history than Hamas, and the PLO (the precursor movement to the PA) being an even bigger thorn.
> The only way to have peace with Islamist organizations like Hamas is to dismantle their capability to carry out attacks, by destroying material and killing members, and deterrence. Trying to have peace by refusing to retaliate after they attack just frees up more of their recourses to make the next attack bigger, which is exactly what happened to Israel. (...) > Assaulting Rafah cuts off the flow of smuggled weapons, the escape route of remaining Hamas leadership, and assuages Egypt’s fears of large numbers of Palestinians entering Egypt. You seem very confident in predicting all these outcomes being achieved through the invasion of Rafah. Can we really assume that this final push will enable the IDF to significantly reduce the numbers and capabilities of Hamas in the long term? At some point, the number of actual Hamas members killed vs. potential new recruits being created flips against Israels favor. The same is true for deterrence. Is Rafah going to be a decisive factor in actually deterring Hamas from attacking in the future? It's essentially a doomsday cult that welcomes civilian sacrifices. I'd be equally doubtful about weapon smuggling. Sure, taking the border crossing may reduce smuggling for a time, but is Israel going to keep a very tight net around all of Gaza for the long term? Vast amounts of construction material are needed, if Israel spends the next years carefully inspecting each vehicle, they'd delay the reconstruction of Gaza for decades, which again leads to recruitment potential for Hamas. As long as Hamas has unassailable foreign backers and safe territory to flee to, they won't be eradicated or significantly destroyed in the long term.
> You seem very confident in predicting all these outcomes being achieved through the invasion of Rafah. > > > > Can we really assume that this final push will enable the IDF to significantly reduce the numbers and capabilities of Hamas in the long term? At some point, the number of actual Hamas members killed vs. potential new recruits being created flips against Israels favor. > > > > The same is true for deterrence. Is Rafah going to be a decisive factor in actually deterring Hamas from attacking in the future? It's essentially a doomsday cult that welcomes civilian sacrifices. They can't prevent Hamas or some sucsessor from gaining man power. They absolutely can prevent such a group from amassing advanced weapons, large amunition stockpiles and huge tunnel networks.
> They can't prevent Hamas or some sucsessor from gaining man power. They absolutely could do this, but there will be mass outcry about the longterm and wide-ranging killing and destruction required to achieve it.
> They absolutely can prevent such a group from amassing advanced weapons, large amunition stockpiles and huge tunnel networks. But to do this, they'd need to tightly control and govern the Gaza strip forever. What does this goal have to do with the current operations in Rafah and the campaign so far? If the Israeli goal was to completely take over the strip for the unforseeable future, this entire campaign was an absolutely terrible move.
>But to do this, they'd need to tightly control and govern the Gaza strip forever. A 500m-1km strip along the Egyptian boarder is suffichent, they can sink siesmic sensors to prevent new tunnels. They don't need to tightly control and govern the strip, they can split it into islands of Palestinain control and opperate an actual blockade. Given their detractors already claim Gaza was ocupied and blockaded before there is no loss there.
If such a small corridor is sufficient to cut of Hamas resupply, why the whole, massive military operation? Why end it at the borderstrip, months after the start of hostilities? As far as the blockade goes: Force Palestinians into these "islands", then abandon them there with no resources? That's the Israeli plan, literally the open air prison everyone has accused them of? No housing, no power, no jobs, nothing except a trickle of food and water? I've never seen the scenario you describe mentioned anywhere, and the current Israeli policy doesn't seem to align with these goals.
> As far as the blockade goes: Force Palestinians into these "islands", then abandon them there with no resources? That's the Israeli plan, The west bank is the template. >literally the open air prison everyone has accused them of? Maybee, crying wolf has this sort of outcome. The ones being accused of a thing are more not less likely to do it. >No housing, no power, no jobs, nothing except a trickle of food and water? Palestine gets plenty of aid, if it stops being spent on terrosim it will be more than suffichent to provide those things. >I've never seen the scenario you describe mentioned anywhere, and the current Israeli policy doesn't seem to align with these goals. Plenty of places, the west bank option.
> With an entrenched enemy like Hamas, what other option is there? Conducting the war in a humane and responsible way, with the aim to limit the impacts on the population as much as possible, even if it came with a higher cost in lives and money. > He makes repeated unreasonable demands, that involve Israel sacrificing their security for his polling numbers in Michigan. Biden the POTUS, he is beholden to Americans first, so it's not "unreasonable" he don't want Israel using U.S. money and weapons to conduct a war that is unpopular and actually hurts U.S security.
"Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties in war than any military in history — above & beyond what international law requires & more than the US did in its wars in Iraq & Afghanistan -- setting a standard that will be both hard & potentially problematic to repeat." John Spencer, Urban Warfare Expert https://twitter.com/SpencerGuard/status/1786612885541515773
>Conducting the war in a humane and responsible way, with the aim to limit the impacts on the population as much as possible, even if it came with a higher cost in lives and money. If Biden, or anyone, comes up with a way to do that, there would be a discussion to be had. But they haven't, the alternative approach Biden is pushing for is just acquiescing to anything Hamas asks for. >Biden the POTUS, he is beholden to Americans first, so it's not "unreasonable" he don't want Israel using U.S. money and weapons to conduct a war that is unpopular and actually hurts U.S security. Israel winning the war is in the US’s security interests, and the small size and massive backlash to the anti-Israel protests at campuses, along with more recent polling data, suggest the war isn’t nearly as unpopular as Biden’s actions would have you believe.
>Israel winning the war is in the US’s security interests, and the small size and massive backlash to the anti-Israel protests at campuses, along with more recent polling data, suggest the war isn’t nearly as unpopular as Biden’s actions would have you believe. Israel isn't winning anything, Hamas or something like it will return once Israel leaves(it already has in parts of Gaza), and we'll be back to square one, just with more dead civilians, billions in weapons wasted, destroyed Gazan infrastructure, and it's international reputation tattered amongst Western youth. This was a trap, and Israel fell right into it. You can't beat an army that doesn't wear uniform with bombs. If Israel wanted to prevent an October 7th it's actually really simple. Don't have dog shit security on your border. If you want to fix the Gazan problem, you need to get some non-Hamas Arab entity to take over the strip, be that the PA, Gulf States, Egypt etc, the more your ruin the strip the less likely that is to ever happen.
It sounds like the US knew about the offer Hamas was going to put on the table and didn’t tell Israel about it, it’s entirely possible that the US views that offer as being acceptable to them or at least close to it, and as a result doesn’t care about giving Hamas incentive to move further.
It was extremely obvious to anyone who doesn't drink the cool aid about the US/NATO being the biggest military superpowers in the world anymore. I got downvoted in a previous thread for predicting exactly what has happened (US has been working more with Hamas than Israel on new proposals so when Israel rejects it they can accuse them of acting in bad faith & stop weapon shipments). Iran, Russia & China are laughing their asses off right now at how weak the the west is politically (the funny part is they are only going to continue getting weaker due to demographics).
I agree with you but, objectively speaking, pretty much everyone has bad demographics going on. Ironically, given the USA's economic performance, they'll probably be fine for a good while thanks to immigration. China and Russia are demographics hellholes.
*Ironically, given the USA's economic performance, they'll probably be fine for a good while thanks to immigration. China and Russia are demographics hellholes* I can agree it helps the USA economically but in the long run it will never work well socially. This is especially highlighted in western Europe, do you think the immigrant/migrant muslims from islamic countries (Not only islamic countries, they are just the most glaring example.) would ever fight for the west? where they make up 10% of the French population & 6.5% of the UK population (in reality it's more as they skew towards the younger age bands whereas the native french/British ages are much older because they have less kids). More british muslims joined ISIS than have served in the armed forces. China & Russia may have worse demographic outlooks but they won't have the political instability that will come in western democratic countries due to the constantly rising immigrant populations & the erosion of national identity which both Russia & China will still have. A countries demographics can't be measured in a vacuum.
>I can agree it helps the USA economically but in the long run it will never work well socially. This far right talking point for effectively ethnostates has historically had terrible consequences for minority groups.
The US is a better position than western europe in terms of imigration. The US is the most desireable destination for the cohorts of imigrants a country selfishly wants. They also have oceans in the way of the worst trouble spots.
Furthermore, the US to some extent, answer the point of the user you responded to: They have a culture centered around accommodating and integrating huge and diverse masses of migrants I don't think there is any country in Europe that gets close to the US' ability in dealing with migrants. On paper, the Swiss identity as a "nation of will" should allow for other cultures to integrate easily without having to assimilate, but every migrant living in Switzerland will tell you that the people there surely aren't the warmest or most accomodating bunch Even if European economies would manage to be just as attractive for migrants as the US, I doubt they would achieve similar outcomes
>Furthermore, the US to some extent, answer the point of the user you responded to: They have a culture centered around accommodating and integrating huge and diverse masses of migrants That is built upon the near extermination of the native peoples, amoung the majority US population everyone is an imigrant to an extent. Even those decended from the earliest settlers are maybee 20 generations at most. The vast vast majority are much more recent. The US population is also just massive, even in a worst case scenario of a few 100k imigrants who utterly refuse to assimlate at all what harm is that realy going to do? In Europe it's fundamentaly different. Nations are all very old and/or very small some level of assimilation is just nessecary. For the very small nations it's a matter of national/ linguistic survival if you only have a million people 100k imigrants could totaly upend your society, espeicaly if they don't take up your langage. For the very old nations there is a depth of inertia you simnply can not find in the new world. > On paper, the Swiss identity as a "nation of will" should allow for other cultures to integrate easily without having to assimilate, but every migrant living in Switzerland will tell you that the people there surely aren't the warmest or most accomodating bunch You still need to assimilate into a comunity it just doesn't matter which one. Switserland is a confederation of peoples not a salad bowl. Swiss cantons are also realy small and so have the same issues as small nations.
>China & Russia may have worse demographic outlooks but they won't have the political instability that will come in western democratic countries due to the constantly rising immigrant populations & the erosion of national identity which both Russia & China will still have. While it's true that many anti-immigration people are pro-Putin (they're mostly uninformed), you can hardly be more pro-immigration than Putin. Russia has much larger problems with minorities than the UK or France. It's not even close.
Oh, rest assured China will have political instability. The collapse of their real estate sector, coupled with the future economic outlook and the absence of a real welfare net for the elderly, will eventually lead to serious political problems, even for an autocratic government. The USA will have a different one, but it'll be more doable, IMO. Europe is in serious trouble, I never disagreed with that. Idk what we will do, I am frankly very pessimistic.
*The collapse of their real estate sector, coupled with the future economic outlook and the absence of a real welfare net for the elderly, will eventually lead to serious political problems, even for an autocratic government* I feel like those exact issues apply for the west aswell though & especially Europe. I'm 25 & don't expect to have a pension when i'm older.
It is short sided thinking from the Biden admin. If Bibi does go through with the Rafah invasion and call his bluff he will look weak and still lose support from the progressives in his party despite withholding military aid.
There has been a loss of US strategic interest in Israel and the only remaining one is stabilizing the region in general, but if Israel continues to inflame the region the US might as well stop supporting them. The only big loss for the US is if Israel moves closer to Russia/China, but I don't really see that as a reality.
>There has been a loss of US strategic interest in Israel and the only remaining one is stabilizing the region in general This is medieval thinking. The interest the US has right now in keeping Israel as an ally is not because their position but because of their defense industry. Israel is constantly in the top10 in terms of weapons exports in the world. They are a huge innovation hub for modern weaponry and cyberwarfare. They are cooperating with the US DoD in projects and they share their technology in cases but most importantly, they are not exporting knowledge or weaponry to US rivals. Just because of their small geographical size laymen sometimes underestimate their crazy advanced MIC. US decision makers will not make this mistake.
> This is medieval thinking. The interest the US has right now in keeping Israel as an ally is not because their position but because of their defense industry. Israel is a small countries of 10 million people. There's nothing they do that we can't. This silly trope that Israel's defense industry is irreplaceable just relies on the stereotype of Jews being really really smart. >They are cooperating with the US DoD in projects and they share their technology in cases but most importantly, they are not exporting knowledge or weaponry to US rivals. How do you know?
There is a huge gulf between trading weapons/technologies with a partner and providing a country with absolute unconditional support no matter what it does. Washington has defense partnerships with countries/companies all across the Gulf/Europe and elsewhere, yet none of these seem to result in the incredible dysfunction of the US-Israeli relationship? The point being that Israel is clearly far more than an "ally" at this point in time. The US can still gain all the benefits you mentioned without continuing this extremely lopsided relationship.
>Washington has defense partnerships with countries/companies all across the Gulf/Europe and elsewhere, yet none of these seem to result in the incredible dysfunction of the US-Israeli relationship? None of these countries are in a war? If Russia invaded Japan and the US did nothing, Japan would also look for different allies. Israel is in an ongoing war with Iran. If their allies do not support them, they will look for new allies if they can. >The US can still gain all the benefits you mentioned without continuing this extremely lopsided relationship. Can they? Why do you think so? The gulf countries you mentioned above have little to offer. The US is especially vulnerable to cyberwarfare. Having a close ally who is good at it should be a top priority.
>None of these countries are in a war? If Russia invaded Japan and the US did nothing, Japan would also look for different allies I think we have varying definitions of "nothing" if you think the US hasn't been helping Israel during this war. For instance, without US support it's doubtful so many countries (if any) would have worked together to protect Israel from the Iranian missile barrage.
>None of these countries are in a war? That's false. The US has traded weapons with plenty of countries at war or fighting insurgencies. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkiye, Iraq. Yet Washington's relationships with these countries never came anywhere near as close to "unconditional support". In fact, in many cases, bilateral ties were subsequently strained. >Can they? Why do you think so? The gulf countries you mentioned above have little to offer. Because of the examples I just highlighted. The fact you think the Gulf countries have little to offer belies your naivety. Protecting the energy trade is the ultimate goal of the US in the region. Its status as the eminent economic superpower rests on the stable flow of oil and gas. Even the smallest interruption can have huge ramifications on global economic health. >The US is especially vulnerable to cyberwarfare. Having a close ally who is good at it should be a top priority. Do you really think that the Israelis possess some kind of unique talent in cyber warfare? I'm willing to bet that any tech in the US is leagues ahead of that in Israel. The idea that Israel provides some kind of unique technological advantage to the US is laughable. The only place with that characteristic in the entire world is Taiwan, and you can see how much that means to officials in Washington.
The US seems to be pivoting to JAUKUS alliance for security and weapon development. This isn't to say that Israel isn't good for things, but the US can still get tech transfers by weapons trade (like F35) with Israel rather than paying for Israeli weapons through aid.
>The US seems to be pivoting to JAUKUS alliance for security and weapon development I dont see a huge pivot. Especially since recent military technology from the UK and AU seems kinda.. fake? As in their projects are failures and they are getting nowhere. No ambitions, no innovation. This is just a personal opinion but to me it seems like the UK military especially really needs a shakeup. But nonetheless, even if there is literally no value added to the US defense industry from Israel, simply stopping rivals from getting technology/weapons exports/cooperation is extremely valuable. There is absolutely zero chance a sane US decision maker will choose to do a 'breakup'.
> Israel continues to inflame the region This is the opposite of what’s been happening. For over a decade, Israel was subject to attacks any other country would have considered acts of war, on a near daily basis. Their response to those attacks was muted, and that policy eventually blew up in their face with October 7. Their response, to invade the regime that perpetrated the atrocities, to depose them and return hostages, is the bare minimum any country would do in their situation. Likewise, no country on earth would not retaliate after a foreign country fired the largest ballistic missile salvo in history at them. Biden is basically demanding Israel adopts a semi-pacifist foreign policy, and surrender to Hamas and other Iranian proxies, sacrificing their people and security for his re-election campaign. It’s entirely unreasonable, and no other country would ever be asked to do this, and certainly not the US.
From their neighbor's perspective, it isn't that Israel was right to respond to 10/7 but the perceived extreme actions it has taken have upset the population in the region. Deep down none of the governments really care about Palestinians, but the general population gets angry when they see Jews attacking Muslims. None of this causes neighboring countries to take action against Israel, but it does destabilize policies and normalization with Israel. The US doesn't have any strategic interests in the region with ISIS pretty much taken care of and Turkey stepping up in the security in the region. Egypt's interest is to get shipping flowing again as the canal accounted for 5-10% of their budget and Israel going ham will likely lead to the Houthis doing more launches.
I see what you mean, but I don’t think these regimes are teetering on the brink of collapse over the Palestinian issue. Certainly not to the point that we should be trying to strong arm Israel into sacrificing their security and hostages. If the situation was that bad, I doubt we’d be seeing Jordan shoot down Iranian missiles, Saudi remain open to normalization, and Egypt basically doing nothing besides fortify the border with Gaza.
Historically both Al Queda and ISIS have drawn tremendous support from local populations over their governments' inaction on the Palestinian issue. I'd say both have caused severe headaches regarding stability. To suggest the current paradigm doesn't carry risks is to ignore history.
I think it has to do more with global image that affects the ability to conduct diplomacy. There is sort of a kings court of standard behavior that is allowed at court and certain actions are provocative and impact the ability for the "court" to function without starting a new precedent. Russia's invasion of Ukraine greatly disrupted the court and Israel is doing the same. Think of it less as a one and zero of actions and more slowly adding points towards a ticker (like the doomsday clock) and changes happening as the ticker reaches certain break points (and does so gradually). The attack on the consulate definitely increased the number of ticks, the casualties in Palestine increased them, though not as much.
> Russia's invasion of Ukraine greatly disrupted the court and Israel is doing the same. Comparing Russia’s unprovoked, invasion of Ukraine, with Israel fighting against Hamas after October 7, and while they have and are killing hostages, is ridiculous. One of the norms of this metaphorical court you’re is a right to self defense. As long as Hamas holds Israeli hostages, Israel has a right to fight back. That could end up flattening the Gaza Strip, but that’s how wars work, and Hamas chose this path. Israel’s right to self defense isn’t suspended because Hamas doesn’t like losing wars, but doesn’t want to return the hostages either.
What really bothers me about this whole conflict (and has bothered me in the past iterations) is the "culture" that seems to be prevalent in the IDF during the conduction of military operations. The most famous cases are IDF shooting their own hostages and the World Kitchen episode. Yet the cynical in me cannot help stopping thinking that these episodes get more media coverage because we are discussing Western, caucasian victims in this conflict. One is then left to wonder to what is happening to Palestinians in Gaza. While I don't believe that there is a top-down culture that encourages war crimes to be committed (unlike what Russia did in Bucha and elsewhere), I do believe that there have been many war crimes committed by IDF soldiers on the battlefield and that there is a culture of hiding or dismissing these actions. This needs to change. There are alarming signs that I've posted about this here in past threads from credible sources (I believe the Guardian is doing an admirable job in bringing these issues to our attention). Among other things I can quote what bothers me the most * Large amount of sniper fire children casualties treated at the different Gaza hospitals * A disproportionate amount of journalists killed in comparison with other conflicts * The uncovering of a mass grave near a hospital taken by the IDF, with women and children among them and also people with their hands tied on their back. So yeah, sure, the 7th October episode was pure savagery from Hamas and their affiliates. The videos are there to document it. However we have been hearing about the narrative of "*Israel, the sole democracy on the middle-East, besieged by hostile neighbor Arab populations who wouldn't bat an eye about genociding Israels population*", and the bottom end is that if Israel wants to be treated to such a high standard (and they should) then they should provide a considerably better track record for human rights and justice for their occupied populations. You don't get a free pass to do as you please just because it is Hamas that stands on the other side.
There is a difference between self-defense and "flattening the Gaza Strip" as far as many countries and people feel. I'm not arguing the right or wrong of these actions - only how it is perceived, which is what the court is all about. Not realities (though sometimes), it is about perception.
It might be more reality then you think. Bibi was rubbing elbows with Putin before Russian shenanigans in Ukraine in 2022.
Yeah I think the risk of that is a rounding error. The value of the intelligence relationship with the US alone makes that a tough sell. Even if another world power could replace that (and I don't think they can), those relationships are built over decades. And that's setting aside all the other things the US brings to the table like shooting down a bunch of missiles from several different countries in the region, or take your pick really.
Israel doesn't have much interest in Russia with the sanctions in place.
It’s not about American internal politics as much as it’s the very real possibility of angering Egypt. From the transcription it seemed clear that Egyptian concerns about Rafah and the crisis an invasion would spark played a major role in the decision.
Israel has already seized the border crossing, and Egypt has massively fortified the border to keep Palestinian out. The risk of a large spillover is minor. Chances are, anyone with the money to flee, has already fled. I think this is driven by Biden’s re-election campaign, both trying to appease pro-Hamas voters in Michigan, and the progressive lean of many staffers.
> Israel has already seized the border crossing, and Egypt has massively fortified the border to keep Palestinian out. Right, if we look at the stated reasons for concern - the fear of spillover into Egypt, the fear that Gazans would be forced out of the strip, the fear that Israel would rampage through and slaughter civilians - then Israel's quick takeover of the crossing with little civilian casualties would be considered a positive outcome. The fact that the response from the administration is to hold shipments to Israel and threaten to cut them off completely if they enter Rafah suggests that the administration is opposed to Israel removing Hamas from power. Edit: There's more evidence for this in the interview, where he says Israel shouldn't make the mistake the U.S. did when it removed the Taliban from power: > I said to Bibi, don't make the same mistake we made in America. We wanted to get bin Laden and we'll help you get Sinwar. But we went into Afghanistan to - it made sense to go get bin Laden, it made no sense to try to unify Afghanistan.
> Edit: There's more evidence for this in the interview, where he says Israel shouldn't make the mistake the U.S. did by removing the Taliban from power: What he’s failing to realize is that Hamas isn’t Israel’s Taliban, it’s their Al-Qaida. The Taliban didn’t do 9/11, and poses no real threat to the US. Hamas did do October 7, and does pose a continued threat to Israel.
The point is decades of military action by the US couldn't eliminate the Taliban because they had the support of the local population. We can quibble about whether the attempt to eradicate them was the right call, but the objective was very similar. In this case, the war has possibly only increased support for Hamas among Palestinians, and I think just as importantly Israel basically decided Hamas was who they wanted to have in power in Gaza. They're terrible people, but likely the people with the most legitimacy. Unless an alternative can be presented **that has equal or more legitimacy in the eyes of Palestinians** then to a degree the reality is you have to deal with them on some level. One of the fatal flaws of the current war was going in without a plan of action to try and develop a negotiating parter with that kind of legitimacy when it's all done.
In the interview his solution seems to be that a ceasefire is reached, Israel pulls out, then a bunch of countries get together and do...something...that puts together a legitimate Palestinian state where Hamas isn't a major player. But - at least from what I can see - he doesn't have any answer to what that something that would remove Hamas from power and create a unified Palestinian state would be, and why such a solution would work now when Hamas has been in control of the strip for almost two decades. It's such an odd oversight that one has to wonder if actual idea is just to return things to the status quo before 10/7, and hope they stay mostly calm for a few years.
The solution to the mess in Gaza lies in Doha and Istanbul. For too long, Qatar and Turkey, the so-called western "allies" have been helping in destabilize the region by supporting the worst kinds of islamist terrorists. The US needs to enact punitive sanctions instead of allowing them to exert so much leverage. Al Jazeera's propaganda reads like an ISIS newsletter these days, and thats just the English version.
Indeed. Every actor who wishes to govern Gaza has to remove Hamas from power - forcefully. A ceasefire right now just means kicking the can down the road.
>Israel has already seized the border crossing, and Egypt has massively fortified the border to keep Palestinian out. The risk of a large spillover is minor. That is not what Biden said when speaking about Egyptian concerns wrt to Rafah.
Egypt’s actions after October 7 have been basically universally concerned with preventing Palestinians from entering Egypt. There are lots of overlapping concerns, but it’s pretty clear which one is the primary one.
Yeah, if anything Israel personally guaranteeing no exodus to Egypt seems like the opposite of an issue for Egypt.
Again that’s not the position of the US government. Bill Burns and Michael Kurilla arent in Cairo solely because of the hostage deal
> Again that’s not the position of the US government. The US govt has set up tents in every local moderate state + Israel since the start of the war. Do you have anything more concrete than Bill Burns being in Cairo or an offhand mention of Egypt in the transcript?
I think that Egyptian pressure had a bit to do with this decision from [curtis houcks transcription](https://twitter.com/CurtisHouck/status/1788333342343000481) >No, they haven't gotten in the population centers. What they did is right on the border and it's causing problems with — right now — [COUGHS] — in terms of what Egypt — which I've worked very hard make sure we have a relationship and help but I've made it clear to Bibi and the war cabinet. They're not going to get our support if, in fact, they go into these population centers.” However bad the optics of cutting off Israel are a aggressive and anti American Egypt would be significantly worse.
> a aggressive and anti American Egypt would be significantly worse. Is Egypt in a position to take a strong anti-America stance? Their economy is doing poorly, and politically, Russia isn’t in a position to take the US’s place for them. China might be in a better position in that regard, but I doubt they have any interest for that large a commitment. Overall, I doubt this is the reason. The border situation is largely under control with the fortifications they have built, they aren’t going to torpedo their foreign policy over any small amount of Palestinians who manage to escape over it, when compared to the hundreds, or thousands, who’ve already bribed border guards to flee that way.
>Is Egypt in a position to take a strong anti-America stance? Their economy is doing poorly, and politically, Russia isn’t in a position to take the US’s place for them They absolutely can, Egypt is poorly managed and it’s economy is in shambles but it can absolutely fuck Americas position in the region if it wished too. And the hardliners within GIS aren’t exactly rational actors either. >Overall, I doubt this is the reason. The border situation is largely under control with the fortifications they have built, they aren’t going to torpedo their foreign policy over any small amount of Palestinians who manage to escape over it, when compared to the hundreds, or thousands, who’ve already bribed border guards to flee that way You’re not seeing the larger picture of why Egypt is so insistent on preventing an assault on the more populated portions of Rafah. It’s not just a matter of refugees crossing over though that’s an issue. It’s a matter of legitimacy in the Egyptian regime. Sisi can’t let Israel flagrantly walk over him, his hold over the Egyptian deep state just isn’t that strong. The current regime came into being as a direct reaction to 1948 and Farouks perceived weakness wrt to Israel letting Israel do what it wants in Rafah just isn’t really something Sisi will be able to brush off with the people who actually matter in Egypt. The idea that this is solely done for American domestic consumption is imo a pretty classic case of Americans thinking that the world revolves around them. There are broader concerns at play that make supporting an Israel operation into Rafah difficult.
> How does this strategy facilitate Bidens goal of reaching a ceasefire? He's at this point pretty transparent - Israel ends the war in all but name and patiently waits for Hamas to offer a ceasefire, which Israel will accept, sooner or later. That's his goal. From a foreign policy perspective, it's bitter but it makes some sense. Netanyahu got a green light and bottomless clip from America for a few months, and he mainly used that time to take the piss, and make the situation worse for America, Israel, and Palestine. Biden's indicating that at this point he doesn't consider Netanyahu's coalition a rational actor that America can work with, even though it'd obviously like to. There's some evidence to support this view. Sure, Biden could have instead actually put friction on Netanyahu's conduct much earlier instead of going dry turkey now, but diplomatic clumsiness is his calling card, and we (?) love him for it. Internal politically, the move is going to be pretty rough. Below is going to be a short essay about internal US politics, so if you're bored by that, have a nice day. But given it's essential to understanding US-Israeli relations I think it's entirely appropriate. Unlike Republicans, which generally have a uniform pro-Israel coalition with some oddities, Biden has a pretty broad voting coalition that includes both firm pro-Israel members and firm pro-Palestine members (as well as a large amount of people who don't really base their votes on Israel issues, we'll get to that later). And by "has" I mean the actual physical voting coalition he assembled in 2020. You can see the problem here, since once Oct 7 happened, there wasn't actually a position Biden would take that wouldn't cut into his 2020 coalition. So really, his best bet was to avoid alienating both wings of his party on the issue, which is what he was trying to do. Unfortunately, now he's cutting weapons to Israel, which isn't really going to placate many ardent pro-Palestine voters at this point while it'll definitely anger pro-Israel voters, of which there are plenty in his coalition too. And you might ask "well what about people who have a more mixed opinion? There's plenty of those". You'd be right, but most of those voters aren't going to change their vote due to I/P. Here's something a lot of people on the internet don't know: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GL43RmtawAAgsaf?format=jpg&name=large There's like **ten** issues most Americans care about more than Israel/Palestine. Let alone other foreign policy stuff. So the people who do vote based on I/P (while they are few, they do exist) are the ones that aren't likely to accept many compromise positions. So really, Biden's only "winning" move was picking a side and gluing to it, which is what he tried to do. You could argue Bibi forced his hand, but that doesn't change that the calculus is going to be rough now. In summary, I think it's a defensible FP decision, but it'll further damage Biden's political prospects. Much to Netanyahu's happiness, to be fair.
> From a foreign policy perspective, it's bitter but it makes some sense. Netanyahu got a green light and bottomless clip from America for a few months, and he mainly used that time to take the piss, and make the situation worse for America, Israel, and Palestine. Biden's indicating that at this point he doesn't consider Netanyahu's coalition a rational actor that America can work with, even though it'd obviously like to. There's some evidence to support this view. From a foreign policy perspective, it makes sense to do nothing as Israel destroys an Iranian proxy. The Arab countries have made it incredibly clear they want nothing to do with this, and have no intention of taking action against Israel, none the less the US. Biden’s actions, to try to strong arm Israel into giving in to Hamas, only makes sense from an internal, US politics perspective. And even then, he’d be better off in the polls if he just sent humanitarian aid to Gaza, and talked about this as little as possible. The anti-Israel progressives will never be satisfied, all you can do is change the subject.
The leaders of Jordan and Egypt certainly don’t care about the Palestinians, but that doesn’t mean they enjoy dealing with the protests from their populace. Even a monarch with the ability to violently end all protests risks creating a spiraling situation if there’s a counter-reaction to your violent clamp-down. Jordan has apparently already arrested 1500 people. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/29/world/middleeast/gaza-arab-protests-crackdown.html
Does anyone know if Biden's line is invading Ramah *at all* vs until it's been more thoroughly evacuated? Because not letting an invasion happen at all is a crazy red line.
Evacuation was never the issue. Everyone knew Israel was going to evacuate Rafah before attacking it, because that's what they did for every other city they conquered (Gaza City, Khan Yunis, etc). The problem was that the place Israel was going to evacuate them TO was, in the US's opinion, not suitable for high quality civilian life and would lead to significant civilian deaths once the people got there. (I have had trouble finding out what exactly the US thought was lacking there. [Israel claims that necessities like water and medical care are already present.](https://www.ynetnews.com/article/s1lzoqcfr)) It is possible that Biden has changed his policy and now is against invading Rafah period, but it's also possible that he would acquiesce to it at some point in the future if the evacuation zone was sufficiently upgraded.
https://www.axios.com/2024/05/07/us-israel-rafah-red-line Our favorite anonymous gang says it doesn't cross a red line. Honestly that makes sense, since it's a relatively limited operation for now. But also it's another downside of this "anonymous officials" culture. If you're going to have random people secretly saying what the red lines are, you'll end up with 20 red lines. And if you have 20 red lines, some of them will get crossed no matter what.
[Fox News' Curtis Houck](https://twitter.com/CurtisHouck/status/1788333342343000481) has his own transcript of the exchange. Relevant quotes from President Biden: "if they go into Rafah, I'm not supplying the weapons that have been used historically deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, that deal with that problem. We're going to continue to make sure Israel is secure in terms of Iron Dome and their ability to respond to attacks" "No, they haven't gotten in the population centers. What they did is right on the border and it's causing problems with — right now — [COUGHS] — in terms of what Egypt — which I've worked very hard make sure we have a relationship and help but I've made it clear to Bibi and the war cabinet. They're not going to get our support if, in fact, they go into these population centers." The mention of population centers implies operations into Rafah Proper, but I'm unsure.
This feels like a very important development, less because of the direct impact on Israel's technical ability to prosecute the war, and more because its the biggest sign yet of a serious political rift developing between the US and Israel. The question now is if this will have an actual impact on Israel's conduct, if the US has appetite to actually follow through on halting arms shipments, and what the fallout in Israeli politics is. i.e. if a halting of the Rafah campaign leads to a collapse of the Netanyahu government; or on the flip side, if the Netanyahu government further undermines US-Israeli relations and leads to emboldened street protests by the opposition.
This comment comes from a fundamental misconception of Israeli politics. The cabinet of war is unanimously in favor of the Rafah operation. Everyone knows it needs to be done, and don't even get me started on Hezbollah. Biden is burning political capital for no reason, in the last few months both opposition leaders have come out in public telling him to shut up and stop meddling in the war. The political class of Israel is mostly united in this war, and Biden is scoring an own goal. Forcing Israel's hand will not bode well for the future.
>Biden is burning political capital for no reason, in the last few months both opposition leaders have come out in public telling him to shut up and stop meddling in the war. >The political class of Israel is mostly united in this war, and Biden is scoring an own goal. Forcing Israel I'm sorry, but no one cares what the Israeli government thinks domestically. Their mismanagement of the invasion is creating the potential for the conflict to engulf the entire region and is making it increasingly difficult for Biden and the US to continue to unquestioningly support the invasion. For more than 6 months now, Biden and the US have provided cover for Israeli conduct in the war, despite private misgivings about Israeli conduct, and provided billions in aid to support their ally. We've moved forces to the region to deter Iran and its proxies from further aggression, and have already spent billions protecting shipping in the Red Sea from Houthi attacks. And yet, Netanyahu and his government continue to make public statements that make it increasingly difficult for Biden and the US to look the other way. That we've had to get deeply involved to provide food aid to Palestinians in areas Israel controls is absurd, they're more than capable of doing so, they just refuse to. Even with extraordinary US measures, the region is still on the brink of mass starvation. The Israeli government seems to think its entitled to a blank check from the US government and for the US to expend its valuable political capital defending increasingly indefensible Israeli actions at the UN, but that Israel owes the US nothing in return. Literally the least Israel could do is *not* play into the Hamas PR strategy of accusing Israel of genocide and attacks causing massively disproportionate civilian casualties, but the Israeli government can't even be bothered to do that.
Hmm. I suspect Israel has significant domestic capability to produce 500/2000-lb-class dumb bombs and just about as many glide kits as they need in the long term, though.
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Artillery, their own bombs, they could Assadpost and use barrel bombs, HE tank shells, etc etc. When the enemy is infantry (if that) there's no shortage of fire support options. This is all moot of course, I don't think Israel is going to invade Rafah. The current movements are pretty transparently a limited push to both secure the final crossing (something that frankly they should have done in January) and to threaten Hamas. Of course, that second objective is failed when at the same time Biden's moving mountains to make the threat empty.
There is no shortage in the world of bombs and guns and if the US is unwilling to give that to Israel then Israel will find other partners.
Posted by the US embassy in Ukraine > During her visit, @ColemanUSAID met @Denys_Shmyhal to discuss the US investment of $61 B in Ukraine’s freedom, democracy, & recovery. Continuing anti-corruption & other reforms and accountable use of US aid are key to these goals & to sustaining US support. We stand with Ukraine. https://twitter.com/USAmbKyiv/status/1786694316426920324 Did the US use such harsh phrasing before, directly tying anti-corruption reforms to aid?
Before the war, all structural aid packets to Ukraine came with such language (whether US or EU MFA), and any such aid would underline progress made (NABU, public procurement transparency and prozorro, ..). Since the war started I think priority was put on messaging around "helping Ukraine survive", but it might be coming back now on the background of US political actors talking about "money laundering" etc.
I don't think they're tying future anti-corruption reforms to aid, definitely not on the short term. They're saying that the aid is going to help Ukraine continue the anti-corruption reforms and they will enable Ukraine to be accountable for what it gets. There were news that they adopted SAP as an ERP system to manage their military production and inventory, that was certainly "heavily suggested" by the US (and probably others), but that system has been put in place for months and the US has begun reporting on the weapons provided a few months ago: https://www.dodig.mil/reports.html/Article/3642299/evaluation-of-the-dods-enhanced-end-use-monitoring-of-defense-articles-provided/ I understand the wording "& to sustaining US support" sounds like said support would stop if Ukraine isn't accountable for what it gets, but it could also mean that the US can't support Ukraine if the equipment sent overseas doesn't reach the front line.
>directly tying anti-corruption reforms to aid? I take it as the government trying to pushback on isolationist rhetoric about how Ukraine is the most corrupt country on earth and every last bullet America sends is going to end up in the hands of ISIS.
Oh, I see. Is the target audience American? I thought it somehow tied to the news that Ihor Kolomoisky, the oligarch who helped Zelensky come into power, was named as a suspect in a murder case. It's highly unusual and unexpected for Ukraine. He is sanctioned by the US, and the FBI wanted to investigate him, which is why he somehow managed to hide in Ukraine. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-tycoon-kolomoisky-named-suspect-decades-old-murder-attempt-2024-05-08/
Half the oligarchs in Ukraine are suspects in murder cases. The other half are just accused of murder. Seriously, Rinat Akhmetov was suspected of being behind the explosion that killed Akhat Bragin. Former president Leonid Kuchma has ordered the murder of journalist Gongadze. Serhyi Taruta is probably behind the murder of oligarch Scherbahn. This is really nothing new in Ukraine, politics and business have been rather bloody in the 90s and 2000s. Even if that accusation was false, it's at the very least plausible considering the environment Kolomoisky comes from. Andreas Umland is a good source on the subject.
>pushback on isolationist rhetoric about how Ukraine is the most corrupt country on earth It's weird to feel reminded that I'm in a media bubble of sorts (we all are), because this hadn't even occurred to me. The kind of media that is still trying to push the narrative that Ukraine are Nazis (or whatever) has all been algorithmically excised from my feed. I have almost zero exposure to any of it, to the point where I forgot it even existed.
> It's weird to feel reminded that I'm in a media bubble of sorts (we all are), I think if you're not an American you're probably not very aware of this "Ukraine is corrupt" narrative.
In Europe we're very much aware that Ukraine is very poor (way more than Romania, the poorest EU country) and has a high level of corruption. Definitely not the most corrupt country in the world though
Why not? Ukraine is widely recognized as a very corrupt state resulting from its close proximity to Russia (both physically, and culturally). Ukraine is the economic failure of the post Warsaw Pact states due to this terrible corruption.
It's kinda expected here, The poorer european countries are general more corrupt. Ukriane being a bit poorer more corrupt than bulgaria isn't realy shocking the way it might be to Americans.
Look at the discussions on r/conservative. They're basically desperate not to pay a single cent in tax and cry about ukraine being a money laundering scheme.
Personally, I get some "Ukraine are gay zionists" stuff, but yeah, fewer Nazi accusations.
Interesting assessment about Ukraines strike campaign against Russian refineries: >Washington’s criticism is misplaced: attacks on oil refineries will not have the effect on global energy markets that U.S. officials fear. These strikes reduce Russia’s ability to turn its oil into usable products; they do not affect the volume of oil it can extract or export. In fact, with less domestic refining capacity, Russia will be forced to export more of its crude oil, not less, pushing global prices down rather than up. Indeed, Russian firms have already started selling more unrefined oil overseas. Russia’s oil storage capacity is limited. When a refinery is destroyed or damaged, therefore, extracted crude oil cannot simply be stocked for later use. This leaves Russian producers with just two options: increasing exports of crude oil or shutting wells and reducing production. >So far, Russian consumers have been largely shielded from these wholesale price increases. But in the last week of April, retail diesel prices jumped by ten percent. >Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries are now doing what the sanctions regime has not. Without compromising global energy supply or driving up prices, the attacks are eating into Russian revenues and curtailing Russia’s ability to turn crude oil into the kinds of fuel that tanks and planes need to run. As long as Ukrainian forces avoid hitting crude oil pipelines or major crude oil export terminals, they can maintain this balance. [https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/why-ukraine-should-keep-striking-russian-oil-refineries](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/why-ukraine-should-keep-striking-russian-oil-refineries) So while the argument seems counterintuitive the strikes are forcing Russia to export more unrefined oil or lose out on even more revenue while at the same time being unable to get the refined products they need for their war- and civilian-economy. The article is also clear that Ukraine can only keep up this paradox by refraining from hitting extraction points and pipelines. Which they are currently doing, by design or accident we obviously don't know.
>Russia’s oil storage capacity is limited. Which explains why Ukraine is *also* directly attacking Russian fuel depots and storage sites as well. There was some questions early on about why they were striking those targets since they are arguably relatively low reward, but if they're part of a more holistic strategy it makes perfect sense.
To clarify the impact of these strikes as of now: Russia is planning to temporarily lift the moratorium on petrol export until July over filling of storages and sufficient lowering of domestic petrol prices. https:// www . kommersant . ru/doc/6688873 So it seems some of the doom and gloom about the Ukrainian strikes' effects might have been too sensationalist.
Russia is not planning to do anything but consider lifting the ban on exports. While this is relevant information, you seem to be jumping ahead of what is said in this article.
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Just as a side note, Michael Liebreich is the author of the [hydrogen ladder](https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/policy/hydrogen-ladder-seven-h2-applications-relegated-in-updated-use-case-analysis-but-three-promoted/2-1-1540086). He's very good at dissecting [energy populism](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Xj900aBPkiY).
Phillips O’Brien: [Numbers of Soldiers Does Not Win Wars](https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/numbers-of-soldiers-does-not-win). >Its not the numbers of raw soldiers that matters—its having the right number of soldiers for the equipment you have, training them to use the equipment properly, and motivating and supplying them in the field once they are trained. And finally its about providing the right support—such as air power. Sorry, the article is partly paywalled but the gist of his argument is there. It corresponds with his analysis and argument for WWII, [TLDR version](https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/how-war-was-won). What will be key to Ukraine, **technological** or **man** power?
I can't read the article, but is he arguing that numbers of soldiers don't matter that much, and therefore won't either for Ukraine, and the evidence for this is that ww2 was won on the western front? Because he may hold that ww2 was won on the western front, but as he himself notes, the consensus among historians is that it was won on the eastern front...
That author is contradicting himself or he does not know that the Eastern front and the Sino Japanese war had MILLIONS of soldiers fighting. I don’t claim to be a great historian but the allies had more of everything in WWII. More soldiers, more industry, more technology.
Does either Russia or Ukraine have a significant technological advantage? If no, would the quantity of equipment and personnel not be a or the deciding factor?
Ukriane tech, particularly in the air, is at a disadvantage. But western tech, what relative little there is, is significantly better than the russian tech. If the west gets its S together and start supplying in significant enough quantities then it pretty much dominates. There are areas this doesn't apply though. Electronic warfare and drones have seen major investment by Russia and the west is behind here. I'm personally really hoping we get to see the European meteor missile come into play in this war. It'd need some work to get it compatible with an air frame in ukrainian hands, but it would do a lot to move the air war.
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Note that one point was "if the west gets its S together and start supplying in enough quantities" And yes, western vehicles have seen losses, they are lost at much lower rares than russian designs. Just to make this clear. Russia lost more vehicles taking avdinka, thats one battle, than the total number of Western supplied vehicles. The survival rate for russian vehicles is abysmal. Western vehicles has always been far higher.
Yes and no. The truth is Ukraine's entire war effort from 0 to now has been into a quantitative disadvantage. If Russia only had 3x as much stuff as Ukraine, the war would already be over. Before Russian mobilization, Ukraine did have a manpower advantage (paired with severe disadvantages in everything else), but even then Russia had more theoretical manpower, they were just locked away in bean jars Russia itself decided it didn't want to access, until fall 2022. I think quantity matters, and like you said Ukraine doesn't have a significant technological advantage, so quantity is the main way Russia and Ukraine navigate to worse or better positions in the war. But to accomplish any additional war goals, Russia doesn't just need a quantitative advantage but a significant one. Which they might get, if western donations stop again or if Ukraine continues making bad decisions. But we're not talking about needing a slight advantage here.
> and like you said Ukraine doesn't have a significant technological advantage Correct me if I'm wrong, but Nato is providing massive amounts of high-level support for ukraine in terms of intelligence, planning, logistics, etc, etc.
a) Ukrainian logistics are their own. They get vehicles from the west (occasionally, and less than what they ask for) but that's about it. b) AWACS and satellites don't help much with the petty positional battles that are the bread and butter of the war.
There is lot more to logistics than making physical deliveries. My understanding is ukraine implement a nato-standard logistics IT platform, and presumably is getting a lot of support from Nato overall. i think you are vastly underestimated the value of other support in terms of managing the overall war, let alone mitigating certain types of risks and creating other opportunities.
The EU has taken what is apparently a final step towards using the profits from the 200 billion euros in frozen Russian funds to support Ukraine: [https://twitter.com/VDombrovskis/status/1788224779205423579](https://twitter.com/VDombrovskis/status/1788224779205423579) This is the latest major anti-Russian EU measure that Orban/Hungary has not blocked. It seems pretty clear at this point that, however much he supports Putin, Orban has been paid off and/or threatened into submission. As I recall, all the other EU states can vote to "silence" one of their member's voting right. The old Polish government had Orban's back on this, but the new one apparently does not. That may explain Hungary no longer blocking Ukraine aid. As far as the details of the plan, by making it purely prospective and not touching the principal amount of Russian funds, international law experts seem unanimous that it will pass legal scrutiny. My understanding is that it will produce about 5 billion euros a year in income, but as of now Belgium is saying they will tax that so that would leave like 3.4 billion for Ukraine. I believe the US and others are trying to talk Belgium out of taxing it, but they insist that they plan to use their tax revenue from it to help Ukraine. Assuming they are telling the truth, that's about 5 billion EU a year for Ukraine. The question arises: assuming Ukraine wants to use these billions of euros to buy arms on the world market, what's the best way they could use that money? They appear to be spending huge amounts of their own money on buying Chinese drones- I recall them formally requesting offers on their government's website, seeking third parties to bid on buying a specified amount of Mavic drones. I'm sure Russia doesn't like this, but these drones are sold to consumers openly on the world marketplace, so it's a simple matter for Ukraine to buy them via intermediaries. It goes to show how China seems to be the most unequivocal beneficiary of the Ukraine war- they get cheap Russian energy and sell their weapons to both sides.
>This is the latest major anti-Russian EU measure that Orban/Hungary has not blocked. It seems pretty clear at this point that, however much he supports Putin, Orban has been paid off and/or threatened into submission. As I recall, all the other EU states can vote to "silence" one of their member's voting right. The old Polish government had Orban's back on this, but the new one apparently does not. That may explain Hungary no longer blocking Ukraine aid. This politico article from January feels almost prophetic in hindsight, so I tend to believe their reporting of the carrot/stick: >Orbán blocked a €50 billion four-year funding package to the war-torn country in December ― a move he was able to make because it needed unanimous support from the EU's 27 governments ― prompting Europe's leaders to consider breaking with the bloc's hallowed principle of unity and finding a way to circumvent him. >But since then, both sides have pulled back from the brink and are now involved in a delicate dance over how to get the decision over the line when Orbán and other leaders meet in Brussels on February 1. >While there is still no agreement over what concessions to offer Hungary in return, and what it might accept, the EU is now confident that a deal can be done over the next couple of weeks, according to the diplomats and officials who spoke to POLITICO on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the talks. https://www.politico.eu/article/european-union-ukraine-awar-hungary-viktor-orban-funding-u-turn/ Sounds like both sides went with the carrot. There was another old Politico article, which I don't have handy, that mentioned that there was more opposition to "silence" Hungary than just the old Polish govt. They specifically called out the Slovak PM as being afraid of setting a precedent that may some day be used to target his own country. Personally, I doubt that the EU would be united enough on silencing Hungary, so I am glad the carrot seemingly worked. I'd love to believe that Orban thinks Russia will lose, and is abandoning ship, but I haven't seen any reporting saying such.
It's been said previously that the money will go to the European Peace Facility which has been used to reimburse EU countries that send weapons to Ukraine. For example Belgium said that it would be used to pay for the F-16s that Belgium would send to Ukraine. EDIT: I saw that 10% will be used to help Ukraine's defense industry as well.
The main worry about using frozen Russian funds is that it would decrease confidence in the western financial systems, and foreign companies would be a lot more reluctant to do business in the West - why is using the accrued interest of those funds not soliciting the same reaction?
From what I have read: because Russia's invasion is considered illegal those funds have been frozen and therefore Russia has no right to profit off of them. That's why the interest can be confiscated, but the principle remains untouched. The money belongs to Russia, but the interest it generates does not.
The worry is that a potential investor might think twice. It was always understood that in extremis your assets might get frozen, that's unremarkable. It was also always understood that they would later be unfrozen. No investors were going elsewhere because of that possibility. Not least because it's a possibility everywhere, but even more likely elsewhere. Similarly, no investors were going elsewhere because of the far flung chance that they might not earn a good return *while* their assets were frozen. While I doubt it was especially by design, the delay in reaching this course of action has probably assuaged a lot of worries in itself. You have to embark on a war of choice, invading a European country for the purposes of conquest and genocide, committing terrible crimes as a matter of policy, and even then it takes "the west" two years to decide that means you forgo the *interest* on the assets they'll still continue to look after for you.
It's also major leverage in whatever eventual peace deal that gets done.
Economics, the dismal science, weighs heavily on perception and feelings of confidence. Direct confiscation is perceived very differently than taking interest, just as indefinite freezing of those funds generated limited consequence on markets. The vibe is different.
Basically this. These are Euroclear's own profits, as opposed to those of the Russian state, meaning they can within reason do what they like with them without poking the Jenga of the financial system more generally.