That "Topic A-B-..." thing reminds me of an anecdotal story that happened to my student fellow when we studied our first year in the University (Physics department).
There was an exam on "Culture and art" subject. Not particularly important for future physicists and engineers, so we only could got a binary "pass/fail" mark on that exam. My friend was mid-to-low grader, not really keen to learn all that cultural stuff, and he was somewhat worried about passing it.
But he practiced martial arts, so when he got a question ticket on Japanese culture, his smile got wider than his face and he started talking with inspiration:
- As you know, there was [...some random fascinating fact about Japan...]
- Ugh, I'm actually not an expert regarding Japanese culture, so I'm not really aware... , - said the teacher.
- Well then, let me tell you more! - shined my friend and proceeded with his favourite topic.
Needless to say, he passed the exam. Of course, he was lucky to get his "Topic J" he knew well and the teacher didn't.
What I want to know (instead of all this ^ ) is will Ukraine be able to keep fighting now that Trump has cut support. If so, for how long? How deep does the betrayal go? Has the US simply become “neutral”? Or are they actively on Russia’s side? For example will Starlink be cut? Or will the US start providing intelligence and targeting info to Russia?
How long? Probably the rest of this year at least if European support continues. Maybe beyond if European support increases. That's if Russia doesn't fold beforehand.
US Neutral? Maybe in the long term but short term we're not there yet. Even idiot decisions take time to make.
Actively on Russia's side? Highly unlikely There is a big difference between enabling Russian aggression and actively supplying and resourcing that aggression.
I’m concerned that Trump will ease the sanctions against Russia. Perhaps Ukraine can offset that risk by hitting more refineries and petroleum storage sites.
I am seeing some pushback against Trump's personal vendetta against Zelensky. Several Republican senators are pushing back against Trump false claim that Ukraine started the war, and conservative outlets controlled by Murdoch are also pushing back - they are clearly labeling Putin as a dangerous autocrat. So altho the news from Washington is very depressing, there are some glimmers of hope. Trump will not change, but he can be constrained.
Putin as dangerous autocrat? How about Trump? On the way to becoming an autocrat, but already dangerous. Trump will not be constrained. He's a bully. He has to be stopped. Yes, I am referring to impeachment and removal after a Senate trial. Same with Vance. First, the Speaker of the House needs to be removed from office by Congressional vote. A replacement for Mike Johnson, who would make an acceptable President to both political parties, needs to be arranged first. The final action is to trash that worthless Cabinet, the lot of them! Unfortunately, I don't see this happening any time soon.
In the mean time ....
F*ck the Republicans (not just the Senators)! The non-MAGA Republicans have enabled Trump by making a deal with Trump and his MAGA-Republicans (about 40% of the party) to keep the Republican Party in power or to dominate U.S. politics right now. Had they rejected Trumpism and ejected the MAGA Republicans from influence and power, the Democrats might have prevailed, but the U.S. Constitution would not have been put at risk. I dislike the Dem Party; I am no supporter of their social engineering, but I abhor the Republican Party as it is. The Republican Party hurt the nation whom they supposedly support just to keep the Democrats from winning. Political party over country. How disgusting. I am sorry to say this, but I see shades of some kind of Hitler-redux, even if not literally so.
*********************************************
Monday, September 17, 1787:
Benjamin Franklin's response to Elizabeth Willing Powel's question: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
*********************************************
The only thing needing change to make it applicable to today: replace "monarchy" with "dictatorship," or "autocracy," or "oligarchy, or "kleptocracy," or all four words.
"A replacement for Mike Johnson, who would make an acceptable President to both political parties, needs to be arranged first."
Oh, oh, and who would THAT be? I would offer my services, of course, but there are slight problems with that. But other than my obvious candidature, can you name such a glorious leader? Because it's a great plan, but it sounds exactly like "first, we need a contact with extraterrestrials, and THEN it's easy!"
How could the need to contact extraterrestrials be considered wacky? After all President Daffy Duck is in office so anything is possible now! **LOL**
I haven't the slightest idea who, Republican or Democrat, could be put into the Speaker of the House's job, and who would also make an acceptable (forget great at this point) President of the United States.
I wrote my aforementioned post earlier in my day before my second cup of coffee's caffeine hit my blood stream. Hence, the cobwebs in my brain had not yet cleared away completely.
Right now in U.S. politics I do not think that we have a viable "glorious leader" candidate. I wouldn't mind seeing Kaja Kallas of Estonia as President of the United States. She is really intelligent (also, not bad looking). Unfortunately, there is a slight constitutional problem with this choice. **ROFLOL**
Then again there is the Australian (**LOL**) Tom Cooper as a potential presidential candidate. If so, then I also perceive that the air war over Ukraine's Donbas and Crimea could be resolved in Ukraine's favor expeditiously! I am sure in all of this there must be some pointedly Russian dark humor in the making.
*will Ukraine be able to keep fighting now that Trump has cut support*
Yes. American support, or lack of it, is not the greatest problem right now for Ukraine. Although it exacerbates other problems.
*If so, for how long?*
If nothing will change (I don't believe this) at least half a year. But realistically Europe will increase its actual support. If it'll happen, and if internal Ukrainian problems would be either resolved or delayed, then indefinitely.
*How deep does the betrayal go? Has the US simply become “neutral”? Or are they actively on Russia’s side?*
You overthink the situation. "US" has no side. Trump or Musk have no side. Trump doesn't have a side, a strategy, an adherence to any "side", he isn't "bought", you can't buy a cheat, he will take your money and forget that he promised anything, he doesn't have a plan. He immediately reacts, and he needs a fall guy, now that he understands that his previous plan of ending the war or any agreement with Putin has fallen apart.
He will blame Zelensky because there is simply no other scapegoat around. But it's not a policy. It's just a show to put the immediate blame for something off Trump himself. He does not care what would happen with Ukraine or Russia, once he will confirm, for his base, that he is not to blame and is, in fact, the greatest, he will lose interest and then follow the path of least resistance. It will take a couple of months, but it will happen. I think some kind of weapon sell program, to be paid for by future Ukraine and sinister Europeans, will be established where Trump will proudly display his "Greatest Deal for America". I may be wrong, Trump is chaotic, and events are very random, but there is no plan nor Trump wants Russia to win (or to lose).
*For example will Starlink be cut?*
That depends on Musk's particular psychological condition. And on Trump's random "ideas". Musk himself is not a "Russian asset", doesn't want Russia to win (or Ukraine to win), he is not about it. He is completely in the internal US politics now and won't want to change things he doesn't care about radically. Unless a random unpredictable situation will force him, Starlink will not change its behavior.
*Or will the US start providing intelligence and targeting info to Russia?*
Russia isn't interested in US intelligence (or "intelligence". Russia doesn't believe in US intelligence) or targeting. It gets its intelligence and targeting from Ukraine already and right people are getting good money out of it and stupid foreigners are not needed on this gravy train, thank you. If US would insist on providing Russia with intelligence, Russian intelligence services would fight it tooth and nail... Unless proper kickbacks to proper people would be implemented.
And Trump doesn't pay kickbacks. He takes them. So not a chance.
You're right on all points; trump will do whatever it takes to give the impression to his 35% base that he's really shaking things up, making changes they think is important. It's all performative with a lot of smoke and mirrors, but if they buy it like they always do, it's all good. Starving, sick Africans? Not with my taxes! Just don't expect to see a cent of savings spent here. Not much thought is given to what to cut or who to fire either, hence the chaotic nature of it all. Trumpismo has no central belief to guide by, other than give me money now, which is why he was so upset when Z didn't sign away the nation's wealth for nothing in return. Say Ukraine agrees to the one sided deal, what happens to this contract if Russia wins and they sell the minerals to China? Take Putin to court?
Let them have it Tom 👍. And keep letting them have it. Even if nothing is done, you called them out 🤷🏼♂️. Though personally, I hope something is done.
We can't keep going the way we're going. It's not working.
Can confirm the Topic A-B problem. I have....probably fewer books out than you do, and even more niche, self-published through Amazon bc the history of sabre fencing isn't a thing academics are able to review, without which write off even the possibility of a mainstream publisher.
The thing so many fail to grok with Trump et al., is that he's really easy to stop. All you'd have to be is competent or at least not-awful, and "the Trump Problem" goes away. Populist demagogues are like a weird fever that sets in when the political class shows itself so hopelessly inept that "business as usual" doesn't work for people any more. (and that's not an excuse for these guys -- it's a denunciation of the folks who've been opposing them)
Thanks Tom. Maybe I'm ahead of you and you'll write about this in detail later. There is also a commercial component to modern military incompetence. The magnates of the military-industrial complex produce products that are "profitable" to them, the generals they buy lobby for this superweapon theoretically, and politicians lobby for it legislatively. "Unprofitable" products (drones, etc.) were not a priority in these theories.
Of course. And they have it easy to do so, because the 'government' has no clue what an obsolete BS is it buying. Because of that professional military incompetence.
OK - I'm waiting for the payoff. You spent two posts talking about everyone ignoring the lessons from conflicts not widely covered by western establishments. When will you discuss those important lessons and how they apply to Ukraine specifically and the western armies and governments in general?
I seriously doubt any actual applicable lessons are to follow. Other than "all the human history is the competition between degrees of incompetence, and the one less incompetent usually wins unless other factors apply".
I've studied a couple of less-known wars, on my own, just as a curiosity, and was surprised how, despite great differences in particulars, the underlying theme of "both sides were incompetent to the extreme with brief flashes of brilliance and bumbled in the darkness or living in their own imaginable world right until stumbling to the inevitable conclusion of inevitable victory of the side less incompetent on average" repeated across all conflicts, both widely known and less known.
I'm not a cynic. I'm a realist. But I am definitely not a cynic. Cynicism, in my opinion, is self-defeating; a nation of cynics, especially if every cynic is for himself, is a nation that failed. Despite me realistically seeing people not in the best light, I am, if anything, romantic. I, nevertheless, believe in people. We have achieved a lot; historically, we have achieved greatness, and we did it, while remaining exactly the same as we are now. Delusional incompetent losers. :)
There were no other people who did great deeds of the past. Those were not otherworldly giants. Churchill, Roosevelt, Patton, Montgomery, Rommel, Napoleon, Newton - they all were bumbling myopic fools. They've overcome their foolishness and bumblingness, not alone bit with the help of others, who themselves weren't any better, and they achieved a lot;
We are no better, but we are no worse, it's just because we are so close, it is so easy for us to see our flaws. No matter; we will overcome and we will achieve. If not greatness, then at least C-. And the rest we will fake, like Rommel did. :)
I believe that the war in Ukraine eventually will reach a point where Ukrainians, Europeans and Americans will overcome mutual pigheadedness and push through to if not victory, than Ukraine's survival. All the way squealing like pigs and blaming each other. It's not as if Putin is going to leave us any other choice - he is not a great strategist either!
And, yep, it's always great to learn things. It's just that you need not to expect some great revelation; it rarely happens. :)
By the way, speaking of learning, I'm currently listening for Sarah Paine's lectures on Patel's channel. First time I've seen the woman. Her opinions are interesting.
Thank You for this assessment, it hits the points, and I do find some solace in hoping for the moment the US industrial complex sees its trade volume go down because of Trump. May they treat him accordingly.
I encountered the same barrier while looking for a publisher for my book on programming.
The major publishers want only narrowly-specialized "actionable" books that guide the reader stepwise through the topic. Anything deeper that concentrates on whys instead of hows and tries to show the big picture is non-starter. Especially if the author is not acclaimed.
Over the past 30 years programmers used "design patterns" - time-proven tricks that achieve given ends via some non-obvious means. I assert that those patterns can be sorted out in a system like the periodic table of chemistry, and prove that by expanding on above a hundred of patterns.
I remember design patterns from my Java/OOP days, then I discovered functional programming and realized that all those "Visitor/Decorator etc." are just higher order functions put together differently...
In OOP one object orchestrates other objects. It knows about them and uses them to achieve its goals.
In pipelines every step of data processing knows nothing about neighboring steps - the integration logic exists only as the map of connections - just like in FP you assemble individual generic functions into a chain of calls.
I'd love to read a book like this. A book I like that focused on whys and showed a bigger picture is Douglas Crockford's “JavaScript: The Good Parts”. Clearly, there is a market, because it's... interesting! Self-publish?
Knickers had not been invented at the time. Women in the royal courts wore enormously embroidered dresses hung over a wicker skeleton attached to their waist. It was impossible to sit with and while in attendance at the court women were required to stand for long periods. Urination was accomplished with the use of a narrow boat-shaped vessel made of china called a bourdaloue, placed under the skirt, between the legs. Knickers, had they been available would have been impossible to get around.
I don't think this is because people in it are stupid necessarily. Oh sure! In any organization you will find inadequate performers and even non-performers. Nonetheless, militaries are bureaucracies. Bureaucracies are organized to do something or some things very well and in a stable manner. Bureaucracies love homeostasis and hate change. The downside is that these organizations do not handle change well. E.g., the Ukraine military with the Soviet attitudes of so many of its senior leadership, at least according to what I have read in this substack blog. To change a bureaucracy you have to hold a revolution of sorts. Revolutions are very painful and uncertain activities. You have to do what Lenin supposedly said about revolutions, (regime change ... organizational change?): to make an omelette you have to break a few eggs.
It seems that Trump is breaking a few eggs lately.
They say there was a book called "Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency". The author stated that organizations over-optimize by cutting costs (increasing efficiency), but loose any flexibility (effectiveness - freedom to choose the right goals) in the process https://www.agile101.com.au/post/efficiency-vs-effectiveness-slack
His best known book is Peopleware - about the role of comfort, silence and isolation from interruptions for programmers. It even quoted productivity measurements from experiments conducted by (IIRC) AT&T. It was first published in 1987, re-printed every decade since, but nothing changed in IT companies - they still place programmers in open space offices and do everything contrary to the book's suggestions.
Perhaps because they are treating these people, the programmers, as inputs much like physical parts going into a production process. I perceive that burnout is quite common in this industry.
Seems eerily familiar to my experience with technology and field of innovative/additive manufacturing.
I spent a lot of time last year working on concept of radically cheaper/lighter/more aerodynamic drone frame using 3D printed nodes & hollow tubes and despite having hard data proving the superiority (load tests, efficiency measurements, flight logs...) I got cold shoulder from virtually everybody and every institution I contacted with the project...
Because everybody knows that's not how you make drones, drone frames are cut from thick solid sheets of carbon on CNC router and bolted together and there is no other way.
Thanks, I will write you a PM. My project is even open-sourced (smaller 5-7" versions, not 10-11" better suitable for strike role), so anyone can try it and asses the concept -> https://github.com/janherich/Spacedrone
I was quite sceptical, at first, but I actually like your designs and think they are well thought of. I have no idea about their practical merits, not involved into drones, it is quite possible that they have negatives of their own, but don't be discouraged. :)
They certainly have a lot of negatives, some of them even fundamental which can't really be solved by incremental changes/improvements like other things (assembly speed, price, etc.)
The biggest disadvantage is that the hollow tube frame will never be as robust and damage resistant as classic frame made from thick 2D shapes (cut from solid carbon) and bolted together.
That will always be a lot tougher, take impacts better and you can just unbolt and replace damaged part.
The thing is, I don't think that matters at all in the suicide FPV role and once it's durable enough to survive normal handling, it's good enough.
FPV drone community is very different in this regard from Aerospace/RC-model community and they put huge premium at damage resistance, so that bolted design basically "won" a long time ago and there is almost nothing else on the market, at least up to 11-13" prop size.
So it's natural that was the design chosen when first suicide FPV drones appeared in 2022 (actually a lot sooner in middle east, but not in such decisive role) and because of the momentum, everybody is reluctant to consider something else.
Tom cooper, read a sir Ian Hamilton in galipoly diarys...nothing new is happend today... Change the geografical references, and is posible think is a ukranian comander...
It's possible that the US oligarchs who have been profiting from military support to Europe are "old money" and "obsolete" in the new administration with its much more visible presence of tech bros. And with the proof from Ukraine of the value of tech in future warfare, the tech bros are well placed to take a large piece of the military funding cake going forward.
Military industrial complex, even in US, is tiny compared to what tech bros already have. Sure, they'll take what they can, but it's not moving force for them.
That said, I'm of the 'wait and see'-kind when it comes to 'old money'. They should never be underestimated.
If for no other reason then because, for us 'everyday people', it's about 'nothing'. House? Car? TV?
For them, it's about everything. Including their 'well-established control' and market shares. They still 'rule the World', and they'll not let 'some newly-rich crips' take over.
Where is Xerox or AT&T today? Or Nokia? They were market leaders two or three decades ago. While Google was a startup and Facebook - a students' pet project.
It seems to me, that given the new Trio Fantasticus (Trump, Vance and Musk) actions with respect to their real power, they are in deep with this professional incompetence thing. I sincerely hope so
Musk was/is a reasonably smart businessman. He has made money, not without support but still. For him cost cutting through firing unneeded people is second nature. The problem with Musk these days is that he’s not satisfied with being a successful businessman. He wants to rule the world. And he starts with USA. And while there is a lot of inefficiency in the government it is sometimes more difficult to pin point than he believes. Further he also goes after all those pesky organizations trying to control business excess. (Including of course trade unions). Letting a businessman control the government spending? He will save on the things he doesn’t understand or like. Musk does both at an alarming level.
I think you are wrong, about Musk's motives. He wants what he always wanted - to help people. To become great through achieving great things that help others. He wants to be a hero. Don't we all? It's just that he believes in himself a lot more than it is justified by reality.
In the end, though, the result is the same. :) The shock to the system is serious. But the system will survive, and may be people will learn something.
Truth is irrelevant to Trump. He operates in Joseph Goebbels mode. The thing is, so many of his MAGA crazies believe that Trump speaks the truth. They buy his PBRS [I mean PRBS] uncritically. Other Trump supporters who acknowledge his routine prevarication and other character defects still believe that he will "drain the swamp." Ironically, he and his cohorts are the swamp!
Before, scholars considered the actual evidence and drew a range of conclusions from it. They had been doing so since the time of Abelard and Ockham. That's how we eventually split the atom.
But post-modernism generates endless, impossible to prove conjectures about what someone was THINKING. Either a given historical actor. Or much more egregious, how someone recording evidence was allegedly distorting the historical record.
So when an intellectual fad like "colonialism" catches on, everyone rushes to make ingenious conjectures about evidence. They are certain they will find "colonialism", and will use literally anything to prove it. And when fad catches on, everyone rushes to prove the same (very successful) thing.
Essentially it's an attempt to reduce a very complex, contradictory world--which requires much research and thought--into a few simple memes that can be transmitted to a huge audience.
It's the equivalent of the 16th and 17th C witch craze.
If you believe witches really exist, you will see them.
Oh, yeah, only there is absolutely no doubt that everyone recording evidence was distorting it. It is known since times long before medieval. History is written by victors, eh.
How exactly that distortion can be accounted for is debatable, but not its existence.
Few people have ever consciously written something that made them look bad.
But they distort far less about who won a battle, or who reigned at a particular time. The Nazis didn't claim they won the battle of Stalingrad. Khrushchev's 6 vol history of The Great Patriotic War barely mentions Stalin. But all the battles are there.
There's a difference between conscious fabrication and one's own point of view. And the Post-Modern claim is that "Not only is that wrong--but you KNOW it's wrong!"
The basis of every X twitter spat on the planet.
And why very much of the scholarship of the last 50 years needs a big rethink...
Well, speaking of Russian accounts of WWII - I can with surety say that a lot of it is indeed direct fabrication. :) That's kind of my own area of specialization. Sure, battles are all there, but a lot of what happened in those battles are a fabrication, and even some battles are a fabrications completely, from beginning to the end, usually to cover own incompetence. :)
However. This thing "Not only is that wrong--but you KNOW it's wrong!" is absolutely true and is indeed a plague on humanity. It is in itself is a clear sign of incompetence.
And that's because you have BETTER written evidence. All we can do is go with the "more likely hypothesis," based on the written/oral evidence. Something done for the past 800 years.
But conjectures about what someone was thinking, or their "secret" intent, are impossible to prove and have really harmed rigorous enquiry for the last 50 years. Recall first seeing it as a grad student in the 70s...
That "Topic A-B-..." thing reminds me of an anecdotal story that happened to my student fellow when we studied our first year in the University (Physics department).
There was an exam on "Culture and art" subject. Not particularly important for future physicists and engineers, so we only could got a binary "pass/fail" mark on that exam. My friend was mid-to-low grader, not really keen to learn all that cultural stuff, and he was somewhat worried about passing it.
But he practiced martial arts, so when he got a question ticket on Japanese culture, his smile got wider than his face and he started talking with inspiration:
- As you know, there was [...some random fascinating fact about Japan...]
- Ugh, I'm actually not an expert regarding Japanese culture, so I'm not really aware... , - said the teacher.
- Well then, let me tell you more! - shined my friend and proceeded with his favourite topic.
Needless to say, he passed the exam. Of course, he was lucky to get his "Topic J" he knew well and the teacher didn't.
What I want to know (instead of all this ^ ) is will Ukraine be able to keep fighting now that Trump has cut support. If so, for how long? How deep does the betrayal go? Has the US simply become “neutral”? Or are they actively on Russia’s side? For example will Starlink be cut? Or will the US start providing intelligence and targeting info to Russia?
Will they keep fighting? Absolutely
How long? Probably the rest of this year at least if European support continues. Maybe beyond if European support increases. That's if Russia doesn't fold beforehand.
US Neutral? Maybe in the long term but short term we're not there yet. Even idiot decisions take time to make.
Actively on Russia's side? Highly unlikely There is a big difference between enabling Russian aggression and actively supplying and resourcing that aggression.
I’m concerned that Trump will ease the sanctions against Russia. Perhaps Ukraine can offset that risk by hitting more refineries and petroleum storage sites.
Same concerns. Still, no peace, no Nobel peace prize. Trump needs an agreement.
I am seeing some pushback against Trump's personal vendetta against Zelensky. Several Republican senators are pushing back against Trump false claim that Ukraine started the war, and conservative outlets controlled by Murdoch are also pushing back - they are clearly labeling Putin as a dangerous autocrat. So altho the news from Washington is very depressing, there are some glimmers of hope. Trump will not change, but he can be constrained.
provided he matters and is not just the fall guy for Elon.
Putin as dangerous autocrat? How about Trump? On the way to becoming an autocrat, but already dangerous. Trump will not be constrained. He's a bully. He has to be stopped. Yes, I am referring to impeachment and removal after a Senate trial. Same with Vance. First, the Speaker of the House needs to be removed from office by Congressional vote. A replacement for Mike Johnson, who would make an acceptable President to both political parties, needs to be arranged first. The final action is to trash that worthless Cabinet, the lot of them! Unfortunately, I don't see this happening any time soon.
In the mean time ....
F*ck the Republicans (not just the Senators)! The non-MAGA Republicans have enabled Trump by making a deal with Trump and his MAGA-Republicans (about 40% of the party) to keep the Republican Party in power or to dominate U.S. politics right now. Had they rejected Trumpism and ejected the MAGA Republicans from influence and power, the Democrats might have prevailed, but the U.S. Constitution would not have been put at risk. I dislike the Dem Party; I am no supporter of their social engineering, but I abhor the Republican Party as it is. The Republican Party hurt the nation whom they supposedly support just to keep the Democrats from winning. Political party over country. How disgusting. I am sorry to say this, but I see shades of some kind of Hitler-redux, even if not literally so.
*********************************************
Monday, September 17, 1787:
Benjamin Franklin's response to Elizabeth Willing Powel's question: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
*********************************************
The only thing needing change to make it applicable to today: replace "monarchy" with "dictatorship," or "autocracy," or "oligarchy, or "kleptocracy," or all four words.
"A replacement for Mike Johnson, who would make an acceptable President to both political parties, needs to be arranged first."
Oh, oh, and who would THAT be? I would offer my services, of course, but there are slight problems with that. But other than my obvious candidature, can you name such a glorious leader? Because it's a great plan, but it sounds exactly like "first, we need a contact with extraterrestrials, and THEN it's easy!"
How could the need to contact extraterrestrials be considered wacky? After all President Daffy Duck is in office so anything is possible now! **LOL**
I haven't the slightest idea who, Republican or Democrat, could be put into the Speaker of the House's job, and who would also make an acceptable (forget great at this point) President of the United States.
I wrote my aforementioned post earlier in my day before my second cup of coffee's caffeine hit my blood stream. Hence, the cobwebs in my brain had not yet cleared away completely.
Right now in U.S. politics I do not think that we have a viable "glorious leader" candidate. I wouldn't mind seeing Kaja Kallas of Estonia as President of the United States. She is really intelligent (also, not bad looking). Unfortunately, there is a slight constitutional problem with this choice. **ROFLOL**
Then again there is the Australian (**LOL**) Tom Cooper as a potential presidential candidate. If so, then I also perceive that the air war over Ukraine's Donbas and Crimea could be resolved in Ukraine's favor expeditiously! I am sure in all of this there must be some pointedly Russian dark humor in the making.
*will Ukraine be able to keep fighting now that Trump has cut support*
Yes. American support, or lack of it, is not the greatest problem right now for Ukraine. Although it exacerbates other problems.
*If so, for how long?*
If nothing will change (I don't believe this) at least half a year. But realistically Europe will increase its actual support. If it'll happen, and if internal Ukrainian problems would be either resolved or delayed, then indefinitely.
*How deep does the betrayal go? Has the US simply become “neutral”? Or are they actively on Russia’s side?*
You overthink the situation. "US" has no side. Trump or Musk have no side. Trump doesn't have a side, a strategy, an adherence to any "side", he isn't "bought", you can't buy a cheat, he will take your money and forget that he promised anything, he doesn't have a plan. He immediately reacts, and he needs a fall guy, now that he understands that his previous plan of ending the war or any agreement with Putin has fallen apart.
He will blame Zelensky because there is simply no other scapegoat around. But it's not a policy. It's just a show to put the immediate blame for something off Trump himself. He does not care what would happen with Ukraine or Russia, once he will confirm, for his base, that he is not to blame and is, in fact, the greatest, he will lose interest and then follow the path of least resistance. It will take a couple of months, but it will happen. I think some kind of weapon sell program, to be paid for by future Ukraine and sinister Europeans, will be established where Trump will proudly display his "Greatest Deal for America". I may be wrong, Trump is chaotic, and events are very random, but there is no plan nor Trump wants Russia to win (or to lose).
*For example will Starlink be cut?*
That depends on Musk's particular psychological condition. And on Trump's random "ideas". Musk himself is not a "Russian asset", doesn't want Russia to win (or Ukraine to win), he is not about it. He is completely in the internal US politics now and won't want to change things he doesn't care about radically. Unless a random unpredictable situation will force him, Starlink will not change its behavior.
*Or will the US start providing intelligence and targeting info to Russia?*
Russia isn't interested in US intelligence (or "intelligence". Russia doesn't believe in US intelligence) or targeting. It gets its intelligence and targeting from Ukraine already and right people are getting good money out of it and stupid foreigners are not needed on this gravy train, thank you. If US would insist on providing Russia with intelligence, Russian intelligence services would fight it tooth and nail... Unless proper kickbacks to proper people would be implemented.
And Trump doesn't pay kickbacks. He takes them. So not a chance.
You're right on all points; trump will do whatever it takes to give the impression to his 35% base that he's really shaking things up, making changes they think is important. It's all performative with a lot of smoke and mirrors, but if they buy it like they always do, it's all good. Starving, sick Africans? Not with my taxes! Just don't expect to see a cent of savings spent here. Not much thought is given to what to cut or who to fire either, hence the chaotic nature of it all. Trumpismo has no central belief to guide by, other than give me money now, which is why he was so upset when Z didn't sign away the nation's wealth for nothing in return. Say Ukraine agrees to the one sided deal, what happens to this contract if Russia wins and they sell the minerals to China? Take Putin to court?
Let them have it Tom 👍. And keep letting them have it. Even if nothing is done, you called them out 🤷🏼♂️. Though personally, I hope something is done.
We can't keep going the way we're going. It's not working.
Can confirm the Topic A-B problem. I have....probably fewer books out than you do, and even more niche, self-published through Amazon bc the history of sabre fencing isn't a thing academics are able to review, without which write off even the possibility of a mainstream publisher.
The thing so many fail to grok with Trump et al., is that he's really easy to stop. All you'd have to be is competent or at least not-awful, and "the Trump Problem" goes away. Populist demagogues are like a weird fever that sets in when the political class shows itself so hopelessly inept that "business as usual" doesn't work for people any more. (and that's not an excuse for these guys -- it's a denunciation of the folks who've been opposing them)
Exactly.
A reason more both to chuckle and to be scared - about 'established political parties' systematically proving unable to stop such jerks.
Thanks Tom. Maybe I'm ahead of you and you'll write about this in detail later. There is also a commercial component to modern military incompetence. The magnates of the military-industrial complex produce products that are "profitable" to them, the generals they buy lobby for this superweapon theoretically, and politicians lobby for it legislatively. "Unprofitable" products (drones, etc.) were not a priority in these theories.
Of course. And they have it easy to do so, because the 'government' has no clue what an obsolete BS is it buying. Because of that professional military incompetence.
OK - I'm waiting for the payoff. You spent two posts talking about everyone ignoring the lessons from conflicts not widely covered by western establishments. When will you discuss those important lessons and how they apply to Ukraine specifically and the western armies and governments in general?
Thanks and keep up the good work.
Grant me letting you enjoy as I gradually 'build up the suspense'. ;-)
I seriously doubt any actual applicable lessons are to follow. Other than "all the human history is the competition between degrees of incompetence, and the one less incompetent usually wins unless other factors apply".
I've studied a couple of less-known wars, on my own, just as a curiosity, and was surprised how, despite great differences in particulars, the underlying theme of "both sides were incompetent to the extreme with brief flashes of brilliance and bumbled in the darkness or living in their own imaginable world right until stumbling to the inevitable conclusion of inevitable victory of the side less incompetent on average" repeated across all conflicts, both widely known and less known.
Love your cynicism. You might definitely have a point. But if we could learn a little more? Would be great.
I'm not a cynic. I'm a realist. But I am definitely not a cynic. Cynicism, in my opinion, is self-defeating; a nation of cynics, especially if every cynic is for himself, is a nation that failed. Despite me realistically seeing people not in the best light, I am, if anything, romantic. I, nevertheless, believe in people. We have achieved a lot; historically, we have achieved greatness, and we did it, while remaining exactly the same as we are now. Delusional incompetent losers. :)
There were no other people who did great deeds of the past. Those were not otherworldly giants. Churchill, Roosevelt, Patton, Montgomery, Rommel, Napoleon, Newton - they all were bumbling myopic fools. They've overcome their foolishness and bumblingness, not alone bit with the help of others, who themselves weren't any better, and they achieved a lot;
We are no better, but we are no worse, it's just because we are so close, it is so easy for us to see our flaws. No matter; we will overcome and we will achieve. If not greatness, then at least C-. And the rest we will fake, like Rommel did. :)
I believe that the war in Ukraine eventually will reach a point where Ukrainians, Europeans and Americans will overcome mutual pigheadedness and push through to if not victory, than Ukraine's survival. All the way squealing like pigs and blaming each other. It's not as if Putin is going to leave us any other choice - he is not a great strategist either!
And, yep, it's always great to learn things. It's just that you need not to expect some great revelation; it rarely happens. :)
By the way, speaking of learning, I'm currently listening for Sarah Paine's lectures on Patel's channel. First time I've seen the woman. Her opinions are interesting.
Thank You for this assessment, it hits the points, and I do find some solace in hoping for the moment the US industrial complex sees its trade volume go down because of Trump. May they treat him accordingly.
I encountered the same barrier while looking for a publisher for my book on programming.
The major publishers want only narrowly-specialized "actionable" books that guide the reader stepwise through the topic. Anything deeper that concentrates on whys instead of hows and tries to show the big picture is non-starter. Especially if the author is not acclaimed.
Out of interest, what was the premise of the book ?
Over the past 30 years programmers used "design patterns" - time-proven tricks that achieve given ends via some non-obvious means. I assert that those patterns can be sorted out in a system like the periodic table of chemistry, and prove that by expanding on above a hundred of patterns.
I remember design patterns from my Java/OOP days, then I discovered functional programming and realized that all those "Visitor/Decorator etc." are just higher order functions put together differently...
And then you can also observe that those Data Mesh and Event-Driven Architecture are mere distributed chains of functions.
Well, everything is a function. I mean, you have a variable and a function. Everything else is a combination of them. Hardly surprising.
In OOP one object orchestrates other objects. It knows about them and uses them to achieve its goals.
In pipelines every step of data processing knows nothing about neighboring steps - the integration logic exists only as the map of connections - just like in FP you assemble individual generic functions into a chain of calls.
I'd love to read a book like this. A book I like that focused on whys and showed a bigger picture is Douglas Crockford's “JavaScript: The Good Parts”. Clearly, there is a market, because it's... interesting! Self-publish?
I've already pushed it to Leanpub. The book gets 1 download per day on average.
https://leanpub.com/metapatterns
It seems that peer-to-peer promotion does not work, while I did not build social networks. Thus the book is there, but next to nobody knows about it.
All too true. Beware the experts! Btw, I didn't think Marie Antoinette wore underwear...but I digress.
We can always start the discussion No., 174 to that - highly interesting - topic... ;-)
Define underwear.
Knickers had not been invented at the time. Women in the royal courts wore enormously embroidered dresses hung over a wicker skeleton attached to their waist. It was impossible to sit with and while in attendance at the court women were required to stand for long periods. Urination was accomplished with the use of a narrow boat-shaped vessel made of china called a bourdaloue, placed under the skirt, between the legs. Knickers, had they been available would have been impossible to get around.
Professional military incompetence:
I don't think this is because people in it are stupid necessarily. Oh sure! In any organization you will find inadequate performers and even non-performers. Nonetheless, militaries are bureaucracies. Bureaucracies are organized to do something or some things very well and in a stable manner. Bureaucracies love homeostasis and hate change. The downside is that these organizations do not handle change well. E.g., the Ukraine military with the Soviet attitudes of so many of its senior leadership, at least according to what I have read in this substack blog. To change a bureaucracy you have to hold a revolution of sorts. Revolutions are very painful and uncertain activities. You have to do what Lenin supposedly said about revolutions, (regime change ... organizational change?): to make an omelette you have to break a few eggs.
It seems that Trump is breaking a few eggs lately.
They say there was a book called "Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency". The author stated that organizations over-optimize by cutting costs (increasing efficiency), but loose any flexibility (effectiveness - freedom to choose the right goals) in the process https://www.agile101.com.au/post/efficiency-vs-effectiveness-slack
"Give yourself capacity to explore new ideas, improve, experiment, and possibly fail."
In my work experience--I am now retired--too often failure is punished rather than using it as a learning experience.
Good link, including the info re: the book.
His best known book is Peopleware - about the role of comfort, silence and isolation from interruptions for programmers. It even quoted productivity measurements from experiments conducted by (IIRC) AT&T. It was first published in 1987, re-printed every decade since, but nothing changed in IT companies - they still place programmers in open space offices and do everything contrary to the book's suggestions.
Perhaps because they are treating these people, the programmers, as inputs much like physical parts going into a production process. I perceive that burnout is quite common in this industry.
And the author shows that bureaucracy treats people as mechanical tools by creating detailed rules for every aspect of their behavior.
I wonder what Karl Marx would have to say about it. **LOL**
Cost accountants quantify labor and in general classify labor as Direct Labor (a direct cost element) and Indirect Labor (indirect cost).
Seems eerily familiar to my experience with technology and field of innovative/additive manufacturing.
I spent a lot of time last year working on concept of radically cheaper/lighter/more aerodynamic drone frame using 3D printed nodes & hollow tubes and despite having hard data proving the superiority (load tests, efficiency measurements, flight logs...) I got cold shoulder from virtually everybody and every institution I contacted with the project...
Because everybody knows that's not how you make drones, drone frames are cut from thick solid sheets of carbon on CNC router and bolted together and there is no other way.
Well, this is how the drones are made today https://t.me/VictoryDrones/37386
If you would you like to contact Ukrainian guys who work on drones, please PM me. I believe I can find them in Telegram chats.
Thanks, I will write you a PM. My project is even open-sourced (smaller 5-7" versions, not 10-11" better suitable for strike role), so anyone can try it and asses the concept -> https://github.com/janherich/Spacedrone
Thank you, I've published your project in one of Ukrainian embedded programmers' chats. Now both Russians and Ukrainians will know about it)))
I was quite sceptical, at first, but I actually like your designs and think they are well thought of. I have no idea about their practical merits, not involved into drones, it is quite possible that they have negatives of their own, but don't be discouraged. :)
Thanks !
They certainly have a lot of negatives, some of them even fundamental which can't really be solved by incremental changes/improvements like other things (assembly speed, price, etc.)
The biggest disadvantage is that the hollow tube frame will never be as robust and damage resistant as classic frame made from thick 2D shapes (cut from solid carbon) and bolted together.
That will always be a lot tougher, take impacts better and you can just unbolt and replace damaged part.
The thing is, I don't think that matters at all in the suicide FPV role and once it's durable enough to survive normal handling, it's good enough.
FPV drone community is very different in this regard from Aerospace/RC-model community and they put huge premium at damage resistance, so that bolted design basically "won" a long time ago and there is almost nothing else on the market, at least up to 11-13" prop size.
So it's natural that was the design chosen when first suicide FPV drones appeared in 2022 (actually a lot sooner in middle east, but not in such decisive role) and because of the momentum, everybody is reluctant to consider something else.
Tom cooper, read a sir Ian Hamilton in galipoly diarys...nothing new is happend today... Change the geografical references, and is posible think is a ukranian comander...
It's possible that the US oligarchs who have been profiting from military support to Europe are "old money" and "obsolete" in the new administration with its much more visible presence of tech bros. And with the proof from Ukraine of the value of tech in future warfare, the tech bros are well placed to take a large piece of the military funding cake going forward.
Military industrial complex, even in US, is tiny compared to what tech bros already have. Sure, they'll take what they can, but it's not moving force for them.
Fair enough.
That said, I'm of the 'wait and see'-kind when it comes to 'old money'. They should never be underestimated.
If for no other reason then because, for us 'everyday people', it's about 'nothing'. House? Car? TV?
For them, it's about everything. Including their 'well-established control' and market shares. They still 'rule the World', and they'll not let 'some newly-rich crips' take over.
Where is Xerox or AT&T today? Or Nokia? They were market leaders two or three decades ago. While Google was a startup and Facebook - a students' pet project.
It seems to me, that given the new Trio Fantasticus (Trump, Vance and Musk) actions with respect to their real power, they are in deep with this professional incompetence thing. I sincerely hope so
Musk was able to cut costs in space engineering - something deemed impossible for decades by both Soviet and American leaders.
Musk was/is a reasonably smart businessman. He has made money, not without support but still. For him cost cutting through firing unneeded people is second nature. The problem with Musk these days is that he’s not satisfied with being a successful businessman. He wants to rule the world. And he starts with USA. And while there is a lot of inefficiency in the government it is sometimes more difficult to pin point than he believes. Further he also goes after all those pesky organizations trying to control business excess. (Including of course trade unions). Letting a businessman control the government spending? He will save on the things he doesn’t understand or like. Musk does both at an alarming level.
I think you are wrong, about Musk's motives. He wants what he always wanted - to help people. To become great through achieving great things that help others. He wants to be a hero. Don't we all? It's just that he believes in himself a lot more than it is justified by reality.
In the end, though, the result is the same. :) The shock to the system is serious. But the system will survive, and may be people will learn something.
ISW started fact-checking Trump https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-fact-sheet-february-21-2025
Truth is irrelevant to Trump. He operates in Joseph Goebbels mode. The thing is, so many of his MAGA crazies believe that Trump speaks the truth. They buy his PBRS [I mean PRBS] uncritically. Other Trump supporters who acknowledge his routine prevarication and other character defects still believe that he will "drain the swamp." Ironically, he and his cohorts are the swamp!
The problem is Post-Modernism.
Before, scholars considered the actual evidence and drew a range of conclusions from it. They had been doing so since the time of Abelard and Ockham. That's how we eventually split the atom.
But post-modernism generates endless, impossible to prove conjectures about what someone was THINKING. Either a given historical actor. Or much more egregious, how someone recording evidence was allegedly distorting the historical record.
So when an intellectual fad like "colonialism" catches on, everyone rushes to make ingenious conjectures about evidence. They are certain they will find "colonialism", and will use literally anything to prove it. And when fad catches on, everyone rushes to prove the same (very successful) thing.
Essentially it's an attempt to reduce a very complex, contradictory world--which requires much research and thought--into a few simple memes that can be transmitted to a huge audience.
It's the equivalent of the 16th and 17th C witch craze.
If you believe witches really exist, you will see them.
Always.
While, Abelard and Ockham weep...
Oh, yeah, only there is absolutely no doubt that everyone recording evidence was distorting it. It is known since times long before medieval. History is written by victors, eh.
How exactly that distortion can be accounted for is debatable, but not its existence.
Few people have ever consciously written something that made them look bad.
But they distort far less about who won a battle, or who reigned at a particular time. The Nazis didn't claim they won the battle of Stalingrad. Khrushchev's 6 vol history of The Great Patriotic War barely mentions Stalin. But all the battles are there.
There's a difference between conscious fabrication and one's own point of view. And the Post-Modern claim is that "Not only is that wrong--but you KNOW it's wrong!"
The basis of every X twitter spat on the planet.
And why very much of the scholarship of the last 50 years needs a big rethink...
Well, speaking of Russian accounts of WWII - I can with surety say that a lot of it is indeed direct fabrication. :) That's kind of my own area of specialization. Sure, battles are all there, but a lot of what happened in those battles are a fabrication, and even some battles are a fabrications completely, from beginning to the end, usually to cover own incompetence. :)
However. This thing "Not only is that wrong--but you KNOW it's wrong!" is absolutely true and is indeed a plague on humanity. It is in itself is a clear sign of incompetence.
And that's because you have BETTER written evidence. All we can do is go with the "more likely hypothesis," based on the written/oral evidence. Something done for the past 800 years.
But conjectures about what someone was thinking, or their "secret" intent, are impossible to prove and have really harmed rigorous enquiry for the last 50 years. Recall first seeing it as a grad student in the 70s...