As the Kremlin continues to collapse on top of Putin over his invasion of Ukraine, we are learning more and more. And one of the things we’re learning is that Putin is incredibly similar to Traitor Tot. Both old, both delusional, both impervious, and both mentally trapped in glory days that never actually existed.
Putin has spent the last two years isolated in the Kremlin, as much by his bellicose behavior as by Covid. And he has turned to his historical legacy, which he believes is to be the leader who reunited the former Soviet Union.
But he is mentally trapped in the past. And as such, his sole point of focus on the reaction of any action he took was the response he got in the past. And that is turning out to be a fatal flaw. But from the start Putin made 3 major miscalculations, all of which have cost him dearly. We’ll look at them one at a time.
Volodymyr Zelinsky and the Ukrainian people
My personal opinion is that Putin made the strategic error of comparing Zelinsky to Trump. Putin had just spent 4 years skritching the tummy of his useful idiot, who did everything in his power to dismantle NATO, and as Texans like to say, was All hat and no cattle. Zelinsky was a stand up comic who ran for President largely on social media. Putin had no reason to think that Zelinsky wouldn’t fold like a cheap shirt if Putin so much as massed troops on the border, much less invadr.
But Zelinsky was no Trump. Zelinsky ran to actually Do the job, not just to stuff his pockets. Putin should have seen giant flashing red lights when Zelinsky, barely sworn in, told Trump to go and fuck himself when Trump demanded Ukraine get dirt on the Biden’s in return for aid. This was not a man who was going to be bought off cheaply or easily.
He should have seen even more flashing red lights when he massed troops on Ukraine’s border, and Zelinsky publicly shrugged it off. He kept his people calm by reminding them that the Russians had been fucking with them for 8 years now. He kept the public calm, reminded them of their sovereignty, and when Russia finally invaded, his refusal to leave Kiev made him the Joan of Arc of the Ukraine. The entire population banded around him, and now they’re fighting like feral civet cats.
The Sanctions
Putin isn’t a total moron like Trump. When he planned his invasion, and he personally planned it, giving the orders directly to his generals, he took western sanctions into account. But because Putin has his head burieds in the past, he only considered traditional sanctions, which he found acceptable for his planning purposes. He was tragically mistaken.
In brief, traditional sanctions tend to be levied against governments, government controlled assets, government controlled national companies, and high ranking government and private business officials. They seldom have much effect, since the high mucky-mucks have their eggs spread all over, and because they’re targeted high, the common people seldom feel the pinch.
But not this time. This time the EU, the UK, and the US put together a lightning strike of tranches of sanctions that not only slapped the big boys, but also spanked the things like state owned banks that people actually have their money in. The Russian stock market dropped 50% of its value in one day, a global record, and the ruble is now worth less than a penny. Reporting today showed lines of Russians queuing up for hours at ATM’s to get out a bunch of pieces of paper that no longer have any more value than Charmin. Putin can take the hit, but he already had mass protests on his hands, and what happens now, when people can’t even buy a six pack and a pack of smokes?
Global revulsion at the invasion
Quite possibly Putin’s most grievous miscalculation. When Putin considered the effects of sanctions, he considered them only from their traditional sources, namely the US and NATO countries. But the brazen nature of his invasion, and the equally brazen courage of Ukraine President Zelinsky, Putin got way more than he bargained for. Putin relied on this being just another Russia-NATO pissing contest, and instead it went global on him.
Japan isn’t a NATO member, and yet today they levied sanctions against Russia today. Neither is Monaco, and so did they. The same thing with South Africa. Freakin’ Australia is sending lethal defensive aid to Ukraine. So is Germany, who hasn’t sent arms into a conflict zone since Christ was a carpenter. Both Sweden and Finland, which aren’t even NATO members, are sending lethal defensive aid.
Look, Putin might be able to domestically survive crippling sanctions, but the one thing he can’t survive is so many nations sending lethal defensive aid to Ukraine. Especially since the Russian army is prosecuting their assault like a bunch of turtles on Valium. If those arms actually get to Ukraine, then the entire paradigm of the conflict changes, and not in Russia’s favor.
There is one more thing that has irrevocably screwed Putin which I wrote about earlier. The Russians haven’t been in a prolonged ground war since Afghanistan in the 80’s, and they got their ass kicked. You can have all the weapons, all the troops, all the infrastructure, but if they haven’t faced live fire, you can’t predict how they will do. As I quoted Mike Tyson, Everybody has a plan when they get into the ring, until they get punched in the mouth. And right now, they’re in a shell, don’t touch that dial.
It sounds as if Putin is facing a similar dilemma to that of Germany in the 1920s when inflation took off like a rocket. Prices increased rapidly and it took almost a wheelbarrow of banknotes to buy a pound of potatoes. Back then it caused the rise of the Nazis – in this case, the Nazis are the ones culpable so a swing in the opposite direction is on the cards.
Starting a war as a distraction from home-grown problems doesn’t always work (as a number of political ‘leaders’ have found out over the ages. Starting one that actually causes your own people to be unable to afford the basic necessities is really going to turn and bite the idiot who caused it.
Unless you are in North Korea or China. It Jane like they give their citizens a choice.
I have Benn reading comments on Occupy Democrats. Quite a few Arabic, African and some Hispanic people have been cursing tghe West as hypocrites. Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan were mentioned to prove we don’t care about anyone unless they are white and Christian. They ignore the fact that we sided with the rebels in Syria, while Russia took Bash it’s side. We backed the Arab Spring movement. It was Trump who let ISIS overrun the Kurds and negotiated the debacle in Afghanistan. But, hey don’t most facts spoil a rant.
Let’s not let Germany off too easy. They did places more recently than Jesus. And that is a big deal to be careful about joking about.
Fifteen atomic reactors in Ukraine currently spew out massive quantities of radiation alongside the smoldering ruin of Chernobyl Unit 4.
War could easily—-and soon!—-turn each into a nuke of mass destruction, blasting into the eco-sphere clouds of lethal fallout far in excess of actual A-Bombs, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Like the rest of the global fleet, Ukraine’s reactors are sitting ducks, set to explode. They symbolize an monumental technological failure, left in the radioactive dust by the rise of renewables. But a devious, deceitful and greed-obsessed and possessed industry is desperate to kill green power, even if its dirty, decayed rump reactors could mushroom as you read this.
The essential unity between atomic power and weapons has been set since birth. France’s Macron now explicitly argues that “peaceful” reactors are needed to sustain the French atomic weapons program.
Cesium fallout from the four exploded Fukushima reactors exceeds that from Hiroshima and Nagasaki by a factor of more than 100. A compendium of studies at Chernobyl indicates a human death toll of more than a million. People and animals died in droves at Three Mile Island. After six decades of development, no US “Peaceful” atomic reactors can get private insurance against the liabilities of a catastrophic accident.
But the 400 nukes operating worldwide (93 in the US) threaten just that.
They burn at 571 degrees Fahrenheit, heating the planet. They spew carbon 14 and other greenhouse gases as they gouge their fuel, burn their innards and plague us all with unmanageable wastes.
Construction began on ALL US nukes at least thirty years ago. They’re embrittled, cracked, under-maintained, obsolete, ticking time bombs. Many are operating far beyond original design specs. Their workforces are aging and retiring. They sit in earthquake zones and flood plains, vulnerable to hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, sabotage, war.
Attempts to build more of these old-style water-cooled clunkers have catastrophically failed at Olkiluoto in Finland, Flamanville in France, V.C. Summer in South Carolina (abandoned at a cost of $10 billion), Vogtle in Georgia…where two reactors that may never open have soared past $30 billion, potentially bankrupting the Peach State.
Powered with a mix of plutonium, the explosion at Fukushima Unit Three threw up a familiar mushroom cloud. Millions of gallons of radwaste there are poised to be poured into the Pacific.
Yet the nuke industry wants to paint itself green. It hides its massive carbon emissions…ignores the gargantuan quantities of heat and wastes each reactor pours into the eco-sphere….kills billions of land and sea creatures every day.
The reactor industry’s clearest present danger centers on its non-stop radiation releases and millions of tons of radioactive offal that can’t be managed.
But possible war in Ukraine (or elsewhere) could dwarf Chernobyl in a matter of moments. As both the Russians and the Ukrainians well know, these are pre-deployed Atomic Bombs, easily turned Apocalyptic by conventional weapons, advanced cyber-attack or simple incompetence.
The latest stab at reviving this zombie technology centers on “Small Modular Reactors.” Some models are meant to be cooled by liquid sodium, which has already caused an explosive 1959 radiation release at Santa Susana, north of Los Angeles, and a 1966 melt-down at Fermi I, south of Detroit.
All SMRs are years away from mass production. If built, they’ll emit huge quantities of heat and greenhouse gasses. They’ll divert enormous quantities of resources that could otherwise go for renewables that are cleaner, cheaper, safer, more reliable, more job-creating, more quickly deployed…and that that won’t explode, create radioactive waste or heat the planet.
SMRs today currently work primarily as scams grifting billions of public dollars into the pockets of the likes of Bill Gates. They’re virtually certain to fail. One or more are likely to explode.
They can never compete with the solar, wind, battery and LED/efficiency technologies revolutionizing global green energy. With an astonishing record of meteoric advances, these four pillars of Solartopia have pushed all fossil/nuclear technologies into history’s economic waste bin. As long as there are rooftops bare of solar panels, and offshore sites ready for wind turbines, the real market for any other form of new energy is marginal at best.
But the corporate nuke pushers don’t care. Their mainly theoretical new reactors can never compete. Their old ones are uninsured, falling apart, spewing heat, carbon, radiation and death while losing mega-tons of YOUR money.
AND they can blow up… as at Fukushima and Chernobyl.
With war coming right at them, ALL reactors need to be shut NOW…before they ignite the next Apocalypse…which YOU will pay for with your life, health, family, fortune and future.
True.
Sanctions: And as we now know Switzerland (gasp) has generally abandoned its neutrality in this instance. That is saying something!