That, and her other famous statement, when asked if the girls would leave London for their safety:
I read that a Russian aircraft flew by.
I don’t think Biden did that to further his political reputation, but as a sign to the Russians.
30 posts were split to a new topic: Temp name Sam Stone’s hijack
I don’t think that Bedfords law would apply here. Benford’s law is a way to determine whether numbers that should be random (e.g. amount of sales on a given day) are in fact artificially generated. The number of munitions we are sending to Ukraine are very likely artificially generated. Someone sat down and decided how many shells to send, rather than having it arise spontaneously from conditions. So the numbers probably won’t follow Benford’s law even if they aren’t fictitious.
This surrender talk belongs in another thread. Drop it now.
I’ll reopen this one in a hour. I don’t have time to clean this up currently.
So a long pause so everyone gets the message.
Hijack moved here:
It seems to be official now. Russia’s most effective fighting force - Wagner Group - is being denied resupply. So says the head of the Wagner Group.
Russian mercenary boss accuses top army brass of ‘treason’, Moscow pushes back | Reuters
Wagner Group Likely ‘Cut Off’ From Russian Artillery Supply: ISW (msn.com)
A couple of weeks ago, Wagner was denied access to Russian prisons for recruiting, now they’re apparently being sidelined through lack of resupply. Guess Putin was getting concerned by Prigozhin’s increasing stature. There’s one less political rival for Putin to worry about.
I wonder if this is an scenario like the one in Asimov’s “The Dead hand”, (first part of “Foundation and Empire”).
In there it was theorized that an empire can not allow a general to be too successful or it would jeopardize the current emperor’s position.
I have a hard time envisioning Putin as Justinian or Prigozhin as Belisarius. But I suppose the dynamics might be applicable.
The general principle of “the tyrant cannot allow any of their generals to become to popular or powerful” is certainly in play.
Also reminds me of a quote from Abraham Lincoln to General Joe Hooker:
“I have heard, in such way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the Army and the Government needed a Dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes, can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship.”
Obviously, Lincoln and Putin took different views on this matter. Prigozhin has been about the only Russian military leader to achieve any degree of success on the battlefield. That kind of popularity puts him squarely in Putin’s crosshairs and he now knows it.
That’s quite a catch 22. Putin needs great success on the battlefield, but any military leader who brings great success immediately becomes a threat to Putin’s position.
Not current news, but a recent retrospective of the earliest days of the war: the failed attack in the northern front aimed at Kyiv.
A small detail that caught my eye: semaphore flags? Really? Or are those secretly really useful in war anymore?
Putin could be diminishing Prigozhin because he sees him as a threat, but I think Wagner’s supply denial is probably more likely related to the Prigozhin/Wagner rivalry with the Russian Ministry of Defence, or because Russia is more generally running out of supplies.
Sounds more like a historical reality. Not only Rome (during both its imperial era and during the Republic, with Caesar being the quintessential “too successful” General killing the Republic and giving rise to an Empire that feared usurpers), but also Athens, where potential tyrants, including successful military leaders, were liable to be preemptively ostracized. More recent examples might also include the USSR under Stalin and the early United States (trope narrowly avoided thanks to George Washington)
Well yes, the scenario in “Dead Hand” was explicitly taken from history, Justinian and Belisarius as @gnoitall mentions.
(The empire’s general name was “Bel Riose” in a particularily Asimovian move)
You can imagine how badly I feel for him.
On consideration, these possibilities seem just as likely as direct intervention from Putin. Either way, it bodes ill for any hopes of success for any Russian offensive. Given the usual weather patterns in this part of the world, it would appear the window for any Russian offensive is rapidly closing as the mud season usually occurs in late February-early March.
Heh.
As well as for the generals who need to figure out how to be successful enough not to fail outright and be defenestrated, but not so successful that get, uh, defenestrated.
This revelation simply reinforces that the entire Russian war machine is utterly incompetent at logistics.