Bharat Rakshak

Deans wrote: The war is barely 5 days old. In GW2, where the US had an even bigger advantage over the enemy and the logistics position was far simpler, it took the US 3 weeks to reach Baghdad. After the first 4 days of advancing, their operational pause was 1 week long.
The Russian army had advanced on average 60 km /day, (Kiev and Crimea thrusts) which is the maximum their logistics tail will allow. Supply trucks have to move from depots in Russia, to the front of the advancing column, resupply them, then move back to Russia and repeat the process. There is little off road movement possible. There is no evidence of incompetence (yet) in managing the supply chain.
It's probably that they expected some of the Ukr army to collapse, after the first deep (and weakly supported) thrusts. That assumption did not work, so the Russians have gone to plan B. That is understandable.
...

Deans ji,
It could be that Russian Army is having a C4I problem and is not able to coordinate frontline thrust troops and guide them with required degree of granularity, while bringing forward additional infantry battalions and logistics depots to reduce time and risk shuttling longer and longer. Too many simultaneous thrust areas in all directions targeting multiple cities - Ukraine is slightly bigger France, where as US forces had just one target Baghdad city, from wherever they were stationed. Image>> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ar-Map.png

This could have been exacerbated due to cultural factors - as in RA commanders unable to clearly tell Putin whats realistically possible and whats not. Fear of the leader which inevitably exists in a dictatorship.

The first battle in WW III has begun with a decisive coup for oceania/anglos. Why do I say this when by all accounts, the purported US ally Zellenskyy is giving criminals and middle aged women AKs to fight the Rusi steam roller at his doorstep? Permit your mind the luxury of entertaining this Thoughtcrime in this disreputable forum of the unwashed.

A passing familiarity with Orwell's 84 is instructive here. Old man got it mostly right.. The world is dominated by three super states. Oceania (the anglos), Eastasia (Russia and China) and Eurasia (non-anglo European powers). They fight over the disputed territories - Middle East, Indian subcontinent, Africa.

Every one with two neurons to rub together knew the bear's red line. Here is a long list of eminent thinkers predicting the events of 2/2/2022.

(Credit: twitter thread https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/statu ... 6418103296 )
1. Former United Nations (UN) Deputy Secretary-General Pino Arlacchi saying "Nato is the root cause of the Ukraine crisis". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXCcJ9W ... e=emb_logo

2. John Mearshimer in 2015 - "The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked [...] What we're doing is in fact encouraging that outcome."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

3. This is Jack F. Matlock Jr., US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991, warning in 1997 that NATO expansion was "the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed"

...
Go through the twitter thread, there is a long list of eminent western thinkers who are very well plugged into the national security blob predicting exactly this outcome.

One must wonder, with all of this 20/20 foresight, why didnt the western powers listen? All they had to do was to guarantee Ukrainian neutrality, just like Finland or Sweden and at most let Putin install the president of his choice. All Ukraine has is wheat. Why insist NATO membership open, and 'no talks at gunpoint' even as Russian armies are on the doorstep of 'Keev'?

Ill make the humble suggestion that events are unrolling exactly as planned by Oceania. A trap was set for the bear, western Europe presented with a fait-accompli - their populations hostage to memetic domination and this is one of the greatest strategic coups by the anglos ever. How has Oceania won this round decisively? This is how:-

1. The bear paw is now firmly in the trap. Ukraine may not be an easy thing to digest once Rus has swallowed it. It shares long borders with NATO countries. It will be easy to smuggle IEDs, missiles, carbines etc. and drum up an insurgency. Small low flying drones and a hostile western Ukrainian population make it impossible to police the long Ukraine border against weapon drops. Rus may well be kept engaged in Ukraine for better part of a decade, just like it was in Afghanistan. They will be busy in Europe and out of the Indo-Pacific.
2. In a spectacular display of the domination of the memetic battlefield, public opinion in Europe was swayed by relentless (fake) information bombing - "These are blond and blue eyed children who are dying damnit, not some uncivilized brown people!". Once the public opinion was riled up, the leaders will follow! There is a lesson here for those who want to maintain national sovereignty over memetic spaces. A enlightened monopoly in the 'market place of ideas' is essential.
3. Europe will finally be weaned off of evil Russian natural gas and oil and on to green American nat gas and oil. This green American stuff will be paid for in green American dollars. Even if its from the middle east, the payments will all be in American dollars. This guarantees continued dominance of the dollar for the foreseeable future.
4. Rus will be pushed firmly into the Chinese camp. This sounds bad but the result of this will be Eurasia (non anglo, european nato) will be presented with a Chinese ally that is deeply hostile to them on their borders. European NATO powers that weren't really hostile to China will be forced to take a position!
5. European NATO members will be forced to increase their defense expenditure. Some fraction of this money will be spent on American weapons. Even if spent entirely on the European manufacturers, these weapons will be pointed at the Eastasians (China and Rus), so its all good.
6. The last few neutral stragglers in Eurasia - Finland, Sweden, Swiss - will be included into the Oceania alliance (Anglo part of NATO). India will face rapidly escalating pressure to use clean green American weapons and not the genocidal Rusi weapons. Demonization of Hindus in the press and popular culture is an easy, plausibly deniable way of doing this.
7. If Rus does nuclear sabre rattling, even better! More money will be poured into BMD which may actually be useful for the eventual showdown in the Indo-Pacific. If they use a tactical nuke on a peripheral Eurasian capital or two, even better for Oceania. The remaining eurasian powers will hug Oceania even tighter.

Hats off to whoever planned this. Diabolically Brilliant. Yes, Ukraine will be smashed to bits, overrun with Nazi types running around with heavy weapons, thousands of Rusis and Ukrainians will die.. But East Asia will be brought to heel!

Prem Kumar wrote:Except that, unlike Shakti, this weapon can be used multiple times

True, though every time it's used, its effectiveness is decreased. The "recoil" of this weapon hurts the ones who fire it as well, and they would not be able to use it more than once in a long time without risking domestic backlash. Also, once the effects of the weapon are demonstrated, others on whom it might be used in future have the opportunity to set up evasive and mitigating countermeasures to prepare for it.

However, I still believe Xi Jinping is the principal "Arjun" in this analogy (if Putin is the "Ghatothkach"). The question here was whether Xi would make a grab for Taiwan first or Putin would go for Ukraine before that. India's scope of action (on, say, liberating POK/Northern Areas) was nowhere near as imminent as either of those.

Now Xi has seen Shakti in action against Putin, so he has plenty of time to use all the tools and leverage at his disposal in building up countermeasures.

Not that the US/West would hesitate to use this "Shakti" against India if we made a move in our interests like liberating POK/Northern Areas. So India benefits as well from the sacrifice of Ghatothkach.

They didn't do it for 1971 Bangladesh genocide killing 2.4 million Bangladeshi Hindus and 6 million Bengali Muslims, or was it because none of the attacks were on tightey whiteys with blue eyes meaning racist onlee

@DrAMSinghvi · 15h

If FIFA can expel Russia from the 2022 football World Cup, what was stopping the ICC from expelling Pakistan for Kargil, 26/11 & more recent events? 9:54 am · 1 Mar 2022

Some more details about "Starlink" here, BTW. Apparently it's not as easy (or as effective) as Musk's PR makes it out to be

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... es/622954/

The War on Ukraine Is Testing the Myth of Elon Musk

The SpaceX CEO’s much-praised move to help keep the country online isn’t the magical fix it may seem.
By Marina Koren

...
Less than 12 hours after [Ukraine Vice-PM] Fedorov’s request, Musk replied. “Starlink service is now active in Ukraine,” he tweeted. “More terminals en route.”

Voilà! Many observers of the exchange quickly lavished Musk with praise, with some referring to him as a hero. The strong response to Musk’s swift maneuvering made it seem as though the SpaceX CEO had flipped a switch and now Ukrainians could simply navigate over to their Wi-Fi settings and select “Starlink.” In that moment, Elon Musk, the man, seemed to be acting almost like a state of his own, a foreign entity that people around the world can call on for humanitarian aid the way they might call on a government. According to Federov, a shipment of Starlink satellite dishes, which SpaceX calls “terminals,” arrived today.

But Starlink isn’t an instant fix, and Musk can’t exactly wave a wand at Ukraine’s internet disruptions. “It’s nice for him to offer, but that doesn’t mean it will actually have a meaningful impact right away,” Brian Weeden, a space-policy expert at the Secure World Foundation, a nonprofit group that promotes peaceful and responsible uses of space, told me.

...

For any Ukrainians to make use of Starlink, they have to get their hands on one of these Starlink terminals, which are made by SpaceX. (For regular customers, a Starlink kit costs $499, and the service is $99 a month. ) SpaceX did not respond to questions about the number of active terminals in Ukraine right now, or how many terminals the company plans to send to the country.

...

These terminals must be within several hundred miles of ground stations that communicate with Starlink satellites before the satellites beam signals down to those dishes. There are no such stations inside Ukraine, but there are enough in neighboring countries to “provide service to the whole of Ukraine without issues,” Mike Puchol, the chief technology officer at an internet start-up who also runs a tracker of Starlink coverage, told me.

If and when Ukrainians can get connected, there’s also the matter of the service’s quality. Starlink, according to SpaceX’s website, requires a clear view of the sky to maintain a direct line of sight between the terminal and satellites passing overhead. Last spring, when the product was still in its beta-test phase, some users found that trees on the horizon, sometimes even a single tree, could disrupt the signal. Some user reports suggest service has improved since then, but disruptions can still occur. “If a few trees can block your Starlink connection, I’m pretty sure Russia or China or another state actor can,” Weeden said.

Even if Starlink worked perfectly, the use of satellite technology can be risky in wartime, John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, told me. Transmissions between ground receivers and satellites can become beacons for air strikes. “None of this is new,” Scott-Railton said. “The only new thing is Starlink, which has never really been tested in a context of battle.”

...
It is difficult to predict what sort of dent—if any—Starlink will make in Ukraine’s connectivity problems.
...
For now, in the context of the Ukraine crisis, the myth around Musk has outpaced what Musk can actually do.

There is a WhatsApp forward making rounds. It speculates the only reason the West is interested to drag India is to demonize India. According to the theory: The west knows India will not kowtow, but uses this opportunity to paint India as not standing up for democracy. India was not there when the World needed it. Later when China attacks India, the West is going to stand doing nothing, as India does nothing now.

I do not know if China will attack India, but the Western insistence that India participate in their tamasha and 'sudden' recognition of Indian power smells of shit.

ramana wrote:Putin is modern Ghatotkacha.
He is taking the financial Shakti weapon straight on his chin.

I was thinking about Kaal Chiron's Indra Shakti a few days ago. We were expecting something to happen within the Indian establishment. What if it were to happen outside the Indian civilization boundaries, were my thoughts.

Rudradev wrote:

ramana wrote:Putin is modern Ghatotkacha.
He is taking the financial Shakti weapon straight on his chin.

And the Arjun he is saving with that sacrifice is Xi Jinping.

Plans go always awry. My vote is that it is Modi/India. Covid and this war, has made India look better. Coupta is already crying that this is impacting UP elections.

Prem Kumar wrote:Except that, unlike Shakti, this weapon can be used multiple times

By the next time it is used, India would have improved more of its infrastructure.

@sudeep, regarding digesting Ukraine. Kyiv was an important center in the development of 'Rus'. This is like Duryodhana and Duhsashana fighting over something.

The real danger is apps like Signal -- Elon's starlink is not what's being used by the Ukrainians to coordinate. It is Signal.

SwamyG wrote:@sudeep, regarding digesting Ukraine. Kyiv was an important center in the development of 'Rus'. This is like Duryodhana and Duhsashana fighting over something.

Maybe not as ancient but to Russia Kiev is what the Indus Valley civilization was for us.

sudeepj wrote:...

Russia only needs to carve out a DMZ and defendable oil and mineral zones in the east, create a land bridge(Mariupol) and water supply to Crimea( this was choked off recently). Rest is all temporary, cards for bargaining.

SwamyG wrote:@sudeep, regarding digesting Ukraine. Kyiv was an important center in the development of 'Rus'. This is like Duryodhana and Duhsashana fighting over something.

Its not about the criminal tribes fighting over a bit of farm/grazing land. Its about scaring the rest of Europe even more firmly into the ambit of the anglo powers, to prepare for the coming fight against China. That it will help American defense manufacturers and oil/nat gas complex is the cherry on top.

Its a war of choice by Putin and the US blob, Ukraine will be ground to nothing between the two wheels.

Russia only needs to carve out a DMZ and defendable oil and mineral zones in the east, create a land bridge(Mariupol) and water supply to Crimea( this was choked off recently). Rest is all temporary, cards for bargaining.

How? There are Ukrainians who hate the guts of ethnic Ruskis. Even some committed Nazis. They will be given Javelins/.. using drone drops across whatever line Rus draws. Rus will be made to bleed. There will be no bargaining. They will be pushed into the arms of China by sanctions. China has no choice but to provide for them for technology, resources and political support.

Justin Pulitzer@JustinPulitzer

I know CNN & MSNBC never aired this, so I figured I would.

Spot on, don't you think?

watch Trump video

Atmavik wrote: Maybe not as ancient but to Russia Kiev is what the Indus Valley civilization was for us.

If you believe the AIT folks, Ukraine is the Urhiemat of the Indo-Aryans.

Why don't the Paki students raise the Kashmir issue while getting evacuated?

Vayutuvan wrote:

Atmavik wrote: Maybe not as ancient but to Russia Kiev is what the Indus Valley civilization was for us.

If you believe the AIT folks, Ukraine is the Urhiemat of the Indo-Aryans.

Ahhh … not the time to go there. Next they will say that Indo-Aryans are from Venice

surinder wrote:Why don't the Paki students raise the Kashmir issue while getting evacuated?

They will after landing in India and then demand Halal food and pray on roads

?? Are paki students being evacuated by Indians?

Better to help evacuate African, Egyptian,Palestinian students first.

Changing the tune when faced with a stick is the core of Pakistaniyat. They will use the Indian flag when needed. For 20-30 years Pakistanis in West have been calling themselves Indian. They open "Indian" restaurants, "Indian" grocery stores etc.

Bai-ghairat people.

So this is hardly a surprise. They'll do anything to save their skins.

Best is to hand them over to Afghans to handle.

Incidentally, the Paki accents on the videos are all Pakjabi accent.

Moral of the story: If you weild the stick hard enough, they will forget their country and their pathetic Kashmir issue. Just use the stick.

Atmavik wrote:Ahhh … not the time to go there. Next they will say that Indo-Aryans are from Venice

Atmavik ji, for reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_homeland

Homelands of major language families[edit]
Western Eurasia[edit]

Map showing the present-day distribution of Indo-European languages in Eurasia (light green) and the likely Proto-Indo-European homeland (dark green).
Indo-European
The identification of the Proto-Indo-European homeland has been debated for centuries, but the steppe hypothesis is now widely accepted, placing it in the Pontic–Caspian steppe around 4000 BCE.[13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontic%E2 ... ian_steppe

SwamyG wrote:

Prem Kumar wrote:Except that, unlike Shakti, this weapon can be used multiple times

By the next time it is used, India would have improved more of its infrastructure.

While indigenizing our financial infra (like UPI) will definitely help, if India is banned from SWIFT and sanctions placed on Indian banks how will we finance our energy imports? We are a net energy importer unlike Russia. Even now the sanctions on Russia have left out the energy sector because the Europeans cannot survive without Russian oil and gas. They have no such dependence on India. It is India which has the dependence and is actually more vulnerable than Russia in that aspect.

What India needs to do is cultivate a dependence on itself by multiple foreign countries. Lacking natural resources, we can only hope to do that in manufactured goods much like how China has done. But it will take a long time to reach that level even if we do everything right. Till then this particular Indra Shakti will remain potent. Putin is not Ghatotkatcha in this respect.

The other long term goal of course needs to be energy independence. Our dream of the three-stage nuclear power program has been languishing with even the PFBR still not fully functional forget about Thorium. Massive investment in battery tech is also necessary to reduce outside dependence of the renewables sector.

nachiket wrote: It is India which has the dependence and is actually more vulnerable than Russia in that aspect.

We survived '98, no?

True, India is not where we want it to be, and the world is not what it used to be in '98. But we cannot ignore what we have achieved or be too despondent. Our task is cut out, and we keep doing the right things without chest-thumping or self-flagellation. Every year, we get stronger.

SwamyG wrote:

nachiket wrote: It is India which has the dependence and is actually more vulnerable than Russia in that aspect.

We survived '98, no?

True, India is not where we want it to be, and the world is not what it used to be in '98. But we cannot ignore what we have achieved or be too despondent. Our task is cut out, and we keep doing the right things without chest-thumping or self-flagellation. Every year, we get stronger.

98 sanctions weren't anywhere close to what is being done against Russia right now. India is much stronger as a country of course compared to 98 but as our economy has grown so have our energy needs and dependence on both imports and exports for keeping our economy going.

Genuine question, India is the back office of the world. Can they sanction India and keep the buinesses running?

I'm not sure why folks are comparing India vs Ukraine situation.
Pakis have not half the value for US ever since the end of Afghan war, nor are they strategically important. Remember Dimmy went to Russia with a begging bowl as help has stopped from US. Nor is India threatening Europe in any way, in fact we love to live and work in US and EU. Ask any eng grad and their first preference is US/UK/Canada. Ditto with all truck and taxi drivers.

sudeepj wrote:The first battle in WW III has begun with a decisive coup for oceania/anglos. Why do I say this when by all accounts, the purported US ally Zellenskyy is giving criminals and middle aged women AKs to fight the Rusi steam roller at his doorstep? Permit your mind the luxury of entertaining this Thoughtcrime in this disreputable forum of the unwashed.


1. The bear paw is now firmly in the trap. Ukraine may not be an easy thing to digest once Rus has swallowed it. It shares long borders with NATO countries. It will be easy to smuggle IEDs, missiles, carbines etc. and drum up an insurgency. Small low flying drones and a hostile western Ukrainian population make it impossible to police the long Ukraine border against weapon drops. Rus may well be kept engaged in Ukraine for better part of a decade, just like it was in Afghanistan. They will be busy in Europe and out of the Indo-Pacific.

To trap bear paw you need a Pakistan. Who in Europe would like to become one?

This is a very costly gamble. I doubt if this was part of the plan. Russians may have taken it to level west was not expecting. It will be clear in few weeks.

morem wrote:Genuine question, India is the back office of the world. Can they sanction India and keep the buinesses running?

Yes they can by shifting BPO operations to Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Vietnam (just to name a few) who are only too happy to take up the slack.

hgupta wrote:

morem wrote:Genuine question, India is the back office of the world. Can they sanction India and keep the buinesses running?

Yes they can by shifting BPO operations to Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Vietnam (just to name a few) who are only too happy to take up the slack.

Respectfully sir, BPO operations yes ( and only vitenam ) but the IT infra and support ( which is where i was going with back office) is pretty much run out of India for all the grunt work. Very hard to replace that.

SwamyG wrote:

Rudradev wrote:
And the Arjun he is saving with that sacrifice is Xi Jinping.

Plans go always awry. My vote is that it is Modi/India. Covid and this war, has made India look better. Coupta is already crying that this is impacting UP elections.

I think that to be Arjun you first have to be in the kshetra. I don't think Modi wants us going on the battlefield yet. And I think that is a good thing.

morem wrote:Genuine question, India is the back office of the world. Can they sanction India and keep the buinesses running?

True. Something to think about.

vimal wrote:I'm not sure why folks are comparing India vs Ukraine situation.
Pakis have not half the value for US ever since the end of Afghan war, nor are they strategically important. Remember Dimmy went to Russia with a begging bowl as help has stopped from US. Nor is India threatening Europe in any way, in fact we love to live and work in US and EU. Ask any eng grad and their first preference is US/UK/Canada. Ditto with all truck and taxi drivers.

Exactly if India threatens action against Pakis and US and West threaten carrier opportunities, even abandon may not be happy.

I think since 2014 we are insisting Google to have a mirror of all data in Indian servers.

Aditya_V wrote:

vimal wrote:I'm not sure why folks are comparing India vs Ukraine situation.
Pakis have not half the value for US ever since the end of Afghan war, nor are they strategically important. Remember Dimmy went to Russia with a begging bowl as help has stopped from US. Nor is India threatening Europe in any way, in fact we love to live and work in US and EU. Ask any eng grad and their first preference is US/UK/Canada. Ditto with all truck and taxi drivers.

Exactly if India threatens action against Pakis and US and West threaten carrier opportunities, even abandon may not be happy.

I think since 2014 we are insisting Google to have a mirror of all data in Indian servers.

How is that going to help? IIRC, EU's policy is for data to not cross its borders.

Deans,
Wha missiles the Russians are using? And warheads?

ramana wrote:Deans,
Wha missiles the Russians are using? And warheads?

So far we have seen Klub, Kh-101 (not confirmed), Isklander-M/K, Tochka, Kh-31p, Grad and TOR.

Baikul wrote:As an aside, the Turks are getting a ton of positive publicity for their Bayraktar TB2 drones. Not just social median fanboys but also soldiers on the ground (if translations of video footage are to be believed)…..

And now there’s even a song about the drone

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarVide ... ame=iossmf

The larger point is the reputational boost to the Turkish arms industry and specifically its drones program.

Interesting to note that all white countries are all together. J have some respect for North Koresns now.