Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
Yup, it's not the size of the dog in the fight that matters, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
Cheers, dawg!
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
Yup, it's not the size of the dog in the fight that matters, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
Cheers, dawg!
Putin’s propaganda folks have been hard at work it seems. Perhaps it’s not the end of US support that Ukraine has to worry about.There are elections in Europe soon, these articles are worth reading - especially in respect of the Slovak one
Revealed: one in three Europeans now vote anti-establishment
Exclusive: analysis of results in 31 countries last year found 32% of votes were cast for parties that are populist, far-left or far-rightwww.theguardian.com
‘A perfect storm brewing’: how anti-establishment politicians could challenge Europe this autumn
Range of parties look likely to play a significant role in elections in Slovakia, Poland and the Netherlands
Rightwing extremist views increasingly widespread in Germany, study finds
Findings show 8% of population have extremist attitudes, while 16.5% accused Jewish people of wanting to ‘take advantage’ of Nazi past
This also is relevant re Ukraine
Zelenskiy faces difficult conversations in Washington amid spending battle
Republicans propose stopgap funding bill that does not include money for Ukraine as both parties signal concerns over support
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
Can't remember if this has already been posted or not...
….bringing attention to those big, highly visible, storage tanks of precious fuel! Wouldn’t it be terrible if someone started smoking to close to a few of them.
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
There are elections in Europe soon, these articles are worth reading - especially in respect of the Slovak one
Revealed: one in three Europeans now vote anti-establishment
Exclusive: analysis of results in 31 countries last year found 32% of votes were cast for parties that are populist, far-left or far-right
‘A perfect storm brewing’: how anti-establishment politicians could challenge Europe this autumn
Range of parties look likely to play a significant role in elections in Slovakia, Poland and the Netherlands
Rightwing extremist views increasingly widespread in Germany, study finds
Findings show 8% of population have extremist attitudes, while 16.5% accused Jewish people of wanting to ‘take advantage’ of Nazi past
This also is relevant re Ukraine
Zelenskiy faces difficult conversations in Washington amid spending battle
Republicans propose stopgap funding bill that does not include money for Ukraine as both parties signal concerns over support
So UKR may lose Slovakia, but as I understand it, both the Netherlands and Poland are going to continue backing UKR regardless of the outcome in those elections.
And Slovakia has a population of some 5.4 million so they're a pretty small country... Do they have any more substantial military aid that they can give to UKR?...
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Yesterday Russia resumed attacks on Ukraine energy systems. Ukraine had warned that this winter they'd respond.
RobStark
Well-Known Member
Slovakia is a major producer of 155mm artillery rounds.
I don't know if a new government would refuse to sell to US/UK.
Slovakia isn't giving artillery to Ukraine for free.
US support isn't dead. The cutting off of support for Ukraine is being pushed by a minority of one party. The situation in the House is complex, but a number of Republicans aren't there right now, one resigned and around 7 have reasons to not be in (I'm unclear on why). That leaves them with a 1 vote majority and the party is split on just about everything.
There is a majority who wants to see support for Ukraine continue, but getting past the screaming minority who are trying to stop everything is taking some tricky political maneuvering.
I could see Poland threaten to cut off support for Ukraine because of the grain situation, but when push comes to shove, I don't see them doing it. They detest Russia too much. They also are fully aware that they are among the next few countries on the list if Ukraine does lose. The government in Poland is already fairly far right. I suppose it could become more radicalized, but there is more room to move left than right.
Italy's government is pretty far right at the moment, but they are still supporting Ukraine.
The reality is that production of electric vehicles isn't there to replace all the ICE yet. It's like ranting about horse manure everywhere in 1900 and complaining about why people can't just drive cars. Once car production was there, horses were quickly replaced.
Electric vehicle production is coming along, but the vast majority of yearly production is still ICE and even when the tipping point in production happens, there will still be a lot of ICE on the road to replace. Oil supplies and fuel distribution are still going to be a thing for at least a decade, probably more. We will get there, but it's a marathon not a sprint.
Slovakia is a major producer of 155mm artillery rounds.
I don't know if a new government would refuse to sell to US/UK.
Slovakia isn't giving artillery to Ukraine for free.
I could be wrong but I thought it was 152mm they made. One of the sources for Soviet caliber rounds for Ukraine's old artillery.
I read a year ago that either Slovakia or the Czech Republic had a large Soviet era ammunition plant that they had mothballed when the USSR fell apart and they joined the EU and NATO. That plant was being brought back into production to supply Ukraine. There may be a 155mm plant in Slovakia too.
At the same time I read that there was a 155mm plant in Spain that was producing at something like 20% capacity and it was going to be ramped up. Europe has a lot of capacity to produce ammunition.
Still there are plenty of reasons to get there ASAP.
IMO there has been a recent shift from Toyota, they are now looking at front and rear castings and I think they have finally made an honest assessment of where they stand, even if they will not admit it in public.
The fastest path is legacy auto pitching in to help Tesla and the Chinese, I think we are are the point where legacy auto realise that their options are dwindling and the ICE age could end quickly.
Aide from Climate Change, Fossil Fuels have played a big role in contributing to inflation, wars, direct damage to human health, environmental damage etc.
When we have a better alternative, let's use it..
Directly relating to the war in Ukraine any drop in Fossil Fuel prices reduces Russia's ability to fund the war and their political leverage over other countries.
Drew has said 2024 will be a big year for 4680 production, I expect Tesla to make a positive contribution to increased vehicle volumes 2024-2026.
This is getting off topic, but the reality is that most people can't afford a new car. The average vehicle on the road in the US is 12.5 years old. For passenger cars it's 13.6 years old. The age of the US vehicle fleet has been climbing the last 20 years. It was 9.7 years in 2003.
The Model S was introduced in 2012, but only really entered production in 2013. 10 years ago. The average vehicle on the road in the US is older than the oldest Model S. The Nissan Leaf was introduced in October 2010, 13 years ago. The oldest Leaf is about the same age as the average age of an American vehicle on the road.
Even after almost all new vehicle production are EVs, it's still going to be more than a decade before the old ICE are off the road. The transition is going to be slow because cars are very expensive and it's going to take a long time before used EVs are cheap enough for the poorest people can afford one.
Oil is also going to remain a major factor in warfare for decades. There is no good replacement for fossil fuels for aircraft, ships, and most military vehicles will probably require fossil fuels for the foreseeable future. Having access to electricity to charge large vehicles on a battlefield is not going to be guaranteed, batteries take up more space than liquid fuel, and getting enough range with a 70 ton EV is going to be a tricky bit of engineering.
The reality is that Russia is one of the world's largest oil and gas producers. When Russia has hiccups in exports, the rest of the world is going to be affected. As much as we would all like that to be different, it's the reality now and probably the reality for most of the rest of our lives.
The real question is how many EVs does it take to shift the oil supply / demand balance? And hence the price.
I genuinely that that we are about to hit the steep part of the EV adoption curve in the next 2-3 years, the historical rate of adoption is not a good predictor of future adoption.
Often most high mileage vehicles are new vehicles, the economics of EVs work out best in high mileage applications.
At the start of the war Russia assumed that Europeans would not be able to live without Russian gas, so far Europe has been able to do that fairly effectively.
China is an outlet for Russian oil but is adopting EVs rapidly as part of an official government policy. Currently around 24% of new car sales.
So far oil exporters are able to prop up the price by cutting supply, Russia has got more assistance from OPEC than I would like.
This (more EV sales) will not bring a speedy end to the war, but every little bit helps.
Sanctions are also disappointing to date and IMO an area the can be improved,
This war is definitely one that is an economic contest.
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BitJam
Active Member
A good 10-minute antidote to the shrill whining of many Western commentators.
Let's talk about Ukraine and when it will end....
Let's talk about Ukraine and when it will end....
This isn't numbers. It's not a dollar amount for the people over there. They saw what happened to towns that Russia captured. They don't want it happening to their town. They're fighting for their homes.
[...] Ukraine's defense intel] said they believe the Russian economy can hold out until 2025. But their arms will hold out until 2026. So unless Russian resolve breaks, you're looking at 2026 before the fighting ends.
[...] Once Russia formed lines and started saying "we're keeping this" there was no quick resolution. It's not in the cards. And that was know before Putin launched the invasion.
[... Ukraine] is more important to Europe than it is to the United States. Europe will probably continue to support Ukraine until it's over. [...] Europe needs Ukraine on its side.
petit_bateau
Active Member
I'm sure you've all seen the S-curve chart of mine that suggests >90% of new vehicle sales will be BEV by 2030. That is both heavy and light vehicles, albeit that the heavy vehicles will skew later within the decade.
Below is the corresponding effect on the stock of vehicles on the road globally. The left hand axis may as well be 0-50 million bbls/day of oil production as a first-order approximation*, given that vehicles account for about 50% of global oil use of approximately 100 million bbls/day. Therefore, whilst BEVs will be (indeed, are now) having an effect at the margin on oil consumption growth, it will be about the end of the decade before the reduction become material. Somewhere around late 2030s through to 2040 I expect the curve to collapse much faster as oil production/refining/delivery/retail networks implode at the low volumes that will be evident then.
So I already think we are seeing some BEV contribution to setting the oil price, because of course ordinarily the price is set by the marginal buyer and seller. But I don't think that the BEV contribution is - yet - very strong in the price signal. Another few years though and it will be very relevant, and very obvious.
Which is somewhat relevant to the immediate future with Ukraine, as anything that can damp the oil price spikes is helpful. One has to remember that the Saudis are in reality on Putin's side in this, and are definitely not friends of the Biden administration. One cannot disregard the possibility that a certain amount of collusion is going on to force the oil price high during the electoral year 2024 so as to negatively affect Biden's re-election attempt. It is not often I say this (at least not these days), but it would be quite helpful if the fraccers would get out there and start driving that rig count up in the USA right now.
OECD: oil demand share by sector | Statista
Road transportation is the greatest oil demanding sector in OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) member states.
www.statista.com
* a second order one would have to take into account a much more granular mix of vehicle type, age, and global location to include factors such as newer vehicles tending to drive the longer distances but at higher mpg, etc, but ultimately I don't think would make much difference vs the first order approximation.
I think he is right if you assume a linear progression of the war. But what I see is that as the war has continued Ukraine and Russia have both increased their production of modern warfare capability such as drones. Specially Ukraine seems to have set up a rather effective drone warfare operation if one is to believe the internet. This probably involve US satellite images, machine learning algorithms to identify targets, factory lines making drones and drone bombs, smuggling operations to bring in drone and agents behind enemy lines etc. If we see a nonlinear increase in production and delivery capability of these weapons at some point they might exhaust the Russian army. Clearly the internet has failed to predict when Russia will be exhausted so maybe it will last a lot longer who knows. But as Elon was wrong on FSD timelines, but if you just keep improving all parts of the stack by orders of magnitude eventually you get a lot of progress and at some point you will get FSD. Same with this drone warfare, if they keep ramping it up, eventually Russia will run out of fighter jets, boats, fuel depots, army HQs etc in Crimea...
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BitJam
Active Member
Beau cited Ukrainian defense intelligence for the predictions of Russia's longevity. You are free to disagree with them but I think they are already well informed about the various aspects of the Ukrainian military effort that you mention. I would also trust them much more than I would trust "the internet". This doesn't mean they are right.
Sure Russia will eventually run out of stuff but that is not going to happen soon. For example, Ukraine has only destroyed a few percent of the transport planes that have been recently camouflaged with tires.
I thought it was interesting that the Ukrainian defense predicts an economic collapse in Russia a year before a military collapse. I think this will come about from death by a dozen cuts more than by Russia running out of stuff because it all got destroyed by Ukrainian drones. Sanctions and lower oil prices and running out of foreign currency and getting ground down on the front and worsening logistics and sabotage and so on. Ukraine is lighting more fires than Russia can put out.
But I hope Russia will lose the will to fight (perhaps after giving Putin impromptu flying lessons) before their economy collapses.
In the last 20 years the US has become the land of the SUV and pickup truck (ute). The Dodge Ram is the only full sized ute sold in Australia I believe. In the US the utes that size from Ford, GM, and Dodge are three of the top selling vehicles. There are a lot of options for each of the truck models that affect the outcome, but here are three standard equipment trucks compared to a Toyota Camry
Compare Side-by-Side
They are incredibly common around here. I think we are the only people on our street who don't own a truck or SUV. I have the only electric car. There are a few hybrids, but no plug in hybrids.
I know someone who had a 2019 Ram pickup that got 7 mpg. It was so unreliable he sold it and got a GM truck.
When gas prices spiked there was someone on Nextdoor complaining that filling his truck cost $150. I chipped in and suggested he get an EV. Filling my car from and empty battery only costs $6.50 (electricity is really cheap here). A lot of people didn't want to hear it.
Cities may be big on EVs, but get out into the suburbs and ICE still rule the road. There are still a lot of people who are wedded to their ICE.
Russia has a burn rate on their old Soviet gear in stock. When that runs out, they will have nothing left but new production which is there, but it's small. Perun recently looked at that issue.
Ukraine is probably coming to their conclusion based on the intel from satellite photography of Russia storage yards which are emptying out fast. I would expect Russia to run out of some things before others, so their loss of combat power if going to be patchy. Ukraine has been taking out artillery to speed up their burn rate. At the rate of losses, Russia will probably run out of artillery before they run out of tanks.
Russia does appear to already have some severe shortages of infantry weapons. We have seen many photos of troops in street shoes, and there was a recent complaint from someone on the frontline in a unit that was being essentially ground to dust in fruitless assaults who said they were throwing everyone into these infantry assaults, including the artillery crews armed with shovels. Several months ago there were pictures of Russians attacking in Bakhmut with sticks.
These are obviously not all Russian units. The VDV units appear to be fairly well equipped, but there are a lot of untrained cannon fodder units that have very paltry infantry weapons available.
As the losses mount, we will likely see more troops armed with ersatz weapons and fewer armed with real infantry weapons.
The army is slowly bleeding out, but they started with such a huge stockpile that it's taking a while to burn it all up.
While we wait for Russia to collapse Ukraine seems pretty intent on destroying the Russian Black Sea fleet
2 days ago they hit the reserve HQ outside of the city. A day ago they hit the naval aviation arm, before that the sub and landing ship in large dry dock, before that air defense. It seems a concerted move to push the fleet out of crimea and as the fleet was the main backer of the 2014 invasion this would be karma. Shortly crimea will have little to no working air defense. No fleet and no air defense…. What a turn around.
2 days ago they hit the reserve HQ outside of the city. A day ago they hit the naval aviation arm, before that the sub and landing ship in large dry dock, before that air defense. It seems a concerted move to push the fleet out of crimea and as the fleet was the main backer of the 2014 invasion this would be karma. Shortly crimea will have little to no working air defense. No fleet and no air defense…. What a turn around.
Maybe it's just a few percent now, but the number of planes exploding in Russia has not increased by a little, it has increased a lot. And if this increase continues eventually it will go from 1% to 10% to 90% pretty quickly. All it takes a satellite to spot their airplanes, an agent to drive nearby and drop off a bunch of drones with bombs and navigation instructions and press play. And if Russia cannot prevent everyone from not getting within drone ranges of their airports, which will be very hard, I don't see how they can stop this effectively.
My point is that if Ukraine keeps increasing how well they can take out targets far away from the front line, eventually Russia will have very large losses and sooner or later be exhausted.
I have assumed that a lot of this is purposed to deny Russia easy missile platforms for the next expected winter destroy-the-electric-grid push. Don't give Russia anywhere nearby to launch from; it seems that if you make all missiles come from Russia then air defense gets a lot easier. Give them fewer launch platforms and the salvo size gets smaller.
Will not affect drone warfare as much, but every bit helps. Keep filling in that bingo card.
I would argue if something doesn't break in the meantime, Russia could hobble on for many years as they continue to vector towards North-Koreaification.
But the coming winter will likely be quite different than last. Russia will continue to try to pummel Ukrainian civilian infrastructure (power grid, heating, etc). Yet beyond Ukrainian air defenses being much better now, Ukraine will also be able to strike back in much more significant proportion. They continue to produce more sophisticated/capable drones, are securing more long range weapons abroad and domestically, and are demonstrating their ability to wear down and spread thin Russian air defenses.
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