Iâm suspicious.
Consider:
But sophisticated facial recognition technology found that the Putin who inspected the Crimean Bridge ten months ago was only a 53 per cent match with the Putin on Red Square.
âExperts on face recognition would refer to this as ânot matchingâ in most cases, which leads us to the assumption this can be a double,â said the commentary.
What standard is that? Is it the standard needed to enter as evidence for a criminal conviction?
Also:
Analysis was made of previous Putin meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his talks with Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko - when there was a 94 per cent match of these being the same Vlad.
Those photos would have been taken under similar circumstances such as Putinâs makeup and grooming, level of medication, wardrobe including wearing of body armor, and demeanor.
So once again, the risk of relying on âelectronicâ data. Time and time again we prove to be fooled, draw the wrong conclusions, misunderstand the conditions, or donât truly recognize the limits of electronics.
Itâs not a human brain; itâs presence or absence of an electron that we invented and programmed.
Itâs an Eastern European thing.
Costs:
That is an interesting graphic. âInvasion of Ukraineâ in 2014 of course refers to the US overthrow of the elected President of Ukraine and the start of the civil war there. One way to read the graphic is that starting in 2014 Russia realized that war with US/NATO and/or its proxy was inevitable, and redirected efforts from peaceful space exploration to producing things like hypersonic missiles and a new generation of ICBMs. Well done, Washington DC!
A corollary is that the West may now be lagging Russiaâs military build-up by the better part of a decade. We are ruled by dangerous fools.
Where is Europe on the graph and how are the European-Russian hybrids accounted for?
Here is the article from which the chart was taken.
The focus is on 2023, a year in which European rockets launched only 3 times (2 Ariane 5, one Vega), same as Japan, and would barely make it off the X axis. Anatoly Zak scores Rocket Lab Electron launches from New Zealand as U.S. because their ironic parent company is incorporated in the U.S. to avoid imperial constraints on dealing with customers there. There have been no Soyuz launches from French Guiana since the invasion of Ukraine.
Sounds like âNew Mathâ to me.
Ukraine has been running out of ammunition. Can anyone guess why?
What will Russia due to counter the arrival of F-16s in Ukraine?
Is there any need for the Russians to do anything because of those rumored F-16s? All the previous Western WonderWeapons have not made any significant difference.
Supply chain factors, big maintenance requirements, the need for secure pristine runways are huge real-world problems â and that is before considering the pilot-training issue.
Worst case scenario is that US or other pilots fly âUkrainianâ F-16s from bases in NATO countries and strike Russian territory directly. In that case, residents of London, Berlin, Paris would be well advised to get out of there. Our Betters are pushing the world very close to the edge â for no apparent good reason.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive faced another huge problem: lack of close air support for the attacking forces. It is almost impossible for a blitzkrieg to work without close air support, especially for the deep strategic penetration, but it matters greatly even for purposes of winning the breakthrough battle. As John Nagl, a retired colonel who teaches warfighting at the US Army War College, put it: âAmerica would never attempt to defeat a prepared defence without air superiority, but they [Ukrainians] donât have air superiority. Itâs impossible to overstate how important air superiority is for fighting a ground fight at a reasonable cost in casualties.â
William Lind has an interesting article â an imaginary conversation with some of the great German figures of the past.
Guest Article: His Majestyâs Birthday - Martin van Creveld (martin-van-creveld.com)
Discussion of how the Ukraine could turn its disaster around and defeat Russia was going well until Bismark stuck his oar in:
âWhy is Germany allied with Ukraine when Russia is far more important to us? Yes, we need the grain of Ukraine. But Russia offers vastly more: grain, oil and gas, strategic position, a large if low quality army, a decent navy and air force, the list is endless,â Bismarck went on. âI have no love for the âLaws of History,â but there does seem to be a general rule that when Germany and Russia are allied, both do well, and when they are opposed, both do badly. Is there really any need to discuss what the outcomes of the World Wars would have been if Russia had joined the Central Powers in a new Dreikaiserbund or the Axis? Max? Moltke? Anybody?â
Of course, in modern Europe, no âleaderâ is giving priority to the interests of his (so often, her) citizens.
GMS posted a link to this piece on a different topic.
By the way, @gms thank you for that link. I was unaware of Martin van Creveldâs blog and I spent many hours in the last few days randomly reading some of his posts.
Of course! Heâs got a few interesting pieces on that website.