No Fly Zones

I've been hearing a lot about No Fly Zones for Ukraine...

And it's apparently a lot more complicated than I thought.

When I first heard about it, I thought of Serbia. Oddly enough, the Wikipedia for it isn't working, but I did find an old news article.

It was something NATO did in the region without escalation or leading to a declaration of war, so I pretty much thought it was a legit option for Ukraine... 

And yet I repeatedly see people talking like it's a bad idea. I'm not entirely sure what the difference is, either... 

The belief that Putin is guaranteed to consider it escalation?

Is it because Russia is bigger, has nukes, and could respond in a way that the participants in the Balkan fighting couldn't?

It just seems weird that it was considered perfectly fine for the Balkans, but somehow a very bad idea for Ukraine. Especially because most of the reasons aren't saying 'we're scared Putin will use nukes if we try it', and instead try to act like it's just well known (among experts) that it's a bad idea because the way you enforce it would lead to the escalation we're all worried about.

(Not that it's not a more subtle way of saying 'we're afraid it'll lead to ww3/nukes, but again... Guess there was no such concern in the Balkans.)

Seems it's less about any consistent foreign policy and more about how likely the other side will retaliate. 

(also. Usage in the Balkans, iirc, did favor one side more than another. And in a similar fashion one in Ukraine would probably favor Ukrainians.)

I'm not saying I'm for it.

I'm not saying I'm against it, either. 

Given Putin's remarks about supplying Ukraine, it does seem like a No Fly Zone carries a high risk of escalation. 

At the same time, I've seen some concerning reports indicating Putin may try to escalate anyway... 

And if we're going to get sucked into a war anyway, then it's time to start thinking about how to position ourselves best for success. (Another warning - that doesn't mean to ignore Putin's threats, necessarily. In some ways the moral high ground of proving you did everything reasonable, and even maybe things a bit unreasonable, to avoid war is an advantage not to be lightly dismissed. There are nations who might jump in to aid an ally if they aren't considered the aggressor, but might delay or refrain if the side they lean towards is.)

That's all getting complicated, and requires knowledge of the situation I don't actually know. 

I'll just say it's all very delicate, and although avoiding the potentially devastating consequences of ww3 and/or nukes is a worthy goal, I'd want to think long and hard about what we're willing to accept in order to do so.

If we can, great. 

If we can't, then we need to make sure the moronic fools sounding the drumbeats of war lose, and lose decisively. 

So much so that nobody is willing to entertain this foolishness for a very, very, very long time. 

Update

Ukraine is still being invaded. I still hesitate to say much here, since it's hard to tell what's really going on right now.

Finally hearing more details about Supreme Court Justice Thomas's wife and her involvement with Jan 6...

I think what disturbs me the most about that is what it says about the circles she (and by implication, a lot of the powerful people in DC) run in.

It reminds me of the frigging powerpoint presentation that was going around.

Like... It sounds overly dramatic to say this given how media seems to be downplaying it, but refusing to accept the results of an election (without any real evidence, and despite what they all tell themselves there wasn't any) goes against everything America was built on.

Its not much of an exaggeration to start throwing around words like 'treason'.

Except these complete and utter fools know so little about America that they've apparently convinced themselves they can undermine our institutions, undermine law and order, and do so completely in the clear. Like, they apparently had so little awareness about the illegality of their actions that they had powerpoint presentations, and sent texts in the clear. (The maddening thing is that they might never face consequences for threatening to destroy the best parts of America. That, and how they don't even realize that's what they're doing.)

Ginni Thomas might not be any different from the other misguided fools who'd rather believe BS than accept reality, but it's extremely disturbing to see that behavior in someone I assume is well connected.

Just how much of a bubble are these people in?!?

And how the hell do we fix things when those best positioned to do so are living in a fantasy land? 

Ukraine, Russia, and the Perils of Despotism

This fits my preconceptions so well that I'm almost concerned. 

There's a few things I would question, but the repeated points about how despotic rule is fairly incompetent (at everything except surviving) are things I fully agree with, for many of the reasons mentioned here.

It also touches on the resource curse, and how oil shelters Putin from the normal consequences of bad government.

Ukraine

Why do people seem to think brutality and a willingness to get a lot of your own people killed is somehow a sign of a great leader?

I haven't posted much about Russia's invasion because there's too much speculation and not enough facts, though I do keep seeing indicators that lead me to believe this thread is probably true.

If Putin can't win the way he expected, I guess he'd rather use brute force and massive civilian casualties than accept defeat.

Just like numerous other foolish and incompetent wannabe rulers. (A good ruler doesn't need to terrorize everyone into submission).

Since I'm talking about Ukraine anyway... 

I do think Russia has shown poor morale, leadership, discipline, etc (there's a couple of good threads discussing maintenance issues and what some of the broken down vehicles indicated for Russian maintenance programs), but I'm not sure that matters...

Thinking of the battle of Stalingrad, or another thread talking about Finland's experience...

And that militaries do tend to shed dead weight when they go to war... 

There's just too many unknowns right now. Russia can and has won before despite all the factors I mentioned above, but then again the vehicle maintenance issues and the possibly deep levels of corruption behind it mean they might not actually have the systems required to fight a long and brutal battle.

Then again, nobody is in a position to stop Putin domestically, and he seems perfectly willing to throw as many Russians at Ukraine as it takes, so if they're willing to accept the cost (no matter how high) maybe they do.

And I don't even know about all the other things going on. Alluding to nukes, possible false flags and chemical weapons, planes... Will things escalate? How far?

MAD only works when both sides want to avoid that destruction. It's really hard to tell right now whether Putin has a line he won't cross, or would rather see that mutually assured destruction than take an 'L'.

Change Management

This book, Kill It With Fire, may be about how to manage and/or update aging software, but some of its points could be applied to more general change management.

"... The real lesson here is that modernization plans evolve as they progress. The first stage is one of evaluation. This doesn't necessarily mean you should stop everything and produce big complicated plans, but you should focus on low-hanging fruit of immediate issues with pragmatic fixes. Use these small tasks to focus your investigation of the system itself. Get to know it and its quirks. Where are your blind spots in terms of monitoring? How easy is it to change things, test them, and be confident that they will work?"

So There I Was...

Reading Kill It With Fire (for professional development reasons, natch) when I read this sentence "Artificial consistency means restricting design patterns and solutions to a small pool that can be standardized and repeated throughout the entire architecture in a way that does not provide technical value."

And it struck me... Isn't that a great desc of white supremacy?

They're trying to artificially restrict all sorts of patterns - who gets hired, what gets taught, etc - in a way that would be standardized throughout society, and it does not provide technical value. (I would say any value, really. But I suppose for the ones who think it benefits them there's gotta be something).

Okay, yes. I'm weird and that's a strange jump to make...

But it made the rest of that section really interesting to think about.