One way Ukraine could tangibly hurt Russia in the short-term would be to shut down the gas pipelines on their territory. Consider this map:
No doubt this would annoy the Europeans who receive Russian gas. But they’re not actively helping Ukraine just now. The Russians would be terribly angry, but they’ve already invaded.
For a country with its back against the wall, I see little downside to shutting down 66% of their invader’s cash-cow
I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere, but I think it’s worth considering.
Historically, when Ukraine was ruled by Russia, it was considered “the breadbasket of Russia.” If Ukraine had a bad harvest, people all over Russia starved.
Of Ukraine’s top five exports, three of them are food.
So Putin invading Russia could be because he wants to secure his food supply. He’s worried he can’t feed his people, otherwise.
If so, it’s an expression of incredible insecurity on his part, not just flexing his steely authoritarian will.
Anyway. It’s just a thought.
Venice is a space station.
Hear me out. I’m not saying this just to accept the Mary McCarthy Challenge (“Nothing can be said here (including this statement) that has not been said before.”).
The picture above is of the Campo San Barnaba. You can just see a boat in green, with some carts in front of it.
Those carts are for trash. Venetians put out their trash every day in bags, and carts like those are pushed by hand to come along and pick them up. The mechanical arm that’s also just visible on the boat picks up the cart, the bottom falls out, and the trash goes into the hold of the boat.
Why?
Because everything in Venice comes in by boat, and everything has to go out by boat.
Yes, there’s the Piazzale Roma, where the buses come in, and its garage. But even then, to get to anyplace in the city itself, it has to be transferred to a boat.
The fire department (Vigili del Fuoco). Police. Ambulances. Groceries. Packages. Produce. Mass transit. All of these we saw as boats, at one point or another on our visit.
The boats orbit the city, like a hazy swarm of fireflies.
And if the boats are the shuttle pods of the city, the railway coming into Ferrovia Santa Lucia is the space elevator. Tying the city to the mainland by means of the causeway.
Others have commented on how Venice is without cars. That carlessness also plays into the space station nature of the town — one is forever going up and down stairs, down narrow passageways, seeing the boats just in the corner of one’s eye, or one rides on the vaporetti through the tunnels of the Grand Canal, the Giudecca Canal, or the northern edge by the Fondamenta Nove.
Another aspect that’s like a space station is how Venice is fully urbanized, edge to edge of the archipelago. Others have commented on this, but it makes the calli and canali seem all of a piece, all going to the skin where Venice meets the laguna.
Venice is of the Earth, but not on the Earth. Tethered, but floating. That it floats on water instead of in space is immaterial.
Venexia is a space station.
The image above is a summary provided by the US Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence in their new report, the first made publicly available since 1991.
Here’s their account of the Black Sea Fleet:
4 submarines
1 cruiser
1 destroyer
2 frigates
That’s it. That’s what Putin seized Crimea for. 8 warships.
Here’s how the US Navy defines a single Carrier Strike Group:
* a carrier — The carrier provides a wide range of options to the U.S. government from simply showing the flag to attacks on airborne, afloat and ashore targets. Because carriers operate in international waters, its aircraft do not need to secure landing rights on foreign soil. These ships also engage in sustained operations in support of other forces.
* a guided missile cruiser — multi-mission surface combatant. Equipped with Tomahawks for long-range strike capability.
* two guided missile destroyers — multi-mission surface combatants, used primarily for anti-air warfare (AAW)
* an attack submarine — in a direct support role seeking out and destroying hostile surface ships and submarines
* a combined ammunition, oiler, and supply ship — provides logistic support enabling the Navy’s forward presence; on station, ready to respond
So, the Black Sea Fleet is roughly equivalent to one US Carrier Strike Group. Minus the carrier, of course.
And, um, oh yes, the US has… ten of them.
Now think about what that says of Putin’s thinking regarding the readiness and utility of his other forces.
By way of a Mark Galeotti retweet comes Humor Northern Submarine Fleet, a wacky comic by O.V. Karavashkin.
I don’t know if I can parse the subtleties of the politics, but the look is amazing. It’s very representational, while simultaneously being somewhat reminiscent of MAD Magazine in the 1970s. Here’s an appreciation by the blog War Is Boring. Below, a sample.
Eugene Wei listens to a podcast (Econtalk) with a fascinating guest (Rachel Laudan, author of Cuisine and Empire) and writes it up in an impressive way. One liner by Wei that should stand alone: “You can generate your own scarcity just by having a broad palate.” But Laudan’s argument that French haute cuisine conquered the world because of diplomacy is at least as good.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has a fascinating post up, “Why Russia calls a limited nuclear strike “de-escalation””.
See, the US (and NATO more broadly) developed the category of “tactical” nuclear weapons in the 1980s to counter perceived USSR conventional superiority. (Notably the Pershing II missile, from 1981-89.) The Soviets were having none of that — their stated policy was that any use of nuclear weapons would be considered a full-on strategic strike, and would be retaliated against accordingly.
In our time, though, the Russians are saying they might resort to tactical nuclear strikes, because of US conventional superiority, as demonstrated in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
“De-escalation,” indeed.
(h/t, Elisabeth Eaves, on Twitter.)
