Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • January 5, 2022 12:48 PM

@ Borsch, ALL,

Am I the only one who thinks the USA actually wants Russia to invade Ukraine?

Yes it’s the hand of cards that’s on the table.

@ AL, ALL,

Reviewing a little history,

Yes… You have forgoton to mention,

1, Nord Stream 2
2, French Election runup.

Both of which I’ve mentioned in the past.

Oh and the all important,

3, Russia is to poor for a European war.
4, Russia is “Salami slicing” to get land without a European War.

It’s long gone time that the EU wake up and realise that both Russia and the US see the EU as bad news for their political positions.

Both have had policies over the last couple of decades to criple the EU and make it non functional and they have almost succeeded.

Gazprom who are behind the Nord Stream Piplines and are without any doubt a political arm of Russia used as an enforcment arm (Putin has turned the gas off to other east european nations in the middle of winter in the past). The Germans are actually acting illegaly under the EU’s own regulations because of the way Nord Stream quite deliberatly bypasses Eastern EU nations that can supply Gas. The fig leaf is that the German Government says only the last ten miles that come into Germany are covered by EU legislation.

The reason Germany is becoming dependent on Russian gas is the stupidity of the previous administrations and illogical energy policy re,

1, Nuclear
2, Coal
3, Gas
4, Green / Renewable.

Germany wants to do “green” but can not and remain an industrial nation. Yes it can sort of run peoples homes of green energy, but there will not be enough to meet the industrial need to make it actually renewable.

Germany was a world leader in nuclear reactor design especialy 4th Generation like Pebble Bed, which whilst not 100% safe was certainly shaping up to be safer than either gas or coal. So for reasons of “politics” that came from outside of Germany all nukes got the “off order”.

It is said that Germany sits on coal, whilst that might be true, you have to ask what digging out vast areas under Germany is going to do. As someone pointed out the Rhur valley is already one vast sink hole waiting to happen. Germany is basically siting on lots of voids held open by century old tree trunks rotting away, desperatly pumping watter out to stop them being washed out even faster. And that’s before you start talking about “CO2 foot print” and a lot lot worse. As burning coal is just about the dirtiest and most environmentaly unfriendly way of generating energy…

So with Russia offering not just cheap gas but paying to build the pipeline it looks wonderfull to politicians who are not looking that gift horse in the mouth.

Both Rusian and the US are trying to create friction between France and Germany, the result is that many peoples eyes are “off the ball” and this gives Russia greater lee way to do things.

Whilst Russia may be the wealthiest nation in the world with regards resources, it can not currently take advantage of them. Criminal behaviour by a very few have long ago pushed Russia over a tipping point and the crawl back up will be long and slow. Whilst Russia is developing new kinetic weapons think carefully about what use they are for, it’s certainly not conventional warfare. The comment about Russia taking out US and other nations satelites is no joke, and technically not an act of war as they are in “space” which is covered by maritime law which is very very different to most other law. The US military woke upto this a little wgile ago, which is why there has recently been a push to go back to HF Radio working from satellite working. Which is a little to late, the US politicos were told it needed to develop deep space and luna communications systems back in the 1990’s to my certain knowledge but kept kicking it into the long grass. The result India and China are likely to beat the US into getting higher resiliance communications.

But for all it’s natural wealth Russia does not have the industrial capability to fight a major war. Even national proxie wars are to rich for it to enter into willingly.

However Russia will get back the Ukrainian and much else besides vy the process of “salami slicing” a few miles at a time. Call it slow invasion but the Putin plan is to build an excuse to grab a piece of land to protect the ethnic Russians who have been moved in to create the trouble in the first place. The actual take over will be timed to coincide with other events, but be small enough each time for others to not escalate things. The lunacy we see in some eastern european nations is rich feeding grounds for Putin’s behsviours to succeed.

It was just over a hundred years ago we saw a very poor european nation use such tricks to take over most of europe in less than a decade. I would say Putin has been studying his history whilst the West especially the WASP nations have been ignoring what is goining on…

It realy does not help that the US is actively playing the UK off against France, abd German off against France to try and weaken the Franco-German axis thus critically weaken the EU. Because Putin is not just watching and calculating, he is acting…

Clive Robinson • January 14, 2022 6:50 PM

@ Anders, ALL,

Sometimes the only sensible response to a bully is to hit them on the nose as hard as you can…

Likewise I’ve been told –but I never intend to get in a position to verify– the same hit hard on the nose works on sharks and bears.

But whay to do when the bear is a nation state and hit hard on the nose means “push the big red button”?

It’s clear to most that Russia can not win any direct conflict, so I guess the plan is much as it was in Germany nearly ninety years ago. Keep pushing politically and salami slice your objectives.

The thing was eventually the salami slicing got to much, and the thickness of the slices to big, and eventually blow back happened and we had a world war.

So the question arises what can history teach us, especially when in modern times a punch on the nose could be upto a fifty mega-ton Tsar-Bomba…

Clive Robinson • January 18, 2022 3:38 AM

@ JonKnowsNothing, Winter, ALL,

With Regards : Group A -v- Group B

Let’s first be honest it is “-v-” and not “and” it is a slow burn where

Group A : Are the bulk of ordinary people who basically want to have a quietish life where they get up do productive things to occupy their hands and minds, find somebody special, raise a family, build a community, and if there is anything over from the productive activities but some away for the future, and have a little enjoyment that quite frequently means helping others in hundreds of little ways.

Group B : Are basically parasites living off of Group A, they are self entitled and avoracious in every way but they also demand status for being useless and they see others as something to be preyed upon. They are increasingly found on tesring to be mentally aberrant to the point they can be diagnosed as diseased.

I mention a couple of things from time to time,

1, The “King Game” and the “Estates of Man” hierarchy.

2, Serfdom, “Protestant work Ethic”.

The first is where you find Group B types, and the second Group A people.

As long as very small children are brought up in “idioms” –excused as parables– rather than knowledge a cognative bias is built into them before they have developed sufficiently to defend themselves against it. It’s one of the reasons certain more main stream cultish organizations actually concentrate on women. As it’s actually women who enforce and enlarge the cognative bias in society via the way they are “taught” to bring up their children.

I won’t mention any particular groups in part because there are so many, but mainly because that will get this comment yanked. However there are several that stick out by a certain characteristic that they can be fairly easily recognised by and has brought them into conflict with legislation. That is the way they try to reject the findings of science and reason, and try and fail to find convoluted ways of saying their beliefs are valid when repeatable observation reason and test are not.