Always make a great deck.
— Alex Iskold | 2048.vc (@alexiskold) May 1, 2023
Always.
Even more so true in a tough market like this one.
Sloppy deck => likely an immediate pass.
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— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 2, 2023
My Country Is Reaching Out to People the West Can’t Stand In a frantic few weeks, he made efforts to initiate peace talks on Ukraine, criticized the supremacy of the U.S. dollar, traveled to China and hosted Russia’s foreign minister. ......... In line with the country’s history of multilateralism and sensitive to its needs, Mr. Lula is charting his own course. ........ China, after all, is Brazil’s top trade partner, importing enormous quantities of iron ore, soybeans and, increasingly, meat. For its part, Brazil imports from China, well, pretty much everything — like pesticides, semiconductors and shiny trinkets and gadgets that fill our dollar stores. ........ “and we are interested in building a new geopolitics so that people can change the governance of the world.” ........ “free emerging countries from submission to the traditional financial institutions that intend to govern us,” pointedly criticizing the International Monetary Fund. ......... To many leaders of developing countries, the global financial system — overseen by the I.M.F. and the World Bank and administered in U.S. dollars — serves to squeeze poorer nations, locking them into debt repayment programs and forestalling investment in infrastructure and welfare. .......... At the New Development Bank ceremony, Mr. Lula said he asks himself “every night” why all countries are forced to do their trade backed by the dollar. While that sounds like a recipe for bad sleep, the concern is not in itself unreasonable. ........... Mr. Lula is also drawing on a Brazilian tradition in foreign policy, based on the principles of multilateralism, nonintervention and the peaceful settlement of conflicts. That’s what lies behind his refusal to sell weapons to Ukraine and efforts to convene a “peace club” of neutral nations to mediate talks between Ukraine and Russia. ........... He has accused the United States of “stimulating the war” and the European Union of not talking about peace — and even said that “the two countries decided to go to war,” implying that Ukraine was also to blame for the conflict. In April he suggested that Ukraine could hand over Crimea to end the war. ......... A U.S. official accused Mr. Lula of “parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda,” and an E.U. spokesman reiterated that Russia was the only one to blame. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, while diplomatic, made clear his unhappiness. ......... Chastened, Mr. Lula soon backed down, underlining that his government “condemns the violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.” Even so, he continued to advocate a “negotiated political solution” to the war and reiterated his concern “about the global consequences of this conflict.” .
Ukraine’s Military Says Crimea Blast Was Preparation for Coming Offensive Late Sunday, a day after the Crimea blast, explosions rocked Pavlograd in central Ukraine, and air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine. ........ “the broad, full-scale offensive that everyone expects.” ....... it was crucial to target Russia’s logistical capacity ahead of the counteroffensive ........ A little more than 24 hours later, Russian forces demonstrated their own ability to hit targets well inside opposing territory. ........ Russia has been able to launch deadly strikes far from the front lines, including an aerial assault on Friday that killed more than two dozen people. But it has been unable to break through the Ukrainian defenses in the east ......... Ukraine and Russia have both taken heavy casualties in hard-fought ground campaigns in the Donbas region, particularly around the city of Bakhmut, and the country’s south and east are believed to be the most likely theaters for Ukraine’s coming offensive. But shelling has remained a fixture in the daily lives of civilians from both countries in regions far from the most intense fighting. ........ Russian forces had fired a total of 57 shells on nine communities overnight ....... Evan Gershkovich, an American Wall Street Journal reporter imprisoned in Russia. .......... The State Department this month designated the journalist as “wrongfully detained,” signifying that the U.S. government sees him as the equivalent of a political hostage. ......... the first time that a Western journalist in Russia has been charged with espionage since the end of the Cold War. ........ The area of Bakhmut has been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting on the eastern front. .
The West Tried to Isolate Russia. It Didn’t Work. Another 47 countries abstained or missed the vote, including India and China. Many of those “neutral” nations have since provided crucial economic or diplomatic support for Russia. ......... While the West’s core coalition remains remarkably solid, it never convinced the rest of the world to isolate Russia. ......... Instead of cleaving in two, the world has fragmented. A vast middle sees Russia’s invasion as, primarily, a European and American problem. Rather than view it as an existential threat, these countries are largely focused on protecting their own interests amid the economic and geopolitical upheaval caused by the invasion. ......... the sanctions have not been as devastating as the West hoped. A handful of countries have filled the gap, increasing exports to Russia well above prewar levels .......... China and Turkey made up most of the export gap on their own. ........... Chinese passenger vehicles replaced Russia’s past supply from Western manufacturers. China exported more machinery and semiconductors, too. Other goods produced by multinational firms that can no longer be exported directly to Russia are now flowing through post-Soviet states. ........... President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has opened up an increased flow of goods to Russia, tearing a hole in the Western dam of sanctions. .......... after initially falling post-invasion, trade levels have rebounded because enough countries remain willing to trade with Russia. .........
even though Russia’s economy isn’t thriving, it’s strong enough to keep the war going
........... The weapons have helped Ukraine surprise the world and hold off Russia’s much larger military. At least 40 countries have provided military aid to Ukraine, either by sending offensive weapons or by providing other forms of military aid. .......... North Korea has shipped “a significant number” of artillery shells to Russia ........ Iran has provided Russia with unmanned “kamikaze” drones that Moscow has deployed for attacks against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. .......... other countries, including China, have continued to supply Russia with dual-use goods like microchips that make their way into military equipment. .......... Russia does appear to be facing a shortage of precision weaponry, like cruise missiles, that require high-tech equipment. And Russian soldiers report a lack of night-vision equipment and surveillance drones on the front line. ........... A lot of world leaders don’t particularly like the idea of one country invading another. But many of them aren’t unhappy to see somebody stand up to the United States, either. ........... Throughout Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East, many governments with strong official ties to the United States and Europe don’t see the war as a global threat. Instead, they’ve positioned themselves as neutral bystanders or arbiters, preserving as much flexibility as they can. .............. India has continually defied alignment with either side. .............. President Mohammed Bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates traveled to Russia to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin and said he sought to find a diplomatic solution. He also offered up an Abu Dhabi airfield for the Brittney Griner prisoner exchange. ............. Dubai, in particular, has become a hub for Russians — a haven for oligarchs and pro-Kremlin elites where Western sanctions cannot reach. And Saudi Arabia has said it must pursue its own interests, even if that causes friction in its longstanding relationship with the U.S. ............. Nearly half of African countries abstained or were absent from the vote to condemn Russia, suggesting a growing reluctance in many nations to accept an American narrative of right and wrong. ........... when visited by Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany last month, President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil declined to speak in support of Ukraine, saying, “I think the reason for the war between Russia and Ukraine needs to be clearer.” .......... NATO, described as experiencing "brain death" by President Emmanuel Macron of France in 2019, once again serves the clear purpose of protecting the Western alliance from Russian attack. ......... As the war passes the one-year mark, Russia’s strategy is clear: to wait out the West. .
The Curious Conservative Case Against Defending Ukraine Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis have each expressed their opposition to Western support for Ukraine (though the Florida governor seemed to walk his opposition back); both are keenly attuned to what they think will play well in G.O.P. primaries. .......... Tucker Carlson routinely used his prime-time pedestal to disparage Volodymyr Zelensky, calling the Ukrainian president a “dictator” and comparing his dress style to that of the manager of a strip club. The Buchananite American Conservative is against the war on principle; the Trumpian Federalist is against it as a matter of political opportunism. ........... From Vietnam to Iraq, the antiwar left (both in the United States and abroad) tended to be united by a kind of instinctive pacifism, a belief that war was almost never the right answer. There has also often been a fair amount of anti-Americanism on the left — the Chomskyite view that Washington’s foreign policy is generally a force for neo-imperialism and rapacious capitalism. ........... Some of the more dovish conservative voices on Ukraine, who fear that the war could set off a nuclear conflagration with Moscow, are uber-hawks when it comes to China: They argue that the resources we are pouring into Kyiv should be held in reserve for a looming battle with Beijing over Taiwan. They are also the same people who fault Biden’s shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan for making America seem weak, without appearing to be the least bit concerned about the signal that an American abandonment of Ukraine might also send. .......... Some of the historical revisionists who embrace Putin’s pretext for invasion — that he was provoked by the West into coming to the defense of ethnic Russians who were “stranded” in a “Nazi” Ukraine after the breakup of the Soviet Union — would never accept those arguments in any other context: They’re the people who believe in the absolute inviolability of America’s southern border when it comes to the “invasion” of Latin American immigrants. ........... Much of this incoherence is partly explained via the George Costanza school of modern conservatism: If a Democrat is for it, they’re against it. .......... something darker is also at work. In Putin’s cult of machismo, his suppression of political opposition, his “almost sublime contempt for truth” (Joseph Conrad’s memorable line about Russian officialdom), his opportunistic embrace of religious orthodoxy, his loathing of “decadent” Western culture, his sneering indifference to international law and, above all, his contempt for democratic and liberal principles, he represents a form of politics the Tuckerites glimpsed but never quite got in the presidency of Donald Trump. ............. The hard right’s reverence for the principles of raw strength and unblinking obedience runs deep. ........... what George Orwell wrote in 1942 about the position of Western pacifists vis-à-vis Nazi Germany: “Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help that of the other.” .
Why Do Russians Still Want to Fight? In over a year of combat, nearly 200,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded ......... in a military operation that has proved both incompetent and ill equipped ......... Morale is reportedly low and complaints common. And yet a significant number of Russian men are still keen to fight — more, in fact, than at the war’s outset. What explains the disconnect? ......... About 36 percent of Russian men are content to be conscripted, with the most supportive group being men age 45 or older. ......... For many Russian men and their families, the war may be a horror. But it’s also the last opportunity to fix their lives........ First, there’s the money. The federal base salary for a soldier is about $2,500 a month, with payment of $39,000 for wounding and up to $65,000 in the case of death. Compared with a median monthly salary of $545, this is a handsome reward — even more so for the approximately 15.3 million Russians living below the poverty line. .......... For those coming back from the front, the state promises fast-tracked entry into civil service jobs, health insurance, free public transportation, free university education and free food at school for their children. And for those who were imprisoned and joined the Wagner private military company, the state grants freedom. .......... As one soldier wrote on Telegram in February, the war confers “a sense of belonging to the great male deed, the deed of defending our Motherland.” .......... By allowing men to escape the difficulties of everyday life — with its low pay and routine frustrations — the war offers a restoration of male self-worth. These men, at last, matter. ........... “It doesn’t matter who you are, how you look,” as one soldier put it. In the communal life of conflict, many of the distinctions of civilian life dissolve. War is an equalizer. ........... While some of the urban middle and upper classes have expressed their discontent with the war by emigrating, the poorer sections of Russian society see things differently. Mistrust of the rich, belief that sanctions actually strengthen the economy and disdain for émigrés all attest to a class-based experience of the conflict. By participating in the war, millions of Russians at the bottom of the social ladder can emerge as the country’s true heroes, ready for the ultimate sacrifice. The risk may be grave and the financial reward uncertain. But the chance to rise in esteem and respect makes the effort worthwhile. ........... The longer the war drags on, bringing more casualties, loss and broken promises, the harder it may become to sustain such levels of acceptance. Then again, it may not. Collective emotional turmoil could deepen the feeling that the war must be won, no matter what. In the absence of an alternative vision of the future, Vladimir Putin and his war will continue to hold sway. .
This War May Be Heading for a Cease-Fire After a year of brutal fighting, in which thousands of lives have been lost, civilian infrastructure destroyed and untold damage caused, the war has reached a stalemate. Neither side will countenance a negotiated settlement. On the battlefield, battered armies contest small strips of territory, at a terrible cost. The threat of nuclear escalation hangs in the air. .......... in the long history of carnage, one war stands out for its relevance to the current blood bath in Ukraine: the war in Korea from 1950-53, where the South Koreans and their allies, headed by the United States, battled it out against North Korean and Chinese troops, backed by the Soviet Union. There are all sorts of lessons to be gleaned from the conflict. But the most important might be how it ended. ........... the conflict — which claimed as many as three million lives and destroyed entire cities — gradually fizzled out, leading to a cease-fire and a temporary division of the Korean Peninsula that proved more lasting than anyone could have imagined at the time. In the end, a stalemated war proved preferable to the alternatives. ............ The decision to start the war in Korea was made by one man: Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union. After initially rebuffing the pleas of North Korea’s dictator, Kim Il-sung, for Soviet permission to invade the South, Stalin changed his mind in January 1950. The reasons were twofold. First, with the impending conclusion of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of alliance, which would be signed in Moscow on Feb. 14, 1950, Stalin knew that he could count on the Chinese to participate in the war if required. ........... Although the two sides fought several battles between 1951 and 1953, the war basically stalled. ......... It was clear by the summer of 1951 that the war was not going anywhere, yet it took two more years — punctuated by a lethal artillery barrage across the line of control and intermittent fighting — before the fighting was brought to an end. ........... the real problem was Stalin’s reluctance to agree to a cease-fire. “I don’t think you need to expedite the war in Korea,” he wrote to Mao in June 1951. “A protracted war, first of all, is allowing the Chinese troops to perfect modern fighting skills on the battlefield and, secondly, is shaking Truman’s regime in America and is undermining the prestige of Anglo-American forces.” ........... The dictator was perfectly happy to let the war continue. The Chinese, the Koreans and the Americans were doing most of the dying, after all. ......... It was only with Stalin’s death in March 1953 that Soviet leaders reconsidered the whole misadventure and prodded their allies toward an agreement. The armistice agreement was duly signed in the little village of Panmunjom on July 27, 1953. It was, crucially, a cease-fire. There was no peace treaty, no negotiated settlement. Technically, the war is still frozen, not finished. ......... The parties most clearly opposed to the idea are those who are fighting it out on the ground: the Russians and the Ukrainians. For Ukraine, repelling an invading force that lays claim to almost one-quarter of its territory, such a position is understandable. ......... if neither side makes significant gains in coming months, the conflict could well be heading for a cease-fire. ........... The conflict will be frozen, a far-from-ideal result. Yet if we have learned anything from the Korean War, it is that a frozen conflict is better than either an outright defeat or an exhausting war of attrition. .
Pope Reveals He’s Working on Secret ‘Mission’ of Peace in Ukraine Francis said he was doing “all that is humanly possible” to help return Ukrainian children taken to Russia and urged Hungary not to slam doors on migrants. ........ Francis said he had privately discussed the situation with both Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary and with the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church in Budapest, Metropolitan Hilarion. ........ “In these meetings we did not just talk about Little Red Riding Hood,” Francis said. “We spoke of all these things. Everyone is interested in the road to peace.” ......... He has compared Russia’s behavior to massacres under Stalin and has consistently supported Ukrainians and called attention to their plight. .......... As the war enters its 15th month, both the Russians and Ukrainians are preparing spring offensives and few believe a negotiated peace is imminent. ........ “I think that peace is always made by opening channels,” said the pope, who on Thursday met with Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal of Ukraine, with whom Francis said he had also discussed a “peace formula.” ......... Francis began the last day of this trip with the same theme he stressed when it began on Friday: inclusivity. In remarks in front of Mr. Orban, the European Union leader with the most hard-right and anti-immigrant stance, the pope urged his flock to welcome foreigners and migrants and to “become open doors” that are “never shut in anyone’s face.” .......... Francis celebrated a large, open-air Mass against the backdrop of the spired Parliament building on the banks of the Danube River. Tens of thousands of faithful, many holding Hungarian and Vatican City flags, crammed into the surrounding streets, watching via jumbo screens and listening to Francis through booming speakers. ............ “How sad and painful it is to see closed doors,” the pope said. “The closed doors of our selfishness with regard to others; the closed doors of our individualism amid a society of growing isolation; the closed doors of our indifference towards the underprivileged and those who suffer; the doors we close towards those who are foreign or unlike us, towards migrants or the poor.” ......... But Mr. Orban, he said, understands Hungary’s history of Ottoman invasion and that “the situation is the same now: They want to get into Europe through Hungary.” Mr. Baksa added that it was left to Mr. Orban to “save” the European Union. ..........
“if I consider myself a Christian, I can’t cherry-pick the Christian values I like,” and so he believed that the country needed to be more inclusive to migrants.
.......... On Saturday, Francis greeted some of the 2.5 million refugees who have poured across the Ukrainian border and into Hungary since Russia’s war in Ukraine began in February 2022, though only about 35,000 remain. ........... Then Francis met privately with Metropolitan Hilarion, whose church, critics say, has sought to give religious legitimacy to Mr. Putin’s invasion. ......... In a possible sign of his efforts to reposition himself as a facilitator of peace, he prayed for protection and peace for the “beleaguered Ukrainian people and the Russian people.” .
The Kremlin says it ‘knows nothing about’ a secret peace mission announced by the pope.
