Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Radio War Nerd EP #491 — The War-st Year Yet, Pt. 2 (Patreon)

Published:
2024-12-31 00:33:37
Imported:
2024-12
Tags:

Downloads

Content

Part 2 of our look back at wretched 2024: Myanmar, Horn of Africa, Russo-Ukraine War...

Total time: 1:16:06Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

*

Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio

Check out the Radio War Nerd Merch store here!

Order your print or ebook of John Dolan's new book Erdogan Pizza: Dispatches from a Violent & Grotesque World

Files

Comments

NYCM&AHole

I think there are NYC-> London passenger ships but it’s probably stupid expensive.

MoldyTolge

Pittsburgh, let alone Squirrel Hill (!!) mentioned

Neil Y

Thank you for another year of War Nerd. You provide invaluable perspective that satiates many a war nerd's thirst for in-depth coverage of our past and present. Here's to another year!

Christopher Small

On Ukraine: even with a hint of peace talks in the air, I think it's going to be a while before they actually become viable. The western press and OSINT have done too good of a job convincing people, including high level people that the Russians are suffering a million KIA and have had all their tanks blown up ten times over, and the economy is going to collapse any day now. So they're going to go into any negotiation working on the presumption that surely the Russians must be desperate to end the war. They'll waste several months making unrealistic demands, which the Russian's will just reject as they push the Ukrainians into even more rapid stages of collapse. I mean, look how long it took for them to stop trying to sneak de facto NATO membership, which has been the top thing Russia will not negotiate, into the terms. The thinking has been absurd, and it's going to be a while before it works itself back down to earth. As for Syria: Yeah, no one should look at the situation with the HTS and think that's gonna last

William

John, “we had to take a rickshaw to the bus stop, but the bus broke down just short of our stop, so we had to hitchhike through the Carpathian Mountains on goats and hay carts” Dolan

William

What’s this Ukraine thing I keep hearing about

HarshMalarkey

All I know is what I read in the comment section

NYCM&AHole

It doesn’t exist except because of Kruschev

Blorst of times

Can’t think of anything I’d rather listen to while suffering from terrible tooth pain. Thanks guys.

James Johnson

Re: the question in the beginning of the episode, why ocean liners aren’t much of a thing anymore. I’m a geography grad student who’s thought about this a lot, and I think the big thing is just capital’s tendency to accelerate circulation, of commodities as well as consumers. Certain Americans (on twitter anyway) even scoff at China’s rail network and think that planes have rendered trains obsolete. Also doesn’t help that time off for such a “slow” ocean crossing is pretty scarce for most people. The solution, of course, is less work, more vacation time, and banning flights…though cargo ships do offer a berth (for maybe $1000/week at sea) that cool ppl like Laleh Khalidi have done and written about

John Waaben

What about a slow boat to China?

NYCM&AHole

Modern China would have a hydrofoil and it’d get you there in 3 days with a stop in Macau

Joshua Garcia

Cruise ships seem like a prison. I’d never want to do that. Locked on a boat with junk food, booze and no where to work it off. Ugh

Tyler Berglund

I listen/read the Duran & New Atlas a lot. They do a ton of granular analysis on Ukr/Rus war and neither have mentioned the coke plant / coal mine dilemna Ames mentions around 48mins. This is fantastic analysis with details that really matter.

William

For John and everyone else who is ??? About the economic aspects of war; this coking mine is a good example. To boil down to its simplest components, war requires money. Anything that helps put money into your pocket helps keep the war effort going. This coking coal helps put a lot of money into Ukraine’s pockets; without it, they’re missing a critical piece of making steel, but also a resource they can barter with/sell to keep their defense viable

William

Also, manpower is the ultimate bottleneck. You need bodies on the front or in the factories to keep it going

William

Demobilization could be a greater economic challenge to Russia than any of the sanctions were

Podconsoomer

As soon as you brought up jnim I thought of rash. Please get him back for this

Tyler Berglund

On the issue of Ukrainian refugees in Canada: the numbers are super misleading. For the first time Canada is not using the usual UN refugee designation as its main mode of refugee settlement. They are largely using a program called “Canada-Ukraine authorization for emergency travel” (CUAET). This program is temporary (applicants aren’t actually permanently settled) and requires applicants to either work or study. This flouts all the moral tenets of refugee settlement. In the first year of the war, Canada gave non-refugee Ukrainians the option to come to Canada (temporarily) via a cell phone app (different from the CUAET but still not fugees). My friend who works for Nova Scotia immigration attended the arrival of the first plane of migrants coming from UKR via this short lived program. The plane was half empty despite it being fully booked and the migrants were overwhelming single or coupled young adults (with no kids) who appeared middle to upper middle class. No refugee program has ever been run this way, it isn’t even technically a refugee program (because they aren’t registered with the UN). Some Ukrainians have arrived as refugees of course. The Canadian Government stopped publishing its numbers for the CUAET program, but as of April 1/2024 960K applications were approved & 300K had arrived. The total number by now is probably closer to 1M. I repeat, non-refugees. I was involved in refugee settlement and this program is an abomination. Refugee settlement prioritizes need based on age, family size, health and time spent as a refugee. One of the families I sponsored were refugees for 10 years before being settled in Canada. Its important to point out the program uses Ukrainians as labour/students (who pay into the economy) and doesn’t settle any actual refugees. So poor babushkas and their families who apply through the refugee program are being settled in much smaller numbers. I suspect many of the “refugees” John saw in the hotels were in fact this bastardized economic migrant system Canada set up for Ukrainians only. Some refugees have been held in hotels in Canada but its in very small numbers and mostly temporary. Sorry for any errors, its hard to type this all out with my phone the edit it.

Kawaii Leonard

it’s almost like the attitude toward the Ukrainian armed forces mirrors the same lazy disposition of the West Point Union generals in the Civil War. Just line up to get shot and see which side comes out

Podconsoomer

I think you’re wrong I didn’t pick up on any joyful expressions about their predicament. If there was any it was because the end of the war seems to be on the horizon

Logan

"reserved joy" defensive invasion, moderate rebel, lethal aid, inclusive jihadist If you can't what you want to say without contradicting what you saying, you're probably wrong.

Dill Gherkin

On the subject of Ukrainian “refugees” in Canada I’ll add to the more fulsome comment below that the Ukrainians who have come to Canada are in entirely different circumstances than any refugees. Most are given accommodations very quickly. In the apartment building where I live in Winnipeg there were many Ukrainians who would live year for a year or two before moving on. The rental agency I believe has something worked out with the Cdn federal government where the rent is partially subsidized. What the Cdn government has done for these Ukrainians is unprecedented and especially stark in comparison to what Syrian or African refugees are faced with coming here.

a clash of purple

Nothing to do with this episode, but touching on a long-running subject on RWN, I contracted some miserable respiratory virus for the holidays (I am American). When I went to go buy some dayquil/nyquil (brand of cold/flu medicine with acetaminophen) I actually had to provide ID to prove I was over 18. Believe me, this stuff is not powerful enough to call for all that...

a clash of purple

I'd be interested to learn more about this. Certainly at this point, doesn't the Ukrainian government want everyone to come home? I would think they'd be leaning on Canada to send any refugees back.

Jimothy Realname

It's got some stuff in it that teenagers sometimes take to get high. The anti-cough component is a deliriant and makes you trip balls if you drink enough. For my part i once took 2 or 3 times the dose and had a crazy, sprawling dream where i had to escape from the Cyberdemon and later i shot particle beams out of my mouth at ghosts. 8/10

Methew

That might as well be a paid promotion for 3 swigs of NyQuil

Shfifty_five

Basically H1B for the preferred classes of NATO designated non-member meat shield country. Working class plebs wondering what they get? 1.) Suicide droned in a futile war of attrition 2.) trafficked for sex, trafficked for organs, beaten to death by conscription cops and/or stripped of citizenship, isolated and impoverished in the EU. (pick one or more). 3.) Stay and somehow survive - die sooner or later as there's no jobs,industry or healthcare due to war and hyperneoliberalism.

Michael S. Judge

Passenger ships sound cool, but I think they all become a war between various strains of botulism after about 5 days. All those 19th-century "Lady Smugg-Buggerington was taken ill at sea" euphemisms meant "She is shitting out her doo-doo ass all day"

J.L. Vaughn

Also some cargo ships take limited passengers with almost no amenities on board. Much flexibility is required, apparently.

Breakaway

I remember looking into berthing on cargo ships a few years ago, and it seemed kinda cool but not really worth the price.

Dill Gherkin

That’s a good question and I would suspect the Ukrainian gov would want people to come home but it doesn’t seem to me most want to, which is referenced in the episode. But I am not an expert on the subject, this is just what I observed and what I’ve read elsewhere.

Dill Gherkin

I started subscribing to RWN this year and it has been money well spent. Not only for the recent episodes but also going through the back catalogue. Here’s to more grim news and Dolan travel mishaps in 2025 🍻

NYCM&AHole

Yeah but those are for joining the rest of the separatists at the camp in the deserts of Libya

a clash of purple

Honestly, if some Cacodaemons wanted to barf energy blasts at me until I died right now, I wouldn't put up a fight. Getting high off guzzling NyQuil... I have honestly never seen the appeal in doing drugs, even alcohol or cigarettes, but that just seems embarrassing... Teenagers should have higher standards.

a clash of purple

Well yeah, of course they don't *want* to, they're not stupid. There's a reason why the Nazis like Azov are the only ones dumb enough to want to kill and die for Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian kleptocracy.

a clash of purple

I think you're wrong. At this point, Ukraine is destroyed as a functional country, and I can't see how they'll ever recover. Russia, by sheer dumb luck and against all odds, might come out ahead in this war, but that's hardly something to be celebrated either. All anyone can hope for at this point is that the killing stops. And, I donno, the remaining population of Ukraine is resettled in Poland or Germany or something? Their Western friends aren't going to foot the bill to rebuild their country, that's for sure. The devastation of Ukraine isn't as severe as that of Gaza, but that doesn't mean the country is livable anymore.

a clash of purple

Urg... I remember reading once that when ships were becalmed, the shit would just pile up around the hull (I guess poop is lighter than water?). So for days, maybe weeks on end, you'd all just be sitting there, struggling to eat your boiled ham and hardtack while your gums swelled up from scurvy, your ass dangling over the rail and shooting a continuous unending stream of diarrhea to join the growing shit island around the ship.

a clash of purple

I wonder if 2025 will be the year when aliens finally take away humanity's weapons and put us in a zoo for our own good.

Townes

Please have Rob Ashlar on! His substack is one of the best.

zo

Omg squirrel hill mentioned I live there

MoldyTolge

👽👽👽🙏🙏🙏

MoldyTolge

Some of those have pretty pleasant enmities from what I’ve seen. You eat with the crew and have the option for a WiFi package. Maybe a little austere but 🤷‍♂️

etienne

I think you're dancing around the point, the People love war. They kinda sorta hate losing a war, but even there. media voter craves sweet bloodshed. The more I see things go the more I come around that truly being a pacifist is either an extreme fringe religious belief or a momentary coping mechanism for hearing about one war that's not going well

Michael Salmon

There’s a lot of talk in the west about the Russian economy imploding and Russian “meat grinder” tactics. I wonder if you guys could have on a Russian guest to discuss the situation in the military, their economy and in their society generally

Jimothy Realname

It may be time to revisit 'Burn, Malibu, Burn! — Fire: The Most Effective, Underused Weapon in the World'