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Radio War Nerd #333 — World Of Wars: Ukraine + Tigray Famine (Patreon)

Published:
2022-06-12 19:18:43
Edited:
2022-06-12 19:23:25
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

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Content

Recorded: June 10, 2022

The War Nerd and Ames discuss the latest grim news out of Ukraine, where the war isn't going the way the West intended...after the break, we look at Ethiopia's artificial famine strategy in Tigray, quietly memory-holed in the western media-foreign policy world.

***RWN IN NYC!***

*JUNE 30: Tickets for live RWN podcast at the Littlefield in Brooklyn. 8pm. Ticket information here. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/radio-war-nerd-live-tickets-352250198827**JUNE 17: Meetup at Slatterys Midtown Pub in Manhattan (FREE). Snacks on the pod!

More information on the live show and the meetup here.

Total time: 1:24:11

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

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Comments

Lauren Cabral

1:07:15 My hypothesis is that because no one thought that the war would enter this second phase. I think they thought that either this war would end with Ukraine getting blitzed via mobile warfare or the Russians would be dragged down by attritional guerilla warfare (in farmlands for some reason). Why bother training soldiers to fight a war that you don't expect to fight? Now in retrospect they should have seen this as a possibility, but hindsight is 20/20.

Doug Cartel

you DO know that Zalinsky is the name of Dan Aykroyd's character in Tommy Boy right? You know, the guy who tells Tommy about how commercials are bullshit and how his enthusiasm is just an act?

Tommy York

Can I get the name for the music track at the break between the Ukraine / Tigray sections? Thanks!

Matt Colston

Shame I wasn't able to catch you in Seattle. I still am researching PNW Indian Wars.

Sam Zeng

Ukraine inherited a huge amount of arms from the USSR artillery and tanks as well as munitions however they have been selling lots of it over the decades. I don't think its so much that Ukraine is not well armed or doesn't have enough rather the Russians are just stronger especially in air and strategic bombing. Russia has more artillery systems than God so they are playing to their strength.

WarOn WarOff

Yep, a damn good reason not to start wars is that you don't know wtf will happen. History and great literature keep saying that but we're stupid.

NYCM&AHole

This ep is massively harshing the top gun maverick buzz

William

The economic warfare of sanctions have the opposite effect has got to be one of the more hilarious parts of this whole thing, other than the mistiming and sending of the wrong military supplies - sending small arms when they should've sent heavier equipment and now sending heavier equipment when it may be too late to help. Reminder: these are THE smartest people in the room, folks. Ever heard of Plato? Aristotle? Morons

William

Gotta be careful with using the CPI as your metric of inflation - the CPI tracks the prices of a small subset of goods deemed "relevant" to urban consumers. For example, food and energy prices have skyrocketed. But, also contributing to "higher inflation" as measured by the CPI is airline tickets, new and used car prices, and transportation services. So, not everything is increasing by 8% in price. As with most things economic, the devil is in the details of the way things are defined. Inflation measured by the GDP implicit price deflator (measured quarterly) indicates that this current bout of inflation is about 6.8% higher than a year ago, which is still less than the spikes seen in ~1950, ~1975, and ~1980. Don't get me wrong, it's getting bad, but it's not the worst we've ever seen and some categories of goods are distorting the picture

Jon

To John's question around 28 mins, "Where has the Ukrainian artillery gone?" - a lot was Soviet-era and poorly maintained. These pieces are now being lost to maintenence or simply wearing out and no longer being usable/accurate, in addition to losses to counterbattery or airstrikes. Russia has also been targeting ammunition manufacturing and storage which has limited Ukraine's ability to keep its own equipment supplied. The NATO replacement systems (eg M777 and M109) require training and so even if NATO countries delivered overwhelming numbers there wouldn't be enough trained troops to use them.

Michael

It was bit disappointing to see the Ukrainian democracy v Russian authoritarian state analysis trotted out in this episode. Both Ukraine and Russia are oppressive gangster states. There is a strong case that Ukraine since 2014 has been far more ruthless at repressing political dissent than Russia. The Ukrainian state have engaged in an orgy of political oppression and violence since 2014. Outright fascist paramilitary organisations have been utilised as a political weapon against sections of Ukrainian society including the left, trade unions, minorities and Russian speaking regions. Political parties, opposition media, books and minority languages have been banned. I would be interested to know on what grounds Ukraine can be described as a democracy in comparison to Russia.

Magic Mikey

Good point. I don't think one side being more democratic than another is a good basis to suppot them in a war (British Empire vs Kaisers Germany? Hmm...), but I certainly don't see evidence of Russia being worse than Ukraine democratically.

Concerned citizen

Your take on Ethiopia is very different from what I have had heard recently from Break Through News. Any thoughts?

Angus Cairnie

A lot of the Ukrainian artillery shows up smoking on Russian Telegram. Also Russian artillery spends a lot of time targeting ammo depots, supply lines etc. Ukraine had it in the beginning but my guess is that they've lost a lot to attrition

Freddy K.

@WarNerd: The e-mail is missing the direct link at the end. Ceterum censeo Opus Audio esse addendum.

Brendon

Hey Tommy, that was an unreleased track of mine that I used in the interlude - if you’re interested in checking out more you can listen to my solo work as Brendon Anderegg and my group Mountains at thrilljockey.com

NYCM&AHole

No way. It means that we can get unfented cocaine, and that I can quit my job as a mergers and acquisitions attorney and play heavy metal guitar full time instead

William

Maybe it'd be easier for you to point out where RWN differs from "Break through news" and ask for comment on that

Lionel Boyd Johnson

Ryan, check out some of the previous/recent shows on Ethiopia, they address your question to some extent

Concerned citizen

Well it could be that I misunderstood their take on the conflict but "Breakthrough News" actually visited Ethiopia and interviewed people on the ground. My sense was that the TPLF rebels maybe not quite what they seem, hence we should be highly skeptical of charges of genocide. BT also interviewed Tigrayan journalist Hermela Aregawi who offered a pretty comprehensive take on the conflict as she sees it. That being said it has been 4 months since I followed up on the story so I may be missing some vital context. Honestly I have no dog in this fight but my hackles get up when the US media starts throwing away the G word. Anyway don't get mad at me I was just curious. I just recently joined the patreon after listening to the great interview that they did with Robert Parry.

Madarka

A World food programmer presser last week warned of a catastrophic food crisis worldwide, and really laid it out regarding Tigray: "up to 750000 people facing starvation and death in six countries; of these, up to 400 000 are in tigray"

Demented Avenger

Why did NATO not have Ukraine stock up on artillery? Easy. Alexandria defense contractors had higher profit margins on other equipment.

James

Why did Ukraine not stockpile artillery guns and ammunition? - I agree with Jon that Russia has been targeting ammunition manufacturing and storage - Russia can do this to Ukraine but not vice versa - Russia much more secure lines of communication than Ukraine and guns need to be heavily and regularly fed with ammunition - When Ukraine was planning and preparing for this conflict I bet they assumed that Russia would have total air superiority at this point

James

And remember that NATO does not want Ukraine to be too successful. If Ukraine had fought very well right out of the gate then Putin would have called the whole thing off. NATO wants Ukraine to bleed Russia as much as possible, but still be slowly losing ground so that Putin is motivated to keep the war going. By supplying Ukraine with weapons as the war goes on NATO can have precise control over how well Ukraine is doing - and NATO is perfectly happy to sacrifice Ukrainian lives and territory to bleed Russia as much as possible.

a clash of purple

I wouldn't be surprised if NATO thinks they can exert that level of control over how the war proceeds, but it should go without saying that that's impossible. The Americans were caught totally off-guard by the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan (despite the Soviets constantly trying to tell them that's what they were going to do), which, in their minds at least, is a similar situation.

etienne

very funny that excellent anti-air has set back warfare like 90 years. artillery was supposed to be complete sitting duck for tactical air bombing. and also tanks can't be used for breakthrough anymore because atgm

Kuba Danecki

I think the whole question about why didnt they amass artillery in the donbas is answered by the fact you underline - is that they're poor. There will always be huge deficiencies but the mobile approach actually worked. If Kiev was not so well defended, that scary convoy would not get as stuck and we might not even have the convo about artillery. Altogether, i'd say the general strategic decissions were kinda ok, taking into account the corruption and the budgetary limitations and the 'why havent they...' kinda answers itself, bc they are poor and have a terrible environment.