Originally Posted by
Lonewolf_50
I guess that they will, in an act of revenge, set fire to Boeing HQ and Airbus HQ.
A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you are talking some real money!
I am glad to see you back since I'd not "seen" you for a bit. As you are old I was afraid that maybe you had become dead; am most pleased that this is not the case.
There's another way to read this.
That they intend to ratchet it up to WMD (first gas...)
I am not sure, but that is one way to see the signal they are sending.
It also might be bluster.
I think that this is called "an opening position" in a negotiation.
Remember how many years the Paris Peace Talks went on (over Viet Nam) and how many positions were offered and taken down?
(FWIW, have you ever been involved in a labor/management dispute? Similar tactics are used ...)
LW, I have been up to my ears in testing turbofan engines, and also turbo propellers. I have offered Ukraine increased range of their drones, should they wish, it is up to them to take the requisite steps. While dealing with content management for the STC series that we are working on, I had the pleasure of communicating with a lady working for a Scandinavian company, who was living in Kyiv. Her husband is doing his bit and is aiding in a lot of the content that arises here of FPV imagery. While on that call, we were interrupted by 2PM Charlie, another raid by F Troop. My anger with the interruption of this dialog by the pernicious criminal action of V.V..Putin made it desirable not to enter this forum lest I speak my mind.
I do however find a splotch of an SU-57 Felon on the tarmac a matter of considerable satisfaction. As much as I like the papers that TsAgI have put out over the years, and having owned one or two soviet bloc aircraft, watching Sukhoi Design Bureau go up in smoke is quite gratifying. If Russia wants a friend, they should either stop invading sovereign neighbours and conducting genocide, or perhaps get a lap dog, Lavrov and Medvedev seem to be needing new homes soon, that may fill that gap.
ORAC has taken up a lot of the load that Nutty has shouldered for far too long to date. Maintaining the rage against the injustice that has befallen Ukraine is a fair use of our time when circumstances permit.
We appear to be at an inflection point at present, with G7, The WH the EU and NATO acting with some resolve to suggest V.V.Putin takes up knitting or some other pastime, (knitting needles can be as dangerous as 6th floor windows though). The Gazprom belly flop, and the Moscow stock exchange, and attendant banks doing the coda of Swan Lake seem to be moves in the right direction. Havana hosting the pride of the remnants of Grand Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky's summer cruise to the Straits of Tsushima probably doesn't mean the start of a greater conflict, it probably means there will be some drunk sailors conducting social discourse on the return to the good ol' days, as they always have done. Havana won't be a patch on 'Po city though, but their bread is better.
Not sure about the getting old bit, but it is tiresome watching the worm turn that is the response that has taken so long to get around to doing what was fairly clearly necessary in February 2022. The bodies have stacked up like cordwood in the meantime, but the vector towards implosion of the Russian empire at the hands of their would be emperor hasn't needed the last 2 1/4 years to be an obvious possible outcome. The balkanising of the nuclear stockpile of the soon to be forgotten Russian empire remains a prickly problem, but it was ever thus. The difference between having one rogue state that exists with weapons that can be turned to a parking lot by an irate response may well be more palatable than a country with 10K+ buckets o' sunshine and a leader that makes one wonder if there is an advertised open vacancy for a village idiot in some small part of the Rodina. I suspect that HAL9000 or Joshua would consider the odds better to take on a small acreage of a grumpy warlord than the collective loony bin that exists at this instant.