This would normally be way too much for one commentary but there's a thread through these that the press is uninterested in conveying and the public is unwilling to ponder. But ponder they must...
War
In ways which are not surprising but crass nonetheless, the war in Ukraine has been converted by the press into an Olympic style event where the top anchor talent are flown in to get some B-roll for future commercials as they nod their head hearing horror stories local reporters could have gathered with equal effectiveness but explanations of actual tactics, risks and implications to short-term and long-term policies are absent.
Social media is doing what it normally does to fill in the gaps and satisfy curiosity -- flooding the space with content ranging from the inane (the "ghost of Kyiv", a tale of a single brave Ukranian fighter pilot, part Red Baron, part Zelig -- a man everywhere and nowhere to be found -- who shot down six Russian planes in a single day) to the insane (we shouldn't be giving arms to Zellenskyy cuz the whole attempted siege of Kyiv was a feint, a ruse, I tell ya and Zellensky actually is in cahoots with Putin and will give all of our western weapons to Russia when they finally stop the charade).
There ARE individuals producing analysis of the evolving battle using public information provided by both Russia and Ukraine to highlight inconsistencies and more accurately quantify what is POSSIBLY (versus IMPOSSIBLY) happening. More importantly, they discuss the implications of those results for both Russian and Ukraine in this current conflict AND other countries pondering their own defense strategies for the future.
Possibly the two best sources of analysis I've seen to date are the Task & Purpose and Penur channels on YouTube. Laughable, right? Why should a couple of yahoos on YouTube be trusted more than billion dollar corporate networks to dissect what's happening? Task & Purpose content is created by Chris Cappy who served as an infantryman in Iraq and has focused on military technology and military life for years. His first post specifically on Ukraine was
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s062H1xEvuw (Ukraine's Lost Army)
on February 15, 2022 describing the history of the brewing conflict from post-USSR 1991 to the present.
The Perun channel on YouTube was originally focused on game software development but the channel owner (not sure of his real name) has an undergraduate background in military history and strategy. On March 5, 2022 he posted an initial hour long analysis of the Ukraine conflict
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJkmcNjh_bg (All Bling, No Basics)
that explained the surprising results from the first week of conflict out of his frustration of seeing no one else providing similar analysis. It "exploded" views on his channel so he began producing others of similar quality with similar results.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lem3enNkbV0 (Sending Their Best)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH0xWWSJL00 (Who Is Winning?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEpk_yGjn0E (The Price of War)
The last video (The Price of War) describes the efforts Putin is exerting to hide the damage being done to the Russian ruble by limiting purchases of dollars, limiting the ability of outsiders to trade any Russian stocks and 12% commissions on any exchange of rubles for foreign currency. These indicate the Russian economy -- bad as it may seem right now -- is likely FAR WORSE but normal indicators of health are being prevented from conveying the true level of dysfunction.
Why mention these sources and their analysis? The content on both of these sites greatly improves one's understanding of the dynamics of the war in Ukraine AND other possible battles in the future involving huge asymmetries of military power. As both of these resources point out, availability of drones (at all levels of sophistication) and relatively inexpensive tools (Javelins, NLAWs, night-vision) can level the playing field more effectively against columns of tanks or two hundred million dollar planes. With these lessons, the US should stop jumping to the conclusion that US troop involvement is the first / best alternative.
Inflation
The American media HAS been very effective at TALKING about high inflation and mapping some of the blame on "supply chain" issues and indirectly on "labor" issues constraining transportation and retail. However, most media coverage fails to spend any time describing the feedback loops involved with these challenges or additional forces that may add shocks to those areas.
Obviously, oil prices are going to be high when a primary supplier of oil and gas to Europe is engaging in a war that is triggering sanctions from nearly the entire world. That demand has to shift somewhere and when technology and drilling efficiency are constant in the near term and supply shrinks, prices will spike. The concern here is that short term efforts to soften that spike by bleeding off barrels from the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) are likely to be COMPELTELY ineffective and misguided.
Why ineffective? The bleed-down started with a suggested 30 million barrels starting 3/1 but was recently expanded to 60 million barrels between March and June. Daily oil demand in the US is about 20 million barrels and the SPR currently houses 580 million barrels. The math says that 60 million barrels spread out over two months is one million barells per day or 5% of daily consumption. A reserve of 580 million barrels would only last twenty nine days at most. If crude itself was 100% of the cost of refined products, this would only reduce prices about five percent. A five percent blip isn't material to anyone.
Why mis-guided? Russia has a demonstrated track record of cyber attacks affecting heavy industry, energy firms and telecommunications. The chances are MUCH HIGHER than zero now that Russia will opt to launch an attack on infrastructure SOMEWHERE that would disrupt energy markets even further. Why? Answer that with another question… Given a choice, what would you prefer?
a) paying $4.50/gallon for gas
b) having NO GAS to buy at any price
With US daily demand at 20 million barrels, the SPR is already only enough capacity for twenty nine days. The 60 million barrel bleed-off reduces that by three days. To some extend, the SPR is a form of security and political theatre to begin with but shrinking the fig leaf of stability by three days clearly makes things worse in a world where probabilities for the worst-case black swan have gone up substantially.
Famine
It is possible we are currently witnessing the seeds of the MOTHER of all supply chain disruptions as Russia continues to bomb cities throughout Ukraine. Based on statistics from Germany, Ukrain supplies 11.5% of the world market for wheat and 17% of the market for corn. Russian bombing of port cities and infrastructure throughout the country has likely made it impossible to stage the seed and resources needed for one hundred percent of those crops to be planted and the labor required for planting is likely out of position either fighting Russians city by city or in refugee camps far away from home.
Based on this site at https://ihsmarkit.com/products/food-commodities-food-manufacturing-crops-wheat.html , the wheat market looks like this:
- total wheat production 764 million tonnes
- total wheat consumption 751 tonnes
- excess consumption for buffer / warehousing = 13 million tonnes
- estimated total worldwide reserves of wheat are about 281 million bushels (about 7.8 million tonnes)
- European production amounts to over 50% of the export market
- US production amounts to 20% of the export market
- Ukraine produced about 80 million tonnes of wheat in 2021
- expected 2022 production in Ukraine is about 40 million tonnes
- the countries most dependent on exports are in the middle east and Africa
So a few key points are immediately apparent. The 13 million tonne surplus in production each year doesn't cover a sudden drop of Ukraine production from 80 million to 40 million. Adding the 13 million production surplus to current worldwide reserves of 7.8 million isn't enough to cover a sudden 40 million tonne shortfall either. It isn't clear how much Russia's production will drop if they require more resources for fighting rather than working crops. Even if Russian production is unchanged, will anyone outside Russia buy their wheat?
Politics
All of the above factors further distort the politics in every country. In the US, voters seeing $100 fill-ups and $9.00/pound hamburger and egg shortages may lay it all at the feet of Biden and swing the House and Senate over to Republicans. Yet how were any of these problems triggered by Biden era decisions? Arguably,
- Trump's dissing of NATO and extortion of Ukraine likely convinced Putin no one would intervene
- Trump anti-vax insanity needlessly lengthened the post-vaccine phase of the pandemic and economic calamity
- Biden cannot reverse twenty years of curtailed investment in on-shore chip manufacturing
Worldwide, countries facing an influx of Ukrainian refugees will inevitably begin experiencing social and economic stresses related to shortages of housing, classrooms and locations for fleeing Ukrainians to work. As weeks grind into months, host countries will likely encounter resentment of the millions of extra people, driving increases in anti-immigration, nativist policies.
It doesn't bode well for democracy when the force we are fighting has poisoned our channels of public information and debate and the citizenry is already inclined to prefer authoritarian certainty over the untidy but ultimately more resilient confusion of a balanced representative society. The rich aren't going to help the world right now. The rich created these problems by funneling an obscene share of the value created to the top while starving our systems of the resources required to maintain the plumbing of the machine creating all the value. And meanwhile, the world's richest man - Elon Musk - is fixated on taking Twitter private so it can become a truly free platform… Is it because Musk wants to ensure an open platform allowing any idea or opinion to be communicated without restrictions? Or is it because Musk wants to control the company to stop a teenager from tweeting the itineraries of the private jet flights of America's oligarchs, including Elon Musk?
It's time for a new rule. When in doubt, don't surrender control of ANYTHING to people whose wealth is already 10,000x that of the average rich person. The gene pool of ideas needs new raw material.
WTH
