Podcast
ReConsider
Hosted by Erik Fogg · EN
A podcast to examine your life, because the unexamined life is not worth living.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
18episodes
Episodes
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ReConsidering Russia: The Complex History of Russia
Sep 6, 202201:19:26Tap to summarizeMark Schauss is the host of Russian Rulers History and Battle Ground History. Known for being heavily well-versed with the history of Russia, Mark Schauss joins us in today’s episode to talk about the Russian history in its most authentic form. Mark shares everything from Russia’s first invasion to how all these historic events reflect on how Russia moves socio-politically in today’s world. Join the ReConsider PatreonTopics Covered What made mark start his podcast and how it’s currently going. The history of the first invasion and the second invasion of Russia. The geography of Russia and why it’s easy to invade Russia but why it’s difficult to stay. How Russia was able to balance European powers and how they were able to to set up alliances to protect their borders. Mark shares all about the Napolean and Crimean war.The casualties of the Russian Civil War. The transition period between 1917 to the World War 2. How Russia came back from the 2nd World War as a superpower country. Connect with Mark Russian History on Facebook Resources Mentioned Russian Rulers PodcastRussian Rulers History Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Ukraine IX: Oh Hi, MARS
Aug 10, 202200:32:24Tap to summarizeHot UpdatesSeverodonetsk fell slowly as expected, but then Lysychansk fell quickly because Russian troops surrounded it, and Ukrainian troops had to retreat rather than be destroyed. It’s possible the Ukrainians were out-gamed by Russian mid-level commanders.So far, Russians have not been able to break out of Donetsk city -- that part of the original Feb 24 defense line is holdingRussia appears to have deployed nearly 100% of its conventional combat capabilities to Ukraine, and is still getting clobbered.https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/25/ukraine-russia-balance-of-forces/ Russia is trying to recruit “volunteer” regiments to deploy in Ukraine to relieve Russian troops -- they will be low quality, and so their use would be to hang tight in certain areas and try to pin down Ukrainian units. Not useless, but not super useful.Once again we have returned to slow movement along the front lines now that Severodonetsk and Lysychansk fell. Ukrainians fell back to the 2nd of 3 highly defensible urban areas in Donetsk oblast, with Siversk and Bakhmut the big towns there. Bakhmut is under a lot of pressure; Russians are trying to surround it, but so far to no avail.Russians attempting to attack directly on those two towns, but also continuing to try the end-around from Izium toward Sloviansk to try to create a pocket that can be cut off. So far it’s really not working. It looks like Russia might be deprioritizing that angle as of July 31.WHAT IS HIMARS? WHY DOES IT MATTER? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times, Part 2
Jul 15, 202200:34:46Tap to summarizeLots of ways we can split this. Much has been discussed about decoupling of wages from productivity. Also note we are absolutely not going to get into 2022. But it’s clear the price increases since the pandemic (due to supply shortages, super aggressive monetary policy, gasoline ,and other drivers of inflation) are really eating into real wages.See the full show notes at ReconsiderMedia.comJoin the ReConsider Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times
Jun 30, 202200:31:56Tap to summarizeOR, a tale of ups and downsLots of things seem to be getting worse, at least if you read the internet everThis is not an episode to say, “nothing is getting worse,” but that what you hear about is probably not very correlated with what’s going on.I’m leaving abortion out of this because honestly I can’t even deal with this shit right now. Major problem with talking about trends: how long are we talking here? A lot of stuff goes up and down. If you just look at this year and extrapolate, then the stock market trends down, which it obviously doesn’t. So we’ll do our best, I’m focusing on the current adult generation (Millennials/GenX), but keep all that in mind. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Ukraine VIII: Bold Strategies and High Stakes
Jun 13, 202200:37:05Tap to summarizeUpdatesSituation in SeverodonetskHUGE numbers of troops from both sidesArtillery war“Road of life” from Bakhmut to Severodonetsk has 1km clearance from Popansa salient and has been a huge fight -- if it goes down, UKR at risk of losing >10k troops in that pocketAmmo situationUkraine out of Soviet ammo; now fully on NATO100% dependent on Western shipments Would have literally run out of ammo without that support -- possible insight into why Russia thought it could win DonbassUKR National Guard troops who are basically there to eat shells and prevent a breakout are losing moraleRussia has blown up the bridge between Severdonetsk and Lysychansk -- this is a major problem for the troops in Severodonetsk, but they could in theory make a river crossing“US General says Elon Musk’s Starlink has totally destroyed Russia’s information campaign” UKR seriously needs more heavy guns -- especially artillery. Losing 100-200 troops/day (to death; likely 500/day to wounds), mostly to artilleryOVERALL:Game’s far from over, as it turns out. Ukraine could totally win, Russia could totally win.My past assessments didn’t take ammo into account. Turns out the Russians just have a ton of old ammo they’re willing to use indiscriminately. Ukrainians are low on it.Ukraine has the will and skill and people to win if it’s supplied.The crazy situation and bold strategy in East DonbassZelensky correctly called that Russia was so obsessed with getting a symbolic victory in completing the “liberation” of the Luhansk oblast, that it would pour everything into urban warfare to pull it off. Putin has his own obsessions, but also has to demonstrate progress on the current stated aims of the war -- liberation of those two provinces. So they’re throwing everything they can at Severodonetsk.Russia is not good at urban warfare. Most assaults, everywhere, are getting repelled (and when that happens, it means Russia lost a lot of troops, stuff). BUT -- and big BUT here -- Ukraine is out of Soviet ammo. Which means a whole shitload of their artillery just went silent. Fully dependent on NATO sending even more, which seems to be a slow thing. And would love to have heavy armor, but NATO is against it. Ukraine has to do an artillery duel with a massive (at least 10:1) disadvantage, trying to use superior intelligence and western radar to precision-target Russian artillery and take it out, bit by bit. Long work, lots of ammo. Need more ammo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Russia Invades Ukraine VII: Possible Aftermath
May 27, 202200:33:34Tap to summarizeFirst, war update:Mariupol fell after 2.5 months of truly insane holding out. Gosh dang. 1900 surrendered and there is a POW complication that I”m not going to get intoUkraine has mostly booted Russia out of Kharkiv, though there is still some fighting and the Russians have not given it up entirely the way they did Kyiv/Sumy/etc, so there’s no obvious way to free up those troops for UkraineRussians trying really hard to cross the Siversky Donets river by pontoon, in order to encircle Ukraine’s core defense force in the Donbass (largely around a city called Severodonetsk and one called Lysychansk). It seems at least twice the Ukrainians knocked out entire BTGs trying to make that crossing, which is incredible.https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1528116469619367940Apparently Russia is generally short of pontoon type equipment…but Russia has a breakout of sorts, actually right in the northern part of the original Donbass battle lines, through a town called Popansa. TONS of troops moving through thereIt’s both a breakout……and a salient, which means significant risk for them. Somewhat exposed.Ukrainians are pretty good at mobile defenseJust not at all clear if they are running in open space (and just taking time to stage properly) or if they are running against really significant resistance at this pointThe original breakthrough at Izium seems to have stalled entirelyRussian troops also massed on the western side of the Siversky Donets (the northern part) to prevent the Ukrainian counter-attack there from threatening the supply lines and etc to Izium -- if that happened it’d be a total disaster(Ukrainians had temporarily broken across the river but had to withdraw)Russian tactics seem to be: just unload with artillery for days and days, then attempt an assaultUsually failBut rinse, lather, repeat, and you get some breakthroughsRussians seem to be planning to do this in the south, north of KhersonRussia may be running out of dronesWill hurt reconDomestic manufacturing capacity limited so they can’t build ‘emThings are moving SLOW, and will continue to do so IF the Popansa breakthrough is containedOK so how does this end?Well here’s where Russia blew it big time.The Ukrainians believe they can win.Russians could have had a settlement where they get Donbass and likely even Crimea as concessions. Now the Ukrainians believe they can win, and want to win.Ukrainians are also just full of morale, manpower, and money.-Zelenskyy says 700k soldiers now fighting for Ukraine -- 3x those of Russia. Can definitely win a war of attrition-Ukraine just got $40B promised from the US, and the G7 promised another $38BRussia on the other hand is having trouble manufacturing new weapons, and is losing tons of money from sanctions and withdrawals -- 45% of its GDP was made up from sales and operations from the companies that left Russia (which doesn’t, I think, mean a 45% GDP contraction, but it means a lot). So there’s just an economic slowdown generally, and a lack of ability to manufacture advanced weapons.Russia depends more and more on tube artillery, so it’s just blasting the Donbass to hell.And for Russia?See the full notes at ReconsiderMedia.comSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/reconsiderpodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Russia Invades Ukraine VI: We've Always Been at War With Eurasia
May 6, 202200:40:23Tap to summarizeWhat happens when you start really believing your own bullshit?What happens when you’ve created a yes-man bubble where everyone only tells you what you want to hear?First a war update:Russia’s focus on the east and Donbass, which started a month ago, has made a bit of progress in a few places, but is now pretty stalledThey do seem to be regrouping from Mariupol, but they’ve also been going into a meat-grinderUkraine has made marginal advances towards Kherson and away from KharkivSOMEHOW, Mariupol’s troops still stand in the Azovstal steel plant despite months of constant bombings and stormings -- there’s really nothing like it in modern military history (Alamo has absolutely nothing on it, not even a tiny bit close)It REALLY seems like the vast majority of Russian attempts to advance are getting repelled, and that is going to grind them down and make them combat-ineffective…and now Ukraine is getting tons of heavy weapons:TanksBig, advanced howitzersRadar systems to aim at Russian artilleryRocket artilleryDronesThis is going to help them dislodge low-morale Russian troops and drive offensivesVisit ReConsiderMedia.comSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/reconsiderpodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Revolutions
Jan 2, 2022Tap to summarizeTwo kinds of revolutions:Throwing off an external oppressorOften violent, sometimes notForcing regime change in your own country through extra-political or violent meansLargely violentLargely nonviolentThe outcomes tend to be very different.(Focusing on outcomes where they win -- turns out most revolutions fail militarily)Those throwing off an outsider tend to work out pretty well!US revolutionSpanish-American independenceHaitian slave revolt (note unlike many slave revolts, the Haitians were the natives)Indian revolution (mostly)Greek & Balkan revolutions, generally the revolutions of Nationalism of the 19th centuryGenerally the anticolonial revolutionsThose forcing internal change through violence tend to lead to brutal dictatorshipsRussian revolutionFrench revolutionChinese revolutionEnglish revolutionCuban revolutionIranian revolutionRoman Republic revolutions / civil warsGENERALLY:-Kicking people out works out pretty well-Civil wars don’t: they lead to dictatorshipsOK why?-Kicking people out: you use tribalism to your advantageYour people are united against an outsiderOnce it’s over, the outsiders can generally leave-Regime change: tribalism works against youYour people are divided because you’re using violence to create winners and losersOnce it’s over, the defeated folks stick around (see: the Iraq war and the Baath party)But there’s a second bit: When you have an internal revolution, you’re using violence not just against the current system, but at the very idea of legitimacy of any given system. You set a precedent: if I don’t like it, I can use violence to change it.Any regime, or system of government, relies on legitimacy. Building that legitimacy is hard. Lots of people study this. It usually relies on traditions, taught and shared belief systems, propaganda, and enough of a track record that people feel they have some means of getting their needs met through the system some reasonable amount of the time.So you end up reverting to using raw power, secret police, fear, etc. You don’t have unity or legitimacy so you can only resort to violence.When that doesn’t work, you end up losing the revolution and either the old regime comes back pretty quickly (English revolution) or you have ongoing violent anarchy where everyone is getting beheaded, including the children of the revolution, until a strongman comes in and restores order and people are generally OK with this (French, Roman Republic revolutions)See: Machiavelli’s PrinceWe must be wary in our own democracies of escalating rhetoric and actions that chip away at the legitimacy of the liberal system. Liberal systems are designed to solve problems through a process: when you eschew that process to get what you need, you erode that legitimacy and bring about its downfall, and what’s going to come next will be ugly.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/reconsiderpodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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