It's like a person with muscles witnessing a beating and then when the perpretaror notices, looking away and saying "I didn't see anything!".
So far John McCain had this one right. Show Putin weakness at your peril. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLAzeHnNgR8
Thinking of a Moscow-Washington phone call makes me think of https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=6&v=6T2uBeiNXAo
> Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello? Of course I like to speak to you. Of course I like to say hello.
Oh SNL, please make a spoof of this...
Russia can barely handle a stalemate with Ukraine. They have zero chance offensively against Poland and the Baltics, let alone the full blown might of the EU+UK (which also have independent nuclear weapons in France and to an extent the UK). That doesn't mean that a Polish offensive can march into Moscow, but it doesn't have to for Putin to lose power. He's showing his strongman strong army bullshit to be little more than a paper tiger, and at some point even the nihilistic to death Russians will get tired of the meat grinder for literally no reason.
See, people look at the stalemate and often draw false conclusions. It's not that Russia was too weak militarily, it's that Ukraine put up one hell of a fight.
And all these economy size comparisons are mostly meaningless. Sure Russia may have a GDP of Italy but by the same logic Ukraine (which is a fraction of Russian GDP) should have lost long ago.
> They have zero chance against Poland and the Baltics
Russia's chances against the Baltics are pretty good, I would say 1 in 3. And for Putin it's a proposition with no downside: at worst he loses another few hundred thousand subjects.
While Ukraine unquestionably put up a hell of a fight, the fact that the numerically superior army with the better and more numerical equipment, backed by the multiple times bigger and richer country failed is a failure. Especially when you consider that Ukraine doesn't have a navy and barely had an air force and anti-air, yet Russia failed at establishing air or naval control, let alone dominance.
> Russia's chances against the Baltics are pretty good, I would say 1 in 3.
Russia has no chance of having a war against the Baltics only. Any aggression against them will be met with a swift reaction from Poland, which has a better equipped army than Ukraine. If Ukraine can destroy the best Russian units and hold to a stalemate the majority of the remainder for years, Poland will wipe the floor with the war criminals.
That's certainly true, but much of this failure can be ascribed to:
1. Lack of co-ordination (both inter-force and within each unit) and basic best-practices in terms of logistics. The Russian armed forces are still far from anything NATO has in this regard but are also a lot better than when the war began.
2. Poor mobilisation and insufficient initial forces. Most of this was based on the obviously misguided notion that Russian forces would be welcome as liberators (which, haha, no, 40+ years of Soviet or Soviet-backed regimes in Eastern Europe have ensured this would not happen for generations), and is unlikely to be repeated.
3. Considerable strategic depth, which further compounded #1 and #2, which the Baltics don't have.
4. Considerable development of expertise on the Ukrainian side, which has been fighting in Donetsk and Luhansk since the first Russian invasion in 2014, whereas neither Poland nor the Baltics armed forces have had much exposure to real-life war outside the GWOT.
5. A smaller mismatch in terms of equipment than media coverage makes it sound, certainly far smaller than that of the Baltics.
The odds varjag puts forward aren't at all outlandish, especially with NATO commitment so uncertain at this time.
I would like to add that, yes, with a lot of money and weapons from the US and other countries, they would not have been able to do it without their help.
Article 5 is still in effect, even if America won’t take its part. Attack of Baltics will trigger response from all neighbors including Finland, Sweden and Poland. Kaliningrad won’t last long, St.Petersburg will be within reach of artillery etc. It will be suicidal to do that.
One thing that Westerners do not understand is that people in small towns or rural areas of Russia may be expendable, but population of St.Petersburg and Moscow is a protected class. If they suffer, the regime may actually collapse before reaching military goals. For this reason Russian mobilization barely touched both capitals.
> The phrase is often mistaken as a scriptural quote, though it is not stated in the Bible. Some Christians consider the expression contrary to the biblical message of God's grace and help for the helpless, and its denunciation of greed and selfishness.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helps_those_who_help_the...
https://biblehub.com/2_thessalonians/3-10.htm
The phrase “he who does not work, does not eat” was never intended by its author to be applied to those who were physically incapable of working. You might say otherwise, but Saint Paul had been a very traditional adherent of the Jewish faith, which had required farmers to leave portions of their harvest for the poor and destitute. The idea that he thought those who were physically incapable of working should not eat is absurd. It is unlikely he had a change of heart on this matter after his conversion to Christianity given that he had viewed Christianity as the continuation of Judaism.
Anyway, I always thought the phrase “God helps those who help themselves” meant you had to do a bare minimum within your capability to take care of yourself if you want help. I think it is a corruption to claim the phrase “God helps those who help themselves” in any way implies that God does not help those who are incapable of helping themselves.
The status quo "in god we trust" is universally hopeful.
"God help us" can sound helpless (cheek in tongue)
Regardless, it always seems to be used as a cudgel against those whom the invoker believes is lazy or undeserving of God's help.
(As an atheist though the phrase always seemed like a justification for why prayers were not being answered.)
As for prayers being unanswered, there are two tragedies in this world. One is not getting what you want. The other is getting it. Interestingly, the Mouse Utopia Experiment showed that giving everyone everything that they could ever want is ultimately bad for them. That is perhaps a major reason why various prayers are unanswered.
I have a European perspective to this. This isn't as bad as it looks. The rest of the world should in any case not rely on the US federal government for their security. So, there was always going to be some duplication of effort needed here. And given the whole tariff situation, there is of course quite a bit of interest in non US based alternatives to your favorite US based trillion $ companies and their services and lots of companies giving the evil eye to any US based service providers. I've been seeing a lot of that lately with our German customers; especially in the public sector.
Short term mildly disruptive for some companies but not something to panic over.
Color me skeptical. How many companies have lost sensitive due to extreme carelessness, time and again? The cost of taking security seriously is greater than the cost of settling after the fact.
I feel like even the biggest data breaches result in little more than victims being offered free credit monitoring.
Heck, those nuclear subs and aircraft carriers are only making the American people less likely the collaborate with the rest of the world on security too.
Bin the entire lot
I need to be clear that I do not endorse this view. The role of the United States in facilitating global cybersecurity, not to mention navigation, trade among much else, almost surely pays dividends far beyond what it costs us. The amount of international goodwill that the United States enjoys is remarkable particularly in light of our various foreign policy "mistakes", and I think we have these systems to thank.
It strengthens US national security and cyber defense to remove traitors and activists pushing special interests within government.
DOGE is the financial end of this stick, dismantling the financial networks used to run and finance these illegitimate enterprises within government.
It's causing a lot of pain to these bad actors, and in revenge they are lying about it.
Shutting down Mitre and the CVE is against American interests, both public and private. That said, you can make an argument, one that revolves around cost (was the CVE DB worth $50M a year, especially given its backlog?). The other part of that argument rests on assuming there will be a private or semi-private replacement for the service, that there may be many of them, and therefore they will improve. One might assert, as libertarians do, that every service that's not monopoly of force should be private.
These aren't great arguments. $50M does seem like a lot, and maybe it could be reduced. I'd love to see an actual analysis of their operations rather then just ending the program. The second argument is worse. NIST and NOAA are examples of agencies that punch above their weight in terms of cost/benefit (the CFPB as well), and it seems like for-profit NIST and NOAA doesn't make much sense. But yes its worth considering the pros and cons of publicly funded service versus the private versions, in general. Even a bad argument is better than no argument, and the current admin does not bother to make one.
$50 seems like nothing for a trillion dollar government budget.
It would, by definition as a for-profit entity, cost more and provide less value. That is a guarantee.
They are not smart enough, well informed enough, nor do they particularly care to educate themselves or listen to other smarter people, they just see a number in the budget which they don't understand, so it can go. I suppose the assumption is that if it's truly important enough, someone will turn it into a business.
Oh sweet summer child.
We're now all going to experience the high cost of low human capital.
This mirrors a lot the physical destruction of other countries only to come back for "reconstruction" which filled some pockets with unimaginable amounts of money.
Should the US be the one to handle the CVE database globally? The current administration wants to see other parts of the world help carry the load. A little scare could be the push needed to make this either distributed or handled by a coalition. This could be a positive for the US (who doesn't want to be the sole funder) and for those who don't want the US to have sole control.
[0] https://cybershow.uk/blog/posts/computer-security-is-a-polit...
Goes into pretty good detail about DOGE employees going out of their way to obscure their activity on NLRB's Azure account. Surely a plus for transparency in government.
> Within minutes after DOGE accessed the NLRB's systems, someone with an IP address in Russia started trying to log in, according to Berulis' disclosure. The attempts were "near real-time," according to the disclosure. Those attempts were blocked, but they were especially alarming. Whoever was attempting to log in was using one of the newly created DOGE accounts — and the person had the correct username and password, according to Berulis.
yieldcrv•2h ago
so why was only the US federal government funding it, especially if it wasn't expensive to maintain?
this is the follow up question to every headline and won't be seen as controversial later, so why bother treating it as controversial to say now
jasonjayr•2h ago
esskay•2h ago
ryao•2h ago
That said, there is the similar sounding title called “the leader of the free world” applied to the U.S. president since the end of WWII. I always thought that was the result of military alliances, not the CVE program, which post dates it.
Edit: To the downvoters, I take issue with the assertion that the U.S. has claimed the title “leader of the world”. That is applied to the Pope during papal inaugurations and as far as I know, has never been formally applied to the United States. It seems to have been invented this year as part of claims that the U.S. has an obligation to spend money on programs that benefit others, given that the current political situation has made a number of them appear to be in jeopardy, but that appears to be a rewrite of history, rather than any historical truth. My sole interest here is the historical truth, and not politics.
noelwelsh•2h ago
ryao•2h ago
However, I believe both titles are applied to specific office holders in the modern day. The U.S. president is called the leader of the free world by many. I believe the title leader of the world is bestowed upon the Pope during Papal inaugurations.
locopati•2h ago
ryao•2h ago
Saying that the U.S. got its leadership position because no one else wanted it is historically incorrect. Following WWII, every other major democratic power was in ruins while the U.S. was the sole major power left in tact. Without any military attacks on U.S. soil, U.S. military strength had skyrocketed during the war. As the war progressed, the U.S. attained the status of a great power and by the war’s end had become a nascent super power. U.S. strength continued to grow after the war due to the threat of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the other great powers never fully recovered militarily since they focused on their economies while relying on the U.S. for security. The U.S. gained its leadership position because no one else existed that could claim it.
fooList•1h ago
tokai•1h ago
K0balt•40m ago
This means they have the capability to enforce their will globally to a significant extent. In an arena such as geopolitics, justice is the will of the stronger, no holds barred. This makes the USA arguably the primary concern in geopolitics, the ring you need to kiss to do anything on that stage.
Keep in mind that “claimed” may be referring to the sense of “won” rather than “stated”.
From that perspective it’s not too much of a stretch to call them the world leader, but that does ignore the fact that leadership implies the will to lead and to a significant extent the requisite wisdom and skills.
noelwelsh•2h ago
macintux•40m ago
galangalalgol•6m ago
Anyway, we are going to get the bad parts of the plan without the benefits now. Not entirely too late but pretty close. We can't all wait until a blatant constitutional crisis to start protesting because the court will back down where it can without openly loosing legitimacy. And once the admin chooses to cross the red line they will be ready for the response. Show support to gop members who want to stand up but are afraid of primaries (and death threats). Even promise cross party primary support where that is possible. Don't go along with illegal stuff. Tell the dnc your only priority is democracy and to stop arguing about the rest. Go to protests. Talk to people you disagree with calmly and do it a lot. Don't flee, this is endgame, nowhere else will hold out all that long. Help people get their voter registration in order with stuff like voterider to combat voter suppression.
Ok that was cathartic to type out all at once. If you don't see it then go read the history of successful and failed takeovers from rome to the present. It is a color by numbers approach that is easy to recognize once you've seen the others, but done super faster and with no visible bloodshed. And with a lot less public support than is normal for such things. Kind of impressive in a horrifying way.
croes•2h ago
aqme28•2h ago
anannymoose•2h ago
tokai•2h ago
freen•2h ago
_heimdall•2h ago
viraptor•1h ago
That's the missing cooperation.
micromacrofoot•1h ago
catlikesshrimp•53m ago
You may agree with some, but there is a pattern.
I am waiting for it to leave the FAO. Not hoping, waiting.
JKCalhoun•40m ago
mxuribe•2h ago
freen•2h ago
panja•2h ago
sigmarule•2h ago
Okay, so we’ve established that the cost of the endeavor is low.
> it’s the global catalog that helps everyone organize and talk about vulnerabilities
I would argue that leading and controlling the organization that provides the world with the single most ubiquitous cybersecurity resource justifies what you characterized as a meager cost in reputational capital alone.
> this is the follow up question to every headline and won't be seen as controversial later, so why bother treating it as controversial to say now
It’s not controversial, just a bit aloof.
Control of something like the CVE registry is essentially a geopolitical concern at this point, i.e. there has been anxiety brewing about China’s vulnerability disclosure laws for a bit now, much of which is warranted as China has been preventing the disclosure of vulnerabilities and instead stockpiling 0days and leveling up their APT groups. Even if the US wouldn’t exert such blatant influence or control over the program, the fact that vulnerability disclosures are being sent to US entities, or even just traveling through IP space we control, may be alone enough for value to be extracted.
This pattern could basically be viewed as the DOGE fallacy at this point.
dmix•1h ago
Someone in the original HN thread about funding wrote a post explaining how poorly run CVE org was and it had been like that for years. It had a giant backlog, ignored criticism, and moved very slowly.
Then the second it shutdown a volunteer organization was assembled overnight.
> Control of something like the CVE registry is essentially a geopolitical concern at this point
This is purely a reputational concern. Being on government networks doesn't make it instantly more trustworthy or safe. Just like everything regarding security it takes lots of people looking at it, people reporting issues, and an organization that deals with issues promptly.
exceptione•2h ago
Businesses, Science and individuals thrive in societies that are democratic, with separation of powers and independent judiciary. The better they function, the harder it is for crime.
On the other hand, if you allow organized crime to prosper, take control of it, and on the other hand have the judiciary in your grip, you can play both cards against your political/business enemies.
This is the model of Russia, where the State is deeply connected to transnational organized crime. The Kremlin powers really wanted Viktor Bout free. Now, if the power brokers in the media landscape wanted to tell you the big picture instead of hyper focusing on the day to day circus... (that is also why journalism /= actualities).
So these are just necessary steps to clear roadblocks for crime networks. The same for IRS. In Russia you cannot get power without Kompromat on yourself. Like the maffia, the boss needs a kill switch on everyone.
From a higher perspective, it is a bit unfortunate that these transgressive steps were foreseen in academia, those despicable expertise centra in the EU and other democratic countries, while the general public is kept in the dark by media houses.
I am not sure if it still suitable for HN or that the Overton Window shifted too much already, but the other things that were forecast are the capturing of conservatism by the same networks. We expect also to see further normalization of law breaking, power abuse, power concentration and state capture by non-elected bodies. Yes, this was a normalization process of decades. But now on full acceleration. As an aside, it is not entirely a coincidence that "Accelerationism" is the ideology of associated power circles.
And now you also know how Tech Bro's and Conservatism could share the same campaign. Their intended outcomes differ on some points, but they agree on the path to their respective ideals. The extreme destruction that follows will not touch them personally. To ensure that last thing they unlock powers for them self: become the law.