The More Things Change

by wj

It's an old military truism:

"Good generals study strategy,
Great generals study logistics"

Judging from the War in Ukraine, Russia has a seriously lack of great generals. Logistics have been chaotic -- and that's being generous. That's before the Ukrainians started killing Russian generals in large numbers, and Putin started firing the ones who remained in equally large numbers.

No sign that the replacements are any better. Although, to be fair, it may just be that they have nothing to work with. It doesn't matter if you have delivery systems in place if there is nothing to feed into them.

Now, things seem to be going from bad to worse. First, the Russians lost Lyman, a key rail hub for supporting their troops in Eastern Ukraine. Another challenge for logistics which were already a mess.

And yesterday, the bridge between Russia and the Crimea has been seriously damaged. This has been the major supply artery for Russian Troops in the South. Without it, their positions there are in trouble as well. Logistics, again.

In fact, the Russian's ability to defend Crimea itself may be at risk. Helped not at all by calls from officials to Crimean residents to refrain from hording fuel, food, etc. Which will likely lead to more of them doing exactly that, since if there wasn't a problem, why would authorities have immediately made such an announcement?

Open Thread

Comments

[wj]

An update on the bridge damage:

• The auto/truck bridge lost half its lanes, and is now one way at a time, max 30 cars at a time, light loads only.
  
• The train bridge is also one way (i.e. single rather than dual track), and also limited loads allowed.

In short, not a total shutdown, so the Russians can get carefully staged videos of traffic using the bridge. But a massive impact on military logistics usage.

[Girl from the North Country]

The stakes get higher and higher in Ukraine for Putin, with no off-ramp. It's terrifying.

[wj]

Putin's offramp is to pack up and go home. Sure, he'd lose face. (But perhaps not too much. His fanboy TFG has shown that doing a 180 isn't necessarily a problem.)

Putin's position is based on an agreement with the Russian elites: they get to loot the country while he gets to run it. They don't particularly care whether he loses face, so long as their looting goes on unimpeded. (That's also why they seem very unlikely to countenance him going nuclear -- a nuclear war would leave them with nothing to loot.)

That's also why, IMHO, he has more reason to be terrified than we do. If he refuses to back down, those same elites may decide he's indispensable. Let someone else rule while they loot; there's no real shortage of eager candidates.

[Girl from the North Country]

Putin's offramp is to pack up and go home.

I meant a realistic offramp, wj. Your analysis ignores the aspect of his image with the population. He has assiduously cultivated it over the years so as to be regarded like the superman Trump wanted to impersonate. A climbdown would be beyond humiliating, after the kind of propaganda he has disseminated (that the Ukrainian leadership are fascists, Nazis etc etc). The oligarchy (whom you call the elites), the military, and the intelligence services may indeed decide he is dispensable, but actually dispensing with him is clearly very difficult indeed. And anyway, a crazy Greater Russia nationalist taking over would be more rather than less likely to go nuclear. The situation is dangerous and unstable, and not just in a nuclear sense.

[wj]

Your analysis ignores the aspect of his image with the population. He has assiduously cultivated it over the years so as to be regarded like the superman Trump wanted to impersonate. A climbdown would be beyond humiliating

My opinion is that his image with the population is irrelevant. His self-image may be a factor, but his popular image will have no impact. The state security apparatus is too strong. The riots over the mobilisation show that.

The elites (which, in my use, includes the military, and the intelligence services as well as the oligarchs) don't much care if he backs down. What they care about is if he keeps going to the point where their gravy train is imperiled.

Getting rid of him will be tricky, because any large conspiracy runs the risk of someone deciding it is better to turn on the others. But that sort of hurdle has been overcome before on numerous occasions. And will be again, if enough of the elite decide the risk of doing nothing is too great. (Plus, nobody wants to be too late to the party if an overthrow comes down.)

[liberal japonicus]

Back to the bridge, it was noted that British SAS had previously been training Ukraine forces and this attack has a lot of the hallmarks of the SAS, timing (Putin's birthday), the symbolic significance and the skill involved. I seriously doubt it was a truck bomb, that is just what Russian sources are saying because they want to paint the Ukrainians as similar to jihad terrorists.

[JanieM]

Putin's off-ramp.

The notion that the rest of us have to "give" Putin an "off-ramp" suggests that any psychopathic genocidal bully who wants to throw a tantrum should be given presents to make him stop. As if that *would* make him stop, instead of encouraging him to move along to the next country he wants to reclaim for his fever dream of a Greater Russia.

Not directed at you, GftNC, I'm just tired of that phrase and that idea in general.

It reminds me of a famous bit from Lincoln's Cooper Union speech:

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action? But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"

To be sure, what the robber demanded of me - my money - was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.

(My bold.)

[novakant]

In the category: people whose name I've come across, but who only grabbed my attention once they died because of the media coverage:

Bruno Latour sadly died. He was a French anthropologist, sociologist and philosopher who is remarkable for his descriptions of how scientists actually reach their conclusions and had interesting things to say about how we should relate to scientific "facts" in the age of climate change and the denial thereof.

Obit:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/09/bruno-latour-french-philosopher-anthropologist-dies

A great in depth article from 2018:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/magazine/bruno-latour-post-truth-philosopher-science.html

[wj]

Janie, I do not think for a moment that we have to give Putin an offramp. For exactly the reasons you cite.

But in trying to guess what he might do next, it can be useful to consider what he might see as a way out of the mess he has gotten himself into. (Or, given his ego, the mess that he finds himself in.)

[Girl from the North Country]

Janie, thanks for clarification. Like wj, I did not see an offramp as something we had to give Putin, but as the sort of thing that is always looked for in any hostage situation: a way out so the malefactor doesn't see "death and glory" as the only solution. Sufficiently imaginative and clever diplomats, hostage negotiators etc may be able to formulate such a way out, but obviously the Ukrainians would have to be major principals in it, and it might not be available while Putin is still in power. This seems to me the only realistic approach to a situation where the advantage is so weirdly and disproportionately stacked. (p.s. I have loved that highwayman quote since I first saw it on ObWi, probably quoted by you.)

And wj, thanks for clarification on who you consider the elites. That makes sense.

[Girl from the North Country]

My opinion is that his image with the population is irrelevant. His self-image may be a factor, but his popular image will have no impact.

Oh and wj, I think that his image with the population is hugely relevant because of his self-image: his humiliation if he had to climb down would probably be absolutely unthinkable to such a man.

[wj]

I think that his image with the population is hugely relevant because of his self-image

Hmmm. You may be right there. But I was thinking more of its relevance to him getting booted out of office.** The populace may get disgusted with him, but they aren't in much of a position to do anything about him.

** The question that occurs is, will those removing him opt for "terminated with extreme prejudice"? I suppose that depends on how much of a future threat they consider him.

[Michael Cain]

But in trying to guess what he might do next, it can be useful to consider what he might see as a way out of the mess he has gotten himself into. (Or, given his ego, the mess that he finds himself in.)

I'm more pessimistic about it than most of you. I think he sees two ways out -- he gets Ukraine, or someone removes him from power. He seems to be taking steps to avoid being removed from power -- oligarchs falling, rumors of arrests among the military officers in Moscow. As to whether he eventually gets control of Ukraine, I have three questions that no one else seems to be asking. (1) How many 1970s or 1980s level tech cruise missiles can Russia build and fire per day? (2) Will Ukraine's European supporters allow them to strike more than a handful of kilometers into Russia proper? (3) How long can a Ukrainian government last in the face of a hundred cruise missile strikes against infrastructure/civilian targets each day? 200? 500?

[Girl from the North Country]

Michael Cain: I'm pretty pessimistic too, given that it looks obvious that he has to be removed (and yes, it would have to be with extreme prejudice) and yet almost impossible to achieve, since his "steps" are a) ruthless and b) very effective so far. At the moment, I cannot see him (and don't want to see him) getting control of Ukraine, given the attitude of the Ukrainians and their international support, so in your equation that only leaves his removal. An awful lot of blood can flow, and missiles can fly, in the meantime. As I said upthread: terrifying.

[nous]

FWIW, I'm with Michael Cain in seeing this as a potential war of industrial/civilian attrition with Russia protected from blowback because nukes. How long can that be sustained? Ask North Korea, I guess.

Which is not to say that the situation is intractable and unavoidable. I think Putin's position of power is more dynamic and unstable than it might appear from the outside, and I can see it crumbling more quickly than we anticipate under the right circumstances. He's vulnerable to supply chain problems, and to mishandling the oligarch cabal he's used to maintain power, and especially he's vulnerable to a turn in his health.

I'm not generally a fan of the spook community, but these are times in which I am somewhat reassured to have them because we need the intel in order to be prepared for the potential for sudden volatility there.

[wj]

He seems to be taking steps to avoid being removed from power -- oligarchs falling, rumors of arrests among the military officers in Moscow.

He's certainly trying to. But there's a limit to how much of that he can do. At some point, the ones remaining can decide that he's coming for them tegardless. And so their only hope, slim as it may seem, is to try to take him down first.

Also, he needs those people; at least some of them. One man simply cannot micromanage an entire country. Wipe out all the generals (or oligarchs), and you can promote the colonels. But then they become exactly the same threat. At some point, there's nobody willing to take on the job of passing on the orders.

How long can that be sustained? Ask North Korea, I guess.

But North Korea built a system to do that with a) a country on the edge of collapse, with only the army even vaguely functional and no industry left (i.e. nothing to loot as an incentive), b) over the course of years, and c) with China guaranteeing its position. Putin has none of thosr luxuries.

[GftNC]

Hmm. Well, things are about to take a more terrifying turn with the appointment of Surovikin:

His appointment has delighted hardliners in Russia, many of whom had been openly scathing of Putin’s handling of the war. “Surovikin is the most competent commander in the Russian army,” said Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group of pro-Kremlin mercenaries.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the pro-Putin leader of Chechnya, said that the appointment of Surovikin meant that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was now in “reliable hands.”

Surovikin, who has also taken part in Russia’s brutal war in Chechnya, was dubbed General Armageddon by army officials for “his ability to act unconventionally and cruelly,” according to pro-Kremlin media. Unconfirmed reports from Moscow said that Putin has given him carte blanche to act as he sees fit in Ukraine.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/general-armageddon-kyiv-strikes-bear-hallmarks-of-russias-new-commander-3gdxbhbkb

It looks like the elimination of Putin needs to be joined by the elimination of this appalling man (see also his actions in Syria).

[wj]

(1) How many 1970s or 1980s level tech cruise missiles can Russia build and fire per day? (2) Will Ukraine's European supporters allow them to strike more than a handful of kilometers into Russia proper? (3) How long can a Ukrainian government last in the face of a hundred cruise missile strikes against infrastructure/civilian targets each day?

1) Putin's strike today was probably only a fraction of what he's got available. But I'd guess a big fraction, say 1/3 to 1/5. The only reason to hold back would be to allow a repeat or two, lest everybody realize the larder is getting low. And if the supply was greater, he'd have been using them already at the rate he's been expending artillery shells. Sure, he can build more. But how quickly? (Especially if he's, however inadvertently, drafting the men who would do the building.)

2) I'd guess at least as far as Russia's strike range. Can't really object to shooting at the weapons that are shooting at you. Until now, that's been artillery range. But with cruise missles, that range opens up. Which may be why Putin hasn't used those missles earlier.

3) I'd expect they'd last as long as it takes. They're fighting for their homes and their lives. And they've seen, in the areas they've recaptured, just what awaits them, whether military government or civilian, if Russia wins.

[nous]

Putin has none of those luxuries

And also fewer of the liabilities. They are different states. I was not suggesting that we should view them through the same policy lens, just noting that strongman dictatorship plus nuclear capabilities puts serious limits on what other nations can do to try to apply pressure.

[wj]

Surovikin, who has also taken part in Russia’s brutal war in Chechnya, was dubbed General Armageddon by army officials for “his ability to act unconventionally and cruelly,” according to pro-Kremlin media. Unconfirmed reports from Moscow said that Putin has given him carte blanche to act as he sees fit in Ukraine.

No question he's an appalling person. But how much more can he do?

The logistics challenges cannot be magically waved away. The hammering of civilian targets is already happening. The quantity (and quality!) of troops available isn't within his control -- even if he strips the army, and security services personnel from every other position.

The problems from Russia's side with this war haven't been with the generals, they've been with the army itself. Both with its troops and their training and morale and with the general way it's structured (totally top down, with initiative, i.e. flexibility, strongly discouraged). Those are fixable, but over a matter of years, not weeks or months.

[wj]

just noting that strongman dictatorship plus nuclear capabilities puts serious limits on what other nations can do to try to apply pressure.

No argument there. On the other hand, Putin has far less control than Kim. That is, he'd have a much harder time getting those nuke fired off. Pretty much have to convince his subordinates that the threat was to the country, not just to the frontier. Not just to him -- because however much he sees himself and Russia as coterminous.

[Girl from the North Country]

No question he's an appalling person. But how much more can he do?

I imagine we shall shortly see. I only hope, and not for the first time, that your somewhat optimistic view (at least regarding the factors that limit him) is right.

[wj]

On an entirely different note, here's a conservative (but not reactionary) view: Why Anthony Fauci is the greatest public servant I have known

I know a bunch of you have seriously low opinions of Michael Gerson. But can you fault him in the slightest here? I'm guessing not.

[Pete]

As an outsider, I dunno if Main Street Russia actually supports him or if it's just lip service. I dunno if Putin is pushing because he's pot-committed or if he actually thinks he can win (I suspect the former). Maybe it's a smokescreen at this point and just cover to move his assets to wherever he wants to be richest-guy-on-the-planet-in-exile. Maybe his failing health has addled his brain.

I dunno.

But what I find the hardest to figure is why did Putin wait? Just a coupla years earlier you had changing leadership in Ukraine, the EU-UK divorce, and an obsequious and easily-manipulated twit in the White House who was deliberately undermining the NATO alliance. I mean, if you're of the invasion persuasion, how the hell do you miss that giant green light?

[wj]

But what I find the hardest to figure is why did Putin wait?

My guess is that he thought (hoped?) TFG would win a second term. And trash NATO -- one of Putin's long-time goals. After that, Ukraine would have been the walk in the park that he envisioned this time.

[Pete]

That'd be my guess as well. But then it becomes just as perplexing as to why he didn't reconsider when it became clear that Biden - a staunch NATO proponent - was in. I'll take as true that Putin has grave concerns over Ukraine allying itself with the West (and by his definition, becoming an extension of US hegemony). But now he faces the likelihood of Ukraine, Sweden, and Finland all in NATO. And he might even lose Sevastopol to boot. And a depleted military. And crushing economic sanctions.

That's a pretty colossal f*ck up for an allegedly shrewd strategist.

[wj]

That's a pretty colossal f*ck up for an allegedly shrewd strategist.

And he is a shrewd strategist. When it comes to maneuvering thru a bureaucracy in order to seize power. But in dealing with the world outside Russia? Not so much.

Both being due to him knowing the Russian bureaucracy well, but little or nothing about the world outside. Or perhaps, little or nothing about the reality of the world outside. And his fantasy image about the world is pretty locked in.

[wj]

Another thought about Russia's logistic challenges. This from Jeremy Fleming, head of the GCHQ, the UK intelligence, cyber and security agency:

“We know — and Russian commanders on the ground know — that their supplies and munitions are running out,”

Russia's approach has been to abjure finesse in favor of simply throwing resources at their opponent until he is overwhelmed. Which doesn't leave a whole lot of options when those resources (whether men, munitions, or both) run out first. We already knew Putin was running out of men, hence the mobilization/draft. But if munitions are running out as well, that could explain why he's started using cruise missles -- they may be what he has left.

[Michael Cain]

But if munitions are running out as well, that could explain why he's started using cruise missles -- they may be what he has left.

Range counts, too. The cruise missiles are reportedly launched from both naval vessels in the Azov Sea, and planes flying in Russia, then making use of their thousand-kilometer range to strike all over Ukraine.

Recent reports that German howitzers are wearing out and need major servicing. The Germans say they were never intended to fire 100 rounds per day for more than two months. There seems to be some sort of dust-up over where the repair work will be done. Poland was the initial choice, but the Poles refuse to allow the work unless they get access to the proprietary parts of the design.

[wj]

The cruise missiles are reportedly launched from both naval vessels in the Azov Sea, and planes flying in Russia

The planes may be more of a challenge. But the Ukrainians have already demonstrated the capability to take down Russian naval vessels.

[Michael Cain]

But the Ukrainians have already demonstrated the capability to take down Russian naval vessels.

In areas close enough to where the Ukrainians still have access to the Black Sea coast. They've got nothing with the range to reach into the Azov. NATO has rather pointedly not been providing weapons with that sort of range.

[wj]

They've got nothing with the range to reach into the Azov.

Perhaps not from territory where they currently have secure control. But since they managed to attack the Kerch bridge,** it doesn't seem impossible that they could get a missile launched close enough to hit a ship in the Sea of Azov.

** The latest info I've seen suggest it wasn't a truck bomb, but something explodong from below.

[Pete]

NATO has rather pointedly not been providing weapons with that sort of range.

But it’s worth noting that NATO has them. I don’t know where US carrier fleets are allowed. But IIRC, Tomahawks had a range of ~1500 miles with, given the payload, pinpoint accuracy. That’s gotta be a deterrent for even a “tactical nuke” strike. And that’s a 40 year old platform.

[Michael Cain]

I don’t know where US carrier fleets are allowed. But IIRC, Tomahawks had a range of ~1500 miles with, given the payload, pinpoint accuracy.

The US isn't signatory to the treaty that controls transit through Turkish waters between the Mediterranean and Black Seas, but has generally conformed to it. That limits passage of US warships to 10,000 tons, about a tenth the size of our current carriers. I believe the USS Truman is operating in the northern Aegean Sea, which puts southeast Russia at the outer limit of the Tomahawk range. Similarly-ranged cruise missiles that can be launched from B-52s exist, of course. The US operates B-52s in Europe on a regular basis.

[wj]

Above (way above), Michael Cain asks: "How many 1970s or 1980s level tech cruise missiles can Russia build and fire per day?"

Well here (from the Washington Post) is something on the subject:

there are questions over how many missiles Russia has left and how long it can sustain a bombing campaign. The missiles “are being produced. But in single units. And the old reserves are running out,” one state official said.

[Donald]

https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2022/08/how-russia-views-america/

I’ve been reading Martyanov’s blog and several other pro Russian ones since the war started. They don’t all agree with each other but I think they mostly agree on how they see the US and the West. They see us as an arrogant deluded empire on the verge of collapse. ( There is also a significant component of “ old man thinks culture going to hell in a hand basket” in Martyanov, but you can, I think, set that part aside and agree with some of the rest of what he says.)

[wj]

I see some of what Martyanov means when he says that the Russians view the West, especially America, as being in a state of terminal, ever-accelerating decline. Looking at the MAGA types, in particular their numbers, it's definitely a concern. We may manage to beat them back, but that's far from a sure thing.

As for his suggestion that the US military is built to fight the last war, that's a common characteristic of all militaries. But I'm not so sure it's as bad as he thinks. He remarks that a few hypersonic anti-ship missiles could take out a carrier group. Which is true . . . but these days carriers aren't really intended to deal with countries (Russia, China) who can build such missiles. Just like SEAL teams are not intended to take and hold territory -- they are very good at the mission that they're intended for, but that isn't it.

[Michael Cain]

He remarks that a few hypersonic anti-ship missiles could take out a carrier group. Which is true . . . but these days carriers aren't really intended to deal with countries (Russia, China) who can build such missiles.... they are very good at the mission that they're intended for, but that isn't it.

Best to tell Taiwan that now rather than spring it on them later as a surprise. I dread Xi announcing that the rogue province's ports and airports are closed to traffic other than with the mainland, that vessels/planes attempting to violate that will be fired on, then shooting down a plane and/or sinking an LNG tanker to prove his point. Just extending an invitation for the US to use a carrier strike group to try to force the ports open.

[nous]

Martyanov's analysis of the military side of things is grounded in a very strange set of assumptions. He seems to be treating the Ukrainian military as a stand-in for the US military and arguing that since the current phase of the war has devolved into static lines and attrition, that the Russian artillery dominance shows their tactical superiority, and that the US wastes its military power on big, expensive hardware like carrier groups while Russia uses their budget to build artillery and missiles.

Never mind that Russia's failure to take Ukraine in a timely manner mostly comes down to their having a lot of tanks and special forces, but not enough supplies or trucks to transport them and support their troops. If Ukraine is a war of artillery, it is so because the Russian army failed, and is now stuck in a bad tactical situation.

And no one should believe for a second that the Ukrainian army's tactics reflect the military doctrine of a NATO war. Ukraine is very limited in what NATO is allowing them to have. Nothing about the current war in Ukraine reflects the US capabilities or its (former) views adopted in the Revolution in Military Affairs.

Military occupations are not particularly sustainable in our current world. The US learned that the hard way in the first decade of the 21st C. in Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia should have learned that, too, but its small successes in the Crimea and in Syria left it overconfident.

I think Martyanov is cherry picking his analysis much like a sports writer putting together a "Five Reasons Team X Will Dominate Team Y" article for fan morale.

There is some truth to his criticism of the US reliance on prestige weapons like the carrier group. There is reason to think that the future will belong to small, deadly drone forces. But Russia is probably even more deeply trapped in the world of prestige weaponry than is the US, and their failures in Ukraine show this in very stark detail.

[wj]

Best to tell Taiwan that now rather than spring it on them later as a surprise.

I rather expect that US carriers in the Taiwan strait are not there in the expectation that they, and their strike forces, can have a significant impact on the Chinese military, if it comes to that. Rather, they are more of a trip wire -- take out a carrier group like that, and you might as well have launched your nukes right off.

[Girl from the North Country]

RIP Robbie Coltrane. Best known internationally, I am sure, as Hagrid in Harry Potter, but a brilliant actor and dangerous presence in many things, particularly the terrific Cracker. For anybody who doesn't know it, I recommend it highly.

[Donald]

The claim on the pro Russian side is that the Ukranian military is in the last few years trained to NATO standards and also that Russia has been fighting with a limited force (which may now change).

There is more to their version of the story regarding how the war has been going, but it is outside my ability to evaluate. I suspect the truth falls somewhere in between the Martyanov version and the Western story but which side is closer is something I guess we will find out.

[nous]

I don't mean to saddle you to defending Martyanov's analysis, Donald, and I think there is value in understanding the Russian view of the war and of the US threat.

I'm just saying that Martyanov treating Ukraine as if it was equivalent to a NATO operation ignores the fact that NATO has been very careful not to give Ukraine much in the way of anything but short-range, defensive weapons. Russia's capabilities are flattered in a way by Ukraine being limited so. An attack on an actual NATO member would not face such a limitation.

But by the same measure, I think that NATO would be hard pressed to try to push into Russia and occupy territory there for the same reasons that Russia is finding itself stymied in Ukraine.

IOW I think that the pro-Russian analysis wants to project Russia as a rival power to the US, but when you dig into what is actually being compared there, it's more like Russia is saying that the US would have as hard a time defeating them as they are having defeating Ukraine.

As for the US being on the verge of collapse, I'm not far from that opinion myself, but I don't think that the war in Ukraine is hastening that at the moment. Check with me again, though, if the White House flips again in 2024.

But if it does, that would not be a military defeat so much as a renunciation of the US's treaty obligations.

[Michael Cain]

I suspect the truth falls somewhere in between the Martyanov version and the Western story but which side is closer is something I guess we will find out.

One of the things I think is telling right now is that Ukraine is flying air missions, and there are videos of tanks on the move. If Russia's about out of anti-air and anti-armor, and this is about to become a NATO-doctrine fast moving combined forces action on Ukraine's part, it's going to get very ugly for Russia in a hurry and extra Russian recruits aren't going to matter.

[wj]

it's going to get very ugly for Russia in a hurry and extra Russian recruits aren't going to matter.

Perhaps Putin and Xi can make a deal. Some of those excess Chinese men (thanks to the one child policy) for some of the excess Russian women (thanks to Putin getting so many of the men in this generation killed off). Makes sense as demography. But racism on both sides probably means it's a non-starter as official policy.

[wj]

OMG
https://twitter.com/HeartlandSignal/status/1580729957550272513

Moderators closed tonight's Wisconsin Senate debate by asking each candidate to say something they find admirable about the other.

Lt. Gov Mandela Barnes (D) said Sen. Ron Johnson (R) is a "family man."

Johnson said Barnes is "against America."

The audience booed Johnson.

So, let me get this straight. Sen Johnson is saying that he finds being "against America" admirable...?!?!? No wonder he got booed.

[JanieM]

@wj 9:08: My vague understanding is that Russia had a declining population problem even before Putin started this war. I have been assuming, though I haven't seen anyone else say it in the articles I read or skim about the situation every day, that part of the point of taking busloads of Ukrainians, including children, from Ukraine to Russia is to help with that problem.

Maybe I'm too cynical, although it seems hard to imagine what that might mean in relation to what Russia is doing.

*****

As to your 9:19: what Johnson meant is that Barnes has the skin color that indicates that nothing admirable can be discovered about him. I suppose he thought he was being clever.

[Priest]

Carrier task force’s vulnerability was demonstrated over 80 years ago at Midway. There’s a reason no other country invests in them, for defensive purposes.

[liberal japonicus]

As to your 9:19: what Johnson meant is that Barnes has the skin color that indicates that nothing admirable can be discovered about him. I suppose he thought he was being clever.

Listening to the exchange (from LGM, hope this link works)
https://twitter.com/HeartlandSignal/status/1580729957550272513?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1580729957550272513%7Ctwgr%5E585ec84dbbe140f3d91292f99927eb66b816fdaa%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com%2F2022%2F10%2Fthe-worst-person-in-the-senate

He's even a bigger POS, he goes for the 'I imagine your parents and teachers are really disappointed in you'. Yes, I'm sure all his flunkies were patting him on the back after the debate. 'you really turned the tables on him boss!' That he will still probably win just baffles me.

[Hartmut]

Makes sense as demography. But racism on both sides probably means it's a non-starter as official policy.

Oh, if the young Chinese men are to be used just as cannon fodder (to spare Russian blood), Russians will not object. And the 'race' of women used for breeding (and of course as sex objects) is of far less concern for the men doing the f-ing and impregnating. If those Russian women were black (and this would show in the children born), that would be a different matter of course*. Many Russians already have a light East-Asian look to them (I guess the Mongols had something to do with that) and the black hair will be dominant anyway. So, there would imo be enough Chinese men willing to put up with a Russian wife, in particular if no pure Chinese women are available.

*From what I have read, the view of many Chinese people of blacks is as bad or even worse than in the US South at the worst Jim Crow times. Mixed Chinese-Africans are not even seen as human by some. Chinese business deals in Africa got threatened when it became known what the Chinese negotiators said about their African counterparts in private.

[CharlesWT]

From what I have read, the view of many Chinese people of blacks is as bad or even worse than in the US South at the worst Jim Crow times.

Pretty much.

"In February 2020, a shocking video began to circulate on Chinese social media. A group of African children are being instructed, by a voice off-camera, to chant phrases in Chinese. The kids repeat the words with smiles and enthusiasm — but they don’t understand that what they’re being told to say is “I am a black monster and my IQ is low.” The clip ignited outrage in China and beyond.

But no-one ever answered the crucial questions: Why was this filmed? Where was it shot? Who made it?"
Racism for Sale - BBC Africa Eye documentary

[JanieM]

lj -- thanks for the twitter humor. :-)

*****

My son spent five years in China and saw the racism against Black visitors in person. I don't know if it's quite right to liken it to Jim Crow, because Jim Crow was as much a system as an attitude, and that system isn't in place anymore. But the attitude is still there, no matter how much people want to deny it.

For that matter -- as a white (?) person in China I sometimes felt like a monkey in a zoo when we were outside Beijing, which was most of the time.

Seems like it would be useful to understand that bias is a human thing, not confined to Chinese people, white Americans, etc. Underestimators discriminate against overestimators and vice versa. The LA City Council gets rocked by a racism scandal involving the bad behavior of several Latino councillors.

As the Tralfamadorians say, so it goes.

[Hartmut]

I was referring to the attitude. To my knowledge China has no system of racial segregation or anti-miscegenation laws.
I mentioned Jim Crow mainly because my impression is that people before the Civil War considered blacks 'just' as inferior while after the war and at the height of Jim Crow 'mere' feelings of superiority turned into active hatred (and that got deliberately encouraged by certain influential groups).
---
The former GDR had an inofficial program of instigating bad feelings and prejudices in the East German population against the Polish, pushing the image of Poles as lazy thieves, e.g. by way of very ugly jokes disseminated by the Ministry of State Security. Officially Poland was of course a 'brotherland' of fellow communists.
There also was a guest worker program bringing people form Vietnam into East Germany. Any contacts between those and the German population beyond communication strictly necessary for working ('could you hand me the hammer, please.') was strongly discouraged and getting caught in any private contacts (I am not talking about sex here, just private chatting) could lead to unpleasant consequences including the guest workers being sent back home immediately with a political black mark.
The Soviet and the East German government also worked hand in hand to block any contacts between the Soviet occupation troops (stationed in the GDR till early 1990). The troops were in essence taught that the German population was still all Nazis in disguise and the East German government feared that any friendly contacts could in case of an uprising against communist rule (like in 1953) discourage the Soviet soldiers from shooting at the German civilians.
All of this was duly noted by the population. The contrast between official and practical policy further widened the gap between the people and the government.
A fatal after-effect of that was that after reunification the deep resentment against the officialy left communist government led to a radical shift towards the far right (logic: The communists always told as that nazis were bad and since the communists are bad, nazis must be good since all the talk to the contrary was obviously lies given that the communist were notorious liars about everything). And with the neo-Nazis came the racist xenophobia that is now rampant.
Similar forces are at work in several other formerly communist countries. The utterly hypocritical 'friendship of the peoples' pushed by former communist regimes in many places led to a xenophobic backlash encourgaged by the right wing governments of to-day.
Btw, there is quite some shizophrenia in general German attitudes towards the 3 million ethnic Turks in Germany. The typical German has quite some negative prejudices towards them but even neo-nazis buy at the local Turkish greengrocer.

[wj]

To my knowledge China has no system of racial segregation or anti-miscegenation laws.

Possibly because they aren't needed.

If you aren't Han Chinese, you are nothing, and everybody (which, obviously, means everybody who is Chinese) already feels that way. Anyone who doubts that, ask the Uyghurs or the Tibetans.

[CharlesWT]

Expats in China are treated differently. Backs are mistreated while whites often experience positive racism and are given white monkey jobs. Though lately, most expats still in China aren't having an easy time of it.

[JanieM]

Hartmut's 1:05 reminds me of how often intergroup hatred is encouraged and leveraged by people with nefarious and selfish motives. This is true of early race relations in the US and I have read (though not from academic sources) that it's also true of religion-based fault lines in Northern Ireland. And both situations were intertwined with class and economic patterns and motivations.

I can't prove it and I'm not going to get into a big debate about it, but it seems that Putin has been doing the same thing in the US and Europe, using social media channels to inflame people across fault lines that seem to keep getting wider.

[wj]

I can't prove it and I'm not going to get into a big debate about it, but it seems that Putin has been doing the same thing in the US and Europe, using social media channels to inflame people across fault lines that seem to keep getting wider.

Being an old KGB guy, that kind of disinformation and manipulation is probably second nature to him. Especially in a situation where there is zero chance of reestablishing the Russian Empire via military triumph over NATO.

What's sad, depressing even, is how very many "useful idiots" he has managed to find.

[JanieM]

wj: What's sad, depressing even, is how very many "useful idiots" he has managed to find.

Also sad is that there are always "useful idiots." Besides the early American and Northern Ireland examples, there's also the example of the Nazi propaganda campaign in France in preparation for rounding up French Jews in the early forties. It doesn't require social media, it only requires humans.

[wj]

Also sad is that there are always "useful idiots."

It's the sheer numbers that depress me.

[Girl from the North Country]

And the apartheid regime purposely stoked tremendous hostilities between the Zulu and Xosa people as it began to look as if apartheid's days were numbered. The motivation to foster prejudices against "the stranger within", or between two groups you seek to dominate, there's always somebody it suits. Divide and conquer: it's probably as old as history.

[liberal japonicus]

From what I have read, the view of many Chinese people of blacks is as bad or even worse than in the US South at the worst Jim Crow times.

A bit late to this, and while I don't think the Chinese are a fount of enlightened opinion, I'd hesitate on putting it like this. Janie's point about systemic vs. attitudinal is one reason. But even if you limit it to attitude, another reason I pause over the formulation is that you can read (after climbing over the language barrier) what they say and do, whereas the participants who lynched Emmitt Till or the others didn't have Weibo accounts to broadcast their innermost thoughts.

But the other reason is that most Chinese have never actually met a live black person. However, they probably have seen black people thru the lens of Western news media and entertainment. So I'd suggest that the Chinese are in some ways mirrors of our own attitudes, magnified and reflected back to us.

I think it was Hilberg who noted that one of the first steps in the Holocaust was to dehumanize Jews so that it was easier to consider them as sub-human. I'm not suggesting that a constant diet of black gangbangers and drug users is a conscious decision, but it does open the door that many Chinese may be walking through.

[nous]

Just to tag onto lj's comments here, I've learned a lot about Chinese attitudes towards (American) blacks reading and discussing student album reviews in my writing classes. The biases I see there are not particularly any sort of racial animus so much as just having so very little experience with anything but the most mainstream representations of black lives either on the news or in hip hop, soul, and stuff like Black Panther and the Fast and Furious franchise.

And, truth be told, a lot of the fascination they have with African-American media forms (and their cooption of it through a K-Pop lens) comes from their own sense of being outsiders in white American cultural hegemony.

Which is not to say that my Chinese nationals have not internalized more than a few racist stereotypes about blacks, just that in my experience those prejudices are not nearly as deep or as difficult to address as the prejudices of those of us who grew up here in America. Their prejudices about blacks are just the exoticized version of their prejudices against any non-Chinese, much like the noir fascination with Asians works in the American imaginary.

[Hartmut]

I have to admit that I have no personal experience with Chinese racial attitudes.

As far as 'having nerver met' goes, in Germany (in particular East Germany) the greatest xenophobia (aimed e.g. at Blacks and Jews) can be found in regions where few if any of those groups are visible. Kindergarten kids already know that 'you Jew' is among the worst of insults without having any idea what a Jew is. Personal acquaintance is often the best antidote (if it's not too late).

Btw, that's something the nazis already knew. In his infamous Posen speeches Himmler lamented that proper hatred against Jews was difficult to instill into the average German: "And then they turn up, the upstanding 80 million Germans, and each one has his decent Jew. They say the others are all swines, but this particular one is a splendid Jew."

[liberal japonicus]

That's an interesting point. Is a person who says '[that group] are just animals' more racist if they have met them or if they haven't?

[ed, writing too fast!]

[Snarki, child of Loki]

'[that group] are just animals'

Well *of course* they are!
Except for that one I know, who is a fungi.

[Hartmut]

...is a fungi.

A singular multitude? ;-)
That must mean possessed.

[Girl from the North Country]

I have nothing to add, except anecdata as someone who knew several HK Chinese very well indeed, more than fifty years ago and counting (i.e. before rap, gangstas etc). A very close Chinese friend admitted to me, with great embarrassment, when we were teenagers that Chinese thought Europeans smelled, and when we were discussing a mutual friend in the 2000s who was dating a rather famous black American performer who was almost universally considered by all English women I canvassed, including myself, as fantastically attractive and charismatic, she could not see it at all, and regarded the whole phenomenon as truly mysterious. She did not say it, but I would put money on the theory that she saw him as akin to an animal. And in our youth (and I had quite a job dissuading them) it was very common for Chinese girls to put "skin-lightening" creams on their faces, because colourism in general was rife.

As I say, anecdata from a statistically meaningless pool. But starting well pre-hip hop, gangstas etc.

[wj]

It appears that all those Russian men fleeing the country are causing changes in Putin's mobilization process.
Russia is grabbing men off the street to fight in Ukraine
When you are resorting to press gangs, especially indiscriminate press gangs, you know your in deep trouble.

And then there's this:

Activist Grigory Sverdlin, who left Russia and is based in Georgia, this month launched an organization, Go By The Forest, to advise men in Russia on avoiding the draft. He said group has consulted with 2,700 men in 11 days and told 60 drafted men how to surrender in Ukraine. At least eight have succeeded, he said. [Emphasis added]

Well, I suppose it amounts to an alternate path to leave the country, once the borders are closed.

[Hartmut]

The "smelly European" has some basis in fact. We exude some chemicals from milk and milk products we can metabolize (having the privilege of adult lactase production) but most Africans and a large percentage of East Asians can't. Europeans seem to have lost the ability to smell those while East Asians have not. So to many of them we must indeed smell in an unpleasant way. If it is as bad as amines and short-chain fatty acids smell to us...

[CharlesWT]

Chinese thought Europeans smelled,

Europeans do tend to have more body odor than Asians.

[wj]

Another possible factor (at least in one instance)
https://www.economist.com/moreover/1997/07/31/very-clean-people-the-japanese
"The Japanese are just as fastidious at home as at play. Cleanliness matters. Most have at least one bath a day; rare is the young woman who does not have at least two."
Perhaps lj can tell us if this is still the case.

More frequent bathing is likely to reduce how much you smell, too.

[Girl from the North Country]

This seems a fairly authoritative assessment of Putin's situation, from The Times. I copy the whole thing because behind the paywall:

At home and on the battlefield, seven self-inflicted traps are snaring Putin

The president’s missile strikes were supposed to reassert his tough-guy persona but have exposed a string of weaknesses

Mark Galeotti
Saturday October 15 2022, 6.00pm, The Sunday Times

Following the dramatic attack on the Crimea Bridge last weekend, Vladimir Putin was eager to wrench back the initiative. Since Monday Russia has hammered Ukrainian cities and infrastructure with long-range missiles. However, behind the sound and fury, the new tactics have exposed how the president is caught in a series of traps of his own making, not just on the battlefield but also at home.

BATTLEFIELD TRAP
Eight days ago General Sergei Surovikin was named as the new overall field commander for Moscow’s “special military operation”. Apparently known to his peers as “General Armageddon” — although that nickname only conveniently emerged in the Russian tabloids on his appointment — he is a competent, ruthless figure who presided over devastating air attacks on cities in Syria.

There is little a new commander can do, though. The Ukrainians have the initiative. They will use the last few weeks before winter to maximise their gains, notably in the southern region of Kherson. Freshly mobilised Russian reservists are trickling to the front but they are often untrained and unmotivated. At best they can help hold the line, not launch new offensives.

The bombardment has little strategic value and is burning through Russia’s dwindling stocks of weapons, which are hard to replenish. The retired general and parliamentarian Andrei Gurulyov, no dove, used an interview in the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda to hammer home the point: “don’t waste missiles.” It has been estimated that more than half of Russia’s arsenal is gone, including more than 80 per cent of the powerful Iskander systems. This has alarmed the high command, which wants to retain a strategic reserve for some future offensive or, more likely, in case of a new Ukrainian attack.

POLITICAL TRAP
It has also angered regional leaders in whose fiefdoms the missile factories are located. They have been lobbying to exempt their skilled workers from Putin’s indiscriminate mobilisation. The savage assault on Ukrainian cities was, as much as anything else, a sop to the hawks inside Russia, a reaffirmation of Putin’s tough guy persona. It was not just that extremists on social media had been calling for reprisals for the bridge attack, which has credibly been blamed on Ukraine. He was also responding to the powerful leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. Having loudly supported the war, Kadyrov is now a vehement critic of Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister, and the rest of the high command, accusing them of incompetence and cronyism and even calling for the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

This highlights the political trap in which Putin finds himself. Once he could position himself between the extreme hawks and the more moderate technocrats. Now he is having to please one group, then the other — satisfying neither.

SOCIAL CONTRACT TRAP
When Putin opted to annex portions of Ukraine last month — including territory his soldiers were not even occupying — and began a partial national mobilisation, he broke not one, but two social contracts linked to the invasion.

Ordinary Russians had in effect been promised that, as long as Putin had his war, he would ensure that they did not suffer much. That no longer holds true. Mobilisation means that every family has reason to fear and economic hardship is beginning to bite.

He had also struck a tacit deal with regional leaders and the heads of key institutions. If they kept their domains quiet and put on a show of military enthusiasm, they would not be forced to abandon the pretence that they were there to represent local interests rather than Moscow’s.

Now these leaders feel that the Kremlin is reneging on its promise. Mobilisation and tightening federal finances have changed this equation too. Regional bosses are being called on to do the central government’s dirty work by assuaging public concern, funding the reconstruction of conquered cities and recruiting new “volunteer battalions” for the front. And they are becoming a problem for the Kremlin.

DISENGAGEMENT TRAP
Every Russian leader worries about the regions: from Tsarist times to the present, the struggle to bring local leaders to heel has shaped the history of the largest nation on Earth. After Putin took over as president in 1999 the degree of central control that he reimposed on a chaotic state — through war and deft political manipulation — became one of the main pillars of his appeal. But now the Kremlin is having to squeeze more from regional and local leaders than they feel able to give, at just the moment that they feel emboldened to stand up to Moscow to protect their own interests.

Leaks from an internal report by the Investigatory Committee — sometimes considered Russia’s FBI — suggest a marked recent increase in embezzlement by regional elites. It complains that “at a time of national need, certain [officials] are concentrating on protecting their interests and establishing lateral alliances with business and criminal authorities in their regions.”

It brought to mind a scathing assessment I once heard from a former official from Khabarovsk, in the Russian Far East: “The local leadership had to say they were fully behind the war, though they knew it was stupid and unwinnable. They did the least they could get away with, and instead focused on their own corrupt schemes.” This was in 1990, and he was talking about how regional Communist Party officials in the USSR responded to the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the early 1980s.
T
There seems to be a striking similarity today: local officials despairing of what they feel is an out-of-touch Kremlin, paying lip service to the party line while keeping their heads down — or using the opportunity to embezzle what they can.

LEVERAGE TRAP
Those who are genuinely trying to lobby Moscow in the interests of their constituents are being listened to the least. Impoverished Dagestan has suffered disproportionately heavy losses in the war and its leader, Sergei Melikov, appealed in vain to the Kremlin for a respite from mobilisation. Others, like Khabarovsk’s governor Mikhail Degtyarev, have been able to get some men who should not have been mobilised released, but their efforts to get Putin to take a proper look at the process have been ignored.

As one Moscow-based political analyst put it, the Kremlin “doesn’t care about the cost to [regional leaders], it just wants them to do what they’re told”. At the same time, though, it needs them. This gives them leverage.

Alexander Dyumin, the governor of Tula, has been seeking a position in Moscow for a while. Having narrowly missed out on becoming the new emergencies minister in May, Putin’s former bodyguard is now making the case that, given how well he is keeping Tula’s arms factories running day and night, a defence ministry position might be a suitable reward.

Kadyrov, meanwhile, is engaged in his usual tactic to shore up the federal subsidies which account for more than 80 per cent of Chechnya’s budget. Time and again, when there is some risk to these funds, which perpetuate his rule and pay for vanity projects such as a huge mosque named after his father, he starts picking fights or threatening to resign. The Kremlin, dreading secessionist chaos without Kadyrov in charge and knowing it cannot afford a new civil war in the south, has backed down each time.

GANGSTERISM TRAP
Putin created a system which depended on dividing and ruling the elite. He encouraged infighting over status and money and made himself the sole arbiter of these disputes. Now that he is consumed by the war in Ukraine, these conflicts over shrinking resources are becoming more open.

The recent spate of mysterious “suicides” among prominent businessmen and officials, for example, seems to reflect a revival of murder as a business tactic, a feature of the pre-Putin “wild Nineties”.

Likewise, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the sanctioned businessman behind the notorious Wagner mercenary force, has long nursed grievances with Shoigu and the high command. He took advantage of Kadyrov’s criticisms to prosecute his own vendetta, saying: “Beautiful, Ramzan, keep it up. These punks should be shipped to the front barefoot with machineguns.”

Putin at a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which promotes co-operation among former Soviet republics. He joined the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus for a photograph
Putin at a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which promotes co-operation among former Soviet republics. He joined the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus for a photograph

Rustam Minnikhanov, the leader of Tatarstan, knows that many have demands on its oil assets, while the Kremlin carefully watches his region as an indicator of potential regional and ethnic tensions. As a result, he is taking almost comical pains to balance every interest, from Kadyrov to Shoigu. As a local political observer put it: “Minnikhanov doesn’t know where the knife might come from, so he’s trying to look every way, all the time.”

TRAPS INSIDE TRAPS
The regime is not under imminent threat. Regional and factional leaders are still largely vying for Putin’s favour or competing with each other. This is not yet open opposition, nor is there any credible prospect that the Russian Federation will fragment.

Rather, the emerging cracks in the system are both a symptom and a cause of stress. They reflect the way an authoritarian model depending on one man to control a fractious and self-interested elite suffers when he is absent, distracted or loses sight of the impact his actions have at home. His nuclear brinkmanship, for example, is meant to shake the morale of Ukraine and the West. What Putin fails to appreciate is that this is at least as terrifying to his own elites.

An attack on the Kerch Bridge, which links Crimea to Russia, was the trigger for Putin’s bombardment of Ukrainian cities last week
An attack on the Kerch Bridge, which links Crimea to Russia, was the trigger for Putin’s bombardment of Ukrainian cities last week

No wonder they are focusing on their own interests — even when it undermines the Kremlin’s efforts to maximise resources. According to the Investigatory Committee report, at least a quarter of funds intended to support army recruitment, for example, may be being stolen at the local level. But they don’t know for sure, not least because regional officials are covering each other’s tracks.

Caught between appeasing the noisy hawks and reassuring the worried technocrats, listening to the professionals and posing as a strongman, Putin’s room for manoeuvre at home is increasingly as constrained as it is on the battlefield.

[wj]

at least a quarter of funds intended to support army recruitment, for example, may be being stolen at the local level.

Yet another reason that the mobilization is looking more and more like yet another doomed initiative by a man visibly grasping at straws.

[CharlesWT]

It's not just lactose metabolization and hygiene. Many Asians have fewer sweat glands than Europeans. And 98% of Europeans secrete a chemical in their armpits that odor-causing bacteria feed on. Most East Asians and almost all Koreans don't.

[nous]

Come midterms, and all-nighters, and coming to class without a shower, they all start to get a bit ripe regardless of heritage.

[Michael Cain]

@nous: It was decades ago, but I always found that I did much better on midterms and finals getting eight hours of sleep, and a shower and breakfast in the morning. By the time I was a junior, I started studying for those exams by reviewing the sorts of tests the professor wrote, and how she/he scored.

I don't know if profs have somehow removed test-taking skills from the mix. I will note that the second time I took the GRE exams after 25 years, they had reduced the value of test-taking skills. I assume that was a contributing factor to scores overall being somewhat lower than they had been 25 years earlier.

[liberal japonicus]

Perhaps lj can tell us if this is still the case.

Yeah, this is still a thing, when students do homestays, it's always a delicate thing to ask them to take fewer showers/baths and to ask the homestay family that they may take more than usual.

[JanieM]

I don't know if profs have somehow removed test-taking skills from the mix. I will note that the second time I took the GRE exams after 25 years, they had reduced the value of test-taking skills. I assume that was a contributing factor to scores overall being somewhat lower than they had been 25 years earlier.

I took the GRE in late 1971 and again in 1999 or 2000. Second time it was on a computer and your answer was your answer; you couldn't go back and check your work. Also, it was an adaptive test. Apparently what they throw at you is (as?) determined by how well you were doing at each point.

I did about as well as I always had, which was pretty well: test-taking was always my best thing. ;-)

Another ten years later I took the LSAT and realized that I could have drilled a lot more on the logic puzzle thingies. Didn't end up going to law school in any case, thank all the deities.

[JanieM]

(as?) should be (was?) -- because I have no idea how they're doing it now.

Interestingly, in 1971 the GRE, like the SAT, had math and verbal sections. When I took it later it also had a logic/analysis section -- which I think (in retrospect) was much easier than the logic on the LSAT.

[Michael Cain]

The biggest change when I took it later in life was the addition of a writing section. Two essays, if I remember correctly. A short one arguing for something, and a longer one taking apart someone else's argument. 15 and 45 minutes for the shorter and longer essay? Time enforced by the limited-function word processor they provided.

[JanieM]

Interesting. Mine didn't have a writing section, although the LSAT did. I don't remember exactly what year I took the 2nd GRE, but it was roughly late 1990s.

Did they give you a score on the essays, or just pass them on along with your scores on the other sections?

[Michael Cain]

Did they give you a score on the essays, or just pass them on along with your scores on the other sections?

They gave a numeric score from 0 to 6 by half points (ie, 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5 ... 5.5, 6). When I took the test I believe they were using all trained human readers to score it. According to their web site, they now guarantee that one person will read it, but much of the scoring is done by software.

[JanieM]

but much of the scoring is done by software.

Oh boy.........

[nous]

I have not taken the GRE since 2003, but yes, they use an adaptive algorithm to present questions. It starts with a rangefinder somewhere in the middle and then adjusts upward or downward in difficulty based on that. In 2003 the main complaint was that if one missed the first question it took too many subsequent correct answers to make it back to the upper range, suppressing the possible final score.

My GRE was much like the SAT with a verbal and a math section (qualitative/quantitative) and then a subject specific section and a writing test.

I lucked out on the questions for the verbal and ended up one question off of a perfect score. Despite working as a DB analyst before my return to school, and using a lot of mathematical thinking in that analysis, I was out of practice with much of the math and performed decently, but well off the pace for grad school admission in a quant field - none of which mattered seeking entry into a humanities field.

I did not top out the writing exam. I write too slowly, and I attempted to create a thoughtful answer to the question rather than looking to carve out a well structured but largely formal response. I've literally graded thousands of essays like that for placement since then, and could probably crank out a vapid, high scoring result in my sleep these days.

Those writing placement exams are not particularly useful for anything except reducing professorly irritation. Every writing teacher I know works actively to break the habits that produce those canned responses. Those habits circumvent critical thinking and reader engagement.

[Michael Cain]

...and a math section (qualitative/quantitative) and then a subject specific section...

The quantitative parts of the GRE have always ticked me off. Both when I was young and more recently, you can get very high marks with no more than a mastery of pre-calculus material. Back in the day the math subject specific section actually picked up post-calculus. Comparing notes afterwards with other math majors, the star got 7 of the (then) 40 questions, I got 6, nobody else got more than 5, and there wasn't a calculus question in there. How high you scored was very much influenced by what electives you had taken. The web site says that the current math subject test is 66 questions, half calculus and applications of calculus, so that's presumably an improvement.

[Priest]

Only took GRE once, 1986, math, verbal, and a then-experimental analytical section. Hadn’t taken any math classes since two semesters of calculus freshman year (82-83). My sense of it was that the math section was easier than the math section on the SAT.

[JanieM]

My sense of it was that the math section was easier than the math section on the SAT.

That was my impression in 1971, or at least that the GRE wasn't any harder than the SAT. In fact, I walked out of the GRE testing room (which was on the MIT campus but was a test location for the whole Boston area) ahead of two young women who were musing about the fact that they always had trouble with questions about percents. ;-)

As to Michael Cain's 1:56: it's an interesting question if you think about the difference between an aptitude test and a subject test. Which was supposed to be the distinction, IIUC, between the SAT and the SAT II aka the Subject Tests aka whatever they're calling them now.

I don't think you need calc questions to test math aptitude. On the other hand, at the GRE level, why bother with this kind of test in the first place? Get the person's college records.....

PS: Google informs me that the College Board no longer even offers subject tests.

[nous]

Bigger shock to many people - the University of California system no longer requires the aptitude tests at all.

[JanieM]

Bates has been a national leader in the test-optional movement for nearly four decades. In October 1984, the faculty voted to make standardized testing, such as the SAT and the ACT, optional for all students applying to Bates.

Bates College is half an hour from my house; one of my kids went there. My impression is that a lot of colleges have quit requiring the SAT in more recent years. But the entire UCal system -- that's a biggie.

I get the reasons for this, but it's too bad in a way. The SAT was my ticket to a good college, coming as I did from a tiny Catholic high school in a small midwestern town, giving colleges (in 1967, mind you) no other very good way to get a handle on my abilities in comparison with someone from, let's say, Stuyvesant or Bronx Science.

As far as I can tell, the SAT has been co-opted in much the same way as the federal student loan programs have been co-opted, so that they no longer serve their original purpose very well, if at all. When I was young it was a relatively even playing field; there weren't expensive test prep outfits to help the kids who had the $/family resources get higher scores....

[JanieM]

Should have made clear that the opening quote in my 4:03 was from the Bates website, not from someone here.

[wj]

but much of the scoring is done by software.

Oh boy.........

The opportunity for someone who can hack out the scoring software, and tell test takers how to ace the test accordingly, it truly amazing.

How long (if not already) until someone does that? It seems ever so much easier than artificially padding extracurricular activities for college admissions....

[JanieM]

Just took a walk and also started wondering what the GRE is for in the first place. Colleges making use of a generalized way of comparing high school kids I can understand, but for grad school you've got people who have already been (presumably) almost all the way through college. Plus, applicants are applying to specific departments to continue (usually) their work in a specific, right? So general aptitude would seem pretty irrelevant compared to an applicant's actual college work.

Was the GRE just the College Board trying to generate another cash flow? (What, me cynical?)

And yes, I suppose nothing is as clear-cut as I'm making it seem for the sake of argument, or musings.

[JanieM]

"specific" -> "specific field" -- I really do need a proofreader, or some patience. Or fewer distractions.

[nous]

wj - no need to hack the scoring software, just look for some outline of the norming guidelines used by the humans scoring the samples and you have the template for a high scoring written response. When I was scoring these sorts of things for the UC system, I could score an essay in two minutes or less most of the time. The software is just applying those same standards through neural net training and flagging any borderline or anomalous samples for more human attention.

This is no more a vulnerability or exercise in formalism than what came before.

JanieM, I think the GRE is there to give grad admissions a better idea of what to expect from a student from a small college they are unfamiliar with and to act as a corrective against local grade inflation. Otherwise the universities will try to game the system to get more of their graduates admitted to prestigious programs so that they can raise their placement rates, and thus their rankings, and their tuition.

The question is never whether or not to be cynical about testing, it's a question of what to be cynical about.

[JanieM]

JanieM, I think the GRE is there to give grad admissions a better idea of what to expect from a student from a small college they are unfamiliar with and to act as a corrective against local grade inflation.

So basically similar to the SAT in that respect.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

At least in STEM fields, graduate schools draw from a global pool.

[Michael Cain]

JanieM, I certainly had thoughts like what the hell was the GRE even for the first time I took it. I was applying to programs where I would do formal work on algorithms. (No, not the way people talk about Twitter's "algorithms".) Nothing on the GRE, including the math subject exam, measured any of the things that would be important. Could I construct original proofs? Was I competent to write code if that was the way the work went? There wasn't a writing section at that time, so they weren't even looking at whether I could string thoughts together coherently for a dissertation?

[Michael Cain]

What nous said at 6:25. Yes, there are test prep companies that will drill you on style that the ETS software will rate favorably.

Long ago I worked with some researchers who were trying to build an essay reader for the Army. I never asked, but did wonder if the things hammered on by the technical journals I occasionally refereed for would be treated favorably or not by the software. Things like short sentences, no extraneous adverbs, no passive voice, etc.

[wj]

The problem with any "standardized test" is to a) be clear what it is you are actually trying to measure, and b) to make sure that what you actually are measuring (rarely the same thing) is really a valid proxy for what you were interested in.

Without correctly addressing that you end up with tests intended to measure intelligence which actually measure vocabulary. Great if you happened to grow up in a house full of books, where Scrabble was the evening entertainment of choice. Not so good if your home environment was less rich in words.

[Pro Bono]

The problem with any test is that applicants can improve their performance with appropriate training, and some applicants will have access to better training than others.