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Russian Assets Reportedly Seized at Baikonur Cosmodrome by Kazakh Authorities

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Re: Russian Assets Reportedly Seized at Baikonur Cosmodrome by Kazakh Authorities

#81
post #72
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about the same thing a few days ago. One of the most interesting takeaways from this war is how soft power is very underrated, and lack of any soft power whatsoever is one of the reasons behind Russia's problems.

Russia has spend billions to gain soft power by hosting the 2018 world cup, the winter Olympics etc. However the only "soft power" that has actually worked for Russia are their hundreds of thousands of social media disinfo sockpuppet accounts. They have convinced half of India, Nigeria, Hungary and Kentucky that Ukraine created COVID-19.

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Re: Russian Assets Reportedly Seized at Baikonur Cosmodrome by Kazakh Authorities

#82
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very nice. I guess Russia's lease on Baikonur is until 2050. I wonder what happens if it's not renewed...

I do not believe russians will want or need to get into space until 2050, because the economy of this country is screwed and electronics tech-stack is dependent on global market to deliver required chips... Needless to say the window of opportunity to receive the electronic components is closing. They can't run a space program on gray market deliveries.

Many aerospace engineers have left Russia in the last year, too.

Re: Russian Assets Reportedly Seized at Baikonur Cosmodrome by Kazakh Authorities

#83
post #78
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t China create advanced electronics?

> Doesn’t China create advanced electronics? It creates advanced electronics in the sense that it assembles them. It does not manufacture advanced or even mid-grade chips though which is the crucial point. That’s all Taiwan, Korea, Japan, USA.

I’m not sure that 7nm is not good enough to be called “mid-grade”, but SMIC definitely has the capability of manufacturing chips good enough to get to space.

Re: Russian Assets Reportedly Seized at Baikonur Cosmodrome by Kazakh Authorities

#85
post #65
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, hopefully some of the federated republics will start civil wars to break away from the Russian empire. Continue the disintegration process that started in 1991.

Hoping that a nuclear power breaks apart is a nightmare. This is true for states like Pakistan but when you have a stockpile in the thousands and a nuclear logistical distribution like Russia it is nearly guarantee that we have several (terroristic) nuclear explosions over the next decades and probably half a dozen rogue states more. And do not assume that this is a peaceful transition. Putin is very much concerned a…

This already happened once when the USSR broke up. The world got through that.

I think in the end you can't dismiss how much it is in every state's self-interest to not start a nuclear exchange.

Re: Russian Assets Reportedly Seized at Baikonur Cosmodrome by Kazakh Authorities

#86
post #85
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hoping that a nuclear power breaks apart is a nightmare. This is true for states like Pakistan but when you have a stockpile in the thousands and a nuclear logistical distribution like Russia it is nearly guarantee that we have several (terroristic) nuclear explosions over the next decades and probably half a dozen rogue states more. And do not assume that this is a peaceful transition. Putin is very much concerned a…

This already happened once when the USSR broke up. The world got through that. I think in the end you can't dismiss how much it is in every state's self-interest to not start a nuclear exchange.

What is not yet visible, but might be a bringer of future conflict, is the many turk nations that could form a federation of there own. Turkey, Aserbaidschan , Turkmenistan and the Uighurs even, could form quite a mini-union themselves. If they manage for once to be at piece with all the other ethnicities they traditionally supressed similar to the russians.

Re: Russian Assets Reportedly Seized at Baikonur Cosmodrome by Kazakh Authorities

#87
post #78
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t China create advanced electronics?

> Doesn’t China create advanced electronics? It creates advanced electronics in the sense that it assembles them. It does not manufacture advanced or even mid-grade chips though which is the crucial point. That’s all Taiwan, Korea, Japan, USA.

Advanced stuff isn't necessary for space, most rockets/aerospace worked fine with 1960s tech. Obviously nicer chips can be useful, but it's not like TSMC/Samsung are necessary conditions for getting to the moon or making an ICBM.

Re: Russian Assets Reportedly Seized at Baikonur Cosmodrome by Kazakh Authorities

#88
post #75
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has spend billions to gain soft power by hosting the 2018 world cup, the winter Olympics etc. However the only "soft power" that has actually worked for Russia are their hundreds of thousands of social media disinfo sockpuppet accounts. They have convinced half of India, Nigeria, Hungary and Kentucky that Ukraine created COVID-19.

Do their energy exports count as soft power? Arguably that was working quite well, until they further expanded in to Ukraine.

I would count that as a different kind of power, distinction from soft and hard. Maybe "commercial power"? "Trading power"?

To me soft power sounds more like culture - being appealing to other country's populations.

Re: Russian Assets Reportedly Seized at Baikonur Cosmodrome by Kazakh Authorities

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being russian is not a race, just a passport type. They have a lot of blonde blue eyed people on the west (courtesy of vikings raping and killing those areas for centuries), brown, black haired, asian in the east (courtesy of mongols doing exactly the same), typical muslim visage on the south. Basically all mixtures apart from Africans. Also, being russian is sort of lifestyle and comes with certain mindset, as inter…

lol this is so stupid. being russian is as much an ethnicity as it is a nationality. if you make derisive prejudicial comments about an ethnic group that is racism

With that logic, you can't say ever any critical remark about a group of people (since they can self-identify as ethnicity XYZ and who are you to say otherwise), because it all gets siphoned into 'that's racism' outrage. If anything, it should be labeled 'ethnicism', in fact thats a proper word so lets be factual.

What about, instead of this totalitarian auto-censorship outrages in anonymous online forums, we discuss actual topics? I wasn't bashing russians specifically mind you, rather pointing out that generally nations that got their freedom way too fast then didn't know how to handle such freedom well. Collapse of CCCP created a massive sphere of such countries. As somebody coming form such a nation and lived during such times, I have unfortunately quite a bit of experience in this regard

Re: Russian Assets Reportedly Seized at Baikonur Cosmodrome by Kazakh Authorities

#90
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sources are sketchy. Those sources I've found report that Kazakhstani bailiffs put an arrest to Russian property (basically they can't move it out of the country) and forbade some manager to leave country as well. I'm not sure if English meaning of word seizure includes those actions, I thought that seizure is more like expropriation and that's not what happening here. I think that's not serious. It's either some pol…

Kazakhstan's economy is dominated by the oil and gas industry. If anything, it competes with Russia economically. As it develops alternative transportation networks, economic independence from Russia will benefit it, not harm it.

As far as I know, major (overwhelming?) part of Kazakhstan oil and gas is transported via Russian pipes. They were used as a tool to press on Kazakhstan in the past. Yes, alternative networks are being developed, but that takes a lot of time.
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