A New Mode of Cancer Treatment

If 2023 ends up giving us AGI, room-temperature superconductors, Starships and a cure for cancer, I think we will able to call it a good year...

There is still the threat of WW3...

Really? Putin seems to slowly change his mind, even as far as the aims of his "special military operation" are concerned. It looks like he is slowly realizing what he got himself into and his aim is to keep Ukraine unstable to prevent its association with the EU.

No, there's a new mass troop mobilization coming, the grain deal was cancelled, Russia is firing on civilian shipping ports (including ones right on the border with NATO ally (EDIT: meant member) Romania), and Belarus is performing provocations across the Polish border.

Unfortunately, I think things are just getting started.

Warning: rampant speculation.

Why is Belarus performing provocations on the Polish border? Seems to me that Lukashenko is either doing it for himself, or for Putin. I can't see why he'd be doing it for himself. He might see Poland, flawed but still something of a democracy, as a threat to inspire those seeking democracy in Belarus.

But it seems to me to be more likely that he's doing it for Putin. (This also might involve Wagner going to Belarus, not to escape Russia after the coup attempt, but in order to do a job for Russia.) But what's the point? Belarus isn't going to conquer Poland. Russia's not going to conquer the Baltics. So what's going on?

If this is all a master plan, I think it's most likely that Putin is trying to create a war (or at least a real threat of war) with NATO, to give him an excuse to call for a mass mobilization in Russia. This in turn will give him enough force to at least keep what he has in Ukraine. (He's gambling - almost certainly correctly - that NATO has no stomach for anything beyond defending themselves. Think of the "Phony War" phase of the western front in WWII.)

If I'm right, this is an extremely dangerous game that Putin is playing. Wagner could get out of hand (it already did once). The war could escalate. The Russian population could get fed up. The Russian elites could get fed up.

But Putin may feel that he has no choice, because otherwise he would lose power, and because he may not survive a fall from power.

(Wow, this has gone really far afield from a discussion of a promising cancer drug!)