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Cugel the Clever posted:Care to elaborate? Western countries have reached out time and time again and Russia was at the big kids table until Putin started throwing tantrums. Indeed. Remember Obama's and Hillary's "reset", despite 2008. Or how NS2 got built despite 2014. Or summits between Putin and Biden last year, IIRC? (And people were asking about appeasement?)
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Feb 23, 2022 06:08
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Freezer posted:I am not familiar with the topic of modern antitank weapons and their countermeasures, but found this while googling and it's pretty interesting altogether: its common for tankers to add all kinds of improvised armor to vehicles in the hopes of defeating anti-tank weapons its not going to help much against modern anti-tank guided missiles, or ATGMs. basically in any modern warfare with a lot of heavy vehicles rolling around, guys hiding behind trees and peeking over hills have a huge advantage in being able to shoot nasty, expensive missiles that will kill the poo poo out of tanks. deploying american tanks against ISIS and the taliban was only viable because those guys would only likely have older, less effective RPGs which aren't full on modern tank killers. most nations are able to afford some kind of export ATGM though if not domestically produced, they aren't super complicated to make and are a definite must have in your arsenal if you want to defend against armored vehicles in terms of countermeasures you can try jamming them, using robots to shoot them down or spray shrapnel at them to prematurely detonate them, having explosive armor on your tank which will explode at the missile just before it hits your tank, and so on. none of these are really that good, cutting edge ATGMs can fly into the air, autonomously keep track of their target vehicle, and then hit them from above where the armor is weaker and countermeasures are less effective. basically if you're sending tanks out to fight in a contemporary armed conflict against a real military, you are going to lose some tanks in pretty gruesome ways. there's all kinds of footage from syria of both government and rebel forces exploding the poo poo out of each other with ATGMs. ukraine would absolutely have a stock of these on hand even before getting emergency shipments in. a thousand javelins is a serious threat to any possible russian advance, and if you were sending military aid in this context the first thing on the list would be pallet after pallet of these weapons Mr. Fall Down Terror fucked around with this message at 06:12 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 06:09
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:I think you need more info for the question. Not just form us but from books etc. This is an extremely confusing post. Russia is a pariah state because of the West's failure to integrate, but also the West didn't do anything about its assassination program because of too much financial integration. Russia has experienced a lot of relative economic growth in the last two decades thanks to expanding oil and natural gas sectors. It's attempts to take over other countries harmed those industries by closing access to markets. Not to mention the still being built pipelines, so it's difficult to even make the case that access was completely cut off. Stating that Russia is at all justified in this is very close to saying that Japan was justified in taking over Indonesia because the U.S. cut off shipments of oil and steel.
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Feb 23, 2022 06:11
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instead of war why not teach russians to code?!?
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Feb 23, 2022 06:11
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Cugel the Clever posted:Care to elaborate? Western countries have reached out time and time again and Russia was at the big kids table until Putin started throwing tantrums. The NATO bombing of Sarajevo. I'm not talking about anything that has happened in Putins Era. All of that is a result of the 90s, Russia now is integrated but the creation of the pariah Russia is because of the west. Sorry i don't think I could explain my point without a lot of effort that would be tantamount to a rather large post or series of posts. I should have realized that before trying to shorten it and skipping a lot of backstory. WAR CRIME GIGOLO fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 06:13
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:the creation of the pariah Russia is because of the west. Yeah, the USSR was blameless. If only somebody would be doing everything in their power to recreate it in its old borders and glory.
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Feb 23, 2022 06:22
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Mr. Smile Face Hat posted:Yeah, the USSR was blameless. If only somebody would be doing everything in their power to recreate it in its old borders and glory. Russia could have been a member of the international community in more than just name and presence had the transition been less hyper capitalist. I'm not calling the USSR blameless, but of you think that the the anti communist rhetoric, domino theory and strategy of containment wasn't a huge factor in the post Russia world then lmao
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Feb 23, 2022 06:26
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:The NATO bombing of Sarajevo. The whose what of where?
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Feb 23, 2022 06:33
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If Russia hadn’t gone through some shock mass privatization and turned into kleptocracy, we probably wouldn’t be here. However, they are still responsible for their own actions and nothing justifies invading Ukraine.
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Feb 23, 2022 06:37
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OctaMurk posted:If Russia hadn’t gone through some shock mass privatization and turned into kleptocracy, we probably wouldn’t be here. However, they are still responsible for their own actions and nothing justifies invading Ukraine. Yes but trying to find justifications is not what prompted the discussion. Analyzing historical context and hypothetical isn't apologism.
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Feb 23, 2022 06:40
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Gervasius posted:The whose what of where? Russia tried to protect it's interests in the Balkans and ran into a head with NATO trying to make itself to be the world peace keeper. Sowing distrust amongst the two parties and setting up a course of separate destinies. OctaMurk posted:If Russia hadn’t gone through some shock mass privatization and turned into kleptocracy, we probably wouldn’t be here. However, they are still responsible for their own actions and nothing justifies invading Ukraine. Thank you for being better at words than I am in terms of explaining this. Nothing justifies the Invasion. But to say that this whole thing was not preventable is a historically short sided point.
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Feb 23, 2022 06:42
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Cugel the Clever posted:Care to elaborate? Western countries have reached out time and time again and Russia was at the big kids table until Putin started throwing tantrums. Putin wanted to join NATO in the early 2000s. IIRC he asked Bush and other western leaders what needs to be done to join NATO and was ignored on multiple occasions. I believe this was the turning point for Putin where he realized he wasn't being welcomed into the western world.
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Feb 23, 2022 06:45
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Russia could have been a member of the international community in more than just name and presence had the transition been less hyper capitalist. I'm not calling the USSR blameless, but of you think that the the anti communist rhetoric, domino theory and strategy of containment wasn't a huge factor in the post Russia world then lmao organized crime from the communist era has a big part in why they are they way they are (bad and dumb)
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Feb 23, 2022 06:47
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Russia tried to protect it's interests in the Balkans and ran into a head with NATO trying to make itself to be the world peace keeper. Yes, yes, all that was going on in Bosnia in the 90s was “Russia trying to protect it’s interests”. And, yes, yes, if the West had only stepped in to save Russia from itself and prevent the kleptocracy that has ensued and accelerated during Putin’s 22 year stint as head of state since the collapse of the USSR, then maybe we wouldn’t be here! Shame on you West/NATO for making Russia do this!
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Feb 23, 2022 06:54
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dominoeffect posted:Putin wanted to join NATO in the early 2000s. IIRC he asked Bush and other western leaders what needs to be done to join NATO and was ignored on multiple occasions. I believe this was the turning point for Putin where he realized he wasn't being welcomed into the western world. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/03/06/putin-says-why-not-to-russia-joining-nato/c1973032-c10f-4bff-9174-8cae673790cd/ 20 year old article talking about that. Doesnt seem to be very concrete.
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Feb 23, 2022 06:56
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Why would NATO even want Russia? According to Putin, Russia is just constantly getting attacked by its tiny neighbors, NATO vs would be going to war every 5 years.
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Feb 23, 2022 07:00
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Big Slammu posted:Yes, yes, all that was going on in Bosnia in the 90s was “Russia trying to protect it’s interests”. To be fair, shock therapy was a disaster for most the the former Soviet Republics. Including Ukraine. I think I even remember Jeffrey Sachs admitting this. edit: It lay the foundation for the rise of the oligarchs and kleptocracy that followed. BigRoman fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 07:07
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BigRoman posted:To be fair, shock therapy was a disaster for most the the former Soviet Republics. Including Ukraine. I think I even remember Jeffrey Sachs admitting this. No one is debating shock therapy was a failure but everyone treating it like the end of history that inevitably led to where we are today ITT is mistaken
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Feb 23, 2022 07:12
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Jst0rm posted:https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/03/06/putin-says-why-not-to-russia-joining-nato/c1973032-c10f-4bff-9174-8cae673790cd/ That article is OK. Check here for some more info around this as well as additional sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93NATO_relations#Suggestions_of_Russia_joining_NATO
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Feb 23, 2022 07:14
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Jst0rm posted:https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/03/06/putin-says-why-not-to-russia-joining-nato/c1973032-c10f-4bff-9174-8cae673790cd/ There's also this article from November 2021 that quotes former NATO head George Robertson https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-says-putin-wanted-to-join-alliance-early-on-in-his-rule quote:George Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary who led Nato between 1999 and 2003, said Putin made it clear at their first meeting that he wanted Russia to be part of western Europe. “They wanted to be part of that secure, stable prosperous west that Russia was out of at the time,” he said.
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Feb 23, 2022 07:15
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Russia tried to protect it's interests in the Balkans and ran into a head with NATO trying to make itself to be the world peace keeper. In 1995 Russia couldn't protect it's interests outside Moscow, much less in the Balkans. You are so incredibly wrong I don't even know where to start.
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Feb 23, 2022 07:16
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Mr. Apollo posted:There's also this article from November 2021 that quotes former NATO head George Robertson Thanks, that's the quote I was vaguely remembering, nice find!
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Feb 23, 2022 07:18
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dominoeffect posted:Putin wanted to join NATO in the early 2000s. IIRC he asked Bush and other western leaders what needs to be done to join NATO and was ignored on multiple occasions. I believe this was the turning point for Putin where he realized he wasn't being welcomed into the western world. WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Russia tried to protect it's interests in the Balkans and ran into a head with NATO trying to make itself to be the world peace keeper. Big Slammu posted:And, yes, yes, if the West had only stepped in to save Russia from itself and prevent the kleptocracy that has ensued and accelerated during Putin’s 22 year stint as head of state since the collapse of the USSR, then maybe we wouldn’t be here! Shame on you West/NATO for making Russia do this!
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Feb 23, 2022 07:21
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dominoeffect posted:Putin wanted to join NATO in the early 2000s. IIRC he asked Bush and other western leaders what needs to be done to join NATO and was ignored on multiple occasions. I believe this was the turning point for Putin where he realized he wasn't being welcomed into the western world. I mean Russia joining NATO is absurd... It's a regional military alliance, not some kind of global military version of the UN. And Russia is a country spanning two continents with 150M people and it's own foreign policy vision which it wouldn't have been willing to abandon. OSCE was created just for this reason of getting Russia involved in matters of European security as a peer. Russia has always been included in European cooperation in the highest level, in all the various functional areas. steinrokkan fucked around with this message at 07:26 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 07:22
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I was checking out the air traffic radar and saw this, and it reminded me of our resident goon who was going to take Wizz Air to Ukraine around this time, when he posted about a week ago...friend are you ok??
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Feb 23, 2022 07:25
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Gervasius posted:In 1995 Russia couldn't protect it's interests outside Moscow, much less in the Balkans. You are so incredibly wrong I don't even know where to start. Look man, if NATO hadn't been helping build Greater Serbia none of this would have happened. Russians and their Croat/Bosniak allies suffered horribly because of that bombing.
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Feb 23, 2022 07:27
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Cugel the Clever posted:
Pretty much. Russia today is the result of actions by Russians. Were some of the worst ones helped indirectly (and in some cases directly) by western policy? Absolutely. But Putin and his cabal are creatures of Russia, not elsewhere. America and NATO aren't the masters of the universe. Things do in fact occur that aren't the product of their schemes one way or another.
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Feb 23, 2022 07:29
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Big Slammu posted:No one is debating shock therapy was a failure but everyone treating it like the end of history that inevitably led to where we are today ITT is mistaken Agreed. What a love about left leaning Americans (I include myself in this category) is that we recognize the role that U.S. foreign policy and imperialism play in making life miserable for others and setting the stage for future blowback. Unfortunately, there is a tendency for some to act as if the only nation with a foreign policy is the U.S. and everyone else is just reacting. I blame this national solipsism on American media which doesn't cover much foreign news and rarely provides historical context. As a result, they can correctly recognize the U.S/NATOs role in jerking around Ukraine and Georgia with promises of NATO membership, but fail to recognize that Putin is driven by a desire to restore the the Russian empire (or create a bunch of authoritarian puppet states for a common market he can control at the very least). They're so busy self flagellating they can't recognize that there can be more than one self interested powerhouse nation acting in a ruthless manner. Edit: To be clear, Ukraine has been screwed by many nations, but none as thoroughly as Russia. BigRoman fucked around with this message at 07:34 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 07:30
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So in conclusion every country that has had a10 year bad stint is going to turn batshit insane and start attacking it's neighbours, and if you don't pat them on the shoulder and say "there you go, get it out of your system", it's you who is the problem, even if you are among those being attacked
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Feb 23, 2022 07:31
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HonorableTB posted:I was checking out the air traffic radar and saw this, and it reminded me of our resident goon who was going to take Wizz Air to Ukraine around this time, when he posted about a week ago...friend are you ok?? they're still posting as of today, I dont know if they ended up taking the flight or now
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Feb 23, 2022 07:33
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Rad Russian posted:Yeah, stingers pretty much made combat helicopters obsolete, just like what javelins did to modern tanks. It would be absolutely stupid for Russia to send either of these in front of Ukraine's forces. No. MANPADS were created to counter rotary-wing aviation. Counter-measure systems were developed and mounted on the helicopters. So newer, better MANPADS were made, and newer better countermeasures were made. It's an ongoing struggle.
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Feb 23, 2022 07:51
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steinrokkan posted:So in conclusion every country that has had a10 year bad stint is going to turn batshit insane and start attacking it's neighbours, and if you don't pat them on the shoulder and say "there you go, get it out of your system", it's you who is the problem, even if you are among those being attacked I’m not saying that the west was or is the problem, but I personally think the west and the US could have done more after the collapse of the Soviet Union. That also seems to be the modern hindsight view of people involved in the process at the time. While you’re being sarcastic, Germany during WW2 fits your description of a country lashing out. The US did pat them and others on the shoulder with the Marshall Plan. Seems like a good example to take some lessons from.
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Feb 23, 2022 07:52
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https://twitter.com/MacaesBruno/status/1495951592650125313?s=20&t=IqXlMgF5S_X4TB0cvKIGCQ https://twitter.com/SiddiquiMaha/status/1496369140034306051?s=20&t=XqScsdCyqn7VW4U5_xHOKg I'm very ignorant of Indian and Southeast Asian politics. Why would India side with Russia on this issue? Kashmir? Edit: Ukrainian soldiers receiving propaganda electronic warfare https://twitter.com/XSovietNews/status/1496373059082756099?s=20&t=SkxC2BltG-YqOOsnE11HcA  
HonorableTB fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 07:52
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HonorableTB posted:
China Dick Ripple fucked around with this message at 08:21 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 07:53
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BigRoman posted:Agreed. What a love about left leaning Americans (I include myself in this category) is that we recognize the role that U.S. foreign policy and imperialism play in making life miserable for others and setting the stage for future blowback. Unfortunately, there is a tendency for some to act as if the only nation with a foreign policy is the U.S. and everyone else is just reacting. I blame this national solipsism on American media which doesn't cover much foreign news and rarely provides historical context. It's just another flavor of American exceptionalsm.
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Feb 23, 2022 08:17
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Russia sells a lot of military equipment to India, OP.
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Feb 23, 2022 08:25
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DeadlyMuffin posted:It's just another flavor of American exceptionalsm. It's also American exceptionalism to assume everyone pointing towards Western culpability in engendering the conditions that allowed Bad Guys to get into power to be self-flagellating Americans.
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Feb 23, 2022 08:28
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steinrokkan posted:I mean Russia joining NATO is absurd... It's a regional military alliance, not some kind of global military version of the UN. And Russia is a country spanning two continents with 150M people and it's own foreign policy vision which it wouldn't have been willing to abandon. OSCE was created just for this reason of getting Russia involved in matters of European security as a peer. Russia has always been included in European cooperation in the highest level, in all the various functional areas. Included in everything except for the most powerful alliance in human history that continues to expand towards the Russian border. As Putin rhetorically asks, who exactly is this alliance supposed to be in opposition of? Russia in the past 30 years has been robbed of the strategic depth that it has enjoyed since Catharine the Great partitioned Poland with Prussia in the 1760s. That strategic depth is what allowed it to survive 2 existential wars with Napoleon and Hitler. If Ukraine was allowed to join NATO, it would bring it right up to what would be the 1942 frontline with the Nazis sans the area controlled by Belarus, and US nuclear forces could potentially base themselves as close to Moscow as Cuba was to Washington. This frontline took 6 months of campaigning and a million Axis dead to reach and the space in between was what arguably saved Russia front total defeat. It is precisely the failure to dismantle NATO or integrate the new Russia into the pan-European security framework (ie taking their interests into account) that has led Putin down this path. If it is some regional alliance, why did it keep moving east? While Russia spans two continents, the majority of its population is clustered in Europe and it saw itself as a European nation. Yeltsin and Putin fully expected NATO to be dismantled after the USSR fell and a new security framework to be established. It didn't happen and NATO kept expanding eastward (even after promises made that it wouldn't). After the total failure NATO nations to take into account Russian interests in the Balkans and went ahead/allowed the creation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the defacto independence of Kosvo, Putin made the hard turn away from any further attempts at integrating with Europe. I made a post about the history of post-Soviet estrangement from 'The West' a while back in the EE thread with links to old newspapers and articles if you want to read more. None of this is to say what Russia is doing is morally acceptable. But it is bourne out of 30 years where it lost huge swaths of borderlands that used to insulate the Russian heartland for 200 years prior to the Cold War, and the institution that defeated you politically has shown no signs of letting you join the club in any meaningful way and is slowly creeping up to your border. I am definitely in agreement that all of this could have turned out differently had the people in charge been more sympathetic to Russia when it was on its knees. But it hasn't and now we have to go back to the Cold War hammer and Ukrainians are paying the price.
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Feb 23, 2022 08:33
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https://mobile.twitter.com/RALee85/status/1496341039849914370 OMON guys with US gear spotted near Rostov. They're the Federal Military Police Force, used by the Ministry of Interior with very little oversight and even less accountability. They do war crimes.
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Feb 23, 2022 08:41
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MikeC posted:Included in everything except for the most powerful alliance in human history that continues to expand towards the Russian border. As Putin rhetorically asks, who exactly is this alliance supposed to be in opposition of? Russia in the past 30 years has been robbed of the strategic depth that it has enjoyed since Catharine the Great partitioned Poland with Prussia in the 1760s. That strategic depth is what allowed it to survive 2 existential wars with Napoleon and Hitler. If Ukraine was allowed to join NATO, it would bring it right up to what would be the 1942 frontline with the Nazis sans the area controlled by Belarus, and US nuclear forces could potentially base themselves as close to Moscow as Cuba was to Washington. This frontline took 6 months of campaigning and a million Axis dead to reach and the space in between was what arguably saved Russia front total defeat. Alliances aren't meant to be unconditionally inclusive. To say otherwise, that they should include anybody who asks, is an obvious poison pill. Would Russia, the NATO member, let the US, Germany, Poland station troops in its territory? Would Russia abandon it's own alliances and bilateral arrangements with former Soviet republics or its Asian neighbours and completely conform to policy directions already put in place by Western members by the time of is accession? Would Russia not act independently wrt Syria, Libya etc and not have it's own horses in these races? Would Russia give up on independent unscrutinized arms trade? I think the answer is an obvious no to all these questions. NATO has accepted members who actually worked to become members, made the necessary adjustments, and formed a block that was both politically and geographically congruous with the old members. The new members also weren't major powers with independent international ambitions, who requested protection on terms the NATO offered. Their membership didn't threaten Russia anymore than the NATO before their accession, and in fact the NATO consistently demilitarised its Russian frontier in the years after the Eastern expansion, became far less threatening to Russia than at any point in the past while also steadily expanding cooperation. If anything the current crisis is due to the NATO being extremely conciliatory and forgiving towards Putin in the past due to fundamental unwillingness to commit to military spending in Europe. If NATO had put Russia in the stranglehold it claims, it wouldn't be able to get away with retiring the whole of Eastern Europe with impunity. steinrokkan fucked around with this message at 08:50 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 08:41
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