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Cheatum the Evil Midget posted:Why not? Why can 200 be a writeoff but 10,000 not be? Perhaps you'd like to explain why the americans were OK to walk away from Beirut, and then clearly show how the reasoning there simply doesn't apply to 10,000, to show this isn't just a kneejerk statement of assumption on your part but that you've actually thought about it. This was the cold war where there were clear red lines about Soviets killing Americans because that's what the media has being talking about since the 1950s, the same thing didn't apply to Hezbollah in the 1980s. If something similar happens today in the Middle-East I don't think the US can just walk away btw. Also yeah 200 is like 50x less than 10,000, it's a number the public can just sorta shrug off.
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Sep 3, 2014 08:31
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Cheatum the Evil Midget posted:No - and I promise I will shut up about this - it compels each NATO member to take such action they each member "deems necessary" to respond to the attack. It does not compel a war declaration, a member could "deem" a shipment of two minute noodles to support the troops to be the necessary response. Look, at the very least, the Baltic countries themselves are tight and united in countering the Russian threat. Doesn't matter how many nukes the Russians have; if Latvia say were attacked, then Estonia and Lithuania will help with anything they got. The three countries (+ some others) would definitely have a military alliance of this sort, even purely militarily it would not make sense not to. Except in actuality they're all in NATO, so not only do they have that kind of alliance between themselves, but with all of NATO countries. I don't know if US will be left cowering and contemplating and dragging its feet, but the Baltic states themselves sure won't, and every day that they spend fighting without US support would be a day to remind the whole world that the Americans, with all their military might, are the biggest pussies in the world and take Russian dicks on their chin by choice.
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Sep 3, 2014 08:42
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Randandal posted:I'm not saying that the USA could actually collapse like the USSR, I'm saying that Russia thinks it could happen and that drives the audacious hopefulness in every action they take. Nobody capable of decision-making in Kremlin believes it. Sure, their moouthpieces say that and publish Ron Paul books claiming that the dollar is hopelessly inflated and share Red Alert-inspired artwork on social media, but the people in power know that the best they can hope for is grabbing enough from the world before the Russian resources are depleted. Unlike USSR, modern Russia can't put anything against USA and EU ideologically. Its ideological base is only valid for internal consumption, Latin American and African countries don't give a poo poo about thousand years of Russian State or a bad knock-off imitation of Catholic Church (with more corruption and sucking up to the state). RT is a good example of this impotency - the best they can offer is basic contrarianism to USA without an alternative. First Channel in Russia used Team Fortress 2 poster in the documentary series about WWI:  The only hope I have for this country is that inbreeding and corruption in education will result in "young specialists" crashing every single industry, enterpise and media outlet into the ground due to incompetency.
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Sep 3, 2014 08:42
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Pimpmust posted:Reuters got a slideshow up now that shows UA units in Kramatorsk, as well as some seriously wrecked UA tanks in olenivka that got taken yesterday. The recently linked FP article mentioned that Russian units reached Volnovakha which is a good bit away from the border and likely means Russian forces are fairly strong north of Mariupol. At this rate Putin will likely be able to take both provinces in the short-term but he is going to have to devote far more troops for an invasion of the rest of Ukraine I think. At least, I haven't heard more of Russian forces pushing into Zaporizhia oblast. The UA units in Karamatorsk must be reserves/support/command since it is pretty far from the current front from what we now of.
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Sep 3, 2014 08:45
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Charlz Guybon posted:Since when is France not militarily relevant? France is still a double secret reverse NATO member.
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Sep 3, 2014 09:06
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In actual news, it looks like Poroshenko and Putin have agreed to a "permanent ceasefire", as per BBC.
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Sep 3, 2014 09:27
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Too bad that won't change anything, since there are no Russian soldiers in Ukraine, nor significant military aid being given to the rebels. Right, ridiculous posters?
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Sep 3, 2014 09:28
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SoggyBobcat posted:In actual news, it looks like Poroshenko and Putin have agreed to a "permanent ceasefire", as per BBC. How can Putin speak for the Donetsk Republic? beaten
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Sep 3, 2014 09:29
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Ardennes posted:The recently linked FP article mentioned that Russian units reached Volnovakha which is a good bit away from the border and likely means Russian forces are fairly strong north of Mariupol. Confirmed, there's a UA base near Kramatorsk, helis included. They have some sort of camp closer to Donetsk. Also Poroshenko tweeted the ceasefire together with a tweet of his wife doing the icebucket challenge.
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Sep 3, 2014 09:40
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Sep 3, 2014 09:45
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Hopefully the fighting stops now and the Eastern regions stay part of Ukraine. Oh and gently caress Putin and gently caress Russia.
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Sep 3, 2014 10:14
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN4Uu0OlmTg
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Sep 3, 2014 10:14
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Cocoa Ninja posted:Too bad that won't change anything, since there are no Russian soldiers in Ukraine, nor significant military aid being given to the rebels. Right, Russia is simply struggling to get the bloodthirsty Kyiv junta to stop shooting at their own citizens in their blood lust to destroy traditional ethnic Russian speaking their way to Moscow. Simply ridiculous. 
HUGE PUBES A PLUS fucked around with this message at 10:49 on Sep 3, 2014 |
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Sep 3, 2014 10:46
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Predictably, BBC (among others) now reports: The earlier version of the statement on the Ukrainian presidential website read: "Their conversation resulted in agreement on a permanent ceasefire in the Donbass region [the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk]." However, this has now been changed to: "Their conversation resulted in agreement on a process for ceasing fire in the Donbass region." The statement adds that the two presidents "reached a mutual understanding on steps leading to peace". In its statement (in Russian), the Kremlin said a phone conversation had taken place on Wednesday between the two presidents in which their points of view had "coincided significantly" on possible ways to end the crisis. Mr Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, clarified for Russian news agency Ria-Novosti: "Putin and Poroshenko did not agree a ceasefire in Ukraine because Russia is not party to the conflict, they only discussed how to settle the conflict." A rebel spokesman told the same agency the rebels did not believe Mr Poroshenko was in complete control over Ukrainian forces in the east.
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Sep 3, 2014 10:47
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Putin the Peacemaker just wants to keep seeming constructive which is enough of a figleaf excuse for the more jelly-kneed and gas-dependent of the EU/NATO to block further sanctions
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Sep 3, 2014 10:54
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So international politics is now based around trolling on Twitter? Well it makes sense I guess. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 11:10 on Sep 3, 2014 |
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Sep 3, 2014 10:55
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Did I make this for no reason? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnVufH2IWXQ
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Sep 3, 2014 10:59
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Baloogan posted:Who are the estonians? What makes them different from latvians? What are their national values? Estonians are basically a nation of nature-loving peasants who have lived on the shore of the Baltic Sea for thousands of years, occasionally invading the East so steal some of their women and trading with the Vikings. We are pretty close to the Finnish but we don't actually look like them that much. The reason being that during the last 700 years we have been ruled by the Germans, Danes, Swedes and the Russians and this means our bloodlines have been very mixed, especially over the course of the last three centuries where we lost a good deal of our native population due to famines. This has lead to an interesting effect. There is another precious national resource that NATO must protect in Estonia: fashion models. That's right, Estonia is the biggest source of fashion models (per capita) in the world, outnumbering the third rated country (Lithuania) by TWO times. DrProsek posted:Why does Russia want Estonia? Just because they love seeing their country's colour cover more of the map, or is there some benefit owning Estonia gives Russia that warrants risking WWIII that I'm missing? http://www.ema.ee/main_board http://www.mj-models.ee/women http://livingmodels.com/index.php?p=models&setstate=1&s=fashion Maarek posted:Russia has a pretty big army and the Baltics are right next door to them. We might have the strongest military in the world, but it's spread all over the world. Russia isn't Iraq, either. We haven't fought a power with modern SAMs and a real air force and it's weird that people think that wouldn't be a big deal and it could be done easily. Sure, it wouldn't be "easy". But there is no question who would win. Russia is so outclassed by USA alone on most categories that they are not even in the same league. There is no way Russia can win a shooting war with NATO. I'm sure if I know the numbers, the Russians know as well. Cheatum the Evil Midget posted:What I'm trying to get at is the idea of proportionality - mortal consequences only follow mortal threats. Losing West Germany to the Soviets was a mortal threat and it was entirely expected and credible that the US would go to the hilt to defend it. Russian domination of the Baltics is not a mortal threat to anyone but the Baltics and maybe Poland. There are a few aspects to consider. First, the Baltics are the buffer zone between Western Europe and Russia, but losing Baltics would also cut off Scandinavia from rest of the Europe. Losing Poland would mean Russia being on the doorstep of Germany. Plus just handing over the Baltics/Poland will be a very hard sell to the American public, who are all about defending democracy and the weak against the tyranny of authoritarian regimes. This would be the first time in many a year where a military intervention would actually be warranted and (probably) supported by the public.
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Sep 3, 2014 12:13
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Mustang posted:Even if the Western European NATO members declined to respond the US would likely go ahead and do so anyway, it's not like the US acting unilaterally is unheard of. Russia wouldn't send in the entire Russian army into the Baltics anyway, it would likely be little green men which the US would entirely be able to justify taking care of since they're NATO members. Russia isn't going to declare war on the US just because some Russian "separatists" get killed in the Baltics. Also, again: Ukraine is neither NATO nor EU. Cheatum the Evil Midget posted:Bizzaro Reagan thinking was not responding militarily after the Soviet Union murdered a bunch of citizens of a sworn US ally by shooting down a civilian airliner because upholding an absolute interpretation of America's obligations was not worth the consequences. Shooting an airliner down is not the same thing as attacking a country. The USA and allies have shot plenty of airliners down too. Sometimes, even the airliners of an allied country! And we still don't know what caused the disappearance of the MH370. Should NATO declare war on every non-NATO country immediately because any of them could be the culprit? Cheatum the Evil Midget posted:The question is what percentage of that would be committed. You already have numerous NATO members grouching that sanctions against Russia are costing them too much. Do you see them committing themselves to a total war against Russia? Or even the populations of the big western democracies being prepared to do so? A lot of NATO members like the club membership and free American guarantee but they will make hard choices when those start carrying a cost. Christ, all but a couple of NATO members violently object to spending 2% of GDP on defence. Total war being World War III, yes, it's a good thing most NATO members would object to it. But if it does happen, it simply gets out of the hands of any politician to object. As for spending on defense: Europe's economy is led by Germany, and Germany is in love with the "drown-the-beast" ideology. Except they're more consistent about it than American beast-drowners. In the USA, they just want to force the state to get rid of any and all social spending because poor people deserve to die painfully. They'd never want to touch the defense budget. Germany wants to plunge Europe into a deflationary spiral because that's what favors banks and rentiers the most. In case of serious war, though, this would evaporate instantly. Germany is a country with 109 jet fighters, 8 of which are operational. Germany's austerity cannot sustain a war economy. And you know, if you were to ask Europeans outside of Germany whether they'd rather a war or continuing austerity, you might find them more bellicose than you'd think. Cheatum the Evil Midget posted:Sorry, I don't have any examples of NATO members being invaded to draw on. Gee, I wonder why...
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Sep 3, 2014 12:23
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Cat Mattress posted:
Please tell me this isn't true. That would mean Finland is better equipped to fight off a Russian invasion than the biggest economy and the heart of the European Union.
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Sep 3, 2014 12:29
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Grouching about Ukraine is just totally different from grouching about NATO Article 5. When the biggest countries in Europe and the US of loving A, your big brother treaty allies who you rely on for mutual defense, are on the warpath, facing down the collapse of the world order that benefits them and that they built over the last 70 years, sitting it out complaining about your loving GDP is not going to be a smart move. When the US, UK, France and Germany come together and say "jump!" the small countries of Europe will say "how high?"
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Sep 3, 2014 12:32
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Here's a neat list of pro-Ukrainian armed group logos:
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Sep 3, 2014 12:33
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OhYeah posted:Please tell me this isn't true. That would mean Finland is better equipped to fight off a Russian invasion than the biggest economy and the heart of the European Union. quote:Nur acht von 109 "Eurofighter"-Kampfjets sind voll einsatzbereit. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/bundeswehr-unter-von-der-leyen-marode-ausruestung-bei-luftwaffe-a-987940.html 8 out 109 Eurofighters, 7 out of 67 heavy transport helicopters, 5 out of 33 medium helis and 21 out of 56 transport aircraft are operational. (Germany does also have 120 Tornado jets that are presumably in better shape)
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Sep 3, 2014 12:34
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CeeJee posted:http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/bundeswehr-unter-von-der-leyen-marode-ausruestung-bei-luftwaffe-a-987940.html Is this a translation issue? "Operational" is a slippery word because there are a million reasons why something could not be operational. Eurofighter Typhoon is a mature aircraft, there's no reason for them to be not working from teething issues or old age. Are they mothballed? Broken? Have no qualified crew? What's up?
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Sep 3, 2014 12:40
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See, an airforce comparable to the superpower of Sweden. Turns out Swedes are most willing of the Europeans, including Poles, to intervene even if it causes problems with Russia. At least accordong to a poll sponsored by our foreign ministry (headed by Carl Bildt, so maybe not entirely reliable). Out of the way, poltava shall be avenged! But first we must invade Estonia, no hard feelings but our fashion industry is in dire need  I'm sure Finland will come too, for old times sake.
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Sep 3, 2014 12:46
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Arglebargle III posted:Is this a translation issue? "Operational" is a slippery word because there are a million reasons why something could not be operational. Eurofighter Typhoon is a mature aircraft, there's no reason for them to be not working from teething issues or old age. Are they mothballed? Broken? Have no qualified crew? What's up? The article uses 'einsatzbereit' which can mean both 'operational' or 'ready for action', 'flugtüchtig', which means 'flight ready' and 'können derzeit abheben' which means 'are currently able to take off'. I don't think it leaves much of a margin for translation errors.
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Sep 3, 2014 12:48
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Arglebargle III posted:Is this a translation issue? "Operational" is a slippery word because there are a million reasons why something could not be operational. Eurofighter Typhoon is a mature aircraft, there's no reason for them to be not working from teething issues or old age. Are they mothballed? Broken? Have no qualified crew? What's up? Germany has a bit of a reputation with their jets: http://www.916-starfighter.de/GAF_crashes.htm
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Sep 3, 2014 12:49
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The current situation reminds me of Napoleon's diplomatic tactics: "Si vis bellum para pacem". I mean, if you want Russia to back down for a bit so you can rally for a counter attack, it would be clever to appear to make peace for now before going all out on the separatists/rebels (or just reinforcing positions like Mariupol while Russia hesitates). Hopefully that would be the case, as I really want to see how Russian media (and Putin) would react to that. Either way, the coming week is going to be very interesting.
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Sep 3, 2014 12:51
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Cetea posted:The current situation reminds me of Napoleon's diplomatic tactics: "Si vis bellum para pacem". I mean, if you want Russia to back down for a bit so you can rally for a counter attack, it would be clever to appear to make peace for now before going all out on the separatists/rebels (or just reinforcing positions like Mariupol while Russia hesitates). Hopefully that would be the case, as I really want to see how Russian media (and Putin) would react to that. Either way, the coming week is going to be very interesting. If there is a ceasefire you can bet that Russia will be doing the same and reinforcing the rebels' own positions, on the pretext that the Ukrainian government can't control its eastern forces.
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Sep 3, 2014 12:53
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Arglebargle III posted:Is this a translation issue? "Operational" is a slippery word because there are a million reasons why something could not be operational. Eurofighter Typhoon is a mature aircraft, there's no reason for them to be not working from teething issues or old age. Are they mothballed? Broken? Have no qualified crew? What's up? Transalls have issues simply because they're so old, but our helis and jets are another issue. Tornados are in better shape, but are slowly getting closer to the Transalls in age. Eurofighters and our modern helis are victims of our Kafkaeskian military procurement. Some helis and Eurofighters have a lot of issues right after delivery and get stuck in operational limbo until they're fixed. (They're never getting fixed, there's too much corruption in our procurement, especiall on the civilian side.) CeeJee posted:Germany has a bit of a reputation with their jets: http://www.916-starfighter.de/GAF_crashes.htm Those weren't our jets, they were poo poo jets given to us by the US. See my last post about pilot killers. Our own jets are good, if slowed down by corruption preventing them from actually being deliverd intact and on time. Also, maintenance problems with the older jets. I like to think we started developing our own fighter jets again because the Starfighter was somehow worse then the older ME 262, which shouldn't have been possible. Libluini fucked around with this message at 12:58 on Sep 3, 2014 |
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Sep 3, 2014 12:55
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Germany is surrounded by friendly powers, of course it doesn't have a huge military ready to go. This good policy. In case of rising tensions or war with NATO powers, they can ready more of those 109. The immediate brunt of the fighting would be taken by militaries closer to Russia, which have better readiness for obvious reasons.
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Sep 3, 2014 12:57
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I think a powerful Germany should be bulwark against Sovie... Wait a minute!
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Sep 3, 2014 13:01
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Zohar posted:If there is a ceasefire you can bet that Russia will be doing the same and reinforcing the rebels' own positions, on the pretext that the Ukrainian government can't control its eastern forces. Well if there is a stalemate like that, Ukraine will probably suffer a great deal in winter (as most of their heating requires Russian Gas) unless they can find some other energy source fast. The most likely scenario then would be that Ukrainians will siphon the gas from the pipelines going to the rest of Europe. Hopefully public opinion there doesn't turn against Ukraine, because if it does, then Ukraine might be more screwed than it already is. At the same time though, Russia will probably slip further into Pariah State status and suffer more social and economical unrest, which means that Russia doesn't exactly win either. Or maybe I'm just being naive and all Western sanctions so far have been completely toothless. I really hope that's not the case, as I'd like to think that our leaders aren't that incompetent. The sad thing is that if NATO just sent in some "peacekeeping forces" into Ukraine at key defensive locations like Mariupol, Russia would probably be far less brazen (even if they will sling poo poo everywhere in the UN about it, but nobody cares about that).
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Sep 3, 2014 13:03
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Peel posted:Germany is surrounded by friendly powers, of course it doesn't have a huge military ready to go. This good policy. I would say we could muster more of them, since we also have 134 Tornados and are waiting on 140 more Eurofighters. If the arms corporations can actually deliver the Eurofighters before a war starts. And if they're actually in flying condition after delivery, that is. If you want the numbers, here they are. Our current numbers of flight craft are under the column "Aktuell", by the way.
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Sep 3, 2014 13:05
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Arglebargle III posted:When the US, UK, France and Germany come together and say "jump!" the small countries of Europe will say "how high?"
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Sep 3, 2014 13:07
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RIA Novosti is hammering on the 'it was a unilateral declaration by Kiev' thing and pointing out that Poroshenko didn't agree to anything with the rebels either so it doesn't look like a ceasefire is really on the cards at all.
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Sep 3, 2014 13:13
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CeeJee posted:Germany has a bit of a reputation with their jets: http://www.916-starfighter.de/GAF_crashes.htm The Starfighter was a corruption fiasco and is not related to the modern Eurofighter Typhoon fleet. Germany may be a bunch of self-serving cowards (at least the last 10 years of experience says so) but when it comes to NATO invoking Article 5 in the Baltic States I think they would be rocking the boat more by not going along with military intervention. You have this scenario where Germany places Russian gas pressure above Poland, the Baltics, the UK, and the US all of which will not forgive them and can be expected to extract a pound of flesh after the conflict. If Germany is a bunch of self-serving cowards, I'd expect them to toe the line and not alienate both their closest (Poland) and largest (US) allies. I am 0% surprised at this turn in the Russian ceasefire negotiations. It's not like Russia has acted in good faith in recent memory.
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Sep 3, 2014 13:20
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Edit: Link went dead, probably just bullshit anyhow. Kinda odd of Nato to have exercises in Ukraine later this month, while it's being assulted by Russia. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/11071246/British-troops-set-to-join-Ukraine-military-exercise.html Rincewinds fucked around with this message at 13:31 on Sep 3, 2014 |
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Sep 3, 2014 13:26
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In the Finnish Politics thread, my fellow Finns aren't convinced by my arguments that Finland should join NATO. In turn I'm not convinced by their arguments that Putin would never care to invade Finland, or that NATO membership would mean Finland is somehow more hosed if he does. I hope I'm wrong in being so pessimistic about how much the rest of the West would care about non-NATO-member Finland getting invaded by Putin (which I think is a possibility that cannot be discounted).
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Sep 3, 2014 13:32
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jaete posted:In the Finnish Politics thread, my fellow Finns aren't convinced by my arguments that Finland should join NATO. I don't think you have anything to worry about, it's not like Russia has invaded Finland in the past.
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Sep 3, 2014 13:51
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