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Shageletic posted:But what I keep on getting back to is why is trying to understand or provide context to the current conflict, which has been brewing since the end of the Cold War, is seen as such an attack when essentially we all are trying to make sense of this from a remove? There is not relevant context for a war of conquest. It is irrelevant why Putin feels justified in doing this. There is not greater mystery to make sense of. He is a despot building an empire and using any means necessary to remove obstacles. This isn't a conflict - conflict implies symmetry. This is an aggression. Historians can make sense of this after the fact. But trying to 'contextualize' this invasion is tantamount to being an unwitting accomplice to the aggressor. And not all of us are that far from events - the Kremlin regime has openly stated who is next in line for an invasion.
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Mar 14, 2022 13:31
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Shageletic posted:There's alpt of things I find odd here include using the phrase "victim blaming" for geopolitical warfare, "wandering in" to a public forum, and the weird psychoanalysis of strangers because they might have a different view on recent events. Mostly because 'providing context', for some reason, keeps turning into 'actually let's talk about how the Ukrainians are nazis' (the subtext always ending up as "And so they probably deserve this.) which isn't actually new thing as far as the EE thread is concerned either, since in the 8 years (jesus) i've been lurking it every time Ukraine was in the news someone would kramer in and go HOW BOUT THEM NAZIS IN UKRAINE. Over and over and over.
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Mar 14, 2022 13:33
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Worst person etc https://twitter.com/neeratanden/status/1503207500090417158?s=21
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Mar 14, 2022 13:33
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Grouchio posted:CIA Director William Burns, former US Ambassador to Moscow, on Putin's current Mindset: sounds about right. the plan now is just wreck as much poo poo until somones wheels come off and then declare victory.
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Mar 14, 2022 13:33
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tehinternet posted:So the leftist take on an imperialist nation invading your county is to not fight because civilians will die A leftist take would be against imperialism in all its forms. Russia is being imperialist and therefore must be resisted by those who feel like they are being oppressed by them (not the entirety of Ukraine, as many of the Eastern regions are nominally pro Russian). But credulously latching onto an imperialist outside invasion of Ukraine or worse US military adventures in Ukraine, which seems to be the growing chorus in our imperialist loving media and cultural scrum, needs to be resisted as well. It's a sad situation but we need to be cognizant of what has happened before (and not worked). Vincent Van Goatse posted:The context is that this is an unprovoked invasion by Russia which has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries and millions of refugees. There's "having a different view on recent events" and there's trying to justify the unjustifiable. Noting the adversial relationship between NATO and Russia and the former turning into an invasion force in 2001, is not justifying anything. Noting the lack of capability of Western forces or the historical context, or the fears (unfounded or not) held by Russia is mot justifying anything. Russia is committing war crimes, anyone can see it. The question is what is the best moral action as a western observer of these crimes. And I'm leary if alot of the narratives and rising tide of nationalism and military cheer leading, because it occurs like clockwork every 10 years.
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Mar 14, 2022 13:35
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Shageletic posted:There's alpt of things I find odd here include using the phrase "victim blaming" for geopolitical warfare, "wandering in" to a public forum, and the weird psychoanalysis of strangers because they might have a different view on recent events. Ah I can check off the ‘just asking questions’ square. Thanks. To answer more fully (you reading the first post would make this unnecessary btw) this is a current event thread for the premeditated, illegal, immoral war of aggression by Russia on a sovereign nation that was no military threat by any definition. This isn’t the thread to chin stroke and provide cold war ‘context’. Or to muse the merits of Russia’s insincere and outright false justifications. You are free to do that if you wish. Somewhere else.
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Mar 14, 2022 13:35
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NATO invaded Russia in 2001?
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Mar 14, 2022 13:38
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Shageletic posted:Noting the adversial relationship between NATO and Russia and the former turning into an invasion force in 2001, is not justifying anything. And speaking of lacking context, NATO did not turn into "an invasion force in 2001" as far as Russia or Russian allies were concerned.
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Mar 14, 2022 13:39
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It's my understanding that lots of Chinese weapon systems are either clones of Russian stuff, or something developed to work on the same planes and other systems. So if China were to ship a couple trains filled with PGMs it would give Russia a significant boost. Even stuff like engines, and spares would be great help, as it seems those were either used up bombing Syria or misplaced.
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Mar 14, 2022 13:40
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Is there any truth to those Reddit threads that the ukranian army is about to get wiped out or that legionnaires are being sent to the front unsupported and systematically wiped out? I’m pro Ukraine but if there’s any evidence they’re actually losing this war now it would be good to know.
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Mar 14, 2022 13:44
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https://twitter.com/JominiW/status/1503229523055235072?s=20&t=qfP_lOL3RmCEaKKo6DeZPQ New thread is up. Of some interest is the number of UA Territorial Defense Brigades now on the map. Partly that's a result of the OSINT picture becoming clearer over time (brigades don't teleport, after all, so if you get enough reports of one in an area, it's probably in that area), but it may also be a sign that the mobilization is getting operational formations to the front. If that assessment-of-an-assessment is correct, it is very good. Russia has committed all of its available combat power, and is probably months away from getting large numbers of other operational formations into theatre.
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Mar 14, 2022 13:44
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PederP posted:There is not relevant context for a war of conquest. It is irrelevant why Putin feels justified in doing this. There is not greater mystery to make sense of. He is a despot building an empire and using any means necessary to remove obstacles. This isn't a conflict - conflict implies symmetry. This is an aggression. Historians can make sense of this after the fact. But trying to 'contextualize' this invasion is tantamount to being an unwitting accomplice to the aggressor. And not all of us are that far from events - the Kremlin regime has openly stated who is next in line for an invasion. Gonna avoid the being a Russian invader because of my posts portion of this reply, but here's my question. How do you see this ending? Militarily, there is no good solution here. Inevitably, this will come down to diplomacy in some form. And I don't see the benefit or logic in stating the enemy is inherently irrational, or not worth studying, their mindset and motives, when this only gets some sort of pause thru discussions with that same enemy. That's just my two cents.
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Mar 14, 2022 13:47
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Kraftwerk posted:Is there any truth to those Reddit threads that the ukranian army is about to get wiped out or that legionnaires are being sent to the front unsupported and systematically wiped out? Who are you gonna believe, the clear photos and professional summaries posted every day based on sourced data, or random reddit posts that just so happen to say exactly what Russia would want you to believe?
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Mar 14, 2022 13:47
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https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1503287788652871680 (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Mar 14, 2022 13:47
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Imagine posting about NATO-Russia tensions in 2001 and not knowing that Russia was a transit hub for NATO logistics into Afghanistan.
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Mar 14, 2022 13:47
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Shageletic posted:
I mean, there is one potential "good" military solution here, if by "good" we mean "for everyone living in a western democracy other than Ukraine." That military solution is "everybody else keeps pumping a firehose of military support into Ukraine until literally all the invaders are dead." It's still not exactly ideal because it means a lot of dead Ukrainians and dead Russian soldiers and a lot of collateral damage to Ukraine but it is a possible positive military resolution to all this and it's definitely on the table. In fact, if anything is off the table, it's diplomacy, because Russia is not a trustworthy actor, so no diplomatic offers from Russia can be trusted until their conventional war capability is destroyed anyway.
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Mar 14, 2022 13:49
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Alchenar posted:Imagine posting about NATO-Russia tensions in 2001 and not knowing that Russia was a transit hub for NATO logistics into Afghanistan. With offers to place those hubs on Russian territory as late as 2012
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Mar 14, 2022 13:49
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Kraftwerk posted:Is there any truth to those Reddit threads that the ukranian army is about to get wiped out or that legionnaires are being sent to the front unsupported and systematically wiped out? no. Ukrainian regulars have suffered significant confirmed losses but they are at worst proportional with Russia's (~10%), and a big portion of those are from Day 1 when units on the border and south got rolled over. Foreign legionnaires getting wiped out maybe? There was a guy who posted somewhat hysterically about how his group got wiped out, but also posted about how whole ZSU collapsing! without any reason to know anything, so it was kinda sus. ZSU already have more untrained and barely trained reserves than they can use. A couple days ago? there was an interesting twitter thread by a war reporter about why you shouldn't go volunteer in someone else's war. They never know what to do with you and don't have gear or time to train you. TheDeadlyShoe fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Mar 14, 2022 |
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Mar 14, 2022 13:50
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Neurolimal posted:Has Russia run out of fuel yet? I heard that would be happening negative one week ago. Is that convoy still 'stuck', or have they dispersed to forward positions? pretty funny to complain about people trusting the ukrainian media too much because they're desperate to hear good news (completely fair thing to point out btw), while posting quotes from a loving reddit thread
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Mar 14, 2022 13:52
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Shageletic posted:(not the entirety of Ukraine, as many of the Eastern regions are nominally pro Russian). I rather suspect that if this was ever true, it no longer is so what with the shelling of the most heavily pro-Russian cities. As for the rest of your post, let's get right to the point since you bring it up: What, in your view, is the "best moral action as a Western observer of these crimes"? And in what way do they differ from the current, existing actions? And please don't respond with "I don't know, I just think we should think more about it" - there's much to be said for thinking a situation through but we are in a situation where inaction is itself an action, and the war is not going to wait for Western observers to come to a full, complete and thorough analysis of the situation. There's been time enough since the war started to have at least a rough, imperfect idea of what you think we should do, so by all means let us know what that is.
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Mar 14, 2022 13:52
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Shageletic posted:There's alpt of things I find odd here include using the phrase "victim blaming" for geopolitical warfare, "wandering in" to a public forum, and the weird psychoanalysis of strangers because they might have a different view on recent events. Please try to understand that for quite alot of people, including on this forum, this war is not really from a remove. For a lot of people this is not a situation of academic calculus on the political purity of action or opinion. This war is an existential conflict for Ukraine and for obvious reasons many nations in eastern Europe see themselves mirrored in this conflict, and are already acting accordinly.
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Mar 14, 2022 13:53
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Shageletic posted:Gonna avoid the being a Russian invader because of my posts portion of this reply, but here's my question. How do you see this ending? There are no 'solutions' to this. Ukraine doesn't need a solution. They were invaded. Hopefully they will not be subjugated. The enemy is not irrational - the enemy is a belligerent imperialist, for whom context is relevant as an excuse for aggression. There is not reaching an accord with such an enemy unless you're willing to accept a world order of imperialist sphere-of-influence. I hope, and believe, this ends by the Russian invaders being repelled. If they occupy the country, they will face insurrections and guerilla warfare, until such a time as they leave. If Russia leaves now, it may topple Putin. I have no illusions the new regime will be benevolent, but at least there is a chance at something better. If Kremlin continue on the current course, I believe this will end with the dissolution and balkanization of the Russian Federation. Which is not a good thing. If Russia actually win this and successfully integrate part or all of Ukraine in their new empire, they will continue their belligerence, and I will have to start planning for how to cope with Russian bombs and rockets landing on my own city within a number of years. This is not some far away conflict for all of us. This not like the US military adventures. It is not even like the cold war proxy wars and imperialism by puppetry. This is not a civil war. This is an oldschool territorial conquest. That kind of conflict doesn't need diplomatic solutions. It ends when the imperialist invaders are defeated. Please note that Putin's Russia is performing civilian massacres on Ukrainian cities with an ethnic Russian majority. The inhabitants of those cities do not want to be conquered. This is not a liberation or a civil war. There is no relevant context. That there are countries not condemning Russia for this is a tragedy. It is an unprecedented act of aggression and the greatest threat to humanity since WW2.
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Mar 14, 2022 14:00
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Tomn posted:I rather suspect that if this was ever true, it no longer is so what with the shelling of the most heavily pro-Russian cities.
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Mar 14, 2022 14:01
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I mean, there is one potential "good" military solution here, if by "good" we mean "for everyone living in a western democracy other than Ukraine." That military solution is "everybody else keeps pumping a firehose of military support into Ukraine until literally all the invaders are dead." I'd love to know any of any examples when the US pumping a firehose of military expenditure into a foreign country has turned out the best path forward. bad_fmr posted:Please try to understand that for quite alot of people, including on this forum, this war is not really from a remove. For a lot of people this is not a situation of academic calculus on the political purity of action or opinion. This war is an existential conflict for Ukraine and for obvious reasons many nations in eastern Europe see themselves mirrored in this conflict, and are already acting accordinly. I'm being honest about my vantage and therefore leery and cautious about the impact and potential cost of rising US militarism and Saber rattling especially when it has caused suffering, alot of which I wish at a more remove of Tomn posted:I rather suspect that if this was ever true, it no longer is so what with the shelling of the most heavily pro-Russian cities. Open our countries to any Ukrainian refugee. Turn the billions of dollars we've just signed into being to fund warfare into a welfare net to Ukraine and the countries around not seen since the Marshall project. Continue diplomacy with the actual memory of recent military defeats, and a cognizant awareness of the limits of our ability.
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Mar 14, 2022 14:04
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:Foreign legionnaires getting wiped out maybe? I've seen some swedes and norwegians who were just heading into the war and were thus stationed at the base in the west that got blown up say they were hit extremely hard and most of the people they knew were dead, missing or heading back to Poland and the war was over for them already. But that's obviously just isolated to that one base that got blown to bits.
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Mar 14, 2022 14:06
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fatherboxx posted:With offers to place those hubs on Russian territory as late as 2012 Yeah I think there's been a lot of memory-holing according to Putin's version of events just how deep NATO-Russia military cooperation was getting over the 00's and 10's up until 2014. Russia was asking for military cooperation with NATO and getting it. They weren't ever going to get membership (because Putin was never interested in meeting NATO membership criteria), but it isn't an empty press line when they say that Russia had an unprecedented partnership deal with NATO before it intervened in Ukraine. Shageletic posted:I'd love to know any of any examples when the US pumping a firehose of military expenditure into a foreign country has turned out the best path forward. You should read about this thing called lend-lease.
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Mar 14, 2022 14:06
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Shageletic posted:Open our countries to any Ukrainian refugee. Turn the billions of dollars we've just signed into being to fund warfare into a welfare net to Ukraine and the countries around not seen since the Marshall project. Continue diplomacy with the actual memory of recent military defeats, and a cognizant awareness of the limits of our ability. Those are all good. Please also send guns to Ukraine. If Ukraine falls, please send guns to Putin's other European neighbors. Also send soldiers. They don't have to do much, just let them hang around on some base. Because Putin only respects nukes and I am not sure I'd like the French lording it over Europe.
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Mar 14, 2022 14:08
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Shageletic posted:I'd love to know any of any examples when the US pumping a firehose of military expenditure into a foreign country has turned out the best path forward. Lend-lease seems obvious, but yes, it did involve, once the war was done, an increased level of investment in the country to rebuild it after the war, but that would likely not really make much sense in the context of a Russian puppet government, thusly it's important to shove out the imperialist invader first.
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Mar 14, 2022 14:09
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Shageletic posted:I'd love to know any of any examples when the US pumping a firehose of military expenditure into a foreign country has turned out the best path forward. Check out what the US spent their time doing during WW2 prior to Pearl Harbor
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Mar 14, 2022 14:09
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Kraftwerk posted:Is there any truth to those Reddit threads that the ukranian army is about to get wiped out or that legionnaires are being sent to the front unsupported and systematically wiped out? Truth is, we don’t have the information to answer any of those questions precisely. That said, the Reddit thread in question, that someone has already called out as fictional as to its existence goes, is easy to dismiss nonetheless. Neither northern nor southern fronts have moved meaningfully in like a week, excluding sieges of Kherson and Mariupol. About 1/4 of active duty Ukrainian armed forces has historically been stationed at the Donbas frontline, and with bulk of fighting happening in the opposite end of the country, it’s very dubious to claim that the majority of current troops are there, or about to be cauldroned. The fantasies about evacuation or humanitarian corridors being primarily used to evacuate capable soldiers is straight up fiction. Same goes about AKs without buttstocks. That post reads like a textbook Russian disinformation piece - mix in some grains of truth, e.g. about Ilovaisk cauldron, and then just go off the rail somewhere else. Then look at the post which brought that up. “Ghost of Kyiv is fake”. What’s next, Santa is fake too? cinci zoo sniper fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Mar 14, 2022 |
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Mar 14, 2022 14:10
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Shageletic posted:I'd love to know any of any examples when the US pumping a firehose of military expenditure into a foreign country has turned out the best path forward. Did . . .did you really think this was good argument? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
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Mar 14, 2022 14:10
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Neurolimal posted:Has Russia run out of fuel yet? I heard that would be happening negative one week ago. Is that convoy still 'stuck', or have they dispersed to forward positions? Be loving honest with yourself, are your sources any better? Like, uncritically, can you look at your sources and without any shadow of a doubt say, "yeah we had it right all along"? Who's more reliable, the people who said the invasion was never going to happen and to a degree still didn't believe it even when it started, or the people who at least got that part right?
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Mar 14, 2022 14:10
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I guess it depends on how you feel about Serbs genociding not-Serbs, but the US also provided military aid to Bosnia and Kosovo.
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Mar 14, 2022 14:11
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Found a copy of the thread by Googling - on /pol Going to see who those users are on Reddit now... Ed: yeah that phamchoi69 guy has like almost zero posts in the 14 days they've been on Reddit. GG on vetting your sources there, sir. Rust Martialis fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Mar 14, 2022 |
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Mar 14, 2022 14:12
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edit- beaten like a Russian convoy spotted by a drone after not using any camo on their vehicles. Call of Duty is going to be using Russia as the bad guys for a decade or more. Comstar fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Mar 14, 2022 |
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Mar 14, 2022 14:12
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PederP posted:There are no 'solutions' to this. Ukraine doesn't need a solution. They were invaded. Hopefully they will not be subjugated. The enemy is not irrational - the enemy is a belligerent imperialist, for whom context is relevant as an excuse for aggression. There is not reaching an accord with such an enemy unless you're willing to accept a world order of imperialist sphere-of-influence. I don't understand why India is being so crass about the conflict. They're trying to play both sides in order to get what...some rusty Russian military hardware and some oil? They don't even import that much oil from Russia, just 2-3%.
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Mar 14, 2022 14:16
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BoldFace posted:There should exist some kind of a device that prevents Elon from posting on Twitter while he's high. Abongination posted:There should exist some kind of a device that prevents Elon from posting on Twitter There should exist some kind of a device that prevents Elon
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Mar 14, 2022 14:17
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SaTaMaS posted:I don't understand why India is being so crass about the conflict. They're trying to play both sides in order to get what...some rusty Russian military hardware and some oil? They don't even import that much oil from Russia, just 2-3%. India-Russia "special relationship" has been pretty strong since 1946, and are only very recently beginning to crumble under pressure from China there's a deep level of social and cultural ties; multiple generations of Indian intelligentsia have been raised on Soviet textbooks and literature
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Mar 14, 2022 14:18
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SaTaMaS posted:I don't understand why India is being so crass about the conflict. They're trying to play both sides in order to get what...some rusty Russian military hardware and some oil? They don't even import that much oil from Russia, just 2-3%. Modi needs to justify genocidal dictators and support them because he wants to be one
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Mar 14, 2022 14:18
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Comstar posted:edit- beaten like a Russian convoy spotted by a drone after not using any camo on their vehicles. i mean they have been the baddies in most of them outside that one with PMCs and space nazis(IW is best one, up their with titanfall 2) Rust Martialis posted:Found a copy of the thread by Googling - on /pol spindokto name feels like its something out of a parody.
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