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What is the most powerful flying bug? This poll is closed. |
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| 🦋 |
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15 | 3.71% |
| 🦇 |
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115 | 28.47% |
| 🪰 |
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12 | 2.97% |
| 🐦 |
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67 | 16.58% |
| dragonfly |
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94 | 23.27% |
| 🦟 |
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14 | 3.47% |
| 🐝 |
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87 | 21.53% |
| Total: | 404 votes | ||
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gradenko_2000 posted:I'm sorry Al-Saqr I'm not going to yell at you too loudly but that is a complete garbage understanding of history because the Finns ended up having to give up more territory than the Soviets were originally gunning for at the precipice of that conflict hmmm maybe you’re right!
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Nov 11, 2022 10:15
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Tankbuster posted:yes, the soviet finland war, where the finns won by...hang on If this war was to finish with current borders, the Finns would have done much better than the Ukrainians.
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Nov 11, 2022 10:17
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in the winter war the orcs just grinded casualties until their waaagh bar filled. unfortunately the mechanics have been patched since then but they haven't updated their meta
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Nov 11, 2022 10:20
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the winter war, where the soviet union was taken off the military chessboard forever and absolutely didn't go on to win the arguably greatest war in history a few years later
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Nov 11, 2022 10:36
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I think it was the worst war in history personally.
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Nov 11, 2022 10:40
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Weka posted:I think it was the worst war in history personally. it was hard to be an eastern european who got a little too political.
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Nov 11, 2022 10:41
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Azathoth posted:The only explanation that makes sense to me is that they actually thought it would be a short, contained war where they would take a bunch of territory initially, which they did, and then sit at the gates of Kyiv while Zelensky and the Ukrainian populace collectively poop themselves and quickly sue for peace on favorable terms. In that scenario, Russia walks away with not just their prewar goals completed, but Ukraine and everyone else who would think of playing hardball suitably chasened and ready to negotiate favorable terms for whatever Russia wants the next time they come knocking. Yeah, I agree with this. Russia seems to have been looking for the one weird trick that will get it an advantageous political settlement all the way back since they first started massing troops. Did they really expect the West would set Europe's economy on fire and risk everything coming down so Ukraine could walk away from Minsk2? After we all had signed up to it once? Did they expect to have to fight a total war against Ukraine? Of course not, in and out in two weeks tops, Zelensky eats his tie and and the tap water in Crimea flows again. After that failed, Zelensky owns no ties, and Ukraine walked away from negotiations they tried to: Hold a gun to their economic life-line's head instead of their capital with the Black Sea ports, sit back and let them run into artillery until they get tired of it, successively make the offered deal worse by formally annexing regions, and now attacking electrical infrastructure while talking up their enormous mobilized forces that will arrive any day now. Frosted Flake posted:
Also this. I'd like the Kremlin to be destabilized and a reinvigorated communist party come out in front, but it's not going to happen. It's gonna be the psychos. Majorian posted:Good! Wonder who's the mark since they wrote in the WP that peace talks would be for European consumption.
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Nov 11, 2022 10:50
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Well personally I'd like the Gamelan Star Empire to annex Earth and bring us all under the glorious benevolent rule of Supreme Leader Dessler.
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Nov 11, 2022 10:55
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almost 9 months in, Russia has finally started blowing up bridges across the Dnieper lmao
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Nov 11, 2022 11:03
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Our enemy has these giant power plants that keep their deathmechbattlebots going, should we destroy them sir? Nah it'll be fine. (one year later) Okay blow one up maybe.
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Nov 11, 2022 11:05
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So this guy is going to get executed on live TV?
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Nov 11, 2022 12:02
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Kherson region, sign reads "Russia is here forever" https://twitter.com/Lana_mem/status/1591018040249810944
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Nov 11, 2022 12:49
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DancingShade posted:Well personally I'd like the Gamelan Star Empire to annex Earth and bring us all under the glorious benevolent rule of Supreme Leader Dessler. This tbh Wait... Nah it'll be fine
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Nov 11, 2022 13:08
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genericnick posted:Yeah, I agree with this. Russia seems to have been looking for the one weird trick that will get it an advantageous political settlement all the way back since they first started massing troops. I like this theory. It explains why Putin's full scale mobilization was so late. So Russia tried to sneak in Ukraine at night and do some special force ninja stuff with *not special force but regular untrained troops*, tried to back out with some face saving political settlement (which would also secure Putin's next election); but mastermind grandpa Biden saw an opportunity "to put Russia down permanently", triggered the financial war nuclear option; 2 months later, the whole world found out financial war nuclear weapon was really not that deadly. LOL what a clown show.
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Nov 11, 2022 13:24
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“Are you a Russian? No, do you think many Russians would just leave their beautiful lives and go fight somewhere else? Many wouldn't really want to,specially that their lives started to become better since the 2005 onwards. Besides the war is made of many battles and no one said this war was over. The mobilization just started, they underestimated the western support, that's all. Russia defeated the Ukrainian army, now it's dealing with a second NATO army.” This really ties in with all of the points, like how Levis and Bananas are not the kind of things people actually want to fight and die for, a preoccupation with not-losing, avoiding battle, avoiding casualties, not having a plan after trashing the Ukrainian peacetime army. I keep hearing about Borodino and the withdrawal to Stalingrad during Case Blue being “the Russian Way”, but those are not things you do facing a smaller, weaker state with a Mickey Mouse army. Staying out of the reach of the Grand Armee or Wehrmacht made sense, giving ground because they couldn’t be beaten made sense. Here, Russia is only going to win if they come to grips with the Ukrainian Army, and if they actually fought it out they’d prevail, but they’re clearly so allergic to casualties they’re going to allow themselves to get pushed back to Rostov. There is no way to “win” without facing the Ukrainian Army since the entire Ukrainian state is being underwritten by NATO. Ukraine has collapsed, but hoping that the entire collective west goes broke before the Ukrainians manoeuvre them to Kerch is delusional. In the long view, sure, but this is an offensive war, your strategy can’t hinge on your enemy running out of money. It’s insane, right? Ukraine should be the one forced to fight keep-away delaying actions towards Lvov, but evidently blood and social nationalism and Nazi revivalism provide more willingness to fight for terrain than… whatever Russian society is offering. This is a political failure. I think the Russian Army has fought well on the tactical level, but if the orders from on high are guided by thinking there is One Weird Trick to win a war, end a war, even freeze a war without fighting lol. What the gently caress? Which ties into - if they’re this unwilling to go to war, they shouldn’t have. They could have wrapped this up in 2 weeks if they accepted 15-25k casualties as the cost of a war they considered existential.
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Nov 11, 2022 13:39
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Azathoth posted:The only explanation that makes sense to me is that they actually thought it would be a short, contained war where they would take a bunch of territory initially, which they did, and then sit at the gates of Kyiv while Zelensky and the Ukrainian populace collectively poop themselves and quickly sue for peace on favorable terms. In that scenario, Russia walks away with not just their prewar goals completed, but Ukraine and everyone else who would think of playing hardball suitably chasened and ready to negotiate favorable terms for whatever Russia wants the next time they come knocking. genericnick posted:Yeah, I agree with this. Russia seems to have been looking for the one weird trick that will get it an advantageous political settlement all the way back since they first started massing troops. stephenthinkpad posted:I like this theory. It explains why Putin's full scale mobilization was so late. 
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Nov 11, 2022 13:42
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Frosted Flake posted:“Are you a Russian? No, do you think many Russians would just leave their beautiful lives and go fight somewhere else? Many wouldn't really want to,specially that their lives started to become better since the 2005 onwards. any of this worth reading
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Nov 11, 2022 13:57
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Cerebral Bore posted:the winter war, where the soviet union was taken off the military chessboard forever and absolutely didn't go on to win the arguably greatest war in history a few years later with the military xp gained from winter war they were able to change their division templated for the better.
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Nov 11, 2022 13:58
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Part of the story is what Putin and his administration means to the average Russian, and for the most part the deal has been "don't ask us for anything but stability" and for the most part it is enough. The general economic situation in Russia has steadily been improving, and it isn't the same country as the 1990s (there are certainly lagger cities though). That said, part of the "deal" essentially, has been the Kremlin can experiment with its foreign policy and that a hefty amount of cream is being sent to the top. This is acceptable for most people since at least life is slowly getting better. This war has been a rupture. While the sanctions were didn't have their intended effect, mobilization was the first time in a long time that the citizenry was actually asked for sacrifice for the country and as mentioned before, liberal states only ask so much because they don't want demands in return. It makes sense, something like mobilization requires sacrifice and hardship. When does guys return, they aren't going to be satisfied with trinkets (Bonus Army). It isn't so much just about casualties, but after the war is over, the Russian public may not be willing to accept the same status quo. It at least partly explains the "weird tricks" and the passivity, he is dancing around having to make major social and economic compromises with the Russian population. That said, he is now putting himself in a tighter and tighter spot as time goes on(and also it was an extremely stupid bet in the first place and him and his advisors clearly live in their own dream world where their masterbation fantasies are expected to become reality.) --------- Also, internally, I would say the Russian economy is still quite state controlled in a way Western economies are typically not. Putin is very much a right-wing liberal but has been put in a weird position of having to manage an economy that is increasingly more state controlled. It many ways, you could argue that an single election could change fundamentally how Russian society works, and it is arguably, why both Putin and the West really don't want that to happen. The Russian state isn't broke, they are getting plenty of income from energy and other exports (and if anything the Chinese are directly bankrolling them), it is just they want to keep all their goodies to themselves.
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Nov 11, 2022 14:01
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I also don't think people would be willing to walk into a storm of steel at Ypres for austerity neoliberalism, so my concern here is that the lesson at the state-strategic level will be the only way to fight conventional wars is to awaken bloodcurdling forms of right wing ideology. The US has actively supported this in Georgia and the Baltics, this shows that as a proof of concept it can defeat Hybrid Warfare, but where's the line? When they look for ways to make Taiwan fight to the last, are they going to organize Taiwanese politics and media to bring out the worst tendencies of the KMT? If they anticipate things may get too hot on the Korean Peninsula, are they going to look for a Syngman Rhee? The difference between the Ukrainian Army of 2014 and 2022 is the Bandera is my Father, pure European Ukrainians, evil Asiatic Russians, stuff. We successfully created a military and state that would bear tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of casualties, strip civil society, ban opposition parties and media, sell off the entire country, arm civilians on the first day of a war over the ratification of a treaty. None of these are good developments. It's why there have been two parallel discussions about the war, and it's uncomfortable knowing that the reshaping of the Ukrainian state has allowed it to show more resolve than Russia because where things go from here will not be pleasant.
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Nov 11, 2022 14:02
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Raise All Armies. Always. Doesn't matter how small the war is.
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Nov 11, 2022 14:04
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Frosted Flake posted:
what is your assumption of where things can go from here?
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Nov 11, 2022 14:13
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stephenthinkpad posted:I like this theory. It explains why Putin's full scale mobilization was so late. yeah it'd be nice to know which factions actually wanted *this*. Because if it keeps going we're going to reach millions dead and I want to know who was down for this and who was just stupid as gently caress.
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Nov 11, 2022 14:18
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Al-Saqr posted:what is your assumption of where things can go from here? Ukraine becoming the Dubai of eastern Europe, as BoJo predicted.
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Nov 11, 2022 14:26
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Corky Romanovsky posted:any of this worth reading you can't read in here this is a cspam room
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Nov 11, 2022 14:35
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ukraine will become Big Israel
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Nov 11, 2022 14:35
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Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3 posted:Raise All Armies. Always. Doesn't matter how small the war is. In real terms, yes. This is why conscript armies were, in the long view, a positive development. I'm a big admirer of Christopher Duffy's work - Instrument of War: The Austrian Army in the Seven Years War Vol 1. , Vol. 2:By Force of Arms and the exciting and recent The Changing Face of Old Regime Warfare: Essays in Honour of Christopher Duffy. When we think about the armies of Maria Theresa and her contemporaries, it's important to realize that the reason Europe existed in a state of nearly continuous warfare in the 18th c. was that, while not professional armies in today's sense, they were certainly not mass armies either. States could send soldiers on multi-year campaigns or have them spend years as garrisons in India or the Americas because soldiers were distinct from the public at large. In fact when soldiers were garrisoned at home it caused problems, which led to them being stationed about as far from cities and towns that mattered as possible. Continuous warfare on a "moderate" scale was sustainable as long as the budget permitted. I'm sure I don't need to go into Napoleon and the levée en masse here, just to say that when, by the later Napoleonic Wars, they had to adopt conscription to put armies in the field, Austria and Prussia's old political systems began to change. Nationalism really started then and there, as for the first time regular people were being asked to fight for their country, instead of being tricked by Roma dancing girls conspiring with their recruiter (not a joke*).  Conscript armies led to a dramatic decline in war in Europe in the 19th c. as the forces unleashed, socially and politically, could not be contained. Rulers began to see war as a last extremity because of the domestic, social cost. So, while there continued to be wars abroad with small armies, at home many crises that would have certainly been wars in the 18th c. were resolved diplomatically. When war did come in 1866 and 1870, it caused at times dramatic reorganizations of the society of both the victor and the vanquished. Park of Bismarck's genius was realizing that the German Empire's junkers had an iron grip and so Germany was able to go to war in a way that Austria and Denmark could not. Similarly, the French officer corps was able to gain political power after 1871 on the premise that France would have to steel herself to retake Alsace Lorraine, leading to the army and society that lost 40k men between August 20-27 1914, and over 300k by the end of that year. So, where does that leave us? Global finance capital and our cosmopolitan ruling class aren't so distinct socially from the ruling class of the 18th c., whose dynasties criss-crossed borders and who may rule over people they had no particular connection to. People talk endlessly about the new feudalism, and while of course that doesn't apply to modes of production or social contracts, it's true in the sense that neoliberalism has created money that flows across borders and governments who exist to serve it. Low-level continuous warfare abroad, and an aversion to mass politics and mass armies are absolutely integral to the way states are managed today. It feels cliche to point out that France bankrupting itself in the Seven Years War was a cause of the Revolution, but when the old methods of fighting war break down, all manner of forces might be unleashed. American Independence was the result of taxes levied to pay for the Empire's expenses in the Seven Years War (started by George Washington, incidentally). Will Neoliberal states be able to protect the ruling class' prerogatives while preparing for or fighting conventional wars? I don't think so. My concern is that right wing nationalism is a convenient way to protect their interests, almost too tempting to pass up. *'I do not entertain the hope always to be able to keep the Hungarian regiments up to full complement with just volunteers' (Archduke Charles). To find 'volunteers', recruitment parties would take performers dressed in elaborate clothes to dance at local fairs. 'They started with slow and measured steps and it then became more energetic. The performers would clap their hands, slap them on their boots and then bring their heels sharply together until...the peasants became enthusiastic and joined in...the soldiers would add something for the sake of effect...not ceasing until their spurs are shattered and...overcome by fatigue.' Enthusiastic peasants would be invited to volunteer and soon found themselves being marched off. Another ruse shown here involved a gypsy band, lots of wine and girls. Stopping in the marketplaces, the gypsies played, the wine was free and girls with shakos on their heads invited the boys to dance. If, while dancing, the girl was able to put the shako on the boy's head, he was considered a volunteer. In his holiday clothes, this Slavonian peasant from the Neutra district, home of IR2, is about to join up courtesy of a local peasant girl. Anyone objecting was swiftly manacledand marched away. Frosted Flake has issued a correction as of 14:42 on Nov 11, 2022 |
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Nov 11, 2022 14:39
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https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1591049559504875520?s=20&t=KXcgwMHH8Gj_PiAjsVXeGw https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1590814327610540033?s=20&t=KXcgwMHH8Gj_PiAjsVXeGw lol
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Nov 11, 2022 14:39
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Frosted Flake posted:
So much more sneaky than the British tradition of getting peasants shitfaced drunk and signing them up once they were in too much of a state to think clearly about it.  (Love this pic, by the way. My favorite dude is the nervous, hesitant guy who's clearly also starting to think about it, and his horrified girlfriend trying to draw him away from the recruiter.)
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Nov 11, 2022 14:52
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quote:Seeing the eyes of Ukrainians in the liberated villages of the Kherson region is priceless. The children welcome us like family. They waited for theirs. https://t.me/fortresskyiv/3712 Azov is on the way to Kherson and liberating villages en route.
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Nov 11, 2022 14:57
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"liberating"
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Nov 11, 2022 14:58
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stephenthinkpad posted:I like this theory. It explains why Putin's full scale mobilization was so late. Not sure backing out is even the right term for it. The Russians seemed happy to kick the can down the road. After all Minsk2 was never implemented, the Ukrainian armed forces got NATO training and other support, Crimea's water supply was cut off and the separatists were still getting shelled. On the plus side they had NS2 progressing - which would have allowed them to significantly up the economic pressure- and a reasonable expectation that the anti-Russian coalition would fall apart again, as happened with the orange gang. But then it did fall apart and the deescalation faction was if anything more belligerent, their closest friends were tried for treason, the US accelerated arms shipments, Germany dragged its feet with NS2 and once they complained the EU started slapping on sanctions. There was really no way to pretend that they weren't looking at the total collapse of their Ukraine policy. So why not flip the table? Doesn't mean they expected to get the USSR reunited, but the outcome of doing nothing also seemed quite bad from a Russian perspective. And just from watching their behavior they still seem to think they can press the "apply more pressure" button and get "better settlement" out.
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Nov 11, 2022 15:02
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i guess the best thing to do is have either a ukrainian or russian flag on standby and wave them at whichever murderous band of warriors happen to march through your front garden
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Nov 11, 2022 15:03
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It genuinely sucks when rightwing rear end kissing Nazi quislings like zelensky wins but eh what can you do.
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Nov 11, 2022 15:06
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Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3 posted:Raise All Armies. Always. Doesn't matter how small the war is. drake no: just war drake yes: just-in-time war
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Nov 11, 2022 15:12
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Jel Shaker posted:i guess the best thing to do is have either a ukrainian or russian flag on standby and wave them at whichever murderous band of warriors happen to march through your front garden Basically life in antiquity in places like Syria and modern Iraq where Romans, Selucids, Persians, Parthians, and Sassanids all traded cities constantly.
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Nov 11, 2022 15:17
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Jel Shaker posted:i guess the best thing to do is have either a ukrainian or russian flag on standby and wave them at whichever murderous band of warriors happen to march through your front garden This has been true since the advent of the nation state (the flag bit I mean).
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Nov 11, 2022 15:18
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The Russian state is “cost conscious” and short sighted: NS2 had a high upfront cost but it was going to print money for them when completed and all their tactics in the current war have revolves around doing the absolute minimum and failing repeatedly. At this point they have these reservists but utilizing them has a high political and economic cost and they are desperate to get around it. They are balancing the costs of complete defeat with having to deal with a populace that demands restitution.
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Nov 11, 2022 15:19
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gradenko_2000 posted:"liberating" considering the internal rhetoric about collaborators, and how pro Ukraine sources have been saying for weeks that any civilian left in Kherson needing evacuation would have been a collaborator, i think the term is purging
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Nov 11, 2022 15:21
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| # ? May 23, 2024 21:52 |
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conscript hundreds of thousands of troops, disrupting society and reaping all the consequences of a draft dont even use the troops to fight, reap none of the benefits of a draft
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Nov 11, 2022 15:25
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