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I was making the point that it is not true that Russia complains about weapons proliferation, but the US “doesn’t care” when adversaries proliferate weapons.
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Dec 15, 2022 18:57
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Even just the chat about Iran supplying prop powered cruise missiles demonstrates that people care a lot about anything that the other side is doing that might advance their chances.
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Dec 15, 2022 19:03
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Ynglaur posted:This doesn't get enough attention. Military equipment gets iterated on a lot. The M1A1s I had in Korea were excellent, but optics on the M1A2s we had a few years later in Iraq were significantly better. We actually took a brand-new iteration of the M3 Bradley to Iraq in 2003, and it had tons of little improvements: better navigation that didn't require GPS, digital maps, and like a half-dozen more TOW missiles. (The apocryphal tale was that some staff sergeant in the First Gulf War told BAE that their ammunition storage design for missiles in the back sucked, and then he showed them how to do it better.) I wouldn't be surprised if this was true. I had an interaction with KDA that went along the same lines, and it actually resulted in improvements 
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Dec 15, 2022 21:54
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mlmp08 posted:I was making the point that it is not true that Russia complains about weapons proliferation, but the US “doesn’t care” when adversaries proliferate weapons. Nobody said the US doesn't complain about weapons proliferation, and "not caring" is relative in a discussion about the potential to escalate conflicts through weapons proliferation. Words are cheap, escalating conflicts in a meaningful way and/or drawing in additional adversaries is not. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Dec 16, 2022 |
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Dec 16, 2022 00:05
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Germany isn't a state with industries but industries with a state. "Spontaneous applause from the company representatives from the German Economic Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations when Chancellor Scholz announced that it should be "possible again in another time" to start economic cooperation with Russia, 1:35." https://twitter.com/ulrichspeck/status/1603512629225463841 Once again a part of the 'motors' of European policy is inept at political messaging.
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Dec 16, 2022 00:50
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Good https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1603369039199289344
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Dec 16, 2022 04:59
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Baconroll posted:In the 1st Gulf War some Soviet instructors who had been assisting the Iraqis were captured, and very quietly handed over to a Soviet embassy. No fuss or press. I'm curious where I can read more about this? The USSR hadn't completely dissolved, but how far did their political reach still...reach?
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Dec 16, 2022 09:14
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Warbadger posted:The fact Ukrainian S-300's are still blowing Russian jets and helicopters out of the sky would indicate that the Ukrainians know how to keep huge SAM systems like Patriot not-exploded, which is likely to be a bit harder than keeping HIMARS not-exploded.
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Dec 16, 2022 12:12
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FIFA never fails to grab an opportunity to prove they're vile scum. https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/16/football/zelensky-fifa-intl/index.html
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Dec 16, 2022 12:43
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Charlz Guybon posted:FIFA never fails to grab an opportunity to prove they're vile scum. The majority of the world's nations (by population) do not care or want to be involved in the Ukraine conflict (judging by abstentions and votes against action in the UN). How about a happy message from Xi or Modi - they have an agreement to use sticks and stones only on border skirmishes to avoid huge casualties - how good is that? Or Abiy Ahmed (who was leading a side in fighting that I think has killed significantly more people than Russo Ukr war (500k+ by some estimates since 2020)? How about a leader that is not involved in a war talk about peace? Maybe Marcos coming into power in the Philippines is a good candidate to talk about acquiescing to China and the US to avoid conflict. Not just football, how about movies play a quick message from former SA President Zuma on peace and trialing cures for AIDS? FIFA is not a good organisation but going on as if the whole world needs to care about this conflict in particular over all other conflicts around the world is very Anglo/European centric. If you actually forced football playing nations to vote one way or the other (the people, not their governments) on whether they wanted to listen to Zelensky as part of their football match, I think you would be in for a rude shock that even though the rich nations are deeply against Russia on this, the poorer ones are ambivalent at best. I think it would just come across as the countries that think they are the grown ups in the room telling the poor what to think.
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Dec 16, 2022 13:10
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You're right about FIFA but it's got nothing to do with football.
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Dec 16, 2022 13:10
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Electric Wrigglies posted:The majority of the world's nations (by population) do not care or want to be involved in the Ukraine conflict (judging by abstentions and votes against action in the UN). How about a happy message from Xi or Modi - they have an agreement to use sticks and stones only on border skirmishes to avoid huge casualties - how good is that? Or Abiy Ahmed (who was leading a side in fighting that I think has killed significantly more people than Russo Ukr war (500k+ by some estimates since 2020)? How about a leader that is not involved in a war talk about peace? Maybe Marcos coming into power in the Philippines is a good candidate to talk about acquiescing to China and the US to avoid conflict. Not just football, how about movies play a quick message from former SA President Zuma on peace and trialing cures for AIDS? "The majority of the world's nations (by population)" aren't democratic, and what the population in those countries want has nothing to do with what their rulers vote in the UN.
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Dec 16, 2022 13:13
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Baconroll posted:In the 1st Gulf War some Soviet instructors who had been assisting the Iraqis were captured, and very quietly handed over to a Soviet embassy. No fuss or press.
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Dec 16, 2022 13:20
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evil_bunnY posted:What's S-300's mobility like? Everyone I've heard talk about patriot said it'd a complete rear end in a top hat to move about. Much better than Patriot. The difference is doctrinal, NATO believes their ground forces are covered by their air forces, Russia (Soviets) believes that their ground forces are covered by their AA missiles. So those AA missiles need to be able to move to follow the offensive.
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Dec 16, 2022 13:34
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ChubbyChecker posted:"The majority of the world's nations (by population)" aren't democratic, and what the population in those countries want has nothing to do with what their rulers vote in the UN. Counties like (by population that abstained from the UN war reparations vote in Nov) India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil, Bangladesh, you mean? oh those ones don't have the right sort of democracy so they can be discounted? Admittedly Brazil and Nigeria are the only real football playing nations there so it might actually flip the other way on filtering for football playing nations only. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 16, 2022 13:44
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Electric Wrigglies posted:Counties like (by population that abstained from the UN war reparations vote in Nov) India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil, Bangladesh, you mean? oh those ones don't have the right sort of democracy so they can be discounted? Admittedly Brazil and Nigeria are the only real football playing nations there so it might actually flip the other way on filtering for football playing nations only. you think that eg. modi's india has the right sort of democracy? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 16, 2022 13:49
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https://twitter.com/Spriter0000/status/1603700247401824257 Is there any significance from the Tu-95 being launched from Engels?
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Dec 16, 2022 13:52
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How good is patriot at shooting down strategic bombers?
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Dec 16, 2022 13:54
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evil_bunnY posted:What's S-300's mobility like? Everyone I've heard talk about patriot said it'd a complete rear end in a top hat to move about. They’re similar. To pass the “intermediate” US requirements to certify a patriot crew, the patriot battery crews have to be able to pack up the system in 45 minutes and emplace the site in an hour.
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Dec 16, 2022 14:02
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Scratch Monkey posted:How good is patriot at shooting down strategic bombers? Incredibly good if you're accommodating enough to fly the bomber into Patriot range, which there's absolutely no reason or necessity to
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Dec 16, 2022 14:08
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Scratch Monkey posted:How good is patriot at shooting down strategic bombers?
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Dec 16, 2022 14:09
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evil_bunnY posted:What's S-300's mobility like? Everyone I've heard talk about patriot said it'd a complete rear end in a top hat to move about. There are two* different families of S-300 missile systems First one, and the big one, is S-300P series designed for soviet air defence forces. It is most comparable to Patriot as in "big hulking truck convoy that takes an hour to set up and pack up". Second one, and a bit rarer variant, is S-300V designed for soviet army. Unlike S-300P, the V is mounted on tracked chassis and is built to follow army troops and provide air defence for them. That one is way more mobile than S-300P. *there is also third family called S-300F, naval variant, that stopped being relevant to Ukraine on April 14.
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Dec 16, 2022 14:15
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Willo567 posted:https://twitter.com/Spriter0000/status/1603700247401824257 I think there's a translation issue somewhere. I thought the Russians had been launching cruise missiles from Engels-based Tu-95s for a while.
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Dec 16, 2022 15:05
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Eric Cantonese posted:I think there's a translation issue somewhere. I thought the Russians had been launching cruise missiles from Engels-based Tu-95s for a while. I also thought that's where some of them were based and why Ukraine attacked Engels. Here's the quote from CNN CNN posted:He also noted that “for the first time, the occupiers used Tu95 strategic bombers from the area where those aircraft are located, from the Engels area. In addition, there were launches from the north of the Caspian Sea.”
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Dec 16, 2022 15:12
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It's gibberish from some rando. https://twitter.com/Spriter0000/status/1603733907970703360
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Dec 16, 2022 15:14
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Nenonen posted:It's gibberish from some rando. I couldn't find the quote on Twitter that CNN reported from a reliable account, but it is legitimate
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Dec 16, 2022 15:22
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Eric Cantonese posted:I think there's a translation issue somewhere. I thought the Russians had been launching cruise missiles from Engels-based Tu-95s for a while. AFAIK they've only used Tu-160 and Tu-22M until now. 
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Dec 16, 2022 15:24
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Jasper Tin Neck posted:AFAIK they've only used Tu-160 and Tu-22M until now. There was an attack a few weeks ago where the Tu-95 was used https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/new-wave-of-missile-strikes-against-power-grid-civilians-killed-massive-blackouts.html
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Dec 16, 2022 15:29
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Willo567 posted:Is there any significance from the Tu-95 being launched from Engels? Absolutely none, Russia has been using strategic bombers to launch cruise missiles at Ukraine since the beginning and it doesn't matter which base in particular they take off from. You're letting some random tweet from a nobody get you worked up again.
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Dec 16, 2022 17:16
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ChubbyChecker posted:"The majority of the world's nations (by population)" aren't democratic, and what the population in those countries want has nothing to do with what their rulers vote in the UN. Are you saying that the population of India, most of Africa, Pakistan etc condemn the Russian invasion and want Russia sanctioned? Do you have any sources?
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Dec 16, 2022 23:45
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Anecdotally, the Africans and Indians I've met in the UK have tended to be at least broadly sympathetic to the "NATO expansionism and aggression was at least partially responsible for the war" narrative, even while Ukrainian flags and symbols are everywhere in town. That doesn't make them pro-Russia per se, just more of a head-shaking, tongue-clucking "Both sides are bad, war is bad, this isn't my problem and I don't want to get involved" line. One of them even thought that Russia Today was a more reliable source than the BBC. Note that these are well-educated, middle-class Western-trained immigrants as well - if anybody from their countries are going to be sympathetic to the Western viewpoint, it'd be them.
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Dec 17, 2022 00:04
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Tomn posted:Anecdotally, the Africans and Indians I've met in the UK have tended to be at least broadly sympathetic to the "NATO expansionism and aggression was at least partially responsible for the war" narrative, even while Ukrainian flags and symbols are everywhere in town. That doesn't make them pro-Russia per se, just more of a head-shaking, tongue-clucking "Both sides are bad, war is bad, this isn't my problem and I don't want to get involved" line. One of them even thought that Russia Today was a more reliable source than the BBC. Note that these are well-educated, middle-class Western-trained immigrants as well - if anybody from their countries are going to be sympathetic to the Western viewpoint, it'd be them. I mean a large chunk of the right-wing that would have been calling for bombs dropping on Moscow back in the 80's are now spouting Putin's propaganda for free. And we're talking from top members of government all the way down to Uncle Ted. Complete mistrust of government from both sides of the political spectrum means everyone can get sucked in by external propaganda as long as it starts with: "this is why your domestic political opponent is lying to you". Which is of course true in many cases, but seeing people start with that and end up going to bat for the most blatant imperialist dictator of the century is quite a thing to behold. Point being, it doesn't matter where someone comes from, anyone today can land in just about any political circle.
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Dec 17, 2022 00:11
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I work with south asia based south asians and they def could not give a single solitary rats rear end about Ukraine or Russian expansionism and every time I've seen one of those who voted for what in the UN GA Bd, Pk and In have usually abstained. One of them came here recently and asked if we still had heating so he'd know what to pack lol. The West is basically lucky that there's so many tinyass countries who are part or hangers-on of the West who pad our GA vote counts. I def think that liberal Europeans need Ukraine to win this war but we def should not hope for, picking at random, Indonesia or whoever to throw down for this cause.
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Dec 17, 2022 00:56
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Orthanc6 posted:I mean a large chunk of the right-wing that would have been calling for bombs dropping on Moscow back in the 80's are now spouting Putin's propaganda for free. And we're talking from top members of government all the way down to Uncle Ted. Complete mistrust of government from both sides of the political spectrum means everyone can get sucked in by external propaganda as long as it starts with: "this is why your domestic political opponent is lying to you". Which is of course true in many cases, but seeing people start with that and end up going to bat for the most blatant imperialist dictator of the century is quite a thing to behold. Well yes, but I mean the basic thing to remember is that the media environments in many post-colonial countries tend to come with a healthy mistrust of the West and NATO for reasons that should not really be a surprise to anyone. And it's not really much of a stretch to imagine that if post-colonial states hear their former colonial overlords complain about a violation of national sovereignty the instinctive reaction is a cynical snort. The West is not exactly starting on equal ground in the competition against the Russian narrative is what I'm saying here, and their governments have less reason to actively suppress Russian influence operations.
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Dec 17, 2022 01:06
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Given how little the west pays attention to Myanmars ongoing civil war, I can understand being a bit irked about this thing happening in their backyard being something everyone should suddenly care about.
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Dec 17, 2022 01:06
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Orthanc6 posted:I mean a large chunk of the right-wing that would have been calling for bombs dropping on Moscow back in the 80's are now spouting Putin's propaganda for free. And we're talking from top members of government all the way down to Uncle Ted. Complete mistrust of government from both sides of the political spectrum means everyone can get sucked in by external propaganda as long as it starts with: "this is why your domestic political opponent is lying to you". Which is of course true in many cases, but seeing people start with that and end up going to bat for the most blatant imperialist dictator of the century is quite a thing to behold. Russia's transformation from the capital of a Communist empire to the arguably the most right wing country in the world after the fall of the Soviet union is a big part of the reason why the same Republican party that was itching to nuke Moscow during the cold war is now carrying water for Putin. Your average chud looks at Russia today and how they treat the LGBT community, how you basically get a pass for domestic abuse, how the government fights for "traditional values", and how strong the church is there now and it basically looks like chud utopia. And to a lot of chuds the war in Ukraine is basically a war against "wokeism" since Ukraine had been slowly moving in a more progressive direction. Oh and they have a Jewish president. So it's really no surprise that Russia seems to be getting ever more popular with the more extreme ends (which is basically all of them now) of the Republican party. We are lucky in a way that so many Republicans in Congress are so old and firmly still in the "Russia bad" camp. That's part of the reason why military aid to Ukraine has always sailed through Congress. What's scary is the younger generation of republicans in Congress and how pro Russia they've been. Like MTG, Boebert, and Madison Cawthore etc.
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Dec 17, 2022 02:07
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Charliegrs posted:Russia's transformation from the capital of a Communist empire to the arguably the most right wing country in the world after the fall of the Soviet union is a big part of the reason why the same Republican party that was itching to nuke Moscow during the cold war is now carrying water for Putin. Your average chud looks at Russia today and how they treat the LGBT community, how you basically get a pass for domestic abuse, how the government fights for "traditional values", and how strong the church is there now and it basically looks like chud utopia. And to a lot of chuds the war in Ukraine is basically a war against "wokeism" since Ukraine had been slowly moving in a more progressive direction. Oh and they have a Jewish president. So it's really no surprise that Russia seems to be getting ever more popular with the more extreme ends (which is basically all of them now) of the Republican party. We are lucky in a way that so many Republicans in Congress are so old and firmly still in the "Russia bad" camp. That's part of the reason why military aid to Ukraine has always sailed through Congress. What's scary is the younger generation of republicans in Congress and how pro Russia they've been. Like MTG, Boebert, and Madison Cawthore etc. What confuses me is why extremely online Marxists love carrying water for right-wing racist-nationalist Russia now. At least fascists are correct that Putin is a fascist like they are.
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Dec 17, 2022 02:27
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Tankies and the like boil all things down to "is this thing somehow a challenge to US power?" and if the answer is yes then it becomes good and worthy of undying support.
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Dec 17, 2022 02:29
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Where do these tankies hang out? I don't consider myself "extremely online" but I'm pretty drat online and I never run across these tankie types. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 17, 2022 02:45
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sean10mm posted:What confuses me is why extremely online Marxists love carrying water for right-wing racist-nationalist Russia now. It has never truly made sense to me that online leftists would champion countries like Russia and China that indulge in America’s worst excesses to a degree that puts its extreme Right wing to shame. The only perspective that gets halfway to sense is the suggestion that they act as multipolar counterweights to accomplish something meaningful in the future. What that is I don’t know, but I’m guessing it’s an accelerationist sort of concept.
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Dec 17, 2022 02:57
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