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DTurtle posted:How many countries are in the EU and not in NATO? Six (Austria, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Malta, and Sweden) of which two are just joining. The other four have tiny militaries (Austria's is the largest at 22000, followed by Cyprus with 16000, Ireland with 7000, and Malta with 1700 active soldiers). Bolding is mine. NATO is not Europe. Europe is part of NATO. As a thought experiment, let's remove the US from NATO (as, for example, Donald Trump threatened to do). Could that version of NATO (even with Canada), defend its members adequately? I think the evidence available to us today is that it cannot. cinci zoo sniper posted:Yes, but it's also a bit weird in that the recently not-fired Surovikin was the guy whose approach to Syria was “just bomb everything with planes”. I would've expected, if there was a will to put the matériel on the line just like that, that he would've been the person to pull the plane card out. I guess you could attribute the intensification of the long-range airstrike campaign against Ukrainian civil infrastructure to him, but that's almost an artillery act to me. I think Russia has wanted to, but air defense is genuinely challenging. Russia may believe it has attritted and depleted Ukrainian air defenses enough--or enough in some areas--to allow for medium-altitude close air support. I hope that is not the case, but I've seen concerns for a few months now over the supply of not just S-300s but that whole set of Soviet-era mid-altitude SAMs.
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Feb 16, 2023 23:22
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https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1626148755085963264 It appears the new guy in charge of Russian uniform procurement is this man. The 22 year-old on the right.
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Feb 16, 2023 23:42
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That's also a slightly russified version of the Old Norse name for Kyivan Rus', Garðaríki, which is uhhh pretty dodgy in the current circumstances.
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Feb 17, 2023 00:12
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Ynglaur posted:Bolding is mine. NATO is not Europe. Europe is part of NATO. As a thought experiment, let's remove the US from NATO (as, for example, Donald Trump threatened to do). Could that version of NATO (even with Canada), defend its members adequately? I think the evidence available to us today is that it cannot. This is getting very far into the weeds. NATO sans the US can certainly afford and is capable of producing a military of essentially arbitrary size and quality and could probably in this hypothetical use various means to stave off an invasion until more thorough militarization could be achieved. Nuclear weapons sharing and forward deployment into the border countries, conscription and standing up large territorial defense forces and prepared positions, increased imports from Asia, various "hybrid warfare" tactics, and so on. Basically post-2014 Ukraine but with a vastly larger economy and enough warheads between France and the UK to kill essentially everybody in Russia in minutes. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 17, 2023 00:47
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Ynglaur posted:As a thought experiment, let's remove the US from NATO (as, for example, Donald Trump threatened to do). Could that version of NATO (even with Canada), defend its members adequately? I think the evidence available to us today is that it cannot. This is a completely baffling conclusion. We have now spent an entire year watching a non-NATO nation successfully defend itself against a vastly larger and more militarised neighbour with only a trickle of material support from other nations. You are deducing from this that a country with a more modern military and more committed support from a broader coalition of allies would somehow fare worse in a similar situation?
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Feb 17, 2023 00:50
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I wouldn't call what has been sent since and prior to the war a "trickle of support".
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Feb 17, 2023 00:53
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Moon Slayer posted:Washington Post article on the Battle of Bakhmut. Bolding mine, just what I find personally interesting. Article posted:Any Ukrainian fallback is likely to be limited, commanders in the region say. Even if Ukrainian troops give up on their ferocious defense of Bakhmut — a fight that has assumed more symbolic than strategic value, according to military experts — Russia lacks the trained troops and weaponry to rush headlong into the wider Donetsk region. There has been some dueling narrative on the importance of Bakhmut over the past two months when the battles really started heating up for the city. Much of the pro-Ukrainian messaging and from military sources in the West seems to underscore the point that it is 'unimportant' but it is good to remember the context in which that statement is given. The Pentagon sees the best possible course of action for Ukraine to be the liberation of the southern areas of the country - the remainder of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts - where they can take advantage of the new vehicles that are being supplied to them. It appears that it is within this context that Bakhmut is 'strategically unimportant'. For the Pentagon, the loss of Bakhmut is inconsequential to a southern strategy for all the reasons you may have read before in the thread, that is that it doesn't offer Russia any significantly new opportunities since the terrain allows for additional lines of defenses that can be held. https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/24/poli...n%20resistance. The Russians, and Zelensky, may not see it the same way though. The CNN article says that people close to him feel that having Bakhmut gives them a better chance of taking back the entire Donbas region. It isn't an unreasonable assertion given as Bakhmut is sometimes called the gateway to the Donbas and I posted earlier that both the Russians and Ukrainians may see the town as the intersection of several important highways that dominate the entry into the Luhansk and Donetsk Republics. Kofman and other see its fall and the loss of the crossroads as opening up new avenues of advance for Sloviansk and Kramatorsk https://time.com/6253515/bakhmut-battle-ukraine-russia/. But you could also see it the other way, that Bakhmut's road networks enables the possibility of future Ukrainian pushes into the cities of Horlivka and Popasna, or offer an additional direction to push onto Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. Bakhmut and its roads would serve as a vital hub for such operations. https://twitter.com/J_JHelin/status/1603363433172246530 Zelensky seems to feel that keeping Bakhmut is worth the price for that reason. The Russian offensive and determination may be linked to eliminating this possibility along with bringing all other nominal Donbas cities under Russian control. Prigozhin hinted at the fact that the Russians may view the meat grinder in exactly the same way the West does, tying down and exhausting Ukrainian formations so they aren't allowed to wreak havoc somewhere else. In a recent press release, he stated that the goal of capturing Bakhmut was to prevent any offensive action on the front. Holding a fortified urban wasteland with control of all important roads going out of it would certainly make Ukrainian attacks more difficult in the region. https://vk.com/wall-177427428_1845 It has worked to some extent. While everyone is making fun of the Russians for their snail's pace, there is considerable evidence from OSINT that the Ukrainians had to send in regulars to stabilize the front and conduct counterattacks to relieve pressure on the last supply route running through Chasiv'yar. https://www.facebook.com/93OMBr/posts/pfbid02E49REqBFrM933MyMnucVBcAosVaXStSDGM1HgtsDfJnPrUqWBsC8ibLMnvPSsfJ3l. Can't tell how many regulars were sent in to rescue the situation but counter attacks were conducted to ease pressure on the northern highways and SW near the village of Ivanivske as the Russians were within 5km of the final supply route. So depending on your perspective, Bakhmut may be irrelevant or highly important to hold unless you envision having to storm a Russian-held Bakhmut for control of the roads as an attractive endeavor. Maybe the Pentagon thinks liberating the Donbas is a pipedream anyways? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DarkCrawler posted:You're the one raising the counterfactual, don't complain when the most logical conclusions are drawn from the initial one. The EU already has military cooperation, do you really think it would not play a bigger role without NATO? Justify why. The Baltic would magically be less interested in finding military answers for their very new independence? Why, justify. Definition: something such as piece of writing or an argument that considers what would have been the result if events had happened in a different way to how they actually happened. List of counterfactuals you made: DarkCrawler posted:Russia's military would be no better without the arming and training of Ukraine done by U.S. AND NATO DarkCrawler posted:If EU was completely without NATO which had dissolved after Cold War ended or something, the Baltics would already be more militarized, probably in a conscription model. DarkCrawler posted:EU would have a military command structure of its own as well, at minimum. You then proceeded to say that those are "facts" DarkCrawler posted:How would the Baltics be next, given all those facts? Typically, the person making the counterfactuals is the one that has to justify why their reasoning is like what I did: MikeC posted:Given the outsized effect of US intelligence steering Ukranian military planning and maneuvers, the fact that the US supplies the vast majority of military aid to Ukraine, and the several think tank reports that outline just how important US military assets like HIMRAS are to the Ukrainians it would suggest that Yng's assessment is reasonable (without trying to assess what happens after the fall of Kyiv like insurgencies). The counterfactual being Ynglaur's assertion that "If the US had not supported Ukraine, Ukraine would have fallen. If the US did not act as the guarantor of Europe's security, the Baltics would be next." I recommend backing up your assertions in counterfactual situations with more rigor in the future or scaling back the certainty of the claim.
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Feb 17, 2023 00:55
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Ynglaur posted:I think Russia has wanted to, but air defense is genuinely challenging. Russia may believe it has attritted and depleted Ukrainian air defenses enough--or enough in some areas--to allow for medium-altitude close air support. I hope that is not the case, but I've seen concerns for a few months now over the supply of not just S-300s but that whole set of Soviet-era mid-altitude SAMs. For what it's worth, if Ukrainian AA really has been depleted to the point where Russia can run effective air support on a scale large enough to make a difference, that'll REALLY light a fire under a lot of asses as far as supplying F-16s go. Even in the best case scenario I can't see that (or other AA supplies) happening fast enough to make a difference in the next few months but long-term it might at least help stabilize the situation - just have to hope that any current breakthrough isn't crippling. Of course the much better scenario is that Ukrainian AA is still good enough to reap a rich harvest of MiGs without seriously impacting their frontline but if Ukrainian air defense fails there is that backstop I suppose.
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Feb 17, 2023 01:27
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Ynglaur posted:Bolding is mine. NATO is not Europe. Europe is part of NATO. As a thought experiment, let's remove the US from NATO (as, for example, Donald Trump threatened to do). Could that version of NATO (even with Canada), defend its members adequately? I think the evidence available to us today is that it cannot. wtf are you talking about, yea it could. The combined arms of Europe is only surpassed by the U.S.
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Feb 17, 2023 01:59
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Is Russia really going to be willing to maul their air force as much as their army? It'll be a lot harder to build back up. https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1626256459280384001
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Feb 17, 2023 02:09
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My 2 cents is that this war will be won or lost by which economy gives up first. Either Russia's economy breaks to the point that they can't support the war at a level that remotely would allow victory, or the west loses interest in supporting Ukraine sufficiently. I would also love to see the west going more all out on sanctions and economic warfare to speed up russian economic collapse. The fact that tons of europe is still actively doing business with Russia is horrific. Things have been "good" for Ukraine for a while now, I mean simply surviving Russia's initial attack was amazing. But the moment western support falters it could very much turn bad fast. I'm constantly really nervous about this happening. I so wish the west would just give Ukraine everything it needs to actually win, rather than this glacial escalation of support.
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Feb 17, 2023 02:16
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Charlz Guybon posted:Is Russia really going to be willing to maul their air force as much as their army? It'll be a lot harder to build back up. That was kinda my thinking, they must feel they are cash rich from oil lately but in reality...well, those planes are not easily replaced. Is it me or are things just a bit slow lately?
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Feb 17, 2023 02:23
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notwithoutmyanus posted:That was kinda my thinking, they must feel they are cash rich from oil lately but in reality...well, those planes are not easily replaced. Is it me or are things just a bit slow lately? Movement on the line is glacial, but the fighting is the hottest and bloodiest it's been since the first few weeks.
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Feb 17, 2023 02:53
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https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/14/u-s-training-ukrainian-troops-use-less-ammo-00082765 If we're now talking about training Ukrainian troops with focus on manoeuvre warfare, then I'm starting to get confused as to what military doctrine was taught to the thousands of Ukrainian soldiers already trained in the west? MikeC posted:Can't tell how many regulars were sent in to rescue the situation I remember seeing something about a fresh brigade, if I recall correctly, getting rotated in around February 7-10, but I can't track the specifics down for the life of me. This was also in the context of them actually entering the city, as so far the armed forces proper have been delegated the manoeuvre warfare around the city, with auxiliary light infantry, e.g., TDF, holding the urban trenches. In general, it's likely a constant stream of forces, with the upper limit of some 250 per day if I had to guess (because Prigozhin says they're sending 500 new soldiers in on a daily basis).
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Feb 17, 2023 03:19
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Baronjutter posted:My 2 cents is that this war will be won or lost by which economy gives up first. Either Russia's economy breaks to the point that they can't support the war at a level that remotely would allow victory, or the west loses interest in supporting Ukraine sufficiently. I would also love to see the west going more all out on sanctions and economic warfare to speed up russian economic collapse. The fact that tons of europe is still actively doing business with Russia is horrific. I feel like at this point, if the west let Ukraine's economy fail, it would be a huge amounts of deaths and misery as a losing war turns into a bloody occupation. Jeez, is it better for RUSSIA to lose this war? yuck.
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Feb 17, 2023 03:20
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cinci zoo sniper posted:https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/14/u-s-training-ukrainian-troops-use-less-ammo-00082765 If I had to guess, there was an assumption that Putin would have quit by now, so go ahead and use every shell you've got to make him quit faster. Now there's a need to counter attrition warfare wherever they can to avoid meat grinders
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Feb 17, 2023 04:14
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Ukraine has supposedly their best defenses of anywhere built up in and around Bakhmut and as such feels that if they have to fight Russia anywhere it might as well be somewhere where they have the most relative advantage. As long as they perceive active fighting as inevitable, then they might as well fight in and around Bakhmut. For a long time the hope has been that as long as they can hold, or at least only slowly lose, Bakhmut with significantly less people than Russia is committing to the fight then they might as well bleed Russia as much as possible. "Bakhmut doesn't matter" is a kinda complex phrase to unpack and at this point I'd argue that's just contextually not true. It has symbolic meaning to Ukraine, both as an old, historic city and as a recent focal point, has some strategic significance to the surrounding area, has a favorable logistical situation (or did anyways) and every week they hold it discredits the Russian war effort and buys time for Ukraine to train up units using recently donated western systems. Ironically Bakhmut likely matters less to Russia in a tangible sense than it does Ukraine. It almost certainly does not matter to Russia in proportion to the blood and materiel they have expended trying to take Bakhmut and surrounding villages. For Russia it has also taken on considerable symbolic and political meaning and somehow both Wagner and Russian MoD have each tried to stake their credibility on making progress in and around Bakhmut. IIRC the start of people talking about the relative mattering of Bakhmut was in the context of people questioning what benefit taking Bakhmut would have to the Russian war effort because there has been long-running confusion at Bakhmut being such a central focus of Russian efforts for so long.
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Feb 17, 2023 04:25
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Baronjutter posted:My 2 cents is that this war will be won or lost by which economy gives up first. Either Russia's economy breaks to the point that they can't support the war at a level that remotely would allow victory, or the west loses interest in supporting Ukraine sufficiently. I would also love to see the west going more all out on sanctions and economic warfare to speed up russian economic collapse. The fact that tons of europe is still actively doing business with Russia is horrific. Isn't this playing out exactly as the West would want, though? If NATO gave everything that Ukraine would need to win, the conflict would either escalate or end. NATO doesn't want the conflict to escalate or end. NATO wants the conflict to drag out for as long as it takes to bleed the Russians dry. Walking the tightrope where Russia keeps throwing conventional forces into the meatgrinder, but can't quite justify anything much beyond that, isn't that the best possible outcome for the West? The Ukrainians aren't going to stop fighting, so there will always be just enough weapons to keep the fighting ugly (but not enough to settle things)...
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Feb 17, 2023 04:35
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Small White Dragon posted:I'm not sure going way down alt history paths is that useful, even if it is fun. We might as well discuss how this war would have played out if the Third Reich still ruled west Europe. That neutrality was the bargain the victorious western powers struck with Stalin for the withdrawl of the Soviet Army from Austria, as they were the ones who conquered/liberated that part of the then Reich in 1945
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Feb 17, 2023 04:38
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litany of gulps posted:Isn't this playing out exactly as the West would want, though? If NATO gave everything that Ukraine would need to win, the conflict would either escalate or end. NATO doesn't want the conflict to escalate or end. NATO wants the conflict to drag out for as long as it takes to bleed the Russians dry. Walking the tightrope where Russia keeps throwing conventional forces into the meatgrinder, but can't quite justify anything much beyond that, isn't that the best possible outcome for the West? The Ukrainians aren't going to stop fighting, so there will always be just enough weapons to keep the fighting ugly (but not enough to settle things)... The conflict has already escalated quite a bit. Russia mobilized and sent in hundreds of thousands of additional troops and engaged in strategic bombing of Ukrainian power and water utilities. I suppose it could escalate further, but if any particular actors were hoping to meaningfully "avoid escalation" of the conflict, I'm not sure that's actually happened.
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Feb 17, 2023 04:41
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Vox Nihili posted:The conflict has already escalated quite a bit. Russia mobilized and sent in hundreds of thousands of additional troops and engaged in strategic bombing of Ukrainian power and water utilities. I suppose it could escalate further, but if any particular actors were hoping to meaningfully "avoid escalation" of the conflict, I'm not sure that's actually happened. Isn't this the standard move? We flood a conflict area with weapons for our allies. Sure, there's collateral damage to the civilian population and infrastructure. It doesn't matter to the US politically, because the only thing that matters to the US politically is actual deaths of US military personnel. The cost of the weapons is irrelevant, that's baked into our economy. This entire conflict has been playing footsie with how much we can give without ending the conflict, we're always providing just enough to make things ugly. Isn't that the exact same thing we've always done? We load up the Iraqi security forces with weapons and point them at the religious extremists. We load up the FSA and every motherfucker in the desert has an antitank weapon. Round two of that in Ukraine. Avoiding escalation isn't the goal, but rather avoiding excessive escalation. Forcing the Russians to engage in mass mobilization, burn through decades of military stockpiles, destabilize Putin's regime, all at the cost of some poo poo we had lying around anyway and some foreign lives? It's ugly or whatever, but isn't that why we aren't giving out any really good stuff?
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Feb 17, 2023 04:50
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litany of gulps posted:Isn't this the standard move? We flood a conflict area with weapons for our allies. Sure, there's collateral damage to the civilian population and infrastructure. It doesn't matter to the US politically, because the only thing that matters to the US politically is actual deaths of US military personnel. The cost of the weapons is irrelevant, that's baked into our economy. This entire conflict has been playing footsie with how much we can give without ending the conflict, we're always providing just enough to make things ugly. Isn't that the exact same thing we've always done? We load up the Iraqi security forces with weapons and point them at the religious extremists. We load up the FSA and every motherfucker in the desert has an antitank weapon. Round two of that in Ukraine. Avoiding escalation isn't the goal, but rather avoiding excessive escalation. Forcing the Russians to engage in mass mobilization, burn through decades of military stockpiles, destabilize Putin's regime, all at the cost of some poo poo we had lying around anyway and some foreign lives? It's ugly or whatever, but isn't that why we aren't giving out any really good stuff? The US simply does not have the spare materiel available to give to Ukraine to decisively end the conflict either overnight or in any shortish timeframe. And that's setting aside the need to train individuals and units in everything that would encompass, which would be an astronomical undertaking, too. What the US can spare is enough materiel to make taking Ukraine into an unbelievably costly undertaking for Russia.
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Feb 17, 2023 04:55
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litany of gulps posted:Isn't this the standard move? We flood a conflict area with weapons for our allies. Sure, there's collateral damage to the civilian population and infrastructure. It doesn't matter to the US politically, because the only thing that matters to the US politically is actual deaths of US military personnel. The cost of the weapons is irrelevant, that's baked into our economy. This entire conflict has been playing footsie with how much we can give without ending the conflict, we're always providing just enough to make things ugly. Isn't that the exact same thing we've always done? We load up the Iraqi security forces with weapons and point them at the religious extremists. We load up the FSA and every motherfucker in the desert has an antitank weapon. Round two of that in Ukraine. Avoiding escalation isn't the goal, but rather avoiding excessive escalation. Forcing the Russians to engage in mass mobilization, burn through decades of military stockpiles, destabilize Putin's regime, all at the cost of some poo poo we had lying around anyway and some foreign lives? It's ugly or whatever, but isn't that why we aren't giving out any really good stuff? Your wall of text ignores the fact that, besides jets, we've been delivering pretty much what the Ukrainians have asked for. Not to mention the real time up to date intel side of things.
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Feb 17, 2023 04:55
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Nobody can prove that Western leaders don't think like Saturday morning cartoon villains, so you can keep believing what you want. I think there's a lot of good reasons to draw the line at putting boots on the ground, but nobody here is privy to how that decision came around.
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Feb 17, 2023 04:58
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Herstory Begins Now posted:What the US can spare is enough materiel to make taking Ukraine into an unbelievably costly undertaking for Russia. I mean, yes, isn't that exactly it? Shes Not Impressed posted:Your wall of text ignores the fact that, besides jets, we've been delivering pretty much what the Ukrainians have asked for. Less than two hundred words is a "wall of text"? Back in my day, we called that much text a "paragraph." You've got two hundred pages here of reporting on how the Ukrainians have been asking for more, constantly. So your terse "pretty much" is doing some heavy lifting.
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Feb 17, 2023 05:06
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it's addressed primarily to the final line of your post 'It's ugly or whatever, but isn't that why we aren't giving out any really good stuff?' and your previous post's, 'If NATO gave everything that Ukraine would need to win, the conflict would either escalate or end. NATO doesn't want the conflict to escalate or end. NATO wants the conflict to drag out for as long as it takes to bleed the Russians dry.' On a factual level, too, Ukraine is getting a lot of the good stuff and much, much more of it than anyone would've expected a year ago, or even 9 months ago. I still think it's wild that Ukraine is getting patriots. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Feb 17, 2023 |
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Feb 17, 2023 05:15
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Herstory Begins Now posted:it's addressed primarily to the final line of your post 'It's ugly or whatever, but isn't that why we aren't giving out any really good stuff?' and your previous post's, 'If NATO gave everything that Ukraine would need to win, the conflict would either escalate or end. NATO doesn't want the conflict to escalate or end. NATO wants the conflict to drag out for as long as it takes to bleed the Russians dry.' Oh, so you're saying that we can't spare all of the stuff we've been building and stockpiling for decades to fight Russia because there isn't enough extra to spare for the ongoing war against Russia? I'm struggling to follow the logic, so please help me out. Herstory Begins Now posted:On a factual level, too, Ukraine is getting a lot of the good stuff and much, much more of it than anyone would've expected a year ago, or even 9 months ago. I still think it's wild that Ukraine is getting patriots. Why is it wild that our proxy war is being supplied with our weapons?
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Feb 17, 2023 05:20
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According to the joint chiefs, 97% of Russia's military is in Ukraine at this point. I'm not sure there is a meaningful escalation on Russia's part beyond scraping the barrel, getting another nation into it, and clancychat honestly.
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Feb 17, 2023 05:22
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litany of gulps posted:Isn't this playing out exactly as the West would want, though? If NATO gave everything that Ukraine would need to win, the conflict would either escalate or end. NATO doesn't want the conflict to escalate or end. NATO wants the conflict to drag out for as long as it takes to bleed the Russians dry. Walking the tightrope where Russia keeps throwing conventional forces into the meatgrinder, but can't quite justify anything much beyond that, isn't that the best possible outcome for the West? The Ukrainians aren't going to stop fighting, so there will always be just enough weapons to keep the fighting ugly (but not enough to settle things)... Not really, no. Even if we assume ruthless weltpolitik, as our very own resident realist will be quick to inform you a long war in Ukraine doesn't serve US interests because it means that if China (a considerably more dangerous potential US rival) decides to start something US resources, attention, and political capital will be distracted from being able to address the real threat to American power. From a US perspective a quick, decisive end to Ukraine with the Russians rapidly driven from the field would be a clear sign that American backing is a dangerous thing to cross and powers hoping to start something in their areas of interest (say, China trying to hop over to Taiwan) should take note and reconsider any plans they had in that vein. Conversely, a long war could be taken as a sign that US backing isn't as valuable or important as it looks and that China maybe has a puncher's chance of achieving their goals through military force if they so desired. Not only might this encourage China to act, such a thing might have US allies reconsidering the value of their alliance and wondering if they should start making friendly overtures towards the regional power as well - which, given that US influence relies on a network of alliances can pose a problem just by itself. The European perspective might be different, but on the whole I don't think they gain much from a long war either. Proving that European aggression will not be tolerated or permitted is more important than "bleeding Russia dry" and a swift, decisive punch in the nose does that better than slowly bleeding a country to death. As well, even if you assume that it is beneficial to "degrade Russia," (and it certainly was to some degree at the start), the thing is, Russia isn't actually going to commit suicide and destroy literally their entire army until they run out of people. As their capabilities wane, so will their actions. Ukraine may be interested in pushing Russia out of their country but they're not going to actually hunt down and destroy the Russian army past their borders unless something has gone SERIOUSLY pear-shaped. So in other words, as things go wrong Russia will eventually reduce their tempo of operations to the point where they can actually sustain their operations, and keeping the war going won't actually degrade their capabilities far beyond that until complete societal collapse happens. At that point if your goal is to destroy as much of the Russian Army as possible it would actually be beneficial to give Ukraine everything it wants to conduct aggressive operations that can engage and destroy the Russian Army in sweeping operations that shatter their forces instead of waiting for trench warfare to do its slow work at a pace that Russia is comfortable with. This is all leaving aside that if Russia really does push the country on into a constant meatgrinder without end there's a non-zero chance that this might result in the country imploding somehow, and NOBODY really wants to find out what will happen if a nuclear power implodes one way or another. Not to mention that economically, there's quite a few business interests throughout the West who would be MUCH happier if Russia ended the war and began normalizing relations again (i.e. permitting trade and oil/gas imports as well as exports). I get that the US has done a lot of heinous poo poo but you seem to be working under the assumption that "kill foreigners" is in and of itself the end goal of US foreign policy. It isn't - it's just a byproduct of what they're working towards, which varies from administration to administration both in specific goals and methods but can broadly be defined as "maintain American power, prosperity, and interests." Right now, deliberately dragging out the war doesn't seem to achieve that. Edit: litany of gulps posted:Oh, so you're saying that we can't spare all of the stuff we've been building and stockpiling for decades to fight Russia because there isn't enough extra to spare for the ongoing war against Russia? I'm struggling to follow the logic, so please help me out. The issue is that the Ukrainian War is revealing that peacetime stockpiles aren't actually equal to the task of supplying a major shooting war. This is pretty common - WW1 famously had shell shortages as every army shot their stockpiles dry because they hadn't expected the rate of consumption required. In that light, giving everything away could leave the US dangerously exposed to challenges from other directions - again, like, say, China. There's a reason there's been so many articles in this thread about how the West's MICs are struggling to meet the demands of the war. And this is to say nothing of Europe where the stockpile situation is even more dire - if I recall correctly, there's been one article saying that the artillery ammo demands of Ukraine at war in a month are equal to the entire peacetime procurement of a middle-sized European country's demands for a year, to give you an idea of the disparity between peace and war. Tomn fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Feb 17, 2023 |
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Feb 17, 2023 05:24
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I haven't heard anything in the news lately about the missile strikes on civilian targets. Is that still going on at the same pace? Has Ukrainian missile defense been able to intercept most of it?
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Feb 17, 2023 05:31
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^^^^ There was one just yesterday, with lower interception rates than usual, though total number of rockets was lower, too. There are also routine terror bombings with S-300 and the like that never hit the news outside of Ukraine that routinely hit residential buildings in Kharkiv, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya. litany of gulps posted:Oh, so you're saying that we can't spare all of the stuff we've been building and stockpiling for decades to fight Russia because there isn't enough extra to spare for the ongoing war against Russia? I'm struggling to follow the logic, so please help me out. litany of gulps posted:Why is it wild that our proxy war is being supplied with our weapons?
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Feb 17, 2023 05:32
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litany of gulps posted:Oh, so you're saying that we can't spare all of the stuff we've been building and stockpiling for decades to fight Russia because there isn't enough extra to spare for the ongoing war against Russia? I'm struggling to follow the logic, so please help me out. We're stockpiling it to fight China.
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Feb 17, 2023 05:38
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Tomn posted:Not really, no. Even if we assume ruthless weltpolitik, as our very own resident realist will be quick to inform you a long war in Ukraine doesn't serve US interests because it means that if China (a considerably more dangerous potential US rival) decides to start something US resources, attention, and political capital will be distracted from being able to address the real threat to American power. From a US perspective a quick, decisive end to Ukraine with the Russians rapidly driven from the field would be a clear sign that American backing is a dangerous thing to cross and powers hoping to start something in their areas of interest (say, China trying to hop over to Taiwan) should take note and reconsider any plans they had in that vein. Conversely, a long war could be taken as a sign that US backing isn't as valuable or important as it looks and that China maybe has a puncher's chance of achieving their goals through military force if they so desired. Not only might this encourage China to act, such a thing might have US allies reconsidering the value of their alliance and wondering if they should start making friendly overtures towards the regional power as well - which, given that US influence relies on a network of alliances can pose a problem just by itself. OK, then your thesis is what? NATO has failed completely by not achieving a decisive end to the war to deter China, but also not managing to put an end to Russian aggression? I don't know if you've been following US politics, but aggressive anti-Chinese rhetoric has been on a sharp rise. So what has been the result of all of this? quote:The European perspective might be different, but on the whole I don't think they gain much from a long war either. Proving that European aggression will not be tolerated or permitted is more important than "bleeding Russia dry" and a swift, decisive punch in the nose does that better than slowly bleeding a country to death. Hasn't the most economically powerful European country been blocking the rest from providing armored vehicles to the conflict? How does that indicate that they don't see value in a long war? How does that prove that aggression will not be tolerated? What is the swift, decisive punch in the nose? quote:As well, even if you assume that it is beneficial to "degrade Russia," (and it certainly was to some degree at the start), the thing is, Russia isn't actually going to commit suicide and destroy literally their entire army until they run out of people. As their capabilities wane, so will their actions. Ahh, I see. OddObserver posted:Please don't use that term, it's racist. Which race is being denigrated by that term? Is there an updated term? Educate me!
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Feb 17, 2023 05:40
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Tomn posted:
Paraguay did this, why not Russia? EDIT: Even by modern estimates, there was only 1 man for every 4 women left alive after the war.
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Feb 17, 2023 05:40
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litany of gulps posted:
I am using it as a general term of bigotry. It's denigrating because it reduces people fighting for their local issues (like their freedom and independence!) to tools of so-called "great powers" who are acting on their behalf, and focuses on outsiders that often have limited involvement at expense of people actually at the front. There is no "good term" since the entire concept is bunk almost all the time it's used.
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Feb 17, 2023 05:45
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OddObserver posted:I am using it as a general term of bigotry. It's denigrating because it reduces people fighting for their local issues (like their freedom and independence!) to tools of so-called "great powers" who are acting on their behalf, and focuses on outsiders that often have limited involvement at expense of people actually at the front. There is no "good term" since the entire concept is bunk almost all the time it's used. You understand that this is a term that describes reality, right? It's a phrase that describes the way the world works. When we provide weapons to the FSA to destroy our enemies, when we provide weapons to Ukraine to destroy our enemies, we are doing this as "great powers" with no real regard for the people who are suffering on the front lines. What the hell do you mean by the concept being bunk? You don't like it so isn't real? The concept might suck, but it's real.
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Feb 17, 2023 05:48
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litany of gulps posted:You understand that this is a term that describes reality, right? It's a phrase that describes the way the world works. When we provide weapons to the FSA to destroy our enemies, when we provide weapons to Ukraine to destroy our enemies, we are doing this as "great powers" with no real regard for the people who are suffering on the front lines. What the hell do you mean by the concept being bunk? You don't like it so isn't real? The concept might suck, but it's real. No, it doesn't. It's racist drivel. Ukrainians right now are not fighting for US, and it's not US deciding they fight. When North Vietnamese were fighting off US with help of China, they were not fighting for China, they, too, were fighting for themselves. A "proxy" is something that acts for someone else, not something that acts for itself taking advantage of whatever help it can get under circumstances.
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Feb 17, 2023 05:50
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OddObserver posted:No, it doesn't. It's racist drivel. Ukrainians right now are not fighting for US, and it's not US deciding they fight. When North Vietnamese were fighting off US with help of China, they were not fighting for China, they, too, were fighting for themselves. A "proxy" is something that acts for someone else, not something that acts for itself taking advantage of whatever help it can get under circumstances. Alright man, you're shadowboxing with some really specific rhetoric that exists only in your own brain. I hope you figure it out. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 17, 2023 05:54
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litany of gulps posted:Isn't this playing out exactly as the West would want, though? If NATO gave everything that Ukraine would need to win, the conflict would either escalate or end. NATO doesn't want the conflict to escalate or end. NATO wants the conflict to drag out for as long as it takes to bleed the Russians dry. Walking the tightrope where Russia keeps throwing conventional forces into the meatgrinder, but can't quite justify anything much beyond that, isn't that the best possible outcome for the West? The Ukrainians aren't going to stop fighting, so there will always be just enough weapons to keep the fighting ugly (but not enough to settle things)... Are there weapons other countries could send to Ukraine to end the war without escalating it? Sending those should be a no brainer
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Feb 17, 2023 06:02
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| # ? May 24, 2024 18:15 |
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As we all know, the Eastern Front was really a proxy war between the US and Germany. Noted US proxy the USSR received massive amounts of weapons and materiel, after all.
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Feb 17, 2023 06:03
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