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litany of gulps posted: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? You're making a lot of really strange assumptions, I have to say. No, my thesis is that fundamentally the US doesn't really have much to gain from a long war that they couldn't gain just as well if not better with a short war. In other words - there isn't really a MOTIVE to deliberately drag things out, so if things are being dragged out there are other factors in play beyond "We want to see people die, myhehehehe!" I'm also not sure why you bring up anti-Chinese rhetoric - the problem isn't rhetoric, the problem is whether or not the US can actually point resources at any flashpoint happening, which it'll be less capable of doing if Ukraine is still on-going when a flashpoint occurs. The US has spent a lot on its military but its resources aren't actually infinite, particularly given their global commitments (drop in on VFW sometime, see how many Navy sailors are complaining about being overtasked and overworked). As for Germany, I'd argue that their actions demonstrate more about the complexities of their particular internal politics than it does any deliberate attempt to draw things out. And yes, I would argue that Europe is having trouble mustering the resources to help make this a very short war - a failure to do so is hardly indicative of a desire to fight a long war. Which really seems to sum up a lot of the odd assumptions you're making - you seem to be assuming that "This is leading to a long war" is proof that people WANT a long war, as opposed to failures of planning or judgment. In Europe generally investing in the peace dividend after the Cold War made it so that a lot of Europe genuinely doesn't have a lot to spare (though many are sparing what they can regardless) while those countries that invested more in their military, i.e. those close to or bordering Russia, REALLY don't want to spare too much in case they need it for themselves shortly - though again, many are sparing what they can regardless. In general it feels like you're assuming a very great degree of government competence such that if a government has a desire, it will necessarily be achieved and so anything a government does must be indicative of their real desires as opposed to mistakes. Which, for a US citizen, seems a very strange assumption to make. By the same token we might well assume that the Nazis really hated Germany and wanted to see it destroyed, since all their policies led directly to that outcome. And that the Bolsheviks really hated being a Communist empire ruling over most of Eastern Europe and deliberately enacted policies to break it up.
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Feb 17, 2023 06:10
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Warbadger posted: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. This is a fun one because you're trying to do satire but basically all Americans are taught exactly this in school.
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Feb 17, 2023 06:10
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litany of gulps posted:This is a fun one because you're trying to do satire but basically all Americans are taught exactly this in school. My crystal ball says you're from some shithole Confederacy state, which may also explain your simplistic and reductionist take on geopolitics. Edit: \/\/\/ You are just proving his point for him, the US definitely did NOT want to be in Iraq and Afghanistan for years/decades. Those were embarrassing political and strategic failures, and you're the one who seems divorced from reality if you think the long duration of those conflicts was the main objective of them. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) Quixzlizx fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Feb 17, 2023 |
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Feb 17, 2023 06:16
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Tomn posted:You're making a lot of really strange assumptions, I have to say. Not even going to bother with a point by point with non sequiturs. The United States has been dragging out pointless wars for literally my entire life. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have gone on for longer than many Americans have been alive. The term "forever war" was coined to describe the wars that America engages in. I don't think you're operating in the same reality as the rest of us, if you think this smarmy poo poo is some kind of foundation for an argument. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 17, 2023 06:18
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litany of gulps posted:Not even going to bother with a point by point with non sequiturs. The United States has been dragging out pointless wars for literally my entire life. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have gone on for longer than many Americans have been alive. The term "forever war" was coined to describe the wars that America engages in. I don't think you're operating in the same reality as the rest of us, if you think this smarmy poo poo is some kind of foundation for an argument. The United States is not the one dragging out this war. They didn't start it and don't want to participate any more than is necessary. Russia can end the war at any time by quitting and going home. No one is making them fight.
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Feb 17, 2023 06:21
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litany of gulps posted:Not even going to bother with a point by point with non sequiturs. The United States has been dragging out pointless wars for literally my entire life. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have gone on for longer than many Americans have been alive. The term "forever war" was coined to describe the wars that America engages in. I don't think you're operating in the same reality as the rest of us, if you think this smarmy poo poo is some kind of foundation for an argument. Dude, the point isn't that America doesn't do that, the point is that America did it for specific reasons in specific circumstances that aren't at play here. Or do you think every single war in the history of the world is fought in the exact same way for the exact same reasons? Like, what, do you think the fact that Afghanistan and Iraq happened means the US is literally incapable of being involved in conflict in any other way whatsoever?
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Feb 17, 2023 06:25
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Tomn posted:Like, what, do you think the fact that Afghanistan and Iraq happened means the US is literally incapable of being involved in conflict in any other way whatsoever? That's the Chomsky gambit, yes.
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Feb 17, 2023 06:30
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Quixzlizx posted:You are just proving his point for him, the US definitely did NOT want to be in Iraq and Afghanistan for years/decades. Those were embarrassing political and strategic failures, and you're the one who seems divorced from reality if you think the long duration of those conflicts was the main objective of them. Tomn posted:Dude, the point isn't that America doesn't do that, the point is that America did it for specific reasons in specific circumstances that aren't at play here. Or do you think every single war in the history of the world is fought in the exact same way for the exact same reasons? Like, what, do you think the fact that Afghanistan and Iraq happened means the US is literally incapable of being involved in conflict in any other way whatsoever? Ohhhh, OK, so for the entirety of my lifetime and frankly the lifetime before that, the forever wars that the US has engaged in, every one of which was intended to bleed our enemies dry, was actually just an embarrassing mistake. We didn't want to be involved in constant, costly wars with a rotating cast of enemies that led to us developing an enormous military, that was all just a series of unfortunate misunderstandings?
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Feb 17, 2023 06:30
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litany of gulps posted:Ohhhh, OK, so for the entirety of my lifetime and frankly the lifetime before that, the forever wars that the US has engaged in, every one of which was intended to bleed our enemies dry, was actually just an embarrassing mistake. We didn't want to be involved in constant, costly wars with a rotating cast of enemies that led to us developing an enormous military, that was all just a series of unfortunate misunderstandings? Who was the US "bleeding dry" in Afghanistan and Iraq other than itself? Seriously, what are you talking about? You sound like you watched a thought-provoking Youtube video and realized how Very Smart you are.
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Feb 17, 2023 06:35
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Quixzlizx posted:Who was the US "bleeding dry" in Afghanistan and Iraq other than itself? Seriously, what are you talking about? You sound like you watched a thought-provoking Youtube video and realized how Very Smart you are. Were you not alive or adult for this time period? The war on terror? Post 9/11 frenzy? Axis of evil? Turning Iran into our enemy? Decades of war on the Taliban?
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Feb 17, 2023 06:42
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litany of gulps posted:Turning Iran into our enemy? Turning? They were already our enemies.
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Feb 17, 2023 06:50
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Nelson Mandingo posted: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. Do you have a source or some details on this? It doesn't make sense to me. Almost 0% of the Russian Navy and a fairly small amount of the Russian Airforce is in Ukraine at this point, and surely those make up more than 3% of their total military. Also, what does "in" mean? Physically present (unlikely), or involved in the invasion on at least an organisational level? I can perhaps believe that 97% of the Russian ground forces are in some way involved, although obviously not by being concurrently physically present - maybe simply as reserves, or by transferring materiel.
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Feb 17, 2023 07:11
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litany of gulps posted:Were you not alive or adult for this time period? The war on terror? Post 9/11 frenzy? Axis of evil? Turning Iran into our enemy? Decades of war on the Taliban? Since I guess that my previous posts have been somehow too subtle for you, in this analogy, the Taliban were the Ukrainians and the US was Russia. The Americans stupidly tried to achieve a political goal they were incapable of achieving through military force, and the Taliban bled America dry for 20 years until they swallowed their pride, admitted defeat, and went home. You have seriously misinterpreted the geopolitics of the 21st Century if you believe the US intentionally and happily occupied Afghanistan for 20 years to "bleed their enemies." And since you also mentioned the previous generation, this is also pretty much what happened in Vietnam, only the Soviets and Chinese were blatantly supporting the NVA (even more blatantly than the West is supporting Ukraine! They were flying sorties and operating AA for the North Vietnamese). Unless you thought North Vietnam was the great American adversary of the Cold War, and the Americans were just hanging out in South Vietnam getting 58k of their own soldiers killed in a decade to "bleed North Vietnam dry"? It's amusing that self-loathing Americans are just as likely to indulge in American Exceptionalism as jingoists, only they view the US as Lex Luthor instead of Superman.
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Feb 17, 2023 07:15
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Athas posted:Do you have a source or some details on this? It doesn't make sense to me. Almost 0% of the Russian Navy and a fairly small amount of the Russian Airforce is in Ukraine at this point, and surely those make up more than 3% of their total military. Also, what does "in" mean? Physically present (unlikely), or involved in the invasion on at least an organisational level? I can perhaps believe that 97% of the Russian ground forces are in some way involved, although obviously not by being concurrently physically present - maybe simply as reserves, or by transferring materiel. doesn't make sense I agree (outside of with some bizarre conditionals on it, or possibly defined as strictly russian army and no other branches) but source of that is british mod https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-64634760
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Feb 17, 2023 07:19
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litany of gulps posted:Ohhhh, OK, so for the entirety of my lifetime and frankly the lifetime before that, the forever wars that the US has engaged in, every one of which was intended to bleed our enemies dry, was actually just an embarrassing mistake. We didn't want to be involved in constant, costly wars with a rotating cast of enemies that led to us developing an enormous military, that was all just a series of unfortunate misunderstandings? To be fair, Iraq/Afghanistan weren’t really a mistake for the primary proponents. Their friends got very rich off it, how could that be a mistake?
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Feb 17, 2023 07:21
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Love it when this thread focuses on what's important - Americans talking about America.Athas posted:Do you have a source or some details on this? It doesn't make sense to me. Almost 0% of the Russian Navy and a fairly small amount of the Russian Airforce is in Ukraine at this point, and surely those make up more than 3% of their total military. Also, what does "in" mean? Physically present (unlikely), or involved in the invasion on at least an organisational level? I can perhaps believe that 97% of the Russian ground forces are in some way involved, although obviously not by being concurrently physically present - maybe simply as reserves, or by transferring materiel. It was estimated by the UK intelligence summaries (or one of the generals I forgot). It's hard to pin down what exactly they mean because they seem intentionally vague similar to the AFU day's loss estimates - not really meant to be accurate but give a general sense of what they think the trend is Somaen fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Feb 17, 2023 |
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Feb 17, 2023 07:52
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Shocking! https://twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1626168277192810497
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Feb 17, 2023 07:58
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That smells like sensationalism to me, I wouldn't draw conclusions off of an interview based on yes/no questions. https://t.me/Chesnakov/4822 being the source supposedly. Though everybody probably figured that Minsk is a flawed agreement pretty early on.
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Feb 17, 2023 08:12
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Tomn posted: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.
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Feb 17, 2023 08:43
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ShadowHawk posted:Does anyone still have MiG-29s to give? Replacing those with F-16s (or other craft) and shipping them to Ukraine may come quicker than Ukraine can field F-16s.
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Feb 17, 2023 08:53
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ShadowHawk posted:Does anyone still have MiG-29s to give? Replacing those with F-16s (or other craft) and shipping them to Ukraine may come quicker than Ukraine can field F-16s. Polish ones are pretty beat up and old version. Not a single new one was procured after fall of Warsaw Pact, so assuming East German ones were newer the newest one present is probably from around 1988. They did get some updates over the years, but as far as I know they were only comms and avionics. As for the rumors I've heard: remaining ~20 working MIGs were rebased to one airport, and supposedly they already are being moved in pieces over the border. It's also possible that Polish Airforce is simply emptying their stores of spare parts and ammo for those.
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Feb 17, 2023 10:13
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Another butcher steps up https://mobile.twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1626499289105956864
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Feb 17, 2023 10:27
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Antigravitas posted:N-TV reporting on a Süddeutsche article that is paywalled (and I don't pay for SZ I am not sure whether he can be trusted, but he is otherwise very pro-NATO and pro-Ukraine, so hopefully it is already resolved. Source is in Slovak, unfortunately. In other news, Finance director for Russia’s Western Military District found dead, possibly by suicide. Dwesa fucked around with this message at 10:58 on Feb 17, 2023 |
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Feb 17, 2023 10:51
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Dwesa posted:According to Slovak minister of defence, he admitted some problems, but it was due to some bureaucratic gently caress-up on the side of private German company that does those repairs and it was not due to high customs, they informed the German side and the issue is already resolved, he is not aware of equipment being delayed for weeks by this issue. hard to tell with Naď, because he's been a longtime lowlevel functionary in the ministry of defense and hasn't been in the spotlight much, but his career is fairly scandal-free and has been resolutely pro-nato from the beginning. plus he's young, most of the corruption cases or russian targets with the recent slovak governments were the older, socialist generations.
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Feb 17, 2023 11:05
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Girkin is currently lamenting how Shoigu blocking ammunition and supplies for Wagner risks undermining the entire effort to take Bakhmut.
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Feb 17, 2023 11:17
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Athas posted:Do you have a source or some details on this? It doesn't make sense to me. Almost 0% of the Russian Navy […] is in Ukraine at this point, Huh, I thought they still had a bunch of ships in Sevastopol?
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Feb 17, 2023 11:19
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Comparable to US killed and wounded during the entire Vietnam War https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1626472945089486848
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Feb 17, 2023 11:26
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Dwesa posted:According to Slovak minister of defence, he admitted some problems, but it was due to some bureaucratic gently caress-up on the side of private German company that does those repairs and it was not due to high customs, they informed the German side and the issue is already resolved, he is not aware of equipment being delayed for weeks by this issue. Reading the coffee residue in my cup: This looks like some lower-level fuckuppery that got escalated upwards until Important People got evolved to fix it, and now there's some public face saving going on while internal Nastygrams flow downward. Nobody involved has much interest in prosecuting this publicly so that'll be it for this story. I fully admit I'm just assuming this, but I've been in large orgs long enough to have a feel for this kind of thing 
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Feb 17, 2023 11:36
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Athas posted:Do you have a source or some details on this? It doesn't make sense to me. Almost 0% of the Russian Navy and a fairly small amount of the Russian Airforce is in Ukraine at this point, and surely those make up more than 3% of their total military. Also, what does "in" mean? Physically present (unlikely), or involved in the invasion on at least an organisational level? I can perhaps believe that 97% of the Russian ground forces are in some way involved, although obviously not by being concurrently physically present - maybe simply as reserves, or by transferring materiel. I think the poster is misremembering this resent statement from British defense secretary Ben Wallace: "Russia's failing strategy: Speaking to the BBC before heading into the Nato talks, British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said Russia had not been able to "punch through" Ukraine's defences, and that 97% of its army was estimated to be in Ukraine" https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-64634760 American officials set the estimated number somewhat lower "Western officials estimate that the vast majority of Russia’s army is now fighting in Ukraine. Britain’s defense secretary, Ben Wallace, told the BBC on Wednesday that “97 percent of the Russian army” is in Ukraine. U.S. defense officials estimate that about 80 percent of Russia’s ground forces are dedicated to the war effort." https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/15/world/europe/russia-ukraine-vuhledar-offensive.html
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Feb 17, 2023 12:20
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WarpedLichen posted:That smells like sensationalism to me, I wouldn't draw conclusions off of an interview based on yes/no questions. Surkov is a famous cocaine fiend and a pathological liar but the only reaction to what he says here is "no poo poo" because Russia clearly treated Minsk agreeements as a temporary measure to comfort ~deeply concerned~ european leaders before Ukraine breaks from internal pressure (and lets pro-Russian politicians into power). This did not happen (even with Zelensky being a dove) so Putin went all in. fatherboxx fucked around with this message at 12:50 on Feb 17, 2023 |
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Feb 17, 2023 12:40
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Rappaport posted:Finland has had a bit of a derail in the public conversation with a political researcher, who has an unfortunate following in the yellow press, making noises about NATO and us joining separately from Sweden. That said, our parliament seems (a link in Finnish, sorry) determined to vote on joining NATO before our parliamentary elections this spring. That's fairly interesting, cheers. Smells like Finland will just go if Turkey wraps the paperwork soon. DarklyDreaming posted: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 I guess that's also fair – I've just been assuming that they were getting whatever is the NATO Basic 201 for this, maybe corrected for not having 500 American jet fighters ready to turn every shadow into glass. Herstory Begins Now posted: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. Not really, no. Bakhmut is getting a lot of fortress mythology developed for it in real time, but I'm pretty sure the investment overall works out in favour of the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration, which has been the security capital of Donbas for the 8 years of occupation.
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Feb 17, 2023 13:43
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Charlz Guybon posted:Comparable to US killed and wounded during the entire Vietnam War That's a lot less killed than I expected based on what numbers have been thrown around previously.
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Feb 17, 2023 13:44
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TheRat posted:That's a lot less killed than I expected based on what numbers have been thrown around previously. That would probably me UAF-published numbers of Russian casualties, which are well into 6 digits of RuAF service members killed. The math for killed to wounded ration in generic combat is in the range of 1:3 to 1:5, which would mean 300-500k wounded on top of 100k dead. While we don't know accurately either of the numbers, and can't verify them with accuracy of, e.g., 10k, telling apart 50k dead + 100k wounded from 150k dead and 450-750k wounded is not _that_ difficult, rounding the numbers for legibility. How much of this is a methodology issue and how much of this is information fuckery is hard to tell, but also not that important to distinguish. You should know better than to be satisfied by numbers produced by either of the parties to the war alone. cinci zoo sniper fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Feb 17, 2023 |
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Feb 17, 2023 13:57
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fatherboxx posted:Surkov is a famous cocaine fiend and a pathological liar but the only reaction to what he says here is "no poo poo" because Russia clearly treated Minsk agreeements as a temporary measure to comfort ~deeply concerned~ european leaders before Ukraine breaks from internal pressure (and lets pro-Russian politicians into power). This did not happen (even with Zelensky being a dove) so Putin went all in. Yup. Its why the talk of ''War is hell! Why is the West being so bloodthirsty and prolonging the fighting? Why can't rational, sensible people in the West just negotiate a cease fire on Ukraine's behalf, trading a few insignificant provinces in exchange for peace?" Yes, war is horrible. Congratulations on such a deep and cutting insight. But Putin isn't interested in a cease fire, peace, or anything other than Ukraine as a permanently subjugated vassal state, under a puppet government. In an ideal world, he would probably prefer direct integration, but the failure of the initial goals of the invasion means that is no longer realistic. But control of a Ukrainian puppet regime is the absolute bare minimum he will accept. Anything else, including a cease-fire or some kind of Minsk 3 framework, is just a short-term expedient designed to pacify external voices (such as concerned Europeans) and generally smooth the way to achieving that goal - either through subsequent military action later on, active measures, or political/economic pressure. The only actual way to make him actually accept some kind of cease fire or peace agreement, is to make him realise that there is no prospect of even remotely achieving his current goals through military means, which will reduce the scope of his ambitions and eventually force him to the table.
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Feb 17, 2023 13:58
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https://www.cartoonbrew.com/box-office-report/cheburashka-top-russian-box-office-all-time-225942.html ‘Cheburashka’ Feature Crushes Russian Box Office Records In Its First Month quote:Within nine days of its January 1 wide release, the live-action/animated hybrid feature Cheburashka became the highest-grossing local film in Russian box office history. A few days later, it passed Avatar to become the biggest film in Russian box office history. Now, it’s nearly doubled its own record... Trailer for this masterpiece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1qvJL7NF9s 
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Feb 17, 2023 14:09
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Quixzlizx posted:It's amusing that self-loathing Americans are just as likely to indulge in American Exceptionalism as jingoists, only they view the US as Lex Luthor instead of Superman. No more like just classic trolling where a poster gets way more entertainment from posting one or two sentences to provoke paragraphs of response. This guy shouldn't have been taken seriously after the first few posts.
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Feb 17, 2023 14:16
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cinci zoo sniper posted:That's fairly interesting, cheers. Smells like Finland will just go if Turkey wraps the paperwork soon. It would be some egg on the face of our president and prime minister if we didn't join NATO. Of course there are reasons why our stated intention of "going with Sweden" are meaningful, but the political climate and the will of our glorious leaders has shifted so far into the pro-NATO-sphere that maybe our cousins next door are not as important.
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Feb 17, 2023 14:17
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WWI numbers right there https://mobile.twitter.com/Flash_news_ua/status/1626528856755634176
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Feb 17, 2023 14:24
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Man Plan Canal posted:https://www.cartoonbrew.com/box-office-report/cheburashka-top-russian-box-office-all-time-225942.html A bit surprised to see Zakharchenko go into cinematography, but the trailer itself is significantly above average for a film made in post-Soviet Russia.
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Feb 17, 2023 14:27
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Re Russian army casualties, there was definitely a significant uptick that corresponds with Bakhmut/Vuhledar advancs. BBC Russia monitor information about burials from local officials, newspapers, and social media. They only count Russian Armed Forces soldiers and officers, meaning, no Wagner or LDNR. Last week they identified over 1,000 soldiers compared to the usual 300-400 a week before December and 500-600 since. Obviously, not every soldier gets a press release, which is why BBC's data shows a disproportionate amount of officers. The real numbers are likely much higher, but even confirmed casualties estimate is comparable to USSR's losses in Afghanistan over the entire 10 year long campaign (~15,000).
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Feb 17, 2023 14:28
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