(Thread IKs:
fatherboxx)
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Djarum posted:Just a comedy of errors really. Don’t forget they also broke their relationship with Europe as energy supplier over this. It’s huge.
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May 23, 2023 18:16
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MikeC posted:It is at times like these that I really dislike how the modern usage of the word fascist (among other terms) has grown so wide and nebulous that it ceases to have any real meaning and is instead used whenever a person seeks to preemptively take the moral high ground to shut down discussion on their position. Fascism is a pretty useless term these days. People will support authoritarian regimes conducting genocides, heavy use of propaganda, using nationalism to start wars, jailing/murdering members of the opposition, running concentration camps etc, as long as they don't make use of certain specific aesthetics. To me, the aesthetics of fascism is possibly the least objectionable aspect of it, but to others, it's the only thing that matters. Conscription can be a powerful tool for resisting fascism. Smaller countries can put up a plausible defense against larger neighbours using conscription, which would be difficult with an entirely professional army. Ideally, it also equalises society more, since conscription ideally hits everyone equally, whether rich or poor or black or white or whatever. In practice, that's not always the case, especially not in places like Russia, but still. Not having a dedicated warrior class means you don't need to find busywork for your warrior class, which should be good for peace. I feel like people will also be less likely to support aggressive wars if their family will be directly affected due to conscription, but I don't have any sources for that.
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May 23, 2023 18:49
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HonorableTB posted:Russia can't deal with 200 guys in a few humvees taking over border villages in a day-plus long raid. I'm pretty sure this counteroffensive is going to go well for Ukraine. They didn't think of building some trenches and dragon teeth there!
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May 23, 2023 18:58
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Nenonen posted:They didn't think of building some trenches and dragon teeth there! They built dragon teeth. They just didn't cover the road used since they didn't want to block that. And of course it was barely manned. Storkrasch posted:
OddObserver fucked around with this message at 19:07 on May 23, 2023 |
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May 23, 2023 19:02
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Storkrasch posted:
USA circa 1965-1973
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May 23, 2023 19:14
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While I wouldn't call Ukraine a fascist state, I wish they'd stop giving heavy weaponry to nazis https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1660980457993822209?s=20
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May 23, 2023 19:26
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adebisi lives posted:While I wouldn't call Ukraine a fascist state, I wish they'd stop giving heavy weaponry to nazis "The guy on the far right" WHICH ONE???  (also, you might tell the same to Russians, except I guess they would have the same reaction as above)
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May 23, 2023 19:41
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The Nazis are out of Ukraine, I would call denazification a rousing success.
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May 23, 2023 19:55
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Tesseraction posted:Every now and again I do have to appreciate how Ukraine started this conflict off being invaded from three sides and not only held out but have pushed the battlefront east of the Dnieper. Finland's Winter War comes to mind, although I'm hoping this ends in happier circumstances. Time is fuzzy these days - so outlook may have been different back then, but I recall it being months after the war broke out - but I remember several Finnish experts saying that Ukraine is unlikely to come out of the conflict less scathed compared to Winter War (3 months) or the Continuation War (3 years 2 months). Even with the land concessions Finland had to make I have an inkling that the damage to infrastructure has already far exceeded Finland's troubles. I don't have comparative numbers between the two, but the war in Ukraine's sake feels more total with regards to damage to population centers and infrastructure despite Russia not even officially declaring a full mobilization. Basic goods were definitely harder to come by in Finland during the wars though. Times after the war were definitely hard in Finland and the nation was basically still quite a backwater compared today or the decades after, and the considerable war reparations to the Soviet Union forced Finland to renew its economy and the entire society/education etc. to produce different kinds of products, which ironically opened the Soviet markets for Finnish exports. "The boom years" and economic growth might have been inevitable for the young nation thanks to the age pyramid and other societal aspects regardless, though. All of this is not in order to criticise Ukrainian efforts of defending itself. Despite Russia being a big boogeyman in Finland's case and the war being absolutely total, Russia feels more malicious (and capable) in damaging civilian infrastructure than in WW2. This is not to downplay Finnish civilian casualties. Apparently OCHR has about 8000 confirmed civilian casualties in Ukraine, Finnish casualties were about a thousand in the winter war, which seems to be the number for continuation war as well. Finnish population was less than one tenth of Ukraine's today. But then again modern construction\shelters etc. One thing I imagine is for sure though is that foreign and internal politics in Ukraine are bound to be way more antagonistic towards Russian views or Russia in general than they were in Finland post-war. All in all I guess you can't compare them apples to apples but I just generally feel that hoping that this ends in happier circumstances for Ukraine sounds a little naive, be it foreign/internal politics, economic damages, land concessions or lives lost or traumatised. That is not to be doomposting, but to echo of the opinions stated by Finnish historians/experts while not downplaying either conflict. I don't mean to criticise the poster, but I felt this had to be stated. Edit: one aspect is that the Soviets didn't make it to major population centers aside from Vyborg which was the 2nd most populous city at the time, and even it was evacuated. (to what degree of success I'm not sure) Dessel fucked around with this message at 20:16 on May 23, 2023 |
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May 23, 2023 20:05
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Dessel posted:Time is fuzzy these days - so outlook may have been different back then, but I recall it being months after the war broke out - but I remember several Finnish experts saying that Ukraine is unlikely to come out of the conflict less scathed compared to Winter War (3 months) or the Continuation War (3 years 2 months). Even with the land concessions Finland had to make I have an inkling that the damage to infrastructure has already far exceeded Finland's troubles. Yeah, I get what you mean. The land concessions Finland was forced to do were large, but the devastation brought by the war was more or less contained to the regions given to Soviet Union. Those were also mostly evacuated of civilian population by the front reached the areas, or wilderness and forests, so that's why the numbers stayed low. So basically "only" thing Finland had to do was to new homes for the 250 000 or so displaced Karelians, and rebuild the industry to pay the very unfair war reparations to Soviet Union. SU deciding to for once try appeasement instead of hostility and giving back the Porkkala base in 1957 meant that the full occupation would not happen, at least for now and we might survive without the fate similar to the Baltic countries. Hindsight is 20/20, but it could have been much, much worse.
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May 23, 2023 20:18
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adebisi lives posted:While I wouldn't call Ukraine a fascist state, I wish they'd stop giving heavy weaponry to nazis They got that at the local military surplus store though? Also what about the rusych battalion
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May 23, 2023 20:19
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It's been a while since we've had a "here's a picture of some random right-wing rear end in a top hat fighting against Russia, hint hint guess the vast majority of Ukraine's government and military really is nazis" post.
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May 23, 2023 20:22
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Nazi Jew Zelensky want to kill all the Jew -- very nice! (Borat) (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 23, 2023 20:26
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Moon Slayer posted:It's been a while since we've had a "here's a picture of some random right-wing rear end in a top hat fighting against Russia, hint hint guess the vast majority of Ukraine's government and military really is nazis" post. Well this one isnt random its pretty much a whole unit of Russian nazi emigres that Ukraine (either SBU or GUR) kits out to do these PR raids.
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May 23, 2023 20:34
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It's a good thing that the militaries of NATO countries aren't completely stuffed to the brim with nazis and fascists. If they were, the whataboutism would be pretty embarrassing.
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May 23, 2023 20:39
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fatherboxx posted:Well this one isnt random its pretty much a whole unit of Russian nazi emigres that Ukraine (either SBU or GUR) kits out to do these PR raids. Which I guess, is the whole point: Either they make themselves annoying in Russia, outside of Ukraine, or Russia bombs their own villages until those pesky intruders are dead. Win-win on the denazification front!
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May 23, 2023 20:40
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Josep Borrell says that EU has now delivered 220k artillery shells out of the 1 million shells promised to Ukraine in March 
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May 23, 2023 20:50
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Djarum posted:Bakhmut I think was a purposeful campaign for Ukraine. They realized that Russia was going to expend everything they could to take it and try to proclaim some victory at any cost. It cost them dearly in both blood and treasure, while Ukraine lost some it was calculated and far, far less. Tying them up for almost a year also depleted resources that could have solidified lines elsewhere. So Russia was able to take a location that is relatively insignificant, at great cost while hurting themselves elsewhere. I don't see how how any counter offensive is going to yield meaningful results given the time that Russia has had to fortify the gently caress out of their side of the front. There's multiple layers of defense, minefields, pre-sighted artillery, anti-tank ditches, dragons teeth and an extensive trench network rivalling that of WW1 powers. Ukraine is already kind of outgunned and outnumbered using its defensive advantage to wear down Russian troops on the attack, even if they can clear a strip or two out of the minefields and blast their way through the defenses they are going to be advancing along narrow corridors while constantly hammered with artillery. If they aren't perfectly coordinated and fast in their actions it's going to gently caress up and they'll get eaten alive. In this scenario the only way an equivalent NATO force could gain an edge is using their air assets to bomb the gently caress out of the area and provide CAS which again is impossible due to lethal layers of ground based air defence provided by Russia. I think Ukraine delaying the offensive has to do with these realizations. I'm sure they have a core of reasonably well trained NATO standard troops with NATO standard weapons, but they get maybe 1 shot and if it fucks up or fails to achieve meaningful results I think we'll end up in a stalemate.
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May 23, 2023 20:51
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about this conflict for centuries to come.
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WarpedLichen posted:The Nazis are out of Ukraine, I would call denazification a rousing success. pretty smart to just export the russian nazis back to russia, imo
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May 23, 2023 21:24
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Moon Slayer posted:Interesting "man on the front lines" interview retweeted by Def Mon. Is anyone able to expand upon what he means by Soviet Mindset? How is this different compared to other militaries?
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May 23, 2023 21:47
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:Is anyone able to expand upon what he means by Soviet Mindset? How is this different compared to other militaries? - 'rules based' warfare that tends to be inflexible when scenarios change or special circumstances are encountered, particularly in the short term - relatedly, a lack of allowed or desired initiative at low levels - also relatedly, the 'garbage in, garbage out' problem that some have noted, where incentives lead to lies or exaggerations that results in doubling down when they really, really shouldn't. (The rules say to exploit reported breakthroughs, but if someone hmmm slightly exaggerates whether theyve made a breakthrough then you end up throwing your reinforcements into a wood chipper.)
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May 23, 2023 21:53
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:Is anyone able to expand upon what he means by Soviet Mindset? How is this different compared to other militaries? What people often mean is that Soviet militaries are top-down and hierarchical, where commanders provide very detailed objectives that should be followed fully by the soldiers with no deviation. NATO emphasises mission command, where soldiers are given an objective, but they have more freedom for how to make it happen.
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May 23, 2023 21:55
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It's why you had generals getting murked sorting out problems that in the West a major would have already been working on.
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May 23, 2023 21:55
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:Is anyone able to expand upon what he means by Soviet Mindset? How is this different compared to other militaries? The Soviet mindset refers to among other things a culture of covering your rear end to the detriment of your strategic success. Many of the Russian failures can be attributed to holdovers from the Soviet Union where nobody wants to be the bearer of bad news and it encourages lies instead of truth when it comes to situational awareness for top battlefield commanders. The Soviet mindset also ties into their doctrine which was derived from WW2 era deep operations. Specifically leveraging massed artillery firepower and using other weapons as if they were a substitute for mass artillery firepower to engineer a breakthrough which then leads to combined mechanized groups exploiting that weakness and pushing forward at all costs until they reach the strategic objective outlined in their battle plans. The problem with this is that the Soviet military removes individual initiative from the NCO corps and junior officers to adapt to battlefield conditions. They lose almost all sense of creativity and the only tool left in your tactical arsenal is a proverbial hammer. In the Ukrainian armed forces there are two generations. You have former Soviet Union military officers, many of whom were pulled out of retirement because there wasn’t anyone around butting heads against a new generation of NCOs and junior officers trained according to NATO standards. The Soviet doctrine expects deference to your superiors, micromanagement from higher ranked officers and rigid adherence to initial battle plans often with minimal communication or updates once the plan is in the execution phase. The NCOs and Junior officers expect to receive general orders like “take this position” and then they would come up with how they would execute this task on their own and feed more specific tactical plans and orders based on the strategic goals their officers expect them to achieve. The battle of Kiyiv is an example of this at work where a lot of initiative taken by people on the ground led to successful resistance against the Russians that otherwise wouldn’t be possible if they were following Soviet model command and control. Everyone in the absence of greater detail from command basically made their own plans to execute battle plans to defend the place on a local level with little input from above.
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May 23, 2023 22:00
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Kraftwerk posted:I don't see how how any counter offensive is going to yield meaningful results given the time that Russia has had to fortify the gently caress out of their side of the front. There's multiple layers of defense, minefields, pre-sighted artillery, anti-tank ditches, dragons teeth and an extensive trench network rivalling that of WW1 powers. Ukraine is already kind of outgunned and outnumbered using its defensive advantage to wear down Russian troops on the attack, even if they can clear a strip or two out of the minefields and blast their way through the defenses they are going to be advancing along narrow corridors while constantly hammered with artillery. If they aren't perfectly coordinated and fast in their actions it's going to gently caress up and they'll get eaten alive. In this scenario the only way an equivalent NATO force could gain an edge is using their air assets to bomb the gently caress out of the area and provide CAS which again is impossible due to lethal layers of ground based air defence provided by Russia. You’re assuming any of these fortifications are actually functional, and that someone didn’t steal, barter, sell off, or otherwise trade the materials used in creating at least some of those defenses. The previous dragon’s teeth that were completely hollow come to mind.
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May 23, 2023 22:03
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It should perhaps be noted why the soviet system was the way it was. Push logistics and warfare as a science with formulas where you put in numbers and get a deterministic battle plan works well on a battlefield where communication is severely lacking. In the case of WW2 they had field telephones and very limited radio, and communication in the field involved runners. The assumption the old Soviet army was built around is this: On the future battlefield most of your radios would be slag shortly after the war goes hot. And massed artillery is an evergreen if you can't have air dominance.
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May 23, 2023 22:17
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Kraftwerk posted:I don't see how how any counter offensive is going to yield meaningful results given the time that Russia has had to fortify the gently caress out of their side of the front. There's multiple layers of defense, minefields, pre-sighted artillery, anti-tank ditches, dragons teeth and an extensive trench network rivalling that of WW1 powers. Ukraine is already kind of outgunned and outnumbered using its defensive advantage to wear down Russian troops on the attack, even if they can clear a strip or two out of the minefields and blast their way through the defenses they are going to be advancing along narrow corridors while constantly hammered with artillery. If they aren't perfectly coordinated and fast in their actions it's going to gently caress up and they'll get eaten alive. In this scenario the only way an equivalent NATO force could gain an edge is using their air assets to bomb the gently caress out of the area and provide CAS which again is impossible due to lethal layers of ground based air defence provided by Russia. It doesn't matter how well you fortify there is always going to be weak points in a defense and by most accounts they haven't fortified much of their lines and much of what they have looks badly done, see the fake Dragon's Teeth that was just mentioned. Even the trenching that has been done has either been done nonsensically or incorrectly. Pre-sighted artillery are a liability and can be destroyed by various options available to the Ukrainians. Even then Russia has limited artillery ammunition to engage in a long term defense. This isn't a year ago where they could launch tens of thousands of shells a day. Also Ukraine has the forces to conduct two full scale offensives at the same time which I don't think Russia has the ability to defend both which we saw last year with the offensives. Russia chose to defend the Northern Advance while the Southern mostly went on without a ton of resistance and ultimately took Kherson without a fight. You are likely to see much the same scenario again this time in which Russia has to pick and choose what front is most important, my guess is the Northern one again especially with the incursions into Belgorod there will be a lot of pressure for the military to protect the border.
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May 23, 2023 22:32
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Good reply, thanks all.Djarum posted:It doesn't matter how well you fortify there is always going to be weak points in a defense and by most accounts they haven't fortified much of their lines and much of what they have looks badly done, see the fake Dragon's Teeth that was just mentioned. Even the trenching that has been done has either been done nonsensically or incorrectly. Pre-sighted artillery are a liability and can be destroyed by various options available to the Ukrainians. Even then Russia has limited artillery ammunition to engage in a long term defense. This isn't a year ago where they could launch tens of thousands of shells a day. Is there also a risk the Russian forces in the Country just kind of... collapse? Like, they don't have enough troops for a real full scale occupation and with that how do they intend to keep supply lines open with the countryside is hostile?
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May 23, 2023 22:45
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I think Russian troops are more likely to abandon their positions than most people are expecting. I don't think it's going to be easy but there should be some soft spots that allow opportunity. If Ukraine's casualty/equipment reports are even slightly tethered to reality then they have been hunting artillery. Yesterday's numbers are almost quadruple their average for the war and double what they've been running the last week or two. There's been a significant uptick there.
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May 23, 2023 23:02
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Djarum posted:fake Dragon's Teeth https://twitter.com/MMaenpaa1/status/1659934483758436353
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May 23, 2023 23:03
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:Is there also a risk the Russian forces in the Country just kind of... collapse? Like, they don't have enough troops for a real full scale occupation and with that how do they intend to keep supply lines open with the countryside is hostile? Well in warfare generally you are holding points on a map. Like 90% of the territory Russia controls in Ukraine there isn't a member of the Russian forces anywhere near them. A good 70% are at various points at the front lines and the other 30% are at various places in the rear; depots, HQ, staging areas along with small garrisons in larger population centers. Now there is a legitimate concern that supply lines can get cut off in which troops at the front need to retreat. This is why Ukraine has been targeting things like supply hubs, ammo dumps, supply depots and command centers. It's a lot easier to cut off the supplies to an enemy to defeat them than to engage them directly.
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May 23, 2023 23:03
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Djarum posted:Also Ukraine has the forces to conduct two full scale offensives at the same time which I don't think Russia has the ability to defend Are you joking or are you for real? or perhaps you're a comedian actor like Zelensky?!? Ukraine army is decimated, the only reason they (sometimes) put up a fight against the russians is because of the countless billions of dollars/euros of military hardware we send them from the west. Also many of those billions are used to keep afloat the ukrainian corrupt and bankrupted state too (for paying salaries of all the public clerks, administrative personnel, etc.): thank God there is Orban who put a stop to this. Enjoy while it lasts, because soon all the money flow from us stupid westerners will end!  (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 23, 2023 23:41
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:Good reply, thanks all. Yes. Also the puppet regimes in the Donbas could easily just disappear once the hand in the puppet falls away- like it did in afganistan, south Vietnam and Lebanon.
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May 23, 2023 23:49
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Antigravitas posted:It should perhaps be noted why the soviet system was the way it was. What you said, but also that when the Red Army that won the war was built, they could field a limited amount of well-trained and experienced officers but almost nothing could be expected from the largely untrained and often only barely literate junior officers. This lead to a system where the higher levels worked their rear end off to micromanage everything, and the job of the junior officers was strictly to implement the commands of their superiors. This really wasn't a bad way to do it given the constraints they were working under after the first two armies they raised and most their officers got killed by the Nazis. But they could have easily fixed all their structural issues after the war ended, they didn't, instead they just ossified the system as it was.
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May 24, 2023 00:02
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MikeC posted:
Why is the civic responsibility to the state override the individual liberty to life? Isn't that the most important freedom of all? Moreover, what about offensive actions that institute drafts like the Vietnam and Korean conflicts? Doesn't the fact that western democracies like the US regularly lie about the need to defend oneself from foreign adversaries muddy the water? Cpt_Obvious fucked around with this message at 00:26 on May 24, 2023 |
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May 24, 2023 00:22
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Cpt_Obvious posted:Why is the civic responsibility to the state override the individual liberty to life? Isn't that the most important freedom of all? A state which refuses to defend itself is a state which will fail. For better or worse, that means conscription. To the extent that states can get away with not defending themselves, its because someone else does it for them. In practice that has meant American hegemony.
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May 24, 2023 00:31
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Cpt_Obvious posted:Why is the civic responsibility to the state override the individual liberty to life? Isn't that the most important freedom of all? No individual liberty is absolute, and every liberty must be weighed against the community. The understanding that a citizen has a duty to defend their community predates the state. You can look as far back as the Greek polis and its hoplites for examples. You might say in this modern era that dying for one's community, be that a state or otherwise, is outdated, but it is a fairly standard expectation for citizenship throughout history. It's as much a part of the social contract as taxes. If you want to make a broader anarchist argument about the tyranny of the state and how it sends those at the bottom of the hierarchy to die, or perhaps a broader communist argument about the tyranny of the bourgeoisie and how they send the lower classes to die, fine. There's a perfectly valid argument to be had there about how military service is unjustly distributed. Same argument for women not being subject to the draft. But that isn't an argument about the justice of military service in general. Communists and anarchists fought against fascism in the Spanish Civil War, and they continue to fight today in Ukraine against the same. I really don't see how Ukraine doing everything it can to fight off a genocidal imperialistic invasion can at all be mistaken for fascism.
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May 24, 2023 00:44
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Cpt_Obvious posted:Why is the civic responsibility to the state override the individual liberty to life? Isn't that the most important freedom of all? That individual liberty to life is not free. It doesnt exist independent of any context. If no one defends your liberty, including yourself, you will find that you wont have any liberty when someone hostile comes knocking. A nation/tribe/social construct that refuses to actually act to protect its internally decided rules and freedom will lose that choice when someone comes to impose their ideas on you. And their ideas may not include any freedom.
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May 24, 2023 01:08
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The discussion of whether or not you are morally obligated to answer the call when your nation is attacked might be interesting, but its a bit off-topic unless we have some kind of relevant and Ukraine-specific development. The border has been (officially) closed to young men who wanted to leave quite a while ago.
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May 24, 2023 01:29
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An interesting tidbit. Otherwise, today's DOD press brief didn't have much about Ukraine. There are only so many ways to ask "when will Ukraine get F-16s" and receive an answer of "Don't know yet" or ways to ask "Was defending Bakhmut worth it" and getting the answer of "Ask Ukraine, but Russia took a lot of casualties" in return. https://www.defense.gov/News/Transc...press-briefing/ quote:GEN. RYDER: You know, look, as I mentioned before, we have been working very closely with our allies and partners to help Ukraine build up its combat power. They have nine mechanized armored brigades that we've provided, they have significant air defense capability. The entire world has come together to ensure that they have ammunition, and importantly, we're also providing training and we're working very closely with them on sustainment and logistics aspects. And this bit: quote:Q: Thank you, General. Regarding to F-16s, what assurances do you have from Ukraine that they will not use these F-16s to fire into Russia -- I mean, their territory, which could widen this war? Thank you.
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May 24, 2023 01:30
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