Ukraine: The Aristoblyats

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Internet VFW > Ukraine: The Aristoblyats

JudgeJoeBrown: Mar 23, 2007

psydude posted:

The MIC has been dragging its feet. The US and other allies are trying to get them to ramp up production, and they're holding off because none of the governments are committing to long term contracts.

?????

What companies, in what countries, and in what sectors of the mic?

# ? Jun 16, 2023 11:08

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# ? Jun 5, 2024 11:02

psydude: Apr 1, 2008

JudgeJoeBrown posted:

?????

What companies, in what countries, and in what sectors of the mic?

https://econ.st/3XaA3jq

https://econ.st/3paJrXW

quote:

Currently, America can make about 180,000 155mm shells a year, while Europe, according to Bastian Giegerich of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think-tank, produced about 300,000 last year. All told, that amounts to barely three months’ consumption for Ukraine.

...

Part of the problem is a tendency, among both politicians and soldiers, to prioritise purchases of “platforms”, eg, ships and planes, over the munitions that they fire. “You can’t buy nine-tenths of a ship,” says Eric Fanning, a former Pentagon official now at the Aerospace Industries Association, a lobby group, “But you can buy nine-tenths of the number of missiles you need.” Munitions thus become the “bill-payer” of weapons procurement, explains Stacie Pettyjohn of cnas, a think-tank.

Big American and European defence contractors tend to sell to just one buyer: their home governments. “When I walk into a hardware store I am always going to be able to buy a hammer because there are lots of customers for it. But in the defence industry, when the government stops buying something, it disappears,” says Mr Fanning.

Even for weapons still in production, arms manufacturers gear their capacity to what they expect to be asked to make. “The us defence industrial base is scoped for maximum efficiency at peacetime production,” says Jim Taiclet, the boss of Lockheed Martin, America’s biggest defence conglomerate. That means, in effect, that contractors usually have the capacity to make munitions only at the pace needed to replace those expended in training.

Western governments and defence contractors are now scrambling to increase their output. The rush has echoes of the early days of covid-19 when countries found they had hardly any reserve stocks of protective clothing or ventilators. Unfortunately, it takes a bit longer to set up production lines and supply chains for weapons than it does for rubber gloves and face masks. Doug Bush, the us army’s acquisition chief, says the Pentagon has learnt from the experience of the pandemic to issue contracts with unprecedented speed and give industry a clear “demand signal”. Congress, meanwhile, has authorised greater use of multi-year contracting to give firms more certainty about that demand. However, until now, such contracts have been used mainly for expensive planes, ships or tanks, not the munitions they fire. Money is also being spent on clearing production bottlenecks

...

But for all the talk of urgency, European governments have not been signing many procurement contracts. Mr Papperger has said he is prepared to “pre-finance” some of the investment required to accelerate production of shells and missiles, but there are limits to what private companies will do without firm orders.

Ukraine, meanwhile, needs weapons now, both to fend off a Russian offensive and to launch one of its own. Shells are the most pressing requirement, but the rapid depletion of guided munitions, particularly Javelins and Stingers, may cause even greater problems in future. Even at newly accelerated rates of production, according to Mark Cancian of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (csis), an American think-tank, replacing the 8,500 Javelins that Ukraine has received will take nearly seven years. As for Stingers, Ukraine has already received as many (1,600) as all buyers bar America over the past 20 years. The Pentagon will probably order more advanced alternatives instead of Stingers for itself, but to replace those used in Ukraine would take more than six years.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 11:33

orange juche: Mar 14, 2012

Hannibal Rex posted:

dude

Was Poland not a part of the USSR? E: nope, Warsaw pact nation. Defacto they were under the same thumb as Ukraine until the Soviet Union collapsed. Poland bounced back, Ukraine didn't.

orange juche fucked around with this message at 11:59 on Jun 16, 2023

# ? Jun 16, 2023 11:54

armpit_enjoyer: Jan 25, 2023; my god. it's full of posts

orange juche posted:

Poland and Ukraine are both former USSR republics

my guy

e: Poland "bounced back" by implenting a reaganomics-based "shock therapy" economic transformation plan devised by Jeffrey Sachs and our own finance minister Leszek Balcerowicz. It led to the collapse and the subsequent selling off of every state-owned industry, a recession that lasted throughout most of the nineties, the gutting of our public healthcare, education, transportation and housing. I'm not sure if I'd recommend the same route for any other country.

armpit_enjoyer fucked around with this message at 12:13 on Jun 16, 2023

# ? Jun 16, 2023 12:06

orange juche: Mar 14, 2012

armpit_enjoyer posted:

my guy

e: Poland "bounced back" by implenting a reaganomics-based "shock therapy" economic transformation plan devised by Jeffrey Sachs and our own finance minister Leszek Balcerowicz. It led to the collapse and the subsequent selling off of every state-owned industry, a recession that lasted throughout most of the nineties, the gutting of our public healthcare, education, transportation and housing. I'm not sure if I'd recommend the same route for any other country.

I wouldn't recommend what happened to former Warsaw pact nations to anyone, not a single nation which was in the Soviet orbit did great coming out of the collapse (I think almost every former republic or pact nation did the same bullshit shock therapy thing), but the former states and countries that became part of the EU have been on a steady upward trend where places like Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan etc. kinda didn't go anywhere and have been marred by corruption and poo poo governments.

orange juche fucked around with this message at 12:25 on Jun 16, 2023

# ? Jun 16, 2023 12:22

Computer viking: May 30, 2011; Now with less breakage.

The other commonality between a lot of the non-EU Warsaw pact/USSR countries is Russian meddling, though I guess you could count that as one of the drawbacks of not being an EU member.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 12:26

Tiny Timbs: Sep 6, 2008

Is that �r3ich industrial base� line some Tucker Carlson talking point? It�s not the usual single-minded obsession with Azov.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 12:26

ded: Oct 27, 2005; Kooler than Jesus

what will you say when your child asks "why didn't you invest in eastern poland"

# ? Jun 16, 2023 12:31

Alchenar: Apr 9, 2008

There is absolutely an entirely self-interested view of the world where it is in NATO's interests to throw arms into Ukraine in order to grind down Russia's war machine and reduce the threat to the west.

The problem is that even if this the prevailing motivation was that this is some great cynical trap for Russia, it is one that Russia can avoid by... just not invading Ukraine.

E: I think people also underestimate the massive economic challenge of the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Sure shock therapy wasn't pleasant, but it was successful in the long run and there was absolutely massive amounts of financial aid to stop the whole thing from falling apart. The counterfactual isn't everything going along just the same, the counterfactual is being on the edge of total state collapse.

Alchenar fucked around with this message at 12:39 on Jun 16, 2023

# ? Jun 16, 2023 12:33

Computer viking: May 30, 2011; Now with less breakage.

Alchenar posted:

There is absolutely an entirely self-interested view of the world where it is in NATO's interests to throw arms into Ukraine in order to grind down Russia's war machine and reduce the threat to the west.

The problem is that even if this the prevailing motivation was that this is some great cynical trap for Russia, it is one that Russia can avoid by... just not invading Ukraine.

And even if they got there for the wrong reasons, it's still ultimately the right thing to do - denying military support because it does not come from a place of pure altruism is just looking for an excuse.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 12:36

PurpleXVI: Oct 30, 2011; Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Computer viking posted:

The other commonality between a lot of the non-EU Warsaw pact/USSR countries is Russian meddling, though I guess you could count that as one of the drawbacks of not being an EU member.

Being a member of the EU does not innoculate against Russian meddling. It makes you immune to overt threats of Russian force, but Russia is still responsible for its fair share of fuckery in the EU and I can only hope that the economic squeeze put on them by the sanctions, combined with losing a huge chunk of their "diplomatic" staff throughout the EU over the last year or so, will limit the amount of bullshit we see from them in the near future. And then you've got the issue of willing Russian pawns like that fuckface Orban, who's been enough of an rear end in a top hat that there have been rumblings from the EU about reforming the mechanisms where the entire EU has to agree on something to make it happen, to prevent shithead roadblocks like him from sinking the whole project.

Though yeah, poo poo like Transnistria wouldn't have happened if Moldova had been a member of the EU or NATO in 1991.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 12:36

Rust Martialis: May 8, 2007; by Fluffdaddy
(and can't post for 5 days!)

Tiny Timbs posted:

Is that �r3ich industrial base� line some Tucker Carlson talking point? It�s not the usual single-minded obsession with Azov.

#start

Well since *only* the West can be imperialist, it's every good leftist's duty to oppose anything they do. As the good comrades on World Socialist Web Site said in mid-2022 about the efforts by Ukraine to detach Azov from it's neo-Nazi origins by incorporating it into the official military, etc.:

quote:

These efforts are no doubt coordinated with Washington as part of an attempt at �damage control� amid growing suspicion and wariness about Western propaganda on the war in Ukraine and the �democratic� pretenses of the imperialist powers, in particular. The imperialist powers, with the US taking the lead, have been funding these neo-Nazi militias with billions of dollars as COVID-relief measures have been scrapped and inflation at home is tearing away at basic living standards.

As *clearly* shown, Ukraine is absolutely controlled and run by the neo-Nazi far-right, to the point Zelenskyy is totally under their control - if he doesn't obey them he will be assassinated. Any evidence to the contrary is simply manufactured by the CIA and the MIC. Anyone repeating such false information is simply a dumb lib.

#end

I think I got some parts of the argument, it's hard to smooth over all the contradictions and bridge the gaps.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 12:48

Jarmak: Jan 24, 2005

Alchenar posted:

There is absolutely an entirely self-interested view of the world where it is in NATO's interests to throw arms into Ukraine in order to grind down Russia's war machine and reduce the threat to the west.

The problem is that even if this the prevailing motivation was that this is some great cynical trap for Russia, it is one that Russia can avoid by... just not invading Ukraine.

E: I think people also underestimate the massive economic challenge of the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Sure shock therapy wasn't pleasant, but it was successful in the long run and there was absolutely massive amounts of financial aid to stop the whole thing from falling apart. The counterfactual isn't everything going along just the same, the counterfactual is being on the edge of total state collapse.

Self-interest aligning with the right thing to do doesn't change that it's the right thing to do. Ukraine is an occasion of the USA living up to its mythology of being "the good guy" because I don't think that's been an occasion since WW2 where cynical self-interest and the right thing to do have been so closely aligned.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 12:52

psydude: Apr 1, 2008

Jarmak posted:

Self-interest aligning with the right thing to do doesn't change that it's the right thing to do. Ukraine is an occasion of the USA living up to its mythology of being "the good guy" because I don't think that's been an occasion since WW2 where cynical self-interest and the right thing to do have been so closely aligned.

Desert Storm?

# ? Jun 16, 2023 12:53

Koesj: Aug 3, 2003

armpit_enjoyer posted:

e: Poland "bounced back" by implenting a reaganomics-based "shock therapy" economic transformation plan devised by Jeffrey Sachs and our own finance minister Leszek Balcerowicz. It led to the collapse and the subsequent selling off of every state-owned industry, a recession that lasted throughout most of the nineties, the gutting of our public healthcare, education, transportation and housing. I'm not sure if I'd recommend the same route for any other country.

Oh man, transitology, I definitely flunked it the first time around for a CEES class back in the day.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 13:17

Jarmak: Jan 24, 2005

psydude posted:

Desert Storm?

That's what I get for posting before coffee.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 13:41

OddObserver: Apr 3, 2009

armpit_enjoyer posted:

my guy

e: Poland "bounced back" by implenting a reaganomics-based "shock therapy" economic transformation plan devised by Jeffrey Sachs and our own finance minister Leszek Balcerowicz. It led to the collapse and the subsequent selling off of every state-owned industry, a recession that lasted throughout most of the nineties, the gutting of our public healthcare, education, transportation and housing. I'm not sure if I'd recommend the same route for any other country.

Except the current state of things in Poland economically is pretty good (things like abortion rights are another story). Ukraine went through all that and the economy is still awful.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 13:43

shame on an IGA: Apr 8, 2005

If you really want to have fun messing with them, the tankie line on Ukraine has clear implications on the israel/palestine conflict that they really can't handle hearing that logic applied to

# ? Jun 16, 2023 14:35

psydude: Apr 1, 2008

OddObserver posted:

Except the current state of things in Poland economically is pretty good (things like abortion rights are another story). Ukraine went through all that and the economy is still awful.

Their economy was on the climb before Russia invaded, though. Aside from agriculture, they had a fairly robust software and technology sector in Kyiv and Odessa, as well as strong industrial output in the east. Obviously being part of a massive free trade bloc would help (especially with an export-focused economy), but I'd be curious if they rush to join Schengen, given the threat of a brain drain from folks who can't wait out the reconstruction.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 16:08

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

The looting of the resources the soviets built didn't all happen immediately after the USSR collapsed either. A lot of the former soviet science ministries in Russia successfully weathered the 90's, only to be looted in the '05 to '11 period.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 16:24

KakerMix: Apr 8, 2004; 8.2 M.P.G.

Hyperlynx posted:

Really? You've seen "It's reasonable to have concerns about supporting Ukraine while still supporting them" a million times?

Yes because it's a mealy mouthed 'im just asking questions' take you've seen before. Ukraine has been invaded by Russia and they do not want them there. It is 100% morally correct and right to do whatever we can to help Ukraine maintain their sovereignty.
Russia can end all this if they just leave.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 16:48

Hyrax Attack!: Jan 13, 2009; We demand to be taken seriously

SerthVarnee posted:

They've also recently made massive reforms in their supreme courts and judicial systems, even going so far as to hold some of the highest ranking judges accountable for taking bribes.

Whoa you can do that?

# ? Jun 16, 2023 17:51

Lovely Joe Stalin: Jun 12, 2007; Our Lovely Wang

Nessus posted:

Now there's a post/username combo

I'm guessing this r3ich thing is a vendor of Nazi paraphenalia and such?

All of those totenkopf in a modern helmet patches that soldiers on both sides have been photographed wearing come from a charming shop called R3ich. You can guess by the name how they found it.

Der Kyhe posted:

I am sorry but no. Your take is one moved goalpost away from "OK maybe both sides are wrong, but Ukraine is a failed state full of nazis and sort of deserved this.". And then its just a slippery slope to "Russia is rebuilding USSR, they are just taking back mismanaged belongings".

First you need to win the war, then you deal with the long-term consequences.

No it isn't. That's you conflating a lack of jingoism with a lack of consideration or conviction.

I find the keyboard warriors recreating the git er done clown dance of 2003 SA profoundly distasteful, but I absolutely believe Russia needs to be stopped. It needs to be de-fanged in as mush as it can be, and it needs to be taught that it absolutely cannot do what it has done in Ukraine to its other neighbours. Russia also needs a sharp lesson in not interfering in the west's democratic systems.

The long-term consequences of what Ukraine looks like after those goals are met are absolutely something we'll have to deal with, but they are something people should be thinking about and planning for right now. Because it's not guaranteed to turn out well. Our track record for leaving healthy and functional democratic states in the wake of our interventions has been sub-optimal specifically because we are always told "first you need to win the war, then you deal with the long-term consequences." And then in the post-wank haze after the fighting stops we're surprised and confused everything turned out a bit sticky.

Pablo Bluth posted:

Joining the EU will hopefully result in better governance that replaces corruption and oligarchy, plus long term investment. It's not perfect, see the back sliding of Hungary, but the ex soviet countries who have joined have on the whole become much better places to live.

To my mind this is the best hope for a positive outcome post-victory. What the EU did for Romania with its anti-corruption operation as a precondition to entry was phenomenal. Nato have been doing some of this since 2014 but their scope is obviously a lot more limited than something like the Romanian DNA under EU-oversight.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 18:15

Alan Smithee: Jan 4, 2005; A man becomes preeminent, he's expected to have enthusiasms.

Enthusiasms, enthusiasms...

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1669715793569775616?s=46&t=lbKxPpxJyMeDN0i-nFAg4A

Armata lada

# ? Jun 16, 2023 18:20

armpit_enjoyer: Jan 25, 2023; my god. it's full of posts

OddObserver posted:

Except the current state of things in Poland economically is pretty good (things like abortion rights are another story). Ukraine went through all that and the economy is still awful.

Eh, scratch the surface and there's all sorts of problems. There's a housing crisis because of rampant speculation on the market. Private developers are the only people building new housing; it's unaffordable unless your only goal in life is to become a landlord. 42% of the country has no access to any form of commuter rail. Our healthcare system is collapsing, with reproductive healthcare being a hot topic rn as doctors prefer inaction to performing abortions in case of dangerous or inviable pregnancies. Prices of even basic necessities like food keep skyrocketing. Not only do we have no climate change mitigation plan, we literally poisoned the second largest river in the country last year through sheer incompetence and corruption.

Poland hasn't been "pretty good" for a long, long while, unfortunately. poo poo's hosed in all sorts of ways.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 20:11

Diarrhea Elemental: Apr 2, 2012; Am I correct in my assumption, you fish-faced enemy of the people?

Lovely Joe Stalin posted:

All of those totenkopf in a modern helmet patches that soldiers on both sides have been photographed wearing come from a charming shop called R3ich. You can guess by the name how they found it.

No it isn't. That's you conflating a lack of jingoism with a lack of consideration or conviction.

I find the keyboard warriors recreating the git er done clown dance of 2003 SA profoundly distasteful, but I absolutely believe Russia needs to be stopped. It needs to be de-fanged in as mush as it can be, and it needs to be taught that it absolutely cannot do what it has done in Ukraine to its other neighbours. Russia also needs a sharp lesson in not interfering in the west's democratic systems.

The long-term consequences of what Ukraine looks like after those goals are met are absolutely something we'll have to deal with, but they are something people should be thinking about and planning for right now. Because it's not guaranteed to turn out well. Our track record for leaving healthy and functional democratic states in the wake of our interventions has been sub-optimal specifically because we are always told "first you need to win the war, then you deal with the long-term consequences." And then in the post-wank haze after the fighting stops we're surprised and confused everything turned out a bit sticky.

To my mind this is the best hope for a positive outcome post-victory. What the EU did for Romania with its anti-corruption operation as a precondition to entry was phenomenal. Nato have been doing some of this since 2014 but their scope is obviously a lot more limited than something like the Romanian DNA under EU-oversight.

I'm sorry, my loving brain is locking up at the thought that you might be somehow drawing parallels between Iraq and the current existential war for survival Ukraine is facing.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 20:15

spankmeister: Jun 15, 2008

Diarrhea Elemental posted:

I'm sorry, my loving brain is locking up at the thought that you might be somehow drawing parallels between Iraq and the current existential war for survival Ukraine is facing.

No it's okay because they order a lot of nazi stuff from a website, so they shouldn't be given arms to defend themselves with.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 20:17

Antigravitas: Dec 8, 2019; Die Rettung fuer die Landwirte:

There are signs that the Oder is going to collapse again for the same reason as last year, by the way.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 20:18

armpit_enjoyer: Jan 25, 2023; my god. it's full of posts

Why wouldn't it? It's not like anyone did anything about it the first time around!

# ? Jun 16, 2023 20:19

PurpleXVI: Oct 30, 2011; Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/18351

quote:

Since the start of its summer offensive, in early June, the Ukrainian military has been capturing 5 to 10 Russian service personnel a day in the Donbas and Zaporizhzhia sectors.

Is there any sort of "normal" ratio or volume of captives assumed when on a relatively successful offense? Is this a lot or a little or just what it is?

# ? Jun 16, 2023 20:30

goatsestretchgoals: Jun 4, 2011

Alan Smithee posted:

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1669715793569775616?s=46&t=lbKxPpxJyMeDN0i-nFAg4A

Armata lada

My 2012 Ford Fiesta with electrical problems starts on the 2nd try.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 20:34

Fearless: Sep 3, 2003; DRINK MORE MOXIE

armpit_enjoyer posted:

Eh, scratch the surface and there's all sorts of problems. There's a housing crisis because of rampant speculation on the market. Private developers are the only people building new housing; it's unaffordable unless your only goal in life is to become a landlord. 42% of the country has no access to any form of commuter rail. Our healthcare system is collapsing, with reproductive healthcare being a hot topic rn as doctors prefer inaction to performing abortions in case of dangerous or inviable pregnancies. Prices of even basic necessities like food keep skyrocketing. Not only do we have no climate change mitigation plan, we literally poisoned the second largest river in the country last year through sheer incompetence and corruption.

Poland hasn't been "pretty good" for a long, long while, unfortunately. poo poo's hosed in all sorts of ways.

Your first paragraph essentially describes conditions in a lot of Western countries at the moment to one degree or another. About the only thing we aren't dealing with in Canada is quite the same abortion access issue and most of our largest cities have disturbingly high lead concentrations in their drinking water.

Not saying this to dismiss what you are bringing forward, or the impacts of it. More to commiserate I suppose.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 20:54

Lovely Joe Stalin: Jun 12, 2007; Our Lovely Wang

Diarrhea Elemental posted:

I'm sorry, my loving brain is locking up at the thought that you might be somehow drawing parallels between Iraq and the current existential war for survival Ukraine is facing.

That's probably because you misread what I posted.

Going by your reg date maybe you weren't here for SA in 2003. The specific 2003 parallel I was drawing was that many users then, like some users now, were very much caught up in the circus of a war they themselves weren't fighting. Unquestioningly passing on propaganda and regurgitating rhetoric about how anyone who wasn't doing the same was against "us". Finding that sort of behaviour distasteful does not mean thinking that Ukraine should capitulate or be abandoned. It means you find the idea that you should stop thinking about things and fall in behind the fife and drum morally and intellectually hosed.

PurpleXVI posted:

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/18351

Is there any sort of "normal" ratio or volume of captives assumed when on a relatively successful offense? Is this a lot or a little or just what it is?

Unsure. I'd imagine it's extremely variable. Are they being captured by raiding parties for information, as part of territorial advances etc etc. It could mean there's an appetite for surrender, but with the numbers of people deployed in those regions I don't know if 5-10 is even operationally noteworthy.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 21:06

Stultus Maximus: Dec 21, 2009; USPOL May

armpit_enjoyer posted:

Eh, scratch the surface and there's all sorts of problems. There's a housing crisis because of rampant speculation on the market. Private developers are the only people building new housing; it's unaffordable unless your only goal in life is to become a landlord. 42% of the country has no access to any form of commuter rail. Our healthcare system is collapsing, with reproductive healthcare being a hot topic rn as doctors prefer inaction to performing abortions in case of dangerous or inviable pregnancies. Prices of even basic necessities like food keep skyrocketing. Not only do we have no climate change mitigation plan, we literally poisoned the second largest river in the country last year through sheer incompetence and corruption.

Poland hasn't been "pretty good" for a long, long while, unfortunately. poo poo's hosed in all sorts of ways.

I know my perspective is totally na�ve but I'm spending the month in Poland right now and compared to home, your rail system is made of gold and propelled by angels.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 21:08

Diarrhea Elemental: Apr 2, 2012; Am I correct in my assumption, you fish-faced enemy of the people?

Lovely Joe Stalin posted:

That's probably because you misread what I posted.

Going by your reg date maybe you weren't here for SA in 2003. The specific 2003 parallel I was drawing was that many users then, like some users now, were very much caught up in the circus of a war they themselves weren't fighting. Unquestioningly passing on propaganda and regurgitating rhetoric about how anyone who wasn't doing the same was against "us". Finding that sort of behaviour distasteful does not mean thinking that Ukraine should capitulate or be abandoned. It means you find the idea that you should stop thinking about things and fall in behind the fife and drum morally and intellectually hosed.

quote:

The long-term consequences of what Ukraine looks like after those goals are met are absolutely something we'll have to deal with, but they are something people should be thinking about and planning for right now. Because it's not guaranteed to turn out well. Our track record for leaving healthy and functional democratic states in the wake of our interventions has been sub-optimal specifically because we are always told "first you need to win the war, then you deal with the long-term consequences." And then in the post-wank haze after the fighting stops we're surprised and confused everything turned out a bit sticky.

I certainly must be misreading this then, because the second and third sentences certainly seem to carry a doozy of a set of implications. It seems like you're drawing blanket parallels between "interventions" while seemingly conveniently ignoring every shred of context that separates them. It seems like you're advocating for what basically amounts to means-testing with social safety net programs, only in this case it's advocating for pumping the brakes on supporting Ukraine in their war unless we get certain assurances. It's kinda gross and glosses over the work we are doing to make sure we're not just willy-nilly throwing the kitchen sink at them, consequences be damned, it'll sort itself out later.

# ? Jun 16, 2023 21:59

A.o.D.: Jan 15, 2006

Lovely Joe Stalin posted:

Unsure. I'd imagine it's extremely variable. Are they being captured by raiding parties for information, as part of territorial advances etc etc. It could mean there's an appetite for surrender, but with the numbers of people deployed in those regions I don't know if 5-10 is even operationally noteworthy.

Bear in mind that taking prisoners is mostly associated with offensive actions that result in overrunning enemy held positions, and for most of that time frame consisted of attritional warfare. Sure, there were the two dramatic offensives of Kherson and Kharkiv, but the southern one was mostly conducted by Russia in good order.

The several thousand implied by the "5-10 per day" were likely in the majority from the North. Would it be operationally significant if those numbers were spread across the entire Russian MOd? Probably not, but if, as I believe, a majority of those POWs were secured in the same theater, that means a significant number of army groups either ceased to exist or at a minimum stopped being combat effective long term. Although, given the speed of the collapse, I won't try to argue for the combat effectiveness of those units in the first place.

Edit: this is based on my reading 5-10 per day since x date meaning that's an average over the entire time period not that they are necessarily taking that many prisoners each day. I imagine that during the trench warfare stagnation not a whole lot of prisoners were taken by either side on a daily basis.

A.o.D. fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Jun 16, 2023

# ? Jun 16, 2023 22:04

Alchenar: Apr 9, 2008

So the big deviation from Iraq and Afghanistan is that Ukraine has a functioning democratic state right now and will almost certainly have a functioning democratic state at the end of this period, so this isn't a case of the US making a wasteland and calling it peace, or empowering a bunch of foreign educated elites and trying to pretend they have influence that goes further than 3 city blocks, this is about making sure that a country that desperately wants to be part of the Euro-Atlantic community makes the right choices to successfully reform and make that transition. And the good news is that all of Eastern Europe provides an array of models that prove that this is something that you can successfully do (with the caveat that different countries move at different speeds, and it isn't exactly a surprise that nationalism thrives when there's a big state looming over you that's very explicit about its desire to extinguish your national spirit if it gets the chance).

# ? Jun 16, 2023 22:14