Marenghi posted:

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/13/biden-military-reservists-europe-deployment-00106271

Is Biden mobilizing troops to support Ukraine

Ardennes posted:

It isn't that much on its own but Biden is also activating 450 IRI (fully demobilized) personnel, which is pretty weird/rare.

Majorian posted:

https://twitter.com/TomCottonAR/status/1679927692735463437
Kerry '04 "I will win Iraq better than Bush will!" vibes.

Regarde Aduck posted:

if Ukraine did that there wouldn't need to be a negotiation? Do libs just equate 'negotiation' with 'unconditional surrender' because that would explain a lot

Majorian posted:

https://twitter.com/TomCottonAR/status/1679927692735463437
Kerry '04 "I will win Iraq better than Bush will!" vibes.

Regarde Aduck posted:

if Ukraine did that there wouldn't need to be a negotiation? Do libs just equate 'negotiation' with 'unconditional surrender' because that would explain a lot

Majorian posted:

They're all going to take up that message in the GE, hate to tell you. Even Trump. It's gonna be, "This war is bad but I can win it faster and get us out of it faster."

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/berlin_bridge/status/1679934822305677337?t=1dNqFHG8cO5a8ibxK-h95g&s=19

Majorian posted:

https://twitter.com/TomCottonAR/status/1679927692735463437
Kerry '04 "I will win Iraq better than Bush will!" vibes.

Marenghi posted:

You can't negotiate with an enemy who wants your total genocide.
That's why you also hear libs say Palestine shouldn't negotiate and should be armed to defend their land.

Clip-On Fedora posted:

People were still screaming just a few months ago that they were going to break Russia up into a million micro states and then end being Russian as a concept so lol lmao at Cotton here.

comedyblissoption posted:

trump's current public policy position which i think is only shared similarly by west as a presidential candidate is that he can end the war in 24 hours. it's a rhetorical position of sueing for peace.

if you can point out any other candidates advocating ending the war ASAP in 24 hours or saying ukraine should cede territory like west in a peace negotiation, please feel free!

it's a stark difference in messaging on the war and worth pointing out, even if it is not their genuine position.

comedyblissoption posted:

again, i feel like i have to emphasize that:

• i will negotiate and end the war in 24 hours
  
• i will send more weapons and cluster bombs to ukraine
  

are two very different rhetorical positions on the war

Majorian posted:

I never said that any other candidates are advocating that, though. What I am saying is that Trump's going to pivot to a position of "I can win this war faster than my opponent" by the time the GE rolls around. A big part of that is because, as ridiculous as the Russian plant charges against him are, it's something that motivates the Democratic base, for better or for worse. As the polls you posted show, even Republican voters are heavily divided on the issue, while the Dems aren't (sadly). So no, Trump's not going to stick with an anti-war platform for long.

Majorian posted:

https://twitter.com/TomCottonAR/status/1679927692735463437
Kerry '04 "I will win Iraq better than Bush will!" vibes.

Horseshoe theory posted:

Friendly reminder that Tom Cotton is the guy that runs 5-10 miles/day so he can devour lovely Walmart sheet cake.

Horseshoe theory posted:

Friendly reminder that Tom Cotton is the guy that runs 5-10 miles/day so he can devour lovely Walmart sheet cake.

Truga posted:

^^^ lmfao at the reader context on MTG post

Regarde Aduck posted:

if Ukraine did that there wouldn't need to be a negotiation? Do libs just equate 'negotiation' with 'unconditional surrender' because that would explain a lot

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/democracynow/status/1679833809057923074?t=YIyacWTOJF3UyFhvyWU2cg&s=19

This guy rules

quote:

In fact, NATO is working exactly as it was designed by postwar U.S. planners, drawing Europe into a dependency on American power that reduces its room for maneuver. Far from a costly charity program, NATO secures American influence in Europe on the cheap. U.S. contributions to NATO and other security assistance programs in Europe account for a tiny fraction of the Pentagon’s annual budget — less than 6 percent by a recent estimate. And the war has only strengthened America’s hand. Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, roughly half of European military spending went to American manufacturers. Surging demand has exacerbated this tendency as buyers rush to acquire tanks, combat aircraft and other weapons systems, locking into costly, multiyear contracts. Europe may be remilitarizing, but America is reaping the rewards.

In Ukraine, the pattern is clear. Washington will provide the military security, and its corporations will benefit from a bonanza of European armament orders, while Europeans will shoulder the cost of postwar reconstruction — something Germany is better poised to accomplish than the buildup of its military. The war also serves as a dress rehearsal for U.S. confrontation with China, in which European support cannot be so easily counted on. Limiting Beijing’s access to strategic technologies and promoting American industry are hardly European priorities, and severing European and Chinese trade is still difficult to imagine. Yet already there are signs that NATO is making headway in getting Europe to follow its lead in the theater. On the eve of a visit to Washington at the end of June, Germany’s defense minister duly advertised his awareness of “European responsibility for the Indo-Pacific” and the importance of “the rules-based international order” in the South China Sea.

Truga posted:

^^^ lmfao at the reader context on MTG post

Cerebral Bore posted:

close to the platonic ideal of "well ackshually"

quote:

Looks like a treaty that the US, Russia or Ukraine never signed. Interestingly enough it mentions the dud rates were the reason for the treaty as that can lead to civilian casualties and the US developed weapons that have a less than 1% dud rate which is significant.

dead gay comedy forums posted:

It mentioned how the UK went from the Lee-Enfield, a tremendously reliable rifle (please correct me if it is the case because I am a total layman here and I am just going iirc) to their present service rifle which was a whole comedy shitshow.

VoicesCanBe posted:

Correct. Liberals are fully starting to adopt the neocon view that any kind of negotiation automatically equals appeasement.

stephenthinkpad posted:

Wait Ukraine didn't get a lot of HYMARS launchers? I read somewhere Ukraine has shot around 10k himars rockets. So that number is false?

comedyblissoption posted:

Cerebral Bore posted:

liberals are basically conservatives who are a bit slow

January 6 Survivor posted:

New York Times posted:

In the first two weeks of Ukraine’s grueling counteroffensive, as much as 20 percent of the weaponry it sent to the battlefield was damaged or destroyed, according to American and European officials. The toll includes some of the formidable Western fighting machines — tanks and armored personnel carriers — the Ukrainians were counting on to beat back the Russians.

The startling rate of losses dropped to about 10 percent in the ensuing weeks, the officials said, preserving more of the troops and machines needed for the major offensive push that the Ukrainians say is still to come.

Some of the improvement came because Ukraine changed tactics, focusing more on wearing down the Russian forces with artillery and long-range missiles than charging into enemy minefields and fire.

But that good news obscures some grim realities. The losses have also slowed because the counteroffensive itself has slowed — and even halted in places — as Ukrainian soldiers struggle against Russia’s formidable defenses. And despite the losses, the Ukrainians have so far taken just five of the 60 miles they hope to cover to reach the sea in the south and split the Russian forces in two.

One Ukrainian soldier said in an interview this week that his unit’s drone picked up footage of a half-dozen Western armored vehicles caught in an artillery barrage south of the town of Velyka Novosilka.

“They all burned,” said the soldier, who identified himself as Sgt. Igor. “Everybody is hoping for a big breakthrough,” he said, adding a plea that those scrutinizing from afar appreciate the importance of slow and steady advances.

Russia had many months to prepare for the counteroffensive, and the front is littered with mines, tank traps and dug-in troops, while Russian reconnaissance drones and attack helicopters fly overhead with increasing frequency.

Given those fortifications, experts say, it is not surprising that Ukraine would sustain relatively severe losses in the early stages of the campaign.

This week, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, acknowledged that there had been a brief pause in operations some weeks ago but blamed it on a lack of equipment and munitions, and called on Western allies to quicken the pace of deliveries.

American officials acknowledged that pause and said that the Ukrainians had begun moving again, but more deliberately, more adept at navigating minefields and mindful of the casualty risks. With the influx of cluster munitions from the United States, they said, the pace might pick up.

“It’s not as fast, but it’s not catastrophically behind schedule,” the British defense minister, Ben Wallace, said on Wednesday. “It is doing what anyone else would do having to fight through minefields towards the Russian line.”

The problems come into focus out in the farm fields in southern Ukraine where much of the counteroffensive is being fought. There the Bradley Fighting Vehicles, long coveted by the Ukrainians, have been running over anti-tank mines on a daily basis, soldiers who have fought in the vehicles say.

The vehicles, which weigh about 34 tons, are designed to carry infantry soldiers through areas exposed to gunfire or artillery. A rear ramp opens to allow soldiers to pile out and fight. In planning for the counteroffensive, the Bradleys were meant to carry soldiers across open fields to reach Russian trenches and bunkers.

The Bradleys have done part of their job well; their thick armor has provided good protection for most soldiers, who have survived many of the mine blasts with few injuries.

“Your ears ring and things inside fly around,” said one soldier, who asked to be identified only by his first name and rank, Pvt. Serhiy. He survived such an explosion last month in fighting south of the town of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region. But in many cases the blasts severely damaged the vehicles, immobilizing them well before they could reach the Russian lines.

Military experts have long said that the first 15 miles of the counteroffensive would be the hardest, as attacking troops generally need three times more power — whether in weapons, personnel or both — than defending forces.

Ukraine’s top military officer, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, expressed frustration that Ukraine is fighting without Western F-16 warplanes, which the United States only recently agreed to allow Ukrainian pilots to be trained on, but which are not expected to be delivered for several months at least. That has left the Ukrainian troops vulnerable to the Russian helicopters and artillery.

Military analysts cautioned that it was still too early to draw definitive conclusions about the counteroffensive. “It does not mean that it is doomed to fail,” said Camille Grand, a defense expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former NATO assistant secretary general.

Nevertheless, he added, the absence of air superiority and air defenses that Western jets could provide for Ukraine’s attack means “that casualty rates are likely to be higher than in other conventional conflicts.”

The precise numbers of weapons and armored vehicles that have been destroyed in the counteroffensive, as opposed to “mobility kills” that can be repaired, are closely guarded secrets, and the U.S. officials did not give raw numbers, though they did agree on the percentages of weaponry lost. But a combination of open source data and official estimates can provide a snapshot in time of the destruction, particularly in the early going.

Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade, one of the three Western-equipped and trained units that were deployed early in the campaign, was set to receive 99 Bradleys, according to the leaked U.S. military plans for the counteroffensive from February — still the most recent that have been made public.

Data from Oryx, a military analysis site that counts only losses that it has visually confirmed, show that 28 of those Bradleys have been abandoned, damaged or destroyed, including 15 in a village in Zaporizhzhia Province on June 8 and 9 as the 47th was attacked by helicopters while trapped in a minefield. Six additional Bradleys were reported abandoned or destroyed in Mala Tokmachka on June 26, but Oryx researchers said these losses had occurred earlier, although it is not clear exactly when.

Given that the 47th was the only brigade initially slated to receive the Bradleys, that means that nearly one-third of the original vehicles have been lost — although all but seven of them were blown up at one battleground.

“It is within the realm of possibility that Ukrainian forces have seen losses at this level,” said Dylan Lee Lehrke, an analyst with the British security intelligence firm Janes, adding that a “significant” level of lost weapons was generally a hallmark of wars of attrition, like the one in Ukraine.

The Oryx data show that only 24 tanks were lost for the entire month of June, including some from Ukraine’s own arsenal in addition to those supplied by Western allies.

Ten of them were German-made Leopard tanks and mine-clearers, the data show. Presumably, they were lost in battle with Ukraine’s 33rd Mechanized Brigade, one of the three units deployed early in the counteroffensive, and which was slated to receive 32 Leopards in the U.S. planning documents from Feb. 28.

That would mean that the brigade lost 30 percent of the Leopards it was given — all but two of them in the first week of fighting, the Oryx data show.

The Ukrainian authorities say the army has so far advanced the deepest in southern areas of the Donetsk region, but no more than about five miles from the former front line at Velyka Novosilka. It faces another 55 miles to reach the Sea of Azov, a primary goal of the counteroffensive, as it would cut the land bridge to Crimea, wreaking havoc with Russia’s already shaky logistics. Ukraine’s forces are also advancing in two areas in the Zaporizhzhia region.

It is even slower near Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region, where the bulk of Bradleys and Leopards have been sent to an area of open fields with little cover, There, Ukraine’s army has advanced only about a mile.