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Looks like Russia did another round of cruise missile strikes on ports of Southern Ukraine tonight, at least targeting Odesa and Mykolayiv. A residential building in the latter got hit.
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Jul 20, 2023 03:23
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OddObserver posted:Looks like Russia did another round of cruise missile strikes on ports of Southern Ukraine tonight, at least targeting Odesa and Mykolayiv. A residential building in the latter got hit. This attack? https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1681851370758963205
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Jul 20, 2023 03:33
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That's the previous one. There was another tonight. Post from Mykolayiv mayor (warning: photos of destroyed residential buildings). https://t.me/senkevichonline/4998 At least 9 people in the hospital, including 5 kids. https://t.me/mykolaivskaODA/5678 Also at least 2 hospitalized in Odesa: https://t.me/odeskaODA/2044 Unclear beyond that.
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Jul 20, 2023 04:58
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Zelensky with an interesting emphasis in his speech today: https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/rosijskij-teror-zachipaye-vsih-kozhen-u-sviti-maye-buti-zaci-84433 quote:This attack proves that their target is not only Ukraine, and not only the lives of our people. About a million tons of food is stored in the ports that were attacked today. This is the volume that should have been delivered to consumer countries in Africa and Asia long ago. The port terminal that suffered the most from the Russian terror last night had 60,000 tons of agricultural products stored in it, which were intended to be shipped to China. That is, everyone is affected by this Russian terror. Everyone in the world should be interested in bringing Russia to justice for its terror. Building up air defense in Odessa is definitely going to happen, but I wonder if the majority of attacks coming from the sea is going to make intercepts harder. Ukrainians released some images of their Virage software, definitely seems like a challenge. https://t.me/csources/239203
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Jul 20, 2023 05:21
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This seems like a great way to piss China off if reports are accurate.
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Jul 20, 2023 05:50
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I can't remember where I saw it, but I saw an interesting conjecture that Ukraine having F-16s will make less of a difference in the ground war and more of a difference in cruise missile defense and controlling the Black Sea. I'd be curious how many of these cruise missiles are being launched from submarines, and in what part of the Black Sea Russian submarines are operating. F-16s don't have any anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities I know of, but P-3 Orions do. I don't think Ukraine has asked for ASW, and it would be kind of niche - maybe being able to suppress Russian surface assets would suffice.
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Jul 20, 2023 13:27
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After this is all said and done I wonder what sort of budget Ukraine will have to support all these new systems.
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Jul 20, 2023 13:38
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Scratch Monkey posted:After this is all said and done I wonder what sort of budget Ukraine will have to support all these new systems. They'll be north of 10% of GDP for a long time, I think. In the US we joke about some suburbs being school districts with roads. Ukraine is going to be a military with a country for several years. For what it's worth, if we in democratic countries are serious about deterring China, and for that matter Russia after it rebuilds (and it will rebuild), I think NATO, the US, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Taiwan need to get defense spending to around 4% of GDP. And not in the way the UK is doing, which is to spend a bunch of money on things that don't actually result in a functioning military. (Seriously: does anyone think the UK could deploy a full combat division in Europe, as they're supposed to be able to do?) These countries don't necessarily need larger militaries--or at least, not much larger--but we need far more mechanized infantry (most of it is light infantry right now), and far, far more ammunition.
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Jul 20, 2023 13:49
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I read a lot of old travel books, and came across this anecdote that the thread might appreciate. Gertrude Bell - Persian Pictures - Written Circa mid-1892 posted:There is a curious reservation in the communicativeness of a Russian. He will tell you all you wish to know (and more) of himself and of his family, but once touch upon his country or his Government and he is dumb. We noticed this trait in another casual travelling acquaintance, who talked so freely of his own doings and even of more general topics, such as the novels of Tolstoi, that we were encouraged to question him concerning the condition of the peasantry. 'What of the famine?' we asked. 'Famine!' he said and a blank expression came over his face. 'I have heard of no famine–there is no famine in Russia!' And yet credible witnesses had informed us that the people were dying by thousands in the southern provinces, not so far removed from Batoum [this is Batoumi, Georgia], where our friend occupied a high official position. Meanwhile, 400,000 peasants starved to death and millions were affected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_famine_of_1891%E2%80%931892
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Jul 20, 2023 14:02
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Ynglaur posted:They'll be north of 10% of GDP for a long time, I think. In the US we joke about some suburbs being school districts with roads. Ukraine is going to be a military with a country for several years.
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Jul 20, 2023 14:03
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BabyFur Denny posted:Nah, we don't need to spend more. Our refurbished old stuff is good enough to keep the second largest military in the world at bay. What actual threat is Slovenia facing that it needs to spend 4% of GDP on military? There's more important stuff to spend money on, like social security, affordable housing, and health care. This seems like a tragedy of the Commons situation where if everyone does this no one can fend off Russia. Slovenia doesn't need to field a combat division with 4% but it can still contribute potentially a lot, like expert army engineers and the like. All of those social welfare systems will mean nothing if it's bombed to rubble. Maybe they can spend the money on dual use systems and capabilities that are useful in peace time but can be used to quickly spool up capabilities in war time.
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Jul 20, 2023 14:15
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Raenir Salazar posted:This seems like a tragedy of the Commons situation where if everyone does this no one can fend off Russia. Slovenia doesn't need to field a combat division with 4% but it can still contribute potentially a lot, like expert army engineers and the like. All of those social welfare systems will mean nothing if it's bombed to rubble. Maybe they can spend the money on dual use systems and capabilities that are useful in peace time but can be used to quickly spool up capabilities in war time. Nobody else needs to fend off Russia after this. They are in the process of burning through 50 years of military build done by a far larger empire. They will not be a threat to anybody else for a very very long time.
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Jul 20, 2023 14:21
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BabyFur Denny posted:Nobody else needs to fend off Russia after this. I'm sure that history will be over, this time for real!
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Jul 20, 2023 14:32
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BabyFur Denny posted:Nobody else needs to fend off Russia after this. Germany sustained significant damage during WWI and was actively demilitarized for a while and was obviously still able to ramp up quickly for WWII. Russia is going to walk out of this with less old equipment and a bunch of dead soldiers but otherwise intact. It’s short sighted to think this will be the end.
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Jul 20, 2023 14:34
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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:Germany sustained significant damage during WWI and was actively demilitarized for a while and was obviously still able to ramp up quickly for WWII. Russia is going to walk out of this with less old equipment and a bunch of dead soldiers but otherwise intact. It’s short sighted to think this will be the end. Building 21st century equipment requires vastly more complex supply chains that an internationally isolated Russia is never going to be able to achieve on its own. Even at the current level of below 2% GDP the Western democracies are vastly outspending Russia. There's simply no need to bump this up to 4%. Especially as long as the US is willing to sacrifice its own population on the altar of the MIC and do the job for us.
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Jul 20, 2023 14:39
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BabyFur Denny posted:Nah, we don't need to spend more. Our refurbished old stuff is good enough to keep the second largest military in the world at bay. What actual threat is Slovenia facing that it needs to spend 4% of GDP on military? There's more important stuff to spend money on, like social security, affordable housing, and health care. Is this ironic-posting or serious-posting? Based on your subsequent post I believe it's the latter. Do you truly believe Russia will remain in a weakened state indefinitely? History suggests this is not the case. Militaries cannot rebuild overnight, but they can rebuild frighteningly quickly. Even in the current war, while Russia cannot "defeat" Ukraine, it has caused untold misery and suffering for millions of people. Is this not worth defending against? BabyFur Denny posted:Building 21st century equipment requires vastly more complex supply chains that an internationally isolated Russia is never going to be able to achieve on its own. Even at the current level of below 2% GDP the Western democracies are vastly outspending Russia. There's simply no need to bump this up to 4%. Especially as long as the US is willing to sacrifice its own population on the altar of the MIC and do the job for us. Ah, there it is then. "So long as someone else is willing to sacrifice for my comfort, I owe nothing." Basically: "gently caress you, got mine." That's rather morally bankrupt, and I hope you don't truly feel that way. In other news, Thomas Theiner posted a good analysis of the most recent US defense spending for Ukraine. https://twitter.com/noclador/status/1682004944625324038?s=20
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Jul 20, 2023 14:55
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Ynglaur posted:Is this ironic-posting or serious-posting? Based on your subsequent post I believe it's the latter. Do you truly believe Russia will remain in a weakened state indefinitely? History suggests this is not the case. Militaries cannot rebuild overnight, but they can rebuild frighteningly quickly. Even in the current war, while Russia cannot "defeat" Ukraine, it has caused untold misery and suffering for millions of people. Is this not worth defending against? The current level of military spending produced enough surplus hand-me-down equipment to keep Russia with its entire Soviet ERA equipment at bay. Rather than building more tanks, we need to create even tighter alliance networks and make sure that the population of our democracies are secure enough in terms of housing, health and income, so that they all can stomach any potential economic isolation from China, Russia or other adversaries.
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Jul 20, 2023 15:00
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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:Germany sustained significant damage during WWI and was actively demilitarized for a while and was obviously still able to ramp up quickly for WWII. Russia is going to walk out of this with less old equipment and a bunch of dead soldiers but otherwise intact. It’s short sighted to think this will be the end. I still think if they lose and Putin is deposed there will be at least some break away regions
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Jul 20, 2023 15:16
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BabyFur Denny posted:The current level of military spending produced enough surplus hand-me-down equipment to keep Russia with its entire Soviet ERA equipment at bay. A lot of that surplus was built or originally procured to take on those Soviet equipment. For example, all the Stingers. And the equipment that has been handed to Ukraine needs to be replaced anyway.
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Jul 20, 2023 15:30
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Frank Frank posted:This seems like a great way to piss China off if reports are accurate. I think Putin has been spending a lifetime assuming that countries liking or disliking him doesn't matter, they'll always just make decisions based on self interest, and a lot of what's happened in the last year and a half is finding out the limits of that. He may also be under the impression China categorizes Russia as "useful ally" instead of "useful lackey" and therefor assumes they're just going to always look the other way for them.
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Jul 20, 2023 15:31
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wet_goods posted:I still think if they lose and Putin is deposed there will be at least some break away regions Possibly. A lot depends on how clean the transfer of power is. And it could be very messy.
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Jul 20, 2023 15:31
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BabyFur Denny posted:The current level of military spending produced enough surplus hand-me-down equipment to keep Russia with its entire Soviet ERA equipment at bay. I think the biggest issue with alliance networks is if you are depending on one country too much when their political leadership shits itself. See the U.S. under Trump when he talked about leaving NATO. So yeah, build a strong alliance but make sure it can survive if a keystone country, providing a large percentage of the collective defense, drops the ball.
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Jul 20, 2023 15:41
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BabyFur Denny posted:The current level of military spending produced enough surplus hand-me-down equipment to keep Russia with its entire Soviet ERA equipment at bay. I think I see your argument now. Thank you. I think its predicated upon an incorrect assumption: your implicit assumption seems to be that NATO's current military capability is the result of the 1-2% of spending in recent decades. I think that's incorrect. A significant amount of aid to Ukraine is from Cold War-era stocks. For example, Stinger anti-air missiles were last made almost two decades ago. Raytheon is literally calling people out of retirement to teach new workers how to build them. One of the concern about the US providing DPICMs is that even though the dud rate was calculated to be ~2.5%, that, too, was almost 20 years ago, and high explosives do not age like wine: they don't get better with age. Even for eastern members of NATO, the tanks and missiles and artillery systems they are sending to Ukraine were built int he 1970s and 1980s, when those countries had a much higher level of investment in defense. Finally, consider that deterrance is not about winning, it's about deterrance. Wars continue because both sides think they have a chance at winning, or because the cost to stop is perceived by one party or the other to be too high. To deter Russia--and China--their political leadership needs to be convinced that any use of military force will not help them accomplish what they want. For example, it's not enough to say, "If Russia attacked Estonia, NATO can re-conquer Talinn." It needs to be, "If Russia attacked Estonia, they'd never even get close to Talinn." That takes more than a handful of light infantry brigades.
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Jul 20, 2023 15:53
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Dirt5o8 posted:I think the biggest issue with alliance networks is if you are depending on one country too much when their political leadership shits itself. See the U.S. under Trump when he talked about leaving NATO. So yeah, build a strong alliance but make sure it can survive if a keystone country, providing a large percentage of the collective defense, drops the ball. Exactly. We need to put the money towards making peoples lives better, not tanks and planes, in order to prevent further drift towards fascism. We need healthy and secure democracies that are resistant to subversion, and confident in weathering the economic fallout of prolonged economic sanctions. We can't have more Hungarys in our alliances, especially not in an actual core country like UK, France or Germany. That is not something that can be fixed by having more bombs.
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Jul 20, 2023 15:58
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BabyFur Denny posted:Exactly. We need to put the money towards making peoples lives better, not tanks and planes, in order to prevent further drift towards fascism. We need healthy and secure democracies that are resistant to subversion, and confident in weathering the economic fallout of prolonged economic sanctions. We can't have more Hungarys in our alliances, especially not in an actual core country like UK, France or Germany. That is not something that can be fixed by having more bombs. Si vis pacem para bellum Your attitude is the exact reason that Putin felt he could invade Ukraine in the first place, and if he had succeeded the would have emboldened a lot of other countries to start poo poo. Global peace is reliant on the liberal democracies of the world having credible militaries and the ability to supply significant amounts of hardware to allies. Many european countries have been doing exactly what you suggest since the end of the cold war and the result was they were militarily weak and had no ability to stand up to Putin.
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Jul 20, 2023 16:05
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BabyFur Denny posted:Exactly. We need to put the money towards making peoples lives better, not tanks and planes, in order to prevent further drift towards fascism. We need healthy and secure democracies that are resistant to subversion, and confident in weathering the economic fallout of prolonged economic sanctions. We can't have more Hungarys in our alliances, especially not in an actual core country like UK, France or Germany. That is not something that can be fixed by having more bombs. I agree with all of that but the need for bombs. They will unfortunately always be needed to defend those strong democracies. Countries like the U.S. could absolutely do both AND support our allies if we weren't so broke-brain.
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Jul 20, 2023 16:05
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BabyFur Denny posted:The current level of military spending produced enough surplus hand-me-down equipment to keep Russia with its entire Soviet ERA equipment at bay. Which is fine for French, German, British and American citizens when it is another country paying the price in blood for 'keeping at bay'. But would the public be happy with 'keeping the enemy at bay' when it is their own countrymen dying each day? Or would they be clamouring for decisive victory? quote:Rather than building more tanks, we need to create even tighter alliance networks and make sure that the population of our democracies are secure enough in terms of housing, health and income, so that they all can stomach any potential economic isolation from China, Russia or other adversaries. Ok, so you have a nation that can survive the economic impacts of war, can it survive the military ones?
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Jul 20, 2023 16:08
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Just give the dictator what he wants, surely he will stop at THIS country this time, see he even signed a paper saying he wouldn't do it anymore.
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Jul 20, 2023 16:09
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As an American, I'm resigned to the fact that our government will never work to make the lives better for average citizens. So I'm ok with us being the arsenal of democracy at the very least. I just wish we fought fascists at home as hard as we fight then abroad.
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Jul 20, 2023 16:19
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BabyFur Denny posted:Exactly. We need to put the money towards making peoples lives better, not tanks and planes, in order to prevent further drift towards fascism. We need healthy and secure democracies that are resistant to subversion, and confident in weathering the economic fallout of prolonged economic sanctions. We can't have more Hungarys in our alliances, especially not in an actual core country like UK, France or Germany. That is not something that can be fixed by having more bombs. We need to do both. Ignoring the military needs is naive. We don't live in a utopian society where we can all just choose to get along. Europe tried economic diplomacy and integration with Russia for 30 years. It did not work. You can do all you want to make your own country better, but you can't stop another country from invading you if it's determined to. You have to be prepared whether you like it or not.
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Jul 20, 2023 16:20
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thekeeshman posted:Si vis pacem para bellum No, it is the exact opposite. Putin never questioned the Western military capabilities to defeat Russia. He believed the western democracies would not be united enough against him, and sit out in inaction while he takes Ukraine. He was wrong about that, as he found out. And right now his hope is not on being able to militarily outlast the equipment that the west can provide to Ukraine. His hope is for political turnarounds in key countries, and leadership changes towards a less favorable attitude regarding support for Ukraine. NATO had, has and always will have the military capabilities to defeat any other country on this planet. Its potential weakness is a population impoverished by off the rails capitalism that will not support even more economic pressure and turn to fascism in times of turmoil. We don't want the price of war with Russia/China be fascist and other right wing fringe parties taking control of Germany, UK or France. Because then we cannot win anything.
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Jul 20, 2023 16:23
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If you go from spending 4% to 1% that's a massive loss of capability, of skilled and trained personnel, and facilities. It's silly to argue we don't need military spending now that Russia has been humbled because by the time they do recover it will take even longer for the liberal democracies to gear up to resume containment. And we'll be back to where we started where most of NATO is struggling to equip Ukraine. Its naive to suggest that only domestic spending will suffice to prevent the next aggressive expansion isn't or that once the next one appears that there's enough time for politicians to get their heads out of their butts and be willing to make hard choices then. The 90s were the world cutting back on military spending everywhere yet China and others kept increasing military spending and improving their capacity for aggressive war. NATO needs everyone on the same page and spending their fair share. Its like arguing that we shouldn't be taxing the rich more when instead we should be increasing jobs instead of using government spending to make things fairer.
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Jul 20, 2023 16:46
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Sounds like you are basically diagnosing the underlying problem as neoliberalism - the risk of those kinds of policies and thinking continuing to drive up inequality and rot away democracy, political structures and international alliances, opening the doors for ethnonationalist fascism at home (which empowers the ethnonationalist authoritarian regimes in Russia, China, etc). I don't disagree with that. But I do disagree with your guns vs butter argument - "We can't spend on defence and therefore should only spend on social services". If you've diagnosed the underlying problem as those kinds of neoliberal policies - then if you overturn them you are destroying the entire basis that argument depends on. TL/DR - tax and spend, and do both.
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Jul 20, 2023 16:47
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Raenir Salazar posted:If you go from spending 4% to 1% that's a massive loss of capability, of skilled and trained personnel, and facilities. It's silly to argue we don't need military spending now that Russia has been humbled because by the time they do recover it will take even longer for the liberal democracies to gear up to resume containment. And we'll be back to where we started where most of NATO is struggling to equip Ukraine. I am not arguing for reducing military spending. I am arguing against increasing it to something ridiculous as 4% for every single country. I never said we don't need military spending. I say we don't need to spend more on military than we already are. Keep our current capabilities. It's more than enough. China and Russia know they can't defeat the United Western military at its current strength. But they think they can drive the west apart and make enough countries hesitant to join a military conflict.
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Jul 20, 2023 16:55
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Current capabilities in Western Europe are a joke; pretty sure all the countries put together would have less tanks than Ukraine started with, and enough shells for a day or so of fighting.
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Jul 20, 2023 17:00
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BabyFur Denny posted:I am not arguing for reducing military spending. I am arguing against increasing it to something ridiculous as 4% for every single country. I never said we don't need military spending. I say we don't need to spend more on military than we already are. Keep our current capabilities. It's more than enough. China and Russia know they can't defeat the United Western military at its current strength. But they think they can drive the west apart and make enough countries hesitant to join a military conflict. I would argue that prima facie it is not enough because NATO's current spending did not in fact dissuade Russia from invading a neighboring country. Even the current defense spending in the US is not dissuading China from literally pouring sand into the South China Sea and saying "this is ours now". If there are mechanisms to deter such behavior which don't involve significantly increased defense spending that would be wonderful. I have yet to see them. We've cut off Russia from SWIFT, for goodness' sake, and even that doesn't seem to make China blink. Something we should remember is that while wealth and prosperity are valued in most societies, they are not the only things valued. Detering through imposing costs includes costs measured in something other than dollars. Edit: Most European countries militaries are hollowed shells right now. With the exception of Poland, the Baltics (which are just small), the Nordics, and maybe France, I don't know of a European country that could put a full mechanized division on the map for more than a month of fighting with a straight face. To fight off this much-maligned Russian army, Ukraine has mobilized almost 200 brigades. Think about that number for a minute. That is larger than every other army in Europe combined right now. And it's able to progress a couple km a day against an invader. Ynglaur fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Jul 20, 2023 |
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Jul 20, 2023 17:15
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BabyFur Denny posted:I am not arguing for reducing military spending. I am arguing against increasing it to something ridiculous as 4% for every single country. I never said we don't need military spending. I say we don't need to spend more on military than we already are. Keep our current capabilities. It's more than enough. China and Russia know they can't defeat the United Western military at its current strength. But they think they can drive the west apart and make enough countries hesitant to join a military conflict. This isn't true though, the capabilities of most NATO nations are woefully lacking and incapable of properly uniting without the United States in properly withstanding a hostile invasion. And what if the United States decides one day that the 1920's were really good actually and start massively reducing their military spending and overseas commitments? At that point Europe is pretty screwed at their current capability and funding levels, and would absolutely need to, in a hurry, to make up the gap. Only the United States is spending a "lot" on its military; except for standouts like the Baltics most NATO partners just aren't spending enough that's just a fact. Your assumptions are flawed if you think a "United" Western military will remain a thing forever; and currently the western stocks of surplus cold war equipment going to Ukraine is going to run dry and at that point there will be no more surplus from which to withstand aggression.
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Jul 20, 2023 17:17
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How do you keep current capabilities when you donated a ton of your tanks etc?
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Jul 20, 2023 17:39
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I think this is a very good time to remind people to watch Perun's videos on defense economics if they haven't already, specifically the ones that cover what countries are actually spending money on.
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Jul 20, 2023 17:41
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Doesn’t the US profit immensely from it’s weak partners in NATO? Everyone knows they need the US, everyone buys or develops weapons with them, no one can afford to step out of line. I think you could argue that the US let the lax spending get out of hand for too long given the current situation, but it was absolutely in their interest to maintain the status quo for as long as they have.
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Jul 20, 2023 17:47
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