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Charlz Guybon posted:Nope, so long as Putin isn't interested in anything buy maximalist gains the war will continue. There's still a ton of UkrainiaNazis his forces haven't killed or jettisoned from soon to be Russian territories. Why would he stop?
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Nov 4, 2023 08:35
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:When the alternatives are war or becoming the victims of genocide, this doesn't necessarily hold. Its still absolutely going to hold. If Ukraine took 5 million casualties this month you can bet they'd be suing for peace. Thats not going to happen, obviously, but every day that passes they are taking more casualties from a limited manpower pool. And at some number a breaking point will be reached. "Forever war" isn't a thing for mass mobilization wars.
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Nov 4, 2023 13:06
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Blut posted:Its still absolutely going to hold. If Ukraine took 5 million casualties this month you can bet they'd be suing for peace. Why are we assuming that this theoretical breaking point will be hit first by Ukraine and not by Russia, the nation that is actually taking the immense casualties right now (see: adiivka)
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Nov 4, 2023 13:48
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Is anyone able to explain to me why there's this narrative that time is on Putin's side? To me, given losses on the Russian side not necessarily troops but equipment is quite severe and given the western economies will be able to eventually ramp up production of new equipment isn't time on Ukraine's side?
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Nov 4, 2023 13:55
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:Is anyone able to explain to me why there's this narrative that time is on Putin's side? To me, given losses on the Russian side not necessarily troops but equipment is quite severe and given the western economies will be able to eventually ramp up production of new equipment isn't time on Ukraine's side? The assumption is that at some point Western political will will dissolve in infighting, Trump or Republicans will get elected and cut off funding, etc., but all Putin has to do is keep being Putin. Never mind that Russia started the war with about 2,500 tanks and is burning through at minimum about1600 tanks a year. Whoops.
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Nov 4, 2023 14:01
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:Is anyone able to explain to me why there's this narrative that time is on Putin's side? To me, given losses on the Russian side not necessarily troops but equipment is quite severe and given the western economies will be able to eventually ramp up production of new equipment isn't time on Ukraine's side? Donald Trump, basically, including his effects on US Republicans. Beyond that France is a worry, too.
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Nov 4, 2023 14:03
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Now that perspective I can understand and I could see Putin waiting at least until the 2024 US Elections but that's like... a less than 1% of happening. Granted, if I was him I'd still wait it out and maybe he can still get some kind of partial victory.
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Nov 4, 2023 14:04
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Why are we assuming that this theoretical breaking point will be hit first by Ukraine and not by Russia, the nation that is actually taking the immense casualties right now (see: adiivka) Ukraine is a nation of 43 million people, which includes children and the elderly and for all I know also some counts might be including the population of territories occupied by Russia. I have read conflicting reports on how much more mobilization the Ukrainian population can go through. Most of the weaponry is still Soviet-derived and their own productive capacity has had to be supplemented by scraps of Western aid provided by countries with unfavorable internal political dynamics. By the time Western countries have the necessary production lines running, the Marjorie Taylor-Green's of the world could be telling Ukraine that they're on their own. The Russian population on the other hand is reported at 143 million people. Putin is a dictator and does not have to care about what the Russian population actually want. Even though he has done significant damage to the Russian economy, he is still far away from hitting the level of domestic suffering needed for an internal revolt. Russia have sunk a lot of blood and treasure into the economy, but there are "total war" measures that they have not fully taken yet that could give them enough men and materials to make Ukraine miserable. The Russian attacks on Avdiivka might be ridiculous from a purely military perspective, but they do indicate that Russia can still muster significant and well-equipped forces and that the breaking point for Russia might be further off than online cheerleaders were hoping. There is a bit of that Zapp Brannigan mentality going on in Russia. Unfortunately, unless the West somehow fully rejects the Russia-loving politicians in various countries, that Zapp Brannigan mentality is likely to pay some dividends. Putin is right that he just might be able to outlast the will of the West, which is sadly one of the advantages of being a despot.
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Nov 4, 2023 14:45
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Why are we assuming that this theoretical breaking point will be hit first by Ukraine and not by Russia, the nation that is actually taking the immense casualties right now (see: adiivka) Because Ukrainian soldiers have an average age of 43, their recruiting is hosed, and their ability to obtain further funding & weapons appears to be in jeopardy?
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Nov 4, 2023 15:03
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Eric Cantonese posted:. Putin is right that he just might be able to outlast the will of the West, which is sadly one of the advantages of being a despot. It's his best available tactic, but "despot defeating alliance of democratic nations" doesn't exactly have a great historical track record of success. The Top G posted:Because Ukrainian soldiers have an average age of 43, their recruiting is hosed, and their ability to obtain further funding & weapons appears to be in jeopardy? Oh yeah it's the Ukrainian recruiting that's hosed Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Nov 4, 2023 |
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Nov 4, 2023 15:06
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:Now that perspective I can understand and I could see Putin waiting at least until the 2024 US Elections but that's like... a less than 1% of happening. Granted, if I was him I'd still wait it out and maybe he can still get some kind of partial victory. Since at least 2016 posted:Ah, nevertheless, Hieronymous Alloy posted:It's his best available tactic, but "despot defeating alliance of democratic nations" doesn't exactly have a great historical track record of success. It's not so much an alliance of democratic nations as much as it is a number of democratic nations who have a phenomenal way to gently caress with Putin with minimal chance of actual direct repercussions. What happens when the DoD is instructed to no longer pay for starlink, various organizations are told not to provide intelligence information, and post-soviet weaponry is no longer forthcoming? Volmarias fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Nov 4, 2023 |
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Nov 4, 2023 16:04
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Time is, in fact, not on Putin's side because he'll likely be dead in under 15 years. Quips aside, he started the war in 2022 pretty explicitly because time was not on his side, demographically as well as geopolitically. Russia already lost the war by any conceivable metric and "waiting out the West, then try to hold on to the bombed out wasteland we're occupying" can hardly be called a strategy because it depends on a lot of dominoes falling right where they need to. I think the American commentariat is deeply underestimating exactly how tired (most) European nations are of Putin's poo poo. While I agree the scaling up of the military aid should have been much faster much sooner, I'm not picking up signs EU aid for Ukraine is drying up or that the European public at large wants to stop supporting Ukraine.
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Nov 4, 2023 16:08
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Volmarias posted:. What happens when the DoD is instructed to no longer pay for starlink, various organizations are told not to provide intelligence information, and post-soviet weaponry is no longer forthcoming? Again people keep arguing with "when" when they should be positing "ifs" at best.
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Nov 4, 2023 16:15
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:It's his best available tactic, but "despot defeating alliance of democratic nations" doesn't exactly have a great historical track record of success. Sure, they’re both hosed in that regard  Russia has the good fortune of not being dependent on fickle western “Allies” for their weapons. And unfortunately for Zelenskyy, the west has a shiny new war they can support instead. A fact which has not escaped the Z-man … https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/zelensky-says-middle-east-taking-focus-from-ukraine/ quote:Zelensky says Middle East ‘taking focus’ from Ukraine
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Nov 4, 2023 16:38
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EU has aid in the pipeline for Ukraine over the coming years. Hell, its spooled up artillery production is coming online in 2024. There’s no point assuming Western aid is drying up before 31 December 2024.
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Nov 4, 2023 16:40
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Is there any evidence that this round of media stories about Ukraine being forced to the negotiation table is any more true than the last round? These stories seem to regularly come and go in cycles but I don't see anything other than the usual plague of anonymous sources and total speculation.
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Nov 4, 2023 16:41
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at the current rate things are going supporting Israel's war on Gaza may well be be as politically toxic as supporting KSA against Yemen was by 2018, except Israel is on pace to accomplish that in far less time
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Nov 4, 2023 16:44
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Does anyone have a good article on Ukraine's recruiting woes? My understanding that it was more based on population numbers, but if there's some massive amount of conscription resistance going on, that's pretty concerning too.
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Nov 4, 2023 16:50
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Herstory Begins Now posted:at the current rate things are going supporting Israel's war on Gaza may well be be as politically toxic as supporting KSA against Yemen was by 2018, except Israel is on pace to accomplish that in far less time Israel is already burning through all of its goodwill in record pace. People are reverting course on stances they had 15 days ago. Israel is also more than capable of steamrolling refugees and children without any outside help. The handwringing about allocating funds and ammo from Ukraine to Israel all sound like bad faith excuses by the usual suspects to me.
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Nov 4, 2023 16:50
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Deltasquid posted:Israel is already burning through all of its goodwill in record pace. People are reverting course on stances they had 15 days ago. Israel is also more than capable of steamrolling refugees and children without any outside help. This is one of many situations where I wish the world's situation wasn't so dependent on the horrible dysfunction of America's Congress.
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Nov 4, 2023 16:53
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Deltasquid posted:Israel is already burning through all of its goodwill in record pace. People are reverting course on stances they had 15 days ago. Israel is also more than capable of steamrolling refugees and children without any outside help. eh resources are definitely finite and there will unquestionably be (and apparently already is) an impact on Ukraine's situation. with that said, there's so much uncertainty in every way right now that really who the hell knows what will be going on in 6 months. worth noting that the resource squeeze goes both ways: the conflict in Israel spreading would reduce significantly the amount of resources Iran is able to provide to Russia, too. It very likely already has, albeit good luck quantifying the magnitude of that.
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Nov 4, 2023 16:57
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OddObserver posted:Donald Trump, basically, including his effects on US Republicans. Beyond that France is a worry, too. Ehh, the French presidential election is in 2027, that is a long time away (I'm not sure if they'll hold parliamentary elections before that and how much of an impact those could have). I'm actually more concerned about the AFD apparently being the second largest party in Germany at this point, although them making it to the next government may not be very likely. At any rate the next German election will be held in two years' time.
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Nov 4, 2023 17:18
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I dont get why Isreal needs any military aid at all. They have their own MIC. They cant even deal with what is basically an insurgency?
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Nov 4, 2023 18:11
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Deltasquid posted:EU has aid in the pipeline for Ukraine over the coming years. Hell, its spooled up artillery production is coming online in 2024.
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Nov 4, 2023 18:14
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The Top G posted:Sure, they’re both hosed in that regard God the idea that that supplies that could be going to Ukraine to fend off the Russians will instead go to an already horrendously over-armed Israel to kill even more Palestinian civilians for no gain is truly sickening.
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Nov 4, 2023 18:42
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Burns posted:I dont get why Isreal needs any military aid at all. They have their own MIC. They cant even deal with what is basically an insurgency? To discourage anyone else from joining in and turning the insurgency into a regional war.
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Nov 4, 2023 19:09
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Any pressure on Ukraine support seems like it'd more due to a rhetorical/financial "we shouldn't be doing two things at once" argument rather than a practical one - regardless of how the Gaza situation develops it seems unlikely to turn into a prolonged artillery duel that would pull significant relevant resources away from Ukraine, given that Israel has total air superiority. I'd also note that the EU doesn't really support Israel to the degree that the US does.
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Nov 4, 2023 19:16
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Herstory Begins Now posted:at the current rate things are going supporting Israel's war on Gaza may well be be as politically toxic as supporting KSA against Yemen was by 2018, except Israel is on pace to accomplish that in far less time In that we'll be very very sad about it but ultimately continue to support them?
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Nov 4, 2023 19:33
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Paladinus posted:I haven't watched the videos but I think I've been making a similar point here. Putin's ideology, if there is one, is more about being the real Europe or the real Western civilisation, of which America is the most prominent example, than whatever brand of Eurasianism some prefer to focus on. A lot of it is a simple aspiration to be specifically a great Western empire as envisioned by anti-imperialist propaganda. America did terrible things all over the world, therefore, to be great, Russia must do some terrible things or be left behind, etc. This is partly why far-right European parties and people like Tucker Carlson are such mainstays in popular political discourse in Russia. They are viewed as someone who represent that mythical 'real West' thing that Putin wants Russia to be. This is something I feel the multipolar world advocates are missing: it doesn't work if the other poles just want to do what the eeeeevil unipole was doing. Russia and China have imperial asperations of their own, and BRICS is not the SuperFriends.
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Nov 4, 2023 20:28
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I think people itt are overestimating how much this war is Putin's war vs Russia's. If Putin died or was deposed tomorrow, I think it's likely his successor would continue the war. Mike Koffman has pointed out that this type of revanchist war, historically, results in several wars. 2014 to 2022 showed this a bit, but even if there's a ceasefire in 2024 or 2025, if the underlying reasons are neither addressed not utterly invalidated, it's likely to go hot again. Long-term ceasefire such as the Korean peninsula are uncommon.
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Nov 4, 2023 22:27
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Ynglaur posted:I think people itt are overestimating how much this war is Putin's war vs Russia's. If Putin died or was deposed tomorrow, I think it's likely his successor would continue the war. Mike Koffman has pointed out that this type of revanchist war, historically, results in several wars. 2014 to 2022 showed this a bit, but even if there's a ceasefire in 2024 or 2025, if the underlying reasons are neither addressed not utterly invalidated, it's likely to go hot again. Long-term ceasefire such as the Korean peninsula are uncommon. If the underlying cause is "this country exists" I'm not sure what you think can be done. I'll accept that staying at war as a way to not allow Ukraine NATO membership would affect their future "Ukraine should not exist" problems down the line, but I suspect whoever inherited the throne from Putin is going to have a lot of other priorities. Being let back into trading relationships and getting funds unfrozen would probably be a very, very tasty carrot to dangle to get other oligarchs on board, and without priggo there likely aren't any credible, direct military specific threats (as they already purged anyone the military might like).
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Nov 4, 2023 22:44
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America might be losing interest in Ukraine (dont know if that's actually true?) but Europe certainly won't anytime soon. Pretty much all of Europe sees Russia as a very real threat now, and every nation anywhere near Ukraine sees it as an absolute necessity to keep supporting Ukraine against Russia. To allow Ukraine to fall to Russia would be to allow the wolf right into your midst now. Europe can't provide as much as America can but they will keep providing... And as they are ramping up production of military equipment they will be able to give Ukraine more going forwards as well. Meanwhile Russia is doing desperate trading with North Korea of all places in order to keep up demand
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Nov 4, 2023 23:09
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There are enough EU countries baleing for russian blood handily out-GDPing russia to have Ukraines back for the forseeable future. The US is definitely helpful for as long as youre around of course.
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Nov 4, 2023 23:16
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Ynglaur posted:I think people itt are overestimating how much this war is Putin's war vs Russia's. If Putin died or was deposed tomorrow, I think it's likely his successor would continue the war. Mike Koffman has pointed out that this type of revanchist war, historically, results in several wars. 2014 to 2022 showed this a bit, but even if there's a ceasefire in 2024 or 2025, if the underlying reasons are neither addressed not utterly invalidated, it's likely to go hot again. Long-term ceasefire such as the Korean peninsula are uncommon. Is ole Kofman still active on Twitter or has he shifted his commentary to War on the Rocks? The changes to twitter have made him practically inaccessible for me.
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Nov 4, 2023 23:49
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Collapsing Farts posted:Europe can't provide as much as America can but they will keep providing... And as they are ramping up production of military equipment they will be able to give Ukraine more going forwards as well. The question is whether that’s too little, too late. Europe will keep providing, the US will probably keep providing, but they all should have been providing enormously more, and much earlier. It’s entirely possible that the utterly shameful drip-feed strategy will prove insufficient, and Ukraine will suffer (even more) gravely as a result.
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Nov 5, 2023 00:05
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d64 posted:A paper over here just reported frustrations that while there has been talk and plans and high level agreements on increasing ammo production, it's been extremely slow to reach a practical level. Factories have actually received few orders, orders that they need to be able to invest. Governments are reluctant to pay for any production that does not bring jobs to their country. All in all it sounds so like EU that I'm prepared to believe it I remember this, but that was about half a year before most of those problems were taken care off. I posted about this in the past: Germany alone will reach the EU's goal of "1 million shells per year" soon. They're set to reach approx. 600k shells in 2024 (up from approx. 400k this year) and that's for 155mm artillery shells alone. Ukraine has already received the first batches from the new factory lines for 30mm ammunition this year. I can only conclude that your source is either too out of date, or talks about the problems in some other, smaller European country. (I'm, as a German, of course mostly concentrated on what happens over here, in Germany.)
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Nov 5, 2023 00:32
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Volmarias posted:In that we'll be very very sad about it but ultimately continue to support them? No, after the bipartisan congressional condemnation of the Saudis an immense amount of assistance was stopped and weapon sales stopped or put on multi-year pauses, for a while it became forbidden to fulfill maintenance contracts on Saudi aircraft to the extent that the Saudi war effort stalled out completely and the Houthis started running wild over the saudi border and they started drone bombing major pieces of Saudi infrastructure, and after a lot of pleading from Saudi Arabia the US relented on maintenance for defensive systems. I'd wondered at the time if that was defensive systems or just 'defensive systems', but KSA did not apparently regain any particular combat power. it was a complete loving debacle for KSA and indeed you can trace, on the Saudi side, much of the souring of the last 6 or 7 years of US-Saudi relations back to precisely that (on the US side, Khashoggi's killing features prominently, too) Really one of the things that Ukraine figured out very adeptly is that Americans above all do not want to see constant pictures and videos of their weapons blowing up mountains of civilians
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Nov 5, 2023 00:48
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Herstory Begins Now posted:Really one of the things that Ukraine figured out very adeptly is that Americans above all do not want to see constant pictures and videos of their weapons blowing up mountains of civilians
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Nov 5, 2023 00:58
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evil_bunnY posted:This is the sound of Palestinians not laughing, because they're dead. yeah that's what has me bringing it up
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Nov 5, 2023 01:11
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Herstory Begins Now posted:No, after the bipartisan congressional condemnation of the Saudis an immense amount of assistance was stopped and weapon sales stopped or put on multi-year pauses, for a while it became forbidden to fulfill maintenance contracts on Saudi aircraft to the extent that the Saudi war effort stalled out completely and the Houthis started running wild over the saudi border and they started drone bombing major pieces of Saudi infrastructure, and after a lot of pleading from Saudi Arabia the US relented on maintenance for defensive systems. I'd wondered at the time if that was defensive systems or just 'defensive systems', but KSA did not apparently regain any particular combat power. it was a complete loving debacle for KSA and indeed you can trace, on the Saudi side, much of the souring of the last 6 or 7 years of US-Saudi relations back to precisely that (on the US side, Khashoggi's killing features prominently, too) Hum. Consider me better informed then, thanks!
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Nov 5, 2023 07:19
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