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Ronwayne posted:Yeah, it leads to the dangers of just assuming the pro Ukr side is so obviously superior it cannot fail. Discounting even a struggling enemy is a good way to make unforced errors while fighting that enemy. Yeah I'm suggesting that the main damage the messaging has done is in undermining efforts to communicate the actual urgency of various forms of support needed by Ukraine. Ukraine/Ukrainians themselves don't seem to be under any particular delusions about how real of a struggle they face.
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Nov 19, 2023 22:42
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Ukraine needs to walk a fine line with their propaganda. They need to show that donated weapons are effective and helpful but they can't paint two rosy of a picture or else people will think they've got this in the bag and turn the tap off. On the other hand if they show that the situation is dire and they desperately need more weapons people will think it's a lost cause so "no need to send more stuff to them". This is all with regards to public support, as I'm sure donating Nations have a much clearer picture of the situation.
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Nov 19, 2023 23:26
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I would very much not assume that most of the English language messaging on Ukraine is Ukrainian origin fwiw. Particularly not the stuff that is most actively downplaying the difficulty of the fighting. That isn't something Ukraine has been messaging in an official or semi-official capacity for well over a year, if that ever was even a major theme of their messaging (I'd argue they've trended more towards promoting successes vs downplaying the opposition).Blistex posted:This is all with regards to public support, as I'm sure donating Nations have a much clearer picture of the situation. I think you've actually got donating Nations taking their own messaging efforts (done ostensibly on Ukraine's behalf) at face value at times. This is always one of the big downsides to running your own info ops. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 19, 2023 23:50
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Ronwayne posted:The leadership of the country nextdoor with 10 to 100 times your everything just decided to spill its guts trying to kill you.
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Nov 19, 2023 23:50
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DTurtle posted:I know that this is (probably) hyperbole, but I do want to point out that Russia does not have even close to ten, much less a hundred times anything Ukraine has. Cruise missiles.
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Nov 20, 2023 01:20
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Calls to change their leader's diaper? That's what Putin's red phone is for now.
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Nov 20, 2023 01:27
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DTurtle posted:I know that this is (probably) hyperbole, but I do want to point out that Russia does not have even close to ten, much less a hundred times anything Ukraine has. How many spare people does each country have left?
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Nov 20, 2023 01:42
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OddObserver posted:Cruise missiles. Also warships and long-range bombers
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Nov 20, 2023 03:31
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Quackles posted:How many spare people does each country have left? Russia has about five times the population, but Ukrainians are on a full war footing and there's a general willingness to fight, while Russia is in a weird partial mobilization and already throwing convicts into the meat grinder. It's probably a question of whether Putin can put the country into full mobilization and remain in power.
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Nov 20, 2023 03:47
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Three times, not five times.
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Nov 20, 2023 04:38
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Ronwayne posted:Unfortunately I think Putin can win this* unless a sea change happens. While all those russian vehicles and ships and officers exploding is good, it seems they've adapted to just using unending meat waves carrying only small arms, reproducible artillery shells, and disposable drones en masse unending. I worry that he's successfully turned this war into who can sustain human misery for the longest, and in that respect, russia has a huge edge over western support. Not sure I’m gonna believe the West Point washout who believes a Red Terror is inevitably gonna happen in commie hating America with little evidence or relevant education, tbqh. Even discarding that personal knowledge, I’m just not really convinced of the statements you’re making. But let’s break down one of them. “Endless suicide waves, sustained indefinitely” is a particular absolutist statement that I don’t think holds up, either today or historically. I’m thinking rn of how the 40th Army’s casualties during the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was treated. Soviet moms didn’t take that poo poo lying down, and they tried to keep it secret. Bodies got shipped home in the dead of night. That poo poo wasn’t even “endless suicide waves” and it helped reveal cracks in a society that was already spiraling down. Putin’s security apparatus may be able to crush dissent for an election but I don’t believe evidence exists that the entire nation will give up its youth and everyone else over Ukraine. There is a break point to be found, where even the security forces won’t be able to control things. And it’s gonna come when the moms get tired of pointless death, and the prisons are emptied of viable recruits. There’s already outrage in their society because, go figure when you draft murderers to murder in Ukraine, they get after it back home. IIRC, Prigozhin’s drive on Moscow already proved that there are elements of the security forces who are willing to move a bit slow if it looks like someone else might be able to successfully remove the boss. The overt invasion is only a year old. It’s possible for 2024 to turn America into chud central again on the internal politics front. Sure. The euros aren’t gonna turn their back on Ukraine, unless they want to be next. Additionally, this isn’t the great patriotic war. That society does not have the motivation to bleed anywhere near the amount needed to implement what you’ve suggested will happen. There is no existential threat to anyone in Russia apart from the constant danger of blowing up in an elevator or falling out of a window for saying the wrong poo poo. Eventually, when enough Aleksei’s and Nikolai's’ stop coming home and the prisons are emptied, you’ll have your backlash against Putin. The Soviet-Afghan war took 9+ years to come to a conclusion. This is force on force, bleeding them day by day. And social media beams the war into everyone’s eyes, tweet by tweet. No victory is inevitable but your theory reads to me as flawed. The Russian Federation is not the Soviet Union. Putin is not Stalin. They both happen to murder people on the reg but that’s where the correlation ends. The lack of value placed on their own soldiers lives might be a commonality but the ability to cash that check in body count I doubt is there, compared to the past. Let’s see how long they keep it up but, IMO, this leads to their own society fracturing and Putin eating poo poo in the long run. And there will be a long run.
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Nov 20, 2023 05:30
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the russian people have enough, like literally their entire recorded history, under dipshit strongmen to understand that they have to prop putin up for as long as it takes because the alternative of dozens of weaker wannabe putins doing this poo poo to each other at home is way worse for them they've seen a mob war in the early 90s there no appetite for another no matter how stupid he is, at least there's only one of him
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Nov 20, 2023 05:40
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yeah it's not great and we the US need drastic measures to stop sliding down that slope but one thing the rest of the world makes clear is that once you become a low-trust high-power-distance society there ain't no coming back
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Nov 20, 2023 05:48
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Putin doesn't need to outlast Ukraine. He just needs to outlast the US election cycle.
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Nov 20, 2023 06:26
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DTurtle posted:I know that this is (probably) hyperbole, but I do want to point out that Russia does not have even close to ten, much less a hundred times anything Ukraine has. I'm very certain Russia has 100 times the amount of population they consider undesirable and expendable than ukraine does, considering I don't think ukraine has any that it can afford to throw away. This war is also a form of ethnic cleansing as the russian government sends assorted non-rus minorities to die by the truckload. Even when those waves get mowed down putin is 'winning' in the sense he's exporting his internal ethnic cleansing. GD_American posted:Putin doesn't need to outlast Ukraine. He just needs to outlast the US election cycle. This, sadly. I'm in texas so my presidential vote doesn't matter, but its so gross when one realizes the 'mistakes' your fellow citizens did weren't mistakes, they were on-purposes and they wanna do it again. Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 09:52 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2023 09:39
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TheWeedNumber posted:Not sure I’m gonna believe the West Point washout who believes a Red Terror is inevitably gonna happen in commie hating America with little evidence or relevant education, tbqh. Even discarding that personal knowledge, I’m just not really convinced of the statements you’re making. But let’s break down one of them. I don't think you can really compare the 1940s vs. 1980s USSR. Gorbachev's willingness to reform Soviet societal repression through Perestroika is probably the only reason why the outcry regarding Afghanistan worked. If the same poo poo had happened in WWII, Stalin would have just wiped the entire village off the map.
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Nov 20, 2023 10:15
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TheWeedNumber posted:“Endless suicide waves, sustained indefinitely” is a particular absolutist statement that I don’t think holds up, either today or historically. I’m thinking rn of how the 40th Army’s casualties during the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was treated. Soviet moms didn’t take that poo poo lying down, and they tried to keep it secret. Bodies got shipped home in the dead of night. That poo poo wasn’t even “endless suicide waves” and it helped reveal cracks in a society that was already spiraling down. I think the big thing here is that Russian losses are already way worse than that, in way less time, combined with other insane stuff like "murderer gets sent off to murder on the front lines, gets home, is pardoned for previous murders, murders again at home." and there's no real... opposition despite this. Hard to tell if propaganda is making Russians cheer for glorious death, or whether information is just choked down too hard for the home front to get the real picture, but I'm convinced that if there was going to be any sort of real domestic troublemaking, it would've happened well before now. In fact it feels like what opposition there was is fading, rather than getting stronger. It's been a long time since we last had any stories of public anti-war protests or anti-government firebombs. There's probably a break point, but I agree with Ronwayne that it in no way feels like we're near it, and it's not something that can be relied on to win the war. TheWeedNumber posted:IIRC, Prigozhin’s drive on Moscow already proved that there are elements of the security forces who are willing to move a bit slow if it looks like someone else might be able to successfully remove the boss. But who's going to do the next drive on Moscow? All Prigozhin really accomplished was pissing his pants publicly, getting murdered, and getting a good number of those "willing to move a bit slow" removed from or otherwise marginalized. I don't believe we'll see anything similar again. No one else has the same kind of access to their own forces to make a move without getting instantly blasted as soon as a whisper of it comes out. TheWeedNumber posted:The overt invasion is only a year old. It’s possible for 2024 to turn America into chud central again on the internal politics front. Sure. The euros aren’t gonna turn their back on Ukraine, unless they want to be next. Additionally, this isn’t the great patriotic war. That society does not have the motivation to bleed anywhere near the amount needed to implement what you’ve suggested will happen. There is no existential threat to anyone in Russia apart from the constant danger of blowing up in an elevator or falling out of a window for saying the wrong poo poo. Firstly, Europe cannot supply Ukraine's military needs entirely on its own, at least not until we've had a good, long time of gearing up for it, not without American support, and the US is already choking and sputtering on support for Ukraine, even without another chud presidency. Second... us euros might not have a choice in terms of turning our backs on Ukraine. The Slovakian and Hungarian presidencies are going to do everything they can to spoiler, which is going to prevent anything that requires unanimity, which a lot of European parliament stuff does, and there have always been a number of big partners like Germany that are desperately hungry for a diplomatic solution of some sort, and are only going along with the military option because everyone else is. If enough of them jump ship... what are the rest of us going to do? Denmark can't keep Ukraine rolling on its own. I'm absolutely confident that Ukraine can win if they get the right support... I'm just worried they won't get it, and what's been happening over the last half year or so has made me increasingly worried.
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Nov 20, 2023 10:39
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Hmmm…so it’s an MISO problem for the Ukrainians then. Probably with a cyber element to pull off a “hahaha you thought this was the 7 o’clock news, think again сука!” Ofc that’s a very crude and simplistic expression of a rather complex thing, but close enough to discuss the idea I hope. TLDR: bring the war to them if the state media is doing such a good job papering over it. idk, still thinking these ideas through. Feel free to shoot em down.psydude posted:I don't think you can really compare the 1940s vs. 1980s USSR. Gorbachev's willingness to reform Soviet societal repression through Perestroika is probably the only reason why the outcry regarding Afghanistan worked. If the same poo poo had happened in WWII, Stalin would have just wiped the entire village off the map. In this case I’m going 80s USSR and current RF. No disagreements on your view here. However doing that comparison, here’s my follow up. Braithwaite’s Afgantsy is the book that most recently colored my perceptions on this. Still learning, don’t know nearly enough. However what stuck out to me the most was not the effects of perestroika, because even the deaths were kept secret as policy. It’s that everyone knew what was up and didn’t believe in what was happening to begin with. I got the distinct feeling that, while perestroika let them do something about it, damage would have still been done to the society even if they had to keep it buttoned up. I’d love to do some more reading and get caught up. Based on the posts ITT (appreciate y’all), I think I need to reevaluate and learn more about how Putin maintains his power and the propaganda/security system in place. Did I miss any good posts on it already? TheWeedNumber fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2023 15:06
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TheWeedNumber posted:Not sure I’m gonna believe the West Point washout who believes a Red Terror is inevitably gonna happen in commie hating America with little evidence or relevant education, tbqh. Even discarding that personal knowledge, I’m just not really convinced of the statements you’re making. But let’s break down one of them. Maybe do this without making a weird personal attack.
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Nov 20, 2023 15:13
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GD_American posted:Putin doesn't need to outlast Ukraine. He just needs to outlast the US election cycle. This makes everything in Ukraine worse, but it doesn't mean Russia wins. He still has to deal with the domestic ramifications of what has happened. I think one of the big results will be a lot of Russian military hardware getting into the hands of local gangs and families. With how chaotic things are weapons smuggling must be thriving. And when you've got crates of PKMs and anti-tank mines circulating "commercial" markets you've got that particular spice in play when the transition to the cool zone happens. M_Gargantua fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2023 15:52
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Ronwayne posted:I'm very certain Russia has 100 times the amount of population they consider undesirable and expendable than ukraine does, considering I don't think ukraine has any that it can afford to throw away. This war is also a form of ethnic cleansing as the russian government sends assorted non-rus minorities to die by the truckload. Even when those waves get mowed down putin is 'winning' in the sense he's exporting his internal ethnic cleansing. Your vote does matter in Texas
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Nov 20, 2023 15:55
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I just want to know what Putin and the Russian state are expecting to accomplish at this point. Hoping the US election cycle produces a favorable outcome seems like a dangerous crapshoot and one that might not even yield the results they're looking for. And in a conflict where Russia, the aggressor, has largely been in a defensive posture against the Ukrainians it is more likely that the Ukrainians could see a breakthrough over the next year instead.
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Nov 20, 2023 16:00
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If Putin's key to success depends on the party that's been continuously taking Ls for the last 3 years, can't even decide on a Speaker of the House, and is run by a guy about to lose his New York business, that isn't good for him.
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Nov 20, 2023 16:41
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99pct of germs posted:And in a conflict where Russia, the aggressor, has largely been in a defensive posture against the Ukrainians it is more likely that the Ukrainians could see a breakthrough over the next year instead. Russia has returned to offensives along the front in the last few months, most notably around Avdiivka, though is showing fairly meager gains to justify the losses they're taking. Unfortunately for Ukraine, the same could be said of its summer offensive, which made did little more than open a minor salient Ukraine has been incapable of widening. Russia, were it to actually just sit on its occupied territories, scale down its war goals, and smugly tell Ukraine to come at them, bro, would actually be in a position of strength. They've shown the line can hold despite Pollyannas pronouncing every single piece of news to be a sign of Ukraine's imminent breakthrough. Turns out that fighting a defensive war is a lot easier than an offensive one! The point isn't that Ukraine is hosed, it's that it needs supporters more than it needs cheerleaders. I think that merits Operation Steppe Shield, but would be fine if Western countries just took things seriously and ramped up their defense industrial base to meet Ukraine's needs.
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Nov 20, 2023 16:43
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The X-man cometh posted:If Putin's key to success depends on the party that's been continuously taking Ls for the last 3 years, can't even decide on a Speaker of the House, and is run by a guy about to lose his New York business, that isn't good for him. Likely the way Putin sees it, if that very same party can somehow be given control of two or even all three branches of government, that would effectively remove the US from any meaningful international opposition for at least a whole election cycle, if not longer. It is without a doubt a vital interest for him to pursue that policy. If he wants to destroy NATO and end US international power, it's his best bet.
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Nov 20, 2023 16:57
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https://www.ft.com/content/412c6c23-1bb4-42e0-a703-dfe7f0f5f10e For non-podcast listeners, this is a full transcript of what I linked a few days ago. quote:Gideon Rachman quote:Jack Watling quote:Gideon Rachman quote:Jack Watling quote:Jack Watling Welp, I tried to pick out some of the highlights, but it still ended up as a wall of text. Hope you don't mind.
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Nov 20, 2023 19:53
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Hannibal Rex posted:https://www.ft.com/content/412c6c23-1bb4-42e0-a703-dfe7f0f5f10e Russia is not outproducing NATO, they are outstripping their allies of materials faster than NATO is willing to strip theirs. I don't agree with their sentiment about Russia's capabilities to regain the initiative - they have shown no indication of being able to do so.
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Nov 20, 2023 20:07
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CommieGIR posted:Russia is not outproducing NATO, they are outstripping their allies of materials faster than NATO is willing to strip theirs. Artillery ammunition? Probably also in other metrics, like Lancets, EW, tanks, IFVs, FPV drones, but I'm not someone who keeps close track of all these. Ukraine is innovating faster, but Russia can mass-produce once they find something that works, and European defense industry still isn't on a war footing. The US has deep stockpiles, but that doesn't matter much if they don't get a budget for Ukraine aid. quote:I don't agree with their sentiment about Russia's capabilities to regain the initiative - they have shown no indication of being able to do so. I wouldn't discount the possibility that Ukraine will have to abandon Avdiivka in the coming months, if Russia can keep throwing soldiers at them while the defenders get exhausted and run low on ammunition. As Watling writes, if Russia can train and equip more men than they lose, and more than Ukraine can, then the current situation won't remain stable.
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Nov 20, 2023 20:39
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Russia does not have to outproduce the totality of war material built by the sum of every member of NATO. Russia just has to outproduce or outperform with the forces and material allocated in defense of Ukraine. US investments in munitions and capabilities in the Pacific, for example, don’t mean a whole lot to Ukraine. Similarly, if European suppliers have not stepped up their production enough (they haven’t yet), then Ukraine will not be able to rely on further drawdowns of stock that may not exist or may not be offered over domestic European defense and training requirements. And ongoing US commitment to arming Israel is significant, which adds to the uncertainty of supplies for Ukraine. SecDef is taking a trip to Ukraine, but a trip isn’t legislation that affects the budget…
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Nov 20, 2023 20:40
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Ronwayne posted:This, sadly. I'm in texas so my presidential vote doesn't matter, but its so gross when one realizes the 'mistakes' your fellow citizens did weren't mistakes, they were on-purposes and they wanna do it again. Participate in Get Out The Vote drives. 2024 is going to require those everywhere that was red or purple in 2020. You might not get the electoral college win, but turning some local seats blue would be big for 2028.
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Nov 20, 2023 21:00
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mlmp08 posted:Russia does not have to outproduce the totality of war material built by the sum of every member of NATO. I'd be interested in seeing some numbers for Russia And Pals vs NATO production in one big spreadsheet. I don't think we can take anyone's claims at face value but it's just one of those big number crunches it'd be neat to massage together sometime. Even if not taking allocations into account, just stacking up what the actual production capabilities are at a snapshot in time gets me curious. While I'm a it, I'd also like a Unicorn and a winning lottery ticket.
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Nov 20, 2023 21:01
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Hannibal Rex posted:Artillery ammunition? Russia is not producing new tanks or IFVs, they are digging up scrap metal from storage. They brought out T-64s for pete's sake. And most of their FPVs/Drones are coming from other sources and the overall quality has been meh. Russia is not largely mass-producing anything. The US and NATO are also not over-committing like Russia has, they are keeping enough in stockpile for their own use.
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Nov 20, 2023 21:08
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CommieGIR posted:Russia is not producing new tanks or IFVs, they are digging up scrap metal from storage. They brought out T-64s for pete's sake. And most of their FPVs/Drones are coming from other sources and the overall quality has been meh. Yeah and nato is donating leopard 1s and m113
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Nov 20, 2023 21:17
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mllaneza posted:Participate in Get Out The Vote drives. 2024 is going to require those everywhere that was red or purple in 2020. You might not get the electoral college win, but turning some local seats blue would be big for 2028. Oh yeah, I'm still gonna do it, saunter up and check the D and try to get people to vote for local dems that aren't pure poison, but good god almighty, I wish all the "purple texas" predictions for the last 10+ years were actually happening faster. I guess we gotta wait for the crop of silents and boomers to go. To clarify, my position is not "we're doomed" but rather "good LORD that hill we gotta climb is high and long" I guess at the very least as the texas GOP has to cheat more and more to win we can force some kind of 'crack ping'.
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Nov 20, 2023 21:21
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CommieGIR posted:Russia is not producing new tanks or IFVs, they are digging up scrap metal from storage. They brought out T-64s for pete's sake. And most of their FPVs/Drones are coming from other sources and the overall quality has been meh. I think this might be a bit on the overly positive side, Russia is by all accounts still managing to produce enough to keep up with their missile barrages, and even if their "sources" are producing "meh," stuff, then a million "meh" North Korean shells will still beat Ukraine getting a few thousand "excellent" Western shells, unless the NK shells are so bad they literally make artillery pieces explode when fired. NATO is going to need to step up for quantity not to completely outblast quality.
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Nov 20, 2023 21:29
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PurpleXVI posted:I think this might be a bit on the overly positive side, Russia is by all accounts still managing to produce enough to keep up with their missile barrages, and even if their "sources" are producing "meh," stuff, then a million "meh" North Korean shells will still beat Ukraine getting a few thousand "excellent" Western shells, unless the NK shells are so bad they literally make artillery pieces explode when fired. it is russia is producing new stuff too
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Nov 20, 2023 21:39
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CommieGIR posted:Russia is not producing new tanks or IFVs, they are digging up scrap metal from storage. They brought out T-64s for pete's sake. And most of their FPVs/Drones are coming from other sources and the overall quality has been meh. The majority of the vehicles that are newly fielded are refurbished, but claiming they don't produce any new ones is absurd. And the old stockpiles they do have are still going to last them several years. Meanwhile, how many Leopard 2s get produced each year? 50? And those don't go straight to Ukraine. The US is still pretty reticent about sending more Abrams. So what's going to make up for attrition on the Ukrainian side, while we wait for Russia to blow through the remains of their Soviet stockpiles? https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/10/06/russia-is-losing-more-of-its-best-t-90-tanks-perhaps-because-it-has-more-t-90s-to-lose/ https://www.armyrecognition.com/ukr..._sanctions.html quote:The Russians have lost so many tanks that they’ve had no choice but to reactivate and rush to the front hundreds of 50-, 60- and even 70-year-old T-72 Ural, T-62 and T-54/55 tanks, often with no major upgrades to their optics, fire-controls or armor.
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Nov 20, 2023 22:01
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vuk83 posted:Yeah and nato is donating leopard 1s and m113 notably, however, not because they have run out of leopard 2s and Bradleys. Hannibal Rex posted:The majority of the vehicles that are newly fielded are refurbished, but claiming they don't produce any new ones is absurd. And the old stockpiles they do have are still going to last them several years. Meanwhile, how many Leopard 2s get produced each year? 50? And those don't go straight to Ukraine. The US is still pretty reticent about sending more Abrams. So what's going to make up for attrition on the Ukrainian side, while we wait for Russia to blow through the remains of their Soviet stockpiles? Those two estimates align just fine. One factory makes twenty but 2 plus an unknown number of others, some of which are going the easy refurbishment route, 'make' 90? I'm not sure I buy that whatever domestic optics they've spun up are the equivalent of the ones they were buying from France. All that said, though, I certainly agree we should send as much as they can use without damaging our own readiness.
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Nov 20, 2023 22:31
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Surely we won't overestimate Russia THIS time.
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Nov 20, 2023 23:01
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CommieGIR posted:Surely we won't overestimate Russia THIS time. This time it'll be Russian army spending that destroys their economy, instead of navy spending.
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Nov 20, 2023 23:11
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