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Pookah posted:I am a thousand miles away from this conflict, so I have no intimate knowledge, beyond the fact that a whole group of refugees from Ukraine are now living in my town, and they are very welcome and supported. A Ukrainian lady posted in a Facebook group that she was living in a local hotel, but her son had a disability that required regular massage and the hotel bed wasn't suitable, so did anyone had a massage table. By the end of the day, she had a table and a solid offer of massage supplies to help her son Reading this, I was reminded of my surprise after February 24 at the enormous public outcry in the rest of Europe at the Russian invasion. One of the reasons the outcry was so overwhelming is that to most Europeans, Ukraine is Europe. I'm quite sure that would not have been the case if Russia had invaded in 2002. I recall reading a book written by a Dutch journalist ~2000 who traveled around the "edges" of Europe, which included a trip to Odessa, where locals were ambivalent whether their city was really part of Europe or not. But 2004 saw the eastward expansions of the EU and NATO as well as the Orange Revolution as seminal events that a) began the process of convincing Western Europeans that Eastern Europe was well and truly 'Europe' and b) pushed Ukraine closer to that psychogeographical place due to internal events. This isn't an inevitable process, by the way: for Georgia, for instance, it's still very much a one-way street - Georgia itself wants to be more 'European' but Europeans themselves mostly don't regard Georgia as 'truly' European.
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Oct 10, 2022 23:03
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Pope Hilarius II posted:I'm quite sure that would not have been the case if Russia had invaded in 2002. I recall reading a book written by a Dutch journalist ~2000 who traveled around the "edges" of Europe, which included a trip to Odessa, where locals were ambivalent whether their city was really part of Europe or not. Uh, what? As someone born in Odesa, that's bullshit, and the journalist(?) likely went quote shopping to find a weirdo with that opinion. Like some of the most influential people in the city's history are Frenchmen (And that's not even counting the baseline racism in the society that would find any other answer unacceptable). Georgia is a funky example since it's a very old country that was in between Roman and Persian influence.
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Oct 10, 2022 23:12
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I wondered if this happens and how it is treated by the International community (in general, not necessarily in this instance).
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Oct 10, 2022 23:13
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Small White Dragon posted:I wondered if this happens and how it is treated by the International community (in general, not necessarily in this instance). Depends. Somestimes it is just getting bitched out. I'm pretty sure listening to angry Pakistani officals is part of the US Embassy and Ambassador job description. I know it's been the case with drone, and I think a Tomahawk here and there, but I could be wrong.
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Oct 10, 2022 23:21
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OddObserver posted:Uh, what? As someone born in Odesa, that's bullshit, and the journalist(?) likely went quote shopping to find a weirdo with that opinion. Like some of the most influential people in the city's history are Frenchmen (And that's not even counting the baseline racism in the society that would find any other answer unacceptable). That book sounds like it was 'In Europa' by Geert Mak. I've read it, it's very good.
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Oct 10, 2022 23:23
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Marshal Prolapse posted:Depends. Somestimes it is just getting bitched out. I'm pretty sure listening to angry Pakistani officals is part of the US Embassy and Ambassador job description. I know it's been the case with drone, and I think a Tomahawk here and there, but I could be wrong.
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Oct 10, 2022 23:31
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Small White Dragon posted:I wondered if this happens and how it is treated by the International community (in general, not necessarily in this instance). e: whoops, wrong thread the popes toes fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Oct 11, 2022 |
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Oct 10, 2022 23:37
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Mr. Apollo posted:During the Gulf War, the US sent Tomahawks through Iranian airspace because the deserts of Iraq were too featureless for their guidance system to work. I wonder if they gave a heads up, even if from a netural party (say Sweeden at the time), so they wouldn't engage them (since the Islamic Republic of Iran had/has an interest in a weak Iraq).
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Oct 10, 2022 23:42
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Dolash posted:The whole world is on thin ice right now about whether a nuclear power can lose a conventional war against an army supplied by another nuclear power without it escalating to nuclear war. Every new step taken, especially ones in the direction of using weapons provided by one nuclear power within the borders of another, is accompanied by a lot of anxiety about whether it could put us on an escalation spiral nobody can stop. What? See the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Russo-Afghan War, the US-Afghan war as direct examples. Some of them were way hotter than the current war. Russian pilots were shooting down American airplanes over North Korea. Russian SAM operators were shooting down American pilots over Vietnam. In the Russo-Afghan war the US supplied cutting edge weapons, not just emptied out their old storage. The Suez Crisis, the French-Indochinese war, Sino-Vietnamese War, the Taiwan Straight Crisis, and probably a dozen minor proxy wars as similar, but not quite the same examples. Nuclear powers and powers backed by nuclear powers lose all the time. Hell, nuclear powers have directly fought against each other in the Kargil war. TL;DR this may be new and frightening for relatively young people, but this is "oh, it must be Tuesday" for people who lived through the Cold War.
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Oct 10, 2022 23:55
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Speaking of the Cold War, you guys remember Madman Theory? Nixon's idea that if he acted like "he's fuckin' crazy, man, you better do what he says or else he might just push the button, seriously, he might really do it" he'd be able to wring out concessions? I guess now we know what Nixon looked like to the USSR. Can't say it seems to work very well, but it's deeply unpleasant all the same.
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Oct 11, 2022 00:02
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Xae posted:What? I think that understates the reasonableness of people recognizing that the threat of nuclear war is the highest it's been in a long time (albeit still, overall, very, very low). With that said, a bunch of those conflicts mentioned had degrees of nuclear saber rattling that were absolutely wild. in french indochina war you had the US offering to nuke the vietnamese outside of dien ben phu. in korea macarthur was drooling to use nuclear weapons against the north koreans and in vietnam westmoreland wanted to use nuclear weapons to break the siege of khe sanh russia had their own series of nuclear brinksmanship near-misses
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Oct 11, 2022 00:09
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Xae posted:What? None of those involved the possible total defeat of a major's power's conventional military. Vietnam was never going to destroy the American army, just bleed them enough that Washington lost political will. This war could see that with regards to Russia's military. The Kargil war could have escalated and gone that way and gone nuclear.
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Oct 11, 2022 00:35
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Charlz Guybon posted:None of those involved the possible total defeat of a major's power's conventional military. Vietnam was never going to destroy the American army, just bleed them enough that Washington lost political will. This war could see that with regards to Russia's military. I mean, the Korean War almost saw the complete collapse of the entire UN Force; now granted, the US Armed Forces in Europe were still there and not on the verge of collapse, but I think you are underestimating a little the scope of the calamity that had MacArthur wanting to nuke North Korea and every major city in China before Truman fired him.
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Oct 11, 2022 00:43
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Marshal Prolapse posted:I wonder if they gave a heads up, even if from a netural party (say Sweeden at the time), so they wouldn't engage them (since the Islamic Republic of Iran had/has an interest in a weak Iraq). The official line is no, Iran wasn’t given a heads up. However, Iran never reacted to the overflights of the missiles so there probably was a quiet heads up. Mr. Apollo fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Oct 11, 2022 |
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Oct 11, 2022 00:45
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Charlz Guybon posted:None of those involved the possible total defeat of a major's power's conventional military. Vietnam was never going to destroy the American army, just bleed them enough that Washington lost political will. This war could see that with regards to Russia's military. I keep coming back to comparing this war to the French Indochina war... but Vietnam was absolutely destroying entire French divisions. They destroyed or damaged many of France's best units at a crazy rate and towards the end of French involvement in Vietnam the US was itching to nuke the Vietnamese. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Vulture The Korean war also can be described very similarly to as you describe particularly with American forces getting pushed down the peninsula which was absolutely presented as an existential threat to American forces in Korea. No neither of these were going to be a total defeat to the last man of American or French forces, but that's not what Russia is facing either. Interestingly, both of these involved American hawks commanding American armies who were every bit as nuke-droolingly insane as anyone on Russian state television and neither made it all that close to actually using nuclear weapons even though there were plenty of suggestions and agitation to use them. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Oct 11, 2022 |
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Oct 11, 2022 00:47
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Mr. Apollo posted:During the Gulf War, the US sent Tomahawks through Iranian airspace because the deserts of Iraq were too featureless for their guidance system to work. I doubt the Iranians minded all that much.
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Oct 11, 2022 01:27
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https://www.economist.com/1843/2022/10/06/learn-to-kill-from-a-safe-distance-and-write-a-will-the-secret-diary-of-a-ukrainian-soldier-part-1 This is a pretty detailed personal account of Ukrainian mobilization and training. Without paywall: https://archive.ph/bHnNF
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Oct 11, 2022 02:35
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Hannibal Rex posted:https://www.economist.com/1843/2022/10/06/learn-to-kill-from-a-safe-distance-and-write-a-will-the-secret-diary-of-a-ukrainian-soldier-part-1 Wow. This is outstanding and filled with a perfect wry humor. Really good stuff.
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Oct 11, 2022 03:13
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Ynglaur posted:I doubt the Iranians minded all that much. Did they even have anything in the 90s that could detect and shoot down tomahawks?
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Oct 11, 2022 03:34
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Hannibal Rex posted:https://www.economist.com/1843/2022/10/06/learn-to-kill-from-a-safe-distance-and-write-a-will-the-secret-diary-of-a-ukrainian-soldier-part-1 Really puts into perspective how little time 4 weeks of training really is, that's a lot to cram before being sent to the front lines. And that's well trained in comparison to what the Russian conscripts will get.
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Oct 11, 2022 03:51
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Saint Celestine posted:Did they even have anything in the 90s that could detect and shoot down tomahawks? Probably. Tomahawks aren’t like trying to intercept a ballistic missile. I also suspect that target planners tried to make sure it was done at night and did not fly over populated areas or near places Iran would consider military or strategic infrastructure.
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Oct 11, 2022 03:53
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Saint Celestine posted:Did they even have anything in the 90s that could detect and shoot down tomahawks? I think it would have depended on how the Tomahawk was flying. Iran's air defense at the time was largely 70s era British Rapier and US Hawk SAMs IIRC. The Tomahawk isn't particularly stealthy or fast but I doubt those systems would have had much luck intercepting a low flying target.
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Oct 11, 2022 03:53
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Hannibal Rex posted:https://www.economist.com/1843/2022/10/06/learn-to-kill-from-a-safe-distance-and-write-a-will-the-secret-diary-of-a-ukrainian-soldier-part-1 it's a good read, thanks for posting just another in the thousands of daily reminders what a cruel pointless thing this war is
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Oct 11, 2022 04:52
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I didn't expect Ukrainian training to be some sort of perfect clockwork operation, but that paints a pretty unpleasant portrait of their training corps.
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Oct 11, 2022 04:53
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Hannibal Rex posted:https://www.economist.com/1843/2022/10/06/learn-to-kill-from-a-safe-distance-and-write-a-will-the-secret-diary-of-a-ukrainian-soldier-part-1 quote:In the afternoon an instructor treats us to a lecture on how great the Soviet Union was. How cheap the petrol was. How happy people were. I can’t stand any of this bullshit. We still have to clean up the mess that dictatorship left us. We still suffer from the rot that permeates our state structures. The army. People’s brains. It makes me angry when some of the cadets here sing Soviet army songs. As far as I’m concerned, the Soviet military songbook is full of contempt for the value of human life. Gonna guess this is some old guy in the Ukrainian military who hasn't gotten with the times that Ukraine wants to be a part of Europe now, and that Ukraine is supposed to be fighting like a Western and not Soviet army. edit: Yup later on, in the diary: quote:Part of the problem is the training itself. And the contrast. More than half the instructors are good at what they do. They care. I’d pay to be taught by them in peacetime. But there are also the stale, good-for-nothing, Soviet-brained officers, with their ridiculous love of military pomp. Sure, none of them is going out of his way to justify Stalin. They all speak Ukrainian and they hate Russians. But they are still “Soviet” people deep down: closed-minded, insecure, anti-human. JesusSinfulHands fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Oct 11, 2022 |
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Oct 11, 2022 04:55
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Another dawn is breaking in Kyiv, and it's still Ukrainian.   
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Oct 11, 2022 05:13
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OAquinas posted:https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2022/10/glonass-k-17/ I was surprised by this and checked - the article does say that the launches from French Guiana have been halted. Unsurprising as it's part of the EU and satellite launches have obvious military applications.
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Oct 11, 2022 06:27
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Deteriorata posted:Another dawn is breaking in Kyiv, and it's still Ukrainian. Whoa, that building looks cool. What is it?
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Oct 11, 2022 06:58
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Hannibal Rex posted:https://www.economist.com/1843/2022/10/06/learn-to-kill-from-a-safe-distance-and-write-a-will-the-secret-diary-of-a-ukrainian-soldier-part-1 Ooof, what a chilling summary. I hope whatever happens, I never have to be in a situation like this.
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Oct 11, 2022 07:07
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Reuters is reporting that air raid sirens are going off all over Ukraine. There might be more missile attacks to follow: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/air-raid-warnings-across-ukraine-emergency-services-2022-10-11/?utm_source=reddit.com
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Oct 11, 2022 08:03
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Xae posted:What? In none of these examples were the nations given weapons to hit US mainland or Soviet major population centers - which is what much longer ranged weapons would allow and encourage. The closest was Cuba and Russia specifically put its own (not under local control) long range rocketry in response to the US basing (US controlled) rockets to hit Moscow in Europe. If it is NATO rockets, with NATO logistics, using NATO satellite support are rolled over the border and a Ukrainian pushes the launch button to hit targets around Moscow, is it really Ukraine resisting Russia or is it NATO fighting Russia while claiming "I'm not touching you?". Anyway, I had more of think about the puzzling useless bridge bombing that Russia indulged in and sort of wonder if it was a warning to Ukraine to not get too carried away undertaking hit missions inside Russia or the response each time would be disproportionate, a power infrastructure or two thrown in to demonstrate that Russia is still withholding a lot of misery as long as the fight remains conventional on the front lines.
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Oct 11, 2022 08:11
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God I hope the lady from my flat who on friday morning went "I'm just gonna check if everything is all right in my Lwów place" will come back. Hadn't seen her yesterday, and during the weekend I learned that half of the tennants went back to Ukraine because they felt safe enough. I hope they'll come back here where it's actually safe.
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Oct 11, 2022 08:20
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Xae posted:What? I feel like "over North Korea" and "over Vietnam" are kinda the point though? Those wars were hot, but they were contained within those countries (and spilled out into unfortunate neighboring countries). As hot as they got nobody was supplying South Korea with weapons to fire into China, or Vietnam to fire into mainland US. Supplying counties to fight a proxy war against a nuclear powered country within their borders has happened, supplying countries to attack INTO nuclear powered countries is something very different. The whole point of a proxy war is the powers don't get the direct consequences of war all over themselves and none of them has wanted to break that. The line has never been crossed as far as I can recall, and refusing to arm Ukraine with cruise missiles is just in line with how these things have gone.
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Oct 11, 2022 08:35
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Electric Wrigglies posted:
In game theory (and some military guys are really into that), this is called tit-for-tat. The idea is that exactly what you say, and it does often work in practice and discourages the enemy from taking actions they know will provoke a response. In this case, settling into a detente where Ukraine doesn't strike Russian assets would create the situation where Russia is able to kill massively more Ukrainians than they are able to with the revenge strikes. Given that fact, and the overall ineffectiveness of the Russian missiles, Ukraine would be mad to stop hitting Russian assets.
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Oct 11, 2022 08:36
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Phigs posted:I feel like "over North Korea" and "over Vietnam" are kinda the point though? Those wars were hot, but they were contained within those countries (and spilled out into unfortunate neighboring countries). As hot as they got nobody was supplying South Korea with weapons to fire into China, or Vietnam to fire into mainland US. Just for the sake of not forgetting history, the US repeatedly considered nuking China during the Korean war. It's not like it was something that was off of the table. It just never came to it, fortunately for us. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/examples-of-past-nuclear-threats-between-countries
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Oct 11, 2022 08:43
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Are there any more of those diaries? It says part 1 but I am not finding any. I assume they haven't been released yet.
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Oct 11, 2022 08:48
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The Finnish ministry of health has issued a recommendation that every person between the ages of 3 and 40 should acquire iodine pills in case of radiation exposure.
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Oct 11, 2022 09:04
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OAquinas posted:Also of interest is that two of their launch sites are in areas that are either hostile to them or getting chillier--french guiana and Baikonur in Kazakhstan, respectively.
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Oct 11, 2022 09:22
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uncleTomOfFinland posted:The Finnish ministry of health has issued a recommendation that every person between the ages of 3 and 40 should acquire iodine pills in case of radiation exposure.
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Oct 11, 2022 09:36
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Cable Guy posted:Rozcosmos never launched from Guiana... the Soyuz vehicles launched from there were purchased from Russia and operated by Arianespace and ESA. ESA stopped buying after February and future launches have been suspended. I think they're going to use Vega instead. Vega has much lower payload and, for now, a Ukrainian upper stage, though they were in process.of designing a successor that doesn't.
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Oct 11, 2022 09:55
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