Ukraine: The straw that broke the camel's blyat

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Internet VFW > Ukraine: The straw that broke the camel's blyat

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

Can that tank be fixed?

# ¿ Apr 18, 2023 04:53

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 00:31

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

Natty Ninefingers posted:

With any grace 15 years from now, in an old Soviet as gently caress city square surrounded by big Soviet era buildings in some Ukrainian city there will be a new war memorial to those who gave their lives to beat back the Russian invasion and liberate the Donbass and Crimea. The center of the memorial will be a plinth, and that plinth will have a Bradley on it.

Except nobody has really died in the Bradley�s so maybe it�ll still be an MTLB or BMP.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2023 22:40

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

The CIA has had an almost constant presence with the GUR since Maidan succeeded. They've been providing resources, training and information to them which means it's a fusion of KGB and CIA tactics rolled into a highly motivated and aggressive intelligence agency. I'm almost certain the CIA has a permanent field office located within the HQ of GUR itself. If Ukraine survives this reasonably intact you'll have a group as brazen and fearsome as the Mossad.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2023 23:54

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

spankmeister posted:

He did kill a bunch of landlords so its impossible to say if he's good or not

This unfortunately seems to be the story of almost every post monarchical revolutionary society beginning with the French Revolution. It always starts with a comfortable class of aristocrats and autocrats who abuse their powers, concentrate all the nation's land and wealth into their hands and carving out special privileges for themselves that make them exempt from the laws of the land. Then after a period of revolution, centrists and right adjacent "democratic" reformers never go far enough for the people who helped them overthrow the previous government and more radical factions launch a second wave to deliver on land reform promises.

Like Lenin ripped off a lot of promises and policies of the SRs when it suited him politically to get the Bolsheviks in power. Likewise I'm sure Mao's land reform was a nice carrot to the stick of cultural revolution and further autocracy. It turns out centrists being ineffectual at meeting the needs of the people they rule over often get brutally overthrown by radicals later for their arrogance.

That might be a lesson for today's western governments and how history seems to be repeating itself as land once again starts concentrating into the hands of a politically and legally unaccountable landed elite.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2023 15:29

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

Tuna-Fish posted:

That's not really what happened. In some ways, it's the exact opposite.

Mao first did land reform (and a lot of other successful reform policies) during and in the immediate aftermath of the civil war, basically ending by 1950. These successful reforms all share the feature that they were done by a government that was not yet very powerful and could not afford much bureaucracy, so everything was done very sensitively to local conditions, was extraordinarily popular, but a lot more moderate than what the radicals wanted.

But after the mid-50's, the new class of educated communist bureaucrats had graduated (generally, absolute firebrand communist true believers), and the CCP now had the ability to do things like enforce policies. The CCP was divided between centrist "this incrementalism seems to be working just fine, let's just keep at it" position, and the radicals who wanted to completely overhaul society based on their fever dreams. The radicals somewhat got their way in the first 5-year plan ('53-'57), and this was hailed as a great success in the conference that decided the second plan, so that time they got all the power. The slogan was: "Go all out, aim high, and build socialism with greater, faster, better, and more economical results." These reforms were enacted by zealous communist functionaries, against open opposition from the general population. Like, in the great leap forward, people didn't just die from starvation, something like 7% of the casualties were straight up murdered by the red guard who were enforcing the policies the peasants knew would kill them, usually in public torture sessions.

As the great leap forward failed, the moderates took over the party but couldn't afford to completely oust Mao, so they pushed him into a supposedly ceremonial position with no real power. As they found out a decade later, this was a terrible idea, as Mao with no actual power or responsibility but a good platform to speak from managed to raise a generation of student firebrands loyal to only him, resulting in the cultural revolution.

In general, though, I'd oppose the "his results were so terrible that he doesn't count" strain of though here. Mao didn't rise in power because of a fluke. He had a lot of novel military and political thought that was extraordinarily successful in the 30's and 40's. It's just that when all the constraints on him went away, the end result was very different. So what I'm trying to say is that he was the George Lucas of political though -- as part of a creative team, he was extraordinary. When he just got to dictate everything by his whims -- well, he was extraordinary in a very different sense.

Yeah that was amazing. I definitely learned a lot here. My mind went straight for the George Lucas analogy at the same time as my eyes started picking up the text where you said the same thing.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2023 17:44

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

So I guess the Russians win because Europe wants cheap gas and the GOP is now just the American chapter of United Russia?

# ¿ Dec 11, 2023 01:11

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

pmchem posted:

natural gas in europe isn't even that expensive anymore:
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eu-natural-gas

prices only ~30% higher than 2012, in other words, up about the same or less than inflation over the period

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1609912978219868168?s=20

https://insight.factset.com/european-natural-gas-storage-enters-withdrawal-season-amid-tensions
https://www.celsiusenergy.net/p/european-natural-gas-inventories.html

europe seriously built out its LNG import facilities and cut legacy wasteful use. I don't think natural gas plays a controlling factor in their decisions on the war anymore

So what is it then? Why is everyone pulling the plug on this and letting Ukraine get absorbed by Putin? I thought the MIC was supposed to be this all powerful lobby group that wants to benefit and profit from this. Where are their lobbyists? Why am I hearing crickets.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2023 01:45

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

Pine Cone Jones posted:

Whoever pushed jit should burn in hell. Same with six sigma and all that MBA bullshit.

I live that bullshit everyday. Houthis hosed poo poo up for my job. I actually criticize management for it.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2024 05:03

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

A.o.D. posted:

Something has changed. First HIMARS, and now a Patriot battery on the move have been hit with cruise missiles. They've gotten better at hitting mobile targets. I'm betting this is indicative of a structural change streamlining the pipeline between target identification and fires authorization. The Russians are getting more competent.

These systems are extremely small in number and unlikely to be replaced in the current political climate, correct?

Everyone seems to be side stepping the issue but it looks like Russia is going to win this war. Maybe a pyrrhic victory but still one where Putin gets away with it and Ukraine is diminished or removed.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2024 18:34

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

CommieGIR posted:

Eh.....Ukraine was never going to 'win' this war with just their manpower available, but I don't think there's a scenario where Russia fully gets the offensive back. They are just so bad at at it and have refused to learn any lessons from their losses.

These equipment losses don't really mean much in the grand scale of things for Ukraine, manpower remains the bigger limiting factor to a Ukrainian victory.

You could fix the manpower issue if Ukraine just had more force multipliers and supplies. But the west sprinkled that in slowly enough for the Russians to destroy it or ignore it.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2024 18:45

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

PurpleXVI posted:

I still keep wondering when the Russians will get tired of dying, seems like we're not there yet.

Wonder how the Ukrainians are going to deal with half a million more Russians when they�re already having manpower, ammunition and equipment issues.

Maybe those strikes on the awacs and Engels fields coincide with the F-16 deployment and they�ll be using air power to lopside the kill ratios in Ukraines favour.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2024 03:06

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

If congress does somehow pass that 60 billion senate package, would it make much difference in resisting Russia's pending summer offensive? The news seems to be hinting that when Russia starts that offensive its likely it might take serious ground and potentially turn the tide of the war in their favor. But I'm assuming that funding bill would release some high tech goodies that might stop this?

# ¿ Apr 16, 2024 20:47

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

PurpleXVI posted:

I do not expect the package to get passed, though, the Republicans will pull out every procedural trick to keep it at bay until their boy can stop it for good, assuming it would even get a majority should it come to a vote.

You think Trump will win the election?

# ¿ Apr 16, 2024 21:20

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

Can they vote him out before he brings the aid bills to the floor?

Also what�s stopping the democrats from voting to keep him as speaker with �moderate� republicans thus preventing his ouster?

# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 20:51

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

So when the new aid package passes will it mostly be standoff weapons, artillery shells and other stuff or is Ukraine going to get more Bradleys and/or Abrams?

# ¿ Apr 22, 2024 15:36

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

The Ukraine invasion felt like the first piece of evidence I�ve ever personally witnessed toward horseshoe theory.

I know both right and left wingers who seem to support Russia for different reasons. We�ve already covered the tankie arguments, but other people are still uncritical in their beliefs that any foreign policy decision America does is wrong or imperialist. So for that reason despite being left wing they support Russia or are against aid.

On the right wing side many people view Russia as the poster child of traditional conservative values and a bulwark of white Christian nationalism. They see Russia as a counterbalance to what is perceived as excessive woke politics in America and view the culture as aspirational. They also buy into the idea that Ukrainians are a lesser ethnic group who deserve to be exploited.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2024 18:43

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

Tactically how do they get this aid into Ukraine without the Russians launching multiple missile and drone strikes to blow it up before it reaches the front? Everything so far has been highly telegraphed, despite what we think of the Russians I don't think they're stupid. They've likely planned for this.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 16:06

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

Kaal posted:

This kind of thing is the reason the US military is putting 30 mm on every new vehicle design they�re dreaming up. Everything can have anti-air capability. There has been some success at bringing the technology down to smaller calibers using computer-targeting, but the addition of the explosive ammunition is a game changer.

Isn't this a more automated version of how the Soviets used to put DSHK and NSV machine guns on top of all their tanks?

# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 01:58

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 00:31

Kraftwerk: Aug 13, 2011; i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

All the news about Ukraine's manpower troubles and the Russian advances doesn't sound good. Especially with the background of Ukraine having to expand mobilization to its younger cohorts, the troop rotations replacing tired worn out groups with slightly less tired, worn out groups.

I don't really see how Ukraine can keep doing at this point if their young don't want to fight even with all this aid. It's infuriating that Russia has thrown away entire towns worth of manpower and still has more to spare. Sure we laugh at their weird vehicles and so on but they seem to be showing no sign of stopping any time soon. I wonder how different this would have played out if this bill passed 6 months ago instead of now.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 15:41

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Internet VFW > Ukraine: The straw that broke the camel's blyat