Russian Ukraine shenanigans

[filthy_liar]

12 minutes ago, FourFans130 said:

Facts don't care about your feelings.  Russia, China and North Korea are all run by cults of personality.  If history tells us one thing about that kind of governing system, it's that the only predictable long term outcome is chaos and sadness.  No ground truth is making it out of those countries concerning just how close-hold, or hair trigger the nuclear forces really are.  Just because you don't know about it, doesn't mean the threat isn't there.  Three highly narcissistic and insolated-from-truth men hold the keys to some seriously powerful weapons.  Are you happy to simply ignore that?  You're ok saying "I can't see the threat so it doesn't exist"?

Huh?  Sorry, dumb that down for me.  I have no idea what your point was there.  You did read my original point, yes?

 

[DSG]

16 minutes ago, FourFans130 said:

Facts don't care about your feelings.  Russia, China and North Korea are all run by cults of personality.  If history tells us one thing about that kind of governing system, it's that the only predictable long term outcome is chaos and sadness.  No ground truth is making it out of those countries concerning just how close-hold, or hair trigger the nuclear forces really are.  Just because you don't know about it, doesn't mean the threat isn't there.  Three highly narcissistic and insolated-from-truth men hold the keys to some seriously powerful weapons.  Are you happy to simply ignore that?  You're ok saying "I can't see the threat so it doesn't exist"?

 

Monarchy is the most stable and prevalent form of government in world history.  The last few decades are a blip.

Edited January 13, 2023 by DSG

[FLEA]

8 minutes ago, FourFans130 said:

Facts don't care about your feelings.  Russia, China and North Korea are all run by cults of personality.  If history tells us one thing about that kind of governing system, it's that the only predictable long term outcome is chaos and sadness.  No ground truth is making it out of those countries concerning just how close-hold, or hair trigger the nuclear forces really are.  Just because you don't know about it, doesn't mean the threat isn't there.  Three highly narcissistic and insolated-from-truth men hold the keys to some seriously powerful weapons.  Are you happy to simply ignore that?  You're ok saying "I can't see the threat so it doesn't exist"?

Er..... lots of feelings and assumptions in those statements, lol. 

 

[filthy_liar]

7 minutes ago, FLEA said:

Facts don't care about your feelings. 

Exactly.

[filthy_liar]

I think that was a quote of a quote.  Four Fans originally said the quote that was later quoted as a quote. Apologies for the quoting of a quote that was quoted.

[filthy_liar]

26 minutes ago, FourFans130 said:

Facts don't care about your feelings.  Russia, China and North Korea are all run by cults of personality.  If history tells us one thing about that kind of governing system, it's that the only predictable long term outcome is chaos and sadness.  No ground truth is making it out of those countries concerning just how close-hold, or hair trigger the nuclear forces really are.  Just because you don't know about it, doesn't mean the threat isn't there.  Three highly narcissistic and insolated-from-truth men hold the keys to some seriously powerful weapons.  Are you happy to simply ignore that?  You're ok saying "I can't see the threat so it doesn't exist"?

FourFans, what do you do differently in your life now that Russia, China, and North Korea are all run by cults of personality?  Nothing.  You don't do anything differently.  You might fancy yourself a badass that you're all prepared to step to night one, but really?  What do you do differently?  You seem to think that Russia is a big un.  Are they?

[StoleIt]

4 hours ago, FLEA said:

What exactly do you guys think is going to happen to those weapons if Russia experiences internal collapse? 

What happened the last time they (USSR) collapsed? I'd imagine, assuming a semi peaceful transfer of power and a status quo in the escalation of the current conflict...it will be the exact same as what happened in 1991.

[filthy_liar]

41 minutes ago, FourFans130 said:

Just because you don't know about it, doesn't mean the threat isn't there.  Three highly narcissistic and insolated-from-truth men hold the keys to some seriously powerful weapons.

Kinda do know about that.  Yes, you are correct some bad (maybe) men hold the keys.  That construct has been held since the 1960s.  I don't tell my daughter to hide under a desk for that.

 

[filthy_liar]

FourFans I'm not disagreeing with you. Yet.  Are the russians bad?  Yes.  I think where we go off the rails is let them be russians.  Let them be bad.  Are they going to do bad shit like attack Ukraine?  Of course they are.  em.  Let them get into that quagmire.  That absolutely does not equal + our country gets involved immediately.  At the end of the day, why the do I care if they attack a corrupt government that embezzled  millions of dollars of their citizen's pension funds?  Do I give one about a Ukranian's pension funds being embezzled?  No.  No I do not.

[Lord Ratner]

6 hours ago, FLEA said:

What exactly do you guys think is going to happen to those weapons if Russia experiences internal collapse? 

What happened last time?

 

This literally already happened. We were alive when it did.

[FLEA]

42 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

What happened last time?

 

This literally already happened. We were alive when it did.

That wasnt an internal collapse. More correctly the fall of the Soviet union would be a dissolution because it was orchestrated from the inside by design and the central government remained in power. An event like that happening again is completely reliant on Putin releasing control to a person who is heavily pro-west. Considering Putin believes the fall of the Soviet Union was the most tragic event to occur in global history should give you some insight into how likely that is. 

When people are concerned about internal collapse they are more so referring to the fallout of an enormous power vacuum if the central government is vacated. In which case the primary concern is a power grab by strongmen and oligarchs, purges, revolts, and insurgency. 

[dream big]

8 hours ago, nsplayr said:

I am! ABO: always be optimistic.

Seriously, I truly believe based on everything I’ve read that the Russian military will be utterly spent and a large and unrecoverable % of their young male population will be dead to the point where it will take them a more than a generation to recover.

Their losses in Ukraine are unfathomable by modern US standards, and our population is 2.3x bigger. Potentially up to 100K men killed already, Jesus H. Christ. They’ve managed to double our entire Vietnam War casualties in less than a year, again, with a much smaller total population.

Let alone the amount military equipment that has been destroyed there, which is tremendous. The US has had approximately 0% of our military equipment destroyed in Ukraine, and we have a much larger defense industrial base able to resupply the expendable that are being used by the Ukrainians with our assistance.

Good luck Russia, hopefully Putin falls out a window, they retreat from this ill fated expedition, and real reform & economic modernization happens.

Your last paragraph is most important; like any group of people, most Russians are nice people who desperately want to be like the West and hate their government. You see it all over Europe with Russian expats. Oh and they tend to be strongly pro capitalist as they have seen first hand what the alternative does to a country. 

[FourFans]

10 hours ago, filthy_liar said:

FourFans I'm not disagreeing with you. Yet.  Are the russians bad?  Yes.  I think where we go off the rails is let them be russians.  Let them be bad.  Are they going to do bad shit like attack Ukraine?  Of course they are.  em.  Let them get into that quagmire.  That absolutely does not equal + our country gets involved immediately.  At the end of the day, why the do I care if they attack a corrupt government that embezzled  millions of dollars of their citizen's pension funds?  Do I give one about a Ukranian's pension funds being embezzled?  No.  No I do not.

....and many other quotes...

I do live my life differently because of the realities of the world.  First and foremost, I pay attention to what's happening in the world, and I vote for people whom I believe will respond to those issues responsibly with the best interest of our country in mind.  Unfortunately, my candidates did not win recently, and it appears that we have a large section of the country who doesn't very much like our country, but that's a different topic.  I also try to live a sustainable life, so if the lights go off because of an EMP, or a simply a network/grid shutdown, my family and I will survive.  My kids may group up in suburbia, but they will not be dependent on suburbia. 

Moreover, I am raising my kids to be adults who are aware of the world around them, and to understand how to filter out the ignorant opinions that media, politicians, Karens, and internet forums will spew at them.  My kids great up overseas for some time.  They understand why the US is truly amazing and unique in it's liberties and freedoms.  Understanding the real threats in the world is definitely impacting how I raise my kids, and I value my parenting task as possibly the most important and world changing thing I might do in my life.  If my kids impact a single life because of wisdom they learned in childhood, it'll have been worth it.

Beyond that, I study facts and history.  The American way of international relations since WWII has been to make sure other country's problems stay in other countries.  You call Ukraine a quagmire for Russia.  It wouldn't be a quagmire without US involvement.  If you don't understand that, go read about Chinese involvement in Vietnam, or US involvement in 1980's Afghanistan, or the French Foreign Legion, or how Rome ran it's empire.  History is littered with precedent.  The reason America is what it is today is because we (typically) refuse to wait until the fight comes to us.  If you don't think Russia would love to kneecap the US, think again.  It wouldn't occur in the ways many imagine with conventional forces and red dawn, but rather with infiltration, espionage, and subterfuge.  Read about Gorbachev's or China's plans and actions with infiltration agents in the US. 

Bottom line is that Americans cannot stick their head in the sand and pretend like all these world problems can't hurt us.  Will it largely impact how I cook my eggs in the morning, probably not...unless this whole gas stove stupidity changes that.  But hey, I am intentionally not buying an EV because I've read and personally seen with my own eyes how corrupt and horrid that supply chain is for the earth and our own economy.  So, yeah, there are decisions I make routinely that are impacted by the international environment.

 However, just because you don't see a difference in your own personal day to day doesn't mean that there's nothing happening, or that personal decisions don't make a different.  We ALL have blind spots.  Some we choose, others we simply have for any number of reasons.  Do not conflate your chosen personal blind spot with the reality of the world. 

Edited January 13, 2023 by FourFans130

[FLEA]

I wonder if they understand how ridiculous this sounds to even some of the conflict's staunches skeptics to include me:

Quote

“Any use of force by the Kyiv regime or a Ukrainian military invasion of either Belarus or Russia would be enough to trigger a collective response," Aleksey Polishchuk, a director in Russian Foreign Ministry, told TASS, referring to the so-called Union State that Belarus and Russia formed together years ago, in which the countries have been enmeshing their banking, military, and economic sectors.

“The republic has the sovereign right to defend its territory through all means available and Minsk can count on Russia’s full support here,” Polishchuk said.

 

This is pretty scary. The conditions are being set to escalate this into a much wider regional conflict. 

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-sets-ultimatum-formally-pull-184620634.html

Edited January 13, 2023 by FLEA

[Clark Griswold]

I wonder if they understand how ridiculous this sounds to even some of the conflict's staunches skeptics to include me:

“Any use of force by the Kyiv regime or a Ukrainian military invasion of either Belarus or Russia would be enough to trigger a collective response," Aleksey Polishchuk, a director in Russian Foreign Ministry, told TASS, referring to the so-called Union State that Belarus and Russia formed together years ago, in which the countries have been enmeshing their banking, military, and economic sectors.

“The republic has the sovereign right to defend its territory through all means available and Minsk can count on Russia’s full support here,” Polishchuk said.

 
This is pretty scary. The conditions are being set to escalate this into a much wider regional conflict. 
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-sets-ultimatum-formally-pull-184620634.html

False flag border attack ala Nazi Germany on Poland followed by short notice impossible ultimatum, Belarus is the aggrieved party with Russia riding to save them and we’re off…

They may bring a bit to their fight but probably not much, guessing they would be used to free up more Russian troops for offensive operations while they guard the bases and already secured areas


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[StoleIt]

Everything I've read (open source) is that Ukraine has preparations for Belarus to enter the conflict and has massed troops and resources accordingly. It also seems the geography/terrain is highly in Ukraine's favor.

[FLEA]

1 hour ago, Clark Griswold said:

 
This is pretty scary. The conditions are being set to escalate this into a much wider regional conflict. 
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-sets-ultimatum-formally-pull-184620634.html

False flag border attack ala Nazi Germany on Poland followed by short notice impossible ultimatum, Belarus is the aggrieved party with Russia riding to save them and we’re off…
 

 

They may bring a bit to their fight but probably not much, guessing they would be used to free up more Russian troops for offensive operations while they guard the bases and already secured areas


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

They don't even need a false flag. Ukraine has already launched drone attacks into Russian territory (like actual Russia, not "new Russia") That's enough pretense under their current language.

[Guest nsplayr]

“Hey we’re going to invade your country, but if you try to fight us in our country we’ll be BIG MAD.”

Lol…that’s not the statement you put out when you’re winning.

Slava Ukraini!

[FLEA]

Its utterly ridiculous. Could you imagine us invading Mexico, and NATO obviously won't get involved. But when Mexico attacks some force staging areas in Texas all of a sudden NATO goes "woah Mexico....., that's an Article 5 violation! You attack one of us you attack us all!"

[DSG]

2 hours ago, FLEA said:

Its utterly ridiculous. Could you imagine us invading Mexico, and NATO obviously won't get involved. But when Mexico attacks some force staging areas in Texas all of a sudden NATO goes "woah Mexico....., that's an Article 5 violation! You attack one of us you attack us all!"

Plenty of hypocrisy to go around in this conflict (and in general).

[Prozac]

Why on earth would Russia want to widen this conflict? They are getting their asses handed to them by the Ukrainians and now they want NATO to join the blanket party? I think not. Typical bluster and scaremongering from Putin. 

[FLEA]

4 hours ago, Prozac said:

Why on earth would Russia want to widen this conflict? They are getting their asses handed to them by the Ukrainians and now they want NATO to join the blanket party? I think not. Typical bluster and scaremongering from Putin. 

They don't want to and their intention wouldn't be. However bringing in Belarus short term would be helpful to them. Bringing in Belarus on its own isn't problematic for Russia but Belarus has baggage with the rest of the EU that can quickly trigger something larger. 

[ClearedHot]

IMHO supporting Ukraine has been and continues to be a wise decision.

As of the end of November the U.S. has given $50B to Ukraine, with half of that being military aid.  Our annual defense budget is currently at $725B.  For just under 7% of a single year of defense budget we have helped humble a superpower, all without losing American soldiers, that my friends is a bargain!

For at least the next 10 years Russia has been removed from the world stage as a conventional military threat and I believe it has given China something to think about, all without losing American lives.  In many respects I would argue this has been our most effective proxy war.  Russia may or may not ultimately win this war but the implications of it will shape Russia for a generation. 

The Russian military has lost significant amounts of equipment (and I guarantee there is a flood of captured equipment flowing to the U.S. for exploitation that will pay dividends for years.) The Oryx website reports 8,000 pieces of equipment destroyed, damaged, abandoned, or captured, including some 1,500 tanks, 700 armored fighting vehicles, and 1,700 infantry fighting vehicles.  Bottomline, it will take years and huge amounts of $ to rebuild their military.

The bigger impact is in casualties, the numbers are staggering.  I obviously don't believe the published numbers from either Ukraine or Russia as they are always misstated.  DoD and several think tanks have done independent assessments that seem to settle on 100,000 Russian Casualties with between 40,000-50,000 deaths.  The demographics of those losses is staggering and touches every part of Russian society.  A few data points to put it into perspective:

1.  In 20 years of combat in Afghanistan there were 2.456 United States military deaths. 1,932 of these deaths were the result of hostile action. 20,752 American service members were also wounded in action during the war.

2. In 20 years of combat in Vietnam there were 58,148 were United States military deaths.  300,000 American service members were also wounded in action during the war.

3.  In 20 years of combat in Iraq there were 4,431 were United States military deaths.  31,994 American service members were also wounded in action during the war.

In a single year the Russians have suffered almost as many deaths as the U.S. did in 20 years of war in Vietnam.  Additionally, Russia's population is less than half (143 Million versus 332 Million), this war has touch a large majority of families in Russia.  Putin's ability to survive demonstrates his grip on power, but without success I don't think he will survive.

War is terrible and this is no exception.  But when you step back and look at the situation from the perspective of the Great Power game, this has been a huge win for us.

 

 

 

[Clark Griswold]

I'll agree with most on this thread that helping Ukraine has been a wise decision and continuing to help them is the best COA going forward at some point though there will come a point that it will not be in OUR interest to help them further considering the long game, namely the stabilization and recovery of Ukraine.  We as their patron will need to say no more and let's conclude the hostilities like all conflicts end, in some kind of negotiations.  We're not there yet but I think we can see an appropriate ending point in the next year.

We may see that time before the Ukrainians do because their government and their relationship to their government is not the same as ours, I always keep in mind my admiration of the Ukranian people is different than the Ukranian government.  That's all I want to say about that.

All that said, where do we go from here as to what our enemies / competitors will have seen, learned and therefore will act on in the future?

My suspicion is that the next map of Ukraine will look like this.  Many countries will not recognize the territory taken by Russia but they will control them and incorporate them into the Russian Federation.  My fear is that this will prove that aggression does to some extent work, albeit at a VERY high cost but if you are willing to pay for it you will get some of what you want.  Territory, control of sea lanes, islands, etc.. you can get it if you will attack.

With that in mind, besides making our allies into porcupines in these high tension areas of the work with healthy supplies of missiles, artillery, mines and next gen weapons (DE, tac drones, etc.) what should be our strategy/policy implications?

[Prozac]

7 hours ago, Clark Griswold said:

We as their patron will need to say no more and let's conclude the hostilities like all conflicts end, in some kind of negotiations.  We're not there yet but I think we can see an appropriate ending point in the next year.

I dunno man. Kinda hard to tell a sovereign nation to stop fighting for every inch of territory that’s been annexed by an aggressor. If the Ukrainians are willing to fight for the next 20 years, & tie up the Red Army in the process, I say let ‘em & provide whatever weapons are reasonable for that end.