Russian Ukraine shenanigans

[brabus]

Paying UKR teachers’ salaries drives the tide of the war? Sounds like their teacher unions (or equivalent) are just a corrupt and retarded as ours. 

[fire4effect]

On 11/19/2023 at 1:28 PM, Standby said:

Ya…and I read Playboy for the articles. 

Someone is showing their age😁

[gearhog]

Now MSNBC has begun warming the public to idea of failure.

"If we give everything we want to give to Ukraine, it still won't lead to success."

https://x.com/DavidSacks/status/1727015665780060233?s=20

Zelensky fires the Chief of Ukrainian military medical system due to handling of battlefield casualties.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/zelenskiy-calls-rapid-operations-changes-soldiers-sacks-commander-2023-11-19/

 

 

Edited November 21, 2023 by gearhog

[frog]

Actual journalism:

https://www.wsj.com/world/tired-ukrainian-troops-fight-to-hold-back-russian-offensive-they-come-like-zombies-9b4a31a1?mod=mhp

TLDR: It’s an ugly mess and will be for a long time.

[BashiChuni]

where did all the ukraine cheerleaders go? oh onto the next outrage...

[tac airlifter]

2 minutes ago, BashiChuni said:

where did all the ukraine cheerleaders go? oh onto the next outrage...

No matter what the next crazy event is.... if the synchronized narrative immediately becomes "no time for deep thought and debate, we must action this now!" you can bet outcomes will favor globalist progressives, cost more than we can afford, restrict freedom, and all initial reporting will turn out to be lies.  
 

some of us are debating the things themselves.  I encourage us to start looking for patterns & be predictive.  We are Psyops targets.

[BashiChuni]

and any "spontaneous" major demonstration in US cities with slogans, chants, drumbeats, and well funded picket signs should be the obvious clue...

[Lord Ratner]

On 11/21/2023 at 4:26 PM, BashiChuni said:

where did all the ukraine cheerleaders go? oh onto the next outrage...

I don't know if I count as a cheerleader, but we got good value and the Ukrainians wanted to fight. Now that they are completely stuck, it's probably not worth it to continue. I'm assuming they will push to end the conflict soon, but that's their problem. 

[BashiChuni]

https://open.spotify.com/episode/79jUT27WJEkb6wVqkOOeSB?si=OjdWtmT4S5qseBUdkOvP0w

Great long form Ukraine discussion 

[StoleIt]

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1837895/putin-ready-to-end-war-ukraine-zelensky

"Military actions are always a tragedy." - Putin
So why did you start one?!

[Lawman]

I don't know if I count as a cheerleader, but we got good value and the Ukrainians wanted to fight. Now that they are completely stuck, it's probably not worth it to continue. I'm assuming they will push to end the conflict soon, but that's their problem. 

They aren’t “stuck”

It’s the rain and mud season so the entire pace of ops on both sides has gone down significantly in a war that is primarily about Fires in the form of artillery guided by collection from various UAS.

They just successfully performed a Wet Gap crossing (something they couldn’t have done at the start of the war). That has pushed out the leading edge of their controlled areas the limits of a range to target the Kerch straight bridge if they wanted to risk it. But they need the unitary ATACM to do that. We haven’t given them that… yet.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Lord Ratner]

17 minutes ago, Lawman said:

They aren’t “stuck”

It’s the rain and mud season so the entire pace of ops on both sides has gone down significantly in a war that is primarily about Fires in the form of artillery guided by collection from various UAS.

They just successfully performed a Wet Gap crossing (something they couldn’t have done at the start of the war). That has pushed out the leading edge of their controlled areas the limits of a range to target the Kerch straight bridge if they wanted to risk it. But they need the unitary ATACM to do that. We haven’t given them that… yet.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If they can't achieve an objective without us giving them something new or different, then they are stuck. I'm not saying we shouldn't, but if they can't change it on their own....

 

Also the demographics of their fighting forces is getting rough. Very rough. The spring/summer offensive did not go as advertised.

 

But if they still have the will to fight...

[Lawman]

If they can't achieve an objective without us giving them something new or different, then they are stuck. I'm not saying we shouldn't, but if they can't change it on their own....
 
Also the demographics of their fighting forces is getting rough. Very rough. The spring/summer offensive did not go as advertised.
 
But if they still have the will to fight...

It’s not just they have the will to fight. They are expressing competencies they didn’t start the war with largely because it takes months to build them.

People who used our optics of what ah offensive move looks like forget they are a military built around maneuver in order to conduct fires where we are the opposite. If they had tried to conduct the break through that US and NATO forces were advertising and using our tactics to their demographics would look a whole lot worse. They would not have had the core competency’s to conduct regimental actions of that kind. It’ll take years to rebuild them to that model. Same reason night action is so infrequent in this war, it consumes roughly 3 times the ammunition when we do it. They can’t afford to strain sustainment like that. At this point in the war it’s a convergence period, one where they have effectively been pushing back Russian counter attacks.

And the weaponeering required to effectively destroy the bridge just aren’t their with the tools they have in their arsenal and never really were at the outset of the war. That said with what they have had/received/and importantly invented themselves they’ve effectively put the Russian Navy out of the fight minus being a Kalibr platform. Even of that they have eroded that from surface task forces to individual ship ops from longer lines of sustainment because they Ukrainians are effectively threatening Sevastopol now.

If they have the will to keep fighting let them. And more importantly resource them when a lot of the billions of dollars of weapons we are sending are largely systems we own close to end of lot life like all those non unitary M26s. And you’re right about demographics as an expendable item to track. That’s why it was so critical to get them our sides tanks and IFVs. There is no question about crew survivability in comparison which keeps the most important military resource (the trained guy) in the fight to go again after reconsolidating. Russia isn’t getting the same option.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[tac airlifter]

1 hour ago, Lord Ratner said:

But if they still have the will to fight...

I'm not sure forced conscription counts as "the will to fight."

[jice]

4 hours ago, tac airlifter said:

I'm not sure forced conscription counts as "the will to fight."

Is there something I’m missing that makes the Ukrainian draft unethical/illegal? Or are they just drafting people because… Russia invaded them (again)?

Or, in insanity land… you’re right, that greatest generation had no spine because conscription provided 10 million personnel. 

[Lord Ratner]

4 hours ago, tac airlifter said:

I'm not sure forced conscription counts as "the will to fight."

It does. We have that too, after all. Obviously you have to discuss these issues on a national level, not an individual level, otherwise conversation is literally impossible.

[tac airlifter]

16 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

It does. We have that too, after all. Obviously you have to discuss these issues on a national level, not an individual level, otherwise conversation is literally impossible.

 

16 hours ago, jice said:

Is there something I’m missing that makes the Ukrainian draft unethical/illegal? Or are they just drafting people because… Russia invaded them (again)?

Or, in insanity land… you’re right, that greatest generation had no spine because conscription provided 10 million personnel. 

Does the logic work both ways?  Would you also say Russia has the will to fight despite their forced conscription?  Because I hear a lot about Russian forced conscription being symptomatic of imminent defeat, which seems like selective bias.
 

 My take is that if the general public hates the war so much they’re dodging the draft (which wasn’t a factor during WW2 but definitely was during Vietnam) you can’t say a democracy has the “will to fight.”  Because they don’t.  Of course, neither Russia nor Ukraine are democracies so it’s a grey area of discussion.

[raimius]

The will to fight is both social and political.  For Russia, it is mostly Putin's will.  Judging by the reported nationalism and popularity of the war, I'd say the Russian society is supportive of the war (or at least going along with it).  As far as mobilisation, as long as someone else gets to fight and die...

Ukraine seems supportive as well, as it is an existential fight for the nation and culture.  That said, the opponents of continuing are being silenced in reporting (unlike western reporting on Russian dissidents).

[jice]

4 hours ago, tac airlifter said:

 

Does the logic work both ways?  Would you also say Russia has the will to fight despite their forced conscription?  Because I hear a lot about Russian forced conscription being symptomatic of imminent defeat, which seems like selective bias.

Yes. Yes. The people who say that are  conflating a state’s intent to fight with the consequences of the policies it uses to do so. Those are related concepts but not the same, regardless of form of government.

 

[Lord Ratner]

6 hours ago, tac airlifter said:

Because I hear a lot about Russian forced conscription being symptomatic of imminent defeat, which seems like selective bias

You've never heard me say that.

 

A country is not just whatever portion of the population works for your particular political position. A country is represented by its government, and its government exists at the discretion, or at the very least inaction, of the population.

 

When the opposition to the Vietnam war became great enough that the congressional and presidential elections were decided on it, the US shifted course. That's just how governments work. The government *is* the country.

[tac airlifter]

Good replies gents, thanks for the perspective.

[raimius]

2 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

The government *is* the country.

Very much disagree.

The government represents the country, more or less. (More when democratically elected, less when a dictatorship/oligarchy.)

[jice]

9 minutes ago, raimius said:

Very much disagree.

The government represents the country, more or less. (More when democratically elected, less when a dictatorship/oligarchy.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(polity)
 

I’m sure we’ll settle this over the next few days by blaming team D or team R, but “what is a state” is a worthwhile recurring rabbit hole.

[raimius]

2 hours ago, jice said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(polity)
 

I’m sure we’ll settle this over the next few days by blaming team D or team R, but “what is a state” is a worthwhile recurring rabbit hole.

If someone says "United States" do you think "POTUS, SCOTUS, and Congress" IS the United States of America?  I hope we can define it a little bit larger than just that, otherwise "we the people" have literally become irrelevant.

[jice]

58 minutes ago, raimius said:

If someone says "United States" do you think "POTUS, SCOTUS, and Congress" IS the United States of America?  I hope we can define it a little bit larger than just that, otherwise "we the people" have literally become irrelevant.

Yeah man, I think that’s obvious.

I’m saying it’s a complicated topic that people have been trying to figure out for thousands and thousands of years. I’m not able to add anything… We’re all about 60 lifetimes of reading behind as is. 

For the purpose of this discussion, re: ‘will to fight’ it’s the folks who have the credible and enforceable authority to order forces to fight on behalf of a state.
 

Also for the purposes of this discussion, it obviously varies by how you bound things in time (among a billion other ways to frame). For example, in our system the ‘will of the state’ comes down to exactly one human at a singular point in the first few minutes of a full-scale nuclear exchange… but you can zoom out from there to all the factors that put the button in his hand, and farther to the system in which that button exists, ad infinitum.