Tiger
Active Member
It's really suspicious the grey area has no activity, one would assume there would be tactical movement also, maybe marked with blue/yellow colors?
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Russia/Ukraine conflict
- Thread starter amolina
- Start date
It's really suspicious the grey area has no activity, one would assume there would be tactical movement also, maybe marked with blue/yellow colors?
And back in 2003 I was pretty vociferous saying the war hawks had it wrong. When Colin Powell went to give that speech, I knew he had been sold a lie. Sometimes scumbags can be right. Baghdad Bob was.
The story the US administration made for war in 2003 stank to high heaven. The Russian story today also stinks to high heaven. Even more than the US case in 2003.
Russia has been a pain to Ukraine since they broke away. They were ruled by a Russian puppet for a while, but they got rid of him and have been progressing towards a stable democracy for about 8 years now.
One commentator I saw made the point that Putin and his buddies have raped Russia with their kleptocracy. Putin has been working hard too make the case in the western democracies that democracy is worse than what they have in Russia. ie, it may be worse here, but look at the other guys. He's interfered in the politics in many countries and even got some of his people elected in some countries.
Now a democracy is evolving on his doorstep and a significant number of Russians have family in Ukraine. He can't have the neighbors be more successful than Russia, so he needs to take them out and make the country corrupt again. I think this is part of his thinking at least.
For Ukraine, they are looking at this being a Pyrrhic victory, but one that has the potential to end the Russian problem for a very long time. If Russia comes out of this war with a broken army and a broken economy, they will be neutered. In the long run that would be a major win for Ukraine.
The Russians would need 500,000 (from the FSB letters)-800,000 troops (my calculation on the 20 per 1000 population rule for all but one successful occupation in the last 120 years) pretty much permanently stationed in Ukraine after the Ukrainian army was broken and removed from the picture. The Russian army is about 250,000 strong with no replacements. They claim they have 2 million reserve troops, but those are just conscripts who got out of the army in the last three years who have had no follow up training.
Ukraine had 300,000 troops in the field in the first week of the invasion. That's more than the invading force's strength. Having more equipment and better equipment than the enemy as an invading force means nothing if you don't have enough boots on the ground to take and hold the ground. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan both suffered from that problem. And the US military is the best in the world in quality of troops and among the best in equipment. The Russian army troops are about as good as Saddam Hussein's with better equipment than Iraq, but not as good as the western democracies.
The Russians can flatten Ukrainian cities, but if that doesn't make the Ukrainians give up (which it hasn't), they have no plan B except nukes. The army is simply not strong enough to overcome the Ukrainian army in a conventional fight.
The Ukrainians know this and that is influencing their negotiating position. Basically they are negotiating with someone who is bleeding out. If the wounded guy gives in he might get medical help in time, if not he'll die before the negotiations are done.
I was talking Sunday about the optics with an older friend. Something happens to a culture when the last eye witnesses to some monumental events die out. That event goes from living history to the history books. The younger generations never knew what it was like and only the history geeks really understand. WW II was at least an order of magnitude worse than Ukraine. The was in Ukraine from 1941 to 1945 was quite a possibly 2 or more orders of magnitude worse. This isn't even the first siege of Kiev/Kyiv. In 1941 the Red Army surrendered 650,000 troops when the Kiev pocket collapsed.
Ukraine had a very large Jewish population before WW II and many died in the Holocaust.
Many of the great cities of Europe today were smoldering piles of rubble in 1945. Berlin has hills today made from the rubble.
Zalensky and his government know this, either from family memories passed down, historians close to them, personal research, or all of the above. Ukraine can rebuild can come out of this war a stronger country, especially if part of the EU. All roads lead t ruin for Russia here.
Between the sanctions and no good replacement pool for fallen troops, it's going to get more and more grim for Russia.
The US operates carriers in the Eastern Med quite often without violating any treaties. I believe the Montreux Convention applies to the Bosporus and who can cross it. Though the US could operate long range strike from the Aegean if necessary.
The EU treaty(ies') provisions on defence are much weaker than the Art 5 provision of NATO. I wish that it were not so, but it is.
A real problem for both NATO and the EU is if 'blocking' nations become members. So let us say that a nation beginning with H were to become a EU or NATO member and then perennially block any criticism of, or sanctions on, Russia. Such things do happen, and it is quite a relief to see Hungary under Victor Orban for once not blocking these sanctions. Orban is of course comprehensively pwned by Putin. However even if considerable pressure has been brought to bear on Orban by EU/NATO that still has not been enough to get Hungary to fully co-operate, and Orban is in fact refusing to allow resupply of Ukraine across the Hungarian border.
Another similar country of worry is Serbia, and it is one of the unstated reasons that the EU (and NATO) are very reluctant to let a Russian proxy become a member state of either organisation. If you look you will note that Serbian airlines are still merrily flying to/from Russia despite EU airspace being closed to Russian airlines. So Serbia is being used to allow Russian circumvention of the EU sanctions.
A similar problem is (or was) for the EU the problem of Londonistan, where the vast majority of dirty Russian money was being laundered in London, and London is in fact the biggest granter of golden passports. It is no co-incidence that the UK is slowest to act on anti-oligarch sanctions. I have heard it whispered that it is now far easier for the EU to obtain unanimity on anti-Russia sanctions now that the UK is out. Nothing at all to do with the fact that Brexiters such as Johnson/Farage/etc are all pwned by Putin, no, move along there.
(As an aside, it was Margaret Thatcher that was the key - and critical - proponent of a "gas for peace" pathway that led to the main strategic thrust of the energy supply pipelines back in the beginning, even before the Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall came down. The UK is deeply implicated in all this I am afraid.)
The biggest blocker for Ukraine becoming a NATO/EU member are concerns of this nature. Letting a corrupt Russian puppet such as Yanukovich (ex-President of Ukraine) inside EU/NATO is a real worry. That is exactly what Russia has been trying to do, and succeeding on, for 20-years under Putin. Ditto problem in Belorus, Georgia, Moldovia.
Another - related - issue is that staggering lack of understanding of peoples out there about all this, and the extent to which they are constantly being used. I am daily gobsmacked by the naivety of people and how ill-informed they are, even now.
Ambiguous alliance: Neutrality, opt-outs, and European defence
The EU’s work on its Strategic Compass should include debates on the special status states’ future role in European defence…ecfr.eu
Yup, there is also Evgeny Lebedev who is in the House of Lords.
Rail is critical for the Russians. They are probably trying to repair the rail network, and Ukrainians are probably doing their best to destroy it again. The problem with rail in hostile territory is you need to tie down troops to guard the rails from insurgent attacks. That was a thorn in Germany's side in WW II. They had entire divisions of railroad troops to defend the captured rail network. Most of those partisans were Belorussians and Ukrainians.
The Ukrainians are fighting a hybrid regular armies engaging each other war and an insurgency. I'm sure the Ukrainians aren't telling the world everything they are up to.
Tiger
Active Member
Definitely this. If they do settle then Putin will just build back stronger and the next war will be worse. Now is the time to defeat Putin.
ZachF
Active Member
The Su57 has been a dumpster fire if you’ve been following it.
The airframes developed cracks in the prototypes even when G-limited to 5Gs.
I don’t think the engines that allow super cruise are ready yet, and many estimated before the sanctions that the Su57 wouldn’t be ready until 2027(!). They only have like 3 working per production models, and they use lower powered Su-35 engines.
Russian engines have also always had service lives that are a fraction of western GE/PW/RR engines.
The Indians took a look at it and said “no thanks”.
I think a lot of people underestimate how much brain drain and Dutch disease that Russia has had. The youngest engineers during Soviet times would be in their 50s now. I don’t think Russia even makes it into the global top 20 (lol) for R&D spending. R&D spending has dropped to only 1% of GDP (USA is 3.5% now, and China 2.3%). China literally spends about 30 times what Russia does on R&D!
Russian manufacturing isn’t much better, with output in 2019 of about $190 billion, roughly equal to Ohio + Indiana (for comparison, this year it’ll probably be ~$4.2t for China and ~$2.8t for the USA)
China would love to see the US and NATO dragged into this and will continue to coddle Russia in the back channels.
The idea of Putin building back stronger does not compute. Worse economy. Less money. And this statement implies that Putin and Russia were not doing there best with building the military to begin with. They were. Not a good job obviously. Not sure why you think the same institution would get better results in future without huge shakeup. They are just as likely to continue to rot out, especially as the population gets a wind of the current failures, warmongering and continues to age.
| Age structure | |
|---|---|
| Population | 145,478,097 (2022 estimate)[1] |
| Growth rate |
|
| Birth rate | 9.8 births/1,000 population (2021)[2] |
| Death rate | 16.7 deaths/1,000 population (2021)[2] |
| Life expectancy | 
|
| • male | 67.75 years (2018)[4] |
| • female | 77.82 years (2018)[4] |
| Fertility rate |
|
| Infant mortality rate | 4.9 deaths/1,000 live births (2019)[6] |
| Net migration rate | 1.69 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2014) |
| Under 18 years | ~23.21%[7] |
| 18–44 years | ~34.73%[7] |
| 45–64 years | 26.55%[7] |
| 65 and over | 15.6%[7] |
Ukraine OTOH, although saddled with similar demographic issues, would be almost certain to build back stronger, cutting deals with eager Europeans for supplies and training on the sly relentlessly as well as have a galvanized population looking to strengthen their protections for future conflicts.
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
Funny what happens when you cross over peak oil demand, there's no upside to such military actions. The odds of Putin/Russia recovering from this are approaching zero, the economic damage is already too great. They had about 10 years of squeezing out obscene oil & gas profits and they cashed them all in for this invasion.
Wait til we see the avg price of oil once an accord is reached. It'll be half this in 2023 if they're lucky. The entire world is ramping up production and expediting transition plans......meanwhile demand is flat/down.
Good times!
adiggs
Well-Known Member
A friend sent me this. I don't know anything about the site, only that this is the most complete and succinct view of how I see thing, just way better written.
www.americanpurpose.com
Preparing for Defeat
I’m writing this from Skopje, North Macedonia, where I’ve been for the last week teaching one of our Leadership Academy for Development [https://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/lad/events] courses. Following the Ukraine war is no different here in terms of available information, except that I’m in
www.americanpurpose.com
Your posts are for the main very good with the exception of the constant “EU remainer” bitterness. Please mate just let it go, that horse is not only out of the stable but 40 fields out of the paddock too. I didn’t vote for leave or remain (wasn’t in country at the time), it’s hurt my ability to work quite considerably by leaving. I don’t constantly harp on about it and whinge though, I get on with my life. It really is like an old scratched record going over and over the same part of the song. Chuck the record out and play something else like the very informative parts of your postsThe EU treaty(ies') provisions on defence are much weaker than the Art 5 provision of NATO. I wish that it were not so, but it is.
A real problem for both NATO and the EU is if 'blocking' nations become members. So let us say that a nation beginning with H were to become a EU or NATO member and then perennially block any criticism of, or sanctions on, Russia. Such things do happen, and it is quite a relief to see Hungary under Victor Orban for once not blocking these sanctions. Orban is of course comprehensively pwned by Putin. However even if considerable pressure has been brought to bear on Orban by EU/NATO that still has not been enough to get Hungary to fully co-operate, and Orban is in fact refusing to allow resupply of Ukraine across the Hungarian border.
Another similar country of worry is Serbia, and it is one of the unstated reasons that the EU (and NATO) are very reluctant to let a Russian proxy become a member state of either organisation. If you look you will note that Serbian airlines are still merrily flying to/from Russia despite EU airspace being closed to Russian airlines. So Serbia is being used to allow Russian circumvention of the EU sanctions.
A similar problem is (or was) for the EU the problem of Londonistan, where the vast majority of dirty Russian money was being laundered in London, and London is in fact the biggest granter of golden passports. It is no co-incidence that the UK is slowest to act on anti-oligarch sanctions. I have heard it whispered that it is now far easier for the EU to obtain unanimity on anti-Russia sanctions now that the UK is out. Nothing at all to do with the fact that Brexiters such as Johnson/Farage/etc are all pwned by Putin, no, move along there.
(As an aside, it was Margaret Thatcher that was the key - and critical - proponent of a "gas for peace" pathway that led to the main strategic thrust of the energy supply pipelines back in the beginning, even before the Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall came down. The UK is deeply implicated in all this I am afraid.)
The biggest blocker for Ukraine becoming a NATO/EU member are concerns of this nature. Letting a corrupt Russian puppet such as Yanukovich (ex-President of Ukraine) inside EU/NATO is a real worry. That is exactly what Russia has been trying to do, and succeeding on, for 20-years under Putin. Ditto problem in Belorus, Georgia, Moldovia.
Another - related - issue is that staggering lack of understanding of peoples out there about all this, and the extent to which they are constantly being used. I am daily gobsmacked by the naivety of people and how ill-informed they are, even now.
Ambiguous alliance: Neutrality, opt-outs, and European defence
The EU’s work on its Strategic Compass should include debates on the special status states’ future role in European defence…
jabloomf1230
Minister of Silly Walks
Take a look at China's biggest trading partners:
Any bleed over of sanctions could be detrimental to China's economy, so they have been walking a fine line on the Ukrainian invasion.
ZachF
Active Member
The idea of Putin building back stronger does not compute. Worse economy. Less money. And this statement implies that Putin and Russia were not doing there best with building the military to begin with. They were. Not a good job obviously. Not sure why you think the same institution would get better results in future without huge shakeup. They are just as likely to continue to rot out, especially as the population gets a wind of the current failures, warmongering and continues to age.
Age structure Population 145,478,097 (2022 estimate)[1] Growth rate Birth rate 9.8 births/1,000 population (2021)[2] Death rate 16.7 deaths/1,000 population (2021)[2] Life expectancy • male 67.75 years (2018)[4] • female 77.82 years (2018)[4] Fertility rate Infant mortality rate 4.9 deaths/1,000 live births (2019)[6] Net migration rate 1.69 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2014) Under 18 years ~23.21%[7] 18–44 years ~34.73%[7] 45–64 years 26.55%[7] 65 and over 15.6%[7]
Ukraine OTOH, although saddled with similar demographic issues, would be almost certain to build back stronger, cutting deals with eager Europeans for supplies and training on the sly relentlessly as well as have a galvanized population looking to strengthen their protections for future conflicts.
If Putin stays in, and Russia becomes an impoverished pariah state, their demographics are going to get even worse.
Russian fertility rate plunged during the USSR collapse, it rose back a little later with the fortunes of the Russian economy, which tracks oil prices, and has been falling with them too. Expect the fertility rate to plunge to ~1.2 in the coming years.
Also, Russia has a small net positive immigration rate over and above the brain drain it has experienced…mostly workers from the ‘stans working in the oil fields and sending back remittances (IIRC, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have the largest remittance payments as a percentage of GDP in the world). Expect that to stop, and reverse with a vengeance. Lots of people are going to leave Russia. For comparison, Venezuela during its recent crisis lost 2%(!) of its population every year to emigration, though unlike Russia they have a ~1% natural population growth rate. Don’t be surprised if Russia’s population drops to 130m by 2030.
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petit_bateau
Active Member
Your posts are for the main very good with the exception of the constant “EU remainer” bitterness. Please mate just let it go, that horse is not only out of the stable but 40 fields out of the paddock too. I didn’t vote for leave or remain (wasn’t in country at the time), it’s hurt my ability to work quite considerably by leaving. I don’t constantly harp on about it and whinge though, I get on with my life. It really is like an old scratched record going over and over the same part of the song. Chuck the record out and play something else like the very informative parts of your posts
I think you may be stuck in the past, and misunderstanding something. The plan is to rejoin.
As the Conservative slogan once said, "better together".
The Ukraine situation is exactly why.
Get with the plan
Be after I retire so won’t make a blind bit of difference to me.I think you may be stuck in the past, and misunderstanding something. The plan is to rejoin.
As the Conservative slogan once said, "better together".
The Ukraine situation is exactly why.
Get with the plan
Imo, It’ll be another fuster cluck anyway with the current crop of politicians but if it makes you happy, crack on
back to the thread
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Beat me to it, if there is still a possibility of UK rejoining (which there certainly is, especially with recent events), harping on it certainly is still very relevant.I think you may be stuck in the past, and misunderstanding something. The plan is to rejoin.
As the Conservative slogan once said, "better together".
The Ukraine situation is exactly why.
Get with the plan
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges who served as commanding general, United States Army Europe.
He is currently the Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
Retired Lt. Gen. Hodges: ".../ Russia is going to culminate 'in about 10 days'."
He is currently the Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
Retired Lt. Gen. Hodges: ".../ Russia is going to culminate 'in about 10 days'."
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
I've been watching this whole exchange on the sidelines and was going to stay silent and let it die, but given people continually bring it back to the surface, I wanted to point out to be fair to @bkp_duke the original point was solely about whether the SU-57 could supercruise. The two rebuttals by @wdolson seemed to be implying given the SU-57 had engines with afterburners, it wasn't able to supercruise, but the fact is the F-22 engines have afterburners also. Supercruise is the ability to reach supersonic speeds without afterburners, it doesn't mean the engine doesn't have afterburners.The Su57 has been a dumpster fire if you’ve been following it.
The airframes developed cracks in the prototypes even when G-limited to 5Gs.
I don’t think the engines that allow super cruise are ready yet, and many estimated before the sanctions that the Su57 wouldn’t be ready until 2027(!). They only have like 3 working per production models, and they use lower powered Su-35 engines.
Russian engines have also always had service lives that are a fraction of western GE/PW/RR engines.
The Indians took a look at it and said “no thanks”.
I think a lot of people underestimate how much brain drain and Dutch disease that Russia has had. The youngest engineers during Soviet times would be in their 50s now. I don’t think Russia even makes it into the global top 20 (lol) for R&D spending. R&D spending has dropped to only 1% of GDP (USA is 3.5% now, and China 2.3%). China literally spends about 30 times what Russia does on R&D!
Russian manufacturing isn’t much better, with output in 2019 of about $190 billion, roughly equal to Ohio + Indiana (for comparison, this year it’ll probably be ~$4.2t for China and ~$2.8t for the USA)
Also this was the link posted by @wdolson in one of the rebuttals:
Russia’s T-50 Stealth Fighter Might Have a Fatal Flaw
Even that link says the following:
"According to Russian sources, though the AL-41F1 provides enough thrust for sustained supersonic cruise capability, it does not meet the Russian Aerospace Forces’ requirements for thrust-to-weight ratio or fuel efficiency."
So even that source says that as it relates to the ability to supercruise, even the old engines are good enough. So far no sources have been brought up that suggest it can't supercruise with the AL-41F1 engines.
India's objections was because the engines were old and unreliable, not because it can't supercruise using them. The rest of the project also had poor QC, which probably contributed to the crash that froze the project for some time. Internal politics may play a part as well given India was also planning to buy 126 Rafales, and cancelling the Su-57 would free up the budget for that.
India Hates the Russian Su-57 Stealth Fighter
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bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
I so hope this is true, but without more details about how that number was come up with, I'm not going to put a lot of stock into it.
I would bet that Russia is hard at work repairing the damaged rail tracks into Ukraine so that they can provide supplies. Sadly, I haven't see much mention recently of Ukraine counter offensives or major victories. I get the impression they are preparing for the Russian onslaught coming to Kyiv.
SwedishAdvocate
Active Member
Only layman on warfare, but it seems to me that it would be relatively easy to take out a train on a rail track with an ambush or some kind of IED...
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