Russia/Ukraine conflict

[nwdiver]

Has anything they've done in this war been logical?

Vice news has a great series on the 2014 invasion called 'Russian Roulette'

I didn't realize what a hot mess Ukraine was in 2014. One example that stood out was that the head of the Ukrainian Navy defected to Russia. He was replaced..... then his replacement also defected.

I won't call it 'logical' but I can see how someone would find it plausible that the government in Kyiv would fold in a matter of days if 100k+ troops cross the border especially if they were being spoon-feed nonsense. It's absolutely amazing how far Ukraine has come in 8 years.

 

[nativewolf]

Reports Snihurivka, Mykolaiv Oblast, Ukraine has fallen, that is the last major settlement north of kherson and not on the river itself. Not sure where the russians will try to anchor a line if this is gone. I thought they'd try Mylove to Snihurivka as a line. Hmm. If this is true then the russians position outside Kherson becomes very very tenuous. You could see Kherson itself under artillery control by the weekend.

 

[nativewolf]

Odd indeed. I thought the Russians sent their best troops to Kherson. VDV, Spetsnaz. Then why are there so many T-62’s there? In the North they have T-80’s, but not their elite troops. It doesn’t seem logical.

It is thought that most of the newer weapons have been sold to overseas buyers. Very little of this kit is really top shelf, some anti air some air frames. Only a few EW systems have been seen (note the ease with which UKR blocked russian communications in the last couple of days. Boy if there were ever aa signal that a real counter offensive was about to begin that was it).

We have still seen very few t90s, very few and all in the redeployment post Kiev. Russia does not even field an artillery piece or munition that is advanced. At this moment the entire russian army seems to be a potekim army. Lots of bluster and some brutality and no depth. No creativity. No understanding of modern logistics. Just a shallow shallow crude animal.

 

[SmokyPeat]

Odd indeed. I thought the Russians sent their best troops to Kherson. VDV, Spetsnaz. Then why are there so many T-62’s there? In the North they have T-80’s, but not their elite troops. It doesn’t seem logical.

Perhaps the more modern tanks got better tank crews that are less apt to have to/choose to abandon their equipment.

 

[BioSehnsucht]

I know I've seen rumors/theories to the effect that the newer tanks and such are less reliable and/or not fully equipped when deployed to the front. Similarly, while they have a newer fancier updated version of the AK and it has many fancy available options, the few who have been issued these new models almost never get issued any of the fancy new options with it, even when they would be clearly beneficial. Whether true or not, I can't say, but those promoting this line of thinking suggest that even if the Russian military industry can engineer and build high end weapons and armored vehicles etc, the actual Russian military may not be able to afford to buy them...

 

[wdolson]

Basically he failed to read the room, on a global scale.

Elon has said he has Asperger's. The inability to read social cues is one of the hallmarks of that.

How? Is there any evidence at all that 'negotiation' can work in this case?
The fallacy in all the traditional thinkers is that they think possible to negotiate with people who think and believe they are acting with Divine authority. One cannot negotiate with God!
The only easy way to read current Kremlin thinking is to read Alexandr Dugin, several of whose books are here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Alexander-Dugin/s?rh=n%3A266239%2Cp_27%3AAlexander+Dugin

Reading these, mandatory reading at Russian military schools, will explain how 'negotiation' works in present Russian governmental environment.

Summary: don't even Think that they will stop before they have all Russia:
That means everything that ever was part of the Russian Empire.

Negotiate away, I'm sure they'll settle for Sonoma County California, Alaska, bits of the rest of NorthWest North America, plus obvious Russia like Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Hungary, and so on. Ukraine is strictly an internal conflict, after all, even though some of you unenlightened people don't know it.

Read Dugin, then you'll understand their thought processes.

End: There is no choice! Fight until they're defeated. Hope that they are sane enough to not totally destroy their own interests. Nobody knows if sanity can prevail, but there is no prospect for negotiation any more than there was with Hitler. This time there are quite a few 'true believers' who will continue after Putin would be deposed. I really, really hope I'm wrong...but, living among 'true believers' for long parts of my life convinces me otherwise.

Russia built their empire the same way Rome did (and they think they are the continuation of Rome). The way to build an empire this way is slowly over time: conquer a new territory, then hold on to it for a generation or so until the people of that province start thinking of themselves as citizens of the empire. Then recruit those new citizens into the empire and conquer the next province.

Waiting until the new province is absorbed into the empire is critical to this process. If they try to use the provincials to conquer the next territory too early, the provincials are more likely to turn on their captors and start a rebellion.

Dugin's plan is crazy to try in less than 500 years, and it's flying in the face of a world that is in the process of breaking up into smaller countries rather than big empires. With the world agreeing not to carve up the world among a few super powers and instead respect the boundaries of small countries, parts of larger countries that feel like a separate culture from the larger country can feel free to break away without fear of getting conquered again. In the English speaking world this is happening in Scotland and to some degree Wales right now. For centuries these small nations mostly saw that belonging to a larger United Kingdom was the lesser of two evils in a world where several world empires would have tried to conquer them. Belonging to the empire next door was the better solution. But now Scotland may be better off as an independent country and part of the EU. Nobody is going to conquer them and they have say in how they do things internally.

The message has been slow to penetrate the ethnic regions of Russia, but it is getting there. It has definitely took hold in Ukraine who much prefer to be an independent people. As the idea takes hold in ethnic Russia the Moscow government is going to have an increasingly difficult time holding the empire they have together. Especially with the army dead in Ukraine.

The US as a world power introduced a new kind of world domination. One that sometimes involved puppet leaders, but allowed countries to be their own entities with the US just dominating economically. China is trying to do the same sort of thing now with the Belt and Road, though with a more cynical hook than the US model.

China is an empire of the modern world. Russia is still stuck in the 19th century's Great Game and doesn't realize nobody else is playing.

The thread is quite busy today. Probably more later...

 

[Artful Dodger]

Hmmm .. I think stuff must have changed ... any suggestions ?

View attachment 859992

They can't hide their USER_ID (which is searchable):

Search results | ElectricIAC

You can use the above like as a template to find content from any USER_ID (including BANNED former members)

 

[Artful Dodger]

Odd indeed. I thought the Russians sent their best troops to Kherson. VDV, Spetsnaz. Then why are there so many T-62’s there? In the North they have T-80’s, but not their elite troops. It doesn’t seem logical.

Logistics. You need rail to move a tank army. Ukraine has worked steadily to deny Russia access to easy logistics.

 

[wdolson]

It's key to keep focused on who is the aggressor, for sure.

The attack on Pearl Harbor is one of the biggest tactical blunders in history - definitely Japan's, at least (Hitler attacking the USSR was also ill-advised - but lucky for non-fascist democracy). Until that moment, there wasn't a politically acceptable threat to American freedom.

Adding nuance, though - the atom bombs weren't necessary to end the war, despite the propaganda afterwards. Some scholars suggest it was more a warning/signal to the USSR (and the beginning of the Cold War) than to create an effect on WW2. Germany had already surrendered, Japan was basically under siege and factions were already discussing surrender (the article I linked it goes into some excellent nuance).

The USA was already firebombing larger cities with greater loss of life, and from decoded Japanese communications the leadership barely paid any attention to the atom bomb - they were focused more on avoiding a soviet invasion (which turned out very poorly for Germany). If anything, the ethical mindset of the USA was likely that if any country deserved to be demonstrated on, it was Japan - so perhaps a retributive element at most. But already they could see that the USSR was a greater threat than the remnants of Japan.

Another big factor in the nuclear bombing of Japan is nobody knew the long term consequences of radioactivity until later. It was known that someone could get radiation poisoning and it could be fatal, but it wasn't until the 50s that evidence of mutations and cancer from lower level exposures began to surface.

If we knew then what we know now, Truman probably wouldn't have dropped the bombs on Japan, but hindsight is 20/20.

BTW folks, for those who want to discuss Elon Musk, there is a 252 page thread for Elon Musk discussions. It added a couple pages today.
Elon Musk

 

[heltok]

Seems like Ukraine is making lots of progress near Kherson:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1577324136220839937

https://twitter.com/x/status/1577399012809969680

 

[Surfer of Life]

If just one more of us posts once more feeding the latest troll I put on ignore pages ago, I swear I’m gonna…

 

[Tiger]

I don’t owe Ukraine penny one and neither does any American that isn’t a career politician that can’t keep their pocket rocket in their pants.

I agree with you on a personal level, but as a collective civilization, such backwards mordor-like developments must be stopped. War is not even the best way to do it (it begins with information warfare), but war is what it comes to when push becomes shove, when we have failed at all the other means, and it's even the opponent's initiative.

 

[ElectricIAC]

I agree with you on a personal level, but as a collective civilization, such backwards mordor-like developments must be stopped. War is not even the best way to do it, but war is what it comes to when push becomes shove, when we have failed at all the other means, and it's even the opponent's initiative.

And if that results in nuclear annihilation I guess to hell with the climate then, right?

 

[Tiger]

And if that results in nuclear annihilation I guess to hell with the climate then, right?

You and Elon need to understand, that Russia will take over the world, if not stopped. You can choose to stop them before they go nuclear, or before they come to you by foot. Unless stopped, they will only regroup, and restart. Is this what you want for your children and their children? They cannot be reasoned with.

 

[ElectricIAC]

You and Elon need to understand, that Russia will take over the world, if not stopped. You can choose to stop them before they go nuclear, or before they come to you by foot. Unless stopped, they will only regroup, and restart. Is this what you want for your children and their children? They cannot be reasoned with.

Pray tell, how long do you intend to prop up Ukraine? 5 years? 10 years? 20, like Afghanistan?

Why aren’t their own neighbors to the west of them chipping in more past getting frozen out from Russian gas?

 

[nwdiver]

Pray tell, how long do you intend to prop up Ukraine? 5 years? 10 years? 20, like Afghanistan?

Why aren’t their own neighbors to the west of them chipping in more past getting frozen out from Russian gas?

Ukraine was doing fine before Ruzzia invaded. They show every sign of becoming a thriving EU democracy and will almost certainly do fine after Ruzzia leaves.

???? Um... they are.... in Polands case >2x more per GDP than even the US.

 

[Tiger]

Pray tell, how long do you intend to prop up Ukraine? 5 years? 10 years? 20, like Afghanistan?

Why aren’t their own neighbors to the west of them chipping in more past getting frozen out from Russian gas?

You hit the nail on the head, exactly - the solution is not to prop up Ukraine, but dismantle Russia.

The post-soviet countries are helping (relatively) the most.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1557672100193865728

 

[ElectricIAC]

dismantle Russia.

If that’s the intention then we should just rip the bandaid off and declare war directly on Russia.

Stop pussyfooting around with these poorly hidden shadow games.

 

[nwdiver]

If that’s the intention then we should declare war directly on Russia. Stop pussyfooting around.

Why? Is there some reason that's preferable to just equipping Ukraine to take back Ukrainian land? It's going to take a generation for Ruzzia to rebuild their army enough to try again.

 

[ElectricIAC]

Why? Is there some reason that's preferable to just equipping Ukraine to take back Ukrainian land? It's going to take a generation for Ruzzia to rebuild their army enough to try again.

@Tiger mentioned above the goal was to “dismantle Russia”

It’s a fools errand in our sorry state as a nation either way but I guess there’s worse ways to watch the world end adding to the fact that I really don’t feel like learning mandarin.