[HN Gopher] What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, ...
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What happened to Russias Air Force? U.S. officials, experts stumped
Author : mrep
Score : 223 points
Date : 2022-03-02 16:52 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| ibobev wrote:
| They restrict the usage of artillery and air power to avoid a
| high number of civilian casualties.
| jcranberry wrote:
| A foreign affairs article had this to say before the conflict
| began:
|
| >Airstrikes would not go entirely uncontested. Russia's air force
| lacks experience in suppressing or destroying enemy air defenses,
| and it rarely uses missiles that are designed to destroy radar.
| As a result, Ukraine's meager air defenses could still pose a
| challenge. But Ukrainian air defenses are in short supply, and
| they would be unlikely to provide effective cover for most of the
| country's ground troops. They would be quickly overwhelmed.
|
| >The opening air campaign would probably be short. Unlike Western
| militaries, which concentrate firepower in their air forces,
| Russia puts the bulk of its firepower in its ground forces, so it
| would quickly proceed to a ground campaign.
| [deleted]
| guyromm wrote:
| I believe they were working under the assumption it would be a
| walk in the park, once the central government was captured or
| killed.
|
| To strengthen this assumption here's a canned article which was
| likely meant to be published had things gone according to plan,
| but pulled, since they hadn't.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220226224717/https://ria.ru/20...
|
| RIA is a state owned news agency.
|
| Why precisely they thought they'd meet no serious opposition in
| their attempted airdrop near Kyiv is anyone's guess. Mine is that
| Putin started believing his own tales about Nazis taking Ukraine
| hostage, assuming the populace is dying to be liberated from
| them.
|
| Things crumbled once this met a different reality on the ground,
| and now they're trying to raise the stakes, and have become
| desperate enough to begin indiscriminately shelling population
| centres, Kharkiv most notably.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| What's Russian for "We will, in fact, be greeted as
| liberators"?
| CrazyStat wrote:
| - How do people meet you at the liberated territories?
| - Well. Smiles. Flowers. Tears of happiness...
|
| https://twitter.com/olex_scherba/status/1498766669614886924
| cycomanic wrote:
| I just wrote the exact same thing before seeing your comment,
| just not so eloquently. I think you are spot on, that really is
| the only "rational" explanation.
| guynamedloren wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. That article is disorienting! How'd you
| find it?
| Tarragon wrote:
| Its existence was reported widely on major news sites, even
| Boing Boing!.
|
| There's a ton of reporting right now easy to miss important
| while trying to drink from the firehose.
|
| I first saw it when a friend sent me a link to this twitter
| thread:
| https://twitter.com/Tom_deWaal/status/1498310064117059585
| jopsen wrote:
| > Why precisely they thought they'd meet no serious
| opposition...
|
| Isn't that what everybody thought?
|
| Didn't NATO also think that? Isn't that why the US and friends
| categorically refused boots on the ground, no-fly-zones or even
| just strategic ambiguity?
|
| Or maybe, things are just slow, because they are slow..
| dathinab wrote:
| Before realizing that there is natural Gas west of Crimea I
| thought:
|
| Why is a Ukrain NATO membership a risk for Russia, there is no
| change that in Europe NATO would attack Russia, as European NATO
| members would not allow it.
|
| That is except if Russia expects to be in a war against NATO in
| the not to long future. (Not necessary start the war though).
|
| This behaviour could also fit into this argument, i.e. losing a
| lot by being trying not to lose the important parts to much.
|
| Through it could also be:
|
| - Political games including high Generals of the Russian Air
| Force rejecting getting fully involved in the war.
|
| - Putin being paranoid and believing that if they send major Air
| Force troops to Ukrain then some 3rd party will use this to
| invade Russia/destroy major parts of Russians Air Force.
|
| - Putin hoping to get an excuse to wage war against NATO and
| therefore is holding back the Air Force to launch a attack
| against other forces.
|
| - Russia being in a much worse economical state then believed,
| not affording to fly the full Air Force.
|
| - Something having subtle damaged huge parts of their Air Force
| (and is kept secret). Like e.g. there being a problem with some
| of the materials used to build them, or with their guidance
| system, or similar.
|
| - Russia is falling apart (on a high command level) Putin has
| lost most power, including command over the Air Force, this is a
| last desperate attempt to regain power.
|
| EDIT: Maybe this post is a bit too much taping into conspiracy
| theory territory.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Storm_Rising
| redisman wrote:
| > Putin hoping to get an excuse to wage war against NATO
|
| This would be the most delusional thing anyone has ever hoped
| for. If Putin is that far gone, we're all doomed
| ukraineally wrote:
| No air force, because cost-benefit isnt there. Too many things to
| take them out. Not enough things to drop bombs on. Dont worry,
| they did airstrike the
|
| Navy doing navy things? aka floating there threatening civilians.
|
| Army is in terrible disarray losing tons of equipment to mud.
| Losing even more equipment to combat. Their MREs expired 7 years
| ago. Their army sure is looking pathetic.
|
| Is this Putin's last hurrah?
| aix1 wrote:
| It's hard to be sure, but he is now surrounded by (ex?)
| multibillionnaires who have all of a sudden lost much of the
| ability to enjoy their airplanes, yachts, houses etc, ONLY
| because of voices in Putin's head telling him about his
| historic mission (or whatever those voices are telling him).
|
| I think his life expectancy has gone down as of about a week
| ago.
| ukraineally wrote:
| >It's hard to be sure, but he is now surrounded by (ex?)
| multibillionnaires who have all of a sudden lost much of the
| ability to enjoy their airplanes, yachts, houses etc, ONLY
| because of voices in Putin's head telling him about his
| historic mission (or whatever those voices are telling him).
|
| On paper they are still billionaires because the stock
| exchange was shutdown. I really don't know how much power
| they have exactly. I doubt they have any sort of
| assassination capability. Nor do I expect them to exercise
| this.
|
| Ultimately this is about defunding their war. Their ability
| to sustain this war has a very short lifetime now. They are
| now excluded from the global community. The Russian people
| are headed into poverty.
|
| We get to just sit back and let that happen.
| redisman wrote:
| It's the siloviki who might do something if they have a
| rival group that could take over the administration
| desireco42 wrote:
| It is rather simple, they didn't want to really destroy UAF, but
| were hoping after initial attack that a lot of them would
| surrender and switch side, as there is a lot of unhappiness in
| Ukraine over how they treat Russians, right wingers and pro-nazi
| groups with guns.
|
| So they expected a lot of infrastructure will be available for
| them to take over. As we know, this didn't happen and now they
| have to destroy it. Honestly this is not good for Ukrainians as
| they will now suffer for real.
|
| I found this site provides somewhat better analysis of situation,
| as well as The Hill and Breaking Points for example.
|
| http://www.iswresearch.org/
| garou wrote:
| Would be possible that their objective was to start by invading
| easily the Ukraine and Moldova then with close base to NATO old
| soviet nations start the "real" war to conquer all their
| "territories" back?
|
| If so, their plan just completely blew up now with their
| destroyed economy and wasting a lot more of their planned
| resources to capture only the first step... And Putin don't want
| to admit/face defeat so is trying to win the Ukraine even with
| the fact that he already lost.
|
| It all is so insane, it is freaking hard to understand these
| maniacs...
|
| Slava Ukraini!
| jefftk wrote:
| This cites but doesn't link "The Mysterious Case of the Missing
| Russian Air Force", which is a much more thorough treatment:
| https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentar...
|
| They list three possible explanations:
|
| * Too few precision-guided munitions (PGMs)
|
| * Risk of friendly fire from surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) due
| to poor coordination
|
| * Lack of experienced Russian pilots
| standardUser wrote:
| "Lack of experienced Russian pilot"
|
| This one is so hard for me to imagine, given Russia's long
| history of aerospace pride and massive military budget. The
| article attributes it to limited flying time compared to US/UK
| pilots and unfamiliarity with their latest and most advanced
| jets. Truly hard to comprehend how a military like Russia's
| could be suffering from lack of training despite a multi-year
| lead-up to a massive invasion.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| Russias military budget is only slightly higher than that of
| the UK (61.7 billion vs 59.2 billion), even though Russia has
| a bit more than twice the UK population.
|
| France and Germany aren't far behind - 52.8 billion and 52.7
| billion respectively. I believe Germany recently pledged to
| raise it's military spending to 100 billion (a lot of flashy
| headlines but couldn't find details), so soon it will far
| outspend Russia.
| ginko wrote:
| >I believe Germany recently pledged to raise it's military
| spending to 100 billion (a lot of flashy headlines but
| couldn't find details), so soon it will far outspend
| Russia.
|
| Not _to_ 100 billion, _by_ 100 billion. Euros that is.
|
| https://www-tagesschau-
| de.translate.goog/inland/innenpolitik...
| oezi wrote:
| They want to do a one time invest of 100bn and raise
| permanently to 2% of GDP.
| foepys wrote:
| You cannot compare those numbers. Cost of living is very
| different in Germany and the UK compared to Russia.
| Personnel costs make up for most of the German budget and a
| Russian soldier earns only a fraction of a German soldier.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| While that is a factor, I can also imagine that Russia
| has more cost due to the size of the country and the
| amount of hardware they have to maintain within that
| budget. The other countries are a lot more compact and
| focused, both in terms of landmass and the amount of
| hardware.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Russia has way lower wages on the other hand, meaning for
| domestic military spending, they get much further with that
| budget.
| jopsen wrote:
| > they get much further with that budget.
|
| Not when you pay for corruption :)
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Its easy - imagine massive, gargantuan corruption. On all
| levels, including the very top and going all the way to the
| lowest soldier. Heck, they were selling gas to Belarus
| civilians from their own machines while waiting just across
| the border during February. And then they ran out of it in
| Ukraine.
|
| Can you imagine US or western Europe soldiers doing something
| similar en masse?
|
| And its not just that - heavy drinking, fuck-it attitude, and
| suddenly called to invade the nation who was supposed to be
| their closest brothers?
|
| They are sort of potemkin village kind of army. Few
| exceptional units (Spetsnaz), few cool technologies ie anti
| aircraft missiles, literally maybe 10 new Armata tanks (they
| found out they can't manufacture them en masse). So you see
| 40-50 years old tanks which Javelin can fry easily, and even
| clueless civilian can fire them after 30 minutes of training.
| You see soldiers abandoning vehicles since they have higher
| survability on foot. You see tank crew coming to Ukrainian
| police station to ask where is gas station (I call it clever
| way to surrender).
|
| I think its actually very dangerous for Russia as a state
| right now. Showing this much weakness might motivate some
| neighbors. Especially China, they could run through the
| country all the way to Barents sea without breaking a sweat.
| skim_milk wrote:
| In some branches of psychology, they use term "apoptosis"
| as a metaphor for widespread self-destruction [1], because
| such a collapse in social teamwork appears to almost
| perfectly mirror programmed cell death - as if social
| collapse of one society to allow the takeover of another
| more "fit" society is built in to our inherent social or
| genetic code. Historically speaking, showing such weakness
| would lead to mass genocide, leadership takeover, cultural
| changes, and other unpalatable war crimes. We don't need to
| be brutal cavemen anymore, but feels we're enabling Russia
| to torture itself indefinitely while not letting it
| completely collapse and rebuild a more fair society,
| because they have nuclear weapons and it would be the
| incorrect opinion to acknowledge and fix Russia's failures
| as a state, society, culture, military, and economic
| structure? Why can't we read the writing on the wall and
| fix the world's number 1 danger - the apoptosis of Russia?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayq2WTOIOAQ&t=2964s
| redisman wrote:
| Fix it how? Russia has been unstable for well over a
| century
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Soldiers stealing fuel to sell is a decades old Russian
| soldier tradition
| sofixa wrote:
| > Especially China, they could run through the country all
| the way to Barents sea without breaking a sweat.
|
| The thing is though, is there any reason to believe the PLA
| would be in a much different shape? The last wars the
| Chinese fought in were decades ago, and the performance was
| pretty poor. So we don't have any real world idea of how
| that army would perform - it could suffer from poor morale,
| stupid tactics, lack of coordination, no logistics, or it
| could be superbly trained with great equipment.
| redisman wrote:
| China won't invade anyone. They haven't had any battles in
| a long time. They can just take over with soft power since
| Russia is in a extremely weak position in a few months.
| nacs wrote:
| > China won't invade anyone
|
| Except Hong Kong (and the "expansion" of the South China
| Sea).
| vintermann wrote:
| > Its easy - imagine massive, gargantuan corruption.
|
| Well, it's not as if the US military industrial complex has
| nothing of that?
|
| I think the problem isn't corruption alone, but the
| combination of corruption and all the corrupt trying hard
| to put their own eggs elsewhere than Russia's basket.
| Working with a corrupt authoritarian leader can be
| profitable, but you really want to have a plan B for when
| SHtF.
|
| US corrupt elites have the luxury problem that if their
| wealth and power isn't secure in the US, it probably isn't
| very secure anywhere else either. So they have to take
| _just_ a little care not shit where they eat (too much),
| and maybe sponsor a few museums and stuff, robber baron
| style.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| If you had lived in a country that is corrupt at all
| levels of industry, government, and business you would
| know that the US is practically pure as driven snow. In
| the US there is relatively plenty money to go around and
| even the poor typically live better than in a lot of
| countries "average standard of living) (barring the
| poorest 5% or so). I have lived in such a country for a
| few years and it. is. everywhere. -Everyone- wants a
| bribe or kickback.
| spacemark wrote:
| I think you underestimate the extent of corruption in
| Russia. The US doesn't even come remotely close. You can
| look up corruption indexes, Russia is near most corrupt,
| US somewhere in the bottom quartile iirc. A quick example
| from my industry - roughly 1/3 of the ~USD $3 billion
| spent on the new Russian spaceport is unaccounted for
| (stolen). I assure you that's many orders of magnitude
| worse than the contracts in play at Cape Canaveral.
|
| A good (extremely depressing) film to watch is
| "Leviathan" (2014).
| vintermann wrote:
| First, I was mostly thinking about historical corruption
| in the US, i.e. in the age of Robber Barons, which was
| really incredibly bad.
|
| I agree there's probably less of the "money just
| unaccounted for" type of corruption in the US (though it
| does happen, especially in connection with wars and
| intelligence agencies), and certainly less petty bribes.
| But that may just be a symptom of more organized
| corruption, so that it isn't necessary to let to many
| lower instances have a cut. In short, there may be more
| _legal_ ways to divert public trust to private gain, so
| that the petty sort is just pointlessly risky.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| >I think its actually very dangerous for Russia as a state
| right now. Showing this much weakness might motivate some
| neighbors. Especially China, they could run through the
| country all the way to Barents sea without breaking a
| sweat.
|
| To which I say: Russia has ~half of the world's nuclear
| arsenal. (The US has ~half, the rest of the nuclear states
| are mere footnotes by # of nukes, relying on the fact that
| no one really needs more than about a dozen).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Russia has ~half of the world 's nuclear arsenal_
|
| If this is the state of their conventional military, it
| raises questions about the state of their nuclear
| deterrent.
|
| In any case, if China wanted Siberian resources,
| fomenting a breakaway region would be cleaner than
| invading.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| >If this is the state of their conventional military, it
| raises questions about the state of their nuclear
| deterrent.
|
| A scary fucking thought. i.e. some of them will stay in
| silos, but others will be partially airworthy.
|
| >In any case, if China wanted Siberian resources,
| fomenting a breakaway region would be cleaner than
| invading.
|
| This would result in a nuclear exchange.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _This would result in a nuclear exchange_
|
| Possibly. But the exchange would occur on Russian soil.
| China is more than capable of covertly supporting
| separatists. Hell, it might not even have to. Just prime
| the pump and then let the West take over.
| drran wrote:
| Ukrainians shot about 30 Russian planes, so 30 experienced
| Russian pilots are gone. Even if they are catapulted, they
| cannot return to home easily, while Ukrainians can catapult,
| return to base, and then use a next available plane same day.
| It's like battle of Britain, when British pilots did the same
| trick against Nazi pilots.
| barelysapient wrote:
| _Ukrainians shot about 30 Russian planes, so 30 experienced
| Russian pilots are gone_
|
| This is exactly the metric. Unlike their other assets,
| planes are expensive to replace and pilots take a long time
| to train.
|
| Russia needs to maintain their air assets in order to
| defend themselves in case they get challenged that way. And
| they have tons of warm bodies and old hardware to throw at
| the situation.
|
| Another perspective is that Russian air assets are very
| vulnerable to MANPADS style air-defense systems. Ukraine
| has received a ton of these systems from the west and are
| able to engage targets up to about 3 miles out. They're
| also vulnerable to the S300 systems the Ukrainians
| inherited, although its not clear how many of those remain.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I disagree, they have used their airforce extensively in Syria
| with precision guided bombs, and I'd be very surprised if that
| didn't help the pilots gain a lot of experience too. All those
| reasons might have explained a lower intensity air presence but
| not the outright absence of russian planes. I think it's mostly
| due to public perception because air strikes, no matter how
| precise, cause a lot of collateral damage, especially when used
| in cities.
|
| Outside of cities, where alternatives to air strikes are
| viable, you can still see a lot of russian helicopter and
| artillery action.
| aynyc wrote:
| I think the area they lack experience is closed air support.
| Ground troops can't direct air support on enemy targets
| consistently and accurately. Not that many countries can do
| that effectively.
| ratg13 wrote:
| This is what the article argues. That it is possible that
| they used up most of their precision guided bombs in Syria
| and are mostly left with unguided munitions.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I'm not sure I'd agree because they haven't even used their
| ballistic or cruise missiles in any significant number
| either. And we know they have a lot, lot more of those even
| if we just count Soviet stock. To me that indicates that
| there is something more to it than just lacking the
| munition itself.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _they haven 't even used their ballistic or cruise
| missiles in any significant number either_
|
| Those need targeting. And the article mentions a lack of
| targeting pods. (UkrAF is largely functional because the
| initial volley missed many air fields, planes and radar
| systems.)
|
| This increasingly looks like the Russian military
| procured shiny, expensive kit from cronies and then
| neglected to equip them.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Syrian enemies did not have nearly the level of anti-aircraft
| (and more incoming from NATO countries) that Ukrainians have.
| I think they are just trying to keep irreplaceable fighters
| and bombers intact at the cost of ground forces. Russia know
| that in a war of attrition they can outlast Ukraine although
| it will cost them more than they thought now. I think they
| gambled based on what happened in Crimea and the "contested"
| regions of Ukraine.
| Skunkleton wrote:
| Could it be they are saving their airforce in case of western
| involvement?
| commandlinefan wrote:
| I remember reading once in the late 90's - a bit after the fall
| of the Soviet Union - that U.S. inspectors toured some of the
| then-declassified Soviet ICBM launch facilities and they came to
| the conclusion that the missiles would not have survived liftoff
| much less reached their targets. If Russia was overstating its
| nuclear capabilities throughout the 80's, is it possible that
| they've been overstating their military capabilities in general?
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Yeah, I was under the impression pre-Ukraine that Russia was an
| "nth generation" fighter supplier, and therefore should have air
| superiority almost by default.
|
| I was corrected that nobody seems to buy Russia's offerings, and
| those that were made are basically for show and not in mass
| production.
|
| I also realized that air superiority, as in expensive jets
| attacking from distance and altitude, might not matter if the
| enemy has cheap effective drones.
|
| If the drone loss rate and replacement is cheaper than the flight
| hours cost of the ultraexpensive fighter jet, and if they can
| throw 100 drones at a battlefield and the best you can do is
| shoot down 10 of them with your ultraexpensive fighter jets...
| uhoh. Even if you "own" the skies, you don't have ground-air
| superiority.
|
| Yes you can bomb static targets with impunity, but your ground
| forces are essentially unsupported, and if the enemy is infantry
| with portable missiles and drones with missiles... uhoh.
| older wrote:
| I don't think anyone who've seen Russian made Lada would dare
| to buy Russian made fighter jets.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| By that metric everyone should be buying Japanese fighter
| jets. The US was making kick-ass fighter jets at what might
| be the nadir of the US car industry. Then again, Russian cars
| do indeed represent an all-time low.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| Ukraine only has about 20 drones, and they are optimized for
| air to surface strikes, not air-to-air combat. Drones are much
| cheaper than fighter jets but they're not cheap enough for
| Ukraine to mass-produce (or purchase) them in the thousands.
| boc wrote:
| I think we need to consider the possibility that much of the
| Russian army only existed on paper, and that the true strength
| was overinflated by trickling up good news only throughout all
| ranks of the military.[1] Readiness was overstated. Equipment was
| overstated. Training was for parades, not combat. Everyone in the
| Russian military had assumed they'd never actually fight a real
| war, so they could grift and sell rations on the side.
|
| Putin didn't realize that his military was hollowed-out when he
| made the call to invade, and thus everyone scrambled to fill in
| the gaps of their units with conscripts. That's why we're seeing
| an unusually high number of captured Russian forces who appear to
| have nearly no military training or experience. We've seen
| bizarre tactics that make no sense - tanks being abandoned, APCs
| driving with no support, etc.
|
| It stands to reason that if we're asking "Where's the Russian Air
| Force?", the answer is that it may never have existed in the size
| we thought. IMO this is a more logical answer than trying to
| figure out some 3D chess strategy of why Russia wouldn't their
| planes during the largest invasion since WWII.
|
| [1] https://www.vox.com/2016/2/23/11092614/putin-army-threat
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Good (and long) analysis thread on this on twitter:
| https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1497993363076915204?s...
|
| "Why Russia will lose this war?
|
| Much of the "realist" discourse is about accepting Putin's
| victory, cuz it's _guaranteed_. But how do we know it is?
|
| I'll argue that analysts 1) overrate Russian army 2) underrate
| Ukrainian one 3) misunderstand Russian strategy & political
| goals" Kamil Galeev
| excalibur wrote:
| > It stands to reason that if we're asking "Where's the Russian
| Air Force?", the answer is that it may never have existed in
| the size we thought. IMO this is a more logical answer than
| trying to figure out some 3D chess strategy of why Russia
| wouldn't their planes during the largest invasion since WWII.
|
| It's not that hard to figure out. Putin is saving his planes
| for something big. Direct conflict with NATO being the most
| likely (and of course scariest) answer.
|
| This does not necessarily mean that he wants or intends to
| fight NATO, just that he sees it as a strong enough possibility
| that he's willing to incur heavy losses in the short term in
| order to conserve his strength.
| mysecretaccount wrote:
| Hopefully this is true of their nuclear arsenal...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I think we know the Russian air force exists from Syria.
|
| For ground troops, you may very well be right - they have been
| heavily relying on private military corps for a while now.
| selectodude wrote:
| The Russian air force "exists", in that they have planes and
| pilots and bombs. But in what quantities and in what
| condition is a huge question. Furthermore, are they as good
| at flying in relatively contested airspace as is implied.
| Russia had total air superiority in Syria, Georgia, the
| Donbas, and the Caucasus. Ukraine has an army that actually
| exists and is being armed with some pretty high tech shit
| from the west.
| cycomanic wrote:
| You might be correct to some degree. I suspect though, what
| played an even bigger role is that Putin and many of his higher
| ups, really seem to have believed this would be a very easy
| invasion and their troops would be welcome like liberators.
| Just read the gloating pre-prepared "we won" article that was
| released accidentally [1], it really seems like they were
| believing their own propaganda.
|
| [1] https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/02/28/the-kremlins-
| pro...
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Another part of this is US intelligence sources have an
| incentive to overstate Russia's strength. A strong scary Russia
| better justifies American military spending.
| itronitron wrote:
| Unfortunately that masks the scarier scenario of a failing
| state with thousands of nuclear weapons.
| criddell wrote:
| > the true strength was overinflated by trickling up
|
| When I watched HBO's excellent Chernobyl that was one of the
| recurring themes. Everybody is lying to their superiors and
| nobody wants to hear bad news and they suffer because if it. I
| assumed that was probably exaggerated for the sake of drama but
| maybe it was actually understated?
| matkoniecz wrote:
| > I assumed that was probably exaggerated for the sake of
| drama
|
| Communist countries were full of blatant incompetence, lying
| about what actually happens, mismanagement, stealing and
| strategic deliberate incompetence.
|
| Just look at state of economy of communist block and why USSR
| failed.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| From a formerly Communist Czechoslovakia: if telling the
| truth results in a punishment, everyone will learn to lie
| habitually.
|
| Of course the resulting system is pretty brittle to shocks.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| It was spot on.
| kahrl wrote:
| The tips weren't made of graphite!
| 015a wrote:
| Even this recent video, which presents a bad look for their
| leadership, they were alright with it being public; it must
| be the best case, and it subtly presents a leadership
| structure within the Russian government that is both
| disorganized, and systemically fearful of Putin.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucEs0nBuowE
| immibis wrote:
| Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
| Havoc wrote:
| Cannon fodder conscripts are cheaper that jets
| wariawful wrote:
| jl6 wrote:
| I guess everyone's weighing in with their view, so why not?
|
| Firstly, we should be mindful that the fog of war is now in play,
| and a good amount of what we think we know is unverifiable. With
| that caveat out of the way...
|
| It seems that the Russian soldiers are making efforts to avoid
| attacking civilians directly. Counterexamples exist and could be
| explained by rogue units, incompetence, or hot-blooded revenge on
| local resistance.
|
| I speculate that Russian airforce weaponry is not generally high-
| precision, and the order to avoid targeting civilians implies
| restraint on use of indiscriminate bombing. Again, we've seen
| counterexamples which could be explained by all of the above
| reasons, plus the possibility of friendly fire from failed
| Ukrainian air defences.
|
| I can only imagine that the "pro-civilian" policy is part of a
| plan to eventually install a pro-Russia government that has some
| semblance of consent from the people.
|
| But I cannot fathom how they expect that suzerainty to operate in
| the face of mass popular resistance.
|
| Did they really launch this invasion on the assumption that the
| people of Ukraine would just roll over and accept foreign rule?
|
| Their options seem to be (a) beat a hasty retreat; (b) impose a
| bloody total subjugation of the population; (c) face a decades-
| long insurgency that will bleed them dry.
|
| We need to find a variant of (a) that allows Putin to save face,
| because his default will be (b).
| phtrivier wrote:
| In all fairness, "invade assuming the people will chant you to
| power" sounds a lot like GWB statregy back in 2003... We made
| lots of jokes back then.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > It seems that the Russian soldiers are making efforts to
| avoid attacking civilians directly.
|
| That doesn't apply to apartment buildings, schools, hospitals,
| etc. The shelling is very intense in multiple cities.
|
| So yes, most Russians aren't directly firing on people in the
| street, but in larger cities they're destroying their homes and
| local infrastructure.
| andjd wrote:
| I'm not sure that explains it. The article asks why the Russian
| air force wasn't used to destroy Ukrainian _military_ targets.
| If bombing an air base causes substantial civilian casualties,
| then it's because that country brought in civilians to the site
| to use a meat shield.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _We need to find a variant of (a) that allows Putin to save
| face_
|
| Recognize the annexation of Crimea and promise immediate
| sanctions rollbacks the moment the last Russian troop leaves
| Ukraine (other than Donbas and Luhansk, that ship has sailed).
| kyboren wrote:
| I also think this is the most viable offramp. Everyone gets
| to plausibly claim victory, if not total victory.
|
| Russia keeps the money pit dear to the hearts of many
| Russians and doesn't become a Chinese vassal state. Ukraine
| ends the bloodshed and saves their sovereignty for the cost
| of what they have already lost.
|
| There will be sticking points, for sure, notably around Putin
| himself, reparations, and yes, the status of DPR and LPR, but
| I hold out hope that they don't forestall a potential deal.
| freeopinion wrote:
| So you mean to provide Russia with a more stable platform
| from which to invade again in say, 5 years?
|
| You don't change any of the context that led Russia to invade
| in the first place. You leave intact an aggressor who has
| repeatedly and consistently expanded. You gave them Crimea
| and hoped that would appease them. You tolerated their
| aggressions in eastern Ukraine. Now you will just give them
| Donbas and Luhansk and hope once again to appease them?
|
| That strategy might be better accepted if the world hadn't
| seen 1938-1939.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the order to avoid targeting civilians implies restraint on
| use of indiscriminate bombing_
|
| This doesn't explain Russia's lack of air superiority as well
| as the hypothesis proposed by the paper on which this article
| is based [1]: a lack of precision munitions, the risk of Ground
| Force SAMs causing friendly fire due to bad coordination
| between the branches and a lack of pilot training leading to
| those planes not being battle ready.
|
| [1] https://rusi.org/explore-our-
| research/publications/commentar...
| austhrow743 wrote:
| >Did they really launch this invasion on the assumption that
| the people of Ukraine would just roll over and accept foreign
| rule?
|
| Iirc Ukraine had a government that was subordinate to Russia as
| recently as 2014. Belarus is still a Russian puppet. The
| Transnistria region of Moldova to Ukraine's south is largely
| welcoming of Russian military control.
|
| Doesn't seem too outlandish for them to assume that to me.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That would be an epic failure of Russian intelligence.
| Alternative take: they knew but didn't dare to tell Putin.
| Don't underestimate the isolation of strongmen.
| ChildOfChaos wrote:
| I mean all I see when I look online is Russia attacking
| Civilians and not caring who they attack.
|
| Yes there is a degree of restraint because they are trying to
| take the country over, they cannot burn it to the ground, but
| they don't really seem to care about civilians and keep
| committing war crimes, just now they directly bombed near a
| hotel and train station, people trying to flee the country.
|
| Saying they are 'pro-civillian' seems far fetched and doesn't
| seem to match the facts
|
| The British government is leading a 38-nation referral of
| Russia to the ICC to probe war crimes and a direct quote from
| the British Government foreign secretary just now reads:
| "Putin's military machine is targeting civilians
| indiscriminately and tearing through towns across Ukraine"
| lmohseni wrote:
| We have footage of cluster bombs striking civilian apartment
| buildings in Kharkiv:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZuKEwuZznw
| jnwatson wrote:
| It is important to distinguish between strategic and
| tactical decisions.
|
| Russia has made a strategic decision to avoid heavy bombers
| due to the high likelihood of civilian casualties.
|
| Some platoon commander launched a rocket barrage for
| whatever reason. Command discipline isn't perfect,
| especially among new recruits, so individual deviations are
| to be expected.
| [deleted]
| phkahler wrote:
| Don't forget, every media outlet that isn't Russian is
| going to show those incidents to the world to make that
| bad guys look bad. We're also not likely to see any wins
| against Ukrainian military targets for both political and
| practical reasons. So it's very hard to tell from these
| reports what the overall picture really is.
| throwawayay02 wrote:
| There are counter claims that that building was being used
| for recruitment for the Azov battalion.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| kettro wrote:
| The Azov Battalion is the cause of everything, it seems.
| They're recruiting everywhere, I'm surprised it itself
| isn't the whole of the Ukrainian defenses now, if I
| believed all of the Russian shills.
|
| /s/Azov Battalion/Ukrainian National Guard/
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Yeah, they have around 2500 members, but that's totally a
| reason to lose 2000 people a day in an unprovoked
| invasion and tank your entire country's economy while
| doing it.
|
| Would be nice if Europe and the US would seize Putin and
| associates' accounts and donate them to Ukraine.
| computershit wrote:
| It's basically akin to Canada deciding to invade the US
| because of the existence of the Proud Boys.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Well, it's a little different. For one, Ukraine took all
| of these militia groups and made them a standard part of
| their military's operations. Apparently they've been
| working to defang the rhetoric of this particular group,
| but for Putin to pretend like he gives a shit about
| fascism given that he's currently the highest profile
| fascist world leader is a bit ridiculous.
| [deleted]
| tguvot wrote:
| like seriously, lol. their intelligence were crappy
| enough to miss a bunch of air defense systems but they
| know that in some specific building is an recruitment for
| azov
| akho wrote:
| The specific building is the regional administration, and
| recruitment there was advertised in Ukrainian telegram
| channels.
|
| All that excuses nothing.
| tguvot wrote:
| there is recruitment to regional defense everywhere right
| now.
| ashwagary wrote:
| This might be why they are starting to bomb everywhere
| now.
| tguvot wrote:
| now. residential area in kharkiv https://pbs.twimg.com/me
| dia/FM33LeNXwAsuKHy?format=jpg&name=...
| throwaway_4ever wrote:
| That's what they said about a different building that got
| bombed in Kharkiv, a University Economics building, that
| the intended target was "Azov Battalion" across the
| street. They can't seriously be bombing many different
| buildings and claiming they're all "Azov Battalion." Azov
| mainly operated around Mariupol too, not Kharkiv.
| brabel wrote:
| > just now they directly bombed near a hotel and train
| station, people trying to flee the country.
|
| I've just read that the explosion near Kiev's train station
| (if that's what you're talking about) was due to a Russian
| missile that got intercepted by Ukrainian defense.
|
| It would make zero sense for Russians to be using their
| weapons against anything non-military at this point given
| that, if reports are true, there's still plenty of Ukrainian
| military resistance to be dealt with.
| danenania wrote:
| I don't even see how (b) is going to work at this point--with
| the massive flow of weapons and money that is coming from the
| West, and NATO safe havens on the borders, Russia will be
| playing whack-a-mole against insurgency forever no matter how
| much force they use.
|
| Imagine if the Iraq or Afghanistan insurgencies had had access
| to an endless supply of top-of-the-line weapons, orders of
| magnitude more funding, and 'safe zones' where they could
| operate without the US attacking them... as far as I can tell,
| Russia is all but guaranteed a bloody and expensive quagmire
| until they withdraw.
|
| It seems like Putin went on tilt. It's hard to fathom any
| rational justification for this.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| Russia doesn't have a big track military track record in
| recent years, but there's one thing that they have proven to
| do really well: leveling a city to the ground while
| slaughtering the civilians who didn't flee.
|
| Having the Ukrainian legitimate government agree to surrender
| to save Kiev (or "just" Khariv) from such a fate isn't
| completely impossible to imagine. And giving infantry weapons
| isn't going to be enough to stop Putin from doing so if he
| wanted. I don't know how many FOAV[1] the Russian air force
| has at its disposal, but Javelin aren't gonna help against
| that...
|
| And after this hypothetical surrender from the Ukrainian
| government, setting up a bloody dictatorship with a special
| police arresting, torturing and executing whoever is
| suspected to belong to the insurgency, relying on pro-russian
| locals to provide intelligence is not an impossible feat
| unfortunately...
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_of_All_Bombs
| truffdog wrote:
| Fallujah and Mosul were pretty bad in terms of city
| levelling. We just don't like to remember them, or think
| about depleted uranium dust causing birth defects, or what
| happened to the refugees, or a million other things.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| You can't just compare Fallujah and Grozny. Of course
| urban warfare is destructive to the city no matter what,
| but the US and Russian tactics are very different, and so
| is the destruction. Dropping tons of low precision
| thermobaric weapons on a city is a Russian thing,
| unmatched in its destruction. (The is no American
| equivalent to the TOS-1[1] for instance).
|
| That being said, that doesn't mean I approve US invasion
| of Irak in any way (because I do not), it just feels
| you're comparing Pearl Harbor with Stalingrad... (Ok, not
| literally, because there is a two orders of magnitude
| difference between Pearl Harbor and Stalingrad, but you
| get the idea).
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOS-1
| gitfan86 wrote:
| Russia has claimed that the mission is to liberate Ukraine
| from Nazis, which is why you see videos of unarmed
| civilians not being immediately run over by trucks.
|
| If the mission changes to kill as many civilians as
| possible, the army is going to have an even worse morale
| problem and the international community will come up with a
| creative solution like giving part of Poland to Ukraine,
| giving Ukrainian citizenship to anyone within that part of
| Poland and then launching attacks with all the military
| resources that just happen to now be in Ukraine.
| dantyti wrote:
| >why you see videos of unarmed civilians not being
| immediately run over by trucks.
|
| starting to see videos of explosives being lobbed at
| unarmed people. These do not seem like crowd-control
| munitions:
| https://twitter.com/aldin_ww/status/1499059624250646538
|
| On a more historic note, it took the Soviets a couple of
| days before they ran over people with tanks during the
| January Events in Vilnius: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
| January_Events_(Lithuania)#Tim... note how they also
| claimed it was acting against a "nationalist" (equivalent
| to "nazi" in the USSR) government.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > Russia has claimed that the mission is to liberate
| Ukraine from Nazis, which is why you see videos of
| unarmed civilians not being immediately run over by
| trucks.
|
| > If the mission changes to kill as many civilians as
| possible, the army is going to have an even worse morale
| problem
|
| I agree. This is indeed one of the biggest challenge the
| Russian army will face if they decide to do so.
|
| > the international community will come up with a
| creative solution like giving part of Poland to Ukraine,
| giving Ukrainian citizenship to anyone within that part
| of Poland and then launching attacks with all the
| military resources that just happen to now be in Ukraine.
|
| This is hilarious, I love it. Never gonna happen, but I
| love the creativity here. _This_ is "thinking out of the
| box".
| brimble wrote:
| The more realistic "creative use of borders" I anticipate
| is citing historic claims of (mostly) Poland to carve off
| a big chunk of Ukraine in the West into a new state, and
| put it under explicit or implied ("just try and see what
| happens") NATO protection. I don't expect that unless
| Russia starts having a lot more success, though, and both
| they and Ukraine start to signal that they might accept a
| partition of the country to end hostilities.
|
| [EDIT] Further caveat that it'd have to be before
| substantial Russian ground forces reach that part of the
| country. This is still a low-likelihood scenario, but
| certainly far more likely than declaring part of Poland
| to be in Ukraine (?!)
| simonh wrote:
| That thing is only really useful against static, or near
| static high value targets. Against insurgents dispersed
| across the countryside with Javelins the weapon itself is
| effectively useless while the aircraft delivering it is
| still vulnerable.
| senko wrote:
| I think the implication is it might be used against
| civilian population in a city.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > That thing is only really useful against static, or
| near static high value targets.
|
| Exactly, like the the capital of your country for
| instance. Noting that I'm not talking about defeating an
| insurgency with it, just overthrow the legitimate
| government and put a pro-russian dictatorship in charge.
| Exterminating the insurgents would then be the job of the
| local dictator. Obviously it's not guaranteed, but
| torture, kidnapping, and assassination have proven an
| effective mean of counter-insurgency... In real life the
| bad guy sometimes win...
| oblio wrote:
| The thing is, once they do that, they'll cross another one
| of those imaginary lines.
|
| And the sanctions Russia is under will be nothing like the
| ones that will be heaped on top.
|
| Europe is highly sensitive about local conflicts,
| especially after what happened to Srebrenica. Grozny didn't
| really count since it was:
|
| a) an internal war
|
| b) at the end of Europe
|
| If Putin flattens a major European city (for Europe any
| city above ~2m or so is major), the outrage in Europe will
| be huge. Even bigger than it is now.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| We have not seen what the Germany Army is capable of
| since 80 years ago. Does Putin really want to find out
| what has changed since then?
| oblio wrote:
| The German Army isn't capable of much at the moment.
|
| And even if it were, no NATO member will set foot in
| Ukraine while this war and the following insurgency are
| happening.
|
| What will happen is, depending on how hard Putin pushes,
| the reaction will be just as strong. More attacks
| targeting civilians? More weapons sent to Ukraine. Harder
| sanctions, with actual teeth. I wouldn't be shocked if by
| next winter 60%+ of the gas supply for Western Europe
| will be covered from other vendors, more or less
| bankrupting Russia (a huge percentage of Russian exports
| are raw materials, primarily oil and gas).
| ghostwriter wrote:
| > I wouldn't be shocked if by next winter 60%+ of the gas
| supply for Western Europe will be covered from other
| vendors, more or less bankrupting Russia
|
| you will be shocked to discover that Russia is going to
| fuel China's economy instead [1]
|
| [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-28/ga
| zprom-p...
| google234123 wrote:
| Yo be fair, those insurgencies did kind of have access to
| safe zones (Pakistan is next to Afghanistan) and a good
| supply of weapons which definitely helped them.
| [deleted]
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| It was, however, nothing close to the levels of support
| Ukraine is getting. And those insurgencies faced a vastly
| superior US armed forces.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| Those American forces also had vastly longer supply lines
| to sustain. What the Russians lack in financing and
| capability, the make up a _lot_ with proximate borders,
| time zones, etc.
| jker wrote:
| The US has established bases all over the globe and has
| basically created a worldwide supply chain for its
| military, so that isn't really a factor. (Please note,
| this isn't being said in an anti-American way.)
| akimball wrote:
| Russian military morale is so low it's almost a non-
| force. You see them unloading into chicken farms and
| monuments rather than fighting. They are running out of
| fuel all over the place - probably because they sold it.
| The corruption in the Russian military is vast and
| intense.
| pixl97 wrote:
| There are plenty of sayings along the lines of "America
| doesn't have military, they have a logistics corporation"
| Supplying enough "X" is rarely an issue for the USM
| except in the cases where it is something new they didn't
| realize they needed.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| American supply lines were vastly superior to what
| Russia's doing with its clown convoy however
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It's interesting because the U.S. has an order of
| magnitude more military funding and was trying to secure
| a supply line an order of magnitude longer. I wonder if
| this ratio makes it approximately as difficult?
| brimble wrote:
| > It seems like Putin went on tilt. It's hard to fathom any
| rational justification for this.
|
| _At least_ destabilizing Ukraine is necessary to prevent
| near-term, rapid decline for the Russian Federation. Ukraine
| 's energy production potential and proximity to Europe make
| them a likely serious competitor, at a time when renewables
| are already putting pressure on petrostates like Russia.
|
| Russia made Ukrainian resources in the East difficult to
| exploit with their fomenting or fabricating a persistent
| rebellion out that way, and seized most of Ukraine's
| substantial resources in the Black Sea when they took Crimea
| outright--but Crimea's dependent on Ukrainian fresh water,
| which has quite literally dried up for obvious reasons, and
| Russia's having a hell of a time (that is, spending huge
| amounts of money to limited effect) supporting Crimea without
| holding some of the mainland.
|
| This is part of a series of actions aimed at creating short-
| and mid-term economic stability for Russia, while also
| improving their strategic situation. I would guess that an
| acceptable, if not perfect, outcome for them would be
| bringing the Eastern ~1/3 to 1/2 of Ukraine under Russian
| control, and it looks like they may yet manage to play their
| hand to effect such a partition, despite their bizarrely-
| inept invasion.
|
| It does appear that they've blundered, overall, and not just
| though military fuck-ups--the sanctions are likely causing a
| ton of pain, NATO and the EU are more united against them
| than they've been in a long time and are re-arming (as in
| Germany), and they managed to bump energy independence _way_
| up the priority list for the EU. However, there are good
| reasons for them to (have tried to) do what they 're doing.
| [deleted]
| caycep wrote:
| An additional worry is that these things never end well. I
| have to dig up this book on the downstream costs to all these
| countries that were allied w/ the west or USSR during the
| cold war...they all pay the price economically, socially etc
| for being part of the global great game. Central America, the
| Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa all took a huge hit, if you
| think about it.
|
| Say Ukraine survives or becomes an Afghanistan-like
| insurgency power. But now they are rife with guns, warlords,
| and no national institution or government to organize
| everything....
| oblio wrote:
| > Say Ukraine survives or becomes an Afghanistan-like
| insurgency power. But now they are rife with guns,
| warlords, and no national institution or government to
| organize everything....
|
| Nature abhors vacuums. Especially if those vacuums are easy
| to fill.
|
| What do you think will happen if Russia backs down?
|
| Ukraine already borders 4 EU members (Romania, Hungary,
| Slovakia, Poland).
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > It's hard to fathom any rational justification for this.
|
| It can only be because they think that it's essential to
| strike now; they think that if they leave it, terminal
| decline is inevitable.
|
| This is a military operation that's been planned for years;
| by 'now', I mean 'this decade'. I imagine they saw the
| European gas crisis as an opportunity, and one that would
| slip away quickly if they didn't seize it. That's why it's
| happened this spring.
|
| That long column: that's mostly logistics for the planned
| long siege of Kiev. I think those guys have barely begun.
| [deleted]
| Cd00d wrote:
| _suzerainty_
|
| You can't just lob a hundred dollar word out like that! I spent
| several moments trying to figure out what your typo was before
| allowing the possibility that you didn't have one.
|
| _a relationship in which one state or other polity controls
| the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while
| allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy_
| rendall wrote:
| Are the States of the US suzerains of the Federal government?
| Bayart wrote:
| The other way around. In feudal terms (where "suzerain"
| belongs), the US States would be vassals to the US
| governement.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Are the States of the US suzerains of the Federal
| government?
|
| This word was new to me, but looking it up I wanted to say
| "Yes" but have since changed to "no". Definition:
|
| Suzerainty (American accent: soo-zer-en-tee) happens when a
| country X has its own government but cannot act
| independently because of a more powerful country Y. This
| more powerful country Y is called the suzerain and can
| usually control the foreign relations of X (how X interacts
| with other countries).
|
| When it comes to foreign policy in the US, it is mostly
| handled at the federal level. States are more likely to
| strike deals with foreign companies than foreign
| governments. OTOH the federal government is not equivalent
| to a distinct country and is made up of representatives
| from the states.
|
| One thing I don't like about the US system is that all our
| representatives spend a huge amount of time in Washington
| D.C., away from the people they "represent". And then the
| lobbyists have a single destination to convince a lot of
| people to support their stuff. It might be better if they
| all stayed in their home states and handled congressing
| electronically on zoom or something.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| It's an exquisite word. I too was ignorant of its existence
| until I played Civilization VI, where you can become the
| suzerain of a city-state.
| Karsteski wrote:
| I also only know the word suzerain from Civ VI haha.
| Certainly learnt a lot more history and gained a lot more
| interest in historical texts after playing Civ, far more so
| than school ever did....
| labster wrote:
| I learned "revanchist" from Europa Universalis IV and it
| has been a pretty useful word in the past week.
| Nexxxeh wrote:
| I assumed it was a word I didn't know, right-click Googled
| it, and then TIL. It feels like a good choice of word.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| zh3 wrote:
| Let's not lose sight of the points being made.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| I bet OP plays Civilization.
| sbmthakur wrote:
| I would have done the same had I not played Civ 6.
| brimble wrote:
| It's basic vocabulary in poli-sci or international relations
| studies or circles. Less obscure (in the context of those
| fields) than much of the engineering, math, and computer nerd
| jargon that gets thrown around on here regularly. Likely to
| be encountered in adjacent fields, notably history. It's
| about one small notch more obscure than the term "hegemony".
| oblio wrote:
| It could also be more common for non-native English
| speakers, for example native speakers of Romance languages.
|
| I'm reasonably sure we were taught about suzerainty
| ("suzeranitate" in Romanian) during high school history
| lessons.
| brimble wrote:
| It's definitely more a "college level" term in the US,
| but very much _undergrad_ , if that makes sense. Good
| chance someone who even minored in certain social science
| fields will know it (decent odds they'll have employed it
| on a written exam a time or three), plus most people who
| just have a hobby-level but long-running interest in
| those kinds of things. A good high school course might
| expose students to the term, but I doubt it's common, at
| least outside elite prep schools.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| I hardly ever saw this word used in English, but in Russian
| it is fairly common in historical texts.
| caycep wrote:
| Play more Civ 6! ;)
| drBonkers wrote:
| I tried to reduce that definition for readability: "suzerain
| _noun_ : internally autonomous vassal state w/ externally
| dominated foreign affairs."
|
| What dictionary is your source of truth? I've been using
| Webster [1] but I feel like there's probably a better option.
|
| [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/
| marcodiego wrote:
| In Portuguese there is the word "suzerano". It instantly
| sounded similar to me.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| suzerain (n.)
|
| "sovereign, ruler," 1807, from French suzerain (14c., Old
| French suserain), noun use of adjective meaning "sovereign
| but not supreme,"
|
| Sovereign but not supreme is a good way to remember it, it's
| like a baby name of 'supreme' :)
| Bayart wrote:
| Using Anglo-Saxon etymons it would be "overlord", I guess.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| In foreign relations, the word is ambiguous.
|
| For example, in early 20th (late 19th?) century, the UK
| recognized the suzerainty of China over Tibet.
|
| It basically meant "British India's borders end at the
| Tibetan border, and we won't do business with anyone in the
| Tibetan side of the border without running it by the Chinese
| first."
|
| Then in the early 21st Century the UK recognized the
| sovereignty of China over Tibet in exchange for Chinese money
| to some international orgs.
|
| But all that happened was the British position became more
| precise.
|
| It's a compromise word to recognize the reality in the
| ground, while kicking diplomatic issues down the road.
|
| Parts of the modern day Indian/China border are referred to
| as the "line of actual control."
| Animats wrote:
| Empires, puppet states, colonies, and territories are mostly
| pre 20th century relics today, and we've lost the vocabulary
| for talking about them. Pundits still throw those words
| around, but mostly as exaggerations.
|
| This is a 19th century war with 21st century weapons. It's
| from the bad old days when various European states built
| empires - the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the British Empire,
| Imperial Russia, and the Imperial State of Germany. For most
| of the 18th and 19th century, and up to WWI, there were wars
| around the fringes of those empires. Not hugely destructive
| ones, because nobody had enough firepower.
|
| Putin seems to want to go back to that era. Not, as some
| people think, to the USSR era. Read that accidentally posted
| Russian victory press release.[1]
|
| It's a good time to look at 19th century European history and
| the runup to WWI. What's happening is all too similar.
|
| [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220226051154/https://ria.ru
| /20...
| pbourke wrote:
| > This is a 19th century war with 21st century weapons.
|
| And we hope that it doesn't turn into a 20th century war
| with 21st century weapons.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > This is a 19th century war with 21st century weapons.
|
| Very little of the weapons involved are actually 21st
| century. Most are 20th century.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Depends on if MANPADS, TOW, and Drones become the
| dominant forces of the battlefield.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > I speculate that Russian airforce weaponry is not generally
| high-precision, and the order to avoid targeting civilians
| implies restraint on use of indiscriminate bombing. Again,
| we've seen counterexamples which could be explained by all of
| the above reasons, plus the possibility of friendly fire from
| failed Ukrainian air defences.
|
| That doesn't explain this, though:
|
| > Vastly outmatched by Russia's military, in terms of raw
| numbers and firepower, Ukraine's own air force is still flying
| and its air defenses are still deemed to be viable - a fact
| that is baffling military experts.
|
| > After the opening salvos of the war on Feb. 24, analysts
| expected the Russian military to try to immediately destroy
| Ukraine's air force and air defenses.
|
| > That would have been "the logical and widely anticipated next
| step, as seen in almost every military conflict since 1938,"
| wrote the RUSI think-tank in London, in an article called "The
| Mysterious Case of the Missing Russian Air Force."
|
| > Instead, Ukrainian air force fighter jets are still carrying
| out low-level, defensive counter-air and ground-attack sorties.
| Russia is still flying through contested airspace.
|
| ...
|
| > Did they really launch this invasion on the assumption that
| the people of Ukraine would just roll over and accept foreign
| rule?
|
| It seems like it. I've seen videos of captured Russians where
| they claimed they were lied to and told the Ukrainians would
| welcome them. IIRC, their invasion of Crimea wasn't met with
| much resistance, and maybe they assumed it would be the same
| this time.
|
| Also, if they'd been faster they might have had more success.
| I've seen reports that the Russian military has been acting in
| risk-averse ways that gave the Ukrainians time to organize more
| effective resistance.
| scrubs wrote:
| Perhaps Russia knowing it's military strategy would be on
| full display for analysis decided to accept loss of men
| and/or slower gains for not giving away how its planes would
| perform?
| symlinkk wrote:
| This is my theory (disclaimer: I have no clue what I'm
| talking about). They don't want to show all their cards to
| the West.
| sharikous wrote:
| I thought like you but day by day I am more convinced
| that their cards are visible and insufficient to secure a
| victory anyway.
|
| Everything from land forces, to the navy, to the air
| force, to the intelligence, to the propaganda unit is
| performing poorly.
|
| And the West has exhibited superior intelligence and PR
| by all means. The Ukrainian army is much better trained
| and organized than expected (probably some Western help
| in their training, or just the psychological hardening
| caused by the conflict from 2014), and the population is
| 100% hostile to the invasion.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| I agree, and it might be the case that since they lost any
| element of surprise due to their moves being telegraphed by
| Western intelligence, it greatly undermined any speed they
| were hoping to make use of.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > I agree, and it might be the case that since they lost
| any element of surprise due to their moves being
| telegraphed by Western intelligence, it greatly undermined
| any speed they were hoping to make use of.
|
| It's unclear to me how much of that time Ukraine used to
| prepare. If they did, they didn't telegraph it.
|
| What I read was the Russian amphibious landing in the south
| was done 30-40 miles away from the target city (or
| kilometers, can't remember the unit). Apparently they
| wanted the space to get organized. However that meant the
| city had extra time to prepare _after_ the actual invasion
| started.
| anothernewdude wrote:
| They were arming themselves with missiles and the Turkish
| drones during that time.
| trhway wrote:
| >It seems that the Russian soldiers are making efforts to avoid
| attacking civilians directly.
|
| As a way of self-preservation. USSR lost 13K people in 10 years
| of Afghanistan war. Russia has already lost 6K in 7 days of
| Ukraine war. Ukrainians are fighting in whatever way they can
| and tearing Russians a new one. Among the first questions they
| ask Russian POWs is "Did you shoot?"
|
| >I speculate that Russian airforce weaponry is not generally
| high-precision,
|
| Russia is running out of high precision weapons, and this one
| of the reason of them starting to use older non high precision
| weapons and thus corresponding rise in civilian hits (with the
| other reason being is that they have already stricken most of
| the military targets, and the Ukrainians resistance not only
| didn't decrease, instead it grew tremendously, and so Russians
| are moving onto non-military targets like civil government
| offices, TV station, etc).
|
| > Again, we've seen counterexamples which could be explained by
| all of the above reasons, plus the possibility of friendly fire
| from failed Ukrainian air defences
|
| stay strong, don't fall for Putin's propaganda.
|
| Wrt. the original article - Russia doesn't have much of new
| hardware which it has been showcasing over the last years. Most
| of Russian hardware like planes and armor are somewhat
| modernized old USSR hardware, and even that mostly is not
| working due to lacking parts, bad technical service, etc. Now
| spread this over large territory as you can't leave airforce
| say in Far East naked. So whatever Russia could have mustered
| without severe impact to its overall military capability over
| the whole territory was barely enough only for the originally
| planned Blitzkrieg, and the Blitzkrieg has utterly failed.
| e40 wrote:
| _> Did they really launch this invasion on the assumption that
| the people of Ukraine would just roll over and accept foreign
| rule?
|
| > Their options seems to be (a) beat a hasty retreat; (b)
| impose a bloody total subjugation of the population; (c) face a
| decades-long insurgency that will bleed them dry.
|
| > We need to find a variant of (a) that allows Putin to save
| face, because his default will be (b)._
|
| This is precisely the conclusion I've come to.
|
| I think the only (a) is give him some territory. That seems
| unlikely. Perhaps retake all of Crimea and then give him part
| of it?
|
| I'm really worried about (b). I have 3 friends/coworkers there.
| yks wrote:
| This is a war of hatred towards Ukrainians from Putin.
| Therefore he's both 1) not expecting resistance because enemies
| are dehumanized and weak according to his worldview, 2)
| probably ready to start genocide if enemies resist too much,
| after all, Holodomor happened less than a century ago.
| glogla wrote:
| Reading his speech, both the one before the invasion and the
| leaked one that was supposed to go up after victory confirms
| this. Putins objective is genocide.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| My pet theory is that, in addition to (1), Putin believed his
| own propaganda and thought that the Ukrainian people (and
| even parts of the Ukrainian military) would welcome Russia
| with open arms. This is somewhat backed up by Putin urging
| the Ukrainian military to perform a coup on the second day of
| the war[1].
|
| [1] https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/putin-urges-ukraine-military-
| to-o...
| ashwagary wrote:
| According to reports on French news channels, Zelenskyy is
| considered a puppet by a large % of the population in
| eastern Ukraine and they are welcoming a Russian invasion.
|
| Years ago, I was also suprised to hear people in Crimea
| celebrating post-Russian take over. This topic was never
| covered (at least I had seen no mention) in American media
| during the Crimean invasion.
| sharikous wrote:
| If you want to understand a topic you have to hear all
| sides.
|
| Yep there is substance in some Russian points
|
| - Ukraine is, somewhat, artificial as a country (bear
| with me) - In Crimea a lot of people celebrated the
| takeover. The referendum was rigged but there was a
| tangible popular support - In Donbass some people are not
| really fans of the Ukrainian government. I know people
| from Donetsk that prefer the Russians - People in Donbass
| suffered from continuous shelling from Ukrainian forces
| (I don't want to emphasize the "Nazi" affiliation of the
| Azov brigade because it's a propaganda point but yes,
| there have been incidents and civilians suffered).
| Donbass reminds me of Hamas controlled Gaza Strip and I
| can see both sides - Yes EU and the US pushed for
| bringing Ukraine into the West and funded their people
| there - There is definitely a very high level of
| corruption in Ukraine, especially in the political
| echelon. Some EU-friendly policies have been obtained by
| corruption
|
| That said I agree with most of the criticism of Putin's
| regime too. And of course invading a country that is
| becoming more democratic precisely because they want to
| defend themselves from you is a crime.
|
| And Ukraine is a bit artificial (not 100% artificial but
| it's not a country with an established culture and
| identity) but it's exactly those events, like this war,
| that make it more and more real. The Ukrainian identity
| is becoming stronger and stronger hour by hour.
| sofixa wrote:
| It was widely reported that Crimea was mostly Russian
| speaking and many there leaned pro-Russia, especially
| around the referendum ( in the sense that the results
| were obviously fake, but there was a kernel of truth).
|
| And yes, many in Eastern Ukraine considered themselves
| more Russian than Ukrainian. No more:
| https://on.ft.com/35jWHzB
| BaseballPhysics wrote:
| > It seems that the Russian soldiers are making efforts to
| avoid attacking civilians directly
|
| This is my take as well.
|
| The obvious contrast is their handling of Kiev versus how they
| utterly flattened Grozny.
|
| It's clear to me that in the early days Russia was hoping for a
| quick and decisive win. They'd decapitate the government,
| install a puppet regime, and then hope the public would roll
| over.
|
| That hasn't happened and we're now entering a much more bloody
| phase of indiscriminate bombing/shelling of the civilian
| population.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _... Grozny..._
|
| The Russian Army didn't _initially_ flatten Grozny with
| artillery either. It was only after a failed assault that
| they switched to methodical urban destruction.
|
| Which is why racheting up sanctions and worse ASAP is
| important...
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grozny_(1994%E2%80.
| ..
| kubav wrote:
| Actually real attack on Kiev have not started yet. Ukrainians
| probably deliberately let Russian army to get close to the
| Kiev and than destroyed all supply convoys for Russian
| vehicles.
|
| I have this info from one of the journalist who were close to
| Belarus border in the beginning of the invasion. First he
| wrote article about how hopeless situation is because he rode
| a few hours to Kiev before seeing first defense. But after
| two days all the attacks on Kiev stopped so it probably was
| smart strategy to make supply lines too long to defend them.
| Even on Monday he reported that only shelling he saw was from
| Ukrainian army.
| tguvot wrote:
| maybe they were avoiding in few first days, but gloves are off
| now because they are failing to advance. planes are bombing
| cities in residential areas (i have relatives in kharkiv).
| heavy artillery, etc. there is footage that looks like footage
| from WWII, of residential neighborhoods of apartment complexes
| in rubble and half collapsed buildings on fire.
| akimball wrote:
| This is destroying Putin's legitimacy in Russia too
| tguvot wrote:
| nothing of it reported. use google translate to browse ria
| ru
| raducu wrote:
| Let's face it, Russian airforce, russian army and russian
| equipment suck, but are good enough in this situation.
|
| The Emperor Putler has no clothes.
| ashwagary wrote:
| I've seen reports that Russia's only deployed 5-10% of their
| forces. This might be a slow steady escalation to allow
| evacuations of civilians and test the endurance of battalion
| forces.
|
| Any victories for Ukrainian forces may be short lived, as
| Russia seems to be using this opportunity to guage hot and
| cold zones.
| notyourday wrote:
| If want to avoid massive casualties among civilians, it is very
| difficult to hit a Buk sitting between two buildings. One needs
| to be pretty insane to use air force against targets until Buk
| systems aren't destroyed.
| Steltek wrote:
| I figured it was that concerted civilian targeting will force
| NATO to act. Or perhaps that the close ties between the two
| countries is still somewhat able to override Putin's shitty
| bloodthirsty instincts in some ways.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I'm beginning to doubt that.
| risyachka wrote:
| >> and the order to avoid targeting civilians implies restraint
| on use of indiscriminate bombing
|
| they do not. Their policy is not pro-civilian at all. These are
| facts that you can see on the streets, no fog of war here. They
| are are bombing residential areas for DAYS without stopping.
| And I know, my best friends are in Kyiv and Kharkiv how.
|
| Also there was a missile strike on the railway in Kyiv where
| people are evacuated. Civilian people.
|
| Not sure why you think they are pro-civilian even on some
| level.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Not sure why you think they are pro-civilian even on some
| level. "
|
| It is, when you compare it with syria or chechnya.
| jacksonkmarley wrote:
| > Their options seem to be (a) beat a hasty retreat; (b) impose
| a bloody total subjugation of the population; (c) face a
| decades-long insurgency that will bleed them dry.
|
| maybe the plan is: d) cut ukraine in half, let a weaker and
| beaten 'neutral' western Ukraine be the new NATO buffer, and
| eastern Ukraine is annexed?
| anothernewdude wrote:
| > It seems that the Russian soldiers are making efforts to
| avoid attacking civilians directly. Counterexamples exist and
| could be explained by rogue units, incompetence, or hot-blooded
| revenge on local resistance.
|
| They're hitting a lot of hospitals and civilian infrastructure.
| As per their typical operating procedures, c.f. Syria.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _It seems that the Russian soldiers are making efforts to avoid
| attacking civilians directly._
|
| We must define "efforts" or "avoid" very differently. At the
| very start of the invasion, there was a video of Russian tanks
| deliberately trying to run over civilian cars.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| The video I think you are referring to shows the tank
| swerving to avoid incoming fire and (presumably accidentally)
| running over a civilian car.
| Steltek wrote:
| So much is hard to verify but I think there's reason to
| believe that the vehicle was Ukranian. It lacked the V Z
| etc white letters and it was a lone anti-aircraft vehicle
| wandering through the city, not something that's put right
| on the battle line. Again, hard to know what's truth and
| propaganda. Either way, that vehicle was fairly out of
| control so regardless of who was driving it, I don't think
| it was intentional.
| unnouinceput wrote:
| It was actually an accident. The tank was Ukrainian and the
| driver had very poor visibility, hence the swerve on top of
| civilian (70+ senior actually, that miraculously didn't got
| any injury) car.
| high_pathetic wrote:
| Russian tank - deliberate run-over. Blast about it from
| all media channels.
|
| Oh, it's a Ukrainian tank. Pfft, it was in a accident,
| let's not talk about it.
|
| That's why I don't read/watch news, especially nowadays.
| robbiep wrote:
| I mean it's pretty hard to avoid the 'news' since just
| about everything is a 'news' source these days, but it is
| fairly easy to just assess the data provided and leave
| the interpretation for more facts to arrive. Video: tank
| runs over car. Gut reaction? Bit of horror, concern.
| Judgement? Reserve
| woah wrote:
| Ukraine wouldn't be putting 70 year olds in tanks if it
| wasn't being invaded in an unprovoked war by a much
| larger neighbor (and no, the goal of punishing NATO for
| not giving Russia a blank check to invade Ukraine by
| invading Ukraine is not a valid provocation).
| high_pathetic wrote:
| 70+ year old was in the car, not in the tank.
| MikeHolman wrote:
| The civilian casualties are obviously tragic, but they are
| not beyond the scale that we've seen in recent wars the US
| has fought.
| csense wrote:
| Don't forget about option (d), try to kill everyone in Ukraine.
| Less than 100 years have passed since Stalin attempted exactly
| that, by killing all the farmers and selling all the food.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| It's hard to know what that would serve to accomplish,
| considering it contradicts Putin's entire ethos for invading
| in the first place: he fundamentally views Ukrainians as
| culturally Russian, and wants to bring them back "into the
| fold." His entire rhetoric is adamant about that--it's why he
| uses words like genocide when talking about eastern Ukraine.
| I can't see how (d), which in effect would be genocide, would
| do anything but erode any possibility of support for the war
| effort, considering the family ties to Ukraine held by
| Russian nationals.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > Did they really launch this invasion on the assumption that
| the people of Ukraine would just roll over and accept foreign
| rule?
|
| I don't think it's that simple.
|
| Sure, conscripts were told to expect a welcome in streets lined
| with natives waving Russian flags. Maybe some in high command
| even thought that was a possibility. But they have backup
| plans; we've seen only the first click of the ratchet.
| Escalate, pause; escalate, pause. This happened in Chechnya
| too.
|
| Putin didn't invent this approach. And Putin didn't invent the
| idea that Ukraine is not a separate state, but a part of
| Russia.
|
| He's written history books, I gather; I might be interested in
| reading one, but I suspect they're hard to get hold of just
| now.
| hgomersall wrote:
| I still can't see how (b) doesn't still lead to (c). He needs
| to control the security apparatus, and that means essentially
| being an occupying force. It's not like the Ukrainians have not
| already have their security trampled all over already, so the
| usual limits on a popular uprising are gone already.
| raducu wrote:
| You have no idea about the darkness and effectiveness of
| modern tyranny. Russia is pretty much North Korea in
| democracy at this point or they will become so very soon.
|
| Putin wants the sanctions to be over. His next move will be
| to create devastation in Ukraine and hold civilians as
| hostages for the lifting of the sanctions.
|
| In anycase, Russia will controll South of Ukraine, link up
| with Transnistria and even if they don't take Kyiev and don't
| force Kyiev into peace negociations, the will secure such a
| strong position that absolute control won't matter
| sharikous wrote:
| That's insightful and cynic. Possibly right too.
|
| But why "modern tyranny"? Wars like that are not a
| novelty... or is it about taking civilians as hostages?
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Ukraine population is brain washed by west propaganda. They'll
| brain wash them with Russian propaganda and that's about it.
|
| It's all about controlling the media.
| milesdyson_phd wrote:
| One thing I don't understand is Russia's opening missile salvos,
| they barely even struck at the heart of the Ukrainian Air Force.
| I guess you could theorize they didn't want to destroy that
| infrastructure in the event that the Ukrainian government rolled
| over, but that seems to have been a risky bet that is currently
| playing out.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > they barely even struck at the heart of the Ukrainian Air
| Force
|
| Keep in mind that media reports and reports from the Ukrainian
| military are designed to minimize losses and boost morale.
|
| I've seen quite a few videos of Ukrainian planes destroyed on
| the tarmac and there isn't evidence for a significant Ukrainian
| air presence anymore.
| drran wrote:
| We lost over 2000 civilians in last week on Ukraine-
| controlled territory.
|
| We don't need to bust moral after 8 years of war. It's not
| possible to bust something 8 years straight. My FB is full of
| <<killed by Russian>>, <<lost in fight>>, etc.
|
| You spoke at behalf of Ukrainians, but you have zero
| information from Ukraine. If you have facts, then list them,
| please.
| milesdyson_phd wrote:
| Sorry, I didn't mean to imply they were unscathed.
| astrange wrote:
| Those videos are from a boneyard, they weren't active planes.
|
| @oryxspioenkop has the most reliable confirmed info on
| losses, as long as you can stand his love for Bayraktars.
| tyho wrote:
| I don't think RU has that many precision guided (cruise)
| missiles. The tech for those, small GPS/GLONASS/TERCOM, is post
| Soviet. My impression is that RU military capability kinda
| froze after the Soviet Union collapsed, and what "modern" stuff
| they do have is in very limited quantity.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Just because the US is in love with 'Shock and Awe' doesn't mean
| everyone else sees it as the appropriate methodology in all
| circumstances.
| bestnameever wrote:
| I don't think it is just about shock and awe. It's about
| controlling the airspace. Controlling the airspace has
| advantages during conflict outside of bombing.
| brimble wrote:
| Modern militaries that don't like taking tons of unnecessary
| losses on the ground are in love with controlling the air. It's
| not like there's a wide variety of proven strategies and
| countries just pick one that they're "in love" with--there's a
| fairly narrow set, in these circumstances, which all look
| pretty similar. It's definitely curious that Russia hasn't
| committed to establishing and leveraging air superiority,
| despite dedicating very substantial ground forces and _on
| paper_ being entirely capable of doing so. One of the following
| must be true:
|
| 1) They do not believe they can, so are not trying.
|
| 2) They believe they could, but are choosing not to.
|
| 3) They tried, but, for some reason that's not currently clear
| and isn't evident in battlefield losses, failed. (this is
| probably the least likely and also the most grave--it suggests
| severe problems with their command structure)
|
| Whichever's the case, it's a real head-scratcher and is the
| main reason this isn't going how most folks thought it would.
| notahacker wrote:
| I can imagine a considerable problem with the command
| structure is that if you've got a war that forces are badly
| prepared for and reluctant to fight in, you have to tread
| much more carefully with the orders you give your small
| number of highly trained (and relatively smart) pilots based
| on home soil than your large number of dispensible conscript
| troops you've driven into the conflict (or your gung ho
| special forces). Easier for them to disobey, and much more
| cause for alarm if they do, and no matter how dedicated they
| are to following orders, there are fewer pilots and planes to
| risk than armoured personnel carriers, artillery units and
| dated tanks.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > it suggests severe problems with their command structure
|
| This is what my money is on.
|
| Sending ground forces in without establishing air superiority
| is ludicrous, for reasons that we are seeing now. I guess we
| have a good idea where the military coup will originate.
| lumost wrote:
| A combination of 1 & 3 seems highly likely in my uninformed
| opinion. Economically, losing aircraft will make a war _very_
| expensive _very_ quickly. Losing large numbers of top of the
| line aircraft will severely harm Russian military aircraft
| exports.
|
| With Europe closing its airspace there aren't many valid
| approach paths into Ukraine, or ways to get out of Ukraine
| should things go south. Russia has few stealth aircraft. In
| the 1991 gulf war, 60's era Soviet SA-2 missiles were able to
| defend Baghdad against non-stealth aircraft despite weeks of
| Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses(SEAD) strikes.
|
| A MIG-29 costs ~20 million dollars new.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_Q_Strike
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _With Europe closing its airspace there aren 't many
| valid approach paths into Ukraine_
|
| Europe only contacts the western border. Russian aircraft
| can approach from the north (Russia and Belarus), south
| (Black Sea) and east (Russia).
| WalterBright wrote:
| I've often suspected that the F-35 was so expensive only a
| handful could be built, and would not be risked in combat
| because it was too expensive to replace.
| mhh__ wrote:
| The F-35 isn't _that_ expensive these days. It 's still a
| huge amount of money to spend on something good for
| nothing but war, insert your view here, but the price
| isn't much different than the new F-16s being bought by
| the Israelis.
|
| That being said however stealth aircraft are not cheap to
| maintain at all.
| lumost wrote:
| Curiously I wonder if a similar problem is occurring with
| SA-400 missiles and other Russian air defenses. They may
| be too expensive to shoot at low cost drones such as the
| bayaktar.
| boc wrote:
| The US is "in love with Shock and Awe" because it worked
| extremely well. Russia doesn't have the air power to pull it
| off, which is why they are running a version of Deep War, but
| without a second echelon to prevent their supply lines from
| getting picked off.
|
| In reality it appears that Russia had a big problem with "ghost
| units" and rapidly tried to fill their invasion force with
| conscripts in the weeks before the invasion began. It's why
| we're seeing so many ill-equipped soldiers and awful tactics
| where tanks/APCs are driving solo through fields.
| nickkell wrote:
| Worked well to what end exactly? They decimated the North
| Korean population and made an eternal enemy out of them. They
| fought insurgents for 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan.
|
| I assume that Russia doesn't want the same result in a
| neighbouring country.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Russia absolutely has the air power to pull it off, you
| clearly haven't seen Syria.
|
| My guess is that they have, correctly, anticipated that mass
| casualties of white civilians would play very badly
| internationally and domestically.
|
| e: I'm downvoted.. for what? It's obvious that the ethnicity
| of the victim matters for both domestic and international
| perception, all you need to do is look at a bit of media
| coverage of reporters bemoaning that this is happening to
| "blue eyed, blond haired" people or in the "civilized world."
| There is a different standard for what sort of casualties are
| considered acceptable.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| I downvoted you because this line of logic is deployed, I
| believe, by race obsessed westerners who are privately
| fuming that a shooting war has sidelined their culture war
| for a few weeks. "Don't forget about me and the things I
| care about!"
|
| Just because a talking head or two makes those claims does
| not mean it is all of the sudden the truth. If Russia was
| worried about the looks of white civilian casualties, they
| wouldn't have invaded Ukraine. By the way, how many news
| reporters _didn 't_ make the claim that people only care
| about this because blue eyed/blonde haired people are
| involved?
| [deleted]
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| Regardless of race, plenty of people have brought up that
| this is about as popular to many Russians as the US
| invading Canada would be.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| I agree, but that is a completely different point than
| "The western world only cares about this conflict because
| the victims have blue eyes and blonde hair"
| cycomanic wrote:
| But if you compare the outrage about what was happening
| in Syria (or Iraq or Afghanistan) to the outrage now, we
| clearly are at a very different level. It can't be
| because the Russian are acting so much more ruthlessly
| now.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| If you have a theory to explain a set of facts, pointing
| to the set of facts as an implicit justification for your
| theory does not logically follow.
|
| Maybe Westerners care more about the Ukrainian situation
| because Ukraine was by and large a peaceful, lawful
| country until the war started. Do you think the western
| response would have been a little different if there was
| a pre-existing civil war in Ukraine, and Russia stepped
| in to try to turn the tide for one of the factions?
| coughupalung wrote:
| It seems like you're trying to shoe-horn in an entirely
| different point? How does maintaining air supremacy as a
| military tactic relate to mass casualties?
| MiroF wrote:
| You can't destroy anti-aircraft guns located in civilian
| areas without killing civilians.
| ertian wrote:
| It's not necessarily about 'Shock and Awe' attacks on Ukrainian
| targets, though. They're also allowing drone and aircraft
| attacks on their tanks, troops, and supply chains. You would
| expect the Russian air force to be seeking air superiority and
| providing support to their troops.
| josefresco wrote:
| From the article...
|
| "That would have been "the logical and widely anticipated next
| step, as seen in almost every military conflict since 1938,"
| wrote the RUSI think-tank in London"
| jcranmer wrote:
| From the development of air power theory a century ago, it's
| been widely held that strategic bombing of civilian targets
| is one of the best ways to quickly end a war. The actual
| failure of strategic bombing to end wars quickly every time
| it's been tried notwithstanding.
| boc wrote:
| The Japanese surrender in WWII due to sustained strategic
| bombing of civilian cities without a single troop landing
| in mainland Japan is a clear contradiction to this take.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| If Russia nuked Ukraine they might win the war on
| Ukraine, sure. Japan didn't even quit until there were
| two though. Would they have quit with no nukes and just
| firebombing?
| [deleted]
| thg wrote:
| Japan didn't surrender because of anything the US did,
| but because Russia declared war on them (two days after
| Hiroshima and a day before Nagasaki).
|
| The US may just as well have dropped 10 more nukes and it
| wouldn't have changed anything. The Japanese didn't care
| whether it took a 1.000 bombs to destroy a city or a
| single one. Even more so, since they didn't know anything
| about the radioactive fallout and long-term effects. To
| them, it was just a bigger bomb.
| jcranmer wrote:
| It's not a clear contradiction; it's one of only two
| cases that are arguable (the other one being NATO bombing
| of Serbia during the dissolution of Yugoslavia).
|
| It's noted that it's not clear how much the atomic
| bombings influenced the decision to surrender, versus the
| near-simultaneous declaration of war by the USSR on
| Japan. Furthermore, by the time Japan surrendered, it was
| clear that Japan had already _thoroughly_ lost. Recall
| that similar bombing campaigns against the UK (Battle of
| Britain) and Germany utter failed to bring those nations
| any closer to surrender.
|
| In any case, compared to the actual theorists like Giulio
| Douhet who were, before World War II, arguing that
| attacking cities would cause the will of the nations to
| collapse before they fully mobilized, the actual results
| fell far short of the theorists.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > It's noted that it's not clear how much the atomic
| bombings influenced the decision to surrender,
|
| My understanding is that communications between Hirohito
| and Stalin indicate that Japan was attempting to begin
| negotiation of a total surrender after Midway and that
| Truman's diary eludes to this moment. The main argument
| I've seen to contradict this is that they don't believe
| Japan wasn't actually going to accept a full surrender at
| this point.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| We've got a sample size of one for "conflicts ended via
| nuclear explosions", though.
| adventured wrote:
| The West should be offering ~$5 million per Russian jet that
| defects, along with EU citizenship.
|
| The US should put up a billion dollars for the program to get it
| started. Land the jets in NATO territory.
|
| Let's put troop loyalty to the test and see if we can't drain
| some of their best hardware.
|
| We're not allowed to attack Russia directly so let's plunder
| them. Our leaders are not being nearly creative enough in this
| situation.
| Anechoic wrote:
| _The West should be offering ~$5 million per Russian jet that
| defects, along with EU citizenship._
|
| Skeptical that would be effective for two reasons:
|
| 1. Pilots that have family back home probably won't be eager to
| take the offer
|
| 2. Russia has shown no qualms about targeted assassinations in
| foreign lands.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| You might be right, but here are some counterarguments:
|
| > 1. Pilots that have family back home probably won't be
| eager to take the offer
|
| Russia has not been known to do North-Korea-style family
| executions (so far)
|
| > 2. Russia has shown no qualms about targeted assassinations
| in foreign lands.
|
| Russia might be too weak after all this is over to still have
| these capabilities.
|
| Time will tell!
| mrlonglong wrote:
| Why not sell Ukraine some of these nice B52 planes to seek and
| destroy convoys on the ground ?
| gvb wrote:
| MIG-29s which they are already flying, not B-52s which are
| useless to them.
|
| The deal fell apart, however.
|
| https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/is-poland-sending-
| fighter-...
| 988747 wrote:
| This is a kind of Catch 22 situation with how to deliver
| those MIG-29s:
|
| If a Polish pilot flies it to Ukraine, Russia will consider
| that an act of war, and possibly start bombarding Poland.
| If Ukrainian pilot comes to Poland and takes off from a
| Polish airport then again: that is an act of war.
|
| The only possibility to deliver them without joining the
| war against Russia seems to be to disassemble those MIGs
| and send them by train/truck.
| gpm wrote:
| Ukraine just yesterday flew a MIG-29 back from Romania,
| unarmed and escorted to the border by Romania jets/from
| the border by armed Ukranian jets. No-one seems concerned
| that that's an act of war.
| 988747 wrote:
| No one seems concerned, except the NATO Secretary General
| who rushed to Poland specifically to stop Polish
| President, Andrzej Duda from lending Polish jet fighters:
|
| https://news.yahoo.com/no-eu-countries-
| aren-t-233404478.html
|
| Also, that one jet that flew from Romania was flying
| BACK, because it already belonged to Ukraine, just had an
| emergency landing in Romania for some unknown reason:
| https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-
| zone/44514/su-27-returning-...
| gpm wrote:
| The argument that _you_ are making is that "Allowing to
| use the military infrastructure, such as an airport is an
| act of war". How in the world is letting a Ukranian jet
| land and take off at an airport making less use of that
| airport, than giving Ukraine a jet and only letting it
| take off from the airport?
| 988747 wrote:
| Well, we don't know the whole story, but the fact that it
| was Ukrainian jet, not a gift, could matter a lot. Those
| things aren't strict rules, it is all based on perception
| by both sides. Sending 70 fighters, as EU planned, or
| allowing them to operate freely from Polish airports
| would anger Russia much more. Which apparently isn't
| something NATO is willing to do right now.
|
| EDIT: the fact that the jet was Ukrainian gives Romania
| plausible deniability - they can always say that the
| pilot wanted to fight, and took the jet against their
| will :)
| chasd00 wrote:
| this is the shit that will kill all of us. I feel like
| avoiding a larger conflict overflowing more borders is
| going to require perfect decision making. What you linked
| to is not perfect decision making.
| older wrote:
| All EU countries started supplying arms to Ukraine. If it
| is a plane or anti-tank missile makes no difference.
| 988747 wrote:
| Sending supplies is just business, no different from
| selling food. Allowing to use the military
| infrastructure, such as an airport is an act of war. It
| might seem weird to you, but that's how Russia would
| paint it.
| older wrote:
| Russia does not need to paint anything. When they need
| any excuse they just fabricate some more lies. As we've
| seen many times already.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| If we can supply by road and trains without being drawn
| into a wider conflict, then it should be possible to send
| by air.
| bryananderson wrote:
| From what I can gather from a week of obsessively following
| military experts' explanations of the conflict, there seem to be
| two main factors at play.
|
| One is the Russian choice of overall military tactics, which is
| derived from their political goals. While we can't know exactly
| what it is, we can assume that Russia plans to impose some sort
| of political settlement on Ukraine (could be anything from puppet
| government to partition to annexation). Whatever this settlement
| is, Russia needs more than Zelenskyy's (or some Quisling's)
| signature on the dotted line: Russia very much needs at least the
| grudging acquiescence of the Ukrainian military, state apparatus,
| and general public. Without this acquiescence, Russia will be
| tied down indefinitely in counterinsurgency and "state building"
| with an unsustainable cost in manpower, money, and probably
| blood. To prevent this outcome, Russia initially tried to bypass
| most cities and focus on rapidly taking Kyiv and Kharkiv with
| minimal destruction. Hence the (initial) minimal aerial bombing
| and the various failed tactics such as yeeting paratroopers into
| airfields with no backup and sending light vehicles on Leroy
| Jenkins thunder runs into Kyiv and Kharkiv. Needless to say this
| plan did not succeed. So now Russia has a choice: ratchet up the
| destruction and try to grind Ukrainian defenses down, or fold and
| get out to avoid the long-term quagmire, which might eventually
| endanger Putin's political survival at home. Problem is, folding
| would be a major show of weakness for Putin, which could also
| endanger his political survival at home. So far, we are beginning
| to see an intensification of shelling of cities, indicating that
| he is not folding. If this continues, Ukraine should expect to
| see more bombing from the Russian Air Force (coupled with more
| shelling from artillery).
|
| The second factor seems to be the prevalence of portable air-
| defense systems (MANPADs, such as Stinger missiles) in the
| Ukrainian military. These systems are much harder to find and
| eliminate than larger anti-air weapons like the Buk or S-300, to
| say nothing of fixed-location air defense systems. MANPADs are
| also cheap--much much cheaper than military aircraft. So it
| becomes an expensive proposition to use aircraft at low altitude
| for missions like ground support. With MANPADs continuing to flow
| to Ukraine from friendly governments, this factor does not appear
| likely to change any time soon. So while Ukraine may see more
| high-altitude bombing as Putin intensifies the destruction, the
| Russian Air Force might remain leery of conducting some types of
| aerial operations.
| csee wrote:
| Do you think Putin wants to find a negotiated solution right
| now, or he's still all-in on the outcome?
| redisman wrote:
| I guess he could ask the admin to resign and bring back the
| old president but I'm not sure what the chances of short term
| success there would be
| zmmmmm wrote:
| It makes me wonder if the best deterrence (and perhaps that is
| the psyops being exercised here) to Putin is to threaten the
| external (and perhaps internal?) perception of Russia's military
| might. If other nations generally start to perceive that Russia
| isn't able to competently or effectively exercise its military
| then that is a much bigger strategic loss than some sanctions.
|
| It will quickly make the option of negotiating a treaty and
| taking any small face saving win as a symbolic success look far
| more attractive than appearing impotent and incompetent and
| unable to even control a nation directly on its own borders.
| tus666 wrote:
| I think this misses the point entirely. It's their entire
| strategy, or lack of strategy that is in question.
|
| Small numbers of light vehicles entering towns they have not
| overcome...are then promptly destroyed by irregular Ukrainian
| forces often with improvised weapons.
|
| Seemingly trying to take large cities without first gaining and
| controlling ground and surrounding areas.
|
| Lack of attempts to destroy strategic infrastructure at the
| beginning - e.g. TV/broadcast, communications, bridges, rail, etc
| - using cruise missiles or whatever.
|
| Unclear objectives - are they really trying to actually take Kiev
| or just force Ukraine into submission?
|
| Effective use of an air-force is pointless without dealing with
| the above issues and more.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| I _think_ the reason was, we just waltz into Kyev, get greeted
| as saviors and liberators, maybe shoot Zelenskyy and his circle
| in the head by mistake, or just make them disappear, install
| another friendly ruler (collaborator would be more appropriate,
| like Kadyrov in Chechnya) and Ukraine will be part of Russia
| within next few years, or end up as slave without any real
| autonomy like Belarus.
|
| If that's the case, industry mostly in the east would serve
| much better untouched, same for rest of infrastructure. Why
| destroy & rebuild when you get it for free and can start
| draining the country immediately. Bear in mind Russia has huge
| demographic problems just around the corner, and smart people
| were running away in droves long before this.
|
| All this - truly, hardcore naive. In whole eastern Europe
| currently busy with refugees efforts, and whole nations would
| rather risk death than be once again enslaved by them, the
| memories are still rather fresh.
|
| That Russia's foreign actions are (rightfully in this and many
| other cases) hated as much as Hitler wasn't something
| leadership could grok in any way. They keep peddling these
| bigger Russia tales while calling in 10,000 muslim killers from
| Chechnya on what they claim brotherly slavic nation. You can't
| fail more morally in the eyes of other slavs.
|
| I can't be objective in this topic due to coming from this
| oppressed region, and tyrant evil persona like Putin doesn't
| deserve it. Yes there are many, less powerful people like him.
| I would love to see them be disposed of, stripped away from
| wealth and power for good. Till now it was a pipe dream, same
| as watching some narco-baron enjoying his wealth while slowly
| killing everybody. Now there is at least hope that things may
| change, and maybe even permanently, at least a bit. And hope is
| a powerful thing.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| There was a hue and cry about Ukrainians dipping bullets into
| salo but seeing as the Chechens got droned by Bayraktars it
| seems like the Turks don't mind whatever treatment the drones
| are getting.
| redisman wrote:
| Why would they? The Turkish economy is in shambles and this
| is amazing PR for their arms manufacturing. I'd imagine
| those drones will be sold out for years to come
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Chechens have truly horrible reputation in east/central
| Europe, picture ISIS but worse. There is absolutely no
| sympathy to them, thanks to what they showed in Syria
| fighting for the same guy. I am surprised they are actually
| taking some of them as prisoners.
| vintermann wrote:
| > Why destroy & rebuild when you get it for free and can
| start draining the country immediately.
|
| Also, assuming any of the responsible thought about this
| beforehand at all (which IS an assumption), they probably
| expected further economic sanctions of SOME sort from
| invading. Rebuilding costs money. Rebuilding things like
| high-tech fighter aircraft costs truly ridiculous amounts of
| money. There were plenty of reasons they would have hoped to
| be able to do this all on a modest budget.
| jopsen wrote:
| > There were plenty of reasons they would have hoped to be
| able to do this all on a modest budget.
|
| Indeed NATO certainly expected Ukrainians to just
| surrender.
|
| Which is probably why they didn't get a no-fly-zone,
| strategic ambiguity, or other things like that from the US
| and friends.
| pydry wrote:
| That might have had more to do with the threat of nuclear
| war.
|
| The west isnt going to sacrifice itself to save kyiv.
| jopsen wrote:
| > That might have had more to do with the threat of
| nuclear war
|
| It's not clear we would have risked nuclear war by
| selling discounted cruise missiles to Ukraine.
|
| But the Ukrainians might have used them prematurely, or
| surrendered without a fighting chance.
|
| Or the US could have just deployed 50k troops to Poland
| and said "we might interfer in Ukraine". Then Putin might
| never have invaded.
|
| Instead the US said, they would not interfere.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Indeed NATO certainly expected Ukrainians to just
| surrender.
|
| NATO expected (and AFAICT, still expects) Ukraine to be
| defeated if Putin attacked and wasn't dissuaded by the
| resulting sanctions from pressing the attack. I don't
| think they were expected to just surrender.
| mNovak wrote:
| Destroying bridges, rail, etc would be a huge mistake (beside
| maybe those leading west to NATO), as the current logistic
| challenges underscore. The initial blitz did target radars and
| airports (strategic infrastructure) to try to get air
| superiority, after which many more options become available.
| But that didn't play out. We're seeing now a transition to
| siege tactics; surround and generally make life miserable.
| Skunkleton wrote:
| Of course now Russia is itself under economic siege. This
| doesn't seem like a winning approach for Russia.
| darkarmani wrote:
| I agree with you.
|
| >Small numbers of light vehicles entering towns they have not
| overcome...trying to take large cities without first gaining
| and controlling ground and surrounding areas.
|
| This was our strategy in Iraq -- highly mobile warfare. Marines
| sprinting ahead in humvees without armor. it created massive
| confusion and misunderstanding on where our thrust was - i
| think it tied up enemy resources outside of Baghdad or
| something. But in the long run, not capturing enemies or
| pacifying the areas in-between caused a lot of heartburn later;
| let alone the looting and lawlessness from leaving power
| vacuums everywhere. (humanitarian fail)
|
| Some massive differences were air superiority, night vision,
| and disruption of enemy coordination. They could call-in
| airstrikes anytime there was a threat of armor or mortar fire.
| Generation Kill is a really good series showing this (it seemed
| like madness until i watched "The Pacific").
| rodgerd wrote:
| > It's their entire strategy, or lack of strategy that is in
| question.
|
| So, bearing mind that I'm just shitposting on the Internet and
| have no military expertise, I do think that they had a
| strategy; based on the automated release of articles 4 days
| after the start of the invasion which declared that Putin had
| provided the "final solution to the Ukrainian problem", they
| really expected it to be over in four days.
|
| Bear in mind that:
|
| 1. Ukraine has different groups with different mother tongues,
| like Switzerland or Belgium. The east has a lot of people who
| grow up speaking Russian as their home language. 2. They landed
| paratroops at key airports across Ukraine on day 1. 3. Ukraine
| government has claimed they've found significant numbers of
| special forces disguised as Ukrainians on the first few fays.
| 4. The large body of conventional forces invading on day one.
|
| I would guess - completely "guy on the Internet" mind you -
| that what the strategy was is that the paratroops would get a
| beachhead and destroy the air force, that they and the special
| forces would hunt down and murder or capture all the key
| Ukrainian millitary and government officials in the first few
| days.
|
| Meanwhile the conventional forces in the east would be "greeted
| as liberators", to borrow an American phrase, by Russian-
| speaking Ukrainians, who would provide food and fuel.
| Reinforcements would be flown into captured airfields. Chechen
| terror units would be used against serious resisters.
|
| By the fourth day, Ukrainian resistance would be a disorganised
| shambles of cut-off government units, show trials of any
| captured members of the Ukrainian government could start so
| they could tell a little story about how the Jewish Ukrainian
| president was actually a baby-eating Nazi, and Putin could
| laugh off any attempts to complain as meaningless.
|
| The paratroops were captured or killed, the Ukrainian air force
| kept flying or escaped to friendly countries (and are now
| returning), the alleged special forces got nowhere near the
| Ukrainian government, and Russian-speaking Ukrainians have been
| telling Russian troops to go away. The Chechen terror units
| appear to have been killed en masse.
| koonsolo wrote:
| As another shitposter, I agree.
|
| I think they started to believe their own lies. Like a
| feedback loop from Putin to below, and then the same things
| going up again. Putin gets advised in a world created by his
| own lies.
| UltraViolence wrote:
| It's not a lack of strategy, merely an expression of that a
| soldier's life isn't worth sh*t in Russia.
|
| These young enlisted conscripts are nothing but cannon fodder
| with their superiors hoping they can get off a shot or two
| before they're killed.
|
| Pilots, being officers, are another matter entirely. I remember
| this Kamov Ka-40 helicopter had the ability to blow off its
| blades to enable the pilot to bail out with an ejection seat.
| There's nothing remotely like it in the U.S. arsenal.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Yeah but those hundreds of paratroopers being shot down in
| unsupported skies are important too.
| morganslaw wrote:
| I wonder if there is significant cyber attacks on Russian
| military infrastructure that is slowing them down?
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I doubt their military infrastructure is as dependent on the
| internet as ours may be.
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| It's an internal resistance conducted by the military. In the
| coming days I would expect a coup, Putin's arrest(or worse), the
| new administration, end of war.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| I also wondered if coming up with enough pilots who were
| willing, or they could trust not to defect, was an issue.
| Offering $5 million per plane is a great idea.
| xtian wrote:
| Willing to put money on that?
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| I think it's immoral to bet on people's lives.
| xutopia wrote:
| I seriously doubt that this would pan out. I think Putin is
| definitely losing support internally but the fear is still very
| much present. All of his political opponents are either
| imprisoned, exiled or dead. Some are even exiled and dead.
|
| No one wants to lose their life going against someone so
| ruthless knowing they could lose their life... or their loved
| ones.
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| Russian history knows many examples of coups conducted by
| people from the inner circle of dictators, starting from Paul
| I in 1801 and ending with two coups in 1991 and 1993.
|
| So, taking down putin from within is a plausible event.
| viktorcode wrote:
| I think I have the answer.
|
| 2008, Georgia. Russian Air Force loses at least 9 aircraft.
| Georgian minuscule airforce remained grounded. The losses are
| considered catastrophic inside Russian military command, and
| overall performance of Air Force was appraised as the worst among
| branches of military forces.
|
| In 2010s there's a string of assassinations happen in Ukraine and
| Bulgaria. Different people are targeted, from ex-military to
| weapon mogul Gebrev. What connects them? They all were part of
| the weapon sales chain that provided Georgia with anti-air
| defences. Bizarrely, Russian state media is openly accusing some
| of the victims in doing exactly this: selling anti-air weapons to
| Georgia.
|
| Clearly, a vendetta is taking place. Killing those people
| wouldn't do anything positive for whatever future Russia was
| planning. And since the story starts with military campaign and
| ends with undercover hits, it must be Putin behind this, as he's
| the only person in command of both military and special forces
| committing the murders.
|
| Syria. Russian Air Force enters the fray. But unlike Assad's they
| are flying their ground attack planes pretty high, way above
| range of manpads that are responsible for thinning out Syrian Air
| Force. Clearly, avoidance is put above target precision. Later, a
| single Russian aircraft is downed by Turkish defence. The
| relations between countries are soured, but only for a while.
|
| What can we conclude? For whatever reason Putin hates losses in
| air force. Specifically, in military planes (it seems Russian
| helicopters aren't enjoying that privilege). I can't presume what
| this reason might be. But Putin's actions over the last 15 years
| seem to fit the narrative.
| jopsen wrote:
| I guess planes are expensive. Maybe, it's cheaper to use
| conscripts and leftover tanks from the soviet era.
| UltraViolence wrote:
| I'd have thought that Russia would have air superiority by now,
| but it seems they don't.
|
| Ukraine doesn't use its air power wisely, because I'd think that
| 60km long convoy would be a juicy target, ripe for the picking.
| The Russians probably have Buks and S-400 SAMs lined up all over
| the place to protect the convoy.
| csee wrote:
| I believe they do have air superiority, just not air supremacy.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| The convoy is likely stationary but well-defended. And, more
| importantly, appears to have already been stopped. Ukraine will
| use its limited resources to attack easier or more critical
| targets.
| maratc wrote:
| I think that Russia may have a two-prong strategy: either make
| sure Ukraine is not joining NATO, or make sure that Ukraine that
| joins NATO is completely wrecked.
|
| In the alternative reality, where Ukraine promises _tomorrow_ not
| to join NATO (ever), the Russian targets for this war may be
| considered achieved, and everyone could simply go home, probably
| throwing in a couple billions deal for Ukraine recovery. This
| would be the best outcome for everyone. But this will not happen
| tomorrow.
|
| If this won't happen _at all_ , the Russians can always wreck
| Ukraine later, and this is where their air force may play part.
|
| In short, I think the Russians are showing some restraint, for
| now, to make sure the quick outcome still can happen.
| tapas73 wrote:
| problem is - its either nato or russian puppet (e.g. russia
| would force ukraine to invade moldova)
| vkou wrote:
| I doubt that Russian demands about NATO are in good faith. It's
| hard to believe that the goal of this invasion was to prevent
| encirclement, given how Finland and Sweeden's reactions were
| completely predictable.
|
| I think the goal was annexation. The demands put out right now
| are intentionally unreasonable, but even if they were met, it
| would not stop the fighting.
| maratc wrote:
| OTOH we don't have any evidence of Russia having any beef
| with either Georgia or Ukraine, up to 2008 NATO Bucharest
| summit, where NATO announced that Ukraine and Georgia would
| be accepted as members. Georgia was wrecked in half a year
| after that, and Ukraine since 2014, since the Orange
| Revolution.
|
| The annexation argument came after the fact.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| The Orange Revolution was in 2004. The one in 2013-2014
| started with Russia pushing their semi-friendly semi-puppet
| Ukrainian president to abandon an association agreement
| with the EU. He pursued that agreement quite vigorously
| until mid 2013, when derailing it could have been quite
| easy (stop a few laws from passing, or don't sign them, or
| put poison pills into them that won't be acceptable to the
| EU and wrangle over wording for years, etc). Maybe he also
| believed Russia only cares about NATO, but EU is fine.
| Anyway, eventually Putin told him in no uncertain terms to
| do a 180, which he did. The protests that followed
| eventually escalated into him trying and failing to assume
| dictatorial powers, ordering a slaughter of ~100
| protesters, and promptly fucking off into the dustbin of
| history.
|
| So it's not really about NATO, per se.
| tapas73 wrote:
| see also: Belarus (russia stopped quite pro russian, but
| democratic opposition)
| dathinab wrote:
| There seem to also be natural gas reserves in the sea west of
| Crimea.
|
| If Ukrain joins NATO Russia would not be able to hold onto
| Crimea and could become a Petrol state.
|
| With renewables replacing part of the Gas energy demand long
| term (10/15y) this could mean that Ukrain could replace all
| Gas imports previously done from Russia. At the same time a
| modern and well-working Ukrain could influence Russia (as a
| unintended side-effect) in a destabilizing way (anti-
| authoritarian Government movements).
|
| So if my info is correct a stable NATO Ukrain could, in a
| decade or so, lead to a situation where Russia is making very
| little money, no longer being able to afford much military
| besides for self-defense usage. That there is also a
| shrinking populating constantly reducing the amount of
| "potential soldiers" isn't helping. Neither is helping that a
| lot of middle tier and upper middle tier Russians have left
| Russia in the last many years (I think, not 100% sure), this
| reduces the chance for economical growth through new
| businesses.
|
| If all of this is true (I'm not sure) then Putin might
| believe that they have to either take over or majorly
| destabilize Ukrain if Russia like it's currently is want to
| continue to exists. (This doesn't mean it would disappear,
| but it would need to change likely at the cost of the current
| oligarchs.)
| michael1999 wrote:
| I'd be worried that any un-married fighter pilots might just
| defect. A quick run to Poland, and you're done.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| The Ukrainians borders are closed for all men in fighting age
| (18-60). They're forced to stay in the country.
| dathinab wrote:
| I don't think Russia would let you take the jet with you.
|
| I mean whatever their situation is, I'm pretty sure they still
| can assassinate defecting pilots. And I'm pretty sure the
| pilots know.
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| You would think so, but perhaps not!
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Belenko
| jopsen wrote:
| Isn't it only senior intelligence officers and the likes that
| they care to assassinate?
| farseer wrote:
| watwut wrote:
| The war is already in the indiscriminate killing phase and
| moving towards just destroy city phase. Should be there in few
| days.
|
| Slav fellowship does not work in wars. No fellowship works in
| wars.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| > Slav fellowship does not work in wars. No fellowship works
| in wars.
|
| Historically combatants have treated their opponents
| differently based on race and existing cultural attitudes.
| Don't see why it would be any different this time around.
| Banana699 wrote:
| >Historically combatants have treated their opponents
| differently based on race and existing cultural attitudes
|
| Huh? when have that ever been true? European religious wars
| have been huge bloodsheds, communist regimes routinely
| genocided their own (often quite homogenous) populations,
| Lebanon's civil war saw neighbors shooting at each other.
|
| The truth of the matter is : when people want to fight,
| they will find something that makes their enemies different
| and alien, because it's uncomfortable to imagine yourself
| in the place of the dead body that was previously a living
| human.
|
| Race and Blood just so happen to be very convenient to
| latch on, because they're immutable (for now) genetic
| characteristics that make the gulf between you and your
| enemies look huge, a very desirable property in a
| dehumanization tactic. When people don't have those, they
| start latching on less immutable but nonetheless difficult-
| to-change things like religion, language and culture. And
| when people don't have those either, they start latching
| onto who their enemies voted for in the last election or
| their stance on <insert pet issue>, which are very mutable
| but also very numerous and can always be found and used as
| basis for dehumanization, their mutabilitiy and
| arbitrariness notwithstanding.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| When German POWs were taken to American South in WWII,
| they were considered 'white' and treated better than
| black US Army soldiers on leave.
| watwut wrote:
| Technically, this was actually true in WWII. German army
| behavior in west was horrible, in east much much worst.
| Their behavior toward gypsies was super bad. And their
| behavior towards Jews worst of the worst.
|
| But the range there is from "super bad" to "genocidal",
| so.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| It's been true literally since written records of
| conflict have been kept. Look at the Punic Wars vs. the
| Peloponnesian War for example. Look at the Japanese in
| the Warring States vs. Japanese in China in the 1930s.
| Even in European history it is true. Compare the
| attitudes of the English towards the Germans in WWI vs in
| WWII. (Edit: or as a sibling comment notes, the behavior
| of the Germans on the different fronts).
|
| There's always going to be dehumanization in war, but how
| much depends on things like race, culture, and existing
| attitudes towards the enemy.
| Banana699 wrote:
| >Look at the Punic Wars vs. the Peloponnesian War for
| example
|
| Not sure how this supports your thesis. Are you trying to
| say that the punic wars was more devastating/brutal than
| the Peloponnesian because the first had people of
| different races fighting while the second had only Greeks
| fighting amongst themselves ? there are several problems
| with this :
|
| - We have no estimates of the casualties on both sides of
| both conflicts, Wikipedia only has an estimate of one
| side of the Peloponnesian, and it's only the military
| casualties.
|
| - In the Peloponnesian war, Sparta actually allied with
| the Persians. They were entirely OK with people of
| different races murdering their fellow Greeks, I think
| they had zero problems murdering their own race too. (and
| burning the whole city if it came to that, but it didn't,
| but that doesn't really mean Spartans were softer because
| their enemies were Greek, it just means the Athenians
| surrendered quicker and didn't try again, unlike the
| Punics)
|
| >Japanese in the Warring States vs. Japanese in China in
| the 1930s
|
| This is really comparing apples and oranges, those two
| wars are about 5-6 centuries apart, whatever you're
| comparing as proxy for 'brutal' or 'destructive' is very
| much confounded by technological advances in warfare.
|
| >Compare the attitudes of the English towards the Germans
| in WWI vs in WWII.
|
| I don't understand what this is trying to say. Did
| English attitudes toward Germany differ between WW1 and
| WW2 (besides the trivial differences explainable by the
| change in geopolitical atmosphere and warfare style)? how
| much of that is both parties seeing each other as
| different or similar races?
|
| >the behavior of the Germans on the different fronts
|
| I never said that race-based dehumanization isn't
| brutally effective and leads to astonishing results when
| it could be used, in fact I placed it at the top of the
| hierarchy when it comes to dehumanization algorithms.
|
| What I'm denying here is the claim that this efficiency
| of dehumanization can't be achieved using other methods
| or combination of methods, I'm asserting that it can,
| just with more effort/propaganda. I'm not saying that
| this is necessarily the case in this specific Ukraine-
| Russia conflict, I don't trust the hose of
| (dis)information on this conflict the internet spews
| every day anyway, so I don't really have a strong opinion
| on anything in it besides the most naked facts.
|
| All what I'm disputing is the claim
|
| >Wars with same-race combatants are, always or most of
| the time or on average, less brutal than wars with
| different races fighting
|
| I'm saying that this is false and reductive, Religion in
| particular is a very strong counterexample. Communism-
| style genocides is another.
| [deleted]
| adventured wrote:
| There's plenty of history for how the Russians treat the
| people of Ukraine, we don't need to guess.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| That doesn't mean it's predictable. Could be they treat
| their fellow Slavs worse!
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Tim Dillon had a Ukrainian comedian call in to his
| podcast who made the quip, yes we are family, but
| families can hate each other even more than strangers.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Respectfully, the indiscriminate killing we have seen so far
| - while awful - does not even remotely hold a candle to what
| happened in Syria.
|
| They are clearly pulling their punches, likely because of the
| ethnic/racial dynamics of this conflict.
| geoka9 wrote:
| > They are clearly pulling their punches, likely because of
| the ethnic/racial dynamics of this conflict.
|
| The goals are different. It's not like they are trying to
| make Syria part of the new Russian Empire.
| [deleted]
| watwut wrote:
| They expected to win quickly and easily - and are shocked
| it did not happened. Whether they pull the punches will be
| seen later. Historically, there was not much holding back
| punches between Russia and Ukraine. You may start reading
| about Holodomor, which is still debated whether it counts
| as genocide or not.
|
| For that matter, historically, Russia holding punches was
| not exactly the thing. Not even toward Russians.
|
| The original propaganda line was that Ukrainians are
| basically Russians being taken home now. That nonsense was
| shattered by now. The idea that this will stop punches now
| that they are refusing, purely because both are white, is
| something only Americans can think.
|
| -----------
|
| War in Syria did not started by indiscriminate bombing of
| cities. It got there through series of escalations when
| rebels refused to give up.
| foverzar wrote:
| > Historically, there was not much holding back punches
| between Russia and Ukraine. You may start reading about
| Holodomor, which is still debated whether it counts as
| genocide or not.
|
| This is such a demagogy and a narrow-sighted view of
| history. It is always brought up only for the purpose of
| pouring more oil on the flames and turning up
| nationalistic tensions.
|
| Holodomor has nothing to do with Ukrainians or Russians.
| It had happened all over the Soviet Union.
|
| Much more Kazakhs had died relatively to their total
| population, and almost the same amount of Russians in an
| absolute value.
|
| Hungers of 1930s were a global event, not something
| conjured by one particularly nasty Georgian.
| tapas73 wrote:
| Some proof would be nice.
|
| Wikipedia mentions that it is contested if it is
| intentional or not.
|
| Personaly for me, intentionality doesn't seem far
| fetched, given gulags, forced relocations to siberia
| without supplies and liberal presentation of
| history/facts (ussr guides said that kaliningrad is
| russian from olden times).
| MiroF wrote:
| So many mis-statements of fact here.
|
| > They expected to win quickly and easily - and are
| shocked it did not happened.
|
| Very possible, but neither you nor me are in the position
| to know that.
|
| > Holodomor, which is still debated whether it counts as
| genocide or not. For that matter, historically, Russia
| holding punches was not exactly the thing. Not even
| toward Russians.
|
| The Holodomor was clearly a completely orthogonal issue
| to this as it wasn't a military conflict.
|
| > Not even toward Russians.
|
| What are you referencing in terms of conflict? Probably
| not chechens, because that would only go in favor of GPs
| point.
|
| > War in Syria did not started by indiscriminate bombing
| of cities. It got there through series of escalations
| when rebels refused to give up.
|
| Russia started intervening in 2015, 4 years into the
| civil war, and immediately began with indiscriminate
| bombardment of cities like Raqqa (https://en.wikipedia.or
| g/wiki/Russian_military_intervention_...)
|
| > The idea that this will stop punches now that they are
| refusing, purely because both are white, is something
| only Americans can think.
|
| The domestic opposition in Russia over killing far fewer
| people is already much larger than it was to the
| intervention over Syria which killed far more civilians
| early on.
|
| It is not something "only Americans can think" that
| Russians care more about the lives of people of close
| ethnic relation to them as compared to Syrians.
| watwut wrote:
| Holodomor is relevant, ot orthogonal.
|
| I meant purgers, internal thing toward Russians.
|
| Oh, and yes, 2011 to 2015 is long time of escalations.
|
| The question is whether they will pull punches when
| ennemy don't give up.
| MiroF wrote:
| > Holodomor is relevant, ot orthogonal. > I meant
| purgers, internal thing toward Russians.
|
| Neither of those were covered on the TV. They are also
| from over half a century ago.
|
| > 2011 to 2015 is long time of escalations.
|
| But 2014 to 2022 isn't?
|
| The idea that Russians care equally about the lives of
| Syrians and the lives of ethnic Russians & Ukrainians is
| fantasy. It's obviously false, even if Russians killed
| Russians in purges 60 years ago.
| watwut wrote:
| Russian TV is not broadcasting Ukraine war. For that
| matter, western tvs are not broadcasting full brutality
| of wars either. It is all sanitized for viewers good
| feelings.
|
| > 2014 to 2022
|
| Sure, Ukraine actually got ready to defend. Russia
| actually got to the point of being ready to start war
| again.
|
| But, actual full war started last week with hope of 96
| hours till victory, installation of puppet goverment and
| weak divided west. They wanted them to be kind of like
| Belarus, useful for further own plans.
|
| > The idea that Russians care equally about the lives of
| Syrians and the lives of ethnic Russians & Ukrainians is
| fantasy. It's obviously false, even if Russians killed
| Russians in purges 60 years ago.
|
| They don't care about Ukrainians lives at all. If they
| keep not winning, they will move to deep active hate.
| Ukrainians are already nazi for them and that includes
| the Jewish president. And that sentiment is real inside
| Russians who do believe oficial version.
|
| Purges were not 60 years ago. They were the thing Stalin
| shot himself into own leg right before WWII. But, fuckup
| at start is on brand here. Stalin has raising popularity
| as maligned father of Russia in Russia last 10-15 years.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| > Slav fellowship does not work in wars. No fellowship works
| in wars.
|
| There's plenty of videos of Russian troops not attacking
| civilians and surrendering. But there's also videos of them
| attacking civilian targets...
|
| It seems there's some Slavic fellowship at play but that it's
| mostly among regular soldiers, not the leadership. Then
| again, maybe the gross incompetence shown by the Russians is
| a result of said fellowship + plausible deniability...
|
| Either way, the war's gone shockingly bad for the Russians.
| Whether or not Ukraine's reports are entirely correct,
| everyone can agree it's embarrassing to the Russians.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Also the number of Russian news sources closed and
| journalists arrested, fired from govt aligned media, or
| willing to leave the country is increasing daily. That
| would be an indicator that the Russian regime is deeply
| concerned about the public not falling for that propaganda
| anymore.
| glogla wrote:
| Yes, after Grozny and Aleppo, anyone saying Russians are
| trying to limit destruction is deluded or a shill. Russian
| military strategy has been to force surrender through causing
| as much civilian death as possible for a while now.
|
| Based on his speeches, both before invasion and the leaked
| one that was supposed to go out after a win, Putins objective
| is genocide. "The Ukrainian question", dude is literally
| quoting Hitler.
| platinumrad wrote:
| There is a huge difference between what people are willing
| to do to racial and cultural others v.s. what they are
| willing to do to people who look, speak, and live more or
| less just like them.
|
| Yes, Russia was extremely brutal in Chechnya and in Syria.
| But consider how brutal the US was in Iraq, and consider
| how we would operate in a hypothetical war against Canada.
| phicoh wrote:
| There is not much difference bwtween people from Germany,
| France and the UK, yet, World War I was one of the most
| horrible wars in history. A few decades later, there
| still was not much difference between people from the UK
| and Germany yet the bombings of the German cities by the
| allied forces were some of the horrible in history.
|
| Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_
| World_Wa... for one of the full horror stories.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| If the US was taking over Canada, I think we might approach
| it in a gentler way then Iraq or Afghanistan.
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| At 80% conscription rate, the RF army is seriously vulnerable
| to mass-realization of international views. Many young
| Russians were deceived into this war and would rather be with
| their families.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| Is this something we, hackers/information technology
| specialists, could try to achieve?
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Yes, I'd love to see more chatter on here about creative
| info/psyops. The fact that Russian troops are using
| smartphones and Google leaves them wide open. We have
| starlink sats above them and control DNS. Hell, we could
| probably convince them they'd already won and been
| ordered home.
| [deleted]
| coldcode wrote:
| You can have an enormous airforce on paper, but not be able to
| wield it in those numbers. It's possible they simply can't get
| enough working planes together to make a difference, and what
| they have working is all that they have. It's also possible that
| Putin is afraid of some other border being attacked and is
| keeping all planes for defense (though that seems rather stupid).
| You can't win a ground war if the enemy can indiscriminately
| destroy your troops, vehicles and logistics, no matter how many
| people you can throw into battle. Of course this did work in WW2
| as the USSR sent enormous armies full of people who were often
| unarmed (pick up a dead mans rifle), and had Commissars behind
| them to shoot anyone who failed to go forward. This is no longer
| the case, and it's entirely possible the troops (and some
| leadership) simply doesn't have any desire to kill themselves in
| a war they care nothing about.
| abrichr wrote:
| > Of course this did work in WW2 as the USSR sent enormous
| armies full of people who were often unarmed (pick up a dead
| mans rifle), and had Commissars behind them to shoot anyone who
| failed to go forward.
|
| This is not an accurate representation, see:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/31t5on/did_t...
| supergirl wrote:
| they are slowly ramping up, hoping the west will start to
| negotiate without having to bomb too much. I guess they might
| have to in the end
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| Could Putin's end game be that he expects Ukraine to strike back
| inside of Russia, perhaps a missle on the Kremlin? Then that
| would give him justification to just carpet bomb Kyiv?
| tguvot wrote:
| ukraine already stroke stroke back at russia. - one missile
| blew up few military planes at airport somewhere near belgorod
| i think - another one was targeted at airport at taganrog 2
| days ago. outcome unknown - bombed fuel supply train in russia
|
| but kremlin is outside of rage of ukraine weapons and it has
| very heavy air defense systems
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Ukraine already struck back inside Russian with a missile
| attack on an airfield[1]. But I don't think Ukraine has the
| manpower or the equipment to get munitions anywhere near
| Moscow.
|
| [1] https://news.yahoo.com/ukrainian-forces-target-russian-
| airfi...
| csee wrote:
| But it might be an end game in terms of a false flag to
| justify such a bombing in Russian propaganda. They can't just
| outright go for the bombing without such a justification.
| tguvot wrote:
| it's not reported in russian media as it will contradict
| narrative - successful campaign to support armies of
| LNR/DNS to liberate their republics. Nothing else is
| reported in media
| csee wrote:
| What about the attempts on Kyiv and shelling of Lviv?
| Didn't Putin say that he wanted to "denazify" all of
| Ukraine in his opening declaration, not just LNR/DNS?
| tguvot wrote:
| absolutely nothing. nada. zero. it's full blown 1984.
| everybody who says word war instead of "special military
| operation" is taken off air (they shut down two major
| radio stations). they are going to make televised school
| lesson explaining to kids purpose of operation is to keep
| republics safe (they also sent upfront documents showing
| how things must be explained to children) duma supposed
| to make law tomorrow that spreading misinformation about
| "operation" is an offence.
|
| use google translate to browse those ru domains : ria
| lenta gazeta
| csee wrote:
| So, suppose that Putin does capture all of eastern
| Ukraine. How does he plan to announce it to the
| population? "Surprise! it wasn't actually just LNR/DNS!"?
| tguvot wrote:
| "They overthrew their nazi juna and surrendered". The
| official propoganda states that ukranian army doesn't
| fight, only nazi batallions. also nazi's execute ukranian
| military personal that refuses to fight. there is an
| article about this on ria
|
| Also this was published on 26th and purged https://web.ar
| chive.org/web/20220226224717/https://ria.ru/20...
| csee wrote:
| Do you think Putin wants to find a negotiated solution
| right now, or he's still all-in on the outcome?
| tguvot wrote:
| i think all intelligence agencies trying to figure it
| out. yet.. on one side there been a bit softening with
| regards to what russia demands from Ukraine, according to
| russian media. For example that started to loudly demand
| today that Ukraine will declare to be non-nuclear
| country. They didn't demand it before so if Ukraine
| agrees to it (it never tried to do it anyway) it will be
| a win for internal consumption.
|
| On the other side their economy is crumbling. They are in
| conflict with everybody. On 4th there is supposed to be
| joint session of parliament and there are assumption that
| will be announced either mobilization or martial
| law/state of war/something.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| My guess is he's saving them for a bigger invasion of other
| countries if he's able to take Ukraine.
| coryfklein wrote:
| My personal speculation: some other power(s) outside of Ukraine
| are responsible for using their soft power to handicap the
| Russian Air Force, whether via hacking or via a secretive-yet-
| direct physical intervention within Russia.
|
| The "non-news" of Russia Air Force not showing up was not
| naturally getting coverage in the news, and now DoD figures are
| making public statements in order to point it out, raise
| awareness, and poke Putin in the side. Meanwhile, every delay in
| action from the Russian Air Force weighs heavily in favor of
| Ukraine.
|
| In this way, major adversaries to Russia that are unable to get
| directly involved for fear of escalation are still able to place
| their hands on the scales via more indirect means. Even though
| there is not official treaty requiring Russian adversaries to
| intervene, it is often still in their best national defense
| interests to limit Russia's expansionist tendencies in whatever
| way they can.
|
| It is all a continuation of major world powers fighting wars by
| proxy; the dominant pattern of war-fighting after nuclear
| proliferation became a thing.
| MasterYoda wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220302165925/https://www.reute...
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| I am angry at the Russian Federation and impressed with the
| Ukrainians and terribly sad at the suffering that this war has
| caused and will cause for the next decade. I also find the way in
| which this war is being documented on and reported quite amazing.
|
| As a very young man, my first experience with war that I can
| remember was my parents watching the reports on the Vietnam war.
| They were pretty glued to their TVs and unlike the wars before
| that one, there was video every day and updates every day. They
| felt they really "understood" what was going on because they were
| so very well informed. They had seen it with their own eyes after
| all!
|
| However later, much later, after the war was over and more and
| more information about the prosecution of the war came out, it
| became abundantly clear that what they had "seen" was carefully
| managed by outside forces to convey certain "truths" which were
| in fact simply narratives drawn from helpful facts with unhelpful
| facts omitted.
|
| There was of course other news coverage, in China (assumed to be
| all "propaganda") in Vietnam (presumed to be slanted toward their
| wants and needs), and so it was widely held by the adults that my
| parents socialized with (Air Force types) that the US coverage
| was "best, and most reliable." It was also impossible to get on
| the spot translations of the other stories so it could take days
| or weeks before you even got to read the "other side" and by then
| it was often overtaken by events.
|
| This war is very different. Different even than the recent middle
| eastern wars of the late 20th and early 21st century. If you were
| an American you could be forgiven, if you watched the news, for
| forgetting that the US was even _in_ a war, much less the driving
| force behind it. This war has an overload of information, from
| Twitter, to Facebook, to Tik-tok, and of course various media
| outlets all around the world. It fundamentally changes how one
| perceives and understands what is going on. While in previous
| wars the crafting of a narrative was the side hustle of the folks
| responsible for communications, in this war it is a huge part of
| the offensive. This "information war" which works to frame the
| war in a way that is useful to the framer.
|
| Not surprisingly, it isn't nearly so easy to tell only one side
| of any story. I find this Reuter's story a good example of that.
| Who are they talking to? What experts are "stumped"? Why is the
| story they tell important or not important to their intended
| audience?
|
| The more I read the more I recognize that nobody knows what is
| "really" going on. Some Russians are deserting but no concept of
| how many or how fast, Ukraine is winning skirmishes, but again
| big ones? little ones? How does it inform us on where this is
| going next? I don't think anyone knows.
| dbs wrote:
| Almost everyone underestimating Putin. Probably there's more than
| meets the eye. For sure a lot of wishful thinking in western
| views. Putin never lost a war. Not defending him, just noting
| that the "good guys" don't always win.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| _Or_ we 've been overestimating Putin for the past decade and
| his "crafty tough guy" persona was just successful marketing.
| My personal opinion on this changed when I saw pictures of him
| sitting at the end of that long table[1] when talking to his
| advisors/generals.
|
| The fact that he's _that scared_ of COVID shatters the tough
| guy persona. The fact that he was seemingly ok with these
| pictures going public shows that he has no sense of how silly
| and bad this looks.
|
| [1] https://nz.news.yahoo.com/photos-putin-keeps-his-distance-
| du...
| jackTheMan wrote:
| Or this Putin is not the same Putin he was 8 years ago..
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| Putin's never really fought a war though, so he would be hard
| pressed to have won any. The conflicts Russia has engaged in
| during his reign have been small affairs where there was
| basically never any real military resistance against Russia.
| Each of those conflicts was fait accompli as soon as it
| started.
|
| Ukraine is a different beast. Its a country with a regular army
| that has spent the last 8 years undergoing a rapid
| modernization process for said army. They have 44 million
| people, and lots of western support.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| I think part of why Russia looks so inept is because everyone is
| comparing against the US.
|
| However, the US military has the finest logistic operations in
| the world.
|
| Also, there is no substitute for fighting an actual enemy. Part
| of the reason the US (especial Air Force and Naval Aviation) is
| so good is that they have actually been fighting. From
| Libya(Reagan), Gulf War I, Serbia, Gulf War II, Afghanistan,
| Libya (Obama), the US has been fighting quite a bit.
|
| Whenever you are actually fighting an enemy, there is a learning
| curve. The big question is whether the sanctions and
| international isolation combined with the Ukrainian resistance
| will force Russia to back down, before they navigate that.
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| Russia fought a lot too, Georgia, Chechnya, Syria, Crimea
| jopsen wrote:
| Murdered a lot of defenseless people is more like it..
| demadog wrote:
| I have this sad, but likely true, theory that the U.S. needs to
| always be involved in a war to stay in practice and iron out
| the kinks for bigger wars.
|
| I say this as a medium-big supporter of the US military.
| vl wrote:
| The reason US army is always fighting is economic. US dollar
| is reserve currency of the world and thus US has almost
| unlimited credit.
|
| But one important element of dollar stability is that carrier
| group shows up on the doorstep of those getting out of line
| and shows them errors of their ways. Thus there is a constant
| need for some pretext to deploy military somewhere.
| jopsen wrote:
| > I think part of why Russia looks so inept is because everyone
| is comparing against the US.
|
| Yeah, we would all like the narrative to be Russian army not
| working.
|
| But it's also possible that they are just working slowly. And
| certainly possible that Putin would rather loose conscripts
| than risk airplanes.
|
| (Honestly, I just hope the madness stops before more people are
| hurt -- ideally with the Russians going home)
| lamontcg wrote:
| It might just be that they don't trust most of their pilots to
| not surrender/defect, and being in a plane makes that easier. I
| don't really know, but it make as much sense as anything else.
| drexlspivey wrote:
| That's ridiculous, Russia is not North Korea, you can leave the
| country without hijacking a Fighter Jet
| phtrivier wrote:
| Not that I want to play contrariant or anything, but assuming the
| Russian air force is simply "bad at what it does" feels
| incredibly short-sighted.
|
| I would like to have the other versions where the air force is
| simply saving it's might for later, playing the long game, kept
| in reserve, etc... Rather that. Assuming they're bad.
|
| Or maybe someone in the air force is not fully cooperating with
| the war effort ? Is there someone in charge that might want to
| keep a chance to take over negociations with clean hands after
| Putin is gone ?
|
| I know, Occam's razor and everything ; but the "Russian army,
| baaaad" theory sounds more far fetched.
| 0000011111 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Air_Force#2021%E2%80%9...
|
| In terms of numbers according to the Wikipedia article they have
| about 650 air planes and ~300 helicopter's.
|
| Thats a solid fighting force for a relatively small country.
|
| Russia as lots of tools - missiles and such that are good at
| destroying buildings.
|
| The problems in that Putin understands that the cities in Ukraine
| have value. He is trying to take them over with minimal
| destruction to the buildings at least right now. That way he
| could move his people with with out needed to rebuild.
| jwlake wrote:
| There's around 40 million people that might have a problem with
| that.
| mattnewton wrote:
| Yeah I can't help but wonder if Putin is trying to run a
| playbook that worked in parts of Georgia and "worked" in
| Chechnya (eventually remaining Russian territory, at great
| cost), but doesn't scale to major Ukranian cities.
| adventured wrote:
| Russia's only possible 'winning' outcome at this point is
| to subjugate and murder huge numbers of Ukrainians under a
| brutal police state, if Putin wants to hold most of the
| population centers. It'll take a very long time before
| they'll stop fighting back, Russia will have to debase the
| culture (they might try it China style, bring in a lot
| Russian citizens to live in those cities and begin a full,
| forced transformation, while you violently try to strip
| away Ukrainian culture).
|
| It sure seems like Putin expected them to capitulate
| quickly and become largely docile before the occupying
| Russian soldiers while a new government is installed. Not
| much else explains their approach thus far other than that
| (their supply provisioning was clearly built for a very
| short conflict).
|
| If Russia doesn't go for the full brutal police state
| approach, they'll hemorrhage with any typical occupation
| and will have to leave, and any new system they attempt to
| install and leave behind will be toppled rapidly (the
| Russians will have to keep sending forces in).
| geoka9 wrote:
| I agree, that's the only thing they know how to do
| efficiently:
|
| > If Russia doesn't go for the full brutal police state
| approach
|
| Ukrainians are used to living in a democracy though, so
| it may not be easy/possible.
|
| > bring in a lot Russian citizens to live in those cities
| and begin a full, forced transformation, while you
| violently try to strip away Ukrainian culture
|
| That's what they did back in the 1930s in East Ukraine.
| They had to starve out/relocate the locals to make room
| for the "colonists". But doing this in the 21st century?
| I shudder to think how this would go down. And if they
| don't do this, anyone who comes over to settle will be
| met with extreme hostility.
|
| I believe Putin lives in the past when it comes to
| understanding Ukraine and Ukrainians. It looks like he
| might actually believe (have believed?) his own
| propaganda.
| 0000011111 wrote:
| Yes, and looking forward he has the spotlight of the
| world agents him.
|
| I do not think the question is wether or not Ukraine will
| fall to the Russian state. But if the Russian economy and
| current government will stay viable through the duration
| of the war.
|
| Global sanctions applied correctly could cause a refugee
| crises in Russia population ~144 million. In short,
| Russian people need their basic needs met. Just like any
| human. They will go where that can happen more easily if
| their own country can not provide. 57,792 kilometres of
| Russian boarder length is ripe for exit.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > 57,792 kilometres of Russian boarder length is ripe for
| exit.
|
| "border", and the vast majority of that is coastline, and
| the vast majority of the coastline is _Arctic_ coastline,
| which is very much _not_ ripe for exit.
| riku_iki wrote:
| > they have about 650 air planes and ~300 helicopter's.
|
| the question is how many of them are operational.
| [deleted]
| gedy wrote:
| Uninformed opinion would be they are holding back until needed if
| things need to escalate in the Ukraine or with the west. I
| wouldn't assume it's some sign of weakness.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| > I wouldn't assume it's some sign of weakness.
|
| Well, given the deplorable state of their ground units, I
| wouldn't rule it out.
| [deleted]
| etempleton wrote:
| My best guess would be that a few things are happening:
|
| 1. Russian Military Leadership is unwilling to risk their best
| equipment / personnel
|
| This is a pretty radical war in that, yes, Ukraine is overmatched
| in almost every way, but they also have been provided some of the
| most advanced and modern anti air and anti tank weaponry by NATO
| countries. And it may not even be clear to Russia exactly what
| they have been provided.
|
| 2. Dissent Among Ranks
|
| While we probably won't know, at least not any time soon. Some of
| the reported incompetence of the Russian war effort seems too
| great to be true. I would not be suprised if there was some
| intentional stalling in the hope that Putin comes to reason.
|
| 3. Morale is Low
|
| The Russian military waited a long time at the border. Were sent
| in, purportedly, without really knowing why or to what end, and
| then asked to kill people who they see as basically their own
| countrymen. Hard to fight when you don't know what for, to what
| end, and geez, kind of seems like we are the bad guys here.
|
| This war is going to test even the most nationalistic of the
| Russian military. I don't know how much longer this can go on
| without a military coup.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| They are afraid of
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buk_missile_system
|
| a very good technology that the Soviet Union developed which
| punches above its weight in situations like the Ukraine war
| because the mobile radars are hard to suppress with these methods
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppression_of_Enemy_Air_Defen...
|
| I have seen a huge number of Buks in various conditions in video
| footage from the war, one of them was scurrying around the
| 'suburban' areas of Kiev. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the
| early missile hits on residential buildings were something like
| this that failed to lock on
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-radiation_missile
|
| Ukraine has a lot of Buks, it has a handful of these too
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-300_missile_system
|
| on paper those are better than the Buk but Ukraine doesn't have
| so many and I think the Buk is a "cheap and cheerful" convivial
| weapon like the AK-47 that does great when exported.
|
| (Both the Buk and S-300 are a lot like the US Patriot missile
| system in that they are comprised of a number of mobile units
| such as command posts, radar, missile launchers, etc. The Buk
| however has a configuration where the radar and missile launcher
| are colocated on the same vehicle and I'd guess that
| configuration works really well under rough conditions with less
| trained crews.)
| amelius wrote:
| Don't forget about
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIM-92_Stinger
| shepardrtc wrote:
| > I wouldn't be surprised if some of the early missile hits on
| residential buildings were something like this that failed to
| lock on
|
| That or Russian missile attacks.
| tommiegannert wrote:
| Indeed, I think GP meant that it could be a (Russian) anti-
| radiation missile that failed to lock onto the radar signal
| of a Buk.
| UltraViolence wrote:
| Some of the residential hits seemed to be cruise missiles
| that weren't aware that a building was in their path.
|
| A case of the height map not being updated correctly in the
| computer's memory? The Russians seem to be sloppy all over
| the place, so it wouldn't surprise me.
|
| All this lightens my mood, since it's obvious the Russians
| wouldn't last two months against NATO forces.
| vintermann wrote:
| No forces would last two months in a nuclear war though, so
| it's not all that rosy.
| [deleted]
| thereddaikon wrote:
| Buk isn't a "cheap and cheerful" alternative to S-300. Soviet
| air defense doctrine was a multilayered approach featuring
| systems at almost every organizational level from infantry
| squad up to theater. Buk and S-300 serve at different
| organizational levels. Both are competent systems and
| ironically are probably more effective against Soviet derived
| air forces than western ones.
|
| Starting in WW2 and moving forward each side took a very
| different evolutionary path in terms of air power and air
| defense. The west relied far more on combat air craft for air
| defense because that's what worked on the western front. The
| soviets had a very different experience in the war and had to
| fight while being under constant attack from German airpower
| through most of the war. So they focused on giving their army
| its own air defense capability.
|
| Fast forward 80 years and western militaries will have a few
| SAM systems like the larger patriot and the Stringer MANPADS
| but will primarily rely on fighters to clear the skies. While
| the Russians have a SAM for every situation and a much smaller
| tactical air force. The west has also since Vietnam spent a lot
| of effort on defeating Soviet style SAM systems with improved
| SEAD tactics and equipment whereas it was never a concern for
| the Russians because there isn't much in the way of SAMs to
| suppress.
|
| For those reasons you end up with the ironic twist of Russian
| SAMs being especially effective against Russian aircraft
| because they didn't prepare to counter their own systems. They
| DO have anti-radiation missiles and strike aircraft but not as
| many as the west and their doctrine is not nearly as well
| practiced.
| stefan_ wrote:
| It's wild how many anti-air systems they have deployed, for
| an almost non-existent enemy air force. At this point they
| must be effectively supplying the enemy their SAM systems.
| Very expensive, too - saw a $15M system ditched in a field
| because the shitty KAMAZ truck carrying it broke its axle.
| edrxty wrote:
| It's partly doctrine, that's just what they do. Highly
| mobile AA traveling with the armor is their thing and why
| change up your process right in the middle of a big
| deployment (rhetorically, obviously).
|
| The other reason is if things go south and the US/EU
| decides Putin is bluffing on the nukes, they'll for sure
| wish they had it because NATO aircraft would color the sky
| gray.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| You are right about more emphasis on fighters in the U.S.
| Also the U.S. put its best anti-aircraft missiles on ships.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| True. The Navy has spent more resources on perfecting SAMs
| than the Army or Air Force have. Standard Missile and Aegis
| are a very potent combination. So much so that they adapted
| it to ground based setups with "Aegis Ashore" which is
| literally the system taken straight off an Arleigh Burke
| class destroyer and installed as a ground based missile
| defense system.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| The US blue-water navy has many similar problems to the
| Soviet Army. Specifically: operating out of range of land-
| based friendly fighters and interceptors.
|
| And since there are only so many carriers, naval aviation
| also can't be assumed.
|
| Consequently, SAMs are prioritized, compared to the army or
| air force.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| The top image in that article is the first time I've seen a
| traditionally camouflaged vehicle and been quite unsure of what
| I was looking at.
|
| Is there something particular about the camouflage on those
| buks?
| blast wrote:
| If that is the case, why would officials and experts be
| "stumped"? This seems like the obvious explanation.
| anramon wrote:
| Right now an "expert" is whoever says something that is
| aligned with media retoric.
| gpm wrote:
| The expert they are quoting is a pretty well known figure,
| who has been saying lots of things often not aligned with
| media retoric.
|
| To borrow his twitter bio as an introduction
|
| > PhD student @warstudies (Department of War Studies at
| Kings College). Senior Fellow @FPRI (Foreign Policy
| Research Institute). Previously @USMC (US Marine Corp),
| @ColumbiaSIPA (Columbia School of International and Public
| Affairs), @CentreAST (Center for Analysis of Strategies and
| Technologies), and @AlfaFellowship. Focused on Russian
| defense policy.
|
| To imply that they're just pulling in random people is flat
| out wrong. This is a person who has been studying Russia
| from a military standpoint for many years.
| thera2 wrote:
| [deleted]
| IncRnd wrote:
| There are many possible explanations, so latching onto the
| first one that sounds plausible is not necessarily the
| correct one. Otherwise, we would all be like those pundits on
| TV.
|
| Several reasons might also be simultaneously true. Some
| simple examples: Russia might be testing NATO. Russia might
| not want to escalate in certain ways. There have been many
| countries whose leaders want to minimize the numbers they
| kill, while still killing many people. Russia might not want
| to reveal otherwise unknown capabilities. They might be
| preparing their air to strike elsewhere, possibly unrelated
| to Ukraine. There might be a revolt inside Russia's military.
| And so forth. But, what's likely? Maybe they just don't want
| to kill everyone or create dissent.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| It wouldn't be unhelpful to increase the sortie rate of
| Baltic air policing missions and extend them over the
| Finnish border (with Finnish permission).
|
| Potentially hostile assets require matching defensive
| stationing, even if they aren't doing anything aggressive.
| Fighters in Murmansk / Severomorsk aren't in Ukraine.
|
| "Fleet in being" works for air forces too.
| consumer451 wrote:
| The explanation which I have not seen discussed here is that
| this is a secret war, in Russia.
|
| Putin called it a "special operation." Use of the term "war"
| in reference to this action has been banned in Russia. This
| secret war aspect may have had practical effects on command
| and control. It is possible that by not declaring this more
| than a limited special action, Putin's deployment options are
| actually limited.
| nomel wrote:
| I don't see why an official would publicly broadcast active
| wartime capabilities and tactics that might not be known.
|
| And, there's a strong possibility that we're experiencing
| some psyops here, to make the Russians appear incompetent.
| There's an active war. If history has taught us anything,
| psyops is as sure as death, in war.
| eitland wrote:
| > And, there's a strong possibility that we're experiencing
| some psyops here, to make the Russians appear incompetent.
|
| Given their unencrypted radio communication they have done
| a fair effort to support that idea themselves.
| nomel wrote:
| I don't see how that's a sign of incompetence, rather
| than a sign of aging military equipment. Incompetence
| would be relaying important, uncoded, information over an
| unencrypted signal, in a way that would result in some
| disadvantage.
|
| For example, saying "shoot here" then having a tank round
| go through the wall 5 seconds later wouldn't benefit from
| encryption.
| sofixa wrote:
| > For example, saying "shoot here" then having a tank
| round go through the wall 5 seconds later wouldn't
| benefit from encryption
|
| Of course it would. Otherwise:
|
| * the enemy could analyse your strategy and tactics and
| predict your approach; and worse:
|
| * the enemy can impersonate command, say "approach
| through there" and have the tank go through an anti-tank
| ditch
|
| There's no excuse for unencrypted military
| communications. One would think the Russians would have
| learned their lesson from freaking Tannenberg a century
| ago, but it seems not.
| paulmd wrote:
| > And, there's a strong possibility that we're experiencing
| some psyops here, to make the Russians appear incompetent.
|
| Definitely. You're not going to hear about the encounters
| where the Russians smoke the Ukrainians and they have
| serious loss of life/equipment or don't come back at all.
|
| Not that there's not a lot of organic sentiment around the
| world, but Ukraine seems to have a very good PR corps
| pushing news of their victories and memes about the
| situation. And unlike a lot of these attempts, they aren't
| "how do you do fellow kids" type shit where it's super
| obvious.
|
| Exhibit A: the Ghost of Kiev. Regardless of whether he
| exists or not, he's a great case study in propaganda.
| gpm wrote:
| > I don't see why an official would publicly broadcast
| active wartime capabilities and tactics that might not be
| known.
|
| That explains the anonymous officials not agreeing with
| this stance. That doesn't explain the non-government
| experts not agreeing that this is the reason though. They
| don't have any special knowledge and wouldn't be telling
| the Russians anything they didn't already know.
|
| > And, there's a strong possibility that we're experiencing
| some psyops here, to make the Russians appear incompetent
|
| There's probably a degree of this, but from what I've seen
| it also seems to be legitimately the case that they are
| somewhat incompetent.
|
| Besides which, the Russian's letting that psyop succeed,
| would itself be direct evidence of incompetence.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Re: psyops, Russia has many of the same weaknesses as
| China, in that their practitioners cannot conceive of an
| independent, actively contradicting and adversarial
| infosphere.
|
| Inside Russia or China, psyops is muting whoever says
| something you don't like, and deciding on and
| disseminating the message of the day.
|
| Outside of Russia or China, that looks _very_ different,
| with everyone opining on your message whenever they feel
| like it, in addition to virality being a huge component
| of message reach. That 's a very different skillset to
| navigate successfully.
| vkou wrote:
| > And, there's a strong possibility that we're experiencing
| some psyops here, to make the Russians appear incompetent.
|
| It's not a strong possibility, it's a 100% guarantee.
|
| Aside from big, trivially disproven announcements ("This
| side now controls such and such city"), you're not going to
| see an accurate picture of literally anything in this
| conflict until months, if not years after the fact, when
| historians will pour over, and fit together first-hand
| accounts and records.
|
| In the meantime, parts of the picture may be accurate, but
| nobody here has any idea _which_ parts are true, which are
| propaganda, or what particular purpose that propaganda
| serves.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| The "stumped" is not actually in the article.
|
| FTA: the issue is that Russia made a huge show of force at
| the start of the invasion but has apparently held back from
| actually using much of it (by air or ground). This war could
| have been over the day it started if Russia had used maximal
| force, and the conservative approach their actually using
| maximizes risks and casualties.
|
| And that's what has the experts confused: they can't figure
| out _why_ Russia is going with this strategy, given the
| overwhelming technological and numerical superiority of the
| invasion force and their apparent willingness to accept
| casualties as the cost of conquering Ukraine.
|
| It doesn't appear to be cost, because the invasion has "cost"
| Russia hundreds of billions.
|
| It doesn't appear to be casualties/morale, because Russia has
| suffered 500+ casualties in 3 days (its worst losses since
| Afghanistan), and is still invading.
|
| It doesn't appear to be doctrine, because their actions don't
| match what is known of Russian ground or air doctrine.
|
| And so experts are trying to figure out what calculus went
| into Russia's invasion planning (assuming there was a
| coherent strategy going in, which is not a given in the post-
| Trump world).
| dymk wrote:
| It's not really fair to say it's not in the article - it's
| the title of the article.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| The author of the article does not choose the title, the
| editor does, based on what they think will draw more
| views/clicks.
| dymk wrote:
| I don't really care if it's the editor or the author -
| it's part of the article. Similarly, I don't care if it's
| served up over HTTP1 or HTTP2, it's irrelevant to the
| content of the document served up.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _why_ Russia is going with this strategy
|
| Because this isn't the _intended_ strategy, but rather then
| resultant strategy.
|
| Modern Russia seems to suffer from the same weaknesses as
| the USSR: garbage-in, garbage-out. If you staff an entire
| bureaucracy (including your military command structure)
| with Yes-Men, you get "Yes" responses.
|
| When the question is "Are we prepared for the invasion?"
|
| When the question is "Will we be able to supply our ground
| forces?"
|
| When the question is "Will we be able to achieve air
| superiority rapidly?"
|
| And because that's how hierarchies work, you believe the
| "Yes" you hear. And make _your_ strategic plans on the
| basis of it being true.
|
| Consequently, Russia appears to have built an entire
| invasion plan on a not-insignificant number of lies about
| _their own forces_ , as communicated by their _own mid-
| level leadership_.
|
| Imho, that explains things pretty simply and fully.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Yes, that appears to be the growing consensus among
| experts.
|
| But the reason for the "confusion" (the "stumped" in the
| title) is that Russia has not historically operated this
| way under Putin (though it did operate this way under his
| predecessor). Basically, nothing is happening the way it
| has happened before (under Putin), and this appears to be
| a "new normal" (under Putin).
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >It doesn't appear to be casualties/morale, because Russia
| has suffered 500+ casualties in 3 days (its worst losses
| since Afghanistan), and is still invading.
|
| Conservative western intelligence estimates actually have
| this number at over 2000 this morning (3/1) [0]. They are
| losing whole battalions by the day, and the real nasty
| urban warfare hasn't even begun. It's an absolute bloodbath
| that would never even conceivably be tolerated for a moment
| by any other modern military on earth.
|
| [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/us/politics/russia-
| ukrain...
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I think it's like this.
|
| Russia eventually wants to bombard Kiev with heavy weapons
| like
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9A52-4_Tornado
|
| which can use ammunition at an absolutely insane rate. It
| takes time to move this stuff into place and more time to
| take the ammunition in, set up resupply paths, etc.
|
| So Russia attacks Kiev with a small force with light
| weapons, some Spetsnaz, mostly to keep the fight away from
| the main body of the force which will strike hard when it
| is ready.
| baq wrote:
| The problem with this take is Kyiv is more or less
| Russian Jerusalem. That's one important difference from
| all other... special operations performed by Putin.
| speeder wrote:
| I don't understand why people just don't believe Russia is
| being literal with their intentions. They said multiple
| times they don't want Ukraine, they just don't want NATO to
| be able to invade them by land.
|
| I'd you assume this is true, what they are doing make
| complete sense.
| [deleted]
| astrange wrote:
| Except for when they said they were going to "show them
| real decommunization", kill everyone in government, that
| it didn't deserve to be a country and they should reform
| the Russian Empire, sure.
|
| It seems that whether this succeeds or fails it'll
| actually increase their land borders with NATO.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > I don't understand why people just don't believe Russia
| is being literal with their intentions.
|
| That's very reasonable.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2022/01/10/1071766987/u-s-russia-
| dicuss-...
|
| > Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov emerged
| from the nearly eight hours of talks and declared, "There
| are no plans or intentions to attack Ukraine." He went on
| to say, "There is no reason to fear some kind of
| escalatory scenario."
|
| That was, quite clearly, a lie, as they'd already massed
| 100,000 troops near Ukraine.
| megous wrote:
| As to the "no plans" part: https://www.facebook.com/otuea
| st/photos/pcb.668374907921586/...
| [deleted]
| jnwatson wrote:
| Russia has had a land border with NATO since 2004 when
| Latvia joined.
|
| That simply doesn't compute.
| [deleted]
| rodgerd wrote:
| I guess you also missed Putin characterising Lenin's
| actions post-revolution as a mistake, and that the
| Russian Empire should move back to its pre-USSR borders?
| Or the prepared article that was mistakenly published
| crowing about the "final solution to the Ukrainian
| problem"?
|
| Your selection of what to believe as the honest truth is
| pretty telling.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I don't understand why people just don't believe Russia
| is being literal with their intentions
|
| They are.
|
| You are just listening to the wrong articulation of their
| intentions.
|
| > They said multiple times they don't want Ukraine,
|
| They have said multiple times that they _do_ want
| Ukraine, view it 's separation from Russia as a crime
| against Russia and Russians committed by those in the
| past with control over Russia in the form of the Soviet
| Union, and Russian state media even released than
| silently deleted a premature victory announcement for the
| current invasion declaring the establishment of a new
| union state of all the Russias (Russia [Great Russia],
| Ukraine [Little Russia]< and Belarus.)
|
| Now, that's not what they emphasize to the international
| community, but they have been saying it.
| causi wrote:
| * Russian state media even released than silently deleted
| a premature victory announcement for the current invasion
| declaring the establishment of a new union state of all
| the Russias (Russia [Great Russia], Ukraine [Little
| Russia]< and Belarus.)*
|
| Do you have more information about this?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-state-news-
| published...
|
| > A Russian state-run news agency prematurely published
| an article that said Russia has taken back Ukraine.
|
| > "Ukraine has returned to Russia," said the article,
| which ran on RIA Novosti and has since been taken down.
| "The West sees the return of Russia to its historical
| borders in Europe."
| glogla wrote:
| The full text is even better. Talks about "solving the
| Ukrainian question" which sounds like a direct reference
| to Hitler's "Final Solution to Jew Question" or whatever
| that was called.
| helloworld11 wrote:
| >And so experts are trying to figure out what calculus went
| into Russia's invasion planning (assuming there was a
| coherent strategy going in, which is not a given in the
| post-Trump world).
|
| Because there was a much greater absence of incoherent
| strategies by political and military leaders in the world
| prior to Trump being president of one specific country? No
| real fan of the man but the need to cram in a Trump-hate
| reference for nearly any context sometimes becomes absurd.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Yeah, it's clearly the Trump Presidency that led to
| Operation Barbarossa.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| The difference is that Putin has previously accomplished
| himself as a competent military leader, and Hitler had
| not.
|
| Though you are right in that there are huge similarities
| between the two campaigns: in both cases, it appears that
| the executive leader ignored the advice of his military
| advisors to launch disastrous military campaigns that
| actually ended up hindering the non-military objectives
| behind those campaigns.
| sofixa wrote:
| > The difference is that Putin has previously
| accomplished himself as a competent military leader, and
| Hitler had not
|
| What? Putin managed to force his vastly overwhelming
| forces on small countries with small and badly equipped
| armies like Chechnya, Syria, Georgia. And we don't know
| how much does he really do.
|
| Hitler presided over, and even helped with the planning
| of, one of the most brilliant campaigns against
| overwhelming forces ( the invasion of Benelux and
| France). His army had tremendous luck, the French were
| thoroughly incompetent and prepared for all the wrong
| things, but still, it was a massive military success
| which was at least partly due to Hitler. That's how he
| got it in his head he's a brilliant strategist, which
| really went to his head after the initial Soviet
| counterattack ( when his orders were successful), and the
| rest is history.
| thriftwy wrote:
| There's a consideration that Russia wants to actually
| minimize civilian deaths, because unlike Syria, territories
| of Ukraine will never stop neighbouring Russia. Different
| pieces of doctrine may apply.
|
| But I'm not sure how it maps to observable absense of air
| force. Prolonging the conflict will obviously cause more
| civilian deaths and suffering.
| pixl97 wrote:
| It will be interesting to discover in the future if we
| find out a large number of things like planes were not
| available for the operation because their commanders
| ensured they were broken when the invasion occurred.
| Attacking the nation next door that speaks roughly your
| same language makes things like mutiny a larger risk.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| If Russia did mass killings / carpet bombing / total war,
| it hands justification of the west for full counterattack
| and occupation of Ukraine.
|
| Putin assumed all of Ukraine would roll over like Crimea.
| He has underestimated the people of Ukraine.
|
| He attacked in winter assuming it would be over in two
| days. Now his already-low-morale forces face winter. I
| don't care if they are equipped and Russian and "used to
| war". This won't be WWI where you can build bunkers and
| hide in there. If you occupy a house, the local populace
| will email someone and you'll be a target of portable
| missile infantry.
|
| He doesn't seem to have a plan B.
|
| In theory, with good arms supply from the West (which is
| RIGHT OVER THE BORDER, this isn't Afghanistan that is 5000
| miles away), the Ukrainian populace will get progressively
| better armed, more experienced (this is probably resulting
| in the training of a million or more Ukrainians to be
| effective soldiers), and more motivated.
|
| If I were the US/NATO, I would be training and equipping as
| many Ukrainians as want it, and there should be millions of
| willing soldiers. This is the opportunity to produce a very
| dangerous military power right across the border from
| Russia. You get to breathe down the neck of the Belarus
| puppet strongman. And it might destroy Putin's regime by
| weakening him.
|
| Putin also seems to have underestimated how much Ukraine
| hates him personally. I know no Ukrainians, but I suspect
| they are sick and tired of him threatening him and are
| spoiling for a fight.
|
| The danger to Putin is that the US could equip and train
| and season a millions-strong Ukrainian army that sees a
| very unmotivated Russian army, repulses them, and then
| counter invades Russia. Now that is unlikely given nuclear
| deterrent and the like, but it is within the realm of
| possibility, especially if elements of Russia's army hint
| they are amenable to regime change and will refuse to nuke.
| ed_balls wrote:
| Depends on what you mean by experts. The strategist I know
| said this is a political decision. They don't want to inflict
| too much damage to avoid bloody insurrections in the future.
| Russian aircrafts are not that precise. What is more, UA army
| received manpads. It's not worth it.
| sofixa wrote:
| I don't see how that excuses their failure to achieve air
| superiority. The Ukrainian Air Force still manages to fly
| manned and unmanned missions and harass Russian equipment
| and logistics.
| stouset wrote:
| MANPADs are only effective at very low altitudes (AGL),
| fundamentally due to the inability to put much propulsion
| on a rocket intended to be carried by hand. Su-27s, Su-34s,
| and Su-35s should fly significantly higher than this
| altitude during strike and interdiction missions, but doing
| so exposes them to radar-guided SAM systems like the
| aforementioned Buk (SA-11 / SA-17) or S-300 (SA-10 / SA-12
| / SA-20).
| alexanderchr wrote:
| > They don't want to inflict too much damage
|
| Have you seen what they have done to Mariupol and Kharkiv
| the last few days? Maybe this was the original plan, but
| with that botched there seems to be no consideration for
| damage to civilians.
| ed_balls wrote:
| yes, it seems they changed the strategy to Aleppo/Grozny
| def_true_false wrote:
| Considering the lack of coordination of their ground forces and
| their absurd OPSEC, it might simply be communication issues.
| Fuel and maintenance issues are also a safe bet with Russia.
|
| The Russian Buks also seem to be having a bad time against the
| Bayraktars.
| petre wrote:
| > The Russian Buks also seem to be having a bad time against
| the Bayraktars.
|
| Why? Small radar signature?
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Small signature and they fly low.
|
| Buks are ideal for taking down a big jet aircraft flying at
| 10000+ ft.
| glogla wrote:
| Yes, especially random civilian jetliners.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| That UAV is a stealthy platform
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baykar_Bayraktar_TB2#/media/Fi.
| ..
|
| look at the shape of the tail, that thing doesn't have a
| single right angle to send radio waves straight back at the
| radar.
| blippage wrote:
| > convivial weapon
|
| I had a quick chuckle at that. It reminds me of an old joke: a
| bullet has your name on it, a hand grenade is addressed "to
| whom it may concern", and a mortar shell is posted general
| delivery.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| What does that make nuclear warfare, a comprehensive spam
| campaign?
| elliekelly wrote:
| @here
| smoe wrote:
| Linkedin notifications maybe
| jacquesm wrote:
| Ouch. Black humor.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Yes, see USPS bulk mail.
| akimball wrote:
| Sputnik: A brief alarm heard around the world, followed by
| an infinitude of silence.
| glitchc wrote:
| An influencer's Twitter feed.
| mstipetic wrote:
| I always wonder how they developed things like that in the 70s.
| Right now I don't know a single engineer that could even know
| how to begin to develop a system like that. I feel like most of
| them would try and throw a neural net at the problem and call
| it a day.
| _moof wrote:
| I'm guessing all the engineers you know are web software
| pukes. There are loads of people who could build these today.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Instead people like me make "spatial computing" led hula
| hoops and other harmless stuff like that... And those EEG
| cat ears!
| _moof wrote:
| The world would be much better off with more LED hula
| hoops and fewer guided missiles.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It's funny because we were brainstorming on the hoop the
| other night and it hit me that this was the killer app
| for a "cheap and cheerful" inertial navigation system.
|
| The Trident 2 submarine missile has a gyroscope in it
| that costs almost as much as the nuclear warhead because
| it is so resistant to drift that it can be spun up and
| locked on in port and maintain its position when the
| submarine is at sea.
|
| If you tried INS with a smart phone or wiimote the errors
| in velocity estimation will build up quickly and you'll
| get terrible drift.
|
| In the case of the spatial computing hoop though you know
| the hoop never gets far away from the user so you can
| damp the D.C. component of the velocity, work in
| coordinates relative the user's center of gravity and
| never notice any drift in the x or y coordinates. (I
| don't like damping the vertical so much but I think I can
| live with it.)
| vintermann wrote:
| Oh, I'm pretty sure the stuff we "web software pukes" have
| to work with would drive all those old-timer Real Engineers
| crazy in its own way. It's a bit like how a middle school
| teacher doesn't necessarily have an easier job than a
| prestigious professor.
| dogleash wrote:
| Preface: I used to work in embedded control systems, now
| I shovel ads for a living.
|
| nah fam, we've got it so much easier. You should kick up
| your feet and enjoy it, or you'll drive yourself crazy.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Yeah digging through 2000 page reference manuals and
| looking for 1 bit differences with nothing other than a
| serial port/memory debugger is a lot harder than putting
| up a web page. Now backend stuff at scale is similar
| complexity. I still do embedded, but I also help/design
| on the web front ends for said devices :)
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| You may be exaggerating but there is some truth in it, and it
| applies to many areas of science. The growing specialization
| means your knowledge is deeper but lest vast. For many
| classes of problems you just use a pre-built solution as this
| is the easiest and most common way. But rest assured, the
| people who work on defense system know very well what they
| are doing.
| mstipetic wrote:
| Are these engineers paid well compared to standard web
| stack engineers now?
| ska wrote:
| On average it's not that much different, but the
| distributions (in both cases) are not normal.
| katmannthree wrote:
| No, they might make half of what a web developer does.
| brightball wrote:
| I talked to a guy a few weeks ago who worked for a company
| that developed a guidance system before GPS that used stars
| like a sextant to navigate.
|
| Pretty crazy to think about.
| IMSAI8080 wrote:
| Spacecraft often use stars to orient themselves. The
| Voyager spacecraft have star trackers to keep the antenna
| pointing at Earth. They look for the Canopus star.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Don't they need more than 1 star to get an orientation? I
| mean other than brightness 1 star doesn't give you a lot
| of information?
| sciurus wrote:
| This is still important, e.g. the Navy teaches celestial
| navigation in case GPS is disrupted.
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/3865/this-is-likely-
| wh...
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Star trackers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_tracker
|
| Ironically, the last one I touched was a piece of donated
| Russian equipment, intended for spacecraft use, with no
| manual.
| _moof wrote:
| GPS and celnav (and other forms of navigation, radio or
| otherwise) are really not so different when you get down to
| fundamentals. At their core they are all about locating the
| intersection of multiple lines, circles, or spheres of
| position, depending on how many dimensions you're working
| with. The major differences are in how you come up with the
| LOPs.
|
| The odd man out, if you will, is inertial nav, which has
| more in common with dead reckoning.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| Something in that vein that has always amazed me, even
| though its performance in the field left something to be
| desired, is the Norden bombsight [0].
|
| "The Norden [used] an analog computer that continuously
| recalculated the bomb's impact point based on changing
| flight conditions, and an autopilot that reacted quickly
| and accurately to changes in the wind or other effects."
|
| 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norden_bombsight
| rwmurrayVT wrote:
| It is also common in shiprepair to use the stars for
| aligning equipment with a theodolite like device.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Heat seeking missiles started development in 1940s. In the
| US, they began as an unfunded rogue project. The infrared
| guidance system was simple and very successful.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder
| mhh__ wrote:
| One thing a lot of people forget because war movies don't
| show them, is that by the end of the war allied and German
| aircraft were absolutely loaded with electronics.
|
| The story of Radar on the ground is well known, but the
| story of systems like
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H2S_(radar) (so named
| apparently because it was a smell that no one had
| discovered before) is not so well known.
|
| Similarly a lot of these British efforts were more at risk
| to their own commanders that the Germans at the beginning,
| because the engineers were having to go through utterly
| ridiculous hoops to justify basic physics to their
| superiors. Sometimes their scientific superiors...
|
| https://youtu.be/GJCF-Ufapu8 is a very very good
| documentary about this kind of thing. Made before the
| scientists were dead, so lots of gossip.
|
| Randall and Boot should be known by more people, but
| magnetrons are not as awesome as the nuclear bomb.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The proximity fuses were a marvel - tiny radars put into
| an antiaircraft shell. Such would never ever have
| occurred to me, as how could a radar system survive being
| fired out of a cannon? It doubled the effectiveness of
| flak.
| mstipetic wrote:
| Thank you for this documentary link, it's amazing
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Surface-to-air missiles were long a priority of the Soviets.
| They caused our fliers no end of trouble in Vietnam: this guy
| got shot down by a SAM
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain#Prisoner_of_war
|
| The Russian military is organized around a land defense of
| their homeland since they don't have the natural barriers the
| U.S. has (e.g. they last got invaded in 1941, we last got
| invaded in 1812.)
|
| You might think they'd invest in fixed SAM systems but mobile
| SAM systems are so more survivable in a war because the radar
| for a SAM is highly visible. You really want to hide those
| systems in terrain and ambush planes going by.
|
| Systems like that are most effective when they operate in a
| networked mode together with AWACS airplanes like
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beriev_A-50
|
| which use a "look down" pulse doppler radar which can see
| cruise missiles, UAVs and other low-flying threats. This is a
| great complement to the radar on a Patriot missile battery
| which is optimized to ballistic missile threats. Russia's
| latest S-500 system
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-500_missile_system
|
| has crazy long range, it competes with
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_High_Altitude_Area_De.
| ..
|
| as an anti missile missile system but also it can (try to)
| take out a distant AWACS airplane with a direct shot.
|
| The Russians DO NOT want an enemy to have air superiority
| over them anywhere.
| UltraViolence wrote:
| I'm puzzled why we haven't created something that can
| compete with S-300 / S-400 / S-500.
|
| At the very least the Patriot SAM should be redesigned to
| allow for vertical launching to allow shooting in all
| directions. If you point Patriot one way and you get
| ambushed from behind you're basically caught with your
| pants down.
|
| At the very least you'd need four Patriot missile launchers
| pointing in all directions to prevent this scenario.
| sofixa wrote:
| That's why it was funny that Turkey was ostracized for
| buying Russian/Chinese SAMs ( was it S-400 last or a
| Chinese version). What else could they possibly buy? The
| Patriot system isn't even close, and doesn't seem to be
| working too well for the UAE ( but then again we don't
| know how S-300/400/500 would deal against drones and
| light missiles)
| dogleash wrote:
| >I don't know a single engineer that could even know how to
| begin to develop a system like that
|
| It's called "controls engineering", and there are plenty of
| talented people in the field. But you are correct that people
| who sought a career in websites and cellphones have never
| heard of it.
|
| (edit: s/cellphones/cellphone apps/)
| noipv4 wrote:
| if you are designing RF and cellphones have plenty of that,
| learning controls systems is a must. Think PLL, VCO, etc.
| mstipetic wrote:
| I assume they meant iOS or Android app development
| lfowles wrote:
| It wasn't necessarily single engineers designing these
| systems in the 70s either.
| StillBored wrote:
| I'm guessing most mechanical and/or ECE programs still teach
| "control systems", and that might be where one begins, along
| with some "signals and systems" and RF classes.
|
| I suspect that the engineers you know are more computer
| science "engineers" than people who went through a
| traditional engineering core.
| Arubis wrote:
| And there's a fair cohort of us (note, US-based perspective
| here) that _did_ go through the traditional electrical
| engineering education, learned the hard math and
| analog/mixed-signal engineering needed to put together
| something like this, dipped our toes in the industry, and
| then realized all our CS buddies had double our base
| salaries for objectively easier work.
|
| We've strongly disincentivized gaining mid-level expertise
| on hard engineering.
| azalemeth wrote:
| > and then realized all our CS buddies had double our
| base salaries for objectively easier work.
|
| One thing I realised as a graduate student designing RF
| PCBs and digital circuits was that _the debugger for
| reality sucks_. It 's _really_ frustrating to be faced
| with a problem where you just can 't get "more
| information by recompiling with debug flags" and can't
| easily (or reversibly!) change the system to make it
| easier to understand. Totally different skillset, and
| requires a different method of thinking (frankly, at
| times, with a lot more thought).
| InitialLastName wrote:
| This exactly.
|
| The ABET mechanical and electrical engineering curricula
| combined would give you all the skills a team needed
| (perhaps with the aid of a physicist and chemist or two) to
| build this system.
|
| That we have dissolved the word "engineer" to mean "ad
| salesman at scale" doesn't mean the traditional engineers
| aren't out there.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I'm teaching in an ABET accredited program using MIT
| textbooks and I'm not impressed. If engineers want to
| avoid learning how to integrate by parts or use the chain
| rule it seems like a great idea. Arubis' comment above
| seems on point.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Are you saying that the current program lets them avoid
| learning those things, or that they should be allowed to
| avoid learning them?
|
| I'm not sure I've seen a calculus course that skipped
| those (granted, it's been more than a decade since I
| looked at calculus courses). They certainly seem to still
| be within the remit of the FE - ECE exam.
| digitallyfree wrote:
| The HN crowd is primarily software engineers and their
| curriculum probably doesn't cover this. But a EE can
| specialize in this field with courses in radar systems,
| signal processing, control theory, etc.
| [deleted]
| slavoingilizov wrote:
| Many conflicting viewpoints here. Sure, there's been less of a
| push from Russia than everyone expected, but it's not like
| Ukraine controls the sky either.
|
| Are Ukranians really still flying? If that was the case, the
| mentioned 40-mile convoy heading to Kiev would have been hit by
| now, no? Russians driving vehicles bumper to bumper shows VERY
| strong confidence that they own the sky, so things might not be
| as rosy for Ukraine as they seem.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > If that was the case, the mentioned 40-mile convoy heading to
| Kiev would have been hit by now, no?
|
| Not necessarily. That's likely to be a target-rich, but well-
| defended area. As long as it's not moving - especially given
| rumors of fuel troubles - there may be better things for the
| Ukranian air force to tackle, like helicopters moving troops
| around.
| UltraViolence wrote:
| No, this convoy would be an obvious strafing target. I'm
| disappointed that the Ukrainians didn't even attempt it. Or
| we haven't heard about it.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > No, this convoy would be an obvious strafing target. I'm
| disappointed that the Ukrainians didn't even attempt it. Or
| we haven't heard about it.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if the convoy had the equivalent of
| a 1000 US Stinger AA missiles or more. It's not with
| strafing if there's too high a chance the jet would get
| shot down.
|
| As a layman, I'm guessing the only things worth the risk
| might be some operation that could potentially trap the
| convoy (e.g. between two knocked-out bridges).
| stouset wrote:
| Strafing implies--again--flying low over a potentially
| heavily-defended target. If even a handful of ground troops
| in that convoy are carrying MANPADs it would be suicide,
| and that's to say nothing of self-propelled anti-aircraft
| guns that are almost certainly accompanying the convoy.
|
| Again, there are probably far more urgent targets for the
| Ukrainian Air Force than a convoy that hasn't moved in
| days.
| [deleted]
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Driving bumper to bumper is literally to stay within their air
| defense missles moving with it.
|
| It's a sign of weakness, not strength.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I doubt the Ukrainians are still flying much.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Ukraine really doesn't want war, the odds are stacked against
| them and without significant outside ground troops they'll be
| devastated even if Russia is as incompetent as they currently
| appear.
|
| Killing aggressors is often used as an excuse for the
| aggressors to be more aggressive and Russia's army is large
| enough to replace that convoy a few times over without much of
| a sweat. Violence also helps back the idea that Russia _needs_
| to be there to stop the violent nazis that state media has
| painted Ukrainians to be (goes without saying, this is
| completely fabricated).
|
| It's also a morale killer; a lot of Russians have Ukrainian
| relatives. A lot of the captured combatants are very young and
| seem confused about why they're there (yes, could just be
| propaganda).
|
| Ukraine just wants them to go home. The Ukrainian people don't
| really have a conflict with the Russian people.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| >Violence also helps back the idea that Russia needs to be
| there to stop the violent nazis that state media has painted
| Ukrainians to be (goes without saying, this is completely
| fabricated).
|
| It definitely isn't "completely fabricated":
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
|
| The real problem is, who gives a shit if a small unit in the
| Ukrainian National Guard is made up of far right extremists?
| It's a purely internal matter for the Ukrainians to deal with
| however they see fit, and provides zero justification for
| Russia's invasion.
|
| But by lying and claiming it's a lie you're going to make
| anyone who looks into the truth behind the matter more likely
| to become sympathetic to the Russian version of events.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I mean, if Russia wants to deNazify, they can start at home
| first.
|
| https://twitter.com/Kyruer/status/1370361298135965702
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| the claim that russia needs to invade ukraine to stop nazis
| _is_ completely fabricated, the claim isn't "nazis exist"
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Please actually read my post, since that's not my claim
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Russia's claim is that they must liberate Ukraine because
| its _government_ is being run by nazis that are executing
| Russians. That claim is _entirely_ false. Maybe my fault
| for saying "Ukrainians" instead of "the Ukrainian
| government" but that was my point. Anything outside of
| that is needlessly pedantic and creates no interesting
| dialogue.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| What I'm wondering about here is that this seems to have
| started out relatively detached from the state in 2014 and
| became more integrated later on. Most sources and events in
| the article are from the 2014-2015 period. Perhaps they
| have been kept more in check as they were integrated?
| smallerfish wrote:
| Could you not imagine the Proud Boys being allowed to serve
| as a unit if Canada seized Montana and Idaho, and the
| national guard needed resources? (With the assumption that
| the US had a GDP equivalent to Ukraine's.)
| darawk wrote:
| Keep in mind Ukraine is a very poor country being
| attacked by a much larger, richer, and more powerful
| country. This would be more comparable to Mexico
| deputizing the cartels if the US decided to invade.
| chasd00 wrote:
| i think you mean the cartels would deputize the Mexican
| government if the US decided to invade
| dymk wrote:
| No, I cannot
| smallerfish wrote:
| Sounds like a lack of imagination, honestly. Per your
| sibling comment Ukraine needs all the resources it can
| get
| dymk wrote:
| For some reason, I feel like assistance in the effort
| from nazis would actually be a net harm to the cause.
| smallerfish wrote:
| If you have a limited headcount, a country invading you,
| and a violent bunch of nationalists who want to fight the
| invaders, you're going to turn them down?
|
| Also, consider:
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pentagon-stops-short-
| bannin...
|
| And: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/capitol-riot-
| january-6-military...
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I can't help but think Putin's guise of "denazifying
| Ukraine" was a poorly understood attempt to gain some favor
| with those in Western societies that see themselves as
| fighting fascism and right-wing extremism.
|
| As a westerner, I've definitely noticed my more left
| leaning friends agree with actions that seemingly
| contradict classical liberal ideals (free speech, free
| association) as long as such actions seem to be in service
| of fighting fascism and misinformation. Perhaps some
| propaganda strategists assumed that 'fighting nazis' was an
| acceptable parallel to how the United States claims it is
| defending freedom/democracy whenever it intervenes in some
| other country. It obviously didn't work.
| newby wrote:
| > I can't help but think Putin's guise of "denazifying
| Ukraine" was a poorly understood attempt to gain some
| favor with those in Western societies that see themselves
| as fighting fascism and right-wing extremism.
|
| > As a westerner, I've definitely noticed my more left
| leaning friends agree with actions that seemingly
| contradict classical liberal ideals (free speech, free
| association) as long as such actions seem to be in
| service of fighting fascism...
|
| Nah, this is targeted at Russians. I think that as a
| westerner you underestimate the power of the myth of
| Russians saving the world from fascism. This is the very
| core of their identity. You can find some interesting
| details here: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/14973067
| 46330697738.html
|
| Personal experience: I grew up during cold war in one of
| east-european satelites of the Soviet union. That myth
| was probably weaker here than in the Soviet union itself,
| yet it felt ever-present; kind of representation of the
| mythical struggle of good versus evil. When me and my
| friends were playing "soldiers" as kids, we were always
| Russians shooting at fascists. And I remember loving
| books for kids where some Russian paratrooper befriends
| local boy and together fight fascism... This was during
| the latest stages of the communist regime, when almost
| everyone here hated communists and especially Russians.
| The idealized memory of their heroic struggle against
| fascism was the only positive thing that survived in the
| minds of people.
|
| Obviously, no mention of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact etc. in
| history books.
| astrange wrote:
| Russians don't know what Nazis are. They just know some
| people called Nazis attacked them in WW2, so denazifying
| = stopping enemies of Russia.
|
| It isn't talking about the Azov battalion or anything;
| that's an uncalled-for steelmanning because everyone is
| free associating things they read about in the news.
| petre wrote:
| Fighting nazis/nazism is a 80 year old commie propaganda
| meme. They used it to brainwash us before 1990 in my
| country as well. I think it strikes a chord with most of
| the former residents of the USSR.
| c-smile wrote:
| Russians know. As do Ukrainians.
|
| My granma told me what was happening in Khmelnik (West
| Ukraine) at times of German occupation.
|
| 50% of the city was Jewish. And almost zero left in first
| few months. And that was done primarily by locals from
| UPA - not Germans. You can hide from a German but cannot
| hide from your neighbor.
|
| UPA and Stepan Bandera[1] is a hero of Ukraine now - it
| is a street in Kiev named after him. Despite the fact
| that Poland and Russia condemn him as a war criminal -
| for massacres of Polish and Jewish civilians.
|
| And now Ukrainian refugees are coming to Poland... That
| will not be that easy ... Liberal values are quite thin
| as practice shows.
|
| I am quite surprised that nice Jew guy mr. Zelensky
| didn't do anything about it. Probably because he is not
| who rule there.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Bandera
| consp wrote:
| > It definitely isn't "completely fabricated":
|
| It would be exactly the same as calling all Americans
| Nazi's during the reign of Trump. There is no foundation in
| fact all American's are but there are small groups he as
| the President supported who were Nazi's. This is a plain
| lie to serve their propaganda.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| >It would be exactly the same as calling all Americans
| Nazi's during the reign of Trump.
|
| Were any far-right groups formally integrated into the US
| military, federal law enforcement, or anything else like
| that during Trump's presidency? That's the difference
| here, the Azov battalion was a private militia that was
| made an actual part of the Ukrainian military.
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| I'm sure you could make a link if you really wanted (I
| don't believe it and hate your political party likes to
| call everyone fascist / racist similarly to Russia. But
| there were many articles I remember about white power
| type of people biggest terror threat by FBI, of course
| half the population who believed everyone's fascist (see,
| these locals agree with us!). I'm certain radicals often
| go to military, especially right wing, so there's the
| military connection. I'm also certain the whole police
| force was white supremacist organization and fascist (you
| might use something interesting like drug addict guns
| running the streets killing civilians without hesitation
| like Putin). So all in all its up to you interpret the
| world and how widespread something really is and if it
| deserves an action or pretext for war. Muellers report
| revealed GRU was running BLM social media and guns rights
| activists at the same time.
|
| Sincerely from the bottom of my heart I suggest every
| American to de-escalate because most certainly its not
| fun to live in a society when things have to be solved by
| violence between countrymen and Putin has done cleanical
| job.
| drran wrote:
| Ukraine has not such thing as private militia. Azov
| regiment was made by volunteers: football fans. See them
| there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvzxM_DbQhw .
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Hah, football fans and neonazism, name a more iconic duo.
| drran wrote:
| Yeah, they are holding <<Putin - khujlo!>>[0] banner.
| They are definitely anti-Russian. All anti-Russians are
| Nazi by Russian definition.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putin_khuylo!
| mardifoufs wrote:
| No, the azov battalion is much more integrated into the
| ukrainian army than anything comparable during trump's
| presidency. This is from the official Ukrainian national
| guard twitter, where they seem proud of the azov
| batallion dipping munition in pork lard before fighting
| Muslim chechens:
|
| https://twitter.com/ng_ukraine/status/1497924614865002497
|
| That does not justify any invasion, but there's also no
| need to go on the other extreme and turn into azov
| apologia.
| MiroF wrote:
| It'd be more like if the US were fighting a civil war and
| substantial fighters on the government side were part of
| neo-Nazi paramilitaries that had swastikas as their flag.
|
| Oh and also if the US government started banning other
| languages then english.
|
| None of this justifies Russian imperialism, but I think
| we get too caught up in war and can often brush the
| crimes of the side we agree with under the rug.
| tedivm wrote:
| They hit the fuel train that was supplying the convoy with a
| drone strike and released the footage. The convoy has been
| stalled for days now, both due to fighting and due to supply
| chain issues (such as having their supply train blow up).
| astrange wrote:
| Claiming there's a "the" convoy and Ukraine has either not
| ever struck it, or has only struck it once, seems to assume a
| satellite picture you saw from 2 days ago is the only thing
| that's happening in the country. A lot has gone down since
| then they're not going to tell you about.
| bombcar wrote:
| Isn't the supply train in the south in Crimea and the convoy
| in the north near Kiev?
| tokai wrote:
| Irrelevant on the question of Russian air superiority over
| Ukraine. The Ukrainian air force is clearly still
| operating.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| There would be separate supply lines for each thrust.
| atlantas wrote:
| Right, I'd love to hear a good explanation for why they're not
| attacking a 40-mile long convoy on a road. At least bomb the
| front of the convoy, wtf.
|
| That Russia sent in such a rich sitting duck target and it's
| not being attacked suggests they have air superiority and we're
| getting bad information.
| dpark wrote:
| I can't decide if the people here in the comments spend too
| much time watching action movies or too little.
|
| Obviously the first thing that pops to mind when you hear
| "air superiority" and "40 mile convoy of enemy tanks" is
| "bomb that convoy to dust". The second thing that should pop
| is "ambush". Losing 5 aircraft to surface to air missiles to
| take out 5 tanks would be a poor tradeoff.
|
| Doubtless bombing the convoy is something Ukraine has
| considered. Also doubtless they are aware that the convoy
| isn't guaranteed to be a parade of sitting ducks.
| jacquesm wrote:
| 'why don't they' ... really is the assumption that Ukrainian
| defense is clueless? I would say they are doing a pretty good
| job so far.
| chasd00 wrote:
| i'm no military tactician but if it's not getting closer and
| not able to hit you then it's not a threat. they probably
| have bigger problems than a stalled convoy.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| caeril wrote:
| If there's one thing Russia is very good at, it's surface to
| air defense.
|
| They've screwed so much of this operation thus far, but I bet
| you that good chunks of that column consist of Tunguskas and
| Tors, and the Ukrainians know it.
| drran wrote:
| I see no Tunguska in remains of convoy: https://www.facebook.
| com/serega.misura/posts/702155627791475... .
| jacquesm wrote:
| https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-
| docum...
|
| Maybe not, but there are definitely those in service, one
| damaged and abandoned, one disabled and one captured.
| rr808 wrote:
| That was my thought too. They have the luxury if just sitting
| there waiting safely for the right time while the capital self
| implodes. Western press talks a lot about it, meanwhile in the
| South the war is going badly.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| Sources? I'm trying to diversify media and would love
| anything that doesn't filter through a pro- or anti-Russia
| lens. So far Al Jazeera is the best I've found.
| rurp wrote:
| I'll second Al Jazeera. I've been looking at various news
| sources trying to find unbiased up to date info and they
| are the best I've found so far. The daily live blogs are
| great when I have the time to follow them.
| rr808 wrote:
| https://t.me/s/MedvedevVesti https://t.me/s/epoddubny
| https://t.me/s/sashakots have propaganda and opinion but
| some worth reading. You'll have to get browser to auto
| translate.
| astrange wrote:
| Well it's not going badly, it's expected that Russia would
| win because of how much bigger they are. It's more that it's
| going badly for Russia in the north and expectedly in the
| south.
|
| Of course, being able to capture land doesn't mean they can
| occupy it.
| jprd wrote:
| "Earlier today, the enemy occupying force in Ukraine
| mercilessly attacked our peacekeeping force as it peacefully
| advanced towards Kyiv with humanitarian aid.
|
| President Putin has authorized the use of overwhelming force to
| evict the occupiers and avenge our fallen servicemen.
| President-in-Exile <insert expendable criminal> leads the
| official people's government from Belarus and blah...blah..."
|
| There is nothing at all that has stopped the military from
| attacking such an obvious target, but it would hurt Ukraine's
| plea as a victim seeking peace from the RUS citizens and
| provide truthiness to Putin's internal propaganda.
|
| Better to let this encirclement occur, the thaw hits, RUS armor
| stuck with harrassed supply lines and the hell of urban combat
| against a determined populace. Meanwhile, your western flank is
| feeding advanced weaponry into the remaining UKR units and your
| economy has imploded.
|
| Take all the corruption, assumptions RUS had, etc. and it all
| still looks like a scenario from some HS history class to help
| teach about Caesar or Stalingrad.
| gojomo wrote:
| It's also possible there are new, not-yet-publicly-disclosed
| anti-aircraft countermeasures/weapons. So, after seeing hints of
| greater-than-expected losses from unknown causes, the Russians
| may be wary of putting more aircraft at risk until more is
| understood, & tactics adapt.
| evan_ wrote:
| I'm not sure if that makes sense. The goal is not to shoot
| aircraft down, the goal is to prevent them from coming in the
| first place.
|
| Wouldn't you want to disclose the hell out of your extremely
| effective anti-aircraft weapons so you don't have to use them
| as much? Obviously not the positioning or numbers but just that
| you have them...
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| One thing I remember is a Russian fighter operating in
| Northern West Syria accidentally strayed into Turkish
| airspace and the Turks shot it down immediately. Combine that
| with the Russians would have a lot of trouble replacing any
| losses.
| mattnewton wrote:
| Not if your goal is to win a war of attrition.
| evan_ wrote:
| Ukraine's win condition is not "destroy every airplane in
| Russia," it's "keep airplanes from blowing up stuff in
| Ukraine."
| mattnewton wrote:
| (obligatory I don't know what I am talking about, but)
| Russia has heavy artillery with crazy range. If they know
| you have air defenses they will just use artillery
| shelling instead that bypasses your defense, instead of
| giving you bombers or landing paratroopers as targets. I
| think that's how most missiles have been sent to
| Ukrainian cities so far. I don't think deterrence was a
| credible option for Ukraine before.
| gojomo wrote:
| Not if early disclosure accelerates the development of
| countermeasures!
|
| Nor if you're worried about a wider conflict - perhaps also
| involving Asia - & want both maximal degradation of Russian
| capabilities, & "mystery" advantages for as long as possible.
|
| Surprise is a force multiplier, but a new capability is only
| a surprise for a short period.
|
| And a simplistic model assuming the Ukrainian allies are
| optimally pursuing "prevention" as their goal insufficient to
| explain all mysteries.
|
| If the EU had been clearer about how intense sanctions would
| be, & how firm they considered the 'red line' limiting
| conflict to the regions Russian-allied forces already
| claimed, maybe the whole invasion could have been deterred!
|
| They weren't so clear & firm, either because they were hiding
| the strength of their resolve, or the resolve only
| materialized late. The latter is currently the official
| story, but such things often only become known, if ever,
| years or decades later. People still debate whether Spain
| sunk the Maine in 1898, or FDR ignored or minimized advance
| warnings of Pearl Harbor to shepherd the US into WW2 in 1941.
|
| There's also a gigantic phase change in strategy between when
| you believe an aggression is deterrable, & when you think it
| inevitable. If deterrence is an option, sure, show strength -
| but be aware the potential aggressor may detect any bluffs,
| or discount real strength as a bluff. But as soon as you
| decide war is inevitable, you may instead want to hide
| strengths, for a more decisive military response later.
|
| If the US/NATO concluded an invasion was inevitable 1 month,
| 6 months, or even years ago, there was plenty of time to
| secretly deploy "just in case" novel weapons & tactics - even
| while Ukraine's leadership, especially, was publicly
| signaling "no war expected" & avoiding any overt
| mobilization.
| cycomanic wrote:
| You only need to read/listen to German news, to know that
| there can't have been a "grand conspiracy" of Europeans to
| not show enough resolve. It is very clear that many (on
| both sides of the political spectrum, but particularly on
| the left) did not believe Putin would attack, they
| considered this the usual sabre-rattling and were
| completely shocked when he attacked.
|
| Also, the risk of deploying secret weapons into a state
| with significant corruption would have been much too high.
| gojomo wrote:
| If you assign conclusive weight to recent "news", rather
| than historical precedents, I think you'll remain at the
| mercy of constructed narratives about what's really
| happening in high-stakes diplomacy & warmaking.
|
| The US was shouting from the rooftops that they expected
| an attack, in a manner putting real credibility at risk.
| While laypeople, & left footsoldiers, may have completely
| discounted the possibility, Germany & others in NATO are
| close enough allies they'd have seen more of the tangible
| reasons why the US was saying that.
|
| Note that feigned surprise can also be a conscious
| tactic, to help shepherd-along any alliance stragglers,
| or domestic opinion. Or, excuse inaction. "No one could
| have known", say the official mouthpieces for those who
| ignored the alarms from those who did know. "We are
| blameless!"
|
| Further, if there was actual confidence _in policymakers_
| that an attack was unlikely, & that Putin was
| deterrable, then _pre-announcing_ the severity of the
| response would have been very cheap! You won 't have to
| do it, in the expected case. And pre-announcing makes the
| expected case even more likely.
|
| The risk of coordinating with a leaky/corrupt regime
| isn't necessarily disqualifyng. There may be portions of
| the Ukraine government/military in which there was very
| high trust - such as close contacts in special forces, &
| those who have repeatedly proven themselves in the last
| ~8y of lower-grade hostilities. Or, people whose comms
| have been completely pierced - so NATO knows exactly how
| much corruption, or mixed-loyalties, they'll express.
|
| Weaponry could also have been pre-positioned just outside
| Ukraine, or kept in the custody/knowledge of trusted
| contractors or deniably pre-positioned special forces. I
| hope you don't think Russians, like the saboteur groups
| repeatedly confronted in Ukrainian cities, are the only
| forces who can pretend to be someone else when it suits
| them!
|
| As another example, no one outside of the home airbase
| support teams know who's really flying a fighter jet,
| unless enemies shoot it down & recover the pilot. I hope
| Ukraine has some world-class fighter pilots! But with
| lives and practically priceless (in the short term)
| military hardware at stake, if an even 10% better pilot
| is ready & willing from an allied counry, I suspect
| Ukraine can grant them a uniform & citizenship instantly.
| (It's been surprising how many NATO countries have said
| it's OK for their private citizens to go fight in
| Ukraine.)
| akimball wrote:
| There is no meaningful Russian air presence in western Ukraine.
| No good reason not to establish an NFZ there. To avoid conflict,
| stay west of the Dnieper. Appeasement does not work.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| I can only assume they are keeping their powder dry, or working
| to limit casualties. I saw a video of a lady riding in a car
| beside a convoy, and then she threw a molotov and the driver sped
| off. If that were Iraq in 2003, she car probably would have been
| lit up.
| uhtred wrote:
| I thought the same thing when I saw that video - how the heck
| did the people in the car survive that?
| wildzzz wrote:
| It was an armored vehicle being pulled by what looked like a
| tractor. I don't think it was in any condition to fire on the
| car.
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| Those are two separate videos.
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-
| molo...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Look closely at 0:04 and you can see the armored vehicle
| under tow, though, in the molotov video.
| geoka9 wrote:
| The tractor has a Z painted on it? It doesn't look like
| military, but that's what the Russians are painting on
| their armor.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'd expect the Russians are commandeering civilian
| tractors, and you'd paint recognition symbols on it when
| you do.
| geuis wrote:
| That video player didn't work for some reason.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| They have been bombing cities. I don't think they are trying to
| limit casualties.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| It could be the difference between individual soldiers and
| Russian commanders. Individual soldier is happy. He gets to
| back as his truck was destroyed. Missiles are targeted by
| more senior people.
| csee wrote:
| They are limiting casualities. The bombing of civilians is on
| purpose, but the purpose is to get negotiating leverage and
| break will, not to kill as many civilians as possible.
| platinumrad wrote:
| Without minimizing the awfulness of this invasion and the
| fact that it must be condemned, it is not nearly as brutal as
| Russian operations in Chechnya and Syria or the US-led
| coalition invasion of Iraq, likely because Ukranians are not
| nearly as much of a racial or cultural other to Russians as
| Chechens or Syrians. The greater ability of Ukrainians to
| gain coverage in both traditional and social media may also
| be a factor.
| Arrath wrote:
| Yet. It's not as brutal, yet. As this supposed encircling
| attack of Kyiv begins and progresses, who knows what we
| might see.
| darkarmani wrote:
| I agree. Condemn them for the invasion. The "collateral"
| damage of civilians is part of an invasion. I haven't seen
| any evidence of targeting civilians as a goal. The US has
| unfortunate civilian casualties as well during missile
| strikes.
|
| This is probably the absolute only thing where I think
| Russia is being unfairly characterized. We'll see though as
| more intel comes in and if they start unloading on the
| cities. Possibly holding them to a high standard now, will
| keep them in check as they get more frustrated.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Thank you for articulating this better than I could.
|
| You had a CBS* commentator straight up saying this is
| different than Middle East wars since Kyiv is a " civilized
| city".
|
| That said, I think much of Russia's restraint is due to
| their end goal. Ukraine's Russian backed president was
| outted in a coup back in 2014. The new pro West leadership
| decided to go dancing with John McCain.
|
| This entire conflict could of been avoided if we didn't
| keep trying to expand NATO. I know I'm not enlisting if the
| Russians invade Poland tomorrow, but the existence of NATO
| implies I am.
|
| It's not hard to imagine if Haiti had a US backed leader,
| who was removed in a coup and then replaced with a pro
| Russia / pro China president. Now imagine China and Russia
| announcing plans for various military bases on Haiti. The
| Russians could finally have a warm water port.
|
| In no universe would America accept Haiti having a right to
| its own foreign policy. We don't want anyone else playing
| in our backyard. To be clear, this doesn't justify a
| stronger country imposing it's will upon a weaker one.
|
| This is worth a read.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars
|
| * CBS not CNN
| butlerm wrote:
| Haiti would not count as a warm water port for this
| purpose, because it would not serve the Russian mainland
| at all. Russia has plenty of foreign "warm water" ports
| it can use already.
|
| Other than the unfortunate Haitians, who have suffered
| enough already, it is hard to imagine why a vaguely
| democratic decision by Haiti to become a Russian ally
| would meet with more than a collective yawn unless Russia
| planned to station intermediate range nuclear missiles
| there or something. Russia has plenty of allies in the
| area already.
|
| The idea that the U.S. wouldn't "let" Haiti or Cuba or
| Venezuela have their own foreign policy is ridiculous. It
| does and they do.
| cycomanic wrote:
| You mean the Cuba to which the US has a constant trade
| emabargo/blockade? The one whose leader they tried for
| years to kill in the most bizarre ways? Yes sure the US
| let's them have their own foreign policy. Have a look at
| what happened in Panama or Nicaragua or Guatemala when
| people elected leaders which had policies that the US
| didn't like.
|
| Edit: Just to make it clear, I actually do not believe
| that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is due to the
| expansion of Nato (and even if it was it would be
| completely unjustified) it is due to Putin's megalomania.
| That doesn't mean we should forget that the US has been
| extremely aggressive about protecting their interests
| even by force and by violating international law. There
| is a reason why they are the country which has been
| involved in the most wars since WWII
| landemva wrote:
| McCain was giving speeches in Ukraine and Biden's son was
| installed on board of directors of Ukranian energy
| producer. Lots of USA meddling.
|
| When was eastern Ukraine (ethnic Russians) going to be
| voting on leaving Ukraine?
|
| Anyone wondering how Putin got into power may want to
| research how the New York bankers and Clintons tried to
| install Boris Berezovsky in Russia.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| > This entire conflict could of been avoided if we didn't
| keep trying to expand NATO.
|
| This is really not a good take. Ukrainians didn't
| overthrow their government because of NATO expansion.
| They overthrew their government because it was a corrupt
| pile of shit that didn't credibly represent their
| interests. And make no mistake, Putin has always seen
| Ukraine as in integral and inseparable part of Russian
| culture. He was never going to allow them to govern
| themselves, NATO expansion or not.
| rmah wrote:
| "It's not hard to imagine if Haiti had a US backed
| leader, who was removed in a coup and then replaced with
| a pro Russia / pro China president."
|
| Um... Cuba?
| vegai_ wrote:
| Does NATO membership imply that America owns the country?
| I haven't witnessed anything like that in any of the
| European NATO countries.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| >Article 5 provides that if a NATO Ally is the victim of
| an armed attack, each and every other member of the
| Alliance will consider this act of violence as an armed
| attack against all members and will take the actions it
| deems necessary to assist the Ally attacked.
|
| https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm
|
| Like I said, I'm not enlisting if the Russians invade
| Poland. If individual American citizens want to a join a
| Polish foreign legion, that's fine. Maybe the State
| Department can create a list of approved foreign legions
| American citizen can join.
|
| Then your free to sign up on your own accord.
| mercutio2 wrote:
| Are you saying you would enlist if Germany, France, or
| the UK was invaded, but specifically Poland isn't worth
| enlisting for, because it's a former Warsaw Pact country?
|
| Or are you saying that you just don't believe in NATO,
| you would like the US not to have mutual defense
| alliances at all, and the expansion of NATO is completely
| irrelevant to your feelings about NATO?
|
| Poland and Hungary have done autocratic things I don't
| agree with, but their governments seem to come much
| closer to following the will of the people then they
| would if they were again inside Russia's sphere of
| influence, and I think bringing them inside NATO was good
| for them.
|
| I'm not sure whether it was a good maneuver
| strategically, but I'm also not sure it wasn't.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| >Or are you saying that you just don't believe in NATO,
| you would like the US not to have mutual defense
| alliances at all, and the expansion of NATO is completely
| irrelevant to your feelings about NATO?
|
| I'm not enlisting for anything short of America actually
| getting invaded. During the Vietnam War anyone with a bit
| of money could get deferments. Those are what I call
| smart men. I feel absolutely no obligation to die in a
| foreign conflict.
|
| Providing logistic and selling arms is more than fine,
| but getting directly involved is a completely different
| matter.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| Lol yes, history shows that aggressive dictators just
| want to conquer Poland, and if we give it to them they'll
| stop there.
| rightbyte wrote:
| He'd stop in East Germany though ...
| megous wrote:
| > You had a CBS* commentator straight up saying this is
| different than Middle East wars since Kyiv is a "
| civilized city".
|
| Syrian cities were civilized, too.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| I was pointing out the hypocrisy of his comment.
|
| A nations per capita income has nothing to do with how
| it's people deserve to be treated.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Germans had a large role in the Haitian port system and
| economy, that's why the US intervened in the first place.
| jwozn wrote:
| I'm not sure if the statement of "we didn't keep trying
| to expand NATO" is correct. Most of the expansion was a
| result of requests from former USSR states to join, which
| was then supported by the US and accepted by other member
| states. I don't think it's correct to we were trying,
| when it's more likely that former USSR states were trying
| to pull NATO toward them.
|
| I also am not sure that war would be avoided if NATO
| didn't expand. Putin and Russia have made statements that
| suggest a desire to grow their influence over former USSR
| countries, and those countries resisted by joining NATO
| or ousting Russian backed leadership.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > You had a CNN commentator straight up saying this is
| different than Middle East wars since Kyiv is a "
| civilized city".
|
| CBS News foreign correspondent Charlie D'Agata, actually.
|
| > It's not hard to imagine if Haiti had a US backed
| leader, who was removed in a coup and then replaced with
| a pro Russia / pro China president. Now imagine China and
| Russia announcing plans for various military bases on
| Haiti. The Russians could finally have a warm water port.
|
| > In no universe would America accept Haiti having a
| right to its own foreign policy.
|
| Uh, you know this actually happened in a different
| Caribbean island state and, while there was a bit of a
| dispute about nuclear weapons that resulted in _both_
| alliances pulling them back from each others borders in a
| _quid pro quo_ , and a variety of covert and sponsored-
| third-party actions, the US never committed it's military
| to an all out assault to displace the Soviet-backed
| regime, which still exists and is still closely
| associated with Russia even after the fall of the USSR, a
| geopolitical alignment outlasting the notional
| ideological one.
| darkarmani wrote:
| > Uh, you know this actually happened in a different
| Caribbean island state and, while there was a bit of a
| dispute about nuclear weapons that resulted in both
| alliances pulling them back from each others borders in a
| quid pro quo
|
| What nuclear weapons were being placed in Ukraine?
| Russia's only argument is that "someday maybe, perhaps,
| it could possibly happen".
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > What nuclear weapons were being placed in Ukraine?
|
| Ukraine is not the formerly-Soviet-backed and still
| Russia-friendly Caribbean island state being referenced
| in the piece you quote.
| munificent wrote:
| The parent comment is referring to Cuba.
| qqqwerty wrote:
| Your Haiti analogy greatly oversimplifies the complexity
| of the situation. Europe and the West have been bending
| over backwards to help integrate Russia into the
| international economy. The entire point of those efforts
| were to build trade relationships and de-escalate
| security concerns. Russia has been taking full advantage
| of those economic relationships while maintaining an
| aggressive posture towards the buffer states. And as a
| result, those buffer states have been joining NATO.
|
| The only way your hypothetical analogy would make sense
| is if Russia/China spent decades trying to improve
| economic relationships with the US, and the US took
| advantage of those overtures while maintaining an
| aggressive military posture. At that point, I think most
| of the world we be sympathetic with installing a pro
| Russia/China regime in Haiti.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| There are always going to be civilian casualties in war, but
| it sure looks like they are trying to limit them. Would be
| worth comparing to other, similar conflicts. Surely a full
| scale air campaign would lead to more civilian casualties?
| shepardrtc wrote:
| > it sure looks like they are trying to limit them
|
| Just saw a video where they blew the leg off a civilian
| that was just standing in the road to block their advance.
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| Don't forget the decisions of individual soldiers here. If
| I were forced to drive a tank in a war I did not believe in
| and a babushka threw a pointless cocktail at me I would not
| retaliate. These individual actions in war add up.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Especially if there are good chances that the ones you
| have been ordered to shoot at could be relatives of you
| or some people close to you. A lot of Ukrainians and
| Russians are connected, that's another important factor.
| selectodude wrote:
| Russia is using thermobaric and cluster munitions in
| Kharkiv. I really just don't think that Russia has quite as
| many PGMs as we think and Russia is close enough to most of
| Ukraine that they can launch regular old rockets from safe
| territory on the ground.
| mattnewton wrote:
| Has the use of thermobarics been confirmed? I know they
| were spotted in the area and there was an explosion in
| Kharkiv, but it could have been gas pipelines that were
| hit, and I've also see that explaination for the
| explosion videos.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Tons of pictures/videos of TOS-1 system, even one
| abandoned on some field. Now can I safely say its from
| current conflict and from Ukraine? Obviously not, but I
| personally lean to agree.
| [deleted]
| chasd00 wrote:
| Thermobarics are standard issue fuel/air bombs correct? I
| thought they were specifically designed for anti-
| personnel use, are they banned or somehow out of the
| ordinary? I don't understand why it would be notable if
| they were used.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Yeah I agree with this - not sure it'll last but if you
| look at what the Russians did in Georgia, it's clear
| they're not in "maximal damage" mode yet. The longer this
| drags out, the worse it'll get for Ukrainian cities but
| that's my impression of the lack of bombardment from the
| skies too.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| They used a vacuum bomb. That's not a precise missle...
| chasd00 wrote:
| with Ukraine arming anyone who wants to be armed and
| conscripting all males between 18 and 60 the lines between
| civilian and soldier are becoming blurred. I saw a video of
| some kids in a car driving by a tank and throwing a molotov
| cocktail out the window. To me, they are no longer
| "civilians" and a legitimate target. It's surprising they
| lived long long enough to upload the video to social media.
| [deleted]
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