LeSving wrote:
Not all that much in other words, but I probably have a benefit of knowing more similar words through New Norwegian?
It seems reasonable that nynorsk is closer to old Norse and thus to Icelandic than either bokmål or Swedish.
The thing of dialects makes this language diversity even more interesting. Case in point: Catalonia is clearly bilingual, Catalan and Spanish although, as you may suspect, ‘real’ Catalans talk Catalan. The Balearics are also bilingual in the same way, Catalan and Spanish. Wrong! The ‘Catalan’ is replaced by Menorcan, Majorcan and Ibizan! And do no make the mistake to call these dialects, although they clearly are.. It gets better: In Majorca I would say that every 20km or so there is a perceptible change in pronunciation and even partly in the vocabulary. I try to do my best to speak the local lingo, but these posh folks from Palma usually are able to not not only brand me as a gringo, but as a gringo from the south-east of the island, a polite way of saying I’m a peasant. 
Wow, we are doing really well drifting this thread. Time to get back to tanks, bombs and nukes I suppose.
Peter wrote:
I am not sure any of us knows what he was really thinking. He may have thought he could “do a Czechoslovakia 1968 job” which was done in 48hrs, but with considerable assistance from the CZ govt and armed forces.
Pretty much. By the looks of it and how it was executed he was trying to “liberate” Ukraine, go in there, kick the government out, install a new one and take over. He never expected any resistance of note and he totally underestimated Zelenskis leadership skills, which I guess came as a surprise to everyone. That was absolutely instrumental in rallying the Ukraine population to defence of the country.
So in short, he totally misjudged against whom he was going. He underestimated his adversary, thinking of him like the actor he was and expected him to fold the moment he looks at the “allmighty” Russian army. Oops.
Graham wrote:
the real issue was that he thought he had a world-class military machine at his disposal. It turned out that what he had, although large, was barely serviceable and not really capable of any operations against any enemy offering any kind of resistance.
Overestimation is as much a problem, both on his side and on NATO’s who have to be cautious not to endanger their own territory while putting up a strong front.
Nobody ever said it was easy….
All I am saying is that it would be as much a problem for the West to underestimate what the Russians may be capable of if the population sees the “rodina” itself at risk. Both Napoleon and Hitler found out the hard way.
Airborne_Again wrote:
They won’t do that as it goes against their whole narrative of Ukraine “really” being part of Russia and the historic and symbolic importance Kiev has to them.
That worked against them, yes. And it should actually have stopped them from attacking Kiev in the first place. Their objective was a regime change such as they did in Czechoslovakia or Hungary in Soviet times. The only problem was they walked into something quite different than what their intelligence told them.
On the other hand, if that is not a consideration, then it may well be worth looking how the US took out Iraq in 1992. Air War, mass bombardement of all critical infrastructure including Baghdad and only comit ground forces once the opposing army and their infrastructure is pretty much gone. Had Russia done that including killing off the whole Ukrainian government in the early hours of February 24, I doubt we would be looking at the same scenario we are now.
MedEwok wrote:
Despite all the rhetoric to the contrary, I cannot imagine Russia using even the lowest-yield nuke in any other circumstance than a direct and massive NATO attack on Russia on all fronts – which will never happen – or of course nuclear attack on Russia.
Imagination plays a huge part in putting up a defense but also in planning an attack. The main thing is though to keep an open mind and be ready for anything, then put a risk assessment to it and weigh up the options. What is beyond our imagination has nothing to do what is something they consider as feasible.
Scholz knows this and he is worried about the safety of Germany. Rightly so IMHO, as Germany is and has been regarded by the Russians as their archenemy in Europe ever since the Battle on the Ice saga, renewed by two world wars and other animosities between the countries over the centuries. That narrative is there, right in their heads. Every Russian school kid knows this, not only since Putin. There was a time when during the first weeks of the war I fully expected Russia to make their point by throwing something very nasty at Germany. In retrospect, they most probably did not do that as they still depend on Germany for a lot of money and they also have more than enough sympathizers and “friends” in that government (or rather people who know better than to piss them off too much, given what the Russians may have on them).
The longer I look at it, it may well be that Putin will simply try to keep the war going until the BIden administration is replaced by a Republican one in 2 years time, with his hope obviously laying on a return of Trump. Whether his expectations that Trump would drop Ukraine and possibly Europe like a hot potatoe would come true is anyone’s guess but Trump would certainly “end the war”, if the way he “ended” Afghanistan is anything to go by. chances that the “deal” would be in Putins best interest or at least give him a way to save face and “win over the US” for his people are pretty high however.
Interesting perception that President Trump ended the war in Afghanistan. But yes, it was certainly screwed up by his successor. His comments here. It’s one of the screw ups with which he launched an incredible ongoing series of them 
Otherwise, the chance of any incoming Republican Presidential administration somehow being friends with Putin is zero, and the last thing he wants is competence in the White House. His Ukraine invasions so far have been well timed to avoid it.
An incoming Republican Presidential administration might (and I think likely will) very properly continue to ramp up pressure on European countries to look after their own defense, and rely less on the U.S. taxpayer.
aart wrote:
Time to get back to tanks, bombs and nukes I suppose.
He he. Already back by the looks of it
Mooney_Driver wrote:
The longer I look at it, it may well be that Putin will simply try to keep the war going until the BIden administration is replaced by a Republican one in 2 years time, with his hope obviously laying on a return of Trump
The story in Russia is that Ukraine attacked Russian people in Donbas and have bombed Mariupol. The Russian army is only there to liberate the Russians from the Nazis. On a larger scale the average Russian don’t care much about the war at all. It’s a different reality, and it looks as if Putin and his comrades are caught up in it themselves.
kwlf wrote:
I would be fascinated to know what we have threatened Putin with, should he resort to nukes.
At least one measure has been announced publicly: immediate sinking of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
Silvaire wrote:
competence
Maybe we should stop using the word “competence” in this discussion as different people seem to have wildly different understanding of what it actually means.
Silvaire wrote:
Interesting perception that President Trump ended the war in Afghanistan.
That is why I put it in "". He pulled the plug on the mission which kept the Taliban from retaking the country. The Biden administration then followed through with that, which imho was a massive mistake and is widely seen in that world as “the Taliban chased the US from their lands”. What the result of that is, back to square one in Afghanistan so the whole effort was totally wasted.
What I’ve read about Putin’s expectation if a Trumpist would become the next president is that he would do the same in Ukraine, stop the military aid, pull out the assets in place elsewhere and basically let Putin get on with what ever he wants to do in return for a “deal” similar to what Trump made up with the Taliban, who nowadays don’t give a fart about and of their assurances but behave exactly as they did prior to 9-11.
Ultranomad wrote:
At least one measure has been announced publicly: immediate sinking of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
Well, if that would not trigger an immediate nuclear response by Russia, then nothing will.
There is no comparison between Afghanistan and Ukraine.
The former was not winnable; for a start the population has no history of democracy and no interest in such. Same as Russia, actually Post-Vietnam, there has been a growing realisation that “nation building” works only if, ahem, the population is actually interested. One cannot fix the whole world (well, not over just one beer) and most of the world is always going to be the way it has always been.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Well, if that would not trigger an immediate nuclear response by Russia, then nothing will.
It would only happen if Russia had already used nukes.
