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Russian invasion of Ukraine

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A quick article from CNN on How Ukraine became a testbed for Western weapons and battlefield innovation. Towed artillery isn’t mobile enough for modern conflict, and its barrel rifling wears out if fired too quickly. Some other interesting examples, plus:

a mobile app that feeds satellite and other intelligence imagery into a real-time targeting algorithm that helps units near the front direct fire onto specific targets. And because it’s an app, not a piece of hardware, it’s easy to quickly update and upgrade, and available to a wide range of personnel.

EGHO-LFQF-KCLW, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

There is no comparison between Afghanistan and Ukraine.

There is Trump (potentially). Trump is exactly like Putin. They would both do whatever they think they can get away with, as long as it strengthens their position in the White House/Kremlin. The more hardball, the better, because this scares away most domestic opponents, which essentially is what their politics are all about.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

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.

I do t know what a “Trumpist” president may be. Regardless, you’re apparently reading nonsensical propaganda. The opposite is closer to the truth, but for sure Europe as a whole would be forced to pay more of the bill, versus in many cases being happy to freeload and live in a fantasy world.

Not as a direct response to that, but more generally,
it’s interesting to see how being put under justifiable pressure and forced to self reflect makes Europeans (and others for that matter) squeamish and aggressive.

Re Afghanistan, I’m happy that Islamic terrorists operating within the borders of the US have just about disappeared from the scene. That didn’t happen because they are nice people who have had a change of heart.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 31 Jan 15:13

Silvaire wrote:

it’s interesting to see how being put under justifiable pressure and forced to self reflect makes Europeans squeamish and aggressive

I think people are in disbelief of what has happened to Russia. It’s not that it has gone bad, but it has gone much worse than anyone anticipated in their wildest dreams. Putin is delusional, the country is delusional, including most of it’s citizens. People still go to Russia, journalists mostly, and this is what they say. They come back in disbelief.

What to do? Beats me, but to have an entire Russian population that is completely out of sync with reality is not a good way forward. The problem is, this is the reality.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

It’s certainly not worse than many in the US had imagined. I can remember having a conversation within the last five years in which a local friend predicted exactly what has happened, and told me to “just wait and see, what most in Europe perceive as a stable situation is fantasy”

The lesson learned should be that there are evil people in the world, always will be, and most countries of the world are run by repressive authoritarian governments that to a greater or lesser degree control and repress their populations. You can’t deny it, do little to intimidate those regimes and expect to survive as a society. They don’t respond to logic, don’t care about the greater good, and know that force will ultimately prevail regardless of the merit of those wielding it. So it’s good to have both merit and force.

BTW, I think the end game here is that Europe will eventually arm itself, Ukraine will become part of NATO, and Russia will be held in check by force, or hopefully by the threat of force.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 31 Jan 15:45

Agreed.

BTW I am sure Putin is not delusional.

He is a standard playground bully who sizes up the opposition, usually correctly. His immediate problem is that he has dug himself a deep hole. He’s in the position of a man whose woman asks does my bottom look too big in these trousers. Historically in Russia a failure of this scale means you are out of a job. Even the powerful Kruschev hung on for just 2 more years, and their military described 1962 as the worst humiliation the USSR ever saw.

His public utterances are exactly as expected for public consumption. He is one of those people who, if you show them your white socks, will tell you that you have black socks, and will do it with a completely straight face. I’ve met plenty like that… it’s not that unusual.

Actually all politicians talk one way to the public and another way to those who matter, but in Russia this is easy because the population has been so thoroughly brainwashed for ~100 years (and before that it was largely mediaeval/feudal, like all of Europe say 500-1000 years ago). Yes, Charles University was there in 1348 but the other 99% of today’s Czechoslovakia was just peasants living off their veg patches.

It is a bit less hard to understand if you have lived in the Soviet Bloc that the Russian population could be so accepting of total BS. In the Bloc, BS is the norm. In the school books, history is 90-99% BS. In WW2, Europe was liberated by the USSR. The Allied forces are not shown. BS is everywhere. All day BS on the radio, all day BS on the TV. BS on posters everywhere. Every apartment block has a bunker under it, for when the American imperialists start to bomb the place (those bunkers were great fun for a 9-12 year old… perhaps a little scary with rat skeletons and .22 cartridges all over the floor). If you run somebody over, it’s OK if you are a good Party member, which is really handy (you won’t have a car unless you are a party member). You have to be

  • mentally strong and firm in your convictions
  • smart enough to be questioning everything
  • have parents who told you the truth when you were small (at a considerable risk to themselves)
  • enterprising enough to own a radio which you tune to the BBC World Service and Voice of America and Radio Luxembourg
  • careful enough to choose a very small circle of trusted friends
  • keep your mouth shut all the rest of the time (hence removing tonsils is a major operation because they have to go in via the other end)

Now, Russia is 10x worse than CZ was in BS acceptance. So, most people there don’t even have a chance. You could tell them that Russians landed on Jupiter and ~90% of Russians would buy it.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

His public utterances are exactly as expected for public consumption. He is one of those people who, if you show them your white socks, will tell you that you have black socks, and will do it with a completely straight face. I’ve met plenty like that… it’s not that unusual.

I spent three hours in a meeting run by a guy like that yesterday, complete with his puppets. They remarked that they “hadn’t seen me for a while” and they know why.

Excuse the digression but it’s amazing how the same themes and personality types exist everywhere, because it’s the dark side of human nature. This unfortunately includes the presence of sociopaths who rise to certain level because they are sociopaths, and then sometimes fall under ‘pressure’, which isn’t always so pretty. If you’re lucky enough to live under a political system that constrains the sociopaths by its primary design, it is incumbent upon you to support the forceful repression of those who rise up and cause trouble on your borders and elsewhere.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 31 Jan 16:04

LeSving wrote:

Trump is exactly like Putin.

I think there are very significant differences between the two. Which does not exclude that it may be those differences which may cause quite a bit of mayhem. Trump always put himself forth as a “deal maker”. Which means everything is negotiable unless it crosses his own intentions. Trump several times shied away from using military force (e.g. on a proposed attack on Iran) because he felt the result was not worth the casualties expected. He has more often than not stated that he wishes the US to pull out of military commitments such as NATO or at least massively reduce the US’s involvement in conflicts abroad, which lead to the “deal” with the Taliban. Trump wished that he had the power Putin has over the US and therefore quite idolized him, even after he attacked Ukraine.

Putin is nothing of that sort. He does not make “deals”, he imposes his will onto others. He does not care about casualties one bit. The reason he prefers Trump over others (remember his statement that if Clinton became president, war would be the consequence?) is that he at the very least thinks he can influence him because he feels intellectually superior or possibly because he has other means to do so. Putin cares about his image in Russian History. As Peter sais rightly, he is a schoolyard bully type who will not shy away from anything if he believes it will bring him closer to his goals. Putin does not idolize anyone but rather looks down on just about everyone, including Trump, who for him is very useful.

Trump said last week that he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. How do you imagine he’d do that without pulling the rug totally from under Ukraine? That is the kind of “deal” he’d strike, just as he did in Afghanistan.

Silvaire wrote:

I do t know what a “Trumpist” president may be.

Someone who would follow up on the same policy of withdrawal from NATO and other international commitments, at least where the military is concerned. Maybe the term Trumpist is ambiguous here, as he is not the only one who thinks like that. That is a huge departure of the policies that were put in place over decades during the cold war but also after 9-11 by the Bush administration, who strived not only to exterminate terrorists in Afghanistan but who intended to change their form of government from barbarism to democracy. Trump de facto pulled the rug from under that work and his agreement with the Taliban opened the way to them recapturing the country.

Silvaire wrote:

Re Afghanistan, I’m happy that Islamic terrorists operating within the borders of the US have just about disappeared from the scene. That didn’t happen because they are nice people who have had a change of heart.

The main concern with Afghanistan and Pakistan was and is that they harbour terrorists. I don’t think that has changed. Where was OBL caught? Pakistan. Bringing him to justice the way it was done would not happen now, as there is no way to do it anymore now that the US presence in Afghanistan is gone.

As for them not operating in the US, that is for now. Fact is, the effort to pacify that region and bring democracy to it has failed miserably and whatever progress there has been has been destroyed by pulling out of there. I am fairly sure that sooner or later the US will pay a very high price for that.

Peter wrote:

BS is everywhere. All day BS on the radio, all day BS on the TV. BS on posters everywhere.

Not that different to what is going on in the Internet these days all over the world in this post-factual society, with the difference, in Russia there is only ONE belief and ONE version of history e.t.c. Yes, B.S is everywhere. And as you rightly say, the Russians (as well as many others in the former Eastern Block) still believe it. In many cases not because they want to but they know the price for being an unbeliever.

Last Edited by Mooney_Driver at 31 Jan 16:44
LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

As for them not operating in the US, that is for now. Fact is, the effort to pacify that region and bring democracy to it has failed miserably and whatever progress there has been has been destroyed by pulling out of there. I am fairly sure that sooner or later the US will pay a very high price for that.

The response from the US will be the same if they start again. They didn’t like what happened the first time, nor what continues now.. Pacifying the region would have been nice, but that is not really the function of the US military.

I don’t particularly like the guy but I think the characterizations of President Trump above are just silly, the product of fear. His (former) political opposition enables it of course, and as is often the case the image they’d like us to believe reflects more about who and what they are than the man himself. And those who choose fear and negativity as a lifestyle eat it right up, apparently.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 31 Jan 17:51

Mooney_Driver wrote:

I think there are very significant differences between the two.

Sure, but what I said was that their goal and means are the same. Their goal is to increase their power back home. Their means are going as far across the line they can get away with, because this will silence any opponents. Never wrestle with a pig etc. Gradually they end up being surrounded by a bunch of puppets. Sometimes, rather literally:

Silvaire wrote:

It’s certainly not worse than many in the US had imagined. I can remember having a conversation within the last five years in which a local friend predicted exactly what has happened, and told me to “just wait and see, what most in Europe perceive as a stable situation is fantasy”

That’s just wishful thinking and coincidence. Europe has never been a stable place anyway. There is also Hungary, Belarus, Turkey. Even Poland was heading in dubious directions in some ways, but is now pre-occupied with more serious stuff. Then there is Balkan. It all reminds me of nonlinear dynamics (in physics, engineering). A system can have several quasi stable states. When popping out of one quasi stable state, it’s impossible to predict in which other quasi stable state it will drop into, or to even know if it is a good or bad state by some measure. The only thing you can be sure of is that when left alone, it will eventually pop out of one state and go into another state. The only thing you have some influence over is to keep it in the preferable state without popping out.

Peace is fragile. Our way of life is fragile. It doesn’t happen by itself. If we like our way of life, we have to do what it takes, on all fronts. Stuff may “pop” anywhere, and at any time if we don’t pay attention.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway
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