Russia

[woolley]

19 hours ago, Passing Time said:

If true, this could drag NATO into the conflict

I don't see how. A more perplexing conundrum is whether an emboldened Russia attacking the Baltic states would drag NATO in. It would still seem an awful long way from an inward looking USA.

[Chinahand]

2 minutes ago, woolley said:

I'm not sure what alternative outcome you foresee.

None, which is why it is so sad. A west too nervous of deploying the weaponry needed to win condemn millions to endure an endless war. 

[woolley]

4 minutes ago, Chinahand said:

None, which is why it is so sad. A west too nervous of deploying the weaponry needed to win condemn millions to endure an endless war. 

To win is not a given in any scenario, though, and certainly not without huge risk.

You can understand the nervousness when dealing with a nuclear armed adversary without principles. It's quite unprecedented. Even the Soviet Union was extremely cautious, governed as it was by a gerontocracy. The nightmare scenario of nuclear weapons has always been of them falling into the hands of a madman. Putin is not mad, but he is coldly calculating.

Say Ukraine was armed to the teeth and sanctioned to use missiles to take out targets deep into Russia. If the tide turned against him, Putin will not simply withdraw to lick his wounds. Russia would not go away. 

Such a humiliation would be fatal to Putin, politically and probably personally. He is fully invested in the path he has taken and, having nothing to lose, he may decide to up the ante by lobbing a tactical nuclear weapon into Vilnius, or even Warsaw to see if he could divide NATO on Article 5.

What then? Do we think it a good idea to test out whether Article 5 is as good in practice as it is in theory? I think this is your explanation for the nervousness.

[Shake me up Judy]

NATO need to 'park the bus' in Ukraine. I suspect that's the strategy. Some seem to think that a Putin 'victory' would at least keep the world a safer place but I don't see it. Avoiding nuclear means slow upping the pressure. NATO need to park the bus and cut off his options. He's going nowhere at the moment and we need to keep it that way. We've got the means.  

[Passing Time]

2 minutes ago, Shake me up Judy said:

NATO need to 'park the bus' in Ukraine. I suspect that's the strategy. Some seem to think that a Putin 'victory' would at least keep the world a safer place but I don't see it. Avoiding nuclear means slow upping the pressure. NATO need to park the bus and cut off his options. He's going nowhere at the moment and we need to keep it that way. We've got the means.  

agree but the last thing this conflict needs is the North Korean lunatics getting involved. Scenario - Ukraine wipe out the NK soldiers, what would the madman Kim Jong Un do next?

[Shake me up Judy]

4 minutes ago, Passing Time said:

agree but the last thing this conflict needs is the North Korean lunatics getting involved. Scenario - Ukraine wipe out the NK soldiers, what would the madman Kim Jong Un do next?

It's a good point but I wonder if Kim would even blink. Life is cheap in North Korea. I wonder what he's getting in return ?

[Passing Time]

1 minute ago, Shake me up Judy said:

It's a good point but I wonder if Kim would even blink. Life is cheap in North Korea. I wonder what he's getting in return ?

Life is cheap there but you have a madman itching to try out his atomic toys and what better opportunity than this. 

[Non-Believer]

3 minutes ago, Shake me up Judy said:

It's a good point but I wonder if Kim would even blink. Life is cheap in North Korea. I wonder what he's getting in return ?

Money? Gas? Oil? Military technology? Encouragement in his own crusade against the West?

[woolley]

22 minutes ago, Shake me up Judy said:

NATO need to 'park the bus' in Ukraine. I suspect that's the strategy. Some seem to think that a Putin 'victory' would at least keep the world a safer place but I don't see it. Avoiding nuclear means slow upping the pressure. NATO need to park the bus and cut off his options. He's going nowhere at the moment and we need to keep it that way. We've got the means.  

A Putin victory would not keep the world a safer place because it would embolden him. It's just difficult to see any other outcome. It will be costly, but he doesn't care about that. He isn't going nowhere exactly. He's withstood Ukraine's counteroffensive and has started to turn the tide.

What his victory would look like is an entirely different matter. Cities that resemble Gaza, most probably, and an ongoing insurgency tying the Russian military down forever. I'm not sure Zelensky would agree that NATO has parked the bus in Ukraine. Far from it.

[Non-Believer]

29 minutes ago, woolley said:

 Cities that resemble Gaza, most probably, and an ongoing insurgency tying the Russian military down forever.

There was footage a while back of Russian reconstruction that had been going on in Russian-occupied Ukraine; blocks very much in the soviet style, wiping out any trace of previous Ukrainian design/culture.

[woolley]

13 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

There was footage a while back of Russian reconstruction that had been going on in Russian-occupied Ukraine; blocks very much in the soviet style, wiping out any trace of previous Ukrainian design/culture.

And reprogramming Ukrainian children with every cultural genocide trick in the book. It's a dirty business.

It's always intrigued me how effectively a different order can turn a society against everything it believed in over a few generations.

[The Phantom]

On 10/18/2024 at 9:38 PM, Chinahand said:

Really serious news that North Korea is going to directly join the conflict.

Terrible terrible escalation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3vkqwe9wwdo

Goodness what makes people want to start wars.

At the current attrition rates that were reported amongst the Orcs at the weekend: 1,710 troops along with 24 tanks, 64 infantry fighting vehicles and 24 cannon artillery systems; they'll last about a week.   None of them are combat trained other than showy song and dance numbers for Kim.  They'll have little effect on the battlefield.  More important is the geopolitical ramifications (if any). 

Russia is not far off being a walking army now. 

17 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

Money? Gas? Oil? Military technology? Encouragement in his own crusade against the West?

Second and third ones.  Russia doesn't have any of the first and fourth anymore.

[The Phantom]

Another Oligarch window incident at the weekend.

"Mikhail Rogachev, the former vice-president of Yukos, once one of Russia’s most prominent oil and gas companies, was found at the entrance to his living quarters at the weekend, having sustained injuries characteristic of having fallen from a great height, Russian media stated."

[Shake me up Judy]

1 hour ago, The Phantom said:

Another Oligarch window incident at the weekend.

"Mikhail Rogachev, the former vice-president of Yukos, once one of Russia’s most prominent oil and gas companies, was found at the entrance to his living quarters at the weekend, having sustained injuries characteristic of having fallen from a great height, Russian media stated."

Known as taking the 'express elevator' in Putin's Russia.

[Chinahand]

2 hours ago, The Phantom said:

They'll have little effect on the battlefield.  More important is the geopolitical ramifications (if any). 

The last time western trained troops met N. Korean ones the result was collapse, strategic genius and then stalemate with calls for the use of nuclear weapons. 

Hi hum