It would be wild if that delay was what turned this war from a route into a quagmire for Russia by delaying them into the thaw season. They already appear to be having issues with mud, and weather forecasts in Kyiv appear to be mostly above freezing for the rest of the week.
Not only that. More importantly, standing there for weeks made all subsequent explanations and provocations completely unbelievable. The troops tired and demotivated. Provisions (if they had any) depleted. And Ukrainians better prepared.
Frozen ground could have made it easier to move around but on the other hand, troops are generally much more miserable when it is cold outside. Don't think that just because they are Russians they don't get cold.
From what I am seeing Russian soldiers do not seem to be prepared well for cold. It seems they thought they will only go for some military maneuvers and then back home, not into full scale winter war.
And another thing I am seeing is that they seem to be trying to find pretext to abandon their equipment. Those tanks stuck in mud -- there are ways to extract them. Russians regularly train in muddy conditions so I can't imagine they are surprised by conditions in March.
When would be a good time for an invasion? Not when the snow thaws. Ok. How about when its ice cold? That option sounds even harder, though I guess the vehicles don't get stuck as badly. How about waiting until summer? That sounds like a more conventional military strategy, though I don't know enough Ukrainian geography to tell if its a sound option. Is there ever a "good" time for an invasion? If so, why did Putin jump the gun? If not, the current situation was inevitable in some form or other.
Part of the supposed strategy also involved hitting Ukraine when Europe is reliant upon Russian gas for heating. I was a bit surprised how late into winter they invaded given this goal.
My understanding is that Europe has several months of gas reserves. Even if Russia cut it off completely, the real pain would come next winter rather than immediately.
Thanks. Funny thing is I even knew that at one point, but had forgotten. At least I included "I assume" in my comment rather than stating my faulty assumption as fact!
I'd say late in winter could be really good for that strategy, depending on the weather. Doesn't explain this fully tho, more the opposite, so probably other factors played a larger role.
I read a few days ago that Germany's gas reserves were at 31% and they were basically just being helped by the good weather. A colder winter would've made it a much bigger problem. And Germany had very recently decided to basically go cold turkey on nuclear, which means using more gas plants. Now they're thinking of extending the life span of nuclear a bit. Not that a gas furnace can heat with electricity though, so not sure how much that will help.
Would probably be enough for the next winter as well, so not reason to panic. Then you still have the expensive option to heat with electricity or the cheap one to heat with wood. Warm water would probably be the largest problem, but that is far away.
I don't think it's a question of being expensive, but more like completely impossible. One good thing is that heating in Germany usually is via radiators that are water fed and the water is heated "centrally". Even in single family homes. Apartment blocks have different options. Some are central (basement heater feeding the radiators) but also some apartments have a gas heater in every apartment individually feeding just that apartment's radiators and gas is distributed throughout the apartment block.
If you had to replace every single gas heating system that would be both very expensive and without having any actual data I would gather that you wouldn't be able to retrofit all of Germany with that in time. Wood I would gather is gonna be even worse. While I can see how a single family home would convert (lots of folks have replaced their gar furnace with a wood pellet heater w/ auto-feeders), how would that work for apartment buildings with individual gas heaters in the apartments? These are all concrete buildings where it'd be quite the feat to replace the gas distribution with central water distribution for radiators. And those gas heaters do not take a lot of space and are used even in tiny apartments. Where do you store wood pellets in that situation?
Of course there are exceptions where heat is provided remotely already by a "Heizkraftwerk" (e.g. fed from industrial cooling systems or garbage burners).
Travel across anything not paved during spring break up is near impossible.
I don’t think it’s break up, I think it’s resistance, they are getting stalled in the cities.
Ukraine has paved highways moving tanks isn’t an issue, except that the highways run through cities.
The problem is fundamentally that for every soldier and civilian they kill they are creating 5 to 10 freedom fighters. The more people are killed the greater the resistance. The less likely they can hold the country without reprisals from the people. If they have to resort to barbarism to subdue the people then the sanctions will never end.
Putin needs to establish a govt quickly that doesn’t have to resort to atrocities to govern. If he fails to do that he loses the greater overall war.
I don't know how accomplishable that really is at this point - it's looking like Russian troop cohesion is insanely low[1] and Putin may just need to withdraw forces to keep the domestic situation under wraps. I'm pretty sure if Putin started peace talks he'd be ousted at this point, so he just has to sorta pray that western powers don't stall out the annexation - otherwise I think he's pretty hooped domestically.
There's still plenty of room for them to convert this apparent impending loss into a partial success by gaining control of the territory they care most about, which is (likely) the South (to relieve Crimea's currently tenuous & expensive situation) and South East (to take full control of the fossil fuel resources there and bridge their territory over to Crimea), which also happen to be the areas they're having the most success in, judging by the various maps of territory they're semi-successfully occupying.
I think it's obvious what he should do if he's smart. Focus troops in the southeast. Destroy the Azov Regiment. Take their uniforms, patch, flags, make a big show of it on all media. Claim mission accomplished. "We de-Nazified Ukraine!" Set up a base on the Azov, withdraw other forces to 2014 borders. Commit $x billion in rebuilding aid and payments to families in Ukraine, once sanctions are lifted and currency exchange returns to Feb 25th levels so they can afford it. Prosecute a few token scapegoats domestically for war crimes (anyone for whom the evidence would make it politically impossible not to).
Ukraine will never trust them. But it's enough to take the pressure off, and enough for him to remain in power.
It does seem like if he's just invaded donbas he could have gotten away with it.
Having watched the previous fall of the soviet union eventually enough people in moscow get pissed off and there is a regime change, although I suspect putin has control of the apparatus and security forces. So, we might just see a Russia civil war.
One thing that I've never seen discussed is the notion that the incident to break the 75-year "not nuking anybody" streak the world has been on could well be a civil war in a nuclear state, in which the side in control of the notional military apparatus sees no other way our of losing.
Luckily, people like Eric Swalwell - the Congressman who proposed using nuclear weapons against Americans who resist gun confiscation - are few and far between.
It's not peace talks. It is something like "agree to our demands, otherwise we keep bombing". It's trying to get the outcome they want without further military action. And a takeover by any means is not a peaceful action.
I get what you are saying. But referring to it as "Peace Talks" is misleading. There is no goodwill or altruism here. It is purely another military strategy. If the outcome is occupation, that is not peace.
The US is not currently occupying Japan, but they did at some point. The US and Japan are currently in an alliance. Japan's constitution requires a self-defense force, so they don't have a normal military. That was imposed by the US after WWII.
Please don't deflect.
Let me ask you: do you think it would be just to have Russia occupy Ukraine? Do you think countries have a right to self determination and sovereignty?
Russia was signatory to the Budapest Memorandum, basically agreeing to acknowledge and help protect Ukraine's borders.
Defender advantage is substantial in situations like that. Moving targets are a lot harder than stationary ones. Ukraine armor is concentrated around the main cities instead of strung out in long vulnerable stationary lines.
I guess you posted that for the compiled footage, but Lord do I hate voice synthesized narration.
From my armchair, it seems totally practical to hit-and-run attack the convoy on foot using fire-and-forget Javelins from 1.5-2 miles away. If the terrain is impassible to vehicles, the attacker can just shoot from the top of a hill and run away down the other side (maybe without even being seen).
Also, it strikes me that there are only 1000 tanks in the force. It seems like such a small number contrasted against 100,000 soldiers. That seems like a tractable number of tanks to destroy.
1000 tanks are quite a lot. I think future wars will feature less of them aside from power projection. But for occupations they are pretty vulnerable targets despite their armor.
Tabks are hard to use unless the terrain is ideal. Maybe great for driving across dry countryside and lifht rubble and mowing down infantry, but not for occupying a city you don't want to flatten.
You lock the missile on a target while aiming it. The seeker will remain locked to exactly that target until it hits. Only way it's hitting a neighbouring truck instead is if that's what you aimed at when you pressed fire.
Ok. I suppose this works also if the tank moves -- but if it gets out of sight, let's say a truck drives in front of the tank, then might the javelin miss?
Or is the javelin so high up in the air, so it could typically see the tank anyway?
Yes, in principle, obstructions could make it miss. But also yes, Javelins fly lofted arc trajectories, unless you take the shot a half a second before the target is obstructed, the missile will almost certainly be able to maintain lock even if something obstructs your view of the target.
Weather: An invasion that begins in January or February would have the advantage of frozen ground to support the cross-country movement of a large mechanized force. It would also mean operating in conditions of freezing cold and limited visibility. January is usually the coldest and snowiest month of the year in Ukraine, averaging 8.5 hours of daylight during the month and increasing to 10 hours by February.8 This would put a premium on night fighting capabilities to keep an advance moving forward. Should fighting continue into March, mechanized forces would have to deal with the infamous Rasputitsa, or thaw. In October, Rasputitsa turns firm ground into mud. In March, the frozen steppes thaw, and the land again becomes at best a bog, and at worst a sea of mud. Winter weather is also less than optimal for reliable close air support operations. From: https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-possible-invasion-ukra...
Cities are large targets, and given the disregard for civilian casualties (indeed the specific targeting of schools and hospitals which are generally large facilities) would seem to reduce the problems of poor visibility.
Europe's dependence on Russian gas is a gun to their head that only exists in winter. It took some deliberation to get Germany to accept strong sanctions. That might not have happened a month ago.
I always wondered why attacking in winter would ever be a good idea in any case. You want to have clear supply lines which certainly work better in friendly weather.
Best invasion is a cancelled invasion of course...
I think people who don't get snow can't really picture how bad it gets. It does depend on the terrain, but coming from central Canada, a bit of snow on a thawed ground is ridiculous. Wet earth is bad enough. Totally frozen is ideal if you're equipped for snow/ice travel, but variable conditions are pretty untenable. That said, I've never been driving around in military equipment, so I figure that's gotta help a bit.
Dairy farmhand outside Buffalo NY in the early 1970s. Snow over the top of recently thawed ground was the worst. Particularly if there was still a frozen layer three or four inches down. Rendered tractors unusable.
So would you say it is just like how the jewish barbarians are taking land in the middle East, or the black barbarians are shooting and robbing each other for personal gain in cities in the USA?
There's many differences between russian barbarians, and Israeli forces:
- Israel has a rich history of Palestinian attacks with many Jewish *civilian* casualties, whereas the russian aggression is unprovoked.
- Israeli forces are better prepared and better treated by its country than the russian cannon fodder with e.g. outdated food rations or poorly armored vehicles, though I don't know if that's what bamboozled meant as well.
- I could be wrong, but while not being emotionally prejudiced towards/against Palestine, Israel, Russia and Ukraine prior to the conflicts, in a heuristic sense, just estimating the severity of breaking human rights, russian forces seem to have far worse standards than Israeli forces. Likewise with Ukraine vs Palestine. In case of Ukrainians we see refugees and children hiding in bunkers and being dragged out of them by russian forces. In case of Palestine...
You are splitting hairs and focusing on the wrong thing.
Even if everything you say is true, it is inherently wrong as well as unproductive to refer to ethnic/religious groups as "barbarians" based on the actions of some portion of that groups behaviour. It essentialises the group even though there are countless Russians who dont support this behaviour and therefore aren't "barbarians".
Behaviour can certainly be barbaric and referred to as such (I would have had no problem if the original comment said "the invasion of the Ukraine by Russians is barbaric" as an example), but referring to entire nations/ethnic groups/religions as barbarians based on a portion of that group's behaviour is deeply dehumanising and one of the most toxic ways to engage in these sorts of discussions with very negative outcomes for both sides by denying other people their humanity.
Can you name a single time in history ever where framing conflict in such a manner has led to anything positive? Because I certainly can't and there are PLENTY of examples of it being done. However much some people may relish the opportunity to finally have an "enemy" they can dehumanise and hate, it is always ethically wrong as well as being counter-productive to do so no matter how good it might feel to some people.
Splitting hairs - absolutely not, provoked and unprovoked aggression is a very significant difference.
Focusing on the wrong thing - it seems so. Bamboozled used the word "barbaric" to precise which russians he describes. He didn't use the word to insult all Russians. Have you ever heard the term "Nazi Germany"? Do you think, that people using this term intend to insult Germany? I find that ridiculous in a semantic way, that's just not how words work. Look at 2nd Bamboozled's comment and at Michaelmrose comment.
> (I would have had no problem if the original comment said "the invasion of the Ukraine by Russians is barbaric" as an example)
So you have no problem with what Bamboozled meant, only with how he phrased it. That's splitting hairs.
So then what is wrong with me saying "barbaric Israelis" taking land in the West bank or "barbaric blacks" shooting each other in cities? There is no difference here, I never said I was describing all Israelis or black either, just the ones who engage in this behaviour.
What bamboozled said was:
> If there’s a lot of snow and temps at the ground are above zero, it’s a worse situation for the Russian barbarians.
"Scroll up and you can see for yourself" my previous comment where I argued the difference.
I honestly don't know if Israeli forces should be called barbaric. It is a narration common enough that it motivated me to investigate - where I quickly discovered many facts speaking in favor of the Israel. Again, I don't support what Israel is doing, but the initial fire of my outrage got quickly quenched by facts. As soon as it turned out to be quite an intricate conflict, I humbly switched my interests on the basis of being too stupid to judge either side.
Meanwhile in case of russian invasion, I just see nothing in defense of the invader. The moral aspect of the conflict is ridiculously asymmetric - like in a Disney movie. On one side there's a small country, with its president risking life in Kiev, on another a Goliath country run by a coward hiding in a bunker, shamelessly lying to his citizens, with the world almost unanimously condemning his war crimes.
So, to sum it up, without defending Israeli forces in Palestine, I see a huge difference between them and the russian barbarism in Ukraine. I don't know if the former is barbaric, but the latter is as barbaric as it gets.
Well I was arguing against the use of the phrase "russian barbarians". If we agree that was wrong, then we agree here.
It does sadden me to see how little has been learnt from post-9/11 where muslims or even people wearing turbans were subject to increased demonisation and abuse while everyone applauded.
Individuals should not be targetted and demonising groups based on ethnicity with comments of "Russian barbarians" is a big way this type of thing starts.
Anyway, plenty of people seem hellbent on reserving their "right" to demonise whole ethnic groups when the opportunity arises so going to leave it here. Thank you for the discussion in any case although the outcome very much saddens me.
I feel like I'm talking with a wall. No, we don't agree, we disagree. I've put some effort to formulate specific arguments and I didn't see a response to them.
To say that a plural form describes individuals is outright ridiculous and reminds me of a comment I've seen on Reddit once:
> The individual voice does matter if it's expressed by a large enough group
> To say that a plural form describes individuals is outright ridiculous and reminds me of a comment I've seen on Reddit once:
So then what is your problem with the term "Israeli Barbarians" or would it be better if I used the phrase "Israeli Occupiers"? And I presume you also have no issue with "Black savages" or "Black barbarians"? And I'm guessing you also have no problem with "Muslim barbarians" either?
Because remember, it is "ridiculous" to say the plural form describes individuals. So there is no coherent logical standard that makes "Russian barbarians" okay but not those other examples. In these types of cases you need to think about what the norm you are establishing will mean when it is turned against you, and it won't be pretty.
You are in essence saying that if Russians conquer the whole of Ukraine and put all Ukrainians in a few pockets, Russians are the rightful owners of the place and Ukrainian fighting back after the fact is unprovoked aggression, if enough decades pass without Russia losing control of Ukraine?
Am I really saying that? That's surely not what I meant, but it's interesting to know my words could be understood in such a dramatically different way to my intentions.
Sorry for the confusion, maybe I even answered to the wrong comment? I was answering to a comment that somehow justified the situation in Israel while at the same time saying Russian invasion is unacceptable. If it was not your comment and you did not make these claims (too lazy to check further up now) move on.
I just made a direct analogy point to point between Israel's actions and Russia's actions. I do not really believe they can be viewed in a different light, in particular Israel in a more favorable light, which I believe is something you (whoever I wanted to answer to) deduced in your comment. You can put one on one points between the Russian invasion and the Israeli colonization of Palestine, and the only real difference is that in Israel the victims were not white people.
I know some people who say "Jews are doing exactly the same thing in Palestine as Hitler did". I find it outright ridiculous. In general if someone compares war conflicts "one on one", he just shows off how little he knows about those conflicts - every war conflict is too complex to be called exactly the same as any other. It's like saying Venus is Earth. Yea, to someone with almost exactly zero knowledge on astronomy.
What the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians is very close to what Hitler did to Jews. The only difference is that they don't kill civilians in camps - camps do exist, the civilians are just killed through normal military operations. It is ironic that Jews, who suffered so much from the fascist regime, ended up straight showing up from all over the world to Palestine and claiming it as theirs, pushing most of the existing population out of the land and confining the others in specified areas - oh, and aggression towards the colonizers? It's called terrorism now, won't you know. And since some decades have passed, let bygones be bygones - the state of Israel has gained legitimacy through holding the land long enough.
Let's not forget Israel still bombs civilians and children.
How is THAT more justifiable than what Russia is doing, I wonder.
Invade foreign land you have no business invading? Check.
Drive much of the population away in the process? Check.
Confine the invaded populace in specified areas based on race? Russians have not done that yet in Ukraine, I acknowledge that. The first difference in the two conflicts that matters.
Kill whoever resists? Check.
Routinely bomb civilians? Check.
Does any other detail matter to not condemn the one and condemn the other? What could Russia learn from the Israeli case to make its invasion and occupation equally justifiable?
To be fair just because Russian is a nationality AND a ethnicity doesn't mean that every critical statement about the one is a racial slur. There are people of Russian ethnicity all over the world. I hope most assign blame to the Russian nation and few are foolish enough to think that their own countrymen are to blame based on where their grandfathers lived.
Yep, word for word applies to the invasions by the US, UK, etc. and arguably those are even worse. Just a few weeks ago, Biden is stealing $7 billion from the Afghani people, which will cost millions of lives on top of the destruction they have caused over the past 30+ years in the region.
I think old beliefs about strong language use are partially wrong. A certain understanding between members can make the most vulgar groups pretty friendly.
You got confused with Hitler's troop. Russians are well verse in this kind of weather. The current troops incursion are mostly conscript based. Subsequent one would be the crack team. Hitler sent his crack troop in first and got wipe out. If you want to understand how this war will play out, read up Hitler's Eastern Front Battles against the improvement in Grozy and recently Russians in Syria. Ratnik troops havnt been deployed yet at least from what I am allow to know from western media.
> The current troops incursion are mostly conscript based
Not sure if it is disinformation, but the Russians announced that there are no conscripts in this war. Time will tell, but maybe the Western media/intel got it wrong?
There is a lot of disinformation, but there is also this [1]:
> Russian law prohibits conscripts from being sent to the front unless they choose to sign a contract and become career soldiers. Currently, compulsory service in the Russian army is one year, including four months of basic training. In reality, says Olga Larkina, chair of the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers, soldiers are either forced to sign a contract against their will, or their military IDs are confiscated, and they are signed to a contract without their knowledge. In recent days, her organization has received dozens of pleas for assistance about this from parents of draftees.
In Vietnam, most the US soldiers were 18-20 year old kids. The draft ended shortly before I turned 18, but I had older friends that were drafted and sent off to fight. No one I knew died, but a couple returned with life altering injuries, a couple others returned with what we now call PTSD, but back then they were just referred to as 'losers', and 'weak'.
Yep, snow happens when the temperature at the cloud layer is low enough. Ground temp can be higher and the snow will still make it to the ground. Might melt immediately, or if it's snowing enough it could form an insulating layer that keeps snow on the ground a bit longer.
Honestly, snow and air temperature have a bit of a counterintuitive relationship. It can also be too cold to snow, so a lot of really cold places are actually really dry and get very little precipitation because of that.
And what is worse, if the ground is starting to thaw from below, if you get a foot or two of snow on top, it insulates the ground from the freezing air, and the ground temps will drive upward from below, turn the soil into a muddy mess. The same happens with rivers. A frozen river, with a heavy snowfall, will quickly thaw from below.
In addition to what you say: A snow cover will act as insulation and prevent ground frost from penetrating deep compared to bare ground (something small winter-active mammal can attest to).
Lots of snow and mild sub-zero temperatures do not mean that land freezes. It's upper crust may freeze, but that is no match for anything weighting a ton or more.
It's been less than a week and they already have a couple major cities taken and the capital surrounded.
I don't understand the narrative that Russia is in any way "losing" here. Taking over a country in the span of a month is considered an incredible military feat, and yet somehow Russia is in "a quagmire" four days in.
It isn't an incredibly military feat to march a few hundred miles from occupied territory into a nation with 1/10th of your GDP and a week later sort of control one city at the cost of thousands of your solders and hundreds of vehicles with no air definitive air superiority, shrinking supply of munitions, factories reliant on foreign parts that will soon grind to a halt, market heading toward freefall and a geopolitical position so bad that the only thing keeping the rest of the world from absolutely murdering them is a threat to murder the world combined with a reputation so degenerate that people believe they are apt to do it.
It is a humiliating defeat because it indicates that the cost of pacification would be outright horrifying. Full control might well cost a 5 figure death toll and could approach the Russian GDP and this indeed buys you what? The privilege of getting to literally square one in Afghanistan 2.0.
I think my question was probably less a matter of, "you have this wrong" and more "what motivates you to think about it from this moral standpoint" or perhaps "is the moral standpoint from which you speak driving the view of the logistical and strategic situation in the region (which forgive me if I'm wrong, is a conflict you are not currently, personally engaged in)"?
I don't understand your moral stake in it. I also don't know your level of experience. Caveat: As I'm neither a military strategist nor a military historian, my understanding of what constitutes a difficult situation military is rather poor. I've certainly never won any wars. But I wonder why you think marching a few hundred miles from your territory into someone elses territory in a week isn't significant. It took the US a couple weeks to take Fallujah, at an arguably far greater mismatch. Not as close, I know, but America was already in the region. I don't know why you think the cost for one city was thousands of vehicles and soldiers. I can imagine I'd lie about those numbers whichever side I was on, if I was involved. I also don't know that these are massive numbers at the scale of modern war. I don't know why you think air superiority was something they needed to have before going in, or something they had to have in a week, when it's quite possible neither of those are true. I imagine we will know the answer to that one shortly. I don't know why you think their supply of munitions are shrinking, when Russia has a decent sized munitions industry. I don't know why you assume their factories rely on foreign parts, when they might very well be quite autarchical in their operation, as opposed to the western manner of global supply chains. I don't know why you assume the status of the ruble in the foreign markets is directly germane to the continued existence of Russia as a country, when again, they might be quite autarchical. After all, Russia is not America. And finally (for your first paragraph) I do not understand how you have come to the conclusion that Russia is in "a geopolitical position so bad that the only thing keeping the rest of the world from absolutely murdering them is a threat to murder the world combined with a reputation so degenerate that people believe they are apt to do it." given that the worlds largest superpower, China, seems to be behind them, and India also does not seem to be terribly opposed. It seems more that half the world seems to support Russia, and it is that half that manufactures most of what the world consumes. I don't know why you believe Russia's reputation to be "so degenerate". I find the language more charged than necessary.
I don't understand how you know what Putin wants is "pacification" when it could very well be surrender, treaty signing, and then departure, or why you judge 5 figure death counts to be "horrifying" when on the scale of modern war (as opposed to "counter-insurgency" and "counter-terrorism") those seem to be rather small.
Above all, and forgive me as I don't know who you are or what kind of stake you have in all this, but I don't understand why you're grandstanding moral about it.
This. Russia, is no different from the USA when it comes to war crimes. The only difference is the USA can get away due to the political clout in their sphere of influence. Those countries that did not condemn the aggression - India, Brazil, UAE, etc could see through the western hypocrisy. Crazy to say, but the USA was the "role model", precursor to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. No point in calling any nationality as barbaric, because let's be honest, power comes exploitation, no matter who you are
What makes me say all that is the fact that the moralizing position on this is incomprehensible to me. It feels like everyone got whipped up into a frenzy because all the major western propaganda organs and all the social media astroturfing started marching in lockstep to the drums of war.
If I believed in our rulers, I suppose I’d be marching too. But they’ve lied a lot on every other war. And worse? They’ve LOST every other war. Why follow a bunch of losers?
There's no evidence of "taking" major cities, even official propaganda is tentative about Kherson using words like "officials says". Kyiv is definitely not surrounded even 50%.
I haven't seen anything from any side that isn't propaganda one way or the other (incl. the supposedly homegrown stuff). It's too soon to tell how this is really going.
Russia is very much the junior partner in the relationship with China, and now that they have burned their bridges to the West they lack any leverage against China. They are going to have to defer a lot more going forwards.
Russia may become like a bigger North Korea. North Korea doesn't listen to China but it doesn't go out of it's way to piss China off. China props it up because it doesn't want a bigger humanitarian crisis on it's borders.
China will probably prop Russia up
1) It will get Oil and Gas cheaper
2) A mean Russia keeps the West from picking on China.
3) Russia has a lot of nukes and making it crazy helps nobody.
Putin just was, and remains, in a desperate place. Strategy is fine at leisure. He had no choice but to do something to seem strong, to remain in power. If this doesn't work, he may move on to something desperate.
that's not true at all, he doesn't need anything to remain in power, but if he wanted to get more popular among general population he could provided economic growth
Evidently he is not, then, interested in getting more popular, because the invasion is an economic disaster. But he doesn't get his power from popularity. He gets it by being the baddest ass on the totem pole.
Chances are the invasion on the northern and eastern fronts are more or less feints, and only the southern front actually matters to him, as it gets him full control of the Black Sea shore and the oil fields. He needs the Ukrainian forces fully occupied elsewhere, and doesn't much care what happens there as long as it absorbs enough of their attention.
His oligarchs are already scrambling. Usmanov lost his boat, Abramovich is trying to sell all his UK estates. The ordinary Russia can suffer, but I doubt Putin can keep going with his Oligarchs against him.
Because after Russia "wins" comes the propaganda campaign, which will involve public executions and reeducation "camps" aimed at "proving" Putin's story about a Ukrainian Nazi genocide. This doesn't end with Putin going home and the violence ending. What will happen is that Putin will take Ukraine, and then the violence continues and gets worse.
BTW, for those who haven't read it, one of the most chilling books on war is "The Last Days of Hitler" (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo362699...) which is a carefully researched (if imperfect) chronicle of ... well, the last days of hitler. With US and Russia approaching Berlin on two sides, and no hope whatsoever, Hitler commanded over a near-impenetrable bunker and refused to surrender. By the end, the US retreated and lets Russia do the last work, and german units fought westward to surrender to the US.
The other enlightening book is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalingrad_(Beevor_book) which shows just how truly absurd the war between Germany and Russia was and how megalomaniacal the leaders of those countries were.
Putin being deposed is the optimistic scenario, but I don't see it as the most likely one. He's pretty insulated from external attack, and he has internal dissent pretty locked down at this point. Hitler wasn't finished until the allies were rolling into Berlin. He fought off coup attempts well after it was clear the war was lost. Putin isn't going to be under nearly the same level of external pressure. Honestly I expect it's most likely the world is stuck with him until aging and/or disease make him unable to rule. Hope I'm wrong, of course.
When you're talking about military operations of this scope unexpected but familiar (this happens every year) weather conditions is practically rounding error compared to the unanticipated level of resistance from the people you are fighting.
Yes and no.
1) Slava Ukraini
2) Muddy fields/roads means that Russian armor has to stick to hard ball roads which in turn means longer and stretched out convoys which in turn means harder to defend supply lines, etc.
Tanks and such are maintenance nightmares, and need a lot of material support in order to be effective.
As someone with chinese friends and family. It is a weird situation.
Some are sad about the situation.
Others are sickingly delighted.
No amount of discussion will help.
The ones who are happy with China and positive toward the Russian action. They are also the first to complain if they perceive any slight or racism towards them. They do not seem to understand that their attitude is causing more skepticism and problems of trust in the western world. Any future disagreement with the west will be explained away as western aggression and that this was the US's plan all along.
The other confounding factor to a harmonious discussion is that Western media (taken loosely) has burned a lot of credibility with regards to China. Nearly everything China does is couched in "but at what cost?" terms.
This, quite naturally, leads to the belief that criticism of Russia is overblown, and is rather the West attempting to smear another country that doesn't play by the Western rules. "Don't tell a neighbor how to raise their kids", so it goes.
Also the parallels between Ukraine and Korea are drawn: some Chinese people can see that Russia doesn't want NATO moving up to the border because they didn't want the US doing the same in Korea.
Moreover, Western agitation to provoke the situation is blamed and Ukraine has been tricked by NATO into an alignment that unacceptably threatens Russia but without the commitment to actually defend it. Which, again, doesn't spring from nowhere.
It's not like Chinese media is sparkling clean either. I read their news and it very often pushes 'West is bad' mantra. Do we really believe that? What kind of reason is behind that? Why stoke the fire? Especially when we know Chinese media is controlled.
Western agitation to provoke the situation is a Chinese media talking point. It is hardly credible.
Western leaders were meeting and calling Putin around the clock in the lead up to the invasion trying to negotiate to prevent his actions.
What did China do? They ridiculed the US for 'provoking and causing trouble'. China denied an invasion was about to occur.
You might argue that it is because the west isn't trusted. Why not?? China trusted the west to take investments and have help building up industry. That benefited both parties.
If China didn't trust the US intelligence they should have acted in the right way. A simple example is:
Xi demands explanation from Putin about build up of forces near Ukraine.
Despite an invasion expecting not to occur, Xi speaks out against invasion.
Xi could have looked good on the world stage by making the right statements to defuse. Instead, no let's ridicule US.
In the West, China growth was seen as an opportunity and partnership by most up until a series of alarming events (very many, I don't want to write a novel) that occurred since Xi came to power. People didn't change opinion over night. China leadership slowly but surely undermined themselves.
> They are also the first to complain if they perceive any slight or racism towards them.
Many know their beliefs are wrong and they use this to justify their animosity. There are hints of truth though. The west generally doesn't fight to ensure freedom, it fights for strategic interest. Any further romanticisation is inappropriate in my opinion. Not that other countries are better.
skepticism and problems of trust in the western world will come no matter what -- just because we are different and refuse to do what western world ask of us without considering our own interest. and frankly, we don't care about western skepticism or trust.
Isn't it routine for Olympic host nations to appeal for an "Olympic Truce" for the duration of the olympics to various nations which are/may get involved in military combat at that time.
"2004 Athens Summer Games: The Olympic Truce was promoted through Olympic Flame Relay events. The UN supported the IOC in asking the nations of the world to stop all wars for 16 days during the Games."
There was also unrest in Kazakhstan early in the year that Russia intervened in; very shortly after the start of the war they publicly called on Kazakhstan for troops and were declined. I wonder if diversion of Russian resources to Kazakhstan and/or Kazakhstan forces that were planned on being available being held back played a role in timing, too. (And if so, of then those Kazakhstan forces not coming through once the invasion was underway caused additional problems.)
Russia does not need allies to defeat the Ukrainian army. Given enough time they will win, even if sanctions/aid to Ukraine make it a pyhrric victory.
Part of the sluggishness has been the desire for the "targeted strike", something that appears to have been reversed with the less discriminate bombing of the last 24 hours.
How will the Russian army defend their supply lines after encircling a town? Ukrainians are armed to the teeth with handheld western weapons to destroy armed vehicles with, and Ukrainian infantry can just lay behind and wait. We are seeing Russian convoy after convoy be destroyed to surprise attacks. Ukrainians don't have to take the fight head on. They can just wait and take out the supply lines.
This is an unwinnable war for Russia, because Ukrainian infantry is armed and not willing to lay down their arms. Russia has learned nothing from e.g. Vietnam.
Russia is big country and it needs lots of men to defend it on all its borders, which means that the forces they can use for invasion are limited. RN it looks like that they run out of soldiers, and Ukraine already started counter attacks on some fronts, so I guess "they will win" will not happen any time soon.
"The claims mentioned in the relevant reports are speculations without any basis, and are intended to blame-shift and smear China," said Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington.
Blame-shift from whom? Who else was telling Russia not to invade until after the Olympics that should shoulder this blame?
Blame shift from nobody. I am of the opinion that this leak is probably true, but absent this leak Russia just determined when to begin their assault unilaterally. China isn't an active participant in this conflict from what we've seen - if this story is false then they're (sorta) an uninterested party - this story would paint them as someone who had political leverage who could have possibly defused the situation and instead used that political leverage to score a prestige hit before issuing tacit allowance for the attacks.
' The troops -- who Kirby said were being withdrawn "with the safety and security of our personnel foremost in mind" -- will be repositioned "elsewhere in Europe." '
I doubt that China explicitly made such a request, they tend to be more subtle. Putin would have been well aware that invading during the Olympics would have pissed off the Chinese. He didn't need to be told to wait until the Olympics finished to invade.
This idea that's going around that all sources need to be cited is ridiculous. I is mostly promoted by folks who desire to shut down free media. A good journalist works hard to ensure their source is reliable. If journalists couldn't use anonymous sources all that would be left is govt appointed propagandists. Also, knowing who a source is wouldn't help you evaluate the statement because it would be someone you don't know anyway.
The problem is that due to the gigantic shift that happened in news/journalism in the last 20 years, due to the introduction of new technology, the consequent disruption of traditional markets and all the changes that came from that, it is now hard for an average person to determine whether what they are reading is coming from a trusted source. Even within well known news outlets, blunders and retractions are relatively common, while 20/30 years ago they would have been the exception. I share your sentiment that anonymous sources are vital but it seems we don't have a very good way to convince people to trust what they say, unfortunately. Before going into tech about 12 years ago, I used to be a young journalist, I could see the start of that implosion from the inside. Nowadays I practice extreme "news minimalism" because I consider 95% of what's out there either unreliable or "noise". It's sad.
yeah IMHO that's one of the reasons why this problem exists to start with. Back in the print days, "thousands of articles" was not the main incentive. In the "click count" days, it is. I don't have a solution, I'm just suggesting that this is part of the problem.
Yes, the interesting part is that we pretty much all know that the news industry is in a terrible state, with a small fraction of the total money it used to have and terrible incentives attached to most of what's left - whoever posts a hot take with a clickbait title on any actual news tends to win all the traffic, and therefore all the money, regardless of how accurate it is. Yet so many people want to act as if they have the same reputation and trustworthiness as they've always had.
I'm not sure what the solution is, or if there even is one, but it's become very difficult to trust "anonymous sources" over the last 10+ years or so.
I disagree that this is merely a technological issue. What passes for journalism in this country took a nosedive in 90s, after a handful of corporate conglomerates took over all broadcast news. I am not sure how old you are, but I remember news in 80s. CNN owned by Ted Turner, and the current manifestation are night and day.
p.s. And it wasn't just CNN. ABC's Nightline, for example, was also solid and that only happened because of Turner's CNN. And of course, MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour was outstanding.
In the 90's I was probably reading mostly Italian newspapers since I was living there (even though I had an internet connection, I didn't really use it for getting the latest news, I was mostly active in forums related to my hobbies etc.). It wasn't until the early aughts that I started reading a lot of news in English. And I went English-only even later than that, around 2009 when I left Italy. So I haven't had a chance to experience what you are describing.
Citing the New York Times, which has admitted to working closely with the US Government on matters of "national security", citing an anonymous intelligence official.
I get that, and I believe that Reuters is better than most, however the issues that I described in my post above also affect larger and long-established news outlets. They are really problems affecting the market as a whole.
It is currently a broken system. I don't think there has ever been a time in which trust in news sources has been lower that it is right now, and this is having all sorts of negative impacts in society. One of the problems is that news outlets don't have the right incentives; back in the time of printed paper you would spend your dollar on what you would consider a "trusted" news source, nowadays much of "news" is clickbait. The majority of what I see in online news aggregators today, would have been considered unacceptably low quality back when I was still in the field of journalism (2005-ish)
> Do they have an incentive to publish a story that is sensational when the story could be either true or false?
It's obvious from US political coverage, especially since the 2016 election, that the answer to this is: Yes, journalists have incentives to publish sensationalist stories fortified with "anonymous sources" that may be falsified and have little to do with reality for the sake of ratings, clicks and the ilk, as well as pushing either their own or their employers' political agenda(s).
I'll say this clearly: this is true of all media, left, right & everything else.
The media has repeatedly demonstrated that they are just as corrupt as the politicians that they are supposedly holding accountable. The difference is: no journalists have gone to jail for their corruption. And no, I'm not calling for an end to a free press. We, their audience, need to hold them accountable by depriving them of the funds to keep their corruption active. We should demand our journalists hold the same level of integrity we wish of our politicians.
The journalist has an incentive to maintain and advance their career. That's really the primary incentive at play here. There are no rewards for integrity or honesty.
So you'd rather trust a complete blank than book a maybe in your mind? Just don't trust shit you read on the news, this has been true since the inception of print media.
If you want to stay informed and intellectual, a lot of maybes will have to compete for space in your brain.
nobody does this. they should, but they don't. nobody keeps the wavefunction of their views on a topic uncollapsed. this takes incredible mental fortitude and immunity to emotional resonance, which increasingly few people have.
Oh c'mon, this is really overbaked phrasing ('wavefunction...uncollapsed' lol). Every single person in the world knows how to deal with uncertain information from dubious sources: The weatherman says it won't rain, but the sky looks dark and I'm going to carry an umbrella anyway.
did you try to see what I was getting at before dismissing my statement?
when's the last time you successfully maintained something resembling internal undecided neutrality on a given topic, instead of resolving your views into a concrete position? it seems to be human nature to know that [something] is [true/false/some other quality], instead of maintaining an ambiguous perspective—even for complex issues, we seem to want to boil them down into something like a polarizing binary choice of belief—rather than allowing ourselves to remain uncertain, as soon as possible—to avoid the mental burden of not having come to a decision yet.
always-online smartphones in everyone's pockets and social media have made the world increasingly polarizing. fence-sitters are not tolerated: pick a side, you're either with me, or against me, and everything I stand for! which is to say, you're emotionally compelled to choose one end of the binary spectrum over the other—when the reality of the situation might not even be a binary choice to begin with!
if human beings were better at remaining "undecided until further evidence" on issues, and if it was more societally-permitted, the world would undoubtedly be a better place.
(is this phrasing less "overbaked"? I still don't see what's wrong with the wavefunction collapse analogy.)
> Every single person in the world knows how to deal with uncertain information from dubious sources: The weatherman says it won't rain [...]
I completely and wholeheartedly disagree with this statement. everyone knows that weather prediction is uncertain, and takes such predictions with a grain of salt accordingly. this is not the case for news media. historically it has been mostly trusted implicitly, and this is largely still the case, but now there's people who don't trust any news media at all (or perhaps only their preferred, alternative sources). regardless, "every single person in the world" does NOT "know how to deal with uncertain information from dubious sources" in the smartphone/social media age. it is delusional to believe otherwise.
because it lines up with what I have already determined to be the truth, therefore it too must be the truth. who needs trust or verification when you have emotional resonance?
"In the buildup to the 2003 war, the New York Times published a number of stories claiming to prove that Iraq possessed WMD. One story in particular, written by Judith Miller, helped persuade the American public that Iraq had WMD: in September 2002 she wrote about an intercepted shipment of aluminum tubes which the NYT said were to be used to develop nuclear material."
Oh my sweet summer child. The anonymous intelligence officials are the govt appointed propagandists! NYT is full of them parroting the government line. None of these people on a cushy job are risking their freedom leaking anything that they weren't literally tasked with leaking to their media contacts; the ones that did are in prison.
There has been a lot of that on this site. Implicitly sowing distrust in free press (such as in this instance) or flat out shitting on the free press with insults.
I think the problem is that people don't "know" the journalists largely anymore. I don't know how people trusted these journalists in the past, perhaps it was by following their work throughout years and seeing repeated truths. However, largely no-one is following a journalist today. How can I trust some random person? There are news sources, with seemingly qualified journalists that genuinely just "make up" news. If journalists are able to do that, who knows this wasn't the same?
If it's a valid, public source, well, even if you don't know the source, if someone is willing to put their name to the news, maybe it's more valid.
No, the large difference is the incredible amount of information we have available today. People back in the 90s or before had to rely on journalists to get any information. You simply did not get any information outside of your country bubble unless you actively travelled the world.
Today this deception of journalists being generally competent is just not viable anymore, since people have way too many sources to fact check, and way too many bubbled to blop in.
>This idea that's going around that all sources need to be cited is ridiculous.
No it isn't. People lie and cheat all the time for all kinds of reasons. If there's no source cited it's effectively an opinion piece. Letting someone write articles from home all day long with the option to use an anonymous source is working out about as well as anyone with half a brain would expect. Journalists are not some pure beacons of morality and honesty and they shouldn't be trusted at all. They're strangers on the internet.
There are plenty of good, honest journalists out there. However, journalists don't decide what their assignments are, much less what gets published.
Managing/selecting a few dozen foreign editors at mainstream outlets, conveniently co-located around DC/NYC, is absolutely within the capabilities of a powerful NatSec apparatus.
The idea is not really that sources must be public, it is rather a response to the very common retractions of the form "turns out our sources lied to us and the whole story was based on one source, also in the future you won't have a way to know whether we will use this source again."
It's more that intelligence sources know better than to talk to the press unless told to, so it's nearly always for propaganda purposes. My experience is that the veracity of these claims are at best a coin flip.
And? He has his own propaganda he's trying to push and probably wouldn't be against outright lying either if it wouldn't be publicly traced back to him.
I think the point is that the public should take what “anonymous intelligence officials” say with enough salt to put the Dead Sea to shame. They might be right, they might be wrong, and they’re probably lying.
No, but you have no idea what game the anonymous source is playing. Maybe they're telling the truth. Maybe they're telling a lie that will help them in some manner. Maybe they're just misinformed and think they're telling the truth.
> The intelligence on the exchange between the Chinese and Russian officials was collected by a Western intelligence service and is considered credible by officials reviewing it, the Times reported.
No, they haven't. Apart from the obvious "an invasion will probably happen" (which people like John Mearsheimer, outside the IC, have predicted since 2014), they have been rather inaccurate. No heads up about Putin's decree to recognize L/DPR.
Jake Sullivan and others even admitted that some of the "intelligence reports" were fabricated as "deterrence". That is, "If we shout loud enough about <negative outcome> before it happens, perhaps <negative outcome> perpetrators will get cold feet".
There are plenty of trees to create abatis, log obstacles, post formations, etc. Even civilians could do a lot of it. Get ahead of the curve, and you can do a lot to slow the advance of armored vehicles.
Well they probably do, if they prevent escape, as they very well might. But they also just impede traffic, slow things down. They also assist in controlling enemy approach to your advantage. You can booby trap them too. The document I linked to is a pretty no-nonsense discussion of the uses and limitations of these things in warfare.
e.g.
ABATIS
An abatis is an effective obstacle against tanks and other vehicles in a heavily-wooded area with few roads or trails. An abatis can be constructed rapidly using demolition to fell trees. The trees should be felled at a 45-degree angle to the road or trail. The tree should remain attached to the stump to make the obstacle more effective and difficult to clear.
To calculate the amount of explosive necessary for tree cutting, use the formula: D (diameter of the tree trunk, in inches) squared divided by 50, for a test shot.
This formula is used to compute the amount of TNT required. The results of the test shot will determine if more or less explosive is necessary for subsequent shots.
Place the charges at a height of 5 feet above the ground. The trees will fall toward the side where the explosive is placed. One side of the abatis should be blown, and the other side delayed, until the first row has fallen.
If time allows, mines, wire, and booby traps can be added to make clearing more difficult. Modular Pack Mine System (MOPMS) exploded on the obstacle adds an excellent tank "killer" capability.
Log posts
Posts are among the best antivehicular obstacles because each post presents breaching problems to the attacker. There are no fast methods of breaching a belt of posts. Normally, the attacker will try to bypass such an obstacle. Therefore, post obstacles should be placed where bypass requires much time and effort. Posts should be hardwood with a minimum diameter of 40 centimeters (15.8 inches).
All posts are buried 1.5 meters (5 feet) in the ground, either vertically or at a slight angle toward the enemy, and project between 75 to 120 centimeters (30 to 48 inches) above ground level. The height should vary from post to post. The minimum acceptable density for posts is 200 per 100 meters (328 feet) of front. The spacing should be irregular, with at least 1 meter (3.3 feet), and not more than 2 meters (6.6 feet), between posts.
The effect of post type obstacles can be improved, and the obstacles made more difficult to breach, by weaving spirals of barbed wire among the posts. Exploding MOPMS into the obstacle after completion greatly increases its effectiveness. Conventional mines can also be used to make the obstacle more difficult to breach.
There's ground temperature and snow temperature. Warm ground will melt and absorb the water. Snow above inhibits evaporation from the ground;so the soil moisture content increases. Once a considerable depth of soil thaws, you get the same depth of mud until evaporation, and drainage, surface and subsoil dry it out. It can take weeks. A prolonged cold snap can make it drivable depending depending on tires and weight.
Out here I see the odd tractor with four or even six tires on an axle in the spring.
Crossing open water is tricky to do on short notice; they were hosting the Olympics; they have all the time in the world; the U.S. isn’t actively fighting in any war; they have domestic financial problems to focus on and a lot of room for domestic growth, which would improve their position even more; their biggest risk is regime collapse, and invading Taiwan worsens that risk.
Short notice? China knew the Ukraine war was coming before we did. They even asked Russia to hold off the start until after the Olympics. They weren’t caught surprised by any of this.
Far more ideological distant then you might think.
The current Russia has nothing to do with communism, it's
all about oligarchs and authoritarian capitalism.
China's ideology "hates" oligarchs, but they are also authoritarian,
and have common opposition so working together makes sense. But that's it.
Besides "authoritarian" they share very little in common wrt. there ideology.
> I think it’s interesting that China could dictate the timing to Russia.
It's not the 70s anymore. China is far stronger than Russia, and going forward Russia will be extremely dependent on them, because of sanctions for the Ukraine invasion.
IMHO, China's likely going to be able to turn Russia into a vassal.
I don't think we really have a good definition of a superpower that fits the modern world. But I think it's a fair claim that China currently lacks (or appears to lack) the force projection required to fit the traditional description.
I think it's unreasonable to argue that China isn't a regional power since it's bullying its way through the South China Sea without any local resistance - I think the fact that the US isn't opposing China in this in any sort of meaningful way sort of reinforces the argument that they may be a super power. However, I find the strongest argument as to their super-power-ness to be their extreme infrastructure investments in south asia (Gwadar Port in particular but also their various investments in Ceylon and the Red Sea) and Africa. China is working hard to establish a monopoly on rare earth mineral extraction.
However, due to the astronomical amount of military spending the US continues to commit to I think it's fair to argue the point. China might have been a super power in the 80 with this level of global investment - but the US is just going into orbit.
Nobody is arguing China isn’t a regional power though? It being a regional power is irrelevant and a bit of a strawman argument. Superpowers, by definition, are global powers a level above great power.
Just to clarify - I used the argument that they're a regional power as an establishing fact for my further statements. This is HN and most arguments are made in good faith, you don't need to be so suspicious of the fallacies here - sometimes your sensors will go off incorrectly, as is the case here.
China has nuclear weapons, rockets big enough to carry them anywhere, and they work reliably. And, they have trillions of US dollars' worth of treasury bonds. That last does not make them a threat to the US, but it does to anybody else. For the US, they can threaten not to buy more treasury bonds. Who else can?
This is more what I was going for - not retcon exactly, but that our definition of what a superpower is, changes more often than our list of who the members are.
I'd always heard it described as essentially force projection - the ability to fight a war on the other side of the planet - but this is probably just a snapshot in time too.
Does Russia fit that bill? did it ever? I think that's where we get caught up in trying to nail down a definition while it keeps changing around us. The Cold War certainly reached the other side of the planet. They certainly had a sphere of influence.
But I think it seems very obvious that between England and France earning the title, America and Russia earning the title, and now China - the definition has changed each time. So we're trying to argue semantics with a definition we're not clear on - no wonder we get fuzzy results.
China is at least an unequaled regional power. If one relies out-of-region projection of power, it may not be a superpower. (By that standard Russia isn't either.)
For sure it’s a regional power but that isn’t what I said I specifically said superpower. Also who believes Russia to be a superpower? They are weaker economically than France or Britain, both of which likely have greater force projection power on a global scale than Russia. A nation with the economy of a mid-rate European power (Italy) can not be a superpower.
They are the most powerful and influential country on earth currently. America has economic inertia, but cannot win wars anymore with the most well funded and technically advanced military, and they no longer make things (largely). They had a good run but this is sunset for USA and sunrise for China (which started decades ago but I feel matured after the last fiscal crisis the US had in the late 2000's. America won't be over tomorrow, just like the Britain wasn't forgotten overnight after they lost their global superpower status 100 years ago.
US can win 'wars' just fine. In mere days we wipe every piece of hardware a country has off the map. We cannot win occupations and the police actions we commit to because the win condition is not a military one.
Are they the most influential country? Their media exports are extremely small and their cultural influence doesn't extend globally. They don't gather respect by creating peace, they don't gather respect through charity.
Militarily they are not the most advance or spend to that level.
China isn't the largest economy yet. They say they could overtake the US by 2030
The US can and does still win wars. It won the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan handily. What it’s not able to do is turn conquered countries into stable liberal democracies, but I doubt anyone can do that.
> In Afganistan the country was occupied, Bin Laden went into hiding and then killed.
They are still occupied and Bin Laden was killed a decade ago, 2011 and nothing has changed in the country. What was the purpose for the war? I agree Bin Laden had a death sentence but he wasnt even in Afghanistan when he died, and then we stayed for 10 more years doing nothing. The US lost this war, negotiated retreat with the Taliban and they took the country back in a matter of weeks.
> In Iraq leadership was killed democracy installed and oil wells secured. Enemy turned into an ally.
Democracy is installed? Is it our oil now? Were there WMD's (the pretense for the entire war, based on the impressive intelligence capability of the US?). We lost this one too.
The oil contracts went to US firms. So yes you could say that. The WMD story tells you how the US got others to vote for the war at the UN not who won.
They chased him out of Afghanistan, killed him and dismantled his terrorist network. That was the purpose. There were no plans for America to make Afghanistan a state. You leave when you have no reason to be there. The war was 20 years ago.
I've long thought that the athletes should be stripped of nationality from opening to closing ceremonies, and just compete as earthlings. But without the draw of nationalism such an Olympics may wither away.
I more worry about how much they push whatever host company to expend as many resources as possible in what is often a wasteful way.
I'd rather the Olympics be a nation wide event where a given nation probably has the facilities needed spread out over their country / wouldn't need to waste all that money.
If China didn't do this, "Go ahead and kill Ukrainians now. We don't give a shit as we have an Olympic game to attend to." Get off your moral high horse already.
Came here to say this. It seems likely that China would've known about the plans around this, and delaying this to post olympics is in China's best interest. I don't see how people are finding this claim to be far-fetched.
Yea, it seems obvious that Russia would be extremely dependent on China with their plan. Even if China didn't explicitly ask them to hold off until afterwards, I would assume that putin would have been smart enough to wait for the end of the olympics to avoid stomping on their prestige.
Interesting shift in US blob narrative, from Xi was embarassed and played by Putin because he's a foreign policy dummy, to now insinuating PRC endorsed invasion because superior US intelligence. As if PRC doesn't have recon sats and cyber abilities to make their own determination. NVM western OSINT of RU build up was sufficient to illustrate that invasion was probable.
IMO politburo knew chance of build up turning kinetic but was under no illusion they can sway RU pursuing security interests. RU certainly can't disuade PRC from moving on TW if geopolitical situation dictates. It seems US/NATO has failed to sway PRC (and India, UAE, ASEAN, Brazil) will continue to hedge / stay neutral because frankly they're not going to undermine self interest just because white people are now being shelled. So discord sowing continues to further entrench LIO block and shaming developing countries for buying wheat and fuel, which current sanctions explicitly allow.
>Interesting shift in US blob narrative, from Xi was embarassed and played by Putin because he's a foreign policy dummy, to now insinuating PRC endorsed invasion because superior US intelligence.
I dont think anyone is saying Xi is a foreign policy dummy. They have been pretty non-interventionist and Putin is KGB by his own words.
Immediately before the invasion Putin screamed to the world about their 'no limit alliance' and then immediately invaded a sovereign nation.
If China knew, then their words are lies. Xi Jinping lied to the entire world. Multiple other chinese officials lied to the world.
Worse yet, china's 'constructive' help coming soon is not going to be the help the world wants.
>s if PRC doesn't have recon sats and cyber abilities to make their own determination. NVM western OSINT of RU build up was sufficient to illustrate that invasion was probable. IMO politburo knew chance of build up turning kinetic but was under no illusion they can sway RU pursuing security interests.
That's just it... The idea I have is that China was aware of the new republics to be protected. The build up was to protect those. Not invade and annex all of ukraine.
>RU certainly can't disuade PRC from moving on TW if geopolitical situation dictates.
Nobody is dissuading anything against taiwan. If China wants it, and my pov is that they already own it... they could just take it. They aren't recognized as a country and have no military alliances. Not unlike ukraine.
> It seems US/NATO has failed to sway PRC (and India, UAE, ASEAN, Brazil) will continue to hedge / stay neutral because frankly they're not going to undermine self interest just because white people are now being shelled. So discord sowing continues to further entrench LIO block and shaming developing countries for buying wheat and fuel, which current sanctions explicitly allow.
This confuses me. The point of view that Putin embarrassed China is the neutral position. The China knew about this isn't the neutral position, it's the China is taking up and raising their army for various targets. Obviously Taiwan, but Japan, South Korea, India, and Vietnam.
Afterall, if there's no limits to China Russia alliance. There is no limit in terms of supporting the efforts in Ukraine. But at least so far... China has basically been sitting back. It implies there are limits.
As in: an organization who makes a mistake once is unreliable for everything they say no matter how trustworthy everything else they put out is? And the alternative is what? Something like: let's start believing random facebook posts, or some other systematic biased site?
I know that some important journalist/publication fell for the Sam Hyde hoax a couple of days ago, and I've seen the original tweet, but the hoax part of it wasn't in the article you linked, so imo it is a bad example.
The article just talks about foreigners enlisting to assist Ukrainian military, and it lists a few personal stories of those. The only potential reference to Sam Hyde is this sentence: "Hyde, a 28-year-old from the U.S. Midwest, said he was already in Kyiv and expected to start military training on Tuesday." This is a wild stretch to use this as an example of Reuters being hoaxed in this article. For all we know, it could have been a different person with the last name Hyde, it isn't exactly uncommon. There are no references in the article to the details that could definitely identify it with the Sam Hyde hoax that we saw on Twitter.
