Gpig

Sorry for off-topic, but this proposal keeps coming up on this thread so I feel I should address it from perspective of someone who lives in Taiwan.
Something most "put a bunch of marines of Taiwan" takes are missing is the voices of the Taiwanese people.
Even though most Taiwanese do not consider themselves Chinese, also most Taiwanese do not favor changing the status quo. The country is in a bizarre place because it's plainly evident to everyone - including China - that Taiwan is already an independent country with its own government, laws and military... but nobody can actually say that out loud. Any time other countries try to engage with Taiwan, politically or militarily, both that country and Taiwan gets punished. Which maybe doesn't faze the US, but they're the richest and most powerful country in the world! Taiwan is a small island located right next door to the second richest and second most powerful country in the world, who also happens to be their biggest trade partner - the ultimate frenemy.
Putting marines on Taiwan is just moving a chess piece for America, but for Taiwan it is a major change to the status quo, something that could affect the lives of everyone in the country - potentially for the worse. As a democratic country, there are a lot of different opinions on this, and with the presidential election coming up in 2024, no candidate wants to be shown as the one who let the Americans mess up the economy. This is probably why the meeting with Speaker McCarthy happened in California and not in Taiwan, because the Taiwanese government doesn't want to escalate tensions, especially not ahead of a political campaign.

I think he was referring to the relative involvement of the Chicken and the Pig in a bacon and eggs breakfast.  The Chicken is involved, but the Pig is committed. It's not all that common of an analogy, but I've heard it come up a few times. Except many of the NATO Chickens are committed to support because they're worried that dinner will be Chicken & Waffles.

My brother in law just died a needlessly horrible drawn out death, today. He fought for decades in a variety of ways to defend the USA. One person was directly responsible for how it went down. My sister is heartbroken, and enraged at what happened. I am in more than a foul mood. So my thoughts right now are colored in a certain way by this tragedy. Not particularly with distance, nuance and diplomacy. What happens when you are inside the box, not outside. My apologies if you don’t like them. I don’t either.
Lot of talk lately about Ukraine has GOT to produce big battlefield wins, now. Trying to put myself within Ukraine’s box:
1. Your country was suddenly invaded by one of the largest monsters in the world, ravaging your cities, raping and killing civilians. That is awful. We condemn it. You will collapse in three days.
2. We are NATO. We are a hugely powerful military alliance designed  to defend ourselves against that very same horrible monster.  Because we all fear trying to do so alone. Like you. Too bad you aren’t in NATO.
3. There won’t be any cavalry coming to your rescue, on land, sea, or air. But good luck, we support you brave people. Here are a lot of supplies and defensive short range weapons. You go fight the monster. We’ll cheer you on. 
4. OK, you have been doing a great job! Well done. Even with most of your cities and power grid regularly under missile and drone attack in the winter,  thousands of casualties, and smashed into rubble cities, you are still standing! Great job! Here are some more weapons, and one with a little longer range. It works really well so you can continue to not only survive but make some progress. Not too much progress though. Might be dangerous. So, no to your other requests for planes and long range weapons. We can’t risk getting attacked by the monster.. But we will open war crimes investigations into the massacres, rapes and civilian killings and targetings.
5. Hey, you haven’t won yet! We don’t think you can win although the monster has obviously already lost. You have really fracked up his army good. By the way, our patience is growing thin and you haven’t defeated one of the world’s largest military powers yet. After a whole year.  We are the richest group of countries ever on Earth.  We have awesome military capabilities beyond belief. And lots of nuclear weapons. If we lose interest and get tired, you probably will have to negotiate away big chunks of your country you fought and died for. If you only achieve a stalemate against the monster. Unless you defeat that monster, real soon now. Here’s a few older tanks we made a long time ago. And a handful of rusty old Soviet/Russian jets, some don’t work though. Please don’t complain. It’s ungrateful.
6. Oh, hey. Go out there as soon as the ground is firmed up and really tear apart the monster, the monster we are definitely not wanting to get any madder at us. No pressure, but if you don’t defeat the monster right now, you are pretty much up a creek because we’re tired and have real problems here in our nice undamaged, heated homes. By the way, we are worried about you defeating the monster. What will happen to the him? He might hurt us. But don’t forget, the monster has already lost.
7. I mean, yeah, the monster just threw a few hundred thousand troops at you and you survived and all. Well, most of you. But hey, they weren’t well-trained. And we all know the monster has already lost (as far as threatening us over here in NATO - yay).  So you better defeat this monster by yourself, Right now. We gave you a LOT of equipment so you should be able to do this on your own. We can’t get involved. But here are a few more old jets. Don’t work so good right now, but…
8. We just got Finland into NATO!  Mostly thanks to you!). Now we are even stronger, and NATO makes sure none of us have to try to defeat the monster on our own. Like you. Because we don’t think we could. We can’t give you more powerful offensive weapons because it would have taken you all last year to learn how to use them. And then you might have defeated the monster. And we are really really worried because that might be bad. For us. You understand. So go out there NOW and defeat the monster. Or we will probably have to reduce our support for you. Like, if things get really bad for you. Not winning. We might not be there. As much. Or something. Hard to tell. But go win. Now. OK? 

PS. I really am pleased at how the West has helped out. I just don’t think it’s been soon enough with enough of the right stuff to end it before the political rot sets in. So I’m ventilating how it might feel. While I am grieving.

And of course, Ukraine was nowhere close to getting into the EU much less NATO. Put another way, you don’t get to invade someone because they fruitlessly aspire to join a defensive alliance that would protect them from you and get to claim that you’ve been wronged. 

I think a lot of this springs from a sort of ignorant entitlement mentality.  The world is just supposed to keep the US on top because it is the US.  This completely misses the sacrifices and decades of work it took to position it on top - and frankly everyone in the western world should be happy it worked out that way.  But no, the US should be able to simply “Let it be” and somehow the world will keep spinning the way it has - this is beyond ignorant and is heading to dumb.
Here is a crazy thought for all the Russian apologists, isolationist, Cro-Magnon-adventists who try and frame this war as anything than it is: Some wars are worth fighting, and this is one of them.
”Oh if we had only…[insert upside down theory]”. Well we did not. Russia invaded a nation that was minding its own business and is killing innocent people in a naked power grab.  I do not care if Russia wigged out because NATO - so freakin what?  We use our words not poorly aimed cruise missiles.  
This entire war is not the result of anyone’s foreign policy other than Russia and Putin.  Every nation that joined NATO did so of its own free will - you know, the thing we are supposed to be protecting?  Anyone who suggests that we should live in a world where we let regional dictators pull of nonsense like this war - “to avoid war” is deluded.  Or, as I suspect is in this case, is that kid in the class who is just clever enough to be contrary and get attention but has no real solutions to offer.

History in the making.

More longer and detailed video of eliminating Russian armored advance near Vodiane, Avdiivka area about week ago. Unit of 36th Marines brigade just shot out Russians with Javelins
 
 
 

Good to see the newest NATO member state helping out. 🙂

Tom Nichols is flummoxed by the depths of Russian incompetence. Worth it for his description of Russian assault tactics as being "Search & Destroy in Reverse"... 
 

General Zaluzhnyi personally awarded the soldier of 22nd mot.inf. battalion of 92nd mech.brigade Ruslan Zubarev ("Predator") for his epic fight. He received Golden Cross - honorable sign of Chief-in-Command. Also Zaluzhnyi gifted him with name weapon - AR-15 rifle. "Predator" said this was his dream to buy this rifle, but he couldn't do this, because according to the law it could be possibly only in 25 y.o., but he has 22 only.

A jar with termites will be more effectively ) But in Ukraine they are not common and live only in southern regions  

On the lighter side,

MITSI studio did a nice little animation on how countries fight their wars. The last one is a great tribute to Ukraine basically smashing RFs. Moskva skinking, turret tossing and drone mastery. 



Youtube Mitsi Studios

Also, check out their Battle of the Atlantic video

In this day, year ago, on 26th of March 2022  UKR army successfully completed first offensive operation and liberated Trostianets' town of Sumy oblast (about 20 000 of population). 
Russians appeared on outskirts of Trostistianets' as far as on 24th of Feb, but their columns were advancing further to their priority objectives - Chernihiv and Kyiv. They just set some chekpoints around the town and made probes, which were repelling by local DFTG forces (Volunteer Formations of Territorial Communities - irregular add-ons to Territorial Defense Troops) - Trostianets' hadn't own Territorial Defense battalion and small unit of 93rd mech.brigade. But since 27th of Feb 2022 Russians entered to the town with large forces and up to 1st of March 2022 completely captured it. After Russian troops were unable to capture Sumy and Konotop, they established own HQ and transport hub in Trostianets'
DFTG unit became partisans and informators for 93rd brigade, which established defense line not far from the town. Formally operation of town liberation began on 21st of March, but during previous week UKR forces destroyed several columns, moving west and since 16th of March conducted several successful artillery strikes on Russian artillery positions. Also was hit command center of 96th recon brigade, which with units of 13th tank regiment of 4th "Kantemirovskaya" guard tank division were main forces, holding Trostianet's and it outskirts. 
21st of March partisans were in role of pass conductors - they, knowing terrain, brought to the town multiple small assault groups of 93rd mech.brigade, bypassing Russian checkpoints. In this day UKR troops couldn't liberate the town and they withdrew - clashes with Russian troops were lasting on outskirts of Trostianets' up to 24-25th of March, when 93rd brigade entered the town again. Russians couldn't stand and in the night from 25th to 26th of March abandoned the town. Allegedly commander of Russian 13th tank regiment shot himself, being unable to keep thіs crucial point. His regiment also lost many armor in this battle destroyed and abandoned. 
There are no more detailed information of this operation and number of losses of both sides. UKR side approximately lost about 50 KIA. 
 
 

On the lighter side,

MITSI studio did a nice little animation on how countries fight their wars. The last one is a great tribute to Ukraine basically smashing RFs. Moskva skinking, turret tossing and drone mastery. 



Youtube Mitsi Studios

Also, check out their Battle of the Atlantic video

On the lighter side,

MITSI studio did a nice little animation on how countries fight their wars. The last one is a great tribute to Ukraine basically smashing RFs. Moskva skinking, turret tossing and drone mastery. 



Youtube Mitsi Studios

Also, check out their Battle of the Atlantic video

On the lighter side,

MITSI studio did a nice little animation on how countries fight their wars. The last one is a great tribute to Ukraine basically smashing RFs. Moskva skinking, turret tossing and drone mastery. 



Youtube Mitsi Studios

Also, check out their Battle of the Atlantic video

On the lighter side,

MITSI studio did a nice little animation on how countries fight their wars. The last one is a great tribute to Ukraine basically smashing RFs. Moskva skinking, turret tossing and drone mastery. 



Youtube Mitsi Studios

Also, check out their Battle of the Atlantic video

I sorta mentioned something sideways related to this area previously. 
Last year my Wife (Polish dad, Ukrainian mom) was involved with a chef Friend in organising a large festival at a Ukrainian summer camp location outside Toronto. They eventually had a lot lined up - bands,  food,  kids bouncy castles,  accommodation,  the works. All Ukrainian food,  musicians etc,  everything in support of UKR refugees here in Canada. Let's call it "Ukrainian Refugee Festival 2022", so "URF 2022" for short. 
Wife and Friend were working with the Owner of the summer camp. Let's call him Oleg,  Oleg the Owner. 
Soon they were at the point where a website should be up and running, for Wife to start pointing social media campaigns towards and to start selling tickets. Oleg had a guy attached, a proper website developer,  legit and experienced. Let's call him Dave,  Dave the Developer. 
So -  Wife,  Friend, Oleg (Owner) &  Dave (web Developer), all working on "URF 2022" . (Ukrainian Refugee Festival). 
Early on Wife &  Friend ask Oleg re website, pushing a lot, but Oleg is stalling,  not clear why. He's older,  maybe it's a generational thing,  he doesn't "get it",  yadda yadda. W & F know of Dave, want to talk to him direct but Oleg doesn't/won't give contact details. 
Two months pass of Festival organizing,  busy busy busy. Wife checks in re website Again - nothing's built. WTF.  With Friend she bears down on Oleg,  eventually gets Dave's details and reaches out. Festival is two months away. 
Wife &  Friend to Dave: Hi Dave! Oleg said you have a site built,  may we see? 
Dave: Sure!  (sends url) 
Wife: Hmh...? 
Friend: Uhhhh? 
The website domain is not "URF2022.com" The site mentions about a festival but no URF by name,  and not at the Summer Camp location The Summer Camp location is mentioned but purely for 2024 (yes,  '24) summer camps.  The organization that the site is purportedly for my Wife has never, not once heard of. Let's them Who The **** Are These Guys (WTFATG).  It's certainly not "URF 2022 Ltd" .  There's no payment portal -  you email this WTFATG with your tickets request and your credit card details in the email and they process the order and mail you the tickets. Mail.  Not email. Mail. Perfectly safe, legit,  transparent and standard, yup yup yup.  Wife: Ugh Dave?  Wtf all the above? 
Dave: You, Mrs. Wife &  Mr. Friend,  are as confused as I am. Btw I haven't been paid diddly squat and I'm nanometers from walking away. Your own confusion, as Primary Organizers, is a serious accelerant. 
Friend: Have you sent an invoice? 
Dave: Yes. To Oleg. 
Wife: WTFF (What The ****ing ****).  Not even to the WTFATG? 
Dave: Nope.  Oleg insisted, plus I have no details of WTFATG - address, accountants, working phone number, etc. Just that email.
Wife: Dave - get your sneakers on,  the fast ones. I'm gonna talk to Oleg and I have a bad feeling. 
Dave: Lady, metaphorically I'm sitting in the car with my foot hovering over the gas pedal. 
So, Wife & Friend call Oleg. 
Wife: Oleg,  who are WTFATG? 
Oleg: Oh them,  they're a separate organisation. Nothing to do with URF2022
Wife: Uh huh. Btw,  no ****ing way we selling tickets in the process described above.
Oleg: What? But how will we pay for the 2024 camps? 
Wife: WTFFF* are you talking about?  We're organizing URF 2022 remember? 
Oleg: Yes,  and they'll pay for the '24 camps in advance,  then pay off the URF2022 people. 
Friend: Wait a second -  "they"?  The tickets for URF? 
Oleg: No, "they"  as in WTFATG. But they need to be paid off, which is where URF 2022 will help them out. Plus how else will they pay me for minding the place? 
Wife: WTFFFF** do you mean, minding the place? Aren't you the bloody owner? Why the hell should URF2022 give any monies to anyone but Festival acts &  suppliers, not to mention the fugees THIS WHOLE THING IS MEANT TO HELP? 
Oleg: Well they own the place, not me. I just live here. 
Wife: !!!! etc 
There are not enough ****s in the worlds to describe her simultaneous Volcanic Fury & Complete Confusion, her mind is in a quantum state of both Horrified (particle) and Enraged (wave).
Wife: Oleg, your understanding of Space & Time, not to mention Basic Logic, leaves a lot to be desired. I don't know who the hell you actually are (the Janitor!?),  who WTFATG are,  what the hell is going on and why I'm still talking to you. I'm out. 
Wife calls Dave. 
Wife: GO. 
Dave: VROOM
...
URF 2022 did not go ahead.
Website disappeared. WTFATG still exist online. Kids still go to Ukrainian Summer Camp at that location but it is absolutely impossible to find out anything about WTFATG themselves. Not that Wifey cares to bother. Oleg is the Site Manager of the location; Wife never got the sense that he was a Bad Guy, just an older guy glad to have a paycheck who didnt have the wit to sense what was going on.
True story,  enormous quantity of ****s and all. 
 
 
*What The ****ing ****ity ****
** What The ****ing ****ity **** **** 

The man is a saint in my country now.  Well most of it.
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/u-s-president-joe-biden-says-he-likes-canadian-teams-except-the-leafs-1.6328028

I was also wondering what happened to this anti-javelin cooking grates they had on their tanks a year ago. Didn't do much against the javelin, but would probably work against a free-falling grenade.
 
That is very interesting. The ICC indictment seems to (finally) hit a nerve with the higher ups in Moscow, which the actual war didn't. If the ICC would even hint at continuing this from the top down, I guess we would see some more defenestrations in that sector. Hopefully from the top window.
Not very surprising, but these hypocrites only got worried when the war affects themselves. I guess they thought they could sit it out and, in a few years when everything has cooled down, dig up their foreign assets, and live a happy live somewhere under the sun. Assholes.

Wait for it...Cuba!  The long held cry of the first year poli-sci student.  "But what if Russia pulled Cuba into a collective defence treaty?!"  Or Mexico?  Or Canada.  What if Canada suddenly joined the Russian Federation of Happy Happy Nations Who Totally Do Not Have A Gun To Their Heads?  Would not the US go into a rage and invade? 
To be honest, probably not.  Why because even though the US has played fast and loose with the rules on occasion, they know they cannot totally throw them out or risk the entire scheme.  What they would do is cut off trade and bankrupt us over a weekend, but that is what big-boy powers do, they employ legal mechanisms to punish and keep in line. 
They do not roll in and invade (oh and here we will go with Grenada and Panama - sure a rogue narco-dictator and coup by a military junta (the OECS also signed off on that one) interventions are the same as Ukraine, not apples to hand grenades at all.)  Like in 03 in Iraq, the US bent the rules and maybe even broke them.  To put them in the same legal house as what is happening in Ukraine is just dumb. Putin tried for a weak R2P, and then started hammering baby hospitals - he is not even in the same league...and this was after we let him get away with Georgia and Crimea.
If Russia and Putin were so smart - and here I will ask forgiveness of Ukrainian members in advance as offering too much on "how Russia could have won this thing" is a little insensitive in the middle of a war, but so is trying to excuse the Russian invasion by blaming it on the West...and by extension Ukraine itself - they would have engineered an internal crisis in Ukraine (again) and then used that as an excuse to intervene.  But that flat-faced a@@hat did not even have the decency to do that.  He played "we are only on exercise" for months and then went "f#ck it, its Tuesday".
So here we are again with the "its all your fault" faction somehow linking the actions of free, stable and independent nations with varying degrees of democratic process to somehow "making" Russia do this horrible war.  It does not match history, nor does it make any sense in terms of how this war actually started. 
I re-iterate, there was no crisis.  It was not like Ukraine was in Brussels with pen in hand hovering over the NATO parchment.  There were no Nazis, or black bio-weapon sites, nor elite conspiracies or alien brain slugs controlling in the background.  We had a dictator pushing 70, looking for domestic power shoring exercise who thought he could totally get away with it, and then let his cronies convince him of what he wanted to hear.  The West had sat back fat, dumb and happily buying his gas and turning blind eyes, until we didn't - Putin thought Ukraine would be Czechoslovakia and what he got was Poland....that is about it.  No appeasement would have worked, there is zero evidence of this.  In fact Crimea demonstrates the exact opposite.
But hey, it is another Tuesday so let's hear the anti-US crowd roll out something new for change....

😄
 

Video of combined work of 92nd mech.brigade drone recon unit "Flight club", 40th artillery brigade and some unit, who has M270 MARS II (maybe of 40th brigade too). Some already were posted here, but since 2:15 new episode - on 14th of March UAV Leleka-100 spotted 3 Russian BM-27 Uragan near Novonykanorivka village, Luhansk oblast (23 km north from Svatove). Two launchers were destropyed by M270 missiles (writing says "hit with fragmental ordnance" - maybe M31A1?) and third was destroyed by "friendly fire" of burning Uragan from behind, which became to "launch" own rockets
 

Well so far, you:
- have applauded a Russian direct attack on a U.S. military assets in international waters.  “Perfect soft kill” was your exact term, which is just wrong on a lotta levels…not perfect, sloppy because we have freakin camera footage…not soft, hard as it was very likely by kinetic impact and not EW jamming etc.
- Argued that is was within some sort of justifiable ROEs because the US is supporting Ukraine while it fights for it’s life.  It is not justified, at least until this war expands outside Ukrainian borders - hell we are tip toeing around hitting targets inside Russia but apparently international waters and airspace are the Wild West now.
- Offered that we re-write international legal norms as they relate to international waters…reasoning and logic TBD.
- Linked the current incident to another over Turkey in 2015 (unless you believe the Russian position because they have a good track record of being truthful in these matters).  And somehow are trying to make the current situation, again, acceptable.
- Made a huge leap between WW3 and a couple banks collapsing in the US.
- And linked it all back to “elites” because we all know they run the world through a Star Chamber near the earths core…ok, I made up that last part but it really wasn’t that far off-narrative.
But I will accept you are not in the “nut-camp”, however, when you decide to join us in the “grown-up, I am over first year philosophy and political science” camp please let us know.