__Yossarian0815[jby]

A wise decision. Well, in that case you have to accept German 'dominance'. Personally I think Germany is a very respectable and noble country, which learned from it's mistakes and deserves to be forgiven. Apart from that it made the unity of Europe and the avoidance of new European wars for a large part financially possible.
Time to forgive, not forget, Panzermartin. Whether we like it or not, the European countries need each other. Unity is more important than ever.

Guys you are being very short sighted sorry, cruising along with the shallow cancel culture. Here we have german paratroopers cemetery in Crete, German soldiers cemetery in Attica, Turkish monuments, venetian, franks monuments, all the freaking occupiers that walked this earth. And we respect all that no matter what, you vandals. 
 

Tearing down monuments is trying to erase history. It is more important to make sure that those who see these monuments know what or whom those represent.
Judging the past with current morale standards is necessary to understanding. But removing the offending statues means that this discussion will never happen again and the atrocities will be forgotten.

To lighten the mood a bit (not for DMS I'm afraid), Zelensky gave a hint about the expected future of Ukrainia Air Force:
 

This war is like CMRT, CMCW and CMBS got together one stormy night and made a very confused demon baby. 
 

These are the videos of the dogfight that I referenced earlier. They were put up a few hours ago on Twitter. From the foliage they look to be recent. Can anyone identify the Ukrainian plane?

Well one could argue that the organization was marginalized long before this whole dance.  The US invasion of Iraq in 03 was definitely a nail in its coffin.  The global order that the UN was supposed to both represent and embody has been stressed and cracking for decades, this has likely just finished the job.
This is not good news.  As constipated and dysfunctional as the UN was it is better than the alternative, which is back to the old anarchy of nations with multipolar power arrangements largely ungovernable besides the rule of the gun.  That is where we were in 1914 except now we have nukes.  So yes Ukraine is bad but what could follow may be a lot worse if we don’t put this whole thing back in a box.
Putin’s sins in Ukraine are historic but if we don’t get our sh#t together collectively he is going to go down as a footnote, assuming there is anyone left to write it down. And if that wasn’t hilarious enough we have climate impacts coming straight at us.
 

There are various interpretations about the bevhaviour of Scholz and the SPD on the issue of shipping heavy weapons. Like almost everything, you can of course pin it on Russian kompromat, but the real reasons are likely much more mundane.
For me, it's most likely a combination of:
Having a number of critical state elections that the SPD wants to win in the coming months, where they don't want to risk having their party base and aging electorate run scared with talks of German Panzers rolling east. A number of influential SPD officials (especially Rolf Mützenich &  Ralf Stegner) that are fundamentally opposed to any confrontational policy with Russia. The usual ****up of our bureaucracy in the Ministry of Defense, where the leadership has no idea what's going on and the middle management is basically running their own policy. Just keep the pressure up, it's as simple as that.
The fundamental fear of German foreign policy is the concept of "Alleingänge", taking any risks by making decisions that aren't also taken by allied nations. If Germany appears isolated on the question of heavy weapons, it will align its policy to come back into the fold.

I would like to add that the gas infrastructure from the USSR to the west (or what has become the west in the meantime) predates all current and recent politicians (we´re talking late 1960s).
The attached corruption is however more recent (russian top jobs for former German and Austrian polticians is more of a Putin era thing).
If somebody can pull off a genuine Energiewende, it´s the Germans. It will be well invested money since everybody will have to wean themselves off fossil fuels anyway.
This is of course a major undertaking and will take years, regardless of moralistic huffing and puffing from countries who (currently) have easier access to energy .

Couldn't resist reposting this one.... 😆

Heh, I wrote an essay on MIRVs in high schoool in the 198somefink.

I'd think if there was a sane mind over in the Kremlin at all they'd be real scared to push the nuke button for fear they'd either just blow up in their silos or land in Russia.  Better to just threaten to use them.. kind of like they should have just used their army to threaten.

I would like to add that the gas infrastructure from the USSR to the west (or what has become the west in the meantime) predates all current and recent politicians (we´re talking late 1960s).
The attached corruption is however more recent (russian top jobs for former German and Austrian polticians is more of a Putin era thing).
If somebody can pull off a genuine Energiewende, it´s the Germans. It will be well invested money since everybody will have to wean themselves off fossil fuels anyway.
This is of course a major undertaking and will take years, regardless of moralistic huffing and puffing from countries who (currently) have easier access to energy .

I would like to add that the gas infrastructure from the USSR to the west (or what has become the west in the meantime) predates all current and recent politicians (we´re talking late 1960s).
The attached corruption is however more recent (russian top jobs for former German and Austrian polticians is more of a Putin era thing).
If somebody can pull off a genuine Energiewende, it´s the Germans. It will be well invested money since everybody will have to wean themselves off fossil fuels anyway.
This is of course a major undertaking and will take years, regardless of moralistic huffing and puffing from countries who (currently) have easier access to energy .

Yes it's always nice to call for a World War when others will do the fighting on distant lands beyond the oceans. 
 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_trivialization

If the Germans had won, not a single ukranian would exist today. Most of the people in this thread would not exist. The nazis had an extermination plan for practically everybody.

Hey all, I might get in trouble for this but I'm gonna do it anyway.
While we are all very concerned about the deaths in UKR it's also important to remember the other slaughter that's been going on for two years.  Another covid wave, very contagious, is on the way.  I know this crowd skews a bit older so lots of folks here are more at risk.
If you aint vaxxed, get vaxxed.  If you aint boosted, get boosted.  Only 50% of americans are boosted, though 75% are vaxxed.  Immune system resistance wanes over time, particularly w Pfizer (moderna better in this respect).  At Omicron peak we were losing ~2500 americans a day (~4000 per day at the pre-vaccine covid peak last year).  That nearly all those omicron deaths were PREVENTABLE is a tragedy.  And that tragedy is driven by propaganda, much of it spawned from Russia and percolated thru facebook.  So if you want to give a big FU to Putin, get your shots! 
I don't want to lose any of you excellent Combat Mission aficionados.
Hong Kong has a huge percentage of old people who refuse to get vaxxed, it's gonna be a bloodbath.
Thanks, I will take my vacation now.

LOL a lot of roads with a lot of abandoned Russian tanks.  it all gets so confusing.  I could hear someone giving directions.  Go down the road an make a left at the T80.  If you see a T72 B3 you missed the left and you should turn around.  Unless it's the one with the commander shield in which case you might as well continue on as you've gone too far.

If the US knows where all the Russian missile subs are and can take them out any time they want, doesn't that completely defeat the purpose of having ballistic missile subs in the first place?
Also, it's a kind of vague response to secretly take out two submarines somewhere in the ocean if the Russians just nuked Ukraine. Everybody will see the mushroom cloud all over the news, but nobody will even know what happened as a response out at sea.
 

Putin won’t use nukes. He’s too afraid the West would respond in kind. After all, in his mind, that’s what he would do if Russian troops got nuked. He doesn’t want to give NATO an excuse to escalate their involvement. And if he used a nuke, just one, the West wouldn’t stop until Putin was dethroned. It’s simply not worth the risk. 
 
Unfortunately, I think he’ll use chemical weapons first and he’s a lot more likely to do that, but still very unlikely. That would make him look weak to his fan base if the West can prove he did it.
 
Just my opinion of course…

I really don’t get that casual attitude to total annihilation?!

No one expects the Spanish Instalanza.

Nonetheless, Ukraine won’t survive without the West, and the support of the West can become quite tenuous if the war starts to be perceived as “both sides” for war crimes, or more of a civil war with Ukrainians turning on each other and abandoning the rule of law.  Just how it is.