Sequoia

I'm stealing this post from someone else on another forum as I thought it was excellent. If the person from the other forum is also here (though I don't recognize the name) I hope you don't mind the theft.
 
Just my opinion, but, imagine being the one honest general in a corrupt army. You live on your pay rather than looting supplies (and your pay scale was determined by people who assumed you’d be looting your supplies and your men’s pay).
You try hard to force your subordinates to do the same to the extent that you can.
Then the auditors come in, every other general has plenty of money to bribe the auditors, you don’t. Every other general has hand picked subordinates whose gravy train depends on the general helping to claim everything is in order. Your subordinates know that you are the main reason they’re actually having to try to live on inadequate army pay….
After the audit, the army no longer has one honest general, instead it has zero.
Audits work when almost everyone is honest, and you’re trying to root out a few bad apples before they rot the entire barrel. I’m not sure what works when almost everyone is rotten and you’re trying to find and promote the handful of capable people. Public accountability has a small chance, but needs to start a the local level (so people are close enough to know who’s doing their job) and needs generations to build, and isn’t something a dictator wants.

I'm stealing this post from someone else on another forum as I thought it was excellent. If the person from the other forum is also here (though I don't recognize the name) I hope you don't mind the theft.
 
Just my opinion, but, imagine being the one honest general in a corrupt army. You live on your pay rather than looting supplies (and your pay scale was determined by people who assumed you’d be looting your supplies and your men’s pay).
You try hard to force your subordinates to do the same to the extent that you can.
Then the auditors come in, every other general has plenty of money to bribe the auditors, you don’t. Every other general has hand picked subordinates whose gravy train depends on the general helping to claim everything is in order. Your subordinates know that you are the main reason they’re actually having to try to live on inadequate army pay….
After the audit, the army no longer has one honest general, instead it has zero.
Audits work when almost everyone is honest, and you’re trying to root out a few bad apples before they rot the entire barrel. I’m not sure what works when almost everyone is rotten and you’re trying to find and promote the handful of capable people. Public accountability has a small chance, but needs to start a the local level (so people are close enough to know who’s doing their job) and needs generations to build, and isn’t something a dictator wants.

Yes, we want Germany to:
a) build an army
b) drive it through Poland to
c) fight Russians. 
I couldn't find the relevant Polandball comic, but you can imagine
Yes I see it, our government is an unfortunate incident ( that even more unfortunately got a second term..) It will change though, probably in next election, and hopefully there will be enough common ground to rebuild the relations then.
Anyway I held Germany to a higher standard, as the one country around which the whole EU more or less is centered. Nobody wants strong Germany in way Russia is strong, but strong as being able to make decisions and act with some vision? That would be great. I'm not doing German-bashing for the sake of it here, it is seriously distressing that the political center of EU looks to be helpless in face of the crisis.
The whole taking your money is another topic altogether as Germany is benefiting from how EU is arranged much more that it is investing in it (as are other countries, it's not a zero sum game). 

See, that's what the problem is with Germany's perceived position. You have every right to declare not doing anything or to squabble internally and in effect also do not do nothing. What Germany is not entitled to though is to demand that it's position is accepted and understood by the others ( including Ukraine). It isn't, it makes Germany look weak, indecisive, for sure not a political leader for anybody east of the Oder. It will be pointed out repeatedly by all interested parties, the price for doing what Germany does is losing face. The same of course goes for France, who also somehow expected to be a political leader of the EU and proves that it can't be expected to assume this role.

WTF?!   You mean I am funding all this stuff?!  I'm trying to retire!   Rand get those receipts!!

...And that's worth a like for the baseball reference alone.  Western Oregon...at the risk of veering way OT, any chance you're a fellow Seattle Mariners fan? I know that by around the time you hit Corvallis heading down the I-5 it shifts to more San Francisco Giants fans (doesn't bother me...my dad's from the Bay Area and they're my favourite NL team). Up here, it's over 60% Toronto Blue Jays fans because of the "Canada's Team" cachet and their media presence, but Mariners fans are over 20% and the rest is divided among the other teams, especially the big-name and/or West Coast ones...
Getting more on topic, agreed on the last sentiment. I'd much rather run a baseball or hockey team than be a prime minister or president. I sometimes wonder if one of the problems with political power is that it tends to attract the kind of people who want it and put off some of the people most suited to hold it... (I know there are politicians with genuine good intentions, but I think there might be something to that).

Land based?  Yemen?  I think you might need to look at a map again...maybe a map of the belt and road initiative.   Think about the volume you are talking and then tell me again how land transport is going to make any sense.  If there were a RR line maybe.  But there isn't and there isn't a pipeline, so you are talking trucks... or maybe camels.     The land route runs from Gwadar Pakistan to Urumqi China.  Trucking any volume over that route would be insane.  Maybe the basis of a new reality TV show.
The New Silk Road - China's Belt and Road Initiative (chinahighlights.com)

Still much too good for you. You will be subjected to watching  Eurovision contests over and over again.

Still much too good for you. You will be subjected to watching  Eurovision contests over and over again.

this picture is not "full context for foreigners".   That is a an extreme outlier of a picture.  It's like "jews for Hitler".  That is so misleading as to be a complete lie.  The 1 out of 10,000 exception is shown and we are meant to conclude the utterly, ridiculous "see, even the black folks loooooove the confederacy!"
ASL Veteran, you should ashamed of trying to pass this off as informative.

Looks like this is fake. 
1. watermark of TG @Holodniyyar channel, which as if belongs to 93rd brigade "Kholodnyi Yar". But this brigade doesn't use Telegram. This is fishing channel of Russian PsyOps. It's ridiculous this channel is in Russian.
2. At the start of video soldier says "We are fighters of rifle military unit [WTF?] А7085, 1st Vinnytsia rifle battalion of Armed Forces of Ukraine..."
There is no m/u A7085 in AFU. There is A0785 exists, but in Kharkiv, not Vinnytsia and this is not "rifle battalion", but Kharkiv Institute of tank troops.
"Vinnytsia rifle battalion" could be National guard unut - 40th regiment of NGU, which has rifle battalion in composition, but regiment has number m/u 3008 (without "A"), battalion hasn't own m/u number, because it not separate
Good try. But not. 

Don't want to rehash what already been said. Look at the current and future demographics for China and you'll see a nation that's headed towards serious problems. A massive aging population and decline in birth rates.
China is not Russia. Russia is an exporter of oil and natural gas. China must import both in large quantities. Their economy would come to a grinding halt if that was disrupted.
China didn't steal the US manufacturing industry. US and multinational corporations willingly moved the manufacturing base to China to take advantage of cheap labor on a massive scale. The work is grinding, the pay is ridiculously low and the conditions are about a step or 2 above exploitative. Profits was the motive.
Even if we wanted to the US could never create the sort of manufacturing scale that exists in China and there is no way Americans would be willing to work for the same low wages or conditions that Chinese peasants migrating from the rural area are willing to endure.
If you think inflation is bad now, just imagine what it would be if the manufacturing was being done in America with the wages and benefits America workers would demand. That cost would get passed down.
People talk about Russian propaganda. America has its own form of propaganda. Its called corporate media and politics. American media has changed over the years. Its now all about money. Stating boring facts doesn't sell. Creating outrage does. Same is true for social media.
The politicians who are concerned about getting re-elected and funding their campaigns are all to aware of the power of manufactured outrage. Its sells, it generates funding and its far more effective than just sticking to facts. The American public has a very short attention span, by and large they are not going to pay attention to complex facts, nuance and complex details. Add to that all the massive gerrymandering going on it little cause for optimism.
China is a problem. It's not just Taiwan or the treatment of Muslims, but the recent events in Hong Kong is cause for concern. Like Putin and his cronies the CCP is concerned about staying in power. Like Putin the internal security apparatus and forces behind it is massive. It has to be. China is composed of many ethnic groups and things could get out of hand quickly.
The US and China for better or worse have a mutually dependent relationship in-spite of the rhetoric. Much of the current economic issues in the US is related to the Covid lockdowns in China and the resulting disruption in the supply chain.
China is massively dependent on exports. If that gets cut their economy will collapse. They are trying to move away from that model, but China isn't there and if you look at the projected demographic trends in China, the future doesn't look good.
How the US and the West manages the complex relationship with China will determine what happens. China has seen the unified West response to Russia's actions and knows any similar response to any perceived hostile actions by China could lead to sanctions that would destroy their economy in short order. China is more vulnerable to economic sanctions that Russia.
Like China its also going to be a challenge for America and the west to manage Russia, Ukraine and Europe if and when the conflict ends. Its easy now. America and the west just sends money and weapons to Ukraine and the Ukrainians kill Russians by the bushel.
Managing the peace could end up being the real challenge and given the broken state of American politics, the media and social media where most American consume and get their information, that is driven by the profit motive that knows manufactured outrage sells and boring facts don't, doesn't give many cause for optimism. You have to dig deep to get to the facts and most Americans would rather just have it spoon fed to them by whatever outlet matches their leanings.
 

So many of the failures between 2014 and 2/24/2022 were due to profound misjudgments about both the Ukrainian and Russian governments/states. Pre 2/24 the EU and Nato really did  not believe the Ukrainian government was a dependable partner, and that if they were admitted to the various Western clubs the best case scenario would have been a less functional, but more expensive Hungary. Like wise pre 2/24 everyone thought the people running Russia were sane, and had some grasp on objective reality, and what we think of as their long term national interests. Both of these delusions have been shattered utterly. The coherence of the Ukrainian state and nation has been tested and found match the very best quality super alloy made. Russia has proven itself to be profoundly dangerous and untrustworthy. Given the limitations of Nato/EU decision making processes we have done a mostly decent job of reacting to this new reality once we were slapped in the face with, at least SO FAR. There is great deal that can yet go wrong, but so far so good.

lay off.  He IS an officer after all.  You have to expect this sort of thing.  🤣

My take:
I strongly agree that this a proxy war but (as in the Cold War I), what we imagine to be a solid bloc is really just a collection of more or less capable autocracies with shared interests and strong internal competition. The current iteration is a reversal of the last round in that China is now clearly the senior partner with global heft while Russia is the localized variant which believes it has less to lose and so exercises less restraint. 
What that means in practical terms is that the relationship between the two is highly instrumental and less coordinated than it may appear to us. In this case, Russia was set on a course of revanchism with Ukraine. China was agnostic to that course *as long as it didn't harm Chinese interests*. That is why Putin informed Xi and that is why Putin framed the Ukraine invasion as a "special operation" and that is also why he planned for it to be over in a couple of weeks. China had been doing $10 billion dollars a year in trade with Ukraine and was not on bad terms with the Ukrainian oligarchs. Xi didn't sign off on anything he expected to damage that.
So where does that leave China and Russia?
First off, yes China gets to scoop up tons of technical intelligence about Western military capabilities but what it is gathering must be quite sobering to them. They are learning that even reasonably well trained Western proxy armies fighting on home turf with decent morale and at the far end of the aggressor's supply line are quite difficult to beat. They are discovering that top down militaries with little large scale experience face an intense combat learning curve. They are watching the Western democracies reawaken to their military power, their basic ideological unity and a new found willingness to forego trade when the geopolitical stakes rise far enough.
Second, China has realized that its most significant ally is an inept rentier state run by degenerate geopolitical gamblers and there simply isn't anyone else in Eurasia who is a likely and useful ally in a conflict with the US/EU/Japan. And that is why China is staying on the sidelines. Internal Chinese state propaganda is loudly pro-Russian and had rolled out what was clearly a long planned campaign to denigrate the West and glorify Russian operations. Yet look at what Putin is not getting: arms, aid or real political support on the international stage for the invasion. You can bet that it was promised when he met Xi...with the unspoken proviso that such was dependent on a quick success.
In short, yes it is a proxy war but not against a bloc that has anything more to it than a series of shared interests and virtually zero soft power.
PS:
Forgot to mention: 
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-04/eu-aims-to-target-russia-s-global-oil-sales-with-insurance-ban
Shipping insurance folks of my acquaintance are saying that the big Chinese shippers of Russian oil/gas were already going to let current contracts with Moscow lapse but also were looking into how to drop them immediately if they couldn't ensure cargoes. A further salutary lesson to the PRC that the global economic structure is designed in such a way that the West has a multitude of tools to generate severe costs on challengers.
 
 
 
 

I hear you, but as far as I can see the Chinese are completely caught by surprise by this war, have realised that they know practically nothing about the region and are scrambling to avoid committing to any position that might come to bite them later.
 
It seems that for all their great power pretentions they have realised their diplomatic/intelligence corps is lacking, the western alliance has teeth and the Russian army they admired so much has feet of clay. I imagine their worldview is being challenged quite hard right now and I really hope this results in them playing more nice in the future - they have a long way to go before they are a true superpower and it would benefit everybody to tone down all the nationalistic stuff. 

He does realize that Stalin would've killed him, right?  His chances or survival in that regime would've been below zero.  Yet he does pine for the good ol' USSR. 

what utter b--ls--t.  Syria has nearly zero comparison to what is happening now.  In Syria, we couldn't even get our aid to the right folks, it was all ending up in the arms of ISIS. 
I really want to get a gig as one of these clowns so I can be paid to say utterly ludicrous things.

That is a key angle.
In my estimation, if there's one country that would hate to see the use of nuclear weapons, it is China. They know that they aren't under any kind of conventional threat from anyone. As such, a lowering of the bar on the use of tac nukes would be distinctly to their disadvantage. Not only would they hate it on the principle of lowering the bar on nukes and possible escalation, they'd be no fan of a nuke flinging neighbour in and of itself.
I would not be surprised if they have already notified Putin that they wouldn't be a fan of their use in Ukraine. And right now, China is the only friend worth having that the Russian cannot afford to piss off.
 

Points to note - consistent with what the likes of me, @LukeFFand other veterans have been saying for a while on the long list of buddy aid threads, the extraction attempt was epic, no weapons or ammunition were harvested and nobody tried to give buddy aid from the prone position. 

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

you are just trying to kiss up to @Combatintman

Well that's just disappointingly unsportsmanlike. 

Gah! Were I King for the Day, and a minion presented the idea of hacking into the Russian ICBMs to neuter them, I'd have to put that minion in stocks for the day.
I cannot imagine a more dangerous thing to try to do. Let's imagine...
1. The hack is successful and Russia cannot use their ICBMs. They would, most likely, presume this to be an attack precursor and they would then use/launch their SLBMs, and any other nuke (SRBM, air-launched) etc. against whichever agency they think has just hobbled them.
2. The hack is unsuccessful. See "1", above.
 

What's interesting to note is that the publicly announced US intelligence assessments weren't a one time thing. They were copious, changed over time and were updated. They also were issued pretty frequently. That's *not* the kind of product you have if you are working off of a few highly placed sources (if you want them to live through the next week). Bottom line, the US was demonstrating that we had thoroughly penetrated the Russian decision cycle in every way possible. A similar thing happened a week or so ago when the NSA simply disconnected the GRU hacking team from a broad swathe of software they were about to use for a larger cyber attack. 
There's a purpose to all of this, of course. It's a demonstration of dominance and so a method by which one nation can coerce another from escalation. Putin has to consider not just the down stream effects of (for example) a strike on a Polish arms depot or a limited nuclear strike...he now has to think about what happens between when he orders it and when it can actually be carried out. He has to assume that we know pretty much as soon as he decides. It cannot be a comfortable position.