sburke

Heh yeah my point about no one party owning it and how long it has taken to get to it's current state. The Syria/Iraqi Baath party coups created states that were definitely in Russia's sphere of influence in the cold war. No mistaking who's tanks we were destroying in the gulf wars, but yeah it is far more complicated than that. Iran's particular mess has more to do with US involvement and a coup establishing our own little pet dictator. This is where understanding long term consequences and a measured approach to deciding when is intervention justified and what is the end game becomes so damn serious. Frankly I don't think anyone has done well in this regard in the Middle East. People think too short term and too much in self interest. Developing a modern Nation state with a democratic process is not an easy thing. Nations created by random lines on a map with no national consciousness preexisting that are then drawn into global power conflicts is a recipe for disaster. It should be no surprise to anyone that there is such fertile ground for ISIS. Decades of despotic regimes operating in collusion with foreign powers is bound to produce something really ugly.

This is a point worth delving into a bit more. When you look at the period up until the collapse of the USSR, who were it's friends in the Med..... Libya, Algeria, Syria ..... This isn't to say Russia is responsible for the current situation, but it is also not innocent. Those regimes were explicitly supported by Moscow and their arrested political development is what fed the Arab spring. Add Iraq to that long list and you begin to understand what Russia's political alliances helped develop. The middle east is an extremely complicated mess that has taken literally centuries to reach it's current messed up state. No one state actor owns it and the resolution of the issues there will likely take decades. The answers have to come from the people of those nations. The continued intervention of outside parties isn't really helping anything.

+1 Way off track and heading to closure.Pretty funny too - take a second... one more.

I believe that is the Oosterbeek master map. (CMBN- MG module)

Me either. I tend not to read the heavy conspiracy theory nonsense. You only get so much time in this life. No sense wasting it. Please don't take that personally, it is just when folks get into these long complex ways of trying to link things they have to work so hard to link - humans are generally far less complex. Syrians mostly hate Assad. They were brutally suppressed once. Would it be any surprise in the midst of the arab spring they would sense weakness and try again? Why does one have to credit the CIA? They haven't exactly had a a stellar history of this sort of thing and as disjointed as the resistance is, well it just doesn't seem to hold up to a real test.

Yeah just figured to be explicit as it goes back to the OP, "better" is a fuzzy term. If switching to those mods impacts a portion of the user base that can not fork over for a better machine is that "better". As it is we have the ability to include or not based on our individual situation. I think BF's current stance is the best one for the user base as a whole. Not to mention who decides what are "best" mods. Okay okay, I'll do it if you all insist.

Just because I will contest the expression "better artists". Mikey does great work but he has to do all the textures for everything within a given time frame and with constraints determined in advance that he can't just blow out the memory budget as the game has to run with the expectation of slower spec'd customer equipment. Given modders do not have to operate under any of the constraints MikeyD does, I think a better expression might be "unconstrained artists". Just sayin

The article seems to completely and conveniently not include the first Syrian revolt of the 1980s. Pretty much a similar starting point to today's conflict only back then it was the Muslim brotherhood. That alone was enough for me to just disregard everything else. If an evaluation starts right from the get go with a flawed view it generally does not lead to a good use of one's time to put more effort in.

We are steering way into the political now, but even without Russia's involvement there are already concerns about manipulation of voting districts, voter ID, and particularly in PA concerns about systematic disruption of citizens ability to exercise their vote. It is already a sensitive situation, to think that Russia is incapable of creating an issue ignores the fertile ground that exists. Do I really expect significant impact, no. It is enough though to create the impression and us politics these days is not real reliant on facts.

his intern burned the results when piqued about his not sharing his brandy.

Were we supposed to drink then? Just to be sure I downed a beer. I think I like that Rand study.

No not really. The standard team size which has to be your starting point for game design is either two teams in a squad or 3. can you cite an example of a full squad having a team in it's default structure that has 1 or 2 members? You can't count splitting off scouts etc as the AI will not do that and the game has to account for that. Leave it to to a Peng thread denizen to be unable to count.

Bad choice of expression for a tank

you have to take into account team size as the factor that allows splitting across AS as the determining factor, not the preference for numbers of foxholes. There are few instances of 4 member teams in CM. More typically it is 5-6.

I'll take anything in the cold war. Hell half the board games I used to have were in that period. The central front series (and it's PC counterpart the Tiller series), Nato the next war in Europe and that monster Nato Modern Conflict in Europe, Central America from Victory games, Flashpoint Golan, MBT (and it's sister IDF), Air and Armor, the Victory Fleet series, Air Cav, Air and Armor, Boots and Saddles, City Fight, Vietnam, Gulf and Aegean Strike. Talk about having a ton of potential for op layer stuff. The massive hole in my CM fix......

Well I have never lost an aircraft to anything but enemy AA fire. (Not including UAVs, those will go down when the operator is hit).

wait, what? oh crap, that retirement home in Washington is looking better and better! Earthquakes I can handle, but not being able to flush the toilet, I draw the line there!!! So is that any indication of the theme for a future CM:Water Wars?

LOL and it is on the internet to be remembered... forever.

sorry you don't get a pass. You have to provide data to the same standard you keep requesting it, not some staged video of folks under occupation supporting the occupation. The quotes of non support from the local populace are much more recent than you would seem to indicate.

Based on what? - even the supposed rebel forces have complained of a lack of support. The reality is you have nothing to base any claim of support of the people of the Donbass for this Russian action. The truth is there is actually very little indication that there is any kind of groundswell of support for this "insurrection" imposed by Moscow. And why would they? The supposed gov't of these regions are just a bunch of thugs who respect no laws whatsoever - what civilian would choose to move from a society governed by an actual gov't (even one you have major disagreements with) to being ruled by a bunch of gangsters? Russia is the cause of this war and the only reason it continues.

Convenient to forget both Hungary 1956 and Prague 1968. To the West's view Ukraine 2014 is just an addition to the list. Hungary 1956 At 3:00 a.m. on 4 November, Soviet tanks penetrated Budapest along the Pest side of the Danube in two thrusts—one from the south, and one from the north—thus splitting the city in half. Armored units crossed into Buda, and at 4:25 a.m. fired the first shots at the army barracks on Budaõrsi road. Soon after, Soviet artillery and tank fire was heard in all districts of Budapest. Operation Whirlwind combined air strikes, artillery, and the coordinated tank-infantry action of 17 divisions. By 8:00 am organised defence of the city evaporated after the radio station was seized, and many defenders fell back to fortified positions. Hungarian civilians bore the brunt of the fighting, and it was often impossible for Soviet troops to differentiate military from civilian targets.[46] For this reason, Soviet tanks often crept along main roads firing indiscriminately into buildings. Hungarian resistance was strongest in the industrial areas of Budapest, which were heavily targeted by Soviet artillery and air strikes.[46] The last pocket of resistance called for ceasefire on 10 November. Over 2,500 Hungarians and 722 Soviet troops had been killed and thousands more were wounded.[48][49] Prague 1968 The Czechoslovak government held an emergency session, and loudly expressed its disagreement with the occupation. Many citizens joined in protests, and by September 1968 at least 72 people had died and hundreds more injured in the conflicts. In the brief time after the occupation, which had put an end to any hope that Prague Spring had created, about 100,000 people fled Czechoslovakia. Over the whole time of the occupation, more than 700,000 people, including significant part of Czechoslovak intelligentsia left. Communists responded by revoking Czechoslovakian citizenship of many of these refugees and banned them from returning to their homeland. At a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Yakov Malik, Soviet ambassador to the United Nations issued a proclamation, claiming that the military intervention was a response to a request by the government of Czechoslovakia. The Soviet Union being a permanent member of the Security Council — with veto right —, was able to circumvent any United Nations' resolutions to end the occupation. Prague Spring's end became clear by December 1968, when a new presidium of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia accepted the so-called Instructions from The Critical Development in the Country and Society after the XIII Congress of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Under a guise of "normalisation", all aspects of neo-Stalinism were returned to everyday political and economic life. Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia ended in 1989 by Velvet Revolution, 2 years before the collapse of Soviet Union. The last occupation troops left the country on 27 June 1991[51] My bold.... not exactly ancient history eh? This is what you do to your "friends", is it any wonder Russia has no real allies? The Russian federation IS the Russia formerly of the USSR. Your gov't and its policies towards its neighbors hasn't changed, just the resources and capabilities are far less than they were.

Russia was putting nuclear missiles in Cuba not an anti missile defense. I think your example doesn't quite support what you are trying to argue.

That is a way over simplification of the pacific war and the Japanese mindset and perspective, but way way off topic here (but yeah Japanese textbooks do suck) just for grins, keep in mind Japan until the 1860s was a closed feudal state that got it's education on global politics from the British, US and Russia and those basically said, might is right and the world is our apple. Unfortunately they jumped onto that bandwagon right at the crisis point of the colonial world. We can rail on Japanese treatment of the Chinese (and should), but don't forget the British empire was financially founded on essentially being a drug pusher in China that enforced that relationship with the aid of Russia, France, the US and Germany Even the fabled Manchu mile the US army does in Korea is a legacy of it's involvement in putting down China's war of resistance In fact Japanese troops that participated in the 8 nation alliance to put down the Boxers were reportedly astonished to watch foreign troops raping civilians According to E J Dillon thousands of Chinese women committed suicide to avoid rape by alliance forces A good read on how much the US had a part in creating the conditions for a pacific war is "The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War". It is a classic example of how complicated negotiations can be when you don't understand the impact of cultural viewpoint affecting communications. Worse what the long term affects of misunderstanding are. When correcting someone else and challenging them to revisit their history with an open mind, it is best that you take the same perspective. The US view of the pacific war has a similar blindness to the actions and involvement of the western powers including the US. It does not excuse the actions of the Japanese gov't and army, but we are not blameless victims in that conflict either. Okay we now return you to our previously scheduled discussion on the conflict in Ukraine. Note I didn't even get into US atrocities in the Philipines (remember water boarding anyone?) hell we could be here all week!

That is a convenient perspective, but not entirely accurate. From wiki just to hear a different perspective. Portions of Ukraine had been occupied by Russia, but at the same time Austria would have just as much a claim and before that Poland and the Mongol khanate. Fact is Ukraine was an internationally recognized state that chose to align with the USSR (an important distinction - it was not part of Russia, but rather an equal partner in the USSR. Not that Russia respected that arrangement) when the USSR dissolved that arrangement was no more. Part of Scythia in antiquity and settled by Getae, in the migration period, Ukraine is also the site of early Slavic expansion, and enters history proper with the establishment of the medieval state of Kievan Rus, which emerged as a powerful nation in the Middle Ages but disintegrated in the 12th century. By the middle of the 14th century, present Ukrainian territories were under the rule of three external powers: the Golden Horde, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Kingdom of Poland, during the 15th century these lands came under the rule of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth(since 1569), and Crimean Khanate.[4] After a 1648 rebellion against dominantly Polish Catholic rule, an assembly of the people (rada) agreed to the Treaty of Pereyaslav in January 1654. Soon, the southeastern portion of the Polish-Lithuanian empire east of the Dnieper River came under Russian rule, for centuries.[5] After the Partitions of Poland (1772–1795) and conquest of Crimean Khanate, Ukraine was divided between the Tsardom of Russia and Habsburg Austria. A chaotic period of warfare ensued after the Russian Revolution. The internationally recognised Ukrainian People's Republic emerged from its own civil war. The Ukrainian–Soviet War followed, in which the bolsheviks Red Army established control in late 1919.[6] The Ukrainian Bolsheviks, who had defeated national government in Kiev, created the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which on 30 December 1922 became one of the founding republics of the Soviet Union. Initial Soviet policy on Ukrainian language and Ukrainian culture made Ukrainian the official language of administration and schools. Policy in the 1930s turned to russification. In 1932 and 1933, millions of people, mostly peasants, in Ukraine starved to death in a devastating famine. It is estimated that 6 to 8 million people died from hunger in the Soviet Union during this period, of whom 4 to 5 million were Ukrainians.[7] Nikita Khrushchev was appointed the head of the Ukrainian Communist Party in 1938.

Yeah, but his title is much cooler,