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Zatoichi

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  1. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to Ultradave in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    "Leaked" 🤣   Well, I am an expert with 38 years of submarine construction and testing, and as a subject matter expert I can say that that submarine is truly f-ed, FUBAR, SNAFU, scrap metal. 
    Aren't you glad I'm here to provide you with my expert opinions?   😀
    And kudos to Ukraine. Nice shot. 
    Dave
  2. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to Bil Hardenberger in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    My day job is developing wargames for the USMC, and I wanted to address the bolded part above. Computer simulations are great, but they do not answer all the objectives of professional wargames, in fact many time the result is not even that important, many times the discussion and insights learned from going through the process are all that we are after. Computer sims also have a way of stifling this conversation, trust me when you have 50 professional Marine, Army, and/or Navy officers in a room, a table top game is the best tool for the job if you want to invite conversation and in-depth topic discussions.
    There is also a dopamine hit players get from the tactile nature of a map and counter wargame and rolling dice that you rarely get from a computer simulation. That also has a value to get player buy-in, interaction, and enjoyment.  
    Simulation based professional wargames are great when the results are important, testing a new tactical organization, weapon system integration, etc., but they usually turn into a series of in-depth planning sessions with a simulated vignettes occuring for flavor. There is also a stovepipe mentality with these types of games with different player cells huddled around their machines that is absent in table top games.
    I've seen it all and there is value for all types of wargames in the professional setting and which is used depends on the objectives and research questions we are trying to answer. Table top games in professional wargames will not be going away anytime soon.
    Bil
  3. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to L0ckAndL0ad in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Re: possible insurgency
    1. First off, as Steve already said, things can theoretically happen. We're talking about the most likely scenario. Anyone who predicts future with 100% certainty is a fraud.
    2. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of bad blood. Just as you saw a lot of Crimeans genuinely cheering up and supporting the invaders in 2014, the Crimeans saw people on mainland Ukraine cheer powerlines being blown up as 2 million people plunged into darkness, water channel being cut off, the roads being blocked for cargo traffic, with all the little nasty consequences that were actually physically felt here. The reactionary post-2014 policies, laws and rethoric weren't great either. But compared to all the mayhem what's been happening since Feb 2022, this is nothing. And people are TIRED of chaos, flying jets, drones, explosions and death. Those who are currently in the trenches or came from there are tired as well.
    3. What would be "the cause" to rally behind? They can't even formulate victory conditions for the current war. Nor can they achieve anything significant, with all their men and equipment in the field. Rallying (who, civilians?) to do something a huge army can't do? That requires guts and there's none. Only stupidity and hubris. They are unable to say NO when told to do something stupid or illegal. Saying no requires guts.
    4. You need to understand the reality on the ground. Pretty much all Crimeans who haven't left have Russian passports. What, 1.5-2 million people? Myself included. Because living here without one is practically impossible. Hell, I know Crimeans who left and are currently on mainland Ukraine that also have Russian passports, issued in Crimea in 2014 (illegaly, obviously). For Ukrainian government to take back control, they'll have to deal with it somehow. And bunch of other documents. There's already been laws and decrees passed aimed to make the transition back as painless as possible. There's a whole ministry that's dealing with issues like these. Refer to Ministry of Reintegration sources for more information.
    5. That being said, it's been nine years, and nobody can pretict how much more time will pass before that. It can happen in two months, or in two years, or in ten. And with every single day, people are growing more tired. They are trying as hard as they can not to notice what's happening now. And there's no land warfare close by yet. When it comes, they'll have much more incentive to make it stop ASAP.
     
    Re: how am I doing?
    My life isn't as horrible as for some others out there. But things can change literally any minute, as for everybody else in the region. So I am trying to live in the moment while I can.
    For those who don't know, I tried to get to Estonia via St.Petersburg back in September. Before Feb 2022, it was illegal (by Ukrainian laws) thing to do. I managed to contact some Ukrainian officials and learned that it is okay during the war, if your purpose is to leave the occupied areas/Russia.
    But, as I also have Russian passport (issued locally after 2014, and almost impossible to get rid of without being put into danger), Russia views me as Russian citizen first, and by their laws, I had to get foreign travel passport in order to leave. I did that, and it took time. I also had to prepare money and other affairs. Thus I managed to get to the Estonian border only in September. My thinking was that it would be safer to deal with Russian documents after I cross the border, not before.
    I knew that Russian passports issued in Crimea are not recognized by the EU. My Ukrainian foreign travel passport was outdated by that point. The rules are: you can apply for asylum if you have no valid travel documents. But when I got to the border, Estonian police and border guard told me that everything is fine with my Russian passport (the travel document I had to use to leave the Russian side of the border, because Russian laws) and thus I cannot ask for an asylum.
    I told them many things about myself, and that I would be in danger if I return, but they did not care. They were angry and not cooperative, unwilling to listen. They blamed me for not coming sooner and for other things I had no control over. That night at the border is something that still haunts me to this day. Being rejected by the people who you considered to be good and being sent back to modern day neo-USSR. And there are things that I am not telling you here, because it is dangerous...
    Anyway.. I came to St.Petersburg. Got seriously ill. Still, I got tickets to Vladikavkaz in order to try crossing into Georgia. But soon I found a lot of info online that told me the same story would happen there as well. There were no other good alternatives that came to my mind. Going somewhere else eastward wasn't looking like a good idea either, legally, logistically and for other reasons.
    At that time, my little sister was still in Crimea. I've decided to come back here and deal with whatever happens to all of us together. Since then, there was a harsh winter without work. Serious depression, from which I barely managed to recover on my own, without meds or therapist. The dangers that are lurking out there are real. But I know who I am and what I stand for, and where my allegiance is.
    Most importantly, I know that the bastards have already lost. I knew that back in Feb 2022. They will not succeed, no matter what happens to me personally. They can't do anything good in this world, and there's no "winning" for them in any shape or form.
    I've stopped working on my Unity dev career for now. I tried to find some remote work, but failed and had to return back to working in a store. I do see a future where things go at least a little bit better. But for that to happen, a lot of people have to put in a lot of effort. There's nothing free, and freedom itself is not free. We all have to work for it.
    Alright, I've already said much more than I should've. Over and out.
  4. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to Tux in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    I'm not going to stay involved in this particular discussion if it really has descended into an 'us vs. them' shouting contest (that's intended as a reassurance, not a threat) but, just in case there is still the germ of a useful conversation to be had, here's my two-penneth response to the below:
     
    Right, so I'm pretty sure this misrepresents how things happened: Never once did the Russians explicitly and reliably (i.e. Medvedev doesn't count) threaten to 'nuke us' if we provided a certain type of equipment.  They certainly regularly reiterated that they have a red line and would respond if it was crossed but it was always left up to 'us' whether to escalate by delivering a new type of weapon or not.  If we did so we would find out whether the red line had been crossed or not; simple as that.  If you think about it that is the only way it can be since nobody would never make public the precise location of their red line.  If they did that it would be a free pass for the enemy to immediately march right up and moon them over the top of it.
    So the point is we never knew precisely where the red line was and we still don't.  That means the above argument that 'none of the previous steps crossed the line therefore the next one won't' is logically incoherent.  In fact:
    1. If you assume that the red line hasn't moved since the start of the war, then each escalation we have made since then has gotten us closer to the red line.  That would suggest that each subsequent step is actually more likely to cross the red line.
    2. If you assume that the red line has moved (as a useful side effect of the 'slow-but-steady' approach the West has taken) then we hope we still have plenty of room to escalate further but still have to consider each move very carefully.  I will come back to this.
    3. If you don't believe there is a red line then you're welcome to make that case and prove the whole thing is a storm in a teacup.
    And to reiterate: we don't know which of the above is the case.
     
    I'm sure I speak for everybody on the thread when I say I couldn't agree more.
     
    Pointless and unhelpful strawman - literally nobody on the thread has said this.
    Right, so coming back to 2. from my list above, I think it's self-evident that the red line is mobile and that there is more than one way in which it can be moved:
    We ('the West') are obviously trying to move it 'backwards', away from us, to allow us more freedom to manoeuvre in the conventional domain but also because it is good for literally everybody's health.  Other things can also move the line backwards, such as political coercion by Russia's 'allies' or changes in Russian leadership. The line can also move 'forwards', making it easier to cross or even, in a worst-case scenario, tripping it immediately and without warning.  Things that might cause this include NATO declaring a Ukrainian no-fly zone and then starting to wipe out all Russian aircraft and anti-air systems within range of the border; a second serious threat presenting itself in a different thatre (e.g. the PLA marches into Siberia); or changes in Russian leadership. Why did I put "changes in Russian leadership" in bold, twice?  Because that's exactly what the West (including Ukraine, now) are ultimately aiming to achieve* and so you have to be really careful to make sure you get the right change or it can all go very, very wrong.
    All of which is to say (and god knows I wish it was simpler) that I don't think nuclear weapons are directly the issue at all, here.  They are a convenient shorthand for 'things going pretty badly' which is easy to explain to tabloid journalists but then leads us down pointless rabbit holes when it all gets taken too literally.  The West is 'boiling the frog' not because they think Vlad's hand might be hovering over the Big Red Button but because they want to try and make sure they get the right change in Russian leadership, which could hopefully result in long-term peace and start Russia on the long, difficult path to redemption.  If the West get it wrong, however, we could instead see the disintegration of Russia into a violent, multi-state sh*tstorm which has been discussed previously here and which might incidentally end up with red lines being plastered all over the place to possibly catastrophic effect.
    If you want evidence for this, did anyone else notice that during 'Prig's Putsch' both the Western world and Ukraine went deathly quiet?  Everyone stepped well back and Ukraine even very clearly declined the opportunity to launch an immediate, full-scale assault to try and take advantage of the sudden Russian instability.  That instability is the threat, not nukes.  We do need Russian leadership to be destabilised to the point that it falls but every effort is being made to ensure it falls the right damned way.
     
    Ok, I truly apologise for how long this post is but I think that's a reflection of how far astray we've gone with the 'nuke' discussion and every issue that is being argued around it.  Unfortunately I obviously don't have any actual answers to the problem to round it off with.  So I guess I'll leave it there and look forward to the next update from the front.
     
    *Yes, regain Ukrainian land and extract reparations, etc., etc. but we all know that unless Russian leadership is changed, a temporary ceasefire is the best that can be hoped for.
  5. Like
    Zatoichi reacted to Vanir Ausf B in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    That's a terrific podcast but I did not remember Kofman saying that. After reading your post I went back and re-listened to his sections and he never mentions the UA needing better training, or anything else about UA training. Maybe it was Lee or Alperovitch? If you can find it give me the time stamp, please.
    Kofman has been openly skeptical of the efficacy of western-style combined arms training for the UA since it's inception, so the idea that what the UA needs is more of it would be a rather un-Kofman thing to say no matter what his traveling companions may think. Here's something Kofman really did say about UA training by NATO forces back in December:
    Understand US is trying to find ways to improve outcomes and reduce UA dependence on high rates of arty fire. Less attrition, more maneuver. Training to do combined arms at company/battalion level is good in and of itself, but it won’t necessarily solve this problem. I have no doubt UA can learn combined arms maneuver, and saw elements of this at Kharkiv. However, without USAF air superiority, US logistics, C4ISR, etc it’s a bit hard to ‘fight like Americans.’ How well would we do without airpower? More importantly, it misses that attrition is what enabled maneuver in UA offensives. Against a well prepared defense, with sufficient density of forces, it wasn’t nearly as successful and casualties were high. This is why Kherson was so difficult compared to Kharkiv/Lyman. UA way of war depends on fires, exploited by maneuver. It is a successor military to the Soviet military, which was arty centric, and in that respect is much closer to the Russian military than our own. You have to work with what has proven successful for your partners. Deep strike, precision, better ISR, can help improve UA performance. My bias is that I’m  wary of seeing a solution that implies trying to turn that military more into us. That said, there’s no easy answer here. The US is not optimized to support a protracted artillery-driven war in Europe. Folks can also judge for themselves, looking at the history how good we are at converting other militaries to ‘fighting more like Americans' https://twitter.com/KofmanMichael/status/1606637882994819072
  6. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to kluge in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Special Mutiny Operation
  7. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to kluge in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Well, that escalated quickly. 
    How hot is Russia gonna get?
  8. Like
    Zatoichi reacted to pintere in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    That will be an interesting read. It would be pretty unimpressive if that’s true…
  9. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to The_Capt in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    I want to build on this and hit a cancerous myth that is hijacking this board - the Ukrainian nuclear backstory myth.  Frankly it belongs to be in the outer darkness with the Bio Black Sites.  I also think it is dangerously skewing the views of some members and feeding into some really unhealthy narratives that are counter-productive and likely going to sour things going forward.
    So looking this up the myth goes like this:
    Back in the mid 90s Ukraine had a big suite of nuclear weapons it inherited from the break up of the Soviet Union.  Rather than hold onto them and being able to provide deterrence to Russian aggression almost 30 years later - Ukraine graciously decided to divest them back to Russia with the brotherly love of all mankind in their hearts.  The US and other nations then promised on a stack of Bibles and pictures of Baby Jesus that should any threat befall Ukraine, they would come riding over the hills like the Riders of Rohan and smote the threat with their mighty hands.  In 2014 - Russia did some shenanigan's in Donbas and Crimea, of which we all know and love, but the West yawned and went "well, are those really threats or is this kind of an internal issue?"  Poor Ukraine struggled on by itself to hold off the rabid Russian Bear until 2022 when it rolled its mangy a$$ over the border.  Ukraine is now calling in that nuclear favour...it is owed and "demands" the US and West honor its obligations and basically give Ukraine whatever it wants, whenever it wants because they gave up the nukes.  Further it is the US and West's fault for this war in the first place because we did not smite Russia back in 2014, so pay up and be quick about it. 
    I get the impulse and given Ukraine's position it makes sense.  However, I would offer that "guilt, shame and demands" may not be the best way to go to guarantor the continued Western support Ukraine is going to need for about a decade after this war, let alone out the back end of next year.  But first lets beat up on that myth:
    1.   Those nukes were nearly useless to Ukraine as deterrence towards Russia without significant cost and risks.  Yes there were a lot of nuclear weapons but they had never been given over to Ukrainian control, they were housed in Ukraine but Russian controlled the whole time.  Further, they were long range ballistic systems which were nearly useless at the tactical ranges Ukraine needed to deter Russian threats:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction.  Ukraine was a fledging ex-Soviet state and was hardly rolling in cash, so the option to re-tool those weapons was severely limited by resources.  Finally, if Ukraine had said "screw you, we are keeping them and re-tooling them" they would have seen heavy sanctions and possible military action from Russia or the West because loose nukes makes everyone really nervous.
    2.  Ukraine was paid to lose the nukes, and freely took the money.  Ukrainian parliament voted overwhelmingly "(301-8)" to take the payoff and get rid of the the things.  This was not arm twisting or coercion, it was opportunism: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/12/05/why-care-about-ukraine-and-the-budapest-memorandum/.  And smart opportunism for that matter because at the time they were more trouble than they were worth.
    3.  The famous "security guarantees".  Promises of security for Ukraine.  Not even close.  These were assurances, which is diplomatic speak for "mayhaps", and Ukraine knew it.  The Budapest Memo is not a security guarantee or collective security agreement, not even close.  https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/12/05/why-care-about-ukraine-and-the-budapest-memorandum/  It is a pretty vague agreement that the big powers would not pound on the small powers if they gave up their nukes.  Also the only security resolution mechanism was the UNSC, which of course was presided over by the big powers. Ukraine is a sovereign state and had its big boy pants on when it signed this thing and knew it was tying its security on the UN Charter - https://www.icanw.org/faq_on_ukraine_and_nuclear_weapons.  Which is great so long as a UNSC nation isn't the one to violate the freakin thing.
    The US did promise to assist Ukraine should their sovereignty be threatened but the details of that assistance were never made concrete.  Frankly, given the assistance post-2014 and now I think the US is living up to its end of the agreement.
    So as far as legal obligation, there is not one, never was. Ukraine took the money and avoided becoming a pariah by trying to become a nuclear power.  The US and West have actually delivered on assistance, to the point that Ukraine is winning this war.  Further there is absolutely zero obligation to assist Ukraine in its reconstruction after this war.  Here we are relying entirely on the good will and self-interests of the West, which is shaky ground on a good day.
    What is true is the moral obligation.  How the EU got itself upside down on this whole Russian energy thing is beyond be, especially after 2014.  Hell Europe is still buying Russian oil: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Europe-Is-Buying-All-The-Russian-Oil-It-Can-Before-Banning-It.html.  So ya, we definitely did not walk the walk on defending democracy or human rights in Ukraine against an obvious threat...we took the payoff.  But before anyone jumps on that one...big.boy.pants.time.  That is how the world works, as crappy and unfair as it is.  We have been doing business with dictators and autocrats all over the world - Saudi Arabia looking at you - and turned a lot of blind eyes in many countries.  Ukraine is getting the platinum response, it is about as good as it gets for an outside nation to be honest and if there is a shift in the political winds it could be cut off pretty quick.
    So "DEMAND" all you like; however, you are not entitled beyond the good will of the West and a self-interest need to ensure the global order holds against Russian aggression. You want to come on this forum and conduct a regular routine of western bashing - Germany is literally on a weekly clock - just know you are doing service to Russian interests when you do.  You want to get emotional, totally understandable but 1) do not create or support mis/dis information in doing so, it is counter to everything we try to do here and 2) hold your own politicians to account when this is over, Ukraine has a obligation to itself and the decisions that led to this are not all on the West, and 3) remember that guilt and shame is not your best play here.
    Let me finish by perhaps expanding on the Western point of view - well US/5EYES as I cannot say I am privy to the entire western bloc.  We are exhausted.  30 years of cat herding and dealing with everyone else's problems has not been rewarding.  Sure we got the power and money, but for the love of gawd the endless whining and biting has really taken a shine off the whole thing.  Terrorism, intra-state wars, insurgencies and now Russia is being a total dick and pushing us to the edge.  There is a sentiment in the western power bases that we are sick of the rest of the world and its bullsh#t.  Tired of spending endless streams of money and people on countries we wouldn't look for on a map, time zones away. 
    Then there is the pandemic: the US lost nearly 1.1 million people, and with excess deaths that number could be over 2 million - https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#datatracker-home. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
    And at the end of all that we get a global economic recession in the making.  So ya, snapping your fingers and waiving a Budapest Memo in our faces is likely to backfire really quickly.  The US is incredibly divided right now, and frankly so is Canada as a result of COVID impacts.  Good will for Ukraine is solid and damned well better hold; however, it is not guaranteed in the least.  So no, you need not grovel or "by your leave here" but maybe just try and remember who is on your side in this thing and sometimes we can disagree and even say "no" without going all millennial.
    This thread stood up for reality when everyone thought we should get ready to bail and run on Ukraine -just this week I heard a retired Canadian 3-star say "there is no way Ukraine can secure victory in this conflict".  We stood against the crazy conspiracy theories on it all being Ukraine's fault.  We stood against mainstream "big money" analysist when they wrote the UA off.  And we should stand for the truth even when we don't like it.  If we can't do that then we should just close up this thread and we can all go to the Reddit threads of our choice and bask in those echo chambers of ignorance.
  10. Like
    Zatoichi reacted to rocketman in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    I'm not sure about the exact details, but the S300 is very inaccurate vs ground targets, not that the ruzzians care if it hits a residential building or a playground
     
  11. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to The_Capt in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    So if anyone wants to take a break from this entire Poland missile thing - 
    https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/war-not-an-excuse-ukraine-rail-boss-keeps-trains-running-1.6155075
    So this is the kind of thing that I look for with respect to metrics.  If you are in the process of invading a nation it is normally a really good idea to directly attack and degrade its ability to defend itself.  Russia has clearly demonstrated the intent and capability, what it appears to lack is expertise, or perhaps the ability to unify that expertise - but my big question since this started is "why"?  The general answer has been a lot of eye-rolling "well Russia is just dumb" but how they are "dumb" is important to my mind - what is their epistemological failure-engine being driven by?
    In this war Russia has expended a LOT of high priced long range missile hardware - https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2022/october/lessons-russian-missile-performance-ukraine.  It is noted that they are likely having very high failure rates; however, this is further compounded by shortfalls in Russian ISR that allows for precise targeting even assuming all the missiles work.  
    But there is more.  We have been bouncing a hypothesis around this forum on how a lot of this war is about Russian identity and its place in the world - that internal political dimension definitely plays a role, at least in Putin's calculus.  Further it is about Russian identity relative to Ukraine - this would be akin to the US invading Canada and losing (again, *ahem 1813*), the collective identity impacts would be severe.  However, we have also suspected that those "identity biased assumptions" have been driving the progress of this war - from the wildly overambitious opening moves, to the re-set of objectives and responses.  In fact it was demonstrated that poor strategic assumptions were a factor for Russia, even back in 2014.
    So what?  Well the complete failure to effectively degrade Ukrainian rail is another potential peice of evidence that support that central hypothesis.  Russia has focused its limited long range fires capability on terror strikes, and now it finally appears to be focusing on civilian power infrastructure to keep the heat and lights out.  The central Russian premise appears to be that Ukrainian collective will is vulnerable and all they need to do is keep hitting it towards failure.  Somehow just one more hard push and the Ukrainian resolve will falter - this is nuts at this point in the war.  I have brought up relative rationality before and Russia clearly is suffering from it.  To the point that it is driving their military targeting enterprise.  Russia should theoretically be able to cripple the Ukrainian rail infrastructure.  Railways do not move, their supporting infrastructure is impossible to hide - one can see it from Google Earth.  If Russia had done that, the ability of Ukraine to conduct two simultaneous operational offensives separated by over 400 kms would have been severely challenged. Ukraine having a rail system able to sustain an "85% success rate" (something I know the UK would find impossible to do right now in peacetime, having just suffered their rail system) should not be possible at this point in a war this large - especially when their opponent has the ability to hit the full range of their nation. 
    So, so what?  This is less about Russian targeting "sucking" - although their missile failure rates definitely point to that, this is about Russian decision making being 1) rigid well past the point of general rationality, and 2) built on flawed assumptions more about them than the reality on the ground.  For those who have been following this thread throughout the war I understand that this is not really news, but it does lead to a series of indicators and warnings we should be watching out for in case Russia actually figures out that its assumptions are completely broken.  However, I also suspect that they are well past the point of return regardless - too many losses and failures along with the continued corrosion of the RA means that even if they did figure it out now, it is likely already too late to change the trajectory of this war. 
    I already have a book title in mind - "A warm, dark, smelly, but safe place - How Russia went to War with Its Head Up its Own Bum."
  12. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to Haiduk in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Well guys, at last I got this!  Symbolically in the day of Kherson liberation ) 
    Thank you @Kinophile for this initiative and enough "family diplomacy" in resolving of sudden obstacle on "last mile" 😀
    Thank you @Battlefront.com - Steve, your "bribe" ) will be worked out ))))
    Thank you all, who donated anonymously
    Thank you, all other, who just have been reading and support our country - first two months were some nervous and psychologically hard, so this my 24/7 "marathone" here was giving me some emotional relief. 
     

  13. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to Rokko in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Russians must be in awe of UKR organizational talent. Not only did they manage to capture a city that voted 99.99% to be annexed by Russia without a fight, they even managed to bring along hundreds of civilian crisis actors to cheer them on while they strut around in the place.
  14. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to LongLeftFlank in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    'Tis but a scratch....
     
     
  15. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to DerKommissar in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Just like RU nats venerate Putin, CA nats venerate Poutine.
  16. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to cyrano01 in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Suspicions of Anglo-Saxon involvement were aroused when the remains of burnt cakes were washed ashore on the coast of Denmark. Amongst other suspects Æthelred is unready for questioning and Edward has already confessed.
  17. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to The_Capt in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Ok, so again, what exactly are you saying.  It appears that it is that Russia has a history of genocide - both cultural and physical?  And that somehow justifies...something?  You seem to be in line with kraze's direction, or are you just FYI-ing?  I can pretty much read between the lines - not a lot of nuance here, so let me respond:
    Ok, I am going to call you out on this because this is just dumb, and frankly a bad direction this thread has been going since you and few others got particularly vocal.
    1.  You are being pointed and vague at the same time - you pull out weird "facts" but place no context nor really any conclusions.  This is the playbook of many extremist organizations - "I am not saying anything racists but here are some statistics about [insert whoever], just saying"
    2.  The "facts" you do pull on are a) pulled from Twitter echo chambers, and b) taken in isolation.  For example, if we are going to reach back into the early 20th century, or 19th century, find me a European power that did not have a history of genocidal behaviour.  By your logic we need to scrub Belgium because of the Congo, Spain for South America, UK, France and the US for North America, and  more than a few other really bad examples of behaviour that Europeans outgrew - including the Ukrainians themselves - https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-1919-pogroms-ukraine-and-poland-one-hundred-years-later.  Cherry picking facts and stringing them to somehow make you argument for you is a long standing tactic by extremist organizations.
    3.  You dance around it but you are in fact setting up conditions and in effect lobbying for a Russian genocide - as a solution to a genocide.  That is beyond a bad idea - it is phenomenally immoral.  I am sure as you are a Twitter expert on genocide you know the pre-conditions really well.
    - Treat an entire society as a homogenous group. "They are all the same, no exceptions"
    - Reinforce narratives that re-frame that society as culpable and non-human - plenty of that going on here.  Main effort here is to assign blame on a society, which you have now frames as homogenous and less than human.
    - Frame a problem that can only be solved through the removal of the now-subhuman, blamed, homogenous society.
    - Pretend to pursue policies that attempt to find way to do this with less violence, largely to reinforce a veneer of legitimacy - "we should deport them all".
    - Find reasons why that won't work "they will still want to invade us in 5-10 years, no matter what"
    - Deductively lead yourselves to the Wannsee Conference solution set - but hey you tried.
    WTF?!
    Firstly none of what you, or anyone that seems to be promoting line this is supported by international or humanitarian law - we can (and should) hold a nation state responsible for warcrimes and illegal invasions.  We do not arrest every Russian who crosses a border after the war and charge them for it.
    Second, this narrative is monumentally stupid to promote, knowing that it will never gain traction - in fact it will do the exact opposite with respect to western support to Ukraine.  It will sour support to Ukraine when they need it most.  Nor does this nonsense reflect what we have been seeing from the Ukrainian government itself.
    Three, it is monumentally immoral because to go through with whatever the hell this "de-something" is, which according to kraze includes the complete destruction of the Russian state - without a safety net, very likely leading to humanitarian crisis - but "who cares:, denying democratic rights to anyone who sniffs of pro-Russian indefinitely, the erasing of a Russian culture (if there is one, oh ya I forgot a sub-strategy of setting up a genocide is to try and pretend that "they are not really a people"), and a punishing the Russian people individually for the rest of time by the sounds of it.  Why? Because the effects of the actions you are promoting are going to negatively impact children who have not even been born yet. It is why we do not do this, the effects ands stakes are that high.
    Oh but Russia did this to Ukraine!!  Yes, they did, or at least tried.  And those directly responsible will be held to account.  Russia as a state must be made to pay reparations.  Further Russia will continue to suffer sanctions and the full extent of legal punishments until the make up for this useless war.  However, nothing supports the full spectrum punishment of the entirety of the Russian people for decades - that is not how this works.
    Do you honestly think that the mainstream western public are going to join you on whatever revenge fantasy is being cooked up here?  One shot of a starving Russian child and all that good will will evaporate, because people in the West want Russia to pay, but not kids who can't vote, nor pay taxes - I will note that kraze or anyone else spewing this nonsense have offered zero ideas on how to avoid Russian children also being held accountable for actions they literally have no say in - oh, wait don't answer that, I have a pretty good idea what you want already.
    I am past asking you guys to stop - I am asking you go somewhere else.  Internet is big and full of other places where you can sell this drivel. 
  18. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to Zeleban in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    By the way...
  19. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to LongLeftFlank in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    I skimmed over all the pages of German bashing/remonstration, but here, let me take a gratuitous shot at the Mother Country.

  20. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to Zeleban in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
  21. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to The_Capt in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    I am going to ignore most of your rant, frankly if anyone were to push that kind of hatred towards any other group they would get tossed off this forum pretty quickly; however, we live in odd times.  
    The Russian military and political system are responsible for this war.  I have no doubt some of the population does as well; however to blame an entire people - who you don’t recognize as a people, yet point to them as an evil homogeneous empire that has been a threat for hundreds of years - down to many who have nothing to do with this or actively opposed it, nor had a say in it because Russia lacks a democratic system, is wrong on so many levels.
    If in your fractured Russian scenario - the one you are promoting, and I notice no denial of you promoting cultural genocide either btw- Russian elderly, women and children show up on on your borders in a humanitarian crisis I expect you and your nation to be better than the a$$holes we are currently supporting your nation against.  If you cannot do that - and for the record I really do not believe you represent your nation - then why are we even bothering with this whole war?  If a post-war Ukraine is suppressing democracy in re-taken regions, actively supporting civil strife in former Russian fragments (which would have to be in your plan), and let potentially thousands of people die because of their ethnicity (oh wait Russian isn’t a thing, so, how will you tell who to keep out) - the what the hell are we defending here?
    If we wanted a brutal regime in Ukraine to ignore human rights and suppress freedoms based on pseudo-ethnicity then why we didn’t we just sit back and let Russia take the damn place?
    I stand with Ukraine in this war, but I do not stand with you on this.  We want a Ukraine with a fully functional democracy for all its citizens, a Ukraine that recognizes and operates under international law and respects human rights, regardless of who is suffering.  That is the Ukraine that gets into NATO/EU - with Hungarian arm twisting if need be.  That is the Ukraine we invest hundreds of billions in reconstruction. That is the Ukraine we support and enforce Russian accountability for.
    Not whatever nightmare you are selling here.
  22. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to The_Capt in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Gawd, I hate when that happens.
    Ok, that is a major unsupported leap of logic, and frankly we are get way too many of these in the last 50 pages - at some point this is going to devolve this venture into the same rhetorical and propaganda spaces we see all over the internet, and at that point I will be lobbying to close the thread down because it is no longer keeping people informed, it will have become a dogmatic platform.
    If Russia employs battlefield nuclear weapons, there will be a response, there must be.  However, let's say hypothetically that the West backs down and says "ok, well now it is getting real - let's negotiate an endstate".  Yes, it is not a good thing for the future risk the employment of nuclear weapons may have on imperialist expansion.  Russia will likely try the same game elsewhere; however what is missing between the Baltic nations and Ukraine is certainty. 
    If Russia annexes, invades or attacks a Baltic nation, and IF that nation declares an article 5 then Russia is not getting handsie on some side hustle, it is declaring war on NATO.  "Oh, sure but who says NATO will actually do anything about it?" some say cynically - well 1) NATO nations sure as hell have done something about Ukraine and 2) NATO is too big to fail, and 3) if NATO does fail - and don't take this too personally - but we individually won't give two figs what happens in Baltics or the entirety of Eastern Europe, and even more bluntly in North America, we might not even really care too much about all of Europe anymore - at least as far as collective defence goes.
    1) You know, a simple "thank you for having our backs" would go a long way once and awhile.  Instead we get "well what have you done for me lately" and "what do you mean you are not willing to risk nuclear escalation for Ukraine?!  How dare you!!"  I am very grateful that those voices are in the minority.  NATO has already committed to the defence of Ukraine, the question is how far will that will last in a nuclear exchange...good question, but I suspect it isn't to drop everything and declare unconditional surrender.  But we are not likely to be interested in a bottomless pit of cost and risk either.  And before anyone crawls on a morality high horse - take a long look at Africa and the Middle East, we have and will let places burn to the ground outside of our orbit/key interests or if risk/cost gets too high - "change the channel Marge."
    2) In NATO and out of NATO is a very significant different state - kinda why we make such a big deal about entry.  By definition NATO is a collective defensive alliance, supported by a very complex and political treaty.  NATO is, in effect, the military power of the western world and the hard power that backs up the western rules-based order.  Without it, that order starts to unravel.  If Russia pushes the West into "well let us do what we want, and NATO collapses" situation, we are living in the End Times.  Russia, as immensely stupid as they have been, has yet to try and back the West into a corner, even though they themselves are being rammed into one.  Why?  Because the West would crush Russia beyond recognition to protect itself...and NATO is central to that equation.  I expect that NATO would accept nuclear exchange losses, leaving Russia a radioactive wasteland for a few centuries, before it is going to allow itself to fall apart through direct force.  Oddly enough,  Putin was on the right track to actually defeat NATO by continuing to support narratives that "NATO was irrelevant" - NATO could have evolved into something less than it is now, that would have given Russia more....wait for it...options space.  But then they did this useless war and pushed NATO in the exact opposite direction.  Maybe Russia needs NATO to be big and strong and scary so that it can hold itself together, but they even have to be smart enough to realize...they just made NATO big strong and scary.
    3) If NATO collapses under direct pressure.  The whole edifice falls apart.  Then, and try not to be too hurt, we got much bigger problems than Ukraine, the Baltics or Russia to worry about.  We would likely see a series of new collective defensive bodies arise from the ashes, and a fair number of them can't even find Ukraine or the Baltics on the map.  The EU might hold together militarily but Europe has a bit of shaky history in that regard.  I suspect it may fall back on internal alignment, most of which won't care what happens in the Baltics.  The bigger players will likely try to hold it together, 5 EYES+ for example but even then, the most liberal humanist nations are going to start to contract back to their own borders and interests.  This will have economic repercussions as we no longer have unified collective military power to secure globalization. I expect China will be invading Taiwan the following Tues - at which point all of this Eastern Europe/Russia noise is going to fade to background while we hit a singularity decision point in Asia. 
    So as bluntly as I can - The Baltics are more important to NATO and the West because  they are in NATO under the collective defence mechanism that affords.  We will take far fewer risks or BS from Russia in these countries because  they are within that framework.  I suspect that there are more than a few politicians that are quietly thanking whatever gods they pray to that Ukraine is not in NATO right now because we would not even have the option to pull back. 
    That said, the issue of having Ukraine in NATO is likely largely settled at this point, so once this war is over, it will also come under that collective protection - for the love of god, just take the freakin win!  Russia nuclear deterrence is working in this war, that is why we are not Shock and Awing Moscow, Bagdad Style.  In this game of chicken Ukraine may lose - I personally do not think that is the most probable outcome but, dare we admit it and not get yelled at for 15 pages - it is a possibility.
    Lastly, I am going to put out the question of "what are we doing here?"  On this thread?  If we are continuing the collective and distributed objective analysis and assessment of this war as it unfolds, then let's do that.  I think we are safe to say that we all agree Russia's war is illegal and immoral and they deserve everything they are getting.  However, if this is turning into a maximalist Pro-Ukrainian propaganda machine, I am out - lock it down and people can go elsewhere for their information.
  23. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to Cederic in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
  24. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to Letter from Prague in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    Another proof that this is fake: the villagers were also already equipped with military-grade weapons - you can clearly see several tractors at the end of the video.
  25. Upvote
    Zatoichi reacted to Taranis in How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?   
    The problem is that there are fewer washing machines when you go around a city 🤔
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