kevinkin

That's the point. You get it. We can't let evil regimes have a place in the world order merely because they threaten mass destruction. At some point a confrontation has to take place or evil will run roughshod across the planet.

This is the first time a nuclear nation, which has become weak in comparison to the the US, is hiding behind the threat of using WMDs to conquer its neighbor. During the cold war, America and the USSR never got to the point we are now. For example, the west ceded Czechoslovakia and had a bunch of relatively low level conflicts with the Soviets across the globe. Never with tens of thousands killed in a short time as we have today. What we face is different. It is only because of its nuclear weapons Russian is in the fight. Period. That's why I call it blackmail. Russian in 2023 is not the USSR in 1970. The possession of a single nuke gives a nation more power than it would naturally have without one. We can't let this become a trend into the future or there is little future. We also can't let one nation shoulder all the burden fighting on the ground because we don't have the stomach to call Russia's bluff. This a teachable moment. It was inevitable once the wall fell and Ukraine gave up it's nukes. If there was ever a time to confront Russia it's now. By asking who’s afraid of escalation I am merely trying to get a sense of what aggressive actions the west can take to help Ukraine without causing Russia to go nuke. I think the west is nowhere near that red line. And Ukrainians are suffering because of the west’s inaction.

By defending Ukraine our material is being sent to their defense and sending Russians to their graves. All afraid of nuclear war raise your hands. That is really what this comes down to. If you are afraid, you just threw Ukraine under the bus. But don't forget Ukrainian men are no choir boys. Not that dissimilar to the the Russians they fight. It's a gangster war. Plain and simple. It's just we have a little more pull on and favor for Ukraine. Don't get me started. I am friends of Russians, Ukrainians and those from Belarus. All of them just want to live in Peace and the rigid NATO/West/Ukraine stance is getting in the way. All want to sell what had in Ukraine and move to America. Go figure. Someone in this thread envisioned a wheel in Kiev. What a symbolic target that would be. Meanwhile the bread basket for much of the world will be combat zone for years. BTW does anyone have confidence in the US Joints Chiefs of Staff? They seem so rigid in thought hiding behind FM - xyz or FM - what ever serves your purpose other than winning.

Dude, get a grip. I never mentioned NATO, I mentioned the west. They are not the same. The US can do what is in it's interest outside of NATO just like all the other members. The west is at war with Russia damn it. Stop squirreling the words all over the place. PS: Don't let anyone know. Please. Please Please. A US munition just killed and or wounded a dozen Russians and they are crying for the mothers as we speak.

OK you win, it's mud wrestling. Silly us.

That's the point. Why donate equipment to Ukraine at levels just enough to sustain a war whereby they succumb to a slow death? It's like keeping a body on life support. Cruel. Either Ukraine is going to be part of the western world or not. Who really is afraid of nuclear escalation anyway? I am not. The world could have gone that road many times before. I would kill the cornered rat Russian while the time is actually perfect. Not even China would care if Putin and his unpredictable gangsters went bye bye.

No, the west's proxy is being held out to dry having to fight a war without the resources to obtain their stated goals and the goals of stuff shirts in the western capitals. sumfink like that anyway.

The more modern concept of combined arms assumes you don't fight war with two arms tied behind your back. In the current case, air and naval. Unless leadership is very dim and is only focused on achieving their war aims via a costly ground war.

Give us a break.

A prime target for a/c in any rendition of of deep battle. Actually they are very vulnerable.

What the heck going on now? Seriously, I understand your point and fears of escalation. I just believe a war of the scale we are fighting can't be nuanced if the end result is something other than an ugly stalemate where Ukraine struggles to recover for years. Our so called leaders have to fess up and tell the world what their real goals are. Their actions do not support the stated objective that Ukraine will re-take its stolen lands. Something else is going on and it's as cold as a witch's tit.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66267136 Ukraine's Zelensky sacks ambassador to UK Prystaiko after criticism

Few days old: https://www.businessinsider.com/minefields-force-ukraine-to-change-counteroffensive-strategy-russia-2023-7 Ukraine has been forced to change its counteroffensive strategy after repeatedly coming up against dense Russian minefields, a report says. Ukrainian units are leaving behind the battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles donated by Western allies and advancing slowly on foot, The Washington Post reported. "You can no longer do anything with just a tank with some armor because the minefield is too deep, and sooner or later, it will stop, and then it will be destroyed by concentrated fire," Ukraine's commander-in-chief General Valery Zaluzhny told The Post. Russian forces also continue to drop more mines from the air onto areas that Ukrainians have cleared, further complicating Ukraine's clearance efforts. No fly zone? What a freaking thought? Shaping operations? Yep, western media is shaping the public so they understand the going will be slow if not impossible without more direct NATO involvement. UA soldiers are now attacking dense minefields without US armor protection. The media shaping ops are more effective than Ukraine's have been. Which might not be a bad thing in the end. What's the old saying "you just can't throw money at the problem" and go to Ocean City for the weekend.

What have you been missing since February 2022? Did a lot of peace break out? No. The west just keeps suppling the UA the means to turn Russian troops into rat food. I little naval action would be kids play. But you are right. It's not happening - for all the wrong reasons.

They control Crimea and a chunk of Ukraine to the north. They control the defenses for both for the foreseeable future. Russia in the present is getting away with a lot. No war crime trials, commercial flights, vacations, plenty of stuff for those that play by the rules while sending their poor youth to the front. Status quo for now. Happy Happy. And grandmother China is there if all else fails. Russia has already been defeated geostrategically. That's conventional wisdom. They are facing new NATO members, they are under sanctions and otherwise in internal disarray. Good for the west. But they still hold non-negotiable land: Bad for Ukraine. How about a NATO no-fly zone over Ukrainian territory? No stomach for that. Well consider NATO donations have already killed Russians without which those troops would still be in the fight. BTW, there never seems to be a discussion of Ukraine as a nation into the future. That is the entire point. If Ukraine evaporates as a nation and free society due to a prolonged war of attrition, what is this fight all about? Cool youtube videos and twitter posts? Putin is punting the ball to West. See what you can do. How about taking that ball and running with it?

My folks hedged their bets and had life insurance on us until 21. If the salesman only knew about the Molotov cocktails and bicycle jump over the Swimming River, I am sure the premiums would have been outrageous.

Anything to throw Putin off and make his messy situation more complicated. He and Russia could be falling into a comfortable new normal post "coup". Time for a brush back pitch.

I doesn't matter, St Pete was just thrown out there. But do something western capitals. Your weapons have already killed Russians. Kick it up a notch and grow some initiative. The west can't fight with its navy nor air force. They are so tied up Houdini couldn't figure this one out. They are playing right into whatever strength Russian has - ground forces. Putin's nuclear bluster has to be challenged. Better to do it now rather than kicking the can down the road for the next gen to figure out under even worse circumstances.

Mining the Black Sea: https://news.usni.org/2023/07/19/russia-says-all-ships-in-the-black-sea-heading-to-ukraine-are-potential-carriers-of-military-cargo Up to 10 percent of the world’s grain is produced in Ukraine. The country serves as the bread basket for much of the Middle East and North Africa “The question is how much would a nation want to get involved? You know, we just deployed a destroyer, and F-35s and F-16s to protect merchant ships coming out of the Straits of Hormuz by Iranian attacks,” Mercogliano said. “Yet we seem like we’re not going to do the same for ships in the Black Sea.” I do think grain will get through in the end as it did before. But how about mining the approaches to St. Petersburg as a bargaining chip in the interim? The west has to establish the initiative somewhere, anywhere. Seems like the west has been reacting to Russia rather than the other way around. Jul 19, 2023 - Press ISW Russian forces launched an extensive missile and drone attack against port and grain infrastructure in southern Ukraine on July 19 likely to further emphasize Russia’s objections to the renewal of the Black Sea grain deal and hinder Ukraine’s ability to export grain. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted strikes using 16 Kalibr sea-based cruise missiles, eight Kh-22 anti-ship missiles, six Onyx cruise missiles, one Kh-59 guided air missile, and 32 Iranian-made Shahed drones. Ukrainian military officials reported that Russian forces predominantly targeted civilian and military infrastructure in Odesa Oblast with Kh-22 and Onyx missiles and that Ukrainian forces shot down 37 air targets including 13 Kalibrs, one Kh-59 missile, and 23 Shaheds. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Russian forces deliberately targeted the infrastructure necessary for executing the Black Sea grain deal in Odesa, Zhytomyr, and other oblasts. The Ukrainian Southern Operational Command reported that Russian forces struck grain and oil terminals and damaged tanks and loading equipment. Ukrainian Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Mykola Solskyi reported that Russian strikes destroyed 60,000 tons of grain in the Chornomorsk port in Odesa Oblast on the night of July 19. The Southern Operational Command added that Russian strikes also targeted coastal areas in Mykolaiv Oblast and some infrastructure in Kherson City. Spokesperson of the Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Captain of the First Rank Nataliya Humenyuk stated that the Russian July 19 strikes “happened virtually simultaneously,” and that Russian forces likely attempted to overwhelm the Ukrainian air defense systems. Ukrainian Air Forces Spokesperson Colonel Yuriy Ihnat stated that this attack was the most intense missile and drone attack on Odesa Oblast since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Which is more strategically significant, the Kerch bridge or the grain exports?

Anyone rushing out to see Oppenheimer this weekend? I am not a big movie goer. But this has been getting good previews especially in IMAX. So it looks like next week for me. I heard the thing really goes boom - no feedstock nor livestock harmed during the filming. It would make for an interesting observational project to see who goes into the Oppenheimer theater and who goes to see Barb*e.

Both. But the latter should be more efficacious than a show of force. The west has almost met its geostrategic goals with NATO expanding and Russia is in disarray economically and socially. So the west appears to be in this thing not to lose rather than for Ukraine to win back its borders. I am not sure who they would like to break first - Russia or Ukraine? Either way that gets the west to negotiations which is their true aim anyway. But in the meantime the Ukraine is being led on by dribs and drabs of assistance for fear of actually pissing Putin off. So the heroes in Ukraine are fighting for the cowards in the west's capitols. We can't let nuclear blackmail stand. Or if we can't stomach that, we shouldn't stand by and let its use destroy a smaller country through conventional attrition.

Ukraine has no choice. The point is that the west does. If the UA relies on arty and that is in short supply, the west has to innovate to try to show the public (voters) that the offensive is working and the UA soldier is not being held out to dry. You and I understand how difficult their task is. But the public's attention is short and they generally want results now. Every few weeks there is another aid package. It's never a good idea to normalize war especially a horrific one. It can be self defeating.

I am almost getting tired reading about this: https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/18/politics/ukraine-critical-ammo-shortage-us-nato-grapple/index.html But: Wallace said that NATO is realizing the importance of not allowing certain crucial supply chains to fall dormant. “All of us have had to struggle stimulating our supply chains, some of which went to sleep,” he told CNN. He added that “as an alliance, we can’t just take for granted” the idea that another country will step in to fill the gap, like the US did with cluster munitions. “What is clear is that we don’t have in our inventories at the moment the necessary munitions to shut down airfields and break through lines, like we might have done in the old days,” Wallace said. “If you can’t use cluster munitions, because we’ve all quite rightly signed this treaty [banning them], you need to innovate and come up with something else.” Come on now. Where did the inventories go? Live fire exercises? Or where they put down for old age?

Maybe the cook could get some cyanide from a gold mine and slip it into Vlad's rhino burger. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66238766

They don't have to be defended directly however. As long as it remains costly to demine avenues of advance or avenues of advance are channeled, theoretically the main defense can come via counterattacking any forces that make it through the minefields. These might just come through in drib and drabs and defeated piecemeal. The idea of minefields is economy of force. The UA knows this flexible defense of layered positions is a possible tactic. So they won't fall into the trap. Could this RA troop movement be related to September elections? I don't think the RA will attack west with them. But they could be positioned to attack south to defend those positions indirectly if a breakthrough occurs. Of course that would require some minimum of operational competency.