Butschi

Ok, well first off your point about not funding Russian propaganda is absolutely correct. No argument there.
But in this particular case we have not actually established that the film was indeed Russian propaganda (without seeing it), or was it honest freedom of expression. Even the Ukrainian diplomat admitted to not seeing the film. Does this film somehow assist Russia in achieving its military goals? Based on what I can find the answer is, "no". It is an anti-war film that portrays the disillusionment and horrid conditions Russian troops are living under...that is not going to help Putin in anyway shape or form. Just because it does not portray every Russian soldier as an inhuman monster does not play into Russia's hand.
As to "Canada helping Russia," again, here we go with leaps of opinion being sold as logical argument. This belongs right next to "NATO warplanes escorting Russian drones" it is outright misinformation. Without digging into the baffling Canadian Arts funding schemes too far, in this country the federal government sets aside piles of money to promote Canadian art (because few others will). Those pools get dolled out to the provinces and national organization. The provinces and organizations all do up nice annual reports showing how well they spent that money, all in line with federal policies.
At the provincial level, they do the same thing. Toss money out to producers and organizations who then are responsible to push onto the artists. Everyone takes a cut on the way down (sigh) but the money is eventually handed out to artists who all apply for these grants through various schemes.
So one of those producers TVO in Ontario dolled out some cash to the film maker. Who produced this film, which may or may not be pro-Russian. Taking that and turning into "Canadian PM cuts federal cheque to support Russia" is exactly what I am talking about as a problem on this thread. And it is getting worse not better. In fact, doing what you, and Kraft, and others, are doing is essentially an form of information operation in its own right.
The problem as I see it, is that there is actually very little new information on this war right now. So people are making up their own from the bits we see. People are promoting positions, some honorable others less so. But we are very light on facts. Worse, some of you are attacking anyone who points this out.
Yesterday, two posters made a run at me because I offered an opinion that the recent move by the US to authorize deep strikes into Russia was a deliberate escalation, in line with the larger US strategy to date. The yips and howls that I was pulling this out of thin air filled the halls. When in fact, 1) I have said this exact same statement repeatedly, with citations, on this same thread going back hundreds of pages, and 2) then provided more citation and mainstream assessment to back up the opinion. So, yes, I offered an opinion. It was informed and supported. Readers can take it or leave it.
In this case, you have offered an assessment of a situation. I disagree with some of it, and have posted citations to back that up. Is it possible that the bureaucratic morass of Canadian government funding screwed up, absolutely. Is this a deliberate supporting of Russia in this war by Canada? No, that is an outright falsehood and needs to be called out.  

Hold the phone now. So are movies like this Ukrainian propaganda that we should not trust either:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_on_Fire:_Ukraine's_Fight_for_Freedom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_Days_in_Mariupol
We are well aware of Russian information operations - I am convinced we have seen it right here on this thread. But not every film that does not portray Russian as inhuman monsters is “pro-Russian”. We also have this thing called freedom of speech, a messy but important concept, wherein people are free to express opinions. This is not a “weakness” it is in fact a strength and critical in a functioning democracy. 

So from what I can tell it portrays some soldiers doing it for money amongst other reasons. The film states specifically that they went forward without permission from the Russian MoD. But your points on control do ring true. On the other hand given the chaos in the RA…?
However, until we get someone who has seen the film the rest is pretty much highly charged opinion. 

The only thing I have to disagree with is this constant acting as though the US are the only grown up in the room and have to manage the squabbling or fearful children. It is easy to scoff at the fear of others when you are far away on a different continent and armed to the teeth with nuked and not next door neighbor with Russia (and no, Alaska doesn't count! 🙂).

Well first off anyone tossing Latin phrases around as window dressing to show us all how very smart they are will most definitely remain on my ignore list.
This is pretty much it. There is no master schedule, that would assume there some sort of deterministic framework here. Escalation is conditions based and a form of negotiation. We have posters on this thread who continue to call for rapid, bordering on uncontrolled, escalation every time Russia violates a norm. They then claim the West is cowardly, complacent and/or negligent in its response. This is not true.
In reality the US and West have managed the escalations in this war about as well as can be expected. This is an extremely complex and volatile strategic situation. We have a regional partner we are supporting in an existential war for them, while being a proxy war to re-exert western rules based order. At the same time Putin seems intent on playing chicken with his entire nation on a brutal quagmire war that may very well destroy it. Repeatedly, the US and West have tried to shape things to ensure Russia that there are consequences on the board while also leaving off-ramps for them to find another way out. While never perfect this effort has been well played as we have seen Russian red lines slowly pushed back - thought experiment: how do we think things would have gone down if the US was supporting ATACMs strikes directly into Russia in 2022?
Now as to the clever Latin fluent children in the back - so what are the metrics to demonstrate that escalation has been a failure? Or are we in some post-fact world where nothing is true? We can safely remain critical of everything and never be wrong, which I am betting is the real aim here. The simpler way to describe their point without sounding like a second year philosophy major is causation versus correlation. So my position is that this latest escalation is a direct result of a conditions based consequence of a Russian action - the Iranian short range ballistic missiles is what my news is saying this morning:
Of course we have no direct evidence of this until governments admit it. But I think that until a better theory comes along this one is workable. That is causation, not correlation, and it appears deliberate and measured.
So the real question here is: is the Western strategy working? Well the criteria are stiff on this one. On one hand this war has not suffered uncontrollable escalation despite the conditions for this to happen. At the same time the US/West have escalated and the pressure on Russia has increased. On the other hand, this war has not ended. Russia has not taken an off ramp and continues to hammer on Ukraine. While not the primary objective of western escalation strategy, it is an overarching objective this approach supports. So, as normal in these things, all we know right now is that we are in a messy middle. We have not driven off a cliff but are still in the mess. Strategy is warfare is almost never good and bad, it is bad and worse. The US/Western strategy still lives in bad but has avoided worse. That is irrefutable as of today in that this war has not blown out of control. Could it have been better? Probably/maybe but this is very hard to determine from the outside without the full suite of information available.
So this latest move fits the pattern of deliberate escalation management strategy conducted by the US/West pretty much from the beginning. It will always be “too little too late” for some but in the end it is better than “worse”. And while I know it has become au fait [oh my, this Capt fella must be pretty smart because he knows other language terms too] that to worry about uncontrollable escalation with an unstable nuclear power is “sooo Boomer” - complete with teenage eye rolls - now checking cellphone to fill hole in soul. The reality is that it is a hard factor. It is in fact built into the revised post-WW2 nature of warfare. And no amount of post-modern rationalization is going to change it. The old red gods are back in the driver seat on this one. And from history (and my childhood) it is best to tread carefully when this happens.
 
 

We are all a bit testy today (me too), how come?

That reminds me of a statistic I heard a while back. Apparently around 80% of people believe they are above average drivers. Probably a good figure to keep in your back pocket if you ever need an example of cognitive bias.

I think we are talking about different things here. I (and I think Reuters, too) am talking about what an army may or may not do according to the laws of the nation it belongs to. Especially during peace time there are usually a lot of restrictions placed upon an army. In Germany, e g. the Bundeswehr was forbidden to even help out during natural disasters - Helmut Schmidt famously broke the law when he ordered Bundeswehr helicopters to help during a great flood in Hamburg. The law was changed later. The Bundeswehr is still not allowed to do be used in most other capacities, like policing. I think the situation is similar in the US?
So what I'm saying is of course not that Romania as a nation is not allowed to defend itself but that the Romanian, air force or army, by Romanian law, might not be allowed to shoot down drones of a nation Romania is not at war with. At least that is what the Reuters article seems to suggest.
Yes, I agree that would be kind of weird but weirder laws exist and what the hell do I know about Romanian laws? EDIT: I would guess that things look different when/if said drone is clearly identified as a threat. Huh, don't we have an expert on the Romanian legal system here? We usually have experts for everything. 🙂

Full moon? 
Honestly this thread is great, when it works. I have been watching it get slowly hijacked over time. Special interest, single issue and basically a bunch of old men flexing their opinions like they come from the word of God.
I get it. I am an old man too, and I definitely have opinions. But people are not even doing the basics of backing them up with facts. "Wot I think" is happening far too much. Worse it is hijacking every observation about this war.
"A thing happens"
- Tank nuts - "ah ha, see tanks."
- Angry Western shamers/bashers - "it is all the US/Europes/NATOs fault! Cowards!"
- Fanbois - "It is all a clever Ukrainian ploy. Ukraine is never wrong. Ukraine should be given nukes."
- Russian hating zealots - "See, this is why we need to exterminate all Russians!"
- Maga drivebys - "It is all Biden's fault!! Global elitists!"
- Contrarians - "Ukraine will never win this war...see!"
I am probably missing a few. I know my patience is getting lite. Maybe time for a break.
 

Just going to pick this one. Because they were not honest questions!! You were grandstanding to make your point that the West is idle, weak and not standing up to anyone. You did not genuinely ask a question, you rhetorically used one to make a statement...the same statement you have been making for months. And now you are playing the crippled dove in some weird attempt to say "I was only asking"
So drones along the Black Sea and Modovian border...so freakin what? You did not answer any of the other points. Where did those F16 come from? How much lead time did they have...not muhc as we are talking right by the border. 
"This much praised escalation management:
Nato escorting russian kamikaze drones for 100km through Romanian airspace after being informed of their presence by Ukrainian officials.
The drones then went on to explode in Odessa. "
This is an outright lie. You can try and play the "language barrier" all day long. Escort - even in the police sense - implies that Romania had control of those dumped them on Odessa. You bring this up to deride NATO escalation management. At least have the stones to own it.
The topper and frankly puts you in the same shed with John Kettler. So there is a Western conspiracy to keep this war going to "grind Russia down" and not actually achieve a level of victory for Ukraine?
Ok, beyond your overinflated highly uniformed opinion...what possible proof do you have of this. Wait...I know...NATO escorted Russian drones to Odessa...of course.
So here is what we do. I am going to put you onto an ignore list with kraze. You feel free to do the same with me. Then you can spin away at your hearts content.

This is Visegrad so I had to double check and unfortunately this looks like a misrepresentation. McCaul is part of a group that has just called on the Biden administration to allow ATACM strikes inside Russia ( https://armedservices.house.gov/news/press-releases/rogers-mccaul-turner-kean-calvert-hudson-call-biden-harris-administration-lift ) but this does not mean that a decision has been made or that McCaul even has the authority to make such an announcement prior to Blinken going to Kyiv.
Biden is meeting Starmer, the UK PM, on the 13th to discuss this subject so it would also be surprising to make such an announcement before then ( https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/09/10/7474376/ ).

I knew when I hit send I should have edited out the word "quibble" (but it's a wonderful word, on par with brabble).
 

One (or two) things on the Dutch getting tanks.
The tanks were budgetted, not ordered. and yes in politics thats a huge difference. 
the Dutch new government was in a hurry to make a new budget. They were just installed with a half populist rookie-cabinet that doesnt need questions and have to show strength and security. So... What to budget?
- drones raises 1000 questions. 
which drones, what for, which producer, who is gonna fly them, where? will it be in my backyard? how to maintain and to store, where do they train? with explosives? so we need a new regiment is on existing teams? there is a personel shortage. etc. 
Artillery was the last bill and it didnt reach the newspapers. 
Marine had just been ordered (with a big fuzz), and F35 is already implemented. 
so yea Tanks and patriots are the easy budgeting. NL now leases the tanks from Germany, owning them represent raise any difficulties and is budgetary handy because it replaces the already budgetted leasing costs. All the supporting, training, maintenance etc is already in place. Strong gesture, no questions, handy budgetting. 
thats politics. 
Now i wonder what will be really on the order bill. Tanks or something that can be sold to the knowless mass (media) as a tank (see discussion around page 2000 :p) for sure. But if the army is smart they will decrease it and fit in 20% of the budget with extra ammunition, drones, and other needs -under the radar-.
 
 
 

Ok then let's actually have a talk about the future of armor then. We tried this before and it always devolved to pre-conclusions and single point advocation, not open eyes analysis.
We have not been able to have an actual discussion on the subject because for a few they already have the answer and will go to extreme lengths to try and "prove" it.
To use actual military force development principles a tank is nothing more than a vehicle that supports a military capability. The tank is not the capability in itself. As has been said, an exhausting number of times, the capability is mobile protected firepower. That capability supports the larger military effect of manoeuvre (see all the chatter on tempo and momentum). Which itself supports the broader operational doctrine of Manoeuvre Warfare within military strategies of Annihilation through Dislocation.
A tank is nothing more than an armored carrier for projected kinetic and chemical energy. The entire thing exist s around the gun. And the gun only exists to fire the ammunition. Ammunition that can be rapidly positioned around the battlefield, delivered with extremely high precision at the 3km range with high levels of protection...that is it.
So what? Well the tank is a tool looking for a job. A job it did very well in the past but signs are not good that it can continue to do so. If all we want to do is move strike rapidly around the battlefield with high precision, we have emerging systems and munitions that can do that better than the tank. Let's take a look:
- Drones:
Mobility: Drones are more mobile than a tank - they can fly and don't weigh 40-60 tons. But they lack the range. Keep putting gas in and do maintenance, and a tank can move for thousands of km. Drones are offsetting by being very light, so they can be carried those hundreds of kms  on a motorcycle, and still do the last 10-15kms of killing quite well. Much like a tank carries the gun for the same reason.
Lethality: Drones are not limited by LOS - that is a very big problem with the tank. If someone can produce a cheap guided tank munition that can fire NLOS and hit with high precision, we could be back in business. But then again we already have artillery guns that can do this. Drones cannot do sabot and they have limitations on weight for carrying HEAT rounds. But explosive yields are increasing while weight is getting lower. That and it takes very little weight for chemical energy on a tank to do serious damage. Unless the tank is covered in so much armor that its mobility suffers. So tanks rule the direct fire LOS, around 3kms range space. Problem is that while this space still matters in combat, it is mattering a lot less. Ranges are growing, a trend that has been happening for decades. Precision is growing due to cheap, light processing power. Going to get worse with AI. So, in effect, drones have taken those tank energies and spread them all over the battlefield to greater ranges, precision and effect than what the tank can deliver.
Survivability. Tanks are armored beasts designed to resist frag, small arms, AT and even other tanks (aspect specific). Drones are flimsy little things, prone to EW and AD pushback...but. Drones have offset survivability by disaggregating. A single drone is not going to survive for long, a dozen, two dozen? Further, the drones we are seeing; the ones that basically kept Ukraine in the game last winter, are all commercial off-the-shelf models. They proved that with enough of them one can stop mechanized manoeuvre cold. Their survivability equation is dispersion, very low target profile and capacity - the exact opposite of the tank.
So what? We have in drones off-set survivability, synthetic mass and lethality-thru-precision. Unless one is a drooling tank fanboi, the real question that needs to be asked is "ok, but how much can we trust all this?" Well here we have to look at the entire system. Like the tank, drones are a tool. Other systems in the toolbox are evolving as well. Artillery, ATGMs and infantry. The introduction of ubiquitous, persistent integrated ISR - all being enabled more and more by AI has changed the game for many of these systems. We have an emerging combat arm for Denial/Defensive primacy (add mines and wait one hour). This is looking as lethal as infantry+ MGs+ fast firing artillery+ communications wire was in WW1.
So this new system, along with our new friends in AD (also highly impacted by C4ISR), are creating enormous denial pressure. The costs of doing anything forward are extremely high compared to the costs of that denial. The difference between this and full defensive primacy is force ratios. We do not know if sufficient force ratios for offence could overcome the denial we are seeing. Why? Because neither side is willing to try it. Why? Because it looks like any conventional mass gets picked up and lit up far to easily. So both sides are playing penny-packeting, incremental attrition warfare. 
Finally, because I am so tired of the weak @ss arguments coming from some corners, how about I make the argument for what will need to happen in order to put tanks back in the game? It is not the drones, it is the C4ISR. Make an opponent deaf, dumb and blind - the laws of warfare get contained into local spaces. An ATGM or drone operator without a feed to broader ISR, or the ability to communicate what it is seeing, is in a small box a few kms a side. If a side can establish C4ISR superiority, while denying it to an opponent, they can negate the denial pressures and reestablish conditions for conventional manoeuvre. I have been writing this since early on:
Mass beats isolation, precision beats mass, massed precision beats everything.  If you want traditional conventional mass to work...create isolation and deny precision.
Ok, now to the problem. Easy to say, hard to do...maybe impossible. Cyber has not turned out to be the dark angel we though it would be. EW only goes so far. There are really no capabilities that can counter an opponents C4ISR beyond strike. And the problem here is that ISR is 1) everywhere (thank you internet of freakin things) and 2) has insane ranges. The UA looks like they solved for ISR at Kursk, but it may have just been because the RA did have any there. C4ISR denial and superiority in a modern context are a real problem. Hell, we had our hands full with terrorist, let alone Russia.
So you see the problem is much larger than freakin tanks. In order to sustain advantage we have much larger problems than a lone steel box that costs a lot, and is a major logistical burden for what we can get out of it in this environment. The fate of tanks is a symptom, not a cause of the shifts we are seeing in this war.
Now, will these extend to the next one? That is a very good question.

Say what? I'm fairly certain that most in Europe still remember George W. Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney and the lies we were served about WMDs. Or the fake testimony about newborn babies being killed in Kuwait. Oh and Vietnam was absolutely everyones darling over here. Maybe I'm living in a bubble but I don't know anyone who thinks that all of that happened for the benefit of the locals.
Now, I am convinced that many US soldiers fought in those wars for all the right reasons. But that is a different topic.

Hey guys, 
  All I can say right now is that we are at the top of the CMx2 queue...in fact we are the top of the CMx2 work pile. We will see if we can make it for this year, but we are talking weeks/months, not years.

Yeah, it's sad that folks actually still believe such things given the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, as the posts above mention.  Cheney et al knew they were lying about WMDs, knew they were conflating Iraq w 9-11 (no connection at all), and were fine selling those lies so they could get their war and get their hands on all that juicy oil and remake the middle east into the fantasy they carried around in their heads.  Turned out great though, right? Didn't it?  Was totally worth it?  

Is this what they teach in high schools these days?

Really? Well then the US is the lone exception to the rule - and Empire with a Heart of Gold. Cold hearted calculus centred on self interest is always at the heart of policy. We could unpack Vietnam but I disagree that US involvement, risk and continual bleeding was out of an altruistic love of the Vietnamese people.
The US and West already walked away from one nation after great expense and promises: Afghanistan. We can just as easily take the eye off the ball for Ukraine. The fact the US has a presidential candidate who is likely to do it - again through cold calculus of self-interest kinda proves my point.
This is not to discount the influence of emotion and will of the American people but let’s not kid ourselves here. And remember you are talking to someone who has watched our benevolent master turn on us, more than once - despite the warm regards of our neighbours and in many cases family to the south.

Proxy War!! If one thing every nation on the planet should know by now - never expect to be a full partner a western backed proxy war. Ukraine has influence but it is in a big ol box. No one in DC, London or Brussels is invested in Ukraine for any love of that freedom loving nation. They are invested because Russia decided to “buck the system” in invading the place. The big decisions are largely out of Ukraine’s hands…and they know it. 

If anything this should give people more respect for what the Ukrainian government has had to do to keep this thing going and actually influence it. Meanwhile knowing that they are caught as plaything between great power agendas.
Western agendas have not “folded” due to Ukrainian influence - that is not how things work. They have been influenced by Russia. If the West wanted to play it “for real” we would be looking at no-fly zones, total blockades and other direct acts of war. This whole thing has been about strategic management.
If I may offer, your main problem is that you clearly value Ukraine more than the rest of the political West does. My honest fear is that as soon as Ukraine is no longer of use in boxing Russia back up, we will forget all about it. So while people are hand wringing about missiles and red lines, the real threat is a complete failure at Reconstruction. We could easily mess this whole thing up after this war is over…and have one helluva bad record on this space to date.

After all this time you still don't get it, do you?
Western support in this war is not about Ukraine. It is about Russia. Western incrementalism has nothing to do with Ukrainian clever scheming. It is about slowly ratcheting up the pressure on Russia through deliberate and careful escalation. The West has been the pacing horse in this race the whole time. Ukraine would love tac nukes - and frankly I don't blame them. But they are not going to be getting them.
The Western strategy has been consistent...to constrain and squeeze Russia while still offering offramps...and if need be further escalation. 
Finally, I do not know how many times it has to be proven but there is no magic bullet for this war. Ukraine can get long range missiles, hell they can get a few B52s...it will not result in Russia tapping out. F16s, good to have, long lead times...and they are going to re-establish air denial, at best.  
 

No matter what their reason to invest into tanks is and whether or not this is a good decision, buying a drone fleet now would only make sense if the Netherlands foresee fighting a war in the very near future.
Given the current rate of evolution in drones, everything you buy now is more or less certain to be obsolete soon. We have discussed all this. E.g. autonomous drones will completely outclass remote controlled drones, not least because they are immune to EW.

No matter what their reason to invest into tanks is and whether or not this is a good decision, buying a drone fleet now would only make sense if the Netherlands foresee fighting a war in the very near future.
Given the current rate of evolution in drones, everything you buy now is more or less certain to be obsolete soon. We have discussed all this. E.g. autonomous drones will completely outclass remote controlled drones, not least because they are immune to EW.

No matter what their reason to invest into tanks is and whether or not this is a good decision, buying a drone fleet now would only make sense if the Netherlands foresee fighting a war in the very near future.
Given the current rate of evolution in drones, everything you buy now is more or less certain to be obsolete soon. We have discussed all this. E.g. autonomous drones will completely outclass remote controlled drones, not least because they are immune to EW.

Don't yuk it up too hard. Here's a Uke tank T-boning a friendly APC yesterday.
https://t.me/btr80/20110
For those who like to cherry pick stuff to support their views, Perpetua assembles geolocated imagery on his maps. https://map.ukrdailyupdate.com/?lat=47.767484&lng=37.215500&z=11&d=19970&c=1&l=0
Mind you, these are just the incidents that get (a) imaged and (b) posted online, so don't confuse this with anything like a complete summary of the war.
....I also notice a multi-squad group of Ukrainian leg infantry (presumably) retreating down a road in daylight, in pretty poor order (Prechystivka). Under observation.... 😬
https://t.me/mod_russia/42966