Must see 2015 and 2016 vids on Russian Armed Forces

[John Kettler]

This video, for those with an interest in the Russian military and equipment, will blow you away. Alerts, combat exercises, firing exercises and more are here for all the services. From Spetsnaz to ICBMs, VDV, armor, artillery, aircraft, helos and more--all are represented here. Ships range from spit kits through the Peter the Great nuclear strike cruiser. HiDef! What's really great about this is that you get to hear the AFVs' engines, with neither music nor commentator interfering.

And would you believe that was merely a tiny morsel? This 2016 one on the Russian Armed Forces could well require straitjackets and rubber rooms--plus lots and lots of Halidol.One hour and twenty-two minutes of Russian grog glory. Words fail me. Put it this way. If during the Cold War someone had acquired anything remotely like this, I guarantee you the US would've happily forked over a payment equaling that of several small countries' GDPs. This makes all the other Russian vids I've been so effusive about seem as nothing in terms of informational content from visuals, diversity, coverage of topics not usually seen, breathtaking scenes in slow motion and razor sharp. Full musical accompaniment, so no help to you sound modders! Land warfare material begins at 28 minutes in. Vein will be in explosion heaven, too!
 

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited May 7, 2016 by John Kettler

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

I have a pet hedgehog.  He's really adorable, but quite grumpy.  When he's upset with being disturbed (which is pretty much whenever anyone enters the area he lives in) he poofs up and growls.  He wants to make it very apparent just how dangerous he is because he's super scary for reals.

Russia pumps out a lot of media poofing itself up.  Literally no country on earth is ready for anything approaching World War Three.  It wouldn't likely be in the same kind of standard cold war total nuclear exchange, but "phase two" of World War Three would likely be the second Russian civil war, societal and political sea changes in the West to a degree not seen in frankly centuries, and likely an end to the world as we know and understand it.

Russia isn't "ready" to fight NATO, any more than NATO is ready for a full fledged war with Russia.  If it came to it, I'm of the mind Russia is going to get the worse of it, but the cost of any major conflict is so far beyond reasonable cost as to virtually preclude it.  

But it is important for Russia to poof up and look scary.  It's weak economically, and the military in many regards is a paper tiger, or at the least it has an imposing set of spikes, but they're not enough to fend off someone determined to give the small woodland creature underneath a bath.

Videos as above exist solely to sort of viral media this impression of an imposing unstoppable red horde, while disguising very real and very deep problems.  You'll note NATO does not go to such ends simply because it does not need to, most of what it puts out is largely domestically directed with the intention of maintaining support for large military expenditures in a climate where the common westerner is less concerned with Red Dawn and more concerned with making sure they get their government subsidized insert benefit here.  NATO has no need to posture simply because Russia knows what will happen if it pushes too hard, and it will not be pretty.

[VladimirTarasov]

9 minutes ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

I have a pet hedgehog.  He's really adorable, but quite grumpy.  When he's upset with being disturbed (which is pretty much whenever anyone enters the area he lives in) he poofs up and growls.  He wants to make it very apparent just how dangerous he is because he's super scary for reals.

Russia pumps out a lot of media poofing itself up.  Literally no country on earth is ready for anything approaching World War Three.  It wouldn't likely be in the same kind of standard cold war total nuclear exchange, but "phase two" of World War Three would likely be the second Russian civil war, societal and political sea changes in the West to a degree not seen in frankly centuries, and likely an end to the world as we know and understand it.

Russia isn't "ready" to fight NATO, any more than NATO is ready for a full fledged war with Russia.  If it came to it, I'm of the mind Russia is going to get the worse of it, but the cost of any major conflict is so far beyond reasonable cost as to virtually preclude it.  

But it is important for Russia to poof up and look scary.  It's weak economically, and the military in many regards is a paper tiger, or at the least it has an imposing set of spikes, but they're not enough to fend off someone determined to give the small woodland creature underneath a bath.

Videos as above exist solely to sort of viral media this impression of an imposing unstoppable red horde, while disguising very real and very deep problems.  You'll note NATO does not go to such ends simply because it does not need to, most of what it puts out is largely domestically directed with the intention of maintaining support for large military expenditures in a climate where the common westerner is less concerned with Red Dawn and more concerned with making sure they get their government subsidized insert benefit here.  NATO has no need to posture simply because Russia knows what will happen if it pushes too hard, and it will not be pretty.

Yeah yeah, Evil weak paper tiger Russia! Quite true.

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

Dunno man.  Might want to look at a mirror and ask yourself if your country could win in a fight against the rest of the world.

[VladimirTarasov]

49 minutes ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

Dunno man.  Might want to look at a mirror and ask yourself if your country could win in a fight against the rest of the world.

Of course not... But you're making it seem as if we don't know this, and as if we aren't a capable force to fight. The farthest the Russian military would be able to fight NATO is the baltics after that obviously it wont be possible. It would be left to strategic assets to try and destroy NATO bases and all that stuff, but other than that Russia cannot launch a ground offensive into the bulk of NATO obviously we don't have the numbers to pull that off. 

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

The title of the first video is "We are ready for World War Three."  My statement was that Russia is not ready for World War Three.  You disagree by commenting on the usual paper tiger line, but then totally agree Russia is abjectly unable to fight World War Three which was my point in the first place.

Russia can't sustain any sort of meaningful conflict outside of against non-NATO countries.  It's part of the logic of being in NATO.  You're either on the periphery and subject to Putin's moods, or you're part of a defensive alliance that will grossly overmatch Russia's ability to fight a global war.  Why do you think NATO memberships are so popular given the Russian Empire/USSR/Russian Federation's treatment of it's neighbors?

[Kinophile]

If/when oil returns to its $120+ p/b,  then probably Putin will go dramatically  whole hog on modernization, after learning the hard way that it can be easily interrupted. Considering Russia's reasonably  wide industrial/military base it might be expected to see a fully modernized AF in.... 15-20 years?

Putin can find plenty of small peripherals to **** with while modernizing, giving much needed experience at staff and combat unit levels. 

Essentially,  I'd agree,  they are NOT ready to fight WW3 now. But they certainly seem determined to GET ready. That mentality alone is useful,  for Putin. 

To drift towards Godwin's Law, Germany was NOT ready in 1935 for WW2,  but the Wehrmacht was by golly determined to GET ready. 

Edited May 7, 2016 by kinophile

[VladimirTarasov]

Here we go again with the Russia abusing its neighbors. I'm not willing to continue on this. 

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

11 minutes ago, kinophile said:

If/when oil returns to its $120+ p/b,  then probably Putin will go dramatically  whole hog on modernization, after learning the hard way that it can be easily interrupted. Considering Russia's reasonably  wide industrial/military base it might be expected to see a fully modernized AF in.... 15-20 years?

Putin can find plenty of small peripherals to **** with while modernizing, giving much needed experience at staff and combat unit levels. 

Essentially,  I'd agree,  they are NOT ready to fight WW3 now. But they certainly seem determined to GET ready. That mentality alone is useful,  for Putin. 

To drift towards Godwin's Law, Germany was NOT ready in 1935 for WW2,  but the Wehrmacht was by golly determined to GET ready. 

I'm not sure about oil going back up.  Here's why:

1. Oil has gone low enough to cause higher cost extraction operations to go into mothballs.  Reactivating these when the price goes back up will at the absolute minimum slow the increase of the price, but stands a good chance of simply absorbing much of the increase leading to a much more modest return.

2. The dynamic of oil production has fundamentally changed, between new suppliers (as a rather dramatic example, Iranian oil going above the table), and new technologies, it just isn't as reliant on the historical oil exporters.

3. Many historical oil consumers are reducing their oil needs.  Regardless if this is through green politics, or simple economics, when oil hit its highs, it made alternates or more efficent options more economical.  A lot of the oil demand historically can be seen as running equipment and technologies that were adopted when oil was cheap (or at least much cheaper), now that we've seen much of that going by the wayside, there's a strong indication in the developed world at least, oil will be a major commodity...but not to the degree that could command historical high prices.  

Russian modernization is also set against a general decay of pretty much everything Russian post 1991.  The "wide industrial base" is not an exception to this.  Do think about what sort of Russian industrial products you see that are "new" relative to historical Soviet products.  The factories are there, but they're the finest the 1970's-1980's could offer in terms of industrial technology, with an aging and largely uneducated (in the sense of "modern" industrial tooling and automations).   You're not going to crank cutting edge tanks out of factories that haven't changed that much since the fall of the wall.

Russia's problem isn't simply having T-72s and MIG-29s when it needs more modern equipment, or poor training and readiness, or no effective conventional regional reach, it's that the whole country has been neglected as a result of the sort of collapse rampant Soviet military spending led to, followed by an economic base that remains almost entirely resource extraction oriented, with a healthy helping of the fact the crooks are now running the store if you get my drift.  Modest modernization when oil was high was reasonable.  Now?  I will be very interested to see what progress occurs.

 

 

10 minutes ago, VladimirTarasov said:

Here we go again with the Russia abusing its neighbors. I'm not willing to continue on this. 

If only you and your countrymen would take such a stance on abusing your neighbors, your nation would certainly be much closer to finding the security it seeks.  

[Kinophile]

All valid points re decay etc. 

Yet.. The Armata et all seem pretty decent developments, to my uneducated eye. It's an indicator,  is my point, of where there's enough will,  there's a way.

Oil is low, (and you're quite right re the dormant capacity ready to suck up increased prices)  and sanctions are doing some long term damage. But Russia is not locked out of developing a modern force. There's still a LOT that could be done  even just organizationally, with the current low prices,  to improve their forces. 

I think what I'm drifting to is that give Putin a good excuse and he'll manufacture the popular will to go full Soviet on the economy (ie all aims bent to military development).

Either he'll create the excuse,  or someone in the west will screw up and give it to him. Untill then he'll probably find small wars to keep testing equipment,  working his troops, developing a solid higher level officer core. Syria and Ukraine tested SOF, battlefield fire/EW support systems and Air Force capabilities. I'd suspect next well see some  kind of airborne testing (eg in one of the Stan's,  or the Caucasus) followed by some naval ****ery against someone. 

Personally,  I'd be more worried about who comes after him (not Medvedev). They will inherit a much more capable military and much more unstable geopolitical situation,  rife for exploitation and unforeseen escalation. 

[VladimirTarasov]

Our navy is what is the most effected, already weird ship producing mixed up with budget cuts will slow to modernize and build our navy up for a while(our navy is 44% the US navy because most ships are being overhauled.) Our ground forces suffer from budget cuts, Uralvagonzavod has been modernized a while back and its very modern and newish from what I've seen. Our tanks wont be lacking in quality more so it will lack in the wanted quantity because of sanctions and oil drops. 

Airforce has to lower spending as well, but modernizing of the air force is pretty decent for now. It is a shame that Russia is being sanctioned over Ukraine, where other countries deserve to be sanctioned more so. France is rolling back on the sanctions, I hope our other European partners put an end to the sanctions as well. 

Kinophile,

The Armata program has been well funded already since 2011 set backs will be only against the numbers of the tanks bought and not quality. Russia has been modernizing on full scale since 2009. Given the outlook of our economy plans will be set back or the scale will be reduced. Given that our military doctrine is mostly defensive, I don't see an issue as long as our strategic and tactical assets give us a great bargaining position. 

Edited May 7, 2016 by VladimirTarasov

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

1 hour ago, kinophile said:

All valid points re decay etc. 

Yet.. The Armata et all seem pretty decent developments, to my uneducated eye. It's an indicator,  is my point, of where there's enough will,  there's a way.

Oil is low, (and you're quite right re the dormant capacity ready to suck up increased prices)  and sanctions are doing some long term damage. But Russia is not locked out of developing a modern force. There's still a LOT that could be done  even just organizationally, with the current low prices,  to improve their forces. 

I think what I'm drifting to is that give Putin a good excuse and he'll manufacture the popular will to go full Soviet on the economy (ie all aims bent to military development).

Either he'll create the excuse,  or someone in the west will screw up and give it to him. Untill then he'll probably find small wars to keep testing equipment,  working his troops, developing a solid higher level officer core. Syria and Ukraine tested SOF, battlefield fire/EW support systems and Air Force capabilities. I'd suspect next well see some  kind of airborne testing (eg in one of the Stan's,  or the Caucasus) followed by some naval ****ery against someone. 

Personally,  I'd be more worried about who comes after him (not Medvedev). They will inherit a much more capable military and much more unstable geopolitical situation,  rife for exploitation and unforeseen escalation. 

If you look into the Armata you'll see it's already dropping capabilities, and the production facilities are claiming another 5-6 years to prepare a workforce to build the things.  Where there's a will, there certainly is a way, but the amount of will vs the realistic capabilities in this case, appears to be somewhat imbalanced.  If Putin adopts a military first policy, then it's certainly possible.  

However you only have to look back to the 1980's to see the outcome of such a policy.  And that was with a stronger Russian state with captive economies and trade partners.  You can only run on bullets so long before someone finally gets fed up with the lack of toilet paper and it's 1991 all over again.

It'll be interesting to see who comes next.  I don't think there's a credible successor, and Putin's leadership style will make introducing one easy.  His personal popularity plays a great part in what he can do.  It's not exactly a "he dies and the whole corrupt system crumbles!" but he is keeping a bit of a lid on several groups that all could make a pretty clear grab for the throne if he was no longer sitting in it.

 

 

1 hour ago, VladimirTarasov said:

Our navy is what is the most effected, already weird ship producing mixed up with budget cuts will slow to modernize and build our navy up for a while(our navy is 44% the US navy because most ships are being overhauled.) Our ground forces suffer from budget cuts, Uralvagonzavod has been modernized a while back and its very modern and newish from what I've seen. Our tanks wont be lacking in quality more so it will lack in the wanted quantity because of sanctions and oil drops. 

Airforce has to lower spending as well, but modernizing of the air force is pretty decent for now. It is a shame that Russia is being sanctioned over Ukraine, where other countries deserve to be sanctioned more so. France is rolling back on the sanctions, I hope our other European partners put an end to the sanctions as well. 

Kinophile,

The Armata program has been well funded already since 2011 set backs will be only against the numbers of the tanks bought and not quality. Russia has been modernizing on full scale since 2009. Given the outlook of our economy plans will be set back or the scale will be reduced. Given that our military doctrine is mostly defensive, I don't see an issue as long as our strategic and tactical assets give us a great bargaining position. 

The Russian navy is mostly scrap iron at this point.  It's been in "overhaul" since I was playing with toy tanks in the sandbox.  It's not just the ships either, the Russian Navy still has not recovered from loss of facilities due to the dissolution of the USSR, and a lot of the infrastructure, and ship building expertise is just not there any more.  This is further true with the Russian air force considering how well and alienated the parts suppliers are these days.

Russia however has well and truly earned its sanctions.  Also the French are not "rolling back" anything.  There's talk of offering to lift some of the sanctions in exchange for Russian good behavior in accordance with the Minsk agreements.  Your relations with the west remain frosty to say the least.

[VladimirTarasov]

The Russian navy is mostly scrap iron at this point? That is a laughable statement, is the Russian navy as capable as the US navy? Of course not. But to call it scrap iron is a very biased opinion. The Russian navy is a defensive one, and it isn't because we want too its because we have too. And I am pretty sure our navy can play defense very well coordinating with land based systems, as well as air based systems while on defense.

Also what suppliers are you talking about for the Russian Air Force? 

And honestly just not to start a political flame war I'll just keep the argument non-political and keep it militarily. 

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

Re: Navy

A lot of the Russian navy is still in some extended drydock/mothball status.  It has been for decades.  What has sortied has demonstrated very low mechanical reliability, and Russian drydock/refit/maintenance facilities are not adequate to the task.  Further there's realistically no such thing as strictly a defensive Navy.  The advantage of a large sea-going fleet like NATO has (mainly the US, but helpfully augmented by our partners) is that it could mass on the various geographically separated Russian Naval units, destroy them, and if need be accomplish missions ashore without interference from the remainder of the Russian naval fleet.

Which is really why it's irrelevant, there's no war that Russia could start that major surface combatants are not simply a liability for, and yet here we are.

As far as suppliers, a lot of your aerospace industry uses parts, and components from countries that have either embargoed Russia, or are the Ukraine.  While there might be an easing of tensions, it will remain a chokepoint for likely decades to come given the state of Russian industry and lack of meaningful investment in same.  If Russia adopts a more aggressive position, the taps will turn off, the modernization will stall, and it'll all repeat again.  

Politics are inseparable from military affairs dude.  That's like Art of War/Vom Kriege 101.  Russia's historical role, and modern actions are instrumental in understanding its insecurity.   

[LukeFF]

10 hours ago, kinophile said:

To drift towards Godwin's Law, Germany was NOT ready in 1935 for WW2,  but the Wehrmacht was by golly determined to GET ready. 

And they still weren't ready in 1939.

[Lethaface]

To be fair: it's not the Russian MOD who put up these movies with the title 'Russia is ready for WWIII'. NATO also performs exercises and creates 'propaganda' material from it. There are plenty of youtubers using that material and put their own title above it.

I personally think that the Russian regime is very well aware it doesn't want to pick a battle with NATO forces involved. That's the main reason that the Russian interference in Ukraine has always stayed at the '(im)plausible denial' level. It isn't very far fetched to believe that Western 'higher ups' have made it clear to Russia that any further escalation of the conflict will mean more sanctions and more Western meddling in these affairs. In a certain way the Ukraine conflict has been good for NATO: it is the main reason that defense budgets are recently growing, while they before had been shrinking since the end of the cold war.

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

7 hours ago, Lethaface said:

To be fair: it's not the Russian MOD who put up these movies with the title 'Russia is ready for WWIII'. NATO also performs exercises and creates 'propaganda' material from it. There are plenty of youtubers using that material and put their own title above it.

I personally think that the Russian regime is very well aware it doesn't want to pick a battle with NATO forces involved. That's the main reason that the Russian interference in Ukraine has always stayed at the '(im)plausible denial' level. It isn't very far fetched to believe that Western 'higher ups' have made it clear to Russia that any further escalation of the conflict will mean more sanctions and more Western meddling in these affairs. In a certain way the Ukraine conflict has been good for NATO: it is the main reason that defense budgets are recently growing, while they before had been shrinking since the end of the cold war.

Eh.  I'm not interested in the providence of the video simply because it's irrelevant what THIS one says nearly as much as it's been a bit of a theme ongoing in RT/official Russian media.

I think the Russian regime is aware of two things:

1. A direct confrontation with conventional forces against NATO will end in some sort of defeat (hence the strong focus on asymmetric assets and hybrid warfare).

2. A need to answer to their own people if Russia is strong or not.  There's a strong nationalist wolf that needs to be fed, lest it devour it's handler.  

My concern is a population brought up on "The Russian military is strong" starts asking for those promises to be cashed in regards to long standing grievances or someone less able to skirt the edge of what's possible than Putin starts painting himself into a corner.  We can see evidence in this thread, indeed the Russian Navy is merely in refit and that is the only reason it is not able to challenge the US fleet (not that it is in fact, a broken poorly maintained force that continues to decay as we talk), the belief that Europe is fractured* and indeed possibly favorable to Russian actions, it's all products of a world view that's been filtered and screened to show a Russia that's both strong, and internationally respected....instead of the much less rosy reality.

All nations do the fluffing.  But I can easily and readily look outside of US media to see the feces show my nation can be sometimes.  I just think however in the absence of other sources its important to challenge the Russian narrative when it presents itself.

[TheVulture]

On 07/05/2016 at 5:05 PM, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

Russia isn't "ready" to fight NATO, any more than NATO is ready for a full fledged war with Russia.  If it came to it, I'm of the mind Russia is going to get the worse of it, but the cost of any major conflict is so far beyond reasonable cost as to virtually preclude it.  
 

Just to be depressing, the idea that a major conflict couldn't happen because it would be utterly ruinous to all countries involved was widely touted back in say '13 and early '14.

Unfortunately I'm talking about 1913 and 1914. Internationalisation and global trade was supposed to make it impossible for a major war between the leading European powers. The effects would be so disastrous that it would be so much worse than any possible peaceful solution.

Sadly they were half right: the consequences were absolutely disastrous. It just didn't stop the war happening.

[Big Boss]

53 minutes ago, TheVulture said:

Just to be depressing, the idea that a major conflict couldn't happen because it would be utterly ruinous to all countries involved was widely touted back in say '13 and early '14.

Good point, history have taught us that some of the real tragedies in recent time don't have its causes found in the decisions made by rational minds.

[Kinophile]

20 hours ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

 There's a strong nationalist wolf that needs to be fed, lest it devour it's handler.  

My concern is a population brought up on "The Russian military is strong" starts asking for those promises to be cashed in regards to long standing grievances or someone less able to skirt the edge of what's possible than Putin starts painting himself into a corner

Ghhhhhhhh  hhhh

Yup. To paraphrase a saying,  "Putin too will end". 

After him will be someone more brash, violent and aggressively nationalistic. 

Putin for all his faults is damn smart and tough. The tragedy is he puts all the intelligence and ballsyness in the service of his own legacy, power and clique. 

Compared to who comes after him he will appear almost Roosveltian. 

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

12 hours ago, TheVulture said:

Just to be depressing, the idea that a major conflict couldn't happen because it would be utterly ruinous to all countries involved was widely touted back in say '13 and early '14.

Unfortunately I'm talking about 1913 and 1914. Internationalisation and global trade was supposed to make it impossible for a major war between the leading European powers. The effects would be so disastrous that it would be so much worse than any possible peaceful solution.

Sadly they were half right: the consequences were absolutely disastrous. It just didn't stop the war happening.

Pretty much.  I just think the players in the game at this point are aware of the odds and limitations.  I'm concerned for what happens next though.  

 

 

36 minutes ago, kinophile said:

Ghhhhhhhh  hhhh

Yup. To paraphrase a saying,  "Putin too will end". 

After him will be someone more brash, violent and aggressively nationalistic. 

Putin for all his faults is damn smart and tough. The tragedy is he puts all the intelligence and ballsyness in the service of his own legacy, power and clique. 

Compared to who comes after him he will appear almost Roosveltian. 

It's a lot like North Korea, in that it had a leader who knew how to juggle aggression vs "soft" diplomacy in opposition to the wider world.  He has been replaced with someone who cannot juggle those different attributes and as a result is making rather a mess of things.  

[Lethaface]

On 5/9/2016 at 6:01 AM, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

Eh.  I'm not interested in the providence of the video simply because it's irrelevant what THIS one says nearly as much as it's been a bit of a theme ongoing in RT/official Russian media.

I think the Russian regime is aware of two things:

1. A direct confrontation with conventional forces against NATO will end in some sort of defeat (hence the strong focus on asymmetric assets and hybrid warfare).

2. A need to answer to their own people if Russia is strong or not.  There's a strong nationalist wolf that needs to be fed, lest it devour it's handler.  

My concern is a population brought up on "The Russian military is strong" starts asking for those promises to be cashed in regards to long standing grievances or someone less able to skirt the edge of what's possible than Putin starts painting himself into a corner.  We can see evidence in this thread, indeed the Russian Navy is merely in refit and that is the only reason it is not able to challenge the US fleet (not that it is in fact, a broken poorly maintained force that continues to decay as we talk), the belief that Europe is fractured* and indeed possibly favorable to Russian actions, it's all products of a world view that's been filtered and screened to show a Russia that's both strong, and internationally respected....instead of the much less rosy reality.

All nations do the fluffing.  But I can easily and readily look outside of US media to see the feces show my nation can be sometimes.  I just think however in the absence of other sources its important to challenge the Russian narrative when it presents itself.

No disagreement there. I'm too under the impression that more Russians buy into the state propaganda since many of the independent media have been closed down. However, that's just an impression.

I have a great anecdote:

A couple of years ago I was dating an Iranian girl living and studying in The Netherlands. She was surprised and disappointed having to conclude that most Dutch fellow students bought into whatever our mainstream media presented them at face value. After I asked her about Iran's 'media', she easily explained that away: 'but everybody in Iran knows the official media crap anyway' (with 'everybody' she obviously meant the educated people she was common to be around).

So, if we don't see a lot of Iranians openly disagreeing with their official propaganda, doesn't mean they all buy into it. Plus internet discussions might not be the best indicator of grasping how a population thinks of their own state ;-)

[Lethaface]

double post

Edited May 10, 2016 by Lethaface

[Lethaface]

On 5/9/2016 at 2:31 PM, TheVulture said:

Just to be depressing, the idea that a major conflict couldn't happen because it would be utterly ruinous to all countries involved was widely touted back in say '13 and early '14.

Unfortunately I'm talking about 1913 and 1914. Internationalisation and global trade was supposed to make it impossible for a major war between the leading European powers. The effects would be so disastrous that it would be so much worse than any possible peaceful solution.

Sadly they were half right: the consequences were absolutely disastrous. It just didn't stop the war happening.

That's not entirely factually correct imo. There was actually a war fervour among the French and German population, people still thought that war was 'glorifying'. There had been a long period without (large) wars, so many had forgotten about the perils of war. Also of importance is that there hadn't been a WWI or WWII yet. Now we (still) know what world war with modern weaponry means, plus we have the MAD thing. No one in their right minds will want to risk an all out war between nuclear armed states.

However I agree that we, the people and especially our leaders, should be vigilant and weary of the risk of falling for old traps.

Edited May 10, 2016 by Lethaface

[Lethaface]

6 hours ago, Delsie Biancaniello said:

Unfortunately, I can't see the images that you posted above.

These are not shown above and I can't see anything.

If you mean what John Kettler posted in the first post: that are two links to youtube movies. They do work on my end.