How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Calamine Waffles]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Economics is not my area but I am not sure this is something we would undertake lightly:

https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/china-mongolia-taiwan/peoples-republic-china

In Canada they are our #3 trading partner:

https://angusreid.org/canada-china-trade-economy-2022/

Those are really big numbers being tossed around.  For comparison US - Russia trade is about 5% of what is does with China:

https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/europe-middle-east/russia-and-eurasia/russia

Russia trade with Canada barely breaks the 1B$ mark.

https://lop.parl.ca/sites/PublicWebsite/default/en_CA/ResearchPublications/TradeAndInvestment/2017593E
 

So What?  Going to be exceedingly hard to get unity on China sanctions unless they do something egregious and selling limited weapons to Russia (which is perfectly legal by the way, particularly as China has not joined the sanctions block) is likely not going to do it.

 

At the end of the day, it's a combination of two things:

1) China doesn't gain anything helping Russia in their Ukrainian debacle militarily. What is Russia going to do? Cut off oil exports to China, their largest remaining export partner? China doesn't want a strong Russia on its borders. A weakened Russia perfectly suits them, as they pretty much see Russia as a cheap resource extraction site, and the weaker they are, the more China can dictate terms. They already buy oil at a very substantial discount from Russia.

2) Even limited Western sanctions against China would be very hurtful, especially while they are still battling Covid and their economy has been battered by the lockdowns. China needs the Western markets much more than the West needs China, and they know this.

These factors mean that there is nothing for them to gain providing military help to Russia, or even trying to bail out the Russian economy. Even sanction busting is risky for them, and doesn't provide much gain. The only real gain for them is political, and Russia is already pretty much forced to cozy up to China. Who else are they going to turn to? India? Brazil? Nicaragua? Iran? Venezuela? Cuba?

It doesn't matter much to the Chinese politically whether they help Russia or not, and they don't gain anything providing anything more substantial than words of support. They are no different from the British Foreign Office in Yes, Prime Minister
 

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Calamine Waffles

[DesertFox]

1 hour ago, Machor said:

This one's for @Kinophile 

 

Yep! Get it blown up ASAP. That would be a very valuable strike.

[The_Capt]

12 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

At the end of the day, it's a combination of two things:

1) China doesn't gain anything helping Russia in their Ukrainian debacle militarily. What is Russia going to do? Cut off oil exports to China, their largest remaining export partner? China doesn't want a strong Russia on its borders. A weakened Russia perfectly suits them, as they pretty much see Russia as a cheap resource extraction site, and the weaker they are, the more China can dictate terms. They already buy oil at a very substantial discount from Russia.

2) Even limited Western sanctions against China would be very hurtful, especially while they are still battling Covid and their economy has been battered by the lockdowns. China needs the Western markets much more than the West needs China, and they know this.

These factors mean that there is nothing for them to gain providing military help to Russia, or even trying to bail out the Russian economy. Even sanction busting is risky for them, and doesn't provide much gain. The only real gain for them is political, and Russia is already pretty much forced to cozy up to China. Who else are they going to turn to? India? Brazil? Nicaragua? Iran? Venezuela? Cuba?

It doesn't matter much to the Chinese politically whether they help Russia or not, and they don't gain anything providing anything more substantial than words of support. They are no different from the British Foreign Office in Yes, Prime Minister
 

 

Yes, this definitely makes sense.  I am not sure China is as deterred by threat of sanction, as the fact that a weakened and dependent Russia is likely in their own best interest (within reason).  That, and China likely does not want to risk trouble backing a loser.  This is also why I am not really worried about Taiwan (yet), China has a lot more to lose in all this and not much to really gain by large muscle movements right now.  A slow steady pressure strategy, while addressing internal challenges, until they can achieve power parity makes much more sense from their point of view.  They are far more likely to continue to pursue divisive/subversive strategies to weaken the West from within while combining it with incentive/positive inductive efforts.

Of course we all thought Russia was all super clever and crafty before this insane clown show too.

[Calamine Waffles]

21 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Yes, this definitely makes sense.  I am not sure China is as deterred by threat of sanction, as the fact that a weakened and dependent Russia is likely in their own best interest (within reason).  That, and China likely does not want to risk trouble backing a loser.  This is also why I am not really worried about Taiwan (yet), China has a lot more to lose in all this and not much to really gain by large muscle movements right now.  A slow steady pressure strategy, while addressing internal challenges, until they can achieve power parity makes much more sense from their point of view.  They are far more likely to continue to pursue divisive/subversive strategies to weaken the West from within while combining it with incentive/positive inductive efforts.

Of course we all thought Russia was all super clever and crafty before this insane clown show too.

Ah, but you see, China is also running on a timer, because they have their own demographic crisis looming on the horizon, much like Russia. That can change the calculus a lot, and is also one of the reasons why Russia invaded now. If they didn't do it now, they would never be able to field enough manpower to fulfill their geopolitical ambitions in the future. In fact, given what's happening right now, it may already have been too late for Russia.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Calamine Waffles

[danfrodo]

on China, this all gets into the insanity of "gotta do it now, it'll be much harder later", for something that is completely a war of choice that will most likely cost 1000x more than anything that could be gained.  The first problem in thinking is that they gotta do it.  Why?  why take taiwan?  I get nationalism & all that, but it's just so very stupid.   And so, it will probably happen. 

[alison]

Nationalism aside, taking Taiwan would allow China to project power into the Pacific in a way they currently cannot. I think that strategic benefit is what the Chinese government really seeks in the long term.

[LongLeftFlank]

6 hours ago, MikeyD said:

As to casualties, during the 1 month and 1 week of 'the Battle Of The Bulge' the US alone was seeing an average of 2,000 casualties a day, day-after-day. You don't send Russia reeling, fleeting east to dig in behind the Donets river just by inflicting a few hundred casualties here and there.

Agreed! the Russian army doesn't collapse, or yield significant territory, unless it is given a very hard shove, or several.

Given the intensity of this war and the firepower being employed by both sides, I actually have no trouble believing Russian dead are in the mid 20,000s, That includes separ militias whose medevac is likely near nonexistent.

...So if I apply 24k/40% mortality rate, I get 60k total casualties (KIA/WIA), which is in line with US DoD estimates. And is enough to explain the huge amount of anecdata showing the Russians frantically scraping up manpower from wherever to employ as frontline infantry.

That's the core arm where everyone including Strelkov agrees they are cripplingly short, as amply documented here:

Note that in time though, Russia will find the  replacements if its forces do not start being attacked and physically destroyed. And if it meanwhile stops losing men at the rate of 200 dead a day, its forces will be able to resume a higher tempo of attack.

I'll quote Stuffy Dowding again:

...the fact remains that our young men must shoot down their young men at a rate of 4 to 1 if we are to keep pace at all.

Probably more like 2 to 1 here, but still quite a task and one not accomplished by M777s and Caesars alone.

Edited June 16, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[dan/california]

I really think the HIMARS can blow the Russians out of Kherson in a week or less. The Russian position there is creaking and bending now. I am not entirely sure if would be better to let the Russians retreat or go for a huge cauldron up against the river.

[Battlefront.com]

20 hours ago, Letter_from_Prague said:

I should note that this place was occupied by Russia and they only left in 1991, which is relatively recently (god I'm old).

I must be old too, because I visited your city in 1992 as an adult

Welcome to the Forum!

20 hours ago, Letter_from_Prague said:

As for Taiwan. Since this is my area, I can say that anything happening to Taiwan is bad news for the whole world.

...

And if the US defends Taiwan and trade breaks between West and China ... that something I can't even begin to estimate, other than "nobody gets anything".

Yes, it would be very bleak for everybody.  Even the lower tech, poorer countries because even they rely upon critical items made by China. 

However, I think too much is being made about the threat of economic warfare with China.  This response is to the couple of pages worth of posts on the topic.

A Russia style sanctions war against China would certainly be the equivalent of a world wide economic disaster that would set probably have us wind up being in a far less tech rich environment for a few decades (look how long it is taking to fix a voluntary world wide economic disruption!).  Which is why nobody is even contemplating this sort of war taking place.  Not China, not the US, not Europe, not anybody.  Why not?  Two simple reasons:

1.  The world, in particular the US, has something even better than slapping sanctions on China or Chinese businesses...  imposing fines against the companies/institutions that do the actual violations!  This is the usual remedy for sanctions violations, not sector or national based trade embargoes, and it will work in this case because Chinese are in some ways more Capitalist than their Western trading partners.  Why would they put this at risk for a comparatively tiny amount of trade in a worthless currency with a country that is on a major economic downslide and might even slip into civil war?  The answer obviously is that they will not.

2.  China as a state is not going to wage some sort of economic war against their best customers over some fines made by a few select companies/institutions that are violating Western sanctions.  Nope, not going to happen.  And those specifically fined companies/institutions will pay up because the costs of not doing so are far worse.  In fact, I can see pressure by the Chinese government being applied for companies/institutions to pay the fines.  Why?  Because Chinese officials get their money from trade, and harmed trade means harmed revenue.  Especially for corrupt officials

The bottomline is that China needs the West more than the West needs China.  A full scale economic war between the two will devastate the West, but China will likely become ungovernable and that is the last thing in the world the Communist Party wants to have happen.  In the West politicians deemed responsible for the mess will lose their jobs, in China it is more likely to be their lives.

Are there reasons I worry about the West's relationship with China?  Absolutely!  But do I think China is going to risk economic disruption with the West for a bunch of worthless Rubles?  No, not going to happen.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Calamine Waffles said:

Ah, but you see, China is also running on a timer, because they have their own demographic crisis looming on the horizon, much like Russia

Absolutely, but they've also had the opportunity to see how well Russia's "solution" to their problems has worked out.  I have no doubts in my mind that if Russia's gamble worked out well then China might in fact be a lot more inclined to do something like take Taiwan by force.  However, things have not worked out well for Russia politically, militarily, or economically.  I doubt Chinese officials are anxious to risk the same outcomes.

The cynical me likes to think that when Putin went to Beijing to get Xi's blessing for a war that would risk everything on one military action, Xi said "sounds like a great idea.  You go first and let us know how it goes!"

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

15 hours ago, Grigb said:

Murz published another rant. Interesting part is his discussion of conversation between Girkin and Kvatchkov (another infamous nationalist). Both of them are former officers. And considered wise men. Well, Kvatchov is a crazed antisemite but calm one. 

According to them federal mobilization is not called because it would show dramatic degradation of RU military system. [As if it was not apparent 20 years ago]. Current LDNR are idiotic and showed dramatic lack of many things.

Thank you for continuing to bring Russian sources and perspective into this discussion.  It is very valuable.

For months now the topic of Putin calling for full mobilization comes up in this thread very regularly.  From the very start it was clear that Putin FEARED this move for probably more than one reason.  The obvious collection of those reasons is a significant threat to his regime and his life personally.  Otherwise he would have called for mobilization sometime in March or maybe April.  Certainly by May and definitely by June.

If Putin is afraid of mobilization, then it's pretty clear we should not be

One of the primary reasons to not worry about Russian mobilization is that Russia likely can't do it effectively.  You listed quite a few reasons, and we've listed others, but it really boils down to this:

Russia is struggling to keep its current peacetime strength force equipped, therefore it is logical to conclude Russia can't successfully expand its military to *any* degree.  The mere attempt to overcome the many practical problems that we know, for sure, exist is likely to be a regime ending event.

Clearly this is how bad it is because Putin is already facing a possible regime ending event (military defeat in Ukraine) and he's not going through with mobilization to try and avoid it.  To me this indicates that he feels mobilization poses more threat to his regime than losing the war.

Let that sink in

Steve

[danfrodo]

yeah, what he said

china's leaders seem smart enough to know that power is more economic than military for them, and others.  Especially after witnessing Putin's fiasco.

Edited June 16, 2022 by danfrodo
...

[Letter from Prague]

Remember when PM of Australia (I think?) said COVID comes from China, China got angry (because they were saying COVID is a bioweapon from US labs or something) and stopped imports from Australia as a retaliation ... and then they had actual blackouts for like half a year due to lack of coal, until they quietly gave up on that policy?

Point is, China is very dependent on imports. In event of actual shooting war, if someone could sit at sea and blow up every tanker or other supply going in, China would be in bad place very quickly. And the US has the strongest navy in the world by a longshot. China knows all this, so hopefully despite their rhetoric, they are not actually as dumb as Putin.

And thanks for mentioning the selectively applied sanctions, Steve - yes, China can shuffle things around and have different set of companies trading with West and with Russia so when their Russia-trading companies get sanctioned it limits the impact. But this kind of isolation adds extra cost, and that might make the Russian business not worth much.

[Machor]

All right, folks; first, two confessions:

1. When the Canadian Parliament declared that Russia was committing genocide in Ukraine, I thought it was overkill, even though I've never doubted Russia's war crimes.

2. Unlike many folks on the forum and in agreement with Steve, I've been opposed to NATO openly entering the war on the side of Ukraine, for all the reasons that Steve has argued + avoiding a nuclear war.

Now, if this latest BBC piece can be verified, that all changes. Again, I do demand verification before going ahead with anything, but if all this is true, NATO has to go in - else, it means we were building our own Potemkin village since the Nuremberg trials:

[I tried to pick parts of the article to quote but it didn't make sense, so I'm quoting the whole thing with the hope of reaching a wider audience who may not want to or cannot open the BBC website.]

Electrocution and beatings: The horrors of Russia's 'filtration'

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61683513

"Ukrainians who want to leave cities under Russian occupation cannot do so without undergoing a terrifying process known as filtration. Phones are searched, social media accounts scoured. Anything deemed incriminating can lead to beatings or even electrocution, civilians say, and many are forcibly sent to Russia.

Andriy watched anxiously as Russian soldiers connected his mobile to their computer, apparently trying to restore some files. Andriy, a 28-year-old marketing officer, was trying to leave Mariupol in early May. He had deleted everything he thought a Russian soldier could use against him, such as text messages discussing Russia's invasion of Ukraine or photos of the devastation in his city caused by weeks of relentless shelling.

But the internet in Mariupol, a once bustling port in southern Ukraine, had been cut off as part of the siege imposed by Russia, and Andriy had not been able to take down some of his social media posts. He remembered the first days of the war, when he had shared some anti-Russian messages and speeches from the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. "I'm screwed," he thought.

The soldiers, Andriy told me, already had their focus on him. When he first joined the queues for filtration in Bezimenne, a small village to the east of Mariupol, one of the Russians noticed his beard. The soldier assumed it was a sign Andriy was a fighter with the city's Azov regiment, a former militia which had links with the far right. "Is it you and your brigade killing our guys?" Andriy was asked. He replied he had never served in the army, he started working directly after graduating, but "they didn't want to hear it".

As the soldiers went through his phone, they turned to his political views, and asked his opinion of Zelensky. Andriy, cautiously, said Zelensky was "okay", and one of the soldiers wanted to know what he meant by that. Andriy told him Zelensky was just another president, not very different from those who had come before, and that in fact, he was not very interested in politics. "Well," the soldier replied, "you should just say you aren't interested in politics."

The soldiers kept Andriy's phone and told him to wait outside. He met his grandmother, mother and aunt, who had arrived with him and had already been given a document that allowed them to leave. A few minutes later, Andriy said, he was ordered to go to a tent where members of Russia's security service, the FSB, were carrying out further checks.

Five officers were sitting behind a desk, three wearing balaclavas. They showed Andriy a video he had shared on Instagram of a speech Zelensky had given, from 1 March. With it was a caption written by Andriy: "A president we can be proud of. Go home with your warship!" One of the officers took the lead. "You told us you're neutral to politics, but you support the Nazi government," Andriy recalled being told. "He hit me in the throat. He basically started the beating."

Like Andriy, Dmytro had his phone confiscated at a checkpoint as he tried to leave Mariupol in late March. Dmytro, a 34-year-old history teacher, said the soldiers came across the word "ruscist", a play on "Russia" and "fascist", in a message to a friend. The soldiers, Dmytro told me, slapped and kicked him, and "everything [happened] because I used that word."

Dmytro said he was taken, with four other people, to a police station in the village of Nikolsky, also a filtration point. "The highest-ranking officer punched me four times in the face," he said. "It seemed to be part of the procedure".

His interrogators said teachers like him were spreading pro-Ukrainian propaganda. They also asked what he thought about "the events of 2014", the year that Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula and started supporting pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. He replied that the conflict was known as the Russo-Ukrainian war. "They said Russia was not involved, and asked me whether I agreed that it was, in fact, a Ukrainian civil war."

The officers checked his phone again, and this time found a photo of a book which had the letter H in its title. "We got you!" the soldiers told Dmytro. Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, claims his war in Ukraine is an effort to "de-Nazify" the country, and the soldiers, Dmytro said, believed he was reading books about Hitler.

The next morning, Dmytro was transferred with two women to a prison in Starobesheve, a separatist-controlled village in Donetsk. He counted 24 people in the four-bunk cell. After four days and another detailed interrogation, he was finally released, and eventually reached Ukrainian-held territory. Weeks later, he still does not know what happened to his cell mates.

Back inside the tent in Bezimenne, Andriy noticed two other people with their hands tied behind them, who had been left in a corner while the officers paid attention to him. "They started to beat me way harder," Andriy told me, "everywhere". At one point, after a blow to the stomach, he felt as if he was about to faint. He managed to sit on a chair.

"I wondered what would be better," he said, "to lose consciousness and fall down or tolerate the pain further."

At least, Andriy thought, he had not been sent somewhere else, away from his family. Ukrainian officials say thousands of people are believed to have been sent to detention centres and camps set up in Russian-controlled areas during filtration. In almost all cases, their relatives do not know where they are being held, or why. "I [was] very angry about everything," Andriy said, "but, at the same time, I know it could've been much worse."

His mother tried to get into the tent, but was stopped by the officers. "She was very nervous. She later said they had told her that my 're-education' had started," Andriy said, "and that she shouldn't be worried." His ordeal, he told me, continued for two and a half hours. He was even forced to make a video saying "Glory to the Russian army!", a mockery of "Slava Ukraini!", the Ukrainian slogan.

The final question, Andriy said, was whether he had "understood his mistakes", and "I obviously answered yes". As he was being released, officers brought in another man, who had previously served in Ukraine's military and had several tattoos. "They immediately pushed him to the ground and started to beat him," Andriy said. "They didn't even talk to him."

Ukrainian authorities say Russian forces and Russian-backed separatists have carried out filtration in occupied territories as an attempt to establish residents' possible links with the military, law enforcement and even local government, as the invading forces try to restore services and infrastructure.

Men of fighting age are particularly targeted, checked for bruises that could suggest recent use of weapons, such as on the fingers and shoulders. Strip searches are common, witnesses say, even for women. Oleksandra Matviychuk, the head of the Center for Civil Liberties, a Kyiv-based human rights group, said the process, even when not violent, was "inhuman". "There's no military need for this... They're trying to occupy the country with a tool I call 'immense pain of civilian people'. You ask: 'Why so much cruelty? For what?'"

Maksym, a 48-year-old steelworker, said he was forced to strip naked while officers in Bezimenne checked even the seams of his clothes. He was asked whether he was from the Azov regiment or was a Nazi sympathiser - he denied being either - and why he wanted to leave Mariupol. "I said, 'Actually, it's you who are on Ukrainian soil.'" One of the officers, who he said were all Russian, reacted by hitting Maksym with the gun butt in his chest. He fell.

"I leaned my head on the ground, holding my ribs. I couldn't get up," he said. "It was very painful to breathe."

He was taken to what he described as a "cage", where others were being held. He noticed that one man, a weightlifter, had a tattoo of Poseidon, the Greek god, with a trident. The soldiers, Maksym said, thought it was the Ukrainian coat of arms. "He explained it to them but they didn't understand." Those detained in the "cage" were given no water or food, and had to urinate in a corner in front of everyone, Maksym told me. At one point, exhausted, he tried to sleep on the ground. An officer came in and kicked him in the back, forcing him to stand.

People would be taken to be interrogated and, when they returned, "you saw the person had been beaten", Maksym said. He witnessed a woman in her 40s lying in pain, apparently after being hit in the stomach. A man, who seemed to be around 50, had a bleeding lip and red bruises on his neck. Maksym believed he had been strangled. No-one in the "cage" asked or said anything to each other. They were afraid that FSB officers could be disguised as prisoners.

After about four or five hours, Maksym was released and allowed to leave Mariupol. Days later, he reached safety in Ukrainian-controlled territory, and went to a hospital to treat the persistent pain in his chest. The diagnosis: four broken ribs.

Yuriy Belousov, who leads the Department of War at the Ukrainian general prosecutor's office, said his team had received allegations of torture and even killings during filtration. "[It seems to be] a Russian policy which was designed in advance, and pretty well prepared," he told me. "It's definitely not just a single case or [something] done by a local military guy."

He acknowledged it was difficult to verify the cases, or estimate the scale of the violence. The Ukrainian authorities are unable to carry out investigations in occupied territories and most victims remain reluctant to share their stories, concerned that relatives in Mariupol could be targeted if their identity is exposed.

Vadym, 43, who used to work at a state-owned company in Mariupol, said he was tortured in Bezimenne in March. Separatist soldiers had questioned his wife after finding out she had "liked" the Ukrainian army page on Facebook, and restoring a receipt on her phone of a donation she had made to them. "I tried to stand up for her," he said, "but was knocked down." He got up, but was beaten once more. A pattern, he said, that happened again and again.

When Russian soldiers realised where he worked, they took Vadym to a different building. There, Vadym said separatist soldiers asked him "stupid things" and started to beat him. "They used electricity. I almost died. I fell and choked on my dental fillings, which had come out from my teeth," Vadym said. He vomited and fainted. "They were furious. When I recovered consciousness, they told me to clean everything up and continued to give me electric shocks."

The torture, Vadym said, only stopped after Russian officers intervened. They carried out another round of questioning before finally freeing him. As Vadym left the building, he saw a young woman, who had been identified during the process as a court clerk, being carried out.

"A plastic bag was put on her head, and her hands were tied," Vadym said. "Her mother was on her knees, begging for her daughter not to be taken away."

Vadym's release came with a condition: he would have to go to Russia. About 1.2 million people in Ukraine, including thousands of Mariupol residents, have been sent to Russia against their will since the invasion began in February, according to Ukrainian officials. Russia denies it is carrying out a mass deportation, which would constitute a war crime under international humanitarian law, and says it is simply helping those who want to go. Ukraine rejects this claim.

Some of those sent to Russia have managed to escape to other countries and even return to Ukraine. How many, remains unclear. Vadym, with the help of his friends, moved to another European country - he did not want to reveal the exact location. He had lost some of his vision, he told me, and doctors said this was a result of head injuries from the beating. "I feel better now, but rehabilitation will take a long time." I asked him what he thought about filtration. "They separate families. People are being disappeared," he said. "It's pure terror."

Russia's defence ministry did not respond to several requests for comment on the allegations. The Russian government has previously denied it is carrying out war crimes in Ukraine.

Andriy said his mother was told by a Russian soldier that he was going through "re-education"
Andriy and his family have now settled in Germany, after also having been forced to go to Russia. Looking back, he believes the occupying forces seemed to be using filtration to show their "absolute power". Soldiers, he said, acted as if it was a "type of entertainment", something to "satisfy their own ego".

I told him about another Ukrainian I had met - Viktoriia, a 60-year-old retired engineer. A soldier found out she had added a Ukrainian flag to her profile photo on Facebook, she told me, and the message "Ukraine above all."

She said that he pointed his gun at her and threatened: "I'll put you in the basement until you rot!" He then kicked her, she said. Viktoriia could not understand why he had acted like that. "What did I do? What right did they have?"

Andriy said he could not explain such behaviour. "I even try to justify the process somehow. Try to convince myself there's some logic."

But, he said, "there's no logic"."

Edited June 16, 2022 by Machor
Added quotation mark in the end.

[akd]

11 minutes ago, Machor said:

Now, if this latest BBC piece can be verified, that all changes. Again, I do demand verification before going ahead with anything, but if all this is true, NATO has to go in - else, it means we were building our own Potemkin village since the Nuremberg trials:

Dude, this has been happening with plenty of verification since 2014.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izolyatsia_prison

Edited June 16, 2022 by akd

[LongLeftFlank]

How much does the Soviet Union weigh?

-- I.V. Stalin

Edited June 16, 2022 by LongLeftFlank

[panzermartin]

In the bleak scenario of a hypothetical WW3 an axis of Russia - China seems probably more formidable than the Germany - Japan one . Apart from sheer manpower, nuclear, they also have common borders and can share weapons, tech, etc. I remember the trouble Germans went trough to send Me 262 parts and BMW jet engines folded in a submarine or something to Japan. It never reached its destination. 

[Grigb]

7 hours ago, Machor said:

One can only hope that these images have found their way to screens in Kostroma and are resulting in questions being asked [There were even more shocking videos posted by 666_mancer, but the tweets have now been deleted.]:

As far as I understood notifications of death (there are seems to be more than we know of) and talks from those that survived reached Kostroma around end of March. It caused shock among family members. 

Still Russia is a pressure cooker, and you will not see the verifiable results for some time. 

[Calamine Waffles]

Quote

Apart from sheer manpower, nuclear, they also have common borders and can share weapons, tech, etc.

It's not 2002 anymore. China doesn't need Russian tech. They already have bought everything they need or want to steal from the Russian technology base over the last 30 years since the end of the Cold War.

[panzermartin]

38 minutes ago, Calamine Waffles said:

It's not 2002 anymore. China doesn't need Russian tech. They already have bought everything they need or want to steal from the Russian technology base over the last 30 years since the end of the Cold War.

Yes but in a lengthy world conflict we could see rapid developments of weapon tech. See for example what WW2 brought to technology , starting with biplanes and cavalry and ending with jet fighters, V2 rockets and nuclear. Probably the leap won't be that big but I suspect Russia and China will be sharing any new ideas. Same goes for NATO allies of course. 

[paxromana]

The really big question about China is ... is their military any better than the Russian one.

The evidence suggests that no-one is game to tell Emperor Xi that he may not have any clothes on. And what I have read about their 'new' equipment seems to indicate that none of it was produced in any really large numbers before it was replaced with something even newer ... and the strong indications are that this was because the earlier iterations were ... not very good at all.

Does anyone have any idea whether PLA/PLAAF/PLAN 'wargames' are any more than the same sort of heavily scripted showpieces of no real military value than the Russian ones were?

The real problem seems to be exactly that Xi is living in his own little thought bubble ... quite probably a delusional one. Maybe not quite as delusional as Putler's, but I don't see anyone telling the Emperor he has no clothes any time soon, so it is a real worry that he may act on delusion rather than reality.

[Grigb]

18 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

Yes but in a lengthy world conflict we could see rapid developments of weapon tech. See for example what WW2 brought to technology , starting with biplanes and cavalry and ending with jet fighters, V2 rockets and nuclear. Probably the leap won't be that big but I suspect Russia and China will be sharing any new ideas. Same goes for NATO allies of course. 

Russia is unlikely to pull this off due to major Brain exodus. They are currently struggling just to replace sanctioned stuff. 

[kraze]

During WW2 even that supposedly mighty russian empire (USSR) had to rely almost entirely on USA and its lend-lease to not get steamrolled into oblivion by Germany, people seem to forget that. Not in small part due to a good old russian tradition of killing everyone intelligent enough to actually wipe their ass and leaving the rest.

Edited June 16, 2022 by kraze

[Undaunted]

Hello, I used to lurk these forums in the CMx1 days.  Thanks everyone for the great thread, I did not remember to check here until a few hundred pages in.  (Kinda sad to see a few familiar names permabanned or even passed away, RIP Michael Emrys).

As far as I can tell, Ukrainian's will to fight remain very strong.  Without full mobilization, Russians probably cannot militarily win as long as Western support persists.  At this point Russian's main mean to win is more like to wear down the will of the West, and we are just beginning to see the attrition on that front in the form of inflation and economic woes.  I think in some European countries it has been the public opinion that drags their government forward, so it is relevant to track the public opinion.  This is an interesting poll report:

https://ecfr.eu/publication/peace-versus-justice-the-coming-european-split-over-the-war-in-ukraine/

Regarding China, don't overestimate the factor of economic concerns in China's policy and behavior.  In the past few years it has been making a sharp turn to the left and steadily moving towards totalitarianism.  I think the ultimate goal of the CCP is not money, or well being of the people, or even nationalism.  It is the eternal survival of the CCP and its eternal grip on the control over China.  Economy is one important factor, but "national security" has been the keyword of the day for the past few years.

A thing of note is that in the later half of this year, Xi Jinping will seek a third term and possibly a term for life.  There has been speculation that Xi will seek to "resolve" the Taiwan question during his term, as well as speculation that China will attack in the next few years (not necessarily full invasion, possibly attacking outlying islands like Kinmen/Matsu or some islands in South China Sea that is controlled by Taiwan.  When a few months ago some unconfirmed FSB letters mentioned that China was to attack Taiwan some time this year, I think it was not far-fetched (or at least it is not far-fetched that China might led Russia to think they are doing it this year instead of the next).

There is a worrying trend that many in China seems to think that a war with US is inevitable, that the West is in decline and China should push US influence out of the western Pacific.  In that line of thought, a defeated Russia is not in the interest of China, and instead if the West finishes off Russia then they will threaten China through defeat in detail.  In some sense it is similiar to Russia's stance, that you threaten their national security by merely existing.

The fierce resistance of Ukraine and unexpected solidarity of the West in this war probably stunned China, but recently tension around Taiwan intensify again, and it has been aggressively diplomatically pushing into the Pacific (it got sort of a foothold in Solomon Islands and unsuccessfully strike a deal with a group of Pacific states).  Maybe CCP smells blood and thinks the West is weakening.

Apparently there is no one in China that can keep Xi in check, because everyone high up was more or less corrupt in the past and vulnerable to Xi's weaponized anti-corruption campaigns, and they are especially heavily monitored under state surveillance.  He grew up during cultural revolution and is fond of it as well as Mao himself, so better don't count on his sanity.

Xi has just signed a "outline of non-war military operations".  Sounds familiar?  It is supposed to provide a legal basis for China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to “safeguard China’s national sovereignty, security and development interests".

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/15/tensions-heighten-in-taiwan-strait-as-china-acts-to-extend-military-operations

China a few days ago claimed that Taiwan Strait is not international waters.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-strait-is-an-international-waterway-taipei-says-rebuff-china-2022-06-14/

Reuters had an interesting piece on the wargaming the Battle for Taiwan

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/taiwan-china-wargames/

I haven't read the rest of the series but it seems interesting

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/taiwan-china/

 

[panzermartin]

1 minute ago, Grigb said:

Russia is unlikely to pull this off due to major Brain exodus. They are currently struggling just to replace sanctioned stuff. 

Yes, I see them more relying on China on that matter. Especially drone warfare. But they do have a vast experience already in rocket , arty systems, AA etc...Anyway WW3 would be suicidal for all of us, no point making assumptions now.