How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Jiggathebauce]

1 minute ago, Holien said:

And Secret Police stations in foreign nations. One just closed in NYC.

 

Gonna contend here that condemning china or the US or anyone else for imperial behavior is coming fron a place of team sports and not principled opposition to their hegemonic tactics, ambitions, or violations of sovereignty. So move on. 

[Butschi]

22 minutes ago, dan/california said:

There is a very good reason Australia just committed a large chunk of GDP to a nuclear submarine program, and it isn't New Guinea.

You didn't answer my question, though. The fact that the Australians want nuclear submarines can have a lot of good (and some bad) reasons but is in itself no evidence of Chinese expansionism. I also didn't say that the Chinese government doesn't act aggressive. They are aggressively establishling presence, militarily and otherwise, in a number of regions. But so do a number of other countries, the USA being a prime example. But where do you see the Chinese actually expanding their territory? Hong Kong used to be Chinese and was given back by the UK, so that doesn't qualify. Taiwan is, well, complicated, in the sense that most countries for whatever reason don't have official diplomatic relations with them and so accept that Taiwan is still somehow Chinese. You don't have to agree with that but that's why Taiwan is also not a good example for expansionism. So, honest question because maybe I'm just missing it, where do you think China is going to expand its territory?

[Butschi]

3 hours ago, Lethaface said:

If US wants to start a war with China just to see who has the largest ......, I think that US will have to go for that one solo or without NATO at least. I would wholeheartedly opt-out on behalf of NATO if I could.

I would second this motion.

[Kinophile]

2 hours ago, Elmar Bijlsma said:

And in the Holy Fudge category of combat footage, we have a new king:

POV guy shows great personal courage, head is on a swivel. Top notch NCO-ing going on.

Very controlled with his fires too, no spray n pray. 

 

[Bearstronaut]

8 minutes ago, Butschi said:

 But where do you see the Chinese actually expanding their territory? 

Line of Actual Control - Wikipedia

[panzermartin]

Ironically the most expansionist feature of China was kickstarted from western companies/goverments , mostly US, that transfered all their hardware there to cut the costs and make some more free cash. That started to turn them into the behemoth we are all depended upon and in case of a war this will kickback mercilessly against all of us. Their military expansionism is an infant in comparison. When was the last time China army went to war? Started a war even? I can't remember.    

[Beleg85]

2 hours ago, Haiduk said:

One man, mobilzed and trained in UK (he is still in UK) told they have very hard and extreme course. Interesting how match NATO trainings to Ukrainian war realities... 

Same rumour is here from Polish trainers in tank and artillery, quite possibly also infantry- they made a lot of effort to push Ukrainians to the limits, given short time. Definitelly no time-offs for those guys. I also read that some programs in infantry school were upgraded to include fresh perspectives from this war, especially regarding trench warfare. Everybody underlined Ukrainians were fast learners, but a lot of problems, especially regarding high technical skills was caused by need to translate everything. Kudos to those civilian translators (seems like mostly women) who did hell of a job, reportedly around the clock every day.

44 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

Wait, didn't t you know that China has over 750 military bases all across the globe and is enforcing chinese language, chinese currency, chinese culture and chinese weapons everywhere?

Is anybody enforcing US language and culture on you? As I understand they also shoot you if you don't buy their guns, right? And this terrible, terrible burden to be able to communicate for free on platforms like this one, consume things from around the world or safely travel around it- is also Amercian imperialism?

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, what a great movie.

[Butschi]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Truth in what is written is a separate issue.  What Jon stated is that generally the victor gets to set the historical record going forward for the generations that come after.  In this case, the defeated (Germans) did that.  There are many complicated reasons for the German accounts being taken more-or-less at face value, but the biggest of them all is that the West didn't trust anything that the Soviets had to say.  And they were correct to do that because the Russians have a history of lying and distorting to such an extent that you can't tell what is real.  This continues right through this war.

The mistake the West made was no scrutinizing the German accounts more thoroughly until the last 20-40 years.  Indeed, much of the German source documentation is accurate and a more honest reexamination of it has been quite helpful in better understanding the war.  Similarly, the Russians briefly allowed access to their source material and that was extremely useful when scholars, who understand Russian culture and language thoroughly, were able to make great improvements in understanding what happened on the Eastern Front.  Which is why Putin put the kibosh on that... the carefully crafted Soviet story of the Great Patriotic War took too many hits.

As an aside, I had a rare 1st Edition of the Soviet printed English version of The Great Patriotic War.  It is an extremely detailed military account of the war.  I'm sure that most of the details of times, places, and who fought was mostly accurate.  However, it wasn't hard to get the impression that it wasn't trustworthy in its accounts of the fighting due to all of the propaganda language throughout.

Steve

Well, the fact is that Nazi Germany lost the war. This time the army couldn't very well do a second edition of the Dolchstoẞ Legend, blaming it all on the Jews and the social democrats. So instead they spun the story that the Wehrmacht was superior in all aspects but numbers and would have won if Hitler hadn't been so incompetent or had just let them do their job and if the Red Army hadn't just buried them with the bodies of their soldiers. Oh and hadn't the Western Allies landed in Normandy, of course. All of that isn't entirely wrong but none of it is right, either. The Wehrmacht was initially superior, mostly in doctrine and personnel. But it became clear very quickly that neither logistics nor equipment were sufficient for the task. The Red Army was abysmal initially, but both equipment and competence improved over time. That doesn't mean they weren't absolutely ruthless throwing away the lives of their soldiers but later on the Wehrmacht wasn't just overrun by stupid human wave attacks. They were defeated on an operational and logistical level, too. And, I guess we'll never know if the Red Army would have defeated Germany without D-Day.

But I am preaching to the historian, so maybe, layman that I am, I should stop here.

Edited April 19, 2023 by Butschi

[kimbosbread]

3 hours ago, Lethaface said:

'We' need to be able to posture a credible defense against a China imposing their will/narrative over Western interests. That mainly revolves around making sure they understand a blockade or even an invasion of Taiwan is a bad idea and harmful for China.

What we need is time. They have about 10 years of demographic runway left. They know, we know and they know we know.

3 hours ago, Lethaface said:

We need to have better / good enough tools to give China a bloody nose if they decide to try their luck. And enough of it / scaleable means of production, so China can't just calculate the losses as acceptable before we run out of pointy sticks.

We need both credible deterrence and the capability to fight a short war and a long war. China is betting they can win a long war. All the missiles get used, and the ships get sunk? They can build more, fast. Us, not so much. China's assumption is that they can win if they can get troops to Taiwan and hold for two weeks.

My worries:

• Does the US have a big enough submarine force? We have 53 fast attack boats; lets say emergency we have half those are in the area.
• Do they carry enough weapons to sink a ****load of Chinese ships? Los Angeles and Virginia class carry 26 torpedoes (and up 12 missiles for some boats). Seawolf class carry double that. That's 1300+ weapons. Chinese navy is 300+ armed vessels and growing fast; plus they have lots of merchant ships. We can sink of bunch of ships, but they'll have more. How do we resupply our subs in a timely manner?
• Given Chinese antiship missiles, can we get surface vessels anywhere close to Taiwan? Are large surface ships on a blockade near Singapore viable? Would we be better off playing pirates on RHIBs in those sorts of waters and moving the surface ships back to the Indian Ocean/Australia/Indonesia?
• What do we do about drone ships/subs/mines? We need to be building these, fast, but I bet China can do it faster, and better.
• If we need to boots on the ground in Taiwan, can we get marines 400 miles from Okinawa in a contested environment?
• What do we do about transiting the Panama canal, which China effectively owns nowadays?

On the other hand:

• If all the satellites get taken out day 1, we have a credible shot at getting a replacement constellation back up, fast. China does not have a counter to this besides building more anti-satellite missiles. The longer they wait, the more ridiculous our space overmatch becomes.
• China imports food + fuel. How much can they stockpile?
• That dam is a big target and single point of failure. They'd lose Wuhan, Shanghai, and bunch of power plants, tons of military bases etc. Are they willing to risk it?

Also, I used to work with a bunch of mainlanders who are all very pro-China. Around 2021 they had kind of given up on Pooh-bear and were much more bearish, no pun intended.

[panzermartin]

3 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

Same rumour is here from Polish trainers in tank and artillery, quite possibly also infantry- they made a lot of effort to push Ukrainians to the limits, given short time. Definitelly no time-offs for those guys. I also read that some programs in infantry school were upgraded to include fresh perspectives from this war, especially regarding trench warfare. Everybody underlined Ukrainians were fast learners, but a lot of problems, especially regarding high technical skills was caused by need to translate everything. Kudos to those civilian translators (seems like mostly women) who did hell of a job, reportedly around the clock every day.

Is anybody enforcing US language and culture on you? As I understand they also shoot you if you don't buy their guns, right? And this terrible, terrible burden to be able to communicate for free on platforms like this one, consume things from around the world or safely travel around it- is also Amercian imperialism?

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, what a great movie.

It's not that simple  There are many great things about living in the USA era. But we have to admit its the Empire of our times, good or bad. 

And yes sometimes, I feel living in american World. Not a german, french, or chinese...Health systems are being privatized, most series, movies are streamed from there, and we suddenly all sing trap. Thank god we we are still watching football (not soccer) here in Europe!  

[Holien]

38 minutes ago, Jiggathebauce said:

Gonna contend here that condemning china or the US or anyone else for imperial behavior is coming fron a place of team sports and not principled opposition to their hegemonic tactics, ambitions, or violations of sovereignty. So move on. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65305415

 

BTW please point to me doing anything you have stated? All I have noted is that China have been alleged to be running Secret Police stations.

So Jog on...

[Butschi]

3 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

What we need is time. They have about 10 years of demographic runway left. They know, we know and they know we know.

We need both credible deterrence and the capability to fight a short war and a long war. China is betting they can win a long war. All the missiles get used, and the ships get sunk? They can build more, fast. Us, not so much. China's assumption is that they can win if they can get troops to Taiwan and hold for two weeks.

My worries:

• Does the US have a big enough submarine force? We have 53 fast attack boats; lets say emergency we have half those are in the area.
• Do they carry enough weapons to sink a ****load of Chinese ships? Los Angeles and Virginia class carry 26 torpedoes (and up 12 missiles for some boats). Seawolf class carry double that. That's 1300+ weapons. Chinese navy is 300+ armed vessels and growing fast; plus they have lots of merchant ships. We can sink of bunch of ships, but they'll have more. How do we resupply our subs in a timely manner?
• Given Chinese antiship missiles, can we get surface vessels anywhere close to Taiwan? Are large surface ships on a blockade near Singapore viable? Would we be better off playing pirates on RHIBs in those sorts of waters and moving the surface ships back to the Indian Ocean/Australia/Indonesia?
• What do we do about drone ships/subs/mines? We need to be building these, fast, but I bet China can do it faster, and better.
• If we need to boots on the ground in Taiwan, can we get marines 400 miles from Okinawa in a contested environment?
• What do we do about transiting the Panama canal, which China effectively owns nowadays?

On the other hand:

• If all the satellites get taken out day 1, we have a credible shot at getting a replacement constellation back up, fast. China does not have a counter to this besides building more anti-satellite missiles. The longer they wait, the more ridiculous our space overmatch becomes.
• China imports food + fuel. How much can they stockpile?
• That dam is a big target and single point of failure. They'd lose Wuhan, Shanghai, and bunch of power plants, tons of military bases etc. Are they willing to risk it?

Also, I used to work with a bunch of mainlanders who are all very pro-China. Around 2021 they had kind of given up on Pooh-bear and were much more bearish, no pun intended.

You do realize that you two are talking about different 'we's, right?

[sburke]

1 hour ago, billbindc said:

As did the American Civil War until I was literally 40 years old.

no worries, I think we are just about to the point of removing any mention of it in our history books.

[Jiggathebauce]

6 minutes ago, Holien said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65305415

 

BTW please point to me doing anything you have stated? All I have noted is that China have been alleged to be running Secret Police stations.

So Jog on...

I'm stating this less at you, rather in general that these conversations quickly end up becoming an argument of which hegemon is allowed to do monstrous things and which one gets to be condemned for competing in kind. And that's a waste of time. 

[dan/california]

44 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

Very controlled with his fires too, no spray n pray. 

 

The 1 in ten that does the killing. This guy may be edging into 1 n 100 territory. I am pretty sure he just broke an entire Russian platoon by himself. Right time, right, right place and a bleep load of luck always matter, of course. 

20 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

What we need is time. They have about 10 years of demographic runway left. They know, we know and they know we know.

We need both credible deterrence and the capability to fight a short war and a long war. China is betting they can win a long war. All the missiles get used, and the ships get sunk? They can build more, fast. Us, not so much. China's assumption is that they can win if they can get troops to Taiwan and hold for two weeks.

My worries:

• Does the US have a big enough submarine force? We have 53 fast attack boats; lets say emergency we have half those are in the area.
• Do they carry enough weapons to sink a ****load of Chinese ships? Los Angeles and Virginia class carry 26 torpedoes (and up 12 missiles for some boats). Seawolf class carry double that. That's 1300+ weapons. Chinese navy is 300+ armed vessels and growing fast; plus they have lots of merchant ships. We can sink of bunch of ships, but they'll have more. How do we resupply our subs in a timely manner?
• Given Chinese antiship missiles, can we get surface vessels anywhere close to Taiwan? Are large surface ships on a blockade near Singapore viable? Would we be better off playing pirates on RHIBs in those sorts of waters and moving the surface ships back to the Indian Ocean/Australia/Indonesia?
• What do we do about drone ships/subs/mines? We need to be building these, fast, but I bet China can do it faster, and better.
• If we need to boots on the ground in Taiwan, can we get marines 400 miles from Okinawa in a contested environment?
• What do we do about transiting the Panama canal, which China effectively owns nowadays?

On the other hand:

• If all the satellites get taken out day 1, we have a credible shot at getting a replacement constellation back up, fast. China does not have a counter to this besides building more anti-satellite missiles. The longer they wait, the more ridiculous our space overmatch becomes.
• China imports food + fuel. How much can they stockpile?
• That dam is a big target and single point of failure. They'd lose Wuhan, Shanghai, and bunch of power plants, tons of military bases etc. Are they willing to risk it?

Also, I used to work with a bunch of mainlanders who are all very pro-China. Around 2021 they had kind of given up on Pooh-bear and were much more bearish, no pun intended.

Perfectly stated.

20 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

It's not that simple  There are many great things about living in the USA era. But we have to admit its the Empire of our times, good or bad. 

And yes sometimes, I feel living in american World. Not a german, french, or chinese...Health systems are being privatized, most series, movies are streamed from there, and we suddenly all sing trap. Thank god we we are still watching football (not soccer) here in Europe!  

 

[Beleg85]

5 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

But we have to admit its the Empire of our times, good or bad. 

No, we don't have to- concept of Empire has specific meaning, and there are ongoing debates if USA can even be categorized as such. Not judging who is right or not in these discussions, US certainly is hegemon, but not in absolute way as other competitors (and predecessors) tried to be.

6 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

And yes sometimes, I feel living in american World. Not a german, french, or chinese...Health systems are being privatized, most series, movies are streamed from there, and we suddenly all sing trap. Thank god we we are still watching football (not soccer) here in Europe!  

None of this has anything to do with power politics- nobody enforce you to watch Netflix, eat hamburgers or constantly stare at Pamela Anderson buttocks, much less using US-version of English. If people across the globe do this, it is because they find it attractive.

Now, try the same with your own culture being Uighur in China.  Which is ca. fifteen-centuries rich, old heritage being literally wiped out before our eyes, with minors being punished for speaking their native language publicly : https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/09/chinas-destruction-of-uighur-burial-grounds-then-and-now

Also neoliberalism and scale of it is regulated by every country rules, not somebody sitting in Washington; not mentioning that privatization as "ultimate American evil" is a at the most partially true, as its fundations are much older than US itself- its more a British-Dutch invention. We also have these appaling managerial practices being imported from US here, but they are limited by constitution and labour rights. The same with France, Germany or basically any other European country, including Greece.

[dan/california]

54 minutes ago, Butschi said:

You didn't answer my question, though. The fact that the Australians want nuclear submarines can have a lot of good (and some bad) reasons but is in itself no evidence of Chinese expansionism. I also didn't say that the Chinese government doesn't act aggressive. They are aggressively establishling presence, militarily and otherwise, in a number of regions. But so do a number of other countries, the USA being a prime example. But where do you see the Chinese actually expanding their territory? Hong Kong used to be Chinese and was given back by the UK, so that doesn't qualify. Taiwan is, well, complicated, in the sense that most countries for whatever reason don't have official diplomatic relations with them and so accept that Taiwan is still somehow Chinese. You don't have to agree with that but that's why Taiwan is also not a good example for expansionism. So, honest question because maybe I'm just missing it, where do you think China is going to expand its territory?

China thinks they have the right to rule from the Caspian Sea to Guam, and dictate to terms to everybody else. Between Xinjiang and the six months of Xi Jinping thought campaign it couldn't possibly be any clearer HOW they intend to rule everything they can take. The only question is will we let them?

 

[Maciej Zwolinski]

53 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

en was the last time China army went to war? Started a war even? I can't remember.    

For both questions, it is 1979 war with Vietnam AFAIK

[Vanir Ausf B]

1 hour ago, dan/california said:

There is a very good reason Australia just committed a large chunk of GDP to a nuclear submarine program, and it isn't New Guinea.

Not so much New Guinea, but definitely Indonesia and Malaysia.

[panzermartin]

6 minutes ago, Beleg85 said:

No, we don't have to- concept of Empire has specific meaning, and there are ongoing debates if USA can even be categorized as such. Not judging who is right or not in these discussions, US certainly is hegemon, but not in absolute way as other competitors (and predecessors) tried to be.

None of this has anything to do with power politics- nobody enforce you to watch Netflix, eat hamburgers or constantly stare at Pamela Anderson buttocks, much less using US-version of English. If people across the globe do this, it is because they find it attractive.

Now, try the same with your own culture being Uighur in China.  Which is ca. fifteen-centuries rich, old heritage being literally wiped out before our eyes, with minors being punished for speaking their native language publicly : https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/09/chinas-destruction-of-uighur-burial-grounds-then-and-now

Also neoliberalism and scale of it is regulated by every country rules, not somebody sitting in Washington; not mentioning that privatization as "ultimate American evil" is a at the most partially true, as its fundations are much older than US itself- its more a British-Dutch invention. We also have these appaling managerial practices being imported from US here, but they are limited by constitution and labour rights. The same with France, Germany or basically any other European country, including Greece.

Nothing is enforced by law of course...US wont supress different cultures like China does perhaps, but in the end its the same thing but less violent. Simply because of the sheer volume of material we are exposed to. Is it everything really attractive though or we are used to it? For example Pamela Anderson buttocks and Pamela herself admitted to be to a certain degree "fabricated" to be sold as a product.  I find an old Polish or other european town more attractive than skyscrapers for instance.( And more natural looking women:)) But I admit we are going off topic.

We might miss the age of US hegemony, but there has to be a day in the future where people wont have always to look to uncle Sam for their guarantee of freedom. And perhaps gain much more trust and respect on their own existance and ability to coexist and be democratic. 

[Splinty]

6 minutes ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

For both questions, it is 1979 war with Vietnam AFAIK

There has been an ongoing series of minor border clashes with India. Not a war, but definitely fire and fist fights.

[Butschi]

27 minutes ago, dan/california said:

China thinks they have the right to rule from the Caspian Sea to Guam, and dictate to terms to everybody else. Between Xinjiang and the six months of Xi Jinping thought campaign it couldn't possibly be any clearer HOW they intend to rule everything they can take. The only question is will we let them?

 

China intends to be the no. 1 power in the world, they say so quite openly. But I've never seen any indication that they want to get there by territorial conquest of everything "from the Caspian Sea to Guam". So, yes, for me it could be clearer.

Edited April 19, 2023 by Butschi

[Lethaface]

3 hours ago, Haiduk said:

More and more videos how militaries of different countries honorably see off UKR soldiers after their training course... Now Norwegian instructors on Polish training ground

One man, mobilzed and trained in UK (he is still in UK) told they have very hard and extreme course. Interesting how match NATO trainings to Ukrainian war realities... 

 

Nice to see, I can imagine the people giving the training will feel rather involved with how the, often fresh volunteer/mobilized, 'trainees' will fare at the frontlines. They will feel a sense of responsibility.
Hard and extreme sounds appropriate for such a (short) training. I hope it will make the difference!

[Beleg85]

17 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

We might miss the age of US hegemony, but there has to be a day in the future where people wont have always to look to uncle Sam for their guarantee of freedom. And perhaps gain much more trust and respect on their own existance and ability to coexist and be democratic. 

With our technology at hand, return of Westphalian international order means we are going straight into Fallout series scenario. World is too connected for it.

17 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

Nothing is enforced by law of course...US wont supress different cultures like China does perhaps, but in the end its the same thing but less violent. Simply because of the sheer volume of material we are exposed to. Is it everything really attractive though or we are used to it? For example Pamela Anderson buttocks and Pamela herself admitted to be to a certain degree "fabricated" to be sold as a product.  I find an old Polish or other european town more attractive than skyscrapers for instance.( And more natural looking women:)) But I admit we are going off topic.

I did not say US popculture is qualitivelly better (usually opposite of it, actually) but that nobody is enforcing it. Unless one forgets what practice of enforcing (pushing by force, against the will) is. We are not that much offtopic either, as Putin's henchmen put a lot of effort to remind us what this word really means in classical sense. And its not pretty. Unlike American soft power, which is real and alive mythos, Russian (or Chinese) is token one, only aplicable by force/coercion, not even natural diffusion of cultural codes from center to peripheries like happened in the past with those empires.

That's one of main reasons of this sick bloodshed we are witnessing, isn't it? Putin really believed sentiment for old Soviet cartoons plus some yelling idiot in buffallo skin at Capitol means he can have his imagined empire back in people's hearts.

Edited April 19, 2023 by Beleg85

[billbindc]

16 minutes ago, panzermartin said:

Nothing is enforced by law of course...US wont supress different cultures like China does perhaps, but in the end its the same thing but less violent. Simply because of the sheer volume of material we are exposed to. Is it everything really attractive though or we are used to it? For example Pamela Anderson buttocks and Pamela herself admitted to be to a certain degree "fabricated" to be sold as a product.  I find an old Polish or other european town more attractive than skyscrapers for instance.( And more natural looking women:)) But I admit we are going off topic.

We might miss the age of US hegemony, but there has to be a day in the future where people wont have always to look to uncle Sam for their guarantee of freedom. And perhaps gain much more trust and respect on their own existance and ability to coexist and be democratic. 

“the same thing but less violent” 

No further comment required.