How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Ales Dvorak]

8 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Dude, c’Mon.  There are a lot of factual errors here.  Afghanistan in the 80s?  You mean support to the mujahideen?  Ok, technically I guess.  A lot of these were proxy actions during the Cold War against Soviet influence (would like to see that list with the same very liberal metrics).  Some of these like Iraq ‘91 were UN coalition operations.  I mean I like US-bashing day as much as the next guy but this is not credible research.  It is starting with a premise and then working back to try and shape facts to prove it.

Yugoslavia in 99-00?  It wasn’t even a country by then, it was a bunch of fracture states.  Serbia, maybe, because the world was a so much better place with Milosevic in power?

1. I'm not an author of this list.

2. You can contact the author to tell him you're right and his wrong, unfortunately his dead.

3. You can call this list conspiracy theory.

4. Yugoslavia was ZRJ  ( FRY )than.

5. Who said the world was a so much better place with Milosevic in power?

Edited April 20, 2023 by Ales Dvorak

[Ales Dvorak]

edit

Edited April 20, 2023 by Ales Dvorak

[panzermartin]

 I've watched quite a few of those close action videos posted from both sides and I'm coming to the conclusion that modern soldiers have become even less densesitized firing at the enemy than what was described in the book "on killing". Some of you might have read about it. There was a theory that in WW2 most soldiers didn't fire their guns at all or didn't shoot to kill but mostly injure the enemy. That changed the coming decades, particularly from wiki :

 

 

"As a result of Marshall's work, modern military training was modified to attempt to override this instinct, by:

• using man-shaped targets instead of bullseye targets in marksmanship practice
• practicing and drilling how soldiers would actually fight
• dispersing responsibility for the killing throughout the group
• displacing responsibility for the killing onto an authority figure, i.e., the commanding officer and the military hierarchy (see the Milgram experiment)

By the time of the United States involvement in the Vietnam War, says Grossman, 90 % of U.S. soldiers would fire their weapons at other people.

He also says the act of killing is psychologically traumatic for the killer, even more so than constant danger or witnessing the death of others.

Grossman further argues that violence in television, movies and video games contributes to real-life violence by a similar process of training and desensitization."

I know the brutality and hate of this conflict may have surpassed any training needed to reach those levels and not sure if those videos represent the general rule but there is something in this war that I haven't seen before. From that video with the russian drone dropping a grenade to an injured Ukranian pleading for his life to the close Call of duty action trench clearing videos I find it disturbing to see perfect killing machines, or find that people from both sides enjoy the video clips with techno and dance music.

I mean, how normal is that? 

 

 

 

[Ales Dvorak]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I will say one thing, generally, about this topic and then hopefully we can move on.

Anybody that says the US is an altruistic force in this world, doing nothing but good for good reasons, is an idiot.  I'd ban anybody who even suggested such a thing simply because no good would come from the typing of anybody that stupid.  Since I haven't banned anybody for being this stupid (or brainwashed or whatever...) that means, logically speaking, there isn't anybody here making that case.  Therefore, posts like the one noted above are aimed at nobody here and therefore are, in their own way, equally pointless.

Where there is room for debate is how much good vs. how much bad that the US does.  Fair debate and often quite fun.  But if someone is coming into that argument without any perspective of what "good" and "bad" means in real terms, then it is impossible for them to compare the US to either standard.  Or it indicates a lack of knowledge about how the world works sufficient to have a meaningful opinion.

The above list is an excellent example of what I am speaking about.  That list is some of the worst tripe I've seen posted on this Forum in a long time.  Probably since I banned the last pro-Russian propagandist.  And if someone doesn't realize why this above noted list is so horribly bad, then that someone isn't armed with enough knowledge, analysis skills, or raw intelligence to enter into a discussion about the US' role in this world.  Seriously, that list is that bad.

So, to anybody thinking this list is anything other than a bad joke, I advise getting outside of whatever distorted bubble you're in and start looking for different sources of information.  And no, I am not just pointing this criticism at the person who posted this nonsense.  There's more than one here who has derailed this discussion with utter left or right wing claptrap before.

Steve

Steve, I get it.

 

Gentleman, it was a pleasure.

* silently closed the door*

[G.I. Joe]

4 hours ago, The_Capt said:

We have kinda done German/Euro Bashing Day to death.  US Bashing Day isn’t even that fun - I mean we have to go back to freakin Guatemala in ‘54.

I'm waiting for Bilingual Maple-Flavoured Political Yabbida Day, myself...

[Butschi]

5 hours ago, paxromana said:

According tro the stated thinking f the Labor government is explicitly about China ... if we didn't believe Chinese expansionism wasn't a problem, we wouldn't be buying them.

Ok, this is off topic anyway, so I will stop here. Just saying this because I'm unhappy about the way we are discussing.

I did not say it wasn't about China. When someone buys a gun and says it's because I don't like the way my neighbor looks at my children then it is about said neighbor. But that in itself is not evidence that this neighbor is a pedophile.

Back to China: I'm fully aware of the fact that China seeks to dominate the world, they even say so themselves. I myself have been warning about China for at least a decade. But I am not aware that they plan to do it by militarily conquering it. There are other ways, economical, for example. I'm not saying they won't use military means to achive some of their goals - and I'm sorry if that upsets people - similar to the USA. I don't equate the US to China, just saying that the US has a huge military that isn't just there to defend against the bad guys but to help with all sorts of geopolitical interests. That doesn't make the US government expansionistic, though, and neither does it make the Chinese government, for all their evilness, expansionistic.

Back to Australia: All the above may be a good enough reason to buy nuclear submarines (e.g. to protect trafe routes) without implying that China is about to invade Australia.

 

[chuckdyke]

5 minutes ago, Butschi said:

China is about to invade Australia.

 

A far greater threat is for example a civil war in Indonesia. If 5% of the population becomes refugees, it means ten million people entering the country. More than enough to destroy the economy. I think WW2 style invasion is not on the Chinese agenda. Far more subtle ways to achieve this. 

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, Butschi said:

Ok, this is off topic anyway, so I will stop here. Just saying this because I'm unhappy about the way we are discussing.

 

Yeah, it does seem that people are talking past each other to things that weren't said.

5 minutes ago, Butschi said:

Back to China: I'm fully aware of the fact that China seeks to dominate the world, they even say so themselves. I myself have been warning about China for at least a decade. But I am not aware that they plan to do it by militarily conquering it. There are other ways, economical, for example. I'm not saying they won't use military means to achive some of their goals - and I'm sorry if that upsets people - similar to the USA. I don't equate the US to China, just saying that the US has a huge military that isn't just there to defend against the bad guys but to help with all sorts of geopolitical interests. That doesn't make the US government expansionistic, though, and neither does it make the Chinese government, for all their evilness, expansionistic.

All countries have the right to spread their influence around the world.  It should be done openly, honestly, and with good intentions.  While it can certainly be said that the US doesn't always adhere to these things, it can be said even less for China and Russia.  It would be nice for everybody to play by the same rules, but I don't think the US should be crying about having one hand tied behind its back (it is a crime for a US citizen to bribe a foreign official, at the very least).

However, it does seem rather counter intuitive that China is building up a massive and modernized military to bribe an African warlord to use kids to mine minerals exclusively for Chinese companies.  It's equally unlikely that such moves are meant to make the immediate neighbors of China feel safe and secure about their territorial integrity and access to the sea and air for commerce.  Whether China actively intends on using this military to take over neighboring countries or not is yet to be seen.  But clearly, very clearly, China wants its neighbors to think it is a possibility.  Therefore, the US and its allies need to take China's direct (in the case of Taiwan) and implied military threats seriously.  To do otherwise would be irresponsible.  Oh, like 2014 Ukraine irresponsible.

5 minutes ago, Butschi said:

Back to Australia: All the above may be a good enough reason to buy nuclear submarines (e.g. to protect trafe routes) without implying that China is about to invade Australia.

Since LLF has apparently left us (not full time, I hope) I will do the honors:

 

[chuckdyke]

Guess who funded my retirement portfolio? It is like a husband finds the wife in a compromising but passionate situation. Begs her hubby, you know the college fees for our kids? The interest increase of the mortgage? He paid for all that. To her husband leave the gun where it is Bill. Bill: Gun? no I get an extra blanket he may catch a cold. Without the iron ore mines our economy is 19th century dependent on sheep exports agriculture. 

[Seedorf81]

"The Netherlands and Danmark are buying 14 Leopardtanks for the Ukraine."

165 million Euro's, but tanks will be delivered in 2024.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

1 hour ago, panzermartin said:

 I've watched quite a few of those close action videos posted from both sides and I'm coming to the conclusion that modern soldiers have become even less densesitized firing at the enemy than what was described in the book "on killing". Some of you might have read about it. There was a theory that in WW2 most soldiers didn't fire their guns at all or didn't shoot to kill but mostly injure the enemy.

I have always suspected that this theory overdoes the psychological block idea and have always favoured the alternative explanation- that the soldiers had been trained in single fire at visible targets during the basic training, they did not have modern assault rifles anyway, so when they were asked to engage a target described as "the treeline" or "those buildings" without any visible enemy they literally saw no point of shooting at the scenery with individual shots, and just went through the motions to appease the NCO. So my guess would be that modern soliders are less reluctant to shoot for suppression because they have assault rifles which shoot a bullet with every trigger pull, and that makes more intuitive sense than shooting 1 bullet every 10 seconds because you have to work the bolt to reload in the meantime.

That said, I do not think that the phenomenon of non firing soldiers ever applied to close combat. At those ranges it is more like the issue of fight or flight reflex taking over in the flight mode

[womble]

2 hours ago, Butschi said:

But I am not aware that they plan to do it by militarily conquering it.

Oh, apart from the South China Sea, where they're definitely throwing their military weight around in an attempt to claim the entire basin for themselves, contrary to agreements they're party to. The only reason you could think it's not a "military conquest" is because no one with the wherewithal to effectively do so has yet felt it's worth actually shooting at them for it.

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, Maciej Zwolinski said:

I have always suspected that this theory overdoes the psychological block idea and have always favoured the alternative explanation- that the soldiers had been trained in single fire at visible targets during the basic training, they did not have modern assault rifles anyway, so when they were asked to engage a target described as "the treeline" or "those buildings" without any visible enemy they literally saw no point of shooting at the scenery with individual shots, and just went through the motions to appease the NCO. So my guess would be that modern soliders are less reluctant to shoot for suppression because they have assault rifles which shoot a bullet with every trigger pull, and that makes more intuitive sense than shooting 1 bullet every 10 seconds because you have to work the bolt to reload in the meantime.

That said, I do not think that the phenomenon of non firing soldiers ever applied to close combat. At those ranges it is more like the issue of fight or flight reflex taking over in the flight mode

That theory has a lot of issues.  First off, there have been questions as to its overall validity and application in WW2 itself.  Did it take into account the PTO or non/low-US theatres such as Burma?  Was the phenomenon isolated or more generalized?

Then there is context.  In WW2 you had masses of US “citizen soldiers”.  These were people who had been living normal lives who got suddenly pulled into this war en masse.  Was the phenomenon of “not shooting” endemic to them alone?  While forces that had been in the war longer or more intimately involved in their own countries did not see this happen.  For example, I sincerely doubt members of the French Resistance or partisans in Eastern Europe were avoiding lethal force at a high rate.

Did US forces in combat see their “murder aversion” change over time? Warfare throughout history demonstrates that it gets pretty normal to kill, pretty fast.  

How does this phenomenon stack up against other wars in history?  Am I to believe that Roman legions were only “stabbing to kill” 20% of the time? How about the Mongols?

Then the modern era.  We suddenly went from high percentages of not shooting to kill to murderous lust from WW2 to Vietnam?  I know in modern wars that we did not see mass aversion to lethal force - quite the opposite, we had to rein it in.  So what changed?  Was it sugar, tv and video games?  Or was the initial study flawed?

From my own experience.  19-20 year old kids amped up an adrenaline -  scared and angry at the same time, will go from “0 to Murder” in seconds and sleep soundly that night.  It usually only takes one person to start shooting first and then the rest jump in.  The challenge is to get them to stop shooting, or get them shooting at the right thing.  That is why we spend so much time training them.  I have never seen a widespread phenomenon of an aversion to apply lethal force, from any side, of the wars I have been involved in.

Finally given our biological make up, this theory also does not compute.  All primates (with only one or two exceptions) are murderous brutal little monsters.  Our closest evolutionary relatives are some of the most vicious creatures in nature.  The idea that mankind was somehow blessed with a higher morale standard is laughable given our history.  We impose a lot of programming and frameworks just to get us to not kill each other in a peacetime setting, let alone open warfare.

I am not sold on the whole idea to be honest.

Edited April 20, 2023 by The_Capt

[Rokko]

 

The rationale for holding on to Bakhmut continues to elude me. The only thing I might understand is to force the Russians to stay on the offensive, i.e. they can't give up the assault for political reasons and staying on the offensive forces them to continue wasting resources that won't be available for countering any UKR offensives. Had they taken Bakhmut a few months ago I would have suspected the Russians to happily start their next death grind towards Kramatorsk, but now they are probably "on edge" enough to stay on the defensive after Bakhmut falls.

On another note, I've been under the impression that Ukrainian CB has been rather weak around Bakhmut basically for the entire duration of the battle, unlike in other areas like Vuhledar, Avdiivka, etc. With RU artillery being apparently particularly concentrated around Bakhmut, I would have thought this area would be a rather obvious candidate for attriting RU artillery capabilities, or am I missing something/under some wrong impression?

[DesertFox]

nvm

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by DesertFox

[Haiduk]

Several kilomiters from Bakhmut. Stabilization point. Medics are working 24/7. This guy was returned back to life after his heart stopped.

 

 

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by Haiduk

[Billy Ringo]

Spend 10 minutes watching a group of 14-17 year old teenage boys play Call of Duty or a similar high-definition war/killing video game.   Incredibly realistic and de-sensitizing.  

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by Billy Ringo
Deleted comments to keep on topic.

[womble]

46 minutes ago, Rokko said:

On another note, I've been under the impression that Ukrainian CB has been rather weak around Bakhmut basically for the entire duration of the battle, unlike in other areas like Vuhledar, Avdiivka, etc. With RU artillery being apparently particularly concentrated around Bakhmut, I would have thought this area would be a rather obvious candidate for attriting RU artillery capabilities, or am I missing something/under some wrong impression?

I thought the same, when it became clear that UKR were going to hold "indefinitely" and soak whatever the cost was. The bleeding of RUS troops strength doesn't seem to be "enough" to keep reinforcing the salient, but if they could suck enough Russian tubes into range of NATO long-barrelled 155s, and GMLRS and thin out the artillery park, that'd be a great strategic result.

I don't think we can necessarily decide that this hasn't happened, though, to at least some extent. We only have fragmentary accounts of the artillery duel, and it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that these will tend towards the "OMG, we're getting pounded and our arty is doing nothing," end of the spectrum, since the times when CB is effective might be assumed to be down to the Russians just not throwing the same weight of iron into the target area, and won't be so memorable.

We probably won't know the effectiveness of any rope-a-dope approaches the UKR have tried until a while after the shooting stops, and even then it's going to be a patchy picture.

[Beleg85]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

How does this phenomenon stack up against other wars in history?  Am I to believe that Roman legions were only “stabbing to kill” 20% of the time? How about the Mongols?

Marshall's dubious claims very quickly became accepted opinio communis among historians of other periods, like Goldsworthy's Roman Army at War, without actualy checking credentials of it. One of prime examples of how not to apply historical analogies.

https://acoup.blog/2023/03/31/michael-taylor-on-john-keegans-the-face-of-battle-a-retrospective/

This war and ample visual evidence from actual combat perhaps finally put an end to those debates.

Edited April 20, 2023 by Beleg85

[kevinkin]

Another article using the 'borderlands" geopolitical concept with respect to Russia today - particularly helping China in the SCS. (Even indirectly) China can't be happy with their wayward son. The Philippines won't fall into China's orbit. Note the exercises and their size recently held. Even though Vietnam and Malaysia abstained in the UN, a Russian defeat would mess with China's calculus regarding the region and Taiwan. Apparently Russia added something tangible which is in danger of disappearing. 

Meanwhile, over the past decade, in preparation for the war in Ukraine, Russia has sought alternate trade routes to Europe that bypass the Black Sea and has increased its presence in the South China Sea.

That's new to me. Does Putin think that far ahead? 

The core borderland, where they meet, is Central Asia. In this sense, Afghanistan has been the perfect metaphor for how empires clash and coordinate. The nodes of the Black Sea and the South China Sea are balancing off one another as they interact through the strategies pursued by the U.S., Russia and China. The longer the conflict in Ukraine lasts, the more uncertainty there is in the Black Sea waters and the more pressure there is on China, on the shores of the South China Sea, to join the global economic war.

Our world is fraying at the edges, beginning in the European borderlands but potentially stretching into Asia. Geopolitical nodes will become only more important as supply chains are reformulated, competition for raw materials grows and technological change fragments cyberspace and more. The most critical nodes are the Black Sea and the South China Sea, where the U.S., Russia and China contend for influence and control.

https://geopoliticalfutures.com/the-battle-for-eurasias-borderlands/?tpa=ZDc4ZGViMjE2ZGNlMjQ2MTUxMDFkZTE2ODI2MDk5NjFiOTYxYTI

[Haiduk]

10 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

I would speculate that Patriots are intended primarily for missile defense and may be too far behind the front lines to engage Russian aviation.

Russians SU-35, carring own ER-JDAM analogs already became enough bozzering. Each day they drop its on Kherson oblast and sometime on Zaporizhzhia oblast and north-eastern oblasts. Most of hits are on civilian objects or some abandoned facilities. There is an opinion in such way Russians want to attract our long-range SAMs like S-300 or may be even Patriots to find and destroy it. 

Also would be intersting to know what version of Patriot we have received... 

There are rumors from inhabitants of Crimea, that Russians are gathering many aircraft on Belbek airfield - much more that on 24th Feb 2022. As if they prepare to mass preventive strike on UKR troops and ammo dumps in close rear before they will start offensive.

[Maciej Zwolinski]

7 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

There are rumors from inhabitants of Crimea, that Russians are gathering many aircraft on Belbek airfield - much more that on 24th Feb 2022. As if they prepare to mass preventive strike on UKR troops and ammo dumps in close rear before they will start offensive.

They are really taking the Kursk analogy to the extreme.

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, Beleg85 said:

Marshall's dubious claims very quickly became accepted opinio communis among historians of other periods, like Goldsworthy's Roman Army at War, without actualy checking credentials of it. One of prime examples of how not to apply historical analogies.

https://acoup.blog/2023/03/31/michael-taylor-on-john-keegans-the-face-of-battle-a-retrospective/

This war and ample visual evidence from actual combat perhaps finally put an end to those debates.

One also has to consider the timing and environment of the day.  On Killing was published right at the rise of the liberal humanist wave of the late 90s.  Rousseau was fully in charge because we had won the Cold War and a new order was going to happen...thousand points of light.  I think it lasted even through 9/11 with Pinker and that gang.  This war will probably put it that whole thing bed for at least for awhile.

 

[Bil Hardenberger]

13 hours ago, Offshoot said:

It's interesting to see the video feed from the FPV drone in this case and how it breaks up before contact because we know the FPV successfully hit the target and exploded. Earlier in this thread comments were made that maybe this video effect was added to the video to hide a miss by the FPV. It seems, however, like it is an integral aspect of at least some FPVs.

There must be a second or so lag from the video transmission; so the last second or two (up to impact) are never transmitted because the warhead detonated. Makes sense that this would cause the effect we are seeing, with the static just prior to impact.

[Beleg85]

22 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

One also has to consider the timing and environment of the day.  On Killing was published right at the rise of the liberal humanist wave of the late 90s.  Rousseau was fully in charge because we had won the Cold War and a new order was going to happen...thousand points of light.  I think it lasted even through 9/11 with Pinker and that gang.  This war will probably put it that whole thing bed for at least for awhile.

As much as I understand non-academic part of controversies with Grossman, he get ahead of himself when advised to shape domestic law enforcement training in USA drawing on his models taken from actual battlefields (which were controversial in themselves). Quite understanable public did not like it. On the other hand, officers in US work in environment unlike the one we have in Europe.So difficult to judge who is right.