How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Letter from Prague]

I wonder if we'll soon see the mysterious weapon that blew up the Crimea airbase and the bridge. It would be a good opener, or a good followup I guess.

[Kinophile]

3 hours ago, BlackMoria said:

I spit up my drink on my screen at this one.   Just how much delusion can one snort up one's nose and not overdose?  Especially in light of an earlier point just above that - "an end to all immigration."

There is just plain $**t talking and then there is "mad dog howling at the moon" talking.

Me too! Snap! 

Oh the LOLs I enjoyed. 

[chuckdyke]

Innovation. 

 

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/24/us/politics/ukraine-russia-war-spring-offensive.html?action=click&algo=bandit-all-surfaces-variants-shadow-lda-unique-diversify-time-cutoff-30&alpha=0.05&block=trending_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=863572653&impression_id=a58f556b-e301-11ed-a0d9-dd4abf1ea604&index=0&pgtype=Article&pool=published-assets-db-4-ls&region=footer&req_id=742724727&shadow_vec_sim=0.1898195178854609&surface=eos-most-popular-story&variant=0_pers_bandit_diversified

Without a decisive victory, Western support for Ukraine could weaken, and Kyiv could come under increasing pressure to enter serious peace talks to end or freeze the conflict.

 

Hopefully at least the corollary is true? If if Ukraine takes back half the land bridge and mauls the Russian Army by the Fourth of July it will get the support to prosecute the war until the last Russian leaves.

[The_Capt]

1 hour ago, JonS said:

Well, the other way to grow your population is to steal someone else's. China? The 'Stans? Etc.

Cloning.  And then start a war with them…clone wars….(snicker).

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/24/biden-ukraine-russia-counteroffensive-defense-00093384

Biden’s team fears the aftermath of a failed Ukrainian counteroffensive

Behind closed doors, the administration worries about what Ukraine can accomplish.

 

If only they had thought about that nine months ago, and sent the Ukrainians what they asked for, when they asked for it. You know, like there was a war on or something. They could STILL ship a couple of hundred ATACMS this WEEK if they just bleeping would. All those Russian airbases in Crimea would go puff...

I realize there is also a non zero possibility that that Biden's team is sandbagging enemies both foreign and domestic. But.....

[billbindc]

14 minutes ago, dan/california said:

 

If only they had thought about that nine months ago, and sent the Ukrainians what they asked for, when they asked for it. You know, like there was a war on or something. They could STILL ship a couple of hundred ATACMS this WEEK if they just bleeping would. All those Russian airbases in Crimea would go puff...

I realize there is also a non zero possibility that that Biden's team is sandbagging enemies both foreign and domestic. But.....

It's sort of...we really definitively...their job to worry about stuff like this. It would be a scandal if they didn't.

[dan/california]

7 minutes ago, billbindc said:

It's sort of...we really definitively...their job to worry about stuff like this. It would be a scandal if they didn't.

I just can't shake the feeling that they have tried too hard to modulate to a just so outcome, and not quite hard enough to outright win this thing and let Russia figure out how to lose it. It is also possible that my spine being a borderline disaster area is making me dyspeptic and grouchy.

Edit: and maybe we are about to see some stuff that will actually surprise us...

Edited April 25, 2023 by dan/california

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, chuckdyke said:

Innovation. 

 

This is really fun!  I know a lot of farmers personally and have always marveled at their skill set and ingenuity.  Every time I see Ukrainian farmers doing stuff like this I think of how similar people are.  Well, the non-murderous ones anyway.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Jiggathebauce said:

1. EVERY state of every type uses the same methods of control, we all just happen to have different opinions on how justified they are to use them and to what extent. That's what all the police and soldiers and lawyers are there to enforce. Even in what you would probably consider a balanced middle democracy, these methods are used. 

Huh.  I'll go down to our local jail and count how many are there because they expressed an opinion that our county government didn't like.  I think I'll come up with zero, but if you guys never see me post again it's probably because I'm unaware of how similar things are here to Russia or Venezuela or Cuba.

4 hours ago, Jiggathebauce said:

2.the repression of the slaveholder is not morally equivalent to the repression of the liberated. 

Until the liberated become the repressors, that is.  Sadly, that's kinda the way Humans work.  Everything oppressive must go, and if it doesn't by golly we'll do it by force.  And take your house while we're at it.

4 hours ago, Jiggathebauce said:

3. The extremes cannot meet in all philosophies and all issues. A system that practices and emphasizes collective leadership, is not the same as one that emphasizes individual authority and private exercises of power.

And yet Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. did pretty well racking up the body county despite their commitment to collective leadership.

That said, there certainly are nuances that make far right regimes different than far left.  Tangible ones which do have meaning.  But in the end, their similarities are greater than their differences, so my point remains that the more extreme the ideological philosophy the easier it is to see what they have in common and harder to find differences that excuse it.

Steve

[kevinkin]

1 hour ago, chuckdyke said:

Innovation. 

Can they also mulch? Talk about cornering the market on 10K suburban homes in Monmouth County alone. Where there used to be will there are many way$. 

[Jiggathebauce]

Quote

Huh. I'll go down to our local jail and count how many are there because they expressed an opinion that our county government didn't like. I think I'll come up with zero, but if you guys never see me post again it's probably because I'm unaware of how similar things are here to Russia or Venezuela or Cuba.

Have you heard about what's going on with cop city in Atlanta, how they murdered an activist and filed terrorism charges at others? How the CIA and FBI undermine activist movements and assassinate leaders like Fred Hampton, and more than likely MLK and Malcom X? Do you really think the largest prison population on the world is just criminals, and has nothing to do with being able to use free prison labor and destroy communities? The government  drugging people without their consent in twisted brainwashing experiments in the MK Ultra project? Do you not factor hundred of lynchings in the last 100 years of blacks, Italians and other minorities, the forced sterilization and experimentation on people by eugenics advocates? Do you recall the red scare, when socialists by and large were terrorized into silence in the US? I could go on, you can get thrown in jail just for trying to sleep in a tent or eat food from the garbage in this country. It is truly mind boggling how much injustice is directed at some people, while others will never run afoul of the system. For them, it's like a different country. 

Quote

Until the liberated become the repressors, that is. Sadly, that's kinda the way Humans work. Everything oppressive must go, and if it doesn't by golly we'll do it by force. And take your house while we're at it.

Not sure I understand. If someone kills my family and takes my house, am I an oppressor for taking it back? Am I an oppressor for killing the one responsible? Is the court that sentences then for their crime oppressive? I've never understood how one group of people can continually do horrible things and keep getting soft treatment for it, and the people who try to put them to account are accused of being as bad or worse. Particularly confederates and their modern day supporters. Lot of peepaws who never went to jail for lynchings, for instance. 

Quote

 Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. did pretty well racking up the body county despite their commitment to collective leadership.

collective leadership can still make collective bad decisions. It's still preferable to decisions taken by autocrats. Whether you think some of those folks exercised collective power or were dictators, bad calls can be recognized as bad calls. 

Also, I'd also be skeptical about any body count tolls that include Axis war dead in their counts of 'Victims of Communism' particularly when those victims count toward a contrived figure of 100 million. Ask yourself what kind of agenda is being pushed by organizations that would take such liberties with numbers. Easy to guess what it could be

 

 

I feel we are getting off topic so I'm done after your next response if that's alright. 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Jiggathebauce
Clarity and less combative phrasing.

[The_MonkeyKing]

2 hours ago, dan/california said:

 

If only they had thought about that nine months ago, and sent the Ukrainians what they asked for, when they asked for it. You know, like there was a war on or something. They could STILL ship a couple of hundred ATACMS this WEEK if they just bleeping would. All those Russian airbases in Crimea would go puff...

I realize there is also a non zero possibility that that Biden's team is sandbagging enemies both foreign and domestic. But.....

I couple of quality counterpoints.

- If the US/UK had given all they have given now a year ago the coalition would have likely broken partially and US/UK would be blamed in countries like Germany and France for the escalation that now has happened anyway. Also, could China have been "pushed" to give more direct aid by this?
- In war, the enemy gets a vote too. RUS would have had to mobilize way sooner. They mobilize only when forced to, and in this case, the need would have been sooner.

I see the US lead coalition balancing three goals: RUS strategic defeat, UKR victory, and escalation management. If the last one was not important we would have seen an intervention to achieve the first two.

These three goals would have been achieved last year if the RUS would have not mobilized. Now that they did mobilize west adjusted the support plan to match as we saw at the beginning of this year. 

[dan/california]

15 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

I couple of quality counterpoints.

- If the US/UK had given all they have given now a year ago the coalition would have likely broken partially and US/UK would be blamed in countries like Germany and France for the escalation that now has happened anyway. Also, could China have been "pushed" to give more direct aid by this?
- In war, the enemy gets a vote too. RUS would have had to mobilize way sooner. They mobilize only when forced to, and in this case, the need would have been sooner.

I see the US lead coalition balancing three goals: RUS strategic defeat, UKR victory, and escalation management. If the last one was not important we would have seen an intervention to achieve the first two.

These three goals would have been achieved last year if the RUS would have not mobilized. Now that they did mobilize west adjusted the support plan to match as we saw at the beginning of this year. 

All this is true, or at least likely. However a lot of brave men have died so we could respect Scholz's and Macron's sensibilities. Nothing about Macron's performance in the last ~two weeks makes me think that was a good bargain. if Baerbock winds up as the next German Chancellor I guess the overall strategy will get a passing grade from the historians. 

[Battlefront.com]

48 minutes ago, Jiggathebauce said:

Have you heard about what's going on with cop city in Atlanta, how they murdered an activist and filed terrorism charges at others? How the CIA and FBI undermine activist movements and assassinate leaders like Fred Hampton, and more than likely MLK and Malcom X? Do you really think the largest prison population on the world is just criminals, and has nothing to do with being able to use free prison labor and destroy communities? The government  drugging people without their consent in twisted brainwashing experiments in the MK Ultra project? Do you not factor hundred of lynchings in the last 100 years of blacks, Italians and other minorities, the forced sterilization and experimentation on people by eugenics advocates? Do you recall the red scare, when socialists by and large were terrorized into silence in the US? I could go on, you can get thrown in jail just for trying to sleep in a tent or eat food from the garbage in this country. It is truly mind boggling how much injustice is directed at some people, while others will never run afoul of the system. For them, it's like a different country. 

The US experience with Human Rights and the rule of law is very uneven and flawed.  True.  But to say that the US is equivalent to the murderous Socialist and Fascist regimes is as silly as it is intellectually dishonest. You and the far right I have to listen to agree about life in the US far more than you disagree, thus proving my point that you're belief systems are more similar than different.  The methodology (such as false equivocation) that allows someone to maintain an ideologically extreme viewpoint is very much the same.

48 minutes ago, Jiggathebauce said:

Not sure I understand.

Let me break it down for you.  Historically speaking today's oppressor was often yesterday's oppressed.  There's not an extreme left revolution I can think of that didn't start out saying one thing and then doing exactly the opposite once it got into power.  For sure they redistributed the wealth, but for the most part it was for their benefit and not the masses.  Those who raise an objection, either to being deprived or being given crumbs while the new elites fatten themselves, find themselves oppressed.  Revolutions coming from the right are exactly the same, including how they redistribute the wealth.

48 minutes ago, Jiggathebauce said:

collective leadership can still make collective bad decisions. It's still preferable to decisions taken by autocrats. Whether you think some of those folks exercised collective power or were dictators, bad calls can be recognized as bad calls.

I was speaking about the myth that there is meaningful collective leadership in far left forms of government.  The ruling party is just as autocratic in a Socialist state as that of a Fascist state.  Castro and Stalin were in practice no less autocratic than Peron or Hitler.

48 minutes ago, Jiggathebauce said:

Also, I'd also be skeptical about any body count tolls that include Axis war dead in their counts of 'Victims of Communism' particularly when those victims count toward a contrived figure of 100 million. Ask yourself what kind of agenda is being pushed by organizations that would take such liberties with numbers. Easy to guess what it could be

I dunno, what is your agenda with taking such liberties with numbers?  Or are you really arguing that the figure of 2 million people murdered by the Marxist Khmer Rouge includes WW2 Axis war dead as well?

OK, if you don't like the 100m estimate of how many people Communists murdered (I've seen a higher figure, BTW), what number do you think we should all agree to?  The Ukrainians here would likely start you off with at least 3 million.

48 minutes ago, Jiggathebauce said:

I feel we are getting off topic so I'm done after your next response if that's alright. 

Fine by me as it is (kinda) off topic, but knocking ideological riders of invisible high horses is hard to resist.

So the on topic part... you are exhibiting the sort of naive (at best) perspective of Human Nature that gets us into messes just like we're in now with Ukraine.  The regime in Moscow now is Fascist.  The regime before that was Kleptocratic.  Before that it was Communist, though the latter stages looked a lot more like the Kleptocracy that followed.  Before that it was Monarchistic.  The specific political ideology espoused by each didn't make Russia a better place.  In fact, the ideology you seem to hold to so dearly arguably led to the worst of the bunch.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

This video surfaced today and I'm thinking it is related to the news that the US talked Ukraine out of attacking targets in Moscow.  This is purportedly a video of a Ukrainian drone flying around in Red Square:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/12xfh5p/in_moscow_an_unknown_drone_conducted_aerial/

The flight might be part of a stunt that is being promoted by a Ukrainian businessman.  Which is to land a Ukrainian drone into Red Square during the May 9th celebrations.  Price is about $500,000:

https://www.insider.com/ukraine-war-russia-monobank-yatsenko-prize-land-drone-moscow-red-square

This stunt is brilliant.  It achieves much of whatever it was the US disapproved of, but in a way that the US really can't object to.

Steve

[sburke]

7 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

This video surfaced today and I'm thinking it is related to the news that the US talked Ukraine out of attacking targets in Moscow.  This is purportedly a video of a Ukrainian drone flying around in Red Square:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWarRoom/comments/12xfh5p/in_moscow_an_unknown_drone_conducted_aerial/

The flight might be part of a stunt that is being promoted by a Ukrainian businessman.  Which is to land a Ukrainian drone into Red Square during the May 9th celebrations.  Price is about $500,000:

https://www.insider.com/ukraine-war-russia-monobank-yatsenko-prize-land-drone-moscow-red-square

This stunt is brilliant.  It achieves much of whatever it was the US disapproved of, but in a way that the US really can't object to.

Steve

hopefully they fly one in with the dildo.

[Battlefront.com]

An example of what Ukraine is testing for drone defenses for frontline positions:

Nothing about this is revolutionary.  It's basically a light RWS with (apparently) an automated target tracking system.  I couldn't find any information on it.  I'm wondering how effective this might be armed with a standard small arm with standard ammo.  Proximity fused grenades would be far better, but that's a whole different level of complexity.

Steve

[chuckdyke]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Every time I see Ukrainian farmers doing stuff like this I think of how similar people are.

A Cocky is an Australian Farmer often struggling. One solved a lot of his problems by restoring Bren Gun Carriers. Also a member of our gun club. One day a big secret came out he restored also a Vickers Machine Gun and showed it off. Unfortunately a fellow member was a policeman. Sorry Bruce but you better handle it in first thing in the morning. Bruce one of these guys would anything for you with his handyman skills.

[chuckdyke]

Something like the Kremlin can't be called Elite. Just watch this expert yourself.

 

[Tenses]

27 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

An example of what Ukraine is testing for drone defenses for frontline positions:

Nothing about this is revolutionary.  It's basically a light RWS with (apparently) an automated target tracking system.  I couldn't find any information on it.  I'm wondering how effective this might be armed with a standard small arm with standard ammo.  Proximity fused grenades would be far better, but that's a whole different level of complexity.

Steve

This is the right way to go. We see increasing amount of small drones everyday and it is starting to become serious offensive weapon, not only reconessance. We have all seen that given time and resources, simple small drones can clear trenches almost by themselves, which is really showing the change in technology/implementation since this war has started more than a year ago.

After some point and especially after true swarm will be born, this kind of weapons both remote controlled and computer assisted personal rifles are just behind lasers in drone defense. Is it cheap to use? Check. Is it easy to deploy in number? Check. Does it have about 2km effective range? Check(with proper ammo and targeting system). Before we will see true lasers deployed this needs to be the way to go. The ultimate goal will be something like that replaced by the laser gun and kinetic bullets left only for personal defense with all the ballistic/image recognition/weather stuff attached to allow rookie shoot down a drone from reasonable range. It might be expensive to deploy at the start but is really cheap to use which is ultimate goal in a war of attrition like the drone wars are. Who can kill things/people cheaper and keep the pace is the winner.

[Phil003]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

The US experience with Human Rights and the rule of law is very uneven and flawed.  True.  But to say that the US is equivalent to the murderous Socialist and Fascist regimes is as silly as it is intellectually dishonest. You and the far right I have to listen to agree about life in the US far more than you disagree, thus proving my point that you're belief systems are more similar than different.  The methodology (such as false equivocation) that allows someone to maintain an ideologically extreme viewpoint is very much the same.

Let me break it down for you.  Historically speaking today's oppressor was often yesterday's oppressed.  There's not an extreme left revolution I can think of that didn't start out saying one thing and then doing exactly the opposite once it got into power.  For sure they redistributed the wealth, but for the most part it was for their benefit and not the masses.  Those who raise an objection, either to being deprived or being given crumbs while the new elites fatten themselves, find themselves oppressed.  Revolutions coming from the right are exactly the same, including how they redistribute the wealth.

I was speaking about the myth that there is meaningful collective leadership in far left forms of government.  The ruling party is just as autocratic in a Socialist state as that of a Fascist state.  Castro and Stalin were in practice no less autocratic than Peron or Hitler.

I dunno, what is your agenda with taking such liberties with numbers?  Or are you really arguing that the figure of 2 million people murdered by the Marxist Khmer Rouge includes WW2 Axis war dead as well?

OK, if you don't like the 100m estimate of how many people Communists murdered (I've seen a higher figure, BTW), what number do you think we should all agree to?  The Ukrainians here would likely start you off with at least 3 million.

Fine by me as it is (kinda) off topic, but knocking ideological riders of invisible high horses is hard to resist.

So the on topic part... you are exhibiting the sort of naive (at best) perspective of Human Nature that gets us into messes just like we're in now with Ukraine.  The regime in Moscow now is Fascist.  The regime before that was Kleptocratic.  Before that it was Communist, though the latter stages looked a lot more like the Kleptocracy that followed.  Before that it was Monarchistic.  The specific political ideology espoused by each didn't make Russia a better place.  In fact, the ideology you seem to hold to so dearly arguably led to the worst of the bunch.

Steve

Perhaps this is a bit off topic, but I was always wondering what is the root cause for this quite popular anti-US/anti-west viewpoint, not only on this thread, but in many other places. My theory is that actually it is the 'good' things in the US and the west that make them 'look bad' at the end of the day.
So I think what happens that in Russia (China, Iran, etc.) 100 'bad things' happen per <enter unit here for comparison>, but because of the lack of free speech, lack of independent news sources, etc., and in general let's say due to the lack of rule of law, only 1 of these 'bad things' (out of 100) will be known by the public.
While in the US and in the west, 'only' 10 'bad things' happen per <enter unit here for comparison>, but because in the west all the institutions that are not present in autocracies are actually at least partially working, 5 of these 'bad things" (out of 10) will be known by the public.
Therefore if somebody just follows what's going on in the world in a very superficial way (and I think most people do like this. They have work, they have families etc.) then by simply browsing through the news, I think it is easy to jump to the conclusion that democracies are no better than autocracies, in the west companies/politicians/lizard men exploit the common people in the same way as dictators do, and that the Iraq War was that exact same thing as the invasion of Ukraine, etc.
I really don't know what the solution could be here, but I think this 'distortion' really exists, and it is definitely not helping to discourage people from following extreme or autocratic ideas.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Phil003

[chuckdyke]

What is worse? A system where you can say what you like but will be ignored. Or a system where you can be thrown out of the window for saying what you think? The latter system is easier to resist and fight. The Romans already knew it with their Bread and Circuses.

[Butschi]

18 minutes ago, Phil003 said:

Perhaps this is a bit off topic, but I was always wondering what is the root cause for this quite popular anti-US/anti-west viewpoint, not only on this thread, but in many other places. My theory is that actually it is the 'good' things in the US and the west that make them 'look bad' at the end of the day.
So I think what happens that in Russia (China, Iran, etc.) 100 'bad things' happen per <enter unit here for comparison>, but because of the lack of free speech, lack of independent news sources, etc., and in general let's say due to the lack of rule of law, only 1 of these 'bad things' (out of 100) will be known by the public.
While in the US and in the west, 'only' 10 'bad things' happen per <enter unit here for comparison>, but because in the west all the institutions that are not present in autocracies are actually at least partially working, 5 of these 'bad things" (out of 10) will be known by the public.
Therefore if somebody just follows what's going on in the world in a very superficial way (and I think most people do like this. They have work, they have families etc.) then by simply browsing through the news, I think it is easy to jump to the conclusion that democracies are no better than autocracies, in the west companies/politicians/lizard men exploit the common people in the same way as dictators do, and that the Iraq War was that exact same thing as the invasion of Ukraine, etc.
I really don't know what the solution could be here, but I think this 'distortion' really exists, and it is definitely not helping to discourage people from following extreme or autocratic ideas.

Well, the West is frequently taking the moral high ground towards the rest of the world. And that simply means we are held to higher standards. If we criticize other countries about the 100 things that go wrong there (rightly so!) every single thing we are doing wrong hurts our credibility (internally and externally, e.g. there is often a lot of grumbling about how democratic Germany really is compared to China...)

I'd still much rather live in Europe or the US but here is another problem: While it is good to live in a western democracy, many people living elsewhere couldn't care less whether they are dealing with a democracy or some autocrat because the net result, for them is identical.

The US get the most criticism because they have the greatest power (with great power comes great responsibility...). But there is another thing to consider: Hollywood. Everyone on the globe knows Hollywood movies (German movies... not so much, which is a good thing...). And there the US and especially the US armed forces are mostly depicted as fighting for the good of all mankind and not (like everyone else) for their own interests. So the contrast with reality is particularly strong here.

[The_Capt]

3 hours ago, Tenses said:

Is it cheap to use? Check. Is it easy to deploy in number? Check. Does it have about 2km effective range? Check(with proper ammo and targeting system). Before we will see true lasers deployed this needs to be the way to go.

Driving around blazing at the sky and giving one’s position away leading to PGM artillery killing you….check.  Logistical nightmare…check.  Better than nothing until C-UAS = other UAS…check.  Does it solve for UGS…no check.