How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[JonS]

23 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

I don't think you can blame anyone for the Republican's internal disarray except the far right Republicans. 

When you have a pet dog that keeps ******* on the carpet, you could stand around looking at the dog and mess on the carpet, and say things like "Clearly the dog's at fault here. I wish it would stop doing that."

Or you could, you know, accept that fact you probably failed at some level, and do something about that. Maybe foster the dog to another home that's more able to meet its needs, or do some training with the dog, or maybe even put the old girl down because the ******* on the carpet is due to an incurable cancer.

Or you could blame the neighbours for what your dog is doing. I'm not clear how that'd help, although it would mean you can avoid dealing with the behaviour, if not the resulting mess.

Edited October 4, 2023 by JonS

[danfrodo]

23 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

I don't think you can blame anyone for the Republican's internal disarray except the far right Republicans. 

I thought that maybe the moderates of both parties could use this as an opportunity to come together, compromise and govern.  I'm not sure what happens now..........   I'm guessing you probably prefer New Zealand's parliamentary system of government better...  

I am sure there's still lots of GOPers that want gov't to work and would be willing to negotiate and find common ground.  Sadly, working w dems (the great satan) will be used against any GOPer in a primary.  They would be castigated as a RINO and a weakling and a collaborationist by some extremist usurper candidate.  Our compromise form of gov't has been destroyed by the radical right.  Except that the radical right is now the GOP base.

Note that during last Bush admin, many dems crossed party lines many times on votes.  But doing this under Obama for GOPers became almost non-existent, despite obama bending over backwards to try to make bipartisan deals.  When he couldn't find anyone to work with, he just did executive orders to try to get things done.

[MOS:96B2P]

14 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

I am sure there's still lots of GOPers that want gov't to work and would be willing to negotiate and find common ground.  Sadly, working w dems (the great satan) will be used against any GOPer in a primary.  They would be castigated as a RINO and a weakling and a collaborationist by some extremist usurper candidate. 

There are lots of moderates on both sides who want to negotiate and find common ground. Once a week on Fox News one Democrat and one Republican come on Bret Baier's show and discuss bi-partisan legislation (or some issue) they are working on together.  In fact I think the time block is called Common Ground. You should check it out sometime.

So if these politicians can go on the news and talk about their bi-partisan efforts (on satanic Fox News of all places ) there is hope.  These are moderates attempting to do the right thing.  This is a good sign and should be encouraged.  I think it is really up to the moderates to put this House back in order. See what I did there??      

Then weapons can continue to flow to Ukraine and Putin will be sad.   

[sburke]

12 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

There are lots of moderates on both sides who want to negotiate and find common ground. Once a week on Fox News one Democrat and one Republican come on Bret Baier's show and discuss bi-partisan legislation (or some issue) they are working on together.  In fact I think the time block is called Common Ground. You should check it out sometime.

So if these politicians can go on the news and talk about their bi-partisan efforts (on satanic Fox News of all places ) there is hope.  These are moderates attempting to do the right thing.  This is a good sign and should be encouraged.  I think it is really up to the moderates to put this House back in order. See what I did there??      

Then weapons can continue to flow to Ukraine and Putin will be sad.   

One could only wish they would do that.  I think part of the problem is the primary process. Any republican who works with democrats faces potentially getting primaried from the far right and the primaries are heavily driven by the more extreme elements on either side but are particularly rough on republicans. There isn’t an equivalent democratic side insult to RINO. (Dino just doesn’t have the same insult tone )
the GOP carries the lions share of blame for the lack of bipartisanship, it has been explicit policy since Gingrich.  What further hampers it is the speaker determines what actually gets to the floor. If the speaker isn’t willing to support a bipartisan effort then it is just dead. McCarthy only conceded that when he knew he didn’t have the votes for something the GOP could do solo and was critical. He doesn’t view Ukraine as critical so any thought he’d do a deal with the dems there would only have occurred to get them to support his speakership. If he wasn’t willing to do it there it isn’t likely he was ever going to do it. 
the question now is if there is enough cohones in the moderate GOP spectrum to put someone forward the dems think they can work with and garner bipartisan support that would eliminate the power of the MAGA faction. Unfortunately a path to electing a speaker without dem support looks to be a difficult road. Maybe that is the straw we need to force them to start working together.

[MOS:96B2P]

22 minutes ago, sburke said:

the moderate GOP spectrum to put someone forward the dems think they can work with and garner bipartisan support that would eliminate the power of the MAGA faction. Unfortunately a path to electing a speaker without dem support looks to be a difficult road. Maybe that is the straw we need to force them to start working together.

+1  This is the only productive path forward I can think of.  It also needs to happen rather quick.  A few weeks maybe. 

Just for the record..... @sburke I'd vote for you no matter which of the two major US parties you ran in. You are the embodiment of reason and bipartisanship. 

After you won maybe you would consider tariffs against New Zeeland?  There seems to be an inordinately keen forum member there who may not like dogs........     .              

[sburke]

23 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

+1  This is the only productive path forward I can think of.  It also needs to happen rather quick.  A few weeks maybe. 

Just for the record..... @sburke I'd vote for you no matter which of the two major US parties you ran in. You are the embodiment of reason and bipartisanship. 

After you won maybe you would consider tariffs against New Zeeland?  There seems to be an inordinately keen forum member there who may not like dogs........     .              

I have this vision of his carpet covered in dog s**t with him tearing his hair out trying to figure out how to get it to stop. 

[sburke]

29 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

Just for the record..... @sburke I'd vote for you no matter which of the two major US parties you ran in. You are the embodiment of reason and bipartisanship. 

After you won maybe you would consider tariffs against New Zeeland?  There seems to be an inordinately keen forum member there who may not like dogs........     .              

If I ever run for office, blacklist me. It is a sure sign I’ve lost my marbles. 

[dan/california]

3 hours ago, sburke said:

One could only wish they would do that.  I think part of the problem is the primary process. Any republican who works with democrats faces potentially getting primaried from the far right and the primaries are heavily driven by the more extreme elements on either side but are particularly rough on republicans. There isn’t an equivalent democratic side insult to RINO. (Dino just doesn’t have the same insult tone )
the GOP carries the lions share of blame for the lack of bipartisanship, it has been explicit policy since Gingrich.  What further hampers it is the speaker determines what actually gets to the floor. If the speaker isn’t willing to support a bipartisan effort then it is just dead. McCarthy only conceded that when he knew he didn’t have the votes for something the GOP could do solo and was critical. He doesn’t view Ukraine as critical so any thought he’d do a deal with the dems there would only have occurred to get them to support his speakership. If he wasn’t willing to do it there it isn’t likely he was ever going to do it. 
the question now is if there is enough cohones in the moderate GOP spectrum to put someone forward the dems think they can work with and garner bipartisan support that would eliminate the power of the MAGA faction. Unfortunately a path to electing a speaker without dem support looks to be a difficult road. Maybe that is the straw we need to force them to start working together.

Some of the original mistakes go back to the writing of the Constitution, the founders had a huge blind spot with regard to political parties. They were opposed to them in principal and had a severe attack of wishful thinking about their ability to create a system that would discourage them in practice. The great historical irony is that they were all founding parties of their own within an election cycle or two. Some of the details of the Constitution do more or less lock in a two party system.  Then they figured out how effective it was to draw districts with ever more artistic license, a task now designated to merciless computer programs. There is a reason that very, very few countries have tried adopt the U.S model wholesale, or even anything much like it.

The only electoral reform that that doesn't require an utterly impossible constitutional amendment is a combination of  nonpartisan unified primary with instant runoff voting. That why we have nice sane person as Alaska's only Congressional representative instead of Sara Palin. I think that needs to go nation wide myself. But it is a state by state decision.

Edited October 5, 2023 by dan/california

[Battlefront.com]

OK, let's try and move on (for now) from domestic US politics.  We're going to soon see if the House GOP has learned anything since setting the record for most number of votes needed to get a Speaker and least number of votes needed to get rid of one.

As for domestic US policy as it relates to Ukraine, unfortunately the House GOP has yet to make up its mind as to how important supporting Ukraine really is.  Saying it's important out one side of the mouth and then putting it on hold to get completely unrelated concessions from the Dems is no longer viable.  We will have to wait and see what comes from the Speaker replacement efforts before we know which way things will go, but I'm hopeful simply because I don't see how anybody will get elected Speaker without Dem support and the Dems have made Ukraine a consistent priority for the party as a whole.  So if the GOP finds it needs Dem support to elect their own leadership, Ukraine will no doubt be in a much better position than it is now.

Steve

[paxromana]

27 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

... I don't see how anybody will get elected Speaker without Dem support and the Dems have made Ukraine a consistent priority for the party as a whole.  So if the GOP finds it needs Dem support to elect their own leadership, Ukraine will no doubt be in a much better position than it is now ...

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity!

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, paxromana said:

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity!

Case in point... where we are right now

Sadly, I think things will go from bad to worse and then, somehow, even worse than that before anything sensible gets tried.  As Churchill supposedly once said, “Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.”

With all the announcements of the West helping ramp up Ukrainian war production, it's pretty clear that even the strongest backers of aid to Ukraine understand that something needs to change if support is to continue.  It's pretty clear that expanding domestic capacity purely for Ukraine aid is a tougher sell than sending Ukraine things sitting around gathering dust.  It appears pretty evident that Ukraine is exhausting both capacity to aid and, in some cases, willingness.  Helping Ukraine better arm itself long term is smart.

Steve

[Carolus]

I wonder how big the mobilisation in Ukraine is. I don't mean recruits for the army, I mean the total war mobilisation of society and economy, especially in Western Ukraine.

Are civilians doing extra shifts? 

Are there retraining programs to bring workers into essential and critical industries? Are work shifts in critical industries doubled and trippled?

Are critical resources rationed?

Are there mandatory programs for civilians to support the war effort?

War bond sales? War taxes? 

If not, would the Ukrainian population understand when such measurements are implemented?

I am sorry if I sound cynical, but if the choice is having schoolgirls gangraped by the Russian Army or having school classes glue plastic parts for FPV drones each day for two hours in the afternoon, I know which measure I would enact, no matter how it looks to the outside world. Of course there must be a balancing act between acceptance, morale and necessity among the Ukrainian population and its government.

But Ukraine needs to realise it might face an existential war with Western support whimpering out. It might soon be too late for half measures.

Edited October 5, 2023 by Carolus

[Pete Wenman]

 

Worth a read

Quote

Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t invade Ukraine in 2022 because he feared NATO. He invaded because he believed that NATO was weak, that his efforts to regain control of Ukraine by other means had failed, and that installing a pro-Russian government in Kyiv would be safe and easy. His aim was not to defend Russia against some non-existent threat but rather to expand Russia’s power, eradicate Ukraine’s statehood, and destroy NATO, goals he still pursues.

 

 

[Caspase]

I thought this could be of interest to this forum:
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2023/10/05/maak-kennis-de-m113s-die-door-ons-land-worden-gemoderniseerd-om/

It is in dutch (video report is dutch/french), but auto translate does a decent enough job.
The topic is the refurbishing of M113's (bought from Italy) by Belgium for use in Ukraine.

[Seedorf81]

Abkhazia, separist region Georgia, made deal with Russia for permant navy base. (In the Black Sea, that is.)

Otsjamtsjire was Russian navy base during Sovjet-Union period.

Edited October 5, 2023 by Seedorf81
geographical clarification

[Joe982]

Can someone provide thoughts on how to use a M113 on the Ukranian battlefield.

.

Edited October 5, 2023 by Joe982

[hcrof]

3 minutes ago, Joe982 said:

Can someone provide thoughts on how to use a M113 on the Ukranian battlefield.

.

Ambulance, resupply, taxi just behind the front line etc. Plenty it can do without driving through minefields. 

[Jr Buck Private]

13 hours ago, dan/california said:

I was about trust, anybody who was paying attention lost all faith in McCarthy after January 6th. He hade broken numerous deals agreements with the Dems after that. People were frantic to read the bill because he hadn't even told them in advance he was doing  a more or less clean CR. They would have been crazy to pass it WITHOUT reading it. And then he offered them nothing on the motion to vacate.

I never liked McCarthy that much.   On Jan 6th he's railing against Trump then two weeks later he's down in Mar-a-Lago kissing butt?   That's not exactly leadership.   Yet if Jim Jordan becomes the new speaker then McCarthy might look a lot better.   I just wish the Gaetz pro Putin republicans would get marginalized.  The rest of the republicans should work with the democrats to find somebody tolerable.   I just think we come out of this with a worse speaker than before....sad

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, Jr Buck Private said:

I never liked McCarthy that much.   On Jan 6th he's railing against Trump then two weeks later he's down in Mar-a-Lago kissing butt?   That's not exactly leadership.   Yet if Jim Jordan becomes the new speaker then McCarthy might look a lot better.   I just wish the Gaetz pro Putin republicans would get marginalized.  The rest of the republicans should work with the democrats to find somebody tolerable.   I just think we come out of this with a worse speaker than before....sad

Jim (or as we like to call him around here "Gym") Jordan is the least likely of candidates. About a third of the GOP caucus hates him and that's not a great way to win the spot. 

[Harmon Rabb]

More unfortunately unsurprising barbarism.

Edited October 5, 2023 by Harmon Rabb

[Battlefront.com]

7 hours ago, Pete Wenman said:

 

Worth a read

 

 

That was an AWESOME summary of where things are now and how we got to this point.  The fact that I've been saying the exact same things since 2014 doesn't make me biased

There's so much good stuff in this summary that pointing out the highlights would be almost as long as the document itself.  However, two particular points raised have consistently and continually been under discussed since the war started.

1. Contrary to the pervading believe that Russia came away the clear winner in 2015, in reality a combination of Ukrainian and Western resolve thwarted Russia achieving its war aims.  A big component of that was military.
2. There is no "off ramp" to end this war diplomatically because anything less than what Putin is after (i.e. the total absorption of Ukraine) is unacceptable to him because he sees this as do-or-die for the Russia he envisions.

These two things are intricately related.  Putin temporarily backed off the brute force option for Ukraine in 2015-2020 because he viewed it as too expensive and risky.  This was the direct result of Ukraine's ability to defend itself and the West's stronger than expected resolve to oppose Russia's expansion.

Faced with an obviously "expensive" means of getting what he wanted, Putin shifted back to attempting to control Ukraine through a combination of non-kinetic means as had been the case prior to 2014.  By 2019 or 2020 he came to understand that nothing short of brute force was going to work, and so we have this war.

The key to understanding why Putin will never back down is understanding that he views taking Ukraine as a necessary for Russia's survival and that he's confirmed that there is no other way to achieve domination of Ukraine except through war.

This is why we need Putin's regime to collapse in order for there to be any hope of this war ending.  Collapse is frightening for a variety of reasons we've discussed here, but it seems the only solution to this war and the larger issues of world order.

I no longer believe it is possible to end this war by crippling Russia with Putin still in power.  If it was possible it would have happened already.  Therefore, I think it is not only time for the West to provide the last bits of military aid it's been holding back, but I it also should do whatever it can to bring about the collapse of Putin's regime.  Collapse is inevitable sooner rather than later, so might as well have it sooner.

Steve

[dan/california]

https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/170aq2t/destruction_of_a_russian_selfpropelled_gun_2s3/

There is an extra kicker at the end.

Edit: I just realized this was a reddit video, and wants to autoplay, and now it won't let fix it, sorry

[Battlefront.com]

The way to fix an accidental Reddit embed is to Edit your post by deleting the embed and repasting the link.  This will force the option to post as a link to reappear again.  This is what I just did to fix your post.

Steve

[dan/california]

3 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

The way to fix an accidental Reddit embed is to Edit your post by deleting the embed and repasting the link.  This will force the option to post as a link to reappear again.  This is what I just did to fix your post.

Steve

The editor wouldn't let me select and delete it, no clue why. I will attempt to be more careful about not doing it in the first place. 

On a related issue that may just be some quirk of my computer, does anyone else sometimes have to reload the last page of the thread more than once to get everything to show up in correct chronological order? 

[Tux]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

That was an AWESOME summary of where things are now and how we got to this point.  The fact that I've been saying the exact same things since 2014 doesn't make me biased

There's so much good stuff in this summary that pointing out the highlights would be almost as long as the document itself.  However, two particular points raised have consistently and continually been under discussed since the war started.

1. Contrary to the pervading believe that Russia came away the clear winner in 2015, in reality a combination of Ukrainian and Western resolve thwarted Russia achieving its war aims.  A big component of that was military.
2. There is no "off ramp" to end this war diplomatically because anything less than what Putin is after (i.e. the total absorption of Ukraine) is unacceptable to him because he sees this as do-or-die for the Russia he envisions.

These two things are intricately related.  Putin temporarily backed off the brute force option for Ukraine in 2015-2020 because he viewed it as too expensive and risky.  This was the direct result of Ukraine's ability to defend itself and the West's stronger than expected resolve to oppose Russia's expansion.

Faced with an obviously "expensive" means of getting what he wanted, Putin shifted back to attempting to control Ukraine through a combination of non-kinetic means as had been the case prior to 2014.  By 2019 or 2020 he came to understand that nothing short of brute force was going to work, and so we have this war.

The key to understanding why Putin will never back down is understanding that he views taking Ukraine as a necessary for Russia's survival and that he's confirmed that there is no other way to achieve domination of Ukraine except through war.

This is why we need Putin's regime to collapse in order for there to be any hope of this war ending.  Collapse is frightening for a variety of reasons we've discussed here, but it seems the only solution to this war and the larger issues of world order.

I no longer believe it is possible to end this war by crippling Russia with Putin still in power.  If it was possible it would have happened already.  Therefore, I think it is not only time for the West to provide the last bits of military aid it's been holding back, but I it also should do whatever it can to bring about the collapse of Putin's regime.  Collapse is inevitable sooner rather than later, so might as well have it sooner.

Steve

“If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well… it were done quickly.”

If it were done…

Unfortunately, as you say, there doesn’t currently seem to be any other choice.

Edited October 5, 2023 by Tux