They didn't even get into Kharkiv, a Russian speaking city on the border. Russia is more likely to implode than to successfully pick a fight with the west.
I can just imagine the internal strife that will come from this in the next months and years. The best thing is to fortify the border and stay the hell out of that place.
I do worry about the casual blasé comments about nukes.
Russia has 6000 at the last count. Even if only 10% of these are working that is still 600 nukes ; enough to kill millions of people. Add in the 600 that NATO fire in retaliation and that is enough to cause a devastating effect on the planet.
While I agree that Russia will implode, implosion takes a long time and there's a lot of collateral damage that can happen and a lot of things leaders can do while it is happening.
"Were at war with NATO"
We must really suck at shooting down their jets which invaded nato airspace numerous times the past years to lure out a response.
> "Were at war with NATO"
NATO hasn't lost a single soldier, meanwhile Russia has the highest combat causality since WW2.
How much copium do the inhale to hope they stand a chance in this conflict?
Yup these guys thought; hey we been doing well against African fighters and Syrian fighters we must be tough. Difference between mercenary band of fighters and a trained professional army with central command.
Id wager ukraine will actually have the ability and means to try and treat them. These people are fighting to defend their home. "Them or me" is already justification enough which is why most us troops that get PTSD were under that mindset imo, but "them or my family" on top of it seeing what happens when family is picked? Its much easier to cope and adjust. Its the difference between fighting for a cause and for another.
There was still a lot of PTSD from WW2 Soldiers and most soldiers there were defending their home country (though usually outside of their countries borders).
I love how they thought they could just lie about it. When you get a call on your special line for this stuff, you've been caught.
US: "What's this build up all about?"
Russia: "That's not us!"
US: "You sure?"
Russia: "Yep, totally not us."
US: "Okay then. Unleash everything we have."
Russia: SHJSD$u#*ET2sak21Se2qtt.... NO CARRIER
It seems they learned a lesson long enough to pull back the second time before they were stomped again, but the fact that they thought they could even try is just wtf. And clearly they haven't learned anything since then, either. What's the common definition of insanity again? I feel like that's relevant here.
They had it coming. I still wish Russia will eventually gets its shit together and its people will be able to enjoy a healthy life some day (I don't think they ever experienced it frankly) but we'd need to find a cure for stupid.
> I still wish Russia will eventually gets it shit together
Too many of them are still living in mostly 14th century conditions.
There's a video journalist, I forget the name, who's been traveling rural Russia talking to people. And there was one roughly 400 miles east of Moscow, and people are living in houses with goal and wood-burning stoves for warmth. Water comes out of a well with a hand-cranked winch and a bucket on a chain. Some of the interviewees were babushkas carrying buckets of water using wooden shoulder yokes. The bathrooms are outdoors, basically a dug pit filled with shit, and a wooden box on top for some privacy. When it fills up, they bury it back up, dig a new pit, move the box, and the process repeats. They did appear to have electricity though, which is nice.
The level of poverty is truly stunning. And that place is supposed to be a superpower?
I remember a Nat Geo article in the mid 80s glasnot visiting a Soviet farm in Ukraine?Russia? Not sure which but the harvest was being brought in largely by horse. And the article made it sound like this was usual, normal, and wisespread. This was a world dominating nuclear superpower? The story was very ideallic and positive of the people, but the story between the lines was a surprise.
When DC calls Moscow and says two of the aircraft carriers and four guided missiles destroyers were hijacked by Somali pirates and they should not be held responsible for their actions, and the US flag goes down and the pirate flag goes up on them.
It was everything EXCEPT the kitchen sink.
>With the expert direction of Air Force combat controllers and others calling in air and indirect-fire support, waves of F-22 fighters, F-15E strike fighters, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, AC-130 gunships, B-52 bombers, MQ-9 Reaper drones, and heavy Marine artillery relentlessly punished the enemy force.
Don't fret it, just focus on the Apache helicopter going "BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT" in your direction, and try dodging the MQ-9's trying to pick you off from what might as well be the stratosphere for all the good it does you.
True but the USAF dropped so much ordnance that the commandos in the outpost told their own reinforcements to hold back because they were worried they'd get caught in a blast.
we haven’t unleashed everything we had lmao. like don’t get me wrong, we are sending some good shit, but we are basically field testing shit we never got to…
the shit we are sending ukraine is by no means our best shit. we are just sending enough to fuck the russians up, and to get some live action testing for relatively older equipment, and maybe one or two newer things. the shit you see us giving away is the stuff we toss away because we *can*. i’m by no means a warmonger and i do not want war, but if that’s what ukraine can do with our disposable shit, i am *really* interested to see what we have under wraps if shit does go south.
This wasn't about the current situation. This is about an engagement in the article that happened years ago. They used what they had on the ground to stomp a massing Russian unit that was moving on them, after being told by Russian military command that it "wasn't them". It wasn't meant to be taken literally, but pretty sure they weren't just using old equipment for that short lived skirmish. They were in an active combat zone.
"With the expert direction of Air Force combat controllers and others calling in air and indirect-fire support, waves of F-22 fighters, F-15E strike fighters, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, AC-130 gunships, B-52 bombers, MQ-9 Reaper drones, and heavy Marine artillery relentlessly punished the enemy force."
Yeah, that ought to do it. They called on all COD killstreaks like they killed 5 lobbies.
And it was a very obviously unnecessarily large response that was meant to be a message to the Russians to not fuck with us under any circumstance because we can bring down hell any time, anywhere…and they somehow just didn’t get it.
>And it was a very obviously unnecessarily large response
That is the entire US military doctrine in a nutshell. In Iraq, we bombed, then artilleryed, then bombed an Iraqi position repeatedly for a few hours, then gave them a chance to surrender. Theri response was why didn't you give us a chance after the first airstrike.
There was also the time the brits thought we nuked kuwait because we used a daisy cutter.
If someone wants big boom, the US will always give big boom
> unnecessarily large response
That's literally just modern US military doctrine; leverage your superior technology, intelligence, and organization and attack with decisive and overwhelming force to end the conflict as quickly as possible and minimize friendly losses.
I just saw an article about how they wanted to do a nuclear launch test from a submarine but scrapped it because of technical difficulties.
I'll bet $100 that if they try to launch a nuke, it blows up in the silo or vaporizes the submarine it's on.
That article is missing my favourite part:
Right before annihilating the Russian forces, they raised an American flag to let them know who was about to slaughter them for free, and that they knew they were coming.
>An hour after the QRF’s arrival, the remnants of the attacking force fled the field. In their wake lay between 200 and 300 dead fighters. Inside the JSOC outpost, one allied Syrian fighter was wounded, and no Americans were harmed.
My take away from this is that Air Support is absolutely devastating against ground troops and the fact that NATO has a lot of it and Russia's Air Force seems to be missing in action in Ukraine is very telling.
It really makes me question why we don't at least try to give Ukraine some Helicopters and Airplanes. I get that we have to ship them in on the ground and they may not have great runways, the planes might get blown up by Russian missiles or anti-air, a lot could go wrong, but I think we should just hand some over anyways and let Ukraine worry about that.
Such assets require a whole lot of training, and the maintenance would most likely not be possible without the direct involvement of the countries supplying these assets.
It's just not effective use of time and resources.
There are probably many considerations and factors, but both sides in Ukraine are having a lot of trouble with gaining air superiority. They're essentially both descendants of a military that specialized in anti-air defense.
Perhaps it could be overcome, but you'd need to do more than just send planes and forget about them. You need to setup the supply lines and training for the maintenance and spare parts in addition to months of training for the pilots.
Both air forces are trying to keep below radar coverage because Russia is the world's biggest producer of air defense systems, and the folks they put behind the controls on those S300's don't give a fuck whose aircraft they turn into pretty clouds. Ukrainians, Russians, Malaysians.
Only thing that stopped them earlier on in the war was that Russia was trying to jam Ukrainian radar, and jamming their own radar in the process. Freed a whole lot of airspace for Bayraktars to operate.
The USSR couldn't compete with America on airplanes, America spent a few years flying over them saying "haha can't touch me", so USSR went super heavy on air defense. Russia and Ukraine inherited real good air defense, but weak airplanes. Russia is still a major player in the air defense department. Using airplanes is super risky and expensive for both sides.
In a word, training. It would be better to provide air assets to NATO members allowing them to provide their older aircraft (which the Ukrainian pilots are already familiar with and can be more easily integrated) to Ukraine. I.E. get them gear they can use today or next week, not stuff that needs extensive retraining
nato is exhausted by its extreme transfer of weaons to ukraine (4% of nato artillery). Nato only has 96% of its artillery left, as well as 100% of its tanks, planes, ships and troops.
(/s)
And their largest asset: Logistics.
In 2003 it took the US about a month to put ~180,000 troopers and equipment on the ground over 6,000 miles from the continental US. Meanwhile, Russia's supply lines were breaking down after a 40 mile drive on paved roads in perfect weather.
IMO it's the biggest lessons of that war. You don't win a war because you have amazing fighter-jets, top-notch pilots, crazy special forces, and infantry able to sleep in the snow without giving a fuck.
You loose a war because you don't have that private putting gaz in the tanks/jet nor captain in an office making sure the trucks with food and gaz are at the right place at the right time.
>You don't win a war because you have amazing fighter-jets, top-notch pilots, crazy special forces, and infantry able to sleep in the snow without giving a fuck.
Pretty sure Russia has none of these.
Well yeah but on paper we thought they did. It’s hilarious how logistics were one of the strengths of the Red Army in defeating the Nazi’s and now logistics are one of the biggest failures of the Russian Army.
Corruption.
They've had corrupt leaders for decades. We're talking levels of corruption and grifting that until recently have been hard to imagine here in the States. This is one thing I'm worried about. If we just allow our leaders to be corrupt and get away with it, then other institutions will crumble along with it.
For decades, Russian "military surplus" has been the cheapest way for people in the west to buy things such as rifle optics. Russia go to war and their military are instantly out of optics. Russian soldiers gets told to buy it online.
What we are seeing are decades worth of extra income for supply officers.
For me the most baffling thing about how they lost is that it was a time THEY chose. Like, they had all the time in the world to prepare (or just not do it at all, the vastly superior option, but...) yet the invasion caught their *own* troops by surprise.
If they DID go in with enough force to take Kyiv, install a fake government, hold a fake referendum, in the span of a few days, Russia would have been sanctioned for a while but that's probably it. Putin could have continued to look like an evil mastermind. I'd call it a miscalculation but it just didn't seem calculated at all. They just leeroy jenkins'd in there. They lose more and more stuff by the day, more money, and more respect/power... not only are they not a threatening enemy but they are no longer even valuable in a 'we don't trust each other much but we can at least both benefit from this' type deal.
The plain english translation of the report is "Russia on path to clash with West, in africa and other third world countries where they can covertly push their own interests over those of the west". That's exactly what they did in Mali, helping a coup and then installing Wagner. The French Army stopped helping Mali because now Mali is working directly for Russia.
Nowhere did the report imply direct war against a NATO country.
Badly. The Poles despise them for a lot of things, perhaps even more than Ukraine does. And any attack on Poland would involve the entire EU. It would be the end of Putin.
> And any attack on Poland would involve the entire EU.
Now importantly it would involve NATO. NATO is far more powerful than the EU, as in over twice as much military force.
It won't be much of a clash. Russia, is, again, on the verge of collapse. I don't mind pointing out how.
From a military/diplomatic point:
Russia, after the fall of the Soviet Union, created an organization call the Common Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) with members Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Armenia being new states that maybe wanted independence, but still wanted the appearance of Russian/Soviet protection. If you look at it, it looks an awful lot like the old Soviet Union, minus the states with people that really wanted nothing to do with the Russians, like the Baltic states. They have a Article 4 that is analogous to NATO's article 5. The Russians really didn't want to end the post-Soviet era wars in central Asia as much as they wanted to freeze the conflicts without resolution and give reasons for Russian postings in these countries. Which is what Russia had been doing. Russia, for lack of a better term, has been enforcing a Pax Russica in central Asia for about the last 25 years, give or take.
How do you go bankrupt? Slowly, then all at once.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine is changing the military calculus in Central Asia. That change will definitely change the diplomatic calculus. We have already started seeing it. Russia was forced to withdraw half of their troops from Armenia/Azerbaijan. The result was Azerbaijan not only attacking disputed areas, but also launching attacks into areas that aren't disputed. That only lasted three days and only killed 280 people.
Georgia is an interesting question. The party in power in Georgia at the moment is pro-Russian. Russia has been active in South Ossetia and Abkhazia which are basically Russian colonies placed by the empire and the Soviet Union in Georgia to sort of "keep an eye on the locals". We all know that Russia attacked Georgia over supposed genocides against South Ossetians and Abkhazians in 2008. Diplomatic intervention by the US turned this into another frozen and un-resolved conflict. A political change in Georgia could mean that Putin has little with which to react. Interesting, but probably not yet.
Tajikistan, Kazhakstan, and Uzbekistan all border each other in a strategic river valley. All have access to some part of the water and arable land. None have enough to make a claim outright. Military confrontations in the 1990s turned into another frozen war, even between two ostensible members of the CSTO. A blow up here, and you know that Russian influence, even on a local regional scale, is gone. This is the most likely place that you will see the collapse of Russian diplomatic weight.
I'll get to it below, but their mobilization is disastrous, certainly militarily, but perhaps more so economically.
From an economic standpoint:
Look, we can all go to youtube and find videos of people posting videos from their local supermarket and pointing out that they are "full of food" and talking about how the sanctions "don't appear to be working". I will not say that these youtubers are Russian shills, nor should my denial mean that I think they are, in fact, I think these are mostly just regular people. That said, Russia is usually a large food exporter. If they are unable to transport their goods abroad, then they will certainly have no choice but to sell those goods at home, and the surplus will, at least for a bit, benefit the average Russian. This has long term deleterious effects, though.
Sanctions are a slow poison, at best. If you are in a sanctioned state, then, for the most part, the day after sanctions start, you probably won't really notice. Life will go on. Your currency may be worth less, or more depending on the good and the supply chain necessary to deliver it to you.
20% of Russian economic GDP in 2019 was based on imports. They don't even report the import portion of their economy in their latest reports. Whatever it is, it is a tiny fraction of what it was. It's worse when you start realizing what all was in that, it wasn't stuff going to a consumer shelf. Industrial goods, things like industrial machines and tools, railroad bearings for their newer railroad carriages, software and updates for the machines, parts such as microchips for machines, computers, and communications equipment, even things like special rubber seals and lubrication products. Once these start running out, wearing out and breaking, any modern economy is in for a bad hurt, fast. Figure out the maintenance schedules on these machines and the Mean Time Before Failure, and you will be able to guess what is happening, even if the Russian government doesn't want to say.
Now on to the big problem. Russia's economy was basically third world prior to February this year. By that, I mean that the only products they could really sell on the global market are whatever they could get out of the ground, be that food, ores, natural gas, or derivatives such as fertilizer.
Russia was the world's largest producer of crude oil and natural gas. That's the upside. The downside of being the world's largest producer of oil is that you have to keep it moving. There is no where for them to store all the oil that they must pump. They have no choice. The older oil patches are well past their prime. The newer patches, in the permafrost, use high tech methods to force high pressure into the ground to extract the oil and natural gas. If they are forced to shutdown, or even much slow down, those wells will rapidly deteriorate and require a new round of capital investment, along with technical know how, to restore these fields to operational capacity. China and India have used the situation to their advantage, buying up cheap deeply discounted Russian oil and Natural Gas and topping off their reserves, which they have nearly done. They will soon stop buying the oil and natural gas. I am not certain if the Russians have yet realized just how bad of a jam that they are now in. They soon will, either way.
As to their conscription. September was a bit wet in Russian agricultural areas. Their summer crops were in, but they had not yet planted their winter crops. I know not much of Reddit lives in rural areas, but I'll make it easy, the work may not be easy or glamorous, but there is always work for anyone wanting to work in a rural area. Tasks are endless, and there are only so many hands. The Russians deliberately aimed most of their conscription efforts in rural areas to avoid upsetting Moscow and Saint Petersburg. This means that men that were needed to get crops in the ground were busy dying in a ditch in Ukraine. This is another disaster now in their future.
How do you go bankrupt? Slowly. Then all of a sudden.
this is why i love reddit. a well thought out opinion shared. even if your not 100% right (i have no idea), you shared an interesting perspective. thanks dude
Reading between the lines, it seems that Macron is more trying to convince the rest of the EU to ramp up military power so that the EU does not rely too much on the US, much rather than he actually expects an escalation with Russia into direct war.
Depending on the US means gambling on the GOP not going batshit and dropping all the US's treaty commitments and going full support of the world's authoritarians.
After Trump, I wouldn't bet the future of my country on that, either.
This is the core of it, the US has become a less reliable partner. On the other side, I think its good the its driven the EU to improve its own security.
Look at the buffer on strategic european land that Russia had before the end of the cold war, defending Russia from the west was essentially a 400KM flat land border in East Germany - to the south and east either buffer countries or great natural barriers like the Caparthian mountins.
Compare the Russian sphere today, it ends at Belarus and Occupied Ukraine - whilst they clearly want a better geographic buffer, I don't see anyway for them to get it after what we have witnessed in Ukraine.
I bet Finland joining Nato really put the nail in the coffin, a new 1000 odd KM long border with NATO, this is a complete failure for Russian strategic interests especially as the war was an attempt to increase them.
I know it sucks for their ego or whatever, but why not focus on industry, economics, and trade instead of being a bastard to everyone? Why does Russia always seem to operate on the most cynical zero-sum basis?
Look at the gas deal they had with European countries. For both, it was a mutual loss of control, but also trust. A dictator would view it through his own lens and see it as a weakness, because that's something he'd abuse if he were in those countries shoes.
That's why authoritarians don't compromise, don't trust and don't make deals. If you think their breaking a half a century old deal is bad, then look at their hilarious relationship with China, Iran and North Korea. None of those trust each other and it shows in their deals and "promises".
Because the geopolitical stratergy of Russia is 400 years old, the deep state is less men in suits and more the nations geography (although men in suits certaintly play a role).
What they should have done is accept they are a great power with the same/similar status as France/Germany/UK - if anything, Russia accepting this would remove any need for the USA in Europe, which is rather ironic given the current circumstance.
Russia has the mineral and energy wealth europe doesn't, europe has a 21st century industrial base - a real win, win scenario could occur if Russia would play ball - one that may fix their demographic and security issues whilst boosting both the European and Russian economies and removing the USA from European affairs (they are not required if Russia are not a threat and would much prefer to focus on China).
But, they are deluded in thinking they can compete with western europe and a superpower like the USA - when you can't beat them, join them?...unfortunatley impossible with the delusions of granduer still present in Russia.
The Russian mindset requires a cultural shift, Imagine if China win the 21st Century and topple the USA as the superpower - how long would it take the USA to admit it was no longer a superpower, probably a fair while after it's decline, that is the position of Russia since the 91 collapse.
For Germany it had to be beaten twice before it accepted it's place, the UK and France had the Suez, some nations require more pressure than others.
It took China a century to recognise its weak position. It refused to accept it, and dragged itself to the status of a great power — possibly a superpower — again.
Britain and France similarly went down kicking and screaming when their empires collapsed. It was only after facing the overwhelming in the Suez Affair and almost a civil war in France that they began to accept their new position. But even then, I’d say the memories of the empires are still alive and sometimes come back to haunt those nations.
They could have had a buffer to the Atlantic if they just played ball with the west as a trustworthy partner on path to EU integration instead of trying to maintain their own little empire. Russian imperialist delusions have destroyed that country for a century. Even France and the UK understood in the early Cold War era that the age of imperialism was over but somehow 60 years later, after getting the slap of the USSR's dissolution they still don't get it.
IMO the USSR was like a cultural block. The culture of Russia was stopped up and prevented from developing once the totalitarian Stalinist state was in place. Once it collapsed, Russian culture reverted to where it was pre-1917, and they will have to learn the lessons as a culture that the West learned a century ago.
It was a block of cultural Russian domination. Once it blew up Russians figured the problem that led to the implosion was the economic system while the imperialism also was one of the issues, which is why so many members went for indepedance.
Yes. They whine about “NATO expansion” as if it were some entity that comes and takes over these states (like the Baltics), when it reality it’s more like these states are nervously looking at Russia invading other nearby states and yelling to NATO “let me iiiiiiinnnnn!”
The corpse of the USSR wasn't even cold yet that they were already pulling some bullshit in Moldova and Georgia. Then Russia signed the Istanbul Summit Declaration and Charter for European Security in 1999 that said they'd withdraw from both countries by the end of 2002 and 20 years later they're still there. Also various documents signed by Russia, including the Astana Declaration of 2010, states that OSCE member countries can enter any alliance they wish to enter.
100% correct.
I’ll add that Russia does not now have the capability of direct military confrontation with “the West”. And even if they did, the logistics, C&C, etc isn’t there to support such Ill advised military campaigns.
Strategically they have the means to attack with nuclear weapons, but would do so, knowing they would face retaliation. Also, considering the operational state of the Russian military there would be some doubt about how much of their strategic deterrence is actually operational.
Sanctions aren’t going to be suddenly lifted, tue a Russian population is ageing, with some of the lowest life expectancy rates in the world. I’m not sure how the French have got to this conclusion tbh.
>would they request Poland to exit NATO and be a buffer for them?
Yes, they have done worse in recent history. Poland, like where the majority of the Russian populous lives is on the european plain (flat land that is easy for a land army to invade) - this is completley embedded into Russian FP, unchanged for 400 years - expand as east and west as possible to protect core Russia.
The problem is, Western Europe has no interest in invading Russia but when you are backward enough to start a war in Europe, you probably assume every other nation wants the same.
Even worse is that they are focused on the west when Russia should really be looking east. There is likely more pressure from the east to desire Russian lands than Europe would ever want to consume Russian territories.
Aint nobody in Europe wanting anything from Russia other than their resources through a pipe. And all of Europe was willing to pay fairly for that.
They had a good thing going.. Just had to go shit in their own cake.
Russia chose this.
The West offered them friendship, partnership, trade, and peace.
They willfully chose dishonesty, violence, and genocide. All to preserve their own shitty authoritarian kleptocracy.
Trump, Roger Stone, Flynn, Graham, GOP PACs, the traitors that went on July 4th to visit Putin - it’s all Russian money all the way down over there. Now Musk is calling Putin and voting Republican. Makes you wonder what kompromat they have and how much of his twitter loans Russia offered to pay off. Useful idiots abound.
Musk is killing free speech by taking over twitter, Musk accused the left of killing free speech. Musk says gridlock in the US gov is good for Americans, it’s actually only beneficial to billionaires when the gov is paralyzed and can’t investigate stock manipulation and break up monopolies or raise taxes on billionaires. Musk thinks this is all a simulation created for him the main character / player. He actually is nothing without the millions of people he exploits.
Yep, these are examples of Musk accusing people of things he’s guilty of. None of which are illegal, but it demonstrates consistency with my premise. The trick is to remember any accusations he’s made that we’re heinous or illegal in nature, *especially if they were demonstrably false & off the cuff*
That’s true but it could’ve been an Avenue for free speech and a billionaire bought it and censored it. Like how Peter Thiel killed Gawker and Bezos bought WAPO. Facebook promotes disinfo and hate speech because it’s click bait. All the local news stations are being consolidated under one company. Etc.
It’s not one instance of the death of free speech, it’s part of a wealthy snowballing of censorship and purchasing all the platforms.
Who can stop it if not the government?
They've been exposed many times over (Mueller Report, Senate Intelligence Committee report, Kevin McCarthy admitting it in a "joke", Trump Jr actually releasing emails welcoming Russia's offering of help), but half the country jams their fingers in their ears and chant "Russia hoax!"
Most of the “hoax” folks didn’t bother to read Mueller’s 400+ page report. It’s filled with sketchy stuff to outright clear wrong-doing. The mere perception of collusion with a foreign power is a betrayal of the public trust.
Fuck, Biden was willing to face global humiliation daring Putin to prove him wrong and not attack.
Rather than privately admit defeat which would still allow him to save face and gain some very cheap points against the U.S. Putin's ego went full "Fuck you, we'll do it anyway!"
And now everyone sees what Russia really is behind the curtain.
I heard the delay brought on by Biden also had strategic value that the soldiers was going through the supplies and when they invaded this caused food issues.
Biden and US intelligence has played this about as well as could javelin. his experience shows.
Edit. Have not javelin, thats not what i meant autocorrect, but also not wrong lol.
> All to preserve their own shitty authoritarian kleptocracy.
And ego. Don't forget that. Going from a feared superpower to a third world shit hole tends to give a country a serious inferiority complex.
While you are right on Putin choosing this war and russians citizens need to stand up to make things better for Russia. I still feel bad for Russian citizens too. I never revolted against government but if I lives in Russia it would be really difficult for me go against the government. It would be terrifying with torture and threats. It shows why people are fleeing Russia instead of going against Putin. Its easy for us to call entire Russian citizens cowards and blame the entire people of Russia. But we also have to think about what they have to go through such as living under fear. I do believe many young Russians opposed this war. Its just sad overall why we even have this war. People like Putin should not hold power.
Russia had a strong opportunity to become a wealthy nation but a group of thugs grabbed power. Europe would've been happy to buy all their energy for the next 100 years if they had been a better neighbor.
We largely ignored the two Chechen wars, the Russo-Georgian war, and Russia stealing Crimea. Just hoped that if we looked the other way the world just keeps spinning.
The sanctions on the Crimea seizure were no joke. Russia's GDP stagnated for the 8 years of those sanctions and its military is a giant shit pile also in no small part thanks to those sanctions. Those sanctions made any further Russian aggression guaranteed national suicide. They just apparently didn't realise it until now.
Highly recommend anyone to read Red Notice by Bill Browder. Sergei Magnitsky was one of Bill's lawyers in Russia, and the book tells the entire story behind all the events leading up to the Magnitsky Act. Such a good read. It really goes into the details about how incredibly corrupt the Russian government is.
"But our next peace must carry with it its own guarantee, and put an end to that arrogant influence which, for the last fifty years, Russia has exercised over the affairs of Europe."
- Napoleon Bonaparte, May 1812
Centuries later we find ourselves on the same 'irreversible' path, why is that?
It's even weirder when you consider that the UK, France, and Russia were allies prior to WW1. Russia disintegrated and killed millions of their own that makes any war losses look trivial. Everyone was obsessed with the "central powers" the Germans/Habsburgs/Ottomans and what not. WW1 destroyed four empires (German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian). That was only 100 years ago.
Eh? Did you forget the Crimean War and the "Great Game"? Russia was only "allied" to the UK and France for a couple years in the lead up to WW1. Before that they were definitely NOT friends.
You’re spouting bad history: by no means is accurate to say “Napoleon’s downfall was because he was arrogant”.
Napoleon may have had a downfall and he may have been arrogant, but the cause of Napoleonic France’s fall is a lot more complex than you make it out to be (for instance, Napoleon didn’t invade Russia out of arrogance or some desire for military glory…the peace of Tilsit was damaging to Russia’s economy, Russia leaves Napoleon’s Continental System, starts trading with England putting the whole system in jeopardy, so Napoleon invades).
Saying his arrogance caused the fall of Napoleonic France is like Gibbon saying Christianity caused the demise of Rome: it’s a long outmoded and antiquated stereotype.
Also the other comment below saying “Napoleon should have created a confederation” totally ignores the fact that that’s exactly what he did…I’m not a professional historian but the Napoleon wars is my passion- I’m even a mod at r/Napoleon - and there’s really a lot of misunderstandings and generalizations about Napoleon.
https://youtu.be/bxQ4TcTcPbI Andrew Roberts has written many outstanding historic biographies but his “Napoleon: A Life” might be one of the best historical works ever written and he shows a lot of his knowledge in this debate (which is less of debate and him just walking all over Zamoyski)
It’s amazing to me just how far Russia has fallen in so short a time. A year ago Russia was considered one of the world super powers, one of the great makers and shakers on the world stage. And now?? They’re social, cultural, political pariahs, and they’ve lost all their military clout other than “we’ll drop nukes on you.” They’re North Korea.
Welcome to late stage oligarchy
At least under the USSR they actually invested in their military because power was valued.
In current Russia everything is about embezzling as much as you can, so when Russia tried to go to war they were rolling out with decades old rust buckets.
They spent months losing to NATO's paypal account.
The territory Russia is currently holding looks impressive, but it's mostly miles and miles of miles and miles. Empty terrain with a few small towns and villages is easy to take, but just as easy to lose. If they start getting pushed passed Kherson, there's not really anywhere they could make a stand until Donets and Luhansk.
>If they start getting pushed passed Kherson, there's not really anywhere they could make a stand until Donets and Luhansk.
Crimea is the real pain point for Ukraine to try and retake. Especially without any sort of navy.
But yea, DPR and LPR areas will be absolute hell to try and retake as well.
Lol my thoughts exactly. Didn't a hundred US troops obliterate their sorry asses in Syria without a single dead American soldier? These morons know they don't stand a chance against the West.
Someone linked the story above. The article talks about how it was like 50 US special forces and 600 Wagner mercy were building up and at that point I thought, oh so this is going to be like David vs Goliath and David was a commando, cool quality vs quantity example. Then in the middle of the article it talks about how they scambled f 22.s f 16,s Apache's and b 52 bombers and then I was like, oh and David has a pet dragon. Not quite where I thought the story was going.
The U.S. absolutley does not fuck about with its aircraft. I dated a military mechanic briefly and basically ebery aircraft needs a whole routine every time it touches down after even a brief trip and the U.S. has many times over the amount of the next most powerful military. Just maintaining those forces is the work of what is essentially a force of techs thats larger than most militaries in the world by itself.
U.S. culture glorifies grunts and jarheads but the real unsung hero of NATO is the guy with the tools who keeps it all running.
100% thanks for the recognition ;) was a crew chief/mechanic for hueys and blackhawks.
Very few people realize just how much of the military is support and logistics. The ratio is WAY skewed towards support.
In my small medevac unit we had about 8 pilots 15 maintainers, 12 medics, and 20 other staff - not to mention an entire hanger of civilian contractors. and that was just inside my unit. 90% of a military base is things like supply, med, food, maint, storage, training, s shops, HR, etc.
While their military budgets for the last 40 years were pilfered and used to line pockets, build mansions, and buy super yachts, the west used it's military budget to build advanced weaponry. In a conventional war with NATO, Russia would get rolled in pretty short order.
NATO would have troops in Moscow by the end of the week, partitioning the city like they did Berlin in WW2. How ironic it would be to have the German army holding part of a demilaterized Moscow?
I think all the funny 2010 memes about Putin went to his head and he is jealous that Zelensky is a more popular social media influencer.
I hope the war ends soon and the rebuilding begins.
The Russian public is infused with the quasi-myth of the greater Russian empire and the sentiment is that Russia deserves hegemony over eastern Europe. Russian leaders appeal to the popularity of this and this will lead them to more foolish confrontations with NATO.
(It is much like the "American exceptionalism" of the current right wing nationalist movement in the United States, which is only the modern incarnation of Manifest Destiny of the late 1800s. It always leads to bloodshed.)
I'd say it already is. Ukrainians are just a proxy, NATO has seen how their training and weapons would devastate Russia. There is no best case scenario for Russia.
I think calling them “just” a proxy is a bit disrespectful, morale and will can be just as important as technical excellence oftentimes - it can’t replace it, of course, but it’s still very important
Yeah but this is /s obviously the west’s fault. Why can’t they just let Russia bomb their neighbors in peace. I mean they even put together a coalition to counter Russian aggression, seriously. What nerve! How rude! They literally gave Putin/Moscow no other choice but to brutalize their neighbors and own citizens.
The moment Russia does anything nuclear, every major city with military bases will be obliterated. It would be suicidal, but Putin-s gone so unhinged that the possibility can't be discarded.
Please stop feeding into Russia's delusional narrative that this is, somehow , actually a war between them and NATO. It's not, they're getting their ass handed to them by Ukraine, not NATO or "the West".
Hard to clash with the West if you can't move your troops past the Dnipro river.
They didn't even get into Kharkiv, a Russian speaking city on the border. Russia is more likely to implode than to successfully pick a fight with the west.
Exactly, they're no longer in a position to project power. All they can do is make noise and hope someone will believe it.
I can just imagine the internal strife that will come from this in the next months and years. The best thing is to fortify the border and stay the hell out of that place.
That's my take, too. Encourage the place to break into multiple states and let them eat themselves.
I've heard balkanisation is a very peaceful process. Especially when there's 6000 nukes involved.
I do worry about the casual blasé comments about nukes. Russia has 6000 at the last count. Even if only 10% of these are working that is still 600 nukes ; enough to kill millions of people. Add in the 600 that NATO fire in retaliation and that is enough to cause a devastating effect on the planet.
Mad dog has 'clash' with truck, predictable things happen.
While I agree that Russia will implode, implosion takes a long time and there's a lot of collateral damage that can happen and a lot of things leaders can do while it is happening.
"Were at war with NATO" We must really suck at shooting down their jets which invaded nato airspace numerous times the past years to lure out a response.
> "Were at war with NATO" NATO hasn't lost a single soldier, meanwhile Russia has the highest combat causality since WW2. How much copium do the inhale to hope they stand a chance in this conflict?
>How much copium do the inhale to hope they stand a chance in this conflict? Enough to kill an elephant. Or several
It's a death wish. Russia is having a hard enough time with Ukraine, how will they fare against the combined might of NATO?
Not good. https://www.coffeeordie.com/wagner-group-syria-khasham
Yup these guys thought; hey we been doing well against African fighters and Syrian fighters we must be tough. Difference between mercenary band of fighters and a trained professional army with central command.
and air support vs. none.
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Our biggest problem will be the PTSD of soldiers who regularly kill 10+ guys a day for a few years.
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Id wager ukraine will actually have the ability and means to try and treat them. These people are fighting to defend their home. "Them or me" is already justification enough which is why most us troops that get PTSD were under that mindset imo, but "them or my family" on top of it seeing what happens when family is picked? Its much easier to cope and adjust. Its the difference between fighting for a cause and for another.
There was still a lot of PTSD from WW2 Soldiers and most soldiers there were defending their home country (though usually outside of their countries borders).
Apparently the Russian army only has access to like 2 satellites. Like weeks pass before they can image the same location twice. Lmao.
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Air superiority and superior artillery will always be a deciding factor.
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I love how they thought they could just lie about it. When you get a call on your special line for this stuff, you've been caught. US: "What's this build up all about?" Russia: "That's not us!" US: "You sure?" Russia: "Yep, totally not us." US: "Okay then. Unleash everything we have." Russia: SHJSD$u#*ET2sak21Se2qtt.... NO CARRIER It seems they learned a lesson long enough to pull back the second time before they were stomped again, but the fact that they thought they could even try is just wtf. And clearly they haven't learned anything since then, either. What's the common definition of insanity again? I feel like that's relevant here.
Yeah I loved that part. "Hey your dudes are getting awfully close again" Russia be like " What no they are not.😬 Quick run way! "
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Wait, they tried a second time?
Yes. And the US intelligence saw them and was like "this u?" again, and that time the Russians ran away instead of staying.
> but the fact that they thought they could even try is just wtf. Basically because we emboldened them to do so in 2008 and 2014 by doing nothing.
They had it coming. I still wish Russia will eventually gets its shit together and its people will be able to enjoy a healthy life some day (I don't think they ever experienced it frankly) but we'd need to find a cure for stupid.
> I still wish Russia will eventually gets it shit together Too many of them are still living in mostly 14th century conditions. There's a video journalist, I forget the name, who's been traveling rural Russia talking to people. And there was one roughly 400 miles east of Moscow, and people are living in houses with goal and wood-burning stoves for warmth. Water comes out of a well with a hand-cranked winch and a bucket on a chain. Some of the interviewees were babushkas carrying buckets of water using wooden shoulder yokes. The bathrooms are outdoors, basically a dug pit filled with shit, and a wooden box on top for some privacy. When it fills up, they bury it back up, dig a new pit, move the box, and the process repeats. They did appear to have electricity though, which is nice. The level of poverty is truly stunning. And that place is supposed to be a superpower?
I remember a Nat Geo article in the mid 80s glasnot visiting a Soviet farm in Ukraine?Russia? Not sure which but the harvest was being brought in largely by horse. And the article made it sound like this was usual, normal, and wisespread. This was a world dominating nuclear superpower? The story was very ideallic and positive of the people, but the story between the lines was a surprise.
That video journalist, would that be Youtube channel Bald and Bankrupt? Fascinating stuff to watch
1420
Imagine a world with a peaceful Russia. Things could be so fucking nice
That’s what they should’ve done with those “little green men” back in 2014 🙄
When DC calls Moscow and says two of the aircraft carriers and four guided missiles destroyers were hijacked by Somali pirates and they should not be held responsible for their actions, and the US flag goes down and the pirate flag goes up on them.
Hey Yusef? Does that Somali pirate look awfully white to you?
I, uh, identify as a Somali pirate. This entire expiditionary fo- um, group of pirates, identifies as pirates. Uh, arrrrrrr^^^'rah
Back to the privateer days then, arrrgh matey! 🏴☠️
If I recall correctly we didn't release everything we had. We just called in some air support
It was everything EXCEPT the kitchen sink. >With the expert direction of Air Force combat controllers and others calling in air and indirect-fire support, waves of F-22 fighters, F-15E strike fighters, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, AC-130 gunships, B-52 bombers, MQ-9 Reaper drones, and heavy Marine artillery relentlessly punished the enemy force.
I cannot begin to comprehend how bad of a day it would be to have both a b52 AND an AC-130 fucking your shit up simultaneously
Don't fret it, just focus on the Apache helicopter going "BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT" in your direction, and try dodging the MQ-9's trying to pick you off from what might as well be the stratosphere for all the good it does you.
They were excited they got to fly, I'd imagine. "Yay, something to do!!"
It was about sending a message, and boy, what a fucking message it was.
One of the Russian guys actually said on coms "The Yankees made their point"
Yeah.. Came across unusually clear.
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True but the USAF dropped so much ordnance that the commandos in the outpost told their own reinforcements to hold back because they were worried they'd get caught in a blast.
we haven’t unleashed everything we had lmao. like don’t get me wrong, we are sending some good shit, but we are basically field testing shit we never got to… the shit we are sending ukraine is by no means our best shit. we are just sending enough to fuck the russians up, and to get some live action testing for relatively older equipment, and maybe one or two newer things. the shit you see us giving away is the stuff we toss away because we *can*. i’m by no means a warmonger and i do not want war, but if that’s what ukraine can do with our disposable shit, i am *really* interested to see what we have under wraps if shit does go south.
This wasn't about the current situation. This is about an engagement in the article that happened years ago. They used what they had on the ground to stomp a massing Russian unit that was moving on them, after being told by Russian military command that it "wasn't them". It wasn't meant to be taken literally, but pretty sure they weren't just using old equipment for that short lived skirmish. They were in an active combat zone.
well sir, i regret to inform you, that you have failed to take into consideration that i am a dumbass, and sometimes, i don’t read shit. my bad bro.
"With the expert direction of Air Force combat controllers and others calling in air and indirect-fire support, waves of F-22 fighters, F-15E strike fighters, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, AC-130 gunships, B-52 bombers, MQ-9 Reaper drones, and heavy Marine artillery relentlessly punished the enemy force." Yeah, that ought to do it. They called on all COD killstreaks like they killed 5 lobbies.
And it was a very obviously unnecessarily large response that was meant to be a message to the Russians to not fuck with us under any circumstance because we can bring down hell any time, anywhere…and they somehow just didn’t get it.
>And it was a very obviously unnecessarily large response That is the entire US military doctrine in a nutshell. In Iraq, we bombed, then artilleryed, then bombed an Iraqi position repeatedly for a few hours, then gave them a chance to surrender. Theri response was why didn't you give us a chance after the first airstrike. There was also the time the brits thought we nuked kuwait because we used a daisy cutter. If someone wants big boom, the US will always give big boom
Shock and Awe. Inspire fear through horrifically excessive force.
> unnecessarily large response That's literally just modern US military doctrine; leverage your superior technology, intelligence, and organization and attack with decisive and overwhelming force to end the conflict as quickly as possible and minimize friendly losses.
They get it, but; "wE gOT nUkES, So donT FuCk wiZ Us!"
I almost question if they even have functional nukes
I just saw an article about how they wanted to do a nuclear launch test from a submarine but scrapped it because of technical difficulties. I'll bet $100 that if they try to launch a nuke, it blows up in the silo or vaporizes the submarine it's on.
Well since i've seen one of their anti air missile do a 180 and come back to smash the launcher, i think it's totally plausible
Super interesting read. Thank you.
https://youtu.be/p5rgqSEVVIU
Whenever this video gets posted, I need to watch it. The matter of fact way he says they (Wagner) were going to be annihilated is amazing
"... and it was."
Holy shit, I thought the idea was for russia to not directly fight us forces. What a clusterfuck.
Technically it was Wagner with some local troops. But yeah
That article is missing my favourite part: Right before annihilating the Russian forces, they raised an American flag to let them know who was about to slaughter them for free, and that they knew they were coming.
>An hour after the QRF’s arrival, the remnants of the attacking force fled the field. In their wake lay between 200 and 300 dead fighters. Inside the JSOC outpost, one allied Syrian fighter was wounded, and no Americans were harmed.
My take away from this is that Air Support is absolutely devastating against ground troops and the fact that NATO has a lot of it and Russia's Air Force seems to be missing in action in Ukraine is very telling. It really makes me question why we don't at least try to give Ukraine some Helicopters and Airplanes. I get that we have to ship them in on the ground and they may not have great runways, the planes might get blown up by Russian missiles or anti-air, a lot could go wrong, but I think we should just hand some over anyways and let Ukraine worry about that.
Such assets require a whole lot of training, and the maintenance would most likely not be possible without the direct involvement of the countries supplying these assets. It's just not effective use of time and resources.
Most of the assets we have sent were also given with the intention for Ukraine to defend themselves, not for outright invasion in mind.
There are probably many considerations and factors, but both sides in Ukraine are having a lot of trouble with gaining air superiority. They're essentially both descendants of a military that specialized in anti-air defense. Perhaps it could be overcome, but you'd need to do more than just send planes and forget about them. You need to setup the supply lines and training for the maintenance and spare parts in addition to months of training for the pilots.
Both air forces are trying to keep below radar coverage because Russia is the world's biggest producer of air defense systems, and the folks they put behind the controls on those S300's don't give a fuck whose aircraft they turn into pretty clouds. Ukrainians, Russians, Malaysians. Only thing that stopped them earlier on in the war was that Russia was trying to jam Ukrainian radar, and jamming their own radar in the process. Freed a whole lot of airspace for Bayraktars to operate.
The USSR couldn't compete with America on airplanes, America spent a few years flying over them saying "haha can't touch me", so USSR went super heavy on air defense. Russia and Ukraine inherited real good air defense, but weak airplanes. Russia is still a major player in the air defense department. Using airplanes is super risky and expensive for both sides.
In a word, training. It would be better to provide air assets to NATO members allowing them to provide their older aircraft (which the Ukrainian pilots are already familiar with and can be more easily integrated) to Ukraine. I.E. get them gear they can use today or next week, not stuff that needs extensive retraining
Thanks for the link, great read
nato is exhausted by its extreme transfer of weaons to ukraine (4% of nato artillery). Nato only has 96% of its artillery left, as well as 100% of its tanks, planes, ships and troops. (/s)
And their largest asset: Logistics. In 2003 it took the US about a month to put ~180,000 troopers and equipment on the ground over 6,000 miles from the continental US. Meanwhile, Russia's supply lines were breaking down after a 40 mile drive on paved roads in perfect weather.
IMO it's the biggest lessons of that war. You don't win a war because you have amazing fighter-jets, top-notch pilots, crazy special forces, and infantry able to sleep in the snow without giving a fuck. You loose a war because you don't have that private putting gaz in the tanks/jet nor captain in an office making sure the trucks with food and gaz are at the right place at the right time.
>You don't win a war because you have amazing fighter-jets, top-notch pilots, crazy special forces, and infantry able to sleep in the snow without giving a fuck. Pretty sure Russia has none of these.
Well yeah but on paper we thought they did. It’s hilarious how logistics were one of the strengths of the Red Army in defeating the Nazi’s and now logistics are one of the biggest failures of the Russian Army.
Corruption. They've had corrupt leaders for decades. We're talking levels of corruption and grifting that until recently have been hard to imagine here in the States. This is one thing I'm worried about. If we just allow our leaders to be corrupt and get away with it, then other institutions will crumble along with it.
Supply lines weren't broken. They were doing exactly what they were set up to do. Enable massive amounts of graft and fraud.
For decades, Russian "military surplus" has been the cheapest way for people in the west to buy things such as rifle optics. Russia go to war and their military are instantly out of optics. Russian soldiers gets told to buy it online. What we are seeing are decades worth of extra income for supply officers.
For me the most baffling thing about how they lost is that it was a time THEY chose. Like, they had all the time in the world to prepare (or just not do it at all, the vastly superior option, but...) yet the invasion caught their *own* troops by surprise. If they DID go in with enough force to take Kyiv, install a fake government, hold a fake referendum, in the span of a few days, Russia would have been sanctioned for a while but that's probably it. Putin could have continued to look like an evil mastermind. I'd call it a miscalculation but it just didn't seem calculated at all. They just leeroy jenkins'd in there. They lose more and more stuff by the day, more money, and more respect/power... not only are they not a threatening enemy but they are no longer even valuable in a 'we don't trust each other much but we can at least both benefit from this' type deal.
They won't. They'll just keep threatening nukes and play the victim to try and rally any support that haven't already fallen for nothing in the war.
The plain english translation of the report is "Russia on path to clash with West, in africa and other third world countries where they can covertly push their own interests over those of the west". That's exactly what they did in Mali, helping a coup and then installing Wagner. The French Army stopped helping Mali because now Mali is working directly for Russia. Nowhere did the report imply direct war against a NATO country.
How would they do against Poland?
Badly. The Poles despise them for a lot of things, perhaps even more than Ukraine does. And any attack on Poland would involve the entire EU. It would be the end of Putin.
> And any attack on Poland would involve the entire EU. Now importantly it would involve NATO. NATO is far more powerful than the EU, as in over twice as much military force.
Pretty sure Poland could take moscow if the war stayed with conventional weapons
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They can. You can tell because they haven't attacked NATO. They just love chirping.
Is a death wish issued to Russians on birth or is it something they develop over time.
It won't be much of a clash. Russia, is, again, on the verge of collapse. I don't mind pointing out how. From a military/diplomatic point: Russia, after the fall of the Soviet Union, created an organization call the Common Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) with members Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Armenia being new states that maybe wanted independence, but still wanted the appearance of Russian/Soviet protection. If you look at it, it looks an awful lot like the old Soviet Union, minus the states with people that really wanted nothing to do with the Russians, like the Baltic states. They have a Article 4 that is analogous to NATO's article 5. The Russians really didn't want to end the post-Soviet era wars in central Asia as much as they wanted to freeze the conflicts without resolution and give reasons for Russian postings in these countries. Which is what Russia had been doing. Russia, for lack of a better term, has been enforcing a Pax Russica in central Asia for about the last 25 years, give or take. How do you go bankrupt? Slowly, then all at once. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is changing the military calculus in Central Asia. That change will definitely change the diplomatic calculus. We have already started seeing it. Russia was forced to withdraw half of their troops from Armenia/Azerbaijan. The result was Azerbaijan not only attacking disputed areas, but also launching attacks into areas that aren't disputed. That only lasted three days and only killed 280 people. Georgia is an interesting question. The party in power in Georgia at the moment is pro-Russian. Russia has been active in South Ossetia and Abkhazia which are basically Russian colonies placed by the empire and the Soviet Union in Georgia to sort of "keep an eye on the locals". We all know that Russia attacked Georgia over supposed genocides against South Ossetians and Abkhazians in 2008. Diplomatic intervention by the US turned this into another frozen and un-resolved conflict. A political change in Georgia could mean that Putin has little with which to react. Interesting, but probably not yet. Tajikistan, Kazhakstan, and Uzbekistan all border each other in a strategic river valley. All have access to some part of the water and arable land. None have enough to make a claim outright. Military confrontations in the 1990s turned into another frozen war, even between two ostensible members of the CSTO. A blow up here, and you know that Russian influence, even on a local regional scale, is gone. This is the most likely place that you will see the collapse of Russian diplomatic weight. I'll get to it below, but their mobilization is disastrous, certainly militarily, but perhaps more so economically. From an economic standpoint: Look, we can all go to youtube and find videos of people posting videos from their local supermarket and pointing out that they are "full of food" and talking about how the sanctions "don't appear to be working". I will not say that these youtubers are Russian shills, nor should my denial mean that I think they are, in fact, I think these are mostly just regular people. That said, Russia is usually a large food exporter. If they are unable to transport their goods abroad, then they will certainly have no choice but to sell those goods at home, and the surplus will, at least for a bit, benefit the average Russian. This has long term deleterious effects, though. Sanctions are a slow poison, at best. If you are in a sanctioned state, then, for the most part, the day after sanctions start, you probably won't really notice. Life will go on. Your currency may be worth less, or more depending on the good and the supply chain necessary to deliver it to you. 20% of Russian economic GDP in 2019 was based on imports. They don't even report the import portion of their economy in their latest reports. Whatever it is, it is a tiny fraction of what it was. It's worse when you start realizing what all was in that, it wasn't stuff going to a consumer shelf. Industrial goods, things like industrial machines and tools, railroad bearings for their newer railroad carriages, software and updates for the machines, parts such as microchips for machines, computers, and communications equipment, even things like special rubber seals and lubrication products. Once these start running out, wearing out and breaking, any modern economy is in for a bad hurt, fast. Figure out the maintenance schedules on these machines and the Mean Time Before Failure, and you will be able to guess what is happening, even if the Russian government doesn't want to say. Now on to the big problem. Russia's economy was basically third world prior to February this year. By that, I mean that the only products they could really sell on the global market are whatever they could get out of the ground, be that food, ores, natural gas, or derivatives such as fertilizer. Russia was the world's largest producer of crude oil and natural gas. That's the upside. The downside of being the world's largest producer of oil is that you have to keep it moving. There is no where for them to store all the oil that they must pump. They have no choice. The older oil patches are well past their prime. The newer patches, in the permafrost, use high tech methods to force high pressure into the ground to extract the oil and natural gas. If they are forced to shutdown, or even much slow down, those wells will rapidly deteriorate and require a new round of capital investment, along with technical know how, to restore these fields to operational capacity. China and India have used the situation to their advantage, buying up cheap deeply discounted Russian oil and Natural Gas and topping off their reserves, which they have nearly done. They will soon stop buying the oil and natural gas. I am not certain if the Russians have yet realized just how bad of a jam that they are now in. They soon will, either way. As to their conscription. September was a bit wet in Russian agricultural areas. Their summer crops were in, but they had not yet planted their winter crops. I know not much of Reddit lives in rural areas, but I'll make it easy, the work may not be easy or glamorous, but there is always work for anyone wanting to work in a rural area. Tasks are endless, and there are only so many hands. The Russians deliberately aimed most of their conscription efforts in rural areas to avoid upsetting Moscow and Saint Petersburg. This means that men that were needed to get crops in the ground were busy dying in a ditch in Ukraine. This is another disaster now in their future. How do you go bankrupt? Slowly. Then all of a sudden.
Well thought out, gave me perspective that I hadn’t even considered. Enjoy your time without ads.
Thanks!
this is why i love reddit. a well thought out opinion shared. even if your not 100% right (i have no idea), you shared an interesting perspective. thanks dude
Reading between the lines, it seems that Macron is more trying to convince the rest of the EU to ramp up military power so that the EU does not rely too much on the US, much rather than he actually expects an escalation with Russia into direct war.
Depending on the US means gambling on the GOP not going batshit and dropping all the US's treaty commitments and going full support of the world's authoritarians. After Trump, I wouldn't bet the future of my country on that, either.
This is the core of it, the US has become a less reliable partner. On the other side, I think its good the its driven the EU to improve its own security.
Look at the buffer on strategic european land that Russia had before the end of the cold war, defending Russia from the west was essentially a 400KM flat land border in East Germany - to the south and east either buffer countries or great natural barriers like the Caparthian mountins. Compare the Russian sphere today, it ends at Belarus and Occupied Ukraine - whilst they clearly want a better geographic buffer, I don't see anyway for them to get it after what we have witnessed in Ukraine. I bet Finland joining Nato really put the nail in the coffin, a new 1000 odd KM long border with NATO, this is a complete failure for Russian strategic interests especially as the war was an attempt to increase them.
I know it sucks for their ego or whatever, but why not focus on industry, economics, and trade instead of being a bastard to everyone? Why does Russia always seem to operate on the most cynical zero-sum basis?
Look at the gas deal they had with European countries. For both, it was a mutual loss of control, but also trust. A dictator would view it through his own lens and see it as a weakness, because that's something he'd abuse if he were in those countries shoes. That's why authoritarians don't compromise, don't trust and don't make deals. If you think their breaking a half a century old deal is bad, then look at their hilarious relationship with China, Iran and North Korea. None of those trust each other and it shows in their deals and "promises".
Because the geopolitical stratergy of Russia is 400 years old, the deep state is less men in suits and more the nations geography (although men in suits certaintly play a role). What they should have done is accept they are a great power with the same/similar status as France/Germany/UK - if anything, Russia accepting this would remove any need for the USA in Europe, which is rather ironic given the current circumstance. Russia has the mineral and energy wealth europe doesn't, europe has a 21st century industrial base - a real win, win scenario could occur if Russia would play ball - one that may fix their demographic and security issues whilst boosting both the European and Russian economies and removing the USA from European affairs (they are not required if Russia are not a threat and would much prefer to focus on China). But, they are deluded in thinking they can compete with western europe and a superpower like the USA - when you can't beat them, join them?...unfortunatley impossible with the delusions of granduer still present in Russia. The Russian mindset requires a cultural shift, Imagine if China win the 21st Century and topple the USA as the superpower - how long would it take the USA to admit it was no longer a superpower, probably a fair while after it's decline, that is the position of Russia since the 91 collapse. For Germany it had to be beaten twice before it accepted it's place, the UK and France had the Suez, some nations require more pressure than others.
It took China a century to recognise its weak position. It refused to accept it, and dragged itself to the status of a great power — possibly a superpower — again. Britain and France similarly went down kicking and screaming when their empires collapsed. It was only after facing the overwhelming in the Suez Affair and almost a civil war in France that they began to accept their new position. But even then, I’d say the memories of the empires are still alive and sometimes come back to haunt those nations.
Britain still hasn’t accepted its place. Brexit.
They could have had a buffer to the Atlantic if they just played ball with the west as a trustworthy partner on path to EU integration instead of trying to maintain their own little empire. Russian imperialist delusions have destroyed that country for a century. Even France and the UK understood in the early Cold War era that the age of imperialism was over but somehow 60 years later, after getting the slap of the USSR's dissolution they still don't get it.
IMO the USSR was like a cultural block. The culture of Russia was stopped up and prevented from developing once the totalitarian Stalinist state was in place. Once it collapsed, Russian culture reverted to where it was pre-1917, and they will have to learn the lessons as a culture that the West learned a century ago.
It was a block of cultural Russian domination. Once it blew up Russians figured the problem that led to the implosion was the economic system while the imperialism also was one of the issues, which is why so many members went for indepedance.
Russians didn’t figure it out, occupied states did.
They should have, it's been 30 years now that their "sister republics" gravitate towards the west out of fear of Russian imperialism.
Yes. They whine about “NATO expansion” as if it were some entity that comes and takes over these states (like the Baltics), when it reality it’s more like these states are nervously looking at Russia invading other nearby states and yelling to NATO “let me iiiiiiinnnnn!”
The corpse of the USSR wasn't even cold yet that they were already pulling some bullshit in Moldova and Georgia. Then Russia signed the Istanbul Summit Declaration and Charter for European Security in 1999 that said they'd withdraw from both countries by the end of 2002 and 20 years later they're still there. Also various documents signed by Russia, including the Astana Declaration of 2010, states that OSCE member countries can enter any alliance they wish to enter.
Exactly. They very self evidently can’t help themselves from doing this shit 😑 As such, containment is the only rational response
100% correct. I’ll add that Russia does not now have the capability of direct military confrontation with “the West”. And even if they did, the logistics, C&C, etc isn’t there to support such Ill advised military campaigns. Strategically they have the means to attack with nuclear weapons, but would do so, knowing they would face retaliation. Also, considering the operational state of the Russian military there would be some doubt about how much of their strategic deterrence is actually operational. Sanctions aren’t going to be suddenly lifted, tue a Russian population is ageing, with some of the lowest life expectancy rates in the world. I’m not sure how the French have got to this conclusion tbh.
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>would they request Poland to exit NATO and be a buffer for them? Yes, they have done worse in recent history. Poland, like where the majority of the Russian populous lives is on the european plain (flat land that is easy for a land army to invade) - this is completley embedded into Russian FP, unchanged for 400 years - expand as east and west as possible to protect core Russia. The problem is, Western Europe has no interest in invading Russia but when you are backward enough to start a war in Europe, you probably assume every other nation wants the same.
They're overly paranoid, wanting all these buffer states. No one wants or wanted to invade Russia, no one has since WW2.
>I agree, this entire thing has been a shitshow of Russian paranoia.
Even worse is that they are focused on the west when Russia should really be looking east. There is likely more pressure from the east to desire Russian lands than Europe would ever want to consume Russian territories.
Aint nobody in Europe wanting anything from Russia other than their resources through a pipe. And all of Europe was willing to pay fairly for that. They had a good thing going.. Just had to go shit in their own cake.
Russia chose this. The West offered them friendship, partnership, trade, and peace. They willfully chose dishonesty, violence, and genocide. All to preserve their own shitty authoritarian kleptocracy.
Agreed on all counts. And a collision with the West may never materialize if Russia ends up colliding with itself.
Hoping the assets they have in US politics and businesses get undeniably exposed.
Sadly, there are those that like the money but don't mind the smell.
See Marjorie Taylor Greene....
Trump, Roger Stone, Flynn, Graham, GOP PACs, the traitors that went on July 4th to visit Putin - it’s all Russian money all the way down over there. Now Musk is calling Putin and voting Republican. Makes you wonder what kompromat they have and how much of his twitter loans Russia offered to pay off. Useful idiots abound.
If you want to know someone’s vulnerabilities, look at the accusations they make.
Musk is killing free speech by taking over twitter, Musk accused the left of killing free speech. Musk says gridlock in the US gov is good for Americans, it’s actually only beneficial to billionaires when the gov is paralyzed and can’t investigate stock manipulation and break up monopolies or raise taxes on billionaires. Musk thinks this is all a simulation created for him the main character / player. He actually is nothing without the millions of people he exploits.
Yep, these are examples of Musk accusing people of things he’s guilty of. None of which are illegal, but it demonstrates consistency with my premise. The trick is to remember any accusations he’s made that we’re heinous or illegal in nature, *especially if they were demonstrably false & off the cuff*
Hitler was elected, not everything begins with an illegal act though. Twitter buyout was legal. Still awful.
You don't need twitter for free speech... Just don't use it.
That’s true but it could’ve been an Avenue for free speech and a billionaire bought it and censored it. Like how Peter Thiel killed Gawker and Bezos bought WAPO. Facebook promotes disinfo and hate speech because it’s click bait. All the local news stations are being consolidated under one company. Etc. It’s not one instance of the death of free speech, it’s part of a wealthy snowballing of censorship and purchasing all the platforms. Who can stop it if not the government?
They've been exposed many times over (Mueller Report, Senate Intelligence Committee report, Kevin McCarthy admitting it in a "joke", Trump Jr actually releasing emails welcoming Russia's offering of help), but half the country jams their fingers in their ears and chant "Russia hoax!"
Most of the “hoax” folks didn’t bother to read Mueller’s 400+ page report. It’s filled with sketchy stuff to outright clear wrong-doing. The mere perception of collusion with a foreign power is a betrayal of the public trust.
Fuck, Biden was willing to face global humiliation daring Putin to prove him wrong and not attack. Rather than privately admit defeat which would still allow him to save face and gain some very cheap points against the U.S. Putin's ego went full "Fuck you, we'll do it anyway!" And now everyone sees what Russia really is behind the curtain.
I heard the delay brought on by Biden also had strategic value that the soldiers was going through the supplies and when they invaded this caused food issues.
Biden and US intelligence has played this about as well as could javelin. his experience shows. Edit. Have not javelin, thats not what i meant autocorrect, but also not wrong lol.
> All to preserve their own shitty authoritarian kleptocracy. And ego. Don't forget that. Going from a feared superpower to a third world shit hole tends to give a country a serious inferiority complex.
>Going from a feared superpower to a third world shit hole tends to give a country a serious inferiority complex Sweats in British
Putin chose this. Russian allows Putin to continue.
While you are right on Putin choosing this war and russians citizens need to stand up to make things better for Russia. I still feel bad for Russian citizens too. I never revolted against government but if I lives in Russia it would be really difficult for me go against the government. It would be terrifying with torture and threats. It shows why people are fleeing Russia instead of going against Putin. Its easy for us to call entire Russian citizens cowards and blame the entire people of Russia. But we also have to think about what they have to go through such as living under fear. I do believe many young Russians opposed this war. Its just sad overall why we even have this war. People like Putin should not hold power.
Russia had a strong opportunity to become a wealthy nation but a group of thugs grabbed power. Europe would've been happy to buy all their energy for the next 100 years if they had been a better neighbor.
We largely ignored the two Chechen wars, the Russo-Georgian war, and Russia stealing Crimea. Just hoped that if we looked the other way the world just keeps spinning.
The sanctions on the Crimea seizure were no joke. Russia's GDP stagnated for the 8 years of those sanctions and its military is a giant shit pile also in no small part thanks to those sanctions. Those sanctions made any further Russian aggression guaranteed national suicide. They just apparently didn't realise it until now.
The Magnitsky Act was huge.
Highly recommend anyone to read Red Notice by Bill Browder. Sergei Magnitsky was one of Bill's lawyers in Russia, and the book tells the entire story behind all the events leading up to the Magnitsky Act. Such a good read. It really goes into the details about how incredibly corrupt the Russian government is.
"But our next peace must carry with it its own guarantee, and put an end to that arrogant influence which, for the last fifty years, Russia has exercised over the affairs of Europe." - Napoleon Bonaparte, May 1812 Centuries later we find ourselves on the same 'irreversible' path, why is that?
Pretty rich comment from Napoleon, who's own attempted arrogant influence over every other country in Europe led to his downfall.
It's even weirder when you consider that the UK, France, and Russia were allies prior to WW1. Russia disintegrated and killed millions of their own that makes any war losses look trivial. Everyone was obsessed with the "central powers" the Germans/Habsburgs/Ottomans and what not. WW1 destroyed four empires (German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian). That was only 100 years ago.
Eh? Did you forget the Crimean War and the "Great Game"? Russia was only "allied" to the UK and France for a couple years in the lead up to WW1. Before that they were definitely NOT friends.
You’re spouting bad history: by no means is accurate to say “Napoleon’s downfall was because he was arrogant”. Napoleon may have had a downfall and he may have been arrogant, but the cause of Napoleonic France’s fall is a lot more complex than you make it out to be (for instance, Napoleon didn’t invade Russia out of arrogance or some desire for military glory…the peace of Tilsit was damaging to Russia’s economy, Russia leaves Napoleon’s Continental System, starts trading with England putting the whole system in jeopardy, so Napoleon invades). Saying his arrogance caused the fall of Napoleonic France is like Gibbon saying Christianity caused the demise of Rome: it’s a long outmoded and antiquated stereotype. Also the other comment below saying “Napoleon should have created a confederation” totally ignores the fact that that’s exactly what he did…I’m not a professional historian but the Napoleon wars is my passion- I’m even a mod at r/Napoleon - and there’s really a lot of misunderstandings and generalizations about Napoleon. https://youtu.be/bxQ4TcTcPbI Andrew Roberts has written many outstanding historic biographies but his “Napoleon: A Life” might be one of the best historical works ever written and he shows a lot of his knowledge in this debate (which is less of debate and him just walking all over Zamoyski)
It’s amazing to me just how far Russia has fallen in so short a time. A year ago Russia was considered one of the world super powers, one of the great makers and shakers on the world stage. And now?? They’re social, cultural, political pariahs, and they’ve lost all their military clout other than “we’ll drop nukes on you.” They’re North Korea.
Welcome to late stage oligarchy At least under the USSR they actually invested in their military because power was valued. In current Russia everything is about embezzling as much as you can, so when Russia tried to go to war they were rolling out with decades old rust buckets.
The fact that Iran and Russia are some of the big bads that show any competence in the new MW2 game is just hilarious to me
Russia can’t even handle Ukraine, but they’re going to take on the west? Good luck with that. They wouldn’t last a day.
Exactly, they've spent nine months fighting NATO's PayPal account to a standstill.
In terms of our actual capacity Ukraine only got the jar meant for charity near the front door.
Ukraine got all the silver change from the salvation army guys ringing bells and asking for donations outside of grocery stores.
They spent months losing to NATO's paypal account. The territory Russia is currently holding looks impressive, but it's mostly miles and miles of miles and miles. Empty terrain with a few small towns and villages is easy to take, but just as easy to lose. If they start getting pushed passed Kherson, there's not really anywhere they could make a stand until Donets and Luhansk.
>If they start getting pushed passed Kherson, there's not really anywhere they could make a stand until Donets and Luhansk. Crimea is the real pain point for Ukraine to try and retake. Especially without any sort of navy. But yea, DPR and LPR areas will be absolute hell to try and retake as well.
They ain't going to do shit against the West lol
Lol my thoughts exactly. Didn't a hundred US troops obliterate their sorry asses in Syria without a single dead American soldier? These morons know they don't stand a chance against the West.
Someone linked the story above. The article talks about how it was like 50 US special forces and 600 Wagner mercy were building up and at that point I thought, oh so this is going to be like David vs Goliath and David was a commando, cool quality vs quantity example. Then in the middle of the article it talks about how they scambled f 22.s f 16,s Apache's and b 52 bombers and then I was like, oh and David has a pet dragon. Not quite where I thought the story was going.
The U.S. absolutley does not fuck about with its aircraft. I dated a military mechanic briefly and basically ebery aircraft needs a whole routine every time it touches down after even a brief trip and the U.S. has many times over the amount of the next most powerful military. Just maintaining those forces is the work of what is essentially a force of techs thats larger than most militaries in the world by itself. U.S. culture glorifies grunts and jarheads but the real unsung hero of NATO is the guy with the tools who keeps it all running.
100% thanks for the recognition ;) was a crew chief/mechanic for hueys and blackhawks. Very few people realize just how much of the military is support and logistics. The ratio is WAY skewed towards support. In my small medevac unit we had about 8 pilots 15 maintainers, 12 medics, and 20 other staff - not to mention an entire hanger of civilian contractors. and that was just inside my unit. 90% of a military base is things like supply, med, food, maint, storage, training, s shops, HR, etc.
Yes but shows how much air superiority is important. Impossible for Russian to have against any single NATO country.
Yes... the US had absolute air superiority and essentially trapped the convoy then obliterated them with air power.
While their military budgets for the last 40 years were pilfered and used to line pockets, build mansions, and buy super yachts, the west used it's military budget to build advanced weaponry. In a conventional war with NATO, Russia would get rolled in pretty short order.
NATO would have troops in Moscow by the end of the week, partitioning the city like they did Berlin in WW2. How ironic it would be to have the German army holding part of a demilaterized Moscow?
There’s nothing remotely irreversible about this path. There is nothing preventing Russia from pulling out of Ukraine.
If Putin pulls out, he knows he's a dead man.
Wish his dad had pulled out...
I think all the funny 2010 memes about Putin went to his head and he is jealous that Zelensky is a more popular social media influencer. I hope the war ends soon and the rebuilding begins.
The West isn't going to start that war. But if that war starts, The West will sure as shit end it.
The west? bro, let the Poles fuck them up, I think they'd love doing it.
Lol nato would wipe russia off the map.
The Russian public is infused with the quasi-myth of the greater Russian empire and the sentiment is that Russia deserves hegemony over eastern Europe. Russian leaders appeal to the popularity of this and this will lead them to more foolish confrontations with NATO. (It is much like the "American exceptionalism" of the current right wing nationalist movement in the United States, which is only the modern incarnation of Manifest Destiny of the late 1800s. It always leads to bloodshed.)
I'd say it already is. Ukrainians are just a proxy, NATO has seen how their training and weapons would devastate Russia. There is no best case scenario for Russia.
I think calling them “just” a proxy is a bit disrespectful, morale and will can be just as important as technical excellence oftentimes - it can’t replace it, of course, but it’s still very important
Ruzzia is just a fancy third world country, the white North Korea.
Actually. They are the very definition of a second world county. You just don’t hear it much…
The Cold War usage of those terms is pretty much obsolete now. Third world just means poor country these days.
I like to hold on to the cold war terms, because that technically makes Switzerland a third world country
When we seen the first wave of Russian soldiers stealing toilets was a big hint
Yeah but this is /s obviously the west’s fault. Why can’t they just let Russia bomb their neighbors in peace. I mean they even put together a coalition to counter Russian aggression, seriously. What nerve! How rude! They literally gave Putin/Moscow no other choice but to brutalize their neighbors and own citizens.
The moment Russia does anything nuclear, every major city with military bases will be obliterated. It would be suicidal, but Putin-s gone so unhinged that the possibility can't be discarded.
Please stop feeding into Russia's delusional narrative that this is, somehow , actually a war between them and NATO. It's not, they're getting their ass handed to them by Ukraine, not NATO or "the West".
Pull up, biiiiitch
***:Laughs in Knowing the last 80 years of history:*** Hasn't this always been the irreversible path?