Russia does not have the technology or the training to invade most countries. They do have the stupidity though. Look what happened to the Moskva, tbh et can’t gain air superiority or gain much ground in Ukraine. How do you think they would do against a well armed, well trained military? The same goes for the Uk the US and nato but for other reasons. The countries are big bullies essentially.
How do you think they would do against a well armed, well trained military?
Well, it does have nukes...
Do we think Johnson primary objective in visiting Ukraine was to show support for Ukraine or deflect from his problems at home? What did the visit actually achieve other than further antagonizing Russia?
Apologies if you think the question rhetorical.
As poah says, Russia may not have the necessary resources or expertise to take on a well resourced and trained military, so why wouldn't they be looking at options that would escalate things without stepping on more sovereign territory? (international waters).
Remember that Putin made threats towards the QE2 a couple of years back, saying something like it was a sitting duck and an easy target. But he was only joking right?
I'm reminded of that Maya Angelou quote, "When people show you who they are, believe them the first time"
An aircraft carrier has to be the highest value target and the sinking of the Mokba cam only make the UK carriers a more enticing target. Sinking or damaging one would go a long way in distracting a home audience from that disaster.
If you think I'm stupid then remember, as poah also suggested, the Russians are experts in stupid.
I don’t really Russias threats as anything other than (highly likely) attempts to shift public opinion in third party countries, and by consequence reduce political commitment in countries where votes choose leaders.
There’s a whole other thread for Blo Hards endeavours. But yes, it’s awfully convenient in respect of what you suggest.
As poah says, Russia may not have the necessary resources or expertise to take on a well resourced and trained military, so why wouldn’t they be looking at options that would escalate things without stepping on more sovereign territory? (international waters).
Russia doesn't have the ability to take on and beat Ukraine, let alone NATO. NATO would utterly destroy Russia's conventional forces. You'd be talking days or weeks, not months.
Attacking a warship or military aircraft of a NATO country in international waters or airspace would be a major provocation. Sovereign territory is irrelevant, if it was in international waters or airspace, it would be an act of war. What NATO would do in response would depend on the circumstances, but launching missiles at a warship belonging to a NATO country would be at the very serious end of provocations and a military response would be the expected result.
The UK and USA subs have been following Russian/Soviet subs for decades. They have been way ahead for years.
Do you really think that a Russian sub would be able to get anywhere near a UK or US asset?
I just read this account from an ITN journalist in rural Russia. Truly heartbreaking.
From Twitter: https://twitter.com/ej_burrows/status/1516517836491046918?s=21&t=RhgNVu-RNRfuQK65otks0g
but we have no real need for Russian oil, gas, etc, so less issues of embargoes from Russia,
I kind of agree, were pretty insignificant in terns of buying stiff from russia (germany already reduced the amount of o/g they buy from russia by more than we do in total) but even we arent planning to cut our russian oil & gas until the end of 2022
Fuel protests have brought the country to a halt before, cost of living crisis in France (which has much better government protection for domestic gas than UK consumers) is already at risk of putting Putins puppet LePen in power...
Post Brexit and given the incompetence of our administration do you think the UK has placed itself in a more vulnerable position or not?
Pffftt.. Project Fear. Next you'll be saying that after Brexit we'll see war in Europe... 😏
More seriously, I think the Ukraine conflict has shown we (UK) are still quite aligned with the rest of Europe and can still work with them on important issues.
I'm interested if people think it strengthens or weakens the argument for a combined European Army? (which I recall was one of the bogeymen of the Brexit campaign).
I suspect if EU had a standing military then Putin would regard Ukraine joining the EU as a proxy for them joining NATO.
Oleg Tinkov (remember him?) denounces ‘insane war’ in Ukraine. Typical straight talking from Tinkov.
"Do you really think that a Russian sub would be able to get anywhere near a UK or US asset?"
I think you'll find that they do. Regularly.
After 9/11, the Pentagon approached Hollywood scriptwriters to come up with fantastic scenarios because they recognised that their thinking was too predictable and they didn't factor in 'black swan' events into their strategies.
I think that at times like this it is no bad thing to "expect the unexpectable"
Meanwhile over here this is going on. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/apr/19/ukrainian-workers-flee-modern-slavery-conditions-on-uk-farms?CMP=share_btn_tw
Do you really think that a Russian sub would be able to get anywhere near a UK or US asset?
They only need to get within 500 km to launch a swarm of cruise missiles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-800_Oniks
One thing this crisis has done for me is realise how we see everything through our own eyes. It really does seem that the Russian Psyche is just completely differen5 to ours. Life is expendable. Power and conquest is everything. If you aren’t my subject you are my enemy, so killing you is fully justified.
This is quite interesting from the Institute for War Studies. I don't recall their daily summaries mentioning partisans before.
GrahamS,
Interesting question with regards a joint European Army. In practical terms I suppose it comes down to chain of command. one of the Reasons Russia is performing so poorly in Ukraine is supposedly that their NCO's have no autonomy or authority on the ground. Unlike Western forces where NCO's are allowed to make decisions in the field. For Russians, orders from above have to be followed judiciously.
Whilst NATO is re-establishing some unity after years of neglect, I do wonder how the chain of command thing would respond to some surprise event, it may have an overwhelming capability militarily speaking but how quickly would decisions be able to be made?
I'm reminded how in WW2 after the Normandy landings, Eisenhower was put in the position of overall control of Alied forces. How would things work in this day and age? Certainly a European Army would go some way in addressing the chain of command question, at least on this side of the Atlantic. Which begs another question. How would the Americans feel if the overall commander in chief was a European?
This is behind a paywall, unfortunately, but the gist of it is that Putin sees himself as doing God's will to restore Russia to what he imagines it used to be.
In fact, if you ask me what really went wrong after 1991, it’s not that the West flooded Russia with hamburgers, or that there were too many casinos in Moscow, or even that Putin and the opportunists around him raided the Russian treasury while many of Russia’s citizens lived in poverty and declining health. It’s that there was no recognition among the Soviet elites that they had lost the Cold War and that they had deserved to lose it. Instead, people like Putin and others nursed resentments about betrayal and humiliation—as if the Soviet Union had just been another country and hadn’t been part of a mad project that killed millions of its own people and enslaved its neighbors.
We’ve had a European NATO Secretary General several times, the current incumbent is a former Norwegian PM - Jens Stoltenberg.
dantsw13
This times 100. Remember how a week into the conflict, many on here and elswhere were thinking that protests were going to break out on the streets of Russia, that Putin was about to be toppled / overthrown assasinated etc?
There's a generation of young Russians who have undergone nationalist indoctrination at Putin Youth Camps. Then theres the language thing, russian isnt just a different language, it's a completely different landuage. I saw a piece the other day positing that we dont really understand how Russia thinks because we dont understand how their language works, basically, they were saying that an awful lot gets lost in translation, (a point made further up the page i believe).
"We’ve had a European NATO Secretary General several times, the current incumbent is a former Norwegian PM – Jens Stoltenberg."
I know that, but how would that work in a time of war? Thus far the head of NATO has been a paper tiger, as yet untested.
GrahamS's point was about a joint European Army and from that I extrapolated a chain of command argument in relation to military action and how quickly decisions can be made in response to unpredicted events.
“Do you really think that a Russian sub would be able to get anywhere near a UK or US asset?”
I think you’ll find that they do. Regularly.
But the landscape is vastly different now – in the past it has always been a case of observing what is going on (not wanting anything to escalate anything), whereas now the military will be on a much higher state of alert and ready to respond if required.
Slowoldman, that seems to be around Kharkiv
It really does seem that the Russian Psyche is just completely differen5 to ours.
@thols2 threw up a really fascinating twitter thread by Kamel Galeev on page 200. It's a look at the Russian psyche through its history of language, (both vernacular and liturgic) traditions and literature. It's tremendous
gobuchul
Do you really think that a Russian sub would be able to get anywhere near a UK or US asset?
international waters is 200 miles out, so not a lot you can do about them sitting the atlantic.
Whilst NATO is re-establishing some unity after years of neglect, I do wonder how the chain of command thing would respond to some surprise event, it may have an overwhelming capability militarily speaking but how quickly would decisions be able to be made?
There may have been political neglect but the military command structure is clearly defined, integrated and regularly tested through NATO exercises.
Slowoldman, that seems to be around Kharkiv
sorry melitpool
"There may have been political neglect but the military command structure is clearly defined, integrated and regularly tested through NATO exercises."
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
gobuchul
Do you really think that a Russian sub would be able to get anywhere near a UK or US asset?
international waters is 200 miles out, so not a lot you can do about them sitting the atlantic
There was a recent series on Ch4 or Ch5 following HMS Northumberland on patrol in the Atlantic, a Russian sub collided with their towed sonar array so certainly pretty close on that occasion
Russia knows NATO's strategy pretty well too I should imagine, so would be looking to take actions that fall outside of NATO's plans and expectations.
And however unified and clearly defined the military strategy is, politics can still get in the way when you're dealing with that many countries. That's why for the last decade Putin has done everything possible to sow political division in the West knowing he couldn't win a conventional conflict.
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
It is not a plan, it is a fully integrated command structure headquartered at SHAPE and with other operational commands throughout the world staffed by members of the military personnel from all the members. Taking orders from someone of a different nationality is an everyday occurrence in these commands. It is not some loose affiliation.
It is not a plan, it is a fully integrated command structure headquartered at SHAPE and with other operational commands throughout the world staffed by members of the military personnel from all the members. Taking orders from someone of a different nationality is an everyday occurrence in these commands. It is not some loose affiliation.
Certainly didnt help the US in Afghanistan, and they've probably got the best command structure of any country anywhere, and they pretty much lost that one against a guerrilla action.
Which only really shows that in times of war, forward planning goes right out the window.
I cant quite tell from the above posts, but Article 5 has been tested and invoked, relatively recently as well.
Certainly didnt help the US in Afghanistan, and they’ve probably got the best command structure of any country anywhere, and they pretty much lost that one against a guerrilla action.
I'm not quite sure where they got the data from, but recent ISW maps show "partisan warfare"
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-april-19
Certainly didnt help the US in Afghanistan, and they’ve probably got the best command structure of any country anywhere, and they pretty much lost that one against a guerrilla action.
The poster was suggesting that a European Army would resolve a chain of command question that arises in his or her mind in respect of NATO. I was merely pointing out such question does not exist as NATO has had a clear command structure for years and it has only really been disrupted when the French left in the 60s so Supreme HQ Western Europe had to move from Fontainebleau to Brunsum and SHAPE moved from outside Paris to Casteau In Belgium.
Righto. I was just meaning as in 'The best laid plans' and all that.
"The poster was suggesting that a European Army would resolve a chain of command question that arises in his or her mind in respect of NATO"
No he wasn't.
You're doing that STW thing where someone poses an open question and you imply that they are taking a polemical position.
Some of us can pose 'what if' scenarios without being ideologically wedded to them. One poster mentioned that the notion of a European Army had an effect on the Brexit vote and I added that politics can get in the way of military command structures. That's all.
One poster mentioned that the notion of a European Arymy had an effect on the Brexit vote and I added that politics can get in the way of military command structures. That’s all.
Aye, right.
Certainly didnt help the US in Afghanistan, and they’ve probably got the best command structure of any country anywhere, and they pretty much lost that one against a guerrilla action.
Not really. The U.S. dominated Afghanistan militarily. The U.S. is rich enough that they could have sustained that indefinitely, the problem is that they realized there was no point in it. As soon as the U.S. withdrew, the Afghan government and army got routed. In the case of fighting a conventional army, the U.S. and NATO command structures will almost certainly be very effective. The political leaders, maybe not.
Thanks inkster.
Yeah it was indeed intended as an open question:
I'm just interested to hear if renewed conflict in Europe has altered people's perceptions of the benefits/drawbacks of a European Army or "peacekeeping force".
I don't have a strong opinion on it myself. I can see that establishing the EU as a joined-up military power could be interpreted as a threat to nations like Russia (and possibly even the US). But there may be advantages to a smaller European-focussed command structure (compared to NATO/UN).
