Ukraine

The problem then is how you stop Putin both in Ukraine & beyond

Why would we need to stop Putin in Ukraine and what do you mean by ‘beyond’? How do you know Putin will invade a NATO country? You’re trying to suggest Ukraine is the first domino. This is hysterical without good evidence.

If Ukraine was so important we should have given them NATO membership.

That they did, something they’d do again no doubt in this situation.

Russia and China vetoed the UN resolution on that one.

Kosovo was a different kettle of fish entirely.

Libya was a trainwreck, even now it’s still a failed state, which was much better off under Gaddafi.

They haven’t met the criteria fully yet. Particularly in response to making a military commitment to NATO, they were before all this kicked off in the early stages of a military improvement program to meet that criteria.

If Ukraine was so important we should have given them NATO membership.

Either way, you asked the question, it was answered.

Libya was a trainwreck, even now it’s still a failed state, which was much better off under Gaddafi.

Putin has just invaded an independent sovereign country, having denied that he would do so. At what point would you say that he is an expansionist dictator intent on restoring Russia’s great power status by subjugating his neighbours, if not at this point. Where would your line in the sand be? We are right not to risk probable WW3 for Ukraine, that doesn’t mean that we just let him get on with it without resisting him in every way we can short of that. Don’t give in to fear.

You’re trying to suggest Ukraine is the first domino. This is hysterical without good evidence.

Er, if you just did a bit of research you’d see that Ukraine is the 4th/5th domino.

Don’t give in to fear.

Are you advocating WW3 then or not?

George Floyd was murdered almost 4,000 miles away from us in the UK but his death triggered a wave of febrile emotion and moral panic similar to this conflict.

This is really offensive

I think that was the point.

This is really offensive

Are you advocating WW3 then or not?

No. I am implying that Putin doesn’t want a nuclear war. I am saying that he is bluffing, and trying to intimidate us into getting what he wants, but there is a risk that, if pushed too far, he might just do it. From your posts, you seem to be so terrified of him, you won’t entertain the idea that we can stand up to him without having a nuclear war. I accept it’s a game of high stakes, but there is a lot of bluff to call before we all end up hiding under the stairs surrounded by baked bean tins.

i_scoff_cake
Free Member
Don’t give in to fear.

Are you advocating WW3 then or not?

Ok, it’s got to be said. Your train of thought Is just all over the place. BLM… how newspapers report a war… ridiculously stating people want WW3… starting Ukraine is important, then it’s not…..

Its like you are posting a random stream of consciousness without direction or purpose.

Are you even advocating a stance as I am failing to see it or able to keep up with it?

I don’t know, perhaps it’s just me thinking this and you are forming a coherent argument for or against something that I’m not even aware of?

From your posts, you seem to be so terrified of him, you won’t entertain the idea that we can stand up to him without having a nuclear war.

That’s to mischaracterise my position. I’m firmly behind NATO article 5. The grounds for going to war with Russia should be formalised well before hostilities to avoid those hostilities in the first place. This logic is based upon the possible escalation of conventional war to a nuclear exchange.

https://twitter.com/amanda_kerri/status/1502303999944536065?s=21

That’s to mischaracterise my position.

OK. Could you to clarify your position with regards Russian expansionism?

To keep it simple, ignore NATO and clarify how you feel the UN should react to a country invading its sovereign neighbour?

Are you saying that aggressive expansionism should be tolerated if the aggressor has nuclear weapons? I.e. appease expansionist moves by superpowers to avoid antagonism and potential nuclear war.

Or are you saying that all invasions of sovereign states should be challenged militarily?

Which of these characterises your position?

does it **** matter what some random of stw position is?

Given that Putin has spent the last two years terrified of dying from either COVID and/or his own shadow, it seems likely that he’s equally scared of dying of radiation sickness in a nuclear winter.

Here’s an idea. When there’s a pause in new information or development of the situation, take some time away for yourselves. Skim reading some of these recent pages, it’s just drivel. You’re not important and no-one gives a sheet what you think.
Keep it to reporting on the facts would you? These threads can be a great resource where lots of media streams can be collated in one place. Leave it at that.

I’m just someone who doesn’t want to see a nuclear war. I value that over virtue signalling my empathy.

You don’t have to post on the thread. You don’t even need to open the thread. Some people might see that your Yemen comments were Virtue signalling – its not like at any point during that conflict you felt there has been something worth starting a thread over.

Logistics Rule–look at the map. You might be wondering why the Russian invasion of Ukraine looks like a group of almost equidistant road-linked thrusts stretching from Russian and Belarus into Ukraine. (thanks to @Nrg8000 for this) pic.twitter.com/VTLc0orqUb

— Phillips P. OBrien (@PhillipsPOBrien) March 12, 2022

Phillips O’Brian is a Professor of Strategic Studies, his Twitter threads on strategy and logistics are pretty insightful

^^ Interesting read that.

Oh, Russia’s Central Bank have announced that the stock exchange will remain closed all next week too…

What impact does that have if it remains closed for months, even years? Is that even feasible?

If the short/medium term when (if) it opens it will be an absolute rout won’t it?

@ratherbeintobago

Very good.

Phillips O’Brian is a Professor of Strategic Studies, his Twitter threads on strategy and logistics are pretty insightful

From Napoleon to Hitler (perhaps even others before them) they all failed in trying to conquer Russia (Hitler almost succeeded) not because of the opponent but because of the logistic nightmare of trying to cross such a vast area. The same can be said of Putin/Russia now. The place is a logistic hell and if the logistic can be disrupted then the invading force will/can be cut off. Similarly if the NATO/West was going to attack Russia the same would happen to them. It looks like the terrain does not favour attacker(s) from either side in a full war.

During the Japanese occupation (WW2) of China, the Chinese army retreated inland to stretch the Japanese line and to drain the Japanese slowly.

If the short/medium term when (if) it opens it will be an absolute rout won’t it?

Purely depends on the situation at the time it opens. In the next few weeks it’ll be routed to destruction. If it opens up after Putin has been defeated/removed and peace is near-guaranteed it could well be another rush to buy whatever you can and become part of the next group of oligarchs.

You’re trying to suggest Ukraine is the first domino. This is hysterical without good evidence.

Er, if you just did a bit of research you’d see that Ukraine is the 4th/5th domino.

I made a similar point earlier on in the thread and was shot down too, some people can’t see the long term picture.

ISC = aubergine

I made a similar point earlier on in the thread and was shot down too, some people can’t see the long term picture.

The long term picture being an invasion of NATO countries? What evidence do you have for this interpretation?

The long game isn’t starting now, it’s been going on a while.
Every move destabilises to some extent the neighbouring state.
Poland is coping with millions of refugees but how long can it cope?
We’ll be back to worrying about how much to fill the car and did Boris have a party. Meanwhile Ukraine will smoulder and Poland will start to have issues with its own population and the displaced people’s of Ukraine.

This thread was much better when I didn’t have to scroll past pages of petty point-scoring to find some interesting content.

The long term picture being an invasion of NATO countries

Has anybody said that? But if you want dominos

Georgia,
Previous meddling in Ukraine
Belarus
Crimea
Eastern Ukraine “independence”

Those would be big dominos, murdering UK citizens in the UK less big.

This thread was much better when I didn’t have to scroll past pages of petty point-scoring to find some interesting content.

Sums up many a thread on here at present.

It’s one of the reasons I’ve not posted much in it or read it regularly enough. Too much written by the usual keyboard warriors and most of it incorrect. I work with a Ukrainian who has family still in the capitol city and surrounding areas so am getting daily reports via her about what is actually happening and it sounds even more horrific than the news makes it out to be. You don’t have to look very hard to realise that Putin will take an awful lot of convincing to stop continuing down his planned route and at some point he is going to cross a line that could potentially trigger WWIII, how we deal with that is the key. Hence the domino comments early in the thread. Being shot down about it and people trying to make out it’s just a big real life version of Command and Conquer was a bit of an eye-opener about how some people see this whole thing.

I just hope it does all avoid becoming the main topic for history lessons for the future generations.

its writ large in stw history.

either we all play, hopefully nicely, in a single overarching thread, or we accept that everyone with something to say will create a new thread to avoid derailing the existing ones (or for their own importance) for every different strand of the conversation.
WW3 escalation, Russian history, wider geo politics, anti west/nato/american, refugees, brexit, finances, mil tech, wmd…….

so i think we have to tolerate each other a bit… if that means a little extra scrolling in peak posting times, thats the price we pay.

These threads can be a great resource where lots of media streams can be collated in one place. Leave it at that.

Yeah a great resource for some people to exercise their military fandom where anyone who disagrees or finds it offensive is banned or forced to keep quiet. I’m sure some would like this to be another coronavirus-style nirvana thread but all I see is a load of blokes reinforcing each others war curiosity. FFS in the last two pages we’ve had someone talking about ‘limited nuclear war’ and a NATO pre-emptive strike. Yet strangely there’s very little discussion of the victims and potential victims. It’s very sad.

Would you like to discuss the victims?

Yep, a lot of unnecessary bickering on a load of threads atm. Seems like suddenly we’re all believing the msm after years of being misled. Really? In times of war? Even the Times has discussed the veracity of some reports and images. Balance and nuance is what’s required.

‘limited nuclear war’ and a NATO pre-emptive strike.

It would be much worse with many more victims if either of those came to pass, so worthy of some comment no?

The ongoing suffering in Mariupol gives a feel for how bad it is, and how bad it is likely to become for those unable / unwilling to leave cities before they become besieged by the Russians.

Understanding how air strikes and artillery affect urban environments is necessary to help understand how shit it is for the victims.

That’s reality, not glorifying war.

Link

Would you like to discuss the victims?

I would, but before that I’d like to see a toning down of the nuclear war talk, especially in terms of pre-emptive strikes or ‘standing up to Putin’. Do we really need to remind ourselves that nuclear war is collective suicide? Maybe we do..

With each new Russian atrocity in Ukraine, calls for NATO intervention increase. Are we sleepwalking towards nuclear war? The appetite for risk is increasing with the horror of civilian casualties. Putin is cornered and may escalate. What's the worst that can happen? Thread: 1/12

— Mark Lynas (@mark_lynas) March 11, 2022

As for the victims, well I’ve some insight into this as a good mate at work’s Ukrainian wife’s family are all still stuck in Kyiv with no way to get out. All I can say is that they’re not interested in being ‘brave’, ‘resisting Putin’ or any of the other memes being pushed by the western media. They’re just terrified, and extremely upset that their lives have been destroyed for no apparent reason.

Biden and NATO have made it explicit that they are not going to get involved (in combat). There will be no pre-emptive strikes from NATO. If nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons are used, it will be by Russia and there’s nothing we could do to stop them if they chose to do that. The “brave”, “resist Putin” stuff is being pushed by the Ukrainian government. That is the Ukrainian government’s policy and they have been extremely effective in the propaganda battle.

I’ve been having a look at Fox News the last couple of days, over half the lead articles are attacking Biden and blaming him for increases in gas prices at the pump. Yesterday for example, the first 5 articles attacked Biden, Ukraine itself only making it to number 6. Tucker Carlson was also leaning into the Ukraine bio-labs conspiracy theory.

I think there’s an idea that if Trump were in power Putin wouldn’t have invaded. Given the evidence from the RW media in the US, I’m not so sure we wouldn’t have seen Trump being an apologist for Putin, seeing the problem from ‘both sides’ and taking half of the American public with him (with the capable assistance of Fox News and social media)

Certainly Trump would have have gotten the Saudi’s and the UAE to increase oil production, because of his stance with Iran and Yemen. He would also have given MBS a free pass with regards the Kassoggi murder.

As much as we talk about poor planning from the Russians, I can’t believe that the idea of invading Ukraine only occurred to Putin once Biden won the election, the idea had been stewing in Putin’s head for some time. I think it equally plausible that he was planning to attack whilst Trump was serving a second term, thinking he would be more able to divide the US and Europe from one another.

Putin started a war he’s going to win a war. NATO can’t step in and Ukraine can’t hold out. There are harsh realities in war and Russia has an army that it is willing to sacrifice until they’ve ground out the win.
The leadership has shown it’s doesn’t care about the other side civilian or military and also it’s mentality about its own troops is not how we would fight. It’s almost Human wave in nature.
By leveling cities and displacing populations abroad he doesn’t really lose much. Especially if in a year’s time Ukraine is part of Russia and they can’t plan grains. Don’t need big metropolitan cities if you have a vassal state working to supply food which will negate sanctions. In fact the west will still need Russia’s oil and gas and in 2023 it’s grain.
If Putin survives until the ground dries he’s home and hosed.