Really? Late - 1980's vs 1991???? That deserves this response? He was 2 years off...Redbrickbear said:Wrong...ATL Bear said:Ukraine has been seeking independence from Russia since long before the Soviet Union, and has been independent from the former empire since the late 80's. This isn't an effort to influence, it's an active territorial acquisition, and Russian expansion.Sam Lowry said:The reason we shouldn't care is not that they've been under Russian influence before. It's that they've been under Russian influence before and we were not harmed by it, at least not significantly. If you think that's changed, it's up to you to make the argument. "But but sovereignty" is not an argument in itself, or else we'd never have tolerated Russian influence in the first place.ATL Bear said:I was mocking the idea that we shouldn't care because Sam, you, and others point to Ukraine being under Russian influence before. It's an absurd argument that ignores the EXISTENCE of sovereignty. Feel free to make your other arguments, including US whataboutism.Redbrickbear said:You can care. And in fact we did care.... a lot.ATL Bear said:Should we not care, or is it okay for Russia to violate a nations sovereignty because they had greater influence before? It shouldn't matter whatever alliance or sovereign status exists today under the idea Sam posited.Redbrickbear said:The Baltic republics are in NATO and enrolled treaty allies of the United States.ATL Bear said:While we're at it, we could give them the Baltics and Alaska….Sam Lowry said:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.cowboycwr said:Sam Lowry said:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.cowboycwr said:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Sam Lowry said:Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.cowboycwr said:As to the article it seems like a lot of hypotheticals and conjecture and worst case scenarios.Redbrickbear said:
[This was the moment at which we began the unstoppable descent into terrible danger which so many of us will bitterly regret in times to come.
I won't waste time here going over the question of who started the Ukraine war, or even why. Most people don't want to know and refuse to think about it, or to look up the facts. They defame and abuse anyone who tries to tell them. So to hell with that. I'm bored with trying...
the Government and its tame thinkers are not in favour of free debate on crucial national policy, and nor is anyone else much.
When the Defence Secretary announced that British tanks were going to Ukraine, not one MP raised any doubts or opposed the move. Not one. To read the record of the non-debate is like reading the proceedings of some Communist fake parliament, supine and brain-dead. The country where political freedom was born has decided not to bother being free any more.
So it is left to me to tell you that it is an act of grave stupidity for the West to supply Ukraine with modern tanks. Unlike everyone else in the media and politics, I am not a military expert. But I know what tanks are for, and it is not defence.
What we have just decided to do is to prolong and deepen the war. Maybe Ukraine's new tanks will sweep all before them. Maybe they will bog down. Maybe they will try to take Crimea. Maybe they will soon be taking part in a Victory Parade in Red Square. I don't know. But if they cross into what Russia regards as its own territory, then do not be surprised by anything which happens.
Look, Vladimir Putin is obviously a sinister tyrant and, in my view, went off his head completely during the Covid panic (look at those huge tables he sits at). I think he is probably capable of authorising the use of battlefield nuclear weapons if cornered. But it could be worse. If he is overthrown in a midnight putsch, he will not be replaced by some jolly, liberal-minded chap. He will be replaced by someone who might view it as a positive pleasure to press the red button.
So there is the real possibility that a large chunk of Europe might be turned into a radioactive graveyard and that American conventional retaliation for this (which will be furious and powerful) will take us a stage further into the world of horror, loss, flight, pestilence and poverty which always follows war. If this happens, maybe more people might want to find out why it began. Maybe not. I will help, if asked.
But why is Britain in this affair? I know that a lot of voters in key states in America hate Russia because their forebears came from lands Moscow had oppressed. I know that some neo-conservative fanatics in Washington have long desired to dismantle Russia and ensure that it is never an important country again.
I even understand their points of view. But they are at least 3,000 miles away and will not be personally affected by their own policy. By contrast we are not 3,000 miles away. And I have absolutely no idea how Britain will become safer, happier or more prosperous thanks to following this strategy. Rather the opposite.
Two countries are in a furious grapple because their deep, hard and unalterable interests conflict.]Sending tanks to Ukraine could turn Europe into a big radioactive graveyard: https://t.co/GyRbEQennr via @MailOnline
— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) January 22, 2023
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
And Alaska is a constituent state of the Union.
Is the Ukraine a state within the United States or a member of NATO?
We moved a UN resolution against Russia for their actions and basically black balled them from half the trade on earth. We imposed massive economy crushing sanctions on Russia for their actions.
And lets not get on our high horse about violating other countries sovereignty.
How often has the USA invaded other countries and imposed our will on smaller states....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukrainian_independence_referendum#:~:text=A%20referendum%20on%20the%20Act,Rada%20on%2024%20August%201991.
Do you even look things up before you come on this thread and spout off inaccurate info?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union
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Ever heard of Germany? It's a NATO member and a different country from Ukraine.whiterock said:Sam Lowry said:The reason we shouldn't care is not that they've been under Russian influence before. It's that they've been under Russian influence before and we were not harmed by it, at least not significantly. If you think that's changed, it's up to you to make the argument. "But but sovereignty" is not an argument in itself, or else we'd never have tolerated Russian influence in the first place.ATL Bear said:I was mocking the idea that we shouldn't care because Sam, you, and others point to Ukraine being under Russian influence before. %A0It's an absurd argument that ignores the EXISTENCE of sovereignty. %A0Feel free to make your other arguments, including US whataboutism. %A0Redbrickbear said:You can care. %A0And in fact we did care.... a lot.ATL Bear said:Should we not care, or is it okay for Russia to violate a nations sovereignty because they had greater influence before? %A0It shouldn't matter whatever alliance or sovereign status exists today under the idea Sam posited. %A0Redbrickbear said:The Baltic republics are in NATO and enrolled treaty allies of the United States.ATL Bear said:While we're at it, we could give them the Baltics and Alaska%85.Sam Lowry said:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.cowboycwr said:Sam Lowry said:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.cowboycwr said:1. %A0There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war. %A0Sam Lowry said:Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.cowboycwr said:As to the article it seems like a lot of hypotheticals and conjecture and worst case scenarios.Redbrickbear said:
[This was the moment at which we began the unstoppable descent into terrible danger which so many of us will bitterly regret in times to come.
I won't waste time here going over the question of who started the Ukraine war, or even why. Most people don't want to know and refuse to think about it, or to look up the facts. They defame and abuse anyone who tries to tell them. So to hell with that. I'm bored with trying...
the Government and its tame thinkers are not in favour of free debate on crucial national policy, and nor is anyone else much.
When the Defence Secretary announced that British tanks were going to Ukraine, not one MP raised any doubts or opposed the move. Not one. To read the record of the non-debate is like reading the proceedings of some Communist fake parliament, supine and brain-dead. %A0The country where political freedom was born has decided not to bother being free any more.
So it is left to me to tell you that it is an act of grave stupidity for the West to supply Ukraine with modern tanks. Unlike everyone else in the media and politics, I am not a military expert. But I know what tanks are for, and it is not defence.
What we have just decided to do is to prolong and deepen the war. Maybe Ukraine's new tanks will sweep all before them. Maybe they will bog down. Maybe they will try to take Crimea. Maybe they will soon be taking part in a Victory Parade in Red Square. I don't know. But if they cross into what Russia regards as its own territory, then do not be surprised by anything which happens.
Look, Vladimir Putin is obviously a sinister tyrant and, in my view, went off his head completely during the Covid panic (look at those huge tables he sits at). I think he is probably capable of authorising the use of battlefield nuclear weapons if cornered. But it could be worse. If he is overthrown in a midnight putsch, he will not be replaced by some jolly, liberal-minded chap. He will be replaced by someone who might view it as a positive pleasure to press the red button.
So there is the real possibility that a large chunk of Europe might be turned into a radioactive graveyard and that American conventional retaliation for this (which will be furious and powerful) will take us a stage further into the world of horror, loss, flight, pestilence and poverty which always follows war. If this happens, maybe more people might want to find out why it began. Maybe not. I will help, if asked.
But why is Britain in this affair? I know that a lot of voters in key states in America hate Russia because their forebears came from lands Moscow had oppressed. I know that some neo-conservative fanatics in Washington have long desired to dismantle Russia and ensure that it is never an important country again.
I even understand their points of view. But they are at least 3,000 miles away and will not be personally affected by their own policy. By contrast we are not 3,000 miles away. And I have absolutely no idea how Britain will become safer, happier or more prosperous thanks to following this strategy. Rather the opposite.
Two countries are in a furious grapple because their deep, hard and unalterable interests conflict.]Sending tanks to Ukraine could turn Europe into a big radioactive graveyard: https://t.co/GyRbEQennr via @MailOnline
— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) January 22, 2023
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. %A0(Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq. %A0
7. %A0What them are you referring to trust? %A0This article is about English tanks/politicians. %A0Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
And Alaska is a constituent state of the Union.
Is the Ukraine a state within the United States or a member of NATO?
We moved a UN resolution against Russia for their actions and basically black balled them from half the trade on earth. %A0We imposed massive economy crushing sanctions on Russia for their actions.
And lets not get on our high horse about violating other countries sovereignty.
How often has the USA invaded other countries and imposed our will on smaller states....
Spectacularly obtuse.
Ever heard of Reforger Exercises?
Bear8084 said:Redbrickbear said:8 years of fighting against the central government would tend to show serious commitment to independence from Ukraine.Bear8084 said:Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:ATL Bear said:I was mocking the idea that we shouldn't care because Sam, you, and others point to Ukraine being under Russian influence before. It's an absurd argument that ignores the EXISTENCE of sovereignty. Feel free to make your other arguments, including US whataboutism.Redbrickbear said:You can care. And in fact we did care.... a lot.ATL Bear said:Should we not care, or is it okay for Russia to violate a nations sovereignty because they had greater influence before? It shouldn't matter whatever alliance or sovereign status exists today under the idea Sam posited.Redbrickbear said:The Baltic republics are in NATO and enrolled treaty allies of the United States.ATL Bear said:While we're at it, we could give them the Baltics and Alaska….Sam Lowry said:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.cowboycwr said:Sam Lowry said:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.cowboycwr said:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Sam Lowry said:Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.cowboycwr said:As to the article it seems like a lot of hypotheticals and conjecture and worst case scenarios.Redbrickbear said:
[This was the moment at which we began the unstoppable descent into terrible danger which so many of us will bitterly regret in times to come.
I won't waste time here going over the question of who started the Ukraine war, or even why. Most people don't want to know and refuse to think about it, or to look up the facts. They defame and abuse anyone who tries to tell them. So to hell with that. I'm bored with trying...
the Government and its tame thinkers are not in favour of free debate on crucial national policy, and nor is anyone else much.
When the Defence Secretary announced that British tanks were going to Ukraine, not one MP raised any doubts or opposed the move. Not one. To read the record of the non-debate is like reading the proceedings of some Communist fake parliament, supine and brain-dead. The country where political freedom was born has decided not to bother being free any more.
So it is left to me to tell you that it is an act of grave stupidity for the West to supply Ukraine with modern tanks. Unlike everyone else in the media and politics, I am not a military expert. But I know what tanks are for, and it is not defence.
What we have just decided to do is to prolong and deepen the war. Maybe Ukraine's new tanks will sweep all before them. Maybe they will bog down. Maybe they will try to take Crimea. Maybe they will soon be taking part in a Victory Parade in Red Square. I don't know. But if they cross into what Russia regards as its own territory, then do not be surprised by anything which happens.
Look, Vladimir Putin is obviously a sinister tyrant and, in my view, went off his head completely during the Covid panic (look at those huge tables he sits at). I think he is probably capable of authorising the use of battlefield nuclear weapons if cornered. But it could be worse. If he is overthrown in a midnight putsch, he will not be replaced by some jolly, liberal-minded chap. He will be replaced by someone who might view it as a positive pleasure to press the red button.
So there is the real possibility that a large chunk of Europe might be turned into a radioactive graveyard and that American conventional retaliation for this (which will be furious and powerful) will take us a stage further into the world of horror, loss, flight, pestilence and poverty which always follows war. If this happens, maybe more people might want to find out why it began. Maybe not. I will help, if asked.
But why is Britain in this affair? I know that a lot of voters in key states in America hate Russia because their forebears came from lands Moscow had oppressed. I know that some neo-conservative fanatics in Washington have long desired to dismantle Russia and ensure that it is never an important country again.
I even understand their points of view. But they are at least 3,000 miles away and will not be personally affected by their own policy. By contrast we are not 3,000 miles away. And I have absolutely no idea how Britain will become safer, happier or more prosperous thanks to following this strategy. Rather the opposite.
Two countries are in a furious grapple because their deep, hard and unalterable interests conflict.]Sending tanks to Ukraine could turn Europe into a big radioactive graveyard: https://t.co/GyRbEQennr via @MailOnline
— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) January 22, 2023
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
And Alaska is a constituent state of the Union.
Is the Ukraine a state within the United States or a member of NATO?
We moved a UN resolution against Russia for their actions and basically black balled them from half the trade on earth. We imposed massive economy crushing sanctions on Russia for their actions.
And lets not get on our high horse about violating other countries sovereignty.
How often has the USA invaded other countries and imposed our will on smaller states....
Exactly. Texas USED to be part of Mexico. So did California and parts of other states. Does Mexico have the right to go take them back?
(power differentials matter….)
Donbass and Crimea want to be free of the rule of Kyiv. Does Ukraine have a right to engage in war to prevent their leaving?
Debatable, even then, and especially today.
For reference to Texas....we fought for 6 months against Mexico.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas_(2014%E2%80%932022)
Donbass separatists have put at least 40,000 men into the field and taken casualties of 16,000 with almost 7,000 killed.
How many of those "separatists", which they aren't, are RU army volunteers, Wagner PMC, forced conscription?
No doubt there are Russian volunteers and paramilitaries in Donbass helping them to fight. The Separatists don't even bother trying to deny Russian military involvement and financial assistance.
But the vast majority are native born east Ukrainian (russian speakers) who want to break off are doing the fighting for the past 8 years.
Texas got volunteers from the USA. America in its war of independence got a hell of a lot of financial assistance from France and volunteers from Poland, Germany, and France.
None of those facts made those uprisings somehow illegitimate.
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/foreign-adventurers-american-revolution#:~:text=Soldiers%20from%20Britain%2C%20France%2C%20Germany,War%2C%20writes%20Aram%20Bakshian%20Jr.
Redbrickbear said:Bear8084 said:Redbrickbear said:8 years of fighting against the central government would tend to show serious commitment to independence from Ukraine.Bear8084 said:Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:ATL Bear said:I was mocking the idea that we shouldn't care because Sam, you, and others point to Ukraine being under Russian influence before. It's an absurd argument that ignores the EXISTENCE of sovereignty. Feel free to make your other arguments, including US whataboutism.Redbrickbear said:You can care. And in fact we did care.... a lot.ATL Bear said:Should we not care, or is it okay for Russia to violate a nations sovereignty because they had greater influence before? It shouldn't matter whatever alliance or sovereign status exists today under the idea Sam posited.Redbrickbear said:The Baltic republics are in NATO and enrolled treaty allies of the United States.ATL Bear said:While we're at it, we could give them the Baltics and Alaska….Sam Lowry said:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.cowboycwr said:Sam Lowry said:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.cowboycwr said:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Sam Lowry said:Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.cowboycwr said:As to the article it seems like a lot of hypotheticals and conjecture and worst case scenarios.Redbrickbear said:
[This was the moment at which we began the unstoppable descent into terrible danger which so many of us will bitterly regret in times to come.
I won't waste time here going over the question of who started the Ukraine war, or even why. Most people don't want to know and refuse to think about it, or to look up the facts. They defame and abuse anyone who tries to tell them. So to hell with that. I'm bored with trying...
the Government and its tame thinkers are not in favour of free debate on crucial national policy, and nor is anyone else much.
When the Defence Secretary announced that British tanks were going to Ukraine, not one MP raised any doubts or opposed the move. Not one. To read the record of the non-debate is like reading the proceedings of some Communist fake parliament, supine and brain-dead. The country where political freedom was born has decided not to bother being free any more.
So it is left to me to tell you that it is an act of grave stupidity for the West to supply Ukraine with modern tanks. Unlike everyone else in the media and politics, I am not a military expert. But I know what tanks are for, and it is not defence.
What we have just decided to do is to prolong and deepen the war. Maybe Ukraine's new tanks will sweep all before them. Maybe they will bog down. Maybe they will try to take Crimea. Maybe they will soon be taking part in a Victory Parade in Red Square. I don't know. But if they cross into what Russia regards as its own territory, then do not be surprised by anything which happens.
Look, Vladimir Putin is obviously a sinister tyrant and, in my view, went off his head completely during the Covid panic (look at those huge tables he sits at). I think he is probably capable of authorising the use of battlefield nuclear weapons if cornered. But it could be worse. If he is overthrown in a midnight putsch, he will not be replaced by some jolly, liberal-minded chap. He will be replaced by someone who might view it as a positive pleasure to press the red button.
So there is the real possibility that a large chunk of Europe might be turned into a radioactive graveyard and that American conventional retaliation for this (which will be furious and powerful) will take us a stage further into the world of horror, loss, flight, pestilence and poverty which always follows war. If this happens, maybe more people might want to find out why it began. Maybe not. I will help, if asked.
But why is Britain in this affair? I know that a lot of voters in key states in America hate Russia because their forebears came from lands Moscow had oppressed. I know that some neo-conservative fanatics in Washington have long desired to dismantle Russia and ensure that it is never an important country again.
I even understand their points of view. But they are at least 3,000 miles away and will not be personally affected by their own policy. By contrast we are not 3,000 miles away. And I have absolutely no idea how Britain will become safer, happier or more prosperous thanks to following this strategy. Rather the opposite.
Two countries are in a furious grapple because their deep, hard and unalterable interests conflict.]Sending tanks to Ukraine could turn Europe into a big radioactive graveyard: https://t.co/GyRbEQennr via @MailOnline
— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) January 22, 2023
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
And Alaska is a constituent state of the Union.
Is the Ukraine a state within the United States or a member of NATO?
We moved a UN resolution against Russia for their actions and basically black balled them from half the trade on earth. We imposed massive economy crushing sanctions on Russia for their actions.
And lets not get on our high horse about violating other countries sovereignty.
How often has the USA invaded other countries and imposed our will on smaller states....
Exactly. Texas USED to be part of Mexico. So did California and parts of other states. Does Mexico have the right to go take them back?
(power differentials matter….)
Donbass and Crimea want to be free of the rule of Kyiv. Does Ukraine have a right to engage in war to prevent their leaving?
Debatable, even then, and especially today.
For reference to Texas....we fought for 6 months against Mexico.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas_(2014%E2%80%932022)
Donbass separatists have put at least 40,000 men into the field and taken casualties of 16,000 with almost 7,000 killed.
How many of those "separatists", which they aren't, are RU army volunteers, Wagner PMC, forced conscription?
No doubt there are Russian volunteers and paramilitaries in Donbass helping them to fight. The Separatists don't even bother trying to deny Russian military involvement and financial assistance.
But the vast majority are native born east Ukrainian (russian speakers) who want to break off are doing the fighting for the past 8 years.
Texas got volunteers from the USA. America in its war of independence got a hell of a lot of financial assistance from France and volunteers from Poland, Germany, and France.
None of those facts made those uprisings somehow illegitimate.
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/foreign-adventurers-american-revolution#:~:text=Soldiers%20from%20Britain%2C%20France%2C%20Germany,War%2C%20writes%20Aram%20Bakshian%20Jr.
The vast majority doing the fighting were and are Russian army units. There wasn't and has not been any popular movement on the Donbas. It has all been RU stoked and supported.
I guess the invasion means nothing? I guess it is all right for Mexico to roll tanks into Southern Texas and California, since there are alot of native Spanish speakers there...Redbrickbear said:Bear8084 said:Redbrickbear said:8 years of fighting against the central government would tend to show serious commitment to independence from Ukraine.Bear8084 said:Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:ATL Bear said:I was mocking the idea that we shouldn't care because Sam, you, and others point to Ukraine being under Russian influence before. It's an absurd argument that ignores the EXISTENCE of sovereignty. Feel free to make your other arguments, including US whataboutism.Redbrickbear said:You can care. And in fact we did care.... a lot.ATL Bear said:Should we not care, or is it okay for Russia to violate a nations sovereignty because they had greater influence before? It shouldn't matter whatever alliance or sovereign status exists today under the idea Sam posited.Redbrickbear said:The Baltic republics are in NATO and enrolled treaty allies of the United States.ATL Bear said:While we're at it, we could give them the Baltics and Alaska….Sam Lowry said:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.cowboycwr said:Sam Lowry said:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.cowboycwr said:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Sam Lowry said:Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.cowboycwr said:As to the article it seems like a lot of hypotheticals and conjecture and worst case scenarios.Redbrickbear said:
[This was the moment at which we began the unstoppable descent into terrible danger which so many of us will bitterly regret in times to come.
I won't waste time here going over the question of who started the Ukraine war, or even why. Most people don't want to know and refuse to think about it, or to look up the facts. They defame and abuse anyone who tries to tell them. So to hell with that. I'm bored with trying...
the Government and its tame thinkers are not in favour of free debate on crucial national policy, and nor is anyone else much.
When the Defence Secretary announced that British tanks were going to Ukraine, not one MP raised any doubts or opposed the move. Not one. To read the record of the non-debate is like reading the proceedings of some Communist fake parliament, supine and brain-dead. The country where political freedom was born has decided not to bother being free any more.
So it is left to me to tell you that it is an act of grave stupidity for the West to supply Ukraine with modern tanks. Unlike everyone else in the media and politics, I am not a military expert. But I know what tanks are for, and it is not defence.
What we have just decided to do is to prolong and deepen the war. Maybe Ukraine's new tanks will sweep all before them. Maybe they will bog down. Maybe they will try to take Crimea. Maybe they will soon be taking part in a Victory Parade in Red Square. I don't know. But if they cross into what Russia regards as its own territory, then do not be surprised by anything which happens.
Look, Vladimir Putin is obviously a sinister tyrant and, in my view, went off his head completely during the Covid panic (look at those huge tables he sits at). I think he is probably capable of authorising the use of battlefield nuclear weapons if cornered. But it could be worse. If he is overthrown in a midnight putsch, he will not be replaced by some jolly, liberal-minded chap. He will be replaced by someone who might view it as a positive pleasure to press the red button.
So there is the real possibility that a large chunk of Europe might be turned into a radioactive graveyard and that American conventional retaliation for this (which will be furious and powerful) will take us a stage further into the world of horror, loss, flight, pestilence and poverty which always follows war. If this happens, maybe more people might want to find out why it began. Maybe not. I will help, if asked.
But why is Britain in this affair? I know that a lot of voters in key states in America hate Russia because their forebears came from lands Moscow had oppressed. I know that some neo-conservative fanatics in Washington have long desired to dismantle Russia and ensure that it is never an important country again.
I even understand their points of view. But they are at least 3,000 miles away and will not be personally affected by their own policy. By contrast we are not 3,000 miles away. And I have absolutely no idea how Britain will become safer, happier or more prosperous thanks to following this strategy. Rather the opposite.
Two countries are in a furious grapple because their deep, hard and unalterable interests conflict.]Sending tanks to Ukraine could turn Europe into a big radioactive graveyard: https://t.co/GyRbEQennr via @MailOnline
— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) January 22, 2023
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
And Alaska is a constituent state of the Union.
Is the Ukraine a state within the United States or a member of NATO?
We moved a UN resolution against Russia for their actions and basically black balled them from half the trade on earth. We imposed massive economy crushing sanctions on Russia for their actions.
And lets not get on our high horse about violating other countries sovereignty.
How often has the USA invaded other countries and imposed our will on smaller states....
Exactly. Texas USED to be part of Mexico. So did California and parts of other states. Does Mexico have the right to go take them back?
(power differentials matter….)
Donbass and Crimea want to be free of the rule of Kyiv. Does Ukraine have a right to engage in war to prevent their leaving?
Debatable, even then, and especially today.
For reference to Texas....we fought for 6 months against Mexico.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas_(2014%E2%80%932022)
Donbass separatists have put at least 40,000 men into the field and taken casualties of 16,000 with almost 7,000 killed.
How many of those "separatists", which they aren't, are RU army volunteers, Wagner PMC, forced conscription?
No doubt there are Russian volunteers and paramilitaries in Donbass helping them to fight. The Separatists don't even bother trying to deny Russian military involvement and financial assistance.
But the vast majority are native born east Ukrainian (russian speakers) who want to break off are doing the fighting for the past 8 years.
Texas got volunteers from the USA. America in its war of independence got a hell of a lot of financial assistance from France and volunteers from Poland, Germany, and France.
None of those facts made those uprisings somehow illegitimate.
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/foreign-adventurers-american-revolution#:~:text=Soldiers%20from%20Britain%2C%20France%2C%20Germany,War%2C%20writes%20Aram%20Bakshian%20Jr.
Russia rolled tanks across a sovereign nations border, there is no explaining that away.
Well, they made it official in 1991. I guess what was happening up to that point doesn't matter. He got me I guess…RMF5630 said:Really? Late - 1980's vs 1991???? That deserves this response? He was 2 years off...Redbrickbear said:Wrong...ATL Bear said:Ukraine has been seeking independence from Russia since long before the Soviet Union, and has been independent from the former empire since the late 80's. This isn't an effort to influence, it's an active territorial acquisition, and Russian expansion.Sam Lowry said:The reason we shouldn't care is not that they've been under Russian influence before. It's that they've been under Russian influence before and we were not harmed by it, at least not significantly. If you think that's changed, it's up to you to make the argument. "But but sovereignty" is not an argument in itself, or else we'd never have tolerated Russian influence in the first place.ATL Bear said:I was mocking the idea that we shouldn't care because Sam, you, and others point to Ukraine being under Russian influence before. It's an absurd argument that ignores the EXISTENCE of sovereignty. Feel free to make your other arguments, including US whataboutism.Redbrickbear said:You can care. And in fact we did care.... a lot.ATL Bear said:Should we not care, or is it okay for Russia to violate a nations sovereignty because they had greater influence before? It shouldn't matter whatever alliance or sovereign status exists today under the idea Sam posited.Redbrickbear said:The Baltic republics are in NATO and enrolled treaty allies of the United States.ATL Bear said:While we're at it, we could give them the Baltics and Alaska….Sam Lowry said:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.cowboycwr said:Sam Lowry said:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.cowboycwr said:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Sam Lowry said:Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.cowboycwr said:As to the article it seems like a lot of hypotheticals and conjecture and worst case scenarios.Redbrickbear said:
[This was the moment at which we began the unstoppable descent into terrible danger which so many of us will bitterly regret in times to come.
I won't waste time here going over the question of who started the Ukraine war, or even why. Most people don't want to know and refuse to think about it, or to look up the facts. They defame and abuse anyone who tries to tell them. So to hell with that. I'm bored with trying...
the Government and its tame thinkers are not in favour of free debate on crucial national policy, and nor is anyone else much.
When the Defence Secretary announced that British tanks were going to Ukraine, not one MP raised any doubts or opposed the move. Not one. To read the record of the non-debate is like reading the proceedings of some Communist fake parliament, supine and brain-dead. The country where political freedom was born has decided not to bother being free any more.
So it is left to me to tell you that it is an act of grave stupidity for the West to supply Ukraine with modern tanks. Unlike everyone else in the media and politics, I am not a military expert. But I know what tanks are for, and it is not defence.
What we have just decided to do is to prolong and deepen the war. Maybe Ukraine's new tanks will sweep all before them. Maybe they will bog down. Maybe they will try to take Crimea. Maybe they will soon be taking part in a Victory Parade in Red Square. I don't know. But if they cross into what Russia regards as its own territory, then do not be surprised by anything which happens.
Look, Vladimir Putin is obviously a sinister tyrant and, in my view, went off his head completely during the Covid panic (look at those huge tables he sits at). I think he is probably capable of authorising the use of battlefield nuclear weapons if cornered. But it could be worse. If he is overthrown in a midnight putsch, he will not be replaced by some jolly, liberal-minded chap. He will be replaced by someone who might view it as a positive pleasure to press the red button.
So there is the real possibility that a large chunk of Europe might be turned into a radioactive graveyard and that American conventional retaliation for this (which will be furious and powerful) will take us a stage further into the world of horror, loss, flight, pestilence and poverty which always follows war. If this happens, maybe more people might want to find out why it began. Maybe not. I will help, if asked.
But why is Britain in this affair? I know that a lot of voters in key states in America hate Russia because their forebears came from lands Moscow had oppressed. I know that some neo-conservative fanatics in Washington have long desired to dismantle Russia and ensure that it is never an important country again.
I even understand their points of view. But they are at least 3,000 miles away and will not be personally affected by their own policy. By contrast we are not 3,000 miles away. And I have absolutely no idea how Britain will become safer, happier or more prosperous thanks to following this strategy. Rather the opposite.
Two countries are in a furious grapple because their deep, hard and unalterable interests conflict.]Sending tanks to Ukraine could turn Europe into a big radioactive graveyard: https://t.co/GyRbEQennr via @MailOnline
— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) January 22, 2023
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
And Alaska is a constituent state of the Union.
Is the Ukraine a state within the United States or a member of NATO?
We moved a UN resolution against Russia for their actions and basically black balled them from half the trade on earth. We imposed massive economy crushing sanctions on Russia for their actions.
And lets not get on our high horse about violating other countries sovereignty.
How often has the USA invaded other countries and imposed our will on smaller states....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukrainian_independence_referendum#:~:text=A%20referendum%20on%20the%20Act,Rada%20on%2024%20August%201991.
Do you even look things up before you come on this thread and spout off inaccurate info?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union
Well they celebrated Ukrainian Independence Day in 1989, there is that. Geez this place is getting like the Premium Football Board, make a typo or copy something wrong on your phone and that becomes the discussion.ATL Bear said:Well, they made it official in 1991. I guess what was happening up to that point doesn't matter. He got me I guess…RMF5630 said:Really? Late - 1980's vs 1991???? That deserves this response? He was 2 years off...Redbrickbear said:Wrong...ATL Bear said:Ukraine has been seeking independence from Russia since long before the Soviet Union, and has been independent from the former empire since the late 80's. This isn't an effort to influence, it's an active territorial acquisition, and Russian expansion.Sam Lowry said:The reason we shouldn't care is not that they've been under Russian influence before. It's that they've been under Russian influence before and we were not harmed by it, at least not significantly. If you think that's changed, it's up to you to make the argument. "But but sovereignty" is not an argument in itself, or else we'd never have tolerated Russian influence in the first place.ATL Bear said:I was mocking the idea that we shouldn't care because Sam, you, and others point to Ukraine being under Russian influence before. It's an absurd argument that ignores the EXISTENCE of sovereignty. Feel free to make your other arguments, including US whataboutism.Redbrickbear said:You can care. And in fact we did care.... a lot.ATL Bear said:Should we not care, or is it okay for Russia to violate a nations sovereignty because they had greater influence before? It shouldn't matter whatever alliance or sovereign status exists today under the idea Sam posited.Redbrickbear said:The Baltic republics are in NATO and enrolled treaty allies of the United States.ATL Bear said:While we're at it, we could give them the Baltics and Alaska….Sam Lowry said:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.cowboycwr said:Sam Lowry said:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.cowboycwr said:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Sam Lowry said:Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.cowboycwr said:As to the article it seems like a lot of hypotheticals and conjecture and worst case scenarios.Redbrickbear said:
[This was the moment at which we began the unstoppable descent into terrible danger which so many of us will bitterly regret in times to come.
I won't waste time here going over the question of who started the Ukraine war, or even why. Most people don't want to know and refuse to think about it, or to look up the facts. They defame and abuse anyone who tries to tell them. So to hell with that. I'm bored with trying...
the Government and its tame thinkers are not in favour of free debate on crucial national policy, and nor is anyone else much.
When the Defence Secretary announced that British tanks were going to Ukraine, not one MP raised any doubts or opposed the move. Not one. To read the record of the non-debate is like reading the proceedings of some Communist fake parliament, supine and brain-dead. The country where political freedom was born has decided not to bother being free any more.
So it is left to me to tell you that it is an act of grave stupidity for the West to supply Ukraine with modern tanks. Unlike everyone else in the media and politics, I am not a military expert. But I know what tanks are for, and it is not defence.
What we have just decided to do is to prolong and deepen the war. Maybe Ukraine's new tanks will sweep all before them. Maybe they will bog down. Maybe they will try to take Crimea. Maybe they will soon be taking part in a Victory Parade in Red Square. I don't know. But if they cross into what Russia regards as its own territory, then do not be surprised by anything which happens.
Look, Vladimir Putin is obviously a sinister tyrant and, in my view, went off his head completely during the Covid panic (look at those huge tables he sits at). I think he is probably capable of authorising the use of battlefield nuclear weapons if cornered. But it could be worse. If he is overthrown in a midnight putsch, he will not be replaced by some jolly, liberal-minded chap. He will be replaced by someone who might view it as a positive pleasure to press the red button.
So there is the real possibility that a large chunk of Europe might be turned into a radioactive graveyard and that American conventional retaliation for this (which will be furious and powerful) will take us a stage further into the world of horror, loss, flight, pestilence and poverty which always follows war. If this happens, maybe more people might want to find out why it began. Maybe not. I will help, if asked.
But why is Britain in this affair? I know that a lot of voters in key states in America hate Russia because their forebears came from lands Moscow had oppressed. I know that some neo-conservative fanatics in Washington have long desired to dismantle Russia and ensure that it is never an important country again.
I even understand their points of view. But they are at least 3,000 miles away and will not be personally affected by their own policy. By contrast we are not 3,000 miles away. And I have absolutely no idea how Britain will become safer, happier or more prosperous thanks to following this strategy. Rather the opposite.
Two countries are in a furious grapple because their deep, hard and unalterable interests conflict.]Sending tanks to Ukraine could turn Europe into a big radioactive graveyard: https://t.co/GyRbEQennr via @MailOnline
— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) January 22, 2023
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
And Alaska is a constituent state of the Union.
Is the Ukraine a state within the United States or a member of NATO?
We moved a UN resolution against Russia for their actions and basically black balled them from half the trade on earth. We imposed massive economy crushing sanctions on Russia for their actions.
And lets not get on our high horse about violating other countries sovereignty.
How often has the USA invaded other countries and imposed our will on smaller states....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukrainian_independence_referendum#:~:text=A%20referendum%20on%20the%20Act,Rada%20on%2024%20August%201991.
Do you even look things up before you come on this thread and spout off inaccurate info?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union
Its at least important to be accurate.ATL Bear said:Well, they made it official in 1991. I guess what was happening up to that point doesn't matter. He got me I guess…RMF5630 said:Really? Late - 1980's vs 1991???? That deserves this response? He was 2 years off...Redbrickbear said:Wrong...ATL Bear said:Ukraine has been seeking independence from Russia since long before the Soviet Union, and has been independent from the former empire since the late 80's. This isn't an effort to influence, it's an active territorial acquisition, and Russian expansion.Sam Lowry said:The reason we shouldn't care is not that they've been under Russian influence before. It's that they've been under Russian influence before and we were not harmed by it, at least not significantly. If you think that's changed, it's up to you to make the argument. "But but sovereignty" is not an argument in itself, or else we'd never have tolerated Russian influence in the first place.ATL Bear said:I was mocking the idea that we shouldn't care because Sam, you, and others point to Ukraine being under Russian influence before. It's an absurd argument that ignores the EXISTENCE of sovereignty. Feel free to make your other arguments, including US whataboutism.Redbrickbear said:You can care. And in fact we did care.... a lot.ATL Bear said:Should we not care, or is it okay for Russia to violate a nations sovereignty because they had greater influence before? It shouldn't matter whatever alliance or sovereign status exists today under the idea Sam posited.Redbrickbear said:The Baltic republics are in NATO and enrolled treaty allies of the United States.ATL Bear said:While we're at it, we could give them the Baltics and Alaska….Sam Lowry said:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.cowboycwr said:Sam Lowry said:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.cowboycwr said:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Sam Lowry said:Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.cowboycwr said:As to the article it seems like a lot of hypotheticals and conjecture and worst case scenarios.Redbrickbear said:
[This was the moment at which we began the unstoppable descent into terrible danger which so many of us will bitterly regret in times to come.
I won't waste time here going over the question of who started the Ukraine war, or even why. Most people don't want to know and refuse to think about it, or to look up the facts. They defame and abuse anyone who tries to tell them. So to hell with that. I'm bored with trying...
the Government and its tame thinkers are not in favour of free debate on crucial national policy, and nor is anyone else much.
When the Defence Secretary announced that British tanks were going to Ukraine, not one MP raised any doubts or opposed the move. Not one. To read the record of the non-debate is like reading the proceedings of some Communist fake parliament, supine and brain-dead. The country where political freedom was born has decided not to bother being free any more.
So it is left to me to tell you that it is an act of grave stupidity for the West to supply Ukraine with modern tanks. Unlike everyone else in the media and politics, I am not a military expert. But I know what tanks are for, and it is not defence.
What we have just decided to do is to prolong and deepen the war. Maybe Ukraine's new tanks will sweep all before them. Maybe they will bog down. Maybe they will try to take Crimea. Maybe they will soon be taking part in a Victory Parade in Red Square. I don't know. But if they cross into what Russia regards as its own territory, then do not be surprised by anything which happens.
Look, Vladimir Putin is obviously a sinister tyrant and, in my view, went off his head completely during the Covid panic (look at those huge tables he sits at). I think he is probably capable of authorising the use of battlefield nuclear weapons if cornered. But it could be worse. If he is overthrown in a midnight putsch, he will not be replaced by some jolly, liberal-minded chap. He will be replaced by someone who might view it as a positive pleasure to press the red button.
So there is the real possibility that a large chunk of Europe might be turned into a radioactive graveyard and that American conventional retaliation for this (which will be furious and powerful) will take us a stage further into the world of horror, loss, flight, pestilence and poverty which always follows war. If this happens, maybe more people might want to find out why it began. Maybe not. I will help, if asked.
But why is Britain in this affair? I know that a lot of voters in key states in America hate Russia because their forebears came from lands Moscow had oppressed. I know that some neo-conservative fanatics in Washington have long desired to dismantle Russia and ensure that it is never an important country again.
I even understand their points of view. But they are at least 3,000 miles away and will not be personally affected by their own policy. By contrast we are not 3,000 miles away. And I have absolutely no idea how Britain will become safer, happier or more prosperous thanks to following this strategy. Rather the opposite.
Two countries are in a furious grapple because their deep, hard and unalterable interests conflict.]Sending tanks to Ukraine could turn Europe into a big radioactive graveyard: https://t.co/GyRbEQennr via @MailOnline
— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) January 22, 2023
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
And Alaska is a constituent state of the Union.
Is the Ukraine a state within the United States or a member of NATO?
We moved a UN resolution against Russia for their actions and basically black balled them from half the trade on earth. We imposed massive economy crushing sanctions on Russia for their actions.
And lets not get on our high horse about violating other countries sovereignty.
How often has the USA invaded other countries and imposed our will on smaller states....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukrainian_independence_referendum#:~:text=A%20referendum%20on%20the%20Act,Rada%20on%2024%20August%201991.
Do you even look things up before you come on this thread and spout off inaccurate info?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union
And no one has denied for one second that Ukraine wants to be free of Moscow. And is an independent state.
They voted on it for heaven's sake.
This is about if certain ethnic russian areas of Ukraine also want to break off from Kyiv.
Whatever happens in this war Ukraine will never be apart of the Russian Federation. And in fact Ukraine will eventually be apart of the EU and most likely apart of NATO one day.
No problem, just saying. There is a difference between accurate and precise. The guy was within 2 years. Its a message board cut the participants some slack, we are able to discuss stuff here that you can't in the real world. Sometimes doing this from a phone or in between real things take away from the precision.Redbrickbear said:Its at least important to be accurate.ATL Bear said:Well, they made it official in 1991. I guess what was happening up to that point doesn't matter. He got me I guess…RMF5630 said:Really? Late - 1980's vs 1991???? That deserves this response? He was 2 years off...Redbrickbear said:Wrong...ATL Bear said:Ukraine has been seeking independence from Russia since long before the Soviet Union, and has been independent from the former empire since the late 80's. This isn't an effort to influence, it's an active territorial acquisition, and Russian expansion.Sam Lowry said:The reason we shouldn't care is not that they've been under Russian influence before. It's that they've been under Russian influence before and we were not harmed by it, at least not significantly. If you think that's changed, it's up to you to make the argument. "But but sovereignty" is not an argument in itself, or else we'd never have tolerated Russian influence in the first place.ATL Bear said:I was mocking the idea that we shouldn't care because Sam, you, and others point to Ukraine being under Russian influence before. It's an absurd argument that ignores the EXISTENCE of sovereignty. Feel free to make your other arguments, including US whataboutism.Redbrickbear said:You can care. And in fact we did care.... a lot.ATL Bear said:Should we not care, or is it okay for Russia to violate a nations sovereignty because they had greater influence before? It shouldn't matter whatever alliance or sovereign status exists today under the idea Sam posited.Redbrickbear said:The Baltic republics are in NATO and enrolled treaty allies of the United States.ATL Bear said:While we're at it, we could give them the Baltics and Alaska….Sam Lowry said:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.cowboycwr said:Sam Lowry said:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.cowboycwr said:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Sam Lowry said:Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.cowboycwr said:As to the article it seems like a lot of hypotheticals and conjecture and worst case scenarios.Redbrickbear said:
[This was the moment at which we began the unstoppable descent into terrible danger which so many of us will bitterly regret in times to come.
I won't waste time here going over the question of who started the Ukraine war, or even why. Most people don't want to know and refuse to think about it, or to look up the facts. They defame and abuse anyone who tries to tell them. So to hell with that. I'm bored with trying...
the Government and its tame thinkers are not in favour of free debate on crucial national policy, and nor is anyone else much.
When the Defence Secretary announced that British tanks were going to Ukraine, not one MP raised any doubts or opposed the move. Not one. To read the record of the non-debate is like reading the proceedings of some Communist fake parliament, supine and brain-dead. The country where political freedom was born has decided not to bother being free any more.
So it is left to me to tell you that it is an act of grave stupidity for the West to supply Ukraine with modern tanks. Unlike everyone else in the media and politics, I am not a military expert. But I know what tanks are for, and it is not defence.
What we have just decided to do is to prolong and deepen the war. Maybe Ukraine's new tanks will sweep all before them. Maybe they will bog down. Maybe they will try to take Crimea. Maybe they will soon be taking part in a Victory Parade in Red Square. I don't know. But if they cross into what Russia regards as its own territory, then do not be surprised by anything which happens.
Look, Vladimir Putin is obviously a sinister tyrant and, in my view, went off his head completely during the Covid panic (look at those huge tables he sits at). I think he is probably capable of authorising the use of battlefield nuclear weapons if cornered. But it could be worse. If he is overthrown in a midnight putsch, he will not be replaced by some jolly, liberal-minded chap. He will be replaced by someone who might view it as a positive pleasure to press the red button.
So there is the real possibility that a large chunk of Europe might be turned into a radioactive graveyard and that American conventional retaliation for this (which will be furious and powerful) will take us a stage further into the world of horror, loss, flight, pestilence and poverty which always follows war. If this happens, maybe more people might want to find out why it began. Maybe not. I will help, if asked.
But why is Britain in this affair? I know that a lot of voters in key states in America hate Russia because their forebears came from lands Moscow had oppressed. I know that some neo-conservative fanatics in Washington have long desired to dismantle Russia and ensure that it is never an important country again.
I even understand their points of view. But they are at least 3,000 miles away and will not be personally affected by their own policy. By contrast we are not 3,000 miles away. And I have absolutely no idea how Britain will become safer, happier or more prosperous thanks to following this strategy. Rather the opposite.
Two countries are in a furious grapple because their deep, hard and unalterable interests conflict.]Sending tanks to Ukraine could turn Europe into a big radioactive graveyard: https://t.co/GyRbEQennr via @MailOnline
— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) January 22, 2023
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
And Alaska is a constituent state of the Union.
Is the Ukraine a state within the United States or a member of NATO?
We moved a UN resolution against Russia for their actions and basically black balled them from half the trade on earth. We imposed massive economy crushing sanctions on Russia for their actions.
And lets not get on our high horse about violating other countries sovereignty.
How often has the USA invaded other countries and imposed our will on smaller states....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukrainian_independence_referendum#:~:text=A%20referendum%20on%20the%20Act,Rada%20on%2024%20August%201991.
Do you even look things up before you come on this thread and spout off inaccurate info?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union
And no one has denied for one second that Ukraine wants to be free of Moscow. And is an independent state.
They voted on it for heaven's sake.
This is about if certain ethnic russian areas of Ukraine also want to break off from Kyiv.
Whatever happens in this war Ukraine will never be apart of the Russian Federation. And in fact Ukraine will eventually be apart of the EU and most likely apart of NATO one day.
You are usually good with me, but this Board can be like a shooting gallery. The Premium Football Board is ridiculous, you would think they were the Pope and are infallible! Just venting... Like discussing things, but it gets hard with Baylor people!
If it's important to be accurate then we need to consider what is happening in the countries and regions in question. Including Crimea and areas where Stalin expelled nearly all the local Tatar population and brought in ethnic Russians. Where the problems created from that decision was a factor in Crimea being given to Ukraine, and still manifest today. This isn't a centuries old spat in Eastern Ukraine, it's a 20th century problem still bubbling.Redbrickbear said:Its at least important to be accurate.ATL Bear said:Well, they made it official in 1991. I guess what was happening up to that point doesn't matter. He got me I guess…RMF5630 said:Really? Late - 1980's vs 1991???? That deserves this response? He was 2 years off...Redbrickbear said:Wrong...ATL Bear said:Ukraine has been seeking independence from Russia since long before the Soviet Union, and has been independent from the former empire since the late 80's. This isn't an effort to influence, it's an active territorial acquisition, and Russian expansion.Sam Lowry said:The reason we shouldn't care is not that they've been under Russian influence before. It's that they've been under Russian influence before and we were not harmed by it, at least not significantly. If you think that's changed, it's up to you to make the argument. "But but sovereignty" is not an argument in itself, or else we'd never have tolerated Russian influence in the first place.ATL Bear said:I was mocking the idea that we shouldn't care because Sam, you, and others point to Ukraine being under Russian influence before. It's an absurd argument that ignores the EXISTENCE of sovereignty. Feel free to make your other arguments, including US whataboutism.Redbrickbear said:You can care. And in fact we did care.... a lot.ATL Bear said:Should we not care, or is it okay for Russia to violate a nations sovereignty because they had greater influence before? It shouldn't matter whatever alliance or sovereign status exists today under the idea Sam posited.Redbrickbear said:The Baltic republics are in NATO and enrolled treaty allies of the United States.ATL Bear said:While we're at it, we could give them the Baltics and Alaska….Sam Lowry said:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.cowboycwr said:Sam Lowry said:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.cowboycwr said:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Sam Lowry said:Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.cowboycwr said:As to the article it seems like a lot of hypotheticals and conjecture and worst case scenarios.Redbrickbear said:
[This was the moment at which we began the unstoppable descent into terrible danger which so many of us will bitterly regret in times to come.
I won't waste time here going over the question of who started the Ukraine war, or even why. Most people don't want to know and refuse to think about it, or to look up the facts. They defame and abuse anyone who tries to tell them. So to hell with that. I'm bored with trying...
the Government and its tame thinkers are not in favour of free debate on crucial national policy, and nor is anyone else much.
When the Defence Secretary announced that British tanks were going to Ukraine, not one MP raised any doubts or opposed the move. Not one. To read the record of the non-debate is like reading the proceedings of some Communist fake parliament, supine and brain-dead. The country where political freedom was born has decided not to bother being free any more.
So it is left to me to tell you that it is an act of grave stupidity for the West to supply Ukraine with modern tanks. Unlike everyone else in the media and politics, I am not a military expert. But I know what tanks are for, and it is not defence.
What we have just decided to do is to prolong and deepen the war. Maybe Ukraine's new tanks will sweep all before them. Maybe they will bog down. Maybe they will try to take Crimea. Maybe they will soon be taking part in a Victory Parade in Red Square. I don't know. But if they cross into what Russia regards as its own territory, then do not be surprised by anything which happens.
Look, Vladimir Putin is obviously a sinister tyrant and, in my view, went off his head completely during the Covid panic (look at those huge tables he sits at). I think he is probably capable of authorising the use of battlefield nuclear weapons if cornered. But it could be worse. If he is overthrown in a midnight putsch, he will not be replaced by some jolly, liberal-minded chap. He will be replaced by someone who might view it as a positive pleasure to press the red button.
So there is the real possibility that a large chunk of Europe might be turned into a radioactive graveyard and that American conventional retaliation for this (which will be furious and powerful) will take us a stage further into the world of horror, loss, flight, pestilence and poverty which always follows war. If this happens, maybe more people might want to find out why it began. Maybe not. I will help, if asked.
But why is Britain in this affair? I know that a lot of voters in key states in America hate Russia because their forebears came from lands Moscow had oppressed. I know that some neo-conservative fanatics in Washington have long desired to dismantle Russia and ensure that it is never an important country again.
I even understand their points of view. But they are at least 3,000 miles away and will not be personally affected by their own policy. By contrast we are not 3,000 miles away. And I have absolutely no idea how Britain will become safer, happier or more prosperous thanks to following this strategy. Rather the opposite.
Two countries are in a furious grapple because their deep, hard and unalterable interests conflict.]Sending tanks to Ukraine could turn Europe into a big radioactive graveyard: https://t.co/GyRbEQennr via @MailOnline
— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) January 22, 2023
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
And Alaska is a constituent state of the Union.
Is the Ukraine a state within the United States or a member of NATO?
We moved a UN resolution against Russia for their actions and basically black balled them from half the trade on earth. We imposed massive economy crushing sanctions on Russia for their actions.
And lets not get on our high horse about violating other countries sovereignty.
How often has the USA invaded other countries and imposed our will on smaller states....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukrainian_independence_referendum#:~:text=A%20referendum%20on%20the%20Act,Rada%20on%2024%20August%201991.
Do you even look things up before you come on this thread and spout off inaccurate info?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union
And no one has denied for one second that Ukraine wants to be free of Moscow. And is an independent state.
They voted on it for heaven's sake.
This is about if certain ethnic russian areas of Ukraine also want to break off from Kyiv.
Whatever happens in this war Ukraine will never be apart of the Russian Federation. And in fact Ukraine will eventually be apart of the EU and most likely apart of NATO one day.
I said independent since the late 80's only because the separation and operational independence of Ukraine was in full swing at that point, primarily due to the steady collapsing of the USSR.
RMF5630 said:No problem, just saying. There is a difference between accurate and precise. The guy was within 2 years. Its a message board cut the participants some slack, we are able to discuss stuff here that you can't in the real world. Sometimes doing this from a phone or in between real things take away from the precision.Redbrickbear said:Its at least important to be accurate.ATL Bear said:Well, they made it official in 1991. I guess what was happening up to that point doesn't matter. He got me I guess…RMF5630 said:Really? Late - 1980's vs 1991???? That deserves this response? He was 2 years off...Redbrickbear said:Wrong...ATL Bear said:Ukraine has been seeking independence from Russia since long before the Soviet Union, and has been independent from the former empire since the late 80's. This isn't an effort to influence, it's an active territorial acquisition, and Russian expansion.Sam Lowry said:The reason we shouldn't care is not that they've been under Russian influence before. It's that they've been under Russian influence before and we were not harmed by it, at least not significantly. If you think that's changed, it's up to you to make the argument. "But but sovereignty" is not an argument in itself, or else we'd never have tolerated Russian influence in the first place.ATL Bear said:I was mocking the idea that we shouldn't care because Sam, you, and others point to Ukraine being under Russian influence before. It's an absurd argument that ignores the EXISTENCE of sovereignty. Feel free to make your other arguments, including US whataboutism.Redbrickbear said:You can care. And in fact we did care.... a lot.ATL Bear said:Should we not care, or is it okay for Russia to violate a nations sovereignty because they had greater influence before? It shouldn't matter whatever alliance or sovereign status exists today under the idea Sam posited.Redbrickbear said:The Baltic republics are in NATO and enrolled treaty allies of the United States.ATL Bear said:While we're at it, we could give them the Baltics and Alaska….Sam Lowry said:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.cowboycwr said:Sam Lowry said:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.cowboycwr said:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Sam Lowry said:Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.cowboycwr said:As to the article it seems like a lot of hypotheticals and conjecture and worst case scenarios.Redbrickbear said:
[This was the moment at which we began the unstoppable descent into terrible danger which so many of us will bitterly regret in times to come.
I won't waste time here going over the question of who started the Ukraine war, or even why. Most people don't want to know and refuse to think about it, or to look up the facts. They defame and abuse anyone who tries to tell them. So to hell with that. I'm bored with trying...
the Government and its tame thinkers are not in favour of free debate on crucial national policy, and nor is anyone else much.
When the Defence Secretary announced that British tanks were going to Ukraine, not one MP raised any doubts or opposed the move. Not one. To read the record of the non-debate is like reading the proceedings of some Communist fake parliament, supine and brain-dead. The country where political freedom was born has decided not to bother being free any more.
So it is left to me to tell you that it is an act of grave stupidity for the West to supply Ukraine with modern tanks. Unlike everyone else in the media and politics, I am not a military expert. But I know what tanks are for, and it is not defence.
What we have just decided to do is to prolong and deepen the war. Maybe Ukraine's new tanks will sweep all before them. Maybe they will bog down. Maybe they will try to take Crimea. Maybe they will soon be taking part in a Victory Parade in Red Square. I don't know. But if they cross into what Russia regards as its own territory, then do not be surprised by anything which happens.
Look, Vladimir Putin is obviously a sinister tyrant and, in my view, went off his head completely during the Covid panic (look at those huge tables he sits at). I think he is probably capable of authorising the use of battlefield nuclear weapons if cornered. But it could be worse. If he is overthrown in a midnight putsch, he will not be replaced by some jolly, liberal-minded chap. He will be replaced by someone who might view it as a positive pleasure to press the red button.
So there is the real possibility that a large chunk of Europe might be turned into a radioactive graveyard and that American conventional retaliation for this (which will be furious and powerful) will take us a stage further into the world of horror, loss, flight, pestilence and poverty which always follows war. If this happens, maybe more people might want to find out why it began. Maybe not. I will help, if asked.
But why is Britain in this affair? I know that a lot of voters in key states in America hate Russia because their forebears came from lands Moscow had oppressed. I know that some neo-conservative fanatics in Washington have long desired to dismantle Russia and ensure that it is never an important country again.
I even understand their points of view. But they are at least 3,000 miles away and will not be personally affected by their own policy. By contrast we are not 3,000 miles away. And I have absolutely no idea how Britain will become safer, happier or more prosperous thanks to following this strategy. Rather the opposite.
Two countries are in a furious grapple because their deep, hard and unalterable interests conflict.]Sending tanks to Ukraine could turn Europe into a big radioactive graveyard: https://t.co/GyRbEQennr via @MailOnline
— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) January 22, 2023
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
And Alaska is a constituent state of the Union.
Is the Ukraine a state within the United States or a member of NATO?
We moved a UN resolution against Russia for their actions and basically black balled them from half the trade on earth. We imposed massive economy crushing sanctions on Russia for their actions.
And lets not get on our high horse about violating other countries sovereignty.
How often has the USA invaded other countries and imposed our will on smaller states....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukrainian_independence_referendum#:~:text=A%20referendum%20on%20the%20Act,Rada%20on%2024%20August%201991.
Do you even look things up before you come on this thread and spout off inaccurate info?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union
And no one has denied for one second that Ukraine wants to be free of Moscow. And is an independent state.
They voted on it for heaven's sake.
This is about if certain ethnic russian areas of Ukraine also want to break off from Kyiv.
Whatever happens in this war Ukraine will never be apart of the Russian Federation. And in fact Ukraine will eventually be apart of the EU and most likely apart of NATO one day.
You are usually good with me, but this Board can be like a shooting gallery. The Premium Football Board is ridiculous, you would think they were the Pope and are infallible! Just venting... Like discussing things, but it gets hard with Baylor people!
I hear you
If Mexico invaded, what do you think Ukraine would do about it?RMF5630 said:I guess the invasion means nothing? I guess it is all right for Mexico to roll tanks into Southern Texas and California, since there are alot of native Spanish speakers there...Redbrickbear said:Bear8084 said:Redbrickbear said:8 years of fighting against the central government would tend to show serious commitment to independence from Ukraine.Bear8084 said:Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:ATL Bear said:I was mocking the idea that we shouldn't care because Sam, you, and others point to Ukraine being under Russian influence before. It's an absurd argument that ignores the EXISTENCE of sovereignty. Feel free to make your other arguments, including US whataboutism.Redbrickbear said:You can care. And in fact we did care.... a lot.ATL Bear said:Should we not care, or is it okay for Russia to violate a nations sovereignty because they had greater influence before? It shouldn't matter whatever alliance or sovereign status exists today under the idea Sam posited.Redbrickbear said:The Baltic republics are in NATO and enrolled treaty allies of the United States.ATL Bear said:While we're at it, we could give them the Baltics and Alaska….Sam Lowry said:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.cowboycwr said:Sam Lowry said:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.cowboycwr said:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Sam Lowry said:Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.cowboycwr said:As to the article it seems like a lot of hypotheticals and conjecture and worst case scenarios.Redbrickbear said:
[This was the moment at which we began the unstoppable descent into terrible danger which so many of us will bitterly regret in times to come.
I won't waste time here going over the question of who started the Ukraine war, or even why. Most people don't want to know and refuse to think about it, or to look up the facts. They defame and abuse anyone who tries to tell them. So to hell with that. I'm bored with trying...
the Government and its tame thinkers are not in favour of free debate on crucial national policy, and nor is anyone else much.
When the Defence Secretary announced that British tanks were going to Ukraine, not one MP raised any doubts or opposed the move. Not one. To read the record of the non-debate is like reading the proceedings of some Communist fake parliament, supine and brain-dead. The country where political freedom was born has decided not to bother being free any more.
So it is left to me to tell you that it is an act of grave stupidity for the West to supply Ukraine with modern tanks. Unlike everyone else in the media and politics, I am not a military expert. But I know what tanks are for, and it is not defence.
What we have just decided to do is to prolong and deepen the war. Maybe Ukraine's new tanks will sweep all before them. Maybe they will bog down. Maybe they will try to take Crimea. Maybe they will soon be taking part in a Victory Parade in Red Square. I don't know. But if they cross into what Russia regards as its own territory, then do not be surprised by anything which happens.
Look, Vladimir Putin is obviously a sinister tyrant and, in my view, went off his head completely during the Covid panic (look at those huge tables he sits at). I think he is probably capable of authorising the use of battlefield nuclear weapons if cornered. But it could be worse. If he is overthrown in a midnight putsch, he will not be replaced by some jolly, liberal-minded chap. He will be replaced by someone who might view it as a positive pleasure to press the red button.
So there is the real possibility that a large chunk of Europe might be turned into a radioactive graveyard and that American conventional retaliation for this (which will be furious and powerful) will take us a stage further into the world of horror, loss, flight, pestilence and poverty which always follows war. If this happens, maybe more people might want to find out why it began. Maybe not. I will help, if asked.
But why is Britain in this affair? I know that a lot of voters in key states in America hate Russia because their forebears came from lands Moscow had oppressed. I know that some neo-conservative fanatics in Washington have long desired to dismantle Russia and ensure that it is never an important country again.
I even understand their points of view. But they are at least 3,000 miles away and will not be personally affected by their own policy. By contrast we are not 3,000 miles away. And I have absolutely no idea how Britain will become safer, happier or more prosperous thanks to following this strategy. Rather the opposite.
Two countries are in a furious grapple because their deep, hard and unalterable interests conflict.]Sending tanks to Ukraine could turn Europe into a big radioactive graveyard: https://t.co/GyRbEQennr via @MailOnline
— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) January 22, 2023
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
And Alaska is a constituent state of the Union.
Is the Ukraine a state within the United States or a member of NATO?
We moved a UN resolution against Russia for their actions and basically black balled them from half the trade on earth. We imposed massive economy crushing sanctions on Russia for their actions.
And lets not get on our high horse about violating other countries sovereignty.
How often has the USA invaded other countries and imposed our will on smaller states....
Exactly. Texas USED to be part of Mexico. So did California and parts of other states. Does Mexico have the right to go take them back?
(power differentials matter….)
Donbass and Crimea want to be free of the rule of Kyiv. Does Ukraine have a right to engage in war to prevent their leaving?
Debatable, even then, and especially today.
For reference to Texas....we fought for 6 months against Mexico.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas_(2014%E2%80%932022)
Donbass separatists have put at least 40,000 men into the field and taken casualties of 16,000 with almost 7,000 killed.
How many of those "separatists", which they aren't, are RU army volunteers, Wagner PMC, forced conscription?
No doubt there are Russian volunteers and paramilitaries in Donbass helping them to fight. The Separatists don't even bother trying to deny Russian military involvement and financial assistance.
But the vast majority are native born east Ukrainian (russian speakers) who want to break off are doing the fighting for the past 8 years.
Texas got volunteers from the USA. America in its war of independence got a hell of a lot of financial assistance from France and volunteers from Poland, Germany, and France.
None of those facts made those uprisings somehow illegitimate.
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/foreign-adventurers-american-revolution#:~:text=Soldiers%20from%20Britain%2C%20France%2C%20Germany,War%2C%20writes%20Aram%20Bakshian%20Jr.
Sam Lowry said:If Mexico invaded, what do you think Ukraine would do about it?RMF5630 said:I guess the invasion means nothing? I guess it is all right for Mexico to roll tanks into Southern Texas and California, since there are alot of native Spanish speakers there...Redbrickbear said:Bear8084 said:Redbrickbear said:8 years of fighting against the central government would tend to show serious commitment to independence from Ukraine.Bear8084 said:Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:ATL Bear said:I was mocking the idea that we shouldn't care because Sam, you, and others point to Ukraine being under Russian influence before. It's an absurd argument that ignores the EXISTENCE of sovereignty. Feel free to make your other arguments, including US whataboutism.Redbrickbear said:You can care. And in fact we did care.... a lot.ATL Bear said:Should we not care, or is it okay for Russia to violate a nations sovereignty because they had greater influence before? It shouldn't matter whatever alliance or sovereign status exists today under the idea Sam posited.Redbrickbear said:The Baltic republics are in NATO and enrolled treaty allies of the United States.ATL Bear said:While we're at it, we could give them the Baltics and Alaska….Sam Lowry said:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.cowboycwr said:Sam Lowry said:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.cowboycwr said:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Sam Lowry said:Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.cowboycwr said:As to the article it seems like a lot of hypotheticals and conjecture and worst case scenarios.Redbrickbear said:
[This was the moment at which we began the unstoppable descent into terrible danger which so many of us will bitterly regret in times to come.
I won't waste time here going over the question of who started the Ukraine war, or even why. Most people don't want to know and refuse to think about it, or to look up the facts. They defame and abuse anyone who tries to tell them. So to hell with that. I'm bored with trying...
the Government and its tame thinkers are not in favour of free debate on crucial national policy, and nor is anyone else much.
When the Defence Secretary announced that British tanks were going to Ukraine, not one MP raised any doubts or opposed the move. Not one. To read the record of the non-debate is like reading the proceedings of some Communist fake parliament, supine and brain-dead. The country where political freedom was born has decided not to bother being free any more.
So it is left to me to tell you that it is an act of grave stupidity for the West to supply Ukraine with modern tanks. Unlike everyone else in the media and politics, I am not a military expert. But I know what tanks are for, and it is not defence.
What we have just decided to do is to prolong and deepen the war. Maybe Ukraine's new tanks will sweep all before them. Maybe they will bog down. Maybe they will try to take Crimea. Maybe they will soon be taking part in a Victory Parade in Red Square. I don't know. But if they cross into what Russia regards as its own territory, then do not be surprised by anything which happens.
Look, Vladimir Putin is obviously a sinister tyrant and, in my view, went off his head completely during the Covid panic (look at those huge tables he sits at). I think he is probably capable of authorising the use of battlefield nuclear weapons if cornered. But it could be worse. If he is overthrown in a midnight putsch, he will not be replaced by some jolly, liberal-minded chap. He will be replaced by someone who might view it as a positive pleasure to press the red button.
So there is the real possibility that a large chunk of Europe might be turned into a radioactive graveyard and that American conventional retaliation for this (which will be furious and powerful) will take us a stage further into the world of horror, loss, flight, pestilence and poverty which always follows war. If this happens, maybe more people might want to find out why it began. Maybe not. I will help, if asked.
But why is Britain in this affair? I know that a lot of voters in key states in America hate Russia because their forebears came from lands Moscow had oppressed. I know that some neo-conservative fanatics in Washington have long desired to dismantle Russia and ensure that it is never an important country again.
I even understand their points of view. But they are at least 3,000 miles away and will not be personally affected by their own policy. By contrast we are not 3,000 miles away. And I have absolutely no idea how Britain will become safer, happier or more prosperous thanks to following this strategy. Rather the opposite.
Two countries are in a furious grapple because their deep, hard and unalterable interests conflict.]Sending tanks to Ukraine could turn Europe into a big radioactive graveyard: https://t.co/GyRbEQennr via @MailOnline
— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) January 22, 2023
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
And Alaska is a constituent state of the Union.
Is the Ukraine a state within the United States or a member of NATO?
We moved a UN resolution against Russia for their actions and basically black balled them from half the trade on earth. We imposed massive economy crushing sanctions on Russia for their actions.
And lets not get on our high horse about violating other countries sovereignty.
How often has the USA invaded other countries and imposed our will on smaller states....
Exactly. Texas USED to be part of Mexico. So did California and parts of other states. Does Mexico have the right to go take them back?
(power differentials matter….)
Donbass and Crimea want to be free of the rule of Kyiv. Does Ukraine have a right to engage in war to prevent their leaving?
Debatable, even then, and especially today.
For reference to Texas....we fought for 6 months against Mexico.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas_(2014%E2%80%932022)
Donbass separatists have put at least 40,000 men into the field and taken casualties of 16,000 with almost 7,000 killed.
How many of those "separatists", which they aren't, are RU army volunteers, Wagner PMC, forced conscription?
No doubt there are Russian volunteers and paramilitaries in Donbass helping them to fight. The Separatists don't even bother trying to deny Russian military involvement and financial assistance.
But the vast majority are native born east Ukrainian (russian speakers) who want to break off are doing the fighting for the past 8 years.
Texas got volunteers from the USA. America in its war of independence got a hell of a lot of financial assistance from France and volunteers from Poland, Germany, and France.
None of those facts made those uprisings somehow illegitimate.
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/foreign-adventurers-american-revolution#:~:text=Soldiers%20from%20Britain%2C%20France%2C%20Germany,War%2C%20writes%20Aram%20Bakshian%20Jr.
Zelensky would make sure to tweet out his support for us form a casino in Monaco or a beach resort in Tel Aviv.
Sam Lowry said:Ever heard of Germany? It's a NATO member and a different country from Ukraine.whiterock said:Sam Lowry said:The reason we shouldn't care is not that they've been under Russian influence before. It's that they've been under Russian influence before and we were not harmed by it, at least not significantly. If you think that's changed, it's up to you to make the argument. "But but sovereignty" is not an argument in itself, or else we'd never have tolerated Russian influence in the first place.ATL Bear said:I was mocking the idea that we shouldn't care because Sam, you, and others point to Ukraine being under Russian influence before. %A0It's an absurd argument that ignores the EXISTENCE of sovereignty. %A0Feel free to make your other arguments, including US whataboutism. %A0Redbrickbear said:You can care. %A0And in fact we did care.... a lot.ATL Bear said:Should we not care, or is it okay for Russia to violate a nations sovereignty because they had greater influence before? %A0It shouldn't matter whatever alliance or sovereign status exists today under the idea Sam posited. %A0Redbrickbear said:The Baltic republics are in NATO and enrolled treaty allies of the United States.ATL Bear said:While we're at it, we could give them the Baltics and Alaska%85.Sam Lowry said:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.cowboycwr said:Sam Lowry said:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.cowboycwr said:1. %A0There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war. %A0Sam Lowry said:Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.cowboycwr said:As to the article it seems like a lot of hypotheticals and conjecture and worst case scenarios.Redbrickbear said:
[This was the moment at which we began the unstoppable descent into terrible danger which so many of us will bitterly regret in times to come.
I won't waste time here going over the question of who started the Ukraine war, or even why. Most people don't want to know and refuse to think about it, or to look up the facts. They defame and abuse anyone who tries to tell them. So to hell with that. I'm bored with trying...
the Government and its tame thinkers are not in favour of free debate on crucial national policy, and nor is anyone else much.
When the Defence Secretary announced that British tanks were going to Ukraine, not one MP raised any doubts or opposed the move. Not one. To read the record of the non-debate is like reading the proceedings of some Communist fake parliament, supine and brain-dead. %A0The country where political freedom was born has decided not to bother being free any more.
So it is left to me to tell you that it is an act of grave stupidity for the West to supply Ukraine with modern tanks. Unlike everyone else in the media and politics, I am not a military expert. But I know what tanks are for, and it is not defence.
What we have just decided to do is to prolong and deepen the war. Maybe Ukraine's new tanks will sweep all before them. Maybe they will bog down. Maybe they will try to take Crimea. Maybe they will soon be taking part in a Victory Parade in Red Square. I don't know. But if they cross into what Russia regards as its own territory, then do not be surprised by anything which happens.
Look, Vladimir Putin is obviously a sinister tyrant and, in my view, went off his head completely during the Covid panic (look at those huge tables he sits at). I think he is probably capable of authorising the use of battlefield nuclear weapons if cornered. But it could be worse. If he is overthrown in a midnight putsch, he will not be replaced by some jolly, liberal-minded chap. He will be replaced by someone who might view it as a positive pleasure to press the red button.
So there is the real possibility that a large chunk of Europe might be turned into a radioactive graveyard and that American conventional retaliation for this (which will be furious and powerful) will take us a stage further into the world of horror, loss, flight, pestilence and poverty which always follows war. If this happens, maybe more people might want to find out why it began. Maybe not. I will help, if asked.
But why is Britain in this affair? I know that a lot of voters in key states in America hate Russia because their forebears came from lands Moscow had oppressed. I know that some neo-conservative fanatics in Washington have long desired to dismantle Russia and ensure that it is never an important country again.
I even understand their points of view. But they are at least 3,000 miles away and will not be personally affected by their own policy. By contrast we are not 3,000 miles away. And I have absolutely no idea how Britain will become safer, happier or more prosperous thanks to following this strategy. Rather the opposite.
Two countries are in a furious grapple because their deep, hard and unalterable interests conflict.]Sending tanks to Ukraine could turn Europe into a big radioactive graveyard: https://t.co/GyRbEQennr via @MailOnline
— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) January 22, 2023
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. %A0(Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq. %A0
7. %A0What them are you referring to trust? %A0This article is about English tanks/politicians. %A0Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
And Alaska is a constituent state of the Union.
Is the Ukraine a state within the United States or a member of NATO?
We moved a UN resolution against Russia for their actions and basically black balled them from half the trade on earth. %A0We imposed massive economy crushing sanctions on Russia for their actions.
And lets not get on our high horse about violating other countries sovereignty.
How often has the USA invaded other countries and imposed our will on smaller states....
Spectacularly obtuse.
Ever heard of Reforger Exercises?
LOL not only do you not know what you're talking about, you didn't even bother to educate yourself.
OK, let's address that:Sam Lowry said:Well, that's certainly not true. I read an article a while back, and I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it.cowboycwr said:Again right now the only people claiming we are close to a nuclear war are the "journalists." Many of the same ones that made the above two claims.Sam Lowry said:I would argue that it's somewhat more likely to happen with Russia, given that Russia has nukes.cowboycwr said:Except that this is the closest it has been because of "journalists" saying it is close. Nothing from governments or leaders.Sam Lowry said:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.cowboycwr said:Sam Lowry said:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.cowboycwr said:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Sam Lowry said:Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.cowboycwr said:As to the article it seems like a lot of hypotheticals and conjecture and worst case scenarios.Redbrickbear said:
[This was the moment at which we began the unstoppable descent into terrible danger which so many of us will bitterly regret in times to come.
I won't waste time here going over the question of who started the Ukraine war, or even why. Most people don't want to know and refuse to think about it, or to look up the facts. They defame and abuse anyone who tries to tell them. So to hell with that. I'm bored with trying...
the Government and its tame thinkers are not in favour of free debate on crucial national policy, and nor is anyone else much.
When the Defence Secretary announced that British tanks were going to Ukraine, not one MP raised any doubts or opposed the move. Not one. To read the record of the non-debate is like reading the proceedings of some Communist fake parliament, supine and brain-dead. The country where political freedom was born has decided not to bother being free any more.
So it is left to me to tell you that it is an act of grave stupidity for the West to supply Ukraine with modern tanks. Unlike everyone else in the media and politics, I am not a military expert. But I know what tanks are for, and it is not defence.
What we have just decided to do is to prolong and deepen the war. Maybe Ukraine's new tanks will sweep all before them. Maybe they will bog down. Maybe they will try to take Crimea. Maybe they will soon be taking part in a Victory Parade in Red Square. I don't know. But if they cross into what Russia regards as its own territory, then do not be surprised by anything which happens.
Look, Vladimir Putin is obviously a sinister tyrant and, in my view, went off his head completely during the Covid panic (look at those huge tables he sits at). I think he is probably capable of authorising the use of battlefield nuclear weapons if cornered. But it could be worse. If he is overthrown in a midnight putsch, he will not be replaced by some jolly, liberal-minded chap. He will be replaced by someone who might view it as a positive pleasure to press the red button.
So there is the real possibility that a large chunk of Europe might be turned into a radioactive graveyard and that American conventional retaliation for this (which will be furious and powerful) will take us a stage further into the world of horror, loss, flight, pestilence and poverty which always follows war. If this happens, maybe more people might want to find out why it began. Maybe not. I will help, if asked.
But why is Britain in this affair? I know that a lot of voters in key states in America hate Russia because their forebears came from lands Moscow had oppressed. I know that some neo-conservative fanatics in Washington have long desired to dismantle Russia and ensure that it is never an important country again.
I even understand their points of view. But they are at least 3,000 miles away and will not be personally affected by their own policy. By contrast we are not 3,000 miles away. And I have absolutely no idea how Britain will become safer, happier or more prosperous thanks to following this strategy. Rather the opposite.
Two countries are in a furious grapple because their deep, hard and unalterable interests conflict.]Sending tanks to Ukraine could turn Europe into a big radioactive graveyard: https://t.co/GyRbEQennr via @MailOnline
— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) January 22, 2023
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
Heck in case you forgot just a few short years ago there were "journalists" here who kept thinking Trump was going to start a nuclear war or war with Iran.
And yet it NEVER happened.
" I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations
. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it."
Without the name it's difficult to establish the credibility of your source. I happen to know a former Army officer who worked at the War College who also did scenario evaluations. I recall he was clear that most military simulations have very limited practical value, because A) they are teaching exercises for developing policy and practices not forecasts, and B) those exercises are limited in value to military planning, and apply to very specific conditions and situation. Further, whenever someone says 'there is no known scenario' all he is saying is that outcome was not part of the scope of the exercise.
In English, no one who really works with military exercises makes such broad statements.
Basically Sam, your author was basically LARPing in print because he is scared of nukes and wants to sell that fear as rational rather than the paranoia it more likely is.
By the way, let's not pretend that the Russian nuclear forces are exactly in war-ready condition. We already know that Russian officers have sold off tank fuel and parts from their weapons. What are the odds that they have kept the nuclear weapons, which they never planned to use, in sufficient supply and maintenance, to be used against NATO forces known to have their own nukes in better supply and readiness?
That which does not kill me, will try again and get nastier
We have an invasion going on right now in Tampa.
Gasparilla, cannons were going off all day downtown as they invaded.
Gasparilla, cannons were going off all day downtown as they invaded.
Being a paid-in member of the Blob means never having to say you're sorry. The same miscreants who bungled Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria are in charge, with the same ideological fixation on End-of-History export of democracy. No consequences for failure.
— David P. Goldman (@davidpgoldman) January 24, 2023
Must read by former DoD official Steve Bryen: Ukraine is losing. Leopard II and Abrams tanks won't help. Zelensky's only hope is to widen the war--that's why the Germans won't play. US incompetence at all levels is grotesque. https://t.co/pqy2xDAH0h
— David P. Goldman (@davidpgoldman) January 24, 2023
Sat down with @EvansRyan202 to discuss the course of the war, whether the next phase might prove decisive, Russian command changes, and my fav topics like manpower. We recorded last week before the Rammstein announcement, and stay away from the tank drama. https://t.co/8KiTgFi7CU
— Michael Kofman (@KofmanMichael) January 23, 2023
A more accurate and fair analysis. And no, they aren't losing.
My daughter left EUR last summer for a 1yr stint (advisory role) in the future warfare center at DOD, where all the PhD eggheads wargame all day every day. We haven't talked particular scenarios, but the mission of the wargaming units are well known, if often understood. The statement's above about "no known scenario" need some context.Oldbear83 said:
Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.OK, let's address that:Quote:Well, that's certainly not true. I read an article a while back, and I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it.Quote:Again right now the only people claiming we are close to a nuclear war are the "journalists." Many of the same ones that made the above two claims.Quote:I would argue that it's somewhat more likely to happen with Russia, given that Russia has nukes.Quote:Except that this is the closest it has been because of "journalists" saying it is close. Nothing from governments or leaders.Quote:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.Quote:Quote:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.Quote:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Quote:
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
Heck in case you forgot just a few short years ago there were "journalists" here who kept thinking Trump was going to start a nuclear war or war with Iran.
And yet it NEVER happened.
" I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations
. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it."
Without the name it's difficult to establish the credibility of your source. I happen to know a former Army officer who worked at the War College who also did scenario evaluations. I recall he was clear that most military simulations have very limited practical value, because A) they are teaching exercises for developing policy and practices not forecasts, and B) those exercises are limited in value to military planning, and apply to very specific conditions and situation. Further, whenever someone says 'there is no known scenario' all he is saying is that outcome was not part of the scope of the exercise.
In English, no one who really works with military exercises makes such broad statements.
Basically Sam, your author was basically LARPing in print because he is scared of nukes and wants to sell that fear as rational rather than the paranoia it more likely is.
By the way, let's not pretend that the Russian nuclear forces are exactly in war-ready condition. We already know that Russian officers have sold off tank fuel and parts from their weapons. What are the odds that they have kept the nuclear weapons, which they never planned to use, in sufficient supply and maintenance, to be used against NATO forces known to have their own nukes in better supply and readiness?
There is also no known scenario where we stop China from taking Taiwan. And other "no known scenarios" where the USA or allies can win. Yet, somehow, we always do accomplish what we set out to do in set-piece battles. The policy may fail over the course of years/decades, but the US military is never driven from the war in defeat. Why is that? Because the purpose of the wargame is not to drive policy. It is to prepare for war. it shows us strengths & weaknesses of each side. It allows us to not just train & prepare, but actually drive budgeting processes over the course of years/decades. We announced this month a program to increase artillery production 6x within 2 years - the planning started for that in the first year of the Trump admin (because of war gaming done during the Obama years.) We knew we would be here eventually, facing a Russian army with tens of thousands of rounds of big fires. And we were ready enough to stop them, by helping someone else get ready to do so for us by proxy.
Here's another key factor everyone overlooks = NO ONE ELSE DOES THIS. Not one other nation in the world wargames 24/7-365, with a 3 digit number of people who proudly call themselves nerds spending an entire career doing nothing but gaming in a cubical farm in a geometrically shaped building. We alone have this capability. That is enormously important. It allows us to play a bad hand, a theoretically unwinnable hand very very VERY well, while our adversaries typically make multiple fatal mistakes at multiple levels, from the policy decision, to the strategy, to the tactics, all the way down to having the right tires on the fuel trucks. It's Eisenhower's old dictum to the effect "the plan is nothing; PLANNING is everything."
It is Russia which cannot win. They've already made too many mistakes. And there is no known scenario where their strategic position is improved by use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine. We've already warned them that our response will be devastating. They would have to call OUR bluff, and they'd do it to engage in occupation of a country they could not conquer conventionally, facing a near certain insurgency that would make their Afghanistan debacle look like a neighborhood bouncing castle party.
Perfectly fine to oppose our support for Ukraine. There are reasonable grounds to do so, on national security strategy as well as domestic budgeting concerns. But the nuclear fears are quite overblown. When discussing those fears, sober analysis tips toward letting the Ukrainians destroy the Russian Army to maintain most if not all of Ukraine as a neutral shatter zone between the Russian Army and our boys & girls stationed in Romania, Hungary, Poland, etc..... There is nothing quite so goofy as the statement we have no interest in what happens in Ukraine.
Daughter doesn't particularly care for the current assignment because while she understands what the gaming analysts do, she can't actually DO it. Bugs the crap out of her not to be able to lead, to create order out of chaos. She took the option to leave DOD early and enter the war college (Command & General Staff school) this summer. (The war colleges are graduate school leadership programs that issue masters degrees, not gaming centers.....)
whiterock said:Oldbear83 said:
Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.OK, let's address that:Quote:Well, that's certainly not true. I read an article a while back, and I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it.Quote:Again right now the only people claiming we are close to a nuclear war are the "journalists." Many of the same ones that made the above two claims.Quote:I would argue that it's somewhat more likely to happen with Russia, given that Russia has nukes.Quote:Except that this is the closest it has been because of "journalists" saying it is close. Nothing from governments or leaders.Quote:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.Quote:Quote:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.Quote:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Quote:
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
Heck in case you forgot just a few short years ago there were "journalists" here who kept thinking Trump was going to start a nuclear war or war with Iran.
And yet it NEVER happened.
" I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations
. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it."
Without the name it's difficult to establish the credibility of your source. I happen to know a former Army officer who worked at the War College who also did scenario evaluations. I recall he was clear that most military simulations have very limited practical value, because A) they are teaching exercises for developing policy and practices not forecasts, and B) those exercises are limited in value to military planning, and apply to very specific conditions and situation. Further, whenever someone says 'there is no known scenario' all he is saying is that outcome was not part of the scope of the exercise.
In English, no one who really works with military exercises makes such broad statements.
Basically Sam, your author was basically LARPing in print because he is scared of nukes and wants to sell that fear as rational rather than the paranoia it more likely is.
By the way, let's not pretend that the Russian nuclear forces are exactly in war-ready condition. We already know that Russian officers have sold off tank fuel and parts from their weapons. What are the odds that they have kept the nuclear weapons, which they never planned to use, in sufficient supply and maintenance, to be used against NATO forces known to have their own nukes in better supply and readiness?
Here's another key factor everyone overlooks = NO ONE ELSE DOES THIS. Not one other nation in the world wargames 24/7-365, with a 3 digit number of people who proudly call themselves nerds spending an entire career doing nothing but gaming in a cubical farm in a geometrically shaped building. We alone have this capability. That is enormously important. It allows us to play a bad hand, a theoretically unwinnable hand very very VERY well, while our adversaries typically make multiple fatal mistakes at multiple levels, from the policy decision, to the strategy, to the tactics, all the way down to having the right tires on the fuel trucks. It's Eisenhower's old dictum to the effect "the plan is nothing; PLANNING is everything."
You act as if we have not lost 3 major foreign military conflicts in just the past 60 years.
How did that war planning do in those conflicts?
Including two defeats in the last 20 years.
1. The total collapse of our ally S. Vietnam and the reunification of the whole country under a brutal communist regime in N. Vietnam (with massive cultural blowback in the United States home front...beginning of the endless culture wars at home)
2. Failure of the Iraq war. Only some initial goals were ever met (overthrow of the Saddam Baathist regime)...but strategic failure over all.
3. Complete failure of the Afghanistan war. Taliban back in charge...$2.3 trillion wasted...nearly 3,000 dead Americans and possibly 70,000 dead Afghans & Pakistanis.
https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan#:~:text=As%20of%20September%202021%2C%20more,direct%20result%20of%20the%20war.
🚨BREAKING - Putin is negotiating with Taliban on the purchase of US coalition military equipment that was left behind in Afghanistan as a result of the United States' hasty withdrawal in 2021 for use in the war against Ukraine.
— Michael Cirullo (@MikecirulloMike) January 24, 2023
$7.12B in aircraft, vehicles, weapons +
Doc Holliday said:🚨BREAKING - Putin is negotiating with Taliban on the purchase of US coalition military equipment that was left behind in Afghanistan as a result of the United States' hasty withdrawal in 2021 for use in the war against Ukraine.
— Michael Cirullo (@MikecirulloMike) January 24, 2023
$7.12B in aircraft, vehicles, weapons +
Would be strange for Russia to spend money (it barely has) on American made vehicles and weapons it will have to maintain...without the parts and need specs.
https://fee.org/articles/here-s-the-list-of-billions-in-military-equipment-the-us-left-behind-for-the-taliban/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAw8OeBhCeARIsAGxWtUxXGqE1x-mPtFLeZmQJpngu3Hu8umFGh0iCUFDHuYerkCT-KSj9-PoaAph2EALw_wcB
We lost the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan, not the war. We could waltz back in either nation and curb stomp them into submission. But we didn't come as conquerors. That's a big problem with modern warfare built around nation building.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:Oldbear83 said:
Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.OK, let's address that:Quote:Well, that's certainly not true. I read an article a while back, and I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it.Quote:Again right now the only people claiming we are close to a nuclear war are the "journalists." Many of the same ones that made the above two claims.Quote:I would argue that it's somewhat more likely to happen with Russia, given that Russia has nukes.Quote:Except that this is the closest it has been because of "journalists" saying it is close. Nothing from governments or leaders.Quote:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.Quote:Quote:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.Quote:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Quote:
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
Heck in case you forgot just a few short years ago there were "journalists" here who kept thinking Trump was going to start a nuclear war or war with Iran.
And yet it NEVER happened.
" I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations
. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it."
Without the name it's difficult to establish the credibility of your source. I happen to know a former Army officer who worked at the War College who also did scenario evaluations. I recall he was clear that most military simulations have very limited practical value, because A) they are teaching exercises for developing policy and practices not forecasts, and B) those exercises are limited in value to military planning, and apply to very specific conditions and situation. Further, whenever someone says 'there is no known scenario' all he is saying is that outcome was not part of the scope of the exercise.
In English, no one who really works with military exercises makes such broad statements.
Basically Sam, your author was basically LARPing in print because he is scared of nukes and wants to sell that fear as rational rather than the paranoia it more likely is.
By the way, let's not pretend that the Russian nuclear forces are exactly in war-ready condition. We already know that Russian officers have sold off tank fuel and parts from their weapons. What are the odds that they have kept the nuclear weapons, which they never planned to use, in sufficient supply and maintenance, to be used against NATO forces known to have their own nukes in better supply and readiness?
Here's another key factor everyone overlooks = NO ONE ELSE DOES THIS. Not one other nation in the world wargames 24/7-365, with a 3 digit number of people who proudly call themselves nerds spending an entire career doing nothing but gaming in a cubical farm in a geometrically shaped building. We alone have this capability. That is enormously important. It allows us to play a bad hand, a theoretically unwinnable hand very very VERY well, while our adversaries typically make multiple fatal mistakes at multiple levels, from the policy decision, to the strategy, to the tactics, all the way down to having the right tires on the fuel trucks. It's Eisenhower's old dictum to the effect "the plan is nothing; PLANNING is everything."
You act as if we have not lost 3 major foreign military conflicts in just the past 60 years.
How did that war planning do in those conflicts?
Including two defeats in the last 20 years.
1. The total collapse of our ally S. Vietnam and the reunification of the whole country under a brutal communist regime in N. Vietnam (with massive cultural blowback in the United States home front...beginning of the endless culture wars at home)
2. Failure of the Iraq war. Only some initial goals were ever met (overthrow of the Saddam Baathist regime)...but strategic failure over all.
3. Complete failure of the Afghanistan war. Taliban back in charge...$2.3 trillion wasted...nearly 3,000 dead Americans and possibly 70,000 dead Afghans & Pakistanis.
https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan#:~:text=As%20of%20September%202021%2C%20more,direct%20result%20of%20the%20war.
The real lesson on Iraq and Afghanistan is Islamic countries don't really value democracy and freedom, and their societies are not developed to function as such. Need to learn to be satisfied with friendly despots.
ATL Bear said:We lost the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan, not the war. We could waltz back in either nation and curb stomp them into submission. But we didn't come as conquerors. That's a big problem with modern warfare built around nation building.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:Oldbear83 said:
Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.OK, let's address that:Quote:Well, that's certainly not true. I read an article a while back, and I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it.Quote:Again right now the only people claiming we are close to a nuclear war are the "journalists." Many of the same ones that made the above two claims.Quote:I would argue that it's somewhat more likely to happen with Russia, given that Russia has nukes.Quote:Except that this is the closest it has been because of "journalists" saying it is close. Nothing from governments or leaders.Quote:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.Quote:Quote:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.Quote:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Quote:
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
Heck in case you forgot just a few short years ago there were "journalists" here who kept thinking Trump was going to start a nuclear war or war with Iran.
And yet it NEVER happened.
" I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations
. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it."
Without the name it's difficult to establish the credibility of your source. I happen to know a former Army officer who worked at the War College who also did scenario evaluations. I recall he was clear that most military simulations have very limited practical value, because A) they are teaching exercises for developing policy and practices not forecasts, and B) those exercises are limited in value to military planning, and apply to very specific conditions and situation. Further, whenever someone says 'there is no known scenario' all he is saying is that outcome was not part of the scope of the exercise.
In English, no one who really works with military exercises makes such broad statements.
Basically Sam, your author was basically LARPing in print because he is scared of nukes and wants to sell that fear as rational rather than the paranoia it more likely is.
By the way, let's not pretend that the Russian nuclear forces are exactly in war-ready condition. We already know that Russian officers have sold off tank fuel and parts from their weapons. What are the odds that they have kept the nuclear weapons, which they never planned to use, in sufficient supply and maintenance, to be used against NATO forces known to have their own nukes in better supply and readiness?
Here's another key factor everyone overlooks = NO ONE ELSE DOES THIS. Not one other nation in the world wargames 24/7-365, with a 3 digit number of people who proudly call themselves nerds spending an entire career doing nothing but gaming in a cubical farm in a geometrically shaped building. We alone have this capability. That is enormously important. It allows us to play a bad hand, a theoretically unwinnable hand very very VERY well, while our adversaries typically make multiple fatal mistakes at multiple levels, from the policy decision, to the strategy, to the tactics, all the way down to having the right tires on the fuel trucks. It's Eisenhower's old dictum to the effect "the plan is nothing; PLANNING is everything."
You act as if we have not lost 3 major foreign military conflicts in just the past 60 years.
How did that war planning do in those conflicts?
Including two defeats in the last 20 years.
1. The total collapse of our ally S. Vietnam and the reunification of the whole country under a brutal communist regime in N. Vietnam (with massive cultural blowback in the United States home front...beginning of the endless culture wars at home)
2. Failure of the Iraq war. Only some initial goals were ever met (overthrow of the Saddam Baathist regime)...but strategic failure over all.
3. Complete failure of the Afghanistan war. Taliban back in charge...$2.3 trillion wasted...nearly 3,000 dead Americans and possibly 70,000 dead Afghans & Pakistanis.
https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan#:~:text=As%20of%20September%202021%2C%20more,direct%20result%20of%20the%20war.
The real lesson on Iraq and Afghanistan is Islamic countries don't really value democracy and freedom, and their societies are not developed to function as such. Need to learn to be satisfied with friendly despots.
That is the kind of excuse making that the D.C. ruling establishment is happy to see you use.
Its a distinction without a difference.
The United States was forced by long term insurgencies to tuck tail and withdraw from both theatres. Iraq went from a Sunni dominated Baathist dictatorship (with almost no allies in the region)...to a Shiite dominated pseudo-democracy allied and under the influence of the Ayatollahs of Iran. Wonderful...great.
Afghanistan was a complete disaster...the Taliban regime we removed from power won the war and forced us into a humiliating withdraw...they are now firmly back in control of the country.
If you want to be more accurate you could say it was closer to Vietnam..."We won all the battles and lost the War"
Who's making excuses? We actually conquered all nations, unlike ever conquering North Vietnam for example. That's a simple fact. The success of insurgencies in Afghanistan was a direct result of the failure of Afghan desire for our manufactured democracy, and US temperament toward brutal suppression. We should have eliminated the immediate threats, and then let the chaos sort itself out. Instead we had delusions of democracy in the ME only to end up having to let the chaos sort itself out in the end.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:We lost the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan, not the war. We could waltz back in either nation and curb stomp them into submission. But we didn't come as conquerors. That's a big problem with modern warfare built around nation building.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:Oldbear83 said:
Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.OK, let's address that:Quote:Well, that's certainly not true. I read an article a while back, and I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it.Quote:Again right now the only people claiming we are close to a nuclear war are the "journalists." Many of the same ones that made the above two claims.Quote:I would argue that it's somewhat more likely to happen with Russia, given that Russia has nukes.Quote:Except that this is the closest it has been because of "journalists" saying it is close. Nothing from governments or leaders.Quote:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.Quote:Quote:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.Quote:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Quote:
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
Heck in case you forgot just a few short years ago there were "journalists" here who kept thinking Trump was going to start a nuclear war or war with Iran.
And yet it NEVER happened.
" I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations
. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it."
Without the name it's difficult to establish the credibility of your source. I happen to know a former Army officer who worked at the War College who also did scenario evaluations. I recall he was clear that most military simulations have very limited practical value, because A) they are teaching exercises for developing policy and practices not forecasts, and B) those exercises are limited in value to military planning, and apply to very specific conditions and situation. Further, whenever someone says 'there is no known scenario' all he is saying is that outcome was not part of the scope of the exercise.
In English, no one who really works with military exercises makes such broad statements.
Basically Sam, your author was basically LARPing in print because he is scared of nukes and wants to sell that fear as rational rather than the paranoia it more likely is.
By the way, let's not pretend that the Russian nuclear forces are exactly in war-ready condition. We already know that Russian officers have sold off tank fuel and parts from their weapons. What are the odds that they have kept the nuclear weapons, which they never planned to use, in sufficient supply and maintenance, to be used against NATO forces known to have their own nukes in better supply and readiness?
Here's another key factor everyone overlooks = NO ONE ELSE DOES THIS. Not one other nation in the world wargames 24/7-365, with a 3 digit number of people who proudly call themselves nerds spending an entire career doing nothing but gaming in a cubical farm in a geometrically shaped building. We alone have this capability. That is enormously important. It allows us to play a bad hand, a theoretically unwinnable hand very very VERY well, while our adversaries typically make multiple fatal mistakes at multiple levels, from the policy decision, to the strategy, to the tactics, all the way down to having the right tires on the fuel trucks. It's Eisenhower's old dictum to the effect "the plan is nothing; PLANNING is everything."
You act as if we have not lost 3 major foreign military conflicts in just the past 60 years.
How did that war planning do in those conflicts?
Including two defeats in the last 20 years.
1. The total collapse of our ally S. Vietnam and the reunification of the whole country under a brutal communist regime in N. Vietnam (with massive cultural blowback in the United States home front...beginning of the endless culture wars at home)
2. Failure of the Iraq war. Only some initial goals were ever met (overthrow of the Saddam Baathist regime)...but strategic failure over all.
3. Complete failure of the Afghanistan war. Taliban back in charge...$2.3 trillion wasted...nearly 3,000 dead Americans and possibly 70,000 dead Afghans & Pakistanis.
https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan#:~:text=As%20of%20September%202021%2C%20more,direct%20result%20of%20the%20war.
The real lesson on Iraq and Afghanistan is Islamic countries don't really value democracy and freedom, and their societies are not developed to function as such. Need to learn to be satisfied with friendly despots.
That is the kind of excuse making that the D.C. ruling establishment is happy to see you use.
Its a distinction without a difference.
The United States was forced by long term insurgencies to tuck tail and withdraw from both theatres. Iraq went from a Sunni dominated Baathist dictatorship (with almost no allies in the region)...to a Shiite dominated pseudo-democracy allied and under the influence of the Ayatollahs of Iran. Wonderful...great.
Afghanistan was a complete disaster...the Taliban regime we removed from power won the war and forced us into a humiliating withdraw...they are now firmly back in control of the country.
If you want to be more accurate you could say it was closer to Vietnam..."We won all the battles and lost the War"
Same in Iraq, especially since it was a historically suppressed Shia majority. No shock they aligned with Iran. The blunder in Iraq was ever going in. The strongman was contained, and was containing the crazies.
ATL Bear said:Who's making excuses? We actually conquered all nations, unlike ever conquering North Vietnam for example. That's a simple fact. The success of insurgencies in Afghanistan was a direct result of the failure of Afghan desire for our manufactured democracy, and US temperament toward brutal suppression. We should have eliminated the immediate threats, and then let the chaos sort itself out. Instead we had delusions of democracy in the ME only to end up having to let the chaos sort itself out in the end.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:We lost the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan, not the war. We could waltz back in either nation and curb stomp them into submission. But we didn't come as conquerors. That's a big problem with modern warfare built around nation building.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:Oldbear83 said:
Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.OK, let's address that:Quote:Well, that's certainly not true. I read an article a while back, and I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it.Quote:Again right now the only people claiming we are close to a nuclear war are the "journalists." Many of the same ones that made the above two claims.Quote:I would argue that it's somewhat more likely to happen with Russia, given that Russia has nukes.Quote:Except that this is the closest it has been because of "journalists" saying it is close. Nothing from governments or leaders.Quote:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.Quote:Quote:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.Quote:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Quote:
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
Heck in case you forgot just a few short years ago there were "journalists" here who kept thinking Trump was going to start a nuclear war or war with Iran.
And yet it NEVER happened.
" I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations
. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it."
Without the name it's difficult to establish the credibility of your source. I happen to know a former Army officer who worked at the War College who also did scenario evaluations. I recall he was clear that most military simulations have very limited practical value, because A) they are teaching exercises for developing policy and practices not forecasts, and B) those exercises are limited in value to military planning, and apply to very specific conditions and situation. Further, whenever someone says 'there is no known scenario' all he is saying is that outcome was not part of the scope of the exercise.
In English, no one who really works with military exercises makes such broad statements.
Basically Sam, your author was basically LARPing in print because he is scared of nukes and wants to sell that fear as rational rather than the paranoia it more likely is.
By the way, let's not pretend that the Russian nuclear forces are exactly in war-ready condition. We already know that Russian officers have sold off tank fuel and parts from their weapons. What are the odds that they have kept the nuclear weapons, which they never planned to use, in sufficient supply and maintenance, to be used against NATO forces known to have their own nukes in better supply and readiness?
Here's another key factor everyone overlooks = NO ONE ELSE DOES THIS. Not one other nation in the world wargames 24/7-365, with a 3 digit number of people who proudly call themselves nerds spending an entire career doing nothing but gaming in a cubical farm in a geometrically shaped building. We alone have this capability. That is enormously important. It allows us to play a bad hand, a theoretically unwinnable hand very very VERY well, while our adversaries typically make multiple fatal mistakes at multiple levels, from the policy decision, to the strategy, to the tactics, all the way down to having the right tires on the fuel trucks. It's Eisenhower's old dictum to the effect "the plan is nothing; PLANNING is everything."
You act as if we have not lost 3 major foreign military conflicts in just the past 60 years.
How did that war planning do in those conflicts?
Including two defeats in the last 20 years.
1. The total collapse of our ally S. Vietnam and the reunification of the whole country under a brutal communist regime in N. Vietnam (with massive cultural blowback in the United States home front...beginning of the endless culture wars at home)
2. Failure of the Iraq war. Only some initial goals were ever met (overthrow of the Saddam Baathist regime)...but strategic failure over all.
3. Complete failure of the Afghanistan war. Taliban back in charge...$2.3 trillion wasted...nearly 3,000 dead Americans and possibly 70,000 dead Afghans & Pakistanis.
https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan#:~:text=As%20of%20September%202021%2C%20more,direct%20result%20of%20the%20war.
The real lesson on Iraq and Afghanistan is Islamic countries don't really value democracy and freedom, and their societies are not developed to function as such. Need to learn to be satisfied with friendly despots.
That is the kind of excuse making that the D.C. ruling establishment is happy to see you use.
Its a distinction without a difference.
The United States was forced by long term insurgencies to tuck tail and withdraw from both theatres. Iraq went from a Sunni dominated Baathist dictatorship (with almost no allies in the region)...to a Shiite dominated pseudo-democracy allied and under the influence of the Ayatollahs of Iran. Wonderful...great.
Afghanistan was a complete disaster...the Taliban regime we removed from power won the war and forced us into a humiliating withdraw...they are now firmly back in control of the country.
If you want to be more accurate you could say it was closer to Vietnam..."We won all the battles and lost the War"
Same in Iraq, especially since it was a historically suppressed Shia majority. No shock they aligned with Iran. The blunder in Iraq was ever going in. The strongman was contained, and was containing the crazies.
I have no idea why you are trying to so hard make excuses for a our political and military leadership.
Yes yes yes...we could have liquidated every Iraqi and Afghan and resettled the countries if we wanted.
But we didn't...and we wouldn't.
But what we did do was fail completely to achieve the objectives our elite ruling class set out with these wars.
These military adventures end in huge numbers of deaths and trillions of dollars spent.
Read and understand better. Or do I have to take a pot shot at "ruling elites" in order for my criticism to be considered criticism? I literally said the Iraq blunder was "ever going in". We had to militarily act on Afghanistan. We did not have to try to nation build there. The latter is what cost us the most money and lives.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:Who's making excuses? We actually conquered all nations, unlike ever conquering North Vietnam for example. That's a simple fact. The success of insurgencies in Afghanistan was a direct result of the failure of Afghan desire for our manufactured democracy, and US temperament toward brutal suppression. We should have eliminated the immediate threats, and then let the chaos sort itself out. Instead we had delusions of democracy in the ME only to end up having to let the chaos sort itself out in the end.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:We lost the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan, not the war. We could waltz back in either nation and curb stomp them into submission. But we didn't come as conquerors. That's a big problem with modern warfare built around nation building.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:Oldbear83 said:
Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.OK, let's address that:Quote:Well, that's certainly not true. I read an article a while back, and I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it.Quote:Again right now the only people claiming we are close to a nuclear war are the "journalists." Many of the same ones that made the above two claims.Quote:I would argue that it's somewhat more likely to happen with Russia, given that Russia has nukes.Quote:Except that this is the closest it has been because of "journalists" saying it is close. Nothing from governments or leaders.Quote:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.Quote:Quote:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.Quote:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Quote:
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
Heck in case you forgot just a few short years ago there were "journalists" here who kept thinking Trump was going to start a nuclear war or war with Iran.
And yet it NEVER happened.
" I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations
. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it."
Without the name it's difficult to establish the credibility of your source. I happen to know a former Army officer who worked at the War College who also did scenario evaluations. I recall he was clear that most military simulations have very limited practical value, because A) they are teaching exercises for developing policy and practices not forecasts, and B) those exercises are limited in value to military planning, and apply to very specific conditions and situation. Further, whenever someone says 'there is no known scenario' all he is saying is that outcome was not part of the scope of the exercise.
In English, no one who really works with military exercises makes such broad statements.
Basically Sam, your author was basically LARPing in print because he is scared of nukes and wants to sell that fear as rational rather than the paranoia it more likely is.
By the way, let's not pretend that the Russian nuclear forces are exactly in war-ready condition. We already know that Russian officers have sold off tank fuel and parts from their weapons. What are the odds that they have kept the nuclear weapons, which they never planned to use, in sufficient supply and maintenance, to be used against NATO forces known to have their own nukes in better supply and readiness?
Here's another key factor everyone overlooks = NO ONE ELSE DOES THIS. Not one other nation in the world wargames 24/7-365, with a 3 digit number of people who proudly call themselves nerds spending an entire career doing nothing but gaming in a cubical farm in a geometrically shaped building. We alone have this capability. That is enormously important. It allows us to play a bad hand, a theoretically unwinnable hand very very VERY well, while our adversaries typically make multiple fatal mistakes at multiple levels, from the policy decision, to the strategy, to the tactics, all the way down to having the right tires on the fuel trucks. It's Eisenhower's old dictum to the effect "the plan is nothing; PLANNING is everything."
You act as if we have not lost 3 major foreign military conflicts in just the past 60 years.
How did that war planning do in those conflicts?
Including two defeats in the last 20 years.
1. The total collapse of our ally S. Vietnam and the reunification of the whole country under a brutal communist regime in N. Vietnam (with massive cultural blowback in the United States home front...beginning of the endless culture wars at home)
2. Failure of the Iraq war. Only some initial goals were ever met (overthrow of the Saddam Baathist regime)...but strategic failure over all.
3. Complete failure of the Afghanistan war. Taliban back in charge...$2.3 trillion wasted...nearly 3,000 dead Americans and possibly 70,000 dead Afghans & Pakistanis.
https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan#:~:text=As%20of%20September%202021%2C%20more,direct%20result%20of%20the%20war.
The real lesson on Iraq and Afghanistan is Islamic countries don't really value democracy and freedom, and their societies are not developed to function as such. Need to learn to be satisfied with friendly despots.
That is the kind of excuse making that the D.C. ruling establishment is happy to see you use.
Its a distinction without a difference.
The United States was forced by long term insurgencies to tuck tail and withdraw from both theatres. Iraq went from a Sunni dominated Baathist dictatorship (with almost no allies in the region)...to a Shiite dominated pseudo-democracy allied and under the influence of the Ayatollahs of Iran. Wonderful...great.
Afghanistan was a complete disaster...the Taliban regime we removed from power won the war and forced us into a humiliating withdraw...they are now firmly back in control of the country.
If you want to be more accurate you could say it was closer to Vietnam..."We won all the battles and lost the War"
Same in Iraq, especially since it was a historically suppressed Shia majority. No shock they aligned with Iran. The blunder in Iraq was ever going in. The strongman was contained, and was containing the crazies.
I have no idea why you are trying to so hard make excuses for a our political and military leadership.
Yes yes yes...we could have liquidated every Iraqi and Afghan and resettled the countries if we wanted.
But we didn't...and we wouldn't.
But what we did do was fail completely to achieve the objectives our elite ruling class set out with these wars.
These military adventures end in huge numbers of deaths and trillions of dollars spent.
Ugh ... you have seen what Biden's Green New Deal has done for Putin's coffers, no?Redbrickbear said:Doc Holliday said:🚨BREAKING - Putin is negotiating with Taliban on the purchase of US coalition military equipment that was left behind in Afghanistan as a result of the United States' hasty withdrawal in 2021 for use in the war against Ukraine.
— Michael Cirullo (@MikecirulloMike) January 24, 2023
$7.12B in aircraft, vehicles, weapons +
Would be strange for Russia to spend money (it barely has) on American made vehicles and weapons it will have to maintain...without the parts and need specs.
https://fee.org/articles/here-s-the-list-of-billions-in-military-equipment-the-us-left-behind-for-the-taliban/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAw8OeBhCeARIsAGxWtUxXGqE1x-mPtFLeZmQJpngu3Hu8umFGh0iCUFDHuYerkCT-KSj9-PoaAph2EALw_wcB
Thinking about your last point more.Redbrickbear said:Bear8084 said:
"But even if Russia has the numbers, said the US military expert Rob Lee, it does not automatically mean that its units will be effective leadership, ammunition and training are problems right now in the Russian army.
It remains an open question as to how well Russia can integrate the newly mobilised forces as there has not been a comparative war in recent times, said Lee.
"If you mobilise 500,000 guys those problems don't go away, you just kind of have similar issues with just more manpower," said Lee, noting that less well-trained troops were better for defending territory than offensive operations.
To compensate for the heavy combat losses over 10 months of the war, Russia has also recruited tens of thousands of prisoners to fight as part of the private military group Wagner."
Nor do they have the industry to replace and modernize their current tank losses at the moment:🧵New footage suggests the Russian tank industry is struggling to roll out modernized tanks!
— Kontakt6 (@Kontakt642) January 23, 2023
Manufacturers can't keep up with the demand of the war so Russia uses older tech to desperately modernize its tank fleet.
1/6#Ukraine️ #UkraineRussianWar #UkraineRussiaWar #sanctions pic.twitter.com/wW4Zq7Fr1K
None of the inherent problems of the Russian military go away once they call up 300,000 reservists or 500,000 conscripts.
It was an incompetent corruption fueled military before and will continue to be so in the future.
But in the end manpower (even poorly trained man power) changes the ground game.
China proved that against us in the Korea war. Lots of poorly trained peasants and using substandard/crap equipment at the end of the day is still effective on the battle field.
Numbers of soldiers always play a huge role but I think comparing the Korean War to today has many faults.
I think the changes in technology have leveled the playing field when it comes to number of troops on the ground.
Especially if you have air power (which Ukraine really doesn't) but for a country like the US it plays a big role. We can more accurately hit those ground troops with air power and take many out before they get close to our ground troops. Like in the Persian Gulf War. Iraq was the 4th largest army in the world at the time, larger than the US military. But our air power hit them for weeks reducing their number until they could not stand up to our ground troops in the end.
In Ukraine I think this technology difference can come into play with drones, tanks that are harder to destroy than WW2 era tanks, IEDs, etc. that can help even out the difference in number of troops.
They can probably call Iran on how to keep American made equipment working without parts/specs.Redbrickbear said:Doc Holliday said:🚨BREAKING - Putin is negotiating with Taliban on the purchase of US coalition military equipment that was left behind in Afghanistan as a result of the United States' hasty withdrawal in 2021 for use in the war against Ukraine.
— Michael Cirullo (@MikecirulloMike) January 24, 2023
$7.12B in aircraft, vehicles, weapons +
Would be strange for Russia to spend money (it barely has) on American made vehicles and weapons it will have to maintain...without the parts and need specs.
https://fee.org/articles/here-s-the-list-of-billions-in-military-equipment-the-us-left-behind-for-the-taliban/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAw8OeBhCeARIsAGxWtUxXGqE1x-mPtFLeZmQJpngu3Hu8umFGh0iCUFDHuYerkCT-KSj9-PoaAph2EALw_wcB
Or pull out the ingenuity they used during WW2 to reverse engineer the stuff we sent them and then make their own.
It is tough to do but not impossible. The money thing will hurt them the most.
ATL Bear said:Read and understand better. Or do I have to take a pot shot at "ruling elites" in order for my criticism to be considered criticism? I literally said the Iraq blunder was "ever going in". We had to militarily act on Afghanistan. We did not have to try to nation build there. The latter is what cost us the most money and lives.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:Who's making excuses? We actually conquered all nations, unlike ever conquering North Vietnam for example. That's a simple fact. The success of insurgencies in Afghanistan was a direct result of the failure of Afghan desire for our manufactured democracy, and US temperament toward brutal suppression. We should have eliminated the immediate threats, and then let the chaos sort itself out. Instead we had delusions of democracy in the ME only to end up having to let the chaos sort itself out in the end.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:We lost the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan, not the war. We could waltz back in either nation and curb stomp them into submission. But we didn't come as conquerors. That's a big problem with modern warfare built around nation building.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:Oldbear83 said:
Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.OK, let's address that:Quote:Well, that's certainly not true. I read an article a while back, and I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it.Quote:Again right now the only people claiming we are close to a nuclear war are the "journalists." Many of the same ones that made the above two claims.Quote:I would argue that it's somewhat more likely to happen with Russia, given that Russia has nukes.Quote:Except that this is the closest it has been because of "journalists" saying it is close. Nothing from governments or leaders.Quote:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.Quote:Quote:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.Quote:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Quote:
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
Heck in case you forgot just a few short years ago there were "journalists" here who kept thinking Trump was going to start a nuclear war or war with Iran.
And yet it NEVER happened.
" I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations
. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it."
Without the name it's difficult to establish the credibility of your source. I happen to know a former Army officer who worked at the War College who also did scenario evaluations. I recall he was clear that most military simulations have very limited practical value, because A) they are teaching exercises for developing policy and practices not forecasts, and B) those exercises are limited in value to military planning, and apply to very specific conditions and situation. Further, whenever someone says 'there is no known scenario' all he is saying is that outcome was not part of the scope of the exercise.
In English, no one who really works with military exercises makes such broad statements.
Basically Sam, your author was basically LARPing in print because he is scared of nukes and wants to sell that fear as rational rather than the paranoia it more likely is.
By the way, let's not pretend that the Russian nuclear forces are exactly in war-ready condition. We already know that Russian officers have sold off tank fuel and parts from their weapons. What are the odds that they have kept the nuclear weapons, which they never planned to use, in sufficient supply and maintenance, to be used against NATO forces known to have their own nukes in better supply and readiness?
Here's another key factor everyone overlooks = NO ONE ELSE DOES THIS. Not one other nation in the world wargames 24/7-365, with a 3 digit number of people who proudly call themselves nerds spending an entire career doing nothing but gaming in a cubical farm in a geometrically shaped building. We alone have this capability. That is enormously important. It allows us to play a bad hand, a theoretically unwinnable hand very very VERY well, while our adversaries typically make multiple fatal mistakes at multiple levels, from the policy decision, to the strategy, to the tactics, all the way down to having the right tires on the fuel trucks. It's Eisenhower's old dictum to the effect "the plan is nothing; PLANNING is everything."
You act as if we have not lost 3 major foreign military conflicts in just the past 60 years.
How did that war planning do in those conflicts?
Including two defeats in the last 20 years.
1. The total collapse of our ally S. Vietnam and the reunification of the whole country under a brutal communist regime in N. Vietnam (with massive cultural blowback in the United States home front...beginning of the endless culture wars at home)
2. Failure of the Iraq war. Only some initial goals were ever met (overthrow of the Saddam Baathist regime)...but strategic failure over all.
3. Complete failure of the Afghanistan war. Taliban back in charge...$2.3 trillion wasted...nearly 3,000 dead Americans and possibly 70,000 dead Afghans & Pakistanis.
https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan#:~:text=As%20of%20September%202021%2C%20more,direct%20result%20of%20the%20war.
The real lesson on Iraq and Afghanistan is Islamic countries don't really value democracy and freedom, and their societies are not developed to function as such. Need to learn to be satisfied with friendly despots.
That is the kind of excuse making that the D.C. ruling establishment is happy to see you use.
Its a distinction without a difference.
The United States was forced by long term insurgencies to tuck tail and withdraw from both theatres. Iraq went from a Sunni dominated Baathist dictatorship (with almost no allies in the region)...to a Shiite dominated pseudo-democracy allied and under the influence of the Ayatollahs of Iran. Wonderful...great.
Afghanistan was a complete disaster...the Taliban regime we removed from power won the war and forced us into a humiliating withdraw...they are now firmly back in control of the country.
If you want to be more accurate you could say it was closer to Vietnam..."We won all the battles and lost the War"
Same in Iraq, especially since it was a historically suppressed Shia majority. No shock they aligned with Iran. The blunder in Iraq was ever going in. The strongman was contained, and was containing the crazies.
I have no idea why you are trying to so hard make excuses for a our political and military leadership.
Yes yes yes...we could have liquidated every Iraqi and Afghan and resettled the countries if we wanted.
But we didn't...and we wouldn't.
But what we did do was fail completely to achieve the objectives our elite ruling class set out with these wars.
These military adventures end in huge numbers of deaths and trillions of dollars spent.
But that is the whole point...for our leaders we did.
It was part of their ideological worldview.
Our leaders went in explicitly from the beginning with the idea of nation building...of turning Kabul into Austin up in the Hindu Kush and Baghdad into San Francisco on the Tigris.
This fundamental part of the strategy (that was doomed to failure from the beginning) is why these wars should never have been waged.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/laurels-for-sanity-on-ukraine/
"The world is fast approaching the one-year anniversary of Russia'sawful, no-goodinvasion of Ukraine. The tragedy was soon compounded by Western leaders and media warmongers taking a highly simplistic ideological approach to a complex conflict. Sobriety and restraint went out the window, as foreign policy establishments soon forgot the wreckage of Afghanistan and Iraq, and set out on a new proxy warthis time against the country with the world's largest nuclear arsenal and most valuable energy reserves.
Readers of this column, and this magazine, have already been treated to plenty able critiques of this approach. So it is worth taking a different tack now: by handing out laurels to the few dissident voices who, resisting enormous pressure to the contrary, have spoken out for realism and restraint and against mindless escalation over the past year."
"The world is fast approaching the one-year anniversary of Russia'sawful, no-goodinvasion of Ukraine. The tragedy was soon compounded by Western leaders and media warmongers taking a highly simplistic ideological approach to a complex conflict. Sobriety and restraint went out the window, as foreign policy establishments soon forgot the wreckage of Afghanistan and Iraq, and set out on a new proxy warthis time against the country with the world's largest nuclear arsenal and most valuable energy reserves.
Readers of this column, and this magazine, have already been treated to plenty able critiques of this approach. So it is worth taking a different tack now: by handing out laurels to the few dissident voices who, resisting enormous pressure to the contrary, have spoken out for realism and restraint and against mindless escalation over the past year."
Since my comment about wargaming was just above whiterock's, I would observe that no one wargamed what turned out to be the actual conditions.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:Oldbear83 said:
Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.OK, let's address that:Quote:Well, that's certainly not true. I read an article a while back, and I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it.Quote:Again right now the only people claiming we are close to a nuclear war are the "journalists." Many of the same ones that made the above two claims.Quote:I would argue that it's somewhat more likely to happen with Russia, given that Russia has nukes.Quote:Except that this is the closest it has been because of "journalists" saying it is close. Nothing from governments or leaders.Quote:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.Quote:Quote:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.Quote:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Quote:
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
Heck in case you forgot just a few short years ago there were "journalists" here who kept thinking Trump was going to start a nuclear war or war with Iran.
And yet it NEVER happened.
" I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations
. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it."
Without the name it's difficult to establish the credibility of your source. I happen to know a former Army officer who worked at the War College who also did scenario evaluations. I recall he was clear that most military simulations have very limited practical value, because A) they are teaching exercises for developing policy and practices not forecasts, and B) those exercises are limited in value to military planning, and apply to very specific conditions and situation. Further, whenever someone says 'there is no known scenario' all he is saying is that outcome was not part of the scope of the exercise.
In English, no one who really works with military exercises makes such broad statements.
Basically Sam, your author was basically LARPing in print because he is scared of nukes and wants to sell that fear as rational rather than the paranoia it more likely is.
By the way, let's not pretend that the Russian nuclear forces are exactly in war-ready condition. We already know that Russian officers have sold off tank fuel and parts from their weapons. What are the odds that they have kept the nuclear weapons, which they never planned to use, in sufficient supply and maintenance, to be used against NATO forces known to have their own nukes in better supply and readiness?
Here's another key factor everyone overlooks = NO ONE ELSE DOES THIS. Not one other nation in the world wargames 24/7-365, with a 3 digit number of people who proudly call themselves nerds spending an entire career doing nothing but gaming in a cubical farm in a geometrically shaped building. We alone have this capability. That is enormously important. It allows us to play a bad hand, a theoretically unwinnable hand very very VERY well, while our adversaries typically make multiple fatal mistakes at multiple levels, from the policy decision, to the strategy, to the tactics, all the way down to having the right tires on the fuel trucks. It's Eisenhower's old dictum to the effect "the plan is nothing; PLANNING is everything."
You act as if we have not lost 3 major foreign military conflicts in just the past 60 years.
How did that war planning do in those conflicts?
Including two defeats in the last 20 years.
1. The total collapse of our ally S. Vietnam and the reunification of the whole country under a brutal communist regime in N. Vietnam (with massive cultural blowback in the United States home front...beginning of the endless culture wars at home)
2. Failure of the Iraq war. Only some initial goals were ever met (overthrow of the Saddam Baathist regime)...but strategic failure over all.
3. Complete failure of the Afghanistan war. Taliban back in charge...$2.3 trillion wasted...nearly 3,000 dead Americans and possibly 70,000 dead Afghans & Pakistanis.
https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan#:~:text=As%20of%20September%202021%2C%20more,direct%20result%20of%20the%20war.
The problem with wargaming is that it sometimes answers the wrong questions.
To put it another way, some folks are familiar with the fact that both Japan and the United States wargamed possible air raids on Pearl Harbor in the 1920s..
The United States failed to seriously consider that Japan might launch just such an attack.
Japan failed to consider whether such an attack would really have the strategic effect they wanted.
Same thing here. Lots of smart people have worked out how an attack here or there, using this weapon or that. might play out in a battle or time frame. But the wise ones are stopping to consider what happens a few months or years later as a consequence of such military ventures.
Who, for example, has been able to work up how long it will take Ukraine to have a viable distribution system for their grain, gas, and other exports? Who has worked out Ukraine's role in Central Europe in, say, 2040 after all the fighting is done and They try to avoid the fate of, say, Kosovo?
Lots of people are talking. But we're not hearing from the ones who have the future of the region in their hands.
That which does not kill me, will try again and get nastier
All three were political decisions that led to the outcome you a calling a loss. All three, the US could still be there and control the countries, only having to fight sporadic guerilla movements. All three, if the US chose could have been taken over and rebuilt like Japan and Germany. It was a choice not to do so.Redbrickbear said:ATL Bear said:We lost the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan, not the war. We could waltz back in either nation and curb stomp them into submission. But we didn't come as conquerors. That's a big problem with modern warfare built around nation building.Redbrickbear said:whiterock said:Oldbear83 said:
Anyone pushing us toward nuclear war without seriously considering worst case scenarios is insane. And these people are ****ing insane.OK, let's address that:Quote:Well, that's certainly not true. I read an article a while back, and I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it.Quote:Again right now the only people claiming we are close to a nuclear war are the "journalists." Many of the same ones that made the above two claims.Quote:I would argue that it's somewhat more likely to happen with Russia, given that Russia has nukes.Quote:Except that this is the closest it has been because of "journalists" saying it is close. Nothing from governments or leaders.Quote:This is certainly the closest it's been in my lifetime. I wasn't around for the Cuban crisis and can't think of anything else similar.Quote:Quote:These are not the arguments of a person who takes the nuclear threat seriously. Are we really supposed to take comfort in the fact that Europe or the US could be destroyed as an INDIRECT and not a DIRECT result of our actions? Please.Quote:1. There is no guarantee that supplying tanks to Ukraine from Poland, Germany, England, etc. will lead DIRECTLY to nuclear war.Quote:
If you thought the Iraq war was a huge success, just keep trusting them. What could go wrong?
2. Going from giving Ukraine weapons to go on the offensive to retake their own territory to them having the ability to invade Russia and drive to Moscow is a huge jump.
3. Ukraine seems to only want to drive Russia out of it's territory, not to invade Russia (other than to perhaps force Russia out of Ukraine)
4. There is no guarantee that the person that could replace Putin is worse (as this article suggests)
5. These same cries about pushing towards nuclear war were made with other weapons being supplied to Ukraine. (Go back to the start of this thread for some evidence)
6. No one mentioned Iraq.
7. What them are you referring to trust? This article is about English tanks/politicians. Not American
8. Again no one mentioned Iraq so not sure what that has to do with anything here.
So you have no answer to anything I said so you ignore and go on about the nuclear threat.
We lived with a nuclear threat for 50+ years with it at times much, much closer than now.
Sending tanks to Ukraine from any country does NOT increase the risk of nuclear war anymore than sending any of the other weapons did. Just like many claimed earlier in this thread that it would.
We did live for a long time with Ukraine under Russian rule. No one I know seems to have been terribly harmed by it.
Heck in case you forgot just a few short years ago there were "journalists" here who kept thinking Trump was going to start a nuclear war or war with Iran.
And yet it NEVER happened.
" I can't remember the author's name, but he was a former military officer who had experience with computerized war simulations
. In his opinion there is no known scenario in which the US drives Russia out of Ukraine without a nuclear exchange. The concern is real. The fact that some journalists may have overreacted on some other occasion really has nothing to do with it."
Without the name it's difficult to establish the credibility of your source. I happen to know a former Army officer who worked at the War College who also did scenario evaluations. I recall he was clear that most military simulations have very limited practical value, because A) they are teaching exercises for developing policy and practices not forecasts, and B) those exercises are limited in value to military planning, and apply to very specific conditions and situation. Further, whenever someone says 'there is no known scenario' all he is saying is that outcome was not part of the scope of the exercise.
In English, no one who really works with military exercises makes such broad statements.
Basically Sam, your author was basically LARPing in print because he is scared of nukes and wants to sell that fear as rational rather than the paranoia it more likely is.
By the way, let's not pretend that the Russian nuclear forces are exactly in war-ready condition. We already know that Russian officers have sold off tank fuel and parts from their weapons. What are the odds that they have kept the nuclear weapons, which they never planned to use, in sufficient supply and maintenance, to be used against NATO forces known to have their own nukes in better supply and readiness?
Here's another key factor everyone overlooks = NO ONE ELSE DOES THIS. Not one other nation in the world wargames 24/7-365, with a 3 digit number of people who proudly call themselves nerds spending an entire career doing nothing but gaming in a cubical farm in a geometrically shaped building. We alone have this capability. That is enormously important. It allows us to play a bad hand, a theoretically unwinnable hand very very VERY well, while our adversaries typically make multiple fatal mistakes at multiple levels, from the policy decision, to the strategy, to the tactics, all the way down to having the right tires on the fuel trucks. It's Eisenhower's old dictum to the effect "the plan is nothing; PLANNING is everything."
You act as if we have not lost 3 major foreign military conflicts in just the past 60 years.
How did that war planning do in those conflicts?
Including two defeats in the last 20 years.
1. The total collapse of our ally S. Vietnam and the reunification of the whole country under a brutal communist regime in N. Vietnam (with massive cultural blowback in the United States home front...beginning of the endless culture wars at home)
2. Failure of the Iraq war. Only some initial goals were ever met (overthrow of the Saddam Baathist regime)...but strategic failure over all.
3. Complete failure of the Afghanistan war. Taliban back in charge...$2.3 trillion wasted...nearly 3,000 dead Americans and possibly 70,000 dead Afghans & Pakistanis.
https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-09-01/costsofwar
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan#:~:text=As%20of%20September%202021%2C%20more,direct%20result%20of%20the%20war.
The real lesson on Iraq and Afghanistan is Islamic countries don't really value democracy and freedom, and their societies are not developed to function as such. Need to learn to be satisfied with friendly despots.
That is the kind of excuse making that the D.C. ruling establishment is happy to see you use.
Its a distinction without a difference.
The United States was forced by long term insurgencies to tuck tail and withdraw from both theatres. Iraq went from a Sunni dominated Baathist dictatorship (with almost no allies in the region)...to a Shiite dominated pseudo-democracy allied and under the influence of the Ayatollahs of Iran. Wonderful...great.
Afghanistan was a complete disaster...the Taliban regime we removed from power won the war and forced us into a humiliating withdraw...they are now firmly back in control of the country.
If you want to be more accurate you could say it was closer to Vietnam..."We won all the battles and lost the War"
WW2 is the lesson. If you are going to nation build, nation build. Take it over, be prepared to stay 30 to 50 years and rebuild. Otherwise, handle a few military objectives and get out without worrying about what is there after. Can't be a middle ground.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/zelensky-vs-the-ukrainian-orthodox-church/
[The UOC has opposed the invasion and supported the Ukrainian cause. So why is the government calling them Russian agents?]
"On January 2, an Orthodox church in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, was covered in blood. In the morning, a man burst into the church and turned the crucifix over, broke several icons, threw banners on the floor, and finally cut the priest's throat with a razor. A few days earlier, in the city of Chornomorsk, parishioners of an Orthodox church only at the last moment disarmed a man who was about to stab the priest with a knife. In the village of Chechelnyk, a man in camouflage brutally beat a priest right on the street, breaking his nose and shouting curses.
There is a backstory to the above. Stand-up comedians at Kvartal 95, the film studio co-founded by now President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, recently released a video where they obscenely insulted Orthodox priests and publicly wished them death. The video is a news parody in the style of The Daily Show that mocks the church and refers to its clergy as "Russian agents." Many experts see a direct connection between the appeals of the actors and the recent violence..."
"If you think that the United States stood aside while this was unfolding, you are mistaken. The State Department and politicians of both parties carried out work to promote the new church. Two months before the creation of the OCU in 2018, Filaret and Epifaniy met in the United States with Joe Biden, who declared his gratitude for their work. State Department Ambassador for Religious Freedom Samuel Brownback, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and special representative for Ukraine Ambassador Kurt Volker declared their support for this project.
Immediately after its creation, the OCU received its first official congratulations from the State Department and the U.S. Embassy. At the same time, Ambassador Brownback and the U.S. ambassador to Greece, Geoffrey Pyattwho was also ambassador to Ukraine from 2013 to 2016visited church leaders and Mount Athos to urge them to recognize the OCU. Both Ambassador Volker and Secretary Pompeo met with Epifaniy many times. All facts indicate that the promotion of the OCU was part of U.S. policy in Ukraine."
"Zelenskyy's secret police have raided monasteries across Ukraine, and even a convent full of nuns, and arrested dozens of priests for no justifiable reasons whatsoever and in clear violation of the Ukrainian Constitution, which no longer matters. And in the face of this, the Biden's administration has said nothing. Not one word. Instead, they continue to push to send Zelenskyy more tax dollars."
[The UOC has opposed the invasion and supported the Ukrainian cause. So why is the government calling them Russian agents?]
"On January 2, an Orthodox church in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, was covered in blood. In the morning, a man burst into the church and turned the crucifix over, broke several icons, threw banners on the floor, and finally cut the priest's throat with a razor. A few days earlier, in the city of Chornomorsk, parishioners of an Orthodox church only at the last moment disarmed a man who was about to stab the priest with a knife. In the village of Chechelnyk, a man in camouflage brutally beat a priest right on the street, breaking his nose and shouting curses.
There is a backstory to the above. Stand-up comedians at Kvartal 95, the film studio co-founded by now President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, recently released a video where they obscenely insulted Orthodox priests and publicly wished them death. The video is a news parody in the style of The Daily Show that mocks the church and refers to its clergy as "Russian agents." Many experts see a direct connection between the appeals of the actors and the recent violence..."
"If you think that the United States stood aside while this was unfolding, you are mistaken. The State Department and politicians of both parties carried out work to promote the new church. Two months before the creation of the OCU in 2018, Filaret and Epifaniy met in the United States with Joe Biden, who declared his gratitude for their work. State Department Ambassador for Religious Freedom Samuel Brownback, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and special representative for Ukraine Ambassador Kurt Volker declared their support for this project.
Immediately after its creation, the OCU received its first official congratulations from the State Department and the U.S. Embassy. At the same time, Ambassador Brownback and the U.S. ambassador to Greece, Geoffrey Pyattwho was also ambassador to Ukraine from 2013 to 2016visited church leaders and Mount Athos to urge them to recognize the OCU. Both Ambassador Volker and Secretary Pompeo met with Epifaniy many times. All facts indicate that the promotion of the OCU was part of U.S. policy in Ukraine."
"Zelenskyy's secret police have raided monasteries across Ukraine, and even a convent full of nuns, and arrested dozens of priests for no justifiable reasons whatsoever and in clear violation of the Ukrainian Constitution, which no longer matters. And in the face of this, the Biden's administration has said nothing. Not one word. Instead, they continue to push to send Zelenskyy more tax dollars."