Redbrickbear said:
whiterock said:
ATL Bear said:
Sam Lowry said:
whiterock said:
Sam Lowry said:
whiterock said:
Sam Lowry said:
trey3216 said:
RMF5630 said:
trey3216 said:
Redbrickbear said:
whiterock said:
Russia is a spent force.
Spent? Unlikely
Incompetent and corrupt...oh yea.
Russia as 144 million people and is the largest land mass country on earth. And has almost as much farmland as the USA and as much (if not the most) natural resources as any nation on earth.
[Russia's natural resources reserves are worth $75 trillion by Statista's estimate. This amount incorporates, among other things, coal, oil, natural gas, gold, timber, and rare earth metals.
Russia holds the world's largest proved natural gas reserves at 1.32 quadrillion cubic feet, accounting for nearly 20% of the global total as of 2020.4 Russia also has the second largest gold reserves at 6,800 tons, or more than 12% of global total as of 2021]
A competent Russian State could easily field a well trained army of 5 million men and supply them with food, fuel, and modern (though not USA caliber) weapons in perpetuity.
Yet they don't, and they won't.
Unless Ukraine is stupid enough to attack Russia proper. Nazis learned that lesson the hard way. Getting longer range missles would be the beginning of the end.
They keep it a regional squabble, Ukraine stands a chance. They need to keep it off main threat radar or Russia gets serious
The Nazis only learned because we fed the USSR ammo and vehicles. Russia is as aggy as aggy. They think they're some big world power, (they only have force because of nuclear weapons, which judging the state of their current weaponry I highly doubt more than 25% of their nuclear arsenal is operable) but they never won anything without help. Ever. They beat themselves. They drove back the Nazis when we were supplying them with necessary weaponry to succeed,
Ukraine should be able to attack any military instillation or transit from such within the immediate areas of Russia. I think they know better than to attack civilians, because all they care about is making Russia quit. I'd let them bomb the hell out of any arms depot, fuel depot, train line, anything on Russia's territory to make it difficult or impossible for Russia to continue to wage war, save attacking civilians.
You make Donald Trump look sane.
The truth is uncomfortable for you, isn't it.
Russia has a few periods scattered out thru a few centuries of modest, incremental expeditionary success against the fading Ottoman Empire, but has never had a period where it has dominated Europe in the way other notable military powers have done. In any war fought, Russia was always among if not the most backward and unreliable of allies. Russia can be a good ally to have, because the Russian steppes are barren wastelands which soak up invading armies like a sponge, in concert with winter conditions that time and time again have done what Russian armies typically cannot - win wars. But Russian military prowess? Always a joke. The only real surprise of this war is how, despite the steady advance of modernity, we see the Russian military continues to shock us most for what it cannot do rather than what it can.
Ukraine will not be stupid enough to mount an armored assault on the Russian heartland, with all the logistical and escalatory issues such would raise. They would be well advised, however, to hit key transportation nodes in Russia near the war zone. They've already hit the Kerch Bridge and will likely hit it again this year. Russia won't be able to to eff-all about it either. There's already been a bit of that going back & forth sporadically elsewhere.....a helicopter assault on a fuel terminal early in the war, etc..... No big deal.
Anything within range of Ukrainian artillery is fair game. Russia is not going to nuke anyone for that, and they can't even get bullets to the front lines in Bakhmut, so it's not like they can mount another armored column or three to open a new front to punish anyone.
I'm uncomfortable seeing the same lies recycled and resold decade after decade. Europeans seem to be waking up to the costs of American fanaticism, even if we Americans have not. The main result will be a diminished role for the outdated relic that is NATO and growing interest in other, more relevant alliances.
I think you have a typo there, Sam. The fanaticism causing the current problem is Russian Nationalism.
Russian nationalism is like a Russian STD. It's only a real problem if you screw with the Russians. The current situation has everything to do with us being up in somebody else's business.
Or if they decide to rape you. They had their covetous eye on an ex girlfriend who was interested in other guys. Shame on you for blaming the flirting and not the raping.
Sam blithely states as a law of nature the same fatal error that Mearsheimer and other prominent Great Power analysts have made in this crisis: Russia gets to decide what is their sphere of interest and everyone else must conform to their domination of it or be responsible for the resulting carnage.
Remember when the USA declared the whole freaking New World it's own special sphere of influence…and threaten war with any European power that disagreed.
Talk about making everyone else conform.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine
You can't really think that Russia is being unreasonable in considering countries that border it to be within its sphere of influence?
Firstly, when you declare a sphere of influence, you have to be able to defend it. The reality of whether you can or cannot do so is not immaterial. We can. Russia can't. LA certainly has a strong strain of resentment toward America, but facts are facts: America does not invade and annex entire countries in Latin America as a business model. Russia cannot say the same thing. In fact, Russia is reaping the fruit of long sown seeds of ill will. NOBODY wants to be in the Russian sphere of influence.
Secondly, every single nation has its own sphere of influence. They have to be able to defend it. No Latin American nation can (against America, anyway...). Fortunately, American policy has made such unnecessary. No Latin American nation needs to contest us.....there is nothing about their presence within an American sphere of influence which materially limits their sovereignty, liberty, or wealth. In fact, their presence in the American sphere of influence has been clearly net-positive. When we flip the analysis to Russia, we again see a nearly seamlessly inverse analog -- not one nation in Europe can say that Russian spheres of influence are a benefit to their sovereignty, liberty, wealth. Quite the opposite. Every single one of them that are not under the thumb of a dictatorship want to escape the Russian orbit. Because the Russian orbit is exploitative.
But to get squarely on point - Ukraine is no Costa Rica. It's the largest piece of geography in Europe, almost 50m people with their own unique history, much of it separate from Russia. They have the same right any peoples have to chart their own destiny to the extent they are able. Supporting their right to do so is a policy choice for everyone else in the region. And, remarkably, everyone else in the region save one (Belarus) has chosen to do so, because it is in their collective interest to do so. The ONLY winner should we follow your proposed policy course is Russia. Terrible policy, that. Sucking Russian blini just to make Putin happy.
Russia is not unreasonable to consider Ukraine to be within its sphere of influence.
Russia is entirely unreasonable under any meaningful understanding of modernity to consider Ukraine as nothing more than a province of Russia.
If Russia is going to do business in old ways, it can expect pushback. It can expect that pushback to have strategic, long-term consequences.
Russia could have waited for a couple of decades for a pro-Russian (or anti-EU) govt to come to power, and forge new relationships. But Russia decided to just take what it wanted. Russia is going to get a good long rogering for that, and so should America should it decide that we need a 51st state called Mexico. But not only to we not do such things, we don't even think that way.
