How should west respond to potential (likely) Russian invasion of Ukraine?

[Jayjay]

Compare that to the situation last winter when Ukraine was trying to defend Bakhmut. Russia was trying a pincer movement from north and south, and had basically cut off everything but unpaved dirt roads, and Ukraine was still able to supply their troops in the city.

Are you leaving in a cave with TV stuck on CNN channel?
Ukro-idiots were not able to supply their troops in the city. Russians let them do it. That was the whole damn plan.
Your ignorance is mind-boggling.

Yeah right. Instead of taking the city as quickly as possibly, the "plan" was to waste tens of thousands of fighters and several months, and burn through Wagner to the point that they mutiny and march to Moscow.

If that was the "plan" I wish Russia all the best in their future "plans".

 

[bilby]

Holly crap. You are still thinking that you are winning.

Talking to yourself is the first sign...

 

[barbos]

Compare that to the situation last winter when Ukraine was trying to defend Bakhmut. Russia was trying a pincer movement from north and south, and had basically cut off everything but unpaved dirt roads, and Ukraine was still able to supply their troops in the city.

Are you leaving in a cave with TV stuck on CNN channel?
Ukro-idiots were not able to supply their troops in the city. Russians let them do it. That was the whole damn plan.
Your ignorance is mind-boggling.

Yeah right. Instead of taking the city as quickly as possibly, the "plan" was to waste tens of thousands of fighters and several months, and burn through Wagner to the point that they mutiny and march to Moscow.

If that was the "plan" I wish Russia all the best in their future "plans".

Yep, that was the plan. You can call it stupid (it is not) all you want, but that was the plan.
The fact that you are still unaware of that shows how deluded and misinformed you are.

 

[barbos]

Holly crap. You are still thinking that you are winning.

Talking to yourself is the first sign...

You are certainly talking to yourself here.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Popov said the military leadership was angered by his frank talk about challenges faced by his forces, particularly the shortage of radars tracking enemy artillery, which resulted in massive Russian casualties.

It's not a coincidence that Russia is having a "shortage" of radars; there have been quite a few videos of Ukraine destroying these radars floating around the internet. Clearly Ukraine has started to learn how to deal with Russia's artillery advantage, though it took a while.

In any smart military, Popov would be given a promotion or at least involved in fixing the problems. But in putinist Russia, he gets sacked and replaced with some yes-man. Good - for Ukraine.

In a professional well run military a leader never badmouths another leader in front of subordinates even at the NCO level. That a general feels it is necessary to speak in such a way of the command publicly lets the brainwashed masses in Russia know what the western world knows. Russia treats its sons like garbage. They have no more value to the command than a land mine or concrete tank obstacle.
Just perform a bit of theater, a day of remembrance afterwards calling them heroes. Done.

In a professional well run military the need to do this would never occur in the first place. Ideally a problem can be taken up the chain of command quietly and if it has validity, it is taken care of, if not, explained. The military have many problems. I've seen a few. But rule one is always take care of your people and their families. Treat them like heroes while they are alive.

 

[Jayjay]

They can manufacture more missiles so they will never actually run out, even if the stockpiles might already be mostly gone. And Shahed drones are dirt cheap, they'll never have shortage of those. Recently it seems Russia has been using Shaheds more than Kalibr or other missile types, which might mean they're saving the missiles for a bigger strike in the near future.

All their advanced weapons require a lot of imported parts. Those supplies are now seriously limited.

Sanctions can be circumvented. What they can't source to China, they can probably smuggle through third countries. Sure, it limits the production somewhat, but doesn't block it completely.

This guy from Ukraine's ministry of internal affairs made a tweet about it just today:



Chip imports are down only by 14%, and production of some types of missiles is ramping up. What this means for Ukraine is that missile barrages on Kyiv and other cities will continue, mostly against civilians. Russia might also reserve missiles for a larger attack and try to take down Patriot systems again by overwhelming the defenses.

 

[Copernicus]

Compare that to the situation last winter when Ukraine was trying to defend Bakhmut. Russia was trying a pincer movement from north and south, and had basically cut off everything but unpaved dirt roads, and Ukraine was still able to supply their troops in the city.

Are you leaving in a cave with TV stuck on CNN channel?
Ukro-idiots were not able to supply their troops in the city. Russians let them do it. That was the whole damn plan.
Your ignorance is mind-boggling.

Yeah right. Instead of taking the city as quickly as possibly, the "plan" was to waste tens of thousands of fighters and several months, and burn through Wagner to the point that they mutiny and march to Moscow.

If that was the "plan" I wish Russia all the best in their future "plans".

Yep, that was the plan. You can call it stupid (it is not) all you want, but that was the plan.
The fact that you are still unaware of that shows how deluded and misinformed you are.

In Russia, none dare call "the plan" stupid. It was a brilliant plan and succeeded brilliantly, as any competent Russian military strategist still alive and not in jail or a mental hospital would tell you. So it is good to see that barbos is still with us and able to post in Western social media. He's not bragging, but this would have been his plan, if he were in charge. In fact, maybe he is in charge. Putin needs good planners to help him beat NATO, Elensky, and the ukro-nazis.

 

[pood]

Bullshit. Why should Russian aggression be rewarded at all? They agreed to respect Ukrianian boundaries decades ago. Russia can end this war easily. Turn around and go home - even Crimea.

Agreession is all yours and it should not be rewarded. Therefore Ukraine becomes Russia again. NATO goes back to 1991 state.
Scratch that, NATO should be disbanded and their leadership for the last 25 years tried and executed.

You really are in la-la land, Baghdad Barbos. I guess you didn’t notice that NATO just added Sweden and Finland to its ever-expanding roster? Ukraine will be next, and there isn’t a thing your shitty country with its shitty people can do about it.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Bullshit. Why should Russian aggression be rewarded at all? They agreed to respect Ukrianian boundaries decades ago. Russia can end this war easily. Turn around and go home - even Crimea.

Agreession is all yours and it should not be rewarded. Therefore Ukraine becomes Russia again. NATO goes back to 1991 state.
Scratch that, NATO should be disbanded and their leadership for the last 25 years tried and executed.

You really are in la-la land, Baghdad Barbos. I guess you didn’t notice that NATO just added Sweden and Finland to its ever-expanding roster? Ukraine will be next, and there isn’t a thing your shitty country with its shitty people can do about it.

The fact is that barbos and his countrymen have never enjoyed the kind of multigenerational freedom that we here in the democratic west almost take for granted. As such he has no idea of what it is like to live in a country where its citizens enjoy actual freedom. This makes his behavior understandable. NATO and the freedom it represents is definitely an existential threat to the gangsters that presently control the Russian population. That control will not last forever so the criminals have every right to be afraid.

 

[Elixir]

NATO and the freedom it represents is definitely an existential threat to the gangsters that presently control the Russian population. That control will not last forever so the criminals have every right to be afraid.

Globally I believe the kleptocrats are at a disadvantage in that they have a hard time coordinating their efforts due to their overweening greed.
Could you ever imagine Kim, Putler, Duterte, Xi, Maduro, Trump et al agreeing upon some coordinated action, the kind of which NATO is capable?

 

[Copernicus]

I would be wary of using Barbos as some kind of spokesperson for Russians generally or of making broad generalizations about the mindset of Russians because of their past history. I've known Russia to be a very diverse country with a robust liberal intelligentsia. The US has its own checkered past, and Barbos loves to use it as an excuse to justify cruel, selfish, and inhumane behavior by his own country. I sometimes think that Russians have a better idea of what democracy is all about than Americans precisely because they lack our traditions to help protect them from tyranny. They certainly get a lot more exposure to them through news and entertainment media than we do of their history, culture, and traditions.

 

[Elixir]

they lack our traditions to help protect them from tyranny. They certainly get a lot more exposure to them through news and entertainment media than we do of their history, culture, and traditions.

Seems like they were front of mind in America in the 50s through early 60s. (I wasn’t around before that, but my father was friends with Russian anti-Stalin activists)
Then they kinda fell off the radar a little, especially after The Wall fell. Now suddenly they’re back in the limelight, and seeming to love it regardless of the human cost. And Trump wants to help them build The Wall again. Oh wait, that’s messed up.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Could you ever imagine Kim, Putler, Duterte, Xi, Maduro, Trump et al agreeing upon some coordinated action, the kind of which NATO is capable?

Could never happen. Lord of the Flies comes to mind.

I sometimes think that Russians have a better idea of what democracy is all about than Americans precisely because they lack our traditions to help protect them from tyranny.

You could be right but I can't imagine how that would even be possible in a population that has never experienced such things. It's one thing to hear about it in another country but another thing entirely to have lived it, lived through it with your parents and grandparents, raise your children in it and their children. I just don't think it's possible to have an understanding and an appreciation for something you have never personally experienced and presently do not possess.

 

[pood]

‘Economical’ Russian War in Ukraine Wows Strategists

Analysts Praise Putin’s Plan to Achieve Victory by Losing Tens of Thousands of Troops in Bloody, Protracted Conflict


IIDB (Internet Loony-Tunes News Service) — The Russian conquest of Ukraine is going according to plan, an informed source revealed on Friday, with victory assured along with the crackup of NATO and its leaders tried and executed.

“Russia has ability to run over Ukraine, it's just not economical,” Barbos, a rando on the internet, disclosed in a post at the Internet Infidels Discussion Board. “It makes more sense to simply wait for it to collapse.”

Nearly 50,000 Russian soldiers have died in the war, according to a recent statistical analysis conducted by two independent Russian media outlets working with a data scientist from a German university. In addition, Russian forces tried and failed to conquer Kyiv at the outset of the war, have lost vast amounts of matériel, and have been steadily driven back from lands they occupied in eastern Ukraine. The nation has also become an international pariah, with its economy staggering under the weight of devastating sanctions, and it recently experienced an abortive mutiny.

This is what victory for Russia looks like, Barbos said.

“Ukraine becomes Russia again.” he ranted and raved. “NATO goes back to 1991 state. Scratch that, NATO should be disbanded and their leadership for the last 25 years tried and executed.”

Barbos cited last winter’s Russian near encirclement of Bakhmut as an example of the brilliance of its war strategy. Although Russian forces had practically cut off the city from Ukrainian forces, the latter were still able to resupply its troops in the enclave, and use those arms to kill lots of Russians.

“Russians let them do it,” Barbos posted. “That was the whole damn plan.”

“By golly, that’s really something,” Mark Miley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said in response to the posts by Barbos. “I guess President Putin is a genius or something. In retrospect, it would have been much more economical to pursue a similar strategy in World War II, by letting the Germans push us back from Normandy and into the English Channel on D-Day, entailing massive allied casualties. Then we could have just waited for them to collapse while saving a lot of money by not liberating western Europe. I wish we had thought of that.”

 

[Copernicus]

they lack our traditions to help protect them from tyranny. They certainly get a lot more exposure to them through news and entertainment media than we do of their history, culture, and traditions.

Seems like they were front of mind in America in the 50s through early 60s. (I wasn’t around before that, but my father was friends with Russian anti-Stalin activists)
Then they kinda fell off the radar a little, especially after The Wall fell. Now suddenly they’re back in the limelight, and seeming to love it regardless of the human cost. And Trump wants to help them build The Wall again. Oh wait, that’s messed up.

I remember the Soviet Union well from that time, as I visited for five weeks in the summer of 1965 on a university Russian language study tour. The Beatles were extremely popular with young people, although doing the twist was frowned on by puritanical Communists. Pat Boone was a particularly popular singer, and I remember strolling in a park in Leningrad and hearing them play his songs over the loudspeakers.

Could you ever imagine Kim, Putler, Duterte, Xi, Maduro, Trump et al agreeing upon some coordinated action, the kind of which NATO is capable?

Could never happen. Lord of the Flies comes to mind.

I sometimes think that Russians have a better idea of what democracy is all about than Americans precisely because they lack our traditions to help protect them from tyranny.

You could be right but I can't imagine how that would even be possible in a population that has never experienced such things. It's one thing to hear about it in another country but another thing entirely to have lived it, lived through it with your parents and grandparents, raise your children in it and their children. I just don't think it's possible to have an understanding and an appreciation for something you have never personally experienced and presently do not possess.

That's also true of the satellite countries, but they seem to have flourished after the fall of the Soviet Union, pretty much all of them now members of NATO. Russia never quite got over the loss of its Soviet empire, but they went through a very rough patch in the 1990s. I visited in 1997 for a few weeks and saw some scenes of serious poverty, including people begging on the streets. The Humanities building at Moscow University was running a perpetual flea market on the ground level. Putin repaired and stabilized their economy in the early 2000s, and that is primarily what made him popular. They did experience about 15 years of relatively strong democracy, but that all faded as Putin began assuming more and more power.

Among my friends at the time of my visit, one faculty member at Moscow University complained bitterly about the economy, but she said that her greatest fear was that the same people who ran the Soviet Union would come back into power. It took a while, but that's who is in charge now. It was clear to me, judging by all the demonstrations and state actions to suppress the democracy movement, that a great many Russians, especially the young and educated, had a very strong yearning for democracy. The fact is that even Belarus and Ukraine had strong pro-democracy movements. The Ukrainians succeeded in moving in that direction with the Maidan Revolution, but Belarus was not able to overcome Lukashenko. Belarusians and Ukrainians are really not much different from Russians. They just had different circumstances, including a resistance to attempts by their neighbor to reestablish Russian hegemony.

 

[lpetrich]

 Sweden–NATO relations

The United States informally held up a Turkish purchase of F-16 fighter jets because of the Swedish NATO membership issue. Analysts said that aid and financing required to respond to the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake increased the importance of good relations with Western countries. They noted agreement would be easier after a Swedish anti-terrorism law took effect on 1 June, and after Turkish elections in May.[102]

On 10 July 2023, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg declared that Turkish president Erdogan had agreed to support Sweden's accession into NATO, who confirmed so two days later. However, he said it would be passed in October due to a parliamentary recess.[103] Once word was received that Turkey would be supporting Sweden, Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, stated that Hungary would no longer block entry to Sweden and would support their membership.[104]

About Sweden's NATO membership, it seems like it's going ahead.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

That's also true of the satellite countries, but they seem to have flourished after the fall of the Soviet Union, pretty much all of them now members of NATO. Russia never quite got over the loss of its Soviet empire, but they went through a very rough patch in the 1990s. I visited in 1997 for a few weeks and saw some scenes of serious poverty, including people begging on the streets. The Humanities building at Moscow University was running a perpetual flea market on the ground level. Putin repaired and stabilized their economy in the early 2000s, and that is primarily what made him popular. They did experience about 15 years of relatively strong democracy, but that all faded as Putin began assuming more and more power.

Among my friends at the time of my visit, one faculty member at Moscow University complained bitterly about the economy, but she said that her greatest fear was that the same people who ran the Soviet Union would come back into power. It took a while, but that's who is in charge now. It was clear to me, judging by all the demonstrations and state actions to suppress the democracy movement, that a great many Russians, especially the young and educated, had a very strong yearning for democracy. The fact is that even Belarus and Ukraine had strong pro-democracy movements. The Ukrainians succeeded in moving in that direction with the Maidan Revolution, but Belarus was not able to overcome Lukashenko. Belarusians and Ukrainians are really not much different from Russians. They just had different circumstances, including a resistance to attempts by their neighbor to reestablish Russian hegemony.

What do Russians learn about Russian history? What can they identify in their history that equates with freedom? Anything? They've never been free. It's understandable their problem because unlike those satellite nations they've always been their own worst enemy. Unlike those satellite states Russia has never had a bogeyman worse than themselves. There have been revolutions, new dictators, but essentially on the civic society front nothing has changed in Russia for centuries. It's always been a brutal authoritarian state with a dictator in power that crushes dissent. This is their identity. Will it ever change? I think it will, slowly.

 

[SLD]

Holly crap. You are still thinking that you are winning.

Barbos, you’re alive! We thought you’d been sent to Ukraine! Putin hasn’t drafted your ass, yet? Time to ante up and chip in! Or were you just used to protect Putie’s little butt from Prig's revolt?

But please, tell us how you’re going to take Kiev in a few days. It’s been a year and a half almost and are you anywhere close to getting anywhere? If these Ukrainians are so fucked up as you keep arguing, how come you can’t beat them?

what did you think of General Popov’s comments about being stabbed in the back by Russian leadership? Do you really think your military is capable of some kind of serious offensive action, if he is even half right?

also where is Gen. Sergei Surovikin? He’s been missing for weeks now. What’s going on with your senior leaders and do you think the men will continue to follow these fools into battle?

 

[Copernicus]

That's also true of the satellite countries, but they seem to have flourished after the fall of the Soviet Union, pretty much all of them now members of NATO. Russia never quite got over the loss of its Soviet empire, but they went through a very rough patch in the 1990s. I visited in 1997 for a few weeks and saw some scenes of serious poverty, including people begging on the streets. The Humanities building at Moscow University was running a perpetual flea market on the ground level. Putin repaired and stabilized their economy in the early 2000s, and that is primarily what made him popular. They did experience about 15 years of relatively strong democracy, but that all faded as Putin began assuming more and more power.

Among my friends at the time of my visit, one faculty member at Moscow University complained bitterly about the economy, but she said that her greatest fear was that the same people who ran the Soviet Union would come back into power. It took a while, but that's who is in charge now. It was clear to me, judging by all the demonstrations and state actions to suppress the democracy movement, that a great many Russians, especially the young and educated, had a very strong yearning for democracy. The fact is that even Belarus and Ukraine had strong pro-democracy movements. The Ukrainians succeeded in moving in that direction with the Maidan Revolution, but Belarus was not able to overcome Lukashenko. Belarusians and Ukrainians are really not much different from Russians. They just had different circumstances, including a resistance to attempts by their neighbor to reestablish Russian hegemony.

What do Russians learn about Russian history? What can they identify in their history that equates with freedom? Anything? They've never been free. It's understandable their problem because unlike those satellite nations they've always been their own worst enemy. Unlike those satellite states Russia has never had a bogeyman worse than themselves. There have been revolutions, new dictators, but essentially on the civic society front nothing has changed in Russia for centuries. It's always been a brutal authoritarian state with a dictator in power that crushes dissent. This is their identity. Will it ever change? I think it will, slowly.

Russians are getting a better picture of their history than they had in Soviet times, when the Party simply rewrote textbooks to edit out what they didn't want taught in the schools. That said, the US isn't really all that much better, especially given all of the effort to rewrite history in large states like Florida and Texas. But K12 students in the US have always been taught a bowdlerized history. In fact, most countries do that. Russians are not really as ignorant or uneducated as many American youth end up being after high school graduation. As in the US, history was taught more realistically in the universities, where students would engage in lively debates.

What I would say about your vague term "free" is that there are many kinds of freedom. If you think Russians never had a bogeyman, then you understand nothing about their history, which involved many of them that were foreigners, not Russians per se. Moscow was overrun and occupied by foreign troops more than once, and Hitler was certainly a bogeyman for Russian soldiers in every sense of the word, since the Nazis considered Slavs "Untermenschen" and brutally starved them to death in prisoner camps. In Soviet times, there were several periods of liberalization, especially under Gorbachev. The problem with Gorbachev is that he really believed that the captive nations would choose to remain a part of the Soviet Union, if they were given a chance to choose. He thought he could hold the nation together during glasnost' without using troops to suppress dissent. Boy, was he wrong.

Generally speaking, though, I would say that you don't really know what life was like in the Soviet Union and how ordinary citizens reacted to authority. When our group visited in 1965, we were stunned to learn that there was very little fear of, and respect for, the police. People were always ignoring the laws quite openly, because they were always testing to discover how far they could get without crossing the line. When I returned in 1997 to deliver a paper at a conference, I was surprised and somewhat amused, to see people driving their cars up on the sidewalk to get around traffic jams. It reminded me of Soviet times, except that very few people had enough cars to cause traffic jams. Further down the road, they were being stopped by police and ticketed. I was further surprised to see that they were stopping when flagged down and not just ignoring the cops. That was very different from Soviet times, where people would often argue loudly with ordinary police, who usually did not visibly wear weapons. I can say truthfully that life on the street in the 1960s was not at all like we imagined it would be under a dictatorship.

 

[Toni]

Perhaps it has changed but it used to be the case that school books for K-12 were almost exclusively published in Texas--so there's reason to be extra worried.