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

[Elixir]

And then there was Hong Kong, and all the broken promises that went with its reversion to Chinese control…

 

[Harry Bosch]

It is!!

...in the same way that the US is part of Great Britain.

Yea. That is a pretty good analogy. China annexed Taiwan in 1683. Ruled it for about 130 years as a colonial power. Then then ceded it to Japan in 1895. Japan ruled it until about 1945. They lost it in 1945 but never renounced their sovereignty over the island. How long did GB rule over the Americas? Actually, if we're going to go back to colonial rules theory, GB should get America back for sure.

 

[TomC]

It is!!

...in the same way that the US is part of Great Britain.

Yea. That is a pretty good analogy. China annexed Taiwan in 1683. Ruled it for about 130 years as a colonial power. Then then ceded it to Japan in 1895. Japan ruled it until about 1945. They lost it in 1945 but never renounced their sovereignty over the island. How long did GB rule over the Americas? Actually, if we're going to go back to colonial rules theory, GB should get America back for sure.

Also, the USA should give Texas back to the Empire of Mexico. Russia should buy back Alaska and return it to the indigenous people that they stole it from. Make France pay reparations to the indigenous peoples of the "Louisiana Purchase". In US$, 21st century edition.

The list of historical wrongs, by modern standards, is huge. Let it go and get on with the modern situation.
Tom

 

[Elixir]

Let it go and get on with the modern situation.

Said every imperial society, ever.

 

[TomC]

Let it go and get on with the modern situation.

Said every imperial society, ever.

Societies don't say anything.

Important folks in those societies do, but societies don't.
Victors Write the History.

Did you read the rest of my post?
Tom

 

[Elixir]

Societies don't say anything.

Sub "imperialist" - and I'm not calling you one.
Your point is well taken, that there is a limit to possible redress, since the volume of past "wrongs" is insurmountable by current means. Whether that constraint prevents a SPECIFIC form of redress is a question for popular vote, I suppose.

 

[TomC]

Societies don't say anything.

Sub "imperialist" - and I'm not calling you one.

I read your entire post.
Tom

 

[Copernicus]

EXACTLY!!! What the fuck else do we even need an air and armored force for? If Russia is defeated, we don’t need to spend but a fraction of the defense budget. The point of our military is to turn Russia into a parking lot. Let Ukraine do it! Give them everything we have in our arsenal. It should be 100’s of billions.

China.

Take care of Russian aggression and I don't think China will be dumb enough to invade Taiwan.

China is expansionist, just more rational about it.

China is not expansionist. They’ve never been an imperial power. They want Taiwan is all. That’s part of China.

But they have been expansionist under Communist rule. China annexed Inner Mongolia in 1947, Manchuria in 1949, and Tibet in 1951. China has also had border wars with India and other neighbors over territorial disputes. Its aggressive posture towards Taiwan is expansionist, since the PRC have never ruled it in the past.

 

[Elixir]

EXACTLY!!! What the fuck else do we even need an air and armored force for? If Russia is defeated, we don’t need to spend but a fraction of the defense budget. The point of our military is to turn Russia into a parking lot. Let Ukraine do it! Give them everything we have in our arsenal. It should be 100’s of billions.

China.

Take care of Russian aggression and I don't think China will be dumb enough to invade Taiwan.

China is expansionist, just more rational about it.

China is not expansionist. They’ve never been an imperial power. They want Taiwan is all. That’s part of China.

But they have been expansionist under Communist rule. China annexed Inner Mongolia in 1947, Manchuria in 1949, and Tibet in 1951. China has also had border wars with India and other neighbors over territorial disputes. Its aggressive posture towards Taiwan is expansionist, since the PRC have never ruled it in the past.

I think we should call on @barbos to arbitrate this dispute. He seems to be an expert on exactly how far back one can use an actual or invented past to rationalize current expansions without being "expansionist".

 

[Jayjay]

Although BBC probably faked nothing

Oh, they did, they totally did.

Because you get your information from bullshitters and propaganda outlets,

I got it from BBC. I looked at their video report and understood immediately that it was staged, 100%.
Moreover, BBC tacitly admitted it was staged.

You also thought the Kharkiv video was fake. And that Bucha massacre never happened. Among other things. Your ability to distinguish fakes from reality is deeply flawed.

BBC apologized for inaccuracies in its report, but I'm not sure if it ever admitted to the hospital footage being staged. In any case, even if that part was fake, there's no doubt that a chemical attack did happen. OPCW concluded that it did, and that Assad was responsible. So BBC was still right, and the fact that it was forced to apologize for inaccuracies shows that it can be trusted to at least make an attempt at avoiding them. Compared to Russian propaganda or your dumbass youtube channels, it's still and infinitely more reliable source.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

EXACTLY!!! What the fuck else do we even need an air and armored force for? If Russia is defeated, we don’t need to spend but a fraction of the defense budget. The point of our military is to turn Russia into a parking lot. Let Ukraine do it! Give them everything we have in our arsenal. It should be 100’s of billions.

China.

China would be a naval war. Subs in fact. We’d sink their navy in about five minutes and then sue for peace.

I'm not thinking of a direct confrontation, but rather China going after it's neighbors.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

EXACTLY!!! What the fuck else do we even need an air and armored force for? If Russia is defeated, we don’t need to spend but a fraction of the defense budget. The point of our military is to turn Russia into a parking lot. Let Ukraine do it! Give them everything we have in our arsenal. It should be 100’s of billions.

China.

Take care of Russian aggression and I don't think China will be dumb enough to invade Taiwan.

China is expansionist, just more rational about it.

China is not expansionist. They’ve never been an imperial power. They want Taiwan is all. That’s part of China.

Check the borders of China. Almost everywhere the border is either disputed or there has been actual armed conflict.

 

[Jayjay]

EXACTLY!!! What the fuck else do we even need an air and armored force for? If Russia is defeated, we don’t need to spend but a fraction of the defense budget. The point of our military is to turn Russia into a parking lot. Let Ukraine do it! Give them everything we have in our arsenal. It should be 100’s of billions.

That won't help. And your generals know it. The fact is, even NATO (really US) direct involvement probably unlikely to defeat Russia.
And if you somehow do defeat Russia you will be, according publicly available russian doctrine, nuked.

So, you see, your original plan was not that, your plan was to regime change Putin via SANCTIONS, military defeat idea is pure improvisation. You can not have outright military defeat of Russia without being nuked.

Russian military was defeated in Afghanistan, and it didn't nuke anyone. Was the nuclear doctrine of the Soviet Union much different?

Nobody is threatening to attack or annex any territory from Russia. Ukraine's goal is to simply kick them out of their own land. Very likely Ukraine would even settle for letting Russia keep Crimea and Donbas. So even in the unlikely scenario where Russia withdraws to February 2022 borders, there is no justification for a nuclear response, according to Russia's own doctrine.

Of course, doctrines are interpreted by the leaders. If you take Medvedev's drunken rantings seriously, Russia's doctrine demands a nuclear response already. But that kind of doctrine is bitshit crazy. If Russia could just invade any country, and threaten to nuke them if they're not given what they want, it's simply not going to fly with the rest of the world. The west is not going to give in to nuclear blackmail because Putin would just use it again when he wants to invade and annex the next country and we'd be in an even bigger mess.

Putin also knows that if he uses nukes, NATO will retaliate by entering the war for real. And if he uses nukes against any NATO country, Russia will seize to exist.

 

[Elixir]

Ukraine would even settle for letting Russia keep Crimea and Donbas

Wut? Like they settled in ‘94, ‘97, 98’ etc?
“respect for sovereignty blah blah blah…”

Yea, I bet Putler would like that.

 

[Jayjay]

Interesting analysis of Ukraine’s counter offensive.

How the Ukraine Counteroffensive Can Still Succeed

The Ukrainian counteroffensive is going slow, but success is still possible

time.com

it can succeed, but it’s a tough nut to crack.

We can always dream, but based on past performance, I find these scenarios to be mostly wishful thinking.

The only plausible way for Ukraine to win is to annoy Russia to death. Keep killing Russians and their equipment, keep sniping off a few ships at Black Sea every now and then or a factory near Moscow, while maintaining their own forces capable enough to hold the line in Ukraine. Eventually it'll frustrate Russia to the point that it will either sue for peace, or implode internally. This path is far from certain either (mainly because the western aid that it relies on could stop soon), but I consider it far more likely than a military breakthrough.

You didn’t read the article, did you?

that's OK. But do. It’s quite a good one.

I did read it, I just disagree with it. Ukraine's progress is being measured in hundreds of meters per week. At this pace, they'll reach Crimea by end of the century. Barring some sort of black swan event in Kremlin, I don't think it will yield a quick enough victory. Western backers will get tired before Ukraine reaches its goals.

Predicting a slow, predictable grind for several years is also a bit unlikely. If Russia sees it is obviously losing, it may try something else. Like another attack from Belarus, nuclear weapons or at least threats, environmental disaster in the Black Sea, new rounds of mobilization (very likely to happen), getting help from China, and maybe some things we can't even think of. The recent rocket to the moon? I wouldn't be surprised if it "accidentally" falls in Ukraine or some European country.

Also, Russia is catching up with some weapon technologies. Earlier, Ukraine had the monopoly of commercial FPV drones converted to kamikaze munitions. But Russia is catching up. China started to restrict export of its quad copters to the west, which may actually start to mean that Russia has more of them available at some point. Russia is also ramping up production of other weapons, despite sanctions. The war will escalate, and even if Ukraine is doing now better than ever, we need to be vigilant that the tables don't turn. There is also the risk that maybe Ukraine's tactics are having too many casualties and are not sustainable. Ukraine is under pressure to deliver results, so they might be spending too many people for these modest gains. I'm cautiously optimistic that this is not the case, because I haven't seen a lot of Russian videos purporting to be Ukrainian mass casualties like there were a year ago from Kherson for example, but the fact is that we in the public sphere don't know everything. The casualty rates will trickle through various reports and estimations later.

 

[Jayjay]

Elensky ran on promise to end the war in Donbas, meaning he would negotiate it. He obviously broke that promise.

It's not like Zelensky could make any promises on behalf of Putin. Zelensky asked Putin to negotiate multiple times, but Putin refused.

 

[Jayjay]

EXACTLY!!! What the fuck else do we even need an air and armored force for? If Russia is defeated, we don’t need to spend but a fraction of the defense budget. The point of our military is to turn Russia into a parking lot. Let Ukraine do it! Give them everything we have in our arsenal. It should be 100’s of billions.

China.

Take care of Russian aggression and I don't think China will be dumb enough to invade Taiwan.

Also, more to the point perhaps, USA doesn't have to support Ukraine alone.
There's a bunch of NATO countries, with sophisticated weapons. They're much nearer. They have more motivation to stop the invaders.

At least they would if the USA pulled back and let Putin do whatever he wants, until European NATO wants us back. At the moment, it appears that European NATO countries want the USA to take the brunt.

We kinda earned it, being such iffy partners who were also rather bossy big shots. If I were a European, I wouldn't put up with our crap either.

USA is providing something like 70% of all the military aid going to Ukraine. One problem with other NATO countries (to varying degrees) is that they've been living cozily in America's bosom and neglected their own military capabilities for decades. And they simply don't have the stockpiles or the production capability to quickly provide the necessary aid. A second problem is that they keep bickering over who should give more and why country X should pay instead of country Y, when they have their own problems. A tragedy of commons. I think European side of NATO is doing admirably well in showing unity, but right now, they're not going to be able to carry Ukraine alone without USA.

If/when Trump or another isolationist republican becomes president, Ukraine will be forced to make some sort of peace agreement based on letting Russia keep what it occupies at the time. This is also what Putin is counting on, though he'll probably try to wrangle also other concessions like "neutrality" and limiting Ukraine's ability to fight back in the next war.

In the meantime, I vote to make every U.S. resource available to the Ukrainians until they've utterly and completely humiliated Putin and his oligarchy and military. Not because I dislike Russia or Russians, but because I want to see peace and sometimes that requires force.

Like now.
Not in a year.
Not in a month.

NOW
Tom

Yup.

 

[Jayjay]

Ukraine would even settle for letting Russia keep Crimea and Donbas

Wut? Like they settled in ‘94, ‘97, 98’ etc?
“respect for sovereignty blah blah blah…”

Yea, I bet Putler would like that.

Zelensky has said that Russia needs to withdraw to February 2022 borders, and then they can sit down and discuss Crimea and Donbas.

But anyway, it's theoretical since I don't think Putin will withdraw voluntarily, nor that Ukraine will get that far by force.

 

[bilby]

EXACTLY!!! What the fuck else do we even need an air and armored force for? If Russia is defeated, we don’t need to spend but a fraction of the defense budget. The point of our military is to turn Russia into a parking lot. Let Ukraine do it! Give them everything we have in our arsenal. It should be 100’s of billions.

China.

China would be a naval war. Subs in fact. We’d sink their navy in about five minutes and then sue for peace.

It is rumoured that after the Anglo-Zanzibar War, the British government sent Zanzibar an invoice for the cost of the ammunition expended by the Royal Navy during the war.

That war was rather more protracted, however, lasting between 35 and 45 minutes, depending on what metric you use for the war's beginning and end. It remains the shortest recorded war in history up to this point.

The expiry of the British ultimatum at 9:00 was followed by a two minute delay before the first gun was fired, and there is a discrepancy of up to ten minutes between the various British ships logs regarding the exact timing of the surrender of the Zanzibari forces, which was variously recorded as 9:40, 9:41and 9:45. The order to cease fire was given at 9:37, when the palace flag was struck, so active hostilities lasted just 35 minutes.

 

[Jayjay]

Enjoyed this video interview of a young Russian soldier captured by Ukraine (technically a war crime... but what the heck):



The video has English dub and sub. It's long but can be watched at 2x speed. Interesting tidbits for those who don't want to spend the time:

- The guy was a conscript, who signed a contract voluntarily. But as contract soldier he was "gassing" i.e. basically just skipping the service. For nine months, he was basically just living near the base and not doing anything, with full pay. Until he got called to the front.

- Consequently, he got almost zero training. Says he fired a rifle 15 times, and that's pretty much it.

- Got sent to the front digging trenches as his first assignment. But they weren't even given shovels. Or sleeping bags. They weren't expected to survive, so why waste the equipment? (somebody did bring them shovels later.)

- Perks of the job: Regular soldiers get sent back to Russia if they get wounded. Wagner mercaneries (probably convicts) just get patched up and sent back to the front.

- His group was ordered to go to the Russian positions in the frontline, but the guy they were supposed to meet was asleep, so they just kept going towards Ukrainian positions. They passed several of them, then were caught, and immediately surrendered.

- Says captivity isn't great, but Ukrainians aren't beasts that they were portrayed to be.

- The interviewer is a bit of a dick towards the Russian dude's mother, but otherwise respectful. All in all the captive seems like a smart kid, and I hope he doesn't get in trouble back home for appearing in the video.