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

aupmanyav said:
laughing dog said:
Again, were you part of that decision-making process?
The rest of your post is just silliness. There were wars before NATO. There will be wars after NATO.
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Do you think that I was?
It was a a golden opportunity. Perhaps it would have lead to complete eradication of nuclear arms piles and huge defense expenses which could have been used for betterment of people. The world would have been much safer.
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I ask because you give definitive answers to motivation. If you were not part of the process to you have a primary source to support your assertion?
 
So far, that attack is not a big area, 1000 km^2 ~ 32 km * 32 km. That's about half the area of Moscow, for instance.

But if Russia decided to push back, Ukraine has three options:
  1. Hold on to all the territory - could be difficult.
  2. Fall back to some more defensible part and then dig in.
  3. Withdraw completely.
This could be something like the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War. While that North Vietnamese attack on the South was eventually defeated, it showed that North Vietnam had unexpected vigor in that war.

If Russia does not push back very much, then what's next for Ukraine? Expand the incursion northward to Kursk? Eastward to Belgorod?
 
What Copernicus said in an earlier post:
Tack så mycket. Jag pratar svenska bättre än finska.
Google Translate from Swedish:
Thank you very much. I speak Swedish better than Finnish.

jag ~ I
bättre ~ better

Ukraine's forces attack 2nd western Russia border region : NPR - the Belgorod region
Ukraine has not explicitly stated its military objective with the operation inside Russia. But Zelenskyy and other officials have indicated the goal is not to hold on to Russian territory for an extended period.

They are suggesting that Ukraine wants to draw Russian troops to the Kursk region in hopes this will ease pressure on Ukrainian forces struggling to hold their ground in the main battlefront, in eastern Ukraine. Russia has been making incremental gains in the Donbas region, where they have more troops and more firepower than the Ukrainians.
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lpetrich said:
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Ukraine's forces attack 2nd western Russia border region : NPR - the Belgorod region
Ukraine has not explicitly stated its military objective with the operation inside Russia. But Zelenskyy and other officials have indicated the goal is not to hold on to Russian territory for an extended period.

They are suggesting that Ukraine wants to draw Russian troops to the Kursk region in hopes this will ease pressure on Ukrainian forces struggling to hold their ground in the main battlefront, in eastern Ukraine. Russia has been making incremental gains in the Donbas region, where they have more troops and more firepower than the Ukrainians.
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According to the article, the objective in Kursk is not to hold the territory for long, but to draw military assets away from the operations in Ukrainian territory. I have read that Ukraine is preparing evacuation corridors out of Kursk. The second invasion of Russian territory would have the same objective. That would make sense as a strategy, but it isn't clear yet whether it is working. Russia is moving some forces from Kaliningrad to Kursk.
 
Copernicus said:
According to the article, the objective in Kursk is not to hold the territory for long, but to draw military assets away from the operations in Ukrainian territory. I have read that Ukraine is preparing evacuation corridors out of Kursk. The second invasion of Russian territory would have the same objective. That would make sense as a strategy, but it isn't clear yet whether it is working. Russia is moving some forces from Kaliningrad to Kursk.
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That was my assumption too.
 
Copernicus said:
It still isn't clear to me what the ultimate objective there is. Ukraine is not going to hold that territory and will likely be driven out at some point. It was successful, because it was a surprise attack in a lightly defended area. Russia was counting on not being invaded at all, so they weren't prepared for it. Now they are scrambling to respond. I don't think that the incursion will have much effect on improving Western aid for the defense of Ukraine. In the US, everything is now about the presidential election, with Donald Trump and his wholly owned subsidiary, the Republican Party, representing a pro-Putin faction. It is hard enough to get budgetary support for Ukraine through Congress, and there will be considerable pushback over the use of American-manufactured military equipment being used inside of Russia.
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It's making Russia move troops around--more opportunity to hit them on the move. We have already seen that Russia doesn't have much they can throw against the Ukrainian incursion, they're getting hammered in trying and Russia is operating at it's logistics limit so everything they throw against the incursion weakens the main front.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
Copernicus said:
It still isn't clear to me what the ultimate objective there is. Ukraine is not going to hold that territory and will likely be driven out at some point. It was successful, because it was a surprise attack in a lightly defended area. Russia was counting on not being invaded at all, so they weren't prepared for it. Now they are scrambling to respond. I don't think that the incursion will have much effect on improving Western aid for the defense of Ukraine. In the US, everything is now about the presidential election, with Donald Trump and his wholly owned subsidiary, the Republican Party, representing a pro-Putin faction. It is hard enough to get budgetary support for Ukraine through Congress, and there will be considerable pushback over the use of American-manufactured military equipment being used inside of Russia.
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It's making Russia move troops around--more opportunity to hit them on the move. We have already seen that Russia doesn't have much they can throw against the Ukrainian incursion, they're getting hammered in trying and Russia is operating at it's logistics limit so everything they throw against the incursion weakens the main front.
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Beyond that, there is also the goal of bringing the war to the Russian people. If Russian sources are to be believed, several hundred thousand people have been evacuated from the area. These people have to go somewhere and a lot will be headed to friends and family in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other Russian cities. Putin can control the media, but he can't control gossip. A hundred thousand people telling their story of the mighty Ukrainian Army is something Putin does not want to see.

Putin's sales pitch to the Russian public for the war was always a variation on, "You won't notice anything and it won't cost you a dime," or whatever 1/10 of a ruble is called in Russia. Putin's ploy has always been to promise stability in exchange for a freehand to do what he likes. His real enemy is not Ukraine, it's instability. F-16s and Hymars are very destabilizing, but there's something else to consider. For the past two years or so, Russians have been treated to videos of Russian victories which always include videos of demolished cities. Russia's chief tactic is to get close enough for artillery to destroy anything big enough to stand behind. Now, all those evacuees have to think about how Putin intends to retake the occupied territory.

Facing the prospect of coming home to a pile of bricks and rubble makes it really difficult to keep up the illusion of ""You won't notice anything and it won't cost you a dime."
 
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T.G.G. Moogly said:
Elixir said:
TV and credit cards said:
There's no excuse for spending a lifetime reading what conforms to one's long held opinions.
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Except that those opinions originated with the same reading ... it's weird how thoroughly a person's view of the world can be made to diverge from reality through simple constant exposure to lies.
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There has got to be a great asymmetry in immigration/emigration between the U.S. and India. I would think that far more people leave India to live in the US than leave the US to live in India. I could be wrong. Same goes for Russia. It is worth asking the question, "Why?"
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Yup, the ultimate ballot: feet.

Especially when marriage is involved. Most countries offer some sort of residency for spouses of citizens so in general an international couple could choose to reside in either country.
 
steve_bank said:
It was not just bombing, the issue was fire bombing. I think it was Harris who advocated terror bombing in response for German terror bombing. Churchill initially resisted on moral ground and then agreed.

The bombing of Dresden, both Brits and Americans dropped incendiaries along with high explosives. The firestorm was horrific.

Or Curtis Le May on Japan, firebombing and firestorms.

If someone is out to kill you and your family do you defend yourself according to a set of moral rules, or do you do anything to save your life and family?
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Dresden was probably unwarranted. We didn't really have a choice with Japan, though, because the industry was so decentralized. Individual targets were so small as to be meaningless to the precision of the day even if they could be identified. The only way to destroy the industry was to destroy the cities.
 
TV and credit cards said:
I'd like to see a list of how fast the US can produce various weapons. If not confidential, I'm sure it is not something the DoD likes to make public.
The more sophisticated stuff has a long lead to to get from factory to field. Often measured in months or even years. X number of people can only produce so much. Putting on a second shift takes time. A whole new production line, even longer. Qualifications for the various positions and required training aside, security clearances also have to be obtained and maintained. Then once these individuals are hired and up to speed, we do not want to find them looking for another job two or three years from now.
Other countries with orders for US weapons end up getting their delivery date pushed back. And now we have god's chosen people taking some of what should go to Ukraine.
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I'm sure it is to a large degree confidential. We can see what the factories do produce (look at the budget stuff--$x for y units of item z) but that doesn't say how much capacity they have that could be redirected.

And second shift is hard. Long ago my former employer tried to go with a second shift to meet increasing demand--and ended up giving up because the error rate was simply too high to make it economical.

And in most cases I don't think there truly is a production line. There simply isn't the demand for the bigger stuff to have a set of equipment where each step of the way you have a machine pretty much preset to do the step.

And I don't think Israel has much effect on Ukraine. Israel has effectively uncontested control of the air, they only need weapons that fall off planes. Ukraine, however, is very limited in what it can do in the air and doesn't use much that falls off planes. The only overlap I see is glide bombs and I have my doubts about how much Ukraine can employ them. Pretty much everything we hear about is self propelled or fired from a gun.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
steve_bank said:
It was not just bombing, the issue was fire bombing. I think it was Harris who advocated terror bombing in response for German terror bombing. Churchill initially resisted on moral ground and then agreed.

The bombing of Dresden, both Brits and Americans dropped incendiaries along with high explosives. The firestorm was horrific.

Or Curtis Le May on Japan, firebombing and firestorms.

If someone is out to kill you and your family do you defend yourself according to a set of moral rules, or do you do anything to save your life and family?
Click to expand...
Dresden was probably unwarranted. We didn't really have a choice with Japan, though, because the industry was so decentralized. Individual targets were so small as to be meaningless to the precision of the day even if they could be identified. The only way to destroy the industry was to destroy the cities.
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I see you know your WWII history. Japanese industry was spread out in residential areas.

From interviews with survivors the fire storms were horrific. Wood and paper houses closely packed,

There was a program to tie incendiaries to bats and drop them over Japan. The idea was they would roost in buildings.

There was also the Dam Busters raid. and the skip bomb. The idea was to breach the dams in the Ruhr valley flooding industrial and residential areas where workers lived.

en.wikipedia.org

Operation Chastise - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Japan sent incendiary balloons over the USA trying to start forest fires.

When the breakout stalled in Normandy Eisenhower approved indiscriminate carpet bombing a path through French countryside.

Putin in his mind is in the WWII exi9stentiall anything goes frame of mind. I think the only restraint from, gong too far is the treat of NATO joining in.

When Russia was near Kyiv there were reports of air-fuel bombs. Release an air fuel mixture, ignite it, and it creates a vacuum and toxic gas. Inderscriminate.
 
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