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

[Harry Bosch]

It is like you (and Putin) refuse to understand what a defensive alliance is.

The defensive alliance is turning Ukraine into pulp. Have some consideration for the people of Ukraine.

That is very rich coming from you. Whenever the supply of western supplies is slowed down, leaving Ukrainian front lines with fewer weapons; the Russians take more land and kill more Ukrainians.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

ATACMS Comes Out on Top Versus Russia’s S-500 Anti-Missile System

The duel in the skies above Crimea pitted 1990s-era US weapons against the Russian air defense platform Kremlin calls “the best in the world.”

www.kyivpost.com

And the Russians named this system Prometheus. Prometheus my ass.
I'll want more info than what appears in the Kyiv Post but this is humiliating. Russia's latest and greatest system. The missiles probably come out of the tubes all soft and wrinkly.
Fucking hell.

Actually, from that article we can't conclude the system is junk. Rather, we can conclude what we already know--SAM batteries are far from perfect. The Ukrainians obviously know approximately how good they are at picking off ATACMS missiles. Other than speed stuff like ATACMS is a sitting duck, easy to predict where it's going to be and guide an interceptor to that point. But the closing rate is going to be a few km/sec, you need an awful lot of accuracy. Not every missile will hit. And determining if you killed the missile isn't the easiest task, either--it's not like video games where dead enemies disappear. It was falling from the sky, it will continue to fall from the sky unless severely damaged. You have to assess the situation, figure out which missiles were killed and allocate another interceptor to the ones you didn't get the first time around. You do not get very many engagement cycles before the missiles hit. Depending on the value of what you're protecting you might fire more than one missile per inbound--a lot higher chance of killing it but at the expense of depleting your magazine faster as some of your missiles will end up going for dead targets.

Ukraine figures out what the system can stop and fires more rounds than that. And if we have any sense we will keep providing them because the economic ratio is highly in our favor.

 

[bilby]

MSN

Interesting!

Is it? What does it say?

I ain't clicking on no random links.

Vietnam said some nice stuff about the USA.

Vietnam has often said nice stuff about the USA. They won the war, which was long ago, so they can be magnanimous.

Only the losers of the Vietnam War still think about the Vietnam War as a defining event in their history. The Vietnamese chucked out the French imperialists, then chicked out the American imperialists, and then chucked out the Chinese imperialists. The latter didn't even require a shooting war.

Vietnam doesn't want to be anybody's enemy; But if you turn up in their country trying to tell them what to do, they will fuck your shit up.

 

[bilby]

Europe isn't suddenly grow a pair of balls. We're pathetic right now.

Yeah. Your politicians aren't able to make the hard choices of war. Or of adequately funding a military.

Fighting two utterly devastating continent wide wars has made all of the traditional powers disinclined to build a large army.

Times change. Germany and France weren't, historically, reluctant to fund large armies with the latest hi-tech weapons systems - even back in the days when gunpowder was hi-tech.

A few decades of butter rather than guns doesn't imply an inability to return to a heavily armed state, but it's really not been needful with the EU essentially eliminating conflict within western Europe, and Uncle Sam providing a nuclear umbrella to deter any external threats.

The problem with Russia is salami tactics. Nuclear deterrence requires a clear and unequivocal "red line" that triggers an overwheming, even if suicidal, response. If a belligerent is careful to only ever make incremental changes, allowing them to become the new normal before taking another step forward, it makes nuclear forces irrelevant.

NATO's strength lies, not in its arms themselves, but in its absolute borders - an enemy who transgresses those borders renders themselves liable to the full retaliatory might of the entire alliance, up to and including the use of nukes.

As Kennedy said, "It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union". To deter, you have to clearly declare a set of actions that will meet an insane level of violence in response - and you have to be believed.

As long as any incursion by foreign troops onto NATO territory was regarded by America as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, Germany didn't need a big army. The demise of the Soviet Union has brought doubt, and the appearance of non-NATO, but not pro-Russian, nations in the gap between West Germany and Russia, still more doubt.

The obvious way to reduce the latter was to invite those new nations to join NATO. But that doesn't fit well at all with Russian expansionism. Hence Vlad's abortive attempt to take Kyiv, and hence all of Ukraine, in a short victorious war that would be over and done with while Western Europe was still trying to decide whether to respond.

 

[bilby]

And we focus too much on standardization.

You cannot focus too much on standardisation. Standardisation has been a winning strategy, not just in war, but also in commerce and industry, since forever.

Standardised interfaces are just a tiny part of that process.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The problem with Russia is salami tactics. Nuclear deterrence requires a clear and unequivocal "red line" that triggers an overwheming, even if suicidal, response. If a belligerent is careful to only ever make incremental changes, allowing them to become the new normal before taking another step forward, it makes nuclear forces irrelevant.

Russia has an advantage in that to Russian leadership human casualties are unimportant. That's not something new but is simply the only way Russia has ever considered its combatants. Countries in the west value the person. Russia does not value the person and never has. Russia in practice has always been a monarchy and still operates like a monarchy today. Modern Russia likely could not survive a single day of free speech and freedom of the press.

 

[Tigers!]

A few decades of butter rather than guns doesn't imply an inability to return to a heavily armed state, but it's really not been needful with the EU essentially eliminating conflict within western Europe, and Uncle Sam providing a nuclear umbrella to deter any external threats.

The problem with Russia is salami tactics. Nuclear deterrence requires a clear and unequivocal "red line" that triggers an overwheming, even if suicidal, response. If a belligerent is careful to only ever make incremental changes, allowing them to become the new normal before taking another step forward, it makes nuclear forces irrelevant.

NATO's strength lies, not in its arms themselves, but in its absolute borders - an enemy who transgresses those borders renders themselves liable to the full retaliatory might of the entire alliance, up to and including the use of nukes.

As always the most estimable team at "Yes Minister" showed salami tactics at its best.

 

[bilby]

A few decades of butter rather than guns doesn't imply an inability to return to a heavily armed state, but it's really not been needful with the EU essentially eliminating conflict within western Europe, and Uncle Sam providing a nuclear umbrella to deter any external threats.

The problem with Russia is salami tactics. Nuclear deterrence requires a clear and unequivocal "red line" that triggers an overwheming, even if suicidal, response. If a belligerent is careful to only ever make incremental changes, allowing them to become the new normal before taking another step forward, it makes nuclear forces irrelevant.

NATO's strength lies, not in its arms themselves, but in its absolute borders - an enemy who transgresses those borders renders themselves liable to the full retaliatory might of the entire alliance, up to and including the use of nukes.

As always the most estimable team at "Yes Minister" showed salami tactics at its best.

I am pretty sure they originated the term.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

War the Russian way.
.....
Drone footage showing a Russian soldier shooting a comrade hurt in combat highlights the "brutal culture" of "callous" behavior in the Russian armed forces, war experts say.

"The attempted or deliberate killing of a fellow soldier is unprofessional," experts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War reported in a June 23 assessment.

ISW analysts noted there have been many instances showing "a callous disregard for the lives of Russia's own soldiers throughout the war thus far, both within Russia and amongst Russian troops on the battlefield."
.....

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-soldiers-killing-wounded-comrade-190154487.html

 

[Elixir]

"a callous disregard for the lives of Russia's own soldiers”

… is an honorable cultural practice that pre-dates all your kid glove treatment of the west’s wussy “soldiers”.
Russian soldiers die. Especially the ones on the top and the ones on the bottom of the pecking order. It’s their job.

 

[aupmanyav]

You think you're in no danger from Russia. They haven't turned on you yet.

They won't. Russia, just like US needs friends. India too, that is why we are in QUAD.

 

[aupmanyav]

You buy long range SAMs when the threat is a few leakers. Against peer-level combatants they can be bled for less cost than the missiles.

I am no military expert, but I believe that Indian government and defense forces are doing what is necessary according to their circumstances.

Deterrence is a "threat" if you intend to attack.

Or if you perceive a possibility of attack (How much deterrence is OK?). Like in case of Israel, nuclear capability of Iran. Iran may consider it as a deterrence to attack by Israel.

 

[aupmanyav]

The people he's made it clear he wants to genocide?

Does "Holodomor" mean anything to you?

People say many things just for effect. They can change from what they have said. Yes, I checked about Holodomor (Wikipedia always obliges).

 

[aupmanyav]

That is very rich coming from you. Whenever the supply of western supplies is slowed down, leaving Ukrainian front lines with fewer weapons; the Russians take more land and kill more Ukrainians.

Sure, without initiating peace talks, any break in supply of arms to Ukraine will mean Russian advance and killing of Ukrainians.

 

[Harry Bosch]

You think you're in no danger from Russia. They haven't turned on you yet.

They won't. Russia, just like US needs friends. India too, that is why we are in QUAD.

The quad? Do you mean that you are blunting Russian invasion in the future by forming a strategic alliance? Good heavens. Strategic alliances are very mean towards Russia. You're inviting invasion.

 

[barbos]

Piers Morgan Gets SCHOOLED Like A Child On Ukraine By Jeffrey Sachs

Crickets.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Piers Morgan Gets SCHOOLED Like A Child On Ukraine By Jeffrey Sachs

Crickets.

I listened to it. So what. What does it really matter on who is to blame for starting the war? You and Jeffrey think that the US is responsible. I think that Ukraine was within their rights to eject their leader in 2014. Who the fuck cares now? The issue now is how to stop the invasion now while saving as many Ukrainians lives as possible and preserving their freedom and rights. That's what I care about.

 

[barbos]

Piers Morgan Gets SCHOOLED Like A Child On Ukraine By Jeffrey Sachs

Crickets.

I listened to it. So what. What does it really matter on who is to blame for starting the war? You and Jeffrey think that the US is responsible. I think that Ukraine was within their rights to eject their leader in 2014. Who the fuck cares now? The issue now is how to stop the invasion now while saving as many Ukrainians lives as possible and preserving their freedom and rights. That's what I care about.

First of all, YOU started the war. That's just a fact. And it is YOU who keep it going.
Your government scum is responsible for ukrainians dying. That's what Jeffrey Sachs is actually saying there.
And MSM talking head has nothing to say in defence of criminal governments.

 

[barbos]

ATACMS Comes Out on Top Versus Russia’s S-500 Anti-Missile System

The duel in the skies above Crimea pitted 1990s-era US weapons against the Russian air defense platform Kremlin calls “the best in the world.”

www.kyivpost.com

And the Russians named this system Prometheus. Prometheus my ass.
I'll want more info than what appears in the Kyiv Post but this is humiliating. Russia's latest and greatest system. The missiles probably come out of the tubes all soft and wrinkly.
Fucking hell.

Actually, from that article we can't conclude the system is junk. Rather, we can conclude what we already know--SAM batteries are far from perfect. The Ukrainians obviously know approximately how good they are at picking off ATACMS missiles. Other than speed stuff like ATACMS is a sitting duck, easy to predict where it's going to be and guide an interceptor to that point. But the closing rate is going to be a few km/sec, you need an awful lot of accuracy. Not every missile will hit. And determining if you killed the missile isn't the easiest task, either--it's not like video games where dead enemies disappear. It was falling from the sky, it will continue to fall from the sky unless severely damaged. You have to assess the situation, figure out which missiles were killed and allocate another interceptor to the ones you didn't get the first time around. You do not get very many engagement cycles before the missiles hit. Depending on the value of what you're protecting you might fire more than one missile per inbound--a lot higher chance of killing it but at the expense of depleting your magazine faster as some of your missiles will end up going for dead targets.

Ukraine figures out what the system can stop and fires more rounds than that. And if we have any sense we will keep providing them because the economic ratio is highly in our favor.

For fuck's sake. This is Kiev Post article and it itself does not even justify its own title in the article itself.
All we know for sure that one of the terrorist rockets fell on the beech killing 2 kids.
Regime in Kiev are pathological liars.

Russian air defence has shown remarkable success rate against old crap like ATACMS. And it is in fact crap.
SCALP and its other variants are harder to shoot down. But Nazi Regime has run out of planes to launch them.

 

[barbos]

You only say that because you are in Putin's corner. As a Putin supporter I can certainly understand why you would think that any country wishing to be free of Russian Hitler's aggression is doing something wrong. To you NATO is just a bogeyman that is threatening your Dictator's control because you are a Putin supporter. You don't need to keep responding. It's pretty clear to everyone that you favor Putin and are against any nation that wishes to be free from Russian Hitler's control.

India favors peace and not Putin or NATO. India has no danger from Russia and Modi is in firm control. To stop me from responding, do not debate with me.

You think you're in no danger from Russia. They haven't turned on you yet.

Unlike YOU India does not conduct coups and does not invade and does not sanction other countries.