Ukraine War

[956 Worldwide 34,314]

3 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

If it's a seriously terrible take, it's one I share with John Mearsheimer.

Here are his credentials.  

He predicted this exact scenario eight years ago.

I encourage anyone to read more than just "Why Ukraine Is the West's Fault" and dig deeper into his analysis. He is NOT a Putin apologist. He is a believer in realpolitik and he thinks our foreign policy experts are fucking up, yet again. In his view, Ukraine is of zero strategic value to the United States, and all of Europe is of declining value. He believes Putin would stop at Ukraine, not because he wants to in his thuggish heart of hearts, but that he simply can't do any more than that, as we are seeing on the ground. He believes we should stop focusing so much on Europe and get our shit together in Asia, where the true threat lies.

 

Here’s the thing— I can’t say for sure but I feel pretty comfortable saying that I’ve read more of Mearsheimer than almost anyone should ever wish for and more than most people posting here for sure.  
 

Mearsheimer is a brilliant IR scholar. He builds big theoretical models of how states interact with each other.  He’s not a Ukraine specialist or Russia specialist. As far as I know he does not speak Russian or Ukrainian.  This is evident from the actual Ukraine specific information he gives in the 2014 article, which is pure conspiracy propaganda straight from the Spuntik English language style guide, it’s not even close to a decent summary of what happened on the ground in 2014 in Kyiv or beyond. He’s chosen the Kremlin narrative because it tracks with the framework he constructed and not because it’s reality. Mearsheimer has also— and this is well-documented—  become well off and famous outside of the IR geek world by playing the “cranky and straight-shooting iconoclast” role together with Walt.  He’s full of blistering hot takes on all sorts of things beyond his area of expertise.  
 

So when he’s world-building an international system of how states might bounce off of or attract each other, pay attention. At the smaller level of specific wars and specific decisions in specific places, take him with a whole rim of salt.  He’s not an expert in everything but does have an opinion on it all.
 

 

Edited March 18, 2022 by 956 Worldwide

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11,667]

6 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

If this is true, and it appears to be, Putin is losing control. Once you start arresting senior military commanders and talking about purifying your country of traitors, you've lost. 

Yeah last time that happened in Russia the guy was out of power just a few short decades later via his natural death. 

[HenryJames 65,868]

[WhatTheBuck 28,700]

7 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

dude.  you're bitching about a guy who said eating 20-year-old MREs might fuck up your metabolism.

ya think?

I’m not bitching and Kyiv hasn’t been encircled. Pay attention. Don’t get distracted. 

[WhatTheBuck 28,700]

5 hours ago, Nivek said:

We could stop with the Hitler shit. Putin is a psychopathic despot. He doesn’t give one shit about life of subordinates. But he isn’t putting people in ovens and letting docs torture people.

I’m sure that makes a big difference to the citizens of Ukraine who die under shellfire in their homes. Or in a grocery store. Or in a hospital.

[Captainant 27,311]

19 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

Hah it'd be interesting to go through all the favorite Twitter sources of the DT brain trust to gauge their general posture towards Ukraine/russia. Just scrolling through that guys retweets I saw good ol jack posobiec (star of the Portland riot thread) both siding in defense of Russia bombing hospitals.

It's fucking wild to see the same playbook that's been at work here in the US getting deployed in Russia, and even more astounding to see folks completely miss the parallel in rhetoric and talking points

[Captainant 27,311]

5 hours ago, Nivek said:

We could stop with the Hitler shit. Putin is a psychopathic despot. He doesn’t give one shit about life of subordinates. But he isn’t putting people in ovens and letting docs torture people.

IMO, I think the comparison is warranted from a civics and government perspective. Hitler used the levers of government as a weapon against his enemies and used his domestic media apparatus to stoke support for a war of aggression.

The interesting thing about the Holocaust is that (as far as academics have found) there was never a meeting or explicit plan to do a Holocaust. They were all just racist shit heels that egged each other on, and combined with a culture of "agree or be purged" that didn't check their radicalism, ultimately led to the horror that happened.

It's pretty important to call out parallels when they happen. Its how we learn from history and avoid repetition.

As I type this, putin is purging his military in the name of purity. He is using fascist suppression tactics to dominate his people. Hitler, being the last dictator to invade Kyiv, seems like a fairly fit comparison.

[HenryJames 65,868]

He’s not Hitler.

[956 Worldwide 34,314]

12 minutes ago, Captainant said:

IMO, I think the comparison is warranted from a civics and government perspective. Hitler used the levers of government as a weapon against his enemies and used his domestic media apparatus to stoke support for a war of aggression.

The interesting thing about the Holocaust is that (as far as academics have found) there was never a meeting or explicit plan to do a Holocaust. They were all just racist shit heels that egged each other on, and combined with a culture of "agree or be purged" that didn't check their radicalism, ultimately led to the horror that happened.

It's pretty important to call out parallels when they happen. Its how we learn from history and avoid repetition.

As I type this, putin is purging his military in the name of purity. He is using fascist suppression tactics to dominate his people. Hitler, being the last dictator to invade Kyiv, seems like a fairly fit comparison.

The Nazis literally had a conference where they all agreed to do the Holocaust.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference

[Captainant 27,311]

2 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

He’s not Hitler.

No, this is Putin!

 

Making the comparison doesn't mean youre drawing an equivalency - it's just a useful yardstick to measure and discuss with. And seriously, the nazis were the last people to invade Ukraine. Some of the modern photography has been a shot for shot modernization of some famous WWII imagery

[DDD Dad 14,167]

4 hours ago, Thatguy said:

My wife is lactose

You married milk?

[WhatTheBuck 28,700]

4 hours ago, Thatguy said:

 No. You don't get to say something ridiculous, double down on it, and then wave it off like it never happened. My wife is lactose, before probiotics we had serious bowel problems. After them she is as regular as I am. If she doesn't take them the bowel problems return.

Do you mean lactose intolerant? Lactose intolerant people lack the ability to produce lactase, an enzyme that allows them to digest the sugar lactose. It’s not due to a deficiency in the culture of bacteria in one’s gut. Like you pointed out, whatever supplement she’s taking is just a temporary fix. She’s not changing her microbiome. Most adults in the world are lactose intolerant. The standard solution is to not eat dairy.

Out of curiosity, what flavor MRE does she prefer?

[Captainant 27,311]

1 minute ago, 956 Worldwide said:

The Nazis literally had a conference where they all agreed to do the Holocaust.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference

In 1942 - after the tide had turned in North Africa and Barbarossa had begun to stall and the nazis had waaaayyyyy more prisoners than they knew what to do with. The nazis took power in 1933, and started building camps for political prisoners, free thinkers, and jews. Those people were treated as slaves and fungible humanity, but they weren't just wholesale slaughtered. Someone had to do all the ugly work the ubermensch didn't want to do.

It wasn't until they started losing the war and needed a new explanation for their failures and faltering resolve that the nazis began their designed extermination campaign.

I digress because this thread is about Ukraine and not WWII history, but I think Putin is the closest world leader we've seen to a WWII fascist dictator. It's been a more informative model to examine his actions than assuming hes some 4d chess player.

[WhatTheBuck 28,700]

I wonder if this is one of the guys Putin has placed under arrest because things aren’t going just swimmingly for him in Ukraine.

 

[956 Worldwide 34,314]

18 minutes ago, Captainant said:

In 1942 - after the tide had turned in North Africa and Barbarossa had begun to stall and the nazis had waaaayyyyy more prisoners than they knew what to do with. The nazis took power in 1933, and started building camps for political prisoners, free thinkers, and jews. Those people were treated as slaves and fungible humanity, but they weren't just wholesale slaughtered. Someone had to do all the ugly work the ubermensch didn't want to do.

It wasn't until they started losing the war and needed a new explanation for their failures and faltering resolve that the nazis began their designed extermination campaign.

I digress because this thread is about Ukraine and not WWII history, but I think Putin is the closest world leader we've seen to a WWII fascist dictator. It's been a more informative model to examine his actions than assuming hes some 4d chess player.

This is a wildly off-the-mark interpretation of the Holocaust and how it happened and why it happened. But since this isn’t a history thread I won’t go into it and will instead a plug a book I deeply recommend to anyone curious about Ukraine, Stalinism, the Holocaust, and how we got here:

https://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin-ebook/dp/B00B3M3VE6/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

 

[Hefeweizen 5,307]

Just now, 956 Worldwide said:

This is a wildly off-the-mark interpretation of the Holocaust and how it happened and why it happened. But since this isn’t a history thread I won’t go into it and will instead a plug a book I deeply recommend to anyone curious about Ukraine, Stalinism, the Holocaust, and how we got here:

https://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin-ebook/dp/B00B3M3VE6/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

 

Correct.  Heydrich and the other true believers had their plan in place all along.  Speer had his cheap labor.  There is no doubt the nazis planned to confiscate property and either deport, enclave for labor, or exterminate all undesirables.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11,667]

32 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

The Nazis literally had a conference where they all agreed to do the Holocaust.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference

Wannsee conference is interesting because it has this outsized importance now, largely because someone was *taking notes of a criminal fucking conspiracy*.  From what I understand, it wasn't a shift in policy or anything.  Just sort of a discussion of logistics and what not of the final solution. But because we have these detailed minutes of it, it has grown in popular importance.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11,667]

4 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

This is a wildly off-the-mark interpretation of the Holocaust and how it happened and why it happened. But since this isn’t a history thread I won’t go into it and will instead a plug a book I deeply recommend to anyone curious about Ukraine, Stalinism, the Holocaust, and how we got here:

https://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin-ebook/dp/B00B3M3VE6/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

 

Presently reading it.  It is great, of course, but one thing I really like about it is how it is easy with 80 years hence to say things like "20 million" and move on.  That book really breaks down how that 20 million was a piling of thousands of actions each of which killed thousands of people.

[jw4381 3,063]

14 hours ago, TexArcher said:

Is she that new spinner porn star?

[956 Worldwide 34,314]

4 minutes ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

Presently reading it.  It is great, of course, but one thing I really like about it is how it is easy with 80 years hence to say things like "20 million" and move on.  That book really breaks down how that 20 million was a piling of thousands of actions each of which killed thousands of people.

It’s the only work of history that has made me put it down to digest and recover from before plowing through.  

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11,667]

4 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

It’s the only work of history that has made me put it down to digest and recover from before plowing through.  

that and because it weighs 60 pounds.

[jimmyjazz 45,513]

8 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

another excellent must read, and may god save my soul for saying this, some of the best narrative so far supporting a 60-90 day stay-the-course no-fly-zone position to see what plays out at the cost of tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives sacrificed for the good of human civilization on this planet

Petraeus has made questionable choices at times, but he's a sharp guy.  That was a good overview of what has happened and what might happen going forward.

[kevwun 15,595]

Being a good general while also being a flawed human have gone hand in hand throughout history.

[Macanudo 12,922]

6 minutes ago, kevwun said:

Being a good general while also being a flawed human have gone hand in hand throughout history.

Change general to leader.

[Hookah Horns 3,058]

14 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

Helping my friend get his posts in the right thread. 

Seriously terrible take. You would have to be staring way up your own asshole to see Ukraine s aggravator of Russia. I mean, sure, existing is pretty infuriating to Russia, but I sure wouldn't call it aggression. It of course buys part and parcel the Russian story that it really just wants a neutral buffer between it and NATO and doesn't at all want a completely vassal state like in the old Soviet Union. What a crock of shit. 

 

No kidding. Mearsheimer is being a dumbass here. First of all, NATO is a fucking defensive organization that's pretty much never hurt a fly. There was zero actual threat to Russia if Ukraine joined NATO. The comparison to the Cuban Missile Crisis is about as highly regarded as it gets. Second, Ukraine has the right to join whatever international orgs or alliances it wants. Third, this talking point would make a whole lot more sense (but still completely fail) if NATO admission of Ukraine was imminent, but it was probably never going to happen anyway.

[Biff Tannen 45,477]

5 hours ago, Thatguy said:

Y'all remember that one time when Putin helped get that guy in office? I wonder why he did that? Then him and that guy spent the next 4 years chest bumping one another? Then that guy withheld assistance to the Ukraine, while simultaneously preparing to pull us out of NATO? Y'all remember when that dude spent 4 years praising Putin? Ahhh....the good ole days.

Username is suspicious

[wildcat09 29,187]

I think there's room for a realpolitik "it was stupid of the US/NATO to push Ukraine to consider joining knowing that Russia would be pissed about it" line of analysis, but it's kind of important to understand that Russia predictably being unreasonably angry about it would in no way morally justify anything it has fucking done.

[Dahobbs 17,420]

40 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

I think there's room for a realpolitik "it was stupid of the US/NATO to push Ukraine to consider joining knowing that Russia would be pissed about it" line of analysis, but it's kind of important to understand that Russia predictably being unreasonably angry about it would in no way morally justify anything it has fucking done.

There is room for it so long as we recognize that it fundamentally misinterprets the situation. But Putin's motivation was never to keep Ukraine "neutral" and out of NATO. That's what he has claimed, which is precisely how you know it is a lie. In his mind Ukraine belongs to Russia. He doesn't want it independent, neutral, as a barrier to NATO, or anything like that. His demand for Ukrainian "neutrality" was simply a setup to make Ukraine weaker for the inevitable Russian special operation/police action (read: invasion). Ukraine could have done everything he asked. We could have promised not to bring Ukraine into NATO. And Putin would have still sent troops to replace Ukraine's leadership with someone loyal to him. 

Edited March 18, 2022 by Dahobbs

[Thatguy 8,478]

3 hours ago, Captainant said:

Hah it'd be interesting to go through all the favorite Twitter sources of the DT brain trust to gauge their general posture towards Ukraine/russia. Just scrolling through that guys retweets I saw good ol jack posobiec (star of the Portland riot thread) both siding in defense of Russia bombing hospitals.

It's fucking wild to see the same playbook that's been at work here in the US getting deployed in Russia, and even more astounding to see folks completely miss the parallel in rhetoric and talking points

   Doesn't it just blow your mind? I live by a very simple credo. If I am standing in line getting ready to pull the lever for a guy and in the line with me are skinheads, nazis, nationalists, and bunch of toothless dudes who are struggling to string sentences together I am going home and reevaluating my allegiances. It's not that difficult. Look left and right. See who is agreeing with you. 

[Thatguy 8,478]

3 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Do you mean lactose intolerant? Lactose intolerant people lack the ability to produce lactase, an enzyme that allows them to digest the sugar lactose. It’s not due to a deficiency in the culture of bacteria in one’s gut. Like you pointed out, whatever supplement she’s taking is just a temporary fix. She’s not changing her microbiome. Most adults in the world are lactose intolerant. The standard solution is to not eat dairy.

Out of curiosity, what flavor MRE does she prefer?

  Don't be obtuse. lol. The point is people use probies for a lot of different things and they work. Now back to your 20 yr old MREs.

[C-Man 26,992]

Pretty interesting read on why Russia hasn't established air supremacy in Ukraine.

https://taskandpurpose.com/analysis/russian-aircraft-shoot-down-ukraine/?utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=trueanthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR0U4C_gh3kZcf1gLSGVQfoBowgUGo4cQYhvht6aJ966eias2ShO1DVDlQo

Quote

As the Ukraine-Russia war drags on, military aviation experts are noticing that anti-aircraft missiles like the Stinger and Igla are not the only threats Russian pilots face in the skies over Ukraine. In fact, a dangerous combination of doctrine, training and equipment is partly to blame for the heavy losses the VKS, the acronym for Russia’s air force, have sustained in the three-week-old war.

“Russia has not modified its ground-attack tactics and is conducting many of its attacks at low altitude, which puts Russian planes in the lethal envelope” of shoulder-fired man-portable air defense systems (MANPADs), wrote the Atlantic Council in an assessment on Wednesday, the same day low-flying Russian air tactics were covered by Forbes.

“Taken together, these factors have prevented Russia from establishing air superiority and fully supporting a ground invasion force,” the think tank added.

The exact total of Russian and Ukrainian aircraft lost so far is unclear. On the Russian side, at least 32 helicopters and 13 fixed-wing aircraft have been damaged or destroyed, though the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense claims to have killed 81 planes and 95 helicopters. Ukraine meanwhile is down to just 56 combat aircraft, after starting the war with 98, according to Flight Global’s 2022 World Air Forces directory. For context, the U.S. lost 27 fixed-wing aircraft and five helicopters in combat across five or so weeks during the 1991 invasion of Iraq in Desert Storm.

“Russia has still failed to establish air superiority and is suffering huge aircraft losses as a result,” wrote the Atlantic Council, which estimated that it was “highly unlikely” that either side would establish air superiority over Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, or that Russia would be able to block Ukraine’s supply lines with air or missile attacks. Many outlets including Task & Purpose have written about Russia’s failure to achieve air supremacy, the term for making an enemy air force incapable of resistance, despite its combat air force being 15 times the size of Ukraine’s. But recent experts pointed out that may be intentional, as a result of Russian air doctrine.

“No USAF East”

To many American readers, not achieving air supremacy runs counter to the justified belief that air supremacy is vital to winning a conventional war like it was in World War II and Desert Storm. However, several Russian military experts say that the Russian air force does not have the same doctrine or guiding principles as their American counterparts.

“[T]he VKS is no ‘USAF East,’” wrote Austrian aerial warfare analyst and historian Tom Cooper in an essay for Aviation Geek Club on Friday. “The VKS is simply never meant to fight the way Western air forces do.”

In this photo provided by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, Russian Su-25 ground attack jet are being refueled for take-off, while technicians do a final check at Hemeimeem air base in Syria on Wednesday, March 16, 2016. (Vadim Grishankin/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

Air forces come in all kinds of flavors. For example, in 2018, analysts at RAND noted how China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force was moving away from its traditional focus of defending Chinese territory and towards a “strategic air force,” which can project power overseas independent of army or navy forces. The U.S. Air Force, with its global reach, deep pockets and robust industrial base, is capable of striving for similar goals. However, the smaller, poorer and less technologically sophisticated VKS, despite recent modernization efforts, does not have the same capability enjoyed by the U.S. Air Force, experts say.

In fact, senior Russian military leadership “considers the VKS for something like ‘extended range artillery,’” meaning it’s focused on providing close air support well within 100 miles of the front lines, Cooper wrote, not deep into enemy territory as the U.S. Air Force is trained to do.

“For this reason, the VKS has a purely supportive role, through and through: it is meant to — and equipped to — establish air superiority only over the frontlines, and then support ground or naval forces,” Cooper explained.

U.S. Army observers drew similar conclusions about Russian airpower and found that the strategy went way back to World War II. Unlike the Luftwaffe or the Royal Air Force, the Red Army Air Force was not an independent air arm, but was an auxiliary to the Red Army, wrote Dr. Lester Grau and Charles Bartles in a 2016 report on Russian ground forces for the U.S. Army. Though today the Russian air force, space force and strategic missile units are all part of the independent VKS, the service is still considered “a lesser branch” of the Russian military, and “has struggled” to keep control of its units away from the army, Grau and Bartles wrote.

Dumb bombs

All this goes to show that the VKS prioritizes tactical, close air support missions over strategic missions far from the frontlines. That’s all well and good, but Russian pilots are put at greater risk while trying to achieve this mission because of the technology they work with. While the U.S. Air Force has used precision-guided munitions to great effect since at least Desert Storm, the Russian air force has nowhere near the same quantity of so-called ‘smart’ bombs. Instead, Russian pilots must use unguided ‘dumb’ bombs. But to use them accurately, pilots have to fly low and slow, which makes them vulnerable to attack from the ground.

“This, combined with the lack of targeting pods to spot and identify battlefield targets from a safe distance, means that the VKS fixed-wing pilots’ capacity to provide close air support for their forces is limited,” wrote airpower expert Justin Bronk in a Feb. 28 essay for the United Kingdom defense think tank, Royal United Services Institute.

Cooper wrote that the lack of PGMs in Russia stems from the country losing many manufacturing contracts in the wake of its 2014 invasion of Ukraine. Now, VKS pilots must carry so-called dumb bombs at low altitudes and slow speeds to hit frontline targets, a perfect scenario for MANPADS-toting Ukrainian troops looking for a kill.

“The bulk of [Russian] aircraft losses are believed to be from surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), including from the mobile, long-range S-300 (aka SA-10) and [MANPADS] such as the Stinger missile supplied by the United States,” wrote the Atlantic Council. “Russia has not made the elimination of mobile SAMs a priority, nor has it pressed for the complete destruction of Ukrainian fighter aircraft.”

To make matters worse for the survivability of Russian pilots, VKS aviators have nowhere near the training or experience expected of most NATO pilots, Bronk said. Most VKS pilots get 100 hours or less of flying a year, which is about half flown by most NATO pilots, he wrote. They also don’t have the same advanced simulators for keeping sharp on the ground, and they rarely practice large air operations like those put on by the U.S. Air Force’s Red Flag exercise.

A Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber takes off for a training mission in Krasnodar Region, Russia, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022. (AP Photo/Vitaliy Timkiv)

“In Western air forces … pilots are rigorously trained to fly complex sorties in appalling weather, at low level and against live and simulated ground and aerial threats,” Bronk explained. Jet pilots must also be able to hit targets within five to ten seconds of a scheduled time so that a complex strike package involving a large number of other aircraft can succeed.

“By contrast, most VKS frontline training sorties involve comparatively sterile environments, and simple tasks such as navigation flights, unguided weapon deliveries at open ranges,” and other less complex scenarios, Bronk said.

Bronk’s analysis shows that even if VKS wanted to change its strategy and achieve total air supremacy over, its pilots may simply lack the skills to do so. 

Cold feet

Russian pilots are not the only ones afraid of surface-to-air missiles. One Department of Defense official said on Friday that Ukrainian troops “are not using their fixed-wing fighter aircraft very much,” out of fear of Russian SAMs, Defense One reported.

It almost sounds like the World War I trenches, but in the air: where each side is reluctant to commit combat aircraft en masse for fear of being destroyed by the other side’s formidable air defenses. The airspace may get even more dangerous, as U.S. President Joe Biden promised on Wednesday to send hundreds of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, thousands of anti-armor missiles and drones to Ukraine. Of course, like everything else in war, the situation could change any minute.

“VKS may suddenly start mounting large-scale complex air operations comparable to those routinely conducted by NATO states,” Bronk wrote. “If it does not, however, it will have profound implications for its potential combat power against Ukrainian forces in the coming weeks, and its value as a conventional deterrence tool against Western countries.”

 

[Dutchrudder 11,103]

424-8, House easily passes bill to revoke Russia’s normal trade status, sending bill to Senate. The lone NO votes:

Boebert

Massie

Gaetz

Biggs

Greene

Bishop

Roy

Grothman

[Dutchrudder 11,103]

Also this:

 

 

[Longhorn_Fan68 33,825]

2 minutes ago, Dutchrudder said:

424-8, House easily passes bill to revoke Russia’s normal trade status, sending bill to Senate. The lone NO votes:

Boebert

Massie

Gaetz

Biggs

Greene

Bishop

Roy

Grothman

[Longhorn_Fan68 33,825]

score one for the good guys

 

[jimmyjazz 45,513]

Probiotics talk not going away.

[Longhorn_Fan68 33,825]

not when you keep it going like that. jfc, now look what you made me do!

Edited March 18, 2022 by Longhorn_Fan68

[TwiceHorn 31,184]

30 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

There is room for it so long as we recognize that it fundamentally misinterprets the situation. But Putin's motivation was never to keep Ukraine "neutral" and out of NATO. That's what he has claimed, which is precisely how you know it is a lie. In his mind Ukraine belongs to Russia. He doesn't want it independent, neutral, as a barrier to NATO, or anything like that. His demand for Ukrainian "neutrality" was simply a setup to make Ukraine weaker for the inevitable Russian special operation/police action (read: invasion). Ukraine could have done everything he asked. We could have promised not to bring Ukraine into NATO. And Putin would have still sent troops to replace Ukraine's leadership with someone loyal to him. 

And, I think, the "reconquista" of Ukraine is more about satisfying the Russian public than Putin's actual desires.  I think it was Fiona Hill that pointed out that he pulls some kind of "wag the dog" event before every election.

He's drummed up Ukraine as a threat and an enemy and surrogate of the West not so much because he believes it to be true, but to conjure a fake enemy to justify himself as a strongman worthy of continued support.  

 

Edited March 18, 2022 by TwiceHorn

[Longhorn_Fan68 33,825]

y'all remember when everyone got war boners over the smart bomb technology and other death toys during the gulf war? holy shit I can't imagine priapism they get watching shit like this. reads like a goddamn video game

 

[TexArcher 37,455]

1 hour ago, wildcat09 said:

I think there's room for a realpolitik "it was stupid of the US/NATO to push Ukraine to consider joining knowing that Russia would be pissed about it" line of analysis, but it's kind of important to understand that Russia predictably being unreasonably angry about it would in no way morally justify anything it has fucking done.

I don't know, man.  The entire "we shouldn't have provoked Russia" angle sounds a little too reminiscent of the "she shouldn't have worn that skirt" angle.  I don't think the rest of the world is obligated to amend its behavior to avoid setting off the psychos who look for reasons to be set off. 

And Putin isn't doing this because we provoked him; he's doing this because this is what autocrat sociopaths do.  If it weren't Ukraine, it would be somewhere else for some other reason.  

[DDD Dad 14,167]

37 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Probiotics talk not going away.

 

35 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

not when you keep it going like that. jfc, now look what you made me do!

 

[bolverk 29,360]

Decent write-up on Rachel Blevins, the young co-host from Texas for RT.

 https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texan-face-of-rt-america/

If the full article is tldr, these four paragraphs on her background kind of says it all:

Blevins’s family moved from Colorado to Mineral Wells, an economically struggling town of around 15,000, when she was eleven. She attended Community Christian School, a small, private religious institution, where she graduated as valedictorian in 2013. A scholarship landed her at Texas Tech, where she began taking journalism classes. After her professors warned that young journalists usually have to toil for years covering local crime and local elections, Blevins said she planned to switch majors—that is, until one of her professors assigned her and her classmates to conduct an official interview with a source. She chose the topic of government control of media. Her father, a regular listener of talk radio, suggested she interview Ben Swann, a TV journalist originally from El Paso who has alternated between stints as an award-winning major-market local TV anchor and an enthusiastic promulgator of conspiracy theories—sometimes at the same time. When they met, Swann had a short-lived radio show on the Republic Broadcasting Network, a fringe Texas-based outlet that has repeatedly featured hard-core white supremacists and Holocaust deniers. 

Blevins says the interview helped open her eyes to what she terms “independent journalists” and “independent networks.” Facebook’s algorithm had catalyzed the explosive growth of viral content farms, many of them seat-of-the-pants publishers that specialized in sensational and conspiratorial stories—and it just so happened that Swann was launching a website, Truth in Media, that needed writers. “I was kind of in the place of saying, ‘Okay, well, I don’t have much experience, but I can try.’ And so I started out writing for him.” By June, she was regularly freelancing for the site.

Swann was also a regular guest on RT America at the time, sometimes echoing Kremlin propaganda. In one 2014 segment, he averred that “any credible evidence does not seem to exist” that Russian-backed insurgents in Ukraine were responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17—an argument that was part of a larger campaign by Putin and RT to sow confusion about who was responsible for the 298 deaths that resulted. (An RT reporter resigned on air in disgust over the outlet’s coverage of the incident.) Years later, when Blevins had her own RT America show, Swann would pop up as a guest; in one of her last shows, he was introduced as a “crypto analyst.” 

It didn’t take long for Blevins to get noticed by RT higher-ups. Just a few months into her freelancing gig at Truth in Media, during the fall semester of her sophomore year, the news director for RT America saw one of Blevins’s stories and reached out to offer her a job as a reporter. “I said, ‘Hey, I’m still in college; I’m going to get this degree. I will reach back out, and let’s keep in touch and basically keep the networking going until I graduate.’ ” The offer might seem odd, or premature, but it was standard practice for RT. A 2020 Oxford study, based on interviews with 23 RT journalists, found that the network’s management deliberately recruited journalists with little to no experience, in order “to be able to mold the newly hired journalists and shape their minds.”

[Make em eat Taco Bell 1,549]

canvassing various political forums and social media, Putin has the support of far right white nationalists and the ultra left in the west and those anti-imperialist elements in foreign countries (Africans, Arabs, Asians).  What a strange mix.  Not sure I've ever seen the ultra left and the ultra right have common ground, it's very very odd. 

[crash_davis 23,078]

8 minutes ago, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

Not sure I've ever seen the ultra left and the ultra right have common ground, it's very very odd. 

they all hate america but for different reasons.

[Goredho 17,302]

11 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

In his view, Ukraine is of zero strategic value to the United States, and all of Europe is of declining value.

Real talk.  You are probably right that we don't particularly give a shit about the Ukraine.  I mean, they are cool, and scrappy as fuck.  Their meme game is on point.  But whether the Ukraine is a self governed or not, well, there's a reason we have not actually put any planes in the air, let alone boots on the ground.

But what we do care about, and which is of strategic interest to us, is bringing about the downfall of Putin's Russia.  Here's a fucking news flash:  Russia has been actively engaged in a war with us for several years now.  While we have been trying our best to ignore them, they have:

• Hacked the voting infrastructure of 21 states
• Hacked Hillary Clinton's campaign infrastructure
• Attempted to hack the RNC
• Attempted to hack Mark Rubio's campaign infrastructure
• Aided a candidate to be elected as President of the US and sabotaged his opposition in illegal ways
• Amplified the strife and discord in this country that resulted in the Michigan Governor kidnapping plot, the Oregon riots, the January 6th riots, etc.. etc.. 
• And more...

Those are direct attacks on our country and have resulted in the loss of American lives.  So we cannot afford to ignore Russia no matter what you or Meatgazer thinks.  You don't always get to pick your fights.  Or exactly who you have to be concerned with strategically.  Sometimes that choice is made for you, and Russia has made themselves our enemy.

So now we've been presented with an opportunity by and through the Ukraine to fuck Putin in the goatass.  To weaken him greatly by help keeping them in the game.  To very possibly see him deposed.  Are there risks?  Sure.  But I would say that it's far riskier to try to keep ignoring the threat to our country, democracy and way of life that Putin presents.  We would have had to confront Putin eventually, and with more risks and less chance of success than what we see now in the Ukraine.

I am glad the people that see it this way (and not you) are the people in charge of safeguarding our strategic interests.

Sources:
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume1.pdf
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-senate-findings-fact/factbox-key-findings-from-senate-inquiry-into-russian-interference-in-2016-u-s-election-idUSKCN25E2OY
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/us/politics/election-interference-russia-2020-assessment.html
 

[Brisketexan 104,465]

2 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Probiotics talk not going away.

[MaybeACoordinator 8,349]

9 minutes ago, Goredho said:

Real talk.  You are probably right that we don't particularly give a shit about the Ukraine.  I mean, they are cool, and scrappy as fuck.  Their meme game is on point.  But whether the Ukraine is a self governed or not, well, there's a reason we have not actually put any planes in the air, let alone boots on the ground.

But what we do care about, and which is of strategic interest to us, is bringing about the downfall of Putin's Russia.  Here's a fucking news flash:  Russia has been actively engaged in a war with us for several years now.  While we have been trying our best to ignore them, they have:

• Hacked the voting infrastructure of 21 states
• Hacked Hillary Clinton's campaign infrastructure
• Attempted to hack the RNC
• Attempted to hack Mark Rubio's campaign infrastructure
• Aided a candidate to be elected as President of the US and sabotaged his opposition in illegal ways
• Amplified the strife and discord in this country that resulted in the Michigan Governor kidnapping plot, the Oregon riots, the January 6th riots, etc.. etc.. 
• And more...

Those are direct attacks on our country and have resulted in the loss of American lives.  So we cannot afford to ignore Russia no matter what you or Meatgazer thinks.  You don't always get to pick your fights.  Or exactly who you have to be concerned with strategically.  Sometimes that choice is made for you, and Russia has made themselves our enemy.

So now we've been presented with an opportunity by and through the Ukraine to fuck Putin in the goatass.  To weaken him greatly by help keeping them in the game.  To very possibly see him deposed.  Are there risks?  Sure.  But I would say that it's far riskier to try to keep ignoring the threat to our country, democracy and way of life that Putin presents.  We would have had to confront Putin eventually, and with more risks and less chance of success than what we see now in the Ukraine.

I am glad the people that see it this way (and not you) are the people in charge of safeguarding our strategic interests.

Sources:
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume1.pdf
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-senate-findings-fact/factbox-key-findings-from-senate-inquiry-into-russian-interference-in-2016-u-s-election-idUSKCN25E2OY
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/us/politics/election-interference-russia-2020-assessment.html
 

You are correct on these points but all of this stepped up when we started meddling in their affairs over....Ukraine. Putin flipped his wig when he saw his boy Yanokuvych have to haul ass outta Dodge in his pajamas or whatever and rightly or wrongly he blames the US for those protests and he thinks he could be next. 

And all those bullet points are mere annoyances compared to a possible ww3. Five years ago I was right there with you, but now I have come to believe that Fox News is the greater enemy domestically and China the more fearsome adversary globally. Yes Fox and the Russkies can walk in lockstep, but Fox is far better at it than they are. Our brainwashed elders and friends did not get there through RT (unless they are weirdoes like one of my aunts) but through Fox. 

[MissingInAction 24,765]

18 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

your sister is out of prison ?

Which one?

[jimmyjazz 45,513]

10 minutes ago, MissingInAction said:

Which one?

Which sister or which prison?

[Goredho 17,302]

1 hour ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

You are correct on these points but all of this stepped up when we started meddling in their affairs over....Ukraine. Putin flipped his wig when he saw his boy Yanokuvych have to haul ass outta Dodge in his pajamas or whatever and rightly or wrongly he blames the US for those protests and he thinks he could be next. 

And all those bullet points are mere annoyances compared to a possible ww3. Five years ago I was right there with you, but now I have come to believe that Fox News is the greater enemy domestically and China the more fearsome adversary globally. Yes Fox and the Russkies can walk in lockstep, but Fox is far better at it than they are. Our brainwashed elders and friends did not get there through RT (unless they are weirdoes like one of my aunts) but through Fox. 

If we get to nukes being tossed back and forth across the Atlantic, I’ll agree that we pushed our luck too far.  But we aren’t there, and I think there are several escalatory steps we would have to go through first for it to be the next most likely outcome.  We’ll have to agree to disagree about the gravity of Russia’s attempts to subvert our democracy and what risks and responses they warrant.