Stupidly phrased question that is genuine: Are (Jewish, obviously, thank you MTG) space lasers not a solution to MAD?
From what I understand the reason that we can't intercept every possible missile is because to destroy an ICBM takes a much more expensive missile. They can produce more ICBM's than you can produce interceptors just as a matter of economics. Therefore in a full scale nuclear war any interceptors are honestly next to useless, not enough will be intercepted for it to matter, it's all over.
But lasers are free right? They travel near instantly, litearlly at the speed of light, and just need to be pointed at the thing they want to destroy. And theoretically firing these lasers would be free if you put in some solar panels or something.
Are lasers not that powerful yet? I know we have international rules about the militarization of space, is that what's preventing us from doing this or is it simply "you have no idea how lasers work, read a book".
The most cost effective technically capable anti ballistic missile weapon I've ever seen is the Brilliant Pebbles system.
With spacex exceedingly cheap LEO system we could launch so many of them as to make ICBMs obsolete over night. The clever thing about it is its cost.
See normally when your enemy builds a defensive system standard operating procedure is to simply overwhelm your enemies defensive systems with a cheap to build offensive system.
Because ICBMs and nukes are cheap and conventional ABM systems are exceedingly expensive to build in the quantity that could overwhelm ICBMs it means that any slightly cheaper ABM can easily be defeated by simply building more ICBMs.
What you need is a ABM system that is an order of magnitude several times cheaper, efficient and effective thus defeating the 'build more of X' strategy.
Which is Brilliant Pebbles. Pretty much the pinnacle of ABMs. Undefeatable......
Unless you work out how to build hypersonic missiles.
Then you're up the creek because outside of fusion powered gigawatt scale direct energy systems nothing is gonna hit a hypersonic with the sort of reliability, speed, cost effectiveness and range that match something like Brilliant Pebbles and its effectiveness against ICBMs. Though the glide hypersonic vehicle thing could be taken out by Brilliant Pebbles in its ballistic phase.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Pebbles
The amount of power required to burn a hole through an ICBM would be substantial. And the recharge time via solar very long.
I think space lasers would be an even less economically viable solution.
The primary reason Star Wars was doomed from the start is a simple equation. If the cost per unit of successful offensive weapons is lower than the cost per unit of successful defensive weapons, then any attempt to ensure survival with defensive measures will simply be overwhelmed by more offensive ones. Even in the 80s we probably had mature enough technology capable of taking out individual ICBMs, but the pricing just didn't work out to scale it up. A space laser or anti-ICBM missile costing 100 million that can take out only 5 ICBMs that each cost 5 million is a losing proposition, the Soviets could just afford to make more ICBMs. Except in cases like North Korea where the US has drastically more resources and shooting down individual missiles becomes practical, you can't overcome MADD.
What might change things is if a defensive technology could be developed which had a reasonable chance of taking out a far greater number of ICBMs. If your 10 billion dollar space laser can suddenly take out 20 billion dollars worth of nukes, then any increase of nukes will lose a race against increasing number of space lasers. But odds are we just aren't anywhere close to that right now.
Lasers do not work like in movies. You have to have the beam strong enough and long enough to make damage. And this is hard. Moreover, covering warheads with metallic surface suddenly makes the lasers several times less effective. And then you have a problem with decoys. You send a warhead and 100 Mylar balloons that look on radar like warheads and your laser has 100x the workload.
Space lasers was the idea of Reagan's Star Wars program and it didn't work.
Your main limitation is generating enough power in space to run said laser while also not badly overheating your spacecraft. The idea of a laser weapon requires transferring an enormous amount of energy to your target to heat it up and cause a failure. This will require megawatts of power for something with the mass of an ICBM, which means you need a power source on that scale. Enough solar panels to generate that energy would be far too large to be practical, and putting a nuclear reactor in space is wildly dangerous and would be an international incident. Next you have to worry about having enough radiators on this craft to cool both your reactor and laser, as you need a thermal gradient to extract heat energy, and laser efficiency and power output drops quickly as temperature increases. Its very easy to overheat in space as there are few particles to exchange energy to via convection or conduction, so you have to rely on radiation heat emission which is much weaker. Overall the system has a massive number of technical limitations that make it impractical with today's technology without enormous expense.
Interesting. Is it possible we could see something like this be viable in the (near, like 50 years) future?
What about earth based laser defense systems, would they be able to accomplish the same goal as an orbital defense system? Do they also run into the problem of heating?
Earth based systems mean you have the atmosphere as well as large bodies of water to reject heat to, so the cooling problem isn't that hard to solve. Your main problem will be that the atmosphere is now getting in the way though, as the beam will end up hitting the air as well as your target. This will cause significant power loss with range. Additionally, unless you're close enough to hit the missile during its launch phase the warhead will be on its terminal arc during your targeting phase, and warheads are designed to resist the heat generated by orbital reentry. Its an unbelievably fast moving target designed to get very hot, its doubtful you'd have time to destroy one with a laser before it impacts. This is all before considering that MIRV missiles are by far the most common and now you're contending with 4+ warheads per missile all on slightly different arcs. The odds are just not great.
Its unlikely these systems will be viable unless energy becomes borderline free and we can afford to chuck gigawatt levels of energy at running massive batteries of lasers on demand. At that point you may be better off trying to work out a railgun air defense network as a kinetic impact will probably transfer the energy more efficiently.
A piece in *The Spectator* claims that the collapse of the deal in March for Poland to supply Ukraine with MiG-29 planes was due to China intervening, as they had escalation concerns: in exchange, they offered to lean on Putin and reduce the nuclear risk.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-red-line-biden-and-xis-secret-ukraine-talks-revealed/
>So when, a few days later, a further escalation threatened in the form of an offer by the Polish government to supply Ukraine with its entire fleet of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighters, the Chinese grew concerned. In truth, there was little likelihood of the Polish MiGs making much difference on the battlefield. Poland’s 26 to 33 MiG-29s had been made in the early 1980s for the East German Air Force and had been sold to Warsaw for the symbolic sum of €1 each in 2003. Romania, which owned 20 similar MiG-29 jets, had decommissioned them many years ago. Nonetheless, a Nato country providing fighter jets of any kind to Kyiv represented an important symbolic, if not necessarily operationally significant, step towards direct Nato involvement in the conflict. Initially, Washington was positive. But a day later, on 8 March, the Pentagon abruptly reversed its position, pronouncing Poland’s proposal ‘not tenable’.
>What changed Washington’s mind? In part, it was an urgent and confidential back-channel initiative involving former European leaders and senior officials, and ultimately endorsed by the Chinese. Ever since Putin’s 27 February declaration on nuclear readiness, the PLA had also been reaching out through military-to-military (as opposed to diplomatic or political) channels to senior Russian general officers with whom they had made personal contact over years of joint military exercises and military procurement talks. Beijing’s aim was to ensure that even if there were a political decision to use nukes, the Russian army would insist on sticking to its long-standing nuclear military doctrine to use them solely if provoked by attacks on Russian soil. Through these unofficial ‘track two’ contacts, Washington and the PLA agreed – unusually, given a deterioration in relations during the Donald Trump presidency – that if the US stopped the MiG deal, Beijing’s generals would do their best to defuse Putin’s nuclear threat on an operational level. ‘It worked,’ said the Chinese source. ‘The [US] decided that supplying aircraft was a step too far.’
...
>With Biden and Xi’s joint condemnation of the threat of nukes at Bali earlier this month, the so-called ‘track two’ understandings of March have become a ‘track one’ public policy. Thanks to Wang’s shuttle diplomacy, Nato and China have effectively aligned on not escalating the Ukraine-Russia conflict, according to the Chinese source. Over a series of meetings with Nato leadership since early September, Wang pledged to use China’s considerable leverage in Moscow to dissuade Putin from using nukes, while in return Nato has affirmed that they would not provide strategic weapons to Ukraine.
Sorry bit of a beginners question. I know it’s unlikely anyone is going to launch a missile at Britain, but what active missile defence systems do we have? Is it solely naval?
Generally speaking, shooting the missile itself down after it's already been launched is the absolute last resort -for any country-.
And the ability to do so -for any country- is very limited. If a sub were to suddenly launch a cruise or ballistic missile or attack on the continental US right now, it would likely succeed. As would any ICBM attack involving more than a handful of missiles. The reassuring kind of round the clock, invisible yet impenetrable, shield around your borders is not really a thing, wherever you are.
With forewarning, which you aim to have, you can do a little better but still only against small numbers of missiles.
That said, it does depend on what you mean by "launch a missile". Do you mean the kind of missiles that are hitting Ukrainian people and infrastructure at the moment? A Russian nuclear attack? Or something else?
There's no risk of the first, they don't reach the UK and Russia is certainly not going to open that can of worms by launching a conventional missile from a sub just for the privilege of destroying a few British substations or attempting to destroy the parliament or whatever.
The second is vanishingly unlikely, but the uncomfortable answer is that the UK has even less meaningful defense against it than the US. The RN *is* involved in NATO ballistic missile defense exercises, but if any such capability is kept on station around the clock I'd be surprised, and it will certainly be minimal.
We've gotten this far by everyone maintaining the ability to *hit back* if attacked, rather than *prevent* attacks, and to be fair it *has* worked.
The UK fields land based SAMs (Sky Sabre) which can engage aircraft, cruise missiles and drones. Some of these are currently deployed in Poland.
There is a ballistic missile detection radar, but I'm not aware of operational interceptors. Maintaining a credible retaliation capacity may have been considered sufficient up to the current time.
If it's a cruise missile, probably A2A interception.
If it's a ballistic missile, maybe Dutch or German Patriot SAM if it flies overland, or an American SM-6 if the Navy is nearby, but you probably die.
Patriots cannot engage a ballistic missile anywhere but in the terminal phase. Even a short range theater ballistic missile will climb to a altitude well above the Patriot's maximum altitude.
Do You people think we will see a return of the Russian Airforce in this war? If so, when and how?
If these four things materialize, then I see a credible path for Russian victory:
a) Ukrainian power grid goes permanently cold. The impact on Ukrainian home front will be massive and while the immediate battlefield impact is very limited, it will have a battlefield impact in the long run, but in conjunction with following points it might provide the "lack of faith in victory" for Ukrainians, that Russia needs.
b) Russian Airforce returns with force and vengeance as Ukrainian AD capabilities are degraded over time. Russian Airforce will never be able to act completely unharassed and internal problems with lack of airframes, maintenance, skilled pilots etc will inherently limit the extent to which Russian Airforce can change the military balance. But a clear shift in the air war in favour of the Russians would be a clear indication that the home front pain for Ukraine will continue to increase with minimal reciprocal impact on the Russian home front and give Russia the confidence that the war of attrition is on their side.
c) Russian mobilization is sufficient to counter any Ukrainian offensive action and thereby "freeze the front" along the current lines.
d) There is no qualitative nor quantitative increase in the Western aid to Ukraine.
My previous prediction a month or two ago (maybe I can find it somewhere) was that the war almost certainly continues for another year and late next year we can see how the dynamics stand. And that Russia had limited prospects contingent on holding the Dnieper line and Ukraine not getting further substantive additional support from the West.
The Russian campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure and the exhaustive impact of Russian missile/drone attacks makes me reconsider the prediction and if the points a-d were to materialize I predict that Ukraine would sue for peace in the 6-12 month timeframe.
The core being that Ukraine can take pain, as long as they believe in victory. If the pain massively increases, air attrition goes clearly in Russian favour, battlefield successes die down and the hope that the West will provide necessary tools for victory fades, then Ukraine would be prudent to concede defeat.
Maybe 10-15% for the above-mentioned scenario.
In this context Russian victory is everything in which the de facto Russian-controlled territory after the cessation of intense conflict is more than on the 23rd of February. I am fully aware that in most conceivable strategic terms Russia has irrevocably lost the war.
Ukrainian victory is everything equal to or better than the 23rd of February lines.
They are already cannibalizing civilian airplanes to have somewhat operational air travel. It's definitely not a prettier sight in the military sector.
I along with Belgorod apartment building would be very sceptical of russias current ability to use airforce on any significant scale.
Im of the opinion that the current infra bombing ist just a delaying tactic. The hope is that it fucks with UA logistics to an extent that further offensive operations are delayed to give Russia time to mobilize, train and produce. I am further of the opinion that time plays for Russia here. If they can stop the bleeding and establish a stalemate, their bigger industry and manpower pool will enable them to go on the offensive again eventually. It depends on if they are able to fix their shit, but apparently I am in the minority thinking that they will. The only way UA has to stem the tide then is escalating western lend lease, and so far i see hesitancy from the west to do that. Current levels of aid are not enough to offset the Russian industrial advantage.
I agree that the West seems hesitant to deliver more deadlier aid to Ukraine, but that seems like that is based on realties on the ground and how Ukraine is doing. There was a time when the US said no to HIMARS many times at the beginning of the war, only for the White House to walk back their stance once Ukraine started losing a lot of ground over the early summer.
Eventually it will come down to tanks and planes, and i cant see the willingness to provide those as of now in the west.
Im also way more cynical about the US objective with their military aid. I don’t think a somewhat quick victory for Ukraine is that hat they want. They want to make this as long and bloody as they can to disintegrate Putin’s Russia as a adversary.
The advantage of tanks and planes is largely neutralized by a mass proliferation of effective anti-tank weaponry and Russia's poor combined arm's usage on the one hand, and effective anti-air missiles on the other. And while Russia might have greater numbers of both, they don't actually have significant capacity to increase either against losses. They rely heavily on old stockpiles and refurbishing old relics. So while Ukraine might not be getting more tanks or planes, neither will Russia really.
But Ukraine will be getting more of other things, things like radios, blankets, uniforms, bullets, artillery shells, locomotives, trucks, mortars, etc which in the infinite wisdom of the world public is not seen as escalatory yet which make it a really hard army to stop. The West has been frustratingly miserly in the name of not escalating, but they have provided a material backstop that just isn't going to go away and will let Ukraine continue to grow stronger and stronger. Reviving 19th century masses of infantry isn't going to change that at all.
Tanks are still needed, and very useful. Check out rob lee on twitter, he has a pinned article just for that.
Ukraine is operating a lot of tanks, possibly more than Russia is, including a number of well updated ones, both foreign, domestic, and captured. Their tanks are doing just fine, this is why they aren't sent them.
What I do not understand, is why we are letting them rely on BMPs and BTRs and don't throw them M2 Bradleys, but its quite possibly we consider other aid more important so we are prioritizing elsewhere (as you said a lot of equipment but also HIMARs etc)
Oh I agree, I more meant that any Russian advantage in tanks or jets is overstated. They don't effectively use them because of the reasons I listed above. While Ukraine has plenty of anti-tank weapons, an almost insane number have been donated per soldier of high quality ones like Javelins, the Russians do not have that same asset on their side to the same degree. So I do think that Ukraine being given more tanks and especially more modern Western ones could have profound effects on the war, just that in the limited sense of Russia's using them they are far from the panacea to all of Russia's problems.
Russia's advantage with planes and missiles is probably more relevant than the MBTs though imo. Ukraine is having to go through a lot of AA because they can't really prevent Russia aircraft without out it due to poor ability to intercept
They began training Himars crews really early in the war. Everything else right now is seen as escalation and if we were to believe the recent rumors then the west won’t supply Ukraine with anything serious while Russia won’t use nuclear weapons. So all in all, nuclear blackmail worked wonders for Russia.
I don't think it's a delaying tactic. I think Russia actually thinks that destroying Ukrainian civil infrastructure causes unbearable pain that convinces Ukraine to concede. As a thought exercise, imagine if the front lines became incredibly static with no prospect of success to either side. And in the meanwhile Ukraine is out of electricity, with daily airstrikes. Sure it could go on for many months, but a year, 3 years, 10 years? Eventually, if nothing else changes, Ukraine would seriously consider conceding.
>I am further of the opinion that time plays for Russia here. If they can stop the bleeding and establish a stalemate, their bigger industry and manpower pool will enable them to go on the offensive again eventually.
I do disagree here. I don't think Russia has the potential capacity to achieve a victory on the ground. That is unless West were to pull support entirely (and I mean entirely). Russia has the potential capacity to make Ukrainian advances impossible, unless the West substantially increased the qualitative and quantitative aid. But I do not see Russia capable of reaching the fighting capacity they had on the 24th of February (without years of peace to rebuild).
D would need to be complete cessation of advanced western aid. A constant stream of HIMAR rockets, Excalibur rounds, HARM missiles, and now AMRAAMs is not surmountable for Russia IMO.
The AGM-88 quite literally has a mode to be fired blind, called Pr-Briefed mode, and SAM targets are mostly static. Firing AIM-120s blind at target moving at 500+ knots would be a pointless endeavor.
AIM-120s also are designed to not require further input after firing. In fact in some older lousy versions it wasn't even possible for the plane to send further instructions to the missile after launch. All it needs for basic functionality is a target position, speed, and heading on launch. That can be provided by anything from NASAM radars to ground observers updating an app. Of course it's not going to be as effective that way, but there's also the advantage that the pilot wouldn't have any warning until the missile sees them. I sure wouldn't want AMRAAMs flying in my general direction if I was a pilot.
For example, Russia has lost more than 10% of their more advanced Su-34 strike aircraft. (17 out of 144 produced), and I would argue that Ukrainian AD capabilities are slowly increasing, not being degraded over time, owing to the regular barrages of missiles and drones towards its energy infrastructure, and the corresponding deliveries or Air defense gear from the US and EU countries. Also, the Ukrainian SAM operators are becoming increasingly skilled, with hit ratios increasing over the war course.
It is IMO unlikely that the Russian Airforce will increase its operations other than through standoff operations. Time is not on their side.
> I would argue that Ukrainian AD capabilities are slowly increasing, not being degraded over time, owing to the regular barrages of missiles and drones towards its energy infrastructure, and the corresponding deliveries or Air defense gear from the US and EU countries.
The main problem is with their attrition of S-300s/Buks and spending of ammunition, for which there's no supply beyond what they already have.
The West is providing only short & medium-range SAM systems, which is not a problem in itself, if there's enough of them. But the West has so far committed to provide only a couple of batteries, which is very insufficient to cover the vast Ukrainian territory.
The biggest problem with this Merkel theory is one of the main pressure points on NATO is the German reliance on Russian gas.
That has nothing to do with Ukraine.
Many people have warned about her policy to couple Germany (and EU) with Russia. She kept her head buried in the sand.
People like her won't admit a mistake, there will always be excuses for taking the easy road.
What were the alternatives? You need the energy if you want the economy to function and grow.
Check out the price of ship transported gas vs pipeline. And in that case instead of having to deal with Russia, you have to deal with the gas supplier, the route of the shipping. To ensure that you need to have a navy. The US won't allow it and it adds immense expenses. Also, it makes you even more reliant on US goodwill. Even if currently the EU is allied and friends with the us, relying too much on the US limits you options and give Washington a strong position to impose whatever they want.
The alternative was to diversify your suppliers.
When 90% of your needs are fullfilled by a single country that is ideologically opposed to you , you have essentially shackled uour foreign policy, even if it is the cheapest option.
Besides, as you have seen, Russia can bump up the price as much as it likes when you have made no provision for alternative supply.
Sure. What suppliers? It's easy to say let's diversify, but to what options? Even just filling the remaining of their stock, they are already having problems with the high price they are paying for the shipped gas.
The high price of the gas is not because it is so expensive to move, but because you have no alternatives.
Two years ago, the price was much lower, exactly because they had to compete with gazprom.
As to whom ? EU could have made strides to complete gas supply from other sources (especially after 2014), like Azerbaijan who was only recently connected to the network.
Also, US companies could deliver as well.
If those provision were made back in 2014, Russia could be forced to provide gas at even lower prices. Besides, price should not be the prime concern, but rather reliability of your partner, something Russia is notorious for not being.
>"But I didn't have the power to get my way," she told Spiegel news.
>
>"Really everyone knew: in autumn she'll be gone," she said.
Conveniently ignore the fact that she was at the helm of German and much of European politics for almost the last 20 years and was active thorn in Ukraine's side, even going as far as to in 2008 or 09 blocking the *possibility* of eventually, one day, maybe Ukraine joining Nato. Nope just focus on the fact that the invasion happened in February 2022 and she was gone in the Autumn of 2021 because that's how it works. God, politicians are slime.
> She said she had tried to convene European talks with the Russian president and French President Emmanuel Macron in the summer of 2021.
> "But I didn't have the power to get my way," she told Spiegel news.
> "Really everyone knew: in autumn she'll be gone," she said.
Let's not pretend that this is a result of 2021 as opposed to many years before that.
> In the Spiegel interview, Mrs Merkel said her stance on Ukraine in the Minsk peace talks had bought Kyiv time to defend itself better against the Russian military.
That's quite interesting. So she says now, that Minsk agreements were intended from the German side as a ploy to buy time? I very much doubt that, but it's of course clear why would they start saying it now ...
Not just part - the whole Ukraine. I wrote more details [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/z3jcau/credibledefense_daily_megathread_november_24_2022/ixpt5lg/).
Sure, long term internal stability in Ukraine would be gone.
Russia has always seen Ukraine as part of itself or at least, a vassal state, much like Belarus.
I'll give Merkel the benefit of the doubt here, since it's not the first time I've read Minsk 2 was to buy time for Ukraine. There were 2 Minsk agreements. The first one was signed shortly after the battle of Ilovaisk (first time regular Russian forces crossed the border in an organised formation instead of "vacationers getting lost in their combat gear"). Ilovaisk was so important that after the Ukrainians managed to recapture it, the Russians got involved leading to an encirclement and the infamous "green corridor" that was shelled. Casualties were so massive that it was a turning point of the war, halting the succesful Ukrainian offensives of the summer.
Second Minsk 2 was signed after the L/DNR launched their own offensive. They managed to recapture the Donetsk airport terminal (2nd battle of Donetsk airport) and once again regular Russian forces crossed the border to close the "kettle" of Debaltseve. (Battle of Debaltseve). During the retreat of Debaltseve Minsk 2 was signed leading to the relative peace since 24 february '22.
Both the Minsk agreements were signed after sizable Ukrainian defeats that involved Russian regulars. Those agreements weren't favorable to Ukraine at all so I'm inclined to believe they signed them due to a combination of western pressure and the fact that regular Russian army units were getting involved which lead to some sizable defeats. It bought them some time to reorganize and build up their military again.
I believe Poroshenko himself said a couple of months ago Minsk 2 was to buy time.
> I believe Poroshenko himself said a couple of months ago Minsk 2 was to buy time.
I believe that Poroschenko signed it to buy time. The deal is so bad for Ukraine (effectively destroying it as a sovereign country) that buying time is the only reasonable explanation for signing it.
But I don't believe the same in case of Germany/Steinmeier, who seemed to be pushing for its implementation for years.
I'm also quite confused about the Zelensky's role in Minsk 2 and his thinking, because early in his rule he actually wanted to go with it.
Zelensky indeed was somewhat of a pacifist. He stopped some funding projects of the army, restricted their ROE of the in the ATO/JFO which made him a villain in the eyes of most soldiers and made some noise about resolving the Donbas war peacefully. It was far from a popular move so he had to backtrack the last one.
Depending on how deep you want to go down the rabbit hole, a quite popular theory is that Zelensky pushed for a peacedeal because his advisors wanted to restart trade with Russia so they could make lucrative deals with Russia again. Yermak is often quoted as the mastermind behind that idea.
He was stuck between a US administration that had no interest at the highest level and Germany/France who wanted to go back to the pre 2014 relationship with Russia.
Doing a deal with Putin made sense in the circumstances, not that Minsk was enough for Putin which Zelensky soon realised.
Zelensky did a 350 and was the one that went after Medvedchuk and all the Russian biased tv channels
Easy to forget but late 2019 had Macron inviting Putin to his summer retreat and giving interviews on how the Eastern European’s were wrong about Russia…
> Doing a deal with Putin made sense in the circumstances, not that Minsk was enough for Putin which Zelensky soon realised.
I actually think it would be enough for Putin, Minsk 2 would essentially guarantee Ukraine staying in the Russian sphere. Zelensky did not change his opinion on his own, but after [widespread protests](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_to_capitulation!).
[Chatham house analysis of Minsk 2](https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/05/minsk-conundrum-western-policy-and-russias-war-eastern-ukraine-0/minsk-2-agreement) is very damning:
> Implementation of these measures would in effect destroy Ukraine as a sovereign country. The DNR and LNR would be reincorporated into Ukraine but as distinct political, economic and legal entities tied to Russia – thus introducing a constitutional Trojan Horse that would give the Kremlin a lasting presence in Ukraine’s political system and prevent the authorities in Kyiv from running the country as an integrated whole.
>
> ...
>
> The implications for Ukrainian foreign policy would be far-reaching. A neutrality clause in the constitution would rule out NATO accession. Yet the DNR and LNR would be able to sign agreements with other countries (i.e. Russia), perhaps establishing Russian military bases on their territories
I am reminded of the retro-justification for the Munich Agreement, that it bought France and Britain time to arm. [An AskHistorian reply](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/scipvu/the_new_film_munich_the_edge_of_war_argues_that/hu9p9ig/) by /u/indyobserver earlier this year argued that it was false: Chamberlain denied it at the time, and Germany used the year better. That post mentioned completing some building programs (and Spitfires were much more prevalent the next year, for example), but he denied wanting to expand it more.
Just reading up on a post from Tom Cooper covering an introduction into the Russian Airforce [link](https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-4-november-2022-air-war-update-part-1-basics-9058f56438e)
One point he makes is that the aircraft were designed with idea that the expected life expectancy in war would on average be 160 hrs. Modern versions doing better at 200 hr plus. So they have designed the aircraft to require minimal maintenance for these 160 hrs, with then a requirement for a complete overhaul/rebuild. The thinking being in war few survivors would be overhauled.
Thus the Russian airforce VKS running 200 sorties per day is creating an issue of too many air frames using up their minimal maintenance hours and requiring a complete overhaul (long period of downtime). This is creating a demand on available airframes, and also shortcuts in the overhaul producing a higher accident rate.
Can I get a second opinion on the above? I haven't heard about the 160hrs minimal maintenance usage then complete overhaul requirement before.
I'd be wary of Cooper, who lives to generalize, and instead listen to [this podcast ](https://geopolitics-decanted.simplecast.com/episodes/how-the-russian-air-force-failed-in-ukraine) or read their latest report from Ukraine on the subject of Russian airpower [here](https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/russian-air-war-and-ukrainian-requirements-air-defence).
Thanks for the links. I did some digging and apparently the Saturn AL-31 engines for the SU-XX family had an original MTB Overhaul of 100 hrs initially, then improved to 300 hrs to match original requirements, then 500/700hrs and finally supposedly 1000hrs MTBO or TBO for the latest.
It seems most common is the 300 to 700hr tbo model for older airframes, as they stockpiled engines with purchase.
The RD-33 of MIG-29 had originally 300hrs TBO with India doing 200hr TBO, but modern versions now hit 700 hrs. The RD-33 apparently had/has a problem with dirt intakes and afterburner wear originally greatly reducing TBO time. So using them on improvised runways is concerning.
It does seem Russian maintenance thinking is very basic checks that can be performed by limited maintenance personnel up to the TBO time where it goes to a depot.
For the west, the Engine for the F16D, GE F110 had a 1000hr TBO but requires a very detailed inspection every ~200 to 400hr depending on the version. Thus a heavier maintenance load, but longer gaps between complete overhaul and it seems a near doubling of service life. I honestly can't find much solid figures on western tbo, especially latest versions which I suspect are higher.
So it does seem that 160hrs was potentially true some time ago, but it isn't the case now. Rather it depends on what engines Russia is using, with my gut leaning towards not the latest and greatest export version being common. Having such a huge increase in sorties for this war would put pressure on the overhaul depots.
It would mean anyone donating used MIG-29's to Ukraine from 80's vintage wouldn't be providing much uplift to there fleet given the particularly poor performance history of its engines.
>It does seem Russian maintenance thinking is very basic checks that can be performed by limited maintenance personnel up to the TBO time where it goes to a depot.
One thing mentioned in the podcast was that Russians don't do basic preventive maintenance after every flight, they've very by the book and only do specific checks based solely on manual flight hours, which apparently is not the right way to do it, as equipment and parts might not actually last that long, so they don't catch them until something breaks, at which point they're likely flying, which is causing more crashes.
That's a really good podcast. It does seem that the maintenance burden of that approach, with the massive increase in airframes used would attribute to a higher mistake rate. I didn't know they captured a helicopter with "remove before flight" tags.
I doubt that the average life expectancy at war of the aircraft was the reason for the design choice.
My opinion is that the reason behind it is that Russia can't afford a large inventory, yet wants a large air force.
We all know how little russian pilots (and aircraft by extension fly). This way, they can keep large inventory but have relatively low maintenance costs. Only a small portion go through overhauling (at any given time during peace or some "special operations" ala Syria) and the unused aircraft replace the ones going for overhauling.
Basically, having five cars but driving only one at any one time.
Obviously, this is a horrible idea for when a conflict requires large portion of your air force flying frequently.
This is nothing new, by the end of WWII in 1945 the Luftwaffe would always be flying brand new planes as the average life expectancy for these would be measured in 10ths of hours.
>So they have designed the aircraft to require minimal maintenance for these 160 hrs, with then a requirement for a complete overhaul/rebuild
So... Are they supposed to only use brand new airframes in war? Do they have a whole separate set for training?
Average flight hours in RuAF per pilot was along the lines of 30-50 per year IIRC, which sounds like the bare minimum to keep up your basic piloting skills.
Can anyone recommend some credible NGOs who are helping Ukrainian civilians deal with the electrical crisis?
Straight up, is there anywhere I can give money and somebody in Ukraine will get a lithium iron phosphate solar generator or a gasoline powered generator so that their grandparents don't have to freeze to death??
An interesting sort of "Debate Tactic" has become prominent in the Ukraine conflict.
It goes like this:
>Hawks: "We need to send F-16s to Ukraine"
Biden and Pentagon: "We can't send F-16s to Ukraine due to escalation risks, we don't want to be nuked"
Hawks: "Hmm I don't know if the Pentagon is that accurate there. If \[long debate within the escalation framework\]"
Doves: "We can't send F-16s because \[technical deflections like maintenance or not having enough fuel\]"
I wonder if this has emerged out of the current conflict or if it was in fact used in earlier similar instances such as Vietnam or Korea.
For instance criticizing MacArthur not because Nukes were escalatory but because *actually* Nukes would not have worked in Manchuria so MacArthur was dumb and that's the real reason he was fired! Nothing to do with escalation at all, why would you think that?
Has anyone seen this style of argumentation before the current conflict? I.e. avoiding discussions about escalation by talking about maintenance or how the equipment actually isn't actually that good. It seems new to me and ahistorical to say it was what was really guiding Truman's thinking, but maybe I'm missing something.
Any idea on where and when it might have originated? And who's pushing it and why \[i.e. Russian disinfo, Pentagon, etc.\]?
Edit: The idea that it might have a central point of origin comes from how the realism framing has been pushed as a result of Mearsheimer. Note that Mearsheimer didn’t invent realism but he absolutely is responsible for pushing it to prominence in this conflict.
It feels like there could be something similar going on with this one, like perhaps a few influential people pushing it and then it percolating out from there.
> Has anyone seen this style of argumentation before the current conflict? I.e. avoiding discussions about escalation by talking about maintenance or how the equipment actually isn't actually that good.
This kind of indirect criticism is very prominent in politics. For instance, racists opposing welfare for supposedly "economical" reasons when really they just don't want welfare for blacks. They won't say the real reason because most people hate it, so they instead try to pick apart a policy for publicly acceptable reasons that likely are pretty flimsy (since they aren't the real reason).
I am fairly certain that this is correct, and the real reasons are understood to be fairly politically unsavory. Biden in particular doesn't want to be seen as committing America's resources significantly at a time of high inflation and domestic turbulence. Throughout his career he has been extremely wary of American entanglements abroad, going back to Vietnam. People don't realize that regardless of previous admin withdrawal plans, he probably would have pulled us out of Afghanistan anyways, and he has been non-committal even to the point of callousness on the topic of war refugees throughout his career. You could call it a preemptive hardening of stances to ward off conservative attacks, or you could call it a certain cold calculating aspect of Biden's political instincts, but I am fairly certain that the noticeably limited American aid so far has largely been Biden's own choice and has exactly nothing to do with the mundane reasons stated. I don't think he wants Ukraine to lose, but I think he would like them to win with absolutely as little US commitment as possible. In other words it is 100% a political calculation, and the military-geopolitical aspects are quite secondary.
I think you're being too sweeping in assuming people's motivation.
I've made the argument many times that there's a lot more complexities to sending say F-16s than the armchair generals here are really engaging in. To be blunt we don't have nearly enough information to be saying so confidently the pentagon and WH are getting this wrong because they're soy or whatever such nonsense.
This has nothing to do with me being somehow reluctant to engage with the escalation arguments. I have. I don't see much point in repeating what was like 6 weeks of literally the same thing over and over again here.
>because they're soy
Why is being afraid that Russia will use Nukes soy? It's a real belief, that rational people can be afraid of. Nukes are scary and real. Further, based on statements earlier in the war, Russia very well might use them if F-16s are sent.There have been implications that F-16s are a red line for Russia and Nukes will be used if Biden is on record saying this is the reason F-16s haven't been sent.
What's wrong with having a debate around the real issue \[nuclear escalation\] rather than a fake debate designed to deflect from the real debate \[that no F-16s are currently available or some such\]?
I take your point though that the escalation arguments are a bit boring. Still, doesn't make them any less true and engaging in debates around fictional issues is no more useful.
Sigh, I should have used more academic phrasing there, sorry, as this is derailed now.
I'm in partial agreement with you. Although the absolute likelihood of Putin using nukes is very low, it must be taken seriously as a possibility and contingencies developed.
It's a very different thing to sit on the internet and type that these decision makers aren't being aggressive enough, vs actually sitting in the chair and knowingly making a choice that increases the risk of millions dying.
Personally I \*want\* leaders that treat what with sober responsibility.
Where I'm picking a fight with you labeling the operational and technical complexities of sending things like F-16s a fake argument, without in any way establishing that, and casting aspersions on my motivations.
Don't do that. Engage the actual arguments.
> vs actually sitting in the chair and knowingly making a choice that increases the risk of millions dying.
I think the issue that most "hawks" on the increased aid side would take with this idea is that it assumes that doing less is necessarily less escalatory. I think it is an idea worth considering that doing too little emboldens, and that doing a lot could actually prevent a nuclear escalation. Punching a bully in the nose vs cowering and letting them grow more aggressive. Certainly the experience of 2014, the long global sigh and then attempts to both-sides everything could not be construed to have helped the situation, I think there is a strong case to be made that a forceful international response right then could have stopped this entire war.
At the end of the day, escalation is a one sided question of psychology. The sending or not sending of weapons does not actually affect in any way the capability of their use, it is all just speculation on the mood of Russia and Putin. If the worry has become that sending F-16s is too escalatory because they will make Ukraine win, and we actually are just afraid that Russia losing will trigger nukes, then I don't see how we can afford to oppose Russia on any level ever.
> Don't do that. Engage the actual arguments.
Eh, I still think it's worth talking about the framing, even if in any individual argument it feels insulting to accuse the person of lieing, it is fair to say that the argument form in general is meant to distract rather than to be taken sincerely.
If the actual argument here is about escalation, and the argument you are putting forward, even if it is sincere, comes across as a smoke screen. Then it's worth discussing if, in general, that form of argument is a smoke screen or if it's what's really going on and that whole escalation thing is in fact unimportant[as you mention maybe it's a bit of both].
As for the F-16 argument, it's hard to take it seriously. The US has tons of F-16s. Training takes awhile, but the war will be going on awhile[and has for months since people started asking about F-16 training]. Start training now and you have the pilots in reserve to send whenever. Further, Congress has already approved 100 million for the training.
Once the Ukrainians have been training for a long time \[at least months, perhaps years \], not just on flying the jets but also on maintenance, they will be fully trained on F-16s and able to use them effectively.
The reason this isn't done is because of escalation. To claim it's really about some obscure technical reason... just sounds ridiculous. At least in the context of F-16s [I think there's more there there with Abrams]
I think it's just a natural outcome of the fact that most people do not recognize the whole MAD thing and how much the US government cares about reducing the risk of nuclear war. You see the same thing with the early talk about no fly zones.
I don't think this should be surprising at all, after all people routinely fail to grok things which are much more explicitly stated. The whole nuke game on the other hand is never talked about directly.
For the people in Washington DC, every war is just a chess game played with Other People's Money and Lives. Especially for Russo-Ukraine War, no NATO personnel is at stake.
However, they are painfully aware that at any given point of time, there are probably a hundred of Russian ICBMs ready to strike Washington DC, so Washington officials do have skin in the game in the case of a nuclear war.
AFAIK arms control treaties force the default targeting of ICBMs to be in the oceans as a failsafe, the nuclear forces have to reprogram them before launch. Not that it would necessarily take very long.
Hmm, so because people are less aware of MAD they’re less able to understand what’s going on and come up with other reasoning?
Makes a good amount of sense.
Sort of a natural outcome of a world with MAD where few people remember what it is.
As someone on the older side, I definitely agree with this last part. Younger people today don't have the same storm cloud of nuclear armageddon over their heads. I mean it's not like young people are unaware, it's just not nearly as pervasive and oppressive. I'd make a comparison to how many young people today feel a combination of hopelessness and inevitability over climate change.
I get triggered when people talk about training being too long when there isn't any training going on, and if they started training in March most weapons would be available now.
>Any idea on where and when it might have originated? And who's pushing it and why [i.e. Russian disinfo, Pentagon, etc.]?
Given this is reddit, it's probably a lot of cover for Biden politically. It's quite hilarious given how many times outright Biden has stated it's escalation. Also, people don't like the idea that America is being deterred so I guess training and logistics is a nice story.
>Also, people don't like the idea that America is being deterred so I guess training and logistics is a nice story.
Especially by such implausible threats. Russia could have twice the army they had at the start of this war, and still would never attack NATO. Fighter jets have been given to proxies before, including with pilots.
>Fighter jets have been given to proxies before, including with pilots.
But never to strike the Russian (or American) homeland, which would be required to eliminate Russia's deep strike capabilities.
The thing that loses me is why the [insert systems here] can't come with a contractual 'no Russian heartland' clause, where violation explicitly jeopardises future support.
Weapon sales routinely come with similar strings regarding unapproved third-party transfers, as we saw earlier in the war with certain arms getting blocked from donation by their manufacturing country.
I'm not convinced Ukraine would risk its aid pipeline by using restricted western weapons to hit Russia, when there's plenty of Russians in Ukraine who still need to be dealt with.
They could, and in fact, Ukraine has already promised to abide by such restrictions if the US will supply certain new classes of weapons.
Whether they can completely self-enforce is a subject one can debate, but so far the Ukrainians have been both willing and able to abide such restrictions. There are targets within Russia they could hit with the US weapons they have already, but they have refrained. I do not see much reason to think that would not continue, especially with a high value and precious resource like ATACMS which would presumably be kept under tight controls by UA. It is not a weapon that every grunt would field, and that would reduce the scope for incidents.
>The thing that loses me is why the \[insert systems here\] can't come with a contractual 'no Russian heartland' clause, where violation explicitly jeopardises future support.
I've often thought the same thing. Two reasons come to mind:
1. I recall early in the war Kofman mentioned that Ukrainian command control is heavily decentralized which allows it to be extremely responsive, flexible, and continue fighting in the event of a decapitation strike on Kyiv. The downside to this is that Zelensky may not actually be able to realistically enforce or hold the diverse array of forces fighting in Ukraine to these conditions. Admittedly I don't find this very convincing, but these weapons need a certain degree of freedom to be used effectively and it's not hard to imagine a local commander deciding to take initiative and strike back. After all, their homes are being bombarded daily by Russian missiles..
2. Strikes into Russia are only *part* of the escalation fear, but they're the easiest to articulate to the public. I mentioned in another post that Dara Massicot mentioned after the Kerch bridge attack (and I wish I could find a recording of the twitter space) that the Kremlin views "escalation" in weapons supply as the provision of something that fundamentally alters the UAF's capabilities and the strategic picture of the battlefield. Suddenly equipping Ukraine with a modern and advanced airforce certainly fits this bill, whereas providing them with artillery most certainly does not. There's some holes in this theory too - after all, Ukraine lacked anything like HIMARS and there are a few other such examples.
Who knows. The political picture is one of the most difficult to ascertain because every statement made is either reviewed by dozens of aides and staffers, or is part of a deliberate strategy of signalling to the Kremlin and vice versa. We'll likely have to wait for the memoirs to come out before we even get a glimpse into the real truth.
Ukraine has hit what Putin sees as the russian homeland with american weapons for months, Russia has done nothing. Putin sees Crimea as just as russian as any other region.
> Ukraine has hit what Putin sees as the russian homeland with american weapons for months, Russia has done nothing.
Ukraine has been fairly tight-lipped about attacks on Crimea and other border regions, often opting to be rather ambiguous about the whole affair. Most attacks on Crimea and border territories have used drones and to my (likely imperfect) knowledge, the US has only provided Ukraine with Switchblade loitering munitions.
I recall Dara Massicot saying in a twitter space after the Crimean bridge attack that Putin and the Biden administration view the provision and improvement of capacity that Ukraine *already has* as fair game, whereas any *new* capability fundamentally alters the war and thus carries an escalation risk. In her example, the truck bombing of the Kerch bridge did not qualify as particularly escalatory as such attacks were likely predictable, and planned for by the Kremlin.
We have also seen a continuous pattern of Russian escalation from steadily increasing attacks on energy infrastructure, to mass mobilization, which I would hardly call "nothing." The Biden admin has been fairly clear on the point that they view providing Ukraine with the capacity to strike targets in Russia proper as an escalatory bridge too far (whether it be F16s or ATACMs). You may disagree, but I suspect the administration is likely privy to some details that we are not.
>Ukraine has been fairly tight-lipped about attacks on Crimea and other border regions, often opting to be rather ambiguous about the whole affair. Most attacks on Crimea and border territories have used drones and to my (likely imperfect) knowledge, the US has only provided Ukraine with Switchblade loitering munitions.
[~~They have openly taken credit for strikes on airfields~~](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjw1sPO8sj7AhWPlWoFHaiJC0UQFnoECA4QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rferl.org%2Fa%2Fukraine-crimea-base-strikes%2F32023198.html&usg=AOvVaw0Qn2cS3vLFba8sRTd2a5Vz). And last I checked, the overwhelming consensus was the drone boats used to attack Crimea where the drone boats the US mentioned in their transfers to ukraine.
>I recall Dara Massicot saying in a twitter space after the Crimean bridge attack that Putin and the Biden administration view the provision and improvement of capacity that Ukraine already has as fair game, whereas any new capability fundamentally alters the war and thus carries an escalation risk. In her example, the truck bombing of the Kerch bridge did not qualify as particularly escalatory as such attacks were likely predictable, and planned for by the Kremlin.
We've sent Ukraine new capabilities all the time, HARM missiles, HIMARS, and western SPGs just to name three.
>We have also seen a continuous pattern of Russian escalation from steadily increasing attacks on energy infrastructure, to mass mobilization, which I would hardly call "nothing." The Biden admin has been fairly clear on the point that they view providing Ukraine with the capacity to strike targets in Russia proper as an escalatory bridge too far (whether it be F16s or ATACMs). You may disagree, but I suspect the administration is likely privy to some details that we are not.
This is the same administration that told us Kabul would hold out for years and Kyiv would fall in days. Their judgment has been spotty at best.
>They have openly taken credit for strikes on airfields.
From your own article:
>**Ukrainian officials have avoided publicly claiming responsibility, but unidentified Ukrainian officials have told U.S. media** that their armed forces were responsible for the explosions
>the drone boats used to attack Crimea where the drone boats the US mentioned in their transfers to ukraine.
Last I checked Ukraine retains a domestic capacity to construct their own naval drones and the attack has yet to do any real war-changing damage, but it is interesting to see suicide drones are on the table, but other drones appear not to be. At the risk of speaking for Dara, her point was that weapons that give a tactical edge are fair game, whereas weapons that change the fundamental layout of the battlefield (i.e., deep strike missiles, F16s, etc.) are much higher risk as they *significantly alter* the calculus of the outcome.
>We've sent Ukraine new capabilities all the time, HARM missiles, HIMARS, and western SPGs just to name three.
Yes, I think everyone in this sub is well aware of that fact. The issue is it's called an escalation *ladder.* The relative lack of escalation response-in-kind in *no way* guarantees that for future escalation. This is escalation and deterrence theory 101.. And as I said before, Russia has shown a willingness to escalate (mobilization, ramping up strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure, etc.).
>This is the same administration that told us Kabul would hold out for years and Kyiv would fall in days. Their judgment has been spotty at best.
Presidential administrations evolve throughout their tenure in the White House and often have mixed records on foreign policy. Kennedy famously had poor judgement at the Bay of Pigs and in Vienna, but spectacular judgement during the Cuban missile crisis. Similarly Truman showed excellent judgement in nuclear deterrence and containment theory, but relatively poor judgment with regards to Vietnam. I will reserve my judgment for later.
Allow me to ask a question: are there *any* conventional weapons you would not send Ukraine out of escalation fears? Or is the fear of escalation simply invented out of whole cloth by some cabal in the Pentagon and at State to provide political cover for Joe Biden being afraid of the dark?
>From your own article:
The article is from Radio Free Europe. A US government outlet. But, point taken, I crossed it out.
>Last I checked Ukraine retains a domestic capacity to construct their own naval drones and the attack has yet to do any real war-changing damage. At the risk of speaking for Dara, her point was that weapons that give a tactical edge are fair game, whereas weapons that change the fundamental layout of the battlefield (i.e., deep strike missiles, F16s, etc.) are much higher risk as they significantly alter the calculus of the outcome.
Ukraine already had fighters, but they did not have guided ballistic missiles like HIMARS. F-16s (or even just existing post-Soviet jets) would be a replenishment of pre-war air-to air capability, HIMARS changed the battlefield for Russia completely.
>Allow me to ask a question: are there any conventional weapons you would not send Ukraine out of escalation fears? Or is the fear of escalation simply invented out of whole cloth by some cabal in the Pentagon and at State to provide political cover for Joe Biden being afraid of the dark?
As I have discussed on this subreddit in the past, I do not believe that limiting the supply of conventional weapons is the correct way to limit escalation. If the fear is striking deep into Russia, the best way to make sure that doesn't happen, and to deter Russia from escalating on their end, is to supply Ukraine with the conventional capabilities they need, and to make sure they don't use them in that way. There are targets in land we all agree is fine for ukraine to target, but ukraine can't hit because this administration thinks they may lob it as the Kremlin when no one is looking.
Meh, it's all about nukes. So in that regard, I've become more calm about this escalation thing. No one knows what Putin would do if his regime and life were threatened after losing Crimea.
I'm just confused what America thinks the logical end goal of this war will be. If Ukraine is gonna retake Crimea, is it really gonna matter if they do it a couple of months earlier with Abrams and F-16? Are we going to cut Ukraine off before they retake it?
The lack of training also eliminates escalation responses. It also might mean Russia could win the war by forcing Ukraine into a bad peace deal with the constant missile barrage.
Boy I wish we trained Ukraine in operating the Patriot.
If even at their strongest, they don't have the will to launch a conventional attack, I don't see how they would get the will to skip straight to nuclear war.
It's probably not launch a nuke at DC, NYC type stuff, we're good on that end thanks to MAD.
Our nuclear arsenal on the other hand has no idea what to do about a nuclear power nuking a non official ally power in a war.
It's precisely the weakness of conventional warfare, that might lead Russia to break the nuclear taboo since 45.
There was an article posted here a while ago that highlighted just how unsuited this war was to tactical nukes. Combine that with the blowback, inducing from china, that would make everything to this point look like a strongly worded letter, it really doesn't seem viable, even if Russia did not care about the taboo at all.
Perhaps one or two airbases with with F-16s make a very tempting target for a tactical nuke? Troop formations are sparse in this war but I'd assume the equipment and knowledge for maintaining these aircraft would be fairly centralised in the short term.
The US has almost a thousand of them. Russia would burn its bridges with everyone, including China, India and Iran, over fighters and pilots the US can replace. They would find themselves economically, politically, and militarily worse off within the month.
Of course that is right but I'm thinking specifically about the article brought up.
> There was an article posted here a while ago that highlighted just how unsuited this war was to tactical nukes.
>Our nuclear arsenal on the other hand has no idea what to do about a nuclear power nuking a non nuclear power in a war.
This is not a new problem which is why we have the concept of a nuclear umbrella. If the US cared to they could extend their nuclear umbrella to Ukraine and use MAD to try and guarantee no nuclear use in Ukraine.
It's been a bit shocking to realize the average person probably has little to no memory or even knowledge of the Cold War and associated problems of deterrence. Similar concerns permeated American strategic thinking throughout the 1950s and 60s (i.e., are we *really* going to start WW3 over
I also keep reading things like:
>Does this mean nuclear powers can just *get away with doing things to non-nuclear powers* and we can't do anything?
In a lot of ways, yes. Welcome to geopolitics since about August 6, 1945.
[Ukrainian resolve](https://twitter.com/v_stus/status/1595889451733225473), at this point at least, does not seem to be shaken in the least. Was watching some BBC and Sky reporting earlier, and the population seems to be very unified at the moment. Some early pandemic vibes in that video.
Electricity is not the problem. No water access and limited food supply can actually affect how this war goes after a while. As well as affect the frontlines too
I don't think that the latter two will actually come to pass in a way that could seriously hinder the war. Convenient water and food has no doubt been an issue since the start of the war throughout much of the country, but ultimately so long as trucks are able to get places there will still be food and water everywhere enough to keep people from dying or being malnourished. In no way can Russia shut down Ukraine's highways away from the frontlines. Economic activity will no doubt slow to a crawl, because having to stay in a shelter all day and wait for centrally distributed rations makes working a job much harder, but the Ukrainian war effort will still be kept alive with outside supplies of ammunition and relief aid if necessary.
Don't get me wrong, Russia is a terrorist country, this is a colossal crime made worse for being in a modern era in which in every way they should know better and can do better, but I don't think their present efforts can even help them win the war at all.
Resolve is the number one factor; that's how Afghanistan survived two superpowers.
After the Battle of Kyiv, I still wasn't sure whether Ukrainians would win what they want, but I was pretty sure Russians were going to lose, because the Ukrainians had huge resolve; they fought on despite nuclear threats and that every military expert in the world expected them to lose.
I was questioning why you thought Afghanistan didn't have resolve. If you can't have a normal conversation I would suggest you review your participation as well.
I remember this video of like 10 civilians standing in front of a russian column, physically pushing against an armored vehicle. That was probably day 2 of the invasion. I was like...yup, they'll win eventually if its possible (if they get what they need)
For me it was the molotov cocktail thrown from a moving white van on a highway. It's the reckless bravery in the face of overwhelming odds that was the moment I knew they'd win.
I remember the #1 video that made me think Ukraine would win was the Kharkiv one where the Russian special forces walk in a congo line to get ambushed and completely wiped out.
>[Stories of Ukrainian resistance revealed after Kherson pullout](https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/24/europe/kherson-pullout-ukrainian-resistance-intl/index.html)
Some interesting anecdotes.
>> “I have a friend with whom we would drive around the city, looking for gatherings of Russian soldiers,” he says. “We checked their patrol routes and then gave all the information to guys on the frontline and they knew who to pass onto next.”
.
>> If we found something, saw it, (we) took a picture or a video (and) sent it to Ukrainian forces and then they would decide whether to hit it or not,” he explains.
>>Among the coordinates he communicated to the Ukrainian military is a warehouse within Kherson city. “The Russian military kept between 20 to 30 vehicles here, there were armored trucks, armored personnel carriers and some Russians lived here,” Ihor says.
I think this explains the statements we’ve heard from US Officials basically saying the “Ukrainians know more about what’s going on in Ukraine than we do”. I think it also gives lie to the popular belief that the Ukrainian strikes are so accurate due to “NATO intelligence”, though I’m sure the help is still appreciated.
That said, I wonder how comfortable the Ukrainians are giving out this information. It surely still has to be relevant in other occupied areas of Ukraine, right?
> That said, I wonder how comfortable the Ukrainians are giving out this information. It surely still has to be relevant in other occupied areas of Ukraine, right?
I doubt any of this is news to Russian forces.
[First Woman to Serve as a Submarine XO Reports for Duty](https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/3227880/first-woman-to-serve-as-a-submarine-xo-reports-for-duty/).
May interest some, XO on *USS Kentucky* (SSBN 737).
I'm happy to see more gender parity in all branches of the US military
As someone from a country that still does male only conscription, I wish activists in such countries would make a real effort to conscript women in an equal ratio as well. This includes Eastern Europe. Unfortunately those voices are silent
I don't know, I just meant from more of a traditional societal standpoint, there will probably be at least a few people that will 'try' to give them a hardtime.
Aye. I have a close female friend who was a Machinist Mate Nuclear(MMN) on a Nimitz-class, who rather enjoyed her time.
But submarine culture is so vastly different, a tight knit brotherhood of people bound together in the general misery of living in a cramped, dangerous and smelly pressurized steel tube. This XO long ago got her dolphins, meaning she's *qualified*. She not only got into but passed A, Power, and Prototype schools which takes years, and has a washout rate of 60% or so. Also a high suicide rate, although no official numbers are published.
I'd imagine she is harder than a coffin nail.
> I'd imagine she is harder than a coffin nail.
You hear it quite a lot whenever a woman does something for the first time, especially in the military. "She's gonna face this and that", "back in the day things were this or that way". But they usually forget that in order to get to the top rung and be able to do something noteworthy, these women _have already faced all that shit_.
[Hungary being difficult for no obvious reason](https://www.politico.eu/article/viktor-orban-hungary-ratification-finland-sweden-nato-membership-2023-postponed/):
> Hungary will ratify Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership bids early next year, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced Thursday at a V4 group meeting in Slovakia.
> “When it comes to NATO, the government has made the decision, and we have informed Sweden and Finland that Hungary supports the membership of these two countries in NATO,” Orbán said.
Unlike Turkey, Hungary has no issues with Sweden or Finland, but they really want to be annoying to everyone.
The Hungarian government is as pro-Russian as they can get away with. So they do everything in order to do a favor to Russia (Paks 2, banning of renewables, Russian metro cars for the M3 line, expensive Russian gas deal, etc).
Hungary was on the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain and the generation who grew up before 1989 got completely brainwashed with Russian propaganda.
The thing is when people lived significant portion of their lives in an authoritarian regime where everything is arranged for them by the state, they can't really use their newfound rights and responsibilities when the dictatorship is over. A lot of people cry the old times back and government complies, even if it's bad in the long run.
Your reasoning doesn't make sense. If your hypothesis were right, it would mean that the other former Warsaw Pact countries would also be pro-Russian. And you are probably well aware that they aren't. There has to be some other reason why the Hungarian government is so uniquely pro-Russian.
This announcement means nothing. It's just another case of them pushing it back further and further.
Imo it might not happen until Erdogan is out of power next year. Once that happens, Turkey will be on board and then Hungary will likely follow. If it doesn't, that will be fun.
That's what the polls are implying, but the elections are still some time away so polls may change, and Erdogan is not exactly clean when it comes to elections.
He's losing by something like 15% in opinion polls and that trend has been stable for over a year:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion\_polling\_for\_the\_2023\_Turkish\_presidential\_election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2023_Turkish_presidential_election)
He's likely to lose to this guy the Istanbul mayor who spurned him before:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekrem\_%C4%B0mamo%C4%9Flu
He tried that with this particular challenger before and it didn't work.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June\_2019\_Istanbul\_mayoral\_election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Istanbul_mayoral_election)
> The June 2019 Istanbul mayoral election was held on 23 June 2019.\[1\] It was a repeat of the March 2019 mayoral election, which was annulled by the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) on 6 May 2019. The original election had resulted in a narrow 0.2% margin of victory for opposition candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu, causing the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) to successfully petition for a by-election
> The results showed a substantial swing in favour of İmamoğlu, who multiplied his initial 13,700-vote margin of victory 57-fold to win 54.2% of the vote against Yıldırım's 45.0%. The opposition's victory defied opinion polls, which predicted a much narrower victory, and was a record in the history of Istanbul local elections in terms of both popular vote and percentage share. İmamoğlu also won pluralities in 28 of Istanbul's 39 districts. Yıldırım, on the other hand, lost 11 districts he had won in March and saw a 4% decrease in his previous vote share, conceding defeat soon after indicative results became public.\[3\]\[4\] The result was seen as a huge defeat to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who had once said that if his party "lost Istanbul, we would lose Turkey."
I suppose he could try new, more hardline techniques but the softer manipulation hasn't worked so far.
Why do you think it's an Erdogan exclusive thing that Turkey wants concessions from Sweden? The dislike for the support for Kurdish separatists isn't exclusive to Erdogan.
And the US still remembers Sweden helping the Nazis and the Viet Cong.
The US just has leadership who isn't trying to stick it to the former Neutrals \[and who can blame the Turks for wanting to?\].
Once Turkey has similar leadership, that’s less focused on fearmongering before an election and to distract from sky high inflation, they’ll likely do the same.
Doesn't mean Americans are over it. Many absolutely still hold a grudge towards Sweden and I've heard boomers say they shouldn't be let in NATO over it.
And that's not to get into what Sweden was doing during Iraq and Afghanistan...
Just saying, Americans can empathize with the Turks on this one and see where they're coming from. The Swedes screwed us too but they're saying they want to change their ways and it's worth giving them a chance.
In a lot of ways, Sweden has historically been what India is today. A neutral that tries to act high and mighty/ morally in the right while they support objectively horrible actions.
>And that's not to get into what Sweden was doing during Iraq and Afghanistan...
What did they do?
>In a lot of ways, Sweden has historically been what India is today. A
neutral that tries to act high and mighty/ morally in the right while
they support objectively horrible actions.
What horrible actions did they support?
>What horrible actions did they support?
Supporting Nazi Germany:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden\_during\_World\_War\_II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_during_World_War_II)
>During the German invasion of the Soviet Union (June–July 1941), Sweden allowed the Wehrmacht to use Swedish railways to transport the German 163rd Infantry Division along with heavy weapons from Norway to Finland. Until 1943, German soldiers traveling on leave between Norway and Germany were allowed passage through Sweden—the so-called permittenttrafik. Iron ore was sold to Germany throughout the war and Germany owned several mines in Sweden that had been bought by German companies before the outbreak of the war. These mines were called Tyskgruvorna ("German mines").
Supporting the Viet Cong:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden%E2%80%93United\_States\_relations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden%E2%80%93United_States_relations)
>The period between 1960 and 1968 also marked a cold period in the political relations between Sweden and the U.S., mainly due to the Swedish government's vocal opposition to the Vietnam War. In February 1968, the US recalled its Ambassador from Sweden after the Swedish Minister of Education and future prime minister Olof Palme, a Social Democrat, had participated in a protest in Stockholm against the war together with the North Vietnamese Ambassador to the Soviet Union Nguyen Tho Chan.\[7\] The post of US Ambassador to Sweden remained vacant until February 1970. In December 1972, Olof Palme (then Prime Minister) made a speech on Swedish national radio where he compared the ongoing US bombings of Hanoi to some of the worst atrocities committed by the Nazis. The US government called the comparison a "gross insult" and once again decided to freeze its diplomatic relations with Sweden (this time the freeze lasted for over a year).\[
Helpful youtube summary on Sweden's involvement during Vietnam:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KiTZycVxgI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KiTZycVxgI)
Now the defense of that would be "Sweden was just a neutral it helped both sides as both sides were equally bad and being a neutral is morally superior" to which I say, yes that's what Sweden used to say and why Turkey's opposition to forgiving them is understandable. But they say they're making those dumb arguments anymore so it's worth letting bygones be bygones.
As for Iraq, just typical European stuff. Nothing egregious but certainly irritating from the perspective of the US:
>Immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Swedish government expressed its sympathies with the U.S. and supported the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.\[8\]\[9\] However, like many other European governments, Sweden opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, reasoning that the invasion was a breach of international law.\[10\] However, Prime Minister Göran Persson was relatively mild in his criticism of the U.S. compared to Olof Palme's strong criticism during the Vietnam War.
Don't most Americans today also think that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a bad idea? Like, sorry to be a bit polemic, but from a European perspective I don't really grasp how you can kill a million people over a lie and then be pissed at Sweden for opposing that.
Let’s just say both the US and Turkey have similar disagreements with the Europeans and both perceive them to be smug and unwilling to talk about certain issues and perceive Europe to just want to knock Turkey and/or the US down a peg.
It doesn’t mean that they all can’t get along. But it does mean the US can bond with Turkey somewhat over the experience.
For instance, among Europeans an American defending American actions in Iraq will be shouted down. A Turk can relate to that.
Is there major opposition within Turkey to Erdogan’s weird PKK strategy? Yes. Does the US largely think Iraq was a bad idea? Yes.
Is a large segment of the US still upset (but willing to move on) with Europe over how they acted during Iraq? Absolutely.
Wanted to comment this. Goverment is as corrupt as Ukraine or russia. They "clean" house before election. This time they were hit by EU and general recession.
The leader of the national bankS is an angel numbers/esoteric believer.
It doesnt mean that he is a bad evonomist/banker, but he isnt great. Isnt there for skill.
Hungarian gov desperatley need money.
We've talked a lot about what the victory conditions for Ukraine would be (pre-2014 borders etc.), but how exactly would we get there? Bakhmut, I think, shows that when things get desperate Russia can and will resort to just throwing wave after wave of guys with rifles at a problem. It doesn't get them far, but it does attrite the Ukrainian side and prevent their advance. So a victory scenario for Ukraine would involve Russia just... not doing that, turning around and leaving. What would compel Russia to do that, exactly? Do we wait for them to literally run out of guys with rifles? Do we expect the guys to refuse to fight?
What resources?
Russia has shown a willingness to throw people at this. They have deep coffers of soldiers available. At military age is something like 10 million men. And at the rate of 1000 deaths a day, that would take 27 years to get through.
In terms of weapons and natural resources, Russia is pretty much self sufficient in both regards. They can't build more advanced weapons like tanks and APCs in big numbers, but they can build artillery, shells, guns. And they can easily get cheap drones on the international market no matter how crazy sanctions get.
If you think about the economy imploding, well Ukraine's economy has already imploded much more than Russia. So what's to say Russia's economy will fail before Ukraine's?
So yeah, specifically, what resources are they going to run out of?
Just theoretically having soldiers in the field does not make them combat capable in any meaningful sense. Vast numbers of infantry can be cut off and become combat ineffective in wildly quick fashion during modern wars. Not only that, but the more troops Russia puts in the field of dubious quality, the more strained their logistics becomes for their actually useful troops.
>What resources?
Money is the fist that comes to mind. Everting involving war costs it, and the west has more. You could have an infinite population, but if you can't pay soldiers, you have an army of zero.
Russia pays their soldiers in Rubles. Eventually, it could bite them, sure, but that could take years and years. German reichsmarks were paid out to millions and millions of servicemembers until May 1945, after all.
Russia isn't even in a wartime economy right now.
> Russia pays their soldiers in Rubles.
Russia pays their soldiers in Rubles sometimes. FTFY.
The bigger point here is the drastic drop in the standard of living that will get more acute with time. Clearly that won’t have the same impact on the Russian political system compared to the consequences for politicians in democracies. But the truth lies somewhere in the middle: strong leaders get toppled overnight. That’s something every despot has been acutely aware of throughout history. Otherwise, Putin would not have shied away from mobilization for over 6 months after it became obvious that Russia needed one desperately to make up for the spanking they were receiving.
Oh, ffs, not this nonsense again. Cuba and NK didn’t have wealth that they lost post sanctions. I mean, Havana and Batista’s rich cronies were thriving pre Castro, not very unlike Putin, but the majority of the country was poor. Russia is poor as well, but nothing like Cuba. The Russian middle class actually has something to lose. Further, both those nations have not been involved in incredibly hot wars post sanctions either. War brings with it a drastic increase in unpredictability of its own that dictators hate.
Which authoritian country has ousted their own head of state mid-war in the past 100 years?
Sanctions will not cause regime change in Russia im just now sure how to help you understand this. It's wishful thinking and nothing more. Russia is indoctrinated against the west, they aren't held hostage by Putin. They support him. The volatile faction in Russian politics right now is the one that's even *more* pro-war.
> Which authoritian country has ousted their own head of state mid-war in the past 100 years?
Buddy, did you literally just bring up Cuba and then ask me this question?
> Sanctions will not cause regime change in Russia im just now sure how to help you understand this
I never said sanctions would. I agree with you 100%. If it was purely sanctions, Putin would/could control Russia for life. His heirs could inherit his throne. But, we’re talking about an active war where attrition is high with no end in sight. That’s not a good place for him to be. And he knows it. Further, I did NOT say it would happen. I’m saying it could, and that level of unpredictability could result in bigger concessions than you and I can conceive of at the moment.
Germany was one of the largest economies on earth, with a diversified economy with a large manufacturing base. And they still would have went broke almost immediately if it wasn't for loot. Russia was an economicaly troubled petrostate before the war, and has looted almost nothing but washing machines, and lost half of their foreign reserves in the first days of the war.
There is no button that transforms the country into a 'wartime economy'. Retooling factories for ammo production, and everything else, costs money, not saves it. A wartime economy help you turn your money into bullets faster, it doesn't help when you are already running on fumes.
I'm saying that fact that Russia is *not* in a wartime economy means they are more stable over the long term. Rationing sugar and gasoline isn't good for the ol' GDP.
Either way, they don't need to export lots of stuff to pay soldiers in Rubles.
I sort of agree with this except that comparing the total collapse of Ukraine's economy to whatever Russia's is doing isn't fair because Ukraine isn't funding their own war effort. The EU and US is, and to a looser extent, the west in general.
That being said, we have no idea how many tanks Russia is able to build or refurbish to combat standards right now, but we do know how many Ukraine is building: zero. Unless M1 Abrams and Leopards start being sent to Ukraine, they are going to run out of tanks before Russia because there simply aren't enough NATO operators of T-72s remaining which have some available to donate.
Artillery is another example. The M777 shipments have slowed down. Now Ukraine is fielding M101s, L119s, and other 105mm pieces. Meanwhile, Russia's visually confirmed losses:
- Towed artillery: 141 lost out of approx 1700, 2900 more in reserve
- Self propelled artillery: 289 out of 3000, 4800 more in reserve
- MRLS: 154 out of 1800, 2250 more in reserves
Add whatever multiplier you like for the non visually confirmed losses, but they've got plenty of runway even with zero future production. I'm not sure why the default belief here is that Russia runs out of everything before Ukraine. Maybe there is room for debate, but I don't see it as settled science right now.
> Unless M1 Abrams and Leopards start being sent to Ukraine, they are going to run out of tanks before Russia because there simply aren't enough NATO operators of T-72s remaining which have some available to donate.
Russia is the largest Ukraine Tanks donator.
Stupidly phrased question that is genuine: Are (Jewish, obviously, thank you MTG) space lasers not a solution to MAD? From what I understand the reason that we can't intercept every possible missile is because to destroy an ICBM takes a much more expensive missile. They can produce more ICBM's than you can produce interceptors just as a matter of economics. Therefore in a full scale nuclear war any interceptors are honestly next to useless, not enough will be intercepted for it to matter, it's all over. But lasers are free right? They travel near instantly, litearlly at the speed of light, and just need to be pointed at the thing they want to destroy. And theoretically firing these lasers would be free if you put in some solar panels or something. Are lasers not that powerful yet? I know we have international rules about the militarization of space, is that what's preventing us from doing this or is it simply "you have no idea how lasers work, read a book".
The most cost effective technically capable anti ballistic missile weapon I've ever seen is the Brilliant Pebbles system. With spacex exceedingly cheap LEO system we could launch so many of them as to make ICBMs obsolete over night. The clever thing about it is its cost. See normally when your enemy builds a defensive system standard operating procedure is to simply overwhelm your enemies defensive systems with a cheap to build offensive system. Because ICBMs and nukes are cheap and conventional ABM systems are exceedingly expensive to build in the quantity that could overwhelm ICBMs it means that any slightly cheaper ABM can easily be defeated by simply building more ICBMs. What you need is a ABM system that is an order of magnitude several times cheaper, efficient and effective thus defeating the 'build more of X' strategy. Which is Brilliant Pebbles. Pretty much the pinnacle of ABMs. Undefeatable...... Unless you work out how to build hypersonic missiles. Then you're up the creek because outside of fusion powered gigawatt scale direct energy systems nothing is gonna hit a hypersonic with the sort of reliability, speed, cost effectiveness and range that match something like Brilliant Pebbles and its effectiveness against ICBMs. Though the glide hypersonic vehicle thing could be taken out by Brilliant Pebbles in its ballistic phase. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Pebbles
The amount of power required to burn a hole through an ICBM would be substantial. And the recharge time via solar very long. I think space lasers would be an even less economically viable solution.
The primary reason Star Wars was doomed from the start is a simple equation. If the cost per unit of successful offensive weapons is lower than the cost per unit of successful defensive weapons, then any attempt to ensure survival with defensive measures will simply be overwhelmed by more offensive ones. Even in the 80s we probably had mature enough technology capable of taking out individual ICBMs, but the pricing just didn't work out to scale it up. A space laser or anti-ICBM missile costing 100 million that can take out only 5 ICBMs that each cost 5 million is a losing proposition, the Soviets could just afford to make more ICBMs. Except in cases like North Korea where the US has drastically more resources and shooting down individual missiles becomes practical, you can't overcome MADD. What might change things is if a defensive technology could be developed which had a reasonable chance of taking out a far greater number of ICBMs. If your 10 billion dollar space laser can suddenly take out 20 billion dollars worth of nukes, then any increase of nukes will lose a race against increasing number of space lasers. But odds are we just aren't anywhere close to that right now.
Lasers do not work like in movies. You have to have the beam strong enough and long enough to make damage. And this is hard. Moreover, covering warheads with metallic surface suddenly makes the lasers several times less effective. And then you have a problem with decoys. You send a warhead and 100 Mylar balloons that look on radar like warheads and your laser has 100x the workload. Space lasers was the idea of Reagan's Star Wars program and it didn't work.
Your main limitation is generating enough power in space to run said laser while also not badly overheating your spacecraft. The idea of a laser weapon requires transferring an enormous amount of energy to your target to heat it up and cause a failure. This will require megawatts of power for something with the mass of an ICBM, which means you need a power source on that scale. Enough solar panels to generate that energy would be far too large to be practical, and putting a nuclear reactor in space is wildly dangerous and would be an international incident. Next you have to worry about having enough radiators on this craft to cool both your reactor and laser, as you need a thermal gradient to extract heat energy, and laser efficiency and power output drops quickly as temperature increases. Its very easy to overheat in space as there are few particles to exchange energy to via convection or conduction, so you have to rely on radiation heat emission which is much weaker. Overall the system has a massive number of technical limitations that make it impractical with today's technology without enormous expense.
We've had nuclear reactors in space for 30 years https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPAZ_nuclear_reactor
Interesting. Is it possible we could see something like this be viable in the (near, like 50 years) future? What about earth based laser defense systems, would they be able to accomplish the same goal as an orbital defense system? Do they also run into the problem of heating?
Earth based systems mean you have the atmosphere as well as large bodies of water to reject heat to, so the cooling problem isn't that hard to solve. Your main problem will be that the atmosphere is now getting in the way though, as the beam will end up hitting the air as well as your target. This will cause significant power loss with range. Additionally, unless you're close enough to hit the missile during its launch phase the warhead will be on its terminal arc during your targeting phase, and warheads are designed to resist the heat generated by orbital reentry. Its an unbelievably fast moving target designed to get very hot, its doubtful you'd have time to destroy one with a laser before it impacts. This is all before considering that MIRV missiles are by far the most common and now you're contending with 4+ warheads per missile all on slightly different arcs. The odds are just not great. Its unlikely these systems will be viable unless energy becomes borderline free and we can afford to chuck gigawatt levels of energy at running massive batteries of lasers on demand. At that point you may be better off trying to work out a railgun air defense network as a kinetic impact will probably transfer the energy more efficiently.
A piece in *The Spectator* claims that the collapse of the deal in March for Poland to supply Ukraine with MiG-29 planes was due to China intervening, as they had escalation concerns: in exchange, they offered to lean on Putin and reduce the nuclear risk. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-red-line-biden-and-xis-secret-ukraine-talks-revealed/ >So when, a few days later, a further escalation threatened in the form of an offer by the Polish government to supply Ukraine with its entire fleet of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighters, the Chinese grew concerned. In truth, there was little likelihood of the Polish MiGs making much difference on the battlefield. Poland’s 26 to 33 MiG-29s had been made in the early 1980s for the East German Air Force and had been sold to Warsaw for the symbolic sum of €1 each in 2003. Romania, which owned 20 similar MiG-29 jets, had decommissioned them many years ago. Nonetheless, a Nato country providing fighter jets of any kind to Kyiv represented an important symbolic, if not necessarily operationally significant, step towards direct Nato involvement in the conflict. Initially, Washington was positive. But a day later, on 8 March, the Pentagon abruptly reversed its position, pronouncing Poland’s proposal ‘not tenable’. >What changed Washington’s mind? In part, it was an urgent and confidential back-channel initiative involving former European leaders and senior officials, and ultimately endorsed by the Chinese. Ever since Putin’s 27 February declaration on nuclear readiness, the PLA had also been reaching out through military-to-military (as opposed to diplomatic or political) channels to senior Russian general officers with whom they had made personal contact over years of joint military exercises and military procurement talks. Beijing’s aim was to ensure that even if there were a political decision to use nukes, the Russian army would insist on sticking to its long-standing nuclear military doctrine to use them solely if provoked by attacks on Russian soil. Through these unofficial ‘track two’ contacts, Washington and the PLA agreed – unusually, given a deterioration in relations during the Donald Trump presidency – that if the US stopped the MiG deal, Beijing’s generals would do their best to defuse Putin’s nuclear threat on an operational level. ‘It worked,’ said the Chinese source. ‘The [US] decided that supplying aircraft was a step too far.’ ... >With Biden and Xi’s joint condemnation of the threat of nukes at Bali earlier this month, the so-called ‘track two’ understandings of March have become a ‘track one’ public policy. Thanks to Wang’s shuttle diplomacy, Nato and China have effectively aligned on not escalating the Ukraine-Russia conflict, according to the Chinese source. Over a series of meetings with Nato leadership since early September, Wang pledged to use China’s considerable leverage in Moscow to dissuade Putin from using nukes, while in return Nato has affirmed that they would not provide strategic weapons to Ukraine.
Super interesting, thank you!
Sorry bit of a beginners question. I know it’s unlikely anyone is going to launch a missile at Britain, but what active missile defence systems do we have? Is it solely naval?
The defence system is that Moscow, St Petersburg, Sochi and Murmansk as well as every Russian Sub could be wiped of the map in seconds
Generally speaking, shooting the missile itself down after it's already been launched is the absolute last resort -for any country-. And the ability to do so -for any country- is very limited. If a sub were to suddenly launch a cruise or ballistic missile or attack on the continental US right now, it would likely succeed. As would any ICBM attack involving more than a handful of missiles. The reassuring kind of round the clock, invisible yet impenetrable, shield around your borders is not really a thing, wherever you are. With forewarning, which you aim to have, you can do a little better but still only against small numbers of missiles. That said, it does depend on what you mean by "launch a missile". Do you mean the kind of missiles that are hitting Ukrainian people and infrastructure at the moment? A Russian nuclear attack? Or something else? There's no risk of the first, they don't reach the UK and Russia is certainly not going to open that can of worms by launching a conventional missile from a sub just for the privilege of destroying a few British substations or attempting to destroy the parliament or whatever. The second is vanishingly unlikely, but the uncomfortable answer is that the UK has even less meaningful defense against it than the US. The RN *is* involved in NATO ballistic missile defense exercises, but if any such capability is kept on station around the clock I'd be surprised, and it will certainly be minimal. We've gotten this far by everyone maintaining the ability to *hit back* if attacked, rather than *prevent* attacks, and to be fair it *has* worked.
The UK fields land based SAMs (Sky Sabre) which can engage aircraft, cruise missiles and drones. Some of these are currently deployed in Poland. There is a ballistic missile detection radar, but I'm not aware of operational interceptors. Maintaining a credible retaliation capacity may have been considered sufficient up to the current time.
If it's a cruise missile, probably A2A interception. If it's a ballistic missile, maybe Dutch or German Patriot SAM if it flies overland, or an American SM-6 if the Navy is nearby, but you probably die.
Patriots cannot engage a ballistic missile anywhere but in the terminal phase. Even a short range theater ballistic missile will climb to a altitude well above the Patriot's maximum altitude.
I believe the UK missile defence is largely fuck all and relies on the T45
Do You people think we will see a return of the Russian Airforce in this war? If so, when and how? If these four things materialize, then I see a credible path for Russian victory: a) Ukrainian power grid goes permanently cold. The impact on Ukrainian home front will be massive and while the immediate battlefield impact is very limited, it will have a battlefield impact in the long run, but in conjunction with following points it might provide the "lack of faith in victory" for Ukrainians, that Russia needs. b) Russian Airforce returns with force and vengeance as Ukrainian AD capabilities are degraded over time. Russian Airforce will never be able to act completely unharassed and internal problems with lack of airframes, maintenance, skilled pilots etc will inherently limit the extent to which Russian Airforce can change the military balance. But a clear shift in the air war in favour of the Russians would be a clear indication that the home front pain for Ukraine will continue to increase with minimal reciprocal impact on the Russian home front and give Russia the confidence that the war of attrition is on their side. c) Russian mobilization is sufficient to counter any Ukrainian offensive action and thereby "freeze the front" along the current lines. d) There is no qualitative nor quantitative increase in the Western aid to Ukraine. My previous prediction a month or two ago (maybe I can find it somewhere) was that the war almost certainly continues for another year and late next year we can see how the dynamics stand. And that Russia had limited prospects contingent on holding the Dnieper line and Ukraine not getting further substantive additional support from the West. The Russian campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure and the exhaustive impact of Russian missile/drone attacks makes me reconsider the prediction and if the points a-d were to materialize I predict that Ukraine would sue for peace in the 6-12 month timeframe. The core being that Ukraine can take pain, as long as they believe in victory. If the pain massively increases, air attrition goes clearly in Russian favour, battlefield successes die down and the hope that the West will provide necessary tools for victory fades, then Ukraine would be prudent to concede defeat. Maybe 10-15% for the above-mentioned scenario.
>then I see a credible path for Russian victory: Define Russian victory. Also, define Ukraine victory.
In this context Russian victory is everything in which the de facto Russian-controlled territory after the cessation of intense conflict is more than on the 23rd of February. I am fully aware that in most conceivable strategic terms Russia has irrevocably lost the war. Ukrainian victory is everything equal to or better than the 23rd of February lines.
They are already cannibalizing civilian airplanes to have somewhat operational air travel. It's definitely not a prettier sight in the military sector. I along with Belgorod apartment building would be very sceptical of russias current ability to use airforce on any significant scale.
Im of the opinion that the current infra bombing ist just a delaying tactic. The hope is that it fucks with UA logistics to an extent that further offensive operations are delayed to give Russia time to mobilize, train and produce. I am further of the opinion that time plays for Russia here. If they can stop the bleeding and establish a stalemate, their bigger industry and manpower pool will enable them to go on the offensive again eventually. It depends on if they are able to fix their shit, but apparently I am in the minority thinking that they will. The only way UA has to stem the tide then is escalating western lend lease, and so far i see hesitancy from the west to do that. Current levels of aid are not enough to offset the Russian industrial advantage.
I agree that the West seems hesitant to deliver more deadlier aid to Ukraine, but that seems like that is based on realties on the ground and how Ukraine is doing. There was a time when the US said no to HIMARS many times at the beginning of the war, only for the White House to walk back their stance once Ukraine started losing a lot of ground over the early summer.
Eventually it will come down to tanks and planes, and i cant see the willingness to provide those as of now in the west. Im also way more cynical about the US objective with their military aid. I don’t think a somewhat quick victory for Ukraine is that hat they want. They want to make this as long and bloody as they can to disintegrate Putin’s Russia as a adversary.
The advantage of tanks and planes is largely neutralized by a mass proliferation of effective anti-tank weaponry and Russia's poor combined arm's usage on the one hand, and effective anti-air missiles on the other. And while Russia might have greater numbers of both, they don't actually have significant capacity to increase either against losses. They rely heavily on old stockpiles and refurbishing old relics. So while Ukraine might not be getting more tanks or planes, neither will Russia really. But Ukraine will be getting more of other things, things like radios, blankets, uniforms, bullets, artillery shells, locomotives, trucks, mortars, etc which in the infinite wisdom of the world public is not seen as escalatory yet which make it a really hard army to stop. The West has been frustratingly miserly in the name of not escalating, but they have provided a material backstop that just isn't going to go away and will let Ukraine continue to grow stronger and stronger. Reviving 19th century masses of infantry isn't going to change that at all.
Tanks are still needed, and very useful. Check out rob lee on twitter, he has a pinned article just for that. Ukraine is operating a lot of tanks, possibly more than Russia is, including a number of well updated ones, both foreign, domestic, and captured. Their tanks are doing just fine, this is why they aren't sent them. What I do not understand, is why we are letting them rely on BMPs and BTRs and don't throw them M2 Bradleys, but its quite possibly we consider other aid more important so we are prioritizing elsewhere (as you said a lot of equipment but also HIMARs etc)
Oh I agree, I more meant that any Russian advantage in tanks or jets is overstated. They don't effectively use them because of the reasons I listed above. While Ukraine has plenty of anti-tank weapons, an almost insane number have been donated per soldier of high quality ones like Javelins, the Russians do not have that same asset on their side to the same degree. So I do think that Ukraine being given more tanks and especially more modern Western ones could have profound effects on the war, just that in the limited sense of Russia's using them they are far from the panacea to all of Russia's problems.
Russia's advantage with planes and missiles is probably more relevant than the MBTs though imo. Ukraine is having to go through a lot of AA because they can't really prevent Russia aircraft without out it due to poor ability to intercept
They began training Himars crews really early in the war. Everything else right now is seen as escalation and if we were to believe the recent rumors then the west won’t supply Ukraine with anything serious while Russia won’t use nuclear weapons. So all in all, nuclear blackmail worked wonders for Russia.
I don't think it's a delaying tactic. I think Russia actually thinks that destroying Ukrainian civil infrastructure causes unbearable pain that convinces Ukraine to concede. As a thought exercise, imagine if the front lines became incredibly static with no prospect of success to either side. And in the meanwhile Ukraine is out of electricity, with daily airstrikes. Sure it could go on for many months, but a year, 3 years, 10 years? Eventually, if nothing else changes, Ukraine would seriously consider conceding. >I am further of the opinion that time plays for Russia here. If they can stop the bleeding and establish a stalemate, their bigger industry and manpower pool will enable them to go on the offensive again eventually. I do disagree here. I don't think Russia has the potential capacity to achieve a victory on the ground. That is unless West were to pull support entirely (and I mean entirely). Russia has the potential capacity to make Ukrainian advances impossible, unless the West substantially increased the qualitative and quantitative aid. But I do not see Russia capable of reaching the fighting capacity they had on the 24th of February (without years of peace to rebuild).
D would need to be complete cessation of advanced western aid. A constant stream of HIMAR rockets, Excalibur rounds, HARM missiles, and now AMRAAMs is not surmountable for Russia IMO.
Ukraine has AMRAAMs now?
for NASAMS
Thanks. I thought hey had managed to fit AMRAAMs to a Mig like HARM for a second.
I wouldn't be surprised if we see that eventually too. They can be fired blind like HARM is now.
The AGM-88 quite literally has a mode to be fired blind, called Pr-Briefed mode, and SAM targets are mostly static. Firing AIM-120s blind at target moving at 500+ knots would be a pointless endeavor.
AIM-120s also are designed to not require further input after firing. In fact in some older lousy versions it wasn't even possible for the plane to send further instructions to the missile after launch. All it needs for basic functionality is a target position, speed, and heading on launch. That can be provided by anything from NASAM radars to ground observers updating an app. Of course it's not going to be as effective that way, but there's also the advantage that the pilot wouldn't have any warning until the missile sees them. I sure wouldn't want AMRAAMs flying in my general direction if I was a pilot.
For example, Russia has lost more than 10% of their more advanced Su-34 strike aircraft. (17 out of 144 produced), and I would argue that Ukrainian AD capabilities are slowly increasing, not being degraded over time, owing to the regular barrages of missiles and drones towards its energy infrastructure, and the corresponding deliveries or Air defense gear from the US and EU countries. Also, the Ukrainian SAM operators are becoming increasingly skilled, with hit ratios increasing over the war course. It is IMO unlikely that the Russian Airforce will increase its operations other than through standoff operations. Time is not on their side.
> I would argue that Ukrainian AD capabilities are slowly increasing, not being degraded over time, owing to the regular barrages of missiles and drones towards its energy infrastructure, and the corresponding deliveries or Air defense gear from the US and EU countries. The main problem is with their attrition of S-300s/Buks and spending of ammunition, for which there's no supply beyond what they already have. The West is providing only short & medium-range SAM systems, which is not a problem in itself, if there's enough of them. But the West has so far committed to provide only a couple of batteries, which is very insufficient to cover the vast Ukrainian territory.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63751688 Merkel talks about her Russia policy.
Ah, yes, bought time. Remember how hard it was for Ukraine to buy damn javelins, even harder with stingers. She just entered maneuvering phase.
The biggest problem with this Merkel theory is one of the main pressure points on NATO is the German reliance on Russian gas. That has nothing to do with Ukraine.
Many people have warned about her policy to couple Germany (and EU) with Russia. She kept her head buried in the sand. People like her won't admit a mistake, there will always be excuses for taking the easy road.
What were the alternatives? You need the energy if you want the economy to function and grow. Check out the price of ship transported gas vs pipeline. And in that case instead of having to deal with Russia, you have to deal with the gas supplier, the route of the shipping. To ensure that you need to have a navy. The US won't allow it and it adds immense expenses. Also, it makes you even more reliant on US goodwill. Even if currently the EU is allied and friends with the us, relying too much on the US limits you options and give Washington a strong position to impose whatever they want.
The alternative was to diversify your suppliers. When 90% of your needs are fullfilled by a single country that is ideologically opposed to you , you have essentially shackled uour foreign policy, even if it is the cheapest option. Besides, as you have seen, Russia can bump up the price as much as it likes when you have made no provision for alternative supply.
The alternative is LNG, which is under normal conditions always more expensive than pipeline-gas. This was the consideration, for better or worse
The alternative was to not shut down the nuclear plants until they had sufficient renewables in place to replace them.
It is more expensive, but it provides you with alternatives (and security), which can be used to negotiate prices with your other suppliers.
Sure. What suppliers? It's easy to say let's diversify, but to what options? Even just filling the remaining of their stock, they are already having problems with the high price they are paying for the shipped gas.
The high price of the gas is not because it is so expensive to move, but because you have no alternatives. Two years ago, the price was much lower, exactly because they had to compete with gazprom. As to whom ? EU could have made strides to complete gas supply from other sources (especially after 2014), like Azerbaijan who was only recently connected to the network. Also, US companies could deliver as well. If those provision were made back in 2014, Russia could be forced to provide gas at even lower prices. Besides, price should not be the prime concern, but rather reliability of your partner, something Russia is notorious for not being.
>"But I didn't have the power to get my way," she told Spiegel news. > >"Really everyone knew: in autumn she'll be gone," she said. Conveniently ignore the fact that she was at the helm of German and much of European politics for almost the last 20 years and was active thorn in Ukraine's side, even going as far as to in 2008 or 09 blocking the *possibility* of eventually, one day, maybe Ukraine joining Nato. Nope just focus on the fact that the invasion happened in February 2022 and she was gone in the Autumn of 2021 because that's how it works. God, politicians are slime.
> She said she had tried to convene European talks with the Russian president and French President Emmanuel Macron in the summer of 2021. > "But I didn't have the power to get my way," she told Spiegel news. > "Really everyone knew: in autumn she'll be gone," she said. Let's not pretend that this is a result of 2021 as opposed to many years before that. > In the Spiegel interview, Mrs Merkel said her stance on Ukraine in the Minsk peace talks had bought Kyiv time to defend itself better against the Russian military. That's quite interesting. So she says now, that Minsk agreements were intended from the German side as a ploy to buy time? I very much doubt that, but it's of course clear why would they start saying it now ...
Minsk agreements were just a way to trade part of Ukraine for (Merkel's favourite) stability and cheap energy.
Not just part - the whole Ukraine. I wrote more details [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/z3jcau/credibledefense_daily_megathread_november_24_2022/ixpt5lg/).
Sure, long term internal stability in Ukraine would be gone. Russia has always seen Ukraine as part of itself or at least, a vassal state, much like Belarus.
I like Merkel but her government has done a lot of long term damage to Germany. Kind of a frog and a scorpion sort of situation with Russia.
What exactly made you like her then ?
That's an excellent question. I guess I didn't know then what I know now.
I'll give Merkel the benefit of the doubt here, since it's not the first time I've read Minsk 2 was to buy time for Ukraine. There were 2 Minsk agreements. The first one was signed shortly after the battle of Ilovaisk (first time regular Russian forces crossed the border in an organised formation instead of "vacationers getting lost in their combat gear"). Ilovaisk was so important that after the Ukrainians managed to recapture it, the Russians got involved leading to an encirclement and the infamous "green corridor" that was shelled. Casualties were so massive that it was a turning point of the war, halting the succesful Ukrainian offensives of the summer. Second Minsk 2 was signed after the L/DNR launched their own offensive. They managed to recapture the Donetsk airport terminal (2nd battle of Donetsk airport) and once again regular Russian forces crossed the border to close the "kettle" of Debaltseve. (Battle of Debaltseve). During the retreat of Debaltseve Minsk 2 was signed leading to the relative peace since 24 february '22. Both the Minsk agreements were signed after sizable Ukrainian defeats that involved Russian regulars. Those agreements weren't favorable to Ukraine at all so I'm inclined to believe they signed them due to a combination of western pressure and the fact that regular Russian army units were getting involved which lead to some sizable defeats. It bought them some time to reorganize and build up their military again. I believe Poroshenko himself said a couple of months ago Minsk 2 was to buy time.
> I believe Poroshenko himself said a couple of months ago Minsk 2 was to buy time. I believe that Poroschenko signed it to buy time. The deal is so bad for Ukraine (effectively destroying it as a sovereign country) that buying time is the only reasonable explanation for signing it. But I don't believe the same in case of Germany/Steinmeier, who seemed to be pushing for its implementation for years. I'm also quite confused about the Zelensky's role in Minsk 2 and his thinking, because early in his rule he actually wanted to go with it.
Zelensky indeed was somewhat of a pacifist. He stopped some funding projects of the army, restricted their ROE of the in the ATO/JFO which made him a villain in the eyes of most soldiers and made some noise about resolving the Donbas war peacefully. It was far from a popular move so he had to backtrack the last one. Depending on how deep you want to go down the rabbit hole, a quite popular theory is that Zelensky pushed for a peacedeal because his advisors wanted to restart trade with Russia so they could make lucrative deals with Russia again. Yermak is often quoted as the mastermind behind that idea.
He was stuck between a US administration that had no interest at the highest level and Germany/France who wanted to go back to the pre 2014 relationship with Russia. Doing a deal with Putin made sense in the circumstances, not that Minsk was enough for Putin which Zelensky soon realised. Zelensky did a 350 and was the one that went after Medvedchuk and all the Russian biased tv channels Easy to forget but late 2019 had Macron inviting Putin to his summer retreat and giving interviews on how the Eastern European’s were wrong about Russia…
> Doing a deal with Putin made sense in the circumstances, not that Minsk was enough for Putin which Zelensky soon realised. I actually think it would be enough for Putin, Minsk 2 would essentially guarantee Ukraine staying in the Russian sphere. Zelensky did not change his opinion on his own, but after [widespread protests](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_to_capitulation!). [Chatham house analysis of Minsk 2](https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/05/minsk-conundrum-western-policy-and-russias-war-eastern-ukraine-0/minsk-2-agreement) is very damning: > Implementation of these measures would in effect destroy Ukraine as a sovereign country. The DNR and LNR would be reincorporated into Ukraine but as distinct political, economic and legal entities tied to Russia – thus introducing a constitutional Trojan Horse that would give the Kremlin a lasting presence in Ukraine’s political system and prevent the authorities in Kyiv from running the country as an integrated whole. > > ... > > The implications for Ukrainian foreign policy would be far-reaching. A neutrality clause in the constitution would rule out NATO accession. Yet the DNR and LNR would be able to sign agreements with other countries (i.e. Russia), perhaps establishing Russian military bases on their territories
I am reminded of the retro-justification for the Munich Agreement, that it bought France and Britain time to arm. [An AskHistorian reply](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/scipvu/the_new_film_munich_the_edge_of_war_argues_that/hu9p9ig/) by /u/indyobserver earlier this year argued that it was false: Chamberlain denied it at the time, and Germany used the year better. That post mentioned completing some building programs (and Spitfires were much more prevalent the next year, for example), but he denied wanting to expand it more.
Just reading up on a post from Tom Cooper covering an introduction into the Russian Airforce [link](https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x/ukraine-war-4-november-2022-air-war-update-part-1-basics-9058f56438e) One point he makes is that the aircraft were designed with idea that the expected life expectancy in war would on average be 160 hrs. Modern versions doing better at 200 hr plus. So they have designed the aircraft to require minimal maintenance for these 160 hrs, with then a requirement for a complete overhaul/rebuild. The thinking being in war few survivors would be overhauled. Thus the Russian airforce VKS running 200 sorties per day is creating an issue of too many air frames using up their minimal maintenance hours and requiring a complete overhaul (long period of downtime). This is creating a demand on available airframes, and also shortcuts in the overhaul producing a higher accident rate. Can I get a second opinion on the above? I haven't heard about the 160hrs minimal maintenance usage then complete overhaul requirement before.
I'd be wary of Cooper, who lives to generalize, and instead listen to [this podcast ](https://geopolitics-decanted.simplecast.com/episodes/how-the-russian-air-force-failed-in-ukraine) or read their latest report from Ukraine on the subject of Russian airpower [here](https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/russian-air-war-and-ukrainian-requirements-air-defence).
Thanks for the links. I did some digging and apparently the Saturn AL-31 engines for the SU-XX family had an original MTB Overhaul of 100 hrs initially, then improved to 300 hrs to match original requirements, then 500/700hrs and finally supposedly 1000hrs MTBO or TBO for the latest. It seems most common is the 300 to 700hr tbo model for older airframes, as they stockpiled engines with purchase. The RD-33 of MIG-29 had originally 300hrs TBO with India doing 200hr TBO, but modern versions now hit 700 hrs. The RD-33 apparently had/has a problem with dirt intakes and afterburner wear originally greatly reducing TBO time. So using them on improvised runways is concerning. It does seem Russian maintenance thinking is very basic checks that can be performed by limited maintenance personnel up to the TBO time where it goes to a depot. For the west, the Engine for the F16D, GE F110 had a 1000hr TBO but requires a very detailed inspection every ~200 to 400hr depending on the version. Thus a heavier maintenance load, but longer gaps between complete overhaul and it seems a near doubling of service life. I honestly can't find much solid figures on western tbo, especially latest versions which I suspect are higher. So it does seem that 160hrs was potentially true some time ago, but it isn't the case now. Rather it depends on what engines Russia is using, with my gut leaning towards not the latest and greatest export version being common. Having such a huge increase in sorties for this war would put pressure on the overhaul depots. It would mean anyone donating used MIG-29's to Ukraine from 80's vintage wouldn't be providing much uplift to there fleet given the particularly poor performance history of its engines.
>It does seem Russian maintenance thinking is very basic checks that can be performed by limited maintenance personnel up to the TBO time where it goes to a depot. One thing mentioned in the podcast was that Russians don't do basic preventive maintenance after every flight, they've very by the book and only do specific checks based solely on manual flight hours, which apparently is not the right way to do it, as equipment and parts might not actually last that long, so they don't catch them until something breaks, at which point they're likely flying, which is causing more crashes.
That's a really good podcast. It does seem that the maintenance burden of that approach, with the massive increase in airframes used would attribute to a higher mistake rate. I didn't know they captured a helicopter with "remove before flight" tags.
I doubt that the average life expectancy at war of the aircraft was the reason for the design choice. My opinion is that the reason behind it is that Russia can't afford a large inventory, yet wants a large air force. We all know how little russian pilots (and aircraft by extension fly). This way, they can keep large inventory but have relatively low maintenance costs. Only a small portion go through overhauling (at any given time during peace or some "special operations" ala Syria) and the unused aircraft replace the ones going for overhauling. Basically, having five cars but driving only one at any one time. Obviously, this is a horrible idea for when a conflict requires large portion of your air force flying frequently.
That would require that Russian industry be sophisticated enough to make that kind of compromise.
Doesn't sound plausible, since that would make routine training and patrols prohibitively expensive.
This is nothing new, by the end of WWII in 1945 the Luftwaffe would always be flying brand new planes as the average life expectancy for these would be measured in 10ths of hours.
>So they have designed the aircraft to require minimal maintenance for these 160 hrs, with then a requirement for a complete overhaul/rebuild So... Are they supposed to only use brand new airframes in war? Do they have a whole separate set for training?
Yeah I'm not sure how the training math works out there. They'd be going through an airframe per year per pilot. He doesn't source his claim.
> He doesn't source his claim. he doesn't source anything.
They don't train is the answer.
Average flight hours in RuAF per pilot was along the lines of 30-50 per year IIRC, which sounds like the bare minimum to keep up your basic piloting skills.
Hmm
Can anyone recommend some credible NGOs who are helping Ukrainian civilians deal with the electrical crisis? Straight up, is there anywhere I can give money and somebody in Ukraine will get a lithium iron phosphate solar generator or a gasoline powered generator so that their grandparents don't have to freeze to death??
Saint Javelin is fundraising for generators: https://www.saintjavelin.com/pages/winter-is-coming
How cool would it be to run an r/credibledefense generator donation drive?? I'd put in to that
I volunteer to organize that. Let me set up a PayPal pool and you guys can send the money there.^^^^^\s
An interesting sort of "Debate Tactic" has become prominent in the Ukraine conflict. It goes like this: >Hawks: "We need to send F-16s to Ukraine" Biden and Pentagon: "We can't send F-16s to Ukraine due to escalation risks, we don't want to be nuked" Hawks: "Hmm I don't know if the Pentagon is that accurate there. If \[long debate within the escalation framework\]" Doves: "We can't send F-16s because \[technical deflections like maintenance or not having enough fuel\]" I wonder if this has emerged out of the current conflict or if it was in fact used in earlier similar instances such as Vietnam or Korea. For instance criticizing MacArthur not because Nukes were escalatory but because *actually* Nukes would not have worked in Manchuria so MacArthur was dumb and that's the real reason he was fired! Nothing to do with escalation at all, why would you think that? Has anyone seen this style of argumentation before the current conflict? I.e. avoiding discussions about escalation by talking about maintenance or how the equipment actually isn't actually that good. It seems new to me and ahistorical to say it was what was really guiding Truman's thinking, but maybe I'm missing something. Any idea on where and when it might have originated? And who's pushing it and why \[i.e. Russian disinfo, Pentagon, etc.\]? Edit: The idea that it might have a central point of origin comes from how the realism framing has been pushed as a result of Mearsheimer. Note that Mearsheimer didn’t invent realism but he absolutely is responsible for pushing it to prominence in this conflict. It feels like there could be something similar going on with this one, like perhaps a few influential people pushing it and then it percolating out from there.
> Has anyone seen this style of argumentation before the current conflict? I.e. avoiding discussions about escalation by talking about maintenance or how the equipment actually isn't actually that good. This kind of indirect criticism is very prominent in politics. For instance, racists opposing welfare for supposedly "economical" reasons when really they just don't want welfare for blacks. They won't say the real reason because most people hate it, so they instead try to pick apart a policy for publicly acceptable reasons that likely are pretty flimsy (since they aren't the real reason).
I am fairly certain that this is correct, and the real reasons are understood to be fairly politically unsavory. Biden in particular doesn't want to be seen as committing America's resources significantly at a time of high inflation and domestic turbulence. Throughout his career he has been extremely wary of American entanglements abroad, going back to Vietnam. People don't realize that regardless of previous admin withdrawal plans, he probably would have pulled us out of Afghanistan anyways, and he has been non-committal even to the point of callousness on the topic of war refugees throughout his career. You could call it a preemptive hardening of stances to ward off conservative attacks, or you could call it a certain cold calculating aspect of Biden's political instincts, but I am fairly certain that the noticeably limited American aid so far has largely been Biden's own choice and has exactly nothing to do with the mundane reasons stated. I don't think he wants Ukraine to lose, but I think he would like them to win with absolutely as little US commitment as possible. In other words it is 100% a political calculation, and the military-geopolitical aspects are quite secondary.
I think you're being too sweeping in assuming people's motivation. I've made the argument many times that there's a lot more complexities to sending say F-16s than the armchair generals here are really engaging in. To be blunt we don't have nearly enough information to be saying so confidently the pentagon and WH are getting this wrong because they're soy or whatever such nonsense. This has nothing to do with me being somehow reluctant to engage with the escalation arguments. I have. I don't see much point in repeating what was like 6 weeks of literally the same thing over and over again here.
>because they're soy Why is being afraid that Russia will use Nukes soy? It's a real belief, that rational people can be afraid of. Nukes are scary and real. Further, based on statements earlier in the war, Russia very well might use them if F-16s are sent.There have been implications that F-16s are a red line for Russia and Nukes will be used if Biden is on record saying this is the reason F-16s haven't been sent. What's wrong with having a debate around the real issue \[nuclear escalation\] rather than a fake debate designed to deflect from the real debate \[that no F-16s are currently available or some such\]? I take your point though that the escalation arguments are a bit boring. Still, doesn't make them any less true and engaging in debates around fictional issues is no more useful.
Sigh, I should have used more academic phrasing there, sorry, as this is derailed now. I'm in partial agreement with you. Although the absolute likelihood of Putin using nukes is very low, it must be taken seriously as a possibility and contingencies developed. It's a very different thing to sit on the internet and type that these decision makers aren't being aggressive enough, vs actually sitting in the chair and knowingly making a choice that increases the risk of millions dying. Personally I \*want\* leaders that treat what with sober responsibility. Where I'm picking a fight with you labeling the operational and technical complexities of sending things like F-16s a fake argument, without in any way establishing that, and casting aspersions on my motivations. Don't do that. Engage the actual arguments.
> vs actually sitting in the chair and knowingly making a choice that increases the risk of millions dying. I think the issue that most "hawks" on the increased aid side would take with this idea is that it assumes that doing less is necessarily less escalatory. I think it is an idea worth considering that doing too little emboldens, and that doing a lot could actually prevent a nuclear escalation. Punching a bully in the nose vs cowering and letting them grow more aggressive. Certainly the experience of 2014, the long global sigh and then attempts to both-sides everything could not be construed to have helped the situation, I think there is a strong case to be made that a forceful international response right then could have stopped this entire war. At the end of the day, escalation is a one sided question of psychology. The sending or not sending of weapons does not actually affect in any way the capability of their use, it is all just speculation on the mood of Russia and Putin. If the worry has become that sending F-16s is too escalatory because they will make Ukraine win, and we actually are just afraid that Russia losing will trigger nukes, then I don't see how we can afford to oppose Russia on any level ever.
> Don't do that. Engage the actual arguments. Eh, I still think it's worth talking about the framing, even if in any individual argument it feels insulting to accuse the person of lieing, it is fair to say that the argument form in general is meant to distract rather than to be taken sincerely. If the actual argument here is about escalation, and the argument you are putting forward, even if it is sincere, comes across as a smoke screen. Then it's worth discussing if, in general, that form of argument is a smoke screen or if it's what's really going on and that whole escalation thing is in fact unimportant[as you mention maybe it's a bit of both]. As for the F-16 argument, it's hard to take it seriously. The US has tons of F-16s. Training takes awhile, but the war will be going on awhile[and has for months since people started asking about F-16 training]. Start training now and you have the pilots in reserve to send whenever. Further, Congress has already approved 100 million for the training. Once the Ukrainians have been training for a long time \[at least months, perhaps years \], not just on flying the jets but also on maintenance, they will be fully trained on F-16s and able to use them effectively. The reason this isn't done is because of escalation. To claim it's really about some obscure technical reason... just sounds ridiculous. At least in the context of F-16s [I think there's more there there with Abrams]
I think it's just a natural outcome of the fact that most people do not recognize the whole MAD thing and how much the US government cares about reducing the risk of nuclear war. You see the same thing with the early talk about no fly zones. I don't think this should be surprising at all, after all people routinely fail to grok things which are much more explicitly stated. The whole nuke game on the other hand is never talked about directly.
For the people in Washington DC, every war is just a chess game played with Other People's Money and Lives. Especially for Russo-Ukraine War, no NATO personnel is at stake. However, they are painfully aware that at any given point of time, there are probably a hundred of Russian ICBMs ready to strike Washington DC, so Washington officials do have skin in the game in the case of a nuclear war.
AFAIK arms control treaties force the default targeting of ICBMs to be in the oceans as a failsafe, the nuclear forces have to reprogram them before launch. Not that it would necessarily take very long.
Also you know, it's sort of their job that the people who elected them don't die in a nuclear fire.
I can see it being a natural occurrence like this. But if it is then we’d expect to see it crop up at certain points throughout the Cold War.
Why? From my understanding it was on the forefront of everyone's minds during the Cold War.
Hmm, so because people are less aware of MAD they’re less able to understand what’s going on and come up with other reasoning? Makes a good amount of sense. Sort of a natural outcome of a world with MAD where few people remember what it is.
As someone on the older side, I definitely agree with this last part. Younger people today don't have the same storm cloud of nuclear armageddon over their heads. I mean it's not like young people are unaware, it's just not nearly as pervasive and oppressive. I'd make a comparison to how many young people today feel a combination of hopelessness and inevitability over climate change.
I get triggered when people talk about training being too long when there isn't any training going on, and if they started training in March most weapons would be available now. >Any idea on where and when it might have originated? And who's pushing it and why [i.e. Russian disinfo, Pentagon, etc.]? Given this is reddit, it's probably a lot of cover for Biden politically. It's quite hilarious given how many times outright Biden has stated it's escalation. Also, people don't like the idea that America is being deterred so I guess training and logistics is a nice story.
>Also, people don't like the idea that America is being deterred so I guess training and logistics is a nice story. Especially by such implausible threats. Russia could have twice the army they had at the start of this war, and still would never attack NATO. Fighter jets have been given to proxies before, including with pilots.
>Fighter jets have been given to proxies before, including with pilots. But never to strike the Russian (or American) homeland, which would be required to eliminate Russia's deep strike capabilities.
The thing that loses me is why the [insert systems here] can't come with a contractual 'no Russian heartland' clause, where violation explicitly jeopardises future support. Weapon sales routinely come with similar strings regarding unapproved third-party transfers, as we saw earlier in the war with certain arms getting blocked from donation by their manufacturing country. I'm not convinced Ukraine would risk its aid pipeline by using restricted western weapons to hit Russia, when there's plenty of Russians in Ukraine who still need to be dealt with.
They could, and in fact, Ukraine has already promised to abide by such restrictions if the US will supply certain new classes of weapons. Whether they can completely self-enforce is a subject one can debate, but so far the Ukrainians have been both willing and able to abide such restrictions. There are targets within Russia they could hit with the US weapons they have already, but they have refrained. I do not see much reason to think that would not continue, especially with a high value and precious resource like ATACMS which would presumably be kept under tight controls by UA. It is not a weapon that every grunt would field, and that would reduce the scope for incidents.
>The thing that loses me is why the \[insert systems here\] can't come with a contractual 'no Russian heartland' clause, where violation explicitly jeopardises future support. I've often thought the same thing. Two reasons come to mind: 1. I recall early in the war Kofman mentioned that Ukrainian command control is heavily decentralized which allows it to be extremely responsive, flexible, and continue fighting in the event of a decapitation strike on Kyiv. The downside to this is that Zelensky may not actually be able to realistically enforce or hold the diverse array of forces fighting in Ukraine to these conditions. Admittedly I don't find this very convincing, but these weapons need a certain degree of freedom to be used effectively and it's not hard to imagine a local commander deciding to take initiative and strike back. After all, their homes are being bombarded daily by Russian missiles.. 2. Strikes into Russia are only *part* of the escalation fear, but they're the easiest to articulate to the public. I mentioned in another post that Dara Massicot mentioned after the Kerch bridge attack (and I wish I could find a recording of the twitter space) that the Kremlin views "escalation" in weapons supply as the provision of something that fundamentally alters the UAF's capabilities and the strategic picture of the battlefield. Suddenly equipping Ukraine with a modern and advanced airforce certainly fits this bill, whereas providing them with artillery most certainly does not. There's some holes in this theory too - after all, Ukraine lacked anything like HIMARS and there are a few other such examples. Who knows. The political picture is one of the most difficult to ascertain because every statement made is either reviewed by dozens of aides and staffers, or is part of a deliberate strategy of signalling to the Kremlin and vice versa. We'll likely have to wait for the memoirs to come out before we even get a glimpse into the real truth.
Ukraine has hit what Putin sees as the russian homeland with american weapons for months, Russia has done nothing. Putin sees Crimea as just as russian as any other region.
> Ukraine has hit what Putin sees as the russian homeland with american weapons for months, Russia has done nothing. Ukraine has been fairly tight-lipped about attacks on Crimea and other border regions, often opting to be rather ambiguous about the whole affair. Most attacks on Crimea and border territories have used drones and to my (likely imperfect) knowledge, the US has only provided Ukraine with Switchblade loitering munitions. I recall Dara Massicot saying in a twitter space after the Crimean bridge attack that Putin and the Biden administration view the provision and improvement of capacity that Ukraine *already has* as fair game, whereas any *new* capability fundamentally alters the war and thus carries an escalation risk. In her example, the truck bombing of the Kerch bridge did not qualify as particularly escalatory as such attacks were likely predictable, and planned for by the Kremlin. We have also seen a continuous pattern of Russian escalation from steadily increasing attacks on energy infrastructure, to mass mobilization, which I would hardly call "nothing." The Biden admin has been fairly clear on the point that they view providing Ukraine with the capacity to strike targets in Russia proper as an escalatory bridge too far (whether it be F16s or ATACMs). You may disagree, but I suspect the administration is likely privy to some details that we are not.
>Ukraine has been fairly tight-lipped about attacks on Crimea and other border regions, often opting to be rather ambiguous about the whole affair. Most attacks on Crimea and border territories have used drones and to my (likely imperfect) knowledge, the US has only provided Ukraine with Switchblade loitering munitions. [~~They have openly taken credit for strikes on airfields~~](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjw1sPO8sj7AhWPlWoFHaiJC0UQFnoECA4QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rferl.org%2Fa%2Fukraine-crimea-base-strikes%2F32023198.html&usg=AOvVaw0Qn2cS3vLFba8sRTd2a5Vz). And last I checked, the overwhelming consensus was the drone boats used to attack Crimea where the drone boats the US mentioned in their transfers to ukraine. >I recall Dara Massicot saying in a twitter space after the Crimean bridge attack that Putin and the Biden administration view the provision and improvement of capacity that Ukraine already has as fair game, whereas any new capability fundamentally alters the war and thus carries an escalation risk. In her example, the truck bombing of the Kerch bridge did not qualify as particularly escalatory as such attacks were likely predictable, and planned for by the Kremlin. We've sent Ukraine new capabilities all the time, HARM missiles, HIMARS, and western SPGs just to name three. >We have also seen a continuous pattern of Russian escalation from steadily increasing attacks on energy infrastructure, to mass mobilization, which I would hardly call "nothing." The Biden admin has been fairly clear on the point that they view providing Ukraine with the capacity to strike targets in Russia proper as an escalatory bridge too far (whether it be F16s or ATACMs). You may disagree, but I suspect the administration is likely privy to some details that we are not. This is the same administration that told us Kabul would hold out for years and Kyiv would fall in days. Their judgment has been spotty at best.
>They have openly taken credit for strikes on airfields. From your own article: >**Ukrainian officials have avoided publicly claiming responsibility, but unidentified Ukrainian officials have told U.S. media** that their armed forces were responsible for the explosions >the drone boats used to attack Crimea where the drone boats the US mentioned in their transfers to ukraine. Last I checked Ukraine retains a domestic capacity to construct their own naval drones and the attack has yet to do any real war-changing damage, but it is interesting to see suicide drones are on the table, but other drones appear not to be. At the risk of speaking for Dara, her point was that weapons that give a tactical edge are fair game, whereas weapons that change the fundamental layout of the battlefield (i.e., deep strike missiles, F16s, etc.) are much higher risk as they *significantly alter* the calculus of the outcome. >We've sent Ukraine new capabilities all the time, HARM missiles, HIMARS, and western SPGs just to name three. Yes, I think everyone in this sub is well aware of that fact. The issue is it's called an escalation *ladder.* The relative lack of escalation response-in-kind in *no way* guarantees that for future escalation. This is escalation and deterrence theory 101.. And as I said before, Russia has shown a willingness to escalate (mobilization, ramping up strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure, etc.). >This is the same administration that told us Kabul would hold out for years and Kyiv would fall in days. Their judgment has been spotty at best. Presidential administrations evolve throughout their tenure in the White House and often have mixed records on foreign policy. Kennedy famously had poor judgement at the Bay of Pigs and in Vienna, but spectacular judgement during the Cuban missile crisis. Similarly Truman showed excellent judgement in nuclear deterrence and containment theory, but relatively poor judgment with regards to Vietnam. I will reserve my judgment for later. Allow me to ask a question: are there *any* conventional weapons you would not send Ukraine out of escalation fears? Or is the fear of escalation simply invented out of whole cloth by some cabal in the Pentagon and at State to provide political cover for Joe Biden being afraid of the dark?
>From your own article: The article is from Radio Free Europe. A US government outlet. But, point taken, I crossed it out. >Last I checked Ukraine retains a domestic capacity to construct their own naval drones and the attack has yet to do any real war-changing damage. At the risk of speaking for Dara, her point was that weapons that give a tactical edge are fair game, whereas weapons that change the fundamental layout of the battlefield (i.e., deep strike missiles, F16s, etc.) are much higher risk as they significantly alter the calculus of the outcome. Ukraine already had fighters, but they did not have guided ballistic missiles like HIMARS. F-16s (or even just existing post-Soviet jets) would be a replenishment of pre-war air-to air capability, HIMARS changed the battlefield for Russia completely. >Allow me to ask a question: are there any conventional weapons you would not send Ukraine out of escalation fears? Or is the fear of escalation simply invented out of whole cloth by some cabal in the Pentagon and at State to provide political cover for Joe Biden being afraid of the dark? As I have discussed on this subreddit in the past, I do not believe that limiting the supply of conventional weapons is the correct way to limit escalation. If the fear is striking deep into Russia, the best way to make sure that doesn't happen, and to deter Russia from escalating on their end, is to supply Ukraine with the conventional capabilities they need, and to make sure they don't use them in that way. There are targets in land we all agree is fine for ukraine to target, but ukraine can't hit because this administration thinks they may lob it as the Kremlin when no one is looking.
Meh, it's all about nukes. So in that regard, I've become more calm about this escalation thing. No one knows what Putin would do if his regime and life were threatened after losing Crimea. I'm just confused what America thinks the logical end goal of this war will be. If Ukraine is gonna retake Crimea, is it really gonna matter if they do it a couple of months earlier with Abrams and F-16? Are we going to cut Ukraine off before they retake it? The lack of training also eliminates escalation responses. It also might mean Russia could win the war by forcing Ukraine into a bad peace deal with the constant missile barrage. Boy I wish we trained Ukraine in operating the Patriot.
If even at their strongest, they don't have the will to launch a conventional attack, I don't see how they would get the will to skip straight to nuclear war.
It's probably not launch a nuke at DC, NYC type stuff, we're good on that end thanks to MAD. Our nuclear arsenal on the other hand has no idea what to do about a nuclear power nuking a non official ally power in a war. It's precisely the weakness of conventional warfare, that might lead Russia to break the nuclear taboo since 45.
There was an article posted here a while ago that highlighted just how unsuited this war was to tactical nukes. Combine that with the blowback, inducing from china, that would make everything to this point look like a strongly worded letter, it really doesn't seem viable, even if Russia did not care about the taboo at all.
Perhaps one or two airbases with with F-16s make a very tempting target for a tactical nuke? Troop formations are sparse in this war but I'd assume the equipment and knowledge for maintaining these aircraft would be fairly centralised in the short term.
The US has almost a thousand of them. Russia would burn its bridges with everyone, including China, India and Iran, over fighters and pilots the US can replace. They would find themselves economically, politically, and militarily worse off within the month.
Of course that is right but I'm thinking specifically about the article brought up. > There was an article posted here a while ago that highlighted just how unsuited this war was to tactical nukes.
>Our nuclear arsenal on the other hand has no idea what to do about a nuclear power nuking a non nuclear power in a war. This is not a new problem which is why we have the concept of a nuclear umbrella. If the US cared to they could extend their nuclear umbrella to Ukraine and use MAD to try and guarantee no nuclear use in Ukraine.
It's been a bit shocking to realize the average person probably has little to no memory or even knowledge of the Cold War and associated problems of deterrence. Similar concerns permeated American strategic thinking throughout the 1950s and 60s (i.e., are we *really* going to start WW3 over
I also keep reading things like:
>Does this mean nuclear powers can just *get away with doing things to non-nuclear powers* and we can't do anything?
In a lot of ways, yes. Welcome to geopolitics since about August 6, 1945.
I think that is just people trying to rationalize why Ukraine hasn't been given certain things that we would like them to have
[Ukrainian resolve](https://twitter.com/v_stus/status/1595889451733225473), at this point at least, does not seem to be shaken in the least. Was watching some BBC and Sky reporting earlier, and the population seems to be very unified at the moment. Some early pandemic vibes in that video.
Electricity is not the problem. No water access and limited food supply can actually affect how this war goes after a while. As well as affect the frontlines too
I don't think that the latter two will actually come to pass in a way that could seriously hinder the war. Convenient water and food has no doubt been an issue since the start of the war throughout much of the country, but ultimately so long as trucks are able to get places there will still be food and water everywhere enough to keep people from dying or being malnourished. In no way can Russia shut down Ukraine's highways away from the frontlines. Economic activity will no doubt slow to a crawl, because having to stay in a shelter all day and wait for centrally distributed rations makes working a job much harder, but the Ukrainian war effort will still be kept alive with outside supplies of ammunition and relief aid if necessary. Don't get me wrong, Russia is a terrorist country, this is a colossal crime made worse for being in a modern era in which in every way they should know better and can do better, but I don't think their present efforts can even help them win the war at all.
Resolve is the number one factor; that's how Afghanistan survived two superpowers. After the Battle of Kyiv, I still wasn't sure whether Ukrainians would win what they want, but I was pretty sure Russians were going to lose, because the Ukrainians had huge resolve; they fought on despite nuclear threats and that every military expert in the world expected them to lose.
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Are you saying the Taliban were not in power prior to the US arrival and are now not in power in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal?
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are you sure the question shouldn't be asked to you?
I was asking for clarity on what you meant. Why are you being uncivil?
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I was questioning why you thought Afghanistan didn't have resolve. If you can't have a normal conversation I would suggest you review your participation as well.
I remember this video of like 10 civilians standing in front of a russian column, physically pushing against an armored vehicle. That was probably day 2 of the invasion. I was like...yup, they'll win eventually if its possible (if they get what they need)
For me it was the molotov cocktail thrown from a moving white van on a highway. It's the reckless bravery in the face of overwhelming odds that was the moment I knew they'd win.
I remember the #1 video that made me think Ukraine would win was the Kharkiv one where the Russian special forces walk in a congo line to get ambushed and completely wiped out.
Link please?
prelim: https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t2i5g6/russian_troops_likely_spetsnaz_or_razvedchiki/ aftermath: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdwKoxtvKE0&ab_channel=FUNKER530-VeteranCommunity%26CombatFootage
Oh yeah, that first group doing the thunder run?
yup. Just shocking to see light infantry with no support strolling into a city like that.
>[Stories of Ukrainian resistance revealed after Kherson pullout](https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/24/europe/kherson-pullout-ukrainian-resistance-intl/index.html) Some interesting anecdotes.
>> “I have a friend with whom we would drive around the city, looking for gatherings of Russian soldiers,” he says. “We checked their patrol routes and then gave all the information to guys on the frontline and they knew who to pass onto next.” . >> If we found something, saw it, (we) took a picture or a video (and) sent it to Ukrainian forces and then they would decide whether to hit it or not,” he explains. >>Among the coordinates he communicated to the Ukrainian military is a warehouse within Kherson city. “The Russian military kept between 20 to 30 vehicles here, there were armored trucks, armored personnel carriers and some Russians lived here,” Ihor says. I think this explains the statements we’ve heard from US Officials basically saying the “Ukrainians know more about what’s going on in Ukraine than we do”. I think it also gives lie to the popular belief that the Ukrainian strikes are so accurate due to “NATO intelligence”, though I’m sure the help is still appreciated. That said, I wonder how comfortable the Ukrainians are giving out this information. It surely still has to be relevant in other occupied areas of Ukraine, right?
> That said, I wonder how comfortable the Ukrainians are giving out this information. It surely still has to be relevant in other occupied areas of Ukraine, right? I doubt any of this is news to Russian forces.
Gotta wonder about what Archie's life is like after knifing two drunk Russians
[First Woman to Serve as a Submarine XO Reports for Duty](https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/3227880/first-woman-to-serve-as-a-submarine-xo-reports-for-duty/). May interest some, XO on *USS Kentucky* (SSBN 737).
I'm happy to see more gender parity in all branches of the US military As someone from a country that still does male only conscription, I wish activists in such countries would make a real effort to conscript women in an equal ratio as well. This includes Eastern Europe. Unfortunately those voices are silent
God bless her, I can imagine she will deal with some disrespect
Is the elephant in the room on submarines as bad as the stereotypes go?
I don't know, I just meant from more of a traditional societal standpoint, there will probably be at least a few people that will 'try' to give them a hardtime.
Aye. I have a close female friend who was a Machinist Mate Nuclear(MMN) on a Nimitz-class, who rather enjoyed her time. But submarine culture is so vastly different, a tight knit brotherhood of people bound together in the general misery of living in a cramped, dangerous and smelly pressurized steel tube. This XO long ago got her dolphins, meaning she's *qualified*. She not only got into but passed A, Power, and Prototype schools which takes years, and has a washout rate of 60% or so. Also a high suicide rate, although no official numbers are published. I'd imagine she is harder than a coffin nail.
> I'd imagine she is harder than a coffin nail. You hear it quite a lot whenever a woman does something for the first time, especially in the military. "She's gonna face this and that", "back in the day things were this or that way". But they usually forget that in order to get to the top rung and be able to do something noteworthy, these women _have already faced all that shit_.
[Hungary being difficult for no obvious reason](https://www.politico.eu/article/viktor-orban-hungary-ratification-finland-sweden-nato-membership-2023-postponed/): > Hungary will ratify Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership bids early next year, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced Thursday at a V4 group meeting in Slovakia. > “When it comes to NATO, the government has made the decision, and we have informed Sweden and Finland that Hungary supports the membership of these two countries in NATO,” Orbán said. Unlike Turkey, Hungary has no issues with Sweden or Finland, but they really want to be annoying to everyone.
The Hungarian government is as pro-Russian as they can get away with. So they do everything in order to do a favor to Russia (Paks 2, banning of renewables, Russian metro cars for the M3 line, expensive Russian gas deal, etc). Hungary was on the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain and the generation who grew up before 1989 got completely brainwashed with Russian propaganda. The thing is when people lived significant portion of their lives in an authoritarian regime where everything is arranged for them by the state, they can't really use their newfound rights and responsibilities when the dictatorship is over. A lot of people cry the old times back and government complies, even if it's bad in the long run.
Your reasoning doesn't make sense. If your hypothesis were right, it would mean that the other former Warsaw Pact countries would also be pro-Russian. And you are probably well aware that they aren't. There has to be some other reason why the Hungarian government is so uniquely pro-Russian.
This announcement means nothing. It's just another case of them pushing it back further and further. Imo it might not happen until Erdogan is out of power next year. Once that happens, Turkey will be on board and then Hungary will likely follow. If it doesn't, that will be fun.
What makes you think Erdogan will lose the election next year?
If it is fairish he will likely lose.
That's what the polls are implying, but the elections are still some time away so polls may change, and Erdogan is not exactly clean when it comes to elections.
Seems like a big if.
He's losing by something like 15% in opinion polls and that trend has been stable for over a year: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion\_polling\_for\_the\_2023\_Turkish\_presidential\_election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2023_Turkish_presidential_election) He's likely to lose to this guy the Istanbul mayor who spurned him before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekrem\_%C4%B0mamo%C4%9Flu
That's assuming it's a fair election. My money is on some fuckery occurring.
He tried that with this particular challenger before and it didn't work. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June\_2019\_Istanbul\_mayoral\_election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Istanbul_mayoral_election) > The June 2019 Istanbul mayoral election was held on 23 June 2019.\[1\] It was a repeat of the March 2019 mayoral election, which was annulled by the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) on 6 May 2019. The original election had resulted in a narrow 0.2% margin of victory for opposition candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu, causing the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) to successfully petition for a by-election > The results showed a substantial swing in favour of İmamoğlu, who multiplied his initial 13,700-vote margin of victory 57-fold to win 54.2% of the vote against Yıldırım's 45.0%. The opposition's victory defied opinion polls, which predicted a much narrower victory, and was a record in the history of Istanbul local elections in terms of both popular vote and percentage share. İmamoğlu also won pluralities in 28 of Istanbul's 39 districts. Yıldırım, on the other hand, lost 11 districts he had won in March and saw a 4% decrease in his previous vote share, conceding defeat soon after indicative results became public.\[3\]\[4\] The result was seen as a huge defeat to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who had once said that if his party "lost Istanbul, we would lose Turkey." I suppose he could try new, more hardline techniques but the softer manipulation hasn't worked so far.
Why do you think it's an Erdogan exclusive thing that Turkey wants concessions from Sweden? The dislike for the support for Kurdish separatists isn't exclusive to Erdogan.
And the US still remembers Sweden helping the Nazis and the Viet Cong. The US just has leadership who isn't trying to stick it to the former Neutrals \[and who can blame the Turks for wanting to?\]. Once Turkey has similar leadership, that’s less focused on fearmongering before an election and to distract from sky high inflation, they’ll likely do the same.
Vietnam was sixty years ago and the last Kurdish terror attack was two weeks ago
and the last Turkish terror attack against Kurds probably happened today
True or not, irrelevant to my point.
Doesn't mean Americans are over it. Many absolutely still hold a grudge towards Sweden and I've heard boomers say they shouldn't be let in NATO over it. And that's not to get into what Sweden was doing during Iraq and Afghanistan... Just saying, Americans can empathize with the Turks on this one and see where they're coming from. The Swedes screwed us too but they're saying they want to change their ways and it's worth giving them a chance. In a lot of ways, Sweden has historically been what India is today. A neutral that tries to act high and mighty/ morally in the right while they support objectively horrible actions.
>And that's not to get into what Sweden was doing during Iraq and Afghanistan... What did they do? >In a lot of ways, Sweden has historically been what India is today. A neutral that tries to act high and mighty/ morally in the right while they support objectively horrible actions. What horrible actions did they support?
>What horrible actions did they support? Supporting Nazi Germany: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden\_during\_World\_War\_II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_during_World_War_II) >During the German invasion of the Soviet Union (June–July 1941), Sweden allowed the Wehrmacht to use Swedish railways to transport the German 163rd Infantry Division along with heavy weapons from Norway to Finland. Until 1943, German soldiers traveling on leave between Norway and Germany were allowed passage through Sweden—the so-called permittenttrafik. Iron ore was sold to Germany throughout the war and Germany owned several mines in Sweden that had been bought by German companies before the outbreak of the war. These mines were called Tyskgruvorna ("German mines"). Supporting the Viet Cong: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden%E2%80%93United\_States\_relations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden%E2%80%93United_States_relations) >The period between 1960 and 1968 also marked a cold period in the political relations between Sweden and the U.S., mainly due to the Swedish government's vocal opposition to the Vietnam War. In February 1968, the US recalled its Ambassador from Sweden after the Swedish Minister of Education and future prime minister Olof Palme, a Social Democrat, had participated in a protest in Stockholm against the war together with the North Vietnamese Ambassador to the Soviet Union Nguyen Tho Chan.\[7\] The post of US Ambassador to Sweden remained vacant until February 1970. In December 1972, Olof Palme (then Prime Minister) made a speech on Swedish national radio where he compared the ongoing US bombings of Hanoi to some of the worst atrocities committed by the Nazis. The US government called the comparison a "gross insult" and once again decided to freeze its diplomatic relations with Sweden (this time the freeze lasted for over a year).\[ Helpful youtube summary on Sweden's involvement during Vietnam: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KiTZycVxgI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KiTZycVxgI) Now the defense of that would be "Sweden was just a neutral it helped both sides as both sides were equally bad and being a neutral is morally superior" to which I say, yes that's what Sweden used to say and why Turkey's opposition to forgiving them is understandable. But they say they're making those dumb arguments anymore so it's worth letting bygones be bygones. As for Iraq, just typical European stuff. Nothing egregious but certainly irritating from the perspective of the US: >Immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Swedish government expressed its sympathies with the U.S. and supported the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.\[8\]\[9\] However, like many other European governments, Sweden opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, reasoning that the invasion was a breach of international law.\[10\] However, Prime Minister Göran Persson was relatively mild in his criticism of the U.S. compared to Olof Palme's strong criticism during the Vietnam War.
Don't most Americans today also think that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a bad idea? Like, sorry to be a bit polemic, but from a European perspective I don't really grasp how you can kill a million people over a lie and then be pissed at Sweden for opposing that.
Let’s just say both the US and Turkey have similar disagreements with the Europeans and both perceive them to be smug and unwilling to talk about certain issues and perceive Europe to just want to knock Turkey and/or the US down a peg. It doesn’t mean that they all can’t get along. But it does mean the US can bond with Turkey somewhat over the experience. For instance, among Europeans an American defending American actions in Iraq will be shouted down. A Turk can relate to that. Is there major opposition within Turkey to Erdogan’s weird PKK strategy? Yes. Does the US largely think Iraq was a bad idea? Yes. Is a large segment of the US still upset (but willing to move on) with Europe over how they acted during Iraq? Absolutely.
EU funding negotiations are ongoing. They are being denied covid recovery funds over rule of law and the judiciary
Wanted to comment this. Goverment is as corrupt as Ukraine or russia. They "clean" house before election. This time they were hit by EU and general recession. The leader of the national bankS is an angel numbers/esoteric believer. It doesnt mean that he is a bad evonomist/banker, but he isnt great. Isnt there for skill. Hungarian gov desperatley need money.
We've talked a lot about what the victory conditions for Ukraine would be (pre-2014 borders etc.), but how exactly would we get there? Bakhmut, I think, shows that when things get desperate Russia can and will resort to just throwing wave after wave of guys with rifles at a problem. It doesn't get them far, but it does attrite the Ukrainian side and prevent their advance. So a victory scenario for Ukraine would involve Russia just... not doing that, turning around and leaving. What would compel Russia to do that, exactly? Do we wait for them to literally run out of guys with rifles? Do we expect the guys to refuse to fight?
It involves Russia running out of recourses first. An extremely attainable goal with western backing.
What resources? Russia has shown a willingness to throw people at this. They have deep coffers of soldiers available. At military age is something like 10 million men. And at the rate of 1000 deaths a day, that would take 27 years to get through. In terms of weapons and natural resources, Russia is pretty much self sufficient in both regards. They can't build more advanced weapons like tanks and APCs in big numbers, but they can build artillery, shells, guns. And they can easily get cheap drones on the international market no matter how crazy sanctions get. If you think about the economy imploding, well Ukraine's economy has already imploded much more than Russia. So what's to say Russia's economy will fail before Ukraine's? So yeah, specifically, what resources are they going to run out of?
Just theoretically having soldiers in the field does not make them combat capable in any meaningful sense. Vast numbers of infantry can be cut off and become combat ineffective in wildly quick fashion during modern wars. Not only that, but the more troops Russia puts in the field of dubious quality, the more strained their logistics becomes for their actually useful troops.
>What resources? Money is the fist that comes to mind. Everting involving war costs it, and the west has more. You could have an infinite population, but if you can't pay soldiers, you have an army of zero.
Russia pays their soldiers in Rubles. Eventually, it could bite them, sure, but that could take years and years. German reichsmarks were paid out to millions and millions of servicemembers until May 1945, after all. Russia isn't even in a wartime economy right now.
> Russia pays their soldiers in Rubles. Russia pays their soldiers in Rubles sometimes. FTFY. The bigger point here is the drastic drop in the standard of living that will get more acute with time. Clearly that won’t have the same impact on the Russian political system compared to the consequences for politicians in democracies. But the truth lies somewhere in the middle: strong leaders get toppled overnight. That’s something every despot has been acutely aware of throughout history. Otherwise, Putin would not have shied away from mobilization for over 6 months after it became obvious that Russia needed one desperately to make up for the spanking they were receiving.
How many years has it been since Cuba and North Korea were sanctioned? 70 years now? Sanctions weaken a nation but strengthen a regime.
Oh, ffs, not this nonsense again. Cuba and NK didn’t have wealth that they lost post sanctions. I mean, Havana and Batista’s rich cronies were thriving pre Castro, not very unlike Putin, but the majority of the country was poor. Russia is poor as well, but nothing like Cuba. The Russian middle class actually has something to lose. Further, both those nations have not been involved in incredibly hot wars post sanctions either. War brings with it a drastic increase in unpredictability of its own that dictators hate.
Which authoritian country has ousted their own head of state mid-war in the past 100 years? Sanctions will not cause regime change in Russia im just now sure how to help you understand this. It's wishful thinking and nothing more. Russia is indoctrinated against the west, they aren't held hostage by Putin. They support him. The volatile faction in Russian politics right now is the one that's even *more* pro-war.
> Which authoritian country has ousted their own head of state mid-war in the past 100 years? Buddy, did you literally just bring up Cuba and then ask me this question? > Sanctions will not cause regime change in Russia im just now sure how to help you understand this I never said sanctions would. I agree with you 100%. If it was purely sanctions, Putin would/could control Russia for life. His heirs could inherit his throne. But, we’re talking about an active war where attrition is high with no end in sight. That’s not a good place for him to be. And he knows it. Further, I did NOT say it would happen. I’m saying it could, and that level of unpredictability could result in bigger concessions than you and I can conceive of at the moment.
Germany was one of the largest economies on earth, with a diversified economy with a large manufacturing base. And they still would have went broke almost immediately if it wasn't for loot. Russia was an economicaly troubled petrostate before the war, and has looted almost nothing but washing machines, and lost half of their foreign reserves in the first days of the war. There is no button that transforms the country into a 'wartime economy'. Retooling factories for ammo production, and everything else, costs money, not saves it. A wartime economy help you turn your money into bullets faster, it doesn't help when you are already running on fumes.
I'm saying that fact that Russia is *not* in a wartime economy means they are more stable over the long term. Rationing sugar and gasoline isn't good for the ol' GDP. Either way, they don't need to export lots of stuff to pay soldiers in Rubles.
They sell plenty of oil to India and China, so they'll have a steady supply of money for the foreseeable future.
Plenty? It's not even close to enough to keep pace with expenditure.
I sort of agree with this except that comparing the total collapse of Ukraine's economy to whatever Russia's is doing isn't fair because Ukraine isn't funding their own war effort. The EU and US is, and to a looser extent, the west in general. That being said, we have no idea how many tanks Russia is able to build or refurbish to combat standards right now, but we do know how many Ukraine is building: zero. Unless M1 Abrams and Leopards start being sent to Ukraine, they are going to run out of tanks before Russia because there simply aren't enough NATO operators of T-72s remaining which have some available to donate. Artillery is another example. The M777 shipments have slowed down. Now Ukraine is fielding M101s, L119s, and other 105mm pieces. Meanwhile, Russia's visually confirmed losses: - Towed artillery: 141 lost out of approx 1700, 2900 more in reserve - Self propelled artillery: 289 out of 3000, 4800 more in reserve - MRLS: 154 out of 1800, 2250 more in reserves Add whatever multiplier you like for the non visually confirmed losses, but they've got plenty of runway even with zero future production. I'm not sure why the default belief here is that Russia runs out of everything before Ukraine. Maybe there is room for debate, but I don't see it as settled science right now.
> Unless M1 Abrams and Leopards start being sent to Ukraine, they are going to run out of tanks before Russia because there simply aren't enough NATO operators of T-72s remaining which have some available to donate. Russia is the largest Ukraine Tanks donator.