clv101 wrote: ↑02 May 2024, 09:25
It's powerful domestic propaganda, reinforces the idea that Russia is fighting NATO, the west. That's a much more popular message for the local population than fighting Ukraine.
I’m sorry Clv but are you really saying that Russia is just fighting Ukraine and nato has no agenda, no supplying of arms, no intelligence input?
Really?
Now we have talk from both Macron and Cameron about putting (de facto NATO) troops on the ground in Ukraine.
This is really asking for trouble.
In the first place the West/nato weapons are already drastically run down and we have had many sound bites from politicians saying that we can’t out produce Russia in any case as things stand and need to drastically increase our spending.
It’s a little bit like “if you don’t back off, we’ll shoot ourselves”
Do we really want to commit to a conventional ground war in Europe that we have already admitted we do not have the resources to fight?
Or do we want this to go nuclear?
I really can’t see any way this kind of idiocy can end well.
Invading Ukraine was asking for trouble. NATO's response is the response, not the question.
I really can’t see any way this kind of idiocy can end well.
Whereas invading Ukraine wasn't idiocy at all?
And you wonder why I called you a Russian troll?
Do we really want to commit to a conventional ground war in Europe that we have already admitted we do not have the resources to fight?
The lack is not of resources, but political will, especially in some parts of the US. Europe has no choice but to prepare for full-scale war with Russia. Appeasement of expansionist dictators never works.
Last edited by UndercoverElephant on 07 May 2024, 18:41, edited 1 time in total.
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
Invading Ukraine was asking for trouble. NATO's response is the response, not the question.
Yeah, those pesky Russians - all came out of a clear blue sky with no back history didn’t it?
Neither am I interested in your Russian-propagandist attempt to rewrite history. As in, there is no point in discussing it with you, because you are so obviously biased in favour of Russia. Of course there is a history -- Russia signed a treaty guaranteeing Ukrainian sovereignty in return for Ukraine giving up nuclear weapons, and then reneged on it. The rest of the world therefore has a moral/legal duty to help defend Ukraine from Russian aggression.
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
This situation looks likely to escalate from ‘The West/Nato’ trying to use the Ukraine to gain advantage over Russia into a ‘NATO boots on the ground’ direct conflict.
We have already found that we can’t keep up with Russia’s arms production and have drastically reduced our own supply of armaments in trying to keep Ukraine afloat and Ukraine is now on the ropes.
By our own statistics, NATO cannot sustain a conventional war against Russia in Europe.
Invading Ukraine was asking for trouble. NATO's response is the response, not the question.
I really can’t see any way this kind of idiocy can end well.
Whereas invading Ukraine wasn't idiocy at all?
And you wonder why I called you a Russian troll?
Do we really want to commit to a conventional ground war in Europe that we have already admitted we do not have the resources to fight?
The lack is not of resources, but political will, especially in some parts of the US. Europe has no choice but to prepare for full-scale war with Russia. Appeasement of expansionist dictators never works.
“In March, European Union countries pledged to supply Ukraine with 1 million artillery shells by spring 2024. It is now clear that the EU is unlikely to deliver on its promise. Meanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic, between 2022 and 2023 the U.S. Army succeeded in doubling monthly production of 155mm shells.
The war in Ukraine has provided desperately needed momentum to renew the European defense industry. Efforts to supply the Ukrainian Armed Forces with weaponry have exposed startling gaps in Europe’s readiness for large-scale conflict. European nations have been found lacking not only adequate munition stockpiles, but also the industrial base required to refill inventories to keep up with Ukraine’s continued pleas for weapons. At the same time, the United States’ own production challenges and competing regional priorities suggest European NATO members cannot count on Washington to save the day.
NATO has a munitions problem, and the European defense industry needs to step up.”
clv101 wrote: ↑02 May 2024, 09:25
It's powerful domestic propaganda, reinforces the idea that Russia is fighting NATO, the west. That's a much more popular message for the local population than fighting Ukraine.
I’m sorry Clv but are you really saying that Russia is just fighting Ukraine and nato has no agenda, no supplying of arms, no intelligence input?
clv101 wrote: ↑02 May 2024, 09:25
It's powerful domestic propaganda, reinforces the idea that Russia is fighting NATO, the west. That's a much more popular message for the local population than fighting Ukraine.
I’m sorry Clv but are you really saying that Russia is just fighting Ukraine and nato has no agenda, no supplying of arms, no intelligence input?
Of course I'm not saying that. :?
Forgive me, please.
I’m very concerned that the situation is in danger of being escalated by all parties - and that this is not good.
We can argue about the right of either side but I think that what is most important is that level heads need to be engaged - and I have very little faith in level heads on either side right now
One common tactic of concern trolls is the "a plague on both your houses" approach, where the concern troll tries to convince people that both sides of the ideological divide are just as bad as each other, and so no one can think themselves "correct" but must engage in endless hedging and caveats. This preys on a willingness to debate critics and allow dissent; everyone wastes time discussing the matter and bending over backwards, so as not to appear intolerant of disagreement, all to the great amusement of the troll.
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
Yes I approach this from a position not unadjacent to the Russian perspective - but why is that wrong?
It’s no use to simply dismiss it. It’s what Russia chose to stand its ground on and fight for - and unless we understand why and deal honestly with it - we won’t actually sort it out.
NATO right, Russia wrong is not going to solve this.
And is in fact dangerously escalating this.
We need to find a way forward that will de-escalate the situation and give us all time to work out a way forward.
Do we really want to start a war in Europe so soon after we had to abandon Afghanistan because we couldn’t win (whatever that might have meant) a war against tribesmen with Kalashnikovs?
The Taliban may be a brutal and misogenistic regime, but they have two things that made them undefeatable, maybe three.
They were fighting for what they believed in, their tribes and their god.
They were prepared to die because they believed they would spend eternity in heaven
They were fighting for a land that is of no great strategic or economic value to the superpowers.
Talking of Russia as a monolithic entity or people is a major falsehood. It is an empire, made up of a mostly European elite, following a Christian god, at least in theory, and many tribes and ethnic races, mostly Muslim and almost all with very little say or hope over ever having any say in how their land is controlled or who gets the benefits of its resources.
The current regime in the Kremlin under Putin has reinstated the authoritarian police state that the people remember only too well under Stalin, where dissent at any level will mean at the very least time in jail, a beating, an end to their career, or an unfortunate (fatal) accident. The elite classes know if they keep their heads down, then the state will largely leave them alone, only the ethnic minorities, the criminals, or the ones labelled criminals, will end up on the front lines. The state is spending its reserves big time to expand the war economy, so times are not so bad, plenty of work to be found, although not in the domestic economy. It can go on for a couple more years, before the state reserves run low.
What Russia has that is similar to the Taliban, is a leadership quite happy to kill thousands of their own people for very little gain on the battlefield. Ukraine has been infected by the liberal weakness that beleives that trying to keep people alive is a noble thing to do.
I’m sorry but when people present an argument based entirely on their, or others, opinion on ‘what people believe’ the discussion is hijacked into subjectivity.
Furthermore, as soon as the argument descends into emotional language - the whole rationale is lost.
All these things you accuse Russia of: when were you there? Did you see this? Do you have friends and family in Russia who tell you all this?
Are you instead simply regurgitating the propaganda you’ve swallowed?
The bald facts of Russia deciding to invade Ukraine depend entirely upon what Russia thought it had to do to counter the threat it perceived.
There is no understanding of the cause of this situation without believing that each side had a difficult but sufficient casus belli.
Russia considers itself to be defending itself against a NATO encroachment.
This is obviously an existential threat. There’s no point in trying to deny this. This is the ‘casus belli‘ that provoked Russia’s response.
Agree with me or not, but there are two sides to this - and both have equal weight in the real world,
Which is why we are where we are.
Ignore Russia’s perspective and you have no understanding of the situation and there is no solution except all out war
It’s no good wailing about how Russia did this unprovoked. The facts are there - though you have to wade through levels of propaganda that I never thought I’d see from ‘The West’.
It’s a real embarrassment to see how it’s unthinkingly swallowed.
We used to teach and pride ourselves for teaching critical thinking
The thing that really tortures me in all this is the reduction of our free press to limp propagandists - but most of all the sheer unthinking willingness of our idiocracy in swallowing it; hook, line and sinker.
