The Russia vs Ukraine show

[mbasic]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

article: Russian needs 137,000 new soldiers.

[mgil]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

article: Russian needs 137,000 new soldiers.

[quikky]

Hmm, things might be becoming spicy for the Russians in the south of Ukraine. A counteroffensive has begun today. Hopefully, the beginning of the end of the war, and Putin himself.

[Cellist]

Hmm, things might be becoming spicy for the Russians in the south of Ukraine. A counteroffensive has begun today. Hopefully, the beginning of the end of the war, and Putin himself.

and the decolonization of Russia ... https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ya/639428/

[mbasic]

Hmm, things might be becoming spicy for the Russians in the south of Ukraine. A counteroffensive has begun today. Hopefully, the beginning of the end of the war, and Putin himself.

and the decolonization of Russia ... https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ya/639428/

I saw an article about how Russian wanted to redeploy some of their soldiers that are watching over things in KAZ....

They're not too keen on going from their "peace keeping mission" ('member the mini anti-gov't revolt thing back in Jan.)

....over to a "special military operation".

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/rus ... 00343.html

lolz at: "we would come over but can't swing the military air-lift required to do so".

Never mind the whole they don't want to be sent off to die excuse:

1 - can't leave a mere 1000 troops out of the fight in UKR?

2 - don't have enough air-resources (cargo planes, etc) to redeploy anyway ?

[hsilman]

Could get very interesting if opposition groups in the places Russia is being forced to withdraw troops are social democratic leaning. What does America do in today's climate if socialism is the answer to Russian domination in formerly occupied countries? Probably just support them, right? Anything less than declaring themselves literally a Communist state is palatable these days I think.

[mikeylikey]

Could get very interesting if opposition groups in the places Russia is being forced to withdraw troops are social democratic leaning. What does America do

Stay out of it and let people work out their own destiny?



LOL, I kid, I kid.

[hsilman]

Could get very interesting if opposition groups in the places Russia is being forced to withdraw troops are social democratic leaning. What does America do

Stay out of it and let people work out their own destiny?



LOL, I kid, I kid.

lol good one

[dw]

Could get very interesting if opposition groups in the places Russia is being forced to withdraw troops are social democratic leaning. What does America do in today's climate if socialism is the answer to Russian domination in formerly occupied countries? Probably just support them, right? Anything less than declaring themselves literally a Communist state is palatable these days I think.

Aren't all of our first world allies "social democratic"? AFAIK our issue was always actual or anticipated Soviet alignment.

[dw]

Could get very interesting if opposition groups in the places Russia is being forced to withdraw troops are social democratic leaning. What does America do

Stay out of it and let people work out their own destiny?



LOL, I kid, I kid.

You're against our military assistance to Ukraine then I presume?

[mikeylikey]

Could get very interesting if opposition groups in the places Russia is being forced to withdraw troops are social democratic leaning. What does America do

Stay out of it and let people work out their own destiny?



LOL, I kid, I kid.

You're against our military assistance to Ukraine then I presume?

I am extremely skeptical that increasing the amount of violence in any given situation can create less net suffering. The Ukraine situation, I THINK, is probably a counterexample. An extremely rare counterexample which in no way diminishes my confidence in non-intervention as the correct default position.

In the long run if it does turn out to have been the right thing to do I fear that will incorrectly encourage us to do so in the many far more typical future cases where it will only tend to make things worse.

[BostonRugger]

Could get very interesting if opposition groups in the places Russia is being forced to withdraw troops are social democratic leaning. What does America do

Stay out of it and let people work out their own destiny?

Inshallah.gif

[quikky]

Could get very interesting if opposition groups in the places Russia is being forced to withdraw troops are social democratic leaning. What does America do

Stay out of it and let people work out their own destiny?



LOL, I kid, I kid.

You're against our military assistance to Ukraine then I presume?

I am extremely skeptical that increasing the amount of violence in any given situation can create less net suffering. The Ukraine situation, I THINK, is probably a counterexample. An extremely rare counterexample which in no way diminishes my confidence in non-intervention as the correct default position.

In the long run if it does turn out to have been the right thing to do I fear that will incorrectly encourage us to do so in the many far more typical future cases where it will only tend to make things worse.

A big part of the problem that I have not seen mentioned much is our extremely poor intelligence when it comes to the assessment of foreign militaries. In the last year alone, we have catastrophically misread the military readiness of Afghanistan, Russia, and Ukraine. This is a huge problem when it comes to deciding which conflicts are worth supporting.

[dw]

Could get very interesting if opposition groups in the places Russia is being forced to withdraw troops are social democratic leaning. What does America do

Stay out of it and let people work out their own destiny?



LOL, I kid, I kid.

You're against our military assistance to Ukraine then I presume?

I am extremely skeptical that increasing the amount of violence in any given situation can create less net suffering. The Ukraine situation, I THINK, is probably a counterexample. An extremely rare counterexample which in no way diminishes my confidence in non-intervention as the correct default position.

In the long run if it does turn out to have been the right thing to do I fear that will incorrectly encourage us to do so in the many far more typical future cases where it will only tend to make things worse.

"Increasing the amount of violence" is an odd formulation, because it treats violence as a homogeneous and additive quantity when in fact it is neither. Is self-defense "increasing violence"? Is deterrence by violence decreasing violence? Is successful imperialism like the Pax Romana increasing or decreasing violence?

And for that matter there are many forms of suffering, some owing more to peace than war.

[mikeylikey]

"Increasing the amount of violence" is an odd formulation, because it treats violence as a homogeneous and additive quantity

I know. That was intentional. Other things being equal, sending guns, troops, intelligence, money, etc. to one or both parties to a war increases the amount of violence right now. Obviously, we wouldn't do it if we didn't believe there would be some ultimate benefit later on.

Are there lots of various dynamics, 2nd order, 3rd order etc consequences to consider? Yes that's kindof my point.

If we look at the most closely analogous situations, historically, America's interventions in modern wars (say post WWII) have neither improved our situation nor the people we were trying to help.

As I said, Ukraine looks like it is an exception to that pattern, and right now, realizing it's still ongoing and we don't know the eventual outcome, I agree with what we're doing to help them.

Then again, we think that every time or we wouldn't do it.

[aurelius]

A big part of the problem that I have not seen mentioned much is our extremely poor intelligence when it comes to the assessment of foreign militaries. In the last year alone, we have catastrophically misread the military readiness of Afghanistan, Russia, and Ukraine. This is a huge problem when it comes to deciding which conflicts are worth supporting.

We had a previous discussion on why this is difficult. I also think it is impossible to determine a peoples' Will to Fight before the people are forced to fight.

Take Afghanistan. The free Afghan peoples had everything to fight for. Yet instantly surrendered to a smaller, poorly trained, and poorly equipped force.

Take Vietnam. The Vietnamese were willing to die to the last man. The US had no response to that.

Take UKR. Russia knew the UKR has spent the last 8 years preparing for this. Training in Western combat and adopting the US ROC*. They thought UKR would simply surrender at the sight of Russian troops. Wow were they wrong.

Resistance Operating Concept -essentially a State sponsored insurgency to fight off an invasion. We did learn from the Taliban!

[aurelius]

I know. That was intentional. Other things being equal, sending guns, troops, intelligence, money, etc. to one or both parties to a war increases the amount of violence right now. Obviously, we wouldn't do it if we didn't believe there would be some ultimate benefit later on.

Are there lots of various dynamics, 2nd order, 3rd order etc consequences to consider? Yes that's kindof my point.

If we look at the most closely analogous situations, historically, America's interventions in modern wars (say post WWII) have neither improved our situation nor the people we were trying to help.

As I said, Ukraine looks like it is an exception to that pattern, and right now, realizing it's still ongoing and we don't know the eventual outcome, I agree with what we're doing to help them.

Then again, we think that every time or we wouldn't do it.

South Korea may disagree. Iraq as well (although Iraq has only last 11 years on its own and just barely). But I agree with your general point. Intervention is messy at best. The US should not be so quick to flex our military might.

I do take issue with the underlined. How can we know the outcome? Especially as 'ultimate' outcomes you allude to are primarily decided by local/regional politics and not military strategy. Military intervention may give a chance for a 'positive' outcome. The rest is up to politics. Self-governance is hard. If we fail to act because we can't be assured a specific outcome, then we would never act.

[mikeylikey]

I do take issue with the underlined. How can we know the outcome? Especially as 'ultimate' outcomes you allude to are primarily decided by local/regional politics and not military strategy. Military intervention may give a chance for a 'positive' outcome. The rest is up to politics. Self-governance is hard. If we fail to act because we can't be assured a specific outcome, then we would never act.

It seems to me like you are looking at this kindof like a poker game. You have great good pot odds and pocket aces, betting big is the correct move, and it doesn't become wrong in hindsight because the other guy makes an inside straight on the river. Acts of god do not invalidate fundamentally sound decisions.

I'm looking at it more like playing that same hand only it turns out the other guy is in the mob and has a 38 in his pocket and a bad temper. Yeah you made the correct poker play but it was a bad life decision.

[quikky]

A big part of the problem that I have not seen mentioned much is our extremely poor intelligence when it comes to the assessment of foreign militaries. In the last year alone, we have catastrophically misread the military readiness of Afghanistan, Russia, and Ukraine. This is a huge problem when it comes to deciding which conflicts are worth supporting.

We had a previous discussion on why this is difficult. I also think it is impossible to determine a peoples' Will to Fight before the people are forced to fight.

Take Afghanistan. The free Afghan peoples had everything to fight for. Yet instantly surrendered to a smaller, poorly trained, and poorly equipped force.

Take Vietnam. The Vietnamese were willing to die to the last man. The US had no response to that.

Take UKR. Russia knew the UKR has spent the last 8 years preparing for this. Training in Western combat and adopting the US ROC*. They thought UKR would simply surrender at the sight of Russian troops. Wow were they wrong.

Resistance Operating Concept -essentially a State sponsored insurgency to fight off an invasion. We did learn from the Taliban!

You make a perfectly valid point, and it is certainly an element in military assessment, but in the last year, there were simply terrible intelligence assessments all around, and not simply due to "will to fight" miscalculations.

Russia was thought to be one of the most powerful conventional militaries on the planet. This was a false assessment. Our intelligence totally dropped the ball. While what you said about Russia's assessment of Ukraine's military is true, and Putin really did think Ukraine would surrender, this was not the US assessment. What the US thought would happen is that Russia would steamroll over Ukraine (because they're so good and scary and full of 8 foot tall Ivan Dragos), and Ukraine would resort to guerilla warfare, which is why the only things we were willing to send are Javelins and Stingers. In the biggest war in Europe in the last 70 years, we have massively overestimated the power of one side, and massively underestimated the skill and tactics of the other. Ukraine fighting off Russia was not just a matter of will, they simply proved to be far more capable and resourceful than the US has assessed. It was not just a matter of heart and will to fight, though a part of it.

In Afghanistan, based on my reading of the issues last year, a huge part of the problem was our poor job of actually training the Afghans to be a professional military. Instead of creating a ground-up institution of logistics, training, pride, combined warfare, strategy, etc., we simply created and armed a large group of people that knew how to work alongside our military and its support. Once that dried up, you were left with a bunch of guys that did not know how to function as a proper military force without US support. Yes, part of it is they gave up, but a huge part is that we simply did not assess what they needed to be, vs what they actually were when we pulled out.

[mikeylikey]

South Korea may disagree. Iraq as well (although Iraq has only last 11 years on its own and just barely).

Maybe, maybe not. Forget the difficulty of forecasting consequences in advance, these things remain hard to really nail down even after decades of hindsight.

What about North Korea? Are they better off? How did the west's carpetbombing of that country, along with the resultant intense interest and support from China, contribute to the rise to and maintenance of power by the Kims?

Iraq war killed several hundred thousand people and sent many fairly modern cities back to the stone age. Sure Saddam was killing people too but it's basically a massive rats nest of a trolley problem that I don't care to even try and solve.