Russia Declares War on Ukraine<<MOD WARNING>>

Yes, yes, as well as 40,000 Chechens in the next shelling of Chernobayevka.

 

Putin has achieved historic NATO unity. Congratulations.
Biden to meet Polish leader on NATO’s eastern flank

 

Whoulda thunk it?

Actually, now that I think of it, Madeleine Albright did, in WAPO, the day before Putin invaded.

I knew Biden would try to patch things up (from the damage Trump inflicted) but like most, I expected it would take a generation.

I've been saying Putin was a tactical thinker for years, but I never expected such a thorough demonstration of strategic incompetence.

 

Hingley is the expert.

"Between his assumption of power in 1933 and the Soviet-Nazi Pact of 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union were, or pretended to be, on the worst of possible terms. They assailed each other with abusive material stressing the ideological incompatibility of Communism and National Socialism, while studiously ignoring the obvious similarities between the two systems...." Ronald Hingley, "Joseph Stalin" p. 292.

 

Yup. Putin himself has achieved what he set out to stop.

 

1) you have no idea what the damage that Trump did was -- and so how would you know if Biden was able to patch things up
2) You have no idea what Putin's stragetic initiatives are .. so no basis for you rincompetence claim
3) Only someone with no idea how the game works - thinks that meeting unexpected resistance in a war - is a "thorough demonstration f strategic incompetence"

 

"There are a lot more people that think they are Alexander the Great, then there are people that are Alexander the Great."
The Expanse

I like to describe myself as a meat and potatoes kind of guy. That has nothing to do with food, it's just that I'm too lazy to go all OCD about any one thing.

But, as a teen, I played military games with rule books that could go over a hundred pages. WW1 was infamous, me and my friend never finished a game. That one had two rule books.

I was in a WW2 air combat sim for a while, in a F4U squad, that was fun, while it lasted.

I also like Go, which is the best game human minds have yet devised. It will teach you to see patterns that apply all over the place, not just conflict. When you learn it, it feels like your brain is melting and dribbling out of your ear. Wonderful game, it sharpened my intellect considerably.

And I love history.

So, and sorry for the long winded wind up, but I've learned a thing or two. As long as Putin was doing what he called his judo thing, he was brilliant. A counterintelligence guy is taught how to do things like that. But he never got the lessons about strategy and governance that coming up through the ranks offers (even in the USSR).

This has been jaw dropping, an amazing display of incompetence on a scale I would not have even considered.

There are a number of takeaways from this, one of them is that the human world is inextricably intertwined. Which climate change demonstrates routinely..

 

4 min ago
US assesses Russia is running low on air-launched cruise missiles and is experiencing high rates of failure

From CNN's Barbara Starr

The US has assessed that Russian forces are running low on air-launched cruise missiles, and there are indications they are trying to preserve that inventory as part of their declining stocks of precision guided munitions, according to a US defense official.

Air-launched cruise missiles are the “lowest” part of the inventory, the official added.

In addition, these missiles are showing high failure rates at launch, the official said. The US currently assesses Russian failure rates of precision guided munitions, especially cruise missiles failure rates, range from “20 percent to as high as 60 percent,” the official said, depending on the type of weapon and mission.

The US has tracked this information in part by observing the number of Russian missions that appear to involve unguided, or "dumb," bombs. Satellites and other airborne intelligence platforms can monitor the failure of some missile launches by gathering intelligence on infrared and radar signatures of the aircraft and the missiles.​

Live updates: https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-25-22/index.html

 

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/selfie-soldiers-social-media

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/...diers-ukraine-russian-optimistic-geneva-talks

 

Fair enough - the Russian government that ordered the invasion, bombing and murder of Ukrainians is the enemy of the Ukrainian people.

Now if you want to believe everything Putin tells you, I have some oceanfront property in Montana to sell you ...

I'm inclined to believe that the number of Russian KIA is probably closer to 10,000, but I don't doubt that hundred of tanks have been destroyed. Given the number of Russian combat units invading Ukraine, one can estimate that the Russians had somewhere around 1200 tanks at the beginning of the war. Based on that, their lack of progress and the damage they've sustained, I don't doubt that the Ukrainians have destroyed hundreds of tanks. Now, if they're losing armor at the same rate their taking casualties, that would come to around 480 tanks (how many of those would be Russia's T-90 main battle tank is anyone's guess).

As for Zelensky's appeals for help, that would be understandable. Ukraine's army is burning through munitions at a rapid clip and of course they would like to have more aircraft patrolling the skies and providing air-to-ground support. You also have to remember that despite its size, Ukraine is a relatively small country population-wise (43 million) so it's not going to have an arms industry anything approaching that of larger nations such as the U.S., China and Russia, or a bloc of nations like the 30 members of NATO.

 

One of my better college history professors once advised: "You can never rule out stupidity."

 

Having by his own actions brought about the things he set out to oppose, I think we can safely put Putin in the "incompetent" column.

 

A new frontier in warfare:
Exploding ‘kamikaze’ drones are ushering in a new era of warfare in Ukraine
By Gerrit De Vynck, Pranshu Verma and Jonathan Baran

 

You don't state what you are referring to .. hard to base a claim of incompetence on assumed premise fallacy .. as that would be incompetent

 

Gibberish.

The Republicans started a war with the wrong county in 2003. And trump is every bit the monster and cold-blooded killer as Putin.

Putin's killers are getting their butts kicked with US assistance. Ukraine has reduced the mighty russian army to a pathetic joke.

 

The two systems are/were remarkably similar. British historian George Watson observed that the main difference between the German National Socialists and the Soviet Communists was that Hitler & Co. figured out that they didn't need to possess the means of production (and eliminate private property ownership) to control it. They could exercise de facto instead of direct control through mandates and regulations.

And of course, fascism, German National Socialism and Communism share common socialist roots, and in many respects, common socialist goals.

Speaking specifically to Stalin, he once remarked that democratic socialism was the moderate wing fascism - that they were twins, not opposites. I wonder what Bernie Sanders, AOC and their fellow "progressives" would say about that.

 

Putin has created a reinvigorated NATO, and a deeply anti-Russian sense of Ukrainian nationhood.

 

You think that was not expected ?
Your second point is silly as Ukraine has been deeply anti-Russia long before the war.

No incompetence yet mate.

 

Someone needs to bring some sort of normalcy to this forum instead of continuous repetition of the mainstream media nonsense. It seems to me that only adults in the room are actually people who work for the Pentagon. The rest, bunch of complete morons who keep repeating propaganda gibberish based on most likely their personal hatred. Few points to consider from the Pentagon's own analysts.

Russians do not target civilians, almost exclusively military targets.

Russian Air force is used only as a support for the ground troops.

Russian objectives are limited to the area close to their borders.

Russians did not disrupt the transportation links, communication links or any other infrastructure outside their military operations.


Putin's Bombers Could Devastate Ukraine But He's Holding Back. Here's Why
BY WILLIAM M. ARKIN ON 3/22/22 AT 12:47 PM EDT

https://www.newsweek.com/putins-bombers-could-devastate-ukraine-hes-holding-back-heres-why-1690494

"We need to understand Russia's actual conduct," says a retired Air Force officer, a lawyer by training who has been involved in approving targets for U.S. fights in Iraq and Afghanistan. The officer currently works as an analyst with a large military contractor advising the Pentagon and was granted anonymity in order to speak candidly.

"If we merely convince ourselves that Russia is bombing indiscriminately, or [that] it is failing to inflict more harm because its personnel are not up to the task or because it is technically inept, then we are not seeing the real conflict."

In the analyst's view, though the war has led to unprecedented destruction in the south and east, the Russian military has actually been showing restraint in its long-range attacks.

As of the past weekend, in 24 days of conflict, Russia has flown some 1,400 strike sorties and delivered almost 1,000 missiles (by contrast, the United States flew more sorties and delivered more weapons in the first day of the 2003 Iraq war). The vast majority of the airstrikes are over the battlefield, with Russian aircraft providing "close air support" to ground forces. The remainder—less than 20 percent, according to U.S. experts—has been aimed at military airfields, barracks and supporting depots.

 

Well, the objective control of the dead by Russia (doctors in hospitals) and parts of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation confirms the words of the Ministry of Defense about the losses of Russia. And while you are sitting here and virally defeating Russia, Russia is finishing off the Nazis in Mariupol. By the way, we also have witnesses of the atrocities of these very Nazis.

 

Absolutely. Putin hoped to further fracture NATO. But that plan completely backfired.

There is no fool like an old fool.

 

The latter is particularly interesting to me. Regardless of how his invasion pans out, Putin has successfully created a virulently hostile nation of 40 million people located on Russia's border that will hate him and his country with a passion for as long as they live.

The breadth and depth of Putin's many mistakes and miscalculations are truly a marvel to behold...

 

Nonsense. But if you want a great deal on russian tanks, I know where you can get a bunch of them.

 

Only a moron thinks that Putin attacking Ukraine would not unify NATO .. in war even your enemies become friends. Basic Stategy 101.