Ukraine

[Satinavian]

A bad deal that Ukraine would be foolish even to consider, indeed.

Oh, we actually agree about something in the Ukraine thread.

Or they could have an election. It is past due, after all.

Maybe they could if Russia was willing to accept a ceasefire. The only thing stopping the election is the ongoing fighting.

 

[Silvanus]

Or they could have an election. It is past due, after all.

Not really; elections are typically suspended during wartime (same as in most countries, for quite understandable reasons), and Ukraine is under a protracted invasion. Even the opposition have agreed one shouldn't be run now. It's a bit much to expect people to evade the daily firebombing of their homes and neighbourhoods to go to the polls, and it's especially rich for Putin-- who has allowed no free vote for 25 years-- to be suggesting it.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Oh, we actually agree about something in the Ukraine thread.

It's a pretty easy conclusion to come to. It is beyond clear that US weapons have been gifts all along. Trump's insistence on being 'paid back' for previous aid insults everyone's intelligence.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Basically, the UK doesn't have the naval power to independently deploy aircraft carriers against anyone with a reasonably functioning air force / navy, so they're pretty much no use except as part of a larger, multinational task force. Although this could change if the UK does increase defence spending to 3% GDP.

When was the last time someone did deploy aircraft carriers against anyone with a reasonably functioning air force / navy, though? The Falklands, maybe?

 

[Agema]

When was the last time someone did deploy aircraft carriers against anyone with a reasonably functioning air force / navy, though? The Falklands, maybe?

I would say so, yes.

Although with a caveat that the US had aircraft carriers deployed for the Gulf War and Iraq invasion, but I don't think they were meaningfully exposed in the same way given the plentiful land-based forces and (in the latter conflict) severely depleted opposition.

 

[Gergar12]

Common France L:

 

[Silvanus]

Russia's SVR agency published a very... interesting screed yesterday.

A retrospective analysis of the policies of Western states shows Europe's "historical predisposition" to various forms of totalitarianism, which periodically produces destructive conflicts on a global scale.

According to experts, the current discord in relations between the United States and the EU countries, which accuse D. Trump of authoritarianism, is becoming, against the backdrop of the upcoming 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, a factor contributing to the situational rapprochement between Washington and Moscow, as has happened more than once in the past.

[...]

Attention was drawn to the fact that it was in France that dictatorial regimes repeatedly came to power, distinguished by particular atrocities and cruelty. Among them are the Jacobin dictatorship, which destroyed thousands of its own citizens in 1793-1794 and imprisoned 300 thousand people on suspicion of "counterrevolution", as well as the bloody actions of Napoleon. It is emphasized that America is free thanks to the willingness of the ancestors of modern Americans to resist such dictatorships as the British monarchy or the Jacobin revolution.

[...Here there's a lot of stuff about WW2 and the British Empire...]

Experts recall that in the past there have been many moments when Washington and Moscow became partners in opposing London and Paris in the international arena. A typical example of this is the Suez Crisis of 1956. The tough position of the USSR and the USA stopped the triple aggression of Great Britain, France and Israel against Egypt. Another page of history that is now little known in the West are the events of the Crimean War of 1853-1856, when Great Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia united against Russia (similar to today's "coalition of the willing"). Despite formal neutrality, the sympathies of the White House in this confrontation were on the side of St. Petersburg. This is evidenced by the participation of American doctors in the treatment of the defenders of Sevastopol, the “request of 300 riflemen from Kentucky” to send them to defend this city, the activities of the Russian-American Company to supply gunpowder and food to our fortresses and possessions on the Pacific coast.

[...More stuff about WW2 and equating Ukraine with Nazis...]

As for Russian-American relations in the context of past and current events, foreign expert circles express hope for a new unification of efforts by Moscow and Washington, capable of preventing the world from sliding into a new global conflict and resisting possible provocations from both Ukraine and the “crazy Europeans,” traditionally egged on by Great Britain."

Hm. The SVR sees a kindred spirit in the White House's current occupant, or at least believes it can curry favour and prompt him to allow a carve-up of Eastern Europe between the dominant military hegemons.

Mostly I find it quite amusing for them to talk about the European 'predisposition' to dictatorship and totalitarianism, given that Russia has existed under an almost-uninterrupted string of dictatorships, apart from (arguably) a brief stint in the 90s.

 

[Thaluikhain]

The French revolution and Crimean war are a tad on the old side, odd to bring those up rather than more modern things, even if they have to make them up out of nowhere.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Edit: Its not just the missles. The UK needs a strategic long range bomber too. It relies on aircraft carriers at the moment and that might not be a good plan. I'm pretty sure none of euro has a stealth craft for such a mission

I love bombers. They're big and cool and often some of the most striking aircraft designs, but I think they have long since reached the point of being extremely questionable from a cost/effectiveness standpoint. The vast majority of the time, whatever you would want a bomber to do could be done by a much smaller aircraft armed with a cruise missile for a tiny fraction of the cost. We know the successor to storm shadow will have a stealth variant, for example, which would presumably fit this bill (although I don't know if it will be nuclear-capable).

While bombers can reach incredibly long ranges they also aren't a great solution for projecting power around the world as they can only reach those ranges with in-flight refuelling. Having a super fancy stealth bomber isn't much good if it's dependent on extremely unstealthy and vulnerable tankers pre-positioned along its flight path.

But yes, I always took them for vanity projects for people who didn't want to give up the idea that Britannia rules the waves.

Fielding a full-sized modern aircraft carrier is kind of an achievement in and of itself and I think there is an open question about how well a less technologically advanced air force, no matter how large and well trained, would deal with 5th generation fighters like the F-35. The main issue, I suspect, is that aircraft carriers themselves are a lot more vulnerable than they used to be and, to be honest, I'm not actually sure there's all that much that can be done to make it better. There is really no other way to get significant amounts of aircraft to somewhere far away from any friendly ground bases.

I don't think they were designed to single-handedly fight some kind of hypothetical conflict in the Pacific against China, for example, but rather to provide options if something like the Falklands War were to happen again. Essentially, a conflict in which the enemy is much weaker overall but can potentially bring more of its force to bear in the region where the conflict takes place.

 

[Gergar12]

The peacemaker?

Steve Witkoff has gone from spotting Trump cash at a deli to helping him navigate Ukraine and Gaza

Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff has arrived in Moscow for high-level talks. That's according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly.

apnews.com

 

[Chimpzy]

Trump, Rubio threaten to walk away from Ukraine-Russia peace talks

"It’s not our war," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, after talks with European allies in Paris.

abcnews.go.com