Ukraine

[Dalisclock]

Yep, and not just the machinery of war, but the people. Unless you are just going to throw more conscripts at the enemy, you can't get a trained and experience army (especially in regards to leadership positions) in a hurry.

Granted, throwing conscripts at the enemy might eventually get you an experienced army, but you'll take much heavier losses to get those battle hardened soldiers then you would have otherwise. But apparently if they die then you just don't have to pay them....or death benefits to their families(which apparently the Russian government has been flat out lying to the families so they don't have to pay out).

Seriously, does Russia really have such a surplus population they can keep throwing waves and waves of their own men at the Ukraine without it impacting anything else?

 

[Thaluikhain]

Granted, throwing conscripts at the enemy might eventually get you an experienced army, but you'll take much heavier losses to get those battle hardened soldiers then you would have otherwise.

Experience is useful, but needs to be built on a foundation of training to be really effective. Always a problem that it's not practical to learn it all by practice, a lot has to be theoretical and hoping you get the theory correct.

Seriously, does Russia really have such a surplus population they can keep throwing waves and waves of their own men at the Ukraine without it impacting anything else?

Presumably they do, even in large (modern) wars, the proportion of military casualties to total populace is very low, you aren't going to run out of people. OTOH, you might run out of people who didn't personally know someone that got killed in a pointless war, and that can impact other things, of course.

 

[Agema]

Granted, throwing conscripts at the enemy might eventually get you an experienced army,

"Learning by doing" - it's a major pedagogic theory.

It is not, however, a particularly recommended approach for raw recruits in warfare.

 

[Dalisclock]

"Learning by doing" - it's a major pedagogic theory.

It is not, however, a particularly recommended approach for raw recruits in warfare.

It's not. And it's quite costly even if you do get the desired result. Actually, I'd be really curious to see if there are any examples from the modern era where you get a badass army from battlefield experience without the benefit of good training or a robust system to keep things running smoothly, or if that's just something that happens in fiction(like the Sardaukar in Dune).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing this is a good idea by any means. I'm mostly speaking in hypotheticals here and while I have some grounding in military science and history, I'm not gonna pretend to be a expert by any means.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Yup. It is a very good thing. Keeps Lithuania safe.

Not really. It does, however, threaten the annihilation of the human race when stunts like these are pulled.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Actually, I'd be really curious to see if there are any examples from the modern era where you get a badass army from battlefield experience without the benefit of good training or a robust system to keep things running smoothly

Hahaha... no. Any example would only take a few minutes of shovelwork to find foreign 'assistance' - cash, training, cadre, etc, which puts in the training and systems. Geopolitics, baby!

 

[Silvanus]

Not really. It does, however, threaten the annihilation of the human race when stunts like these are pulled.

Russia would have been far more likely to invade Lithuania (or sponsor an insurgency inside its borders) if not for article 5. You need only look at its neighbours who aren't in NATO to see that, as they constantly suffer attack. Russia has done its level best to paint that picture for Finland and Sweden.

 

[Hawki]

It's funny that I've seen Alaska mentioned. Didn't Russia suggest recently that it be given back to them as "reparations?"

 

[Thaluikhain]

Actually, I'd be really curious to see if there are any examples from the modern era where you get a badass army from battlefield experience without the benefit of good training or a robust system to keep things running smoothly, or if that's just something that happens in fiction(like the Sardaukar in Dune).

Well, I'd say you can go from untrained civilian to somewhat competent irregular that way, which is a big step up, but you're on the back foot against anyone with real training.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Russia would have been far more likely to invade Lithuania (or sponsor an insurgency inside its borders) if not for article 5. You need only look at its neighbours who aren't in NATO to see that, as they constantly suffer attack. Russia has done its level best to paint that picture for Finland and Sweden.

Utterly ridiculous how blase you people are about nuclear war.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Utterly ridiculous how blase you people are about nuclear war.

"Stop resisting Russia's attempts to conquer you or we could all die!"

 

[Silvanus]

Utterly ridiculous how blase you people are about nuclear war.

No, I'm not blasé at all. It's fucking terrifying.

Ultimately, one power here has threatened nuclear war, launched covert military attacks and invasions, and escalated conflict at every turn by threatening neutral parties and breaching international war laws. Your response has been to request that we reward them wholeheartedly, and offer up the targeted countries as tribute by forcing them to disarm and give away land to the invader.

There's scarcely an approach that could put us at greater risk of nuclear war than consistently rewarding nuclear threats and invasion.

 

[CM156]

"Stop resisting Russia's attempts to conquer you or we could all die!"

No, I'm not blasé at all. It's fucking terrifying.

Ultimately, one power here has threatened nuclear war, launched covert military attacks and invasions, and escalated conflict at every turn by threatening neutral parties and breaching international war laws. Your response has been to request that we reward them wholeheartedly, and offer up the targeted countries as tribute by forcing them to disarm and give away land to the invader.

There's scarcely an approach that could put us at greater risk of nuclear war than consistently rewarding nuclear threats and invasion.

Your problem is that you're applying a universal standard, rather than cheerleading on a nation that is committing atrocities because you want the USA and NATO taken down a peg.

 

[bluegate]

I wonder if this level of clowning by Sean takes effort or if it just flows naturally from their fingertips.

 

[Silvanus]

Your problem is that you're applying a universal standard, rather than cheerleading on a nation that is committing atrocities because you want the USA and NATO taken down a peg.

I don't even think my standard is truly universal. I'm likely to find actions taken by stronger powers, against weaker ones, to be generally less defensible because they entrench that imbalance between the two.

But even somebody with those sympathies should be viewing Russia's actions here as utterly morally bankrupt. It is the more powerful party, attacking the weaker party. It is entrenching that inequality between powers.

If socialists (as I identify) are to afford greater leeway in a conflict between great and small, it should be leeway given in precisely the opposite direction as Seanchaidh is affording it.

And any effort to recast this as a struggle between Russia and America should have a bit of a think-- about how massively America-centric that view is; about how despicable it is to approach independent European nations and their people as mere tools to increase one's relative strength against America; and about the simple fact that America didn't fucking attack Russia or Ukraine.

 

[Hades]

Utterly ridiculous how blase you people are about nuclear war.

Or is it ridiculous how you seem to imply that whole countries should lose their independence and be taken over by a gangster regime just because the gangsters have nukes.

 

[Agema]

And any effort to recast this as a struggle between Russia and America should have a bit of a think-- about how massively America-centric that view is; about how despicable it is to approach independent European nations and their people as mere tools to increase one's relative strength against America; and about the simple fact that America didn't fucking attack Russia or Ukraine.

This whole line is just an attempt to recast Russian aggression as American/NATO aggression.

NATO has, for instance, very conspicuously stood back from escalatory direct confrontation, as it should. This won't do at all for the tankies, so they need a different line of criticism.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Utterly ridiculous how blase you people are about nuclear war.

Russia has a perfectly reasonable nuclear doctrine and I believe the Russian government will abide by it. If you don't then it speaks very poorly of your opinion of said government's competence (and sanity) and makes your continued defense of its actions rather baffling.

I mean, if we go through the possible scenarios.

• The Russian government will use nuclear weapons to resolve political or conventional military conflicts despite not being at war

This means you are dealing with people who do not care about their own lives, about the lives of anyone else or about the well-being of the nation they govern. There is nothing which can be done to placate those people because they do not follow any comprehensible human logic. Everything possible should be done to remove those people from power before their insanity destroys the planet.

• The Russian government could hypothetically reach the point of tactical use nuclear weapons via a prolonged escalation of the war in Ukraine

In this case, avoiding nuclear war is contingent on ensuring that any form of escalation that might lead to the use of nuclear weapons is extremely punishing, and that it is clear that the use of nuclear weapons would lead to global punitive measures so severe that it would completely outweigh any military benefits. Giving concessions in response to escalation makes escalation rewarding.

• The Russian government has no intention of using nuclear weapons short of the conditions described in its nuclear doctrine but deliberately flirts with the idea to try and intimidate the populations of other countries

In this case, again, it is integral that those threats are not in any way rewarding and, in particular, that they do not lead to concessions by non-nuclear-weapons states. Because if nuclear threats are seen to work, then the only way to defend yourself against them is to have nuclear weapons yourself. The result would be nuclear proliferation and an escalating risk of nuclear war in the future.

Sweden, a country of (at the time) 8 million people with an economy more than 30 times smaller than the US was an estimated 6 months away from testing when it abandoned its nuclear weapons program in the 60s. Today, there are many, many countries (including Ukraine) which could develop nuclear weapons given sufficient political will to do so.

 

[Seanchaidh]

NATO has, for instance, very conspicuously stood back from escalatory direct confrontation, as it should.

By having a member randomly decide it should blockade a Russian exclave?

Russia has a perfectly reasonable nuclear doctrine and I believe the Russian government will abide by it. If you don't then it speaks very poorly of your opinion of said government's competence (and sanity) and makes your continued defense of its actions rather baffling.

And when Russia decides it needs to break the blockade by force, which then leads to direct military confrontation between it and the entirety of NATO, the most prominent member of which does NOT have a "perfectly reasonable" nuclear doctrine?

 

[Catfood220]

Utterly ridiculous how blase you people are about nuclear war.

Well if nuclear war were to happen, there would be very little I could do about it and I hope that my final thought is "hey what's that bright fla..."