Hence the saying 'You can never cross the same river twice... in the same car.'
Ukraine
- Thread starter Silvanus
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And twice is the only way to live.
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I mean, sure. things work if you actually put some thought and planning into it.
But why do that when you can just ford the river in your tank? Your tank that's conspicuously not a boat and weighs about 40 or so tons.
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As mentioned, direct comparisons of tanks are often misleading, as they are normally part of a larger force, and may be used in different ways depending on doctrine.
As also mentioned, optics are very important, especially thermal optics. A decades old design with reasonably recent optics so it can put it's old fashioned shells where it means to is still formidable.
Whilst I'd grant that a legitimate and properly-conducted referendum in Crimea would very likely prefer to be part of Russia that part of Ukraine (as ethnic Russians are a substantial majority of the population there), it's worth noting that a legitimate and properly-conducted referendum for Crimea to join Russia has not yet occurred.
If we wanted to consider some of the core dishonesty about the 2014 Crimean referendum (never mind the substantial evidence of fraud and ludicrously unrealistic result), it had been set up so that people of Crimea were not even given the option of the status quo as part of Ukraine.
"Democracy", Russia and Seanchaidh style.
Firstly, there hasn't been a credible referendum organised in Crimea, either-- it also continues to be under military occupation by a foreign dictatorship, who offered a sham poll with no option for continuing the situation they already had.
Secondly, assuming for a moment that the Crimeans wanted to join Russia (which may be true), would their views hold sway over Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk? Because those are the areas Russia invaded to annex in 2022, not Crimea, which was already under its control and not under serious threat of reclamation at the time.
Ukraine is now aiming to reclaim its own territory in Crimea, which it had not been seriously considering before Feb 2022. And why...? Because Russia chose to use Crimea as an axis of invasion for the rest of Ukraine in an attempt to destroy the Ukrainian state. Making its reclamation a matter of national security.
Nope. Elections were. And at every one, Ukrainians have endorsed closer relations with Europe, despite overwhelming foreign interference in favour of Russia. Euromaidan occurred when the figure elected to pursue a certain popular policy chose instead to pursue the exact opposite policy, after being bought.
And lest we forget that during Euromaidan, the majority of foreign interference, foreign finance, and neo-Nazi paramilitary activity were on the anti-Maidan side.
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I don't really get the pro Russian position of blaming Ukraine for waging war in the Donbas when its Russia who brought war to the Donbas to begin with. The war wouldn't have started if Russian army just stayed behind their borders, and it will end the moment they fuck off back to Russia. Why blame Ukraine for responding to a foreign invasion instead of blaming the foreign invader.
Eh, I get the mentality, I was a bit like that myself. Once you've seen through all the lies that Western nations say about who is good or evil, when they make a claim that serves their interest that is actually true (such as a rival being evil), it's easy to assume that it's just another lie. The US does all sorts of evil things, Russia opposes them, it's easy to make a conclusion based on that that is totally wrong.
I guess but that would be dependent on looking at foreign affairs purely by looking at America and overlooking the fact that Russia has an intensely vile history of abusing its neighbors.
Lots of people are far from Russia, but within the US's sphere of influence, though.
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But that's what is done, because the USA is "us" (as opposed to "them"). "Us" being the close familiar enemy, the close familiar liar adressing us, the cause of out personnal woes. I see a lot of support for Russia (not only in that war, but generally for Putin before that) from European people who are, out of principle, out of habit, in antagonism with their own government. It's also articulated to their distrust for "our" medias and "our" authorities when it comes to Covid, etc.
There's a bit of a contrarian, elitist, rebel thrill in rejecting the local narrative and turning it upside down. "I cannot be duped like all these sheeples" + "Enemy of my enemy", and all that. It's the same stuff that drive conspiracy theories in general. And of course, putinist propaganda capitalizes on that. Some people are simply primed to take a stance against their own government's narrative, and often their own government is objectively to blame for that, for leaving them disenfranchized (and thus eager to invert narratives, legitimacies and expertises) and for having actually manipulated them very often (all the previous -valid- historical examples that serve the current distrust rhetoric : gulf war wmd, self-righteous postcolonial geopolitics, self-serving economics, etc).
There's often a strong rationality of critical thinking, in alternative viewpoints. The problem is that this critical thinking has strong double standards. It's certainly healthy to be wary of the local narratives you're being fed. But quite often, those who pride themselves on that, show absolutely zero critical thinking towards their alternative sources (be it about health, UFOs, climate, Earth rotundity, etc). These source become fully endorsed authorities just by virtue of being alternative...
The West does a great deal of awful things and has lots of flaws in its societies.
I suspect that those who passionately believe it should not do so many terrible things, plus frustration at their inability to change its course (at least in the short-medium term), can lead to resentment of the West itself. This can then become so powerful that it prevents those people from maintaining perspective that most of the rest of the world is considerably worse, or a desire to see the West ruined in the hope a new, more ethical order can spring up.
Personally, I think the weaker the West gets, the greater the influence of even less palatable systems under global powers (e.g. China, Russia). Secondly that should our countries suffer some sort of collapse, the discord, hardship and trauma is extraordinarily unlikely to foster the sort of commununity-centred, liberal, environmentalist and peaceful society they envisage. It's much more likely we'll end up run by regressive, authoritarian strongmen who enforce stability, uniformity and obedience.
And then there are those who just like right-wing, nationalist, authoritarian strongmen, and see Putin as one of their own and think our countries should be more like that. They're more than happy to help undermine the liberal order and international bodies (e.g. EU) in order to facilitate their own rise.
Indeed. The war in Donbas was initially created by a Russian-sponsored insurgency. But even then, it would have ended in a matter of months in 2014 (Ukraine had reclaimed almost all lost territory early in the first year)... had the Russian army not flooded the area with personnel and artillery to back up the insurgents. They then unilaterally kept it going for 8 years.
You fool! You've fallen for Western propaganda. There are no rich men in a communist utopia! All of those photos of Putin enjoying Western-style pleasures are faked!
I will admit my biases here. I do feel tanks and boats are different.
This is about tanks and boats using the same restroom, isn't it?
But where does that leave IFVs and Submarines?