Ukraine

Elijin

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Guys, after a history of breaking into everyones houses in the neighborhood, my local community has formed a community watch and installed locks on their doors. This is bullshit and a threat to my own personal home security. But I have a whole bunch of firebombs, and could burn this whole neighborhood to the ground, so everyone better do what I say and let me treat my neighbours as I see fit. Or else.
 

Satinavian

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Arguably the Soviet suppression of Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968) are more appropriate. Although Russia has made territorial claims (Crimea particularly is of huge strategic importance), the aim at a more practical level is to coerce another country into subservience.
Not really.
That would have been a good fit if it had happened directly after the Maidan revolution.

But the Ukraine has been outside of Russian influence for years.

As if NATO is just some benign defensive alliance? Tell that to Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Serbia.
Afgnanistan was a NATO thing because the US triggered the defense clause.

The Libya no flight zone was eventually NATO led, but had non-Nato members participating as well as NATO members (like Germany) staying out.

Iraq was not NATO at all. You probably still remember all this "Old Europe/New Europe/freedom fries" nonsense.

As for Serbia, which conflict exactly are you referring to ? Most of what happened was UN based.

Oh, on the topic of UN, everything NATO ever did was UN backed and had thus acceptance from the Security council and thus Russia.




Again, please stop conflating US and NATO. NATO has a far far better track record than the US, mostly by NATO being indeed a defensive pact.
 
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Seanchaidh

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Afgnanistan was a NATO thing because the US triggered the defense clause.
Over the actions of non-state actors. They used Article 4, not Article 5 iirc.

The Libya no flight zone was eventually NATO led, but had non-Nato members participating as well as NATO members (like Germany) staying out.
OK, and? How was Libya defensive, exactly?

Iraq was not NATO at all. You probably still remember all this "Old Europe/New Europe/freedom fries" nonsense.
OK, as if that is going to matter when judging NATO's belligerence from Russia's perspective. It was the United States and UK and others literally fabricating a false reason to invade.

As for Serbia, which conflict exactly are you referring to ? Most of what happened was UN based.
Kosovo conflict. NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.

Again, please stop conflating US and NATO. NATO has a far far better track record than the US, mostly ba NATO being indeed a defensive pact.
This is a sort of technical half-truth which isn't going to be all that impressive to anyone who actually has to deal with NATO and its various members.
 

Generals

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As if NATO is just some benign defensive alliance? Tell that to Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Serbia.
Which is irrelevant to this discussion because it would never have invaded Russia.
Just like Russia is also all but a benign defensive country (Georgia and Ukraine), yet EU countries didn't feel the need to invade Belarus.
 

Eacaraxe

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Russia has manufactured its own security concerns, though.

Putin doesn't have to view NATO as a threat: he chose to.
NATO was literally formed as a military alliance for the specific purpose of countering Soviet expansionism, and when the Cold War ended it was not terminated, but rather its mission extended. No kidding, he views NATO as a threat, because it still is. Do you think the United States would feel differently if the Mexican government was overthrown and a Russian-friendly government installed, and in the span of five years was considering entry into CSTO?

It's not like a scenario close enough for comparison happened almost exactly sixty years ago...does anyone else remember the time the United States deployed nuclear missiles in Turkey?

He chose to because he has an imperialist dream of Russia being a great player again, and NATO threatens its ability to exercise that imperialist design over its neighbours, and because liberalism and democracy threatened his grip on power and the ability of him and his cronies to extract billions from their country into their own pockets.
...yeah?

MBTs still have their use...
Not really. We need to remember MBT's are a specific type of AFV, designed to fulfill a specific battlefield role in pursuance to specific doctrinal needs. That being, rapid, armored, direct fire support for infantry and mechanized infantry in medium- to large-scale, high-intensity, conflicts which feature combined arms. The issue is, that's a role for which MBT's are ill-suited for in an era marked by low-intensity and asymmetrical conflict, in which belligerent forces are decentralized or decentralizing, and mass psychological warfare has taken the forefront over direct conflict (i.e. fourth-generation warfare).

The question isn't whether MBT's are useful, but if they're cost-effective, and if there are alternatives better suited for the contemporary battlefield. That's not just a question of price of procurement, that's the price of deployment and the price of supporting the unit logistically in operation -- armament, fuel, supplies for vehicle and crew, labor hours and facilities to maintain, and the like although I'm pretty certain I covered the main points. That's not a price that can be taken lightly, when contemporary conflicts are marked by asymmetric attacks on supply lines and columns in-transit, and when objectives are more often than not urban cores in which MBT's strengths cannot be adequately leveraged while their weaknesses easily exploited by opposition forces.

This is a development we've seen before in the history of mechanized warfare. Early Cold War MBT's/UT's, primarily those designed before the advent of composite armor, shared more in common with WWII self-propelled artillery and TD's than they did comparable mediums, heavies, or infantry tanks (depending upon which country we're discussing, and their doctrines) simply because ordnance development so rapidly outpaced armor development, that no sensible tank armor could resist incoming fire. The German Leopard I is, more or less, the apex of this era, considering its devastating speed and armament, yet at the same time being less armored than even WWII-era recon vehicles -- and the contrast between it and its successor not a decade later, Leopard II, no clearer.

Even in the Soviet military, is this demonstrated no better than the short operational life of the IS-8/T-10 and rapid replacement by the T-54/55, because while the former was one of the most fearsome tanks ever designed for its time, it was cost-ineffective and poorly-suited to the rapidly-developing battlefield.

...but using old cold war era tanks like T-72s just won't cut it on modern battlefield.
Obsolete tanks' vulnerabilities to the almighty Toyota pickup notwithstanding, most militaries in the world still use Cold War-era tanks. Hell, some still use WWII-era tanks. They're either what those countries can afford, or those countries lack the technological or industrial bases to procure better.

...T-14 Armatas it would be completely different story...
T-14 was a fairly respectable concept, until NPO's took a good, hard, look at the F-35 and decided they wanted their own inordinately expensive modular multi-role boondoggle. Again, it comes down to cost-effectiveness and what's best-fit to doctrine. Unlike the US, Russia shares land borders with most of its expected belligerents, and therefore has little need to stack every single force multiplier it can leverage into as small a fighting force as possible, to minimize the logistic burden of that force.

And -- I alluded to this earlier citing Russia's failed rapid dominance strategy -- if Russia wants a successful military, it needs to go back to developing and relying upon its own doctrines, opposed to emulating Western doctrines it's ill-suited to emulate. The trend of Russia failing militarily when it attempts to emulate the West, but succeeding when it develops and stands on doctrine that plays to its strengths and weaknesses, isn't a new trend -- it goes back at least as far as the Napoleonic wars.
 
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Silvanus

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How much of that is actually true?
Reading this, one could almost forget you've spent months posting unverified tweets from no-name armchair commentators when it suits you!

And you also believe electing Obama means that the United States has or had no problem with white supremacy, right?
Nope. But I might give you the side-eye if a white nationalist tried to invade to depose Obama on the grounds of preventing white supremacy, and you accepted it at face value.
 

Thaluikhain

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The issue is, that's a role for which MBT's are ill-suited for in an era marked by low-intensity and asymmetrical conflict, in which belligerent forces are decentralized or decentralizing, and mass psychological warfare has taken the forefront over direct conflict (i.e. fourth-generation warfare).
Well, yes, but for many years tanks were being designed and built not for the pretty minor wars actually going on, but for The Big One which may or may not break out at some point.

How useful they'd be in what we now imagine The Big One to be is another question, though.

EDIT: Quote was attributed to Seanchaidh for some reason there.
 
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Agema

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T-14 has hard kill protection system than can shoot down missiles and rockets. If that works as advertised Ukraine wouldn't have much chance against them. So far haven't seen any footage of T-14. We know that T-14s were field tested in Syria resently, but it would be more interesting to see how they fare against modern anti tank weapons.
I strongly suggest that there is a problem with the T-14. It appears to be heavily delayed, and the Russians made noise about an alleged lack of need for the T-14 and modifying the T-72 and derivatives. I would interpret "lack of need" to really mean "the tank isn't working out like we'd hoped".
 

Generals

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NATO was literally formed as a military alliance for the specific purpose of countering Soviet expansionism, and when the Cold War ended it was not terminated, but rather its mission extended. No kidding, he views NATO as a threat, because it still is. Do you think the United States would feel differently if the Mexican government was overthrown and a Russian-friendly government installed, and in the span of five years was considering entry into CSTO?

It's not like a scenario close enough for comparison happened almost exactly sixty years ago...does anyone else remember the time the United States deployed nuclear missiles in Turkey?
NATO was formed to counter a huge block capable of easily taking over Europe, yes. That block disappearing doesn't mean a defensive coalition no longer holds any value. And Putin has proven that. Let's not forget that NATO never expanded through conquest but only voluntary accession. So there was no need for Russia to fear NATO wanting to "conquer" it.

Additionally Ukraine already considered joining NATO in 2008, that's before Yanukovych became president. When he was overthrown there were initially no plans to join NATO and it only became a priority after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. And let's not forget Euromaidan occured due to Yanukovych suspending the signing of an association agreement with the EU. So all this "blabla" about NATO is just a diversion. The Ukrainian pro-Russia government was ovethrown because Ukrainians preferred to have closer ties with the EU than Russia. NATO wasn't even on the table until Putin made it clear Ukraine needed NATO to defend itself from Russia.

But you know what, if the US decides to annex a part of Mexico because it drops out of the USMCA and decides to have closer ties with Russia instead i'll be entirely against that annexation.
 
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Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)

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Next time someone says Ukraine is full of Nazis, granted 5% is still not good but a hell of alot better than it's neighbors including Russia.
 

Gergar12

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... But you're gen Z and that example is one other gen z arguing with you about decisions ultimately made by boomers. Also my largest concern with the pro-war crowd, here in ireland, is that they're not exactly lining up to fight themselves. They grew up in a country insulated by it's "neutrality" and now that they're past the point where they are the ones who'd have to actually risk anything and now that they're in the clear suddenly they're all excited to get into wars. Irish boomers are fucking ghouls
Obama was a doormat with Russia for no reason. He didn't have to appease Russia like China, with China you needed their help with climate change, and there was a lot more trade. What does Russia offer the US, they don't trade that much to us, and yes some Russians are every smart people who teach at US colleges, and their engineers are smart people who work in silicon valley, and other US companies, but we could make do with other people.

He was wayyyyyyy too idealistic, he called himself a defensive realist when in reality he was more of a progressive internationalist on Russia. He let them off the hook for Crimea and didn't send weapons to Ukraine like anti-tank missiles, and their launchers which 'pro-Russian puppet' Trump did.

Oh, and guess who liked Obama young Gen X, Gen Z, and millennials. Those groups' idealism lead to Putin waging war like an opportunistic predator, which Obama didn't see.
 

Trunkage

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Obama was a doormat with Russia for no reason. He didn't have to appease Russia like China, with China you needed their help with climate change, and there was a lot more trade. What does Russia offer the US, they don't trade that much to us, and yes some Russians are every smart people who teach at US colleges, and their engineers are smart people who work in silicon valley, and other US companies, but we could make do with other people.

He was wayyyyyyy too idealistic, he called himself a defensive realist when in reality he was more of a progressive internationalist on Russia. He let them off the hook for Crimea and didn't send weapons to Ukraine like anti-tank missiles, and their launchers which 'pro-Russian puppet' Trump did.

Oh, and guess who liked Obama young Gen X, Gen Z, and millennials. Those groups' idealism lead to Putin waging war like an opportunistic predator, which Obama didn't see.
Oh good. Another thing to blame pn millenials
 
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Trunkage

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Which is irrelevant to this discussion because it would never have invaded Russia.
Just like Russia is also all but a benign defensive country (Georgia and Ukraine), yet EU countries didn't feel the need to invade Belarus.
I'm pretty sure they mean 'invading Ukraine' here and not Russia. And by that, it would include any peacekeepers, irrelevant of country of origin (except Russia, of course.) Because the rest of the world follows NATOs plot

I wouldn't be surprised if any foreigners heading to help Ukraine right now will be deemed as NATO operators thus legitimatizing Russia attack
 

Trunkage

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Guys, after a history of breaking into everyones houses in the neighborhood, my local community has formed a community watch and installed locks on their doors. This is bullshit and a threat to my own personal home security. But I have a whole bunch of firebombs, and could burn this whole neighborhood to the ground, so everyone better do what I say and let me treat my neighbours as I see fit. Or else.
I read this as if Putin was speaking it but with Beakers voice