Shhh, that's against the popular narrative. Hindsight is 20/20, isn't it? While we know what Chamberlain did and what ensued, we have no idea if a different course of action would've yielded better results. There are some historians who say that Chamberlain's actions bought Britain enough time to eventually fight back against Germany. Had Chamberlain fought back earlier, perhaps Germany would've conquered England as well, and we'd all be speaking German. I bet there were Russians who argued not to back down during the Cuban missile crisis. Aren't you glad for the planet that the Russians who didn't want to start WWIII ended up winning the argument?
I tend to believe that if the British had taken military action against Hitler, the French would have gotten involved militarily, and the Wehrmacht wouldn't be able to stand up to both of them. Instead, we got the Phoney War, where the French and British each waited for the other to take the first step, while Hitler was building his armies and securing his new territories while improving his military technology. A lot of Hitler's early oil production came from a chemical plant (converted coal to gasoline) just a few miles east of the border with the Dutch. It wouldn't have been too hard to overrun it in the early stages of the war. The German military was not that powerful in 1939-40. There are a lot of unknowns with WWII. A big part of the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis came down to Russian subs that were being chased by American ships, and one of the subs lost its ability to produce breathing air while underwater. Rather than surface and possibly be captured (or forced out of the area), they stayed underwater and breathed their own carbon dioxide until their mental faculties starting failing. Some of the officers, including the captain, wanted to start a shooting war (with tactical nuclear torpedoes) with the Americans, but fortunately, the political officer assigned to the mission was on that sub, and persuaded his captain not to attack. The Americans did not realize that the Soviet sub had tactical nuclear torpedoes on board, and that they were allowed to use them without authorization from Moscow. 55 Years After Preventing Nuclear Attack, Arkhipov Honored With Inaugural Future of Life Award - Future of Life Institute
That's quite the website. Bono is a tool for the illuminati, Musk is a Pentagon lackey, US universities support apartheid, apparently we're about to do some real nasty stuff in Venezuela.....
Explosion in Kursk 90 in from the Ukrainian border. Actually reading the book about the World War II battle now. But I would guess this is some form of cyber warfare. Check that. Comments say it may just be a Sonic boom. Surprising that the reliable source retweeted it
You very well could be right, but that's not the point. Perhaps Germany would be less successful, but the Soviets become more successful. Perhaps we never had to join the war, and thus lacked the impetus to fast-track nuclear weapons and the Soviets get them first and wreak even more havoc than the Nazis did. Perhaps then we'd be blaming Chamberlain for misidentifying the real threat and expending precious resources fighting a potential ally in the fight against the reds. The point is that it's easy to Monday morning quarterback, and taking a less confrontational stance is not necessarily a bad idea just because it didn't lead to the desired outcome at some point in history. I'm not sure what the point of the Cuban missile crisis story is. It's an interesting story, but my point is that Russians who opted to back down won out, and that probably was quite a boon for humanity, so it could be for us to when it's our chance to opt to back down.
4 HiMARs do seem like a pretty half-assed plan. This weeks of training required is asinine as well, we could've been training them for years now. I think the issue is that the administration is torn between their commitments in Ukraine and their larger goal of confronting China. It seems like they thought Ukraine would fold within days to weeks so they didn't invest much into them, but that turned out as wrong as thinking Afghanistan would hold out for months to years after our withdrawal. Now that Ukraine has turned out to be a more capable asset than originally thought, it becomes much harder to just discard it. However, investing more into it now, in the middle of a war, is much more expensive than investing in it years ago during relative peace, and it'll take much needed political and financial resources away from our plan to confront the greater adversary in China. So what to do? Go "all in" (by your definition) on Ukraine to save an asset that turned out to be much more valuable than originally thought? Or discard it as originally planned to focus our attention on China? It seems like we can't decide, so we're picking the worst option of doing neither. In the meantime, China is giving Russia just enough support to keep its economy afloat, while not giving so much support as to retrain the West's attention on them. It's a tough choice, one that probably could've been avoided with better intelligence.
Here it comes your 19th nervous breakdown. Russia Steps Up Energy Wars With Gas Cuts to Europe’s Top Buyers Gazprom PJSC is curbing gas supplies via its Nord Stream pipeline to Germany by 60%, increasing an initial cut to Europe’s top buyer announced on Tuesday. The move adds to a 15% reduction in flows to Italy, the continet’s second-largest customer of Russian gas, putting more pressure on already tight European energy markets and sending gas prices surging more than 25%. ........ Gazprom PJSC is capping supplies via Nord Stream to 67 million cubic meters a day from Thursday. That’s down from a cut of 40% to a limit of 100 million cubic meters a day announced on Tuesday. Utility giant Uniper SE, Germany’s top buyer of Russian gas, said it had received 25% less gas than it had contracted from Gazprom. ........ The loss of Russian supply coincided with a drop in US capacity to ship liquefied natural gas to the region after a major export terminal in Texas was damaged by fire. The operator of the Freeport LNG export facility in Texas said on Tuesday that it may take 90 days for the plant to be partially back online, far longer than an earlier projection of a minimum three weeks. Full capacity isn’t expected to be available until late 2022. The question now is who is going to make up the diffrence? Winter is on the way and this shortage affects Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden in other news reports. Russia cuts gas supply to Germany and Italy, blaming a technical problem caused by sanctions
This administration can’t decide what day it is , much less come up with a comprehensive foreign policy. !! We can do both. We proved that in ww2. Fighting two theaters at once on opposit sides of the planet. But then again, it wasn’t this bunch of wanna be”s in power
Precisely so. I’m flabbergasted by the attitude of “Meh. Let them have Ukraine. They will never move against NATO.” Partly correct, because their strategy is to fragment NATO via informational and economic means. They will move on countries that used to be part of NATO once that is complete. Very disturbing that some smart people of all political walks of life can’t see Russian and Chinese intentions for what they are.
I don't think the Soviets would have been more successful without: 1) Germany invading to the edge of Moscow and ill-treating people of the outer states (like Ukraine) along the way, all of which united the Soviet people and made them determined to fight back at all costs. Remember, many of the people in the outer states gave Christmas presents to the Nazis when they invaded because they believed they were being set free from Stalin. 2) The U.S. providing technology that helped the Soviets. One of the keys to the USSR winning the war in the dead of winter was that Soviet tanks and trucks continued to operate while the German tanks and trucks froze up. U.S. synthetic oil made that possible, and that was just one of the things that we gave them. The Soviet Union was a disorganized and mismanaged backwater nation until there was an existential threat from one country and aid from another (technologically-advanced) nation. There is no reason to believe that Stalin would have been able to organize and develop the USSR without the push from external events and countries. Stalin spent most of the 1930's killing off his generals, because he didn't trust them. Stalin was also widely hated by his own people, especially those in the outer areas. The Soviets would have almost certainly continued with their program of infighting and purges for decades had WWII not intervened and made them a superpower.
You're again missing the point. The point is that you don't know what would have happened no matter how much you pretend you do. Your argument is essentially that the Germans by taking so much Russian territory and resources, killing so many Russians and other Slavic people, and destroying so much Russian industry, that they made Russia so much stronger. OK. But you see how an argument can be made that the opposite may happen, right? If you can't accept that then there's no use continuing this debate.
Interesting take ‘Russia is failing’ in Ukraine and has already ‘strategically lost’ the war, says the head of Britain’s armed forces (msn.com) Russia has already “strategically lost” the war in Ukraine and is a “more diminished power” on the world stage as a result of the invasion, according to the U.K.’s defense chief. Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, who heads up the British armed forces, told PA Media in an interview published Friday that Russian President had used 25% of his country’s army but achieved only “tiny” gains. “This is a dreadful mistake by Russia,” he said. “Russia will never take control of Ukraine. Russia has strategically lost already.” Radakin explained that Moscow had been forced to abandon its objectives of seizing control of most Ukrainian cities, noting that Russian forces were vulnerable because they were running out of people and military hardware. “Any notion that this is a success for Russia is nonsense. Russia is failing,” he told PA. "It might be getting some tactical successes over the last few weeks, and those might continue for the next few weeks—but Russia is losing strategically
NUMBER OF FOREIGN MERCENARIES IN UKRAINE Country Arrived Elim Depa Total since inat rted as of Feb 24 ed Jun 17 Poland 1831 378 272 1181 Canada 601 162 169 270 USA 530 214 227 89 Romania 504 102 98 304 UK 422 101 95 226 Georgia 355 120 90 145 Croatia 204 74 51 79 Syria 200 80 66 54 Belarus 197 69 59 69 France 183 59 45 79 BiH 167 51 46 70 Estonia 164 55 49 60 Kosovo 156 61 60 35 Albania 150 42 40 68 Lithuania 130 50 44 36 Portugal 103 19 16 68 Germany 99 33 34 32 Nigeria 85 38 35 12 N. Macedonia 79 21 19 39 Finland 74 20 27 27 Ireland 71 23 14 34 Italy 71 21 26 24 Turkey 61 19 0 42 Switzerland 55 15 18 22 Bolivia 50 13 25 12 Netherlands 42 12 13 17 Columbia 40 10 9 21 Brasil 39 12 15 12 Sweden 36 5 30 1 Israel 35 9 8 18 Czechia 33 14 15 4 South Africa 25 9 11 5 Spain 20 4 4 12 Latvia 18 7 3 8 Norway 15 6 6 3 Senegal 15 4 6 5 Belgium 14 2 9 3 South Korea 13 4 8 1 Guinea 10 4 4 2 Denmark 7 2 2 3 Austria 5 2 1 2 Gabon 5 2 1 2 Liberia 5 2 1 2 Australia 4 2 1 1 Greece 4 1 2 1 Bulgaria 3 0 1 2 Peru 3 0 1 2 Slovakia 3 0 1 2 Argentina 2 0 1 1 Eq. Guinea 2 1 0 1 Moldova 2 0 1 1 Montenegro 2 1 0 1 Azerbaijan 1 1 0 0 Chile 1 0 0 1 China 1 0 0 1 Cyprus 1 0 0 1 Hungary 1 0 0 1 Iran 1 0 0 1 Japan 1 0 0 1 Kazakhstan 1 0 0 1 Luxembourg 1 0 0 1 New Zealand 1 0 0 1 Uzbekistan 1 0 0 1 Venezuela 1 0 0 1 Europe 4866 1250 1101 2515 Americas 1267 411 447 409 Asia 671 233 172 266 Africa 147 60 58 29 Oceania 5 2 1 2 Total 6956 1956 1779 3221
Another mysterious fire well into the russian heartland..maybe this had something to do with russia curbing gas exports Russia's biggest natural gas field is ablaze | The Independent Barents Observer (thebarentsobserver.com) The fire erupted after a pipeline burst near one of the production units. The accident happened during night and emergency personnel were on site early morning 16th of June, Telegram channel Gaz-Batyushka informs. The Urengoy is Russia’s biggest natural gas field with reserves up to 10 trillion cubic meters. It is operated by Gazprom Dobycha Urengoy, a regional subsidiary unit of national energy company Gazprom.
harpoon missiles being deployed to neutralize Russian navy ship supplying snake island with weapons/reinforcements
Regarding the 4 HiMARs, I read a quote from (maybe Miley), they would get 4 at first and see if Ukraine can use them as intended. Then give them more if they are effective. The tech in our weapons and required learning curve to use them is more significant than I thought. the patriot was a ‘no’ and Abraham’s hasn’t been mentioned. I also believe we’re carful about Russia capturing our equipment and learning even more about them.
You know what Stalin said when he was told that Germany was probably going to invade and kill millions of Russians? "Hold my beer." If technology and industry was all it took to win wars, how did the U.S. lose in Vietnam? My argument is a simple one: if unaffected by outside forces, a body (or in this case, a nation) will continue on the path it's on. And Russia was not on a good path. There was little hope of the population rising up and overthrowing Stalin, and once Stalin died, a good chance that his successor would pick up where Stalin left off. For a country to succeed, the people have to be in harmony with the leadership. Uniting to defeat the Nazis accomplished that for the Soviets. Damaged industry can be re-built (and faster in Russia's case because there were industrial areas that were not touched by the Nazis). The Soviets could recover population lost in less than a generation (people in many countries back then had 5-10 kids per family). Financing was no problem, as the Soviets were looting their way to Berlin in 1945 (Germany may have taken a lot of territory and resources from the USSR, but they gave up even more in the end). They also had a lot of access to Germany's technology after the war, both military and industrial. It was the spirit of the Russian people that made the difference: they suddenly viewed Stalin as a hero, and that made a huge difference.
