I wonder which comes first, the West running out of weapons or Ukraine running out of troops that are willing to resist. And if the latter, will NATO send troops.
For the very first time in European history, the phrase "German tanks are coming!" is actually GOOD news!
Heretofore, Americans have been shielded from Abrams and Leopards being destroyed in Yemen and Syria. What happens though when the same occurs in Ukraine ?
I'm not convinced that Russia has the equipment or trained troops to mount a counteroffensive unless he can convince Belarus to join the war and I don't see that happening
A German man is crossing into Poland. Border agent: Name? German: Fritz Where are you traveling from? Berlin. Occupation? No, just visiting.
An Englishman at Australian customs: Aussie agent: Have you ever been convicted of a crime? Englishman: Oh, I didn't know that was still a prerequisite
Off topic, but I have to say, Bazza, your unqualified optimism is far less revolting when it’s not “Seven losses is still better than eight!” or “A top 25 recruiting class is still outstanding!” or “Yay Georgia! Let’s cheer on our SEC brothers!”
Hi G8tr - The Ukranian podcasts I follow are advising that Russia is making gains in the Donbas, albeit slow. The Ukrainian progress in the N and S parts of the front are stalemated. (Weather and logistics may be the driver of course) Me, I have watched too many WW2 films about the limitless capacity of the Russian (Soviet) state to hurl unlimited manpower at conflict points irregardless of casulties. I keep having these visions of an overwhelming Russians response. Hopefully it is my ignorance at play.
As usual, I will begin my post with the disclaimer that Trump is an idiot, Trump has no business even dreaming about being President again, and we would all be better off if Trump went peacefully in his sleep. That said, the journalism in that article is deeply disturbing to me in terms of how long on bias and short on detail it is. This paragraph here, for instance: The underlying truth of that statement has been debunked many times. It doesn’t change how dumb Trump was to say what he did, but he wasn’t “cheering” Putin’s invasion. His words were prior to the invasion and in reference to Putin putting “peacekeepers” into Donbas without going to war, thereby embarrassing the Biden Administration (which was all Trump cared about, sadly). When an actual invasion was launched roughly 24 hours after Trump’s words, Trump was, in my estimation, shocked and embarrassed, or at least as embarrassed as Trump gets. But his raw, unprepared reaction was the opposite of “cheering.” I bring that up to question, apart from what the biased author is trying to get us to conclude, why is Trump actually against the tanks? (And I don’t know the answer to that, not leading anyone anywhere) He clearly is not against giving Ukraine lethal material aid and training. The program to do that started under him, and for Ukraine’s sake I’m grateful for that rare example of strategic judgment. Where does he draw the line and why? What makes tanks such a step? And what does he mean by “ending” the war? We all want an end to the war, Biden, Putin, Zelensky et al. The only question is the terms. Is Trump saying that tanks are such an escalatory step that it will prohibitively interfere with negotiations and only make Putin more aggressive? If that is what he means, then I disagree, but the position is not unreasonable or traitorous either. The problem with this article is that it doesn’t it give us any real insight as to what Trump was saying. It takes a couple of quotes, in at least one case way out of context, and strings them together to strongly imply he wants the war to end by Putin winning it. And I don’t like the bastard (Trump is the bastard I mean in this instance), but that doesn’t line up with his other actions.
As usual, I concur violently. Many of you are no doubt sick of me repeating myself, but Russia has too much of a resource and manpower advantage to keep getting humiliated on the battlefield forever. I love it when Ukraine lands a blow, but our (the West’s) problem is that we are not viewing Ukrainian victories for what they are: time and space to get our act together for dealing with Russia. Ukraine is more or less maxed out in what it can do for itself. Russia is not. But every time Russia turns up the temperature, we wait to see what kind of an adverse effect it will have in the field before taking an escalatory move of our own, a move that is generally underwhelming relative to what Russia did. The latest example is: Russia mobilizes hundreds of thousands of soldiers; after much hemming and hawing, the West scrapes together 100 tanks. Now those tanks aren’t nothing. I applaud it. But Russia still wins on the current trajectory. And we can’t have that.
I would love to see 100 F-16's, 100 A-10s, 100 Apaches, a couple dozen "spectere's" (130's) and a few AWAC's flying the friendly skies of Ukraine myself.
I doubt he wants the military to be unavailable in case needed to retain power internally, or just the way that soldiers that sacrifice come back with different attitudes towards leadership. But can he say no if asked?
Good Q. I can't pretend to understand how beholden Luka would be to Moscow on the matter, but from talking with my Belarusian partner, there's not a lot of love lost for the man. They'll accept him as long as their lives can be lived, but killing sons and daughters would (may) break the social contract.
It's also the reason he may not be asked. His Kremlin masters are not very smart, but they have to realize that if they compel him to jump in, they risk the possibility of him being deposed and they lose it altogether. But they tend to make a rational desperate decisions, so who knows
Unfortunately they will probably take a year to get there. They require specialized training, parts and even a specialized fuel. The German and English tanks will make it there much sooner but they’re quite good in their own right.
Tanks will get destroyed. It is expected. They’re not taking hits from marshmallows. But I already addressed this argument earlier in the thread.
I would, too. But Ukraine would need to impose local air superiority (including adjudication of the Russian IADS) for any of that to fly at an acceptable level of risk.
Generally, I agree with this. What I’m not sure about is what point the need to conclude the war as something the Russians can sell at home as a victory overrides the risk of losing Belarus to internal strife. We know things are going poorly for Russia domestically; there are too many indicators to argue otherwise without being laughed at. What we don’t know is the degree to which things are going poorly. Are we talking about as it was in 1903, ugly but manageable? Or 1916, just short of Dawn of the Dead? If it’s close to the latter then maybe you do risk all with one calculated throw of the die on the first dry day of spring, including the Belorussian armed forces. In my estimation (sadly, this is the one thing Putin and I probably agree on), there is nothing wrong in Russia today that victory would not solve.
