2022-2024 Russo-Ukrainian War

tbm3fan said:
You mean something equivalent to the White House Plumbers? Hard to say given that the current admin seems to act a bit like a sieve although trump is trying to get rod of every single person who would side with Ukraine and also side against him in every shape or form. Fascism moves in dribs and drabs.
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Thinking more Iran (Shah, not 1979), South Vietnam, and Chile. The South Vietnamese plan was apparently a pet project of some people in the Kennedy administration that was passionately opposed by others in the Kennedy administration, but they won the day.
 
Officer of Engineers said:
Here's the point.The enemy can read your status and your ability to reply to a first strike. If it is not convincing, then they will strike AND they Will most likely succeed!!!
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Russia could have struck China or Israel and didn't. The thing is consequences don't have to come directly from the person your attacking. There's such a thing as collateral damage. Sure you can nuke an opponent but you still have to live with the consequences of that attack both politically and economically - and there WILL be consequences! In almost all circumstances unless the security/continued of your State is at stake the 'gain' from nuking a non-nuclear opponent or one with a vastly smaller arsenal than yours it simply isn't worth the price. Sure you hint at the possibility and threaten nuclear escalation etc you don't launch (if your sane) until you reach the point where IYO war is inevitable and your own country faces potential annihilation if you don't act.

In China's case as I keep noting it was a border dispute not even remotely approaching a 'clear and present' danger to the Soviet State.

In the case of Israel? There wasn't even a direct military threat to Russia, it was plain old geopolitics with the US being the 'real' opponent & Israel serving as it's proxy. So there was even less justification for launching nukes and no significant benefit to be gained from doing so that would outweigh the inveitable consequences.
 
Officer of Engineers said:
Monash, no offense to you but I've been studying this for decades and I have not even touch upon BRILLIANT Chinese AND Indian deterrence theories. Deterrance is NOT war fighting.

But even without those theories. you are in the wrong. I gave you the histories, you did not go deep into it. Moscow considered Nixon betrayed them when they were teaming up with Washington DC to ELIMINATE the Chinese nuclear thteat. They thought both were going in together to kill the 12 Chinese nukes.

In the case of Israel, Moscow got intel that the Israelis was going to nuke Damascus. Soviet SSBN got orders when Israeli mushroom clouds occured.

Duhh!!!!
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I'm sorry but none of the events you described actually lead to a nuclear launch. The question is why?
 
Early this morning eastern U.S. time, it broke the U.S. says it's no longer doing any intel sharing with Ukraine.
 
rj1 said:
Early this morning eastern U.S. time, it broke the U.S. says it's no longer doing any intel sharing with Ukraine.
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Well I expected it. The key issue? Have they also their told NATO 'partners' particularity the UK that they can't share US intelligence with Ukraine. This is problematic not only because the UK is part of the 5 Eyes but also because all NATO members share intel with the US to a greater or lesser extent. For that matter the it's a two way deal. Do America's European partners now have cause to stop sharing intel in the other direction?
 
Officer of Engineers said:
The potential consequences was zero until the US got involved.

Yes, the effective counter was the US.

That's not the real issue. The US was sharing real time intel with the Ukrainians. When Russian fighter-bombers were taking off, the flight vectors was passed onto the Ukrainians real time, allowing the Ukrainians to plot real time interceptions. The 5 Eyes never had real time intel sharing.
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As far as point one goes? Possible US involvement is always a potential consequence in any nuclear exchange regardless of who is involved. And it's the same for all players even the US . If the US was considering a nuclear strike against a target other than Russia or China? It still has to consider the potential Russian and/or Chinese reaction to that strike. As I said nobody wants nukes flying unless or until the situation has reached the point where the continued existence of the State in question is threatened. Because once they are flying? Your ability to control the situation post launch rapidly disappears. There's simply no time left in which to react to unanticipated events. The rate at which events start to occur rapidly outpaces your decision cycles ability to cope.

On the second point and from what I've read? Britain and the rest of NATO do have AWAC & ISTAR assets, more than Russia does in fact as well as ground based radar systems and listening posts. They also have excellent decryption capabilities and some like the UK have their own surveillance satellites so Ukraine will still have access to those assets. (For now at least.) This won't replace the lost US real time intelligence but it's better than nothing and it's not like Russia's equivalents are in great shape either. By themselves in all areas bar satellite surveillance the Europeans have more (and superior) intelligence gathering kit than Russia does so they can still hand Ukraine an edge over Russia in that regard. It just won't be nearly as large an edge as it was before.
 
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The satellite imagery provided to Ukraine previously was third-party from a commercial provider (Maxar).
 
Officer of Engineers said:
The Ukrainians didn't have the men back then but even if they did start a year earlier, the Russians would have driven them out earlier.

If anything, I would argue that they should have started now, conquering as much territory now before the ceasefire.
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Not possible politically I think. Trump only switched US military support for Ukraine back on after Zelenskyy agreed to a cease fire, which was smart IMO because it now puts the pressure on Putin to also agree (or not) at a time when Russia was finally starting to make some gains, however slowly on the battlefield. If Ukraine immediately launched an attack now? The best bet is Trump would have a fit.

As things now stand the pressure is on Putin to agree and stop fighting. At a guess? He flip flop and try to delay as long as he thinks he can get away with. But the orange man is not known for his patience and Zelenskyy might be able to leverage Putin's intransigence into public commitments by Trump for the delivery of additional long range fire power asap if Putin doesn't immediately agree to a cease fire.
 
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Officer of Engineers said:
This is surprising about Zelensky risking a longer war.
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As far as he negotiations go and based on the news reports I'm reading Zelenskyy (and b default Ukraine) more or less agreed pretty quickly to negotiating a cease fire. The problem (again from the reports I'm reading) is Putin!. Russia is the one who spent what was it? 12 hours in negotiations with the US less than a day ago and agreed to nothing.

IMO this sort of makes sense given Russia is the one making progress (albeit slowly) on the battlefield at the moment. The question then becomes exactly how much leeway and time is Trump prepared to give Putin before he calls him out on his intransigence and actually threatens serious consequences for Russia. The longer Trump delays? The more more foolish (or pro-Putin, take your pick) Trump is going to look.
 
Interestingly Trump seems to have gone silent these past few day's on the cease fire. If it was anyone else you'd almost think he was having a 'come to Jesus" moment and realizing Putin can't be negotiated with in good faith. Going to be interesting to see what he does next, who he's going to blame for the delay and/or what excuses he makes.
 
Officer of Engineers said:
So, what is Trump going to do about it? Nothing. Europe is already sanctioning Russian products. The threat of tariffs on zero sales is zero.
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Well at one point he was threatening very high secondary sanctions on anyone purchasing Russian oil or gas. That would, if applied carefully would gut the Russian economy. I say carefully because in the case of India for example which was buying Russian oil before the invasion of Ukraine and had been for years what you'd have to do is apply a quota as well so India could still import oil at the levels needed to supply domestic demand but would get hit with tariffs if it processed more Russian crude than it needed itself for on-sale to third parties. Which BTW is something it has apparently been doing (quite profitably) for a while now.

Thing is Trump's been radio silent on that topic since he mentioned it a week or so ago. So who knows what's going to happen? Of course what we'd all like to see I think is Trump threatening to reverse his ban on weapon exports to Ukraine and then go even further by promising to double down on them if Putin doesn't play ball. Unfortunately I don't see much chance of that happening either. :frown:
 
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You've got to be shitting me! I couldn't make this shit up even if I wanted to. Someone with zero military experience PAID $3500 to fight in a meat grinder for a chance at RUSSIAN citizenship? I can understand mercs fighting for pay, maybe a chance at a home, for women certainly (Chinese brides are now gold diggers) but to pay your own goddamned money to join a meatgrinder for a chance to live under Putin?

WHY?
 
Officer of Engineers said:
You've got to be shitting me! I couldn't make this shit up even if I wanted to. Someone with zero military experience PAID $3500 to fight in a meat grinder for a chance at RUSSIAN citizenship? I can understand mercs fighting for pay, maybe a chance at a home, for women certainly (Chinese brides are now gold diggers) but to pay your own goddamned money to join a meatgrinder for a chance to live under Putin?

WHY?
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The passport? Getting a foreign passport if your Chinese without exportable skills?
 
Monash said:
The passport? Getting a foreign passport if your Chinese without exportable skills?
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A Russian passport that's banned in the Western world? Or a Chinese passport that's sort after (money) by ALL the 3rd World? Case in point. Which would you rather have? A Mexican passport or a Chinese passport? It makes zero sense to priotitze a Russian passport over a Chinese passport. If you're a Chinese with zero money, you're not getting a Russian bride!
 
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