Miscellaneous News

[Iron Man]

Neither does NATO(excluding america) can go offensive against russia and capture the whole nation. If anything it's going to be stalemate. They don't have manufacturing capability that Russia, usa or china has. And if NATO does go offensive against russia then china would definitely come to aid.

Again, NATO will not be attacking Russia. But without its nukes, there is no way in hell it could have held onto Ukraine for as long as it did. NATO would have advanced right up to Russia's borders after the collapse of the Soviet Union, far more quickly than it actually did. What NATO actually did was something more like salami slicing the former Eastern Bloc, absorbing one country slowly at a time, almost like trying to give Russia time to get used to the idea, before it absorbed another former Soviet country. It's just unfortunate for everyone that NATO (or perhaps just the US) tempted fortune too recklessly, and Russia showed everyone that it actually meant what it said about its red lines.

 

[Serb]

Sorry, but it's not "deflection" if you just sit there immobilized for weeks and let the enemy destroy your forces at will; that's called a "slaughter". Very clearly what Putin wanted initially was a brief and violent conflict that would be ended by the ouster of Zelensky and the instatement of someone to his liking. That goal was to be achieved by the Kiev offensive. Russia didn't turn eastwards until well after it became clear that Kiev would not fall. And there is no way in hell that Russia's goal was to somehow only "partially" defeat Ukraine for the purpose of bleeding Europe; this is just too ridiculous an idea to entertain seriously.

Isn't this exactly what they'll get from Trump in the end, only now with four entire oblasts formally annexed and recognized?

They just had to wait an extra 3 years for it, during which they rapidly reorganized their military for the future, redirected their economy toward the rising East, achieved record employment and economic growth, reduced their dependence on the hostile West, kickstarted domestic production in many areas, reined in the oligarchs completely, reached an unprecedented level of national unity at all levels, accelerated Europe's deindustrialization and socio-political decline, and more.

So why assume that after the failed Kyiv offensive and shift to the East the slow advance wasn’t intentional from some point?

 

[coolgod]

This should be required reading for everyone in this forum, translated into Chinese, and reposted as required reading too.

I think the US military needs to reestablish credibility in the eyes of the citizens in their own country and in their vassal states. They need to win a war in order to do that, I think Syria is the best choice. The US military needs to go in there and obliterate all those "terrorists" HTS i.e. Al Qaeda, ISIS, turkish proxies and who ever the US doesn't really like. This move wouldn't be opposed by either Russia or China and would have the moral support of most countries.

Only after the US establishes an outstanding victory on the battlefield, can the US military enact painful reforms within after.

 

[Iron Man]

Isn't this exactly what they'll get from Trump in the end, only now with four entire oblasts formally annexed and recognized?

They just had to wait an extra 3 years for it, during which they rapidly reorganized their military for the future, redirected their economy toward the rising East, achieved record employment and economic growth, reduced their dependence on the hostile West, kickstarted domestic production in many areas, reined in the oligarchs completely, reached an unprecedented level of national unity at all levels, accelerated Europe's deindustrialization and socio-political decline, and more.

So why assume that after the failed Kyiv offensive and shift to the East the slow advance wasn’t intentional from some point?

Hindsight is 20/20. And there is no way in hell that Russia could have predicted who would win the 2024 US presidential election, in 2022.

 

[iewgnem]

Neither does NATO(excluding america) can go offensive against russia and capture the whole nation. If anything it's going to be stalemate. They don't have manufacturing capability that Russia, usa or china has. And if NATO does go offensive against russia then china would definitely come to aid.

I don't think you can group USA together with Russia or China at this point, considering they have to invoke North Korea to explain why the collective west can't keep up with Russian industry.

This is the problem with the whole NATO vs Russia scenerio, NATO is everything they have, they're the entirity of the western world, while Russia is just part of the Russia-China equation. Moreover Russia is no longer in any way dependant on the west for anything, while NATO is more dependant than ever on China to keep their own society functioning.

In the actual conflict it doesn't even need to get to the point of China directly helping Russia, China just need to cut NATO off and collapse their society.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

My counterexample is pretty much every country the US has ever invaded since WW2, including Afghanistan and Iraq. The point is that if you were fighting a conventional war against the US, you would have lost. Period.

Korea?

Afghanistan was subsequently lost (from the US POV) because the insurgents fought an unconventional war, something which the US cannot deal with effectively. Russia would not be able to fight such a war inside Ukraine because it's the invader and the local population would not be a source of insurgents and would absolutely side with the US/NATO. It would have had to fight a conventional war against the US/NATO, and it would have lost. Badly.

OK, so you say that insurgents fight like in Afghanistan, right? Just so we are clear, the Taliban had no air force, no tanks, no artillery. They fought as light infantry teams that blended into the terrain. This is an insurgency. Do you agree?

When you hamstring and half-ass yourself on purpose, like for example in Vietnam where the US never formally invaded North Vietnam with troops, or like in Ukraine, or like in Yemen, then you tend to not do so well. In the particular case of Vietnam it was both the US hamstringing itself combined with the difficulties of insurgency-style warfare that finally did the US in and caused it to fold like a lawn chair. The US population more and more turning against the war also did nothing to help the US military ramping up or even continuing the conflict.

I must be mistaken. I am unaware of insurgents flying Mig-21s with more fighter aces and shooting down enemy planes with 2:1 kill ratios? Were the Taliban flying Migs and shooting down planes with SAMs? Please answer, what insurgency is equipped with fighters, SAMs, tanks, etc?

What was the air to air kill ratio in Afghanistan, against an insurgency? What was the air to air kill ratio in Vietnam, supposedly an 'insurgency'?

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Name	Country	Service	Victories	Aircraft
Nguyễn Văn Cốc[3]	North Vietnam	VPAF	9	Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
Mai Văn Cường[3]	North Vietnam	VPAF	8	MiG-21
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	North Vietnam	VPAF	8	MiG-21
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	North Vietnam	VPAF	8	MiG-21
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	North Vietnam	VPAF	7	MiG-21
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	North Vietnam	VPAF	7	Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! (WSO) Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	United States	USAF	6	Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	North Vietnam	VPAF	6	MiG-17
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	North Vietnam	VPAF	6	MiG-21
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	North Vietnam	VPAF	6	MiG-17
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	North Vietnam	VPAF	6	MiG-21
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	North Vietnam	VPAF	6	MiG-21
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	North Vietnam	VPAF	6	MiG-21
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	North Vietnam	VPAF	6	MiG-17, MiG-21
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	North Vietnam	VPAF	6	MiG-21
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	North Vietnam	VPAF	6	MiG-21
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! (pilot) Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	United States	USN	5	F-4 Phantom II
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! (RIO)	United States	USN	5	F-4 Phantom II J
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! (pilot) Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	United States	USAF	5	F-4 Phantom II
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! (WSO) Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	United States	USAF	5	F-4 Phantom II
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	North Vietnam	VPAF	5	MiG-17, Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!	North Vietnam	VPAF	5	MiG-21
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! : 131	North Vietnam	VPAF	5	MiG-17
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content! : 51	North Vietnam	VPAF	5	MiG-17

Please answer for me, very simply: do you see more names affiliated with "North Vietnam" or do you see more names affiliated with "United States" on the list of air to air fighter aces?

I'm also curious, why would the US be scared of invading North Vietnam directly? Surely that would be a conventional war and they'd win a conventional war so why did they choose to allow 'insurgents' to shoot down 10k planes?

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[Serb]

Hindsight is 20/20. And there is no way in hell that Russia could have predicted who would win the 2024 US presidential election, in 2022.

I don’t think all of that was just hindsight. Instead, I believe the Russians initially underestimated the sheer level of resistance they would face from Ukrainians, along with the deep-seated hostility toward their rule. This miscalculation is why the offensive on Kyiv failed.

At the same time, they also underestimated their own ability to sustain the war economy and withstand Western sanctions. Likewise, they overestimated the West’s financial capacity to wage economic warfare and its industrial strength to sustain a prolonged conflict.

At some point, I think Putin recognized the long-term advantages of engaging in protracted warfare in Eastern Ukraine (the ones I mentioned in the last post), which is why they avoided overcommitting there and went slowly.

So, even if Trump hadn’t come into office in 2024, I believe Russia would have still preferred this strategy moving forward; And what about the 2028 elections? What about Taiwan? What about the West’s continued decline?

In the end, Putin and Russia have gained significant leverage, which is why Trump is making so many concessions in these talks.

 

[MortyandRick]

The point of the proposed regulation is like other Hegemon policies: to damage Chinese manufacturing sector. Ship building will not go back to the US. The Hegemon wants to use the new rules to force the ship orders to go to South Korean and Japanese shipyards instead of Chinese ones.

Yeah I see that.
My point is, during the time of the Jones Act, the US did have a sizable ship building industry and the Jones Act didn't save it. It acctually furthered it's decline.

It has a lot of similarities in this case. China gets more orders because they can build it faster for cheaper. This act will increase Korean and Japanese ship building prices, making companies focus of US trade only as it may be uncompetitive trading internationally.

It would be poetic justice if this new act makes if so expensive to unload at port of LA, especially with its lack of automation that it decreases throughout at the LA port, causing them to lose even more jobs.

 

[Overbom]

5 pages of hypothetical crap scenarios when I could give you 1 certain fact in a single post.

If NATO or US attempted anything stupid on Russia, China would send send such aid to Russia that it would be a small miracle if Russia didn't conquer the entire European continent

Talking about stupid things while forgetting the Chinese dragon. You think the dragon is stupid and would let Russia die? Instead of being thankful that Chinese ai-enabled drones aren't blobbing the entire sky, you are here talking bs

 

[Iron Man]

Korea?

What about Korea?

OK, so you say that insurgents fight like in Afghanistan, right? Just so we are clear, the Taliban had no air force, no tanks, no artillery. They fought as light infantry teams that blended into the terrain. This is an insurgency. Do you agree?

The initial phase of the war (in 2001), was a straight up conventional force on force war. After the US defeated the Taliban standing armed forces overwhelmingly, it then became an insurgency when the rest of the Taliban went into hiding and started striking at the US with (mostly) guerilla-style tactics, interspersed with rare force on force engagements, which it overwhelmingly lost; a very similar situation to Vietnam.

I must be mistaken. I am unaware of insurgents flying Mig-21s with more fighter aces and shooting down enemy planes with 2:1 kill ratios? Were the Taliban flying Migs and shooting down planes with SAMs? Please answer, what insurgency is equipped with fighters, SAMs, tanks, etc?

What was the air to air kill ratio in Afghanistan, against an insurgency? What was the air to air kill ratio in Vietnam, supposedly an 'insurgency'?

Please answer for me, very simply: do you see more names affiliated with "North Vietnam" or do you see more names affiliated with "United States" on the list of air to air fighter aces?

I'm also curious, why would the US be scared of invading North Vietnam directly? Surely that would be a conventional war and they'd win a conventional war so why did they choose to allow 'insurgents' to shoot down 10k planes?

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Please answer for me, very simply: what was the total air-to-air kill ratio in Vietnam, and why in light of that would I even give one flying frack how many aces from which side are listed on a table? Here, let me help you:

The Air Force had a Vietnam War total of 137 kills.

Air Force planes of all types on air-to-air missions had an overall 3.8-1 kill ratio for the entire war. In an apples-to-apples comparison with the F-86s in Korea, the Air Forces’ MiGCAP F-4s in Vietnam had 5.5-1 kill ratio, with a very strong upward trend toward 15-1 during the the final five months of the war, greatly exceeding the Korean War results of 10-1.

The Navy’s kill ratios—involving a much smaller number of engagements—were 4.7-1 for aircraft of all types during the entire war, 6.4-1 for MiGCAP missions during the entire war and 8.7-1 for MiGCAPs in the Topgun era.

Freed up by Teaball to be more aggressive without fear of ambush, the MiGCAP force did spectacularly well, shooting down 15 and losing only one. In short, when the Air Force was afforded conditions similar to those that helped the Navy, the results of the two services were very similar.

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The problem for your argument is again that the North Vietnamese employed both conventional and unconventional (guerilla warfare) tactics against the US military. This is in the same vein of warfare used by the Taliban. The US overwhelmingly tends to win straight up force-on-force engagements, while suffering a death by a thousand cuts on the receiving end of an insurgency-style war.

I don’t think all of that was just hindsight. Instead, I believe the Russians initially underestimated the sheer level of resistance they would face from Ukrainians, along with the deep-seated hostility toward their rule. This miscalculation is why the offensive on Kyiv failed.

You said the offensive on Kiev was a feint for the purpose of "deflecting" from their (true) eastern offensive. Have you changed your mind, then?

At the same time, they also underestimated their own ability to sustain the war economy and withstand Western sanctions. Likewise, they overestimated the West’s financial capacity to wage economic warfare and its industrial strength to sustain a prolonged conflict.

On this we could agree.

At some point, I think Putin recognized the long-term advantages of engaging in protracted warfare in Eastern Ukraine (the ones I mentioned in the last post), which is why they avoided overcommitting there and went slowly.

So, even if Trump hadn’t come into office in 2024, I believe Russia would have still preferred this strategy moving forward; And what about the 2028 elections? What about Taiwan? What about the West’s continued decline?

In the end, Putin and Russia have gained significant leverage, which is why Trump is making so many concessions in these talks.

Putin certainly has come to see that Western sanctions have limited value, and that Russia's economy is more resilient than the West, or perhaps even Putin, believed initially. But this is certainly to have been a conclusion come to by hindsight, not as you say, as a strategy set from the beginning to bleed Europe.