The final objective of NATO has always been the Balkanization of Russia into a bunch of failed comprador states so it can't challenge the west anymore
The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
The final objective of NATO has always been the Balkanization of Russia into a bunch of failed comprador states so it can't challenge the west anymore
Reading far too much History. Propaganda and Unrelated other wars in the overnight (for me that is) section this morning
Its not what we are about and it needs to stop.
Its not what we are about and it needs to stop.
The images of that failed river crossing from the ground:
Chinese incursion into Vietnam and Russian invasion of Ukraine are totally incomparable in these terms.
China did not attack Vietnam to win. Rather it was done as a piece of diplomatic signaling to the US, as well as the USSR, that China has realigned itself in the aftermath of the end of Vietnam war and the normalization of sino-US relationship.
To the Americans it signaled China is no longer to be considered part of socialist camp, and is willing to provide cooperation to the US to contain the USSR in Asia in peace and provides the potential to making WWIII winnable for America by perspectively facilitating the opening of a new land and air war front against soviet Siberia in case of WWIII, in return for further normalization of relation and access to American finances and technology.
To the Soviets, whom the Chinese believe to be engaged in an effort to surround and strangle China via usurping China‘s role as communist Vietnam’s main patron, supporting Vietnam‘s invasion and occupation of China’s client state in Cambodia, and invading and occupying Afghanistan, it signaled that China is willing to disrupt this effort with force, and that China would now have America‘s acquiescence and support when it does this, and the way is open for china to collaborate even more closely with the US if the USSR is perceived to be continuing to try to squeeze China.
The signals were sent and received, so the mission was accomplished. There is no “can’t afford to lose”.
China made this realignment because china needed an extended breathing room provided by being a international free agent to repair the devastated state of economy and chaotic internal political struggle left by the Mao era. If China had kept fighting in Vietnam, it would actually defeat the purpose of the realignment by bogging china down and thus making China much less of a free agent able to triangulate between the US and USSR.
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On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is grounded in reality, 5 is naive optimism, and 10 is cultish delusion, some writers of this forum rates 40 or 50 in their assessment of contemporary Russia’s ability to successfully engage NATO.
Each tank is only roughly ~1 million USD. Western propaganda seems to emphasize Russian tank loses but fail to acknowledge the relatively insignificant cost of each tank.
Couldn't the same be said about some posters on this forum rating Ukrainian power as well? I mean many here believed the ghost of Kiev, snake island given Russians the finger and getting killed when in reality they just surrender. We've come to expect exaggerated claims from the Ukrainian side give their past PR campaign, less so than the Russians. The amount of damage done by ukraine to Russian according to some posters here should have allowed the Ukrainians reach the Kuril islands.
It goes the other way around too, with some people overstimating NATO's political willingness(outside of the UK and US) and ability to provive equipment and training to Ukraine without afecting their own readiness and the fact that NATO, should they be dragged into the conflict themselves, is still mostly geared and trained to do COIN and colonial policing in the Middle East and Africa, not fight a near-peer war, no matter how many Strong Europe excercises they do.
While it is true that Russia has been fucking up badly in many areas thanks in big part due to incompetence, misuse of assets, it is also true they aren't fully commited to this war as they should, which in turns exacerbates the impact of the blunders as they can't pick up the slack somewhere else. A fully mobilized Russia will be something different, and there is no way around that.
This is compouded by the fact that Ukraine, having been part of the same country once, is familiar with Soviet-derived tactics so they kind of know what to expect and where, which is also backed by NATO's ISR assets that act as a force-multiplier. But this also points out to the fact that Ukraine should be doing far more better than they are, and thats against an enemy with numerical inferiority when it comes to infantry and technical inferiority in UAV and ISR assets.
A lot of the discussion make it seems like the Ukrainians are as badly armed, trained and backed as the Houthis or the Talibans, which is far from it. The Houthis can only dream of having the amout of ISR support Ukraine is getting and they still can mount counteroffensives better than Ukraine does.
A full blown NATO-Russia war would change the dynamic of the conflict, but this change also goes both ways; yes, you'll be seeing Leopards 2 in Lviv and whatnot, but now NATO ISR assets can be freely targeted as well, and they aren't that many to begin with, just to use an example.
All of this hinges on the assumption that NATO won't tear itself appart at the seams of self-interest and political expediency of each its members in the process of deciding to jump all in or not.
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Didn't you guys claim Russia would run out of Ballistic missiles very soon? You guys also claim that Russian economy would collapse within weeks after Western sanctions.
Ukraine is not getting modern tanks either. Poland T-72 tanks are outdated and even worse than many Ukrainian tanks. Many heavy military aids are just coming out of storage or very old Soviet hardware from previous Warsaw block.
In a war of attrition you can't just count equipment, you also have to count available soldiers. Ukraine had a population of about 40 million, how many of those are fighting age men? A few million people are already under Russian administration or wish they'd be, maybe 1/6 of the country, leaving 33 million. Of the rest, many are too old or too young or women, leaving maybe a third of that, so 11 million. What proportion of them is actually physically able and willing to fight? How many men have already fled? How many might be willing to defend their hometown or house, but wouldn't join the army for operations in other parts of Ukraine? The pool of available soldiers is maybe as small as 5 million men and there's no new supply as the children have already left and their wives are now living in the west, potentially meeting new partners. As long as Russia keeps killing a large number of Ukrainian soldiers every week, their recruitment and morale is worsening and at some point people will refuse to fight if fighting means certain death. If Russia kills 20% of the 5 million potential fighters, the rest will flee or surrender