This was the Breaking News thread for Russia invades the Ukraine, not a thread to conjecture about Trump. Don’t do this again.
I have split a large chunk of the recent posts out of the thread to this thread. Oy!
I got carried away. I was merely trying to give an example of something that could go wrong for Ukraine which isn’t completely unimaginable. I’ll drop the hijack.
IMHO, the war will end with one of two things:
- NATO intervenes directly.
- NATO gives enough armament to Ukraine that Ukraine can get the job done itself.
The third option, a Russian victory, isn’t going to happen - NATO has given just enough arms to stalemate the war but not end it.
Unfortunately there are no signs of either 1# or 2# happening yet.
Honestly, I’ve been yearning for Russia to attack a NATO state in some way ever since the war began. It would end things much better and faster. I would be tickled pink to read headlines of “Russian Missiles Strike Estonia” or something like that. This war has been like an immune system (Ukraine) trying to fight off germs (Russia) by itself when antibiotics (NATO) would solve it much faster.
Russian pilots tried to “dogfight” US jets over Syria, according to a spokesman for US Central Command, part of a recent pattern of more aggressive behavior…
The Russian pilots do not appear to be trying to shoot down American jets, a US official told CNN, but they may be trying to “provoke” the US and “draw us into an international incident.” …
Since the beginning of March, Russian jets have violated deconfliction protocols a total of 85 times…
Fortunately, U.S. pilots are generally well-disciplined. They’re not going to bite the baited hook on the Russian longline. But Russians seem prone to mistakes. If they poke too hard, they may cross the line and get smacked down. If they retaliate, then NATO (or at least the U.S.) will be involved. We’ve seen what happens when Nazis open a second front.
I honestly think that if NATO troops are deployed in any capacity to Ukraine without Putin being on board with it, Kiev will be the target of a tactical nuke. He’s itching to use one to see if the West will respond in kind.
Russians striking at a member of NATO soldier would start WW3 while Russians striking at Ukrainian troops would not.
There’s nothing wrong with Soviet era equipment, much of it is extremely usable and the Russians are making heavy use of it. However, it’s not unlimited in quantity (especially as poor maintenance caused by soldiers signing off on repairs and preventative maintenance that never occurred has been going on for decades) and Russian manufacturing cannot keep up with the demand.
As long as the supply of NATO weapons for Ukraine doesn’t dry up, Russia will not be able to keep this up for 10 years.
The UN can do peacekeeping. They can’t do peacemaking. The blue helmets can come in during a truce as a buffer but they can’t fight an army. Even during peacekeeping their Rules of Engagement are so tight they can’t stop real aggression. They had to stand by and watch massacres in Bosnia.
Yes, the peacekeeping concept only works when there is some will on both sides to wind down the conflict. The only time UN forces were deployed in a purely military capacity was in the Korean War, and that is highly unlikely to ever happen again.
Back to the border needs to mean out of Crimea as well.
I’d like to see the U.S. do stealthy B-2 or F-35 airstrikes, masquerading as Ukrainian action, just barely enough that it falls below the threshold of “Are the Ukrainians capable of doing this?” in befuddled Kremlin minds.
Until one of the B-2s or F-35s is sighted by Russian folks equipped with cameras or crashes or is shot down.
That plan is doomed to spectacular back-firing failure within days, if not hours, of being put into action.
Why? Why do people keep coming up with these harebrained schemes that will accomplish little and only escalate the conflict?
If you actually want to aid Ukraine, you need only look at what Ukraine is asking for. They need tanks and armored vehicles to continue making offensive pushes; they need long range missiles; and they need fighter jets (not necessarily F series; their existing infrastructure and training means that MIGs are easiest to deploy, and a plane designed for this exact scenario like the Swedish Gripen could also work well.
Eta: and of course, they need munitions, rations, munitions, night vision goggles, munitions, body armor, munitions, and munitions.
Yes, of course. By “the border”, I meant “the border that everyone in the world, including Russia, agreed to by treaty”. Which includes Crimea as part of Ukraine.
We already have a bunch of modern tanks in Europe. If I were in charge, half of them would be loaded onto trains and shipped to western Ukraine immediately, together with enough experienced crews to train the Ukrainians on them. Let Ukraine decide when they’re ready to take them to the front lines. This is precisely why all of those tanks were built and sent to Europe in the first place, to resist Russian attempts at conquest. They can do that job a lot more effectively in Ukraine than on a base in Frankfurt.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we are doing all we can or that we shouldn’t do more. By all means, send as many NATO tanks to Ukraine as possible, be they Abrams or Leopards or anything else. And I agree that stopping Russian aggression in Europe is precisely the reason that these weapons and platforms were built to begin with.
There’s even a strong case for sending American made fighters like the F series, not so much for the planes themselves (as noted above MIGs or Gripens have a number of advantage here) but because some of our best long range missiles can only be launched from American made planes that can properly communicate with the missile.
But the point is that there’s plenty of equipment that Ukraine has identified as something they need and that will make a big difference. If you or I or @Velocity want to aid Ukraine more we should tell our elected officials to send what Ukraine needs and is asking for, rather than fantasizing about scenarios that will kickstart WW3.
Maybe the fictional Russia that many thought existed as a very powerful military force prior to Feb '22, but the real Russia? Not a chance. They’ve barely been able to fight for a year. And for most of that year, they haven’t been able to accomplish anything militarily significant. Killing civilians is terrible, but it’s not difficult when you’re already in the territory. If Russia is expelled from Ukraine, then Ukraine can join NATO, and NATO forces can bolster Ukrainian defenses. And Russia won’t be able to do a damn thing – feeble artillery attacks would be responded to with modern airstrikes that destroy Russia’s ability to even fire those feeble obsolete artillery.
Face it. Russia is very weak, militarily speaking.
Net of their nukes, yes they are very weak. But other than in the fantasy thread running concurrently with this one, they are not net of their nukes.
Sorry, I can’t agree here. Don’t wish for war. The results would be hellish at best.
Ukraine needs FOOD to fight. More than bullets. “An Army marches on its stomach” I think the UN and/or the US or Europe can do that.
Funnel some Canadian grain through the US and we should be able to get it to Europe, and help with air drops.
We can worry about the rest later.
I think this dates back to pre-WWI days, when the French and British military were making tentative plans for mutual assistance in the event of war. General Foch was asked “What is the smallest British military force that would be of any practical assistance to you?” He replied: “A single British soldier – and we will see to it that he is killed.”