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Frustration wrote: ↑Fri Mar 04, 2022 9:50 pm
At this point, I wonder if Russia would just nuke Ukraine if it somehow lost. Not that I expect they'll lose when they can just keep throwing bodies at them.
That's not how nukes are used in today's strategic environment. That would drag things down very quickly and the only situation where they'd be used is if NATO joined, repulsed Russia and then decided to push into the country itself to topple the government. Nukes are primarily strategically defensive and that is why Israel got them: You overrun us, we wipe the floor with you, so I can lose a war but never be wiped out.
This is why some wonder why the Ukraine gave up their legacy nukes as they would have ensured Russia couldn't do anything like what they're doing. They couldn't properly maintain the arsenal, though, and NATO pretty much pushed them into a treaty of assured protection to eliminate one extra nuclear nation.
The issue is a nuclear power is restrained in what it can do because of the added strategic dimension they have to deal with. There are many things non-nuclear powers can do that nuclear powers can't. Russia is testing those boundaries right now.
There's also an escalation-level below global thermonuclear war. Tactical nukes. Not using city-busters, but small scale warheads big enough to annhihilate troup-concentrations and small towns.
"If you get shot up by an A6M Reisen and your plane splits into pieces - does that mean it's divided by Zero?
- xoxSAUERKRAUTxox
Madner Kami wrote: ↑Sun Mar 06, 2022 1:18 am
There's also an escalation-level below global thermonuclear war. Tactical nukes. Not using city-busters, but small scale warheads big enough to annhihilate troup-concentrations and small towns.
It's the other way around. Once those get used the strategic ones get pulled out. That was why the US Army wasn't happy with it's situation in the Cold War. They got to sit around waiting to ship over the Europe only to get nuked and then have that be what decides the war, not them (Of course, the Soviet Army had other ideas about their role and like the Soviets in general saw nuclear warfare as a long war, not a brief one as the West does and the US Army would have had a continued purpose, they just didn't realize it).
They struggled to find a purpose and hated going from #1 service branch to #3. Maxwell Taylor devised Flexible Response as a solution looking for a problem, which Kennedy loved and that led to conventional forces in Vietnam.
Russian and Ukrainian sources are both blaming the other side so its hard to tell who actually broke it. Russian forces would be the main suspect but its not inconceivable that it was the Ukrainians. Although if it was Ukrainians that broke the cease fire I would be more inclined to put it down to human error than a deliberately plan. Maybe some soldier on the ground panicked or perhaps just didn't get the word to stop shooting, of course that applies to the Russians as well so we may never know what actually happened.
(Kinda like who fired the shot at Lexington)
This doesn't seem to actually be in much dispute save by the Russians. Apparently, they never stopped their bombardments.
Fuzzy Necromancer wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 4:50 am
On another note, this uh...has really brought some ugly things to the surface. In a way it's kind of a change to see the opinions stated outright, but uh...some people are being really racist about this. Not in a dog whistles and poor word choice way, either.
Honestly, I suspect large numbers of these comments are trolls.
What reason do you have to believe that?
For the rest... well, it's no different than a person of any given ethnicity being loudly concerned about any perceived oppression, discrimination, or bad fortune to come the way of that ethnicity.
We're used to hearing horror stories about sub-Saharan Africa, even though there are reasonably civilized and stable places of all kinds in that very large region. Massive destabilization on the edges of Europe is something we haven't seen in a long time.
Yikes.
"Believe me, there’s nothing so terrible that someone won’t support it."
— Un Lun Dun, China Mieville
Fuzzy Necromancer wrote: ↑Sat Mar 05, 2022 4:50 am
On another note, this uh...has really brought some ugly things to the surface. In a way it's kind of a change to see the opinions stated outright, but uh...some people are being really racist about this. Not in a dog whistles and poor word choice way, either.
Honestly, I suspect large numbers of these comments are trolls. For the rest... well, it's no different than a person of any given ethnicity being loudly concerned about any perceived oppression, discrimination, or bad fortune to come the way of that ethnicity.
We're used to hearing horror stories about sub-Saharan Africa, even though there are reasonably civilized and stable places of all kinds in that very large region. Massive destabilization on the edges of Europe is something we haven't seen in a long time.
If you think trolling is a major thing you have not been paying attention over the last 7 years
It's quite clear that actual trolling is incredibly rare and most of the time it's to give plausible deniability to genuinely held beliefs.
Frustration wrote: ↑Fri Mar 04, 2022 9:50 pm
At this point, I wonder if Russia would just nuke Ukraine if it somehow lost. Not that I expect they'll lose when they can just keep throwing bodies at them.
That's not how nukes are used in today's strategic environment. That would drag things down very quickly and the only situation where they'd be used is if NATO joined, repulsed Russia and then decided to push into the country itself to topple the government. Nukes are primarily strategically defensive and that is why Israel got them: You overrun us, we wipe the floor with you, so I can lose a war but never be wiped out.
This is why some wonder why the Ukraine gave up their legacy nukes as they would have ensured Russia couldn't do anything like what they're doing. They couldn't properly maintain the arsenal, though, and NATO pretty much pushed them into a treaty of assured protection to eliminate one extra nuclear nation.
The issue is a nuclear power is restrained in what it can do because of the added strategic dimension they have to deal with. There are many things non-nuclear powers can do that nuclear powers can't. Russia is testing those boundaries right now.
There are two reasons, one they would not have been actually able to use the nukes as the actual launch codes were held in Russia and the second is that Ukraine having nukes would almost certainly increase nuclear proliferation.
It's weird seeing European far-right groups being pro-Ukraine when so many American ones are enthusiastic Putin supporters. That clip of AFPAC cheering the invasion when Feuntes managed to stop giggling about how much he loves Hitler for a moment comes to mind.
...for space is wide, and good friends are too few.
Doctors without Borders is the one to confirm it was/is the Russians who did not observe the cease fire and used it as an opportunity to take pot shots at the Ukraine.
Translated:
The organization "Doctors Without Borders" called the humanitarian situation in the Ukrainian Mariupol catastrophic, reports Hromadske.
The population of the city has problems with access to drinking water, food is running out in Mariupol, there is no light and heat supply, the organization said.
About 450 thousand people live in Mariupol, since 2014, when the war began in Donbass, the city has remained under the control of Ukraine. For about a week, Mariupol has been blockaded by Russian troops and subjected to constant shelling.
The day before, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it was declaring a "silence regime" in the area of Mariupol and Volnovakha, another city under siege in the Donbass. The Ukrainian side announced that it was evacuating 200,000 people from Mariupol and 15,000 from Volnovakha. Later, representatives of Ukraine reported that the Russian troops did not observe the "silence regime", so the evacuation was impossible. Toward evening, the Russian Ministry of Defense accused Ukraine of disrupting the agreements and announced the "resumption of the offensive."
The theme of opening humanitarian corridors from the cities of Ukraine most affected by the strikes was the main one during the second round of Ukrainian-Russian talks. The third round is due on March 7th.
