Armchair General's DonbAss Derailed Discussion Thread (Topics Include History, Traps, and the Ongoing Slavic Civil War plus much much more)

[WolfBear]

Impoverishment and corruption? That's exactly what they have now, and getting out of it, as the case studies of post communist countries demonstrate, is a very slow process without guaranteed success date?

Small, highly cohesive country, with unusually religious subgroups contributing to that TFR disporportionally, while still being culturally related to the other part of the country that produces said elite science.
Most of the West doesn't have such subgroups (Amish?), while Russia is the opposite of small and highly cohesive.

Well if they insist, they can have North Korea/Iran style "prestige\military piece" outdated space program, and a bunch of Chechens and company bumping up the TFR.


Elite science requires either elite prestige (which takes time, politics and money) or top shelf high tech toys in more "material" elite science even if you have smart people (Intermarium doesn't have this kind of money to spare and won't have for a hundred years after dealing with all the mess communism left). We can check how much money it takes to prototype things like next generation nuclear reactors, SSTO spacecraft or top quality computer chips, those are truly eye watering sums, even if you have the right business environment and expert workforce, without the funding, womp womp. It's notable that quite a few countries get into that territory or expand their presence there through some direct or indirect fallout of high military spending.

Russia isn't that poor right now. Well, not much worse than Poland is. Though it is much more corrupt than Poland is.

The US also has Mormons. And Russia might have its own breeders:

Where Are Russia\'s Breeders?

As commenter Reykur recently pointed out - citing the work of the blogger denalt, there is a rather curious phenomenon occurring in a few ethnic Russian regions, where rural fertility has exploded in the past decade. There are precisely four of these regions - Arkhangelsk, Komi, Kirov, and...

www.unz.com

In any case, even encouraging normal/regular Russian families to have 3+ children would do wonders. I know of some middle-class Israeli Jews who have had 3+ children, for instance. And Chechens aren't very good for bumping up the TFR since their ability to successfully integrate into Russia isn't very good. Radical Islam combined with Caucasian tribalism and warlordism kind of does that.

Yeah, that makes sense. Interestingly enough, though, China produces a lot of elite science in spite of it being Communist, though it also has a population ten times the size of Russia's.

 

[Marduk]

Russia isn't that poor right now. Well, not much worse than Poland is. Though it is much more corrupt than Poland is.

Only if you look at GDP and government budget, without looking too deep into all the corruption, voodoo economics, and other tricks.
You like statistics so much, so you will love this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult

Look at where Russia is in mean and median there, and suddenly all the toilet and washing machine stealing makes a bit more sense.

Yeah, that makes sense. Interestingly enough, though, China produces a lot of elite science in spite of it being Communist, though it also has a population ten times the size of Russia's.

a) China is richer now in many ways.
b) China has a more functional economy.
c) China is less corrupt.
d) Scale of economy and budget allows funding science megaprojects like reactor prototypes and particle colliders much easier.
e) China has extremely aggressive elite scientist recruiting programs working in other countries specifically to help with that.

 

[Sailor.X]

Russian head of mobilization, for one region, seems to have 'killed himself'...

He had all the dirt on Bill and Hillary Clinton...........

 

[WolfBear]

 

[lloyd007]

Absolute utter best Russia's gonna get from those scenarios now is a very truncated 'Novorossiya' if Ukraine can't get a Zaphorizhizhia offensive going... otherwise I honestly don't see them holding anything other than maybe Crimea and even that is seriously in question now that the Kerch Bridge is no longer 'sacred.' The separatists from all indications are being bled out and chewed up from both sides since the Kremlin gives less fks about them than their own troops so if / when the Ukrainians push the Russians out of northern Luhansk there's probably going to be f'all remaining of the 2014 fortifications in both infrastructure and men to fill out the lines.

 

[WolfBear]

Absolute utter best Russia's gonna get from those scenarios now is a very truncated 'Novorossiya' if Ukraine can't get a Zaphorizhizhia offensive going... otherwise I honestly don't see them holding anything other than maybe Crimea and even that is seriously in question now that the Kerch Bridge is no longer 'sacred.' The separatists from all indications are being bled out and chewed up from both sides since the Kremlin gives less fks about them than their own troops so if / when the Ukrainians push the Russians out of northern Luhansk there's probably going to be f'all remaining of the 2014 fortifications in both infrastructure and men to fill out the lines.

The crucial question would be whether and when exactly Russia would actually be willing to use nuclear weapons. And also whether the West would be willing to conventionally militarily respond to such a Russian move. Is the West actually willing to risk nuclear war over Crimea and the Donbass, for instance?

 

[Sailor.X]

The crucial question would be whether and when exactly Russia would actually be willing to use nuclear weapons. And also whether the West would be willing to conventionally militarily respond to such a Russian move. Is the West actually willing to risk nuclear war over Crimea and the Donbass, for instance?

They would have no choice. If Russia gets away with it. Russia would do it to get back other former USSR territory. And China would see the use of nukes as a option to take Taiwan. So use of nukes is something that NATO can't afford to let slide.

 

[lloyd007]

The crucial question would be whether and when exactly Russia would actually be willing to use nuclear weapons. And also whether the West would be willing to conventionally militarily respond to such a Russian move. Is the West actually willing to risk nuclear war over Crimea and the Donbass, for instance?

If Russia uses nukes... I really shudder since I trust the puppetmasters behind the Hairsniffer FAR less than Putin...

My guess of the most 'restrained' and appropriate response would be tactical nuking or conventionally obliterating ALL the incoming logistics lines into Ukraine on the Russian side for many miles... so every rail and road bridge leading anywhere into Ukraine is just gone and a lot of everyone starves / freezes / etc. to death in the aftermath.

And that's if Russia tac nukes a clear military target, if it's a city... well...

 

[The Original Sixth]

Speaking of which...

Wait, so are they poorly designed or did they put them on backwards?

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

Wait, so are they poorly designed or did they put them on backwards?

I believe the problem is that the "armour" on the Mystery Machine is too thin to take the explosion from the reactive armour.

 

[The Original Sixth]

I believe the problem is that the "armour" on the Mystery Machine is too thin to take the explosion from the reactive armour.

Ah, general incompetence then.

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

Ah, general incompetence then.

It seems so. They'd be better served slapping on scrap, or using a kit like the USA used in Iraq.

 

[LordsFire]

Wait, so are they poorly designed or did they put them on backwards?

In order to use explosives 'defensively' as ERA does, you need to have tough enough base armor that your ERA doesn't wreck you. There's a reason that this stuff isn't used on things like HUMVEEs, and rarely if ever on APCs.

The basic physics of it is that when you detonate a minor explosive on your own armor deliberately, the armor makes the entire blast wave go outwards, and that blast-wave interferes with the incoming shot enough to spoil its ability to penetrate your armor.

 

[Marduk]

The crucial question would be whether and when exactly Russia would actually be willing to use nuclear weapons. And also whether the West would be willing to conventionally militarily respond to such a Russian move. Is the West actually willing to risk nuclear war over Crimea and the Donbass, for instance?

The West will have to do something meaningful, different question if meaningful enough, because everyone knows that Iran, China and North Korea are watching this like hawks on ritalin.
If the West can be made to blink through pushing nuclear escalation enough, such knowledge would have immense potential use for them, which they would probably put to own use sooner rather than later.

Wait, so are they poorly designed or did they put them on backwards?

They are suicidal. You don't put ERA on a soft skinned vehicle. Or even a thinly armored one, like MT-LB or BMP-1. The plate it's on needs to be strong enough to survive the ERA explosion.

 

[WolfBear]

Would you classify the Kerch Straight bridge bombing as being a war crime?

Marc Chagall's Green Goat (@AstralPreobraz1)

If true (could be, theory you linked to seemed complicated and involved a lot of countries but who knows) then use of an unwitting civilian would be a war crime. Are all war crimes defined as terrorism? If SOF did it, or missile, or boat, or volunteer driver - a legit act of war

nitter.1d4.us

As in, do you think that a civilian driver was duped into becoming a suicide bomber against his will?

As a side note, though, I do think that it is rather rich for Russians to complain about war crimes after everything that Russia has done. Still, Ukraine should aim not to stoop to Russians' level in regards to this.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

Would you classify the Kerch Straight bridge bombing as being a war crime?

Nope.

As in, do you think that a civilian driver was duped into becoming a suicide bomber against his will?

Don't think we'll ever know the truth.

 

[WolfBear]

Or buy from Iran, like with so many other things. They Ayatollah having this much leverage and power over Russian supply chains should be rather humiliating to Putin domestically, but the Russia media obviously tries ignore/playdown this angle.

Consider this a part of Russia's strategy to pivot to the Indian Ocean lol, except it's now Iran that's pivoting to the Black and Baltic Seas lol!

 

[WolfBear]

 

[Marduk]

Would you classify the Kerch Straight bridge bombing as being a war crime?

Marc Chagall's Green Goat (@AstralPreobraz1)

If true (could be, theory you linked to seemed complicated and involved a lot of countries but who knows) then use of an unwitting civilian would be a war crime. Are all war crimes defined as terrorism? If SOF did it, or missile, or boat, or volunteer driver - a legit act of war

nitter.1d4.us

As in, do you think that a civilian driver was duped into becoming a suicide bomber against his will?

As a side note, though, I do think that it is rather rich for Russians to complain about war crimes after everything that Russia has done. Still, Ukraine should aim not to stoop to Russians' level in regards to this.

Which specific Geneva or Hague Convention paragraph would it violate?
It's certainly not disproportionate or intentional civilian casualty in relation to the military significance of the target. If they put the bomb on a schoolbus loaded with children, then this argument could have been made, but as it is, not really.
Logically, if it was, then also any attacks (guerilla, air, artillery) in wars past on civilian trucks or trains transporting military supplies within enemy territory would be a war crime (driver dies too).
Secondly, if we take that funny reasoning, it's delayed article 5 time, because Russia has not only committed an act of war against a NATO country while at peace by similar covert means, but that act was a war crime too (2 civilians died), so it's in Russia's interest to be rather thick skinned when it comes to stretching the seriousness of acts against itself, especially from western-aligned factions.

A Czech Explosion, Russian Agents, A Bulgarian Arms Dealer: The Recipe For A Major Spy Scandal In Central Europe

The cause of the 2014 explosions at two Czech arms depots has been a mystery for years. Czech authorities now say a secretive Russian military intelligence unit was to blame -- the same unit linked to a spate of poisonings, assassination attempts, and subversive actions across Europe.

www.rferl.org

 

[Largo]

The West will have to do something meaningful, different question if meaningful enough, because everyone knows that Iran, China and North Korea are watching this like hawks on ritalin.
If the West can be made to blink through pushing nuclear escalation enough, such knowledge would have immense potential use for them, which they would probably put to own use sooner rather than later.

Do we?

Like, if Russia uses nukes and we start being cowards and tell Ukraine "You're on your own," that's bad for the reasons you said. But do we actually have to do anything that different from what we're doing?

The West is winning, and I'm not convinced that tactical nukes are the game-changer that people seem to think they are. I think there's a real chance that they could backfire in and of themselves, as they don't get the results Putin want and do, even with the West not lifting a finger, cause alarm and horror whether from within Russia or the Global South.

I suppose that we could just turn up the money/spigot more. But I'm actually sort of convinced that launching some mass conventional attack in response to tactical nukes might be a mistake. Should note that this only applies to tactical nukes. If Russia straight up nukes Kiev, then yeah, burn the Russian army to the ground.