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

[ATP]

No, it's completely and utterly true that NATO lied, we gave multiple informal assurances to the effect that NATO would not expand from senior officials, and then promptly went back on our word to Moscow. Since 1993 they've been consistently begging us to stop doing this, we've refused, and now the Bear has come out of retirement for exactly this reason. Stop being a hack on this.

KGBstan attacked Ukraine,becouse they were victims? Well,in that case,when it was still Russia they signed agreement in Budapest that Ukraine would hold his borders if they gave up nukes.
They taken Crimea,now are taking more - so,they must gave it back,or gave Ukraine nukes.

Becouse Russia signed it,when nobody signed anything about not letting Ukraine into NATO.

 

[AnimalNoodles]

Wonder if the GAE will be stupid and arrogant enough to try some kind of blockade to keep russians out of important waterways like Gibraltar or Panama

 

[Agent23]

 

[bintananth]

Also, FWIW, the distance between Zilupe in Latvia and Moscow is 624 km. 569/624 is 91%.

When people argue/discuss European distances I just kinda laugh and enjoy some popcorn.

"To a European, 200 miles is a long distance. To an American, 200 years is a long time."

 

[Agent23]

When people argue/discuss European distances I just kinda laugh and enjoy some popcorn.

"To a European, 200 miles is a long distance. To an American, 200 years is a long time."

Now imagine an independent country off the shores of the Eastern USA at 600 KM from Washington.
Now imagine the Chinese becoming good friends with that country and putting missiles there.

 

[TheRomanSlayer]

And in regards to St. Petersburg, what about if Russia were to ever move its capital back there?

Still within range of whichever hostile force that could be in position. Maybe moving the capital to somewhere in Western Siberia would make things a bit better.

 

[strunkenwhite]

Did you watch the video from earlier in the thread, the one that first talked about the Ukrainian oil deposits and how they changed Russia's strategic calculus?

It was mentioned in that video, along with a lot of the other points made in the article I quoted and points Tippy made in his own posts.

We can and should condemn the Russian invasion, but that should not mean playing dumb about or ignoring why it happened and what all lead up to it, going all the way back to the fall of the USSR.

I may be interested in a debate about what the USSR was or wasn't promised, although you seem willing to believe it's at least possible that it was all in their heads (but that even a fever dream promise is still a problem for the west)...

But what I was actually trying to get at was the timeline of whatever words were exchanged. That is, 1993 or later (which your mention of Clinton implies) or 1989-1990. The 1993 claim surprised me because I was only familiar with the earlier claim.

No, NATO and the U.S. lied, obfuscated and lead on the Russians from 1990 onward. Der Spiegel, for example, recently found a lot of documents and did some extensive reporting on it to confirm this.

Pretty sure the agreement was also reinforced when Clinton met Yeltsin, as part of the short live Partnership For Peace initiative.

When that broke down/was ignored was when Russia started to feel we/NATO had lied to them.

History Learner's article indicates that Yeltsin was complaining about NATO before the PFP was even proposed, so that seems quite unlikely.

Now imagine an independent country off the shores of the Eastern USA at 600 KM from Washington.
Now imagine the Chinese becoming good friends with that country and putting missiles there.

Remind me: how many former Warsaw Pact countries that were let into NATO have nuclear missiles in them?

 

[TheRomanSlayer]

Would the Russians have been cool if Eastern European countries would have created their own defensive alliance that would have subsequently allied itself with NATO but without any of its members ever actually formally joining NATO?

I was wondering about this, because I created a thread where a post-Cold War version of Pilsudski’s Intermarium project would have been launched. From my discussions with other members here, there was the Hexagonale group where Poland joined. In a world where America would have realized that a post-Cold War version of Intermarium will be a lot more beneficial as a kind of cordon sanitaire than what we’ve got. Problem was, the Hexagonale went down the drain because of Yugoslavia’s breakup.

 

[bintananth]

Now imagine an independent country off the shores of the Eastern USA at 600 KM from Washington.
Now imagine the Chinese becoming good friends with that country and putting missiles there.

Counterpoint: imagine a teenager in St. Louis saying "See you in Culver" to a friend on a Friday afternoon.

The fastest way to get to Culver, IN from St. Louis, MO by car involves dealing with I-465 and Meridian St. in Indianapolis during a Friday evening. The most fuel efficent route uses I-57, is about 540km and completely avoids a metro area about about half the size of Belgium. Some of the back roads used might not be paved.

Both of those teenagers will be there before midnight.

 

[Marduk]

I thought this was the Sietch not CNN.

Sorry, lost track of whether being a cuck for Russia is now something CNN supports or opposes. I just don't watch it to guide my politics around it. But guess you are closely tracking their position and adjusting accordingly.

 

[JagerIV]

@Emperor Tippy
Thought you might like this...

Huh, I didn't realize how close the US and USSR actually were back in the day.

That got me looking back on the Vietnam War. That cost about 50,000 casualties, $950 billion in current dollars.

So, if this Ukrainian war was as costly as Vietnam was to us, that would be, well, 50,000 casualties and about $400 billion (big Russian difference between PPP and Nominal). If the war was that costly, but they won, would that be a real victory for the Russians? I'm leaning to "yes", but what you think?

 

[bintananth]

Huh, I didn't realize how close the US and USSR actually were back in the day.

That got me looking back on the Vietnam War. That cost about 50,000 casualties, $950 billion in current dollars.

So, if this Ukrainian war was as costly as Vietnam was to us, that would be, well, 50,000 casualties and about $400 billion (big Russian difference between PPP and Nominal). If the war was that costly, but they won, would that be a real victory for the Russians? I'm leaning to "yes", but what you think?

I'm leaning towards "no". $400bn is about 7-8 years of Russia's military budget and just might be written on American government cheque.

 

[WolfBear]

Now imagine an independent country off the shores of the Eastern USA at 600 KM from Washington.
Now imagine the Chinese becoming good friends with that country and putting missiles there.

But Americans weren't actually putting missiles in Ukraine or in the Baltics, so it's a false analogy?

 

[Bacle]

India looks to be willing to buy Russian oil, and we sure as shit won't be sanction India.

 

[Whitestrake Pelinal]

 

[Bacle]

 

[bintananth]

That can't be accurate.

USS Roosevelt is a CVN and the only American ship ID'd in the image. She ain't going anywere without a least a Tico and a Burke getting brought along for the ride.

 

[Bacle]

That can't be accurate.

USS Roosevelt is a CVN and the only American ship ID'd in the image. She ain't going anywere without a least a Tico and a Burke getting brought along for the ride.

They could be...north of that image capture.

Trying to fake a ship-tracker stuff like this is not exactly easy, and rather easy to cross-check.

 

[bintananth]

They could be...north of that image capture.

Trying to fake a ship-tracker stuff like this is not exactly easy, and rather easy to cross-check.

That, or what's tagged as USS Roosevelt is actually some other ship.

 

[prinCZess]

Per wiki there's actually no Ticonderoga class of the US' in the Nato Maritime Response Group 1 anymore and a (very brief) bit of looking at the maritime tracking site doesn't have any other US ships popping out at me in the area (though there was a USNS Sisler in port in Norway...A ship whose name I immediately am glad exists and am certain the crew have nicknamed 'Sizzler' after the restaurant chain*...But she's a transport ship).

*Or maybe not, since they might have more respect than me.

Looks like the US is throwing the carrier in dependent upon the allies ships for escort-dutying (unless one of the transponders that's giving off the generic 'NATO Warship' descriptor is something American being semi-sneaky).