Of fans and feces

[BeBMan]

Germany had an equal problem with its subs, couldn't even float straight (well one of its subs, the aegean is full of greek subs), assuming the f-35 problems are really not overhyped.

All of the active Greek subs are German designs

[Bereta_Eder]

Now cut the debt, and we would have bought them for free

Stability in the balkans doesn't come cheap

[Elok]

Question for BE (and anyone else from an Orthodox country): how does the average true believer in your country view Putin's claim to be champion of the faith?

[Bereta_Eder]

For orthodox believers?
Very earnest

[Bereta_Eder]

Although that doesn't encapsulate ALL orthodox belivers. Only the most hardcore of them.

The others kind of like democracy and are firm adherants to the european democratic model.

And then you'd find hardcore atheist leftwingers who swear by Russia.

Those power structures are very complicated and cut through religious and ideological barriers

[C0ckney]

currently the biggest mess in the middle east is still syria, so i shall make a long post about that in a US context.

let me try to briefly sketch out US policy in syria. the US wants the assad regime to go; therefore, it supports the rebels. these, however, are made up of diverse groups, several of which the US considers terrorist organisation, so it doesn't support them, and indeed it tries to persuade the other rebel groups to disengage from the 'terrorists' that the 'moderate' rebels fight alongside out of necessity. the attempts to drive a wedge between the 'terrorists', which are often the the most effective fighting forces, and the 'moderates' obviously make the rebel forces less effective, and they don't need any encouragement to be fractious in the first place. the results of, for example, providing weapons to a 'moderate' group on a particular front while refusing them to a 'terrorist' group on the same front are often that a) the first shares the weapons with the second, or, b) the second simply takes the weapons from the first; in order words, either the relationship between the US and the 'moderate' group or that between the two rebel groups is damaged. furthermore, these 'terrorist' groups are often supported by US allies in the region such as turkey, saudi arabia and qatar. to avoid these problems, the US has also taken to creating its own US equipped and trained rebel groups. these have all been a complete failures: the groups are too small to have impact, and the results are that the men have died/disappeared/disbanded and the matériel has fallen into the hands of either 'terrorist' rebels or even the islamic state. it is difficult to believe that the amounts that are reported to have been spent on these débâcles were not in fact mere façades for some other purpose; but in recent years the US has shown both its ability and willingness to expend extraordinary sums training and equipping men who cannot fight (see the afghan national army for more details).

meanwhile, the US also backs the kurds against the islamic state and also against assad's forces, and it has supported them with airstrikes at key moments, including the siege of kobanê; there are also reports that US special forces have taken part in some operations to assist the kurds. the kurds, though, also fight the rebels, including many US backed ones, and the latter lost quite a bit of territory to the former earlier this year in northern aleppo, as well as more recently in the city itself, where the kurds are helping assad's forces. Moreover Turkey, a NATO ally, does not support the kurds; indeed it is shown itself willing to do just about anything it can, including aiding the islamic state, to forestall a potential kurdish entity in northern syria. to this end, it has recently embarked on a military intervention in northern syria, purportedly against the islamic state, but really to prevent the kurds uniting the three cantons. this is being conducted through syrian rebel fighters stiffened with turkish troops and armour. turkey also provides money and matériel to diverse rebel groups, including several that the US classes as terrorists.

there's also a rather interesting sideshow in which the shia militias, some of which the US considers terrorist organisations, fighting the campaign in iraq (which is going quite well due to simple and achievable goals) are, due to the said success, increasingly moving into syria to fight for assad's forces against the US backed rebels.

for comparison, let me sketch out the russian strategy in syria. russia wishes for assad's government to remain in power. to this end it provides direct support with money, equipment and airpower, which it uses against the rebels and the islamic state, as well as political cover. it has a secondary objective of helping the kurds, which it does through airpower, insofar as this conforms with the primary objective. it also tries to smooth over disputes between assad's forces and the kurds and to encourage a certain amount of cooperation between the same.

which strategy is more likely to work...

[Bereta_Eder]

most probably the russian one because it is not so self-conflicting.

I don't know wether the spanish got into trouble for refueling the russian flotila but it is heading to syria to actually "seal" the deal.

It is comparable to russian troops moving in serbia well ahead of US ones to secure critical terain before the cease fire was initiated.


Also NATO got really red faced when France Italy many others, Greece too, dismissed any claims that Russia should not be involved in european security schemes. That happened recently

[Elok]

I really enjoy the occasional "CIA-backed rebels battle Pentagon-backed rebels" headline. I think I've only seen that sort of thing twice, but I haven't been looking too hard. Perhaps we don't worry about this sort of thing because whoever wins, a group of people who more or less agree with ISIS die, and our hardworking military contractors still get tax money for all the M4s and such. Or do we give them AKs?

I'm curious about the Orthodox response b/c it could have military implications. I don't know how Orthodox countries react. The US has never been one. But even here, many people in Orthodox communities have a fair amount of anger towards the Turks for their vile treatment of the EP (and maybe just for being Turks, who knows), and have a depressingly high regard for Putin. Personally I think he has enough raw ability that he might have ranked along with Peter and Catherine, if he were more interested in helping his country than looting it. How much does Orthodox pride drive Greece's policies, BE? I know there's a famous Elder Paisios prophecy about retaking Constantinople; do people itch for a fight on that account?

[Bereta_Eder]

"orthodox" traditions, I put this under quotes because they are not official orthodox traditions as in recognized by the church, have certain myths.
One of them is that when the "blond race will descend", we will take constantinople. apparently blond race is the russians. these predate even paissios and are embeded in the national religious psyche.
I don't think "orthodox" countries react any different than other countries.

some laugh at those myths, some believe them, some laugh and believe them

when putin visited Greece he was very humble and very sophisticated and knowlegable. This made a good impression even to those opposed to him. in Mount Athos the bells rung celebrationally and he was received indeed like a champion of orthodoxy.

But that is for the faithful (really faitful)

Others just like him, don't like him are indifferent,

[Bereta_Eder]

orthodox "pride" (this sounds like gay pride btw ) doesn't dictate actions that much.
I'd say historical experience does so more.
in the religious matter, indeed you go to a russian church it is almost identical to a greek one, so naturally you tend to feel at home. and vice versa

but historical experience is more important.
for example in the 3rd balkan war (because that's what the yugoslav war really was) there was an affinity with the serbians because in two important historical junctures we were on the same side and had similar experiences.

one was the liberation from the ottomans and the other was the fight against the nazis. an added similar experience was the coalition on the first and second balkan war (the second was against a "fellow" orthodox country)

these experiences build bonds.
unfortunately bonds can be taken advantage of sometimes by people but they are indeed raw and visceral.
how much they are still real.... who knows

[The Mad Monk]

That is the scuttlebutt, yes. I'm not a military wonk, so I don't know the details. The Wiki page lists a lot of horrible-sounding flaws from fairly recent Pentagon reports, e.g. "it can catch on fire rather easily," "two of the three models need to use up most of their fuel to accelerate to top speed." But these are mingled with complicated explanations that the TCLEF isn't a critical flaw in JXL situations provided WEIL protocols are observed in the EIPTJN . . . who the hell knows? They've certainly been prepping this thing for a long time. Let's just say there've been significant issues.

Well, then, let's sell them to Turkey, by all means.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

The "worst" alliance the US has (and therefore the EU in principle) is with Saudi Arabia. Out of it, the whole mess we have, even including a direct threat of WWIII, is coming out.

There are also cool statements as this, war with Russia not likely in 2017. Are we already considering an outright war with them?

Regardless, Saudis were behind 1990's Iraq war, behind 2003 invasion, behind taking down Yemen - they are slaughtering people by their thousands over there at the moment, behind Syria and all that to "challenge" Iran, which US dully follows, as it is some sort of weird strategic infatuation. Russia wants to protect Assad as the last ally in the middle easy, and so the conflict grows. (Saudis were technically behind 9-11, but nobody is really concerned about that in the US)

Erdogan can talk a lot, but I doubt Turkey could even take on the Kurds without going bankrupt, let alone Greece.

I hope that the dependence on oil and this US-Saudi pact breaks sooner than having a full blown WWIII, after which it will certainly break. At that stage though it will kind of be too late though.

[BeBMan]

I don't understand why we would be close to WW3 now or in the foreseeable time.

It's true that Russia-Wests relation are bad, but it's not comparable to the high times of the cold war. And the whole point of the cold war was that either side - US/Sov, and the military blocks attached - wanted to reduce the the influence and capabilities of the other while avoiding open military conflict that would have been mutual suicide.

That is why there was relative stability in the northern hemisphere (America, Europe, Russia) but the the most harsh, dirty and at times hot conflicts of the cold war were fought at the periphery, with everyone supporting his pet proxies.

The only thing that would make WW3 more likely now would be either that everyone has gone crazy, or a major failure in crisis management on all sides, for which I don't not see serious evidence so far.

[Sir Og]

Question for BE (and anyone else from an Orthodox country): how does the average true believer in your country view Putin's claim to be champion of the faith?

I can think of only one person who(m?) I can call true believer. And it will be very strange if I asked her about Putin.
Irrespective of faith there are plenty of people who like Russia and Putin here. He seems to be popular in the US as well recently.

.... Or do we give them AKs?

...

The nearby arms factory sells a ton of AKs to Iraq as far as I know.

Nobody in Bulgaria has issues with our arms dealings or with our, albeit symbolic, involvement in the war against Lybia.
Majority of the population however does not like the refugees that these crises create. Everybody thinks that we are just innocent victims.

[Bereta_Eder]

Yep the only religious guy I know doesn't like Putin or Russia at all and swears by the west and free markets.
Then there are atheists who really like him, not because of him but because of the trouble it causes to the west.