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Prediction Thread: When Will Ukraine Conquer Russia
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Originally posted by MOBIUS View Post
Putin felt he was backed into a corner and gave an ultimatum that was ignored since before 2008, so that reaction shouldn't have come as a surprise.
We've been over this a billion times. His response therefore was 'understandable' and the tactics used (with resulting war crimes - not to be condoned - but certainly to be predicted!) expected.
That is why the war had to be avoided at all costs and why by not avoiding it, the West and Zelensky have done the people of Ukraine a great disservice, to put things extremely mildly... 😢Blah
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Originally posted by Geronimo View Post
dude if Russia will very probably respond to a Nato Invasion of Ukraine by Nuking in spite of knowing full well that this would result in Russia getting nuked then they aren't rational actors and there is no point in trying to treat them as such. If Russia is willing to endure nuclear armageddon for anything less than a regime change invasion of Russia then there is no point in trying to placate them. As irrational actors they would be just as likely, or perhaps even more likely, to nuke without "provacation" as with. Since they are undeterred from using nukes by nuclear retaliation they might even be more likely to try to the "unprovoked" first strike "for the element of surprise!".
Using WMD against countries with WMD is irrational. It is also irrational as a state possessing nukes of your own to restrain your non-nuclear "provocations" in response to nuclear threats to not do so because if you do it will become essential for every country to acquire a credible nuclear stockpile for making their own nuclear demands. That's totally unacceptable. Russia's nuclear blackmail threats have to be blatantly disregarded because:
A: if they are not then every state needs to stockpile nukes, cue end of world countdown.
B: because Russia is either bluffing or bat**** crazy and totally detached from reality in which case it doesn't really matter what you do because there will be no modeling the bat**** crazy actor's responses anyway. So disregard their loony ravings and stick to doing what makes sense regardless.
Nuclear weapons are expensive to maintain, with the United States spending fifty billion dollars per year to keep it's 5,000 warheads up to date. This includes replacing the tritium load every five to ten years in every warhead, because tritium's half life renders it unusable in that time, at roughly $100,000 per shot. Then there's testing and replacement of shaped charges, worn out electronics (due to radiation exposure), and other maintenance. This doesn't even count maintenance and replacement of the missles that carry them. Fifty billion dollars.
Russia claims to have 5,600 warheads.
It spends sixty billion dollars per year.
On its Entire Military.
Not even accounting for corruption.
...and they haven't done a single nuclear test in thirty years.No, I did not steal that from somebody on Something Awful.
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Here's the thing:
1) While a nation does not have control of its borders and is in armed conflict with another nation - IT CANNOT JOIN NATO - END OF STORY!
Someone replied about Georgia in 2008 when they said they were going to join NATO. Putin invaded Georgia on the pretext of helping the South Ossetians and Abkazian separatists who the Georgia were fighting at the time. An internal matter, you say? Well so was Kosovo, but that didn't stop NATO from ****ing the Serbs. Kosovo is a 'country' still not recognised as such by the Council of Europe or indeed most countries in the world. It is also home to a massive US military base. So basically NATO set the precedent for Putin to attack Georgia and aid the Donbas region of Ukraine in 2014.
2) If Ukraine had backed down:
Putin would have not had the excuse he gave to invade and so would have had to back down as he would have achieved what he demanded. He would not have had the support he enjoys from the Global South had he still attacked, and therefore would have likely failed.
The West could have continued arming and training the Ukrainian army as it had been for the last decade.
Navalny would probably still be alive.
Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people would still be alive and the country would not be smashed into smithereens, saddled with generations of debt...
3) Instead, Russia will win. It's only a matter of time and the longer it takes for Ukraine to admit they're already beaten, the worse it is going to be for them.
At some point they will be forced to declare their neutrality - at which point people will say why the **** didn't they do that in the first place, as they will be in the same position, but now with a shattered and partitioned country.
The question now will be how much territory will they be forced to give up? Lines frozen at ceasefire? The 4 oblasts in their entirety - or if their army is broken on the battlefield, all the majority Russian speaking oblasts, including places like Odessa...?
And for what, some pointless toxic concept of pride...? 🙄
It's sad, because I think the Ukrainians genuinely thought the US had their back, when in actual fact they've hung them out to dry, much like Afghanistan and allies in Syria, Libya etc. Sadly the US has form... 😢
What else? Russia gets to genuinely enhance its territory with valuable lands and resources, completely securing its Black Sea port, massively improving its armed forces with key experience and equipment, military industrial complex, massively improving cooperation and ties with China, NK, Iran etc., who all gain valuable things in return...
A key vulnerability has been exposed in NATO and western armies: lack of ammunition and materiel production. Russia alone being able to produce more of both than the whole of NATO combined, with Israel's genocide further depleting stocks.
Yes, China you can be sure, has been taking notes.
Far from beating down their enemies, the West has emboldened and strengthened them...
Anyway, fully expecting this post to somehow be mysteriously deleted as well...
This is my parting shot. I won't be replying further.
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Originally posted by Geronimo View PostIn 2008 Putin said Russia would never permit Georgian or Ukrainian membership in NATO. So what? How does that possibly explain the special military operation? Ukraine and Georgia were both much further from NATO membership throughout every year after 2014 than they were in 2008. Your next point suggests you should already understand this.
You're saying that it was obvious that Putin was going to invade Ukraine because just before the special military operation he recognized that he would need to invade Ukraine so that it wouldn't have territorial integrity and therefore would no longer be a potential candidate to join NATO? News flash. Putin already occupied (and claimed) all of Crimea. How in the hell could Ukraine have had territorial integrity just before the special military operation?? Did he reason they were about to sign away Crimea? nobody has said that. is that your reasoning? explain Mobius.
Russia did not "try" to join NATO. Russia never officially announced interest in joining NATO unlike every other member that has ever joined NATO. West Germany might have been the most ambivalent before joining of any member and even they made their declaration of intent much clearer than Putin's Russia. Putin only casually, verbally asked if Russia might join NATO in a conversation with Clinton to which Clinton replied "why not?". Putin later consistently clarified in various conversation that Russia's path to NATO membership should consider its unique security concerns and strategic interests. Russia never took a single official step to join NATO.
Easy: your pathetically poor reading comprehension skills and, I'm assuming, memory, meant that you completely misunderstood my point*, because obviously Russia had already broken Ukraine's territorial integrity. I was explaining that's exactly what it did to **** Georgia's (and Moldova's) ambitions to join NATO. That's why I explained in an earlier post that it was just ****ing semantics, so there was nothing to be lost in dropping that ambition, because it couldn't be achieved in the first place without Russian cooperation (leaving Ukraine), or a war, e.g. taking sides, which Russia took umbrage over...
*You're like an illiterate version of that guy in the movie Memento... No wonder you're considering voting for Trump 🤦♂️
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Originally posted by N35t0r View PostThat's a lot of what-ifs based on a very shaky premise (that we can take Putin's promises at face value).
People seem to think Putin is irrational. I think he's proved the exact opposite.
Either way, you have to admit that the probability of no war is preferable to the opposite!
Anyway, adiós!
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Originally posted by MOBIUS View Post
It's not about Putin at this point, it's about the rest of the world, that would have surely walked away from him if he'd still attacked despite Ukraine agreeing to back down and become neutral. Then I think he would have failed.
People seem to think Putin is irrational. I think he's proved the exact opposite.
Either way, you have to admit that the probability of no war is preferable to the opposite!
Anyway, adiós!
Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia = didn't join NATO, got Russian troops.
I think Ukraine should have started earlier with the process.
Indifference is Bliss
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Originally posted by MOBIUS View Post
Sorry, I forgot about replying to this: 'explain MOBIUS'
Easy: your pathetically poor reading comprehension skills and, I'm assuming, memory, meant that you completely misunderstood my point*, because obviously Russia had already broken Ukraine's territorial integrity. I was explaining that's exactly what it did to **** Georgia's (and Moldova's) ambitions to join NATO. That's why I explained in an earlier post that it was just ****ing semantics, so there was nothing to be lost in dropping that ambition, because it couldn't be achieved in the first place without Russian cooperation (leaving Ukraine), or a war, e.g. taking sides, which Russia took umbrage over...
*You're like an illiterate version of that guy in the movie Memento... No wonder you're considering voting for Trump 🤦♂️
Your egregious insults aside, (speaking of reading comprehension I did not say I was thinking of voting for Trump, just that I was undecided of who to vote for and was inviting Trump supporters a last chance to vote for Trump even though it should be obvious the best they hope for was to commit me to a protest vote instead of a Harris vote against Trump but that's for another thread) I am definitely *not* unsympathetic in general to making *concessions* for peace that are designed to maximize chances for peace with little to no impact to the things worth fighting to protect. IMHO, Ukraine had plenty of these cards it should have very publicly tried to play to illustrate that it valued peace with Russia and to undermine Russian propaganda and diplomatic rhetoric such as:
Pass legislation renaming all Bandera landmarks of all kinds and removing all publicly funded and maintained Banderite recognition of any sort. Russia has no right to demand this but Ukraine was perfectly free to deliver it. This would be especially attractive since Bandera was a fascist who brought immense harm to Ukraine.
Repeal all legislation that inconvenienced anyone for speaking or writing in Russian. There's been millions of native Russian speakers throughout Ukraine throughout the history of the Ukrainian language and it makes perfect sense to not only not ban its use in any context but to facilitate its official use. At worst Maybe Ukraine could pass legislation guaranteeing some kind of "first among equals" status for Ukrainian usage in official publications and announcements but anything further than that is deeply offensive.
Ukraine could also ensure any heavy handed anti-Russian national ukrainian government legislation that, for instance, renamed landmarks or areas without any local process initiating the change. Sometimes communities were renamed at the national level despite no support for the change by most of the actual residence. Such national anti-Russian actions are great for building resentment and division but not really for anything else. That said, where the local government was responsible for anti-Russian gestures it would probably be better for the national government to ignore the changes.
Ukraine could also have declared that it was not seeking NATO membership. Signing a binding promise not to do so would likely be a huge mistake but it could have strongly made clear that it was not working towards NATO membership.
I firmly believe that if Ukraine had done all of these things Russia would still have invaded but it might have helped tip one or two democracies to doing a bit more to support Ukraine when Russia inevitably did.
Why are you so convinced that Putin would invade if neither NATO nor Ukraine signed treaties forbidding Ukraine from ever joining NATO and that NATO and Ukraine failing to do so explains the "global south" failing to make sacrifices to oppose the Russian invasion but that if NATO and Ukraine had signed treaties preventing Ukraine from ever joining NATO that either Putin would have refrained from invading or that if he did "the global south" would then have stood up ready to do their part and make appropriate sacrifces to reign Russia in?
You've basically said that most of warsaw pact saying that the reason it was ok to invade Czechoslovakia was because Czechoslovakia announcing that someday they might like to a be a neutral country was the kind of change Russia could never tolerate and as such if Ukraine took too long to announce that it would never stop being a neutral or pro-Russian allied country and might like to consider NATO membership then it was inevitable that Russia would invade and win.
Do you have evidence of this? When Putin did in fact invade he showed he didn't mind doing things that fundamentally undermined Russia's broad interests. Why wouldn't he invade anyway? Why does he talk so little about NATO membership when giving his long tirades justifying the special military operation? why did he say Russia would not invade up until the day that it did and invade anyway? What changed with respect to Ukrainian prospects for membership in NATO shortly before Russian committed to the special military operation?
Questions for you Mobius:
Do you take what Putin promises at face value as truth or do you suspect cynical manipulation sometimes?
Do you take what US presidents promise at face value as truth or do you suspect cynical manipulation sometimes?
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