Will support Russia's survival after its teeth are cut and its troops out of Ukraine.
No other sane position for a East European. I think this invasion would've happened regardless of NATO expansion. Empires simply do this all the damn time, and smaller countries, if we are to survive, must play them cynically against each other.
NATO wi…
Will support Russia's survival after its teeth are cut and its troops out of Ukraine.
No other sane position for a East European. I think this invasion would've happened regardless of NATO expansion. Empires simply do this all the damn time, and smaller countries, if we are to survive, must play them cynically against each other.
NATO will do for now.
Not our fault Russian bros, you could've pushed your OrthoBro religious stuff and sustain traditions in the area, instead you've went in with the tanks and sent like 500K refugees (that should be helped!) in my country and destabilized MY cozy area.
There will be a HUUUUUGE price to pay for going against the End of History.
These days most of the commentary I read on this conflict are mostly from my own Eastern European home country as well.
You know you can trust our media analyses because on the one hand, there is always a 50/50 split of pro-russian and anti-russian sentiment (unless maybe Poland where it's more tilted) and what's more we have always been cynical and clear headed enough to see the ambitions and plots of both of the global super powers without really being invested ideologically in either side (we get fucked either way). So there are some really sober journalistic contributions on the question right now.
Ukraine is the perfect illustration of your point, since it has given up its nuclear weapons in exchange for a paper assuring the inviolability of its borders
Ukraine could not maintain the nuclear missiles on their land for various reasons, one of which being the launch codes located in Moscow. The American fear was that they would find themselves on the black market.
There have been many, many studies done in the West (especially the USA) as to why Ukraine couldn't operate the nuclear arsenal on its soil. Google is your friend.
As this is more or less part of my job, I am well aware that even on scientific and technical subjects, it is quite easy to defend one view or the opposite. And I trust that if disarmament was the path that the US wanted to lead Ukraine in, reports have been published to that effect.
Nevertheless, I would find it very difficult to take them seriously, since a country like France, starting in 1945 from purely theoretical knowledge, has managed to acquire a nuclear arsenal and the means to maintain it in barely 20 years. Ukraine had all the relevant theoretical and technological knowledge in the 1990s. A possible lack of expertise on any technical point would have been easily remedied.
While googling, I learned that in 1993 John Mearsheimer himself argued in Foreign Affairs that a nuclear arsenal was “imperative” if Ukraine was “to maintain peace” and that it would ensure that the Russians, “who have a history of bad relations with Ukraine, do not move to reconquer it.” I don't think he would have seriously considered this option if there was an obvious impossibility.
History has once again proven him right and I know his views on Ukraine are close to yours nowadays...
I have to agree that the Ukraineans could almost certainly not maintained their stockpile - wasn't critical components of their nuclear weapons made in other SSRs?
They probably could have built up a own nuclear capability though, but seeing how poor Ukraine has performed economically over the decades - and that is with many tens of billions of Russian aid - I doubt they would have had the industrial capacity to carry it through even if they almost certainly had the nuclear know-how back then.
"Instead, the USA went ahead and armed Ukraine ...": by inciting it in 1994 to give up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for a promise from Russia, the United States and UK to uphold the inviolability of its national borders or by not delivering sufficient anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons until war broke out?
"... and put it on the path towards NATO membership": since the initial application of Ukraine to join NATO in 2008, it was obviously a very very long path.
Which was basically outright rejected back then ("we will consider this application later"), along with Georgia's application. We all know what happened to Georgia right after that
Are you suggesting that the mere fact that Ukraine was buying military equipment from countries other than Russia (which was already equipping a rebel militia in the east of the country) was in itself a provocation?
The fact that several countries are now scrambling to deliver equipment for Ukraine's defence proves that Ukraine had not been properly armed in the first place. And yet Ukraine had requested to purchase some essential defence equipment, such as the Patriot missile defense system, but was turned down.
When you have US advisors on the ground arming the locals with weapons, it definitely is a provocation in light of the Kiev regime's moves towards NATO membership, which the USA backed.
If this was done outside of the context of NATO (neutrality) and without Americans, it would be a different story.
The purchase of high-tech weapons always involves the presence of foreign advisors for training. The same applies to the training of an army in modern combat techniques. The only alternative for Ukraine was to buy military equipment from Russia. A bit like Croatia buying equipment and seeking guidance from Serbia in the early 1990s.
In any case, why the Americans would have waited 14 years to consider Ukraine's application to join NATO remains to be explained.
This was not training in how to use advanced weapon systems that Ukraine had bought from the US like a fleet of modern fighter jets or an integrated air defense system or something like that.
This was the US advising and building up the operational capability of the Ukrainean armed forces as a whole which was rapidly expanding in size with the help of aid from the US and the US' European vassal states.
First the Ukraineans should not have behaved like fanatics (I am starting to suspect it's no coincidence that the SS choose Ukraineans specifically for their Einsatsgruppen) and should not have overthrown their diplomatically very wisely acting elected president in a US-backed coup.
In my opinion the fanatical elements among the Ukraineans (Which seems very common in the state security apparatus and the armed forces) are now getting exactly what they did order, even though of course the US (Whose ruling tribe has a deep hatred of Russia for ethnohistorical reasons) have also pushed Ukraine towards ordering what is now being delivered.
Ukraineans seem to have no understanding of geopolitics and are obviously clueless about diplomacy, there is only a fanatical nationalism that turns against any other european group the second that group no longer support whatever the Ukraineans want, looking at the history of Ukraine.
Of course I deplore the deaths of ordinary Ukrainean civilians - who the Russians actually are taking a lot of steps to not trying to kill given their doctrine and equipment - but as regards the fanatical regime in Kiev that is willing to use it's own citizens as human shields (I have seen many videos of Ukrainean howitzers set up and firing from residential areas) and also is willing to use a kind of reverse moral nuclear blackmailing technique towards the European public, the rest of Europe is better of with it destroyed.
150 US Army Florida National Guardsmen and associated other trainers were pulled out of Western Ukraine just prior to invasion, just as we were evacuating our embassy. We have been training them openly for years.
No, I think it's an open provocation, rather like you , yourself.
Which was the answer to the question.
Here's a summary of US/Ukr relations: we are far better at using you than you are at using us.
The Ukrainians had 30 years to get ready for this war.
They didn't.
They have been at war for 8 years, nope.
More provocations: per the OSCE the Ukrainian side dramatically increased it's shelling of separatist regions just prior to the war beginning, as well as move it's 60,000 best troops to the area, to face about 14,000 RU backed separatist militia.
You got played, DC played you, you Ukrainians are NOT INNOCENT, but a country run by Kleptocrats, gangsters, acting as our money laundering operation as well as getting involved in our USA politics.
You got in bed with the Democratic party to get rid of Trump, now predictably the Democratic party incited you to war with Russia, abandoned you to your fate and it's upon you. Your government incited war with Russia after being TOLD the USA wasn't coming, so either Zelensky is delusional or corrupt - probably both.
Ukrainians are as innocent as Afghans - you aren't.
Vice-versa. I already left a comment down below. You can keep pretending that it's always NATO, and that NATO tends to plot against NATO, and that NATO is responsible for everything. But, unfortunately, keeping your head in the sand on that there's actors other than NATO out there too only makes you blind to any proceedings when it is, in fact, not NATO.
You also forgot to ask yourself, who benefits. Because NATO is certainly not benefiting. So it can't be NATO.
P.S. In case you haven't noticed, the idea of joining NATO was the FIRST point Ze has publicly "conceded" during negotiations.
I repeat my question above: do you feel that the Ukrainian army should be trained only by Russians, who are already training the irredentist militias of Dombass, or that it should not be trained at all?
The Florida National Guard is, to say the least, probably not the best the US Army can offer when it comes to training. This would rather confirm that there was no clear will to provide the finest training and equipment to the Ukrainian army.
The NG are actually quite competent, usually have active duty time and go to the same training and schools as the regular forces.
They don't get as much time training as units in mass formations, at least in theory. In practice the difference is not too stark. Combat and other performance support the practical results, in some cases the combat or gunnery performance is superior as the Guard units are together for many years allowing better cohesion.
In measured performance the NG has often enough performed superior to Active duty units again due to cohesion and lack of disruption from constant rotations.
As trainers the NG are often preferred, they usually have real world civilian jobs and lives which allow the NG to relate better to others outside the military. They also often have civilian job experience that is valuable technically and practically in training and administration. Often enough they are police IRL which in America means they are excellent at being diplomatic and tactful, patient.
So while we have not sent 'the best' in terms of whatever movie is playing in the head, we did send the best at training.
However you insolent whiner, who TF entitled you to 'be sent our best?' You think you're ordering room service here?
If you don't like the NG or anything about the USA or US MIL, just leave a negative rating on Yelp, Biatch.
I'm sensing Polish here BTW, they are very, very entitled. Very.
Not even the Saudi's who DID buy our government act so entitled.
Honestly, what can East Europe on its own do to Russia, especially when you’re dependent on their natural resources? Why act so confident about the end results when you haven’t even consulted with the ones with the military: the Americans?
Will support Russia's survival after its teeth are cut and its troops out of Ukraine.
No other sane position for a East European. I think this invasion would've happened regardless of NATO expansion. Empires simply do this all the damn time, and smaller countries, if we are to survive, must play them cynically against each other.
NATO will do for now.
Not our fault Russian bros, you could've pushed your OrthoBro religious stuff and sustain traditions in the area, instead you've went in with the tanks and sent like 500K refugees (that should be helped!) in my country and destabilized MY cozy area.
There will be a HUUUUUGE price to pay for going against the End of History.
These days most of the commentary I read on this conflict are mostly from my own Eastern European home country as well.
You know you can trust our media analyses because on the one hand, there is always a 50/50 split of pro-russian and anti-russian sentiment (unless maybe Poland where it's more tilted) and what's more we have always been cynical and clear headed enough to see the ambitions and plots of both of the global super powers without really being invested ideologically in either side (we get fucked either way). So there are some really sober journalistic contributions on the question right now.
By NATO you mean USA.
We should have ended NATO 30 years ago, and this BTW is the end.
Get your own nukes.
Get your own army, although without nukes its fruitless.
Seriously- f— off all of you.
Ukraine is the perfect illustration of your point, since it has given up its nuclear weapons in exchange for a paper assuring the inviolability of its borders
Ukraine could not maintain the nuclear missiles on their land for various reasons, one of which being the launch codes located in Moscow. The American fear was that they would find themselves on the black market.
Ukraine also had a nuclear industry, including for the military sector, so there is no clear evidence that it was unable to operate a nuclear arsenal.
There have been many, many studies done in the West (especially the USA) as to why Ukraine couldn't operate the nuclear arsenal on its soil. Google is your friend.
As this is more or less part of my job, I am well aware that even on scientific and technical subjects, it is quite easy to defend one view or the opposite. And I trust that if disarmament was the path that the US wanted to lead Ukraine in, reports have been published to that effect.
Nevertheless, I would find it very difficult to take them seriously, since a country like France, starting in 1945 from purely theoretical knowledge, has managed to acquire a nuclear arsenal and the means to maintain it in barely 20 years. Ukraine had all the relevant theoretical and technological knowledge in the 1990s. A possible lack of expertise on any technical point would have been easily remedied.
While googling, I learned that in 1993 John Mearsheimer himself argued in Foreign Affairs that a nuclear arsenal was “imperative” if Ukraine was “to maintain peace” and that it would ensure that the Russians, “who have a history of bad relations with Ukraine, do not move to reconquer it.” I don't think he would have seriously considered this option if there was an obvious impossibility.
History has once again proven him right and I know his views on Ukraine are close to yours nowadays...
I will dig up the paper this week that explains why Ukraine couldn't maintain the stockpile.
I have to agree that the Ukraineans could almost certainly not maintained their stockpile - wasn't critical components of their nuclear weapons made in other SSRs?
They probably could have built up a own nuclear capability though, but seeing how poor Ukraine has performed economically over the decades - and that is with many tens of billions of Russian aid - I doubt they would have had the industrial capacity to carry it through even if they almost certainly had the nuclear know-how back then.
I agree with these points-that Ukraine quite could have made the nukes operational, and that nukes are the fundamental condition of true sovereignty.
See below, the launch codes were not really an issue. The materials along plus their engineers could have quite solved the problem.
"Instead, the USA went ahead and armed Ukraine ...": by inciting it in 1994 to give up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for a promise from Russia, the United States and UK to uphold the inviolability of its national borders or by not delivering sufficient anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons until war broke out?
"... and put it on the path towards NATO membership": since the initial application of Ukraine to join NATO in 2008, it was obviously a very very long path.
Which was basically outright rejected back then ("we will consider this application later"), along with Georgia's application. We all know what happened to Georgia right after that
Ukraine was engaged in "Stealth NATO" by way of arms deliveries and training, as we are seeing in this war.
Are you suggesting that the mere fact that Ukraine was buying military equipment from countries other than Russia (which was already equipping a rebel militia in the east of the country) was in itself a provocation?
The fact that several countries are now scrambling to deliver equipment for Ukraine's defence proves that Ukraine had not been properly armed in the first place. And yet Ukraine had requested to purchase some essential defence equipment, such as the Patriot missile defense system, but was turned down.
When you have US advisors on the ground arming the locals with weapons, it definitely is a provocation in light of the Kiev regime's moves towards NATO membership, which the USA backed.
If this was done outside of the context of NATO (neutrality) and without Americans, it would be a different story.
The purchase of high-tech weapons always involves the presence of foreign advisors for training. The same applies to the training of an army in modern combat techniques. The only alternative for Ukraine was to buy military equipment from Russia. A bit like Croatia buying equipment and seeking guidance from Serbia in the early 1990s.
In any case, why the Americans would have waited 14 years to consider Ukraine's application to join NATO remains to be explained.
This was not training in how to use advanced weapon systems that Ukraine had bought from the US like a fleet of modern fighter jets or an integrated air defense system or something like that.
This was the US advising and building up the operational capability of the Ukrainean armed forces as a whole which was rapidly expanding in size with the help of aid from the US and the US' European vassal states.
First the Ukraineans should not have behaved like fanatics (I am starting to suspect it's no coincidence that the SS choose Ukraineans specifically for their Einsatsgruppen) and should not have overthrown their diplomatically very wisely acting elected president in a US-backed coup.
In my opinion the fanatical elements among the Ukraineans (Which seems very common in the state security apparatus and the armed forces) are now getting exactly what they did order, even though of course the US (Whose ruling tribe has a deep hatred of Russia for ethnohistorical reasons) have also pushed Ukraine towards ordering what is now being delivered.
Ukraineans seem to have no understanding of geopolitics and are obviously clueless about diplomacy, there is only a fanatical nationalism that turns against any other european group the second that group no longer support whatever the Ukraineans want, looking at the history of Ukraine.
Of course I deplore the deaths of ordinary Ukrainean civilians - who the Russians actually are taking a lot of steps to not trying to kill given their doctrine and equipment - but as regards the fanatical regime in Kiev that is willing to use it's own citizens as human shields (I have seen many videos of Ukrainean howitzers set up and firing from residential areas) and also is willing to use a kind of reverse moral nuclear blackmailing technique towards the European public, the rest of Europe is better of with it destroyed.
150 US Army Florida National Guardsmen and associated other trainers were pulled out of Western Ukraine just prior to invasion, just as we were evacuating our embassy. We have been training them openly for years.
https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2022-02-10/florida-national-guard-task-force-gator-ukraine-training-russia-4937373.html
And you feel that the Ukrainian army should be trained only by Russians, who are already drilling the irredentist militias of Dombass?
No, I think it's an open provocation, rather like you , yourself.
Which was the answer to the question.
Here's a summary of US/Ukr relations: we are far better at using you than you are at using us.
The Ukrainians had 30 years to get ready for this war.
They didn't.
They have been at war for 8 years, nope.
More provocations: per the OSCE the Ukrainian side dramatically increased it's shelling of separatist regions just prior to the war beginning, as well as move it's 60,000 best troops to the area, to face about 14,000 RU backed separatist militia.
https://www.osce.org/files/2022-02-22%20Daily%20Report_ENG.pdf?itok=63057
You got played, DC played you, you Ukrainians are NOT INNOCENT, but a country run by Kleptocrats, gangsters, acting as our money laundering operation as well as getting involved in our USA politics.
You got in bed with the Democratic party to get rid of Trump, now predictably the Democratic party incited you to war with Russia, abandoned you to your fate and it's upon you. Your government incited war with Russia after being TOLD the USA wasn't coming, so either Zelensky is delusional or corrupt - probably both.
Ukrainians are as innocent as Afghans - you aren't.
>>But at least we got rid of Trump !
BYE
Nice vague statement of reaffirmation of faith while ignoring contrary evidence you got there.
Feel free to keep your head in the sand.
"Full Interoperability with NATO" https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FNu1VOtXwAQC-oq?format=png&name=medium
Vice-versa. I already left a comment down below. You can keep pretending that it's always NATO, and that NATO tends to plot against NATO, and that NATO is responsible for everything. But, unfortunately, keeping your head in the sand on that there's actors other than NATO out there too only makes you blind to any proceedings when it is, in fact, not NATO.
You also forgot to ask yourself, who benefits. Because NATO is certainly not benefiting. So it can't be NATO.
P.S. In case you haven't noticed, the idea of joining NATO was the FIRST point Ze has publicly "conceded" during negotiations.
Thank you NATO spokesman.
If the USA is still part of NATO , then it was NATO
Here’s the Florida Army National Guard February 10, in Ukraine.
No, DeSantis didn’t send them there on his own.
Its been a regular rotation for years.
https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2022-02-10/florida-national-guard-task-force-gator-ukraine-training-russia-4937373.html
I repeat my question above: do you feel that the Ukrainian army should be trained only by Russians, who are already training the irredentist militias of Dombass, or that it should not be trained at all?
The Florida National Guard is, to say the least, probably not the best the US Army can offer when it comes to training. This would rather confirm that there was no clear will to provide the finest training and equipment to the Ukrainian army.
I answered above, but actually ....
you seem to know nothing of the subject.
The NG are actually quite competent, usually have active duty time and go to the same training and schools as the regular forces.
They don't get as much time training as units in mass formations, at least in theory. In practice the difference is not too stark. Combat and other performance support the practical results, in some cases the combat or gunnery performance is superior as the Guard units are together for many years allowing better cohesion.
In measured performance the NG has often enough performed superior to Active duty units again due to cohesion and lack of disruption from constant rotations.
As trainers the NG are often preferred, they usually have real world civilian jobs and lives which allow the NG to relate better to others outside the military. They also often have civilian job experience that is valuable technically and practically in training and administration. Often enough they are police IRL which in America means they are excellent at being diplomatic and tactful, patient.
So while we have not sent 'the best' in terms of whatever movie is playing in the head, we did send the best at training.
However you insolent whiner, who TF entitled you to 'be sent our best?' You think you're ordering room service here?
If you don't like the NG or anything about the USA or US MIL, just leave a negative rating on Yelp, Biatch.
I'm sensing Polish here BTW, they are very, very entitled. Very.
Not even the Saudi's who DID buy our government act so entitled.
Honestly, what can East Europe on its own do to Russia, especially when you’re dependent on their natural resources? Why act so confident about the end results when you haven’t even consulted with the ones with the military: the Americans?