Russia invades Ukraine

[KamareKitsune]

millions of battle-hardened fanatics

This is objectively hilarious when you look at the actual state of the Russian military. They're struggling to recruit enough people to replace everyone Ukraine is taking out, and though I haven't checked lately, there was a lot of desertion and surrender happening a while back because a lot of them didn't even want to be there.

[Ares Land]

Do you think that Europe could win a war against Russia? While obviously European countries all have their own armies, it has been eighty years since their last major war. They will have to face millions of battle-hardened fanatics with nothing but basic training and their grandfather's fading memories of fighting the previous world war.

In the completely hypothetical scenario where WWIII is fought as a land war in Poland/Germany, I don't know, which side are the US fighting on? Anyway, as people mentioned, Russia isn't up to anything like that kind of operation. Those things come down on which side has the best economy and the largest industrial capacity; so Western Europe in that case.

There's no single unified European army, to my regret. The only country I really know anything about, in terms of military capacity is France. As far as I know, our military is fine, in good shape, and perfectly capable of achieving its objectives. It also fights wars (or special operations, or whatever they call it) on a fairly regular basis.

If people want to panic, right now, the best scenario for that is one where several European countries decide to stay 'neutral' or openly side with Russia. That's a great deal more probable than open war.

[jcb]

Do you think that Europe could win a war against Russia? While obviously European countries all have their own armies, it has been eighty years since their last major war. They will have to face millions of battle-hardened fanatics with nothing but basic training and their grandfather's fading memories of fighting the previous world war.

Let me ask you this: do you think Ukraine could win a war against Russia? Rather than 3x the population of Russia, it's 1/3. It had little military experience and a large number of Russian speakers.

Yet it's winning.

I wouldn't say that Ukraine is "winning". It's very slowly losing ground to Russia. Although this is much better than what people expected at first (Russia curb-stomping Ukraine within three days), it's still not winning.

[Travis B.]

I don't trust that they will. Maybe some but not most or all.

So you're one of those "but but they're all the same?!" people?

Okay, there's some positions I expect they'll keep, such as support for capitalism or Israel, but as for any of the new positions enacted by Trump since he's come to office, I expect they'll rapidly undo them.

Edit: Do you seriously expect the Democrats to keep things such the War with Iran, mass deportation, broad and steep tariffs, Trump's foreign policy beyond just his war, the ongoing attempts to undermine representative democracy (beyond simple retaliatory gerrymandering), the attempts to strip people of health coverage, Trump's renaming of geographic bodies, and so on?

The democrats are always still objectively better. Though because of this fact, they have little to no incentive to improve or actually beholden themselves to the people. Which is why the only way to fix that is to root out the shitty dems at the lower levels when its democrats competing with each other.

Dems have currently mostly resigned themselves to spineless weak opposition at best (because of people like Schumer) and controlled opposition at worst (because of trojans like Fetterman). Many times they've been handed easy wins and one way or the other always find ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Of course, if one expects the Democrats to do away with capitalism, something they've never promised in the first place, of course you are going to be disappointed. But even with people like Schumer and Fetterman out there, there is still nothing stopping whoever comes after Trump (it looks at this point like it might be Kamala Harris) from issuing an executive order on January 20th 2029 undoing all of Trump's executive orders, and I seriously expect them to do so.

No, I don't think they're going to continue the war with Iran because oil is way too important to fuck around with. And I definitely think they're gonna fix all the food/health related stuff that RFK jr fucked up.

And these are big things, of course. Ending the War with Iran or RFK jr. anti-vaxxer shit is not inconsequential.

But reverting the naming of geographic features and buildings will be low on their list of priorities. They're probably not going to be too concerned with surveilance state stuff.

On the contrary I'd expect reverting things like renaming things to happen quite quickly, as they are effectively low-hanging fruit that look like doing something without requiring much actual effort.

On the other hand, they probably wouldn't do much about the surveillance state, though.

They'll hopefully put a brake on the ICE stuff but they're not gonna abolish or defund ICE and they're probably not going to actually hold anyone to account.

The ICE is effectively Trump's personal goon squad, so there is very good reason for a Democratic president to bring them to heel. They might not formally wholly abolish or defund them, but they'd almost certainly immediately put a kibosh on what they've been doing under Trump. Now, it might be expecting a bit to much for them to start a purge of those in the ICE, but I personally hope they'd do so.

[alice]

Do you think that Europe could win a war against Russia? While obviously European countries all have their own armies, it has been eighty years since their last major war. They will have to face millions of battle-hardened fanatics with nothing but basic training and their grandfather's fading memories of fighting the previous world war.

Actually, now you put it that way it suddenly sounds like a very tall order indeed. I don't think I'm going to get much sleep tonight; the prospect of endless waves of invincible mini-Putins crashing over Edinburgh with only bagpipe-playing natives to stop them isn't particularly comforting.

[bradrn]

Do you think that Europe could win a war against Russia? While obviously European countries all have their own armies, it has been eighty years since their last major war. They will have to face millions of battle-hardened fanatics with nothing but basic training and their grandfather's fading memories of fighting the previous world war.

Actually, now you put it that way it suddenly sounds like a very tall order indeed. I don't think I'm going to get much sleep tonight; the prospect of endless waves of invincible mini-Putins crashing over Edinburgh with only bagpipe-playing natives to stop them isn't particularly comforting.

Don’t underestimate the deterrent power of a bagpipe at short range.

[zompist]

Let me ask you this: do you think Ukraine could win a war against Russia? Rather than 3x the population of Russia, it's 1/3. It had little military experience and a large number of Russian speakers.

Yet it's winning.

I wouldn't say that Ukraine is "winning". It's very slowly losing ground to Russia.

You may be a few months out of date. Russia has been losing ground to Ukraine lately.

In both cases the gains are small. But Ukraine is fighting smarter. Russia can occupy a few square km at a time with enormous loss of life. The Ukrainians are using robots.

The other reason I say Ukraine is winning is that it is increasingly successful at degrading Russia's war-making capacity. It's telling that Trump is asking the Ukrainians to pretty please stop destroying Putin's refineries, though of course he offers nothing in return.

[malloc]

Apologies for once again sounding alarmist, but plenty of people thought Putin would never invade Ukraine until he did. It seems difficult to dismiss dire threats these days given how often they end up materializing. Hopefully my Cassandraic predictions fail this time around.

[Travis B.]

Apologies for once again sounding alarmist, but plenty of people thought Putin would never invade Ukraine until he did. It seems difficult to dismiss dire threats these days given how often they end up materializing. Hopefully my Cassandraic predictions fail this time around.

If Russia can't even conquer a significant portion of Ukraine in all the years they have spent trying (only occupying limited portions despite all its efforts), how do you expect it to get anywhere against the nations of the EU, which overall is far stronger militarily and economically than Ukraine?

[Richard W]

If Russia can't even conquer a significant portion of Ukraine in all the years they have spent trying (only occupying limited portions despite all its efforts), how do you expect it to get anywhere against the nations of the EU, which overall is far stronger militarily and economically than Ukraine?

As a war of conquest, Russia is unlikely to want to expand beyond the borders of the Soviet Union. Possibly parts of Denmark and some Baltic islands would make sense strategically. The land route to the Baltics (the Suwałki Gap) seems easy to cut, and probably very easy to interdict.

Stationing British troops in the Baltics seems a significant token of support, forcing the Russians to fight the British army if they were to invade, just as part of the defence of Western Europe against the Warsaw pact was that an invasion of Germany would kill American troops. Their presence was part of a propaganda campaign, largely directed to the Russian government. I think attempts to win defence business (there has been related success with Poland) and win friends in the EU were secondary.

Economic power is initially manifested in the strategic war reserve. The supply of munitions to Ukraine took a long time to ramp up, and look at how long te USA is going to take to replenish its land missile defences. I'm not sure that the UK has decent land area missile defences, though possibly nowhere (including Russia) has now. The USA seems not to have had an adequate war reserve of land defence missiles. I think the Russian plan is to avoid a protracted hot war, just as Japan did not intend a protracted war with the USA in WWII. The best WWII analogy would be Hitler's formalising the war between Germany and the USA.

[alice]

Do you think that Europe could win a war against Russia? While obviously European countries all have their own armies, it has been eighty years since their last major war. They will have to face millions of battle-hardened fanatics with nothing but basic training and their grandfather's fading memories of fighting the previous world war.

Actually, now you put it that way it suddenly sounds like a very tall order indeed. I don't think I'm going to get much sleep tonight; the prospect of endless waves of invincible mini-Putins crashing over Edinburgh with only bagpipe-playing natives to stop them isn't particularly comforting.

Don’t underestimate the deterrent power of a bagpipe at short range.

(headdesk) Scotland's secret weapon! That's why we've never been invaded! How could I possibly forget?

[alice]

I wonder how the residents of (the unfortunate Ukrainian cities which are currently under more or less constant bombardment by Russian missiles) feel about their country "winning", however.

[zompist]

I wonder how the residents of (the unfortunate Ukrainian cities which are currently under more or less constant bombardment by Russian missiles) feel about their country "winning", however.

What do you think the Ukrainians feel about their country being invaded by a fascist power? War is, as one participant observed, hell. Russia could end it tomorrow by taking its invaders home. Ukraine doesn't have that option.

[zompist]

Now there's been an incident at an Air Force base in Britain.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqrm99mm9l84o

Looks grim.

Looks like it was thieves trying to steal oil, and doing so too near an RAF base.

[Raphael]

Looks like it was thieves trying to steal oil, and doing so too near an RAF base.

Ah good. Were they hoping that this would make them millionaires by next year? Interesting that Trump and Rubio made all kinds of claims about them, though.

[jcb]

Let me ask you this: do you think Ukraine could win a war against Russia? Rather than 3x the population of Russia, it's 1/3. It had little military experience and a large number of Russian speakers.

Yet it's winning.

I wouldn't say that Ukraine is "winning". It's very slowly losing ground to Russia.

You may be a few months out of date. Russia has been losing ground to Ukraine lately.

In both cases the gains are small. But Ukraine is fighting smarter. Russia can occupy a few square km at a time with enormous loss of life. The Ukrainians are using robots.

The other reason I say Ukraine is winning is that it is increasingly successful at degrading Russia's war-making capacity. It's telling that Trump is asking the Ukrainians to pretty please stop destroying Putin's refineries, though of course he offers nothing in return.

Yes, Ukraine's kill ratio is positive, and Russia's ability to export oil is so degraded that they're now having fuel shortages *inside* Russia, but I see little chance for Ukraine to gain back the land that it's lost, except by grinding forward the same way that Russia has, and Ukraine can't afford to do that.

Years ago, Ukraine tried to push south to Melitopol to cut off Crimea, but it encountered very stiff Russian resistance and gained very little land, so the attack was soon called off.

[sasasha]

I wonder how the residents of (the unfortunate Ukrainian cities which are currently under more or less constant bombardment by Russian missiles) feel about their country "winning", however.

What do you think the Ukrainians feel about their country being invaded by a fascist power? War is, as one participant observed, hell. Russia could end it tomorrow by taking its invaders home. Ukraine doesn't have that option.

A good friend lives in Kyiv. Born elsewhere, fluent in Ukrainian, has Ukrainian citizenship. We speak most weeks. Her personal take is very much along the lines of zompist’s comment, rather than alice’s.

One week our call was delayed because an apartment block 300m away had burnt down after a missile strike. War brings trauma, but this particular individual, at least, would take it over the alternative.

Everyone is different; there must be Ukrainians who just want the missiles to stop, or have lost so much that they’ll take any relief. But I don’t think my friend knows those people. Defiance is strong and I think it is pretty general.

My respect to all survivors of warfare.

[KamareKitsune]

Yes, Ukraine's kill ratio is positive, and Russia's ability to export oil is so degraded that they're now having fuel shortages *inside* Russia, but I see little chance for Ukraine to gain back the land that it's lost, except by grinding forward the same way that Russia has, and Ukraine can't afford to do that.

Years ago, Ukraine tried to push south to Melitopol to cut off Crimea, but it encountered very stiff Russian resistance and gained very little land, so the attack was soon called off.

You mean, other than the land they have already gained back, with the robots that've already been mentioned? Russia is losing ground, and while it's slow for now, that progress is going to accelerate as Ukraine figures out the best ways to use their new technology to maximise its value.

Yeah, they failed to push to Melitopol, and stopped. That's what makes Ukraine different from Russia. Russia would've kept throwing bodies at the problem and maybe achieved something. Ukraine decided to divert their precious manpower to holding the line while they came up with something that didn't cost a million of the most valuable men in society.

[jcb]

Yes, Ukraine's kill ratio is positive, and Russia's ability to export oil is so degraded that they're now having fuel shortages *inside* Russia, but I see little chance for Ukraine to gain back the land that it's lost, except by grinding forward the same way that Russia has, and Ukraine can't afford to do that.

Years ago, Ukraine tried to push south to Melitopol to cut off Crimea, but it encountered very stiff Russian resistance and gained very little land, so the attack was soon called off.

You mean, other than the land they have already gained back, with the robots that've already been mentioned? Russia is losing ground, and while it's slow for now, that progress is going to accelerate as Ukraine figures out the best ways to use their new technology to maximise its value.

Yeah, they failed to push to Melitopol, and stopped. That's what makes Ukraine different from Russia. Russia would've kept throwing bodies at the problem and maybe achieved something. Ukraine decided to divert their precious manpower to holding the line while they came up with something that didn't cost a million of the most valuable men in society.

Russia will not sit idly by. I expect them to replicate, innovate, and mass produce the technology, just like they've already done with drones.

I know that Western news outlets always present Ukraine as winning, and Russia as about to collapse, and why they do so, but the reality is that Ukraine is still the smaller dog in this fight, and that Ukraine regaining all its lost land is going to be a very tough, long, and costly fight, somehow tougher, longer, and more costly than the 4.5 years of war that have already happened.

[alice]

I wonder how the residents of (the unfortunate Ukrainian cities which are currently under more or less constant bombardment by Russian missiles) feel about their country "winning", however.

What do you think the Ukrainians feel about their country being invaded by a fascist power? War is, as one participant observed, hell. Russia could end it tomorrow by taking its invaders home. Ukraine doesn't have that option.

A good friend lives in Kyiv. Born elsewhere, fluent in Ukrainian, has Ukrainian citizenship. We speak most weeks. Her personal take is very much along the lines of zompist’s comment, rather than alice’s.

One week our call was delayed because an apartment block 300m away had burnt down after a missile strike. War brings trauma, but this particular individual, at least, would take it over the alternative.

Everyone is different; there must be Ukrainians who just want the missiles to stop, or have lost so much that they’ll take any relief. But I don’t think my friend knows those people. Defiance is strong and I think it is pretty general.

My respect to all survivors of warfare.

My remark was, in retrospect, ill-advised and easily misunderstood. I apologise for making it and wish it removed.