Ukrainian War Developments

lapain said:

Vietnam,

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• 1955-1964, proxy war between PRC/USSR-backed Viet Cong versus US-backed South Vietnam.
• Post-1964, no longer a pure proxy war when US got directly involved as a combatant.

lapain said:

Soviet Afghan war

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Not a pure proxy war since Soviet was a direct combatant. US fought via proxy (Mujahadeen/Osama)

lapain said:

and the Korean War are categorized as proxy wars right?

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It was proxy until US and China directly got involved. Then it just became a war between great powers or just any other regular war..

lapain said:

Better kill the beast before it grows further, sort of like France and Britain should have done in 1936. Wouldn't call this a boxed in situation at all.

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Boxed in means you have no other choice. Literally Putin's speech said they had no other choice because the threat will grow worse and worse.

Maikeru said:

You are aware that the vast majority of Russians are white Orthodox Christians, yes?

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Really?? This whole time I thought they were African buddhists.

I don't know what it is about Russians that gets Anglos so upset, but after this war they've certainly earned their honourary non Aryan card.

Aegis21 said:

I dismissed most of your statements early on. At this point the preponderance of evidence suggests that Russians have done poorly with their objectives. No major cities were captured, Ukrainian command is still alive, and mid-long range SAMs are still active. All of that paints a poor image of Russian command. If anything, it seems that Russia underestimated Ukraine’s will to fight severely. I recall Russian troops just charging into cities in their armored cars thinking they would be greeted as liberators. Although the individual Russian soldier is capable the war has dispelled the strong image of the Russian forces. It’s still very likely that Russians will win this war but it will be a pyrrhic, tactical victory not a strategic one. The sanctions will still hurt the Russian economy even if China is able to mitigate it partially through increased trade.

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To be honest, right now it doesn't really matter. The Russian performance and what we expected Russia to have performed before the start, was not big enough to change the ultimate outcome of the war by much.

NATO membership is no longer relevant. Even if Ukraine never joins NATO, anti-Russian sentiment has been whipped up to an extent that the country if it survives will become an anti-Russian arsenal of missiles, planes, troops, etc. So Russia has to subdue Ukraine now or it is screwed strategically as an independent power.

Jingle Bells said:

To be honest, right now it doesn't really matter. The Russian performance and what we expected Russia to have performed before the start, was not big enough to change the ultimate outcome of the war by much.

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I’m not saying that Russia will lose as much as the rough start and lack of a “blitzkrieg” has hurt Russia. It doesn’t hold the leverage a swift victory would’ve provided. The image of the Russian military has been degraded on the world scene. I think the US and EU actually levied more sanctions than they would’ve j itislly planned because of the unexpected resilience of Ukraine. All of this is to say that a prolonged war will be more damaging to Russia. The war will go on but Putin’s initial calculus has failed.

Aegis21 said:

I dismissed most of your statements early on. At this point the preponderance of evidence suggests that Russians have done poorly with their objectives. No major cities were captured, Ukrainian command is still alive, and mid-long range SAMs are still active. All of that paints a poor image of Russian command. If anything, it seems that Russia underestimated Ukraine’s will to fight severely. I recall Russian troops just charging into cities in their armored cars thinking they would be greeted as liberators. Although the individual Russian soldier is capable the war has dispelled the strong image of the Russian forces. It’s still very likely that Russians will win this war but it will be a pyrrhic, tactical victory not a strategic one. The sanctions will still hurt the Russian economy even if China is able to mitigate it partially through increased trade.

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Eh no. Do you even know how many SAM systems the Ukrainians have? Try seeing how well the US's über Luftwaffe did totally eradicating dinky Serbia's air defenses using export grade 1970s Soviet era tech. Ukraine was where a lot of the bulk of Soviet elite troops were based and they inherited all that equipment. A ton of it. This includes late 1980s era stuff.

As for the Russian Army charging into "cities". Those were not cities for the most part. Those were small towns and villages. And you know what. You do not need to make a massive siege for every dinky little target. Including ones which provide little resistance. That would just stall the offensive early on.

To me this war is just Russia expanding its security bubble around its inner core. It is a similar war to the Winter War for which Stalin was also much criticized for at the time. Did you know France and the UK wanted to bomb Baku, the main oil production city in the Soviet Union, back then? The Winter War and annexation of the Baltics pissed off a lot of people.

If I may talk about the broad geopolitics of this war for a moment...

First of all the war isn't really between Russia and Ukraine, it's between NATO and Russia. That's a big part of the reason why Ukraine has held up so well. It's not just because their "oh so plucky fighters" are so great. It's because the West has provided massive moral, intelligence, material and manpower support to Ukraine, not just since February 24, but for the last eight years. If you look at NATO with its massive population of 950 million and huge economy of US + EU, and compare it to Russia, it's clear that Russia with its 145 million people is actually the underdog in this fight. Sure NATO troops aren't directly involved, but the support they are providing is making a decisive difference in keeping Ukraine alive.

In my view, for NATO, they don't really care about Ukraine, they see it as an opportunity to bleed Russia and ultimately destroy Russia as an independent great power. It's all about Russia.

Which leads us to... IMO if you're China, Russia cannot fall no matter what. If Russia returned to the complete abjection of the 1990's and Yeltsin-style politics, it could be forced to host Western bases on its territory. In other words, China could potentially face Western bases not only in places like Japan, Guam, and South Korea, but in Vladivostok and Irkutsk, and even in places like Kazakhstan. That's the dream of the Western strategists. In such a case, China would be completely encircles in all directions with a hostile India.

Supporting Russia will be painful for China, unfortunately it has no choice if it doesn't want to be entirely encircled. Therefore China's going to have to take significant pain and risk further Western sanctions in order to provide aid for Russia. IMO even if that means transferring lethal weapons to Russia.

Aegis21 said:

I dismissed most of your statements early on. At this point the preponderance of evidence suggests that Russians have done poorly with their objectives. No major cities were captured, Ukrainian command is still alive, and mid-long range SAMs are still active. All of that paints a poor image of Russian command. If anything, it seems that Russia underestimated Ukraine’s will to fight severely. I recall Russian troops just charging into cities in their armored cars thinking they would be greeted as liberators. Although the individual Russian soldier is capable the war has dispelled the strong image of the Russian forces. It’s still very likely that Russians will win this war but it will be a pyrrhic, tactical victory not a strategic one. The sanctions will still hurt the Russian economy even if China is able to mitigate it partially through increased trade.

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In fact, I would say that strategically, Russia's war performance will do a lot of good for her in the future. At least the following didn't happen:
1. Russian Forces didn't collapse and got annihilated by Ukrainian forces and resulting in a foreseeable unequal treaty in which Russia will have to cede land to Ukraine and be forced to pay war reparations to Ukraine.
2. Russian DIDN'T suffer a proof-of-concept failure with any of her most high-tech/high-end weapon. Because it would really be disastrous if Russia has actually committed a huge amount of state-of-the-art PGMs, cutting edge tanks and IFVs, high tech surveillance systems, EM warfare, capabilities, and STILL resulting in catastrophic failure which proves that these new toys are garbage.
3. Russia's performance did NOT result in the West believing Russian conventional forces as an eminent threat that they have underestimated.
4. Putin correctly picked the "opportune moment" to start this war, as we already see huge surges in oil and especially in natrual gas prices, which first exasperated inflation in the US, and made EU very painful economically. This proves Putin's foresight. And this gives Russia a opportunity to not have any disastrous military repercussion from the West (like the West sending heavy weapons to Ukraine, etc.).
5. Russia did NOT see any betrayal from her traditional and friendly nations like India and China, etc. And even scored some new friends like Pakistan and South Africa, etc.


In fact, I would rate this war as boring and anti-climatic, with only ill feelings for how many poor civilians got caught up and fell victim to the war.

ZeEa5KPul said:

I owe Indians an apology. I thought they were the the biggest liars in the world after the Galwan thing, but they're nowhere near. Ukrainians are by far the most prolific liars on the planet.

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I was about to say the same thing, at least the Indians didn't create the Ghost of Galwan. FFS, all information currently is mostly one way, all western sources with no evidence whatsoever. A picture of a stranded tank is reused and recycled into hundreds of tanks down. At this point Ukraine needs moral propaganda more than the Russians who are happily munching on their sofa watching the TV