Comments by "MarcosElMalo2" (@MarcosElMalo2) on "Anders Puck Nielsen"
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We really don’t know if the fighting east of Kharkiv was completely opportunistic or planned. We do know a bit more about the Kherson counteroffensive because it was announced and we saw the various missile attacks on Russian assets to shape the battlefield (depots, air defense, air bases, supply routes). When the attack kicked off, the strategy was a little unusual and perhaps confusing. UA seemed to be attacking on across the entire Kherson front line before settling on the three main lines.
The approach east of Kharkiv seems too well organized to be improvised. I think this was planned as an option all along. Ukraine has been conducting reconnaissance and surveillance to get an idea of which strategically important area was most vulnerable. (And I suspect that in addition to drones, they were sending in Long Range Reconn Patrols behind enemy lines when they discovered that the front lines were thinly defended.) Ukraine probably monitored Russia pulling out troops and equipment to send to Kherson.
Kherson is not a feint or diversion, but it is being used to fix Russian soldiers in place nevertheless. Russia has concentrated a lot of artillery on both banks of the Dnipro, making it deadly for Ukraine to concentrate its forces for a big breakthrough, but it is possible to surgically isolate smaller Russian units and either push them back or defeat them in detail. The mobile reserves of Russia’s defense-in-depth are having trouble staying organized and concentrated themselves.
So I think Anders is right about the strategy for Kherson. Unless the Russians collapse entirely, it’s going to be a campaign of nibbling, avoiding concentration of large masses of soldiers. You’ll notice that although it is slow going, Ukraine seems to be maintaining the initiative, forcing Russia to react to the crisis of the moment.
If Russia were to rush forces from Zaporizhe to reinforce Izyum’s lines of communication, we might well see a third counterstroke in the less defended area.
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@kasperwittrup1288 You’re correct in all but one thing. These are territorial waters. International law still provides for free passage for “innocent” commercial shipping. But international law also permits nations to conduct law enforcement activities in their territorial waters, such as inspections. Finland and Estonia each have the right to inspect each and every ship passing through its waters.
I think the pilot requirement some are suggesting is a non-starter. But inspections, especially of “suspicious” ships, could put a real kink in Russian economic activity in St. Petersburg. It’s not a blockade, since Finland and Estonia would allow inspected ships to continue their voyages.
With regards as to the type of inspections, the Finish (and Estonian, Swedish, Danish, Latvian, and Lithuanian) coastguard wouldn’t only be looking for criminal activity. They should also be equipment inspections to insure that the the inspected ships are seaworthy, mechanically sound, and safe for crew members. Such inspections can take quite a long time . . .
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We are talking about two things: criminals being tried and criminals being punished. The ICC can try accused criminals in abstentia, but of course it cannot force extradition of convicted criminals to face justice and punishment.
As far as a top level leaders being tried, convicted, and punished for war crimes, this can happen when total victory is achieved, in the sense that a country would be occupied and surrender unconditionally. This also might happen if there is a change in leadership and it is desirable or convenient to the new leadership to give up the old leadership.
But even in the case of a country losing or being forced to cease its war activities, there is no formal mechanism to force a war criminal to face justice. I am thinking of U.S. National Security Advisor Dr. Henry Kissinger in this case, who ordered specific operations in Cambodia that were almost certainly war crimes.
It’s notable that the U.S. did in fact prosecute and convict a low level officer for the My Lai atrocity. Unsurprisingly, the officer’s superiors were never charged despite evidence that they were also culpable. It seems like a symbolic gesture (although I’m sure it wasn’t symbolic to the officer in question, Lt. William Calley.)
The international community was never in a position to force war crimes trials on the U.S. And given that this was during the Cold War and the U.S. was the main supporter of NATO, it wasn’t politically possible.
It is entirely possible that Russia will sacrifice some lower level officers and soldiers in a peace deal, but I think it’s unlikely Putin or any high level Russian leaders will ever be convicted and punished, regardless of moral correctness.
And I’m sorry to say that Putin has a letter-of-the-law defense for the bombing of civilian infrastructure, despite our opinion. It’s probably a moot point anyway.
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@marvinegreen Hey, Marvin. I was just a kid at the time of the Vietnam War. Maybe I was more aware of it than some at the time. I remember that the older brother of my best friend was in high school ROTC, and he was very informed of events, and would tell us about the conflict, including the tactics being used.
His father was Korean War vet, and his grandfather was a code talker in WWII. A couple of the family’s older cousins had served or were serving tours in VN. (Just as an aside, you won’t find Americans more patriotic and more willing to lay their lives on the line than Navajos.) Anyway, the older brother was quite hawkish, up until the time he graduated. I think his family members with war experience had been trying to break through his idealism to tell him the realities of war. And now that it was going to be his turn soon, they finally got through to him. He didn’t become anti-war, but his ardor cooled.
Anyway, he enlisted and went through officer training and was sent to Germany. By that time we were drawing down. It was the period of Vietnamization, Nixon’s policy of turning more and more of the war to the South Vietnamese.
I also remember my father, a liberal and active Democrat. Despite being a Democrat, he always said, “Respect the President”. (This was pre-Watergate). He was a veteran of WWII, and he also said, “Whether you agree with the policies of the government, we support the troops.” To be clear, he was firmly a liberal but he was not a dirty hippy. He was a fierce centrist liberal Democrat. But he gradually became anti-war as the conflict dragged on.
As I grew older and went to college, I studied the Vietnam War more in depth. I try to keep my childhood memories in a separate category from what I later learned, and not let it color my opinion. And here it is. Our leaders didn’t truly understand the nature of the war we were fighting. They thought it was one thing, but really it was another. They understood the nature of the Cold War, but they didn’t understand Vietnam.
Sure, they understood that it was an insurgency, but they didn’t fully understand the nature of that insurgency at a fundamental level. They didn’t understand Vietnam and its history. They didn’t understand that the North Vietnamese communists could be fiercely communist, but with an independent streak a mile wide. The bottom line is that if your policies are based on a false appraisal of the nature of the war your military strategy will not succeed.
With regard to the current conflict in Ukraine, the obvious parallels are obvious. The less obvious parallel is that Russia doesn’t understand the nature of the war they are fighting. They don’t understand who they are fighting. They don’t understand at a fundamental level the nature of Ukrainian resistance, nationalism, and independence.
The Russian leadership really believes its own propaganda and ideology. They don’t get why their domino theory of NATO expansion is flawed. They don’t understand that Ukraine’s primary motivation is its independence and survival as an independent nation. If they did, they would withdraw. Because they don’t, their strategies will always be flawed and insufficient.
Now we come to the thing you don’t understand. Why is “NATO North” more enthusiastically supporting Ukraine than is “NATO South”? Why are they more enthusiastic members of NATO? One reason might be that they have joined NATO more recently. But I think the strongest reason is how much they suffered under the Soviets.
Thanks for reading my overly long spiel.
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@terrysullivan1992 Use of tactical nukes by Russia actually fortifies the Western alliance, whereas Russia wants to weaken the unity of the West, decrease cooperation, and drive wedges between the Western democracies. (I use “West” as an institutional democracy descriptor, not geographical.) Russia doesn’t want to face additional sanctions, nor does it want direct military confrontation with NATO forces, whether in Ukraine or other places of our choosing.
Or at least we hope that Russia wants to avoid these consequences. So let us consider the tactical benefits of using tactical nukes. If used offensively, tactical nukes help with breakthroughs. If used defensively, tactical nukes are good for destroying troop concentrations. Tactical nukes are good against infrastructure targets. But in none of these cases will a tactical nuke deliver a knock out blow.
So let us hope that Russia maintains some operational rationality, no matter how psycho its internal politics get, because there is no rational reason for Russia to use a tactical nuke.
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Your teacher was talking about martial arts, which is a sport, and (probably) personal defense. He wasn’t talking about war. There are similarities between competitive sports and war. Both involve adversaries in contention, each trying to win. And each adversary will (hopefully) leverage its strengths (size, endurance, skill, physical strength) to win.
But the differences are too large to apply your teacher’s lesson to war. Maybe it applies to the tactical level, but it falls short as you move up to higher levels.
And the main difference is this: in competitive sport, you and your adversary are fighting for the same goal, to win a game. If you don’t achieve a better score (or pin or knock out your opponent), you lose. There are other differences (rules, time limits, agreed upon dimensions of the area), but this is the main one.
In war, the two adversaries often are fighting for different goals. I’ll go so far as to say they almost always are fighting for different goals. If one side fails to understand this and fails to understand their adversary’s goals (including the reasons for those goals), they will misapply their advantages and/or their advantages don’t really apply. Size or firepower don’t win the war if you fail to understand your adversary and his goals and motivations.
What about self defense? Isn’t that a much closer analogy? It is, but it still falls short. You and your adversary have different goals, but the goals are quite easy to understand. Your adversary wants to harm you or rob you. You want to prevent him from harming or robbing you. Strength, size, and/or superior firepower are paramount in self defense.
Your teacher was motivating you to develop your skills, to put in the work required to perfect them, to practice, and to improve your physical body. He was training you in a sport that also has self defense applications, up to a point. But if he was only training you for self defense and nothing more, he’d be a firearms instructor. 😂
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@jesan733 I don’t think I’ve seen that put better anywhere else. You demolished runethorsen’s bad faith argument. Or let us say you “runed” his arguments.
I’m past sick and tired of soft-brained leftists and pro-dictator trolls using emotionally charged rhetoric, like “American Empire”. Is the U.S. a hegemonic power? Does it try to impose Western Democracy and values on other parts of the world? I think that is more or less true. But does it act like a traditional empire? No. If we want to see imperial ambitions, we need only look at China, Russia, and Iran.
I’m not saying the U.S. is perfect. If it is the world’s policeman, there are times when it acts like an abusive cop. U.S foreign policy and defense policy has made big mistakes with tragic consequences for others. This is all true. But it is also true that the U.S. checked the Soviet’s expansionism and has helped weaker nations maintain their independence against stronger belligerent nations. And it has not done this alone. It forms coalitions and alliances. Hell, the U.S. was the motivating force behind the U.N., making its two chief rivals permanent members of the Security Council.
Despite the mistakes, despite the sometimes mixed intentions of the U.S., the Pax Americana has been a net benefit for world. The conditions created by American “imperialism” has allowed hundreds of thousands, if not billions, of humans to pull themselves and their nations out of poverty.
American is not above criticism. It might not always listen to it, even when it comes from close friends. But it doesn’t prevent those friends or anyone else from voicing criticism and disapproval. It doesn’t persecute internal dissent. Not like China and Russia or various other smaller dictatorships do.
About the left: I only condemn the knee jerk anti-American left, its intellectually dishonest grifters, and its cud chewing followers. Once upon a time they were far on the fringe and/or limited to minor fields of academia. I don’t lump the liberal or progressive left with them. Once upon a time the childish revolutionaries were a trivial annoyance.
It troubles me that they seem to be gaining influence. It’s not as troubling as what’s happening on the right side of the political spectrum, but the lefty loons are becoming a threat—they sap our ability to fight the proto-fascist right, for one thing.
Anyway, I’m getting off topic. But the point is, if the U.S. is a hegemon, it’s a soft hegemon, the softest the world has ever seen. It ceased using violence to expand its borders in the 19th Century. People like runethorsen are either dumdums or wicked power worshipping nihilists, trying to “colonize” our minds with dishonest rhetoric.
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I don’t think its completely delusional, just mostly delusional. 1) I don’t think Ukraine’s military is sufficiently strong. 2) I think Putin would use tactical nukes to defend Crimea. 3) the geographical challenges are great.
That said, 1) the Ukraine might (eventually) take a portion, 2) Threatening Crimea (from Kherson, if Kherson is retaken by Ukraine) will draw Russian forces away from other areas. 3) Longer term, when the peace is being negotiated, there would be an impetus to create a DMZ in the northern part of Crimea, with international peace keepers.
Maybe the biggest factor is the least predictable: what happens inside the Kremlin, inside Russia, and inside the other Republics of the Federation. As this is totally unpredictable, we shouldn’t become invested in the notion, but its a tiny possibility that Russian internal events will lead to the loss of Ukraine. One can imagine all sorts of scenarios, including a perfect storm of scenarios, but don’t bet the family farm on it.
I suspect/predict that there will be peacekeepers in Eastern Donbas as well, as part of a negotiated settlement.
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