Comments by "buddermonger2000" (@buddermonger2000) on "What’s Going on in Ukraine?" video.

@whm_w8833 Honestly it makes no sense beyond being a coalition. The US really can't take both on and I think it's stupid to think that the US would try to take on both at once or at the very least not give up in Eastern Europe first. The video brought up something very important here: the defensible line is in Poland and not Ukraine. Which is why Russia really only cares for the neighbors of Poland. I can honestly see after this being a deal in that if either side invades through Poland they go to war and so there's a non-agression pact around Poland. Russia NEEDS that as a defensible line. They can't afford otherwise and it's a similar situation for Kazakhstan in Central Asia where the mountains buttress the Chinese borders.
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@whm_w8833 I'll be honest it probably makes more sense that way. Honestly the US's influence has expanded realistically way too far for what it can hold and you clearly don't understand the vital importance of Taiwan. Taiwan creates most of the computer chips for the world so what happens for that is that China gets a grip on the whole modern world. If Russia gets Ukraine the Russians have a defensible border and the US actually has a spot in the Central European plain which is narrow enough to defend. In terms of what can be held the US is overextended and needs to retrench. The far east can be held without too much issue as long as there's an actual balance of power. With Russia a Chinese enemy it allows China to basically be surrounded on all sides and keep it from expanding. The US has the best navy in the world so it can hold the seas which dominate the far East. The US can't hold the largest tank army in the world which is entirely suited to fighting in flat plains. Eastern Europe is realistically all Russian anyway. Honestly the US needs allies though and should probably try to stop any action in the middle east, Mediterranean, and Eastern Europe. Western Europe is mostly fine on its own and it can keep the support there without too much effort. Far east is all water so that's all about its naval presence. Let the Indians and Turks split the rest. Protecting the incredibly important computer chip trade is much more important.
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@1mol831 Honestly the first reason starts with the same reason China doesn't try to immediately invade Taiwan right now: naval invasions are difficult. IIRC Taiwan is even harder because of some weird weather patterns in the strait which only clear up 1 month at a time twice a year. Oh and it's also like 3 times the distance of the English channel. Second reason is related to the first: there's no staging ground for an invasion of the Chinese mainland. There's not an ally on any border of China that would allow American troops in to invade from. If you ever played the US in HOI4 in a not so historical fashion you've learned this the hard way when trying to invade someone. The third reason is that even if they did try to stage it, it would get wiped out via missiles and rockets because those technologies are destruction of any collection of men and equipment. Fourth and final one is thus: why even bother? What do you really gain from doing so? The ramifications of it are so insane because you started WW3, threw away millions of lives, pumped trillions from a total war, and on top of that there's no real gain because you make the Chinese submit and then do what? You're not anywhere near so It's not like you can just annex it. You make it an ally I guess but the local Chinese probably hate you for doing so anyway. The problem everyone has with China anyway is them being bellicose and expansionist and for that it's just fine to not even try and just dig your Trench around the country to just make sure they can't expand and then you get none of the negative benefits of kicking off a world War, far less men and materiel commitments, and in the end get practically the same result.
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@graveyardshift6691 Okay sorry but I have to push back on two key aspects: You can't call the Gulf War a fluke when it did it twice (two gulf wars the same result) and then did the same thing to Afghanistan. And the Americans are a remarkably militaristic people despite the overall desire for peace especially from any perceived attacks. The US suffered 3 damaged buildings from some planes and because of it invaded 2 countries in the middle east and completely decimated them in less than a month. The US entered two world wars over some ships being sunk with Americans on them. The thing that the American populace more than anything else hates is being lied to and long occupations. Vietnam was 20 years long and less than 60k dead. Afghanistan was less Than 2k dead over the same time-frame. Oh and north Vietnam was near capitulation after the Tet Offensive but despite it being an American victory the US populace got mad at being lied to and thought it wasn't going well. So the US probably has the stomach for war.
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Having seen the potential of Ukraine in a recent video with an industrial base inherited from the soviets, numerous reforms on corruption and government, military reforms from the Donbas war, and the ability to feed itself and much of the world around it, I wonder if it could potentially take the reigns to lead the Russian people or if they're too focused on their Ukrainian identity to really adopt a more Slavic focused identity.
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@avroarchitect1793 I'll be honest if there's anyone without the stomach for war right now it's China considering any sort of losses is the end of thousands of family lines which are incredibly important to their society. Also uh... encirclements neaty avoid that problem.
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@emperorarima3225 Actually I'll be honest I see the American total war having more problems than a more limited conflict because limited conflicts are a "Whatever you have is what you got" kind of war and China has... really just a shit military. Like it's not even good. The soldiers are the worst part of it but at this point the American military can literally coordinate all of its tanks at once and has some of the most disciplined soldiers in the world currently. Chinese break at the first bit of fighting. Also would probably completely de-legitimize the CCP since currently what's keeping them in power is the idea of overwhelming and continuous success. Once that ends.. that's it. Tbh the Chinese military is just a bunch of bafoons in really expensive equipment. The only threat is hypersonic missiles. Everything else is completely ineffectual and the Americans have a defense against. In many ways it's like the French army in the Franco-Prussian War: well funded but completely incompetent. But in this scenario it's magnified by 10 since the French at the time knew how to actually fight a war and had respect for its soldiers while also having superior equipment in many respects with the leadership being the main limiting factor. The Chinese however lag in EVERYTHING but hypersonic missiles. Nothing else is at parity and the troops are completely unreliable. It's basically like Italy in WWII but even the Italians were good when put under good Commanders. Chinese broke at the first sign of fighting when part of UN security forces and only get trained for half a year with leadership rotating in and out. That's not a recipe for success. That's a recipe for getting routed in every battle.
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20:40 Yeah I've been saying this for a while. The alliance is one of convenience and there really aren't enough hang-ups to not try to pull what's honestly the most sensible move and gaining another ally/front in the Sino-American war.
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Yeah let's me honest, the history of Russia is the history of coming back from levels of death and horror that would cripple literally any other population. But not THE RUS. They're the embodiment of "It doesn't matter how many times you get beaten down just how many times you get back up."
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@emperorarima3225 Doesn't matter as much if your army gets routed and your capital is surrounded in 6 months. Which is about what I expect to happen. I doubt the Chinese can even really replace their heavy equipment so quickly since that takes time to build and it's even harder when you're having your industry taken over. And unlike Russia which is big and MOVED its industry, there's nowhere to move the Chinese industry to. You're just going to lose it no matter what. Your population is going to no longer be under control of your government so you can't coordinate, and overall trying to actually resist would be just the Chinese government handing rifles to a bunch of random citizens to then get blown up by artillery fire.
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@emperorarima3225 Honestly the thing here is that China is more a bunch of scared peasants with rocket launchers if that. Honestly the Chinese might be able to pump all of that out but kind of hard to do that when you're being blown up by close air support and artillery about a kilometer out. I'm not trying to simp for the US, but currently the morale difference is just really huge. And you know... don't quite replace loses that quickly when you're not at total war levels. Also yeah all of this is hypothetical. You're not getting to the Chinese mainland. This is the biggest thing I don't understand when people speak about possible war with the Chinese: WHAT LAND WAR!!??? Any boots on the ground are going to be in Taiwan or Korea providing support. Not the Chinese mainland. There's nowhere to invade from. And honestly it's a lot easier to just hold a coast than an actual invasion. Not sure who the hell is thinking of an actual invasion of China. Best I can think of is maybe they base in Korea and invade a small into Beijing to get them to sue for peace after defending Taiwan for long enough of they don't agree to a cease-fire in a year.
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@emperorarima3225 Yeah I broke down the reasons for that guy why the US couldn't just invade China. Tbh I think even a war inside China's borders could be won, but the question is why bother and also where to invade. There's no reason for it and if there's such little reason for it then you just don't to it.
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@Saiga-saiga More like gods of death from said icy hell
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@emperorarima3225 I do have to wonder if you're looking at that a bit too much from a total war standpoint since so much of history has had wars settled via a treaty after a limited exchange over a smaller objective.
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@dr.woozie7500 Tbh the collapse of the international system will probably come regardless. But yeah the US invades China and it doesn't do anything.
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@GL-iv4rw How did the Manchurians do it?
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@whm_w8833 Nah there's strategic reasons for Taiwan as they have very important resources and the reasons China is going for them is ideological only. Ukraine is basically a strategic location where either it exists under Russian Control or is on the widest part of the eastern European plain and is the gates for an invasion which is why Russia went so far into central Europe. Also until now I doubt we could've held it and honestly I'm still not entirely convinced since it would take a fair amount of resources to do so since the only way to hold territory in Eastern Europe is to have a big army holding it so any invader is crushed. Which is difficult on flat plains and requires disproportionately large investment in the military to do so. Central Europe is a small enough width of plain to defend. Basically we can get up up Poland and Romania actually defend it. Ukraine? Nope.
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@GL-iv4rw Well the reason they assimilated was because they had to use pre-existing people and systems. 4:1 isn't as bad as 100:1. So domination would be possible without it. Though honestly it was a genuine question of how did they do it I don't know how.
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@GL-iv4rw I'm even more confused
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