Comments by "jeppen" (@jesan733) on "HistoryLegends"
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@unifieddynasty thanks, but I'm not a neocon and I haven't proven your point. I'm just clever enough to have my priorities straight. We have an ongoing sharpening of the contradictions in the world, after a calm post-cold-war period. America has kindof mismanaged that calm period and its very strong position, considering the fact that the geostrategic situation for democracy have rather deteriorated. The blame could at least to some extent be attributed to neocons' misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
My priority now is to support democracy, and however imperfect, that means supporting the the Western world and its institutions, led by the US. If the US turns inward, wars and authoritarianism will expand and the hope of a democratic world will diminish substantially. Also, this being a "client state" isn't that bad in the western world. Germany and Japan are tied much more loosely to the US, and their relationships are much more beneficial, than e.g. the Belarusian relationship to Russia or the North Korean relationship to China.
In the calm period, it was kindof understandable that a lot of people were very critical of US power, but it fascinates me that so many people in the west can't get over it (and themselves) now when the Russian empire fights a revanschist genocidal war in Europe. It doesn't make sense to not be on the side of democracy.
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@ДмитрийСвергин "How many Russian troops are in Ukraine. Three hundred thousand contractors. Those who started this operation. The armed forces of the DPR and LPR are with them. In addition to them, three hundred thousand more from the reserve were mobilized. The regular troops of Russia, which is a million people, do not participate in the operation."
This is complete nonsense. Contract troops, those who weren't killed or maimed, didn't renew contracts. DPR/LPR cannon fodder has been mostly finished by now, and plenty of the mobiks too. The regular troops of Russia, not many left, are almost all in Ukraine and that's why not even Belogorod was defended, much less the border to e.g. Finland and the Baltics. Russia has left everything open and undefended, relying on nuclear deterrence, because NATO could go in armed with toothpicks and take over. Army bases all over Russia have skeleton crews and the May day parades were pathetic displays were they even employed people to act as soldiers (with a promise of not being mobilized on the spot so that young men would dare take the job).
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@Slackware1995 the real US assessment according to original leaked documents is 2:1 casualties Russia:Ukraine by February:
Up to 43,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in action, with an estimated total casualty count between 189,500-223,000.
That compares with the up to 17,500 Ukrainian soldiers killed in action and 124,500-131,000 casualties.
This was doctored by Russia in falsified versions. E.g. they had switched places for the 1 and 7 in Ukrainian deaths to arrive at 71,500. This is typical of the Russian propaganda: Just inject enough of various falsehoods to confuse and gaslight, so nobody knows what's true anymore, nor trusts anything.
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@unifieddynasty you repeat my arguments back to me, as if you think I don't know what I've said, and then you engage in some fluffy rhethoric in which you hint that you have some arguments that you for some reason don't present. At the same time, you carefully avoid actually engaging with what I say, e.g. that Germany & Japan are more loosely tied to the US and has more beneficial relationships than Belarus/Russia and NK/China. You like your little labels, like "client state", "hegemon", "neocon" and so on, but obviously have your own sloppy and expansive definitions for them. And no, I'm not interested in you sending a list of countries that you feel are "propped up" by America. If you want to make an argument, try detailing what, exactly, would have been better in e.g. South Korea, Japan and Germany if the US had had a more hands-off approach. You can also come clean and explain whether you think democracies are at all justified in collaborating to fortify against dictatorships, maintain peace and order and also try to flip dictatorships to democracies, or if you think it'd be better if Russia and China spread their models and expanded their empires.
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"Also Javelins and Stingers after stocks run out: cricket noises"
Russia still can't use mechanised brigades, they just get destroyed. Ukraine has plenty anti-armor: mines, nlaws, javelins, at4, stugna-p, excalibur and more.
"Also adience after Ukrainian loses all bayraktars: cricket noises"
Sure, but Bayraktar did important work early on. And the song was epic!
"Also audience after Russians are adapting and shooting down HIMARS missiles: cricket noises"
Nah, Russians can't do much about them, but sadly the ammo is a bit scarce so Ukraine has to ration it and use only for really high-value targets. But it does still make Russian logistics far harder because they can't concentrate assets within range.
"Also audience after these missiles don't achieve more than 1 success because the Russians can outsmart them: cricket noises"
Yeah, Russia outsmarted Neptune by keeping far, far away in the Black Sea. HARM missiles are still good but for now, I guess the air dominance of the R-37 makes it hard for Ukraine to use them. But they did good work and still makes Russia deploy S-X00 further back, which is good. Other long-range missiles: Storm Shadow still does very good work.
"Gepard, NASAMS, Hawk, Patriot"
These are all good. They aren't being destroyed, they're shooting down almost everything Russia throws at Ukraine.
"Old western MRAPs, APCs, IFVs, MBTs, Also audience when Ukraine loses hundreds of these vehicles: cricket noises"
Well, those are destroyed in the hundreds in Russian propaganda only, as far as we know. Normal people understand that there are losses during offensives, but only captives of Russian propaganda jumps to conclusion based on very little evidence.
"See a pattern?"
Yeah, I see a very clear pattern in your bias.
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@Seasails-w4q the argument has always been "Russia couldn't allow NATO to place missiles in Ukraine," with the reasoning being the closeness to Moscow shortens the missile travel time. However, the Baltics is roughly as close, so that argument doesn't fly.
I find it bordering on nonsensical that Russia was worried about land invasion. At least before this war, Russia had both the largest artillery arsenal in the world and the largest nuclear weapons arsenal in the world. So it could stop any invader both through the same artillery lockdown of enemy forces as is in play now, and through nuclear deterrence.
Add to that, that NATO countries have been disarming themselves since the cold war, with even big NATO countries having miniscule armies and as we've seen, too little ammo to even fight a decent war. The US also withdrew almost all assets (both nukes and troops) from Europe and halved its total military since the cold war.
Add to that that NATO is a bunch of complacent traders, not warriors. They want their comfy lives built on trade and democracy to continue, they don't want costly and risky major wars. Germany and continental Europe deliberately made themselves dependent on Russian gas to prove friendly intent.
Also, NATO and the US refused to give Ukraine heavy weaponry before the war to not provoke Russia. Furthermore, Russia could keep blocking NATO membership forever by just keeping Crimea. (NATO would refuse to let anyone join who has territory occupied.)
In no way does Russia's neighboring countries have "extreme" NATO military bases. US/NATO force commitments have been low.
So the idea that Russia felt threatened is completely wrong. It attacked Ukraine out of disdain for Western weakness, not out of fear of Western strength.
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@andrews.5212 "i mean no nation have an endless supply of anything (unless is debt for the west)."
In a way, but let's think about ammunition. Let's say a 155 mm shell costs 1 kUSD, and if you fire them with precision, as Ukraine does, then perhaps 1/10 could incapacitate an enemy soldier. That's 10k per incapacitation, or 10 BUSD per million soldiers incapacitated. For the west, this is cheap. So as the west ramps up weapons production, the supply does become functionally unlimited, or rather it becomes overwhelming for the enemy. And do consider that drones are probably cheaper for the same effect.
"Russia have more troops than Ukraine, more vehicles, more drones, more artillery, more air"
I don't think it has numerical superiority in drones. Also artillery numbers don't mean anything. The side with better ISR and precision has the edge, not the one who can fart more shells in the general direction of the enemy.
"Also, Russia needs to guard the entire front (including Bielorussia)"
Not Belarus. Luka has kept Belarus out of the war. Or at least close enough.
"plus Russia, unlike Kiev, rotates its units more often.."
I do not think this is correct.
"Russia have still a huge number of cruise missile"
Nah, the long-term storages have been emptied, so it now has what it produces only.
"Yes Kiev was able to achieve a surprise offensive. Yeppe!"
Consider the astonishing military intelligence failure. Both unable to detect the buildup and no moles high-enough in the military chain of command to detect this in advance. I didn't think that was possible tbh.
"and Kiev expect to dig in with less than a Brigade worth of troops? To do what?"
It's more than a brigade. It draws Rssian resources there and lightens the pressure in the east. And then if Rssia wants to dislodge the Ukrainians, then it has to turn its own settlements into rubble by FAB bombing them. That's the benefit of fighting on the enemy's land, that the destruction will be on his turf. Also it e.g. cut of rail to Belgorod.
"Your scientists were so preoccupied with wheter or not they could, that they didn't stop to think if they should."
For me it's obvious that they should. It's warfare 101 for the weaker side to hit weak points and use nimble tactics and speed.
"might transform itself in a strategic defeat in a couple of months."
We'll see.
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@JAllanC12 "Russia controls over 20% of former Ukraine and at least 70% of its GDP."
17% and perhaps 25%.
"If you look at a map of Ukraine at night, it is dark."
It's not. Russia's terror bombings failed and electricity was fairly quickly restored.
"By US DoD numbers Ukraine has lost 100K to over 250K soldiers with casualties 3 times that. And by DoD numbers Russia has lost less than 20K troops."
This is according to the russian-doctored version of the leak. The originals show a solid Ukrainian attrition advantage.
"Aerial photos of multiple cities show Ukraine is getting crushed."
Front-line cities are turned to rubble by Russia, that's true. Otherwise, no.
"In terms of military progress and rebuilding, Russia did more in a year than"
Since you've been wrong about everything up until this statement based on Russian propaganda, why should we believe you here?
"Russia has advanced more than in Bakhmut."
Russia has not had significant advances. The last thing happening were the Kherson rout and the Kupiansk sprint.
"Ukraine is getting devastated on the alter of US hubris"
Dude, Ukraine wants to defend its territory like almost all other countries. The US is supporting to make this easier, but your statement is nonsense.
"geoplolitical goals outlined by US officials like Zig Brzezinski in his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard"
New conspiracy theory to me.
"My family is in Ukraine"
So why are you not there, fighting with Ukraine for liberation? Why are you outside, supporting rashism in the comment fields?
"It is why the US was able to carry out two coups in Ukraine in 2004 and 2014."
The revolution of dignity was a popular revolution. Ukraine wanted to orient toward the EU and the Kremlin refused, having their man in Kiev unleash the Berkut on protesters, killing them. After the popular revolution, democracy was immediately restored and reinvigorated, and since then, power has changed hands peacefully after free and fair elections.
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@JAllanC12 deepstatemap shows four occupied areas: north, central, south and crimea, with sizes. The sum right now is 106928 sq km out of Ukraine's total of 603628, which computes to 17,7%. So my 17% was a bit low, admittedly. If you exclude Crimea it's 13.2% occupied, but Crimea is Ukraine, so...
Teixeira's leak show favorable attrition for Ukraine, and there's a doctored version of the originals that show a favorable attrition for Russia.
"There are multiple "front line" cities to use your term. They are decimated. And infrastructure across the country is damaged or destroyed. [...] That is not repaired. You can minimize it in a dehumanizing way. It is millions of homes. Crushed."
Yeah, that's Russian Mir. That's what you support.
"The fact of US effort in Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya are irrefutable. The US pulled out of all without rebuilding or stabilizing any of those countries."
All of these interventions are quite different and the level of support provided also quite different. If you're thinking of e.g. the early 90-ies intervention in Somalia, the goal was to stave off and protect efforts to stave off a widespread famine caused by civil war. I'm perfectly fine with the US effort in Libya; given the Arab Spring it was a no-brainer to not let Khadaffi crush the rebellion. Iraq was obviously a mistake and didn't have good enough justification. In Afghanistan, at least they tried. Yemen isn't a US war, but rather Saudi/Iran. Vietnam is too far back and too complex to discuss. Anyhow, the US is a democracy. Each administration is different. If you get food poisoning at a pizzeria, how many times must the ownership change hands before you can go there again? Yeah, yeah, I know, deep state and your 100-year old conspiracy theory of US geopoliticial policy. Sigh.
I can't waste hours arguing against the rest of your Kremlin talking points. I just find it ridiculous that you talk about "Bandera" and "fascism", dissing the Revolution of Dignity, while you support rashism and the Russian's endless series of actual war crimes. Still you're not a drooling troglodyte like most of your friends here, so hat's off for that, but why a literate guy like you are stuck in all that cherry-picked and biased Kremlin nonsense, I'll probably never understand, and I certaintly won't be able to fix it. You have to decide to detoxify, or live like that all your life.
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@Warren_Peace "But they did say that the Russians are running out of tanks."
Who are "they"?
"There was even a story that majority of Russia's tanks were inoperational due to lack of maintenance..."
If that was true, and Russia built up its refurbishment capacity, this may explain why more tanks have hit the streets now.
"Ukrainian and Nato claims of tank and armored vehicles kills(about 5000+) are so exaggerated that they have now no explanation as to how the same exact units that were supposed to be "wiped out" still have decent amount of tanks to send to the field...."
5000 tanks and 10000 other armored vehicles, yes. Idk why you think that's exaggerated, or why it would mean Russia has no reserves.
"The Military Balance 2021 database says Russian storage facilities have around 10,200 tanks, including various T-72s, 3,000 T-80s, and 200 T-90s. The database’s 2016 publication also indicates that Russia has roughly 2,800 Cold War legacy T-55s (the first tank type to feature a nuclear warfare protection system in the 1950s) in storage, as well as 2,500 T-62s and 2,000 T-64s. This means that Russia may have around 17,300 tanks produced between the late 1950s and now."
10,200 decently modern tanks and perhaps 4,000 killed (the rest being older) means Russia has only wasted 40% of them.
Ukraine's reporting had a low in April with only 84 Russian tanks and 212 armored vehicles destroyed. The high is in October with 520 tanks and 820 armored vehicles.
"Heck, even Ukraine had lost so many tanks that they mainly just send their infantry without armored support into Russian lines and just kept them in reserve...."
Aren't you making the same error as you accuse "them" of doing: Looking at current battles and drawing conclusions on reserves? AFAIK, Ukraine has kept most of its armor in reserve since the current reality is that mines and anti-armor helicopters makes it very difficult to use tanks effectively. So they're working with infantry, drones and artillery for the time being, and will throw in armored pushes only when the conditions are right for breakthroughs.
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@nikhildeodhar143 "How are Russians suffering disfavourable attrition? We don't actually know any numbers from either side, Western sources are not even trying to estimate Ukrainian losses"
The Pentagon leaks estimated Russian deaths at roughly 3x Ukraine's and Russian wounded at roughly 2x Ukraine's. This was the US intelligence community's best assessment, but it's old now of course.
Of course it's a problem that Russian propaganda uses reality inversion as one of its primary tools, and one of the absolutely most common allegations is that Zelensky is sending people to their deaths in pointless attacks. However, my perception, from what I can gather from sources that I deem credible, is that Ukraine has rather modern leadership with troop rotations, serious rational planning and tactics, decent modern treatment of soldiers including e.g. genuine care for wounded soldiers. In contrast, Russia suffers from huge amounts of bad leadership and completely atrocious treatment of soldiers. No rotations, soldiers used as expendables in counterattacks with inadequate support, leadership that's using draconian punishments and little to no care for most wounded. Of course, Russia's tactics and strategy isn't all bad, but they do many unforced errors and has horrible morale in comparison. There are tons of vids recorded by Russian infanterists sending complaints home showcasing these issues.
"Russian losses that Mediazona has been able to confirm are not even in the same ballpark as claimed figures."
That stands to reason as Russia is trying to hide its deaths. However we know from Oryx work that Ukraine's reports on destroyed Russian equipment have been plausible. So there's no major reason to assume the casualty figures are less so.
"Ukraine's air force can't match their counterparts"
That's true for now, but Russia's airforce can't operate freely either, so it's not a decisive advantage.
"they don't seem to have FAB analogues, except maybe limited number of JDAMs and compatible MIG-29s"
FAB is an inferior copy of JDAM. I'm sure JDAMs are available in huge numbers, but for now it's more dangerous for Ukraine to launch, and there's rarely a reason to risk your MIGs when HIMARS payloads usually are enough and very precise.
"until HIMARS were delivered they were not able to match Russia in Rocket Artillery, Tube artillery is even at best (Ukraine may have the range, but Russia has the numbers)"
HIMARS seem to be wildly superior in actual practice to Russian rocket artillery. During the whole counteroffensive, it seems Ukrainian tube artillery is more lethal, including superior counter-battery fire. Ukraine not only has the range, but also the precision. Lots of vids out there with one-shotting of RU equipment. Might all be Excalibur rounds, idk, but still a good advantage.
"drone capabilities have been in favour of Russia (by a big margin) for about an year now"
What's your evidence of that? My perception is the opposite. Yes, the Russians have Lancet drones, but their effectiveness is questionable. I don't hear much about the Switchblades but there are lots of vids of Ukraine dropping munitions from drones to great effect. Bayraktars have made a few re-appearances as Ukraine has located and destroyed Russian air defenses. I know Russia has lots of air defense systems, but getting new ones in place and replacing killed crews leaves windows of opportunity.
"And in all those cases (Severodonetsk, Bakhmut and now Robotyne, even Mariupol before that) it was the Ukrainian army which was in a fire bag, not Russian."
Still in e.g. Bakhmut, Russia sent in human meat waves that Ukraine mowed down, essentially, while methodically falling back one street per night.
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@psymantronic1528 "Well according to their American operators, all of Western Ukraine's soldiers are expendable"
That's just you putinists projecting your own lack of morals onto your enemy.
"which is why upwards of 300,000 of them have died"
The Pentagon leaks (the real ones, not the Russian-doctored ones) had these best estimates by the US intelligence community:
Russia: 35,500-43,000 killed, 154,180 wounded, total of 189,500-223,000.
Ukraine: 15,500-17.500 killed, 109,000-113,500 wounded, total of 124,500-131,000.
Today, these figures may have almost doubled, so that would mean 30,000 dead for Ukraine. Good putinist guess though, perfectly in line with what Donbass Doug and Ritter the Diddler says, so I fully understand where you're coming from.
"in a war in which the only beneficiary is America"
The moral void needed to consistently strip the victims of Russia's aggression of their agency and desire to remain free and to liberate their lands is a bit hard for me to come to grips with. Anyway, you should talk to some Ukrainians.
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@doggydude2668 "For the third one, uh what the hell are you mentioning that for?"
Strange question. I explained what those 8:1 and 5:1 numbers were all about. Context is important.
"Wagner PMC is filled with professionals."
For a limited time, they filled it with expendables they needed to have killed within 6 months.
"And they have the artillery advantage because they're being supported by Russia."
The convicts were sent in meat waves to be mowed down by machine guns.
"I'm not sure if Russia is supplying them with armor but if they are then that would give them the armored advantage."
They weren't supplying them with armor. (But if they had, the armor would just have been blown up by anti-armor rockets.)
"I can't find the video but there was a soldier complaining about the extreme amount of shelling and the extreme lack of training?"
Of course, there are always anecdotes like that. I've seen probably two dozen vids of Russian mobik units complaining to their higher-ups about being sent to theirs deaths with inadequate training and support.
"If you look for it or watched History Legends from the very beginning of the battle"
Do you follow anything that shows similar for Russia?
"For number 4, dude... Did I ever mention my arguments were being made about Bakhmut?"
Indirectly, since you talked about 8:1 attrition. AFAIK, that number was only applicable to a certain stage of the Battle for Bakhmut.
"Ukraine still has all the reasons to lie."
Russia does. Ukraine has all the reasons to not lie, because it will be exposed and then its western support will erode. Ukraine is dependent on continued goodwill. Russia has no goodwill and thrives on confusion, distrust and conspiracy theories.
"But a 8:1 ratio is still insane."
Yes, it sure is, but the attacks were insane for a while.
"And I don't remember Ukraine actually ever posting any believable number."
I think its daily Russian losses updates are believable.
"They aren't even supporting their claimed casualty or KD ratio (different things Ik) so why do we need to believe them?"
You don't need to if you don't want to. I think the Pentagon leaks are the best estimates of ratios that we have. Unfortunately, Russia immediately released a doctored competing version, but the original stated 2x casualties for Russia and 3x dead. If the US intelligence isn't incompetent or lying to itself internally, that's the best we've got.
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@doggydude2668 "1. You aren't even providing context jesus christ are you even reading any of the things I'm asking you? I've asked like 40 questions you haven't answered?"
I'm clearly providing context through all these citations. I think I answer you pretty exhaustively.
"2. Yeah but that wasn't the main force."
They were the main force when Ukraine stated attrition at 8:1. That's why the 8:1 number is completely believable and that was what we were discussing.
"3. Source: trust me bro. And uh, what was the point of saying that in response to me saying they had the artillery advantage?"
A huge number of Ukrainian soldiers and people embedded with them and visiting journalists said they essentially saw and mowed down zombie waves of convicts. There's also supporting videos of that. The point of saying this is that at the 8:1 attrition stage of the battle, Russia didn't use artillery very effectively, so it doesn't take away from the 8:1 attrition advantage claim. Remember this was before FAB use and before real mercenary wagnerites used smarter tactics.
"4. That's being extremely faithful. You can't just outright say they would be."
Throughout this conflict, Russian armor has just been consistently slaughtered. That's why it's not used much anymore. Instead Russia is using light infantry to draw fire, then call in artillery at any positions firing at the infantry.
"5. Then that makes both I guess 🤷♂."
No idea what you mean here.
"6.1. [...] Are you referring to a channel Like HL but very biased to Ukraine? Or the video I mentioned? Because I answer no to both questions."
Yes, like HL but biased in the opposite direction. Since you answer no, that explains your unfortunate pro-russian bias.
"6.2. I don't remember Russia grabbing people off the streets to draft them"
Well, this happened a lot in Russia, probably much, much more than in Ukraine. If you had not been in an info bubble, you would have known.
"6.3. from what I remember the Russians were getting trained before being sent to the front? [...] Maybe there are exceptions."
Maybe there were lots of exceptions. Also plenty mobiks complained they were promised other positions and roles but were sent to the front lines as storm troopers with no training for it and little to no support or supplies. E.g. trained artillerists being sent to function as storm troopers. Also if you refused bribing commanders or annoyed them in any other way (like seeing some crime they committed), you could be sent to the front or simply tortured.
"7. Uh, you sure you aren't just making excuses? I was talking generally about the war. I'm only not when I say I'm not. As in, I specify."
You were talking about 8:1 attrition claims. I point out that these claims were made in a specific time in the Battle of Bakhmut. So you cannot extend that to be generally about the war and use it as evidence that Ukraine is b-llsh-tting us.
"8. That doesn't justify it though?"
Yes it does. Insane battle tactics of Russia involving prisoners lead to insane attrition numbers.
"9. Uh how many times do I need to ask for reasoning?"
I have provided reasoning. The equipment losses are corroborated by Oryx visual confirmation, and by how the figures ebb and flow with the types of battles being fought.
"10. But in the case that the stated possibilities are true... I don't know their methods of finding that out but if it's reviewing posted videos which are very biased to Ukraine I'm not taking what they say."
Seriously, the US intelligence community doesn't base death numbers on vids like these. How can you even suggest that? Rather they will use leaks from the officials keeping track of their own country's numbers, along with various statistical ways to corroborate the numbers.
"11.1. Ukraine was exposed lying about that missile landing in Poland but they didn't stop receiving supplies did they?"
They were not exposed lying, they simply had it wrong for a while. And it was a strain on relations and they can't do many such mistakes, much less lie for real before it becomes a real problem.
"11.2. When we refer to Ukranian made statements, are we talking strictly about the Ukranian government or their supporters?"
Strictly about the Ukrainian government.
"11.3. Also, the West doesn't care so much about goodwill to the point they'd stop supporting Ukraine."
I disagree. Democracies care about what the citizenry thinks. Sure, how much support will be reduced if Ukraine loses goodwill depends on the amount of goodwill loss and which countries we're talking about, so it's not black and white, but still. Godwill is very important.
"11.4. They can't engage Russia in a direct conflict without risking nuclear war and insane levels of destruction, so they use Ukraine for it instead."
The west didn't want this war, it didn't want a belligerent Russia trying to crush NATO, crush democracies and creating huge inflation, food shortages and more. But once Russia launched the war, they couldn't let the aggression stand, they couldn't abandon the rules-based global security order, they couldn't abandon a 40-million strong nascent democracy that they had vowed to defend (Budapest memorandum). The west has tried for 30 years to appease Russia and sue for peace. NATO has basically disarmed to the point that they are now very hard pressed to help Ukraine. But Russia re-militarized and attacked, provoked not by NATO's expansion but by NATO's weakness.
"11.5. But if it starts to seem impossible to win, that's when they might stop supplying Ukraine. Which gives Ukraine all the reasons to lie about the situation."
Now you're admitting that Ukraine uses NATO rather than the other way around. You have to decide, who is manipulating who? Also, the NATO intelligence services know exactly how the war is going! They can't be fooled. So Ukraine can only fool the western voters, at best, but you said their opinion doesn't matter. So you contradict yourself twice here.
"11.6. Sorry, I know I'm latching onto that Poland incident but that's because of my awful memory"
I don't want to be rude, but if you truly have memory issues, then perhaps you could question your own judgment a bit and consider deferring to the vast majority of decent people in democracies and virtually all their governments?
"11.7. I feel like they're known liars and I think others share this with me is because they lied in the past or said extremely absurd things which built a reputation for them that stuck with us."
What if you're just in an information bubble and listening to like-minded people?
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@ISRAEL-CONTROL-AMERICA "If the so called No1 military power in the world couldn't beat goat keepers for 20yrs after spending trillions of dollars"
They beat them every day of the week, but they tired of trying to civilize them.
"you expect Russia to take down the biggest army in Europe after Russia."
No, I expect Russia to keep losing.
"These are Nato foot soldiers with mercenaries and NATO service men in Ukranian uniforms equiped to the teeth"
There are no mercenaries on the side of Ukraine, just some volunteer foreigners. 98%+ of those fighting in Ukraine are Ukrainians.
"equiped to the teeth with Nato so called game changer weapons which eventually turned into game blamers"
They haven't got access to most of the equipment that NATO relies on to dominate a battle space. Still many of the game changers remain game changers, including HIMARS, HARM, Storm Shadow, NATO artillery and air defenses. But there are lots of stuff that they haven't received, like western fighter jets and all the various ammunition types that go with them, marine assets, ATACAMs, land-based cruise missiles and more.
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@jeffhicks8428 "Russia clearly expected someone to negotiate with after they "showed their hand" that they were serious about military "
Nonsense. They clearly expected to be able to take Kyiv. They sent in OMON forces with the invaders to police Kyiv, they activated assassination crews that were tasked to kill Zelensky, they had tried to bribe lots of officials to surrender and they spent huge amounts of elite paratroopers on Hostomel. And their convoys going toward Kyiv were huge.
"They got no such thing because Russia is too cautious and constantly misjudges the US badly."
Russia wasn't too cautious. They had built up meticulously for years for this moment and threw everything they had at it, but they simply overestimated their capabilities to do modern maneuver warfare.
"Anyone with two brain cells can see that the US wanted this war badly, and Russia was trying to do everything to avoid it,"
That's ridiculous. The information bubble you have to be in to believe that... Wow. The US did everything to warn and try to negotiate, along with other western countries, but Putin had decided to do this years ago and just put forth extreme demands that he knew NATO would have to reject (like leave the Baltics and Poland undefended). Putin wanted this reconstitution of the Russian Empire to be his legacy as one of the great tsars.
"All the US wants is regime change against Putin, they don't care how many lives it takes or how long it takes, 10 days or 10 years."
Quite the opposite. The US is scared of any such change, because they have no clear plans of how to deal with a disintegrating Russia and all the nukes that could go astray or fall in the hands of a more reckless next dictator.
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@RealPolitik-dy4it Prigozhin almost took Moscow with 5,000 men. Listen, dude, here's some facts for you:
* The Kyiv offensive comprised of 70,000 soldiers.
* 2-3 dozen Russian military helicopters (in the first wave alone) transported/escorted hundreds of VDV to grab Hostomel airport. The assault was an attempt to secure the site as an airbridge for Russians to transport ADDITIONAL troops and heavy equipment (such as artillery and tanks) for an invasion on Kyiv proper.
* Antonov Airport and Vasylkiv Air Base were also attacked for similar reasons.
* Wagner Group mercenaries and Chechen forces made several attempts to assassinate Zelenskyy. Saboteur infiltrators also operated in Kyiv.
* Russia had tried its best to bribe key Ukrainian staff to surrender and cooperate.
* The offensive included lightly armed special police units OMON and SOBR from the Kemerovo Oblast tasked with (brutally) policing Kyiv after takeover.
With all these force deployments, and the orders they were given, we KNOW that Russia expected and attempted to rapidly occupy Kyiv. They didn't expect Zelensky to negotiate, they expected him to be assassinated or flee!
Also, there was an expectation from Moscow that a lot of people in Kyiv wouldn't care or even be positive. Because, remember, the Russian propaganda even fool the elites to some extent. It's like the Iraq war; the US elites probably believed the WMD narrative. They pushed hard for evidence, the intelligence community bent over backwards to produce it, filtered any WMD indications up the chain of command and was trusted.
You have listened too much to the Russian propaganda and made too little broad investigations of your own to understand what happened. You're emotionally invested in Russia not being incompetent, so you refuse the grim reality.
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@struvrim7637 "the battle of Baghdad did not exist, it took 3 days to complete the redeployment, crushing minor pockets of resistance"
Yes, and that was what Russia was aiming for in Kyiv. They planted assassination and saboteur squads, bribed ukrainian officials to fold and tell their subordinates to stand down, shock and awe, huge columns of armor making the occupation seem inevitable, VDVs taking over airports to ferry in reinforcements, air superiority, a fleeing leadership. That was what Russia envisioned and went for, but couldn't pull off. But it thought it could.
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@denisogorodnikov6581 Kyiv is a big city. It can't be leveled with limited numbers of very expensive conventional long-range missiles. They could've targeted the government blocks in Kyiv, sure, but it wouldn't have made much of a difference, probably. People went to bomb shelters anyway and military HQs are always hardened, hidden and distributed.
"if the APU were really capable of defending Kiev, they would not have allowed an instant breakthrough to it."
Dude, overextension is a thing.
"ut I suppose it's useless to discuss this topic with you, since you will definitely not change your opinion"
Will you?
"after the approach to Kiev, several attempts were made at negotiations"
Because Russia stalled and failed to make progress. Otherwise, Putin wouldn't have negotiated.
"as a result of which the Ukrainian delegation signed agreements on the completion of the special operation"
Uhm, no they didn't.
"But the cunning Ukrainians (maybe it sounds absurd, but not more absurd than your version of overloaded logistics"
Everybody watching real news could see the overstretched logistics play out in real time with the stalled armored columns and Russians desperately raiding for fuel and food. But I guess they never told you about it in Russian news? You can read the wikipedia entry for "Russian Kyiv convoy".
"they had an airport"
They were decimated when trying to take airports. Huge numbers of VDV were wiped out. Manpads shot lots of Russian planes out of the sky and there was no realistic possibility for Russia to reinforce by air.
"deceived everyone and declared it a victory"
In western news we could see from a few days into the war that the Russian offensive stalled and that they increasingly became sitting ducks. So it wasn't a surprise to us that the Russians eventually had to flee. We understood that their position was untenable. They had also made a huge blow to what little reputation Russia had left by committing the Bucha massacre, among other crimes. This also will have been misrepresented in your news. I'm sorry, but you should try to understand that everything you've been told from Russian and pro-Russian sources is deceptive.
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"they're fighting Ukraine that is backed by nearly 40 states that are the most advanced and most wealthy in the world"
Yep, so a Russian defeat is virtually guaranteed.
"But despite this during the ongoing counteroffensive since June 4 they've only captured around 200 km² which is the most favorable data."
Takes time to get through minefields and NATO still has gloves to take off. F16s, ATACAMS, F35s, go-ahead to bomb inside Russia and more. Also, takes time to grind all the Russian equipment as their storage was pretty deep. It's ongoing, but it takes time.
"And all this advance had a huge cost in lives and in western equipment."
According to Russian propaganda.
"Meanwhile Russia in the north has captured more land than the Ukrainians have taken back during the counteroffensive."
AFAIK, Ukraine is holding more recently captured land than Russia.
"Also note that Ukraine has had around 12-14 mobilizations while Russia only had 1 which extended to reserve personnel, not everyday citizens. "
Russia had one big one, but then never stopped mobilizing. Counting them is completely pointless, says nothing about the volumes.
"According to the latest data, Russia only spends around 3-4% of their GDP on this war"
The US commitment so far is 0.33% of GDP, of which military aid is 0.2% and most of the rest financial. Germany and the UK is similar in terms of total commitment. They're just toying with Russia, sadly.
"Consider them but if you think Ukraine is winning and they're some super soldiers while the Russians are just some steppe "orcs" with low ammo and morale, think again."
The morale of Russian troops IS pretty low, it seems. And no wonder that the defending democracy has vastly better morale than the aggressor dictatorship.
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@blazer4999 "maybe a month and a half in 2022? Because that's how long the original Ukraine army, airforce, and navy lasted"
This is a Russian propaganda narrative, not reality.
"In fact most of the aircraft were destroyed on the ground before they could even take off."
This is not true. They had plenty of time to hide the aircraft and almost none were hit.
"In fact the professionally trained Ukrainian military has been wiped out twice by Russia."
Completely untrue, just a Russian propaganda narrative designed to outbid the reality of catastrophic Russian attrition.
"But Kiev keep pulling more unfortunate souls off the streets to become cannon fodder."
Also Russian propaganda narrative. Surprised you didn't say anything about 14-year-olds too; that meme usually accompanies this general lie.
"Its a war of attrition. Russia are winning it hands down"
No, it's losing it. The Pentagon leaks showed the best US intelligence estimate was that Russia had 3x as many killed and 2x as many wounded as Ukraine.
"Or do you still think Russia firing 10 times the volume of shells Ukraine can muster is working out for the AFU?"
The Russian tactic of farting in the general direction of the enemy says little. Ukraine's target acquisition and precision is better, so Ukraine's artillery is more lethal. Also, the 10-1 shell advantage probably doesn't hold anywhere on the front line today.
"The reason they pulled away was nothing to do with being forced by Ukos, it was an agreed good will gesture by Moscow after Kiev agreed to most of Russia's terms at the negotiations in Turkey."
This is completely ridiculous cope, considering how bogged down and sniped the Russian armor became. Their position was completely untenable and they were definitely forced out.
"Boris Johnson flew to Kiev and told Zelenksy to scrap the agreements"
This is another Russian propaganda narrative that has never been corroborated.
"culminating in Victoria Nuland's coup in 2014"
The Revolution of Dignity was a genuine popular revolution. Coups are done by a few government insiders, not by hundreds of thousands in the streets.
"Since then, and especially from when the SMO began NATO has been fully fighting Russia through its proxies in Ukraine"
NATO has slowly, slowly introduced more potent military systems in Ukraine, still tying Ukraine's hands behind their backs by not allowing them to strike inside Russia. There's a lot of room to increase support still, by relaxing such rules, F16s, ATACAMS and much more.
"even if Zelenksy blows up the power station"
The evil mindset that makes you preemptively blame Ukraine for what only Russia could ever do is beyond comprehension to me. I simply don't understand morally stunted contrarians like yourself, you're such enigmas. What drives you to be that disingenuous?
"It won't catch up to Russia for 2 to 3 years, by which time Russia will be making 10 times as much."
Feel free to believe 140 million poor people will outproduce 1 billion rich people.
"And make no mistake if NATO go into Ukraine and begin WWIII, China will immediately attack Taiwan, stretching the US and NATO even further. That will absolutely be the end of NATO, if not the world."
Dude, I understand you're trying to scare NATO from intervening, but every time you guys make empty threats like that, I become more sure that an intervention is EXACTLY what we should do. Since Russia and Russian propagandists are so afraid of it, that must mean its the right thing to do. I don't think neither Xi nor Putin would do anything. Putin would perhaps blow up ZNPP, but he would also have to fold.
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@AhmedAdly11 perhaps you think you did, but you didn't. For one thing, the interview wasn't in Der Spiegel (rather in Die Zeit), but contrary to some claims, she didn't admit anything there, just saying that Minsk gave the Ukrainians time to strengthen defenses, not that the PURPOSE was giving them time. Also an interview isn't evidence if there's no audio. I have asked probably a dozen guys like you to produce the actual evidence, but none have been able to do it so far. You haven't gone for the original sources, you've watched Russian propagandists that present twisted words and make false claims, and you believe them because you want to. If these allegations were true, then the Kremlin would let some of its propagandists make a very good summary with audio and video evidence (and they would have saved such audio and video even if original sources took them down). They can't present anything real, so they just repeat the claims in a very scattered and unsubstantiated way, relying on your huge willingness to be led astray.
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@aidos8448 in Minsk I & 2, this text is all about Russia and Putin: "10. To withdraw illegal armed groups and military equipment as well as fighters and mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine." You know, the little green men, the wagnerites, the heaps of heavy weaponry including modern buk systems such as the one that Russian army personnel had in Ukraine and used to shoot down MH-17 with.
"The Ukrainian government has repeatedly said that it is not going to implement Minsk-2."
Wrong, they say they can't and won't because Russia has been torpedoing it while pretending it's not a party to the agreement. The Russian side and its proxies have failed to implement a ceasefire, withdraw all heavy weapons, implement all-for-all political prisoner exchange, or ensure delivery of humanitarian assistance based on an international mechanism. On the contrary, Russia has been strengthening the illegal armed formations in eastern Ukraine. Russia also does not allow for unfettered access of OSCE SMM monitors, including to the Ukraine-Russia border, where the (very limited) monitoring mission was discontinued due to a Russian veto in summer 2021.
Without the full implementation of the ceasefire, the withdrawal of heavy weapons as well as permission for the full access to all territories for the OSCE monitoring mission, it is difficult to discuss implementation of the political parts of Minsk II. Nevertheless, Ukraine implemented as much of the Minsk agreements as can reasonably be done while not having control over the territory and addressed every point. It has passed – and extended with renewals – legislation on special status and amnesty (2014), and prepared draft legislation on local elections (2014). Ukraine passed constitutional amendments to provide more autonomy to the territories currently outside its control (2015).
"All Ukrainians from presidents to cleaners promised scorched earth to Donbass, pulled troops to the line of demarcation, started art preparations, and after February 24 suddenly became "innocent victims" of Russian aggression."
That's a nice load of Russian propaganda. Quite the contrary, Ukraine had a very low profile to avoid giving Russia a casus belli for its war, and it focused on Kyiv defense, not Donbass aggression. Yes, they are innocent victims of Russian aggression. Russia is on Ukrainian soil, bombing Ukraine every day. Not the other way around.
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@WeDieStanding948 "do you have a source for accurate casualty numbers?"
Well, the Pentagon leaks likely had the US intelligence community's best assessment, probably dating back to February or something like that. Of course Russia immediately released a doctored version but the real leak had the Russia's losses estimated at 35,500-43,000 killed in battle and 154,180 wounded, that is, with a total of 189,500-223,000. Ukrainian losses were estimated to be 15,500-17.500 killed and 109,000-113,500 wounded, for a total of 124,500-131,000 total losses.
So favorable attrition for Ukraine at 2-3x more Russian dead and 2x more wounded. No major reason to believe these ratios have changed much.
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@Really250 "1) no Crimea is never going back. That is now sovereign Russian territory, the people of Crimea voted to be apart of Russia, and the Russian Duma voted to except it."
Yes, but why do you think any of that matters? Crimea will be conquered by Ukraine, collaborators will flee and people who weren't residents and citizens 2014 will be deported. According to international law, Crimea is still Ukraine. Russia will never get sanctions relief while holding on to Ukrainian territory, unless there's a negotiated settlement that Ukraine willingly enters into.
"2) it is widely reported and being confirmed that Boris Johnson the EX PM of GP went to Ukraine and blew up the peace deal."
Yes, it's widely reported and confirmed in Russian propaganda circles. It's not accepted as fact by serious, legit pundits.
"3) Again it is has been widely reported by US generals that they are running out of ammo, hence why they are sending cluster munitions."
Yes, agreed, but it's also a fact that ammo production is ramping up and that Ukraine is using ammo much more judiciously to much greater effect, and that Ukrainian counter-battery fire is far superior and is now kindof genociding Russian artillery. The cluster-munitions is a stop-gap effort, and as time goes by, the scales will tip more and more in Ukrainian favor. 140 million poor people won't long-term be able to outproduce 1 billion rich people.
"4) while Ukraine should be one of rhe most wealthy countries in the world it is not because it is the most corrupt country in Europe."
After Russia, yes, and the reason it's that corrupt is partly the lingering influence of Russian-style oligarchy. It is improving as we speak, and will keep improving. War and patriotism actually helps in that regard.
"All of those people who left to live in Canada and the EU and the US are never ever ever ever ever coming back. They make more money in those countries, they have better lives in those countries and they deal with less corruption in those countries. Maybe like 1% to 5% will go back."
You're assuming they will get citizenship and won't want to go back to their families and communities and help rebuild. I think you're wrong and that 50%+ will go back.
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@Really250 1) Has Ukraine ever exaggerated their need to get more equipment? I think so. Ukraine won't frontal assault Crimea, probably. It'll have it under fire control, take out the bridge and take out supply and hammer military installations and infrastructure. Also as Russia blew the dam, Crimea will keep having little water.
2) Yes, as you say, there's just a coincidence in timing, no evidence. Another coincidence is that the horrors of Bucha were uncovered. And of course, probably Russian demands were too hard to digest for Ukraine even without the extreme situation of distrust that Bucha added.
3. Of course ammo production is ramping up.
July 18: The German Bundeswehr has just issued a large-volume order for service and practice artillery ammunition worth around €1.3 billion
July: US paying contractor to quietly supply Bulgarian 155mm shells to Ukraine. A $402 million contract suggests the former Soviet-bloc country is now producing NATO-standard artillery rounds
July 11: DE&S has placed a significant order for 155mm artillery shells with BAE Systems, which will increase the UK’s stockpile and deliver an eight-fold increase in production capacity. [...]This investment will allow BAE Systems to invest in new and expanded facilities at Glascoed in South Wales, and Washington in Tyne & Wear.
December 2022: Major order from a NATO customer: Rheinmetall wins framework contract for 155mm artillery ammunition in the mid three-digit million euro range
February 2023: The US Army announced Tuesday that it had awarded $522 million in orders to two companies to manufacture 155 mm artillery ammunition for Ukraine. The orders, officially decided on January 30, went to Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. and Global Military Products Inc. and came amid worries that Ukraine was fast depleting the stockpiles of artillery shells from the United States and other allies. Deliveries of the new ammunition are scheduled to begin in March of this year, the Army said in a statement.
February 2023: The Army has selected General Dynamics Ordnance & Tactical Systems [GD] and American Ordnance to compete for orders to produce 155mm artillery rounds under a new $993.8 million contract. Under the deal, officially awarded on Wednesday, the Army said it aims to expand manufacturing capacity of 155mm M795 projectiles to produce an additional 12,000 to 20,000 rounds per month.
March 2023: 25 states have signed the European Defence Agency (EDA) project arrangement for the collaborative procurement of ammunition. The project opens the way for EU Member States and Norway to proceed along two paths: a two-year, fast-track procedure for 155mm artillery rounds and a seven-year project to acquire multiple ammunition types. Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Finland, Spain, France, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden and Norway have signed.
June 2023: WARSAW --- On June 1, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defense Mr. Mariusz Błaszczak approved a framework contract for the supply of 155 mm artillery ammunition, with the additional possibility of acquiring various types of 120 mm ammunition.
July 2023: Nammo has signed a contract with the Norwegian Defense Materiel Agency (NDMA) to supply 155mm artillery ammunition to enhance the capabilities of the Norwegian Armed Forces. The contract is among the largest for Nammo’s Raufoss facility, and stems from orders announced by the Norwegian government earlier this year. Specifically, the agreement entails the procurement of a significant quantity of 155mm IM HE-ER shells, with a range of some 40 kilometers, Nammo said in a statement. To facilitate production, Nammo has committed investment in new infrastructure, machinery, production hardware, and raw materials in Raufoss.
This scratches the surface, it's just a quick googling, not exhaustive by any means.
4) Russia is not less corrupt than Ukraine.
5) Are you a muslim, or why do you argue so misogynistically? Makes little sense. Industrial heartland? Dude, forget about it, Donetsk and Luhansk is depleted and destroyed. If retained by Russia, it will have no advantage in terms of productivity, quite the opposite. Your thinking that Ukraine may not have a coastline after this is done just tells me you're completely fooled by Russian propaganda. Russia stands NO chance of ever getting across the Dniepr again. Of course the West will heavily support Ukrainian rebuild. Your distrust is unwarranted.
Take your own advice on writing down predictions and parameter changes! A year ago, when would you have predicted Russia would take Odessa?
Russia still hasn't mitigated e.g. HIMARS. Of course there's back and forth in capabilities and adapting to them, but the fact that the US has continuously added more capabilities to Ukraine's arsenal and will keep doing so is hardly a sign of weakness.
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@SpeCifiC0507 "If they've run out of artillery, tanks, and equipment since last year, how did they manage to do this attack?"
They found some NK shells, have some production of their own, and hoard for a while before attacking. But the days are over when they could sustain a higher rate of fire than Ukraine. And Ukraine' fire is far more accurate and lethal. Russia is losing, but they don't dare admit it to themselves, much less tell Putin. And the West still has a lot of additional capabilities to give, and that it will keep adding to Ukraine's arsenal.
"Ukraine doesn't have the massive amount of Western weaponry to afford the losses they sustained (especially with the West turning its eyes towards Israel now)."
They can absolutely afford that, and the west doesn't need to supply Israel with the same types of weaponry, so these are non-competing efforts.
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@unifieddynasty you generate far more falsehoods and nonsense than I have time to contend with, so I'll just have to leave most of it unopposed and focus on the core issues of American influence.
"There is a reason that most countries polled in December 2013 by Gallup called the United States the greatest threat to peace in the world, and why Pew found that viewpoint increased in 2017."
Well, the latter reason is obvious: Trump. The former is not that hard to understand either: A toxic mix of chomskyism (leftist anti-americanism) and the propaganda of dictatorships.
" first defines war as something that nations and groups other than the United States do, and then concludes that war has nearly vanished from the earth."
For all state based conflicts including civil wars, the post-cold-war period has seen the lowest annual battle deaths in recorded human history as a percentage of the global population. We had the Rwandan genocide and now there's an uptick because Russia launched a war, but still.
"the United States military has killed or helped kill some 20 million people, overthrown at least 36 governments, interfered in at least 86 foreign elections, attempted to assassinate over 50 foreign leaders"
The problem is that those numbers are reached by way of leftists running auctions: The one submitting the highest bid wins and his factoid will live rent-free in your heads, no questions asked. For instance, if I ask you to list the 50 foreign leaders that the US has tried to assassinate since WW2, will you come up with anything even remotely plausible? I think not.
"b--bing Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria, not to mention the Philippines"
This is a gish gallop (not your only one). If we look at e.g. Libya, should Obama have just given a free pass to Khadaffi's tribe to slaughter the popular uprising during the Arab Spring? In general just give up on the Arab Spring? Because of course the US could leave all the meddling to Russia and China, but would that make the world better?
"The U.S. government provides weapons, military training, and/or military funding to almost every dictatorship and oppressive government on earth."
Yeah, I know. When the US tries to depose dictators, that's bad, and when it's collaborating with the lesser evils, that's also bad, and if it once sent a blanket and some encouraging words to someone, everything that happens in that country thereafter for decades to come is the sole fault of the US, because nobody else has any agency or responsibility. If the US just didn't meddle, we-the-people would promptly usher in an era of freedom, prosperity and democracy. Or do you even value democracy? Be honest.
"Japan, Germany, South Korea all you want, but you clearly do not know their history if you think America defended their freedom and democracy"
Defended and to a significant degree imposed, which worked out well.
"you are obligated to acknowledge that their economies grew because of various factors that overwhelmingly are not due to American intervention"
I think I'm not obligated, actually. Free trade, copying US institutions, the discipline that comes from accepting the terms of trading, the stability provided by US protection, the democratization and the ability to maintain a lower defense spending have all contributed very substantially.
"it is even the case since the 1980s with Japan and now with Germany and South Korea that it is because of direct American intervention that their economies are slowing"
Do dazzle us with your economic insights and explain your reasoning.
"America can be benevolent; but America does not tolerate peer equals."
How could Germany, Japan and South Korea with their low population counts ever become peer equals? And if you're right, why was China given the MFN (Most Favored Nation) status by the US for decades, giving rise to its very near peer equal situation now? Good that you admit that America can be benevolent. Would the citizens of North Korea be worse off or better off if it accepted US hegemony, you think?
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@unifieddynasty perhaps you didn't see my last comment a few days ago, or you don't want to answer. For the previous eventually, let me repeat it here:
"There is a reason that most countries polled in December 2013 by Gallup called the United States the greatest threat to peace in the world, and why Pew found that viewpoint increased in 2017."
Well, the latter reason is obvious: Trump. The former is not that hard to understand either: A toxic mix of chomskyism (leftist anti-americanism) and the propaganda of dictatorships.
"first defines war as something that nations and groups other than the United States do, and then concludes that war has nearly vanished from the earth."
For all state based conflicts including civil wars, the post-cold-war period has seen the lowest annual battle deaths in recorded human history as a percentage of the global population. We had the Rwandan genocide and now there's an uptick because Russia launched a war, but still.
"the United States military has killed or helped kill some 20 million people, overthrown at least 36 governments, interfered in at least 86 foreign elections, attempted to assassinate over 50 foreign leaders"
The problem is that those numbers are reached by way of leftists running auctions: The one submitting the highest bid wins and his factoid will live rent-free in your heads, no questions asked. For instance, if I ask you to list the 50 foreign leaders that the US has tried to assassinate since WW2, will you come up with anything even remotely plausible? I think not.
"b--bing Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria, not to mention the Philippines"
This is a gish gallop (not your only one). If we look at e.g. Libya, should Obama have just given a free pass to Khadaffi's tribe to slaughter the popular uprising during the Arab Spring? In general just give up on the Arab Spring? Because of course the US could leave all the meddling to Russia and China, but would that make the world better?
"The U.S. government provides weapons, military training, and/or military funding to almost every dictatorship and oppressive government on earth."
Yeah, I know. When the US tries to depose dictators, that's bad, and when it's collaborating with the lesser evils, that's also bad, and if it once sent a blanket and some encouraging words to someone, everything that happens in that country thereafter for decades to come is the sole fault of the US, because nobody else has any agency or responsibility. If the US just didn't meddle, we-the-people would promptly usher in an era of freedom, prosperity and democracy. Or do you even value democracy? Be honest.
"Japan, Germany, South Korea all you want, but you clearly do not know their history if you think America defended their freedom and democracy"
Defended and to a significant degree imposed, which worked out well.
"you are obligated to acknowledge that their economies grew because of various factors that overwhelmingly are not due to American intervention"
I think I'm not obligated, actually. Free trade, copying US institutions, the discipline that comes from accepting the terms of trading, the stability provided by US protection, the democratization and the ability to maintain a lower defense spending have all contributed very substantially.
"it is even the case since the 1980s with Japan and now with Germany and South Korea that it is because of direct American intervention that their economies are slowing"
Do dazzle us with your economic insights and explain your reasoning.
"America can be benevolent; but America does not tolerate peer equals."
How could Germany, Japan and South Korea with their low population counts ever become peer equals? And if you're right, why was China given the MFN (Most Favored Nation) status by the US for decades, giving rise to its very near peer equal situation now? Good that you admit that America can be benevolent. Would the citizens of North Korea be worse off or better off if it accepted US hegemony, you think?
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@unifieddynasty "I already gave you the exact article that contains full citations. I am repeating reputably cited facts. 😂😂"
If you want to feign being serious and reputable yourself, you should skip the emojis. It just makes you look like a child.
But ok, so you refer to a list with 40 rows that include 50 "foreign leaders" that the US has tried to assassinate, including bin Laden. For some reason it has two entries for Saddam Hussein, one of which includes both his sons. It also includes ridiculous and unproven claims, such as that the US tried to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. Also, it truly defies reason that the CIA would be so bad at assassinations that they essentially do only attempts, rather than actual assassinations. Further, the 7 "assassination attempts" listed after the end of the cold war all seem to be US airstrikes in wars. Incredibly weak, just as the rest of your claims. Again, these numbers are decided by leftist auctions: The most daring claim wins.
"America clearly does not have "dictatorship or democracy" as a criterion."
Post WW2 America isn't a monolithic blob of purpose and policy. 14 administrations have been in the White House since. Which is the most recent CIA assassination attempt of a politician in a democratic country, and who was the target?
"You've got something coming if you think America sends "a blanket and some encouraging words"."
Putinists regularly refer to Nuland handing out cookies among Maidan protesters as one of the major proofs that the US was behind the Revolution of Dignity, a.k.a "nazi coup of 2014".
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@unifieddynasty "Trump literally said America was in Syria/Iraq for the oil."
So to your mind, people believing Trump's lies were the reason global trust in the US plummeted, not his horrible character in general?
"Are you familiar with what Zaibatsus and Chaebols are? Are you familiar with the how unfree the economies of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore are?"
Singapore is number 1 in economic freedom on Heritage's list. Taiwan number 4, South Korea number 15 and Japan number 31. The US is at place 25.
"Oh yes thank you America for introducing the concept of mass international trade to all the places you took over. It's not as if East Asia was a centre of trade and wealth for millennia."
If East Asia had been institutionally better at trade and capitalism, it had ushered in the industrial revolution before the UK and the world would look completely different today. The tech was basically there.
"Those economies were built during their dictatorships."
Nonsense. E.g. South Korea has well over 10x the PPP GDP per capita now compared to 1987.
"Scraping the very bottom of the stolen Iraqi oil barrel."
You're just being immature, talking nonsense and posting emojis.
"American coercion > Plaza Accord > Japanese overcorrection > Lost Decades."
So there was an agreement, the Japanese did dumb things, and then there's coercion and everything is the US' fault.
"American coercion > a certain German pipeline that cannot be written"
NS1 was shut down and decommissioned due to a series of technical issues, allegedly. But in essence Russia chose to stop deliveries for political reasons. They wanted to put maximum pressure on Germany to break ranks.
"American coercion > sanctions on trade with China for American 'national security' > Korean and Taiwanese economy take outsized hits."
AFAIK, these countries have decent growth. It's not as if Korea and Taiwan are friends with China anyway. If they want to ally with China instead of with the US, they can.
"I aim to please."
I wasn't dazzled, to put it mildly.
"Your opinion of 'lesser evils' led to a certain unmentionable incident in 2001"
Well, and to the fall of the iron curtain.
"America's Middle East escapades for the past 5 decades"
I think GWBs mistake in Iraq can be treated separately.
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@unifieddynasty "Just a week ago, America's bloc cheered on a literal WW2 * in the Canadian parliament. 😂😂"*
The same immaturity again. Dude, you really need to do better. Gaffes aren't policy.
"Ever heard of the Monroe Doctrine? Cuban Missile Crisis? Manifest Destiny? Domino Theory? Red Scare? Y----- Peril?"
The world moves and changes increasingly quickly while you ruminate over the 50-ies, at best.
"Your wrong opinion is noted. America helped coup Ukraine."
America sent some encouraging words when Ukraine turned away from Russia in a struggle that culminated in a popular revolution.
"America regularly funds regime change efforts."
Again, flipping dictatorships and countering Russian influence is moral.
"America has been expanding NATO eastward despite their implicit promise not to do so."
The GHWB admin promised the Soviets not to, allegedly, and it didn't. Later, when neither the Soviets nor the GHWB admin existed, countries who wanted assurances to not have to live as slaves under the Russian Empire again were allowed into NATO. This was very, very good and a great success.
"Even the Minsk Accords were done in bad faith as admitted by Merkel."
This is Russian propaganda. If you investigate, you'll find Merkel did no such thing.
"Come on man, don't make me defend Russia with basic facts that I shouldn't even have to state."
I will make you do exactly that. This serves to reinforce my point that you're immersed in Russian propaganda and gullibly swallowing it without even understanding it. Russia easily manipulates the immature and morally stunted.
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@unifieddynasty "My point is that the region was already wealthy through trade without needing to be saved by America."
If they were already wealthy, how come the US dominated them? Japan was basically saved from itself by defeat, as was Germany. Now they're pretty normal countries, non-imperialist but economic powerhouses as US allies. Russia also needs defeat.
"There is something called 'cause and effect'. South Korea's economy now was expressly because of their dictatorship's economic planning in the 1960s-80s, especially pertaining to the rise of chaebols. Ever heard of Samsung and Hyundai and LG?"
So as a libertarian, you're saying that economic success comes from dictatorships' economic planning and oligarchies. Then how come oligarchies such as Ukraine and Russia, even before the war, performed badly economically, whereas alleged (by you) oligarchies such as South Korea, Taiwan and Japan does very well? It has nothing to do with Economic Freedom ranking, apparently, and on top of that, US influence is detrimental. So what's the explanation? It seems to me that you're just starting off with US hate and let every other thought be subservient to that. The fact of the matter, what you don't seem to recognize, is that Economic Freedom is very, very important, and gives rise to such competition, corruption reduction and business practices that heavily promotes broad wealth generation. And the US has clearly helped enforce such structures, and to this day acts as e.g. a corruption police.
"Defending US client statism by saying 'you don't have to pay for your occupiers' is pretty bottom of the barrel. 😂😂"
More immaturity. Dude, the US doesn't occupy NATO countries. They're allies and the allies are allies because they benefit from the relationship.
"So there was US coercion that caused an 'agreement' that was drastically in America's favour and not in the favour of Japan"
Prove there was substantial coercion. Also, why is it drastically in America's favor to not have an overvalued currency? Wouldn't that benefit all? The Japanese could endlessly send electronics to the US and get green paper in return, but why would that be beneficial to Japan, really?
"And Heritage rated Hong Kong's economic freedom as #1 from 1995 to 2020 even at the height of the protests."
So what? What are you arguing against, exactly?
"They are in stagnation lately. TSMC and Samsung are bracing for more American chips sanctions."
I don't see that stagnation in IMFs forecasts.
"No they can't. Not militarily. Their consent has been manufactured by America since the end of WW2."
What could the US do if they just pivoted to China and asked US troops to leave? Nothing. The US had to leave even Iraq.
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@unifieddynasty "A few more decades is nothing when compared to eventuality."
Not with the strategy of the Western world. We've been kicking the can down the road on China, North Korea and Russia, basically hoping that their regimes will eventually fall and that this will happen before their technology reaches such levels that they can basically destroy us and the world. With such a strategy, decades are definitely worth something; they're rather long time frames in which we can live in peace and prosperity and in which our enemies can fall on their own.
"The reality is that world conditions were ideal for China to open up at that time to fulfill the world's demand, first for cheap low quality manufactured goods and then higher up as well."
There's no such particular time.
"These are global, systemic factors, not active American policy."
You can argue whether it's active or passive, but your previous comment was that the US don't allow the rise of peer rivals, but it clearly did.
"America didn't "allow" it. China re-emerged. It was America's intention to use China as a perpetual low-cost factory and as a proxy against the Soviet Union."
There could be no intent on perpituity when China's GDP rose 10% annually for decades. It doesn't require a genius to extrapolate that. America did allow it. At the same time, you're painting America as this bogey-man that e.g. trips Japan over by a mere exchange rate agreement, but you don't think it could have put the brakes on a weak China dependent on access to world markets.
"I support greater international connectivity and solidarity."
Including letting Russia gobble up and genocide Ukraine and other countries in its vicinity.
"I explicitly already stated multiple times that I do not support whatever you think is Russia propaganda, and all of my statements are fact"
You do support Russian propaganda, you just doesn't recognize it as such. You think you're a free thinker and just well informed when you deny Ukrainian agency and says the Revolution of Dignity was merely a CIA-orchestrated coup. You exaggerate US negative influence in everything, deny the agency of others, doesn't recognize the good American influence does in keeping dictatorships and corruption at bay, and you're 110% onboard with the Russian propaganda's whataboutism.
"My sheer immaturity (presumably in the form of laugh emojis) comes from my inability to abstain from laughing at utterly ridiculous apologism of American belligerency."
No, your laughing emojis are usually accompanied by immature remarks.
"They're not lies when Trump decides American policy. And they're not lies when this is what America has been doing in Iraq and for decades beyond."
So your argument is that the US has always been as bad as Trump, but the earlier administrations have hidden it while Trump was so honest that people finally saw the US for what it was? Really?
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@unifieddynasty "*Why are you asking such a basic question? If you're talking 1800s, the answer is: gunboat diplomacy, the Opium wars, and the unequal treaties."*
So why didn't China do that to the US, if China was already wealthy?
"Are you aware that you can have reconstruction without turning them into a client state?"
I remarked that Japan was saved by defeat. The intent of that was to note that the Japanese system and people had a specific view of themselves and their place in the world, as did the Germans, as well as some central institutions, that all contributed to them being not-so-good to their surroundings. When Japan and Germany were defeated, those aspects of their societies changed for the better. Russia however wasn't defeated, neither in WW2 nor when the iron curtain fell. So it didn't reform neither its self image, nor many of its central institutions and now we see the results of that. So Russia needs defeat.
Then you're adamant that NATO members', Japan's, Taiwan's and South Korea's alliances with the US are clientship and somehow detrimental to them, but you haven't really shown it. You've filed a few faulty ideas regarding e.g. Nord Stream. To me it seems the alliances are mutually beneficial and voluntary.
"They would have returned to being "economic powerhouses" regardless of American hegemony."
Would they? Or would they have been nazi, communist or incredibly corrupt monarchies?
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@unifieddynasty "but you need to revisit the prior comments and figure out which one of us labelled me as a libertarian."
I did, and you're right, seems to be a mixup on my part. On re-reading, you seem fairly purely leftist Chomskyite.
"As a quick answer to why Ukraine's economy did poorly, it's because of the policy of "shock therapy" of rapid austerity and privatization and deregulation following the collapse of the USSR promoted by the west"
Noted. As usual, everything is the US fault, if it's not the fault of deregulation. However, state-supported chaebols sets a country up for prosperity. I'll try to remember.
"The highly partisan American thinktank, Heritage Foundation, can make up whatever arbitrary 'economic freedom' ranking they want, but it is irrelevant to the reality. Like I said, their ranking is about the ease of doing business on a given year, not about the political economy of the countries including their history."
There's huge inertia in what they're measuring, so it does include a lot of history implicitly, and it's not only the ease of doing business.
"Some former USSR bloc [client] states did well, and others did not. Some were able to control the corruption; others were not."
Essentially some managed to go to high economic freedom, and some did not. Like Estonia is number 6. In fact, like a coincidence, NATO countries seem to have managed it better.
"Also, there's nothing "alleged" about the dictatorships and oligarchies of South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan following WW2. It is historical fact."
I'm talking about their economical structure now, and I'm arguing that the reason these countries have done well economically is that they're promoting fairly efficient competition. If their economies were dominated by heavily state-favored chaebols, they would do worse.
"No, the US can be and often is a positive influence in the world. US hegemony is detrimental."
Fair enough. Everything can always be improved, and of course the world would be better if the US influence and military might wasn't needed. But it is, and if the US can flip a dictatorship or protect a democracy from a dictatorship, I'm all for it.
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@unifieddynasty "Then I call for a motion to allow all 8 billion people in the world to join the EU and NATO and for the organizations to have the fundamental democratic principle of 'one person one vote'."
That's kindof what I do as well. Or more generally, I think it's incredibly dangerous to kick the can down the road and letting dictatorships remain or even grow their empires. We should make sure that democracies never fail and are never subjugated by dictatorships, and that democracy expands. Once all countries are democracies, militaries will atrophy pretty quickly and cooperation will be increasingly easy and on equal terms. NATO expansion is working in that direction, making sure democracies in that part of the world doesn't fail. What you call US "hegemony" I see as better than nothing, a generally well-meaning push for democracy and better governance. You have a different view, obviously, but for sure we can agree that the US shouldn't do stuff that has bad outcomes. You claim to be principled, so what would you like to see the US do in Ukraine and the Middle East and what do you expect the results to be?
"I referenced the "Non-aligned movement" a while back. The world doesn't need hegemony to have peace and democracy and freedom."
The non-aligned movement excludes western world, pretty much, while it includes most of the dictatorships, including warring ones like Saudi Arabia. Its chairpersons is a parade of authoritarians with the previous one being Venezuelan strongman Maduro who's overseeing and permanenting his country's flip from democracy to socialist dictatorship.
The statement that the world doesn't need hegemony is a bit too abstract for me. I think US power does net good. I think Khadaffi power didn't. I think it made great sense for the US to at least attempt to support the Arab Spring in the hope of flipping a few dictatorships and ending Libya's detrimental influence in Africa. You don't? What would you have wanted Europe and the US to do about the Arab Spring?
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@unifieddynasty "Doesn't change the fact that they were dictatorships when they planned their economic model."
So it seems that the US can influence dictatorships to improve economic freedom.
"The World Bank and IMF were practically the only source of sufficient funding and they capitalized on this by prioritizing the creditor"
Laws generally prioritize creditors getting their money back, because otherwise banks would be less likely to provide finance and would do it at a higher cost, at the detriment of all.
"The conditionality of the loans were drastically in the creditors' favour and led to the dismantling of indigenous capital and sale to the first world. Wealth transfer from the bottom up."
Progressives tend to have these views, but afaik, IMF and WB generally have required debtors to get their acts together and improve free-market conditions in order to improve their long-term economic development. I think that's only natural and good.
"The 2008 Great recession was caused by an utterly corrupt American financial and banking sector"
It was caused by financial instruments improperly understood and government meddling e.g. in the form of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the former a New Deal creation and the latter a later update to the same system.
"America still has yet to set proper regulations for the sector"
It's impressive that you have knowledge deep enough to flunk the Frank Dodd Act that allegedly is over 800 pages and has spurred the creation of 8000 pages of regulation and rules in the impacted government agencies.
"The US "has clearly helped enforce such structures", and America as a "police" is about as effective in their handling of corruption as they are in their handling of systemic racism."
Good to hear, considering systemic racism is pretty much a non-issue in the US. Anyway, I work in a company that has been fined by the US and put under compliance monitorship because of corruption not really involving the US. The resulting overhaul of our company practices and culture goes pretty deep and seems to do its job. One could argue the US has no right to fine us, but OTOH, this self-appointed police is doing effective work.
"Oh yes they are, as aforementioned."
The US is ranked as the 24th least corrupt country in the world by Transparency International, out of 180 countries. It's score is 69 out of 100, whereas e.g. Mexico is ranked 126 with a a score of 31 and Venezuela a rank of 177 and a score of 14. So no, the US isn't very corrupt.
"Didn't I cite the full list several days ago and requested you to read it?"
I want your direct opinion. I trashed a part of your site of lists, the assassinations nonsense, but you didn't bother to defend it. You clearly has some perseverance when it suits you, so it should be easy for you to just list the 3 latest US coups that you oppose.
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@atarkus8 agreeing on "meat assaults" depends on two things: First the definition of the term, second on accepting the reality of Ru attacks. What is clear is that Ru uses very little tanks and armor because it's running out and also losing them to drones too fast for it to be meaningful.
What is clear is also that Ru is relentlessly sending in infantry in small groups to storm Ukr positions. Of course they're often trying to do it as intelligently as possibly, using weather, using fast small vehicles, trying to find vulnerabilities, following up with drones and so forth. But it's still loads of small groups of infantry trying to take territory, and most of them are simply attritioned by drones before being able to do anything much. There are huge numbers of complaints from Ru troops that they're being sent to their deaths in this manner with inadequate support. Do you agree with that description of reality? I guess not, because your beloved Ru couldn't have such a wasteful and callous tactic. If you did agree, would you agree to call that tactic "meat waves"? I guess not, because it'd be bad optics for a Ru that you revere.
Kursk is one of Ukr's big victories. Inability to acknowledge that just reinforces how deeply immersed people are in pro-Ru narratives. You're simply unable to acknowledge Ru failures and turn every embarassment into a great Ru achievement.
Btw, I note that you didn't respond to my question if you understand the concept of diminishing returns. Thus I assume you don't. That's part of why you can't understand that Ukr artillery does more damage per shell.
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@atarkus8 "Kursk will enter history as one of the biggest military blunders in modern war."
This is just what you tell each other in the Ru cheerleader bubble. For everyone normal, it was a brilliant and successful move.
"Objectively speaking what did it achieve for Ukraine?"
Lots of POWs to trade. Good attrition. A humiliation for Poutine, chipping away at his legitimacy. Showing what Ukr can do when adequately supported. Tying up more resources for Ru in defending quiet parts of the border.And right now, Ru's offensive has ebbed out in the East as it focuses on the North.
"redirect Russian forces from other sectors of the front, which would slow down the Russian advances"
And this is what we see right now.
"and to grab a piece of Russian territory as a bargaining chip for future negotiations"
Yeah, it probably loses that, but only because Ru had to focus, fulfilling the first goal.
"And in this gamble Ukraine lost massive amounts of some of their best equipment, and their best trained troops."
Again, this is what you tell each other. Whereever war takes place, there are losses. Here, Ukr at least chose a place lightly defended, sprung a good surprise attack, and grinded Ru forces and resources. It's Art of War 101.
"Literally the only way you can spin this as a victory is if you have the mind of a child"
I guess you've never heard of Pyrrhic victories. You simply cannot fathom Ru doing badly if it eventually manages to retake territory, and you are happily convincing each other through large amounts of pro-Ru anecdotes and juvenile reasoning that Ru is having favorable attrition everywhere.
Where did you get that "funny" quote from?
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@atarkus8 "redirect Russian forces from other sectors of the front, which would slow down the Russian advances"
And this is what we see right now.
"and to grab a piece of Russian territory as a bargaining chip for future negotiations"
Yeah, it probably loses that, but only because Ru had to focus, fulfilling the first goal.
"And in this gamble Ukraine lost massive amounts of some of their best equipment, and their best trained troops."
Again, this is what you tell each other. Whereever war takes place, there are losses. Here, Ukr at least chose a place lightly defended, sprung a good surprise attack, and grinded Ru forces and resources. It's Art of War 101.
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@atarkus8 "Russia is going to have more of them, given that AFU troops are being rapidly encircled in Kursk. All the AFU was able to get were a few dozen border guards."
Well, Syrskyi claimed in late August that your "few dozen" was 594 servicemen. And of course, more has been added since. But I hear you; you hope and pray that Ukr soldiers will be encircled so that it'll balance out eventually, and you always find it hilarious and absurd that Ukr ever did something good, so it cannot be true.
"They were literally in a pocket surrounded by Russian troops, with the only supply roads under Russian fire control."
Yeah, exactly, because in your fictional world of complete Ru dominance, Ukr stubbornly stays for 7 months despite being unable to properly supply troops.
"Humiliation? If you talk to them, no one in Russia feels that way."
A famous chatbot says, after giving some references to opinion polling and reports, that: "In summary, the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Oblast in 2024 led to a palpable sense of humiliation and unease among Russians, manifesting in increased public dissatisfaction and anxiety." But of course, in your world everything is fine, Russians just rise up like lions and rally behind the flag.
"It played into Putin's hands too, since he could say it was proof the Ukrainians were a threat."
Paradoxically, in your world, Ru people cannot think for themselves.
"Tying up resources? Again my clueless friend, on the contrary..."
Do you think Putaine wants Kursk to be repeated? If not, he has beefed up deployments along the entire border. That ties up resources.
"it allowed the Russians to use forces they couldn't use in Ukraine."
This strategy helped Ukr quite a bit. Throwing inexperienced people onto seasoned warriors didn't go well, which is why Ukr has been able to stay for 7 months.
"It was the diversion of forces by Ukraine that drastically speeded up Russian advances"
Given the absolutely glacial pace of Ru advances, you're saying that Ru had been completely stuck if Ukr hadn't invaded Kursk?
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@atarkus8 "These are small squad tactics."
They are percieved as meat wave assaults by Ukr forces. Also the Ru's complain they're sent to die. But it seems you guys in pro-Ru circles are completely insulated from such info.
" Every army in the world operates that way, including the Ukrainians themselves."
No, not really. E.g. in Kursk, Ukr did fairly classic maneuver warfare. Also, except for that, Ukr has almost exclusively defended for 1.5 years now. And when Ukr does attack, even if they do it with small squads, they do it with better support and less suicidally. For several reasons: Ukr is a democracy with mobilized soldiers and needs to maintain morale among a fairly equal army. Ru in contrast has tiers of increasing soldier expendability, and Ru soldiers are basically paid to die, so fewer people feel sorry for them. Ukr cannot afford wasting troops like that.
"Not to mention the "heavily attrited" part is something we don't even know."
That's because you apparently do not hear Ru soldiers' complaints.
"You decided to claim that the Russians were out of armor"
They're not out of armor, they're just running low and when drones are as effective as they are in anti-armor and when Ru soldiers are as expendable as they are, it makes little sense to sacrifice the rest of the dwindling armor reserves.
"I pointed out that the Ukrainians are losing at least as much armor to drones."
Throughout this conflict, visual reports indicate much higher losses on the Ru side.
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