Oh, well thats nice of them, I guess. Who is Mexico attacking?
Ah, roght out of Isreals play book, invade a country on the basis of eliminating terrorists/gangs
Ehm… the US doesn’t need to use someone’s else’s copy of the book they wrote.
Pretty much every nation with an army has attack plans against its’ neighbours, just in case. Actually using them, of course, is quite another thing. Unless you need to be really on your toes because of an unpredictable, aggressive and vicious southern neighbour like -not to name anyone- Austria.
When current news gives you flashbacks to the Cyberpunk 2077 lore. The names and dates are different but the trends and events match enough to give the uncanny feeling. Agencies in the streets being deployed, USA in trade war losing irrelevance, going for the Central American war and then losing. By the way, that’s why cybernetic limbs got so good, they needed them to patch up the soldiers from that war.
How does one lose irrelevance?
By gaining relevance!
If people stop trading with you, you start becoming irrelevant. If you stop producing science, you stop becoming revelant.
But that would be losing relevance
I’m sorry, we were looking for “sex tape”
Anything to distract from the Epstein files.
What files? Asking for a friend ✝️
drawing up
Doesn’t DoD have detailed attack plans for every nation already?
Yes but this is a bad headline. The article is about specifically using US military to attack cartels, which the Trump administration has already made legal for themselves by recategorizing them as terrorists.
It is still a violation of both international law and common sense.
I imagine most militaries have contingency plans against enemies and allies ready to go. Wouldn’t be much of a defensive force without them. (I know that the US is not a defensive force. I live here. We will 100% take over your country for borderline no reason.)
Yes.
Well, not necessarily detailed. Like I’m sure the plan for an invasion of Uruguay is basically nonexistent, while one for war with China is comprehensive.
Plans for a zombie apocalypse have also been created at least once as an exercise. It’s good practice for an emergency situation.
Airborne Rabies wouldn’t be that dissimilar from zombies. Pretty sure there’s a tabletop for that.
We’ve got that in Australia!
note: It’s ‘not rabies’ (it’s Bat Lyssavirus, which is ‘totally not rabies’*) and it’s ‘airborne’ since they’re bats :P
Doesn’t DoD have detailed attack plans for every nation already?
Yep. I would be more surprised if there wasn’t an attack plan for any country with more than 5m people.
The US isn’t ready for a two front war where the whole world wants to get rid of them. They don’t have the cards.
Please… I’m not a big fan of the US right now either. But that is just an absurd claim. No one is going to willingly open up a front against the US.
Like it or not, but they absolutely have the cards.
US doctrine since WWII has been to have the muscle to fight on two major fronts and one brush fire. We’ve gone down to one major front.
what "front? there are already millions of Mexicans deep in the USA that would not stand for an attack on their country
Let’s entertain your idea here for a second. How do you think that’s going to go?
My guess, the at the first hint of any type of insurrection, best case. Latinos and Japanese-Americans are gonna have something in common. Worst case; full blown ethnic cleaning carried out by local militias.
I’m not condoning either. That’s just what I personally think might happen.
lol you assume Mexicans are as meek as Americans proved to be
You mean the country they willingly fled, often due to cartel violence?
the vast majority are economic migrants… and yes talk to any Mexican, they are loyal to Mexico, always and forever
That’s wrong, the US can eat a couple of countries just fine. The efficiency is atrocious, but the sheer inherited strategic power and logistics and stockpiles, and the amount of funding allowing to, say, build drones analogous to Russian “Geran” 100x times more expensive in the same amounts as Russia does, - all these make many wars a certain victory in the sense of destroying the other side’s forces and possibly civilian population.
Anyway. Two things.
1 - In his previous term there was squeal from all sides how he’s going to institute fascism right now. “The boy who cried wolves” may be a valid analogy or it may not. I think before anything like this the US will have an open change of the regime. At the same time - it’s very convenient to have the land border with other countries very narrow, when instituting totalitarianism (resistance fighters, people trying to flee, all kinds of stuff), so possibly eating Mexico and Canada and doing a regime change after that is good enough.
2 - Perhaps any kind of a war is easier done after, suppose, an economic crisis happens. AI bubble burst, or something like that.
A war with Mexico would be disastrous. Yes the US military and military industrial complex is much larger but Mexico is a huge country in land and population that has a much larger and diverse economy than Iraq and Afghanistan. They have a large population of people with engineering education and a large population of those employed in manufacturing. Mexico doesn’t have an incredibly huge domestic arms industry but it exists and what they do have is a huge manufacturing industry that I’m certain they would be able to take advantage of to churn out anything that can be used for war.
The loss of the US to Mexican manufacturing would mean significantly higher inflation and a huge increase to national debt that would also contribute to an eventual increase in inflation. Long term it would also mean Mexico joins the arms race for at least ground armies and missiles. Mexico does have a strong and growing tech sector. Mexico does not have a large military because they have not needed one. The only theoretical threat would be the US but that hasn’t been threatened in a very long time. A US invasion would motivate Mexico to being the regions South Korea but possibly much larger long term. Domestic resources and highly educated people and amount of people for active and reserve forces
The north is a lot more sparsely populated but I’d expect that to be where things trap out at with constant insurgency across the southwestern united states and northern mexico. War with either Mexico or Canada would destabilize the US domestically but Mexico probably far worse. By the time a sufficiently sized invasion force for the US military made it to southern mexico, bridges and cities would be boobytrapped and fortified to hell.
I’d question what every other country south of the US would do. Not active participant but proxy to ship arms from Russia, China, North Korea, Iran to Mexico now that international sanctions would not matter to Mexico. I doubt Brazil would be happy. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the opportunity to grow their domestic arms industry and see their missiles in action and gain data. See a huge return of Brazil to the international arms market. Progressively send out their old stockpile to make way for their ongoing modernization efforts.
US economic and stockpile disaster in a time when one of the largest concerns is how bad the acquisition and production levels are for militaries in the US and western europe. How old and regularly in maintenance and need for replacement large naval ships. How expensive the missiles shot out of missile defense systems are. The maintenance needs that will be needed from the stress placed on actively fought against naval vessels and aircraft
Just as problematic is what this would mean for US military acquisition and development. It would shift back to ground forces when the US wants to focus on Navy and air. Disaster for the US and allies in the Pacific. Attacking Mexico would long term make the cost of maintaining the ground and air army just domestically much more expensive. It’d have to be larger now with a strong enemy with a huge shared land and maritime border. Plus how Brazil can benefit from a US-Mexico war. Alliances that can form in defense against a crazy US that’s gone back to cold war and earlier meddling in Latin America.
What would happen is early US war effort makes huge gains. Stockpile of missiles drop to levels where legal mandates of required stockpile levels near or are breached. Military ends up in a legal and logistical back and forth of can they fire more and why can’t we build missiles as fast as Russia and China. US populace unrest would make anti-Vietnam war protest look small. Riots would make post-MLK assassination look small. Mexico rapidly develops production for small cheap explosives and drones and develops international strategies to have international arms make it to Mexico. Brazil quickly ascends back to being a major international arms dealer. The US eventually has to withdraw from Mexico because of the cost of war and occupation of Mexico and domestic unrest
US military now has to primarily focus on the Americas rather than the Pacific, eastern Europe, and the Middle East because Mexico and Brazil are now hypercharged more than anytime in history to compete with the US. Their populations motivated. Mexico eventually joins BRICS. Major implications all over the world as the US just post-WW2 France and UK’ed themselves where those two trying to reassert their international empires without the US and failed by the 60s and took positions as US vassals. US wouldn’t become a vassal of any, but it’d have to pull back internationally majorly
Even a short attack and retreat like Iran would force a shift to domestic army instead of overseas. Mexico would instantly bump up their military expenses up to higher single digit percentages of the countries GDP and go on an acquisition spree while building up domestic arms industry
Americans would face high inflation, austerity, possibly high unemployment as hostility to American products and services increases. Another major decline in tourism. Huge cost of military benefits pay for anyone that was deployed to the active war zone, injured, survivor benefits, or just recruited to shore up needs domestically while maintaining overseas personnel. The US conservatives would have a marketing win but the whole of the US an international strength and influence loss. American people lose.
I think this is an evaluation based on wars of the past.
Without 1) autonomous combat drones, 2) new fascism in the USA allowing it to kill any amounts of foreign and its own civilians, 3) surveillance that wasn’t possible before our time, 4) computers making many decisions in real time.
With those present they can launch a swarm of AI killbots, possibly with tactical nukes, and be done before the general population even realizes well enough what happened (that’s a slow thing). No conscription\mobilization\losses - much smaller problems with Vietnam-like protests, morale, fragging.
This is an extreme fantasy, of course. Strongly inspired by Soviet post-WWII doctrine for a nuclear war plus new tools.
Dictatorships fall when they can’t keep promises to pay and feed their military anything of worth. Any attack on Mexico would be another major hit to US financing ability like the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were. The US has had to deprioritize development of a distinct navy 6th gen fighter jet to financially support the air force program. They scrapped plans for Zumwault destroyers for a new cheaper design. E7 AEW&C is on the chopping block which anything AEW&C is important for drones
Russia and Ukraine right now display the problems in difference in personnel numbers. For the amount of drones being manufacturered for Russia and Ukraine, on the front lines Ukraines lack of soldiers on the ground leaves gaps for Russian forces to push forward and create opportunities for encirclement. Mass production drones are not yet a replacement for human soldiers. Mass production drones don’t go very fast and far and they can’t Cary that heavy of munitions. Ground drones are far behind air based in terrain traversal. Large drones are expensive, use expensive munitions, and the US is slow to build things. The US unmanned systems are not good enough yet to replace a ground army and because of the Ukraine Russia war, drone counter technologies and strategies are being learned across the world like how the first Gulf War taught the world the importance of AEW&C
What swarm of AI killlbots does the US have that can take out the military of a country of 130 million people and successfully occupy and control this populace? With what money? How do they finance that with a worsening debt to GDP ratio? How well will US bonds sell to international buyers after going nuclear on Mexico? Go nuclear on Mexico and the wind. Managing the fallout drifting towards the US. There is no avoiding conscription. There is a reason the military is currently trying very hard with recruitment advertising in gaming tournaments and what not. War has not progressed in any country where machines can replace people
For the technological advantage of the US and Israel over Iran and Yemen, the US had to expend a large percentage of their THAAD stockpile to fend off missiles. Southern Mexico is the heart of the Mexican population. The US would need to defend its air assets across distances pushing well past a thousand of miles. It would have to expend a substantial amount of missiles to destroy other missiles that target US missiles and US infrastructure and sea vessels. A lot of expensive equipment. A lot of money. It would not be a quick war.
People thought Ukriane would fall within a month. Then people thought the Russian economy would collapse within a year and Putin deposed. It became a lot more murky. Current US (not previous US and not even Trump 1st era advisors thought Iran was quick work) and Israel thought it would be quick work to disable Iran and Iranian missiles wouldn’t be an issue for Israeli and American missile defenses. Pretty high percentage but enough makes it through to be an issue. So Iran and Israel, unsettled and the Houthis are back to shooting ships in the red sea and Israel beven after years of US, Israeli, and Saudi technological superiority. Probably a restart of the war in the near future as Iran replenishes it’s missile stockpile and defense systems through regional suppliers and domestic.
War with Mexico would not be quick. It would not be cheap. It would not be without major human ground forces. It would be the perfect opportunity for war in the pacific and middle east as the US just had to commit major resources to dealing with Mexico and suppress domestic unrest. All incredibly expensive for a country whose finances are built on the expectations and faith of international treasury buyers for American debt. The major international credit agencies would undoubtedly downgrade the US credit rating again complicating feeding the active American military and benefits for the retired
People concerned about the billions in recent years to Ukraine and Israel. Mexico and the international complications from opportunities made by the huge American blunder would mean trillions from the US to try to manage major wars at the southern border war, the war in Europe, the war in the middle east, and likely war in the pacific
He’s trying to imitate Putin. Probably go about as well as it has for Putin as well.
…Putin is about to walk away with 20% of Ukraine
They went from Ukraine being a Russian vassal state to a prospective NATO/EU member with 80% of their territory intact. What’s their next move, invade Belarus and end up half of that become an EU member too?
That said, Putin has not walked away with 20% of anything just yet.
Not just that. For that supposed 20% he reinvigorated NATO (prior to the full scale invasion countries started questioning if we still need NATO), got EU to increase defense spending and got Finland and Sweden to join NATO. They also proved they’re a paper tiger and their arms manufacturing is crap. Oh and of course sanctions and the war completely wrecking the economy.
Even if they somehow get 20% it’s a Pyrrhic victory.
For that supposed 20% he reinvigorated NATO (prior to the full scale invasion countries started questioning if we still need NATO), got EU to increase defense spending and got Finland and Sweden to join NATO.
Don’t you see how this works both ways?
He measured NATO’s response, he found a way to fight wars and not break (in the sense of popular outrage at loss of life and economic effect) for Russia, and which categories of population can be recruited for money and which shouldn’t, he confirmed that the resource exports money source can be reoriented to other countries than the West, and he made unofficially NATO-aligned countries officially that.
EU’s defense spending increasing is at the expense of other things.
They also proved they’re a paper tiger and their arms manufacturing is crap. Oh and of course sanctions and the war completely wrecking the economy.
They proved that to themselves too and reacted. Changed the military doctrine, evolved new tactics and strategy, built new MIC production chains. Russian army was inexperienced and thoroughly rotten, now it’s not. Russian weapons were expensive and untested, now there are cheap drones of various kinds produced on scale and used, well-tested and constantly improved.
The economy is not completely wrecked. It really seemed to be going there many times over these years. Some of the people who told me it’s going to crumble are professors. It’s not even approaching that anymore. I live in Russia.
People working in the Russian Central Bank are very competent. One can talk and talk about good and evil, but their work has been perfect basically since 1999 till now. And people making actual decisions too understand a lot.
It seems intuitively (incorrectly) that the way Russian society is built, with its inequality and injustice, it can’t bear a big war. But if slaveholder agrarian societies and feudal societies could fight wars with their plutocratic contemporaries, then Russia’s mafia feudalism can fight Western societies. Which are honestly too slowly changing to mafia feudalism ; perhaps some will flip to fascism.
Considering what all those western nations have shown themselves, I’m honestly not sure there are good guys here, and if there are none, then I’m kinda almost feeling patriotic. But I don’t understand why Putin had to invade Ukraine, Zelensky was fucking elected because of his promises to make peace and restore ties, and for the national interest it made much bigger sense to just do that, Ukraine would still be naturally dependent.
He measured NATO’s response
To attacking a non-NATO country. NATO’s purpose is not to defend random places and support random revolutions and occupations around the world - despite what the US thinks, and despite how much we sympathise with Ukraine - but to defend each other. Poland just bought hundreds of tanks, and we got to see where we are missing things. And as shitty the rift is with the US, Russia now has a rearming EU to worry about.
he found a way to fight wars and not break
He put the country on a war economy which is going to cause an insane recession if not an outright collapse if the war ends. They won’t even be able to go back to their pre-war military strength. This was always an option, coming back from it is not.
he confirmed that the resource exports money source can be reoriented to other countries than the West
At insanely low prices, and by creating even more dependencies on untrustworthy partners. Who’s to say China won’t use the new dependency to invade Russia? Can Russia depend on that?
They proved that to themselves too and reacted. Changed the military doctrine, evolved new tactics and strategy, built new MIC production chains.
It went from an army that could threaten Europe to one that could threaten Ukraine. I know, drones are the new thing, but all of Russia’s adversaries have much greater manufacturing capabilities than Russia, Russia is not going to outproduce the West or China in drones. Just to mention, Ukraine and Russia are largely peers in drone warfare, except all those drones are being blown up in Ukraine. Europe is stockpiling. In the meantime, they lost their whole Soviet stockpile of armor, and a sizeable chunk of their airforce.
EU’s defense spending increasing is at the expense of other things.
This is the new big lie of Russia. No, defense spending is coming from loans, basically a credit line we didn’t use because the Germans were jacking off to austerity. How that works is that if we overdo it, we’ll see more inflation, so you can check when we overdid it. Social spending is not being cut, there are maybe some programs somewhere, but that neolib shit has been going on forever, we’ve been fighting it forever, it’s just now Russia saying “you’ll all be poor”. Inflation is back to normal levels, and if anything, increased public spending will increase wages across the EU.
The economy is not completely wrecked.
Just look at the numbers. It’s a war economy. 40% of the Russian budget is going towards the army, and if the war ends or this money runs out - that’s 2027/28 if we’re being generous - you’re going from a labour shortage to 10% unemployment. That’s “dissolution of the USSR” level economic turmoil.
To attacking a non-NATO country. NATO’s purpose is not to defend random places and support random revolutions and occupations around the world
Yeah, well, attacking a NATO country with the military Russia had in 2022 would be suicide.
And as shitty the rift is with the US, Russia now has a rearming EU to worry about.
A rearmed EU will be less dependent upon the US. If we are expecting the US to go bad in the following decades, then EU less dependent upon it might be less likely to partake in pummeling Russia when that happens.
He put the country on a war economy which is going to cause an insane recession if not an outright collapse if the war ends.
That depends on the expected outside conditions. If there’s a worldwide crisis coming, then doing this before it is even advantageous.
At insanely low prices, and by creating even more dependencies on untrustworthy partners. Who’s to say China won’t use the new dependency to invade Russia? Can Russia depend on that?
China doesn’t generally invade anyone. Peace works in their favor. They are even catching up as an innovating and not only manufacturing nation. China already controls Russia though its industries’ supply chains. Also China controls much of the world through its rare metals.
So yes, Russia can depend on the Chinese “roof”, so to say, being stable.
Insanely low prices are regrettable, but one of Russia’s biggest exports is grain. Grain demand is different from oil and gas demand, - I don’t think I have to explain why, - so that falling or stopping being profitable is highly unlikely.
It went from an army that could threaten Europe to one that could threaten Ukraine. I know, drones are the new thing, but all of Russia’s adversaries have much greater manufacturing capabilities than Russia, Russia is not going to outproduce the West or China in drones.
From one that boasted threatening Europe to one that actually threatens Ukraine. Also you are writing this as if Ukraine were weak.
It’s not about capabilities, it’s about a whole functioning well-tested system. Russia doesn’t have to outproduce China, Russia simply can’t fight China, it’s dependent upon China in everything. But the good news (for Russia) are that all its potential adversaries are western or western-aligned.
Like training an LLM on a dataset (sorry).
This is the new big lie of Russia. No, defense spending is coming from loans, basically a credit line we didn’t use because the Germans were jacking off to austerity.
You weren’t using it, now you are using it. That’s too “at the expense of everything else”.
Just look at the numbers. It’s a war economy. 40% of the Russian budget is going towards the army, and if the war ends or this money runs out - that’s 2027/28 if we’re being generous - you’re going from a labour shortage to 10% unemployment. That’s “dissolution of the USSR” level economic turmoil.
They are making rules for labor migration stricter, and the number of labor migrants in Russia is enormous, I’d say it’s more than 10% workforce. I don’t have the current numbers, but it’s a few millions of citizens of Tajikistan alone. So - they are slowly impeding labor migration, and making it less attractive. Might be a preparation for this exactly.
OK. I don’t know where the ship is going or what its captain thinks. I’m just seeing that it’s been promised things completely different from what transpired for all my life.
A rearmed EU will be less dependent upon the US. If we are expecting the US to go bad in the following decades, then EU less dependent upon it might be less likely to partake in pummeling Russia when that happens.
To be honest, if the US and Russia started a war in eg. Kazakhstan or Afghanistan, the EU would most likely not care and I also think it shouldn’t. IMO we should stop trading with Israel as well, and I’m not alone here. I doubt after Ukraine even Poland would deign to help with a new war, and even the Israel thing is more of an inertia issue in the EU rather than anything else - not like that absolves anyone.
Ukraine was a European thing because Ukraine was attacked because it was aligning with the EU. Nobody sane in the EU wants war with Russia for the sake of antagonizing Russia. In fact, even the people who don’t like Russia are mistrustful and not hateful, as in nobody wants to see Russia fall apart, it’s just that its leadership broke so many promises that people think that it is a good idea to expect it to honor any deal or stay at peace.
You weren’t using it, now you are using it. That’s too “at the expense of everything else”.
Sorry, but this is a pet issue of mine, and not even because of the Russian war or even rearmament. Public investment is taking loans from corporations, and giving it to people as wages to do stuff. This drives inflation somewhat, but since it increases wages the people don’t feel it, but the loans given to corporations also inflate. This all drives the economy, since people having more money means they spend more, which makes companies compete more for that money, it’s all in all a good thing.
What I mean is that even if nothing like this was happening, if we paid a bunch of people to dig a hole, and another bunch of people to fill it up, it would still fuel the economy and make more money for everyone in the EU. Now if we spend that money on not pointless things, like the new military bill that includes a ton of money for infrastructure, building roads, railways, bridges, etc. that’s even better.
What I mean is that this is an investment, even if it doesn’t look like it. And we wouldn’t be doing it since German conservatives would rather we hoard money than spend it, so the same companies can keep winning in the market. Public investment actually makes corporations richer as well, just not always the same corporations, as it also increases competition, so the current winners don’t like it.
Think of the New Deal and its results on the US economy. It didn’t take money away from other public services, in fact it produced more taxes to fund them. Or look at Russia, it’s the same deal as with the war economy, except if done in moderation, inflation won’t run away so much that the EUR won’t stay convertible like the RUB, and wages, taxes and profits will go up.
OK. I don’t know where the ship is going or what its captain thinks. I’m just seeing that it’s been promised things completely different from what transpired for all my life.
Don’t we all, man. The scary part about Russia is that there does not seem to be an endgame, there doesn’t seem to be a next chapter to the plan. I wish you guys all luck and a better future.
Ukraine wasn’t a certain Russian vassal state. They had the original “orange revolution”.
About prospective NATO/EU member - honestly that’s not good enough. They’ve lost hundreds of thousands of men. Housing and infrastructure and industrial plants.
In return for that to be “considered” for being accepted into a military alliance of former empires and a union for “while civilized people”, only “considered”, some time in the future, like 20 years later, - fuck that.
And both entities have been promising mountains to Ukraine over these few years.
Of course, there’s also the issue of Ukraine’s government being corrupt and becoming the more corrupt the longer there’s no election.
From what it seems, Ukrainians too are not very keen on trying to maybe in 20 years join either. They want agreements and they want to build up their military and country. And they want to start unfucking their political system, when there’s opportunity.
I’m not saying that Ukraine doesn’t deserve better. Hell, Russia deserves better than Putin.
All I’m saying is that if let’s say the end result of this is a ceasefire on the current frontline, Russia basically lost the war. I’m not saying Ukraine totally won either, but it is arguably in a better place geopolitically than pre-revolution, even after the war.
Look, I’m from Hungary. If the peeps who did 1956 got Western help beyond thoughts and prayers, and the revolution ended up with Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg and Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén counties as “East Hungary” or bombed flat and even part of the USSR behind the fence, and the rest as basically a Western country, the memory of that revolution would be much less bittersweet.
All I’m saying is that if let’s say the end result of this is a ceasefire on the current frontline, Russia basically lost the war.
Russia lost the war the moment it started the war, because with pre-war Zelensky they could make any kind of equal alliance, that’s what his voters wanted and what he was promising.
However - in any case, 1, Russia has developed a modern armed force from the nonsense it had, it paid with plenty of lives for that, but many of those convicts and depressed\poor people who were attracted by the money offered, and, 2, with freezing of the conflict using the current line of contact Russia has gained strategically important territory on the Azov sea coast, connecting it to Crimea, and has almost approached Odessa.
Honestly, if Ukraine becomes de-facto landlocked, it’s over. Taking Odessa is hard, because there are limans to the south and east of it, they’d have to basically encircle it from the north first. In WWII when Soviet troops liberated Odessa, they too stormed the city from the north.
So there are two variants - 1) they make some peace\ceasefire\whatever with Ukraine losing what’s now controlled by Russia, and then after some time Russia commits perfidy and attacks again with the intention of taking Odessa, and 2) the same, but Russia doesn’t commit perfidy and just remains with the current situation.
Before this war Russian-controlled Crimea had a single chokepoint in its connection to Russia. After it there’s also the route through the mainland. We live in an era of developing land logistics.
I’ve already said that the Russian military has gained experience, the best possible kind at that - all other possible adversaries are either too weak or too strong (part of alliances and with their own experience). I suspect that’s even why the war was started at all - to gain experience of modern warfare with an adversary approaching equal, the hard way.
I’ll attribute the situation where it makes sense to western racism and chauvinism. A conflict where two East Slavic nations fight each other won’t have really grave consequences for Russia in terms of western reaction, and at the same time the Ukrainians are too gaining an experienced military. Almost a win-win decision for a psychopath leader.
Yeah, about that - when some kind of peace\ceasefire is made, Ukraine basically becomes a better buffer state for Russia than before. With no wish for more bloodshed, thus no threat for what Russia has occupied, yet a military better not to cross. So if, suppose, EU or NATO suddenly goes fascist in 10 or 20 years after now (all that Chat Control stuff doesn’t inspire confidence in the future), they will have to pass through Ukraine unless they make it a NATO or EU member, which they won’t due to their own arrogance.
So honestly, even without taking Odessa, Russia is improving its strategic position. From a purely military, 1930s-like, point of view. I mean, improving if its intention in the large picture is self-defense, because for pulling a Hitler it’s already a clear failure since the first few months, but honestly what if Putin really believes in bad-bad NATO intending to eat Russia? And nation leaders and powerful people are usually psychopaths, so maybe a psychopath is fitted with a better brain to understand them. Maybe he’s right.
Look, I’m from Hungary. If the peeps who did 1956 got Western help beyond thoughts and prayers, and the revolution ended up with Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg and Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén counties as “East Hungary” or bombed flat and even part of the USSR behind the fence, and the rest as basically a Western country, the memory of that revolution would be much less bittersweet.
Ukraine wasn’t behind anything like the Iron Curtain.
I guess the question is, what’s Russia’s endgame from all this? Because if we say that the Russian army of today is superior to the Russian army of 2022, which is debatable because while they are more competent, they also lost insane amounts of material, both ground, sea and air war machines; the Russian economy is still worse than it was before?
So what can Russia do with its improved army? Invade the Baltics? That’s a non-starter because of the EU. Invade Georgia? The only significance of that is that it prevents Europe from having an alternative oil and gas supplier than Russia. Invade Kazakhstan or the Caucasus? Wouldn’t that just create another Afghanistan/Ukraine moment where the rest of the world can just send random shit to that country and delete Russian divisions?
Russia also lost the Middle East, meaning Syria is gone and even Iran has its own problems. I’m just not seeing any way forward from this, even if they can patch the economy together.
they also lost insane amounts of material, both ground, sea and air war machines;
Intended for obsolete paradigm of war, a lot of them. Very expensive, old and not so efficient. And not just “lost”, also “tested in real life conditions”.
So what can Russia do with its improved army?
Defend from whatever it fears in the future, that’s probably their idea. If you are expecting a war, due to paranoia or not, this might seem justified. Similar to how averting a hunger is far easier than going through it, because during a hunger people who die also consume food before it, just not enough, and work with worse efficiency. In case of such a war of defense your preserved materiel and people will be expended possibly far less efficiently than in a smaller war to get some experience.
My whole line in this thread is that such a strategy seems to be consistent with the claims of feeling threatened by NATO, officially expressed by Russian officials since 00s. It’s funny, but it’s really so.
Russia also lost the Middle East, meaning Syria is gone and even Iran has its own problems. I’m just not seeing any way forward from this, even if they can patch the economy together.
Perhaps it’s optimization. Doesn’t matter how much you are trying to hold under control if you are not succeeding. Similarly to hunger.
Anyway, this is me playing devil’s advocate.
And all of Alaska of course
Why? What’s even the end goal? A war to stay in office maybe?
If this was a competent president. I would probably give them the benefit of the doubt.
But we all know Trump only cares about one thing. And it’s not the US. It’s himself.
He may very well be under the impression that it will somehow give him more time in office, or it’s just some way for him to try and get better approval rating. How he is percieved by the US is of major importance to his ego.
He hates how his approval is lower than Obamas. And he probably hates how his approval is lower than G.W.Busch.
G.W.Busch had an approval rating of around ~60%. Then a certain incident happened and his approval went to as high as 92% at a certain time.
Trump might, for some reason. Think that him starting/provoking a war will give him a similar boost.
Ofc to you and me it sounds insane and we know that’s not going to improve his rating. But we are reasonable, normal people with common sense.
Martial Law is definitely on his wishlist.
if and when he feels like it
I hate that this is an actionable threat.
US - China proxy war of attrition coming or nah? Americans finally understanding the horrors of war might push their society into positive change…
That’s a funny joke.
There’s a lot of countries that are sick of china’s shit, I think the US would actually have a lot of support in a proxy war.
My man, Trump just fucked that up. Japan started to deal with China because of Trump.
The US is alone.
We are not alone.
Do you think Poland would send men to a war against Mexico as they did to Afghanistan after abandoning Ukraine and Europe? Do you think the Commonwealth would be as staunch a US ally after the UK directly contradicted US foreign policy on Ukraine and the US threatened to invade Canada? Do you think Japan and Korea are not hedging their bets (meaning opening up to China) on the US since Trump started undermining those alliances too?
My dog, if the US got attacked, the Western world would maybe help at this point, but if it wasn’t an actual invasion, just another 9/11, we’d probably just send thoughts and prayers and a gift card.
I am here with you. Though you’re far away, I am here to stay.
Etc. And so forth
Correction - there was a lot of contries that were sick of China’s shit. That was until Trump returned and started fucking with global economy and nuclear safety.
? Username appropriate, I guess, lol.
They’re not really though or else we wouldn’t hear about it until invasion day. It’s more of his art of the deal bullshit
Do you really think Trump would keep ihis mouth shut in favor of tactics? Have you even seen him talk?
Guess a lot of trump supporters on this sub, judging by the downvotes :( I’m trying to say it’s just Trump playing chicken again, trying to intimidate Mexico into doing something for him
nah its just a distraction from the Epstein Files. nothing will really happen with these war plans
Don’t ever underestimate Trump’s stupidity.
Do it, do it, do it!
Go join the military if youre so fucking excited. Otherwise, fuck off with that shit. Fuck war
Go start a revolution if you don’t like Trump, but I guess it will be a war, since no one will stop him soon or later.
Unlike Americans, us Canadians are peace keepers and dont invade soverign nations.
