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8 hours ago, Steel Shank said:

I apologize if I missed your answer.

@WhatTheBuck 

How do we stop Russia from launching drone and missile attacks against Ukraine? We don’t. Not without drastic measures like invading Russia ourselves. We’re not going to talk Putin out of it. We’re not going to sanction him out of it. We can’t get countries like China, India, and Saudi Arabia to condemn him. If Putin wants to fire weapons at civilian targets in unoccupied Ukraine, he’s going to do it. The best we and our NATO partners can do is to equip Ukraine the best we can to defend against those attacks. But it’s a big country and there aren’t enough Patriot batteries to defend all of it.

It probably won’t stop until the war ends in Russia’s defeat. Or unless Putin is deposed before that. I’m assuming victory for Ukraine will also mean the end of Putin’s reign. I don’t know how he could survive that. So I guess Putin needs to fall in order for the attacks to stop, however his fall is achieved.

I get that people are frustrated and impatient and I get the impression there’s some sentiment that we must not be doing enough fast enough or the war would be almost won by now. I doubt whether that’s realistic. I’ve never served in the military and have no expertise in warfare but I think that, even if we gave Ukraine today everything they’re asking for, along with everything else they will ever ask for in the future, it would still take time and cost a lot of lives before the conflict is decided.

There aren’t any easy answers. So far, no American service members have lost their lives fighting in Ukraine. I think that’s a positive. I’m not advocating for NATO forces to get involved in actual combat so any solutions we consider would have to exclude that. That’s a separate discussion.

That’s my take as a lay person. Do you have a better answer?

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Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Hanna Maliar said that after media reports about the relocation of the 82nd Separate Airborne Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Russian troops conducted 5 air strikes on it in a day. She noted that this is "the price of the headlines about where the 82nd Brigade was moved." https://t.me/annamaliar/1032

"...in prison"

https://twitter.com/Igor_from_Kyiv_/status/1693602110879797389?s=20 

 

Edited by KYHorn
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7 minutes ago, KYHorn said:

 

 

unfortunately, the solution to that problem is to not allow American Journalists to report in Ukraine anymore.  our fucking journalists are more concerned about getting a scoop 2 mins before anyone else and will fire off a story without any fucking thought to operational security, or what that report can mean in regards to the safety of the topic of the report.

we are too fucking stupid as a journalistic society to understand the concept of Loose Lips.

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45 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

even if we gave Ukraine today everything they’re asking for, along with everything else they will ever ask for in the future, it would still take time and cost a lot of lives before the conflict is decided.

I fear you are correct - this is going to drag out for year and years.  

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12 minutes ago, KYHorn said:

More context:

 

 Russians continue to frantically attack Klishchiivka south of Bakhmut but they have a huge problem: the Ukrainian positions overlooking the village from which any movement can be monitored and Russian troops effectively repelled, which btw. happens on a daily base. (Screenshot 1) Due to the high losses, Russians tried to outflank the Ukrainian vantage position by attacking from the north, using 3 MBTs and 3 BMPs. (Screenshot 2) But an Ukrainian drone detected them approaching and the following barrage of Ukrainian artillery smashed 2 MBTs and 2 BMPs, destroying this Russian attack group, including scores of Russian infantry at these coordinates: 48°32'37"N 37°57'20"E Source of video: https://t.me/mysiagin/25971

Image 

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58 minutes ago, KYHorn said:

 

 For the first time, the Armed Forces of #Ukraine were able to completely destroy a strategic nuclear bomber of the Russian Federation This happened as a result of a drone attack on an airfield in the #Novgorod region. Russian media write that Russia has no engineering and technical base for the new construction of strategic bombers.

 

 

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20 hours ago, Parliament said:

Re: the food/gas rationing piece.  The US is a net exporter of food and petroleum products.  Short of nuclear war I don't know how it would ever come to rationing. 

I was referring to World War II.

But since you bring that up, are you not old enough to remember the gas rationing in 1973? No nuclear war then.  I could only buy gas on even numbered license plate days. I came back from Christmas in Mexico on an odd numbered day, and even though I made it to the airport on fumes, I could not buy gas that day I got back home until I switched plates with some kind soul with odd numbered plates for 15 minutes.  Just like an embargo, a true world war will cause changes on the home front. 

My point was, this is not a “World War”any more than the Korea Conflict was a true world war because both China (troops) and Russia (pilots) and the US and UN….were involved.  We use our surrogates as part of cold war diplomacy, and that includes a bit of shooting from time to time in countries that are not us. 

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48 minutes ago, Steel Shank said:

Are we doing this? Are we doing our best? That is what I was initially asking.

On a micro basis we can argue about one perhaps two weapons systems that haven't been sent, some that were sent not fast enough, but we're not privy to all the details that went into consideration of those decisions.

On a macro basis, vehemently, yes we are doing all we can, and it's remarkable how well the US response has been managed to revitalize and grow NATO despite the pro-Russian bias of Germany and France at the beginning of the war and Western response.  During the 4 years prior NATO had been attacked by the US on a regular and frequent basis, and it was probably at its weakest point ever. The current administration also faces a split Senate, and if you were going to name which coalition has the most pull in the House of Representatives, it's probably the Useful Idiots.

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1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

I get that people are frustrated and impatient and I get the impression there’s some sentiment that we must not be doing enough fast enough or the war would be almost won by now.

Have we sent ATACMS, Abrams, cluster bomb rockets, or F16s? Have we sent torpedoes, Predator drones, or cruise missles? Of what was sent, was it sent as soon as requested, or did we delay for months needlessly self-deterring worrying about "escalation"? Then we're not doing enough fast enough.

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50 minutes ago, Steel Shank said:

Are we doing this? Are we doing our best? That is what I was initially asking.

We can’t defend everything. We can’t prevent every death. Doing a cost-benefit analysis of every option for arming Ukraine is above my pay grade. It’s a joint effort between us and our allies and no matter how much we give them, Ukrainian civilians will still die. They’ll keep asking for more help and I think we should keep giving it to them until they’re ultimately victorious. But there are diplomatic considerations and domestic political considerations and I don’t know what kind of military considerations regarding availability and feasibility of giving them the windfall that they would really like to have.

It’s easy to be an armchair quarterback and keep calling for more and more weapons. “Why not done?!” I’m sure it’s not easy for the people trying to navigate all the complexities involved. There are people here at home who think we’re not doing enough and others who think we’re doing too much. All in all I think it’s hard to look at what’s been accomplished so far and not say that we’re doing a pretty good job. We just have to keep at it. 

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1 minute ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Another drone attack on a strategic aviation base in Russia. Fortunately, the Russians shot it down. It crashed into an airplane but luckily it was one that wasn’t being used anyway. Russian Air Defense continues to dominate. 
 

https://x.com/archer83able/status/1693625274900820232?s=46&t=sLnTqdt8bKng_n8HFlnwSg

Did I get my ability to embed tweets disabled after my disastrous fuckup a few pages back, LOL? 

x.com won't embed - if you are pasting from the app then open it in a browser first then copy that. annoying but twitter.com will still embed.

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2 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

We can’t defend everything. We can’t prevent every death. Doing a cost-benefit analysis of every option for arming Ukraine is above my pay grade. It’s a joint effort between us and our allies and no matter how much we give them, Ukrainian civilians will still die. They’ll keep asking for more help and I think we should keep giving it to them until they’re ultimately victorious. But there are diplomatic considerations and domestic political considerations and I don’t know what kind of military considerations regarding availability and feasibility of giving them the windfall that they would really like to have.

It’s easy to be an armchair quarterback and keep calling for more and more weapons. “Why not done?!” I’m sure it’s not easy for the people trying to navigate all the complexities involved. There are people here at home who think we’re not doing enough and others who think we’re doing too much. All in all I think it’s hard to look at what’s been accomplished so far and not say that we’re doing a pretty good job. We just have to keep at it. 

Meanwhile, a majority of Americans think Congress should not authorize additional support for Ukraine.

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22 minutes ago, MagicSoccerSpray said:

Have we sent ATACMS, Abrams, cluster bomb rockets, or F16s? Have we sent torpedoes, Predator drones, or cruise missles? Of what was sent, was it sent as soon as requested, or did we delay for months needlessly self-deterring worrying about "escalation"? Then we're not doing enough fast enough.

I question whether we actually have a viable supply of ATACMS that we can send. We can't send expensive items like F-16s without additional funding (see below). We can't send cruise missiles because we don't have any that Ukraine could actually use. Predator drones aren't a good match for Ukraine's operating environment; there is a reason why you don't see Bayraktar TB2s in reports anymore. I have no idea what purpose torpedoes would have at this point or how Ukraine could effectively utilize them.

For most of 2022 there was a good argument to me made for worrying about escalation. We didn't know how Russia would respond. But we've now called their bluff enough and the frog is well enough boiled that I don't think anything outside of direct NATO intervention risks escalation. At this point, I think the primary concern is our own readiness and limitations on the sorts of weapon systems Ukraine could effectively utilize. 

7 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

Meanwhile, a majority of Americans think Congress should not authorize additional support for Ukraine.

More details:

Quote

 

Republicans broadly say that Congress should not authorize new funding (71%) and that the US has done enough to assist Ukraine (59%). Among Democrats, most say the opposite, 62% favor additional funding and 61% say that the US should do more.

Within both parties, there are splits by ideology. On providing additional funding, liberal Democrats are far and away the most supportive, 74% back it compared with 51% of moderate or conservative Democrats. Among Republicans, about three-quarters of conservatives oppose new funding (76%) compared with 61% of moderate or liberal Republicans.

Independents mostly say the US has done enough to help Ukraine (56%) and that they oppose additional funding (55%).

 

 

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26 minutes ago, The Dog said:

x.com won't embed - if you are pasting from the app then open it in a browser first then copy that. annoying but twitter.com will still embed.

Please for any threads (longer than 1 tweet) post a threaderapp link along with, or in place of, the twitter link. People without a twitter account are no longer able to read threads, just the first tweet of it.

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Pertinent to more than just one thread here. Wow.

image.thumb.png.32648aaaa28afe8f695d748566dad172.png

Quote

 

Musk had become more than just a vendor like Boeing, Lockheed, or other defense-industry behemoths. On the phone with Musk from Paris, Kahl was deferential. According to unclassified talking points for the call, he thanked Musk for his efforts in Ukraine, acknowledged the steep costs he’d incurred, and pleaded for even a few weeks to devise a contract. “If you cut this off, it doesn’t end the war,” Kahl recalled telling Musk.

Musk wasn’t immediately convinced. “My inference was that he was getting nervous that Starlink’s involvement was increasingly seen in Russia as enabling the Ukrainian war effort, and was looking for a way to placate Russian concerns,” Kahl told me. To the dismay of Pentagon officials, Musk volunteered that he had spoken with Putin personally. Another individual told me that Musk had made the same assertion in the weeks before he tweeted his pro-Russia peace plan, and had said that his consultations with the Kremlin were regular. (Musk later denied having spoken with Putin about Ukraine.) On the phone, Musk said that he was looking at his laptop and could see “the entire war unfolding” through a map of Starlink activity. “This was, like, three minutes before he said, ‘Well, I had this great conversation with Putin,’ ” the senior defense official told me. “And we were, like, ‘Oh, dear, this is not good.’ ”

 

full article here

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule

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7 minutes ago, Chopper said:

Please for any threads (longer than 1 tweet) post a threaderapp link along with, or in place of, the twitter link. People without a twitter account are no longer able to read threads, just the first tweet of it.

That's unfortunate, but I think it'd be simpler overall for you to just get a throwaway twitter account so that you can read the threads, rather than having to get an additional thread reader link for every thread. Alternatively, I would think you should be able to copy the link of the thread in Surly and paste it into thread reader to see the full thread? 

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6 minutes ago, KYHorn said:

That's unfortunate, but I think it'd be simpler overall for you to just get a throwaway twitter account so that you can read the threads, rather than having to get an additional thread reader link for every thread. Alternatively, I would think you should be able to copy the link of the thread in Surly and paste it into thread reader to see the full thread? 

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That sounds serious.  

I'll post this again as the date approaches, but Clements Center/LBJ School putting on a very interesting panel of military and diplomacy experts on the situation.  Register today before it fills up:  https://www.clementscenter.org/event/the-war-in-ukraine-on-the-battlefield-in-the-kremlin-and-in-the-courtroom/

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On 8/20/2023 at 7:00 AM, Parliament said:

There's nobody in this administration with thr vision to see the endgame and then call out all the progressive steps it takes to get there.  In WW2, it was "destroy Germany."  To do that you gotta get your army to Berlin.  To do that you gotta move your army across Holland, Belgium but first France.  To get to France you gotta invade France.  

In this war it's been, "Let's try this weapons system," "OK, now we need this other weapons system."  They're following the path where ever it goes.

Making it worse, they're dragging their feet on each incremental weapons system.

 

We wanna keep our good stuff back, "just in case we need it for ourselves."  True.  But sending that Tier 1 stuff is gonna get it used against the enemy we would face in that scenario.  And make China take pause.

Instead, we're writing China's script (and to a degree Russia's script) for winning a war with us: Drag it out and make it brutal.

I doubt this is true.  This is not a traditional US ally, and this is not a NATO member.  We are helping but the trickle, while frustrating from an emotional standpoint, is by my guess, being done for several reasons.   1) Just sending equipment doesn't do anything unless people are trained for it.  It is probably why our allies were quick to send soviet crap and slow to send US/NATO stuff.   2) The part not talked about is what Ukraine's resolve look like without Zelensky.  If he and his family are killed in a missile strike does the next in line have the will and ability to hold the country together, continue to rally support, and carry on?  Or will that person make concessions to end the war, ease the suffering of their populace, and appease Russia?  

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Do you believe we are doing everything possible to prevent these types of attacks?
No.  Is it our responsibility to do so?

Look to Afghanistan if you want examples of us handing over equipment (they still didn't become our friends in spite of Rambo III.   And all that gear we left for the 'good guys' and the years of training went directly into the hands of ISIS without as much resistance of a fart in their general direction.  

Ukraine doesn’t have a historical alliance with the West. They are not France, Canada, or England.

This is difficult and emotional, but emotion should not be making our decisions.
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On 8/19/2023 at 7:44 PM, Gatorubet said:

True.  But is there more? Are they aiding Russia because they want Russia to prevail in Ukraine? Or are they aiding Russia because they desire Russia to be as depleted as humanly possible when China decides to take over some of the Russian natural resources in the east - or have Russia so crippled and down on its luck that China can buy oil and precious metals and timber at even more rock-bottom prices. Hence, they want the war to continue.

I guess it could be the ‘enemy of my enemy is my friend’, but I tend to think there is some long -term China plan involved.  And the plan wants as many Russians dead as possible and Russia as broke as possible. Could be wrong.

Behind and catching up, so pardon if this point has already been made.  To me, the more likely scenario is that China would like to see this go on as long as possible to deplete US defense stores (mainly ammunition) and to make the American public as war weary as possible.  I would guess that that would significantly boost their chances in a shooting war with Taiwan, especially if American isolationism can be stirred.  Might be far fetched, but the playbook has been used before.

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4 minutes ago, Catpfish said:

Behind and catching up, so pardon if this point has already been made.  To me, the more likely scenario is that China would like to see this go on as long as possible to deplete US defense stores (mainly ammunition) and to make the American public as war weary as possible.  I would guess that that would significantly boost their chances in a shooting war with Taiwan, especially if American isolationism can be stirred.  Might be far fetched, but the playbook has been used before.

I will not rule anything out. But I have to say I always thought any Taiwan-China war (as it involves the US in the event we went at it w/ China militarily) would be an air and naval resource event, rather than a Bradleys and HIMARS and Abrams ground pounding in China or Taiwan thing. 

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39 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

That sounds serious.  

I'll post this again as the date approaches, but Clements Center/LBJ School putting on a very interesting panel of military and diplomacy experts on the situation.  Register today before it fills up:  https://www.clementscenter.org/event/the-war-in-ukraine-on-the-battlefield-in-the-kremlin-and-in-the-courtroom/

i miss the old you that would tell us to go fuck our own faces while inviting us to a policy roundtable discussion.

4 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

Fast forward to Americans not leaving the country, and they're put in jail by Belarus. Then someone accusing the administration of messing this up

haha, my first thought as well. HE'S ABANDONING AMERICANS AND OUR ALLIES!!!!

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2 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

Fast forward to Americans not leaving the country, and they're put in jail by Belarus. Then someone accusing the administration of messing this up

It would be fun to see Lukashenko shit his pants if we pulled our embassy and started burning documents.  Personally, I'd be fine if we did it in Russia as well, what's the point in talking to these assholes under status quo (I do realize the implications if we did it in Russia, but we can fuck with Belarus, even with all that break dance fighting they do).  

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3 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

I will not rule anything out. But I have to say I always thought any Taiwan-China war (as it involves the US in the event we went at it w/ China militarily) would be an air and naval resource event, rather than a Bradleys and HIMARS and Abrams ground pounding in China or Taiwan thing. 

Well, you could use the HIMARS  ATACMS platform in Taiwan to degrade Chinese ports.  So yeah, those would be in play.  

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41 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

That sounds serious.  

I'll post this again as the date approaches, but Clements Center/LBJ School putting on a very interesting panel of military and diplomacy experts on the situation.  Register today before it fills up:  https://www.clementscenter.org/event/the-war-in-ukraine-on-the-battlefield-in-the-kremlin-and-in-the-courtroom/

272B9610-AF59-492A-990F-80F780FFED96.gif.55add385176d9546856125762ab84572.gif

“Military and diplomatic experts.”

We post on Surly after reading some of the replies on a thread between beers and sports. I believe that trumps some “expert” and their fancy-dancy book larnin’ and degree-ing stuff.  

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21 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

i miss the old you that would tell us to go fuck our own faces while inviting us to a policy roundtable discussion.

Well now you've spoiled the surprise theme of the post-conference reception, dammit!  

I've been in awe of the expertise of this thread for a long while and given out lots of rep and invites.  I've even been a little proud of our stupids here in the United States.  A shockingly high percentage of them that know everything about tariffs, pandemics, virology, international diplomacy, and discrete mathematics are still kinda, "Yeah the Ukraine situation is still murky.  I'm not totally for or against supporting them but we should continue on with the current path against Russia and see what's what..."  Kinda like UT fans with our LB situation.

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