EPTRusso-Ukrainian War Thread - Page 360
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Deleted User 173346
16169 Posts
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PhoenixVoid
Canada32754 Posts
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/sweden-shouldn-t-expect-turkey-support-in-nato-bid-erdogan-says-1.1873794 | ||
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Simberto
Germany11928 Posts
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warding
Portugal2396 Posts
On January 23 2023 23:43 Artesimo wrote: We are better than france, so not terrible. And worse then estonia so not great. Seems like you fully agree with my assessment, thanks for sorting that out. Weirdly it sounded like you would disagree, but that must have been lost in translation again. Sure germany could do more, but my entire point was that it does more than enough to make accusations of trying to appease russia look silly. There could be more said here about % GDP, but that would be just straying away from my point: Do you think that germany being the third biggest contributor in total amount when it comes to military contributions appeases russia? (That dataset is outdated by now btw, but since we heard the same crap back then its still applies). That together with being 4th in financial commitments in total (reminder that these are of similar importance to military aid as the west is what enables ukraine currently to pay their military and keep the country running). No matter how you try to strecht the GDP part asnd draw conclusions on the level of commitment, you can not relativise the fact that when it comes to how much impact aid has, the total amount of it is key. Not how much commitment you show, but how much you put out. So I have difficulty seeing this alleged appeasing of russia from warding's post. German aid is not what we would like, but it is still a substantial contribution that should be enough to dispel these theories. There can be no restarting of german-russian relations before the war has ended, and by now it is almost certain that ukraine can at least make it a protracted war. What I don't agree with is wild conspiracy theories. This was not about 'what about [country x], but having to deal with the same whacky theories every time germany does something people don't like in this war. Also your take on being safe from russia for the US/UK: that applies to all of nato, thanks to nato. Some of the eastern european countries might be a little bit more anxious, but overall I think they have trust in nato. You keep going back to technicalities over how much and whatnot. I think you're still missing the big picture. And even if we look at numbers, the amount of aid is still minuscule compared to how much Germany was stuck spending in purchasing natural gas from Russia in 2022. Even ignoring the massive historical debt Germany owes to Ukrainians, Germany's foreign policy towards Russia in the past 20 years has been disastrous, along with a Russian infiltration of its political elite. Any detail like muddling the conversation over the Leos demanding the US to go first, or the fact that the previous defense minister blocked doing any inventory of Leos in order "not to put pressure on Scholz", or the fact that Scholz makes up this retarded story about a polish jogger thanking him for being cautious about the Leos, or when Scholz personally blocked Rheinmetal from supplying Marders to Ukraine back in May, are all seen in this global light. The optics are horrible. Europe needs leadership, and while the EU institutions themselves have been fantastic, they don't have the tools for defense/foreign policy. So we're stuck looking at the big EU countries and they are absent in terms of leadership. So, again, we are stuck looking at the US, and everyone hates Germany now. Deservedly. | ||
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Yurie
12123 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22482 Posts
On January 24 2023 03:14 Yurie wrote: It has absolutely nothing to do with legality, or even the burning itself. Its just a very easy excuse for a dictator to have a wank while feeling he has the illusion of power. Depending on how and why you burn the Koran it is 100% legal in Sweden. Only time it would be illegal would be if it was used as a threat against a group such as Muslims. If you instead clearly stated you object to all religions on a philosophical grounds and burned a Bible at the same time I highly doubt you would get in trouble at all. As for the upcoming elections, I wouldn't get your hopes up. Even if a miracle happens and Erogan didn't rig the election hard enough to be declared the winner he is not going to just go quietly. You would need to hope the military backs a coup to remove him from office by force and beat down the civil uprising he creates in the aftermath. | ||
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Artesimo
Germany598 Posts
On January 24 2023 03:12 warding wrote: You keep going back to technicalities over how much and whatnot. I think you're still missing the big picture. And even if we look at numbers, the amount of aid is still minuscule compared to how much Germany was stuck spending in purchasing natural gas from Russia in 2022. Facts that directly contradict a wild theory of germany doing russias bidding that you seem to subscribe to are not a technicality. How much germany paid to russia for gas is irrelevant, so I won't even bother and fact check that claim. You missed the point. The point was that germany can't be doing russias bidding, when its one of the biggest contributors both militarily and financially and thus being crucial to ukraines defence effort, not to mention german aid before this war even started. Ukraine has been supported by western powers since 2014. This is not supposed to excuse anything germany has said or done over the past year, justify their tank position or whatever. It is simply demonstrating that there has to be another explanation, unless you also believe that germany thinks russia will play nice with them if they do their bidding horribly incompetent. EDIT: Also hello to the EU politics thread posters  | ||
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warding
Portugal2396 Posts
On January 24 2023 03:27 Artesimo wrote: Facts that directly contradict a wild theory of germany doing russias bidding that you seem to subscribe to are not a technicality. How much germany paid to russia for gas is irrelevant, so I won't even bother and fact check that claim. You missed the point. The point was that germany can't be doing russias bidding, when its one of the biggest contributors both militarily and financially and thus being crucial to ukraines defence effort, not to mention german aid before this war even started. Ukraine has been supported by western powers since 2014. This is not supposed to excuse anything germany has said or done over the past year, justify their tank position or whatever. It is simply demonstrating that there has to be another explanation, unless you also believe that germany thinks russia will play nice with them if they do their bidding horribly incompetent. EDIT: Also hello to the EU politics threat posters I've never said Germany is doing Russia's bidding. I think the answer is a combination of fear of Russia, a general misunderstanding of its role in history and international politics, and possibly lingering corruption within its political elites by Russia. Not that that corruption is turning Germany into a Russian agent, but that it is corroding the internal discourse. | ||
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CuddlyCuteKitten
Sweden2843 Posts
On January 24 2023 02:22 PhoenixVoid wrote: Turkey's president Erdogan says he will not support Sweden's ascension to NATO due to Koran burnings in Stockholm. This also impedes Finland, as Finland would like to join simultaneously with Sweden. Makes the Turkish election this year quite important for Sweden and Finland's NATO hopes. Even Hungary's Orban said he'd ratify their NATO bids in the spring, so it's all eyes on Turkey right now. https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/sweden-shouldn-t-expect-turkey-support-in-nato-bid-erdogan-says-1.1873794 Probably won't matter that much in the end. The thing is that at this point Sweden is not trying to get the approval of Turkey as much as they are showing the rest of NATO that they are committed. There is nothing Sweden can give Erdogan that will make him let us join NATO because if we give him x he will just turn around to demand y. Most experts agree that that time has passed. Instead we will show other NATO countries that we are sincere in our commitments in the deal that was passed from the beginning. If they agree they will then have to put pressure on Turkey in order to get Sweden to join. To be fair previous government were going above and beyond to be complete dicks to Turkey so resentment is understandable. Still the deal that was made is great for Turkey in the long run and they know it. Next step is Orban ratifying. Except to see civil behaviour from the Swedish government (and a complete protest shitshow from people trying to torpedo our NATO membership for many different reasons). Eventually this will work when the pressure becomes to great although it's very unlikely before the next Turkish election. | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17796 Posts
On January 24 2023 00:52 Artesimo wrote: I assume that leopards for ukraine would also mean using maintenance facilities around ukraine for more complicated repairs. In terms of using them, the ukrainian military has demonstrated high capability to absorb all sorts of different hardware and use it. I am confident that they would manage to make good use of them. The thing is, I don't think they actually CAN use them. Tanks aren't of much use if you can't get them to where they need to be and that's the problem. If your bridges aren't wide enough or can't support the weight you can't get your tanks across. If I remember correctly Poland had this exact problem when we first got the Leopards. All we could do basically was move it between 3 bases and that's it. Big chunks of Poland were inaccessible for those tanks as there was no sufficient road/rail infrastructure and driving tanks off-road is extremely inefficient outside of battles. | ||
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Ardias
Russian Federation618 Posts
On January 24 2023 05:01 Manit0u wrote: The thing is, I don't think they actually CAN use them. Tanks aren't of much use if you can't get them to where they need to be and that's the problem. If your bridges aren't wide enough or can't support the weight you can't get your tanks across. If I remember correctly Poland had this exact problem when we first got the Leopards. All we could do basically was move it between 3 bases and that's it. Big chunks of Poland were inaccessible for those tanks as there was no sufficient road/rail infrastructure and driving tanks off-road is extremely inefficient outside of battles. Well, they somehow do move 55-ton Pzh 2000 around. Leo2A4 version has similar weight. And during WW2 Germans were able to move Tiger 1 with much worse road network, albeit with difficulties of course. Movement of a military vehicles during peacetime, with collateral damage control, traffic etc. is much more different than when is war raging on. | ||
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Artesimo
Germany598 Posts
On January 24 2023 05:07 Ardias wrote: Well, they somehow do move 55-ton Pzh 2000 around. Leo2A4 version has similar weight. And during WW2 Germans were able to move Tiger 1 with much worse road network, albeit with difficulties of course. Movement of a military vehicles during peacetime, with collateral damage control, traffic etc. is much more different than when is war raging on. Bridges can be a problem, but they also got a lot of bridging equipment from the Bundeswehr and other militaries. There are problems, but I am confident they can overcome them. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
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Nezgar
Germany535 Posts
On January 24 2023 03:12 warding wrote: You keep going back to technicalities over how much and whatnot. I think you're still missing the big picture. And even if we look at numbers, the amount of aid is still minuscule compared to how much Germany was stuck spending in purchasing natural gas from Russia in 2022. Even ignoring the massive historical debt Germany owes to Ukrainians, Germany's foreign policy towards Russia in the past 20 years has been disastrous, along with a Russian infiltration of its political elite. Any detail like muddling the conversation over the Leos demanding the US to go first, or the fact that the previous defense minister blocked doing any inventory of Leos in order "not to put pressure on Scholz", or the fact that Scholz makes up this retarded story about a polish jogger thanking him for being cautious about the Leos, or when Scholz personally blocked Rheinmetal from supplying Marders to Ukraine back in May, are all seen in this global light. The optics are horrible. Europe needs leadership, and while the EU institutions themselves have been fantastic, they don't have the tools for defense/foreign policy. So we're stuck looking at the big EU countries and they are absent in terms of leadership. So, again, we are stuck looking at the US, and everyone hates Germany now. Deservedly. Anyone in Europe mentioning a historical debt to anyone else can fuck right off. Sorry to be this crass, but former colonial powers have no business telling other nations what they owe. If you want to open that can of worms, boy do I have a history on Portugal to sell to you. Drawing arbitrary historical lines is completely ridiculous. And giving Germany shit for not being the most eager nation to provide military hardware into an active war is also completely tone-deaf and is a clear sign of a lack of understanding the context. You are saying that a pretty hardcore pacifist nation deserves all the shit flung at them for only being the nation with the third most military aid to Ukraine. Russian infiltration of German political elite... Get out. | ||
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warding
Portugal2396 Posts
As for the German pacifism, it is a direct reflection of its past is it not? So its past and the reflections taken from it are directly relevant to the issue at hand, and it pretty much raises the question if it is the right lesson to take from history when beside you still lies an empire that has made no such reflection. Finally, looking at what the average is doing and aiming for it is the definition of what mediocre countries... like Portugal.... usually do. That's not what people outside of Germany expect from it and neither should you. Russian infiltration of German political elite... Get out. Germans are aware that Gerhard Schröder exists right? | ||
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Mikau313
Netherlands230 Posts
On January 24 2023 10:08 Nezgar wrote: Anyone in Europe mentioning a historical debt to anyone else can fuck right off. Sorry to be this crass, but former colonial powers have no business telling other nations what they owe. If you want to open that can of worms, boy do I have a history on Portugal to sell to you. Drawing arbitrary historical lines is completely ridiculous. And giving Germany shit for not being the most eager nation to provide military hardware into an active war is also completely tone-deaf and is a clear sign of a lack of understanding the context. You are saying that a pretty hardcore pacifist nation deserves all the shit flung at them for only being the nation with the third most military aid to Ukraine. Russian infiltration of German political elite... Get out. It's kinda weird to say that people mentioning historical debt can fuck right off, but then use the reason for that 'historical debt' to justify not doing more and being pacifist. Can't have your cake and eat it too. | ||
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ZeroByte13
799 Posts
I.e. when it's a completely different generation now who has nothing to do with what happened back then. While I don't agree that entire nation (as in "every single person") might be held responsible for something that's happening even now - at least I can understand this opinion. But responsibility for something that was done by people who aren't even alive anymore - this I don't understand. | ||
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Mikau313
Netherlands230 Posts
But you then also can't go around and blame pacifism because of WW2 for not doing enough for the same reason. | ||
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warding
Portugal2396 Posts
The way people in different nations judge this conflict tends to be highly informed by the stories and reflections they tell themselves about their own national histories. For example, Indians have a history of oppression by western imperialism and more recently have had the military help of Russia while Pakistan has had support from the US. That informs much of their position in this conflict. Mexicans I talk often align with the "NATO started it" because Mexican has about a million reasons to be distrustful of the US. I think the mistakes that Germany is making in the histories they have told are very similar to what other Western countries tell. In that story we tend to focus the evils of the 20th century on Nazism (and the non-germans often focus on... Germany in general) rather than on that including European imperialism in general. We tend to focus on the victims of the eastern campaign of WW2 as Russians, as the inheritors of the Soviet Union, rather than also including Poles, Belarussians and Ukrainians. The holocaust was a crime against Jews, but we tend to neglect the fact that the majority of them lived in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania, not Germany. These stories have the problem of neglecting that next to us lives a massive imperial power that has made no reflection on its past, and led us to ignore the multiple signs of fascism and hunger for imperial expansion growing within it in the past twenty years. The Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles, Ukrainians, Czechs had been warning us for all this time. It's not surprising given their history. When I talked about German historical debt, I should have rather talked about responsibility for historical reflection regarding Ukraine, as victims of both 20th century Russian and German imperialism. | ||
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Magic Powers
Austria4478 Posts
On January 24 2023 10:08 Nezgar wrote: Anyone in Europe mentioning a historical debt to anyone else can fuck right off. Sorry to be this crass, but former colonial powers have no business telling other nations what they owe. If you want to open that can of worms, boy do I have a history on Portugal to sell to you. Drawing arbitrary historical lines is completely ridiculous. And giving Germany shit for not being the most eager nation to provide military hardware into an active war is also completely tone-deaf and is a clear sign of a lack of understanding the context. You are saying that a pretty hardcore pacifist nation deserves all the shit flung at them for only being the nation with the third most military aid to Ukraine. Russian infiltration of German political elite... Get out. Regarding military support to Ukraine as % of GDP, Germany ranks 17th out of 29. Germany spends 1.4% of GDP on the military, so saying they're in third place is missing the point that they could easily be sending several times more military aid. Germany doesn't rank high on any metric as % of GDP. They're not compensating for a lack of military support by otherwise ranking much higher. They're indeed not doing anywhere near as much as they could. It's time to ask why so many European countries are dragging their feet in this war. I'm honestly baffled that Ukraine is still more or less standing intact considering how little they've received. Russia should've truly swept the floor with Ukraine. | ||
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