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On March 18 2022 23:45 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2022 23:43 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On March 18 2022 23:27 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2022 22:33 Biff The Understudy wrote:On March 18 2022 20:06 GreenHorizons wrote:
I definitely consider the US also a "bad guy" in this conflict. Lockheed and Raytheon aren't giving the weapons away and the US military-industrial complex isn't some fantasy.
I don't think it's possible to divine out percentages of motivation for US involvement. That's going at least back to US interference in the sketchy election of Yeltsin who hand picked Putin as his successor, through US support of the overthrow of the Ukrainian government ~2014, to today.
What we do know is that Democracy isn't paramount as we see with arming Saudi Arabia despite their atrocities in Yemen. We also know the US is willing to support violent illegal occupations in Palestine and arm the occupation. So I for one don't buy into the whole Team America Benevolent World Police narrative. Then again is there any time in your book where the US is not the bad guy. He’s looking at the US outside of the lens of greater evil analysis and pointing out that the US brings an awful lot of evil into the world. Both domestically with its oligarchic capitalist exploitation of the people and resources of the United States and with the enforcement of a global world order designed to import resources and extract misery. God probably wouldn’t judge the US very favourably. But sometimes the stars align and the US fucks over someone who actually deserves it. In those instances the US looks like a good guy, provided you ignore literally everything else it also does. When GH says the US is a bad guy he doesn’t mean the US is always the worst guy in any given room, he means that you can’t ignore the bigger picture. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude that when the US supports the little guy in this conflict and the big autocratic guy bombing villages in Yemen it’s probably not because the US hates dictatorships, loves human rights, and supports the plucky underdog. The concerns are geopolitical, not moral, and it just happens that geopolitical concerns and moral concerns have aligned this time. But doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still doing the right thing, I’ll take it. Greenhorizon can debate by himself with his own arguments. He doesn't need you to come up with your own projections. If you want to make an argument, you don't need to hide behind another's name and use their name to make your own argument. And USA is very much not the "bad guy" during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. USA warned Ukraine and the rest of the world for 3 months that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine. Many European countries are also sending arms and aid to Ukraine, just like USA is doing. This is the Ukraine thread, not USA thread. Go whataboutism in the dedicated USA thread instead. Besides this talk of "bad guys" is so naive it's beyond immature. Read my post again. You clearly didn’t succeed the first time. Read my post again. You clearly didn’t succeed the first time.
I'll say it again, since you failed to succeed the first time, this is the Ukraine thread not USA whataboutism thread. You got the USA thread as the whataboutism USA thread. You want to go say USA brings great evil in the world? Hey I think so too! We can do it in the USA thread. You want to argue that USA is the "bad guy" in Ukraine. You can do it here. But that's not what you are doing.
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United States43445 Posts
On March 18 2022 23:39 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2022 23:27 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2022 22:33 Biff The Understudy wrote:On March 18 2022 20:06 GreenHorizons wrote:
I definitely consider the US also a "bad guy" in this conflict. Lockheed and Raytheon aren't giving the weapons away and the US military-industrial complex isn't some fantasy.
I don't think it's possible to divine out percentages of motivation for US involvement. That's going at least back to US interference in the sketchy election of Yeltsin who hand picked Putin as his successor, through US support of the overthrow of the Ukrainian government ~2014, to today.
What we do know is that Democracy isn't paramount as we see with arming Saudi Arabia despite their atrocities in Yemen. We also know the US is willing to support violent illegal occupations in Palestine and arm the occupation. So I for one don't buy into the whole Team America Benevolent World Police narrative. Then again is there any time in your book where the US is not the bad guy. He’s looking at the US outside of the lens of greater evil analysis and pointing out that the US brings an awful lot of evil into the world. Both domestically with its oligarchic capitalist exploitation of the people and resources of the United States and with the enforcement of a global world order designed to import resources and extract misery. God probably wouldn’t judge the US very favourably. But sometimes the stars align and the US fucks over someone who actually deserves it. In those instances the US looks like a good guy, provided you ignore literally everything else it also does. When GH says the US is a bad guy he doesn’t mean the US is always the worst guy in any given room, he means that you can’t ignore the bigger picture. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude that when the US supports the little guy in this conflict and the big autocratic guy bombing villages in Yemen it’s probably not because the US hates dictatorships, loves human rights, and supports the plucky underdog. The concerns are geopolitical, not moral, and it just happens that geopolitical concerns and moral concerns have aligned this time. But doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still doing the right thing, I’ll take it. Nor is almost everyone, the world is full of greys and spectrums almost no black and white. Which is why it is so tiresome when something is permanently one note that basically everyone who posts here agrees on. I could get it if people were espousing the US's greatness, but it comes up at least every other page about Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, SA, and so on and so on.
I don’t disagree. In this instance GH could be replaced with a bot that posts a daily reminder that the US is motivated by self interest. We all already know that, we all basically agree on it.
Within American political circles it’s controversial to mention that frequently the US does shit that is evil but on TL among us cynical generally young generally non American posters it’s pretty obvious that this shit isn’t great. GH did his daily reminder and we’re all suitably reminded for it.
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United States43445 Posts
On March 18 2022 23:46 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2022 23:45 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2022 23:43 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On March 18 2022 23:27 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2022 22:33 Biff The Understudy wrote:On March 18 2022 20:06 GreenHorizons wrote:
I definitely consider the US also a "bad guy" in this conflict. Lockheed and Raytheon aren't giving the weapons away and the US military-industrial complex isn't some fantasy.
I don't think it's possible to divine out percentages of motivation for US involvement. That's going at least back to US interference in the sketchy election of Yeltsin who hand picked Putin as his successor, through US support of the overthrow of the Ukrainian government ~2014, to today.
What we do know is that Democracy isn't paramount as we see with arming Saudi Arabia despite their atrocities in Yemen. We also know the US is willing to support violent illegal occupations in Palestine and arm the occupation. So I for one don't buy into the whole Team America Benevolent World Police narrative. Then again is there any time in your book where the US is not the bad guy. He’s looking at the US outside of the lens of greater evil analysis and pointing out that the US brings an awful lot of evil into the world. Both domestically with its oligarchic capitalist exploitation of the people and resources of the United States and with the enforcement of a global world order designed to import resources and extract misery. God probably wouldn’t judge the US very favourably. But sometimes the stars align and the US fucks over someone who actually deserves it. In those instances the US looks like a good guy, provided you ignore literally everything else it also does. When GH says the US is a bad guy he doesn’t mean the US is always the worst guy in any given room, he means that you can’t ignore the bigger picture. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude that when the US supports the little guy in this conflict and the big autocratic guy bombing villages in Yemen it’s probably not because the US hates dictatorships, loves human rights, and supports the plucky underdog. The concerns are geopolitical, not moral, and it just happens that geopolitical concerns and moral concerns have aligned this time. But doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still doing the right thing, I’ll take it. Greenhorizon can debate by himself with his own arguments. He doesn't need you to come up with your own projections. If you want to make an argument, you don't need to hide behind another's name and use their name to make your own argument. And USA is very much not the "bad guy" during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. USA warned Ukraine and the rest of the world for 3 months that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine. Many European countries are also sending arms and aid to Ukraine, just like USA is doing. This is the Ukraine thread, not USA thread. Go whataboutism in the dedicated USA thread instead. Besides this talk of "bad guys" is so naive it's beyond immature. Read my post again. You clearly didn’t succeed the first time. Read my post again. You clearly didn’t succeed the first time. I'll say it again, since you failed to succeed the first time, this is the Ukraine thread not USA whataboutism thread. You got the USA thread as the whataboutism USA thread. You want to go say USA brings great evil in the world. Do it in the USA thread. You want to argue that USA is the "bad guy" in Ukraine. You can do it here. But that's not what you are doing.
Try a third time.
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On March 18 2022 23:51 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2022 23:46 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On March 18 2022 23:45 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2022 23:43 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On March 18 2022 23:27 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2022 22:33 Biff The Understudy wrote:On March 18 2022 20:06 GreenHorizons wrote:
I definitely consider the US also a "bad guy" in this conflict. Lockheed and Raytheon aren't giving the weapons away and the US military-industrial complex isn't some fantasy.
I don't think it's possible to divine out percentages of motivation for US involvement. That's going at least back to US interference in the sketchy election of Yeltsin who hand picked Putin as his successor, through US support of the overthrow of the Ukrainian government ~2014, to today.
What we do know is that Democracy isn't paramount as we see with arming Saudi Arabia despite their atrocities in Yemen. We also know the US is willing to support violent illegal occupations in Palestine and arm the occupation. So I for one don't buy into the whole Team America Benevolent World Police narrative. Then again is there any time in your book where the US is not the bad guy. He’s looking at the US outside of the lens of greater evil analysis and pointing out that the US brings an awful lot of evil into the world. Both domestically with its oligarchic capitalist exploitation of the people and resources of the United States and with the enforcement of a global world order designed to import resources and extract misery. God probably wouldn’t judge the US very favourably. But sometimes the stars align and the US fucks over someone who actually deserves it. In those instances the US looks like a good guy, provided you ignore literally everything else it also does. When GH says the US is a bad guy he doesn’t mean the US is always the worst guy in any given room, he means that you can’t ignore the bigger picture. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude that when the US supports the little guy in this conflict and the big autocratic guy bombing villages in Yemen it’s probably not because the US hates dictatorships, loves human rights, and supports the plucky underdog. The concerns are geopolitical, not moral, and it just happens that geopolitical concerns and moral concerns have aligned this time. But doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still doing the right thing, I’ll take it. Greenhorizon can debate by himself with his own arguments. He doesn't need you to come up with your own projections. If you want to make an argument, you don't need to hide behind another's name and use their name to make your own argument. And USA is very much not the "bad guy" during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. USA warned Ukraine and the rest of the world for 3 months that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine. Many European countries are also sending arms and aid to Ukraine, just like USA is doing. This is the Ukraine thread, not USA thread. Go whataboutism in the dedicated USA thread instead. Besides this talk of "bad guys" is so naive it's beyond immature. Read my post again. You clearly didn’t succeed the first time. Read my post again. You clearly didn’t succeed the first time. I'll say it again, since you failed to succeed the first time, this is the Ukraine thread not USA whataboutism thread. You got the USA thread as the whataboutism USA thread. You want to go say USA brings great evil in the world. Do it in the USA thread. You want to argue that USA is the "bad guy" in Ukraine. You can do it here. But that's not what you are doing. Try a third time.
Try a third time.
Easy to not make an argument, when you can make dismissive one liners isn't it? Since you are so clearly uninterested in discussion, I'll be the better person and leave.
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United States43445 Posts
On March 18 2022 23:51 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2022 23:51 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2022 23:46 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On March 18 2022 23:45 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2022 23:43 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On March 18 2022 23:27 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2022 22:33 Biff The Understudy wrote:On March 18 2022 20:06 GreenHorizons wrote:
I definitely consider the US also a "bad guy" in this conflict. Lockheed and Raytheon aren't giving the weapons away and the US military-industrial complex isn't some fantasy.
I don't think it's possible to divine out percentages of motivation for US involvement. That's going at least back to US interference in the sketchy election of Yeltsin who hand picked Putin as his successor, through US support of the overthrow of the Ukrainian government ~2014, to today.
What we do know is that Democracy isn't paramount as we see with arming Saudi Arabia despite their atrocities in Yemen. We also know the US is willing to support violent illegal occupations in Palestine and arm the occupation. So I for one don't buy into the whole Team America Benevolent World Police narrative. Then again is there any time in your book where the US is not the bad guy. He’s looking at the US outside of the lens of greater evil analysis and pointing out that the US brings an awful lot of evil into the world. Both domestically with its oligarchic capitalist exploitation of the people and resources of the United States and with the enforcement of a global world order designed to import resources and extract misery. God probably wouldn’t judge the US very favourably. But sometimes the stars align and the US fucks over someone who actually deserves it. In those instances the US looks like a good guy, provided you ignore literally everything else it also does. When GH says the US is a bad guy he doesn’t mean the US is always the worst guy in any given room, he means that you can’t ignore the bigger picture. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude that when the US supports the little guy in this conflict and the big autocratic guy bombing villages in Yemen it’s probably not because the US hates dictatorships, loves human rights, and supports the plucky underdog. The concerns are geopolitical, not moral, and it just happens that geopolitical concerns and moral concerns have aligned this time. But doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still doing the right thing, I’ll take it. Greenhorizon can debate by himself with his own arguments. He doesn't need you to come up with your own projections. If you want to make an argument, you don't need to hide behind another's name and use their name to make your own argument. And USA is very much not the "bad guy" during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. USA warned Ukraine and the rest of the world for 3 months that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine. Many European countries are also sending arms and aid to Ukraine, just like USA is doing. This is the Ukraine thread, not USA thread. Go whataboutism in the dedicated USA thread instead. Besides this talk of "bad guys" is so naive it's beyond immature. Read my post again. You clearly didn’t succeed the first time. Read my post again. You clearly didn’t succeed the first time. I'll say it again, since you failed to succeed the first time, this is the Ukraine thread not USA whataboutism thread. You got the USA thread as the whataboutism USA thread. You want to go say USA brings great evil in the world. Do it in the USA thread. You want to argue that USA is the "bad guy" in Ukraine. You can do it here. But that's not what you are doing. Try a third time. Try a third time. Easy to not make an argument, when you can make dismissive one liners isn't it? Since you are so clearly uninterested in discussion, I'll be the better person and leave.
It doesn’t count as being a better person and not trying to get the last word if after deciding not to get the last word you make a post telling me you’re being the better person and not engaging.
I made my argument. You completely misread it and angrily responded to a straw man you imagined. I chose not to restate my argument because it was written and you could just reread it. Maybe if you read it a 4th time you might manage to come up with a response that at least tangentially relates to anything I said.
Until you respond to the thing I said I can do little more than remind you that you need to read the thing I said and not the thing you’re imagining.
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On March 18 2022 23:27 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2022 22:33 Biff The Understudy wrote:On March 18 2022 20:06 GreenHorizons wrote:
I definitely consider the US also a "bad guy" in this conflict. Lockheed and Raytheon aren't giving the weapons away and the US military-industrial complex isn't some fantasy.
I don't think it's possible to divine out percentages of motivation for US involvement. That's going at least back to US interference in the sketchy election of Yeltsin who hand picked Putin as his successor, through US support of the overthrow of the Ukrainian government ~2014, to today.
What we do know is that Democracy isn't paramount as we see with arming Saudi Arabia despite their atrocities in Yemen. We also know the US is willing to support violent illegal occupations in Palestine and arm the occupation. So I for one don't buy into the whole Team America Benevolent World Police narrative. Then again is there any time in your book where the US is not the bad guy. He’s looking at the US outside of the lens of greater evil analysis and pointing out that the US brings an awful lot of evil into the world. Both domestically with its oligarchic capitalist exploitation of the people and resources of the United States and with the enforcement of a global world order designed to import resources and extract misery. God probably wouldn’t judge the US very favourably. But sometimes the stars align and the US fucks over someone who actually deserves it. In those instances the US looks like a good guy, provided you ignore literally everything else it also does. When GH says the US is a bad guy he doesn’t mean the US is always the worst guy in any given room, he means that you can’t ignore the bigger picture. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude that when the US supports the little guy in this conflict and the big autocratic guy bombing villages in Yemen it’s probably not because the US hates dictatorships, loves human rights, and supports the plucky underdog. The concerns are geopolitical, not moral, and it just happens that geopolitical concerns and moral concerns have aligned this time. But doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still doing the right thing, I’ll take it.
I don’t think the dichotomy good guys and bad guys when we talk about whole country helps to make very intelligent analysis. The US is not a person, and it doesn’t do something because it loves this or that. Events unfold with different actors having different motivations every time. And usually those actors that keep changing - especially in democracies - don’t even have a singular motive for what they are doing but an array of sometimes conflicting reasons.
The fact that euromaidan is presented as « a coup supported by the us government » for example is a textbook example of having a preconception and just erasing the complexity of an event to make it fit that narrative: look the us is the bad guy.
It gets contradictory: when the US supported Elstin when he stole the election in 96, they were the bad guys for not holding up to their values and it’s their fault Russia is an autocracy. When the US supports a popular movement after Yanukovich also steals an election, they are the bad guys who support coups abroad. That kind of damn if you do damn if you don’t is what you get when your geopolitics are rooted in judgements of values and when you divide whole countries into the good guys and the bad ones. It’s just a bit dumb.
That applies to the global gross net bad input that you seem to want to put on the US. It’s not very interesting and doesn’t make much sense.
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On March 18 2022 23:58 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2022 23:51 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On March 18 2022 23:51 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2022 23:46 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On March 18 2022 23:45 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2022 23:43 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On March 18 2022 23:27 KwarK wrote:On March 18 2022 22:33 Biff The Understudy wrote:On March 18 2022 20:06 GreenHorizons wrote:
I definitely consider the US also a "bad guy" in this conflict. Lockheed and Raytheon aren't giving the weapons away and the US military-industrial complex isn't some fantasy.
I don't think it's possible to divine out percentages of motivation for US involvement. That's going at least back to US interference in the sketchy election of Yeltsin who hand picked Putin as his successor, through US support of the overthrow of the Ukrainian government ~2014, to today.
What we do know is that Democracy isn't paramount as we see with arming Saudi Arabia despite their atrocities in Yemen. We also know the US is willing to support violent illegal occupations in Palestine and arm the occupation. So I for one don't buy into the whole Team America Benevolent World Police narrative. Then again is there any time in your book where the US is not the bad guy. He’s looking at the US outside of the lens of greater evil analysis and pointing out that the US brings an awful lot of evil into the world. Both domestically with its oligarchic capitalist exploitation of the people and resources of the United States and with the enforcement of a global world order designed to import resources and extract misery. God probably wouldn’t judge the US very favourably. But sometimes the stars align and the US fucks over someone who actually deserves it. In those instances the US looks like a good guy, provided you ignore literally everything else it also does. When GH says the US is a bad guy he doesn’t mean the US is always the worst guy in any given room, he means that you can’t ignore the bigger picture. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude that when the US supports the little guy in this conflict and the big autocratic guy bombing villages in Yemen it’s probably not because the US hates dictatorships, loves human rights, and supports the plucky underdog. The concerns are geopolitical, not moral, and it just happens that geopolitical concerns and moral concerns have aligned this time. But doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still doing the right thing, I’ll take it. Greenhorizon can debate by himself with his own arguments. He doesn't need you to come up with your own projections. If you want to make an argument, you don't need to hide behind another's name and use their name to make your own argument. And USA is very much not the "bad guy" during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. USA warned Ukraine and the rest of the world for 3 months that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine. Many European countries are also sending arms and aid to Ukraine, just like USA is doing. This is the Ukraine thread, not USA thread. Go whataboutism in the dedicated USA thread instead. Besides this talk of "bad guys" is so naive it's beyond immature. Read my post again. You clearly didn’t succeed the first time. Read my post again. You clearly didn’t succeed the first time. I'll say it again, since you failed to succeed the first time, this is the Ukraine thread not USA whataboutism thread. You got the USA thread as the whataboutism USA thread. You want to go say USA brings great evil in the world. Do it in the USA thread. You want to argue that USA is the "bad guy" in Ukraine. You can do it here. But that's not what you are doing. Try a third time. Try a third time. Easy to not make an argument, when you can make dismissive one liners isn't it? Since you are so clearly uninterested in discussion, I'll be the better person and leave. It doesn’t count as being a better person and not trying to get the last word if after deciding not to get the last word you make a post telling me you’re being the better person and not engaging. I made my argument. You completely misread it and angrily responded to a straw man you imagined. I chose not to restate my argument because it was written and you could just reread it. Maybe if you read it a 4th time you might manage to come up with a response that at least tangentially relates to anything I said. Until you respond to the thing I said I can do little more than remind you that you need to read the thing I said and not the thing you’re imagining.
I don't think he was off-topic more than you were at least.
And now we are at '96 elections, hooray for Ukraine thread. :p
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Reports coming in of another Russian General killed in action. If true that would make the fifth, and also highest ranked officer KIA.
Edit: Apparently his entire staff was wiped out as well. All ranking officers.
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With everything that has changed in the world it's good to see that US pol thread interactions have not 
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Shout out to Stealth for posting updates rather than arguing with people. Making it much easier to keep track of what is going on. You continue to be the best poster on tl
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Agreed, Kwark comes off as condescending, thanks for the updates Stealth.
I really wonder if Ukraine can negotiate peace without permanently handing over Crimea
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On March 19 2022 11:48 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Reports coming in of another Russian General killed in action. If true that would make the fifth, and also highest ranked officer KIA. https://twitter.com/MrKovalenko/status/1504945518115532806Edit: Apparently his entire staff was wiped out as well. All ranking officers.
What are those people even doing on the frontline? This is just weird. I saw an interview with an american general who was baffled that such high ranking officers would expose themselves like that.
On another front, Sergei Lavrov praising Fox News for its balanced coverage is absolutely poetic.
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On March 19 2022 18:28 Biff The Understudy wrote:What are those people even doing on the frontline? This is just weird. I saw an interview with an american general who was baffled that such high ranking officers would expose themselves like that. On another front, Sergei Lavrov praising Fox News for its balanced coverage is absolutely poetic.
Probably a lot safer on the frontlines compared to in Moscow, where Putin is a-purgin'.
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On March 19 2022 18:37 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2022 18:28 Biff The Understudy wrote:On March 19 2022 11:48 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Reports coming in of another Russian General killed in action. If true that would make the fifth, and also highest ranked officer KIA. https://twitter.com/MrKovalenko/status/1504945518115532806Edit: Apparently his entire staff was wiped out as well. All ranking officers. What are those people even doing on the frontline? This is just weird. I saw an interview with an american general who was baffled that such high ranking officers would expose themselves like that. On another front, Sergei Lavrov praising Fox News for its balanced coverage is absolutely poetic. Probably a lot safer on the frontlines compared to in Moscow, where Putin is a-purgin'.
Think it could be partially that: of you know your direct superiors are doubtful you're doing your job, well, if you're on the front you can point to that and say "I'm here, trying my best! Blame someone else for this abject failure! I sent you my report that we were missing fuel, tents, munition, spare parts and other basic necessities to wage this war"
Alternatively, they were the receivers of said reports and decided direct action was needed to stop all the stuff they had sent (on paper) from disappearing (or at least from disappearing into the wrong pockets).
And finally, they might have been sent there in order to boost troop morale. If the generals are in the mud with them, perhaps the troops feel more motivated to strike.
American generals can lead from the back line, because (1) and (2) are not really a problem, and I don't really know if (3) is even a thing, but insofar as I know American generals in Vietnam and Iraq went to give rallying speeches to the troops, but morale was never that bad that they had to stay on the front to keep it up. We don't really know much about Russian morale; there's a lot of propaganda going around, but it sure sounds like it could be a huge problem.
E: it's also worth mentioning that morale might be a specific problem here because Ukraine is seen as "basically Russia", and Russians bombing the shit out of it is probably quite incomprehensible to ordinary people, including soldiers.
Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq do not share that kind of relationship with Americans. To get that kind of effect, the US would have to invade Canada.
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On March 19 2022 18:28 Biff The Understudy wrote:What are those people even doing on the frontline? This is just weird. I saw an interview with an american general who was baffled that such high ranking officers would expose themselves like that. On another front, Sergei Lavrov praising Fox News for its balanced coverage is absolutely poetic. Russia obviously operates differently from the West with less autonomy giving to units and more direct oversight, as a result their ranking officers are much closer to the front lines and more vulnerable.
If the Russians are also still making unsecure calls because their secure network is down then that also is probably a major factor in allowing the Ukrainian army to locate these officers and create an opportunity to take them out.
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Communications and logistics are at the heart of it from what I've read. If your battalions aren't doing what they are supposed to, or you can't reach them, the brigade commander has to go up front to try to unfuck what has been fucked.
Also the whole concept of front is kinda shaky, if Russia doesn't still control the space behind their own frontline advance. The CPs could be tens of kilometres behind the front but they won't really be any safer there if Ukrainians are able to operate in full depth of the battlefield.
Plus if videos like these are half accurate Russian troops aren't even trying very hard to not get hit. https://twitter.com/Red_2_1/status/1504172899921534983?t=TTgT2So-m1y-uy4LVuAMSQ&s=19
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I agree with Oukka. Russians have trouble controlling terrain outside of roads and some strong points they established. They made the mistake of moving their forward base to Kherson when the front of their advance was around Mykolaiv. It wasn't really safe. Ukrainians made counterattack and suddenly that base with all the staff and logistics is in range of artillery and very vulnerable.
I think this war so far, on the ground, looks like that:
1. Russians make attack with a lot of armor.
2. Ukrainians rather than trying to stop them let them pass (that's why so many km are easily gained by Russian columns).
3. When Russian armor spearhead is deep inside UA territory, they start to pick up reinforcements and supply runs. They also pick up small groups of armor that break from the main column.
4. The spearhead either collapses or retreats due to lack of infantry support and/or supplies.
All of the above would not be possible if RU had air superiority. But they don't. UA is fighting this war brilliantly so far.
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United States43445 Posts
On March 19 2022 18:46 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2022 18:37 Simberto wrote:On March 19 2022 18:28 Biff The Understudy wrote:On March 19 2022 11:48 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Reports coming in of another Russian General killed in action. If true that would make the fifth, and also highest ranked officer KIA. https://twitter.com/MrKovalenko/status/1504945518115532806Edit: Apparently his entire staff was wiped out as well. All ranking officers. What are those people even doing on the frontline? This is just weird. I saw an interview with an american general who was baffled that such high ranking officers would expose themselves like that. On another front, Sergei Lavrov praising Fox News for its balanced coverage is absolutely poetic. Probably a lot safer on the frontlines compared to in Moscow, where Putin is a-purgin'. Think it could be partially that: of you know your direct superiors are doubtful you're doing your job, well, if you're on the front you can point to that and say "I'm here, trying my best! Blame someone else for this abject failure! I sent you my report that we were missing fuel, tents, munition, spare parts and other basic necessities to wage this war" Alternatively, they were the receivers of said reports and decided direct action was needed to stop all the stuff they had sent (on paper) from disappearing (or at least from disappearing into the wrong pockets). And finally, they might have been sent there in order to boost troop morale. If the generals are in the mud with them, perhaps the troops feel more motivated to strike. American generals can lead from the back line, because (1) and (2) are not really a problem, and I don't really know if (3) is even a thing, but insofar as I know American generals in Vietnam and Iraq went to give rallying speeches to the troops, but morale was never that bad that they had to stay on the front to keep it up. We don't really know much about Russian morale; there's a lot of propaganda going around, but it sure sounds like it could be a huge problem. E: it's also worth mentioning that morale might be a specific problem here because Ukraine is seen as "basically Russia", and Russians bombing the shit out of it is probably quite incomprehensible to ordinary people, including soldiers. Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq do not share that kind of relationship with Americans. To get that kind of effect, the US would have to invade Canada.
Morale in Vietnam got bad enough that fragging became an issue. Unpopular officers would be woken by a smoke grenade getting thrown into their bunk. If behavior did not improve the real thing could follow. Some of that was race related, racist white officers abusing POC conscripts, but conscripts generally don’t like being shot at halfway around the world.
Vietnam was the low point of American morale anywhere.
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Well this isn't good, makes me wonder how many pieces of the missile survived and trying to get to them. Also thought the whole idea behind such a weapon that it is so fast it cant be tracked.
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EPT
