re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

quote:

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Would have given Ukraine a hell of a lot more of what they needed last year and would quit dragging arse on things now that we can help with getting them

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I just happened to be listening to Peter Zeihan,the geopolitical expert, being interviewed.

He predicted the Invasion of Ukraine years ago, down to the month and year.

He gives the reason "why" and "why now" which we all should know (but some argue against)...

"Why?" Russia has always been obsessed with creating a buffer of states around itself to make up for its lack of any natural defense points (mountains, uncrossable rivers) coming in from the West, which allowed them to be invaded a lot, and from the South...

So Russian leaders have always wanted to control the surrounding states on all sides to use their natural barriers, and use their people are cannon fodder insulation to protect Moscow and St. Petersberg. This has always been the country's driving thing, from the Tsars to Stalin... and they finally got it in 1945.

And they lost it in 1989 - 1991... and, even before Putin, they've been trying to get it back... this is the 9th war post-Soviet Russia has launched with its neighbors since 1989.

They do want Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe back under their control... in Hungary and Slovakia they seem to be pulling that off by getting sympathizers elected to power, the rest... I guess they will try to do militarily.

We (the US) always knew this is what they were trying to do... we just didn't seem to care very much. Possibly too distracted by the War on Terror or other things? Possibly thinking globalism had made them feel secure as a resource supplier that Europe was dependent on and wasn't threatening, so they wouldn't act on it for a while?

But their impending demographic collapse (and the generally cratering health of much of their young male population, anyway) made this particular time a "now or never" thing for them. They're running out of bodies.

And he thought they'd pull it off within a week and that Europe and the US would react the same way they had with Crimea... finger-wagging and nothing really potent in response.

But... that convoy headed to Kyiv, with more firepower than the Ukranian military probably had at the time... well, that was that, right. It was over.

But... why did they stop? Oh, the gas had been mostly siphoned off and sold and nobody checked and they ran out.

Okay, supply trucks will be there any minute now and...


Wait, why are the Russians walking back to Belarus? They forgot to bring food!?!

"And it was at this exact moment that the Pentagon collectively shite its pants, because it realized that the modern Russian military is not a military, it's a mob with guns and incompetent leadership... but nuclear weapons... which means when it does attack a NATO country and goes face to face with an actual NATO army, it will be decimated... and when that happens and there is no other barrier to existential elimination of the Nation-state of Russia... somebody there will launch the nukes. What will they have to lose?"

So we want the Ukrainians to win... and so do the NATO countries in the area, save for Hungary and maybe Slovakia... because the specter of escalation is in the next phase.

So he argues that we're actually NOT dragging out giving them gear. We gave them everything that didn't require training to use that we could. The problem is... we're understocked to begin with because of our internal political battles on budgets and the fact that we just got out of two conflicts that were like fighting street gangs that did not have an air force or tanks, so we neglected certain types of things. And of course, now we have internal political opposition to helping them, too.

The Ukrainians would be doing much better if they were able to fight a mobile war and inflict 8:1 casualties like they have done at points, but the weather/mud has destroyed mobility so they are stuck in stasis positions fighting off meatwave and artillery attacks, and with Russian numbers 5:1 casualties are not enough. When they can move again, and with the arms Europe and hopefully the US is giving them, they should...