re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

quote:

---

The first one being built off the hull of a 40 year old Soviet ship and the second ship that was built domestically that is significantly outclassed by all 11 US aircraft carriers.

---

The Varyag is just a training platform for the PLAN, their natively developed carriers will resemble ours, and will be CATOBAR. We will continue to outclass them in skills for a while though.

In terms of fleet size, we operate globally, which dilutes our force, the Chinese just need to dominate the western Pacific. So it’s a smaller problem for the Chinese than it appears.

Their shipyards are also cranking out new ships.

Nah, mods doin’ work. Cleaned this thread up nice.

quote:

---

Now would be an appropriate time for Ukraine, the U.S., and all western allies to begin stating repeatedly that Russia has the power to end all hostilities by withdrawing completely from all Ukrainian national territory, including the "separatist areas."

I'm no diplomat, but at some point we all should articulate very clearly the requirements for the end.

---

That's a pretty naive outlook.

Why would Putin ever consider simply giving up and withdrawing, which would be an admission of failure? He would probably be out of power very quickly and his life would probably be in jeopardy.

He is going to continue to fight until he either wins, or gets to a point where he can legitimately say he has achieved his goals.

If he can't conquer the entire country, my guess is that there will be a cease-fire at some point where he hangs on to a big chunk of the South and East, and we will simply have a frozen conflict (e.g. Korea, Cyprus, etc.)

quote:

---

Russia could have overpowered them had they wanted - the question is why did they do this half arse?

---

why does this keep getting repeated? What gives you any confidence in their ability to fight a war on the level of a major invasion of a western backed European country

quote:

---

Why would Putin ever consider simply giving up and withdrawing, which would be an admission of failure? He would probably be out of power very quickly and his life would probably be in jeopardy.

---

Russian leadership will likely have to consider withdrawal at some point. The message has to be that the war is persisting for the sole reason that Russia's military has invaded Ukraine. We know that to be true but it's a good thing to repeat on the world stage over and over until some significant number of people inside Russia understand that the entire debacle is a result of Russia's invasion.

quote:

---

It amazes me that after all these years of Putin being made out to be this Machiavellian wizard, he trips up so spectacularly on the biggest move he ever has made. I cannot wait to read the backstory history on how this decision was made and I will not be surprised if Putin’s mental or physical health played a large part.

---

Putting the political stuff off to the side, the military failure of their personnel, equipment, doctrine are hard to watch its so bad. I dont think anyone saw that coming you know the Russians did not. Really just 10 years or so of American (western) training and the Russians may be on the brink of taking an L from a non peer opponent.

quote:

---

Russian leadership will likely have to consider withdrawal at some point. The message has to be that the war is persisting for the sole reason that Russia's military has invaded Ukraine. We know that to be true but it's a good thing to repeat on the world stage over and over until some significant number of people inside Russia understand that the entire debacle is a result of Russia's invasion.

---

Why? The Turkish army is still occupying half of Cyprus since they invaded it in 1974 (48 years ago).

quote:

---

I believe you vastly overestimate the West's attention span. Give this thing a few more months and we will start to lose interest

---

This was said in February. We were supposed to lose interest by now according to those who proclaimed this back then.

quote:

---

just like we did in Yemen and Syria.

---

Yeman and Syria are not on the West's front porch. NATO is not going to lose interest here. Nobody in Europe will lose interest this time.

They will be on the look-out for the next step in this conflict.

quote:

---

Once the public starts to lose interest, so too will the politicians who are banging the drums about how "we must continue to support the Ukrainians" and that we must "continue to Russian invaders down to the very last Ukrainian."

---

See my above statement.


NATO and European citizens will not lose interest here.

quote:

---

Putting the political stuff off to the side, the military failure of their personnel, equipment, doctrine are hard to watch its so bad. I dont think anyone saw that coming you know the Russians did not. Really just 10 years or so of American (western) training and the Russians may be on the brink of taking an L from a non peer opponent.

---

The biggest mistake Putin probably made was not going into the Ukraine in 2014. The legitimacy for an invasion in 2014 would have been much easier to sell, i.e. restoring the democratically elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, to power after he was removed through a so-called color revolution.

Also, the Ukrainian military was a mess in 2014, and Russia had been busy since the Georgian war of 2008 getting their military back in shape. The relative power imbalance was huge.

The gap has obviously narrowed considerably in the last 8 years.

I can promise you that Putin is kicking himself for doing this 8 years ago.