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Pentagon confirms US armed forces are training Ukrainian soldiers in advanced weapon systems:

https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcript ... -briefing/

thinker wrote: Sat Apr 30, 2022 10:20 pm Before any of the emotional children call me a Russian troll save it, unlike you I have actually lived in a Communist dictatorship and can speak from actual life experience. No the US government is not as bad as Russia or China but I have seen enough to know that it is evil and giving it more power like the new ministry of truth is not a good idea especially when the media and large corporations are mostly on their side. I know that the American people are good but our government has for decades become more evil and oppressive.

I have been on this mortal coil long enough to come to this conclusion:

Any entity of sufficient size is fundamentally corrupt/evil

Big government, big religion, big political parties, big corporations, big labor unions, big pharma/medicine, etc. All of them. What's interesting is that just because the entity/institution is corrupt/evil, it doesn't mean that the individuals that populate those entities necessarily are. There are plenty of good people within corrupt/evil institutions who are there because they have to pay the mortgage but are powerless to make the entity less corrupt/evil.

Of course, there are degrees of evil and corruption. The US government is far less evil than the Russian or Chinese governments, but it ain't pure either. We tend to see what we want to see when pondering foreign interventions. We ain't perfect. But we ain't them.

** 01-May-2022 World View: Elon Musk's Stick Figure tweet

den·i·grate
/ˈdenəˌɡrāt/

criticize unfairly; disparage.

I have just learned a bit more about my native language.

As Pentagon Sends Phoenix Ghost Drones to Ukraine, Russia Slams NATO Allies
Darragh Roche - Yesterday 7:58 AM
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/as ... 3b6b9e1f0c

Pelosi makes unannounced trip to Kyiv, becoming highest-ranking US official to meet with Zelensky since the war began
Eliza Mackintosh
By Michelle Watson and Eliza Mackintosh, CNN
Updated 3:03 PM ET, Sun May 1, 2022
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/01/politics ... index.html

@guest Fidel Castro and Adolf Hitler were both evil tyrants and not only did people love and support them but there are still people today that love and support them despite all the evidence of their crimes. Another thing going for Zelensky is that the Russians are attacking and this is a threat to Ukraine's existence so you have the survival instinct kicking in and also the rally to the flag effect. By the way I am not saying that Zelensky is a Castro or a Hitler, I am pointing out that people through out history have been more than happy to support tyrants, and I see tyrants as being on different levels. Tyrants like Castro, Hitler or Mao are at the top level, tyrants like let say Manuel Noriega are still evil corrupt tyrants but are at a lower level.
John I have been seeing videos of people in China going nuts against the CCP and the lockdowns. Do you think that with the current situation of more large protests in China against the CCP's covid policies and the collapse of the Chinese economy that there is a chance we wont have to fight them in a war as they might be too busy with a large civil war.
One more thing, I work in an area that has a lot of Russians and Ukrainians. One thing that I have noticed is that they are not at each others throats as I thought would happen, it's as if they don't even know about the war. I know that they obviously know about the war and I don't expect this peaceful co existence to last , but it's another thing that I fined interesting about humans and our psychology. I would like to hear what some of the theories for this behavior is from other forum members. My theory is that since the war is far away and they are immigrants to the US they don't want to start trouble and are more focused on their day to day problems and lives.

Iberia wrote: Sun May 01, 2022 5:38 am
You wrote a few months ago that Russia would attack a hollowed out Europe and take over most of it. Do you still believe that will happen?

The Russian army is the hollowed out military. NATO seems strong, not countries like Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg, but the UK, Spain, France, and Poland. I doubt the Russians could take Poland.

Even if Russia mobilised, they would just be sending old men and a few teenagers into the meat grinder. Russia is a land of old people. Spain is strong and our people healthy. Russia's economy is in ruins. By July they will be feeling the full effects of the sanctions.

In World War Two, it was America which kept Russia alive with billions of dollars in weapons, military vehicles, and ammunition. The Russian school books never talk about that. (I used to teach in the RF.) Russia did not beat the Nazis alone as they say. Today, China would have to fill the role of America in World War Two, but I can't see the Chinese doing that at all. There is no substitute for America.

I don't believe in conspiracy theories either. America is still the most admired country in the world. Why so many Americans denigrate their own country, I do not understand.

Lots to talk about here.

First, please realize that no-one right now has gone into a national mobilization. Not even the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians did arm themselves pretty well, and got their militia (Territorials) units into shape for this fight. The Ukrainian army has 23 Brigades of active duty troops, and another 25 of territorials.

I would estimate that the Russian have committed about 60 Brigade equivalents into Ukraine. While this may look like they don't have much dominance (60 Ru vs 50 Uk), most of the Ukrainians are deployed around the periphery to protect their coastline and flank borders, and territorial units are remaining in the areas they are from (again for defensive reasons - like what if Belarus becomes active).

60 Russian brigade equivalents means about 20 division equivalents. The army division is how armies were measured during the world wars. The Russian Army in WW2 probably went through 500 divisions, the Germans probably around 200 full strength ones, the American Army (plus Marines) roughly 100 (but US divisions larger and had FAR larger support components). What I am getting at is that national mobilizations multiply the number of people on the battlefield by huge factors, like 25 times what is available right now.

While some say that such magnitudes of force are no longer possible, due to the extreme expense, I would say this was said before every war too.

PLUS, Right now modern warfare is looking like WW1 with high tech weapons thrown in. The defense is again very dominant. Look at Russian non-progress versus the trench lines along the 2014 contact line in Donbas.

This means that the armies do not need much in the way of costly systems like tanks (MBTs). They can be effective (defensively, and offensively if there is little opposition) just with automatic weapons, anti tank rockets, and mortars, (plus drones and cameras). They just need to dig lots of trenches and build dugouts. This is quite inexpensive compared to building masses of tanks and armored personel carriers.

I believe that Russia will fully mobilize and declare a war of "our national existence is at stake".

Its not like there are only a few people in Russia. They will put the majority of able bodied men (and women) into their military, give them basic training, and off they will go, equipped as explained above. They will eventually take out Ukraine, though it is increasingly costly.

I will continue in parts.

Now lets look at NATO.

Remember that Ukraine has 23 active duty brigades. Lets compare that to the big NATO powers.

France has 8. Germany has 8. Poland has 12. UK has 6. Other countries have 1 or 2, the exception being Romania, which has 10, but their equipment and standards are pretty low, so maybe worth 4 of western NATO. The Italians have another 9, but I have some concerns about them too.

The point is that NATO has roughly 1.5 to 2 times the active duty strength of the Ukraine. Plus, I believe they will sit on their hind quarters for the most part while the Russians mobilize and get ready. And, while the Ukrainian territorials were prepared for the war, NATO territorial units are NOT (Poland maybe being the exception).

Also, if you think Russian youth would be unmotivated in war, think about the youth in Germany and France. Not a lot of nationalistic fervor and self-sacrifice come to mind. NATO countries are predominantly older people too.

Poles will fight the Russians, as will Finns and many Brits. Past that, the "national will" of most NATO countries would be questionable. Including Spain.

The next point is that NATO has sent a HUGE amount of its ammo stockpile to the Ukraine. The estimates I have seen is that it represents 5-10 years of NATO production. On top of that, much of the NATO Airforce's inventory of smart weapons was used up a couple of years ago during the Libya intervention.

The question could well boil down to who would run out of men and munitions first. And that is generally the way big wars go.

The US supplied huge amounts of material to the Soviets in WW2. I would expect that the Chinese will ultimately have to do the same for Russia. Meanwhile, the US will be fighting both China and Russia while its industrial strength has in large measure already been sent to China.

America will ultimately prevail, but it will not be as easy as it was in WW1 and WW2.

Given the current situation, I think the Russians will fully mobilize, take out Ukraine and Moldova, and then keep moving. The Poles will put up as good a fight (or better) than the Ukrainians. Maybe the Russians will only make it to the Elbe, but will the rest of Europe have the will to fight a major war? IMHO, questionable.

Then there is the question of nuclear weapons. The Russians look increasingly likely to use at least one in Ukraine. If threatened with such an attack, would a NATO country just fold and give up? I think yes for many of them, Germany included.

We will shortly see.

But wars are always like a Pandora's box. You just don't know for sure until they unfold.

** 01-May-2022 World View: China civil war

thinker wrote: Sun May 01, 2022 5:33 pm > John I have been seeing videos of people in China going nuts
> against the CCP and the lockdowns. Do you think that with the
> current situation of more large protests in China against the
> CCP's covid policies and the collapse of the Chinese economy that
> there is a chance we wont have to fight them in a war as they
> might be too busy with a large civil war.

As I've described in the past, China is overdue for a large civil war,
but that would be used by the CCP as an excuse to declare war on
someone, so that both sides in the civil war would unite against the
common enemy. This is what the Communists and the Nationalists did
during WW II.

*** 24-Apr-2022 World View: Darkest period in China in decades
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