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United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

reuters.com

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Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#151

Post by jemmyw »

LinuxBender wrote: post #106
nradov wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say Russia does decide to use nukes. What would they target? Their main objective in the war is to seize control of Ukrainian energy and agricultural resources; they don't want to turn it into an irradiated wasteland. Using a nuke against Ukrainian military forces would be a waste since they are now dispersed and dug in. Many of those forces are close to Russian forces so a nuclear strike would endanger their o…

Their main objective in the war is to seize control of Ukrainian energy and agricultural resources I do not believe that is their primary objective. Should any resources survive their onslaught they are just bonus material. They have already destroyed most of the factories train tracks and a good deal of the power generation. Russia have no ability currently to replace these things or to rebuild Ukraine which would b…

Secure Russia against what?

I don't think that's the objective. The objective imo is to take down a government and country that is challenging the Russian people see them as kin and yet their getting more democratic, removing (some) corruption and moving closer to economic partnership with the EU. Putin has to destroy a brighter future for the people of Ukraine to prevent his own populace seeing that future as a possibility for themselves.

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#152

Post by ihatepython »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #36
ihatepython wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

There is no "WW3" if one side is just russia.

Will China side with Russia or the US?

China will use this opportunity to take back Taiwan. The US cannot fight two wars vs Russia and China.

China knows that if they let Russia be defeated, then they are next.

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#153

Post by giardini »

aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote: post #135
giardini wrote: post #134

Perhaps Ukraine kept a few nukes hidden that the Russian bookkeepers lost track of. Time to launch may be nearing. And then there's https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russias-atomic-nightm...

The international community was involved in the disarmament process. I doubt very much that the Pentagon lost count.

Since when has the Pentagon access to Russia's nuclear program accounting information?

Furthermore there are claims that ~100 Soviet-era "suitcase nukes" had been handed off (and cannot now be accounted for) to now-defunct USSR republics, some now became failed states, and have been drifting "in the wind" for decades.

"Lebed Says Russia Has Lost Track of 100 Nuclear Bombs"

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-sep-09-mn-30448...

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#154

Post by LemmyInThePub »

notahacker wrote: post #90
rhaway84773 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. has been pushing the UK to not include any Chinese equipment in any infrastructure they buy. It’s not clear to me what the Chinese could have learnt thst they didn’t already know.

I don't think they'd have learned much from the visuals of a balloon (it takes marginally higher resolution images than a satellite but so do lots of less obvious stuff like aircraft and consumer drones that are perfectly entitled to be in US airspace). But the US was pushing the UK not to include Chinese equipment (and indulging in some very loud anti-China rhetoric mostly for domestic consumption) under the previou…

> I don't think they'd have learned much from the visuals of a balloon

I suggest a balloon payload would be better aimed at monitoring (and establishing patterns of) RF traffic rather than visual data.

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#155

Post by KptMarchewa »

TrapLord_Rhodo wrote: post #81
KptMarchewa wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is Putin not done politically if RU is defeated in UA, and Crimea is liberated / annexed? Nicholas II wasn't done after Russo-Japanese war loss, Alexander II wasn't done after Crimean War, Lenin wasn't done after Polish-Soviet war, Yeltsin wasn't done after First Chechen War... why would Putin be done? History of russia is full of counterexamples and them presenting as "we'll win or we'll nuke whole world" is a prop…

Nicholas II ended the Romanov dynasty. Alexander II was assasinated. Lenin implemented the red terror to ensure his grip. Yeltsin was forced to resign to... you guessed it; Putin. All these may not have happened directly after the loss, but it definitely swayed public opinion against them.

> Nicholas II ended the Romanov dynasty.

Attributing Nicholas II death to 12 year earlier Russo-Japanese war and not... ongoing WW1 is weird take.

> Alexander II was assasinated.

25 years later by revolutionary socialists, not some kind of revanchist.

>Lenin implemented the red terror to ensure his grip.

Actually totally reverse, Lenin then ended it with NEP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy

>Yeltsin was forced to resign to... you guessed it; Putin.

"Forced" 4 years later full of disastrous policies and, most importantly for russian state, low oil prices.

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#156

Post by KptMarchewa »

ihatepython wrote: post #152
KptMarchewa wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "WW3" if one side is just russia.

Will China side with Russia or the US? China will use this opportunity to take back Taiwan. The US cannot fight two wars vs Russia and China. China knows that if they let Russia be defeated, then they are next.

>The US cannot fight two wars vs Russia and China.

US is winning conventional war with Russia without losing a single soldier and using 1-2% of what they spend on Iraq war.

>China will use this opportunity to take back Taiwan.

Sure, "take back". Use factual words - invade.

>China knows that if they let Russia be defeated, then they are next.

Next of what? Being defeated when they rush into extremely aggressive, genocidal war? They need to be sure of that, yes. Russia's loss is 100% self inflicted.

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#157

Post by redwood »

ylk wrote: post #78
redwood wrote: post #2

Judo and two total wars with western powers won only after seemingly losing everything -- it's hard not to think that the dictator will eventually inflict far far more pain in the form of martial law on his own people than any of us can imagine in the hopes that that will allow them to find the spark to fall to such a base survival instinct as to bounce back. By no means do I believe that will happen, in fact I belie…

In Judo you don’t take a beating, magically absorb all the force and then release it all in a gigantic blow that sends the opponent flying towards the moon, shattering it on impact, like in an anime. The stuff you describe doesn’t have anything to do with the sport. It’s insane how people twist things to make them fit their ideas.

I mean it more metaphorically in the sense that when your opponent comes in with a lot of force, you can harness that into them thinking they've got it

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#158

Post by redwood »

jb1991 wrote: post #3
redwood wrote: post #2

Judo and two total wars with western powers won only after seemingly losing everything -- it's hard not to think that the dictator will eventually inflict far far more pain in the form of martial law on his own people than any of us can imagine in the hopes that that will allow them to find the spark to fall to such a base survival instinct as to bounce back. By no means do I believe that will happen, in fact I belie…

> He likely genuinely believes they need to keep losing and losing much more badly than they are today before they can have a shot of turning the tide. I'm having some difficulty following your argument. You're saying Putin thinks Russia needs to keep losing the war so that eventually they can win it? I find that confusing.

I don't know if you've ever read War and Peace or looked into the Napoleonic Wars in Russia, and also looked at the parallels to the Eastern theater of World War II, that's what I'm referring to

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#159

Post by LinuxBender »

jemmyw wrote: post #151
LinuxBender wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their main objective in the war is to seize control of Ukrainian energy and agricultural resources I do not believe that is their primary objective. Should any resources survive their onslaught they are just bonus material. They have already destroyed most of the factories train tracks and a good deal of the power generation. Russia have no ability currently to replace these things or to rebuild Ukraine which would b…

Secure Russia against what? I don't think that's the objective. The objective imo is to take down a government and country that is challenging the Russian people see them as kin and yet their getting more democratic, removing (some) corruption and moving closer to economic partnership with the EU. Putin has to destroy a brighter future for the people of Ukraine to prevent his own populace seeing that future as a poss…

Putin has to destroy a brighter future for the people of Ukraine to prevent his own populace seeing that future as a possibility for themselves.

There is a lot of truth in that as well. I'm sure its a major driving force for him and others around him. They are a vestigial legacy that will cease to exist in any meaningful manor once most of the dictatorships and faux democracies fall.

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#160

Post by ihatepython »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #156
ihatepython wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will China side with Russia or the US? China will use this opportunity to take back Taiwan. The US cannot fight two wars vs Russia and China. China knows that if they let Russia be defeated, then they are next.

>The US cannot fight two wars vs Russia and China. US is winning conventional war with Russia without losing a single soldier and using 1-2% of what they spend on Iraq war. >China will use this opportunity to take back Taiwan. Sure, "take back". Use factual words - invade. >China knows that if they let Russia be defeated, then they are next. Next of what? Being defeated when they rush into extremely aggressive, genoc…

The US plan is to first defeat Russia, and then to defeat China. They expect China to wait their turn. However the US will not win this war. If Russia's existence is at stake, they will use their nuclear weapons. There is very little chance that this war will remain conventional.
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