Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 1001 posts

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#211

Post by fuoqi »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #201
fuoqi wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The West was actively supplying Ukraine since 2014, especially after the Debaltsevo embarrassment. Yes, it pales in comparison to the post 2022 levels, but it still was far from insignificant. Even your Wikipedia link lists a lot of pre-2022 aid and I am pretty sure this page is far from being comprehensive. And it's even without mentioning the direct role of Boris Johnson in tanking the Istanbul accords.

> it still was far from insignificant Stil far from closing the gap between the 6th and 13th largest armies. Russia invaded an inferior force and got stymied. This would be like America's Vietnam being Cuba, where we fully committed the U.S. military and economy to the task and still continued to fail. The fact that Russia has never even established air superiority knocks it out of the category of running a modern mi…

The Russian military doctrine is quite different from the US one. It places far more importance on artillery and anti-air forces than on air superiority. The Russian army clearly sucks at maneuver warfare and together with the unrealistically optimistic views which were prevalent in the Russian government (read Putin), it explains perfectly well the extremely poor performance in the first months. The performance in the recent months shows results of a more "comfortable" for the Russian army mode of warfare.

Also note that the Russian army was not "fully committed", it was not using conscripts (there was a small scale deployment of conscripts, but after the public scandal they were quickly removed from Ukraine) and did not fully pull forces from all its military districts.

Meanwhile Ukraine was fighting in the total war mode from the first days (they do not pull "recruits" from streets in the broad daylight into military buses just for the fun of it) with huge external support. And having the well trained by the West ideologically charged army backbone with 8 years of practical warfare experience has helped immensely in the first months.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#212

Post by fffffffff4322 »

nazgob wrote: post #92
fffffffff4322 wrote: post #79

I do not support the war, or violence in general. But EU & NATO ante engaged in a hybrid war with Russia. - It actively supports a military which is engaged with Russian forces - It has seized Russian financial assets - I doubt that attacks on Russian infrastructure are perpetuated (planned & executed) just buy Ukrainian forces I do not try to support any side by this statement. My point is that by any rational accou…

Russia has been involved in sabotage, shooting down planes with Europeans (MH17), killing people they don't like in EU/UK for years now. If anything EU is extremely timid and does not retaliate.

I am not endorsing Russia.

- shooting down civilians planes is something quite common in military operations (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Arab_Airlines_Flight_... ). A bunch of 20 somethings handling equipment designed for mass murder. What could possibly go wrong?

- extra judicial killings on foreign soil are more common than you expect (remember the Saudis ? Or the Indian assassinated in Canada recently)

Russia is an authoritarian system by any account it holds responsibility for repulsive acts. But the current narrative is at best naive.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#213

Post by sofixa »

exceptione wrote: post #104
VyseofArcadia wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have read reams of rhetoric regarding relations with Russia rehashed as "don't poke the bear". No one ever seems to want to discuss what to do about the bear going around poking everyone else.

The bear metaphore is indeed nonsense. Russia is not a bear, you are dealing with a bunch of state level criminals. The state of Russia is essentially better understood as a criminal gang masquerading as a country. Those stealing, money laundering, killing, trafficking an warring circles of oligarchs are heavily rooted in Intelligence Services, inside and abroad. Some of those oligarchs even have private militaries.…

> The bear metaphore is indeed nonsense. Russia is not a bear, you are dealing with a bunch of state level criminals

With nukes, which makes them pretty scary.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#214

Post by Delk »

meiraleal wrote: post #139
polotics wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nato is a defensive alliance against any offensive act. Russia, ...as in: the mafia of the few profiteering rulers currently at the helm, is not fighting back anything. Firstly, its mad Ukrainian adventure has meant it has made its border very defence-free on its border with Nato countries. Secondly, it is constantly attacking in hybrid warfare mode, paying local lowlife to do propaganda graffiti and sabotage. The ap…

[flagged]

> How dare they not do what we tell them!

What has NATO (or Western Europe) told Russia to do? What is NATO threatening or attacking Russia with due to it not doing what NATO wants?

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#215

Post by sofixa »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #126
abraxas wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> problem starts if (when?) Trump and his clown posse turns the US into a similar setup Lots of institutional checks in America that post-Soviet Russia lacked.

A lot of those checks exist solely on paper, and the people who should be enacting them can't look paat their noses in grift/short term political profit to do their jobs (be they senate majority leaders or supreme court justices or regular lawmakers). Hell, Trump refused to cede control of his businesses to a blind trust, and profited extensively (billing the state for his secret service detail having to stay at his resort while he's golfing) and used it to funnel money (various foreign entities paid obscene amounts of money to stay in his properties). Even just the last one should have been utterly disqualifying from an ethics perspective, and yet...

A coup was attempted (doesn't matter how poorly or clown-like, the intent is all that matters). Influence and favours were sold to other countries. None of this had any impact, even if the "checks" should have resulted in treason sentences.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#216

Post by rdtsc »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #203
rdtsc wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Really? That's exactly how the Russians perceive the EU. They are perceived as weak. There is no way they would have started the invasion if they were afraid of them. They are engaging in asymmetrical warfare because they are convinced they can demonstrate that to the world as well "look what we are doing there and well we get is phone calls form Sholz" [1] > Scholz condemned the war of aggression against Ukraine >…

> That's exactly how the Russians perceive the EU. They are perceived as weak Europe has been weak. The difference is Russia is weak while trying its hardest. Europe is weak because it can't bother to try. > That might look like a "power move" by Germany but it looks absolutely weak in the eyes of Putin Nobody considers condemnations power moves. Also, Putin's track record in reading who's too weak to do what doesn't…

> That might look like a "power move" by Germany but it looks absolutely weak in the eyes of Putin

Calling and talking with Putin as acting as some kind of "power broker" or "decider" (Bush junior's classic). I think that's the context there. That's after years of hand wringing, should we help, or shouldn't help, maybe help, but not too much and so on.

> Europe has been weak. The difference is Russia is weak while trying its hardest. Europe is weak because it can't bother to try

I agree, and I don't know if now it finally woke up or it hasn't yet. It's not over till it's over, as they say.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#217

Post by 20after4 »

zelon88 wrote: post #168
jjeaff wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

while outages definitely cause big problems in hospitals and schools, neither are completely dependent on connectivity in the short term. most hospitals are required to be able to operate critical services in an outage. even a full power outage. Schools will definitely be fine. they just may have a serious backlog of entering grades, absences, and payroll once things get back online.

> once things get back online. That would be like trying to cold start a power plant without any power. I think you're missing my point. I'm trying to point out that there are 3 "infrastructure providers" that our economy CANNOT live without. In a world war situation, these 3 organizations are going to be the biggest targets. They are literally our crown jewels. They will be under continuous attack from all angles. A…

Worry more about the power grid.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#219

Post by fuoqi »

armchairhacker wrote: post #206
fuoqi wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>fly jets near It's regularly done by both sides. And not only with jets, but also with nuclear-capable strategic bombers. >over their airspace Shooting it down will be a no-brainer for Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident >If attacks escalate it will be Russia that escalated every time. So sending jets into their airspace is not an escalation, but shooting down the plain is? Yeap, you are not a di…

I don't know whether Russia is flying jets over NATO airspace. If they're not then NATO shouldn't be flying them over Russia. In my idea it would be essential to confirm Russia is responsible for anything before the even counterattack. If there's an attack NATO can't confirm, the only thing they would do is defend and monitor more closely in case Russia tries the same attack in the future. Only the things that the Ru…

So according to this principle, Russia can send military aid to the Syrian government to strike the US military bases on its territory and the US should not be able to retaliate?
Post reply on HN