I keep wondering if that scale of operation that we are witnessing is their "testing the waters" phase and it is 1% of their true capability, of if what we're seeing is already their full-steam operational pace. They do a good job of instilling fear, but we've learned from Ukraine that there are a lot of paper Tigers in that army that aren't as capable in a real fight as they are in a demonstration.
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Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
251–260 of 1001 posts
Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Or station nukes in Venezuela
Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
#253It's like 3rd or 4th submission of this news today? One of the previous discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42175676
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Well, to be fair, it's suspiciously close in time to the recent US/UK/France permission to use long-range missiles against the Russian territory. So it may be indeed a transparent hint towards them from Russia regarding how asymmetric response could look like.
Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
#254Nord Stream Part II
Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
The direct role of Boris Johnson in tanking the Istanbul accords. Which is a myth - oft repeated, but with precisely zero substance. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41813032
Zero substance? It was reported by Ukrainska Pravda (and Ukraine is far from being famous for its freedom of press) not by some Russian propaganda outlet. It's the same as saying that WSJ citing "sources" has zero substance. Regardless, you can believe that the West did not provide any assurance to Ukraine during the Istanbul talks and that Russia has blown its own pipeline. It's your right.
It was reported by Ukrainska Pravda
It was speculated as a possibility by that article, but then it was looked into by others, quite thoroughly, and the narrative fell apart. That happens, you know.
The Foreign Affairs article in the aforementioned thread has a pretty good writeup about the whole thing, if you are interested.
You can believe that Russia has blown its own pipeline
You can change the subject as many times as you want, and speculate, falsely, about what you think other people believe about random topics, all day long if you want.
But this has absolutely no bearing on what we were just talking about.
Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
#256And also the cable between Lithuania and Sweden:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/18/telecoms-cable...
Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
#257> "it’s obvious this wasn’t an accidental anchor drop.” If it's "he who shall not be named", gotta admit, that's a clever strategy: ramp up sabotage and see how NATO/EU will feel about their "red lines", and how well does that article 5 really work in practice. Is it worth more than the paper it's printed on? Let's find out! People have been laughing at the West crossing multiple Russian "red lines" and the Russians…
Weak? Macron is rallying for major support. Poland is building an extremely strong army, and is having none of Russia's BS. Rutte is head of NATO now, and he has peace as his nr. 1 goal. There are so many ads for cybersecurity and military on tv here in the Netherlands. Ukraine received ATACMS (long range missiles) a while ago. This is why they are able to invade Russia back. We are "weak" because Putin has been dest…
EU as a whole has actually been weak in terms of military capability and perhaps also civil defence. The end of the Cold War and the long peace had allowed a lot of us to believe that there wouldn't be a foreseeable risk of military conflict or a need to seriously prepare against aggression. Many European countries cut back significantly on their military spending and capability. And that seemed like a reasonable and popular thing to do given the circumstances.
(Countries in Eastern Europe were perhaps the exception and didn't cut back, at least not so much.)
The problem is that defensive capability cannot be just built all of a sudden if it turns out to be needed after all.
Of course the reason that has become a problem is Putin's aggression and authoritarian rule.
But Europe has indeed been weak in the sense of not having maintained defensive capability. Perhaps that is, both fortunately and unfortunately, changing. (Fortunately for obvious reasons, unfortunately because it means significant spending on something that should not be necessary even though it is.)
Hopefully EU societies will remain strong and resilient in the sense they've been strong all along: strong civil society and democracy.
Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
In that case the US would be allowed to send aid to some other government to strike Russia (they're currently doing this with Ukraine but for a separate reason, for Ukraine's self-defense...)
Or in an ideal world, the US pays Syria more to not attack them, maybe even gets them to sign a treaty and commits to building Syria's economy and protecting them so they don't feel compelled to take Russian bribes. Although, it's certainly not so straightforward, prior US involvements in foreign countries have been disasters so it would have to be different somehow...
There are many other ways Russia could attack NATO that would be very hard to prove or evenly-counter. Russia could create a culture of NATO hatred and aggression, then set up "rewards" that are given out for obscure reasons, to get Russian NGOs and citizens to attack NATO in their own will. Then NATO can only encourage citizens to attack Russia, which I don't think any treaties forbid anyways, and creating a culture of hate is bad for other reasons. It's not a foolproof system.
But like for this event, there's evidence beyond reasonable doubt that the Russian government is directly involved (https://www.newsweek.com/russia-pipeline-gas-patrushev-putin...). And there are other ways NATO can weaken Russia's influence without even attacking them, like not trading with them, and (indirectly, by having a more liberal government) encouraging Russian citizens to emigrate.
Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
#259[flagged]
Who scoops us their gas contract, the Netherlands? Or the sneaky Belgians?
Sure, both major gas producers.
Why did Europe need Russian gas at all, when there's clearly so much right under-foot? Obviously the 'invisible hand' of the market will fetch the gas from where it's fracked.
And lol, I did misread China for Cinia. oops.
But the argument is the same. The western govts. and media are filling everyone's head with 'evil Russian saboteur spyships' when there's no evidence of history, intent, or even capability.
I highly suspect this case will be a dragged net, or other 'normal' cause, but if it's malicious, imho the culprit is far more likely that nation that has it's fingers in everyone's pie, for commercial, geopolitical or political reasons.
For example, it wouldn't at all surprise me that they first escalated the Ukrain war by sanctioning a missile attack on Russia with their missiles, then cut some cables to make it look like Russian retaliation, priming us all for further escalation. Just cutting some cables does not seem like Russian mo to me.
Someone should escort the senile old cold-warmonger out of the whitehouse before the brass pupeteer him to escalate too far. I can imagine they're keen to see some 'decisive movement' before Trump shuts the show down.
Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted
#260Earlier 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…
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Ironically(?), Russia's racism tends to dehumanize Caucasians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassian_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechen_genocide