Ukraine Conflict - Alle Dinge unterliegen Interpretation je nachdem, was Interpretation zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt herrscht, ist eine Funktion der Macht und nicht die Wahrheit

[Malcador]

1 minute ago, Sarex said:

What do you mean? They are paying for it with this war, no? I do not believe even the west would have skin that thick to charge them for the military scrap they are sending them.

Hm, true, was just thinking they'd want something back down the line - perhaps that was too cynical.

[213374U]

You can hardly expect to extract anything from Ukraine mid-term, what with their economy taking a 35-50% dip.

Western taxpayers though, you can always get them to shell out a bit more to fight the good fight. Don't really need all those avocado toasts.

[Lexx]

I've read the issue with germany and sending heavy weapons is that ... we simply don't have any to spare. If we send our guns to ukraine, our military won't have any guns anymore for years(!) to come, which basically means that whole units will have to be disbanded, unless we keep training them like north korea - with imaginative weapons. The weapon / vehicle factories are also booked out for the next 10 or what years. It's simply impossible to produce more, faster right now.

Edited April 23, 2022 by Lexx

[Sarex]

11 minutes ago, 213374U said:

Western taxpayers though, you can always get them to shell out a bit more to fight the good fight.

And when the good fight ends and rebuilding starts, they will be asking Ukraine who?

[213374U]

1 hour ago, Lexx said:

I've read the issue with germany and sending heavy weapons is that ... we simply don't have any to spare. If we send our guns to ukraine, our military won't have any guns anymore for years(!) to come, which basically means that whole units will have to be disbanded, unless we keep training them like north korea - with imaginative weapons. The weapon / vehicle factories are also booked out for the next 10 or what years. It's simply impossible to produce more, faster right now.

Imagine not having a military-industrial complex focused on perpetually producing an excess of heavy ordnance that you can throw/give away with no negative effect on your military readiness.

[Lexx]

I mean, germans are pretty much anti-war for the majority of the past 70 years. Every time a politician wanted to get into a war, it caused a major ****storm in the whole country. Most of what we have military-wise is intended for defense, and even in this area we are lacking a lot due to corruption and incompetence. Considering this, I don't think it's surprising that germany doesn't really have the military capacities.

[Zoraptor]

4 hours ago, 213374U said:

It also begs the question of what abrogating previous policies against supplying weapons to conflict zones will mean for America's next war. When, not if.

It isn't really a change for US strategy, per se, though it is an upping of scale. Just about every single thing done in Ukraine happened in Syria previous, it was just clandestine because Syrians are too brown and non european, so the war there isn't popular enough to do things overtly. But the US/ France/ Britain were training the moderate rebel head choppers, and supplying them with arms (eg the CIA program Timber Sycamore), and intelligence, and consistently ran diplomatic interference.

5 hours ago, Malcador said:

Heh, if the Iraqis had lots of ATGMs that would have been fun to see.

They had a lot of ATGMs, they just didn't use them well (and they were mostly older models; but then even a well deployed Malyutka can take out Leopard 2s and at least export Abrams. Still, the handful of modern Kornets they had knocked out two Abrams). It would be a lot less fun for the US now, post Afghanistan and Syria.

There are other implications though- Israel has remained pretty much neutral despite all exhortations because they want Russia to maintain its soft ban on advanced exports to Iran, for example, and it's a reason- apart from their dislike of Biden- why the Gulf Monarchies aren't being very supportive of the west either.

4 hours ago, Sarex said:

And when the good fight ends and rebuilding starts, they will be asking Ukraine who?

I'm pretty sure the idea at least is to just steal Russian money to pay for it, and saddle them with 'war reparations' to permanently cripple their economy. Double benefit, get the Russians to pay for western companies rebuilding and that way they can also justify keeping reliance on Russian hydrocarbons too- after all it would be paying for Ukraine to be fixed!

Case Study: Iraq. Saddled with massive debt to Gulf countries from fighting their proxy war with Iran for them, Kuwait stealing their oil (like a milkshake, they drink it up), and then massive reparations on top of that. Then get the Gauleiter Colonial Administrator Paul Bremmer to award lots of no tender contracts to US companies for reconstruction to be paid for by the Iraqi state.

[Elerond]

4 hours ago, Sarex said:

And when the good fight ends and rebuilding starts, they will be asking Ukraine who?

It depends on who wins.

If Russia wins then Ukraine is out of luck, if Ukraine wins it will get some level aid, level depends how long the conflict will last. Now Ukraine could get unprecedented amount of aid, but longer conflict goes less political points aid will give for politicians

[Malcador]

Seems pretty impossible for Russia to win here.  Can see at least Canada still pumping money over, there's a lot of Ukrainians here to suck up to for votes.

[BruceVC]

12 hours ago, Malcador said:

Wonder how all this weaponry is going to be repaid.

Their will be  some loan forgiveness  towards Ukraine for both the economic aid and the weapons supplied once Putins War is over

But a well run economically strong Ukraine is a future  reality so they will pay some of the money back in the normal way countries back loans from the IMF or World Bank

So they will calculate the total debt, write off a large percent and set new payment terms 

But I do think many countries will write the debt off for economic aid like the US?

 

Edited April 24, 2022 by BruceVC

[BruceVC]

12 hours ago, 213374U said:

You can hardly expect to extract anything from Ukraine mid-term, what with their economy taking a 35-50% dip.

Western taxpayers though, you can always get them to shell out a bit more to fight the good fight. Don't really need all those avocado toasts.

Avocado has become very expensive, you right. SA  producers locally and imports avo's  from countries like  Spain so you guys need to make sure that continues . We like Spanish avo's 

But Im more concerned with the price of food like Scottish salmon or French blue cheese....that has really skyrocketed 

[BruceVC]

7 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

It isn't really a change for US strategy, per se, though it is an upping of scale. Just about every single thing done in Ukraine happened in Syria previous, it was just clandestine because Syrians are too brown and non european, so the war there isn't popular enough to do things overtly. But the US/ France/ Britain were training the moderate rebel head choppers, and supplying them with arms (eg the CIA program Timber Sycamore), and intelligence, and consistently ran diplomatic interference.

 

Its very disappointing when people play the race card to justify basically any point

It demonstrates laziness and lack of understanding of the actual causes and reasons for something like Putins War and the support for Ukraine from most of the world

US normal  aid to Syria was basically ended in 2011 when Russia and China vetoed military intervention in the UNSC  and  when Obama was US president he made a decision to not intervene military in most conflicts in the ME unless it directly influenced US interests 

But Putins War is about an invasion of a country on the border of the EU with direct and indirect ties to the EU and the stability of the EU . It also automatically impacts NATO and therefore the US 

So Western intervention is not about " blond hair and blue eyes " its about the stability of security of the region and the EU 

 

Edited April 24, 2022 by BruceVC

[Sarex]

8 hours ago, Malcador said:

Seems pretty impossible for Russia to win here.  Can see at least Canada still pumping money over, there's a lot of Ukrainians here to suck up to for votes.

They can still win, it's just that the quick and easy victory is no longer possible, if it ever was. It all depends on how the Russian people feel about this war and how much they are willing to take.

[xzar_monty]

The recent photo of Putin and Shoigu meeting (in a short table!) looks frankly horrendous -- from a medical point of view. While it's not proper or reasonable to read too much into one photo or one appearance, Putin's physique does appear to have deteriorated an awful lot. Shocking to see, really.

As a side note, I find it curious to see the amount of cynicism on these forums and specifically on this thread. I think I am quite a bit older than many others here (could be wrong, of course), and I find this jadedness quite baffling. What kind of a life does anyone expect to live if their approach to other people / nations / history / etc. is as black as that? Very lonely at least, it seems to me.

[pmp10]

9 hours ago, Malcador said:

Seems pretty impossible for Russia to win here. 

They can't establish near-term political control over Kiev but they can certainly settle for less.
If Ukraine losses major parts of territory and cannot recover from economic damage then next invasion is just a matter of time.
All will depend on whether the west is willing to build the country back-up and protect it or just uses it as a disposable instrument to punish Russia.

[BruceVC]

18 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

They can't establish near-term political control over Kiev but they can certainly settle for less.
If Ukraine losses major parts of territory and cannot recover from economic damage then next invasion is just a matter of time.
All will depend on whether the west is willing to build the country back-up and protect it or just uses it as a disposable instrument to punish Russia.

What do you think the West is going to do?

[Gorth]

3 hours ago, pmp10 said:

All will depend on whether the west is willing to build the country back-up and protect it or just uses it as a disposable instrument to punish Russia.

Based on precedent, the latter is the most likely outcome. Using Ukraine as a proxy to whittle down Russia's military strength while being busy taking notes from the first non-asymmetrical war in a life time (and check how well their expensive hardware and works in a real war situation). Then drop it faster than the Kurds, when the war is over and of no practical use.

 

Edit: Talking about government, not the people of those countries...

[Sarex]

29 minutes ago, Gorth said:

Edit: Talking about government, not the people of those countries...

Let's be honest now, it's the people too. Most people don't care at all about the Ukrainians. Just like how people were hyped for a couple of months about Hong Kong, simply because it was perceived as doing damage to China.

[pmp10]

4 hours ago, BruceVC said:

What do you think the West is going to do?

I'm sure they will help but are not about to provide upwards of 500 billion $ needed for complete reconstruction.
The security arrangements are more important anyway and these will depend on the shape of front-lines as fighting ends. 
Say Kherson's people republic is established and claims more of Ukrainian held territory - will the west really commit to a military intervention in case of a future invasion?
I have my doubts.

[Lexx]

1 hour ago, Gorth said:

Based on precedent, the latter is the most likely outcome. Using Ukraine as a proxy to whittle down Russia's military strength while being busy taking notes from the first non-asymmetrical war in a life time (and check how well their expensive hardware and works in a real war situation). Then drop it faster than the Kurds, when the war is over and of no practical use.

 

Edit: Talking about government, not the people of those countries...

Meh, I don't agree. IF ukraine can get access back to the oil fields and the offshore stuff (crimea), we will likely pump lots of money into the country to get access to those resources for cheap prices.

[BruceVC]

11 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

I'm sure they will help but are not about to provide upwards of 500 billion $ needed for complete reconstruction.
The security arrangements are more important anyway and these will depend on the shape of front-lines as fighting ends. 
Say Kherson's people republic is established and claims more of Ukrainian held territory - will the west really commit to a military intervention in case of a future invasion?
I have my doubts.

I tend to agree which is why I was saying we need an end to Putins War and then we can look at the reconstruction  costs and loan repayments

[BruceVC]

3 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Meh, I don't agree. IF ukraine can get access back to the oil fields and the offshore stuff (crimea), we will likely pump lots of money into the country to get access to those resources for cheap prices.

I agree but I would rephrase it differently, Western companies will get contracts to access the energy sources in Ukraine. This energy needs to be accessed so international investment is necessary and the Im sure all of us will agree that these energy tenders definitely arent going to Russian or Chinese companies 

[Malcador]

6 hours ago, Sarex said:

They can still win, it's just that the quick and easy victory is no longer possible, if it ever was. It all depends on how the Russian people feel about this war and how much they are willing to take.

I imagine it'll only get more unpopular. Western countries will run out of old gear to dump on them eventually, yes, but they can start training Ukrainian forces on their own gear.  So things look on the up there for Ukraine.  

 

6 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

As a side note, I find it curious to see the amount of cynicism on these forums and specifically on this thread. I think I am quite a bit older than many others here (could be wrong, of course), and I find this jadedness quite baffling. What kind of a life does anyone expect to live if their approach to other people / nations / history / etc. is as black as that? Very lonely at least, it seems to me.

That's extrapolating a hell of a lot from people's assumptions on how states and governments are run

[Sarex]

5 minutes ago, Malcador said:

I imagine it'll only get more unpopular. Western countries will run out of old gear to dump on them eventually, yes, but they can start training Ukrainian forces on their own gear.  So things look on the up there for Ukraine.  

You would be surprised, times of war make people extremely nationalistic. Also what would there be to gain from stopping the war now, the sanctions are not coming off either way. I think that the only thing that can make the Russian stop the war is if the casualties get very high or they decide to mobilize and the people are not willing to go, ie. it causes civil unrest. I don't know what is the public opinion in Russia on this war, so I can't say what will happen.

I very much doubt the west is willing to give anything that is of use to them, or would weaken their own military, also I think you underestimate the time needed to effectively train personnel for new systems.

[Malcador]

4 minutes ago, Sarex said:

You would be surprised, times of war make people extremely nationalistic. Also what would there be to gain from stopping the war now, the sanctions are not coming off either way. I think that the only thing that can make the Russian stop the war is if the casualties get very high or they decide to mobilize and the people are not willing to go, ie. it causes civil unrest. I don't know what is the public opinion in Russia on this war, so I can't say what will happen.

I very much doubt the west is willing to give anything that is of use to them, or would weaken their own military, also I think you underestimate the time needed to effectively train personnel for new systems.

No, I don't think I was underestimating the time, I don't think it's 6 weeks or something but it is relevant as we talk about this war dragging on.   Definitely will come from the US, only nation with stuff to spare (although won't stop people bitching that their country needs to disarm itself for aid).