Global Implications of the Ukraine Crisis

[213374U]

And the second part because the boards don't like the quote game (and neither do I).

 

 

The nuke is a defensive weapon which makes invasion infeasible because of MAD. There are no other status, prestige, or power gains to having nuclear weaponry. None. Nada. Zilch. So if you already have MAD, you don't need nukes. Now it would diminish your power if you truly were fundamentally incapable of constructing nuclear weaponry on your own, but the list of countries which could build nukes is far longer than the list of prospective "great powers", so no problem there.

"The nuke is a defensive weapon"? Again with the fallacies: "MAD is a nuclear strategy, therefore MAD is the only nuclear strategy". Nukes are as offensive as they are defensive, if not more. They are deployed as close to their targets as possible to reduce enemy reaction times and minimize the damage caused by the counterattack after a first strike. The reason why the missile shield initiative exists is because if completed it could give the US decisive first strike advantage over Russia, and this is because nukes are the offensive weapon. Nukes have only ever been used in an offensive way, against a country that had no retaliation capability. MAD is a possible outcome, but not necessarily the only outcome and not all nuclear scenarios are based on MAD.

 

And please, do elaborate on that list of prospective great powers and maybe we can actually talk about how feasible it would be for them to build a credible nuclear arsenal.

 

 

Now if they have MAD without having nuclear weapons, does nuclear weapons change their status as a great power? Answer: No. Thus it is theoretically possible for a great power to not have nuclear weapons, when it in reality functionally obviously makes no difference for their status, ESPECIALLY when they could construct nukes on a whim if they direly needed to.

Once again, circular logic. "X is a great power that doesn't have nuclear weapons. X therefore doesn't need nuclear weapons to be a great power because X is already a great power, without having needed nuclear weapons to become one". The obvious flaw is that you are still not giving a concrete definition of what makes a great power outside of GDP, and are not showing any evidence to back this point, instead expecting everyone to accept your assurances that you can buy credible force projection overnight.  

 

 

Well... Duh?

No, actually, this is where you are supposed to explain how a country with no previous domestic nuclear program, and no nuclear plants domestically built since the fall of the Soviet Union could develop a serious nuclear force element. Oh, right. The "buy nukes" button.

 

 

Your suggestion that Ukraine magically and forever lost the ability to train submarine crew "anymore" is... interesting.

Only that's not my suggestion, it's the Ukrainian navy's admission. Also I didn't say "forever", or magically. *THWEEEERP* Strawman alert.

 

http://navaltoday.com/2012/03/21/ukraine-navy-admits-disability-to-man-submarine/

 

Do some fact checking, at least.

 

 

Yes, because Japan and Germany clearly do not have the know-how and industrial potential to do it. Do you even think a second before you write stuff?

Er, Germany and Japan were already dealt with previously... in the same paragraph. Political commitments and public opinion are also to be considered when discussing whether it's feasible for a country to embark on a nuclear program.

 

 

Exactly. It's good that you are providing illustrations of my points in your post so that I don't have to do it. Although at this point I do wonder if you had the faintest idea about what my argument was to begin with.

Oh, I have a fairly good idea what your argument is. It's just that it's not a very good argument to begin with.

 

 

Why do you think the SU collapsed in the end? "Gajillions of dollars on paper" meant everything back then, specifically it meant the end for the SU as it imploded while trying to keep even pace with the US.

What the hell are you babbling about? The Soviet Union disintegrated in a political crisis in the wake of a failed hardline coup, not as a result of the economic crisis. The theory that Reagan outspent the Soviet Union to oblivion in the 1980's is just another of those economic history myths that refuses to die, but it's not really supported by facts.

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/politics/foreign/reagrus.htm

 

"facepalm" indeed.

 

 

Not only do I claim that Russia is not a very powerful because of economic reasons, I also claim that back in the days the SU were powerful because of these economic reasons. SU had the second largest GDP, which is to say the second largest production potential in the world, thus they were the second most powerful country.

Incredible way to miss the point, uncanny almost. I specifically made the comparison between the Soviet Union and the European members of NATO, excluding the US on purpose. That group of countries had a joint GDP of roughly 2.3x that of the Soviet Union. According to your GDP-means-power theory, Europe alone could have been more than enough of a counterweight for the Soviets, politically, militarily and especially economically. Only that doesn't reflect the historical reality of 1964 at all.

 

 

You should frequent Wikipedia more often and read more about history. It would do you good with a more learned perspective. Meanwhile, other forum members can collect especially outrageous and embarrassing posts to show for your future self.

You must be tired. Yeah, that must be it. It cannot possibly be that you missed the huge ass IF that made the whole sentence work as hypothetical and without me actually making a statement either way.

 

Or maybe it is exactly that, and it is in fact you who needs to read more, in general.

Edited April 19, 2014 by 213374U

[BruceVC]

 

I am interested why you feel the need for personal attacks against people who disagree with your point. I have raised this with you before around the unnecessary vitriolic nature of some of your comments. In all the time I have read comments from Tagaziel I don't think he has once made it personal. " Attack the argument, not the person"

 

I know its partly  a defensive mechanism and is caused by your own insecurities but you are a highly intelligent person and you don't need to debate on this devolved level. I would honestly think its below you.

 

Anyway I do enjoy your posts and comments, even though I disagree with lots of what you say, so please try to take what I'm saying constructively

 

I would suggest you don't waste your efforts trying so hard to get under my skin, but since that seems to be your sole reason for posting here, such advice is probably wasted. Bonus points for the "insecurities" remark, though that's pretty close to breaking character for you. You must be pretty butthurt that I (and others) unmasked you for the little cuddly, fluffy fascist troll you are to get so close to an actual direct personal attack.

 

But please, try to take what I'm saying constructively. :)

 

 

Sorry for the late response, I was away for Easter Friday. I should have left the insecurity part out of the post because that has undermined the message as now its seen as a personal attack which wasn't my intention. Anyway I have made my point, I am going to try very hard to only discuss the debate

[BruceVC]

Split up in 2 countries, as the people want (last I heard that was called 'democracy')

 

West wont force its points on the east, east wont force its poinsts on the West.

But I guess that's too easy, no?

 

EDIT:

In their infinite wisdom Kiev put up another ultimatum. Because they haven't been ridiculed enough for the previous ones. Also, with what army?

This is just getting pathetic...

 

So basically you are suggesting that a government should agree to any ideological separatist movement in its country and divide the country up? Do you realize what would be consequences to that if you look at the various political parties and organisations that exist in the world that disagree with the incumbent government?

 

The Ukrainian crisis is about the interference of Russia and its objective to break Ukraine up to achieve there buffer zone from the Western and EU aligned countries. Of course you can't allow this. Crimea is gone but the Ukrainian government can't and won't allow eastern Ukraine to follow the same route.

 

Also you are mocking the Ukraine government for setting ultimatums, would you prefer they just used loyalist troops and killed hundreds of fellow Ukrainians?

 

[Agiel]

 

Again, gross simplification and more citations needed. The idea that you just "buy more warheads" is laughable enough, but buying more factories? You cannot do that even in most grand strategy games—are you really suggesting that's a viable course of action IRL? Who is going to put those factories together? What machinery is going to be used to manufacture the tools? We are talking wartime, remember? In wartime trade just doesn't flow freely, demand for essential materials and skills is extreme and now your bloated, financialized make-believe economy can only readily produce paper money. But no matter, because you can keep mashing the "buy missiles" button and you'll win in the end! Right?

 

Also, it took the US from 1940 to 1942 to overtake the Soviet Union in tank production in WWII with an economy that was more than twice the size. But yeah, you can totally buy more military equipment in no time. If you are the single largest heavy industry-based economy in the world. And your production centers are safely away from the front lines. And you don't face material shortages. And...

 

 

That is to underestimate the contributions Lend Lease made towards the Soviet Union's industrial and warfighting capabilities in World War II. To be sure they had built more T-34s than the US made M4s, but this capacity was impossible without shipments of advanced machining tools and steel when they hastily moved production from Kharkiv to the Urals. Then there's the stuff the Soviets didn't make in great numbers: Radios, reconnaissance vehicles, personnel carriers, medical supplies, and trucks (the favoured chariot of the famous Katyusha rocket artillery launchers were American-made Studebakers), to say nothing of the P-39 Airacobras that ensured the Germans did not have total air supremacy after the Soviet Air Force had been decimated in the opening stages of Barbarossa, then there's aircraft carriers, submarines, long-range strategic bombers, and high altitude, long-endurance fighters. 

 

Could the Soviets still have won without all of that? Maybe, though I doubt they would have been the ones to raise a flag over the Reichstag.

[Tagaziel]

Rostere, in another universe, the Tagaziel is demanding your babies.

 

That is to underestimate the contributions Lend Lease made towards the Soviet Union's industrial and warfighting capabilities in World War II. To be sure they had built more T-34s than the US made M4s, but this capacity was impossible without shipments of advanced machining tools and steel when they hastily moved production from Kharkiv to the Urals. Then there's the stuff the Soviets didn't make in great numbers: Radios, reconnaissance vehicles, personnel carriers, medical supplies, and trucks (the favoured chariot of the famous Katyusha rocket artillery launchers were American-made Studebakers), to say nothing of the P-39 Airacobras that ensured the Germans did not have total air supremacy after the Soviet Air Force had been decimated in the opening stages of Barbarossa, then there's aircraft carriers, submarines, long-range strategic bombers, and high altitude, long-endurance fighters.

 

Could the Soviets still have won without all of that? Maybe, though I doubt they would have been the ones to raise a flag over the Reichstag.

I wouldn't overestimate the Lend-Lease program either. The Soviets didn't hastily move production to the Ural mountains, they methodically disassembled entire factories and moved them hundreds of kilometers inland. It was a massive logistical operation that saved much of their western industrial capacity and was done practically on their own. It wasn't just Kharkiv factories either, it was as many factories as they could safely transport. Those they couldn't just kept on churning out tanks and weapons, like the Stalingrad tank factories where T-34s rolled off the assembly line straight into combat in a proto-C&C fashion.

 

The Lend-Lease program provided a helpful safety margin that helped the Soviet Union mitigate its losses, but stating it was the primary factor in saving the Soviet Union is iffy. After all, the Allies didn't manage to open a western front in Europe until 1943 and 1944, and even then, they had trouble making progress despite facing just about one fourth of the German military potential, since three fourths were occupied just keeping the Soviet advance back.

 

Without the Lend-Lease, the Soviet Union could very well be pushed back and its counter offensives delayed, freeing up German units to counter allied incursions in western Europe... But unless the Reich somehow managed to prevent Soviet offensives, we'd still have the Soviets planting a flag above Reichstag. It was too monstrous a military and industrial power.

[BruceVC]

Rostere, in another universe, the Tagaziel is demanding your babies.

 

 

 

Yeah I agree, Ros makes some of the most rational, informed  and reasonable points on these forums

[Tagaziel]

Yeah I agree, Ros makes some of the most rational, informed  and reasonable points on these forums

Damn straight.

 

Also, since I now looked at the quoted bit, anyone who knows the first thing about the period would remember that the United States was beyond the Soviet Union in terms of military industrial output due to the fact that it was pursuing a neutral, borderline isolationist foreign policy with a small military and very low military production, while the Soviet Union was on a wartime footing for years, if not decades (since it was a belligerent state from its inception). The fact that the U.S. economy overtook them after just two years and simply shifting gears is pretty telling. If the U.S. was on a wartime footing from the beginning, well, their industrial capacity would be even more terrifying.

[Walsingham]

Building up a modern military force does take time, like ol' Numbers says. You can run a browning machine gun off an assembly line in 20 minutes. But training someone to use it effectively (not just make it go bang) takes time. You also need a logistic system to get it into the field and keep it working and fed with bullets. And the gunner with beans. And medical support. Then he has to know where he should be and someone deciding where that is. Radios, trucks, training, organisation, trust.

 

This is why I shudder at what is happening with the UK Forces. We've got a lot of expensive kit, and not enough expensive people to make the kit function.

 

Anyway, I'm not sure why we're debating teh nature of modern warfare since this isn't about modern warfare. It's about domestic Russian politics. 

[Sarex]

Sorry, but it's you who seem to be conflating 21st century warfare with the 20th century warfare. You're like a French officer in 1914 rambling about fencing and horsemanship skills gained in Africa. There hasn't been a significant war since WW2, but the technology has evolved exponentially. The next significant war will not be decided by methods of warfare that have been outdated for 50 years or more. The "experience" you talk of will be worth next to nothing, because there is really no "experience" that's been had recently which could be useful (the closest would perhaps be dogfights between American and export-model Soviet fighter jets during the Cold War) in preparation for 21st century warfare - nuclear warfare. The next real war will be decided by things such as this, this, this, and this. In order to win in that arena, you need technological edge and superior production capabilities in the build-up, the latter of which can be assumed has a maximum potential linearly dependent on GDP. If you don't have enough warheads, build more for your money. If you don't have enough factories, buy more factories. You'll have one nuclear sub today and 10 tomorrow. If things are suddenly looking grim, a rich, advanced country can buy military equipment in no time (US in WW2) when a country which constantly bets all the budget on a war tomorrow will find their economy lagging behind in the long run (SU in the Cold War).

 

You talk about conflating wartime and peacetime economies, but listen to this: the war has already begun. It's a war called "peace", and the war goal is to increase your wealth and productivity so you can better prepare for war later. There's not going to be a major war tomorrow. Using war capabilities to determine power in the world is therefore unrealistic. Of course, it's also not true that power is solely due to economy, but it is by far the best measure of power we have. Any realistic build-up to war would happen over several years. Especially in this nuclear age, things have to really go to hell before a real war occurs.

 

Secondly, "advanced foreign weapons systems", "buy expensive toys abroad". I never wrote that you should necessarily buy technology from abroad. Where does this assumption come from?

 

 

The next great war like any other will be resolved by the boots on the ground, like all the wars before it. I think you bought too much in to the American war propaganda or Discovery shows as they are called. You simply cannot win a war from the air. That has been shown time and time again in the 21st century wars conflicts.

 

Also you presume too much about the capabilities of either Russia or the US, people here seem to think that the whole war capabilities of a country can be found out on the internet. That is either precious or stupid, I can't decide yet.

[Tagaziel]

The next great war like any other will be resolved by the boots on the ground, like all the wars before it. I think you bought too much in to the American war propaganda or Discovery shows as they are called. You simply cannot win a war from the air. That has been shown time and time again in the 21st century wars conflicts.

Depends on your goals.

 

Also you presume too much about the capabilities of either Russia or the US, people here seem to think that the whole war capabilities of a country can be found out on the internet. That is either precious or stupid, I can't decide yet.

There's enough information to formulate an informed opinion. As Rostere points out, war potential is largely a function of the economy. You have to be able to pay for all the expensive toys your army has.

[BruceVC]

 

Sorry, but it's you who seem to be conflating 21st century warfare with the 20th century warfare. You're like a French officer in 1914 rambling about fencing and horsemanship skills gained in Africa. There hasn't been a significant war since WW2, but the technology has evolved exponentially. The next significant war will not be decided by methods of warfare that have been outdated for 50 years or more. The "experience" you talk of will be worth next to nothing, because there is really no "experience" that's been had recently which could be useful (the closest would perhaps be dogfights between American and export-model Soviet fighter jets during the Cold War) in preparation for 21st century warfare - nuclear warfare. The next real war will be decided by things such as this, this, this, and this. In order to win in that arena, you need technological edge and superior production capabilities in the build-up, the latter of which can be assumed has a maximum potential linearly dependent on GDP. If you don't have enough warheads, build more for your money. If you don't have enough factories, buy more factories. You'll have one nuclear sub today and 10 tomorrow. If things are suddenly looking grim, a rich, advanced country can buy military equipment in no time (US in WW2) when a country which constantly bets all the budget on a war tomorrow will find their economy lagging behind in the long run (SU in the Cold War).

 

You talk about conflating wartime and peacetime economies, but listen to this: the war has already begun. It's a war called "peace", and the war goal is to increase your wealth and productivity so you can better prepare for war later. There's not going to be a major war tomorrow. Using war capabilities to determine power in the world is therefore unrealistic. Of course, it's also not true that power is solely due to economy, but it is by far the best measure of power we have. Any realistic build-up to war would happen over several years. Especially in this nuclear age, things have to really go to hell before a real war occurs.

 

Secondly, "advanced foreign weapons systems", "buy expensive toys abroad". I never wrote that you should necessarily buy technology from abroad. Where does this assumption come from?

 

 

The next great war like any other will be resolved by the boots on the ground, like all the wars before it. I think you bought too much in to the American war propaganda or Discovery shows as they are called. You simply cannot win a war from the air. That has been shown time and time again in the 21st century wars conflicts.

 

Also you presume too much about the capabilities of either Russia or the US, people here seem to think that the whole war capabilities of a country can be found out on the internet. That is either precious or stupid, I can't decide yet.

 

 

Strange how did the West defeat Gaddafi? They used no boots on the ground and provided only air support.

[Malcador]

Yeah, wars are won by air forces alone.

[Sarex]

There's enough information to formulate an informed opinion. As Rostere points out, war potential is largely a function of the economy. You have to be able to pay for all the expensive toys your army has.

 

But then again there is not, production and R&D is much, much cheaper in Russia and resources are much more plentiful, it's not always down to economy.

 

Strange how did the West defeat Gaddafi? They used no boots on the ground and provided only air support.

 

But there were still boots on the ground, just not theirs.

[Zoraptor]

Yeah, could write a point by point but meh, it'd end in a pointless back and forwards, so I'll deal with only a couple of points only. Besides, what is or is not a great power is a peripheral issue anyway.

 

Why do you think the SU collapsed in the end?

 

While not directed at me this question illustrates perfectly why it isn't economy uber alles. The USSR did not collapse primarily due to economic factors, it collapsed because Gorbachev was a decent guy who took the lid off the pressure cooker and initially lacked the will and eventually lacked the power to deal with what came out.

 

If it had not been Gorby but had been Stalin, or even Putin, then the USSR would not have collapsed because they would have had the will and ability to hold it together whatever the economy. Personally I'm glad it was Gorby, and he bears no responsibility for the execrable incompetence of his successor- the worst leader of any major country in the past fifty years with daylight in places 2-10, a drunken incompetent sot fondly remembered in the west precisely because he ran his country into the ground. We probably wouldn't even have the mess in Ukraine if Boris had been competent, Kravchuk was happy enough for Crimea to go to Russia prior to the USSR's dissolution and Yeltsin said no.

 

2) The [uS] central banking system will not run amok and inflate your dollars

 

 

Really bro, that is exactly what they have been doing the past 5+ years because that is exactly what 'quantitative easing'- printing money- is. The US can get away with that to a greater extent than others because it is the reserve currency, but that is what they are doing. Try telling anyone with savings that their money has not been inflated away when they've been getting zero percent interest for five years.

 

Point is, the whole system on which western economics is based seized up when one bank went bust five years ago, and has not been fixed. It's a horrible, unbalanced system that currently favours lunatic bubble economics like buying properties in London with no intention of living in them or even renting them because other speculators push the price up 20% p/a, instead of the former lunatic economic bubbles of loaning money to people who have no hope of ever paying it back and relying on eternal property price increases to recoup the principal from a mortgagee sale- because both of those rely on mythical, eternal property price increases. Banks are still too big to fail, they just know now that they can take risks for profit, safe in the knowledge that Joe Taxpayer will bail them out. It's a classic pyramid scheme, and like all such things it will inevitably implode spectacularly at some point under its own weight.

[Tagaziel]

But then again there is not, production and R&D is much, much cheaper in Russia and resources are much more plentiful, it's not always down to economy.

Yes, it is. Economy is how you utilize what you have, Sarex, and what you do with what you create. Production and R&D may be cheaper, but that doesn't translate into a real edge without a lot of other factors that prevent Russia from being a leading technological innovator.

[BruceVC]

 

But then again there is not, production and R&D is much, much cheaper in Russia and resources are much more plentiful, it's not always down to economy.

Yes, it is. Economy is how you utilize what you have, Sarex, and what you do with what you create. Production and R&D may be cheaper, but that doesn't translate into a real edge without a lot of other factors that prevent Russia from being a leading technological innovator.

 

 

A very valid point, those are some of the economic challangers that face the South African economy.

 

We don't innovate anything, nothing. And we waste loads of money. The auditor general found $3 billion of wasteful or unaccountable expenditure last year in the various government departments and municipalities. That's money that should be spent on investments in basically transforming the more previously disadvantaged rural communities

[213374U]

That is to underestimate the contributions Lend Lease made towards the Soviet Union's industrial and warfighting capabilities in World War II. To be sure they had built more T-34s than the US made M4s, but this capacity was impossible without shipments of advanced machining tools and steel when they hastily moved production from Kharkiv to the Urals. Then there's the stuff the Soviets didn't make in great numbers: Radios, reconnaissance vehicles, personnel carriers, medical supplies, and trucks (the favoured chariot of the famous Katyusha rocket artillery launchers were American-made Studebakers), to say nothing of the P-39 Airacobras that ensured the Germans did not have total air supremacy after the Soviet Air Force had been decimated in the opening stages of Barbarossa, then there's aircraft carriers, submarines, long-range strategic bombers, and high altitude, long-endurance fighters. 

 

Could the Soviets still have won without all of that? Maybe, though I doubt they would have been the ones to raise a flag over the Reichstag.

Agreed.

 

But what I'm arguing is that you just don't kick your huge GDP into high gear with the flip of a switch. I've read that up to ~40% of the wheeled vehicles used by the Soviets were lend-lease. That's obviously nothing to scoff at. Lend-lease only started providing a substantial boost for the Soviets from 1942 on, while the decision to seriously prepare the US for war and seriously crank up production was made in 1940, when it was decided to increase the size of the USN. In addition, a non-trivial fraction of those US-manufactured tanks ended up in Soviet hands anyway via lend lease. American (and British) aid was very much a lifeline for the Soviet Union. I'm not sure how I'm underestimating anything, or how this goes contrary to what I said.

 

 

 

Anyway, I'm not sure why we're debating teh nature of modern warfare since this isn't about modern warfare. It's about domestic Russian politics.

Fair enough. Hopefully, the discussion of modern warfare will indeed be irrelevant and this won't escalate beyond a diplomatic clash. It's great fun to be an armchair general though, you won't deny that.

 

 

 

Also, since I now looked at the quoted bit, anyone who knows the first thing about the period would remember that the United States was beyond the Soviet Union in terms of military industrial output due to the fact that it was pursuing a neutral, borderline isolationist foreign policy with a small military and very low military production, while the Soviet Union was on a wartime footing for years, if not decades (since it was a belligerent state from its inception). The fact that the U.S. economy overtook them after just two years and simply shifting gears is pretty telling. If the U.S. was on a wartime footing from the beginning, well, their industrial capacity would be even more terrifying.

Yeah, that's pretty much it if you look at the bottom line, i.e. that the US vastly outproduced everyone. But nobody is disputing that. The fact remains that it was at least two years and a half before the American economic mobilization was complete because in 1942 Soviet and American tank production was roughly equal and the gear up had begun in Spring 1940. So in a war that lasted six years, it took the US two years and a half to overtake the Soviet Union, with an economy that was twice the size in 1939 (the gap only grows bigger in later years). Yeah, that totally proves the point that you can simply "buy more material in no time", so long as you don't face material and workforce shortages and provided that someone else on the other side of the ocean does the dying for you. Only it really doesn't.

[Hassat Hunter]

You think that just because an extremist clique which were prominent during the protests are represented in government, that means Russia must "punish" Ukraine.

You're reading me wrong. I said that it if the pro-Russian government is overthrown in favour for another party, it makes perfect sense that the Russians will undo all the bonusses and profits the pro-Russian government had. It's not so much punishing as just not giving the party that tries to eat from someone else's hand the same benefits you used to give the old party.

Just... standard politics. The EU and US are trying their best to 'punish', Russia just stopped offering gas at 50%. If you read no longer giving a discount to the invaders as punishing, well... then we're probably done here.

 

 

It doesn't work with nations and governments.

Indeed, as the war in Syria moving on besides sanctions, or Russia honing them away proves. Yet, to show their "power" they still demand more sanctions.

 

 

Thus, he wants to make things good for the Ukrainians, to show them his good intent.

Come on... read the part you quoted. It's all there! If he just gives the current government the same boni, it's THEM that will look good, not Russia. Just like how the EU thinks they are 'the bomb' spewing billions of Europeans money on Ukraine's black hole economy.

The giver is selfdom happy with others doing the giving for them, without reference or agreement that it's not their money they just give away.

 

It's politics. It harms the citizens? Yes, yes it does. I don't like it. We all don't like it. But that's the high-up game that's being played over people's head. And the best the inhabitants of Ukraine can hope for now is a proper victor and that it's over soon, since definitely life wont be easier till then.

You're not going to see me be happy that Ukrainians will lose so much more money on gas now. But from the high political level, it makes perfect sense.

 

It's an interesting view you hold on how Ukranians will view Russia if the EU drops the ball. I just don't believe it's anywhere remotely to what will happen.

 

So basically you are suggesting that a government should agree to any ideological separatist movement in its country and divide the country up? Do you realize what would be consequences to that if you look at the various political parties and organisations that exist in the world that disagree with the incumbent government?

Yup... beats civil war doesn't it? Ideological seperatist movement I wouldn't call it. West and East being majorly different and about equal in population is a little different from a small minority wanting something.

It needs to be looked at a basis-to-basis promise of course, but yes, I am of the opponion that suppressing major parts of the population just to hold true to 'borders' while making entirely new countries isn't exactly impossible. Actually, borders and countries change all the time.

Because time again and again, it seems just forcing 2 wildly distinct people to leave together only leads to violence. And since the US wants the same for Palenstina, why not here? Israel and West-Ukrain would still be allies.

But, yeah, I realise that this is a very idealistic attitude that has not a lot of chance to be utilised in the real world, especially the one filled with power politics.

The Ukrainian crisis is about the interference of Russia

I find it surprising how easy people can dismiss all the images of old woman and men protesting to the West. Russia must be filled with old people they just send over to Ukrain?

There's not a chance that people, like, want that? And not be part of Kiev's new regime?

But of course, I know you are under the impression that's impossible and really only Russia wants East-Ukrain and everyone in Ukraine is lookign forward to being subjegated under Kiev's new command. One that started by sending out the army on it's people too.

Crimea is gone but the Ukrainian government can't and won't allow eastern Ukraine to follow the same route.

And, exactly, why would that be? Since that would suck for the EU, seeing all their money pumped in a black hole just get more wasted than it already was?

Why is it so VITAL that East-Ukrain be subjegated, even under force? I can understand the 'don't want' but explain me the 'can't possible happen' part there...

Also you are mocking the Ukraine government for setting ultimatums, would you prefer they just used loyalist troops and killed hundreds of fellow Ukrainians?

Are you kidding me? If they had loyalist troops, they would have send them already. Kiev got NOTHING, nada. They are completely and utterly powerless. And they know it.

Their army doesn't support them. Heck, a lot of them even defected.

And yet they send out ultimatums. It's sad, so really really sad.

Edited April 19, 2014 by Hassat Hunter

[Sarex]

Yes, it is. Economy is how you utilize what you have, Sarex, and what you do with what you create. Production and R&D may be cheaper, but that doesn't translate into a real edge without a lot of other factors that prevent Russia from being a leading technological innovator.

 

Then let us not look at the blown up balloon that is the US economy and look at who really produces what? The fact is that the US has moved almost all of it's production overseas and is only just now beginning to show interest in moving it all back. The numbers you guys look up on wiki have so little to do with reality that it would almost be laughable, if more then half of the world wasn't dependent on that dollar. The US has built it's whole economy on the fact that they made sure that no one would call bull**** on it or they would bring down their own economy with it. I mean look at the Chinese even though they have money to burn, most of their federal reserves are in dollars so they don't dare do anything that would jeopardize that dollar.

 

But, and this is a big but, if world war broke out that dollar would not be worth more then the paper it was printed on and all that mattered would be what resources you have and what are your production capabilities. I don't think that the US would have capabilities for mass producing tanks and other weapons for years if all out war broke out. Their saving grace is that while their mass production capabilities are not really there, they do have massive stockpiles of weapons. But then the problem there is that most of those weapons are old. Which brings us back to, you can't win a war without boots on the ground.

Edited April 19, 2014 by Sarex

[Tagaziel]

Then let us not look at the blown up balloon that is the US economy and look at who really produces what? The fact is that the US has moved almost all of it's production overseas and is only just now beginning to show interest in moving it all back. The numbers you guys look up on wiki have so little to do with reality that it would almost be laughable, if more then half of the world wasn't dependent on that dollar. The US has built it's whole economy on the fact that they made sure that no one would call bull**** on it or they would bring down their own economy with it. I mean look at the Chinese even though they have money to burn, most of their federal reserves are in dollars so they don't dare do anything that would jeopardize that dollar.

 

But, and this is a big but, if world war broke out that dollar would not be worth more then the paper it was printed on and all that mattered would be what resources you have and what are your production capabilities. I don't think that the US would have capabilities for mass producing tanks and other weapons for years if all out war broke out. Their saving grace is that while their mass production capabilities are not really there, they do have massive stockpiles of weapons. But then the problem there is that most of those weapons are old. Which brings us back to, you can't win a war without boots on the ground.

You do realize that the United States has the second largest manufacturing industry in the world, right? Differing from China's by a small percentage? Christ, you're not even looking up concrete data, are you, Sarex? The U.S. has been consistently developing its sector for the past forty years.

 

The fact that some manufacturers have outsourced low complexity, cheap item manufacturing overseas doesn't mean that the U.S. has dismantled its manufacturing sector. As the statistics show, it did not. Neither did it dismantle its strategic military industries, such as tank plants, fighter assembly lines, shipyards, and other vital industrial centers.

[Valsuelm]

 

Then let us not look at the blown up balloon that is the US economy and look at who really produces what? The fact is that the US has moved almost all of it's production overseas and is only just now beginning to show interest in moving it all back. The numbers you guys look up on wiki have so little to do with reality that it would almost be laughable, if more then half of the world wasn't dependent on that dollar. The US has built it's whole economy on the fact that they made sure that no one would call bull**** on it or they would bring down their own economy with it. I mean look at the Chinese even though they have money to burn, most of their federal reserves are in dollars so they don't dare do anything that would jeopardize that dollar.

 

But, and this is a big but, if world war broke out that dollar would not be worth more then the paper it was printed on and all that mattered would be what resources you have and what are your production capabilities. I don't think that the US would have capabilities for mass producing tanks and other weapons for years if all out war broke out. Their saving grace is that while their mass production capabilities are not really there, they do have massive stockpiles of weapons. But then the problem there is that most of those weapons are old. Which brings us back to, you can't win a war without boots on the ground.

You do realize that the United States has the second largest manufacturing industry in the world, right? Differing from China's by a small percentage? Christ, you're not even looking up concrete data, are you, Sarex? The U.S. has been consistently developing its sector for the past forty years.

 

The fact that some manufacturers have outsourced low complexity, cheap item manufacturing overseas doesn't mean that the U.S. has dismantled its manufacturing sector. As the statistics show, it did not. Neither did it dismantle its strategic military industries, such as tank plants, fighter assembly lines, shipyards, and other vital industrial centers.

 

 

No.

 

That data is even less useful and factual than the unemployment data coming out of the US federal government.

 

The U.S. has been hemorrhaging it's industrial/manufacturing sector for the last few decades, mostly to China, but other places as well. I live here, and I'm very well traveled within the states. I've been through all lower 48, and all major cities repeatedly over the years for work (and some play) and I've witnessed first hand the damage done over time. I've seen factory after factory close all throughout the U.S. with few new ones being built, and just about anyone here who ever pays attention to where whatever it is they just bought is made can tell you that at this point very little of it is made in the US at local store X, whereas not so long ago that wasn't the case.

 

The World Bank numbers on most things is not to be trusted. It's a pretty evil entity, and is not even remotely an unbiased benevolent organization as is advertised. The numbers you cite however are even noted as being in accurate in their description, taking almost no pertinent factors into their calculation. These numbers you cite as well as many of their other numbers from the WB are generated to obfuscate the damage that the WB and those behind it do.

[Sarex]

You do realize that the United States has the second largest manufacturing industry in the world, right? Differing from China's by a small percentage? Christ, you're not even looking up concrete data, are you, Sarex? The U.S. has been consistently developing its sector for the past forty years.

 

The fact that some manufacturers have outsourced low complexity, cheap item manufacturing overseas doesn't mean that the U.S. has dismantled its manufacturing sector. As the statistics show, it did not. Neither did it dismantle its strategic military industries, such as tank plants, fighter assembly lines, shipyards, and other vital industrial centers.

 

I think you are mistaking assembly for manufacturing. As for military production yes they have facilities but do they have the numbers for mass producing to supplement war losses, that is what I doubt.

Edited April 19, 2014 by Sarex

[Tagaziel]

I think you are mistaking assembly for manufacturing. As for military production yes they have facilities but do they have the numbers for mass producing to supplement war losses, that is what I doubt.

Given that the United States has been at war for the past 13 years, you can see for yourself.

 

Also, Vals, I don't consider looking at things expertise, otherwise I'd be a ****ing mountain geologist. Nothing replaces hard numbers and those are quite in favour of the U.S. Of course, that requires doing some research.

[Sarex]

Given that the United States has been at war for the past 13 years, you can see for yourself.

 

Also, Vals, I don't consider looking at things expertise, otherwise I'd be a ****ing mountain geologist. Nothing replaces hard numbers and those are quite in favour of the U.S. Of course, that requires doing some research.

 

Heh, if you think that is war, well I have bad news for you. It's seems that you and I are not on the same page scale wise.

[Valsuelm]

Nothing the U.S. has done militarily since 1945 is even remotely comparable to what would need to be done if WW3 or war with any major power broke out. Just about all of the BS economic numbers would mean poop at that point. What would matter is current infrastructure, how fast could new be built, how many trained manufacturers you have in your populace, how fast you could train more, and your local resources.

 

And while WW3 will not be fought entirely the same as the previous WWs were, in the end (if we don't all nuke ourselves to bits with ICBMs) industry will still play a very large role, if not the largest in determining who is victorious. Right now, unlike in WW1 and WW2, the U.S. does *not* have a robust manufacturing base, nor is it out of reach of enemy action as it was in the first 2 WWs. The modern average worker is also skillless in regards to manufacturing, and so many other intangibles pertinent to survival in a war, which was not the case 70-100 years ago,. We do have resources aplenty though in our backyard.

 

Considering even most mainstream thinkers believe that China would be our enemy if WW3 broke out, the fact that we've pissed away our industrial base to the very nation that might one day fight us is downright insane. This wasn't done by accident though. There are some real evil MFers out there, and some of them run the world bank.

As things stand right now, in 2014, I don't like the odds at all for the U.S. if a major war breaks out, and the current trajectory for those odds is to get worse all the time as time goes on. In very real terms we have pulled our pants down around our ankles while we bomb the hell out of people in tents in deserts under the guise of freedom and democracy (*cough* *choke* *puke*) but the real unfurled banners of corporate imperialism that has no loyalty to any nation and is greatly endeared to communism/fascism loom large for anyone with their eyes open.