"cazzyodo" (cazzyodo)
10/29/2015 at 14:27 • Filed to: None
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"cazzyodo" (cazzyodo)
10/29/2015 at 14:27 • Filed to: None | 0
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!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!
Image is from UK intercept last year.
I don’t know much about international interactions and military operations so I hope some of you (or Tyler) can chime in. All I know is Russia keeps flexing and pushing the boundaries a little more and I can’t help but wonder when the line is going to be crossed.
Either that or Putin has a note on his desk that reminds him to make Russia a headline at least once a week.
djmt1
> cazzyodo
10/29/2015 at 14:34 |
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Sometimes I wonder if Russia just does this because they are butthurt that nobody will play war games but then again when you’re even inviting China to play, I’d be butthurt too.
Leon711
> cazzyodo
10/29/2015 at 14:41 |
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Eh. I like to think of these as Russia testing the reactions of various nations in order to keep tabs on potential adversaries. You kinda have to respond to show you are aware they are there. Russia will never do anything like attack a NATO Military asset intentionally. The threat of retaliation is enough.
It is often thought by the US public that Europe can’t defend itself again’t Russia, it may be true of countries like Romania and Latvia but the stronger players like the UK and France would certainly give them a hard time before the inevitable US involvement, that’s what NATO is for.
ttyymmnn
> cazzyodo
10/29/2015 at 14:42 |
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The wounded bear is the most dangerous. Russia has been suffering from a decline in world hegemony in the last few years, and Putin needs to maintain the appearance of strength among the Russian public. Hence all the saber rattling. And his actions in Syria help to prop up an old ally in Assad and also help protect Russia’s only naval base in the Mediterranean Sea. Which is also why he invaded Crimea, to maintain naval access to the Black Sea. As more former Eastern Bloc nations turn to the West and join NATO, Russia is in danger of grtting cut off from their access to the sea. That’s a part of what precipitated the whole Ukraine fiasco that is still ongoing. My fear is that as Russia keeps pushing outward, there will be an accidental — or non accidental — encounter between NATO and Russia, particularly in the skies over Syria, where both our warplanes operate daily, and fully armed. And the U.S. is really in a tight spot, because there’s really little we can do about it without starting a shooting war. The sanctions against Russia after their Ukraine invasion (which the Russians have never really admitted to) have been working, and Russia is feeling the pinch. All the territory Russia carved out for their own lebensraum after WWII is turning back to the West, and the Russians are scared.
Mr. Ontop, No Strokes, No Smokes...Goes Fast.
> cazzyodo
10/29/2015 at 14:42 |
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Ah, Russia being th “bad guys” again. Takes me back to childhood in the 70’s when we were sure it would all end in a never ending nuclear winter....memories....The good news is James Bond movies will start to be good again.
Svend
> cazzyodo
10/29/2015 at 14:44 |
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It’s a game of cat and mouse. The cat is on a leash and the mouse (the ruskies), as along as it stays out of the radius of the leash, all is okay.
If however the mouse wonders into the radius of the leash the cat is wondering whether to attack, if it attacks it kills the mouse but it may lead to more mice and cats.
The Ruskies are buzzing the air defences. They arrive at different points at different times on different days and time how fast other responds, what with and from what direction.
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cazzyodo
> djmt1
10/29/2015 at 14:45 |
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cazzyodo
> ttyymmnn
10/29/2015 at 14:48 |
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Without the same insight or detail as you provided I had similar thoughts. They’re basically becoming more and more left out, are having trouble maintaining appearances and can’t let up on the Russian pride (for lack of a better term).
I’m with you on the potential conflict because that is where my concern lies. I’ve read about how sanctions are working, as well, but no matter what it just takes one incident to ignite a fire.
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cazzyodo
> Mr. Ontop, No Strokes, No Smokes...Goes Fast.
10/29/2015 at 14:49 |
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Best ones...I miss those.
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cazzyodo
> Leon711
10/29/2015 at 14:50 |
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It’d be dumb to do anything for sure. It’s just, in my mind, constant efforts to remain relevant. Not even testing reactions but more of a “Look at me!! Look at me!!” kind of thing.
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Svend
> Leon711
10/29/2015 at 14:52 |
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Ye’, were (U.K. and Europe) always seen as the guys and gals who can’t defend ourselves. We can and we shall if need be.
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ttyymmnn
> cazzyodo
10/29/2015 at 14:54 |
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Exactly. During the Cold War, at least towards the end of it in the ‘80s, I think everybody understood how the game was played and nobody really expected anything to come of it. But that was before the Wall came down. Now that the Wall is gone, the Russians are losing their buffer states one by one. I think the Ukrainian resistance screwed up when they ousted the Russian-backed president (or else it was a shrewd move by Putin to make it look that way). That gave him a (flimsy at best) excuse to move into eastern Ukraine “to protect native Russian people living there.” The old KGB man is very cagey, and pretty damned shrewd, and knows exactly what he can get away with. I think he’s also sowing dissent among the NATO nations, and very effectively at that, to try to get NATO to disband. I don’t think it will come to that, but it’s always best to have your enemies squabbling amongst themselves. If this shit all blows up, it will likely be in Syria or Turkey. And then the big winners will be ISIS, the ones we really should ALL be fighting against.
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cazzyodo
> ttyymmnn
10/29/2015 at 15:03 |
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300% agree on your ending point.
Hell, Putin is definitely sewing the seeds of dissonance in the Eastern European countries and NATO. He knows exactly what he’s doing and it’s pretty obvious what he can and cannot do (and how everyone will react).
It just takes one fuck up, though.
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Leon711
> cazzyodo
10/29/2015 at 15:07 |
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Each these missions costs lots of money and put lots of hours on old airframes. They are running themselves into the ground. Oil and Gas is still cheap and it hurts them every day.
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ttyymmnn
> Mr. Ontop, No Strokes, No Smokes...Goes Fast.
10/29/2015 at 15:20 |
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I miss the Cold War. At least you knew who your enemy was. And even though I lived in Norfolk, VA, home of the world’s largest naval base and Ground Zero for any tactical strike on the US, I don’t think (at least in the ‘80s) that anybody really thought it would come to that. NATO and the Russians played their cat and mouse games, we had our proxy wars, and that’s all it ever came to. This is different, though. Russia is not the power that they once were, and the US and NATO have only grown stronger, though our strength is not always used where it is needed and in the best way. Russia has NATO squabbling, the Syrian refugee crisis is putting gargantuan amounts of pressure on Europe (a situation the Russians are more than happy to exacerbate), and we are all flying around Syria fully armed and with completely separate agendas. Putin does lip service to fighting ISIS, but he’s really going after the Syrian rebels, and the US has already stopped supplying them for fear of upsetting the Russians (presumably). Despite the age and seeming decrepitude of much of Russia’s armed forces, Putin pretty much has carte blanche right now to do as he will because he knows NATO is powerless to do anything about it. But to take the entirely pragmatic view of the situation, he’s only doing what the US and NATO have been doing for years: whatever the hell we want, the UN be damned. Then again, who thought it was a good idea to create a world governing body where one nation could veto something over all the others?
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ttyymmnn
> cazzyodo
10/29/2015 at 15:20 |
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BBC Russia, as opposed to BBC America.
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cazzyodo
> ttyymmnn
10/29/2015 at 15:45 |
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In Soviet Russia, television watch you!
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cazzyodo
> Leon711
10/29/2015 at 15:46 |
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I was also thinking that beyond wear on vehicles there is the diversion of funds from their stellar infrastructure.
M54B30
> cazzyodo
10/29/2015 at 15:59 |
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Sigh, you used to be so good Jim. What happened?
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Leon711
> cazzyodo
10/29/2015 at 16:00 |
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I’m worried about their high quality highways between Moscow and Siberia.
davedave1111
> cazzyodo
10/29/2015 at 16:01 |
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Russia’s completely fucked these days, thanks to Putin being an unbelievably useless cunt. He’s posturing desperately, mainly for domestic consumption: he’d be out of power in an instant if his supporters understood that under his regime Russia has gone from being a superpower of sorts to an insignificant nation in military terms.
Aside from that, Putin’s desperately trying to flog the Russian military’s equipment, but the problem is that it’s almost all massively obsolete. (Despite Tyler’s constant carping, the F35 is two generations ahead of any Russian plane that’s not vapourware.) So going into Syria is basically a sales demonstration for despots.
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davedave1111
> Leon711
10/29/2015 at 16:04 |
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“stronger players like the UK and France would certainly give them a hard time”
No, the French would surrender. But Germany and the UK combined could win a war against Russia, let alone the whole EU, let alone the whole of NATO. Realistically, if Putin started a war, the US could destroy the entire Russian military inside a week. Undoubtedly take some losses doing so, but at the end there’d be nothing left but this kind of thing:
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davedave1111
> ttyymmnn
10/29/2015 at 16:06 |
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Putin’s not stupid . He has no intention whatsoever of starting a real war, because he knows Russia would lose very quickly and he’d be out on his arse. As you rightly point out, he’s posturing for domestic consumption. The last thing he wants is for his supporters to realise Russian military power is actually almost nonexistent these days.
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davedave1111
> ttyymmnn
10/29/2015 at 16:08 |
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“Then again, who thought it was a good idea to create a world governing body”
No-one. That’s why the UN is no such thing. Absurd as much of it seems, really its sole purpose is to provide a venue where enemies can communicate even during a war.
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Leon711
> davedave1111
10/29/2015 at 16:09 |
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Let’s not downplay France here, they are arguably stronger than we are with more equipment, this ain’t 1939.
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davedave1111
> Leon711
10/29/2015 at 16:12 |
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I was kidding about France. Mostly. Doesn’t matter one way or the other if they get involved, though. I’d have to check the numbers, but I think the remaining EU nations could probably take Russia on without the UK, Germany, or France.
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ttyymmnn
> davedave1111
10/29/2015 at 16:12 |
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That makes good sense.
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Leon711
> davedave1111
10/29/2015 at 16:19 |
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The only thing that makes Russia scary is Nuclear weapons, and what gives me the Heebie Jeebies the most is Dead Hand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand…
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davedave1111
> ttyymmnn
10/29/2015 at 16:30 |
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Yeah, it’s all much more explainable when you look at how and why the League of Nations failed.
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davedave1111
> Leon711
10/29/2015 at 16:44 |
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The chance that Russia has more than a handful of nuclear weapons left (at most) is slim. Fortunately. It’s unlikely they could effectively launch at any major nation, although I wouldn’t like to be in Poland if shit kicks off unexpectedly.
user314
> cazzyodo
10/29/2015 at 20:47 |
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Wait, six hours later and no one has posted this?
Oppo, I am disappoint.