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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
It's a textbook Xanatos Gambit: no matter the outcome, Putin wins something.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.![]()
Yeah, it's Carson so this doesn't surprise me. The guy is barely connected to reality at the best of times.
"The fruit salad of your life" anyone?
There's one thing that convinced me Putin wasn't going to use nukes. Putin doesn't want destruction or war, he wants control. The use of nukes is antithecal to establishing control.
edited 14th Oct '16 5:25:40 AM by Zendervai
Putin is clever, but he'a also a gambling man. He's more or less betting everything on the EU collapsing before Russia does. Which is very possible, probable even, but not something you'd necessarily bet your nation on.
I doubt he'd be the first to strike, but playing atomic chicken is entirely in character.
edited 14th Oct '16 5:44:07 AM by CaptainCapsase
Not really. Dude knows exactly how far to push the envelope and knows exactly how to do all the proper posturing. He's an old KGB officer with decades of military and political experience.
He's not gonna genuinely try to nuke anything. Or even directly engage the West.
edited 14th Oct '16 5:45:41 AM by LeGarcon
Oh really when?Even pushing things as far as the Cold War carries massive risks; there were no fewer than a half dozen or so cases where nuclear war was averted For Want Of A Nail due to a mixture of paranoia, communication errors, and equipment malfunctions. Cold War tensions are unsustainable, and it': only a matter of time before something goes wrong if this state of affairs continues to escalate.
edited 14th Oct '16 5:55:12 AM by CaptainCapsase
Yeah and he and we were all there for that and know how far to go and how to do the whole brinkmanship dance.
Things are fine. With regards to nuclear fire/WW3 at least.
Oh really when?I'd beg to differ; for one even if Putin knows how far he can push things and doesn't intend to take any risks, he's getting old and the looming Succession Crisis in Russia could produce someone far less able to play the delicate game of modern geopolitics.
The same holds true for American leaders.
edited 14th Oct '16 6:02:51 AM by CaptainCapsase
The Trump campaign is withdrawing from Virginia to refocus on states like North Carolina. Apparently they gave the RNC and the state party little notice.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/13/politics/donald-trump-campaign-virginia/index.html
Milley's comments come during an election year in which voters will decide a new president and commander in chief — and a period of increased military activity of near-peer competitors, including Russia and China.
The Army has struggled to rebuild its readiness after more than a decade of extended combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The service has significantly cut the size of its force since the Cold War and decreased its modernization budget in the last decade, Milley said.
"While we focused on the counter-terrorist fight, other countries — Russia, Iran, China, North Korea — went to school on us," he said. "They studied our doctrine, our tactics, our equipment, our organization, our training, our leadership. And, in turn, they revised their own doctrines, and they are rapidly modernizing their military today to avoid our strengths in hopes of defeating us at some point in the future."
Milley also quoted a senior Russian official as saying publicly, "The established world order is undergoing a foundational shake-up" and that "Russia can now fight a conventional war in Europe and win."
The general warned that future warfare with a near-peer adversary will "be highly lethal, unlike anything our Army has experienced at least since World War II."
"Our formations will likely have to be small; we will have to move constantly," he said. "On the future battlefield, if you stay in one place for longer than two or three hours, you will be dead."
Despite the challenges, Milley said the Army will adapt to survive such a dangerous battlefield.
"It's a tall order for sure — to project power into contested theaters, fight in highly populated urban areas, to survive and win on intensely lethal and distributed battlefields and to create leaders and soldiers who can prevail. Tough? Yes. But impossible? Absolutely not," Milley said.
"Make no mistake about it, we can now and we will … retain the capability to rapidly deploy," he said, "and we will destroy any enemy anywhere, any time."
What's going on? I keep seeing quotes from his speech on Facebook. He's saying that an extremely deadly conflict with Russia is almost a certainty, and emphasizes the US's First Strike Capability.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.It's ultimately more saber rattling on all sides. "We" (in the sense that it's the US military) learn, they learn. It's been like that since all parties had a standing military and always will be.
And RussiaHmm being capable of fighting a land war in Europe and winning isn't really anything beyond business as usual as far as worst case scenarios are concerned, NATO only truly stood a fighting chance against WarPac forces only shortly before the fall of the Iron Curtain thanks to Assault Breaker. And a non-insignificant part of WarPac forces are now on NATO's side...
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiotI'll bet the isolationists (*ahem* anti-interventionists) are totally happy with the idea of withdrawing our military influence and letting Russia re-annex Western Europe.
In other news, A U.S. warship fired cruise missiles at Yemeni rebels yesterday in retaliation to an unsuccessful cruise missile attack by those rebels.
The rebels successfully attacked a United Arab Emirates warship last week. Meanwhile, Iran, which sides with the Houthi rebels (that lovely Sunni/Shi'ite thing again), has sent its own warships to the area. Here's hoping cool heads prevail.
edited 14th Oct '16 7:21:19 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Also, I don't know what "weak" means in this context... manpower? Ships? We have thousands of surplus tanks sitting in storage depots across America.
edited 14th Oct '16 7:20:23 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Ohh FFS you know you visit this place too much when you spell 'Troop' and auto correct comes up with 'Trope'.
a quick summary
TLDR in 2013 'the Army started falling behind in its efforts to recover from recent operations and prepare for the future, a challenge that will grow as necessary funding continues to be reduced.' which actually has been snowballing for a while now.
edited 14th Oct '16 7:27:45 AM by Memers
From 538: How Evan McMullin could win the presidency
by Doing Well But Not Perfect.
edited 14th Oct '16 7:30:01 AM by megarockman
The damned queen and the relentless knight.The more I think about the smear campaigns promoted by the Republican opportunism, right wing news channels and the Alt-Right malicious manipulation along Wikileaks neutral data releases against Clinton, the more I am sure they worked.
As much as I know that social medias are filled with stupid and uneducated people, even in circles that should have Hillary as a more positive figure, the belief that she is crooked beyond redemption still strong, regardless of all those "facts" about her being proven to be hoaxes, or the investigations and hearings concluding that she didn't do any real wrongdoing or that the things she has done over the years are simply a politician's work.
And it doesn't matter anymore because you can't correct anyone without being called SHILL or being asked How much is CTR paying you?.
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Even the worst predictions, that is without nuclear escalation, predict that a Russian onslaught in Western Europe would be stopped at Germany's border while the best ones has the Russians being at Warsaw, both because the Russian's would be overstretched and due to the logistical burden of pushing further into Europe. Concluding with the Nordics and Finland would also facing the Russians and the ex Soviet block countries being sent back to Russia's influence.
But I think any aggression war by Russia would be a pyrrhic victory for them, for whatever gains they had in the war wouldn't last for long until the problems caused by it to catch up.
edited 14th Oct '16 7:54:09 AM by AngelusNox
Inter arma enim silent legesThe US is still overwhelmingly powerful compared to the rest of the world. But, if it intends to remain that way, it's going to have to turn into an even more hypermilitaristic society than It already is. The alternative is picking and chosing it's battles rather than trying to be strong everywhere.
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"He who defends everywhere defends nowhere" , which I believe is from the art of war. The US is currently spread relatively thin, and while the sheer power of the American economy masks that, with less than 5% of the global population and a gradually diminishing share of the global economy, we can't realistically hope things will remain that way.

edited 14th Oct '16 1:58:23 AM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprised