Hello everybody! Got up today, and realised that the weather in this part of Europe (roughly: the joint of borders between Austria, Hungary, and Slovenia) feels like it’s already mid-July… In German, we call this the ‘Kochtopfwetter’: stands for something like ‘weather inside a cooking pot’. See: 30°C+ and humidity is at more than 95%.... (yes, you can literally collect the moist from walls)…
Oh yes, you can. You will find hundreds of decent restaurants in such a wide range at an area which has quite a nice tourism sector. Here is one with greek food: http://grecja.pl/olsztyn/ But they have much better local food in the area in my opinion.
In 200km you have a place called Wilno/Vilnius and this may mean you should not go there for a while after your statement. Somebody may track you down. ;) :)
The simplest solution to the issue of the Suwałki Gap is to hold a referendum on joining the EU by the Kaliningrad District... sorry, the Kaliningrad's People Republic! It might even not have to be a sham one, they enjoy their shopping in Poland.
I don't think you can say people in Poland reacted with mass hysteria about some specific plan of invasion into Suwałki Gap - we assumed this is a possibility for years now.
Yes, our politicians overreact a bit and are prone to use military sending as populist tool to keep power sometimes stupidly
2022 proved that russia being unable to succeed doesn't mean it won't try and also that defense in depth equal torture chambers so PL will definitely choose to err on the side of being overprepared - just in case of unlikely scenario of China supporting russia materially to create distraction before Taiwan some day in future
doesn't mean he won't especially if it will be the only way to keep power in russia.
russian internal propaganda is already in full "hate the pshek" mode
No one knows the future. The better PL is prepared, the smaller the chance russia will attack, but we have no idea where is the optimum position for a slider "lower expenses, higher risk"/"higher expenses, lower risk" and it is quite possible PL overreacts, but it is easier not to overreact if this is "their" life at risk, not "ours".
Although I agree that probably sending money and weapons to Ukraine is better investment (at least short term) in PL security than building bunkers
....certainly better than letting 'armoured brigades' of the Polish Army train while driving trucks - because all the 'South Korean-made' MBTs haven't been manufactured.
....or deploying troops of armoured brigades to protect the border to Belarus...
Main problem of polish ground forces is not the lack of tanks but the lack of modern IFV.
I think in general you oversimplified the issue of polish rearmament programme.
First, the fact that PAF badly needed generational modernization in many areas was well known before full scale invasion. Many programs were started before the war and are on track like: layered air defense, F-35, Borsuk IFV, frigates, Abrams and so on.
Second, the other factor that speed up the process was the fact that a lot of soviet legacy equipment was send to Ukraine. The idea that this money could have been spend directly on getting equipment for Ukraine quickly is not exactly practical. SK is probably the only county that delivers modern equipment fast and it doesnt look like it want to deliver to Ukraine. The problem of the West is not the lack of money but the lack of industrial capacity. In a word delivering hundreds of polish tanks, howitzers and IFV was possible because of this rearmament programm.
Third, there are two problems with Korean contracts: credits and the involvement of Polish MIC, but to say that modernization is "heading exactly nowhere" is premature and exaggeration. Korean programs: K2, K9, Fa 50 and Chunmoo make less than 1/4 or 1/5 (depends on time perspective) of all costs of polish rearmament program. So even if any more K2 or K9 will not be delivered – which I highly doubt – most of the critical equipment will be in PAF by 2030.
"what's the use of equipment becoming available in 2030"
Thats the way modern MIC works. Nobody has 1200 modern MBTs on the shelf "right now". The ones that were "on the shelf" in Poland were already given to Ukraine. Poland was able to give more tanks to Ukraine than all other countries combined in first year of war. For a pity we are not able to produce MBTs faster than SK anymore. K2 were meant to replace the tanks that we sent and will send to Ukraine in the future. There is no faster way of delivering polish equipment to Ukraine.
"but how much in total combat capacity"
I'm not sure what are you trying to say. How one compares combat capacity of layered air defense system with 16 tank battalions? Without K2 we will still have around 800 fairly modern MBTs. Without K9 we can still build enough Krabs but it will probably take longer. But I seriously doubt that Korean contracts will end in fiasco and Im not a fan of previous government and their hysterical approach to military modernization
I don't think we can assume that Putin has to win militarily in the traditional sense in order to achieve what he perceives to be his medium-term goals, such as driving wedges into NATO and Europe generally.
Local government (Latvia) stated expenses for railbaltica will be few times higher, maybe they will try to get other funding (nato related to this) , dunno
Usually this happens with most megaprojects: these are promoted at unrealistically low costs, until the contracts are signed, then the actual costs surface (example: the Channel tunnel, which was supposed to cost nothing to voters...)
That said, the Rail Baltica is a political project, not a commercial project
While all out nuclear could make most of western and central Europe unhabitable, extinction of mankind is not an idea to be taken seriously, a lot of humans would survive. Radiation contamination would on global scale be very localized. Wind energy would still be plentiful, so global cooling and low photosynthesis could be handled at least in some parts of the globe.
Depends how it goes down. If we get a strategic exchange and a firestorm in the forests of Europe and Eurasia, that'll be enough radioactive smoke to circle the globe a few times. Northern Hemisphere will be pretty well contaminated and we will get a year without a summer. Will some humans survive? Sure. But will human civilization? Not sure. Keep in mind that the worst of the contamination will happen in what is currently the bread basket for the world (US, Ukraine, Russia). Without that food, you will see social collapse across the poor nations, even ones that are spared contamination.
Won't be dense enough nuke strikes on forested areas to cause that kind of firestorm. It's the gunk that goes into the atmosphere from burning cities which does that.
In reality, nobody is going to target cities because there's not much point when your own will burn too. Max level exchange you'll ever see is each side trying to wipe out the other's ICBM silos. That's a few thousand warheads turning vast chunks of the US Midwest and Siberia into contaminated wastelands, but not the end of organized society.
Nuclear weapons force leaders to risk their own skins. They hate that. So they'll always stop short of total atomic annihilation. Though in theory they could get into a game of swapping cities... that's what you worry about with India and Pakistan. Few dozen cities burn, and it's bye-bye half of global food production for up to a decade.
Peter, we're on the best way of exterminating ourselves through mishandling the nature and pollution alone.: through converting the biosphere offered by this planet into uninhabitable for the human species.
Thus, actually: no nukes necessary... nor discussions about how much of humanity would survive if NATO and Russia exterminate each other.
There are many variables in the studies so extreme caution in reaching conclusions would be wise. How many nukes are actually used? 500 or 5,000? How many cities on fire? 100 or 1,000? How many wildfires as a result? Far too many variables that any expert could conclude that they know what would happen. One thing we know. All of the outcomes are beyond horrific not just for humanity but for all living things on the Earth. Someone once said "We have become death." Let's hope that maniacs in power like Putin, or someone even worse, will never commit suicide by nuke and take us all down with him. It is the greatest challenge the world faces, far greater than climate change. Wake up?
On that topic I would like to mention one thing that seems maybe obvious for some, but not for all.
The whole ru system led by pu, works along the principles of gang. And one of the important concepts for the gang operation is "naezd". Namely it is choosing a victim, creating an unexpected trouble for the victim, that is escalating, but also using hints of much worse things coming. In other words instilling and managing fear of the victim. And then while victim can not think straight, it is important to strike a deal, by proposing way to 'solve' the situation. And then rinse and repeat.
For this approach the faster 'naezd' is working out the better. But there is always a period of pumping fears before it.
So if West wants to deal with that, they will need to learn that tactics. The idea is to create panic.
For example, totally imaginary, if Trump wants quickly to finish this war, what about slowly bringing a few carrier groups towards Baltics, and do that without any hiding. Then do nothing for sometime, and then simply destroy overnight all air defence targets around ru capital with Tomahawks, while also taking control of Kaliningrad military facilities including nuclear, because they threaten NATO. And then offer a deal.
In other words what is being done now is nowhere near considers that psychology.
For example, maybe, in pu eyes, no matter how many lives or equipment lost, it is important to gain something. Okay, ground corridor to Crimea, clear. And now why Donetsk region, maybe that is all about those alleged 10 trillion of cubic meters of gas under Slovyansk agglomeration?
Then, maybe, the really toughest loss would be those 300 billion of funds blocked, confiscating those could be quite a hit.
I guess you really want to find out the answer to the question of "how many of those RF nukes still work" lol.
Seriously, though, there won't be direct strikes by US or NATO on Russian territory unless we have gone so far up the escalation ladder that a nuclear exchange seems like a pretty good idea. And that would only happen if US/NATO are facing a truly existential situation.
This is absolutely wrong idea of the whole approach. They would never use nuke in response. Just because they want to control the situation. And that could get out of hand, plus they want all physically be alive and rich.
Though on the opposite, they may go for a limited use of nuke, to escalate and get a deal. Limited, because they want to ensure that West would not know how to respond, full force, half force, quarter force.
That is the whole approach, you initiate a challenge and while victim is dealing with that challenge you initiate another one.
Agreed. Except for the little issue that the idea of limited nuclear exchange is a low probability possibility, bc once nukes fly and strategic assets start getting destroyed, it is very difficult to get off the escalation ladder, even if the leaders want to. At least that's how most wargames and studies tend to go.
Hence, not worth rolling the dice with that level of confrontation unless we are already in an existential situation.
Example of indirect limited escalation would be a high altitude 500+ km nuclear ‘test’ of magnitude significant to destroy or damage most LEO satellites. It is quite difficult to respond to that proportionallly.
Or just conduct a blast inside the atmosphere high over Kyiv. Low enough to avoid knocking out satellites, but still high enough to cause no ground damage besides broken windows. Even a "strategic" 1 megaton warhead set off far enough from the ground can minimize the physical damage enough to make effective retaliation extremely difficult to program.
The best response is likely a lesser reply in-kind, like NATO setting off a warhead in sight of Sevastopol. Worst response will be to overreact and start bombing orc units, as much as I'd love to see them go down. Too easy for Putin to panic and think a full-on disarming strike is inbound...
The US has already stated that the response to any nukes will be the destruction of the Black Sea Fleet and bombing of RF targets within Ukrainian borders of 1991. At that point, Pu will have no choice but to escalate further bc his regime and he personally won't survive if he lets US bomb "Russian territory". And here we go, six or seven more steps and we get a strategic exchange.
It's not clear he would be hold the power to make these decisions at that point. And that is one reason he would steer things away from this scenario before it happens, which is why it's an effective threat and works as deterrence.
Wargames and studies also predicted the swift fall of Kyiv. Most, at least in the English-speaking world, fail to incorporate truly realistic cybernetic communication links or adaptive cognitive loops.
Everyone pretends that nukes are special, but they only raise the stakes for leaders. Someone will try using them sooner or later.
The suwalki corridor is so stupid. It's possibly the dumbest thing being constantly repeated for years. Anyone talking about that as a real threat, should be mercilessly beaten up with a rolled up, topographic map of the area. It's hard to imagine a worse place to conduct any military operations.
Focusing on the least probable and easiest to deal with scenario, is the definition of incompetent resource management. I can think of a 1000 scenarios that will not happen but could.
Excellent. Thank you so much. As to your reputation as a party crasher, remember : Ist der Ruf erst ruiniert, lebt es sich recht ungeniert . ("Once the reputation is ruined, you can live completely free").
More silly season claims that the US will allow American contractors to work in Ukraine which is claimed will speed up repairs of war damaged military equipment.
It would be more useful as pysochological pressure if they turned loose the mercenary firm Blackwater who at one time boasted they could field 100,000, probably those days are gone.
I still have that WWIII book about the Russians coming through the Fields Gap and being stopped by helicopters popping up from behind hills and firing Lazer guided missiles and then dropping back down behind the hills.
More recently I found out that my German grandmother was from Erfurt a bit east of Fulda.
You want a climate refuge, come to the Pacific Northwest. 30C and 90% humidity is quite pleasant when the coastal breeze kicks in. The wildfire risk is greatly over-stated... at least west of the Cascade range. Our smoke mostly heads east ;)
Some of the region is even in Canada. Until the rest gets wise and joins...
In any case, 100% concur that Moscow has proven a complete inability to conduct effective operations. I wouldn't rule out a scenario where a brigade moves about half a klick into a Baltic State then digs in, though. Or Putin skips the cumbersome process for using tactical nukes and has Gerasimov plus the guy who replaced Shoigu authorize setting off a strategic one high over Ukraine.
There's a whole lot of salami left to slice before we get anywhere near ground bursts or a broader exchange. When you insist that WW3 = nuclear holocaust, the game of chicken can go on for a very long time until someone's bluff is finally called.
It's mainly for the show and getting the politicians' points from the right-wing / "conservative" electorate for the image of "tough sheriffs" and nationalistic slogans ;)
Proper procedures would defuse the problem, but our current government is as keen to do nothing but put some not-working fences and allow soldiers to shoot some people (other soldiers included, as was almost the case ;) ) as they need constant "threats" to divert the attention from quite a large number of unfulfilled election promises. Our previous government was not keen to do anything with a minimum of sense about it because they needed to portray themselves as "defenders of Poland" before the election ;)
The activities so far and ideas presented range from stupid to absurd, but at the moment, our government is very keen to accept any russian propaganda about invasion.
"Like, ‘is Israel, which obviously does not need them, going to deliver its 8-10 stored Patriot SAM-batteries (and giant stocks of related ammunition, i.e. surface-to-air missiles) to Ukraine?’" why wouldnt that happen?
It is the Middle East so there are all sorts of hidden and obscure politics to support Israel's long stance of not sending them to Ukraine.
The obvious compromise is for the US to add them to their stores and send the same number from their stores to Ukraine, it would add around ten thousand miles to the delivery but so what.
The best route would be to fly them over the Med direct from Israel and then over NATO countries to a suitable distribution point for Ukraine.
The Israeli's were less then impressed with the Patriots so built their own solution which is why they are available, logically the Israelis should care less where they finish up but it is the Middle East-.
Just for example: alone for reasons related to ideology. Biby is Pudding's buddy and a business-partner. The last decade (+) he's spent saving different of FSB-controlled Russian mafia-bosses through granting them Israeli citizenship, too. Ideologically, he's also much closer to Pudding than to any kind of 'Western liberal democracy'. Therefore, it's not the least in his interest to help 'save' any kind of a pluralist society in Ukraine (just like it was in Israel's interest to 'lightly collaborate' with gangs like Nusra, IS, and other extremists - but not with original Syrian insurgency against Assad: because Israel has fundamental interest in keeping Syria under the control of a blood-thirsty dictator.)
Actually, his primary interest is keeping Israel embroiled in whatever kind of war, so he can continue crying to the West, 'Israel is in mortal danger' and thus collecting economic- and military aid, while remaining in power in Israel. Even more so because he knows, better than anybody else: the moment the 'current' war is over, his times as the prime minister of Israel are over, too.
Finally: Israel simply has no history of selling or returning its 'stored arms'. Especially not US-arms donated to it over the time. Nor a history of being anything like 'Western ally': Israel can't care less about Western interests. And Netanyahu has no history of listening to any Western politicians either.
30C and 95%???? That ain't NOTHING here in Texas, USA. Today it is going to hit 38.3C and 60%+ We are wearing SCUBA gear to go to the store!!! Enjoy the cool weather! Love your reports!
'But... but... that's Texas... the norm there...' ;-)
(Thinking of it, actually: it's Teksas. Because it belongs to Austria... we've given up on it because the place is too hot for our cool Austrian souls... ;-P ...)
Well, this time of year we always wonder why Willis Carrier never received a retroactive NOBEL PRIZE for inventing the air conditioner!!!! Consider how civilization would be different without it!!!!
Eee…both?
Technically speaking, that’s „Suwalki corridor”, not Suvlaki. I doubt you can find decent Greek food within 200 km from Suwalki🤣
Pity. Suvlaki is really good stuff in this hot and humid weather.
But, thanks: think to have corrected this now. ;-)
It's identical to Russian шашлыки https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A8%D0%B0%D1%88%D0%BB%D1%8B%D0%BA
Thus I am afraid all those news make much more sense now.
I would leave it suvlaki… so the “silly” season is a little bit more “peppered” and tasteful :-) .
Btw in cz/sk the “silly season “ is called “cucumber season. Just because nothing happens except for the cucumbers which grow:-)
I was just thinking that "Suvlaki corridor" would make a nice name for a Greek restaurant :)
A Suvlaki Corridor refers to any thoroughfare containing a high concentration of Greek eateries
Oh yes, you can. You will find hundreds of decent restaurants in such a wide range at an area which has quite a nice tourism sector. Here is one with greek food: http://grecja.pl/olsztyn/ But they have much better local food in the area in my opinion.
In 200km you have a place called Wilno/Vilnius and this may mean you should not go there for a while after your statement. Somebody may track you down. ;) :)
Sorry if this is a spam.
You can find good restaurants in Augustów.
The simplest solution to the issue of the Suwałki Gap is to hold a referendum on joining the EU by the Kaliningrad District... sorry, the Kaliningrad's People Republic! It might even not have to be a sham one, they enjoy their shopping in Poland.
I don't think you can say people in Poland reacted with mass hysteria about some specific plan of invasion into Suwałki Gap - we assumed this is a possibility for years now.
Yes, our politicians overreact a bit and are prone to use military sending as populist tool to keep power sometimes stupidly
2022 proved that russia being unable to succeed doesn't mean it won't try and also that defense in depth equal torture chambers so PL will definitely choose to err on the side of being overprepared - just in case of unlikely scenario of China supporting russia materially to create distraction before Taiwan some day in future
Strategic miscalculations 'do happen'. No doubt. Especially in the West.
Shouldn't mean Pudding must make another one, though.
doesn't mean he won't especially if it will be the only way to keep power in russia.
russian internal propaganda is already in full "hate the pshek" mode
No one knows the future. The better PL is prepared, the smaller the chance russia will attack, but we have no idea where is the optimum position for a slider "lower expenses, higher risk"/"higher expenses, lower risk" and it is quite possible PL overreacts, but it is easier not to overreact if this is "their" life at risk, not "ours".
Although I agree that probably sending money and weapons to Ukraine is better investment (at least short term) in PL security than building bunkers
....certainly better than letting 'armoured brigades' of the Polish Army train while driving trucks - because all the 'South Korean-made' MBTs haven't been manufactured.
....or deploying troops of armoured brigades to protect the border to Belarus...
Main problem of polish ground forces is not the lack of tanks but the lack of modern IFV.
I think in general you oversimplified the issue of polish rearmament programme.
First, the fact that PAF badly needed generational modernization in many areas was well known before full scale invasion. Many programs were started before the war and are on track like: layered air defense, F-35, Borsuk IFV, frigates, Abrams and so on.
Second, the other factor that speed up the process was the fact that a lot of soviet legacy equipment was send to Ukraine. The idea that this money could have been spend directly on getting equipment for Ukraine quickly is not exactly practical. SK is probably the only county that delivers modern equipment fast and it doesnt look like it want to deliver to Ukraine. The problem of the West is not the lack of money but the lack of industrial capacity. In a word delivering hundreds of polish tanks, howitzers and IFV was possible because of this rearmament programm.
Third, there are two problems with Korean contracts: credits and the involvement of Polish MIC, but to say that modernization is "heading exactly nowhere" is premature and exaggeration. Korean programs: K2, K9, Fa 50 and Chunmoo make less than 1/4 or 1/5 (depends on time perspective) of all costs of polish rearmament program. So even if any more K2 or K9 will not be delivered – which I highly doubt – most of the critical equipment will be in PAF by 2030.
Yup, they're making 1/4 of the costs, but how much in total combat capacity?
And what's the use of equipment becoming available in 2030, if it's necessary right now?
"what's the use of equipment becoming available in 2030"
Thats the way modern MIC works. Nobody has 1200 modern MBTs on the shelf "right now". The ones that were "on the shelf" in Poland were already given to Ukraine. Poland was able to give more tanks to Ukraine than all other countries combined in first year of war. For a pity we are not able to produce MBTs faster than SK anymore. K2 were meant to replace the tanks that we sent and will send to Ukraine in the future. There is no faster way of delivering polish equipment to Ukraine.
"but how much in total combat capacity"
I'm not sure what are you trying to say. How one compares combat capacity of layered air defense system with 16 tank battalions? Without K2 we will still have around 800 fairly modern MBTs. Without K9 we can still build enough Krabs but it will probably take longer. But I seriously doubt that Korean contracts will end in fiasco and Im not a fan of previous government and their hysterical approach to military modernization
I don't think we can assume that Putin has to win militarily in the traditional sense in order to achieve what he perceives to be his medium-term goals, such as driving wedges into NATO and Europe generally.
Exactly.
Local government (Latvia) stated expenses for railbaltica will be few times higher, maybe they will try to get other funding (nato related to this) , dunno
Usually this happens with most megaprojects: these are promoted at unrealistically low costs, until the contracts are signed, then the actual costs surface (example: the Channel tunnel, which was supposed to cost nothing to voters...)
That said, the Rail Baltica is a political project, not a commercial project
Good thinking. But...
While all out nuclear could make most of western and central Europe unhabitable, extinction of mankind is not an idea to be taken seriously, a lot of humans would survive. Radiation contamination would on global scale be very localized. Wind energy would still be plentiful, so global cooling and low photosynthesis could be handled at least in some parts of the globe.
Depends how it goes down. If we get a strategic exchange and a firestorm in the forests of Europe and Eurasia, that'll be enough radioactive smoke to circle the globe a few times. Northern Hemisphere will be pretty well contaminated and we will get a year without a summer. Will some humans survive? Sure. But will human civilization? Not sure. Keep in mind that the worst of the contamination will happen in what is currently the bread basket for the world (US, Ukraine, Russia). Without that food, you will see social collapse across the poor nations, even ones that are spared contamination.
Won't be dense enough nuke strikes on forested areas to cause that kind of firestorm. It's the gunk that goes into the atmosphere from burning cities which does that.
In reality, nobody is going to target cities because there's not much point when your own will burn too. Max level exchange you'll ever see is each side trying to wipe out the other's ICBM silos. That's a few thousand warheads turning vast chunks of the US Midwest and Siberia into contaminated wastelands, but not the end of organized society.
Nuclear weapons force leaders to risk their own skins. They hate that. So they'll always stop short of total atomic annihilation. Though in theory they could get into a game of swapping cities... that's what you worry about with India and Pakistan. Few dozen cities burn, and it's bye-bye half of global food production for up to a decade.
Peter, we're on the best way of exterminating ourselves through mishandling the nature and pollution alone.: through converting the biosphere offered by this planet into uninhabitable for the human species.
Thus, actually: no nukes necessary... nor discussions about how much of humanity would survive if NATO and Russia exterminate each other.
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/
There are many variables in the studies so extreme caution in reaching conclusions would be wise. How many nukes are actually used? 500 or 5,000? How many cities on fire? 100 or 1,000? How many wildfires as a result? Far too many variables that any expert could conclude that they know what would happen. One thing we know. All of the outcomes are beyond horrific not just for humanity but for all living things on the Earth. Someone once said "We have become death." Let's hope that maniacs in power like Putin, or someone even worse, will never commit suicide by nuke and take us all down with him. It is the greatest challenge the world faces, far greater than climate change. Wake up?
Thanks!
On that topic I would like to mention one thing that seems maybe obvious for some, but not for all.
The whole ru system led by pu, works along the principles of gang. And one of the important concepts for the gang operation is "naezd". Namely it is choosing a victim, creating an unexpected trouble for the victim, that is escalating, but also using hints of much worse things coming. In other words instilling and managing fear of the victim. And then while victim can not think straight, it is important to strike a deal, by proposing way to 'solve' the situation. And then rinse and repeat.
For this approach the faster 'naezd' is working out the better. But there is always a period of pumping fears before it.
So if West wants to deal with that, they will need to learn that tactics. The idea is to create panic.
For example, totally imaginary, if Trump wants quickly to finish this war, what about slowly bringing a few carrier groups towards Baltics, and do that without any hiding. Then do nothing for sometime, and then simply destroy overnight all air defence targets around ru capital with Tomahawks, while also taking control of Kaliningrad military facilities including nuclear, because they threaten NATO. And then offer a deal.
In other words what is being done now is nowhere near considers that psychology.
For example, maybe, in pu eyes, no matter how many lives or equipment lost, it is important to gain something. Okay, ground corridor to Crimea, clear. And now why Donetsk region, maybe that is all about those alleged 10 trillion of cubic meters of gas under Slovyansk agglomeration?
Then, maybe, the really toughest loss would be those 300 billion of funds blocked, confiscating those could be quite a hit.
I guess you really want to find out the answer to the question of "how many of those RF nukes still work" lol.
Seriously, though, there won't be direct strikes by US or NATO on Russian territory unless we have gone so far up the escalation ladder that a nuclear exchange seems like a pretty good idea. And that would only happen if US/NATO are facing a truly existential situation.
This is absolutely wrong idea of the whole approach. They would never use nuke in response. Just because they want to control the situation. And that could get out of hand, plus they want all physically be alive and rich.
Though on the opposite, they may go for a limited use of nuke, to escalate and get a deal. Limited, because they want to ensure that West would not know how to respond, full force, half force, quarter force.
That is the whole approach, you initiate a challenge and while victim is dealing with that challenge you initiate another one.
Always maintaining control over next step.
This I think even in their doctrine.
Agreed. Except for the little issue that the idea of limited nuclear exchange is a low probability possibility, bc once nukes fly and strategic assets start getting destroyed, it is very difficult to get off the escalation ladder, even if the leaders want to. At least that's how most wargames and studies tend to go.
Hence, not worth rolling the dice with that level of confrontation unless we are already in an existential situation.
Example of indirect limited escalation would be a high altitude 500+ km nuclear ‘test’ of magnitude significant to destroy or damage most LEO satellites. It is quite difficult to respond to that proportionallly.
Or just conduct a blast inside the atmosphere high over Kyiv. Low enough to avoid knocking out satellites, but still high enough to cause no ground damage besides broken windows. Even a "strategic" 1 megaton warhead set off far enough from the ground can minimize the physical damage enough to make effective retaliation extremely difficult to program.
The best response is likely a lesser reply in-kind, like NATO setting off a warhead in sight of Sevastopol. Worst response will be to overreact and start bombing orc units, as much as I'd love to see them go down. Too easy for Putin to panic and think a full-on disarming strike is inbound...
The US has already stated that the response to any nukes will be the destruction of the Black Sea Fleet and bombing of RF targets within Ukrainian borders of 1991. At that point, Pu will have no choice but to escalate further bc his regime and he personally won't survive if he lets US bomb "Russian territory". And here we go, six or seven more steps and we get a strategic exchange.
> At that point, Pu will have no choice
It's not clear he would be hold the power to make these decisions at that point. And that is one reason he would steer things away from this scenario before it happens, which is why it's an effective threat and works as deterrence.
Wargames and studies also predicted the swift fall of Kyiv. Most, at least in the English-speaking world, fail to incorporate truly realistic cybernetic communication links or adaptive cognitive loops.
Everyone pretends that nukes are special, but they only raise the stakes for leaders. Someone will try using them sooner or later.
The suwalki corridor is so stupid. It's possibly the dumbest thing being constantly repeated for years. Anyone talking about that as a real threat, should be mercilessly beaten up with a rolled up, topographic map of the area. It's hard to imagine a worse place to conduct any military operations.
Unfortunately just because it's an awful op plan doesn't mean Pu won't go "yes please". See invasion of Ukraine.
Focusing on the least probable and easiest to deal with scenario, is the definition of incompetent resource management. I can think of a 1000 scenarios that will not happen but could.
I wouldn't focus on too much beyond having contingencies in place.
Excellent. Thank you so much. As to your reputation as a party crasher, remember : Ist der Ruf erst ruiniert, lebt es sich recht ungeniert . ("Once the reputation is ruined, you can live completely free").
More silly season claims that the US will allow American contractors to work in Ukraine which is claimed will speed up repairs of war damaged military equipment.
It would be more useful as pysochological pressure if they turned loose the mercenary firm Blackwater who at one time boasted they could field 100,000, probably those days are gone.
Those assholes needed US soldiers to protect them on missions. Useless waste of resources.
Thanks Tom
I still have that WWIII book about the Russians coming through the Fields Gap and being stopped by helicopters popping up from behind hills and firing Lazer guided missiles and then dropping back down behind the hills.
More recently I found out that my German grandmother was from Erfurt a bit east of Fulda.
You want a climate refuge, come to the Pacific Northwest. 30C and 90% humidity is quite pleasant when the coastal breeze kicks in. The wildfire risk is greatly over-stated... at least west of the Cascade range. Our smoke mostly heads east ;)
Some of the region is even in Canada. Until the rest gets wise and joins...
In any case, 100% concur that Moscow has proven a complete inability to conduct effective operations. I wouldn't rule out a scenario where a brigade moves about half a klick into a Baltic State then digs in, though. Or Putin skips the cumbersome process for using tactical nukes and has Gerasimov plus the guy who replaced Shoigu authorize setting off a strategic one high over Ukraine.
There's a whole lot of salami left to slice before we get anywhere near ground bursts or a broader exchange. When you insist that WW3 = nuclear holocaust, the game of chicken can go on for a very long time until someone's bluff is finally called.
the fence is about helping prevent the dumping of migrants as much stopping a Russian invasion. That's Belarus's game. Push Afghanis over the border
It's mainly for the show and getting the politicians' points from the right-wing / "conservative" electorate for the image of "tough sheriffs" and nationalistic slogans ;)
Proper procedures would defuse the problem, but our current government is as keen to do nothing but put some not-working fences and allow soldiers to shoot some people (other soldiers included, as was almost the case ;) ) as they need constant "threats" to divert the attention from quite a large number of unfulfilled election promises. Our previous government was not keen to do anything with a minimum of sense about it because they needed to portray themselves as "defenders of Poland" before the election ;)
The activities so far and ideas presented range from stupid to absurd, but at the moment, our government is very keen to accept any russian propaganda about invasion.
"Like, ‘is Israel, which obviously does not need them, going to deliver its 8-10 stored Patriot SAM-batteries (and giant stocks of related ammunition, i.e. surface-to-air missiles) to Ukraine?’" why wouldnt that happen?
It is the Middle East so there are all sorts of hidden and obscure politics to support Israel's long stance of not sending them to Ukraine.
The obvious compromise is for the US to add them to their stores and send the same number from their stores to Ukraine, it would add around ten thousand miles to the delivery but so what.
The best route would be to fly them over the Med direct from Israel and then over NATO countries to a suitable distribution point for Ukraine.
The Israeli's were less then impressed with the Patriots so built their own solution which is why they are available, logically the Israelis should care less where they finish up but it is the Middle East-.
Just for example: alone for reasons related to ideology. Biby is Pudding's buddy and a business-partner. The last decade (+) he's spent saving different of FSB-controlled Russian mafia-bosses through granting them Israeli citizenship, too. Ideologically, he's also much closer to Pudding than to any kind of 'Western liberal democracy'. Therefore, it's not the least in his interest to help 'save' any kind of a pluralist society in Ukraine (just like it was in Israel's interest to 'lightly collaborate' with gangs like Nusra, IS, and other extremists - but not with original Syrian insurgency against Assad: because Israel has fundamental interest in keeping Syria under the control of a blood-thirsty dictator.)
Actually, his primary interest is keeping Israel embroiled in whatever kind of war, so he can continue crying to the West, 'Israel is in mortal danger' and thus collecting economic- and military aid, while remaining in power in Israel. Even more so because he knows, better than anybody else: the moment the 'current' war is over, his times as the prime minister of Israel are over, too.
Finally: Israel simply has no history of selling or returning its 'stored arms'. Especially not US-arms donated to it over the time. Nor a history of being anything like 'Western ally': Israel can't care less about Western interests. And Netanyahu has no history of listening to any Western politicians either.
30C and 95%???? That ain't NOTHING here in Texas, USA. Today it is going to hit 38.3C and 60%+ We are wearing SCUBA gear to go to the store!!! Enjoy the cool weather! Love your reports!
'But... but... that's Texas... the norm there...' ;-)
(Thinking of it, actually: it's Teksas. Because it belongs to Austria... we've given up on it because the place is too hot for our cool Austrian souls... ;-P ...)
Well, this time of year we always wonder why Willis Carrier never received a retroactive NOBEL PRIZE for inventing the air conditioner!!!! Consider how civilization would be different without it!!!!