Posted on 04/03/2022 6:31:33 PM PDT by Rummyfan
If Putin had followed the advice offered in the Belmont Club just before the Ukraine War, Russia might still be a first-rank power. On Feb 21, 2022, I argued that he had no chance of conquering Ukraine and would be crazy to try. “Fears over Vladimir Putin’s threatened invasion of Ukraine continue to grow despite the fact that the effort would burst both Russia’s military and economy, not to mention ruining its foreign relations. Swallowing a poison pawn makes so little sense that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson says Russia’s Putin may be ‘irrational,’ unable to act in his own best interests.” Invading only to fail was so absurd that I reasoned his menaces must be a bluff. Since the threat was worth more than the fulfillment, his best option was not to invade but to drag out the suspense.
Perhaps as in so many cases in history the bite is in the bark; and in this case the bark is quite real. Putin has created an “invasion-in-being.” In naval warfare, the analogous concept of a “fleet in being” is a force that projects menace without ever leaving port. Were it to fight it might lose and no longer influence but while it remains in port, one is forced to guard against it. …
Putin has been doing the same thing on land. His armies are essentially “in port” — inside Russia or the Kremlin’s client states. Meanwhile Ukraine and the West are in an uproar, evacuating their citizens, canceling airline flights — never enjoying a moment’s mental security. Yet Putin can keep the invasion-in-being poised and the resulting disruption going indefinitely.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
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On a map it looked like very few: North America, Europe, Australia and Japan. But those areas probably represent 60% of the world's GDP.
Europe and Japan will be forced to become much more reliant on Australia and North America for raw materials and the whole group is likely to be forced much more closely together economically and militarily to counter Russia and China. I strongly suspect the era of amoral globalism independent of geopolitics is over.
When I was twelve my family visited friends in Nashville. I went out with their boys and ran into the neighborhood bully who scared the local kids awestruck.
He heard I was from California and called me a fag. I beat the everlasting gobstoppers out of him.
After that no one feared him anymore.
That’s happening here with Russia as a lot of countries are right now realizing they can take on the Russians and win.
We learned that stingers and javelins and drones can defeat a military.
Umm, don’t go invading the Ukraine?
“That’s happening here with Russia as a lot of countries are right now realizing they can take on the Russians and win.”
Watch for China to make a move. Not on Taiwan but on Siberia.
L
What we learn is be nice to people who bring you distasteful information because they may help you from making a bad mistake.
I remember Putin saying he wanted to eradicate the Nazi army.
He never said he wants to occupy Ukraine
I’ve learned a great deal in the last few weeks, but today I learned something that made me laugh out loud.
Many of Russia’s military parts are manufactured in UKRAINE. Parts for fighter jets, choppers, missles, tanks...made in the country they invaded.
So when Ukraine finds usable equipment the Russians abandoned...they can fix it.
I'm rarely inclined to call anything in politics impossible, but I would guess the probability of China invading Siberia any time soon, ranks right up there with Diaper Joe negotiating a successful peace agreement between Israel and Iran...
;>)
Putin kept on taking pieces . Here and there he thought he could work his way up. He should have learned from Afghanistan. That litte bit of indigestion caved in the whole Soviet Union.
I don’t discount your thought by that much, but I still think
judging Putin’s adventurism as his best effort, ignores how
Russia fights on its own soil.
I don’t think he sent his best and brightest to the Ukraine.
Those were held in reserve (IMO), to lure in people who weren’t
quite thinking with all their faculties.
He failed to get any bites from outside the Ukraine.
He may be one from the backside as in China.
It would be an interesting dynamic. I think we would see
an entirely different side of it’s military.
Hey, possibly not too. Russia may have let its armed forces
decay that much.
That in and of itself is a go to moment for us, reminding us
that we better not do anything like this.
We have to have a super-power armed forces to remain in
existence.
Mao actually invaded a Soviet island in a River on the border. Stalin clobbered that little probe. I don't expect anybody in the Nuclear club to do anything more than that. Once you got the Bomb you're like a Mafia untouchable guy. (You have to do something sneaky like create a Virus to steal elections)
I read the Russian officers were using cellphones to communicate with Moscow. But Ukraine had converted to 5G, so the Russian cellphones were useless.
Ras Putin has succeeded in other ways. Causing havoc with the world economy and food and oil supply. There’s a method to his madness and Lord only knows where this all leads.
This, for me, is THE one takeaway from this conflict. Do we really need large numbers of main battle tanks or ground attack aircraft anymore? How many shoulder fired missles against tanks and ground attack aircraft or drones can you buy for the price of an M1A Abrams or an updated A10, Apache or Comanche helicopter? Turkish drones, for crying out loud, are making mincemeat of Russian convoys from trucks to tanks.
All this has its root cause in the Ukrainian revolution. And, the goal of it all was to harm Russia and cause a regime change in order to pave the way for Davos crowd and our corrupt politicians to raid Russia of its resources, just as the same types have in Ukraine.
Cool story bro...except the names of the local kids are Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv and Kherson, the neighborhood bully is named Azov and the kid from out of town is named Putin.
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