U.S. troops have been deployed to Taiwan for at least the last year to train local military forces to bolster the island's defenses amid increasing tensions with mainland China, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
Some two dozen U.S. special operators and a small contingent of Marines are deployed in Taiwan, according to the newspaper, which cited unnamed U.S. officials. The special operators have worked with Taiwanese ground troops and the Marines have worked with maritime forces on small-boat operations, according to the Journal.
The Pentagon neither confirmed nor denied the report. A spokesman said American support for Taiwan has remained consistent and is grounded in ensuring “peace, security and stability in the Indo-Pacific — including in the Taiwan Strait.”
“I don’t have any comments on specific operations, engagements, or training, but I would like to highlight that our support for and defense relationship with Taiwan remains aligned against the current threat posed by the People’s Republic of China,” Pentagon spokesman John Supple said in a statement Thursday after The Wall Street Journal report was published. “We urge Beijing to honor its commitment to the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait differences.”
The news report comes as China has increased its pressure on Taiwan and also invested heavily in recent years to modernize its military. Taiwanese officials said this week that nearly 150 Chinese military planes, including fighter jets and bombers, passed through Taiwan’s air defense zone between Friday and Monday.
“I would note, the [People’s Republic of China] has stepped up efforts to intimidate and pressure Taiwan and other allies and partners, including increasing military activities conducted in the vicinity of Taiwan, East China Sea, and South China Sea, which we believe are destabilizing and increase the risk of miscalculation,” Supple said.
Taiwan Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng on Wednesday warned reporters in Taipei that relations with China had reached a 40-year low and Beijing could be preparing to invade Taiwan by 2025.
While Taiwan has its own democratic government, Beijing considers it a renegade province that must, and eventually, be unified politically with the mainland, perhaps by force.
The deployment of American forces to Taiwan is on a rotational basis, meaning troops regularly cycle in and out of Taiwan to replace one another, The Wall Street Journal reported. While the U.S. presence is small, it is designed to boost Taiwanese confidence that it could fend off Chinese aggression, according to the newspaper.
The White House declined comment on the report. It announced Wednesday that President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping had agreed to hold a virtual summit to address issues between the two nations before the end of the year.
Biden and Xi said earlier this year that they had agreed to abide by the “one China” policy forged in the 1970s, in which the United States officially recognizes China instead of Taiwan. That pact lets the U.S. unofficially support Taiwan, including with arms sales to defend itself.
In May, Christopher Maier, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, told senators during his confirmation hearing for that position that the United States should strongly consider deploying American troops to improve Taiwan’s defenses.
Taiwanese media last year reported some American forces, including Green Berets and Navy SEALs, had participated in training events on Taiwan in recent years, but those deployments were never confirmed by the Pentagon, which has not acknowledged the presence of American troops on the island for 40 years as part of the “one China policy.”
Some of the operations that American forces are conducting in Taiwan might be classified, but the Pentagon also did not seek to disclose their presence there because of political sensitivities with China, especially amid the growing tensions in the region and between Beijing and the United States, the U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal.
Presence of US Special Forces and some US Marines in a training role is definitely a big deal. Even these few personnel that might be in harms way would significantly change the calculus an overt PRC attack.
The US used to do this and have forces regularly stationed there until the late 70s when the one-China policies really came in.
Will certainly cause a reaction in China as if they weren't already aware they'll be irate and if they were aware than they'll need to do something to assuage domestic public opinion.
The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) included a goal of spending 2% of GDP - about $100 billion - or more on the military for the first time in its policy platform ahead of a national election this month.
Experts don't expect new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to double spending anytime soon, given Japan's debt-saddled public finances and a pandemic-stricken economy. But it is a sign that the pacifist nation could over time abandon a commitment to keep military budgets within 1% of GDP - a number that for decades has eased concern at home and abroad about any revival of the militarism that led Japan into World War Two.
"LDP conservative leaders want the party to give it up," said Yoichiro Sato, an international relations professor at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, referring to the de facto spending cap, which he called "sacrosanct for Japanese liberals."
Two Marine Corps F-35B Lighting II Joint Strike Fighters took off and landed on Japan’s largest warship, JS Izumo (DDH-183), on Oct.3, marking the first time that fixed-wing aircraft have operated off a Japanese warship since World War II.
The two F-35Bs from the “Bats” of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 242 flew from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, to operate on Izumo to test modifications to the big deck warship so the short takeoff, vertical landing (STOVL) version of the F-35 can operate from the ship.
Looks like Japan is ramping up their Defense spending in response to China's recent actions and increase in spending. The decision to modify their "Helicopter Destroyers" into "Multipurpose Ships" ie Light Aircraft Carriers is certainly significant as Japan has avoided 'offensive' military hardware since WWII.
China unveiled a proposal late Friday, reinforcing its plan to weaken private capital’s influence over a wide range of media activities.
Private capital would be barred from news gathering and distribution operations, according to a public consultation paper posted on the website of National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planner.
Also off-limits would be private investments in the establishment and operation of news outlets, including news agencies, newspaper publishers and broadcasters. They will also not be permitted to reproduce news content generated by foreign media.
The move is the latest salvo in China’s broad regulatory crackdown this year on companies in industries including ride-hailing, e-commerce and after-school tutoring. The MSCI China Index has sunk 16% this year on concerns about global inflation and interest rates, geopolitical tensions, how the new regulations would reshape businesses and where Beijing might strike next.
The proposed bans are part of a broader document that also touches on entry barriers for various other industries including finance, Internet and agriculture. The seven-day public consultation is scheduled to end Oct. 14.
While it wasn’t immediately clear whether the proposed restrictions unveiled Friday are fresh curbs or incremental rules designed to close loopholes that private investors had exploited, they do signal regulators’ intent to step up enforcement.
Private capital would further be banned from live streaming events that may sway political and public opinion, according to the proposal. That includes those in the realms of politics, the economy, military and foreign policy, and important social, cultural, scientific and sports events.
This would be a hell of a change in their already controlled media environment. Would be crazy to revert to only State approved media outlets and new sources. China is doing an incredible job of transforming themselves into everything considered oppressive and evil to the 'free world.'
Not being able to reproduce news from foreign outlets will certainly limit any ability for the US to try and engage the Chinese population to sell our side of the story on anything. I imagine access to Voice of America in Mandarin will certainly be banned if it wasn't already. https://www.voachinese.com/
More than 75% of Canadians say that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government should ban China’s Huawei Technologies Co. from taking part in the build-out of fifth-generation telecommunications networks, a new poll shows.
Opposition to Huawei’s participation in 5G is up from 53% in 2019, according to the poll by Nanos Research for the Globe and Mail released on Monday. Trudeau hasn’t ruled out including Huawei and is expected to make a decision soon.
The choice by Canadian voters to reject Huawei in their communications systems is certainly an indicator of how China's reputation abroad and that of its companies has changed for the worse.
10-26-2021, 23:14
spmetla
Re: Great Power contentions
New Zealand could join AUKUS security pact to boost cyber technologies
Quote:
New Zealand has opened the door to joining the AUKUS defence pact with Australia, Britain and the United States while maintaining its ban on nuclear-powered submarines.
The country’s top diplomat in Canberra said her nation could join the agreement to collaborate on the development of emerging cyber technologies including artificial intelligence quantum computing.
New Zealand’s high commissioner to Australia, Dame Annette King, said AUKUS in no way changed the security and intelligence ties her country had with Australia, the US and Britain.
While New Zealand would never be involved in the development of nuclear-powered submarines, Dame Annette said it welcomed the US and Britain’s increased engagement in the Indo-Pacific region.
“We have reiterated our collective objective to deliver peace and stability in our region and the preservation of an international rules-based system,” she told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in a wide-ranging interview ahead of her country hosting the APEC summit’s leaders’ meeting next month.
Britain’s departing Chief of the Defence Staff, Nicholas Carter, last week suggested the trilateral security pact could be expanded to include other allies such as Japan, New Zealand and Canada.
Asked whether New Zealand would like to join AUKUS to collaborate on other technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, she said: “It’s been made clear to us that other countries are going to be welcome to be involved in other parts of the architecture”.
“And cyber is one area that we’d certainly be interested in, but there’s no detail yet – so we will be looking for detail.”
When the AUKUS agreement was announced last month, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed that any nuclear-powered submarines Australia acquired under the initiative would not be allowed into her country’s territorial waters.
I'm actually quite surprised that NZ wants its hand in this too of course excluding any nuclear vessels in their ports. I'd have figured Canada more likely would join than NZ as New Zealand had worked hard to not be too aligned with the US.
Of course these seems more limited to the cyber and intel side which already has a lot of cooperation under 5 Eyes. Either way, interesting development.
11-01-2021, 04:56
Montmorency
Re: Great Power contentions
A poem
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Slaves cannot breathe in America; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free
They touch our country and their shackles fall.
That is noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then,
And let it circulate through every vein
Of all your empire; that where America's power
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.
11-02-2021, 22:09
Montmorency
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Things I Did Not Know: After their defeat and loss at Copenhagen in 1807, the Danes responded by planting 90,000 oak trees toward the Navy’s rebirth. The Danish Nature Agency, successor to the royal forester, informed the Defense Ministry in 2007 that their trees were ready.
Forget China vs. America, they're small-time: Denmark is finally ready to unleash its full power.
EDIT: This was the analogy for Nordsøimperiet I was looking for.
China’s advice to stockpile sparks speculation of Taiwan war
Quote:
BEIJING (AP) — A seemingly innocuous government recommendation for Chinese people to store necessities for an emergency quickly sparked scattered instances of panic-buying and online speculation: Is China going to war with Taiwan?
The answer is probably not — most analysts think military hostilities are not imminent — but the posts on social media show the possibility is on people’s minds and drew out a flurry of war-mongering comments.
Taiwan is a self-governing island of 24 million people China regards as a renegade province that should come under its rule. Tensions have risen sharply recently, with China sending a growing number of warplanes on sorties near the island and the U.S. selling arms to Taiwan and deepening its ties with the government.
Most residents interviewed in Beijing, the Chinese capital, thought war was unlikely but acknowledged the rising tensions. They generally favored bringing Taiwan under Chinese rule by peaceful means, the official position of China’s long-ruling Communist Party.
“I don’t feel panic but I think we should be more alert about this than in the past,” said Hu Chunmei, who was taking a neighborhood walk.
War fears or not, there were scattered reports of runs on rice, noodles and cooking oil in some Chinese cities, according to local media. The more immediate worry for some was the possibility of neighborhood lockdowns as a COVID-19 outbreak spreads in several provinces.
The government moved quickly to try to tamp down fears with assurances of sufficient supplies. A bright yellow sign in an aisle of a Beijing supermarket asked customers to buy reasonably and not to listen to rumors or stockpile goods.
The online speculation started with a Commerce Ministry notice posted Monday evening about a plan to ensure the supply and stable price of vegetables and other necessities for the winter and spring. A line in it encouraged families to store some necessities for daily life and emergencies.
That was enough to set off some hoarding and a discussion on social media that the ministry could be signaling people should stock up for war.
China’s state media has covered the rising tensions with Taiwan heavily, including the often-tough words exchanged between China on one side and the U.S. and Taiwan on the other.
“It is natural to have aroused some imagination,” social commentator Shi Shusi said. “We should believe the government’s explanations, but the underlying anxiety deserves our thought.”
He said the populist views cheerleading for war don’t represent majority opinion but do send a signal or warning to Taiwan.
Other developments fueled the war speculation. One person shared a screenshot of a list of recommended emergency equipment for families issued in August by the government in Xiamen, a coastal city near an outlying Taiwanese island. An unverified report — denied Wednesday by a military-affiliated social media account — said veterans were being called back to service to prepare for combat.
It’s difficult to gauge how many people interpreted the notice as a possible prelude to war, but the reaction was strong enough to prompt a state media response the next day.
The Economic Daily, a government-owned newspaper, said people’s imagination shouldn’t run so wild, explaining that the advice was meant for people who may find themselves suddenly locked down because of a COVID-19 outbreak.
Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of the Global Times newspaper, blamed the the online speculation on the amplification of public opinion during a time of tension.
“I do not believe that the country wants to send a signal to the public at this time through a notice from the Commerce Ministry that people need to ‘hurry up and prepare for war,’” he wrote.
Zhang Xi, another Beijing resident, ruled out the possibility of war and counseled patience in a dispute extending to when Taiwan and China split during the civil war that brought Mao Zedong’s Communists to power in 1949.
“This is a leftover from history, and it’s impossible to solve this right away,” she said.
___
Associated Press researcher Yu Bing, video producers Olivia Zhang and Caroline Chen and photographer Ng Han Guan contributed to this report.
While it looks like a misinterpreted government recommendation for what may be a harsh winter given the supply chain problems it is worrisome that the Chinese populace sees this as prep for a war with Taiwan.
For me personally this makes me wonder how worried the Chinese leadership is about economic stability in the next few months.
China and Russia are pushing the United Nations Security Council to ease sanctions on North Korea, reviving a similar previous attempt that had flailed in 2019.
The two countries filed a reworked draft resolution, seen by Reuters on Monday, that proposes removing a ban on Pyongyang's exports of statues, seafood and textiles, as well as lifting a cap on refined petroleum imports.
China and Russia want the 15-member council to remove those sanctions "with the intent of enhancing the livelihood of the civilian population" in the isolated Asian state, according to the resolution.
North Korea has been subject to UN sanctions since 2006 over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
The draft resolution also includes other measures first proposed by Russia and China nearly two years ago, including lifting a ban on North Koreans working abroad and exempting inter-Korean rail and road cooperation projects from sanctions.
Several UN diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the refreshed draft resolution would find little support. In 2019 Russia and China held two informal rounds of talks on the draft resolution, but never formally tabled it for a vote.
Diplomats said on Monday that China and Russia have not yet scheduled any talks on their new draft resolution. A resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to pass.
The UN missions of Russia and China did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new text, which diplomats said was circulated to council members on Friday.
"It has been always China's will that we should also address the humanitarian dimension caused by the sanctions imposed by the Security Council," China's UN Ambassador Zhang Jun told reporters last month, adding again that the 2019 draft resolution "remains on the table."
While it's clear that the sanctions are forcing NK to the negotiating table I'm not a fan of lifting sanctions that that raises revenue for their regime's weapons programs. Would be nice to not have the NK people starve because of it but that seems partially due to the closed border even with China and reduced trade for food stuffs there.
11-05-2021, 02:39
Montmorency
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
The online speculation started with a Commerce Ministry notice posted Monday evening about a plan to ensure the supply and stable price of vegetables and other necessities for the winter and spring. A line in it encouraged families to store some necessities for daily life and emergencies.
Sounds like the exact sort of messaging the US government engages in. Have a go-bag with all the neccessities ready at all times, a gallon of drinking water per person per day for 3 days of sheltering in place, etc.
Quote:
Pyongyang's exports of statues
???
Quote:
Impoverished North Korea is not known for a bustling manufacturing industry but has earned a reputation in some African states for a highly visible export - its huge socialist-style statues.
Well, that's one way to specialize an economy.
EDIT: In another moment of relief courtesy of Trump's malleability, it seems the United States was very nearly put in the position of having to walk back NATO withdrawal three years ago.
11-05-2021, 20:37
spmetla
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Sounds like the exact sort of messaging the US government engages in. Have a go-bag with all the neccessities ready at all times, a gallon of drinking water per person per day for 3 days of sheltering in place, etc.
Exactly except that it's usually only emphasized as disaster preparedness which is why the timing of it is off. I think the disaster may be an economic one though apparently the Chinese main street sees a war with Taiwan as more likely given the focus and rhetoric ramp up of the last year.
The trouble with Kaisa group today and Evergrande still looming together with the CCP crack down on free press, 'free' enterprise and so on are troubling when put together with the revanchist rhetoric.
Quote:
In another moment of relief courtesy of Trump's malleability, it seems the United States was very nearly put in the position of having to walk back NATO withdrawal three years ago.
So glad he's out of office. I may disagree with some of Biden's policies and the progressive-Dems in general of a few major issues and approaches to problems but at least it's not the courting with one party rule quasi-fascism that the Reps-Trump Cult have veered toward while rejecting all ties with the 'free-world' with NATO and the EU being such large targets instead of allies.
Looking past rhetoric, I recently learned that Merkel has long been a stalwart of the Orban regime in Hungary, a factor in his ability to resist European disapproval. In fact, both Merkel's CDU/CSU and Orban's Fidesz are members of the "center-right" European People's Party Group in the EU Parliament; she has repeatedly thwarted attempts by constituent parties to evict Fidesz, until her retirement. This is presumably to support a favorable environment for German manufacturing interests in Hungary.
Compares to how the United States defense establishment has approved of, even encouraged, Russian and Chinese anti-satellite technology development because it believes that any international effort to restrict them would infringe on US missile defense aspirations.
:daisy: who can't see past their noses.
Also, a reminder that air strikes are no better than drone strikes in their humanitarian record.
Quote:
In the last days of the battle against the Islamic State in Syria, when members of the once-fierce caliphate were cornered in a dirt field next to a town called Baghuz, a U.S. military drone circled high overhead, hunting for military targets. But it saw only a large crowd of women and children huddled against a river bank.
Without warning, an American F-15E attack jet streaked across the drone’s high-definition field of vision and dropped a 500-pound bomb on the crowd, swallowing it in a shuddering blast. As the smoke cleared, a few people stumbled away in search of cover. Then a jet tracking them dropped one 2,000-pound bomb, then another, killing most of the survivors.
It was March 18, 2019. At the U.S. military’s busy Combined Air Operations Center at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, uniformed personnel watching the live drone footage looked on in stunned disbelief, according to one officer who was there.
“Who dropped that?” a confused analyst typed on a secure chat system being used by those monitoring the drone, two people who reviewed the chat log recalled. Another responded, “We just dropped on 50 women and children.”
An initial battle damage assessment quickly found that the number of dead was actually about 70.
The Baghuz strike was one of the largest civilian casualty incidents of the war against the Islamic State, but it has never been publicly acknowledged by the U.S. military. The details, reported here for the first time, show that the death toll was almost immediately apparent to military officials. A legal officer flagged the strike as a possible war crime that required an investigation. But at nearly every step, the military made moves that concealed the catastrophic strike. The death toll was downplayed. Reports were delayed, sanitized and classified. United States-led coalition forces bulldozed the blast site. And top leaders were not notified.
The Defense Department’s independent inspector general began an inquiry, but the report containing its findings was stalled and stripped of any mention of the strike.
“Leadership just seemed so set on burying this. No one wanted anything to do with it,” said Gene Tate, an evaluator who worked on the case for the inspector general’s office and agreed to discuss the aspects that were not classified. “It makes you lose faith in the system when people are trying to do what’s right but no one in positions of leadership wants to hear it.”
And I'd like to make a supplementary point about Afghanistan's reconstruction. In 2019's presidential election, which Ghani won with a bare majority, there was a turnout of 1.8 million voters, less than 20% of the 9.7 million voters, itself an electorate of only around a quarter of the Afghan population of 33-38 million in 2019 - of which up to half should have been of majority age. In short, VEPT (voting-eligible population turnout) in 2019, the height of the Taliban resurgence, 15 years after the formal establishment of the Afghan Republic, was around 10%.
Whar legitimatasi?
11-20-2021, 04:19
spmetla
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
ooking past rhetoric, I recently learned that Merkel has long been a stalwart of the Orban regime in Hungary, a factor in his ability to resist European disapproval. In fact, both Merkel's CDU/CSU and Orban's Fidesz are members of the "center-right" European People's Party Group in the EU Parliament; she has repeatedly thwarted attempts by constituent parties to evict Fidesz, until her retirement. This is presumably to support a favorable environment for German manufacturing interests in Hungary.
Well she is definitely looking out for her own interests but frankly what politicians don't especially those that have been in power more than a decade? Will be interesting to see the post-Merkel Germany, the world and Germany's place in it has changed significantly during her Chancellorship.
Quote:
Compares to how the United States defense establishment has approved of, even encouraged, Russian and Chinese anti-satellite technology development because it believes that any international effort to restrict them would infringe on US missile defense aspirations.
I think the only real US encouragement of their efforts are to use methods that aren't a danger to existing satellites and that don't add to the debris around Earth. US tests have been on objects in low earth orbit to ensure the debris burns up in the atmosphere. Having the Astro/Cosmonauts in the ISS have to shelter in the outer parts of the ISS in the event of debris impact for several days is a direct result of irresponsible Russian testing.
Missile defense is actually a really important thing to have given the amount of 'tactical' missiles possessed by American's rivals/enemies. I still think it's an embarrassment to the US that following Trump's assassination strike on the Iranian general that the US Soldiers in Iraq were vulnerable to Iranian missile attack because no patriot batteries had been deployed, instead they were in Saudi Arabia protecting them from Houthi missile attacks. His attack was stupid enough but if you're going to play with fire can you at least prep the ground a bit in anticipation of a response.
We're really lucky that those strikes killed no US troops and that the Iranians shot down that civilian liner in Tehran leading to a step down of tensions. A general war with Iran was a very real possibility. RIP to those civilians but it got the Mullahs in Iran to have to focus on domestic politics for a bit due to that SNAFU.
Quote:
Also, a reminder that air strikes are no better than drone strikes in their humanitarian record.
Of course they aren't, the accuracy isn't better at all, it's just an unmanned platform. The DoD's IG office has a spotty record and is certainly in need of some congressional oversight as are all IGs. If the IG avenues are safe and effective we might have more whistle blowers encouraged which may be bad for reputation but in the end better than guys like Snowden feeling their only avenue was to give journalists lots of classified stuff.
It's a shame more innocents died again and likely no one was held accountable. When doing artillery or air strikes there's generally a procedure called Clearance of Fires, someone in that procedure screwed up and people died as a result.
Quote:
And I'd like to make a supplementary point about Afghanistan's reconstruction. In 2019's presidential election, which Ghani won with a bare majority, there was a turnout of 1.8 million voters, less than 20% of the 9.7 million voters, itself an electorate of only around a quarter of the Afghan population of 33-38 million in 2019 - of which up to half should have been of majority age. In short, VEPT (voting-eligible population turnout) in 2019, the height of the Taliban resurgence, 15 years after the formal establishment of the Afghan Republic, was around 10%.
Whar legitimatasi?
It's well known that turnout had declined massively in the past few years, the biggest driving factor being Taliban threats in the rural majority of the population combined with disgust with the current government. The turnout was good at the start of the GiROA but the last decade has seen minority votes as the norm.
What percentage of the ballot have the Taliban gotten in their recent elections? Oh yeah, we won't see elections there again.
11-22-2021, 00:18
Montmorency
Re: Great Power contentions
I'm talking about strategic missile defense. I've read that the promise of silver bullets like Star Wars held Reagan back from pursuing more mutual disarmament with Gorbachev, and that when Russia and China began pursuing anti-satellite capability in the 2000s, warning the US establishment about it multiple times, DoD and State declined to contest or negotiate because they saw any curtailment to anti-satellite weapons on international scale as implying curtailment of US missile defense development. (And, to be clear, it is heavily contested whether second-strike missile defense has any utility.)
Quote:
What percentage of the ballot have the Taliban gotten in their recent elections? Oh yeah, we won't see elections there again.
Right, but it's pretty clear why this polity did not survive, with terminally-declining faith in the ability of the state to provide law, order, development, and security - reflected in the collapse, rather than growth, of political participation. Like I said in August, just because the GIROA was unpopular doesn't make the Taliban popular. And like so many stories from the "Third World," we here still living in comfort would do well to heed the lessons.
What happened in Afghanistan is precisely what Hitler imagined would happen to the Soviet Union once he "kicked in" the door, but Stalin, Russian imperial legacy, and Soviet ideology had made a stable country with something to defend, whereas the Islamic Republic was just Kabul, an American security guarantee, and a few shitty paid-off warlords with no real power or legitimacy.
I'm surprised you haven't noted the latest tensions along the Ukrainian border, which seem in part to follow from Russian oil and gas booming for the first time since 2014 (context).
11-22-2021, 21:02
spmetla
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
I'm talking about strategic missile defense. I've read that the promise of silver bullets like Star Wars held Reagan back from pursuing more mutual disarmament with Gorbachev, and that when Russia and China began pursuing anti-satellite capability in the 2000s, warning the US establishment about it multiple times, DoD and State declined to contest or negotiate because they saw any curtailment to anti-satellite weapons on international scale as implying curtailment of US missile defense development. (And, to be clear, it is heavily contested whether second-strike missile defense has any utility.)
That's the same program I was referencing. The orbital satellite "star wars" lasers was rightfully abandoned as unfeasible in the 1980s. Ground/Sea based interceptors are the only solution until energy weapons are feasible enough to deploy around the globe or perhaps in space though this would be a real militarization of space that might not be politically worth it.
Russia and China don't want the US pursuing anti-ballistic missile defense (ABM) because they think it somehow degrades their capability of MAD. The US ABM though unless scaled drastically would never be able to defend against a peer threat with a triad of attack capabilities, hundreds of missiles, multiple warheads per missile, not to mention the less than perfect intercept chance of the current systems.
The US system is really only useful for containing smaller regional threats like North Korea or Iran. It's worth the effort of the US and its allies in Europe and Asia to seek such a capability otherwise North Korea, Iran, and whatever other regional threats will always be able to essentially do nuclear blackmail to limit any strong measures in reaction to whatever provocations short of outright war they do.
Quote:
Right, but it's pretty clear why this polity did not survive, with terminally-declining faith in the ability of the state to provide law, order, development, and security - reflected in the collapse, rather than growth, of political participation. Like I said in August, just because the GIROA was unpopular doesn't make the Taliban popular. And like so many stories from the "Third World," we here still living in comfort would do well to heed the lessons.
Yes, all true, however with the Taliban clearly not wanting to make substantial concessions (minority rights, journalism, pledges against terrorism) in return for international recognition it will continue to devolve into a cyst for the region.
Only time will tell if the Taliban are better for the Afghan people than the corrupt government of GIROA though in the short term the price for peace has been increased starvation, fuel scarcity, oppression of minorities, and economic collapse of everything that depended on government investment/spending.
Quote:
I'm surprised you haven't noted the latest tensions along the Ukrainian border, which seem in part to follow from Russian oil and gas booming for the first time since 2014 (context).
I've been watching it as well but see it less as a result of an oil boom and more as an opportunity for Putin due to European instability due to internal COVID issues as well as the Belarus migrant crisis. Likely this is a test to see if Biden will be a pushover like Obama was and by creating a foreign policy crisis for EU and NATO while those member nations are focused on domestic issues and problems is the best way to fracture the unity of either organization and work toward his goal of a disunited Europe politically and militarly.
I think I've mentioned before my worry about the Winter Olympics being used as a time for creating a crisis by China, but perhaps it would be Russia to do so. With Europe depending on Russia for a third of its energy it is somewhat impotent to even increase sanctions during the winter months when sourcing fuel shipments from elsewhere would be too slow to respond in time.
My worst fear is that China and Russia create a crisis at the same time. Little green men doing something in Eastern Ukraine during the Winter Olympics with China perhaps arresting the Taiwan/Taipei athletes as 'separatists' or taking overt action against Taiwan's outlying islands would create two major crises which the US would struggle to adequately respond to at the same time. With foreign athletes and diplomats in China as sorta pawns and the EU dependent on Russia for energy security there would be a real impotent reaction at the most from US allies.
Most likely though I just see this as Putin essentially showing the Ukraine how limited and impotent the support from the US, EU, and NATO will be. If Russia is just doing a massive training exercise it's certainly allowed to do that just as the US does with its allies elsewhere which is why I hadn't really commented as my worst-case scenario while possible seems very unlikely.
I don't know how much I'd trust the Ukrainian defense minister but always alarming to read about though: Russia preparing to attack Ukraine by late January: Ukraine defense intelligence agency chief https://www.militarytimes.com/flashp...20Bird%20Brief
Quote:
Russia has more than 92,000 troops amassed around Ukraine’s borders and is preparing for an attack by the end of January or beginning of February, the head of Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency told Military Times.
Such an attack would likely involve airstrikes, artillery and armor attacks followed by airborne assaults in the east, amphibious assaults in Odessa and Mariupul and a smaller incursion through neighboring Belarus, Ukraine Brig. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov told Military Times Saturday morning in an exclusive interview.
Russia’s large-scale Zapad 21 military exercise earlier this year proved, for instance, that they can drop upwards of 3,500 airborne and special operations troops at once, he said.
.......
This is of course the Ukrainian cry for help which given together with the news of EU hoping to be capable of deploying 5000 troops without US help by 2025 is certainly an indicator of how weak the EU is currently and how little help the Ukraine can hope for. EU to aim for rapid deployment force without U.S. help by 2025, document says https://www.reuters.com/business/aer...ys-2021-11-16/
Quote:
BRUSSELS, Nov 16 (Reuters) - The European Union is considering a joint military force of up to 5,000 troops by 2025 to intervene in a range of crises and without relying on the United States, according to a draft plan.
The "EU Rapid Deployment Capacity" should be made up of land, sea and air components that could be swapped in and out of any standing force, depending on the crisis, according to the confidential 28-page document dated Nov. 9 and seen by Reuters.
EU foreign and defence ministers began debating the plan on Monday evening in Brussels and continued on Tuesday, aiming to settle on a final document by March next year.
Italy and France, two of the EU's military powers, welcomed the draft. The view of Germany's incoming federal coalition government, expected soon, will prove critical.
"The document combines a high level of ambition but also makes concrete and operational proposals. It's a good balance," French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly told reporters. Her Italian counterpart, Lorenzo Guerini, said it would also be complementary to NATO and strengthen transatlantic ties.
Two decades after EU leaders first agreed to set up a 50,000-60,000-strong force but failed to make it operational, the draft strategy by the bloc's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell is the most concrete effort to create a standalone military force that does not rely on U.S. assets.
11-23-2021, 13:22
Furunculus
Re: Great Power contentions
Two enduring and implacable requirements for elective warfare in the modern era:
capability
willpower
Even if the EU fields the capability to deploy a brigade sized force into a theatre of war, I suspect it will never be employed in such a scenario!
willpower
The decision to commit to an open-ended spend in blood and treasure is not easily reached under lowest-common-denominator compromise haggling.
11-23-2021, 15:56
Seamus Fermanagh
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by Furunculus
Two enduring and implacable requirements for elective warfare:
capability
willpower....
words removed by responder
11-25-2021, 01:01
Montmorency
Re: Great Power contentions
Has the tech been worth it, or effective in curtailing nuclear blackmail?
US rejecting EU's condemnation of anti-satellite tests by China as "too restrictive."
If it were possible, assuring the neutrality of the orbital zone is arguably preferable to chasing what looks like a mirage of nuclear defense - and alternatively, a legitimate screen would necessitate a global arms race by the logic of nuclear balance.
What I will say for Russia is that if they ever make good on their bluff to throttle gas and oil to Europe, they will have guaranteed a very rapid subsequent phaseout of petroleum (for renewables/electricity) in the European economy. They can't enforce a friendly government in Ukraine by brute strength, since it would always provoke a rebellious attitude among the mass of Ukrainians. They can't occupy Ukraine militarily for long - a country easy to flood with weapons and already well-stocked with them - before the human and material costs topple Putin's government. China is simply much stronger than Russia, because any overt aggressive measures that Russia could take to secure short-term objectives would severely damage its position in the long-term.
EDIT: Also, I didn't look at it from that perspective when I read it, but the story of the war crime bombing I linked above is also a commentary about how corrupted the War on Terror has made our SF/SOF. Even the CIA agreed, assessing that our forces would just invoke self-defense to summon airstrikes indiscriminately with the expectation that they would never be investigated or challenged.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Quote:
The Times investigation found that the bombing had been called in by a classified American special operations unit, Task Force 9, which was in charge of ground operations in Syria. The task force operated in such secrecy that at times it did not inform even its own military partners of its actions. In the case of the Baghuz bombing, the American Air Force command in Qatar had no idea the strike was coming, an officer who served at the command center said.
In the minutes after the strike, an alarmed Air Force intelligence officer in the operations center called over an Air Force lawyer in charge of determining the legality of strikes. The lawyer ordered the F-15E squadron and the drone crew to preserve all video and other evidence, according to documents obtained by The Times. He went upstairs and reported the strike to his chain of command, saying it was a possible violation of the law of armed conflict — a war crime — and regulations required a thorough, independent investigation.
But a thorough, independent investigation never happened.
This week, after The New York Times sent its findings to U.S. Central Command, which oversaw the air war in Syria, the command acknowledged the strikes for the first time, saying 80 people were killed but the airstrikes were justified. It said the bombs killed 16 fighters and four civilians. As for the other 60 people killed, the statement said it was not clear that they were civilians, in part because women and children in the Islamic State sometimes took up arms.
“We abhor the loss of innocent life and take all possible measures to prevent them,” Capt. Bill Urban, the chief spokesman for the command, said in the statement. “In this case, we self-reported and investigated the strike according to our own evidence and take full responsibility for the unintended loss of life.”
The only assessment done immediately after the strike was performed by the same ground unit that ordered the strike. It determined that the bombing was lawful because it killed only a small number of civilians while targeting Islamic State fighters in an attempt to protect coalition forces, the command said. Therefore no formal war crime notification, criminal investigation or disciplinary action was warranted, it said, adding that the other deaths were accidental.
But the Air Force lawyer, Lt. Col. Dean W. Korsak, believed he had witnessed possible war crimes and repeatedly pressed his leadership and Air Force criminal investigators to act. When they did not, he alerted the Defense Department’s independent inspector general. Two years after the strike, seeing no evidence that the watchdog agency was taking action, Colonel Korsak emailed the Senate Armed Services Committee, telling its staff that he had top secret material to discuss and adding, “I’m putting myself at great risk of military retaliation for sending this.”
“Senior ranking U.S. military officials intentionally and systematically circumvented the deliberate strike process,” he wrote in the email, which was obtained by The Times. Much of the material was classified and would need to be discussed through secure communications, he said. He wrote that a unit had intentionally entered false strike log entries, “clearly seeking to cover up the incidents.” Calling the classified death toll “shockingly high,” he said the military did not follow its own requirements to report and investigate the strike.
Quote:
The United States portrayed the air war against the Islamic State as the most precise and humane bombing campaign in its history. The military said every report of civilian casualties was investigated and the findings reported publicly, creating what the military called a model of accountability.
But the strikes on Baghuz tell a different story.
The details suggest that while the military put strict rules in place to protect civilians, the Special Operations task force repeatedly used other rules to skirt them. The military teams counting casualties rarely had the time, resources or incentive to do accurate work. And troops rarely faced repercussions when they caused civilian deaths.
Quote:
At the end of the grinding fight, airstrikes corralled the last Islamic State fighters in a scrap of farmland against the Euphrates River near Baghuz. Coalition air power forced thousands to surrender, sparing the lives of untold numbers of Kurdish and Arab allies.
On the ground, Task Force 9 coordinated offensives and airstrikes. The unit included soldiers from the 5th Special Forces Group and the Army’s elite commando team Delta Force, several officials said.
Over time, some officials overseeing the air campaign began to believe that the task force was systematically circumventing the safeguards created to limit civilian deaths.
The process was supposed to run through several checks and balances. Drones with high-definition cameras studied potential targets, sometimes for days or weeks. Analysts pored over intelligence data to differentiate combatants from civilians. And military lawyers were embedded with strike teams to ensure that targeting complied with the law of armed conflict. In combat situations, the process might take only minutes, but even then the rules required teams to identify military targets and minimize civilian harm. At times, when the task force failed to meet those requirements, commanders in Qatar and elsewhere denied permission to strike.
But there was a quick and easy way to skip much of that oversight: claiming imminent danger.
The law of armed conflict — the rule book that lays out the military’s legal conduct in war — allows troops in life-threatening situations to sidestep the strike team lawyers, analysts and other bureaucracy and call in strikes directly from aircraft under what military regulations call an “inherent right of self-defense.”
Task Force 9 typically played only an advisory role in Syria, and its soldiers were usually well behind the front lines. Even so, by late 2018, about 80 percent of all airstrikes it was calling in claimed self-defense, according to an Air Force officer who reviewed the strikes.
The rules allowed U.S. troops and local allies to invoke it when facing not just direct enemy fire, but anyone displaying “hostile intent,” according to a former officer who deployed with the unit numerous times. Under that definition, something as mundane as a car driving miles from friendly forces could in some cases be targeted. The task force interpreted the rules broadly, the former officer said.
The aftermath of that approach was plain to see. A number of Syrian towns, including the regional capital, Raqqa, were reduced to little more than rubble. Human rights organizations reported that the coalition caused thousands of civilian deaths during the war. Hundreds of military assessment reports examined by The Times show the task force was implicated in nearly one in five coalition civilian casualty incidents in the region.
Quote:
Human rights groups were not the only ones sounding the alarm. C.I.A. officers working in Syria grew so alarmed over the task force’s strikes that agents reported their concern to the Department of Defense inspector general, which investigated the claims and produced a report. The results of that report are top secret, but the former task force officer, who reviewed the report, said the C.I.A. officers alleged that in about 10 incidents, the secretive task force hit targets knowing civilians would be killed.
The former officer said the report determined that all the strikes were legal.
The inspector general declined to release the report or discuss its findings.
Staff in the operations center in Qatar, who oversaw the air war, also became concerned with task force strikes. Air Force lawyers started keeping a spreadsheet, recording the self-defense justifications the task force used to call strikes, then comparing them with drone footage and other evidence, according to one officer who viewed the data. The evidence appeared to show that the task force was adding details that would legally justify a strike, such as seeing a man with a gun, even when those details were not visible in the footage.
Though a number of officers in the operations center suspected that the task force was including misleading information in the logs to justify strikes, they did not feel they had enough evidence to press the issue, the officer said. That changed on March 18, 2019.
Quote:
At about 10 a.m., local Syrian forces reported they were under fire and in danger of being overrun, and called for an airstrike, Central Command said. The task force drone tracked a group of fighters as they made their way through the camp to the area where the women and children sheltered.
A 5th Special Forces Group officer in the task force looked at the drone footage and didn’t see any civilians, a task force officer said. But the drone he relied on had only a standard-definition camera. Central Command said there were no high-definition drones in the area that could get a better view of the target.
The Special Forces officer gave the order to fire. With no precision missiles left, the command said, the ground commander called in 500- and 2,000-pound bombs. The strike log classified the strike as self-defense.
In fact, a high-definition drone was available. The task force did not use it. Circling above, it was streaming footage of the same patch of ground to the operations center in Qatar. Because the task force operated at a high level of secrecy, two officers said, the people in Qatar watching the high-definition drone were not aware the task force was about to call in a strike.
Central Command said the task force did not know that the better drone was overhead.
The high-definition drone recorded a very different scene from what was described by Central Command this past week, three people who viewed the footage said. In it, two or three men — not 16 — wander through the frame near the crowd. They have rifles but do not appear to be maneuvering, engaging coalition forces or acting in a way that would seem to justify a self-defense strike with 2,000-pound bombs. A chat log used by analysts who were watching the footage noted the presence of women, children and a man with a gun, but did not mention any active combat, two people who viewed the log said.
11-28-2021, 01:38
Montmorency
Re: Great Power contentions
Always interesting stuff: China intends to seize control of Uganda's only, so I hear, international airport (Entebbe) as debt collateral.
11-29-2021, 04:38
spmetla
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Has the tech been worth it, or effective in curtailing nuclear blackmail?
Here's an example of what I meant.
US rejecting EU's condemnation of anti-satellite tests by China as "too restrictive."
Who knows whether it has been worth it for sure? However, whether the missiles are 'tactical' or 'strategic' doesn't change the technology required to intercept them. Tactical missiles have been in use since the 1980s and even the patriot missiles of the times struggled to intercept those. Seeing as ballistic missiles are the way to have a long-range strike capability in the absence of an air force that can challenge the US and Allies they are likely to continue becoming more common like with those employed by the Houthis against the Saudis.
This website seems to track what's at least open source knowledge on US and allied BMD systems as well as potential threat missile systems: https://missilethreat.csis.org/country/china/
Quote:
If it were possible, assuring the neutrality of the orbital zone is arguably preferable to chasing what looks like a mirage of nuclear defense - and alternatively, a legitimate screen would necessitate a global arms race by the logic of nuclear balance.
I would agree but that'd only be possible with the ability to verify others' compliance. Don't want a Washington Naval Treaty situation where the allied powers restricted themselves while their opponents either cheated or ignored the restrictions.
I would say that denying ourselves the ability to shoot down an enemy spy satellite or more would be rather naive.
Quote:
What I will say for Russia is that if they ever make good on their bluff to throttle gas and oil to Europe, they will have guaranteed a very rapid subsequent phaseout of petroleum (for renewables/electricity) in the European economy.
I think the Europeans are already going as fast as is really feasible considering technology and economic limitations. The current problem with 'green' energy is the inability to store the power. Solar works fine in the day, turbines in the wind but the inability to increase power as usage increases or store the excess limits the ability to go green. With coal being phased out and nuclear expansion frozen too that leaves petroleum power for Europe.
Hydro and thermal power are the only large-scale alternatives currently available but those aren't universally suitable and have their own issues in implementation such as protests against new hydro dams, geothermal not to mention just available of the natural resoure too.
Looks like Iceland and Norway of course lead the way in this, the rest of the EU is far behind though. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databr.../table?lang=en
The Russians haven't had to outright cut the taps to show their power: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/19/ener...to-europe.html Russia chooses not to raise natural gas supplies to Europe despite Putin’s pledge to help
Quote:
It comes shortly after Putin had suggested the country could provide additional supply to Europe at a time when millions of households are facing soaring winter energy bills.
Speaking to CNBC’s Hadley Gamble at Russian Energy Week on Oct. 13, the Russian president also dismissed suggestions the country was using gas as a geopolitical weapon as “politically motivated blather.”
Offer of more gas ‘conditional on Nord Stream 2’
Russia is Europe’s largest gas supplier, providing around 43% of the European Union’s gas imports last year, according to data compiled by Eurostat.
However, Russia’s natural gas flows to Europe have been volatile since the end of September, adding to market anxiety and skyrocketing prices.
Quote:
Always interesting stuff: China intends to seize control of Uganda's only, so I hear, international airport (Entebbe) as debt collateral.
Been interesting reading a little about it. Seems they haven't seized control yet but will use the leverage to secure strong friendly terms. Certainly would be called neo-colonialism if done by anyone else.
11-29-2021, 10:23
rory_20_uk
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
Always interesting stuff: China intends to seize control of Uganda's only, so I hear, international airport (Entebbe) as debt collateral.
Bastards!
Oh, when is the USA giving back Guantanamo Bay? Stopping sanctions against Iran for getting upset at a Revolution against the puppet they put in place?
Powerful countries exert their power on the less powerful. It doesn't make it right but it is interesting how we have normalised what the West does and demonized the CCP for basically doing the same.
~:smoking:
11-29-2021, 23:00
spmetla
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Oh, when is the USA giving back Guantanamo Bay? Stopping sanctions against Iran for getting upset at a Revolution against the puppet they put in place?
Kinda funny with G-Bay as the US still sends Cuba the lease payment every year and Cuba just doesn't cash it. On the serious side though, was hoping that the thaw in relations under Obama would have led to future negotiations about the Naval Base.
The sanctions though had more to do with the Iranians taking Americans hostage.
Quote:
Powerful countries exert their power on the less powerful. It doesn't make it right but it is interesting how we have normalized what the West does and demonized the CCP for basically doing the same.
Well in all fairness though, the West has in general become much more 'tame' as time has gone on in how it exerts its influence, especially Europe. The mega corporations certainly throw their weight around but the days of invading to take back the Suez, or letting 'Trade Companies' be essentially exploitative nation states with government X protection are long gone. China turning the clock back on how the powerful get to throw their weight around is what's being decried.
When's the last time the US or one of its allies took possession of some debtor nation's key infrastructure in lieu of payment?
11-29-2021, 23:59
rory_20_uk
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
Kinda funny with G-Bay as the US still sends Cuba the lease payment every year and Cuba just doesn't cash it. On the serious side though, was hoping that the thaw in relations under Obama would have led to future negotiations about the Naval Base.
The sanctions though had more to do with the Iranians taking Americans hostage.
Well in all fairness though, the West has in general become much more 'tame' as time has gone on in how it exerts its influence, especially Europe. The mega corporations certainly throw their weight around but the days of invading to take back the Suez, or letting 'Trade Companies' be essentially exploitative nation states with government X protection are long gone. China turning the clock back on how the powerful get to throw their weight around is what's being decried.
When's the last time the US or one of its allies took possession of some debtor nation's key infrastructure in lieu of payment?
Guantanamo bay is illegally occupied. Cuba has said to leave for years and the USA just doesn't. Just as they've been doing it for decades doesn't make it any better.
Tame? The West just invades those they don't like, such as Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan; fire cruise missiles into Syria for the hell of it; assassinate people in Pakistan and the whole illegal rendition to torture people in black sites wasn't that long ago; we also freeze the overseas assets of other countries - much easier to seize assets they've given us to look after. Not to mention giving weapons to allies at a discount to kill those we don't like.
The West also pretends to hold itself to higher standards.
~:smoking:
11-30-2021, 00:12
spmetla
Re: Great Power contentions
Fair point, got nothing.
Edit: For the sake of argument, I'll reply though for the most part I agree with the overall sentiment that rory posted. The West does a lot of saying one thing and doing another. I do disagree that we call out Russia and China for doing the same things we do. Our goals and methods are very different and that's really the difference in what I'd call any 'moral high ground.' The strong always can throw their weight around but might doesn't make right. The West does try to own up to its faults and change when possible.
Quote:
Guantanamo Bay is illegally occupied. Cuba has said to leave for years and the USA just doesn't. Just as they've been doing it for decades doesn't make it any better.
It certainly is now but right after the Cuban revolution it wasn't exactly clear that the new regime would last, especially with the US hosting the former regime members as well as plotting the return of the old regime ie: Bay of Pigs. Cuba was a major exporter of revolution and violence up to the mid-90s in South America and Africa and it does make sense that the US wouldn't just hand back a base to a hostile government that it has no diplomatic ties with. Then considering that the US didn't really recognize Cuba until Obama it kinda makes it difficult to resolve long standing issues. It's one of the problems of international diplomacy, at what point is a new government a legal one. There's lots of qausi-states that aren't recognized like South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, Northern Cyprus, and so on. Now that diplomatic ties are somewhat normalized a whay forward can commence.
The US closed its bases in France when asked under de Gaul, the US left Iraq when Maliki and Obama didn't want to renew a Status of Forces Agreement, when the Philippines wanted Subic Naval Base and Clark Air Force Base returned the US did so. Major point I'm making is that the US will leave when asked by governments it recognizes. That Castro family together with US antagonism since the Cold War made that impossible for a long time. That's why since the Obama return of diplomatic relations a return of the Naval Base could actually happen now that we are dealing with a government, we don't need a third party to talk to.
Quote:
Tame? The West just invades those they don't like, such as Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan; fire cruise missiles into Syria for the hell of it;
Zero argument that the West uses force but I'll caveat that with it doesn't just invade everyone it doesn't like. In Libya it intervened in a Civil War on behalf of the rebels and then failed to actually try and prop them up leading to the terminal chaos of the present.
Iraq there's zero excuse. The reasons for the invasion ended up false and there was zero exit strategy. However, the US did leave when Maliki stood his ground and then the US came back when asked to help with ISIS.
Afghanistan I've debated here enough in the other thread, the US was responding to 9/11, the Taliban offer was not a serious one. The US didn't invade for shits and giggles or just because the Taliban were bad, hell the US was working oil pipeline deals with the Taliban in the years just prior to 9/11.
Syrian cruise missiles; well there's no real legal justification for it. There's an ongoing civil war, the US half heartedly backed the losing side. Majority of US operations in Syria were anti-ISIS together with the Kurds. The situation in Syria though is far more complicated than just the West creating chaos.
Quote:
assassinate people in Pakistan and the whole illegal rendition to torture people in black sites wasn't that long ago;
Besides the raid to kill Bin Laden there's nothing really defensible about the US actions above. Especially in regard to the toleration of torture under Bush Jr. The actions in Gitmo, Abu Graib, and the CIA black sites are stains on the US that have hurt our interests and reputation far more than any intel gained could be worth.
Quote:
we also freeze the overseas assets of other countries - much easier to seize assets they've given us to look after.
Generally, there are justifiable reasons to do so. When governments change and the new one is hostile to the powers that control the banks it makes little sense to hand them cash. In the long run though if diplomatic relations are restored then those assets can be released. It's not like those funds just go into our own piggy banks for our own reasons.
The $400 million that Obama gave to Iran was the money owed for halting the weapons programs that the Shah had paid for as a good example. Same with the Taliban in Afghanistan, they may be the de facto government but that doesn't automatically entitle them to all the aid programs and cash support given to the previous government.
Biggest thing I mean for the term 'tame' though is that the West certainly doesn't invade for keeps anymore. It's a bit different than Russia taking and annexing Crimea or the Chinese building islands and then claiming their territory is actually larger than it is.
The Japanese still claim the Kuril Islands and have territorial disputes with China and South Korea. The Russians still hold Prussia, the Chinese have Tibet and claim far more. The fact that Russia and China are using force to resolve these issues is what I referred to as the clock turning back.
Quote:
Not to mention giving weapons to allies at a discount to kill those we don't like.
Well yeah, that's always been the way the world works.
Quote:
The West also pretends to hold itself to higher standards.
I'd say the West tries to hold itself to a higher standard though does fail quite often. Admitting fault and culpability doesn't bring back the dead but does allow the West to move forward. There's no shortage of coverups but it's not quite the thought police/social credit score of China that try to pretend that Tiananmen Square never happened and arrest anyone that does. Our athletes don't disappear for weeks to attend 'reeducation' if they bring up scandals against the elites. Western political elites may use corruption to hold onto power but they don't tend to poison their political rivals.
Our previous president fomented an insurrection to subvert the democratic process and is still given his legal rights and due process as are his cronies.
At the end of the day are you able to criticize your country and not suffer repercussions? Can you call out the faults of your country without going to jail (not thinking Snowden type intel dumps to journalists instead of whistleblower)? Could you expect the same safety to do the same if you were a citizen and resident of one of our competitors? Do you think the West does try to minimize civilian casualties in war and is more open than its rivals when it does occur? Doesn't make it better when it happens but it's certainly a sign of trying to hold to a higher standard.
The EU has revealed details of a €300bn (£255bn; $340bn) global investment plan, described as a "true alternative" to China's Belt and Road strategy.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the Global Gateway scheme should become a trusted brand.
China has funded rail, roads and ports but has been accused of leaving some countries saddled with debt.
The Commission chief said countries need "trusted partners" to design projects that were sustainable.
The EU is looking at how it can leverage billions of euros, drawn from member states, financial institutions and the private sector. This will largely take the form of guarantees or loans, rather than grants.
Mrs von der Leyen said the EU wanted to show that a different, democratic approach could deliver on projects that focused on tackling climate change as well as global health security and sustainable development for developing countries.
Projects had to be of high quality, with a high level of transparency and good governance, and had to deliver tangible results for the countries involved, she explained. One EU official told the BBC that Africa would be a major focus of the scheme.
China's strategy has reached into Africa, Asia, the Indo-Pacific and the EU too. China's Cosco company owns two-thirds of the huge Greek container port at Piraeus and the China Road and Bridge Corporation has built a key bridge in Croatia.
"When it comes to investment choices," said the Commission president, "the few options that exist too often come with a lot of small print which includes big consequences, be it financially, politically but also socially."
Andrew Small, a Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, told the BBC it marked "the first serious effort from the European side to put packages together and figure out financing mechanisms, so countries considering taking loans from China have an alternative option".
China: Big spender or loan shark?
MI6 boss warns of China 'debt traps and data traps'
'We don't like our land being given away to China'
At a briefing last month, China's ambassador to the EU, Zhang Ming, said Beijing welcomed the EU's Global Gateway strategy if it was open and could "help developing countries". But he also warned "any attempt to turn infrastructure projects into a geopolitical tool would fail the expectation of the international community and harm one's own interests".
Belt and Road has been a centre-piece of Chinese foreign policy.
While it has developed trade links by ploughing money into new roads, ports, railways and bridges, it has also been criticised as a means of providing "predatory loans" in what is labelled "debt-trap diplomacy".
But there are also those who argue the picture is more complicated, and that borrowing large sums of money is hardly risk-free. Moreover, China met a need others did not.
Either way, China's economic and geopolitical footprint has grown as tensions rise with the West.
The question is whether the EU can really act in this geopolitical space, says Andrew Small.
"Or is it too rigid, too bogged down by internal bureaucratic fighting? If they fail at this, it's a big miss," he argues.
One diplomat told me: "It's a good sign that finally Europe is asserting its influence in this area.
"That's a common interest we share with our transatlantic friends in the US and UK."
But a common interest could also create more competition, according to Scott Morris, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development.
After all, the US has its own "Build Back Better World" initiative launched at the G7 last June. "This is a noisy space with a lot of brands bumping into each other," says Mr Morris.
However he's "hopeful" of success for the Global Gateway initiative. He says, "more importantly" than rivalling China, it's a chance for Europe to "achieve a scale of financing that can do some good in developing countries that need some capital".
The EU has pointedly emphasised its "values-based" and "transparent" approach, arguing it wants to create links not dependencies.
But this is also about influence, as the Commission continues to look for ways to flex its muscles on the geopolitical stage and, in turn, find out how strong those muscles are.
Certainly, a positive development. I'm glad to see the EU try and build up its soft power through competitive investment abroad. The limitations due to regime type, human rights records, and so on will certainly mean that the EU or the US's B3W plans won't affect Chinese influence in states that are too politically 'toxic' for the west to invest in. However, this will be good to 'reward' countries that share our values and encourage investment without the dangers that Chinese investment brings.
The EU will certainly face hurdles like what to do when payments default, how to ensure the money goes towards the intended projects instead of just lining the pockets of middlemen up and down the chain in the EU and the invested country, as well as contracting the right construction firms etc... that can build on time and to standard.
"Global Gateway" is at least a positive sign of investment that may result in competition for influence and investment that hopefully benefits the receiving countries.
Perhaps it can help make up for the shortfall in funding for climate change to those affected 'southern countries' that COP didn't adequately address.
12-02-2021, 05:28
Montmorency
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk
Bastards!
Oh, when is the USA giving back Guantanamo Bay? Stopping sanctions against Iran for getting upset at a Revolution against the puppet they put in place?
Powerful countries exert their power on the less powerful. It doesn't make it right but it is interesting how we have normalised what the West does and demonized the CCP for basically doing the same.
~:smoking:
Since when did we support the illegal sanctions against Iran, or the 60-year vendetta against Cuba, here?
Of course the Castro government has always rejected our terms, making our rent payments an amusing fig leaf (I wish I could do that for an apartment of my choice). What we can say about it in our defense is that the small piece of land we hold is not economiclly valuable or a hindrance to Cuban governance, unlike what China's move would imply for Uganda, so we're on firmer territory there. The diplomatic repression of Cuba is a much bigger deal.
I wouldn't be entirely surprised if in coming decades China resolves issues of non-compliance with loan terms by collecting on the debt through military force and occupation, as the United States used to do extremely often in Latin America from the 1890s through the 1920s.
Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
It certainly is now but right after the Cuban revolution it wasn't exactly clear that the new regime would last, especially with the US hosting the former regime members as well as plotting the return of the old regime ie: Bay of Pigs. Cuba was a major exporter of revolution and violence up to the mid-90s in South America and Africa and it does make sense that the US wouldn't just hand back a base to a hostile government that it has no diplomatic ties with. Then considering that the US didn't really recognize Cuba until Obama it kinda makes it difficult to resolve long standing issues. It's one of the problems of international diplomacy, at what point is a new government a legal one. There's lots of qausi-states that aren't recognized like South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, Northern Cyprus, and so on. Now that diplomatic ties are somewhat normalized a whay forward can commence.
It's been 60 years. As Trump up and decided to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, any government could hand over Guantanamo in a matter of weeks.
It's just not a priority for political reasons. Rory, remember when Obama tried to liquidate the internment center at Guantanamo as he had campaigned on? It was one of the first things he tried as president. Very quickly he dropped the issue and moved to focus on completing the recession stimulus package and launching negotiations on his landmark ACA insurance reform. This was for the barest political and really utilitarian reasons: the mainstream media, and the US Congress almost in unanimity - including the majority of his own party - denounced him vehemently over the issue.
So there's a right thing to do, and it's mechanically-simple, but who wants to deal with it, eh? Liquidating Guantanamo partially resolves an injustice to a few dozen people (most of whom would still be imprisoned elsewhere), whereas the stimulus and the ACA helped hundreds of millions and saved lives.
You would need a president with Biden's guts and disregard for baked-in criticism on foreign policy, to do what he did in telling all the typical miscreants to :daisy: off over Afghanistan. Not Biden himself, of course, he's blown his wad for the term and paid his price...
Speaking of Biden, early days, but he does appear serious about bringing our drone programs under strict control.
Our previous president fomented an insurrection to subvert the democratic process and is still given his legal rights and due process as are his cronies.
I'm sure you mean "dude process." :wink:
Quote:
At the end of the day are you able to criticize your country and not suffer repercussions? Can you call out the faults of your country without going to jail (not thinking Snowden type intel dumps to journalists instead of whistleblower)? Could you expect the same safety to do the same if you were a citizen and resident of one of our competitors? Do you think the West does try to minimize civilian casualties in war and is more open than its rivals when it does occur? Doesn't make it better when it happens but it's certainly a sign of trying to hold to a higher standard.
Whatever you think should happen to Snowden, it can't be denied that he did the right and productive thing for us.
I just posted about our relationship with civilian casualties last month, and once or twice in the summer...
It's great that we have a formal legal process and standard to conform to, it's just that, as in so many domains that operate under the direction of 'armed G-men', there are a lot of people dedicated to submerging and defeating mechanisms of accountability, and no one ever challenges them for it. Beating those people, wherever they are to be found, once and for all, would be the West - namely America - living up to its ideals...
Quote:
While it has developed trade links by ploughing money into new roads, ports, railways and bridges, it has also been criticised as a means of providing "predatory loans" in what is labelled "debt-trap diplomacy".
But there are also those who argue the picture is more complicated, and that borrowing large sums of money is hardly risk-free. Moreover, China met a need others did not.
Notably, the core tenet of the investment philosophy I delved into earlier is that rich countries can stand to take on vastly more (short-term) risk when it comes to poor countries, rather than offloading the risk as per tradition. Enlightened, and ultimately self-interested*, altruism, is the only plausible value proposition that can decisively displace China's. And we want to displace China's model not for the petty reason of getting one over them in the Great Game, but because China's model is exploitative and ultimately unproductive for humanity. What's most important is the enduring preservation of the species; all the rest is whistling past the gravedigger.
*In terms of the national collective selves
Quote:
But a common interest could also create more competition, according to Scott Morris, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development.
After all, the US has its own "Build Back Better World" initiative launched at the G7 last June. "This is a noisy space with a lot of brands bumping into each other," says Mr Morris.
Thus my insistence on transnational consolidation of these efforts. Does anyone have a problem with the US reifying the EU's promises?
12-03-2021, 17:17
rory_20_uk
Re: Great Power contentions
Legality at a Supranational level is always difficult since... whose laws? And of course the UN is never allowed to bite the important permanent members.
The USA isn't prepared to deal with Guantanamo prison for internal political reasons. Completely understandable and instantly we're closer to Realpolitik than any pretence at the "right" thing.
Barring a Marketing campaign that seems to have kicked off after WW2 that has just continued with these childishly simplistic approaches to right and wrong, yes it was ever thus - countries looking after the interests of their countries and by that I mean the rich and powerful in their countries.
A more adult approach would enable nuance and self-reflection. The USA hasn't either got to be "good" or "bad" and is somewhere in the middle so accepting things aren't perfect isn't an admission that everything is wrong. Problems can't all be rectified with external intervention and solutions are often zero-sum (unless one decides to undertake genocide, of course); the UK / France and other Imperial powers created country lines to suit themselves and the leaders since then have been far more concerned with power, money and the ability to blame the events which in some cases were 100 years ago than bothering to sort out the mess.
China is giving loads of money with few if any strings attached, bar be good to China. The EU is going to do the usual with vast amounts of rules to follow and I imagine many countries are going to go with China since it is easier to steal.
~:smoking:
12-08-2021, 02:12
Montmorency
Re: Great Power contentions
Question worth exploring: how is the Vietnamese Communist Party reacting, practically and philosophically, to the CCP's/China's retrenchment?
12-08-2021, 10:39
Pannonian
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
Question worth exploring: how is the Vietnamese Communist Party reacting, practically and philosophically, to the CCP's/China's retrenchment?
Can't imagine they'd be too pleased. Vietnam has fought a war against China more recently than it's fought a war against the US.
US President Joe Biden has said that putting American troops on the ground in Ukraine in the event of a Russian invasion is "not on the table".
But Mr Biden warned of severe consequences if Russia did invade.
He was speaking a day after two hours of talks by video link with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The virtual summit was aimed at reducing tensions in the region after a major Russian troop build-up along Ukraine's eastern border.
Russia has accused Ukraine of provocation, and sought guarantees against eastward Nato expansion and deployment of weapons close to Russia.
Ukrainian authorities have said Moscow could be planning a military offensive at the end of January, although US officials say it is not yet clear whether President Putin has made a decision.
Speaking on Wednesday, Mr Putin refused to say whether he would order troops into Ukraine. But he said he could not sit back while the military alliance moved close to Russia.
Mr Biden said he had made it clear to Mr Putin during Tuesday's meeting that there would be "economic consequences like none he's ever seen".
He was confident that the Russian leader got the message, he added.
But when asked about possible military action, Mr Biden said the US's moral and legal obligations to its Nato allies in the region did not extend to Ukraine, who is not a member of the 30-member organisation.
"The idea that the US is going to unilaterally use force to confront Russia invading Ukraine is not on the cards right now," he said.
The US president said he hoped high-level meetings with Russia and at least four major Nato allies to discuss Russia's concerns would be announced by Friday.
The US has not specified what economic consequences it has in mind, but on Tuesday National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Nord Stream 2 - a new gas pipeline from Russia to Germany bypassing Ukraine which is not yet in operation - provided "leverage" for the US and its allies.
Other possible measures include restrictions on Russia's banks converting roubles into foreign currencies, or even disconnecting Russia from the Swift global financial payment system, reports say.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said that, while Tuesday's talks brought "no sensations", he was grateful for President Biden's "unwavering support".
More than 90,000 Russian troops are believed to be massed near Ukraine's borders. The movement has strained already tense relations between Russia and the US.
A large part of the recent Russian military build-up is in Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula which Russia seized from Ukraine and then annexed in 2014.
Troops are also gathering near Ukraine's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, parts of which are under the control of Russian-backed separatists.
More than 14,000 people have lost their lives in seven years of conflict since Russian-backed forces seized large areas of Ukraine's east.
Mixed feelings on the lack of US troops as an option. I personally don't think that economic sanctions short of the getting EU/NATO countries to stop buying Russian gas products will deter Putin. On the other hand, the US forces in Europe are no where near capable of countering or deterring Russia. There's a lot of capability but no longer a full armored division in Germany like there was prior to 2014 so with the current forces available the US wouldn't be able to change the outcome between a full war between Ukraine and Russia without getting the days/weeks to build up air/ground power on the continent first, by which point the war's outcome would probably be decided.
The NATO allies in Europe also don't have anywhere near the capability to deter anything either. The amount of troops Russia has on the border alone is larger than the entire army of Germany, France, or the UK separately.
I just hope the behind the scenes threats are enough of a deterrence. Not sure if Putin will actually do anything though as merely deterring Ukraine from joining NATO would be geo-political win and deter the same from happening to Georgia, Sweden, or Finland (all unlikely NATO allies but potential anyhow). Still think this is more bluff than anything but Putin is certainly not a man afraid of conflict as he seems to get stronger from it domestically despite any repercussions to Russia as a whole.
Quote:
Can't imagine they'd be too pleased. Vietnam has fought a war against China more recently than it's fought a war against the US.
I imagine on a philosophical view in terms of communism they're likely pleased as it would limit domestic aspirations for more liberalization in Vietnam too. They've never though viewed themselves as subservient to the PRC, they were happy for the help against the French and the US but that was all out of convenience in a war that was more nationalist than really idealism.
On the whole though relations between Vietnam and China will remain frosty. China's revanchism and broad territorial claims are a direct threat to Vietnam's economic areas off its coast as well as the north of the country which was ruled by the Qing Dynasty until the 1880s when the French took it away.
Vietnam has always had closer ties to Russia than China since the fall of Saigon and has understandably courted the US a bit to balance against China since the fall of the USSR.
12-09-2021, 00:44
Furunculus
Re: Great Power contentions
i feel that this essay on taiwan has relevenace to the 'non-alliance' solution to ukraine:
The US trying to bluff and bluster over Ukraine would be counterproductive; I doubt many foreign policy people throughout Europe believed that Biden would launch WW3 over Ukraine prior to his announcement.
If Russia did invade, the US and EU would however be justified in taking all covert and overt non-military measures to destabilize the Russian state and overthrow the Putin government. Our orientation in such an event: make the cost of war too painful for Putin to bear, or make the cost of Putin remaining in power too painful for Russia's oligarchs/people to bear. Though the latter may be complicated if it turns out that Putin finds a lot of elite support for invading (I don't know if this is or will be the case).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
Can't imagine they'd be too pleased. Vietnam has fought a war against China more recently than it's fought a war against the US.
But how does it affect their view on domestic governance? Are Xi's methods influential, or do they see it as a path to avoid? The existing disposition as adequate? Are there any internal controversies?
I wish I knew a Vietnam expert on Twitter or something.
The proposal, coming as Moscow masses troops on the border with Ukraine, would establish a Cold War-like security arrangement in Eastern Europe that NATO officials immediately rejected.
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia demanded on Friday that the United States and its allies halt all military activity in Eastern Europe and Central Asia in a sweeping proposal that would establish a Cold War-like security arrangement, posing a challenge to diplomatic efforts to defuse Russia’s growing military threat to Ukraine.
The Russian proposal — immediately dismissed by NATO officials — came in the form of a draft treaty suggesting NATO should offer written guarantees that it would not expand farther east toward Russia and halt all military activities in the former Soviet republics, a vast swath of now-independent states extending from Eastern Europe to Central Asia.
The proposals codified a series of demands floated in various forms in recent weeks by Russian officials, including by President Vladimir V. Putin in a video call with President Biden. They represent in startling clarity goals long sought by Mr. Putin, who analysts say is growing increasingly concerned that Ukraine is drifting irretrievably into a Western orbit, posing a grave threat to Russian security.
The demands also reinforced the notion that Mr. Putin seemed willing to take ever-greater risks to force the West to take Russian security concerns seriously and to address historical grievances largely ignored for decades.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei A. Ryabkov, laid out details about the proposal in public for the first time on Friday in a video news conference in Moscow, amid a Russian troop buildup near Ukraine’s border that Western officials have interpreted as a threat of an invasion.
The demands went far beyond the current conflict between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. And most were directed not at Ukraine, which is threatened by the troop buildup, but at the United States and Ukraine’s other Western allies.
They included a request for a NATO commitment that it would not offer membership to Ukraine specifically. But NATO officials emphasized that NATO countries will not rule out future membership for any Eastern European countries, including Ukraine.
The proposal highlighted starkly differing views in the United States and Russia on the military tensions over Ukraine. Russia has insisted that the West has been fomenting the crisis by instilling anti-Russia sentiment in Ukraine, and by providing weapons. Mr. Ryabkov cast the confrontation in Ukraine as a critical threat to Russia’s security.
The United States and European allies, in contrast, say Russia provoked the security crisis by recently deploying tens of thousands of troops near Ukraine’s border.
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NATO officials said on Friday that Russia’s proposals were unacceptable in their demands for veto power over now-independent countries. They emphasized their openness to a diplomatic dialogue on Russia’s security concerns, but said that any discussion would also include NATO’s security concerns about Russian missile deployments, satellite tests and disinformation efforts.
The officials also suggested that if Russia did make a major new military incursion into Ukraine, as it seems to be planning, NATO would strongly consider moving more troops into allied countries bordering Ukraine, like Poland and the Baltic countries, because the “strategic depth” against Russia that Ukraine now provides would be damaged or lost.
Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, said in Washington on Friday that while the Russians had a list of security concerns, so did the United States and its European allies, and that Washington was willing to negotiate on that basis.
“We’ve had a dialogue with Russia on European security issues for the last 20 years,” Mr. Sullivan told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations. “We had it with the Soviet Union for decades before that.”
That process “has sometimes produced progress, sometimes produced deadlock,” he said, noting that the United States planned “to put on the table our concern with Russian activities that we believe harm our interests and values.”
“It’s very difficult to see agreements getting consummated,” he added, “if we’re continuing to see an escalatory cycle.”
He declined to say if the United States was willing to provide Ukraine with more powerful defensive weapons, saying a $450 million arms and security package is already in place. He said the pipeline was already so full there is a question of “absorptive capacity.”
The Russian proposal took the form of two draft treaties, one with NATO and the other with the United States.
“Member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization accept the obligation to exclude farther expansion of NATO to Ukraine and other states,” the text suggested. In demanding the written guarantee from NATO, Mr. Putin and other Russian officials have reached into early post-Cold War history, describing what they see as a betrayal by the West in 1990.
They assert that NATO expanded to the east despite a spoken assurance from James Baker, then the secretary of state, to the Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, that it would not.
The agreement was never put in writing and Mr. Baker said later that Russian officials misinterpreted his comment, which applied only to the territory of the former East Germany. Mr. Gorbachev has, in interviews, confirmed that spoken assurance came in discussions only of East Germany.
The new Russian proposal surfaced other historical grievances.
It demanded that NATO withdraw military infrastructure placed in Eastern European states after 1997, the date of an accord signed between Russia and NATO that Moscow wants now as a starting point for a new security treaty.
The Russian Foreign Ministry had earlier demanded that NATO officially abrogate a 2008 promise, known as the Bucharest Declaration, that Ukraine and Georgia would be welcomed into the alliance. The NATO chief invoked that declaration after the meeting with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, on Thursday, saying the offer still stands.
Russia is also insisting that NATO countries do not deploy offensive weapons in states neighboring Russia, including countries not in the alliance — a reference to Ukraine. And the proposal suggested a ban on military exercises at strengths of more than a brigade in a zone along both sides of Russia’s western border, an issue that would address the current military buildup near Ukraine.
Analysts expressed concerns about the Russian demands, saying they appeared to set up any talks between Russia and the West on these “security guarantees” for failure, possibly paving the way for a war in Ukraine.
But they might also represent an opening position, with Russia willing to later compromise in talks. That the demands were put forth by the deputy foreign minister, Mr. Ryabkov, and not by his boss, Sergey V. Lavrov, or by Mr. Putin himself, left wiggle room, analysts said.
“There is a lot of shadow boxing going on, on all sides, and it’s not clear how this ends,” said Samuel Greene, a professor of Russian politics at King’s College in London. “This whole situation is ambiguous by design.”
Analysts pointed out that Mr. Putin had tried to extract similar concessions from President Trump but failed.
Mr. Greene said Russia may now see an opening to renegotiate the post-Soviet security landscape while Ukraine is still weak but likely to become stronger, Western nations are distracted by the pandemic and other problems and the U.S. is more concerned with the Chinese threat to Taiwan.
Putting forward impossible demands was intended to complicate diplomacy over the Russian buildup on the Ukrainian border, said Samuel Charap, a Russian security analyst at the RAND Corporation. “Diplomacy requires compromise and flexibility,” he said. “It usually entails avoiding public ultimatums. Basically, this is not diplomacy. It’s the opposite of diplomacy.”
Mr. Ryabkov, the Russian diplomat, said Moscow was open to “reasonable” compromises. But he also suggested the Kremlin has assessed the United States’ power as waning and that a new accord is justified.
Analysts say that negotiating such wide-ranging new security accommodations would most likely take many months, if they can be accomplished at all. Mr. Putin may have to decide at an earlier moment whether to go ahead with an invasion because the troops garrisoned now at temporary sites near the Ukrainian border cannot remain there indefinitely.
Ukrainian officials have suggested that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August helped precipitate the crisis by signaling waning American resolve for overseas commitments, which emboldened the Kremlin.
The Biden administration has vowed to remain engaged in the international arena and said it intended to repair relationships strained under President Trump. American officials have consistently said they are committed to supporting Ukrainian sovereignty.
Mr. Putin has come close to openly acknowledging that he is using military force to coerce the West to negotiate, though his spokesman has denied this. Mr. Putin has said Western countries were realizing Russia was serious about defending “red lines” related to NATO forces near its borders.
“Our recent warnings have indeed been heard and are having a certain effect,” he told a gathering of Russian diplomats in November. “Tensions have risen.”
A fairly bold and clearly unacceptable proposal by the Russians. While I too think NATO expansion has gone too fast and that the Russians do have a right to be concerned about NATO expansion, I don't think they should hold any veto power on membership to an alliance formed to protected itself from Russia/USSR.
It is ludicrous how the Russians claim the buildup is to protect themselves from Ukrainian aggression which is certainly a laughable reverse of the situation.
I'm happy that there are negotiations ongoing but assume this is just a way to divide the rest too as even engaging in talks that start with a baseline demand such as not doing the Baltic air policing for our NATO allies there is sure to anger the former-warsaw NATO members, while the bigger Western European countries prefer more of the status quo so as not to upset the supply of gas and further postpone needed military reforms/modernizations.
12-18-2021, 03:20
Seamus Fermanagh
Re: Great Power contentions
This is classic willpower haggling crap. Like NATO is going to halt already extant military and training relationships with Estonia, Uzbekistan, etc. This is 'leave ukraine and belarus to us' so they ask for the moon to get us to settle for what they wanted in the first place.
12-18-2021, 06:31
Pannonian
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
This is classic willpower haggling crap. Like NATO is going to halt already extant military and training relationships with Estonia, Uzbekistan, etc. This is 'leave ukraine and belarus to us' so they ask for the moon to get us to settle for what they wanted in the first place.
Sometimes if you start by asking for what you expect to be rejected, you may just get it accepted.
I teach conflict management. I see NOTHING wrong with a clear declaration of what you seek and how it meets your needs moving forward to open the discussion especially when coupled with a willingness by the other party to share same -- integrative bargaining at its finest. That is NOT what Putin is about in this.
12-19-2021, 03:02
Pannonian
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
Pan'
I teach conflict management. I see NOTHING wrong with a clear declaration of what you seek and how it meets your needs moving forward to open the discussion especially when coupled with a willingness by the other party to share same -- integrative bargaining at its finest. That is NOT what Putin is about in this.
I wasn't being serious. I just think of that skit whenever I read of starting with what you expect to be rejected. Let's face it, once you've seen that and know it was meant to be rejected, it's hard to forget it.
12-24-2021, 10:06
Furunculus
Re: Great Power contentions
On the subject of Great Power contentions - i continue to be bemused by Germany's self-deception that Foreign Policy no longer matters:
In a cold winter when european energy prices are sky high, at the moment where russia as the principal energy supplier is threatening to invade a neighbour... Germany continues supporting Pipelines that isolate neighbours who Russia seeks to coerce, and blithley sets about decommissioning the last of its nuclear reactors: https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1473967215657562112
As china commissions a european-navy's worth of naval tonnage every year with the looming insistence of eventual re-unification with Taiwan, Lithuania boldly bucks the trend in offering some support for Taiwan, and German Chamber of Commerce group threatens future investment unless Lithuania winds its neck in: https://twitter.com/noahbarkin/statu...39233052659718
We have our differences with France, but they do understand power and the impact of decisions of this type. What infuriates me is the wilful ignorance of Germany in pretending none of this really exists, and their decisions are created a morally certain vacuum. No external factors apply!
12-25-2021, 18:07
Montmorency
Re: Great Power contentions
I mentioned above how I discovered that Merkel was one of the most pro-Orban leaders in the EU...
If you think about it, every foreign policy action Germany has taken since 2008 pretty conclusively demonstrates that the only, or overriding, German foreign policy priority among the ruling class is to ensure the immediate stability of operating environment for German business interests. This applies to German manufacturing in Hungary, German debt holdings in Greece, German petroleum from Russia, and German trade with China. You're just mad they have different foreign policy priorities than you do (though here we are aligned).
Germany is one of the most anti-nuclear countries in the world though - as in near-unanimity among the population - and the phaseout has been planned since the 1990s. Hell, the German Volk are more anti-nuclear than they were anti-Semitic!
12-26-2021, 18:22
Seamus Fermanagh
Re: Great Power contentions
Remove all nuclear power and eradicate the use of fossil fuels.
Surely renewables will magically fill the power gap because that is what we want.
:rolleyes:
12-27-2021, 06:44
Montmorency
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
Remove all nuclear power and eradicate the use of fossil fuels.
Surely renewables will magically fill the power gap because that is what we want.
:rolleyes:
Any sufficiently-advanced investment is indistinguishable from magic. :book2:
Quote:
Chris Hamilton, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, said he had conveyed to Mr. Manchin that the clean energy tax credits would be a death knell for the state’s coal industry. Even though the clean electricity standard was stripped from the bill, Mr. Hamilton said the coal industry still saw the tax incentives as a threat to the state.
“The credits that were in the bill would have resulted in an almost total displacement of coal generation within a relatively short period of time,” Mr. Hamilton said. “Those provisions were more onerous and more likely to displace coal-fired generation than the clean energy standard,” he said.
Russian-led military troops will be deployed to help "stabilise" Kazakhstan amid anti-government demonstrations.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called for support from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) as nationwide unrest escalates.
The protests were first sparked by rising fuel prices, but have broadened to include other political grievances.
President Tokayev claimed the unrest was the work of foreign-trained "terrorist gangs".
However, Kate Mallinson, an expert on Central Asia at the foreign affairs think tank Chatham House in London, said the protests are "symptomatic of very deep-seated and simmering anger and resentment at the failure of the Kazhak government to modernise their country and introduce reforms that impact people at all levels".
The president has imposed a nationwide state of emergency that includes an overnight curfew and a ban on mass gatherings and has vowed a tough response to the protests.
In a televised speech in the early hours of Thursday, he said he had sought help from the CSTO - a military alliance made up of Russia and five ex-Soviet states to help stabilise the country.
Later on Wednesday the CSTO's chairman, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, confirmed in a statement on Facebook that the alliance would send peacekeeping forces "for a limited period of time".
The US State Department said it is "closely following" the situation in Kazakhstan, with a spokesman urging restraint by authorities and protesters alike.
BACKGROUND: Kazakhstan country profile
CONTEXT: Rare protests in a country that bans dissent
President Tokayev is only the second person to lead Kazakhstan since it declared independence in 1991. His election, in 2019, was condemned by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) as showing scant respect for democratic standards.
Much of the anger on the streets, however, seems to have been aimed at his predecessor, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has held a powerful national security role since stepping down. On Wednesday, he was fired in a bid to subdue the growing unrest.
Protesters had been heard chanting Mr Nazarbayev's name, while a video showing people attempting to pull down a giant bronze statue of the former leader has been shared online. According to BBC Monitoring, the now-dismantled monument appears to have stood in Taldykorgan, Mr Nazarbayev's home region.
Staff at Kazakhstan's main airport had to flee anti-government demonstrators, who have also targeted government buildings.
Protesters gathered at the mayor's office in Almaty before eventually storming it. Videos on social media showed a plume of smoke rising from the building, while gunfire could also be heard.
The city's police chief, Kanat Taimerdenov, said "extremists and radicals" had attacked 500 civilians and ransacked hundreds of businesses.
Water cannon were used against protesters in the western city of Aktobe. There are reports that security forces have sided with protesters in some places.
However, getting a clear picture of what is happening in the central Asian nation is proving difficult. The interior ministry released figures of reported casualties among the security forces, but there were no equivalent reports of any injuries or deaths among protesters amid what monitoring groups have described as a "nation-scale internet blackout".
Other attempts to end the protests, which began on Sunday when the government lifted the price cap on liquefied petroleum gas which many people use to power their cars, causing it to double in cost, have been made.
As well as Mr Nazarbayev's dismissal, the entire government has resigned.
Protests are not only about fuel
by Olga Ivshina, BBC Russian
The speed at which the protests turned violent took many by surprise, both in Kazakhstan and in the wider region, and hinted that they are not only about an increase in fuel prices.
This is a traditionally stable Central Asian state, which is often described as authoritarian. Until 2019 it was run by President Nursultan Nazarbayev, whose rule was marked by elements of a personality cult, with his statues erected across the country and a capital renamed after him.
Yet when he left, it was amid anti-government protests which he sought to limit by stepping down and putting a close ally in his place.
Most elections in Kazakhstan are won by the ruling party with nearly 100% of the vote and there is no effective political opposition.
The analysts I spoke to say that the Kazakh government clearly underestimated how angry the population was, and that these protests were not surprising in a country with no electoral democracy - people need to take to the streets to be heard.
And their grievances are almost certainly about a far wider set of issues than the price of fuel.
Unrest in as large and important a CSTO state like Kazakhstan is always worrisome. Given the Taliban are now in charge at the southern end of the 'Stans' I hope that this doesn't spiral out of control as central asian stability is certainly at stake.
I personally don't think this will last long as the population is generally fairly rural and dispersed outside the few major cities.
01-07-2022, 00:51
Montmorency
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
The protests were first sparked by rising fuel prices, but have broadened to include other political grievances.
This is just what happened in Cuba a mere half-year ago, and laterally in France 3 (!) years ago, among many other examples.
Whether motivated by climate adaptation or other reasons, or even as external development, it is evident that governments have little choice but to counter rising food or fuel prices with compensatory aid or credits.
01-07-2022, 01:40
Pannonian
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
This is just what happened in Cuba a mere half-year ago, and laterally in France 3 (!) years ago, among many other examples.
Whether motivated by climate adaptation or other reasons, or even as external development, it is evident that governments have little choice but to counter rising food or fuel prices with compensatory aid or credits.
Not over here in the UK. The Tories still armour themselves with Brexit, even as energy and food prices go up. Even as the PM has been caught lying again (although it's a given every time he opens his mouth), even as he's caught taking money for renovations in exchange for favours, even as his friends and colleagues are caught giving tens of millions to their friends and family, he thinks mocking the acting LOTO as a Remainer is the way to go. Looking at how loyal Tories act (more worship of the national anthem yeah!), I'm not sure he's wrong.
01-07-2022, 11:36
rory_20_uk
Re: Great Power contentions
Our Democracy allows a vote every 5 years, and that's about it. Both major parties benefit from FPTP so of course no one wants to change it.
The PM chooses the person to investigate himself and can withhold information from them with impunity and even lying at PMQs is apparently no biggie. This isn't a problem unless the information gets out of course - and the committee didn't think that the withholding of information was a problem.
We have a website where we can petition for things to be discussed but even that is controlled, hence why change.org was used for the popular one regarding Tony Blair's Knighthood being removed.
The Monarchy seems quite content to be nothing but a figurehead rather than the last backstop when the system is clearly failing - to point out the obvious, we have no President so no alternate source of power and the Lords is subservient to the Commons. There is nothing else in our system to improve matters. So here we are - apparently in a first rate democracy...
~:smoking:
01-07-2022, 12:58
Pannonian
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by rory_20_uk
Our Democracy allows a vote every 5 years, and that's about it. Both major parties benefit from FPTP so of course no one wants to change it.
The PM chooses the person to investigate himself and can withhold information from them with impunity and even lying at PMQs is apparently no biggie. This isn't a problem unless the information gets out of course - and the committee didn't think that the withholding of information was a problem.
We have a website where we can petition for things to be discussed but even that is controlled, hence why change.org was used for the popular one regarding Tony Blair's Knighthood being removed.
The Monarchy seems quite content to be nothing but a figurehead rather than the last backstop when the system is clearly failing - to point out the obvious, we have no President so no alternate source of power and the Lords is subservient to the Commons. There is nothing else in our system to improve matters. So here we are - apparently in a first rate democracy...
~:smoking:
The problem with our system is that the checks and balances are dependent on the very thing that gives the chief executive their power; the Commons majority. After that, it's dependent on custom. If a PM with a majority has no sense of ethics, there is nothing to stop them from doing whatever they like under the guise of democracy. And if there are enough voters to cast their vote their way, then we have what we have. A PM with no restrictions of any kind, who is good at pressing buttons to get those requisite votes.
We westerners shouldn't be so comfortable about assuming that our democracy is the best thing in the world. It may be less bad than the alternative, but we are quite capable of messing things up ourselves. Reality isn't the all-powerful check on power, if the votes can be relied on. The US might just be on the brink with just enough of a voting coalition to stop Trump. The UK's Tories have found a sure thing and are playing it with all their heart.
01-20-2022, 08:52
spmetla
Re: Great Power contentions
Good debate on France24 on the possibility of Russia invading Ukraine: If Russia did invade: How far would the West go to support Ukraine? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ExRbjmcf-8
I've personally been thinking that this has gone from rhetoric to a genuine threat. I think Melinda's assessment is closest to what I fear is happening too, Putin would very much like to be one of the Great Men of Russia and there's little other realms he could make that claim aside from resurgence and 'reclaiming' Ukraine for Russia.
01-21-2022, 17:00
Hooahguy
Re: Great Power contentions
I am fairly confident that Russia will invade Ukraine within the next 4-6 weeks or so. The size of the invasion is hard to predict, but my guess is that they will try to seize Kyiv and install a Russia-friendly government. I've been following various open-source intelligence pages, and the information coming out is troubling to say the least. One bit of news that Russia was moving military police units into Belarus to these staging areas could be an indication of plans to secure Kyiv.
01-21-2022, 17:45
rory_20_uk
Re: Great Power contentions
If they restrict themselves to the parts that are mainly Russian friendly then they might be able to benefit from it since they'll be less likely to have an insurrection and have some semblance of excuse that they are doing what the people actually want; going further and trying to hold it makes things worse and worse.
Although the West tends to massively punch under its weight, long range strikes with artillery and missiles from the ground / water or air could reap a heavy toll outside of the Russian soil on high tech equipment, and the Ukranians with additional support would be able to make the rest a hard slog - unlike Iraq and Afghanistan where the locals seem to expect the West to do everything for them and ran off when confronted, Ukranians have been fighting for themselves for some years now. Yes, they'd loose but assuming they don't try a pitched battle this would eventually be expensive - and for Russia, there are more important fronts.
~:smoking:
01-21-2022, 18:58
Hooahguy
Re: Great Power contentions
Maybe, but the locations of the military buildups are heavily indicating that they will not be limiting themselves to attacking eastern Ukraine. For example some of the latest images show Russian brigades near the Belarusian town of Mazyr, which is a mere 3.5 hours north of Kyiv.
The real question is the resolve of the Ukrainian people. It is extremely likely that most Ukrainian frontline forces will be decimated in the opening day of the conflict, as Russia has the overwhelming advantage in artillery, air power, and missiles. But will the government and people fold quickly? Or will we see a widespread insurgency? Hard to say at this moment. People can bluster all they want, but when the shells are flying it will be far different.
I am fairly confident that Russia will invade Ukraine within the next 4-6 weeks or so. The size of the invasion is hard to predict, but my guess is that they will try to seize Kyiv and install a Russia-friendly government.
I'm feeling the same here, conditions are good for Putin. Biden is weak politically and has been struggling to get a unified NATO front against Russia. Europe has no leadership: Merkel is gone and Scholz is new and not near established enough to get Germany to do anything 'difficult' meanwhile Macron and Boris are dealing more with COVID-19 fallout in different forms.
With Biden having put a commitment to no ground troops that means Putin only has to weigh how difficult the economic repercussions are and when it comes to gaining territory, well at some point in the future the economy can recovery but changes to borders are permanent short of revolutions or outside force, both of which are not forthcoming.
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If they restrict themselves to the parts that are mainly Russian friendly then they might be able to benefit from it since they'll be less likely to have an insurrection and have some semblance of excuse that they are doing what the people actually want; going further and trying to hold it makes things worse and worse.
They already hold in fact or through their Separatist proxies the Russian majority regions, any further expansion would be into Ukrainian majority areas. I don't think they worry much about insurgency for several reasons. One: unlike the middle east there isn't going to be a bloc of neighboring co-religionists funneling in diehard supporters, two: the language and culture are similar enough that 'policing' against dissent will be easier, three: if they go full on oppression like in Belarus, well the West will stand by and shake their fingers.
Putting in a Russian proxy government and then moving toward full incorporation into Russia at some point in the future seems the likely goal.
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Although the West tends to massively punch under its weight, long range strikes with artillery and missiles from the ground / water or air could reap a heavy toll outside of the Russian soil on high tech equipment, and the Ukrainians with additional support would be able to make the rest a hard slog - unlike Iraq and Afghanistan where the locals seem to expect the West to do everything for them and ran off when confronted, Ukrainians have been fighting for themselves for some years now.
That's why Biden taking ground troops off the table is such a disaster. Conducting strikes against a near-peer power like Russia even within 'friendly territory' of the Ukraine would require a mix of air and ground enablers to do electronic warfare against Russian radar and intelligence systems, strike against integrated air defense systems and so on. Given the distances from our bases in Germany or Carrier Strike Groups in the Med that type of concentrated and consistence power isn't easy to project, especially if all our NATO allies are dithering.
Also, in the event that aircraft are shot down you want to have recovery forces available, something difficult to coordinate if we don't have troops on the ground and in the same HQ as the Ukraine Army.
The following video is just a simulation from a publicly available 'game' but from what I get (I'm just Army wise not Navy or Air Force) it seems fairly well done showing the capabilities in modern war. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGwU9HKH_Eo&t=22s
I think realistically that the US won't be giving the Ukrainians much aside from intelligence support and perhaps some cyberwarfare support.
Crazy to see the effects in the region though with the heightened tensions. Sweden posting troops in Gotland incase things get hot in the Baltic too. The case of Ukraine and Taiwan too certainly demonstrate that being non-aligned has severe limitations in the case of protecting one's sovereignty, wonder if this would drive Sweden and Finland to being more pro-NATO if not outright mulling joining.
As always I wonder where Turkey stands on this issue. Turkey being the wildcard of NATO and having soured its relations with NATO through purchasing S400 systems certainly make their stance unclear. Wonder if they'd allow US warships or aircraft to freely navigate into the Black Sea seeing as we have that airbase in Incirlik and they control the Bosphorus.
01-21-2022, 21:37
Hooahguy
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
I'm feeling the same here, conditions are good for Putin. Biden is weak politically and has been struggling to get a unified NATO front against Russia. Europe has no leadership: Merkel is gone and Scholz is new and not near established enough to get Germany to do anything 'difficult' meanwhile Macron and Boris are dealing more with COVID-19 fallout in different forms.
With Biden having put a commitment to no ground troops that means Putin only has to weigh how difficult the economic repercussions are and when it comes to gaining territory, well at some point in the future the economy can recovery but changes to borders are permanent short of revolutions or outside force, both of which are not forthcoming.
Case in point, Germany just blocked Estonia from transferring weapons to Ukraine, as well as refusing to meet with Biden over Ukraine. Clearly Germany sees the way this is going and would prefer to preserve the Nord Stream pipeline rather than rile things up. Cowards.
Quote:
I don't think they worry much about insurgency for several reasons.
Eh, I think Ukrainian anti-Russian sentiment is far higher in the western part of the country, compared to the Donbas area which is far more pro-Russian. But this is something that we will only really know for sure when the bullets start flying.
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I think realistically that the US won't be giving the Ukrainians much aside from intelligence support and perhaps some cyberwarfare support.
I believe we are also sending hardware as well, but I dont know what exactly.
I hate to say this though, the hard truth is that there is no scenario where the US jumps into a war between Russia and Ukraine. Besides the fact that there's no political will for it, US equipment just isnt positioned for it. How many weeks would it take to get armored brigade combat teams from the US to Europe? We have the equipment for a single ABCT prepositioned now, plus whatever current forces we have on rotation in Germany, Poland, and the Baltics. Now compare that to the current buildup of forces in Belarus and on the Ukranian border. It would be a bloodbath.
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Crazy to see the effects in the region though with the heightened tensions. Sweden posting troops in Gotland incase things get hot in the Baltic too. The case of Ukraine and Taiwan too certainly demonstrate that being non-aligned has severe limitations in the case of protecting one's sovereignty, wonder if this would drive Sweden and Finland to being more pro-NATO if not outright mulling joining.
Yup, I am expecting pro-NATO sentiment to skyrocket after all this. Maybe more in Finland than Sweden but we will see.
Quote:
As always I wonder where Turkey stands on this issue. Turkey being the wildcard of NATO and having soured its relations with NATO through purchasing S400 systems certainly make their stance unclear. Wonder if they'd allow US warships or aircraft to freely navigate into the Black Sea seeing as we have that airbase in Incirlik and they control the Bosphorus.
Well they did sell their TB2 drones to Ukraine last year, which was used with great effect by Azerbaijan in their 2020 war with Armenia. Doing so made Russia mad, but we will see how effective they would be now considering that Russia has far better technology than Armenia does to counter them.
01-22-2022, 04:31
spmetla
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Case in point, Germany just blocked Estonia from transferring weapons to Ukraine, as well as refusing to meet with Biden over Ukraine. Clearly Germany sees the way this is going and would prefer to preserve the Nord Stream pipeline rather than rile things up. Cowards.
Absolutely cowards. Short-sighted easy out policies time and time again. Too vital to Europe to be left out and too afraid of 'difficult' choices to be trusted in charge. Though given a century of poor 'great power' decision making I understand their hesitance to assert a strong EU policy of mutual defense against more than just terrorism. After having dumped nuclear without other 'cleaner' options about they are absolutely reliant on Russian fuel to keep their economy stable and prosperous, especially in the winter.
I wonder if that AUKUS sub deal hadn't so taken Macron and the French establishment by surprise whether they could be trusted to lead a bit more in regard to EU vs Russian power plays. Only France or Germany will ever have the economic, military, and diplomatic credibility to lead the EU but France doesn't have the historical baggage holding it quite back, just a preference to maintain its interests in West Africa and its remaining overseas territories.
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hate to say this though, the hard truth is that there is no scenario where the US jumps into a war between Russia and Ukraine. Besides the fact that there's no political will for it, US equipment just isnt positioned for it. How many weeks would it take to get armored brigade combat teams from the US to Europe? We have the equipment for a single ABCT prepositioned now, plus whatever current forces we have on rotation in Germany, Poland, and the Baltics. Now compare that to the current buildup of forces in Belarus and on the Ukranian border. It would be a bloodbath.
That's exactly why I've always opposed us reducing our presence in Europe to a brigade of paratroopers, a Stryker brigade, and one rotational brigade of armor. Of all the global environments in which heavy units may be useful for deterrence if nothing else it is Europe. Positioning 1st Armored Division in Texas to reap the local economic benefits of military spending is nice for the economy but absolutely useless being postured to actually use them. There are also the negative effects of two decades of COIN focus that our conventional formations have suffered from.
Not that I'd want a division to have to go in and fight the Russians but moving them (and ideally the European 'rapid reaction forces') to Poland or Romania would at least make the Russians have to doubt somewhat. Even if we sent all we had in Europe to the Ukraine to help it would be the absolute bloodbath you describe. Credible deterrence to Russia requires us and our allies to be able to assemble tens of the thousands, not just thousands.
What are your thoughts of a 'creeping invasion' with a limited incursion in one area, defeat of Ukrainians and then expansion elsewhere, slow escalations are harder to galvanize democratic societies against than outright war.
01-22-2022, 06:13
Pannonian
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
Absolutely cowards. Short-sighted easy out policies time and time again. Too vital to Europe to be left out and too afraid of 'difficult' choices to be trusted in charge. Though given a century of poor 'great power' decision making I understand their hesitance to assert a strong EU policy of mutual defense against more than just terrorism. After having dumped nuclear without other 'cleaner' options about they are absolutely reliant on Russian fuel to keep their economy stable and prosperous, especially in the winter.
I wonder if that AUKUS sub deal hadn't so taken Macron and the French establishment by surprise whether they could be trusted to lead a bit more in regard to EU vs Russian power plays. Only France or Germany will ever have the economic, military, and diplomatic credibility to lead the EU but France doesn't have the historical baggage holding it quite back, just a preference to maintain its interests in West Africa and its remaining overseas territories.
That's exactly why I've always opposed us reducing our presence in Europe to a brigade of paratroopers, a Stryker brigade, and one rotational brigade of armor. Of all the global environments in which heavy units may be useful for deterrence if nothing else it is Europe. Positioning 1st Armored Division in Texas to reap the local economic benefits of military spending is nice for the economy but absolutely useless being postured to actually use them. There are also the negative effects of two decades of COIN focus that our conventional formations have suffered from.
Not that I'd want a division to have to go in and fight the Russians but moving them (and ideally the European 'rapid reaction forces') to Poland or Romania would at least make the Russians have to doubt somewhat. Even if we sent all we had in Europe to the Ukraine to help it would be the absolute bloodbath you describe. Credible deterrence to Russia requires us and our allies to be able to assemble tens of the thousands, not just thousands.
What are your thoughts of a 'creeping invasion' with a limited incursion in one area, defeat of Ukrainians and then expansion elsewhere, slow escalations are harder to galvanize democratic societies against than outright war.
If you wanted Europe to be a substantial help in any military endeavour, you'd want hawks in both Paris and London. But the UK lost its appetite with Iraq, and now views Europe as an enemy as a matter of ideology. Russia has its hooks in the UK government as well, bankrolling its ruling party. It used to do the same in the US, until you got rid of Trump. If I were the US, I would not trust the UK to do anything practically useful against Russia, nor for it to coordinate anything with the rest of Europe.
01-22-2022, 11:13
Furunculus
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
If you wanted Europe to be a substantial help in any military endeavour, you'd want hawks in both Paris and London. But the UK lost its appetite with Iraq,
True, to a degree. France and the UK are the [only] european powers have global reach and great-power perspective for geopolitics. And iraq has damaged the UK's appetite for elective war - but it remains miles ahead of any european war with the exception of France.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
[the UK] and now views Europe as an enemy as a matter of ideology.
This is not true. The UK is culturally reverting to a seapower mentality, which has no use for ideologicial enemies as the goal is limited aims and the preservation of trade. If you wanted to make it ideological, the hat would fit even better on the EU as the spurned mistress who actions are bent of limiting the regulatory autonomy of a new regional rival.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
Russia has its hooks in the UK government as well, bankrolling its ruling party. It used to do the same in the US, until you got rid of Trump.
This is not true. It is not true in any useful sense where you consider relative capture of the a european countries foriegn policy agenda to organise opposition to it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
If I were the US, I would not trust the UK to do anything practically useful against Russia, nor for it to coordinate anything with the rest of Europe.
This is not in any way true. Of [ALL] european nations the UK has provided the most material and training support to the Ukraine with the express intention of blunting any Russian offensive. Of [ALL] european nations the UK and Poland have provided the most diplomatic support in building a european coalition to oppose a new Russian offensive.
Germany ranks among the top five arms exporters of the world. The refusal to send defensive weapons to Ukraine is not “rooted in the history” as the German government tries to present it but it’s a deliberate geopolitical choice due to the ties with Russia: https://twitter.com/vtchakarova/stat...10237358432259
It's not a united West. An active sub-alliance of Britain, Poland, the Baltic and a few others is in fact very apparent in this crisis. As is Germany sabotaging deterrence efforts -- trying to rule out SWIFT -- American weariness and French hesitancy. Not the geopolitics of 2014.: https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1483197581358514181
None of this is true. Your dislike of the government (and the policy that won it power), is preventing you from holding any kind of objective view about its [actual] actions.
01-23-2022, 00:25
Shaka_Khan
Re: Great Power contentions
I could be wrong. I think 100,000 soldiers aren't enough to invade Ukraine. Putin might be hiding more near the border. Or maybe this is just a distraction, and his main intention was on Kazakhstan. Or maybe he's just distracting his people away from his domestic problems by raising tensions on the western border.
01-23-2022, 02:18
Hooahguy
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
Absolutely cowards. Short-sighted easy out policies time and time again. Too vital to Europe to be left out and too afraid of 'difficult' choices to be trusted in charge. Though given a century of poor 'great power' decision making I understand their hesitance to assert a strong EU policy of mutual defense against more than just terrorism. After having dumped nuclear without other 'cleaner' options about they are absolutely reliant on Russian fuel to keep their economy stable and prosperous, especially in the winter.
I wonder if Merkel was still in charge if things would have played out the same. Reportedly Biden is trying to work out with the Gulf States to bring in natural gas to help keep Germany afloat, but I dont think it will be enough.
Quote:
That's exactly why I've always opposed us reducing our presence in Europe to a brigade of paratroopers, a Stryker brigade, and one rotational brigade of armor. Of all the global environments in which heavy units may be useful for deterrence if nothing else it is Europe. Positioning 1st Armored Division in Texas to reap the local economic benefits of military spending is nice for the economy but absolutely useless being postured to actually use them. There are also the negative effects of two decades of COIN focus that our conventional formations have suffered from.
Not that I'd want a division to have to go in and fight the Russians but moving them (and ideally the European 'rapid reaction forces') to Poland or Romania would at least make the Russians have to doubt somewhat. Even if we sent all we had in Europe to the Ukraine to help it would be the absolute bloodbath you describe. Credible deterrence to Russia requires us and our allies to be able to assemble tens of the thousands, not just thousands.
No argument here. I think a lot of the post-2014 thinking has been that Russia would try to do another hybrid war in Eastern Europe like they did in Crimea and the Donbas, not huge invasions. Additionally, with the pivot to Asia, the argument to keep huge amount of troops stationed in Europe has previously been a difficult one to make. But I do think whatever happens now we can be looking at expanded garrisons in Europe. Perhaps Poland will finally get that permanent US base they have been clamoring for. Last time they suggested Fort Trump. Perhaps they would be down with a Fort Biden :yes:
Quote:
What are your thoughts of a 'creeping invasion' with a limited incursion in one area, defeat of Ukrainians and then expansion elsewhere, slow escalations are harder to galvanize democratic societies against than outright war.
I'm more inclined to think it will begin with an attack in the southeast to link Crimea with the Donbas region. Which is why they are bringing those landing ships to the Black Sea. It would be followed by (or done in coordination with) an assault by the forces in the north on Kyiv to overthrow the government. Supposedly, according to US and UK intelligence, there's a plan to install a new government in Kyiv, which is in line with this prediction. To me it makes sense for the Russians to want this done as quickly as possible. Especially before the roads turn to mud.
Also should be noted that the terrain of Ukraine isnt the most conducive for an insurgency outside of the cities. Not many mountains, nor are large portions of the country heavily forested. It will be no Afghanistan or Chechnya for Russia.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaka_Khan
I could be wrong. I think 100,000 soldiers aren't enough to invade Ukraine. Putin might be hiding more near the border. Or maybe this is just a distraction, and his main intention was on Kazakhstan. Or maybe he's just distracting his people away from his domestic problems by raising tensions on the western border.
They dont need to hold the entire country. If Russia can seize Kyiv and Odesa as well as link Crimea to the Donbas, I would imagine that would be enough to force the capitulation of the Ukrainian government. Doing so would effectively landlock Ukraine which would be devastating for its economy. All this also depends on the fighting will of the Ukrainian people. I also wager that the number of troops involved go up to 200,000 by the time of invasion.
01-23-2022, 05:56
Shaka_Khan
Re: Great Power contentions
I agree that we shouldn't appease. We'd see a more bold Putin now if none of the NATO members were supporting Ukraine.
01-23-2022, 10:27
rory_20_uk
Re: Great Power contentions
Although I'd be more than happy to see the USA choosing to supply troops to Europe, there would be much smaller problem if NATO and the wider EU spent at least 2% of GDP on defence in a meaningful way to deter likely threats.
And the big country here is Germany. If they are so terrified of accidentally conquering Europe for a third time, then they should spend the money on equipping other countries forces... Erm, they did that last time too, and they tended to be worse...
Look, WW2 was dreadful but if the USA stopped killing civilians and committing war crimes we'd have no one to protect the free world from threats such as democratic leaders they don't like...
Europe needs a strong Germany as frankly its still probably a lesser evil than Russia.
~:smoking:
01-23-2022, 19:37
spmetla
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
I wonder if Merkel was still in charge if things would have played out the same. Reportedly Biden is trying to work out with the Gulf States to bring in natural gas to help keep Germany afloat, but I dont think it will be enough.
I think the German stance would be more or less the same just a clear stance instead of this dithering.
Quote:
No argument here. I think a lot of the post-2014 thinking has been that Russia would try to do another hybrid war in Eastern Europe like they did in Crimea and the Donbas, not huge invasions. Additionally, with the pivot to Asia, the argument to keep huge amount of troops stationed in Europe has previously been a difficult one to make. But I do think whatever happens now we can be looking at expanded garrisons in Europe. Perhaps Poland will finally get that permanent US base they have been clamoring for. Last time they suggested Fort Trump. Perhaps they would be down with a Fort Biden
I'd prefer a Fort Kościuszko as he's got ties to the US Revolutionary War as well as Poland's wars against Russia prior to its partition.
I think the hybrid aspect of 2014 was in large part because Russia needed the deniability. If the US had at the time sent troops to help the Ukraine this aspect of deniability would allow it protest without escalating tensions. After the US and EU essentially just had accept the outcome apart from some sanctions there's no need for deniability.
As for the pivot to Asia, that's in large part a matter of focus and spending, not troop dispositions. No additional troops are going to Korea, Japan or elsewhere in the region. More Naval and Air Force presence and a lot more training exercises. But with the pivot to Asia, outside of the Korean peninsula there's really not much call for large, armored formations short of full fledged war with China or a heavy garrison in Taiwan.
Europe on the other hand is a useful place for armor. Armor was considered for use in the war against Serbia in '99, armor would have been useful if intervening on behalf of the Ukraine in '14, and if something ever happens in the Baltics or Poland you'll need armor again. Stationing heavy units in the US is strategically pointless but good economically.
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I'm more inclined to think it will begin with an attack in the southeast to link Crimea with the Donbas region. Which is why they are bringing those landing ships to the Black Sea. It would be followed by (or done in coordination with) an assault by the forces in the north on Kyiv to overthrow the government. Supposedly, according to US and UK intelligence, there's a plan to install a new government in Kyiv, which is in line with this prediction. To me it makes sense for the Russians to want this done as quickly as possible. Especially before the roads turn to mud.
Also should be noted that the terrain of Ukraine isnt the most conducive for an insurgency outside of the cities. Not many mountains, nor are large portions of the country heavily forested. It will be no Afghanistan or Chechnya for Russia.
I agree with your assumptions there.
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I could be wrong. I think 100,000 soldiers aren't enough to invade Ukraine. Putin might be hiding more near the border. Or maybe this is just a distraction, and his main intention was on Kazakhstan. Or maybe he's just distracting his people away from his domestic problems by raising tensions on the western border.
100K is plenty to invade. The Ukraine has a long frontier to protect with a much smaller full-time army, Russia just needs to put enough force in the right area to affect a break-through and march on the few major cities. With Russia dominance of the air and sea and so much surrounding land it's not like the Ukraine will be able to mount successful second and third lines of defense. Ukrainian forces trying to deploy into other sectors would be interdicted from the air without much interference.
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Although I'd be more than happy to see the USA choosing to supply troops to Europe, there would be much smaller problem if NATO and the wider EU spent at least 2% of GDP on defence in a meaningful way to deter likely threats.
Absolutely agree, but as we've debated here it'd also require political will to use. If the Germans with their current token military were to take a strong stance on behalf of the Ukraine with weapons support, recall its reservists to boost numbers, and start positioning its various heavy units in Poland and Romania it would be a huge deterrent to Russia despite its numerical inferiority and the inexperience of the Germans in modern war.
I'd rather our allies spent their 2% but if they're not willing to even think of applying hard power to support soft power within Europe itself then whats the point. As usual though, I think it's Europe looking to the US for leadership, if Biden were to start putting heavy units in Romania and Poland right now as a deterrent and build up then he could rally other NATO nations to do the same with probably more than just token support.
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Look, WW2 was dreadful but if the USA stopped killing civilians and committing war crimes we'd have no one to protect the free world from threats such as democratic leaders they don't like...
While I agree that the US war on terror as thoroughly soured a lot of people on 'hard power' there's a huge difference between defending the borders of a free Europe as opposed to invading Iran or something. France and Germany selling themselves out is just mind-boggling and I don't think the GWOT is to blame.
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Europe needs a strong Germany as frankly its still probably a lesser evil than Russia.
It's certainly a lesser evil as it's so afraid of being evil that it's at the point of being considered pathetic. An economic powerhouse happy to please whoever holds its leash so long as there's not hard choices to make.
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I agree that we shouldn't appease. We'd see a more bold Putin now if none of the NATO members were supporting Ukraine.
If the Ukraine is invaded do you think we'll finally see other NATO members spend on their own defense too? If not then definatley a more divided world-politik for Putin to take advantage of.
For Biden though, he absolutely NEEDS to handle this right after his Afghan debacle but I think he's so adverse to another war just like everyone else that he's not willing to threaten the force that could actually prevent a war.
The strong despise weakness and I think this attitude guides Putin's worldview.
01-24-2022, 00:27
Montmorency
Re: Great Power contentions
Good stuff Hooah.
Even ignoring that Biden had already overtly communicated multiple times the unwillingness of the US to go to war over Ukraine, no one could have believed ex ante that the US would commit ground forces against Russia in Ukraine. We shouldn't criticize politicians for stating the plainest facts. (The alternative, tough-guy bluffing without basis, was tried by Obama with Assad about a decade ago. It didn't end well.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
What are your thoughts of a 'creeping invasion' with a limited incursion in one area, defeat of Ukrainians and then expansion elsewhere, slow escalations are harder to galvanize democratic societies against than outright war.
The main considerations for Putin must be how many of their economic retaliative options the US and allies would be willing to impose (and for how long, with Ukraine potentially under Russian rule), but also how much resistance there will be from the Ukrainian polity. At one end, desultory unrest is of course no problem for an authoritarian regime - as demonstrated in Kazakhstan this month. But the need for a permanent military occupation, if it comes to that - and it would if Russia intends a closer arrangement than a new Yanukovych - is an imposing prospect both for the occupier and the occupied, yet if Russia managed just to establish a puppet government and pull out, what would be stopping the Ukrainians from overthrowing it in a couple months? Wouldn't they be intensely motivated to do so? That would leave the status quo unchanged at best, with dramatic expenditures to nought by both Ukraine and Russia. Any articles that address these questions?
On the other hand, my father - with deep familial ties in Ukraine and Belarus, but basically ignorant of all politics, foreign policy, and the principles of rational study beyond Fox News and web headlines - thinks the Ukrainian masses are readier to assent to Russian control than to fight it. (He also believes that the only thing stopping Russia from joining and dominating the EU/NATO is American dissent FWIW.)
In terms of a partisan element the primary social group willing to put up long-term resistance against Russian military presence is evidently the Ukrainian far-right and Neo-Nazis. It may be in everyone's interest to facilitate their resistance, under the onerous occupying scenarios, since fascists annihilating against Russian soldiers is - well, not like that, but you get the gist. Geographically, the north and west of the country are best suited to guerilla operations. I don't know what the Ukrainian army has trained for.
In our worst-case though, a successful Russian incorporation of Ukraine implies an inexorable progression toward invasion of the Baltics (since those are easier targets to take and hold military), and it's not an insane gamble to bet regime survival and sustained acquisition through a "limited" war with NATO. After all, there are few possible ways for a NATO thrust through 250 miles of Ukranian or Belarussian forests to the Russian border not to escalate into a century-defining WW3. Would the US and EU be willing to entertain more than a few skirmishes over Kaliningrad in that light? It's hard to believe Russia could reach such prerequisite success in Ukraine though.
01-24-2022, 00:51
Montmorency
Re: Great Power contentions
Remember when I posted in this thread about Task Force 9 in Syria ordering drone strikes and other acts outside of military protocol and likely international law, killing buttloads of civilians and trying to cover it up? Another of their greatest hits:
Quote:
The Tabqa Dam was a strategic linchpin and the Islamic State controlled it. The explosions on March 26, 2017, knocked dam workers to the ground and everything went dark. Witnesses say one bomb punched down five floors. A fire spread, and crucial equipment failed. The mighty flow of the Euphrates River suddenly had no way through, the reservoir began to rise, and local authorities used loudspeakers to warn people downstream to flee.
The Islamic State, the Syrian government and Russia blamed the United States, but the dam was on the U.S. military’s “no-strike list” of protected civilian sites and the commander of the U.S. offensive at the time, then-Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, said allegations of U.S. involvement were based on “crazy reporting.”
“The Tabqa Dam is not a coalition target,” he declared emphatically two days after the blasts.
In fact, members of a top secret U.S. Special Operations unit called Task Force 9 had struck the dam using some of the largest conventional bombs in the U.S. arsenal, including at least one BLU-109 bunker-buster bomb designed to destroy thick concrete structures, according to two former senior officials. And they had done it despite a military report warning not to bomb the dam, because the damage could cause a flood that might kill tens of thousands of civilians.
These haven't been the only stories I've posted on the Org on the subject of SOF wilding...
Returning to the Taiwan hotspot, here is an essay recommending a "porcupine" strategy for Taiwan's defense, a "distributed, survivable, and affordable defense" comprising a "large number of small things" oriented on area denial. This is pretty much what I advocated earlier, but I was surprised to learn that Taiwan has by and large not adopted this doctrine - the Overall Defense Concept - preferring to deepen its reliance on expensive legacy symmetric weapons platforms (such as Abrams tanks, Paladin SPGs, F16s, long-range cruise missiles, and diesel submarines, contrasted with Harpoon and Stinger missiles, UAVs, and missile boats).
Quote:
To move to a force posture that emphasizes such distributed defenses, Taiwan’s future budgets should include funding for the acquisition of systems so numerous, distributed, and mobile that they could not all be targeted by Chinese missile strikes, along with the associated training and support needed to enable effective combat operations. These defenses would be able to survive and engage Chinese military ships, aircraft, helicopters, and drones attempting to cross the strait and land on Taiwan. Examples of specific ground-based systems that should be considered include the Phalanx close-in weapon system, the Hellfire missile, the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System rocket, the Israeli Spike missile, and additional Javelin and Stinger missiles, all of which are low-cost, proven short-range weapons that could be adapted and deployed in large numbers to make Taiwan more difficult to approach by sea or air. Small fast-attack missile boats, additional naval mines and minelaying capabilities, and additional land-based coastal defense cruise missiles could further threaten approaching ships. Drones could provide reconnaissance and targeting information.
[...]
In order to prepare for the evolving capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army, Taiwan should pursue a longer-term development program in addition to near-term plans based on existing systems. Looking to the future, and recognizing Taiwan’s advanced technical capabilities, the large number of small things could include land-based coastal defenses employing advanced technologies against ships, aircraft, and swarms of drones; networks of small, fast, manned and unmanned surface craft and unmanned underwater systems to complicate Chinese naval operations; and drones to increase situational awareness.44 Such systems could be developed and produced in Taiwan with technical assistance from the United States and perhaps other states as well.
Quote:
Taiwan should continue its legacy programs for conventional systems, but at a level that would free up resources for developing and acquiring distributed, survivable, and affordable defenses. Taiwan’s conventional systems, particularly its F-16s, are important for countering gray-zone provocations that fall below the threshold of armed conflict, have economic and industrial benefits, and enjoy military and political support. However, the opportunity cost of acquiring and operating conventional platforms is high. Taiwan’s leaders should make space in the defense budget to provide for the procurement of affordable short-range defenses and the personnel, training, communications, and situational awareness necessary to operate effectively and contribute to the deterrence of an invasion.
[...]
Nevertheless, the underlying concept of an asymmetric response remains sound: Rather than attempt to match China’s air and sea capabilities, Taiwan should leverage its strengths (especially its geography and technology) and exploit the People’s Liberation Army’s vulnerabilities (especially the need to move large amounts of men and equipment across 100 miles of contested water and airspace). The shorthand for this concept should be “a large number of small things.”
Here is another recent article criticizing Taiwan's military procurement and doctrine as too focused on prestige optics and political dealmaking.
Quote:
Taiwan can and should do more — a lot more — especially when it comes to preparing to defend the island from attack. Responsibility for why it is not falls squarely on the shoulders of Taiwan’s military bureaucracy. Most notably, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has abandoned asymmetric defense reform in all but name and has not been reined in by President Tsai Ing-wen. Instead, the ministry is now planning to deter an invasion by threatening to retaliate with missile strikes against the Chinese homeland and by pitting Taiwanese units in direct combat against the vastly superior People’s Liberation Army. Moreover, the ministry has the audacity to tell American audiences that this dramatic shift is fully congruent with an asymmetric posture.
[...]
The explanation revolves around habit and institutional inertia. For generations, Taiwan’s military planned to counter an invasion force by meeting and defeating it head-on. The idea was that the island’s small fleet of technologically superior, American-made jets, ships, and tanks could offset the People’s Liberation Army’s numerical advantages. Unfortunately, this approach stopped making sense once China’s military modernization efforts gave it the edge quantitively and qualitatively.
[...]
Senior defense officials are fully aware that the United States still expects Taiwan to pursue asymmetric defense capabilities. But rather than acquiesce to these painful and costly demands, the ministry has instead coopted and repurposed asymmetry’s lexicon so as to rationalize their decidedly symmetric plans.
Quote:
Take, for example, Taiwan’s decision to spend $5 billion upgrading its fleet of 141 F-16A/B jets. Although it inked a deal in 2011, the upgrades did not start until 2016. Five years later, the first combat wing of upgraded F-16s will stand up this month. The air force even spent another $140 million this year to try to speed the process up so it can hopefully finish the last upgrades in another two years — more than a decade after starting the process. Similarly, in a best-case scenario, Taiwan’s navy will not receive its first submarine until 2024 — but there are indications that the [$16 billion] program is about to be significantly delayed. The last of the M1A2 main battle tanks purchased in 2019 will not reach the island until 2027.
Nor will these shiny new weapons be ready to go into action the moment they arrive. Units will still need to learn how to use and fix them. The services will still have to develop the maintenance capacity to keep them operational. And the Ministry of National Defense will need to stockpile logistics to ensure that these capabilities will have enough ammunition, fuel, and parts to stay in the fight (at least those that survive a first strike). These critical but oft-ignored changes can take years to implement under the best of circumstances. Unfortunately, with tens of billions of dollars’ worth of purchases and platforms already coming down the pipeline, the risk that the Ministry of National Defense might choke on the glut of new toys is real.
Quote:
In essence, these documents reveal that the Ministry of National Defense hopes to extend the battlefield deep inside of China in a way that justifies the pursuit of expensive long-range strike, air superiority, and sea control capabilities.
[...] Yet instead of worrying about how to wage a prolonged defense of the island — especially in the all-too-likely event that invasion troops make it past the beaches — the 2021 review says that Taiwan’s military must find ways to achieve air superiority and sea control. Never mind the fact that even the U.S. Navy and Air Force are not sure they can attain these goals against a determined, capable, and proximate Chinese foe. The Ministry of National Defense is, with a straight face, committing itself to the pursuit of achieving air and sea control using fourth-generation aircraft, a few dozen major surface combatants, a handful of indigenously produced diesel submarines, and yes — main battle tanks and self-propelled howitzers.
If Taiwan doesn't go asymmetric shit's gonna look like Azerbaijan vs. Armenia, where Azerbaijan is China.
01-24-2022, 04:11
spmetla
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Even ignoring that Biden had already overtly communicated multiple times the unwillingness of the US to go to war over Ukraine, no one could have believed ex ante that the US would commit ground forces against Russia in Ukraine. We shouldn't criticize politicians for stating the plainest facts. (The alternative, tough-guy bluffing without basis, was tried by Obama with Assad about a decade ago. It didn't end well.)
I'm not advocating bluffing as you only lose even bigger that way. I'd be more for sending in troops to help defend Kiev if the Russians cross the frontier together with a massive support of airpower to deny the Russians air dominance, of at least the Ukrainian interior. Sending in troops to try and defend Ukraine's frontier would be a lost cause but the moment US/NATO troops are there supporting Ukraine's sovereignty the calculus for Putin would change.
To save Ukraine you have to be willing to fight for it to prevent a war. Though in today's political climate I see that in the choice of "Why die for Danzig?" most of Europe favors appeasement.
Quote:
Returning to the Taiwan hotspot, here is an essay recommending a "porcupine" strategy for Taiwan's defense, a "distributed, survivable, and affordable defense" comprising a "large number of small things" oriented on area denial. This is pretty much what I advocated earlier, but I was surprised to learn that Taiwan has by and large not adopted this doctrine - the Overall Defense Concept - preferring to deepen its reliance on expensive legacy symmetric weapons platforms (such as Abrams tanks, Paladin SPGs, F16s, long-range cruise missiles, and diesel submarines, contrasted with Harpoon and Stinger missiles, UAVs, and missile boats).
It's a good article but the smaller more survivable items would need to be alongside the larger 'legacy' items to work. The 'opportunity cost' for China to actually establish a foothold and gain air superiority needs to be high enough and capable enough to allow the US, Japan, and UK/AUS to actually get support to them. If Taiwan can't hold long enough for its allies to muster strength before a PRC landing I can't see any scenario in which the US would try to land and retake Taiwan.
Quote:
These haven't been the only stories I've posted on the Org on the subject of SOF wilding...
Yup and I fully support these being investigated and it would be nice if for once the Officers making those decisions finally faced repercussions. The US is certainly too nonchalant about the lives of others. I get guys on the ground in 'heat of the moment' making poor decisions but those in the air-conditioned HQs approving these decisions should suffer some consequences.
Decisions like those may be tactical successes but certainly strategic failures as guys in the heat of the moment don't realize the 2nd and 3rd order effects. Pilots don't casually drop bombs, someone in some HQ gave them the okay, it is never just pilot and observer decision making, even with SOF involved.
01-24-2022, 04:32
Seamus Fermanagh
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
If you wanted Europe to be a substantial help in any military endeavour, you'd want hawks in both Paris and London. But the UK lost its appetite with Iraq, and now views Europe as an enemy as a matter of ideology. Russia has its hooks in the UK government as well, bankrolling its ruling party. It used to do the same in the US, until you got rid of Trump. If I were the US, I would not trust the UK to do anything practically useful against Russia, nor for it to coordinate anything with the rest of Europe.
I would disagree only to the extent that Russian agents appear to have played the Trumps for suckers without even having to shell out enough money to buy very many of their people. Gullible AND cheap.
01-24-2022, 05:58
Hooahguy
Re: Great Power contentions
Some news updates:
The US State Department has ordered the families of embassy staff in Ukraine to leave, as non-essential staff. I am guessing other western nations will follow suit this week as well.
Biden is debating sending thousands more troops to NATO's eastern flank:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Quote:
WASHINGTON — President Biden is considering deploying several thousand U.S. troops, as well as warships and aircraft, to NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, an expansion of American military involvement amid mounting fears of a Russian incursion into Ukraine, according to administration officials.
The move would signal a major pivot for the Biden administration, which up until recently was taking a restrained stance on Ukraine, out of fear of provoking Russia into invading. But as President Vladimir V. Putin has ramped up his threatening actions toward Ukraine, and talks between American and Russian officials have failed to discourage him, the administration is now moving away from its do-not-provoke strategy.
In a meeting on Saturday at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, senior Pentagon officials presented Mr. Biden with several options that would shift American military assets much closer to Mr. Putin’s doorstep, the administration officials said. The options include sending 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, with the potential to increase that number tenfold if things deteriorate.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about internal deliberations.
Mr. Biden is expected to make a decision as early as this week, they said. He is weighing the buildup as Russia has escalated its menacing posture against Ukraine, including massing more than 100,000 troops and weaponry on the border and stationing Russian forces in Belarus. On Saturday, Britain accused Moscow of developing plans to install a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine.
“Even as we’re engaged in diplomacy, we are very much focused on building up defense, building up deterrence,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “NATO itself will continue to be reinforced in a significant way if Russia commits renewed acts of aggression. All of that is on the table.”
So far, none of the military options being considered include deploying additional American troops to Ukraine itself, and Mr. Biden has made clear that he is loath to enter another conflict following America’s painful exit from Afghanistan last summer after 20 years.
But after years of tiptoeing around the question of how much military support to provide to Ukraine, for fear of provoking Russia, Biden officials have recently warned that the United States could throw its weight behind a Ukrainian insurgency should Mr. Putin invade Ukraine.
And the deployment of thousands of additional American troops to NATO’s eastern flank, which includes Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Biden administration officials said, is exactly the scenario that Mr. Putin has wanted to avoid, as he has seen the western military alliance creep closer and closer to Russia’s own border.
In his news conference last week, Mr. Biden said he had cautioned Mr. Putin that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would prompt Washington to send more troops to the region.
“We’re going to actually increase troop presence in Poland, in Romania, etc., if in fact he moves,” Mr. Biden said. “They are part of NATO.”
During a phone call this month, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III warned his Russian counterpart, Sergey Shoygu, that a Russian incursion into Ukraine would most likely result in the exact troop buildup that Mr. Biden is now considering.
At the time of the phone call — Jan. 6 — the Biden administration was still trying to be more restrained in its stance on Ukraine. But after unsuccessful talks between Mr. Blinken and the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, on Friday, the administration is eying a more muscular posture, including not only diplomatic options like sanctions, but military options like increasing military support to Ukrainian forces and deploying American troops to the region.
“This is clearly in response to the sudden stationing of Russian forces in Belarus, on the border, essentially, with NATO,” said Evelyn Farkas, the top Pentagon official for Russia and Ukraine during the Obama administration. “There is no way that NATO could not reply to such a sudden military move in this political context. The Kremlin needs to understand that they are only escalating the situation with all of these deployments and increasing the danger to all parties, including themselves.”
Another former top Pentagon official for Russia policy, Jim Townsend, said the administration’s proposal did not go far enough.
“It’s too little too late to deter Putin,” Mr. Townsend said in an email. “If the Russians do invade Ukraine in a few weeks, those 5,000 should be just a down payment for a much larger U.S. and allied force presence. Western Europe should once again be an armed camp.”
During the meeting at Camp David, Mr. Austin and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared by video from the Pentagon and from General Milley’s quarters, where he has been quarantining since he tested positive for the coronavirus. Officials said that if Mr. Biden approved the deployment, some of the troops would come from the United States, while others would move from other parts of Europe to the more vulnerable countries on NATO’s eastern flank. American officials did not describe in detail the ground troop reinforcements under review, but current and former commanders said they should include more air defense, engineering, logistics and artillery forces.
Besides the troops, Mr. Biden could also approve sending additional aircraft to the region.
Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Sunday that the United States also needed to conduct more training in those NATO nations.
“We need joint exercises in Poland, the Baltic States, Romania, Bulgaria, to show Putin that we’re serious,” Mr. McCaul said on “Face the Nation.” “Right now, he doesn’t see we’re serious.”
According to Poland’s defense ministry, there are currently about 4,000 U.S. troops and 1,000 other NATO troops stationed in Poland. There are also about 4,000 NATO troops in the Baltic States.
The United States has been regularly flying Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint electronic-eavesdropping planes over Ukraine since late December. The planes allow American intelligence operatives to listen to Russian ground commanders’ communications. The Air Force is also flying E-8 JSTARS ground-surveillance planes to track the Russian troop buildup and the movements of the forces.
The Biden administration is especially interested in any indication that Russia may deploy tactical nuclear weapons to the border, a move that Russian officials have suggested could be an option.
More than 150 U.S. military advisers are in Ukraine, trainers who have for years worked out of the training ground near Lviv, in the country’s west, far from the front lines. The current group includes Special Operations forces, mostly Army Green Berets, as well as National Guard trainers from Florida’s 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team.
Military advisers from about a dozen allied countries are also in Ukraine, U.S. officials said. Several NATO countries, including Britain, Canada, Lithuania and Poland, have regularly sent training forces to the country.
In the event of a full-scale Russian invasion, the United States intends to move its military trainers out of the country quickly. But it is possible that some Americans could stay to advise Ukrainian officials in Kyiv, the capital, or provide frontline support, a U.S. official said.
People might also be interested in this twitter thread. Long story short, the author thinks that Russia can defeat Ukraine within 60 days, with any potential resistance movement being stamped out by the GRU and FSB. Putin's main goals are to keep Ukraine within Russia's sphere of influence via constitutional changes preventing partnership with the EU/NATO, end the Donbas conflict, and force Ukraine to recognize Crimea as being part of Russia. He also mentions something interesting- Putin might want to install a Lebanon-style government, with a power sharing agreement with eastern and western Ukraine so Russia can influence affairs that way.
The big question here is what Ukrainians do. They have been at war for nearly 8 years. There are nearly 400,000 veterans of the Donbas war on top of the 260,000 members of the Ukrainian military. Do they accept peace with such terms, or do they fight on as Ukraine gets burnt to the ground? I recently listened to a podcast where the guest was a UK national who lives in Ukraine and moved in 2015 to help train their army. Even he wasn't sure what Ukrainians would do.
But what I am pretty sure about is that this is the end of "a Europe Whole, Free and at Peace.” Europe will likely be militarized again, or at least the eastern flank. It would certainly be nice if military spending went up so the US didnt have to do most of the heavy lifting. The 2% GDP guideline is kinda BS, mainly because theres no guidelines about it, allowing for countries like Greece to add military pension spending, pushing them over the 2% line. I also wager that Finland and Sweden will strongly consider joining NATO.
01-24-2022, 13:33
Shaka_Khan
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
100K is plenty to invade. The Ukraine has a long frontier to protect with a much smaller full-time army, Russia just needs to put enough force in the right area to affect a break-through and march on the few major cities. With Russia dominance of the air and sea and so much surrounding land it's not like the Ukraine will be able to mount successful second and third lines of defense. Ukrainian forces trying to deploy into other sectors would be interdicted from the air without much interference.
I don't know... I'm an expat in a country that's in a state of war, although the ceasefire since 1953 has made the interior of this country quite peaceful. I live just 45 minutes away from the border of a hostile country that has over a million soldiers and has tested hypersonic missiles recently. The country that I live in has 555K active soldiers and 2,750K in reserve. It used to be 650K during the 1990s when the length of military service was longer. In addition, both sides have thousands of tanks and large air forces. And 28,500 US soldiers stationed here act as a trip wire, which makes our northern neighbors think twice before attacking again. I can't help feeling that 100K is a small number to invade with, especially when NATO is supporting Ukraine. This is a very different situation from Crimea. Of course, Russia could increase the number near the border in the near future. I think Putin is increasing his military at the border in increments, seeing how NATO would respond each time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
For Biden though, he absolutely NEEDS to handle this right after his Afghan debacle but I think he's so adverse to another war just like everyone else that he's not willing to threaten the force that could actually prevent a war.
The strong despise weakness and I think this attitude guides Putin's worldview.
I said the same thing about the Afghan debacle when it happened. Many thought that world peace had finally come, and they didn't understand what I was worried about. Now I think they know. You know, many of them assumed that the WWII generation just followed orders to war without questioning, and that the current generation would be different. In reality, most of the Americans opposed participation in the war prior to Pearl Harbor. I've talked to a lot of people who remembered that era, and I found them to be not that different from us. Some of them mentioned that the US should've warned Hitler strongly early on. (Then maybe Tojo would've been more careful). And act soon after if Hitler took Czechoslovakia, instead of after his military became stronger. Of course, Russia is stronger than Germany was in 1938-1939, but Putin won't act rashly if NATO positions to intervene.
01-24-2022, 14:02
Seamus Fermanagh
Re: Great Power contentions
I have asserted on these threads before and I still maintain...
Putin is old-school in many ways. He will stop when he knows you are willing to bleed to stop him. If NATO mobilizes and positions to intervene, THAT will tell him it is time to stop.
01-24-2022, 16:14
Hooahguy
1 Attachment(s)
Re: Great Power contentions
Unfortunately, few in the west are willing to bleed for Ukraine. Or fortunately, depending on how you look at it.
Also this is an excellent map of where Russian units currently are: Attachment 25350 source
Edit: seems like Russia is already laying the groundwork for a casus belli for invading, claiming that Ukraine is massing for an attack on the Donbas.
I don't know... I'm an expat in a country that's in a state of war, although the ceasefire since 1953 has made the interior of this country quite peaceful. I live just 45 minutes away from the border of a hostile country that has over a million soldiers and has tested hypersonic missiles recently. The country that I live in has 555K active soldiers and 2,750K in reserve. It used to be 650K during the 1990s when the length of military service was longer. In addition, both sides have thousands of tanks and large air forces. I can't help feeling that 100K is a small number to invade with, especially when NATO is supporting Ukraine. This is a very different situation from Crimea. Of course, Russia could increase the number near the border in the near future. I think Putin is increasing his military at the border in increments, seeing how NATO would respond each time.
My point wasn't the overall numbers but that the Ukrainians need to spread their numbers out to cover a large frontier. As the Russians are not likely needing to defend against a Ukrainian counterattack into Russia itself that allows them to mass that 100k so they have local numerical superiority and achieve a breakthrough.
The biggest and most important disparity is in the air power, the Russians have a much larger and more modern air force together with arguably the best ground based air defense system in the world. Once the limited Ukrainian Air Force is destroyed there's very little that the ground based units can do. Areas that put up strong resistance will either be isolated and bypassed or just reduced by Russia's many modern artillery/rocket units.
The entire Ukrainian Air Force is about 120 aircraft including transports and trainers and all of the stuff is essentially cold war equipment with modest upgrades. The Russians have thousands of aircraft available, much more experience and while they also have a lot of cold war era stuff they also have very modern aircraft too. How The Russian And Ukrainian Air Forces Stack Up Against Each Other
In an air war, Ukraine and Russia can bring to bear many similar aircraft types, but in vastly different quantities.
BY THOMAS NEWDICK DECEMBER 23, 2021 https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...orces-stack-up
Quote:
Ultimately, Ukraine possesses a relatively tiny military force staring down a much larger one, and it has very little real means of counter-striking against Russian airpower facilities near the border. For Moscow, air superiority is likely assured, and Russia has shown that it is willing to accept combat losses during its campaign in Syria. Aside from the various manned air assets discussed here, Russia would likely make extensive use of lower-end drones for artillery spotting and for directing airstrikes, and loitering munitions are also now being employed, including in combat trials in Syria.
Whatever course a Russian intervention in Ukraine might take, there is little chance that it would not involve significant participation by the air assets of the WMD, SMD, and the wider VKS. Despite the gulf between the Russian and Ukrainian airpower in terms of numbers and modernity, Moscow’s defense planners will be well aware that a confrontation with the Ukrainian military would involve no shortage of hazards and that the control of the air will likely be crucial to developments on the ground.
Were there to be a new and large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv could perhaps try to impose enough attrition in the air over a long enough period for Moscow to rethink its actions. But the odds in the sky are very clearly weighted against Ukraine. As such, another strategy could be for Ukraine to forfeit air sovereignty over the war-torn eastern part of Ukraine and fortify everything to the west, especially around Kyiv, in preparation for what could be a long and arduous conflict.
South Korea, especially in the North is mountainous terrain that constricts attacking forces, South Korea has a large and modern air force. South Korea is more than a match for the North in all but the nuclear realm. North Korean convential forces only have a advantage in quantity.
South Korea is ready enough to defend itself that the US forces there are really only a tripwire to ensure that the US remains committed as well as to coordinate the various US assets needed.
Ukraine on the other hand has been fighting an 8 year war against separatists, it has not had a massive conventional buildup and is no where ready to take on Russia by itself.
I think it has the capability to put up a hell of a fight but without the US/NATO coming to to help protect the western regions and Kiev and especially to help in the realm of airpower a Ukrainian defeat seems extremely likely.
Sadly though, even if intervention was done as I would like a South Korea scenario would probably end up a best case end result for the Ukraine with The West/South as a NATO ally/zone and the East occupied and annexed by Russia with Cold War 2.0 in full effect if we can somehow restrict the war to just the Ukraine and not allow a WW3 like what happened with Korea in regards to the PRC and USSR in that war.
01-25-2022, 02:07
Montmorency
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
I have asserted on these threads before and I still maintain...
Putin is old-school in many ways. He will stop when he knows you are willing to bleed to stop him. If NATO mobilizes and positions to intervene, THAT will tell him it is time to stop.
One can't help but observe that if such a mobilization were feasible in the first place, the fact might have laid a prohibitive threshold for escalation in Ukraine as a proximate concern. As Putin surely understands, one doesn't gin up a maximal response on the fly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
I'm not advocating bluffing as you only lose even bigger that way. I'd be more for sending in troops to help defend Kiev if the Russians cross the frontier together with a massive support of airpower to deny the Russians air dominance, of at least the Ukrainian interior. Sending in troops to try and defend Ukraine's frontier would be a lost cause but the moment US/NATO troops are there supporting Ukraine's sovereignty the calculus for Putin would change.
To save Ukraine you have to be willing to fight for it to prevent a war. Though in today's political climate I see that in the choice of "Why die for Danzig?" most of Europe favors appeasement.
Right, it wasn't in the cards and no US admin would make this a priority. Not that I think they should, beyond emphasizing that the fall of Putin's government will become the formal policy of the US government should he invade. To build on my comment to Seamus, Russia has been conditioning its military capabilities and the political ground for this eventuality for 8 years, not including historical predispositions. Sending thousands of soldiers into a foreign land with whatever heavy equipment is on hand to offer assistance without coordination or preparation would make them little more than a sacrificial gesture to be cynically exploited toward greater future entanglement. And this observation doesn't even support a retroactive argument for much closer defense coordination with Ukraine since 2014, since that would have brought up Putin's timetable and shortened his opposition's, if attributing him the absolute will to dictate matters in Ukraine by force.
Quote:
It's a good article but the smaller more survivable items would need to be alongside the larger 'legacy' items to work. The 'opportunity cost' for China to actually establish a foothold and gain air superiority needs to be high enough and capable enough to allow the US, Japan, and UK/AUS to actually get support to them. If Taiwan can't hold long enough for its allies to muster strength before a PRC landing I can't see any scenario in which the US would try to land and retake Taiwan.
Once they achieve a foothold there is no opportunity cost for the PLA surely; almost by definition those legacy systems will have been thoroughly degraded at that stage, large (physically and logistically) and relatively exposed as they are. You're looking at this from a ground combat level, and as noted in the articles DoD takes the asymmetric view (even if they won't break the habit of enabling the most lucrative arms deals yet). Assuming some level of allied intervention in wartime, Taiwan's only logical option is to deny China any force concentrations on the main island by all means until help arrives. If Taiwan had to choose between zero tanks or zero missile boats, which would leave it less capable of self-defense? There's at least an argument for the F16s providing a few weeks' cover for total mobilization under interdiction, but other prestige systems...
Quote:
Yup and I fully support these being investigated and it would be nice if for once the Officers making those decisions finally faced repercussions. The US is certainly too nonchalant about the lives of others. I get guys on the ground in 'heat of the moment' making poor decisions but those in the air-conditioned HQs approving these decisions should suffer some consequences.
Decisions like those may be tactical successes but certainly strategic failures as guys in the heat of the moment don't realize the 2nd and 3rd order effects. Pilots don't casually drop bombs, someone in some HQ gave them the okay, it is never just pilot and observer decision making, even with SOF involved.
It's impressive how components or individuals of the US military can veer from obtusely hidebound to wantonly genocidal in the same theaters and time periods.
On a side note, I can't help but notice that 2022 is the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Soviet Union. It can't be a coincidence that Putin is seemingly trying extra hard to reestablish Russian influence in Eurasia.
01-25-2022, 20:34
Seamus Fermanagh
Re: Great Power contentions
I very much think it is coincidental. I believe Putin has been following this strategy, as resources and opportunity have permitted, every since his position of power was consolidated.
01-25-2022, 20:39
spmetla
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
One can't help but observe that if such a mobilization were feasible in the first place, the fact might have laid a prohibitive threshold for escalation in Ukraine as a proximate concern. As Putin surely understands, one doesn't gin up a maximal response on the fly.
No, it doesn't happen on the fly which is why the current mobilizations should have started a few weeks ago. I imagine that if Putin chooses to invade it will start well before those 8500 US troops notified to prep for deployment have all their equipment and personnel ready to ship. That's why I keep stating that we should have a larger permanent presence in Europe again.
Quote:
Right, it wasn't in the cards and no US admin would make this a priority. Not that I think they should, beyond emphasizing that the fall of Putin's government will become the formal policy of the US government should he invade. To build on my comment to Seamus, Russia has been conditioning its military capabilities and the political ground for this eventuality for 8 years, not including historical predispositions. Sending thousands of soldiers into a foreign land with whatever heavy equipment is on hand to offer assistance without coordination or preparation would make them little more than a sacrificial gesture to be cynically exploited toward greater future entanglement. And this observation doesn't even support a retroactive argument for much closer defense coordination with Ukraine since 2014, since that would have brought up Putin's timetable and shortened his opposition's, if attributing him the absolute will to dictate matters in Ukraine by force.
You are right, no admin would have made this a priority since Bush Sr, we've been dealing with people pretending that Europe is at the end of history and bad stuff can't happen to it anymore despite the Yugoslavian civil war, the Serbian genocide of the Kosovars, the Russia-Georgia war, the Russian invasion of Crimea, and the warfooting tensions.
As for sending 1000s of troops, why do assume that it would be done without coordination or preparation? I know you think poorly of the US military but you really think it'd be as daft as just driving into the Ukraine and setting up a defense independent of any coordination with Ukraine itself? Really?
It certainly wouldn't be a sacrificial gesture, much rather an overt and undeniable statement of where the 'line in the sand' is.
Quote:
Once they achieve a foothold there is no opportunity cost for the PLA surely; almost by definition those legacy systems will have been thoroughly degraded at that stage, large (physically and logistically) and relatively exposed as they are. You're looking at this from a ground combat level, and as noted in the articles DoD takes the asymmetric view (even if they won't break the habit of enabling the most lucrative arms deals yet). Assuming some level of allied intervention in wartime, Taiwan's only logical option is to deny China any force concentrations on the main island by all means until help arrives. If Taiwan had to choose between zero tanks or zero missile boats, which would leave it less capable of self-defense? There's at least an argument for the F16s providing a few weeks' cover for total mobilization under interdiction, but other prestige systems...
I'm actually not thinking of this from a ground-combat role at all, once a good PLA foothold is established the likelyhood of Taiwan/Allied success is pretty much nill. Like I said, I see no scenario where US troops would be sent to retake Taiwan, the only possibility of success is deterring an invasion and if one happens to fight enough of a delaying action to allow the US and Japan primarily to come to its aid.
I don't know what specific platforms you're thinking of as asymmetric but generally self-propelled artillery, SAM sites and so on are all mobile, the size of them is directly related to the capability. Smaller more survivable stuff is also far less capable, it'd be important alongside 'legacy' stuff in trying to push any invasion back into the sea.
That said, I actually agree that Taiwan trying to pretend it can achieve any parity at sea or in the air is insane and pursuing missiles for striking the mainland is a waste of resources. It does need a lot of more survivable stuff, yes, but it also needs those legacy items too. The procument may take a while but eventually the current slew of equipment does need to be upgraded. I'd want to see lots of missile boats, lots of drones, lots of antiship missiles and air defense systems but those need to complement other assets too.
Quote:
It's impressive how components or individuals of the US military can veer from obtusely hidebound to wantonly genocidal in the same theaters and time periods.
Has the definition of genocide changed? As for hidebound, well the military is a big bureaucracy serving an even bigger bureaucracy. Systematic change and accountability is the way to change the current culture which is callous when considering collateral. I'm fully an advocate for holding people accountable as well as those in the chain of command that enabled or covered up said mistakes.
The Pentagon has said some 8,500 combat-ready US troops are on alert to deploy at short notice.
But they would only be deployed if the Nato military alliance decides to activate a rapid-reaction force, "or if other situations develop", said Pentagon press secretary John Kirby.
There are no plans to deploy to Ukraine itself, he added.
In 2022, the VJTF will comprise a multinational force of several thousand troops. The Franco-German brigade of 3,500 troops will serve as the core of the force, drawing on the 1st Infantry Regiment and the 3rd Hussar Regiment. Led by France’s Rapid Reaction Corps in Lille, the Franco-German brigade is a bi-national unit, underlining the strong bond between NATO Allies Germany and France. Other NATO countries, including Spain, Portugal, and Poland will also provide forces. The majority of the force is comprised of units from the lead brigade.
Glad something is being done to at the least reassure the eastern half of the alliance. Interesting to see the Truman carrier group put under NATO directly, something that hasn't happened since the 1980s. The current Rapid-Reaction forces are led by France and the core unit is the Franco-German brigade so France and Germany would have to agree to action for NATO to be capable of reaction, something I see as extremely unlikely and a good highlight of the problems in achieving NATO unity, though putting them on alert and doing the planning for mobilizing will be a necessity to find the sticking points politically and militarily.
01-25-2022, 20:45
Seamus Fermanagh
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
One can't help but observe that if such a mobilization were feasible in the first place, the fact might have laid a prohibitive threshold for escalation in Ukraine as a proximate concern. As Putin surely understands, one doesn't gin up a maximal response on the fly.
You are correct, sadly. USA efforts to counter Russian ambitions over the last decade or so have been pretty feckless. Nor has NATO taken up the challenge of seriously ramping up its deployment capabilities and general readiness. Were we to attempt such a rapid deployment now it is fairly likely that it would be a bit of a flustercluck.
The NATO powers would do better to accept that Russia is a resurgent power and enable themselves to set up a credible deterrent. It may not be the "halcyon" days of the Cold War reborn, but the Russian push for power and for the status of a (the?) premier European power predates the CCCP by a long time. Russia is no longer a Soviet state, but it remains Russia.
01-26-2022, 02:47
Montmorency
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
You are right, no admin would have made this a priority since Bush Sr, we've been dealing with people pretending that Europe is at the end of history and bad stuff can't happen to it anymore despite the Yugoslavian civil war, the Serbian genocide of the Kosovars, the Russia-Georgia war, the Russian invasion of Crimea, and the warfooting tensions.
As for sending 1000s of troops, why do assume that it would be done without coordination or preparation? I know you think poorly of the US military but you really think it'd be as daft as just driving into the Ukraine and setting up a defense independent of any coordination with Ukraine itself? Really?
It certainly wouldn't be a sacrificial gesture, much rather an overt and undeniable statement of where the 'line in the sand' is.
What I said was to demonstrate why they wouldn't do it. Russia has spent years preparing to fight in Ukraine with and against allies and proxies, and is very close to Ukraine geographically and sociopolitically. The US has not, and is not. This isn't a condemnation of the US military, it's just the facts on the ground. No US commander could condone rushing into Ukraine to contest a Russian advance with whatever forces on hand because it would be an operationally-catastrophic maneuver in our present world. And because it would be so reckless and doomed a maneuver, the threat of transporting some thousands of US or Euro soldiers toward Ukraine wouldn't deter Putin (though I assume he would try to simply avoid American concentrations if they pushed into Ukraine while staying west of the Southern Bug). Maybe a large "show of force" would have been taken as deterring in September, when most of the Russian combat elements and troop numbers were already in place, but it's at least as likely that Putin made the decision a while ago, and the rest is psyops and squaring away the logistics.
Regardless, this has gone on too long and at too great a monetary and political expense for Putin to back down without something to show for it. Pace Russian ambassador Konstantin Gavrilov, the wolf's been howling wolf around the glebe daily for a long time.
As for responses, Russian elites still have plenty of assets and properties in US and European jurisdictions, don't they? Expropriate all of it as frozen assets pending Russian policy change. To whatever extent possible, degrade the survivability of any collaborationist Ukrainian government.
But if Ukrainians can't or won't credibly resist, we shouldn't try to recklessly exploit their status by funding guerillas. Except Azovites. Stoking unrest in South Russia would be fair game however (though I don't believe we have the tools or credibility for it).
Quote:
I don't know what specific platforms you're thinking of as asymmetric but generally self-propelled artillery, SAM sites and so on are all mobile, the size of them is directly related to the capability.
There's a list of procurements in the first essay, which I think the author most dichotomizes well, as well as a list of recommendations (quoted in my post). Taiwan doesn't need additional tanks, at least?
01-29-2022, 22:51
Shaka_Khan
Re: Great Power contentions
The US seems to be making the Far East a bigger priority for now.
01-30-2022, 19:40
Seamus Fermanagh
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaka_Khan
The US seems to be making the Far East a bigger priority for now.
Not sure if that is because we are focusing more on issues in the Western Pacific rim, or if the NATO/EU powers functionally make us take at least the appearance of a more collegial role.
01-30-2022, 22:14
Pannonian
Re: Great Power contentions
What's this about the Ukrainian PM warning the west not to escalate things? Have I missed any news?
01-31-2022, 03:57
spmetla
Re: Great Power contentions
I think he's worried about the flight of capital and people, if he says "yes, there's war in a week" then he'd be expected to call up the reserves and so on. Foreigners in the business sectors would also likely leave the country and there might be a run on the banks etc... so oddly enough it is in his interest to keep the appearance of tensions down.
Also, by calling out the West it chips away at Russian excuses to invade to secure Ukraine from the West. As the President of the country stuck in the middle between the two power blocs he has a very delicate balancing act, especially when he's been told outright that no one will fight for Ukraine but themselves, means he needs to avoid any stance that would give the Russians excuses to go in.
Now the 44-year-old Zelensky is enmeshed in some of the highest-stakes brinkmanship in Europe in decades.
Zelensky’s Ukraine finds itself in the crosshairs of Moscow’s attempts to reassert its influence in what it considers its sphere of influence and prevent the North Atlantic Treaty Organization from moving into the states that once constituted the Soviet Union.
So Zelensky treads a fine line, knowing that Ukraine’s economy could take a major hit even if Russian forces hold back. He must speak of the threat to the country. Yet, at the same time, he seeks to avoid, as he put it, “panic in the markets, panic in the financial sector.”
“Zelensky is struggling with crisis communications,” said Orysia Lutsevych, an expert on Ukraine at the Chatham House think tank in London. “Clearly he wants citizens to remain calm, but panic may spread from conflicting or lacking information. It’s a hard task to deliver.”
Quote:
Zelensky accused Western officials and media of causing panic and destabilization in Ukraine by insisting that, as he put it, “tomorrow there will be war.” Russia’s real intention, he also said, could be not to invade, but instead to weaken Ukraine internally.
“We could lose the economy,” he said.
At another point, he challenged NATO to make up its mind whether to admit Ukraine to the alliance. Moscow has issued a list of demands to NATO, including a guarantee that the former Soviet states of Ukraine and Georgia will never become members.
“Tell us openly we will never get into NATO,” he said.
His posture though and trying to thread the line will mean little though if Russia does invade at which point everyone will wonder why he ignored the West so long. With Ukraine's public opinion not in belief of an imminent invasion it would be difficult to actually mobilize the reserves which if there is no invasion would hurt him terribly in Ukraine's domestic political scene.
Quote:
The US seems to be making the Far East a bigger priority for now.
Not sure if that is because we are focusing more on issues in the Western Pacific rim, or if the NATO/EU powers functionally make us take at least the appearance of a more collegial role.
I think part of it is that the US expects Europe to be more pro-active in its own defense too. If Biden did what I want and put divisions in Europe right now (edit: I mean by stationing divisions there, not necessarily to war or even the border of NATO, but back to Germany and maybe Poland/Romania ) there'd be little need for the other NATO members to put up much of a force. Given that except for Japan the entire G7 are NATO members should mean that they can put more than a token of effort into their own defense, especially for nations such as Germany and France which are major arms exporters.
The UK vowing to double their NATO contributions to the Baltics is a good sign but France, Germany, and Italy need to do more too. If they don't then it'd be extremely difficult in US domestic politics to justify a build up in Europe.
Keeping the focus on the PRC though is vital and I agree with, we no longer have armed forces capable of the long held "two war policy" so best to martial resources where our direct interests are under threat. Taiwan and the South China Sea are more important than the Ukraine. A threat against the Baltic States and NATO though would be more important than Taiwan and the South China Sea though but at least in Europe there are more Allies available, at least on paper.
In the Far East only the US has the capability to challenge the PRC. South Korea, Japan, and Australia are good and capable allies but without anywhere near the numbers, quality, or capability to challenge the PRC and project power beyond bases on their own soil.
01-31-2022, 06:56
Montmorency
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
If Biden did what I want and put divisions in Europe right now
I just can't get over how the extraordinarily-consequential, costly, and unauthorized unilateral decision to do this (not that any available American president would), could, in theory, be legally upheld in Republican-ruled courts, but even the small-bore, legislatively-backed customarily preferential policies of the current executive just get casually struck down. It's annoying (with Korean intonation). Also ruinous to state and society, but there's a lot of insult in these injuries.
Anyway, some interesting factoids in this article on punitive measures against Russia available to the US, such as:
Quote:
Intellectual property law is another such node; the chief elements of the global intellectual property regime were designed by the United States, largely for the benefit of US firms. To participate in the global technology economy, Russia had to adapt to this legal structure after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This now makes Russia vulnerable across an array of fronts. Effectively, the administration can take steps that would make Russia’s tech sector toxic, preventing Russian companies from exporting devices that have any US components or other US intellectual property. This would definitely hurt the Russians on the international market, and it also would deter European and Asian tech firms from collaborating with their Russian counterparts. The US won the Cold War in part because it could cut the USSR off from international developments in information technology, and the weapons at the disposal of the United States have only grown more lethal. The use of these weapons of course requires the active cooperation of European, Korean, Taiwanese, and Japanese companies, but a vicious attack on Ukraine might well make that cooperation more forthcoming. Indeed, the Russian military itself depends on foreign chips (largely from Taiwan) in its more sophisticated equipment.
Watta plot twist! Unify the plot strands, now that's good writing for once.
Here's a planet-brain idea, two birds with one stone: Offer Iran a deal whereby they publicly drop relations with Russia, in exchange for which the US expresses legitimate gratitude to the Iranian government, providing cover for both sides to formally recommit to JCPOA. There's a missing incentive for Iran there, but the structure of the gambit makes sense IMO. The biggest obstacle to rapprochment between the US and Iran, at least over nuclear proliferation, is America's belligerent uncredibility and reactive public sentiment in both countries, something a double maneuver banking off Russian escalation, with immediate payoffs for both parties, could neutralize.
Relatedly, reshuffling a major US OOB into Europe would probably no longer even be the deterrent it used to be considering that everyone knows that China is mightier than Russia and that the American military has its hands full with its West Pacific commitments.
US President Joe Biden is to send extra troops to Europe this week amid continuing fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Pentagon says.
Some 2,000 troops will be sent from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Poland and Germany, and a further 1,000 already in Germany will go to Romania.
Moscow denies planning to invade but has deployed an estimated 100,000 troops near Ukraine's borders.
It fiercely opposes Ukraine joining the Nato military alliance.
The tensions come eight years after Russia annexed Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula and backed a bloody rebellion in the eastern Donbas region.
Moscow accuses the Ukrainian government of failing to implement the Minsk agreement - an international deal to restore peace to the east, where Russian-backed rebels control swathes of territory and at least 14,000 people have been killed since 2014.
Glad to see the US doing this, notable though that this is being done bilaterally between the US and Poland/Romania and not under the NATO C2 chain.
I hope that this will start the conversation within our Congress to go and restation a heavy BCT permanently again in Europe. The current deployment of paratroopers and Strykers are certainly not the type of capability that would make Putin worry about the US deploying into Ukraine as to do without multiple heavy BCTs would be stupid and this is clearly more about reassuring Poland and Romania. This crisis may also be useful for getting NATO contributions from some of the lagging member states as well as internal conversations about the future of NATO.
Quote:
I just can't get over how the extraordinarily-consequential, costly, and unauthorized unilateral decision to do this (not that any available American president would), could, in theory, be legally upheld in Republican-ruled courts, but even the small-bore, legislatively-backed customarily preferential policies of the current executive just get casually struck down. It's annoying (with Korean intonation). Also ruinous to state and society, but there's a lot of insult in these injuries.
As I clarified in my edit, I wasn't wanting him to put divisions in Ukraine but neighboring NATO states. As for costly, if there permanent bases in Europe for these larger units it would be cheaper than our currently rotating brigades in for nine month tours to Europe. Permanent basing though is a straight up Congressional matter, the president can request and propose but Congress, specifically the Armed Services committees would have the final say in it.
As it is for temporary boosting of troops in an area I don't see what's illegal about it so long as Biden doesn't unilaterally start a war. The US did sign the Budapest Memorandum that would give casus-belli to intervene on behalf of Ukraine but the US isn't obligated to do so.
Quote:
The memorandum has been invoked recently in response to some on the right, including Fox News host Tucker Carlson and some congressional Republicans, arguing that the United States effectively has no business taking sides between Ukraine and Russia. One popular Twitter thread responding to Carlson said the Budapest Memorandum amounted to the United States having agreed to serve as “the guarantors of Ukrainian security.” A bipartisan group of members of Congress last week wrote an op-ed stating that the memorandum assured the United States “would come to the aid of Ukraine in the event it was preyed upon.”
The reality is much murkier. The agreement is not an official treaty. It is neither legally binding nor does it carry an enforcement mechanism. And while it provides security assurances, they do not include specific promises with regard to a potential invasion.
The brief memorandum contained five points that the signatories — which also included Britain and Northern Ireland — said they would “reaffirm,” including:
“None of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.”
“To refrain from economic coercion” in accordance with other agreements.
And, perhaps most pertinent with regard to a potential U.S. response today:
“To seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine … if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.”
Indeed, the agreement was murky enough that, when it was announced in early 1994 but before Ukraine ratified it, there was plenty of confusion about just the kind of situation we now find ourselves in. U.S. officials often talked around the issue, but they also stated on multiple occasions that it wouldn’t mean the United States was suddenly entering into new and novel security commitments. (Hence, the repeated use of the word “reaffirm.”)
The vagueness of the treaty certainly hasn't helped resolved the last eight years of Russian occupation and intervention, guess that's what Ukraine gets for voluntarily giving up its nuclear arsenal, not a good example in the cause of non-proliferation.
Quote:
Relatedly, reshuffling a major US OOB into Europe would probably no longer even be the deterrent it used to be considering that everyone knows that China is mightier than Russia and that the American military has its hands full with its West Pacific commitments.
Would reshuffling US Army units into Europe really affect America's West Pacific commitments? As I've argued on here I don't see many situations in which Heavy BCTs would be used against China, Korea yes, China not so much which would be 90% an air and sea campaign with likely only Marines and lighter US units put in Taiwan if that were somehow safe and prudent to do but certainly not to the level of retaking Taiwan.
Heavy BCTs in the US are hard to deploy as they have so much equipment to ship, strategically they are useless unless forward deployed or against an opponent that cannot stop the buildup of combat power over a period of months (ie Iraq in Desert Storm and OIF).
If the US does decide with more commitments to Europe, I hope this will be matched with further commitments by our larger NATO partners already there as they certainly have the ability to pony up for their own defense which is less the case for our allies in the West Pacific.
Edit: Also crazy to see the reaction to this on right-wing forums/etc is a mix of "why aren't we sending them to our border instead" and "why bother defending Europe." Both of which are just crazy, especially the first one, not sure why everyone on the right thinks that troops on the border is going to help much, how about reform immigration and more money for border patrol. As for the other aspect, the new isolationist slant of the right is mind-boggling to me, crazy how they don't see that we benefit from maintaining the current world order, expensive as it is.
02-03-2022, 05:09
Montmorency
Re: Great Power contentions
Interesting from a Finnish Internet commenter:
Quote:
The Latvian military is truly weak. They went all-volunteer as part of the NATO accession plan. The reason was mainly the one-size-fits-all approach of NATO. The former Warszaw Pact states were pressured strongly to give up conscription and reduce their military establishments into forces that couldn't pose a credible threat to any neighbour. The point of the modernised military would be to supply NATO with a rapid reaction battalion or two for allied deployments. Essentially, the NATO expansion meant the disarmament of Eastern Europe.
In fact, this nature of NATO accession was one of the main reasons why Finland didn't join the NATO. It would have ruined our capability to fight a land war.
Quote:
Originally Posted by spmetla
As I clarified in my edit, I wasn't wanting him to put divisions in Ukraine but neighboring NATO states. As for costly, if there permanent bases in Europe for these larger units it would be cheaper than our currently rotating brigades in for nine month tours to Europe. Permanent basing though is a straight up Congressional matter, the president can request and propose but Congress, specifically the Armed Services committees would have the final say in it.
As it is for temporary boosting of troops in an area I don't see what's illegal about it so long as Biden doesn't unilaterally start a war. The US did sign the Budapest Memorandum that would give casus-belli to intervene on behalf of Ukraine but the US isn't obligated to do so.
I was making a Pann-type aside about political realities in the American executive, that there is near-unlimited deference to the authority of President as CinC in the commitment of American military personnel, assets, and clout, but a conservative judiciary is fully comfortable with defying objectively more modest policy preferences in such domains as public health or immigration/the border, even when such actions have the explicit imprimatur of enabling statute. One wonders whether in theory an American president would even fact intervention against an order for all US military personnel to rebase to Moscow or Beijing. I think it's a sad testament to the bizarre militarization of American society (and of course the lawlessness of our reactionaries).
I don't doubt that our armored formations are more useful and imposing in Europe than in Taiwan.
The vagueness of the treaty certainly hasn't helped resolved the last eight years of Russian occupation and intervention, guess that's what Ukraine gets for voluntarily giving up its nuclear arsenal, not a good example in the cause of non-proliferation.
Provisions of the memorandum:
Respect Belarusian, Kazakh and Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.[16]
Refrain from the threat or the use of force against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
Refrain from using economic pressure on Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to influence their politics.
Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".
Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
Consult with one another if questions arise regarding those commitments.[12][17]
America commited itself to "respect" Ukrainian sovereignty, not to uphold it unilaterally. This is the stuff @rory_20_uk loves to see. Respect is free (though our governments don't always remember).
Quote:
Would reshuffling US Army units into Europe really affect America's West Pacific commitments? As I've argued on here I don't see many situations in which Heavy BCTs would be used against China, Korea yes, China not so much which would be 90% an air and sea campaign with likely only Marines and lighter US units put in Taiwan if that were somehow safe and prudent to do but certainly not to the level of retaking Taiwan.
Heavy BCTs in the US are hard to deploy as they have so much equipment to ship, strategically they are useless unless forward deployed or against an opponent that cannot stop the buildup of combat power over a period of months (ie Iraq in Desert Storm and OIF).
If the US does decide with more commitments to Europe, I hope this will be matched with further commitments by our larger NATO partners already there as they certainly have the ability to pony up for their own defense which is less the case for our allies in the West Pacific.
What I was trying to say is that, logically following from previously stated facts - most importantly the known US focus on East Asia and the need to reserve most American air and naval power for a potential conflict there - is that more heavy forward deployments in Europe could be perceived more as an attempt at deterrence rather than a force that the US really intends to support in combat against Russia. Because the US would typically find itself unable or unwilling to commit naval and air combat/transport assets necessary to support a war against Russia while the situation in the SCS remains unsettled. Without that support any US forward deployment under these doctrinal and geopolitical constraints would have to be defensive from where it's located, which unlikely to be Ukraine or the Baltics (though of course Putin would have to be astonishingly adventuristic to try to act on this perception even if he held it). The only exception would be a remarkable expansion and integration of European airpower in NATO. Basically it's about the effectiveness and true potential scope of an American committment to European combat.
02-03-2022, 16:24
Hooahguy
Re: Great Power contentions
Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency
Interesting from a Finnish Internet commenter:
I dont think what this commentator says is really true. Lithuania, Norway, and Estonia all have conscription in some form, and Greece and Turkey have mandatory service. Poland had it until 2008, 9 years after joining NATO. Lithuania abolished it in like 2007 I think and then brought it back in 2015. So I have a feeling that if Finland wanted to join they wouldnt have an issue with their conscription. From looking up the issue, it seems that there was pressure to remove the conscription based service format, however this was more due to striving to get up to the level of quality of other NATO allies than a desire to not be a threat to their neighbors. Which is a dumb concept anyways because in what world is Latvia a threat to Russia?
