The US does not have any room to throw stones about corruption. Fat Leonard, congressional stock trading, Medicaid fraud etc. Four of the last 6 CNO's went to work for defense companies within 18 months of their retirement. These are the same people who, while acting as CNO's, advocated before congress in support of such things as the LCS program. Coincidently the same defense companies they now work for were contractors /subcontractors for those same programs.
Ukraine is on a steady trajectory of climbing the anti-corruption index and has been for years...and has actually made massive strides even during the war.
It now ranks alongside Brazil...and higher than Turkey.
Ukrainian civil society has also proved to be exceptionally good at rooting out corruption, I expect the post-war society will have even less tolerance of corruption...and international (primarily European) donors will have even less tolerance...see last years NABU controversy....its effecetively untouchable now...
The EU accession process will also drive out corruption as its one of the things that is measured...
To be honest it wouldn't surprise me if Ukraine passed the US in the next 15 years....Ukraine climbing and the US sliding inexorably....
"To meet #2, she has to leverage every competitive advantage she has to generate income and support well paying jobs. She will be selling her weapons to whoever has the hard cash to buy them."
------------------------------------------------
If Ukraine doesn't, somebody else will. The Iranians are past masters of drone design.
No, the Iranians are—like the Chinese—good at copying other people’s hard work. The Shahed drone is just a copy of and Israeli drone that itself came from a German-American design from the 1980s…as I wrote about here earlier this month.
Unacceptable losses. USA have massive nuclear advantage over USSR in 1950s, but even a few nuclear bombs dropped on American major cities would cause so much destruction and losses, that any possible victory would be Pyrric one. And even not counting that, the result of large-scale nuclear warfare would be so economically disruptive, that "victor" would be struggling for decades just trying to return to pre-war level.
Ah, I had in mind 1945's actions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki vs. "Operation Olympic" (invasion of Japan's Kyushu Island) as explored in David Westheimer's counterfactual "Death as Light as a Feather." My mistake.
"Oh, and props for "3. Make babies" Nice to see some demographic understanding filtering in around here, however slowly and tentatively."
It's kinda pointless, since no one could suggest any practical solution. Humans aren't fast-breeding species; our biology is to have a small number of babies and care about them. Humanity twised the biology with sociology for millenias, but there are only so far as you could go. The massive population increase in late XIX-early XX centuries was caused by transition from agrarian to industrial society; it was not sustainable outside of such transition.
Agrarian societies need a lot of workers. Industrial societies need much less.
You will find that as industrialization increases, so does wealth, and as wealth increases so fertility rates become lower. It's a trend that has been clear worldwide for a century or so.
I'm afraid you misunderstood me. Yes, the agrarian society demand a lot of workforce, so birth rate is high - but this is compensated by high infant mortality rates, poor medicine, malnutrition, ect. So the population growth in agrarian society is low. But when the society starts the transit toward industrisal - the agrarian mindset "need more babies" still linger, while scientific medicine, industrial agriculture, ect. became available.
So at this transition stage, the population exploded. But its only temporarely; the next generations, living in industrial society, did not have "need more babies" mindset anymore, and realize that industrial society have low need for uneducated labor. And growing the educated, socialized specialists required a lot of time and resources. So the population growth decline fast when transition period from agrarian to industrial ended.
I don't think we're in total disagreement, though I think we don't totally agree.
Everything I see tells me that *wealthy* societies, which almost always means industrialized, have low fertility rates. The wealthier the lower the rate.
I do see that the transition point is different. Not sure that the change lasts long enough to create that much of a long lasting population boom though. It might. It might be different in different areas based on how fast industrialization takes place.
Huh, so you suggest people are animals, that under pressure they breed. Interesting, a species whose reproduction is linked to K, the carrying capacity of an ecosystem. We aren’t special?!
Not nearly as special as we often think we are, in that regard, and not nearly as "not part of 'Nature'" as a lot of people tend to suggest, either. We evolved into (or at least behave as though we evolved into) our niche, same as any other animal out there. We're just vastly more adaptable than most. Though coyotes and raccoons do a pretty darn good job of adaptation as well. :D
I think "economic conditions" play a significant factor as well, in the way that "environmental conditions" do for other animals. If Ukraine wins, and has an economic upswing (perhaps brought about by achieving point #1, no matter how unlikely that may be) we might see families with three to five children each. It doesn't help *right now*, but it could be a significant Baby Boom for them.
Or, given the numbers and demographics of the dead, perhaps we'll see either official or unofficial polygamy for a generation. If the "steady state" birthrate is an average of 2.1 children per couple, then three people making four babies would result in a population increase.
I fear that by the time the "people" recognize and accept the danger/threat, it will be long past the point of no return. South Korea (0.76) and Hong Kong (0.75) may be the first canaries in this coal mine. Taiwan (0.86) and Ukraine (1.00) are right behind [Russia is ~1.42). Many African countries are 4.xx+, as is Afghanistan. Not a good omen for Western Civilization. 2.1 births/woman is the generally recognized fertility rate for a stable population. This metric is known as the total fertility rate (TFR).
"History is made by those who show up," is commonly used. While often misattributed to John F. Kennedy, it was actually popularized by the fictional President Jed Bartlet on the TV show The West Wing (1999) (written by Aaron Sorkin).
Steyn claims his insight was gained sitting at an outdoor cafe somewhere in Europe when he noticed a stream of young mothers going into a nearby shop which sold clothing and other items for babies and small children. The women were all wearing veils and other indicia of Islam.
Superlative TV, IMO. Requires some suspension of disbelief, as does all TV. The acting, script, and score are all off-the-charts good. For a hardcore conservative, I'm surprised how taken I was with the show. But it is TV, just entertainment.
Back in the late 1980s, I worked several programs under the aegis of PMA-201, the Conventional Air-Launched Ordnance program office (colloquially referred to as "bombs and bullets").
One of them was designated with the bland nomenclature IAM ("Inertially-Aided Munition"). This was an inertial platform--later augmented with GPS--and a set of movable fins, to be installed on a Mk-82 500-lb "dumb bomb." There were two versions: one for a standard bomb and one for the Snakeye (IYKYK).
During OPEVAL, these demonstrated a reduction in CEP (Circular Error Probable) from 30 meters to 3 meters. This was absolutely astonishing at the time. The IAM cost about $10-15k, which seemed like a low number for someone like me, who was used to paying six figures for a single guided missile, but it was still an expensive upgrade considering that it was around 10X the cost of a Mk-82.
You do; your military made calculations, and realized, that its only the cost of bombs that hit the target thats counts. Who cares that smart bomb costs ten times more than dumb one, if you need just one smart bomb to do the job of dozens of dumb ones? The cost ratio was very in favor of smart ones.
"V-1 cruise missile". Just my 2 cents..."cruise missile" didn't legitimately cement itself into the lexicon until 1967, Styx missile v. INS Eilat. My own preference is to call it the "V-1 Buzz Bomb".
Nah, just the experience with Soviet recon drones of Tu-143 series. They have generally similar appearance, albeit their engine was on rear (only intake was above the hull). Ukraineans simplified the concept for mass production - outer-placed engine is simpler (ableit create additional drag).
given the time to develop and field new the new missiles described.... a more delicious use perhaps might be to launch them, not from the TEL system....but from the hold of a freighter that has sailed out of the Black Sea, out of the Mediterranean....up to the Gulf of Finland.....
Off the Russian Pacific Coast would make more sense...if they can stretch the range a little then some very juicy aviation targets are within reach....Komsomolsk on Amur for one...and there is practically no AD in eastern Russian now....
B-29 was usable over Japan because Iwo Jima saved crews and airplanes which broke down on the way to and from the Islands. Firebombs, they were uniquely fuse made up for accuracy and limited blast.
Accuracy iis no big thing if you don’t have blast, or fire.
The bitter calculus of war. The number of aircrew saved by Iwo Jima being there as a divert is almost the same as the number of casualties killed taking it - around 6900.
The calculus would shift more in favor of taking Iwo Jima the longer the war went. Had the war lasted until the planned date for Coronet, it would be looking much better.
Somebody on another site suggested designating a representative Iranian city, issuing advance warning, then turning the (vacated) place into rubble. Repeat as necessary to get the point(s) across: our capability and willingness to employ mass destruction as well as to foment social chaos and revolution, I'm guessing. Seems a bit more to the point than taking out the ground under the foundations of the long-gone radar dishes for the seventh or eighth time...
Is it still, if one warns them to leave, first? Does it still count because one is deliberately targeting civilian *infrastructure* at that point, and there are predictable consequences from turfing 100k people out of their homes?
Yes it is. Targeting civilian population is forbidden; the civilian houses aren't legitimate targets unless they are housing military personnel/equipment. Even then, it's only allowed to target buildings that are confirmed to be used for such purposes, not any building around.
Terrible idea. in one fell swoop you turn the irgc from assholes running your country, into our intrepid saviors fighting the overwhelming power they warned us about.
signed the iranian people.
no way you win any public opinion on this and we instantly become the bad guy/bully. if every single civilian were evacuated the "footage" of the aftermath would be of thousands of bodies. think Paliwood on steroids.
No one on West actually cares. "Rebuilding Ukraine" is just a very good slogan for corporations and foundations to mooch money from their governments; then they would pocket the money, do nothing, blame everything on "Ukrainean corruption" and ask for more. While Ukraine would be struggling to get anything rebuild at all.
I mean... some of us do. I was working (remotely) for a company based in Ukraine (which was very suddenly shortly based in Dubai) when the invasion started. I don't work for that company any longer, but I still think fondly of my coworkers at the time.
It would be difficult not to, what with my job having shifted from "unix sysadmin" to "refugee evacuation coordination" without a clutch, and then spending 14 to 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, getting everyone at our company, our cousin company, their family, and their friends, who wanted to leave, out of the country. As well as people in *other* involved affected countries as well, such as a programmer in Belarus, and two programmers and a fellow sysadmin in Russia. We got some 250 people moved to safer territory, and it's difficult to care about that many people that much so intensely and then not have that linger.
So I would like to see them win, and I would like to see them rebuild. Admittedly, I'm just some random guy with few resources and no power, so... *shrug* :-/
Under "no one" I meant structures (like corporartions and foundations), not individuals.
"So I would like to see them win"
Well, I would like this insane war to never happens at all. Or at least stop right now, before both Russia and Ukraine would plunge even deeper into sunk cost trap (which is basically the main thing that keep this war alive after five years).
Did Ukraine have missiles capable of reaching the Russian heartland?
If so, what happened to them?
And of course we shouldn't mention the fact that the pro Russian government was installed with more than a bit of canoodling by the Russians themselves.
Nor the Budapest Memorandum. Looks like it might have been better to have stayed out of that and let the Ukies have their nukes.
So they could sold nukes to, say, Taliban? Ukraine was a MAJOR hub of illegal arms trade in 1990-2000s. Their leaders were selling a lot of tech and hardware, including missile tech to the rogue states. Washington in 1990s realized that perfectly, that's why US firm position was that only Russia should inherit Soviet nukes and strategic systems
But not nukes or strategic missiles. USSR and Russia were quite strict about that; viewing themselves as superpowers, they both realized that supplying other nations with WMD's would not help their own position. Ukraine, Kazakhstan or other post-Soviet nations have no such limitations, and the probability of them selling nukes to some longbeaded ayatollah was too high for Americans to sleep well.
The documented data is the total capitulation of the 2014 legal POTUS Obama to the unique World War Xi theatre in Ukraine!
The long planned + funded Han-Muscovy destabilization of Europe was to be initiated by the gamble of Balkanizing independent Ukraine.
The funding of the placing of extensive insurrection networks inside Ukraine pre-2014 depended on the future ignition of such covert internal terrorist forces.
POTUS Obama had no interest in the disintegration of the NATO forces in the Black Sea area. Obama worked to eliminate USA military capability even in some Yankee nuclear capacities.
There was zero interest in the Obama scheme of capitulation to enhance the WEST in the Black Sea geopolitical region. Did Obama, say, use Executive Branch power to create the funds for the USMC to cooperate with Ukrainian forces in an amphibious landing exercise on the Crimean coast? Nope! No attempt to show Xi the leadership qualities of a Yankee Leader of the WEST!
Yes, POTUS Obama covertly, unilaterally 'GREEN' lit the facilitation of the Balkanization of independent Ukraine on February 6th 2014. Barry betrayed NATO, UK, EU, Ukraine, therefore the WEST to the prime vile COLD WAR enemy of the USA, Kremlin Muscovy Putin!! When the USA, Finally, own this Betrayal??
The folly of assuming that because Russia suffered major setbacks in 2022, Ukraine could easily won the whole war. So instead of negotiating for peace in 2023, when they have sort-of position of strength, Ukraine attempted a counteroffensive - that became an enormous blunder - then attempted invasion in Kursk oblast in 2024 - which served literally no practical purposes.
No. My point was, that Ukraine should be suing for peace in 2023, when they have at least relative position of strength and Russia was not sure of its position yet. It was the optimum moment for Ukraine. Instead they pumped their resources in failed counteroffensives, into prolonged war, hoping that it would make their position even better.
"Expunge the culture of corruption."
With all respect, but you could also set the goal of "making Pi number exactly 3". Nearly as realistic)
As if ATACMS or PrM are any better than V-1
Much better targeting, yes?
Yes. Tonnage has quality too. We are not talking big blast.
Part of the advantage of accuracy is the need for less tonnage.
The US does not have any room to throw stones about corruption. Fat Leonard, congressional stock trading, Medicaid fraud etc. Four of the last 6 CNO's went to work for defense companies within 18 months of their retirement. These are the same people who, while acting as CNO's, advocated before congress in support of such things as the LCS program. Coincidently the same defense companies they now work for were contractors /subcontractors for those same programs.
It's not corruption when it's done for "oUr DeMoCrAcY".
Ukraine is on a steady trajectory of climbing the anti-corruption index and has been for years...and has actually made massive strides even during the war.
It now ranks alongside Brazil...and higher than Turkey.
Ukrainian civil society has also proved to be exceptionally good at rooting out corruption, I expect the post-war society will have even less tolerance of corruption...and international (primarily European) donors will have even less tolerance...see last years NABU controversy....its effecetively untouchable now...
The EU accession process will also drive out corruption as its one of the things that is measured...
To be honest it wouldn't surprise me if Ukraine passed the US in the next 15 years....Ukraine climbing and the US sliding inexorably....
"To meet #2, she has to leverage every competitive advantage she has to generate income and support well paying jobs. She will be selling her weapons to whoever has the hard cash to buy them."
------------------------------------------------
If Ukraine doesn't, somebody else will. The Iranians are past masters of drone design.
No, the Iranians are—like the Chinese—good at copying other people’s hard work. The Shahed drone is just a copy of and Israeli drone that itself came from a German-American design from the 1980s…as I wrote about here earlier this month.
I heard somewhere they're pretty handy at cobbling together IEDs, as and where needed.
"With the atomic bomb, accuracy was not important…but if you go nuclear, even if you win, you lose."
Huh?
Oh, and props for "3. Make babies" Nice to see some demographic understanding filtering in around here, however slowly and tentatively.
Unacceptable losses. USA have massive nuclear advantage over USSR in 1950s, but even a few nuclear bombs dropped on American major cities would cause so much destruction and losses, that any possible victory would be Pyrric one. And even not counting that, the result of large-scale nuclear warfare would be so economically disruptive, that "victor" would be struggling for decades just trying to return to pre-war level.
Ah, I had in mind 1945's actions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki vs. "Operation Olympic" (invasion of Japan's Kyushu Island) as explored in David Westheimer's counterfactual "Death as Light as a Feather." My mistake.
"Oh, and props for "3. Make babies" Nice to see some demographic understanding filtering in around here, however slowly and tentatively."
It's kinda pointless, since no one could suggest any practical solution. Humans aren't fast-breeding species; our biology is to have a small number of babies and care about them. Humanity twised the biology with sociology for millenias, but there are only so far as you could go. The massive population increase in late XIX-early XX centuries was caused by transition from agrarian to industrial society; it was not sustainable outside of such transition.
Actually the reverse is true.
Agrarian societies need a lot of workers. Industrial societies need much less.
You will find that as industrialization increases, so does wealth, and as wealth increases so fertility rates become lower. It's a trend that has been clear worldwide for a century or so.
I'm afraid you misunderstood me. Yes, the agrarian society demand a lot of workforce, so birth rate is high - but this is compensated by high infant mortality rates, poor medicine, malnutrition, ect. So the population growth in agrarian society is low. But when the society starts the transit toward industrisal - the agrarian mindset "need more babies" still linger, while scientific medicine, industrial agriculture, ect. became available.
So at this transition stage, the population exploded. But its only temporarely; the next generations, living in industrial society, did not have "need more babies" mindset anymore, and realize that industrial society have low need for uneducated labor. And growing the educated, socialized specialists required a lot of time and resources. So the population growth decline fast when transition period from agrarian to industrial ended.
Shift from r- to K-selective reproduction, in other words.
Okay.
I don't think we're in total disagreement, though I think we don't totally agree.
Everything I see tells me that *wealthy* societies, which almost always means industrialized, have low fertility rates. The wealthier the lower the rate.
I do see that the transition point is different. Not sure that the change lasts long enough to create that much of a long lasting population boom though. It might. It might be different in different areas based on how fast industrialization takes place.
Huh, so you suggest people are animals, that under pressure they breed. Interesting, a species whose reproduction is linked to K, the carrying capacity of an ecosystem. We aren’t special?!
Not nearly as special as we often think we are, in that regard, and not nearly as "not part of 'Nature'" as a lot of people tend to suggest, either. We evolved into (or at least behave as though we evolved into) our niche, same as any other animal out there. We're just vastly more adaptable than most. Though coyotes and raccoons do a pretty darn good job of adaptation as well. :D
I think "economic conditions" play a significant factor as well, in the way that "environmental conditions" do for other animals. If Ukraine wins, and has an economic upswing (perhaps brought about by achieving point #1, no matter how unlikely that may be) we might see families with three to five children each. It doesn't help *right now*, but it could be a significant Baby Boom for them.
Or, given the numbers and demographics of the dead, perhaps we'll see either official or unofficial polygamy for a generation. If the "steady state" birthrate is an average of 2.1 children per couple, then three people making four babies would result in a population increase.
I’ve been bringing up the demographic problem for over two decades
Less bad for Ukraine than Russia (as i think you have mentioned)
Decimal point difference...
Plus Ukraine had massive out migration even before the war.
As if Russia hasn't. And it's more unlikely the Russians will return.
The only advantage I see for Russia is that they will likely be a poorer country and their fertility rate might increase.
Ukraine and Iran have been more effective.
I fear that by the time the "people" recognize and accept the danger/threat, it will be long past the point of no return. South Korea (0.76) and Hong Kong (0.75) may be the first canaries in this coal mine. Taiwan (0.86) and Ukraine (1.00) are right behind [Russia is ~1.42). Many African countries are 4.xx+, as is Afghanistan. Not a good omen for Western Civilization. 2.1 births/woman is the generally recognized fertility rate for a stable population. This metric is known as the total fertility rate (TFR).
Mark Steyn "America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It."
Published 2006 (Sal's "two decades")
Pith: "The future belongs to those who show up."
"History is made by those who show up," is commonly used. While often misattributed to John F. Kennedy, it was actually popularized by the fictional President Jed Bartlet on the TV show The West Wing (1999) (written by Aaron Sorkin).
Steyn claims his insight was gained sitting at an outdoor cafe somewhere in Europe when he noticed a stream of young mothers going into a nearby shop which sold clothing and other items for babies and small children. The women were all wearing veils and other indicia of Islam.
Steyn can claim all he wants. The historic data is clear. He heard or read it before and is just repeating it. No insight from Steyn.
I have never washed a single episode of The West Wing
Superlative TV, IMO. Requires some suspension of disbelief, as does all TV. The acting, script, and score are all off-the-charts good. For a hardcore conservative, I'm surprised how taken I was with the show. But it is TV, just entertainment.
Cut aid to Africa, Afghanistan, etc to alleviate the problem.
Back in the late 1980s, I worked several programs under the aegis of PMA-201, the Conventional Air-Launched Ordnance program office (colloquially referred to as "bombs and bullets").
One of them was designated with the bland nomenclature IAM ("Inertially-Aided Munition"). This was an inertial platform--later augmented with GPS--and a set of movable fins, to be installed on a Mk-82 500-lb "dumb bomb." There were two versions: one for a standard bomb and one for the Snakeye (IYKYK).
During OPEVAL, these demonstrated a reduction in CEP (Circular Error Probable) from 30 meters to 3 meters. This was absolutely astonishing at the time. The IAM cost about $10-15k, which seemed like a low number for someone like me, who was used to paying six figures for a single guided missile, but it was still an expensive upgrade considering that it was around 10X the cost of a Mk-82.
I imagine we've gotten better.
You do; your military made calculations, and realized, that its only the cost of bombs that hit the target thats counts. Who cares that smart bomb costs ten times more than dumb one, if you need just one smart bomb to do the job of dozens of dumb ones? The cost ratio was very in favor of smart ones.
Did I say I was against IAM and similar upgrades? I don't recall doing so.
I mean--everything you say is true. I'm just not sure I understand why you're scolding me about it.
Tone is a difficult thing to convey in print.
Excellent point, which is why I asked rather than just doing a "back at you" :-)
Scolding? Never meant to, absolutely, and if it accidentally appears like that, I sincerely apologize.
Not a problem, brother. I confess, I was bewildered! :-)
Glad to hear it was all a misunderstanding on my part! :-)
"V-1 cruise missile". Just my 2 cents..."cruise missile" didn't legitimately cement itself into the lexicon until 1967, Styx missile v. INS Eilat. My own preference is to call it the "V-1 Buzz Bomb".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i5Vq3wYPXU
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/64/2023/02/gettyimages-946092722-95644-741x439.jpg
I was shocked to realize that the FP-5 cruise missile looks just like a V-1, though larger and significantly more capable.
Kind of dovetails with Ukraine's fondness for old time German militaria and ideals. Might be a Banderite thing.
Nah, just the experience with Soviet recon drones of Tu-143 series. They have generally similar appearance, albeit their engine was on rear (only intake was above the hull). Ukraineans simplified the concept for mass production - outer-placed engine is simpler (ableit create additional drag).
Love it. The Ukrainians are using drones for SEAD now...Weasel drones.
YGBSM
I like the color choices.
given the time to develop and field new the new missiles described.... a more delicious use perhaps might be to launch them, not from the TEL system....but from the hold of a freighter that has sailed out of the Black Sea, out of the Mediterranean....up to the Gulf of Finland.....
Off the Russian Pacific Coast would make more sense...if they can stretch the range a little then some very juicy aviation targets are within reach....Komsomolsk on Amur for one...and there is practically no AD in eastern Russian now....
So,,,,,, Nice to read a jolt of creative thinking outside the 'Quantum' "Box"!
B-29 was usable over Japan because Iwo Jima saved crews and airplanes which broke down on the way to and from the Islands. Firebombs, they were uniquely fuse made up for accuracy and limited blast.
Accuracy iis no big thing if you don’t have blast, or fire.
The bitter calculus of war. The number of aircrew saved by Iwo Jima being there as a divert is almost the same as the number of casualties killed taking it - around 6900.
The calculus would shift more in favor of taking Iwo Jima the longer the war went. Had the war lasted until the planned date for Coronet, it would be looking much better.
I remember when the Thanh Hoa bridge was felled by LGB's...
Thought then that it would be a big deal.
https://airpower.airforce.gov.au/publications/dragons-jaw-vietnam-war-target-paved-way-modern-precision-air-weapon
Dragons Jaw - The Vietnam War Target the Paved the Way to a Modern Precision Air Weapon
LGB -- "Laser Guided Bomb"?
Yep.
They changed the world as we knew it.
Somebody on another site suggested designating a representative Iranian city, issuing advance warning, then turning the (vacated) place into rubble. Repeat as necessary to get the point(s) across: our capability and willingness to employ mass destruction as well as to foment social chaos and revolution, I'm guessing. Seems a bit more to the point than taking out the ground under the foundations of the long-gone radar dishes for the seventh or eighth time...
Good idea. Start with Qom. Then Tehran. Then Isfahan
Good idea in principal.
Though, I'm not sure telegraphing the attack is such a good idea.
Nor am I convinced that we have the ordnance to actually destroy a large metro area in the detail you are imagining.
Isn't that MOAB gizmo one of ours? Surely we'd've heard something if we'd run out of them, no?
The advance notice is to beat the rap for "Crimes against Humanity" or whatever they're calling it these days at the ICC.
Huh. Well, I don't think it's been tested on urban targets. Maybe it ought to be.
Fortunately, that cuts both ways. Except for LA, NYC etc.. don't give them a warning.
It would be deliberate targeting of civilian population. A major war crime.
Is it still, if one warns them to leave, first? Does it still count because one is deliberately targeting civilian *infrastructure* at that point, and there are predictable consequences from turfing 100k people out of their homes?
Yes it is. Targeting civilian population is forbidden; the civilian houses aren't legitimate targets unless they are housing military personnel/equipment. Even then, it's only allowed to target buildings that are confirmed to be used for such purposes, not any building around.
OK. Thanks for answering! :)
Those rules no longer apply.
Terrible idea. in one fell swoop you turn the irgc from assholes running your country, into our intrepid saviors fighting the overwhelming power they warned us about.
signed the iranian people.
no way you win any public opinion on this and we instantly become the bad guy/bully. if every single civilian were evacuated the "footage" of the aftermath would be of thousands of bodies. think Paliwood on steroids.
Re rebuilding their economy: With the east reportedly devastated the challenge will be to rebuild with what? Western Ukraine is largely agricultural.
No one on West actually cares. "Rebuilding Ukraine" is just a very good slogan for corporations and foundations to mooch money from their governments; then they would pocket the money, do nothing, blame everything on "Ukrainean corruption" and ask for more. While Ukraine would be struggling to get anything rebuild at all.
I mean... some of us do. I was working (remotely) for a company based in Ukraine (which was very suddenly shortly based in Dubai) when the invasion started. I don't work for that company any longer, but I still think fondly of my coworkers at the time.
It would be difficult not to, what with my job having shifted from "unix sysadmin" to "refugee evacuation coordination" without a clutch, and then spending 14 to 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, getting everyone at our company, our cousin company, their family, and their friends, who wanted to leave, out of the country. As well as people in *other* involved affected countries as well, such as a programmer in Belarus, and two programmers and a fellow sysadmin in Russia. We got some 250 people moved to safer territory, and it's difficult to care about that many people that much so intensely and then not have that linger.
So I would like to see them win, and I would like to see them rebuild. Admittedly, I'm just some random guy with few resources and no power, so... *shrug* :-/
Under "no one" I meant structures (like corporartions and foundations), not individuals.
"So I would like to see them win"
Well, I would like this insane war to never happens at all. Or at least stop right now, before both Russia and Ukraine would plunge even deeper into sunk cost trap (which is basically the main thing that keep this war alive after five years).
Sure, that would be even better. I'd probably have a fairly significantly different life right now if it hadn't.
Ukraine better off under Russia or Blackrock?
1. Expunge the culture of corruption.
2. Rebuild her economy.
3. Make babies.
Good plan for the U.S as well.
The more capable Ukraine becomes with missiles the less likely Russia will agree to peace.
One of the many reasons Russia launched this war was to prevent having a nation on its borders with missiles capable of reaching its heartland.
I can only imagine how we would feel if Canada or Mexico were armed to the teeth with missiles and closely allied to China. Cuba 1962?
We went back on our promise not to expand NATO and we took part in the overthrow of a pro Russia government in Ukraine.
This war will not end anytime soon if we continue on the current path.
Did Ukraine have missiles capable of reaching the Russian heartland?
If so, what happened to them?
And of course we shouldn't mention the fact that the pro Russian government was installed with more than a bit of canoodling by the Russians themselves.
Nor the Budapest Memorandum. Looks like it might have been better to have stayed out of that and let the Ukies have their nukes.
So they could sold nukes to, say, Taliban? Ukraine was a MAJOR hub of illegal arms trade in 1990-2000s. Their leaders were selling a lot of tech and hardware, including missile tech to the rogue states. Washington in 1990s realized that perfectly, that's why US firm position was that only Russia should inherit Soviet nukes and strategic systems
A lot of the old Warsaw Pact nations were selling off their weapons. Africa was flooded with AKs and other arms.
And it's not like the Soviets weren't practically giving a lot of arms away up till then.
But not nukes or strategic missiles. USSR and Russia were quite strict about that; viewing themselves as superpowers, they both realized that supplying other nations with WMD's would not help their own position. Ukraine, Kazakhstan or other post-Soviet nations have no such limitations, and the probability of them selling nukes to some longbeaded ayatollah was too high for Americans to sleep well.
The documented data is the total capitulation of the 2014 legal POTUS Obama to the unique World War Xi theatre in Ukraine!
The long planned + funded Han-Muscovy destabilization of Europe was to be initiated by the gamble of Balkanizing independent Ukraine.
The funding of the placing of extensive insurrection networks inside Ukraine pre-2014 depended on the future ignition of such covert internal terrorist forces.
POTUS Obama had no interest in the disintegration of the NATO forces in the Black Sea area. Obama worked to eliminate USA military capability even in some Yankee nuclear capacities.
There was zero interest in the Obama scheme of capitulation to enhance the WEST in the Black Sea geopolitical region. Did Obama, say, use Executive Branch power to create the funds for the USMC to cooperate with Ukrainian forces in an amphibious landing exercise on the Crimean coast? Nope! No attempt to show Xi the leadership qualities of a Yankee Leader of the WEST!
Yes, POTUS Obama covertly, unilaterally 'GREEN' lit the facilitation of the Balkanization of independent Ukraine on February 6th 2014. Barry betrayed NATO, UK, EU, Ukraine, therefore the WEST to the prime vile COLD WAR enemy of the USA, Kremlin Muscovy Putin!! When the USA, Finally, own this Betrayal??
I can’t imagine the grinder the demographic of fighting men have gone through- the generation of baby makers that have been eliminated.
I loathe Putin for the deaths he’s caused, including his own men.
Let’s hope it ends soon. I have little faith it will.
Eastern Germany in the last months of World War 2. Lotsa dead guys, also lotsa Russian-looking babies some time later.
Your hate is misdirected. Blame the people who urged Ukraine into this folly.
The folly of defending themselves?
The folly of daring to say that they would prefer to not be dominated by based and trad Vlad.
The folly of assuming that because Russia suffered major setbacks in 2022, Ukraine could easily won the whole war. So instead of negotiating for peace in 2023, when they have sort-of position of strength, Ukraine attempted a counteroffensive - that became an enormous blunder - then attempted invasion in Kursk oblast in 2024 - which served literally no practical purposes.
So you're blaming the failure of the Special Operation on the Ukrainians for not knowing when they should have surrendered?
As Napoleon and Hitler underestimated the Russians, the Russians have underestimated the Ukrainians.
No. My point was, that Ukraine should be suing for peace in 2023, when they have at least relative position of strength and Russia was not sure of its position yet. It was the optimum moment for Ukraine. Instead they pumped their resources in failed counteroffensives, into prolonged war, hoping that it would make their position even better.
Is this why Russia doesn't want NATO on their border? Seems reasonable.
They've had NATO on their borders since the formation of NATO in 1949....Norway...and Turkey in 1952....where nuclear weapons are based....
Russia shares a border with Turkey? What map are you using?