War Games: Russia Takes Ukraine, China Takes Taiwan. US Response?

[MigL]

As if the lizard people, mole people, and extraterrestrial aliens weren't bad enough ...

[iNow]

11 hours ago, TheVat said:

The less professional the army, the more likely to flee in disarray, and to abandon their weapons.

Also the MORE likely they are to realize their current commands from corrupt commanders are sinister shit… to decide NOT to kill their Ukrainian cousins for old man Putins honor… and to instead flip that same free gun the government just handed them so they’re pointing back on the Russian leaders.

You know, exactly like they did back in the First World War with the Russian Revolution of 1917. 

5 hours ago, swansont said:

I blame the crab people and their mind control technology.

They prefer being called Meta now

 

https://www.pbs.org/video/us-vs-them-2t0c0s/

Edited October 3, 2022 by iNow

[zapatos]

I frequently read in the media about Ukraine retaking villages and settlements in the east of the country.

I don't see too many villages or settlements in the US, except when a new housing development creates a name they think sounds sophisticated, such as "Sycamore Village", or "The Village of Heaven's View Estates".

Other than those pompous names, when I think of 'village' or 'settlement', what comes to mind is rural settings, often with the men carrying swords or people selling fish by the shore.

What are villages and settlements like in Ukraine?

[StringJunky]

2 hours ago, zapatos said:

I frequently read in the media about Ukraine retaking villages and settlements in the east of the country.

I don't see too many villages or settlements in the US, except when a new housing development creates a name they think sounds sophisticated, such as "Sycamore Village", or "The Village of Heaven's View Estates".

Other than those pompous names, when I think of 'village' or 'settlement', what comes to mind is rural settings, often with the men carrying swords or people selling fish by the shore.

What are villages and settlements like in Ukraine?

 

Quote

Ukrainians - Settlements
The founding of most of the settlements in the Ukraine and their subsequent growth were influenced by agricultural and industrial requirements—including the relative potential of the land to be cultivated, the availability of transportation routes and water resources, the landscape, and the nature of the soil. Villages are located along rivers, lakes, or ravines or dried-up riverbeds.

The following types of village plans may be distinguished, depending on the type of construction and the arrangement of streets, squares, and houses: clusters, unplanned-dispersed, and by row and by street. The oldest settlements in the Ukraine were near rivers. A village that grew out of a single household might develop without any plan at all. Villages like this were the most common in the Ukraine. Later, buildings were constructed in a row along rivers or roads, eventually to be expanded with planned streets. Beginning with the end of the eighteenth century, state controls often stipulated that villages in the steppes be built with streets and blocks and that the streets be straight and the blocks rectangular. More>> https://www.everyculture.com/Russia-Eurasia-China/Ukrainians-Settlements.html

 

[zapatos]

8 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

 

 

From your link:

Quote

The most common types of dwelling consist of three parts and have four pitched roofs, either of straw or reed; these are typical in regions with well-developed agriculture. The interiors of Ukrainian household conform to a remarkably uniform plan: the stove (pech) faces the long wall, the table is diagonally opposite it in the corner where the icons are placed, and the flooring where the family sleeps is behind the stove.

Read more: https://www.everyculture.com/Russia-Eurasia-China/Ukrainians-Settlements.html#ixzz7gmftDTLd

Sounds like the way I pictured villages and settlements was not too far off.

[StringJunky]

21 minutes ago, zapatos said:

From your link:

Sounds like the way I pictured villages and settlements was not too far off.

My guess is a settlement is an informal grouping of dwellings that were a precursor to the formation of villages

[TheVat]

Village designates that critical size at which an idiot is acquired and formally installed.

  

 

[J.C.MacSwell]

26 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Village designates that critical size at which an idiot is acquired and formally installed.

  

 

LOL. (fortunately no one heard me)

Now you have me picturing a bunch of settlement idiots preparing for a professional tryout.

[Sensei]

On 3/16/2022 at 9:14 PM, Sensei said:

Again, the bridge connecting Crimea to the mainland must be destroyed ASAP. [...]
This should have been done two weeks ago. The southern front would have collapsed.

"Better late than never"..

But it is half-done achievement.

Video of the explosion (download/rerecord by a desktop recording app such as VirtualDub)

https://t.me/bazabazon/13718

 

[geordief]

On 10/4/2022 at 9:56 PM, zapatos said:

From your link:

Sounds like the way I pictured villages and settlements was not too far off.

From the latest description of the Russian army 's living quarters  as revealed after their retreat we can say that part of the economy is based on pigs and porc production.

[TheVat]

I found this a helpful breakdown of the types of propaganda that Russia is using to gaslight its citizens.  

 

 

[J.C.MacSwell]

+1 but 4 minutes in had to turn it off.

The Russians, as a people, are as responsible as Putin for what's going on. Respect to the brave ones that speak out against, but the rest not at all, and the worst need to be held accountable.

I don't get the asymmetry in the rules of this war. Give Ukraine the weapons and let them use them against any military target that targets them. 

That, or bow down to Putin and admit his threats work, and stop funding the war.

 

[geordief]

1 hour ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

+1 but 4 minutes in had to turn it off.

The Russians, as a people, are as responsible as Putin for what's going on. Respect to the brave ones that speak out against, but the rest not at all, and the worst need to be held accountable.

I don't get the asymmetry in the rules of this war. Give Ukraine the weapons and let them use them against any military target that targets them. 

That, or bow down to Putin and admit his threats work, and stop funding the war.

 

Moral superiority will get us nowhere.Russia has its own circumstance  and this has lead to the present triumph of the bad over the good.

 

We too have had our dark times and will likely visit them again (our  trashing of the ecosystem and shitting in our own and others' beds is less cine graphic  perhaps but probably as bad as anything the Russians have done.)

Loose the dogs of war and prepare to be surprised.

Had Putin been successful (as most ,including  myself expected) there would have been a puppet regime in Kiev within weeks and the Soviet empire  would have been half way to being reinstalled.

 

We know how that felt.Miserable and sickly oppressive  but not bloody.

It is his failure to date that has exposed the total moral bankruptcy  that Ukraine has had to resist-and which ordinary Russians have had  to endure  over the period of Putin's rule.

 

In the end we may have to thank the Russian people for cleaning up their own house -and they will have cause to thank Ukraine and its allies  for not allowing  the madness that characterises the Russian political system to prosper and expand.

[Sensei]

3 hours ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

The Russians, as a people, are as responsible as Putin for what's going on. Respect to the brave ones that speak out against, but the rest not at all, and the worst need to be held accountable.

You think and take Russians as if they were like US or European citizens.. They have been indoctrinated and brainwashed since ~ 1917.. Grand-grandparents, grandparents, parents.. all lived in fear of being sent to the gulag, shot, arrested, tortured, living without contact with the rest of the world.

A little thaw in early '90 won't fix it in their brains. They are like slaves. Robots. They have been trying to survive in a hostile environment for a century.

Those who have escaped brainwashing have already fled Russia whenever they can.

Edited October 23, 2022 by Sensei

[J.C.MacSwell]

9 hours ago, Sensei said:

You think and take Russians as if they were like US or European citizens.. They have been indoctrinated and brainwashed since ~ 1917.. Grand-grandparents, grandparents, parents.. all lived in fear of being sent to the gulag, shot, arrested, tortured, living without contact with the rest of the world.

A little thaw in early '90 won't fix it in their brains. They are like slaves. Robots. They have been trying to survive in a hostile environment for a century.

Those who have escaped brainwashing have already fled Russia whenever they can.

You can use the same argument to excuse Putin as well.

[geordief]

27 minutes ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

You can use the same argument to excuse Putin as well.

Sure ,he is a victim too.You can be both victim and  victimiser/exploiter.

That is the whole argument over criminality.

Revenge or deterrence /example.

[TheVat]

Indeed.  One can imagine a Hitler who didn't have a difficult childhood (all his siblings died in childhood, and dad was domineering and abusive) and then didn't have a high school teacher who espoused German nationalism (kind of atypical of Austrians at that time) and strived to indoctrinate his students.  With a whole different life following that, perhaps as a regional landscape painter or a professor of political philosophy.  

But even though no one invents their evilness ex nihilo , we still have to hold them responsible.  Adolph and Vlad had choices, forks in the road, and any moral order must hold them responsible for the consequences.  They were not totally coerced.  

[Sensei]

  

39 minutes ago, TheVat said:

One can imagine a Hitler who didn't have a difficult childhood (all his siblings died in childhood, and dad was domineering and abusive)

More important was his death.. And the death of his mother.. and homelessness..

39 minutes ago, TheVat said:

and then didn't have a high school teacher who espoused German nationalism (kind of atypical of Austrians at that time) and strived to indoctrinate his students.  With a whole different life following that, perhaps as a regional landscape painter or a professor of political philosophy.  

 Who wants to jump into such a parallel Universe with up-to-date knowledge from this Universe

 World War II would have been very different..

  

35 minutes ago, TheVat said:

But even though no one invents their evilness ex nihilo , we still have to hold them responsible.  Adolph and Vlad had choices, forks in the road, and any moral order must hold them responsible for the consequences.

That's why I'm here..

35 minutes ago, TheVat said:

  They were not totally coerced.  

..unless there is total determinism.... (caused by an error in the random number generator code...).

 

Edited October 23, 2022 by Sensei

[StringJunky]

Russia appears to be airing the idea of taking out our satellites that help the Ukrainians. Will that cross any militarily agreed  red lines?

[iNow]

4 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Russia appears to be airing the idea of taking out our satellites that help the Ukrainians. Will that cross any militarily agreed  red lines?

It’s less of a risk since the US Department of Defense declined to fund the Starlink system. It’s still being fully operationalized by a private company and Uber rich public citizen, so the red lines are less obvious than they would be if DoD had any actual skin in the game, BUT…

The very idea of blasting weapons into space with the sole purpose of shattering man-made satellites owned by other people in other countries… and doing so in outer space where treaties have kept a lid on all of this… that clearly breaks with decades of leaving earthly conflicts out of earthly orbits. 

There’s also the issue of how much we rely daily on satellites in space so it’s be a dangerous precedent. Another form of modern terrorism really. 

[StringJunky]

19 hours ago, iNow said:

It’s less of a risk since the US Department of Defense declined to fund the Starlink system. It’s still being fully operationalized by a private company and Uber rich public citizen, so the red lines are less obvious than they would be if DoD had any actual skin in the game, BUT…

The very idea of blasting weapons into space with the sole purpose of shattering man-made satellites owned by other people in other countries… and doing so in outer space where treaties have kept a lid on all of this… that clearly breaks with decades of leaving earthly conflicts out of earthly orbits. 

There’s also the issue of how much we rely daily on satellites in space so it’s be a dangerous precedent. Another form of modern terrorism really. 

China has already been taken to task for that because of the orbital debris it causes, if you remember.

It seems more and more that Putin is ideologically bound to the idea that Ukraine is an inseparable part of Russia.

Quote

Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to reject the idea of Ukrainian sovereignty in a way that is fundamentally incompatible with serious negotiations. Putin continued to reject Ukrainian sovereignty during a speech at the Valdai Discussion Club on October 27. Putin stated that the “single real guarantee of Ukrainian sovereignty” can only be Russia, which “created” Ukraine.[1] Putin reiterated that it is a “historical fact” that Ukrainians and Russians are fundamentally “one people” that were wrongly separated into “different states.”[2] Putin stated on October 26 that Ukraine has “lost its sovereignty” and become a NATO vassal.[3]

Putin’s statements reject the legal fact that Ukraine is a fully sovereign state, that the Russian Federation recognized Ukraine’s sovereignty, and that the Ukrainian people exist as a distinct nation. Putin’s perpetuation of the narrative that Ukraine and Russia are a single people separated into different states by arbitrary historical circumstance indicates his continued objective to destroy the Ukrainian state and erase the notion of a Ukrainian people. He added during the question-and-answer period that “if some part of that single ethnicity at some moment decided that it had reached such a level as to consider itself a separate people, then one could only respond with respect.”[4]  The many conditionals in this comment underscore Putin’s rejection of the idea that there is currently any independent Ukrainian national identity. These statements, along with many Russian actions, must cause serious reflection on the question of whether Russia’s war against Ukraine is a genocidal action since genocide is legally defined as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”[5] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-27

On my earlier comment about taking out satellites:

Quote

A senior Russian official threatened that Russia could target Western commercial satellites supporting Ukraine. Russian Foreign Ministry Deputy Director of the Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Konstantin Vorontsov told the United Nations that the United States and its allies were trying to use space to enforce Western dominance and that "quasi-civilian infrastructure may be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike."[6] Reuters reported that US National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby stated that the United States will meet any attack on US infrastructure “with a response.”[7] 

 

Edited October 28, 2022 by StringJunky

[iNow]

We’re basically just chimps with more expensive poo to throw at each other 

[MigL]

Russians can't even hit military positions, without taking out the school or hospital 5 miles down the road.
Now they want us to believe  they can take out satellites ?
In a well controlled test ... maybe.

[swansont]

46 minutes ago, MigL said:

Russians can't even hit military positions, without taking out the school or hospital 5 miles down the road.
Now they want us to believe  they can take out satellites ?
In a well controlled test ... maybe.

This assumes they were only trying to hit military positions.

[Moontanman]

Has the possibility of Ukraine firing missiles into Moscow been discussed in this thread?