It’s conceivable that Russia could force the West to back out of the proxy war. But then they’d get proliferation in Europe, Taiwan, South Korea, and other places. And Usrael would very likely use nukes against Iranian missile cities. (Conversely, first use against Iran would give Russia license etc.) Apart from general global instability and uncertainty this might unleash.
So, it’s not hard to see why they haven’t—so far. And why they are pursuing their (slow and costly, sure) conventional military, economical, and demographic long-term neutering of Ukraine. And let’s not forget the enormous economic/budgetary cost to the EU.
Also, Russia retains a number of ways to escalate inside of Ukraine: bridges, dams, depopulation of frontline cities. China could finally abandon their stance of being mostly neutral.
The problem is that Ukraine/West keep escalating and the day when Russia’s calculus changes may yet come.
Since when has Ukraine's defense against the russian invasion been a "proxy war"? Your very first sentence destroyed any credibility the rest of your comment had (not that there was much worth reading anyway).
> The country that’s getting 55% of its state budget from the EU isn’t a proxy. Not to mention the munitions, the weapons, the training, and above all the access to the US’ trillion dollar ISR and satcom network.
If the Kremlin calculated that European countries would just back off it was a very bad call indeed.
Any reasonable leadership would have cut their losses yet here we are.
For the US and friends is terrorizing the enemy, his forces, his civilian population into giving up. Is feeding a civil war until he crumbles.
> bomb the living shit out of anything armoured
That’s absolutely not what’s missing in Ukraine.
> and then push forward with your own armour.
And then, as soon as you assemble let alone move in the open, you get wrecked. No one has an easy answer for this. The answer is what we’re already seeing: attrition.
> Iran
Iran prevailed in an highly asymmetric conflict by successfully attriting US/Israeli air defenses and surviving their attacks, depleting their arsenals. Which was their goal, not “levelling Tel Aviv”—however much they would have liked to.
Finally, what Israel is facing in Lebanon right now is but a pale imitation of what’s going on in Ukraine. But bad enough. One can imagine what just a couple days of Ukraine-level losses would do to them, militarily and politically. No matter their air superiority.
> For the US and friends is terrorizing the enemy, his forces, his civilian population into giving up
The US has tried to do it a few times (most notably Vietnam), but it isn't the strategy in the slightest. The goal is always an Iraq style campaign with heavy air attacks to destroy/confuse most enemy capabilities before a swift invasion.
Terrorising the population in submission has never worked. The US Air Force's own study of strategic air power after WW2 concluded so.
> That’s absolutely not what’s missing in Ukraine
> and then push forward with your own armour
If you rule the skies, you shoot down most attacking drones / it becomes too dangerous to launch drones from short to medium distances (because you'd be found out and destroyed ASAP). It's important to remember that not all wars are the same, and a competent army from a strong military power wouldn't have gotten bogged down to trenches in the first place. Mobile warfare is all about speed and unpredictability and the enemy being unable to react in time
> The meek recent Senate protest means nothing. If the elites didn't want the war, the House and the Senate would have 2/3rd majorities to stop it.
Yesterday’s AIPAC-driven ouster of Rep. Thomas Massie should tell you why no one is trying to stop this and who these “elites” you speak of answer to.
> The IRGC wants the blockade for self-preservation among its own population to show it is resisting "The West".
They are not showing off. They are actively and successfully resisting “The West”. Which could only sustain 5 weeks of active hostilities, got nowhere, hurt its position in the ME severely, but still cannot concede. Which brings us back to the root cause.
Of course if Israel is willing to take the blame because its reputation is at an all time low anyway, the Trump administration will happily use it as an excuse for being dragged into the war.
Yeah, i definitely had nothing to do with him accusing his party of protecting pedophiles and repeatedly voting with the left to block Trumps agenda. It must have been the jews.
Maybe it's simply because Ukrainians aren't killing Russians within territory they control, so they don't have as many bodies to exchange. Looking at body exchanges to determine the number of dead people on either side seems just...like a weird metric?
It’s a reasonable metric but it should be evaluated based on what’s happening on the ground. For example, if Russia is advancing and Ukraine is retreating, and KIA is same in each side, then Russia would pick up many more bodies to exchange than Ukraine.
Article says "Russia is likely handing over more bodies than it receives since its troops have captured more Ukrainian bodies than vice versa, since they have been on the offensive for most of the war."
That could be bullshit. But it holds water as a hypothesis. If Ukraine were suffering 20:1 casualty ratios against itself on the field, Russia would have won already. There are no weapons that can overcome a small belligerent losing more bodies than the larger one.
The notion that the bombings constituted an informed political decision intended to forestall an otherwise unavoidable invasion, and that Japan wasn’t ready to surrender is a complete retcon.[0] But a great example of how well Americans control the narrative—even eight decades after the fact. If anyone else did them they would be condemned as Great Crimes of History.
[0]: Truman didn’t order Hiroshima, and didn’t even know about Nagasaki. He did stop them after that.
Japan did not surrender after the Tokyo raid in March 1945 which killed more people than the individual bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki [0] and the emperor urged Japanese people to fight. Japan planned a full out defense of the 4 main islands, starting in Kyushu - operation Ketsugo [1].
The Emperor only changed its mind after the first atomic bomb drop on Hiroshima. The Big Six did not accept the American terns (Big Six wanted no invasion, wanted Japan to try its own war criminals, and wanted the Emperor to lead the country and answer to no-one). The Emperor gad to tell the council of Big Six that he already made up his mind to accept unconditional surrender and that he was going to tell Japan the very next day. Some military officers stormed the place trying to steal the radio recording of the Emperor. Army Minister Anami committed suicide because he could not bear to hear the radio address [2]
Japan military was geared to fight to the end on the main islands and dropping the atomic bombs was necessary to stop them. Dropping the bombs saved American lives, and maybe even some Japanese ones.
> Japan did not surrender after the Tokyo raid in March 1945 which killed more people than the individual bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Wrong. Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed way more people than the Tokyo firebombing 250.000 and 110.000 vs 80.000), and needed only a single bomb on a single plane, compared to the massive efforts to destroy Tokyo.
Oh really? <s> I will believe you after you convince Wikipedia to fix the page i linked in my previous post </s>.
Snark aside, your total may be including victims of radiation that died months and years later. If so, these victims were not incorporated in the decision made by the Emperor 2 days later - because these deaths did not happen yet and were not foretold/expected. (And you should also adjust your posting).
And to address your last phrase. I do not know what you mean by Truman did not order Hiroshima, and did not even know about Nagasaki.
But it should be clear that, while Truman delegated authority for picking up targets and dropping the bomb to military and State department, Truman along with the rest of his administration Sec of State Byrnes, Sec of War Stimson, Chief of Staff Gen. Marshall already decided the atomic bomb will be dropped on Japan. When Sec of State Byrnes explicitly warned the Japanese about "prompt and utter destruction" he meant exactly that. [0]
Dropping the bomb was done with Truman's approval.
> I'm no fan of the party in power in the US, but I can campaign and speak out against them. I can raise money to oppose them. I can band together with like minded individuals to protest.
You can. Just not in any way that matters. And you won’t. Because that takes organization and all existing organizations that matter are captured by the system and novel ones would quickly be.
Perfect example: The US just launched a disastrous and illegal (both in their own and the UN system) war at the behest of a foreign power/influential minority against the will of its people and against its geopolitical interest. And the “opposition” does less than nothing. There is little anti-war protest and none of consquence.
Compare it with 2003 and earlier wars: The American public has been all but neutralized as a political force. Not that it could do much even then.
> You can. Just not in any way that matters. And you won’t.
I’ve gotten language I wrote passed into state and federal law. The bottom line is a lot of people are too busy, lazy or nihilistic to call their electeds and show up to create political pressure. That’s unfortunate. But it also means that the payoff for relatively small amounts of effort are huge.
Did that language imping on the interests of America’s ruling elites, its security apparatus, or the interests of a certain entity in the eastern Mediterranean? No? Then we’re talking about entirely different things.
The “opposition” attempted to assert the congressional authority the branch is supposed over war powers, and were defeated because the American public gave majority power to the current majority whom rejected that authority to the executive branch to do whatever.
So the Palestinians and Arabs thought a hundred years ago. It served them badly.
It’s not that US/UK and others don’t get anything out of the relationship, as you note. But the arrows have been mostly pointing the other way for a long time. Trump and his background, as well as Epstein/Mandelson/McSweeney/Labour are just the latest, blatant examples of how this works.
So, it’s not hard to see why they haven’t—so far. And why they are pursuing their (slow and costly, sure) conventional military, economical, and demographic long-term neutering of Ukraine. And let’s not forget the enormous economic/budgetary cost to the EU.
Also, Russia retains a number of ways to escalate inside of Ukraine: bridges, dams, depopulation of frontline cities. China could finally abandon their stance of being mostly neutral.
The problem is that Ukraine/West keep escalating and the day when Russia’s calculus changes may yet come.
reply