you guys i gotta admit, i'm a bit spooked over this whole Russian/Crimea situation..

[AViking]

I also wouldn't call Afghanistan or Iraq successes either. Our track record is awful minus the first Gulf War and smaller operations like Panama.

 

[Daverino]

How do you call fighting village dwellers of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan a real war? Fighting people who are still living in the iron age, maybe even stone age, is somehow respectable?

The United States is good at picking on small nations, and has been since the 1960s. Lets see obama pick on Putin.

As opposed to all the first rate militaries the Russians have cut their teeth on recently, like Georgia, Chechnya, Dagestan and Crimea? Puhlease.

The Russian military is still primarily conscripts and their officers have little to no combat training. Their hardware is still mostly outdated with a few specks of more modern equipment. Their pilots do not train year round and they cannot even mobilize most of their forces without crippling their own petroleum reserves. The Russian forces in Crimea make up a volunteer-only component of the Russian military which is the best funded and best cared for of their troops. However that represents only a divisional size unit at best. The bulk of the 'super-awesome Russian ultra military hardware!' has never been tested in combat, despite the breathless assessments of Fox News and Russian wikipedia authors.

The Russian and US militaries are not in the same league.

That said, there is still no reason to start a shooting war with the Russians. That is 360 degrees of stupid.

 

[Texashiker]

Yeah, again, you want this to happen, for the sake of saying it was a war.

You sir are wrong.

War is barbaric. It is a relic of an arcane age.

The Russian and US militaries are not in the same league.

While I agree with you, Americans are used to a plush and comfortable lifestyle, the Russians not so much.

We no longer have the heart for sacrifice.

You want to break America, just break the internet. No more facebook, no more youtube, snapchat, twitter,,,, people will be lost.

 

[AViking]

As opposed to all the first rate militaries the Russians have cut their teeth on recently, like Georgia, Chechnya, Dagestan and Crimea? Puhlease.

The Russian military is still primarily conscripts and their officers have little to no combat training. Their hardware is still mostly outdated with a few specks of more modern equipment. Their pilots do not train year round and they cannot even mobilize most of their forces without crippling their own petroleum reserves. The Russian forces in Crimea make up a volunteer-only component of the Russian military which is the best funded and best cared for of their troops. However that represents only a divisional size unit at best. The bulk of the 'super-awesome Russian ultra military hardware!' has never been tested in combat, despite the breathless assessments of Fox News and Russian wikipedia authors.

The Russian and US militaries are not in the same league.

That said, there is still no reason to start a shooting war with the Russians. That is 360 degrees of stupid.

All of this is completely irrelevant since Russia has nuclear weapons and could move massive amount of troops into Europe in a matter of days. The US will have almost no influence on a real conflict over here. There are 65,000 US troops here and the war would probably be over before the US got enough troops to Europe to make a difference in a conventional war. Our propaganda machine is trying to make a big deal over us moving a whooping 150 troops to Poland but please...

Russia might move 100,000 troops into the Ukraine and then reinforce them later. I can't imagine we'll ever commit troops or risk a nuclear war to stop them. If we're smart we'll simply stop buying their goods. I highly doubt that will happen though since our rich people depend on their rich people and nobody wants to lose money.

 

[Daverino]

You sir are wrong.

War is barbaric. It is a relic of an arcane age.




While I agree with you, Americans are used to a plush and comfortable lifestyle, the Russians not so much.

We no longer have the heart for sacrifice.

You want to break America, just break the internet. No more facebook, no more youtube, snapchat, twitter,,,, people will be lost.

Seriously, fuck you.

A LOT of Americans have gone through a great deal of sacrifice since 2001. If you're going to spit on the families of American veterans, do it somewhere else.

 

[Daverino]

All of this is completely irrelevant since Russia has nuclear weapons and could move massive amount of troops into Europe in a matter of days. The US will have almost no influence on a real conflict over here. There are 65,000 US troops here and the war would probably be over before the US got enough troops to Europe to make a difference in a conventional war. Our propaganda machine is trying to make a big deal over us moving a whooping 150 troops to Poland but please...

Russia might move 100,000 troops into the Ukraine and then reinforce them later. I can't imagine we'll ever commit troops or risk a nuclear war to stop them. If we're smart we'll simply stop buying their goods. I highly doubt that will happen though since our rich people depend on their rich people and nobody wants to lose money.

Did you just reread Red Storm Rising or something? If the Russian attacked the Ukraine, the second rate Ukrainian army would bog them down quickly. Casualties would be high on both sides, but the Ukraine proper is huge and, unlike Crimea, cannot be controlled with a single tiny chokepoint. The Russian economy does not have the energy to sustain a massive war.

If the Russians ever made it to Poland or invaded the Baltics, they would be utterly crushed. Putin's not dumb. He knows this.

 

[Genx87]

I doubt even if the Russians took all of Ukraine we or NATO would go to war. And Russia would be insane to try and invade an NATO countries. I do agree that the Ukrainian army would put up enough fight to slow them down as they progressed west.

And if a real war was sparked between NATO and Russia. We wouldn't be doing the heavy lifting on the ground. Our contribution to the fight would be naval and air power. Which can be dispatched in a matter of days and weeks vs months for ground units. I don't see Russia fairing well against German and the other NATO countries that are better funded and better equipped.

 

[Texashiker]

Seriously, fuck you.

A LOT of Americans have gone through a great deal of sacrifice since 2001. If you're going to spit on the families of American veterans, do it somewhere else.

You misunderstand me.

During the Battle of Antietam 22,717 people lost their lives on a single day.

If that many American soldiers lost their lives on a single day in a current conflict, there would be national outrage. Tens of thousands of people would be marching on Washington demanding an end to the war.

The American people as a whole no longer have the heart or will to fight a large scale war.

Yes, there are people out there who are willing to fight for their nation and make the sacrifice. My son is serving in the navy on a submarine.

A lot has changed since Vietnam. There are no sub-classes who can be drafted and sent to war, like what happened to the blacks in Vietnam. When parents face the reality of their own kids going off to fight rather than "someone else", things change.

 

[AViking]

Why do they not have the energy?

I think talking about an invasion of a NATO country really changes things. Then you're talking about either a massive conventional war that I can't even begin to imagine or the quick lobbing of nukes at the UK, France, Russia, and the US. That's just outside reason.

However Sweden, Finland, Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova are not in NATO. I'm sure there are treaties here and there but are you willing to commit US troops to fight off an invasion of these countries?

Really the big question is how big of a financial impact are you willing to make on the global economy if Russia continues to be aggressive?

 

[nehalem256]

I find it interesting that you would even mention Vietnam. We lost that war.

Our goal was to keep South Vietnam free. We signed a peace treaty with North Vietnam accomplishing that and left.

Just because North Vietnam later violated the treaty doesn't mean we lost. By your argument France lost World War I because Hitler conquered them 1940.

 

[AViking]

Yeah you can be a revisionist with Vietnam, and hell throw in Korea too, but we lost both those wars.

We can play with semantics and say we weren't even at war with Vietnam too. Go for that angle if it makes you happy.

Regardless the point of Vietnam was to stop communism. The result? Communist Vietnam. Saigon fell. We lost.

 

[Daverino]

You misunderstand me.

During the Battle of Antietam 22,717 people lost their lives on a single day.

If that many American soldiers lost their lives on a single day in a current conflict, there would be national outrage. Tens of thousands of people would be marching on Washington demanding an end to the war.

The American people as a whole no longer have the heart or will to fight a large scale war.

Yes, there are people out there who are willing to fight for their nation and make the sacrifice. My son is serving in the navy on a submarine.

A lot has changed since Vietnam. There are no sub-classes who can be drafted and sent to war, like what happened to the blacks in Vietnam. When parents face the reality of their own kids going off to fight rather than "someone else", things change.

You're simply flat out wrong. About 3,500 Americans (North and South) died at Antietam. So roughly 500 more Americans than were killed on 9/11. Americans today are like Americans then; we fight for causes we believe in. We have no stomach to send thousands of our men and women overseas to fight in a war where America gets nothing out of it. Throwing the American military against the Russians to fight over Ukraine? That's the very definition of a pointless wasteful war. Nobody should have a stomach for that, including America.

Additionally, to compare a battle fought with rifled muskets and cannons over open ground over 150 years ago to a modern war is just dumb. The reason Americans don't die as often in combat now is because we've gotten much better at surviving it, not because we lack the courage to fight. I can assure you we've gotten the killing part of war down pat.

 

[AViking]

TH added all of the wounded and missing with the losses.

 

[Texashiker]

Why do they not have the energy?

Americans are self-absorbed. All we care about is stuff like american idol, facebook, how much money we are making, stock market,,,.

If it does not affect us directly, it is none of our business.

We no longer have a workforce capable of building factories, our steel mills have closed, a large percentage of our shipyards closed in the 1980s.

Womens rights movement has pointed women towards professional careers. If the men go off the fight, who is going to do the manual labor? Do you really think women will be leaving their office jobs for a manual labor job?

How would the femenist movement react if women were called to do manual labor jobs? Someone needs to help build the refineries, ships, planes,,,.

In world war II women worked the factory assembly lines. Are women willing to go back and do that again? And just who is going to do the physical labor? The poor? The people on welfare? The women who hold a professional job? Why should a woman lawyer leave her job as a lawyer to go work in a factory when there are women on welfare? A lack of men to do manual labor would create a division between female workers.

Female lawyer - let the women on welfare work the factories.

Woman on welfare - who is going to watch my babies? You can not make me work.

In Vietnam blacks and poor people were drafted. Would society tolerate that kind of discrimination again?

 

[AViking]

I can assure you we've gotten the killing part of war down pat.

Yes but we don't fight wars to do that. If the US was to engage in a war where the objective was to kill every living soul and salt the lands I think we'd do great. However we keep fighting idiotic wars to try to install puppet governments friendly to us. Our track record is abysmal in that sense.

 

[AViking]

TH he said Russia didn't have the energy. That's what I'm curious about.

 

[Texashiker]

TH he said Russia didn't have the energy. That's what I'm curious about.

If he said Russia did not have the energy to fight a war, he is misinformed.

 

[realibrad]

The majority of our modern military is to fight weaker threats. There are really 3 main powers at this point. If any of these 3 powers went to war, It would mean the end of the modern world.

Russia, China and Nato.

Any war with any combination of these powers would likely end with nukes.
Look at the death toll of recent modern conflicts and look at the anger its caused. The death toll of Vietnam was around 60k. A war today would not even come close. The outrage people had for that would not even come close when we lose that many in the first year. Then, think of the civilian deaths. The rules for war would go out the window for who ever started to fall behind. First would come fire bombs and then if that did not work nukes would follow.

So for now we will see proxy battles for small areas of land, economic resources and way more hacking.

We "Won" the cold war by not fighting. The economic principles we used meant we had the upper hand. The more we socialize the the less advantage we have.

Capitalism has a great habit of stopping wars.

 

[Daverino]

TH he said Russia didn't have the energy. That's what I'm curious about.

A good read

 

[Jaskalas]

your right, that actually soothed me, it WOULD be completely crazy to try to escalate this passed the point it is now... we're not that crazy are we?

It IS escalating. Obama wants more sanctions. Think economic war more than live fire, our stupid leaders will want to "punish" Russia and in doing so they'll severe our peace building economic ties, and consolidate Asian power against the world.

The war is not today, not over Ukraine, but by the time the dust settles East and West will never be so further divided. I am not comfortable with where that leaves us.

 

[moonbogg]

Nothin gonna happen
/thread

 

[feralkid]

Have to agree with Texashiker here.

Obama has no balls.

Whereas other countries are so afraid of Vladimir Putin that they name mountains after him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin_Peak

Non sequitur.

 

[senseamp]

Obama banned exports of Russian mineral water "Aquanika."
That is obviously going to stop Russia. Good thing he thought of that when he did. We can all sleep well.

 

[feralkid]

You sir are wrong.

War is barbaric. It is a relic of an arcane age.

"Arcane" doesn't mean what you think it does.

 

[mrjminer]

Obama banned exports of Russian mineral water "Aquanika."
That is obviously going to stop Russia. Good thing he thought of that when he did. We can all sleep well.

I read an article earlier today that said the initial sanctions are just a step to (paraphrased) "get Russia to make a serious diplomatic effort instead of just doing whatever he wants trying to antagonize into military response"

The article said the next step they will take is to sanction Russian banks unless Putin comes to the table