Europe at War

[Herman]

Had Hermann written "Roman historiography" no confusion would have been possible.

You're being disingenuous.

I had written those very words. As in "Surely you're aware that historiography does not work that way," words you quoted yourself.

Trolling seems to be a requirement in this topic...

[Madiel]

You've gotta love the insistence that World War II has no analogues when it was itself NAMED to be an analogue.

[Madiel]

I thought this was an interesting article about Russian and Ukrainian tactics. This guy has been writing articles of this ilk throughout the war.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-17/two-battles-reveal-differences-between-russia-and-ukraine-forces/101858290

[SimonNZ]

No, it is correct.  My explanation of Nazi Germany in the 1930s very clearly demonstrated why all analogies are false analogies.  No other power since has combined the same traits as Nazi Germany.  Analogies to Nazi Germany are all intellectually lazy and dishonest.  All WWII analogies are cheap rhetoric.

Given that nothing in the present can match the past in every external  detail outside of the aspect considered for comparison you may as well just say there's no such thing as historical analogies at all and nothing we can therefor learn from anything anyone has ever done before.

Why limit your prohibition to just WW2?

[Que]

The Russians did a not so smart thing, apart from it being a war crime, by launching cruise missiles at the Ukranian town of Dnipro - with 40 civilian casualties sofar and... just days before the big Ramstein conference of Western powers on military aid to Ukraine.

Realising their tactical error:

The Kremlin claimed its forces were not responsible and pointed to an unsubstantiated theory circulating on social media that Ukrainian air defense systems had caused the damage.

"The Russian Armed Forces do not strike residential buildings or social infrastructure. They strike military targets," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.


https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/01/17/ukraine-missile-toll-rises-to-40-as-russia-denies-attack-a79957


The biggest support for Ukraine in defeating Russia, comes from Russia itself.... And Putin keeps digging.

[Herman]

I thought this was an interesting article about Russian and Ukrainian tactics. This guy has been writing articles of this ilk throughout the war.

How useful is it for analysts to keep on writing and saying that the Russian tactics are wasteful, fighting heavy battles around towns that aren't strategically worth all the lives lost?
Clearly Putin and the generals see this differently, and they're the ones sending the troops in.
The point is they have a propaganda machine at home, plus unlimited hinterlands in the East from which to draw expendable troops.
The Russian strategy is the same as in Syria. They are going to torch every square mile and that's all there's to it.

[Madiel]

How useful is it for analysts to keep on writing and saying that the Russian tactics are wasteful, fighting heavy battles around towns that aren't strategically worth all the lives lost?
Clearly Putin and the generals see this differently, and they're the ones sending the troops in.
The point is they have a propaganda machine at home, plus unlimited hinterlands in the East from which to draw expendable troops.
The Russian strategy is the same as in Syria. They are going to torch every square mile and that's all there's to it.

Well without getting into philosophical discussions of what constitutes "useful", it does help explain why the larger resources of Russia did not translate into the quick victory Putin expected.

It certainly wouldn't be the first war in which what should be superiority has been squandered.

[Florestan]

I had written those very words. As in "Surely you're aware that historiography does not work that way," words you quoted yourself.

You did but only after the confusion had already taken place.

That's not trolling from me, it's just persistent and pointless nitpicking. I should really stop posting in this tread, its toxicity affects my behavior in ways I myself dislike.

[milk]

I recently view some lectures by former US National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster, (a short-term tenure under Trump).  He advocated the USA employ "strategic empathy".

McMaster, as I recall, attributed the term, strategic empathy, Zachary Shore, (The Diplomate item). What it boils down to is striving to see the circumstance from one's adversary's POV.  Certainly that does involving looking at that adversary's history & culture.  Our favourite (?) troll, @Todd, pretends to advocate for this.  The problem is he only goes halfway.

So Todd will say that Russians, (Putin plus Soviet nostalgists), see the Soviet empire as a good thing and NATO expansion as a threat -- all said, I suppose he's right so far.

OTOH he doesn't acknowledge the consequence of this which is Putin et al.'s desire to reconstitute the Soviet empire and the invasion and extinction of Ukraine as but one step in that direction. That Putin simply wants to protect Russian minorities and rid Ukraine or neo-Nazis is simply nonsense.

See 'Munich Agreement'.  Are Donbas and Crimea Sudetenland analogs?  Why yes, they are.  To the same extent that Sudetenland wasn't Hitler's "final demand", a few Ukraine provinces aren't Putin's final demand.

But NO, it doesn't matter what Putin's ambitions are;  it doesn't matter what the dreams of the Soviet nostalgists are.  We are entitled to resist them.  We may do so because they are evil.
 For that matter, as I have argued, they not even in the real & practical best interest of the Russia.  We may resist Putin with full righteousness.

The argument made by the dude in the video above is that Russia is a sick and demographically imploding society that lost control of all its natural barriers and bulwarks when the Union collapsed and that now is their last chance to field an army before they shrink into oblivion. It's that they've been trying to claw back with these conflicts and Odessa is one more they feel they need.
I can't imagine anyone thinking that'd be a good thing but I have had "friends" and acquaintances on the left argue with me for years that American military adventures on the whole over the last 50 years have come to no good. One way of looking at this seems to be that maybe it's true that Russia sees gaining back these areas as in its military interest and that the U.S. has always seen seen it's job as making sure this didn't happen?
Is this analysis wrong? I mean it's based on no knowledge so it might be 0% right. If there's any truth to it then the question is about why Russia should be opposed. There's a moral reason but I doubt that's what it is. I still think the arguments can be reiterated and made clear. I don't think this is about one troll vs. everybody else's obvious clear arguments. Rather I think there's an argument that's similar to one I've heard before from a spectrum on the left and right about the negative and wasteful effects of American power vs. a world order that guarantees some kind of stability, safety, and maybe even progress if you can argue that.

[Todd]

Rather I think there's an argument that's similar to one I've heard before from a spectrum on the left and right about the negative and wasteful effects of American power vs. a world order that guarantees some kind of stability, safety, and maybe even progress if you can argue that.

The fundamental problem with even this type of thinking is that it is inherently western, reliant on western concepts and ideals.  It is literally impossible for many people in the west to understand this, as so many posts on this board illustrate.  Attempting to impose some type of world order premised on western values is intrinsically imperialistic.  And without sufficient hard power, it is just a fantasy.  That leaves messy, chaotic international relations.  That requires accepting that other countries have legitimate security and national interests that differ from North America and Europe.  This is where grubby diplomacy comes in.  People with tough guy mentalities blanch at diplomacy.  Some even equate diplomacy with appeasement to show just how bad diplomacy is.

[Madiel]

The fundamental problem with even this type of thinking is that it is inherently western, reliant on western concepts and ideals.  It is literally impossible for many people in the west to understand this, as so many posts on this board illustrate.  Attempting to impose some type of world order premised on western values is intrinsically imperialistic.  And without sufficient hard power, it is just a fantasy.  That leaves messy, chaotic international relations.  That requires accepting that other countries have legitimate security and national interests that differ from North America and Europe.  This is where grubby diplomacy comes in.  People with tough guy mentalities blanch at diplomacy.  Some even equate diplomacy with appeasement to show just how bad diplomacy is.

The repetitive thoughtless copy and paste you're engaging in from somewhere is exasperating. Mindlessly parroting Russian propaganda. Of course Russia has security interests.

You know who else does? UKRAINE. Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine. The country you relentlessly refuse to talk about. The country you've at least once openly hinted shouldn't even exist.

The empty hole in absolutely all of your rhetoric is that your focus never falls on the country that is actually suffering through this war. Every so-called thought, every stupid utterance is about Russia and America. You're telling us how we need to care about Russia's security interests, when all of your posts convey that you don't give a flying fuck about Ukraine's welfare.

[Karl Henning]

The Russians did a not so smart thing, apart from it being a war crime, by launching cruise missiles at the Ukranian town of Dnipro - with 40 civilian casualties sofar and... just days before the big Ramstein conference of Western powers on military aid to Ukraine.

Yet, somehow, it's those who support Ukrainian resistance who are the warmongers ....

[milk]

The fundamental problem with even this type of thinking is that it is inherently western, reliant on western concepts and ideals.  It is literally impossible for many people in the west to understand this, as so many posts on this board illustrate.  Attempting to impose some type of world order premised on western values is intrinsically imperialistic.  And without sufficient hard power, it is just a fantasy.  That leaves messy, chaotic international relations.  That requires accepting that other countries have legitimate security and national interests that differ from North America and Europe.  This is where grubby diplomacy comes in.  People with tough guy mentalities blanch at diplomacy.  Some even equate diplomacy with appeasement to show just how bad diplomacy is.

Yes of course this "world order" is another name for imperialism to China and Russia. I see the Gray Lady is also reporting on China's demographic woes today. Maybe U.S. imperialism is just one problem of many problems out there for Jinping and Putin. We can argue about American imperialism all day I suppose but is it going anywhere? Meanwhile this war is dug in. I'm also hearing that new Russian conscripts will be coming in this spring/summer along with new equipment for the Ukrainian side. It proves to be bloody and maybe decisive one way or another. Or not. It could just keep going on and on.

[Todd]

Yes of course this "world order" is another name for imperialism to China and Russia.

Not just Russia and China.  And it's not all about the projection of American power.

It could just keep going on and on.

It is a war of attrition.  Russia is slowly demolishing Ukraine before our eyes.  Ukraine does not have the option of mounting a large-scale invasion of Russia.  Which country can last longer under these conditions?  Ukraine can receive all manner of goodies from Uncle Sugar, but it cannot receive fresh new bodies to throw on the mountain of corpses.

For these reasons and others, I think a negotiated settlement is preferable.  I do not know, but I suspect, various non-public discussions regarding potential settlements occur with some regularity.  The US should start a vigorous public campaign to pursue a settlement.

[drogulus]

    The attractiveness of ideas that were once called Western isn't anything objectionable in itself.

    Much of the world sells stuff into the US market. The US hires the world, the world saves in dollars, therefore "values". Oh, there are actual values in there, too. People can't be forced to stick with tradition when something that looks better comes with higher living standards, too.

    Take China. The government hates the US and the people mostly don't. China thought at some point what US libraservatives said was true. They thought working for the Yanqui dollar meant they would own their hated foe. The realization arrived slowly, I think, that a chunk of China, the wealthy coast, was in fact under the same kind of foreign ownership as it had been since the Opium Wars. Now the race to decouple is on between the government and the foreign investors.

    There's nothing in Ukraine that can compensate for the loss of BP to the Russians. Things will be worth less under Russian ownership because they can't run what they own. Now Russian "lawmakers" want to punish the million or so escapees as traitors, so they will never be able to return. That's bouncing the rubble to a beyond anything extent. It's like "let's be comic book bad guys!".

    I suppose one could characterize the chief attractive feature of what used to be Western is the utter failure of its rivals. Propaganda has limited means to overturn this verdict.

[JBS]

Not just Russia and China.  And it's not all about the projection of American power.


It is a war of attrition.  Russia is slowly demolishing Ukraine before our eyes.  Ukraine does not have the option of mounting a large-scale invasion of Russia.  Which country can last longer under these conditions?  Ukraine can receive all manner of goodies from Uncle Sugar, but it cannot receive fresh new bodies to throw on the mountain of corpses.

For these reasons and others, I think a negotiated settlement is preferable.  I do not know, but I suspect, various non-public discussions regarding potential settlements occur with some regularity.  The US should start a vigorous public campaign to pursue a settlement.

The problem with a settlement is that it validates the use of brute force to seize whatever one wants, as long as one can fend off attempts to retrieve it.
Ukraine doesn't need to invade Russia; it merely needs to evict Russian forces from Ukrainian territory.

[Todd]

The problem with a settlement is that it validates the use of brute force to seize whatever one wants, as long as one can fend off attempts to retrieve it.

The use of brute force is common in international relations.  Look at the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, or its ongoing occupation of part of Syria, to cite just two examples.  The "argument" that a settlement would validate this, that, or the other thing is hollow.  It is vapid idealism that leads to needless civilian death.

Ukraine doesn't need to invade Russia; it merely needs to evict Russian forces from Ukrainian territory.

It is unclear if the latter can be achieved without the former. 

[drogulus]

The problem with a settlement is that it validates the use of brute force to seize whatever one wants, as long as one can fend off attempts to retrieve it.
Ukraine doesn't need to invade Russia; it merely needs to evict Russian forces from Ukrainian territory.

    There is no problem with reaching a settlement once Russia has a government that can settle.

    There is a view that Putin can survive a settlement that formalizes his defeat. That would be because rivals don't want to take the blame for Russian collapse. Maybe they swoop in later to pick up valuable chunks, like in the '90s. But for now the wise choice might be to keep the Dead Man walking. He's a wonderful target for, oh, everyone? Putin can't return fire, having made it clear that he and he alone is the architect of this catastrophe. It's on him at his own insistence.

   

    Get it? Got it.

[drogulus]

     An itty bitty invasion of Russia, a kind of proof of concepty thing, might help move along negotations. More likely IMO is an enhanced version of Belgorod go boom. Some of this will be accomplished by the Russians themselves. There will be many more Suspicious Fires all over the country as Russians continue to prove they are the most careless smokers on the planet.

[SimonNZ]

The fundamental problem with even this type of thinking is that it is inherently western, reliant on western concepts and ideals.  It is literally impossible for many people in the west to understand this, as so many posts on this board illustrate. 

Once again you're speaking only for the rulers. Everyone under them everywhere wants the same basic human rights and the same freedom from fear.