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[martinuzz]

It looks like Russia has used chemical weapons against Ukrainian forces.
Forces in a secret location retreat, where soldiers are allowed aroma therapy and other relaxation session before being sent back to the front report that specifically the salt air therapy meant to relieve their lungs is nice, because it clears their lungs from the 'whatever gas it was that the Russians used on us'.

It is really about time the fuckers get nuked to the stone age.

[Loud Whispers]

Kremlin wants to nationalise Yandex in preparation for presidential elections – ISW
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/08/11/7415112/

It may not be a bad idea to consider this if you operate a website with a Yandex script on it

Seems like retaliation for the Yandex founder turning his back on Putin

[martinuzz]

Russia is becoming a crime paradise.
Police no longer apprehend criminals, because if they accidentally arrest a criminal that has served in Ukraine, the arresting police officer will be sent to prison for 15 years, for ' discrediting heroes of the special military operation'.
So now, police just let most criminals do their crime thing, except the most horrible, like child rapists.

[EuchreJack]

Palau is in free association with the USA. Does that mean that if Russia had shot the ship, the US would have had to declare war, or does free association not include military protection?

EDIT: not only that, the ship itself was Turkish, but sailing under the Palau flag. Could have been an article 5.

Posting my response here, to avoid jamming up the news thread.

So yeah, basically Russia shooting at a ship flying a Palau flag is about as close as they can piss on the US without triggering WWIII.
In fact, I'm downright ashamed the US didn't kick up more of a stink. The US is, after all, technically in charge of all the defense of Palau.

Without knowing much more than wikipedia said, Palua is basically like Japan in regards to national defense.

[Strongpoint]

I reached the point when news like "Ukrainian drone scratched a roof of some building in Moscow" annoy me.

It is like proudly announcing that you threw a rock in a neighbor's window after he burned down a part of your house.

[The_Explorer]

It is pretty depressing. Not sure if its ukraine or just us not sending enough. But I think the intelligence on russia understated their potential. Saw some site, think was rueters, may been another source, but it said in the article that the west underestimated russia's ability to adapt. Think too much time was given for them to build up defenses and now its just almost a stalemate. Granted, russia can't even beat ONE country, but ukraine wouldn't probably exist today without all the supplies sent to them and all the other stuff given. Though even without that, maybe ukraine is tough enough on its own it would still be surviving just not as well.

Whats also depressing is we've sent BILLIONS of dollars, so much military equipment and vehicles...the entire west...and its STILL a stalemate over there. I was hoping a lot more would happen during the counteroffensive, but it was almost overhyped. That and the money ends up going who knows where since there is a huge problem with corruption over there apparently, unless thats fake news, but apparently there has been a lot of key positions just being straight up fired and arrested for treason.

The whole thing is a mess. I really thought russia would just collapse and fail the war, the western technology far outpaces russia's...so dunno how its still a stalemate.

And these drone things, I do kinda agree. That is a good example, burn down someones home, they throw a rock through your window and thats considered positive news :| that makes it more depressing

[Maximum Spin]

the western technology far outpaces russia's...so dunno how its still a stalemate.

This ultimately just turned out not to be true.
Russia apparently has a much stronger industrial base than anyone living in a "service-sector-oriented", deindustrialized Western country imagined.

[Strongpoint]

Modern NATO's doctrine is based on airforce and precision strikes, everything else is auxiliary to that. It is not that weird that NATO doesn't have enough production for basic artillery shells.


And I don't think the problem of the Ukrainian offensive is not getting enough in billions in weaponry. The problem is "avoiding escalation" which gives Russia time. Take cluster munitions. I read a lot from both our troops praising how good American Cluster munitions are and from Russians complaining how deadly those are. How many Ukrainian lives could be saved if cluster munition would be supplied during, for example, the battle for Bakhmut? Or When Russians retreated from Kherson with minimal losses while cluster munitions are exceptionally deadly when striking retreating forces.


Oh, "and not using Western weapons to strike into Russian territory" is fighting with one hand tied behind our backs. If Russian military targets in border regions received their dose of cruise missiles it would be a very different story.

[The_Explorer]

Hm, does that mean Russia can just outproduce the west? I always thought the west (and US) just had way outpaced technology (not in production but how ahead of we are than russia in technology is what I meant). But maybe quantity>quality in this case? Its a bit off-topic, but I guess china would have the same thing, quantity>quality, though probably still better quality than russia. their economy is collapsing though. But thats not really for this thread.

But yeah, there has been a lot of being far too careful not to go past russia's borders and being too slow on the offensives. Both which is weird to me and doesn't make sense.

[Maximum Spin]

Hm, does that mean Russia can just outproduce the west? I always thought the west (and US) just had way outpaced technology (not in production but how ahead of we are than russia in technology is what I meant). But maybe quantity>quality in this case? Its a bit off-topic, but I guess china would have the same thing, quantity>quality, though probably still better quality than russia. their economy is collapsing though. But thats not really for this thread.

But yeah, there has been a lot of being far too careful not to go past russia's borders and being too slow on the offensives. Both which is weird to me and doesn't make sense.

Why do you think the US has outpaced Russia in technology? All countries pretty much have the same technology now, and have for nearly a century. There are still small-scale state secrets in military spheres like individual navigation systems and stuff like that, but even there, everyone has COMPARABLE things. The last Armenia-Azerbaijan war, in the Caucasian backwater, was fought with drones.
Russia also seems to have far more production capacity in currently usable existence. America probably has more capital, but we just don't have the factories and facilities actually built to the same extent.

Look at it like this: The USSR was way, way worse than modern Russia (a state that runs mostly on oil) in economic terms, but they still beat us in the space race and nuclear technology. This shows that it is honestly not that hard.

One more fact that goes to Russia's industrial capacity: Russia has some of the cheapest oil production in the world, pulling it out of the ground at an estimated total production cost of about $20 a barrel. They then sell that oil at, now, around $80 a barrel. That margin buys a lot of access to capital, and the state pretty fanatically invests that money back into expanding industry.

[ChairmanPoo]

.

.

Look at it like this: The USSR was way, way worse than modern Russia (a state that runs mostly on oil) in economic terms, but they still beat us in the space race and nuclear technology. This shows that it is honestly not that hard.

You're wrong of course. Both in the USSR beating the west in space and nuclear technology, and in Putin's Russia being more important than the USSR economicallu

At the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Bloc represented 9% of the world’s population and 10.5% of its economy, measured at purchasing-power parity (PPP). The equivalent numbers for Russia and its allies (the ‘Putin Bloc’) in 2020 are 2.5%  and 3.5%. If measured at market exchange rate, even before accounting for the ruble’s recent depreciation, the Putin Bloc’s share of GDP is even lower: 1.8% versus 6% for the Soviet Bloc at the end of the Cold War.

[Maximum Spin]

You're wrong of course. Both in the USSR beating the west in space and nuclear technology, and in Putin's Russia being more important than the USSR economicallu

At the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Bloc represented 9% of the world’s population and 10.5% of its economy, measured at purchasing-power parity (PPP). The equivalent numbers for Russia and its allies (the ‘Putin Bloc’) in 2020 are 2.5%  and 3.5%. If measured at market exchange rate, even before accounting for the ruble’s recent depreciation, the Putin Bloc’s share of GDP is even lower: 1.8% versus 6% for the Soviet Bloc at the end of the Cold War.

I didn't say "important" at all, but at the same time, this statistic isn't actually relevant in any way. It's just a smokescreen of numbers.

Russia is where the marginal barrel of oil, the fuel for the entire world at the moment, comes from; that's economically far more important than PPPGDP. If Russia wanted to, it could destroy the economies of several countries, including US ally Saudi Arabia, right now by pulling a China move and offering cheap oil (like China has steel) so other countries cannot afford to produce it. It would have to take on short-term debt and/or contract its economy to do so, but it would survive.

As to whether what I actually said was right, have you heard of Sputnik? Tsar Bomba? VVERs, which are still being built by countries around the world?

[Strongpoint]

Why do you think the US has outpaced Russia in technology? All countries pretty much have the same technology now, and have for nearly a century. There are still small-scale state secrets in military spheres like individual navigation systems and stuff like that, but even there, everyone has COMPARABLE things. The last Armenia-Azerbaijan war, in the Caucasian backwater, was fought with drones.
Russia also seems to have far more production capacity in currently usable existence. America probably has more capital, but we just don't have the factories and facilities actually built to the same extent.

Please, enlighten me on Russian military production capacity. I am especially interested in Russian military-grade microchips. Or civilian-grade microchips. Or 5th generation fighters. Or aircraft carriers. Or modern drones. And show me how it can produce more of those than the USA.

[Maximum Spin]

Please, enlighten me on Russian military production capacity. I am especially interested in Russian military-grade microchips. Or civilian-grade microchips. Or 5th generation fighters. Or aircraft carriers. Or modern drones. And show me how it can produce more of those than the USA.

Russia doesn't produce many microchips, but they buy tons of them from everyone else. That's one of the ways that, like I said, everyone has basically the same technology these days. Not too many microchips are produced in the US, either.
Really, I feel like you've misunderstood my point. I'm not talking about military production capacity, but general production capacity, ie, what you need to run a country. The US has churned out a lot of F-35s, but they don't actually benefit anybody except CEOs of military contractors. Having high general production capacity is what gives that adaptability we were talking about - the ability to spin something up on short notice to produce reasonable amounts of something you need right now. The US has done far more to specialize in huge expensive toys - like 5th-generation fighters and aircraft carriers - that just aren't efficient in modern combat scenarios in the new UAV/USV regime. We saw this problem on the small screen in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Russia keeps cranking out Lancets.

Look, I'd rather live here than Russia any day. The US is pretty great. But we aren't good at everything.

[McTraveller]

I think the only think keeping Russia alive is, honestly, the fact that Russia has nukes.  If they didn't, NATO or others would have air-forced them into rubble by now.

And that's exactly why Nukes Are Bad^TM, because they basically allow a country to be way more belligerent without meaningful reprisal than they could be without it.

Put another way: NATO and "the good guys" are indeed too nice - they try to avoid killing too many civilians, etc.  If we just said "sorry, invading other countries is bad, we're going to beat you to a pulp, even if we get beat up ourselves" then countries would probably be less reluctant to invade others.

Basically we're too afraid of getting hurt ourselves.  You will always lose against a rabid foe if you are too worried about your own safety; the best you can do is retreat and hopefully the aggressor will tire themselves out.