if anything, the west OVERestimated the strength of russia's conventional forces. if pre-invasion estimates are anything to go by, ukraine should have fallen long ago. everyone was going on about how advanced / well-funded (given their relatively small economy) / and powerful the russian military was.

also, napoleon and hitler failed CONQUERING russia, despite taking large swathes of land relatively quickly (by the standards of their respective times), making russia resort to scorched earth strategies, rendering their land largely useless to the enemy. comparing that with the current war, it's apples and oranges really in that this time it's russia who is the attacking / invading force, and therefore it really doesn't matter if someone under- or over-estimated them, since no one was planning to attack them in the first place - even though some here keep pretending like russia is "defending" itself by killing thousands of people in order to conquer territory, lol.

I am just going to bring this up again. I had to go away and read more and watch more ~

As always I am not providing direct links noting I have a fan that reports my posts

Link one: Youtube search : Reporter Seymour Hersh on "How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline": Exclusive TV Interview
Link two: Youtube search : Global Empire - The World According to Seymour Hersh [Part One]
Link three: Youtube search : Global Empire - The World According to Seymour Hersh [Part Two]
Link four : Yurtube search : Seymour Hersh, "The Killing of Osama Bin Laden"

So, when looking at this individual its best to work from backwards to forwards intime, noting as more time (decades) goes by, more stuff is proven true. Full disclosure I did not know much about Seymour Hersh prior to my recent viewing/reading.

Your comments to discredit Seymour Hersh are in line with the US Governments position. However the problem with both your (and the US Gov.) argument is that Seymour Hersh's track record of being right and the US Governments lying tips the balance in favour of Seymour Hersh.

Therefore is this regard, having read from all sides, On balance, its my view that it was the US that blew up Nord Stream 2. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, drops Duck feathers, its pretty much a duck in my mind.

i see you there, what is your view on Nord Stream 2 ? a view ?

no harm in looking at that first link above to get another view point (remember you dont have to agree with me, i am very open to being divisive / not having the same viewpoint).



i tried to read / watch a bit more on this topic re: russian armed forces, but i have not read / watched enough to form a view either way, at this time. i will try to find more information in order to give a view. This is a good link you provided btw. but i did read a bit of a 101 on the wagner group.

This post was edited by ferdia on Feb 16 2023 06:04am

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/politics/ukraine-strategy-putin-west/index.html

NATO and western media's new line of attack against Russia: Claim victory and try to convince Putin that he's lost
While Russia is on the advance and making gains





The 'charitable' interpretation is that NATO is trying to lay the groundwork for diplomatic concessions and finally coming around to ending the conflict with Russia in control of the separatist DPR/LPR & Crimea, along the status quo borders, and then turn around and claim this is a victory and that Putin has lost because he failed to seize the rest of Ukraine. Then Biden can claim he's full of effective leadership and the western media can take a victory lap even though America just spent the last few months denouncing peace deals and saying we would accept nothing less than Russia's unconditional surrender and re-annexing the Russian territories.
The uncharitable interperation is that its just a leaderless clown show where pentagon and NATO heads are broadcasting the double truetrue goodspeak

but as CNN lays out;



nevermind the irony in a few of those (toppling an elected government? :bouncy:) its clearly laying out a case for the west claiming victory if the war ends along the status quo, with Russia retaining its annexed & separatist land. Rather conspicuously termed to slice out what Putin's already gained. And given the wartime propaganda being in full swing, just reading the front page of CNN is a pretty good way to see what NATO is shoveling out

This is not difficult to agree with. the idea of declaring victory prior to a further offensive, which is being widely reported, is so far removed from reality its laughable.
i am not say russia#1 i am saying a narrative of victory in the face of another offensive is pure propaganda.

This post was edited by ferdia on Feb 16 2023 06:22am

I think its reasonable to expect NATO would use that kind of language. Referring to this part.

"NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned Wednesday that “Putin must realize that he cannot win"

The way you have used MSM media quotes and attributed them to NATO is disingenuous here. Its not prudent to use NATO and Western media interchangeably.
Certainly not in the same way it would be reasonable to use Putin's rhetoric and Russian state media interchangeably.



In terms of what is to come, yes. As in the conflict is still ongoing.
In terms of Russian military performance and completion of its own set objectives so far, its very reasonable to suggest they have failed.

Declaring victory is a misnomer anyway, nobody is winning out of this conflict; The only certaintity is that Putins regime can consolidated its power/ Putins legacy.

This post was edited by Prox1m1ty on Feb 16 2023 06:29am

any view on the nord stream post i made (above)?

I mean there's a legitimate case to be made for it being a ""victory"" for NATO and the west, as compared to status quo ante circa 2013, NATO has effectively annexed western Ukraine after forcibly seizing it via color revolution and armed it to the teeth. In terms of spheres of influence changing hands, its clearly a loss for Russia. But that sort of analysis flies in the face of all the western rhetoric with hawks screaming that anything short of seizing all of crimea is a loss, declaring that Russia is the aggressor who is seizing territory that must be returned by force. So the oddity here is that the reality might actually favor the PR spin job, but its coming from people who live outside that reality. They set the bar that high.

Of course there's still the grander strategic and geopolitical lens that says a war ending with the status quo borders is actually a huge net loss for the west, USA/EU/NATO, since it shows a crack in our military capability and loss to Russia, fractures our international relations, damages our economies and supply chains, obliterates our hegemony of energy markets, and all to inherit the shitty half of Ukraine that we never wanted in the first place, more mouths to feed, refugees and a humanitarian crisis in a bombed out shithole country now infested with heavily armed nazis. And that in particular, given our track record of arming radical fundamentalists only to have them bite us in the ass a decade later.



I mean I'm not going to claim credit as some great nostradamus if the war ends with these static borders in a negotiated peace, probably with China doing the actual work while Joe Biden somehow tries to claim credit despite not participating. Its the most likely outcome and it shouldn't come as a surprise if the NATO talking points finally start to circle the drain. Its more aberrant the fact that we've spent the last few months demanding more blood and fire at every turn, and made for some pretty jarring tonal dissonance as liberals embraced their role as warmongers. But then again, maybe this kind of rhetoric is just a blip, a kneejerk reaction to Russia escalating, before NATO snaps back to trying to stoke world war 3

China will not be the broker for peace though. ultimately it will have the be the US, noting they are directly involved (and china is not).

What about it?

Bit of a stretch If we are being honest, don't you think?