No, I was not.



NATO has funneled a tiny percentage of its annual military budget - below 10%! - into Ukraine and it was enough to stop the Russian attacks and even put them on defense for the past half year. Therefore, your notion that this whole thing might "backfire on the west in astounding fashion" if only Russia doubles its military spending and modernizes its troops a bit makes no sense.



If Russia only cares about the ethnic Russians and the resource rich areas and never had ambitions of taking all of Ukraine, it's kinda strange that they tried to do exactly that at the start of the war, isn't it? The contradiction is even worse than that: Russia already controlled the vast majority of Russian-speaking and resource rich areas since 2014. If these had been their primary objectives, there wouldn't have been a reason to invade to begin with.



Dropping proper nukes into the center of large cities is very different from using tactical nukes on empty fields with no civilians or infrastructure, so I don't think Hiroshima/Nagasaki are good counterarguments. This point notwithstanding, I agree with you that the use of tactical nukes would escalate and break the war in dramatic fashion.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Sep 23 2023 06:24am

I think this is their perceived goal. I took it out of CNN. Might need more Balkan or ex Balkan residents in PARD to verify since information on the internet is rather deceiving during wartime.
I believe the Russians think this area should belong to them if Ukraine decides to pivot to NATO and the West.
That is what they believe in and what they think. Is it right?......No.. Which is why we have this war.

I wonder if anyone in this thread can connect the dots? Most can't because while jews are playing chess, shabbos goys are playing checkers.

Hmm could have sworn you were part of that group but maybe not, not interested enough to check really




NATO has been dumping money into Ukraine since at least 2014 in some form another preparing them for this war. You'd think the worlds greatest defensive military alliance could you know...prepare a better defense? Last time I checked isn't Russia in control of most of the majority ethnic Russian areas? And sending missiles all over Ukraine whenever they want?
Less than 10% of their budget? So what would 20% look like? Would Ukraine be twice as effective? Maybe they should get on that soon since Ukraine is scooping up whoever they can to send to the front, doesn't matter how many tanks and planes you send if there is no one left to use them.




Not really, they took their shot at Kiev which was probably an attempt to sever Ukrainian leadership, when they failed to take the airport (hostemel i think the name was) to reinforce the ground forces which were being sent, they changed their goals to holding the south eastern portions of the country they were apparantly prepared to given they still control them.

Despite the constant talk from western propagandists of Russia intentionally targeting civilians they seemed to take great lengths to avoid it, at least in the early stages of the war and most likely didn't want to flatten Kiev

But they only dedicated what, like 200k troops to it initially? Does it make sense to use such a small force to occupy a country the size of Ukraine? It clearly wasn't the intention and probably not even possible for Russia without a huge mobilization and increased defense spending.

They "controlled" those areas indirectly through ragtag separatist forces that were being constantly pummeled by the Ukrainian military who was being trained and supplied by the west, if Russia is so inept, how long do you think their poorly supplied separatists without things like an air force would have fared?

This post was edited by DizzyBusiness on Sep 23 2023 08:03am

Ukraine has burned through 7 years worth of Javelin production in a single year. Ukraine has burned through NATOs 155 mm ammo stockpiles and NATO production can't even keep up with what Ukraine needs which is why cluster munitions were supplied to the Kiev regime. There's a reason the EU has reserved 2B Euros (!) to boost ammo production.

It's a complete disaster for NATO, Russia has absorbed everything that was thrown at them.

This guy said it well a while ago

The US military goes to great lengths to avoid killing civilians and they still managed to kill thousands; You and others never let anyone forget it.
Russia doesn't even take great care not to strike their own troops on the battlefield and you somehow extrapolate they were at pains to avoid collateral damage?

You must be unable of objectivity or your not witnessing the same war as everybody else.




Anyone that actually believes the war has been a disaster for NATO is out of their minds.
Two new members with powerful domestic military industry, causing massive damage to NATOS perceived peer Russia at no risk to NATO soldiers.
Endless information on Russias capabilities or lack off.
The west is re tooling to replenish their stockpiles and go further than ever before on miltary spending.
In 5 years Poland alone could decimate the Russian army in an open conflict.

Yes they have sent weapons to Ukrsine and depleted stocks. So what? Those reserves will be replenished in an optimal way based on information Russia has forfeited in Ukraine.
NATO was founded to prevent against aggression from none other than Moscow, that's what those weapons were built for.

Being objective here the only possible L for NATO is that Ukraine is now in a frozen conflict that will prevent its accession barring some exceptional action.
Edit : I should add that there is a cost for this obviously. But the cost of appeasing Hitler in 1930's was far greater than opposing his will.
Are we expected to believe Putin if he claimed Ukraine was his only and final goal?
His own people can't even believe a word he says. The answer is simple and terse. No.

The price Russia has payed has more than covered any potential downside to NATO.

Peope won't like to hear that, least not Ukrainians who are themselves depleting Russia in an existential fight for their own survival.

But these are undisputable facts.

This post was edited by Prox1m1ty on Sep 23 2023 08:42am

You're ignoring the thousands (actually tens of thousands) of existing stock in hardware or we can call existing inventory that is outside of the 10% of new allocations. That's the overwhelming bulk that was the aid. It's not as if the German government is building and allocating budget to build new leopards, it's the already existing stuff which was accounted for with euros allocated decades ago when it was actually built. It's impossible to know how much stock was sent over but we know dozens of countries cleaned out their soviet stock (tanks, migs, artillery, shells, etc) and many are dedicating their western stock now.

The whole point of the west supporting this war is to defang Russia because rough logic is, if we weaken them then they won't be able to try another war and expand into Poland or Baltics or whatever. If they raise their military spend by 50% year over year, if they start producing 1-2 million 155mm shells (many of which are modern and use guided targeting), if as their soviet era 40-50 year old stock is depleted and is replaced with stock built in 2023-24, yes the original goal could be a massive failure. Now if they do this for a year or two it's not that big a deal, but if they do this over an expanded period of times (many years) you will end with a hyper militarized nation, with modern weapons, with an experienced military.

I would compare it to American industrial output post Pearl Harbor.

edit: go watch that interview i posted on US-China geopoltics, think you'd like it too. Tried pinging you too but for some reason didn't work

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Sep 23 2023 08:52am

(agreed).

Why should we let anyone forget it? When the stated goal of many of these "interventions" is to help "the people" and the people end up in a worse situation because of it should we just say "oh well better luck next time" or maybe "it's the thought that counts?" No thanks.

Of course Russia takes great care not to strike their own troops, what a silly thing to say, doesn't mean it hasn't or won't happen, do you want examples of NATO forces hitting their own troops? These things happen in a war

Why would you be the arbiter of who is or isn't objective? Do you consider yourself to be? Lol



"In 5 years Poland alone could decimate the Russian army in an open conflict" lmfao

My point is the clear hypocrisy you have. Not that it wasn't obvious.