Tucker exposes GOP hopefuls as mindless warhawks.

Author: Greyparrot
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#31
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Russia is hemorrhaging money. They absolutely cannot keep this up indefinitely. 
I think the World Bank estimated the Covid recession was going to have a 12% contraction on Russia's GDP, and maybe that went into the calculus on whether or not to impose sanctions on Russia, but it is clear that Russia found a way through the sanctions by partnering with India and China while also increasing oil production. But the USA seemingly can't take an L on any of their failed policies. It seems we will have to reach the same point we reached with Vietnam and Afghanistan before USA can walk away. Unfortunately, we may never reach that point because nukes are involved.
#32
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Of course it's true, it's cribbed from the chatgpt bot or some other AI search engine, that whole enumerated list.
lol, I hadn't realized. That might explain why he is listing stuff that doesn't really relate to what we are talking about. 

#33
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Do you really know what's going on right now? Russia presently has an overwhelming advantage tactically on the ground mostly because of the attrition of trained Ukrainian solders.
what? where do you get your information from? That is not accurate. 

The "advances" are so miniscule that some have cynically suggested the war could be over in 120 years if the goal is to reclaim every inch of Donbas soil.
they have retaken thousands of square miles of their country back. I don't think anyone could call that miniscule. And you know what they say, defeat comes slowly at 1st, then all at once. Russia is taking an absolute beating. They are running out of money and equipment. They just had an attempted coup where thousands of russian soldiers took control of a major russian city and began marching on moscow. If things had gone a little differently, Russia might have already collapsed. 

Ukraine has almost no artillery ammo left while Russia has massive ammunition plants churning 24/7 in the Ural mountain regions where no missiles from Ukraine can reach.
russia has been consistently restricting ammunition usage because they have shortages. They don't have the capacity to produce enough shells to replace their usage. 

None of the Donbas is projected to be retaken anytime soon.
again, I have no idea where you are getting your information. Ukraine has made gains in the donbass recently. 

This is just another Vietnam where we have absolutely no business in,
this isn't even remotely similar to vietnam. I have no idea why you would make this comparison. 
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#34
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they have retaken thousands of square miles of their country back
True, but not the Donbas. That's the measure for victory in your mind, no?

Ukraine has made gains in the donbass recently. 
Source? Everything I have seen  indicates a very slow progression.
This can mean an extremely costly war as USA is subsidizing all of Kiev's government for day to day operations.

 They don't have the capacity to produce enough shells to replace their usage. 


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True, but not the Donbas. That's the measure for victory in your mind, no?
Victory over Russia is most likely to come by making them hit their breaking point. They need to get to the point where fighting is no longer worth the cost. The odds that Ukraine can physically force them off of every square inch of their territory isn't great. But the odds that they can bleed the Russian military until it can't fight is decent. 

For example, Wagner just managed to take over a major russian city, and get most of the way to moscow with almost no russian soldiers even attempting to stop them. Morale in the russian army is not good. They just have to be pushed until they break. Then Ukraine wins. 

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#36
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But the odds that they can bleed the Russian military until it can't fight is decent. 
I'm extremely skeptical of those odds for 2 reasons. That article I linked to you showed Russia is using 4 times more artillery strikes than Ukraine, which accounts for about 80 percent of the casualties. 2nd, Russia is now fighting a defensive trench war (which it wasn't before when it sought to end the war quickly), and every war strategist will maintain that the defensive, entrenched force has an overwhelming tactical advantage.

Wagner just managed to take over a major Russian city.
Lol, not exactly. This was a petty oligarch butting heads and losing. He didn't leave because of goodwill. It's because Wagner lost control because they are completely dependent on the Russian government for supplies and logistics. It was more of a mercenary contract renegotiation than any actual end to the Ukraine war.

 Morale in the russian army is not good.
As bad as you think the Russian army morale is bad, it's exponentially worse on the Ukraine side, as they are forced to take the old, sick and crippled people off Ukrainian streets to throw into the meatgrinder to replace all those dead people blown to unrecognizable bits with artillery. But ho hum, status quo demands we go on with the madness.


It's really easy to maintain a pro-war stance when it's not you trying to escape a country in the middle of a Civil War now transformed into a pointless proxy war between 2 countries that don't really care what happens to Ukraine...

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@Greyparrot
I'm extremely skeptical of those odds for 2 reasons. That article I linked to you showed Russia is using 4 times more artillery strikes than Ukraine, which accounts for about 80 percent of the casualties. 
that isn't necessarily a good thing. Russian artillery tends to do saturation fire. They just blanket an area with shells without aiming as something specific. They just aim at a town, not a specific position. But this kind of fire isn't all that effective. Ukranians, fielding more accurate and longer range western artillery engage in more target specific fire. So they see what they want to kill with a drone, then target and kill it. So they can use a fraction of the shells and inflict more damage. 

every war strategist will maintain that the defensive, entrenched force has an overwhelming tactical advantage.
not in an artillery duel where one side has longer range, more accurate fire. 

Lol, not exactly. This was a petty oligarch butting heads and losing
They successfully seized control of the military headquarters in Rostov. That is not a small feat. And it's also the sort of thing the russian army should have stopped. It is something the russian army was ordered to stop. But they didn't. They let wagner through because they didn't care enough to fight them. 

It's because Wagner lost control because they are completely dependent on the Russian government for supplies and logistics. 
so far, it kind of looks like wagner won. They are still intact and being paid. Prigozin is still in russia. And the generals he was fighting with are being removed. 

 worse on the Ukraine side, as they are forced to take the old, sick and crippled people off Ukrainian streets to throw into the meatgrinder to replace all those dead people blown to unrecognizable bits with artillery.
lol the sources you are quoting either don't say that, or they are extremely suspicious. 

Let's take the 1st one. The quotes they are using are from over a year ago. And they aren't talking about men being conscripted. They are talking about men being turned back at the border, because they aren't allowed to leave. They aren't kidnapping them. They aren't conscripting them.

For the 2nd one, the Delphi Initiative seems to be a russian funded organization. The author  doesn't provide any references for his claims. He just says people are being grabbed, without proof. He also seems to be the leader of the Ukranian communist party. I can't find much info on him other than him angrily saying "anglo-saxon" countries were causing a panic by saying russia was about to invade and demanding that they pay compensation to Ukraine (for warning them of their impending invasion). He isn't exactly a trustworthy source. And his language (like calling western countries "anglo-saxon" mimics russian propaganda pieces. 
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#38
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They aren't kidnapping them. They aren't conscripting them.
The line is kind of fuzzy between these 2 things. But what source do you have that says Ukraine is meeting its conscription goals to be able to take the Donbas back?

Admittedly, it's hard to find an uncensored western source to show how bad it really is, but I'll take another shot at it for you.




#39
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@Greyparrot
he line is kind of fuzzy between these 2 things. But what source do you have that says Ukraine is meeting its conscription goals to be able to take the Donbas back?
What does that even mean? There is no magic number of men required to retake it, so I'm not sure how a source could say they have or haven't reached it

A source from over a year ago saying they are worried what might happen. 

You will have to be more specific what you are talking about from this article. This is a quote from it.

The Ukrainian army enjoys stratospheric morale and is punching far above its weight against Vladimir Putin’s troops, tanks and missiles. Thousands of foreigners have flocked to join its newly created International Legion, while Russian troops abandon their posts. 

this source basically says both sides are taking heavy casualties but that russian casualties are much higher. 

this one is paywalled so I can't read it.
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#40
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this source basically says both sides are taking heavy casualties but that russian casualties are much higher. 
Yes, but this is the point of the Article:

Two weeks ago, NPR’s FRANK LANGFITT reported that both Ukraine and Russia have torn through their best-trained and most-experienced troops. After a year of fighting, both forces now rely heavily on conscripts — a development that favors Russia since Moscow has more people it can call up than Kyiv.

KUPOL, a lieutenant colonel, told the Post that his battalion is “unrecognizable” from the group he started out with. “Of about 500 soldiers, roughly 100 were killed in action and another 400 wounded, leading to complete turnover. Kupol said he was the sole military professional in the battalion, and he described the struggle of leading a unit composed entirely of inexperienced troops.”
“We don’t have the people or weapons,” a senior Ukrainian official also told them. “And you know the ratio: When you’re on the offensive, you lose twice or three times as many people. We can’t afford to lose that many people.”

With so many advantages on one side, it's a foolish gamble to keep betting on Ukraine to pull out a win here. Russia has the munitions, the men, and the "high ground"

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@Greyparrot
fter a year of fighting, both forces now rely heavily on conscripts — a development that favors Russia since Moscow has more people it can call up than Kyiv.
I disagree with this assessment. Russia does have more people, but that doesn't mean they have the capacity to conscript more people. Ukraine has overwhelming support for the war effort. Russia's support for the war is more ambiguous. The russian army was basically running out of men before they were willing to do a round of conscription. They should have done it months earlier than they did. The fact that putin refused to do it for so long shows that he is afraid of conscripting. so it is far from clear how many people Russia can actually conscript before creating a critical problem. When the russians invaded afganistan, they eventually got sick of so many dead russians and they were forced to run away. Russia has already lost far more men than in Afghanistan. 

The fact that the russian military did almost nothing to stop Wagner's march on moscow shows even the military is not particularly willing to stick their neck out for Putin.



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So you are basically betting an as yet unidentified Civil war in Russia will allow Kiev to win their existing Civil War with the Donbas. Bold prediction sir.

Not that any outcome here actually helps anyone in America except the government getting kickbacks off of all the military spending. There was a time when the Dick Cheneys were nationally hated for war profiteering. Now they are National heroes apparently.
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So you are basically betting an as yet unidentified Civil war in Russia will allow Kiev to win their existing Civil War with the Donbas.
no. Although, given the recent coup attempt by wagner and the military's lack of response to it, that isn't a terrible bet either. But my bet is that the russian people don't want this war. They don't care about Ukraine, or russia committing genocide on them. But they also don't want their family members killed in it. This is why Putin didn't want to do conscription even when it was obvious he needed it. He only did it when he was risking being overrun entirely. He knows that conscripting for a war the people don't want is dangerous. The people basically made the soviets abandon afganistan. They could do the same now. 

Not that any outcome here actually helps anyone in America except the government getting kickbacks off of all the military spending.
what are you talking about? That outcome benefits everyone. America has been the leader of the world for decades. It profits massively off this arrangement. Russia wants to end this. If they succeed in a major redrawing of the map using violence, then america's leadership and the era of peace we have been is in jeopardy. Every dictator in the world will see that you can invade your neighbor and steal their land and america and the west will let it happen. Russia will absolutely invade again. China will invade Taiwan. Wars around the world will increase. And that is bad for america, and everyone else. 
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Do you really think Russia would invade Poland if we brokered a cease fire in Ukraine?
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Do you really think Russia would invade Poland if we brokered a cease fire in Ukraine
Well, we let USA invade Iraq, then USA also invaded Libya, Syria, Yemen...

If we dont stop USA from invading other countries, USA will just keep invading forever.

But Russia invading Poland? Thats impossible.

Every dictator in the world will see that you can invade your neighbor and steal their land and america and the west will let it happen.
Actually, it was USA that did 99% of land stealing. For example, Kuwait belonged to Iraq, but USA stole it from Iraq, and then blamed Iraq for trying to take back what belongs to Iraq. American population actually believed that Iraq was the bad guy.
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If we dont stop USA from invading other countries, USA will just keep invading forever.

Do you really think USA will just invade Russia if USA is not allowed to maintain possession of Syria's oilfields with a military base?
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But my bet is that the russian people don't want this war.
As many Americans that you know who are sold on the idea that war in general is a necessary thing regardless of the costs, multiply that by a few factors for the Russian people, as the propaganda is a good bit stronger there. 

I am willing to bet America's war propaganda isn't nearly as strong in deluding the population.
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@Greyparrot
Do you really think Russia would invade Poland if we brokered a cease fire in Ukraine?
it is certainly a plausible outcome. Though they would probably go after the baltic states 1st. I'm not saying the day after a peace treaty broke out they would invade. They will need years to try to rebuild their military. But if they successfully take ukranian land by force, it is only a matter of time till they try again. 

As many Americans that you know who are sold on the idea that war in general is a necessary thing regardless of the costs, multiply that by a few factors for the Russian people, as the propaganda is a good bit stronger there. 
you're talking as though we don't already have precedent. Russia was forced to abandon their occupation of Afghanistan due to pressure from their own people. It was bad, but nowhere near breaking their military. They could have held out for years, but their people wouldn't tolerate it. It became a legitimate threat to their regime. And Putin's regime has already had one armed coup recently.


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According to this:

Gorbachev's decision to withdraw was wildly unpopular in Russia with many hawkish members of the Politburo, which actually controlled the Soviet Union, not any one man.

The Donbas isn't anywhere near equateable to Afghanistan for 3 reasons:

1) Ethnic Russians live in the Donbas, and they have their own local resistance independent militia separate from Russian forces. The People's Militia of the Donetsk People's Republic and People's Militia of the Luhansk People's Republic are pro-Russian paramilitaries in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. If Russia forces withdraw, those separatist forces would remain, as it is their homeland and they would continue the Civil War for independence to the last man.
2) Donbas is right on the border which presents an existential threat were it to be occupied by NATO forces.
3) Public opinion in Russia is actually climbing since the war began, not diminishing, especially in support of a defensive operation instead of an offensive operation. Many of the people that support the war also do not support Putin, meaning they would support the defensive operation even if Putin were replaced. It's absolutely foolish to bet on a weakening of Russian resolve when it comes to defensive wars, any more than it would be foolish to think Americans would suddenly want to ban all guns. Defensive wars is part of what it means to be culturally Russian.

 Russia was forced to abandon their occupation of Afghanistan due to pressure from their own people.

Source?