NATO return to Cold War force structure

[urbanoid]

9 minutes ago, sunday said:

No Maidan in Lithuania nor in Belarus...

Sure, some of their rights were and are being disregarded without any Maidan, just with full support of the state they live in. Not sure how it makes it 'better'. Not that a 'maidan' magically makes an armed rebellion against the state legal, neither does it make an invasion legal (and invasions did take place both in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, unless one believes that local Donbabwe guys created battalion battlegroups with T-72B3s out of thin air). Without external support all of it would have just fizzled out at a fraction of human and material cost of 2014 alone, let alone Feb 2022 onwards.

As far as I'm concerned the only thing 'better' here is that Poland doesn't violate neighbours' borders and is committed to territorial integrity of every state in the region, unlike Russia.  

[urbanoid]

8 minutes ago, ink said:

This "how would you feel if" line of thinking might not be your best debating strategy. Half the world has a "how would you feel if" already lined up for Britain.

How would you feel if you didn't eat breakfast today?

[sunday]

4 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Sure, some of their rights were and are being disregarded without any Maidan, just with full support of the state they live in. Not sure how it makes it 'better'. Not that a 'maidan' magically makes an armed rebellion against the state legal, neither does it make an invasion legal (and invasions did take place both in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, unless one believes that local Donbabwe guys created battalion battlegroups with T-72B3s out of thin air). Without external support all of it would have just fizzled out at a fraction of human and material cost of 2014 alone, let alone Feb 2022 onwards.

As far as I'm concerned the only thing 'better' here is that Poland doesn't violate neighbours' borders and is committed to territorial integrity of every state in the region, unlike Russia.  

Sigh...

Using heavy weapons against own population seemed to be reason enough for humanitarian military intervention in a number of countries.

And, still, neither Belarus nor Lithuania are bombing the Polish minority.

[seahawk]

13 minutes ago, sunday said:

Ah, feelings, that most reasonable of the rationales...

The modern west in a nutshell

[urbanoid]

34 minutes ago, sunday said:

Sigh...

Using heavy weapons against own population seemed to be reason enough for humanitarian military intervention in a number of countries.

And, still, neither Belarus nor Lithuania are bombing the Polish minority.

If Warsaw co(organized) and supported local Polish uprising in e.g. Belarus on the basis of discriminatory policies, gave them some weapons, sent some 'volunteers' to assist the locals in seizing border towns and villages, made them declare that they are separating from those states... I'm pretty sure that bombs and artillery shells would start falling so fast that their heads would spin. Maybe literally. Then we could start talking about the necessity of 'humanitarian intervention', to resolve the situation we either created or helped create, eh? 

That's literally what Russia did in Ukraine, in addition to actual invasion with 'pretending not to be in Donbas' and 'pretending it's not them' in Crimea, at least initially. 

Edited June 4, 2024 by urbanoid

[sunday]

If.

No.

[urbanoid]

I don't know why would a hypothetical scenario being pretty much identical to the real scenario that happened in Eastern Ukraine be 'illegitimate'. Sorry, I don't have a real one, we're too normal compared to the Russians. And since nobody else in Europe has actively engaged in armed separatism that's supposed to lead to the annexations of (parts of) a neighbouring country... seems like we're all far too normal. That's literally what we're asking Russians to become... just normal, maybe for the first time in history.

[glenn239]

1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

How would you feel if Britain suddenly felt like a chunk of Eire? Germany fancied realigning its borders with Poland? 

Round about the same as when Turkey took a chunk of Cyprus.   

[Perun]

 

[urbanoid]

Yeah, what are they thinking by not having such plans prepared AND implemented years ago?

[Pavel Novak]

Remember how evil was REFORGER! Shame on you America!

Note this is sarcasm.

[Laser Shark]

In other news, the Norwegian government and opposition parties have unanimously agreed on a new long term strategy for the Norwegian Armed Forces. It’s mostly similar to the one that was proposed in April, but there’s been a few changes, most notably:

- An additional Type 212CD SSK (for 6 in total).

- An additional long-range anti-air system (battery?) to cover the central parts of Eastern Norway (read: Oslo). Interestingly, and probably not coincidentally, Kongsberg also announced recently that they’ve been working on a new long-range variant of NASAMS.

- The creation of an overall drone strategy.

- Concrete measures to improve recruitment and retention of personnel.

https://www.forsvaretsforum.no/bjorn-arild-gram-forsvarsdepartementet-ine-eriksen-soreide/alle-er-enige-om-langtidsplanen-et-veldig-fint-punktum/380945

[Stuart Galbraith]

10 hours ago, Pavel Novak said:

Remember how evil was REFORGER! Shame on you America!

Note this is sarcasm.

You are wise to put warnings like that  around here. Tanknet doesnt do sarcasm.

Edited June 5, 2024 by Stuart Galbraith

[Martineleca]

12 hours ago, Perun said:

 

I find it really sad when former officers like Colonel McGregor degrade themselves and all their colleagues in such a manner, he didn't have a problem with spending his career guarding oil in the desert, but now that he's retired with a handsome pension he feels the need to speak out against the military of his own country moving to protect the home of Western civilization...

[bojan]

3 hours ago, Martineleca said:

I find it really sad when former officers like Colonel McGregor degrade themselves...

I agree, so sad for former officers to say what they get paid for instead of using their own knowledge to try to be objective:

[Perun]

3 hours ago, Martineleca said:

I find it really sad when former officers like Colonel McGregor degrade themselves and all their colleagues in such a manner, he didn't have a problem with spending his career guarding oil in the desert, but now that he's retired with a handsome pension he feels the need to speak out against the military of his own country moving to protect the home of Western civilization...

Aren't Russia part of "western civilization"

[sunday]

1 minute ago, Perun said:

Aren't Russia part of "western civilization"

More than the ones driving lgtbetc. policies, IMHO.

[old_goat]

21 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

And how do you KNOW that isnt the standard Russian agitprop they have been doing across Europe? 'Nazi's' were spraying swastika's on synagogues in Ukraine, just weeks before they decided to invade Ukraine. one might be so cynical as to presume Russia  had done it.

Maybe because ukraine is unfortunately our neighbor? Or maybe because anti-hungarian policies are widespread there and lots of sources report on them? Or maybe since I personally talked with refugees from there who confirm the atrocities? 

And most importantly, the ukrainian regime also created laws that severely violate the rights of ethnic minorities. 

Also, translate this, an official document from Kárápátalja hungarian cultural association about this very topic.  (yes, yes, created by FSB/GRU/KGB/NKVD/Cheka, and maybe even the Gestapo helped them a bit)

https://kmksz.com.ua/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/brossura_a5_hu_new.pdf

 

[Martineleca]

1 hour ago, Perun said:

Aren't Russia part of "western civilization"

By their own statements over the centuries they are unique and seperate from the rest of Europe, would be great if they could put a stronger emphasis on the latter part of "Eur-asian" and stay the hell there.

[ink]

1 hour ago, Perun said:

Aren't Russia part of "western civilization"

They aren't usually considered to be, no.

Why? It gets complicated and a bit racist 😏

[sunday]

1 minute ago, ink said:

They aren't usually considered to be, no.

Why? It gets complicated and a bit racist 😏

So this is no something that belongs to Western civilization whatsoever

Curious.

[Perun]

Western civilization without Russia doesnt and cant exist

[ink]

6 minutes ago, sunday said:

So this is no something that belongs to Western civilization whatsoever

Curious.

Yeah, you could say Russia is on the margins. It's not like the definition of "Western civilization" is a clear-cut thing with fixed geographical boundaries that everyone agrees on.

But, it is still broadly possible to say that Russia isn't usually considered to be a central feature of Western civilization. Wrong kind of Christianity (yes, I know), not part of the Roman world, different kind of political traditions, too much Asian influence (I said I know!)... That kind of thing.

[ink]

3 minutes ago, Perun said:

Western civilization without Russia doesnt and cant exist

Course it can. It's a wishy-washy concept at best. You just say it's all founded on Catholicism and the Protestant movements that grew out of Catholicism and *BLAM* Russia's out.

(yes, I know, we just killed Greece too but they've never been the same since their time under Ottoman rule anyway*)

 

* Do I need to say here that I'm joking? Surely not.

[sunday]

Frankly, I prefer the old term used to denote Western Civilization - Christendom.