The key difference being in Korea and Vietnam, the USSR had a 3rd party to insulate them from a direct engagement with the US. Soviet pilots flew MiGs for the NK Air Force and the NV Air Force. In Ukraine, air combat due to a NATO enforced NFZ would be the Russian Air Force vs NATO Air Forces… directly. And yes, that does lead us down the logical route of escalating actions.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
- Thread starter Wednesday at Stoke
- Start date
You dont seem to read too much what has been already posted here do ya..
Yes. War heroes were invented by an American corporation in the 1950s.
It's just more of the same to them. Gestures by the West that don't really affect the Russian elite and most likely won't go through to the Russian public - at least not those who support the war.
I think that's what the West should be working on. Russia has given us quite a few examples how to inflate conspirac theories against the reports of the mainstream media in Europe and the US. Maybe we should apply some of the same techniques to actually spread some truth for a change.
No, that would just have been a plain speaking post declaring your opinion of the matter. What you were doing was more insidious and entirely designed to provoke. Clearly Zelensky does not want his cities blown up in a nuclear exchange, clearly what he does want is a stop to the bombing. You know that, I know that and so, probably does anyone else reading.
I agree it's a digression but the result is a shame; I think we share many of the same views but have such a different fidelity towards honesty it's fruitless to further engage.
There's a difference between speculation or consideration-of doing something, and actual confirmation from the Defence Minister.
It's laser guided though. Not sure how that works against fast flying aircraft. Airplanes themselves use radar or infrared-imaging missiles against other planes and laser guiding is usually for ground targets (i.e. static or slow moving)
Last edited:
He's talking about a post from a couple hours ago that had a tweet saying the UK SecDef confirmed the shipment of missiles to Ukraine.
It’s not even a parody. He’s being serious.
No fecking way.
Economists are robots, I have no doubts now.
But hey, Putin wouldn't dare destroy Kyiv. A city of such romantic significance in Russian lore.
46.2K replies as of one minute ago.
I clicked on the tweet to remember who that is, and this is his first pinned tweet (meaning this is the one he was proudest of):
What a donkey.
There was no insidious intent or provocation intended. The bold is the only part we agree on.
No, I think a NFZ will be taken as a declaration of war and lead to nuclear escalation. I was just going through the scenarios.
I assume we’re very quickly reaching the point of saturation where more anti-tank or manpad systems won’t make a difference. The issue for Ukraine now will be more of the “do we have enough well trained soldiers to operate them?” nature.
Plus of course the rest of the military infrastructure (sigint, airforce, artillery, armoured vehicles etc.) is likely severely lacking and it will be required if they are to push the Russians back. Till then they are just hoping the Russians give up on account of high casualty rate, while the Ukrainian cities are getting pummelled.
Yeah, a literal reading of this article suggests that Russia shooting down NATO planes flewn by NATO pilots over Ukraine would not be considered the kind of armed attack that would trigger article 5.
But of course, what actually happens depends on all kinds of things. Russia might attack the NATO bases the planes came from, arguing that those now represent and attacking force; or NATO countries might define those planes as providing defensive support and consider their descruction a provocation; or [insert other scenarios here].
Read that use of some of the portable anti-armor weapons can be learned by civilians in a matter of hours, not sure about anti-air. But the mujahideen learned the Stinger pretty quickly, so there’s always hope.
“We had to destroy Kiev in order to save it [from neo-nazis]”
Homestead Act say whaaaaaaaaat
I hope enough of those soldiers have watched that 1965 cinema classic named Doctor Zhivago. One of the most powerful scenes was when a column of retreating soldiers came up meeting with a fresh group of soldiers being deployed towards the front, and there was only way this would end for the few who wanted the army to go fight a senseless war while in a state of total demoraliztion.
Sure, they might do that. But they might also do that because of arms transports, transit points of foreign volunteers, and even sanctions (which they've already ridiculously claimed is a declaration of war). My point is just that the act of shooting down Nato planes outside of Nato territory (and the ocean) doesn't concern Article 5, no more than any of those other things. You might claim that's a literal reading, but there is no other way to read the article.
That doesn't mean a no fly zone is a good idea, of course. Whether or not Russians shooting down American pilots is going to start WW3, Americans shooting down Russian pilots probably is.
Given the traditional disregard for casualty levels by Russian military leaders, you do wonder at what point these troops will mutiny. I have no doubt that, if they were defending Russian territory against invasion, they would fight like lions but, being asked to occupy and increasingly destroy a fraternal nation on the clearly fabricated grounds of neo-nazism, there must be a temptation to follow the example of their forefathers in 1917.
That point is far from reached. Saturation is reached when everywhere where Russian troops might appear there are enough of those weapons to obliterate them. Ukraine is a huge country, you need to distribute a massive amount to reach that point.
The Russians would still have the luxury of firing at Ukrainian cities from Russian controlled territory (eastern Russia to Kharkiv, Crimea to Mariupol, the Black Sea to Odesa, Belarus to northern Ukrainian cities). That capability will likely not go away because it can't be challenged. What can obviously be mitigated is their advances inside Ukraine, which is precisely what appears to be happening.
With some new drones these too can be challenged.
I'm not so sure about that. Obviously Ukraine is able to launch air strikes behind the front line against supply convois, command posts etc.
Some big IFs here, but if they manage to repel the Russian attack while maintaining their limited air strike capability, they might actually be able to penetrate the Russian airspace and destroy facilities there. Russia so far seems to have no answer to they Bayraktar drones, so it is a real possibility that Ukraine might target airfields or missile launch systems in Russia, once they don't need their limited capacity to stop ground forces.
Or he could shoot some down "accidentally" to see what price NATO would be willing to pay and suddenly this becomes a NATO Russia conflict with Russia seriously outgunned which in Putins mind could justify a tactical nuclear response.
Big words from a guy who has his girlfriend in a Monte Carlo apartment.
Shots fired.