Russia invades Ukraine

[Britflamesfan]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

The problem for Russia/Putin at this point is even if they end up beating Ukraine in the end they have been exposed utterly as a paper tiger, I doubt they would dare move on any country that the west explicitly backed, in fact if I was Biden I would be making very aggressive threatening moves into Poland, the Russians have to be reeling right now, just the threat of real air support is the end of it for them.

It would play well with the domestic politics of the US as well

Afc the west has to be very careful as a cornered rat will fight to the end. Face is very important to Putin and if he thinks he is going to lose in any meaningful way he might be crazy enough to take the rest of the world down with him and he has that capability.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Pointman

While I wasn't alive back then, I don't recall Germans as a nation receiving much hate after WW2. Or WW1 for that matter.

After WW1 dealing with Germans was quite commonly seen as treason by many French and Brits. Even in the sixties and seventies, in the US there were people who thought owning a German car was morally questionable in itself.

(It's a big reason why Volkswagens mostly targeted the hippie generation at one point. People young enough to not remember the war were much more open to buying a German car.)

The only reason Germany isn't still suffering from that is that they were so fundamentally beaten and disarmed, and have been aggressively owning up to the horrors of Nazism.

Unless Russia is willing to disarm, give back everything they've taken from Ukraine (yes, including Crimea) and admit they've been the bad guys like the Germans did, there's not going to be forgiveness. If Putin remains in power and there's a peace deal that doesn't end in Russia giving back every part of Ukraine, it will just solidify the idea that Russia a fanger to everyone.

"Next they might attack us."

Russian leadership has already directly threatened both Finland and Sweden with military action and threatened to drop the ISS on Europe, just to sound extra crazy. We are not hearing the Russians saying "that's crazy, we shouldn't be saying that".

Russia has just fundamentally destroyed the idea that true peace with Russia is possible, that countries don't have to constantly worry about the threat of Russia attacking for no reason other than bloodthirst and hunger for power. They've destroyed people's faith in the hope that there will not be a war with Russia in our lifetimes. Fear breeds hatred.

There's just no way that fear won't spill over to average Russian citizens.

[MoneyGuy]

What happens if a Russian aircraft strays into our air space? We won’t shoot at it.

[Southside]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

What happens if a Russian aircraft strays into our air space? We won’t shoot at it.

LOL. Commercial or military?

[MoneyGuy]

Commercial

[Southside]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

Commercial

I imagine it would be warned and escorted out if neccesary.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Southside

Others here would know far more and better but as I recall Canadian special forces and pilots were regarded among some of the best in the world around the turn of the century. I seem to recall US military encouraging Canada to continue to focus on those areas in order to best serve NATO. Whether that has changed or not? Our pilots are no longer flying modern aircraft.

I don't recall a president encouraging anything like that and allowing for the rust out of the rest of our forces. I remember a conversation that was talked about when Harper's ambassador went to visit the US president and the President said "Some day a President will tell you that America is tired of Carrying the defense of North America alone".


Our Special Forces are good and competent but its a creation of our media and our government that our operators are the best in the world. We might have had highly ranked pilots. But we've had severe attrition on that side as its become impossible to recruit new pilots and a lot of our very good experienced pilots have walked away due to the terrible shape our air force is in. Our former defense minister lied when he talked about a jet fighter gap or capability gap. Even our Senior Air force leaders called him on his BS and said we have a pilot gap, we're losing them and not replacing them.



And it doesn't matter btw what a US president says in terms of Canada's own defense policy. Unless we truly believe that its America's role to defend Canadian soil in a crisis and we're just there for parts.

[CroFlames]

Scary thought.

But who in Canada will campaign for higher military budgets and actually win?

I suppose now is the time if it’s ever going to happen. Needs to be coupled with healthcare reform (ie 2-tiered) or Canadians’ taxes will double.

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

What happens if a Russian aircraft strays into our air space? We won’t shoot at it.

Arrested/fined/whatever upon landing. If they fly in, realize mistake and fly out, likely nothing.

[Fuzz]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1497978245773414409


Hopefully this is minor.

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by TKB

I wish Canada would follow suite in regards to rearming the military.

Originally Posted by Geraldsh

Or even to build LNG terminals as quickly as possible.

Agreed on both.

[chedder]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Scary thought.

But who in Canada will campaign for higher military budgets and actually win?

I suppose now is the time if it’s ever going to happen. Needs to be coupled with healthcare reform (ie 2-tiered) or Canadians’ taxes will double.

This whole topic should be moved to the federal government thread but all of these could be accomplished with no tax increases if we built LNG terminals on both coasts. Win win. Helping ween the world off of conflict oil and gas.

Except instead of this we'll just say this proves we need to be carbon free denying the fact that it will take decades to get there.

[WCW Nitro]

Just a feeling, but I think China will try to get Russia to stop soon.

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by Itse

After WW1 dealing with Germans was quite commonly seen as treason by many French and Brits. Even in the sixties and seventies, in the US there were people who thought owning a German car was morally questionable in itself.

(It's a big reason why Volkswagens mostly targeted the hippie generation at one point. People young enough to not remember the war were much more open to buying a German car.)

The only reason Germany isn't still suffering from that is that they were so fundamentally beaten and disarmed, and have been aggressively owning up to the horrors of Nazism.

Unless Russia is willing to disarm, give back everything they've taken from Ukraine (yes, including Crimea) and admit they've been the bad guys like the Germans did, there's not going to be forgiveness. If Putin remains in power and there's a peace deal that doesn't end in Russia giving back every part of Ukraine, it will just solidify the idea that Russia a fanger to everyone.

"Next they might attack us."

Russian leadership has already directly threatened both Finland and Sweden with military action and threatened to drop the ISS on Europe, just to sound extra crazy. We are not hearing the Russians saying "that's crazy, we shouldn't be saying that".

Russia has just fundamentally destroyed the idea that true peace with Russia is possible, that countries don't have to constantly worry about the threat of Russia attacking for no reason other than bloodthirst and hunger for power. They've destroyed people's faith in the hope that there will not be a war with Russia in our lifetimes. Fear breeds hatred.

There's just no way that fear won't spill over to average Russian citizens.

Russia has surely destroyed its reputation and it will take decades to restore it. We can only hope that in our days of close international contacts on personal level and many multinational projects from playing online games to programming open sources together, it would heal up faster than in the past. I was already thinking that will probably identify myself as Jewish rather than Russian next time I will be in a foreign country.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by chedder

This whole topic should be moved to the federal government thread but all of these could be accomplished with no tax increases if we built LNG terminals on both coasts. Win win. Helping ween the world off of conflict oil and gas.

Except instead of this we'll just say this proves we need to be carbon free denying the fact that it will take decades to get there.

Agreed, this isn't the thread, so I'm going to stop talking about it after this response, unless someone wants to have that talk in another thread like the Federal Government thread or the Canadian Military News thread.

But rearming the military and spending more money on the military is not going to have importance unless Canadians can be educated on the actual role of the Military.

For a long time we all had the smug satisfaction in the belief that the Canadian Forces primary role was "Peacekeeping". We have this image of being a leader in this field, and talked about lightly armed troops in blue berets acting as the worlds social workers. (BTW) Peacekeeping as a whole is pretty much a dead concept as its toothless. We need to move into a peace enforcement mind set or not do it at all)

That's a lie we aren't even all that relevant in that side as well and a simple deployment of peacekeepers in any numbers breaks the military due to exhaustion. That's how bad things are now.

Our procurement is a joke and corrupt, Canadians don't understand what the Military is actual supposed to look like to be mission capable to defend Canada, aid in natural disasters and support NATO.

Our politicians believe this lie as well, and it would literally be the act of a psychopath to deploy Canadians into a high intensity war zone right now with the state the military is in.

Our soldiers are tough and fairly well trained, there's no denying that. But that doesn't matter with the current state the military is in and governments continue to kick that can down the road. Years ago I wrote a long winded post in here about rust our and a loss of capability. Harper because he was forced to tried to address some of that. F-35 procurement, updated air lift, upgrading armored vehicles and recce. But it slowed things down slightly and that's all.

The Liberals came in with these grand plans and white papers that looked impressive but continued to kick everything down the road.

What would have probably been a severe but reasonable spending request about 10 years ago to rebuild the forces has now become what would likely be a massive one time spend followed by an increased defense budget for maintenance.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by WCW Nitro

Just a feeling, but I think China will try to get Russia to stop soon.

Why? If anything, they're loving this.

[White Out 403]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Why? If anything, they're loving this.

This is just my take but I think that Chinar while an evil communist regime, values world order above all else when it comes to their foreign policy. I have no doubt they in fact hate this.

[Samonadreau]

Originally Posted by WCW Nitro

Just a feeling, but I think China will try to get Russia to stop soon.

China probably just stays at the sidelines and doesnt intervene. Any intervention trying to stop Russia would be a bad look on their focus with Taiwan and HK.

That being said, what is happening now with support for Ukraine propably makes gives them extra caution and a bit of sober thought with their interests.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by transplant99

Well anecdotally i can assure you there very much was animosity and distrust towards German nationals up until the Berlin wall came down in this part of the world.



The whole cold war thing had that kind of effect on the West.

Was that just East Germany? I was young when the wall came down, but I don't remember much anger towards to the West German side?

East Germany was also part of the Soviet sphere so that contributed to the feelings toward them.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Pointman

Russia has surely destroyed its reputation and it will take decades to restore it. We can only hope that in our days of close international contacts on personal level and many multinational projects from playing online games to programming open sources together, it would heal up faster than in the past. I was already thinking that will probably identify myself as Jewish rather than Russian next time I will be in a foreign country.

Hah! "Hmmm... what can I identify myself as that is least likely to provoke irrational hatred from random people who don't know me... let me see... AH! I KNOW! Jewish!" That's a pretty damning indictment right there.

I actually think if the Russian people were in fact to be heard from and took whatever steps were necessary to replace Putin with a reformer, the reputation of Russia would be greatly improved almost overnight.