If the US were to annex Canada, it would probably be as a territory with no federal voting rights. If every province were to be integrated as a state, it would mean the end of the Republican party since most Canadians align even more liberal than the Democrats. And even if were were just taken in as a single state, that would likely be enough of a swing to give the Democrats a permanent edge in the electoral college
Yeah, we'd be a really big 'Puerto Rico' but with Oil and Water.
Its gonna happen...I really thought ol' Dick Cheney was gonna make it happen.
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If you thought this season would have a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention.
It is hard to get a fair honest read on everything that is happening. I saw a news segment where they said that Ukraine isn't doing that well, and I suppose that is fair in some areas. But I guess as battles go there is always back and forth. To get unbiased news is very difficult from my limited efforts anyways.
Hopefully this thing is resolved sooner then later. It is so sad that innocent people get thrown into political agendas regardless of who is right or wrong if you understand my thoughts there. The little guy always gets crushed by those who rule.
If the US were to annex Canada, it would probably be as a territory with no federal voting rights.
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It is hard to get a fair honest read on everything that is happening. I saw a news segment where they said that Ukraine isn't doing that well, and I suppose that is fair in some areas. But I guess as battles go there is always back and forth. To get unbiased news is very difficult from my limited efforts anyways.
Hopefully this thing is resolved sooner then later. It is so sad that innocent people get thrown into political agendas regardless of who is right or wrong if you understand my thoughts there. The little guy always gets crushed by those who rule.
I feel very weird about people thinking that rooting out corrupt politicians is a bad thing.
Most countries never actually get around to actually doing much about corruption. At least Ukraine is making a serious effort.
Corruption tends to be a massive problem during any war, for any country, and Ukraine didn't start in a great place so yeah, funds and equipment has been stolen and will get stolen. But again, they ARE trying to do something about it, and a big sweep like this that gathers a lot of attention and gets a lot of people at once is probably more effective than a quieter process would have been.
This is a signal to the whole country. Let's not treat it as a bad thing.
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It is hard to get a fair honest read on everything that is happening. I saw a news segment where they said that Ukraine isn't doing that well, and I suppose that is fair in some areas. But I guess as battles go there is always back and forth. To get unbiased news is very difficult from my limited efforts anyways.
Hopefully this thing is resolved sooner then later. It is so sad that innocent people get thrown into political agendas regardless of who is right or wrong if you understand my thoughts there. The little guy always gets crushed by those who rule.
They are losing ground in Luhansk and have come around to admitting it now.
Some analysts have speculated that the recent pledge for countries to supply more weapons came instructions that they had to abandon the Soledar and Bakhmut fronts for now. They weren't interested in seeing all their donated equipment thrown into a meat grinder.
I think Ukraine gets one more opportunity at a major offensive in the spring, and after that, they will be forced to the table or lose a lot of support. Things are probably pushed to the limits of what can be done without escalating to a direct conflict between NATO and Russia. As disappointing as it is, I think the main goal for NATO now is to give Ukraine as much power as they can at the negotiating table, and not a complete defeat of Russia.
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The west is arming Ukraine with enough gear and training to execute combined arms maneuvers. The only piece missing is aircraft, and there are now rumors of F-16s being supplied.
Make no mistake. The supplies being provided now are going to be used this spring by Ukraine in a series of counterattacks.
It'll be a combination of expansion of the NE front near Kreminna, and a strike southwards to cut off the land bridge to Crimea.
The Bradleys and Leopards are going to absolutely chew through whatever the Russian have left. Add some air power in there? Ukraine will be well on its way to re-establishing pre-2014 borders by the fall.
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It is hard to get a fair honest read on everything that is happening. I saw a news segment where they said that Ukraine isn't doing that well, and I suppose that is fair in some areas. But I guess as battles go there is always back and forth. To get unbiased news is very difficult from my limited efforts anyways.
Hopefully this thing is resolved sooner then later. It is so sad that innocent people get thrown into political agendas regardless of who is right or wrong if you understand my thoughts there. The little guy always gets crushed by those who rule.
Anyone reading this should hopefully pick out the couched pro-Russian lean.
There is no scenario where Ukraine should accept the loss of territory to a beligirent Russia. The west should and could never force them to accept that.
The only resolution possible in near term is if Russia fully withdraws. There's no "little guy" getting crushed here. Hard to call the mass conscription of actual convicts "innocents" especially given their millions of comrades who chose to flee instead of participate in the war. If you are part of a force invading ukrainian soil, you deserve to die.
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I guess I disagree with both assessments. My guess is that the US, and to a lesser extent the other NATO countries, want to keep bleeding Russia dry. They provide enough equipment to keep Ukraine from being overrun, but not enough to damage Russia quickly enough to spark them going nuclear. Slow, steady bleeding of Russia on both the military front and the economic front until we see internal regime change in Russia.
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With the supply of more western (non-Soviet) equipment (Leopards, Abrams, F-16s) and the potential difficulty in training, will we see more US/EU volunteers (or perhaps "volunteers") with experience on these?
It is hard to get a fair honest read on everything that is happening. I saw a news segment where they said that Ukraine isn't doing that well, and I suppose that is fair in some areas. But I guess as battles go there is always back and forth. To get unbiased news is very difficult from my limited efforts anyways.
Hopefully this thing is resolved sooner then later. It is so sad that innocent people get thrown into political agendas regardless of who is right or wrong if you understand my thoughts there. The little guy always gets crushed by those who rule.
Seems pretty clear to me who is right or wrong. One country initiated a military attack on another and is slaughtering citizens and destroying cities and livelihoods as a result. I fail to see the link between corruption and the justification of a brutal terroristic invasion.
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I feel very weird about people thinking that rooting out corrupt politicians is a bad thing.
Most countries never actually get around to actually doing much about corruption. At least Ukraine is making a serious effort.
Corruption tends to be a massive problem during any war, for any country, and Ukraine didn't start in a great place so yeah, funds and equipment has been stolen and will get stolen. But again, they ARE trying to do something about it, and a big sweep like this that gathers a lot of attention and gets a lot of people at once is probably more effective than a quieter process would have been.
This is a signal to the whole country. Let's not treat it as a bad thing.
No I am not against that at all! In fact, the reality that they are facing it rather than denying it shows their desire to stand in integrity. That must be very difficult in a war environment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Monahammer
Anyone reading this should hopefully pick out the couched pro-Russian lean.
There is no scenario where Ukraine should accept the loss of territory to a beligirent Russia. The west should and could never force them to accept that.
The only resolution possible in near term is if Russia fully withdraws. There's no "little guy" getting crushed here. Hard to call the mass conscription of actual convicts "innocents" especially given their millions of comrades who chose to flee instead of participate in the war. If you are part of a force invading ukrainian soil, you deserve to die.
Wow. That is quite the judgement! I am by no means pro Russian. I want Ukraine to kick butt, frankly! So you be wrong! Russia started it and acts the victim. They should be expelled because they shouldn't have gone in in the first place. All I mean is that there are slants on both sides and the truth is somewhere in the middle. I used to work in journalism and if you are reporting on one side and neglect the other side, you lose that part of the story that is important even if the other side is wrong. The truth is far broader than we can see. I hope that makes sense. Russia is doing terrible, evil things in Ukraine there is no mistaking that. I just think there is so much more going on then what we hear and see if that makes sense.
Last edited by Playfair; 01-27-2023 at 02:36 PM.
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I guess I disagree with both assessments. My guess is that the US, and to a lesser extent the other NATO countries, want to keep bleeding Russia dry. They provide enough equipment to keep Ukraine from being overrun, but not enough to damage Russia quickly enough to spark them going nuclear. Slow, steady bleeding of Russia on both the military front and the economic front until we see internal regime change in Russia.
I think that's been the plan. The problem is that there is a time limit on this plan. The U.S. is by far the biggest provider of support to Ukraine, but they have an election in 2024 and I think they want to see some kind of resolution before then. If the Dems lose, you can pretty much kiss most of Ukraine's American support away. That's just the likely reality. If Russia's regime lasts longer than the American one, Ukraine stands a big chance of defeat with less favourable negotiating power.
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It is hard to get a fair honest read on everything that is happening. I saw a news segment where they said that Ukraine isn't doing that well, and I suppose that is fair in some areas. But I guess as battles go there is always back and forth. To get unbiased news is very difficult from my limited efforts anyways.
Hopefully this thing is resolved sooner then later. It is so sad that innocent people get thrown into political agendas regardless of who is right or wrong if you understand my thoughts there. The little guy always gets crushed by those who rule.
Any country that used to be run by Russia has issues with corruption, it is how Russia has worked for 500 years, corruption and cheap vodka to keep the population drunk and acquiescent
Canadians aren't tough farm types who would fight and die like they were in WW2 WW1 and Korea.
And outproduce with what? if someone invaded us and if the States decided to sit it out our cities would be pounded and what rusted forces and badly equip troops that we do have would be wiped out in days or a week.
And we don't have a armed civilian population like they did in Iraq for example or Vietnam.
I doubt Canadians would put up much of a fight the smart enemy would roll in and say free internet and cable and Canadians wouldn't show up to fight.
Chances are that if there was an invasion of Canada America would jump in to defend Canada and then keep what they defended. or if the enemy threatened America through canada they wouldn't consult with Canada before engaging in a aggressive war on Canadian soil.
Not to mention, Ukraine has a population of 44 million concentrated in defending a border with Russia that is only 2000km long.
Canada has a spread-out population of 38 million spread over a far wider geographic territory that would need to defend a 9000km border with the US that is also on two-fronts (southern+Alaska). We wouldn't be able to put up any reasonable resistance in comparison to the Ukrainian situation - especially against the US military which is magnitudes more powerful and compenent than Russia. This isn't counting the 243,000 km of beach-front access that American sea power could immediately enter from.
Russia has the same logistical defense problems as Canada in terms of a spread-out population and immense geography - that's why nuclear is their actual end-game defense strategy.
A poster writes a question asking about current news and making a statement about the tragedy of how average people's lives get churned up in wars started by rulers and forces beyond their control, and he is accused of being pro-Russian?
There are a few instances in this thread where I think some posters would have been enthusiastic participants in McCarthyism.
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A poster writes a question asking about current news and making a statement about the tragedy of how average people's lives get churned up in wars started by rulers and forces beyond their control, and he is accused of being pro-Russian?
There are a few instances in this thread where I think some posters would have been enthusiastic participants in McCarthyism.
That's funny!
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They are losing ground in Luhansk and have come around to admitting it now.
Some analysts have speculated that the recent pledge for countries to supply more weapons came instructions that they had to abandon the Soledar and Bakhmut fronts for now. They weren't interested in seeing all their donated equipment thrown into a meat grinder.
I think Ukraine gets one more opportunity at a major offensive in the spring, and after that, they will be forced to the table or lose a lot of support. Things are probably pushed to the limits of what can be done without escalating to a direct conflict between NATO and Russia. As disappointing as it is, I think the main goal for NATO now is to give Ukraine as much power as they can at the negotiating table, and not a complete defeat of Russia.
This sounds like bad analysis to me. First reason being, the battle of Bakhmut has been ongoing since summer, and while no one knows what the troop numbers there are, this isn't where pictures of donated western equipment have been coming from. Instead Ukraine used their best equipment to make highly successful attacks in Kharkiv and Kherson, so clearly Ukraine is capable of defending Bakhmut AND attacking elsewhere at the same time.
In fact, tying up significant Russian troops at Bakhmut was likely helpful in making gains in other fronts. Obviously it's possible that something has changed about this recently, but looking at publicly available information that doesn't make much sense to me.
The fact that Russia has been consistently making some ground on that front for months also means that it's currently likely that eventually Russia will gain control of the ruins of what used to Bakhmut... a city of about 80k of little strategic importance. The timing of when that's going to happen is most likely going to be largely unrelated to anything else.
Soledar, a settlement with a pre-war population of about 10k people, is only significant in that capturing it is yet another small advancement for Russia on their crawl towards Bakhmut. These places are making the news because Russia wants to play it up as sign of success on their side, and because it's news that Russia has had any measurable success for the first time in months. The timing of this news however seems to be mostly coincidental.
The second reason I think that's bad analysis is that I've seen no news that Ukraine has abandoned Bakhmut.
Last edited by Itse; 01-29-2023 at 09:53 AM.
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This sounds like bad analysis to me. First reason being, the battle of Bakhmut has been ongoing since summer, and while no one knows what the troop numbers there are, this isn't where pictures of donated western equipment have been coming from. Instead Ukraine used their best equipment to make highly successful attacks in Kharkiv and Kherson, so clearly Ukraine is capable of defending Bakhmut AND attacking elsewhere at the same time.
In fact, tying up significant Russian troops at Bakhmut was likely helpful in making gains in other fronts. Obviously it's possible that something has changed about this recently, but looking at publicly available information that doesn't make much sense to me.
The fact that Russia has been consistently making some ground on that front for months also means that it's currently likely that eventually Russia will gain control of the ruins of what used to Bakhmut... a city of about 80k of little strategic importance. The timing of when that's going to happen is most likely going to be largely unrelated to anything else.
Soledar, a settlement with a pre-war population of about 10k people, is only significant in that capturing it is yet another small advancement for Russia on their crawl towards Bakhmut. These places are making the news because Russia wants to play it up as sign of success on their side, and because it's news that Russia has had any measurable success for the first time in months. The timing of this news however seems to be mostly coincidental.
The second reason I think that's bad analysis is that I've seen no news that Ukraine has abandoned Bakhmut.
Also, it is my understanding that much of the equipment will take a year to used in service.
The battlefield situation will likely be entirely different by then.
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Also, it is my understanding that much of the equipment will take a year to used in service.
The battlefield situation will likely be entirely different by then.
Even a month can make a huge difference.
It would be silly to make demands based on the situation in one front at one point in time.
Just in general, this idea that the countries supplying the arms to Ukraine would care MORE about not wasting them than Ukraine themselves seems backward to me.
